Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kate Dooley, Research Fellow, Climate & Energy College, The University of Melbourne

Restoring degraded environments, such as by planting trees, is often touted as a solution to the climate crisis. But our new research shows this, while important, is no substitute for preventing fossil fuel emissions to limit global warming.

We calculated the maximum potential for responsible nature restoration to absorb carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. And we found that, combined with ending deforestation by 2030, this could reduce global warming 0.18°C by 2100. In comparison, current pledges from countries put us on track for 1.9-2℃ warming.

This is far from what’s needed to mitigate the catastrophic impacts of climate change, and is well above the 1.5℃ goal of the Paris Agreement. And it pours cold water on the idea we can offset our way out of ongoing global warming.

The priority remains rapidly phasing out fossil fuels, which have contributed 86% of all CO₂ emissions in the past decade. Deforestation must also end, with land use, deforestation and forest degradation contributing 11% of global emissions.

The hype around nature restoration

Growing commitments to net-zero climate targets have seen an increasing focus on nature restoration to remove CO₂ from the atmosphere, based on claims nature can provide over one-third of climate mitigation needed by 2030.

However, the term “nature restoration” often encompasses a wide range of activities, some of which actually degrade nature. This includes monoculture tree plantations, which destroy biodiversity, increase pollution and remove land available for food production.

Indeed, we find the hype around nature restoration tends to obscure the importance of restoring degraded landscapes, and conserving existing forests and other ecosystems already storing carbon.

This is why we applied a “responsible development” framework to nature restoration for our study. Broadly, this means restoration activities must follow ecological principles, respect land rights and minimise changes to land use.

This requires differentiating between activities that restore degraded lands and forests (such as ending native forest harvest or increasing vegetation in grazing lands), compared to planting a new forest.

The distinction matters. Creating new tree plantations means changing the way land is used. This presents risks to biodiversity and has potential trade-offs, such as removing important farmland.

On the other hand, restoring degraded lands does not displace existing land uses. Restoration enhances, rather than changes, biodiversity and existing agriculture.

Read more:
5 big ideas: how Australia can tackle climate change while restoring nature, culture and communities

The potential of nature restoration

We suggest this presents the maximum “responsible” land restoration potential that’s available for climate mitigation. We found this would result in a median 378 billion tonnes of CO₂ removed from the atmosphere between 2020 and 2100.

That might sound like a lot but, for perspective, global CO₂ equivalent emissions were 59 billion tonnes in 2019 alone. This means the removals we could expect from nature restoration over the rest of the century is the same as just six years worth of current emissions.

Based on this CO₂ removal potential, we assessed the impacts on peak global warming and century-long temperature reduction.

We found nature restoration only marginally lowers global warming – and any climate benefits are dwarfed by the scale of ongoing fossil fuel emissions, which could be over 2,000 billion tonnes of CO₂ between now and 2100, under current policies.

But let’s say we combine this potential with a deep decarbonisation scenario, where renewable energy is scaled up rapidly and we reach net zero emissions globally by 2050.

Then, we calculate the planet would briefly exceed a 1.5℃ temperature rise, before declining to 1.25-1.5℃ by 2100.

Of course, phasing out fossil fuels while restoring degraded lands and forests must also be coupled with ending deforestation. Otherwise, the emissions from deforestation will wipe out any gains from carbon removal.

Read more:
COP26: global deforestation deal will fail if countries like Australia don’t lift their game on land clearing

Given this, we also explored the impact of phasing out ongoing land-use emissions, to reach net-zero in the land sector by 2030.

As with restoration, we found halting deforestation by 2030 has a very small impact on global temperatures, and would reduce warming by only around 0.08℃ over the century. This was largely because our baseline scenario already assumed governments will take some action. Increasing deforestation would lead to much larger warming.

Taken together – nature restoration plus stopping deforestation – end-of-century warming could be reduced by 0.18℃.

Is this enough?

If we enter a low-emissions pathway to limit global warming to 1.5℃ this century, we expect global temperature rise to peak in the next one to two decades.

As our research shows, nature restoration will unlikely be done quickly enough to offset the fossil emissions and notably reduce these global peak temperatures.

But let us be clear. We are not suggesting nature restoration is fruitless, nor unimportant. In our urgency to mitigate climate change, every fraction of a degree of warming we can prevent counts.

Restoring degraded landscapes is also crucial for planetary health – the idea human health and flourishing natural systems are inextricably linked.

What’s more, protecting existing ecosystems – such as intact forests, peatlands and wetlands – has an important immediate climate benefit, as it avoids releasing the carbon they store.

What our research makes clear is that it’s dangerous to rely on restoring nature to meet our climate targets, rather than effectively and drastically phasing out fossil fuels. We see this reliance in, for instance, carbon offset schemes.

Read more:
Now we know the flaws of carbon offsets, it’s time to get real about climate change

Retaining the possibility of limiting warming to 1.5℃ requires rapid reductions in fossil fuel emissions before 2030 and global net-zero emissions by 2050, with some studies even calling for 2040.

Wealthy nations, such as Australia, should achieve net-zero CO₂ emissions earlier than the global average based on their higher historical emissions.

We now need new international cooperation and agreements to stop expansion of fossil fuels globally and for governments to strengthen their national climate pledges under the Paris Agreements ratcheting mechanism. Promises of carbon dioxide removals via land cannot justify delays in these necessary actions.

Kate Dooley receives funding from One Earth Philanthropy.

Zebedee Nicholls received funding from One Earth Philanthropy and receives funding from the European Union under the Horizon 2020 Program. He is also a co-founder of Climate Resource, which connects governments and businesses with the latest climate science.

– ref. No more excuses: restoring nature is not a silver bullet for global warming, we must cut emissions outright – https://theconversation.com/no-more-excuses-restoring-nature-is-not-a-silver-bullet-for-global-warming-we-must-cut-emissions-outright-186048

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Elodie Camprasse, Research fellow in spider crab ecology, Deakin University

Am I not pretty enough? This article is part of The Conversation’s series introducing you to little-known Australian animals that need our help.

Every winter in shallow waters off Australia’s southern coast, armies of native spider crabs appear in their thousands. They form huge underwater piles, some as tall as a person. These fascinating crustaceans are on a risky mission – to get bigger.

Crabs cannot simply grow like humans and other soft-bodied creatures. They must break free from their shells, expand their soft flesh and harden a new shell – all while dodging hungry predators on the hunt for a soft, easy meal.

This moulting process leaves crabs clumsy and uncoordinated, making any escape tricky. That’s thought to be one reason they clump together in such big numbers – to keep each other safe.

The spectacular gatherings attract tourists from interstate and overseas and have even been featured in a BBC documentary. But despite all this attention, scientists know very little about these quirky creatures. We need your help to investigate.

Safety in numbers

Southern Australia’s spider crabs (Leptomithrax gaimardii) are usually orange to red-brown. They can reach 16cm across their shell and 40cm across their legs, and are commonly known as great spider crabs.

Spider crabs are believed to be widely dispersed in deeper waters. But they’re most visible to humans when they congregate near shore in winter, and occasionally at other times of year.

Once together, spiders shed their old shells in a synchronised act thought to take about an hour. The crabs stay together until their new hard shells form, which probably takes a few days.

The aggregation can last a few weeks. Soft crabs are thought to take refuge in the middle of the piles, protected by crabs yet to moult.

Afterwards, spider crabs return to deeper waters and their solitary lives, leaving the seafloor littered with discarded shells.

Read more:
A tiny wasp could save Christmas Island’s spectacular red crabs from crazy ants

Plenty of mysteries to solve

Spider crab aggregations have been officially reported along the Victorian and Tasmanian coasts. Historically, most winter sightings have been reported on the Mornington Peninsula – particularly near the Rye and Blairgowrie piers.

Anecdotal evidence suggests the gatherings can also happen elsewhere. For instance, an aggregation was reported this year on the western side of Port Phillip Bay.

But there’s still so much we don’t know about spider crabs, such as:

• how many spider crabs are out there?
• how many gather en masse?
• how long do the crabs stay?
• what signals do crabs use to know it’s time to come together?
• why do the crabs aggregate at one location in several consecutive years then not return?

Most spider crab gatherings seem to occur in winter, but they’re known to come together at other times. For example, aggregations in late spring, midsummer and early autumn have been reported in parts of Port Phillip Bay and elsewhere Victoria and Tasmania.

Those aggregations don’t seem related to moulting – in fact, we have no idea why they occur!

We need your help

To better understand spider crab aggregations, a citizen science project called Spider Crab Watch has been launched.

We’re inviting everyone – including divers, fishermen, swimmers and boaters – to report where they see spider crabs, alone or in groups. We’d also love to hear from people who come across discarded spider crab shells on the beach, because that indicates an aggregation occurred nearby.

The reports will help us determine the habitats and conditions suitable for spider crab aggregations. We welcome sightings from Port Phillip Bay and across the Great Southern Reef, where spider crabs live. The reef spans the southern part of Australia from New South Wales to Western Australia and Tasmania.

Read more:
From counting birds to speaking out: how citizen science leads us to ask crucial questions

Logging a sighting is a quick process. Just report the date, time and location of the spider crabs, and answer a few questions. Photos are not essential but always welcome.

We’re also using traditional research to solve these mysteries. This includes underwater surveys, spider crab tagging and the use of timelapse cameras to capture images of spider crabs and their predators at sites where aggregations are expected.

After the aggregations, the images captured will be uploaded to a web portal. Interested people from around the country (and the world) can then analyse the images to help us count spider crabs and identify their predators.

If that interests you, sign up for Spider Crab Watch updates.

This program and the broader research is supported by funding from the Victorian government.

Understanding our oceans

The aims of this research go far beyond spider crabs. Scientists also want to know if spider crab gatherings help predators maintain healthy populations.

Huge stingrays, seals, seabirds and some sharks are often spotted near aggregation sites. But we need more information to understand how crab aggregations affect animals at the top of the food chain.

Spider crabs have captured the imagination of ocean lovers for decades – yet we know so little about their lives.

This project will help us gather information on this amazing natural spectacle and the role it plays in the marine environment.

Read more:
Octopus, crabs and lobsters feel pain – this is how we found out

Dr Elodie Camprasse receives funding from the Victorian government.

– ref. Thousands of giant crabs amass off Australia’s coast. Scientists need your help to understand the phenomenon – https://theconversation.com/thousands-of-giant-crabs-amass-off-australias-coast-scientists-need-your-help-to-understand-the-phenomenon-183342

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nina Lansbury, Senior Lecturer, School of Public Health, The University of Queensland

In Australia, most states have introduced initiatives to provide people who menstruate with free period care products in public schools.

The Queensland government’s recent announcement of free period care products for state schools is excellent progress.

However, there is value in enhancing the program by providing reusable products to reduce waste to landfill, by educating boys and other students who don’t menstruate, and tailoring this initiative appropriately for remote and Indigenous People who menstruate.

Read more:
First Nations people in the NT receive just 16% of the Medicare funding of an average Australian

Australia’s period care has come a long way

Australia has come a long way since our 2017 article about Indigenous girls potentially missing school in remote communities each month due to a range of period care challenges. The article was read by 25,000 people. It attracted a strong and positive response from Indigenous readers as well as politicians, policy makers and community groups all seeking to change the situation.

Our article began an important and ongoing Indigenous health collaboration towards ensuring all Indigenous and remote people who menstruate have access to information and products every month.

Proud Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander woman, businesswoman and public health researcher, Minnie King, from remote Western Cape York Peninsula in Queensland invited non-indigenous public health researcher, Nina Lansbury, to collaborate on a locally-led, Traditional Owner-guided period care project in the region, called Dignity Everyday.

Challenges with period care in remote Australia

Our “Dignity Everyday” community research project identified a strong need for the provision of period care products and for delivery of appropriate personal development information to young people who will or do menstruate. In our project, female students described 16 barriers for managing periods. We divided these into four main areas: their living situation; knowledge, culture and behaviour; discomfort and public life; and finances.

The results from this study highlighted three missing parts from the Queensland government’s new announcement that could address many of these barriers.

#1 Environmentally-friendly reusable period care products have arrived… but not everywhere

Firstly, distributing reusable period care products needs to be considered. In recent years, reusable period care products such as menstrual cups, reusable sanitary pads, and period pants have become more available for urban and online purchase. However, they are difficult to obtain in remote areas.

We recently distributed donations of 1,000 new pairs of reusable period pants and 250 reusable menstrual pads to girls and women during women-only yarning circles in Queensland’s Mapoon, Napranum and Weipa. Initial feedback has been strong in terms of being more discreet (the pants look like normal undies and the pads look like handkerchiefs), having low waste (there is no need for a bin or landfill), and removing cost (they can be used for around five years).

#2 Supporting boys to build their knowledge and awareness of menstruation

Secondly, the government needs to ensure the involvement of boys in period care education. Female students in our yarning circles in Western Cape recommended this as a way for boys to build their awareness and therefore reduce teasing and stigma. In response to this, and in the company of a male local Indigenous educator and four other male teachers, we held discussion sessions with middle and senior high school boys. These information sessions were well received by the boys. When we described the girls’ challenges, the boys provided a range of supportive suggestions on how they could support their mothers, sisters, and girlfriends.

Read more:
First periods can come as a shock. 5 ways to support your kid when they get theirs

#3 Community engagement by invitation only

Finally, community-led programs work best for Indigenous and remotely-located students as they are locally and culturally appropriate. Rather than adapting an urban school program for rural and remote students, our “Dignity Everyday” collaboration in Western Cape sought a best practice approach to community engagement.

We engaged firstly with senior Indigenous women on the issue and Traditional Owners provided advice for project design and implementation. Permission to engage in the local school was secured through the Department of Education. Products were donated by period care charities and companies. The communication always focuses on strengths – not deficits. The research team returns to community at their invitation.

The outcome is a culturally-sensitive, location-focused and ongoing collaboration that was described by the supportive school principal as a “premium program”.

Period care is complex but recent initiatives like that from the Queensland premier enable people who menstruate to manage with dignity and ease every month. Such initiatives can be enhanced by also providing reusable products, widening the conversation to boys and ensuring that remote and Indigenous community voices are central to all programs in which community are involved.

Nina Lansbury currently receives research funding from the NHMRC and the University of Queensland. The period care products disseminated through these projects were donated by Share the Dignity, Modibodi and Days 4 Girls.

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

– ref. Free period care products in Queensland schools is just a first step. Remote communities need access to these items as well – https://theconversation.com/free-period-care-products-in-queensland-schools-is-just-a-first-step-remote-communities-need-access-to-these-items-as-well-185700

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tomas Fitzgerald, Lecturer in Law, Curtin University

It is a truth, universally acknowledged, that the machines are taking over. What is less clear is whether the machines know that. Recent claims by a Google engineer that the LaMBDA AI Chatbot might be conscious made international headlines and sent philosophers into a tizz. Neuroscientists and linguists were less enthused.

As AI makes greater gains, debate about the technology moves from the hypothetical to the concrete and from the future to the present. This means a broader cross-section of people – not just philosophers, linguists and computer scientists but also policy-makers, politicians, judges, lawyers and law academics – need to form a more sophisticated view of AI.

After all, how policy-makers talk about AI is already shaping decisions about how to regulate that technology.

Take, for example, the case of Thaler v Commissioner of Patents, which was launched in the Federal Court of Australia after the commissioner for patents rejected an application naming an AI as an inventor. When Justice Beech disagreed and allowed the application, he made two findings.

First, he found that the word “inventor” simply described a function and could be performed either by a human or a thing. Think of the word “dishwasher”: it might describe a person, a kitchen appliance, or even an enthusiastic dog.

Second, Justice Beech used the metaphor of the brain to explain what AI is and how it works. Reasoning by analogy with human neurons, he found that the AI system in question could be considered autonomous, and so might meet the requirements of an inventor.

The case raises an important question: where did the idea that AI is like a brain come from? And why is it so popular?

AI for the mathematically challenged

It is understandable that people with no technical training might rely on metaphors to understand complex technology. But we would hope that policy-makers might develop a slightly more sophisticated understanding of AI than the one we get from Robocop.

My research considered how law academics talk about AI. One significant challenge for this group is that they are frequently maths-phobic. As the legal scholar Richard Posner argues, the law

provides a refuge for bright youngsters who have “math block”, though this usually means they shied away from math and science courses because they could get higher grades with less work in verbal fields.

Following Posner’s insight I reviewed all uses of the term “neural network” – the usual label for a common kind of AI system – published in a set of Australian law journals between 2015 and 2021.

Most papers made some attempt to explain what a neural network was. But only three of the nearly 50 papers attempted to engage with the underlying mathematics beyond a broad reference to statistics. Only two papers used visual aids to assist in their explanation, and none at all made use of the computer code or mathematical formulas central to neural networks.

By contrast, two-thirds of the explanations referred to the “mind” or biological neurons. And the overwhelming majority of those made a direct analogy. That is, they suggested AI systems actually replicated the function of human minds or brains. The metaphor of the mind is clearly more attractive than engaging with the underlying maths.

It is little wonder, then, that our policy-makers and judges – like the general public – make such heavy use of these metaphors. But the metaphors are leading them astray.

Where did the idea that AI is like the brain come from?

Understanding what produces intelligence is an ancient philosophical problem that was ultimately taken up by the science of psychology. An influential statement of the problem was made in William James’ 1890 book Principles of Psychology, which set early scientific psychologists the task of identifying a one-to-one correlation between a mental state and a physiological state in the brain.

Working in the 1920s, neurophysiologist Warren McCulloch attempted to solve this “mind/body problem” by proposing a “psychological theory of mental atoms”. In the 1940s he joined Nicholas Rashevsky’s influential biophysics group, which was attempting to bring the mathematical techniques used in physics to bear on the problems of nueroscience.

Key to these efforts were attempts to build simplified models of how biological neurons might work, which could then be refined into more sophisticated, mathematically rigorous explanations.

Read more:
We’re told AI neural networks ‘learn’ the way humans do. A neuroscientist explains why that’s not the case

If you have vague recollections of your high school physics teacher trying to explain the motion of particles by analogy with billiard balls or long metal slinkies, you get the general picture. Start with some very simple assumptions, understand the basic relations and work out the complexities later. In other words, assume a spherical cow.

In 1943, McCulloch and logician Walter Pitts proposed a simple model of neurons meant to explain the “heat illusion” phenomenon. While it was ultimately an unsuccessful picture of how neurons work – McCulloch and Pitts later abandoned it – it was a very helpful tool for designing logic circuits. Early computer scientists adapted their work into what is now known as logic design, where the naming conventions – “neural networks” for example – have persisted to this day.

That computer scientists still use terms like these seems to have fuelled the popular misconception that there is an intrinsic link between certain kinds of computer programs and the human brain. It is as though the simplified assumption of a spherical cow turned out to be a useful way to describe how ball pits should be designed and left us all believing there is some necessary link between children’s play equipment and dairy farming.

This would be not much more than a curiosity of intellectual history were it not the case that these misconceptions are shaping our policy responses to AI.

Is the solution to force lawyers, judges and policy-makers to pass high school calculus before they start talking about AI? Certainly they would object to any such proposal. But in the absence of better mathematical literacy we need to use better analogies.

While the Full Federal Court has since overturned Justice Beech’s decision in Thaler, it specifically noted the need for policy development in this area. Without giving non-specialists better ways of understanding and talking about AI, we’re likely to continue to have the same challenges.

Tomas Fitzgerald has received funding from the WA Bar Association. He is a member of WA Labor and the NTEU.

– ref. Why we talk about computers having brains (and why the metaphor is all wrong) – https://theconversation.com/why-we-talk-about-computers-having-brains-and-why-the-metaphor-is-all-wrong-185705

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brian Robert Cook, Associate professor, The University of Melbourne

In the aftermath of destructive floods, we often seek out someone to blame. Common targets are the “negligent local council”, the “greedy developer”, “the builder cutting corners”, and the “foolish home owner.” Unfortunately, it’s not that simple, as Sydney’s huge floods make clear.

In flood risk management, there’s a well-known idea called the “levee effect.” Floodplain expert Gilbert White popularised it in 1945 by demonstrating how building flood control measures in the Mississippi catchment contributed to increased flood damage. People felt more secure knowing a levee was nearby, and developers built further into the flood plains. When levees broke or were overtopped, much more development was exposed and the damages were magnified. “Dealing with floods in all their capricious and violent aspects is a problem in part of adjusting human occupance,” White wrote.

The levee effect shows why it’s so hard to reduce flood risk, even in areas hit hardest by this year’s record-breaking floods. The NSW town of Lismore had a 10 metre levee, experience dealing with many floods, and a flood risk management plan. It was devastated regardless.

To tackle flood risk, we have to respond to the social, political, economic, and environmental factors that drive development and occupation of floodplains.

Social factors: we love living near water

Around the world, people like to live near water – even if it might flood. Waterfront properties and those with river views command significantly higher prices. In addition, Australians view home ownership as a rite of passage, a key marker of adulthood as well as an economic investment. People will prioritise home ownership over concerns about living in a floodplain – especially when the house is part of a government approved development.

Political economy factors: money can drive decision making

Developing flood-prone areas generates profits, not just in monetary terms, but also through social and political capital. When developments are proposed, flood risk is assessed using the 1% annual exceedance probability line. This line, colloquially known as the 100-year flood event, defines land with a 1% chance of experiencing a flood each year.

The act of drawing this line creates more valuable and less valuable lands. Land owners on the boundary have an incentive to argue for change, sometimes based on how the 1% line is modelled. Developers can – and have – argued certain blocks should be acceptable for development. This can be appealing to local councils eager to encourage economic development and expand their tax base. When boundaries shift and less valuable land is converted into residential land, developers are rewarded with higher profits – while communities and future homeowners take a step closer to the next flood.

In some cases, like Lismore, developers building inside the 1% line are permitted to install mitigation measures, such as by infilling land, raising floor levels, building embankments, and installing large pumps. They are usually required to also build an additional 500 mm of freeboard above the 1% flood level.

Job done? Not quite. When a developer successfully argues for the redesignation of ‘flood-prone’ to ‘developable’, this sets a precedent that strengthens future development proposals. More developments create more risk, causing new flood control measures to be proposed, which are justified on the basis of encouraging more investment and development. The cycle continues.

When a developer converts flood-prone land into homes, they own the consequences a flood might bring to them. But when that building is sold, liability for flood damages is transferred to the new owner. It is common to portray such owners as naive or irresponsible, but they’re purchasing a home approved by the council on the basis of expert modelling.

The home owner pays their rates, like everyone else, and has every right to assume professionals have determined the safety of the development. When large-scale floods hit, those owners are as entitled as anyone to government assistance and relief.

This final act of goodwill – extremely difficult for any government to refuse – effectively shifts the costs of disaster mitigation, relief, and recovery to the Australian taxpayer. As John Handmer has argued, “flood risk is characterised by private sector profit while the costs are borne by the public sector, individuals and small business.”

Environmental factors: warping nature means more reliance on engineering

Floods are valuable, natural processes. In many farming regions, a bumper crop follows floods due to additional moisture and deposited nutrients.

But when parts of the environment are turned to concrete, the ability of the land to absorb flood waters drops and engineering protections become even more necessary.

Dams, embankments, storm drains, and pumps which protect developments are only effective to a point. Such structures effectively eliminate small scale floods, which would have otherwise helped to recharge aquifers, raise the level of “green water” stored in soils, deposit sediments, aid soil fertility, and prevent compaction and subsidence.

As a result, engineering solutions stop small-scale flooding and its accompanying benefits, while failing to prevent large-scale floods – and giving a false sense of security to floodplain residents.

What can be done?

To some degree, we’re all implicated in a system encouraging some people to profit by building flood-prone housing. When houses flood, it is the public who subsidises these developments with disaster relief and structural flood mitigation.

As climate change shifts the traditional boundaries of flood-prone areas, we face the pressing need to confront the forces driving us to develop floodplains.

A key first step is to harden boundaries and limit opportunities to ‘nibble’ into floodplains. Holding developers and builders accountable to home owners even after the sale would be beneficial, though such arrangements are virtually unprecedented.

Evacuation or abandonment of floodplains is inevitable. Lismore’s voluntary house purchase scheme is aimed at removing flood-prone structures inside the area prone to 1 in 20 year floods. Despite efforts like this, floodplain withdrawal has only succeeded a handful of times – and those gains are often quickly erased.

For now, Australians living in flood-prone areas should consider making their homes more flood-resilient to limit the impacts of small and medium floods, given these are likely to expand geographically due to climate change.

Nationally, Australia must tackle the hidden incentives causing encroachment if we are to avoid settling in areas where we cannot safely live.

Brian Robert Cook receives funding from Melbourne Water.

Tim Werner receives funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC).

– ref. To stop risky developments in floodplains, we have to tackle the profit motive – and our false sense of security – https://theconversation.com/to-stop-risky-developments-in-floodplains-we-have-to-tackle-the-profit-motive-and-our-false-sense-of-security-184062

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Paul Rae, Associate Professor, English and Theatre Studies, The University of Melbourne

I can take any empty space and call it a bare stage. A man walks across this empty space whilst someone else is watching him, and this is all that is needed for an act of theatre to be engaged.

So begins The Empty Space (1968) by the visionary British theatre director Peter Brook, who died on Saturday, aged 97.

While Brook’s gendered pronouns show that not all aspects of The Empty Space have aged equally well, it remains one of the most influential books on modern drama. Its core idea, encapsulated in Brook’s opening sentence, perfectly captures his enduring but complex legacy.

Born in London in 1925, Brook came of age as a precocious young director for the Royal Shakespeare Company during a period when the work of now-canonical European innovators of 20th century theatre was beginning to make its presence felt in Great Britain.

The Russian director Konstantin Stanislavski (1863-1938) advocated psychological realism in acting. The Marxist aesthetics of Germany’s Bertolt Brecht (1998-1956) sought to cultivate in audiences a critical perspective on exploitative social forces. French writer Antonin Artaud (1896-1948) imagined a primal “theatre of cruelty” directly impacting the body.

This wholesale question of what theatre should be inspired Brook towards methodological and aesthetic innovation, and modelled for him a way of writing about theatre for a popular readership in striking, vivid prose, that he would pursue throughout his career.

Read more:
From the Moscow stage to Monroe and De Niro: how the Method defined 20th-century acting

The essentials of being human

For Brook, all that is needed for theatre is a location, an actor and an audience member. Everything else is supplementary.

He set about demonstrating this with a series of intensely focused and increasingly pared-back productions.

These included an austere production of King Lear (1962) featuring Paul Scofield and adapted for film in 1971. Then there was the controlled madness of his Marat/Sade (1964), and an iconic white box production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1970).

This investigative impetus would soon take Brook beyond the British theatre establishment. He established the International Centre for Theatre Research in Paris in 1970, and began to travel widely.

His goal, as he put it, was to work “outside of contexts”, asking:

In what conditions is it possible for what happens in a theatre experience to originate from a group of actors and be received and shared by spectators without the help and hindrance of […] shared cultural signs and tokens?

In 1979, Brook took his international troupe (including a young Helen Mirren) on an 8,500 km, three and a half month trip through Saharan Africa, presenting The Conference of the Birds, a play based on a 12th Century Persian poem, to audiences with whom they expected to have nothing in common.

The Mahabharata and critical backlash

This phase of what came to be called intercultural theatre culminated in a famous adaptation of the Sanskrit epic The Mahabharata.

Premiering at the Avignon festival in 1985 (it was performed in Adelaide in 1988 and filmed in 1989) with a cast drawn from many cultures and theatrical traditions, critics praised the beauty and limpid theatricality of the production.

However, it also triggered a critical backlash which, in retrospect, had been a long time coming.

As Australians well know, there are no “empty spaces” that are simply there for the taking. There are no cultural forms that exist “outside of contexts”.

Brook was not naive about this, but he struggled to square local particularity with his universalist instincts.

He acknowledged The Mahabharata “would never have existed without India”, yet at the same time, stated

we had to avoid allowing the suggestion of India to be so strong as to inhibit human identification to too great an extent.

For a growing number of critics, this was not only intellectually unsustainable, but compounded historical wrongs.

In 1990, the Indian theatre scholar Rustom Bharucha published Theatre and the World, a broadside against western appropriations of Asian theatrical forms that went back to Stanislavski, Brecht and Artaud, and were exemplified in Brook’s work.

Bharucha accused Brook of trivialising and decontextualising Indian culture, and exploiting Indian performers.

The Mahabharata would mark a significant shift in how intercultural collaborations would be approached in future: greater attention being paid to who has the right to represent what, and how the material and intellectual resources in any given production are distributed.

A director of influence

Through the 1990s and into the new millennium, Brook remained consistently active.

He continued to create classic and intercultural performances at the Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord in Paris.

He worked with international artists on projects that would tour widely. Le Costume (The Suit), an adaptation of a 1963 story by Can Themba made seemingly limitless use of the anthropomorphic properties of an empty suit to tell a touching parable of love and loss in apartheid-era South Africa.

Brook’s clarifying focus on what really matters in theatre – paring everything back from staging to acting style and infusing what remains with complexity, nuance and intelligence – can be discerned across the spectrum of contemporary theatrical activity.

We see it, for example, in the the physical inventiveness of Complicité, the raw character work of Ivo van Hove and the compositional sensibilities of Katie Mitchell.

Then there are the intercultural experiments of Ariane Mnouchkine and Ong Keng Sen. We can event trace it to the combination of technological refinement and narrative momentum in Kip Williams’s current Australian hit The Picture of Dorian Grey.

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Brook raised the bar on what audiences should expect of theatre, but also what creators could demand of their audiences.

He advocated a theatre in which a rigorous creative process underpinned an absolute commitment by actors to the present moment of performance. In response, audiences would feel compelled to bring their own investments, attention and desires.

Brook’s work was not without controversy, but it rarely strayed far from the centre of debates over the human stakes in the creation of theatre.

Brook reminded us how high those stakes can be – as long as we all work towards meeting the criteria for, as he put it in The Empty Space, “an act of theatre to be engaged”.

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

– ref. An ever innovative director, Peter Brook reminded us how high the stakes of theatre can be – https://theconversation.com/an-ever-innovative-director-peter-brook-reminded-us-how-high-the-stakes-of-theatre-can-be-186290

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Phil R. Cummins, Professor, Geoscience Australia

Earthquakes can be especially devastating for developing countries, where competing priorities can stymie resource allocation towards earthquake resilience.

Even in tectonically active areas, where tectonic plates meet and scrape against one another, large earthquakes may not occur often enough to seem like a priority compared to more immediate concerns. That is, until one devastates a populated area, as we’re now seeing with the tragedy in Afghanistan.

Nowhere is this more true than in Papua New Guinea. PNG is situated in one of the most tectonically active areas in the world – one that experiences more than 100 earthquakes of magnitude five or greater each year.

PNG’s stability and economic development are of great interest to Australia. Yet earthquake scientists know recent development gains could be threatened by earthquakes.

We helped create an updated national seismic hazard map for PNG based on modern earthquake data and knowledge of active faults.

The map was developed in a partnership between Geoscience Australia and the PNG government’s Port Moresby Geophysical Observatory. First published in 2019, it’s now providing the backbone for our ongoing work into earthquake risk assessment and management in PNG.

Eyes on Lae

The high level of earthquake activity in PNG was already recognised in national earthquake hazard maps developed in 1982. But the poor-quality data used in these early hazard maps resulted in broad areas of moderately elevated hazard – and did not reflect the very high hazard levels near active faults.

Worryingly, PNG’s current building codes are still based on these outdated maps. Buildings and infrastructure near active faults may be vulnerable to large, local earthquakes – particularly since PNG has adopted “Western” construction materials such as masonry, which can be less resilient than traditional wooden structures.

The latest national seismic hazard map shows a particularly pronounced hazard in Lae, PNG’s second-largest city. Lae sits adjacent to a major active tectonic plate boundary known as the Ramu-Markham fault system.

With a population of more than 100,000, many lives and livelihoods would be threatened by a large earthquake. Lae is also a major economic hub for the country. It has the largest port and is the starting point of the transport artery running through mainland PNG.

Concerns raised by the latest hazard map about Lae’s potential vulnerabilities has led us to initiate the Lae Earthquake Risk Project, involving the University of Technology in Lae and the University of Papua New Guinea in Port Moresby.

Our research goal is to better understand and model what the potential impacts of a Ramu-Markham earthquake may be, and how Lae can boost its resilience in the event of a major earthquake.

How could a Ramu-Markham earthquake happen?

Large earthquakes happen when two tectonic plates move against each other.

In the case of the Ramu-Markham fault system, two plates are converging, or moving towards each other. This movement results in friction along the fault, which builds up stress. An earthquake happens when the built-up stress surpasses the frictional strength along the fault.

While we often think of a geologic fault as a “line”, a major fault system like the Ramu-Markham consists of many segments. Any one of these segments (or a combination) may be active.

Segments are often overlapping, and each has a distinct level of activity. We can record this activity using precise GPS measurements of ground movements, also called “strain”.

Our work started by identifying exactly which segments of the Ramu-Markham fault system are active and accumulating strain energy that might be released in an earthquake. We found the ground movement in this fault system can be explained by activity on a single segment called the Gain fault.

This fault segment is more than 100km long and most of Lae lies within 15km of it. A large earthquake at this distance could cause widespread damage.

The Bumbu fault

Although GPS measurements of ground movement are consistent with activity being confined to the Gain fault only, this may not be the only way to explain the data.

The Bumbu fault is another segment of the Ramu-Markham fault system, further south, that cuts through Lae’s CBD. If it’s active, it is of potentially greater concern than the Gain fault.

Studies from the 1990s on the geology of Lae’s urban centre suggest a “major tectonic event” happened about 250 years ago, possibly on the Bumbu fault, which changed the course of the Bumbu River flowing through Lae today.

Although this event was prior to European contact, it’s supported by local oral histories and other analyses of elevation data taken from around Lae. Questions remain over whether it was a single major event, or a series of smaller events over an extended period.

In either case, being able to verify activity on the Bumbu fault would raise Lae’s earthquake risk to a new level.

Future work

The Lae Earthquake Risk Project is ongoing. In addition to more GPS measurements of ground motion, it will involve setting up earthquake-monitoring stations in Lae, and advanced satellite-based radar analysis. The latter should provide a much more detailed picture of which fault segments are active.

Once we know which active segments can produce earthquakes, we can begin to estimate the intensity of shaking these earthquakes may cause in Lae – and what effects they may have on the city’s built environment.

This will hopefully provide specific guidance for constructing new buildings in Lae, and strengthening existing ones. These are the most important steps that can be taken to reduce the impact of future earthquakes.

Read more:
Australia is no stranger to earthquakes, yet our planning polices have not adapted

Phil Cummins works for Geoscience Australia. The National Earthquake Hazard Assessment of PNG and Lae Earthquake Risk projects are funded by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT).

Hadi Ghasemi works for Geoscience Australia. The National Earthquake Hazard Assessment of PNG and Lae Earthquake Risk Assessment projects are funded by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT).

– ref. Not if, but when: unless Papua New Guinea prepares now, the next big earthquake could wreak havoc in Lae – https://theconversation.com/not-if-but-when-unless-papua-new-guinea-prepares-now-the-next-big-earthquake-could-wreak-havoc-in-lae-185708

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

Can historians influence government policy? Should they? And, if so, what kinds of historical knowledge should they produce?

I suspect policy-makers only rarely think of historians as a first port of call when seeking guidance. And historians, for their part, don’t usually have policy-makers in mind as a primary audience. But historians in Australia – as elsewhere – have long been involved in policy debate.

There are traps for those who travel this road. Interpreting the past might offer clues and insights, but it doesn’t normally present clear lessons. The priorities of political players and historians are often in tension, and history risks being misused.

Two recurring examples illustrate this well: the allegation that Australia’s economic decline in the twentieth century was caused by the interventionist policies reversed by the governments of the 1980s and 1990s, and the failure of “appeasement” in the period before the second world war.

In both examples, which I deal with my contribution to a new book, Lessons from History, professional historians have produced careful and accessible research. And yet simplistic versions have circulated within media, think tanks and government, with little or no regard for the evidence.

Read more:
Did Australia just make a move to the left?

A ‘guilty’ man goes to Munich

The failure of the policy of appeasing Hitler in the 1930s has been a favourite among politicians wishing to make war. In this story, the villain is Neville Chamberlain, who gave concessions to Nazi Germany in a vain effort to achieve “peace in our time”. He was one of the “guilty men” who backed the 1938 Munich Agreement, betraying Czechoslovakia and encouraging Germany’s next fateful step: the invasion of Poland the following year.

Winston Churchill, as an opponent of such policies, is seen as a far-seeing prophet and then as a heroic national leader. It is the stuff of Hollywood, all there in the melodrama of films like Darkest Hour (2017).

Seemingly harmless as entertainment, this telling has arguably been the costliest instance of historical illiteracy in the modern world. Its example stretches from Korea in 1950 and the Suez crisis of 1956 through the Vietnam war in the 1960s, down to the “war on terror” and its manifestations in Afghanistan and Iraq. In each instance Munich is treated as the ultimate “symbol of weakness in the face of aggression”.

Political leaders use “Munich” selectively and opportunistically. A good example came in 2005, when foreign minister Alexander Downer presented the Earle Page Annual Lecture at the University of New England.

The lecture was delivered at a time when Australia had forces in both Afghanistan and Iraq. The Iraq war, justified by its proponents using the Munich/Hitler analogy, had become unpopular. The case it was a grand struggle against a dangerous global threat had collapsed when it became clear governments had misused intelligence about weapons of mass destruction.

American troops had been exposed as brutally humiliating their captives in an Iraqi prison. Iraq had run an election but was descending into a morass of sectarian violence and deadly terrorism.

Downer felt it was more necessary than ever to see the war on terror – in Iraq and elsewhere – as a “great struggle […] between freedom and terror and its totalitarian ideology”. For him, it was the descendant of previous great struggles such as that against Hitler.

History versus politics

Downer’s purpose was also more narrowly partisan. He wanted to contrast the Coalition as a party of duty and principle, prepared to resist tyranny and defend liberty, and the Labor Party, with its record of what he called “weak leadership” on “appeasement, isolationism and shirking international treaty obligations”. And he wanted to present Labor as a party of weakness in 1938 no less than in 2005.

The principal objection to Downer’s understanding of history might simply be that it is wrong, and not in a disinterested way. As Christopher Waters has shown in his study of Australia and appeasement, the United Australia Party and the Country Party in the 1930s – forerunners of Downer’s Liberals – were full of staunch advocates of appeasement.

Indeed, all the major conservative politicians – Joseph Lyons, Robert Menzies, Richard Casey, Earle Page and Australia’s high commissioner in London, Stanley Melbourne Bruce – strongly opposed war over Hitler’s mounting aggression. Even some days after Germany’s invasion of Poland in September 1939, Menzies remained unconvinced it was worth going to war and hoped for a negotiated peace.

These attitudes might have veered towards cynicism where they were not deliberately dishonest, but they are also comprehensible in view of the circumstances of the time.

The desire to avoid another war was intense. Casey, Bruce and Page had all served in the previous one. The Australian government feared Japan, which it also tried to appease. It worried that a German challenge to Britain would undermine the British Empire’s ability to protect its colonies and dominions in the Far East and Pacific.

Labor leader John Curtin – like Lyons, a first world war anti-conscriptionist – and members of his party were not so much appeasers as isolationists, wishing to keep Australia clear of a war in Europe.

On Japan, Curtin’s views arguably did approach appeasement in the months before Pearl Harbor. But his attitude and approach were hardly distinguishable from those of Menzies. Sensibly, neither wanted a war in the Pacific against Japan if it did not also involve the United States.

Such contexts and nuances are, of course, of no interest to a foreign minister wishing to score points against his opponents. Nor do I doubt for a moment that historians have an uphill struggle in countering the Munich analogy. To win this argument would also mean vanquishing the Churchill cult, an unlikely prospect.

Learning from these pasts

Our only hope in the struggle to prevent the misuse of the past might be to work to increase historical literacy from the ground up, from school through workplace to retirement village.

And the most critical capacity we need to develop is the ability of the decision-makers, and in the media, think tanks and the bureaucracy, to draw nuanced historical lessons informed by a sense of context.

This will not be an easy task. There is limited taste for knowledge that recognises its own limitations and uncertainties. Too many politicians demand a readily usable past that can be slotted into ready-made categories of their own devising.

Read more:
New research reveals our complex attitudes to Australia Day

The quest for historical literacy must also resist the injunctions of conservative education ministers for a history curriculum that reflects their own ideology. It may well require historians to rethink where they publish: the highly specialised article in a top-ranked international journal sitting behind a paywall, beloved of university bean-counters, may well be less significant than the high-quality school textbook.

At the very least, we need to ensure there are avenues of transmission and communication between the one and the other, as well as between the historical profession and policymakers.

Historians must never cease to be themselves, but nor do they have the luxury of being able to shut out a world they have a deep professional and moral obligation to interpret as well as change.

This article draws on Frank Bongiorno’s contribution to Lessons from History, published this week by NewSouth.

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

– ref. Are we learning the wrong lessons from history? – https://theconversation.com/are-we-learning-the-wrong-lessons-from-history-186199

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Paul Glasziou, Professor of Medicine, Bond University

Since Australia’s first Omicron wave after borders opened late last year, the pandemic has largely faded from the news and public perception. Gone are the daily briefings with updates on the numbers of cases, hospitalisations and deaths.

But this perception doesn’t match reality. While hospitalisation and death rates have been relatively lower than earlier waves – thanks to the vaccination rollout and naturally acquired immunity – 95% of all Australia’s COVID cases have occurred since the New Year. The daily rate of infections continues in the tens of thousands.

Almost 3,000 Australians died of COVID in the first quarter of 2022, placing it between coronary heart disease and stroke as a major cause of death.

This year we’ve seen both the Omicron wave and the re-emergence of influenza. After almost disappearing for two years of the pandemic, the lifting of most restrictions (such as social distancing and working from home), the decline in mask use and opening of international borders has allowed influenza to re-emerge.

So, how do COVID and seasonal influenza compare?

How deadly are COVID and influenza?

The case fatality rate – the proportion of COVID cases who die – has improved dramatically over the pandemic. In the 2020 Victorian June-October wave, around 3% of cases died.

In the 2021 Delta waves in New South Wales and Victoria, the death rate was under 1%.

For the Omicron wave this year – by which time most of the population were vaccinated – the case fatality rate has approached 0.1%. This is comparable to the seasonal influenza case fatality rate seen in “normal” flu years.

This drop in COVID case fatality rate has several causes: our high vaccination uptake, immunity from previous infection, better treatments, and Omicron being less deadly. The relative contributions are hard to tease out, but vaccination is likely to have played the most significant role.

The importance of COVID vaccination was underscored by a recent report estimating that internationally, vaccines have prevented between 14.4 and 19.8 million deaths. The impact would have been much greater with more equitable global distribution of vaccines.

Read more:
Respiratory infections like whooping cough and flu have plummeted amid COVID. But ‘bounce back’ is a worry

Which is worse for unvaccinated people?

As of January, Omicron caused around one-third the rates of hospitalisation and death as the Delta variant. And for well-vaccinated people, this was comparable to influenza.

For unvaccinated people, Omicron was still worse than influenza.

But any comparison of COVID variants and influenza is complicated by new sub-variants, waning immunity, and the effects of vaccine booster doses.

How well do vaccines protect against COVID variants?

Although Omicron is less lethal than Delta, vaccination is also less effective, especially without a third or fourth dose.

The table below is compiled from weekly reports from the United Kingdom of vaccine effectiveness, mostly among those over 50 years of age. It shows vaccine effectiveness in preventing cases has declined with the Omicron variant.

But the effectiveness in preventing hospitalisations and deaths has remained high, particularly with boosters.

It’s important to interpret the apparently lower protective effect of vaccination against hospitalisation and death during the Omicron wave with caution. Some patients in hospital were found incidentally to have a positive test for COVID, which did not contribute to their subsequent death. Vaccination could not have prevented that.

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Which is more transmissible – COVID or the flu?

COVID has been far more infectious and spreads more rapidly than influenza.

The first Omicron variant was estimated to be 100% more transmissible than the original SARS-CoV-2 virus, and 37% more transmissible than Delta. Successive Omicron sub-variants have ever higher infectiousness – all far beyond that of influenza.

Seasonal influenza has a reproduction number of about 1.3 , compared with 4.2 for Omicron. That means one person with the flu spreads it to 1.3 other people, on average, while one person with Omicron passes it to 4.2 others. That sounds modest but these multiply, so three cycles of flu is 1.3 x 1.3 x 1.3 = 2.2 cases, whereas three cycles of Omicron is 4.2 x 4.2 x 4.2 = 74.

As a result, we have had nearly 100-fold more COVID than influenza cases this year, and COVID will likely remain the major cause of hospitalisations and deaths over winter.

One illustration of this is data from the United States: in January 2022, more US children died of COVID in a single month than in any of the ten previous years from influenza.

What are we likely to see in future?

Compared with many countries, Australia has done well in controlling COVID. It has minimised both the impact of illness and the economic burden, through international and state border closures, intermittent lockdowns in some states, and a very successful initial vaccine rollout.

But the COVID pandemic is not over, and we will experience further waves of infection with new sub-variants such as Omicron BA.4/5 (now 35% of cases in NSW), which will continue to cause illness, hospitalisation and death.

Unfortunately, Australia’s booster uptake has been much slower than the initial vaccination campaign and has almost stalled. This complacency is dangerous.

In the past three years we have experienced the pandemic and a series of natural disasters in Australia. Fatigue and a desire to move past COVID is completely understandable but carries substantial risk.

During winter, we must redouble our efforts to maintain population immunity through vaccine boosters combined with reasonable protective measures. Make sure your COVID and influenza vaccines are up-to-date, avoid crowded places (or wear a mask if you can’t), and avoid others if you have any respiratory symptoms.

Read more:
COVID mask mandates might be largely gone but here are 5 reasons to keep wearing yours

Paul Glasziou receives funding from NHMRC for research into antimicrobial resistance, non-drug treatments, and low-value care.

David Henry is an investigator in the Centre of Research Excellence in Medicines Intelligence, funded by the NHMRC

– ref. Flu may be back, but COVID is far from over. How do they compare? – https://theconversation.com/flu-may-be-back-but-covid-is-far-from-over-how-do-they-compare-184551

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Julianna Santos, PhD candidate, The University of Melbourne

About 100 of Australia’s unique land mammals face extinction. Of the many threats contributing to the crisis, certain fire regimes are among the most pervasive.

In a new paper, we reveal how “inappropriate” fire patterns put 88% of Australia’s threatened land mammals at greater risk of extinction – from ground-dwelling bandicoots to tree-climbing possums and high-flying microbats.

Our research also identifies what type of fires are most damaging to threatened mammals, and shows some mammals are suffering due to a lack of fire.

A better understanding of how inappropriate fire regimes damage mammal populations is crucial to addressing biodiversity loss and improving conservation efforts.

Understanding patterns of fire

Fire is an important ecological process. Yet human actions – such as global heating, forestry and agriculture – are transforming fire activity in ways that challenge nature’s ability to cope.

“Inappropriate” fire regimes are those with patterns that drive biodiversity decline.

Fire patterns are made up of various components, including frequency, intensity, seasonality and size. But to date, there’s been no Australia-wide assessment of which components make a fire regime inappropriate for threatened species.

Our research set out to close this knowledge gap. It involved a comprehensive review of more than 400 research articles and policy documents on fires and mammals, and taking a close look at the evidence linking the two.

To start, we identified whether land mammals of conservation concern – those listed as critically endangered, endangered or vulnerable – were at risk from fire-related threats. We found that fire threatens 88% of these mammals.

Then we assessed the scientific evidence, such as field studies and expert opinion, to find out which fire components were in play. Contributing most to population declines were fires that are: intense and severe; large and extensive; and frequent.

Such a result might be expected. But significantly, we discovered these fire patterns are threatening species across the continent – from the arid interior to temperate forests in the south and tropical savannas to the north.

Read more:
Australia’s Black Summer of fire was not normal – and we can prove it

And our analysis went further, by identifying how these fire patterns may kill individual mammals and drive down populations.

Intense and severe fires usually generate a lot of heat and smoke, which can kill animals immediately or shortly afterwards. Such deaths are probably the cause of a decline in koala populations after intense and severe bushfires in temperate forests, as well as the western ringtail possum and numbat.

Animals may also die in the weeks and months after a fire due to a lack of food and shelter – especially when large and extensive fires destroy habitat over a wide area.

This was likely the case for a species of antechinus – a small mammal reliant on vegetation cover. Populations of swamp antechinus were considered extinct in some places after the large and severe Ash Wednesday fires in 1983 burned 40,000 hectares of heathy woodlands in southeast Australia.

In tropical savannas, frequent and intense fires affect reproduction of northern quolls, by reducing nesting resources and killing young in the pouch.

And some animals can suffer due to a lack of fire. For example, declines in some populations of northern bettongs may be due to long periods without fire which led to a decline in the grasses they eat.

Fires are not the only threat

But why do fires pose a threat to species that have evolved in a fire-prone landscape such as Australia? We believe it’s because several threatening processes, on their own and in combination, have reduced the size of mammal populations and affected their capacity to cope with fire.

For example, habitat loss and fragmentation means smaller populations of mammals are restricted to increasingly narrow geographic areas. This makes them more likely to be harmed by intense and large fires.

And when fire destroys vegetation cover, native animals are more vulnerable to being hunted by introduced species such as foxes and feral cats.

Climate change, grazing activity and weed invasion can also interact with fire to exacerbate mammal declines.

Importantly, fire regimes are also changing rapidly. The Black Summer fires of 2019-2020 – a disaster intensified by climate change – were unprecedented in terms of size and area severely burnt.

Read more:
This critically endangered marsupial survived a bushfire – then along came the feral cats

Towards better conservation

Linking changes in mammal populations to the characteristics of fire regimes will help develop more effective conservation actions and policies.

For example, restoring Indigenous fire practices is likely to promote cooler, patchier fires that retain habitat refuges and boost food resources for ground-dwelling animals such as bilbies and bettongs.

And controlling foxes and feral cats, particularly in areas burned by large and severe fires, will likely increase mammal survival in post-fire environments.

Other actions will be needed to manage fire for mammal conservation. These include:

• habitat restoration
• strategic planned burning
• rapid recovery teams that assist wildlife after fire
• reintroductions of threatened mammals
• targeted fire suppression
• reducing greenhouse gases.

To explore whether these actions might be effective, models can simulate the impact of management strategies and fire regimes on species and ecosystems.

Finally, our research highlighted considerable uncertainty in the evidence for fire-related declines of many threatened mammals. Fires influence animal survival, reproduction and movement in many ways, and more research into threatened species ecology is needed to address Australia’s biodiversity crisis.

Julianna Santos receives funding from the University of Melbourne, Holsworth Wildlife Research Endowment, Australian Wildlife Society University Research Grant, and Ecological Society of Australia Student Research Award.

This work was a collaboration among scientists from the University of Melbourne, University of New South Wales, New South Wales Department of Planning, Infrastructure and Environment, and Museums Victoria.

Holly Sitters receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the Victorian Government. She is affiliated with the Australian Wildlife Conservancy and the Animal Justice Party.

Luke Kelly receives funding from the Australian Research Council, Natural Hazards Research Australia and the Victorian Government.

– ref. Research reveals fire is pushing 88% of Australia’s threatened land mammals closer to extinction – https://theconversation.com/research-reveals-fire-is-pushing-88-of-australias-threatened-land-mammals-closer-to-extinction-185965

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Maryanne Macdonald, Lecturer, Indigenous Education, Edith Cowan University

Floods, fires and droughts in Australia devastate lives, destroy wildlife and damage property. These disasters also cost billions of dollars through loss of agricultural and economic productivity, environmental vitality and costs to mental health. People are looking for long-term solutions from politicians and researchers.

It’s time to listen to First Nations people who have extensive knowledge of Country.

For tens of thousands of years, First Nations people have addressed changing weather on this continent and successfully applied their knowledges to land management. Their knowledge and contribution deserve full recognition.

To this end, our new research argues Australian researchers must recognise the value of First Nations people to find new and more effective ways to tackle climate and environment problems.

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

Climate change needs to be addressed

Graeme Samuel’s independent review of federal environment law in 2020 found Australia’s natural places were in clear and serious decline. The review called for long-term strategies, including those that “respect and harness the knowledge of Indigenous Australians to better inform how the environment is managed”.

We teach Indigenous perspectives across a range of disciplines. These approaches promote recognition of the inextricable links between humans and their environment.

This way of thinking can bring a sense of environmental responsibility and accountability. This could lead to new approaches to problems such as climate change and natural disasters.

In southeast Australia, climate change over the past century has resulted in weather patterns that increase the likelihood of bushfires.

At the same time, non-Indigenous land management practices, including those that prevent cultural burn-off practices, have increased the amount of flammable plant material, sometimes resulting in more intense bushfires.

But evidence suggests Indigenous fire regimes help manage forests, protect biodiversity and prevent catastrophic bush fires.

Scientists have also demonstrated how implementing Indigenous fire knowledges can reduce environmental destruction and greenhouse gas emissions. One example of this is the West Arnhem Land Fire Abatement Project in the Northern Territory. Such practices help Indigenous communities maintain and protect their cultural practices whilst also delivering financial benefits.

In another example, scientists recognised the accuracy of Indigenous knowledges about bird fire-spreading behaviour and collaborated with Traditional Owners to gather evidence of this. The scientists documented certain bird species deliberately spreading fires by picking up burning sticks and dropping them in unburnt areas to drive out prey. Understanding this phenomenon has allowed scientists to better understand the spread of controlled fires, and informed regional fire management policy.

Such examples of academic-Indigenous collaboration are not limited only to fire management.

In eastern Tasmania, graziers and scientists are working alongside Indigenous community as part of a grant from the Federal Government’s $5 billion Future Drought Fund.

Indigenous knowledge-holders provide expertise on grassland management and drought resilience to farmers in order to improve sustainability through regenerative land management.

Read more:
Caring for Country means tackling the climate crisis with Indigenous leadership: 3 things the new government must do

Cultural losses will continue if we do nothing

The cultural cost of not valuing the global relevance of Indigenous knowledges was highlighted by the destruction of caves in Juukan Gorge in May 2020. This loss of global heritage was not only catastrophic to Indigenous Traditional Owners. Anthropologists and archaeologists viewed the incident as desecration and detrimental to future research of the site’s deep history.

The Samuel review recommended Indigenous cultural heritage be better protected by legislation. However, the Western Australian government recently passed legislation that still enables the destruction of cultural heritage sites.

In creating collaborative ways forward in research, scholars can be role models in appreciating and engaging with Indigenous perspectives and knowledge.

This approach can be utilised by broader society, including political decisions about land management.

Learning to respect Indigenous cultures strengthens our social, economic, and environmental resilience. In working with Indigenous people, we are likely to extend our time on our planet, and support continued practices of the oldest living human cultures on Earth.

Darren Garvey receives funding from the ARC (Discovery Indigenous Project).

Eyal Gringart receives funding from Hall & Prior Aged Care Group; Curtin University of Technology; Department of Health Western Australia; Constable Care Child Safety Foundation ; Australian Government New Colombo Plan Mobility Programs. He works fo Edith Cowan University.

Ken Hayward is affiliated with the Australian Archaeology Association on the National Executive Committee as the Indigenous Officer. A member of South West Aboriginal Land & Sea Council – Wagyl Kaip Southern Noongar Regional Corporation.
Director Hope Community Services.

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

– ref. Recognising Indigenous knowledges is not just culturally sound, it’s good science – https://theconversation.com/recognising-indigenous-knowledges-is-not-just-culturally-sound-its-good-science-184444

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Meena Jha, Course Coordinator, Information Communications Technology (ICT), CQUniversity Australia

While face-to-face classes are back after the COVID disruptions of the past two years, our research suggests at least some Australian universities intend to continue with fully online assessment. Students say they think cheating is easier online. There is some evidence it increased with the shift online.

Yet our research, covering 41 Australian universities, has found little evidence of changes in their academic integrity policies (which apply to all courses) and practices (which may differ from subject to subject) to counter these problems. Our particular interest was in computing courses.

The use of software to automatically monitor students during online exams, known as remote proctoring, is increasingly common. Intuitively, this technology appears to have advantages for detecting cheating. However, many have raised concerns about both the ethics and efficacy of these systems.

Read more:
Unis are using artificial intelligence to keep students sitting exams honest. But this creates its own problems

Life would be so much easier for educators if all they had to do was offer their students an education. But they are obliged to assess their students. It’s an integral aspect of the education process.

Unfortunately, some see the assessment outcomes, rather than the education, as the end goal.

Students rely on these outcomes when applying for jobs. Employers rely on those same results to help them decide which graduates to employ. With so much at stake, there will always be students who choose to cheat.

COVID forced hasty assessment changes

The pandemic forced universities to hurriedly rethink many practices, including assessment. One major challenge was how to supervise assessment tasks such as exams when these moved online.

Educators and researchers have reported academic misconduct subsequently increased. Academic misconduct includes cheating, plagiarism, collusion, and fabrication or falsification of data.

Our universities are required to establish policies and practices to protect academic integrity. These policies should provide for education and training on good practice and for actions to reduce the risks of cheating and other misconduct. Universities Australia has outlined principles of best practice.

Read more:
Online and in-person exams both have problems – that’s now clear. Unis have a window of opportunity to do better

Our research project explored changes to assessment practices as a result of COVID. We wanted to see how effective these might be in preventing academic misconduct. We examined academic integrity policies and procedures at 41 Australian universities that offer computing courses, interviewed leading computing educators at these universities and surveyed computing academics.

What did the study find?

We found little evidence that academic integrity policies and procedures explicitly address the circumstances brought on by COVID.

Of the 41 universities, 38 offer online or distance education for computing courses. Four offer most of their computing courses in online/distance mode. Only one offers no computing courses in online/distance mode.

But only five universities around the nation acknowledge the possibility of online exams in their policies. Even at these five there are no policy differences between online and face-to-face assessment tasks.

The inference appears to be that the rules and regulations that govern general academic integrity apply equally to all assessment tasks, including online tasks.

Some of our respondents expressed concern that current policies aren’t effective. A particular concern is the time and effort it takes to prepare a case of misconduct against a student. One academic said:

“Any excuse that a student gives is automatically believed, despite overwhelming evidence of plagiarism. Also, students claim to have not done the academic integrity module to get reduced punishments. It’s inconceivable that a year three student does not know what plagiarism is […] yet they are given warnings and no real consequences.”

COVID has changed students’ needs and expectations. Research suggests many students now prefer studying online. Universities must consider students’ need for more flexibility, which includes offering online exams.

Read more:
COVID has changed students’ needs and expectations. How do universities respond?

Nonetheless, a number of our respondents noted an increase in cheating and other integrity violations when assessment moved online. Some noted this might be due in part to the difficulties students faced. One academic said:

Online exams and tests were a big challenge. Students sometimes complained that their laptops froze, or their internet connection dropped out midway through the test. Such cases demanded the need to develop a new set of questions.

The abrupt pivot to online education left little time, anyway, to make substantial changes to assessment regimes. Courses that relied on personally supervised in-class tests and final exams continued with them, simply dropping in-person invigilation. In some cases, 24-hour exams replaced two or three-hour exams, or shorter exams were conducted in a longer window.

What can be done to restore integrity?

One or two suggested approaches might hold some promise.

Many respondents noted the need to develop new types of questions. These would be designed to be less susceptible to looking up answers in web searches, collusion among students and contract cheating, where students pay others to do their work. The Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency’s newly updated database lists 2,333 suspected commercial academic cheating websites, including 579 specifically targeting students in our higher education sector.

Read more:
1 in 10 uni students submit assignments written by someone else — and most are getting away with it

Sadly, these approaches seem invariably to involve more work for the academics. Further, they appeared unlikely to achieve the integrity typically offered by face-to-face supervised exams.

With face-to-face classes resuming, will universities restore the former assessment mix, including invigilated in-person tests and exams? Some of our respondents indicated their universities intend to continue with fully online assessment. Nobody told us their universities are amending their policies or procedures to better protect academic integrity in these circumstances.

The author would like to acknowledge all the team members who worked on this project: Sander J.J. Leemans, Queensland University of Technology; Regina Berretta, University of Newcastle; Ayse Bilgin, Macquarie University; Trina Myers, Queensland University of Technology; Judy Sheard, Monash University; Simon, formerly of the University of Newcastle; Lakmali Herath Jayarathna, Central Queensland University; and Christoph Niesel, Queensland University of Technology.

Meena Jha received funding for this project from the Australian Council of Deans of Information and Communication Technology.
Dr Simon, Executive Officer of the Australian Council of Deans of ITC and formerly of the University of Newcastle, is a co-author of this article.

– ref. If unis stick with online assessment after COVID, they’ll have do more to stop cheating – https://theconversation.com/if-unis-stick-with-online-assessment-after-covid-theyll-have-do-more-to-stop-cheating-185762

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

The dream that decentralised finance – or “DeFi” – can free the monetary system from the clutches of governments and banks has helped launch 20,000 cryptocurrencies.

But with 2022 proving to be more of a crypto-nightmare – including for the vaunted “stablecoins” that held the most promise as rivals to central bank-issued currencies – questions are now being asked as to whether DeFi really has any future.

There are predictions the cryptocurrency market, having lost more than half its value in the first six months of 2022, could collapse further – or be on the point of a rebound. This speaks to that fact that crypto is great for gambling, but still lousy as usable currency. It lacks other useful attributes too.

To assess DeFi’s prospects, it is useful to consider how finance became centralised in the first place.

Origins of money

Money is a feature of increasingly sophisticated human networks. When we lived as bands of hunter-gatherers there was little need for it. One could keep an informal tally of favours owed.

With the greater complexity of settled communities, in which people specialised in activities matching their skills and preferences, the barter system became the norm.

But barter required a double coincidence of wants. Someone who had excess food and wanted help building a home had to find a hungry builder. They then needed to haggle over how many hours labour was a fair exchange for a meal.

So “money” was invented.

Money could be shells or some useful storable good. It could be a tally of debts safely recorded somewhere (the earliest forms of writing, dating from 3000 BC, were cuneiform financial records). Then came human-made tokens, which led to coins of rare metals.

Banking’s origins

Money meant people could save the rewards of their labour, and lend it to others. But bringing together lenders with borrowers, and assuring the lenders the borrowers would repay, was a challenge. This is why banks developed.

Banks didn’t just issue a convenient form of money in the form of coins and notes. They also provided four basic banking services:

• bundling: by gathering a lot of small deposits, they could make large loans

• diversification: by lending to a range of borrowers, one default mattered much less

• risk assessment: specialised skills in assessing trustworthiness reduced defaults

• maturity transformation: they could offer loans for longer periods than most depositers wanted to keep their money in the bank.

The oldest bank still operating today is Italy’s Monte dei Paschi di Siena, founded in 1472.

Addressing problems with banks

But private banks with their own currencies was not a stable system. So-called “bank runs” occurred when depositors lost confidence in a bank and sought to withdraw their funds. When a bank was unable to redeem all the banknotes or deposits demanded, panic ensued.

Bank runs were often contagious. People found it hard to distinguish whether a bank had an idiosyncratic problem (such as a fraudulent manager) or was suffering from a general problem (such as an economic downturn leading to bad debts). A run on one bank would often trigger runs on others.

In the 20th century most countries resolved these problems by having a government-owned central bank issue currency and regulating private banks to assure depositors of their solvency. These regulations included requiring banks to keep a minimum proportion of their assets available for withdrawals and to take out deposit insurance.

The movement for decentralised finance

This process of bank centralisation has not been universally applauded, however. Libertarians are suspicious of the system’s reliance on government-issued monopolies and licensed banks. They dislike banks almost as much as they do governments. They regard centralised finance as both inefficient and coercive.

Their dream: decentralised (or disintermediated) finance, enabling transactions directly, without the need for banking intermediaries. By cutting out the “middle man”, their pitch has been, transaction costs will be lower and the power of the state over individuals curbed.

With the internet and block-chain technology, these dreams have launched more than 20,000 cryptocurrencies, with the first, and still largest, being Bitcoin.

The ‘decentralisation illusion’

But as the massive losses within the cryptocurrency markets in recent months demonstrate, DeFi has yet to prove it’s a viable alternative to the centralised banking system. It remains unclear how the four banking services discussed above can be delivered without trusted financial intermediaries.

Indeed, according to economists with the Bank of International Settlements (the central bank of central banks):

While the main vision of DeFi’s proponents is intermediation without centralised
entities, we argue that some form of centralisation is inevitable. As such, there is a “decentralisation illusion”.

Few uses other than speculation

As the BIS economists note, decentralised finance still has few real-economy uses. Mostly it has facilitated speculation. But what attracts speculators – wildly fluctuating prices – makes for a bad currency.

A salutary lesson comes from the experience of two (former) top ten cryptocurrencies, TerraUSD and its stablemate Luna. TerraUSD was supposed to a “stablecoin”, with its value pegged at US$1. That was true up to the beginning of May. By the end of May it was trading at less than 3 US cents. Over the same period Luna’s price dropped from $82 to 0.02 US cents.

These examples illustrate how cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, lacking any fundamental value, are speculative gambles.

Read more:
What is Bitcoin’s fundamental value? That’s a good question

So central bank currencies still really have no rivals for the everyday business of buying and selling things, and are still far safer stores of value than crypto, even with inflation eroding their purchasing power.

John Hawkins formerly worked in the Reserve Bank of Australia and the Bank for International Settlements.

– ref. Cryptocurrencies are great for gambling – but lousy at liberating our money from big central banks – https://theconversation.com/cryptocurrencies-are-great-for-gambling-but-lousy-at-liberating-our-money-from-big-central-banks-173901

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Esther Suckling, Research Associate, Grattan Institute

Australia’s mining and heavy industry sectors are on the cusp of a revolution as the world shifts to net-zero. Demand for traditional industrial commodities – coal, oil, and gas – is set to slide.

The International Energy Agency believes global coal use will have to fall 90% if the world is to achieve net zero emissions by 2050.

That will hit hard Australia’s two main coal mining regions: Mackay and surrounds in Queensland, and the Hunter Valley in NSW.

Coal mines in Queensland’s Mackay region and the NSW Hunter Valley

Within these regions, coal jobs cluster around four local government areas: Isaac and Central Highlands in Queensland, and Muswellbrook and Singleton in NSW.

In the town of Moranbah in the Isaac local government area, 46% of the workers are employed in carbon-intensive industries.

In a new Grattan Institute report released on Sunday we set out the cascading loss of coal jobs likely over coming decades – and what governments should do about it.

From 40,000 jobs to 600

By 2060, we expect only 600 people to remain employed in major coal mines – down from more than 40,000 today.

And these figures don’t include the web of local jobs supported by coal mines, from schoolteachers to bank tellers to pub staff.

But the end of coal need not mean the end of Singleton, Mackay, Muswellbrook, and the Isaac area. It means those places need a plan.

In planning for the difficult transition, they can learn from the experience of the Latrobe Valley in Gippsland, Victoria.

Latrobe shows what can work

After the shock early closure of the Hazelwood coal-fired power station in 2017, the Victorian government established the Latrobe Valley Authority to help transform its industrial base.

The authority got to work on a range of initiatives.

Its “worker transition service” provided peer-to-peer advice on skills, personal finances, and job-seeking.

Its “worker transfer scheme” helped people who wanted to stay in the industry to move to other power stations elsewhere. And it offered financial support for retraining.

Read more:
NSW’s biggest coal mine to close in 2030. Now what about the workers?

The authority also administered an “economic growth zone”, in which new businesses creating jobs for ex-Hazelwood workers received payroll tax deductions and exemptions from fees and charges for property purchases.

Five years on, unemployment in the Latrobe Valley sits at the same level as before the Hazelwood closure, and the region is exploring options to diversify into offshore wind generation.

Latrobe example shows how such transitions can work. But what works for one region might not work for another. Each has its own strengths and weaknesses.

Top-down doesn’t cut it

As an example, Singleton in NSW scores in the top 10% of regions on research and development, a measure that includes the number of engineers and scientists and the number of annual patent applications.

By contrast, the Isaac region in Queensland is in the middle of the pack.

Road and rail are in better shape in Muswellbrook in NSW than in the Central Highlands in Queensland.

But Muswellbrook is still in the bottom half of the country on infrastructure, whereas Newcastle, the nearest major regional centre, is in the top 10%

New industrial opportunities will also look different for each region.

The Latrobe Valley’s opportunity in offshore wind rests on its proximity to the strong and consistent winds off the Bass Strait.

In other areas, good renewable energy infrastructure will provide an edge in making “green” industrial products – green steel for electricity infrastructure and electric cars, green aluminium for wind turbines, and green ammonia for use in the fuel cells of ships.

This means a centrally imposed cookie-cutter approach won’t do the job.

The NSW Hunter Valley and Queensland’s Mackay region each need their own transition authority, made up of people who live and work there.

Governments, federal and state, should fund and support these groups but not seek to dominate them.

The best tip is to start early

Though the economic transition will be different for every region, there’s one common rule: transition takes time.

In the Latrobe Valley, unions, environmental organisations, community groups, and local and state government representatives began discussing the region’s future in the early 2000s.

The Latrobe Valley Authority says transition will take at least ten years.

The challenge confronting the Hunter Valley and Mackay regions is daunting. Governments must help these regions to begin the hard work now.

It will take time, money, and collaboration – but success will mean these regions can thrive in the push to net zero.

The Grattan Institute began with contributions to its endowment of $15 million from each of the Federal and Victorian Governments, $4 million from BHP Billiton, and $1 million from NAB. In order to safeguard its independence, Grattan Institute’s board controls this endowment. The funds are invested and contribute to funding Grattan Institute’s activities. Grattan Institute also receives funding from corporates, foundations, and individuals to support its general activities, as disclosed on its website.

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

– ref. Regional towns are at risk of being wiped out by the move to net-zero. Here’s their best chance for survival – https://theconversation.com/regional-towns-are-at-risk-of-being-wiped-out-by-the-move-to-net-zero-heres-their-best-chance-for-survival-186279

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Darren Jorgensen, Senior lecturer in art history, The University of Western Australia

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this article contains names and images of deceased people.

On June 5 1960, the Darwin paper The Sunday Mirror reported:

A tribal painter, said to be more famous than the late Albert Namatjira, has just died at Warrabri welfare settlement, near Tennant Creek. He was Nat Warano, of whose skill few white men had heard.

Locally, Warano is remembered as Tracker Nat.

Born in the 1880s, Nat worked as a drover during the 1930s, before becoming a police tracker. He was also a leader and diplomat of the Warumungu people during a tumultuous period of their history.

During the 1940s and 1950s Nat was a prolific carver of coolamons, spearthrowers, shields and water carriers, painting them with men dancing in ceremonial dress and body paint, as well as men hunting with boomerangs and spears.

This style of painting scenes of Warumungu life onto carvings was unique. The details of animals, vegetation and weapons show both a personal style and a deep knowledge of what he was painting.

As well as selling painted carvings, he gifted artefacts and drawings to missionaries, teachers and government officials so as to draw them into the Warumungu system of a ngijinkirri, a mutual gifting that implicates the giver and receiver into a relationship of obligation.

Yawalya Elder Donald “Crook Hat” Thompson explains:

Ngijinkirri is like paying back, might be tucker, like a kangaroo or an object. Everyone, all tribe from all around practise this. Like when a school teacher gives you knowledge, you owe them. Maybe pay you with a full kangaroo, pay you with an emu, but no money.

During the 1950s, Nat made hundreds of carvings. Today, many of these are likely to be lying unidentified in people’s homes and in museum basements.

Read more:
Paddy Compass Namadbara: for the first time, we can name an artist who created bark paintings in Arnhem Land in the 1910s

Extending authority

A surviving photograph of Nat shows him at the official opening of the Warrabri settlement, now Ali Curung, in 1958.

He stands next to the federal minister for Territories, Paul Hasluck, who holds a shield with Nat’s distinctive motifs painted upon it. An unidentified man holds a second shield painted in Western Desert style, with roundels and dots, probably made by Engineer Jack, standing to his left.

Since the 1890s, the Warumungu had been shuffled from one settlement to another, from ration station to reserve to mission. The local Aboriginal population boomed after the Coniston Massacre of 1928 sent people in search of a safe place to live, and the Warumungu people opened up their country to Warlpiri, Kaytetye and other refugees from frontier violence.

Read more:
Friday essay: how the Men’s Painting Room at Papunya transformed Australian art

Jack and Nat, the senior men for the Warumungu and Warlpiri respectively, worked together to keep the peace and on ceremonial matters, and it was these men who were tasked with talking to the government about moving the community to Warrabri.

Phillip Creek was running out of water, which was the reason for the move, but Nat was also concerned that Phillip Creek was too close to sensitive cultural sites.

The gifting of the shield to Hasluck was Nat’s way of extending his authority into white society.

A modern artist

Nat also made drawings, the earliest of which can be dated to 1929. Some are of his time working on cattle stations, with detailed depictions of long horned cattle.

Like so many Aboriginal carvers of this era, Nat’s name was forgotten after his work was collected by people making trips to remote Australia.

This is a tragedy not only for Nat and his family but the greater story of Australia, in which Aboriginal elders played significant roles negotiating on behalf of their communities, using art to forge a middle ground with settler Australia.

We rediscovered Nat’s work after discovering a newspaper essay about his drawings, and seeing a pair of his shields come up for auction. Since then we have been looking for them, and have found several carvings in public and private collections.

One of the authors of this paper, Joseph Yugi Williams, is Nat’s grandson and a contemporary artist. He has been re-enacting Nat’s work with a series of shields inspired by his artefacts.

We hope to find more Tracker Nat works in the future and plan to have an exhibition in the next couple of years that showcases his originality as an artist and his significance for Warumungu people.

Darren Jorgensen receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

This piece was written with Levi McLean, who is currently an Honours student in art history at the University of Western Australia, based at Ali Curung in the Northern Territory.

– ref. Rediscovering the art of Tracker Nat: ‘the Namatjira of carving’ – https://theconversation.com/rediscovering-the-art-of-tracker-nat-the-namatjira-of-carving-184749

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dale Dominey-Howes, Honorary Professor of Hazards and Disaster Risk Sciences, University of Sydney

Again, thousands of residents in Western Sydney face a life-threatening flood disaster. At the time of writing, evacuation orders spanned southwest and northwest Sydney and residents of the Hawkesbury-Nepean Valley were being warned the crisis was escalating.

It’s just over a year since the region’s long-suffering residents lived through one of the largest flood events in recent history. And of course, earlier this year floods devastated the Northern NSW town of Lismore.

Right now, attention is rightly focused on helping those immediately affected by the disaster. But as the floodwaters subside, we must urgently act to avert a repeat of this crisis.

Obviously, nature is a major culprit here. But there’s plenty humans can do to plan for major flooding and make sure we’re not sitting in the path of disaster.

So what’s caused the current the flood problem?

The first driver of this disaster is nature and geography.

For many months now, much of New South Wales has experienced significant rain and associated flooding.

There’s a reason both the Hawkesbury-Nepean and Lismore flood the way they do – geography. Both areas sit in low-lying bowl-like depressions in the landscape.

Lismore sits at the confluence of several large rivers that each drain significant catchments – and so can deliver large floods.

And in the Hawkesbury-Nepean, huge rivers have to pass through a very tight “pinch point” known as the Sackville Bathtub. This slows the flow, causing water to back up across the floodplain.

The NSW government wants to raise the wall of the Warragamba Dam to help alleviate this problem. But as others have argued, this controversial proposal might not work. That’s because raising the wall will control only about half the floodwater, and won’t prevent major floods delivered by other rivers feeding the region.

The second factor making the current floods so bad is the exposure of infrastructure and housing. In the Hawkesbury-Nepean region, lots of stuff people care about – such as homes, businesses and schools – is in the path of floodwaters.

In an ideal world, nothing would be built on a floodplain. But due to Sydney’s growing population and the housing affordability crisis, local governments in Western Sydney have been under pressure to build more and more homes, despite the known flood risk.

In 2018, more than 140,000 people lived or worked on the Hawkesbury-Nepean floodplain. Due to this large population and the region’s geography, the area has the most significant and unmitigated community flood exposure in Australia.

What’s worse, the region’s population is expected to double over the next 30 years. At the same time, climate change will change rainfall patterns and make severe flooding more likely.

Read more:
‘One of the most extreme disasters in colonial Australian history’: climate scientists on the floods and our future risk

Being prepared

The third contributing factor to this flood disaster is a lack of preparedness.

The NSW government has a strategy to manage the flood risk in the Hawkesbury-Nepean. It includes improved flood warning and emergency response measures, upgraded evacuation routes, recovery planning and a regional floodplain management study.

But given the region’s big, growing population and massive flood exposure, these three bolder and more urgent measures are needed:

1. Get better at urban planning

Local governments, developers and communities must collaborate to agree on smarter land-use zoning – basically, deciding what infrastructure and activities go where. Because let’s be honest: some land just should not be built on.

This is a lesson Lismore has learned the hard way. There’s now a broad-ranging discussion underway about whether the town’s central business district should be moved entirely, and flood-prone riverside land turned over to other uses.

If we must build on flood-exposed land, better building codes and designs are needed. This may mean accepting higher construction costs. It will certainly require tough rules requiring developers and homeowners to comply with planning measures.

And when building new suburbs in flood-prone areas, several best-practice building standards should be adopted. They include:

• raising floor heights above, say, a one in 500 year flood level
• improving drainage
• reducing hard surfaces that don’t absorb water.

Read more:
Under-resourced and undermined: as floods hit south-west Sydney, our research shows councils aren’t prepared

2. Prepare infrastructure and people

All too often, flooding cuts off vital access roads and prevents or limits evacuations. More emergency routes in and out of flood-prone areas are needed.

More designated evacuation shelters – accessible to all – are also required.

And it’s crucial people living in flood-exposed areas are aware of, understand and prepare for the risk. This requires community education and engagement – undertaken regularly (such as once a year) and in multiple languages.

For those in the Hawkesbury-Nepean region who want to better understand the flood-risk, check out this valuable resource provided by the NSW State Emergency Service (SES).

Even for those who understand the risks, insuring themselves against the damage may be difficult or impossible. Rising premiums mean insurance is already out of reach for many Australians – and the problem is set to worsen.

3. Equip the SES properly

The SES is responsible for flood and storm response, and it does exceptional work. But like most government agencies, the SES is being asked to do more with ever tighter budgets.

The organisation is largely made up of volunteers – and that workforce is very stretched.

As a society, we must ask how the SES can be better funded and supported to do the job we ask of them. For example, is it still appropriate to rely on a mostly volunteer-run service to provide such a challenging disaster response – especially as climate change worsens? Or should the SES’s paid workforce be greatly expanded?

Looking ahead

Unfortunately, the wet conditions we’re now seeing may persist for some time. Recent climate modelling suggests Australia may face a third consecutive La Nina this spring and summer.

This extra rain will fall on already soaked landscapes, further increasing the likelihood of flooding. And the ramifications will extend far beyond affected communities.

Disruptions will be felt in agriculture, supply chains, transport routes and broader state and national economies.

In the longer term, of course, climate change is projected to bring far worse extreme rain events than in the past. The current flood crisis will recede, but the need to plan for future flooding disasters has never been more pressing.

Read more:
‘I simply haven’t got it in me to do it again’: imagining a new heart for flood-stricken Lismore

Dale Dominey-Howes receives funding from the Australian Research Council and National Disaster Resilience Fund.

– ref. What’s causing Sydney’s monster flood crisis – and 3 ways to stop it from happening again – https://theconversation.com/whats-causing-sydneys-monster-flood-crisis-and-3-ways-to-stop-it-from-happening-again-186285

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Susan Harris Rimmer, Professor and Director of the Policy Innovation Hub, Griffith Business School, Griffith University

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese admitted at the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) Public Forum that some Australians may not understand why he’s at a NATO meeting in Spain. But that since COVID and the invasion of Ukraine, more Australians understood how connected nations are to each other and we can no longer “compartmentalise”.

NATO is a treaty-based organisation created in 1949 by the United States, Canada, and several Western European nations to provide collective security against the Soviet Union. Australia isn’t a member, but an “enhanced opportunities partner”.

This was the first time Australia, Japan, South Korea and New Zealand were invited as special guests to attend a NATO summit. While left unsaid by the prime minister, it was crucially important Australia attend at the leaders level and make our mark to secure Europe’s attention on Indo-Pacific security challenges.

Our invitation was clearly influenced by US President Joe Biden’s strong view “the linkage in security between the Indo-Pacific and the Euro-Atlantic is only deepening”.

The prime minister took the opportunity of the visit to send a message to the Chinese government that it should learn the lessons from Russia’s “strategic failure” in Ukraine.

As it transpired, the Madrid Summit felt to many like a watershed moment that may influence Australian and global national security in the future.

NATO and the partners demonstrated a unified commitment to the rule of law, sovereign borders and human security in Europe and beyond. All this in the face of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the precedent it sets for other would-be aggressors.

NATO had to also consider their response to China’s growing influence and assertiveness and the security consequences of climate change. These are both of crucial import to Australia’s future.

The impact and importance of diplomatic moments like these need to be better communicated to the Australian public through the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT).

Read more:
Ukraine war: Nato summit to meet in a world reordered by Russian aggression and Chinese ambition

What happened at the Summit?

NATO’s 30 members met to discuss Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and endorse the new NATO Strategic Concept.

There were some clear headlines:

• NATO will increase its troops on high alert by more than sevenfold to over 300,000

• NATO formally invited Finland and Sweden to join the alliance after Turkey withdrew its objections

• the Strategic Concept document defines Russia as the “most significant and direct threat” to Allies’ security.

This document also addresses China for the first time and the challenges Beijing poses toward Allies’ security, interests and values. The language used about China is frank, with statements including:

The PRC employs a broad range of political, economic and military tools to increase its global footprint and project power, while remaining opaque about its strategy, intentions and military build-up […] It strives to subvert the rules-based international order, including in the space, cyber and maritime domains.

China has responded that:

NATO’s so-called new Strategic Concept is only old wine in a new bottle. It still has not changed the Cold War mentality of creating imaginary enemies and bloc confrontation.

NATO also states climate change is “a defining challenge of our time”. This is in accordance with the view of former defence chiefs aired in the context of the federal election.

Australia has been deepening ties with NATO

Australia’s invitation is the result of a long-term strategy to deepen ties with NATO. Australia is a partner not a member, and so this invitation to the Asia-Pacific countries is significant. It reflects NATO’s intent to focus on China and Indo-Pacific security for the first time in its history.

Australia’s relationship with NATO began to grow closer as a result of our deployments in Afghanistan under the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force. Australia and NATO signed a joint political declaration in June 2012, then Individual Partnership and Cooperation Programs in 2013 and 2017.

In 2014, NATO further recognised Australia as a “valuable, capable and reliable partner” by granting Australia “enhanced opportunities partner” status (along with Finland, Georgia, Jordan, Sweden and Ukraine).

And in August 2019, Australia and NATO signed a renewed partnership agreement during an historic visit of NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg to Australia.

Side goals

The prime minister also had some important goals on the sidelines of the summit, including:

• a visit to Paris to improve the relationship with France after the AUKUS submarine announcement

• talks to reinvigorate the EU trade relationship

• and bilateral meetings with the King and Queen of Spain, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, and US President Joe Biden.

Read more:
C’est fini: can the Australia-France relationship be salvaged after scrapping the sub deal?

He may include a visit to Ukraine, security allowing, following the Indonesian president’s recent visit to Kyiv. The prime minister had been urged to visit Ukraine to underscore his commitment to that issue. He had stated:

Australia is the largest non-NATO contributor to the effort supporting the sovereignty of Ukraine and their struggle against the barbaric and illegal war being undertaken by Russia.

These opportunities to deepen personal contacts with other world leaders are crucial to successful Australian diplomacy.

Susan Harris Rimmer receives funding from the Australian Research Council, Queensland Public Service Commission and ONI.

– ref. China, Russia and climate change: why Australia’s place at the NATO Summit was so important – https://theconversation.com/china-russia-and-climate-change-why-australias-place-at-the-nato-summit-was-so-important-185588

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jared Mondschein, Senior Research Fellow, US Studies Centre, University of Sydney

When colonial Americans declared their independence on July 4 1776, they rejected more than British rule. They explicitly denounced the British form of government and the unlegislated norms, traditions and conventions a royal head of government entailed.

The recent hearings of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 2021 attack on the US Capitol has made clear that efforts to resist the monarchical model remain unfinished.

The central question at hand: is the nation’s democracy ensured by allegiance to its constitution or to its leaders?

Read more:
Jan. 6 hearing gives primetime exposure to violent footage and dramatic evidence – the question is, to what end?

Competing allegiances

The sixth and most recent hearing by the Select Committee into the January 6 Capitol riots got to the heart of the matter on allegiances.

Liz Cheney, the committee’s lead Republican lawmaker, said that among the more than 1,000 witnesses who testified before their committee, some have faced intimidation to remain “loyal” to former President Trump.

US citizens don’t swear oaths of loyalty to any monarch, individual or party – they swear allegiance to a constitution treated by most Americans with a level of reverence otherwise reserved for religious entities.

To this day, practically every single US government official vows to support and defend the US Constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic.

Nearly 20 hours’ worth of public hearings by the committee has demonstrated that for many members of the Trump administration – most notably Vice President Mike Pence, the White House Counsel’s Office, and Attorney General Bill Barr – swearing allegiance to the constitution was foundational to their public service.

However, for a crucial and powerful minority – most notably Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, President Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, former legal advisor John Eastman, and President Trump himself – it seemingly was not.

Political violence and dissatisfaction with democracy

Recent polling found only half of US citizens are satisfied with their democracy. Two-thirds said the US system of government needs major changes, if not a complete reform.

Such pessimistic attitudes are an outlier when compared, for example, to the 80% of Australians who remain satisfied with their democracy.

Dissatisfaction with democracy and its institutions isn’t new in modern US life.

What’s new, however, is these trends coincide with a marked increase in the number of US citizens who support political violence. This ultimately resulted in the first ever attempted hostile takeover of Congress on January 6.

In May 1995, fewer than 10% of Americans said it was “justified for citizens to take violent action against the government”.

In October 2015, 23% agreed with that statement. In December 2021, almost a year after the January 6 riots, 34% agreed with that statement.

John Eastman, the renowned and once-respected lawyer who advised the Trump re-election campaign, reportedly accepted and anticipated such violence, saying:

there’s been violence in the history of our country in order to protect the democracy, or to protect the republic.

The prevailing view among those seeking to overturn the election results was that the well-being of American democracy depended on the continued reign of President Trump.

Indeed, according to the testimony of Cassidy Hutchinson, former assistant to Trump’s Chief of Staff, rioting was expected and deemed necessary by many in Trump’s inner circle.

Hutchinson’s testimony gave a compelling account indicating that Trump and several others understood the undemocratic and potentially violent nature of their intended actions – planned many weeks in advance – but pursued them undeterred.

To save US democracy, they undermined it.

What has the Jan 6 committee taught us?

The January 6 Committee has shown that US democracy remains reliant on the actions of individuals. As Rep. Bennie Thompson, chair of the House committee, put it:

A handful of election officials in several key states stood between Donald Trump and the upending of democracy.

At the conclusion of the most recent and arguably the most consequential public hearings of the January 6 committee thus far, Cheney reaffirmed the importance of such individuals:

Our nation is preserved by those who abide by their oath to our constitution. Our nation is preserved by those who know the fundamental difference between right and wrong.

When faced with the question of laws versus leaders, the founding fathers chose laws. But many of the people now under investigation by the committee will come under intense scrutiny as to whether they chose loyalty to Trump over laws.

Will Trump be indicted?

Many people would say an obvious path forward now lies with Attorney General Merrick Garland. He must decide whether he will take the unprecedented step of indicting a former president on charges ranging from sedition and inciting a riot to breaking campaign finance laws.

Although an estimated two-thirds of US citizens support prosecuting Trump for his alleged efforts to overturn the election, even some Democrats have expressed concern about the potential pitfalls involved.

There’s the danger of the Department of Justice appearing overly partisan, and also potentially setting a precedent in which opposing political parties indict former presidents as soon as they leave power.

But, perhaps more importantly, one former US federal prosecutor argued there’s also the high likelihood the former president would never be convicted by a jury:

Despite a mountain of evidence that would convict most people many times over, Trump would not be convicted. Criminal convictions require a unanimous verdict. On a 12-person jury, there are going to be Trump supporters.

The US continues to grapple with the anti-royal concept of no individual being above the law.

Where to from here?

The US has a history of reinventing itself in unique and unprecedented ways, most notably by founding a new nation based on laws instead of kings.

This critical moment, in which a former holder of the nation’s most powerful office is under investigation, gives the world’s oldest democracy an opportunity to embrace its revolutionary roots and finally reject monarchy in all its forms.

Read more:
Canada should be preparing for the end of American democracy

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

– ref. The United States was founded on allegiance to laws, not leaders. The Jan 6 rioters turned that on its head – https://theconversation.com/the-united-states-was-founded-on-allegiance-to-laws-not-leaders-the-jan-6-rioters-turned-that-on-its-head-185687

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

University of Canberra Professorial Fellow Michelle Grattan and Emma Larouche, from the University of Canberra’s Media and Communications team discuss the week in politics.

They canvass the crossbenchers’ stoush with the Prime Minister over staff, which is in a holding pattern while Anthony Albanese is overseas.

In Europe, Albanese has joined NATO leaders in calling out China’s behaviour and received blowback from Beijing in return. Has the reset in China-Australia relations come to an end before it really began?

Meanwhile Health Minister Mark Butler has announced an inquiry into Australia’s stocks of COVID vaccines and anti-viral drugs, and purchasing plans. We don’t hear so much about the pandemic these days but deaths remain high.

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

– ref. VIDEO: Health Minister Mark Butler’s audit of Australia’s COVID vaccine supplies – https://theconversation.com/video-health-minister-mark-butlers-audit-of-australias-covid-vaccine-supplies-186198

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sara Tolbert, Associate Professor of Science and Environmental Education, University of Canterbury

Plastic Free July has rolled around again and we’ll all be hearing about reducing plastic use in our daily lives. Much of the messaging is targeted toward young people through school and youth-focused messaging. As a science and environmental educator and parent, I often think about what it means to teach young people about environmental action.

A couple of years ago, one of my children came home from school, concerned about pretty much all the world’s biggest environmental problems. She had been learning about sustainability; I asked her to tell me more about it.

Included in her notes about global warming, poaching, deforestation and other grand challenges, were two points about plastics: “Plastic is bad for the environment. I need to recycle more.”

We’re proposing individual solutions to big problems

On the one hand, I was thrilled to see her engaged in a unit on sustainability – a topic teachers often struggle to fit into a densely packed curriculum.

Yet, I worried that the list of actions she identified as solutions to these big problems seemed inconsequential for someone of her age, or outside her realm of power (“don’t poach animals”, for example).

Nearly all were focused on individual behaviour change.

Read more:
We organised a conference for 570 people without using plastic. Here’s how it went

Fortunately, we live in a city in which our waste management system includes a kerbside recycling program. But only certain types of plastic (numbered 1, 2 or 5) can be recycled.

Not all cities and towns in Aotearoa have this infrastructure – though there is a proposal to require councils in towns of more than 1,000 residents to provide this service to urban households.

Globally, only 9% of the 15% of plastic waste collected for recycling is actually recycled.

While there are no readily available figures on how much is recycled in Aotearoa New Zealand, we produce over 17 million tonnes of waste each year, 13 million tonnes of which ends up in landfills.

New Zealand’s rate of recycling is also estimated to be lower than many other developed countries.

Another big part of the problem is New Zealand has limited infrastructure to recycle plastic waste, so gets exported for recycling to economically marginalised countries.

As advocate Tina Ngata has pointed out, this is waste colonialism. That is, we can’t cope with our waste, so we send it off to countries with even fewer resources to cope with it.

We should be encouraging children to discuss the ways in which recycling is a complicated and, at best, partial solution to plastic pollution.

Good intentions don’t always equal good policy

Litterless lunchbox efforts are increasingly common in schools. Such initiatives can help raise children’s awareness of plastic waste.

However, they can easily become a top-down school policy rather than an opportunity for children to deliberate about the ethical and political complexities of plastic waste.

Read more:
COVID-19 has resurrected single-use plastics – are they back to stay?

They can also create conditions through which children may be shamed or singled out for bringing plastic wrapping to school, including disabled children, or children with disabled caregivers, whose well-being depends on their use of some single-use plastics. Anecdotally, many students simply resort to hiding their plastic waste from the teachers.

While social shaming has been used in environmental behaviour modification, it’s not great as an educational tool. Children and youth can feel disempowered when solutions to environmental problems are just outside their reach, or just don’t add up.

According to plastics campaigner for Greenpeace Aotearoa, Juressa Lee, litterless lunches and similar programs are:

“a great start to build the awareness of plastic litter and its impacts and wanting a clean environment at school. But plastic waste is not the same as plastic pollution, and leaving your plastic at home doesn’t put an end to either of those at all, does it?”

Lee believed children were able to grasp the importance of prevention of plastic waste over trying to find solutions after it has been produced and used.

Deflection was intentional

Just 20 companies are responsible for over half of the 130 million metric tonnes of plastic waste produced globally. Fossil fuel companies are doubling down on single-use plastic production as their other markets are being decarbonised.

According to Massey University’s Tricia Farrelly, it is time to “move away from language like littering which is individual responsibility. We need to move onto commercial responsibility”.

The framing of plastic waste reduction as a matter of individual responsibility can be attributed in large part to a “massive deflection campaign” launched in the 1960s by the beverage industry.

This deflection campaign diverted attention away from efforts to regulate plastic producers. People, not corporations, became framed as the polluters. Still today, the same corporations continue to delay and derail regulatory efforts, “all while promoting recycling as a convenient excuse to produce ever more plastic.”

Read more:
Will China’s crackdown on ‘foreign garbage’ force wealthy countries to recycle more of their own waste?

Packaging accounts for 46% of the world’s plastic waste. Currently, some of the world’s top single-use plastic polluters are the same corporations who led the “people as polluters” deflection campaign decades ago.

Environmental education can be a tool for real change

Environmental education, according to Professor Bronwyn Hayward:

“is too often dominated by a moralistic and instrumental view of teaching that aims to modify learners’ lifestyle behaviours, for example, encouraging children to recycle and reduce their energy consumption rather than think critically about political power or asking questions like who has what and why.”

Under public pressure, one of the worst producers of single-use plastic, Coca-Cola, recently pledged to transition 25% of its packaging to reusable packaging by 2030. This is a beginning, but rather than wait for corporations to do the right thing, we can work to build reusable and refillable packaging infrastructure and demand that polluters pay.

Children can learn that holding corporations responsible and demanding regulatory change can have an impact. Let’s commit to helping children collaborate with whānau, iwi, communities and organisations working to make a difference to reduce plastic pollution at the source.

In the end, children and educators feel empowered when they are active participants within intergenerational communities organising for change – rather than being made to feel they are the problem.

Sara Tolbert receives funding from NZCER TLRI.

– ref. Plastic Free July: recycling is the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff. It’s time to teach kids to demand real change from the worst plastic producers – https://theconversation.com/plastic-free-july-recycling-is-the-ambulance-at-the-bottom-of-the-cliff-its-time-to-teach-kids-to-demand-real-change-from-the-worst-plastic-producers-185573

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Roderick Neilsen, Associate Professor TESOL/Languages Education, Deakin University

Burned-out teachers in Australian primary and secondary schools are quitting in droves, while the majority of surveyed teachers are thinking about it.

There are similar fears about Australia’s early childhood educators. However, there is another group of teachers to consider in the teacher shortage crisis: teachers of English as an additional language.

This group was one of the hardest-hit education sectors during the pandemic.
When former Prime Minister Scott Morrison told international students to go home if they could not support themselves, many did.

With migration to Australia on hold, there were no new school students arriving. Virtually the entire workforce of English language schools, TAFE and university language centres found itself out of work.

But even before COVID, the pool of specialist English as an additional language teachers was shrinking due to attrition, retirements and fewer training opportunities. Why is this a problem, and how do we fix it?

Ignoring a key group

Australia has more than 600,000 students who are learners of English as an additional language in government and Catholic schools.

The diversity of learners includes refugees and migrants to Australia and Indigenous learners.

Over the past two decades, the federal government has handed responsibility for teaching English as an additional language to the states and territories. This has seen support for English language learning either reduced or abolished. Recent Gonski funding reforms have not seen any concrete improvements.

Learners in this group have effectively been written out of education priorities and reforms. They were not even mentioned as an equity cohort in the 2019 Mparntwe (Alice Springs) education declaration.

Once heralded as a world leader in English as an additional language education – with a history dating back to the 1950s – this teaching expertise in Australia has been lost. Supports have also been lost, including targeted education programs to teach students from Indigenous, migrant and refugee backgrounds.

The borders reopen

As pandemic restrictions have lifted, international students are starting to return. At the same time, significant numbers of refugees have once again entered the community, boosting student enrolments in schools.

So, English as an additional language teaching is now back in high demand.

Read more:
More diversity can help solve twin problems of early childhood staff shortages and families missing out

But schools are struggling to employ English as an additional language teachers (along with other teachers). The Victorian education department has introduced new initiatives to address the critical teacher shortage. Under these new guidelines, education students in their final year of study can be employed as part-time English as an additional language specialists, if they have completed at least one specialisation subject.

To qualify to teach English as an additional language in Australian schools, teachers must have expertise in a range of areas, including English language, second language acquisition, and teaching in different social and cultural contexts.

What needs to change

The Australian Council for TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) Associations has proposed a a range of measures to improve the quality of English as an additional language education in Australia.

In its recently released roadmap, it warns Australia’s education system is failing both students and teachers. Its key proposals include:

• restoring adequate needs-based funding. At the moment, the loading for support per student fails to cover the cost of a single day’s English teaching at current teacher salary rates
• reintroducing bilingual programs to support Australia’s multilingual Indigenous student population
• upgrading curriculum resources so they provide comprehensive planning advice and best practice examples of how to support English as an additional language across the curriculum.

Significantly, the roadmap recommends that teaching English as an additional language should be compulsory in initial teaching degrees. This would mean all teachers have the skills to cater to the needs of students whose first language is not English.

This can help all students

Being able to speak, read and write English is key to success in education, employment and full participation in Australian society. While those learning English as an additional language may develop social communication skills reasonably quickly, their academic language skills may not develop enough without specific ongoing teaching.

Read more:
New Education Minister Jason Clare can fix the teacher shortage crisis – but not with Labor’s election plan

This focus actually benefits all students. Research shows teaching that responds to individual language levels and different language needs in different subjects, improves learning for all students.

If Australia wants to reclaim its reputation as a world-class education provider, we must boost the resources, skills and commitment to teaching English as an additional language.

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

– ref. When we talk about the teacher shortage, don’t forget those who teach English as an additional language – https://theconversation.com/when-we-talk-about-the-teacher-shortage-dont-forget-those-who-teach-english-as-an-additional-language-185134

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Lavender, Senior Lecturer, Institute of Health and Wellbeing, Federation University Australia

I am sure you’ve been told you should stand up and move away from your work stations or use a standing desk where possible. One of the major benefits of doing this is to activate and stretch the hip flexor area.

But what are the hip flexors, and why are they so important – and what happens if we let them get weak and stiff?

Read more:
Why do I grunt when I bend over?

What are hip flexors?

Hip flexors are the powerful muscles located at the front of your hip. They include:

• the psoas major and psoas minor, which connect the femur to the spine, and

• the iliacus, which runs from the pelvis to the femur.

Hip flexors are activated when you draw your knee towards your chest. They are important for walking and running.

They’re also very important in sport, as they flex the hip, and work with the quadraceps to extend your knee when you need to sprint or kick.

An athlete with an injured hip flexor will have great difficulty running or kicking.

The hip flexors also work with the glutes and other muscles of the torso to stabilise the spine – which makes them important for posture.

What happens when they’re weak or stiff?

Weak hip flexors may make climbing stairs, running or even walking on a flat surface difficult or painful. It can also can cause other muscles in the area to work hard to compensate. This changes your gait (the way you walk).

Tight hip flexors can make walking and standing difficult because they pull your spine down. This makes you lean forward, which puts strain on your lower back muscles (which work in opposition to keep you upright).

An imbalance between the hip flexors and the opposing muscles pulling your torso in the opposite direction can lead to lower back pain.

Tight hip flexors can reduce the range of motion of the knee. This can result in a stiff knee gait, where the knee doesn’t bend as much as it should. After some time, it can lead to knee pain.

All in all, weak or tight hip flexors can cause your joints or muscles to function in an abnormal way and this can lead to injury.

How can I keep my hip flexors in good shape?

As with all muscles, hip flexors lose strength and mass through lack of exercise.

Another contributing factor is sitting for long periods, which keeps the psoas muscles relaxed in a shortened position for a long time.

This is particularly important for those of us who spend long periods seated at a work desk, and is why many health-care professionals advise taking a break from sitting or opting for a standing desk.

Hip flexors should be kept both flexible and strong.

Stretching exercises to improve flexibility of the hip flexors include:

• lying on your side and pulling one foot to your butt, while keeping your knees close together

• stepping forward into a lunge, going as low as you can while keeping your torso upright.

Both should cause you to feel the stretch along the front of your upper thigh.

Stretches should be held for about 30 seconds and repeated two to three times each side. They can be done daily or at least three times weekly to gradually improve flexibility.

If you work at a desk for long periods, try to do some stretching in short breaks during the day.

To strengthen the hip flexors you can lie face up on the floor and do straight leg raises (one leg at a time), while keeping your arms on the floor alongside your torso.

This takes the strain off your lower back and is easier to do one at a time to start with.

Another great hip flexor exercise is called mountain climbers. For this exercise, take the push-up position and bring one leg at a time to your chest. This can be done slowly to begin with, or quickly as you gain strength and fitness.

Strong and flexible hip flexors

So, hip flexors are relatively easy to train. If you are doing any exercise at all you are likely already keeping your hip flexors strong and flexible.

If you are not exercising, the exercises mentioned earlier will give you a place to start.

Combine these with gentle stretches of other muscle groups and some aerobic exercise like walking, jogging, cycling or swimming.

Remember to start gently and gradually increase the intensity, duration and frequency of sessions.

Failure to look after your hip flexors can lead to an altered gait, posture problems, injury and back pain.

Read more:
Core strength: why is it important and how do you maintain it?

Andrew Lavender works for the Institute of Health and Wellbeing, Federation University Australia.

– ref. Hip flexors get weak when we sit too much – but simple stretches and strengthening exercises can leave you less stiff – https://theconversation.com/hip-flexors-get-weak-when-we-sit-too-much-but-simple-stretches-and-strengthening-exercises-can-leave-you-less-stiff-183132

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hugh White, Emeritus Professor of Strategic Studies at the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University

How can Australia navigate the tough and dangerous strategic environment in Asia today with America and China competing to be the leading regional power? The consensus in Canberra – on both sides of politics – is that we should stick as close as we can to America, in the hope it will win the contest.

But the choice is not that simple. We can see why when we look at a couple of incidents on the same day in late May.

In two widely separated locations, Chinese fighters intercepted maritime patrol aircraft – Australian and Canadian respectively – in the Western Pacific. Both were undertaking routine surveillance operations in international waters close to Chinese-claimed territory. China has long been touchy about US and allied maritime surveillance operations close to its shores, and it frequently warns them off.

But this might be more than routine Chinese belligerence. It could be the start of a new campaign to turn up the military pressure on America’s leadership in Asia by eroding the credibility of its regional strategic posture and alliances – and it would put Australia right in the firing line.

It is a fair bet that eventually China will bring its challenge to America to a head in a military confrontation over Taiwan. But that might not be its next move. It would make sense for China to look for other opportunities to test America’s resolve and undermine its credibility before risking that ultimate showdown. Targeting the maritime surveillance operations of US allies in waters around China’s coasts would seem an obvious and effective way to do this.

No easy choices

Let’s look at it from Australia’s perspective. China could simply undertake increasingly frequent and aggressive interceptions of Australian regular maritime patrol flights over the South China Sea, creating real concerns about the safety of our aircraft and crews. We would begin to fear the Chinese might force one of our aircraft to land, or that a mishap would lead to a crash.

Australia would be left with a very difficult choice. We’d have to decide either to abandon the operations or reinforce them by sending our own fighters to escort our maritime patrol planes.

The second of those options would be difficult, expensive and dangerous. It would be difficult and expensive because using short-range fighters to escort long-range patrol aircraft would require a massive commitment of resources. And it would be dangerous because confrontations between our fighters and Chinese intercepting aircraft could lead to an air-to-air battle that could swiftly escalate into full-scale war.

But the alternative – abandoning the operations – would be a very significant step with big strategic consequences. It would be seen as conceding important principles of international law by allowing China to compel us to abandon our clear right to operate in international airspace, and would weaken our defence of the Law of the Sea against the Chinese claims over the South China Sea that we see as plainly illegal. That is not something we should lightly do.

Even bigger stakes are involved. A Chinese campaign of interception and intimidation against Australia’s maritime patrol operations would be a direct challenge to America as well. We would naturally expect Washington to step in and support us by sending its own fighters to escort our maritime patrol planes, and so would America’s other allies and friends in Asia.

Read more:
Friday essay: if growing US-China rivalry leads to ‘the worst war ever’, what should Australia do?

This would not be an easy choice for Washington. Failing to support us would weaken its defence of international law, undermine its credibility as an ally, and vividly demonstrate to all the world how China’s power in the Western Pacific has grown. It would be a major blow to America’s claims to primary strategic power in our region.

But sending US fighters to escort Australian planes over the South China Sea would risk a direct US-China clash that could easily escalate into a full-scale war. It is the same kind of choice America faced ten years ago when China began aggressively occupying and building bases on islands and features in the South China Sea claimed by the Philippines and other US friends and allies.

In that case, Washington decided not to intervene militarily for fear of sparking a confrontation that could lead to war, despite the damage done to US credibility in Asia. Joe Biden would have to think twice about running the same kind of risks today against a China that’s even more assertive and much better armed.

These are exactly the kind of choices China’s leaders want to force on America and its allies. They hope and expect that we, and America, will back off. They would thereby show the US and its allies no longer call the shots in East Asia and the Western Pacific, and thus assert their claims to take over regional leadership.

Of course it would be a gamble, because America might not back off. But it is a gamble Beijing might well be willing to take, because they do believe the all-important balance of resolve lies in their favour.

Least-worst option?

So what should Australia do if China launches an escalating campaign against our maritime surveillance operations? The obvious and instinctive answer is to stand firm and continue the flights in the face of Beijing’s intimidation. But the stakes are too high to act on instinct alone, and the more carefully we think about it, the less clear the choice becomes. What, after all, is really at stake?

Our maritime patrol operations in the South China Sea have no direct significance for Australia’s own defence. We do them primarily to show support for some rules of international law. The rules are important, of course, but are they important enough to justify the risks of a military confrontation with China in its front yard?

Read more:
Marles shifts tone on China at defence summit – but the early days of government are easiest

More broadly, we perform those operations to support America as the leading military power in Asia. But do our gestures make much difference to that? Is the US position in Asia going to be sustainable against China’s challenge, given China’s economic, diplomatic and military power has grown so great, and will grow further in the decades ahead?

Stepping back from conducting maritime patrols in the waters close to China may be one of the concessions we will find ourselves choosing to make as we learn to live with the realities of China’s power. It is not what we’d like to do, but it may be better than the alternative, because it makes no sense for us to bet our future on America’s capacity to win a war with China for primacy in East Asia. Quite simply, it is a war America has little chance of winning.

This article draws on High White’s latest Quarterly Essay, Sleepwalk to War:
Australia’s Unthinking Alliance with America, released this week.

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

– ref. Is Australia in the firing line of a new Chinese campaign against the US? – https://theconversation.com/is-australia-in-the-firing-line-of-a-new-chinese-campaign-against-the-us-185696

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jessica Kaufman, Research Fellow, Vaccine Uptake Group, Murdoch Children’s Research Institute

The federal government has released a new A$11 million ad campaign urging Australians to “take on winter” by getting COVID boosters and influenza vaccines, as well as promoting COVID vaccination for children.

The ads come at a crucial time. COVID booster vaccination rates have plateaued at 70% and only about 40% of children aged 5-11 have had two doses.

Yet COVID boosters – a third dose for most adults, or fourth dose for people over 65 years and in high risk groups – are critical. They increase protection against severe disease, which wanes within three months of the second COVID vaccine dose.

While most children experience relatively mild COVID symptoms, some children, including those who were previously healthy, can get very sick and need to be admitted to hospital. We don’t want kids to get COVID and vaccination can help to protect them.

On top of COVID, we’re also experiencing our biggest flu season since 2019, which has hit hard and early.

Older adults and children six months to five years are among the groups at the highest risk from flu. And since we’ve had no flu season during the pandemic, children under two years have never been exposed and have no immunity.

But while the government’s new ads get some things right, they miss the mark in other areas: they don’t connect on an emotional level by highlighting meaningful benefits of vaccination and they don’t address most people’s main concerns.

What makes a good campaign?

A well-designed campaign can raise awareness about vaccine availability and eligibility, shape social norms by emphasising shared values, and generate vaccine demand by highlighting the individual and collective benefits of vaccination.

Last year, we studied what people from the initial vaccine priority groups (health-care workers, people aged over 65 years and those with underlying health conditions) thought and felt about COVID vaccines, and what they wanted from communication campaigns and materials.

Based on what they told us, effective communication should:

• provide information about vaccine safety and effectiveness
• address people’s concerns about side effects
• highlight the broader benefits of vaccination, not just those related to personal health
• discuss the severity of COVID infection
• communicate about vaccine availability
• personalise information, to account for people’s underlying medical conditions and treatments
• use real, diverse spokespeople
• use clear and simple language, and build trust through transparency.

Read more:
Diverse spokespeople and humour: how the government’s next ad campaign could boost COVID vaccine uptake

We also recommend using humour and emotion to generate engagement and enhance motivation to vaccinate, while avoiding fear-based messaging which can backfire or cause unintended harms.

What’s in the new campaign?

The Take on Winter ad meets some of our recommended criteria but falls short in other areas.

It makes clear the important message that it’s safe to get your COVID and flu shots at the same time.

It has a clear call to action – “book today” – and notes the vaccines are available at GPs and pharmacies.

However, its creators made the disappointing decision to recycle the unengaging, faceless arms of last year’s A$41 million Arm Yourself campaign, which fell flat and didn’t resonate with viewers.

Read more:
Australia’s new vaccination campaign is another wasted opportunity

In the child COVID vaccination ad, Kids will be kids, which was also released last week, the cast is diverse, but there’s no real link made between vaccination and the kids doing generic kid things.

What’s missing?

While a TV ad can’t do everything to address vaccine hesitancy, these ads have some notable gaps.

Neither of the government’s ads do much to address concerns about side effects. The most common reason parents cite for not vaccinating their children is concern about vaccine safety and side effects, even though children experience fewer side effects than adults. But the Kids will be Kids ad just uses a relatively simplistic motherhood statement about vaccine safety.

Adults are also concerned about side effects. Some people who had unpleasant, short-term side effects after dose two are reluctant to get a booster dose – though side effects after the booster are reported less frequently than after dose two. Communicating about how well vaccine safety is monitored in Australia and the low occurrence of common and expected side effects can reassure people.

The ads are also unlikely to generate an emotional response from viewers, which is an important part of motivating behaviour change. The Take on Winter ad fails to link COVID vaccine boosters or the flu shot with any meaningful personal benefits or motivators, such as being able to go to work, travel, socialise or see elderly grandparents. There is no emotional resonance.

And while we agree with the decision to avoid a fear-based message in Kids will be kids, one of the primary factors driving vaccine intention and uptake is perceived susceptibility to COVID. Many parents feel their kids aren’t at risk of serious disease, or they’ve already had COVID, so they don’t see the urgency or value in vaccinating them.

A more specific message about the importance of vaccination, even for people who have already had COVID, or personal stories from real parents of previously healthy kids who got very sick from COVID, would likely resonate more strongly.

Read more:
Just the facts, or more detail? To battle vaccine hesitancy, the messaging has to be just right

We need to respect how discerning people are, especially as vaccine vaccine fatigue is high. For all the dollars spent, evidence from social and behavioural science should be reflected in the messaging to ensure the ads are as effective as they can be.

Jessica Kaufman receives funding from the Victorian Department of Health. She is Deputy Chair of the Collaboration on Social Science and Immunisation.

Margie Danchin receives funding from the Victorian and Commonwealth Governments, NHMRC, DFAT and WHO. She is Group Leader, Vaccine Uptake, MCRI.

– ref. New ad urges us to ‘take on winter’ by getting COVID and flu vaccines. But it misses some key things – https://theconversation.com/new-ad-urges-us-to-take-on-winter-by-getting-covid-and-flu-vaccines-but-it-misses-some-key-things-185600

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Macintosh, Professor and Director of Research, ANU Law School, Australian National University

Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen is today expected to announce a much anticipated review of Australia’s carbon credit scheme, known as the Emissions Reduction Fund.

In March, we exposed serious integrity issues with the scheme, labelling it a fraud on taxpayers and the environment. We welcome the federal government’s review. Labor has promised a 43% cut in Australia’s emissions by 2030, and a high-integrity carbon credit market is vital to reaching this goal.

The fund was established by the Abbott government in 2014 and is now worth A$4.5 billion. It provides carbon credits to projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions. For the past decade, it has been the centrepiece of Australia’s climate policy.

In this and subsequent articles, we seek to simplify the issues for the Australian public, the new parliament and whoever is appointed to review the Emissions Reduction Fund.

The background

We are experts in environmental law, markets and policy. The lead author of this article, Andrew Macintosh, is the former chair of the Emissions Reduction Assurance Committee (ERAC), the government-appointed watchdog that oversees the Emissions Reduction Fund’s methods.

Our analysis suggests up to 80% of credits issued under three of the fund’s most popular emissions reduction methods do not represent genuine emissions cuts that wouldn’t have happened otherwise.

Our decision to call the scheme a “fraud” was deliberate and considered. In our view, a process that systematically pays for a service that’s not actually provided is fraudulent.

The Clean Energy Regulator (which administers the fund) and the current ERAC reviewed our claims and, earlier this month, dismissed them. We have expressed serious concerns with that review process, which we believe was not transparent and showed a fundamental lack of understanding of the issues.

This week, Bowen said our concerns were “substantial and real” and he took them “very seriously”.

The Conversation contacted the Clean Energy Regulator regarding the authors’ claims. The regulator pointed to its “comprehensive response” to the issues raised and also rejected allegations of fraud. The full statement is included at the end of this article.

The 3 biggest problems

Under the fund, projects that reduce emissions are rewarded with carbon credits. These credits can be sold on the carbon market to entities that want to offset their emissions. Each credit is supposed to represent one tonne of carbon abatement.

Buyers include the federal government (using taxpayer funds) and private entities that are required to, or voluntarily choose to, offset their emissions.

Under the scheme, a range of methods lay out the rules for emissions abatement activities. Concerns have been raised about these methods for years.

Our initial criticism focuses on the scheme’s most popular methods, which account for about 75% of carbon credits issued:

• human-induced regeneration: projects supposed to regenerate native forests through changes in land management practices, particularly reduced grazing by livestock and feral animals

• avoided deforestation: projects supposed to protect native forests in western New South Wales that would otherwise be cleared

• landfill gas: projects supposed to capture and destroy methane emitted from solid waste landfills using a flare or electricity generator.

Our analysis found credits have been issued for emissions reductions that were not real or additional, such as:

• protecting forests that were never going to be cleared
• growing trees that were already there
• growing forests in places that will never sustain them permanently
• large landfills operating electricity generators that would have operated anyway.

Read more:
Australia’s Emissions Reduction Fund is almost empty. It shouldn’t be refilled

In forthcoming articles, we will detail the problems with these methods.

However, at a high level, the issues have arisen because the scheme has focused on maximising the number of carbon credits issued, to put downward pressure on carbon credit prices. This has resulted in attempts to use carbon offsets in inappropriate situations.

A tricky policy lever

Designing high integrity methods for calculating carbon credits is hard because it involves:

• trying to determine what would happen in the absence of the incentive provided by the carbon credit. For example, would a farmer have cleared a paddock of trees if they weren’t given carbon credits to retain it?

• activities where it’s not always clear if carbon abatement was the result of human activity or natural variability. For instance, soil carbon levels can be increased by changing land management practices, but can also happen naturally due to rainfall

• activities where it can be hard to measure the emissions outcome. For example, carbon sequestration in vegetation is often measured using models that can be inaccurate when applied at the project scale

• dynamic carbon markets with fast-evolving technologies.

These complexities mean mistakes are inevitable; no functional carbon offset scheme can ever get it 100% right. A degree of error must be accepted.

But decisions regarding risk tolerance must consider the consequences of issuing low-integrity credits, including contributing to worsening climate change.

The dangers of sham credits

The safeguard mechanism places caps on the emissions of major polluters and was originally intended to protect gains achieved through the Emissions Reduction Fund. It applies to about 200 large industrial polluters and requires them to buy carbon credits if their emissions exceed these caps.

When carbon credits used by polluters do not represent real and additional abatement, Australia’s emissions will be higher than they otherwise would be.

To avoid such risks, the legislation governing the Emissions Reduction Fund requires the methods to be “conservative” and supported by “clear and convincing evidence”.

The fund’s main methods do not meet these standards.

Read more:
No, Mr Morrison – the safeguard mechanism is not a ‘sneaky carbon tax’

An open and transparent process

Carbon credit schemes are, by nature, complex and involve a high risk of error. To maintain integrity, systems to promote transparency are needed.

This includes requiring administrators to not just expect, but actively seek out errors and move quickly to correct them.

To this end, rules are needed to:

• force the disclosure of information by the Clean Energy Regulator and ERAC

• guarantee disinterested third parties the right to be involved in rule-making

• give anybody the right to seek judicial review of decisions made by the Clean Energy Regulator and ERAC

• require proponents to move off methods found to contain material errors.

The Emissions Reduction Fund has none of these features and needs urgent reform.

We hope the federal government review will be comprehensive and independent, with the power to compel people to give evidence. Because Australians deserve assurance that our national climate policy operates with the utmost integrity.

Read more:
US scheme used by Australian farmers reveals the dangers of trading soil carbon to tackle climate change

The Clean Energy Regulator provided the following statement in response to this article.

The comments made regarding the Emissions Reduction Fund (ERF) repeat generalised claims that ‘fraud’ is occurring and are rejected. No substantial evidence for claims of fraud has ever been provided. These are serious allegations and the CER is dismayed at the statement that attributes these alleged outcomes to the work done by the CER. We understand that ERAC has the same view.

The claims about lack of additionality and over-crediting are also not new. Prof Macintosh and his colleagues have not engaged with the substance of the ERAC’s comprehensive response papers on human induced regeneration and landfill gas and the CER’s response to the claims on avoided deforestation.

The government has said it will undertake a review of the ERF and details will be announced shortly. We do not wish to pre-empt the scope of the review or its findings. We welcome the review and look forward to engaging substantively with the review process once it commences.

Andrew Macintosh receives funding from the federal Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment. He is also a Director of Paraway Pastoral Company Ltd, which has projects registered under the Emissions Reduction Fund.

Don Butler receives funding from the federal Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment. He also works with the Queensland Department of Environment and Science as a science advisor for natural capital programs.

Megan C Evans receives funding from the Australian Research Council through a Discovery Early Career Research Award and has previously been funded by the Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment, WWF Australia, and the National Environmental Science Program’s Threatened Species Recovery Hub.

– ref. We blew the whistle on Australia’s central climate policy. Here’s what a new federal government probe must fix – https://theconversation.com/we-blew-the-whistle-on-australias-central-climate-policy-heres-what-a-new-federal-government-probe-must-fix-185894

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ken Purnell, Professor of Education, CQUniversity Australia

On Thursday, thousands of teachers went on strike in New South Wales, over pay and “unsustainable” workloads.

This comes amid increasing concerns about teacher shortages around Australia.

The federal government has suggested enticing high-performing students into teaching degrees with extra payments, while education experts say teachers need more time, more pay and more support to do their jobs.

Read more:
Read the room, Premier. Performance pay for teachers will make the crisis worse

One option that could free up teacher time, and ensure students are getting the education they need, is “blended” learning, in which some learning is done online and some face-to-face. We know this can work in other settings – at the university level, I have three decades of expertise in remote and blended learning, with many thousands of students across several subjects at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels.

The crisis

The established norm in Australian schools is one teacher for every 25 students, with learning done face-to-face in a classroom, five days a week.

But a growing shortage in teacher numbers means we may no longer be able to accept this as the norm. According to a recent Monash University study, 59% of surveyed primary and secondary teachers said they intended to leave the profession. Heavy workloads, and health and well-being issues, were among the key reasons given for their responses.

Blended learning involves a mix of traditional face-to-face learning with remote learning. That online element may be done anywhere, such as at school, at home, or in small groups.

COVID meant remote learning hit the headlines worldwide, but it has already been happening behind the scenes for some time, particularly in remote areas in Australia through distance schools.

When learning is done remotely it still needs quality teachers. Unlike university students, school students need significant support to help them learn. Teachers need to know their students and design lessons specific to their context, whether it be in inner-city Sydney or remote Arnhem Land.

The COVID silver lining

Any teacher or parent will tell you COVID rapidly changed the way school was structured and learning was delivered.

Despite the stress of this time, the pandemic showed us it was possible to teach students online, and that despite the well-publicised challenges of home learning, there were some advantages. This was the case when when remote learning is planned and delivered to a high standard, enabling students to use technologies they like.

Read more:
Remote learning was even tougher for migrant parents. Here’s what they want schools to know in case lockdowns return

As the World Bank recently found, COVID created many opportunities for “reimagining how education can be offered and enriched”.

One of my education colleagues likes to cite the example of a Rockhampton 12-year-old, who had four people who helped her learn in March 2020 when the pandemic began in Australia. This included teachers and friends.

That group became 35 during the next year, with other classmates, parents, grandparents, and other similar-aged students in her school. Her literacy, numeracy, technology and social skills skyrocketed, along with her well-being. This was a direct result of the required remote learning, as the student sought assistance from others and it soon became a snowballing effect.

This can work for all year levels

Senior educators in Queensland have told me up to a quarter of the curriculum content may be best taught online. That is for all year levels and especially from year 4 onwards, and includes basic knowledge and skills in most subject areas.

Teachers reported that students’ learning could be more personalised online. Students who have the capability to go quickly can do so – and not be bored. Students who need more time can take it.

It can also be used to facilitate peer-to-peer learning and group-based activities in ways not easily done in traditional classroom settings. This includes collaborative projects using things such as shared Google docs and educational video games.

Achievements in that learning can be assessed in the online environment using high-quality techniques that involve automated marking as well as some teacher judgements.

That has the added benefit of freeing up some teacher time with fewer face-to-face contact hours but not adding to the work of parents.

However, it does mean all students doing part of their school work by remote learning will have to have good access to a computer or tablet with good internet connection. And while that is generally the case already, some students did not have that during lockdowns and some schools need to ensure such access as they did in the online NAPLAN tests in May.

Lets re-imagine schools

A hybrid model will only benefit students and teachers if it set up properly.

In its assessment of COVID learning at home, the World Bank found remote learning needed to have suitable technology, targeted professional development for teachers and make sure students are engaged.

Under a new, hybrid model, Australian schools would still use face-to-face when most appropriate and remote networked learning when that is most appropriate. That can free up teaching and physical resources (such as classroom space) and potentially improve student learning and teacher well-being.

As the teacher shortage continues, we need to think creatively and use existing models we have already seen work.

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

– ref. Could more online learning help fix Australia’s teacher shortage? – https://theconversation.com/could-more-online-learning-help-fix-australias-teacher-shortage-185877

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Esmé Louise James, Doctor of Philosophy, The University of Melbourne

After a month of waiting, the season finale of Stranger Things season 4 has almost arrived on Netflix. This season, along with the nightmarish arch-villain Vecna, we have been introduced to “the Hellfire Club” – the Dungeons and Dragons club of Hawkins high school.

The club is primarily made up of the school’s “losers” and outcasts – none of whom could have anticipated being framed by their small town as an evil cult responsible for the murders taking place.

While the fate of the Hawkins Hellfire leader and members still hangs in the balance, we can look to its origins in history – the Hellfire Club of the 18th century – for clues of what to expect in this finale.

The OG Hellfire Club

Phillip, Duke of Wharton, founded the first official Hellfire Club in 1718. The club was primarily a parodic take on the popular trend of gentleman clubs across London at the time – admission was open to both men and women.

However, rather than meeting to discuss poetry and politics, the main aim of the Hellfire Club was to mock religion and its inherent hypocrisies – the club leader was called “The Devil” and members were encouraged to come dressed as biblical characters. As well as partaking in satirical religious ceremonies, the club would enjoy festive meals of Holy Ghost Pie, Breast of Venus, and Devil’s Loin.

Read more:
By naming ‘Pennhurst’, Stranger Things uses disability trauma for entertainment. Dark tourism and asylum tours do too

The notorious Hellfire Club

While Wharton’s club was reluctantly disbanded in 1721, it would go on to be replaced by the most notorious Hellfire Club in history.

Indeed, the Hellfire Club is often synonymous with Sir Francis Dashwood’s club. This club was originally named the Order of the Friars of St Francis of Wycombe, and the members known as “the monks” – however, that it not the name that history would remember it by. Dashwood was himself a scandalous figure, known as a man with a true “genius for obscenity.” His love for promiscuity was matched with his flair for the dramatic.

In 1751, Dashwood leased the remarkable Medmenham Abbey and had this medieval ruin entirely renovated in Gothic style for the purpose of this club. Written into a stained glass window on the doorway was the club’s motto, “Fais ce que tu voudras” — Do what thou wilt.

Artwork by William Hogarth is believed to have once decorated the walls, depicting club members in a range of erotic activities. The library was stocked with the most infamous pornographic works of the time, such as John Cleland’s Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure (1749).

Club members consisted of some of the most influential figures of the time: including Thomas Potter, John Wilkes, John Montagu, William Hogarth, George Dodington, Benjamin Bates II, and many more. Even Benjamin Franklin is thought to have been a member, as he is recorded to have stayed at Medmenham Abbey at the time a meeting was taking place – a privilege only allowed to Hellfire members.

What happened at the Hellfire Club?

The club met only twice a year, with an AGM which lasted more than a week in September or June. Each member encouraged to bring female guests of “a cheerful, lively disposition.”

As written in Nocturnal Revels (1779), a book which claimed to have been authored by one of these “monk[s] of the Order of St Francis,”

no vows of celibacy were required either by the ladies or the Monks, the former considering themselves as the lawful wives of the brethren during their stay within the monastic walls, every Monk being religiously scrupulous not to infringe upon the nuptial alliance of any other brother.

Under the cover of darkness, adorned in masks and cloaks, the club members would make their way across the river Thames in gondolas to the Abbey. They were greeted with a concoction made of brandy and brimstone and would drink to the Gods of Darkness. The group kept the same parodic religious rituals which had been performed by Wharton’s group.

As Horace Walpole, an English writer of the time, describes,

the members’ practice was rigorously pagan: Bacchus and Venus were the deities to whom they almost publicly sacrificed; and the nymphs and the hogsheads that were laid in against the festivals of this new church, sufficiently informed the neighborhood of the complexion of those hermits.

Throughout the night, they would gradually make their way through the Abbey – and the activities reportedly became more and more obscene. One reported (if unconfirmed) story goes that a baboon dressed as a devil was once in attendance, and gave John Wilkes such a fright when it was released from a chest that he begged the devil to spare him and proclaimed he was “but half a sinner”.

Notoriety and the underground

In 1760, a publication appeared (Chrysal, or the Adventures of a Guinea) which made the Hellfire Club’s activities known to the general public – identifying Medmenham Abbey and even making reference to this infamous baboon story. Rumours had spread about the activities of the club, and while few had access particulars, the general perception was that it was a blasphemous and bawdy club that partook in sinful, libertine behaviour.

It is believed the tourists would flock around the island to try and catch a glimpse of this notorious club, made up of such prominent members. It was around this time that Dashwood moved the club activities underground (literally) into a series of elaborate caves and tunnels built under Dashwood’s garden at West Wycombe.

Farewell Hellfire Club

The club was finally abandoned in 1766. Records and reports of membership to this Hellfire Club were used to bring about the political ruin of many of its members — a witch-hunt which bears reflection within Stranger Things own Hellfire Club.

While Dashwood and Franklin faced a baboon rather than Vecna, we can draw some comparisons from this historical example. Both clubs were formed by figures disillusioned by polite society, and were met with outrage from the society they so condemned. And, ultimately, this condemnation was stronger.

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

– ref. Pornography, the devil and baboons in fancy dress: what went on at the infamous historical Hellfire Club – https://theconversation.com/pornography-the-devil-and-baboons-in-fancy-dress-what-went-on-at-the-infamous-historical-hellfire-club-185869

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

David Pocock, the progressive independent who broke the Liberals’ stranglehold on one of the two ACT Senate seats, wouldn’t have expected to find himself allied with Pauline Hanson before even being sworn in.

But, as they say, politics makes strange bedfellows and the two have already discussed trying to get Anthony Albanese to compromise on his decision to slash crossbench staff numbers.

The staff cut will just be the start of Labor’s search for general savings, culminating in the October budget. Some of those will have the public much more agitated than will trimming politicians’ entitlements.

But Albanese’s action, without prior consultation, has come as a rude shock to the “teal” independents who, together with other new members, arrived at Parliament House this week for their orientation.

The teals have been feted in the media and seen by many voters as part of a new breed of politician. They probably didn’t expect such rough treatment, delivered in a letter from the new PM.

Existing crossbenchers, with years of experience of how politics works, may have been less surprised, but they were also dismayed.

In the last parliament crossbenchers had four extra staff, above those allocated to government and opposition backbenchers. With a much-expanded crossbench, Albanese has brought that back to one extra (two for those in larger electorates).

Apart from expense, he’s arguing fairness with other backbenchers. He’s also saying plans to beef up the parliamentary library will provide more resources for crossbenchers.

The crossbenchers say they don’t have the backup a major party gives its own MPs, and that the library can’t provide the sort of tailored advice a staffer does, let alone be as fast with assistance, or available around the clock.

Crossbench senators make a further case. In a chamber where the government is in a minority, their votes matter more than those of crossbenchers in the lower house, where Labor will have the numbers.

This applies particularly to someone like Pocock who, with the Greens, is expected to assure the government of its majority on various pieces of legislation. (The Greens, treated as a party, haven’t had their staff reduced but the same number will service a total party room that has increased from 10 to 16.)

Read more:
Cutting crossbench MPs’ staffing would be a setback for democracy

When he returns from overseas, Albanese will address the complaints. His choice is staying tough (the public wouldn’t care) or buying some crossbench goodwill with a conciliatory gesture.

The staffing dispute has provided immediate controversy but in this new parliament, which first meets July 26, there’ll be more fundamental issues around the crossbenchers.

The crossbench is, of course, diverse. In the lower house, there are Greens, the new teals (obviously individuals in their own right) and other independents, as well as the idiosyncratic Bob Katter, from the deep north.

In the Senate, the crossbench ranges from Greens to the two Hansonites and Ralph Babet, elected from Victoria for the UAP.

The teals have a lot to live up to, after their high-profile campaigns. They are different from many other MPs. They haven’t been political staffers or come up through the rugged internals of parties (although a couple hail from well-known political families). They talk about doing politics differently. But without the balance of power in the House of Representatives, will they be able to drive meaningful changes in how things are done?

And what of policy substance can the lower house teals achieve? They need to demonstrate they’re relevant.

Lacking hard power, they can only operate through influence and advocacy. This is possible, though difficult. For example, in the last parliament independent Helen Haines’ release of a private member’s bill for an integrity commission added to the public pressure. She (and others) will be anxious to have a voice on the issue as the government presses ahead with its legislation.

One problem for the teals is that the Albanese government will address core issues they campaigned on, notably climate change and integrity. It was easy enough for them to rail against the Coalition before the election, but things are more challenging when they are (essentially) aligned with the government on these matters.

They can say Labor should go further (although there mightn’t be mileage in that), and there will be some scope for suggesting amendments to legislation.

Read more:
Word from The Hill: Parliamentary ‘newbies’ inspect their workplace, with some complaints

Recent history indicates once crossbenchers are elected they dig in, but they aren’t invulnerable (as Kerryn Phelps found in Wentworth). The teals will have to show over the next three years they represent what we might describe as “value for votes”. And if the government delivers on climate, integrity and women’s issues, the teals will need to refresh their own agendas for the 2025 election.

The government has some interest in teals surviving, because they provide a firewall. They keep seats Labor can’t itself win out of Liberal hands. So it may look to give them a few modest policy wins.

The Greens-Labor relationship will be more potent and scratchy. The two parties are fierce competitors and there’s no love lost.

But Labor will require the Greens (plus one more vote) to get contested legislation through the Senate. The Greens will push for changes. It will likely often be a game of bluff and counter bluff.

The Greens party room is politically diverse – witness the radicalism of Victorian senator Lidia Thorpe who questions the legitimacy of parliament itself – so there could be some robust internal battles.

The Greens say their position on Labor’s climate legislation will be to improve, not to block. The first test will come early, when the government presents a bill to put into law its emissions reduction targets.

Given the Greens can’t get a more ambitious position they would, if they follow their own maxim, support the legislation.

Lastly, Pocock’s position is interesting. He won’t be the only go-to person for the government to obtain that additional Senate vote. Jacqui Lambie and her newly elected Senate colleague would be candidates.

But Pocock will be often in the spotlight. For his part, while reflecting his progressive views, he’ll need to remember he’s sitting in a traditionally Liberal seat. He won largely because the former incumbent, the deeply conservative Zed Seselja, was so unpopular. So if he wants to hold onto his place in the longer term, Pocock might have to perform a balancing act.

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

– ref. Grattan on Friday: Election delivered bonanza of crossbenchers but what impact will they make? – https://theconversation.com/grattan-on-friday-election-delivered-bonanza-of-crossbenchers-but-what-impact-will-they-make-186134