Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Cameron Murray, Research Fellow – Henry Halloran Trust, University of Sydney

Real home prices across Australia have climbed 150% since 2000, while real wages have climbed by less than a third.

Sydney and Melbourne rank among the most expensive cities in the world. Australia-wide, home ownership levels have fallen from 70% to 65% in the last 20 years and home equity levels have fallen from 80% to 75%. Younger workers have been completely priced out of the major cities.

Among those who can afford homes, the increase in household debt to income ratios is weighing on consumption and increasing financial fragility.

We are often told the problem lies in supply — we don’t have enough homes in the places people want them. And while it’s true a reduction in the supply of housing relative to the population will reduce housing per person and increase housing rents, what we are seeing is something different — a growing divergence between rents and the price of housing as a financial asset that’s increasing much more quickly.

Australia has become something of a world leader in demand-driven home price inflation. Australians have been increasingly buying housing for the purpose of securing financial returns — both capital gains and rental income, in a process often described as the financialisation of housing, but one that we think can be more accurately thought of as “rentierization”.

How it happened

In a working paper published this morning by the University of Sydney and the University College London Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose, we argue “rentierization” best describes the increasing use of housing to extract land rents, in the form of capital gains on property and rents from tenants — a process in which Australia is well advanced.

Despite multiple major boom and bust cycles, including Victoria’s 1880s land boom and the 1890s recession that followed, land values and home prices were relatively low compared to the total value of economic activity right up the 1960s.

Long-term Australian real price index for housing and construction prices

In contrast, we show, real Australian home prices have soared 215% since 1980 and have shown few signs of reversion to long-term trends, despite brief corrections in 2009-10 and 2017-2019.

The graph shows the rise in home prices has been driven by rising land values rather than construction costs, which have grown at a rate closer to general price inflation.

It’s tempting to ascribe the takeoff in home prices to low interest rates. Low rates enable households to take out larger mortgages relative to their incomes.

But rates were also low in the 1960s (close to rates in the 2010s, when home prices were soaring) and didn’t much push up prices then.

More from the house than the wage

Low rates appear to be a necessary, but not a sufficient, condition for soaring prices. Among the other things that seem to be needed are increased access to finance, declining public involvement in housing, and tax breaks that reflect the political power of owners.

The return to land in the form of capital growth has climbed from around 3.5% of gross domestic product before 1960 to 16.7% of GDP since 2000.

Read more: Fall in ageing Australians’ home-ownership rates looms as seismic shock for housing policy

It has become so high as to rival and at times dominate wages as a source of household income.

The graph below compares the annual return to a typical home over a year with the annual return to labour in the form of a wage, both nationally and for Sydney (where only recent data is available).

When the measure is greater than one it implies that the average home had a greater return, made up of rent and capital gains, than the average worker.

Total return from housing compared to wages

In 16 of the 29 quarters leading up to June 2019, the median Sydney home earned more than the median full-time worker earned from wages.

In Australia, housing is overwhelmingly privately owned. For a brief period in the 1950 and 1960s, public housing was created on a significant scale, but a huge privatisation program soon followed and today it represents just a few percent of new supply.

Into this environment was thrown the removal of controls on lending from the 1980s, enabling banks to expand property-related lending.

Read more: Vital Signs: why now is the right time to clamp down on negative gearing

More credit flowing in to a finite supply of land generates a feedback cycle as rising prices and collateral values stimulates more lending and higher prices.

In Australia, mortgage lending grew from just under 20% of GDP in 1990 to over 80% today. By way of comparison, business lending climbed 35% to 40%.

The vast majority of mortgage lending is for the purchase of existing, rather than new, homes.

Investors push up prices for everyone

The investor share of new mortgage lending has grown from 10% in the early 1990s to 40%. It has given owner occupiers and first home buyers price competition they didn’t previously have to face.

Australia’s unusually generous tax concessions for investors helped. They are granted discounts on capital gains tax, while being able to deduct the full costs of operating their properties, (including interest costs) against income from any source.

Where the deductions exceed rental income, the process is known as negative gearing.

Read more: Australians are working longer so they can pay off their mortgage debt

A lot will need to change in order to shift things. Mortgage credit will need stronger regulation. It may be time to revisit the credit controls used in Australia in the 1950s and 1960s, which directed investment into new rather than existing housing and helped increase home ownership.

The case for a central housing bank

Taxes should focus on land rents, in the form of increasing residential property values or windfalls from changing land use. Taxing away future rents would dent speculation.

Broadening annual land value taxes to primary residences as well as investors housing would be part of the change, introduced at a low initial rate and with options for delayed payment or borrowing against future sales for those on low incomes.

Tax advantages extended housing investors, such as negative gearing and discounted capital gains taxes, should be scrapped.

Read more: Our states are crying poor. They wouldn’t if they charged for rezoning

And there’s a case to reintroduce direct government involvement. A central housing bank could use its ability to supply and sell new housing to set a “home price corridor” to ensure home prices did not rise rapidly and dampen potential falls in prices.

It could also be used to provide a variety of alternative stable tenures for households, such as different kinds of renting, public housing and selling dwellings to social housing providers at discounted prices.

Challenging vested interests will be hard, but the current downturn offers hope.

As rates of home ownership fall, renters struggle to make ends meet and central banks run out of leverage to stimulate the economy with interest rates already at rock-bottom, reforms that previously appeared politically impossible might gain traction.

– ref. When houses earn more than jobs: how we lost control of Australian house prices and how to get it back – https://theconversation.com/when-houses-earn-more-than-jobs-how-we-lost-control-of-australian-house-prices-and-how-to-get-it-back-144076

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Heidi Norman, Professor, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Technology Sydney

Review: Looky Looky Here Comes Cooky, screening at the Melbourne International Film Festival and on NITV and SBS Viceland.

This year marks the 250th anniversary of Captain Cook’s first landing on the east coast and his claim of territory for the British Empire. Like most scheduled events of 2020, commemorations of this milestone were scuttled by the pandemic.

For some, the cancellation of Cook events relieved a simmering trepidation. But many Aboriginal communities had worked hard to consider their engagement in the 250-year commemoration and communicate the “view from the shore” among themselves and to wider audiences.

The film Looky Looky Here Comes Cooky, directed by Steven McGregor, canvasses Indigenous Australian accounts of, and responses to, Captain Cook’s arrival.

Read more: Explorer, navigator, coloniser: revisit Captain Cook’s legacy with the click of a mouse

The length of the east coast

Sweeping coastline shots remind us of the changing landscape away from the buttery sandstone cliffs of Dharawal country at that place Kamay, which Cook renamed Stingray Bay and we now call Botany Bay.

Host Steven Oliver – known previously as an actor and as creator of comedy sketch show Black Comedy (2014) – guides us the length of the east coast.

At La Perouse we hear the testimony of Dharawal elder and intellectual Shayne Williams and Aboriginal Land Council chair Noeleen Timberry, whose family were witnesses in 1770. We journey through to the Torres Strait, where the story of the planting of a stick and cloth at so called Possession Island is disputed.

Read more: Black Drop Effect review: infusing the present moment with layers of the past

Along the way, artists yarn, dance, slam and sing on a specially created “songline”. Songlines are not just oral histories or “anthropological footnotes”, Oliver reminds us. They

tell the real story in different, but essentially complementary ways; to really belong you’ve got to embrace the songlines. They are the story of this land.

Singer Kev Carmody narrates the movements of warriors organising in his ballad of Multuggerah, a resistance leader and warrior of the Darling Downs.

Mo’Ju sings of a medicine woman with predictive powers who “can see them coming from far away, I know that they are bringing us pain”.

Rapper Birdz imagines a moment

standing on the shoreline, Cook man coming, Patiently waiting for someone I haven’t seen before, They say they came in peace.

While Mau Power vocalises “anger and loss, pain and hurt”.

A more truthful engagement

The voices in Looky Looky offer the possibility of a different Australia with a more truthful engagement with its history.

At one point Oliver declares, “Uncle Jimmy James [Cook] sailed up the north coast, no shame, naming places that all the way along the coast”.

Cook pubs, Cook streets, roads, parks, bridges and even a university reveal an enduring mark.

Calling in at the Captain Cook Hotel, Oliver feels duty bound to order the kitchen’s “special”, a macabre joke not lost on Indigenous peoples of the Pacific. It is a Captain Cook steak (on ciabatta).

There is arguably greater generosity about the Cook story now than there was when the bicentenary was celebrated. The current NSW State Library exhibition Eight Days in Kamay includes 1970 footage from the counter-commemoration protest of poet Oodgeroo Noonuccal in which she recites:

Peace was yours Australian man with tribal laws you made, till white colonial stole your peace with rape and murder raid … they shot and poisoned and enslaved, until a scattered few, only a remnant now remain, and the heart dies in you.

Also featured is activist and Aboriginal Legal Service co-founder Paul Coe, who then challenged the crowd:

… the only way you are going to get anywhere is to come out and demand your rights, showing that you want your rights, not begging.

But in Looky Looky, Guugu Yimithirr Traditional Owner and Bama Historian Alberta Hornsby explains Cook didn’t know he was looking at a nation of peoples who had scientists, lore, language. Eventually, she says, he did develop an admiration for her people.

Hornsby reminds us of the resolution of a dispute over stolen harvests by Cook’s men, who had broken the lore/law of the land. At this location in far north Queensland, Guugu Yimithirr men conducted a process of reconciliation with Cook and several of his crew, to settle their differences.

Read more: Terra nullius interruptus: Captain James Cook and absent presence in First Nations art

Being seen

Hornsby and Shayne Williams are strong voices throughout the film. Both speak of the complexity of commemorating Cook while acknowledging our own people and history.

As Hornsby says:

I do have respect for Captain Cook, but I have far greater respect for my ancestors.

Williams adds:

If we’re going to move forward let’s own our history. The time has come to make ourselves visible again. We’re the only ones who can do that. Australian history and Aboriginal history, are synonymous.

Oliver enlivens songlines to connect people over Country with his earnest blend of engaging humour and bold fact. Within the pastiche of animation, dance, poetry and interviews, it is the generously offered reflections about commemoration, past and present that provide the most compelling elements.

Read more: Friday essay: death on the Darling, colonialism’s final encounter with the Barkandji

Any commemoration of the British claim to the territory of Australia that unleashed loss and disruption on an unrelenting scale, is fraught. Looky Looky is part comedy, part a tale of survival and resistance, part poetry and dance.

The intention of the songlines as narrative is powerful, but the most disruptive forces are the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander voices who are working through ways to carry stories of the past gently but firmly into the present.

The film is worth watching as one contribution to the commemoration of white settlement made difficult by unyielding historical narratives and experience of disadvantage. Much more work is still needed.

MIFF is online until 23 August 2020. Looky Looky Here Comes Cooky will be simulcast on NITV and SBS VICELAND on Thursday 20 August at 8.30pm.

– ref. Looky Looky Here Comes Cooky: the ‘view from the shore’ told through songlines, with generosity – https://theconversation.com/looky-looky-here-comes-cooky-the-view-from-the-shore-told-through-songlines-with-generosity-144065

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

Federal parliament is set to make history with its first “hybrid” sitting in the fortnight starting next week, with some members connecting virtually.

But border closures and state government rules are causing a nightmare for many of those planning to attend in person.

Unless there is a last minute political hitch, a substantial number of MPs will speak, ask questions or respond to questions remotely.

Technology challenges aside, they’ll have the easier time of it than quite a lot of their colleagues.

Victorians who want to be physically present are now in a fortnight’s quarantine, in Canberra or at their homes, unable to leave their residences.

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg and Health Minister Greg Hunt are locked up in the national capital, as are the Speaker, Tony Smith and the Senate President, Scott Ryan. (Hunt has even installed an Australian government background for virtual news conferences.)

Under Queensland government rules, MPs who go to Canberra from that state will have to self-isolate for a fortnight when they return home.

If the Queensland rules are still in force in early December, those attending the final sitting ending December 10 can forget any pre-Christmas sprees – they’ll be isolating until Christmas Day.

Victorians who want to attend all the rest of the year’s scheduled sittings will only be able to have a fortnight home between now and December 10, given the quarantine rules.

Among those Victorians choosing not to make the journey next week is Richard Marles, deputy leader of the opposition. He said on Monday, “It is a difficult decision but I will be staying in my community as Victorians face this second wave.” Labor frontbencher Bill Shorten will also be missing from parliament house – he was on the ABC’s Insiders program in person on Sunday.

Tasmania is tightening its conditions for returning MPs, replacing an automatic exemption from quarantine with consideration on a case by case basis.

Ryan has flagged his concerns with the various restrictions imposed by indicating he will be making a statement to the senate about the issue when it resumes.

It would make sense for the government to consolidate the sittings after the October 6 budget, so the parliament could finish the year earlier, but there is no sign of that as yet.

Even in Canberra life will be tougher than usual for some of the parliamentarians. In a statement on Monday Smith and Ryan advised those from Sydney and Newcastle that while in the ACT they should “avoid visiting retail or hospitality venues,” which is bad news for the cash-strapped local eateries.

Moreover: “When attending Parliament House, parliamentarians and staff should avoid congregating in groups, and avoid face-to-face meetings with external visitors”.

Not that there will be many staff to congregate – the presiding officers say they should not go to Canberra “unless it is considered absolutely essential”. And external visitors will be as rare as hens’ teeth, under the presiding officers’ advice.

Scott Morrison has yet to tick off on MPs linking up virtually – Labor is keen – but it is hard to see him not agreeing.

This is formally done through Christian Porter, the leader of the House, who earlier expressed concerns about the technology and the application of parliamentary privilege.

Morrison has signalled general support for the sitting to have its virtual element. For the government not to embrace it would look out of touch at best and obstructionist at worst. Parliamentary committees have been operating remotely through the pandemic and for years before.

The government has the final say only in regard to the House of Representatives; the Senate, where the government is in a minority, is its own master.

This week rehearsals are underway for the virtual system, with MPs who won’t be in Canberra given trial runs. They will have to operate from their electorate offices, and use parliamentary equipment. Even the usual dress rules that apply to each chamber are expected to operate for the “virtuals”.

The pandemic produced a different atmosphere in the House of Representatives, with the macho aggression toned down, certainly initially. No doubt the hybrid parliament will have yet another distinctive vibe.

– ref. View from The Hill: ‘Virtual’ participants and border restrictions will make for a bespoke parliamentary sitting – https://theconversation.com/view-from-the-hill-virtual-participants-and-border-restrictions-will-make-for-a-bespoke-parliamentary-sitting-144602

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adam Kamradt-Scott, Associate professor, University of Sydney

The world is hoping a safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine will soon become available. So far, more than 160 candidate vaccines are in development.

Some 31 of these have entered human clinical trials. One of them is Russia’s “Sputnik V”, which was granted approval by the country’s health ministry last week. But the World Health Organisation (WHO) and a large number of international experts have urged Russia to conduct more testing to ensure the vaccine’s safety before using it.

But even if this candidate and others are proven to be safe and effective, developing the vaccine is just the first step.

Some of the biggest challenges in getting everyone vaccinated still lie ahead.

Read more: Russia’s coronavirus vaccine hasn’t been fully tested. Doling it out risks side effects and false protection

Challenge 1: manufacturing the vaccine

The first major challenge after a vaccine is developed is to produce enough of it to start vaccination programs. One estimate puts global vaccine production capacity at up to 6.4 billion doses per year, though this is based on single-dose influenza vaccines.

But some of the COVID-19 vaccines currently in development require two or three injections. This means, if the same technology for COVID-19 vaccines is required as for influenza vaccines, global production is severely reduced.

It has been estimated that to achieve sufficient levels of immunity among the global population with a two-dose vaccine, we would need between 12 billion and 15 billion doses – roughly twice the world’s current total vaccine manufacturing capacity.

Shifting to exclusively manufacture a COVID-19 vaccine will also mean shortages of other vaccines such as those for preventable childhood diseases such as measles, mumps and rubella. So prioritising COVID-19 could cost many other lives.

Can we buy vaccines in advance?

Given these production constraints, governments have previously tended to sign advance purchase agreements with vaccine manufacturers to guarantee access. These commercial-in-confidence agreements are usually signed in secret, often with different prices being charged to different governments depending on whether they are the first customer or 30th and their ability to pay.

It also means countries that can afford to buy vaccine stocks in advance get first access, leaving poorer nations to miss out or be forced to wait years. This has happened on at least two previous occasions.

In 2007, Indonesia found it couldn’t purchase H5N1 influenza (bird flu) vaccines despite being one of the worst-affected countries at the time. This was because several other richer countries had already organised advanced purchase agreements, and led Indonesia to temporarily withhold sharing virus samples with the WHO in retaliation. And in 2009, rich nations bought up almost all the stock of H1N1 influenza vaccines, crowding out less-developed nations.

Most of the world’s leaders, including Australia’s Prime Minister Scott Morrison, have stated that a successful COVID-19 vaccine should be shared equitably. In July, Australia was one of 165 countries to join the “COVAX” initiative launched by the WHO, global vaccine alliance GAVI, and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations. The initiative aims to deliver 2 billion doses of a COVID-19 vaccine by the end of 2021.

Countries representing 60% of the world’s population have signed up to this initiative, but not everyone has and we’ve already seen a number of instances in which governments have sought to gain priority access over others. The problem with this vaccine nationalism is that rather than being based on equity or need, it will create global supply problems with those countries that have special deals getting access to the vaccine first.

Read more: How ‘vaccine nationalism’ could block vulnerable populations’ access to COVID-19 vaccines

Challenge 2: distributing the vaccine

The second key challenge is distributing the COVID-19 vaccine. Most vaccines need to be transported in cold storage, which presents a problem for many parts of the world where electricity failure is a common feature of daily life.

The WHO has estimated up to 50% of vaccines are wasted every year, often because of inadequate temperature control in supply chains.

With the marked reduction in international passenger air travel, the movement of cargo has also slowed. This will need to be addressed with airlines ahead of any attempts to distribute the vaccine.

Beyond the initial transport from the manufacturer, getting the vaccine to rural and remote communities requires sophisticated logistical services, which many poorer countries lack.

Without substantial investment to strengthen international and national supply chains, it will be years before vaccines can reach everyone who needs them.

How is Australia placed?

In Australia, criticism has emerged the government hasn’t done enough to secure access to vaccines, with some reports also suggesting New Zealand has invested more in global vaccine initiatives.

But Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt said on Sunday that Australia is in “advanced negotiations with a range of different companies with regards to a vaccine,” one of which is reportedly the University of Oxford’s candidate.

While some might argue more needs to be done to secure a COVID-19 vaccine for Australians, it’s not necessarily the best move to enter into advanced purchase agreements. They are expensive, and there’s no guarantee the candidates Australia signs up for will be safe and effective.

Nevertheless, the government’s approach has been to avoid putting all its eggs in one basket, supporting multiple vaccine initiatives. It has also supported multilateral initiatives such as granting more than US$10 million to CEPI, one of the key organisations managing the COVAX initiative.

It’s also good to see the government is willing to support initiatives such as COVAX that aim to make the vaccine available to those countries with limited means to pay. While some may see this as excessive altruism, it’s in Australia’s broader interest, given borders are likely to remain closed until a vaccine has been made widely available. The quicker the world is vaccinated, the sooner we can reopen our borders.

What this means for the average Australian is that we should get ready for a long wait. Even if the Australian government signs an advanced purchase agreement to secure priority access to a safe and effective COVID vaccine, initial supplies are going to be extremely limited.

Priority groups like frontline health-care workers will get first access, followed by those who are more vulnerable to serious illness. If you’re otherwise fit and healthy, you should be prepared that it could take up to a few years after vaccines become available.

If they become available sooner, it will only be because countries have agreed to work together like never before. Let’s hope they can do it.

Read more: Vaccine progress report: the projects bidding to win the race for a COVID-19 vaccine

– ref. Creating a COVID-19 vaccine is only the first step. It’ll take years to manufacture and distribute – https://theconversation.com/creating-a-covid-19-vaccine-is-only-the-first-step-itll-take-years-to-manufacture-and-distribute-144352

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Donna Pendergast, Dean, School of Educational and Professional Studies, Griffith University

With a little over three months to go, Year 12 students have their sights set on the last major hurdle that will see them complete their final year of school — exams.

What a year it has been for them. All students have experienced disruption, some for many weeks with learning at home rolled out around the nation in its various forms.

Senior induction days celebrated early this year promised a very different experience for these now young adults as their rite-of-passage year slowly changed into one of postponed and finally cancelled events.

We conducted a series of interviews at the end of the first semester with eight Year 12 students from one Queensland school, who hope to study at university. Six were female and two male.

Many students said they were anxious about how COVID-19 has affected their senior year.

One girl said she was

super overwhelmed and uncertain as to how my results will be affected […] I am nervous for the future […] to be honest I am a little bit down[…] I was extremely excited for senior year[…] there is also a lot of chaos in the world, which is pretty overwhelming.

But some were more positive. One commented on “having fantastic teachers”, while another said he was “excited to use technology more”.

Here is what else the students we spoke with had to say about their experience in 2020 and their aspirations for university in 2021.

How they felt

As the parent of a Year 12 student, I have had the chance to sit alongside some Year 12s and witness their journey. Like many other parents and teachers, we have been privy to their disappointments and seemingly endless capacity to pivot, adapt and recalibrate — their resilience and resolve is inspiring.

Read more: ‘Exhausted beyond measure’: what teachers are saying about COVID-19 and the disruption to education

Because this is their year, they must make it the best it can be. But for some the resolve is wearing thin. Almost all the students in our survey expressed a sense of loss about their school year.

One girl said

we are missing out on a lot of these opportunities as well as being able to spend time with my friends at school

And another girl expressed that

it really sucks that we have already missed out on events throughout the school and we are uncertain for how long this will last.

One girl said the class of 2020 was

disadvantaged because many memories that we are meant to be making together in our senior year has been taken away from us.

This highlights the important final year of schooling as a milestone — a rite of passage.

Only one student, who was male, had a contrary view of missing out on a normal year, saying

it’s a great opportunity to relieve myself of many commitments and free up time to work on other endeavours — in other words, I feel pretty good about it.

What about university?

This year Queensland joined the rest of the country in calculating an ATAR for university entry, whereas before they used a different system.

We asked students if they had concerns about university in 2021. One girl summarised many of the responses by saying

I think everyone is a little bit worried about how we will be affected as a cohort — not just because of Covid-19 but also because we are the first year level through on the new ATAR system. That was already pretty overwhelming in terms of new assessment, new university entry calculations, etc. I think that the biggest worry/uncertainty is if universities are going to be a bit more flexible with our cohort.

Students also suggested they are looking to universities to make up some of their lost experiences. One girl said

the class of 2020 will need supportive universities with a close sense of community when we attend in 2021 to make up for some of our lost lasts.

There is a sense of shared experience, a kind of bonding these students expressed, with several comments such as we are “staying positive and looking to the future” and “we just need to look after each other”.

Read more: Every Victorian Year 12 student will have COVID-19 factored into their grade — we should do it for all Australian students

Perhaps endurance and resilience have become a necessary part of the DNA of the class of 2020. These are positive behaviours that will see them through their next phase of education.

– ref. ‘It really sucks’: how some Year 12 students in Queensland feel about 2020 – https://theconversation.com/it-really-sucks-how-some-year-12-students-in-queensland-feel-about-2020-144004

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Morgan Gilmour, Adjunct Researcher in Marine Science, University of Tasmania

After 16 weeks in an industrial compost heap, we unearthed blue and white balloons and found them totally unscathed. The knots we spent hours painstakingly tying by hand more than four months ago were still attached, and sparkly blue balloons still glinted in the sun.

These balloons originally came from packages that advertised them as “100% biodegradable”, with the manufacturers assuring they were made of “100% natural latex rubber”. The implication is that these balloons would have no trouble breaking down in the environment.

Read more: Balloon releases have deadly consequences – we’re helping citizen scientists map them

This appeals to eco-conscious consumers, but really just fuels corporate greenwashing — unsubstantiated claims of environmentally friendly and safe products.

Holding perfectly intact balloons in our hands after four months in industrial compost, we had cause to question these claims, and ran experiments.

What’s the problem?

This problem is two-fold. First, balloons are additional plastic waste in the environment. They are lightweight and can travel on air currents far from the point of release. For example, one 2005 study found a balloon travelled more than 200 kilometres.

When they pop, they float back to the earth’s surface and land in, for example, the ocean or the desert, and wash up on beaches where animals can eat them, from sea turtles and seabirds to desert tortoises.

The stretchiness of balloons means they can get stuck in animals’ digestive tracts, which will cause choking, blockage, decreased nutrient absorption and effectively starve the animal.

Read more: How to get abandoned, lost and discarded ‘ghost’ fishing gear out of the ocean

Second, what most consumers don’t realise, is that to shape milky natural rubber latex sap into the product we know as a balloon, many additional chemicals need to be added to the latex.

These chemicals include antioxidants and anti-fogging (to counteract that cloudy look balloons can get), plasticisers (to make it more flexible), preservatives (to enable the balloon to sit in warehouses and store shelves for months), flame retardants, fragrance and, of course, dyes and pigments.

Even more chemicals have to be used to make the additives “stick” to the latex and to stick to each other, enabling them to work in tandem to create a product we expect to use for about 24 hours. So, the balloons can’t be “100% natural rubber latex”.

And yet, despite substantial evidence of harm and the presence of these chemicals, balloon littering persists. Balloon releases are common, with only some regional regulations in place, such as in New South Wales and the Sunshine Coast.

Lying for decades

While some factions of the balloon industry denounce balloon releases, these claims are only recent.

For decades, the industry relied on one industry-funded study from 1989 which claimed that after six short weeks, balloons degraded “at about the same rate as oak tree leaves” and there was no way balloons were a threat to wildlife.

That study was not peer-reviewed, its methods are unclear and not repeatable, and the results are based on only six balloons.

Read more: Avoiding single-use plastic was becoming normal, until coronavirus. Here’s how we can return to good habits

Because balloons are frequently reported to be at sea, ingested by wild animals and washed up on beaches, it’s clear they’re not breaking down in only six weeks. Anecdotal studies have tested this to varying degrees, confirming balloons don’t break down.

Only one peer-reviewed scientific study has quantified balloon degradation, and that also occurred in 1989 — the same year as the industry study. They tested elasticity for up to one year, which means the balloons were intact for that whole time.

We wanted to know: has anything changed since 1989? And why aren’t there more studies testing balloon degradation, given the passion behind the balloon issue?

So, we set out to quantify exactly how long latex balloons would take to break down. And we asked if balloons degraded differently in different parts of the environment.

Our experiment tested their claims

Industrial composting standards require that the material completely disintegrates after 12 weeks and that the product is not distinguishable from the surrounding soil.

We designed an experiment: after exposing balloons to six hours of sunlight (to simulate typical use, for example, at an outdoor party), we put blue and white balloons in industrial compost, and in saltwater and freshwater tanks.

We allowed for aeration to simulate natural conditions, but otherwise, we left the balloons alone. Every two weeks, we randomly removed 40 balloons from each treatment. We photographed them to document degradation. Then we tested them.

Were the balloons still stretchy? We tested this in the University of Tasmania engineering lab to determine tensile (resistence) strength. We found that in water tanks, the balloons became less stretchy, losing around 75% of their tensile strength. But if they had been composted, balloons retained their stretchiness.

Were the balloons still composed of the same things they started with? We tested this by taking spectral measurements of the balloons’ surface. The balloons showed signs they were exposed to ultra violet light in the water tanks, but not in the compost. This means their chemical composition changed in water, but only slightly.

Finally, and most importantly, did the balloons lose mass?

After 16 weeks, the balloons were still recognisably balloons, though they behaved a little differently in compost, water and saltwater. Some balloons lost 1–2% mass, and some balloons in freshwater gained mass, likely due to osmotic absorption of water.

What can we do?

It’s clear latex balloons don’t meaningfully degrade in 16 weeks and will continue to pose a threat to wildlife. So what can we do as consumers? We offer these tips:

• do not release balloons outdoors
• do not use helium-filled balloons outdoors (this prevents accidental release, and saves helium), which is a critically limited resource
• if you use balloons, deflate and bin them after use
• consider balloon alternatives, like bubbles
• make educated purchases with federal Green Guidelines in mind.

Read more: There are some single-use plastics we truly need. The rest we can live without

– ref. We composted ‘biodegradable’ balloons. Here’s what we found after 16 weeks – https://theconversation.com/we-composted-biodegradable-balloons-heres-what-we-found-after-16-weeks-138731

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Laurie Berg, Associate Professor, University of Technology Sydney

In the early days of the COVID-19 lockdown in March, many temporary visa holders working in heavily casualised industries, such as hospitality and retail, lost their jobs and struggled to meet basic living expenses.

These included international students, backpackers, graduates, sponsored workers and refugees, among others.

Despite the devastating financial impact on these temporary migrants, the government excluded them from JobKeeper and JobSeeker. Instead, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said if they could not support themselves, it was time to go home.

Today, UnionsNSW is releasing the findings of a large-scale survey showing just how badly temporary migrants have suffered due to the lockdown and lack of financial support from the government. The survey of over 5,000 visa holders, conducted in late March and early April, paints a devastating picture:

• 65% of participants lost their job

• 39% did not have enough money to cover basic living expenses

• 43% were skipping meals on a regular basis

• 34% were already homeless, or anticipated imminent eviction because they could not pay rent.

For many, a worsening financial situation

Data from a separate new survey we are conducting confirms that the financial hardship of temporary migrants is likely to worsen in the coming months.

Through the UTS and UNSW-led Migrant Worker Justice Initiative, we conducted an online survey of over 6,000 temporary migrants in July. Preliminary analysis indicates that over half of the participants (57%) anticipated their financial situation would be somewhat or much worse within six months.

This does not take into account the impact of the stage 4 lockdown in Victoria, which came into effect in August after our survey.

Read more: Why temporary migrants need JobKeeper

Many respondents also said they could not “make their way home” when restrictions were being put in place to contain the virus — as Morrison had recommended — because flights were unavailable (20%) or unaffordable (27%). Others could not return because their country’s borders were closed (20%).

But for the majority, leaving Australia was not an option because of the great investment they said they had made in their studies (57%), their work and their futures in Australia (31%).

Half of our respondents also chose not to leave because they might not be able to return to Australia soon, or at all, and this was a risk they could not take.

The government’s treatment of temporary visa holders during the crisis also soured many on their experience here. According to our survey, 59% of international students and backpackers were now somewhat or far less likely to recommend Australia as a place for study or a working holiday.

One international student described his experience as

hopeless, lonely, wronged and without any support after five years paying my taxes and being part of the community.

And according to a backpacker,

the Australian government treated people on working holiday visas as consumable. If I go back to my country, I will never come to Australia again.

Calls for government support have been ignored

In early April, 43 leading academic experts across Australia warned of the severe humanitarian impact the lack of government support would have on visa holders who stayed in Australia.

As the level of destitution among temporary migrants became clear, charities tried to provide emergency food relief, and states introduced limited support schemes for international students, refugees and other groups of visa holders. Many universities, themselves facing significant financial challenges, also provided modest payments to international students.

Read more: Open letter to the prime minister: extend coronavirus support to temporary workers

Despite these interventions, hundreds of organisations — including unions, refugee service providers and migrant communities — raised the alarm in May, and again in July, about the worsening humanitarian crisis.

Still, the federal government continues to refuse support for temporary migrants, except for a small, one-off emergency payment provided to the Red Cross for a limited number of visa holders.

The government’s only other concession was to permit temporary visa holders to access their superannuation (which most did not have because they worked for noncompliant employers who underpaid them in cash). Even this small support mechanism was recently ended for temporary residents without warning.

Why Australia must support temporary migrants

Australia is a global outlier in its callous treatment of temporary migrants during the pandemic. Other countries, such as the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Canada and Ireland, have all extended wage subsidies to temporary visa holders.

Australia has obligations under international human rights law to ensure every person within its borders has a safe and secure place to live, adequate food and basic health care.

Advising temporary visa holders to go home does not diminish these obligations. Nor does it absolve Australia of its moral obligations to these people it encouraged to greatly invest in studying and working here.

It is unreasonable to expect international students to simply abandon their studies, or to expect other migrants to leave Australia when it has become their home. They have paid tax, contributed to our community and built long-term relationships.

Many of Australia’s low-wage industries are also reliant on migrant workers. In fact, during the lockdown, the government even changed the rules of student visas to permit them to work more hours in dangerous jobs in aged care, supermarkets, disability support and health care.

The government should also be concerned about the reputational damage to our international education market, and to the working holiday maker market, which provides a critical labour force for the horticulture industry.

Over the coming months, without ongoing government support, the living situations for hundreds of thousands of temporary visa holders in Australia will continue to deteriorate.

It is well past time the federal government acknowledge this crisis and focus its attention on meeting temporary migrants’ acute humanitarian needs.

Read more: The coronavirus risk Australia is not talking about: testing our unlawful migrant workers

– ref. ‘I will never come to Australia again’: new research reveals the suffering of temporary migrants during the COVID-19 crisis – https://theconversation.com/i-will-never-come-to-australia-again-new-research-reveals-the-suffering-of-temporary-migrants-during-the-covid-19-crisis-143351

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Usha M. Rodrigues, Senior Lecturer in Journalism, Deakin University

Australia prides itself on being a successful multicultural society. Yet Australian television does not reflect the make-up of the wider community. This in turn means many stories of multicultural Australians remain untold.

An analysis by Deakin University, to be launched today, shows Australian television news and current affairs programs across all channels are overwhelmingly curated, framed and presented by journalists and commentators from an Anglo-Celtic background.

Read more: Australians born overseas prefer the online world for their news

The report, titled “Who gets to tell Australian stories?”, examined two weeks of programs. It found more than 75% of their presenters, commentators and reporters are of Anglo-Celtic background. Only 13% have a European heritage, 9.3% non-European and 2.1% Indigenous background.

To determine this, we examined publicly available biographical information about each individual. We looked at relevant public statements about their cultural background including on social media sites, their surname and its origins, place of birth, and visual observation. This was cross-checked by another researcher.

These findings do not match well with the wider population. An estimated 58% of Australians have an Anglo-Celtic background, 18% European, 21% non-European and 3% Indigenous backgrounds.

Lack of diversity is evident in the stories, too

The study also examined more than 19,000 news and current affairs items from Australian free-to-air metropolitan and regional networks, broadcast over two weeks in June 2019. It found the lack of diversity is also reflected in the stories programs make, the issues they examine and the way they examine them.

The numbers are worse when one considers Australians of non-European and Indigenous backgrounds make up 24% of the Australian population, but appear on television news screens for only 6% of the times.

The lack of representation of journalists from multicultural Australia in television news also excludes minority communities from news. Less than 4% of all news and current affairs stories broadcast by 81 programs are about multicultural Australia.

It is not surprising multicultural Australia is disenchanted with mainstream Australian television and seeks news from social and online media. Related to this, our recent experience of COVID-19 has shown many Australians have negative attitudes towards those from multicultural backgrounds.

The 2016 census showed nearly half of all Australians were born overseas or had a parent born overseas. There is also great linguistic diversity. More than 300 languages are spoken across the nation and 21% of Australians speak a language other than English at home.

The analysis of representation of diversity in Australian television news is part of a larger project undertaken by four universities and Media Diversity Australia. The project includes three data components – an examination of a two-week blocks of programs, a survey of television newsroom staff, and an analysis of television networks’ leadership and board teams.

Interviews with senior news and current affairs leaders from all free-to-air networks supplement the empirical research. Although most leaders recognise their outlets need to do more to reflect the diversity of their audience, most do not have any concrete plans to do so.

Apart from SBS, all three commercial channels and the ABC lack fair representation of journalists from non-European background. Channel 7, Channel 9 and regional channels (Win Canberra, Seven Tasmania, Southern Cross, ACT, Channel 9 Darwin, Prime 7 ACT and Win Hobart) have almost no journalists from an Indigenous or non-European background.

The lack of cultural diversity in the regional television network workforce is alarming because regional media remains the pipeline to train young journalists. They then move to metropolitan locations or rise through the ranks to senior roles.

A close look at popular breakfast shows shows an alarming lack of diversity. Channel 7 has a presenter, commentator or reporter of non-European background on camera only 7% of the time. Channel 9 has tokenistic representation of non-European and Indigenous journalists on camera.

The study was undertaken at Deakin University by adopting the Australian Human Rights Commission’s four broad classifications of cultural backgrounds – Anglo-Celtic, European, non-European and Indigenous.

Read more: New research shows how Australia’s newsrooms are failing minority communities

What needs to be done?

The report recommends systematic collection of diversity data, establishing cultural diversity targets, and prioritising diversity in the recruitment and promotion of newsroom staff. It also explores the commercial incentive for networks to better connect with and reflect their increasingly diverse audience.

Importantly, there must be greater diversity among Australian television networks’ decision-makers (senior executives and the boards). Without it, the culture of Australian television newsrooms is unlikely to change.

Our study found a staggering lack of cultural diversity in leadership roles – including at SBS – which is no doubt having a trickle-down effect on the newsroom floor.

– ref. Whitewash on the box: how a lack of diversity on Australian television damages us all – https://theconversation.com/whitewash-on-the-box-how-a-lack-of-diversity-on-australian-television-damages-us-all-143434

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stuart Ralph, Associate Professor and malaria researcher, University of Melbourne

The number of COVID-19 deaths globally – more than 750,000 – is now greater than the amount of people who succumb to malaria most years.

Meanwhile, national statistics show lockdown restrictions in Australia have potentially helped reduce the number of flu cases.

So while the pandemic continues to have a huge impact on global health, here are some of the known and likely impacts the virus is having on six other major health challenges.

The results might surprise you.

1. Sexually transmitted infections

Some dating apps such as Tinder and Bumble report an increase in online activity, but is this translating to an increase of meet-ups for sexual activity despite the lockdown?

Researchers from the University of Melbourne are investigating these and other questions in a survey examining the sexual and reproductive health impacts of COVID-19.

Although this research is ongoing, preliminary analysis suggests a decline in sexual activity among those without cohabitating partners during lockdown, and an increase in solo sex activities such as masturbation and using sex toys.

Adult stores have also reported a jump in sales during the lockdown.

Read more: The safest sex you’ll never have: how coronavirus is changing online dating

While early reports suggest a possible decline in STIs during the lockdown period, with the resumption of normal life across most of Australia, it’s unclear if this trend will continue.

2. Respiratory infections

Each year the flu kills 2,000-3,000 Australians. The measures people are taking to limit COVID-19, such as increased physical distancing, good hand hygiene and face masks, are already having a clear benefit on limiting flu spread.

Read more: The coronavirus lockdown might help limit this year’s flu season – but you should still get your flu jab anyway

Deaths from flu in the first half of 2020 were down to just 36, compared with 430 in the same period last year.

While we might expect similar reductions in other respiratory infections, the World Health Organization has major concerns about tuberculosis (TB). Well over a million people worldwide die each year from TB, and extensive detection and tracing programs are key to reducing deaths.

These TB control programs have already been impacted by the pandemic and the WHO predicts an extra 1.4 million people could die as a result over the next five years.

3. Insect-borne diseases

Staying home should stop you inhaling someone else’s cough or sneeze, but it probably won’t stop you being bitten by a mosquito.

More than 700,000 people die each year from diseases spread by biting insects, such as malaria, dengue, sleeping sickness and yellow fever.

Read more: Can mosquitoes spread coronavirus?

There are already signs dengue cases are growing in Southeast Asia in the wake of reduced control measures brought by COVID-19.

Monash University’s Scott O’Neill, director of the World Mosquito Program and dengue expert, predicts we’re facing a perfect storm in which fragile health systems manage outbreaks of two diseases at once.

In the case of malaria, the WHO estimates deaths in many parts of the world could double this year, killing hundreds of thousands more people if insecticide-treated net campaigns are interrupted because of COVID-19.

4. Non-communicable diseases

In wealthy countries such as Australia, non-communicable diseases such as cancer, heart disease and stroke are some of the main causes of death and disability. Death from some of these can be reduced by appropriate screening and primary healthcare interventions.

Read more: Even in a pandemic, continue with routine health care and don’t ignore a medical emergency

If people delay going to their doctor to monitor blood pressure or put off routine cancer testing (and reports so far suggest this is happening), we will inevitably see more illness and deaths from these causes.

Cancer Australia has launched a campaign, Cancer Won’t Wait, to remind people to continue to participate in national screening campaigns for breast, cervical and bowel cancers and not to put off seeking medical attention for danger signs of cancer.

In countries that have relatively good control of COVID-19, increases in these non-communicable diseases are likely to far exceed the deaths directly caused by COVID-19.

5. Alcohol and substance abuse

If social media posts are anything to go by, people could be drinking more frequently and in higher volume than normal during the pandemic.

According to a poll commissioned by the Foundation for Alcohol Research and Education, one in five Australian households are buying more alcohol than normal during the pandemic.

Alcohol contributed to more than 1,000 deaths in Australia in 2017 alone, and heavier drinking during the pandemic would exacerbate this pattern.

Read more: Worried about your drinking during lockdown? These 8 signs might indicate a problem

Experts also worry about possible longer-term behavioural changes in drinking at home.

The health impacts of abuse of other substances such as heroin or cocaine during the pandemic remains contentious. Limits on transport and movement are already impacting both the trafficking and use of illicit drugs, but users might replace scarce drugs with other equally hazardous substances.

6. Mental health

Mental health disorders have some of the heaviest global health burdens of any type of illness. The social, economic and health impacts of COVID-19 will have huge consequences for mental health for many around the world.

Mental health support services have already reported a surge in calls, while hospitals have seen an increase in presentations of young people after self harm. Australia has launched a National Mental Health and Wellbeing Pandemic Response Plan backed by an initial A$48.1 million.

The Victorian government announced an additional A$60 million for mental health services but much more will likely be needed to avert a crisis in this area.

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

What’s the verdict?

Although some infectious diseases that are normally spread directly from person to person are already reducing their transmission because of our response to COVID-19, many other diseases will get much worse during and after the pandemic.

Although we can’t ease up our efforts to control the spread of COVID-19, taking our eye off other ongoing illnesses will mean even worse health and economic outcomes. It’s crucial to maintain our focus on prevention, control and elimination for the many other health challenges that impact Australia, and the world.

– ref. From STIs to malaria, here are six disease trends we should heed during the pandemic – https://theconversation.com/from-stis-to-malaria-here-are-six-disease-trends-we-should-heed-during-the-pandemic-143907

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robert Edwin White, Professor Emeritus, University of Melbourne

To slow climate change, humanity has two main options: reduce greenhouse gas emissions directly or find ways to remove them from the atmosphere. On the latter, storing carbon in soil – or carbon farming – is often touted as a promising way to offset emissions from other sources such as energy generation, industry and transport.

The Morrison government’s Technology Investment Roadmap, now open for public comment, identifies soil carbon as a potential way to reduce emissions from agriculture and to offset other emissions.

In particular, it points to so-called “biochar” – plant material transformed into carbon-rich charcoal then applied to soil.

But the government’s plan contains misconceptions about both biochar, and the general effectiveness of soil carbon as an emissions reduction strategy.

What is biochar?

Through photosynthesis, plants turn carbon dioxide (CO₂) into organic material known as biomass. When that biomass decomposes in soil, CO₂ is produced and mostly ends up in the atmosphere.

This is a natural process. But if we can intervene by using technology to keep carbon in the soil rather than in the atmosphere, in theory that will help mitigate climate change. That’s where biochar comes in.

Making biochar involves heating waste organic materials in a reduced-oxygen environment to create a charcoal-like product – a process called “pyrolysis”. The carbon from the biomass is stored in the charcoal, which is very stable and does not decompose for decades.

Plant materials are the predominant material or “feedstock” used to make biochar, but livestock manure can also be used. The biochar is applied to the soil, purportedly to boost soil fertility and productivity. This has been tested on grassland, cropping soils and in vineyards.

But there’s a catch

So far, so good. But there are a few downsides to consider.

First, the pyrolysis process produces combustible gases and uses energy – to the extent that when all energy inputs and outputs are considered in a life cycle analysis, the net energy balance can be negative. In other words, the process can create more greenhouse gas emissions than it saves. The balance depends on many factors including the type and condition of the feedstock and the rate and temperature of pyrolysis.

Second, while biochar may improve the soil carbon status at a new site, the sites from which the carbon residues are removed, such as farmers’ fields or harvested forests, will be depleted of soil carbon and associated nutrients. Hence there may be no overall gain in soil fertility.

Read more: A pretty good start but room for improvement: 3 experts rate Australia’s emissions technology plan

Third, the government roadmap claims increasing soil carbon can reduce emissions from livestock farming while increasing productivity. Theoretically, increased soil carbon should lead to better pasture growth. But the most efficient way for farmers to take advantage of the growth, and increase productivity, is to keep more livestock per hectare.

Livestock such as cows and sheep produce methane – a much more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Our analysis suggests the methane produced by the extra stock would exceed the offsetting effect of storing more soil carbon. This would lead to a net increase, not decrease, in greenhouse gas

A policy failure

The government plan refers to the potential to build on the success of the Emissions Reduction Fund. Among other measures, the fund pays landholders to increase the amount of carbon stored in soil through carbon credits issued through the Carbon Farming Initiative.

However since 2014, the Emissions Reduction Fund has not significantly reduced Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions – and agriculture’s contribution has been smaller still.

Read more: Carbon dioxide levels over Australia rose even after COVID-19 forced global emissions down. Here’s why

So far, the agriculture sector has been contracted to provide about 9.5% of the overall abatement, or about 18.3 million tonnes. To date, it’s supplied only 1.54 million tonnes – 8.4% of the sector’s commitment.

The initiative has largely failed because several factors have made it uneconomic for farmers to take part. They include:

• overly complex regulations
• requirements for expensive soil sampling and analysis
• the low value of carbon credits (averaging $12 per tonne of CO₂-equivalent since the scheme began).

A misguided strategy

We believe the government is misguided in considering soil carbon as an emissions reduction technology.

Certainly, increasing soil carbon at one location can boost soil fertility and potentially productivity, but these are largely private landholder benefits – paid for by taxpayers in the form of carbon credits.

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

If emissions reduction is seen as a public benefit, then the payment to farmers becomes a subsidy. But it’s highly questionable whether the public benefit (in the form of reduced emissions) is worth the cost. The government has not yet done this analysis.

To be effective, future emissions technology in Australia should focus on improving energy efficiency in industry, the residential sector and transport, where big gains are to be made.

– ref. Dishing the dirt: Australia’s move to store carbon in soil is a problem for tackling climate change – https://theconversation.com/dishing-the-dirt-australias-move-to-store-carbon-in-soil-is-a-problem-for-tackling-climate-change-141656

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Joanne Orlando, Researcher: Children and Technology, Western Sydney University

The video-sharing app TikTok is a hot political potato amid concerns over who has access to users’ personal data.

The United States has moved to ban the app. Other countries, including Australia, have expressed concern.

But does this mean your children who use this app are at risk? If you’re a parent, let me explain the issues and give you a few tips to make sure your kids stay safe.

A record-breaker

Never has an app for young people been so popular. By April this year the TikTok app had been downloaded more than 2 billion times worldwide.

The app recently broke all records for the most downloaded app in a quarterly period, with 315 million downloads globally in the first three months of 2020.

Its popularity with young Aussies has sky-rocketed. Around 1.6 million Australians use the app, including about one in five people born since 2006. That’s an estimated 537,000 young Australians.

Like all social media apps, TikTok siphons data about its users such as email address, contacts, IP address and geolocation information.

TikTok was fined $US5.8 million (A$8 million) to settle US government claims it illegally collected personal information from children.

As a Chinese company, ByteDance, owns TikTok, US President Donald Trump and others are also worried about the app handing over this data to the Chinese state. TikTok denies it does this.

Read more: China could be using TikTok to spy on Australians, but banning it isn’t a simple fix

Just days ago the Trump administration signed an executive order to seek a ban on TikTok operating or interacting with US companies.

Youngsters still TikToking

There is no hint of this stopping our TikToking children. For them it’s business as usual, creating and uploading videos of themselves lip-syncing, singing, dancing or just talking.

The most recent trend on TikTok – Taylor Swift Love Story dance – has resulted in more than 1.5 million video uploads in around two weeks alone.

But the latest political issues with TikTok raise questions about whether children should be on this platform right now. More broadly, as we see copycat sites such as Instagram Reels launched, should children be using any social media platforms that focus on them sharing videos of themselves at all?

The pros and cons

The TikTok app has filled a genuine social need for this young age group. Social media sites can offer a sense of belonging to a group, such as a group focused on a particular interest, experience, social group or religion.

TikTok celebrates diversity and inclusivity. It can provide a place where young people can join together to support each other in their needs.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, TikTok has had huge numbers of videos with coronavirus-related hashtags such as #quarantine (65 billion views), #happyathome (19.5 billion views) and #safehands (5.4 billion views).

Some of these videos are funny, some include song and dance. The World Health Organisation even posted its own youth-oriented videos on TikTok to provide young people with reliable public health advice about COVID-19.

The key benefit is the platform became a place where young people joined together from all corners of the planet, to understand and take the stressful edge off the pandemic for themselves and others their age. Where else could they do that? The mental health benefits this offers can be important.

Let’s get creative

Another benefit lies in the creativity TikTok centres on. Passive use of technology, such as scrolling and checking social media with no purpose, can lead to addictive types of screen behaviours for young people.

Whereas planning and creating content, such as making their own videos, is meaningful use of technology and curbs addictive technology behaviours. In other words, if young people are going to use technology, using it creatively, purposefully and with meaning is the type of use we want to encourage.

Users of TikTok must be at least 13 years old, although it does have a limited app for under 13s.

Know the risks

Like all social media platforms, children are engaging in a space in which others can contact them. They may be engaging in adult concepts that they are not yet mature enough for, such as love gone wrong or suggestively twerking to songs.

Read more: The secret of TikTok’s success? Humans are wired to love imitating dance moves

The platform moves very quickly, with a huge amount of videos, likes and comments uploaded every day. Taking it all in can lead to cognitive overload. This can be distracting for children and decrease focus on other aspects of their life including schoolwork.

So here are a few tips for keeping your child safe, as well as getting the most out of the creative/educational aspects of TikTok.

1. as with any social network, use privacy settings to limit how much information your child is sharing

2. if your child is creating a video, make sure it is reviewed before it’s uploaded to ensure it doesn’t include content that can be misconstrued or have negative implications

3. if a child younger than 13 wants to use the app, there’s a section for this younger age group that includes extra safety and privacy features

4. if you’re okay with your child creating videos for TikTok, then doing it together or helping them plan and film the video can be a great parent-child bonding activity

5. be aware of the collection of data by TikTok, encourage your child to be aware of it, and help them know what they are giving away and the implications for them.

Happy (safe) TikToking!

– ref. TikTok can be good for your kids if you follow a few tips to stay safe – https://theconversation.com/tiktok-can-be-good-for-your-kids-if-you-follow-a-few-tips-to-stay-safe-144002

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hayley Henderson, Postdoctoral Fellow, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University

Latin America is now the epicentre of the COVID-19 pandemic. The fastest spread of the disease in the region’s cities follows a pattern of contagion that is anything but arbitrary. Disturbing images in international media depict the unfolding crisis, from disinfection campaigns in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to stockpiles of cardboard coffins in Guayaquil, Ecuador.

Read more: Deaths and desperation mount in Ecuador, epicenter of coronavirus pandemic in Latin America

By this week, about 30% of the world’s reported cases were in the region. But some centres have been much worse hit than others. Two factors underpin these variations: levels of inequality, and the ways governments and communities are handling the crisis.

Across the region’s largest cities, the first cases had appeared by early March in well-off neighbourhoods. Not until May were exponential rates of infection recorded in most Latin American countries. The surge in cases reflected the spread of coronavirus across cities and into their poorest neighbourhoods.

The poor are more vulnerable

Many of the urban poor have not been able to manage risk in the way that the better-off do. To make ends meet they often travel long distances in public transport to work in wealthier neighbourhoods. Those who have jobs are often employed in the informal economy: cleaning houses, fixing electrical problems, selling vegetables and so on.

By June 2020, infection rates were increasing in many middle-class neighbourhoods too – for example, in Buenos Aires. However, self-isolation is a more realistic prospect in these areas. Medical care is also more accessible.

Inequality created ideal conditions for COVID-19 to spread. The disease disproportionately affects residents of informal settlements in the largest cities. One-fifth of the Latin American population lives in such settlements.

As well as their work being insecure, their living conditions add to their vulnerability. Some of the problems faced can include overcrowding, malnutrition, deficient sewer systems, limited (and often paid) access to drinkable water, overwhelmed or unaffordable health services and indoor air pollution from cooking (with open fires or simple stoves, for example).

Read more: So coronavirus will change cities – will that include slums?

Given these conditions, COVID-19 is far from a levelling force. It is the latest crisis to reveal old and hard truths about Latin America’s social and economic geography.

Quality of governance laid bare

The virus has not spread unabated in all Latin American cities. The quality of governance and the preparedness of services have greatly affected outcomes between cities and countries.

Some have paid a high price for the harmful impacts of inconsistent communications by authorities and political leaders, weak public health systems, liberalised employment conditions and lack of support for disadvantaged groups.

Mortality analyses conducted by the Coronavirus Resource Center at John Hopkins University show six of the countries most affected by COVID-19 worldwide are now in Latin America. Brazil, Chile and Peru have reached 50 or more deaths per 100,000 population. Nowhere has it been made clearer how a chronically underfunded public health system leaves behind vulnerable people.

The mortality rate is lower in other parts of the region. In these countries, strict restrictions have been introduced and the public health systems bolstered since the start of the pandemic. Leading examples include Uruguay, with 1.07 deaths per 100,000 people, and Argentina (11.7/100,000).

In June, Time included Argentina’s response in “The Best Global Responses to COVID-19 Pandemic”. In the capital, Buenos Aires, co-ordination between the three levels of government has been strong on public health as well as economic and social protection measures despite political differences. Shared communications have backed strict lockdown measures every fortnight since March 20 (read more about the Buenos Aires experience here).

Bottom-up efforts are vital too

It is not just top-down approaches by government that make a difference to local outcomes. The bottom-up work of social organisations in Latin American cities has also been vital.

We see this work especially in informal settlements that lack public services. Often run voluntarily and by women, these organisations cook meals for people in need, make masks, source medications, spread public information and fix broken houses.

Read more: How Mumbai’s poorest neighbourhood is battling to keep coronavirus at bay

Many of their actions are also directed toward the state. With an ethic of care, they seek to drive anti-neoliberal change and demonstrate a better urban future centred on people’s real lives and desires.

For example, across the region feminist social movements and politics are dismantling patriarchal perspectives about modern cities. Their collective response to the COVID-19 crisis is a demonstration of solidarity.

Remaking cities after the pandemic

Looking forward to the post-pandemic city, there are valuable lessons to be learnt from Latin America.

First, debilitating inequality must be redressed. Poverty has been built into the way cities are developed. But this is now being denaturalised.

Second, co-ordinated and strong state-led action that made public health the priority has saved lives in cities like Buenos Aires. Bipartisan leadership and collaboration between levels of government can also help us deal with pressing urban challenges in the future.

Third, because of the ubiquitous albeit unequal way coronavirus has affected people across cities, there is potential for a post-pandemic future that focuses on collective well-being.

Many Latin American social organisations, and the networks between them, offer hope and direction for the challenge of recovery. Not only do they provide vital support in crisis management, they could play a democratising role in shaping politics and state responses to redress inequality over the long term.

– ref. From the COVID-19 epicentre: lessons from Latin American cities’ successes and failures – https://theconversation.com/from-the-covid-19-epicentre-lessons-from-latin-american-cities-successes-and-failures-144000

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kantha Dayaram, Associate Professor, School of Management, Curtin University

How to stop sick people going to work?

That’s a question the Victorian government has been grappling with since it became clear about 80% of new COVID-19 infections in the state’s second-wave outbreak were from workplace transmissions.

Read more: ‘Far too many’ Victorians are going to work while sick. Far too many have no choice

After official visits to 3,000 people meant to be self-isolating found more than 800 not at home, the government instituted the largest on-the-spot fine in the state’s history – A$4,957 for defying a stay-at-home order (and up to $20,000 for going to work knowing you have COVID-19).

Along with the big sticks, there have been carrots. The Victorian government, the Fair Work Commission and the federal government have all weighed in to provide financial support to workers who lack paid sick leave.

But these measures have been a belated band aid to a problem that should have been entirely predictable. It’s the consequence of a deepening class divide in work in which hundreds of thousands of essential workers in high-risk industries are poorly paid and lack job security, guaranteed hours or sick-leave entitlements.

Aged care workers

Aged-care homes (linked to more than 2,000) cases and meat-processing facilities (linked to about 870 cases) show the predicament of “flexible employment” for workers.

In the aged care sector, about 90% of carers are female, 32% born overseas, 78% permanent part-time and 10% casual or contract, according to the 2016 National Aged Care Workforce Census and Survey. Seven in ten are employed as personal care attendants. Of those, almost 60% work 16–34 hours a week, with a median wage of A$689. About 30% want to work more hours, and 9% work more than one job.

An underemployed workforce is advantageous to employers. As the Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre’s 2018 report on developing sustainable careers for aged care workers noted:

Underemployment offers organisations a buffer of additional hours that can be accessed when there are staff shortages. The regularity and predictability of hours is a challenge for workers, though, in terms of their lack of employment and income stability.

It might now be noted it also makes it problematic for them to turn down shifts, to stay home if they feel unwell, or to seek out a coronavirus test lest a positive result forces them to self-quarantine.

Meat processing workers

In red-meat-processing facilities, about 20% of the processing workforce is casual, according to a 2015 report by the Australian Meat Processor Corporation. These workers “can be terminated on any given day part-way through a shift”.

The rest of the workforce is barely more secure, with 80% employed as “daily hires”. This means their jobs technically terminate at the end of a shift. They can be sacked with just one day’s notice.

Media reports have highlighted the predicament for workers without paid sick leave. At the Golden Farms Turosi poultry processing site in Geelong, for example, media reported that workers told to self-isolate after a COVID-19 outbreak in July were then directed to return to work early to clean the premises.

The United Workers Union said the company expected its workers “to dip into their own entitlements or, for casuals, be left with nothing at all” during the stand-down. Glenn Myhre, a Golden Farms worker for 34 years, put it like this:

This is leaving a lot of people very insecure. Casuals and people with no entitlements are going to be left in a really tight spot.

Read more: When it comes to sick leave, we’re not much better prepared for coronavirus than the US

Fair Work Commission decisions

It should not be surprising that those with insecure incomes and jobs would risk going to work when they do feel unwell.

Yet official appreciation of this has been slow.

In April the Fair Work Commission, Australia’s industrial relations arbiter, approved changes to more than 100 awards to provide two weeks’ pandemic leave for all employees, including casual workers. But the leave was unpaid.

On July 8 it deferred a union application for paid pandemic leave to health workers (to be paid by employers).

The commission accepted expert evidence that “at a high level of generality, workers in the health and social care sectors are at a higher risk of infection by COVID-19 (and other infectious diseases)”.

It also acknowledged the “very real risk” that employees with no paid leave entitlements “may not report any COVID-19-like symptoms or contact with someone suspected of having COVID-19 out of concern that they will suffer significant financial detriment”.

However, the commission ruled, “the elevated potential risk to health and care workers of actual or suspected exposure to infection has not manifested itself in actuality”.

Three weeks later, on July 27, as the disaster in Victoria’s aged care facilities unfolded, the commission granted paid pandemic leave to casual aged care workers.

Covering all workers

Ensuring paid pandemic leave for all workers has taken longer.

In June the Victorian government introduced a one-off A$1,500 “hardship payment” for workers left with no income if ordered to self-quarantine. It did not, however, cover lost income from self-isolating while awaiting the result of a COVID-19 test.

On August 3, the day after Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews declared a state of disaster and a stage 4 lockdown for Melbourne, the federal government announced a $1,500 “disaster payment” for all Victorians without paid leave entitlements who are ordered to self-isolate.

Then, after a joint call from the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the Business Council of Australia for a national paid pandemic leave, the federal government agreed to extend the disaster payment to all states and territories.

A festering class divide

The failure to anticipate this problem is one of the greatest flaws in Australia’s response to the pandemic.

The belated payments are a tacit acknowledgement of a systemic problem. It is one that needs more than a temporary band-aid.

For a society that prides itself on egalitarianism, the mounting evidence that vulnerable workers have borne the brunt of health and financial impacts calls for broad reform of an industrial relations system that has allowed a class divide in working conditions to fester.

Read more: What defines casual work? Federal Court ruling highlights a fundamental flaw in Australian labour law

To paraphrase the sociologist C. Wright Mills, the pandemic should motivate us to finally acknowledge as a public issue what has perhaps been too easily dismissed as the private troubles of individual workers.

– ref. Workplace transmissions: a predictable result of the class divide in worker rights – https://theconversation.com/workplace-transmissions-a-predictable-result-of-the-class-divide-in-worker-rights-143896

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Patricia Ranald, Honorary research fellow, University of Sydney

In the negotiations for an Australia-European Union Free Trade Agreement at present underway, the European Union is pushing for longer monopolies on medicines for its pharmaceutical companies.

If it gets them, Australians will wait longer for cheaper versions of those medicines.

It is important information, but we are only aware of it because (unlike Australia) the European Union publishes its trade negotiating positions.

Ours have long been kept secret, even from us.

Next week the parliament’s Joint Standing Committee on Treaties will hold a hearing into whether we should change the system to make sure we know more.

The government itself commissioned the inquiry after the committee’s investigation into the Australia-Hong Kong and Indonesian free trade agreements recommended it give

due consideration to implementing a process through which independent modelling and analysis of a proposed trade agreement is undertaken in the future by the Productivity Commission or equivalent organisation

At the moment the committee only gets to see trade agreements after they have been signed, meaning (literally) that the Australian people don’t get to know what their government is a bout to sign until after it has signed it.

We don’t get to see what we are about to sign

Afterwards, the parliamentary committee is effectively limited to saying yes to ratification (the final step after signing) or no. It can’t suggest changes to the text.

Nor can the parliament, which only gets to vote on the enabling legislation. Some parts of agreements, including some that constitute binding commitments, are not included in that legislation.

The committee’s recommendation follows similar recommendations by previous inquiries, and a plea by the Productivity Commission for independent modelling of likely outcomes before negotiations begin, and and an independent public assessment of agreements after they are concluded, but before they are signed.

The Commission says the current arrangements lack transparency and tend to oversell the likely benefits.

The so-called national interest analyses and regulatory impact statements prepared by negotiators are delivered after the agreements have been signed and so far have always recommended they be ratified.

The agreements deal with more than trade.

One reason is that Australia already has very low or zero tariffs. Negotiators from other countries need to obtain other concessions.

Read more: It’s more than a free trade agreement. But what exactly have Australia and Indonesia signed?

The Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership ratified by Australia in 2018 has chapters dealing with the regulation of essential services such as medicines, education, aged care, childcare, energy, financial and digital services, as well as foreign investment, labour and environment regulations and government procurement and product standards.

The European Union, the United States and Japan use the negotiations to fight for longer monopolies on medicines. Investors use them to obtain the right to sue governments; copyright owners use them to achieve longer copyright terms.

What’s needed?

The committee could recommend that government table in parliament a document setting out its priorities and objectives at the start of each negotiation.

It could also recommend the release of updates and negotiating texts, European Union style, and the release of the final text of agreements before they are signed.

It could recommend an independent analysis of the costs and benefits of proposed agreements of the kind suggested by the Productivity Commission, both before signing, and also some years after signing to get an idea of whether they have lived up to their promise.

Read more: When even winning is losing. The surprising cost of defeating Philip Morris over plain packaging

It could consider the health, environment and gender impacts, as well as the economic impacts.

And it could recommend that the parliament rather than the executive be given the role of agreeing to whole treaties, something legal experts say would permitted by the Constitution.

These changes would give us a better idea of what’s being negotiated in our name.

– ref. Last to know: the European Union knows more about our trade talks than we do – https://theconversation.com/last-to-know-the-european-union-knows-more-about-our-trade-talks-than-we-do-144196

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nicole Kimball, PHD Student in Classics, University of Newcastle

Hello, curious kids! Have you got a question you’d like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to curiouskids@theconversation.edu.au

Are witches and wizards real? Mabel, age 7, Anglesea, Victoria.

They are, but not in the way most people think.

The witches and wizards you read about in fairy tales and fantasy can usually do amazing things. They can fly, cast spells and brew potions. Some can even see the future. These witches and wizards aren’t real, but they are based on people who are.

Calling someone a witch or wizard hasn’t always been a very nice thing to do. In many cultures, practising magic was looked down on or thought to be evil. In many countries, laws were passed against the use of magic. This meant that people who were thought to practise magic were often punished, even if they hadn’t actually done anything wrong.

The ancient world

Thousands of years ago, in places like Greece and Rome, using magic wasn’t actually illegal unless you hurt someone with it.

For example, in Rome it was illegal for someone to use magic to steal his neighbour’s crops. We know this because two Roman writers, Pliny and Seneca, mention it when they talk about the 12 original laws of Rome.

We have also found a lot of records that the Greeks and Romans had witches and wizards, including an entire spell book called the Greek Magical Papyri. This book has instructions about how to make and cast all sort of spells.

Some of those spells were inscribed on lead and can be found in museums today.

Read more: Curious Kids: Are mermaids real?

Witch hunts and wizard towers

Things changed in the Medieval and Early Modern European periods. The use of magic became connected to worship of the devil so it was seen not just as illegal but as heresy – or a sin against God.

This meant anyone suspected or convicted of using magic was in trouble not just with the law, but with the church.

Eventually books were written on how witches could be identified and punished. The most famous of these is called the Malleus Maleficarum (Hammer of Witches). It was written by two German priests, Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Sprenger, around 1486.

This was also a time when people began to believe that witches had some amazing powers, some of which were written about in the Malleus. People thought witches would rub ointment on themselves or their broomsticks in order to fly to gatherings at night where they would cook and eat children. They also thought witches had the power to turn people into animals.

These powers eventually made their way into folklore, which was then written down in fairy tales like Hansel and Gretel.

In other places, magic was less persecuted. John Dee (1527-1608) was the court astronomer for Queen Elizabeth I. He was also a mathematician, astrologer, occultist and alchemist. Although much of his research bridged the gap between magic and science, Dee wouldn’t have seen much difference between the two.

All his research was concerned with understanding the world around him.

Much like persecuted witches became the witches of fairy tales, Dee and men like him contributed to the idea that wizards are wise men that live in towers, a little bit like J.K. Rowling’s Albus Dumbledore.

Read more: Curious Kids: why can’t humans grow wings?

Witches and wizards today

Today, wizards have mostly been relegated to fantasy or to stage performers, who usually call themselves magicians. But witches have become more common than ever.

In the 1940s and 50s, a new religious movement appeared called Wicca. Wicca, or pagan witchcraft, typically involves the worship of a Goddess and a God. Magic rituals can be part of Wiccan practice but it isn’t always necessary.

In the late 1960s, a number of women’s activist groups named themselves using the acronym WITCH. There were many variations of the acronym, such as “Women Inspired to Tell their Collective History” or “Women Incensed at Telephone Company Harassment”. These witches used their platform to fight for women’s rights.

The 2011 British census found 11,766 people identified themselves as Wiccan, while 1,276 described themselves as practising witchcraft.

The kind of person that we might call a witch or wizard is constantly changing. So, even if the witches and wizards of fairy tales and fantasy aren’t real, the people they are based on are.

– ref. Curious Kids: are witches and wizards real? – https://theconversation.com/curious-kids-are-witches-and-wizards-real-141799

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

Tradespeople and others in licensed occupations would find it easier to work across state and territory boundaries next year under a plan being developed.

Federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg, announcing the plan, agreed to by the nation’s treasurers, said it would “help to address impediments to labour mobility across jurisdictions by allowing a person who is licensed or registered in one jurisdiction to be already considered registered in another in an equivalent occupation.”

There is at present mutual recognition of licensed occupations, but workers need to apply for recognition in another state or territory, pay fees and sometimes meet extra requirements.

Frydenberg said the tradespeople the agreement could assist included carpenters, joiners, bricklayers, builders, electricians and plumbers. It could also help teachers and property agents.

It is hoped the agreement will operate from January 1. It will need legislation to be passed in the jurisdictions. National cabinet will hear a progress report in October.

There would be limited exemptions – which are still being worked through -– to the automatic recognition of licences.

Frydenberg said the current mutual recognition regime was costly, complex and imposed an excessive regulatory burden on businesses that operated across borders.

“A uniform scheme will make it easier and less expensive for businesses, professionals and workers to move or operate within jurisdictions and across Australia, thereby creating jobs, increasing output, competition and innovation, and resulting in lower prices for consumers and businesses.”

At present there are more than 800 different licences in manual trades alone. About one fifth of workers in the economy are required to be licensed. Interstate migration was about 300,000 in 2019 – before the impact of the pandemic and closed borders between states and territories.

The Productivity Commission in 2015 criticised the working of mutual recognition schemes then operating. It saw “automatic mutual recognition as a flexible, low-cost way of facilitating trade and labour mobility while minimising the regulatory burden”.

– ref. Frydenberg announces ‘automatic recognition’ plan to help workers and businesses operate across state borders – https://theconversation.com/frydenberg-announces-automatic-recognition-plan-to-help-workers-and-businesses-operate-across-state-borders-144553

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

The inquiry commissioned by the Berejiklian government into the Ruby Princess COVID-19 disaster has laid blame on NSW health officials, who made “inexcusable” and “inexplicable” mistakes. It also exonerated the Australian Border Force.

In the report, the federal government was sharply criticised for refusing to allow an official to appear before the inquiry, with commissioner Bret Walker SC saying this belied Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s promise of full cooperation.

Some 2,700 passengers from the Carnival Australia cruise ship were allowed to disembark on March 19 before the test results for COVID-19 had come back. The passengers, some of whom had displayed respiratory symptoms, scattered widely, spreading the virus. This led to hundreds of cases, with some 28 deaths linked to the cluster.

Walker found serious mistakes and misjudgements on the part of health officials. He said that in light of all the information the NSW health expert panel had, “the decision to assess the risk of the Ruby Princess as ‘low risk’ – meaning, in effect, ‘do nothing’ – is as inexplicable as it is unjustifiable. It was a serious mistake”.

It should have been assumed there were possible infected passengers “who could transmit the virus and perhaps spark an outbreak of infection, if no steps were taken to prevent or limit that outcome”.

Passengers should not have been allowed to spread through the community until test results were known.

“The delay in obtaining test results for the swabs taken from the Ruby Princess on the morning of 19 March is inexcusable. Those swabs should have been tested immediately,” Walker said.

“The failure to await test results on 19 March is a large factor in this commission’s findings as to the mistakes and misjudgements that caused the scattering of infected passengers.”

Walker criticised the cruise line for not having enough swabs aboard but said, given this, there should have been dockside swabbing.

There has been speculation about whether the Australian Border Force had any responsibility for the disaster, but Walker stressed “neither the ABF nor any ABF officers played any part in the mishap”.

“The relevant legislative provisions make it crystal clear that the Australian Border Force (ABF), despite its portentous title, has no relevant responsibility for the processes by which, by reference to health risks to the Australian community, passengers were permitted to disembark,” he said.

But Walker was blunt about the federal government’s attitude to the inquiry. “The one fly in the ointment so far as assistance to this commission goes, is the stance of the Commonwealth.

“A summons to a Commonwealth officer to attend and give evidence about the grant of pratique for the Ruby Princess was met with steps towards proceedings in the High Court of Australia.

“Quite how this met the prime minister’s early assurance of full cooperation with the commission escapes me.

“This waste of time and resources, when time, in particular, was always pressing, was most regrettable.

“It seems that this practical approach was swamped by a determination never to concede, apparently on constitutional grounds, the power of a state parliament to compel evidence to be provided to a state executive inquiry (such as a royal commission or a special commission of inquiry) by the Commonwealth or any of its officers, agencies or authorities.”

Labor’s shadow minister for home affairs, Kristina Keneally, said that on March 15, Morrison had said he was putting in place “bespoke arrangements” for arriving cruise ships.

“He promised cruise ships would be ‘directly under the command of the Australian Border Force’.

“What ‘bespoke arrangements’ did Scott Morrison put in place for arriving cruise ships? This report shows there were none,” Keneally said.

– ref. Ruby Princess inquiry blames NSW health officials for debacle – https://theconversation.com/ruby-princess-inquiry-blames-nsw-health-officials-for-debacle-144512

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Janak Rogers, Associate Lecturer, Broadcast Journalism, RMIT University

A Johannes Leak cartoon published in The Australian today, in which US Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden is depicted calling his vice-presidential running mate Kamala Harris a “little brown girl”, has drawn widespread condemnation.

Several Australian politicians, including former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, have described the cartoon as racist, as have a suite of journalists and media observers (ex-Labor leader Mark Latham said he loved it).

I am firmly in the camp that thinks this is a racist and sexist cartoon. As a journalism lecturer with an ongoing interest in the diversity of Australian media, I think today’s outrage shows there is still much work ahead in making newsrooms less overwhelmingly white.

Context matters

My own view is this cartoon should never have been published, and it has no place in Australian media. I’m glad to see Australian politicians and public figures coming forward and saying it’s unacceptable.

The Australian’s editor-in-chief, Chris Dore, told Guardian Australia that Leak’s cartoon “was quoting Biden’s words” from a tweet the US politician issued this week about young girls drawing inspiration from Harris.

“When Johannes used those words, expressed in a tweet by Biden yesterday, he was highlighting Biden’s language and apparent attitudes, not his own,” Dore told Guardian Australia. “The intention of the commentary in the cartoon was to ridicule racism, not perpetuate it.”

I think Dore’s explanation is unconvincing. Biden’s tweet is clearly referring to girls who look up to Harris. It’s a massive sidestep to say Biden is talking down to his recent vice-presidential pick. The contexts are totally different.

I cannot imagine The Australian published today’s cartoon without knowing it would provoke outrage – and that this outrage would delight parts of their audience. Part of the delight is in the outrage it provokes.

Read more: Australia’s media has been too white for too long. This is how to bring more diversity to newsrooms

Australia looks backward

It’s hardly the first time, either, that a racist cartoon published in our mainstream media makes us look backward and out of step as a country.

Think back to the embarrassing episode of blackface on Hey Hey It’s Saturday in 2009, or Johannes Leak’s father Bill’s cartoons in the past, and the Herald Sun’s widely condemned Mark Knight cartoon depiction of Serena Williams in 2018. (It should be noted, the Press Council ruled the latter “non-racist” and Knight defended it – unconvincingly – by saying he had “absolutely no knowledge” of the Jim Crow-era cartoons of African-Americans.)

These examples show the work of making sure Australian newsrooms are diverse is ongoing.

There’s still so much room for improvement when it comes to editorial decisions, reporting and making sure we have a range of stories told about who we are as a country. That hasn’t been done well so far in Australia and cannot be done well while the media is largely dominated by white men.

As I wrote in an earlier Conversation article, despite a quarter of Australians being born overseas and nearly half having at least one parent who was born overseas, our media organisations remain blindingly white.

A 2016 PriceWaterhouseCoopers report found 82.7% of Australia’s media workers speak just one language, and speak only English at home. There’s a high prevalence of media workers in the inner Sydney suburbs, it found, concluding that a lack of diversity – in ethnicity, gender and age – is holding back industry growth.

Unless these trends are addressed, we will continue to see work like Leak’s cartoon making it through the gate.

Read more: The Herald Sun’s Serena Williams cartoon draws on a long and damaging history of racist caricature

A long history

There’s a long history of racist cartoons in Australian media. What’s different is the response. Today’s cartoon has blown up on Twitter — and yes, I realise it is a place closely watched by Australian politicians and media people but largely ignored by most Australians — but at least the online outcry allows some kind of accountability.

In the past, the media could publish racist cartoons without being called to account. These days, the pushback is manifesting in real time.

Should we all have just shaken our heads and ignored it? I don’t think so. Once something like that is published, the horse has bolted and you have to respond. I think collectively ignoring a racist cartoon won’t remove its prominence or significance.

We are forced to revisit this debate every time a racist cartoon or article is published, or a racist comment put to air. I hope that by revisiting it forcefully enough and by making these points enough times, the conversation moves forward and we can make some progress. I also hope racist cartoons are never published in Australia’s mainstream media again. But I won’t be holding my breath.

Read more: Racist reporting still rife in Australian media

– ref. The Australian’s racist Kamala Harris cartoon shows why diversity in newsrooms matters – https://theconversation.com/the-australians-racist-kamala-harris-cartoon-shows-why-diversity-in-newsrooms-matters-144503

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Esterman, Professor of Biostatistics, University of South Australia

Security guards at Melbourne’s quarantine hotels have been widely blamed for Victoria’s current outbreak of COVID-19.

Reports have suggested they mixed inappropriately with people under quarantine, and did not properly follow instructions around infection control.

But late yesterday we heard the first positive case was in fact a night manager at Rydges on Swanston, one of the hotels at the centre of the quarantine bungle. We don’t know how this person became infected, but there’s no suggestion it was a result of any improper behaviour.

This night manager has now become known as “patient zero” in Victoria’s second wave of coronavirus infections. But what does this term actually mean?

The beginning of the chain of infections

The first case in a chain of infections is popularly called “patient zero”. However, “patient zero” is not a very precise term.

In epidemiological language, we call the first case in an outbreak to come to the attention of investigators the “index case”. The actual individual who introduced the disease at the start of the outbreak is called the “primary case”.

According to these definitions, because the night manager was the first person recorded as being infected at the hotel (apart from the guests, who of course were already under quarantine), he or she would be the index case. However, the night manager was also the person who started the chain of infections, so he or she was also the primary case.

The one thing the night manager is not, however, is “patient zero”. That expression should really be reserved for the first human ever to be infected with SARS-CoV-2 (the coronavirus that causes COVID-19).

Origins of patient zero

The expression “patient zero” originated from the HIV epidemic in the United States.

Reports emerged in early 1982 of sexual links between several gay men with AIDS in Los Angeles, and investigators from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) interviewed these men for the names of their sexual contacts.

The CDC gave each of the cases pseudonyms, and the person they eventually identified as the first to have the disease had a moniker beginning with the letter “O”.

This was later mistakenly interpreted as a zero, and so we got the expression “patient zero” for the first known case of a disease.

Read more: Playing the COVID-19 blame game may feel good, but it could come at a cost — the government’s credibility

Why finding patient zero is important

It’s important for epidemiologists to find the first known case because it helps work out how the outbreak occurred, and gives us an idea of how to prevent further outbreaks in the future.

For example, scientists believe the COVID-19 pandemic started in the Huanan seafood market in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. If this proves to be correct (an international investigation is underway to determine this), authorities may choose to close wet markets, or at least better regulate them to prevent future outbreaks.

Beyond “patient zero” in the sense of the first ever case of a disease, it’s also important to find the first case in each particular outbreak.

In the case of the Rydges hotel night manager, this person would clearly have been infected by one of the hotel’s quarantined guests. Authorities now need to determine exactly how, where and when this person became infected, so they can tighten procedures to make sure this doesn’t happen again.

Read more: Melbourne’s hotel quarantine bungle is disappointing but not surprising. It was overseen by a flawed security industry

New Zealand is in a similar situation with its current COVID-19 outbreak. Until health authorities can work out who the primary case is, it will be very difficult to determine where the infection came from, and what actions they must take to ensure it’s not repeated.

Potentially, the primary case in this outbreak could have picked it up from a contaminated surface, a breakdown in quarantine regulations, or simply an asymptomatic person moving around in the community.

A political blame game

Unfortunately, finding out how Victoria’s second-wave outbreak started seems to have become a political blame game rather than a serious attempt to prevent it happening again.

The current finger-pointing is not only counterproductive — it could easily see the night manager designated as patient zero unfairly stigmatised, when that person is most likely blameless.

Richard McKay, a Cambridge academic who has written extensively on the concept of patient zero, captured the issue perfectly in an earlier Conversation article:

Writing of a patient zero is a damaging red herring that distracts from constructive efforts to contain the epidemic. Let’s wash our hands of this toxic phrase.

Read more: Patient zero: why it’s such a toxic term

– ref. Finding the source of an outbreak is important. But the term ‘patient zero’ is a problem – https://theconversation.com/finding-the-source-of-an-outbreak-is-important-but-the-term-patient-zero-is-a-problem-144493

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tony Walker, Adjunct Professor, School of Communications, La Trobe University

The normalisation of diplomatic ties between Israel and the United Arab Emirates has variously been described as a “breakthrough” and an important staging moment towards a comprehensive Middle East peace.

These conclusions are, at best, premature.

Normalisation of relations between Israel and an important Gulf state is a highly significant development whose fallout is unpredictable. What seems clear is that the UAE initiative will further deepen a regional divide.

In the Middle East, historic shifts rarely take place without unforeseen consequences. Israel’s pledge not to go ahead with the annexation of one-third of the West Bank and the Jordan Valley for the time being will be cold comfort for the Palestinians.

What has been exposed by the normalisation agreement between Israel and the UAE, brokered by Washington, is acceptance of the arguments for a regional buffer to counter Iran’s growing power and influence.

This is a marriage of convenience.

The enemy of my enemy is my friend

It should go without saying that absent Iran’s growing security threat to Gulf states, it’s doubtful such a normalisation of ties would have taken place outside a comprehensive Middle East peace.

The latest development bears out one of the Arab world’s stock standard sayings: the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

In other words, an Iranian threat to the UAE and its fellow Gulf Cooperation Council members has brought about an accord with Israel that would previously have been unthinkable.

This is not to say this development is unexpected.

Israel has gradually broadened its informal diplomatic contacts with Gulf states in recent years to the point where little attempt has been made to disguise these contacts.

Read more: Israel suspends formal annexation of the West Bank, but its controversial settlements continue

These interactions included a visit by Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Oman in 2018.

In all of this, a fault line in the Middle East is likely to deepen between Sunni Muslim states and Iran, as well as that country’s allies in Syria and in Lebanon.

These Sunni states, led by Saudi Arabia and backed by the United States in collaboration with Israel, are building a buffer against Iran.

It may be simplistic to say this, but a die has been cast.

What will other Gulf states do?

Of course, it remains to be seen whether regional friends and erstwhile enemies will remain steadfast in their new commitments.

In the shifting sands of Middle East power politics, today’s friends can be tomorrow’s enemies.

If Israel and the UAE are the betrothed in a marriage of convenience, the Trump White House is the matchmaker. Behind the scenes, Saudi Arabia, the dominant Sunni state in the Gulf, will have encouraged the Emiratis to take the first step

Time will tell how quickly other Gulf states will follow. These Arab fiefdoms will be assessing fallout before taking action themselves.

Among the principal aims of US Middle East policy since President Donald Trump came to power has been to broker improved ties between Israel and America’s Arab allies in the Gulf.

Read more: Israel’s proposed annexation of the West Bank could bring a ‘diplomatic tsunami’

This has been part of a wider Trump Middle East peace plan to bring about the “deal of the century”, as the president calls it, that would end decades of conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.

Trump officials believe Gulf states could be more fully engaged in exerting pressure on Palestinians to make concessions that might enable progress towards such a deal.

The UAE and its fellow Gulf states have been among principal donors to the Palestinian movement over many years. Their funding, for example, helped establish and sustain the Palestine Liberation Organisation.

However, times change. Oil-producing Gulf states have much less money to splash around given the demands of their own expanding populations. The collapse in oil prices has not helped.

Where does this leave the Palestinians?

In any case, Arab states more generally have found the Palestinian issue increasingly a distraction from their immediate concern of keeping Iran at bay.

By and large, these states paid lip service in their criticism of the Trump “deal of the century” when it was unveiled in January. Previously, their reaction would have been one of outright rejection.

In summary, the peace plan demanded the Palestinians set aside their long-held dream of a Palestinian state. Instead, they were asked to accept semi-autonomous enclaves in Israeli-controlled territories more or less in perpetuity

Needless to say this was rejected.

All this leaves the much-weakened Palestinian movement in a bind. The UAE’s decisions will be viewed by its leaders as one more betrayal of their cause in a long list going back to the Balfour declaration of 1917. In that declaration, Britain promised the Jews a homeland in Palestine.

The question for the Palestinians in light of what is effectively and conspicuously a collapse in Arab solidarity in rejection of Israel is what options might be available to them.

Initially, Palestinian reaction has been to decry the UAE’s actions. The Palestinian ambassador to the UAE has been recalled.

However, these sorts of responses don’t amount to a sustainable long-term strategy for a movement that is both divided and tired. What would seem to be required is a closing of ranks among Palestinians under a younger, more dynamic leadership.

It is long past time for vestiges of the PLO’s historic leadership to move aside to be replaced by a new generation.

Read more: What constitutes fair and unfair criticism of Israel?

– ref. Marriage of convenience: what does the historic Israel-UAE agreement mean for Middle East peace? – https://theconversation.com/marriage-of-convenience-what-does-the-historic-israel-uae-agreement-mean-for-middle-east-peace-144495

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Claire Hooker, Senior Lecturer and Coordinator, Health and Medical Humanities, University of Sydney

It could be a brother or sister. It could be a neighbour. It could be a person you work with. We probably all know someone who doesn’t wear a mask in public even though it’s compulsory or recommended where you live.

The media is quick to highlight people who think it’s their right not to wear a mask, such as #bunningskaren, or who become violent in expressing their objection.

But others can be persuaded, with the right approach.

So how do you know if it’s worth trying to convince someone to wear a mask? And what’s the best way to talk to them if you actually want to make a difference?

Yelling ‘Mask up!’ at them won’t work

People vary in how they perceive and tolerate risk, and how physically and psychologically vulnerable they are. So we may need to negotiate accepted behaviours, just as we did with HIV. Many of these conversations might be difficult.

We also need to watch our own emotions don’t cloud the message we want to convey. For instance, when we become angry, anxious, outraged or fearful, the person we are trying to communicate with might not hear the message we intended.

We might want to convey: “I want you to wear a mask when you catch the train to see our father.” But instead, the other person hears the message: “I think you are behaving badly and I’m angry with you.”

Ironically, the pandemic makes this type of miscommunication more likely. When we are stressed or emotional, we are more likely to activate our body’s “fight, flight, freeze” mechanisms. This affects how we communicate and how our communication is received.

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

If refusing to wear a mask is about maintaining a sense of control or is connected to a sense of identity — for example, if someone considers themselves “not someone who fusses” — then telling them to mask up could make them defensive.

Becoming defensive makes people not only less willing to listen, but less able to take in information, and or to appraise it accurately.

As a result, criticising someone’s views — for example, that wearing a mask doesn’t work — may lead them to “switch off” from what you’re saying and stick more firmly to their beliefs.

Read more: Parents’ decisions about vaccination and the art of gentle persuasion

So, what does work?

To communicate well, we need to prepare. The authors of the book Crucial Conversations recommend asking yourself what you want to achieve as an outcome and what you want for the relationship between you.

The goal is to keep the relationship respectful and the lines of communication open, so negotiations can continue as new pandemic circumstances arise.

You won’t completely change someone’s beliefs or actions. A better aim is to negotiate a change in behaviour that minimises harm. This might be: “Do as you choose at other times of course, but could we agree that just for now, you wear a mask when you visit Dad?”

Read more: Why are older people more at risk of coronavirus?

Respect, empathy, appeal to values

Identifying and respecting another person’s values and finding values in common reduces defensiveness and provides grounds for negotiation.

For instance: “I can see how important it is to you to be sceptical, and I absolutely agree, especially since the evidence changes so often. But since the evidence definitely shows that even some young, healthy people can get seriously ill, could I ask you to wear a mask on our trip?”

Asking someone why they are not wearing a mask, instead of telling them to wear one, is another helpful tool. This is a chance for someone to be heard, which lowers any defensiveness.

There are many reasons why people don’t wear masks. And hearing someone explain could provide an opportunity to problem-solve (especially if we ask how we can help, and refrain from giving advice).

Read more: It’s easy to judge. But some people really can’t wear a mask

Compassion or empathy allows us to support another’s position while more strongly maintaining our own.

For example, acknowledgements such as “I can relate! All these controls over our lives make me crazy and a lot of them make no sense” or “I might be wrong, and I might be overreacting”, can help with negotiating “please humour me and wear a mask, just on the train”.

Empathy can also help preserve the relationship while insisting on a boundary, such as: “Our relationship is so important, I really want to see you, and I hate saying this, but I can’t accept you visiting without a mask, at least until there are fewer cases.”

How a non-judgemental approach can win people over

Evidence shows some groups of men — such as younger men, more politically conservative men, men with lower health literacy, and men who endorse more traditional notions of masculinity — are among the most likely to resist wearing a mask.

Read more: Young men are more likely to believe COVID-19 myths. So how do we actually reach them?

Non-judgemental communication is as effective with men as with everyone else.

When Harvard professor Julia Marcus wrote about male anti-maskers without shaming or judgement, many men contacted her, willing to listen to her views on masks.

In a nutshell

If we are non-judgemental, empathetic, and clear in what we want to achieve, we can rise above counterproductive reactions, such as jumping in to tell someone off or dismissing someone’s concerns.

This allows us to be brave enough to tailor our communication to what the other person is able to hear, and to make it safe for the other person to speak. This is when our communication will actually work.

– ref. How to talk to someone who doesn’t wear a mask, and actually change their mind – https://theconversation.com/how-to-talk-to-someone-who-doesnt-wear-a-mask-and-actually-change-their-mind-143995

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Cecelia Cmielewski, Research Officer, Institute for Culture and Society, Western Sydney University

This week the NSW government’s arts funding arm, Create NSW, removed or significantly reduced funding to arts service organisations including Writing NSW, Playwriting Australia, the National Association of Visual Artists (NAVA) and Ausdance NSW. This short-sighted trend of cutting funding to arts organisations began several years ago.

It is particularly objectionable at a time of a pandemic when support for creativity is needed more than ever. The arts are valued in their own right and as contributors to social and cultural inclusion, and should be recognised as part of an essential element in any COVID-19 recovery.

As research think-tank A New Approach reported recently, creative pursuits assist “individuals and communities to recover from disasters and trauma”. The Create NSW announcement also coincided with the Arts on the Hill campaign to actively connect artists with federal members of parliament.

The federal government’s policy since 2015 of reduced funding for the arts has wrought devastation across artforms in the small to medium sector and reduced funding to individual artists by an estimated 70%. The latest cuts to NSW arts service organisations indicate a more targeted approach to funding cuts.

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

What are arts service organisations?

Arts service organisations have an incorporated, not-for-profit structure whose role is to advocate (or speak) on behalf of artists. Historically, they profile their artforms and artists, and promote standards for how artists should be treated. This includes due acknowledgement and remuneration in what is a substantially unregulated sector.

ArtsPeak, whose activities are currently on hold, is the “unincorporated federation” of 33 national arts service organisations such as Ausdance, Australian Writers Guild and Museums Australia. It defines arts service organisations as having a shared purpose to provide support including artform consultation and research, advocacy — such as changes to legislation, regulations and the adoption of “industry” standards — leadership, marketing and professional development. They protect and develop artists’ income generation capacity enabling them to sustain lifelong careers.

In 2017 the Australia Council for the Arts surveyed 111 arts service organisations. The report categorised their roles as encompassing public communication, maintaining industry standards, administering grants on behalf of the government or benefactors, and capacity building. As such, service organisations were recognised as filling gaps in artform development.

However, the scope to provide these services has diminished in NSW. This month, Arts NSW granted A$10 million to 58 key organisations over four years, a handful of which appear to be service organisations. In comparison, of the $45.4 million to 130 key organisations funded by Creative Victoria in 2018-19, 25 were dedicated industry and cultural development organisations. In the coming four years, Arts WA will support 37 arts organisations with $31 million, 11 of which are service organisations.

Read more: The problem with arts funding in Australia goes right back to its inception

NSW in the firing line

So, NSW arts service organisations appear to have borne the brunt of reduced state funding.

Diversity Arts Australia, the national advocacy organisation for artists from diverse cultural backgrounds, was a deserving but rare recipient of four-year organisational funding from the Australia Council, only to have Create NSW reduce its funding this year.

Writing NSW has lost all $175,000 of its annual funding in one fell swoop — a cut to one-third of its revenue, endangering the remaining two-thirds from income generating activities. It is that previously secure government funding that made it possible to generate the majority of its income from other sources.

Service organisations are perceived by some to be the least important component of the Australian arts system, and so less worthy of support in times of financial duress. This perception is misplaced, because the tailored professional development many offer increases the visibility, viability and inclusiveness of their artforms. This is particularly the case when professional arts training is under threat at the tertiary level.

Read more: Fee cuts for nursing and teaching but big hikes for law and humanities in package expanding university places

Writing NSW and Blacktown Arts Centre initiated the Boundless Festival in 2017 to bring emerging and professional writers from Indigenous and culturally diverse backgrounds together for the first time in Australia. Six additional organisational partners were also involved, highlighting the relationships between arts organisations that bring visions to reality. But it also highlights the domino effect after one falls, with others likely to falter as their burden increases.

An either/or approach

The role of arts service organisations has diversified beyond its historical role of political advocate. It now encompasses professional development and exposure to markets that otherwise would be outside the grasp of most individual artists and groups.

In the era of COVID-19, severe reductions in state or federal funding compounds the risk of losing these service organisations. This makes the positions of the artists and sector even more precarious.

Create NSW’s strategy in an already unsatisfactory arts funding environment is either to fund arts-producing organisations or service organisations. This binary approach favours arts production.

It does little to recognise the crucial place of arts service organisations in the value chain connecting creative and cultural activities that contributes at least $111.7 billion to the national economy.

– ref. State arts service organisations: effective, engaged but endangered – https://theconversation.com/state-arts-service-organisations-effective-engaged-but-endangered-144419

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Timothy Graham, Senior Lecturer, Queensland University of Technology

At midday on August 12 2020, the hashtag #DanLiedPeopleDied started trending on Twitter. By evening it had attracted over 10,000 tweets.

The hashtag appeared to reflect widespread public distrust in Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews’ handling of the coronavirus outbreak. In reality, however, it was driven by a small number of fringe, hyper-partisan accounts – and some that appear entirely inauthentic.

The success of this relatively small campaign is a symptom of Australia’s growing problem with “information disorder”.

What is #DanLiedPeopleDied and where did it come from?

The hashtag is a variation on #ChinaLiedPeopleDied, which has fuelled anti-Chinese sentiment and racism. The idea that “China lied” includes everything from criticism of the Chinese government’s handling of the outbreak to Sinophobia and racist hate speech.

Likewise, “Dan lied” conflates Victoria’s 289 coronavirus-related deaths with claims the premier acted or spoke falsely to cover up his administration’s culpability.

Against this backdrop, #DanLiedPeopleDied first appeared on Twitter on July 14, 2020, in a reply to academic and political commentator Peter van Onselen:

This account uses a profile photo of the fictional character Les Patterson (played by Barry Humphries) and mainly posts on three topics: criticism of the Victorian government, anti-China, and anti-police.

One slight problem, though: if you scroll back through the account’s timeline, you can see that prior to February 16, it only tweeted about Egyptian politics, in Arabic.

This sudden switch in personas and topics is a pattern often seen in fake accounts used in disinformation operations. We cannot know for sure if this account is part of an information operation, but it is certainly not typical behaviour.

Not much happened for several weeks after the initial #DanLiedPeopleDied tweet. Then, on the morning of August 12, a small group of mainly fringe, hyper-partisan accounts made a concerted effort to get the hashtag to trend.

This led to much more engagement. These fringe accounts were bolstered by newly created, suspicious accounts that helped to amplify their tweets.

Around midday, these efforts met some success: #DanLiedPeopleDied appeared on Twitter’s Australian “trending” list. This made it visible to a much larger audience.

Shortly after the hashtag started trending, controversial far-right influencer Avi Yemini (@OzraeliAvi) tweeted it to his 116,000 followers, inciting them to “keep it going”. The hashtag quickly climbed the trending list until it reached number one in Australia.

Throughout the afternoon, #DanLiedPeopleDied attracted a surge of tweets, retweets and likes – both supportive and critical. Attempts to criticise this divisive hashtag only served to amplify and spread it further.

Read more: Bushfires, bots and arson claims: Australia flung in the global disinformation spotlight

Amplification by ‘newborn’ and inauthentic accounts

I analysed 7,304 tweets containing #DanLiedPeopleDied and found a disproportionate number were from recently created accounts. Most had been created in 2020, followed by 2018 and 2019.

Newborn accounts created in the past few weeks particularly contributed to magnifying the attempts by fringe accounts to get the hashtag to trend. They may have tipped it over the line, though we cannot know exactly how much impact they had.

For comparison, I also looked at 31,393 tweets mentioning “DanielAndrewsMP” during the same period (representing the broader Twitter conversation about the Victorian premier). The creation dates of these accounts are spread more evenly over the past decade, as we might expect.

As further evidence, 17,937 recent tweets containing the hashtag #IStandWithDan (positive support for Daniel Andrews) show a similar pattern of account creation dates spread across the past decade.

Not bots, but not authentic

In the leadup to #DanLiedPeopleDied trending on Twitter, a small number of fringe and suspicious newborn accounts tweeted constantly to criticise Daniel Andrews. Many lack real profile photos, show no other interests, and in some cases tweet every few minutes about the same topic for hours at a time.

They do not appear to be automated (“bots”), but more like trolls or sockpuppet accounts (false identities used for deceptive purposes). For instance, before and after #DanLiedPeopleDied start trending, one account (created on July 21) spammed the hashtag more than 200 times in the space of seven hours – roughly one tweet every two minutes.

Many of the tweets were posts of low-effort memes and images criticising Daniel Andrews, with #DanLiedPeopleDied simply attached.

Information disorder and the future of Australian politics

It is hard to determine the exact nature of the #DanLiedPeopleDied campaign. It has elements of disinformation (false information knowingly spread to deceive or cause harm), misinformation (inadvertent sharing of false information), and possibly malinformation (genuine information with the context deliberately changed).

In various ways, it shows a mixed bag of symptoms relating to what has been described as information disorder.

In this way, the hashtag serves to pollute the national discussion of the Victorian COVID-19 outbreak. Among other things, it brings together highly emotive content, satire and parody, genuinely concerned but misinformed citizens, and suspicious activity from seemingly malicious actors.

However, as American social media expert Claire Wardle has argued, the key element may be the “weaponisation of context”:

The most effective disinformation has always been that which has a kernel of truth to it, and indeed most of the content being disseminated now is not fake — it is misleading.

While there may be a kernel of truth in #DanLiedPeopleDied — people have died, and there are legitimate questions about the government’s actions — it is misleading to call Andrews a liar. Like its progenitor, #ChinaLiedPeopleDied, the hashtag’s purpose is to sow division.

Even if getting #DanLiedPeopleDied to trend was not the result of a disinformation campaign, the outcome serves the goals of disinformation: to drive a wedge into pre-existing fractures in society, to confuse citizens and cultivate distrust in democratic institutions and authorities.

Australians have a right to ask questions about government handling of COVID-19 and to hold those in power accountable. But when genuine concerns become mixed up with “information voids” where facts are not established or available, where mainstream media pursues partisan agendas, and when social media make it quicker and easier than ever to uncritically share content, we find ourselves at risk of losing the information war.

That a handful of fringe and suspicious accounts could get #DanLiedPeopleDied to become the top trending hashtag on Twitter is a symptom of information disorder. It is a wake-up call for Australia to adopt a whole-of-society approach to safeguard its democracy against the coming tides of disinformation.

Read more: Disinformation campaigns are murky blends of truth, lies and sincere beliefs – lessons from the pandemic

– ref. The story of #DanLiedPeopleDied: how a hashtag reveals Australia’s ‘information disorder’ problem – https://theconversation.com/the-story-of-danliedpeopledied-how-a-hashtag-reveals-australias-information-disorder-problem-144403

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gregory Moore, Doctor of Botany, University of Melbourne

With massive fronds creating a luxuriously green canopy in the understory of Australian forests, tree ferns are a familiar sight on many long drives or bushwalks. But how much do you really know about them?

First of all, tree ferns are ferns, but they are not really trees. To be a tree, a plant must be woody (undergo secondary plant growth, which thickens stems and roots) and grow to a height of at least three metres when mature. While tree ferns can have single, thick trunk-like stems and can grow to a height of more than 15 metres, they are never woody.

They’re also incredibly hardy — tree ferns are often the first plants to show signs of recovery in the early weeks after bushfires. The unfurling of an almost iridescent green tree fern fiddlehead amid the sombre black of the bushfire ash is almost symbolic of the potential for bushfire recovery.

Ancient family ties

Tree ferns are generally slow growing, at rates of just 25-50 millimetres height increase per year. This means the tall individuals you might spot in a mature forest may be several centuries old.

However, in the right environment they can grow faster, so guessing their real age can be tricky, especially if they’re growing outside their usual forest environment.

Read more: The coastal banksia has its roots in ancient Gondwana

As a plant group, tree ferns are ancient, dating back hundreds of millions of years and pre-dating dinosaurs.

They existed on earth long before the flowering or cone-bearing plants evolved, and were a significant element of the earth’s flora during the Carboniferous period 300-360 million years ago, when conditions for plant growth were near ideal. This explains why ferns don’t reproduce by flowers, fruits or cones, but by more primitive spores.

In fact, fossilised tree ferns and their relatives called the fern allies laid down during the carboniferous then have provided much of the earth’s fossil fuels dating from that period. And tree ferns were a great food source, with Indigenous people once eating the pulp that occurs in the centre of the tree fern stem either raw or roasted as a starch.

Until recent times, ferns were quiet achievers among plant groups with an expanding number of species and greater numbers. Today, human activities are limiting their success by the clearing of forests and agricultural practices. Climate change is also a more recent threat to many fern species.

Species you’ve probably seen

Two of the more common tree fern species of south eastern Australia are Cyathea australis and Dicksonia antarctica. Both species have a wide distribution, extending from Queensland down the Australian coast and into Tasmania.

They’re often found growing near each other along rivers and creeks. They look superficially alike and many people would be unaware that they are entirely different species at first glance. That is, until you look closely at the detail of their fronds and run your fingers down the stalks.

C. australis has a rough almost prickly frond, hence its common name of rough tree fern, and can grow to be 25 metres tall. While D. antarctica, as the soft tree fern, has a smooth and sometimes furry frond and rarely grows above 15 metres.

Both contribute to the lush green appearance of the understory of wet forests dominated by eucalypts, such as mountain ash (Eucalyptus regnans).

Stems that host a tiny ecosystem

The way tree ferns grow is quite complex. That’s because growth, even of the roots, originates from part of the apex of the stem. If this crown is damaged, then the fern can die.

Read more: ‘Majestic, stunning, intriguing and bizarre’: New Guinea has 13,634 species of plants, and these are some of our favourites

At the right time of the year, the new fronds unfurl in the crown from a coil called a fiddlehead. The stem of the tree fern is made up of all of the retained leaf bases of the fronds from previous years.

The stems are very fibrous and quite strong, which means they tend to retain moisture. And this is one of the reasons why the stems of tree ferns don’t easily burn in bushfires — even when they’re dry or dead.

In some dense wet forest communities, the stems of tree ferns are a miniature ecosystem, with epiphytic plants — such as mosses, translucent filmy ferns, perhaps lichens and the seedlings of other plant species — growing on them.

These epiphytes are not bad for the tree ferns, they’re just looking for a place to live, and the fibrous, nutrient-rich, moist tree fern stems prove brilliantly suitable.

Engulfed by trees

Similarly, the spreading canopies of tree ferns, such as D. antarctica, provide an excellent place for trees and other species to germinate.

That’s because many plants need good light for their seedlings to establish and this may not be available on the forest floor. Seeds, such as those of the native (or myrtle) beech, Nothofagus cunninghamii, may germinate in the crowns of tree ferns, and its roots can grow down the tree fern trunks and into the soil.

Read more: People are ‘blind’ to plants, and that’s bad news for conservation

As time passes, the tree species may completely grow over the tree fern, engulfing the tree fern stem into its trunk. Decades, or even centuries later, it’s sometimes still possible to see the old tree fern stem embedded inside.

Still, tree ferns are wonderfully resilient and give a sense of permanence to our ever-changing fire-affected landscapes.

– ref. Tree ferns are older than dinosaurs. And that’s not even the most interesting thing about them – https://theconversation.com/tree-ferns-are-older-than-dinosaurs-and-thats-not-even-the-most-interesting-thing-about-them-138435

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

University of Canberra Professorial Fellow Michelle Grattan and University of Canberra Vice-Chancellor and President Professor Paddy Nixon discuss the week in politics.

This week Michelle and Paddy discuss the week of hearings before the Royal Commission into Aged Care, Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews and his quarantine approach, and a report following an inquiry into the alleged killing, by Australian special force in Afghanistan of unarmed civilians and surrendered insurgents.

– ref. VIDEO: Michelle Grattan on the Royal Commission into Aged Care and Melbourne’s ongoing quarantine – https://theconversation.com/video-michelle-grattan-on-the-royal-commission-into-aged-care-and-melbournes-ongoing-quarantine-144501