Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Paton Gilmour, Research Scientist: Coral Ecology, Australian Institute of Marine Science

Significant coral bleaching at one of Western Australia’s healthiest coral reefs was found during a survey carried out in April and May.

The survey took a combined effort of several organisations, together with tour operators more used to taking tourists, but with time spare during the coronavirus lockdown.

WA’s arid and remote setting means many reefs there have escaped some of the pressures affecting parts of the east coast’s Great Barrier Reef), such as degraded water quality and outbreaks of crown of thorns starfish.

The lack of these local pressures reflects, in part, a sound investment by governments and communities into reef management. But climate change is now overwhelming these efforts on even our most remote coral reefs.

When the oceans warmed

This year, we’ve seen reefs impacted by the relentless spread of heat stress across the world’s oceans.

As the 2020 mass bleaching unfolded across the Great Barrier Reef, a vast area of the WA coastline was bathed in hot water through summer and autumn. Heat stress at many WA reefs hovered around bleaching thresholds for weeks, but those in the far northwest were worst affected.

The remoteness of the region and shutdowns due to COVID-19 made it difficult to confirm which reefs had bleached, and how badly. But through these extraordinary times, a regional network of collaborators managed to access even our most remote coral reefs to provide some answers.

Read more: We just spent two weeks surveying the Great Barrier Reef. What we saw was an utter tragedy

Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology provided regional estimates of heat stress, from which coral bleaching was predicted and surveys targeted.

At reefs along the Kimberley coastline, bleaching was confirmed by WA’s Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions (DBCA), Bardi Jawi Indigenous rangers, the Kimberley Marine Research Centre and tourist operators.

At remote oceanic reefs hundreds of kilometres from the coastline, bleaching was confirmed in aerial footage provided by Australian Border Force.

Subsequent surveys were conducted by local tourist operators, with no tourists through COVID-19 shutdown and eager to check the condition of reefs they’ve been visiting for many years.

The Rowley Shoals

Within just a few days, a tourist vessel chartered by the North West Shoals to Shore Research Program, with local operators and a DBCA officer, departed from Broome for the Rowley Shoals. These three reef atolls span 100km near the edge of the continental shelf, about 260km west-north-west offshore.

One of only two reef systems in WA with high and stable coral cover in the last decade, the Rowley Shoals is a reminder of beauty and value of healthy, well managed coral reefs.

But the in-water surveys and resulting footage confirmed the Rowley Shoals has experienced its worst bleaching event on record.

All parts of the reef and groups of corals were affected; most sites had between 10% and 30% of their corals bleached. Some sites had more than 60% bleaching and others less than 10%.

The heat stress also caused bleaching at Ashmore Reef, Scott Reef and some parts of the inshore Kimberley and Pilbara regions, all of which were badly affected during the 2016/17 global bleaching event.

This most recent event (2019/20) is significant because of the extent and duration of heat stress. It’s also notable because it occurred outside the extreme El Niño–Southern Oscillation phases – warming or cooling of the ocean’s surface that has damaged the northern and southern reefs in the past.

A reef crisis

The impacts from climate change are not restricted to WA or the Great Barrier Reef – a similar scenario is playing out on reefs around the world, including those already degraded by local pressures.

By global standards, WA still has healthy coral reefs. They provide a critical reminder of what reefs offer in terms of natural beauty, jobs and income from fisheries and tourism.

But we’ve spent two decades following the trajectories of some of WA’s most remote coral reefs. We’ve seen how climate change and coral bleaching can devastate entire reef systems, killing most corals and dramatically altering associated communities of plants and animals.

And we’ve seen the same reefs recover over just one or two decades, only to again be devastated by mass bleaching – this time with little chance of a full recovery in the future climate.

Ongoing climate change will bring more severe cyclones and mass bleaching, the two most significant disturbances to our coral reefs, plus additional pressures such as ocean acidification.

Reducing greenhouse gas emissions is the only way to alleviate these pressures. In the meantime, scientists will work to slow the rate of coral reef degradation though new collaborations, and innovative, rigorous approaches to reef management.

– ref. With no work in lockdown, tour operators helped find coral bleaching on Western Australia’s remote reefs – https://theconversation.com/with-no-work-in-lockdown-tour-operators-helped-find-coral-bleaching-on-western-australias-remote-reefs-142644

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nicholas Medland, Sexual health physician, epidemiologist, researcher. (President-elect and vice-president Australasian Society of HIV, Viral Hepatitis and Sexual Health Medicine), UNSW

People who expose a police officer or emergency worker to body fluids would be compelled to have their blood tested for HIV, hepatitis B and hepatitis C, under a proposed law in NSW.

But this law isn’t needed to protect first responders. We already have evidence-based protocols that are working well to protect them from blood-borne infections.

Rather, the proposed law is a political reaction to a problem that doesn’t need fixing. It is also not supported by scientific evidence or Australian government policy on HIV testing.

What is NSW proposing?

In November last year, the NSW government proposed legislation which gives authorities the power to test a person for HIV, hepatitis B or hepatitis C if they have deliberately exposed a front-line worker to their body fluids (saliva or blood).

Examples might be if a person bites a police officer restraining them during an arrest or protest; someone biting or scratching a youth justice or corrections officer; or a person behaving unpredictably, exposing ambulance officers to their body fluids.

The mandatory testing order would come from senior officers within the worker’s own agency. If the person does not comply, they can be forced to do so. They have 48 hours to appeal to the NSW chief health officer. Anyone who refuses a mandatory testing order will be committing an offence, with a maximum 12 months prison term or an A$11,000 fine, or both.

Read more: Swearing in public is still illegal, but you probably won’t be charged if you’re white

Is this happening elsewhere?

Five states have legislation that allows mandatory testing, according to a report by the National Association of People Living with HIV.

The proposed NSW model is closest to the one Western Australia introduced in 2014, where police can order testing. This resulted in 377 testing orders in the first four years.

In contrast, in Victoria the chief health officer has the power to order a test or issue a public health order to enforce it if necessary. In those same four years, not a single person was ordered to be tested.

What’s the risk of transmission anyway?

Outside of sexual transmission, HIV is transmitted through blood. Police and corrections officers are far less likely to be exposed to a blood-borne virus than hospital workers. When exposure does occur, it tends to be less serious.

There does not appear to be any recorded case of an Australian police officer being infected with HIV in the course of their duties.

Rates of HIV infection in the community are dropping anyway. Around 0.1% of the Australian population is living with HIV. The vast majority are on effective treatment which reduces transmission to zero. By 2022, Australia’s aiming for virtual elimination.

As hepatitis C and HIV are blood-borne viruses, saliva alone cannot transmit them. Sometimes, the mouth can be contaminated with blood, particularly if there has been traumatic injury. But contact between bloody saliva and intact skin does not transmit hepatitis C or HIV.

A 2018 study bringing together more than 30 years of studies in HIV transmission concluded:

There is no risk of transmitting HIV through spitting, and the risk through biting is negligible.

A similar 2018 study looked at the risk of hepatitis C transmission and concluded the risk “appears to be very low”.

Of the blood-borne viruses, hepatitis B, the most transmissible of these viruses, is completely preventable through a vaccine all front-line workers receive.

What’s happening now?

In NSW and nationally, if someone is exposed to another person’s body fluids at work, they are assessed by health care workers in their agency.

The nature of the exposure, the possibility the other person could have a blood-borne virus (or if known, whether they are infected) and the resulting risk are considered when evaluating both the injury and the need for testing. If needed, they are tested according to policies informed by scientific evidence.

But the overwhelming majority of injuries, including bites, do not carry a risk of transmision.

In the rare scenario, where the risk of HIV infection cannot be ruled out, the worker may be offered medications to prevent infection, and follow-up blood tests. These medications dramatically reduce risk of transmission but must be taken within 72 hours of the exposure.

Workers potentially exposed to hepatitis C can be monitored for infection, and given medications with near 100% cure rate if required.

So current measures are more than adequate to deal with all situations a police officer or other front-line worker will confront, and have been so since these issues were first addressed in the early 1990s.

Compulsory testing could cause harm

Front-line workers deserve our support and protection. But if these workers feel anxiety or distress related to their risk of contracting blood-borne viruses then their health services must more adequately reassure them.

New measures won’t help reduce their already low risk of transmission and therefore don’t provide any additional reassurance. Focussing on getting the other person tested might increase their anxiety when the risk is negligible, irrespective of the person’s status.

In the rare higher risk situations, perhaps an ambulance officer injured while at a car accident where there is massive blood loss, the risk of a blood-borne infection needs to be assessed and preventive medicine offered. Delaying this assessment while waiting for the results of compulsory testing has the real potential to harm the worker.

Read more: Patients have rights. Here’s how to use yours

The proposed legislation also stigmatises people living with blood-borne viruses, incorrectly depicting them as dangerous, creating unnecessary fear, leading to discrimination.

We are working with the board of the Australasian Society for HIV, Viral Hepatitis and Sexual Health Medicine (the peak body representing HIV, viral hepatitis and sexual health workers) and oppose mandatory testing measures as neither necessary nor useful.

– ref. HIV testing people who spit at police or health workers won’t actually protect them – https://theconversation.com/hiv-testing-people-who-spit-at-police-or-health-workers-wont-actually-protect-them-131553

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Julian Webb, Professor of Law, University of Melbourne

Ripples from the sexual harassment allegations against former High Court Justice Dyson Heydon continue to spread. This week, the Victorian government announced its intention to launch reviews into both sexual harassment in the state court system and the practices of law firms delivering services to the government.

These follow close on the heels of a roundtable, hosted last week by the Law Council of Australia, at which it committed to developing a national model sexual harassment policy and guidelines and enhancing professional training.

Welcome though these measures are, they are overdue. Harassment isn’t new. Surveys, including by the International Bar Association and the Victorian Legal Services Board and Commissioner (VLSB) have identified that law has a deep and long-standing problem.

The message, however, does not seem to be getting through to legal employers: 73% of those responding to the VLSB survey thought harassment was very rare within their organisations.

This complacency, or complicity, is now being challenged. But is it enough? Do we also need to strengthen regulation?

I think we do. The development of sexual harassment policies and procedures, and increased training, are genuine practical steps, but have obvious limitations. By themselves they are likely insufficient to transform an endemic cultural problem; more profound change is needed.

Read more: Australia urgently needs an independent body to hold powerful judges to account

Regulating the judges

Regulating judges is a sensitive issue. The need to maintain judicial independence is of paramount concern and is often used to justify an absence of formal controls.

However, maintaining judicial standing and the integrity of the justice system is also crucial. The Heydon affair has demonstrated that the Australian courts are under-prepared to deal with allegations of this type. There are no formal requirements for judges to undertake training in appropriate workplace behaviours. This is clearly within the Victorian review’s sights.

Other changes may be beyond the reach or ambition of one state acting alone. While there are guidelines on judicial conduct, there is no enforceable judicial code of ethics, which could include harassment as a specific disciplinary breach. There are also no formalised sanctions for misconduct, other than dismissal, which tends (rightly) to be regarded as the “nuclear option”.

There should also be an independent forum to deal with judicial complaints at the federal level. High Court Chief Justice Susan Kiefel had to invent a process for this purpose.

Victoria is one of three states that have an independent Judicial Commission. Their jurisdiction is wide enough to hear a complaint of harassment, but it does not extend to hearing complaints against retired judges. And complaints generally may be rejected if they are “too remote” in time.

Both of these caveats are problematic where sexual misconduct is involved, as delays in disclosure are common and understandable. The appropriateness of such constraints should be included in any review.

Regulating the law firms

The Victorian government’s second review illustrates how institutional clients of law firms are using market mechanisms as soft regulation. Much of this is reputational alignment, a way of saying “we only want to work with law firms that value the same things we do”.

Australian governments have done this before in introducing “model litigant” policies that commit governments and their lawyers to behaving responsibly and fairly in civil litigation, and to not taking undue advantage of their power. Also, big public and commercial clients often set corporate social responsibility targets for advisers through chain-of-supply policies. Properly used, these can be useful change mechanisms.

Read more: The law is a man’s world. Unless the culture changes, women will continue to be talked over, marginalised and harassed

However, they have limited reach beyond the largest firms. They are not a substitute for more general regulation. The profession’s regulators should introduce specific regulatory measures.

First, the VLSB survey identified that a majority of firms still lack formal sexual harassment policies. They are not alone. The Australian Human Rights Commission has recommended the law be changed, requiring employers to take “reasonable and proportionate measures” to eliminate sexual harassment in the workplace.

While this has not yet been implemented into general law, that does not preclude local regulatory action. If the profession is serious in its commitment, then the steps proposed by the Law Council should be backed up by an equivalent professional obligation to take such measures.

Two further reforms could help address the cone of silence that is often constructed around harassment cases, which supports both harassers and those firms that are complicit in the abuse.

Very few matters are ever reported. Regulation could impose a positive obligation on legal practitioners who are aware of harassment to report it confidentially to the regulatory authority.

Such powers exist generally under the legal regulatory regimes in England and Wales and New Zealand. Although this has historically been resisted as a general duty under Australian conduct rules, a case should be made (at minimum) for its introduction in respect of observed harassment in legal workplaces.

The use of non-disclosure agreements to enforce a victim’s silence as part of any settlement is also a key part of the law firm’s arsenal. This should be outlawed. There are arguments that their use is potentially unethical, and in the wake of its own scandal and inquiry, the New Zealand Law Society is already moving to prohibit them. Australia should follow suit.

– ref. In the wake of the Dyson Heydon allegations, here’s how the legal profession can reform sexual harassment – https://theconversation.com/in-the-wake-of-the-dyson-heydon-allegations-heres-how-the-legal-profession-can-reform-sexual-harassment-142560

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Pep Canadell, Chief research scientist, CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere; and Executive Director, Global Carbon Project, CSIRO

Fossil fuels and agriculture are driving a dangerous acceleration in methane emissions, at a rate consistent with a 3-4℃ rise in global temperatures this century.

Our two papers published today provide a troubling report card on the global methane budget, and explore what it means for achieving the Paris Agreement target of limiting warming to well below 2℃.

Methane concentration in the atmosphere reached 1,875 parts per billion at the end of 2019 – more than two and a half times higher than pre-industrial levels.

Once emitted, methane stays in the atmosphere for about nine years – a far shorter period than carbon dioxide. However its global warming potential is 86 times higher than carbon dioxide when averaged over 20 years and 28 times higher over 100 years.

In Australia, methane emissions from fossil fuels are rising due to expansion of the natural gas industry, while agriculture emissions are falling.

Balancing the global methane budget

We produced a methane “budget” in which we tracked both methane sources and sinks. Methane sources include human activities such as agriculture and burning fossil fuels, as well as natural sources such as wetlands. Sinks refer to the destruction of methane in the atmosphere and soils.

Our data show methane emissions grew almost 10% from the decade of 2000-2006 to the most recent year of the study, 2017.

Read more: Climate Explained: what Earth would be like if we hadn’t pumped greenhouse gases into the atmosphere

Atmospheric methane is increasing by around 12 parts per billion each year – a rate consistent with a scenario modelled by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change under which Earth warms by 3-4℃ by 2100.

From 2008-2017, 60% of methane emissions were man-made. These include, in order of contribution:

• agriculture and waste, particularly emissions from ruminant animals (livestock), manure, landfills, and rice farming
• the production and use of fossil fuels, mainly from the oil and gas industry, followed by coal mining
• biomass burning, from wood burning for heating, bushfires and burning biofuels.

The remaining emissions (40%) come from natural sources. In order of contribution, these include:

• wetlands, mostly in tropical regions and cold parts of the planet such as Siberia and Canada
• lakes and rivers
• natural geological sources on land and oceans such as gas–oil seeps and mud volcanoes
• smaller sources such as tiny termites in the savannas of Africa and Australia.

So what about the sinks? Some 90% of methane is ultimately destroyed, or oxidised, in the lower atmosphere when it reacts with hydroxyl radicals. The rest is destroyed in the higher atmosphere and in soils.

Increasing methane concentrations in the atmosphere could, in part, be due to a decreasing rate of methane destruction as well as rising emissions. However, our findings don’t suggest this is the case.

Measurements show that methane is accumulating in the atmosphere because human activity is producing it at a much faster rate than it’s being destroyed.

Source of the problem

The biggest contributors to the methane increase were regions at tropical latitudes, such as Brazil, South Asia and Southeast Asia, followed by those at the northern-mid latitude such as the US, Europe and China.

In Australia, agriculture is the biggest source of methane. Livestock are the predominant cause of emissions in this sector, which have declined slowly over time.

The fossil fuel industry is the next biggest contributor in Australia. Over the past six years, methane emissions from this sector have increased due to expansion of the natural gas industry, and associated “fugitive” emissions – those that escape or are released during gas production and transport.

Read more: Intensive farming is eating up the Australian continent – but there’s another way

Tropical emissions were dominated by increases in the agriculture and waste sector, whereas northern-mid latitude emissions came mostly from burning fossil fuels. When comparing global emissions in 2000-2006 to those in 2017, both agriculture and fossil fuels use contributed equally to the emissions growth.

Since 2000, coal mining has contributed most to rising methane emissions from the fossil fuel sector. But the natural gas industry’s rapid growth means its contribution is growing.

Some scientists fear global warming will cause carbon-rich permafrost (ground in the Arctic that is frozen year-round) to thaw, releasing large amounts of methane.

But in the northern high latitudes, we found no increase in methane emissions between the last two decades. There are several possible explanations for this. Improved ground, aerial and satellite surveys are needed to ensure emissions in this vast region are not being missed.

Fixing our methane leaks

Around the world, considerable research and development efforts are seeking ways to reduce methane emissions. Methods to remove methane from the atmosphere are also being explored.

Europe shows what’s possible. There, our research shows methane emissions have declined over the past two decades – largely due to agriculture and waste policies which led to better managing of livestock, manure and landfill.

Livestock produce methane as part of their digestive process. Feed additives and supplements can reduce these emissions from ruminant livestock. There is also research taking place into selective breeding for low emissions livestock.

Read more: Carbon pricing works: the largest-ever study puts it beyond doubt

The extraction, processing and transport of fossil fuels contributes to substantial methane emissions. But “super-emitters” – oil and gas sites that release a large volume of methane – contribute disproportionately to the problem.

This skewed distribution presents opportunities. Technology is available that would enable super-emitters to significantly reduce emissions in a very cost effective way.

Clearly, current upward trends in methane emissions are incompatible with meeting the goals of the Paris climate agreement. But methane’s short lifetime in the atmosphere means any action taken today would bring results in just nine years. That provides a huge opportunity for rapid climate change mitigation.

– ref. Emissions of methane – a greenhouse gas far more potent than carbon dioxide – are rising dangerously – https://theconversation.com/emissions-of-methane-a-greenhouse-gas-far-more-potent-than-carbon-dioxide-are-rising-dangerously-142522

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Maximilian de Courten, Health Policy Lead and Professor in Global Public Health at the Mitchell Institute, Victoria University

The World Health Organisation reported more than 230,000 new COVID-19 cases on Sunday — the world’s largest daily increase during the pandemic. The surge has forced governments in many places across the world to order new lockdowns.

This includes Melbourne, which is back in a six-week lockdown after a second wave of new cases exceeded the city’s first peak in late March.

But Melbourne’s not the only city to suffer a second wave of the pandemic. Cities including Beijing and Leicester had lifted COVID-19 restrictions, only to re-enforce them when new outbreaks occurred.

So how have other cities gone about their second lockdown, and have the measures been effective in tackling the COVID-19 resurgence? Let’s take a look at a few examples.

Lockdowns return

Though there’s no strict definition of a lockdown, it describes the controls imposed by governments to restrict the movement of people in their communities. It’s often achieved through a combination of police presence and applying public health regulations.

It can be implemented partially, progressively or fully. The latter is called “hard lockdown” when the freedom of entry to, and exit from, either an entire building or geographic area is prohibited or limited.

The Segrià region in Catalonia, Spain re-entered an indefinite partial lockdown on July 4 following a significant spike in cases and COVID-19 hospitalisations.

The city of Leicester in the United Kingdom has gone into a second lockdown after it accounted for 10% of all positive COVID-19 cases in the country at the end of June. The city has been in lockdown for the past two weeks and despite this, the latest data show an increase in the numbers of cases.

A second wave in Beijing was tackled by increasing degrees of lockdowns. The strictest measures were limited to a few high-risk neighbourhoods, accompanied by a ring of looser lockdown measures around them.

Read more: Nine Melbourne tower blocks put into ‘hard lockdown’ – what does it mean, and will it work?

Alongside this was extensive and widespread testing, with a peak capacity of 300,000 tests per day. This approach proved successful – the city reported zero new COVID-19 cases on July 7.

While there are increasing examples of a return to some lockdown measures, there are no examples demonstrating the success of a second lockdown — other than in Beijing — because it’s too early to tell.

Clear public health messaging is key

When entering a second lockdown, it’s useful to consider the lessons learnt from the first. Initial lockdowns in both Italy and India provide cautionary tales on what happens when public messaging and enforcement is flawed.

Italian media published information about internal movement restrictions a day before the Italian prime minister officially announced it and signed the decree. At the time, only northern Italy was heavily affected by COVID-19.

After the news spread, workers and students, many of whom carried the virus, rushed back home across the country, flooding the train stations. Even though the goal was to reduce the spread of the virus, the effects were the opposite. Soon after, it was discovered that new COVID-19 cases in southern Italy were families from students who came home from the north.

Similar panic among migrant workers occurred in India when the prime minister gave the public only a few hours notice before the start of the lockdown. This is just one reason why India’s lockdown has been labelled as “a spectacular failure”.

Lockdown, relax, lockdown, relax

After a lockdown, the majority of the population remains at risk of infection without a vaccine. So as restrictions ease, cases are likely to increase again, leading to a pattern of lockdowns, relaxation and renewed lockdowns

So why can’t governments just aim to eliminate the virus? An elimination strategy requires strict, intensive lockdowns and closing external and internal borders to eradicate local transmission and prevent the virus being imported.

Elimination strategies have worked in only a few countries and regions, such as New Zealand which imposed an early and strict lockdown.

Read more: Melbourne’s second lockdown will take a toll on mental health. We need to look out for the vulnerable

The effectiveness of lockdowns can be diminished by increasing population fatigue in response to reimposed restrictions.

Lockdowns also have many serious repercussions, including a severe impact on mental health and the economy. French Prime Minister Jean Castex has ruled out another total lockdown arguing that its economic and human consequences are disastrous.

Locking down a given country can cost up to 3% of GDP per month, according to UBS Global Wealth Management.

Lockdowns can work if we use masks

It’s clear that lockdowns cannot be maintained indefinitely. That’s why the rapid development of a vaccine to achieve herd immunity, without extensive infection, is critical – along with the development of drugs to relieve the symptoms of COVID-19.

So how long should Melbourne’s lockdown last? The Grattan Institute has argued it should continue until there are no more active COVID-19 cases in the community to eliminate the virus – and after that, should remain in place for another two weeks.

We argue that the duration of the lockdown could be halved if paired with mandatory universal use of face masks. Wearing masks lowers the risk of spreading and contracting the disease.

Read more: Victorians, and anyone else at risk, should now be wearing face masks. Here’s how to make one

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

– ref. Lockdown, relax, repeat: how cities across the globe are going back to coronavirus restrictions – https://theconversation.com/lockdown-relax-repeat-how-cities-across-the-globe-are-going-back-to-coronavirus-restrictions-142425

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lotti Tajouri, Associate Professor, Biomedical Sciences, Bond University

You may remember when US President Donald Trump suggested exposing coronavirus patients to UV (ultraviolet) light – or “just very powerful light” – to help treat them.

The use of UV light is not, in any way, a viable treatment for people infected with SARS-CoV-2. However, due to its powerful sterilisation abilities, this technology does have great potential for managing the COVID-19 pandemic in other ways.

What is UV light?

The visible light we see every day belongs in a unique region of the whole electromagnetic spectrum. The full spectrum is composed of radio waves, microwaves, infrared, visible light, ultraviolet, X-rays and gamma rays – all emitting and carrying energy.

Of these, ultraviolet (UV), X-ray and gamma rays are high-frequency waves. These can have serious consequences for our health.

The Sun emits three types of UV radiation: UVA, UVB and UVC. Prolonged UV exposure is associated with skin cancer. Thankfully, our planet’s atmosphere shields us from the majority of the Sun’s UVB emissions and all UVC emissions.

Affordable and accessible

UVC has the ability to kill germs and is an alternative to chemical disinfection. UVC can be used to sterilise objects, water, surfaces and materials – whether it’s to clean your phone, a hospital floor, or an entire bus in China.

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

The technology needed to generate UVC is not new and there is no reason to suggest this technology could not be implemented cost-effectively. Several companies have developed an array of lamps, machines and even robots capable of sterilising a range of surfaces.

Isn’t is dangerous?

It’s well established UV radiation is carcinogenic (causes cancer) for humans.

Devices that emit UVC should be calibrated to ensure optimal microbial killing power and are more effective when placed close to the surface or object being treated. When turned off, UVC emission is halted, too.

As per the World Health Organisation’s advice, direct UVC exposure should not be used to disinfect any areas of the skin. Studies are under way to identify particular UVCs that are safe for human cells and still worthwhile as germicides.

Far-UVC (wavelengths between 207-222 nanometres) is promising as it can’t cross physiological barriers, such as the dead outer layer of our skin, or the eye’s outer (tear film) layer.

Nonetheless, UVC still poses risks to our health since our skin and eyes can have cuts and micro-lesions. This would expose susceptible cells in our body to the damaging radiation.

Can it kill COVID-19?

Our knowledge of what constitutes “suitable” UVC emission is growing. This includes knowledge of the proper germicidal UVC wavelength that can be applied to surfaces, the amount of light that reaches the surface, and the exposure time needed to completely sterilise the viral particles.

Research from 2002 confirmed UVC inactivated SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) after six minutes of exposure.

A more recent study (while not peer-reviewed) has shown UVC-based disinfection is helpful for stopping the SARS-CoV-2 virus from replicating. However, this depended on how much of the virus was present and how much UVC exposure it received.

The study centred on the efficiency of UVC to inactivate and inhibit the virus at low, medium and high concentrations. It found the highest viral concentrations required quite high UVC dosage.

Another study looking at a different type of coronavirus (SARS-CoV-1) provided further evidence of the utility of UVC disinfection. The authors of this work suggest UV technology may be the solution to filling gaps in the supply of personal protective equipment such as masks.

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

Overcoming major hurdles

Apart from being carcinogenic, another limitation on using UVC is its poor penetration. It only allows surface-level sterilisation of microbes (such as viruses, bacteria and fungi) by impacting their genetic material.

That said, as the pandemic continues, the deployment of UVC sanitising technology across sectors could greatly contribute to our awareness of the risks presented by microbial pathogens.

The safe implementation of UVC-based measures could undoubtedly enhance public health and even biosecurity. Beyond the novel coronavirus, this arsenal has great potential to prevent costly impacts of future pandemics, too.

But, while enthusiasm is high, there are obvious risks of direct exposure to humans, with consequences ranging from serious burns to cancer. These will need to be carefully managed.

– ref. Ultraviolet radiation is a strong disinfectant. It may be what our schools, hospitals and airports need – https://theconversation.com/ultraviolet-radiation-is-a-strong-disinfectant-it-may-be-what-our-schools-hospitals-and-airports-need-142277

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sebastian Leuzinger, Professor, Auckland University of Technology

Climate Explained is a collaboration between The Conversation, Stuff and the New Zealand Science Media Centre to answer your questions about climate change.

If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, please send it to climate.change@stuff.co.nz

I would like to know how much difference we could make to our commitment under the Paris Agreement and our total greenhouse gas emissions if we removed all cows and sheep from the country and grew plants in their place (hemp, wheat, oats etc). Surely we could easily become carbon neutral if we removed all livestock? How much more oxygen would be produced from plants growing instead? How would this offset our emissions? And what if we returned the land the animals were on to native forests or even pine plantations?

This is an interesting question and gives me the opportunity for some nice – albeit partly unrealistic – model calculations. Before I start, just two comments regarding the question itself.

Oxygen concentrations have been relatively stable at around 21% of the air we breathe for millions of years. This will not change markedly even if carbon dioxide emissions increase for years to come. Carbon dioxide concentrations, even in the most pessimistic emissions scenarios, will only get to around 0.1% of the atmosphere, hardly affecting the air’s oxygen content.

Secondly, grazing animals like cows and sheep emit methane — and that’s what harms the climate, not the grassland itself. Hemp or wheat plantations would have a similar capacity to take up carbon dioxide as grassland. But growing trees is what makes the difference.

Read more: Climate explained: how different crops or trees help strip carbon dioxide from the air

Here’s a back-of-the-envelope calculation to work out how New Zealand’s carbon balance would change if all livestock were removed and all agricultural land converted to forest.

Converting pasture to trees

This would remove all methane emissions from grazing animals (about 40 megatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent per year).

New Zealand has about 10 million hectares of grassland. Let us assume that mature native bush or mature pine forests store the equivalent of roughly 1,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide per hectare.

If it takes 250 years to grow mature native forests on all former agricultural land, this would lock away 10 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide within that time span, offsetting our carbon dioxide emissions (energy, waste and other smaller sources) during the 250 years of regrowth. Because pine forest grows faster, we would overcompensate for our emissions until the forest matures (allow 50 years for this), creating a net carbon sink.

Note these calculations are based on extremely crude assumptions, such as linear growth, absence of fire and other disturbances, constant emissions (our population will increase, and so will emissions), ignorance of soil processes, and many more.

If agricultural land was used to grow crops, we would save the 40 megatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent emitted by livestock in the form of methane, but we would not store a substantial amount of carbon per hectare.

Read more: Climate explained: how the climate impact of beef compares with plant-based alternatives

Steps towards a carbon-neutral New Zealand

How should we interpret this rough estimate? First, we must acknowledge even with our best intentions, we still need to eat, and converting all agricultural land to forest would leave us importing food from overseas — certainly not great for the global carbon budget.

Second, it shows if livestock numbers were at least reduced, and we all turned to a more plant-based diet, we could reduce our emissions substantially. The effect would be similar to reforesting large parts of the country.

Third, this example also shows that eventually, be it after 250 years in the case of growing native forests, or after about 50 years in the case of pine forests, our net carbon emissions would be positive again. As the forests mature, carbon stores are gradually replenished and our emissions would no longer be compensated. Mature forests eventually become carbon neutral.

Even though the above calculations are coarse, this shows that a realistic (and quick) way to a carbon-neutral New Zealand will likely involve three steps: reduction of emissions (both in the agricultural and energy sectors), reforestation (both native bush and fast growing exotics), and a move to a more plant-based diet.

– ref. Climate explained: what if we took all farm animals off the land and planted crops and trees instead? – https://theconversation.com/climate-explained-what-if-we-took-all-farm-animals-off-the-land-and-planted-crops-and-trees-instead-142160

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Craig Batty, Professor of Creative Writing, University of Technology Sydney

Doctoral students show high levels of stress in comparison to other students, and ongoing uncertainty in terms of graduate career outcomes can make matters worse.

Before the pandemic, one in five research students were expected to disengage from their PhD. Disengagement includes taking extended leave, suspending their studies or dropping out entirely.

COVID-19 has made those statistics far worse. In a recent study, 45% of PhD students surveyed reported they expected to be disengaged from their research within six months, due to the financial effects of the pandemic.

Many factors influence whether a student completes their doctorate. They include supervision support (intellectual and pastoral), peer support (colleagues, friends and family), financial stability and good mental health.

In our recently published book The Doctoral Experience Student Stories from the Creative Arts and Humanities – which we edited with contributions from PhD students – students outlined their experiences of doing a doctorate and shared some useful strategies for how to keep going, and ultimately succeed, in the doctoral journey.

A deeply personal journey

Completing a doctorate involves much more than generating knowledge in a specific discipline. It is a profoundly transformational process evolving over a period of at least four years — and often longer.

This entails personal questioning, development in many areas of life, and often a quite significant personal and intellectual reorientation. The PhD brings with it high expectations, which in turn creates high emotional stakes that can both inspire and derail students. This is coupled with coming to see and think about the world very differently — which for some can be a daunting prospect, as all previously held assumptions are thrown into disarray.

Such a profoundly existential process can itself engender anxiety, depression and trauma if students are not equipped with the self-care strategies that enable resilience.

Read more: PhD completion: an evidence-based guide for students, supervisors and universities

Every chapter in our book, written by a different student, emphasises the need to engage in deep thinking and planning regarding their personal goals, strengths and weaknesses, and ways of working before starting the PhD.

This is important preparatory work to ensure any challenges that arise are surmountable.

In her chapter, Making Time (and Space) for the Journey, AK Milroy writes she learnt to

[…] analyse and break down the complicated doctoral journey into a manageable, achievable process with clear tasks and an imaginable destination.

She writes this includes involving family and friends in the process because

[…] it is paramount to ensure these people understand the work that lies ahead, and also that they too are being respected by being included in the planning.

Relationships were, above all, a critical component of the experience for many of the student writers. The supervisory relationship is the most obvious one, which Margaret Cook describes as the student undertaking a form of academic apprenticeship.

Read more: Ten types of PhD supervisor relationships – which is yours?

The student authors also identify strategies for the “thinking” part of the research process once enrolled. These include acknowledging that the free and creative element of mind-wandering and downtime are as legitimate as the focused, task-oriented work of project management, such as preparing checklists and calendars.

AK Milroy calls these “strategic side-steps”.

Peter Mackenzie, who researched regional jazz musicians, went a step further to connect with his participants.

I felt like an outsider but once I started to play with the guys on the bandstand that night at the Casino, I sensed a different level of appreciation from them. After playing and taking on some improvisations, I could feel the group relax. I was no longer an outside musician. Even better, I wasn’t seen as an academic. I was one of them.

Struggling with self doubt

The task of writing, of course, cannot be ignored in the long doctoral journey.

Drafting and redrafting, jettisoning ideas and arguments along the way, is acknowledged as a core component of the doctoral learning process itself, and the many attempts are not proof of failure.

Gail Pittaway writes about extending networks beyond one’s supervisors and university to collaborate with those in the discipline nationally and internationally.

This can be productive and lead to co-written articles and editing special issues of journals, which can positively influence the PhD thesis.

[…] by developing confidence in sharing ideas, seeking peer review feedback and editorial advice from a wider range of readers as some of these sections are submitted for publication, the writing of the thesis is encouraged and energised.

Many of the student authors acknowledge questioning, self-doubt and fear of the unknown are central to creating and performing research. While this might be frightening, they say it should be embraced as this is where innovation and novelty can arise.

Charmaine O’Brien writes about how transformative learning is dependent on this period of complexity and not-knowing. While “failure to make experience conform to what we already know is threatening because it destabilises a sense of how we know the world, and ourselves in it, resulting in psychological ‘dis-ease’”, staying with it – and having supportive supervisors – ensures the student becomes a doctoral-level thinker.

Read more: Mindfulness can help PhD students shift from surviving to thriving

Lisa Brummel writes of extending requirements of occupational health and safety into her own life. This takes forms such as family, friends and exercise, assisting with work-life balance and good mental health.

After all, two of the most significant resources PhD students possess to do the work required are their physical and mental capacity.

Finally, students must love their topic. Without an innate fascination for the field in which they are researching, this often tumultuous intellectual, emotional and personal journey may derail.

In the four-plus years spent doing a doctoral degree, any range of major life events can occur. Births, deaths, marriages, separations and divorces, illnesses and recovery, are all possible. Being willing to seek help and knowing who to ask can be the difference between completing and collapsing.

There is no pleasure without pain in the doctoral journey, but with the right frame of mind and supportive supervisors, the joys certainly outweigh the suffering.

– ref. 1 in 5 PhD students could drop out. Here are some tips for how to keep going – https://theconversation.com/1-in-5-phd-students-could-drop-out-here-are-some-tips-for-how-to-keep-going-131902

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katrina Raynor, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Transforming Housing Project, University of Melbourne

After 3,000 people in nine public housing towers in Melbourne were placed under the harshest coronavirus lockdown in Australia so far, acting Australian Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly referred to the towers on July 5 as “vertical cruise ships.” The statement was a reference to the danger of contagion in these overcrowded buildings. However, such terms play into a long, international history of vilifying public housing estates.

Legions of social housing towers, such as Pruitt Igoe in St Louis and the Gorbals Public Housing Estate in Glasgow, have been demolished since the early 1970s after being blamed for a wide range of social issues. But high density is not the problem. It is the way such buildings are designed, maintained and funded.

Blaming specific built forms distracts attention from decades of under-investment in social housing. The result has been tightly rationed, poorly insulated, deteriorating and overcrowded housing. Much of it is due for retrofitting or renewal.

Read more: Shh! Don’t mention the public housing shortage. But no serious action on homelessness can ignore it

In this article we discuss successful, safe and sustainable models of retrofitting social housing blocks.

Are public housing towers obsolete?

Most high-rise public housing estates across Melbourne (and indeed internationally) were built during the “golden age” of public housing. This era began after the second world war and lasted until the 1970s. More than 60% of Victoria’s housing stock is over 35 years old. Much of it is in need of retrofit or renewal – it is impossible to ignore this looming requirement.

However, government responses thus far have been to allow the towers to quietly decay or to demolish towers while transferring public land to private ownership with nominal increases in social housing. One in five public housing tenants live in dwellings that do not meet acceptable standards in Australia.

Read more: The many faces of social housing – home to 1 in 10 Australians

An alternative to demolition

The Architects Journal of the United Kingdom is advocating retrofitting of ageing housing stock because of its many social, economic and environmental benefits. We agree with this in many cases.

The substantial embodied energy in a salvageable building makes its destruction environmentally wasteful. Re-use also reduces the social displacement that occurs with demolition. And when the full cost of demolition is calculated, Anne Power and others have shown retrofits are cost-effective.

The Grenfell Tower tragedy in 2017 put a spotlight on retrofit strategies. It exposed some of the broader tensions regarding repair and maintenance versus merely over-cladding to meet environmental targets or remove “eyesores” and aid neighbourhood gentrification.

Read more: We still live here: public housing tenants fight for their place in the city

3 shining examples of retrofits

Grand Parc Bordeaux

Grand Parc Bordeaux received the 2019 Mies van der Rohe Award, an annual European Union architecture prize. This transformation of three 1960s social housing blocks included the restoration and retrofitting of 530 apartments.

The project added deep winter gardens and open air balconies to the façade of each dwelling. Expansive glass sliding doors open from the apartments to the balconies.

Prefabrication of balcony modules enabled residents to stay in their apartments throughout construction. This approach avoided the large-scale displacement often associated with social housing renewal. The modules were crane-lifted into place, forming a free-standing structure in front of the housing block.

The retrofit also replaced lifts and renovated access halls.

DeFlat Kleiburg, Amsterdam

DeFlat Kleiburg by NL Architects and XVW Architectuur won the Mies van der Rohe Award in 2017. This project is a retrofit of one of the largest housing blocks in the Netherlands, which was at risk of demolition.

The architects oversaw the refurbishment of the structure and communal areas. The project left an empty affordable shell for buyers to customise as they wished.

Park Hill Estate, Sheffield

In the United Kingdom, Sheffield City Council is undertaking a part-privatisation scheme with developer Urban Splash of the contentious Park Hill Estate. The late-1950s social housing blocks are being gutted to their concrete shells and new apartments developed within.

Architects Hawkins/Brown and urban designers Studio Egret West designed phase one. Mikhail Riches designed phase two, which is under way.

The project involves a significant change in tenure to a mix of one-third social to two-thirds private.

Read more: Public housing ‘renewal’ likely to drive shift to private renters, not owners, in Sydney

Public housing estates are part of a system

The above examples reflect architectural approaches to preserving brutalist architecture. However, architecture is just one part of any social housing response. In Australia, any retrofit or redevelopment should aim to retain or increase the amount of social housing, given the huge shortfall.

Vienna, Austria, has one of the most successful social housing systems in the world. Over 60% of the city’s population live in social housing and have strong tenancy rights. Robust funding mechanisms supply and maintain access to affordable and high-quality housing.

The government funds about a quarter to a third of all housing in Vienna each year – up to 15,000 apartments a year. Most subsidies are in the form of repayable, long-term, low-interest loans to build new housing. The decade-long operation of the system means repaid loans can be used to finance new construction, decreasing the budgetary burden.

A developer competition process was introduced in the 1990s to judge social housing bids. This means developers vie with each other to offer high-quality, energy-efficient homes.

For social housing to work, it must provide enough stock to meet housing needs. It must also receive enough funding to manage and maintain the housing.

Recent events have highlighted what multiple reports, commentaries and protest movements have been saying for years: Australia’s ageing social housing stock requires immediate attention. Australians need much more new social housing.

Read more: Australia needs to triple its social housing by 2036. This is the best way to do it

– ref. ‘Vertical cruise ships’? Here’s how we can remake housing towers to be safer and better places to live – https://theconversation.com/vertical-cruise-ships-heres-how-we-can-remake-housing-towers-to-be-safer-and-better-places-to-live-142381

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Geoff Bertram, Senior Associate, Institute for Governance and Policy Studies, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington

Another year, another round of hostage-taking by the owners of the Tiwai Point aluminium smelter.

As always, Rio Tinto has made the first move, threatening to close New Zealand Aluminium Smelters (NZAS) in Southland unless some ransom is paid. A thousand jobs would be lost, with a further 1,600 indirectly affected.

In the usual script the New Zealand government caves in and smelting rolls on while Rio Tinto and its local allies pocket their gains.

Will this time be different? As with any ransom demand, the questions are whether the threat is credible and how bad the consequences of refusing would be.

Will the smelter really close?

Cutting the smelter’s power price by a third is apparently the demand this time. Given the history (and the National Party’s unclear position) there is a real possibility the eventual outcome (after the election) could be another ransom payment and another few years of aluminium production.

A win for Rio Tinto could take several forms. The government could pay a cash ransom (as in 2013). Or Meridian Energy (supplier to Tiwai Point) could give up a chunk of its revenue. Or the big five electricity generators could share the ransom among themselves as a means of staving off a fall in residential power prices.

Read more: The market is not our master — only state-led business cooperation will drive real economic recovery

Alternatively, the Electricity Authority, always a compliant lapdog of the “gentailer” (generator-retailer) cartel, could provide the industry with cover by mandating price discounts for other power companies too.

If nobody blinks, we will find out whether the closure threat was really credible.

We can immediately set aside the smelter’s “NZ$46 million loss” declared for the past year. The accounts of both NZAS (the smelter operator) and Pacific Aluminium NZ Ltd are (quite legally) arranged to produce whatever profit/loss (and associated tax liability) the overseas owners want.

The final decision would be a strategic one for Rio Tinto: reputational benefits of being seen to punish a recalcitrant host economy, versus the loss of a renewables-powered smelter in an increasingly carbon-conscious world.

It really could go either way and I’m laying no bets.

How could we use the extra electricity?

We can, however, get a handle on possible policy responses to actual closure. The biggest impact, from which potentially big gains could come, is the freed-up electricity from the Manapouri power station.

Getting that amount of electricity (13% of the country’s entire consumption) to anywhere other than Bluff is not a simple matter, because it will need a new transmission line from Manapouri to Benmore or Christchurch. That line has never been built, and to build it now will take time and money.

Transpower is reported to be finally getting to work, but don’t expect an immediate result.

Read more: Unless we improve the law, history shows rushing shovel-ready projects comes with real risk

You might well think that building that line decades ago would have provided the New Zealand government with an essential bargaining chip (the “outside option” of reallocating the electricity if the smelter closed).

Certainly by failing to take that step, the state has declared a lack of will to resist ransom demands, which probably gave the smelter owners confidence in repeating those demands.

Suppose the line is built, what gain could residential consumers see? Well, it depends.

If the smelter’s contract is simply ended and Meridian is left looking for a new buyer, this might break the big-generator cartel and bring prices down. Or it might just lead to collective market manipulation to protect their share prices. (Contact is already talking of pausing a new geothermal project.)

What if the government became a player?

Alternatively, suppose the government summons up the courage to compulsorily acquire Rio Tinto’s contract rights (which run to 2030) and thus becomes the “single buyer” of 5,000 gigawatt hours (GWh) of electricity a year.

The government would then be able to dispose of this electricity as it sees fit. If it were to put the material well-being of households (in particular the poor ones) at the top of its priorities, it could supply those consumers with a fair chunk of their annual electricity consumption at a price far below the regular market wholesale price.

Read more: Owners of electric vehicles to be paid to plug into the grid to help avoid blackouts

It could do this even within the current (deeply flawed) electricity market structure, leaving supply and demand to play out for the rest of the 40,000 GWh of annual generation.

Readers with long memories may recall the 1992 Hydro New Zealand proposal, which sought to protect vulnerable consumers from rising prices under corporatisation and privatisation by locking in just such a long-term, low-price “vesting contract”.

There is, however, a softer option open to the government, which would mollify Southland while leaving the crucial transmission line unbuilt.

That is the time-honoured Think Big tradition of installing some new, heavily subsidised giant electricity-using industry at Bluff – perhaps a “green hydrogen” plant, perhaps a data centre or even a Tesla “gigafactory”.

Remember, the government has a big stake in the profitability of three of the big generators. Watch this space – and don’t expect your power bills to come down any time soon.

– ref. Power play: despite the tough talk, the closure of Tiwai Point is far from a done deal – https://theconversation.com/power-play-despite-the-tough-talk-the-closure-of-tiwai-point-is-far-from-a-done-deal-142372

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mia Martin Hobbs, Researcher, University of Melbourne

Spike Lee’s Da 5 Bloods, out now on Netflix, tells the story of five Black US veterans who return to Vietnam to hunt for gold and recover the remains of their lost squad leader.

Beginning with the reunion of five old “Bloods”, and peppered with flashbacks to their combat days, the film quickly turns into an action-packed recovery mission.

Lee touches on important themes from veterans’ return journeys: reuniting with former girlfriends, reliving “Rest & Relaxation” in Vietnamese bars, engaging in NGO work to atone for the war and the role of war films in reimagining Vietnam as a tourist adventure.

But Lee depicts the Vietnamese as a hostile monolith, frozen in time with resentment toward American soldiers. In reducing the Vietnamese to angry victims, Lee fails to capture the reality of veterans’ return journeys.

Open arms

Since 1981, thousands of US veterans have returned to Vietnam.

In my doctoral research with returning US and Australian veterans, I found from the very first return trip these veterans were warmly welcomed back by the Vietnamese.

Over the decades, returnees’ stories of being welcomed back rippled through the US veteran community, inspiring others to embark on their own journeys to “meet the enemy”.

Read more: The battle over Long Tan’s memory – a perspective from Viet Nam

Lee gestures towards this theme of reconciliation with a friendly toast from former enemy veterans in the nightclub Apocalypse Now. But the moment is overshadowed by the broader theme of Vietnamese retribution, with repeated instances of Vietnamese beggars, vendors and gangsters yelling war-related grievances at the US veteran-tourists.

While Americans dwell on the national trauma of Vietnam, the American War — as it is called in Vietnam — was only one of many fought for Vietnamese independence in the 20th century. And with a median age of 31, most of Vietnam’s population were born well after this war ended.

The Vietnamese tend to view returning veterans as remorseful (and useful) allies. Many early returning veterans were radical anti-war activists, searching for answers and wanting to make amends.

The Vietnamese government has consistently emphasised friendship with returning veterans, American tourists and the United States for economic and geopolitical reasons.

Veterans told me both official representatives and ordinary Vietnamese welcomed them back, explaining “war is over” and “Vietnam is a country, not a war”.

Ongoing traumas

Early anti-war returnees reported experiencing Vietnam at peace was profoundly healing. By the 1990s, veterans were returning on “healing journeys” aimed at relieving PTSD symptoms through redemption and reconciliation, often with months of therapeutic preparation in advance.

But even the most well-prepared veterans told me their first moments back “in country” were fraught with anxiety. Over time, veterans gradually relaxed as they came to terms with a peaceful Vietnam and realised they were no longer under threat. Yet Lee shows the Bloods immediately at ease in Ho Chi Minh City, with no indications of latent stress.

Read more: From shell shock to PTSD: proof of war’s traumatic history

Where Lee does address veteran trauma, he makes angry Vietnamese the trigger: a resentful adolescent beggar throws firecrackers at the Bloods and mocks them when they duck for cover; a vendor attempts to force a live chicken on one of the Bloods before screaming “you killed my mother and father”, setting off a panic attack.

In my interviews, veterans described how seemingly minor experiences could spark a flashback: a backfiring truck, a glimpse of familiar landscape, the monsoon rains, the humid air as they left the aeroplane. Lee could have instead shown children playing with firecrackers or a vendor offering war-memorabilia to passersby — each utterly unaware of their effect on visiting veteran-tourists.

Lee’s reductive treatment of the Vietnamese limits his portrayal of war legacies.

The Bloods’ two-day mission to recover their missing leader is remarkably short, considering the decades-long struggle to recover bodies of former soldiers on all sides.

The film also makes no mention of the more than 300,000 revolutionary Vietnamese soldiers still missing, let alone the unknown thousands of missing South Vietnamese, who the Vietnamese government do not count among their dead.

Da 5 Bloods never acknowledges the sheer magnitude of Vietnamese loss and grief.

Black resistance

The movie is at its best in its exploration of anti-Black racism and Black resistance in American war and society.

Through the Bloods’ debate on reparations, Lee draws together civil rights activism of the Vietnam-era with today’s #BlackLivesMatter movement.

But by positioning Black veterans and Vietnamese in opposition, Lee overlooks the potential for solidarity between the two.

One Black US veteran I interviewed reflected on the shared experience of being oppressed by, and fighting against, American white supremacy.

Upon return to Vietnam, he met with former enemy veterans in Hanoi:

I told them that when I went home and I talked to my father I said ‘Daddy, if I was a Vietnamese, I’d be a VC [Viet Cong]’. When I said that, the VC, they got the biggest smiles on their faces. … It’s a blessing. All these years I’ve been wanting to get back, and I’ve come back, and look at this. Look at the way they’re treating me.

– ref. What Spike Lee’s Da 5 Bloods gets wrong about veterans returning to Vietnam – https://theconversation.com/what-spike-lees-da-5-bloods-gets-wrong-about-veterans-returning-to-vietnam-142558

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

Uncertainty surrounding a cluster of COVID-19 cases linked to a Sydney hotel has prompted reactions from the Queensland and South Australian governments, as the Victorian situation continues to be critical.

Victorian authorities on Tuesday reported 270 new cases, and two deaths. The man and woman who died were both in their 80s. There were 26 people in intensive care in Victoria, of whom 21 were on ventilators.

The national death toll stood at 110 as of late Tuesday.

By late Tuesday the cluster linked to the Crossroads Hotel in Casula, in Sydney’s south west, had increased to 30.

The NSW government is on tenterhooks, as it waits to see the extent of the outbreak and the spread of those affected. Premier Gladys Berejiklian has been under strong pressure to keep to a minimum further restrictions.

Queensland on Tuesday closed its border to people who have been in the NSW Liverpool and Campbelltown local government areas.

The proposed reopening of the South Australian-NSW border on July 20 has been delayed. Premier Steven Marshall said: “The super spreader event, which has occurred at the Crossroads Hotel on the Hume Highway is really of great concern”.

Berejiklian toughened the conditions for pubs, reducing group bookings from 20 to 10 and limiting the number in a venue to 300. They will have to “ensure all patrons provide their name and contact details accurately”.

But she said NSW did not want to bring back lockdowns. “We can’t keep opening, closing, lockdown, not lockdown, we can’t have that repeatedly occur every time there’s an outbreak. We have to learn to manage these outbreaks. There is no end date,” she told the ABC.

She reaffirmed the strategy had to be one of suppression – elimination of the virus was not a practical option.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews issued a joint statement outlining what 1000 defence force personnel being deployed to Victoria will do – this will include compliance checking, support for testing and tracing, and partnering with Ambulance Victoria paramedic response crews. These defence personnel are in addition to 400 already there.

Meanwhile the Victorian government, under fire for lapses in its management of quarantine, has taken a hit in the latest Essential poll.

Victorians’ approval of their state government has declined from 65% in June to 49%. Those rating the Victorian government’s performance as very or quite poor rose from 13% in June to 26%.

The poll also found people’s concern about the virus had risen – the proportion of Australians saying they were very concerned about the threat of Covid-19 went from 25% in June to 36%.

Concern was highest in Victoria, where 46% were very concerned, and NSW (42%). This compared with much lower numbers in Queensland (25%) and Western Australia (26%).

– ref. More deaths in Victoria, as NSW COVID cluster triggers reactions in Queensland and South Australia – https://theconversation.com/more-deaths-in-victoria-as-nsw-covid-cluster-triggers-reactions-in-queensland-and-south-australia-142676

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Chris Wallace, Associate Professor, 50/50 By 2030 Foundation, Faculty of Business Government & Law, University of Canberra

The “palace letters” show the Australian Constitution’s susceptibility to self-interested behaviour by individual vice-regal representatives. They also reveal the vulnerability of Australian governments to secret destabilisation by proxy by the Crown.

They reveal a governor-general, fearing his own dismissal, succumbing to moral hazard, and the British monarch’s private secretary encouraging him in the idea that a double dissolution was legitimate in the event a government could not get its budget bills passed.

The letters confirm the worst fears of those who viewed Governor-General Sir John Kerr’s sacking of the Whitlam government as a constitutional coup. They reveal Kerr shortened by at most a mere three months the resolution of the crisis created by the conservative Malcolm Fraser-led opposition’s refusal to pass the government’s budget bills, compared to Prime Minister Gough Whitlam’s own timetable shared with Kerr.

The correspondence shows Kerr was privy to Whitlam’s plan to hold a double-dissolution election in February 1976 if all other avenues, including a half-Senate election, failed to secure passage of the budget beforehand. Whitlam candidly told Kerr he would be replaced as governor-general if he obstructed that plan. This introduced the element of moral hazard that saw Kerr take a reckless and self-interested route in ending the crisis rather than the steadier one privately put to him by Whitlam – one that Kerr could have, had he chosen, quite properly facilitated.

Crucially, the palace provided a specific nudge to Kerr in the direction of dismissing the government as a solution. It did so by creating a pretext by which Kerr could secure an election while saving his own position as governor-general.

A September 24 1975 letter from the queen’s private secretary, Sir Martin Charteris, to Kerr pointed him to Canadian constitutional law expert Eugene Forsey’s opinion that:

[…] if supply is refused this always makes it constitutionally proper to grant a dissolution.

In such correspondence, the queen’s private secretary is understood as speaking for the queen herself. As such, this could be interpreted as the monarch providing not just comfort but actual encouragement to the governor-general in his sacking of the government.

By adding his point about Forsey as a handwritten postscript to the letter, Charteris created a degree of ambiguity on this score, giving rise to a potential argument that it was Charteris’s personal view and not that of the queen.

Read more: ‘Palace letters’ show the queen did not advise, or encourage, Kerr to sack Whitlam government

But this should be read in the context of the overall correspondence in the year leading up to The Dismissal. In these letters, Kerr repeatedly canvasses the opposition’s potential blocking of supply, the likely resulting constitutional crisis and his difficulties in that context. There is, notably, no counterveiling call from the palace to let the legitimately elected prime minister see his plan through, even though Kerr had conveyed Whitlam’s plan to the palace.

In a crucial letter to Charteris on September 30, Kerr outlined Whitlam’s privately proposed electoral path to a resolution.

In the event the opposition continued to block the budget bills, Whitlam wanted to hold a half-Senate election. After that the government would again put the budget bills to the Senate. Should the opposition continue to block them, Whitlam planned a double-dissolution election. Kerr relayed to Charteris Whitlam’s view that it “could not take place until February 1976”.

Why didn’t Kerr co-operate with Whitlam to implement this relatively speedy path to resolution of the crisis? The answer likely lies in Whitlam’s candour in telling Kerr he would ask the queen to replace Kerr should he not accede to the plan.

Since the letters through Charteris also confirm the queen’s intention, unreservedly, to accept Whitlam’s advice to sack Kerr should she be asked to do so, Kerr knew this threat to be real and increasingly immediate.

The question is, since the queen made clear through Charteris she would uphold Australia’s constitutional convention that the monarch follow the prime minister’s advice, why would her representative, Kerr, not simply do the same with regard to Whitlam’s plans for the crisis’s resolution?

Read more: The big reveal: Jenny Hocking on what the ‘palace letters’ may tell us, finally, about The Dismissal

This is the note missing from the palace side of the correspondence – an absence against which Charteris’s handwritten postscript pointing Kerr to the Forsey opinion that “dissolution” was a legitimate option when governments fail to get their money bills passed is stark.

Forsey was later a strong public supporter of Kerr’s sacking of the Whitlam government. No wonder the palace fought to stop these letters being released.

– ref. ‘Palace letters’ reveal the palace’s fingerprints on the dismissal of the Whitlam government – https://theconversation.com/palace-letters-reveal-the-palaces-fingerprints-on-the-dismissal-of-the-whitlam-government-142476

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

For more than four decades, the question has been asked: did the queen know the governor-general, Sir John Kerr, was about to dismiss the Whitlam government, and did she encourage or support that action?

The release of the “palace letters” between Kerr and the palace can now lay that question to rest. The answer was given, unequivocally, by the queen’s private secretary, Sir Martin Charteris, in a letter to Kerr on November 17 1975. He said:

If I may say so with the greatest respect, I believe that in NOT informing The Queen what you intended to do before doing it, you acted not only with perfect constitutional propriety but also with admirable consideration for Her Majesty’s position.

Certainly, Kerr had kept the palace up to date with the various developments in Australia. While governors-general usually communicate with the queen only three or four times a year during ordinary times, it is common during a crisis for updates on the political situation to be made every few days – particularly if there is a risk of the queen becoming involved or the exercise of a reserve power.

Read more: The big reveal: Jenny Hocking on what the ‘palace letters’ may tell us, finally, about The Dismissal

Drawing the palace into the crisis

In 1975, there were multiple issues that might have drawn the palace into the crisis.

First, there was the question of whether Kerr should exercise a reserve power to refuse royal assent to an appropriation bill that had been passed by the House of Representatives but not the Senate. Fortunately, Whitlam dropped this idea, so that controversy disappeared.

Then there was the question of whether state premiers would advise state governors to refuse to issue the writs for a half-Senate election, and whether Whitlam would then advise the queen to instruct the governors to issue the writs. This didn’t happen either, because Whitlam did not get to hold his half-Senate election. But the prospect was enough to worry the palace.

Next there was the issue of what to do with the Queensland governor, Sir Colin Hannah. Hannah, in a speech, had referred to the “fumbling ineptitude” of the Whitlam government. Hannah held a “dormant commission” to act as administrator of the Commonwealth when the governor-general was away.

Whitlam, contrary to the advice of both the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet and the Attorney-General’s Department, advised the queen to remove Hannah’s commission to be administrator.

Separately, the Queensland opposition petitioned for Hannah to be removed as governor, but that required the advice of British ministers, as Queensland was still in those days a “dependency” of the British Crown.

So the palace had to juggle advice on Hannah from two different sources.

A race to the palace

Another pressing question was what should be done if Whitlam advised Kerr’s dismissal. Kerr’s letters more than once referred to Whitlam talking of a “race to the Palace” to see whether he could dismiss Kerr before Kerr dismissed him.

Kerr saw these “jokes” as having an underlying menace. Kerr knew he didn’t have to race to the palace – he could dismiss the prime minister immediately. But he also knew, after Whitlam advised Hannah’s removal merely for using the words “fumbling ineptitude”, that Whitlam wouldn’t hesitate to act.

The letters also show Kerr had been told that while the “Queen would take most unkindly” to being told to dismiss her governor-general, she would eventually do so because, as a constitutional sovereign, she had no option but to follow the advice of her prime minister. This would inevitably have brought her into the fray in an essentially Australian constitutional crisis.

Kerr explained in a letter after the dismissal that if he had given Whitlam 24 hours to advise a dissolution or face the prospect of dismissal, there was a considerable risk Whitlam would advise the queen to dismiss Kerr. He wrote:

[…] the position would then have been that either I would in fact be trying to dismiss him whilst he was trying to dismiss me, an impossible position for The Queen, or someone totally inexperienced in the developments of the crisis up to that point, be it a new Governor-General or an Administrator who would have to be a State Governor, would be confronted by the same implacable Prime Minister.

Advice from the palace

The letters reveal much of Kerr’s thinking, but little from the palace. Charteris rightly accepted the reserve powers existed, but they were to be used “in the last resort and then only for constitutional and not for political reasons”.

Charteris stressed the exercise of such powers was a

heavy responsibility and it is only at the very end when there is demonstrably no other course that they should be used.

This did not give Kerr any “green light” or encouragement to act. No-one suggested to him that the end had come and there was no other course to be followed. That was for Kerr to judge, and rightly so, because the powers could only be exercised by him – not the queen.

Whether the end had come and there was no other course is essentially what continues to be debated today. Should Kerr have waited? Should he have warned Whitlam? Was another course of action available?

All of these questions may justly be debated. But, no, the queen did not direct Kerr to dismiss Whitlam. He was not encouraged to do so. He was only encouraged to obey the Australian Constitution, which is something we all should do.

– ref. ‘Palace letters’ show the queen did not advise, or encourage, Kerr to sack Whitlam government – https://theconversation.com/palace-letters-show-the-queen-did-not-advise-or-encourage-kerr-to-sack-whitlam-government-142376

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gery Karantzas, Associate professor in Social Psychology / Relationship Science, Deakin University

From songs and poems to novels and movies, romantic love is one of the most enduring subjects for artworks through the ages. But what about the science?

Historical, cultural and even evolutionary evidence suggests love existed during ancient times and across many parts of the world. Romantic love has been found to exist in 147 of 166 cultures looked at in one study.

The complexity of love has much to do with how people experience it differently and how it can change over time.

Read more: Friday essay: finding spaces for love

Like, love, or ‘in love’?

Psychological research over the past 50 years has investigated the differences between liking someone, loving someone and being “in love”.

Liking is described as having positive thoughts and feelings towards someone and finding that person’s company rewarding. We often also experience warmth and closeness towards the people we like. In some instances we choose to be emotionally intimate with these people.

When we love someone we experience the same positive thoughts and experiences as when we like a person. But we also experience a deep sense of care and commitment towards that person.

Being “in love” includes all the above but also involves feelings of sexual arousal and attraction. However, research into people’s own views of love suggests that not all love is the same.

Passionate vs companionate love

Romantic love consists of two types: passionate and companionate love. Most romantic relationships, whether they be heterosexual or same sex, involve both these parts.

Passionate love is what people typically consider being “in love”. It includes feelings of passion and an intense longing for someone, to the point they might obsessively think about wanting to be in their arms.

The second part is known as companionate love. It’s not felt as intensely, but it’s complex and connects feelings of emotional intimacy and commitment with a deep attachment toward the romantic partner.

How does love change over time?

Research looking at changes in romantic love over time typically finds that although passionate love starts high, it declines over the course of a relationship.

There are various reasons for this.

As partners learn more about each other and become more confident in the long-term future of the relationship, routines develop. The opportunities to experience novelty and excitement can also decline, as can the frequency of sexual activity. This can cause passionate love to subside.

Although a reduction in passionate love is not experienced by all couples, various studies report approximately 20-40% of couples experience this downturn. Of couples who have been married in excess of ten years, the steepest downturn is most likely to occur over the second decade.

Life events and transitions can also make it challenging to experience passion. People have competing responsibilities which affect their energy and limit the opportunities to foster passion. Parenthood is an example of this.

Read more: Love by design: when science meets sex, lust, attraction and attachment

In contrast, companionate love is typically found to increase over time.

Although research finds most romantic relationships consist of both passionate and companionate love, it’s the absence or reductions in companionate love, moreso than passionate love, that can negatively affect the longevity of a romantic relationship.

But what’s the point of love?

Love is an emotion that keeps people bonded and committed to one another. From an evolutionary psychology perspective, love evolved to keep the parents of children together long enough for them to survive and reach sexual maturity.

Read more: What is this thing called love?

The period of childhood is much longer for humans than other species. As offspring rely on adults for many years to survive and to develop the skills and abilities needed for successful living, love is especially important for humans.

Without love, it’s difficult to see how the human species could have evolved.

A biological foundation too

Not only is there an evolutionary foundation to love, love is rooted in biology. Neurophysiological studies into romantic love show that people who are in the throes of passionate love experience increased activation in brain regions associated with reward and pleasure.

Read more: Love lockdown: the pandemic has put pressure on many relationships, but here’s how to tell if yours will survive

In fact, the brain regions activated are the same as those activated by cocaine.

These regions release chemicals such as oxytocin, vasopressin and dopamine, which produce feelings of happiness and euphoria that are also linked to sexual arousal and excitement.

Interestingly, these brain regions are not activated when thinking about non-romantic relationships such as friends. These findings tell us that liking someone is not the same as being in love with someone.

What’s your love style?

Research has found three primary styles of love. First coined by psychologist John Lee, the love styles are eros, ludus and storge. These styles include people’s beliefs and attitudes about love and act as a guide for how to approach romantic relationships.

Eros

This style of love refers to erotic love and is focused on physical attraction and engaging in sex, the quick development of strong and passionate feelings for another and intense intimacy.

Ludus

This style involves being emotionally distant and often involves “game-playing”. It’s not surprising people who endorse this love style are unlikely to commit, feel comfortable ending relationships and often start a new relationship before ending the current one.

Storge

Storge is often regarded as a more mature form of love. Priority is given to having a relationship with a person who has similar interests, affection is openly expressed and there is less emphasis on physical attractiveness. People high on storge love are trusting of others and are not needy or dependent on others.

Or is a mixture more your style?

You may see yourself in more than one of these styles.

Evidence suggests some people possess a mixture of the three main love styles; these mixtures were labelled by Lee as mania, pragma and agape.

Read more: Darling, I love you … from the bottom of my brain

Manic love includes intense feelings for a partner as well as worry about committing to the relationship. Pragmatic love involves making sensible relationship choices in finding a partner who will make a good companion and friend. Agape is a self-sacrificing love that is driven by a sense of duty and selflessness.

Why do you love the way you do?

A person’s love style has little to do with their genetics. Rather, it’s associated with the development of personality and a person’s past relationship experiences.

Some studies have found people who are high on dark traits, such as narcissism, psychopathy and machiavellianism, endorse more of a ludus or pragma love style.

Read more: There are six styles of love. Which one best describes you?

People who have an insecure attachment style, involving a high need for validation and preoccupation with relationship partners, endorse more mania love, while those who are uncomfortable with intimacy and closeness do not endorse eros love.

No matter the differences in the way love is experienced, one thing remains common for all: we as humans are social animals who have a deep fascination for it.

– ref. What is love? – https://theconversation.com/what-is-love-139212

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Quiggin, Professor, School of Economics, The University of Queensland

Australia’s response to the health and economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic is rightly considered one of the world’s best. At their best, our federal and state politicians have put aside the sterile games dominating politics for decades.

It seemed possible these efforts might last, as politicians sought to find common ground and make real progress on issues such as climate change, industrial relations and inequality as part of the coronavirus recovery.

But as soon as the virus seemed to be receding, politics returned to the old “normal”. Policies are again being put forward on the basis of ideological reflexes rather than an analysis of the required response to our new situation.

There is no more striking example than the federal government’s reported plan to bring forward income tax cuts legislated for 2024-25. The idea apparently has backbench support.

Those cuts will benefit high-income earners the most. They include replacing the 32.5% marginal tax rate on incomes between A$45,000 and A$120,000, and the 37% rate on incomes between AA$180,000, with a single 30% rate up to A$200,000.

This is being proposed while the government begins to wind back income-support measures, such as free child care, with much more serious “cliffs” fast approaching.

This economic crisis is different

One of the most striking features of Australia’s initial response to COVID-19 was the speed at which the Morrison government abandoned a decade of rhetoric denouncing the Rudd Labor government’s response to the Global Financial Crisis.

In mid-March the government was floating the idea of a tightly limited response with a budget of A$5 billion. By the end of the month this had been abandoned in favour of the JobSeeker and JobKeeper schemes, estimated to cost A$14 billion and A$70 billion respectively. Other schemes brought the total to A$133 billion.

Despite the close resemblance to the Rudd stimulus packages, there was one crucial difference.

The GFC caused a collapse in the availability of credit, potentially choking off consumer demand and private investment. This was the classic case needing demand stimulus.

By contrast, the COVID-19 pandemic caused a shock to the production side of the economy, which flowed through to incomes. Millions of workers in industries such as tourism, hospitality and the arts were no longer able to work because of the virus.

The crucial problem was to support the incomes of those thrown out of work, and keep the businesses employing them afloat until some kind of normality returned. There were problems with the details of eligibility and implementation of the JobSeeker and JobKeeper programs, but the response was essentially right.

Have cash, will buy luxury car

The primary rationale for early tax cuts is that they will stimulate demand. But the economy’s real problem is not inadequate demand – particularly not on the part of high-income earners.

On the contrary, the problem for high-income earners is having a steady income even as many of the things they usually spend on (high-end restaurant meals, interstate and overseas holidays) have become unobtainable.

Among the results has been a splurge on luxury cars. Compared to June 2019, sales of Mazdas, Hyundais, Mitsubishis, Kias, Nissans and Hondas last month were all down. But Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Audi, Lexus and MG were all up.

As Jason Murphy notes, this rush to buy fancy cars isn’t definitive proof the wealthy are looking to ways to spend all the money they’re saving. “But it is suggestive. Eventually the money has to go somewhere.”

The worst possible course of action

The continuing problem with the pandemic is the loss of income faced by millions of workers. By definition, anyone in a position to benefit from a high-end tax cut doesn’t have this problem. Equity would suggest that, far from receiving more income, they should be sharing more of the burden, if not now then in the recovery period.

Read more: Cutting unemployment will require an extra $70 to $90 billion in stimulus. Here’s why

When the federal government legislated its tax-cut schedule in advance, critics including Reserve Bank governor Philip Lowe and Access Economics partner Chris Richardson pointed out the danger of promising future tax cuts based on projected growth. The same policy had failed ignominiously in the 1990s when the Keating government legislated tax cuts to be introduced after the 1993 election. After declaring the cuts “L-A-W”, Paul Keating was forced to withdraw half of the tax cuts when the budget deteriorated.

These criticisms have now been vindicated.

The decade of strong economic growth, starting this year, that was supposed to make big tax cuts affordable has disappeared. We will be lucky if per capita GDP is back to its 2019 levels by 2024-25, when the tax cuts are slated to kick in regardless of circumstances.

Once that happens, we will need all the tax revenue we can get to bring the budget back into balance and deal with the continuing expenditure needs the pandemic has created.

The government now seems to be headed for the worst possible course of action – cutting support for those hit hardest by the pandemic while pouring money into the bank accounts of the well-off.

Read more: Forget JobSeeker. In our post-COVID economy, Australia needs a ‘liveable income guarantee’ instead

The inevitable result of such a policy will be a surge of personal and business bankruptcies, mortgage defaults and evictions. That will bring about the kind of demand-deficiency recession the tax cuts are supposed to prevent, superimposed on the continuing constraints created by the pandemic.

So far we have all been in this together. For high-income earners that means forgoing tax cuts promised in happier times and contributing more to the relief of those who need it most.

– ref. Cutting taxes for the wealthy is the worst possible response to this economic crisis – https://theconversation.com/cutting-taxes-for-the-wealthy-is-the-worst-possible-response-to-this-economic-crisis-142637

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Damien Manuel, Director, Centre for Cyber Security Research & Innovation (CSRI), Deakin University

Prime Minister Scott Morrison revealed last month Australia is actively being attacked by hostile foreign governments.

An advisory note posted on the government’s Australian Cyber Security Centre website said the attackers were targeting various vulnerable networks and systems, potentially trying to damage or disable them.

Read more: China’s disinformation threat is real. We need better defences against state-based cyber campaigns

Governments – along with individuals and the private sector – have an important role in addressing cyber risks that threaten our national security. At some point this year, the federal government’s new cybersecurity strategy is set to be announced.

Many in the industry hope it will be comprehensive and backed by significantly more investment than the previous one, to address what is a growing threat. Currently, a cybercrime incident is reported every ten minutes in Australia.

However, due to the unexpected budget impacts of the coronavirus pandemic, there may simply not be enough money to invest in the programs we need to stay protected from large-scale cyberattacks.

An underwhelming delivery

We know governments test each other’s cyber defences in the interest of their own national security.

Information warfare (such as through disinformation campaigns) between governments has taken place for many years.

In 2016, then prime minister Malcolm Turnbull released Australia’s first cybersecurity strategy. It involved investments of more than A$230m across four years for five “themes of action” including including stronger cyber defences, and growth and innovation in the sector.

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

The strategy envisioned making Australia a “cyber smart nation”, by ensuring we had the skills and knowledge needed to thrive in the digital age, while staying cyber safe.

But overall, the strategy was poorly implemented.

For instance, improving cybersecurity requires close collaboration between government, industry, academia and community. To this end, Joint Cyber Security Centres were announced so various parties could share knowledge.

However, prior to COVID-19, plans were in motion to align these centres with the Australian Signals Directorate’s higher security classification. This would hinder a collaborative environment by restricting movement within, and access to, the centres.

Moreover, only 32% of cybersecurity professionals have visited a centre, highlighting the government’s failure to engage with the sector.

Four years on from the initial strategy’s release, the “smart nation” vision seems lost. The cybersecurity sector faces skills shortages, and the public and businesses remain largely unaware of how to protect themselves.

It’s clear a cybersecurity reset is required.

We need a targeted, forward-thinking strategy

The release of the Morrison government’s new strategy has been delayed due to COVID-19, but we have some idea of what to expect.

The government has announced it will redirect existing defence funding to the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) and Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC) to employ up to 500 additional staff to tackle cybercrime.

But how this will work in a market with skills shortages is unclear.

Read more: Morrison announces repurposing of defence money to fight increasing cyber threats

Also, redirecting existing funding into cybersecurity is positive, but it is only one part of the solution. What’s missing from the conversation is strategic, long-term investment.

A holistic, interdisciplinary approach

Effective cybersecurity is about more than technology – it’s about people (from a range of backgrounds), user behaviour, business processes, problem solving capability, regulations, industry standards and policy.

I’ve read 156 submissions to the upcoming cybersecurity strategy, which was open to public comment. I also have knowledge of confidential submissions not made public.

Drawing on these views, and my own expertise, here are five elements I believe the upcoming strategy should contain:

1. Educate to drive behavioural change

The “Slip, slop, slap” health awareness campaign was one of the most successful we’ve ever had.

It drove real social behavioural change in Australia. A similar change is required to help make Australians more knowledgeable about cybersecurity issues, and how technology can be exploited.

This isn’t a quick fix, and will likely be a long-term effort.

2. Build resilience in critical infrastructure

COVID-19 has demonstrated how easily societies can be disrupted, particularly key supply chains and systems.

We need improved processes, regulation and standards to ensure the infrastructure we rely on is cyber-resilient. When breaches occur, organisations must be prepared to resolve them and restore services.

Banks are a good example, as they rely on thousands of suppliers. On this front, the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority last year introduced a prudential standard called CPS234, aimed at improving resilience against information security incidents (including cyberattacks).

3. Help small businesses

More grants and tax incentives for small businesses will enable them to access technology and talent to improve their cybersecurity capabilities.

A coordinated approach is needed through all levels of government to raise awareness of the adverse impacts cyberattacks have on businesses. This includes the consequences of customer data and privacy breaches.

It’s also crucial businesses know where to independently seek clear and concise advice when required.

4. Nurture the talent pipeline

Almost every day I hear about the industry’s cybersecurity skills shortage. I also hear from students how tough it can be to get a job in cybersecurity, even with any number of certifications.

It’s easy for businesses to poach existing talent from other organisation rather than hire graduates or interns. To break this cycle, we need improved educational courses focused on the skills employers want.

There should also be incentives for businesses to employ interns and graduates.

5. Cut the bureaucratic red tape

The federal government needs to do more to address Australia’s cybersecurity problem holistically – not just with additional legislation and funding for existing government agencies.

Hierarchies and dealings within the sector are currently overly complex.

Simplification and common sense are required.

Protecting Australians from outside parties intent on exploiting the technology we use isn’t something we can achieve overnight.

The digital cybersecurity strategy to be delivered by the Morrison Government needs to not only be impactful, but also built with future governments in mind. In such volatile times, it has never been more important to protect Australians.

– ref. Our cybersecurity isn’t just under attack from foreign states. There are holes in the government’s approach – https://theconversation.com/our-cybersecurity-isnt-just-under-attack-from-foreign-states-there-are-holes-in-the-governments-approach-137403

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ross Tapsell, Senior Lecturer in the School of Culture, History and Language, College of Asia and the Pacific., Australian National University

The recent police interrogations of six Al Jazeera journalists in Malaysia – five of whom are Australian – was not about shaping international reportage or a diplomatic rift.

Rather, it was part of a troubling pattern of crackdowns on the media and freedom of speech in the country, driven by the domestic concerns of an insecure government highly sensitive to criticism.

While the previous government led by former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad was by no means consistent or perfect, Malaysia was hailed just last year as an example of a country improving on press freedom.

This started to change in March, however, as Muhyiddin Yassin’s new government came to power. Tolerance for criticism and dissent has since been in short supply.

Pattern of repression

The Al Jazeera journalists have been accused of sedition and defamation over a documentary about the government’s treatment of migrant workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Malaysian officials and national television claim the documentary was inaccurate, misleading and unfair.

But these journalists are hardly the only ones to be targeted by the new government.

Steven Gan, chief editor of the trusted online news portal Malaysiakini, is facing contempt of court charges and could be sent to jail over reader comments briefly published on the news site that were apparently critical of the judiciary. Gan’s lawyer warned the case could have a “chilling effect”.

South China Morning Post journalist Tashny Sukamaran has been investigated for reporting on police raids of migrant workers and refugees.

Another journalist, Boo Su-Lyn, is being investigated for publishing the findings of an inquiry into a fire at a hospital in 2016 that left six dead.

A book featuring articles by political analysts and journalists has been banned over the artwork on the cover that allegedly insulted the national coat of arms. Sukamaran and journalists from Malaysiakini have been questioned by police about their involvement.

Opposition politicians have also been questioned by police for tweets and comments they made in the media prior to the new government taking power.

Whistle-blowers are included in this, too. For example, the government this week cancelled the work permit of the migrant worker who was featured in the Al Jazeera documentary.

Why the recent crackdown?

Malaysia’s current coalition government – Perikatan Nasional – was controversially formed earlier this year. The alliance came to power via backdoor politicking and support from the Malaysian king as Mahathir’s dysfunctional coalition imploded.

The new government coalition includes the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), the party voted out of power in 2018 following a massive corruption scandal. This was the first time Malaysia had changed government in its 60-year history.

With UMNO now back in government, it is perhaps no surprise there are again more crackdowns on the media, as their previous rule saw regular attacks on journalists, activists and opposition figures.

Read more: Malaysia takes a turn to the right, and many of its people are worried

Malaysia has also become known for its “cybertroopers” – social media commentators similar to “trolls” – who drive heated nationalistic and race-related agendas, and target government critics.

After the Al Jazeera documentary, these cyber-troopers provided fervent support for the government’s actions, arguing it had every right to round up migrants and evict them if it sees fit. Al Jazeera said its journalists were also targeted by cyber-troopers, saying they

faced abuse online, including death threats and disclosure of their personal details over social media.

Shaky government looking to firm up support

There’s another reason for the return of media crackdowns and online-driven activity beyond just the government’s desire to control the media.

It is also tactical as it allows government ministers to respond with firm statements asking security forces to intervene – enabling them to look strong, coherent and nationalistic.

Muhyiddin’s coalition is on shaky ground. It holds a slim majority in parliament and internal party factions have come to dominate political debate, with “party-hopping” becoming increasingly common. Malaysiakini even has a rolling news page regularly updated to track politicians’ changing alliances.

Malaysia’s parliament also finally resumed this week after a long and unstable hiatus, and was described as a “circus”. Politicians shouted over one another, with some trading racist and sexist remarks.

The house speaker, who was part of Mahathir’s administration, was also controversially replaced. There has been consistent talk of snap polls.

In this environment, politicians who don’t respond forcefully enough in the “culture wars” over documentaries and controversial artwork on book covers, or conform with the online mob on immigration, risk looking weak.

Read more: How blaming others dominates Indonesian and Malaysian twitterspheres during COVID-19 pandemic

A ‘new normal’ settling in

A snap election won’t necessarily help Muyhiddin strengthen his position, as parties within the coalition can become rivals during a campaign for certain seats.

But no matter who rules Malaysia in the coming months, the result will likely be a government that is fragile, insecure and worried about its legitimacy. For Malaysians, this is their “new normal”.

The risk for journalists in this “new normal” is further repression and harassment of independent media. As we have seen elsewhere in Southeast Asia, as well as in Australia, the state seems increasingly willing to use legal and regulatory pressure to make sure journalists and whistle-blowers are afraid to speak up.

– ref. Malaysia’s media crackdowns are being driven by an insecure government highly sensitive to criticism – https://theconversation.com/malaysias-media-crackdowns-are-being-driven-by-an-insecure-government-highly-sensitive-to-criticism-142555

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Richard Shaw, Professor of Politics, Massey University

And then there was none.

Early this morning the National Party caucus awoke to a nightmare. Todd Muller, their newly minted leader of some 53 days, had resigned his position.

This is not just another leadership spill, coup or change. In fact, nothing about this is routine.

First, Muller has been National’s leader for just less than two months, and will now go down as the shortest serving leader of the party since its formation in May 1936.

Second, the New Zealand National party faces an election in just under ten weeks.

And third, whoever leads the party into the election will be up against Jacinda Ardern, one of the most popular political leaders New Zealand has ever produced.

It is an inauspicious time to be changing the brass plate on the door of the leader’s office.

Why did Muller go?

In his statement Muller acknowledged he was not the right person for the position. Given his background, which included time as an advisor to former National Party leader and Prime Minister Jim Bolger, it can’t be said he came to the job uninformed of the unique pressures that come with leadership of the country’s most electorally successful party.

He also alluded to the toll the job was taking on his own health and that of his family. It would seem that what was once only theory regarding the physical, psychic or emotional toll political party leaders and their families pay has become all too real.

If so, I imagine most people might be inclined to say: good call, mate.

However, it’s unlikely that sentiment is dominating the thoughts of National’s caucus. Having just been through a divisive leadership change when Muller replaced former leader Simon Bridges on May 22, they will privately be furious about the nature and timing of Muller’s announcement.

National now has to scramble, and fast.

A poisoned chalice?

The first task is to find a new leader. Muller’s deputy, Nikki Kaye, is now acting party leader but tainted by her association with Muller. Various other caucus heavyweights – including Judith Collins, Gerry Brownlee and perhaps Amy Adams – are also in the frame.

But it is difficult to think of a more challenging set of circumstances in which to take over leadership of any political party: a hugely popular prime minister; a global pandemic; a divided party that leaks disastrously and has trouble identifying its own people’s ethnicity; and a timeframe that is not so much tight as suffocating.

National’s campaign strategy (and the inner circle around the leader responsible for it) also needs tweaking, if not a complete reset.

The party has long trumpeted its credentials as a competent economic manager, but it becomes very difficult to see how the word “competent” can now be part of the party’s rhetoric without triggering widespread guffaws.

And quite apart from the big picture considerations there are myriad operational particulars that need to be changed (at no small expense), not the least being the campaign hoardings (some of which are already up on fences) and pamphlets that feature Muller and Kaye.

Who benefits most?

For the Labour Party it is difficult to think of a better time for this to happen. Yesterday the papers, websites and social media feeds were full of the news that the Serious Fraud Office has launched an investigation into donations to Labour before the 2017 election (to go with the ones already underway on the National and New Zealand First parties). Today’s news is wall-to-wall Muller.

It may be, too, that National’s disarray proves a godsend to the two other centre-right parties in the parliament, New Zealand First and ACT. Both stand to gain should soft National supporters decide to take their political preferences to other parts of the centre-right spectrum.

Alternatively, the soft right might continue to find refuge in Ardern’s Labour, as recent polls suggest has been happening.

Why is our politics so toxic?

And so the feeding frenzy commences. In amongst the sound and fury, though, perhaps we should keep sight of one thing: Todd Muller made his captain’s call in the interests of his own health and that of his family.

So before we scramble on to the next leader, the next strategy, the next whatever ephemera of politics it is that catches our eye, we would do well to pause and reflect on the nature of politics.

What is it about the way we do this most human of activities that can cause someone this level of distress? What price do we expect people who put themselves forward for public office to pay? Is our politics broken?

– ref. Ahead of the New Zealand election, Todd Muller’s resignation is a National nightmare – and a sign of a toxic political culture – https://theconversation.com/ahead-of-the-new-zealand-election-todd-mullers-resignation-is-a-national-nightmare-and-a-sign-of-a-toxic-political-culture-142634

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Audrey Courty, PhD candidate, School of Humanities, Languages and Social Science, Griffith University

Amid claims of social media platforms stifling free speech, a new challenger called Parler is drawing attention for its anti-censorship stance.

Last week, Harper’s Magazine published an open letter signed by 150 academics, writers and activists concerning perceived threats to the future of free speech.

The letter, signed by Noam Chomsky, Francis Fukuyama, Gloria Steinem and J.K. Rowling, among others, reads:

The free exchange of information and ideas, the lifeblood of a liberal society, is daily becoming more constricted.

Debates surroundings free speech and censorship have taken centre stage in recent months. In May, Twitter started adding fact-check labels to tweets from Donald Trump.

More recently, Reddit permanently removed its largest community of Trump supporters.

In this climate, Parler presents itself as a “non-biased, free speech driven” alternative to Twitter. Here’s what you should know about the US-based startup.

Read more: Is cancel culture silencing open debate? There are risks to shutting down opinions we disagree with

What is Parler?

Parler reports more than 1.5 million users and is growing in popularity, especially as Twitter and other social media giants crackdown on misinformation and violent content.

Parler is very similar to Twitter in appearance and function, albeit clunkier. Like Twitter, Parler users can follow others and engage with public figures, news sources and other users.

Public posts are called “parleys” rather than “tweets” and can contain up to 1,000 characters.

Users can search for hashtags, make comments, “echo” posts (similar to a retweet) and “vote” (similar to a like) on posts. There’s also a direct private messaging feature, just like Twitter.

Given this likeness, what actually is unique about Parler?

Fringe views welcome?

Parler’s main selling point is its claim it embraces freedom of speech and has minimal moderation. “If you can say it on the street of New York, you can say it on Parler”, founder John Matze explains.

This branding effort capitalises on allegations competitors such as Twitter and Facebook unfairly censor content and discriminate against right-wing political speech.

While other platforms often employ fact checkers, or third-party editorial boards, Parler claims to moderate content based on American Federal Communications Commission guidelines and Supreme Court rulings.

So if someone shared demonstrably false information on Parler, Matze said it would be up to other users to fact-check them “organically”.

And although Parler is still dwarfed by Twitter (330 million users) and Facebook (2.6 billion users) the platform’s anti-censorship stance continues to attract users turned off by the regulations of larger social media platforms.

When Twitter recently hid tweets from Trump for “glorifying violence”, this partly prompted the Trump campaign to consider moving to a platform such as Parler.

Matze also claims Parler protects users’ privacy by not tracking or sharing their data.

Is Parler really a free speech haven?

Companies such as Twitter and Facebook have denied they are silencing conservative voices, pointing to blanket policies against hate speech and content inciting violence.

Parler’s “free speech” has resulted in various American Republicans, including Senator Ted Cruz, promoting the platform.

Many conservative influencers such as Katie Hopkins, Lara Loomer and Alex Jones have sought refuge on Parler after being banned from other platforms.

Although it brands itself as a bipartisan safe space, Parler is mostly used by right-wing media, politicians and commentators.

Moreover, a closer look at its user agreement suggests it moderates content the same way as any platform, maybe even more.

The company states:

Parler may remove any content and terminate your access to the Services at any time and for any reason or no reason.

Parler’s community guidelines prohibit a range of content including spam, terrorism, unsolicited ads, defamation, blackmail, bribery and criminal behaviour.

Although there are no explicit rules against hate speech, there are policies against “fighting words” and “threats of harm”. This includes “a threat of or advocating for violation against an individual or group”.

There are rules against content that is obscene, sexual or “lacks serious literary, artistic, political and scientific value”. For example, visuals of genitalia, female nipples, or faecal matter are barred from Parler.

Meanwhile, Twitter allows “consensually produced adult content” if its marked as “sensitive”. It also has no policy against the visual display of excrement.

As a private company, Parler can remove whatever content it wants. Some users have already been banned for breaking rules.

What’s more, in spite of claims it does not share user data, Parler’s privacy policy states data collected can be used for advertising and marketing.

Read more: Friday essay: Twitter and the way of the hashtag

No marks of establishment

Given its limited user base, Parler has yet to become the “open town square” it aspires to be.

The platform is in its infancy and its user base is much less representative than larger social media platforms.

Despite Matze saying “left-leaning” users tied to the Black Lives Matter movement were joining Parler to challenge conservatives, Parler lacks the diverse audience needed for any real debate.

Matze also said he doesn’t want Parler to be an “echo chamber” for conservative voices. In fact, he is offering a US$20,000 “progressive bounty” for an openly liberal pundit with 50,000 followers on Twitter or Facebook to join.

Clearly, the platform has a long way to go before it bursts its conservative bubble.

Read more: Don’t (just) blame echo chambers. Conspiracy theorists actively seek out their online communities

– ref. Parler: what you need to know about the ‘free speech’ Twitter alternative – https://theconversation.com/parler-what-you-need-to-know-about-the-free-speech-twitter-alternative-142268

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Audrey Courty, PhD candidate, School of Humanities, Languages and Social Science, Griffith University

Amid claims of social media platforms stifling free speech, a new challenger called Parler is drawing attention for its anti-censorship stance.

Last week, Harper’s Magazine published an open letter signed by 150 academics, writers and activists concerning perceived threats to the future of free speech.

The letter, signed by Noam Chomsky, Francis Fukuyama, Gloria Steinem and J.K. Rowling, among others, reads:

The free exchange of information and ideas, the lifeblood of a liberal society, is daily becoming more constricted.

Debates surroundings free speech and censorship have taken centre stage in recent months. In May, Twitter started adding fact-check labels to tweets from Donald Trump.

More recently, Reddit permanently removed its largest community of Trump supporters.

In this climate, Parler presents itself as a “non-biased, free speech driven” alternative to Twitter. Here’s what you should know about the US-based startup.

Read more: Is cancel culture silencing open debate? There are risks to shutting down opinions we disagree with

What is Parler?

Parler reports more than 1.5 million users and is growing in popularity, especially as Twitter and other social media giants crackdown on misinformation and violent content.

Parler is very similar to Twitter in appearance and function, albeit clunkier. Like Twitter, Parler users can follow others and engage with public figures, news sources and other users.

Public posts are called “parleys” rather than “tweets” and can contain up to 1,000 characters.

Users can search for hashtags, make comments, “echo” posts (similar to a retweet) and “vote” (similar to a like) on posts. There’s also a direct private messaging feature, just like Twitter.

Given this likeness, what actually is unique about Parler?

Fringe views welcome?

Parler’s main selling point is its claim it embraces freedom of speech and has minimal moderation. “If you can say it on the street of New York, you can say it on Parler”, founder John Matze explains.

This branding effort capitalises on allegations competitors such as Twitter and Facebook unfairly censor content and discriminate against right-wing political speech.

While other platforms often employ fact checkers, or third-party editorial boards, Parler claims to moderate content based on American Federal Communications Commission guidelines and Supreme Court rulings.

So if someone shared demonstrably false information on Parler, Matze said it would be up to other users to fact-check them “organically”.

And although Parler is still dwarfed by Twitter (330 million users) and Facebook (2.6 billion users) the platform’s anti-censorship stance continues to attract users turned off by the regulations of larger social media platforms.

When Twitter recently hid tweets from Trump for “glorifying violence”, this partly prompted the Trump campaign to consider moving to a platform such as Parler.

Matze also claims Parler protects users’ privacy by not tracking or sharing their data.

Is Parler really a free speech haven?

Companies such as Twitter and Facebook have denied they are silencing conservative voices, pointing to blanket policies against hate speech and content inciting violence.

Parler’s “free speech” has resulted in various American Republicans, including Senator Ted Cruz, promoting the platform.

Many conservative influencers such as Katie Hopkins, Lara Loomer and Alex Jones have sought refuge on Parler after being banned from other platforms.

Although it brands itself as a bipartisan safe space, Parler is mostly used by right-wing media, politicians and commentators.

Moreover, a closer look at its user agreement suggests it moderates content the same way as any platform, maybe even more.

The company states:

Parler may remove any content and terminate your access to the Services at any time and for any reason or no reason.

Parler’s community guidelines prohibit a range of content including spam, terrorism, unsolicited ads, defamation, blackmail, bribery and criminal behaviour.

Although there are no explicit rules against hate speech, there are policies against “fighting words” and “threats of harm”. This includes “a threat of or advocating for violation against an individual or group”.

There are rules against content that is obscene, sexual or “lacks serious literary, artistic, political and scientific value”. For example, visuals of genitalia, female nipples, or faecal matter are barred from Parler.

Meanwhile, Twitter allows “consensually produced adult content” if its marked as “sensitive”. It also has no policy against the visual display of excrement.

As a private company, Parler can remove whatever content it wants. Some users have already been banned for breaking rules.

What’s more, in spite of claims it does not share user data, Parler’s privacy policy states data collected can be used for advertising and marketing.

Read more: Friday essay: Twitter and the way of the hashtag

No marks of establishment

Given its limited user base, Parler has yet to become the “open town square” it aspires to be.

The platform is in its infancy and its user base is much less representative than larger social media platforms.

Despite Matze saying “left-leaning” users tied to the Black Lives Matter movement were joining Parler to challenge conservatives, Parler lacks the diverse audience needed for any real debate.

Matze also said he doesn’t want Parler to be an “echo chamber” for conservative voices. In fact, he is offering a US$20,000 “progressive bounty” for an openly liberal pundit with 50,000 followers on Twitter or Facebook to join.

Clearly, the platform has a long way to go before it bursts its conservative bubble.

Read more: Don’t (just) blame echo chambers. Conspiracy theorists actively seek out their online communities

– ref. Parler: the Twitter ‘alternative’ isn’t the free speech haven it claims to be – https://theconversation.com/parler-the-twitter-alternative-isnt-the-free-speech-haven-it-claims-to-be-142268

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jenny Hocking, Emeritus Professor, Monash University

Forty-five years after they were written, hundreds of previously secret letters between the queen and the governor-general of Australia, Sir John Kerr, relating to the dismissal of the Whitlam government in 1975 will be released in full by the National Archives of Australia this morning.

Containing 211 letters and 1,200 pages in total, the “palace letters” will be the greatest addition to the history of the dismissal of the Whitlam government since the revelation of Sir Anthony Mason’s role nearly a decade ago.

Read more: Jenny Hocking: why my battle for access to the ‘Palace letters’ should matter to all Australians

The letters have been held in the National Archives, locked away as “personal” records under the embargo of the queen. That is, until the High Court’s emphatic 6:1 decision in June this year that they are Commonwealth records and to be made available for public access.

The impact of this extraordinary decision is being keenly felt in Buckingham Palace and with some trepidation, since the letters will be released against the wishes of the queen, as the High Court judgments make clear.

The queen’s private secretary argued strongly against their release when the case began in the Federal Court, as did the governor-general’s official secretary, even claiming in letters included in a submission from the official secretary, Mark Fraser, that their continued secrecy was essential “to preserve the constitutional position of the Monarch and the Monarchy”.

In rejecting this presumption of royal secrecy, the High Court has enforced a measure of transparency and accountability over a monarch and a monarchy once seen as untouchable. The significance of the decision and its ramifications is tremendous, beginning with the release of the letters themselves.

In anticipation of their historic public release, let’s take a look at the palace letters – what we know about them, what to look out for, and what they might tell us. These details are drawn from the court proceedings and from documents in Kerr’s archives.

What will be in the palace letters?

Firstly, there are 211 letters. This is a simply staggering number, on a scale I had never imagined, since previous governors-general had reported to the queen at most only quarterly. They include telegrams as well as letters.

Kerr’s letters include a number of large attachments, running to several hundred pages, such as newspaper clippings, articles and other people’s letters to him. Since these attachments “corroborat[e] the information communicated by the Governor-General” to the queen, they will be equally significant for revealing how Kerr depicted the polarised events of 1975 to the queen, and on what basis.

The letters cover the entirety of Kerr’s period in office, July 1974 to December 1977. Their number grew markedly from August 1975, as Kerr increased his quite obsessive “reporting” on the prime minister, Gough Whitlam, to the palace.

At times, Kerr wrote several letters in a single day. As a result, there are slightly fewer letters from the queen to Kerr in reply.

There are 116 “contemporaneously made copies” of Kerr’s letters and telegrams to the queen, most of them through her private secretary, Sir Martin Charteris, some handwritten and some typed, and sent either by Kerr or the official secretary, David Smith. Charteris assured Kerr the queen read every one of them. Some of Kerr’s letters are addressed directly to the queen.

There are 95 original letters and telegrams from the queen to Kerr, all of them through Charteris. This nexus through the private secretary is entirely in keeping with their role as the official channel of communication with the monarch – Charteris writes for, and as, the queen. This is an important fact to bear in mind as we assess the letters.

In terms of that nexus, a critical detail emerging from the court case is that the queen’s letters, sent through Charteris, “convey the thoughts of The Queen to the Governor-General”. There can be no walking back from the fact the letters from the queen express her thoughts and her views.

This is extremely important in understanding the implications of the letters, particularly since some have tried to distance the queen from her letters to Kerr on the basis that her private secretary wrote them, even suggesting this constitutes a royal form of “plausible deniability”. Any attempt to construct a “get out of jail free” card for the queen over the content of her own letters is completely unsustainable.

Political and constitutional implications

Many of the letters will be highly sensitive politically since we know from the Federal Court submissions they “address topics relating to the official duties and responsibilities of the Governor-General”. The specific nature of those discussions will be one of the intriguing questions to answer when the letters are opened.

Did those topics include options and strategies relating to Kerr’s decisions, which the governor-general ought to have been discussing with the prime minister? Did they include a discussion of Kerr’s concern for his own position as governor-general, his fear that Whitlam might recall him – which is a decision for the prime minister alone to make and in which the queen can play no part other than to act on that advice? And did they include a consideration of the putative power of the governor-general to dismiss the government, which retained its majority in the House of Representatives and its confidence at all times, without warning?

Read more: High Court ruling on ‘Palace letters’ case paves way to learn more about The Dismissal – and our Constitution

Scattered references to the palace letters in Kerr’s papers shed further light on what we can expect to find. The most significant of these is his reference to “Charteris’ advice to me on dismissal”. Kerr writes of having “the additional advantage” of “the illuminating observations […] sent to me by Sir Martin Charteris”, indicating the significant role the letters played in his deliberations about dismissing the government and his eventual decision to do so.

Extracts from some of the palace letters explicitly refer to the prospect of Whitlam’s dismissal. In September 1975, Kerr writes:

if I were at the height of the crisis contrary to his advice to decide to terminate his commission […]

and, on November 6 1975:

he [Whitlam] said that the only way in which an election for the house could occur would be if I dismissed him.

Those particular letters, together with those written around key dates – the blocking of supply in the Senate, Executive Council meetings, Whitlam’s decision to call the half-Senate election, among others – will be a focal point for examining the letters.

The critical and defining context to assess the palace letters is that while Kerr and the queen were discussing these essentially political issues regarding the “events of the day” and the “official duties and responsibilities” of the governor-general, Kerr remained “silent” on these issues to the prime minister.

Worse, the queen well knew that. Whether there was any response from the queen about Kerr’s errant conception of his role as governor-general, his refusal to speak to or take the advice of the prime minister, will be of great interest.

Whatever the palace letters may reveal, the most important thing is that now we can know it. With that knowledge, the full history of the dismissal of the Whitlam government can finally be told.

– ref. The big reveal: Jenny Hocking on what the ‘palace letters’ may tell us, finally, about The Dismissal – https://theconversation.com/the-big-reveal-jenny-hocking-on-what-the-palace-letters-may-tell-us-finally-about-the-dismissal-142473

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Thea van de Mortel, Professor, Nursing and Deputy Head (Learn & Teaching), School of Nursing and Midwifery, Griffith University

The recent lockdown of nine social housing towers in Melbourne’s north to contain the spread of COVID-19 led to widespread concerns for residents’ welfare.

Among the concerns was that implementation of these lockdowns was less than perfect in terms of infection control.

In housing commission towers, many people live in close quarters and share facilities, making them a high-risk setting for outbreaks of infectious disease.

So it’s likely we’ll see more outbreaks in tower blocks, or even similar settings like hotels and apartment buildings, during the pandemic.

Read more: Nine Melbourne tower blocks put into ‘hard lockdown’ – what does it mean, and will it work?

As of Sunday, there had reportedly been 237 COVID-19 cases across the affected towers. One tower remains in lockdown.

We don’t know whether any of these were sustained as a result of poor infection control practices during the lockdown period. But there are things we can do to keep residents as safe as possible in the event of further outbreaks in commission towers or similar settings.

The chain of infection

In the science of disease prevention and control, we often talk about something called the “chain of infection”. Stopping outbreaks taking hold is about disrupting this chain.

For COVID-19, the known reservoirs (sources) are infected people and contaminated objects.

The main modes of transmission are droplets spread by coughing, sneezing, and even talking. These droplets travel around 1 metre and might be inhaled by a person in close proximity, or settle rapidly to the ground.

Infection may occur via the transfer of the virus from contaminated objects or surfaces to your food or face.

Another potential route of transmission which continues to generate debate is the airborne route. This is where smaller droplets, called aerosols, travel further and stay in the air longer.

In the case of SARS-CoV-1 (SARS), airborne transmission was considered the most likely explanation for viral spread through the Amoy Gardens towers, an apartment complex in Hong Kong.

Contributing factors were poorly maintained plumbing — allowing airflow between floors — and bathroom fans that spread the virus through ventilation shafts.

Emerging evidence suggests airborne transmission may also be possible in the case of SARS-CoV-2 (the coronavirus that causes COVID-19).

Read more: Is the airborne route a major source of coronavirus transmission?

Using this knowledge to break the chain

Because COVID-19 is relatively new, there’s no research specifically on prevention of transmission of this virus in residential towers. But we can base recommendations on what we know about similar previous outbreaks such as SARS, and by following general infection control principles.

To prevent droplet spread in a locked down residential building:

• keep at least 1.5 metres away from others

• allow only essential personnel in the building

• residents should keep to their own apartment

• people servicing the building can wear gloves and masks, but it’s important they be trained in their proper use

• infected/symptomatic residents should wear a mask (and be aware of how to handle these correctly so as not to increase the risk of infection)

• avoid shared spaces, for example shared laundries; limit numbers in lifts/stairwells at any given time

• if movement is required, adopt staggered, rostered times to move through the building

• if the structure allows it, utilise separate entry and exit points and one-way pathways through the building

• practise good respiratory etiquette (such as coughing into your elbow). This can reduce the number of people each infected person passes the virus to.

Read more: Which face mask should I wear?

To reduce spread via contaminated objects:

• everyone who lives in or is visiting the building should frequently wash or sanitise their hands. Sanitiser should be available at entry and exit points and shared areas

• avoid touching your face and your food unless your hands have been freshly cleaned

• regular cleaning of shared spaces is important, including lift buttons, handrails, and door handles

• rubbish bins should be kept in separate areas to other supplies to avoid cross-contamination.

Additional measures to reduce airborne spread include:

• plumbing and ventilation systems should be maintained to ensure they’re operating effectively, particularly as buildings age

• HEPA filters in air conditioners may help to filter out the virus.

Other outbreaks highlight the importance of effective infection control

In the Amoy Gardens outbreak, a visit by one infected person to the apartment complex led to more than 300 cases in the block, and subsequent cases outside the block.

Similarly, Ruby Princess passengers were responsible for about 10% of COVID-19 cases in Australia at the time the ship left Australian waters in April. Cruise ships have a comparatively high density of people in confined and shared spaces as do residential tower blocks.

Finally, in Melbourne’s quarantine hotel bungle, we’ve seen what can happen when infection control measures are not implemented properly.

Read more: Melbourne’s lockdown came too late. It’s time to consider moving infected people outside the home

Prior planning is vital

Until we have a vaccine, outbreaks in other tower blocks are likely.

While “hard lockdowns” come with problems and challenges, quarantine can prevent the further transmission of infection across the wider community and makes sense from a public health perspective.

The first thing to do is develop a clear plan with procedures for residents and support workers in advance so it can be implemented at short notice. Public health units can develop these plans but governments are ultimately responsible for directing this.

Residents must be clearly informed (in multiple languages) about the plan and what they need to do. Support workers must be trained on strategies to reduce infection transmission.

– ref. We could have more coronavirus outbreaks in tower blocks. Here’s how lockdown should work – https://theconversation.com/we-could-have-more-coronavirus-outbreaks-in-tower-blocks-heres-how-lockdown-should-work-142297

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Francesco Paolucci, Associate Professor of Health Economics, University of Bologna, and Professor of Health Economics, University of Newcastle

Australia has fared better than most countries in reducing its COVID-19 cases to very low numbers. However, on June 15, new clusters of infection were identified in Victoria. The numbers grew so rapidly that metropolitan Melbourne is back in lockdown and the border with New South Wales is closed.

Lapses in quarantine for people with COVID-19 returning from overseas are believed to have led to community transmission in Victoria. Hotel isolation has been effective in other states.

Read more: Melbourne’s lockdown came too late. It’s time to consider moving infected people outside the home

However, while incoming travellers to Australia are forced to isolate for two weeks, any onshore patients are only asked to self-isolate at home. Community spread due to a patient failing to comply with the self-isolation rule (or more innocently as a member of a shared household) could easily create multiple new clusters as in Victoria.

So how do the costs and risks of aggressive hotel isolation compare with self-isolation at home? We ran the numbers. Although hotel isolation is more expensive than self-isolation at home, for families of more than five people we found the likely costs flowing from transmission to others would justify hotel isolation.

The recent outbreaks in Victoria, especially in higher-density public housing towers, illustrate the high risk of disease spread within and across households. Ultimately, this transmission can place an intolerable burden on the health-care system, as we have seen overseas.

Read more: 288 new coronavirus cases marks Victoria’s worst day. And it will probably get worse before it gets better

Weighing up the options

We analysed the economic costs and benefits of forced isolation of onshore patients to help guide decisions on when patients should be forcibly isolated away from the family home. We first considered the cost of the two alternatives when a person is confirmed positive:

1. home isolation: self-isolating at home where the person may live with other household members

2. hotel isolation: isolating the person in a hotel room to prevent interaction with other householders.

In hotel isolation, the estimated cost is A$177 per night for accommodation plus A$113.70 per day for food and other essentials. Therefore, the total cost of isolating a confirmed case in a hotel room for a typical isolation period of 14 days would be $4,069.80.

On the other hand, when a confirmed case is asked to self-isolate at home, we need to consider the cost of hospital care for other householders who might contract the virus.

The chance of spreading the virus to other household members, known as the household secondary attack rate (HSAR), is typically between 3% and 15%. But it could be higher depending on the environment and how aggressive the virus is. We assume the rate to be 15% with a household size of 2.6, the average for Australia.

Based on current data, an estimated 20% of cases will require hospitalisation, of which about 25% will be admitted to intensive care units. The average stay in hospital is reported as 16 days (with ten days in ICU) if the confirmed case needs critical care. Otherwise, the average is eight days on wards. The costs of one day in ICU and on wards in Australia are reported as A$5,000 and A$1,800 respectively.

On our calculations, the expected cost of self-isolating a confirmed case and exposing other household members would be $1,248.

This suggests the cost of isolating in a hotel room is significantly greater than for self-isolating at home in an average-sized household.

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

Household size matters

The household secondary attack rate is highly dependent on factors such as types of activities, duration of event, household ventilation and viral shedding. The rate can be as high as 100%. In other words, the whole household is infected.

Further analysis of the relationship between household size and secondary attack rate shows the cost of home isolation increases greatly and exceeds the cost of hotel isolation when household size is five people or more.

So, the decision on where to isolate an infected person needs to be re-evaluated when five or more people are living in the home. More than 10% of households in Australia have five or more members.

Read more: ‘Kissing can be dangerous’: how old advice for TB seems strangely familiar today

What does this mean for stopping the spread?

This analysis is particularly relevant to decisions on measures to contain outbreaks such as the isolation of whole buildings, as in Victoria.

The lockdown of public housing towers may be considered a larger case of “home isolation” where density and dwelling sizes may greatly increase the likely household attack rate. The increased risk of infection for individuals within the building or groups of buildings suggests hotel isolation could be both a safer and more cost-effective measure.

Read more: Overcrowding and affordability stress: Melbourne’s COVID-19 hotspots are also housing crisis hotspots

Facing the risks of a second wave of COVID-19 infections, the government needs to consider multiple measures to control the spread of the virus. Although our findings show the cost of self-isolating a patient in his/her home is cheaper than a hotel room on average, this is not the case for all household sizes. Strategies such as testing, isolation and contact tracing, including use of the COVIDSafe app, can play a crucial role in the broader control of COVID-19.

– ref. Is aggressive hotel isolation worth the cost to fight COVID-19? The answer depends on family size – https://theconversation.com/is-aggressive-hotel-isolation-worth-the-cost-to-fight-covid-19-the-answer-depends-on-family-size-142283

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

Putting a price on carbon should reduce emissions, because it makes dirty production processes more expensive than clean ones, right?

That’s the economic theory. Stated baldly, it’s obvious, but there is perhaps a tiny chance that what happens in practice might be something else.

In a newly-published paper, we set out the results of the largest-ever study of what happens to emissions from fuel combustion when they attract a charge.

We analysed data for 142 countries over more than two decades, 43 of which had a carbon price of some form by the end of the study period.

Read more: Explainer: Australia’s carbon price mechanism in six dot points

The results show that countries with carbon prices on average have annual carbon dioxide emissions growth rates that are about two percentage points lower than countries without a carbon price, after taking many other factors into account.

By way of context, the average annual emissions growth rate for the 142 countries was about 2% per year.

This size of effect adds up to very large differences over time. It is often enough to make the difference between a country having a rising or a declining emissions trajectory.

Emissions tend to fall in countries with carbon prices

A quick look at the data gives a first clue.

The figure below shows countries that had a carbon price in 2007 as a black triangle, and countries that did not as a green circle.

On average, carbon dioxide emissions fell by 2% per year over 2007–2017 in countries with a carbon price in 2007 and increased by 3% per year in the others.

Carbon dioxide emissions growth in countries with and without a carbon price in 2007

The difference between an increase of 3% per year and a decrease of 2% per year is five percentage points. Our study finds that about two percentage points of that are due to the carbon price, with the remainder due to other factors.

The challenge was pinning down the extent to which the change was due to the implementation of a carbon price and the extent to which it was due to a raft of other things happening at the same time, including improving technologies, population and economic growth, economic shocks, measures to support renewables and differences in fuel tax rates.

We controlled for a long list of other factors, including the use of other policy instruments.

It would be reasonable to expect a higher carbon price to have bigger effects, and this is indeed what we found.

On average an extra euro per tonne of carbon dioxide price is associated with a lowering in the annual emissions growth rate in the sectors it covers of about 0.3 percentage points.

Lessons for Australia

The message to governments is that carbon pricing almost certainly works, and typically to great effect.

While a well-designed approach to reducing emissions would include other complementary policies such as regulations in some sectors and support for low-carbon research and development, carbon pricing should ideally be the centrepiece of the effort.

Unfortunately, the politics of carbon pricing have been highly poisoned in Australia, despite it being popular in a number of countries with conservative governments including Britain and Germany. Even Australia’s Labor opposition seems to have given up.

Nevertheless, it should be remembered that Australia’s two-year experiment with carbon pricing delivered emissions reductions as the economy grew. It was working as designed.

Read more: One year on from the carbon price experiment, the rebound in emissions is clear

Groups such as the Business Council of Australia that welcomed the abolition of the carbon price back in 2014 are now calling for an effective climate policy with a price signal at its heart.

Carbon pricing elsewhere

The results of our study are highly relevant to many governments, especially those in industrialising and developing countries, that are weighing up their options.

The world’s top economics organisations including the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development continue to call for expanded use of carbon pricing.

If countries are keen on a low-carbon development model, the evidence suggests that putting an appropriate price on carbon is a very effective way of achieving it.

An open-access version of this research is available here.

– ref. Carbon pricing works: the largest-ever study puts it beyond doubt – https://theconversation.com/carbon-pricing-works-the-largest-ever-study-puts-it-beyond-doubt-142034

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Fiona David, Visiting Fellow, University of Western Australia

In previous recessions in Australia, far larger numbers of men than women lost their jobs. This reflected realities at that time. Men had higher levels of workforce participation than women, and the construction and manufacturing industries were particularly hard hit.

But in 2020, the composition of the workforce has changed. While far from even, today, women’s participation in the economy sits at 61% compared to 71% for men.

Recent payroll statistics show both men and women are losing their jobs in the pandemic, although women were particularly hard hit in its early stages.

Of course, paid employment is not the only work that gets done. Historically women have carried the bulk of caring work.

Statistics from the government’s gender agency suggest during COVID-19, more women than men are reporting heavier caring responsibilities, both for children and adults, as well as housework.

This context is important to keep in mind when noting the government’s COVID-19 childcare relief package ended on Monday. Under the package, the government’s various childcare subsidy payments were suspended and it provided childcare centres with 50% of the hourly rate cap based on enrolment numbers between February 19 and March 2.

Parents were not required to pay fees. Now, the pre-existing complex system of subsidies has been reinstated and parents will once again be charged fees.

Read more: Morrison has rescued childcare from COVID-19 collapse – but the details are still murky

Added to this, the JobKeeper payment will end from July 20 for employees of childcare providers, which will impact childcare workers as well as cooks, managers, admin staff and cleaners in these centres.

There will be A$708 million in funding for services to replace JobKeeper from July 13 until September 27. This money will be used to pay childcare services 25% of the fee revenue they received before COVID-19 saw parents pulling children out of attendance.

The end of this package is a double hit to women. It hits an industry mostly staffed by women, and removes free child-care when women are struggling with increased caring responsibilities and job losses.

This is deeply concerning from the perspective of gender equity. But if that is not reason enough, the economics of the decision should give pause for thought.

The system pushes women with children away from work

It is two years since accounting firm KPMG developed the “workforce disincentive rate” — a measure of the economic deterrence facing women wanting to return to work after having children, under our existing system of tax and benefits.

This rates the proportion of any extra earnings lost to a family after taking account of additional income tax paid, loss of family payments, loss of childcare payments and increased out-of-pocket childcare costs when women return to work after having children.

A 100% workforce disincentive rate means a family is no better off with the mother working more hours. A rate of more than 100% indicates the family is financially worse off when the mother works additional hours.

The KPMG study found workforce disincentive rates of between 75-120% are common for mothers seeking to increase their work beyond three days a week.

This means that, in many cases, women working additional days or taking additional shifts under the old system are financially worse off.

The study found professional, university-educated women are disproportionately affected.

Read more: Quality childcare has become a necessity for Australian families, and for society. It’s time the government paid up

Often, their fourth or fifth working day will cause the family’s income to exceed a threshold, significantly reducing the family’s childcare subsidy entitlement.

This means that while many women return to part-time work after having children, far fewer return to full-time work. And this has flow-on effects throughout the economy and impedes the career progression of women.

This is the economics of the system to which Australian families have just been returned. This is the economics that needs to be urgently reconsidered, given our shared imperitive to find ways to stimulate economic growth.

Economic recovery depends on women

Australia’s economic recovery depends on finding ways to support and unlock economic growth and jobs. One way to do this is to unlock the productivity gains that come from increasing women’s workforce participation.

KPMG estimates even halving the gap between male and female workforce participation would increase our annual GDP by A$60 billion over the next two decades.

One of the barriers to women going to work is the cost of childcare. We see the results in the labour force statistics. Women make up 37.7% of all full-time employees and 68.2% of all part-time employees.

Read more: COVID-19 has laid bare how much we value women’s work, and how little we pay for it

Australian families have now had a taste of what it is like to the have access to fee-free childcare. Statistics are not available yet to enable us to understand exactly who took advantage of this system, but one thing is for certain. The economics of fee-free childcare are fundamentally different to the economics of the old system of childcare, which involved a complex interaction between subsidies and tax transfers.

It is possible fee-free childcare saw some women either being able to afford to return to work or increase their working hours.

For too long, Australian working women have literally carried the cost of childcare, and suffered the impact on their own careers.

It is time to recognise that delivering a new system of childcare, that does not disincentivise working women, would not only support our combined efforts to achieve gender equality, it would also constitute a major economic reform with benefits for everyone.

– ref. We need a new childcare system that encourages women to work, not punishes them for it – https://theconversation.com/we-need-a-new-childcare-system-that-encourages-women-to-work-not-punishes-them-for-it-142275

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brendon O’Connor, Associate Professor in American Politics at the United States Studies Centre, University of Sydney

Curtis Sittenfeld has a knack of putting her readers in uncomfortable places in her fiction. In her short story Gender Studies she puts you in the middle of a hotel tryst between a Clinton-supporting professor and a Trump-supporting shuttle bus driver. In The Nominee, a journalist vomits on Hillary Rodham Clinton.

In Rodham, Sittenfeld returns to the former First Lady, but with a twist. An imagined memoir, Rodham is propelled by a “what if” thought experiment: what if, in 1975, Hillary left Bill?

It is an alternative reality page turner, and a welcome escapist read in these difficult times.

But how does the book play with the historical record?

Year of the Woman

Sittenfeld’s first turning point in Hillary’s political career is while she watches the 1991 Clarence Thomas Senate confirmation hearings from her colleague’s office at Northwestern University.

In both the true and imagined histories — despite clear evidence Thomas had sexually harassed his former employee Anita Hill — a predominantly male Senate confirmed Thomas’s appointment.

The backlash against these widely watched hearings led to 1992 being dubbed the “Year of the Woman” when a record number of women ran and were elected to the US Congress.

In the novel, Hillary runs and defeats Carol Moseley Braun in the Democrat primary. In real life, Braun won this race to become the first ever black female Senator.

The 60 Minutes interview

It is credibly claimed Hillary’s strength in 1992’s infamous 60 Minutes interview saved Bill’s candidacy.

I have watched the real interview with Hillary many times with my students. Questioned about Bill’s alleged affair with Gennifer Flowers, the interview was a watershed moment in the changing attitude of the media towards politicians’ sex lives.

The interview is tough to first watch: why should any couple’s most private affairs be discussed on television like this? What good does it serve?

On re-watching the interview, I am struck by the effective way in which Bill and Hillary talk down the interviewer and control the narrative. Hillary particularly does this with her famous statement:

I’m not sitting here, some little woman standing by my man like Tammy Wynette. I’m sitting here because I love him, and I respect him, and I honour what he’s been through and what we’ve been through together. And you know, if that’s not enough for people, then heck — don’t vote for him.

In Sittenfeld’s imagined interview, Bill’s publicity-shy wife, Sarah Grace, breaks down and cries, effectively ending Bill’s run for presidency.

Sexism in politics

Rodham does an excellent job at detailing the many forms of sexism women face in academia and politics. In the first part of the novel, Professor Rodham is a successful law academic whose male students and colleagues say things they would never say to male academics.

Such double standards are also highlighted by the fictional Hillary once she enters politics as a Senator for Illinois. She laments:

The extra time female politicians were expected to spend on our appearance, known as the pink tax, amounted to an hour a day for me, but I’d learned the hard way that this was necessary. In the past, whenever I didn’t have my hair and makeup professionally done, the media would speculate about whether I was ill or exhausted.

In a delicious plot line, Bill and Hillary end up competing against each other in the 2016 Presidential primaries which leads Hillary to ask: “You know when true equality will be achieved? When a woman with these kinds of skeletons in her closet has the nerve to run for the office.”

Truths and half-truths

The novel draws on the rumours published in Vanity Fair and elsewhere of Bill Clinton’s affairs and involvement in sex parties, as well as discussing the long-standing allegation he raped a female campaign volunteer in the 1970s.

Read more: Weiner’s erotic mediation: Bill Clinton’s sex vs Anthony Weiner’s sexting

In the novel Hillary’s long-time mentor Gwen Greenberger, an African American children’s right advocate, is stand-in for a few significant figures in Hillary’s actual life, including the very impressive Marian Wright Edelman, the founder of the Children’s Defense Fund.

The novel also features James, a stand in character for Hillary Clinton’s friend and fellow partner at the Rose Law Firm in Arkansas, Vince Foster, who died by suicide leading to conspiracy theories against the Clintons.

An appeal to experience

Throughout Rodham, Sittenfeld dissects the question of Hillary’s “likeability” by the press and the American people. In a killer debate response (that I wish she had given in 2016) she says:

[I]f you want someone to look out for the interests of the American people, for your family, for you – someone who understands the economy and education and health care and foreign policy … then vote for me.

In the real election in 2016, too many Americans ignored this appeal to experience and competence and tragically they have ended up with a president that cares little about governing or even the rising death toll of his own people.

The truth has turned out to be more unbelievable than Sittenfeld’s fiction.

– ref. Fiction, fact and Hillary Clinton: an American politics expert reads Rodham – https://theconversation.com/fiction-fact-and-hillary-clinton-an-american-politics-expert-reads-rodham-142478

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Becky Freeman, Senior Research Fellow, University of Sydney

From next year, access to e-cigarettes and related products containing liquid nicotine will require a doctor’s prescription. This is to ensure liquid nicotine is handled like the poisonous, addictive substance it is and not promoted to young people. It’s good news for public health and bad news for the tobacco and e-cigarette industries.

This restriction comes into effect from January 1 2021, six months later than originally proposed.

It’s not a ban on importing e-cigarettes. But it will close loopholes between established prohibitions on the supply and sale of nicotine at the federal level, and state and territory laws restricting access to nicotine.

Here’s the evidence to show why closing the loophole between health regulations, customs regulations and state and territory laws is good news for the nation’s health.

Read more: Twelve myths about e-cigarettes that failed to impress the TGA

The so-called benefits of e-cigs don’t stand up

There have only been a small number of quality reviews on the harms and benefits of e-cigarettes for the whole population (rather than for individual people). They draw the same conclusions.

CSIRO and the US National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine reviews found the evidence for e-cigarettes helping people quit smoking is inconclusive. The reviews also found e-cigarettes are harmful in their own right and associated with increased smoking and nicotine use in young people.

A 2017 review from Australia’s National Health and Medical Research Council drew similar conclusions.

Australian regulator, the Therapeutic Goods Administration or TGA, found no evidence to support the sale of e-cigarettes as a “therapeutic good”; the evidence of therapeutic benefit was inconclusive. Nor has the TGA found evidence to relax existing poison safety controls that require liquid nicotine access to be authorised by a doctor.

Despite the e-cigarette industry’s claims and further promotion that “e-cigarettes are 95% less harmful” than smoking traditional cigarettes, there is no scientific basis for this either.

Protecting young people

Tobacco companies and retailers claim e-cigarettes are an effective quit aid and are targeted at adult smokers who need them.

However, the tobacco industry and retail sector promote e-cigarettes through youth-friendly events, such as music festivals, and through social media by using influencers and celebrities, including singer Lily Allen.

And the promotion of flavoured e-cigarette products — strawberry, doughnut or banana, for instance — could create a generation of nicotine addicts.

So, Australia’s latest move will protect young people and avoid the fate of countries like the US, where e-cigarette use in secondary school children has increased 78% in just 12 months.

Parents and teachers are now seeing more e-cigarette use in Australian schools. It is telling that the largest growing segment in e-cigarette use in Australia is in 18 to 24-year-old non-smokers and use has also risen among 12 to 17-year-olds.

What about quitters?

There are individuals who feel e-cigarettes help reduce the harms of smoked tobacco, and doctors who agree with them.

Read more: Why the ban on nicotine vape fluid will do more harm than good

Given the toxicity and addictiveness of liquid nicotine, it is entirely appropriate to close loopholes that until now have enabled it to be acquired with no medical authority.

This is no different from controls around other harmful substances, such as methadone for treating heroin addiction.

There are two key differences with e-cigarettes. One, the case has not been made within an evidence-based framework that the products are safe and effective for widespread distribution; and two, they are being pushed through retailers operating outside the health system.

Is this the end of the line for e-cigarettes in Australia?

The government’s proposal is not closing the door to evidence or to options that may work for some individuals with a legitimate need to access these products. It is closing a door that exploits a disconnect between the poison and import laws to protect young Australians.

The restrictions will also prevent profiteers from addicting young Australians to harmful, novel products. Evidence on the benefits of e-cigarettes remains inconclusive but the risks to young Australians are increasingly clear.

Read more: Australia’s decisive win on plain packaging paves way for other countries to follow suit

– ref. Making it harder to import e-cigarettes is good news for our health, especially young people’s – https://theconversation.com/making-it-harder-to-import-e-cigarettes-is-good-news-for-our-health-especially-young-peoples-141986