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

Scott Morrison is finding, to his great discomfort, the royal commissioners probing aged care aren’t keeping their thoughts to themselves until their final report in February.

The week before last, commissioner Tony Pagone QC said the government should set up an expert aged care advisory body ASAP. On Friday the national cabinet did so, although Morrison chooses to play it down by describing it as an add-on to an existing group.

Now Pagone and commissioner Lynelle Briggs have declared it’s “unacceptable” there isn’t an independent body publicly reporting on the sector.

The commissioners weighed in as Scott Morrison came under a strong attack, on the first day of the parliamentary sitting, over the COVID crisis that as of Monday had taken the lives of 328 people in residential care and seven in at-home aged care.

Monday also saw the release of the government-commissioned report on Sydney’s Newmarch House, where 17 of 19 deaths were attributed to COVID, which was 46% of the COVID-positive residents. The report criticised “a lack of clarity in the relationships and hierarchy” between various state and federal government health agencies.

With Labor devoting every question in the House of Representatives to aged care, Morrison made his most explicit apology so far.

But equally, the Prime Minister went out of his way to stress COVID had hit only a very small proportion of facilities.

He told parliament there were “2706 residential aged care facilities in Australia. In 92% of these facilities, there’s been no infections among residents. This compares sharply to many countries around the world.

“In Victoria, where there’s been high levels of transmission, 126 of the 766 facilities have outbreaks among residents and staff.

“The impact has been significant in 16 cases. And in four cases, the impact has been severe. And completely unacceptable.

“Again, I offer my apologies to the residents and families of those affected in those facilities. It was not good enough.”

Pagone and Briggs believe the eyes on the system aren’t good enough.

Releasing research conducted for the commission on monitoring, the commissioners said independent measurement and public reporting were essential for the good operation of the aged care system.

“Unbiased measurement and reporting of performance is vital to create accountability and continuous improvement in the aged care sector.

“Without it, problems are hidden from sight and not addressed,” they said in a statement.

They went further. “It is unacceptable that in 2020 the aged care system is still without this. Had the Australian Government acted upon previous reviews of aged care, the persistent problems in aged care would have been known much earlier and the suffering of many people could have been avoided.”

They referenced recommendations from the Productivity Commission in 2011, and a 2017 review of aged care quality regulatory processes.

This goes to the underlying problem – the long term faults of the system, often identified but never properly fixed.

Morrison fell back on the history of the issue as he responded in question time, saying that was why he called the royal commission.

“All governments have failed to measure up to the mark, including those who were members of governments previously who now sit opposite.”

While that’s correct, it is equally true that the Coalition is in its third term – it could have had reform under way years ago.

The research released by the commission has been done by the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute.

It looks at a number of indicators to measure the quality of aged care, on which Australia has a mixed performance.

They include indicators for medication-related quality of care, falls and fractures, hospital re-admissions, hospitalisation for dementia and delirium, pain, premature mortality, pressure injury, use of care plans and medication reviews, and weight loss and malnutrition.

At present the federal government reports on only three indicators for residential care.

The research says: “Public reporting of quality and safety indicators may increase transparency and accountability of the system, potentially improving performance, and provide aged care recipients and their families the opportunity to make informed decisions regarding service use”.

Asked about the commissioners’ comments, Morrison said he’d wait for their report. He wasn’t going to undertake a running commentary, although he again indicated there’ll be further responses to the commission’s interim report in the budget.

He urged the opposition not to “partisanise” the commission’s activities.

But the commission, with its strong voice, now is very much in the partisan debate.

– ref. View from The Hill: Aged Care royal commissioners say sector needs independent performance reporting – https://theconversation.com/view-from-the-hill-aged-care-royal-commissioners-say-sector-needs-independent-performance-reporting-144964

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Erin Smith, Associate Professor in Disaster and Emergency Response, School of Medical and Health Sciences, Edith Cowan University

Today, Victoria recorded 116 new cases of COVID-19, the lowest number of daily cases since June 5.

As the number of new daily confirmed cases begins to decline, we need to consider how to ease restrictions as efficiently as possible without overwhelming health services.

But moving into a “new normal” won’t be simple. At least 94 countries are undergoing or exiting lockdowns to control the COVID-19 pandemic, and governments are looking for sustainable exit strategies that won’t lead to a surge in coronavirus cases.

One option is a traffic-light alert system, which is already being used around the world to classify whether travel is safe and inform restrictions in the classroom.

When can we exit lockdown?

Ultimately, before we exit lockdown, we need to be confident the changes won’t risk yet another wave of infections. The Victorian government has yet to reveal its map for navigating out of lockdown, but it’s likely several key criteria will need to be met before restrictions can be eased.

These include making sure the health-care system can cope, and ensuring a sustained and consistent downturn in deaths and daily “mystery cases”. Mystery cases can’t be linked to any known outbreaks, so close contacts can’t be isolated to limit the spread of the virus. For this reason, a consistent reduction in these cases is especially important.

Read more: Can Victorians stick to the stage 4 rules? Our perception of what others are doing might be the key

Are “traffic light” restrictions a go?

UNSW epidemiologist Mary-Louise McLaws first proposed the traffic light model after the SARS outbreak of 2003, when she was reviewing the response to the Beijing outbreak.

Red, amber and green alerts – similar to those used during the bushfire season – could be used as part of such a system. The level of threat would be based on the average number of new infections over a two-week period. Colour-coded alerts would then signal to the public when mask-wearing is required – much like they warn of the fire-danger level during bushfire season.

Read more: COVID lockdowns have human costs as well as benefits. It’s time to consider both

Professor McLaws has suggested hitting 100 new cases per fortnight would prompt a red alert, leading to the reintroduction of measures to stop the spread of the virus. But new cases in the low double figures would give the green light to opening up restaurants, cafes and shops – with social distancing rules still in place.

Why might it be effective?

Researchers from nine countries simulated how different lockdown strategies would impact the spread of the coronavirus. For places such as Melbourne, the researchers suggested an effective approach to lockdowns would be to alternate stricter measures with intervals of relaxed physical distancing.

Read more: As ‘lockdown fatigue’ sets in, the toll on mental health will require an urgent response

As the city enters the halfway mark of its strict stage four lockdown, Melburnians are beginning to show signs of fatigue. So a traffic light alert approach could be beneficial in combating the difficulties associated with restricted living.

And as Premier Daniel Andrews said, if fatigue gets the better of us, the virus will spread more rapidly, meaning lives will be lost and lockdown will need to be extended.

What are the drawbacks?

Unlike Melbourne’s current six-week lockdown, under the traffic-light system restriction levels could change more regularly depending on the number of cases. This could potentially result in confusion among the public regarding what each colour actually means.

Professor McLaws suggests having a defined number of cases associated with each “colour” could help the public understand when certain restrictions are to be implemented. She proposed changes to current alert levels could be communicated through an app and in the media.

Read more: Here is why you might be feeling tired while on lockdown

Already in use?

Researchers at the Complexity Science Hub Vienna (CSH) have developed a tool that uses the well-known traffic light system to visualise worldwide trends in coronavirus infection. The “CSH Corona Traffic Light” shows countries in green, amber or red based on the confirmed cases within the past two weeks.

Traffic-light systems have also been introduced in Hungary, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Belgium and Mexico to classify travel to other countries as safe or otherwise, depending on the prevalence of coronavirus. And more recently, Austria introduced a traffic-light system as schools began reopening, to determine restrictions in the classroom.

The “non-negotiables”

No matter what type of system Victoria uses to come out of lockdown there will likely be some “non-negotiables” as part of our new normal.

Recent evidence suggests wearing face masks reduces the risk of catching and spreading coronavirus. And face masks will probably continue to be a feature of Victoria’s pandemic response after the loosening of stage four restrictions.

Effective testing, contact tracing and isolation strategies, as well as efforts to protect our most vulnerable, should also be consistently kept in place.

– ref. Could ‘traffic-light’ alerts help Victoria exit lockdown safely? – https://theconversation.com/could-traffic-light-alerts-help-victoria-exit-lockdown-safely-144931

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonti Horner, Professor (Astrophysics), University of Southern Queensland

Social media around the world lit up over the weekend, discussing the possibility that an asteroid (known as 2018 VP₁) could crash into Earth on November 2.

It seemed only fitting. What better way to round off a year that has seen catastrophic floods, explosions, fires, and storms – and, of course, a global pandemic?

But you can rest easy. The asteroid does not pose a threat to life on Earth. Most likely, it will sail harmlessly past our planet. At worst, it will burn up harmlessly in our atmosphere and create a firework show for some lucky Earthlings.

So, what’s the story?

Our story begins a couple of years ago, on November 3, 2018. That night, the Zwicky Transient Facility at Palomar Observatory in Southern California discovered a faint new “near-Earth asteroid” – an object whose orbit can approach, or cross, that of our planet.

At the time of its discovery, 2018 VP₁ was roughly 450,000 kilometres from Earth – a little farther than the average distance between Earth and the Moon (around 384,000km).

The asteroid was very faint, and hard to spot against the background stars. Astronomers were only able to watch it for 13 days, before it was too far from Earth to see.

Read more: Why dangerous asteroids heading to Earth are so hard to detect

Based on that short series of observations, it became clear the asteroid is a kind of near-Earth object called an “Apollo asteroid”.

Apollo asteroids spend most of their time beyond Earth’s orbit, but swing inward across our planet’s orbit at the innermost part of their journey around the Sun. 2018 VP₁ takes two years to go around the Sun, swinging just inside Earth’s orbit every time it reaches “perihelion” (its closest approach to our star).

Because 2018 VP₁’s orbit takes almost exactly two years, in 2020 (two years after discovery), it will once again pass close to Earth.

But how close will it come? Well, that’s the million-dollar question.

Anything from a collision to a very distant miss …

To work out an object’s exact path through the Solar system, and to predict where it will be in the future (or where it was in the past), astronomers need to gather observations.

We need at least three data points to estimate an object’s orbit – but that will only give us a very rough guess. The more observations we can get, and the longer the time period they span, the better we can tie down the orbit.

And that’s why the future of 2018 VP₁ is uncertain. It was observed 21 times over 13 days, which allows its orbit to be calculated fairly precisely. We know it takes 2 years (plus or minus 0.001314 years) to go around the Sun. In other words, our uncertainty in the asteroid’s orbital period is about 12 hours either way.

That’s actually pretty good, given how few observations were made – but it means we can’t be certain exactly where the asteroid will be on November 2 this year.

Read more: Extinction alert: saving the world from a deadly asteroid impact

However, we can work out the volume of space within which we can be confident that the asteroid will lie at a given time. Imagine a huge bubble in space, perhaps 4 million km across at its largest. We can be very confident the asteroid will be somewhere in the bubble – but that’s about it.

What does that mean for Earth? Well, it turns out the closest approach between the two this year will be somewhere between a direct hit and an enormous miss – with the asteroid coming no closer than 3.7 million km!

We can also work out the likelihood the asteroid will hit Earth during this close approach. The odds are 0.41%, or roughly 1 in 240. In other words, by far the most likely outcome on November 2 is the asteroid will sail straight past us.

But what if it did hit us?

As the great Terry Pratchett once wrote, “Million-to-one chances crop up nine times out of ten”. But have you ever heard someone say “It’s a 240-to-1 chance, but it might just work?”

So should we be worried?

Well, the answer here goes back to how hard it was to spot 2018 VP₁ in the first place. Based on how faint it was, astronomers estimate it’s only about 2 metres across. Objects that size hit Earth all the time.

Bigger asteroids do more damage, as we were spectacularly reminded back in February 2013, when an asteroid around 20 metres across exploded in the atmosphere above the Russian city of Chelyabinsk.

The Chelyabinsk airburst was spectacular, and the shockwave damaged buildings and injured more than 1,500 people. But that was an object ten times the diameter of 2018 VP₁ – which means it was probably at least 1,000 times heavier, and could penetrate far further into the atmosphere before meeting its fiery end.

Read more: Chelyabinsk meteor explosion a ‘wake-up call’, scientists warn

2018 VP₁ is so small it poses no threat. It would almost certainly burn up harmlessly in our atmosphere before it reached the ground. Most likely, it would detonate in an “airburst”, tens of kilometres above the ground – leaving only tiny fragments to drift down to the surface.

If 2018 VP₁ is particularly robust (a chunk of a metal asteroid, rather than a stony or icy one), it could make it to the ground – but even then, it is way too small to cause significant damage.

Having said that, the fireball as the asteroid entered Earth’s atmosphere would be spectacular. If we were really lucky, it might be captured on camera by the Global Fireball network (led by Curtin University).

With images of the fireball from several cameras, researchers could work out where any debris might fall and head out to recover it. A freshly fallen meteorite is a pristine fragment from which we can learn a great deal about the Solar system’s history.

The bottom line

It’s no wonder in a year like this that 2018 VP₁ has generated some excitement and media buzz.

But, most likely, November 3 will come around and nothing will have happened. 2018 VP₁ will have passed by, likely unseen, back to the depths of space.

Even if Earth is in the crosshairs, though, there’s nothing to worry about. At worst, someone, somewhere on the globe, will see a spectacular fireball – and people in the US might just get to see some spectacular pre-election fireworks.

Or to put it another way: “It’s the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine”.

– ref. Asteroid 2018 VP₁ may be heading for Earth. But there’s no need to worry – https://theconversation.com/asteroid-2018-vp-may-be-heading-for-earth-but-theres-no-need-to-worry-144930

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anna Ross, PhD Candidate in Mental Health, University of Melbourne

The media is a key source of information about mental illness for the public, and research shows media coverage can influence public attitudes and perceptions of mental ill-health. But when it comes to complex mental illnesses such as psychosis and schizophrenia, media coverage tends to emphasise negative aspects, often choosing to focus on portrayals of violence, unpredictability and danger to others.

These portrayals can give an exaggerated impression of the actual rate at which violent incidents occur. In reality, such incidents are rare and are often better accounted for by other factors.

This can generate a skewed impression mental illness causes violent behaviour, which reinforces myths, increases stigmatising attitudes and cultivates fear among the public.

Research also shows the media can play an important role in challenging these stereotypes. Portrayals that are responsible, accurate, informative, and “stigma-challenging” have been found to positively influence public beliefs about mental illness.

Our new guidelines, released today by Mindframe, a program that supports safe media reporting of mental health as part of the Australian government’s national suicide prevention program, offers advice to the media about the most responsible way to report on issues related to mental health, violence and crime.

Safe, responsible coverage

Media portrayals in which severe mental illness is linked to violence can be among the most stigmatising representations of mental illness. So it’s important the media cover these stories safely and responsibly.

We developed the new guidelines in consultation with journalists, editors, mental health professionals and people with lived experience of complex mental illness in advocacy roles.

The guidelines offer practical advice to help media when reporting on these issues. Tips include:

• keep in mind complex mental illness is rarely the cause of violence. Around 96% of violent crimes are committed by people who do not have a mental illness

• consider the impact of media reporting on people living with complex mental illness and their families

• include relevant contextual factors when reporting on a violent crime in which mental illness has been confirmed by authoritative sources to have played a part in the person’s behaviour

• use appropriate and respectful language when talking about people with a mental illness. Say “a person with schizophrenia” rather than “a schizophrenic”.

Read more: How seeing problems in the brain makes stigma disappear

The new guidelines build on the previous guidelines for media reporting around mental health issues, introduced by Mindframe in 2002. The new guidelines extend the guidance specifically to cover reporting of mental illness and crime.

Since the launch of the original guidelines, Mindframe has implemented a comprehensive strategy to promote the guidelines, including organising professional development sessions with media, and supporting those who may work with media as experts or sources, such as mental health workers, police, court officials, and people with lived experience of mental illness.

We have also provided training for journalism and public relations students, and worked with media peak bodies to integrate the guidelines into media codes of practice and editorial policies. The SANE StigmaWatch program monitors and responds to reports of inaccurate or inappropriate stigmatising media portrayals.

How does the way media talk about mental illness impact others?

Unsafe and stigmatising language can affect the way people who disclose their experience of mental illness are treated by others in the community. They can be denied job opportunities, find it hard to maintain safe and secure housing, and experience social exclusion. Families and friends supporting a loved one may find it difficult to seek support for fear of being treated differently.

Even more worryingly, negative media portrayals of mental illness can lead to self-stigma, in which an individual living with mental illness internalises the attitudes of others. It can mean people choose not to seek help, withdrawing from their social networks for fear of being stigmatised or discriminated against. This can lead to social isolation, distress and even an exacerbation of symptoms.

Read more: Violence and mental illness: harsh reality demands sensitive answers

Taking action to reduce stigma and discrimination towards people affected by severe mental illness is more important than ever during the COVID-19 pandemic. Research overseas has shown during times of economic recession, stigma and discrimination towards people affected by severe mental illness increases, particularly with respect to employment. The media has a vital role to play in ensuring we remain a cohesive and empathetic society during these troubled times.

Read more: As ‘lockdown fatigue’ sets in, the toll on mental health will require an urgent response

– ref. Media reporting on mental illness, violence and crime needs to change – https://theconversation.com/media-reporting-on-mental-illness-violence-and-crime-needs-to-change-144856

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emil Temnyalov, Senior Lecturer, Economics, University of Technology Sydney

Both COVID-19 and increasing discord with the Chinese government could lead to much lower international student revenues in the long run. If that happens, Australian universities might have to merge to remain sustainable.

The growing quality of our universities is driven to a large extent by what economists call “economies of scale.” The idea is that operating on a larger scale enables an organisation to deliver more value. By admitting more students, including international ones, universities can offer more programs, improved campuses and better academic staff.

Read more: Australian universities could lose $19 billion in the next 3 years. Our economy will suffer with them

The ability of our universities to perform their vital functions of research and teaching depends in an intricate way on the sector’s structure and its relationship with international students. Two recent developments call into question the sustainability of Australia’s universities in their current form.

COVID-19’s impact on international students

First, the COVID-19 pandemic has inflicted a direct hit to universities’ revenues. This is mainly due to the big fall in international student numbers as a result of Australia’s border closure.

The share of international students in our universities is exceptionally high by world standards. The fact that international students pay more in fees than domestic ones amplifies the impact on revenues.

Read more: COVID-19: what Australian universities can do to recover from the loss of international student fees

The internationalisation of Australia’s universities has benefited them enormously over many years. Universities have been able to grow not just in terms of student numbers, but also in terms of campus facilities, degrees and subjects offered, and quality and quantity of academic staff.

This growth also benefits domestic students. They enjoy the same facilities, programs and staff that economies of scale enable.

The Australian public as a whole also indirectly benefits from the influx of international students. Firstly, taxpayers effectively pay less to sustain the university sector. Secondly, we as a society benefit from the fruits of academic research and teaching.

Challenges from China

A second factor is Australia’s political relationship with China. Its impacts on the university sector are becoming more apparent, because Chinese students comprise the largest group of international students in Australia.

Having grown up in a political system that is based on surveillance, intolerance and oppression, some Chinese students struggle to adapt to Australia’s intellectual environment.

Our universities must continue to encourage diversity of opinion and freedom of expression – even when these values clash with the worldviews instilled by the the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Instead, to protect their international student revenues, some universities censor staff and other students. Staff and students also self-censor their own legitimate viewpoints.

Universities face a choice: uphold intellectual freedom, or pursue international student revenues, which sustain the universities’ scale, at any cost. The university sector must re-examine its values and objectives. In our pursuit of academic excellence and growth we cannot let revenues dictate our opinions or, more to the point, let the CCP shape our universities.

Read more: Students in China heed their government’s warnings against studying in Australia

A time for consolidation

Both COVID-19 and Australia’s geopolitical relationship with China might lead to much lower international student revenues in the future. How then can our university sector ensure its sustainability?

While painful to acknowledge, a natural structural response in this situation is consolidation within the university sector. Our universities cannot improve sustainably if student numbers decrease or if the threat of politically motivated extortion leads us to abandon basic freedoms.

Read more: Without international students, Australia’s universities will downsize – and some might collapse altogether

Consolidation happens naturally in unregulated markets. When a market shrinks or growth slows, firms merge. They do so to continue to benefit from the economies of scale that enable them to create value.

Mergers would be a natural solution to the current problems in the university sector as well.

Consolidation is not just a hypothetical idea. Some Australian universities have already considered mergers. There are also successful past examples both here and overseas.

The pros and cons of mergers

Universities may be reluctant to pursue mergers for a number of reasons. Some are valid and some less so.

Mergers can have real downsides. When organisations merge, cultural and operational differences can sometimes lead to worse outcomes.

There is also value in diversity. Having many different institutions provide differentiated educational programs gives students more choices. And competition between universities is itself valuable, as it promotes educational innovation and drives quality improvements.

All of these are valid reasons. They should be carefully weighed against the benefits of mergers.

But other impediments to consolidation are less defensible. Highly paid and politically influential university administrators, including vice chancellors, deputies and deans, might resist mergers that could put some of their jobs at risk.

On the other hand, consolidation would deliver benefits to universities. It would enable them to continue to operate at a larger scale, even if international student revenues decline. It would also reduce overhead costs. An example would be eliminating redundant administrative roles that are not essential to the mission of a university.

Mergers would also enable universities to compete in the global academic market. They could continue to improve in quality, thanks to the economies of scale.

The new reality of decreasing student revenues means the Australian university sector will have to grapple with the questions of scale and sustainability. One response might be for universities to downsize. But this would inevitably affect their quality.

Consolidation might therefore offer a better long-term path to sustainability. It will enable universities to continue to operate at scale and invest more in the quality of the education they provide.

– ref. Some Australian universities might have to merge – and that’s not necessarily a bad thing – https://theconversation.com/some-australian-universities-might-have-to-merge-and-thats-not-necessarily-a-bad-thing-144420

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robert G. Patman, Professor of International Relations, University of Otago

COVID-19 might have been challenging for populist governments, but that hasn’t stopped populist strains emerging in the run-up to New Zealand’s general election in October.

Populism, as commonly defined, embraces an ideology that divides society between “the pure people” and “the corrupt elite”. It contends the “will of the people” requires leadership promoting mono-culturalism, traditionalism and opposition to “globalist” plans within the “deep state”.

We have already seen some of these themes playing out in the current contest to govern New Zealand.

Having hired prominent Leave.EU campaigners Aaron Banks and Andy Wigmore (the self-styled “bad boys of Brexit”), New Zealand First’s social media strategy has begun to reflect their brash strategic advice.

Party leader and Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters has claimed New Zealand First’s “common sense” is a safeguard against the “woke pixie dust” of the Labour and Green parties. He has cast himself as the the defender of “socially conservative values like the right to believe in God”.

A risky strategy

Meanwhile, the National Party appeared to adopt a more partisan strategy after the renewed outbreak of COVID-19 in Auckland.

Leader Judith Collins said the return of the virus would “come as a shock to all New Zealanders who believed what we had been told”. She complained Health Minister Chris Hipkins had been reluctant to brief her own health spokesperson, Shane Reti.

Read more: When great powers fail, New Zealand and other small states must organise to protect their interests

Her deputy, Gerry Brownlee, took it further, implying Jacinda Ardern’s government had known more about the resurgence of the virus than it was publicly acknowledging. He said New Zealanders had been left “in a position of wondering what do the health authorities know that they are not fully explaining”.

Where National was taking advice is unclear, but it has in the past had direct and indirect links with conservative research and polling organisation Crosby Textor and Topham Guerin, the social media agency that helped Boris Johnson win the 2019 UK election.

To be fair to Peters, he joined other political leaders in criticising National’s position as “undermining democracy”.

However, he also joined National’s questioning of his own coalition government’s decision to grant refugee status to Kurdish-Iranian journalist Behrouz Boochani, asking why he had “jumped the queue”. Peters was accused of “race-baiting” in return.

Lessons from the US and UK

Populist lines of attack may be born out of electoral weakness and political expediency, but they are risky at a time when Ardern’s handling of the worst global pandemic since 1918 has boosted her national and international standing.

Moreover, the performance of populist governments in dealing with COVID-19 has been woeful, which hardly boosts the credibility of populist posturing over the pandemic in New Zealand.

Take Boris Johnson’s original argument in favour of a “herd immunity” strategy to avoid disrupting the economy: “You could take it on the chin […] and allow the disease, as it were, to move through the population.”

By mid-March the World Health Organisation (WHO) was publicly questioning the absence of any clinical evidence to support this response, and the Johnson government was ordering a strict national lockdown to suppress the virus.

Read more: Pandemic letter from America: how the US handling of COVID-19 provides the starkest warning for us all

Now, senior cabinet ministers, including the prime minister, are facing possible prosecution for alleged misconduct in public office, which some say has led to over 60,000 avoidable deaths.

In the US, President Donald Trump responded to warnings about a potential pandemic from the WHO, intelligence agencies and senior officials between late 2019 and March 2020 by reassuring Americans they had nothing to worry about.

Only on March 17 did Trump publicly concede there was a highly contagious “invisible enemy”. But by prioritising the opening of America’s businesses and schools over a lockdown strategy, Trump undermined efforts to overcome dire shortages of PPE and ventilators in a pandemic that has now taken more than 170,000 American lives.

Populism versus pandemic

The inability of the Johnson and Trump governments to deal effectively with a real-world problem like COVID-19 is no coincidence.

Both seemed indifferent to WHO warnings on January 30 that the coronavirus was a “public health emergency of international concern”. They appeared impervious to the concerns of many health-care experts, emphasised a sense of national exceptionalism, and were painfully slow to react as the threat grew.

In contrast, the response by Ardern’s government placed New Zealand in the company of states like South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Germany and Vietnam that have managed to keep virus-related deaths to relatively low levels.

Read more: After Trump and Brexit: The coming of the progressive wave

What they have in common is a willingness to heed WHO advice, consult with scientific and health experts, and learn from each other.

To be sure, the Ardern government must be held accountable for its handling of the pandemic. But opposition for opposition’s sake is not the answer in a major health crisis.

Politicians taking advice from those peddling misinformation and populist conspiracy theories run the risk of undermining public health messages and weakening the capacity of the country to suppress a deadly threat.

Furthermore, such tactics have already proved useless against a virus that plays only by the rules of science and objective reality.

To date, there are few signs that many New Zealand voters will be tempted by a politics-first, science-second approach during the COVID-19 crisis. Politicians who take this approach run the risk of a backlash.

– ref. Populism from the Brexit and Trump playbooks enters the New Zealand election campaign – but it’s a risky strategy – https://theconversation.com/populism-from-the-brexit-and-trump-playbooks-enters-the-new-zealand-election-campaign-but-its-a-risky-strategy-144855

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tom Barratt, Lecturer, School of Business and Law, Edith Cowan University

“I’m sorry, Dave. I’m afraid I can’t do that.” HAL’s cold, if polite, refusal to open the pod bay doors in 2001 A Space Odyssey has become a defining warning about putting too much trust in artificial intelligence, particularly if you work in space.

In the movies, when a machine decides to be the boss – or humans let it – things go wrong. Yet despite myriad dystopian warnings, control by machines is fast becoming our reality.

Algorithms – sets of instructions to solve a problem or complete a task – now drive everything from browser search results to better medical care.

They are helping design buildings. They are speeding up trading on financial markets, making and losing fortunes in micro-seconds. They are calculating the most efficient routes for delivery drivers.

In the workplace, self-learning algorithmic computer systems are being introduced by companies to assist in areas such as hiring, setting tasks, measuring productivity, evaluating performance and even terminating employment: “I’m sorry, Dave. I’m afraid you are being made redundant.”

Giving self‐learning algorithms the responsibility to make and execute decisions affecting workers is called “algorithmic management”. It carries a host of risks in depersonalising management systems and entrenching pre-existing biases.

At an even deeper level, perhaps, algorithmic management entrenches a power imbalance between management and worker. Algorithms are closely guarded secrets. Their decision-making processes are hidden. It’s a black-box: perhaps you have some understanding of the data that went in, and you see the result that comes out, but you have no idea of what goes on in between.

Algorithms at work

Here are a few examples of algorithms already at work.

At Amazon’s fulfilment centre in south-east Melbourne, they set the pace for “pickers”, who have timers on their scanners showing how long they have to find the next item. As soon as they scan that item, the timer resets for the next. All at a “not quite walking, not quite running” speed.

Or how about AI determining your success in a job interview? More than 700 companies have trialled such technology. US developer HireVue says its software speeds up the hiring process by 90% by having applicants answer identical questions and then scoring them according to language, tone and facial expressions.

Read more: Facial analysis AI is being used in job interviews – it will probably reinforce inequality

Granted, human assessments during job interviews are notoriously flawed. Algorithms,however, can also be biased. The classic example is the COMPAS software used by US judges, probation and parole officers to rate a person’s risk of reoffending. In 2016 a ProPublica investigation showed the algorithm was heavily discriminatory, incorrectly classifying black subjects as higher risk 45% of the time, compared with 23% for white subjects.

How gig workers cope

Algorithms do what their code tells them to do. The problem is this code is rarely available. This makes them difficult to scrutinise, or even understand.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the gig economy. Uber, Lyft, Deliveroo and other platforms could not exist without algorithms allocating, monitoring, evaluating and rewarding work.

Over the past year Uber Eats’ bicycle couriers and drivers, for instance, have blamed unexplained changes to the algorithm for slashing their jobs, and incomes.

Rider’s can’t be 100% sure it was all down to the algorithm. But that’s part of the problem. The fact those who depend on the algorithm don’t know one way or the other has a powerful influence on them.

Read more: Uber drivers’ experience highlights the dead-end job prospects facing more Australian workers

This is a key result from our interviews with 58 food-delivery couriers. Most knew their jobs were allocated by an algorithm (via an app). They knew the app collected data. What they didn’t know was how data was used to award them work.

In response, they developed a range of strategies (or guessed how) to “win” more jobs, such as accepting gigs as quickly as possible and waiting in “magic” locations. Ironically, these attempts to please the algorithm often meant losing the very flexibility that was one the attractions of gig work.

The information asymmetry created by algorithmic management has two profound effects. First, it threatens to entrench systemic biases, the type of discrimination hidden within the COMPAS algorithm for years. Second, it compounds the power imbalance between management and worker.

Our data also confirmed others’ findings that it is almost impossible to complain about the decisions of the algorithm. Workers often do not know the exact basis of those decisions, and there’s no one to complain to anyway. When Uber Eats bicycle couriers asked for reasons about their plummeting income, for example, responses from the company advised them “we have no manual control over how many deliveries you receive”.

Broader lessons

When algorithmic management operates as a “black box” one of the consequences is that it is can become an indirect control mechanism. Thus far under-appreciated by Australian regulators, this control mechanism has enabled platforms to mobilise a reliable and scalable workforce while avoiding employer responsibilities.

“The absence of concrete evidence about how the algorithms operate”, the Victorian government’s inquiry into the “on-demand” workforce notes in its report, “makes it hard for a driver or rider to complain if they feel disadvantaged by one.”

The report, published in June, also found: it is “hard to confirm if concern over algorithm transparency is real.”

But it is precisely the fact it is hard to confirm that’s the problem. How can we start to even identify, let alone resolve, issues like algorithmic management?

Fair conduct standards to ensure transparency and accountability are a start. One example is the Fair Work initiative, led by the Oxford Internet Institute. The initiative is bringing together researchers with platforms, workers, unions and regulators to develop global principles for work in the platform economy. This includes “fair management”, which focuses on how transparent the results and outcomes of algorithms are for workers.

Understandings about impact of algorithms on all forms of work is still in its infancy. It demands greater scrutiny and research. Without human oversight based on agreed principles we risk inviting HAL into our workplaces.

– ref. Algorithms workers can’t see are increasingly pulling the management strings – https://theconversation.com/algorithms-workers-cant-see-are-increasingly-pulling-the-management-strings-144724

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tony Bennett, Research Professor in Social and Cultural Theory, Institute for Culture and Society, Western Sydney University

New analysis shows landscape art is the most popular visual art genre among Australians, with Aboriginal art coming in second place, followed by portraits and modern art.

But Aboriginal art is more likely to bridge social divides and can dissolve personal prejudices between different kinds of art.

Many Australians are sharply divided as to whether they prefer more traditional genres like landscapes or more contemporary and abstract visual forms. And these divisions relate to differences in age, class and education. But Aboriginal art bucks this trend because it is seen as “telling a story”.

The research is discussed in a new book called Fields, Capitals, Habitus: Australian Culture, Social Divisions and Inequalities.

We know what (and who) we like

Researchers conducted a national survey of Australians’ cultural tastes, administering surveys to 1,202 Australians. Extra samples to ensure representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, Italian, Lebanese, Chinese, and Indian Australians, brought the overall survey total to 1,461.

Researchers subsequently partnered with the ABC to conduct online surveys on cultural tastes that were compared with research findings.

Aboriginal art was the second most popular genre, liked by 26% of the main sample, behind landscapes (52%) but ahead of portraits (24%) and modern art (17%).

Impressionism and Renaissance art came in at around 15% each, while abstract art, colonial art, Pop art and still lifes ranged, in order, from 13% down to 7%.

Survey respondents were given a selection of artists and asked to say whether they had heard of and liked them. Indigenous landscape painter Albert Namatjira was the third most familiar but, at 63%, he was only narrowly pipped by painter Sidney Nolan (67%) and the colourful Ken Done (68%). Indigenous multi-media artist Tracey Moffatt was less well known (14%). But Namatjira was the most popular of all, liked by 49% ahead of both Nolan (42%) and Done (40%).

Unsurprisingly, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders were much more enthusiastic about Aboriginal art (67%) and Namatjira (liked by 70%) than the main sample, but not notably so for Moffatt. Indian and Lebanese Australians also showed a marked liking for Aboriginal art at 38% and 36% respectively.

Read more: Dramatic and engaging, new exhibition Linear celebrates the art in Indigenous science

Aboriginal art had a broader cross-class appeal than most genres. It did, however, appeal more strongly to those in intermediate (such self-employed and clerical workers) and professional and managerial occupational classes than to those in skilled or unskilled working-class occupations.

Namatjira was most popular with the older members of Australia’s intermediate classes. Moffatt, by contrast, appealed most to the younger, tertiary educated Australians in professional and managerial occupations.

There were clear correlations between these preferences for particular Indigenous artists and genre tastes. Those who liked Namatjira preferred traditional and largely figurative genres – landscapes, still lifes, and portraits. Those who liked Moffatt favoured genres tending towards abstraction or critical engagements with figurative conventions – modern art, Pop art and abstract art.

The great divide … and a bridge

A key finding of the research was how much those who liked traditional and figurative genres disliked contemporary and abstract genres. The reverse was even more true: those who liked contemporary and abstract art often had a strong aversion to traditional and figurative art.

Yet the category of Aboriginal art often crossed the boundaries between these two groups of genres.

This is not entirely surprising. Aboriginal art has expanded beyond its traditional forms to include acrylic dot art, contemporary urban Aboriginal art practices, rock art, or the kitsch forms of “Aboriginalia” like that collected by Tony Albert.

But what is surprising is how frequently, when discussing their art tastes in follow-up interviews, our survey respondents treated Aboriginal art as an exceptional art form.

While most viewed it as a form of abstraction, it was seen as a purposeful abstraction with a story to tell, crossing the boundaries between the abstract and the figurative.

Read more: Mavis Ngallametta review – a bittersweet collection of a songwoman’s stories of home

It was on these grounds that Aboriginal art was let off the hook by those who usually disliked non-figurative art. This was pithily summarised by one respondent who, dismissing modern and abstract art as “equivalent to what my daughters would do in kindergarten”, praised the “uniqueness of Aboriginal art and the dots” because “there’s stories behind it – there is the story they are trying to tell”.

This was a recurring theme in appreciations of Namatjira. In a follow up interview, one survey respondent – a professional in a high-level executive role – liked Namatjira’s work for not being “too abstract” in its depiction of “the beauty of the bush and the country”.

For another, a part-time accountant and labourer, Namatjira served as a counter to his dislike of modern and abstract art because his paintings are “real … they just feel like he’s telling a story in his pictures and they’re real”.

And a third, a woman in her 30s from a Sri Lankan background, expressed her appreciation of Namatjira and Moffatt in similar terms. She loved “Tracey’s storytelling” with its “strong style and voice”, emphasising its appeal to both Indigenous and non-Indigenous women, while singling out the “cultural connections” that Namatjira’s work makes.

While, then, different kinds of Aboriginal art appeal to different publics, the category of Aboriginal art is one that recruits a broader interest. We got a strong sense that it is something that non-Indigenous Australians felt they ought to like and know more about because of what it has to say about Indigenous culture, its relations to Country, and its significance for Australian culture and identity.

This registers a significant shift from the terms in which Namatjira was initially appreciated, in the 1950s, as an imitative adaptation of pastoral modernism.

It is a shift that registers the work of Indigenous artists, curators and critics in stressing the role that Aboriginal art can play in transforming the relations between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians.

Read more: Friday essay: the politics of dancing and thinking about cultural values beyond dollars

– ref. Australians’ favourites show Aboriginal art can transcend social divisions and art boundaries – https://theconversation.com/australians-favourites-show-aboriginal-art-can-transcend-social-divisions-and-art-boundaries-143827

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Libby Lester, Director, Institute for Social Change, University of Tasmania

The Conversation is running a series of explainers on key figures in Australian political history, looking at the way they changed the nature of debate, its impact then, and its relevance to politics today. You can also read the rest of our pieces here.

To understand Bob Brown’s impact on Australian political debate, watch Tasmanian commercial television and stay on the couch during the ad breaks.

Here’s an advertisement for “wilderness tours”, another for small businesses on the “Tarkine coast”. Few of the audience, let alone the businesses paying for the ads, would know these terms came into common use because of the way Bob Brown does politics.

Anywhere known as “wilderness” was best avoided before the late 1970s when Brown, then leader of the campaign to save Tasmania’s Franklin River from damming, started deliberately including the term in almost every public statement he made about the threatened area. He understood the symbolic power of the term.

His political and media opponents quickly learned also. The Hobart Mercury – a strong supporter of the Hydro Electric Commission and its political masters – rarely let the word onto its pages. This was different from, for example, the Melbourne Age, which opposed the damming.

The Tasmanian media’s approach changed shortly after the High Court decision to block the damming in July 1983, when the commercial potential of “wilderness” began to emerge. Even the Mercury was promoting a calendar of “wilderness” images by the end of 1983.

Beginning in the 1990s, Brown applied the same patient strategy to the campaign to protect the area between the Arthur and Pieman rivers in north-west Tasmania. The Tarkine, with its forest and mineral resources, might still not be fully protected – earlier this year there were more arrests of members of the Bob Brown Foundation. But it is probably a lot closer than it would be if Brown had stuck to calling it the Arthur-Pieman.

Originally from regional New South Wales, Brown moved to Tasmania during the ultimately failed Lake Pedder campaign of the early 1970s. On the advice of Richard Jones, president of what is now recognised as the world’s first Green party, the United Tasmania Group, the openly gay young GP in ill-fitting suits started standing for Tasmanian parliament in 1972. After a decade of trying, he won the lower house seat of Denison (now renamed Clark; Brown might have come up with something less predictable) in 1983.

The shift from protest camps to the formal political arena proved challenging to Brown’s way of doing politics. As a young journalist covering Tasmanian parliament in the mid-1980s, I watched as the ever-polite-if-firm Brown inadvertently almost outlawed lesbianism as he tried to make Tasmania’s appalling anti-homosexuality laws symbolically nonsensical.

Ironically, the notoriously conservative members of the Legislative Council rejected his amendment, saving Tasmania’s lesbians from becoming criminals. While the mistake was memorable, more so was Brown’s willingness to acknowledge what he still describes as the worst moment of his political career.

However, some members of the Australian Greens, the party Brown was instrumental in forming in 1992, might suggest his worst political moment was publicly supporting the partial sale of Telstra in return for environmental gains before the party had debated the move internally.

Brown’s occasional failure to respect his party’s way of coming to decisions is forgivable. After all, consensus politics only really works when a strong leader guides the way, and Brown – as is increasingly obvious for the Greens – was exactly that.

Brown was elected to the Senate in 1996, after ten years in the lower house of Tasmania’s state parliament. He was re-elected to the Senate twice, in 2001 and again in 2007 when he won the highest personal vote of any Tasmanian senator.

The 2010 election resulted in nine Greens in the Senate and one in the House of Representatives. Negotiations with Brown and the Greens led to Julia Gillard and the ALP forming government in return for an ever-elusive carbon plan.

As a senator, Brown continued his play with the symbolic that he had learned so well as a protester. He made international headlines in 2003, not only for interjecting during US President George W. Bush’s speech to the Australian parliament, but for shaking the president’s hand afterwards. Bush responded to the heckling by saying: “I love free speech.”

Woodchip giant Gunns expressed exactly the opposite sentiment the following year when it launched a A$6.3 million law suit against Brown and 19 other activists just before Christmas to silence them over its pulp mill plans. Gunns should have known Brown was always going to out-survive it. The company collapsed in 2012, taking with it one of the worst reputations in Australian corporate history.

Brown stepped down as leader of the Australian Greens and retired from the Senate in 2012. After forming the Bob Brown Foundation, he has sparked more recent debate over whether the Adani convoy in 2019 was in fact his worst political moment, turning Queensland voters and thus the most recent federal election to the LNP.

For some critics, the convoy led by Brown was a misguided attempt to redeploy old tactics and relive past glories. Given the protest involved a convoy of fossil-fuelled vehicles travelling to oppose fossil fuel extraction, it does seem on the surface, at least, that Brown’s ability to harness the symbolic deserted him in this case.

However, a deeper play with the symbolic was under way, one I suspect Brown knows will be recognised with time, if it hasn’t been already. Brown is not afraid of being seen as an outsider – perhaps he has had no choice in a country where blokiness is a common character trait of political insiders. Nor has he ever pandered to the small-town politics that puts local rights over what he considers the greater good.

The Adani convoy was meant to be seen exactly as it was – an invasion by outsiders. If it contributed to the election loss for the ALP, so be it. Brown is playing a long game.

Brown may have affected the way politics is debated in Australia, but he has not yet changed that politics.

As Brown’s career has highlighted, ours is a politics where economic growth and environmental protection are still largely in conflict: jobs versus conservation, social needs versus ecological futures, left versus right. These tensions remain as evident in the political party Brown formed as in the responses of his political opponents, in media commentary and in voter choices.

Australia’s inability to act on carbon emissions exemplifies both the enduring nature of this politics and how long a game Brown has always been willing to play. In Brown’s maiden speech in the Senate in 1996, he said:

One has only to look again at the reality that if we do not rein in the greenhouse gas phenomenon one billion people on this planet will be displaced if the oceans rise by a metre at the end of the next century. This for a planet on which the wealthy ones who fly between here and London put, on average per passenger, five tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

Thirteen years later, when the Greens led by Brown voted against Labor’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme – and hence still carry the blame for Kevin Rudd’s failure to respond to “the greatest moral challenge of our time” – Brown’s argument for his party’s opposition to the scheme was “that it locked in failure” by “providing polluters billions of dollars and setting targets way too low”.

Like Gunns, the major parties can’t say they weren’t warned. Another thing Brown had said in his first speech in the Senate, quoting British environmentalist Jonathon Porritt, was: “the future will either be green or not at all”.

Brown is indeed playing a long game, and we can only guess what name he will give politics if he wins.

– ref. How Bob Brown taught Australians to talk about, and care for, the ‘wilderness’ – https://theconversation.com/how-bob-brown-taught-australians-to-talk-about-and-care-for-the-wilderness-131559

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Eric Cavalcanti, Associate Professor (ARC Future Fellow), Griffith University

If a tree falls in a forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound? Perhaps not, some say.

And if someone is there to hear it? If you think that means it obviously did make a sound, you might need to revise that opinion.

We have found a new paradox in quantum mechanics – one of our two most fundamental scientific theories, together with Einstein’s theory of relativity – that throws doubt on some common-sense ideas about physical reality.

Quantum mechanics vs common sense

Take a look at these three statements:

1. When someone observes an event happening, it really happened.

2. It is possible to make free choices, or at least, statistically random choices.

3. A choice made in one place can’t instantly affect a distant event. (Physicists call this “locality”.)

These are all intuitive ideas, and widely believed even by physicists. But our research, published in Nature Physics, shows they cannot all be true – or quantum mechanics itself must break down at some level.

This is the strongest result yet in a long series of discoveries in quantum mechanics that have upended our ideas about reality. To understand why it’s so important, let’s look at this history.

The battle for reality

Quantum mechanics works extremely well to describe the behaviour of tiny objects, such as atoms or particles of light (photons). But that behaviour is … very odd.

In many cases, quantum theory doesn’t give definite answers to questions such as “where is this particle right now?” Instead, it only provides probabilities for where the particle might be found when it is observed.

For Niels Bohr, one of the founders of the theory a century ago, that’s not because we lack information, but because physical properties like “position” don’t actually exist until they are measured.

And what’s more, because some properties of a particle can’t be perfectly observed simultaneously – such as position and velocity – they can’t be real simultaneously.

No less a figure than Albert Einstein found this idea untenable. In a 1935 article with fellow theorists Boris Podolsky and Nathan Rosen, he argued there must be more to reality than what quantum mechanics could describe.

Read more: Einstein vs quantum mechanics … and why he’d be a convert today

The article considered a pair of distant particles in a special state now known as an “entangled” state. When the same property (say, position or velocity) is measured on both entangled particles, the result will be random – but there will be a correlation between the results from each particle.

For example, an observer measuring the position of the first particle could perfectly predict the result of measuring the position of the distant one, without even touching it. Or the observer could choose to predict the velocity instead. This had a natural explanation, they argued, if both properties existed before being measured, contrary to Bohr’s interpretation.

However, in 1964 Northern Irish physicist John Bell found Einstein’s argument broke down if you carried out a more complicated combination of different measurements on the two particles.

Bell showed that if the two observers randomly and independently choose between measuring one or another property of their particles, like position or velocity, the average results cannot be explained in any theory where both position and velocity were pre-existing local properties.

That sounds incredible, but experiments have now conclusively demonstrated Bell’s correlations do occur. For many physicists, this is evidence that Bohr was right: physical properties don’t exist until they are measured.

But that raises the crucial question: what is so special about a “measurement”?

The observer, observed

In 1961, the Hungarian-American theoretical physicist Eugene Wigner devised a thought experiment to show what’s so tricky about the idea of measurement.

He considered a situation in which his friend goes into a tightly sealed lab and performs a measurement on a quantum particle – its position, say.

However, Wigner noticed that if he applied the equations of quantum mechanics to describe this situation from the outside, the result was quite different. Instead of the friend’s measurement making the particle’s position real, from Wigner’s perspective the friend becomes entangled with the particle and infected with the uncertainty that surrounds it.

This is similar to Schrödinger’s famous cat, a thought experiment in which the fate of a cat in a box becomes entangled with a random quantum event.

Read more: Schrödinger’s cat gets a reality check

For Wigner, this was an absurd conclusion. Instead, he believed that once the consciousness of an observer becomes involved, the entanglement would “collapse” to make the friend’s observation definite.

But what if Wigner was wrong?

Our experiment

In our research, we built on an extended version of the Wigner’s friend paradox, first proposed by Časlav Brukner of the University of Vienna. In this scenario, there are two physicists – call them Alice and Bob – each with their own friends (Charlie and Debbie) in two distant labs.

There’s another twist: Charlie and Debbie are now measuring a pair of entangled particles, like in the Bell experiments.

As in Wigner’s argument, the equations of quantum mechanics tell us Charlie and Debbie should become entangled with their observed particles. But because those particles were already entangled with each other, Charlie and Debbie themselves should become entangled – in theory.

But what does that imply experimentally?

Read more: Quantum physics: our study suggests objective reality doesn’t exist

Our experiment goes like this: the friends enter their labs and measure their particles. Some time later, Alice and Bob each flip a coin. If it’s heads, they open the door and ask their friend what they saw. If it’s tails, they perform a different measurement.

This different measurement always gives a positive outcome for Alice if Charlie is entangled with his observed particle in the way calculated by Wigner. Likewise for Bob and Debbie.

In any realisation of this measurement, however, any record of their friend’s observation inside the lab is blocked from reaching the external world. Charlie or Debbie will not remember having seen anything inside the lab, as if waking up from total anaesthesia.

But did it really happen, even if they don’t remember it?

If the three intuitive ideas at the beginning of this article are correct, each friend saw a real and unique outcome for their measurement inside the lab, independent of whether or not Alice or Bob later decided to open their door. Also, what Alice and Charlie see should not depend on how Bob’s distant coin lands, and vice versa.

We showed that if this were the case, there would be limits to the correlations Alice and Bob could expect to see between their results. We also showed that quantum mechanics predicts Alice and Bob will see correlations that go beyond those limits.

Next, we did an experiment to confirm the quantum mechanical predictions using pairs of entangled photons. The role of each friend’s measurement was played by one of two paths each photon may take in the setup, depending on a property of the photon called “polarisation”. That is, the path “measures” the polarisation.

Our experiment is only really a proof of principle, since the “friends” are very small and simple. But it opens the question whether the same results would hold with more complex observers.

We may never be able to do this experiment with real humans. But we argue that it may one day be possible to create a conclusive demonstration if the “friend” is a human-level artificial intelligence running in a massive quantum computer.

What does it all mean?

Although a conclusive test may be decades away, if the quantum mechanical predictions continue to hold, this has strong implications for our understanding of reality – even more so than the Bell correlations. For one, the correlations we discovered cannot be explained just by saying that physical properties don’t exist until they are measured.

Now the absolute reality of measurement outcomes themselves is called into question.

Our results force physicists to deal with the measurement problem head on: either our experiment doesn’t scale up, and quantum mechanics gives way to a so-called “objective collapse theory”, or one of our three common-sense assumptions must be rejected.

Read more: The universe really is weird: a landmark quantum experiment has finally proved it so

There are theories, like de Broglie-Bohm, that postulate “action at a distance”, in which actions can have instantaneous effects elsewhere in the universe. However, this is in direct conflict with Einstein’s theory of relativity.

Some search for a theory that rejects freedom of choice, but they either require backwards causality, or a seemingly conspiratorial form of fatalism called “superdeterminism”.

Another way to resolve the conflict could be to make Einstein’s theory even more relative. For Einstein, different observers could disagree about when or where something happens – but what happens was an absolute fact.

However, in some interpretations, such as relational quantum mechanics, QBism, or the many-worlds interpretation, events themselves may occur only relative to one or more observers. A fallen tree observed by one may not be a fact for everyone else.

All of this does not imply that you can choose your own reality. Firstly, you can choose what questions you ask, but the answers are given by the world. And even in a relational world, when two observers communicate, their realities are entangled. In this way a shared reality can emerge.

Which means that if we both witness the same tree falling and you say you can’t hear it, you might just need a hearing aid.

– ref. A new quantum paradox throws the foundations of observed reality into question – https://theconversation.com/a-new-quantum-paradox-throws-the-foundations-of-observed-reality-into-question-144426

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Moulds, Senior Lecturer of Law, University of South Australia

Federal parliament is back today after a nine-week break. And it’s going to look a bit different.

Some MPs, unable to travel to Canberra for health reasons or COVID-19 border restrictions will participate via video.

It will be the first time MPs have been able to contribute remotely like this during a sitting week. This is a big leap for the parliament.

What will change in the chamber?

Federal parliament is adopting a hybrid model. Many MPs are still expected to attend the chamber in person. But others will be there via secure video link from their electorate office, with strict rules against slogans and novelty items in the background.

Read more: View from The Hill: ‘Virtual’ participants and border restrictions will make for a bespoke parliamentary sitting

Those attending via video won’t be able to vote or be counted for quorums. But they will be able to ask questions in question time and speak as part of debates.

There will not be a free-for-all on the video option. As Attorney-General and Leader of the House, Christian Porter explains, it will only be available to MPs who can prove the pandemic makes it,

essentially impossible, unreasonably impracticable, or would give rise to an unreasonable risk for the Member to physically attend.

The remote access will be via the existing system used for parliamentary committee hearings that frequently take place around the country.

Virtual parliaments around the world

This may be new for Australia, but it is not radical. Before COVID-19, other parliaments have been experimenting with remote proceedings and online participation.

Spain’s parliament has allowed remote voting since 2011 if people are seriously unwell or on maternity leave.

Brazil’s parliament – which covers a large geographical area, with more than 500 members in its lower house alone – had already begun using virtual discussion tools to conduct debates among MPs and between MPs and citizens. This is supported by an app, called Infoleg, which provides information on parliamentary business for both citizens and MPs and enables secure online voting.

Both Spain and Brazil were among the first parliaments to swap to hybrid and virtual sittings during COVID-19, thanks to their technical know-how and procedural flexibility.

What about Westminster parliaments?

Westminster parliaments were also making tentative online moves pre-COVID.

Read more: A virtual Australian parliament is possible – and may be needed – during the coronavirus pandemic

The United Kingdom had introduced a CommonsVotes app, which shows how MPs have voted, following a division. There is also a HousePapers app which contains parliamentary papers.

The UK, New Zealand and Australian parliaments have been among those using video conferencing for committee work.

Question time is not the same

Despite some success, reconfiguring Westminster traditions into virtual parliamentary settings during COVID-19 has been challenging.

This is particularly so when it comes to facilitating the spontaneous scrutiny that should occur in question time. Or the visual drama that comes from voting together or calling a physical division.

The UK parliament muddled through its post-Easter 2020 sitting, using online voting, Zoom and Microsoft Teams in the chamber and pre-prepared questions for ministers. But it has since backed away from virtual proceedings, citing the need for a “proper level of scrutiny”.

But there are ‘real positives’

The response to UK parliament’s decision has been mixed. British Labour MP Chi Onwurah has spoken of the need to be there in person.

Video engagement is not the same as being there face-to-face with a minister. You also lose the spontaneity, because you have to put in questions five days in advance, so you can’t ask a question about something a constituent emailed you about in the morning.

On the other hand, the Electoral Reform Society, has argued there are “real positives” to virtual methods. Such as,

Less booing and jeering during Prime Minister’s Questions, the ability to call Select Committee witnesses from afar through video-link […] MPs from far ends of the UK noted that they’d be able to spend more time in their constituencies if they could contribute remotely, or that they could spend more time on casework if voting times were cut down through online voting.

The House of Lords library also suggests there was more debate.

Almost 1,000 more contributions were made during the interim virtual/chamber phase than during a comparative period at the beginning of the year.

There were also more contributions from female MPs. Women made up a “slightly higher proportion” of those participating in the virtual chamber, up from 31% earlier in the year to 35%.

Scottish National Party MP Kirsty Blackman also noted the remote provisions made it easier for MPs with disabilities to participate.

Technology is key

The big lessons from these experiences are very similar to those facing other workplaces.

That is, the need to be flexible and invest in suitable technology. This includes secure and individually verifiable voting apps – such as Infoleg – political discussion software and reliable, high-quality video conferencing facilities.

Australia’s parliament can do better (it needs to)

Long before COVID-19, researchers have been calling for parliaments to make better use of technology, to be more efficient and enhance the quality of public engagement.

A 2009 parliamentary survey of MPs found most spent between 5% and 10% of their time travelling. It is a common refrain of MPs they would rather spend more time in their electorates than in Canberra.

There is also growing acknowledgement travel and work requirements on our MPs – particularly in such a geographically dispersed country – are unhealthy and unreasonable. Travel time and time away from family has also been identified as a particular barrier to attracting more more female MPs.

Read more: Australia can do more to attract and keep women in parliament – here are some ideas

So, this is our big chance to make a change

Yes, there are challenges when it comes to “going virtual”. But by forcing our parliaments to experiment with new ways of operating, COVID-19 presents a critical opportunity to reimagine how our democratic institutions can work better.

If we embrace this moment with energy and enthusiasm, we can create new spaces for new voices (as well as better spaces for those we already have).

This might sound naïvely optimistic, but we have been here before.

About 40 years ago, someone stood in a dry Canberra paddock and imagined the light-filled, architectural wonder that is the current “new” Parliament House. And how MPs could be inspired by that environment to communicate their ideas with each other and their country.

Now, as we sit in front of our screens, we can begin to see a new parliamentary landscape. It might feel impersonal at first, but it has the potential to make parliament more user-friendly for MPs and citizens alike.

– ref. As the first ‘remote’ sitting starts in Canberra, virtual parliaments should be the new norm, not a COVID bandaid – https://theconversation.com/as-the-first-remote-sitting-starts-in-canberra-virtual-parliaments-should-be-the-new-norm-not-a-covid-bandaid-144737

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Whittle, Associate Professor in Psychiatry, University of Melbourne

The negative mental health impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic are clear, but there is particular concern children will be most affected in the long run.

By the end of March school closures were impacting 91% of the world’s student population and are still affecting more than 60%. These closures limit children’s opportunities for important social interactions, which can harm their mental health.

In particular, home confinement, fears of infection, family stress and financial loss may have negative effects on the mental health of young people. And research carried out earlier in the pandemic suggested these effects may be most pronounced for children with pre-existing mental health problems.

Which children are most at risk?

Parents have an important role to play in safeguarding children’s mental health during COVID-19.

Research shows family relationships are more influential during situations that cause stress over an extended period of time than during acute periods of stress. This means family factors are likely to be even more important to childrens’ mental health during COVID-19 than during more fleeting traumatic experiences such as exposure to a natural disaster.

In our recent study, we found 81% of children aged 5-17 had experienced at least one trauma symptom during the early phase of COVID-19. For instance, some children had trouble sleeping alone, or acted unusually young or old for their age.

Our unpublished research relied on reports from parents from Australia and the United Kingdom. We also found increases in emotional problems were common. For instance, according to their parents 29% of children were more unhappy than they were before COVID-19.

Importantly, our study found several parent and family factors that were important in predicting changes in children’s mental health problems.

Here are four of our main findings.

Read more: Number of Australia’s vulnerable children is set to double as COVID-19 takes its toll

1. Parents’ distress matters

Increased personal distress reported by parents was related to increases in their child’s mental health problems during COVID-19. This distress refers to both general stress in addition to COVID-specific worry and distress. It also includes anxiety related to problems that existed before COVID-19.

For this reason it’s important parents look after their own mental health and stress levels. Seeking psychological help is a good option for parents who are struggling to cope.

Through a GP referral, Australians can receive ten sessions of psychological care per year through Medicare. Victorians who are currently subjected to further restrictions can now receive up to 20 sessions.

2. Good family relationships help

Higher levels of parental warmth and family cohesion were associated with fewer trauma symptoms in children. “Parental warmth” refers to being interested in what your child does, or encouraging them to talk to you about what they think; “family cohesion” relates to family members helping and supporting each other.

In other research these factors have consistently been found to relate to children’s adjustment to stress and trauma.

Read more: P is for Pandemic: kids’ books about coronavirus

Fortunately, there is a range of resources parents can use to help improve relationships with their children.

Some parents may also find taking part in a parenting course helpful. Partners in Parenting, Triple P and Tuning into Kids are available online.

3. Parents’ optimism can be contagious

While COVID-19 is having many negative impacts, some parents in our study also identified unexpected positive impacts, such as being able to spend more time with family. Children of these parents were less likely to experience an increase in some problems – particularly problems with peers such as being bullied.

Children observe parents’ behaviours and emotions for cues on how to manage their own emotions during difficult times. Trying to stay positive, or focus on the bright side as much as possible is likely to benefit children.

Read more: Want to see a therapist but don’t know where to start? Here’s how to get a mental health plan

4. Some effects are greatest for vulnerable families

We found parents’ behaviour was particularly influential in lower socioeconomic backgrounds and single-parent families. In poorer families, parental warmth was particularly important in buffering children’s trauma symptoms. And in single-parent families, parental stress was more likely to predict behavioural problems in children.

This may be because poorer and single-parent families already face more stress, which can negatively impact children. Parental warmth can counteract the effects of these stresses, whereas high parental stress levels can increase them.

Research has already shown the pandemic will have greater negative impacts on those who have less resources available to them. This points to a need for extra psychological and financial support for these families. Governments and other organisations will need to take this into account when targeting their support packages.

Read more: 8 tips on what to tell your kids about coronavirus

It’s important to keep in mind child-parent relationships are a two-way street. Our research examined relationships at only one point in time, so we don’t know the extent to which our findings reflect a) parents causing changes in their children’s mental health, or b) changes in children’s mental health impacting parents, or the way a family functions. Research needs to follow children and their families over time to tease apart these possibilities.

Given prevention is always better than cure, parents and families should seek help early to build the right foundations to safeguard the mental health of their children.

– ref. To safeguard children’s mental health during COVID-19, parents must look after their own – https://theconversation.com/to-safeguard-childrens-mental-health-during-covid-19-parents-must-look-after-their-own-143897

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Llewelyn Hughes, Associate Professor of Public Policy, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University

Last month, the Japanese government announced a plan to retire its fleet of old, inefficient coal-fired generation by 2030. And what happens to coal power in Japan matters a lot to Australia.

Australia shipped more than A$9 billion dollars’ worth of thermal coal to Japan in 2019 – about 12% of our total thermal coal exports.

In the short term, several new coal plants are being built in Japan to replace scrapped capacity. But there are signs investors are not flocking to invest in expensive new Japanese coal technology.

And in the long run, the investment environment for new coal technology is worsening. If Japan’s commitment to coal weakens, that will mean less demand for Australia’s exports.

Japan’s changing coal fleet

Almost all Japan’s nuclear power stations remain shuttered ten years after the Fukushima disaster. The Japanese government has positioned coal as a long-term hedge against the possibility the nuclear power restarts will not proceed as hoped.

However, Japan has also been criticised for its lack of ambition on plans to address climate change under the Paris Agreement.

Last month, the government signalled it will decommission about 100 inefficient coal-fired power units. It aims to reduce coal’s share of the power mix to 26% by 2030 – down from 32% in the 2018 financial year.

Read more: How to transition from coal: 4 lessons for Australia from around the world

The big questions are: what are the prospects for Japan’s coal fleet, and what does this mean for Australia?

The Japanese government is supporting investment in newer plants, including some that use a high-pressure “gasifier” to turn coal into gas. But these types of plants are expensive to build. With a typical coal plant expected to operate for about 40 years, companies are wary of making huge outlays with relatively limited time to recoup the investment.

Reflecting this, last year Osaka Gas withdrew plans to build a 1.2 gigawatt (GW) coal plant in Yamaguchi Prefecture. Tokyo Gas, Kyushu Electric and Idemitsu also abandoned plans to build a 2GW coal plant in Chiba Prefecture near Tokyo. In total, 30% of planned investment in coal power has been scrapped since 2016.

Renewables are also becoming increasingly important. Japan has big plans for offshore wind power, and renewable electricity is falling in price.

In Europe and elsewhere, such changing economics have helped drive falls in the number of hours that coal plants operate. Globally, final investment decisions for new coal plants fell from more than 100GW in 2010 to just over 20GW in 2018. Although it might take a little longer in Japan, there is no reason to expect things to be different there.

Crucially, these dynamics are underpinned by shifts in Japan’s electricity market to encourage more competition. Over time, that should mean companies find it increasingly difficult to pass the costs of expensive investments in coal technologies to final customers.

Read more: Matt Canavan says Australia doesn’t subsidise the fossil fuel industry, an expert says it does

Dim prospects for coal

Mining company Glencore this month announced a plan to cut production from Australian coal mines, citing weak demand due to COVID-19.

The world will recover from the pandemic. But in the longer term, coal in Japan faces even stiffer headwinds – not least market competition and increasing renewables from offshore wind and other technologies.

This creates real questions about the appetite of Japanese companies to wage the increasingly risky bet that coal-fired power represents. Changes in Japan’s power market show the need for Australia to begin transiting to an economy less reliant on carbon-intensive exports.

Read more: If we could design JobKeeper within weeks, we can exit coal by 2030. Here’s how to do it

– ref. Japan is closing its old, dirty power plants – and that’s bad news for Australia’s coal exports – https://theconversation.com/japan-is-closing-its-old-dirty-power-plants-and-thats-bad-news-for-australias-coal-exports-144452

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tom Morton, Associate Professor, Journalism, Stream Leader, Climate Justice Research Centre, University of Technology Sydney

On top of announcing three Renewable Energy Zones this week the Queensland Parliament paved the way for an exclusive deal to build one of the biggest onshore wind farms in the Southern Hemisphere.

With up to 226 wind turbines in state-owned pine plantations, the 1,200 megawatt Forest Wind project could power one in four Queensland homes and help the state meet its target of 50% renewable-generated electricity by 2030.

The turbines will be a minimum of three kilometres from the nearest town. Because they’re sited in an exotic pine plantation, impacts on native flora, fauna, and habitats will be minimised. At first sight, Forest Wind looks like a model project. But look a little closer, and Forest Wind embodies many of the contradictions at the heart of Australia’s renewable energy revolution.

The current pace of Australia’s energy transition is breathtaking. But big projects like Forest Wind need to take local communities with them, and build a social licence for the energy transition from the ground up.

A community ‘kept in the dark’

As our research in the German state of Brandenburg shows, building towers 160 metres high – that’s higher than the Sydney Harbour Bridge – anywhere near settlements tends to lead to community opposition and lengthy delays.

Affected communities are much more likely to accept a massive wind farm on their doorstep if they feel they’ve been listened to by project developers, and can see clear benefits.

The three-kilometre “exclusion zone” for Forest Wind is twice the 1,500 metre minimum distance from settlements required under Queensland law. And project developers argue its location amid dense pine trees will provide “a natural buffer between Forest Wind and local residences”.

But local residents told a parliamentary committee in June they’d been kept in the dark about the project, claiming “it was kept secret from 2016 until the public announcement in December 2019”. They also expressed concern about its visual impact and proximity to bird migration corridors.

The developers and the state government seem to have followed the well-known and widely criticised “DAD” approach: Decide, Announce, Defend.

“DAD” may be common in current planning processes, but the people of the nearby Wide Bay community may feel that, so far, there’s not enough in it for them.

The Conversation contacted Forest Wind Holdings for a response to this article. A spokesperson said the project will provide the local community a long and ongoing opportunity to continually provide input.

Forest Wind is pleased to have received feedback from hundreds of people so far including at information days, online forums, letters and over the phone. […] Since the project’s announcement, COVID-19 has certainly impacted community consultation activities, as local halls have been closed and a planned wind farm tour has had to be cancelled.

Now that COVID-19 restrictions are easing, Forest Wind is establishing a Community Reference Group […] Forest Wind intends to work closely through the Community Reference Group to continue to understand the needs and interests of the local community and work in a collaborative and multi-stakeholder approach to address community concerns and develop initiatives that leverage the Project and deliver community benefits.

Few community benefits

The Forest Wind website lists no concrete community benefits, no benefit sharing programs, concrete training or education initiatives, and hardly any community engagement besides standard consultation meetings and newsletters.

Elsewhere it’s becoming common for government-led renewable energy auctions to stipulate socio-economic objectives other than just capacity or price. In Victoria, one preference was to use labour and components from the state. In the ACT, one outcome was wider benefit sharing in the form of community co-investment.

Read more: Climate explained: are we doomed if we don’t manage to curb emissions by 2030?

The Queensland government has fast-tracked Forest Wind through its Exclusive Transactions Framework, which gives preferential treatment to large-scale infrastructure projects. In other words, it’s picked a winner.

Forest Wind Holdings did not have to go through a competitive tender or auction process. Given the sheer size of the project, the state government had plenty of scope to negotiate better-than-average benefits for Wide Bay and the state.

Then there’s a further issue: jobs. According to the project website, 50% of the jobs in the construction phase (around 200) and 90% during operations (about 50) can be filled by people in the Wide Bay region.

A Forest Wind spokesperson said there are “vast benefits” for the local people in Wide Bay, including job opportunities in the concrete and construction sector.

These are all real jobs, for which on-the-job training and on-the-job management and mentoring can benefit workers to skill-up in working on Forest Wind, on future wind farms, and increase the opportunity to apply skills and qualifications in other areas of the economy.

Forest Wind was originated by local Queenslanders and the development team are based in this local area of Queensland. Already there are real local jobs, with more local jobs to come as the project develops – this is a positive.

But local communities need to see more lasting job creation from big renewable projects, not just “the circus coming to town”.

Consulting with native title holders

One clearly innovative aspect of Forest Wind is the requirement for an Indigenous Land Use Agreement, which provides negotiation rights for titleholders and compensation. Under legislation passed this week, the developer must negotiate a land use agreement where native title exists, and “the project cannot proceed without the free and informed consent of these individuals and communities”.

Part of Forest Wind is located on native title lands held by the Butchulla People, whose native title is well-established. Another part is on the land of the Kabi Kabi people, whose native title claim is pending. Forest Wind states it is consulting with native title holders and looks forward to partnerships with them.

Read more: Why most Aboriginal people have little say over clean energy projects planned for their land

In contrast, last year the Queensland government extinguished native title over land in the Galilee Basin to make way for the Adani coal mine.

And the Adani mine is now only expected to offer only 100 to 800 ongoing jobs.

So let’s be clear: we should applaud Queensland’s decision to throw its weight behind the energy transition.

A recent report estimates that, with the right stimulus measures now, by 2030 there could be 13,000 Queenslanders working long-term in the renewable sector, and tens of thousands more short term jobs in construction.

Some 75% of those jobs would be in regional Queensland. The challenge is to ensure enough of them go to regions like Wide Bay.

And at a national level, Australia should look to Germany as a model.

Community energy projects

Renewables now employ 304,000 people in Germany. That compares with about 60,000 in the coal industry.

Germany built its energy transition over 30 years. The German experience shows how fostering citizen involvement and ownership will strengthen long-term social acceptance for renewable energy.

This means encouraging community energy, energy cooperatives, community owned retailers or community-based Virtual Power Plants. Community energy projects are estimated to have higher employment impacts and can better prioritise local contractors than corporate-led projects.

A greater focus on energy democracy would build a stronger foundation for the energy transition Australia has to have.

Read more: Really Australia, it’s not that hard: 10 reasons why renewable energy is the future

– ref. Forest Wind and Australia’s renewables revolution: how big clean energy projects risk leaving local communities behind – https://theconversation.com/forest-wind-and-australias-renewables-revolution-how-big-clean-energy-projects-risk-leaving-local-communities-behind-144675

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kok-Sing Tang, Associate Professor, Curtin University

It seems today the mistrust of official health advice and spread of “alternative” treatments for COVID-19 are as frightening as the virus itself. How is it that so many people are ill-informed (and seemingly choose to be so) about the pandemic, despite decades of compulsory science education?

Of course we are entering a post-truth era in which fake news and conspiracy theories proliferate, while many have contempt for scientific facts.

But a deeper problem lies in the way we teach science. Our curriculum and instruction are still driven by content mastery and high-stakes testing, which has alienated many young people from scientific ideas.

Students are taught isolated and impersonal facts without understanding the history and processes of how scientists know what we know — an education in scientific literacy.

The Australian Curriculum defines scientific literacy as:

An ability to use scientific knowledge, understanding, and inquiry skills to identify questions, acquire new knowledge, explain science phenomena […] and draw evidence-based conclusions in making sense of the world, and to recognise how understandings of […] science help us make responsible decisions and shape our interpretations of information.

While laudable as an educational goal, scientific literacy is seldom emphasised in practice. We need to do more to promote it in primary and secondary schools.

Why facts aren’t enough

The problem with people’s mistrust of science has little to do with their actual intelligence or overall education. After all, some educated people still believe the Earth is flat, and climate change is contentious.

Getting someone to accept a new idea goes beyond the brain to a broader consideration of the person’s social, cultural and emotional factors.

American social psychologist Jonathan Haidt used a rider and elephant analogy to explain why we are resistant to new ideas and beliefs. The rider is the rational side of our mind while the elephant is the unconscious and emotional side. To change a person’s view, it is useless to focus on the rider without addressing the elephant.

Science is full of strange ideas that are sometimes at odds with common sense, such as matter being made of moving atoms, or time being relative. Teaching these ideas as facts is like targeting the rider.

Many educational theorists have long argued the idea knowledge could somehow be “transferred” from teachers and textbooks to students is untenable. The students will still interpret the taught content through a conceptual framework of prior knowledge and beliefs.

Read more: Knowledge is a process of discovery: how constructivism changed education

Years of research in science education has found teaching facts alone is an ineffective strategy when trying to change a person’s ingrained misconceptions or “alternative theories”.

A new approach to teaching scientific literacy

Scientific theories are built on evidence through the process of argumentation. Every fact and theory taught in the curriculum should be questioned and tested with evidence. Students should ideally observe or collect data for themselves.

There are many practical ways to show the Earth is round that can be done as a classroom activity. For instance, a classroom in Perth can interact online with another classroom in Bali (roughly the same latitude) to simultaneously measure the shadow from a metre stick and use the result to calculate the Earth’s circumference.

Repeatedly asking students to question every fact will instil a lifelong value of critical literacy in science. It is crucial for young people to always evaluate the source of information and discern false claims that are not backed by empirical evidence, such as drinking bleach to treat coronavirus.

Science should also be taught as a dialogue within a community of people. This is the human side of science where ideas are discussed, argued and negotiated in the process of building consensus.

Mirroring this process, students must be given opportunities to practise evidence-based argumentation. Their innate theories about the world should be elicited and compared with accepted scientific theories, so students can see their relative merits and suitability in addressing a particular phenomenon or problem.

Emotions play a large part

Last but not least, emotions play a big part in science learning. Scientific issues that represent social concerns (such as the lockdown) and problems related to science and technology (the 5G network) can evoke a range of emotions among students.

Read more: How to cut through when talking to anti-vaxxers and anti-fluoriders

It is important to acknowledge students’ emotions as they deal with the moral and ethical issues in these ideas. Controversial issues provide not only an authentic learning context, but are also excellent topics for debate and argumentation.

Some studies have found allowing students to express their emotions during lessons on such social issues in science can enhance their empathy and disposition towards science.

The goal of scientific literacy is not new. But COVID-19 has brought a greater urgency to its importance. Scientific literacy is now no longer an educational aspiration that is good to attain, but a very immediate concern that impacts our survival in a post-truth society.

– ref. Teach questions, not answers: science literacy is a crucial skill – https://theconversation.com/teach-questions-not-answers-science-literacy-is-a-crucial-skill-144731

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Linda Colley, Associate Professor HRM/IR, CQUniversity Australia

It has been almost 50 years ago since visionaries started predicting a digital revolution enabling many of us to work from home.

But that revolution has long been thwarted by resistance – crucially from management concerned about productivity and performance.

It was the case in 1974, according to Jack Nilles, who led the first major study to evaluate the benefits of “telecommuting” (by a team from the University of Southern California). It was still the case in 2019, according to researchers from San Jose State University, whose studies showed managerial and executive resistance were the major perceived obstacles to the expansion of flexible working practices.

Our own research with Australian public service managers in 2018 found extensive managerial resistance to employees working from home.

Wondering how the enforced experience of working from home might change such attitudes, we surveyed 6,000 Australian public servants (including 1,400 managers) in June and July, and found the seeds for a revolution.

Only 8.4% of managers rated their teams less productive when working from home, while 57% thought productivity the same, and 34.6% believed it higher.

These findings, along with others, suggest working from home, at least for part of the week, may become the norm.

Read more: Teleworkability in Australia: 41% of full-time and 35% of part-time jobs can be done from home

Negative perceptions

It is difficult to estimate precisely how many people had the option of working from home prior to the pandemic. Australian Bureau of Statistics data published in September 2019 indicated about a third of all employed people regularly worked from home. But it is likely this number also includes workers catching up on work after hours.

In the public sector, about one-third of executives worked away from the office, but less than 15% of non-executive employees did.

Our 2018 research, involving focus groups with nearly 300 managers across four state public services, found extensive managerial resistance to allowing work from home despite supportive policies permitting it.

Public sector managers shared with private sector managers concerns about performance and productivity, and the difficulty of remotely managing workers. They often framed their resistance around concerns about technology or work health and safety.

But on top of this, public service managers were sensitive about agreeing to any working arrangements that might feed community stereotypes about public servants having it easy.

Key findings

The COVID-19 pandemic rendered those objections irrelevant. By the end of May, 57% of Australian Public Service employees were reportedly working from home.

To compile our findings we worked with the Community and Public Sector Union, which distributed the survey on our behalf. The 6,000 respondents included about 20% non-union members and 22% managers, across a broad range of occupations and agencies.

As noted, three times as many managers thought team productivity and performance had increased as those who perceived a decrease, with the majority neutral.

Female managers were slightly more likely to perceive greater productivity (36.7% compared to 31.1% of male managers), as were managers of teams larger than ten employees.

One manager noted “people are either productive or not, and it doesn’t matter where they work from”. Others said it had changed their management style for the better, forcing them to realise they did not need to micromanage to get results.

Nearly two-thirds said they intended to be more supportive of working from home in the future (though 2% said they planned to be less supportive). Male managers were the most swayed, with 68% saying they would be more supportive, compared with 63.6% of female managers.

One manager noted:

I had always accepted the department line that working from home is a privilege and not a real workplace. Also that working from home makes you unavailable and disconnects you from the workplace. Discovered that I couldn’t have been more wrong.“

Generally, our results show employees were mostly positive about working from home, with more than four out of five saying it gave them more time with their family, two-thirds saying they got more work done, and three in five enjoying having more autonomy over their work.

The downsides

There can be downsides to working from home, however. As one respondent put it: “I hate my house, it’s cold, and the kids are annoying, the dog stinks.”

The key issues identified by research are social isolation, lack of feedback and loss of separation of work from home life.

Read more: It’s not just the isolation. Working from home has surprising downsides

On the isolation and feedback front, our results were generally positive. Managers indicated communication technology enabled teams to stay in touch in multiple ways, from instant messaging to video conferencing. While just over 10% stuck to their usual meeting routine, the majority (about 60%) had increased their use of virtual meetings. This included scheduling social activities such as virtual coffee and drinks.

On the question of work-life balance, our results were more mixed.

Three-quarters reported they continued to work their usual work hours. But one in four reported working longer hours. Mostly this was due to increased workload, though almost 15% said they had been working more voluntarily because they were absorbed by their work. Many managers noted this increased motivation and mood.

Given the focus of the public service, this result is not necessarily one we can presume would apply across the entire workforce. That said, longer working hours do seem a feature of working from home during this pandemic. Based on data from more than 3 million in 16 cities, researchers found the average workday for those under lockdown is about 48 minutes longer.

Read more: Vital Signs: Shorter meetings but longer days – how COVID-19 has changed the way we work

These findings on longer hours potentially offset some of the positive perceptions of productivity improvements. The emergency conditions in which both managers and workers have been prepared to go the extra mile cannot become the baseline for expectations permanently.

Despite these caveats, and the need to point out that organisations still have much to do to embed flexibility in their cultures, our results add to the evidence that the great working-from-home experiment of 2020 has broken the back of decades of inherited managerial resistance. The revolution may have started.

– ref. With management resistance overcome, working from home may be here to stay – https://theconversation.com/with-management-resistance-overcome-working-from-home-may-be-here-to-stay-144850

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christina Lee, Senior Lecturer in Literary and Cultural Studies, Curtin University

We all have our own ghosts, my grandmother would say. But sometimes the pain of past trauma can seep from one generation to the next, haunting an entire family. – May Le

On the 15th night of the seventh month in the lunar calendar is the traditional Buddhist and Taoist Hungry Ghost Festival, when the gates to hell open and spirits wander the earth.

Families honour and appease their ancestors through remembrance, prayer and offerings. But it is also a time of caution lest aggrieved ghosts seek retribution.

In the new supernatural drama Hungry Ghosts, directed by Shawn Seet for SBS, a tomb is discovered during a mine-clearing operation in Vietnam. From this tomb, an evil spirit named Quang (Vico Thai) is released, bringing the dead back with him.

The return of these spirits forces four families in contemporary Melbourne to confront ghosts of the past buried deep in their secrets, sins and personal struggles.

Protagonist May Le (Catherine Văn-Davies) is tasked with preventing Quang from keeping the gates to hell open for eternity; her journey is one of self-discovery and embracing her heritage after the death of her grandmother Phuong (Linda Hsai).

The Nguyen, Tran and Stockton families each bear the heavy burdens of the Vietnam War. Survivor guilt, painful memories and regrettable past actions threaten to tear their families apart.

Inherited traumas

Unresolved trauma impacts the present through intergenerational hauntings, both literal and metaphorical.

The spirit of a drowned man whom Diane Tran (Oakley Kwon) once wronged possesses her daughter Sophie (Jillian Nguyen). The ordeal of war leads to the fracturing of relationships between Anh Nguyen (Ferdinand Hoang) and his son Paul (Gareth Yuen) and wife Lien (Gabrielle Chan).

While the first episode is heavy with exposition in the great unveiling of the dead and the explanation of Quang’s mission, the series maintains a tension that makes for gripping viewing.

The musical score (composition by Roger Mason) thrums throughout the series and gets under your skin. Just as the eerie soundtrack is occasionally interrupted with romantic serenades of a bygone era, the narrative tension gives way to moments of humour and tenderness.

When grandmother Lien is visited by the ghost of her first husband Khoa (Hoa Xuande), she is transported back to her earlier life and an uncomplicated love. The visual interplay between Lien in old age and in youth is a poignant reminder of human mortality, and the longing and loss that comes with the passing of time.

These interludes of contemplation and nostalgia are reminiscent of the aching melancholy of the films of Wong Kar Wai, offering brief reprieves before the serious business of stopping a psychopathic spirit starts again.

For some viewers, Hungry Ghosts will have some uncanny resemblances to plot devices used in the Harry Potter saga and a certain landmark film of the supernatural thriller genre (you’ll know when you see it).

Despite these inevitable comparisons, the series avoids the trappings of an Australian miniseries trying to be Hollywood. Hungry Ghosts retains a distinctive Australian-ness. It proudly locates itself in Melbourne, and puts front and centre in the story the Vietnam War and the ensuing humanitarian crisis (“the boat people”) that has been so central to contemporary Australian history and national identity.

Read more: On asylum seekers, our history keeps repeating itself

In the four-part series, a romance is rushed and predictable, and it is disappointing that among such a rich Asian-Australian cast several of the Anglo-Australian cast members are headlined to promote the series (the Stockton family cast are also the first to appear in the end credits).

But these criticisms aside, Hungry Ghosts is an achievement on many levels, and a valuable contribution to Australian storytelling.

An Australian story

The series casts over 30 Asian-Australian actors in leading and ensemble roles, including transgender woman Suzy Wrong (who plays the wonderfully eccentric clairvoyant Roxy Ling), alongside 325 Asian-Australian extras.

Joining director Seet is executive producer Debbie Lee, and writers Michele Lee and brothers Jeremy and Alan Nguyen.

Read more: Whitewash on the box: how a lack of diversity on Australian television damages us all

The investment in bringing together this accomplished cast and crew signals an exciting future for national television. While Hungry Ghosts focuses on the Vietnamese-Australian community, the intertwining stories across generations and cultural groups will have broad resonances.

As an Asian-Australian, it was affirming to see faces like mine on screen, as well as representations of familiar beliefs, rituals and practices.

These depictions were not tokenistic, marginalised or exotic window-dressing. The Vietnam War and Hungry Ghost Festival are the story’s bedrock. A cultural richness permeates throughout the series.

Smoking joss sticks, shrines adorned with photos of departed family members, the bright chime of a wooden mallet struck against a prayer bowl, the mix of languages spoken within the same conversation by family members of different generations – in interweaving these details, Hungry Ghosts is a textured depiction of the lives and spiritual connections of a diasporic community that now calls Australia home.

Hungry Ghosts premieres 9:30pm Monday 24 August – Thursday 27 August on SBS and SBS On Demand

– ref. Hungry Ghosts review: a culturally rich supernatural drama – https://theconversation.com/hungry-ghosts-review-a-culturally-rich-supernatural-drama-143191

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

More than half of the 1.3 million people who lost their jobs or were stood down on zero hours at the start of the pandemic had started some form of work by July, according to figures released by Treasurer Josh Frydenberg.

Treasury figures show the national effective unemployment rate at 9.9% in July, compared with a peak of 14.9% in April, with 689,000 gaining effective employment. The official July unemployment rate was 7.5%.

Excluding Victoria – which is in full lockdown combatting a second COVID wave – the national effective unemployment rate would be 9.5%.

The effective unemployment rate includes the jobless looking for work, those who are employed but on zero hours, and those who have left the labour force since March.

Frydenberg said Victoria was a setback however “the jobs recovery across the rest of the country gives cause for optimism”.

But he warned, “high frequency data is showing signs that the jobs recovery may be slowing as state border closures have been tightened.”

The effective unemployment rate is expected to increase above 13% with a rise of about 450,000 effectively unemployed over August and September compared to July. Most will be in Victoria.

The effective unemployment rate is lowest in the ACT (5.2%), Tasmania (7.9%) and NSW (8.5%) and highest in the NT (12.1%), Queensland (11.4%) and Victoria (10.5%). South Australia and Western Australia are both at 9.8%.

NSW has had the strongest recovery with 315,000 people gaining effective employment since April. This is 46% of total effective employment, and compares with NSW’s 32% of the country’s population.

NSW has supported the federal government’s argument for open borders, although its border with Victoria has been shut in light of Victoria’s second wave.

In July, nearly half of those who were employed but working zero hours for economic reasons were from Victoria. This contrasts with April, when only 30% of zero hour workers were in Victoria and about 35% in NSW.

Outside Victoria, the number of people on unemployment benefits is about 3% below the May peak. In Victoria it is 3.8% above its previous peak in May, after a 6.3% rise since the end of June.

By mid August, the number on unemployment benefits had fallen by 22,800 from the May peak, despite an increase of 14,900 in Victoria.

The fortnight parliamentary session beginning Monday will have as the main legislation before it the extension of the JobKeeper scheme and the Coronavirus supplement beyond the end of September. Each would be scaled down.

– ref. Job recovery may be slowing as border closures have tightened: Frydenberg – https://theconversation.com/job-recovery-may-be-slowing-as-border-closures-have-tightened-frydenberg-144922

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

Both those pressing for states to re-open borders, and defenders of their resistance to doing so, will look for arguments to support their cases in Saturday’s Northern Territory election results.

Chief Minister Michael Gunner has taken a tough line on the NT border. With the NT COVID-free, people can’t go to the territory from COVID “hotspots” without quarantining at their own expense.

Labor’s loss of seats – while retaining government whether in majority or minority – is seen by the “open borders” urgers as carrying lessons about putting all (or most) eggs in a keep-safe basket.

It’s accepted that if he hadn’t had COVID to run on, Gunner would have been much worse off, given the NT’s pre-COVID economic problems.

But if he had taken a softer approach to the border, and there’d been a major COVID outbreak, he would have worn serious blame. With indigenous people – who, like the elderly, form a high risk group for COVID – forming about 30% of the NT community, a big outbreak could have been catastrophic.

And while the NT economy remains in poor shape, especially the tourist sector, the state is open internally (they were all hugging at those party functions on Saturday night).

Queensland premier Annastacia Palaszczuk and Western Australian Premier Mark McGowan are unlikely to see the NT result as sending a signal their border policies will be a political handicap.

That doesn’t mean Palaszczuk and McGowan can afford to rely on their performances on COVID alone when they go to the polls in October and early next year respectively. Their voters will expect more. But as things stand, restrictive border policies are popular and the NT hasn’t said otherwise.

Scott Morrison’s relative powerlessness on the border issue was illustrated at Friday’s national cabinet.

Progress is being made on specific problems, such as the needs of agriculture in border areas, and health matters.

But on the basic question of opening or closing, the premiers remained firm. Only NSW is Morrison’s ally in this battle.

While commentators see the war over borders as a sign of the federation’s dysfunction, voters in particular states read it differently.

Morrison announced at his Friday news conference national cabinet had asked the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee (AHPPC), including state and federal health advisers, to define a “hotspot” and consider movement restrictions relating to these spots.

He hopes such a definition would put pressure on premiers and chief ministers to limit border closures.

It is apparently trodden and tricky territory. Acting Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly told the news conference: “It is a piece of work we have had an attempt at before. And we’ll continue to try to get consensus there in AHPPC about a definition of a hotspot.”

It remains to be seen whether this committee can agree. And if it does, whether that would make any difference to what leaders do.

But when parliament resumes on Monday, it won’t be borders that will be the front of mind issue – it will be aged care.

With a majority of COVID deaths being people who lived in aged care facilities, and an absolute shocker of a performance from Aged Care Minister Richard Colbeck on Friday, the opposition has a lot of ammunition.

Colbeck, appearing before the Senate COVID committee, was asked two simple questions. How many deaths had there been of residents of facilities, and how many COVID cases were there among residents at present. He could neither remember, nor find the numbers immediately. This was appalling preparation.

Forced to defend Colbeck, Morrison said, “on occasion, I can’t call every figure to mind”.

But the PM knew such a lapse has an impact beyond its strictly objective importance.

An example from long ago makes the point. Late in the Hawke government, then treasurer John Kerin at a news conference was unable to explain an economic term. It was hardly a hanging offence. But it damaged Kerin, and the government.

With the Colbeck clip shown over and over, it quickly becomes a symbol of both the minister’s failure, and the failure of the government to do enough to protect aged care residents.

The odds are short that Morrison will move Colbeck from aged care when he reshuffles his ministry following the departure of Mathias Cormann late this year.

But Colbeck is only one player in the aged care crisis, and not the most important. He’s the junior minister in the health portfolio. The Health Minister Greg Hunt, the prime minister, the government regulator of the industry (the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission), and advisers to government share responsibility. And it is important we don’t forget the private providers: did some of them not heed warnings?

Ultimate political responsibility belongs to the federal government.

Faced with questions about the Victorian aged care disaster, Morrison has tried to unload some of the blame onto the state government by saying the states have responsibility for public health.

That’s true and the Victorian government must be accountable, both for unleashing community transmission with the quarantine breach and for inadequacies in its health reaction. But the fact the federal government is responsible for the sector means Morrison, Colbeck and Hunt need to both admit the Commonwealth’s mistakes and also lay out a convincing roadmap for the future.

Some actions are being undertaken, and there is the complication that the report of the royal commission into aged care is still months away. But the issue is urgent.

The Morrison government is always reluctant to be seen to be pushed, and Friday’s national cabinet provided an interesting insight into this.

When the royal commission less than a fortnight ago suggested, based on evidence from Monash University geriatrician Joseph Ibrahim, that the government should set up an advisory unit including people with expertise in aged care, infection control and emergency responses, Morrison was publicity dismissive.

But the statement from Friday’s national cabinet said: “A time-limited AHPPC Aged Care Advisory Group will be established to support the national public health emergency response to COVID-19 in aged care. The Advisory Group will bring together expertise about the aged care sector, infection control, emergency preparedness and public health response.”

Take a bow, Professor Ibrahim and the royal commission.

– ref. View from The Hill: COVID response helped NT Labor, encouraging Palaszczuk and McGowan to stick to their scripts – https://theconversation.com/view-from-the-hill-covid-response-helped-nt-labor-encouraging-palaszczuk-and-mcgowan-to-stick-to-their-scripts-144920

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

Both those pressing for states to re-open their borders, and defenders of their resistance to doing so, will look for arguments to support their cases in Saturday’s Northern Territory election results.

Chief Minister Michael Gunner has taken a tough line on the NT border. With the NT COVID-free, people can’t go to the territory from COVID “hotspots” without quarantining at their own expense.

Labor’s loss of seats – while retaining government whether in majority or minority – is seen by the “open borders” urgers as carrying lessons about putting all (or most) eggs in a keep-safe basket.

It’s accepted that if he hadn’t had COVID to run on, Gunner would have been much worse off, given the NT’s pre-COVID economic problems.

But if he had taken a softer approach to the border, and there’d been a major COVID outbreak, he would have worn serious blame. With indigenous people – who, like the elderly, form a high risk group for COVID – forming about 30% of the NT community, a big outbreak could have been catastrophic.

And while the NT economy remains in poor shape, especially the tourist sector, the state is open internally (they were all hugging at those party functions on Saturday night).

Queensland premier Annastacia Palaszczuk and Western Australian Premier Mark McGowan are unlikely to see the NT result as sending a signal their border policies will be a political handicap.

That doesn’t mean Palaszczuk and McGowan can afford to rely on their performances on COVID alone when they go to the polls in October and early next year respectively. Their voters will expect more. But as things stand, restrictive border policies are popular and the NT hasn’t said otherwise.

Scott Morrison’s relative powerlessness on the border issue was illustrated at Friday’s national cabinet.

Progress is being made on specific problems, such as the needs of agriculture in border areas, and health matters.

But on the basic question of opening or closing, the premiers remained firm. Only NSW is Morrison’s ally in this battle.

While commentators see the war over borders as a sign of the federation’s dysfunction, voters in particular states read it differently.

Morrison announced at his Friday news conference national cabinet had asked the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee (AHPPC), including state and federal health advisers, to define a “hotspot” and consider movement restrictions relating to these spots.

He hopes such a definition would put pressure on premiers and chief ministers to limit border closures.

It is apparently trodden and tricky territory. Acting Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly told the news conference: “It is a piece of work we have had an attempt at before. And we’ll continue to try to get consensus there in AHPPC about a definition of a hotspot.”

It remains to be seen whether this committee can agree. And if it does, whether that would make any difference to what leaders do.

But when parliament resumes on Monday, it won’t be borders that will be the front of mind issue – it will be aged care.

With a majority of COVID deaths being people who lived in aged care facilities, and an absolute shocker of a performance from Aged Care Minister Richard Colbeck on Friday, the opposition has a lot of ammunition.

Colbeck, appearing before the Senate COVID committee, was asked two simple questions. How many deaths had there been of residents of facilities, and how many COVID cases were there among residents at present. He could neither remember, nor find the numbers immediately. This was appalling preparation.

Forced to defend Colbeck, Morrison said, “on occasion, I can’t call every figure to mind”.

But the PM knew such a lapse has an impact beyond its strictly objective importance.

An example from long ago makes the point. Late in the Hawke government, then treasurer John Kerin at a news conference was unable to explain an economic term. It was hardly a hanging offence. But it damaged Kerin, and the government.

With the Colbeck clip shown over and over, it quickly becomes a symbol of both the minister’s failure, and the failure of the government to do enough to protect aged care residents.

The odds are short that Morrison will move Colbeck from aged care when he reshuffles his ministry following the departure of Mathias Cormann late this year.

But Colbeck is only one player in the aged care crisis, and not the most important. He’s the junior minister in the health portfolio. The Health Minister Greg Hunt, the prime minister, the government regulator of the industry (the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission), and advisers to government share responsibility. And it is important we don’t forget the private providers: did some of them not heed warnings?

Ultimate political responsibility belongs to the federal government.

Faced with questions about the Victorian aged care disaster, Morrison has tried to unload some of the blame onto the state government by saying the states have responsibility for public health.

That’s true and the Victorian government must be accountable, both for unleashing community transmission with the quarantine breach and for inadequacies in its health reaction. But the fact the federal government is responsible for the sector means Morrison, Colbeck and Hunt need to both admit the Commonwealth’s mistakes and also lay out a convincing roadmap for the future.

Some actions are being undertaken, and there is the complication that the report of the royal commission into aged care is still months away. But the issue is urgent.

The Morrison government is always reluctant to be seen to be pushed, and Friday’s national cabinet provided an interesting insight into this.

When the royal commission less than a fortnight ago suggested, based on evidence from Monash University geriatrician Joseph Ibrahim, that the government should set up an advisory unit including people with expertise in aged care, infection control and emergency responses, Morrison was publicity dismissive.

But the statement from Friday’s national cabinet said: “A time-limited AHPPC Aged Care Advisory Group will be established to support the national public health emergency response to COVID-19 in aged care. The Advisory Group will bring together expertise about the aged care sector, infection control, emergency preparedness and public health response.”

Take a bow, Professor Ibrahim and the royal commission.

– ref. View from The Hill: COVID response gave NT Labor an advantage, and Palaszczuk and McGowan will stick to similar scripts – https://theconversation.com/view-from-the-hill-covid-response-gave-nt-labor-an-advantage-and-palaszczuk-and-mcgowan-will-stick-to-similar-scripts-144920

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rolf Gerritsen, Professorial Research Fellow, Northern Institute, Charles Darwin University

In February this year, the resignation of a member of the Legislative Assembly prompted a byelection in Johnston, a seat located in the Darwin-Palmerston conurbation.

The Gunner ALP government ran Joel Bowden, an ex-Richmond AFL star. Surprisingly, Labor only got about 30% of the primary vote, a drop of about 12% on its primary vote in the 2016 general election. Labor eventually won the seat, by 52-48% of the two candidate-preferred.

There were two features of this byelection that portended a sea change in Territory politics. Firstly, the diminution of its primary vote indicated the Labor government was in electoral trouble. The second was the byelection had been shaped by a new party, the Territory Alliance. The alliance had come second, with 22% of the primary vote, and was only denied victory because the Country Liberal Party (CLP) had officially delivered its preferences to Labor.

The alliance was a new party, formed by Terry Mills, who as leader had surprisingly delivered government for the CLP at the 2012 election.

After seven months in office, Mills had been deposed by Adam Giles and Dave Tolner, of the CLP and subsequently left parliament. Mills returned to politics as an independent in the 2016 election. In September 2019, he formed a new party, the Territory Alliance. His former Deputy Chief Minister, Robyn Lambley, who also had left the CLP, joined him in the avowedly centrist party.

Read more: Was the NT election outcome a shockwave or a regional ripple?

In the Johnston byelection, perhaps driven by personal animosities, the CLP preferenced its historic enemies, the ALP, ahead of the alliance. Possibly as a consequence, the CLP vote collapsed to about 18% of the primary vote.

However, the CLP’s preferences gave Labor the Johnston victory. It appeared NT politics had become a three-horse race, with all contenders for office dependent on preferences. The major issue was the recession into which Darwin had slipped following the completion of the huge Inpex LNG plant. Less prominent was the issue of the NT public deficit.

Then came the COVID-19 pandemic.

Chief Minister Michael Gunner became part of the National Cabinet and implemented a strict border closures policy. He presented himself as the harried protector of Territorians’ lives, a stance Labor took into the election. The recession receded into the background of public consciousness.

In March, the CLP leader, Gary Higgins, resigned and indicated he would not recontest. Lia Finocchiaro, the only other CLP member of the Legislative Assembly, became leader by default. All this meant a three-horse contest for office and the certainty of either minority government or a coalition of some sort.

Labor admitted the budget deficit would exceed $8.2 billion by the end of this fiscal year, and did not make any serious campaign promises beyond Gunner-the-saviour and a steady-hand-on-the tiller tropes.

The CLP had a plan – to reduce red (and green) tape to stimulate business growth. Finocchiaro, despite early stumbles, morphed into a very formidable campaigner and the CLP had hopes of restoring their numbers to being a credible opposition, if not a surprise winner of the election.

Territory Alliance made a slew of unfunded promises and Mills presented as an alternative Chief Minister. However, its castle was built on sand. TA supporters comprised former CLP voters disaffected with the shenanigans of the 2012-16 period, as well as idealists of the “let’s-get-rid-of-parties-and-all-have-a-nice-chat-about-what-is-needed” type. As Finocchiaro improved, the alliance began to bleed votes back to the CLP.

On election day, Labor did about as well as I expected. It had won 12 seats and will probably end up with at least 13, and thus the majority required to take government in its own right.

Read more: Labor likely to win NT election; federal Labor trails by 59-41 in Queensland

Labor did best in greater Darwin, presumably because of its “no cuts” policy towards the Territory’s badly-structured and oversized public service. Public servants and their dependents probably constitute about 20% of the electorate in Darwin. Labor is now the public servants’ party.

The CLP regained almost all of its historic primary vote and will likely win six to eight seats as counting progresses over this week. Two independents were elected. One, Yingiya Guyula, who had won the seat of Mulka (Nhulunbuy) in 2016, unseating Labor’s then deputy leader in the process. Despite Labor’s best efforts (including a deal with leading Gumatj clan leaders) Guyula will probably be reelected.

Having clearly lost two of its three seats (including that of its leader, Mills), Territory Alliance is going to have at best only one seat in the next assembly. By this week’s end, when the votes are all counted and recounted, I expect Labor to have 13 (possibly 14) seats, the CLP seven or eight. TA will have one and two Independents will make up the rest of the House.

This election was memorable for the disappearance of a third-party challenge to the historic ALP-CLP duopoly. It was also notable for the historically low rate of Indigenous voting. This was down from above 70% historically to below 50% of potential voters in some places this time. The NT’s Aboriginal citizens, having tried the CLP in 2012 and returning to Labor in 2016, have increasingly decided it’s a waste of time voting for anybody in the NT’s “whitefella” politics.

In the aftermath of this year’s election, it becomes apparent the Territory’s fundamental problem – a ballooning, structurally-created financial deficit – has not gone away but will get worse both while the pandemic continues, and after.

Labor might find that by winning this election, it has seized an intractable problem.

– ref. Labor likely to hold office in the Territory, but may find itself inheriting a terrible mess – https://theconversation.com/labor-likely-to-hold-office-in-the-territory-but-may-find-itself-inheriting-a-terrible-mess-144670

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

With 61% of enrolled voters counted in Saturday’s Northern Territory election, the ABC has Labor winning 11 of the 25 seats, the Country Liberals (CLP) two, independents two and there are ten undecided seats. Labor needs two of the undecided seats for a majority.

Territory-wide vote shares were 39.3% Labor (down 2.9% since the 2016 election), 31.4% CLP (down 0.4%), 13.0% Territory Alliance (up 10.0%) and 4.3% Greens (up 1.5%).

The Territory Alliance had hopes of supplanting the CLP, but have disappointed. The only seat they currently lead is Araluen (by just 13 votes over the CLP), and their leader, Terry Mills, finished a distant third behind Labor and the CLP in his seat of Blain.

Several seats are in doubt because the electoral commission selected the wrong candidates for the two-candidate count, and has to realign this count. The Poll Bludger lists Arnhem (Labor vs independent), Blain (Labor vs CLP) and Fong Lim (Labor vs CLP) in this category. In Blain and Fong Lim, the Territory Alliance were expected to make the final two.

Some postal votes are outstanding. Postal votes usually assist conservative candidates, so Labor’s position is likely to worsen on late counting.

State and territory parties usually do better when the opposite party is in power federally. With the Coalition in power federally, the CLP had a difficult task against a first-term Labor government. As there is very little polling in the NT, we do not know whether the coronavirus crisis had an impact.

Federal Newspoll aggregate has Coalition leading by 59-41 in Queensland

Newspoll recently published aggregate data from federal surveys conducted from June 3 to August 8. Overall, the Coalition led by 51-49, but there were large state differences. In Queensland, the Coalition led by 59-41.

The Coalition also led by 54-46 in WA, but Labor led by 51-49 in NSW and 56-44 in Victoria. It was tied 50-50 in SA.

The Coalition led by 53-47 among voters without any tertiary education. Labor led by 52-48 among university-educated voters.

The federal Queensland Newspoll result is in line with the Queensland result at the 2019 federal election (58.4-41.6 to Coalition). The popularity of the federal Coalition in Queensland probably explains why state Labor is narrowly trailing (51-49 in the latest Queensland state Newspoll) despite the boost to Labor Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk’s ratings from the coronavirus crisis.

Mixed results at Tasmanian upper house elections

Elections to the Tasmanian upper house are normally held every May, with two or three of the 15 seats up for election on a rotating six-year cycle. Owing to coronavirus, this year’s elections for Huon and Rosevears were delayed until August 1. There was no two-candidate count until the August 11 distribution of preferences.

In Huon, Labor defeated the conservative incumbent independent by a 57.3% to 42.7% margin. In Rosevears, the left-wing independent incumbent retired, and the Liberals defeated an independent by a narrow 50.6% to 49.4%.

According to Tasmanian analyst Kevin Bonham, the upper house used to be dominated by conservative independents, but now endorsed party candidates have a majority in the upper house for the first time, with eight of the 15 seats (five Labor, three Liberals).

The results are a continuation of the north vs south divide in Tasmania. Rosevears is in the north, while Huon in the south. At the 2019 federal election, Labor lost the northern Tasmanian seats of Bass and Braddon to the Liberals.

US election update

In the past two weeks, Joe Biden selected Kamala Harris as his vice presidential candidate and the Democratic national convention was held. The Republican convention will be held next week.

Biden currently leads Donald Trump by 51.1% to 42.4% in the FiveThirtyEight aggregate of national polls. In the key states, Biden leads by 7.8% in Michigan, 6.9% in Wisconsin, 6.1% in Pennsylvania, 6.0% in Florida and 4.4% in Arizona.

In the past two weeks, the gap between the national vote and the “tipping-point state” in the Electoral College has increased from about 1.5% to 2.7%. That is, Trump is doing almost 3% better against Biden in Pennsylvania than nationally. If Trump reduces the national margin to less than five points, he could win the Electoral College again.

The discrepancy between the national vote and the Electoral College is one reason the FiveThirtyEight forecast model gives Biden only a 73% chance of winning. Trump could also benefit from a strong economic recovery from coronavirus.

– ref. Labor likely to win NT election; federal Labor trails by 59-41 in Queensland – https://theconversation.com/labor-likely-to-win-nt-election-federal-labor-trails-by-59-41-in-queensland-144571

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

University of Canberra Professorial Fellow Michelle Grattan and University of Canberra Assistant Professor Caroline Fisher discuss the week in politics.

This week the pair discuss a letter of intent signed by the Australian government to ensure distribution of a possible COVID-19 vaccine, next week’s abnormal parliamentary sitting, and an investigation which is underway by the Chinese government into Australia’s wine industry.

– ref. VIDEO: Michelle Grattan on a possible vaccine, Australia’s wine industry, and next week’s parliamentary sitting – https://theconversation.com/video-michelle-grattan-on-a-possible-vaccine-australias-wine-industry-and-next-weeks-parliamentary-sitting-144881

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By William Partlett, Associate Professor, University of Melbourne

The headlines are grim. Alexei Navalny, a key leader of the Russian opposition, is currently fighting for his life in a coma after allegedly being poisoned in Siberia.

A medical team from Germany is en route to the hospital today to transport Navalny to Berlin for treatment.

Navalny, who has been the victim of numerous attacks over the years, was reportedly asked by a group of supporters in the city of Tomsk a day before he became ill why he wasn’t dead yet. According to one supporter,

He replied that it wouldn’t be beneficial for Putin. That it would lead to him being turned into a hero.

Who is Alexei Navalny?

Navalny is a key leader of the Russian opposition. Just 44 years old, he is a Moscovite lawyer who originally made his name as an anti-corruption blogger.

He then transformed his social media activism into a crowd-funded, anti-corruption organisation — the Anti-Corruption Foundation — that frequently releases slickly produced YouTube videos and reports detailing the high-level corruption in the Russian government.

He openly opposes President Vladimir Putin, famously calling the ruling United Russia party the “party of crooks and thieves”. He also ran for mayor of Moscow in 2013, and attempted to challenge Putin for the presidency in 2018, but was ruled ineligible due to a corruption conviction that was widely seen as politically motivated.

To support his political movement, Navalny has built a large network of offices around Russia and currently leads the (still unregistered) political party “Russia of the Future.”

He is not without controversy. His political views have been criticised by some in Moscow’s famously fractious opposition community, particularly his support of the annexation of Crimea and his ties to Russian nationalists.

But there is little question his views and activism have earned him the attention of the authorities. He has been jailed on administrative charges numerous times and his brother was sent to prison for three years. He also has endured frequent police searches and had green dye thrown on his face, damaging his vision.

In recent months, there has been an escalation in the authorities’ attacks against him. In July, he was forced to announce he would shut down his Anti-Corruption Foundation due to hefty fines.

Amid all this activism, however, Navalny’s social media accounts are remarkably light-hearted and normal, often featuring pictures of him spending time with his family or jogging in his local Moscow park.

There is little question, therefore, that he is a key representative of a new generation of Russians who are not afraid to criticise the state and, after almost a century of nightmarish upheavals, want to finally live in a “normal country.”

A key part of this normality is reorienting Russia away from its backward-looking, post-imperial, Cold War posturing to become a forward-looking country focused on building better schools, infrastructure and health care.

Read more: Putin for life? Many Russians may desire leadership change, but don’t see a viable alternative

Putin facing numerous challenges

The alleged Navalny poisoning takes place at a sensitive time for Putin and the Kremlin. Since the 2018 election, Putin’s popularity has been on the decline, hitting an all-time low of 59% in May, according to an independent polling agency.

The coronavirus pandemic has accelerated this drop as the virus has exposed the poor health care infrastructure across the country. This “Putin fatigue” has been most recently on show in the Russian Far East, where the Kremlin’s decision to jail the elected governor triggered massive protests just last month.

The Kremlin has responded to this flagging popularity with a large, stage-managed constitutional amendment process that seeks to renew support for Putin and the regime.

There has also been a growing crackdown against critics of the government, including a purge of leading constitutional law professors at one of Moscow’s most prestigious universities.

To add to this, a massive protest movement has broken out in neighbouring Belarus — one of Russia’s most stalwart allies — over claims President Alexander Lukashenko rigged the recent election. More than 200,000 people marched last week demanding Lukashenko’s resignation.

This protest movement has galvanised many young Russians, who want similar changes in Russia. It has also likely sparked fear within the Kremlin, where the country’s leaders view mass protest as an existential threat to their control of the Russian political system.

Who could have poisoned Navalny?

Given this context, it is not clear who is responsible for the alleged poisoning of Navalny.

If it does turn out to be a poisoning, it certainly fits a larger pattern of suspicious “illnesses” suffered by individuals seen to be a threat to the Russian state.

The best-known examples include the likely use of Novichok nerve agent by Russian security services to poison Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury, UK, in 2018.

Read more: Belarus, explained: How Europe’s last dictator could fall

And there are less well-known examples of suspected domestic poisonings. That same year, a key member of the opposition art group Pussy Riot — Pyotr Verzilov — was also apparently poisoned.

Although making Navalny a martyr certainly does not seem to help the Kremlin at this point, it is also possible the attack involved rogue elements of the Russian security state who were threatened by Navalny’s anti-corruption exposes. As one commentator in the UK put it:

What is more frightening, a state that kills, or a state that can’t control the killers?

If it does turn out to be a poisoning, we are unlikely to ever get definitive answers of who ordered the attack. But it does send a chilling message to those who criticise the current regime. And it is a sad reminder to the next generation of Russians that they do not (yet) live in a “normal country.”

– ref. Alexei Navalny has long been a fierce critic of the Kremlin. If he was poisoned, why now? And what does it mean? – https://theconversation.com/alexei-navalny-has-long-been-a-fierce-critic-of-the-kremlin-if-he-was-poisoned-why-now-and-what-does-it-mean-144847

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

This week, Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced the Australian government has signed an agreement to produce a COVID-19 vaccine under development at the University of Oxford, if safety and efficacy trials are successful.

After initially saying the vaccine would be “as mandatory as you can possibly make it” he walked these comments back and said it won’t be compulsory.

The announcement generated substantial media interest, and optimism among some people.

But positioning this vaccine as mandatory before it’s even available — let alone proven to be safe and effective — may seriously affect public trust and future vaccine acceptance.

Some people might refuse a COVID-19 vaccine

In April, an Australian study found 14% of adults would reject or were unsure about having a COVID-19 vaccine.

We may need up to 80% vaccine coverage to ensure herd immunity, and some people will likely be ineligible for the vaccine for medical reasons. So this target will be hard to achieve with high levels of refusal.

Read more: The Oxford deal is welcome, but remember the vaccine hasn’t been proven to work yet

But these are unprecedented times, and we should expect people to have questions and concerns about these rapidly developed new vaccines. That doesn’t necessarily make them “anti-vaxxers” or science deniers.

Instead of focusing on rates of potential vaccine rejection, public messaging should highlight the much greater levels of public support for vaccines and normalise the expectation people will have concerns.

How can we boost vaccine acceptance?

We need to earn, build and maintain public trust if a COVID-19 vaccine is to be successful.

Beginning now, Australia needs to establish a transparent and coordinated communication effort setting accurate expectations about when the vaccine will be available, priority groups, risks, benefits and supply.

There are five key ways we can do this.

1. Use trusted spokespeople

People who are perceived as competent, objective and fair — like experts in science — should communicate messages around vaccines.

We also trust people who we feel represent us, so it’s critical the government engages with diverse communities to identify appropriate spokespeople like multicultural and religious leaders.

Research also suggests we see communicators who demonstrate genuine empathy as more credible and trustworthy. New Zealand’s largely successful COVID-19 response has been attributed in part to Jacinda Ardern’s empathic and open communication approach.

2. Tailor information

Everyone needs to be able to access and understand messages about COVID-19 vaccination.

This means the language and communication formats used should be tailored for culturally and linguistically diverse groups, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, people with disabilities or communication difficulties, and any other groups with specific communication needs.

3. Identify, acknowledge, and respond to concerns

We know dismissive or judgemental language is ineffective when communicating with people who are hesitant about vaccination. Public communication about COVID-19 vaccines should be similarly respectful, and should acknowledge the validity of people’s concerns.

The most common vaccine concerns are generally around safety and effectiveness. The speed of vaccine development has been widely emphasised — the US even named its vaccination program Operation Warp Speed.

But this focus on speed can imply testing has been rushed and lead people to perceive the vaccine may be unsafe. Messaging should instead explain the rigour of the safety testing and describe how safety will be monitored once the vaccine is rolled out.

Read more: Can the government, or my employer, force me to get a COVID-19 vaccine under the law?

Public health messaging should also accurately describe potential side effects. A COVID-19 vaccine may be likely to cause side effects such as redness or swelling at the injection site, and some flu-like symptoms.

That doesn’t mean the vaccine is unsafe. However, if we don’t prepare people for these side effects, they may feel misled.

4. If you can’t be consistent, be transparent

Experts and spokespeople must transparently communicate what we know about the effectiveness of the vaccine. It’s possible we’ll need more than one dose, and we might need it each year like the flu shot.

Even when the vaccine becomes available, we’ll still most likely need to maintain social distancing, hygiene, and testing and tracing.

Consistency of messaging is hard to maintain in a rapidly evolving pandemic, as we’ve seen from changing evidence around restrictions and masks. To maintain trust in a vaccine, officials should be transparent and explain the evidence informing decisions, and acknowledge this will change as more evidence becomes available.

5. Seek feedback and monitor trust

Lastly, to inform communication strategies, we need to seek feedback from the public. Vaccine sentiment will likely change over time, so we should regularly monitor public trust and vaccine acceptance using validated surveys.

It’s too soon to consider making it mandatory

The first priority should be communicating the safety and efficacy of any COVID-19 vaccine. The target groups for the vaccine should be clearly defined, and the vaccine should be freely and easily accessible.

We should only consider mandates and targeted penalties for noncompliance if these conditions have been met, COVID-19 transmission rates remain unacceptably high and voluntary uptake is inadequate.

Extreme care should be taken with fines, welfare limitations or legal penalties, as these often reinforce social and health inequalities.

Transparent communication and community engagement to build trust and achieve vaccine acceptance, coupled with a safe and effective vaccine, will be our best chance to re-establish the way of life we knew before COVID-19.

Read more: Everyone can be an effective advocate for vaccination: here’s how

– ref. 5 ways we can prepare the public to accept a COVID-19 vaccine (saying it will be ‘mandatory’ isn’t one) – https://theconversation.com/5-ways-we-can-prepare-the-public-to-accept-a-covid-19-vaccine-saying-it-will-be-mandatory-isnt-one-144730

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By William Parlett, Associate Professor, University of Melbourne

The headlines are grim. Alexei Navalny, a key leader of the Russian opposition, is currently fighting for his life in a coma after allegedly being poisoned in Siberia.

A medical team from Germany is en route to the hospital today to transport Navalny to Berlin for treatment.

Navalny, who has been the victim of numerous attacks over the years, was reportedly asked by a group of supporters in the city of Tomsk a day before he became ill why he wasn’t dead yet. According to one supporter,

He replied that it wouldn’t be beneficial for Putin. That it would lead to him being turned into a hero.

Who is Alexei Navalny?

Navalny is a key leader of the Russian opposition. Just 44 years old, he is a Moscovite lawyer who originally made his name as an anti-corruption blogger.

He then transformed his social media activism into a crowd-funded, anti-corruption organisation — the Anti-Corruption Foundation — that frequently releases slickly produced YouTube videos and reports detailing the high-level corruption in the Russian government.

He openly opposes President Vladimir Putin, famously calling the ruling United Russia party the “party of crooks and thieves”. He also ran for mayor of Moscow in 2013, and attempted to challenge Putin for the presidency in 2018, but was ruled ineligible due to a corruption conviction that was widely seen as politically motivated.

To support his political movement, Navalny has built a large network of offices around Russia and currently leads the (still unregistered) political party “Russia of the Future.”

He is not without controversy. His political views have been criticised by some in Moscow’s famously fractious opposition community, particularly his support of the annexation of Crimea and his ties to Russian nationalists.

But there is little question his views and activism have earned him the attention of the authorities. He has been jailed on administrative charges numerous times and his brother was sent to prison for three years. He also has endured frequent police searches and had green dye thrown on his face, damaging his vision.

In recent months, there has been an escalation in the authorities’ attacks against him. In July, he was forced to announce he would shut down his Anti-Corruption Foundation due to hefty fines.

Amid all this activism, however, Navalny’s social media accounts are remarkably light-hearted and normal, often featuring pictures of him spending time with his family or jogging in his local Moscow park.

There is little question, therefore, that he is a key representative of a new generation of Russians who are not afraid to criticise the state and, after almost a century of nightmarish upheavals, want to finally live in a “normal country.”

A key part of this normality is reorienting Russia away from its backward-looking, post-imperial, Cold War posturing to become a forward-looking country focused on building better schools, infrastructure and health care.

Read more: Putin for life? Many Russians may desire leadership change, but don’t see a viable alternative

Putin facing numerous challenges

The alleged Navalny poisoning takes place at a sensitive time for Putin and the Kremlin. Since the 2018 election, Putin’s popularity has been on the decline, hitting an all-time low of 59% in May, according to an independent polling agency.

The coronavirus pandemic has accelerated this drop as the virus has exposed the poor health care infrastructure across the country. This “Putin fatigue” has been most recently on show in the Russian Far East, where the Kremlin’s decision to jail the elected governor triggered massive protests just last month.

The Kremlin has responded to this flagging popularity with a large, stage-managed constitutional amendment process that seeks to renew support for Putin and the regime.

There has also been a growing crackdown against critics of the government, including a purge of leading constitutional law professors at one of Moscow’s most prestigious universities.

To add to this, a massive protest movement has broken out in neighbouring Belarus — one of Russia’s most stalwart allies — over claims President Alexander Lukashenko rigged the recent election. More than 200,000 people marched last week demanding Lukashenko’s resignation.

This protest movement has galvanised many young Russians, who want similar changes in Russia. It has also likely sparked fear within the Kremlin, where the country’s leaders view mass protest as an existential threat to their control of the Russian political system.

Who could have poisoned Navalny?

Given this context, it is not clear who is responsible for the alleged poisoning of Navalny.

If it does turn out to be a poisoning, it certainly fits a larger pattern of suspicious “illnesses” suffered by individuals seen to be a threat to the Russian state.

The best-known examples include the likely use of Novichok nerve agent by Russian security services to poison Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury, UK, in 2018.

Read more: Belarus, explained: How Europe’s last dictator could fall

And there are less well-known examples of suspected domestic poisonings. That same year, a key member of the opposition art group Pussy Riot — Pyotr Verzilov — was also apparently poisoned.

Although making Navalny a martyr certainly does not seem to help the Kremlin at this point, it is also possible the attack involved rogue elements of the Russian security state who were threatened by Navalny’s anti-corruption exposes. As one commentator in the UK put it:

What is more frightening, a state that kills, or a state that can’t control the killers?

If it does turn out to be a poisoning, we are unlikely to ever get definitive answers of who ordered the attack. But it does send a chilling message to those who criticise the current regime. And it is a sad reminder to the next generation of Russians that they do not (yet) live in a “normal country.”

– ref. Alexey Navalny has long been a fierce critic of the Kremlin. If he was poisoned, why now? And what does it mean? – https://theconversation.com/alexey-navalny-has-long-been-a-fierce-critic-of-the-kremlin-if-he-was-poisoned-why-now-and-what-does-it-mean-144847

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Shauna Murray, Associate Professor; Faculty of Science, University of Technology Sydney

Oysters are filter feeders, extracting nutrients from the water, so that makes them very susceptible to water pollution such as that from bushfires.

We are trying to understand how ash from the 2019-20 bushfires has affected the waterways and oyster farms of New South Wales. Their production is worth more than A$59 million a year.

On the state’s south coast we’re working with oyster farmers as citizen scientists to determine how the ash can lead to harmful algal blooms and oyster deaths.

Over the past two years, farmers have taken more than 9,000 water and oyster samples across 13 estuaries. It’s the largest ever set of water quality and oyster health measurements from oyster-producing estuaries.

This spans the period before, during and after the recent bushfires, providing a unique opportunity to track their impact.

We are still analysing results, but it’s already clear the combination of bushfire ash followed by rainfall led to large increases in microalgae (phytoplankton) in estuaries, including species that can cause harmful algal blooms.

From coast to coast

More than half of the value of Australia’s oyster industry comes from NSW. Along the state’s 2,000km coastline, oyster leases are found in 32 estuaries, north to the Tweed River near the Queensland border and south to Wonboyn Lake near the Victorian border.

Read more: Summer bushfires: how are the plant and animal survivors 6 months on? We mapped their recovery

Leases are occupied within estuarine ecosystems, with each of these estuaries having a unique climate, catchment condition, area and entrance type.

Some of the NSW farmers are both oyster farmers and Rural Fire Service members, who faced the unenviable task of trying to save both their livelihoods and their homes at the same time during the 2019-20 fire season.

Oysters provide ecosystem services to waterways in which they grow. They shelter invertebrates such as worms, crabs and snails, and they provide natural breakwalls for shoreline protection.

Via their filter feeding of microalgae, individual oysters can filter several litres of seawater per hour, and their presence improves water quality.

Oysters are used as early-warning biomonitors of waterway health in environmental monitoring programs around the world.

Our new approach to examine the effect of water quality on oyster health is to look at environmental DNA (eDNA). This means we filter water and extract DNA directly from the filtrate. We then use molecular genetic tools to detect and quantify harmful microalgae and bacteria.

The ripple effect: from bushfire to waterway

The recent bushfires were a timely reminder that what happens on land can impact waterways and that coastal regional areas are susceptible.

The NSW government says the 2019-20 bushfires covered 5.4 million hectares, roughly 7% of the state. Nationally, more than 17 million hectares were affected.

Many oyster-growing estuaries were impacted by bushfires in their catchments, especially on the NSW south coast.

While rain this summer gave a reprieve from the fires, it can wash ash into the estuaries, bringing with it excessive nutrients (nitrogen and phosphorus) or trace elements (iron, manganese, arsenic, chromium, aluminium, barium and lead).

These supplements can act as fertilisers, triggering the excessive growth of marine microalgae.

Harmful algal blooms

The growth of some microalgae is essential, but an excess of certain microalgal species (some of which can naturally produce toxins) can result in harmful algal blooms.

A harmful algal bloom in an estuary will trigger the closure of oyster harvesting until oysters are clean. One of the largest and most significant harmful algal blooms impacted the Tasmanian shellfish industry in 2012-13. It resulted in an economic loss of around A$23 million.

Bushfire ash may have a more direct impact, by covering the surface of the water so light, which microalgae need to grow, can’t penetrate. This can cause microalgae to die or grow very slowly.

A mass death of microalgae could then change the amount of oxygen available in the water for the growth of oysters and other marine life. Excessive particulate matter in the waterway can also clog the gills of oysters, affecting their ability to filter feed.

A sustainable food

In Australia, seafood is very safe to eat. Strict monitoring and testing by government regulators have ensured illnesses are extremely rare.

Government regulators are active participants in developing new, more streamlined approaches to food safety monitoring. This combination of scientists, government regulators and oyster farmer citizen scientists working together is a model for a healthy and viable future for oyster aquaculture in the face of challenging events.

After all, oysters are regarded as one of the most sustainable forms of animal protein so they need our protection.

Read more: The surprising benefits of oysters (and no, it’s not what you’re thinking)

A recent study showed that replacing 10% of animal protein with oysters in the diet of the US population would lead to greenhouse gas savings equivalent to taking 11 million cars off the road.

Australia also has a rich heritage of oyster aquaculture. For thousands of year, oysters were a staple food of First Nations people.

The Sydney Rock Oyster is one of the native species that’s been cultivated as a profitable industry in Australia since European habitation.

They’ve been farmed sustainably for more than 150 years. These oysters are still the basis of a profitable industry, which has grown in size over recent years.

We hope the results of our research will ensure the long-term viability of an industry worth millions of dollars to the Australian economy but, just as importantly, helps support many coastal communities.

– ref. Ah shucks, how bushfires can harm and even kill our delicious oysters – https://theconversation.com/ah-shucks-how-bushfires-can-harm-and-even-kill-our-delicious-oysters-131294

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Cooper Schouten, Project Manager – Bees for Sustainable Livelihoods, Southern Cross University

How do bees make honey? Finn, age 7, Sunshine Coast, Queensland

Hi Finn, that’s a sweet question!

Well, when we talk about “bees”, we’re usually referring to the European honey bee (its scientific name is Apis Mellifera). Humans have been drooling over its honey and taking advantage of its pollination powers for thousands of years.

So how do these insects make honey, you ask? You’ll find the task is one requiring teamwork and organisation.

Busy buzzing bees

You probably already know about the most important ingredient needed to make honey: flowers.

A colony of bees can visit up to 50 million flowers each day, with as many as 60,000 bees in each colony. They’re not called busy bees for nothing!

Honey bees work together as a team to make decisions about where the best flowers are. They communicate with each other using bumps, noises and even dance moves known as the waggle dance.

All bees during their life have different roles, depending on how old they are. To make honey, worker honey bees fly up to 5km searching for flowers and their sweet nectar. Usually, they’ll visit between 50 and 100 flowers per trip.

Read more: One, then some: how to count like a bee

Nectar is the main ingredient for honey and also the main source of energy for bees. Using a long straw-like tongue called a proboscis, honey bees suck up nectar droplets from the flower’s special nectar-making organ, called the nectary.

When the nectar reaches the bee’s honey stomach, the stomach begins to break down the complex sugars of the nectar into more simple sugars that are less prone to crystallization, or becoming solid. This process is called “inversion”.

Once a worker honey bee returns to the colony, it passes the nectar onto another younger bee called a house bee (between 12-17 days old).

House bees take the nectar inside the colony and pack it away in hexagon-shaped beeswax honey cells. They then turn the nectar into honey by drying it out using a warm breeze made with their wings.

Once the honey has dried out, they put a lid over the honey cell using fresh beeswax – kind of like a little honey jar. In the winter, when the flowers have finished blooming and there’s not as much nectar available, the bees can open this lid and share the honey they saved.

Honey: a food fit for all workers, human and bee

Because nectar comes from flowers, there are hundreds of different types of honey with different colours, smells and flavours. Some honey can even be used as medicine.

Also, bees don’t just collect nectar to make honey. When they visit flowers, they also collect pollen – which is a great source of protein to keep them healthy and strong.

Pollen is a kind of powder which flowering plants, trees and grasses make (and must spread) to help more of the same plants grow around them. Pollen can spread in ways such as being blown around by the air, or being carried between two of the same plant by an insect.

So by transferring pollen between flowers, bees also help pollinate flowers. These often turn into the seeds of the fruit and nuts we eat. In fact, about one-third of the food we eat is pollinated by bees.

Pollinators around the globe

Did you know the yellow fuzzy honey bee is just one of over 20,000 bee species in the world? There are more than 1,700 in Australia alone, some of which can make honey.

Some native stingless bees only found in Australia, such as Tetragonula carbonaria and Austroplebeia australis, produce honey too.

There are also ten other honey bee species overseas, such as the giant honey bee (Apis dorsata) in Nepal and Indonesia, which live at the top of high cliffs and large trees.

There’s also the Eastern honey bee (Apis cerana) which is managed by beekeepers in rural and remote areas throughout Southeast Asia.

There’s never been a better time to put in native flowering plants and stop to smell the flowers. It’s important to remember, just like your puppy or kitten, bees need to be looked after too.

– ref. Curious Kids: how do bees make honey? – https://theconversation.com/curious-kids-how-do-bees-make-honey-143450

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Freeman, Dermatologist, Associate Professor, Bond University

As the pandemic progresses, we’re growing increasingly aware COVID-19 affects multiple parts of the body beyond the lungs. That includes the skin.

We’ve seen reports of skin symptoms ranging from “COVID toes” to hair loss, and different types of rashes.

Some skin symptoms appear soon after infection, while others arise later or in more severe disease. Most get better with time.

Researchers are also beginning to work out what causes these skin conditions, whether it’s the body’s immune response to infection, or whether hormones are involved.

Here are some of these symptoms, from the most common to the least:

1. widespread small red bumps and multiple flat red patches. These so-called maculopapular eruptions are associated with more severe disease

2. redness of the whites of the eyes. This conjunctivitis is most common later in the disease and in more severe disease

3. chilblain-like symptoms, commonly called ‘COVID toes’. These can affect hands or feet, or both at the same time. The red-purple discoloured skin can be painful and itchy, and there are sometimes small blisters or pustules. These chilblain-like lesions often appear late in the disease, after other symptoms, and are most common in children

4. hives or urticaria are pink or red itchy rashes that may appear as blotches or raised red lumps (wheals). They range from the size of a pinhead to a dinner plate. Swellings usually disappear within minutes to hours in one spot, but may come and go. Mostly hives clear within ten days. They occur at the same time as other symptoms, in all ages, and are associated with more severe disease

5. water blisters, or vesicular eruptions, are small fluid-filled micro-blisters that may appear early in the disease or at any time, often on the hands. Middle‐aged patients suffer more commonly. The blisters last just over ten days, and are associated with medium-severity disease

6. ‘fishing net-like’ red-blue pattern on the skin, or livedo, sometimes with tiny bruises (purpura), is associated with more severe disease and older age groups. This pattern is thought to be due to blockages of the blood vessels that arise as part of the body’s immune response to the virus

7. rash associated with multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children or MIS-C. This “immune system overdrive” triggers an inflammation of the heart and blood vessels, resulting in blood clots and symptoms of shock. This very rare complication can occur up to three months after a child has had COVID-19

8. hair loss (telogen effluvium) occurs in many severe illnesses, including COVID-19. This is the body shutting down unnecessary activity in times of stress. Provided people’s iron levels are normal, the hair will recover in time

COVID-19 serious enough to take people to hospital also seems to be more common in people with male-pattern baldness. One study found up to 79% of hospital admissions for COVID-19 were balding men.

An increased level of the hormone dihydrotestosterone is thought to increase the numbers of ACE2 receptors, which is how the virus enters the body. In other words, male-pattern baldness may predispose people to more severe disease.

Read more: Here’s what we know so far about the long-term symptoms of COVID-19

What could be causing these symptoms?

Some of the COVID-19 rashes are not caused by the virus itself, but by the body’s immune response to the virus.

For instance, research suggests some may be caused by over-activation of a part of the immune system known as the “complement” response. This leads to the blood vessel damage seen in the chilblain-type symptoms (point 3 above) and in livedo (point 6).

Complement activity is also increased in elderly people and may well explain many of the more serious COVID-19 outcomes we see in this age group.

How do I know if my skin rash is COVID-19?

If you’re concerned about any skin symptoms, check them against the photos in this article. Then you can consult your GP or dermatologist via a telehealth appointment for further advice.

You might be infectious. Get tested and self-isolate until you receive your test results. If you feel unwell, your GP or COVID clinic will be able to coordinate your care.

Read more: My skin’s dry with all this hand washing. What can I do?

– ref. 8 ways the coronavirus can affect your skin, from COVID toes, to rashes and hair loss – https://theconversation.com/8-ways-the-coronavirus-can-affect-your-skin-from-covid-toes-to-rashes-and-hair-loss-144483