Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephanie Trigg, Redmond Barry Distinguished Professor of English Literature, University of Melbourne

In our series Art for Trying Times, authors nominate a work they turn to for solace or perspective during this pandemic.

The Greeks are at the gates, and the city of Troy is under siege.

Every day, the Trojans ride out to do battle with Agamemnon, Odysseus, Ajax and the aggrieved husband Menelaus, whose wife Helen has been abducted by the Trojan prince Paris. But despite this crisis, the Trojan leisured classes carry on with their lives.

Read more: Fall of Troy: the legend and the facts

One joyful spring morning, when the sun is shining and the meadows are filled with flowers, a beautiful young widow, Criseyde, sits in her palace, in a paved parlour with two other ladies, while a young maiden reads to them the story of another siege, that of the Greek city of Thebes.

This pleasant scene is interrupted by Criseyde’s uncle Pandarus, who is bringing the astonishing news that Paris’s younger brother Troilus has fallen in love with her.

Geoffrey Chaucer wrote his great romance Troilus and Criseyde around 1386. I teach this text every year in my honours class. It is long and difficult, and we normally spend half the semester working through the poem. Even then we don’t read it all in detail.

This year, the global pandemic brings a new context for reading this poem about a passionate but doomed love affair between two Trojans, conducted under siege conditions, in addition to all the constraints Chaucer’s very medieval lovers place around themselves.

A secret affair

Chaucer’s language in this text is rich and ornate, and the poem is written in a rhyming stanza whose syntax ranges from elegant to knotty. The narrative is both leisurely and intense.

It offers philosophical digressions about the nature of free will and predestination; but it is also full of intricate private meditations, and absorbing, intense conversations between the three main characters.

Nothing in the brutal rough and tumble of Shakespeare’s later play Troilus and Cressida can prepare you for the lyric drama of this poem.

Criseyde’s father has abandoned Troy and gone over to the Greek camp. She has been allowed to remain in Troy, but she is very vulnerable and fearful. The love affair must remain secret to protect her honour; Troilus and Criseyde cannot marry because he is a prince and she is the daughter of a traitor; and nor can they leave Troy and abandon their city.

They are also both overcome by shyness, dread, and reluctance to speak to each other. Indeed, the lovers do not exchange a single word until the beginning of the third book, and by the beginning of the fifth and final book they have parted, never to meet again.

Every year my students bring fresh insights to this poem’s emotional and cultural drama. Although I am on long service leave this semester, I am still conducting my annual reading of the poem on Zoom with a group of friends and colleagues.

Our Middle English Reading Group is made up of staff, present and former students, and members of a thriving community of scholars and lovers of medieval and early modern culture.

This year, reading together through Zoom offers a powerful contrast with Chaucer’s scene of medieval women’s communal reading.

Read more: Say what? How to improve virtual catch-ups, book groups and wine nights

Reading aloud

When Pandarus enters Criseyde’s paved parlour, where the maiden is reading from the book about the siege of Thebes, she greets him warmly and brings him to sit next to her. Hoping to turn her mood to thoughts of love, he asks what they are reading: is it a book about love? Is there anything he can learn?

Criseyde teases her uncle and when they have finished laughing she tells him where they are up to. She points to “thise lettres rede,” the rubricated or decoratively coloured chapter heading that introduces the next section.

Pandarus replies that he knows all about that sorrowful story but insists they should turn their thoughts to spring, as a prelude to introducing his news about Troilus. He invites her to dance but Criseyde recoils in horror. As a widow, she says, it would be better for her to live in a cave, to pray, and read the lives of the saints.

In typical Chaucerian fashion, this passage shows a female character’s awareness of what she might do, and perhaps should do, but does not.

Read more: Guide to the classics: Homer’s Iliad

Unhappy endings

The domestic charms of this safe interior space, Pandarus’ fearful invitation, and the pleasures of reading and talking about familiar books distract us from the dreadful history lesson in the book they are reading. For just as Thebes was destroyed under siege, so too will Troy be.

Chaucer’s readers knew this; we know it; and even Criseyde’s father, a soothsayer, knows it: he has already abandoned Troy and gone over to the Greek camp, leaving her unprotected except for her uncle who is about to embroil her in the complexities of Trojan court politics.

We know that this love story will turn out badly. In the very first stanza, Chaucer has told us the ending of the story: that Troilus will win Criseyde, but that she will forsake him.

Knowing the ending doesn’t affect our pleasure in this text. And so we read on, absorbed by Chaucer’s capacity to conjure the lives of others as they balance distress with hope, and external disaster with private joy.

Like the Trojans, we may not be able to learn from the past so as to avoid disaster. But Chaucer is forgiving, and offers us the seductive pleasures of reading and rereading, and the comfort of repetition.

Read more: Missing your friends? Rereading Harry Potter might be the next best thing

– ref. Chaucer’s great poem Troilus and Criseyde: perfect reading while under siege from a virus – https://theconversation.com/chaucers-great-poem-troilus-and-criseyde-perfect-reading-while-under-siege-from-a-virus-142662

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Newman, Professor of Sustainability, Curtin University

Creative destruction “is the essential fact about capitalism”, wrote the great Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter in 1942. New technologies and processes continuously revolutionise the economic structure from within, “incessantly destroying the old one, incessantly creating a new one”.

Change happens more quickly and creatively during times of economic disruption. Innovations meeting material and cultural needs accelerate. Structures preventing new, more efficient technologies weaken. As the old economy collapses, innovations “cluster” to become the core of the new economy.

Over the past three centuries there have been five great “waves” of economic disruption and clustering. The first was driven by harnessing water power, the second by steam power, the third by coal and electricity, the fourth by oil and gas, and the fifth by digital transformation.

We are now at the start of the sixth great wave, driven by renewable energy combined with electromobility and smart-city technology.

Though 2020 will be a difficult year for the entire economy, these technology trends are faring much better than the old-energy sector. Over the longer run the COVID-19 economic disruption should accelerate the wave.

Renewable energy

In renewable energy, solar photovoltaics and onshore wind are now the most economic new form of electricity generation for at least two-thirds of the global population, according to energy research provider BloombergNEF.

In Australia, the latest analysis of electricity generation costs by the Australian Energy Market Operator and CSIRO shows solar photovoltaics and wind are already cheaper than coal and gas. Solar PV costs are also predicted to fall sharply over the next decade, reducing its generation costs from about A$50 a megawatt hour to A$30 by 2030.

The following graph for renewable energy and coal consumption in the United States shows the acceleration towards renewables is well underway.

Statistics published last week by the US Energy Information Administration show in 2019 coal production fell to its lowest level since 1978. In 2020 coal production is projected to fall to 1960s levels.

Across all member nations of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (including Australia), the International Energy Agency’s latest monthly statistics show coal production in April was down 32% on April 2019. Electricity generation from all non-renwables was down 12%. But generation from renewables was up 3%.

Electromobility

Electromobility encompasses electric vehicles including cars, buses and trackless trams. Globally, BloombergNEF projects electric vehicles to comprise 3% of new passenger car sales in 2020, 10% in 2025, 28% in 2030 and 58% in 2040.

Leading the charge is Europe, where sales of electric vehicles actually increased 7.5% in the first quarter of 2020, bucking the global downturn for electric cars and the industry overall.

The only major car maker to increase sales was Tesla, selling 88,496 cars. Its second-quarter sales of 90,650 cars was just 5% down on a year ago, compared to falls of about 25% for other makers. Tesla’s booming share price saw it overtake Toyota in May to become the world’s most valuable car maker.

Smart-city technology

Smart-city technology involves using sensors, machine learning, artificial intelligence, block-chain and the “internet of things” to improve infrastructure efficiency. They have been growing in use for transport, energy and housing.

Road sensors can help traffic managers coordinate traffic signals to cut congestion or to guide fast electric buses and trackless trams through traffic. Apps help us navigate through cities, and to know precisely when buses or trains are due.

In energy grids, smart technology can be used to balance electricity supply and demand, and to create low-cost and localised electricity markets.

In housing, smart systems can improve all aspects of a home’s energy and environmental performance.

Curtin University has partnered with Western Australia’s land development agency to integrate these technologies into the East Village housing project in Fremantle. It will use blockchain technology to leverage photovoltiacs, batteries, electric vehicles and water heating in a micro-grid supplying 100% renewable power to a community of 36 homes. This cluster of innovations are modular, so developers can experiment and then scale up.

Brake or accelerate

The economic and cultural benefits of renewable energy generation, electromobility and smart-city technologies are clear. They will led to a cleaner, greener economy with many more new jobs.

Read more: 45,000 renewables jobs are Australia’s for the taking – but how many will go to coal workers?

Together I estimate they have the potential to reduce the use of fossil fuel by 80% in a decade.

Eliminating the last 20% – gas and coal used in industrial processes such as steel production and mineral processing, and fossil fuels used for long-haul road, sea and air transport – will be harder.

Read more: Energy isn’t just electricity – the common mistake obscuring the mammoth task of decarbonisation

But hydrogen made with renewable energy can potentially replace fossil fuels in all these applications, though developing and commercialising the technology and needed infrastructure will likely take a decade or more.

Australia is already a global leader in uptake of solar generation and battery storage. We are also doing well in smart city technologies. But we have been slow in electromobility, and we will need to invest more in hydrogen research, development and deployment.

The only thing that will put the brake on these technologies becoming the core of the new economy sooner rather than later are backward-looking government policies that seek to prop up an obsolete fossil-fuel economy.

– ref. Creative destruction: the COVID-19 economic crisis is accelerating the demise of fossil fuels – https://theconversation.com/creative-destruction-the-covid-19-economic-crisis-is-accelerating-the-demise-of-fossil-fuels-143739

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Deborah Lupton, SHARP Professor, Vitalities Lab, Centre for Social Research in Health and Social Policy Centre, UNSW

With Victorians heading into a new round of even harsher lockdown measures, there will again be a focus on how people will cope — the various ways such restrictions change lifestyles and how we adapt to them.

New data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics provides a snapshot of how Australians changed their behaviours, activities and consumption patterns as people were forced to stay home during the country’s first COVID-19 lockdown earlier this year.

To understand how the virus affected people’s everyday lives, the ABS ran a fortnightly survey with the same group of 1,000 people from April 1 to July 10. Here are some of the key findings.

Higher levels of anxiety

Lockdown restrictions began to be implemented in Australia from mid-March. Not surprisingly, in the first ABS survey in early April, respondents reported some immediate changes, such as a loss of contact with other people.

Just under half of people reported having no in-person contact with friends or family outside their household. Nearly all had used phone and video calls and text messages to keep in touch.

By mid-April, financial hardship was also starting to set in for people. Nearly a third of respondents reported their household finances had worsened due to COVID-19.

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

People’s mental health was also beginning to suffer by mid-April. Compared with a pre-COVID health national survey of Australians, twice as many people reported feelings of anxiety at some point. One in nine Australians also felt hopeless at least some of the time.

More women and younger people reported these feelings compared with men and people aged 65 years and over.

Working from home and changes in diets

Survey results from early May 2020 began to show how people were adjusting their lifestyles to the new routines. Restrictions had just started to ease slightly at this point.

Findings from this stage showed some gender differences. Women (56%) were more likely to be working from home compared with men (38%). Perhaps related to this, women were also more likely to be feeling lonely than men (28% compared with 16%).

The ABS found some notable changes in consumption habits. The early May survey showed fewer people were purchasing additional household supplies (21%) compared with March (47%), suggesting panic-buying had subsided.

People were spending their money on other purchases instead. From early April to early May, one in five people reported eating more snack food, while 13% of respondents were eating more fruit and vegetables.

Purchase of takeaway or delivered food declined over this period, with almost a third of respondents reporting less frequent consumption.

Perhaps contrary to popular belief, the overwhelming majority of people were not drinking more in isolation. Just 14% of people reported increasing their alcohol consumption.

Read more: Coronavirus: it’s tempting to drink your worries away but there are healthier ways to manage stress and keep your drinking in check

More chores and reading

During the early May phase of the lockdown, people were also seeking solace in home-based activities.

Though a majority of people (60%) were reporting more time on screens during lockdown, others were turning to hobbies and other activities.

Forty-one percent of respondents said they were spending more time on household chores and other work around the house and garden: for instance, 39% were doing more reading and crafts, and 38% were spending more time cooking or baking.

When it came to physical health and exercise, though, just one in four people had increased their level of physical activity during lockdown, while one in five had actually spent less time exercising.

Restrictions ease but some lifestyle changes remain

As more restrictions began to ease around the country, people began to think about what they would do once lockdown ended. By late June, Australians’ mental health had improved compared with the height of the lockdown in April.

Fewer people reported feeling stressed, lonely, restless, nervous or that everything was an effort.

More than 90% were still keeping their distance from others, but fewer were avoiding social gatherings.

Interestingly, the easing of restrictions did not change other lifestyle routines that significantly: many people were still spending a lot of time on screens and with pets, cooking, baking and online shopping compared with before the lockdown period.

An optimistic outlook, except for Victorians

When the final ABS survey was conducted in early July, things were looking brighter for most Australians.

Three in five respondents reported their mental health status as good or very good. Most people had an optimistic outlook on the future, with over half believing life had already returned to normal or would return to normal within six months.

Read more: The psychology of comfort food – why we look to carbs for solace

The big exception was people living in Victoria. In late June and early July, Melbourne had begun to experience a second wave of infections and a re-introduction of restrictions.

Not surprisingly, only 2% of Victorians said their life had already returned to normal or had not changed due to COVID-19.

Where to from here?

The ABS has finished this survey, but is starting a new monthly survey in August, with a new group of respondents. This survey will also focus on Australians’ everyday lives and well-being during the pandemic.

There are also many university-based social research projects currently underway. Once completed, their findings will provide a more detailed picture of how life has changed in Australia during COVID-19 — a situation that continues to evolve day by day.

– ref. More screen time, snacking and chores: a snapshot of how everyday life changed during the first coronavirus lockdown – https://theconversation.com/more-screen-time-snacking-and-chores-a-snapshot-of-how-everyday-life-changed-during-the-first-coronavirus-lockdown-143805

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

The old maxim that truth is the first casualty of war has been borne out by the damning Report of the Government Inquiry into Operation Burnham.

It is almost ten years ago to the day that the fateful military operation took place in Afghanistan in 2010, and over three years since the book Hit & Run alleged there were civilian casualties, torture of detainees and a subsequent cover-up.

The result for the Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) is humiliating and will almost inevitably mean it is stripped of the relative autonomy it has enjoyed to this point.

The military betrayed the public trust

While not all of the assertions in Hit & Run were upheld, its main themes certainly have been. The Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) has proved itself untrustworthy in three crucial ways:

1. it made mistakes and did not fix them

2. superiors failed to question information, despite contradictory material being presented, and did not attempt to determine the truth

3. those same people made a series of erroneous and misleading public statements about the possibility of civilian casualties, preferring to repeat a false narrative and incorrect statements.

These were not small oversights. Rather, the evidence suggests systematic failures in key areas, including inaccurate and disingenuous communication with the minister of defence.

That is a disaster. Despite the NZDF’s recent success in Iraq in sustaining no casualties while part of the bulkhead that defeated ISIS, it has now bombed its own position as the trusted military arm of the state.

The military damaged its own reputation

Deception by any military in a democracy is dangerous. Furthermore, the actions of a few have caused untold damage to a reputation for integrity and honour proudly created over generations.

There is also a strong element of stupidity involved. The NZDF did not need to be deceptive about one of the central claims against it: that its forces were engaged in acts of retaliation, untethered by the laws of war.

That assertion was not upheld. The inquiry found the conduct of the soldiers involved in Operation Burnham was professional, not motivated by a desire for revenge, and pre-operation intelligence (that there were armed insurgents in the villages) was correct.

Although there were serious questions about decisions made during the operation, the bottom line is that all of the actions complied with the applicable rules of engagement. Many will find the result of these actions harsh (as war is), but the actions were not unjustifiable, nor unduly reckless, negligent or indiscriminate.

The torture findings are damning

Where the NZDF may have wanted to hide the truth was over allegations of torture. Although our soldiers may not have tortured prisoners themselves, they did hand some over to forces who did. This was clear in the case of one man, Qari Miraj, and possibly other instances involving hundreds more.

With each transfer, our authorities appear to have turned a blind eye or failed to meet the standards expected of them when they knew (or should have known) there was a real risk of torture.

Even when the NZDF knew torture had occurred, senior leaders and ministers were not briefed. Nor were any further steps taken to investigate, to state New Zealand’s position on torture, or to review its policy on detention.

This is a terrible finding. Any possible complicity in situations involving torture is abhorrent. If it is correct, apologies and compensation for the victims or their families should be offered.

The NZDF cannot police itself

Three of the inquiry’s four recommendations are the predictable slaps on the wrist we expect from official forums such as this: internal changes to ensure the NZDF comes up to international best practice for administration and record keeping; clear orders established for dealing with allegations of civilian casualties; and improved detention policies and procedures.

The other recommendation, however, is the most critical. It calls for the establishment by law of an independent inspector-general to oversee the NZDF. Such positions are created, as happened with both the police and the security intelligence agencies, when an organisation has proved unfit to govern itself.

The government has promised to implement the recommendations if it is re-elected, but it should be a priority for whichever party or parties win power. Only then can progress be said to have happened.

And let’s not forget, this would not have happened by itself. It took the brave investigative journalism of Nicky Hager and Jon Stephenson, a government willing to critically examine the charges against its own defence force, and finally an excellent enquiry by Sir Terence Arnold and Sir Geoffrey Palmer.

We should hope that when these law changes are made the country will regain its confidence and pride in the NZDF. Never again should truth be the first casualty.

– ref. Operation Burnham: the New Zealand military’s self-inflicted wounds will not heal by themselves – https://theconversation.com/operation-burnham-the-new-zealand-militarys-self-inflicted-wounds-will-not-heal-by-themselves-143806

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Celia Harris, Vice Chancellor’s Senior Research Fellow, Western Sydney University

We are all living through a major historical event, a once-in-a-century pandemic that has radically changed how we work, learn, travel, socialise and spend our free time.

But for many of us juggling working from home, schooling at home and Friday night Zoom drinks, this is a period likely marked by memory failures. We forget who said what, who was at which meeting, what tasks and appointments we have, and even what day it is.

Why doesn’t our memory serve us well in this pandemic? Anxiety may be one explanation, but another reason comes from the way our memory works.

How we remember things

Recalling specific details from particular past events – such as who was at last Friday’s drinks, and who was there the week before that – is a complex mental feat.

Read more: Lockdown, relax, repeat: how cities across the globe are going back to coronavirus restrictions

To do it, our memory relies on distinctive cues, both to recall past events accurately and to remember to perform future actions.

Distinctive cues for a particular event might include the physical surroundings, people, tastes, sounds, smells, or the weather.

We remember which friend was at drinks because we recall details of the location – the bar we were at, where each person was sitting, what we were eating, and so on. This context helps us place the right person in that situation when we recall it later.

We remember who said what in a work meeting because we can visualise where they were sitting. We remember what day it is because we have landmarks in the week that remind us: karate lessons, choir practice, Friday afternoon traffic.

Same, same, same

Unfortunately, the pandemic has erased many of these cues. Many of us have instead been spending time sitting at our computer when ordinarily we might be at work or elsewhere. And this could leave us less able to distinguish events from one another.

Our memories are designed to focus on things that are new or distinctive. This means we are more likely to remember events when they are accompanied by a change in our environment, such as an overseas vacation. Conversely, we tend to merge events that are broadly similar.

This is useful as it helps us keep track of events in a systematic and useful way, without needing to perfectly record all the details of every event.

But in lockdown we don’t have physical transitions to differentiate one event from the next. We no longer walk between meetings or commute from the office to home. Many different events now share the same context (staying at home), which means your memory tends to blur them together.

What can we do about it?

Once we understand that our memories are going to find the current circumstances challenging, there are things we can do to improve the situation.

One way is to make an effort to create distinctive cues where possible. Can we all wear silly hats for our Friday night drinks (or board meetings)? Can we hold work meetings for different projects in different rooms of our house?

Ask someone different each time to chair recurring meetings? Going for a walk during meetings where we only need to listen can create a new set of physical cues to associate with what is being said.

Another way is to rely more heavily on our external memory systems: diaries, calendars, notes and records. Accepting that our internal memory might fall short means we can compensate by deliberately using tools and resources to store the information on our behalf.

These systems can later act as contextual memory cues too. For example, we can add a screenshot to our video meeting notes to record who was there and their location on the screen.

These kinds of recommendations are often given to people who experience memory failures for other reasons, such as brain injury.

Read more: Thinking about working from home long-term? 3 ways it could be good or bad for your health

But similar principles might help all of us whose internal memory resources are not designed for spending our time almost exclusively in one place.

When embracing external memory systems, it is important to ensure they are readily accessible and always accurate, so we can trust them completely and be sure of getting the reminders we need.

Working from home is the new normal for many of us. Developing new strategies that support our memory performance might help reduce the number of things we forget, and stop our recollection of the COVID-19 times turning into an amorphous mush.

– ref. Don’t know what day it is or who said what at the last meeting? Blame the coronavirus – https://theconversation.com/dont-know-what-day-it-is-or-who-said-what-at-the-last-meeting-blame-the-coronavirus-142086

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Howard Manns, Lecturer in Linguistics, Monash University

Things are really jeffed up for Karens right now. The Miley (“coronavirus”) did a Melba (“made yet another a comeback”), and Joe and Jane Bloggs are being drongos.

In the process, “Karen” has become the Bradman of ways for calling out selfish entitlement, racism and inequality.

Names are much more than just a tag or a label — they have a special force. This is why they often enter general vocabulary, not only in direct reference to the original celebrated name-bearer, as in the case of doing a Bradman or a Melba, or as common nouns like pavlova, lamington, granny smith, but also as shorthand for a certain “type”. Ask any Tom, Dick or Karen.

English speakers use proper names to mean all sorts of things – and we’re not always nice about it.

Read more: ‘Iso’, ‘boomer remover’ and ‘quarantini’: how coronavirus is changing our language

Karen: more Miss Ann than Biddy or Meg

Throughout history, many women’s names have been swept into English in unkind ways. Witness the deterioration of pet names such as “Dolly”, “Kitty”, “Biddy”, “Jill”, “Polly”, “Meg”, “Judy” or “Jude” — all have been contemptuous labels at one time or other, either for “drab and unattractive” women or the “promiscuous and attractive” ones.

But today’s “Karen” isn’t Dolly, Biddy or Meg. Attempts to frame Karen’s overall use as “sexist” miss the point. The term Karen has recently been used to call out white women whose behaviour is considered entitled, unreasonable and obnoxious. It has rightfully spawned a series of male equivalents, including “male-Karen”, “Kyle”, “Ken”, “Kevin” or “Steve”.

Importantly, the sort of entitled (and often racist) behaviour “Karen” is being used to call out existed long before the term. Many Black Americans have framed this behaviour in terms of a “Miss Ann” social type, historically linked to the white women of slave plantations. Some Black writers noted a surge in Miss Ann-like behaviour around the time of Donald Trump’s election.

Of course, these issues have long existed in Australia, too. Famously, last year an actual person named “Karen” did a Karen by trying to take down a neighbour’s Indigenous flag. A viral video led to the spread of the catch-phrase: “It’s too strong for you, Karen.”

Karen then joins a series of labels like “Miss Ann”, “Mr Charlie” and “Becky” to call out obnoxious behaviour and privilege. And, to loosely paraphrase the Claytons faux whisky ad, Karen debates are the debates you’re having when you should be debating privilege.

Awash with joshing Johnnies and Joes

That said, it’s worth sympathising with people named Karen, who have entered a sometimes less-than-illustrious club of people hard done by in the English language, unkindly “joed” and “joshed”, often for centuries.

Whether, when and how people (or animals!) enter this club depends on a range of factors. Media, politics and celebrity are obviously important (“Melba”, “Bradman” and poor old “drongo”). And often there’s verbal play involved, as in the end-clipped rhyming slang “Miley (Cyrus)” for “coronavirus” or “jeffed” and “jeffing” (famously from “Jeff Kennett”, but echoing many an effective cussword).

And then there’s frequency. Karen joins those whose names have been swept into society due to sheer number. Karen appeared on the most common names lists in the late 1960s but is no competition for “John”, which has been among the English-speaking world’s most common names since the 13th century.

And “John” and “Johnny” have been pressed into service for a range of meanings in English, including “the client of a prostitute”, “someone easily duped”, “a sailor”, “an immigrant”, “a vacuous aristocrat”, “penis”, “hospital gown” and “an onion seller from Brittany”.

Indeed, the sheer number of Johns in English history means this name’s most prominent purpose is to “erase” or “anonymise” — in other words, to reduce its referent to an “everyman”, as in “John Q. Public” (for everyday citizen), “Johnnie Raw” (for a new military recruit), or “John-of-all-trades”, among many, many others.

But we’re likely more familiar with a “Jack-of-all-trades”, which points to another common phenomenon: a proliferation of naming alliteration around “j” names. “Jack” is a familiar alternative for John, so it’s probably not surprising to see it being used (since the late middle ages) in a similar everyman (“manual labourer”, “lumberjack”) or derogative sense (“jackanapes” for a “person displaying ape-like qualities”).

In fact, extended uses of Jack have produced well over a hundred different words and phrases, ranging from the slightly disparaging to the wildly offensive (we’re hard-pressed to think of a tabooed bodily function and secretion that doesn’t have an expression featuring “jack)”). So offensive was “Jack”, in fact, that those in polite 18th-century society euphemised “jackass” to “Johnny-Bum”.

And, just as “John Doe” has his “Jane”, so too does “Jack” have his “Jill”, as in “Jack and Jill” — a couple whose common names made them useful to a famous story about a drink-run gone bad. But the “jackanape” also has his “Jane-of-apes” equivalent (which for the record, preceded “Tarzan” by a few hundred years).

The tomfoolery of names: Karen in the dunce’s corner

Karen joins the likes of Scottish theologian and philosopher John Duns Scotus, who was an influential thinker in the 13th century. It was the perceived stubbornness of his 16th-century followers, known as dunsmen or dunses, that led to our current sense of “dunce”.

The club of dim-witted dunces has acquired many members over the years. The original Tom Fool has been around since at least the early 1300s; he joins other ninnies like Tom Doodle (the blockhead) Tom Farthing (the simpleton), Tom Towly (another simpleton), Tom Tug (rhyming slang for “mug”), not to mention “Errant Tony” and “Simple Simon”. These are the predecessors of the modern-day “charlie” or “wally” (from Walter but with happy reinforcement that comes from cucumbers pickled in brine — the “dill”).

Read more: Oi! We’re not lazy yarners, so let’s kill the cringe and love our Aussie accent(s)

Notably, Karen also joins the many people whose names through historical happenstance come to index “ignorance”, “backwardness” or “lack of sophistication”. “Hick” — an earlier, shortened form of Richard — has certainly developed this meaning. In the 16th century, Hick, Hob (shortened Robert or Robin) and Hans (a general term for a German or Dutchman) seem to be the Tom, Dick and Harry of no manners or consequence.

And we Aussies have our own bevvy of underdogs and uncultured types. “Ocker” was originally a pet form of “Oscar”. Its links to “boorishness” and “exaggerated nationalism” can be traced to Ron Frazer’s “Oscar” character on The Mavis Bramston Show. In the 1970s, he teamed up with “Norm” — the supreme couch potato.

Tom, Dick and Karen

As Oscar Wilde once put it, “Names are everything.” They’re the verbal expression for our personality, for those qualities and attributes that define us as individuals. More than that, names are a proper part of us.

It’s no surprise then people named Karen are upset. However, like inequality, this isn’t something you can just Houdini away.

– ref. What’s in a name? Well, quite a bit if your name is Karen (or Jack, John, Jeff, Dolly, Biddy, Meg …) – https://theconversation.com/whats-in-a-name-well-quite-a-bit-if-your-name-is-karen-or-jack-john-jeff-dolly-biddy-meg-143194

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robyn Moore, Social Researcher, School of Social Sciences, University of Tasmania

In his book Dark Emu, Bruce Pascoe writes that settler Australians wilfully misunderstood, hid and destroyed evidence of Aboriginal Australians’ farming practices.

My analysis of secondary school textbooks shows this behaviour isn’t restricted to the past — it is ongoing.

In Australia, pre-invasion Aboriginal peoples tend to be portrayed as nomadic hunter-gatherers. For example, a 1979 textbook titled Australia’s frontiers: an atlas of Australian history by J.R.J. Grigsby and T.F. Gurry said:

The people of this distinctive race were hunters and gatherers […] They were constantly on the move, following game or seeking new sources of plant food.

However, physical evidence as well as the journals of early colonists show Aboriginal peoples farmed and built large villages, meaning many groups stayed in one place.

Sophisticated farmers

In the 1970s, evidence of Aboriginal farming in southwest Victoria recorded by white archaeologists confirmed what the local Gunditjmara people had always known: rather than living off whatever they came across, the Gunditjmara actively farmed the landscape. As in other areas in the world, intensive farming was accompanied by permanent dwellings.

Read more: The detective work behind the Budj Bim eel traps World Heritage bid

Writings of early colonists show Aboriginal agriculture was practised Australia-wide. In 2011, Bill Gammage used historical writings to explain how Aboriginal peoples created the park-like landscape “discovered” by early colonists.

Read more: The biggest estate on earth: how Aborigines made Australia

Bruce Pascoe’s recent book Dark Emu extends Gammage’s research. Writing about the journals of the early colonists, Pascoe wrote:

As I read these early journals I came across repeated references to people building dams and wells, planting, irrigating and harvesting seed, preserving the surplus and storing it in houses, sheds or secure vessels, creating elaborate cemeteries and manipulating the landscape – none of which fitted the definition of hunter-gatherers.

What are school children taught?

I analysed Australian history narratives in secondary school textbooks from 1950 to the present. Up until the 2000s, these textbooks repeated the myth that Aboriginal peoples were nomadic hunter-gatherers. For example, a 1984 text said:

The Aborigines were nomads or wanderers. The wandered from place to place as they searched for food and water. But each tribe has its own special territory and members of the tribe did not move outside this area […] The Aborigines knew the places where they would be most likely to find water and things to eat and they visited each place in turn […] The Aborigines did not farm the land. They didn’t plant and harvest crops or herd animals.

Although factually incorrect, it’s likely the authors of these accounts believed them to be accurate.

Over time, the textbooks I studied gradually improved as various errors and omissions were corrected. However, it took until the early 2000s before the myth of hunter-gathering was corrected. In 2005, one text for middle school students openly refuted the traditional narrative:

It has generally long been accepted that Australia’s Indigenous people were traditionally all nomadic […] Archaeological evidence recently discovered in Victoria seems to suggest, however, that at least some Indigenous people might have had fixed settlements.

This change seems to reflect the impetus to correct misinformation. Remarkably however, this change was short-lived. The publisher reverted to the traditional narrative of Aborigines as hunter-gatherers the very next year. This is the only example I found where textbooks reverted to a previous account that was known to be incorrect. The publisher’s comparable 2006 text stated:

Collecting food and the natural resources needed to provide shelter and weapons typically took up most of the day […] Indigenous people took only the resources they needed to live. When a particular territory became too pressured by over-use, the people moved camp, allowing landscapes and resource stocks to be restored.

This pattern continued in subsequent years. For example, the same publisher’s 2012 textbook claimed:

The arrival of the British began the process that saw the Gadigal lose their lands and their self-sufficient, hunting and gathering way of life.

The most recent textbooks omit this topic entirely, which means the widely-held myth of hunter-gatherering persists.

Why aren’t our kids taught about Aboriginal farming?

In Dark Emu, Pascoe explains that denying Aboriginal farming practices enabled the colonisers to reject Aboriginal peoples’ rights to land, shoring up their own claims to legitimacy instead. The invasion and colonisation of Australia was based on the self-justifying legal doctrine terra nullius — land belonging to no one. A key aspect of this claim was that Aboriginal peoples supposedly didn’t farm.

European political thinking in the 1800s linked “industriousness” with rights to land. For example, in 1758, Swiss jurist Emmerich de Vattel argued societies based on the “fruits of the chase” (rather than agricultural production) “may not complain if more industrious Nations should come and occupy part of their lands”.

Read more: Captain Cook ‘discovered’ Australia, and other myths from old school text books

This line of thought allowed the British colonists to reassure themselves the continent was there for the taking and justify their dispossession of Aboriginal peoples.

It’s difficult to understand why a contemporary publisher of school textbooks would publish misleading or incorrect material. However, we do know changes to secondary school history textbooks have occurred in the context of the “history wars” in Australia.

The “history wars” refers to the conservative backlash to the increasing democratisation of Australian history.

From the 1970s, complexity was introduced to Australian histories. The traditional tale of heroic, elite, white men was moderated by including the perspectives and voices of Aboriginal peoples, non-white immigrants and white women and workers. The “history wars” is an attempt to marginalise these voices and return to traditional narratives.

Textbooks record the dominant understandings and values of the society in which they are published. The intrusion of the history wars into the school curriculum reveal a struggle to define these dominant understandings.

Read more: ‘Western civilisation’? History teaching has moved on, and so should those who champion it

History textbooks are crucial to students’ understanding of our nation. In colonised nations such as Australia, foundational narratives are fashioned to establish the legitimacy of the nation. In Australia, it seems as if this fashioning requires Aboriginal peoples to be portrayed as hunter-gatherers.

Most of us who’ve been educated in Australia hold racist stereotypes of Aboriginal society as primitive and savage. We’ve imbibed these stereotypes as part of our education. Resistance and refusal to acknowledge Aboriginal agricultural practices supports these stereotypes and leads to discriminatory attitudes which continue to impact Aboriginal Australians. Shattering these stereotypes is crucial to improving the lives of Aboriginal Australians. Our textbooks need to do better.

Read more: Why our kids should learn Aboriginal history

– ref. Secondary school textbooks teach our kids the myth that Aboriginal Australians were nomadic hunter-gatherers – https://theconversation.com/secondary-school-textbooks-teach-our-kids-the-myth-that-aboriginal-australians-were-nomadic-hunter-gatherers-133066

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Carl Grodach, Professor and Director of Urban Planning & Design, Monash University

COVID-19 and the growing recession concentrated in the services sector will not just increase social inequality, but accelerate the growing spatial divide in our cities. As our new research report shows, the pandemic’s impacts reinforce the ongoing trend towards the suburbanisation of inequality.

There are two reasons for this. First, the industries vulnerable to the economic impacts of COVID-19 lockdowns rely heavily on low-wage, part-time employment. Second, the inner suburbs are home to the largest concentration of COVID-vulnerable workers.

Read more: Rapid growth is widening Melbourne’s social and economic divide

If we do not act now, more people will get pushed out of inner areas rich in jobs and amenities to lower-cost outer suburbs with poor access to jobs and community services.

Which industries and workers are vulnerable?

Our research analyses where people employed in the industries most vulnerable to COVID-19 lockdowns live and the kind of work they do. We map vulnerable employment areas in all suburbs of Australia’s five largest capital cities. We then examine the characteristics of people in vulnerable employment living in all suburbs of Australia’s current coronavirus hotspot, metropolitan Melbourne.

We define vulnerable employment based on a detailed review of industries with one-third or more firms reporting reduced worker hours one week after the first COVID-19 lockdown (March 30 2020). These firms are mainly in the consumer, travel and community services sectors. They employ people working in accommodation and food, arts and entertainment, education, “non-essential” health care, retail and transport.

Read more: How the coronavirus recession puts service workers at risk

We profile the characteristics of vulnerable workers in each of these sub-industries and by suburb. We classify suburbs (using SA2 level data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics) by share of vulnerable employment based on the worker’s place of usual residence.

Many at-risk workers live in inner suburbs

As the map below shows, the largest shares of vulnerable workers live in Melbourne’s inner suburbs.

Vulnerability levels clearly diminish moving outward from the city centre. In other words, many vulnerable workers live in some of the highest-rent suburbs.

On average, the share of vulnerable workers in the very high vulnerability suburbs is 32.2% of employed residents. The figure exceeds 40% in some of these areas.

Workers likely to be forced to move

Living in the inner suburbs, combined with the nature of their jobs, puts many COVID-vulnerable workers at high risk of displacement.

In the very high vulnerability suburbs, 47% of vulnerable workers are on low or very low incomes. And 54.3% work part-time (less than 38 hours a week). A large proportion (41.9%) are aged under 30 and about one-third are 30-44.

In fact, over half (53.5%) of the vulnerable workforce living in very high-vulnerability suburbs hold jobs in the most precarious, low-wage consumer services industries – accommodation and food services and retail and personal services. Another 30% work in arts, entertainment and education.

Suppressed consumer demand will not only have short-run employment impacts, but might permanently alter consumption patterns. The result would be enduring business closures and job losses for workers who live in these areas.

To make ends meet, many of those facing job loss and other employment pressures such as reduced hours will seek more affordable housing in the middle and outer suburbs.

However, although the outer areas are now home to the smallest proportion of vulnerable workers, the vulnerable workers that live there tend to be worse off. Just over 66% are on low or very low incomes and 60% work part-time.

As a result, the migration of COVID-vulnerable workers to the outer areas will add to the existing concentration of spatial inequality in Greater Melbourne.

Read more: Private renters are doing it tough in outer suburbs of Sydney and Melbourne

What can be done about this?

COVID-19 puts people working in low-end service jobs and the creative and educational services at high risk of losing their jobs. Those who manage to live in the high-cost inner suburbs are now particularly vulnerable.

Read more: Coronavirus: 3 in 4 Australians employed in the creative and performing arts could lose their jobs

It is therefore crucial to expand rather than retract the JobKeeper and JobSeeker programs. Proposed cuts to JobSeeker are estimated to push 370,000 Australians into poverty, 123,000 in Victoria alone. In tandem, we need interim policy in the rental housing market to defuse the impending “rent bomb” of tenants facing eviction if they can’t pay the accumulated debt of deferred rent.

Longer-term strategies are also needed. We must confront the reality that many service sector jobs will not return.

This requires investment in skills-building courses tied to strengthening the recovery of TAFEs and universities, particularly in areas like “essential manufacturing” – medical supplies, recycling, food – and communications technologies. JobTrainer is a good start.

Given the spatial dimensions of the crisis, place-based programs are crucial too. Preserving inner suburban industrial land can play a significant role in small enterprise start-ups, firm expansion and job creation. Inner industrial districts provide a flexible mix of space that allows businesses to grow and add quality jobs in place.

Read more: Three ways to fix the problems caused by rezoning inner-city industrial land for mixed-use apartments

At the same time, policymakers can better develop community infrastructure and employment hubs in the outer suburbs. Community hubs provide flexible, multipurpose spaces that cater to various community needs. These services range from youth, aged care and health facilities to collaborative workspaces and settings for workforce training providers.

While COVID-19 is clearly taking an immediate toll on the health and economies of our cities, we need a conversation about the longer-term impacts and responses.

– ref. Why coronavirus will deepen the inequality of our suburbs – https://theconversation.com/why-coronavirus-will-deepen-the-inequality-of-our-suburbs-143432

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Glennda Scully, Professor, Curtin University

The COVID-19 pandemic has driven a surge of calls to domestic violence support services, as survivors of violence spend more time at home with their abusers due to lockdowns and other restrictions.

Many feel they can’t leave — or that they must return to abusers — because they lack financial security or are unsure about where to turn for financial assistance.

Domestic violence may include physical violence, but it can also mean verbal, emotional or financial abuse — or a combination of these. Financial abuse can include a partner preventing or trying to prevent you from knowing about family finances, accessing money, making decisions about what to buy, controlling your income or using the phone, internet or car.

Our free online resource, titled Your Toolkit, outlines a “roadmap for recovery” to support women’s physical safety and long-term financial security. We have had a surge of traffic to the site since the pandemic began (and have updated it with COVID-19 specific advice).

Read more: What governments can do about the increase in family violence due to coronavirus

The guide breaks the process into four steps to support women hoping to leave: the preparation phase, the launch phase, the “nourish” phase aimed at preserving safety, and the “flourish” stage aimed at supporting long-term financial stability.

Preparing to leave

Planning is the most important phase in preparing to leave.

When preparing to leave it is important to keep yourself safe when using technology. Be sure to manage the settings on all your devices. If, at any time, you think your partner is tracking your location through your device, our advice is to ditch it.

Collect and keep safe your important documents, including your passport and driver’s licence. If you can, collect evidence of your abuse (such as photos). If you can access cash and credit cards, they can also be really useful.

If you choose to leave, you’ll need to consider the safety of yourself, children and pets. Start thinking through legal advice, escape routes and emergency contacts, checklists and logistics.

We know this can be overwhelming, so we have included some links to resources in the toolkit to help. Prepare when and where you can get support.

Launching your plan

When you launch your plan, remember to call 000 if you are in crisis. You’ve made the decision to leave. We know you haven’t come easily to this place and you may be frightened. Make sure you are aware of short- and medium-term support available to help keep you and your children safe when you decide to leave.

The launch section of our guide outlines how to get help in an emergency, leave home safely, get a Violence Restraining Order and where to get food and a bed for the night in a crisis.

Navigating paperwork as you work towards financial security

For the next part of your journey, which we call the “nourish” phase, you’ll need to know where and how to access support payments and services, longer-term accommodation options, how to look after your ongoing personal safety, and where to get legal advice on your rights.

The site provides information to help navigate the paperwork and sustain you on the journey to financial security and independence.

Flourishing with a longer-term financial plan

To thrive in the long run, you need financial stability. A crucial component is having a budget, and the “flourish” section of the guide details how to build one.

A budget sets out your income and expenses and, importantly, allows you to plan for the future. It identifies ahead of time when you may have a shortfall in funds.

Use the MoneySmart budget planner so you can create a budget, see where your money is going, and work out whether your income will cover your expenses. Once established, you can look at savings and borrowing plans and get advice about superannuation, tax and how the bank can help you.

Sometimes, women who have left a violent relationship face legal and tax problems. There are many free and expert advisors you can see for advice. For tax advice you can access free tax clinics in your state. For details, check out the Australian Taxation Office’s Tax Clinic Program.

Unless you’ve experienced it yourself, it’s hard to appreciate just how difficult it is to leave a violent relationship. Building a financial plan is a crucial part of making your exit successful in the long term.

Read more: ‘We are in a bubble that is set to burst’. Why urgent support must be given to domestic violence workers

If you need help, you can reach Australia’s national sexual assault, domestic and family violence counselling service on 1800 737 732 or via web chat, 24/7.

– ref. If you’re thinking of leaving a violent partner, you need a financial plan. This toolkit can help – https://theconversation.com/if-youre-thinking-of-leaving-a-violent-partner-you-need-a-financial-plan-this-toolkit-can-help-143004

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Carly Osborn, Visiting Research Fellow, University of Adelaide

In our series Art for Trying Times, authors nominate a work they turn to for solace or perspective during this pandemic.

There is a genre of novel that I have relied upon for many years. Some people call it “airport fiction”, or “beach reading”. The name implies a reassuring effort-to-pleasure ratio. It includes young adult novels about teenage girls kicking arse in post-apocalyptic dystopias, low-stakes relationship dramas and action-thrillers full of weapon specifications.

These are the books I turn to when my emotional capacity is near nil. When I am exhausted by life, by working and parenting and waiting on hold and all the other activities that make me feel as wilted as a wet sock.

It’s a pleasure to curl up with a cup of tea and a novel of escapist silliness. For a few hours I’m distracted and entertained. But lately I have been worse than wilted. Fear and uncertainty have become a constant background sensation. Grief and despair flow in and out of my consciousness like a grim tide.

I don’t need mere distraction. I need real, potent pleasure to offset the horrible news of the day. I lack the resilience to cope with the minor irritants of poor prose style and shoddy plot holes that so often come with the “light read” genre.

What I need is something that will demand nothing of me, but which is, in every other respect, absolutely perfect. And so I pick up P.G. Wodehouse.

Contrived plots, two-dimensional characters, ridiculous resolutions: check. Yet the master of comic novels takes all of those elements and spins them into shining gold. Wodehouse is what to read when anything less than the utterly sublime is too much to bear.

Wodehouse wrote 71 novels. For those new to him, I recommend you start with Right Ho, Jeeves. It is a delight.

His contrived plots are contrived so artfully that they seem as natural as birdsong. Misplaced antiques and mistaken betrothals weave around one another like Bach’s counterpoints, complex yet perfectly balanced, resolving harmoniously into a neat final chord that makes you sigh with satisfaction.

Characters that in lesser hands would be caricatures become some of the sharpest and funniest fictional persons ever created. Aunt Dahlia, Bobbie Wickham, Psmith (“the P is silent”), Jeeves and Wooster, and Lord Emsworth are my favourites.

Read more: Listening to Songs of Leonard Cohen: singing sadness to sadness in these anxious times

A way with words

It is customary, when praising Wodehouse, to include some quotes that illustrate his unparalleled deftness with the English language.

Anyone who loves Wodehouse knows the impossibility of choosing, but this one seems appropriate for those finding solace in small things today:

The discovery of a toy duck in the soap dish, presumably the property of some former juvenile visitor, contributed not a little to this new and happier frame of mind. What with one thing and another, I hadn’t played with toy ducks in my bath for years, and I found the novel experience most invigorating. For the benefit of those interested, I may mention that if you shove the thing under the surface with the sponge and then let it go, it shoots out of the water in a manner calculated to divert the most careworn. Ten minutes of this and I was enabled to return to the bedchamber much more the old merry Bertram.

Wodehouse’s words are as pristine as poetry. His similes delight me:

She looked like an aunt who had just bitten into a bad oyster.

He sprung round with a sort of guilty bound, like an adagio dancer surprised while watering the cat’s milk.

He looked like a sheep with a secret sorrow.

Wodehouse and Jane Austen are my go-to writers when I need the balm of perfect prose style. But while few have accused Austen’s novels of being too grim, the stakes are often real: enough money to live on, a happy marriage. Even the trials of Marianne Dashwood are enough to send me into a slump these days. By contrast, the stakes in Wodehouse couldn’t even make my four-year-old cry, and she cries when Sean the Sheep loses his farmer.

Read more: Sense and Sensibility in a time of coronavirus: vicarious escape with Jane Austen

Bertie’s millionare Uncle has lost his favourite milk jug. A houseguest at Blandings Castle has been throwing eggs at the gardener. These are high dramas I can invest in, safe in the knowledge that the milk jug will be found, the errant houseguest thwarted—and none of it really matters anyway.

‘A musical comedy without music’

This was quite intentional on Wodehouse’s part, as he famously said:

I believe there are only two ways of writing a novel… one is mine, making the thing a sort of musical comedy without music and ignoring real life altogether; the other is going right down deep into life, and not caring a damn.

Wodehouse wrote at a time when his contemporaries —James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, D.H. Lawrence, Aldous Huxley — were forging Great Works of Literature. I love those books, and the ways they go “right down deep into life”.

I suspect Wodehouse could have written such novels with the best of them. But I’m so grateful he knew that the human soul also needs simple joy. His books lead me beside quiet waters, and restore my soul.

And I will never not giggle when Bertie Wooster, offended to the core, takes his leave of his cousin Angela:

‘Very good,’ I said coldly. ‘In that case, tinkerty tonk.’

And I meant it to sting.“

– ref. P.G. Wodehouse in a pandemic: wit and perfect prose to restore the soul – https://theconversation.com/p-g-wodehouse-in-a-pandemic-wit-and-perfect-prose-to-restore-the-soul-143533

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

As Melbourne moved to an extraordinary 8pm to 5am daily curfew and Stage 4 restrictions, and Victoria declared a “state of disaster”, Scott Morrison took to social media with a message for the embattled residents.

Read more: Explainer: what is a ‘state of disaster’ and what powers does it confer?

“Australians all around the country are backing you in, because we all know for Australia to succeed, we need for Victoria to get through this,” he said.

The Victorian lockdown has not just become drastically harsher – it is now due to run through until September 13.

Before Sunday’s announcement, Victoria was half way through its softer lockdown.

But that was not going to do its job, according to Premier Daniel Andrews, who had spent day after day imploring people to stay within the rules.

If tougher restrictions weren’t imposed, Andrews reckoned it would take until the end of the year before Victoria would be back seeing daylight.

“That’s a six-month strategy that is simply not going to work,” Andrews said. “Therefore we have to do more and do more right now.”

Andrews had no choice. The latest Victorian tally was 671 new cases and seven deaths. There are some 760 “mystery” active cases where the sources could not be traced.

Goodness knows, however, what sort of shape Victoria will be in by mid September, or Australia as a whole, for that matter.

The Victorian economy will be prone. On Monday we will get the details of which areas of business will be cut back or shut down by the government. Many others will be knocked off their feet, temporarily or in some cases permanently, by the stronger general restrictions on activity.

Treasury will be once again going back to its budget figures that last week were already out of date, just a week after they were unveiled.

Andrews is looking for some special Commonwealth help for Victoria. Nothing specific seems on or off the table. But the strong message from the federal government is that any such assistance should be on a 50-50 basis with Victoria.

The tougher lockdown, particularly targeting younger people who move around a lot and may be spreading the virus without showing symptoms, will test the resilience and compliance of a stressed community.

It’s already testing the political restraint of some Coalition politicians. Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack, while saying he wasn’t out to whack Andrews with a baseball bat, lamented that tighter restrictions hadn’t been imposed on Melbourne earlier.

Morrison was taking a low public profile at the weekend, apart from social media messaging including an Instagram picture of him wearing a mask. He explained he’d “had to pop out to pick up a few things here in Sydney, so followed the NSW Premier’s advice announced earlier today (and put a mask on in the car before heading into the shops).”

Meanwhile on Saturday he had sent a letter to West Australian premier Mark McGowan, capitulating over the Commonwealth’s participation in the court challenge to WA’s closed border.

Morrison said he was pulling the government out of the High Court case, which has been brought by Clive Palmer.

After concerted attacks on the WA government last week by him and senior ministers from WA, Christian Porter and Mathias Cormann, the Prime Minister presumably recognised (or was told) that regardless of whether he was on the right side of the constitution he was certainly on the wrong side of public opinion.

McGowan has very high ratings – with a state election coming early next year – and the hard border is popular locally.

Morrison reiterated that the Commonwealth intervention in the case had been consistent with convention and its responsibilities in relation to the constitution. He said the government’s actions “have not been to support any private interest of the plaintiffs”.

“While taking our constitutional responsibilities seriously in seeking to respect established conventions, I also accept that recent events in the eastern states, especially Victoria, are creating real concerns to residents in other states less impacted,” he wrote.

“I do not wish to see these concerns further exacerbated in Western Australia.

“Having taken into account the changed state of the pandemic that has worsened since these matters were first brought to the High Court, the high level of concern regarding public health in the Western Australian community, and our desire to work with you cooperatively on a constitutionally sustainable way forward, I consider, on balance, that we must set aside the normal convention in these circumstances and not continue the Commonwealth’s participation in this case.”

Morrison proposed principles “to mitigate the Commonwealth’s concerns with how border issues within our Federation are managed”.

He said the federal government was not asking WA to change its present border setting – as things stood, that would give rise to “significant and unnecessary public concern”.

His principles proposed states should not act arbitrarily in restricting inter-state movement of Australian residents; any restriction should be in consultation with the Commonwealth on the basis of transparent advice about the need for it; affected states should be consulted, and there should be criteria and processes for regular assessment.

“I also want to stress the advice I receive from the Chief Medical Officer, that has also been regularly conveyed to National Cabinet, that border arrangements are no substitute for strong public health response capability and maintenance of social distancing principles,” Morrison wrote.

“If an outbreak were to occur in Western Australia, as has occurred in other states, it will be strength of your State’s testing, tracing and outbreak containment capabilities that will determine your success or otherwise.”

The tone of the letter indicated this had been a retreat made through gritted teeth behind a thin mask of congeniality.

– ref. View from The Hill: COVID has brought us a state in disaster and a prime minister in a mask – https://theconversation.com/view-from-the-hill-covid-has-brought-us-a-state-in-disaster-and-a-prime-minister-in-a-mask-143808

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rodney Tiffen, Emeritus Professor, Department of Government and International Relations, University of Sydney

James Murdoch is not the most obvious candidate for editorial heroism. His route to resigning from the News Corp board because of “disagreements over certain editorial content” has been circuitous and colourful.

James’s first major managerial role in his father’s media empire was to run the Star satellite services and News Corp’s Asian operations in Hong Kong from 2000 to 2003. He had mixed commercial success in this period, which is best remembered for his determination to gain access to the Chinese market by currying favour with the government.

He accused Western media of painting a falsely negative portrayal of China through their focus on controversial issues such as human rights and Taiwan. In 2001, he advised Hong Kong’s democracy movement to “accept the reality of life under a strong-willed absolutist government”. In one of his dealings with China, he agreed that Murdoch’s cable channels around the world would take China’s propaganda channel CCTV9.

Read more: China proves immune to Murdoch-style regime change

In 2003, he was promoted to run BSkyB in London, where he lived for the best part of the next decade, and where he successfully expanded Murdoch’s satellite services.

He gained early notoriety with a confrontational speech at the Edinburgh International Television Festival. Here he celebrated the digital age and the dynamism of the market, and equated people who still believed in regulation with “creationists”. There was no doubt about his primary target:

To let the state enjoy a near monopoly of information is to guarantee manipulation and distortion.

Yet we have a system in which state-sponsored media – the BBC in particular – grow ever more dominant. That process has to be reversed.

It takes a particularly agile propagandist to find the Beijing regime so benign and the BBC so sinister.

James’s main aim at the time was to effect a total takeover of BSkyB, raising News Corp’s current share of 40% to 100%. The importance of BSkyB to the Murdoch empire was demonstrated by James’s boldest and most ruthless action. In 2006, the newly formed Virgin Media group was negotiating a merger with ITV. The new group’s cable operations would have the potential to provide tougher competition for BSkyB’s satellite service.

Overnight, James swooped, buying 17.9% of ITV for a cost of GBP 940 million. This made News Corp ITV’s biggest shareholder and messed up the intended deal.

News’s move was always likely to be deemed illegal, but by the time this was finally decided nearly four years later, the challenge was dead. News lost GBP 340 million pounds on its forced sale of ITV shares, but no doubt Rupert and James thought this had been a good investment to protect BSkyB’s market share.

After the 2010 election of the Cameron government in the UK, BSkyB looked to be within reach, but James was increasingly impatient with any procedural obstacle or criticism of the attempt. His mentality at the time was on show in an incident in the lead up to the election. The Independent newspaper ran a series of advertisements proclaiming its independence and urging its readers to consider their vote. One such ad ran “Rupert Murdoch won’t decide this election, you will”.

James’s response was bizarre. He and Rebekah Brooks arrived unannounced at the paper, and James yelled at the editor, Simon Kelner, in front of bemused journalists that he was a “fucking fuckwit”, among other things.

Phone hacking scandal

James’s hopes for BSkyB were about to be washed away by a scandal, which did him and the company enormous damage. After the outstanding investigative efforts of Nick Davies, the Guardian published that Murdoch’s News of the World had hacked the phone of a kidnap victim Milly Dowler. This not only created immediate outrage but opened the door for many further revelations about the illegal methods and invasions of privacy by the tabloids to follow. Parliamentary hearings, court cases, and eventually the Leveson inquiry all put the company’s illegal and unethical practices into public view.

At first the arrogance of the Murdoch camp was undented. In private, chief editorial executive Rebekah Brooks said the story was going to end with Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger on his knees begging for mercy.

James, as News Corp’s senior executive in Britain when the scandal broke, found his own actions under scrutiny. His denials, prevarications and lack of remorse did not help the company’s cause. His appearances before the parliamentary committees were disastrous. At the end of his testimony, Labour member Tom Watson said

Mr Murdoch, you must be the first mafia boss in history who didn’t know he was running a criminal enterprise.

Climate change denial

James left London for New York and his promised promotion in the company. But his reputation was in tatters, even with other members of the family. His public persona at this time consisted of neo-liberal politics and corporate ruthlessness, with his actions untroubled by ethical considerations.

Yet, now, this corporate and family loyalist has resigned from his last official position with the company. James has long seen the urgency of combating global warming. As early as 2006, largely at his urging, Rupert also embraced the issue. Rupert soon retreated from the cause, but James’s commitment continued.

Rupert’s conversion had surprisingly little impact on the company’s journalism. Its upper editorial echelons contained a large number of climate denialists, and Rupert seems to have never made any effort to change their views.

Read more: Naming and shaming two young women show the only ‘enemies of the state’ are the media

In addition, James’s wife, Kathryn, is by the rather special standards of the Murdoch family, a liberal and a progressive. She has been involved in several environmental organisations, and James and Kathryn have donated to several Democratic candidates, including most recently the presidential campaign of Joe Biden.

James made a rare public criticism of the company last Australian summer. He accused News Corp of promoting climate denialism during its coverage of the Australian bushfires.

Out of step

However the key events are probably in America. At the same time that James and Kathryn have been edging left, the Murdoch organisation has been moving ever further to the right. The commercial success and political impact of Fox News have doubtless shaped Rupert’s thinking and the whole company’s journalism has become more Foxified.

There has rarely if ever been an alliance of president and media company like that of Trump with Fox News. He is their chief publicist and they an uncritical avenue for his views, especially to his base. So far, it has probably worked out well for both.

Read more: From irreverence to irrelevance: the rise and fall of the bad-tempered tabloids

However, the dangers are acute, especially as Trump’s popularity wanes. Moreover, an erratic president such as Trump poses problems for the credibility of those who seek to embrace his every twist and turn.

This year’s pandemic, economic and racial problems have given a new urgency to these issues. Over the past six months, there have been more than double the fatalities Americans suffered in over 12 years in the Vietnam War. It is hard to remember any leadership failure approaching Trump’s catastrophe on COVID-19. Some early studies suggested Trump’s denialism, echoed by Fox, meant their viewers had more false beliefs about the pandemic than Americans who consumed mainstream media.

After Trump’s comments after a white-supremacist rally in Charlottesville, James donated $1 million to the Anti-Defamation League.

James has taken a principled stance, but it is also pragmatic. Since the sale of the bulk of Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox assets to Disney (of which James was chief executive), there is no future role for him in the corporation.

By also resigning from the News Corp Board, he will be freer to express his own views, and perhaps have the chance to watch from a distance as Trump is defeated and Fox heads into decline together in the coming months.

– ref. James Murdoch’s resignation is the result of News Corp’s increasing shift to the right – not just on climate – https://theconversation.com/james-murdochs-resignation-is-the-result-of-news-corps-increasing-shift-to-the-right-not-just-on-climate-143799

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anne Twomey, Professor of Constitutional Law, University of Sydney

A “state of disaster” has been declared for the whole of Victoria from 6pm, Sunday August 2, for a month. How is this different from the existing “state of emergency” and what powers does it give the Andrews government?

What is the difference between a state of emergency and a state of disaster?

Victoria has been in a state of emergency since March 16 2020. This is a declaration that is made under the Public Health and Wellbeing Act 2008, where there is a serious risk to public health.

The Act confers wide-ranging powers on the Chief Health Officer. These include the power to quarantine people, prohibit mass gatherings and impose other restrictions on the movement of people. The Act also confers a broad power to give any other direction that is reasonably necessary to protect public health.

Read more: State of disaster called as Melbourne moves to nightly curfew and stage 4 restrictions

A state of disaster addresses matters beyond public health issues. It is intended to deal with emergencies such as natural disasters, explosions, terrorism or sieges, but it can also be used to deal with “a plague or an epidemic”. It was used in Victoria in January 2020 during the bushfires, but the declaration was limited to specific areas that were in danger from the spread of bushfires. It was initially for a period of 7 days, which was later extended for a short period.

This time, however, the state of disaster has been declared for the entire state of Victoria, and for the maximum period of a month. A further declaration can be made to continue the state of disaster if the emergency continues after the month ends.

The Emergency Management Act 1986 allows the premier of Victoria to make such a declaration after considering the advice of the minister for police and emergency services and the emergency management commissioner.

The premier has to be satisfied there is an emergency that “constitutes a significant and widespread danger to life or property in Victoria”.

What powers does a state of disaster confer?

The declaration of a state of disaster gives the police minister responsibility for directing and co-ordinating the activities of all government agencies. The minister may also allocate government resources as necessary to respond to the disaster.

The minister can direct government agencies to act or refrain from acting in particular ways to deal with the disaster. Such a direction prevails over anything to the contrary in any state law.

One of the most extreme powers the minister has is to override legislation. For centuries, it has been accepted in Australia and the United Kingdom that governments do not have executive powers to suspend or dispense with the application of the law set out in statutes.

In this case, however, it is a statute that is giving the minister, during a state of disaster, the power to declare that the operation of the whole or any part of an Act or legislative instrument is suspended.

Reassuringly, there are strict limits placed on this power. The minister can only exercise it if they believe compliance by a government agency with the provisions of an Act or instrument that prescribes the agency’s duties or responsibilities, would inhibit its response to the disaster.

Other relevant powers conferred on the minister include the power to control movement within, and entry into or departure from, the disaster area (which is the whole of the state) or any part of it.

What other effect does declaring a state of disaster have?

The royal commission into the deadly 2009 Victorian bushfires was critical of the failure to declare a state of disaster. It noted that beyond the coercive powers granted by such a declaration, it “would provide symbolic recognition of the gravity of a situation”, which might have sharpened the focus of emergency services. It would also have put political leaders firmly in charge of the emergency, reassuring the public and ensuring high-level government attention.

In Victoria at present, there is no doubt the emergency services are focused and there is high-level government attention.

But the declaration of a state of disaster may be effective in reinforcing to the public the absolute necessity of complying with government instructions in the midst of this pandemic. The symbolism of the action may therefore be as important as the powers conferred.

How does a ‘state of emergency’ fit with a ‘state of disaster’?

Section 198 of the Public Health and Wellbeing Act provides that a declaration of a state of emergency does not derogate from or limit any provisions in relation to the declaration of an emergency under any other Act.

It appears there is an intention that the powers conferred on people in relation to both a state of emergency and state of disaster should be exercised in a co-operative and co-ordinated manner to ensure a whole of government response to the emergency.

It is about marshalling all the government’s firepower to defeat the pandemic.

– ref. Explainer: what is a ‘state of disaster’ and what powers does it confer? – https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-a-state-of-disaster-and-what-powers-does-it-confer-143807

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

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews has announced that metropolitan Melbourne will move to “stage 4” restrictions from 6pm Sunday, as new cases of COVID-19 continue to rise. The state recorded another 671 cases and 7 deaths on Sunday.

Andrews has declared a State of Disaster from 6pm on Sunday, imposing a nightly curfew on Melbourne and giving the government and police extra powers to enforce the new restrictions.

Meanwhile, regional Victoria (outside of Melbourne) will move to stage 3 restrictions from midnight on Wednesday. Mitchell Shire will remain at stage 3.

What are the new restrictions?

Under the new stage 4 restrictions, only one person in each household can do shopping once a day. Exercise can be undertaken once a day for one hour, and no more than two people can exercise together. Residents can’t travel more than five kilometres from their home for shopping or exercise.

During the curfew, the only permitted reasons for being outside will be to receive or give care, or to go to or from work. A fine of A$1,652 will apply for anyone breaching these restrictions, and police will have the power to arrest those breaking the curfew without good reason.

Andrews said there are “common sense” exemptions. People can travel more than 5km to see their intimate partner and for care giving.

All schools across the state will move to remote learning from Wednesday, with some exceptions, such as students with special needs and children of essential workers.

On Monday, Andrews will outline further restrictions on workplaces. He flagged three categories: workplaces such as supermarkets, grocers and bakeries will remain open; some workplaces will stay open but with restrictions; and others will shut down or work exclusively from home if possible.

How did we get here?

Andrews said the current restrictions were “not working fast enough”, and that continuing with the current settings would mean it takes until the end of the year to drive daily numbers down to a point at which restrictions could be eased.

This comes as no surprise to those of us working in public health. Several epidemiologists have argued that stage 3 restrictions were not severe enough. For example, it seemed crazy when stage 3 restrictions were imposed in early July that people were told they could travel for work or study if unable to do it from home. This left the door open for too many people to travel while potentially infected.

Andrews said that there are currently 760 “mystery” cases – that is, cases of community transmission for which the source of infection is unknown. This is tantamount to saying the disease is out of control.

A range of exacerbating factors have brought us to this point. They include:

Aged-care homes

Much of the current outbreak is occurring in aged-care homes across Victoria. The handling of the situation in aged-care homes has been abysmal. The deployment of AUSMAT teams to aged-care homes is very welcome, but has come far too late. Aged-care residents with any symptoms should be immediately transferred to a hospital or clinic, although admittedly this is is not easy for some patients.

Read more: AUSMAT teams start work in aged care homes today. But what does this ‘SAS of the medical world’ actually do?

The current bickering between the Victorian and federal governments about who is to blame for the high number of infections and deaths in aged-care homes is counterproductive. The damage has been done — let’s fix it.

Failures to self-isolate

One of the main reasons why the current restrictions have not worked is that many people who have tested positive have not followed quarantine instructions and were not home when they should have been. Some of these might have been absent for a genuine reason, but many were likely low-paid casual workers who either couldn’t afford not to work, people who did not understand what they were supposed to do, or those who simply did not care. On top of this, there has been confusion in the Victorian government messaging about what to do while waiting for test results.

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

Is the virus more contagious?

The current strain of SARS-CoV-2 circulating around the world is more contagious than the original form. But that in itself cannot explain why only Victoria is grappling with disaster, and not the whole of Australia. However, the fact the virus is more contagious does mean it can take better advantage of the lapses in Victoria.

Will stage 4 restrictions work?

They should do — they include many of the rules we have been calling for, such as a stricter definition of essential workers and workplaces. But there are yet more potentially useful measures, which are not necessarily very expensive.

In a previous article I said that if necessary, Australian Defence Force (ADF) personnel could be used to deliver food and essential supplies to those at high risk, and help with logistics. They are trained in disaster relief, supply chain management and logistics. ADF staff are currently door-knocking people who have tested positive to check they are self-isolating. While there, why can’t they deliver 14 days’ supply of food and essential items to help people stay at home? They could also deliver supplies to vulnerable people stuck at home.

The ADF could also work with the major supermarket chains to ensure that they are well-stocked, and therefore help reduce the panic buying currently happening in Melbourne.

Finally, better messaging is required. The Victorian government is not getting through to enough people about why the restrictions are essential. For example, compared with other state health departments, Victoria’s COVID-19 page is very clinically oriented, and not particularly user-friendly.

How will we know the new restrictions are working?

There are several indicators that help us assess what is happening. The effective reproduction number, or Reff, is the average number of people each infected person themselves infect. It needs to be below one for the outbreak to die out.

Read more: R0: How scientists quantify the intensity of an outbreak like coronavirus and predict the pandemic’s spread

However, at this stage of the outbreak, it can only be estimated by modelling, and is more of a long-term indicator. An alternative is the “growth factor”. This is simply the number of cases today, divided by the number yesterday. We would like to see the growth factor less than one, and unlike Reff, it is a short-term indicator.

Because daily cases can fluctuate for many reasons, we prefer to look at a moving average that smoothes out daily numbers and helps spot trends. With a 5-day median incubation period, a 5-day moving average should show up whether or not the new restrictions have worked.

Finally, we must see community transmission of unknown origin go down.

This article is supported by the Judith Neilson Institute for Journalism and Ideas.

– ref. State of Disaster called as Melbourne moves to nightly curfew and stage 4 restrictions – https://theconversation.com/state-of-disaster-called-as-melbourne-moves-to-nightly-curfew-and-stage-4-restrictions-143804

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Chelsea Bond, Principle Research Fellow, School of Social Science, The University of Queensland

Anyone who has spent any amount of time in Indigenous affairs would be familiar with the buzzwords used in the announcement of the new Closing the Gap targets.

As Prime Minister Scott Morrison said, the national Closing the Cap agreement is supposedly “practical” and “ambitious”. Minister for Indigenous Australians Ken Wyatt described it as “new approach” to Indigenous disadvantage.

Read more: We have 16 new Closing the Gap targets. Will governments now do what’s needed to meet them?

Thursday’s press conference also talked of a “historic agreement” framed by “honourable” intentions and an “evidence-base”. We heard much talk of “partnership” between community-controlled organisations and “mainstream government agancies”, along with responsibility “for all”, “accountability” and “reform”.

Sadly, there is nothing “unprecedented” about the agreement, or the language used to sell it. This discourse of Indigenous affairs – of promise and failure – does little more than create the illusion of Indigenous agency, racial progress and state benevolence.

What’s really new in this ‘new’ approach?

Most media reports of the announcement, including from Indigenous outlets, readily accept and reproduce the political doublespeak with little scrutiny of the government’s claims.

We heard nothing from Morrison or Wyatt about the learnings from 12 years of Closing the Gap failure and how these insights have shaped a supposed “new approach” beyond, of course, setting different targets.

In fact, Morrison insisted prime ministers before him have had a “passion” and “dedication” for Indigenous affairs, and indeed shared a “frustration” with the lack of progress in it. As he explained, the problem was previous governments were “too ambitious without understanding the detail”.

And certainly, there is little that is actually ambitious about this supposed new approach.

The 16 new targets, while doubling in number, no longer have parity with non-Indigenous Australia as their target within this generation. So effectively, they aim to do less, but you wouldn’t know it from the coverage we have seen.

In examining the detail of the targets, we see references to increases and decreases with some specific percentages. There are also vague references to “toward zero,” with others simply declaring a goal of “sustained increase”.

Beyond the target of life expectancy, the agreement offers no sense of when parity might be achieved or even aspired to. This is striking, given the ideological foundation of Closing the Gap is literally about closing gaps of disadvantage. It is severely disappointing the federal government has largely escaped scrutiny over their claims surrounding this new national agreement.

Racism and lofty claims

Amid the global Black Lives Matter movement, the Closing the Gap agreement makes lofty claims to dismantle “institutional racism”.

While “identify and eliminate racism” featured as a “transformation element” of one of the priority reform areas, “racism” was then mentioned just ten times in the 47 pages of the actual agreement, with no definition in its definitions list. It is odd that the foundational structure of oppression, responsible for producing the racialised disparities this agreement is trying to ameliorate, is so poorly understood.

The lack of understanding shows. The agreement suggests racism will be fixed by pushing Indigenous peoples into “mainstream” institutions, on boards and identified leadership positions, which we know is a haven rather than remedy for everyday and systemic racism.

In lieu of race and racism, the terms “culture” and “cultural” are littered throughout the agreement. “Culture”, much like the agreement itself, provides an opportunity to blame Indigenous peoples for the structural disadvantage they are subject to.

It’s all about data

The big solution we are told – both in the press conference and the partnership agreement – is “data”. Data is offered both as a priority reform as well as a strategy in and of itself. Each Closing the Gap target is outlined in a table that lists how they will be monitored.

We are not offered a sense of the complexity of the problem being addressed, or even a strategy. Instead, we are told what data should be collected in relation to the goals.

It seems the strategy for addressing Indigenous disadvantage is to find better ways to monitor other forms of progress incrementally. Yet the focus here is largely on Black bodies and behaviours. There is little to no analysis of the institutions and systems responsible for the production of the racialised disparities Indigenous peoples experience.

As such, the data will likely reproduce the story of Indigenous failure that we are all too familiar with.

There is also little that is new about increased surveillance of Indigenous people as a policy measure – which is what this is. There is, however, a strong evidence base that tells of the long history of failure of such “interventions”

Read more: Ten years on, it’s time we learned the lessons from the failed Northern Territory Intervention

This is about government failure

The failings in Indigenous affairs are not due to Indigenous people making poor choices. Nor is it because we lack data or evidence of what works. It is a result of a sustained indifference to the lives of Indigenous peoples, disguised as benevolence in fictitious claims of policy reform.

The issue is the failure – or rather refusal – to commit to structural reform that meaningfully attends to the relationship between Indigenous peoples and the state. Such reform demands recognition of the unique rights of Indigenous peoples, not simply more data on disadvantage and supposed Indigenous deviance.

Yet we are now being offered a partnership approach with government-funded Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander organisations. Few have noted the power imbalance at the heart of this relationship. As Roy Ah-See, co-chair Uluru dialogues at UNSW’s Indigenous Law Centre has said,

You are never going to bite the hand that feeds you, so how can these organisations be representative if they only received resources from government?

When we cut through the talk of the new Closing the Gap agreement, it is clear this discourse of “change” works precisely so that everything can stay the same. The only actual difference in this week’s announcement was Indigenous organisations signed up to it.

And, it is most telling that while Indigenous peoples on the streets are still fiercely proclaiming “sovereignty never ceded” amid a pandemic, the peaks that represent them have signed up to an agreement in which sovereignty was never mentioned.

– ref. Chelsea Bond: The ‘new’ Closing the Gap is about buzzwords, not genuine change for Indigenous Australia – https://theconversation.com/chelsea-bond-the-new-closing-the-gap-is-about-buzzwords-not-genuine-change-for-indigenous-australia-143681

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jane Simpson, Chair of Indigenous Linguistics and Deputy Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language, Australian National University

Indigenous languages have been in the news this week. For the first time, an Indigenous language, Ngunnawal, was used for the acknowledgment of country at the opening of the ACT Legislative Assembly.

And two important reports have been released: the Closing the Gap Agreement and the National Indigenous Language Report (NILR) with linked qualitative research based on interviews and quantitative data reports.

Both reports have Indigenous languages at their heart. The agreement lists “Cultures and languages are strong” as the last of 16 new socio-economic targets, and as one of five priority areas. NILR shows what is involved in achieving language targets – but also how Indigenous languages are involved in the other targets too.

The agreement promises:

By 2031, there is a sustained increase in number and strength of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages being spoken.

We won’t know until implementation plans are released in 12 months’ time how government plans to do this, but action is urgently required given the threats faced by many traditional Indigenous languages.

The agreement co-design process, led by Indigenous peoples and organisations, has launched Indigenous cultures and languages into the centre of Indigenous public policy. Indigenous people have been demanding action to strengthen languages for years. We hope this new initiative will put an end to policies detrimental to Indigenous languages.

Read more: We have 16 new Closing the Gap targets. Will governments now do what’s needed to meet them?

More than words

Stronger Indigenous languages are more than a standalone target. Every policy area needs to consider the language backgrounds of the people affected. No public policy is implemented in silence: speaking, listening, reading and/or writing are always needed for outcomes. So the language backgrounds of Indigenous people must be a prime consideration in the delivery of all policies.

The agreement makes cultural safety a high priority. NILR shows that linguistic safety underpins this. If you can’t receive information in the language you understand best, then you are not safe.

This is most obvious in emergencies, from extreme weather warnings to COVID-19 strategies, communicating instructions in languages people understand is fundamental. It matters just as much when visiting a doctor or attending school.

Tracking language data

The third National Indigenous Languages Report was released this week by the federal Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Communications. It contains results from a survey conducted in 2018-19 by the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies.

NILR emphasises

building in recognition, respect and support for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages across the policy lifecycle, from design, to implementation, to evaluation.

This goal requires high-quality information about the languages Indigenous people identify with, the languages they speak and the extent to which they speak them.

The agreement is a document filled with detailed data specifications, but is something of a “data desert” when it comes to Indigenous languages. And yet, this data matters a great deal to Indigenous people.

The language target is less precise than most of the other 15 socio-economic targets. It has no quantified goal, and instead prescribes a “sustained increase”.

The agreement identifies a significant need for “data development” around Indigenous language use, suggesting measures that would require research, development and substantial public funds. This need is strengthened by NILR.

On other measures, disaggregation – or teasing out the detail – is suggested for different geographic, economic and demographic groups. But this has not been suggested for different linguistic groups.

This level of detail is key. If we want services to be effective, service providers must know what languages people speak. Professional services, such as early childhood assessment or guidance for parents, can then be provided in the correct language(s), perhaps through an interpreter.

Read more: The state of Australia’s Indigenous languages – and how we can help people speak them more often

Bringing the data and targets together

NILR acknowledges the current reporting on Indigenous languages data is inadequate.

First, it explains that “Indigenous languages” are not a simple, one-size-fits-all idea.

There are hundreds of traditional Indigenous languages, spoken to varying extents, but the number of speakers is declining overall. There are new Indigenous languages recognised to varying extents, and the number of speakers is growing, as NILR shows.

In parts of Australia, people are learning their heritage Indigenous languages. In other parts, people are learning English as a “foreign language” (often with little support). Indigenous communities vary across Australia as to their “language ecologies”: which languages people are speaking, to what extent and in what situations.

NILR joins the dots about how languages fit together in Indigenous people’s lives – how they benefit from them, and how policy and services can do better by seeing the whole picture (or language ecology).

The approach helps policy makers and service providers more clearly see the roles different languages play in people’s lives. In generalised terms, one of three patterns emerges:

• places where Indigenous children mostly speak traditional Indigenous languages (and learn standard Australian English)
• places where Indigenous children mostly speak new Indigenous languages (and learn standard Australian English and their heritage languages)
• places where children speak varieties of English (and learn their heritage languages).

NILR and the associated research show how each language ecology might affect the other agreement targets. These include “early childhood education is high quality and culturally appropriate” and “social and emotional wellbeing”. Overall, qualitative research and quantitative research shows that speaking an Indigenous language and learning a heritage Indigenous language both have benefits for the well-being of their speakers. But language mismatches between Indigenous people and service providers are detrimental to well-being.

Policies and services are effective when they are attuned to people’s language backgrounds. Making languages strong requires tailored initiatives where communities are speaking Indigenous languages (traditional or new), learning them from older speakers or reviving them from archival material.

We look forward to an approach which brings the practical applications of NILR to help fulfil the aspirations of the agreement.

Read more: Indigenous languages matter – but all is not lost when they change or even disappear

– ref. Talking the talk: fresh Closing the Gap targets require a tailored approach to language – https://theconversation.com/talking-the-talk-fresh-closing-the-gap-targets-require-a-tailored-approach-to-language-143683

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Holly Seale, Senior Lecturer, UNSW

When announcing a ban on people in six local government areas south-west of Melbourne hosting visitors in their homes, Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews said this week:

People are not necessarily keeping their distance in their family home. It’s a natural thing, you let your guard down. Hugs and kisses and handshakes, not necessarily adhering to the protocols that are a feature of hospitality, cafes, restaurants, pubs being open. They are supervised environments. They are regulated environments. There are time limits, for instance. They’re in a very different set of circumstances.

I know that it may seem, as I said, counterintuitive that you can go to the pub but you can’t go to your mate’s place, but ultimately that’s where the data drives that decision […] That’s where the transmission is.

His comments allude to an element that hasn’t been discussed enough in the pandemic so far — the fact that how we perceive personal risk, and how well we comply with public health measures, can change depending on whether we are around people we know or strangers.

Have you hugged a friend or relative and then sat down for a catch up coffee? Have you laughed with a colleague during after-work drinks, while sharing a packet of chips? Did you feel safe? Did you feel the need to sit 1.5 metres away from them or wear a mask? Your answers may depend on what state you’re in but we know that even in Victoria, where the COVID-19 case numbers are worst, too many people are not following the rules around isolation and distancing.

Despite reported fears about catching COVID-19 from passing joggers, cyclists or other strangers on the street, a growing body of literature tells us you are more likely to contract COVID-19 in households, at family gatherings and in restaurants.

Read more: Get a proper chair, don’t eat at your desk, and no phones in the loo – how to keep your home workspace safe and hygienic

Households

A study from China found 16% of household contacts developed COVID-19, and that spouses of the index case (meaning the first person to spread it in that cluster) were more likely to get infected than other family members.

This has been documented in other studies, including one showing that compared with “social activity contacts” of an infected person (meaning socialising with friends with whom you do not live), the risk of being infected was more than 20 times higher for the spouse and more than nine times higher for other family members.

These findings are not too surprising, as family members will have more close contact, for longer periods with a positive person within the household.

But the risk is compounded by the fact we are less likely to pay attention to other protective measures including washing hands or wearing a mask.

In other words, by letting down our guard around those we love most.

Family gatherings

A number of common factors contribute to heightened risk at family gatherings such as birthdays or funerals. Mingling, hugging (in celebration or condolence), singing, shared bathrooms, indoors or crowded spaces, all help increase the risk of transmission.

While there is no evidence COVID-19 is spread by food, people sharing utensils and congregating around food service areas can pose a risk. It’s also unlikely people will be using a face covering in such settings.

Resturants

In restaurants, people tend to sit close to other members of their group, talking, laughing, potentially taking food from common serving dishes. Many clusters have been linked to restaurants including one in the US that spread across 13 counties and led to 152 cases (as a result of dining at a single restaurant).

In each of these settings, there are of course other factors heightening transmission risk, including the size of venue, seating arrangements and whether air conditioning is used. However, how people interact plays an important role — and we know interactions are likely to be closer and more involved around those we know well.

How we feel affects how we act

It’s worth noting even people who have been trained on when, why and how to conduct hand hygiene can still be influenced by how they feel about the person in front of them.

For example, the condition (including physical appearance and level of cleanliness) of a patient can influence a nurse’s hand washing behaviours.

What can you do?

If you’re in a state that is not in lockdown, but where the risk of COVID-19 still looms large, it’s worth thinking carefully about your own behaviours when you are around friends and family. Consider smaller gatherings, hold them outdoors, seat people from different households apart, don’t share objects or food, and make sure everyone comes from the same local area.

As highlighted by Australian Government Chief Nursing and Midwifery Officer, Alison McMillan:

if you do go to meet friends for a drink or bite to eat in a venue or someone’s home, make sure you do so safely by maintaining proper physical distancing.

Read more: Naming and shaming two young women show the only ‘enemies of the state’ are the media

– ref. We’re more likely to let our COVID-19 guard down around those we love most – https://theconversation.com/were-more-likely-to-let-our-covid-19-guard-down-around-those-we-love-most-142908

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amy Graham, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, UNSW

The federal government this week unveiled the National Agreement on Closing the Gap. Under the strategy, all Australian governments committed to 16 targets, three of which are directly related to early childhood and school education.

They are:

• to increase the proportion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children enrolled in early childhood education to 95% by 2025.

• to increase the proportion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children assessed as developmentally on track in all five domains (physical health and well-being, social competence, emotional maturity, language and cognitive skills, communication skills and general knowledge) of the Australian Early Development Census (AEDC) to 55% by 2031.

• to increase the proportion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people (aged 20-24) with a year 12 or equivalent qualification to 96% by 2031.

These new targets have been determined by Aboriginal people themselves. But there are some things they miss, including the way success is measured.

Read more: New ‘Closing the Gap’ targets will cover attachment to land and culture

A blunt instrument

The population-level data the AEDC provides is supposed to tell us about the school readiness of all Australian children across the five developmental areas outlined earlier. In 2018, 35% of Indigenous children were deemed to be developmentally on track, compared with 57% of non-Indigenous children.

Yet we know the display of developmental traits is complex, situational and subject to cultural bias. Some items in the in the census are subject to individual teacher judgements — such as, “Would you say this child is interested in mathematics?”

These have been critiqued for their focus on “culturally white concepts ”. We could improve the learning experience for students by recognising their knowledge, culture and language and incorporating this within teaching.

In measuring mathematical abilities within the AEDC for example, using the natural environment to assess concepts (rather than, say, building blocks) would see more Indigenous children score highly on this indicator.

Early childhood education

The enrolment target for preschool is high and some might say, optimistic when we look at the current statistics. In 2018, 84.6% of Indigenous children were enrolled in early childhood education compared with 88.8% of non‑Indigenous children. Based on these figures, not even non-Indigenous children are meeting the target.

Yet continued focus on preschool enrolment is welcome. We know quality early childhood education and care is one of the most effective ways to remediate disadvantage.

Read more: We have 16 new Closing the Gap targets. Will governments now do what’s needed to meet them?

A lack of access to quality preschool in remote communities is an ongoing issue. We must ensure high-quality preschool is accessible for families if we are to expect them to attend consistently. Mobilising preschool and school services to communities has been shown to be a sound strategy at increasing attendance.

Enrolment in preschool does not guarantee attendance, much less engagement. It matters more than mere enrolment that children and their families are welcomed and included as partners in building children’s success at school.

Wins must be sustained

The new targets miss primary school and middle school (Years 6-9) education altogether. Yes, they focus on the all important years before a child turns five and again what happens in the senior years of schooling, but early childhood and economic research shows that “facilitating environments have to follow facilitating environments” to be most effective.

The cumulative effects of early childhood investment can only be maximised if the attention and investment is continued. According to the OECD, this becomes especially important in disadvantaged circumstances.

At Charles Darwin University and the Menzies School of Health Research, we have been looking at what happens to Indigenous students in the NT as they move through school. In this yet unpublished study, we have recently discovered almost one-third of Aboriginal children in remote and very remote areas that attended preschool did not participate in Year 3 NAPLAN.

The data suggests this is the same group of children that had poorer preschool literacy and numeracy skills at age 5 on the AEDC. So somewhere, we are missing them. There is little point having a target for school attainment if we have lost them along the way.

To make progress, we need to better understand and address the complexity of factors that undermine educational attainment.

Read more: Here’s what teachers look for when kids start school

Schools and preschools must be more than a place to learn by being more responsive to, and inclusive of, families and elders. They can do this by valuing the learning and teaching they bring to build on what the children already know.

Supporting the provision of basic needs where necessary, such as access to healthy food and transport to and from school, helps achieve the new targets by recognising that closing the gaps is not possible by one strategy alone.

We also need an approach that integrates services, such as education, health and housing. For example, previous research found that Aboriginal children living in communities with overcrowded housing missed seven weeks of schooling each year.

Before we see these targets being met, and the gap truly narrowed, we must address the root causes of the existing inequity and the factors that undermine the educational attainment, engagement and success for Indigenous Australian children.

– ref. There are 3 new Closing the Gap education targets: here’s what they miss – https://theconversation.com/there-are-3-new-closing-the-gap-education-targets-heres-what-they-miss-143741

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Southerton, Postdoctoral Fellow, UNSW

When the news surfaced that three young women had travelled from Melbourne to Brisbane via Sydney, failed to quarantine and two in the group subsequently tested positive to COVID-19, there was severe backlash.

The two women were named and shamed in the media, while Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said she was “angry” they had put the community’s health at risk.

Social media feeds brimmed with community outrage, as further details about the women’s movements came to light.

Ultimately, Queensland Police laid charges against the women, alleging they provided false and misleading documents at the border. The two women will face court on September 28.

Read more: Naming and shaming two young women show the only ‘enemies of the state’ are the media

While there’s no question these women did the wrong thing, evidence from past health crises shows us shaming and stigma don’t necessarily encourage compliance with public health advice. Public shaming could instead further marginalise already vulnerable groups.

We’ve seen a lot of public shaming during COVID-19

Whether in response to videos of people refusing to wear masks, or so-called “superspreaders”, there’s been no shortage of public shaming during the pandemic.

But it’s important to consider the role privilege plays when individuals become the subject of our collective outrage and condemnation.

We might compare the treatment of the Queensland women with a similar controversy in March, when a Melbourne couple contracted COVID-19 while on a skiing holiday in Aspen, Colorado. They tested positive back in Australia but reportedly flouted the directive to self-isolate.

The Melbourne couple were wealthy white Australians, and their case has been dealt with quite differently to the young Queensland women who are African Australian.

While both cases elicited public backlash, most publications didn’t name the Melbourne couple, citing “legal reasons”. Conversely, the young women from Queensland were identified by name, and photographs were taken from their Facebook accounts.

The online anger directed at the women became increasingly racial in nature. They were identifiable as non-white and had attended an African grocery shop while potentially infectious.

Within hours of these details being published, members of the African community in Brisbane reported intense racist harassment on social media.

The public backlash against the Melbourne couple was muted by their relative anonymity. They were protected from the level of doxxing — having one’s identity and personal information shared widely online — the young women have experienced.

Read more: Social housing, aged care and Black Americans: how coronavirus affects already disadvantaged groups

Past health crises show us shaming doesn’t work

The wealth of existing research on pandemics and epidemics shows people who contract a virus and then go on to spread it are often subject to public shaming and stigma.

Research also shows that poor, non-white and other disadvantaged groups often experience this stigma much more severely than privileged groups.

Importantly, there’s compelling evidence public shaming is an ineffective tool to encourage compliance with public health orders and restrictions.

Extensive research into the stigma experienced by people living with HIV/AIDS has found this stigmatisation reduces the likelihood a person with the disease will seek a test, diagnosis or health care.

Similarly, studies on the Ebola epidemic found stigma associated with the virus led people in affected communities to delay seeking treatment.

Read more: This isn’t the first global pandemic, and it won’t be the last. Here’s what we’ve learned from 4 others throughout history

Public shaming also contributed to significant psychological distress for people exposed to severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS).

Public shaming of those who spread COVID-19 may feel cathartic in a time of collective anxiety, but the consequences can be serious. Ultimately, members of our community may become reticent or afraid to be tested — especially already marginalised groups.

A pandemic in the digital age

Traditional news media has a powerful role in public shaming, as seen in the case of the young Queensland women. The media creates long-lasting records and sets the tone for public debate.

While public shaming has a long history, COVID-19 has intensified social media-fuelled scrutiny and public shaming, exacerbating the effects of virus-related stigma.

We may assume seeing this kind of backlash might pull us all into line and deter us from behaving in the same way. But experience of shame and stigma in previous pandemics shows it’s an ineffective way to encourage compliance with public health orders.

Instead, public shaming is more likely to reinforce and inflame existing social inequalities.

Read more: When a virus goes viral: pros and cons to the coronavirus spread on social media

– ref. Queensland’s coronavirus controversy: past pandemics show us public shaming could harm public health – https://theconversation.com/queenslands-coronavirus-controversy-past-pandemics-show-us-public-shaming-could-harm-public-health-143699

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 Melbourne’s continuing and potentially soon-to-be-heightened lockdown, the federal government’s responsibility to the aged care sector, and the new national agreement on ‘Closing the Gap’.

– ref. VIDEO: Michelle Grattan on Victoria, aged care, and ‘Closing the Gap’ – https://theconversation.com/video-michelle-grattan-on-victoria-aged-care-and-closing-the-gap-143749

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rob Nicholls, Associate professor in Business Law. Director of the UNSW Business School Cybersecurity and Data Governance Research Network, UNSW

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has released its draft news media bargaining code, announced today by Treasurer Josh Frydenberg.

The draft code allows commercial news businesses to bargain – individually or collectively – with Google and Facebook, in order to be paid for news the tech giants publish on their services.

According to ACCC chair Rod Sims, the code aims to address the bargaining power imbalance between news publishers and major digital platforms, to bring about fair payment for news. As Frydenberg said:

We want Google and Facebook to continue to provide these services to the Australian community which are so much loved and used by Australians. But we want it to be on our terms.

The ACCC has previously found Google and Facebook’s failure to pay for news content is eating into the advertising revenues which fund journalism.

But what’s ‘news’?

The code is set out as exposure draft legislation and an explanatory memorandum.

These set out the rules for who can bargain. To be eligible, a news business must have employed journalists, earn more than A$150,000 per year in revenue and be registered with the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA).

And they must provide “core news”, defined as:

journalism on publicly significant issues, journalism that engages Australians in public debate and informs democratic decision making, and journalism relating to community and local events.

How will bargains be struck?

The code does not specify how much news businesses should be paid. Instead, it provides a negotiating process in which Google and Facebook must take part. The negotiating phase lasts three months and includes at least one day of mediation.

If there is no agreement at the end, the process moves to compulsory arbitration (by an ACMA appointed panel) which both parties pay for. The arbitration panel will then select one of the final offers in a process sometimes called “baseball determination”. Their decision will be binding.

The range of Facebook services subject to arbitration include Facebook News Feed, Instagram and the Facebook News Tab. The Google services are Google Search, Google News and Google Discover.

WhatsApp (owned by Facebook) and Youtube (owned by Google) are not included. But if both parties agree, arbitration under the draft code could include other relevant digital platform services, too.

The ACCC will also be able to make submissions in the arbitration process (which the arbitrator can decide to consider or not). Under limited and unlikely circumstances, the arbitrator may adjust the more reasonable of the final two offers.

Algorithmic change notices

The draft code introduces a series of “minimum standards” for digital platforms to meet in their dealings with news businesses.

These include a requirement for Google and Facebook to give 28 days’ notice of any algorithmic change that will affect either referral traffic to news or the ranking of news behind paywalls.

This gives news businesses the opportunity to adapt their business models to ensure their content retains its prominence. More importantly, it means their negotiated revenue will not drop. It may also help in decisions about what content stays behind paywalls.

The same notice period is required for substantial changes to the display and presentation of news and advertising directly associated with news.

There will be an obligation on Google and Facebook to give businesses clear information about the nature and availability of user data collected through users’ interactions with the news.

This does not mean Google or Facebook must share the data itself — only that news businesses will be informed of what kind of data are being collected.

More moderation opportunities

There are also obligations on the tech giants to publish proposals which appropriately recognise the media business’ original news on their platforms and to provide those businesses with flexible tools for user comment moderation.

In addition, Google and Facebook must allow news businesses to prevent their news from being included on any individual platform service. For instance, they may choose for an article to appear on Google Search but not Google News.

News businesses will be able to moderate comments more easily. This is important considering they can be sued for comments published on their posts via platforms such as Facebook.

Read more: Media companies can now be held responsible for your dodgy comments on social media

ABC and SBS lose out

The ABC and SBS only benefit from the minimum standards imposed on digital platforms under the code. They are excluded from the remuneration process. The government said this is because advertising revenue is not the principal source of funding for public broadcasters.

Anti-discrimination provisions are expected to prevent Google and Facebook from prioritising publicly-funded news to take advantage of this.

Not a windfall, but still good news

The draft code won’t result in a A$600 million payday for news businesses, as Nine’s chair proposed in May. However, the negotiation and arbitration process does provide certainty of a positive commercial outcome for news providers relying on advertising.

There will also be more work required for Google and Facebook to give notice of algorithmic changes, which are managed in the United States. This obligation will mean adjustments to both the tech giants’ business models.

Google has already taken steps down this path by successfully negotiating revenue sharing with some Australian news businesses. In effect, it has created a benchmark for its position in the new negotiation framework.

Meanwhile, Facebook has argued “news does not drive significant long-term commercial value” for it. However, it said it was committed to following “sensible regulatory frameworks for digital news”.

Read more: Facebook vs news: Australia wants to level the playing field, Facebook politely disagrees

Penalties for breach

A breach of the code by Facebook or Google could have a few potential outcomes. The first is an infringement notice which has a penalty of A$133,200 for each breach.

If the ACCC takes one of the tech giants to court, the maximum penalty is the higher of A$10 million, 10% of the digital platform’s turnover in Australia in the past 12 months, or three times the benefit obtained by the tech giant as a result of the breach (if this can be calculated).

The ACCC has previously had success against franchisers for breaches of the mandatory Franchising Code. It will likely be just as vigilant in policing the news media bargaining code.

The draft code is open for public comment until the end of August. The final version will likely be considered by parliament in September.

– ref. In a world first, Australia plans to force Facebook and Google to pay for news (but ABC and SBS miss out) – https://theconversation.com/in-a-world-first-australia-plans-to-force-facebook-and-google-to-pay-for-news-but-abc-and-sbs-miss-out-143740

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 Melbourne’s continuing and potentially soon-to-be-heightened lockdown, the federal government’s responsibility to the aged care sector, and the new national agreement on ‘Closing the Gap’.

– ref. VIDEO: Michelle Grattan on Victoria, aged care, and the ‘Closing the Gap’ – https://theconversation.com/video-michelle-grattan-on-victoria-aged-care-and-the-closing-the-gap-143749

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Libby Sander, Assistant Professor of Organisational Behaviour, Bond Business School, Bond University

The onset of COVID-19 saw a dramatic shift, with many in the workforce suddenly finding themselves working from home. As hashtags sprung up on social media documenting makeshift work-from-home setups, it rapidly became evident that for many workers, their new improvised workspace fell well short of ideal.

Far from having a separate home office, it emerged many employees didn’t even have a desk, as social media teemed with photos of kitchen tables, ironing boards, upturned laundry baskets and even the top of a fridge as an improvised standing desk.

While Winston Churchill used to work in bed in his pyjamas and John Lennon tried to change the world from between the sheets, research suggests working on your laptop on the couch or from bed is less than ideal for our health.

How do I set up my home workspace?

Musculoskeletal disorders are the most common work-related injury in Australia, accounting for 55% of serious workers’ compensation claims in 2015-16.

A proper ergonomic setup has been shown to reduce problems such as muscle strains, lower back injuries and tendonitis, as well as decreasing muscle fatigue and enhancing productivity.

If you can’t access a separate work desk, a flat surface is vital, and a proper ergonomic chair is a must. Some employers are allowing their staff to take their office chair home, so ask your employer if this is possible. Fresh air and natural light are important, as is considering your posture while working.

The UK Chartered Institute of Ergonomics and Human Factors suggests several practical steps employees can take to set up their workspace and stay healthy while working from home.

Physical movement and taking regular breaks will also help our physical and mental well-being. Stay hydrated, go for a walk outside and stretch regularly. Don’t stay sitting for hours on end, which is easily done when you are on endless Zoom calls.

Read more: 5 reasons why Zoom meetings are so exhausting

Keeping your home workspace hygienic

While an ergonomic home workplace presents challenges, our exposure to germs will be constant. Our home workplace is also a haven for microbes: the typical office desk is home to more than 10 million bacteria. So never think you are working alone!

Your monitor, keyboard, computer, mouse, office files, chair and personal items are all reservoirs for microbes, which are mainly deposited via our hands, skin and hair.

Given the COVID-19 pandemic has turned us all into armchair virologists, you’ll doubtless already know these microbes include virus particles, especially if you have contracted an infection and keep working at home.

With an ongoing infection, you should seek medical help and take time off sick. Resist the temptation to keep working, even from home. Soldiering on has two drawbacks: not only are you spreading germs all over your desk, but by stressing yourself by working when ill, you can weaken your immune system and reduce your ability to fight the infection.

Read more: What is a virus? How do they spread? How do they make us sick?

In any case, healthy or sick, practising good hygiene is essential. When returning home, take your shoes off and wash your hands thoroughly to prevent the intrusion of outdoor microbes into your home environment. Good hand hygiene is one of the most effective ways to reduce germ transmission.

Your home work desk should be uncluttered and clean, and should be wiped down frequently with ordinary detergent. To clean your keyboard, monitor and other equipment, first unplug them, then dust with a soft microfibre cloth before wiping with a moist alcohol or detergent wipe.

Do not eat at your desk, unless you want a side order of microbes with your sandwich. Wipe and disinfect your phone regularly – it hosts all sorts of pathogens, potentially including faecal material. Resist the urge to take your phone into the bathroom, especially if you enjoy scrolling during your lunch!

Read more: Mobile phones are covered in germs. Disinfecting them daily could help stop diseases spreading

While it is impossible to eradicate all microbes, good hygiene and regular cleaning will keep your home work space safer. And while it might seem obvious, washing your hands after going to the bathroom is not done in the workplace as much as we might imagine. Finally, coffee cups and coffee makers, while vital to the work-from-home economy, can also harbour unwanted bacteria and other microbes, so make sure they are cleaned regularly.

Having enjoyed the benefits of working from home, recent surveys suggest many employees want to carry on, for at least part of their working week. A safe and hygienic work environment in the home is essential to maximise the benefits, and to reduce the risk of injury and illness.

– ref. Get a proper chair, don’t eat at your desk, and no phones in the loo – how to keep your home workspace safe and hygienic – https://theconversation.com/get-a-proper-chair-dont-eat-at-your-desk-and-no-phones-in-the-loo-how-to-keep-your-home-workspace-safe-and-hygienic-143535

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Paul McGreevy, Professor of Animal Behaviour and Animal Welfare Science, University of Sydney

Horses, like our dogs and cats, are familiar to many of us, be they racehorses, police horses, or much-loved pony club mounts. So it might surprise you that horses, in Australia, are more deadly than snakes, and indeed all venomous animals combined.

An equine veterinarian is more at risk of workplace injury than a firefighter. Does horses’ apparent familiarity lead us to misinterpret or misunderstand their behaviour?

Read more: 8 things we do that really confuse our dogs

Some of our interactions with horses correspond to interactions between horses themselves. Giving our horse a scratch on an itchy spot or allowing them to rub their head against us, while frowned on by some trainers, mimics how horses behave together.

But there are many other interactions which, from the horse’s perspective, are unusual or downright rude.

The culture clash between horses and humans can trigger defence or flight responses that can leave us badly injured. Here are ten common challenges we present to horses:

1. Invasive veterinary care

There are many veterinary practices we impose on horses to keep them healthy. Some of them, such as injecting or suturing, are invasive or painful. Horses’ natural reaction to pain is to flee. If they can’t, they may resort to aggression, such as biting or kicking.

Horses don’t know veterinary treatments are meant to help them, and hence vets who treat horses are at more risk of injury than those treating other species. Equine vets sustain more workplace injuries than construction workers or firefighters.

2. Patting them

Many horse people routinely pat their horses as a reward for a job well done. But horses have not evolved to find this rewarding. They don’t pat each other – instead, they scratch or gently nibble each other as a form of bonding.

A recent study showed patting increased horses’ heart rates, whereas scratching lowered them and was associated with behavioural signs of relaxation and enjoyment.

3. Picking up feet, hoof trimming and shoeing

An important task in horse-keeping is hoof care through regular cleaning, trimming or shoeing. This requires us to pick up a horse’s foot and hold it aloft for several minutes. This practice of immobilising the hoof restricts the horse’s ability to flee if it perceives a threat, which may be why many horses find hoof-handling stressful. Training a horse to accept having its feet and legs held requires patience to prevent injury to both the horse and the handler.

Read more: Dressing up for Melbourne Cup Day, from a racehorse point of view

4. Grooming sensitive areas

Horses in groups regularly groom each other, favouring areas that aren’t sensitive or ticklish. We like to groom our horses all over. Grooming the sensitive groin, inguinal and perineal regions is likely to be unpleasant for horses. This may account for the tail-swishing, agitation and even biting of the handler often seen when people groom these taboo areas.

5. Pulling or clipping hairs and whiskers

Many horse owners like to impose strict order on their horses’ body hair, including pulling out “excess” hair from the mane and tail, and trimming or removing body hair, facial whiskers and the protective hair inside the ears. These activities are frequently resented by horses. Some European countries have banned whisker trimming altogether because of the importance of whiskers to horses in detecting the proximity of surfaces and foraging outside their field of view.

6. Spraying them with chemicals such as flyspray

Spraying fly repellent is common enough for many humans. But it creates a strange noise and may also be perceived as aversive when it lands on sensitive skin. The strong scent of the chemicals can also be aversive to horses, given their highly sensitive sense of smell. Patient training is often needed to counter-condition horses so they stand quietly while being sprayed.

7. Feeding by hand or from a bucket

As grazers, horses do not feed each other (except when nursing foals) and in free-roaming situations, aggression over food is rare. In contrast, food aggression is often seen in domestic horses. We provide highly palatable foods and treats that can bring out unwelcome behaviours because horses are highly motivated to eat these foods.

Some learn to mug their carers, for example by knocking the feed bucket out of their hands. In such a situation, crime really does pay and the horse can swiftly learn to repeat the behaviour. Of course, the horse’s confusion increases and its welfare plummets if it is punished for this.

8. Putting them in a trailer or horse box

Horses are claustrophobic and have 320° vision, so our practice of loading them into dark, narrow spaces with unstable footing, such as into trailers (floats) and horse boxes, is often a challenge for a species that has evolved to avoid such spaces. Difficulties with loading and with dangerous behaviours during transport are routinely reported. These responses are generally manifestations of panic and include rushing off the trailer and pulling back when tied up.

9. Branding

Searing a permanent mark onto the skin of horses is often required for identification purposes. The use of super-cooled brands or firebrands is unpleasant because they cause a third-degree burn and require the horse to be restrained, either in stocks or via chemical sedation. Thankfully, less invasive methods of identification, such as microchipping, are gaining increasing acceptance among breed and competition societies.

10. Stabling and other forms of isolation

Putting horses in stables might seem benign, and many horses voluntarily enter stables because that is where they are fed. But stabling prevents horses from engaging in most of their grazing and social behaviours. Horses rarely voluntarily isolate themselves from other horses, and prolonged social isolation can lead to behavioural problems such as separation distress, rug-chewing and stereotyped behaviours such as weaving and stall-walking.

Read more: Is your horse normal? Now there’s an app for that

If you’d like to benchmark your horse or pony against thousands of others that we have gathered data on, consider using the Equine Behavior Assessment Research Questionnaire. Understanding why horses find so many procedures unpleasant, frightening or painful is the first step to cutting them some much-needed slack.

They do not defend themselves out of malice but from fear. Taking a walk their hooves allows us to make them happier and safer to be around.

– ref. 10 things we do that puzzle and scare horses – https://theconversation.com/10-things-we-do-that-puzzle-and-scare-horses-143675

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Patrick D. Nunn, Professor of Geography, School of Social Sciences, University of the Sunshine Coast

The storm of climate change is approaching the Pacific Islands. Its likely impact has been hugely amplified by decades of global inertia and the islands’ growing dependency on developed countries.

The background to this situation is straightforward. For a long time, richer developed countries have been underwriting the costs of climate change in poorer developing countries, leaving them reliant on Western solutions to their climate-related issues.

Read more: Their fate isn’t sealed: Pacific nations can survive climate change – if locals take the lead

But as rising sea water continues to encroach on these low-lying Pacific islands, inundating infrastructure and even cemeteries, it’s clear almost every externally sponsored attempt at climate adaptation has failed here.

And as the costs of adaptation in richer countries escalate, this funding support to developing countries will likely taper out in future.

We’ve researched climate change adaptation in the Pacific for more than 50 years. We argue this trend is not merely unsustainable, but also dangerous. Pacific Island nations must start drawing from traditional knowledge to adapt to climate change, rather than continue to rely on foreign funds.

Western solutions don’t always work

On a global scale, climate adaptation strategies have largely been either ineffective or unsustainable.

This is especially the case in non-Western contexts, where Western science continues to be privileged. In the Pacific Islands, this is often because these Western strategies invariably subordinate, even ignore, funding recipients’ culturally grounded worldviews.

A good example is the desire of foreign donors to build hard structures, such as sea walls, to protect eroding coasts. This is the preferred strategy in richer nations.

However it does not embrace nature-based solutions such as replanting coastal mangroves, which can be more readily sustained in poorer contexts.

A likely scenario

The availability of external financial assistance means developing countries have become more dependent on their richer counterparts for climate change adaptation.

For example, between 2016 and 2019, Australia provided A$300 million to help Pacific Island nations adapt to climate change, committing to a further $500 million to 2025. This left little need or incentive for these countries to fund their own adaptation needs.

Read more: Pacific Island nations will no longer stand for Australia’s inaction on climate change

But imagine this climate change scenario. Ten years from now, unprecedented rainfall is dumped on Australia’s east coast over a prolonged period. Several cities become flooded and remain so for weeks.

In the aftermath, the Australian government scrambles to make recently flooded areas liveable once more. They build a series of massive coastal dikes – structures to prevent the rising sea from flooding populated areas.

The cost is exorbitant and unanticipated – like COVID-19 – so the government will look for ways to shuffle money around. This may well include reducing financial aid for climate change adaptation in poorer countries.

Plunging international aid

Economic modelling shows nations will incur massive costs this century to adapt to climate change within their own borders. So it’s almost inevitable wealthier countries will rethink the extent of their assistance to the developing world.

In fact, even before the pandemic, Australia’s foreign aid budget was projected to decrease in real terms by nearly 12% from 2020 to 2023.

These factors do not bode well for developing countries, which will be facing higher climate adaptation costs and dwindling foreign aid assistance.

Read more: Australia is spending less on diplomacy than ever before – and its influence is suffering as a result

Building autonomy with ‘cashless adaptation’

Leaders of developing countries should anticipate this situation now, and reverse their growing dependence on outside assistance.

For example, rural communities in regions like the Pacific Islands could revive their use of “cashless adaptation”. This means developing ways of adapting livelihoods to climate change that cost nothing.

These methods include the intentional planting of surplus crops, the use of traditional methods of food preservation and water storage, the use of free locally-available materials and labour for constructing sea defences. And it perhaps even includes the recognition that living along coastal fringes exposes you unnecessarily to weather-related change.

Prior to globalisation, this is how it was for decades, even centuries, in places like the rural Pacific islands. Then, adaptation to a changing environment was sustained by cooperation with one another and the use of freely available materials, not with cash.

Researchers have also argued for such “looking forward to the past” strategies regarding Hawaii’s climate adaptation.

And research from last year in Fiji showed more rural communities still have and use a stock of traditional methods for anticipating and withstanding disasters, such as flood and drought.

Read more: Five years on from the earthquake in Bhaktapur, Nepal, heritage-led recovery is uniting community

We can take this argument further. Perhaps it’s time for Pacific Island nations to rediscover traditional medicines, at least for primary health care, to supplement western medicine.

Greater production and consumption of locally grown foods, over imported foods, is also an important and valuable transformation.

The future of the developing world

The need for nations to adapt to unanticipated phenomena like climate change and COVID-19 encourages de-globalisation – including that countries depend less on cross-border aid and economic activity. So it seems inevitable that under current global circumstances, smaller economies will be forced to become more efficient and self-reliant.

Restoring traditional adaptation strategies would not only drive effective and sustainable climate change adaptation, but also would restore residents’ beliefs in their own time-honoured ways of coping with environmental shocks.

This not only means finding ways to reduce costs through cashless adaptation, but also to explore radical ways of reducing dependency and increasing autonomy. An appeal to past practice, and traditional ways of coping, is well worth considering.

– ref. Pacific Islands must stop relying on foreign aid to adapt to climate change, because the money won’t last – https://theconversation.com/pacific-islands-must-stop-relying-on-foreign-aid-to-adapt-to-climate-change-because-the-money-wont-last-132095

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Terry Goldsworthy, Associate Professor in Criminology, Bond University

The various restrictions put in place to combat the spread of coronavirus in recent months have disrupted life for everyone – including criminals.

More than six months into the pandemic, it is clear the pandemic has had a major effect on crime rates. Certain crimes, such as robberies and sexual offences, have declined dramatically, while others, such as online fraud, have been on the rise.

Of course, it is difficult to firmly establish a direct causal relationship between coronavirus restrictions and crime rates, but the statistics reveal some common themes.

Read more: Coronavirus: crime cartels helping communities will extract a high price in years to come

Reductions in burglaries and assaults

Lockdown policies in Australia and many other countries around the world have significantly altered the environment in which criminal activity can take place.

The broad view in the early days of the pandemic was some crimes would naturally decrease – those requiring access to public space, for instance, and human contact.

For example, under the routine activity theory in criminology, which focuses on the criteria that must be present for crimes to occur, the lockdown should have led to a significant decline in burglaries of homes. There were fewer suitable targets for burglaries (unoccupied houses) and an increase in capable guardians who could intervene (families staying at home).

The same theory can apply to violent crimes and sexual assaults – if you limit the ability of people to commit these crimes through lockdowns, it’s reasonable to expect crime rates would decrease.

The statistics in Australia suggest these theories may be correct.

The NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research found that in April, crime across many categories declined sharply compared to the same month for the past five years: robberies (down 42%), non-domestic assault (down 39%), sexual offences (down 32%), break and enter of dwellings (down 29%), break and enter of non-dwellings (down 25%), stealing from motor vehicles (down 34%) and car theft (down 24%).

A similar pattern was noticeable in Queensland, comparing crime data for April to the same month in 2019 — a 28% decline in unlawful entry of dwellings, 45% reduction in robberies and a 7% drop in sexual offences.

Read more: Explainer: why police will be crucial players in the battle against coronavirus

Increases in crimes committed in private

Conversely, offences that could be committed in private settings or remotely, such as cybercrimes, rose dramatically during the pandemic.

In Queensland, for instance, computer fraud was up 76% in April compared to the year before, while drug offences increased by 13%.

There was also great concern that domestic violence would also increase during lockdown periods.

NSW police did not see an increase in domestic violence reports in April, compared to the previous year, and Queensland crime data shows breaches of domestic violence orders have remained stable since the start of the pandemic. The NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research, however, said police could not rule out an increase in unreported domestic violence.

In contrast to this, police data for the Northern Territory showed a 25% spike in domestic violence-related assaults in parts of central Australia during the first months of the COVID-19 lockdown.

Read more: How do we keep family violence perpetrators ‘in view’ during the COVID-19 lockdown?

A study by the Australian Institute of Criminology (AIC) surveyed 15,000 Australian women to gauge the prevalence of domestic violence during the lockdown period from February to May. It found 4.6% of women experienced physical or sexual violence from a partner and 11.6% reported experiencing emotionally abusive, harassing or controlling behaviour.

The report noted more research was needed to understand the problem.

Given the majority of women experiencing violence and abuse within their relationships do not engage with police or government or non-government agencies — particularly while they remain in a relationship with their abuser — this is a significant gap in knowledge.

Crime also down overseas, but homicides on the rise

Other countries reported similar decreases in crime. In England and Wales, crime dropped consistently by an average of 24% per month over a three-month period from April to June compared to the same period for 2019.

These figures, however, did not include fraud offences, which increased during the pandemic. In March, reported frauds in the UK increased by 400%.

Scotland also saw an 18% decrease in overall crime in April compared to the same month in 2019. One of the few exceptions to this was a 38% rise in fraud.

In the US, however, the findings have been mixed. One study that looked at crime in 16 large cities from January to May (when lockdowns were coming into force) found reductions in residential burglaries and car thefts in some cities, but little to no change to non-residential burglaries and serious assaults (including homicides).

Another study looking at the effect of social distancing on crime in two cities, Los Angeles and Indianapolis, found it

had a statistically significant impact on a few specific crime types. However, the overall effect is notably less than might be expected given the scale of the disruption to social and economic life.

Finally, a major study by the University of Pennsylvania found overall crime across 25 cities in the US declined by 23% in the first month of the pandemic, compared to the average over five years of data for the same time period.

Notably, the study found crime declined even before stay-at-home orders were issued as people changed their normal routines and spent more time at home. Drug crimes saw the biggest decline of any crime category, while home burglaries, assaults and robberies were also down across the 25 cities.

However, the study found little change to homicide rates or shootings in the first month after stay-at-home orders. One possible reason for this, the authors note, is people committing these types of crime are unlikely to be concerned with stay-at-home orders.

In a separate analysis of crime data conducted by The New York Times, murders were up 21.8% in the 36 US cities it studied through at least May, compared to data for the same time period last year.

Other academics have said it is difficult to draw conclusions on homicide rates during the pandemic due to a lack of long-term data.

Further study of the impact of COVID-19 on crime will be required. In the UK, Leeds University has just been awarded funding to conduct such a study over the next 18 months.

Future challenges

Not only will law enforcement be required to adapt to the effect of COVID-19 responses on criminal behaviour, the role of law enforcement is also being expanded to take on non-traditional roles in the pandemic.

And the full economic impact of the pandemic has yet to be seen. Many economies have been insulated to some degree by government assistance programs, but the extent to which a severe economic downturn could affect crime rates is still not known.

– ref. Some crimes have seen drastic decreases during coronavirus — but not homicides in the US – https://theconversation.com/some-crimes-have-seen-drastic-decreases-during-coronavirus-but-not-homicides-in-the-us-142718

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Denis Muller, Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Advancing Journalism, University of Melbourne

The two young women who got into Queensland from Victoria by allegedly breaking the laws on coronavirus border restrictions have been tried, convicted and sentenced to naming and shaming by the media.

In the febrile climate of public anxiety about the pandemic, this is an invitation to vigilantism, either in the form of online trolling or, worse, by acts of retaliation.

There is also a streak of racism running through some of the coverage, most notably the Brisbane Courer-Mail’s characterisation of them as “enemies of the state”.

Read more: Coronavirus is a huge story, so journalists must apply the highest ethical standards in how they tell it

The Guardian, which has not named and shamed the women, has reported that members of Brisbane’s African migrant communities have contacted the Queensland Human Rights Commission. They say they have experienced a backlash as a result of the stories.

Many people have made serious mistakes endangering public health during the second wave of the pandemic: the people responsible for hotel quarantine in Victoria, the people who have tried to smuggle their way across borders in the boots of cars, and many others who have reportedly got across borders by breaking the rules.

None of them has been named and shamed. There are ranks of government ministers and public servants behind the Ruby Princess and hotel quarantine debacles. Why not track them down and republish photos from their social media posts?

The answer, of course, is power and the consequent risk of retaliatory legal action. The young women have no power, so it is fair to add a charge of cowardice against the media who have indulged in this exercise.

Queensland Police have charged these women – and a third who travelled with them but has not been named and shamed – with providing false and misleading documents and fraud. The latter charge carries a potential prison term of five years.

In these circumstances it was astonishing to see normally responsible media outlets, including the ABC, SBS, The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald, joining the pile-on.

There is a tendency in newsrooms to be stampeded by what rivals are publishing, and an ethically bankrupt inclination to say that because everyone else is running a story, we can run it too.

The women are entitled to due process. Naming and shaming is an atavistic response reminiscent of earlier centuries when malefactors were put in the stocks.

Read more: Whether a ratings chase or ideological war, News Corp’s coronavirus coverage is dangerous

When their case comes before the court, the media will be able to report it under conditions that require the reporting to be fair and accurate.

By running their own trial by media, the outlets that published the women’s names and photographs have been able to write their own rules, enabling some of them to use ugly and excessive language without restraint.

Australians live under the rule of law, not of media organisations. If any parties to this are behaving like enemies of the state, it is those who arrogate to themselves the functions that in our democracy are reserved to the courts.

– ref. Naming and shaming two young women show the only ‘enemies of the state’ are the media – https://theconversation.com/naming-and-shaming-two-young-women-show-the-only-enemies-of-the-state-are-the-media-143685

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Elizabeth Reid Boyd, Senior Lecturer School of Arts and Humanities, Edith Cowan University

Of all the challenges of intimate relationships, finding the balance between separateness and togetherness can be most difficult. It is a balance the COVID-19 lockdown has put to the test.

Loving Captivity is a new six-episode-by-six-minute romantic comedy screening on Facebook about the pleasures and perils of iso-dating. Written and directed by Libby Butler (The Heights, Erinsborough High, Neighbours) and co-written by Lewis Mulholland (On The Ward, Where To Bury Me), who also stars, the creators had a rom-com worthy “meet cute” of their own at an Australian Writer’s Guild speed-dating event where they discovered their shared love for the genre.

Developed through the first COVID-19 lockdown and produced as restrictions were lifting in Melbourne, Loving Captivity follows Ally (Christie Whelan Browne), a 30-something single mum who gives a second chance to Joe (Mullholland) – a “flirt-machine” who dated and dumped her before the pandemic.

Joe’s dumping of Ally and his avoidance of the “boring bits” of relationships is soon revealed as insecurity. He’s afraid he’ll be revealed as uninteresting – a fear intensified by the dull days of lockdown.

As they date over video chat, Joe’s fear diminishes. A romantic rapport is developed through repartee, warmth and facial expressions. (As the pandemic wears on, we may find masks more prohibitive for connection than screens.)

Both actors have comedy experience and the pacing and delivery is natural and unforced, a testament to human versatility in the face of compulsory computer-mediated communication.

Through the couple’s increased contact during the mundanity of lockdown, their banter about relationships, feminism, the friend-zone and the mum-zone gains traction. They pretend to go back in time, courting each other through “love letters in wartime”, evolving into sexting and ending up in a scene featuring a broomstick and banana bread as a memorable form of foreplay.

Whimsy and pain

There’s authenticity to the bite-sized series in the social isolation depicted – a distinctly COVID-19 combination of tension and ennui.

Butler used a minimal crew in the creators’ Melbourne apartments. Split screens show online dates and remind audiences of physical distancing rules. A whimsical night-time picnic has a curious sense of innocence; a welcome antidote for jaded plates in the world of dating (the cheese and wine looked good, too).

The series also offers insight into dating’s more persistent pains.

A scene in episode two reveals a perpetual form of misery that has unfortunately survived the lockdown: Joe stands Ally up. She is left waiting for the call that doesn’t come. Browne captures how the humiliation of being stood up is increased by being alone in a room with no way out.

Another key moment emerges at the end of the series, when Ally (and her daughter Clementine) come face to face with Joe’s sexual presence online. A screen between doesn’t mean there isn’t a need for clear communication and boundary negotiation around the ethics of relationships and parenting.

Human resilience

Both being together alone and being alone together has its problems. Divorce rates in Australia and elsewhere are expected to soar post-lockdown.

Domestic violence rates have reached tragic proportions.

Social isolation has increased rates of abuse from a dangerous partner or family member, and reduced contact with vital support from the outside world.

I am currently researching intimate civility – how we develop our interpersonal ethics in navigating intimate relationships. Key to relationships is how we embody regard for another human being and their physical and mental integrity.

Civility includes qualities such as trust, duty, morality, sacrifice, self-restraint, respect and fairness. Intimacy encourages caring, loyalty, empathy, honesty and self-knowledge.

We develop qualities such as morality and empathy – crucial for intimate relationships – if we have experienced secure, intimate relationships. Intimate civility is a learnt behaviour, both at an interpersonal and societal level. Leaning into this principle may be a challenging task – even without COVID-19.

As Loving Captivity explores, how we attach and separate, how we tolerate and cope with and without each other, may prove to be major factors in the resilience we show not only in the face of coronavirus itself, but also to the long-term social, physical and mental health effects of the lockdown.

Creativity might offer us one of our best ways out. Beyond this period of disruption, we may hopefully look forward to some extraordinary creative outcomes.

In the 14th century, the cultural changes brought about by the Black Death marked the shift from the medieval period to the creative and philosophical outpouring that became the Renaissance – arguably the highest point of humanist and artistic endeavour.

As Loving Captivity shows, our hearts – and heartbreak – will go on. Regardless of our physical proximity, it is human relationships and our humanity to each other that makes the difference to where we go from here.

Loving Captivity is now streaming on Facebook

– ref. Loving Captivity review: a delightful rom-com captures life under coronavirus – https://theconversation.com/loving-captivity-review-a-delightful-rom-com-captures-life-under-coronavirus-143454