Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lisa Marriott, Professor of Taxation, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington

Despite long being considered one of the least corrupt countries – ranked third in the world by Transparency International – New Zealand is lagging behind when it comes to handling white-collar crime.

This can be loosely defined as financially motivated crime committed by individuals, businesses and government professionals. Recent cases in New Zealand have included uncompetitive procurement processes, ponzi schemes disguised as financial services, or large scale mortgage fraud.

But just 1% of the complaints made to New Zealand’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO) result in prosecutions.

Corruption and white-collar crime are increasingly under the microscope overseas. The European Union is currently negotiating the final version of a new directive on combating corruption. The World Bank has launched a set of anti-corruption initiatives.

Closer to home, Australia recently celebrated the one-year anniversary of the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC). The NACC is tasked with detecting, investigating and reporting serious corruption in the public sector.

Funding for the NACC is roughly comparable to New Zealand’s SFO, accounting for population size. But the SFO is tasked with investigating and prosecuting the most serious and complex financial fraud, including bribery and corruption, across both the public and private sectors. The NACC only investigates the public sector.

Complex cases

The SFO focuses on complex financial fraud that is usually outside the capability of other agencies such as the Commerce Commission, Inland Revenue and the Ministry of Social Development to investigate and prosecute. The office typically has 30 to 40 investigations open at a time.

However, these cases are complex – often comprising of more than one million documents. They are time-consuming to prosecute and can take years to conclude.

Cases also usually involve millions of dollars. In 2022-23, the SFO completed six trials and concluded 24 investigations, obtaining convictions for fraud valuing NZ$32 million.

The SFO receives around a thousand complaints yearly, a 100% increase from ten years earlier. But over the past six years, fewer than 1% of complaints resulted in an SFO prosecution.

Referring corruption to Police

So where do the other 99% of complaints to the SFO go?

The Police’s Financial Crime Group has several core functions relating to analysing financial intelligence, restraining criminally acquired assets and investigating money laundering.

I asked the SFO how many referrals (of complaints or cases) they made to the police over the past three years. I also asked the police how many referrals they received from the SFO over the same period.

The agencies provided different data, but it is somewhere between five and nine referrals. This means there is a huge gap between the number of complaints to the SFO and the number of offences either investigated or prosecuted by the SFO, or passed on to the police.

Of the five the police reported, four were the subject of Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act investigations. And two of these four resulted in restraining orders issued in the High Court.

Not enough

The key obstacles for both agencies are limited funding and resources, rather than an absence of corruption.

SFO funding remained largely static between 2013 and 2020, at around $10-12 million, but increased to $16 million in 2023. Some of the increased funding allowed the SFO to expand its operations.

However, as crimes become more complex and require more investigative resources, this has not resulted in an increased number of investigations or prosecutions.

A 2022 Independent Police Conduct Authority (IPCA) review of police management of fraud allegations found several agencies have responsibilities relating to fraud.

But the review also found these different agencies operate “within narrow parameters”, and police “end up being the lead agency for the vast majority of fraud investigations, even though their investigative staff are not generally qualified, trained or experienced in dealing with complex financial matters”.

The review acknowledged frauds may not always be pursued “on the basis that the resources required to reach a possible outcome are not justified given other priorities”.

In addition, the IPCA documents its concern that “those processes are applied to fraud much more readily than to other types of cases which are not necessarily more serious, nor more susceptible to resolution”.

Time to take corruption seriously

So, is New Zealand doing enough to combat corruption and white-collar crime? In short, no. The government must signal that it takes corruption seriously by properly funding agencies to investigate and prosecute financial fraud.

Sitting on its laurels because the country is perceived to have little corruption is not enough. New Zealand needs to take these sorts of crimes seriously – not only as a deterrent to potential fraudsters, but also for their victims.

Lisa Marriott 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. NZ’s white-collar crime gap: just 1% of serious fraud complaints result in prosecution – https://theconversation.com/nzs-white-collar-crime-gap-just-1-of-serious-fraud-complaints-result-in-prosecution-236477

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Juan Diaz-Granados, Lecturer, Australian Catholic University

Monday August 26 is when the government’s updated Fair Work legislation comes into force.

The new laws will offer new rights to so-called “gig workers” who take on jobs through platforms such as Uber, Menulog and Lyft.

Most gig workers aren’t currently classified as employees, meaning they miss out on rights such as sick leave, annual leave and minimum pay rates.

The new law empowers the Fair Work Commission to set minimum standards for a new category of workers known as “employee-like workers” – workers who get work through digital platforms used for things such as food delivery, ride share and personal care.

Until now, the law has recognised only two categories of workers: employees and independent contractors.

The law creating the new category of employee-like workers also creates a new category for the companies operating the platforms through which the workers obtain work: “digital labour platform operators”.

Many (but not all) of the rights of employees

The new law allows employee-like workers and their representatives to apply to the Fair Work Commission for minimum standards orders tailored to their work.

Among the things that can be included in the orders are payment terms, record-keeping and insurance.

But, significantly, the Commission will not be able to set minimum standards for things such as overtime rates and rostering arrangements.

The government says this is to ensure the standards benefit workers without “requiring them to forego the flexibility they value”.

What employee-like workers will also get is protection from “unfair deactivation” and unfair contract terms, and the rights to seek collective agreements and to ask the Fair Work Commission to resolve disputes.

The Commission won’t treat claims of unfair deactivation or unfair contract terms in quite the same way as it treats unfair dismissal cases.

The procedures are to be “quick, flexible and informal”, allowing the Commission to order reactivation, but not compensation, which is explicitly prohibited.

There’s much that’s unclear

There is an awful lot that won’t become clear for some time, including the extent to which platform operators will become liable for the things done by and that happen to their employee-like workers.

Would, for example, Uber be liable for an assault on a passenger perpetrated by one of its drivers? Would Uber Eats be liable for a “workplace accident” that injured one of its delivery riders?

They are questions the Fair Work Commission will have to work through, and the answers aren’t obvious.

While the Commission is ideally set up to adjudicate disputes between workers and employers, it might not be the optimal body to adjudicate disputes involving platforms where the traditional employee-employer relationship doesn’t fit.

Nevertheless, the new rules starting on Monday are a step forward.

Gig workers are often drawn from vulnerable populations, such as international students and culturally diverse communities, who deserve protection.

The success of the new law is in the hands of the Commission. It will have to treat both gig workers and the platforms that engage them without bias, ensuring a “fair go all round” for both.

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. ‘Gig workers’ get minimum standards from Monday. Here’s what will change – https://theconversation.com/gig-workers-get-minimum-standards-from-monday-heres-what-will-change-237016

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brian Stone Jr., Professor of Environmental Planning, Georgia Institute of Technology

As intense heat breaks records around the world, a little-reported fact offers some hope for cooling down cities: Under even the most intense periods of extreme heat, some city blocks never experience heat wave temperatures.

How is this possible?

Civilizations have recognized the power of cities to heat themselves up and cool themselves for centuries. City architects in ancient Rome called for narrowing streets to lessen late afternoon temperatures. Narrow streets were found to cool the air by limiting the area exposed to direct sunlight.

The whitewashed architecture of the Greek Isles demonstrates another long-practiced strategy. Light-colored walls and roofs can help cool cities by reflecting incoming sunlight.

In hot and humid regions of the southern U.S., Thomas Jefferson proposed another approach to cooling: Have all new settlements employ a checkerboard pattern of heavily vegetated city blocks interspersed among dense construction. That could promote cooling through convective air movement between cool and warm zones.

As I explore in my recent book, “Radical Adaptation: Transforming Cities for a Climate Changed World,” modern cities unintentionally elevate their own temperatures, creating what is known as the “urban heat island effect.”

How cities heat themselves up

Cities elevate their temperature in four key ways:

• Developers cut down trees to make space for buildings and cars. When tree canopies disappear, that lessens shading and the release of cooling water vapor from leaves via transpiration.

• Urban construction then amplifies the heat. Asphalt, concrete and dark roofing materials all absorb heat from the Sun and heat up the environment around them.

• Absorbed solar energy is compounded by copious amounts of waste heat emitted from industrial processes, vehicle tailpipes and building air conditioning systems.

• In zones of the city occupied by tall buildings, radiant energy released from streets and parking lots is trapped in the concrete canyons, further elevating temperatures.

In combination, these four drivers of the urban heat island effect can raise urban temperatures by 10 to 20 degrees Fahrenheit (5.6 to 11 degrees Celsius) on a hot summer afternoon – a significant, human-driven shift in the weather that can become a serious health risk for anyone lacking air conditioning.

Coupled with the design of the built environment, the natural topography of a city can further accentuate temperature differences from one neighborhood to another. The hills and fog patterns of San Francisco, for example, consistently partition the city’s neighborhoods into distinct climate zones. And the extensive use of yard irrigation systems in hot and arid climates can yield urban temperatures lower than the surrounding desert, sometimes referred to as urban cool islands.

Simple steps for cooling cities down

Understanding the extent to which cities can heat themselves up offers powerful tools for cooling them down as human-driven global warming raises the baseline temperature.

First, it is essential that cities sharply reduce their greenhouse gas emissions to stop fueling the global-scale phenomenon of climate change. Globally, urban areas, with their industries, vehicles and buildings, account for more than 70% of greenhouse gas emissions from energy use, and their populations are growing quickly. Even globally coordinated reductions in greenhouse gas emissions will require many decades to measurably slow warming trends, so cities will still need to adapt.

Cities can also slow the pace of urban heat island-driven warming trends by taking sometimes simple steps. Research shows that the health benefits of urban heat island reduction could be substantial.

At the Georgia Tech Urban Climate Lab, my colleagues and I partner with city governments to estimate the cooling potential of urban heat management – sets of strategies designed to reverse the urban heat island effect. To do this, we measure the direct health benefits of actions such as expanding tree cover and other green infrastructure and using cool materials for roads and roofs.

Our work shows that planting trees across just half of the space available to support tree canopy – such as along streets, within parking lots and in residential yards – could lower summer afternoon temperatures by 5-10 F (2.8-5.6 C), reducing heat-related deaths by 40%-50% in some neighborhoods.

In recognition of these substantial benefits, New York City set and met a goal of planting 1 million trees across its five boroughs.

Cool roofing material and light-colored surfaces can also help lower the temperature. If you wear a black shirt in the Sun on a hot day, you’ll heat up more than if you wear a white shirt. Similarly, light-colored construction materials, roof coatings and shingles will reflect more incoming solar heat than dark ones, and absorb less of that heat. It’s particularly effective in the heat of the day when the Sun’s radiation is strongest.

To leverage this cooling effect, Los Angeles in 2013 became the first major city to require cool roofs on all new homes.

What cities can do now

Aggressive strategies to increase green tree cover across cities, a rapid transition to cool roofing materials, and even replacing some on-street parking lanes and other underutilized impervious areas with bioswales filled with vegetation, can substantially reduce urban temperatures. In so doing, that can increase a city’s resilience to rising temperatures.

Urban heat risk assessments we conducted in numerous U.S. cities, including Atlanta; Dallas; Louisville, Kentucky; and San Francisco, show that a combination of urban heat management strategies could lower neighborhood temperatures by more than 10 F (5.6 C) on hot days and reduce heat-related premature deaths by 20%-60%.

A cooler city is a safer city, and one very much within communities’ power to create.

Brian Stone Jr. 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. Ancient Rome had ways to counter the urban heat island effect – how history’s lessons apply to cities today – https://theconversation.com/ancient-rome-had-ways-to-counter-the-urban-heat-island-effect-how-historys-lessons-apply-to-cities-today-234546

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brendan Clift, Lecturer in Law, The University of Melbourne

Western Australia Senator Linda Reynolds is already embroiled in a bruising defamation fight against her former staffer Brittany Higgins. Now, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton is reportedly considering suing independent MP Zali Steggall after she told him to “stop being racist”.

It has become impossible to miss the fact that our political class – including some who invoke freedom of speech while disparaging others – is remarkably keen on defamation litigation in response to actual or perceived slights.

It’s rarely a good look when the powerful sue the less powerful. It is an especially bad look for a democracy when politicians, who enjoy not just power but privileged access to communication platforms, pursue legal avenues likely to bankrupt all but the best-resourced defendants.

The freedom to speak one’s mind

Flawed democracies such as Singapore are rightly condemned for leveraging defamation law and compliant courts against political dissent.

While Australia’s situation is less problematic, our defamation laws historically favour reputation over freedom of speech.

An oft-cited case in contrast is the United States, where politicians and other public figures can succeed in defamation only if they prove the publisher knew they were communicating a falsehood, or were reckless (careless to a very high degree) as to the truth.

Statements of opinion – for instance, that Donald Trump is racist – are practically never in violation of the law. In the words of the US Supreme Court:

it is a prized American privilege to speak one’s mind, although not always with perfect good taste, on all public institutions.

The US approach is based on the classical liberal idea that “the fitting remedy for evil counsels is good ones”: speech should generally be free, and public debate in the marketplace of ideas will sort out right and wrong.

Putting conditions on free speech

The argument for free speech without guardrails may be losing traction in a post-truth world. Many modern audiences, willingly or not, occupy echo chambers and filter bubbles in which biases are reinforced rather than challenged.

It is almost as if the High Court of Australia foresaw this in a 1997 defamation case where it held that Australia’s Constitution did not require total freedom of political communication. Reasonable limits were appropriate because widespread irresponsible political communication could damage the political fabric of the nation.

Read more:
Robert Irwin wanted to sue One Nation for using his likeness. We don’t really have laws for that

Although the High Court reached its conclusion via textual interpretation of the Constitution rather than deeper philosophical musings, the court’s position reflects modern preoccupations with how speech should be regulated in a democracy.

But the political appetite for defamation litigation in this country suggests the law has not yet struck the right balance.

The point of defamation law

Recent reforms to defamation law have tried to eliminate frivolous lawsuits by introducing a threshold requirement of serious harm to reputation. A better approach may have been to presume that all defamation is trivial.

Unlike other civil wrongs, which often result in physical injury or property damage, defamation’s effect on a person’s reputation is intangible.

Unfairly tarnished reputations can usually be repaired by a public apology and correction, perhaps aided by nominal compensation for hurt feelings and to deter further defamation.

It is therefore a mystery why courts and legislatures have allowed defamation proceedings to become some of the most complex and expensive civil claims around, and why damages are so large.

A high-profile case can easily generate millions of dollars in legal costs on both sides, dwarfing the final award which might itself run to hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Taiwan offers a useful contrast. There, although politicians can sue for defamation, proceedings are relatively simple and damages are much smaller – one might say proportionate to the harm done.

Under both approaches, the successful litigant, whether it be the publisher or the person whose reputation has suffered, is vindicated. Surely that is the point.

Where only the wealthy can afford to assert their rights, and where vindication of reputation takes a back seat to airing grievances, punishing opponents and enriching lawyers, defamation law is in a state of dysfunction.

Should pollies sue?

It’s sometimes said that politicians should not be able to sue for defamation at all because they themselves can say what they like under the protection of parliamentary privilege, immune from defamation and other speech laws.

Parliamentarians do enjoy that protection, but its personal benefit is secondary. Parliamentary privilege, like courtroom privilege, exists because the nature of democratic (and judicial) deliberation requires that anything can be said.

If a politician steps outside parliament and repeats a defamatory statement first made within its walls, they are vulnerable to being sued. David Leyonhjelm learned this the hard way, and Steggall may, too.

It’s reasonable that politicians should also have rights of action in defamation. But those rights must be constrained according to what is appropriate in a democratic society.

A way to better align defamation law with democratic expectations may be to return cases to the state courts and reinstate juries to a prominent role. Currently, the overwhelming majority of cases are brought in the Federal Court, where they are decided by a judge sitting alone.

If a public figure claims their reputation has been tarnished in the eyes of the community, we should test that factual claim with members of that community under the legal guidance of a judge. That might make for a welcome injection of common sense.

Brendan Clift 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. With more lawsuits potentially looming, should politicians be allowed to sue for defamation? – https://theconversation.com/with-more-lawsuits-potentially-looming-should-politicians-be-allowed-to-sue-for-defamation-237026

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By C Raina MacIntyre, Professor of Global Biosecurity, NHMRC L3 Research Fellow, Head, Biosecurity Program, Kirby Institute, UNSW Sydney

The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates 10–20% of people suffer from long COVID after they recover from the initial COVID infection.

Common symptoms include fatigue, shortness of breath and “brain fog”, but more than 200 different symptoms have been linked to long COVID. The condition affects daily functioning and can be debilitating.

Our research, published today, estimated the economic burden of long COVID in Australia. We calculated long COVID cost the Australian economy almost A$10 billion in 2022 alone.

What is long COVID?

The WHO defines long COVID as the continuation or development of new symptoms three months after the initial COVID infection, where these symptoms last for at least two months with no other explanation.

We’re still learning about what causes long COVID, but persistent symptoms can be explained by the diverse effects of SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID) on different parts of the body. For example, the virus can affect the heart, blood vessels and lungs.

Research suggests long COVID is linked to persistence of the virus in the body long after infection, and this in turn causes dysfunction of the immune system.

SARS-CoV-2 can also affect the brain and cognition, especially executive function, which is the ability to plan, monitor and execute goals. This can result in difficulty performing work tasks and other activities of daily living among people with long COVID.

What we did

We used Australian data to estimate infections in 2022 and modelled long COVID and recovery rates across all age groups to understand the burden of long COVID.

We then used this data in a mathematical model to estimate economy-wide labour supply losses in 2022 and to determine the decline in real gross domestic product (GDP). Economic losses occur because people affected by long COVID may be unable to work, or work at reduced capacity, for a period of time.

We found that at a peak in September 2022, up to 1,374,805 people (5.4% of Australians) were living with long COVID following a single infection. Allowing for recovery from long COVID, up to 3.4% would still be living with long COVID after 12 months.

We estimated long COVID resulted in more than 100 million hours of lost labour in 2022. These lost employment hours translate to an economic cost of roughly $9.6 billion, equivalent to 0.5% of GDP for 2022.

Working-age adults between 30 and 49 were most affected. The estimated labour loss was greatest for people aged 30–39 (27.5 million hours, or 26.9% of total labour loss) who saw the highest overall numbers with long COVID of any age group. People aged 40–49 followed close behind, with an estimated 24.5 million hours lost, or 23.9% of total labour loss.

Higher numbers of long COVID in these younger age groups are likely because they experience more COVID infections, possibly because they are more mobile and mix more with others.

We did not include losses incurred by healthy employees who could not work due to caring for others with COVID or long COVID. Further, we only considered a single COVID infection, and the risk of developing long COVID thereafter. But we didn’t consider the risk from reinfections, which increase the likelihood of long COVID. Therefore our research likely underestimates the impact of long COVID.

Long COVID affects people of all ages, and can occur regardless of the severity of their COVID infection. Widespread and ongoing COVID infections means if even only a small percentage of people develop long COVID, this is still a very large number of people.

By way of comparison, 2% of Australians have coronary heart disease, which is the leading cause of illness and death in Australia (and the world). Even if only 3.4% of people have ongoing long COVID, this imposes very large public health and economic costs.

And unlike coronary heart disease, which disproportionately affects older people, our study suggests the impact of long COVID is highest in working-age adults, which is why the economic impacts are so great.

A global trend

Many countries including the United States and the United Kingdom are experiencing similar economic losses due to long COVID, with rising numbers of people unable to work.

Recent estimates indicate roughly 400 million people around the world have had long COVID. The condition may be costing US$1 trillion annually – equivalent to about 1% of the global economy.

The weight of evidence around long COVID and its impact on population health has experts calling for the condition to be factored into policy decisions.

What can we do?

In Australia, it’s primarily the immediate outcomes of acute COVID, such as hospitalisation and death, which are used to determine eligibility for antivirals and the importance of vaccines. Healthy people under 70 are not eligible for subsidised antivirals, while vaccines are restricted for children and adult booster rates are low.

But there’s strong evidence vaccines reduce the likelihood of long COVID, and some evidence antivirals may also lower the risk. Long COVID should therefore be factored into Australian policy and guidance on antivirals and vaccines.

Other measures that reduce the risk of COVID infection will also reduce long COVID risk. These include a focus on safe indoor air, and mask use in high-risk, crowded places during COVID epidemics, especially in health-care and aged-care settings.

Finally, we need to consider how to support those with long COVID who can’t work. Long COVID is the sting in the tail of SARS-CoV-2, and planning proactively for it will reduce the impacts on society.

C Raina MacIntyre receives funding from NHMRC (L3 Investigator grant and Centre for Research Excellence) and MRFF (Aerosol transmission of SARS-CoV-2 experimentally and in an intensive care setting) currently. She currently receives funding from Sanofi for research on influenza and pertussis. She has been on the WHO COVID-19 Vaccine Composition Technical Advisory group (2021-2024). She is the director of EPIWATCH®️, which is a UNSW, Kirby Institute initiative.

Long Chu receives funding from multiple organizations. However, he has received no external funding for this research or for any of his research related to COVID-19.

Quentin Grafton receives funding from multiple organizations, including the Australian Research Council. However, he has received no external funding for this research or for any of his research related to COVID-19.

Tom Kompas receives funding from the Australian Research Council and several other organisations. However, he has received no external or direct funding for any of his research on COVID-19 or Long COVID.

Valentina Costantino 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. Long COVID cost the Australian economy almost $10 billion in 2022 – new research – https://theconversation.com/long-covid-cost-the-australian-economy-almost-10-billion-in-2022-new-research-236948

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stuart Marshall, Associate Professor, Department of Critical Care, The University of Melbourne

The current shortage of sterile intravenous (IV) fluids is a serious ongoing concern for doctors across Australia. During surgery, these sterile fluids are essential to administer drugs and hydrate patients intravenously (via the veins).

But supplies of two of the most common solutions are critically low.

The Australian government has recently moved to coordinate supplies of IV fluids to increase manufacturing and ensure distribution. Despite this, supplies are not expected to return to normal levels until the end of the year.

So, what will this mean for surgery in Australia? And are there any alternatives?

Why do we need IV fluids for surgery?

IV fluids are used before, during and after surgery to maintain blood volume and the body’s normal functions. They also combat dehydration, which can happen in a number of ways.

Before surgery, patients may become dehydrated from illnesses that cause vomiting or diarrhoea. They are also asked to stop eating and drinking for several hours before surgery. This is to minimise the risk of stomach contents being regurgitated and inhaled into the lungs – a complication that can cause injury or death. But it can also make them more dehydrated.

During surgery, the body continues to lose fluid through normal processes such as sweating and making urine. But some aspects of surgery also exacerbate dehydration, for example, through blood loss or when internal organs are exposed and lose more fluid through evaporation.

After the operation, IV fluids may be required for some days. Many patients may still be unable to eat and drink until the function of the gut returns to normal.

Multiple research studies, including a trial of 3,000 patients who underwent major abdominal surgery, have demonstrated the importance of adequate fluid therapy throughout all stages of surgery to avoid kidney damage.

Apart from hydration, these sterile fluids – prepared under strict conditions so they contain no bacteria or viruses – are used in surgery for other reasons.

Anaesthetists commonly use fluid infusions to slowly deliver medications into the bloodstream. There is some evidence this method of maintaining anaesthesia, compared to inhalation, can improve patients’ experience of “waking up” after the procedure, such as being clearer headed and having less nausea and vomiting.

Surgeons also use sterile fluids to flush out wounds and surgical sites to prevent infection.

Are there workarounds?

Fluid given intravenously needs to closely resemble the salts in the blood to prevent additional problems. The safest and cheapest options are:

• isotonic saline, a solution of water with 0.9% table salt
• Hartmann’s solution (compound sodium lactate), which combines a range of salts such as potassium and calcium.

Both are in short supply.

One way to work around the shortage is to minimise how much IV fluid is used during the procedure. This can be achieved by ensuring those admitted to surgery are as well hydrated as possible.

Many people presenting for minor surgery can safely drink water up until an hour or so before their operation. A recent initiative termed “sip ‘til send” has shown it is safe for patients to drink small amounts of fluid until the operating theatre team “sends” for them from the waiting room or hospital ward.

However, this may not be appropriate for those at higher risk of inhaling stomach contents, or patients who take medications including Ozempic, which delay the stomach emptying. Patients should follow their anaesthetist’s advice about how to prepare for surgery and when to stop eating and drinking.

Large research trials have also helped establish protocols called “enhanced recovery after surgery”. They show that using special hydrating, carbohydrate-rich drinks before surgery can improve patients’ comfort and speed up healing.

These protocols are common in major bowel surgery in Australia but not used universally. Widespread adoption of these processes may reduce the amount of IV fluids needed during and after large operations, and help patients return to normal eating and drinking earlier. Medications reducing nausea and vomiting are now also routinely administered after surgery to help with this.

What will the shortage mean for surgeries?

The Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists has advised anaesthetists to reduce the consumption of fluid during operations where there might be limited or minimal benefit. This means that the fluid will only be used for people who need it, without a change to the quality and safety of anaesthetic care for any patient.

Even with these actions, there is still a chance that some planned surgeries may need to be postponed in the coming months.

If needed, these cancelled operations will likely be ones requiring large volumes of fluid and ones that would not cause unacceptable risks if delayed. Similar to cancellations during the height of the COVID pandemic, emergency operations and surgery for cancers are unlikely to be affected.

Monitoring of the supplies and ongoing honest and open dialogue between senior health managers and clinicians will be crucial in minimising the disruption to surgical services.

Stuart Marshall 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. Australia’s IV fluids shortage will likely last all year. Here’s what that means for surgeries – https://theconversation.com/australias-iv-fluids-shortage-will-likely-last-all-year-heres-what-that-means-for-surgeries-237009

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Leonora Risse, Associate Professor in Economics, University of Canberra

Australia’s gender pay gap – a key measure of economic inequality between men and women – has fallen to a record low of 11.5%.

That’s down from 13% this time last year, the steepest annual fall since 2016. Ten years ago, it was almost 19%.

The latest figures are great news for our economy and our society – evidence we’re getting better at recognising and fairly valuing women’s capabilities and contributions.

More opportunities are now open to women in the workforce, helping them gain and retire with greater financial independence than in previous decades.

But national averages don’t tell the whole story. While gender pay gaps have fallen in some industries, they’ve also been rising in others.

Today, August 19, is equal pay day. This marks the 50 extra days past the end of the last financial year that Australian women would need to work for their earnings to match those of their male colleagues.

This offers us a timely opportunity to reflect on what exactly has driven this year’s improvement – and where we still have work to do.

Read more:
Now you’re able to look up individual companies’ gender pay gaps

Women’s earnings picking up pace

We calculate the gender pay gap by comparing the average weekly ordinary-time, full-time earnings for men and women.

In dollar terms, women are now earning $231.50, or 11.5%, less than men, on average, in their weekly full-time pay packet.

The recent narrowing is being driven by women’s average earnings growth picking up pace. This contrasts with earlier periods in which the narrowing of the gap tended to be due to a slowdown in the growth of men’s earnings.

What’s behind the improvement?

While changes in the gender pay gap reflect a range of economy-wide factors, the Albanese government has been quick to attribute the recent fall to the various targeted actions it has taken since coming to office.

Let’s look at whether and how these actions have played a role.

First, the government sought to make wage information more transparent. It banned pay secrecy clauses and now requires the gender pay gaps of all large companies in Australia to be publicly reported.

These reforms took effect from 2023, targeting private companies. The gender pay gap in the private sector, though higher to begin with, has fallen more swiftly than that of the public sector, suggesting these actions have had an effect.

Second, the government targeted gender-patterned biases in industrial relations – including the legacy effects of past decisions – and instilled gender equity as a new objective of Australia’s Fair Work Act.

The Fair Work Commission is now required to take gender equity into account in its wage deliberations, including its minimum wage decision.

The government also introduced multi-employer bargaining in an attempt to strengthen workers’ bargaining capacity in female-concentrated sectors.

The effects of these changes will continue to flow across the workforce as the Fair Work Commission undertakes its review of modern awards, prioritising those affecting female-concentrated industries.

And third, further addressing the historical undervaluation of “women’s work”, the government directly addressed low pay in female-concentrated sectors by supporting a pay rise for aged care workers.

Targeting the low pay and under-valuation of an industry that is about 87% female helped fuel the downward momentum in the overall gender pay gap.

The government’s recently announced pay rise for early childhood education and care workers – a workforce that is around 95% female – will also target gender patterns in low pay once they come into effect.

These government actions have been essential for undoing the gender biases embedded in existing systems. And they have complemented other initiatives that have taken effect in the past year, such as the Respect At Work Act, requiring employers to proactively stamp out sexual harassment.

But there is still a way to go to keep closing the gender gaps across all parts of the workforce.

Falling in some industries, rising in others

Breaking down the gender pay gap in earnings by sector paints a more varied picture.

In industries like construction, public administration and safety, and retail trade, it has fallen notably over the past two years.

But it remains high in industries like healthcare and social assistance, at over 20%, and finance and insurance at 18%.

In some industries, the gap has actually increased over the past two years. In arts and recreation services, as well as electricity, gas, waste and water services, it’s been continually rising.

That could reflect a bigger shift

It’s important to interpret these figures carefully. In some instances, a widening of the gender pay gap can reflect a positive shift in an industry’s makeup, if it reflects more women joining a male-dominated sector at entry level, and growing a pipeline of senior women for the future.

That’s why the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) gives organisations a chance to explain these dynamics in their employer statements, which are published on the WGEA website alongside organisations’ gender pay gaps.

Over time, the entry of more women at the junior level can flow through to more gender balance as these women progress to senior and decision-making roles.

The real test will be to ensure – by fostering more gender equitable, inclusive and respectful work cultures and systems – that they do.

Leonora Risse receives research funding from the Trawalla Foundation and the Women’s Leadership Institute Australia. She is a member of the Economic Society of Australia and the Women’s in Economics Network. She serves as an Expert Panel Member on gender pay equity for the Fair Work Commission.

– ref. Australia’s gender pay gap has hit a record low – but we still have work to do – https://theconversation.com/australias-gender-pay-gap-has-hit-a-record-low-but-we-still-have-work-to-do-236894

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adam Simpson, Senior Lecturer, International Studies, University of South Australia

After two tumultuous weeks in Thai politics, the country has a new prime minister and new opposition party in parliament. The sweeping changes have demonstrated yet again the power of the Constitutional Court over Thailand’s fragile democratic institutions.

The political intrigue began on August 7 when the court dissolved the progressive Move Forward Party, the main opposition party in parliament following its surprising showing in the 2023 national elections.

Two days later, the party reconstituted itself as the People’s Party and announced it would continue to lead the opposition.

Then, on August 14, the Constitutional Court disqualified Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin of the Pheu Thai party from holding the post, and removed him from office.

And two days after that decision, the parliament duly elected Pheu Thai leader Paetongtarn Shinawatra as his replacement. She is the third member of her family to serve as prime minister after her father, Thaksin Shinawatra (2001–06), and aunt, Yingluck Shinawatra (2011–14).

Unfortunately, these kinds of incidents have become normalised in Thailand. They demonstrate the extent to which conservative forces in the country continue to use various tools of “lawfare”, including the Constitutional Court, to target opposition politicians and parties and stifle the will of the people.

Despite these setbacks to Thailand’s democracy, the country is changing fast. It is becoming more progressive and less submissive to military and monarchy authority.

So, these latest manoeuvres by the country’s gerontocracy may not be a show of strength after all. Rather, as one Thai politics expert put it, these moves may be the “last gasp” of the conservative old guard that has long dominated Thai politics and society.

Revolving door of prime ministers

Over the last two decades, five prime ministers from the Pheu Thai party and its predecessors have been forced from office.

Thaksin Shinawatra was removed in a military coup in September 2006 and his party was later dissolved by the Constitutional Court.

Yingluck Shinatwatra led another successor party to a win at the 2011 elections, but she, too, was removed from power by the Constitutional Court in 2014, followed by another military coup.

With Paetongtarn Shinawatra’s elevation to prime minister last week, the powerful Shinawatra family has made a stunning return to the top of Thai politics. However, this may not be quite the triumphant re-establishment of a family political dynasty that Thaksin Shinawatra expects.

Paetongtarn Shinawatra is just 37 years old and inexperienced. And despite the fact the economy showed some growth in the first quarter of this year, her government faces significant economic challenges, such as high levels of household and corporate debt and an economic slowdown in the US and China.

Thaksin Shinawatra also remains in the cross-hairs of the conservative military establishment. After spending 15 years in self-imposed exile to avoid facing charges he contends were politically motivated, he returned to Thailand last year after Pheu Thai took power.

He was then indicted in June for allegedly insulting the monarchy during a media interview in 2015.

Another new progressive party dissolved

Perhaps the more concerning development in recent days, however, was the Constitutional Court’s decision to dissolve the progressive Move Forward party, which had won the most seats in parliament in last year’s election.

Progressive politicians have fallen afoul of the court a number of times in recent years.

In the 2019 elections, for example, Future Forward, a brand new progressive political party led by a young, charismatic politician, Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit, stunned observers by winning 80 seats. The court, however, soon disqualified Thanathorn from parliament and dissolved the party.

The party reconstituted itself as Move Forward under the leadership of another young leader, Pita Limjaroenrat, and it did even better in the 2023 elections, winning 151 seats in the House of Representatives.

The court, however, suspended Pita and dissolved his party over its attempts to reform the anti-democratic lese majeste law. It also banned the party’s leadership, including Pita, from politics for ten years.

The party’s remaining MPs will be able to stay in parliament under the banner of the People’s Party, though nearly 40 are now under investigation for alleged ethics violations, including its new leader, Natthaphong Ruengpanyawut.

Read more:
Explainer: why was the winner of Thailand’s election blocked from becoming prime minister?

What does this mean for Thai democracy?

There now appear to be three distinct centres of political power in Thailand:

• Thaksin Shinawatra and the Pheu Thai party
• the military-monarchy complex and their associated parties
• the new progressive People’s Party.

While Pita warned against the continued use of “lawfare” to muzzle the opposition in an essay for The Economist earlier this month, there is some room for optimism.

It appears much of the population has moved on from the nepotism and rampant self-interest that has long defined Thai politics. According to a recent poll, nearly half of respondents said their preferred prime minister would be Pita (47%), while Paetongtarn was favoured by just 10.5% and Srettha just 8.7%.

The People’s Party is also offering a much more democratic vision for Thailand, based on integrity and reforming the lese majeste law. (Its leader, Natthaphong, has acknowledged, though, that the party must now “think carefully about how to amend it”.)

The party’s electoral march towards government looks difficult to stop. It’s likely Move Forward’s win in the 2023 election will turn into a landslide for the People’s Party at the next election.

The historical obedience and submission to the monarchy and military in Thai society is gradually being whittled away, as older, conservative voters are being replaced by those who want a more democratic and responsive government.

In recent years, there has also been some improvement in Thailand for personal freedoms — notably the legalisation of same-sex marriage and cannabis. The pressure to expand and consolidate basic political freedoms within a multi-party democracy will only increase.

Thailand is not an authoritarian regime – unlike its neighbours Myanmar and Laos – and at some point in the not-too-distant future, the rapidly changing Thai society may well force the military-monarchy complex to cede power for good.

Adam Simpson 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. Thailand’s democracy has taken another hit, but it won’t halt the march toward a more progressive society – https://theconversation.com/thailands-democracy-has-taken-another-hit-but-it-wont-halt-the-march-toward-a-more-progressive-society-236949

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ben McCann, Associate Professor of French Studies, University of Adelaide

Alain Delon’s death at the age of 88 brings down the curtain of one of postwar European cinema’s most important film stars.

Known for his striking “movie star” look – chiselled features, piercing blue eyes – and magnetic screen presence, Delon portrayed characters who seemed on the surface to be effortless and suave.

He was often described as feline. But this outward gracefulness often masked a morally dubious, anti-hero persona. Beneath the sharp suits lay icy steel.

A breakthrough role

Born in 1935 in Sceaux, a wealthy Paris suburb, Delon had a difficult childhood, marked by his parents’ divorce, a disrupted schooling and an unhappy stint in the French Navy.

After being spotted by a talent scout at the 1957 Cannes Film Festival, Delon’s breakthrough came in 1960 with the French film Purple Noon, directed by René Clément.

In this adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s novel The Talented Mr Ripley, Delon played the role of Tom Ripley, a charming but morally ambiguous forger and identity thief.

Setting the standard for future screen versions of Ripley (played by the likes of Matt Damon and Andrew Scott), Delon’s performance was widely acclaimed and established him as a rising star.

Rarely had audiences seen such a cool, enigmatic and morally compromised character. Highsmith was particularly impressed.

A 1960s icon

What followed was a glittering range of roles.

He collaborated twice with the great Italian director Luchino Visconti on Rocco and His Brothers (1960) and The Leopard (1963). Both films were critical successes, further solidifying Delon’s reputation as a leading actor.

In The Leopard, Delon plays Tancredi Falconeri, a young and charming Sicilian nobleman. His chemistry with Claudia Cardinale is one of the film’s highlights.

He moved effortlessly between genres, from crime dramas and thrillers to romantic films and period pieces. In the psychological thriller La Piscine (The Swimming Pool, 1969), Delon starred alongside Romy Schneider.

A year later came Borsalino, a popular gangster film in which Delon starred alongside his great friend Jean-Paul Belmondo.

While deeply rooted in French culture, Delon’s appeal transcended national borders. He became a global star, beloved not only in Europe but also in places like Japan, where he had a huge fan base.

The anti-hero archetype

But Delon’s most remarkable performance came in Le Samouraï (1967). Directed by Jean-Pierre Melville, Delon played Jef Costello, a stoic, methodical hitman, in a performance that became a benchmark for the “cool” anti-hero archetype in cinema.

It is widely regarded as a masterpiece of minimalist cinema and has had a significant influence on the crime and thriller genres.

Michael Fassbender in The Killer (2023), Forest Whitaker in Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (1999) and Ryan Gosling in Drive (2011) all owe a debt to Delon’s “angel of death” portrayal of the silent hitman. Delon wore a trench coat and fedora in the film: his costume has been endlessly analysed and much imitated.

Delon worked again with Melville in Le Cercle Rouge (The Red Circle, 1970) and Un Flic (A Cop, 1972), plus other great European auteurs like Michelangelo Antonioni, Louis Malle and Jean Luc-Godard, for whom he played twins in Nouvelle Vague (New Wave, 1990).

And don’t forget his role as Klein in Joseph Losey’s gripping Mr Klein (1976), a film set in wartime Paris with Delon playing an art dealer who begins to realise there is another Klein who is Jewish and a Gestapo target. The police begin to investigate him, suspecting he might be the man they are looking for.

It was the clinching proof, wrote film critic David Thomson, that Alain Delon “matters” as an actor.

His final role in 2008 was a memorable one: Julius Caesar in Asterix at the Olympic Games.

He received an honorary Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 2019, recognising his contributions to cinema over several decades. After suffering a stroke in 2019, Delon withdrew from public life.

A complicated off-screen life

That withdrawal only fuelled press gossip over his complicated personal life.

Delon’s relationship with Austrian actress Romy Schneider had captivated the public’s imagination. The two met on the set of the film Christine in 1958 and became engaged. Their breakup in 1963 reportedly devastated Schneider.

He later had relationships with the French singer Dalida and Swedish star Ann-Marget, before settling down with French actress Mireille Darc. She was his companion and occasional co-star from 1968 to 1982.

His outspoken political views often scandalised France (he once said he supported France’s far-right party).

More recently, his personal life was marked by controversies, including legal issues involving his four children. His son Anthony (also an actor) spoke publicly about the difficulties he faced growing up in his father’s shadow.

Another son, Alain-Fabien, also had a troubled relationship with his father, including a long estrangement. Delon’s final years were beset by squabbles and accusations among the family; at one point, his children accused Delon’s assistant of abuse and harassment.

What will endure is the “Delon style”, both on and off the screen. He influenced fashion, cultural attitudes and the concept of the “modern man” during the 1960s and 1970s.

Back in April, the New Yorker posed a rhetorical question about Delon: can a film star ever be too good-looking? Look at the towering achievement of Delon’s films and you’ll have your answer.

Ben McCann 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. Alain Delon was an enigmatic anti-hero, and France’s most beautiful male movie star – https://theconversation.com/alain-delon-was-an-enigmatic-anti-hero-and-frances-most-beautiful-male-movie-star-237011

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

The US presidential election will be held on November 5. In analyst Nate Silver’s aggregate of national polls, Democrat Kamala Harris leads Republican Donald Trump by 47.1–44.6% with 4.2% for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. In my previous US politics article last Wednesday, Harris led Trump by 46.8–43.7%.

Joe Biden’s final position before his withdrawal as Democratic candidate on July 21 was a national poll deficit against Trump of 45.2–41.2%. By the election, Biden will be almost 82, Trump will be 78 and Harris will be 60.

The US president isn’t elected by the national popular vote, but by the Electoral College, in which each state receives electoral votes equal to its federal House seats (population based) and senators (always two). Almost all states award their electoral votes as winner takes all, and it takes 270 electoral votes to win (out of 538 total).

In the states narrowly won by Biden in 2020, Harris leads Trump by three points in Michigan, 3.4 points in Wisconsin, 1.5 points in Pennsylvania and 2.1 points in Arizona. Georgia and Nevada are the only Biden-won state that have Trump ahead, by 1.4 points in Georgia and 0.2 in Nevada. Harris is barely ahead by 0.1 points in North Carolina, a state Trump won in 2020.

Since last Wednesday, most movement in state polls has been slightly favourable to Trump, but not in North Carolina. If Nevada and North Carolina are undecided because of the near-ties in polls, Harris currently wins the Electoral College by 281–235 with 22 electoral votes undecided (Harris led by 287–251 last Wednesday).

Silver’s model gives Harris a 53.5% chance to win the Electoral College, a drop from 56% last Wednesday. It gives Harris a 65% chance to win the national popular vote. Harris needs about a two-point win in the popular vote to be the Electoral College favourite. It’s near a 50–50 chance for either Harris or Trump, but Harris is the slight favourite.

Read more:
Harris’ lead over Trump continues to increase in US national and swing state polls

The Democratic National Convention will be held from Monday to Thursday this week. Normally major party presidential candidates are very well known to voters by the convention as they need to win primaries that are held early in an election year. Harris has only been the Democratic candidate since Biden’s withdrawal, so the convention is an opportunity for her to personally appeal to voters.

Conventions usually give a temporary bounce to their party’s candidate, which fades in the weeks following a convention. Silver said on Friday that his model will expect Harris to be leading by four to five points nationally after the convention.

If this occurs, Harris’ win probability will not change much. If Harris only leads by two points after the convention, it would be an underperformance and her win probability would decrease. If she leads by six, she would be overperforming and her win probability would increase.

In economic data, US headline inflation rose 0.2% in July after dropping 0.1% in June, for a 12-month rate of 2.9%, the lowest since March 2021. Core inflation rose 0.2% in July for a 12-month rate of 3.2%, the lowest since April 2021. The lower inflation is likely to encourage the US Federal Reserve Board to cut interest rates.

Real (inflation-adjusted) hourly earnings were up 0.1% in July, but real weekly earnings were down 0.2% owing to a drop in hours worked. In May and June, real earnings were up 0.8–0.9%.

Coalition gains large primary vote lead in NSW

A New South Wales state Resolve poll for The Sydney Morning Herald, conducted with the federal Resolve polls in July and August from a sample of more than 1,000, gave the Coalition 38% of the primary vote (up three since June), Labor 30% (down two), the Greens 12% (up one), independents 14% (down one) and others 6% (down one).

Resolve doesn’t usually give a two-party estimate, but Kevin Bonham estimated a Coalition lead by 51–49%, a three-point gain for the Coalition since June. Despite the poor voting intentions, Labor incumbent Chris Minns maintained an unchanged 38–13% lead over the Liberals’ Mark Speakman as preferred premier.

There has been much media attention on the NSW Liberals’ bungled council nominations. This poll was taken before the nominations fiasco, but in any case voters are unlikely to care much about local councils.

By 56–23%, voters in this poll supported the state government’s plans to introduce laws to prevent “no grounds evictions”, so that landlords need a “commonsense and reasonable cause” to evict a tenant.

Federal polls: Labor and Coalition tied

A national Essential poll, conducted August 7–11 from a sample of 1,132, had Labor and the Coalition tied at 47% each including undecided (47–46% to Labor in late July). Primary votes were 34% Coalition (steady), 28% Labor (down four), 14% Greens (up three), 7% One Nation (steady), 1% UAP (down one), 9% for all Others (steady) and 6% undecided (steady).

Voters were pessimistic when asked whether economic indicators would get better, get worse or stay about the same in the next 12 months. By 67–11%, they thought the cost of living would get worse. Global economic conditions were expected to get worse by 56–11%, employment by 39–13% and wages by 28–16%.

When asked why Indigenous Australians experience disadvantage, 58% said it was the result of personal decisions they make, while 42% said it was systemic: a product of colonial history and ongoing discrimination.

Big business was far ahead when respondents were asked whether government listens to groups when making decisions, with 60% saying government listens to big business well. Indigenous Australians were the next highest at 34% listens to well.

A national Morgan poll, conducted August 5–11 from a sample of 1,671, also had Labor and the Coalition tied at 50–50%, a 1.5-point gain for the Coalition since the July 29 to August 4 Morgan poll.

Primary votes were 38% Coalition (up one), 29.5% Labor (down one), 14% Greens (up two), 5% One Nation (down 0.5), 9.5% independents (down 0.5) and 4% others (down one).

The headline figure uses respondent allocated preferences. If preferences are allocated by 2022 election flows, Labor led by 51–49%, a 0.5-point gain for the Coalition.

Changes in South Australia

Since Labor won the March 2022 South Australian state election, there hasn’t been a SA state poll released. The Poll Bludger reported last Thursday that Vincent Tarzia had become the new Liberal leader on August 12, replacing David Speirs who resigned on August 8.

The Poll Bludger also reported on a SA state draft redistribution. Independent-held Frome switches from being nationally Labor to Liberal on a two-party basis. Two seats in Adelaide will be more favourable to Labor at the next election.

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. Kamala Harris’ polls surge stalls ahead of Democratic National Convention – https://theconversation.com/kamala-harris-polls-surge-stalls-ahead-of-democratic-national-convention-236798

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Apisalome Movono, Honorary Research Associate, Te Kunenga ki Pūrehuroa – Massey University

Like many Pacific states that rely on tourism, Fiji had a hard time during the main pandemic years. But as tourism recovers, another crisis threatens the island nation’s stability – one fuelled by rising methamphetamine addiction.

Driven by foreign drug cartels using Fiji as a staging post for operations in New Zealand and Australia, the drug has also spread into local communities. In turn, it has fuelled a surge in HIV infections and put extra burdens on stretched health and justice sectors.

Known locally as “ice”, methamphetamine (meth) is highly addictive, widely available and increasingly linked to risky behaviour. Needle sharing, “chemsex” (using drugs to heighten sexual experiences) and a practice known as “bluetoothing” – withdrawing blood after a drug hit and injecting it into a second person – have all been implicated in declining health indicators.

With children as young as nine being treated for addiction, and with crime statistics and reported HIV and AIDS cases climbing dramatically, police have called for a state of emergency to tackle the interrelated problems. But the police themselves have been accused of corruption in relation to meth dealing.

Drugs, health and crime

HIV cases are expected to double this year, with young people and marginalised communities disproportionately affected.

The intersection of meth use and HIV is particularly troubling. Methamphetamine weakens the immune system, making users more susceptible to infections. Compounding the problem, the stigma and discrimination associated with both meth use and HIV mean many are reluctant to seek help or undergo testing.

Exacerbating the twin crises is the dire state of Fiji’s health facilities after years of neglect. Hospitals and clinics have been underfunded, lack modern equipment, and are short-staffed due to an exodus of health professionals.

These deficiencies have serious implications for patient care. And they limit the health system’s ability to respond to rising demand for a complex array of services.

Healthcare infrastructure is particularly lacking for drug rehabilitation, psychiatric care, and management of the non-communicable diseases that cause an estimated 80% of premature deaths in Fiji.

A national crisis

The interplay between methamphetamine use, HIV and ill-equipped health facilities creates a vicious cycle that perpetuates and exacerbates each individual issue.

Meth use increases crime, addiction and the risk of HIV transmission, particularly among young people. In turn, this places more strain on the already struggling healthcare system, as well as police and legal resources.

Overall, the situation is leading to a further decline in Fiji’s national development outcomes. Addressing these multiple threats will require a holistic and coordinated response.

With the involvement of the United Nations’ AIDS programme, UNAIDS, there are plans to develop such strategies with government, civil society, regional and international partners.

And in April this year, a Pacific Regional Transnational Crime Disruption Strategy was launched. Interpol’s Project Blue Pacific is supported by the Australian Federal Police, New Zealand Police and and the UK National Crime Agency. New Zealand also helped fund the establishment in July of a Fijian Counter Narcotics Bureau.

No quick or easy fix

But while such partnerships are vital for combating the supply of meth and other drugs, they fall short of connecting transnational drug crime with the domestic problems it causes.

New Zealand has pledged ongoing funding support for health infrastructure improvements. The Fiji government’s budgetary priorities will also have to include upgrading medical facilities and equipment, and expanding training for healthcare professionals.

Developing and implementing comprehensive prevention and treatment programmes for meth addiction and HIV are equally crucial. These should include widespread education campaigns, harm reduction strategies (such as needle exchange programmes), and accessible testing and treatment services.

Empowering local communities to participate will lead to more sustainable and culturally appropriate solutions. Reducing the stigma and discrimination around meth use and HIV will be crucial.

Finally, collaboration with regional and global health organisations will provide much-needed technical and financial support. Other Pacific nations will be looking to Fiji to take a lead and prevent the crisis spreading.

Apisalome Movono 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. Meth addiction, HIV and a struggling health system are causing a perfect storm in Fiji – https://theconversation.com/meth-addiction-hiv-and-a-struggling-health-system-are-causing-a-perfect-storm-in-fiji-236496

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

Top economists are unanimous in believing Australia’s housing market is in crisis.

Offered a choice of 14 measures identified by the Economic Society of Australia as likely to restrain prices for buyers and renters, none of the 49 leading economists polled picked: “do nothing, the market will determine appropriate prices”.

The economists chosen for the poll are from a panel of about 70 experts in fields including macroeconomics, economic modelling, housing and labour markets, maintained by the society since 2015.

Among them are former heads of government agencies, a former Reserve Bank board member, and former Treasury, International Monetary Fund and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development officials.

Two-thirds back public housing, planning reform

About two-thirds of the experts polled picked “ease planning restrictions” as one of the most important fixes. Almost as many picked “provide more public housing”.

About one-third wanted to “tighten negative gearing and capital gains tax concessions”, which was a policy Labor took to the 2019 election. Another third wanted to “replace stamp duty with land tax applying to family homes”.

Also popular were removing barriers to building prefabricated homes (31%), fast-tracking the training of home builders (18%) and fast-tracking the immigration of home builders (14%).

Ten per cent of those surveyed wanted to include the family home in the age pension assets test, 8% wanted to remove first homeowner grants and concessions, and 6% wanted to apply capital gains tax to family homes, the same proportion that wanted to restrain immigration.

Only one of the panellists surveyed wanted to provide more direct assistance to first homebuyers, and only one wanted to allow first homebuyers to access their superannuation savings.

Australia’s median house-price-to-income ratio has soared in the past two decades, climbing from about five years of gross household income to eight.

At the same time, the median time taken to save for a deposit has climbed from about seven years to ten.

Rents have also been soaring, although only in the past few years. Rental vacancy rates have fallen to all-time lows.

Asked whether it was more important to restrain rents or home prices, a majority of those surveyed (58%) backed action to restrain rents, although several said action to restrain prices would flow through to rents.

Tax empty homes to boost supply

Thirty-two of the 48 experts wanted planning restrictions relaxed in order to make it easier to build more new homes where people needed them, some mentioning the “excessive power” of NIMBYs – residents who say “not in my backyard” when confronted with plans to build in their neighbourhoods.

Several acknowledged this wouldn’t be enough without the ability to build homes quickly. The Australian National University’s Alison Booth said the building industry was old-fashioned and resistant to prefabricated construction.

Others wanted to boost supply by making more existing homes available. University of Canberra economist Uwe Dulleck suggested taxing empty homes.

He said several European cities more heavily taxed apartments and apartments that were not used as permanent residences. The tax could boost supply and affordability.

Former Productivity Commission economist Jenny Gordon said a tax on the unimproved value of land could have a similar effect, and would also encourage downsizers to sell and subdivide large blocks.

Former OECD official Adrian Blundell-Wignall proposed severe limits on the letting out of homes through Airbnb-style arrangements, although he doubted governments would have the courage.

More to it than supply?

Housing specialist Peter Abelson sounded a note of caution about the prevailing wisdom that houses haven’t been built quickly enough, noting that between 2003 and 2022 Australia’s housing stock climbed by 4% more than its population.

Julie Toth, chief economist at the online property settlement firm PEXA, said while 11 million homes for 27 million Australians sounded enough, there had been a long-term decline in average household size even as the homes themselves grew bigger.

One hundred years ago, the average Australian home housed 4.5 people; 30 years ago it housed 2.8, and in 2024 just 2.45.

Reserve Bank calculations suggested that if we reverted to 2.8 Australians per home we would require 1.2 million fewer homes.

No grants, no concessions for buyers

With the exception of measures to help low-income renters, the panel was overwhelmingly against subsidies for Australians trying to get into housing.

John Freebairn from The University of Melbourne said accommodation was “just one of life’s necessities, along with food and clothing”.

Sensibly, there were no or minimal subsidies for food and clothing, and that should be the case for housing. The best way to help Australians who needed help was by boosting their income.

Selective support for home buyers helped those who got it, but pushed up prices for everyone else.

Reboot public housing

Macquarie University economist Lisa Magnani says the proportion of households forced to rent rather than buy has climbed from 26% to 31% over the past 30 years, with many unable to easily afford the rent.

Whereas global cities – including Seattle, New York and Singapore – were attempting to aggressively lift the supply of low-income housing, Australia’s supply of affordable and public housing had been shrinking for decades.

Several panellists suggested the funds raised by restricting negative gearing and capital gains tax breaks be directed toward expanding public housing.

One, Ben Phillips of the Australian National University, cautioned that a massive public housing building program would come at the expense of private building, and said an alternative was to turn existing homes into public housing.

It was also important to boost payments such as JobSeeker and Youth Allowance to at least a basic level of adequacy. Government decisions over the past two budgets to boost rent assistance for welfare recipients by 25% were a good start.

Individual responses. Click to open:

Peter Martin is Economics Editor of The Conversation. He serves on the central council of the Economic Society of Australia.

– ref. ‘Doing nothing is not an option’ – top economists back planning reform and public housing as fixes for Australia’s housing crisis – https://theconversation.com/doing-nothing-is-not-an-option-top-economists-back-planning-reform-and-public-housing-as-fixes-for-australias-housing-crisis-236309

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Chay Brown, Managing Director, Her Story Consulting & Postdoctoral fellow, Australian National University

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this article contains mentions of someone who has died.

After two years and 16 hearings, the Senate Inquiry into Missing and Murdered First Nations women handed down its report yesterday. While important, it was not the moment of reckoning many of us had hoped for.

The Senate inquiry was introduced and spearheaded by Dorinda Cox, the West Australian Greens Senator, who today called the report’s recommendations “weak” and “toothless”.

The inquiry came after other nations, such as Canada and the United States, held their own inquiries into missing and murdered Indigenous women. Australia’s own report about the appalling rates of violence against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women was comparatively benign.

No one’s counting

The inquiry’s terms of reference focused on missing and murdered First Nations women and children. It sought to examine the extent of the problem, comparing investigation practices between First Nations and non-First Nations cases, examining systemic causes, the effectiveness of existing policies, and exploring actions to reduce violence and improve safety.

Additionally, they consider how to honour and commemorate the victims and survivors. By their own reports, the committee was deeply affected and disturbed by the stories they heard.

What the inquiry found is precisely what First Nations women have been saying for decades: that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women and children are disproportionately impacted by men’s use of violence.

That their stories and lives are ignored by mainstream media.

That police often fail to adequately investigate, search for, or respond to calls for help from First Nations women and children.

And that the data is shockingly incomplete and inadequate. No one is accurately keeping count.

As Janet Hunt from the Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research submitted to the inquiry, there is a gender bias in public policy:

Despite the fact that a comparable number of First Nations women have died as a result of violence against them, as First Nations men have died in custody, it is the latter issue that attracted far more public policy attention, including through an early Royal Commission […] There is now data on deaths in custody. There is still no data on national deaths of First Nations women by violence.

Extreme rates of violence

Despite the flawed data, those that were captured show the extreme and disproportionate rate of violence against First Nations women.

National Homicide Monitoring Program data on murdered First Nations women and children from 1989–1990 to 2022–2023 show 476 women were recorded as victims of homicide (murder and manslaughter). 158 children were recorded as victims of homicide (murder, manslaughter and infanticide).

First Nations women represented 16% of all Australian women homicide victims, despite comprising between 2–3% of the adult female population.

First Nations children represented 13% of all child homicide victims.

Counting missing First Nations women and children was equally problematic, somewhat owing to some jurisdictions not recording Indigenous status in their figures.

Read more:
What happened to the Senate inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women?

Despite the flawed data, the Senate inquiry heard 20% of missing women in Australia are Aboriginal women. The report found First Nations children and youth are over-represented in the out-of-home care system (approximately one in 18) and are

markedly overrepresented in reports of missing children. These children make up 53% of missing children reports.

Not only are First Nations women and children more likely to go missing, they are less likely to be found.

The inquiry also heard the problematic nature of the language of “missing” as being passive, and somehow suggestive that people go deliberately missing. We agree with Amy McQuire’s argument that these First Nations women and children are not missing – but disappeared.

Consistent legal failings

The Senate committee also heard these missing and disappeared First Nations women and children, and their families and communities, were regularly and routinely failed by policing and legal systems.

These systems were often regarded as another harm or threat by First Nations women and children, who were at times over-policed, and at other times, under-policed.

First Nations women are also disproportionately misidentified as the perpetrator, instead of the victim, criminalising First Nations women and creating yet another barrier to getting help.

These issues are intertwined with the dehumanisation of First Nations women and children that manifests in them not being searched for adequately or mourned in the media. There is insufficient accountability for their murders.

What is truly missing in this report is exactly that: accountability. Missing from the narrative is the focus on the users of violence and the state systems that have caused harm and repeatedly failed to support First Nations women and children.

It is this lack of accountability that has prompted Cox to say the report is simply “not enough”.

Falling well short

The report makes ten recommendations. One is co-designing a culturally appropriate way to recognise murdered or disappeared First Nations women and children.

Another is the appointment of a First Nations person with the specific responsibility for advocating for, and addressing violence against, these women and children. This role would be within the Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence Commission.

It also recommends policing practices be harmonised across the country to help close data gaps and create guidelines for the review of past cases. These would then be monitored for progress.

A sustainable funding mechanism for work in this area was also recommended, alongside a request for the media to reflect on the findings of the report, namely the portrayal of these cases in the news.

Guidelines for reporting already exist.

The Senate inquiry was an important step. And these recommendations are welcome. But they do not go far enough.

Some of the authors of this piece gave evidence to this inquiry. And all of us have lost loved ones. Each one of us know First Nations women and children who have been murdered and disappeared. We think about them every single day.

We remember R. Rubuntja, our sister and friend, whose life was stolen and who we spoke about in loving memory to this Senate inquiry.

It is not enough.

If this article has raised issues for you, or if you’re concerned about someone you know, call the Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander crisis support line 13YARN (13 92 76) or 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732).

Read more:
‘She was the most important person to us’ – R. Rubuntja’s story shows society is still failing First Nations women

Chay Brown receives funding from ANROWS and The Australian National University. Chay Brown is affiliated with the Australian National University, Her Story Mparntwe and works closely with the Tangentyere Women’s Family Safety Group.

Connie Shaw is affiliated with Tangentyere Women’s Family Safety Group.

Co-Founder and Managing Director of Her Story, lead on U Right Sis? project and works closely with the Tangentyere Women’s Family Safety Group.

Shirleen Campbell is affiliated with Tangentyere Women’s Safety Group.

– ref. The report on murdered and missing Indigenous women and children fails to hold anyone to account. It’s not enough. – https://theconversation.com/the-report-on-murdered-and-missing-indigenous-women-and-children-fails-to-hold-anyone-to-account-its-not-enough-236941

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Adams, Professor of Corporate Law & Academic Director of UNE Sydney campus, University of New England

The Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) is unusual in the world of finance.

It is the operator of Australia’s largest stock exchange, and as such is “required to ensure that each of its licensed markets is fair, orderly and transparent”.

At the same time, it is itself a public company listed on that very exchange. It’s as if we’ve enlisted a flock’s shepherd by picking out one of its sheep.

That doesn’t mean the ASX does – or has done – anything wrong. But this has been a known potential conflict of interest since the 1990s.

That was when the ASX listed itself as a public company on its own exchange, the first time this had ever happened in the world.

That saw a wide range of regulatory functions handed to Australia’s corporate watchdog, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC).

So for ASIC to file a lawsuit on Wednesday, alleging the ASX misled markets, was significant.

But what exactly does ASIC allege happened? And why do a company’s announcements matter so much in the first place?

What are ASIC’s allegations?

The issue in question is the exchange’s stated progress replacing a key piece of software – “CHESS” – that is used to settle transactions. ASIC alleges the ASX told markets this project was on track and on schedule, despite knowing it wasn’t.

According to ASIC Chair Joe Longo:

ASX’s statements go to the heart of trust in the integrity of our markets. We believe this was a collective failure by the ASX Board and senior executives at the time.

ASX chief executive Helen Lofthouse said the company acknowledges the “significance and serious nature of these proceedings”.

Lofthouse said the ASX is now “carefully reviewing and considering the allegations”, having “cooperated fully” with the investigation.

What is CHESS? And why does it need replacing?

One of the most important functions of the ASX is to provide a system for recording and settling share transactions. The current system is the Clearing House Electronic Subregister System, or CHESS for short, which we’ve had since 1994.

But for the past decade or so, it has been known that the technology underpinning CHESS is outdated and needs replacing.

According to ASIC’s filing in the Federal Court this week, the ASX determined it would replace CHESS in early 2016. By December 2017, it had engaged a company called Digital Asset to build the technology.

This new system was to be based on blockchain technology, an innovation that excited global markets and would have made Australia a world leader.

By March 2020, the ASX had announced that the CHESS replacement project’s initial go-live date in April 2021 would have to be delayed. By October, it had announced a new date: April 2023.

In mid-2021, it published an implementation timetable, and indicated it was still “on-track” to go live in April 2023. But ASIC alleges that in November 2021, the ASX opened an “industry test environment” despite a lack of “full functionality”.

The regulator alleges that about 100 defects in the application “were not addressed”.

According to the filing, the ASX’s own audit and risk committee was informed the CHESS replacement project had a “red” status on February 3 2022 – that is, there was a high risk it wouldn’t be completed on time.

ASIC alleges that despite this, when the ASX published its half-yearly results about a week later, it misleadingly indicated the project was “progressing well” – and still on track for its planned date to go live.

In September 2022, consulting firm Accenture was engaged to review the project. By November, ASX had paused it.

Pre-tax, it had already cost about A$250 million. The use of blockchain technology to replace CHESS has now been abandoned altogether.

Why does this all matter?

Both the ASX and the corporate regulator ASIC need a fully informed securities market to function. There are a number of laws that relate to this need.

Under the ASIC Act, the corporate regulator is explicitly required to “maintain, facilitate and improve the performance of the financial system”.

Under the Corporations Act – which is enforced by ASIC – companies must continuously disclose material information that could impact on their share price to the market.

More generally, this principle aims to prevent market manipulation and insider trading by companies listed on the stock exchange by preventing misleading or false statements.

With this lawsuit, ASIC has shone a spotlight on what is expected more broadly in terms of disclosures and accuracy, from all publicly listed companies.

The matter will now be decided under usual court processes and future hearings, unless it is settled earlier. Investors and regulators will be watching closely.

Michael Adams receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the European Union, but not connected with this article. I am a Director of the Governance Institute of Australia and chair their Academic Board, but not connected to this article.

– ref. Australia’s corporate watchdog is suing our largest stock exchange. What’s going on? – https://theconversation.com/australias-corporate-watchdog-is-suing-our-largest-stock-exchange-whats-going-on-236870

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Laura Marchese, PhD candidate at the Institute for Physical Activity and Nutrition, Deakin University

Many of us are looking for ways to eat a healthier and more sustainable diet. And one way to do this is by reducing the amount of meat we eat.

That doesn’t mean you need to become a vegan or vegetarian. Our recent research shows even small changes to cut down on meat consumption could help improve health and wellbeing.

But not all plant-based options are created equal and some are ultra-processed. Navigating what’s available when eating out – including options like tofu and fake meats – can be a challenge.

So what are your best options at a cafe or restaurant? Here are some guiding principles to keep in mind when cutting down on meat.

Health benefits to cutting down

Small amounts of lean meat can be part of a healthy, balanced diet. But the majority of Australians still eat more meat than recommended.

Only a small percentage of Australians (10%) are vegetarian or vegan. But an increasing number opt for a flexitarian diet. Flexitarians eat a diet rich in fruits and vegetables, while still enjoying small amounts of meat, dairy, eggs and fish.

Our recent research looked at whether the average Australian diet would improve if we swapped meat and dairy for plant-based alternatives, and the results were promising.

The study found health benefits when people halved the amount of meat and dairy they ate and replaced them with healthy plant-based foods, like tofu or legumes. On average, their dietary fibre intake – which helps with feeling fuller for longer and digestive health – went up. Saturated fats – which increase our blood cholesterol levels, a risk factor for heart disease – went down.

Including more fibre and less saturated fat helps reduce the risk of heart disease.

Achieving these health benefits may be as simple as swapping ham for baked beans in a toastie for lunch, or substituting half of the mince in your bolognese for lentils at dinner.

How it’s made matters

For a long time we’ve known processed meats – such as ham, bacon and sausages – are bad for your health. Eating high amounts of these foods is associated with poor heart health and some forms of cancer.

But the same can be true of many processed meat alternatives.

Plant-based alternatives designed to mimic meat, such as sausages and burgers, have become readily available in supermarkets, cafes and restaurants. These products are ultra-processed and can be high in salt and saturated fat.

Our study found when people replaced meat and dairy with ultra-processed meat alternatives – such as plant-based burgers or sausages – they ate more salt and less calcium, compared to eating meat or healthy plant-based options.

So if you’re cutting down on meat for health reasons, it’s important to think about what you’re replacing it with. The Australian Dietary Guidelines recommend eggs, legumes/beans, tofu, nuts and seeds.

Tofu can be a great option. But we recommend flavouring plain tofu with herbs and spices yourself, as pre-marinated products are often ultra-processed and can be high in salt.

What about when dining out?

When you’re making your own food, it’s easier to adapt recipes or reduce the amount of meat. But when faced with a menu, it can be difficult to work out what is the best option.

Here are our four ways to make healthy choices when you eat out:

1. Fill half your plate with vegetables

When cutting down on meat, aim for half your plate to be vegetables. Try to also eat a variety of colours, such as leafy green spinach, red capsicum and pumpkin.

When you’re out, this might look like choosing a vegetable-based entree, a stir-fry or ordering a side salad to have with your meal.

2. Avoid the deep fryer

The Australian Dietary Guidelines recommend limiting deep fried foods to once a week or less. When dining out, choose plant-based options that are sautéed, grilled, baked, steamed, boiled or poached – instead of those that are crumbed or battered before deep frying.

This could mean choosing vegetarian dumplings that are steamed not fried, or poached eggs at brunch instead of fried. Ordering a side of roast vegetables instead of hot chips is also a great option.

3. Pick wholegrains

Scan the menu for wholegrain options such as brown rice, wholemeal pizza or pasta, barley, quinoa or wholemeal burger buns. Not only are they good sources of protein, but they also provide more dietary fibre than refined grains, which help keep you fuller for longer.

4. If you do pick meat – choose less processed kinds

You may not always want, or be able, to make a vegetarian choice when eating out and with other people. If you do opt for meat, it’s better to steer clear of processed options like bacon or sausages.

If sharing dishes with other people, you could try adding unprocessed plant-based options into the mix. For example, a curry with lentils or chickpeas, or a vegetable-based pizza instead of one with ham or salami. If that’s not an option, try choose meat that’s a lean cut, such as chicken breast, or options which are grilled rather than fried.

Laura Marchese receives funding froma Deakin University Postgraduate Research Scholarship and a CSIRO R+ top-up scholarship.

Katherine Livingstone receives funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council (APP117380) and the National Heart Foundation (ID106800).

– ref. 4 ways to cut down on meat when dining out – and still make healthy choices – https://theconversation.com/4-ways-to-cut-down-on-meat-when-dining-out-and-still-make-healthy-choices-236505

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alistair Sisson, Macquarie University Research Fellow, School of Social Sciences, Macquarie University

The New South Wales government is forging ahead with renewal of the state’s largest public housing estate. Developer Stockland and three community housing providers are contracted to deliver the first stage nearly a decade after it was announced. Some 749 homes are to be demolished and replaced with more than 3,000 new apartments.

Following the Minns government’s changes in 2023, Waterloo South will comprise 30% social housing, 20% affordable housing and 50% market-rate housing. Plans for the 1,200-plus homes in Waterloo Central and North are yet to be confirmed.

The contentious 15-year project is due to start in 2027. It has been pitched as replacing ageing homes that are no longer “fit for purpose”, while increasing housing supply.

The former Coalition government’s housing minister, Brad Hazzard, described the homes in Waterloo as “terrible”. Local Labor MP Ron Hoenig said they were “well past their renewal date”.

One might expect, then, that the estate housing is badly designed and dilapidated. However, no comprehensive condition assessment nor refurbishment feasibility study has been made public.

Our research examined the quality of the Waterloo housing, using the original architectural drawings and field-based observations. While this approach doesn’t account for maintenance issues, it shows the underlying quality of much of the estate is good by today’s standards. This finding complicates the rationale for redevelopment.

Diverse housing histories

When we think of a housing “estate”, we often think of a swathe of homogenous homes – uniform apartment blocks or “cookie cutter” suburban housing. The Waterloo estate, in contrast, has diverse housing types built over almost 40 years.

The first homes were four small, three-storey apartment blocks built in 1948 at the start of the post-war public housing boom. By the early 1960s, the NSW Housing Commission had added several more low-rise complexes occupying whole street blocks.

It scaled up its ambition later that decade with larger complexes of 50-plus units and up to six storeys.

These buildings would soon be dwarfed in the 1970s by the Endeavour Project, including the famous (or infamous) four 17-storey slabs and two 30-storey towers. These buildings, more resonant with the popular image of public housing, make up Waterloo North and Central.

The backlash against this style of development inspired a broader shift within the NSW Housing Commission. In the late 1970s and early ’80s, it constructed complexes that were more modest in scale, yet architecturally striking. This includes the Drysdale and Dobell buildings designed by Tao Gofers and Penny Rosier – later siblings to the Sirius building.

So the estate comprises a diverse cross-section of 20th-century public housing. Is it all obsolete? This is the question we sought to answer.

Evaluating Waterloo

Since 2015, the Apartment Design Guide has set out the benchmarks for apartment housing in NSW. These guidelines reflect academic and industry research evidence on the environmental and spatial qualities that enhance physical and psychological wellbeing. These qualities include natural light, fresh air, visual privacy, accessibility, liveability, thermal comfort and access to nature and community.

We compared the architectural plans for Waterloo’s four main housing types – three-storey walk-ups, six-storey courtyard blocks, 17-storey slabs and 30-storey towers – with the controls outlined in the guide.

All four types compare well against the recommendations on access to light and air, thermal comfort and visual and acoustic privacy. All dwellings have large windows to provide excellent daylight and fresh air. Rooms are never too deep. There is generous open space between and around the buildings, with abundant greenery.

There are, however, some compromises. Unit sizes are 10–30% smaller that the guide recommends. Ceiling heights are 20cm lower than the recommended 2.7m, as was common before the guide came out. Overall sizes of balconies, where provided, are often inadequate.

The three-storey walk-ups have less access to sunshine. Less than half receive the minimum two hours in mid-winter. However, their access to ample outdoor green space may mitigate this problem.

A more significant shortcoming is that none of the four types meet the silver level of the Liveable Housing Design Guidelines – a higher standard of accessibility than the Apartment Design Guide. They fall short on aspects such as being free of steps, door and corridor widths and bathroom configuration. These higher standards are desirable for social housing, as many residents are elderly or have a disability.

Yet renovation could offer remedies. Providing lifts on the courtyard buildings would improve access and reduce the number of units accessed through a single entrance. Small units could be combined into larger living spaces – some units already have been in the 30-storey Matavai and Turanga buildings.

Balconies could also be retrofitted. This, too, has been done already on some of the earliest walk-ups.

Reimagining redevelopment

While the Waterloo buildings have some deficiencies, it’s simply untrue that they are definitively not fit for purpose. Relatively modest renovations or additions could extend the lives of most buildings in a way that supports residents.

There are several examples we can look to for inspiration. Among them are the celebrated work of French architects Anne Lacaton and Jean-Philippe Vassal and the Retain, Repair, Reinvest strategy developed by Melbourne architectural practice OFFICE.

The benefits of redevelopment must be weighed against the impacts of forced relocation on tenants’ health and wellbeing. Older tenants in particular are generally more vulnerable and less likely to benefit.

The decision must also take into account the embodied carbon from the buildings’ construction and the reduction in social housing supply through demolitions – a more significant problem than many realise. If redevelopment is to occur, it must be carefully planned and staged. And it should not preclude upgrades to existing homes in the meantime.

Governments around the country are starting to reinvest in social housing after decades of neglect. It’s more important than ever to recognise the value and potential of what we already have.

Alistair Sisson has received funding from the Tenants’ Union of NSW, Australian Council of Social Service, Shelter NSW, QShelter, National Shelter, Mission Australia and Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute. He is a member of Shelter NSW.

Michael Zanardo undertook the referenced research while in the role of Rothwell Resident in Architecture at the University of Sydney. He has undertaken work for Homes NSW (formerly LAHC) as an independent architectural and urban design consultant. Michael is a member of Shelter NSW, the City of Sydney Housing for All Working Group, and the Australian Institute of Architects.

Cameron Logan and Rebecca McLaughlan 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. Sydney’s largest public housing estate is being redeveloped, but not all these homes need to be demolished – https://theconversation.com/sydneys-largest-public-housing-estate-is-being-redeveloped-but-not-all-these-homes-need-to-be-demolished-236514

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jake M Robinson, Ecologist and Researcher, Flinders University

Healthy soil is teeming with life. An astonishing 59% of Earth’s species live in soil. They play crucial roles in maintaining soil health and, by extension, the health of our planet.

But this vital resource is under threat. Currently, 75% of the world’s soils are damaged. This figure could rise to 90% by 2050 due to deforestation, overgrazing, urbanisation and other destructive practices.

Such degradation poses significant risks, not only to biodiversity but also to the ecosystem services humans rely on, such as food production. But traditional methods of detecting and measuring soil life are often costly, time-consuming and intrusive. Enter “ecoacoustics”, an innovative and non-destructive approach that could transform soil health monitoring.

Our research team has developed a simple way to use sound to monitor life in the soil, which could help improve soil health worldwide. We discovered that healthy soils, rich in different animals, exhibit distinct acoustic profiles or “soundscapes”. A mixture of lively and intricate sounds, such as delicate crackles, clicks and pops, can be found underground.

What is ecoacoustics?

Ecoacoustics is the study of sounds produced by communities of animals, plants and their environment. This relatively new science, enabled by technology, has been widely used to monitor ecosystems on land and water.

You can now hang an audio recorder the size of credit card on a tree to record sounds made by animals. Several days or weeks later, the device can be collected and the recordings analysed.

So far, scientists have captured acoustic signals from animals such as bats, birds, frogs and insects. These sounds provide valuable insights into biodiversity and ecosystem dynamics.

The same principles and tools are now being applied to soil. Researchers are beginning to explore the sounds of soil, using recorders and specialised microphones attached to probes in the ground. These devices record the acoustic vibrations produced by soil-dwelling organisms as they move through the underground world.

There are audible crackles, clicks and pops. Healthy soils tend to have a greater diversity of these sounds than damaged soils, which are generally quieter due to less animal activity. You can think of poor soil like a lifeless party. But thriving soil? That’s where you’ll find the good vibes and chatter.

The recorded sounds are analysed to glean insights into the abundance, diversity and potentially the behaviour of soil animal communities. And when we say “communities”, we’re talking about earthworms, beetles, spiders, ants and other animals that each have important ecological roles.

Early trials and insights

All living organisms produce sounds. This may be deliberate, such as birds singing to attract mates and bats echolocating to skilfully hunt their prey. Or it might be incidental, such as earthworms moving through the soil.

These incidental sounds can reveal much about the health of the soil ecosystem.

Our initial trials involved placing microphones in soil-filled buckets to capture the sounds of soil life. We then processed these recordings to derive sound patterns.

We’re interested in quantifying soundscapes by measuring frequency, loudness and patterns over time, which enable us to assess soil health. In healthy soils, the animals are active and produce a rich array of sounds.

Our new research in Australian forests, published today in the Journal of Applied Ecology, shows soil ecoacoustics effectively reflects the abundance and activity of soil animals and predicts whether soil is damaged or restored.

We found a greater diversity of crackles, clicks and pops in the restored soils. We linked this to a higher a number of invertebrates moving around. If the soil sounds quiet, it’s a sign it’s not healthy.

We’re also developing an innovative sound detection device to identify invertebrates moving on the surface. Preliminary results suggest different types of animals (worms, snails, ants, millipedes, and so on) exhibit different sound profiles based on their activity, shape, appendages and size.

It makes sense: a millipede with its many tiny legs gently tapping on the floor makes a different sound to a snail with its slow and slimy glide.

Practical applications

Soil ecoacoustics offers numerous practical applications. It can be used to monitor the effectiveness of soil restoration efforts, helping land managers and farmers assess the health of their soils without too much disturbance. For instance, it could identify areas with deficient earthworm populations, crucial for soil aeration and nutrient cycling.

This method is ecologically akin to a doctor using a stethoscope and listening to a patient’s heartbeat to assess their health. By listening to the “heartbeat” of the soil (the soundscape), we can gain insights into its condition and the success of restoration interventions.

The future of soil health monitoring

While still in its early stages, soil ecoacoustics holds great promise for improving our understanding and monitoring of soil biodiversity. A recent paper on global biodiversity conservation issues identified soil ecoacoustics as an emerging priority, highlighting its potential to transform soil health assessments.

As we continue to develop and refine these techniques, we hope to democratise the process, allowing people around the world to use their own “stethoscopes” to improve the health of the precious ecosystem beneath their feet.

Jake M. Robinson is affiliated with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Resilience Frontiers think tank. He receives funding from the National Environmental Science Program Resilient Landscapes Hub for restoration research.

Martin Breed receives funding from the Australian Research Council, National Environmental Science Program Resilient Landscapes Hub, Cooperative Research Centre for Transformations in Mining Economies (CRC TiME), Australian Academy of Science, and the New Zealand Ministry of Business, Innovation & Employment.

– ref. Crackles, clicks and pops – now we can monitor the ‘heartbeat’ of soil – https://theconversation.com/crackles-clicks-and-pops-now-we-can-monitor-the-heartbeat-of-soil-235865

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Konstantine Panegyres, McKenzie Postdoctoral Fellow, researching Greco-Roman antiquity, The University of Melbourne

If we want to research a subject, how do we do it? We could read about it in books or do experiments in a lab. Or another way is to find people who know something about it and ask them.

Collecting information from members of the public has long been a method of scientific research. We call it citizen science. According to National Geographic, this is “the practice of public participation and collaboration in scientific research to increase scientific knowledge”.

Today, citizen science is a popular practice, with dozens of programs designed by academics to engage the public and leverage power by numbers. Its origins, however, go much farther back than you might think – all the way to ancient times.

Aristotle and animals

Most of us know of Aristotle (384–322 BCE) for his philosophical works, but he was also a great scientist.

Aristotle consulted the general public when undertaking his scientific research projects. He wrote a number of books about animals, the greatest of which was his History of Animals. He also wrote smaller works including Parts of Animals and Generation of Animals. Collectively, these are usually referred to as Aristotle’s biological writings.

The Roman scholar Pliny the Elder (approximately 24–79 CE) has told us about some of Aristotle’s research methods when writing these texts.

According to Pliny, Alexander the Great (356–323 BCE) – who was Aristotle’s student – supported Aristotle’s research on animals by ordering the public to collaborate:

orders were given to some thousands of persons throughout the whole of Asia and Greece, all those who made their living by hunting, fowling, and fishing and those who were in charge of warrens, herds, apiaries, fishponds and aviaries, to obey [Aristotle’s] instructions, so that he might not fail to be informed about any creature born anywhere.

Modern scholars aren’t certain Alexander actually gave this order. Nonetheless, Aristotle’s writings about animals often refer to information he received from others who worked directly with animals, such as hunters, beekeepers, fishermen and herdsmen.

For example, Aristotle thought worker wasps die off during the winter while mother wasps live through it. He must have relied on the reports of farmers for this information. In the History of Animals, he wrote:

The worker wasps do not live through the year but all die when winter has come on, whereas the leaders which are called mother wasps are seen throughout the winter and hide underground. For while ploughing and digging in the winter many people have seen mother wasps but none have seen workers.

Aristotle was at times also critical of the eyewitness information he received. For instance, in Generation of Animals, he says some people told him fish don’t copulate, because they had not seen fish copulating. But he goes on to say these people are wrong – and that he himself knows fish do indeed copulate:

The fish copulate in the same way as dolphins do, by placing themselves alongside of each other […] The fishermen do not notice this […] and so they join the chorus and repeat the same old stupid tale that fish conceive by swallowing the semen.

Aristotle was right. While most fish don’t have sexual intercourse, some do. Clearly, Aristotle had either asked enough people and/or investigated the issue himself to find the truth.

Theophrastus and trees

Aristotle wasn’t the only ancient researcher who got information from members of the public. Another was the philosopher Theophrastus (372–287 BCE), whose main area of research was plants. Like Aristotle, Theophrastus weighed up and tested the credibility of the different reports provided to him.

In his Enquiry into Plants, he rejects the opinion of some of his informants, saying:

These informants were guilty of an important piece of ignorance. For they believed that the frankincense and the myrrh were produced by the same tree.

Instead, he preferred the report of some sailors. These sailors, who had made a voyage and examined the trees in person, reported that frankincense and myrrh come from different trees.

Theophrastus believed them – and once again he was right. Frankincense comes from Boswellia trees, whereas myrrh comes from Commiphora trees.

Strange tales

Collecting information from the public isn’t straightforward. People might fabricate information, or report strange and bizarre sights that are difficult to verify.

The Roman historian Claudius Aelian (2nd-3rd century CE) collected all kinds of (sometimes strange) stories about animals for his work On Animals.

In one passage Aelian describes a number of animals with rather odd features:

In the time of Atothis, son of Menis, there appeared a crane with two heads […] and in the reign of another king there appeared a bird with four heads […] Nicocreon of Cyprus possessed a deer with four horns […] I myself have seen a sacred ox with five feet which was an offering to Zeus in the great city of Alexandria.

Elsewhere, Aelian reports on strange creatures we are more familiar with. Take, for example, his story of a giant octopus:

I learn of an octopus at Dicaearchia in Italy which attained to a monstrous bulk and scorned and despised food from the sea and such pasturage as it provided. And so this creature actually came out on to the land and seized things there. Now it swam up through a subterranean sewer that discharged the refuse of the aforesaid city into the sea and emerged in a house on the shore where some Iberian merchants had their cargo, that is, pickled fish from that country in immense jars: it threw its tentacles round the earthenware vessels and with its grip broke them and feasted on the pickled fish.

Aelian says one of the merchants wanted to fight the octopus to prevent it stealing their food, but was too afraid as the creature “was too big for one man” to fight.

We don’t know whether Aelian’s stranger stories are true or not. Nonetheless, it’s clear at least some of these tales were collected from other people during his research.

By getting help from the public, ancient researchers were able to make a great deal of progress in studies of subjects such as animals and plants. They had to be careful, though. Much like today, discernment was necessary in the case of strange tales.

Konstantine Panegyres 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. Aristotle, Aelian and the giant octopus: the earliest ‘citizen science’ goes back more than 2,000 years – https://theconversation.com/aristotle-aelian-and-the-giant-octopus-the-earliest-citizen-science-goes-back-more-than-2-000-years-236709

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amelia Johns, Associate Professor, Digital and Social Media, School of Communication, University of Technology Sydney

For more than a decade, researchers and journalists have relied on a digital tool called CrowdTangle to track and fight the spread of viral falsehoods online.

But earlier this week, the owner of CrowdTangle, Meta, shut the tool down. The tech giant has replaced it with its new Content Library, which it says will serve the same purpose and be “more user friendly”.

As long-time users of CrowdTangle to track and analyse online misinformation campaigns, we are sceptical of this claim. We are also very concerned by the fact CrowdTangle’s closure comes at a time when misinformation on social media is rife – and is bound to worsen in the lead up to the November presidential election in the United States.

So, why did Meta decide to close CrowdTangle now? And how will this affect the fight against the spread of misinformation and disinformation online?

CrowdTangle: a tried and trusted tool

Founded in 2011, CrowdTangle quickly gained popularity among media outlets which used it to track and analyse trending topics and articles on social media platforms for commercial purposes. Facebook (as Meta was then called) purchased the company five years later.

There were several reasons why CrowdTangle was a powerful tool for researchers like us who study the spread of misinformation and disinformation online. Firstly, we could download large datasets to use for computational modelling and other forms of analysis. The data was also easily searchable using keywords.

We could also use CrowdTangle to automatically analyse trends in large collections of data from multiple sources.

These features helped us analyse the influence of far-right accounts on Facebook during the COVID pandemic. They also helped us analyse the effectiveness (or lack thereof) of Meta’s content moderation policies in curbing the spread of vaccine misinformation.

But CrowdTangle was not a vital tool only for researchers like us.

Journalists at the New York Times used it to expose the influence of far-right accounts in the US. Their peers at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation also used it to monitor QAnon’s growing influence during the pandemic, and to track disinformation fuelling the recent race riots in the United Kingdom.

Why is Meta closing CrowdTangle?

Given researchers and journalists used CrowdTangle to expose some of Meta’s failings to the world, it’s somewhat unsurprising the company would question why it was funding this largely free service. Keeping it operational, logic would dictate, would be bad for business.

But the reasons behind the closure of CrowdTangle are also more complicated.

One of the co-founders of the company, Brandon Silverman, told Wired the closure was likely part of Meta’s broader withdrawal from the news business.

This withdrawal started in 2016 when the Cambridge Analytica scandal revealed news was bad for Meta’s core business: selling ads.

While news might generate strong engagement on Meta’s platforms, it is the wrong kind of engagement for advertisers. X (formerly Twitter) also recently discovered this, when technology giant IBM pulled its advertising from the platform after its ads were placed next to posts by Nazis.

Meta’s policies aimed at reducing exposure to news content across its platforms make explicit its withdrawal from the news business.

In February, the company announced it would stop “proactively recommending political content from accounts you don’t follow” on Instagram. It also started de-ranking political content on Facebook.

These announcements followed Meta’s decision to pull out of Australia’s News Media Bargaining Code and stop paying for news content.

However, while this redirection away from news may be commercially motivated, it is also about the particular news and information that spreads on Meta’s products (for example, far-right influencers outperforming legacy news).

This brings Meta into the cross-hairs of international regulators and threatens its ability to operate in key markets.

An inferior new tool

Meta has replaced CrowdTangle with its Content Library, which it claims will “provide researchers access to more publicly-available content across Facebook and Instagram”. The new tool will allow access to comments and short-form video, which CrowdTangle did not.

But the new tool has major limitations.

Earlier this month the Coalition for Independent Technology Research published results of a survey with 400 independent researchers and 50 research organisations. They indicated Meta’s Content Library has reduced functionality, including an inability to export data and use external tools to analyse it. It also has reduced access to posts from public figures without a large number of followers.

Combined, these factors will greatly hinder research.

But the biggest issue with Meta’s new Content Library is that it won’t be freely available to journalists and newsrooms.

The exact reasons for this are unclear. What is clear, however, are the implications of this reduced access.

Mozilla, a not-for-profit organisation dedicated to making the internet free and open for all, said in an open letter to Meta:

Meta’s decision will effectively prohibit the outside world, including election integrity experts, from seeing what’s happening on Facebook and Instagram — during the biggest election year on record. This means almost all outside efforts to identify and prevent political disinformation, incitements to violence, and online harassment of women and minorities will be silenced.

There have been countless research reports, news articles, inquiries and lawsuits regarding misuse of Meta’s platforms.

Yet it seems the only lesson the company has learned is to be selective about which data it makes transparent – and to whom.

Amelia Johns receives funding from the Australia Research Council and the Defence Innovation Network. She has previously received funding from Meta’s content policy award.

Francesco Bailo receives funds from the Defence Innovation Network and has previously received a research grant from Facebook (now Meta).

Marian-Andrei Rizoiu receives funding from the Australian Department of Home Affairs, the Defence Science and Technology Group, the Defence Innovation Network and the Australian Academy of Science.

– ref. Meta just closed a vital online research tool. It’s bad news for the fight against misinformation – https://theconversation.com/meta-just-closed-a-vital-online-research-tool-its-bad-news-for-the-fight-against-misinformation-236785

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael J. I. Brown, Associate Professor in Astronomy, Monash University

A supermoon may sound exciting, but it’s a modest coincidence.

As the Moon orbits Earth, its distance from us varies from 357,000 to 407,000 kilometres. When the Moon and the Sun are in almost opposite directions from Earth, we get a full moon. A “supermoon” is a full moon where its position along its orbit is within 10% of its closest approach to Earth. That’s it.

This means a supermoon has an apparent diameter that’s 14% larger than the smallest possible full moon. That’s not a lot. You can’t really notice the difference by eye.

As an astronomer, I have a problem with supermoons. There are genuine wonders to see in the night sky, so don’t be disappointed by a dull, overhyped supermoon.

When is the best time to view the Moon?

Articles hyping supermoons are easy. ChatGPT can do it. Say it’s the first supermoon since whenever, add some superlatives, and throw in a telephoto lens photo of a full moon with a landmark. Perhaps the supermoon coincides with another otherwise normal full moon, so it can be a “blue supermoon” or a “worm supermoon” or whatever.

It’s still just a full moon.

If you do want to look at the Moon and it happens to be a supermoon, go for it. But there are better times to admire our only natural satellite, particularly with binoculars or a telescope.

The best time to look at the Moon is when its shadows, as seen from Earth, are longest. These long shadows help the craters and mountains stand out from the surrounding plains, so you can appreciate the dramatic landscape of our neighbouring world.

The shadows are longest when the Moon appears as a half moon in the night sky. During a full moon or a supermoon the shadows are at their shortest – not nearly as impressive.

Supermoons are a distraction

Have you seen the craters of the Moon, the rings of Saturn, the clouds of Jupiter or the Orion nebula with a telescope? They truly are awe-inspiring. Even the most dedicated astronomers return to view them time and time again.

In fact, astronomers prefer to avoid nights with supermoons and catch up on lost sleep. Full moons flood the night sky with light and make it harder to view more subtle and interesting sights.

Want to look at the grand expanse of the Milky Way with the unaided eye? Want to see a meteor shower, comet or aurora? Best done without a damn supermoon.

It can be fun to see something truly rare or unusual in the sky. But supermoons don’t qualify for that either. Using the definition I mentioned earlier, there are typically three or four supermoons each year. More restrictive definitions give us one or two supermoons per year. Not only is that not rare, it still just looks like a full moon.

There are rarer celestial events that really can inspire. Millions of people across the globe saw bright auroras in May 2024, including places where truly spectacular auroras are few and far between.

Comets can also be wonderful. Every decade or so, a comet swings into the inner Solar System and produces a bright tail, millions of kilometres long and visible from Earth. Back when I was a student, I saw Comet Hyakutake’s bright blue tail stretch across a huge expanse of sky. Sometimes comets fizzle, but when they’re great they are amazing.

Read more:
I heard there’s an aurora coming. How do I check?

Want something impressive? Try an eclipse

Auroras and comets can be fickle, but eclipses are predictable and put on a reliable show.

Take total solar eclipses, when the Moon covers the Sun and day turns briefly into night. Thousands travel across the globe to see them. I will be travelling to New South Wales for the 2028 eclipse.

Lunar eclipses, when the Moon falls within Earth’s shadow, can be a more accessible eclipse experience, which is visible from your own home every few years.

During the best lunar eclipses, the Moon turns a dark red as the only light that reaches it comes through Earth’s atmosphere.

As an astronomer, I encourage people to look at celestial sights. Go out and see the Moon when it can really impress – during an eclipse or viewed through a telescope. Or enjoy the planets, auroras, comets and meteor showers when there is no Moon at all. But please don’t waste time on supermoons.

Michael J. I. Brown has received research funding from the Australian Research Council and Monash University.

– ref. Supermoons are boring – here are 5 things in the sky worth your time – https://theconversation.com/supermoons-are-boring-here-are-5-things-in-the-sky-worth-your-time-236416

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ben Fulcher, Senior Lecturer, School of Physics, University of Sydney

According to the infamous myth, groups of lemmings sometimes run off cliffs to their collective doom. Imagine you are one of these rodents: on a sunny day you join your companions in a joyous climb up a mountain beneath clear skies, traipsing across grass and dirt and rock, glad to be among friends, until suddenly you plunge through the brisk air and all goes black.

The edge of the cliff is what scientists call a “critical point”: the spot where the behaviour of a system (such as a group of lemmings) suddenly goes from one type of state (happily running) to a very different type of state (plummeting), often with catastrophic results.

Lemmings don’t actually charge off cliffs, but many real-world systems do experience critical points and abrupt disasters, such as stock market crashes, power grid failures, and tipping points in climate systems and ecosystems.

Critical points aren’t always literal points in space or time. They can be values of some system parameter – such as investor confidence, environmental temperature, or power demand – that marks the transition to instability.

Can we tell when a system is close to a cliff, and perhaps act to stop it going off the edge? What can we measure about a share market or ecosystem that could help us predict how far it is from such a critical point?

We have developed a new method for doing exactly this in real-world systems. Our work is published this week in Physical Review X.

How do you know when you’re close to a cliff?

Previous work has shown that systems tend to “slow down” and become more variable near critical points. For a share market, for example, this would mean stock prices changing less rapidly and exhibiting a larger difference between weekly highs and lows.

But these indicators don’t work when systems are “noisy”, meaning we can’t measure what they are doing very accurately. Many real systems are very noisy.

Are there indicators that do work for real-world systems? To find out, we searched through more than 7,000 different methods in hope of finding one powerful enough to work well, even when there is lots of noise in our system.

We found a few needles in our haystack: a handful of methods that performed surprisingly well at this very difficult problem. Based on these methods, we formulated a simple new recipe for predicting critical points.

We gave it an appropriately awesome name: RAD. (This gnarly acronym has a very nerdy origin: an abbreviation of “Rescaled AutoDensity”.)

Do brains use critical points for good?

We verified our new method on incredibly intricate recordings of brain activity from mice. To be more specific, we looked at activity in areas of the mouse brain responsible for interpreting what the mouse sees.

When a neuron fires, neighbouring neurons might pick up its signal and pass it on, or they might let it die away. When a signal is amplified by neighbours it has more impact, but too much amplification and it can cross the critical point into runaway feedback – which may cause a seizure.

Our RAD method revealed that brain activity in some regions has stronger signs of being close to a critical point than others. Specifically, areas with the simplest functions (such as size and orientation of objects in an image) work further from a critical point than areas with more complex functions.

This suggests the brain may have evolved to use critical points to support its remarkable computational abilities.

It makes sense that being very far from a critical point (think of safe lemmings, far from the cliff face) would make neural activity very stable. Stability would support efficient, reliable processing of basic visual features.

But our results also suggest there’s an advantage to sitting right up close to the cliff face – on the precipice of a critical point. Brain regions in this state may have a longer “memory” to support more complex computations, like those required to understand the overall meaning of an image.

A better guide to cliffs

This idea of systems sitting near to, or far from, a critical point, turns up in many important applications, from finance to medicine. Our work introduces a better way of understanding such systems, and detecting when they might exhibit sudden (and often catastrophic) changes.

This could be used to unlock all sorts of future breakthroughs – from warning individuals with epilepsy of upcoming seizures, to helping predict an impending financial crash.

Ben Fulcher receives funding from the Australian Research Council and National Health and Medical Research Council.

Brendan Harris 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. Crashes, blackouts and climate tipping points: how can we tell when a system is close to the edge? – https://theconversation.com/crashes-blackouts-and-climate-tipping-points-how-can-we-tell-when-a-system-is-close-to-the-edge-236683

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sam Sellar, Professor of Education Policy, University of South Australia

This week, the national 2024 NAPLAN results were released.

This was met with headlines raising alarm about one in three students not meeting literacy and numeracy standards. While these headlines may be worrying to parents, they do not say anything about individual students.

Families have been receiving individual student results since the beginning of Term 3. Here are a few things to help your digest the results.

What is NAPLAN for?

The National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) is an annual test for students in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9. It was established in 2008 and the results have been used for a range of purposes, including comparing the performance of schools and making decisions about school funding.

Over time, NAPLAN has provided us with some very clear messages about inequalities in outcomes based on students’ social, economic and cultural backgrounds. Unfortunately this hasn’t changed this year.

Indeed, as education researcher Sally Larsen has noted, this year’s national results didn’t tell us very much that is different from last year.

How should NAPLAN be used?

While NAPLAN has provided population-level insights, traditionally, it has not been particularly useful for teachers and families because results were provided late in the school year, without much time to respond.

A number of changes were made last year, including moving the test from May to March, so teachers and parents can respond within the same school year.

Results are now be reported against four new proficiency standards: “exceeding”, “strong”, “developing” and “needs additional support”, rather than the ten numbered bands used previously.

These changes were designed to make it clearer for schools and parents to understand and use the results.

What does it mean for families and schools?

NAPLAN is just one test among many that schools use to assess student learning. Teachers regularly use other standardised assessments to measure progression in reading, maths and other areas.

Research has shown teachers’ assessments of student performance are similar to NAPLAN results, which suggests NAPLAN data doesn’t offer much of an advance on the information already provided in school report cards. Some researchers argue NAPLAN is not a good tool for comparing individual performance over time.

There is also evidence students do not try as hard as they might in NAPLAN testing.

We know NAPLAN only provides a snapshot of student performance on a given day in March each year. It is just one element in broader and more in-depth assessments teachers and schools provide throughout the year.

So, teachers can use the results to inform their decisions about which students need additional support and which students might benefit from additional challenges (but that may not come as much of a surprise).

Parents can use the individual results to talk to teachers about their child’s progress and what support they might need – knowing this is simply one test among many.

Sam Sellar has received funding from the Australian Research Council to study large-scale assessments such as NAPLAN.

– ref. How much should you read into your child’s NAPLAN report? – https://theconversation.com/how-much-should-you-read-into-your-childs-naplan-report-236884

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christopher Whitehead, Lecturer in Law, Auckland University of Technology

After a series of natural disasters – from the Canterbury earthquakes to Cyclone Gabrielle – real doubt hangs over the insurance options available to some New Zealand homeowners.

Increasingly, homes in certain areas are becoming uninsurable – or difficult to insure, at least. Insurers have decided the risk is too high to make covering it financially viable, leaving affected homeowners vulnerable.

The question of how insurers can continue to offer policies – all the while managing the growing risk from natural disasters – is becoming hard to ignore.

Insurers will have to explore alternative models and innovate if New Zealand is to adapt to future change.

Cautious insurers

There’s no general requirement in New Zealand that insurers cover anyone’s home, or that anyone’s home actually be insured.

Body-corporate groups are one exception. They must insure the units they manage. Mortgage lenders can also require borrowers to take out home insurance as part of their lending conditions.

When homeowners do get insurance, the risk of certain losses from natural disasters is automatically covered by the Natural Hazards Commission (previously known as the Earthquake Commission).

Even if a home insurance policy were to contain wording that, on the face of it, excluded this public natural-disaster cover, the law would treat the cover as included. At the same time, payouts are only managed by insurers, not financed by them.

The Canterbury earthquakes cost insurers NZ$21 billion and the Natural Hazards Commission $10 billion. And the risk of natural disasters more generally may be making insurers too cautious. They’re increasingly pulling out of areas they consider “high risk”.

That said, there are changes on the horizon. From mid-2025, insurers will have a general duty to “treat consumers fairly”. The Financial Markets Authority – the body responsible for enforcing financial-markets law – may potentially regard refusing home insurance to any consumer as a breach of the duty.

In other words, the Financial Markets Authority may end up forcing insurers to cover most of the country’s homes.

New insurance options

Future-proofing home insurance options will depend on the public and private sectors working together.

Many of the potential solutions are specific to how insurers take risk on. An insurer may decrease your premiums as an incentive for you to “disaster-proof” your home. If you don’t, the insurer may increase your premiums and limit its payouts to you, with individualised excesses or caps.

The insurer may even offer “parametric” insurance, which pays out less than traditional insurance, but faster.

For example, imagine a home insurance policy that covers any earthquake having its epicentre within 500 kilometres of your home, and measuring magnitude six or higher.

A traditional policy would pay out based on how much loss was caused (according to a loss adjuster). A parametric policy would simply pay out a small, pre‑agreed sum, based on the fact the earthquake occurred at all.

A parametric policy wouldn’t require you to prove any actual “loss” – beyond the inconvenience of having your home in the disaster zone.

While parametric insurance is relatively new worldwide, it’s an efficient solution for managing the risk of natural-disaster damage.

Reinsurance, co-insurance and ‘cat bonds’

An insurer may also transfer risk to one or more other insurance businesses – such as a “reinsurer”. If the insurer has to make a payout to you for a claim, the reinsurer then has to make a payout to the insurer for a portion of it.

The insurer may even “co‑insure” the risk. Co‑insurance is where two or more insurers cover different portions of the same risk. So, if you have your home co‑insured, you will have two or more insurers, each responsible for a portion of any claim.

Then there is the potential to transfer insured risk to entities that aren’t even insurance businesses. In some countries (such as Bermuda, the Cayman Islands and Ireland), the insurer can turn the risk into a “catastrophe bond” (also known as a “cat bond”).

Under a cat bond, the insurer arranges for expert investors to lend it capital in return for interest on the loans. The insurer eventually repays the capital, unless there is a specific natural disaster. In that case, the insurer keeps the capital, enabling it to pay out to the affected customers.

The insurer may even use the cat bond to create a “virtuous cycle”. More specifically, the insurer may reinvest the capital in “a project that reduces or prevents loss from the insured climate-related risk” (such as flooding).

Disaster-proofing the insurance industry

Key to improving the situation will be the public and private sectors working together to make climate-related disasters less frequent – and less serious when they occur.

The United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has advised on how the sectors could minimise climate-related risk. But they also have similar progress to make to minimise the risk of natural-disaster damage more generally, particularly from earthquakes.

It is important to build homes that are better disaster-proofed. And it is also important to address a major problem that many people don’t necessarily view as related to insurance – the cost of housing.

If New Zealanders wishing to own their homes didn’t have to invest as much of their money in housing as they do, the risk of damage to housing might be of less concern. Natural disaster wouldn’t have to mean financial disaster as much as it does today.

In the meantime, innovative insurance options will become more and more necessary.

Christopher Whitehead spoke at the New Zealand Insurance Law Association Conference in 2022. From 2005 to 2015 he practised as legal counsel in the insurance industry, first to a French-headquartered banking group and then to a United States-headquartered insurance group.

– ref. Some New Zealand homes are becoming uninsurable because of natural disasters – but all may not be lost – https://theconversation.com/some-new-zealand-homes-are-becoming-uninsurable-because-of-natural-disasters-but-all-may-not-be-lost-235771

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jenny Doust, Clinical Professorial Research Fellow, Australian Women and Girls’ Health Research Centre, The University of Queensland

Ovarian cancers are often found when they are already advanced and hard to treat.

Researchers have long believed this was because women first experienced symptoms when ovarian cancer was already well-established. Symptoms can also be hard to identify as they’re vague and similar to other conditions.

But a new study shows promising signs ovarian cancer can be detected in its early stages. The study targeted women with four specific symptoms – bloating, abdominal pain, needing to pee frequently, and feeling full quickly – and put them on a fast track to see a specialist.

As a result, even the most aggressive forms of ovarian cancer could be detected in their early stages.

So what did the study find? And what could it mean for detecting – and treating – ovarian cancer more quickly?

Why is ovarian cancer hard to detect early?

Ovarian cancer cannot be detected via cervical cancer screening (which used to be called a pap smear) and pelvic exams aren’t useful as a screening test.

Current Australian guidelines recommend women get tested for ovarian cancer if they have symptoms for more than a month. But many of the symptoms – such as tiredness, constipation and changes in menstruation – are vague and overlap with other common illnesses.

This makes early detection a challenge. But it is crucial – a woman’s chances of surviving ovarian cancer are associated with how advanced the cancer is when she is diagnosed.

If the cancer is still confined to the original site with no spread, the five-year survival rate is 92%. But over half of women diagnosed with ovarian cancer first present when the cancer has already metastatised, meaning it has spread to other parts of the body.

If the cancer has spread to nearby lymph nodes, the survival rate is reduced to 72%. If the cancer has already metastasised and spread to distant sites at the time of diagnosis, the rate is only 31%.

There are mixed findings on whether detecting ovarian cancer earlier leads to better survival rates. For example, a trial in the UK that screened more than 200,000 women failed to reduce deaths.

That study screened the general public, rather than relying on self-reported symptoms. The new study suggests asking women to look for specific symptoms can lead to earlier diagnosis, meaning treatment can start more quickly.

What did the new study look at?

Between June 2015 and July 2022, the researchers recruited 2,596 women aged between 16 and 90 from 24 hospitals across the UK.

They were asked to monitor for these four symptoms:

• persistent abdominal distension (women often refer to this as bloating)
• feeling full shortly after starting to eat and/or loss of appetite
• pelvic or abdominal pain (which can feel like indigestion)
• needing to urinate urgently or more often.

Women who reported at least one of four symptoms persistently or frequently were put on a fast-track pathway. That means they were sent to see a gynaecologist within two weeks. The fast track pathway has been used in the UK since 2011, but is not specifically part of Australia’s guidelines.

Some 1,741 participants were put on this fast track. First, they did a blood test that measured the cancer antigen 125 (CA125). If a woman’s CA125 level was abnormal, she was sent to do a internal vaginal ultrasound.

What did they find?

The study indicates this process is better at detecting ovarian cancer than general screening of people who don’t have symptoms. Some 12% of women on the fast-track pathway were diagnosed with some kind of ovarian cancer.

A total of 6.8% of fast-tracked patients were diagnosed with high-grade serous ovarian cancer. It is the most aggressive form of cancer and responsible for 90% of ovarian cancer deaths.

Out of those women with the most aggressive form, one in four were diagnosed when the cancer was still in its early stages. That is important because it allowed treatment of the most lethal cancer before it had spread significantly through the body.

There were some promising signs in treating those with this aggressive form. The majority (95%) had surgery and three quarters (77%) had chemotherapy. Complete cytoreduction – meaning all of the cancer appears to have been removed – was achieved in six women out of ten (61%).

It’s a promising sign that there may be ways to “catch” and target ovarian cancer before it is well-established in the body.

What does this mean for detection?

The study’s findings suggest this method of early testing and referral for the symptoms leads to earlier detection of ovarian cancer. This may also improve outcomes, although the study did not track survival rates.

It also points to the importance of public awareness about symptoms.

Clinicians should be able to recognise all of the ways ovarian cancer can present, including vague symptoms like general fatigue.

But empowering members of the general public to recognise a narrower set of four symptoms can help trigger testing, detection and treatment of ovarian cancer earlier than we thought.

This could also save GPs advising every woman who has general tiredness or constipation to undergo an ovarian cancer test, making testing and treatment more targeted and efficient.

Many women remain unaware of the symptoms of ovarian cancer. This study shows recognising them may help early detection and treatment.

Jenny Doust 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. Ovarian cancer is hard to detect. Focusing on these 4 symptoms can help with diagnosis – https://theconversation.com/ovarian-cancer-is-hard-to-detect-focusing-on-these-4-symptoms-can-help-with-diagnosis-236775