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

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

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

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

How we remember things

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

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

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

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

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

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

Same, same, same

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

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

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

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

What can we do about it?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Karen: more Miss Ann than Biddy or Meg

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

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

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

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

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

Awash with joshing Johnnies and Joes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tom, Dick and Karen

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sophisticated farmers

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

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

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

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

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

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

What are school children taught?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why aren’t our kids taught about Aboriginal farming?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Read more: Why our kids should learn Aboriginal history

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

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

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

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

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

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

Which industries and workers are vulnerable?

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

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

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

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

Many at-risk workers live in inner suburbs

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

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

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

Workers likely to be forced to move

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What can be done about this?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Preparing to leave

Planning is the most important phase in preparing to leave.

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

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

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

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

Launching your plan

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

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

Navigating paperwork as you work towards financial security

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

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

Flourishing with a longer-term financial plan

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A way with words

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

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

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

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

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

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

He looked like a sheep with a secret sorrow.

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

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

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

‘A musical comedy without music’

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

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

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

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

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

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

And I meant it to sting.“

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Phone hacking scandal

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

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

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

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

Climate change denial

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

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

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

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

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

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

Out of step

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What powers does a state of disaster confer?

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

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

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

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

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

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

What other effect does declaring a state of disaster have?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What are the new restrictions?

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

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

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

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

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

How did we get here?

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

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

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

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

Aged-care homes

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

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

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

Failures to self-isolate

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

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

Is the virus more contagious?

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

Will stage 4 restrictions work?

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

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

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

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

How will we know the new restrictions are working?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Racism and lofty claims

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

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

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

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

It’s all about data

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

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

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

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

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

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

This is about government failure

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The agreement promises:

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

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

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

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

More than words

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

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

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

Tracking language data

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

NILR emphasises

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bringing the data and targets together

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Households

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

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

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

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

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

Family gatherings

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

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

Resturants

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

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

How we feel affects how we act

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

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

What can you do?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

They are:

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

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

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

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

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

A blunt instrument

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

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

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

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

Early childhood education

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

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

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

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

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

Wins must be sustained

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Past health crises show us shaming doesn’t work

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A pandemic in the digital age

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But what’s ‘news’?

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

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

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

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

How will bargains be struck?

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

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

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

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

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

Algorithmic change notices

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

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

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

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

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

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

More moderation opportunities

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

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

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

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

ABC and SBS lose out

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

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

Not a windfall, but still good news

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

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

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

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

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

Penalties for breach

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How do I set up my home workspace?

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

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

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

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

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

Read more: 5 reasons why Zoom meetings are so exhausting

Keeping your home workspace hygienic

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1. Invasive veterinary care

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

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

2. Patting them

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

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

3. Picking up feet, hoof trimming and shoeing

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

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

4. Grooming sensitive areas

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

5. Pulling or clipping hairs and whiskers

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

6. Spraying them with chemicals such as flyspray

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

7. Feeding by hand or from a bucket

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

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

8. Putting them in a trailer or horse box

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

9. Branding

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

10. Stabling and other forms of isolation

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Western solutions don’t always work

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

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

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

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

A likely scenario

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

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

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

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

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

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

Plunging international aid

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

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

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

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

Building autonomy with ‘cashless adaptation’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The future of the developing world

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Reductions in burglaries and assaults

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

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

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

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

The statistics in Australia suggest these theories may be correct.

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

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

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

Increases in crimes committed in private

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Crime also down overseas, but homicides on the rise

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Future challenges

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Whimsy and pain

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

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

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

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

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

Human resilience

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

Domestic violence rates have reached tragic proportions.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Loving Captivity is now streaming on Facebook

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

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sally Breen, Senior Lecturer in Writing and Publishing, Griffith University

I live in what was one of the noisiest city precincts, pre-pandemic, in the country — Surfers Paradise — golden lit, white noise jewel of the Gold Coast.

The pandemonium vibe both natural and man-made, big waves crashing right up to the edges of the cityscape competing with the clangour of human joy and the human stain. My front yard — the azure Pacific and my backyard, Orchid Avenue, home to shiny super clubs, old bolt holes rebranded or new kids on the block, clubs that never even got to open, neon signs glittering more than their insides, the newest — Asylum — flashing on and off in a peculiar reminder of where we have ended up.

Usually Surfers is pumping. There are sirens all the time, a thousand scooters and every form of stupid kart, hired out to families from down south who take over the joint like there is no bedtime in paradise.

Horns, kids in pools, Lamborghinis and Skylines doing laps, gangs of skateboarders cruising the Esplanade, the wide concrete swathes host to their tricks and a kilometre-long market running every second evening, the unofficial motorbike convention rolling in on Saturday nights to chew the fat, hen’s nights in Hummers. 20,000 visitors a day. Middle Eastern families, kids from Logan, Chinese entourages, posses of French, Spanish and Argentinian gods and goddesses. Silence here isn’t normal. That’s why when the pandemic hit, it was next level eerie.

On the first of May I took a stroll through the streets, even though I probably wasn’t supposed to. Well past the Cinderella hour, I saw not a single soul. Not even the kebab shops and the convenience stores placed at handy ten meter intervals were alight, no bored strippers leaning up against fake marble pillars, not one car moving, only cop cars, lined up in a shiny, stagnant row outside the police station.

Some might venture this was an improvement, but for a renegade like me who doesn’t mind the volume dialled up to 50, the scene was more post-apocalyptic than any previous version of Surfers. It was, in a word — boring. I say this in full acknowledgement of the seriousness of what’s become the global Corona horror show. The lives lost and the lives yet to go down the economic fallout drain.

But those memes circulating about us all heading into the apocalypse in our bathrobes and lounge-wear captured something of the inertia and restlessness we were feeling. A void of interaction has you questioning the meaning — of everything. For what are we left with without each other, without the crowd? Without the teeming masses that sometimes drive us crazy or even to despair? It is a world without the sounds we make. The good, the bad and the ugly.

Solitude as a choice

At first, I kinda liked the holes COVID-19 had buried me into. I’ll dance on a table until 3am but then I’ll want to disappear and think about it for, well, at least seven days. Most writers are like this. On the spectrum between hedonists and hermits. (The modernists more firmly in the latter pack — but I guess you can empathise with a mistrust of crowds in the 20th century.) The herd, the groupthink, rubs right up against the grain. A sentiment exemplified by Carl Jung when he said,

A group experience takes place on a lower level of consciousness than the experience of an individual. This is due to the fact that, when many people gather together to share one common emotion, the total psyche emerging from the group is below the level of the individual psyche. If it is a very large group, the collective psyche will be more like the psyche of an animal.

Jung might have been onto something but perhaps his take is only part of the story. Crowds can be lowest common denominator and maddening, but when the pandemic hit, I realised solitude is only preferable when it’s a choice.

Musos and sports stars generally love crowds — they know how important they are, hometown advantage, ticket sales, energy. When the AFL opened up to crowds again in July, the Twittersphere erupted in gratitude. People had “tears in their eyes” and the roar was “awesome”, “beautiful”. “I vow to never take genuine crowd noise like this for granted ever again,” said one fan.

We didn’t want cardboard faces in the seats, cameramen trying to avoid the sweep of empty grandstands. We wanted “proper crowds” not fake ones, where our joy and rage got dubbed in for our consumption.

Just like ‘boom!’

I was supped on crowds as a kid, and the best, most terrifying, glorious mass to be in was a sellout Queensland State of Origin crowd at Lang Park, when the beer was full strength, before they banned glass. A hallowed ground nicknamed the Cauldron, because its original intimate configuration resembled a pot, a hive where the intensity of the crowd could strike fear into the hearts of the opposition.

Read more: Footy crowds: what the AFL and NRL need to turn sport into show business

Lang Park was paganistic, with the steam rising and the baying for blood, always on the verge of violence but not quite tipping over because the passion wasn’t just about sport, the passion was political. Queenslanders making a point.

Early era Brisbane Broncos and Maroons player Paul Bowman summed it up. “We’re battlers, we’ve always got to scrap for what’s ours and what we deserve. I think there’s a lot of Queenslanders with that attitude. Southerners […] probably think about us as second-class citizens.”

He went on to describe the crowd at Lang Park as “unbelievable”. And almost every other player who ran out onto that paddock in a Maroon jersey has had something to say about it too.

Former Origin star Gavin Allen: “The crowd was louder than any crowd I have played in front of. This crowd was just out of control.”

And Steve Renouf, known as one of NRL’s greatest centres and a Queensland Origin legend. “You walk out there, and they said it just really hits you and it does, the crowd is just like ‘boom’!”

Ephemeral power

You never forget those moments when you become part of something bigger than you, something stronger, louder and fiercer, something outside of your control. A crowd can exhilarate the ephemeral power in us.

French polymath Gustave Le Bon captures some of this unnameable force when he says,

Crowds display a singularly inferior mentality; yet there are other acts in which they appear to be guided by those mysterious forces which the ancients denominated destiny, nature, or providence, which we call the voices of the dead, and whose power it is impossible to overlook, although we ignore their essence. It would seem, at times, as if there were latent forces in the inner being of nations which serve to guide them.

When I got older that desire for a collective merging shifted — same stadiums, different offerings on the menu — mosh pits of thousands slivering and snaking to the Prodigy or Beastie Boys or Ministry, hive mind of their own, where the point was to fling yourself into other bodies and be carried away by them, where a multitude became one, sweat and spit flying and sometimes blood, in unbridled proximity.

Of course, distrust of the crowd has always been elitist. Crowds change things: temperatures, moods, security levels. And they end things: reigns, wars, ideological creep. Conversely, they can also signify these things or generate them, hence our uncomfortable relationship with validating a war cry.

One thing’s for sure, right now, a crowd anywhere in any form is asking for trouble — but in essence that’s what crowds are for.

The film Italy’s War on Covid documents the day-to-day struggles of Dr Francesca Mangiatordi, ER Director of the Cremona Hospital in the north of Italy, one of the hardest hit regions in the world.

We bear witness to the unbearable choices she had to make between ventilating the young or the old, the hand of her co-worker’s son pressed up against the pale yellow glass on a door his mother is isolating behind. Nurses stripping off their anti-viral gear staring at their over-tired faces in the mirror. Mangiatordi’s young son in very enthusiastic Italian, comparing her to Captain America. She is a warrior and at the end of the doco, when her unit has regained some semblance of normality she says

I believe the moment we can say there is no risk of contagion, everyone will let out a thunderous roar.

She would know.

A roar of relief

It’s Saturday night on the May Day long weekend and my partner and I are bored. Usually a long weekend signals the need for veranda gatherings and the city gets hit with all kinds of trippers. But the city is quiet, no parties in the towers, no cars on the roads and the most exciting thing you’re allowed to do is walk down the street to pick up your takeout.

We collect the food but don’t head back right away. We can’t deal with it — we want air and other people’s faces, so we take a seat at one of the public tables set into the ground. The old couple in the expensive looking but worn coats sit two tables away from us, the man pushing his much frailer wife in a wheelchair. He locks the wheels, lays out their fillet of fishes, upturns the small packets of fries, gets out a jar of mayonnaise from his backpack, unscrews the lid, puts two neat dollops on the cardboard lids. A little picnic just like the one we’re having in a largely abandoned mall.

And when the fireworks go off and all our faces are lit up in golds and pinks and purples and my heart is pumping as the explosions rip through me like welcome gunshots, I don’t expect it. The council deciding to go ahead with their usual May Day celebrations without telling anyone. And that’s probably a good thing. Because those giant shots of dangerous chemicals and stars from the barges set out in the ocean are just the start.

The roar that comes next is all people, hundreds of bodies pooling out of high rises flouting the rules and acting purely on instinct, running almost desperate, towards the sound.

Hundreds more join them on verandas above us, screaming out in solidarity and relief, rattling their cages, the gunpowder in the air flicking a switch. Moments before, the buildings had seemed so desolate and lifeless. Now they appear to be covered in human lichen, spreading and calling out in whatever ways they can. We’ve seen similar outpourings all around the world, because this is the only way a crowd can be now, forbidden, illicit or socially distanced on separate balconies.

Italians belting out opera from flung-open windows, a stalled Spanish Armada banging pots and pans in a frenzy, whole neighbourhoods in the US breaking into song for the essential workers and high-rise captives in Surfers Paradise, screaming into a lit up sky. In two months time, Ukrainian band O.Torvald would take this force of circumstance one step further, staging a vertical concert, where every seat was a balcony, a hotel full of paying punters, watching over them as they play. Even when we’re spaced apart, we need the noise we make together to feel alive.

The old couple don’t really bother looking, just keep dipping their chips into the mayonnaise they brought themselves. Not really fussed. Maybe they’ve lived through something bigger than this after all.

And when the noise dies down, almost as quick as it came, we tidy up in ways which I’m hoping mirror the old couple’s ways and we wish them good evening, making our way home with the rest of the crowd, the revellers who’d busted out and the thousands of ghostly silhouettes in the high rises all around us. Slinking back into a long night of solitary confinement — tails between our legs — but at least we’re smiling.

– ref. Friday essay: make some noise — the (forbidden) joy of crowds – https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-make-some-noise-the-forbidden-joy-of-crowds-142643

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

Everyone’s pandemic experience is unfolding differently. There’s no denying COVID-19 has been devastating for millions of people around the world. At the worst end of the spectrum are the millions of cases and hundreds of thousands of people who have died, as well as their grieving friends and families.

There are also likely millions suffering financial hardship due to the pandemic, which in many cases will be affecting their mental health.

But at the other end of the spectrum are those who are not only doing well, but in some cases thriving. For some people, this can lead to a kind of “survivor guilt” – believing they’ve done something wrong by surviving and thriving during the pandemic.

A new type of survivor guilt

The term survivor guilt is usually used to describe the emotional distress some people feel after surviving a traumatic event in which others have died, such as a natural disaster or terrorist attack.

It has been identified in military veterans, those who survived the Holocaust, 9/11 survivors, and emergency first responders.

COVID-19 has certainly been a traumatic experience and has had a profound impact on mental health. Around 1,000 people have died by suicide in Australia since it began and modelling from the University of Sydney found suicide deaths could rise by 25% annually for the next five years.

During COVID-19 we have witnessed the conventional type of survivor guilt associated with surviving the coronavirus when hundreds of thousands haven’t.

But not everyone is struggling, and this has resulted in a new type of survivor guilt. This emerging type of guilt is characterised by not feeling “impacted enough” by the pandemic.

This type of survivor guilt can be seen in the workplace. The pandemic has forced many organisations to reduce staffing, causing some remaining employees to feel guilty, according to John Hackston, head of thought leadership at the Myers-Briggs Co.

Survivor guilt can result in a range of emotions, from shame to a sense of unworthiness or even anger. When emotions are not processed properly, they can impact our physical and mental health and cause depression, anxiety and physical illness.

It’s OK to be happy during the pandemic

While mental health advocates and support groups are right to remind people who are struggling that it’s “OK not to be OK” during this pandemic, it’s important to remember it’s “OK to be OK” too.

During a global public health crisis, no one should feel bad for being healthy or able to continue working. And if this pandemic has resulted in opportunities not just to survive but to thrive, we should celebrate those wins.

Cassie Mogilner Holmes, associate professor of behavioural decision-making at UCLA, says it’s not only OK, but essential, to enjoy one’s good fortune.

“It’s actually more important now than ever to focus on our personal emotional health,” says Holmes.

Professor Kim Felmingham from the University of Melbourne says feeling guilty about being “OK” during these challenging times isn’t just a “perfectly normal” reaction — it’s part of our evolutionary programming. That’s because feeling survivor guilt means you are feeling empathy for others who have been less fortunate. In an evolutionary sense, empathy allows us to form close social bonds and connections with others.

“So give yourself a break, don’t beat yourself up if you are feeling guilty,” says Felmingham.

Unless we tackle survivor guilt, it could ultimately add to the mental health burden of COVID-19 by manifesting as future depression, anxiety or post-traumatic stress disorder.

For anyone struggling with these feelings, it’s important to remember this pandemic is not your fault. You didn’t do anything wrong. You are doing valuable work, either generating much-needed economic activity or helping your fellow citizens. You just happen to be lucky to be healthy, or to live in a place that’s relatively unaffected by the virus, or to work in an occupation that can withstand a recession triggered by a public health crisis.

How to manage the guilt

Guilt can sometimes be turned into a positive thing, as a sort of moral compass to help give back to the world.

If your mind is going down a negative path, perhaps you might like to start a “gratitude journal” to list the things for which you are thankful. It could help you settle into a more positive mindset, and allow you to ask yourself whom you can help right now, perhaps financially, physically with something like childcare, or mentally by letting someone unload some of their own stress on you with a simple chat.

– ref. It’s OK to be OK: how to stop feeling ‘survivor guilt’ during COVID-19 – https://theconversation.com/its-ok-to-be-ok-how-to-stop-feeling-survivor-guilt-during-covid-19-143457

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ebru Kirezci, PhD candidate, University of Melbourne

Over the past two weeks, storms pummelling the New South Wales coast have left beachfront homes at Wamberal on the verge of collapse. It’s stark proof of the risks climate change and sea level rise pose to coastal areas.

Our new research published today puts a potential price on the future destruction. Coastal land affected by flooding – including high tides and extreme seas – could increase by 48% by 2100. Exposed human population and assets are also estimated to increase by about half in that time.

Under a scenario of high greenhouse gas emissions and no flood defences, the cost of asset damage could equate up to 20% of the global economy in 2100.

Without a dramatic reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, or a huge investment in sea walls and other structures, it’s clear coastal erosion will devastate the global economy and much of the world’s population.

In Australia, we predict the areas to be worst-affected by flooding are concentrated in the north and northeast of the continent, including around Darwin and Townsville.

Our exposed coasts

Sea levels are rising at an increasing rate for two main reasons. As global temperatures increase, glaciers and ice sheets melt. At the same time, the oceans absorb heat from the atmosphere, causing the water to expand. Seas are rising by about 3-4 millimetres a year and the rate is expected to accelerate.

These higher sea levels, combined with potentially more extreme weather under climate change, will bring damaging flooding to coasts. Our study set out to determine the extent of flooding, how many people this would affect and the economic damage caused.

Read more: The world may lose half its sandy beaches by 2100. It’s not too late to save most of them

We combined data on global sea levels during extreme storms with projections of sea level rises under moderate and high-end greenhouse gas emission scenarios. We used the data to model extreme sea levels that may occur by 2100.

We combined this model with topographic data (showing the shape and features of the land surface) to identify areas at risk of coastal flooding. We then estimated the population and assets at risk from flooding, using data on global population distribution and gross domestic product in affected areas.

Alarming findings

So what did we find? One outstanding result is that due to sea level rise, what is now considered a once-a-century extreme sea level event could occur as frequently as every ten years or less for most coastal locations.

Under a scenario of high greenhouse gas emissions and assuming no flood defences, such as sea walls, we estimate that the land area affected by coastal flooding could increase by 48% by 2100.

Read more: Water may soon lap at the door, but still some homeowners don’t want to rock the boat

This could mean by 2100, the global population exposed to coastal flooding could be up to 287 million (4.1% of the world’s population).

Under the same scenario, coastal assets such as buildings, roads and other infrastructure worth up to US$14.2 trillion (A$19.82 trillion) could be threatened by flooding.

This equates to 20% of global gross domestic product (GDP) in 2100. However this worst-case scenario assumes no flood defences are in place globally. This is unlikely, as sea walls and other structures have already been built in some coastal locations.

In Australia, areas where coastal flooding might be extensive include the Northern Territory, and the northern coasts of Queensland and Western Australia.

Elsewhere, extensive coastal flooding is also projected in: – southeast China – Bangladesh, and India’s states of West Bengal and Gujurat – US states of North Carolina, Virginia and Maryland – northwest Europe including the UK, northern France and northern Germany.

Keeping the sea at bay

Our large-scale global analysis has some limitations, and our results at specific locations might differ from local findings. But we believe our analysis provides a basis for more detailed investigations of climate change impacts at the most vulnerable coastal locations.

It’s clear the world must ramp up measures to adapt to coastal flooding and offset associated social and economic impacts.

This adaptation will include building and enhancing coastal protection structures such as dykes or sea walls. It will also include coastal retreat – allowing low-lying coastal areas to flood, and moving human development inland to safer ground. It will also require deploying coastal warning systems and increasing flooding preparedness of coastal communities. This will require careful long-term planning.

All this might seem challenging – and it is. But done correctly, coastal adaptation can protect hundreds of millions of people and save the global economy billions of dollars this century.

Read more: Just how hot will it get this century? Latest climate models suggest it could be worse than we thought

– ref. Unwelcome sea change: new research finds coastal flooding may cost up to 20% of global economy by 2100 – https://theconversation.com/unwelcome-sea-change-new-research-finds-coastal-flooding-may-cost-up-to-20-of-global-economy-by-2100-143599

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adam Smith, Senior Lecturer in Statistics, Massey University

A recent global assessment of shark populations at 371 coral reefs in 58 countries found no sharks at almost 20% of reefs and alarmingly low numbers at many others.

The study, which involved over 100 scientists under the Global FinPrint project, gave New Zealand a good score card. But because it focused on coral reefs, it included only one region — Rangitāhua (Kermadec Islands), a pristine subtropical archipelago surrounded by New Zealand’s largest marine reserve.

It is a different story around the main islands of New Zealand. Many coastal shark species may be in decline, and less than half a percent of territorial waters is protected by marine reserves.

Read more: Scientists at work: Uncovering the mystery of when and where sharks give birth

Sharks in Aotearoa

In New Zealand, there are more than a hundred species of sharks, rays and chimaeras. They belong to a group of fishes called chondrichthyans, which have skeletons of cartilage instead of bone.

Some 55% of New Zealand’s chondrichthyan species are listed as “not threatened” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Not so encouraging is the 32% of species listed as “data deficient”, meaning we don’t know the status of their populations. Most species (77%) live in waters deeper than 200 metres.

Seven species are fully protected under the Wildlife Act 1953. They are mostly large, migratory species such as the giant manta ray. Some are threatened with extinction according to the IUCN, including great white sharks, basking sharks, whale sharks and oceanic white tip sharks.

Historically, basking sharks were caught as bycatch in New Zealand fisheries, and seen in their hundreds in some inshore areas. Sightings of these giant plankton-feeders suddenly dried up over a decade ago. We don’t know why.

Commercial shark fisheries

Eleven chondrichthyan species are fished commercially in New Zealand under the quota management system. Commercial fisheries for school shark, rig and elephant fish took off from the 1970s and now catch around 8,000 tonnes per year in total.

Finning of sharks has been illegal throughout New Zealand since 2014.

Most of New Zealand’s shark fisheries are considered sustainable. But a sustainable fishery can mean sustained at low levels, and we must tread carefully. School shark was recently added to the critically endangered list after the collapse of fisheries in Australia and elsewhere, and there’s a lot we don’t know about the New Zealand population.

We do know sharks were much more abundant in pre-European times. In Tīkapa Moana (Hauraki Gulf), sharks have since declined by an estimated 86%. An ongoing planning process provides some hope for the ecosystems of the gulf.

Protecting sharks

Not surprisingly, the global assessment found a ban on shark fishing to be the most effective intervention to protect sharks. Several countries have recently established large shark sanctuaries, sometimes covering entire exclusive economic zones.

These countries tend to have ecotourism industries that provide economic incentives for protection — live sharks can be more valuable than dead ones.

Other effective interventions are restrictions on fishing gear, such as longlines and set nets.

Waters within 12 nautical miles of the Kermadec Islands have been protected by a marine reserve since 1990. In 2015, the Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary was announced but progress has stalled. The sanctuary would extend the boundaries to the exclusive economic zone, some 200 nautical miles offshore, and increase the protected area 83-fold.

A large population of Galapagos sharks, which prefer isolated islands surrounded by deep ocean, thrive around the Kermadec Islands but are found nowhere else in New Zealand. Great white sharks also visit en route to the tropics. Many other species are found only at the Kermadecs, including three sharks and a sex-changing giant limpet as big as a saucer.

Read more: Squid team finds high species diversity off Kermadec Islands, part of stalled marine reserve proposal

New technologies are revealing sharks’ secrets

What makes the Global FinPrint project so valuable is that it uses a standard survey method, allowing data to be compared across the globe. The method uses a video camera pointed at a canister of bait. This contraption is put on the seafloor for an hour, then we watch the videos and count the sharks.

Baited cameras have been used in a few places in New Zealand but there are no systematic surveys at a national scale. We lack fundamental knowledge about the distribution and abundance of sharks in our coastal waters, and how they compare to the rest of the world.

Satellite tags are another technological boon for shark research. It is difficult to protect sharks without knowing where they go and what habitats they use. Electronic tags that transmit positional data via satellite can be attached to live sharks, revealing the details of their movements. Some have crossed oceans.

Sharks have patrolled the seas for more than 400 million years. In a few decades, demand for shark meat and fins has reduced their numbers by around 90%.

Sharks are generally more vulnerable to exploitation than other fishes. While a young bony fish can release tens of millions of eggs in a day, mature sharks lay a few eggs or give birth to a few live young. Females take many years to reach sexual maturity and, in some species, only reproduce once every two or three years.

These biological characteristics mean their populations are quick to collapse and slow to rebuild. They need careful management informed by science. It’s time New Zealand put more resources into understanding our oldest and most vulnerable fishes, and the far-flung subtropical waters in which they rule.

– ref. Sharks are thriving at the Kermadec Islands, but not the rest of New Zealand, amid global decline – https://theconversation.com/sharks-are-thriving-at-the-kermadec-islands-but-not-the-rest-of-new-zealand-amid-global-decline-143439

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Geelan, Deputy Head of School, Griffith University

A recent review of available pathways after secondary school into work, further education and training recommended all students leave school with a learner profile.

Recommendation four of the report, commissioned by the Education Council, said:

Students should leave school with a Learner Profile that incorporates not only their ATAR score (where relevant) together with their individual subject results, but that also captures the broader range of evidenced capabilities necessary for employment and active citizenship that they have acquired in senior secondary schooling.

This report echoed many of the themes raised in a September 2019 paper by the Australian Learning Lecturre: Beyond ATAR: A Proposal for Change. The paper proposed differences in the way we represent students’ knowledge, capabilities and activities, to describe secondary school graduates as whole human beings, and to ease transitions and pathways into further education and work.

The paper recommended completely replacing the ATAR (Australian tertiary admissions rank) with a learner profile, as opposed to having the ATAR be part of the profile.

But what is a learner profile, and do students really need it when they leave school?

More than a number

Is there a single number that can represent the totality of who you are? Your salary, height, weight, IQ? I think most of us would say “no”.

Yet a single number — the ATAR — is the main way secondary school students are represented, ranked and given access to tertiary education. The ATAR is the result of a scaling process that gives students a percentage rank in relation to others in their age group. If a student gets an ATAR of 80, it means they are 20% from the top of their age group.

Read more: What actually is an ATAR? First of all it’s a rank, not a score

A number of universities and degree programs complement ATAR scores with entry tests, interviews or other measures. But the ATAR remains dominant.

Australia is the only country that uses an almost universal student ranking system for tertiary entry. Beyond ATAR: A Proposal for Change, p. 11.

The dominance of ATAR has costs. It can shape senior secondary schooling, transforming it from a broad activity of learning to be an adult and citizen to the quest for a higher score. It can influence students’ and families’ subject choices, and their decisions about things like extracurricular activities.

Read more: The majority of music students drop out before the end of high school – is the ATAR to blame?

What is a learner profile?

The model of the learner profile in the 2019 Australian Learning Lecture paper proposed including information about the student’ extracurricular activities such as sport, part time work, music and theatre, hobbies and the other things they do to broaden their engagement with society and enhance interpersonal skills.

It is broader than the model prescribed in the recent Education Council report which recommended that the learner profile focus on students’ school-based activities.

Perspectives differ on whether a learning profile would complement and include an ATAR or similar score, or completely replace it.

A learner profile has been part of the International Baccalaureate for some time. Students complete the program with a document focused on their personal qualities such as communication, risk-taking and open-mindedness as well as on their knowledge and thinking skills.

Read more: How will the class of COVID-19 get into university? Using year 11 results is only part of the answer

Similar profiles are used for senior secondary students in Hong Kong, recording three years of academic results and learning experiences, including the attitudes and values students have developed. These profiles also list awards and achievements, inside and outside school, and an essay in which the students describe themselves.

While the Australian National University does consider the ATAR, applicants must also meet a co-curricular or service requirement. This is a measure of the breadth of a student’s engagement in the community.

School is about building citizens

Both the Education Council and Australian Learning Lecture reports argued that using a learning profile would better match graduates with the university courses that will best allow them to develop and fulfil their potential.

But school shouldn’t be just about getting into a university course, or getting the right job. It should also be about preparing students to be citizens actively engaged in society, who participate in the arts and community organisations, who have lives outside of work, who serve others and have a global vision.

Read more: What’s the point of education? It’s no longer just about getting a job

Broadening the ways we measure and represent the outcomes of the senior years of schooling has the potential to broaden our vision of school itself.

– ref. Students are more than a number: why a learner profile makes more sense than the ATAR – https://theconversation.com/students-are-more-than-a-number-why-a-learner-profile-makes-more-sense-than-the-atar-143539

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Janine Dixon, Economist at Centre of Policy Studies, Victoria University

They’re at it again, pushing lower company tax as a way to resuscitate the economy.

The arguments were well ventilated at the time the government pushed for company tax cuts, failed to get support in the Senate, and then abandoned them in favour of personal income tax cuts in the leadup to the last election, declaring “we’re not coming back to the company tax cuts”.

The new argument is that they’ll help get us out of recession, but in the same sense that Leo Tolstoy observed that while all happy families resemble each other, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way, each recession is different.

This recession is the result of the forced hibernation of large parts of the economy in order to reduce the spread of COVID-19.

This recession is about households

When the time is right, it will be households that hold the key to reversing the effects of hibernation.

Australian households account for 60 cents in every dollar spent in the Australian economy, and they accounted for a disproportionate share of the fall in GDP in the first half of 2020.

With shops and cafes shut, the need for investment in new facilities is low.

The first step to recovery has to be reopening the businesses that exist and are closed or are operating well below capacity.

This means getting households spending, supported by stimulus.

Company tax cuts benefit foreigners

Our modelling in 2018 showed that while a company tax cut would stimulate investment and economic activity, in both the short run and the long run the benefits would accrue to foreign investors rather than to Australians.

In theory, all investors should respond positively to a lower company tax rate, but under Australia’s system of dividend imputation local investors are shielded from company tax, meaning the cuts matter most for those overseas.

Those overseas investors would be likely to invest more in Australia after a company tax cut, boosting Australia’s capital stock (buildings and equipment) making workers more valuable, pushing up wages.

Read more: Big business doesn’t want to talk about it, but SMEs lose from a company tax cut

While sold as a plus, higher wages would make it harder for locally-owned businesses. Our modelling found the biggest losers would be in the retail, health care and education industries.

With foreign investors paying less tax, the local population would bear the consequences of spending cuts or higher taxes, broadly negating the benefit of higher wage growth.

COVID makes the case weaker

As well, much of the company tax cut would be ‘wasted’ providing a windfall gain to foreign investors already in Australia.

The case for a company tax cut is now weaker, not stronger, than it was in 2018.

Budget deficits will reach new highs in 2019-20 and 2020-21. It is the right policy for the circumstances we are in, but it will leave future governments with difficult decisions about budget repair.

Read more: A temporary income tax hike is the bitter but equitable pill Australia should swallow

When the economy is strong enough, taxpayers could face deficit repair levies, bracket creep, new taxes, and the broader application of existing ones.

It is for this reason that the International Monetary Fund warned against knee-jerk tax changes during the crisis and said:

a premium should be placed on measures that move the tax system in desirable directions – specifically: refrain from tax holidays; keep environmental taxes; do not cut corporate income tax rates

If the company tax rate was to be cut now, it would be difficult later to restore it to where it was when it was needed.

The smaller tax contribution by foreign investors would mean more of the adjustment would fall on us.

And investors may well find us increasingly attractive

Another fresh reason to be cautious about a cut in company tax is that Australia’s relative attractiveness as an investment destination might well improve.

We have suffered, but most of the world has suffered the same or worse.

Deciding where to invest their next dollars, investors might well form the view that our response to the pandemic has been better than those of other destinations such as the United States, Britain and Brazil.

Read more: Morrison government toughens foreign investment scrutiny to protect ‘national security’

One of the benefits of being a peaceful, well-managed resource-rich Western democracy is that when things are bad elsewhere foreign investors look here.

We might continue to find (as we have in the past) that we get all the foreign investment we can handle with our company tax rate as it is.

– ref. Post-COVID, there’ll be less of a reason to cut company tax than before – https://theconversation.com/post-covid-therell-be-less-of-a-reason-to-cut-company-tax-than-before-143622

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonathan Barrett, Lecturer, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington

The world’s wealthiest people will transfer US$15.4 trillion in assets to their heirs in the next decade, according to a recent report.

Published by specialist data analysts Wealth-X, the report focused on the richest 0.1% (those with net assets worth over US$5 million), but it’s a similar story for the more modestly wealthy baby boomers.

With New Zealand’s average national house price now over $700,000, the heirs of home-owning boomers (as well as people born before 1945 whose significant wealth is often overlooked) will receive a currently untaxed bonanza.

Ignoring this unprecedented transfer of wealth from people who no longer need it to people who haven’t earned it would be absurd. But equitable tax policy must first overcome political timidity and rhetoric.

Read more: How rising inequality is stalling economies by crippling demand

As New Zealand’s election approaches, forward-thinking politicians should take heart from Sinn Féin winning a majority in the 2019 Irish election on the promise of making the country’s tax system radically more equitable.

While a capital gains tax (CGT) is off the table for now, tax arrangements are never set in stone and voters can be open to change.

Taxing inheritance is nothing new

New Zealand first taxed inter-generational capital transfers in 1866. However, the rate of estate duty was reduced to zero in 1993 and gift duty was scrapped in 2011. According to tax law specialist Michael Littlewood:

These taxes for many years enjoyed broad political support. Indeed, it was widely regarded as obvious that a significant part – perhaps as much as 50% or so – of every large estate ought to go to the state.

Taxing a person’s wealth when they no longer need it, provided a reasonable exemption is made to support dependants, has been usual since Roman times. In the modern era, inter-generational wealth was seen as eminently taxable, too. Indeed, progressive tax rates were applied to estate taxes before they were first used for income taxes.

In 1979 Australia became the first developed country to abolish estate duty (at both state and federal levels). As analysts Sam Reinhardt and Lee Steel pointed out, support for estate taxes had declined despite “various tax review committees recommending refinements to improve the equity, efficiency and simplicity of the tax”.

Politics gets in the way

In New Zealand, Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University’s 2010 tax working group didn’t consider reintroducing an estate tax or retaining the gift duty then in force. It argued that reforms in the late 1980s had “improved the efficiency and equity of the tax system”.

Certainly, stamp duty is an unlamented tax – although many jurisdictions try to use it to cool overheated housing markets. But it’s not clear why the working group considered estate taxes inefficient or inequitable.

Read more: New Zealand’s proposed capital gains tax could nudge taxpayers to invest in art instead of property

Unfortunately, the terms of reference of the next tax working group, established by the Labour-led government after the 2017 election, specifically excluded an inheritance tax. While there were good theoretical reasons for such a tax, group member Geof Nightingale said, it “breaks down at the politics”:

Inheritance taxes are intensely disliked, so if you haven’t got one it’s very hard to put one in.

The arguments against estate taxes are well rehearsed – usually accompanied by emotive references to “death taxes”. But, in the long term, the current ideological opposition to taxing inter-generational wealth transfers may prove to be an anomaly.

One simple reason for reviving the debate about such a tax is demographic: baby boomers, the wealthiest generation that has ever lived, will increasingly start dying during the 2020s.

Tax policymakers cannot ignore the opportunity – arguably the moral imperative – of taxing and redistributing those transfers.

Millennials and Gen X will be the winners

There remain three challenges to achieving a fairer tax based on inter-generational wealth.

First, the application of tax needs to shift from the deceased to the living. In other words, we need to focus on the recipient of the wealth transfer. Ireland’s capital acquisitions tax (CAT) applies a flat rate of 33% to accumulated gifts and inheritances over the relevant threshold.

Unlike a CGT, which can be perceived as penalising business owners, a CAT targets unearned windfalls from an accident of birth. This should make a CAT more politically acceptable than a CGT.

Read more: If you want a fair inheritance tax, make it a tax on income

Second, the younger generations most critical of baby boomers’ “unfair” acquisition of wealth (Gen X and millennials) must accept that taxing this unprecedented transfer of wealth will promote both inter- and intra-generational fairness.

If we don’t tax and redistribute these transfers, wealth inequalities will be exacerbated and entrenched among future generations.

And finally, arguments in favour of a more equitable system have to overcome the rhetoric of “death taxes”. As far back as the 1960s, Canada’s Royal Commission on Taxation did this by popularising the idea that “a buck is a buck”, no matter how it is earned.

In other words, if you have the money you can pay tax, whether that money comes from labour, investment or inheritance.

So far, only the Greens are proposing any tax on wealth as part of their election policy offering. But with the generational clock ticking, it’s maybe time for New Zealand to think about getting a CAT.

– ref. Forget a capital gains tax – what New Zealand needs is a tax on inherited wealth – https://theconversation.com/forget-a-capital-gains-tax-what-new-zealand-needs-is-a-tax-on-inherited-wealth-143604