Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Yaqoot Fatima, Associate Professor, UQ Poche Centre for Indigenous Health, The University of Queensland

Adolescence is a sensitive life stage when emerging independence, changing social roles, excessive screen time, academic pressures, and significant biological changes can lead to emotional and behavioural problems.

The current generation of teens is chronically sleep-deprived and, unfortunately, considered the most sleep-deprived group in human history.

In teenagers, irregular bedtimes, short sleep duration and poor sleep quality are commonly reported sleep issues. These problems can cause emotional regulation issues, risky behaviour and academic disengagement. In the longer term, poor sleep can lead to obesity, health conditions (including diabetes), mental health problems, and risk taking behaviour.

The issue of poor sleep and its impact on life outcomes needs particular attention for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander teenagers who experience disproportionately high rates of poor outcomes in health, social and emotional well-being and education.

Sleep vulnerability

The ongoing effects of colonisation, intergenerational trauma, and other social determinants of health increase the vulnerability of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander teenagers to poor sleep. While some poor sleep issues are transient, continued exposure to racism, discrimination, household overcrowding and lack of safe sleeping spaces lead to chronic sleep issues.

Sleep health data for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples is limited. Still, some studies suggest one in three young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people struggle with poor sleep, significantly higher than their non-Indigenous counterparts.

The impact of poor sleep on the life outcomes of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people is a major concern for community members, service providers and policymakers.

Despite this, services focused on sleep health promotion in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities are non-existent. This could be because although the need for healthy sleep is universal, the meaning of sleep health is shaped by cultural and societal factors. These include the acceptability of co-sleeping, living in multi-family housing or the role of dreaming.

Mainstream programs that don’t draw together the principles of health and cultural knowledge offer limited effectiveness for sleep health promotion in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. But a new program could change that.

A co-designed approach

In response to community needs, Australia’s first sleep health program for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander teenagers – Let’s Yarn About Sleep – was co-designed in Mount Isa, Queensland.

Community members were vocal about wanting to harness the potential of sleep as part of efforts to improve health outcomes, reduce teenage contact with the criminal justice system and improve academic engagement. Community yarns also identified the need to strengthen local sleep health service delivery and train Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as “sleep coaches”.

The co-design and evaluation of the program involved consultations with more than 200 community members, integrating Traditional and Western knowledge on sleep health and offering ideas for improving sleep.

The ten-week program includes data collection before and after delivery, including questionnaires, sleep diaries and actigraphy (a non-invasive method of monitoring human rest and activity cycles).

Read more:
Drinking fountains in every town won’t fix all our water issues – but it’s a healthy start

What the program involves

The program empowers young people to identify their sleep health goals and work with coaches to achieve them. At the beginning of the program, participants identify a group and an individual goal they would like to attain.

The group goal focuses on making sleep health a priority. For example, group members agreeing not to use their phones after 10pm. Individual goals are focused on reponses to personal circumstances. So, individual goals included de-cluttering or going to bed at least 30 minutes earlier.

While the program’s key focus is to improve participants’ knowledge, understanding and awareness of sleep health, one of the key objectives is to support participants in developing sustainable sleep hygiene practices (healthy habits for a good night’s sleep). During the program, participants learn about sleep hygiene practices such as following a consistent bedtime, reducing screen time and practising Indigenous relaxation training before bedtime.

The program has also led to the training of two Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as Australia’s first Indigenous sleep coaches. Clinical staff at the local Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation and hospital have since expressed interest in gaining these skills.

Read more:
To reduce harm from alcohol, we need Indigenous-led responses

What happened as a result of improved sleep

So far, 35 teenagers in the community have been enrolled in the program and 13 have graduated. The program has also been integrated into the Emerging Leaders program at the local high school.

The program data shows the majority of the program participants were staying up until very late at the night. However, participants achieved their self-identified goals and believe this program gave them tools to improve their sleep. The program has received support from community Elders, parents and carers, service providers and young people.

The project team and community members are working to co-design a sleep health program for adults and extend the youth sleep program to other communities.

Roslyn Von Senden, a Kalkadoon woman from Mount Isa, who is training to become a sleep coach, reflected on the cultural importance of the program.

Dreams are an important part of our life, a medium to connect with our ancestors to be guided, foresee things, connect with others, and get inspiration and ideas to express our artistic talent. Sleep loss deprives us of opportunities to connect with our culture, ancestors, and who we are as traditional custodians of the world’s oldest surviving culture.

While the initial program was funded through the Medical Research Future Fund and focused on Mount Isa, additional funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council and industry partner Beyond Blue supports the program in other remote communities.

The resulting community-led sleep health movement aims to leverage the untapped potential of sleep health in improving academic and sporting performance, reducing crime, improving health outcomes and empowering Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people.

Yaqoot Fatima is supported by funding from the NHMRC Partnership Grant, MRFF Indigenous Health Research Grant, MRFF-EMCR grant, and Beyond Blue for sleep health research.

Azhar Potia’s research is supported partially by the Australian Research Council’s Centre of Excellence for Children and Families over the Life Course (Project ID CE200100025).

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

– ref. The first sleep health program for First Nations adolescents could change lives – https://theconversation.com/the-first-sleep-health-program-for-first-nations-adolescents-could-change-lives-206286

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

If every Australian household that uses gas went all-electric today, we would “save” more than 30 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions over the next ten years. That’s because there are more than 5 million households on the gas network, and the avoided emissions per home ranges from 5-25 tonnes over the coming decade, depending on the location.

Most people would spend less money on energy too. Electric appliances use less energy than gas appliances to do the same job, making them cheaper to run.

Our new report shows how much most households can save by switching from gas to electricity for heating, hot water and cooking. The extra cash couldn’t come at a better time: about a quarter of Australian households say they found it difficult to pay their energy bills this year.

But many households face hurdles that stop them, or make it hard for them, to go all-electric. Governments could make it easier for people and bring emissions-reduction targets closer to reality.

Read more:
Want an easy $400 a year? Ditch the gas heater in your home for an electric split system

Most households save by upgrading to electric

Households in Melbourne tend to use more gas than those in other mainland capitals, mainly because the winter is so cold. Our report found Melburnians who replace broken gas appliances with electric ones, or move into an all-electric home, could save up to A$13,900 over ten years. Households with rooftop solar will save even more.

It’s a similar story in most parts of Australia except the west, where gas is relatively cheap. This mainly reflects differences in the historical development of the gas markets between the west and east coasts.

Getting off gas could also be good for your health. Several studies link cooking with gas to childhood asthma.

Read more:
Gas cooking is associated with worsening asthma in kids. But proper ventilation helps

Households face a series of hurdles

Renters make up nearly a third of all households, and they have little or no control over the appliances that are installed. As most electric appliances cost more to buy than gas ones – and the subsequent bill savings flow to tenants – landlords have little incentive to upgrade their properties from gas to all-electric.

Apartment living can increase the level of complexity. Multi-unit dwellings often bundle gas bills into body-corporate fees, limiting the occupants’ incentive to go all-electric. There can also be space constraints in these buildings. Centralised electric heat pumps, for example, take up more space than centralised gas water heaters.

Then there are households that simply can’t afford the upgrade. Induction stoves and heat pumps are more expensive than their gas equivalents, by up to a combined $2,000. This initial outlay will soon be recovered by cheaper energy bills, but that doesn’t help households that don’t have the cash up front. The 12% of households that skipped meals to pay their energy bills in the past year are the most likely to remain locked into high gas bills.

Some people also simply prefer cooking with gas. Some think induction cooktops will be no better than the poor-performing electric cooktops they may have used in the distant past. Others haven’t ever heard of a heat pump for hot water.

Read more:
Heat pumps can cut your energy costs by up to 90%. It’s not magic, just a smart use of the laws of physics

Here’s how governments can help

Governments, both state and federal, should lower the hurdles on the path to all-electric homes -– to reduce people’s cost of living and to cut carbon emissions.

As a first step, state governments should ban new gas connections to homes. In 2021, more than 70,000 households joined the gas network. Trying to shift households off gas while allowing new connections is like pouring water into a bucket with a hole.

Then, governments should provide landlords with tax write-offs on new induction stoves and heat pumps for hot water, for a limited time. After that, they should require every rental property to be all-electric. Governments should pay to upgrade public housing to all-electric, where they are the landlords. And they should pay not-for-profits managing community housing to do the same.

The federal government should help all households to spread the cost of electric appliances over time. It should subsidise banks to offer low-interest loans for home electrification, via the Clean Energy Finance Corporation.

And governments should set out to change people’s preferences, from gas to electric. They should embark on a multi-decade communication campaign, not unlike the campaign to upgrade from analogue to digital television in the early 2000s.

A key challenge will be shifting people’s ideas about the best way to cook. There are precedents. In Gininderry, a new all-electric suburb of Canberra, one developer recruited chefs to run demonstrations on induction cooktops at the display village. The proportion of potential homebuyers willing to consider buying an all-electric home rose from 67% to 88%.

‘Green gas’ is no panacea: electricity is cheaper

The gas industry has another solution in mind: instead of switching from gas to electricity, it suggests using “green gas” -– biomethane or “green” hydrogen. Biomethane is chemically identical to natural gas, but is derived from biological materials such as food waste, sewage or agricultural waste. Green hydrogen is made by using electricity to split water into hydrogen and oxygen.

But both options are too expensive and too far away. Under the most generous of assumptions, green hydrogen will only become cost-competitive with electricity after 2045. And there is not enough biomethane commercially available to replace gas in households.

Meanwhile, more than three million Australian homes already run on electricity alone.

Getting the five million homes that use gas to the same point won’t be easy. But with good policy, it is doable. For households, and the climate, there is much to be gained.

Read more:
Kicking the gas can down the road: why a gas price cap is the worst way to protect energy consumers.

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

– ref. All-electric homes are better for your hip pocket and the planet. Here’s how governments can help us get off gas – https://theconversation.com/all-electric-homes-are-better-for-your-hip-pocket-and-the-planet-heres-how-governments-can-help-us-get-off-gas-207409

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Pablo Guillen, Associate Professor, School of Economics, University of Sydney

This article is part of our series on big ideas for the Universities Accord. The federal government is calling for ideas to “reshape and reimagine higher education, and set it up for the next decade and beyond”. A review team is due to finish a draft report later this month, with a final report in December 2023.

Every year thousands of students around Australia sit their final high school exams. The performance in these exams will help determine their Australian Tertiary Admission Rank (ATAR). For many, it will also determine whether they can attend university, which university, and which undergraduate degree they can enrol in.
The Universities Accord review team has called for advice on the role admissions systems play in “matching learners to pathways” and supporting an increase in participation and success at university. The accord also has a broader focus on improving access to a quality higher education.

When discussing equity issues around university entry, most attention is usually paid to perceived school quality, exam preparation and assessment design.

Less attention is paid to the crucial process by which each student is allocated a place in a particular degree at a particular university.

Our research shows design flaws in this process can see school leavers miss out on studying their most preferred degree, even if they are eligible to enrol in it based on their academic performance.

This can have significant ramifications for a students’ lifetime earnings, career progression and professional satisfaction.

The NSW admissions system

We studied the New South Wales admissions system, which is managed by the Universities Admissions Centre. Although there is some variation, other Australian states and territories have similar systems.

Undergraduate applicants are asked to submit an ordered list of five degrees for which they would like to be considered.

The Universities Admissions Centre then puts each student’s preference information into an algorithm that accounts for their individual score and the entry cut-off scores determined by each university for each of their degrees.

Obviously, an applicant’s choice of which five degrees to list is of critical importance to them.

The centre provides students with advice to help them optimise their preferences. At the time of our study it was:

List your ‘dream preference’ at number one but follow that with realistic preferences. At the bottom of the preference list you should include one or two ‘safe’ options to ensure that you get an offer.

(The Universities Admissions Centres website now says: “First on your list should be the course you’d most like to do, followed by your second, third and fourth preferences and so on.”)

So students need to make a sophisticated gamble to determine their future careers. They need to “dream” but also be realistic. It may not be in their best interests to list the five degrees in the order in which they truly prefer them.

If they only include dream degrees, with high cut-off marks, they may miss out on a university offer. But if they only include safe options, with low cut-off marks, they may miss out on doing what they truly want to study.

Read more:
Students think the ATAR is ‘unfair’ but we need to be careful about replacing it

Our study

To assess these theoretical concerns, in 2019, we ran an experiment with students experienced in applying through the actual NSW admissions system.

More than 800 participants were provided with the advice they would have typically received from the Universities Admissions Centre (that is, list a “dream” preference first, then include more realistic options).

All participants were given a fictitious ATAR and a set of six degrees. They then had to make a preference list of five degrees.

Participants were rewarded with money depending on the outcome of the experiment. They received more money when offered a place in a degree they preferred more highly.

Our findings

Our process was designed to mimic – but be more simple than – the University Admission Centre. Despite this, 75.5% of participants failed to report their preferences in order of their best interests. That is, list what they really wanted to do.

We also found students from comprehensive public high schools were at least 6.9% more likely to make a “mistake” (by not telling the truth about their preferences) than peers from public selective high schools and private schools.

Our research shows the system is not only inefficient but confusing to applicants.

Students can also be exposed to conflicting advice when applying to university. Some universities have been known to advise students to list their “safe” choice first to make sure they get in.

Read more:
‘They don’t expect a lot of me, they just want me to go to uni’: first-in-family students show how we need a broader definition of ‘success’ in year 12

A redesign is needed

We believe the current process needs a thorough redesign.

Limiting the number of applicants’ preferences to five degrees is a problem. A very risk-averse applicant would include too many safe options and likely miss out on better ones for which they would have a chance to get in. Meanwhile, a risk-loving applicant might list only hard-to-get-in degrees and completely miss out.

A better solution would be to allow applicants to list as many degrees as they want, up until they are indifferent between their least preferred degree and not going to university at all.

Given there are hundreds of degrees to choose from, it would be very difficult to come up with a complete and exhaustive list. However, a practical solution is readily available: applicants first submit their five most favoured degrees. If they don’t get an offer – and only if they don’t get an offer – they submit a second batch of five degrees.

Most will be matched in their first or second batch. Applicants who are not matched can keep submitting further batches. As is the case now, they only need to think in “fives”, but once they have an offer, they are removed from the applicant pool.

We believe it is possible for Universities Admissions Centre’s current process to be changed so it is easier to understand.

This would eliminate the need for strategising by applicants and advice on how to strategise. If you understand how our method works, we believe high school leavers will too.

Pablo Guillen receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

Mark Melatos receives funding from the Australian Research Council. He is a member of the NSW HSC Standards Committee.

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

– ref. Our research shows how students can miss out on their preferred uni degree – but there’s a simple fix – https://theconversation.com/our-research-shows-how-students-can-miss-out-on-their-preferred-uni-degree-but-theres-a-simple-fix-207415

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Humphery-Jenner, Associate Professor of Finance, UNSW Sydney

When was the last time you got a pay increase? Was it anywhere near the rate of inflation?

If it feels as if your wage is shrinking and cost of living pressures are growing, you’re in good company. And it might just be harming productivity. Here’s why.

Labor productivity (measured as gross domestic product per hour worked) has been shrinking for a year now, after decades of reasonable, albeit declining, productivity growth throughout the 1980s, 1990s and the first two decades of the 2000s.

All sorts of reasons have been suggested. One is working from home. Commonwealth Bank chief Matt Comyn has ordered staff to return to the office saying there are “certain types of work that are done more effectively in person”.

Reserve Bank research says it might be a resurgence in the proportion of wages set by industry awards rather than workplace agreements, meaning there’s less scope for rewarding performance.

Another is weak wage growth itself.

Shrinking real wages are demotivating

We must also look at wages. Wages are falling in inflation-adjusted (“real”) terms.

Adjusted for inflation, Australians are being paid less than they were in 2020.

Shrinking real wages are demotivating. While this is hardly a new insight, a bemusing number of people seem shocked by the idea that someone might be less keen to work when the real value of what they are paid is falling.

Research on executive compensation established this as long ago as the 1970s.

The whole field of compensation contract theory is based on the insight that a person’s sense of wellbeing goes up with money but down with perceived effort and risk. Money can induce people to work in ways they otherwise would not.

Company boards have long used incentives to encourage otherwise-cautious executives to take risks. They even tailor compensation contracts to executives’ behavioral traits.

How do workers produce less?

Consciously or otherwise, workers whose real wages are falling might care less about their jobs. They might work more slowly, or they produce worse-quality goods or services. And their attitude might permeate to other workers and to clients, undermining productivity more broadly.

If this happens at enough corporations – and certainly real wages are falling at enough corporations – it will harm GDP per hour worked throughout the entire economy.

Sluggish wage growth can also affect the number of observed hours worked.

When wage growth and incentives are strong, ambitious workers will work more than their contracted hours, and won’t claim for it.

They might work on weekends and nights, easing staff scheduling and time zone issues, helping the firm do what it needs to do.

Uncounted extra hours don’t increase the “hours” in GDP per hour, but they do increase the GDP, increasing measured productivity.

When people stop doing unpaid overtime, while their recorded hours mightn’t much change, the GDP they produce declines.

There are reasons to believe Australian workers are no longer going above and beyond to produce more to the extent that they used to.

One is an increase in the number of Australians holding multiple jobs.

Over the past five years, the proportion of Australian workers holding more than one job has climbed from 6% to 6.7%, which appears to be an all-time high.

These official figures understates the extent to which Australians are turning their focus away from their main jobs for three reasons:

• they exclude side hustles not counted as “jobs”

• they exclude jobs in the cash economy

• they exclude workers whose “new” second job is spending time with their family rather than working overtime.

The rise in multiple job holders is likely to both increase the total number of hours worked, and reduce the effort workers put into their main jobs.

And, as these second jobs are often more junior, it can mean highly-skilled workers producing less per hour than they would have had they put the hours in their main job.

The overall picture is one of a demotivated workforce realising there is no longer much point in “going the extra mile”, “going above and beyond”, or buying into whatever the latest euphemism is.

Returning to the office might make things worse

Although returning to the office might is touted as a way to boost productivity by building collaboration, it might well do the reverse.

There is ample evidence to show that workers hate commuting. In capital cities, commuting can consume two hours per day driving, parking and allowing time for unexpected delays.

It is also costly. Workers will tolerate it if there is no other choice or it is a clear path to more money.

But if companies reinstate a two-hour commute and associated costs without paying more money, they are likely to further demotivate their workers, further undermining their willingness to “go above and beyond”, produce more, and be more efficient.

What’s needed are incentives

A straightforward solution is to create incentives that make it clear that workers who care more will get cared for more.

The incentives need to be in addition to standard raises. Using them as a cynical ploy to hold wages constant unless employees work ever harder will backfire.

The incentives must also be credible. It isn’t enough to create the vague possibility of promotions. Employers have to demonstrate that if their workers produce more they will be paid more. And the extra pay needs to be enough to matter.

Read more:
Don’t blame workers for falling productivity – we’re not the ones holding it back

An even better solution would be job-hopping.

Australians have long been lethargic about changing jobs, allowing themselves to be hit with a “loyalty tax” for staying put.

The most recent Bureau of Statistics survey, for the year to February 2022, shows an overdue uptick in the proportion of workers switching jobs, from 7.5% to 9.5%.

The 2023 update will be released at the end of this month.

The importance of job-hopping (switching jobs to get better reward) as a means of incentivising both workers and employers makes Labor’s proposed expansion of industry-wide enterprise bargaining a bad idea.

If employers set wages together, they are unlikely to set them differently.

In any event, there is little sign that employers are interested in motivating their workers to produce more. It’s easier to blame workers and make a case for low pay rises.

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

– ref. Tired of shrinking pay? The real drain on Australians’ productivity is falling wages – https://theconversation.com/tired-of-shrinking-pay-the-real-drain-on-australians-productivity-is-falling-wages-207807

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

Federal parliament enters its last week before the winter break ready to approve legislation for the Voice referendum but with the government’s proposed $10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund still in the balance.

After marathon debates in both houses, a vote in the Senate early Monday will see the parliamentary process for the referendum done.

With concern in the government the “yes” campaign is struggling, Minister for Indigenous Australians Linda Burney said on Sunday: “We always knew that this was going to be difficult. This is a marathon, it’s not a sprint.

“Now that we have almost finished the work in the parliament, the campaigns will kick in,” she told Sky. No date has yet been announced for the vote.

As it battles for Greens support for its housing fund, the government announced at the weekend an immediate $2 billion for an accelerated social housing program.

The Greens are still calling for action on rents as a condition for support, but will be under considerable pressure to compromise. They will meet on Monday to consider their position, but may not make a decision then.

The housing money will be delivered to the states and territories in the next fortnight. Anthony Albanese spoke with first ministers on Friday.

Albanese and housing minister Julie Collins said there could be “some flexibility” in how the money is spent. It could include “new builds, expanding programs, renovating or refurbishing existing but uninhabitable stock”.

Albanese at the weekend lashed out at the Greens, telling the Victorian Labor conference they were “a party of protest – happy to promise the world, while organising a petition against every new apartment building that’s proposed”.

Parliamentarians return to Canberra still shell-shocked by last week’s drama, that saw the re-raising of the Brittany Higgins matter and culminated in Peter Dutton tossing Victorian senator David Van out of the Liberal Party’s party room. Van is now a crossbencher.

That followed allegations of his inappropriate behaviour from crossbencher Lidia Thorpe, former Liberal senator Amanda Stoker and an identified third woman.

Dutton has also said Van should leave parliament.

Van at the weekend resigned from the Liberal Party, still rejecting the allegations and complaining about the party’s “wholesale disregard for due process and natural justice”. The Victorian administrative committee had been due to meet about the allegations.

Van will not be in parliament this week.

After their pursuit of Finance Minister Katy Gallagher over what she knew ahead of time about the Higgins matter backfired, triggering the allegations against Van, the Liberals have to decide whether to continue to press Gallagher. Liberal sources on Sunday expected they would.

Nationals Senate leader Bridget McKenzie said she had heard “rumours” about Van but “I wasn’t aware of any specific allegations”.

She told the ABC Thorpe “was absolutely within her right to use parliamentary privilege to raise those issues as she did”.

Meanwhile controversial right-winger Teena McQueen was dumped as a Liberal federal vice-president, when the party’s federal council voted for positions on Friday. McQueen caused outrage among many Liberals last year when she said: “The good thing about the last federal election is a lot of those lefties are gone. We should rejoice in that”.

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

– ref. Referendum bill to pass on Monday while government pulls out stops to try to secure housing fund – https://theconversation.com/referendum-bill-to-pass-on-monday-while-government-pulls-out-stops-to-try-to-secure-housing-fund-207988

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

Peter Dutton on Friday declared Victorian Liberal senator David Van should leave parliament ASAP.

The opposition leader told Sydney radio: “I think it’s in everyone’s best interests that he resign from the parliament and I hope he’s able to do that sooner than later and seek the help that he needs. And I think that would be an appropriate next step.”

As yet, there is no sign of Van – who won’t be in parliament next week – complying. He protests his innocence, despite three separate women alleging inappropriate behaviour. His current Senate term doesn’t run out until 2025.

Dutton showed political savvy in tossing Van out of the Liberal party room, and pressuring him publicly to quit parliament.

Van says he is “stunned that my good reputation can be so wantonly savaged without due process or accountability”.

There’s no doubt that this is rough justice, dispensed before the independent parliamentary authority investigates the allegations. Dutton himself says he is not making a judgement on these allegations.

But politics is not the law. If Dutton had said he would wait until after the investigation, that would have been extremely damaging for the Liberal Party and for him personally. Dutton has put protection of the party’s reputation, and his own, ahead of process.

The policeman in Dutton came usefully to the fore as he dealt with the Van issue on Wednesday night and Thursday morning.

Following the allegations made by crossbencher Lidia Thorpe late Wednesday, Dutton received more information about Van’s alleged inappropriate behaviour. He probed the evidence.

If the claims had only come from Thorpe, Dutton likely would not have acted in the way he did. But the addition of two more women, one of them former Liberal senator Amanda Stoker, was compelling.

We haven’t heard from the other woman, but Stoker’s account, which she later released publicly, was detailed and precise.

She accused Van of “squeezing my bottom twice” at a function in 2020. She also said she had raised the matter with him at a meeting the next day and he “apologised and said he would never do it again”.

This doesn’t match Van’s all-round denials. But Stoker has contemporaneous notes and says she promptly told a senior female colleague.

Dutton insists that he had not previously heard of Van’s reputation for alleged bad behaviour. But others, including Liberals, did and yet it was kept under wraps.

Van’s parliament house office was moved after an earlier complaint by then-neighbour Thorpe (he rejects the substance of that complaint).

Stoker says that at the time of the incident involving her she “used the internal process for his behaviour to be addressed, whilst asking for it to be kept confidential”.

“Obviously, this was not a good experience. I took it very seriously but did not want his misbehaviour to define me or any other woman,” she said in her statement.

Even the Greens, dealing with the earlier Thorpe complaint about Van, agreed to the matter being settled privately (although Thorpe subsequently made references, without a name).

One can understand the considerations that see these things settled behind closed doors. But there is a price to keeping those doors shut. The individual may not deterred from repeating the behaviour with someone else. And there is not a wider deterrent message sent out.

While Van is out of the Parliamentary Liberal Party, he remains a member of the Liberal Party at large. What happens with his membership is a matter for the Victorian division of the party.

A Liberal Party spokesperson said on Friday the party “has taken action to suspend all organisational resources and support from Senator Van. There will be an urgent meeting this weekend of the Party’s Victorian Administrative Committee to further consider the allegations raised.”

If the Victorian party doesn’t expel him, that would be a slap in the face for Dutton.

If Van does decide to leave parliament, his Senate spot would be filled by the Liberals – there would be no byelection.

If he stays, he will be getting the cold shoulder from a lot of colleagues. But he would still be paid a good salary. After this week’s publicity his job prospects in the outside world could look pretty bleak.

Michelle Grattan ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d’une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n’a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.

– ref. View from The Hill: Victorian Liberal Party to meet about allegations against Senator David Van – https://theconversation.com/view-from-the-hill-victorian-liberal-party-to-meet-about-allegations-against-senator-david-van-207931

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kathryn MacKay, Senior Lecturer in Bioethics, University of Sydney

Researchers have created synthetic human embryos using stem cells, according to media reports. Remarkably, these embryos have reportedly been created from embryonic stem cells, meaning they do not require sperm and ova.

This development, widely described as a breakthrough that could help scientists learn more about human development and genetic disorders, was revealed this week in Boston at the annual meeting of the International Society for Stem Cell Research.

The research, announced by Professor Magdalena Żernicka-Goetz of the University of Cambridge and the California Institute of Technology, has not yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal. But Żernicka-Goetz told the meeting these human-like embryos had been made by reprogramming human embryonic stem cells.

So what does all this mean for science, and what ethical issues does it present?

Read more:
World’s first ‘synthetic embryo’: why this research is more important than you think

What did the researchers do?

Each of these synthetic human embryos is created from a single stem cell. Żernicka-Goetz described how her team grew the synthetic embryos to a stage of development called “gastriculation”, which is a stage just beyond the 14-day developmental mark for a human embryo.

The current legal limit to how long a human embryo can be permitted to develop in a lab is 14 days.

This is approximately the length of time from fertilisation of the egg to implantation in the uterine wall, if conception has taken place within a human womb.

So, synthetic embryos have – for the first time – been allowed to develop past this point.

Initially, the 14-day rule was both a moral and a practical limit; scientists didn’t have the technology to keep embryos alive longer than this.

But the International Society for Stem Cell Research’s 2016 guidelines also suggested the 14-day limit was morally appropriate, as past this point the cells within the embryo begin to differentiate to form important body systems like the gut, brain and lungs.

The International Society for Stem Cell Research’s updated 2021 guidelines now say we should reconsider the 14-day rule, via public debate, to perhaps allow research on embryos later into development in some cases.

From what has been reported about Żernicka-Goetz and her team’s research, the creation of synthetic human-like embryos is a significant advance.

It’s further remarkable they seem to behave, in terms of development, like a human embryo would in some ways.

Żernicka-Goetz reported the human-like embryos began to develop placenta and yolk sacs, but not a beating heart or the beginning of a brain.

Despite the role of the placenta in pregnancy, and its importance to the health of mother and fetus, we know surprisingly little about this vital but temporary organ.

If it was possible to observe placenta in a lab via these synthetic embryos, this could yield valuable knowledge.

Moral quandaries

However, just as there are real possibilities for gaining knowledge from synthetic human-like embryos, there are also real moral quandaries.

One of these quandaries arises around whether their creation really gets us away from the use of human embryos.

Robin Lovell-Badge, the head of stem cell biology and developmental genetics at the Francis Crick Institute in London UK, reportedly said that if these human-like embryos can really model human development in the early stages of pregnancy, then we will not have to use human embryos for research.

At the moment, it is unclear if this is the case for two reasons.

First, the embryos were created from human embryonic stem cells, so it seems they do still need human embryos for their creation. Perhaps more light will be shed on this when Żernicka-Goetz’s research is published.

Second, there are questions about the extent to which these human-like embryos really can model human development.

At the moment, animal models of similar synthetic embryos suggest they are not capable of developing into a full living being. Studies in mice and monkeys have so far shown that the synthetic embryos die a short while after being implanted into a female’s womb, which means they are not viable.

There could be significant limits to the usefulness of these synthetic embryos for learning about human developmental issues, if human-like synthetic embryos aren’t capable of developing into full human babies and do not form important body structures like a beating heart and a brain.

One of the reasons researchers want to use these embryos is for research into miscarriage and developmental anomalies. This is very important, but will these synthetic embryos be “close enough” to real human embryos to reveal useful answers?

Scientists may still rely on the use of human embryos if we do need human embryos for the creation of these models, or there are research questions that these synthetic embryos can’t address.

Is it morally permissable?

This leaves us with the important moral question about whether it is permissible to use human embryos for research.

Further, if the human-like synthetic embryos are capable of developing into full living beings, then we must consider whether it is morally permissible to create them just for research.

It could be that they are not currently capable of developing much further than the 14-day mark.

Scientists might decide that this is a problem that needs to be fixed, partly for practical reasons about the limits to their usefulness. Scientists might then fix these synthetic embryos so that they could continue to develop. However, this would create a huge moral quandary.

We should think carefully about whether it is ethical to create living human-like beings only to conduct research on them.

Read more:
Researchers have grown ‘human embryos’ from skin cells. What does that mean, and is it ethical?

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

– ref. Scientists have created synthetic human embryos. Now we must consider the ethical and moral quandaries – https://theconversation.com/scientists-have-created-synthetic-human-embryos-now-we-must-consider-the-ethical-and-moral-quandaries-207911

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jo Caust, Associate Professor and Principal Fellow (Hon), School of Culture and Communication, The University of Melbourne

The Adelaide Festival Centre is celebrating its 50th anniversary this month. Opened in 1973, the building was completed before the Sydney Opera House, Arts Centre Melbourne and the Queensland Performing Arts Centre.

South Australia was regarded as a leader of the arts in Australia for around three decades from 1970 to the 1990s and dubbed internationally the “Athens of the South”.

Since the early 21st century, other states have woken up to the benefits of the arts and are now supporting lively creative industries within their midst. South Australia though has done the opposite.

The arts are no longer seen as a priority.

Arts in the budget

In 2018, under the previous Liberal state government, the arts and cultural portfolio Arts South Australia was broken up and sent to different government departments.

Youth arts were put into the Education Department. The SA Film Corporation, the Adelaide Film Festival and the Jam Factory were relocated to the Department of Industry, Innovation and Science. The North Terrace cultural institutions such as the state art gallery, museum and library – while administered by the Premier’s department – are now overseen by a generic arm of the department who are not arts or cultural specialists.

The few remaining staff left from Arts South Australia were placed within a sector of the Department of Premier and Cabinet called “Communities and Corporate”, one of ten portfolios within the department.

Read more:
Cuts and restructures send alarm through South Australia’s arts sector

The South Australian state budget was handed down this week. The only mention of the arts in the budget was within the major events fund where there is a commitment of $2 million over four years to the Adelaide Film Festival’s investment fund.

Within the Department of Premier and Cabinet, “Arts and Cultural Policy and Support” receives a reduction of $1.2 million from the amount actually spent on the arts in 2022–23.

There was a 6% drop in cultural spending in South Australia in 2019, and a further 3% drop in 2020.

The continued reductions in arts funding seem counter intuitive given the negative impact of COVID on the arts and cultural sector.

Adelaide’s stalled new gallery

In 2016, the Labor government and the Art Gallery of South Australia commissioned a report and undertook a design competition for the development of a new contemporary art space at the old location of Royal Adelaide Hospital on North Terrace, known as Lot Fourteen.

The new gallery became an election issue in 2018, with the Liberal party running on a platform of developing a national Indigenous arts centre.

After the Liberal party won the election, the gallery was named Tarrkarri (“future” in Kaurna language) and was due to be completed in 2023.

After Labor got back into government in early 2022, the development of Tarrkarri was put on hold while the project was reviewed by a committee appointed by the government.

As of June 2023, the site remains a hole in the ground with a potential cost blow out of $400 million while the government reviews the committee’s recommendations.

Significantly, there is no additional money promised for the project in the 2023–24 state budget, although there is a forecast completion date of 2027.

Read more:
Perth already has a museum of Indigenous art and culture. With proper funding, it could be our national centre

A critical lack of infrastructure

There has been a critical lack of cultural infrastructure in South Australia for many years across all artform areas.

There has been a call for a dedicated concert hall in Adelaide for many years. Despite a scoping study completed in 2021, nothing has happened so far, and the state’s music audience continues to miss out on many music groups and individuals touring the country.

In May 2023, the Malinauskas Government shelved plans to build a new storage centre for the state collections housed at the state museum, library and art gallery, citing insufficient funds.

Given the monetary and cultural value of these collections, it might be argued that not storing them appropriately is, to misquote Oscar Wilde, rather careless.

Sports are the big winners

Arts funding in South Australia has not seen any noticeable increase for several years and many agencies and arts organisations are struggling to survive.

While most other states have acquired new concert halls, new art galleries and theatre spaces over the past two decades, South Australia has remained culturally static. The only updated space is the refurbished Her Majesty’s Theatre.

South Australia is now a long way behind all the other mainland states in terms of actual expenditure on arts and culture – although it sits fourth on per capita support.

When Labor was elected in 2022 there was hope there would be an immediate revival of a government entity focusing on the arts. It was also hoped Labor would be proactive about increasing arts support and build much needed new cultural infrastructure.

Since its election in early 2022, the state Labor government has spent $35 million on reviving a car race, around $14 million on the AFL Gather Round, unknown millions on LIV Golf and committed $135 million towards the development of a new swimming centre.

Sports events are a winner under the Malinauskas Labor government. The arts do not get a mention.

Read more:
LIV Golf: Sportwashing vs. the commercial value of public attention

Jo Caust has previously received funding from the Australia Council. She is a member of the Arts Industry Council (SA) and NAVA.

– ref. Cuts in the state budget, a gallery on hold and millions on sports: the decline of arts support in South Australia – https://theconversation.com/cuts-in-the-state-budget-a-gallery-on-hold-and-millions-on-sports-the-decline-of-arts-support-in-south-australia-207612

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christian Moro, Associate Professor of Science & Medicine, Bond University

Do you sit or stand? That is the question about 7,000 men around the world have been asked about how they pee.

We’ll get to their answers soon. But the media interest that followed prompted one urologist to recommend some men sit to urinate, especially as they age.

What is the best way to urinate? Does that apply to women? We research the bladder and lower urinary tract. Here’s what the evidence says.

Read more:
Health Check: what can your doctor tell from your urine?

Do most men stand to pee?

The survey found men in different countries differ in how they pee.

In Germany, 40% of men report sitting while they pee every time, as do 25% of Australians. In the United States, it’s just 10%.

Some people even view standing to pee as “superior” and sitting inferior. In German, the word Sitzpinkler means
someone who sits to pee; it can also be used as an insult.

But habits may be changing. In Australia, for instance, the survey found younger men are more likely to sit down than older men. Some 36% of younger men sit down most or every time, while only 20% of men aged 55 and older report doing so.

So should men stand or sit?

When it doesn’t matter

In general, the literature suggests it doesn’t matter if a healthy man stands or sits when he pees.

Regardless of the position, there seems to be no difference in the time taken to pee, the flow rate, and how completely the bladder is emptied.

So long as there are no urinary concerns, men are free to choose their preferred position. If you chose to stand, just be sure to aim well.

Read more:
Is urine sterile? Do urine ‘therapies’ work? Experts debunk common pee myths

When it can

Recommendations for sitting or standing become less clear for men with lower urinary tract symptoms. These include issues such as having poor stream (for example, a dribble rather than a steady flow of urine), straining while urinating or feeling the bladder has not completely emptied after finishing.

For some of these men sitting is preferred to help increase the flow and empty the bladder. Others find the same relief comes from standing.

For men with benign prostatic hyperplasia, otherwise known as an enlarged prostate, there is evidence standing may help fully empty the bladder. But this advice may not work for all. That’s because how much the prostate has become enlarged, and the impact this has on urinary flow, can be different between people.

As standing or sitting can matter, for some men, it’s worth having a chat with your doctor about what’s best for you.

Read more:
Do men really take longer to poo?

How about women?

The structure of the female pelvic area is quite different to males, as it accommodates the vagina, uterus and reproductive structures. And the female anatomy is just not designed to pee standing up. So, making a habit of, say, peeing in the shower, is not advised.

Females do not have a prostate, which helps supports the male bladder while standing. This lack of support can place extra strain on the bladder region when not sitting down, making it harder for the bladder to fully empty.

The structure of the pelvic floor muscles are also different in females. For females, it is particularly important to allow these muscles to fully relax to allow the urine to flow freely.

If the bladder doesn’t empty fully, it can lead to increased infections, bladder stones, and even impact kidney health in the long term.

Even with one leg up, the pelvic floor does not rest properly, so the bladder may not be able to fully empty. As such, sitting down is usually the best position to let these muscles relax.

Standing and “hovering” over the loo may keep these muscles slightly constricted, making it hard to fully empty the bladder. A contracted pelvic floor can also cause the urine to spray more than usual, which is why you might often find drops of urine on a toilet seat after someone before you has tried to hover over it.

How about peeing in the shower?

Peeing in the shower not only makes it harder for your muscles to relax, it can be unhygienic. It might also cause an association between water and urination, leading to issues where hearing water might make you need to rush to the bathroom.

So, for both males and females, peeing in the shower is a clear no-no.

If you or someone you know has bladder or bowel issues, the Continence Foundation of Australia has online resources and a helpline (1800 33 00 66).

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

– ref. Does it matter if you sit or stand to pee? And what about peeing in the shower? – https://theconversation.com/does-it-matter-if-you-sit-or-stand-to-pee-and-what-about-peeing-in-the-shower-206869

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

For most voters, the cost of living is their major current concern. Rising interest rates and high prices for power, groceries and other necessities are hurting in particular lower and middle income people.

Nowhere is this more the case than in Sydney’s western suburbs.

Independent Dai Le, who holds the seat of Fowler in Sydney’s west, managed to pull off the unthinkable at last year’s federal election. Le, who financed her campaign with a very modest budget, defeated Labor’s Kristina Keneally, who was attempting to move from the Senate to the lower house.

Fowler has traditionally been Labor heartland. Le is the first non-Labor MP to represent the area, one of Australia’s most multicultural electorates.

In this podcast, Le canvasses the challenges her constituents are facing with the cost of living crisis and the aftermath of the curfew during the COVID-19 lockdowns.

Le has seen an uptake in her constituents reaching out to her for help.

“Concerns have heightened in terms of the cost of living, interest rate rises, housing affordability, grocery prices, petrol, travelling. Obviously where we are in western Sydney, people travel a lot. We use the cars a lot. It has been a real challenge for the community.”

One issue people haven’t been talking about is the Voice to Parliament.
“My community has not raised the issue with me, has not come to me, has not emailed me about any of the issues we’ve heard around the Voice.

Dai Le does not have a public stand on the Voice.

Culturally, Fowler is highly diverse. Le herself is Vietnamese, moving to Australia with her mother after fleeing the war. She says the community lives “very harmoniously together”, is “very cohesive”. “Of course, you have to encourage that cohesion because we are so different. There are so many different cultures in that one city.”

“I love this line, ‘we are one, but we are many’.”

In her maiden speech, she slammed the curfew placed on Western Sydney during the 2021 lockdown, likening the laws to a “communist dictatorship”.

“In one case, a young man got COVID and was so scared because of what he read in the media. […] He was too scared to get out of his bedroom because he didn’t want to kill his family. He thought what he’s got will kill his family.

“He felt so guilty he had this virus that he refused to eat and refused to drink. I knew they escaped the Khmer, the Pol Pot regime, and they were so scared about the police coming to the house because he’s got COVID.

“This triggered a community that had fled tyrannical and communist regimes. So that’s why I liken it. I remember hearing helicopters hovering around midnight and I was anxious, I remember telling my husband: ‘I’m not in Vietnam. Why am I feeling like this?’

“I then told myself, don’t be silly. You’re in Australia. We’re here. We are safe. This is just the police helicopters.”

In a week dominated by discussion of issues of sexual assault and harassment, there are new fears women may be dissuaded from coming forward with complaints.

Le says: “My message to them is that while this whole public political thing is happening, they should still have the courage to reach out to the right avenue when it happens to them and not lose faith.”

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

– ref. Politics with Michelle Grattan: Community Independent Dai Le on what voters are saying – https://theconversation.com/politics-with-michelle-grattan-community-independent-dai-le-on-what-voters-are-saying-207832

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gregory Moore, Senior Research Associate, School of Ecosystem and Forest Sciences, The University of Melbourne

A reader of The Conversation recently wrote in to ask:

Why does grass grow slower in winter?

It is a great question and at first the answer might seem obvious. There is less sunlight and it is colder in the winter months. This affects grass and plant growth in general.

However, there is more to it than meets the eye. Different grasses respond to and cope with winter in different ways.

Read more:
I’ve created a monstera! How to care for the ‘Swiss cheese plant’ in your life

Grass: a recent arrival

Grasses are relatively recent arrivals in plant evolution, first appearing in fossil records about 65 million years ago and becoming widespread in parts of Asia by about 30 million years ago.

Geologically, and in plant evolutionary time scales, this is quite recent. It means much of grass evolution has occurred under modern geological, environmental and climatic conditions. So, more than most plants, grasses have adapted to a modern, if pre-human, world. This affects their climatic responses.

Some of our best-known grasses evolved from ancestors that first appeared on Earth hundreds of millions of years ago.

Their physiology developed to cope with an Earth that had a very different atmosphere from that of today.

These plants have a type of photosynthesis called C3 metabolism.

What is C3 metabolism?

C3 metabolism is about how the plant does the job of turning light, water and air into food (photosynthesis).

About 95% of all plants you can think of – trees, shrubs, annuals, fruits, vegetables and many traditional (often called cool season) grasses – have C3 metabolism.

Plants with this form of photosynthesis tend to grow well in a wide range of environmental conditions, even if the temperature is cooler and there are higher than usual levels of carbon dioxide in the air.

They tend to remain green all year round if water is available, and may continue to grow well through late autumn. Many are frost-tolerant, but they may become dormant in hot dry weather.

C3 grasses, such as ryegrass, do slow their growth for the winter months as sunlight becomes less intense. Their metabolic processes (in this case, photosynthesis) slow down when the temperature drops.

Biological reactions are chemical reactions, after all. The rate of a reaction is temperature-dependent – speeding up when it’s warmer and slowing down or even stopping when it gets colder.

But they tend to do better in winter than their cousins, the C4 grasses.

I’ve heard many lawn grasses are C4 grasses. What does that mean?

As the level of CO₂ in the atmosphere declined and geological events led to the development of tropical regions around the equator, a different group of plants evolved. These plants used a form of photosynthesis called C4 metabolism.

C4 plants grow very well under lower CO₂ levels in the atmosphere, use water more efficiently, and can cope with poor soils better than C3 grasses.

But they struggle in the cold. They grow best in warmer, wetter conditions.

While only about 5% of all plants have C4 photosynthesis, some of them are important grass species, such as:

• bermuda grass

• buffalo grass

• paspalum

• kangaroo grass

• couch grass, and

• zoysia grass.

So if your lawn is sown with one of these grasses, you will definitely see a slowdown in winter, when they become dormant.

Their leaves tend to turn from bright green to a dull pale green or even yellow. Their growth slows quickly and dramatically in early autumn as the light levels fall, temperatures cool and chlorophyll production starts to decline.

The upside, of course, is they usually grow very well when the weather warms up again.

Read more:
Trees can be weeds too – here’s why that’s a problem

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

– ref. Why does grass grow more slowly in winter? – https://theconversation.com/why-does-grass-grow-more-slowly-in-winter-206616

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Vivienne Bentley, Research Scientist, Responsible Innovation, Data61, CSIRO

The launch of ever-capable large language models (LLMs) such as GPT-3.5 has sparked much interest over the past six months. However, trust in these models has waned as users have discovered they can make mistakes – and that, just like us, they aren’t perfect.

An LLM that outputs incorrect information is said to be “hallucinating”, and there is now a growing research effort towards minimising this effect. But as we grapple with this task, it’s worth reflecting on our own capacity for bias and hallucination – and how this impacts the accuracy of the LLMs we create.

By understanding the link between AI’s hallucinatory potential and our own, we can begin to create smarter AI systems that will ultimately help reduce human error.

How people hallucinate

It’s no secret people make up information. Sometimes we do this intentionally, and sometimes unintentionally. The latter is a result of cognitive biases, or “heuristics”: mental shortcuts we develop through past experiences.

These shortcuts are often born out of necessity. At any given moment, we can only process a limited amount of the information flooding our senses, and only remember a fraction of all the information we’ve ever been exposed to.

As such, our brains must use learnt associations to fill in the gaps and quickly respond to whatever question or quandary sits before us. In other words, our brains guess what the correct answer might be based on limited knowledge. This is called a “confabulation” and is an example of a human bias.

Our biases can result in poor judgement. Take the automation bias, which is our tendency to favour information generated by automated systems (such as ChatGPT) over information from non-automated sources. This bias can lead us to miss errors and even act upon false information.

Another relevant heuristic is the halo effect, in which our initial impression of something affects our subsequent interactions with it. And the fluency bias, which describes how we favour information presented in an easy-to-read manner.

The bottom line is human thinking is often coloured by its own cognitive biases and distortions, and these “hallucinatory” tendencies largely occur outside of our awareness.

How AI hallucinates

In an LLM context, hallucinating is different. An LLM isn’t trying to conserve limited mental resources to efficiently make sense of the world. “Hallucinating” in this context just describes a failed attempt to predict a suitable response to an input.

Nevertheless, there is still some similarity between how humans and LLMs hallucinate, since LLMs also do this to “fill in the gaps”.

LLMs generate a response by predicting which word is most likely to appear next in a sequence, based on what has come before, and on associations the system has learned through training.

Like humans, LLMs try to predict the most likely response. Unlike humans, they do this without understanding what they’re saying. This is how they can end up outputting nonsense.

As to why LLMs hallucinate, there are a range of factors. A major one is being trained on data that are flawed or insufficient. Other factors include how the system is programmed to learn from these data, and how this programming is reinforced through further training under humans.

Read more:
AI pioneer Geoffrey Hinton says AI is a new form of intelligence unlike our own. Have we been getting it wrong this whole time?

Doing better together

So, if both humans and LLMs are susceptible to hallucinating (albeit for different reasons), which is easier to fix?

Fixing the training data and processes underpinning LLMs might seem easier than fixing ourselves. But this fails to consider the human factors that influence AI systems (and is an example of yet another human bias known as a fundamental attribution error).

The reality is our failings and the failings of our technologies are inextricably intertwined, so fixing one will help fix the other. Here are some ways we can do this.

• Responsible data management. Biases in AI often stem from biased or limited training data. Ways to address this include ensuring training data are diverse and representative, building bias-aware algorithms, and deploying techniques such as data balancing to remove skewed or discriminatory patterns.

• Transparency and explainable AI. Despite the above actions, however, biases in AI can remain and can be difficult to detect. By studying how biases can enter a system and propagate within it, we can better explain the presence of bias in outputs. This is the basis of “explainable AI”, which is aimed at making AI systems’ decision-making processes more transparent.

• Putting the public’s interests front and centre. Recognising, managing and learning from biases in an AI requires human accountability and having human values integrated into AI systems. Achieving this means ensuring stakeholders are representative of people from diverse backgrounds, cultures and perspectives.

By working together in this way, it’s possible for us to build smarter AI systems that can help keep all our hallucinations in check.

For instance, AI is being used within healthcare to analyse human decisions. These machine learning systems detect inconsistencies in human data and provide prompts that bring them to the clinician’s attention. As such, diagnostic decisions can be improved while maintaining human accountability.

In a social media context, AI is being used to help train human moderators when trying to identify abuse, such as through the Troll Patrol project aimed at tackling online violence against women.

In another example, combining AI and satellite imagery can help researchers analyse differences in nighttime lighting across regions, and use this as a proxy for the relative poverty of an area (wherein more lighting is correlated with less poverty).

Importantly, while we do the essential work of improving the accuracy of LLMs, we shouldn’t ignore how their current fallibility holds up a mirror to our own.

Sarah Bentley works for CSIRO, which receives funding from the Australian Government.

Claire Naughtin works for CSIRO, which receives funding from the Australian Government.

– ref. Both humans and AI hallucinate — but not in the same way – https://theconversation.com/both-humans-and-ai-hallucinate-but-not-in-the-same-way-205754

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Paul Humphries, Associate professor in ecology, Charles Sturt University

In this edited book extract, Paul Humphries describes how a proposal to feed hungry miners on Victoria’s goldfields led to a Murray cod fishery – and the collapse of cod populations, the effects of which are still with us today.

Within months of the discovery of gold in 1851 in the previously sleepy little hamlets of Ballarat, Castlemaine and Bendigo, the Victorian goldfields were out-performing those in California. By 1852, ships hailing from Melbourne were sailing up the River Thames, carrying up to 10 tonnes of gold to London.

Convicts, previously reluctant to be sent out to the colony, now begged for transportation. Immigrants from England, Europe, The United States and China arrived in Melbourne in their hundreds each day. Along with the diggers came those that supplied their wants and needs: store keepers, butchers, bakers, grocers, barbers, printers and other tradespeople. Gold, population and trade boomed.

By 1854, the Victorian population had surpassed that of New South Wales, but the amount of gold extracted, although still substantial, was half it was two years previously. Discontent increased. There were violent clashes between soldiers, police and diggers, which culminated in a full-on battle on 3 December 1854 on Bakery Hill: the Eureka uprising.

Some canny miners who saw the boom was fast fading had an eye out for business opportunities. There was another untapped, seemingly limitless resource – another type of “gold” – waiting within coo-ee of the goldfields for the right person to come along and extract it. Not from earth. From water. The cod rush was about to start.

“We cannot exhaust the fish”

In the 19th century, there was by all accounts an abundance of large Murray cod, some reportedly 1.8 metres-long and weighing perhaps 80 kilograms. These long-lived predators cruised around the main channels of rivers, ate crayfish, mussels, fish and even ducks and mice when they could get them. For hungry gold miners, they must have seemed like a godsend.

In January 1855, an article in The Argus by an unnamed correspondent recorded that a semi-commercial fishery had begun in the Murray, supplying gold miners in Bendigo with fresh fish:

“The Murray abounds in splendid fish of the cod and bream species, varying in weight from an ounce to a hundred weight each,” they wrote.

The article recognised the demand for food from hungry gold miners, along with a supply of fish; the former seemingly insatiable and the latter apparently inexhaustible.

“We have a river unequalled in the colony in its magnitude. It is rich in delicious fish […] with which we intend at no distant period to cram the stomach of the rebellious digger of the Bendigo,” the correspondent wrote two months later.

By May 29th, the correspondent proposed exchanging the “superabundant” nuggets of the diggers with that of the “superfluous luxuries” in the Murray. A transparent pitch for distributing the wealth north of the goldfields. But they weren’t finished.

On 22 June 1855 in The Argus, the unnamed journalist wrote a lengthy proposal and presented a detailed business case – including estimates of outlays, profits and even methods (netting, hook and line, spearing) for catching fish that had been used by local Aboriginal peoples for thousands of years – for a commercial fishery in the Murray, supplying Bendigo.

Soon, a disillusioned miner with ambition recognised the opportunity. At the age of 27, Massachusetts-born Joseph Waldo Rice established the Lake Moira Fishing Company in mid–1855 with five others. Soon, that became the Murray Fishing Company or Murray River Fishing Company.

“We cannot exhaust [the fish],” suggested the Argus journalist, and ten times as many as they proposed could be harvested would not even deplete a small section of river.

The correspondent was grossly mistaken.

Boomtime and collapse

In the early days, a dozen or so men fished Moira Lake and the Murray and Edward rivers nearby, transporting a few baskets of fish to Bendigo by Cobb and Co. coach.

But within a few decades, hundreds of fishermen plied their trade from Albury to Lake Alexandrina with many thousands of fish transported to Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide markets by railway each year.

Intensive fishing, questionable practices such as taking fish during the spawning season, a lack of regulation and the later rise of recreational fishing exhausted the supposedly inexhaustible resource.

Fish stocks fluctuated over time as fishing effort rose and fell, but catches hit rock-bottom in the early 1960s and never recovered. By then, many commercial fishers had already left the industry or retired.

It was only in the early 2000s that the unprofitable fishery was finally banned in all states of the Murray-Darling Basin.

Commercial fishing was largely responsible for the decline in Murray cod stocks over many decades. But the decline was hastened by dispossession of Aboriginal peoples, habitat destruction, the construction of dams and barriers, changes to river flows, the introduction of alien fishes and declining water quality.

And the decline in Murray cod numbers would itself have had far-reaching impacts on river food webs.

The legacy of the commercial fishery is still with us today, as is the sludge still being flushed into our rivers because of gold dredging.

Will the cod ever recover?

Despite widespread stocking campaigns and tight fishing regulations, Murray cod stocks were still “depleted” in the ACT and in South Australia as of 2020, and “undefined” in New South Wales and Queensland due to a lack of data. Only in Victoria were they considered “recovering”.

Across all jurisdictions, stocks are much lower than prior to European colonisation. Recovery of Murray cod stocks to pre-European levels is probably unrealistic and the recovery will be slow. But there is reason to be cautiously optimistic.

Scores of First Nations people, recreational angling and community groups, conservationists, and natural resource scientists and managers have worked hard to understand more about what makes this wonderful species tick. Many have put in place strategies to help ensure the Murray cod and many other native freshwater fish have a future.

There was a public outcry following recent mass fish kills, such as those in the Lower Darling–Baaka in 2018–19 and again in 2023. If this response is anything to go by, people care deeply about our rivers and the fish living in them.

While a commercial fishery in the Murray and its tributaries was probably inevitable following settlement, the Victorian goldrush provided the catalyst for its real beginnings and drove its early development.

The nameless Argus correspondent who started the cod rush would have never dreamt that their descendants would still be living with the consequences 170 years later.

This is an edited extract from The Life and Times of the Murray Cod, CSIRO Publishing, 2023.

Paul Humphries has in the past received funding from the Murray-Darling Basin Authority’s Native Fish Strategy.

– ref. Hungry gold miners created Victoria’s Murray cod fisheries – and we’re still dealing with the consequences – https://theconversation.com/hungry-gold-miners-created-victorias-murray-cod-fisheries-and-were-still-dealing-with-the-consequences-206768

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

A Victorian state Resolve poll for The Age, conducted with the federal May and June Resolve polls from a sample of about 1,000, gave Labor 41% of the primary vote (down one since April), the Coalition just 26% (down four), the Greens 15% (up five), independents 12% (steady) and others 6% (up one).

Resolve does not give two party estimates until near elections, but The Poll Bludger estimated this would be 62-38 or 63-37 to Labor, a three or four point gain for Labor since April.

The Victorian state November 2022 election result was already bad for the Coalition, when an eight-year-old Labor government was re-elected by a 54.9-45.1 margin. To go backwards by seven or eight points since that election is woeful.

The 11-point primary vote gap is likely to be the narrowest gap between the Coalition and the Greens in any federal or mainland state poll. The 2002 Tasmanian state election had just a 9.2-point gap between the Liberals and the Greens.

Resolve state and federal polls have been the most friendly for Labor since the 2022 federal election. But a Victorian Morgan poll in May gave Labor a 61.5-38.5 lead. It’s likely Liberal infighting, particularly over Moira Deeming, is undermining their appeal as a viable opposition.

There will be a byelection in the Liberal-held seat of Warrandyte later this year after Liberal MP Ryan Smith said he would resign in early July. The Liberals won Warrandyte by a 54.2-45.8 margin over Labor at the last state election. But the current polls imply that Warrandyte is winnable for Labor.

Labor incumbent Daniel Andrews led Liberal leader John Pesutto by 49-26 as preferred premier, a slight widening from 49-28 in April. In questions on the recent state budget, voters supported payroll tax hikes by 40-26, but they were opposed by 39-33 to a land tax increase.

Victoria and NSW to lose federal seats, while WA gains one

ABC election analyst Antony Green said the determination of the number of House of Representatives seats each state or territory is entitled to will be made in late July. On Thursday, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) released the population data this determination will be based on.

At the next federal election, New South Wales will be reduced from 47 to 46 seats and Victoria from 39 to 38, while Western Australia will increase from 15 to 16. Other states and territories will be unchanged, with Queensland on 30 seats, South Australia ten, Tasmania five, the ACT three and the NT two. The total number of House seats will drop from 151 to 150.

We won’t know the political impact of these changes until redistributions of the states with changed seat numbers are at least in draft form. Green said redistributions should be completed by July 2024. If the next election is a normal election for the full House and half the Senate, it will be held between August 2024 and May 2025.

Federal Resolve poll: Labor still has huge lead

I covered the contradictory Voice polls from this week’s Resolve and Essential polls on Tuesday. Voting intentions and other polling are below.

Read more:
Resolve first national poll to have ‘no’ ahead in Voice referendum, but Essential has ‘yes’ far ahead

In the federal Resolve poll for Nine newspapers, conducted June 6-11 from a sample of 1,606, Labor had 40% of the primary vote (down two since May), the Coalition 30% (steady), the Greens 12% (steady), One Nation 6% (up one), the UAP 2% (steady), independents 8% (steady) and others 2% (steady).

An estimate based on preference flows at the 2022 election gives Labor about a 59-41 two party lead, a one-point gain for the Coalition since May. Resolve has been the most pro-Labor pollster.

On Anthony Albanese, 53% said he was doing a good job and 35% a poor job, for a net approval of +18, down nine points. Peter Dutton’s net approval was -20, “similar” to the outcome in May. Albanese led Dutton as preferred PM by 53-22, a slight narrowing from 53-20.

Labor was thought best on econmic management by 34-31 over the Liberals, a narrowing from 38-29. On keeping the cost of living low, Labor led by 27-23, in from 35-23 in May.

By 56-26, voters thought the Reserve Bank was doing a poor job, instead of a good job, and by 52-17 they thought the government should replace Reserve Bank governor Philip Lowe when his term ends in September, rather than extend his appointment.

On real wages, 55% (up four since May) expected their income to stay at the same dollar amount but fall behind inflation this year, 20% (down two) keep pace with inflation, 9% (steady) decrease and 5% (down two) increase above inflation.

Essential poll: Labor leads by 52-42 including undecided

In this week’s Essential poll, conducted June 7-11 from a sample of 1,123, Labor led by 52-42 including undecided (52-43 last fortnight). Primary votes were 32% Labor (down two), 32% Coalition (up one), 16% Greens (up one), 5% One Nation (down one), 1% UAP (down one), 9% for all Others (up two) and 5% undecided (steady).

Labor was trusted over the Coalition to handle six economic issues, with its closest lead a one-point margin on reducing government debt (32-31). On interest rates, 63% thought they would continue to rise, 30% that we have reached the peak but they won’t go down for a while and 7% thought they would start to fall soon.

By 55-15, voters supported a ban on high-risk uses of Artificial Intelligence (AI). On regulation of AI, 48% thought new laws should be created, 40% existing laws should be better enforced and 12% thought it should be left up to the market.

By 79-9 voters thought social classes still exist in Australia. Asked which class they belonged to, 49% said they were middle class, 30% working class and 4% upper class.

Morgan poll: 56-44 to Labor

In Morgan’s weekly federal poll, conducted June 5-11 from a sample of 1,393, Labor led by 56-44, a 0.5-point gain for Labor since the previous week. Primary votes were 35% Labor, 33.5% Coalition, 13% Greens and 18.5% for all Others.

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

– ref. Woeful Victorian poll for state Coalition; Victoria and NSW to lose federal seats as WA gains – https://theconversation.com/woeful-victorian-poll-for-state-coalition-victoria-and-nsw-to-lose-federal-seats-as-wa-gains-207628

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Meghan S. Miller, Professor of Geophysics, Australian National University

Aotearoa New Zealand experiences frequent earthquakes, including destructive ones such as those that struck Christchurch in 2010 and 2011, and near Kaikōura in 2018.

In the South Island, the largest seismic hazard is the 600km Alpine Fault, which runs the length of the Southern Alps and defines the boundary between the Australian and Pacific tectonic plates.

Painstaking geological research has revealed it produces very large (magnitude 7-8) earthquakes about every 300 years – with the most recent one in 1717. Scientists estimate there’s a 75% chance of a large Alpine Fault earthquake in the next 50 years. The odds of that earthquake being larger than magnitude 8 are 82%.

Despite the unparalleled quality of the paleo-seismic record of past Alpine Fault earthquakes, the next big earthquake will come without warning.

Read more:
Nobody can predict earthquakes, but we can forecast them. Here’s how

In anticipation of that event, geoscientists are working hard to understand how the Alpine Fault is being loaded prior to rupture and how characteristics of the fault may affect the rupture’s propagation and the resulting ground shaking.

One component of this work is to determine the geometry and internal structure of the Alpine Fault at scales much finer than can be studied using conventional seismometers spaced tens of kilometres apart.

Read more:
New Zealand’s Alpine Fault reveals extreme underground heat and fluid pressure

The Haast DAS experiment

A new experiment in Haast, a small, remote community near the coast in South Westland, is using technology called Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS). DAS is a rapidly emerging sensing technique that converts telecommunication fibre-optic cables into thousands of densely-spaced ground-motion sensors.

The Haast DAS experiment is a trans-Tasman collaboration between geophysicists from the Australian National University and Victoria University of Wellington Te Herenga Waka. It is the first of its kind across a major, active plate boundary fault, providing an unprecedented opportunity to study the internal structure of the Alpine Fault ahead of an anticipated large earthquake.

Read more:
NZ’s next large Alpine Fault quake is likely coming sooner than we thought, study shows

Between late February and early May this year, we made seismological measurements across the Alpine Fault using a computer-controlled laser system known as an interrogator attached to an unused (“dark”) fibre within a telecommunications cable installed by Chorus to provide broadband connectivity across the South Island. The telecommunications cable crosses the Alpine Fault just east of Haast.

Fibre-optic seismology

Pulses of light emitted by the interrogator are scattered as they travel along the fibre and interact with atomic-scale imperfections in the glass. Some of this scattered light travels backward along the fibre to the interrogator.

Vibrations of the fibre caused by passing seismic waves modulate this scattering and can be detected by recording the scattered light pulses.

The interrogator we have been using makes a thousand measurements per second at each of 7250 locations, spaced four metres apart along the Haast Pass Highway. This produces a staggering volume of data: about 1Gb of new data every minute, or 1Tb of data every day.

The vibrations recorded at Haast include signals produced by nearby earthquakes (most of which are too small to be perceptible to humans) and other, larger earthquakes occurring throughout New Zealand and further afield. In mid-May, for example, we recorded several large earthquakes near New Caledonia, the largest of which prompted a Pacific tsunami warning.

The density of DAS measurements across the Alpine Fault provides an entirely new way of studying the fault’s internal structure. Seismic waves arriving in Haast from different directions and vibrating the fibre have interacted with the Alpine Fault in ways that affect the waves themselves.

The DAS recording below shows two small earthquakes (magnitude 2 and 3), occurring south of Haast about 30 seconds apart.

Big data provides detailed information

By vastly increasing the effective number of sensors, DAS provides a new lens with which to study processes as diverse as the structure of glaciers, the expansion and contraction of volcanoes in response to magma movements, the interaction of ocean waves with the deep seafloor and the effects of groundwater extraction on land subsidence.

Read more:
How cables in glaciers could help forecast future sea level rise

A new challenge for the geophysical community is learning how best to store, share, process and analyse large volumes of DAS data. High-performance computing and artificial intelligence techniques (AI) are being developed and adapted to these data to enable researchers to recognise and distinguish signals of different origins.

At Haast, for example, the records of earthquakes of most interest to seismologists are interspersed with noise produced by highway traffic. Being able to separate out these two types of information is a task well suited to AI. In the future, it is likely AI will help tease apart DAS data to detect otherwise unrecognised signals produced by atmospheric and subterranean processes.

DAS holds enormous promise for acquiring real-time, high-resolution measurements of processes using existing telecommunications infrastructure and rapid developments in AI and signal processing.

At Haast, it is providing fundamental new insights into the Alpine Fault ahead of the next big earthquake, informing the scientific analysis that underpins community preparedness and resilience.

Meghan S. Miller receives funding from the Australian Research Council and from AuScope which is part of the Australian National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS).

John Townend receives funding from the Marsden Fund of the Royal Society Te Apārangi and Toka Tū Ake EQC.

Voon Hui Lai receives funding from AuScope which is part of the Australian National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS).

– ref. Seismology at light speed: how fibre-optic telecommunications cables deliver a close-up view of NZ’s Alpine Fault – https://theconversation.com/seismology-at-light-speed-how-fibre-optic-telecommunications-cables-deliver-a-close-up-view-of-nzs-alpine-fault-206858

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Bianca Fileborn, Senior Lecturer in Criminology, The University of Melbourne

As someone who has spent the last decade researching sexual harassment and violence in public spaces, the question I’m commonly asked is:

What advice should I give my teenage daughter about what to do when she’s harassed by men in public?

This question is, of course, completely understandable. We all want our loved ones to feel safe when they’re out in public.

Women and LGBTQ+ people experience high levels of harassment in public (though it is always important to remember gender-based violence is most likely to be perpetrated at home by someone you know). So there is a high likelihood this is something you or your loved ones will experience.

Street harassment is often not taken seriously as an issue. Many forms of this behaviour are not against the law, meaning victims have limited options for reporting or seeking support. This can make it challenging to know what to do if you’ve been harassed.

While it’s tempting to focus on what people can do to “stay safe” or respond effectively to harassers, this is ultimately the wrong question to ask.

Shouting back

In my recent research, I undertook in-depth interviews with 46 people about their experiences of harassment in public spaces. Participants often discussed how they responded to harassers. These responses could take many forms.

Some participants described verbally challenging harassers, often by telling them to “fuck off” or shouting back at them.

Physical acts of resistance were also common – including making gestures and pulling faces at a harasser. One participant described “blowing a kiss” at a group of men who had shouted homophobic abuse at him. “Sarah” described fighting back:

He just kept going. So there was a moment where he grabbed my arm […] and then I just gave him a big slap at that moment.

Resistance also involved participants refusing to limit their lives and actions because of street harassment, perhaps by defiantly continuing to walk home at night or holding a partner’s hand in public despite unwelcome comments.

Read more:
‘I started walking the long way’: many young women first experience street harassment in their school uniforms

Reclaiming power

Challenging harassers could be an important strategy for some participants to reclaim a sense of power and disrupt the normalisation of harassment. One participant reflected on how harassers (mostly men):

Feel so comfortable staring you down, that I don’t want to make them feel comfortable doing that. Sometimes I kind of like yell at them or make a gross face at them or give them the finger. Because it’s not innocent and it’s not innocuous.

Being silent or refusing to acknowledge an harassers’ actions was also commonly raised as a form of resistance, as it denied harassers the satisfaction of a response. However, one participant reflected that while silence could be a safer option because “you don’t get into any conflict with anyone”, it also felt “like I’m getting rid of my power”.

Some people find it takes many years to realise harassment is something that can be resisted, because it is often normalised as being “complimentary” or “flirtatious”. As one participant said:

Just having experienced it so many times that I’ve recognised the patterns and that it’s not just, oh this man’s just lonely and needs to talk. It’s like, no that’s predatory behaviour and I can call it out.

Although some participants talked about acts of resistance as moments of “snapping” in anger, these responses could perhaps best be thought of as a slow build up of rage after years of encountering street harassment.

Read more:
Catcalls, homophobia and racism: we studied why people (and especially men) engage in street harassment

Resistance and safety

There was often a delicate balancing act between resistance and maintaining a sense of safety. One older participant reflected on her life experiences of sexist and homophobic harassment, saying that while she tried to show defiance to harassers, she was also making “quick judgements […] because I don’t know if I’m going to be hit or not”.

Resisting harassers involved significant mental, emotional and physical labour, with participants having to make rapid assessments of how safe they felt to respond. Some people described being “worn down” by years of experiencing harassment.

People said they’d often been in shock or felt unable to process what had happened in the moment. It often wasn’t until hours after an incident they thought of the perfect retort. This could feel intensely frustrating.

While it’s tempting to offer people advice on what they “should” do in the moment, the reality is it is not always safe to “shout back”. It is also normal for people who have experienced sexual and other violence to experience automatic “fight, flight, freeze or fawn” responses.

Focusing on how victims should respond reinforces the myth victims are responsible for preventing and managing the violence of others.

What can we do?

So, what can you do if you’re being or have been harassed? The short answer is: do whatever you feel safe and able to do in the moment. There is no “correct” response.

For some people, it’s helpful to talk to a trusted friend or to share experiences through activist platforms like Right to Be (formally Hollaback!). This can help people recognise they are not alone in their experiences and street harassment is a systemic issue interconnected with other forms of gendered violence.

Self-care strategies including deep breathing, “grounding”, exercising or resting can help.

And we need to shift the focus to how we, as a community, can best support people who’ve experienced harassment. This might include upskilling community members to safely intervene as bystanders and to respond appropriately to disclosures. If someone does share their experience of public harassment with you, it is important to express belief and validation – and to ask them what support they need.

We need to collectively challenge the idea street harassment is “normal” or “not a big deal”, ensuring this behaviour is addressed as part of our efforts to prevent gender-based (and other) violence. This places the focus where it belongs: on the actions of harassers and the structural drivers of their behaviour.

Bianca Fileborn was formally a consultant for L’Oreal. They receive funding from the Australian Research Council, the Victorian Department of Justice and Community Safety, and ACON.

– ref. ‘He just kept going’ – why you might snap back, freeze or ignore street harassment – https://theconversation.com/he-just-kept-going-why-you-might-snap-back-freeze-or-ignore-street-harassment-207129

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Bill Dodd, Knowledge Broker, Centre for Safe Air (NHMRC CRE), University of Tasmania

Imagine a fleet of ageing factories operating in neighbourhoods across Australia.

On most days the smoke from their stacks is hardly noticed. But on cold days when the smog settles in the densely populated valleys and towns, doctors notice unusually high numbers of people suffering from a range of problems, especially asthma.

Air-quality researchers are called in to study the problem in more detail. They confirm that neighbourhoods with these old factories have higher concentrations of fine particles, which are toxic air pollutants.

Invisible to the naked eye, particles are inhaled deep into the lungs, enter the bloodstream and cause a range of harms throughout the body. This air pollution is linked to higher rates of heart and lung diseases, strokes, dementia and some cancers. It also increases the risk of adverse pregnancy outcomes and poorer learning outcomes in children.

The researchers calculate that each year pollution from the factories causes 269 premature deaths in Sydney, 69 in Tasmania and 14 in Armidale, New South Wales.

While the factories are supposed to be built, maintained and operated to certain standards, the regulations are rarely if ever enforced. There isn’t even a central register to tell authorities how many of these factories exist, how old they are, and where they are located.

As news of this research is made public, how would the affected communities react? What might they demand of government?

Would it matter if they knew we were not talking about factories, but wood heaters?

Read more:
Blame wood-burning stoves for winter air pollution and health threats

Heaters produce much of our air pollution

Every sentence of this story is true if you replace the word “factory” with “wood heater”.

Less than 10% of households own a wood heater, but burning wood for heating is the largest source of air pollution in many Australian cities and towns. While vehicle manufacturers and industry have greatly reduced emissions following tightened government regulations, domestic heating technology has not kept pace.

Today you would have to drive a diesel truck 500 kilometres to emit as much air pollution as a wood heater does in a single day. And that figure is for a wood heater that meets the current regulatory standards in Australia. Most do not.

Furthermore, wood heater pollution can be many times more severe when owners leave logs to smoulder overnight, burn poorly seasoned wood, or close down the air intake immediately after loading more wood.

Of course, particulate pollution is not all that wood heaters emit. When firewood is sourced from land clearing and illegal wood hooking, wood heaters add to net carbon dioxide and methane emissions in much the same as burning coal does because the carbon is no longer locked away in forests.

The best estimates are that less than a quarter of firewood is sourced from sustainable plantation suppliers. Even from those sources, the carbon emissions take many years to be sequestered into growing trees.

One study estimated that, if we stopped burning wood and clearing forest for heating, Australia would reduce its annual greenhouse gas emissions by 8.7 million tonnes. That’s about one-fifth of Australia’s car emissions.

Read more:
‘Like having a truck idling in your living room’: the toxic cost of wood-fired heaters

The benefits of electrification

Inevitably, as Australia moves towards a zero-carbon future, the electrification of domestic heating will bring widespread health and economic benefits. It will prevent hundreds of premature deaths each year.

Hospitals will benefit from a reprieve in the cooler months, enabling doctors and nurses to better cope with seasonal pneumonia and COVID-19 outbreaks. And even those outbreaks will be less severe with reduced air pollution.

Besides being healthier, Australians will enjoy much lower heating costs as a result of using technologies such as reverse-cycle air conditioners (heat pumps). Remarkably, heat pumps are up to 600% efficient. That means, for every unit of energy they consume, they generate up to six units of heating energy.

Read more:
Air pollution can increase the risk of COVID infection and severe disease – a roundup of what we know

Making the switch

As people learn about the impacts of wood heaters on their neighbours, friends and relatives — on pregnant women, young children and the elderly — many will make the switch.

Governments need to ensure safe and affordable heating technology is available to everyone regardless of their income.

Already, governments in the Australian Capital Territory, Tasmania and New Zealand have programs that reimburse households for the cost of replacing their wood heaters.

Buy-back schemes, home efficiency subsidies, regulation and enforcement, including property market regulation (ensuring wood heaters are removed prior to sale), and restrictions on new installations all have a role to play.

We are conducting economic modelling to determine the most cost-effective policy settings for maximising the benefits of policies to manage the problem of wood heaters.

Fire and smoke will remain important experiences for Australians. They can be savoured primarily outside the city, under bright stars, in open deserts and rugged coastlines, in beach shacks and farm cottages, and as part of Indigenous cultural practices.

One day we will look back in amazement that we once tolerated wood heaters in our cities, right next to schools, homes and hospitals. We’ll regard them in much the same way that we think of polluting factories today.

Bin Jalaludin receives funding from the NHMRC and the ARC.

Fay Johnston is a Director of AirHealth Pty Ltd that supports the AirRater and Melbourne Pollen apps and other pollen prediction services. She receives funding from NHMRC and is the lead Investigator of the Centre for Safe Air, a NHMRC Centre for Research Excellence. She also receives funding from Asthma Australia, The Tasmanian, ACT and NT Departments of Health, the National Environment Research Program, and the NHMRC Healthy Environments and Lives (HEAL) Network.

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

– ref. Imagine the outcry if factories killed as many people as wood heaters – https://theconversation.com/imagine-the-outcry-if-factories-killed-as-many-people-as-wood-heaters-207411

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Simon Leonard, Associate Professor of STEM Education, University of South Australia

There is increasing talk about microcredentials in higher education. Earlier this week, the federal government announced the first group of courses it is supporting in a microcredential pilot program.

Microcredentials have been around in vocational circles for several years but are starting to be offered more widely by universities. The Universities Accord review panel has noted “microcredentials are likely to be increasingly in demand” as industries encourage lifelong learning.

The government’s pilot involves 28 courses in IT, engineering, science, health and education. But they can also be offered in fields as diverse as law, psychology and architecture.

What are microcredentials?

Microcredentials are small courses in a specific area of study.

They focus on updating or gaining new skills in a short time frame, typically ranging from a few weeks to a semester of study. They are viewed as a way to meet industry and employee needs quickly and address critical skills gaps.

For example, the pilot program includes a microcredential on phonics for teachers to develop their skills in literacy teaching. It also includes a course in disease management outbreaks for GPs and other health-care workers.

The cost varies but can range from a few hundred dollars to more than A$4,000. At the end of a microcredential, you may receive a stand-alone certificate, or the microcredential may provide a credit transfer pathway and count towards a degree.

They have been part of Australia’s industry skills landscape for a while now and have been delivered by TAFEs, industry organisations, and even by employers. However, they are still quite new in universities and many of the professions that universities have traditionally supported.

The benefits of short-term study

Microcredentials can address critical skills gaps. They offer a way to update and progress your career without the long-term commitment and expense of a traditional graduate qualification.

You can also mix and match education and training to form a more bespoke study plan.

So it is no surprise microcredentials are gaining a lot of attention in the higher education sector. Most universities already offer “short courses”, “professional certificates” and “executive education”. These are all microcredentials by another name.

However, all this flexibility can be confusing and it may not be clear whether a microcredential is the right choice for you. Here are four things to consider.

1. What do you want out of further education?

Microcredentials have a different purpose to traditional degrees.

Microcredentials can feel more like vocational education and training – highly targeted to cover precise competencies in a specific setting. This means they are rarely designed to develop broader capabilities and frameworks of professional practice you can normally expect from a degree program.

So in your career and educational planning, it is important to think through what you really need.

In a nutshell, if you need a specific skill, then a microcredential is ideal. However, if you need support bringing together diverse skills, knowledge, and dispositions to extend your professional practice, then a traditional degree may be a better investment.

2. What specific skill is on offer?

If your career plan does call for an improvement of specific skills, there are some important questions you should ask yourself before you enrol in a microcredential course.

The first is simply “does this course offer a skill I actually need?” Unlike the vocational system (such as TAFE), universities’ microcredential catalogue is still relatively small. The skills government and industry are choosing to support at the moment may not be the skills you need in your context or to advance your career.

Read more:
Microcredentials: what are they, and will they really revolutionise education and improve job prospects?

3. Am I suited to this type of study?

In the hustle and bustle of a microcredential course, it is often assumed participants will be well prepared to manage their own learning.

Because they are so short, microcredentials generally focus very strongly on the content itself. How you learn it, is often up to you.

To be successful, you may be required to take greater personal responsibility for all your own learning strategies. This might include recognising what you already know (or don’t know) about the topic, taking a quick look at the readings to get an overview before reading them carefully for more details, and adopting processes to critically question learning materials.

4. How will I use this in my job or profession?

You also need to think about how you will transfer your microcredential learning into your everyday work habits.

A science teacher who learns some physics content, for example, may need to alter their wider assessment strategies to incorporate what they learned. A physiotherapist with a new treatment technique may need to decide how to explain it to the clients they work with.

Traditional degrees are usually designed to help with this translation-to-practice work. Part of the trade-off with microcredentials is they can throw this translation work back to the course participant.

For this reason, microcredentials will work best for people who have established good professional development practices like reflection and peer-review, or for those who can engage in active and ethical experimentation with the new skill in their real-world practice.

Read more:
Teaching and research are the core functions of universities. But in Australia, we don’t value teaching

Choose wisely

Preparing people for professional environments has always been a core purpose of universities, and the adoption of microcredentials will likely expand the ways this can be done.

A microcredential, however, is a different educational proposition to a traditional degree course. So it is important the consumer chooses wisely.

But even though they are different, the two are still compatible. You may even find yourself engaging in both traditional university courses and microcredentials as you evolve and adapt throughout your career.

Simon Leonard works for the University of South Australia. He receives funding from the Australian Government’s National Careers Institute, the South Australian Department for Education, and Trinity College, Gawler.

– ref. Thinking about a microcredential course? 4 things to consider first – https://theconversation.com/thinking-about-a-microcredential-course-4-things-to-consider-first-207619

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrei Lux, Lecturer of Leadership and Director of Academic Studies, Edith Cowan University

You’re in a meeting, with something important to say. Just as you begin, a colleague sighs and shares an eye-roll with their buddy. And not for the first time.

Workplaces aren’t always harmonious. Whether it’s a cafe, factory or parliament, people do and say hurtful things. They may talk down to you, “call you out” in front of others, make jokes at your expense, gossip about you behind your back, or give you the silent treatment.

This type of incivility doesn’t quite rise to the level where you can complain to human resources and expect a satisfying resolution. Organisations typically have policies against racism, sexism, harassment and other overt forms of abuse. But incivility – being less severe and more difficult to prove – tends to fly under the radar.

Most of us will experience incivility at some point at work. More than 50% experience it weekly. According to a 2022 meta-analysis of 105 incivility studies, you’re more likely to cop it if you’re new, female, in a subordinate position, or from an ethnic minority.

Unkind and thoughtless words matter. As linguist Louise Banks says in the 2016 film Arrival: “Language is the first weapon drawn in a conflict.”

What people say and how they say it affects us deeply. One cruel remark can ruin your whole day. Left unchecked, incivility makes for a toxic workplace.

Read more:
Is workplace rudeness on the rise?

Why are people rude to each other?

It’s tempting to simply blame bad character. Certainly such behaviour is much more likely from people with dysfunctional personality traits, especially the “dark triad” of narcissism, psychopathy and Machiavellianism.

Narcissists are self-obsessed and dominate social interactions. Psychopaths lack empathy and don’t understand social norms. Machiavellians are manipulative, self-interested and amoral.

But even “nice” people can be uncivil, with the three most common incivility triggers being because they feel let down by their leaders, are under more pressure than they can handle, or someone else was rude first – to them or others.

Incivility can therefore become a vicious spiral that turns victims and bystanders into perpetrators. That’s how toxic workplaces are born, develop, and perpetuate.

Read more:
What Jeremy Clarkson taught us about incivility in the workplace

Incivility in the workplace

Leadership sets the tone. We’re social creatures and learn what’s expected and acceptable from those we look up to. Our leaders’ behaviour is infectious, and cascades down throughout and across organisations – for better or worse.

Incivility is most harmful when it comes from a supervisor: someone we’re supposed to trust, who’s supposed to look after us.

The power asymmetry means leaders’ inappropriate behaviour is less likely to be challenged. Take, for example, Harvey Weinstein, who for decades abused his position as one of Hollywood’s most successful film producers to sexually exploit women, before finally being held to account.

Read more:
Staying in grace: Why some people are immune from scandal – until they’re not

But managers can be derelict in their duty without being perpetrators. As in the case of sexual harassment, it may be easier to see and hear no evil, perhaps because the perpetrator is favoured as a high performer or a friend. With the capacity for one individual to make life a misery for many colleagues, this leadership failure can lead to a toxic workplace culture.

Authentic leadership ‘in the trenches’

It’s up to leaders to be the first movers against incivility and create positive work cultures with their own behaviour. What leaders will tolerate on their team sets the bar for how everyone else will behave.

With colleagues Stephen Teo and David Pick, I’ve surveyed 230 nurses across Australia about the leadership qualities that help reduce incivility.

Why ask nurses? Because their work is stressful and demanding. The strain of providing critical care for patients creates conditions conducive to conflict, from swearing to physical violence. Workplace incivility is frequent and these stressors increase the likelihood of medical mistakes. So there’s good reason to reduce incivility to improve health-care quality.

Our research shows that authentic leadership promotes workplace cultures with less incivility and better well-being. Such authentic leaders are aware of their own strengths and weaknesses, act on their values even under pressure, and work to understand how their leadership affects others.

What can you do?

Incivility isn’t okay. It should never be excused as “just part of the job”.

If this is happening to you, or others in your workplace, avoiding it won’t help you or your colleagues. Putting up with incivility is emotionally taxing, entrenches feelings of resentment and will likely lead to bigger conflicts down the track.

Responding with more incivility of your own isn’t a good idea. Retaliation rarely deters a person who engages in such behaviour and instead effectively endorses it.

One approach recommended by psychologists when dealing with high-conflict personalities is known as the BIFF technique: be brief, informative, friendly and firm.

When some says something mean, you might respond, as calmly as possible, along the lines of: “Your comments are hurtful and damage our working relationship. Please, let’s keep things professional.”

If the behaviour persists, approach your supervisor. Again, stay calm. Explain what’s happening and how it’s affecting you. You don’t have to go at it alone either, consider inviting colleagues who can support you, and your claims.

Will this fix the problem? Possibly not. Your manager might simply shrug their shoulders, or arrange a “mediation” that resolves nothing. But saying and doing nothing will almost certainly leave you unsatisfied.

If your manager is the perpetrator, contact your HR department first (if your organisation has one) or else your union. The union can offer advice on other avenues to seek redress.

Statutory agencies such as Australia’s Fair Work Ombudsman, Employment New Zealand and the UK’s Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service have the power to investigate workplace complaints, and to intervene in disputes through formal conciliation or arbitration. But before embarking on such a process, it’s best to get expert advice. You might get justice, but also still need to find another job.

Incivility is unlikely to stop on its own, however. Your voice matters and can help break the cycle.

Andrei Lux works for Edith Cowan University and is a Director of the Australian and New Zealand Academy of Management.

– ref. Toxic work cultures start with incivility and mediocre leadership. What can you do about it? – https://theconversation.com/toxic-work-cultures-start-with-incivility-and-mediocre-leadership-what-can-you-do-about-it-204198

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ranjana Gupta, Senior Lecturer Taxation, Auckland University of Technology

Food prices are rising at the fastest rate in almost four decades, with fruit and vegetables up more than 22% in the past year. As often happens during a cost of living crisis, there have been calls to remove the goods and services tax (GST) from fresh produce.

But is this actually a good idea? And if not, what alternatives might there be to help people currently struggling to afford fruit and vegetables?

Supporters of removing GST argue the move will make healthy food more accessible for struggling families. Removing GST from fresh produce is also meant to help tackle New Zealand’s persistent obesity epidemic – which accounts for 8.2% of total health expenditure (around NZ$135 million) annually.

It is a popular idea. In 2022, 76% of New Zealanders surveyed supported removing GST from food. But as some economists have warned, tinkering with the tax system might not actually deliver the desired results for low-income families. Put simply, those with the income to buy more fruit and vegetables – high-income households – will benefit the most from GST exemptions on fresh produce.

New Zealand currently has one of the most comprehensive and effective goods and services tax systems globally. Any changes would require substantial evidence demonstrating the benefits of change.

Additionally, as many households struggle to cover costs, any additional cash gained from eliminating GST from fresh produce will go towards more pressing expenses like rent and power. If the government wants to fight obesity during a cost-of-living crisis, it needs to develop a more targeted approach.

Looking beyond GST

My research, to be published later this year, looks into the literature on GST and tax expenditure from New Zealand, Australia, the United States and United Kingdom. I examined how different countries use a variety of tax measures to help low-income families buy fruit and vegetables.

I wanted to examine whether dropping GST would help reduce obesity by making nutritious food more accessible. In fact, the literature suggests it does not significantly improve affordability and healthy eating choices for such families.

These households tended to allocate additional income (or tax saved) to other food or non-food items, such as meats, clothing or housing.

My study shows there are more targeted options within New Zealand’s welfare system that can be used to help struggling families afford healthier foods.

Targeted assistance overseas

One option is to issue a GST refund on fresh fruit and vegetables purchased.

But there is no guarantee the extra money will be spent on purchasing healthy food. Similar to removing GST before purchase, the extra money will likely be diverted to other more pressing priorities, particularly in low-income households.

If the primary aim of making fresh fruit and vegetables more affordable is to increase healthy eating, then a cash rebate won’t help. But there are policies in use overseas that New Zealand could use as a starting point to directly help low-income families afford fresh produce.

Read more:
Cheaper food comes with other costs – why cutting GST isn’t the answer

One particularly interesting option is the targeted smart-card system for buying fruit and vegetables. In the US, it’s known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program scheme (SNAP), and in Britain as the Healthy Start scheme.

SNAP provides monthly funds for people to buy food using a benefit card (similar to a debit card) to buy groceries. They can’t use it to buy non-food items or alcohol. Healthy Start is for pregnant women and mothers with children under four to buy healthy food and milk, also delivered via a type of debit card.

What targeted help could look like

In New Zealand, we already have the food or hardship grants available through Work and Income. But these are only given in exceptional circumstances, and are limited to once every six months.

These food grants can also be used to buy anything an individual or family needs, including toiletries and other non-food items.

Introducing a regular and targeted healthy food grant via an electronic smart card would be a more effective way to ensure low-income families are able to access healthy food.

The cards could be protected with biometric data to prevent abuse or transfer. Eligibility criteria and account limits could be revised annually depending on the inflation rate to avoid any erosion of the card’s value.

Other ways to encourage healthy eating

The literature shows that a targeted smart-card system could help reduce New Zealand’s high obesity rate during the current cost of living crisis, if combined with an increase in education to prioritise healthy eating.

Instead of removing GST, the revenue gathered could be used to provide that extra nutritional information and education.

In 2013, the UK government implemented its “Healthy food for healthy outcomes” policy. Healthy food – and knowledge about nutrition – is treated as a vital element of school life and learning.

My research found that the costs of tampering with New Zealand’s current GST system far outweigh the benefits likely to accrue from such a change. A targeted smart-card scheme is arguably a more effective measure to improve affordability and healthy eating habits – and the benefits would outweigh the setup costs.

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

– ref. Cutting GST on fresh produce won’t help those most in need – a targeted approach works better – https://theconversation.com/cutting-gst-on-fresh-produce-wont-help-those-most-in-need-a-targeted-approach-works-better-207598

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

Two women ended up in tears in the Senate this week, as the Higgins imbroglio exploded yet again and in the process claimed a scalp.

But the scalp wasn’t that of Finance Minister Katy Gallagher, who was targeted by the Liberals.

Instead it was one of the Liberals’ own, David Van, who was banished from the Liberal party room by Peter Dutton, after allegations from crossbencher Lidia Thorpe that the Victorian senator had sexually assaulted her, a claim he strongly denied.

The Liberals knew their pursuit of Gallagher for allegedly misleading parliament over her knowledge of the Brittany Higgins matter would carry some political risk. But they could never have imagined they’d be damaged in such a dramatic fashion, ceding one of their senators to the crossbench.

Federal politics, the tone of which has been better than in the last parliamentary term, once again descended into a toxic mire.

Van’s spectacular fall began with Thorpe (formerly with the Greens) on Wednesday shouting interjections when he was speaking about Labor’s attacks on Liberal women over the Higgins issue, and parliamentary standards. She alleged he’d “harassed” and “sexually assaulted” her, which he immediately rejected.

In a broader set of allegations on Thursday, in which she didn’t specifically name Van, a tearful Thorpe said: “I experienced sexual comments, and was inappropriately propositioned by powerful men. One man followed me and cornered me in a stairwell.

“There are different understandings of what amounts to sexual assault. What I experienced was being followed, aggressively propositioned and inappropriately touched. I was afraid to walk out of the office door. I would open the door slightly and check the coast was clear before stepping out,” she said.

“To me it was sexual assault, and the [Morrison] government at the time recognised it as such,” she said, because it immediately moved the person’s office.

Between late Wednesday and Thursday morning, other allegations about Van came to Dutton, with former Liberal senator Amanda Stoker confirming to him that Van had groped her.

Stoker later publicly recounted how “in November 2020 Senator Van inappropriately touched me at an informal social gathering in a parliamentary office. He did so by squeezing my bottom twice. By its nature and by its repetition, it was not accidental. That action was not appropriate. It was unprofessional and uninvited.” Van subsequently apologised.

Even if it hadn’t inadvertently blown itself up, the Coalition was always going to struggle with its attack on Gallagher. The minister, with caucus – in Anthony Albanese’s words – “1000%” behind her, could simply stare down her interrogators, although that meant enduring a good deal of heat.

Read more:
Word from The Hill: Coalition attacks on Katy Gallagher, Voice losing traction, future fund holdout

Gallagher’s 2021 claim, at a Senate estimates hearing, that she had no prior knowledge of Higgins’ allegation she was raped, was wrong, and therefore misled parliament.

Indeed, Gallagher had admitted privately to Liberal then-minister Linda Reynolds on that same night that she had some prior knowledge. This week she refused to be drawn on details of her interactions around receiving this information, leaving the opposition empty-handed. She did say – a crucial point – that she hadn’t passed on the information, obtained from Higgins and her partner David Sharaz, to Albanese or Labor’s Senate leader, Penny Wong.

Labor has been able to deploy effectively the argument that by revisiting the Higgins issue the Liberals will discourage women coming forward with allegations they have been assaulted. Albanese said: “My concern here is that we know that about 13% of sexual assault victims actually take action, go forward to police. And I’m worried that the focus that is going on at the moment will have a triggering effect and will deter people from coming forward.”

The debate also turned to the ethics of the disclosure of previously private communications, most notably the leaked text messages between Sharaz and Higgins.

This disclosure – involving court material – was widely condemned, and the Liberals struggled to win their argument that however the material became public, they were perfectly justified in dealing with the content. The opposition maintained it was pursuing accountability, but that was blurred by the counter argument about Higgins’ right of privacy.

The latest round of the Higgins issue has also been entangled in what we can call the media wars. The disclosure of the texts and other material has been spearheaded by The Australian, which has given massive coverage to changing the narrative of the Higgins story, in a direction that is less favourable to her. Some other sections of the media were not keen to follow up The Australian’s stories.

While Gallagher’s survival was always guaranteed, the attacks have taken their toll. By Thursday she was teary, lamenting that the work done on having women treated better and encouraging them to come forward when something happened to them had been set back.

She also conceded: “I am sorry Senator Reynolds is clearly upset about what happened to her. I am sorry about that. And I told her that.

“But I am also very sorry for Brittany Higgins, I’m sorry documents about her personal life have been leaked, I’m sorry a confidential draft claim for compensation [for Higgins] found its way onto the front pages of a national newspaper.”

Read more:
View from The Hill: Brittany Higgins story continues its damaging trail, with no end in sight

The Higgins story has a cast of women. Not just the young woman, a former Liberal staffer, who made the rape allegation. Women were on the front line of the political battle around that story: in 2021 then-ministers Reynolds and Michaelia Cash and Labor spear carriers Wong, Gallagher and then-senator Kristina Keneally.

In the media, women broke the story: Sam Maiden (News Corp) and Lisa Wilkinson (Ten). Janet Albrechtsen (The Australian) has led the counter-narrative.

The separate events that took centre stage this week regarding Gallagher and Van all happened some years ago. In the wake of the damning 2021 Jenkins report on behaviour in parliament house, that workplace has seen reforms, with new independent processes for providing support and handling complaints. People report conduct has improved.

Regardless of this, many members of the public, hearing the news reports of this week, will conclude little has changed. And some voters might think politicians should be talking less about their workplace and more about the issues confronting those in the world outside.

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

– ref. Grattan on Friday: Liberals come a cropper when they try to dig afresh into the Brittany Higgins story – https://theconversation.com/grattan-on-friday-liberals-come-a-cropper-when-they-try-to-dig-afresh-into-the-brittany-higgins-story-207840

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Daryl Adair, Associate Professor of Sport Management, University of Technology Sydney

More than 20 prominent Australian sport bodies have taken a united stand, publicly declaring their support for a “yes” vote on the Indigenous Voice to parliament.

Why, as custodians of sport, have they chosen to take a public stance on a political issue that transcends the athletic domain? And why are they advocating for a “yes” vote?

Some proponents of the “no” vote contend that sports bodies should have no place in political debate. The role of sport organisations, they argue, ought to be simple: they organise competitions and manage athletes.

However, sports bodies have a charter to be engaged with the community and are committed to numerous groups and causes. Pathways and support for Indigenous people are a core part of sports having a sense of social responsibility – they don’t function in a socio-political bubble.

That said, sport organisations have often been ineffective custodians for Indigenous players’ personal and professional development. Indeed, while First Nations people have long been notable performers in many sports, rarely have they had a voice in the running of their workplaces. What’s more, many Indigenous athletes have suffered racism on the job.

So, while sports bodies are notable advocates of a Voice to parliament, they might want to consider how much of a voice Indigenous athletes have in their own organisations.

Why a ‘yes’ vote?

Sport organisations provide opportunities for Indigenous athletes, whom they value for their talent.

But there’s now more to it than that. Many sport bodies have made commitments to the wellbeing of their Indigenous employees.

Multiple sports feature Reconciliation Action Plans, and Indigenous cultures often feature in the pre-match ceremonies of major sport events, such as the Welcome to Country. There are also dedicated Indigenous rounds in the AFL, NRL and Super Netball.

Given many sport bodies are committed to Indigenous wellbeing and community engagement, it seems logical for sports bodies to publicly support the Voice proposal.

However, whether those sports bodies are sufficiently earnest or live up to the ideals enshrined in the Uluru Statement from the Heart is a more complicated question, as suggested by recent investigations into historical racism in the AFL.

Read more:
The antithesis of healing: the AFL turns away from truth-telling again, ending Hawthorn investigation

Political advocacy

The interplay of sport organisations and social and political causes is hardly new. In Australia, an obvious recent example is the vote for same-sex marriage, which was supported by numerous sports bodies.

These organisations have core values around cultural diversity and policies to promote inclusion, so their support of the “yes” campaign was hardly surprising.

But this didn’t mean universal acceptance: some within sport took a different view, most notably fundamentalist religious followers.

In terms of the Voice campaign, sport organisations appear to have undergone their own due diligence in terms of finalising a position. The AFL, for example, organised educational seminars about the referendum and conducted anonymous polls among staff and players with the aim of aligning its own position with that of its workforce.

Read more:
Taking sides: sport organisations and the same-sex debate

This has been a process of consultation rather than indoctrination. For example, “no” campaign leader Nyunggai Warren Mundine was invited to speak at Collingwood Football Club. He said “They got the ‘yes’ campaign to do a presentation and then they got me to come in and give a presentation – that’s the way to do it”.

That said, it’s difficult to find either a sports body or an athlete publicly advocating “no” to the Voice.

Whereas rugby star Israel Folau used his public profile to galvanise opposition to the same-sex marriage proposal in 2017, there’s no equivalent athlete campaigner opposed to the Voice.

Voices against sport

In the meantime, there’s plenty of angst among “no” campaigners that sports are supporting the “yes” vote. It is, of course, reasonable to ponder whether they would hold that view if the sports advocated a “no” vote.

But, leaving that aside, what are the misgivings about sports bodies taking a public position?

Former Australian Prime Minister John Howard, well known for donning a green and gold tracksuit for photo opportunities during Wallabies Tests or the Olympics, contends that sports bodies have no place taking a stand on the Voice: voting, he stresses, is a matter for individuals, and leagues cannot speak for them.

For Howard, sport should only be an “escape” from politics, with fans mingling to focus on having a good time and cheering their team.

Current Opposition Leader Peter Dutton takes a similar view, but argues that sports fans are being lectured to by “elites” within leagues like the AFL or the NRL. The inference here is that a coterie of sport executives has conspired to dictate a position in the absence of any consultation.

Sport, from the perspective of these naysayers, should be silent on the Voice.

Yet that perspective overlooks the way sport is run today.

Social responsibility

Whether the same-sex marriage campaign, empowerment of women or climate change, sports increasingly take a view because they have a responsibility.

Sports bodies have mission statements declaring contributions to society, among which is support for groups and communities that, historically, have been on the margins of the nation’s sporting culture.

Read more:
Sit on hands or take a stand: why athletes have always been political players

That said, Indigenous employees within sport have long been rendered peripheral to decision making. Sports bodies have too often not consulted First Nations’ players or administrators when making decisions for the “good of the game”.

Yet, at the same time, they celebrate Indigenous peoples for their substantial contribution to sport.

When sports bodies say they support a Voice to parliament, they might also reflect on what that looks like in their own backyards.

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

– ref. Sport bodies say ‘yes’ to the Voice. But they should reflect on their own backyards too – https://theconversation.com/sport-bodies-say-yes-to-the-voice-but-they-should-reflect-on-their-own-backyards-too-206396

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tyler Rohr, Lecturer in Southern Ocean Biogeochemical Modelling, IMAS, University of Tasmania

The ocean holds 60 times more carbon than the atmosphere and absorbs almost 30% of carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions from human activities. This means the ocean is key to understanding the global carbon cycle and thus our future climate.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) uses earth system models to project climate change. These projections inform critical political, social and technological decisions. However, if we can’t accurately model the marine carbon cycle then we cannot truly understand how Earth’s climate will respond to different emission scenarios.

In research published today, we show that zooplankton, tiny animals near the base of the ocean food chain, are likely to be the biggest source of uncertainty in how we model the marine carbon cycle. Getting their impact on the cycle right could add an extra 2 billion tonnes to current models’ assumptions about annual carbon uptake by the ocean. That’s more carbon than the entire global transportation sector emits.

À lire aussi :
Oceans are better at storing carbon than trees. In a warmer future, ocean carbon sinks could help stabilise our planet

Marine carbon cycling is a $3 trillion thermostat

Roughly 10 billion tonnes of carbon are being released into the atmosphere each year. But the ocean quickly absorbs about 3 billion tonnes of these emissions, leaving our climate cooler and more hospitable. If we price carbon at the rate the IPCC believes is needed to limit warming to 1.5℃, this adds up to over A$3 trillion worth of emission reductions accomplished naturally by the ocean every year.

However, we know the size of the ocean carbon sink has changed in the past, and even small changes can lead to big changes in the atmosphere’s temperature. Thus, we understand the ocean acts as a thermostat for our climate. But what controls the dial?

Extensive geological evidence suggests microscopic marine life could be in control. Phytoplankton photosynthesise and consume as much CO₂ as all land plants.

When phytoplankton die, they sink and trap much of their carbon deep in the ocean. It can remain there for centuries to millennia, locked away safely out of contact with the atmosphere.

Any changes to the strength of this biological carbon pump will be felt in the atmosphere and will change our climate. Some have even proposed enhancing this biological pump by artificially fertilising the ocean with iron to stimulate phytoplankton. It’s possible this could sequester as much as an extra 20% of our annual CO₂ emissions.

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Smoke from the Black Summer fires created an algal bloom bigger than Australia in the Southern Ocean

Right for the wrong reasons

Despite its importance for the global climate and food production, there are large gaps in our understanding of how the marine carbon cycle is expected to change. Most earth system models differ in how the cycle’s major components will respond to a changing climate. Models simply can’t agree on what will happen to:

• net primary production – the carbon consumed by phytoplankton resulting in growth of marine plants at the base of the food web

• secondary production – zooplankton growth, which is an indicator for fisheries, since fish eat zooplankton

• export production – the biological pump of carbon transferred to the deep sea.

To diagnose what might be going wrong, we compared the marine carbon cycle in 11 IPCC earth system models. We found the largest source of uncertainty is how fast zooplankton consume their phytoplankton prey, known as grazing pressure.

Models differ hugely in their assumptions about this grazing pressure. Even if zooplankton were exposed to the exact same amount of phytoplankton, the highest assumed grazing rate would be almost 100 times as fast as the slowest rate.

This is because some models effectively assume the ocean is filled entirely with slow-grazing shrimp. Others assume it is teeming exclusively with microscopic, but rapidly grazing ciliates. In reality, neither is true.

À lire aussi :
Tiny plankton drive processes in the ocean that capture twice as much carbon as scientists thought

Models must make up for such large differences in zooplankton grazing by making additional assumptions about how fast phytoplankton grow and how quickly zooplankton die. Together, these differences can be balanced in a way that allows most models to simulate the present-day amount of carbon consumed by phytoplankton and transferred to the deep sea.

However, that is only because we can observe what those values should be. We can then tune models until we ensure they get the right answer.

Yet, even though our best models can admirably recreate the present-day ocean, they do so for different reasons and with dramatically different assumptions about the role of zooplankton. This means these models are built with fundamentally different machinery. When used to test future emissions scenarios, they will project fundamentally different outcomes.

We cannot know which projections are correct unless we know the true role of zooplankton.

À lire aussi :
Climate: modelling micro-algae to better understand the workings of the ocean

Tiny plankton with a big impact

We ran a sensitivity experiment to show how small changes in zooplankton grazing can dramatically alter marine carbon cycling. We considered two sets of experiments, one control and one in which we increased both zooplankton grazing rates and phytoplankton growth rates, such that both were tuned to the exact same total carbon consumption by phytoplankton.

This increase in how fast zooplankton can graze was only a fraction of the difference between assumed grazing rates seen across IPCC models. Despite this, we found even this small increase led to a huge difference in the percentage of carbon consumed by phytoplankton that was eventually exported to depth and transferred up the food chain.

Ocean carbon storage increased by 2 billion tonnes per year. Zooplankton carbon consumption increased by 5 billion tonnes.

From a climate perspective, that is double the maximum theoretical potential of iron fertilisation. From a fisheries perspective, that leads to a 50% increase in the size of the global zooplankton population on which many fish feed. This matters for global food supply as the ocean feeds 10% of the global population.

This work shows we must improve both our understanding and modelling of zooplankton. With limited resources and an immense ocean, we will never have enough observations to build perfect models. However, new technologies for measuring zooplankton are making it easier to make autonomous, high-resolution measurements of many important variables.

We must make a concerted effort to leverage these new technologies to better understand the role of zooplankton in the marine carbon cycle. We will then be able to reduce uncertainties about future climate states, advance our ability to assess marine-based CO₂ removal, and improve global fisheries projections.

Anthony Richardson receives funding from the Australian Research Council Discovery Project DP230102359 and Australia’s Integrated Marine Observing System (IMOS) enabled by the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS).

Elizabeth Shadwick receives funding from Australian Government’s Antarctic Science Collaboration Initiative, and Australia’s Integrated Marine Observing System (IMOS) enabled by the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS).

Tyler Rohr ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d’une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n’a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.

– ref. Oceans absorb 30% of our emissions, driven by a huge carbon pump. Tiny marine animals are key to working out its climate impacts – https://theconversation.com/oceans-absorb-30-of-our-emissions-driven-by-a-huge-carbon-pump-tiny-marine-animals-are-key-to-working-out-its-climate-impacts-207219

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Oliver A.H. Jones, Professor, RMIT University

In the 19th century, many of Australia’s urban creeks and rivers were in poor shape. Melbourne’s major river, the Maribyrnong, was full of waste from abattoirs, tanneries and factories.

I live near Darebin Creek in Melbourne’s north, which was next to a tip and often polluted until cleanup efforts began in the 70s. Now many creatures have returned.

But while many waterways have been cleaned up, others have languished. As late as 2011, Sydney’s notoriously polluted Cooks River was so full of industrial waste and sewage it was dubbed an “open sewer”. Now, it’s starting to improve.

Here’s what the restoration of Darebin Creek shows us about the successes and challenges of bringing life back to our urban waterways.

Rivers or rubbish dumps?

Many of us, like Mole from Wind in the Willows, find ourselves “intoxicated with the sparkle, the ripple, the scents and the sounds…” of our waterways.

But we don’t always treat them very well. European settlement had a big effect on creeks and rivers, we’ve often used them as convenient waste dumps. Pump industrial waste, chemicals or sewage into them and watch it float away. Once we might have thought “problem solved”. Now we know differently. Treating rivers as dumps can (unsurprisingly) damage or even wipe out the life in it.

In Victoria, their fate started to improve when the state government passed the Environment Protection Act in 1970 (since superseded by the the Environment Protection Amendment Act 2018). Since then, community groups, government agencies, and Melbourne Water have started the repair job.

Read more:
A tale of 2 rivers: is it safer to swim in the Yarra in Victoria, or the Nepean in NSW?

Now, we’re starting to see the benefits. My local waterway, Darebin Creek, is typical of many urban creeks and I love spending time here. Running in the morning, I pass ducks, swans, and moorhens. Kookaburras laugh in the trees, insects buzz in the morning light. It’s beautiful.

In the creek itself live frogs, invertebrates and fish. Endangered species like the growling grass frog and matted flax-lily can now be found.

There are even platypus sightings, which means there’s food there for them like insect larvae and yabbies.

What is now the expansive Darebin Parklands was once was used as a farm, then a quarry, then a tip earmarked for a freeway, and the creek was little more than a stormwater drain. Even today, leachate from the old tip seeps out.

The creek’s transformation – especially in its southern reaches – is due in large part to one determined woman, Sue Course, who was rightly recognised for her work in the 2021 Australia Day honours.

In the 1970s, Sue and her husband Laurie formed a residents’ group and lobbied successfully for the land to be given to the public. The group spent decades removing weeds and rubbish and planting trees.

Many urban waterways in Victoria are now in reasonable health, providing habitat for more than 1,800 species of native plants and 600 species of native animals. But not all. Rivers such as the Ovens and the Murray, and even the Yarra in places, are in poorer condition with low flows and high sediment and salt levels major issues.

Improvements are often connected to community efforts to revegetate, as well as watching for chemicals or other pollutants pumped into the stream. These efforts have to be ongoing. As recently as 2016, eels and other fish died in Darebin Creek due to insecticide being washed into the water.

And the wildlife of the creek has not fully recovered, as the local council points out. The remarkable plains-wanderer once roamed the creekline, but the last sighting was in 1972.

How do we fully restore our city waterways?

Native species reliant on our city waterways still face threats. These include:

• catchment pollution. A catchment is an area of land where water collects when it rains and then flows to a low point (such as a stream). Pollution in a creek or river’s catchment upstream can affect the whole waterway. A recent study on pesticides found the major source was residential use, meaning the chemicals were washed into the wetlands. A similar project used GPS to track plastic bottles down Melbourne’s creeks.They found bottles could travel many kilometres downstream, or get stuck and break down locally.

• organic micropollutants. The way we live means we use a large range of chemicals, including cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, pesticides, fertilisers, and artificial sweeteners. A detailed study of the Yarra, Sydney and Brisbane River estuaries found traces of these chemicals in the water, including drugs, medication, personal care products, pesticides, and even food additives. Even though they are present in very low concentrations they can still be a worry. A recent study from Monash University showed that concentrations of pharmaceuticals in rivers, though far below the therapeutic dose can still affect fish behaviour.

• stormwater. When rain runs off hard surfaces like roofs, driveways, and roads, it runs into storm drains and creeks, carrying debris, bacteria, soil, oil, grease, pesticides and other pollutants with it. In 2016 it was estimated that 95% of litter on Victorian beaches was transported there from suburban areas through stormwater drains.

• nutrients. Fertiliser runoff from farms and wastewater spills in urban areas can bring too many nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus into waterways. Overloads of nutrients can trigger sudden plant and algae growth. These block light and reduce oxygen levels, leading to the death of fish and other aquatic animals. Some algae and cyanoabacteria (that also grow in these conditions) produce toxins that can make us sick too.

• invasive species. Many invasive species have been introduced into Australian waters including the infamous carp and mosquito fish. These prey on or outcompete native species, damage habitat, and carry diseases and parasites. Careful management to reduce their impact will likely be needed for some time.

How can we help bring life back?

If there’s a lesson in the restoration work done so far, it’s that we can’t expect life just to bounce back. Making our waterways healthy again takes effort, ranging from making sure rubbish doesn’t escape into them through to joining your local waterway organisation – or starting one.

Join a local Waterwatch program to monitor river health, or join the national waterbug blitz to learn more about invertebrate life. You can even get involved in efforts to restore riparian vegetation as natural flood dampening measures.

Above all, let’s appreciate our urban creeks and rivers for what they are – and for what they can become, so the next generation will have the same chance to enjoy them as we have.

Read more:
What if urban plans gave natural systems the space to recover from the cities built over them? It can be done

Oliver A.H. Jones works on collaborative projects with, and has received funding from, Environment Protection Authority (EPA) Victoria, Melbourne Water and South East Water.

– ref. Many urban waterways were once waste dumps. Restoration efforts have made great strides – but there’s more to do to bring nature back – https://theconversation.com/many-urban-waterways-were-once-waste-dumps-restoration-efforts-have-made-great-strides-but-theres-more-to-do-to-bring-nature-back-206407

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Tuffley, Senior Lecturer in Applied Ethics & CyberSecurity, Griffith University

Amid an ongoing cost-cutting effort, Twitter has now refused to pay the bills to renew its multi-year contract with Google Cloud, Platformer has reported.

We’ve all heard of “the cloud” – but what does it have to do with Twitter? And more to the point, what will the consequences be for Twitter users if Google Cloud pulls the plug on the platform?

What are cloud computing services?

To put it simply, “the cloud” is an assembly of computing resources
that are remotely accessible over the internet. These resources are leased out to internet-connected organisations so they don’t have to buy and maintain their own.

In Twitter’s case, these resources include storage space for very large quantities of data, as well as a suite of programs that perform various operations on these data, as agreed upon in the contract. All of this takes place across a global network of physical servers.

Read more:
Where’s your data? It’s not actually in the cloud, it’s sitting in a data centre

Cloud computing is a convenient and cost-effective business model, which has gained much favour from enterprises large and small.

Currently, a handful of players dominate this market. In the lead is Amazon Web Services (AWS) which holds about 32% of the market. Amazon became the first cloud provider in 2006 and has since established a comfortable lead over its rivals, Microsoft Azure (23%) and Google Cloud (10%).

Reliability and scalability are perhaps the most important requirements a company will have of its cloud service provider. And when it comes to reliability, “redundancy” is key.

Redundancy means that if one data centre goes down, there are multiple others with duplicate data that can seamlessly step into service. And if the quantity of user data is high in one particular data centre, the extra load can be farmed out to another. In this way, peak traffic periods can be managed without loss of performance.

What might happen if Google pulls the plug?

It seems Twitter is at loggerheads with its cloud provider, Google Cloud. The company is reportedly disputing its Google Cloud bill as it seeks to renegotiate its contract with Google.

The issue appears to be rooted in a disagreement over service quality and performance. Twitter doesn’t think it’s getting value for money, and is withholding the latest payment in its US$1 billion contract with Google Cloud.

Under the contract, Google Cloud hosts many of Twitter’s trust and safety services. If the disagreement isn’t resolved by the end of the month, and if Twitter severs ties with Google Cloud, this could seriously threaten its ability to fight spam, remove child sexual abuse material and generally protect accounts.

Google also currently allows Twitter users to sign up with their Google account. And Twitter profiles are highly ranked in Google searches, by virtue of Twitter’s close ties with Google. This favoured status could be in jeopardy if the two companies can’t come to terms.

Apart from Google Cloud, Twitter also has a multi-year cloud computing contract with AWS to offer a host of functions. According to reports, it has also withheld payments from Amazon in the past and owed some US$70 million in bills as of March. Amazon responded by threatening to withhold payments for advertising it runs on the platform.

Why is Twitter refusing to pay?

The dispute can perhaps be understood as yet another attempt by Twitter to radically reduce operating costs. It’s a a trend that began late last year when Elon Musk acquired the company for US$44 billion.

Musk, who just appointed former NBC Universal advertising executive Linda Yaccarino as Twitter CEO, has implemented a suite of cost-cutting measures since the takeover – among these, the firing of more than half of the company’s 7,500 employees.

Looking at the big picture, we see Musk in the throes of trying to make Twitter a leaner, more efficient business.

Cracking down on malicious misuse

At stake in this dispute are services that help keep Twitter free of malicious, dangerous and offensive content. Twitter’s battle against this content, as well as against spam and bots, has been ongoing. While it’s difficult to predict the outcome of the dispute with Google, it’s likely Twitter will take whatever course of action helps the company save money.

That could mean moving those services to a different provider, or retaining Google Cloud’s services but on more favourable terms. Another possibility (although less likely) is for Twitter to migrate those particular services in-house where it will have more control. But this would also require spending and human resources to manage the data.

In a worst-case scenario, Twitter may collapse or destabilise if certain elements within it go offline. Aside from Twitter trolls, this outcome would be in nobody’s best interest. So it’s more likely Twitter and Google Cloud will find a mutually agreeable way forward.

Read more:
Instead of showing leadership, Twitter pays lip service to the dangers of deep fakes

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

– ref. Twitter is refusing to pay Google for cloud services. Here’s why it matters, and what the fallout could be for users – https://theconversation.com/twitter-is-refusing-to-pay-google-for-cloud-services-heres-why-it-matters-and-what-the-fallout-could-be-for-users-207718

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mathew Aitchison, Professor of Architecture and CEO of Building 4.0 CRC, Monash University

Have we reached peak affordable-housing-debate in Australia? Or is it a case of that old mountaineering saying: the fog is thickest just before the summit?

As someone who has been involved in building innovation for the past decade, what strikes me about the current debate is not its height, but its flatness. By this I mean how something as complex as housing can be reduced to one or two issues of the moment. Is the key to ending our housing woes really just “supply”? And will the Albanese government’s new $A10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund (HAFF) solve that problem?

Yes, this flatness is inherent to politics, but if we don’t attempt to unflatten the problem we’ll be stuck in the very public game of housing affordability “Whac-A-Mole” for quite some time. It goes something like this: release more land … ease planning restrictions … end NIMBY-ism … rent freeze … build-to-rent … early access to super … negative gearing … prefab housing … developer greed … skills shortage … gentrification … supply-chain disruption … inclusionary zoning … capital gains tax reform … industrial action … and so on and so forth.

So much froth for so little beer. So how do we build the industry’s productivity and capacity? The answer is the same as it has been in every other sector: the building industry desperately needs to innovate.

Read more:
To deliver enough affordable housing and end homelessness, what must a national strategy do?

But what about the new housing fund?

The federal government says its new fund will provide A$500 million a year to build much-needed social housing. The opposition says this will fuel inflation. The Greens are demanding more direct funding of housing (at first $5 billion a year, now reduced to $2.5 billion) and a rent freeze.

Is the new fund inflationary? Yes and no.

Unless the bill is coupled with measures that increase the industry’s productivity and capacity, it will be inflationary. The industry lacks the capacity to build as many dwellings as the market needs, or the extra 30,000 social and affordable homes the government says the fund will deliver in the first five years. Remember, property prices are just off an all-time high, with construction costs up by more than 50% over the past decade.

To meet our housing targets, we need to find new ways of building more with less.

Read more:
Albanese government tackles housing crisis on 3 fronts, but there’s still more to do

Supply is only one piece of the puzzle

The problem with seeing housing provision solely as a matter of “supply” (read “funding”) is that this accounts for only one phase of the process. It takes more than dollars to deliver a building. We must address all the phases: development, design, construction, operation and, after all that, end of life.

If we don’t do that, we won’t solve the root problems. And we risk missing opportunities ripe for innovation.

Let’s consider some innovative ideas for each of the building phases.

Development

New business and ownership models are needed. These include:

• housing-as-a-service (HaaS) – the space between short-term rental and long-term hotels, which suits mobile or itinerant populations and which AirBnB is increasingly exploiting

• co-housing – residents band together to develop housing themselves or with help from an agent, such as Nightingale or others

• build-to-rent – instead of building to sell to residents or investors, housing is retained for the purpose of renting it out, with recent federal tax changes supporting this approach

• rent-to-buy – residents have the right to buy (progressively or outright) their rental housing

• shared equity schemes – a way for buyers to own a more “affordable” fraction of the home and get a foot in the door.

Read more:
Build-to-rent is seen as affordable, but it’s yet to help those most in need

These alternative approaches will change the calculus of property development. Let’s not aim to centralise housing development. Rather, we should crowd-source it to as many organisations as possible.

A final area for innovation in the development phase is planning. We can use digital tools to make the planning system more transparent and efficient.

Design

Make houses more efficient. Australian houses are among the world’s largest even though households are shrinking. As the Swedish saying goes: “The cheapest square metre is the square metre you don’t build!”

Make houses more flexible and diverse. Housing could then accommodate different uses, such as home offices or sublettable units, and various family structures and sizes, including extended families.

Read more:
People want and need more housing choice. It’s about time governments stood up to deliver it

Construction

Develop new building systems and supply chains. We need faster, cheaper and higher-quality ways of building.

In contrast to building on site from the ground up, prefabricated, modular or industrialised house-building happens in factories. These approaches could increase capacity, on top of traditional approaches.

More people, more people, more people: the industry needs a new generation with different skill sets.

Up entering Swedish and German house-building factories, it is clear these are more inclusive workplaces. A key benefit of industrialised building is it promotes greater workforce participation. These are the diverse and high-skill jobs of the future.

Operation

Improve building performance through better development, design and operation of housing. Occupants won’t be left with unaffordable “utility timebombs” with high running costs.

Make houses more durable and easy to maintain. Well-designed and well-built housing can be used for decades past current buildings’ “use-by” dates. Longer-lived buildings will help to plug the holes in the leaky bucket of housing provision.

Read more:
We need a ‘lemon law’ to make all the homes we buy and rent more energy-efficient

End of life

An increased focus on decarbonisation and sustainable use of resources will enable new approaches to reusing and recycling building materials.

Re-using existing and obsolete buildings for new housing – adaptive re-use – is another way to provide more housing.

Where to from here?

Innovations like these could be applied tomorrow to help us do more with less.

A final challenge to government: as we prepare to spend billions on building housing across the country, is it too outlandish to imagine we could invest a mere 1% of those vast sums in innovation programs? Innovation can deliver the increases in building productivity and capacity that Australia so badly needs.

Mathew Aitchison receives funding from the Department of Industry’s CRC Program.

– ref. Building in the same old ways won’t end the housing crisis. We need innovation to boost productivity – https://theconversation.com/building-in-the-same-old-ways-wont-end-the-housing-crisis-we-need-innovation-to-boost-productivity-206862

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Theresa Larkin, Associate professor of Medical Sciences, University of Wollongong

We have millions of hair follicles on our body, including around 100,000 on our scalp.

This might sound like a lot of hair, yet humans are described as “hairless”. We have evolved to be the only mammals with a relatively hairless body, but still with scalp hair.

So how does your hair affect your body temperature when it’s hot or cold?

Compared with other animals, our hair does not have as much influence on keeping us warm or cool as you might think.

Read more:
Health Check: why do some people feel the cold more than others?

Essential to our survival

Our brain function and body’s metabolism depend on an optimal temperature of around 37℃. Thermoregulation maintains this body temperature, even when we are exposed to a hotter or colder external temperature.

For non-human mammals, body hair or fur plays a role in protecting against environmental cold or heat.

For instance, a heavy fur coat helps keep a polar bear warm in the cold. But fur also keeps an animal cool in the heat because it can absorb or reflect radiant heat.

Scientists think this is why humans have kept hair on our heads. Our heads are exposed to the most heat from the sun, and scalp hair keeps our heads cool.

Research published just last week suggests curly hair provides the best heat protection. That’s because curly hair’s thicker layer of insulation reduces the amount of sun that reaches the scalp.

Read more:
How humid is it? 3 things to keep you cool in a hot and sticky summer (and 3 things that won’t)

But hair is not the only factor

When humans moved from living in the jungle to the savannah, they needed to walk and run long distances in the sun. This meant they needed a way to handle the increased body temperature that comes with physical activity in the heat.

Sweating is the best way to lose heat and cool down, but the presence of hair reduces sweating and heat loss from the skin.

So humans evolved to lose body hair to be better adapted to exercising in the heat. Fewer hair follicles in our skin made room for more sweat glands. This made our skin optimal for sweat evaporation – and the heat loss that goes with it – to keep us cool.

Read more:
The art of balding: a brief history of hairless men

So what’s best in the heat?

You might think removing body hair or having a bald head is best for sweating and keeping cool when exercising in the heat. However, it’s not that simple.

Removing head hair would increase the amount of sun that reaches your scalp. This means you would need to sweat more during exercise in the sun to reduce an increase in body temperature, but not by much.

In fact, it’s the least hairy
areas of our body that have the highest sweat rates during exercise. These are our forehead, neck, feet and hands.

So the best way to keep cool in the heat is to keep these areas uncovered (but still use sunscreen). Removing body hair will not have a large impact on your overall sweat rate.

How about when it’s cold?

Our body hair and head hair theoretically have a role in keeping us warm, but the effects are minimal.

When we are cold, the muscles of the hair follicles on the body contract to cause the hairs to stand straight. This is an attempt to trap heat close to the body and we see this as goosebumps. However, because our body hair is so thin, this does not have a big effect in keeping us warm.

Our head hair can prevent some heat loss from the head, but again this is limited.

When it’s cold, heat can still be lost through the skin of the head regardless of your hairstyle.

The scalp also has only a very thin layer of fat compared to the rest of our skin, so our head has less insulation to protect against the cold.

A warm hat or beanie is the only way to prevent too much heat lost from the head.

In a nutshell

Our head and body hair, or lack of it, does have a small role in how you maintain your body temperature.

But overall, your hairstyle does not influence whether you feel warm or cool.

Read more:
I’ve Always Wondered: why did mammals go the fur route, rather than developing feathers?

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

– ref. Big hair? Bald? How much difference your hair really makes to keep you cool or warm – https://theconversation.com/big-hair-bald-how-much-difference-your-hair-really-makes-to-keep-you-cool-or-warm-201380

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

The slide in Australia’s labour productivity – real gross domestic product per hour worked – has become a real concern. In the past year, labour productivity has fallen 4.6%.

Unless it resumes growing, either wage growth will need to slide to the Reserve Bank’s inflation target of 2-3% on average over time, or the bank will need to keep pushing up rates until it does.

This is because, as Reserve Bank Governor Philip Lowe pointed out in a speech last week, over time increases in the consumer price index move in line with increases in unit labour costs (wage increases divided by increases in labour productivity).

This means that if there is no increase in labour productivity – and right now there isn’t – the consumer price index will come to reflect only wage increases, and the bank will try to bring both down to 2-3%, “on average, over time”.

Unit labour costs versus consumer price index

In previous decades labour productivity growth has averaged 2.4% and 2.2%, and most recently 1.1%, allowing wages growth of at least one percentage point above the Reserve Bank’s inflation target without accelerating inflation.

But, for the moment, that no longer seems possible.

Average labour productivity growth the slowest in 60 years

Why productivity growth is sliding

Sliding productivity growth is a worldwide phenomenon. An Australian Productivity Commission report earlier this year found only one advanced economy (Israel) in which average annual productivity growth was higher after 2005 than in the decades before it.

One possible reason for the current decline, suggested by the governor, is that during the COVID pandemic, firms concentrated on surviving rather than seeking out more efficient ways to produce.

This is an optimistic suggestion, as it implies productivity growth will rebound.

Another suggestion would be that technology is luring workers into unproductive, time-consuming tasks instead of work.

Many of us spend a good deal of time each day responding to emails (including those from colleagues who insist on annoying “reply all” thank you notes).

A longer-term factor would be that service industries now dominate employment in Australia. Such industries include retail, hospitality and social assistance: areas where there is less room to lift – or even measure – productivity than there was in the industries that used to dominate, such as manufacturing and agriculture.

And while the fall in unemployment to near a 50-year low is good news, it is likely that some of the long-term unemployed now getting jobs are not as productive, at least initially.

Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s proposal to allow unemployed Australians to work more hours before losing benefits would have a similar effect.

Also, the link between productivity growth and wages may run the other way. Falling real wages makes labour cheaper for firms, which might deter them from investing in the equipment needed to boost labour productivity.

As real wages growth fell to long-term lows over the past decade, the share of national income businesses devoted to investment slumped.

Business investment as a share of GDP

In a landmark report in March, the Productivity Commission said it wanted education quality improved and loan eligibility for tertiary students expanded.

And it wanted better-targeted skilled migration and award wages adjusted more fairly and efficiently.

It said the few remaining tariffs on imported goods should be removed and the government’s safeguards mechanism made the primary means of transitioning to net zero greenhouse gas emissions.

It also wanted tax reform, “towards less distortive, more efficient approaches”.

Tax and the Stage 3 cuts in the frame

Views differ on how to reform taxes. We argue reform should be guided by the principle that we should increase taxes on things we want to discourage (such as greenhouse gas emissions and smoking) and lower them on things we want to encourage (such as work and innovation).

Other purely revenue-raising taxes would be ones that did not distort decisions, such as taxes on land (which if anything would cause land to be used more efficiently) and taxes on super-profits of resource companies (which would not dissuade businesses from extraction, because it would remain profitable).

Any cuts in income tax rates should focus on encouraging the marginal workers who are actually likely to be persuaded to work more hours. These are generally low and middle earners, and are often mothers considering returning to work.

On fairness grounds, taxes should be directed towards those who could best pay.

Each of these criteria builds a case for redesigning the so-called Stage 3 tax cuts due to come into effect next year.

Not every Productivity Commission suggestion in the nine-volume report, or other suggestions, will be worth taking on board. But that’s no reason not to discuss them. None will get quick results, but that makes starting all the more urgent.

Read more:
Don’t blame workers for falling productivity – we’re not the ones holding it back

John Hawkins was formerly a senior economist and forecaster at the Reserve Bank and Treasury.

Craig Applegate used to work for the Commonwealth Treasury many years ago and is an inactive member of the Labor party. Craig is also the University of Canberra branch president of the National Tertiary Education Union but our opinions expressed in this article are entirely personal in nature and in no way reflect the views or policies of the NTEU and its membership.

– ref. We know how to boost productivity and lift wages – but it will take time and much tougher tax reform – https://theconversation.com/we-know-how-to-boost-productivity-and-lift-wages-but-it-will-take-time-and-much-tougher-tax-reform-207609

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nicholas Gill, Associate Professor in Geography, University of Wollongong

Tree-changers opting for a rural lifestyle can get a bad rap for not managing their properties well. The COVID-19 pandemic prompted thousands more city-based Australians to buy property in the regions. So will this lead to more absentee neighbours who, in the eyes of some, don’t know what they’re doing?

If you buy rural land, you are buying into a community. You’re also expected to take on certain responsibilities, such as managing weeds on the property. This helps both the environment and your neighbours.

Tensions about weeds can be especially high in areas with many tree-changers. Farmers, for example, may think new arrivals don’t care about how weeds affect agriculture, creating an “us and them” mentality. But are these perceptions warranted?

Our new paper examined this question. We found almost everyone, including absentee landowners, were concerned about weeds and spent a lot of time managing them. But their motivations for doing so were different. These insights can help communities deal with the threat of invasive plants.

Tree-changers: friend or foe?

An estimated 22-45% of landowners in Australia are absentee. They might be corporations, Indigenous groups or farmers leasing their land to others. They can also be tree-changers who are generally more interested in rural lifestyles and “getting into nature” than farming the land. This group may visit their properties only on weekends or for holidays.

Of all absentee landowners, tree-changers can readily attract complaints because of the significant changes they bring to the look and culture of rural areas. They often occupy former farmland and may cease farming, engage in conservation work, build new houses or just ride motorbikes all weekend.

Absentee landholders can own vast swathes of land. So the way they manage their properties, including managing weeds, can have big consequences.

Weeds can cause economic and environmental harm. They may lower crop productivity and damage pastures. They can also out-compete native vegetation and disrupt ecosystems.

Weed control methods include herbicides, intensive grazing with goats, or removal by hand or with machinery.

Government agencies say absentee landholders can be hard to contact and lack knowledge about weeds. They can also be time-poor and absent at times when weed spraying or removal is most effective.

But weed control requires all landowners to pull their weight. People can feel their efforts are wasted if neighbours do little.

In places such as the Southern Tablelands in New South Wales, absentee landholders have been blamed for enabling the spread of a noxious weed known as serrated tussock. The species damages pastures and is difficult for stock to digest.

Read more:
A botanical detective story: shedding light on the journey out of Africa for one of Australia’s worst weeds

The evidence is mixed

So what does the research say on the matter? One literature review in the United States found absentee owners, as compared with resident owners, were less likely to actively manage their land and had less scientific knowledge.

But another US study did not identify residential status as a factor in weed management.

In Australia, research tends to note absentee owners as an issue for weed management. One small study, however, found absentee landholders in Central West NSW were engaged, interested in collaboration on weed management, and reasonably knowledgeable.

Another study found length of ownership was a greater influence on land management than residential status.

Our research aimed to better understand whether absentee land ownership in Australia makes a difference to how weeds were managed.

Our results

Our research focused on the Shoalhaven and Bega Valley in southeastern NSW. These regions have experienced an influx of tree-changers in recent decades. They include towns such as Bega, Bowral, Candelo, Berry, Kangaroo Valley and Nowra.

We surveyed 439 landowners about their behaviours and attitudes toward weeds and their management. We then compared the responses of residential owners (88% of respondents) and absentee landowners (12%). We excluded responses from farmers and focused on “lifestylers”, which are themselves a significant group.

Both groups said weeds negatively affected them due to how they looked and the environmental damage they caused. Similar proportions of each group were trying to eradicate or control weeds.

Almost everyone was concerned about weeds. Both groups said weed management was a priority and said being a good neighbour was a primary motivation for taking action.

An overwhelming number of people in both groups managed weeds (and spent one to five hours per week doing so). One of the few significant differences between the groups was that residential landowners prioritised weeds that damaged agriculture, while absentee landowners prioritised weeds that threatened the environment.

This shows how values and interests, rather than indifference, shapes attitudes to weed management.

Read more:
Trees can be weeds too – here’s why that’s a problem

Look beyond where people live

Weed management is determined by our varying social relationships with the land. This must be recognised in both research and policy.

Landowners are diverse and own land for a variety of reasons. Our approach to weed management should take account of these differences. Absenteeism is just one part of the puzzle – and perhaps not as important as we might think.

More research is needed. This should involve in-depth case studies to tease out the issues underpinning community tensions about weed management and identify common ground. Then, we can develop steps towards more effective weed management across fence lines.

Nicholas Gill receives funding from the NSW Government via the Bushfire and Natural Hazards Research Centre and has previously received funding from the Australian Research Council and the NSW Department of Planning and Environment

Laurie Chisholm has previously received funding from the Australian Research Council and the NCRIS Australian National Data Service.

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

– ref. Are tree-changers bad at managing their rural properties? A new study wades into the weeds to find the answer – https://theconversation.com/are-tree-changers-bad-at-managing-their-rural-properties-a-new-study-wades-into-the-weeds-to-find-the-answer-206410