Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tim Harcourt, J.W. Nevile Fellow in Economics and host of The Airport Economist, UNSW

Australia won’t be the same post-coronavirus, but parts of the picture are falling into place.

One concerns our approach to trade. It’ll be a reset, not a rejection.

We will continue to forge strong ties in the Asian Century with members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations including Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam as well as Japan, South Korea, China, India and the emerging economies of the region and beyond.

But our approach to China will be different.

China needs food and energy and infrastructure as it moves from being a nation of shippers to a nation of shoppers and its young people want a quality education.

Ever since Gough Whitlam’s groundbreaking trip to Communist China in 1971 (one year before US President Nixon’s historic trip) and his decision to recognise China on his election in 1972, Australia has been a strong partner of China and a reliable supplier.

Foreign Minister Marise Payne’s call for an international inquiry into how the COVID-19 took hold has been backed by much of the rest of the world, and ultimately by China and is unlikely to get in the way of the relationship.

We will re-think foreign direct investment. It will still be welcome, but from now on any application with geo-political security concerns or state involvement will be considered carefully.

We will need manufacturing capacity onshore

We will also need to rethink global supply chains. No nation wants to be caught short of medical technology and equipment in a pandemic. Some production will probably be brought onshore, and more diversified across the region.

We have seen companies such as the mining equipment supplier Gekkos Systems and food packaging manufacturer Detmold switch to making ventilators and masks, but their nimbleness has also served to put the spotlight on what we can’t do, especially in medicine.

Read more: ICU ventilators: what they are, how they work and why it’s hard to make more

There will be more room for innovative companies along the lines of Resmed, CSL and Cochlear.

The “tyranny of social distance” means we will need to alter our approach to service industries, at least in the short term. In the case of tourism, provided domestic restrictions are relaxed soon, the fall in international visitors could be partly compensated by an increase in domestic visitors.

Many Australians haven’t yet seen the Olgas, Uluru and Kakadu. Australia doesn’t need to rely on repeat visitors like Broadway does in New York, it can do very well out of once in a lifetime vists. (I was amazed to learn at a recent Tourism Australia conference that Kylie Minogue hadn’t been to Uluru until she fronted an advertising campaign last year.)

Education will also need to change as the labour market changes and different skills are required. Many of the new courses will be online, and the lines between vocational, technical and professional education will become increasingly blurred.

We’ll trust government more

For many in the workforce, the coronavirus has accelerated working from home as an option (with huge numbers of workers now equipped with the right technology).

This will continue to reduce congestion and provide more family-friendly working environments.

And it has changed our attitude to our government. During the crisis we looked to our own government rather than the United Nations, the United States, the European Union or the World Health Organisation. We put the usual sniping behind us.

Read more: COVID crisis has produced many negatives but some positives too, including confidence in governments: ANU study

If it wants to, our government will be able put the green back in the green and gold. The pause in activity due to COVID-19 and the bushfires will allow rebuilding along green lines, trialling technologies that can be exported longer term.

We’ve had some success with stand-alone power grids, pre-fab rebuilds in regional areas and electric and hydrogen transport infrastructure.

For some time, we won’t be able to rely on the traditional holy trinity of increased immigration, ever-increasing house prices and rising commodity prices to boost the economy (allowing investors to simply put their money in blue chips and red bricks, big stocks and property).

Read more: Further to fall, harder to rise: Australia must outperform to come out even from COVID-19

But we will have the opportunity in invest in our existing workforce and take advantage of the changes in work patterns and lifestyles the crisis has given us.

As we did in the global financial crisis, so far we have done relatively well on both the public health and economic fronts. We can set ourselves up to respond even better to the other crises that will come this way this century, be they trade wars, geopolitics, an environment catastrophe or even (god forbid) another pandemic.

– ref. The pieces of Australia post-coronavirus are falling into place – https://theconversation.com/the-pieces-of-australia-post-coronavirus-are-falling-into-place-138828

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christopher Wallace-Crabbe, Emeritus Professor in the Australian Centre, University of Melbourne

Why do we have the arts? Why do they seem to matter so much? It is all very well muttering something vague about eternal truths and spiritual values. Or even gesturing toward Bach and Leonardo da Vinci, along with our own Patrick White.

But what can the poets make of, and for, our busy, present lives? What do they have to say during grave crises?

Well, they can speak eloquently to their readers for life, in writing from the very base of their own experiences. Every generation has laid claim, afresh, to its vital modernity. In the 17th century, Andrew Marvell did so with witty lyrical elegance in his verse To a Coy Mistress. Three centuries later, the French poet René Char thought of us as weaving tapestries against the threat of extinction. Accordingly, he wrote:

The poet is not angry at the hideous extinction of death, but confident of his own particular touch, he transforms everything into long wools.

In short, the poet will, at best, weave lasting, memorable, salvific tapestries out of words. The poems in question will come out live, if the poet is lucky, and possibly as disparate as the sleepy, furred animals caged in Melbourne Zoo.

Read more: A beginner’s guide to reading and enjoying poetry

What is truly touching or intimate need not be tapped by elegies, for all that they can fill a mortal need. Yet the great modern poet W. H. Auden wrote in memory of poet, writer and broadcaster John Betjeman:

There is one, only one object in his world which is at once sacred and hated, but it is far too formidable to be satirizable: namely Death.

As William Wordsworth and Judith Wright both well knew, in their separate generations – and quite polar cultures – the best poetry grasps moments of our ordinary lives, and renders them memorable.

Poetry can give us back our dailiness in musical technicolour: in a thousand yarns or snapshots. Poems sing to us that life really matters, now. That can emerge as songs or satires, laments, landscapes or even somebody’s portrait done in imaginative words.

Yes, verse at its finest is living truth “done” in verbal art. The great Russian playwright Anton Chekhov once insisted “nothing ever happens later”, and the point of poetry in our own time – as always, at its best – is surely to shine the light of language on what is happening now. The devil is in the detail, yes. But so is the redemptive beauty, along with “the prophetess Deborah under her palm-tree” in the words of the Australian poet, Peter Steele.

Poetry sees the palm tree, and the prophetess herself, vividly, even in the middle of a widespread epidemic.

Read more: Ode to the poem: why memorising poetry still matters for human connection

Modern poetry is an art made out of living language. In these times, at least, it tends to be concise, barely spilling over the end of the page: too tidy for that, unlike the vast memorised narratives of the Israelites, the Greeks or even the Icelanders. But what it shares with the ancient, oral cultures is its connection with wisdom, crystallising nodes of value, fables of the tribe, moments or decades that made us all.

In the brief age of a national pandemic, poetry’s role and its duties may come to seem all the more important: all the more civil and politically sane. The poem – even in the case when it is quite a short lyric, even if comic – carries the message of moral responsibility in its saddle bag. Perhaps all poets do, even when they are also charming the pants off their willing readers.

Christopher Wallace-Crabbe is judge of the ACU Prize for Poetry. Entries close July 6.

– ref. A thousand yarns and snapshots – why poetry matters during a pandemic – https://theconversation.com/a-thousand-yarns-and-snapshots-why-poetry-matters-during-a-pandemic-138723

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tahu Kukutai, Professor of Demography, University of Waikato

As schools and businesses reopen and attention shifts to the longer-term repercussions of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is critical that Māori be involved in decision making more equitably than has so far happened.

The failure to include Māori in strategy discussions throughout the pandemic has already been roundly criticised, most recently over tangihanga (funeral) restrictions and the Public Health Response bill, which sets up a new legal framework for responding to COVID-19.

Māori public health specialists have repeatedly challenged a one-size-fits-all approach to pandemic recovery. There is also growing unease about who has the authority to make decisions in the best interests of Māori collectives. The sidelining of Māori as Te Tiriti (Treaty of Waitangi) partners cannot continue through our recovery and rebuild.

First do no harm

As restrictions are relaxed under level 2, it is Māori and Pacific communities that carry a higher risk – both to their health and livelihoods.

According to modelling by research centre Te Pūnaha Matatini, infection and death rates would be highest for Māori and Pasifika of all ages if community transmission were to rebound.

Emerging international evidence also suggests the social and economic impacts of the pandemic will be felt for longer and more intensely for people living in precarious conditions – more likely to be racial minorities.

Read more: The answer to Indigenous vulnerability to coronavirus: a more equitable public health agenda

In Aotearoa we know previous economic recessions hit Māori and Pacific communities hardest, with consequences across generations. Even with the government’s NZ$50 billion COVID-19 budget plan, one Treasury forecast says unemployment will peak nationally at 9.6% in June this year.

Māori unemployment was nearly this high even before the pandemic (8.2% in the March quarter) and economists predict levels will surge over the next two years.

Unsurprisingly, last week’s budget was firmly focused on job creation. Among the suite of investments, NZ$900 million was earmarked for specific Māori initiatives, including $NZ136 million for the Whānau Ora programme and a NZ$200 million Māori employment package that includes boosting youth employment.

These will help address short-term employment needs in the most affected regions. But the opportunity to take a long-term transformational view that enables Māori to thrive, not merely survive, was lost.

Local decision making is vital

While there is immense pressure to fast-track economic recovery, the risk is that responses designed by and for largely Pākehā (non-Māori) constituencies will maintain, or deepen, pre-existing inequities.

Decisions must be based on evidence – but evidence takes many forms. New Zealand should draw on its dual knowledge systems: the richness of mātauranga Māori – Māori knowledge and ways of knowing – and “western” science. Now more than ever we need diverse sources of expertise, experience and leadership.

Over the past month, iwi (tribal groups) and Māori communities have demonstrated a remarkable capacity to anticipate and respond to the needs of their people – from setting up checkpoints to protect vulnerable and remote communities, to providing online support for grieving whānau (families) and delivering care packages to elders.

Indigenous communities in Aotearoa and elsewhere demonstrate powerful distributed leadership and a deep capacity to care for each other, based on the strength and knowledge of kin and kin-like connections.

Read more: Five key values of strong Māori leadership

These adaptive capacities have always existed within Te Ao Māori (Māori worldview). The pandemic placed them in the full view of mainstream New Zealand. Māori communities have strong social networks and infrastructures (especially marae – tribal meeting places) and long experience of dealing with the impacts of ongoing colonialism, natural disasters, pandemics, and mass death.

With worldviews that are inherently long-term and holistic, Māori are well positioned to lead circular economies. Māori models of regenerative agriculture and ecotourism can help shape a globally distinctive Indigenous sector that puts inter-generational and environmental well-being first.

Where local solutions have been properly resourced, such as in the development of traditional bassinets to help prevent sudden infant deaths, outcomes have been positive for everyone.

We can learn from such examples and build this evidence systematically into our response with co-determined strategies and solutions.

Reimagining our futures beyond coronavirus

As te Tiriti or a treaty partner, the government has an important role to play. But everyone will lose out if Māori and Pacific community agency and local solutions are not used.

By re-imagining our futures we can address unjust and unsustainable inequities. An unrelenting and system-wide focus on equity is clearly needed. We also need to amplify and support what is strong including a respectful treatment of te taiao (environment) and mana motuhake (self-governance, autonomy) in diverse communities and households.

Read more: Strong sense of cultural identity drives boom in Māori business

Our youthful Māori and Pacific populations are a demographic gift. It must not be squandered in the post-COVID-19 reset. Ongoing investment in their potential will not only benefit wider and future whānau, it will also future-proof regional economies.

If the pandemic has taught New Zealanders anything it is that our well-being as individuals is intimately connected to the well-being of those around us and our environments.

– ref. Recession hits Māori and Pasifika harder. They must be part of planning New Zealand’s COVID-19 recovery – https://theconversation.com/recession-hits-maori-and-pasifika-harder-they-must-be-part-of-planning-new-zealands-covid-19-recovery-137763

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Keiran Hardy, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Griffith Criminology Institute, Griffith University

Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton has introduced a new bill that will amend the controversial questioning and detention powers held by the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO).

While some changes are welcome, others are a cause for concern. One major change is that the legislation will allow ASIO officers to coercively question children as young as 14.

For this bill to be passed, Home Affairs must offer a stronger justification as to why the expanded powers are needed in the current security climate.

Read more: Australia has enacted 82 anti-terror laws since 2001. But tough laws alone can’t eliminate terrorism

Calls for new counter-terrorism powers have become commonplace in Australia, to the point where we now have more than 80 laws directed at the threat of terrorism.

Any call for additional powers should be met with careful scrutiny, particularly when the rights of children are at stake.

Repealing controversial detention powers

One of the biggest changes in the bill is that it would repeal ASIO’s power to detain people for questioning. Currently, ASIO has the power to seek a questioning and detention warrant (QDW) that allows people to be detained for up to one week. Detention can be approved if a person is likely to fail to appear for questioning, alert someone involved in terrorism, or tamper with evidence.

During that period, a person can be questioned in eight-hour blocks up to a maximum of 24 hours. This is purely an intelligence-gathering exercise, and is not related to any investigation for a criminal offence. The questioning can be approved if it would

substantially assist the collection of intelligence that is important in relation to a terrorism offence

The questioning is coercive, in that a person faces five years in prison for failing to answer any of ASIO’s questions. The powers are also highly secretive: it’s five years in prison for anyone who reveals anything about a warrant.

These powers are some of Australia’s most controversial anti-terror laws, as no democratic country has granted its domestic intelligence agency the same power to detain people for questioning.

Reviews by the Independent National Security Legislation Monitor, the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security and the COAG review of counter-terrorism legislation have all recommended this power be repealed. Such a move would be welcome.

Expanded powers to question minors

At the same time, the bill will expand ASIO’s power to seek questioning warrants (QWs). These trigger all the same questioning processes and criminal offences as QDWs, they just don’t allow ASIO to detain the person outside the questioning period.

If the bill passes, QWs will be split into “adult questioning warrants” and “minor questioning warrants”. Minor questioning warrants will be available for children as young as 14 who are “likely to engage in” politically motivated violence.

This significantly widens the current thresholds. QWs are currently available for 16-year-olds only when the attorney-general is satisfied the person “will commit, is committing or has committed a terrorism offence”.

Some additional safeguards will protect minors under the new measures. Before issuing a questioning warrant, for instance, the attorney-general will need to consider the “best interests” of the child.

This is consistent with international law requirements and Australia’s expanded control order regime, which can include electronic tagging and curfews.

Read more: Control orders for kids won’t make us any safer

Under the proposed laws, a young person can only be questioned in blocks of two hours or less, and a lawyer must be present during all questioning.

However, restrictions currently placed on lawyers will be retained. Lawyers, whether acting for young people or adults, are not allowed to intervene in questioning, except to clarify an ambiguous question. They can even be kicked out of the room, and a new lawyer appointed, if they “unduly” disrupt the questioning.

These restrictions will significantly undermine the ability of lawyers to protect children from any forceful or inappropriate questioning by ASIO officers.

Are the changes even needed?

Dutton has justified the proposed changes by claiming Australia faces a significant threat of terrorism from young people. While we cannot know the intelligence on which this assessment is based, the urgent need for these changes is doubtful.

The statistics show that questioning warrants are used very rarely. The last QW was issued in 2010, and the last one before that in 2006.

Only 16 QWs have ever been issued since their introduction in 2003, and none since the threat from Islamic State emerged.

Read more: Australia’s quest for national security is undermining the courts and could lead to secretive trials

Given this record, it is difficult to see how QWs for 14-year-olds are suddenly needed to prevent acts of terrorism.

Indeed, in a recent PJCIS inquiry, ASIO explained their lack of use by saying the powers were difficult to approve on a short timeframe. This made them not very useful for the kinds of low-tech attacks seen in recent years, such as stabbings and shootings, which require little advance planning.

If the new powers are passed in the bill, they should at least be sunsetted to expire after three years, rather than the proposed ten. Without this amendment, more extraordinary counter-terrorism powers will be on Australia’s statute books for the foreseeable future.

– ref. Australia doesn’t need more anti-terror laws that aren’t necessary – or even used – https://theconversation.com/australia-doesnt-need-more-anti-terror-laws-that-arent-necessary-or-even-used-138827

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Glenn Banks, Professor of Geography and Head of School, School of People, Environment and Planning, Massey University

Climate Explained is a collaboration between The Conversation, Stuff and the New Zealand Science Media Centre to answer your questions about climate change.

If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, please send it to climate.change@stuff.co.nz

Almost every threat to modern humanity can be traced simply to our out-of-control population growth (think about arable land going to housing; continued growth in demand for petroleum fuels). Is anything being done to contain population growth on a national and international scale?

The question of population is more complex that it may seem – in the context of climate change as well as other issues such as biodiversity loss and international development.

As a starting point, let’s look at the statement “out-of-control population growth”. In fact, population growth is more “in control” than it has been for the past 50 years.

Read more: Climate explained: how growth in population and consumption drives planetary change

Population isn’t growing everywhere

The global rate of population growth has been declining from just over 2% per year in 1970 to less than 1.1% in 2020 (and this estimate was made before COVID-19 erupted globally).

To put this in perspective, if the 2% growth rate had continued, the world’s population would have doubled in 35 years. At a 1.1% growth rate, it would now be set to double in 63 years – but the growth rate is still declining, so the doubling time will be lengthened again.

Population growth also varies significantly between countries. Among the 20 most populous countries in the world, three countries have growth rates of more than 2.5% – Ethiopia, Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo – while Japan’s population is in decline (with a negative growth rate, -0.3%) and China, Russia, Germany and Thailand all have very low growth rates.

These growth rates vary in part because the population structures are very different across countries. Japan has an aged population, with 28% over 65 years and just 12% under 15 years. Nigeria has only 3% of people in the over-65 bracket and 44% under 15.

For comparison, 20% of New Zealanders are younger than 15 and 16% are older than 65. For Australia, the respective figures are 18% and 17%.

Migration also makes a significant contribution in some countries, propping up the working-age population and shaping the demographic structure. History and levels of economic development play an important role too: higher-income countries almost consistently have smaller families and lower growth rates.

Rise in consumption

It’s certainly valid to link population growth (even a more limited “in control” population growth) with climate change and loss of land. Everything else being equal, more people means more space taken up, more resources consumed and more carbon emitted.

But while population growth has slowed since the 1970s, resource consumption hasn’t. For example, there is no equivalent decline in fossil fuel use since the 1970s.

This is an area where not everyone is equal. If all people were to use the same amount of resources (fossil fuels, timber, minerals, arable land etc), then of course total resource use and carbon would rise. But resource use varies dramatically globally.

If we look at oil consumption per person in 2019, the average American used almost twice as much as someone in Japan, the second oil-thirstiest populous nation, and almost 350 times as much as a person living in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

It is an easy out for us in the industrialised world to say “out-of-control population growth” is killing the planet, when instead it is equally valid – but more confronting – to say our out-of-control consumption is killing the planet.

Read more: Can your actions really save the planet? ‘Planetary accounting’ has the answer

Population growth slows when women are educated

To come to the final part of the question: is anything being done to contain population growth, on a national or international scale?

Even if we set aside the argument above that population is not the only issue, or even the most significant one, in terms of threats to humanity, what factors might influence population growth in parts of the world where it is high?

Things are being done, but they may not be what most people expect. It has long been shown that as incomes rise and health care improves, more children survive and people tend to have smaller families.

This effect is not instantaneous. There is a lag where population growth rates might rise first before they begin to drop. This demographic transition is a relatively consistent pattern globally.

But, at the country level, the single most significant influence on reducing fertility rates, family size and overall population growth is access to education for girls and women.

One study in 2016, drawing on World Bank population data across a wide range of countries, found:

… the main driver of overall fertility reduction is clearly the change in proportions of women at each education level.

In relation to climate change action, this study specifically notes:

It is education, or more specifically girls’ education, that is far more likely to result in lower carbon emissions than a shift to renewables, improved agricultural practices, urban public transport, or any other strategy now being contemplated.

Recent research looked at how the global population might change if we implemented the aspirations of the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals. It found the change would be significant and could even mean the global population stabilises by mid-century.

– ref. Climate explained: why we need to focus on increased consumption as much as population growth – https://theconversation.com/climate-explained-why-we-need-to-focus-on-increased-consumption-as-much-as-population-growth-138602

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Simon Lacey, Senior Lecturer in International Trade, University of Adelaide

Australia has acted with dismay to China’s decision to impose punitive mostly “anti-dumping” tariffs of 80.5% on imports of Australian barley.

The culmination of an 18-month investigation, China’s move threatens to wipe out Australian barley exports to China, worth A$600 million in 2019, unless China withdraws the measure either unilaterally or following a successful challenge at the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

However poorly justified, there are precedents for what China has done, many of them from Australia.

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

Australia was among the first wave of countries to adopt anti-dumping legislation alongside Canada, New Zealand, the United States and Britain in the early years of the 20th Century.

It remains a prolific user of the system compared to other countries, with an outsized number of measures imposed against imports from one country, China, and imports of one product, steel.

What are anti-dumping measures?

One way to think about anti-dumping measures is the international equivalent of domestic measures intended to combat predatory pricing.

Guidance from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission says that while it is usually okay to sell goods at a below-cost price, “it may be illegal if it is done for the purpose of eliminating or substantially damaging a competitor”.

But in the case of international anti-dumping measures, there is no need to prove purpose.

It suffices that an investigation finds the imported goods were sold below their corresponding price in the home market and that this caused or threatened to cause harm to a domestic industry producing the same sort of goods (known as “like products”).

Chinese steel, glass, cables and A4 copy paper

Technically, Australia imposes two types of measures: “anti-dumping measures”, which are additional duties on so-called dumped imports which are held to have injured Australian industry, and “countervailing measures” which are additional duties on subsidised imports that have injured Australian industry.

They are currently in place or proposed against Chinese wind towers, glass, electric cables, chemicals, herbicides, A4 copy paper and aluminium products, as well as steel.

In theory, WTO rules only allows anti-dumping measures for limited periods (China’s measures on barley have been imposed for five years) but in practice, once in place these measures can be difficult to remove.

They shield us from cut-throat competition

In the broader context of Australia’s relationship with China, they play an important role, shielding Australian import-competing industries from the full and potentially crushing impact of free trade with China.

One aspect of their use that has been particularly galling to Chinese officials is Australia’s failure to follow through on a commitment it made during the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement negotiations to treat China as a market economy for the purpose of anti-dumping investigations.

The concession was seen as highly significant by China and would have made it harder for Australia to conclude that some goods were not being sold at fair prices.

Read more: Barley is not a random choice – here’s the real reason China is taking on Australia over dumping

Australia’s continued use of anti-dumping measures has come under repeated criticism from the Productivity Commission, almost entirely on the basis of economic efficiency arguments.

However, these criticisms ignore a number of important concerns, including the need to keep these measures so they can be used to hit back against other countries that use them. It would make little sense to remove them until other big users agreed to do the same.

Read more: It’s time to drop Australia’s protectionist anti-dumping rules

Another important consideration, which has received greater attention during the current coronavirus crisis, is the need for – systemic resilience. If Australia becomes totally reliant on other countries for (say) steel, it’ll have less ability to get it when it is needed.

Before asking ourselves whether we are prepared to liberalise or do away with our current anti-dumping regime, we need to be able to answer the very important question of whether we are equally prepared to do away with our domestic steel, aluminium, paper and other industries.

I suspect that the answer to this question is no.

There are of course other ways to reinforce these industries or shield them from import competition, but it is more than likely that none would be as effective as the current system of anti-dumping duties. We have kept them because we still have some use for them.

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

– ref. China used anti-dumping rules against us because what goes around comes around – https://theconversation.com/china-used-anti-dumping-rules-against-us-because-what-goes-around-comes-around-138541

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ross Garnaut, Professorial Research Fellow in Economics, University of Melbourne

“Pestilence is so common,” writes Albert Camus in The Plague:

There have been as many plagues in the world as there have been wars, yet plagues and wars always find people equally unprepared. When war breaks out, people say: ‘It won’t last. It’s too stupid.’ And war is certainly too stupid, but that doesn’t prevent it from lasting.

Read more: Guide to the Classics: Albert Camus’ The Plague

So, too, with recessions. Too stupid, and so common. Yet they always take people by surprise; and they last.

The damage from the global financial crisis of 2008 lingers in the form of lower economic growth and stagnating wages.

That’s true even in Australia, one of just two developed countries (Korea being the other) that avoided a GFC-driven recession (two successive quarters of declining output).

As I argued in my book title Dog Days: Australia after the boom (Black Inc Books, 2013), Australia has long been primed for a recession. Now it is going to get one. Having gained perhaps more than any other developed nation from open borders and trade, it now has more to lose.

Why recessions happen

Big recessions happen when a shock reveals a weakness in the structure of the economy. There have been manifold points of weakness in the global economy in recent years:

• in the US, the Trump administration’s expansion of fiscal deficits by cutting taxes at a time of full employment with debt and deficits already at record peacetime highs

• the retreats from China’s new model of economic growth from 2017

• the breakdown in global governance on trade, climate change and security, sharpened by the US-China trade conflict

• the unusually high levels of debt in most economies

• the sustained low investment, productivity and wages growth throughout the developed world.

Australia has shared many of the developed countries’ points of vulnerability.

Recession triggers

The immediate cause of recession can be any of many things.

It could be the piercing of unwarranted confidence in the sustainability of an exchange rate fixed in Thailand. This is what led to the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997.

Or it could be an excess of financial deregulation promoting lending for houses far in excess of their value. This what led to the US subprime loans crisis a decade late, with the Global Financial Crisis the result.

For any single country, the trigger can be other countries’ recession and the associated reduced demand for imports, or the associated financial stress.

This time it’s a new virus, emerging from the Chinese city of Wuhan in December 2019.

Had the virus outbreak been contained in China, or its immediate neighbours, the effect would still have been enough impose great damage on the Australian economy. The Australian government was determined to do all it could to avoid a recession.

Read more: The big stimulus spending has just begun. Here’s how to get it right, quickly

Avoiding recession is an important objective, because the costs are large and hard to unwind. But developments mean there’s no chance of that now.

We can work, however, to ensure the recession is as shallow and short as possible, and that Australians have confidence there is a path to better days ahead.

The importance of knowledge

We don’t know yet how deep the Great Crash of 2020 will dive. That depends a great deal on how governments in many countries respond. Those responses, in turn, depend on the knowledge of leaders, and of citizens, about how the economy works.

Knowledge turns out to be an important part of this story.

First, medical scientific knowledge.

Some governments, including Australia’s, have had access to good medical science and have taken it seriously. This has helped to contain the damage.

Some governments have paid little and inconsistent attention to scientific knowledge. The people of the Brazil, Britain and the United States endured pain and expense for their government’s ignorance or stupidity.

The virus keeps on doing what a coronavirus does, whatever humans think about it. Just as carbon dioxide keeps on doing what it does, whether or not governments accept scientific knowledge about its effect on climate.

Second, economic policy knowledge.

Since the Great Depression of the 1930s, we’ve learnt a great deal about how to reduce the depth and length of recessions. We’ve also learned much about the sources of broadly based modern economic growth.

More to gain, more to lose

Australia will have to perform better than most other countries to avoid economic outcomes being worse.

Our economy’s relatively small size and dependence on exporting primary resources means we have more to gain than most other countries from open borders and international trade. We also have more to lose from disruptions.

No other developed economy of comparable size has benefited as much as Australia from the easy international movement of people – for business, pleasure, education, and to build new lives as migrants.

Read more: The Reserve Bank thinks the recovery will look V-shaped. There are reasons to doubt it

Unlike most other developed countries, Australia is also located in a region of developing countries. This means it will be damaged more by the pain the pandemic is likely to disproportionately inflict on the developing world.

The challenge facing Australia is unprecedented. It will require solutions to match.

Ross Garnaut is presenting a six-part online lecture series about rebuilding Australia’s economy after the pandemic, beginning Wednesday May 20 2020 and continuing for six Wednesdays. For more information go here.

– ref. Further to fall, harder to rise: Australia must outperform to come out even from COVID-19 – https://theconversation.com/further-to-fall-harder-to-rise-australia-must-outperform-to-come-out-even-from-covid-19-138802

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

In the latest Democratic Fundamentals, Renée Leon, former Secretary of the Commonwealth Department of Human Services, and Peter Shergold, former Secretary of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, discuss the challenges and opportunities for the APS as the world eases restrictions with hosts Mark Evans and Michelle Grattan.

Democratic Fundamentals is produced in partnership with Democracy 2025, The Conversation and contentgroup.

Image:

James Lane/AAP

– ref. Democratic Fundamentals: the role of the APS in a post-COVID-19 world – https://theconversation.com/democratic-fundamentals-the-role-of-the-aps-in-a-post-covid-19-world-138933

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Pfeffer, Postdoctoral Research Fellow in History, The University of Queensland

The internet is awash with comparisons between life during COVID-19 and life during the Bubonic plague. The two have many similarities, from the spread of misinformation and the tracking of mortality figures, to the ubiquity of the question “when will it end?”

But there are, of course, crucial differences between the two. Today, when looking for information on the incidence, distribution, and likely outcome of the pandemic, we turn to epidemiologists and infectious disease models. During the Bubonic plague, people turned to astrologers.

Exploring the role played by astrologers in past epidemics reminds us that although astrology has been debunked, it was integral to the development of medicine and public health.

The flu, written in the stars

Before germ theory, the Scientific Revolution and then the Age of Enlightenment, it was common for medical practitioners to use astrological techniques in their everyday practice.

Compared to the simplistic horoscopes in today’s magazines, premodern astrology was a complex field based on detailed astronomical calculations. Astrologers were respected health authorities who were taught at the finest universities throughout Europe, and hired to treat princes and dukes.

Astrology provided physicians with a naturalistic explanation for the onset and course of disease. They believed the movements of the celestial bodies, in relation to each other and the signs of the Zodiac, governed events on earth. Horoscopes mapped the heavens, allowing physicians to draw conclusions about the onset, severity, and duration of illness.

The impact of astrology on the history of medicine can still be seen today. The term “influenza” was derived from the idea that respiratory disease was a product of the influence of the stars.

Read more: Altered mind this morning? Hehe, just blame the planets

Public health and plague

Astrologers were seen as important authorities for the health of communities as well as individuals. They offered public health advice in annual almanacs, which were some of the most widely read literature in the premodern world.

Almanacs provided readers with tables for astrological events for the coming year, as well as advice on farming, political events, and the weather.

The publications were also important disseminators of medical knowledge. They explained basic medical principles and suggested remedies. They made prognostications about national health, using astrology to predict when an influx of venereal disease or plague was likely to arise.

These public health predictions were often based on the astrological theory of conjunctions. According to this theory, when certain planets seem to approach each other in the sky from our perspective on earth, great socio-cultural events are bound to occur.

When Bubonic plague hit France in 1348, the King asked the physicians at the University of Paris to account for its origins. Their answer was that the plague was caused by a conjunction of Saturn, Mars, and Jupiter.

Read more: How medieval writers struggled to make sense of the Black Death

Predictions from above

Astrological accounts of plague remained popular into the 17th century. In this period, astrology was increasingly attacked as superstitious, so some astrologers tried to set their field on a more scientific grounding.

In an effort to make astrology more scientific, the English astrologer John Gadbury produced one of the earliest epidemiological studies of disease.

In London’s Deliverance Predicted (1655), Gadbury claimed his contemporaries couldn’t explain when plagues would arrive, or how long they’d last.

Gadbury proposed that if planets caused plagues, then planets also stopped plagues. Studying astrological events would therefore allow one to predict the course of an epidemic.

He gathered data from the previous four great London plagues (in 1593, 1603, 1625, and 1636), scouring the Bills of Mortality for weekly plague death rates, and compiling A Table shewing the Increase and Abatement of the Plague. Gadbury also used planetary tables to locate the planets’ positions throughout the epidemics. He then compared his data sets, looking for correlations.

Gadbury found a correlation between intensity of plague and the positions of Mars and Venus. Plague deaths increased sharply in July 1593, at which point Mars had moved into an astrologically significant position. Deaths then abated in September, when Venus’s position became more significant. Gadbury concluded that the movement of “the fiery Planet Mars” was the origin of pestilence and the “cause of its raging”, while the influence of the “friendly” Venus helped abate it.

Gadbury then applied his findings to the pestilence plaguing London at the time. He was able to correlate the beginnings of the plague in late 1664 and its growing intensity in June 1665 with recent astrological events.

He predicted the upcoming movement of Venus in August would see a fall in plague deaths. Then the movement of Mars in September would make the plague deadlier, but the movements of Venus in October, November, and December would halt the death rate.

Looking for patterns

Unfortunately for Gadbury, plague deaths increased dramatically in August. However, he was right in predicting a peak in September followed by a steep decrease at the end of the year. If Gadbury had accounted for other correlates – such as the coming of winter – his study might have been received more favourably.

The medical advice in Gadbury’s book certainly doesn’t stand up today. He argued the plague was not contagious, and that isolating at home only caused more deaths. Yet his attempt to find correlations with fluctuating mortality rates offers an early example of what we now call epidemiology.

While we may discredit Gadbury’s astrological assumptions, examples such as this illustrate the important role astrology played in the history of medicine, paving the way for naturalist explanations of infectious disease.

– ref. Before epidemiologists began modelling disease, it was the job of astrologers – https://theconversation.com/before-epidemiologists-began-modelling-disease-it-was-the-job-of-astrologers-137895

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

In the latest Democratic Fundamentals, Renée Leon, former Secretary of the Commonwealth Department of Human Services, and Peter Shergold, former Secretary of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, discuss the challenges and opportunities for the APS as the world eases restrictions with hosts Mark Evans and Michelle Grattan.

Democratic Fundamentals is produced in partnership with Democracy 2025, The Conversation and contentgroup.

Image:

James Lane/AAP

– ref. Democracy Fundamentals: the role of the APS in a post-COVID-19 world – https://theconversation.com/democracy-fundamentals-the-role-of-the-aps-in-a-post-covid-19-world-138933

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

In the latest Democratic Fundamentals, Renée Leon, former Secretary of the Commonwealth Department of Human Services, and Peter Shergold, former Secretary of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, discuss the challenges and opportunities for the APS as the world eases restrictions with hosts Mark Evans and Michelle Grattan.

Democratic Fundamentals is produced in partnership with Democracy 2025, The Conversation and contentgroup.

Image:

James Lane/AAP

– ref. Democracy 2025 – The role of the APS in a post COVID-19 world with Mark Evans, Michelle Grattan, Peter Shergold, and Renée Leon – https://theconversation.com/democracy-2025-the-role-of-the-aps-in-a-post-covid-19-world-with-mark-evans-michelle-grattan-peter-shergold-and-renee-leon-138933

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Chris McGrath, Associate Professor in Environmental and Planning Regulation and Policy, The University of Queensland

The fossil fuel lobby, led by the Minerals Council of Australia, seem pretty happy with the current system of environment laws. In a submission to a review of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act, it “broadly” supports the existing laws and does not want them replaced.

True, the group says the laws impose unnecessary burdens on industry that hinder post-pandemic economic recovery. It wants delays and duplication in environmental regulation reduced to provide consistency and certainty.

Read more: Our nature laws are being overhauled. Here are 7 things we must fix

But for the fossil fuel industry to broadly back the current regime of environmental protection is remarkable. It suggests deep problems with the current laws, which have allowed decision-making driven by politics, rather than independent science.

So let’s look at the resources industry’s stance on environment laws, and what it tells us.

Cut duplication

The Minerals Council’s submission calls for “eliminating or reducing duplication” of federal and state laws.

The fossil fuel lobby has long railed against environmental law – the EPBC Act in particular – disparaging it as “green tape” that it claims slows projects unnecessarily and costs the industry money.

On this, the federal government and the mining industry are singing from the same songbook. Announcing the review of the laws last year, the government flagged changes that it claimed would speed up approvals and reduce costs to industry.

Previous governments have tried to reduce duplication of environmental laws. In 2013 the Abbott government proposed a “one-stop shop” in which it claimed projects would be considered under a single environmental assessment and approval process, rather than scrutinised separately by state and federal authorities.

Read more: Explainer: one-stop-shop for environmental approvals

That proposal hit many political and other hurdles and was never enacted. But it appears to remain on the federal government’s policy agenda.

It’s true the federal EPBC Act often duplicates state approvals for mining and other activities. But it still provides a safety net that in theory allows the federal government to stop damaging projects approved by state governments.

The Commonwealth rarely uses this power, but has done so in the past. In the most famous example, the Labor party led by Bob Hawke won the federal election in 1983 and stopped the Tasmanian Liberal government led by Robin Gray building a major hydroelectric dam on the Gordon River below its junction with the Franklin River.

The High Court’s decision in that dispute laid the foundation for the EPBC Act, which was enacted in 1999.

In 2009 Peter Garrett, Labor’s then-federal environment minister, refused the Queensland Labor government’s proposed Traveston Crossing Dam on the Mary River under the EPBC Act due to an unacceptable impact on threatened species.

The Conversation put these arguments to the Minerals Council of Australia, and CEO Tania Constable said:

The MCA’s submission states that Australia’s world-leading minerals sector is committed to the protection of our unique environment, including upholding leading practice environmental protection based on sound science and robust risk-based approaches.

Reforms to the operation of the EPBC Act are needed to address unnecessary duplication and complexity, providing greater certainty for businesses and the community while achieving sound environmental outcomes.

But don’t change the current system much

Generally, the Minerals Council and other resources groups aren’t lobbying for the current system to be changed too much.

The groups support the federal environment minister retaining the role of decision maker under the law. This isn’t surprising, given a succession of ministers has, for the past 20 years, given almost unwavering approval to resource projects.

For example, in 2019 the then-minister Melissa Price approved the Adani coal mine’s groundwater management plan, despite major shortcomings and gaps in knowledge and data about its impacts.

Read more: Australia listened to the science on coronavirus. Imagine if we did the same for coal mining

Independent scientific advice against the mine over the last ten years was sidelined in the minister’s final decision.

Countless more examples demonstrate how the current system works in the favour of mining interests – even when the industry itself claims otherwise.

The Minerals Council submission refers to an unnamed “Queensland open-cut coal expansion project” to argue against excessive duplication of federal and state processes around water use.

I believe this is a reference to the New Acland Coal Mine Stage 3 expansion project. I have acted since 2016 as a barrister for a local landholder group in litigation against that project.

When approached by The Conversation, the Minerals Council did not confirm it was referring to the New Acland project. Tania Constable said:

The case studies were submitted from a range of companies, and are representative of the regulatory inefficiency and uncertainty which deters investment and increases costs while greatly limiting job opportunities and economic benefits for regional communities from mining.

The New Acland mine expansion is on prime agricultural land on the Darling Downs, Queensland’s southern food bowl. Nearby farmers strongly opposed the project over fears of damage to groundwater, the creation of noise and dust, and climate change impacts.

But the Minerals Council fails to mention that since 2016, the mine has been building a massive new pit covering 150 hectares.

When mining of this pit began, the mine’s expansion was still being assessed under state and federal laws. Half of the pit was subsequently approved under the EPBC Act in 2017.

But the Queensland environment department never stopped the work, despite the Land Court of Queensland in 2018 alerting it to the powers it had to act.

Based on my own research using satellite imagery and comparing the publicly available application documents, mining of West Pit started while Stage 3 of the mine was still being assessed under the EPBC Act. And after approval was given, mining was conducted outside the approved footprint.

Despite these apparent breaches, the federal environment department has taken no enforcement action.

The Conversation contacted New Hope Group, the company that owns New Acland mine, for comment, and they refuted this assertion. Chief Operating Officer Andrew Boyd said:

New Hope Group strongly deny any allegations that New Hope Coal has in any way acted unlawfully.

New Acland Coal had and still has all necessary approvals relating to the development of the pit Dr McGrath refers to. It is also not correct to say that the Land Court alerted the Department of its powers to act with regards to this pit.

The Department is obviously aware of its enforcement powers and was aware of the development of the pit well before 2018. Further, the Land Court in 2018 rejected Dr McGrath’s arguments and accepted New Acland Coal’s position that any issues relating to the lawfulness of the pit were not within the jurisdiction of the Land Court on the rehearing in 2018.

Accordingly, the lawfulness of the pit was irrelevant to the 2018 Land Court hearing.

Dr McGrath also fails to mention that his client had originally accepted in the original Land Court hearing (2015-2017) that the development of the pit was lawful only to completely change its position in the 2018.

State and federal environmental laws work in favour of the fossil fuel industry in other ways. “Regulatory capture” occurs when government regulators essentially stop enforcing the law against industries they are supposed to regulate.

This can occur for many reasons, including agency survival and to avoid confrontation with powerful political groups such as farmers or the mining sector.

In one apparent example of this, the federal environment department decided in 2019 not to recommend two critically endangered Murray-Darling wetlands for protection under the EPBC Act because the minister was unlikely to support the listings following a campaign against them by the National Irrigators Council.

Holes in our green safety net

Recent ecological disasters are proof our laws are failing us catastrophically. And they make the mining industry’s calls to speed-up project approvals particularly audacious.

We need look only to repeated, mass coral bleaching as the Great Barrier Reef collapses in front of us, or a catastrophic summer of bushfires.

Read more: Environment laws have failed to tackle the extinction emergency. Here’s the proof

Both tragedies are driven by climate change, caused by burning fossil fuels. It’s clear Australia should be looking to fix the glaring holes in our green safety net, not widen them.

– ref. Be worried when fossil fuel lobbyists support current environmental laws – https://theconversation.com/be-worried-when-fossil-fuel-lobbyists-support-current-environmental-laws-138526

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gavin Moodie, Adjunct professor, RMIT University

On March 30, the federal government announced JobKeeper – a A$130 billion wage subsidy for employees to limit the economic devastation of COVID-19. Employers are eligible for the A$1,500 a fortnight payment to staff if the business’ revenue had fallen over a specified period by 30% or 50%, depending on their size.

This excluded most universities. But the government soon announced the threshold for JobKeeper would be lowered to 15% for charities, giving hope to universities, which are not-for-profit organisations. That is, until the government clarified “this lower turnover decline test does not apply to universities”.

And while some universities were still eligible by their calculations, the government made two other changes to JobKeeper that seemed targeted at ensuring university staff couldn’t get any help from the government. This is despite Universities Australia’s estimate around 21,000 jobs will be lost.

While the government has provided some help to universities in the form of its higher education relief package – which guarantees funding for domestic students already budgeted for – it won’t fill the gap in revenue lost due to international students.

Read more: For most universities, there’s little point to the government’s COVID-19 assistance package

This will likely result in mass staff lay-offs and may risk some universities’ financial viability. It will also severely curtail Australia’s research capacity.

So, why has the Australian government taken successive steps specifically to exclude universities from its business continuity funding?

Research and the culture wars

Australian conservative politicians have a long history of attacking researchers.

We saw this in the Coalition’s “waste watch” committee, to keep track of allegedly unnecessary spending, established by John Howard when he was opposition leader in 1986. One of the committee’s prominent targets was a project to research working mothers’ child rearing in Ancient Rome.

The Coalition’s antagonism towards research was evident in their secret rejections in 2005, 2017 and 2018 of more than 11 grants recommended by the Australian Research Council for research in history, music, and art history. Education minister in 2018, Simon Birmingham, mocked one of the grants on Twitter.

The Coalition’s attitude is also on display in attacks by some MPs on climate change research, presumably because it challenges the primacy of narrow economic interests.

But conservatives have long supported universities as institutions. Many senior Liberal politicians have multiple university degrees: Scott Morrison has an honours degree in science from UNSW; Josh Frydenberg has four degrees – one from Oxford and one from Harvard; Mathias Cormann has two; Dan Tehan, three; Marise Payne, two; Simon Birmingham, at least one; Christian Porter, four; and Greg Hunt at least three.

So in many ways, universities support conservatives’ personal, material and political self interests. And yet the Coalition is undermining them by, in part, rejecting a motion moved by Labor and the Greens to extend JobKeeper to universities.

Read more: More than 70% of academics at some universities are casuals. They’re losing work and are cut out of JobKeeper

Conservatives also appear to oppose universities on ideological grounds. Examples include former Prime Minister Tony Abott’s criticisms of ANU for divesting from fossil fuel industries; education minister Dan Tehan’s review into universities allegedly suppressing the right kind of free speech; some conservative politician’s dislike of universities declining to host a Ramsay Centre celebrating Western civilisation, and failing to sufficiently celebrate Anglo-Australians’ historical legacy.

This is part of what is commonly called a “cultural war” against organisations such as the CSIRO, the Bureau of Meteorology, the ABC, the creative arts, museums and other cultural institutions that don’t support conservative ideology.

From elite to universal systems

There is also a structural explanation for conservative governments’ antipathy to contemporary universities. This is related to universities’ transition from elite to mass to universal systems of education.

These transitions were described by the distinguished US higher education scholar Martin Trow. In his important 1973 paper, Trow explained that elite, mass, and universal systems of higher education have different approaches to admission, curriculum, pedagogy, assessment and quality assurance. They also have different social roles.

He explained that participation is a privilege in elite systems, where fewer than 15% of the relevant age group enrol in higher education. Participation is an advantage in mass systems of higher education, where up to half of the relevant age group enrol in higher education. But not participating becomes a disadvantage in universal systems, where more than half participate in higher education.

Read more: Universities have gone from being a place of privilege to a competitive market. What will they be after coronavirus?

Conservative governments were happy to support elite systems of higher education. In 1959, the Liberal Menzies government greatly increased university funding. It also developed state universities into a national system by establishing the Australian Universities Commission which regulated universities’ enrolments and recommended the allocation of federal funds.

Conservative governments also supported higher education’s transition to a mass system from 1967. But they preferred most of this expansion to be in institutions different from universities. These Colleges of Advanced Education were funded for teaching by Menzies and subsequent governments at a much lower rate than universities, and were not funded to conduct research.

The colleges were incorporated into existing universities or formed their own universities in 1989.

A liberal strand of conservative higher education policymakers in Australia and the UK also supported the transition to universal higher education from the early 2000s. They removed government limits on university enrolments to give freer play to higher education markets and to students’ interests.

This demand-driven system encouraged the expansion of universal or open access systems, as Trow later called them.

Read more: Demand-driven funding for universities is frozen. What does this mean and should the policy be restored?

But conservatives, such as former education minister Simon Birmingham, complained such policies led universities to lower standards by admitting low quality students.

As Trow also noted in 1973, the demand for higher education has importantly been social as much as economic. But conservatives complain universities offer “useless” degrees, such as in Arts, not sufficiently tied to graduate jobs.

The incumbent conservatives in Australia and the UK prefer to limit higher education to students and programs they deem worthy. They have reimposed enrolment caps in Australia and the UK.

For this strand of now-dominant conservatives, universal higher education should be like any other universal service: targeted, transactional, fee-for-service and preferably privatised.

Excluding universities from JobKeeper is another way of keeping universities in their place.

– ref. Why is the Australian government letting universities suffer? – https://theconversation.com/why-is-the-australian-government-letting-universities-suffer-138514

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

In the latest Democratic Fundamentals, Renée Leon, former Secretary of the Commonwealth Department of Human Services, and Peter Shergold, former Secretary of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, discuss the challenges and opportunities for the APS as the world eases restrictions with hosts Mark Evans and Michelle Grattan.

Democratic Fundamentals is produced in partnership with Democracy 2025, The Conversation and contentgroup.

– ref. Democracy 2025 – Political trust in times of COVID-19 with Michelle Grattan, Mark Evans, Peter Shergold, and Renée Leon – https://theconversation.com/democracy-2025-political-trust-in-times-of-covid-19-with-michelle-grattan-mark-evans-peter-shergold-and-renee-leon-138933

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Karlheinz Peter, Lab Head, Atherothrombosis and Vascular Biology and Deputy Director, Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute; Interventional Cardiologist, Alfred Hospital; Professor of Medicine and Immunology, Monash University, Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute

A spate of recent media headlines have described blood thinning medications – which include aspirin and warfarin – as a “breakthrough treatment” for COVID-19 that could “save lives”.

It’s early days yet but a growing body of research evidence suggests COVID-19 causes abnormalities in blood clotting, which means blood thinning drugs may have a role to play in treatment.

Here’s what the research says on this question – and how it applies to you.

Mounting evidence

When COVID-19 first emerged, it was thought the illness was a typical respiratory disease causing symptoms such as fever, sore throat, dry cough, and potentially lung infection (pneumonia) and a build-up of fluid in the lungs making it difficult to breathe.

However, as we outlined in a previous article in The Conversation, 30-70% of COVID-19 patients admitted to intensive care units, developed blood clots.

These rates of blood clotting appear to be much higher than what is expected when compared with people who are hospitalised for reasons other than COVID-19.

Blood clots in the veins often present in the legs (deep vein thrombosis) and are dislodged into the lungs (called pulmonary embolism); approximately one in four COVID-19 patients admitted to intensive care will develop a pulmonary embolism (where an artery in the lungs gets blocked).

Arterial blood clots associated with COVID-19 can lead to strokes, including in younger patients, with potentially devastating outcomes.

In addition, COVID-19 appears to cause tiny blood clots that can block small vessels in the lungs. These “micro” blood clots may be a key reason why patients with COVID-19 often have very low oxygen levels.

Blood clots appear to be associated with a higher risk of dying from COVID-19. Likewise, elevated markers of blood clotting are associated with an increased risk of admission to the intensive care unit and a worse prognosis overall.

Should blood thinners be standard treatment for COVID-19 patients in hospital?

Because the rate of blood clotting is so high, all people admitted to hospital with COVID-19 should receive a low dose of blood thinner medication to prevent blood clots. This prophylactic dose of blood thinner is standard across most hospitals in Australia.

However, many blood clots in COVID-19 are occurring despite the use of low-dose blood thinners. As such, it is a question of intense discussion whether people admitted to hospital with severe COVID-19 should receive a higher-than-usual dose of blood thinners to prevent blood clots and improve clinical outcomes.

A recent study from the US suggests patients admitted to hospital and prescribed full dose blood thinners had a better chance of survival and lower chance of needing a ventilator.

However, this finding has to be confirmed before the higher dose can be generally recommended. Fortunately, several research studies are underway in Europe, the UK and elsewhere to test and answer this question definitively.

Several other blood thinner treatments are also being evaluated in people with COVID-19. Aspirin is commonly prescribed to people who are at high risk of strokes or heart attacks. There are now studies underway examining if aspirin can reduce risk of blood clotting in people with COVID-19. In the US, some stronger clot-busting medications are also being trialled in people with severe COVID-19.

It is important to note blood thinners are not without risk, as this treatment can increase the risk of bleeding. So without definite evidence to support the benefit of high dose blood thinners in all hospitalised patients with COVID-19, the decision to use higher doses of blood thinning medication outside of a clinical trial must be made on an individual basis.

Should I take an aspirin to prevent blood clots?

There is no evidence aspirin or other blood thinners should be taken to prevent blood clots in the general population. Also, there is no evidence blood thinners are required to prevent blood clots for people with mild COVID-19 who are isolating at home. Because blood thinners can cause bleeding, they should not be taken unless prescribed by a doctor.

It is important for people who are taking blood thinners for another reason to continue taking these medications as normal, particularly if they are diagnosed with COVID-19.

In summary, our understanding of COVID-19 and how the coronavirus attacks the body continues to rapidly evolve. Researchers from around the world are publishing data almost daily. However, not all of this research has been peer reviewed.

If you develop symptoms, the most important thing you can do is to get tested for COVID-19 and talk to your doctor about potential treatments, including hospital admission and there about blood thinning medication.

Similar to our colleagues in the UK and the US, we as doctors specialised in the field of blood clotting are indeed optimistic and hope clinical studies currently underway will show rigorous strategies for prevention and treatment of blood clotting will help to reduce severity and improve survival of patients with COVID-19.

Read more: Coronavirus: how long does it take to get sick? How infectious is it? Will you always have a fever? COVID-19 basics explained

– ref. Could blood thinners be a lifesaving treatment for COVID-19? Here’s what the science says and what it means for you – https://theconversation.com/could-blood-thinners-be-a-lifesaving-treatment-for-covid-19-heres-what-the-science-says-and-what-it-means-for-you-138813

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katie Attwell, Senior Lecturer, University of Western Australia

The first I heard of the “Plandemic” video was when a friend shared it on her Facebook. “I’m pro-vaccine,” was her accompanying statement. “And I’m not a conspiracy theorist.”

For those who don’t know, Plandemic is a misinformation-driven viral video that’s garnered much attention in recent days.

It’s spreading numerous falsehoods about the COVID-19 pandemic, including that the virus is “activated” by face masks and hand-washing. And the major conspiracy, or the “plan”, as this article explains, is that:

… a secret society of billionaires around the world are plotting global domination, and they plan to control people through a vaccine.

Perhaps even more worrying is the level of traction such conspiracies receive. More than 100 people gathered in Melbourne last weekend, and some in Sydney, to protest lockdowns, tracking apps, vaccines and the public health philanthropy of billionaire Bill Gates. The protests were reportedly promoted on Facebook anti-vaxxing groups.

While Plandemic’s claims have been thoroughly debunked, my friend is exactly the kind of audience that should have policymakers worried.

Planting seeds of doubt

Conspiracy theorists – or “conspiracists” – generally take their place in the rich tapestry of life without causing too much trouble.

But with some governments caught off-guard by COVID-19 (making stuff up as they go), and public health experts wielding considerable power, conspiracists have fertile soil to plough. That soil is us.

The general public is uncertain, afraid, and experiencing cognitive impairment from the strain of it all. Governments overseas, most notably the US government, have failed dismally in responding efficiently to COVID-19. This has the potential to devastate citizens’ trust.

In this volatile cocktail, the distinction between what is “batshit crazy” and what is worryingly plausible starts to break down.

Reaping the harvest

Enter the organised anti-vaxxers, aligning with other conspiracists to spread misinformation and lead lockdown protests.

Underpinning their antics is the idea that COVID-19 is a highly organised operation, and also the accusation that governments will use lockdowns to forcibly medicate populations, perhaps with plans to incorporate a mind-controlling microchip in the vaccine.

Read more: Yes, we need a global coronavirus inquiry, but not for petty political point-scoring

For those who reject these premises, it’s hard to understand how conspiracists sustain this alternative reality. But for those with long histories of rejecting government and expert authority, it’s completely conceivable.

Many of those who reject vaccines, or strenuously object to COVID-19 health measures, are influenced by interconnected social groups with clear identities. Standing atop a hill of self-ascribed expertise, they can gaze down on the “sheeple” eating from the trough.

Groups that set themselves apart from mainstream society, deliberately and with pride, develop strong in-group identification and take cues from people they perceive to be like them.

That may be why Australia is now seeing freedom-focused anti-lockdown protests you wouldn’t generally expect outside America.

Don’t fan the flames

Lockdown protesters remain small in number relative to the wider population. They also lack significant celebrity endorsement in Australia. Even the bizarre communications of disgraced My Kitchen Rules judge Pete Evans have not extended to lockdown resistance.

When it comes to lockdown protesters, it might be best to quietly ignore them, like a parent walking away from their child’s supermarket tantrum.

Ascribing great importance to conspiracists gives them unwarranted publicity, and risks cuing involvement from others who share their goals or opinions.

And lengthening the conversation unnecessarily could sway the minds of undecided onlookers.

Serious implications

That said, damage to public trust because of conspiracies is more complex.

It’s vital for governments to “keep the public’s ear” so they can maintain effective communication about what they are doing and why. This is crucial in retaining broad population support for the necessary health measures.

Western Australian Premier Mark McGowan’s sky-high approval ratings prove governments can bring people with them.

But they can’t bring everybody. And while dissent is not necessarily unhealthy, the burning question is where dissent leads us.

COVID-19 will likely divide people who have been lumped together by general society as “anti-vax”.

Researchers, myself included, have long argued for more nuanced understandings of vaccine refusers, especially because some remain open to changing their minds.

Some vaccine refusers are likely to find the COVID-19 vaccine is one they don’t want to skip. But for the diehard conspiracists, it’s the endgame.

These people know a large proportion of the population will need to receive it for normal life to resume. But if you believe vaccination to be unsafe, corrupt and toxic, the prospect of being pressured to receive one must be terrifying.

Read more: No, 5G radiation doesn’t cause or spread the coronavirus. Saying it does is destructive

Who is in danger here?

When (or if) a COVID-19 vaccine does come along, will the broader population be able to accept some people’s refusal to vaccinate? There are two answers.

The first is epidemiological. We don’t know how many of us will need to be vaccinated, but the figure for other diseases such as measles is as high as 95%.

Also, as some people can’t be vaccinated for medical reasons and governments may struggle to reach some disadvantaged populations, the remaining 5% leaves little wiggle room for vaccine refusal within the wider population. If there is room for refusal, there isn’t much.

This brings us to the second, political, answer.

If anti-vaccination propagandists achieve widespread community resistance to government power, there will be many more of them than our vaccine coverage goals can tolerate. This will likely result in more coercive policies from governments.

In Australia and California, populations and governments have previously supported crackdowns on vaccine refusers precisely because these activists behaved in reprehensible ways, or because they made it easy for the majority to construct them as a hated group in need of punishment.

Remember, when we walk away from a child having a tantrum in a supermarket, we are also saving them from themselves – even if they can’t appreciate it.

– ref. Coronavirus anti-vaxxers aren’t a huge threat yet. How do we keep it that way? – https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-anti-vaxxers-arent-a-huge-threat-yet-how-do-we-keep-it-that-way-138531

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Frank Bongiorno, Professor of History, ANU College of Arts and Social Sciences, Australian National University

What does political leadership look like in a pandemic?

Many of us probably carry images in our heads of what good leadership might be in a depression or a war. But before 2020 few of us would have had any conception of what political leadership might look like during a life-threatening public health crisis.

We took from last summer some fairly firm ideas of what leadership in a bushfire crisis should not look like. Political leaders should not leave for luxurious overseas holidays. They should not expect those who fear for their lives and property to find inspiration in the exploits of the Australian cricket team. They should not force themselves onto traumatised people when offering nothing except the chance to participate in a photo opportunity. They should not run party-political advertisements that seek to obscure their own monumental failures.

Read more: How Australia’s response to the Spanish flu of 1919 sounds warnings on dealing with coronavirus

Above all, they should not announce that it’s not their job to hold the hose. As it happens, we already had a famous model of what a national leader might do in a fire.

In 1666, King Charles II of England was widely regarded as a worthless playboy with nothing much to his credit. In 1665, London lost tens of thousands of people in the Great Plague and there was little that he, or anyone else, had been able to do about it. When a fire broke out in Pudding Lane in the following year, few had any reason to expect Charles would distinguish himself. But his leadership in that fire is famous. It was brave, inspiring and, yes, although he did not hold the hose, he did pass the buckets.

Crises can make leaders but they can also break them – or, as happened over the summer with Morrison, nearly break them. In a recent book, labour historian Liam Byrne explores the early lives and careers of two Labor prime ministers, James Scullin and John Curtin. Each was a product of the Victorian labour movement. Each had regarded himself as a socialist. Each would face a massive national crisis on becoming prime minister that required them to put aside the beliefs of a lifetime.

Scullin faced the Great Depression of the 1930s. He emerged from a brief time in government at the beginning of 1932 damaged and bewildered. The crisis was the breaking and not the making of him. To be fair, it’s hard to imagine how, given the state of the Australian economy and the scale of the problem he faced, anyone could have done much better.

When Australian prime ministers are ranked, Scullin usually occupies a lowly place while Curtin often comes out on top. The success of Curtin’s wartime leadership wasn’t predictable. He was a anti-conscriptionist during the first world war who saw that war as a scheme devised by capitalists to divide and conquer the working class. He was moody, aloof and a worrier. But the crisis of the Pacific War was the making of Curtin as a leader, even if he would not live to see the peace.

We should not exaggerate the extent to which Australians fell in behind Curtin’s urgings. In the present crisis, I’ve occasionally been reminded, during some of Morrison’s occasionally hectoring and patronising performances, of the difficulties Curtin faced.

Morrison called panic-buying “un-Australian”, but it must be sufficiently Australian also to have occurred during the war, when people got wind of the approach of clothing rationing. Morrison’s infantilising “early mark” made some bristle in the same way, inevitably, as grown-ups came to resent petty government restrictions during the second world war. The minister in charge of rationing, John Dedman, was famously lampooned for having banned pink icing on wedding cakes and for killing Santa Claus with his restrictions on Christmas advertising. Even in war, adults expect to be treated as adults.

Morrison could not afford another leadership failure when coronavirus hit. My own view of his leadership by the end of the last summer is that it was badly damaged but unlikely to be terminal. He had already shown himself as an adaptable politician and I expected he would also enjoy the help of a friendly right-wing media in repairing it.

Malcolm Turnbull’s memoir presents a hostile but mainly persuasive account of Morrison as a politician. Turnbull presents him as sneaky and duplicitous. But more importantly, in making sense of his recent leadership, Morrison is painted as a pragmatic political professional unattached to ideology and quite prepared to pick up and drop policies according to his perception of the needs – including his own – in any context.

Read more: Grattan on Friday: Descending the COVID mountain could be hazardous for Scott Morrison

For Morrison, the science on climate change is negotiable, but the science on coronavirus is the last word. He is the kind of leader who is off to the footy one moment and everyone else should also get out and about, then that he’s not and everyone must stay home. He can dismiss the need for a wage subsidy one week and then announce a A$130 billion package the next. He can double the JobSeeker allowance after having for years staunchly opposed even a minor increase as an affront to self-reliance and an intolerable incentive to the unemployed to stay that way.

Morrison can do all of this with very few backward glances and then – if it suits his purposes and he can get away with it – reverse the lot when that suits him as well.

So there is Morrison’s adaptability. But there is also a helpful conservative media. Here, Morrison is not just a nimble leader with a well-developed survival instinct. He is positively Churchillian.

Greg Sheridan of The Australian was early out of the blocks near the end of March. “Scott Morrison could become Australia’s most important war-time leader,” he declared. “If he succeeds, he will join a pantheon which at the moment consists only of John Curtin, a leader who got us through, who worried us through, our last existential challenge.”

More recently, Sheridan’s colleague, Paul Kelly, has extended this to an attack on state premiers as “laggards”. He asked rhetorically whether they were “free riders on the Morrison government and the banks, who keep the economy alive at such dire cost”.

A prime minister who can rely on such free promotion has good reason to expect a bright political future. And Labor Party figures are entitled to ask if they could have expected such generosity in the context of draconian restrictions on personal freedom and massive spending aimed at propping up the economy and saving lives.

As we return to something like political business as usual, Morrison is likely to be subjected to efforts to make him and his government accountable that he has long shown he regards as onerous. How he deals with those, and with the immense challenges of rebuilding the economy in the context of debt, deficit, global depression and the danger of new outbreaks of disease, may well be a more testing challenge to his leadership than anything so far.

– ref. Why good leaders need to hold the hose: how history might read Morrison’s coronavirus leadership – https://theconversation.com/why-good-leaders-need-to-hold-the-hose-how-history-might-read-morrisons-coronavirus-leadership-137785

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Devi Veytia, PhD student , University of Tasmania

The Southern Ocean circling Antarctica is one of Earth’s richest marine ecosystems. Its food webs support an abundance of life, from tiny micro-organisms to seals, penguins and several species of whales. But climate change is set to disrupt this delicate balance.

Antarctic krill – finger-sized, swarming crustaceans – might be small but they underpin the Southern Ocean’s food web. Our research published today suggests climate change will cause the ocean habitat supporting krill growth to move south. The habitat will also deteriorate in summer and autumn.

The ramifications will reverberate up the food chain, with implications for other Antarctic animals. This includes humpback whales that feed on krill at the end of their annual migration to the Southern Ocean.

What we found

Antarctic krill are one of the most abundant animal species in the world. About 500 million tonnes of Antarctic krill are estimated to exist in the Southern Ocean.

Antarctic krill play a critical role in the ocean’s food webs. But their survival depends on a delicate balance of food and temperature. Scientists are concerned at how climate change may affect their population and the broader marine ecosystem.

We wanted to project how climate change will affect the Southern Ocean’s krill “growth habitat” – essentially, ocean areas where krill can thrive in high numbers.

Krill growth depends largely on ocean temperature and the abundance of its main food source, phytoplankton (microscopic single-celled plants).

Read more: Anatomy of a heatwave: how Antarctica recorded a 20.75°C day last month

Under a “business as usual” climate change scenario, future changes in ocean temperature and phytoplankton varied depending on the region and season.

In the mid-low latitudes, our projections showed temperatures warmed towards the limits krill can tolerate. For example, by 2100 the waters during summer around South Georgia island warmed by 1.8℃.

Warming water was often accompanied by decreases in phytoplankton; in the Bellingshausen Sea during summer a 1.7℃ rise halved the available phytoplankton.

However, phytoplankton increased closer to the continent in spring and summer – most dramatically by 175% in the Weddell Sea in spring.

Shifting habitat

Across all seasons, krill growth habitat remained relatively stable for 85% of the Southern Ocean. But important regional changes still occurred.

Krill growth habitat shifted south as suitable ocean temperatures contracted towards the poles. Combined with changes in phytoplankton distribution, growth habitat improved in spring but deteriorated in summer and autumn.

Read more: How Antarctic krill fertilise the oceans and even store carbon – all with their poo

This early end to the growth season could have profound consequences for krill populations. The krill life cycle is synchronised with the Southern Ocean’s dramatic seasonal cycles. Typically this allows krill to both maximise growth and reproduction and store reserves to survive the winter.

A shift in habitat timing could create a mismatch between these two cycles.

For example, female krill need access to plentiful food during the summer in order to spawn. Since larger females produce exponentially more eggs, a decline in summer growth habitat could result in smaller females and far less spawning success.

Why this matters

Krill’s significant role in the food chain means the impacts of these changes may play out through the entire ecosystem.

If krill shift south to follow their retreating habitat, less food would be available for predators on sub-Antarctic islands such as Antarctic fur seals, penguins and albatrosses for whom krill forms a significant portion of the diet.

In the past, years of low krill densities has coincided with declines in reproductive success for these species.

Shifts in krill habitat timing may also affect migratory predators. For example, each year humpback whales migrate from the tropics to the poles to feed on the huge amount of summer krill. If the krill peak occurs earlier in the season, the whales must adapt by arriving earlier, or be left hungry.

Looking ahead

Changes to krill growth habitat may damage more than the ocean food web. Demand for krill oil in health supplements and aquaculture feed is on the rise, and krill are the target of the Southern Ocean’s largest fishery. Anticipating changes in krill availability is crucial to informing the fishery’s sustainable management.

Many environmental drivers interact to create good krill habitat. More research is required, including better models, and an improved understanding of what drives krill to reproduce and survive.

But by examining changes in phytoplankton, we’ve taken significant strides towards predicting climate change impacts on krill and the wider Antarctic marine ecosystem.

Read more: The air above Antarctica is suddenly getting warmer – here’s what it means for Australia

– ref. Climate change threatens Antarctic krill and the sea life that depends on it – https://theconversation.com/climate-change-threatens-antarctic-krill-and-the-sea-life-that-depends-on-it-138436

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Justine Bell-James, Associate professor, The University of Queensland

In a landmark case, 25 young people aged 13 to 30 are mounting a legal challenge to the massive, Clive Palmer-owned Galilee Basin coal project. This will be the first time human rights arguments are used in a climate change case in Australia.

Palmer’s proposed Waratah Coal mine in the Galilee Basin will dwarf Adani’s operation, extracting four times as much coal per year.

Read more: Interactive: Everything you need to know about Adani – from cost, environmental impact and jobs to its possible future

The mine has been given the green light at the federal government level, and has been issued with a draft environmental approval at the state government level. This court challenge will allow Queensland’s Land Court to recommend whether the state government should issue or reject final environmental approval.

So why mount a case now? Queensland’s new Human Rights Act 2019 came into effect on January 1 this year, opening the door for a flood of new climate change litigation.

Climate change poses a clear threat to human rights, with lives and livelihoods at direct risk from increased extreme weather events, extended heatwaves and worsened drought conditions.

This case between the group of young Queenslanders (called “Youth Verdict”) and mining company Waratah Coal, will test whether the project’s benefits – including economic benefits and employment provision – justify limiting human rights.

Climate change in court

After the United States, Australia has had the highest number of climate-related cases before our courts.

Taking legal action against coal mine approvals is nothing new. Although in Queensland, these cases have not yet succeeded in overturning a coal mine approval. But but they’ve made significant headway – even if Minister for Resources Matt Canavan says such cases are designed “simply to delay” projects.

Litigants have, in fact, succeeded in convincing Queensland courts that Scope 3 emissions (all indirect emissions along a company’s value chain) are relevant; cause and effect between a project and climate change exists; single projects are significant; and emissions are to be assessed on a cumulative basis.

These crucial legal developments were made in the progress of just three cases. While an important legal hurdle still remains – the Market Substitution Assumption, or the assertion “if we don’t mine coal, someone else will” – it’s clear climate action in court can be a powerful weapon in the fight for better climate change policies.

Read more: Carmichael mine jumps another legal hurdle, but litigants are making headway

On human rights grounds

The link between human rights and climate change is being increasingly recognised overseas. In 2018 the UN Human Rights Committee noted:

Climate change and unsustainable development constitute some of the most pressing and serious threats to the ability of present and future generations to enjoy the right to life.

In Pakistan, a court found the government had violated a person’s human rights by failing to implement climate change policy.

Read more: The Universal Declaration of Human Rights at 70: the challenges that await the UN

Other cases have been unsuccessful, but on technical legal grounds. For example, a US case fell at the first hurdle, as the plaintiffs could not establish standing, or a right to bring proceedings.

Queensland’s new law

Unlike the US, Pakistan and many other countries, human rights aren’t embedded in Australia’s constitution. So protecting human rights depends on states passing legislation – something the ACT, Victoria, and now Queensland governments have done.

The new legislation enshrines a number of human rights derived from international law. And the Youth Verdict case will test many, including the right to life, the rights of the child, the cultural rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, the right to property and the right to freedom from discrimination.

In the coal export capital of Australia, many of these rights offer natural avenues for climate change arguments.

For example, climate change will create significant drawbacks for human health in Queensland, such as from increased vulnerability to heat illnesses, further spreading of tropical diseases and mental health impacts. This is arguably a violation of the right to life.

Read more: Australia listened to the science on coronavirus. Imagine if we did the same for coal mining

The legislation makes it unlawful for a public entity, such as a state government, to make a decision that isn’t compatible with human rights, or to fail to give proper consideration to relevant human rights when making a decision.

The legislation also limits when the human rights argument can be used. A litigant can’t bring a new claim to court, based solely on the human rights legislation. They can only use the human rights act to support their argument if they can argue a decision is also unlawful under a different act, such as the Youth Verdict using the act to object to the existing draft state environmental approval.

An exciting new chapter

Youth Verdict will have to make the case that the human rights of its younger members will be affected as a result of this project’s contributions to climate change – beyond an extent that’s demonstrably justifiable under the act.

While it’s difficult to predict the likely success of this case, progress towards a future successful climate change case has already been made in Queensland, and this case will build on that momentum.

It may also trigger a broader trend of human rights-based climate change cases in Queensland, and possibly in Victoria and the ACT, as young people take inspiration from their interstate peers.

What’s more, these cases might be immune from one of the biggest problems with successful climate change cases: negative legislative backlash, prompting politicians to repeal laws.

Read more: Aren’t we in a drought? The Australian black coal industry uses enough water for over 5 million people

For example, following the successful Rocky Hill case in NSW, the government introduced legislation to remove Scope 3 emissions from consideration in mining approvals decisions.

But the political ramifications of winding back humans rights protections would be enormous, so it’s likely Queensland’s new legislation is here to stay.

Certainly, this is the start of an exciting new chapter in Queensland’s climate change litigation history, and a bright spark of hope.

– ref. These young Queenslanders are taking on Clive Palmer’s coal company and making history for human rights – https://theconversation.com/these-young-queenslanders-are-taking-on-clive-palmers-coal-company-and-making-history-for-human-rights-138732

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Philip Laird, Honorary Principal Fellow, University of Wollongong

The New South Wales government has focused on delivering more motorways and rail links for Sydney, along with main roads in regional NSW, since the Coalition won office in 2011. The biggest of these, WestConnex, is still being built. Plans for yet another major motorway, the Western Harbour Tunnel and Beaches Link, are well advanced.

A hefty environmental impact statement (EIS), but incredibly no business case for a project costing about A$15 billion, was recently put on public exhibition. When submissions closed at the end of March, the vast majority of 1,455 submissions from public agencies, individuals and organisations were objections to the Western Harbour Tunnel project.

The proposal follows three stages of WestConnex and the F6 Extension south of Sydney. Thousands of objections in the planning process did not stop the government going ahead with each stage.

This led to a state parliamentary inquiry in 2018. Its first finding was: “That the WestConnex project is, notwithstanding issues of implementation raised in this report, a vital and long-overdue addition to the road infrastructure of New South Wales.”

Read more: Health impacts and murky decision-making feed public distrust of projects like WestConnex

However, the committee also found “the NSW Government failed to adequately consider alternative options at the commencement of the WestConnex project” and that “the transparency arrangements pertaining to the WestConnex business case have been unsatisfactory”.

These two findings apply to the Western Harbour Tunnel process too.

In the run-up to the 2019 state election, the government promoted the project and placed on public exhibition an environmental impact statement for the A$2.6 billion F6 extension between Arncliffe and Kogarah.

The state opposition promised to scrap the Western Harbour Tunnel and F6 projects. Instead, it would give priority to rail and public transport upgrades.

Some have suggested time-of-day road congestion charges as a much better option than more motorways.

Read more: How the NSW election promises on transport add up

Local government objections

Four councils made detailed objections to the Western Harbour Tunnel proposal.

The City of Sydney, noting “it has been a long-time critic of WestConnex”, said:

This is primarily because this costly motorway project will fail in its primary objective of easing congestion. Urban motorways do not solve congestion; they induce demand for motor vehicle trips and any additional capacity created is quickly filled. This phenomenon applies equally to the Western Harbour Tunnel and Warringah Freeway Project, a component of the WestConnex expansion.

The City of Sydney recommended the government provide alternative public transport options.

The Inner West Council, whose suburb of Rozelle will be adversely impacted by the project, has also long opposed inner-urban motorways. It prefers “traffic-reduction solutions to addressing congestion, including public and active transport, travel demand management and transit-oriented development, with some modest/targeted road improvement”.

North Sydney Council noted significant concerns with the EIS, including “inadequate justification and need, loss of open space, construction and operational road network impacts, air quality and human health concerns, environmental, visual, social, amenity and heritage impacts, as well as numerous strategic projects having the potential to be compromised”.

Willoughby City Council noted the limited time given for considering a very large EIS, made worse by the COVID-19 pandemic. It questioned why a public transport alternative was not assessed. “Known alternative solutions with lower climate impacts need to be considered to be consistent with action on climate change and improved resilience.”

Ignoring the alternatives

In 2017, it was revealed the NSW government was instructing transport officials to ignore public transport alternatives to motorways such as the F6 extension and Western Harbour Tunnel. Wollongong-Sydney train travel times could be cut by half an hour for A$10 billion less, according to a Transport for NSW internal memo.

Read more: We can halve train travel times between our cities by moving to faster rail

This is at a time when Sydney train ridership has been increasing faster than the distance driven by Sydney motorists. Rail showed 39% growth over ten years to 2018-19 and road just 12% in a time of rapid population growth.

Over many objections, the F6 extension is proceeding. Many aspects of the Western Harbour Tunnel need further attention. The NSW Ports Authority is concerned about the amount of highly contaminated sludge that will be dredged up from the harbour. The shadow minister for roads, John Graham, notes dredging will be close to residential areas.

Heritage NSW has noted the project will have direct impacts on six sites, including the approaches to Sydney Harbour Bridge.

The Action for Public Transport (NSW) group questions the influence of the Transurban company on transport planning at a time when NSW’s long-term integrated transport and land use plans aim for net zero emissions by 2050. Its submission says:

The funding for the project should be reallocated to more worthwhile projects such as filling in missing links in urban public transport systems, disentangling the passenger rail network from the rail freight network, and providing faster rail links to regional centres.

Read more: Infrastructure splurge ignores smarter ways to keep growing cities moving

What are these other priorities?

NSW has a shortage of “fit for purpose” rail infrastructure to serve a growing population. This includes the Sydney Metro West (an EIS is on exhibition) and ensuring the new Western Sydney Airport has a rail service. More funding is also needed to upgrade the existing rail system and to cover a A$4.3 billion cost blowout on the Sydney City and Southwest Metro project.

The government has acknowledged a need for better rail services to the South Coast, Newcastle, Canberra and Orange. In 2018, it commissioned an independent report on fast rail options for NSW by British fast rail expert Andrew McNaughton. The completed report is yet to be released.

The question now is should the Western Highway Tunnel be abandoned or, at the very least, deferred until major rail projects have been completed.

– ref. Is another huge and costly road project really Sydney’s best option right now? – https://theconversation.com/is-another-huge-and-costly-road-project-really-sydneys-best-option-right-now-136836

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

Responding to COVID-19 required governments to make hard choices with enormous consequences. The biggest were whether to let the disease rip, lock it down, or strike out in search of a middle ground that delivered the best of both worlds.

Different leaders made different decisions and will ultimately be judged by their citizens and historians. But it’s not just in health that COVID-19 requires choices with enormous consequences – it’s also in spending.

Two months ago the government announced a A$17.6 billion coronavirus stimulus package. Remember when that was a lot of money?

Since then it has committed to spend an extra $200 billion.

$200 billion has become base camp

Should we just let the government rip through hundreds of billions more in an attempt to quickly stimulate the economy? Should we put all proposed spending through lengthy cost benefit analyses and parliamentary inquiries?

Or is there some sort of middle path?

In a new paper by The Australia Institute, Design Principles for Fiscal Policy in a Pandemic, Matt Grudnoff, David Richardson and I set out eight criteria on which to judge spending proposals in order to expedite public and parliamentary scrutiny.

Read more: It’s just started: we’ll need war bonds, and stimulus on a scale not seen in our lifetimes

While not all voters will be able to agree on what the most pressing problems are, presumably all voters agree that when it comes to spending vast amounts of public money it is important to have some clear criteria against which voters can subsequently judge the necessarily rapid decisions that are made.

The first two are for stimulus spending to be large in size and speedy in implementation.

The other six use economic theory to help maximise benefit for bucks.

Target households with high marginal propensity to consume

Low income households have a higher “propensity to consume’” than wealthier families who can afford to save some of what they receive. Saved stimulus does nothing to increase demand and employment in the short term.

Direct government spending on goods and services is another way to ensure that money is spent quickly.

Target domestic production

Money spent on imported cars, imported electronics or imported capital equipment will diminish the local benefits of stimulus spending.

Target activities with high employment intensities

Some industries create more direct and indirect jobs per billion dollars of spending than others. Capital intensive mining and construction projects, for example, create far fewer jobs per billion dollars spent than spending on health and community services.

Target those most hurt by the crisis

When considering stimulus spending the government should focus on projects that provide employment opportunities to individuals in industries most affected. Two of these are tourism and hospitality. While such an approach is equitable, it is also efficient as it helps ensure that the skills of the newly-unemployed match those needed by needed by new projects.

Target regions that are most disadvantaged

Building new train lines in NSW might be a good long run investment for the country, but it will do little to create jobs for tourism workers who have lost their jobs in Queensland. Stimulus spending targeted at the regions most effected will be the most likely to socak up unemployment.

Target useful projects that deliver benefits

When considering stimulus spending the government should think about what we want more of after the crisis has ended. An example from an earlier stimulus program is the ocean baths that dot the NSW coastline.

Many were built in order to generate employment during the great depression, yet almost 90 years later we are still enjoying the additional secondary benefits.

Most good projects will meet most of the criteria

While not all good projects will meet all of the criteria spelt out above, most good stimulus projects will meet most of them.

The enormity of the discretionary spending that the Morrison government is about to undertake on our behalf is almost impossible to fathom.

In a normal year the Commonwealth spends $500 billion on all of its services.

In the past two months alone it has committed to spend an additional $200 billion, and it hasn’t even started on the extra spending that will be needed to restore economic health as restrictions unwind.

Read more: Look beyond a silver bullet train for stimulus

The enormity of the spending that will be needed means that, more than ever before, the decisions it makes over the next few months will determine our economic success for decades to come.

For all our sakes it is important it gets these decisions right.

Using principles we have set out for assessing the myriad of potential projects it will consider will give it the best chance to make the biggest difference, and give us some confidence that even though decisions are being made quickly, they are being made well.

Matt Grudnoff, Senior Economist at The Australia Institute, contributed to this piece.

– ref. The big stimulus spending has just begun. Here’s how to get it right, quickly – https://theconversation.com/the-big-stimulus-spending-has-just-begun-heres-how-to-get-it-right-quickly-138414

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Meng Xia, PhD candidate on Literature, memory and trauma, UNSW

Starting on January 25 2020, novelist and poet Fang Fang has posted 60 daily diary entries about life and death in her home town of Wuhan to WeChat, China’s most popular social media platform.

Born in 1955, Fang has a long and respected career as a writer of poems, novels and novellas. She won the prestigious Lu Xun Literary Prize in 2010, and was elected president of the government-funded Writers Association of Hubei Province in 2007. But her work has rarely been translated into English.

Her diaries were read widely in China, and but their reception was mixed. Some readers celebrated Fang for voicing people’s struggles in lockdown, others criticised her viewpoints. In her diary, Fang wrote* about her persistence: “I’m never too old to lose the strength of criticising.”

News of publication of her translated diaries in English and German only the inflamed debate in China. But in any language, Fang Fang’s unfolding recording of the pandemic will be valuable for the globe’s understanding of our shared memories of this time.

Fang Fang and her dairies

Before becoming a writer, Fang worked as a dockworker at the Port of Wuhan, on the Yangtze and Hanjiang rivers. Her stories mostly depict struggling social underdogs in Wuhan.

Fang’s diaries (which I read in the original Mandarin) chronicle the situation in Wuhan throughout the lockdown.

She describes her daily life in quarantine: food shopping, online communication with families and friends, and responding to readers.

She touches on sensitive topics: the investigation of China’s belated reporting on coronavirus, overcrowded hospitals, and those dying at home unattended.

There are heartbreaking snapshots: scattered, unclaimed cell phones at a mortuary; sweet moments when volunteers help with the old and the weak. She reflects on the dilemma of media workers in a public crisis, emergency policies enacted by local administrations, and misinformation capturing the interest of Chinese netizens.

In Fang’s diaries, we see a personal account of public memory and national trauma.

Fang’s diaries attracted a large following during the outbreak in China. One reader commented under her post: “These diaries are the respiratory valve for us in gloom.”

Fang’s tone is colloquial, poignant and accessible. Her words resonate with people isolated and frightened in her appeals for help, and her grieving over the beloved.

A critical reception

By the end of Fang’s diarising on March 25, criticism had swelled, with Chinese citizens targeting the writer’s credibility and integrity. This torrent of criticism peaked when Harper Collins announced it would be publishing the diaries in English translation, under the title Wuhan Diary: Dispatches from a Quarantined City.

Fang was denounced by her opponents as selling Wuhanese suffering to Westerners and defaming China’s effort in fighting the virus. Opponents have said this book will “hand over the knife” to anti-Chinese sentiment, and provide legitimacy to conspiracy theories and unjustified blame on China. One post about her on Weibo said: “You’re giving Western countries ammunition to target China.”

There is also some contention about the legitimacy of Fang’s dairies as the testimony of Wuhan. Her writing presents anxiety and anger in quarantine, but some challenge her viewpoints as partial and information unattested. She is accused of exposing too many negative emotions, losing authenticity and objectivity.

Sharing testimonies

“Global memory” is a phrase I use to describe recording experiences and the transposition and reconstruction of local memories across borders and barriers. It considers both the potential for mutual understanding, and the difficulty in communicating experiences across languages and cultures.

As the world goes through the trauma of COVID-19 and its eventual aftermath, psychological effects are emerging. The publication of diaries and other texts will become important in how memories are handled individually and collectively.

In her dairies*, Fang sighs:

People in Wuhan are all traumatised. We’re not lucky; we are only survivors.

Fang’s writing can help identify patterns, solutions and mindsets to deal with pandemics. She reminds us cooperation is required between people and nations, and this cooperation is too often frustrated because of racial bias, political agendas and economic competition.

She writes about the medical assistance teams from across China aiding Wuhan, and asks why the Wuhanese outside Wuhan – suspected as infected – are refused entry to cities, towns and villages. This story of alienation and repulsion is now recurring in a global context with stories of fear and racism across the world. These narratives shape, and repeat in, human history of pandemics, wars and trade.

Read more: Coronavirus: The latest disease to fuel mistrust, fear and racism

Global memory entails a humanitarian thinking about how we relate ourselves to “others”.

Fang’s dairies capture Wuhan’s memory and will help people in and outside China understand and empathise with other humans whose lives are all drastically changed by the pandemic.

In sharing universal human emotions, these dairies will empower those currently feeling confusion and desperation. In remembering the pandemic – even as it continues to unfold – readers will rethink their present, and their uncertain future.

*Quote translated from Mandarin by Meng Xia.

– ref. Fang Fang’s Wuhan diaries are a personal account of shared memory – https://theconversation.com/fang-fangs-wuhan-diaries-are-a-personal-account-of-shared-memory-138007

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexander Gillespie, Professor of Law, University of Waikato

Reaction to the New Zealand government’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and resultant lockdown has ranged from high praise to criticism that its actions were illegal and its management chaotic.

Partly in response to the concerns, and to put the continued containment of the disease on a firmer legal footing, the COVID-19 Public Health Response Act was passed under urgency on May 14. It was quickly met with another wave of discontent.

National MP Michael Woodhouse likened Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern to “Muldoon with slogans”. Others recalled past abuses of police power such as the “dawn raids” of the 1970s.

Such commentary played on fears the new law was a lurch towards authoritarianism under cover of the pandemic – but how seriously should we take it?

Making the law fit for purpose

Although New Zealand’s response to the emergency has been praised at home and abroad, the government was working with a multi-generational legislative framework that needed adapting as the crisis evolved.

Read more: Experts are back in fashion – now more than ever we need to question them

At the core of that framework were the Civil Defence Emergency Management Act, the Epidemic Preparedness Act and the Health Act. Despite the relative success of the response, there were clearly ambiguities and weaknesses that could be improved once the emergency was over.

Laws covering public hygiene, vaccination, quarantine and greater integration of local communities (including Maori) in emergency planning will need refining. Longer term, this will be considered by select committees and may result in amendments to existing laws.

In the short term, however, the government decided as a matter of urgency to fast-track a new law to improve containment of the coronavirus. While the Epidemic Response Committee could have been expected to provide strong oversight, the bill became law without wider scrutiny.

Parliament later agreed to send the law to a select committee, but too late to stop the accusations of authoritarianism by stealth.

One COVID-19 law to rule them all

So what does this new law really do? Essentially, it will govern the country as we deal with all levels of the response to COVID-19. It supports “a public health response to COVID-19” that prevents and limits “the risk of, the outbreak or spread of COVID-19” in a way that is “co-ordinated, orderly, and proportionate” as well as “enforceable”.

Although the government has issued an alert level 2 order, it could equally issue new orders for level 3 or 4 under the new law if outbreaks return. Parliament has to approve all such orders within a short time, or they lapse.

Such orders can come from either the minister of health or the director-general of health. In some areas, the same orders could be given under the current Health Act. But the new law sets this out in easier language specifically tailored to the COVID-19 crisis.

Some provisions (such as those to do with contact tracing) are simplified from existing rules. Others, such as the power to direct businesses to close if they are operating in contravention of an order (such as not taking social distancing seriously), have a very contemporary feel.

The new law is particularly good at clearing up uncertainty. For example, it makes clear that orders can be applied “generally to all people in New Zealand or to any specified class of people in New Zealand”. This removes an earlier assumption that the law could only be applied piecemeal.

Read more: Will New Zealand’s $50 billion budget boost Jacinda Ardern’s chance of being re-elected?

Another improvement settles the rules on community checkpoints, one of the most controversial aspects of the recent lockdown. Without reiterating the existing power officials possess to close roads, public places and stop vehicles, the new law emphasises such actions can only be done by “a constable or an enforcement officer acting under the authority of the constable”.

Concerns about enforcement powers still valid

The new law has also trimmed the powers of a constable (i.e. police) during the COVID-19 period (but these remain very wide under the Health Act). Anyone entering a place to ensure disease control rules are being followed must now report the entry and why it was necessary.

This reporting requirement did not exist before but it would have been better to limit this emergency power to the police alone, or only allow its operation when police are present.

There is a further questionable area: while it makes sense that orders can be issued when the existing Epidemic Preparedness Act or Civil Defence Emergency Management Act are in play, it is less clear why the prime minister can also make such orders. Those powers should only exist when an emergency is actually declared or in operation.

These concerns aside, perhaps the best feature of the new law is that it is destined to have a short life. It must be renewed every 90 days or it lapses, and it lapses for good after two years. By the time it gets a retrospective grilling from a select committee it will – hopefully like the disease itself – be due to disappear.

Given its context, and the improvements and safeguards the act provides, it’s hard to see it as evidence of the rise of authoritarian government.

– ref. Are New Zealand’s new COVID-19 laws and powers really a step towards a police state? – https://theconversation.com/are-new-zealands-new-covid-19-laws-and-powers-really-a-step-towards-a-police-state-138114

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Pippa Blackburn, Adjunct Senior Lecturer, Griffith University, Qld, Griffith University

Health-care staff are trained to deal with whatever comes through the hospital doors. But COVID-19 is a completely different ballgame.

During this pandemic, health-care workers are facing traumatic experiences in both their professional and personal worlds. They face challenges at work treating patients with COVID-19, or dealing with the roll-on effects of a pandemic.

Meanwhile they must contend with coronavirus-related challenges in their own lives, whether children home from school, partners out of work, or other pressures.

Health-care workers are trained to keep the professional and personal separate. But the boundaries between these two spheres are now blurred. They are sharing the same collective trauma as the communities they serve.

Read more: Collective trauma is real, and could hamper Australian communities’ bushfire recovery

Shared trauma

The concept of shared trauma was first introduced by social work expert Carol Tosone. She was in a counselling session with a client when two passenger planes crashed into the World Trade Center twin towers near her New York office on September 11, 2001.

Tosone became interested in the shared traumatic reality as she dealt with her own trauma after this event, while remaining in a supportive and professional role to her clients and students.

While secondary and vicarious trauma help to explain a professional’s psychological and emotional response to hearing others’ traumatic stories, Tosone was interested in the clinician’s experiences when living and working in the same traumatic environment.

Since 2001, Tosone’s concept of shared trauma has been used to explore the experiences of hundreds of clinicians, particularly trauma and mental health workers and researchers impacted by catastrophic events, such as natural disasters, school shootings, human conflict and war.

In essence, the helping professional experiences a sort of doubling of their trauma – they’re experiencing the same traumatic event as an individual member of the community and as a professional providing services to people directly affected.

A tough time to be a health-care worker

Clinicians are not only dealing with the confronting reality of the risk to their own health in caring for patients with COVID-19, but the environments in which they work are rapidly changing.

For example, health-care workers are having to quickly navigate new technologies in providing clinical care, as well as evolving protocols and systems.

Some might be worried about the pandemic’s impact on their role, which may include job loss or redeployment.

Read more: We need to flatten the ‘other’ coronavirus curve, our looming mental health crisis

Anxiety may also come from not being able to minimise risk, such as not having enough personal protective equipment (PPE), and the fear of bringing home COVID-19 to their families.

The distress for health-care professionals who have infected others, including people in their care, would be uniquely difficult.

Alarmingly, health professionals have been abused by the general public out of fear they may spread the virus.

We’ve also seen reports of an increase in racism towards health-care staff of Asian appearance.

Moral distress

Health-care workers may also be experiencing high levels of moral distress as a result of having to make difficult decisions.

Moral distress occurs when clinicians feel emotionally, psychologically, spiritually and professionally compromised when they’re unable to deliver care consistent with their personal and professional values.

Fortunately in Australia we’ve been able to avoid scenarios where clinicians have had to choose one patient over another to receive life-saving treatment due to resource limitations.

But medical professionals here have had to modify the usual practices around care of dying patients. The inability to support families in this context has caused much distress to doctors and other clinicians in relation to care of patients who have died from COVID-19.

Read more: Supplies needed for coronavirus healthcare workers: 89 million masks, 30 million gowns, 2.9 million litres of hand sanitiser. A month.

Rising to the challenge

Health-care professionals are aware of their own vulnerability during this pandemic. Even knowing colleagues across the globe have died from COVID-19, they continue to step up to the challenge.

Research shows clinicians in these shared traumatic environments recognise they have a key role in caring for their community, even when experiencing their own elevated levels of anxiety and personal risk.

Clinicians have reported identifying more deeply with patients, as well as a higher level of openness and an increased sense of compassion between professionals and their patients than would happen under normal circumstances.

However, clinicians also reported a need for a significantly higher level of attention to their judgement and decision making in relation to clinical assessments and interventions.

Read more: To improve firefighters’ mental health, we can’t wait for them to reach out – we need to ‘reach in’

COVID-19 brings ongoing uncertainty and an anticipatory anxiety about what the future holds. For example, will we experience the large number of deaths that have occurred overseas once our restrictions ease?

If we place the COVID-19 pandemic within the context of shared trauma, it not only recognises the impact on our health-care staff in the current climate, but highlights the fact our health-care staff are part of our communities.

The collective mental health of those impacted by COVID-19 heightens the risks for a potential range of mental health issues such as depression, anxiety, traumatic grief, post-traumatic stress disorder and prolonged grief disorder in the immediate and long-term future.

Although mental health services are responding to the current need, continued mental health assistance for health-care staff for the longer term is imperative.

While perceiving them as heroes is a positive public accolade, it does create an illusion of martyrdom, camouflaging what is really required – quality ongoing support.

– ref. Health-care workers share our trauma during the coronavirus pandemic – on top of their own – https://theconversation.com/health-care-workers-share-our-trauma-during-the-coronavirus-pandemic-on-top-of-their-own-137887

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

Scott Morrison wants employers and employees to come out of the COVID crisis with a new level of co-operation that delivers for both sides as well as boosting the economy.

He’s set to outline his push for a compact with business and unions in an address on his economic agenda to the National Press Club next week.

Meanwhile he’s told The Australian: “Businesses have to have a competitive cost base. They have to be able to draw on the best of the skills base that match their needs and they have to be engaged in technology and they have to diversify into markets that will sustain them.

“Employees will be asking for a more flexible workplace … it works both ways, it’s a two-way street.

“There are things that have happened in workplaces in the past few months that may never have happened.

“There will be a new sense of urgency … with the economic devastation that has befallen us.”

Morrison wants to deal with “some sclerosis” he says has developed in the economy during the long stretch of good times.

Bill Kelty, former secretary of the ACTU, was a key figure in the “accord” between government and unions of the Hawke-Keating era. It was a period of major reform that tackled a lot of “sclerosis” very successfully.

Kelty outlined to The Conversation a five-point plan he argues would suit today’s times.

1. Support a small real increase in the minimum wage, but phased in according to economic capacity, so workers “don’t bear the brunt of the COVID crisis as they did in the global financial crisis”.

2. Continue JobKeeper as necessary beyond its six-months September end date, so the economy doesn’t fall off a second cliff. JobKeeper could be rejigged to pick up additional casual workers but with the benefit reduced for those now getting more than they were earning pre-COVID. he said.

3. Have a plan to fund from within Australia the government’s about $200 billion extra spending. Kelty said this could be done by the government issuing “national recovery bonds”, to be bought by the Reserve Bank, which would then sell into the market, primarily to the superannuation funds. “These funds can be the main long-term source of investment in infrastructure and a significant source of capital to companies.”

4. Address a range of labour market issues. These should include improving training for jobs coming into greater demand such as in aged care and the environment, creating a more “positive” climate for enterprise bargaining, and phasing in better pay for occupations such as nursing and teaching.

5. Do not defer the already-legislated 2021 rise in the superannuation guarantee to 10% of wages (considerable opposition has been building including in the Liberal party to the legislated rises, which are due eventually to take the guarantee to 12%). This would ensure there was access to capital for businesses as well as consolidating the long-term retirement strategy, Kelty said.

Kelty maintained these measures would give workers confidence they wouldn’t lose out, and businesses greater certainty about costs, support for their operations, access to capital and a co-operative environment in which to make change.

He said Australia is much better placed to come out of the economic downturn successfully compared with the US because it has a “better framework”, including a superior social safety net, more extensive access to superannuation and a more constructive approach to change.

Australia’s economic exit “is going to be better than most countries’ – because we acted earlier than most, more decisively and effectively”.

His qualification was that initially the government did things in the wrong order by giving stimulus first – that is, the initial incentives for business to invest – before imposing the shutdown.

The order should have been isolation, stimulus, and recovery and reconstruction, he said.

Kelty welcomed Morrison’s attempt to bring employers and workers together. We live in a pluralistic democracy and what was needed now was a mature, non-partisan policy approach, he said.

But Morrison’s idea of a compact is likely to be very challenging to achieve.

Replying to Morrison’s Australian interview, ACTU secretary Sally McManus said on Monday: “The government’s response to this crisis has been strengthened by its engagement with the union movement. Unions have also worked with employers in industries across the economy to keep people safe and to save jobs.

“Tired old union bashing has got our country nowhere. We have always been a better country when the voice of working people is listened to and when people are prepared to work together to achieve common goals”.

When Hawke, Keating, Kelty and others were forging reforms, there had been a recession in the early 1980s though it was not like the traumatic circumstances of today, with the mix of a health crisis and an economic one.

There were big differences between then and now. The Labor government had not just a formal, elaborate “accord” with the union movement (which covered more than 40% of the workforce compared to 14% in 2018) – it also had the movement’s political sympathy.

The unions have been co-operative in the COVID crisis. But there will be increasing divergences of interests between employers and workers (unionised and non-unionised) as the economy tries to navigate its way out.

Kelty has a core piece of advice for the government. “Don’t try to do 20 things”.

Morrison probably doesn’t need to be reminded of over-reach, at least when it comes to industrial relations. He was elected in 2007, at the poll John Howard lost in large part on WorkChoices.

– ref. View from The Hill: Bill Kelty’s five-point plan for coming out of COVID – if Scott Morrison is looking for ideas – https://theconversation.com/view-from-the-hill-bill-keltys-five-point-plan-for-coming-out-of-covid-if-scott-morrison-is-looking-for-ideas-138848

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ray Markey, Emeritus Professor, Macquarie University

The National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) last week announced its negotiated draft agreement with universities. The deal aims to save at least 12,000 university jobs at risk due to the COVID-19 pandemic in return for temporary salary reductions of between 5% and 15% for some staff.

The negotiations with the NTEU were led by Vice Chancellor of Charles Sturt University, Professor Andrew Vann, who is also the president of the Australian Higher Education Industrial Association (AHEIA). Also involved in the talks were La Trobe University’s Professor John Dewar, Monash University’s Professor Margaret Gardiner and The University of Western Australia’s Professor Jane den Hollander.

The so-called National Jobs Protection Framework has the support of peak body Universities Australia, but it not compulsory for all universities. Each university can individually decide whether to join the agreement.

What’s in the deal?

The union estimates universities will lose A$5 billion this year due to a reduction in international student enrolments. Many of the jobs at risk, particularly when it comes to research staff, will be be disproportionately borne by early career researchers and women.

Read more: More than 10,000 job losses, billions in lost revenue: coronavirus will hit Australia’s research capacity harder than the GFC

The federal government has excluded universities from access to the JobKeeper scheme or any assistance offered to other industries. It has only guaranteed A$18 billion for domestic students already budgeted for, and a further A$100 million for discounted short courses in health services, teaching and IT. This latter funding is shared with private providers and uptake is uncertain.

The jobs protection framework is limited – until June 30 2021 – initially. It is founded on the the principles

• no university employee will be involuntarily stood down without pay. Affected staff get 30-50% of pay with the JobKeeper rate as the floor

• some staff at the hardest hit universities may have salaries cut by up to 15%. The vast majority of affected staff will receive between 90-95% of their former salary. But the first $30,000 is exempt, and people on lower wages will not be affected

• temporary salary reductions will only happen after non-staff costs and management salaries have been reduced. Some vice chancellors – including Charles Darwin University’s Simon Maddocks and Deakin University’s Iain Martin – have already taken cuts of 20-30%.

• non-wage conditions such as superannuation and leave continue to accrue at the standard rate

• displaced casual and fixed-term staff will be prioritised for new work

• redundancies will only happen in cases where a university can explicitly prove there is no work.

The framework allows employees to adjust working hours around family commitments and to shift from full to part-time work. It commits universities to pay out-of-pocket expenses for working from home, and protects probation and performance evaluations from pandemic impact.

Importantly, the NTEU will oversee the implementation of temporary wage cuts in return for no employee being involuntarily stood down. The oversight will be done through joint university-NTEU committees, and a national expert panel will assess university claims of loss.

Other potential staff sacrifices in the deal include

• deferring 2020 salary increases and reclassification and promotion pay rises

• being directed to reduce work by up to 10%

• temporary transfers to other duties

• being directed to take some annual or long service leave.

The agreement attempts to protect the most vulnerable workers. Casuals account for about 44% of around a total of 139,500 academic staff. If converting these actual staff numbers to full time equivalent numbers, then casuals account for 33% of 62,000 full time equivalent academic staff.

Casuals also make up about 27% of around 142,500 other non-academic staff (or 15% of 72,000 full time equivalent).

Read more: More than 70% of academics at some universities are casuals. They’re losing work and are cut out of JobKeeper

Casual staff will be exempt from any wage cuts. Along with fixed term employees, they will retain work if their work remains to be done. Casuals may also receive two weeks of paid COVID-19 leave.

Not everyone is happy

The Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU) – which competes with the NTEU for non-academic staff including administrative staff, student services and library staff – fiercely oppose the deal. CPSU representatives have argued while a pay cut may not mean much to academics on high salaries, it may be life-altering for many of their members.

Union figures show the average salary for full-time staff is A$110,000. In the worst case scenario for universities that opt-in to the deal, this salary would be cut by A$8,000. But it’s worth noting many staff receive much less than the average, and would have proportionally smaller cuts.

Some universities have already bowed out of the deal. The University of Melbourne, which is facing a A$400 million 2020 budget downturn, claims it doesn’t foresee stand-downs, forced reduction of hours or substantial pay cuts.

Its governing body also believes the agreement’s requirements conflict with its responsibility “to manage and control the affairs of the university”.

The Australian Catholic University’s Vice Chancellor, Greg Craven, also said last week the ACU were not interested in signing up to the deal, telling the Campus Morning Mail:

Such deals are being pushed by and designed for institutions facing vastly worse circumstances than ACU, with high enrolments of overseas students, and losses of hundreds of millions of dollars.

Other universities that may not sign up to the deal include Macquarie and Murdoch University, and the University of Southern Queensland, Sunshine Coast and Sydney. Some of these are less exposed to the loss of international students.

But the University of Sydney – which is part of Australia’s Group of Eight universities, which stand to lose the most from the loss of international students – has previously said it aims to make savings by reviewing casual staffing budgets – the people the NTEU deal seeks to protect.

Read more: COVID-19 increases risk to international students’ mental health. Australia urgently needs to step up

Universities that don’t sign up to the deal will be subject to enterprise bargaining clauses governing redundancies and other changes. Otherwise they may seek variations to the agreement, which the NTEU will resist.

– ref. Pay cuts to keep jobs: the tertiary education union’s deal with universities explained – https://theconversation.com/pay-cuts-to-keep-jobs-the-tertiary-education-unions-deal-with-universities-explained-138623

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dinesh Kumar, Professor, Electrical and Biomedical Engineering, RMIT University

The Australian government’s contact-tracing app, COVIDSafe, has been touted as crucial for restarting the country’s economy and curbing COVID-19’s spread.

But until more data are collected, it’s hard to estimate how effective the app will be. Nonetheless, there are some predictable situations in which COVIDSafe’s design may mean it will struggle to fulfil its purpose.

False positives

COVIDSafe uses Bluetooth to digitally “trace” people with whom a user has come into contact, with the aim of alerting anyone who has interacted with a confirmed COVID-19 case. But this technology carries a risk of “false positives”, wherein a user may be falsely alerted despite not actually having come into contact with the virus.

This is because Bluetooth radio waves pass through walls and glass. They can only measure how physically close two people are; they can’t tell whether those people are in the same room, in different rooms, or even in different cars passing each other.

In a high-density apartment building, depending on the strength of Bluetooth signals, it’s possible COVIDSafe could falsely alert plenty of people.

Read more: As coronavirus forces us to keep our distance, city density matters less than internal density

The Department of Health has acknowledged this complication, saying:

If this happens and one of the contacts is identified as having coronavirus, state and territory health officials will talk to the people to work out if this was a legitimate contact or not.

Nonetheless, this process may cause unnecessary distress, and could also have negative flow-on effects on the economy by keeping people home unnecessarily. False positives could also erode public trust in the app’s effectiveness.

False negatives

On the other side of the coin, COVIDSafe also has the potential for “false negatives”. Simply, it will not identify non-human-to-human transmission of the virus.

We know COVID-19 can survive on different surfaces for various periods of time. COVIDSafe would not be able to alert people exposed to the virus via a solid surface, such as a shopping trolley or elevator button, if the person who contaminated that surface had already left the scene.

COVIDSafe is also not helpful in the case of users who become infected with COVID-19 but remain asymptomatic. Such a person may never get tested and upload their contact data to the app’s central data store, but may still be able to pass the virus to those around them. More data is needed on asymptomatic transmission.

Read more: Why do some people with coronavirus get symptoms while others don’t?

And regarding the decision to classify “close contacts” as people who have been within a 1.5m distance for 15 minutes – this may have been based on research from Japan for when people are in an open space, and the air is moving.

However, this research also showed micro-droplets remained suspended in the air for 20 minutes in enclosed spaces. Thus, the 1.5m for 15 minutes rule may be questionable for indoor settings.

Downloads vs usage

Recently, Iceland’s contact tracing app achieved the highest penetration of any such app in the world, with almost 40% of the population opting in. But Icelandic Police Service detective inspector Gestur Pálmason – who has overseen contact tracing efforts – said while it was useful in a few cases, the app “wasn’t a game-changer”.

Australia’s Prime Minister Scott Morrison has said on multiple occasions COVIDSafe requires a 40% uptake to be effective.

Since then, federal health minister Greg Hunt has said there’s “no magic figure, but every set of people that download will make it easier and help”. This was echoed more recently by Department of Health acting secretary Caroline Edwards, who told a Senate committee there was no specific uptake goal within her team.

Past modelling revealed infection could be controlled if more than 70% of the population were taking the necessary precautions. It’s unclear what science (if any) was forming the basis of Australia’s initial 40% uptake goal for COVIDSafe.

This goal is also lower than proposed figures from other experts around the world, who have suggested goals varying from 50-70%, and 80% for UK smartphone owners. But the fact is, these figures are estimates and are difficult to test for accuracy.

Read more: In some places 40% of us may have downloaded COVIDSafe. Here’s why the government should share what it knows

Demographic bias

There are many other uncertainties about COVIDSafe’s effectiveness.

We lack data on whether the app is actually being downloaded by those most at risk. This may include:

We also know COVIDSafe doesn’t work properly on iPhones and some older model mobile phones. And older devices are more likely to be owned by those who are elderly, or less financially privileged.

What’s more, COVIDSafe can’t fulfil its contact tracing potential until it’s downloaded by a critical mass of people who have already contracted the virus. At this stage, the more people infected with COVID-19 that download the app, the better.

A tough nut to crack

Implementing a contact tracing app is a difficult task for our leaders and medical experts. This is because much remains unknown about the COVID-19 virus, and how people will continue to respond to rules as restrictions lift around the country.

Predictions of the disease’s spread have also shown a lot of variation.

Thus, there are many unknowns making it impossible to predict the outcome. The important thing is for people to not start taking risks just because they’ve downloaded COVIDSafe.

And while the government pushes for more downloads and reopening the economy, ongoing reviews will be crucial to improving the app’s functionality.

– ref. False positives, false negatives: it’s hard to say if the COVIDSafe app can overcome its shortcomings – https://theconversation.com/false-positives-false-negatives-its-hard-to-say-if-the-covidsafe-app-can-overcome-its-shortcomings-138129

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

The latest Newspoll, conducted May 13-16 from a sample of 1,500, gave the Coalition a 51-49 lead, a one-point gain for the Coalition since the previous Newspoll, three weeks ago. Primary votes were 43% Coalition (up two), 35% Labor (down one), 10% Greens (down two) and 3% One Nation (down one). Newspoll figures are from The Australian.

Scott Morrison fell slightly from the best net approval for a PM since Kevin Rudd in 2009: 66% (down two) were satisfied with his performance, and 30% (up two) were dissatisfied, for a net approval of +36, down four points.

Anthony Albanese had a net approval of +7, down four points. Morrison led Albanese as better PM by 56-29 (56-28 previously).

In my previous Newspoll article, I wrote that it was abnormal to show a two party tie while the PM had a +40 net approval. While these measures are now in better agreement, there is still a large gap between the Coalition’s two party vote and what would be expected based on Morrison’s ratings.

Read more: Labor gains in Newspoll despite Morrison’s continued approval surge; Trump’s ratings slide

A plausible explanation is that decisions on the coronavirus crisis are being made by the “national cabinet” that involves the premiers, three of which are Labor. As the section below shows, five of the six premiers beat Morrison’s +40 Newspoll net approval three weeks ago.

Involving the premiers in decision-making has made the decisions appear more bipartisan, and probably inhibited the Coalition’s voting intention gains.

In additional Newspoll questions, 72% were more concerned with moving too quickly to relax coronavirus restrictions, and just 24% were more concerned with moving too slowly.

Newspoll repeated coronavirus questions last asked six weeks ago. 78% were worried and 19% confident about the economic impact (84-14 worried previously). On preparedness of the public health system, it was 69-29 confident (57-41 worried previously). On public information, 80-18 confident (67-32 confident).

On these three issues, there was a solid rise in approval of federal and state governments’ management. On the economy, 60% were satisfied and 24% dissatisfied (47-33 satisfied previously). On the health system, 78-15 satisfied (59-28 satisfied previously). On public information, 82-13 satisfied (75-20 previously).

Premiers’ sky-high Newspoll ratings

The day after the April 27 federal Newspoll, approval ratings of the premiers were released. WA Labor Premier Mark McGowan had the highest ratings, with 89% satisfied and just 6% dissatisfied for a net approval of +83. This is likely a record high in any poll for any Australian prime minister or premier.

Tasmanian Liberal Premier Peter Gutwein was at 84% satisfied, 11% dissatisfied (net +73). Victorian Labor Premier Daniel Andrews was at 75% satisfied, 17% dissatisfied (net +58). NSW Liberal Premier Gladys Berejiklian had 69% satisfied and 23% dissatisfied (net +46). SA Liberal Premier Steven Marshall had 68% satisfied and 21% dissatisfied (net +47).

Queensland Labor Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk, who faces an election in October, performed worst of the premiers with 55% satisfied and 39% dissatisfied (net +16).

Samples for these state Newspolls were about 520 for each mainland state, plus 309 in Tasmania. Figures from The Poll Bludger.

Eden-Monaro seat poll: 51-49 to Labor

After Labor member Mike Kelly’s resignation, a byelection will be required in Eden-Monaro on a date to be advised. In 2019, Kelly held Eden-Monaro by just a 50.9-49.1 margin. That narrow margin and Kelly’s absent personal vote gives the Liberals some chance of gaining Eden-Monaro at the by-election.

As reported by The Poll Bludger, a uComms robopoll of Eden-Monaro, conducted for the left-wing Australia Institute, gave Labor a 51.1-48.9 lead. Primary votes were 39.8% Labor, 34.3% Liberal, 7.3% National, 6.7% Greens and 6.5% One Nation. The poll did not give candidate names, just parties.

Seat polls are unreliable, and there is a long time to go until the byelection.

Trump’s ratings recover despite terrible jobs report

This section is an updated version of an article I wrote for The Poll Bludger, published on Friday.

In the FiveThirtyEight poll aggregate, Donald Trump’s ratings with all polls are 44.0% approve, 51.7% disapprove (net -7.7%). With polls of registered or likely voters, Trump’s ratings are 44.2% approve, 52.1% disapprove (net -7.9%). Since his lowest point of the coronavirus crisis, Trump has recovered about two points on net approval.

In the RealClearPolitics average of national polls, Joe Biden’s lead over Trump has fallen to 4.5%, down from 5.9% three weeks ago. There have been two recent polls of key swing states. Biden leads Trump by three points in a Wisconsin Marquette poll. The previous Marquette poll, in March, also had Biden leading by three. Biden leads Trump by six points in a recent Florida poll.

On May 12, byelections occurred in two federal House of Representatives seats. While the Republicans won by 57-43 in Wisconsin’s Seventh, this was positive for Democrats, as Trump won this district by over 20 points in 2016.

The Republicans’ win by a big 55-45 in California’s 25th is much worse for Democrats as the district voted for Hillary Clinton by almost seven points. This was the first gain of a Californian seat for Republicans since 1998. The 2016 presidential figures are from a Daily Kos downloadable spreadsheet.

During the 2016 campaign, whichever candidate drew the most attention would generally suffer in the polls. Clinton’s lead widened after Trump’s “grab em by the pussy”, but narrowed after her own “deplorables”, and when the FBI reopened its investigation into her emails.

Until recently, Trump was conducting daily coronavirus briefings. The media focus on these briefings may have contributed to his ratings slide. Recent media attention on Tara Reade’s sexual assault allegation against Biden from 1993 could have damaged him.

In the 2016 exit poll, those who disliked both Clinton and Trump voted for Trump by 17 points. CNN analyst Harry Enten says that in 2020, Biden is crushing with “double haters”, but Trump is crushing with those who do not dislike either candidate. In 2016, double haters were a larger portion of the electorate than now, while those who dislike neither candidate has grown.

There has been a recent decline in US coronavirus cases and deaths. If much of the economy can be reopened without a renewed surge in cases, that would be good news for Trump, enabling him to brag about a strong recovery before the November election. I cannot see Trump winning if the current terrible economic situation continues until the election.

A terrible US jobs report

The April jobs report was released on May 8. 20.5 million jobs were lost and the unemployment rate jumped 10.3% to 14.7%. That is the highest unemployment rate and the biggest one-month change in the history of this series. This data goes back to January 1948, so it does not include the Great Depression. The previous highs for unemployment were 10.8% in November 1982, and 10.0% in October 2009.

The employment population ratio – the percentage of eligible Americans that are employed – crashed 8.7% in April to just 51.3%, far lower than in the global financial crisis, during which the lowest employment ratio was 58.2% in June 2011. As the unemployment rate excludes those not participating in the workforce, I prefer the employment ratio as a summary statistic. In Australia’s April jobs report, the employment ratio was 59.6%, much higher than the US.

In January, before the current crisis, the US employment ratio was at 61.2%, the highest since November 2008.

The one positive in this jobs report was that hourly wages rose $US 1.34 to $US 30.01. But this was the result of so many low-income jobs being shed. The aggregate weekly payrolls (weekly wages times number employed) fell 10.9% in April.

– ref. Coalition gains Newspoll lead as Labor ahead in Eden-Monaro; Trump’s ratings recover – https://theconversation.com/coalition-gains-newspoll-lead-as-labor-ahead-in-eden-monaro-trumps-ratings-recover-138793

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Helena Steel, Lecturer HRM, PhD Candidate – Job loss, career adaptability & HRM interventions, Swinburne University of Technology

As the COVID-19 economic crisis crimps travel and hurts airlines worldwide, Virgin Australia has been placed under external administrators. The Queensland government has put a $200m bid on it (a move derided by several federal ministers) but what’s clear is this is a period of enormous uncertainty for Virgin’s 10,000-strong Australian workforce.

It must feel like déjà vu for former Ansett Airline employees – especially those who went on to work at Virgin Australia (some of whom may still be there now). But the experience of ex-Ansett staff may offer clues on how Virgin employees can cope.

I (Helena Steel) interviewed former Ansett Airlines employees ten years after the airline’s collapse in 2001 (shortly after the September 11 Twin Towers attacks), to see what career changes they had made and what lessons they had learnt.

What I discovered was a workforce much more resilient than expected – and that was often due to the efforts of the ex-employees themselves.

Read more: ‘Home away from home’: reflecting on past airline collapses in Australia

What Ansett employees did next

After its collapse, most Ansett workers had remained in the airline industry and joined the then-growing Virgin Airlines. Fewer received jobs at Qantas, citing a lack of openings.

A small percentage joined overseas airlines or retired. A decade after the collapse, many had opted for a career change outside the airline industry.

I was employed by Ansett Australia/Air New Zealand and managed corporate HR in both New Zealand and Australia. After the collapse, I returned to Ansett Australia to assist with HR, winding up the company under administration.

It was hard to sell Ansett assets at the time – the September 11 attacks had punctured the airline industry worldwide and few were in the mood for buying planes.

In the end, Ansett was under administration for ten years, making it Australia’s longest and still the largest collapse.

Over 16,000 direct jobs were lost, not including the wider impact on allied jobs. It took ten years for Ansett employees to recoup their entitlements and, in the end, they received 96 cents for every dollar they were owed.

Many of these workers survived this stressful period by helping and supporting each other.

The Ansett family

There was an unwritten “hire family” policy at Ansett, with entire families on staff. Loyalty was strong; Ansett employees had on average 15 years service and many reported they loved their jobs. But entire families were left jobless when the collapse occurred.

Nevertheless, this family-oriented approach may also have helped staff survive the crisis.

Under administration, I (Helena Steel) set up an official company staff support and recruitment website but it was soon replaced by self-made employee sites offering information and advice. This shows a high level of collegiality in the workforce and how much staff wanted to help each other through the crisis.

Today, the “Ansett family” has survived, with annual and sometimes monthly get-togethers organised via groups on Facebook and elsewhere online.

Ex-staff have used these informal groups to keep updated on the next redundancy payments, superannuation entitlements, news from Ansett administration and importantly, job referrals and leads.

Read more: Virgin Australia was never going to last

The current crisis is different – but some lessons still apply

The COVID-19 economic crisis Virgin Australia employees find themselves in today is clearly different to the Ansett collapse in many ways. For starters, the effects are economy-wide, with far greater costs to the public purse and governments don’t seem too keen to bail out Virgin. The ability for ex-staff to find jobs elsewhere in the airline industry is diminished.

That said, Virgin Australia employees can learn a few lessons from former Ansett staff about how to survive, or even thrive.

First, it really helps to know you’re not going through this on your own. The “Ansett family” made ex-staff feel less alone and less likely to blame themselves for their fate. Many said they got some comfort from sharing their redundancy journey with colleagues, and hearing how others made it through and faced challenges along the way.

Second, the “Ansett job loss family” helped remove the stigma many feel when you suddenly lose your job.

Third, being part of networks can help you find new opportunities, stay up to date on entitlements and keep abreast of industry news.

There are already many Facebook groups for Virgin cabin crew, union members, and people with an interest in how the Virgin Australia administration is being handled. Finding an airline “family” in such places may help Virgin employees, potentially for many years.

These social support practices should be encouraged by airline leadership and HR to help foster resilience and survive a crisis.

– ref. How to survive a crisis: what Virgin Australia staff can learn from ex-Ansett workers – https://theconversation.com/how-to-survive-a-crisis-what-virgin-australia-staff-can-learn-from-ex-ansett-workers-138269

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Melissa A. Wheeler, Senior lecturer, Swinburne University of Technology

It wasn’t the usual end to our staff meeting.

This time, the head of our university department wrapped up the video conference by inviting her nine-year-old son to come and say hello to about a hundred colleagues.

It was an acknowledgement of the changes we have all adopted due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The responses required to contain the spread of the virus have obliterated the boundaries that conventionally separate work from the rest of our lives. It has left us questioning the old concept of work-life balance.

Read more: 6 strategies to juggle work and young kids at home: it’s about flexibility and boundaries

The myth of balance

The idea of work-life balance caught on the 1980s, powered to a large extent by the increasing number of women in the paid workforce who also shouldered the bulk of home and family work.

While it is a concept somewhat hard to define and based on many assumptions, definitions of work-life balance tend to focus on the “absence of conflict” between professional and personal domains.

Read more: The more work-life balance we have the more we want: global study

The intention is noble. The problem, in the words of business scholar Stewart Friedman, is that “balance is bunk”:

It’s a misguided metaphor because it assumes we must always make trade-offs among the four main aspects of our lives: work or school, home or family (however you define that), community (friends, neighbours, religious or social groups), and self (mind, body, spirit).

Friedman, a professor at the prestigious Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, founded the Wharton Work/Life Integration Project in 1991 to “produce knowledge for action on the relationship between work and the rest of life”.

A more realistic and more gratifying goal than balance, he argues, is to better integrate work and the rest of life in ways that engender “four-way wins” between work, home, community and self.

Synergies, not trade-offs

Integration is not about trade-offs but synergies, gaining more by combining aspects of life often deliberately quarantined from each other.

Psychologists Jeffery Greenhaus and Saroj Parasuraman describe integration as “when attitudes in one role positively spill over into another role, or when experiences in one role serve as resources that enrich another role in one’s life”.

A pre-COVID-19 example might be participating in a work-sponsored fun run for charity. It’s as chance to deepen your bonds with colleagues and do something good for the community. And exercise is good for both your physical and mental health.

Making integration the new normal

What would work-life integration look like in the age of COVID-19?

Perhaps it is a father who invites his children and partner to discuss a workplace challenge he is facing over dinner.

Working from home has been particularly onerous for families with kids cooped up and parents having to take on homeschooling duties. In this scenario, talking through a workplace issues enables the family to support each other and to feel a part of each other’s lives.

In the case of our departmental head introducing her son at the end of the video conference, it reminded the rest of us about the demands of working at home at this time.

Her son, meanwhile, got a chance to better appreciate his mother’s work, with nearly a hundred little boxes of faces no doubt helping him to understand why she is not always available. It was an opportunity to increase empathy and understanding from both colleagues and family. It sent a positive message that all employees are entitled to this understanding.

Integration also allows us the opportunity to throw away the idea of being the “perfect” partner or parent and instead work on being more open, honest, and even vulnerable.

But first we need to recognise that COVID-19 has dramatically changed personal and work dynamics, and we need to let go the mental model of thinking of work-time and home-time being distinct and separate blocks.

– ref. Forget work-life balance – it’s all about integration in the age of COVID-19 – https://theconversation.com/forget-work-life-balance-its-all-about-integration-in-the-age-of-covid-19-137386

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Victoria Duckett, Senior Lecturer in Screen, Deakin University

Cineteca Milano is renowned for its silent film holdings. With a collection of more than 35,000 Italian and international films dating back to the 1890s, it was both coincidental and fortuitous that, in December 2019, the archive began digitalisation.

Part of a national digitalisation program, the Cineteca decided rather than merely deposit their digitised materials into the holdings of the Cineteca Nazionale in Rome, they would release films online.

Matteo Pavesi, the director of the Cineteca Italiana, tells me they wanted to “make our oldest archival materials visible; we wanted to publish these holdings for everyone to enjoy”.

Since the Cineteca was shut in February, Cineteca’s staff of six have been releasing 20 films a week on their free streaming service.

Pre-coronavirus, Cineteca Milano attracted around 300 users to its site each day.

In March, the online archive attracted more than 4 million users.

Saving history

Film archives began to be established in 1933 as archivists realised films needed to be safeguarded for their own sake, rather than for military or religious purposes.

Nitrate film used from the early 1890s through the mid-1950s, and magnetic tape used from the mid-1940s to the early 2000s, cannot survive the test of time. So, in addition to managing storage environments, archives preserve films digitally.

Commercial streaming services offer access to films, but they do not ensure this content is stored, saved and contextualised. They are not custodians of history or culture. Archives ensure recordings of the past remain meaningfully embedded in our contemporary life.

In a time when the audiovisual is our primary mode of communication, the archive as an institution protecting and championing our shared history is more important than ever.

Making history

Since the British Film Institute (BFI) shut its London doors on March 17, Bryony Dixon, their curator of silent film, tells me they have seen a 200% increase in online traffic.

Short, punchy films are popular, and Dixon says these early silent films are like TikTok: “designed to just go ‘Here I am, I look at this’”.

The BFI is also working to document the period of the COVID-19 crisis.

Britain on Lockdown asks the public to send in videos to chart the national development of the coronavirus crisis.

These Are The Hands is a short and emotive found-footage film using archival public health movies and contemporary footage of NHS staff. We see hands touching the newborn, the young, the aged, the disabled, and the sick. At every stage of our lives, the film reminds us health-care workers are essential.

These Are The Hands was released the day I spoke with Dixon.

“There won’t be a dry eye in the house,” she says. “It is very powerful.”

A quiet archive

While use of these archives in Milan and London has increased under lockdown, Australia’s National Film and Sound Archive (NFSA) has not seen a significant change.

Meg Labrum, general manager of collections, tells me in Europe people “appreciate, celebrate, use, know about their archive”.

In Australia, she says the film archive is “a kind of interesting, slightly odd, cultural provider”.

Although the NFSA has a significant collection in Canberra, it does not release 20 films a week like the Milan archive, nor does it boast a dedicated streaming service like the BFI.

The NFSA’s online presence is focused on curation, rather than the delivery of streaming material. It frames small samples of screen content into topical themes and exhibitions. With rare exception, users cannot watch films, but they can (for example) listen to producers Jocelyn Moorhouse and Lynda House speak about the making of Muriel’s Wedding.

Australia was once the end-of-the-line for global film distribution. Films sent around the globe for viewing would often remain in Australia – it made no financial sense to return bulky film reels to their country of origin. This means the NFSA has an internationally important collection, including items such as the most complete version of the French actress Sarah Bernhardt’s Camille (1911).

As a film historian, I am frustrated by licensing issues in Australia blocking our access to film heritage. Local copyright laws and an aversion to copyright risks have meant these legal issues seem to haunt the NFSA far more than they do in comparable institutions abroad.

Read more: Files can’t wait: the future of the National Film and Sound Archive

With staff working from home, Labrum sees the COVID-19 crisis consolidating the NFSA’s drive towards the digital: “an experiment […] testing just how far we can keep the collection open in a purely existing digital content context.”

While not streaming films, the NFSA has nevertheless focused on digital preservation, continuing the digitisation of magnetic tapes during shutdown.

Films to the people

Two days after our interview, Dixon was put on furlough, her pay reduced by 20% and unsure about her future employment. For now, her team “split work. […] We’ll cover a skeleton service”.

But she remains optimistic about the impact of COVID-19 on the BFI and its operations.

The pandemic has “proved the worth of digitising material and putting it online in a massive way,” she says.

“If it means that the people don’t go to the films, we need to take the films to the people.”

The increased traffic to the BFI and Cineteca Milano shows there is a want to engage with our film histories – coronavirus makes obvious how hampered Australians are in the access to ours.

– ref. International film archives are streaming up a storm during lockdown. Australia’s movie trove isn’t even online – https://theconversation.com/international-film-archives-are-streaming-up-a-storm-during-lockdown-australias-movie-trove-isnt-even-online-137169

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Scott Hocknull, Senior Curator of Geosciences, Queensland Museum, and Honorary Research Fellow, University of Melbourne

When people first arrived in what is now Queensland, they would have found the land inhabited by massive animals including goannas six metres long and kangaroos twice as tall as a human.

We have studied fossil bones of these animals for the past decade. Our findings, published today in Nature Communications, shed new light on the mystery of what drove these ancient megafauna to extinction.

Read more: Aboriginal Australians co-existed with the megafauna for at least 17,000 years

The first bones were found by the Barada Barna people during cultural heritage surveys on their traditional lands about 100 kilometres west of Mackay, at South Walker Creek Mine. Our study shares the first reliable glimpse of the giants that roamed the Australian tropics between 40,000 and 60,000 years ago.

These megafauna were the largest land animals to live in Australia since the time of the dinosaurs. Understanding the ecological role they played and the environmental impact of their loss remains their most valuable untold story.

While megafauna lived at South Walker Creek, people had arrived on the continent and were spreading across it. Our study adds new evidence to the ongoing megafauna extinction debate, but importantly underscores how much is left to learn from the fossil record.

The megafauna welcoming party

We excavated fossils from four sites and made detailed studies of the sites themselves to find the age of the fossils and understand what the environment was like in the past.

Our findings give us an idea of what megafaunal life was like in the tropical Australian savanna over a period of about 20,000 years, from around 60,000 to 40,000 years ago. During this time, the northern megafauna were different to those from the south.

We have found at least 13 extinct species so far at South Walker Creek, with mega-reptiles as apex predators, and mega-mammals their prey. Many of the species discovered are likely new species or northern variations of their southern counterparts.

Some, like the extinct crocodiles, were thought to have gone extinct long before people were on the scene. However, we now know they survived in at least one place 60,000-40,000 years ago.

Imagine first sighting a six-metre goanna and its Komodo Dragon-sized relative, or bumping into a land-dwelling crocodile and its plate-mail armoured aquatic cousin. The mammals were equally bizarre, including a giant bucktoothed wombat, a strange “bear-sloth” marsupial, and enormous kangaroos and wallabies.

A yet-to-be named giant kangaroo is the largest ever found. With an estimated mass of 274 kg, it beats the previous contender, the goliath short-faced kangaroo, Procoptodon goliah.

The biggest of all the mammals was the three-tonne marsupial Diprotodon, and the deadliest was the pouched predator Thylacoleo. Living alongside these giants were other megafauna species that still survive today: the emu, the red kangaroo and the saltwater crocodile.

Whodunnit? The evidence points to environmental change

Why did these megafauna become extinct? It has been argued that the extinctions were due to over-hunting by humans, and occurred shortly after people arrived in Australia.

However, this theory is not supported by our finding that a diverse collection of these ancient giants still survived 40,000 years ago, after humans had spread around the continent.

The extinctions of these tropical megafauna occurred sometime after our youngest fossil site formed, around 40,000 years ago. The timeframe of their disappearance coincided with sustained regional changes in available water and vegetation, as well as increased fire frequency. This combination of factors may have proven fatal to the giant land and aquatic species.

The megafauna extinction debate will no doubt continue for years to come. New discoveries will plug up the key gaps in the record. With the gaps in the north of the continent the greatest yet to fill.

With an overlap between people and megafauna of some 15,000–20,000 years, new questions arise about co-habitation. How did people live with these giants during a period of such drastic environmental change?

How much more change can Australia bear?

Major environmental change and extinctions are not an unusual part of our geological past, but this time it’s personal; it involves us. Throughout the Pleistocene (the time that ended with the most recent ice age), Australia has undergone major climatic and environmental change.

Within the same catchment of these new megafauna sites, one study shows how major climatic upheaval beginning around 280,000 years ago caused the disappearance of a diverse rainforest fauna. This set in motion a sequence of changes to the ecosystem that culminated in the loss of the megafauna at South Walker Creek around 40,000 years ago.

Read more: Did people or climate kill off the megafauna? Actually, it was both

It’s still unclear what impact these long-term environmental changes and the loss of the megafauna had on the species that survived.

This long-term trend of extinctions has now been given a kick along by the major changes to the environment created by humans which continue today. In the early 21st century in Australia we have seen increases in floods, droughts and bushfires, and we expect these increases to continue.

The fossil record provides us with a window into our past that can help us understand our present. As our study shows, dramatic environmental change takes a heavy toll on species survival especially for those at the top of the food chain. Will we heed the warnings from the past or suffer the consequences?

– ref. Humans coexisted with three-tonne marsupials and lizards as long as cars in ancient Australia – https://theconversation.com/humans-coexisted-with-three-tonne-marsupials-and-lizards-as-long-as-cars-in-ancient-australia-138534