New Zealand hostage Phillip Mehrtens, who is being held by pro-independence fighters in West Papua, appears well in a newly-released video.
It comes as concerns were expressed for the pilot as fighting between Indonesian security forces and his captors, the West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNPB), intensified last week.
New Zealand Prime Minister Chris Hipkins said he had received reports of the increased military confrontations and again called on the pro-independence group to release Mehrtens.
In the new video, which is poor quality, Mehrtens called on Indonesia to stop airstrikes in Nduga, saying they were unneccesary and put his life and the lives of other innocents at ris
The video statement was released by the TPNPB central command and purportedly filmed on Monday in Nduga.
The video received by RNZ Pacific shows Mehrtens sitting between two West Papuans — he speaks first in Bahasa Indonesian and then in English. He said:
“Good afternoon, today is Monday the 24th of April 2023.
“It’s almost three months since OPM [the Free WEST Papua Movement] kidnapped me from Paro. As you can see I am still alive. I am healthy, I have been eating well, drinking. I live with the people here.
“We travel together as required, we sit together, we rest together. Indonesia’s been dropping bombs in the area over the last week.
“Please, there is no need, it is dangerous for me and everybody here. Thank you for your support.”
The TPNPB issued a statement accompanying the video file urging Indonesia to stop its military operation to try and rescue Mehrtens and calling on New Zealand to mediate and initiate negotiations for his release.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
An archive photograph of Phillip Mehrtens with his West Papuan captors pictured in late February 2023. Image: TPNPB/RNZ Pacific
The family-friendly apartment is an idea whose time has come. In the Liverpool CBD in Sydney, for example, half the apartments are occupied by families with children, our newly published study found. This is twice the average for metropolitan Sydney.
The high proportion of families living in apartments in town centres like Liverpool is often overlooked when situated within suburbs dominated by detached, lower-density dwellings.
The proportion of families living in apartments challenges many assumptions about high-rise living. Apartments are often seen as “stepping stones” for singles and couples on their way to detached houses, or a convenient lifestyle option for downsizers and empty-nesters.
The families in our study prioritise large, centrally located apartments over detached car-dependent dwellings. However, we found there’s a lack of larger apartments designed to meet families’ needs.
The families we interviewed reported many benefits to apartment living. They valued being close to work, schools and leisure facilities, with easy walking access to diverse shops and services.
These preferences reflect the marketed benefits of compact living. And our research shows a range of households, including families with children, recognise these benefits. This points to a more fundamental shift in housing demand.
Families value the easy access to services and amenities that living in CBD apartments offers. Shutterstock
Among our study participants, the birth of a new child did not lead to a detached car-dependent home. Instead, it triggered a search for a larger apartment in the town centre.
These trends are only partly about choice. Participants acknowledged that a detached home would be more spacious but it would also mean they faced the added costs of buying and running a second car.
On balance, participants felt the CBD was the “best place” to live. Their priority was finding suitable high-rise homes within walking distance of schools, shops, public transport and community services – including libraries, health centres and parks.
However, when we compared Liverpool CBD families’ preferences with housing supply, we found an overproduction of one- and two-bedroom apartments. These account for most of the increase in apartment numbers over the past decade, as the table below shows.
Despite half of all apartment occupiers having children, the proportion of family-sized apartments hasn’t increased. In recent years, it actually fell.
Just over 15% of the high-rise housing stock in the CBD comprised three bedrooms or more at the 2011 and 2016 censuses. By 2021, it had fallen below 14%.
Without planning controls, the supply of large, family-friendly apartments is unlikely to increase. Developers, juggling their own material and credit costs, will always seek to maximise the number of dwellings they can build on their lots.
The Development Control Plan for Liverpool CBD requires 10% of the stock to be three-bedroom apartments. This is on par with the rest of Sydney. An exception is the Hills Shire Council, which has experimented with 20% in development corridors. Increased supply without design and quality controls can nonetheless exacerbate the tensions of raising a family in an apartment.
Good design matters, as does building quality
Real estate advertising for apartments emphasises skyline views, open-plan layouts and private balconies. But it is less glamorous aspects – insulation, space and storage – that can be crucial for families to live well in a high-rise home.
Good family-friendly design includes space for children to sleep, play and study, and adequate storage for prams and the belongings of larger households. Adequate soundproofing is also needed to reduce tensions over children’s noise.
All these features are critical for higher-density dwellings to cater properly for this growing demographic.
Construction quality is also important. A recent analysis of federal and New South Wales parliamentary inquiries reveals the impacts of public policies of deregulation, self-certification and performance-based construction. The effect has been to shield cost-cutting by developers and construction companies while transferring risks to consumers.
Societies in which a shift to higher-density living is part of family life must strike a reasonable balance between quality, affordability and apartment size. Yet these goals seem to be at odds with the reconfiguration of housing in Australia as an investment vehicle.
The protection of owned homes from capital gains tax and lavish subsidies for property investors have led to gains in the value of housing assets exceeding income earned from work. This sets the scene for finance and construction industries to capitalise on investor-driven demand rather than diverse families’ needs.
Meeting demand for high-rise housing in town centres requires a triple-barrelled approach. Construction quality, planning control and reconfigured financial incentives are all needed to encourage family-friendly products.
There is little doubt high-rise needs a more central place at the national urban policy table. And, at a more local level, there are steps councils can take. These include introducing minimum requirements for three-bedroom apartments in development control plans and negotiating density bonuses for developers that deliver such apartments.
Nicole Cook receives funding from the Global Challenges Program- University of Wollongong.
Shanaka Herath has received funding from the Global Challenges Program – University of Wollongong, Landcom NSW, the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute (AHURI), NSW Department of Family and Community Services and City of Sydney Council.
Sophie-May Kerr does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
The most recent rise in Aotearoa New Zealand’s minimum wage has again put the spotlight on low-wage jobs and the established belief that low wages are a starting point for workers who are quickly able to transition into higher-paid employment. But our research found the situation is not so straightforward. For older New Zealanders, possible options for finding their way out of low-wage work are quite limited.
In our research, we explored whether low-wage workers can easily transition to better-paying opportunities. We wanted to examine whether low-pay creates a lock-in effect, or whether workers in New Zealand have sufficient scope to climb up the salary ladder.
For a number of reasons, it is increasingly important to understand the labour market dynamics faced by low-wage workers. A worker’s earning level corresponds to the degree of pain caused by the current cost-of-living crisis. Low-wage earners are feeling the pinch more than those with higher incomes.
Moreover, being on low-pay for a persistent period can negatively affect people’s financial resilience and their ability to manage rainy day funds for unexpected expenses.
New Zealand’s low-wage sector
In 2020, the OECD estimated about one in ten New Zealand workers (8%) could be classed as low-waged. This figure is substantially below the levels observed in other countries such as the United Kingdom (18%) and the United States (24%).
Previous studies have evaluated an average worker’s prospects of transitioning from a low-paying job to higher-paid employment. Some studies found a certain degree of “permeability” in the labour market – being on low-pay is more of a temporary phenomenon as, over time, workers can climb up the pay ranks.
However, there are some empirical challenges when testing the earning prospects of the low-wage workers.
First, the socio-economic backgrounds of workers are incredibly varied. Young workers, for example, are much more likely to start with low-salaried work but are better qualified when compared with older workers on low pay.
Not surprisingly, our analysis found the chances of transitioning from low-pay to higher pay depends on individual characteristics like age and qualification. And outcomes are also not set in stone, given on-the-job training and switching employers could improve earning prospects.
Administrative data on earnings
We used Stats NZ’s Integrated Data Infrastructure (IDI) to track a group of low-paid workers over time. We then estimated how their chances of exiting low-pay for higher-pay jobs changed during this period. And, given that an individual’s background plays a prominent role in these changes, we performed our analysis separately for an individual’s age and qualification.
Our starting point was the 2013 Census. We looked at men between the ages of 20 and 60 years old in March 2013, their monthly wages and salaries between 2013 and 2016, and their qualifications.
We defined someone as low-paid if their monthly earnings were in the lowest 20% of the salary distribution. To put the threshold into perspective: the minimum wage in March 2013 stood at NZ$13.50 for an adult, or a monthly wage of $2,268 for a 40 hour week. Our low-pay threshold is at $2,936.
In terms of qualifications, we used the New Zealand Qualification Framework. We focused on three qualification groups: no qualification (Level 0), medium qualification (Level 1 to 4) and high qualification (Level 5 to 6 and higher).
Who exits low pay – and who doesn’t?
We found workers aged 20 to 25 with a medium or high level of academic qualification saw the biggest move away from low wages. The probability of staying on low pay after a year dropped 9 percentage points for workers aged 20-25 with the highest level of qualification.
For workers of the same age group with a medium level of qualification, the estimated drop was 5-6 percentage points. However, the estimated decline hovered around 1-2 percentage points for workers their age without any qualification.
On the other end of the age spectrum (50+), we found low-pay persistence hardly changed with time. There were also almost no differences between the three qualification levels.
The same pattern emerged over a longer period of time. Five years after the 2013 Census, we found only 30% of those workers in their early 20s were still on low pay. For workers in their 50s, the respective share was 60%.
Moreover, workers with qualifications were much more likely to transition into higher-paid jobs than those without. But this positive effect was substantially reduced with the worker’s age.
Job hopping to improve wages
Our research illustrated that earning prospects appeared most promising for young and highly qualified workers. We took the analysis a step further by looking at whether moving into better paying firms helped wage growth.
Using Inland Revenue tax records to look into the average firm-level wages, we found the chances of entering higher-paying firms drops with age. And while we found that having a higher qualification improves the likelihood of a transition, this positive effect subsides with age.
It is clear labour welfare policy initiatives to help low-waged workers need to be more nuanced than a simple one-size-fits-all approach. Young workers with some sort of qualification have, on average, good chances of exiting low-pay positions. However, the prospects are very different for young workers without a qualification, or for older workers.
Alexander Plum has received funding from Health Research Council (HRC) and receives funding from the MBIE Endeavour Fund.
Kabir Dasgupta has previously received funding from the Health Research Council and Ministry of Business, Innovation, and Employment Endeavor Fund.
The thyroid is a gland located at the base of the neck. It makes thyroid hormones, which control the way the body uses energy.
A thyroid nodule is a solid or fluid-filled lump found within the thyroid. The majority of thyroid nodules are small, can’t be felt by touch and do not cause symptoms. They are caused by an overgrowth of cells in the thyroid gland. In a few people, the nodules grow and cause symptoms such as pressure, difficulty swallowing or breathing.
At age 30 it is estimated around 30% of women will have a nodule. By age 70, approximately 70% of women will have at least one. The risk of a thyroid nodule is also higher if you have other thyroid conditions such as Hashimoto’s disease or have been exposed to radiation. However, only a very small proportion of the adult population will need treatment or review for nodules.
People often find out that they have thyroid nodules during a routine check-up or when investigating another unrelated health issue. Thyroid nodules are readily seen on common imaging tests such as an ultrasound or CT scans. Because there is rapidly growing access to and use of clinical imaging, and also, we tend to visit the doctors a lot more as we age, the chances of incidentally finding thyroid nodules has increased.
The vast majority of thyroid nodules cause no symptoms and don’t lead to cancer that needs treatment. Shutterstock
When should you worry?
Understandably, people worry a thyroid nodule might mean cancer. But we now know around 10% of patients with thyroid nodules harbour cancer – so approximately 90% of those detected don’t pose a cancer risk.
Generally, the risk is only increased with past radiation exposure, a family history of thyroid cancer, obesity, or if aged younger than 20 at the time of discovery of the nodule. Symptoms of concern are: an enlarging thyroid nodule, recent onset of hoarseness, difficult swallowing, neck pain or discomfort, large firm nodule or surrounding enlarged lymph nodes.
Your medical history and any physical symptoms related to the thyroid should always been discussed with a doctor. They may recommend further investigation, or to watch for changes over time. The idea of observing may sound counter-intuitive, but it can be important because doing further investigations may not always be in your best interest.
Treatment for thyroid nodules depends on whether the nodule is suspected of being a cancer or is causing symptoms, such as neck discomfort or an overproduction of thyroid hormones. Often, there will be no formal treatment required for thyroid nodules.
There is an important problem that exists with “incidentally” found thyroid nodules.
In recent decades, the dramatic increase in new cases of thyroid cancer has largely been driven by findings of small, low-risk thyroid cancers; found when investigating thyroid nodules. Strong evidence exists overdiagnosis – that is, a correct but unnecessary diagnosis – accounts for a large proportion of thyroid cancer cases.
We know that despite a rapid increase in the diagnosis of thyroid cancer, the number of people who die from it (the mortality rate) has remained steady. This means most of these cancers are found unnecessarily. And finding them can cause worry and sometimes lead to treatments and financial costs that ultimately may not have been necessary at all.
Overdiagnosis and subsequent overtreatment of this condition has been extensively documented. But working out how to avoid and address these issues remains difficult. The American Thyroid Association is a leading treatment group for the management of thyroid nodules. It recommends nodules smaller than 1 centimetre should not be routinely biopsied. In line with this, systems for ultrasound reporting have been introduced to reduce overtreatment of small thyroid nodules.
In 2020, we conducted community research and found Australians were unaware of the harms of overdiagnosing low-risk thyroid cancers. They wanted more community education and supported the idea of clinical guidelines to minimise over-investigating and over-treating low-risk conditions.
Larger thyroid nodules may make swallowing more difficult or cause discomfort. Shutterstock
While there is a small proportion of thyroid nodules that cause harm, the large majority are found incidentally and are unlikely to cause further problems.
Investigating and treating these nodules can lead to unwarranted physical, psychological and financial consequences including overdiagnosis, overtreatment, anxiety and out-of-pocket costs.
It is important to be aware of the issues involved in finding a thyroid nodule, and ask questions – for ourselves and our loved ones – about what this means and whether further investigation or treatment is really needed.
Brooke Nickel receives Fellowship funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC).
Anthony Glover receives funding from Cancer Institute NSW.
Patti Shih’s research projects are funded by the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC)
Anna Story does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
New Zealand Parliament Buildings, Wellington, New Zealand.
New Zealand Politics Daily is a collation of the most prominent issues being discussed in New Zealand. It is edited by Dr Bryce Edwards of The Democracy Project.
Australia has a global reputation for being tough on biosecurity. There are strict rules around the import and export of both native and exotic species. Security is tight, and advanced screening technology commonplace at ports of entry and mail centres.
But it’s a different story within the country, with plenty of movement of wildlife across state borders.
Our research published today in the journal Biological Conservation uncovers the surprising scale and diversity of the domestic online pet trade in Australia. Threatened species, invasive pests, banned imports, and animals not yet known to science are all for sale.
Over a 14-week period, prior to the commencement of Australian COVID-19 restrictions, we detected the trade of more than 100,000 individual live animals. This included more than 60,000 separate advertisements and a total of 1,192 species, including 81 threatened species, 667 alien (non-native) species, and 279 species that are not allowed to be imported into Australia.
We hope our results, from the first systematic survey of exotic vertebrate pets (this includes non-domesticated reptiles, amphibians, fish and birds) traded in Australia, will help biosecurity agencies identify high-risk and potentially illegal species.
As well as the conservation threat of unsustainably harvesting live animals from the wild, wildlife trade is a source of novel invasive species and their diseases. When exotic species escape from captivity they can become pests. An infamous example is the Burmese pythons of Everglades National Park in the United States, which continue to eat through the native wildlife at an unparalleled rate.
These issues are not lost on Australian biosecurity and conservation agencies. A recent crackdown on reptile smuggling, establishing additional international protection for 127 native species, shows a recognition of the need for more stringent regulation and surveillance. Although low prosecution rates and weak penalties continue to be a barrier to effective enforcement.
Australia goes well beyond its international obligations and prohibits the commercial import of most live animals. Yet audits of alien cagebird and ornamental fish trades show they are thriving within Australia.
Booming online trade
Traditionally, pets have been sold from brick and mortar stores or traded between informal networks of keepers and breeders. But now, thanks to online marketplaces, pet trade has largely shifted to the internet.
E-commerce trading sites reach more potential customers across a wider area than previously possible. They also offer a degree of anonymity, meaning that blatantly illegal activity can sometimes occur openly on websites and social media platforms.
To investigate if this was also happening in Australia, we identified 12 of the most prominent online platforms that sold exotic pets. We were able to rapidly monitor thousands of daily advertisements using an automated tool known as webscraping.
To our surprise and alarm, 56% of the trade involved alien species (over 600 species in total). Many of these are illegal to import into Australia or are known to be invasive overseas.
But these are not all clear-cut examples of illegal activity. The reality is more ambiguous: Australia’s import ban of most animals only came into effect in the early 1980s. So some exotic pets may have arrived in Australia before the ban and have been bred in captivity ever since.
This provides an element of plausible deniability. Traders can declare their animals to be captive-bred within Australia, even if some have been smuggled into the country at a later stage. We found this issue was especially prominent for ornamental fish, with 279 illegal-to-import species being traded in an unregulated manner.
What’s worse is some traders are specialising in animals that are not yet known to science, meaning they haven’t been formally classified, named or described. The presence of undescribed species in Australia, mostly freshwater catfish and African cichlids, can only be explained by illegal smuggling or the exploitation of trade loopholes.
The flowerhorn cichlid is a multi-species hybrid – an example of a pet fish that is difficult to classify. Traders use pseudo-taxonomic units. Independent birds/Shutterstock
Is greater oversight needed?
It is clear Australia’s exotic pet trade is far more prevalent and less regulated than previously understood. Some researchers call for e-commerce platforms such as Facebook to take greater responsibility by policing wildlife trade. This would reduce opportunities for non-compliant activity occurring on their sites. Meta, the parent company of Facebook, was recently fined for failing to remove illegal trade.
Regardless of how future trade is managed, we are now left with the question of how to deal with thousands of live animals already present that should never have been brought to Australia.
The immediate prohibition of these pets is not feasible. The social licence to euthanise so many animals does not exist and there are no facilities large enough to house them all. Bans, when ineffectively communicated and enforced, can also bolster illegal trade and organised crime.
Permit systems are sometimes used to regulate native pets. A permit is harder to acquire if the species in question poses a greater threat. Recent evidence shows that this can reduce the number of captive animals, and potentially fewer escapees.
Whether such systems can be introduced for these problematic alien species remains to be seen, but new approaches are urgently needed if Australia is to tackle its pet trade problem.
An Indonesian human rights researcher has cricitised his government’s failure to negotiate with West Papuan rebels, saying security officials should learn from the 2005 Aceh peace pact.
The Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras) research and mobilisation division head, Rozy Brilian, said the Indonesian government had always refused to hold a dialogue with Papuan pro-independence fighters.
He gave this message during a virtual public discussion titled “Failing to Address the Roots of the Conflict and the Window Dressing of a Development Illusion” last Friday — just two days before several Indonesian soldiers were believed to have been killed in a clash with West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNPB) rebels in the Papuan highlands.
The Indonesia soldiers were searching for New Zealand hostage pilot Philip Mehrtens who has been held captive since early February.
“The government always refuses to hold a dialogue with armed groups that the government refers to as KKB [armed criminal groups] even though the push for dialogue has often been encouraged by different parties,” said Brilian.
Yet, according to Brilian, the model of dialogue with an armed group has successfully been pursued by the Indonesian government in the past.
Aceh peace talks Brilian gave the example of the Aceh peace talks conducted during the era of former president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY).
“This dialogue then concluded in negotiations that produced a Memorandum of Understanding (Mou), or agreement, between the Indonesian government and GAM [Free Aceh Movement] in Helsinki,” said Brilian.
That pact brought peace after three decades of warfare.
According to Brilian, the current government should learn from earlier experiences of holding dialogue with armed groups.
In addition to this, said Brilian, Indonesia could also learn from the Philippines which succeeded in “taming” armed independence groups through dialogue.
“Learn from other experiences in the Southeast Asia region, dialogue between the government and pro-independence armed groups were once held by the Philippines government with the pro-independence Moro Islamic Liberation Front group,” he said.
Anzac dawn ceremonies have been held across the Pacific region, with tributes paid to both Anzac and Pacific Island soldiers killed in the two world wars.
Papua New Guinea In Papua New Guinea, World War II veterans were among those who attended a dawn service held at the Bomana War cemetery in Port Moresby.
Bomana is the largest war cemetery in the Pacific, containing the graves of 3779 service personnel, the majority of whom were Australian — many of whom fought while sick with malaria.
“Their suffering was immense and endurance beyond measure,” Australia’s Minister for International Development in the Pacific, Pat Conroy, said in his speech.
“They died in defence of Australia. What happened here is important to our national story and forged a deep friendship between Australia and Papua New Guinea,” he added.
The empire of Japan invaded Papua New Guinea in 1942, capturing more than half of the country before being pushed back by an Allied counter offensive — a campaign which resulted in the deaths of more than 7000 Australians, 4684 Americans and more than 200,000 Japanese.
An unknown number of Papuans were killed, many of whom served as scouts and stretcher-bearers.
Papuan deaths included 40 members of the Papuan Infantry Battalion who died fighting alongside the Anzacs.
“We will never forget the Papua New Guineans who fought alongside and supported the Australians in the hardest of times,” said Conroy.
“Forty graves are of soldiers from the Papuan New Guinea Battalion who fought bravely alongside the Australians.”
The dawn service held at the Bomana War cemetery in Port Moresby yesterday. Image: Dadi Toka/RNZ Pacific
Samoa Samoa became a battle front in 1914, when the then German colony was invaded by the New Zealand army in a bloodless take-over. A number of Samoan Anzac soldiers served in the World War, three of whom are known to have died.
Prime Minister Fiame Naomi Mata’afa acknowledged Samoa’s war contributions in her Anzac Dawn Ceremony speech in Apia.
“Anzac Day provides us with a reminder of the close and enduring links between Samoa and its Pacific working in close collaboration to ensure that we can coexist in a region of peace and stability.”
“As we consider the enormity of the sacrifice made, let us remember that their true and lasting legacy are the freedoms we continue to enjoy to this day.”
Prime Minister Fiame Naomi Mata’afa lays a wreath in tribute to Samoa’s war contributions in the Anzac Dawn Ceremony at the Clocktower War Memorial in Apia yesterday. Image: Samoa govt
American Samoan US Army representatives were honoured at the service for their sacrifices — according to the US military, ethnic Samoans have the highest enlistment rate.
Many New Zealand soldiers of Samoan heritage also participated in World War II and recent conflicts in countries such as Afghanistan.
Having no standing army, Samoa contributes police officers to peacekeeping missions around the world.
“No doubt, the Anzac spirit lives on in the work of those servicemen and women currently involved in operations overseas including United Nation peacekeeping and humanitarian missions” said Fiame.
“Let us also take this time to reflect on the families and communities with loved ones currently deployed.”
Samoa Deputy Prime Minister Tuala Tevaga Ponfasio (right) stands alongside a veteran in the Anzac Dawn Ceremony at the Clocktower War Memorial in Apia. Image: Samoa govt
President of Returned Services Association and Deputy Prime Minister Tuala Tevaga Ponifasio expressed his gratitude to the Anzacs for their sacrifices but also paid tribute to Samoans who fought for independence.
“Today we paid tribute to those soldiers from New Zealand, Australia, Great Britain and all those Samoans who gave their lives for those nations,
“Our brothers and sisters who served in the United States Military . . . we salute and honour you.
“A lot of Samoans lost their lives during colonial times and were subjected to unfair treatment, their names are not written on these memorials but are written in our hearts,
“War is something we all hear about but we fail to comprehend, it’s violent practice that is won not by weapons but by the hearts and minds of soldiers.”
Fiji Fiji contributed a total of 1255 volunteers (the majority being European expats) to World War 1, with 173 never returning home from Europe.
In World War II, the former British colony committed around 8000 troops to the Pacific War — one of the highest rates of enlistments from a Commonwealth country, 50 of whom died in the Solomon Islands campaign.
The Dawn Commemoration at Fiji’s National War Memorial Grounds yesterday. Image: Fiji govt
Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka paid his respects by laying a wreath at Fiji’s National War Memorial Site in Suva where a dawn service was held.
New Zealand High Commissioner to Fiji, Charlotte Darlow, said Anzac Day celebrated a special bond between Fiji and the Anzacs.
“Standing here today, there is a shared sense of unity, comradeship, and collective security, but it is important to remember that today’s peace comes from the hard work and sacrifice of previous generations,” said Darlow.
“Fiji, Australia, and New Zealand, alongside other regional partners, have all been part of that story.”
Fiji Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka at the Anzac Dawn Commemoration in Suva yesterday. Image: Fiji govt
Tonga In Nuku’alofa, the Tongan military hosted a dawn service at Pangai Lahi Park near Nuku’alofa’s waterfront.
Tongans participated in both World Wars, with the Tonga Defence Force deploying two contingents to the Battle of Guadalcanal in 1942. Two Tongan soldiers were killed.
Second Lieutenant Heneli Taliai, one of two Tongan Defence Force soldiers who died in World War II. Image: Public Domain/RNZ Pacific
A New Zealand Defence Force representative along with High Commissioner Matthew Howell attended the service, where they commended Tonga for its contributions to World War 1.
“Ninety-one Tongan soldiers volunteered to fight in World War 1, 10 in the Australian Imperial Force, 62 in the New Zealand Expeditionary Force and 15 in the Maori Battalion, two died on the battlefield and another would succumb to disease,” he said.
“Anzac Day is not just about those who served long ago, its also about those who continue to serve till this day.”
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
The Anzac Dawn Service at Pangai Lahi Park, Tonga, yesterday. Image: Tongan govt
ChatGPT and other generative AI tools which draw on large language models (LLMs) are a hot topic. Released in November 2022 by OpenAI, ChatGPT is a chatbot – it generates text output refined through user prompts.
ChatGPT is powered by an LLM – a machine-learning algorithm which processes vast datasets, including text, websites, news articles and books. Through the use of billions of parameters, ChatGPT statistically analyses complex language structures and patterns to produce the output.
Some people might think OpenAI – the company responsible for ChatGPT – would have an authorship right in any output (the generated text), but this is not so. OpenAI’s terms assign the right, title and interest in output to a user. Anyone who uses such AI tools needs to know the copyright implications of generating output.
Putting aside ethical and moral issues regarding academic integrity, there are many copyright implications surrounding LLMs.
For example, when you use ChatGPT to produce output, under Australian law, would you own the copyright of that output? Can AI such as ChatGPT be considered a legal joint author of any LLM output? Do LLMs infringe others’ copyright through the use of data used to train these models?
Under Australian law, because the output is computer-generated code/text, it may be classified as a literary work for copyright purposes.
However, for you to own copyright in ChatGPT output as a literary work, requirements known as “subsistence criteria” must also be satisfied. When considering AI processes in light of the subsistence criteria, the analysis becomes challenging.
The most contentious subsistence criteria in the context of LLMs are those of authorship and originality. Seminal Australian cases dictate a literary work must originate through an author’s “independent intellectual effort”.
To determine potential copyright in ChatGPT output, a court would examine the underlying processes of creation in detail. Hypothetically, when considering how LLMs learn, although people prompt AI, a court would likely deem this prompting to be a separate, precursory act to the actual creation of the output. The court would likely find the output is produced by the AI. This would not meet the criteria for authorship, because the output was authored by an AI instead of a human.
ChatGPT 3.5 claims that a machine-generated work is not subject to copyright protection. The Conversation
Also, the output is unlikely to adequately express a person’s “independent intellectual effort” (another subsistence criterion) because AI produces it. Such a finding would be similar to the ruling in a seminal case about a computer-generated compilation. There, a valuable Telstra database was not protected by copyright due to lack of establishment of human authorship and originality.
For these reasons, it’s likely copyright would not come into effect on ChatGPT output as a literary work produced in Australia.
In Australia, a work must originate with a human author, so AI doesn’t qualify for authorship. However, if AI were ever to achieve something akin to its own version of sentience, AI personhood debates will unleash many issues, including whether AI should be considered an author for copyright purposes.
Assuming one day AI can be considered an author, if a court was assessing joint authorship between a person and AI, each author’s contribution would be examined in detail. A “work of joint authorship” states that each author’s contribution must not be separate from the other. It’s likely that a person’s prompting of the AI would be deemed separate to what the AI system then does, so joint authorship would probably fail.
Do LLMs infringe on copyright?
A final issue is whether LLMs infringe others’ copyright through accessing data in training. Such data may be copyright-protected material. This requires an examination of the LLM training and output. Is a substantial portion of copyright-protected material reproduced? Or, is mass data synthesised without substantial reproduction?
If it is the earlier option, infringement may have occurred; if it’s the latter, there would be no infringement under current law. But even if output reproduces a portion of copyright-protected material, this might fall under a copyright exception. In Australia, this is called fair dealing.
Fair dealing permits particular purposes, such as research and study. In the US, similar fair use exceptions are broader in scope, so LLM output may be caught by this. Also, the European Union has a copyright exception for text and data mining which permits the use of data to train LLMs unless expressly prohibited by a rights-holder.
Seeing as AI is here to stay, a final point to ponder is whether amendments should be made to the Australian Copyright Act to allow an AI user to be considered an author for copyright purposes. Should we amend the law by following in the United Kingdom’s footsteps, or implement a text and data mining exception similar to that in the EU?
As AI initiatives continue advancing, Australian copyright law will likely grapple with these issues in the coming years.
Wellett Potter does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
After a long day of work or study, your brain might feel like it has been drained of energy. But does our brain burn more energy when engaging in mental athletics than it does during other activities, such as watching TV?
To answer this question, we have to look at the engine room of our brain: the nerve cells. The main energy currency of our brain cells is a molecule called adenosine triphosphate (or ATP), which our body makes from sugar and oxygen.
Tracing brain energy consumption can be done using both sugar and oxygen, but oxygen is the more accessible option.
Tracing oxygen consumption, the brain accounts for about 20% of the body’s energy consumption, despite only representing 2% of its weight.
That’s around 0.3 kilowatt hours (kWh) per day for an average adult, more than 100 times what the typical smartphone requires daily. And it’s equivalent to 260 calories or 1,088 kilojoules (kJ) a day (an average adult’s total energy intake is around 8,700 kJ a day).
In 2012, British neuroscientist David Attwell and colleagues measured oxygen consumption in slices of rat brains.
They determined that while 25% of energy needs are used for housekeeping activities, like maintenance of cell walls, the bulk 75% is used for information processing, such as computing and transmitting neural signals.
We can’t measure brain energy consumption in humans in this way, but we can follow the oxygen, as increased brain activity requires more oxygen.
One approach to measuring our bodies’ oxygen consumption changes is to measure CO₂ levels via a capnography device (where air goes into a tube). This requires participants to wear a mask but is otherwise non-invasive.
Research indeed shows increased mental load (such as performing mental arithmetic, reasoning, or multitasking) is linked to increased oxygen consumption (measured via CO₂ release).
However, the increased oxygen consumption could also be due to the whole body reacting to an emotional, stressful situation and not reflecting actual changes in brain activity.
Can we measure oxygen use just in the brain?
It’s complicated. Increased brain activity triggers an increased supply of oxygen-rich blood. That extra supply of oxygen-rich blood is region specific and can be (literally) channelled with micrometre precision to active neurons.
Since blood and its oxygen are weakly attracted by magnetic fields, we can use MRI (magnetic resonance imaging), a radiation-free tool, to obtain an, albeit indirect, measure of brain activity.
But unfortunately, we can’t use MRI to tell us how much energy our brain uses for different mental activities. MRI studies can only identify relative differences in brain activity and energy consumption rather than absolute values.
This makes sense, however, given that our brain is always on and therefore always has energy needs. Even in moments, we might casually consider idle-mind states, we still process vast amounts of information.
First, there is the ever-present sensory input: we typically don’t spend our day in a dark floatation tank.
Second, our mental activity, even in a seemingly task-less state, will bounce from us reminiscing about past events and planning our future.
Last, there are our emotions, which, even when subtle (such as feelings of serenity or uncertainty), are the products of brain activity and therefore come with an ongoing energy cost.
Let’s take something simple, such as paying attention. MRI studies have shown attentively monitoring moving objects compared to passively watching them increases brain activity in our visual cortex by around 1%.
This doesn’t seem very much, especially considering that the occipital lobe, which houses the visual cortex (which makes sense of what we see), only makes up about 18% of our brain mass.
But interestingly, processing visual information leads to a reduction of activity in auditory areas, meaning we spend less energy processing the sounds in our environment. This works the other way around as well: when we attend to auditory information, we reduce our visual processing activity.
On a whole-brain level, the cost of attention to a visual stimulus is probably already offset by savings in auditory processing.
Our brain makes trade-offs when we focus on different things. Shutterstock
So, in a nutshell, research tells us mental activity is indeed related to increased energy consumption. Still, the increase is minimal, region-specific and often offset by energy decreases in other areas.
Then why do we feel exhausted after too much mental activity?
It’s likely a result of mental stress. Complex mental tasks are typically also emotionally challenging and lead to increased activation of our sympathetic nervous system, ultimately leading to mental and physical fatigue.
The good news is we don’t have to worry that too much mental activity will drain our brain energy. But it’s still a good idea to pace yourself to avoid mental overload, stress and fatigue.
Oliver Baumann does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Australia’s woodland birds include colourful parrots, flitting honeyeaters, bright blue fairywrens and the unassuming “little brown birds”. Some, such as willie wagtails, laughing kookaburras and rosellas are found in urban gardens. Others, such as swift parrots and regent honeyeaters, are exceptional rarities for which bird enthusiasts spend days or weeks searching.
Critically endangered swift parrot, Bruny Island, Tasmania. Barry Baker, Author provided
There are other woodland birds you might never have noticed, such as pardalotes, thornbills, treecreepers, gerygones and nightjars. Forty woodland bird species are listed as threatened and several others are declining.
Efforts to help these species recover are being made. Common actions include replanting trees and installing nest boxes. But it is important we know which efforts are making the biggest difference. We can then ensure we are doing enough to recover these birds and directing resources to actions that work best.
Our systematic review collated all the published research we could find that tested the effectiveness of 26 conservation actions for woodland bird communities. And yet we found little evidence about exactly how effective most of these actions are.
Grassy woodlands like this are home to many threatened bird species. Image: Jessica Walsh, Author provided
Why don’t we know more about what works?
Australian woodland birds are a well-studied group of species. However, the research on management effectiveness for this ecological community is sparse. This limits our ability to develop general, evidence-based recommendations.
Some actions are certainly beneficial. For example, we know replanting trees and shrubs helps recover woodland birds. Leaving large pieces of dead wood on the ground helps too – birds like robins and treecreepers appreciate it.
However, many of the studies we reviewed didn’t compare sites where a conservation action was done with “control” sites – otherwise similar areas where that action hadn’t occurred. That made it difficult to compare the effectiveness of different actions. Because of this, we simply can’t be sure which actions work best in different contexts, and how large their effect is.
A replanting site compared with a paddock. Image: Jessica Walsh, Author provided
We found surprisingly few actions had been the subject of studies that used control sites, where birds were studied in similar sites where no action had been taken. This was true even for common actions, like control of weeds, feral herbivores (goats, pigs, deer) and predators (cats and foxes), or nest box installation.
All these actions probably have at least some benefits. Without more studies and appropriate controls, though, we can’t say how large the benefits are, or which action makes the biggest difference.
Where the evidence exists, results are mixed
Interestingly, four actions for which we could collate some clear evidence had mixed results. These actions were grazing management, prescribed burning, noisy miner control and habitat protection. The evidence shows their effects on birds depend on the site and management context.
Several habitat management actions showed mixed effects for woodland birds. Image: Jessica Walsh, Author provided
Reducing livestock grazing had mixed results for woodland birds. Sometimes the effects were positive, sometimes negative, and sometimes it had no effect.
Prescribed burning was unlikely to boost woodland bird numbers, with some studies showing no effect, and others negative effects.
These contradictory results could be due to differences in the bird communities, the severity of threats, or differences in the habitat or climatic conditions of the site, as well as in the landscapes surrounding the study sites.
They could also be explained by differences in how the management actions were implemented (such as intensity, frequency, method) and monitored (for example, time since the action took place). But because there was only a handful of studies, we couldn’t tease apart these reasons.
Despite declines of Australian woodland birds and ongoing investment in their conservation, we were unable to make generalised conclusions about the overall effectiveness of 26 conservation actions for these species. We still don’t know which management actions are most effective for this well-loved bird community. This knowledge gap is likely to be worse for less-studied taxonomic groups.
A male scarlet robin, one of the many much-loved woodland bird species. Martine Maron, Author provided
So what can we do to fill in the gaps?
To give us concrete answers, there are two key messages for conservation practitioners and researchers.
First, we need to do more research designed to test the effectiveness of management actions, and understand the context in which different results occur. These studies need rigorous study designs, appropriate controls and careful statistical reporting.
Second, we encourage practitioners to tap into the online database of existing studies that we did collate and the accompanying annotated bibliography. These provide a wealth of detailed practical information about each management action. These resources are a comprehensive collation of the best available evidence to help support management decisions for woodland birds.
We also encourage collaborations among practitioners and researchers to build the evidence base by evaluating management actions that are being implemented or soon to be trialled.
Unfortunately, these conclusions of “we need more research” and “it depends on the context” are not novel. However, we now have a clear understanding of the knowledge gaps.
In the meantime, avoiding damage and loss of habitat in the first place is the most important thing we can do.
Dr Jessica Walsh has received funding from the Australian Government National Environmental Science Programme Threatened Species Recovery Hub and BirdLife Australia.
Martine Maron has received funding from various sources including the Australian Research Council, the Queensland Department of Environment and Science, Bush Heritage Australia, and the Australian Government’s National Environmental Science Program. She is a member of the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists, President of BirdLife Australia, a Councillor with the Biodiversity Council, a member of the board of the Australian Wildlife Conservancy and a Governor of WWF-Australia
michelle.gibson@unimelb.edu.au has received funding from the Australian Government National Environmental Science Programme Threatened Species Recovery Hub and BirdLife Australia.
This article is part of our series on big ideas for the Universities Accord. The federal government is calling for ideas to “reshape and reimagine higher education, and set it up for the next decade and beyond”. A review team is due to finish a draft report in June and a final report in December 2023.
Education makes Australian citizens healthier, wealthier and more engaged with society. At the same time, government-funded research in higher education drives economic productivity in ways other government funding does not. Together, the future of Australian prosperity depends on the education and research undertaken within its tertiary education system, and especially our universities.
The Australian higher education system has served Australia well over the past 30 years, but it is not fit for the rapid pace of change to which the world will be subjected over the coming decades. If Australia is going to remain the “lucky country”, we are going to have make more of our own luck.
The federal government’s call for “lasting reform” for Australian universities with the Universities Accord offers a timely opportunity to take action.
In my personal submission to the accord process, I outline three big ideas to help reset higher education to deliver the system Australians need and deserve. The first is to provide each Australian with lifetime access to a single higher education system, spanning both university and vocational education.
In this piece I want to focus on my other two big ideas – improving the way we fund and then translate research. These offer some of the biggest and easiest bang-for-buck solutions we can enact.
Australia’s research ecosystem
Research funding in Australia has become very reliant on university fees from international students. Martin Adams/Unsplash
Australia’s research ecosystem has become highly reliant on funding via cross-subsidies from international student fees. Currently, Australian government expenditure in research and development – expressed as a fraction of GDP by the OECD as “GBARD” – is the lowest of the world’s advanced economies and is continuing to decline.
Instead, universities now spend more on research (using international student fees) than the government. This does not happen in other advanced economies.
Compounding this is the fact government funding of directed research for national benefit is short-term, ad hoc, not strategically planned across agencies, and is poorly aligned to university planning timescales. Over the past seven years as Vice-Chancellor of the Australian National University, I have seen dozens of different programs across various government agencies come and go with no overall coordination.
Research funding is also not fully integrated with workforce and major equipment needs, and this all leads to shortfalls in key areas of national research need. For example, if we look at critical minerals, the research infrastructure that underpins earth science is completely absent in planning and funding.
Universities, government, and business are not working together on the big research issues facing Australia. To fix this, Australia urgently needs a fully funded core sovereign research capability. We also need to better translate research beyond universities to the real world.
We need to identify and properly fund sovereign research
Sovereign research capability is about Australia being able to fund and undertake the research it deems vital to its national interests.
We must identify the core set of sovereign research capabilities necessary for the future security and prosperity of the Australian people. And we must fund these activities in full (including overheads), without the need of cross-subsidies from non-domestic sources. This requires a whole-of-government approach.
This core research should be expected to be uniformly excellent. It should include curiosity-driven research as well as research looking at practical solutions to existing problems (“applied research”). It should also go beyond technological developments to support the vibrancy of Australian democracy and culture.
A large fraction of the sovereign curiosity research money should be competitively allocated via existing bodies, the Australian Research Council and National Health and Medical Research Council grant system.
In addition to fully funding sovereign research capabilities, we must also rethink how we fund research translation for the public good. This is the process whereby we move research from labs or journals out into the real world.
When we fund applied research, we need to be strongly focused on outcomes. This includes the government directing funding for specific missions in areas of national need. This could be long-term, with timeframes of five to 20 years.
Independent expert-based boards would be given a budget to achieve specific goals within a time horizon, and invest across industry, government and the research sector to achieve these goals. This would replace current schemes for translating top-down government priorities.
In addition, we need a new suite of agile “bottom-up” supports for individuals’ ideas. This would also replace existing research translation schemes, which have typically been “set-and-forget” investments. without an expert stewardship over the ten-year-plus cycle necessary to get globally competitive capabililty.
Projects should be closely monitored and defunded when progress is deemed insufficient. Expert panels could also work with the private sector to rapidly increase investment of such programs when commercially justified.
Funding programs need to pay particular attention to the areas of market failure. Such a system should not crowd out existing private technology transfer, but do things that will not otherwise happen, and better connect industry, government and academia in the research ecosystem.
We need to rethink how we move research from labs or journals out into the real world. John Schnobrich/Unsplash
Blue-sky thinking
The foundational research done in universities underpins the sovereign capability of the nation to increase productivity, improve health and wellbeing, remain secure, and to solve and adapt to challenges that face society. This is the research universities do that leads to new products, jobs and industries never envisaged when the research cycle begins.
Work just in my own area of astro-particle physics has underpinned the WiFi, camera, GPS and touch screen of your phone, not to mention many recent startups across Australia.
But most of the value created for Australia is actually through indirect productivity spillovers. These are the people, ideas and capabilities created by Australian research that find their way in thousands of ways into Australia society that allow us to do more for less.
These are hard to measure, and emerge with a considerable lag, but our best estimates are that they are large. Government has a special role in funding this activity, as firms cannot typically capture the benefits of this work.
International education is becoming increasingly globally competitive. The margin from international student fees Australian universities are so reliant on to fund their research is bound to drop over coming decades.
So as part of a sovereign research capacity, Australia should set a minimum level for government sponsored foundational research as a fraction of GDP. This would bring Australia in line with other nations with advanced economies.
And if all universities are expected to undertake excellent research, a base amount of research funding should be made available either through student-based allocations or another mechanism. Alternatively, new types of future higher education institutions could have research dropped from their mission entirely.
If all universities are expected to undertake excellent research, they should be funded to do so. ThisIsEngineering/Unsplash
Making our own luck
Australian universities and their research have for many years made Australians’ lives and our world better. The government’s accord process gives us the chance to make sure our universities can continue to deliver on this promise for our future generations.
But we must act and this action must take serious stock in how we fund and translate research in Australia today.
If we fail to value and fund university research in the way that we need, and should, the so-called Lucky Country might just run out of luck.
Professor Brian Schmidt is the 2011 Nobel laureate in physics and Vice-Chancellor of The Australian National University. This article is based on his individual submission to Universities Accord review.
Brian Schmidt is Vice Chancellor of the Australian National University which is dependent on research funding from government, business, and philanthropy. He has received funding from the Australian Research Council. He is Chair of the Group of Eight, Chair of Fulbright Australia, Chair of the Australian Genomics Advisory Board, and non-executive director of Australia Astronomy Limited. He is a member of the Australian National Science and Technology Council and the Singaporean Academic Research Council.
Alone Australia follows individuals having an extreme adventure in wild Tasmania. From one perspective this seems like a foolish thing to do – participants must be crazy or fearless. Why else would anyone choose to be uncomfortable, alone and without a supermarket for weeks?
Based on the US reality TV show of the same name, participants are dropped off in remote Tasmania where they need to survive alone. The contestants film themselves throughout the ordeal with the person who remains the longest in the wilderness winning A$250,000.
The contestants have to overcome many obstacles: basic survival, isolation and loneliness and extreme fear. The traditional notion is that people who look for extreme opportunities in nature either feel “no fear” or have an inappropriate relationship to it. Participants doing similar extreme activities in nature have been most commonly explored from a negative perspective – for example, focusing on the “need to take unnecessary risks”, or the desire to prove themselves by battling against nature.
While participants in Alone Australia do have a “get out” plan, it is very easy for a serious accident to happen and for participants to be gripped by the fear of that likelihood. For example, contestants in the show voiced concerns about embedding an axe in a limb or being trapped by a large falling branch or being stuck in a deep muddy bog.
Supposedly, adventurers are driven by a pathological relationship with fear resulting from a personality disorder, yet these conjectures have never been scientifically substantiated.
Fear is seen as something that should be avoided, yet should this be so? Perhaps as the late president Roosevelt noted – paraphrasing the French philosopher Montaigne – we “have nothing to fear but fear itself”.
Research with people who actively search out extreme activities suggests other motives. Alone Australia shows us fear is more nuanced, and positive than assumed.
Fear as a messenger and guide
Like other emotions, fear tends to ebb and flow. Rather than remaining at the same level of intensity at all times, it depends on both internal and external factors and relates to fluctuating levels of danger.
Essentially, knowing when a venture would be too dangerous to attempt or continue, requires deep self knowledge about one’s strengths and limitations as well as extensive experiential knowledge of the environment. This does not come from a mindset whereby one is in competition with nature, but from being attuned to nature.
An important function of intuition is to detect danger. This can be felt through the body, where a response and systematic preparation for action originate before the intellect has a chance to ascertain the source of the danger and its various attributes such as immediacy, degree or complexity.
Gina, an Alone Australia contestant. SBS
Intuition, like any other sense, triggers bodily responses to fear before clear factual data is brought into cognitive awareness. The intuitive bodily movements that occur in response to danger are partly what affords an extraordinarily rapid response when there is perhaps only a fraction of a second available to mitigate or avoid catastrophic danger.
Aside from being a source of rapid information relay, fear has the pragmatic function of integrating senses, thoughts and actions, so that dangers can be addressed immediately.
Fear is a force which demands a sharpened focus of attention toward the source of danger in preparation for action, such as escaping.
Fear is a reliable messenger between the senses and the cognitive faculties. The realisation of danger, such as tree branches falling on an Alone Australia contestant’s head, hypothermia, the need for food and effective shelter, or even the onset of severe illness, require a rapid shift in focus toward the danger, with all other concerns immediately falling by the wayside.
If the environmental information contained in fear were forced to “queue up and wait its turn”, before it could finally arrive into cognitive awareness, the window of opportunity in which the danger could have otherwise been effectively evaluated and addressed could have already passed.
Fear as a guide
Fear is a benevolent force or guide which is often felt in the context of high adventure.
The information contained in fear is information used to make wise decisions under extremely dangerous and uncertain conditions. An intimate and harmonious relationship with fear brings vital information relating to danger into conscious awareness more quickly than any other means. The nature of fear is to instantly ignite the power of the body and the mind simultaneously, so that there is no delay in executing responses to danger.
In adventurism, fear is a friend, an essential companion, not something to fear. In Alone Australia, accepting fear as something useful and necessary is essential for survival.
Eric Brymer does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
According to a recent study, coastal shipping produces a fifth of the carbon emissions (well-to-wheel) of road freight. Rail also performed well, with about a quarter of trucking emissions.
Despite this, trucking accounts for nearly 80% of New Zealand’s heavy goods transport, and a 94.5% share of the total emissions from heavy freight transport.
The dominance of trucking follows the expansion of the road network, which enables trucks to move relatively fast, travel to hard-to-reach locations and adjust routes to meet the flexibility required for just-in-time deliveries.
The road network enables trucks to carry freight fast to most parts of the country. Transport Dashboard, CC BY-ND
But despite its advantages, trucking is associated with external costs, including higher carbon emissions than other modes of transportation.
This study represents the most comprehensive comparison of freight emissions for different carriers to date for Aotearoa New Zealand.
Before we evaluate decarbonisation pathways, we need to have a solid understanding of the freight system. To this end, we have created a transport dashboard to visualise the carbon footprint of freight movements within New Zealand.
These maps show where trucks (left) and rail (right) deliver most freight (in million tonnes). Transport dashboard, CC BY-ND
With decarbonisation commitments firmly locked into legislation, we have hard deadlines to cut emissions. Failure to do so will represent a risk to New Zealand’s economy and likely require taxpayer money to buy expensive international carbon offsets.
A shift to less energy-intensive freight transport modes like coastal shipping and rail represents a possible pathway to reducing fossil-fuel dependency.
But despite the benefits of sea and rail transport, it remains unclear how to achieve the shift to new infrastructure and technologies. A key requirement is access to an efficient multi-modal network that integrates ports, inland terminals, distribution hubs, roads and railways.
Lyttelton harbour is one of the starting points for freight shipping to other parts of New Zealand. Transport Dashboard, CC BY-ND
We can achieve economies of scale by transporting larger volumes of goods, which would lead to cheaper costs per unit. As the European Commission noted:
The challenge is to ensure structural change to enable rail to compete effectively and take a significantly greater proportion of medium and long-distance freight.
Our research was focused on creating a detailed understanding of New Zealand’s current heavy-freight system. Emissions reporting extended beyond the direct combustion of fuels and accounted for vehicle-embedded emissions. We also consolidated data from multiple sources, which helped with calculating energy demand and direct and indirect emissions for every freight mode.
For example, we found the majority of a truck’s lifetime emissions (almost 80%) come from the fuel it consumes. This is why it’s important to prioritise operational aspects and switch to non-fossil propulsion technologies.
It will take considerable investment to expand or upgrade transport networks and optimise freight corridors in terms of energy use and emissions. Beyond our research, we’ll need complementary work to investigate the technical and economic feasibility of non-fossil propulsion technologies.
We’ll have to take a holistic approach to map feasibility hurdles (technical challenges, material needs, system architecture and integration) that must be overcome.
The ultimate goal is to decrease fossil fuel demand and emissions while ensuring long-term economic and trading resilience.
Equally crucial is the participation and support from stakeholders. Freight transport is a complex system characterised by multiple interests (policy makers, shippers, freight forwarders, port and rail representatives) with sometimes conflicting views. Strategic planning also needs to acknowledge consumer preferences and their impacts on energy use.
The latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) elaborates on this:
Drawing on diverse knowledges and cultural values, meaningful participation and inclusive engagement processes—including Indigenous knowledge, local knowledge, and scientific knowledge—facilitates climate resilient development, builds capacity and allows locally appropriate and socially acceptable solutions.
Beyond the focus on emissions cuts, we need to engineer freight systems with a high capacity to adapt, so they can sustain trade and wellbeing while operating at much lower energy levels. The notion of adaptation also has to extend further than the current focus on physical protection against extreme weather events.
The tools and technologies to decarbonise freight transportation in New Zealand are available now. The problem lies in their integration and the understanding of the trade-offs at stake. Freight transport emissions can be reduced through cost-effective investments in multi-modal infrastructure and alternative propulsion technologies.
However, it is essential for future initiatives to operate within the biophysical limits of our planet, as emphasised in the IPCC’s report:
Technological innovation can have trade-offs such as new and greater environmental impacts, social inequalities, overdependence on foreign knowledge and providers, distributional impacts and rebound effects, requiring appropriate governance and policies to enhance potential and reduce trade-offs.
Patricio Gallardo works for EPECentre. In 2022, EPECentre carried out a project to estimate Greenhouse Gas Emissions from freight movements within New Zealand. The project was funded by Swire Shipping.
What happened on the Gallipoli peninsula in Turkey 108 years ago has shocked and shaped Aotearoa New Zealand ever since. The challenge in the 21st century, then, is how best to give contemporary relevance to such an epochal event.
The essence of the Anzac story is well known. As part of the first world war British Imperial Forces, the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (Anzacs) landed at Gallipoli on April 25 1915. For eight months they endured the constant threat of death or maiming in terrible living conditions.
Ultimately, their occupation of that narrow and rugged piece of Turkish coast failed. The 30,000 Anzacs were evacuated after eight months. More than 2700 New Zealand and 8700 Australian soldiers died, with many more wounded.
The first anniversary of the landing was a day of mourning, with Anzac Day becoming a public holiday in 1922. A remembrance day of sorrow mixed with pride, it has grown over the years to include all those who served and died in later international conflicts.
Over time, various narratives and themes have emerged from that Gallipoli “origin story”: of Aotearoa New Zealand’s emergence as a nation, proving itself to Britain and Empire; of the brave, fit, loyal soldier-mates who emblemised the Kiwi spirit of egalitarianism, fairness and duty. All this mingled with the lasting shock and underlying anger at class hierarchy and the British leadership’s incompetence.
But historians know well that the “Anzac spirit” is a complex and ever-evolving idea. In 2023, what do we teach school-aged children about its meaning and significance? One way forward is to rethink those Anzac narratives and tropes in a more complex way.
The cemetery at Lone Pine commemorates more than 4900 Anzac servicemen who died in the area. Image: Getty Images/The Conversation
Colonialism and class The Anzac story is tied up in the nation’s history as part of the British Empire. The Anzac toll was just part of a staggering 46,000 “Britons” — including many from India and Ireland — who died at Gallipoli.
Some 86,000 Turks also died defending their peninsula. We need to teach about the Anzac sacrifice in the context of a global conflict where the magnitude of loss was horrific.
Importantly, Anzac themes are bound up in early forms of colonial nationalism: New Zealand proving itself to Britain and developing its own fighting mentality on battlefields far from home.
Part of this involves the notion of incompetent British commanders who let down the Anzac troops — but this is part of a bigger story.
Focusing on imperial and class hierarchies of the time can place what happened in that broader context. The legendary story of Chunuck Bair, taken on August 8 by Colonel William Malone’s Wellington Regiment, but where most of the soldiers were killed when they were not relieved in time, is particularly evocative.
The New Zealand Wars memorial in New Plymouth . . . our other “great war”. Image: CC BY-SA/The Conversation
Māori and the imperial project From our vantage point in the present, of course, we cannot ignore the Māori experience of war and colonialism. As the historian Vincent O’Malley has suggested, New Zealand’s “great war” of nation-making was actually Ngā pakanga o Aotearoa — the New Zealand Wars.
It’s time to teach the complexity of this past and the multiple perspectives on it. For example, Waikato leader Te Puea Hērangi led opposition to World War I conscription and spoke against Māori participation on the side of a power that had only recently invaded her people’s land.
Conversely, Māori seeking inclusion in the settler nation did participate. On July 3, 1915, the 1st Māori Contingent landed at Anzac Cove. Te Rangi Hiroa (Sir Peter Buck) (Ngāti Mutunga) was to say:
Our feet were set on a distant land where our blood was to be shed in the cause of the Empire to which we belonged.
These words echo the familiar Anzac trope of the New Zealand nation being born at Gallipoli. Such sentiments led to postwar pilgrimages to retrace the steps of ancestors and claim the site as part of an Anzac heritage — a corner of New Zealand even.
For many young New Zealanders it has become a rite of passage, part of the big OE. That a visit to Anzac Cove is still more popular than visiting the sites of Ngā pakanga o Aotearoa is something our teaching can investigate.
Mateship and conformity The notion of the Anzac soldier as courageous and beyond reproach, willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for nation and empire, is also overdue for revision. The “glue” of mateship — a potent combination of masculine bravery and strength with extreme loyalty to fellow soldiers — is again a contested narrative.
By the 1970s, as historian Rowan Light’s work shows, there was a significant challenge to such perceptions from the counterculture, peace protesters and feminists. And by the 1980s, veterans were sharing their stories more candidly with writer Maurice Shadbolt and war historian Chris Pugsley.
Teaching about the meaning of mateship might examine the history of those peer-pressured into participating in war, those who were conscripted and had no choice, and more on the fate of conscientious objectors like Archibald Baxter. At its worst, the idea of mateship was window dressing for uniformity and parochialism.
New Zealanders today have complex multicultural and global roots. We have ancestors who were co-opted to fight on different sides in 20th-century wars, including those who fought anti-colonial wars in India, Ireland and Samoa.
Some came here as refugees escaping conflict. Jingoism and what it really represents deserves critical analysis.
Poppies and peace The ubiquitous poppy, an icon much reproduced in classrooms, is also ripe for contextualisation and debate over its meaning. In the age of global environmental crisis, it can be seen as more than a symbol of sacrifice immortalised in verse and iconography.
The poppy also reminds us of the landscapes devastated by the machinery of war that killed and maimed people, plants and animals. It contains within it myriad lessons about the threats science and technology can pose to a vulnerable planet.
Anzac Day rose from the shock, loss and grief felt by those on the home front. And beyond the familiar tropes of nationalism, mateship and egalitarianism, this remains its overriding mood.
Remembering and learning about the terrible physical and mental cost of war is the real point of those familiar phrases “lest we forget” and “never again”. That spirit of humanitarianism chimes with Aotearoa New Zealand’s modern role and evolving self-image as a peacekeeping, nuclear-free nation.
Anzac Day also speaks to the need for global peace and arbitration, and how war is no viable solution to conflict. Those are surely lessons worth teaching.
New Caledonia’s largest pro-independence party has been told that France is “panicking” and afraid of losing New Caledonia.
The head of the Caledonian Union Daniel Goa briefed the party in Koumac after a week of meetings of a cross-section of New Caledonian politicians with the French government in Paris earlier this month.
Goa said Paris kept reneging on earlier undertakings by pressing ahead with efforts to undo the 1998 Noumea Accord on the territory’s decolonisation in order to maintain its international influence.
He said there was major incomprehension on part of the French government of what the bilateral talks in Paris were supposed to be about.
Goa said Paris wanted concrete decisions in circumstances favouring the French government.
However, Goa said the decolonisation process and New Caledonia’s accession to sovereignty would be discussed in New Caledonia.
He again warned France against opening up the restricted electoral roll used for provincial elections.
Bid to extend voting rights Anti-independence parties have urged Paris to extend voting rights for the 2024 elections after the 2021 referendum saw a majority of voters reject full sovereignty.
The pro-independence side, however, largely abstained from the vote in 2021 because of the covid-19 pandemic and still refuses to recognise the result as the legitimate outcome of the decolonisation process.
Under the terms of the Noumea Accord voting in provincial elections is restricted to indigenous Kanaks and those who have been residents in the territory since 1998.
About 40,000 French citizens are excluded from provincial elections but can take part in France’s parliamentary and presidential elections.
Goa warned of what he called irreversible solutions if France imposed a change to the rolls, adding that there would be a risk of there never being any election.
He said the survival of the Kanaks hinged on this issue.
Caledonian Union’s Daniel Goa . . . France needs to choose between moving in the direction of history or ending up in the “rubbish bin of colonial history”. Image: RNZ Pacific/AFP
Goa said opening the roll to recent arrivals would create a new imbalance and extinguish the Kanaks’ vision of politics.
‘Colonial state’ opposed He stressed that the Kanaks would no longer allow the colonial state to impose itself.
He said the French state was pushing the Kanaks to their last entrenchments, but they would be present in their own way to take responsibility to liberate their country.
Goa said the Kanaks’ sovereignty was no longer negotiable, adding that the land is not a land of France and will never be a land of France.
He said it was a shame to imagine the worst, but France was going against the “wind of history” as the United Nations kept calling for the eradication of colonialism.
Goa said France had to choose between moving in the direction of history or ending up in the “rubbish bin of colonial history”.
He put Paris on notice that a refusal to restore the territory’s sovereignty would drive the Kanak people to seek support elsewhere.
Goa said France did not and would not recognise the Kanaks’ rights, which would prompt the pro-independence camp to turn to new allies.
France ‘lonely in Pacific’ He said all major powers were around the Pacific rim but France, as only a small European country, was lonely in the Pacific.
Goa said the French army never defended New Caledonia when it was threatened, but only killed Kanaks, plundered their land, carried out punitive expeditions, brutally treated and displaced Kanak populations, and killed their elders.
He also castigated President Emmanuel Macron’s China policy, asking whether France could be trusted.
Goa said France still wanted to give the illusion of existing in a concert of nations but the President, out of clumsiness, had betrayed his European and American allies by pledging allegiance to China.
He said in the Pacific context, France would on one hand “sell” New Caledonia to China and on the other hand, France kept saying not to deal with China in whatever way, brandishing the “Chinese threat” as the worst thing that could happen.
Goa said with the French presidency and the country adrift, there was a risk for New Caledonia to be dragged into a void.
Southern Province president Sonia Backes . . . threats of action in case of changes to the rolls “unacceptable”. Image: RNZ Pacific
Backes slams Goa’s speech Daniel Goa’s speech was criticised by a leading anti-independence politician, Sonia Backes, who regarded Goa’s comments about the electoral rolls as a call to violence.
Backes, president of the Southern Province and a junior member of the French government, told La Première television that Goa’s threats of action in case of changes to the rolls were unacceptable.
She also took issue with Goa’s warning that the Kanaks would ally themselves with other powers, should their ambition to attain independence be thwarted by France.
Backes said the anti-independence coalition had referred the speech to the public prosecutor for alleged calls for violence and sedition.
She wondered if Goa considered that those opposed to independence had no place on this world and could not be asked to discuss the future.
Backes said the other side needed to explain itself.
Institutions not functioning She said her side had an interest in finding a consensus because New Caledonia’s institutions no longer functioned.
She added that it was no longer possible to have 45,000 people excluded from the rolls and do nothing for them while waiting for a possible consensus on how to open the rolls.
Noumea’s marina . . . the anti-independence parties want Paris to realign the territory with France. Image: Johnny Blades/RNZ Pacific
After the rejection of full sovereignty in three referendums and the expiry of the Noumea Accord, a new statute for New Caledonia has to be created.
While the pro-independence parties want Paris to give a timetable to full independence, the anti-independence parties want Paris to realign the territory with France.
After this month’s talks in Paris, discussions will be continued in Noumea in June when French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin plans his next visit.
His ministry said in May he would go to the United Nations in New York to discuss the situation in New Caledonia.
The territory has been on the UN decolonisation list since 1986, based on the Kanak people’s internationally recognised right to self-determination.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Deepmind/Unsplash/Artist: Champ Panupong Techawongthawon, CC BY-NC-SA
Artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming ever more prevalent in our lives. It’s no longer confined to certain industries or research institutions; AI is now for everyone.
It’s hard to dodge the deluge of AI content being produced, and harder yet to make sense of the many terms being thrown around. But we can’t have conversations about AI without understanding the concepts behind it.
We’ve compiled a glossary of terms we think everyone should know, if they want to keep up.
Algorithm
An algorithm is a set of instructions given to a computer to solve a problem or to perform calculations that transform data into useful information.
Alignment problem
The alignment problem refers to the discrepancy between our intended objectives for an AI system and the output it produces. A misaligned system can be advanced in performance, yet behave in a way that’s against human values. We saw an example of this in 2015 when an image-recognition algorithm used by Google Photos was found auto-tagging pictures of black people as “gorillas”.
Artificial General Intelligence (AGI)
Artificial general intelligence refers to a hypothetical point in the future where AI is expected to match (or surpass) the cognitive capabilities of humans. Most AI experts agree this will happen, but disagree on specific details such as when it will happen, and whether or not it will result in AI systems that are fully autonomous.
Artificial neural networks are computer algorithms used within a branch of AI called deep learning. They’re made up of layers of interconnected nodes in a way that mimics the neural circuitry of the human brain.
Big data
Big data refers to datasets that are much more massive and complex than traditional data. These datasets, which greatly exceed the storage capacity of household computers, have helped current AI models perform with high levels of accuracy.
Big data can be characterised by four Vs: “volume” refers to the overall amount of data, “velocity” refers to how quickly the data grow, “veracity” refers to how complex the data are, and “variety” refers to the different formats the data come in.
Chinese Room
The Chinese Room thought experiment was first proposed by American philosopher John Searle in 1980. It argues a computer program, no matter how seemingly intelligent in its design, will never be conscious and will remain unable to truly understand its behaviour as a human does.
This concept often comes up in conversations about AI tools such as ChatGPT, which seem to exhibit the traits of a self-aware entity – but are actually just presenting outputs based on predictions made by the underlying model.
Deep learning
Deep learning is a category within the machine-learning branch of AI. Deep-learning systems use advanced neural networks and can process large amounts of complex data to achieve higher accuracy.
These systems perform well on relatively complex tasks and can even exhibit human-like intelligent behaviour.
Diffusion model
A diffusion model is an AI model that learns by adding random “noise” to a set of training data before removing it, and then assessing the differences. The objective is to learn about the underlying patterns or relationships in data that are not immediately obvious.
These models are designed to self-correct as they encounter new data and are therefore particularly useful in situations where there is uncertainty, or if the problem is very complex.
Explainable AI
Explainable AI is an emerging, interdisciplinary field concerned with creating methods that will increase users’ trust in the processes of AI systems.
Due to the inherent complexity of certain AI models, their internal workings are often opaque, and we can’t say with certainty why they produce the outputs they do. Explainable AI aims to make these “black box” systems more transparent.
Generative AI
These are AI systems that generate new content – including text, image, audio and video content – in response to prompts. Popular examples include ChatGPT, DALL-E 2 and Midjourney.
Labelling
Data labelling is the process through which data points are categorised to help an AI model make sense of the data. This involves identifying data structures (such as image, text, audio or video) and adding labels (such as tags and classes) to the data.
Humans do the labelling before machine learning begins. The labelled data are split into distinct datasets for training, validation and testing.
The training set is fed to the system for learning. The validation set is used to verify whether the model is performing as expected and when parameter tuning and training can stop. The testing set is used to evaluate the finished model’s performance.
Large Language Model (LLM)
Large language models (LLM) are trained on massive quantities of unlabelled text. They analyse data, learn the patterns between words and can produce human-like responses. Some examples of AI systems that use large language models are OpenAI’s GPT series and Google’s BERT and LaMDA series.
Machine learning
Machine learning is a branch of AI that involves training AI systems to be able to analyse data, learn patterns and make predictions without specific human instruction.
Natural language processing (NLP)
While large language models are a specific type of AI model used for language-related tasks, natural language processing is the broader AI field that focuses on machines’ ability to learn, understand and produce human language.
Parameters
Parameters are the settings used to tune machine-learning models. You can think of them as the programmed weights and biases a model uses when making a prediction or performing a task.
Since parameters determine how the model will process and analyse data, they also determine how it will perform. An example of a parameter is the number of neurons in a given layer of the neural network. Increasing the number of neurons will allow the neural network to tackle more complex tasks – but the trade-off will be higher computation time and costs.
Responsible AI
The responsible AI movement advocates for developing and deploying AI systems in a human-centred way.
One aspect of this is to embed AI systems with rules that will have them adhere to ethical principles. This would (ideally) prevent them from producing outputs that are biased, discriminatory or could otherwise lead to harmful outcomes.
Sentiment analysis
Sentiment analysis is a technique in natural language processing used to identify and interpret the emotions behind a text. It captures implicit information such as, for example, the author’s tone and the extent of positive or negative expression.
Supervised learning
Supervised learning is a machine-learning approach in which labelled data are used to train an algorithm to make predictions. The algorithm learns to match the labelled input data to the correct output. After learning from a large number of examples, it can continue to make predictions when presented with new data.
Training data
Training data are the (usually labelled) data used to teach AI systems how to make predictions. The accuracy and representativeness of training data have a major impact on a model’s effectiveness.
Transformer
A transformer is a type of deep-learning model used primarily in natural language processing tasks.
The transformer is designed to process sequential data, such as natural language text, and figure out how the different parts relate to one another. This can be compared to how a person reading a sentence pays attention to the order of the words to understand the meaning of the sentence as a whole.
One example is the generative pre-trained transformer (GPT), which the ChatGPT chatbot runs on. The GPT model uses a transformer to learn from a large corpus of unlabelled text.
Turing Test
The Turing test is a machine intelligence concept first introduced by computer scientist Alan Turing in 1950.
It’s framed as a way to determine whether a computer can exhibit human intelligence. In the test, computer and human outputs are compared by a human evaluator. If the outputs are deemed indistinguishable, the computer has passed the test.
Google’s LaMDA and OpenAI’s ChatGPT have been reported to have passed the Turing test – although critics say the results reveal the limitations of using the test to compare computer and human intelligence.
Unsupervised learning
Unsupervised learning is a machine-learning approach in which algorithms are trained on unlabelled data. Without human intervention, the system explores patterns in the data, with the goal of discovering unidentified patterns that could be used for further analysis.
Kok-Leong Ong receives funding from NHMRC, MRFF and CSIRO.
Samar Fatima does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Members of the Australian Army Medical Women’s Service at work in the sterilising room of a military hospital, 1943. State Library of Victoria
Sheila Sibley enlisted in the Australian Army in 1942 with a vision of becoming a wartime nurse – “an angel of mercy, the wounded man’s guide … the Rose of No-Man’s Land”, in her own words.
Many women wanted to “do their bit” during the second world war, and nursing had previously been the only avenue for women to join the military. They had historically been excluded from traditionally masculine roles within the armed forces.
Sibley, however, never became a nurse. Ideas of becoming “this war’s Florence Nightingale” were let go, and nursing was left to those who had trained for it.
The establishment of women’s auxiliaries to Australia’s military in the early 1940s created new opportunities for women. This included expanded roles in military hospitals, but also jobs that reached far beyond the hospital ward. Women were called to serve as signallers and telegraph operators, mechanics, and even coastal artillery and anti-aircraft gunners.
These jobs were a clear break from the expected role of women at the time.
However, my research shows servicewomen like Sibley had to fight on another front: to have their contributions to the war acknowledged, in a time when much of their efforts were considered “women’s work”.
The battle for hygiene
In January 1941, 200 Australian servicewomen marched-in as orderlies to support Army nurses working in the Middle East. At first, they were given laborious jobs such as reclaiming bandages for reuse, “regardless of how revolting they were”, according to Sibley’s colleague Alice Penman.
Soon the nursing sisters trained the female orderlies in tasks such as dressing patient wounds.
Stories from servicewomen in the Middle East were returned to Australia and they encouraged other women to join them. “Work hard,” said servicewoman Rita Hind, “because I am sure it is going to be a marvellous experience.”
Military officials also heard the stories of these women and noticed they had become a skilled and useful resource for the hospital.
In December 1942, these servicewomen were given their own branch of the Army, known as the Australian Army Medical Women’s Service. With the creation of the new auxiliary, servicewomen’s roles in military hospitals expanded to include those alongside nurses in patient wards and operating theatres, to those “behind the scenes” of hospitals such as in pathology laboratories, kitchens, laundries, and postal and telegraph offices.
Assigned duties that were considered then as “menial”, “domestic” or the “work of a housewife”, servicewomen working in the fundamental areas of hospital efficiency struggled to be seen.
Today, the COVID pandemic has illustrated the important work of all those who contribute to the health system. But there are few stories told about the historical work of women who toiled behind the scenes to ensure military hospitals ran efficiently and effectively during the second world war.
Private Sheila Sibley, at the 115th Australian General Hospital in Heidelberg in Melbourne’s northeast, c.1943. State Library of Victoria
Posted to duty in the laundry of the 115 Australian General Hospital (AGH) at Heidelberg, Victoria, Sibley came to appreciate that the laundry was fundamental to the maintenance of hygiene in hospitals. “Everyone who works in a laundry at an AGH,” Sibley suggests, “is fighting for the lives of the wounded as steadfastly as that clever surgeon.”
The correlation between hygiene and the health and recovery of patients was still in its infancy in the 1940s. Laundry work was also still considered to be “women’s work”.
Sibley stood up against the gendered portrayals of her wartime work. A hospital laundry bears no resemblance to its domestic counterpart with its industrial machinery to wash, dry, iron and fold linen and clothes. To Sibley, the laundry was the battlefront and the machines her weapons. She wrote:
What may look like a washing machine in our big military hospitals is really artillery firing its rounds of good clean washing against the enemies, disease and death.
Fighting stereotypes
The strategy of other servicewomen to break from gendered boundaries was less overt.
Sergeant Thelma Powell quietly worked in her role at the No. 1 Facio-Maxillary and Plastic Unit where she became an artist painting artificial eyes for injured soldiers.
Private EM Boyle sitting for Sergeant Thelma Powell, 1946. Australian War Memorial
Before the war, Powell had an interest in fine art through her hobby of smoke-etching china. It was through her fine attention to detail and her meticulous care in the highly technical work of painting artificial eyes that Powell pushed back on expectations of women at the time.
Powell showed that the skills from a “hobby for women” could be applied to an important occupation directly affecting the rehabilitation and lives of injured men.
Given the ingrained gendered expectations within society at the time, the attempts of those like Powell and Sibley to highlight servicewomen’s work and afford their labour proper recognition were overshadowed.
Patients noticed their care, and medical professionals relied on their service, but their stories have not been told.
Jason Smeaton does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katinka van de Ven, Alcohol and other drug specialist, University of New South Wales &, University of New England
Shutterstock
Alcohol and other drug treatment in Australia is generally only provided for individuals, often away from their families.
Treatment can include withdrawal from the substance, counselling and residential rehabilitation. All these treatments work to improve health and wellbeing and reduce the harms from substances.
But people’s families and communities can influence substance use and have the potential to aid the healing journey of people in treatment.
For a lot of First Nations peoples, health and wellbeing is not just about the individual. It’s interconnected with family, culture, belonging and Country.
That’s why treatment services such as Pinangba in Queensland – a First Nations alcohol and other drug service whose approach we have been researching – includes families, culture and Country in treatment.
This way of pursuing treatment should be available for everyone.
The role of families in treatment
Families and community can play an essential role in giving up alcohol and other drugs and avoiding relapse. Research shows advice or encouragement from family members is an important reason for giving up or reducing problematic substance use.
However, some people who attend treatment facilities alone often have limited support back home in their communities to maintain sobriety or reduced consumption.
Family and communities do not always have the right tools to support the individual in treatment, and some family members may experience problematic substance use themselves.
Family members may not have the tools to support a loved one after treatment. Shutterstock
What happens at Pinangba?
Pinangba is an Indigenous-led residential rehabilitation service in Queensland. It’s one of a small number of alcohol and other drug treatment services in Australia that take in the entire family unit of adults and children for the residential stay.
Pinangba adopts a systemic family therapy model. The therapist is invited to consider not only the context of the individual within their family but also consider the context of the family in relation to the broader social, political and historical systems.
There is an emphasis on building, strengthening and repairing relationships as part of the healing work of the client.
Pinangba also considers the environments most influential in a client’s life (social services, work, court) that may impact their healing journey.
Its family-based approach helps clients to engage and stay in treatment, stay abstinent and improve relationships. This approach also positively impacts the alcohol and other drug use of other family members and improves the functioning of their children.
Pinangba family therapy approach to addiction has been positively received by clients, families, community, and other health and social service providers.
Non-Indigenous people also benefit from this model. Family-focused interventions for non-Indigenous people with substance use issues have been effective for both young people and adults. Not only do these interventions reduce substance use, they also improve family functioning compared to individual-based treatment.
Despite these positive outcomes, family-focused interventions within alcohol and other drug services is still uncommon.
Barriers to implementation are not only related to the individualised treatment focus, but also to issues such as difficulties of involving family in treatment, limited staff time, lack of experience and insufficient training.
A number of barriers need to be overcome to roll it out more widely. Shutterstock
Expanding access 3 ways
For this family-focused model of care to be incorporated into both Indigenous and non-Indigenous alcohol and other drug services we need better data collection and better funding. Here are three important steps towards this implementation:
1. Careful evaluation of programs with family engagement, family therapy and holistic treatment.
There is currently little knowledge about the effectiveness of this model for First Nations people. That is exactly what we are doing with Pinangba: with funding from the Queensland Mental Health Commission we are building an evaluation integrated into routine service delivery, to demonstrate how such holistic, family-oriented treatment works.
It is vital that data are collected as part of routine practices so an evidence-base can be built up.
2. Routine data collection practices that does not rely on external funding.
Organisations that fund alcohol and other drug treatment for First Nations peoples (including the Commonwealth, Primary Health Networks and state governments) should ensure funding levels adequate so services can spend time collecting and entering data on client progress and outcomes.
This is currently not the case. Collecting evaluation data is seen as an added extra, not as an essential part of ongoing service delivery. This needs to change.
3. Funding that looks beyond individual models of care.
Newer ways of working, where families become the “treatment unit” will involve new costs, new buildings, new ways of working, new data collection, and will require more funding and planning.
If we were really thinking about families, we need to think about treatment with a family, not an individual. This shift in thinking needs to occur across all levels of the system.
Katinka van de Ven receives funding from state and territory governments including the Queensland Mental Health Commission.
Alison Ritter receives funding from the NHMRC, the ARC, and state/territory governments.
Erin Cunningham receives funding from Queensland Mental Health Commission for the Pinangba Research Project.
It was pitched as the “most significant” shift in Australia’s armed forces in decades. And among the headline announcements, climate change was recognised as an issue of national security.
But the strategic review of Australia’s military released yesterday doesn’t go a lot further than that when it comes to the climate crisis. The review devotes just over one of its 100 pages to what climate change means for defence.
And while overseas analysts and militaries seriously address the strategic effects of climate change and the role for defence, the Australian review focused more on climate change as a potential distraction from the military’s core business of war fighting. As our armed forces are increasingly called to respond to natural disasters, the review reports, they are less ready to fight a war.
This focus is too narrow. It’s also a long way from what the research is telling us, and a long way from what our allies are doing.
What’s the link between climate change and national security?
At a fundamental level, security doesn’t mean much if it doesn’t extend to conditions of survival. The climate emergency has been described as a direct threat to both human and ecological security.
But climate change also hangs over the traditional security agenda, which is to defend against any attacks. Forward-thinking militaries around the world have begun to prepare for these effects.
Climate change could make armed conflict more likely by acting as a “threat multiplier”.
Climate-driven droughts, desertification, changing rainfall patterns and the loss of arable land could lead to the collapse of governments or a fleeing population.
Former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon and some analysts have pointed to the role of climate change in contributing to armed conflict in Sudan’s Darfur region and Syria’s civil war.
Unchecked climate change is likely to trigger more demand for armed forces to respond to natural disasters, predicted to increase in intensity and frequency on a hotter planet.
Yesterday’s strategic review focuses on this demand, and for good reason – it’s already happening.
Increasingly, the army and air force are being called on to respond to Australia’s tide of “unprecedented disasters” like the floods of the last three years, and the summer of fire in 2019–20. Navy ships evacuated hundreds from the beach at Mallacoota in Victoria, under eerie light.
And then there’s the world. The demand for army-backed humanitarian help is rising. Our neighbours are among the most vulnerable in the world to the effects of natural disasters.
Beyond responses to refugees, conflict and natural disasters, there’s the question of how militaries are equipped, trained and resourced.
Higher temperatures, rising seas and natural disasters could threaten defence infrastructure and bases. Australia’s defence department is the largest landholder in the country, much of it in exposed coastal areas.
Our military has a substantial “carbon bootprint”, given it relies heavily on machines which burn fossil fuels, from destroyers to tanks. Ensuring these have enough fuel in the future is a concern, especially if the substantial military contribution to greenhouse gas emissions comes under more scrutiny.
In this sense it was good to see the review note the importance of the military accelerating a transition to clean energy. But the urgency of the climate crisis suggests our military should also be factoring climate change into procurement considerations and equipment management now. To date, there’s little evidence Australia has done so.
What are other countries doing?
Key partners like America, the UK and many other countries are well ahead of us. In my ongoing research, I’ve analysed climate responses and interviewed policymakers from other nations. This suggests we’re lagging well behind.
The US military began analysing what climate change would mean for it back in the 1990s. Biden’s government has given climate change greater priority in its National Security Council and firmly linked climate and security in what one interviewee told me was a “game changer”.
The UK has an expert body within its defence ministry examining the security implications of climate change. In 2021, it produced a strategic document with emissions cut goals for its armed forces, as well as investment to make the transition possible.
New Zealand has gone beyond reactive responses and embraced an active role for its military in responding to natural disasters at home and in the region. One interviewee told me this was central to the military’s “social licence”.
New Zealand’s position has been strongly influenced by the concerns of its Pacific neighbours. Wellington decision makers also decided defence will not be exempt from government-mandated goals to get to net zero.
France has taken a similar position on humanitarian assistance and disaster relief focused on its overseas territories and the wider Francophone world. These operations are presented not as a distraction but as a core commitment.
Sweden and Germany used their time on the UN Security Council in recent years to push for a resolution on the organisation’s role in addressing the international security implications of climate change. And when Sweden joins NATO, it’s likely to push for more military preparation for climate change given recent NATO commitments on this front.
Can Australia catch up?
Yes. But the first step is to recognise where we are – and where the world is heading.
Australia’s defence sector must seriously engage with what climate change will bring, not least given our region’s acute vulnerabilities and the existential concerns of our Pacific neighbours.
Unfortunately, yesterday’s review suggests our defence establishment does not wholly share these concerns.
Matt McDonald has received funding from the Australian Research Council and the UK Economic and Social Research Council. Research for this article was funded by an Australian Research Council grant: DP190100709.
Buying a home is likely to be the biggest financial transaction you will ever make, and you’re at a distinct disadvantage. You’re an amateur up against professionals – real estate agents – versed in psychological tricks to get you excited about owning a property and paying more than you planned.
These tricks start with comparatively simple things such as making rooms look bigger in adverts by using a wide-angle photography. They extend all the way to the point of sale.
None of these tactics necessarily involve outright lying – there are laws against false and misleading conduct. But they are manipulative, exploiting the fact that humans are emotional beings with many “cognitive biases” – a perception of reality that is more emotional ratther than rational.
The three most common tactics come down to manipulating your confidence in your own decisions. Close to 80 studies suggest overconfidence is one of the most significant cognitive biases influencing behaviour in the real estate market.
1. Underquote, entice the bargain hunters
You see a property in your price range that’s everything you want. You call the agent, inspect the property, then prepare for the auction. It sells for $200,000 more.
Underquoting involves deliberately advertising a property significantly lower than its likely sales price. While the prevalence of the practice is disputed, with industry representatives saying most agents do the right thing, anecdotal evidence points to underquoting being very common.
Underquoting is effective because it attracts more interested buyers and increases the number and intensity of bidding. It exploits two of the most ubiquitous cognitive biases – herd behaviour and irrational exuberance.
More interest doesn’t just increase competition. A real estate agent will communicate that interest to us, confirming our desire in the property is justified.
This tendency to “follow the herd” and imitate others, as US economist Robert Shiller noted in an influential 1995 paper, is built on the assumption others have information that justifies their actions.
Real estate agents will generally favour auctions to extract the maximum sales price, for the reasons outlined above and the prospect of auction fever – when carefully decided limits are forgotten in the thrill of the moment.
But that’s not always the case. In a soft market with few buyers, agents may instead opt for a private sale, sometimes called a “silent auction”. The goal here is to cause you to overestimate the degree of competition and thus make a bigger offer.
An agent might assist this perception by instead supplying you with information from previous public auctions of similar properties more favourable to their preferred narrative.
The value of hiding information also explains why you may come across so many sold listings with labels such as “price not disclosed” or “price withheld.” The reason for this may well be that the property sold for less than hoped.
Hiding information the agent doesn’t want you to think about depends principally on exploiting our cognitive bias towards overconfidence – assuming we are smarter, more knowledgeable or better skilled than we actually are.
In lieu of that negative information, you are more likely to focus on the available information – particularly if it suits what you want to believe.
You may have heard the old saying that property values double every 10 years. Stressing what a property is likely to be worth in a decade based on what it was worth a decade ago can be a powerful motivator to bid more.
As Robert Shiller noted in his 2013 book The Subprime Solution (about the property-buying mania that led to the Global Financial Crisis), homes are such significant investments that we tend to recall their prices from the distant past (unlike, say, like a loaf of bread or bottle of milk).
This tendency results in an unconscious focus on nominal values rather than real (inflation-adjusted) values. This cognitive bias is known as the money illusion, a mental miscalculation that may increase your willingness to pay more for the property.
In conclusion…
There’s a case for laws to increase transparency and the accuracy of information available in the real estate market.
But in the meantime, if you’re buying a home, it’s wise to acknowledge your limitations. Do your homework, seek out independent advice and even consider hiring a professional advocate with the knowledge and experience to balance emotional and rational thoughts.
Peyman Khezr does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Despite the latest inflation figures for New Zealand coming in slightly lower than expected by many economists, the rate remains stubbornly high. At 6.7% for the year to March 2023, the inflation rate is more than double the Reserve Bank’s target range of 1-3%.
But not everyone seems to be feeling the pain of increasing prices.
The answer may surprise you. The reality is that corporate profit-making contributes very little to the inflation rate.
Market power and inflation
When a seller has the ability to choose the price, economists say that the firm has market power. But their ability to raise prices is not unlimited. Just consider the case of Arivale, a health-tech startup in the United States that ultimately failed because it set the initial price of its offering too high.
The extent of market power determines how high a business can set its price above its costs (its markup) in order to maximise its profitability. The optimal markup for a business depends on how sensitive its customers are to price changes.
In markets where customers are very sensitive to price changes, businesses will set lower prices (a lower markup) than in markets where customers are less sensitive to price changes. The optimal markup (as a percentage of the price) won’t change unless there is a change in customers’ price sensitivity.
Higher inflation is unlikely to cause consumers to suddenly become less sensitive to price changes. If anything, they will become more price sensitive and optimal markups should fall. That is why a strong majority (79%) of economists recently polled by the University of Chicago disagreed or strongly disagreed that market power was a significant factor in higher US inflation.
If not profit, then what?
So, if businesses aren’t profiting by increasing their markups, what explains the increased profits in a period of high inflation?
There are two other reasons why prices may rise, one of which may contribute to higher profits.
First, businesses may face an increase in demand for the goods or services they provide. With historically low interest rates (until recently), coupled with the wage and other subsidies as we emerged from the pandemic, a lot of money was chasing the same number of goods and services. That sort of increased demand pushes up prices and makes businesses more profitable.
Second, businesses face higher costs because of inflation, including wage inflation. When costs are higher, businesses pass on some of those higher costs onto their customers in the form of higher prices. For most businesses, higher prices arising from higher costs will not lead to higher profits.
Taking those two factors together (higher demand leading to increasing prices and profits; and higher costs leading to increasing prices), it is likely that increased profits are not a cause of inflation, but are themselves a consequence of the other underlying causes of higher inflation.
Recent work by economists at the Treasury showed that the surge in New Zealand inflation was one-third driven by demand-side factors, one-third by supply-side factors, and the remaining one-third was ambiguous (it could be demand-side or supply-side). All of the recent increases in food prices was able to be attributed to demand-side or supply-side factors. That again suggests that there has been little scope for businesses’ profit-seeking to contribute to inflation.
Periods of high inflation are unwelcome. We may be tempted to blame corporate profits as they represent an easily identifiable target. However, it is unlikely that profits are contributing much, if anything, to the inflation we are currently facing.
Michael P. Cameron does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
In early April, when Elon Musk randomly and very briefly replaced the Twitter bird logo with the face of the “doge” meme, the value of the dogecoin both rose and fell by a matter of billions of dollars in value on the cryptomarket.
Internet users revelled in the idea that a simple doge meme could impact the real world in such a dramatic way. This relative absurdity is also coupled with the fact that dogecoin itself was started in 2013 as a “joke coin”, but is now the seventh biggest cryptocurrency in the world.
The fact that a meme, based on a “peculiar” but largely unremarkable rescue dog, could rule over the fate of billions of dollars worth of market value speaks to the totally remarkable nature of the strange phenomenon of Internet memes.
At one time in our internet’s history, memes were perhaps regarded as mere playful and inconsequential byproducts of online culture. However, now, it is clear that memes have very real impacts on our world. Things that leave impacts also leave history.
So not only do memes play a clear role in public discourse, but we are now appreciating that the family tree of memes holds memory. Memes are simultaneously a fascinating historical record of digital culture as well as the detritus of the cyber age.
What’s a doge?
Originally, a random internet user posted a photograph of their shiba inu dog on their blog, after which another user saw the image and posted it to the Reddit platform. This is where the image was first paired with the word “doge” (and the word doge has its own separate history).
Some memes come and go, ending as cyber-waste in the internet graveyard – these are the cringe memes like Minions or Bad Luck Brian that haunt early Facebook timelines.
Other memes have the capacity to hold so much meaning that they have impressive longevity and traverse endless iterations, mutations and politics. The reasons for this are many and varied, but my research shows that in the case of doge, as in the case of Pepe the Frog, the anthropomorphic nature of the icon is part of the longevity and adaptability.
We laugh at animals because they remind us of the foibles of human nature. They are easy to laugh at because they are not us, but they are enough like us that we can project our weaknesses and vulnerability on them – and laugh about them.
An early example of the Doge meme. Wikimedia Commons
What is a meme?
I say, of course, internet memes because the term “meme” actually existed prior to the home-based use of the internet.
In a research project by James Hall and myself, we explain that even though there is some contestation about the first uses of the term, as well as its usefulness in theoretical application, it is generally conceded that Richard Dawkins coined the term in the iconic book The Selfish Gene published in 1976.
We need a name for the new replicator, a noun that conveys the idea of a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation . ‘Mimeme’ comes from a suitable Greek root, but I want a monosyllable that sounds a bit like ‘gene’. I hope my classicist friends will forgive me if I abbreviate mimeme to meme.
At the time of writing, of course, Dawkins was not referring to the classic image macros usually thought of as memes. He was referring to other cultural units, such as: “…tunes, ideas, catchphrases, clothes fashions, ways of making pots or of building arches”.
Dawkins felt that:
Just as genes propagate themselves in the gene pool by leaping from body to body via sperms or eggs, so memes propagate themselves in the meme pool by leaping from brain to brain via a process which, in the broad sense, can be called imitation.
As many concepts do, the term finally leeched out of the academic realm and into the popular vernacular.
The Success Kid is an example of an early and popular meme. Wikimedia
What’s in a meme?
So, what is it about memes that is so impactful?
The answer lies in understanding one of the most basic human drives: to communicate. The desire to reach out beyond the self. To be heard and, if we’re lucky, understood.
Tens of thousands of years ago, prehistoric humans painted on cave walls to communicate what was important to them. In 2023, we scrawl memes across the internet. These two practices are, essentially, the same thing.
It’s like cave paintings; what are we painting on the wall – stories about who we are, where do we belong and what really matters to the community that we think we are a part of – that’s the definition of every status update […] it used to be that only a privileged few could paint the walls of the cave; now we’re all doing it.
Just as we use cave paintings today in order to reflect on the very origins of the human condition, in time, we will use the archive of memes as a tree of knowledge to appreciate the complex web of communication we are building for ourselves on the grand project of the internet. They will help to archive the very earliest incarnations of how humans felt about communicating on digital platforms.
For those of us who grew up before the internet, it is almost bizarre to think that not only are memes a legitimate genre that holds masses of cultural information, but they also have history, even memory.
They may not be high art and they may be totally organic and spontaneous, but perhaps that is why we feel they are so authentic. They document – in fantastically messy and complex ways – how cultural material moves around, grows, dies and, in the case of doge, becomes born again.
Laura Glitsos does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Petty Officer 3rd Class Isaak Martinez/Australian Defence Force/AP
Before today’s release of the government’s defence strategic review, Defence Minister Richard Marles said it would be the most important examination of Australia’s defence capabilities since the 1986 “Dibb Report” authored by Professor Paul Dibb.
allow our geography to impose long lines of communication on an adversary and force an aggressor to consider the ultimate prospect of fighting on unfamiliar and generally inhospitable terrain.
The Dibb Report maintained the sea and air gap to Australia’s north could be made impassable if the Australian Defence Force (ADF) leveraged its technological edge in naval, air and surveillance capabilities. In turn, the demonstrated ability of the ADF to sink or shoot down any enemy units attempting to cross the moat would deter other countries from deciding to attack.
Unsurprisingly, the Australian army saw itself as the big loser in the Dibb Report, being relegated to collecting any stray enemy forces that washed ashore across Australia’s northern coastline.
Three different schools of thought on defence
Today’s defence strategic review begins by outlining the fundamental geopolitical changes that have occurred in Australia’s region over the past few decades. The review is significant in openly stating the US no longer enjoys hegemony in the region, with China now being a great power peer and competitor.
In my book, Australia’s Defence Strategy, I identify several different traditions within Australian defence policy.
The first is that defence of the continent should be Australia’s preeminent strategic objective. There is some disagreement within this school of thought about whether Australia requires the capability to stop an opponent outright as it crosses the sea, air or cyber gap to attack Australia.
Or, as defence expert Hugh White tends to argue, simply making it too risky and costly for an enemy is sufficient to deter an attack.
Another school of thought, which I call the “status quo defence policy” tradition, maintains that as long as there’s a favourable balance of power in our region, Australia will remain relatively secure.
This logic was once tied to imperial defence – as long as Britain ruled the waves, Australia would be relatively safe from attack.
Later, this thinking was redirected toward American primacy in the Asia-Pacific region. This viewpoint argued Australia’s defence was maintained by throwing our weight behind our great power security guarantor, even if it meant fighting far from our shores.
Finally, there is a tradition that argues defence thinking has been too focused on traditional threats from other nations. Defence policy should be treated as “national security”, which would better capture threats emerging from non-state actors such as terrorists, failed states, infectious diseases and climate change.
A convergence of the three traditions
We can clearly see the influence of all three of these traditions in the new defence strategic review.
First, the “strategy of denial” returns to the centre of Australia’s defence posture. Consequently, there is a strong emphasis on the security of the waters around Australia and our ability to prevent enemies from operating here.
The army sees itself being sidelined again and is less than pleased. Retired Major General Mick Ryan, for example, describes the government’s planned cut of infantry fighting vehicles from 450 to 129 as “a kick in the guts to the army”.
Although the defence strategic review means the army will be asked to head in a very different direction from the one it had hoped to follow, it should not believe it is once again being relegated to Australia’s strategic goalkeeper.
The review argues for the accelerated acquisition of medium- and heavy-landing craft and the US-made High Mobility Artillery Rocket (HIMARS) system currently being used to great effect by Ukraine’s army against Russian forces. This would give Australia unprecedented long-range missile strike capability from land.
The intention is clearly to send the army forward to deny the sea, air and land to opponents far from Australia’s own coastline. My research team and I have previously analysed the geostrategic importance of Manus Island for such a role.
This reflects similar thinking in the US Marine Corps, under its Force Design 2030 restructuring plan, which will see land forces being deployed in maritime environments armed with long-range precision strike capabilities to restrict an opponent’s ability to manoeuvre.
A HIMARS missile being launched during a joint military drill between the Philippines and the US in March. Aaron Favila/AP
Doubling down on the American alliance
The defence strategic review also doubles down on Australia’s alliance with the US.
The 1986 Dibb Report argued the US was a global power with global interests and, consequently, Australia would be wise to emphasise “self-reliance” for all potential low- and medium-level conflicts.
The assumption in the current strategic review is that China is the greatest geopolitical challenge facing both Washington and Canberra, and this convergence of strategic interests and focus will result in a closer alliance between the two.
This section of the document reflects the “status-quo defence policy” tradition within Australian strategic thinking – if American power alone cannot maintain a favourable balance of power in the region, then Australia, Japan, India and other like-minded nations should throw their weight onto the scales.
A new threat: climate change
Finally, one of the most striking features of the review is the amount of time devoted to the impacts of climate change on the Australian Defence Force.
Although previous defence white papers have mentioned climate change, these references have generally only been made in passing. The review delves into far more depth and even advocates for defence procurement to move away from fossil fuels, which could have both positive operational and environment effects.
This follows the final school of thought on the importance of recognising non-traditional threats to our security, such as climate change.
Overall, the defence strategic review had extremely ambitious objectives and was produced on a very tight timeline.
A comparison with the Dibb Report allows for some strengths and weaknesses to be identified in the current review. Ironically, these strengthens and weaknesses can be seen as different sides of the same coin.
The review’s main strength is combining the main traditions of Australian strategic thought into one document. Its key weakness is that some of these traditions pull in different directions. The kind of capabilities Canberra would probably need to defend the Australian continent would not be best suited to contributing to US-led multinational coalitions across the Indo-Pacific.
1986 was a simpler time. The defence strategic review makes clear that a newly multipolar Asia will require a more nuanced and sophisticated defence posture.
Adam Lockyer has received funding from the Australian Department of Defence’s Strategic Policy Grants Program. He is also a non-resident fellow at the Sea Power Centre – Australia.
The Albanese government on Monday released a declassified version of the much-anticipated defence strategic review, authored by former defence chief Angus Houston and former defence minister Stephen Smith.
The report looks at Australia’s defence equipment and resourcing, but it also looks beyond just acquisitions.
So what’s in the report? What were some of the political drivers of the decisions taken, and what does it tell us about Australian defence strategy in the mid-2020s?
Increasing risks
The review builds on the Defence Strategic Update of 2020, which stressed the time we’d have to prepare for a potential conflict is reducing.
It highlights a shift from describing the defence of Australia in narrow, conventional military terms to a broader approach that requires a “whole-of-nation effort”.
It describes Australia’s strategic environment in the Indo-Pacific as one that
faces increasing competition that operates on multiple levels – economic, military, strategic and diplomatic – all interwoven and all framed by an intense contest of values and narratives.
A large-scale conventional and non-conventional military build-up without strategic reassurance is contributing to the most challenging circumstances in our region for decades.
It adds that “the risks of military escalation or miscalculation are rising”.
It mentions that climate change complicates our challenges further. It also notes that “economic coercion” and “other actions that fall short of kinetic conflict” are impinging upon the ability of “countries to exercise their own agency and decide their own destinies”.
In response, the paper declares “we must sharpen our focus on what our interests are, and how to uphold them”. It focuses on the need for Australia to develop long-range strike capabilities, notably with longer-range missiles (it says we’re in the “missile age”) and advanced nuclear-powered submarines.
The ADF has long focused on maintaining a “balanced force” for three concentric circles: defending the continent, regional engagement, and contributions further afield as a “good global citizen”.
But the focus in this review shifts. It emphasises what it calls a “focused force”, with five tasks:
defence of the nation
deterrence through denial (that is, deterring adversaries by reducing any possible benefits of engaging in an attack)
protection of economic connections
working with regional partners
and supporting the so-called rules based global order.
Four of these five tasks involve acting well beyond Australia’s shores. That’s a significant shift.
6 priorities going forward
The report lists six priorities, and 62 recommendations, for defence acquisitions.
The first priority is acquiring nuclear-powered submarines, of which Australia already has a plan following the AUKUS announcement in March. The government recognises conventional diesel-electric submarines are now vulnerable to detection, due to advances in surveillance. Nuclear-powered subs are less likely to be spotted as they don’t have to come up for a “snort” to refuel.
Second is improving our precision strike capability. Guided weapons and explosives are in short supply, in part thanks to the war in Ukraine, but also because we’ve tended not to develop large stockpiles. The government also plans to invest in developing the ability to manufacture advanced munitions onshore, especially long-range guided weapons. Officials privately advise that they expect we will produce licensed versions of United States’-sourced weapons systems to equip the ADF.
The third priority is about supporting the second pillar of the AUKUS (the first pillar is the submarines). This focuses on acceleration of technology such as artificial intelligence, hypersonics, and longer-range precision guided munitions.
Fourth is the redevelopment of Australia’s northern bases, from Cocos (Keeling) Islands ranging to the air bases and other defence infrastructure across northern Australia.
Fifth is investment in recruitment and retention of ADF personnel. The previous federal government projected a nearly 20,000 increase in uniformed defence personnel. The current government committed to follow through on that, with an increase of 5% per year, but there was little to show for any further surge.
Sixth is an emphasis on improving relations with the region, with a particular focus on Pacific Island nations.
Significant adjustments
The review does not abandon the army. But it significantly cuts back its planned acquisition of infantry fighting vehicles intended to replace its Vietnam War-era armoured personnel carriers. It reduces the planned acquisition from 450 to 129 vehicles.
What’s more, the review says Australia must cancel the planned acquisition of addition mobile (or “self-propelled”) artillery. It advocates for weapons with a longer range instead, such as “HIMARS” (high mobility artillery rocket systems), which is currently being used by Ukrainian forces on the battlefield.
So the army will need to make some significant adjustments.
The report also calls for a review into the navy surface combat fleet. Australia has been planning to construct 12 offshore patrol vessels and nine Hunter-class frigates for the coming years, but there’s expectations both numbers will be rejigged. The challenge is to get this smaller naval review done quickly. Australia’s naval shipbuilding capability atrophies quickly if left dormant and delays have already seen the naval shipbuilding industry under stress.
The thinking now is not just about air, land and sea forces, but also cyber and space. The report emphasises a robust cyber capability. The Australian Signals Directorate’s cyber program, called REDSPICE, is part of the mix.
The review is largely internally coherent, but there’s a dissonance between the rhetoric and the substance – noting the absence of substantial additional resource allocation. Perhaps this reflects the political headwinds faced by the Albanese government.
With the left wing of the ALP spooked by former Prime Minister Paul Keating’s aggressive teardown of AUKUS and defence policy writ large, coupled with calls for great expenditure on health, education and welfare, the government is reluctant to spell out how the increases in budget forecast in the review will come to fruition.
But it seems clear the Albanese cabinet has an acute appreciation of the security challenges butting up against the mood of a more sanguine political base.
John Blaxland does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
For those under a rock: Lachlan Murdoch is the son of Rupert. He is an Aussie-American-Brit leading News Corp and Fox Corporation. His empire includes Fox News in the US and Sky News in Australia.
Murdoch was suing over a June 2022 article on the subject of the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol. The piece called Donald Trump a “traitor”, and Lachlan Murdoch Trump’s “unindicted co-conspirator” – a reference to Richard Nixon’s treatment by a grand jury with respect to the Watergate scandal.
The underlying allegation was that Fox News had supported Trump’s “Big Lie” that the 2020 US presidential election was stolen, which led to the insurrection; and that Lachlan Murdoch was responsible for Fox’s role in spreading the Big Lie.
After the article was published, Murdoch sent the publishers of Crikey a “concerns notice”, essentially threatening to sue them.
In response, the publishers almost dared Murdoch to sue. They even went so far as to take out an ad in The New York Times. According to Murdoch, those behind Crikey used his defamation threat as part of marketing campaign to drive subscriptions.
Challenging a billionaire to a defamation fight may not have been the smartest move. In September 2022, Murdoch commenced proceedings in the Federal Court of Australia. He sued the company publisher of Crikey, its editor, and the article’s author. Later, he also sued the chair and chief executive of that company.
Crikey’s defences may have failed
The Crikey respondents were defending the case on a number of bases. Each of these defences relies on legal principles that excuse the publication of content that is defamatory for the sake of other important interests.
Perhaps their strongest defence was a new one: a statutory defence of “publication of matter in the public interest”. The defence became law in 2021. It means a defamatory publication is defensible if two conditions are met.
First, the publication must concern an “issue of public interest” – which the Crikey article clearly did. Second, the publishers must have “reasonably believed” that the publication of the matter (the article) was in the public interest.
The case may have turned on this second element of the new defence. What did the publishers believe? Was their belief about the public interest, or driving subscriptions for Crikey? There was a decent risk a court would have gone with the second option, and the defence would have failed.
If the defences had have failed, Murdoch would have won. So why would he choose to discontinue his case?
The backdrop of the Dominion v Fox case
Just days ago, Murdoch’s Fox settled what would have been one of the biggest defamation case of all time. Dominion Voting Systems had sued Fox in the US, seeking a whopping US$1.6 billion damages.
It is extremely difficult to succeed in a defamation case against a media company under US law. But if ever there was a case where it could happen, this was it.
Through pre-trial procedures, Dominion had uncovered a treasure trove of evidence from people at Fox – including from the likes of Tucker Carlson and Rupert Murdoch himself.
There was plenty of ammo for Dominion to argue Fox was deliberately spreading lies about Dominion, which would have been required for Dominion to succeed.
Just before the trial was about to start, Dominion agreed to put an end to the case in exchange for a US$787.5 million payment from Fox.
This was a steep price for Fox to pay but a loss would have cost substantially more in damages. And it would have cost more than money.
If the case had proceeded to trial, it would have caused tremendous damage to the Fox brand and that of its talking heads, further alienating the audience on which they depend. The evidence already uncovered was ugly, but it was about to get even uglier.
Discontinuing the defamation case was a sound decision
If Lachlan Murdoch continued the Crikey case, then all of the dirty laundry that was to be aired in the Dominion case could have been aired in Australia.
According to the principle of open justice, that evidence would have been heard in open court, with the global media watching.
Fox’s key benefit of the Dominion settlement – making the story go away, and not having to uncover further evidence – would have been destroyed. It would have been a massive own goal.
It’s likely Lachlan Murdoch himself would have been cross-examined.
There are other reasons Murdoch would want the case to end now
Say the case continued, and Lachlan Murdoch won. This would mean the Crikey respondents failed in their reliance on the statutory defence of “publication of matter in the public interest”.
The resulting judgment could set a precedent undermining the value of the new defence.
It is in Lachlan Murdoch’s ultimate interest that the defence remains strong: it will protect News Corp rags from publishing defamatory articles, which they are prone to do. Laying down his weapons now avoids that scenario.
And there is a reason Lachlan Murdoch has himself given for ending his case: he does not want to give Crikey any more ammo for a marketing campaign to attract subscribers.
Murdoch insists he was confident he would have won his case. He may have won defamation damages but he could have lost far more.
Murdoch may end up having to pay the legal costs of the Crikey respondents. But this case was never really about money. As the judge said a few weeks ago, it was more about “ego and hubris”. Many defamation cases are.
Michael Douglas is a consultant in a litigation firm, where he has worked on defamation matters and acted for plaintiffs. He has been a member of the ALP and the Australian Republic Movement.
Last week, foreign minister Penny Wong laid out the strategic challenges facing Australia in a major speech.
Wong described great power competition involving China, America and Russia. She warned of the risk of conflict in our region as China expands its sphere of influence. And she defended the AUKUS nuclear submarine deal with the United States and United Kingdom.
But these are traditional challenges: nation against nation. Australia needs a similar declaration of the catastrophic security implications of climate change.
While Wong did mention climate change, it was secondary, set in the context of regional outreach.
As the climate crisis worsens, we must do more. Climate change is a threat. Maybe even the threat. We need to use every tool we have to tackle it – including our diplomats.
Australia is a big fish in a big, sparsely populated pond. Our neighbours in the Pacific see sea-level rise and ocean acidification as existential threats. For island nations, this is the big one – well above geostrategic competition.
But climate damage isn’t restricted to island nations. Countries across South and Southeast Asia are also on the front line of warming, as this month’s record-breaking heatwaves show.
Just this weekend, people in Bangkok were warned not to go outside due to extreme heat. The apparent temperature – what the temperature feels like when combined with humidity – hit a record 54℃.
In our region, governments typically avoid close alignment with great powers and blocs. Yet there is no doubt rising temperatures are a key threat to all countries. Australia might have a tougher time remaining a credible partner to the region without a greater climate focus here too.
Back up words with serious action
Under Labor, our political and financial climate commitments have certainly increased.
Despite this, our domestic emissions trajectory is still not compatible with keeping global warming to 1.5℃ this century.
And, as of 2022, Australia was paying just a tenth of its fair contribution to the climate fund set up at the 2009 UN conference in Copenhagen.
Contrast this to the vast sum of money we have committed to spending on traditional security threats, especially the nuclear submarine deal which could cost up to A$368 billion.
Australians want to see more foreign policy ambition on climate front. A United States Studies Centre poll last year found 75% of us want climate action at the heart of our alliance with America. By contrast, only 52% of survey respondents felt the nuclear subs deal was a good idea.
What should Australia do?
It’s hard to imagine Australia – or any other country – financing climate action at a level on par with traditional security threats.
But there are actions we could take to help close the gap. We could rejoin and boost funding to the UN-aligned Green Climate Fund, which the previous Australian government left in 2018.
We should also retool our export credit and development finance to invest in climate-friendly assets and stop them funding more fossil fuel extraction.
At the same time, Australia could signal our serious climate commitments by continuing to strengthen domestic policies to ensure the reformed safeguard mechanism actually leads to genuine emission cuts. This would mean closing glaring loopholes, such as allowing major emitters to keep pumping out carbon pollution by purchasing carbon offsets.
As the global energy transition gathers pace, the federal government should do more to support clean energy exports. Australia is well placed to provide critical minerals and the green metals, fertiliser and transport fuels that the rest of the world needs. But we must act fast to secure lucrative opportunities –and to tell the world we are open for green business.
The way we communicate progress to the world is critical. For years, we have been seen as laggards and hold-outs, one of the few developed nations resisting the change which must come. It’s time for us to lead.
Wesley Morgan is a Senior Researcher with the Climate Council of Australia.
James Bowen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Some people still at imminent risk of suicide leave hospital to be cared for at home by their partner.
So their partner becomes their carer. That person is then on alert for extended periods of time for future suicide attempts. This is all while helping with their loved one’s medication, liaising with health professionals, working or looking after other family members.
But there’s hardly any advice for carers on how to do “suicide watch” at home. Partners can be left to improvise, leading to high levels of distress. In a recent disclosure, one woman described how she tied herself to her suicidal partner for nine days before finding help for him.
We’re social workers with a special interest in grief, and preventing suicide and related distress. Here’s what can help while doing “suicide watch” at home and how to get support.
We’ve conducted our own research into available supports for family carers with a loved one at home who’s at risk of suicide.
What we’ve found so far is that mental health services often provide surveillance for people in their facilities who are at risk of taking their lives. But there’s not always enough beds in crisis wards, space in emergency departments or culturally safe care available.
This means partners, family and friends are left to provide practical surveillance at home.
A 2020 report we prepared for the Prime Minister’s National Suicide Prevention Adviser described carers’ experiences.
Carers told us they felt ill-equipped when asked, or felt they had to do “suicide watch”, given the gravity of the situation.
Often carers were told by health professionals, while waiting for crisis care, or when discharged after the immediate suicide crisis had subsided, to keep an eye on the person at all times. They were also told to check for access to means of suicide to keep the house “safe”.
The effect of the intense monitoring meant carers, who did have to leave the house to go to work or to seek their own support, had to ask friends and extended family to take on, or help with, surveillance duties.
Carers in this situation are a distinct group of people who need support and resources. That’s because their role complements the work of crisis and community mental health services.
But when we looked at what was available for them online – clear and logical information about how to keep an eye on a person – we couldn’t find any single Australian resource that identified the practical aspects of doing “suicide watch” at home.
Here are some practical tips, mainly based on what carers say works:
talk to the person you are caring for, using some of these conversation starters. These conversations will help shape how you might keep an eye on them, with their consent
ensure you have consent from the person you are caring for to speak to their GP, or treating team and know the phone numbers for crisis mental health when your concern levels rise
start a conversation with the person about developing a safety plan, which may change over time. This will help you understand what the possible risks might be in the home. You can then support that person to enact their safety plan, empowering them and yourself
lock medication cupboards, remove access to toxic substances, or any other means that might place a person at risk. This can increase safety in the short term
reach out to other people in your family or friend network to say you are keeping an eye on a loved one. This may help share the tasks and give you some time out. Carers have a right to look after their own needs, alongside caring for a family member or friend.
Vague directives to carers to “just keep an eye on them” until care arrives, or services become available, can make people feel ill-equipped and unsupported when providing care at home.
No-one should have to tie themselves to their loved one for nine days to remain vigilant about the risk of suicide until accessing help.
We also need longer-term practical and emotional supports for carers, beyond immediate advice on how to do “suicide watch” at home. We need adequate health funding to do this.
If this article has raised issues for you, or if you’re concerned about someone you know, call Lifeline on 13 11 14. If you are a carer and would like support, contact Carers Australia on 1800 422 737.
Sarah Wayland receives funding from SANE Australia and the National Mental Health Commission
Myfanwy Maple receives funding from SANE Australia and the National Mental Health Commission.
Minister of Justice Kiri Allan is currently pushing through a programme of reform to the rules around political fundraising by politicians. And yet it turns out Allan herself has received large donations that raise questions about the integrity of the politician, the donor, and the Beehive systems that are meant to protect the democratic process.
On Friday 1News’ Benedict Collins revealed that in 2020 Kiri Allan received donations from Race Relations Conciliator Meng Foon to assist with her campaign to win the East Coast electorate. The donations were made up of $9185.04 in rent subsidies and $1500 in cash. Foon also donated the lesser amount of $1000 to unsuccessful National Party candidate Tania Tapsell.
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins is defending Foon’s donations, describing them as a “balanced approach” because he donated to both major parties. But a senior public servant giving money to politicians brings everyone into disrepute.
The Problem for public service neutrality and independence
The Human Rights Commission, for which Meng Foon works as the Race Relations Conciliator, is already under considerable scrutiny for being perceived as increasingly political and biased. This latest scandal will only erode public trust in the government entity. After all, the Commission is supposed to be independent of the Government, holding it to account as a watchdog. But when one of its most senior staff is found to be giving significant funding to politicians, this brings its independence into question.
The Public Service Commission has a “Conduct For Crown Entity Board Members” such as Foon, which clearly states they need to be politically impartial. This is the document that former Te Whatu Ora chair Rob Campbell fell foul of and led to his sacking. It states: “We act in a politically impartial manner. Irrespective of our political interests, we conduct ourselves in a way that enables us to act effectively under current and future governments… When acting in our private capacity, we avoid any political activity that could jeopardise our ability to perform our role or which could erode the public’s trust in the entity.”
It’s hard to see how Foon’s donations to politicians don’t violate this. Although Foon has responded to say that the donations were “minor”, in respect to Allan, they amounted to over $10,500 – a sum most ordinary citizens could not afford to give.
The fact that Foon also gave money – a much lesser amount – to a National Party candidate takes nothing away from the seriousness of the problem. If anything, when wealthy individuals give money to both sides, it raises public suspicions that they are trying to cover their bets, to gain influence with both possible winners. And the fact that such benefactors do not fund other parties shows that it’s not a case of being even-handed.
Foon has been asked if it’s appropriate for someone in his role to donate to politicians, to which he responded: “It didn’t cross my mind. It’s just a thing that we do automatically.” Such flippancy should raise questions about Foon’s judgement, especially since he is unable to see the problems of wealthy and senior public servants intervening in the electoral process.
The Prime Minister has also downplayed the seriousness of the rule break. When asked about senior public servants entering into the electoral process with large donations, Chris Hipkins merely said it’s “probably something I’d be a little bit uncomfortable about.”
It’s unclear how seriously the Human Rights Commission is taking the breach. It put out a public statement that “it takes the issue of neutrality extremely seriously.” But as yet it doesn’t appear to be taking any action over the matter or commenting further.
The Problem for Labour and Allan’s Integrity
Kiri Allan accepted the funding from Meng Foon when she was a backbench MP, and it was prior to her being appointed Minister of Justice. And she has pointed out that although it’s the Minister of Justice who appoints the Race Relations Conciliator, Meng’s appointment was made in 2019 by her predecessor, Andrew Little. Others have noted that the decision on whether to reappoint Foon for a second term in his role will fall to Allan’s office.
In terms of receiving the donation from Foon, who is not just a senior public servant but has also been a long-time major commercial property owner in her electorate of Gisborne, Allan has said she felt it was an appropriate relationship.
The problem is that Allan does not appear to have taken the perceived conflict of interest seriously. Firstly, on being appointed as Minister of Justice she failed to make a declaration, as required, to the Cabinet Office of the conflict of interest. On Friday, only after being caught out by 1News, she corrected this by informing the Cabinet Office of the situation.
The problem is that as Justice Minister she is pushing through some highly important reforms to the rules on political finance, and yet it appears that she has a faulty grasp of her own fundraising and integrity issues. Initially, when asked on Friday about being in receipt of donations from Foon, her response to media was: “I didn’t take any monetary donations from Meng Foon.”
The first problem with this response is that she appeared to be disingenuous in throwing in the caveat of “monetary” in her response, as she was obviously well aware of the in-kind donation of office space that was given to her campaign in 2020. But secondly, the statement was false, and she later had to admit that she had accepted a $1500 cash donation from Foon and his wife.
It turns out that Allan had forgotten that the Foons were her biggest individual donor. Explaining how she got this so wrong, Allan stated in the weekend, “As a politician, you don’t have a real solid recollection of every single person that donates to your campaign.”
Allan’s inability to deal with the details of her own donors is reminiscent of a statement she made last year about her decision on what financial level of donations should be declared by political parties. In drawing up new rules for when parties should have to declare donations to the public, the Ministry of Justice recommended that all donations to parties above $1500 should be made public. But Allan, rejected that and decided that the threshold should be set at the much higher amount of $5000, so that parties shouldn’t have to disclose so many donations. In justifying keeping so many donations secret, Allan said “the administrative burden was going to be a little too much.”
What should happen now?
How much confidence can the public have that ministers declare their conflicts of interest when they occur? The Foon-Allan donations case shows that the Beehive simply doesn’t have adequate procedures in place to make sure conflicts of interest are identified and managed.
Allan has stated that, on appointment as Minister of Justice, she had a long conversation with the Cabinet Office, which is tasked with managing such conflicts of interest. It appears that the Cabinet Office didn’t uncover or ask about the Foon donations, despite them being on the public record – they had been disclosed by Allan in her electoral returns to the Electoral Commission.
The Cabinet Office needs to review its processes. At the moment, there appears to be no particular rule for what level of donation to a minister constitutes a conflict of interest that needs to be declared.
Should Allan retain the donations given to her by Foon? Stuff journalist Andrea Vance wrote about the Allan situation yesterday, saying “MPs should not be taking money from state servants, and Allan should never have accepted the donation. It must immediately be repaid.”
And journalist Max Rashbrooke, who recently published a research report on political donations has also called for Allan to give the money back to Foon. And he says, “Foon should have it made clear to him that this can’t happen again.”
Others say Foon needs to resign over the matter, and that the integrity of the public service will be under question until he does so. On this, Vance says: “Foon’s position is now probably untenable. As a former politician he should have identified that his donations were inappropriate while he held a supposedly apolitical role, charged with holding the Government to account.”
Regardless, there is a need for the Human Rights Commission to explain how it allows its senior staff to make donations to politicians and for new procedures that make it very clear what the rules are.
This is also an urgent issue for the Public Service Commission, which needs to clarify to all senior public servants what they are allowed to do in terms of making donations to the politicians they serve.
Andrea Vance says the whole Foon-Allan is very damaging for the Labour Government, as it comes on top of other cases of integrity deficits in the administration: “This drip feed of mini-scandals have common threads. They paint a picture of a cosy elite bound by mutual back-scratching, most of which happens within the limits of the law, but that don’t quite pass the voters’ sniff test. Power eventually corrupts. And once that happens, it’s really hard to get the stink out.”
The stench of this latest episode isn’t something that will hang around for too long. Attention will move on, and there will be more scandals involving different politicians, from other parties too. But this latest episode shows how money in politics is still a major problem in New Zealand. Although the current Government claim to be cleaning up political donation laws, it’s a worry when the person in charge of that tidy-up has such a poor grasp of the issues.
New Zealand Parliament Buildings, Wellington, New Zealand.
New Zealand Politics Daily is a collation of the most prominent issues being discussed in New Zealand. It is edited by Dr Bryce Edwards of The Democracy Project.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Luby, Lecturer, Master of Screen Producing, Victorian College of the Arts, The University of Melbourne
They told me the church was my mother. I learned that at school, and in the seminary. ‘Holy Mother Church’, they said. But I soon discovered that she was a bitch.
This was one of the first things Father Bob Maguire ever said to me in a background interview I did with him in 1990 as part of my research for a television documentary about youth homelessness.
I guffawed, and I could see by the sparkle in his eyes he knew he had drawn me into his comical, satirical, deeply serious take on the world – and that I was intently listening.
What he always had to say, as I would learn, often after an opening zinger like this, was in his actions as much as in his marvellous wordplay.
He may have been comically scathing of the institutional church, but there was another church he really believed in: the community of people who worked together to advance the welfare, dignity and just treatment of the disadvantaged, the homeless, the addicted and the forgotten.
Everyone was welcome in this church. Very aptly, the charitable foundation Father Bob established in 1979 was named the Open Family Foundation.
In 1990, I was a junior television producer who had found my way into filmmaking after some years as a youth worker. Father Bob had established a profile as a champion of “street kids” through his work at Open Family, so he seemed like a good place to start my research into homelessness.
Meeting him was like walking through a portal. Father Bob and his team of outreach workers took me with them into derelict squats, seedy back alleys, soup kitchens and dumpster bins.
One of our interviewees took us on a tour of the Fitzroy backstreet doorways and dumpsters he slept in on cold nights. He even had a ratings system for them.
Then there was the trans sex worker who earned her living in and around Darlinghurst’s notorious beat, “The Wall”. In a dingy late-night café around the corner, she told me her poignant, funny story. Initially, she wanted her face blurred on camera, but after five minutes she changed her mind and became quite expansive.
If the camera was there with the blessing of Father Bob or his team, people felt safe.
To be trusted like this with a television camera – which for many we met was normally a symbol of intrusive voyeurism – was an incredible privilege. I went over that interview perhaps 100 times while editing the program, looking for the right moments. I recall crying as I did so, at the raw honesty and the pain.
A key member of Father Bob’s team was Henry Nissen, an ex-boxer whose concern for the disadvantaged had led him into outreach work with Open Family.
“The most Christian person I have ever met is a Jewish pugilist,” said Father Bob of his protégé.
Nissen would be paid by Open Family whenever the organisation could afford it, but pay or not he spent many nights a week scouring the streets of inner-city Melbourne making contact with itinerant young people.
He knew all the haunts, drug dens and under-bridge camps. A figure would emerge from the shadows and in the gentlest of voices, Henry would call: “Is that you X….?”, and they would step out into a beam of moonlight or streetlamp.
At a little distance, I could see and hear Nissen encouraging, advising and sometimes admonishing or pleading. He might offer a lift to a hostel or entry to a detox centre or one of the many emergency services Father Bob had established.
Around the same time, I was also researching another project on the newly emerging scandal of the stolen generations. My investigations led me to a simple weatherboard house in Preston where a young Indigenous man gave me three hours and five cups of tea as he told me his story of losing and finding his family.
His name was Archie Roach and he had just recorded an album of songs inspired by these experiences. A few months later, Charcoal Lane was released and became a huge hit.
One of the songs, Down City Streets, was written by Roach’s partner, Ruby Hunter, about her experience as a street kid. As I sat in the edit suite, reviewing all the material we had gathered over many months with Father Bob, that song seemed to encapsulate the many stories I was trying to weave together.
Roach very kindly gave us permission to use this song in the program and eventually as the title of the documentary. Down City Streets was broadcast on the Seven Network in 1991.
Father Bob made a telling comment in the program, which we had treated with a reverb effect: “No matter who a person is, what they have done, what has happened to them […] they are one of us.”
What happened on the Gallipoli peninsula in Turkey 108 years ago has shocked and shaped Aotearoa New Zealand ever since. The challenge in the 21st century, then, is how best to give contemporary relevance to such an epochal event.
The essence of the Anzac story is well known. As part of the first world war British Imperial Forces, the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (Anzacs) landed at Gallipoli on April 25 1915. For eight months they endured the constant threat of death or maiming in terrible living conditions.
Ultimately, their occupation of that narrow and rugged piece of Turkish coast failed. The 30,000 Anzacs were evacuated after eight months. More than 2,700 New Zealand and 8,700 Australian soldiers died, with many more wounded.
The first anniversary of the landing was a day of mourning, with Anzac Day becoming a public holiday in 1922. A remembrance day of sorrow mixed with pride, it has grown over the years to include all those who served and died in later international conflicts.
Over time, various narratives and themes have emerged from that Gallipoli “origin story”: of Aotearoa New Zealand’s emergence as a nation, proving itself to Britain and Empire; of the brave, fit, loyal soldier-mates who emblemised the Kiwi spirit of egalitarianism, fairness and duty. All this mingled with the lasting shock and underlying anger at class hierarchy and the British leadership’s incompetence.
But historians know well that the “Anzac spirit” is a complex and ever-evolving idea. In 2023, what do we teach school-aged children about its meaning and significance? One way forward is to rethink those Anzac narratives and tropes in a more complex way.
The cemetery at Lone Pine commemorates more than 4,900 Anzac servicemen who died in the area. Getty Images
Colonialism and class
The Anzac story is tied up in the nation’s history as part of the British Empire. The Anzac toll was just part of a staggering 46,000 “Britons” – including many from India and Ireland – who died at Gallipoli.
Some 86,000 Turks also died defending their peninsula. We need to teach about the Anzac sacrifice in the context of a global conflict where the magnitude of loss was horrific.
Importantly, Anzac themes are bound up in early forms of colonial nationalism: New Zealand proving itself to Britain and developing its own fighting mentality on battlefields far from home. Part of this involves the notion of incompetent British commanders who let down the Anzac troops – but this is part of a bigger story.
Focusing on imperial and class hierarchies of the time can place what happened in that broader context. The legendary story of Chunuck Bair, taken on August 8 by Colonel William Malone’s Wellington Regiment, but where most of the soldiers were killed when they weren’t relieved in time, is particularly evocative.
The New Zealand Wars memorial in New Plymouth: our other ‘great war’. CC BY-SA
Māori and the imperial project
From our vantage point in the present, of course, we cannot ignore the Māori experience of war and colonialism. As the historian Vincent O’Malley has suggested, New Zealand’s “great war” of nation-making was actually Ngā pakanga o Aotearoa – the New Zealand Wars.
It’s time to teach the complexity of this past and the multiple perspectives on it. For example, Waikato leader Te Puea Hērangi led opposition to WWI conscription and spoke against Māori participation on the side of a power that had only recently invaded her people’s land.
Conversely, Māori seeking inclusion in the settler nation did participate. On July 3 1915, the 1st Māori Contingent landed at Anzac Cove. Te Rangi Hiroa (Sir Peter Buck) (Ngāti Mutunga) was to say:
Our feet were set on a distant land where our blood was to be shed in the cause of the Empire to which we belonged.
These words echo the familiar Anzac trope of the New Zealand nation being born at Gallipoli. Such sentiments led to postwar pilgrimages to retrace the steps of ancestors and claim the site as part of an Anzac heritage – a corner of New Zealand even.
For many young New Zealanders it has become a rite of passage, part of the big OE. That a visit to Anzac Cove is still more popular than visiting the sites of Ngā pakanga o Aotearoa is something our teaching can investigate.
Mateship and conformity
The notion of the Anzac soldier as courageous and beyond reproach, willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for nation and empire, is also overdue for revision. The “glue” of mateship – a potent combination of masculine bravery and strength with extreme loyalty to fellow soldiers – is again a contested narrative.
By the 1970s, as historian Rowan Light’s work shows, there was a significant challenge to such perceptions from the counterculture, peace protesters and feminists. And by the 1980s, veterans were sharing their stories more candidly with writer Maurice Shadbolt and war historian Chris Pugsley.
Teaching about the meaning of mateship might examine the history of those peer-pressured into participating in war, those who were conscripted and had no choice, and more on the fate of conscientious objectors like Archibald Baxter. At its worst, the idea of mateship was window dressing for uniformity and parochialism.
New Zealanders today have complex multicultural and global roots. We have ancestors who were co-opted to fight on different sides in 20th-century wars, including those who fought anti-colonial wars in India, Ireland and Samoa. Some came here as refugees escaping conflict. Jingoism and what it really represents deserves critical analysis.
The ubiquitous poppy, an icon much reproduced in classrooms, is also ripe for contextualisation and debate over its meaning. In the age of global environmental crisis, it can be seen as more than a symbol of sacrifice immortalised in verse and iconography.
The poppy also reminds us of the landscapes devastated by the machinery of war that killed and maimed people, plants and animals. It contains within it myriad lessons about the threats science and technology can pose to a vulnerable planet.
Anzac Day rose from the shock, loss and grief felt by those on the home front. And beyond the familiar tropes of nationalism, mateship and egalitarianism, this remains its overriding mood.
Remembering and learning about the terrible physical and mental cost of war is the real point of those familiar phrases “lest we forget” and “never again”. That spirit of humanitarianism chimes with Aotearoa New Zealand’s modern role and evolving self-image as a peacekeeping, nuclear-free nation.
Anzac Day also speaks to the need for global peace and arbitration, and how war is no viable solution to conflict. Those are surely lessons worth teaching.
Katie Pickles does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Politicians in French Polynesia have reacted with scorn over the ruling party’s hastily-convened electoral alliance with an opposition party, which has been eliminated from the territorial elections after failing to reach the 12.5 percent threshold.
Under the deal, President Édouard Fritch’s Tapura Huiraatira ceded four positions to Amuitahiraa on the list of candidates for next week’s run-off round.
Fritch warned of “chaos” should his party lose power to the pro-independence Tavini Huiraatira, which won most votes in the first round a week ago.
The Tavini’s Moetai Brotherson, who wants to succeed Fritch in the top job, derided the arrangement, saying that Fritch and the Amuitahiraa leader Gaston Flosse were serving up the “same soup” by warning that white people would be chased away and independence would “usher in misery” if Tavini formed government.
Nuihau Laurey of A Here Ia Porinetia said while he also stood for continued autonomy, it was very hard to work with people who admitted that they had lied for 30 years, a reference to Fritch’s admission in 2018 that he had lied about the French weapons tests.
The Greens’ Jacky Bryant said that the hasty deal was serious as this way of doing politics contributed to voter apathy.
Coup for Fritch, Flosse? He said Fritch and Flosse must “feel horror” if they believed they could be a uniting force, in particular since Flosse for years “vomited” over the Tapura.
Tauhiti Nena of Hau Māohi said it was a coup for Fritch and Flosse because if they managed to combine the two parties’ support from the first round, they would win.
In the first round of the territorial elections, Fritch’s Tapura party came second, winning 30 percent of the votes against Tavini’s 35 percent, with Amuitahiraa on 11 percent.
Flosse, who leads the party despite being ineligible because of corruption convictions, had been campaigning for French Polynesia becoming a sovereign state in association with France.
While in opposition, he claimed that Fritch was the worst president in the territory’s history.
In the last elections in 2018, the Tapura won two thirds of all seats.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Tahiti’s incumbent President Édouard Fritch … accused of being the “worst president” in the territory’s history. Image: APR File
Ten years to the day after the collapse of the Rana Plaza garment factory in Bangladesh, a disaster that killed more than 1,100 workers and injured another 2,500, the global addiction to cheap clothing remains strong.
In New Zealand, fast fashion has gone from strength to strength, fuelled by the ongoing cost of living crisis, low wages and accessible cheap clothing.
And it is understandable.
When you’re struggling to pay rent or put food on the table, it’s a lot harder to think about the needs of others – particularly those overseas and essentially invisible in your daily life.
Our research has shown that a person’s subjective wellbeing – how they evaluate their life circumstances, experiences and feelings in relation to the people around them – needs to be good before they have room for moral and ethical consumer dilemmas such as sustainability, the environment and fair wages.
The cracks that killed
There were a number of factors that led to the Rana Plaza disaster. The eight-storey building had visible – and growing – cracks in a wall that were worsened by the vibrations of a two-tonne generator on the roof.
Garment workers, working in conditions akin to modern slavery, raised their concerns with managers but were told they would lose their jobs if they didn’t continue to work in the building.
A power cut on the morning of April 24, 2013, led to the use of the generator, causing the building to collapse. Garment labels for a number of global brands were found in the rubble. Rana Plaza is considered one of the worst industrial disasters ever, second only to the 1984 Union Carbide accident that killed 3,787 people in Bhopal, India.
In the Rana Plaza aftermath, the building’s owner, factory bosses and the Bangladesh government were blamed. But the spotlight was also shone on the fast fashion phenomenon. The workers and factory owners were under intense pressure to meet relentless production deadlines for clothing brands around the world, and do so at minimum cost.
Cheap, abundant clothing is a staple of the Western consumer economy. Shutterstock
Low cost, high price
Fast fashion refers to the rapid and cheap design, manufacturer and marketing of high volumes of clothing. The garment production often uses low-quality materials (like synthetic fabrics) and low-cost labour in countries like Bangladesh and China.
It is fairly well agreed that fast fashion exploits people and the environment. So, why don’t we stop? The answer may lie in why we shop.
Consumers buy things for three main reasons: function (because we need it to do something), symbolic reasons (to associate with others or develop a unique identity) or experience (to feel something special).
When it comes to fashion there’s a tension between functionality – the bang for buck that fast fashion gives you – versus the symbolism that is associated with sustainable clothing.
But when money gets tight, symbolism and experience lag far behind functionality.
The luxury of ethical shopping
Previous consumer research looked at whether certain behaviours – like ethical shopping and minimalism – lead to an improved outlook in how people viewed their wellbeing in comparison to others.
We flipped that idea and asked whether people need to first feel good about themselves and their place in the world before they can engage in good consumer behaviour.
What we found is that people with higher levels of subjective wellbeing had increased capacity to practice anti-consumption and pro-environmental behaviour. People with less subjective wellbeing, however, found it harder to go against brands they otherwise might have wanted to reject.
And that is a problem during a cost-of-living crisis.
People who are stressed about their finances, paying the rent, dealing with rising interest rates and the rising price of food will not care about where or how a pair of socks is made.
With rising prices and a low-wage economy, it is probably too much to ask for New Zealand consumers to lead the charge against fast fashion. While shoppers can buy less, most will still be looking for the cheapest deals on items they need.
There is an argument for greater regulation and government intervention at the point of production. But these manufacturing nations depend on the wealth produced by their garment workers. Pushing up prices to improve regulations could cause brands to go elsewhere.
Businesses could reduce profit margins in favour of decent pay and working conditions. However, the current business model that puts shareholders first means it’s unlikely most corporations (particularly those that compete on low cost) will place people over profits.
Currently there is no perfect solution, but leaving consumers to resolve the fast fashion dilemma on their own might be the least promising approach.
Multilateral government oversight of working conditions (at the point of production) combined with further regulations encouraging ethical supply chains (at the point of import), may be a more effective way to reduce the chances of another Rana Plaza.
Mike Lee does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne
Mick Tsikas/AAP
A federal Newspoll, conducted April 19-22 from a sample of 1,514, gave Labor a 56-44 lead, a one-point gain for Labor since the previous Newspoll, three weeks ago. Primary votes were 38% Labor (steady), 33% Coalition (steady), 11% Greens (up one), 7% One Nation (down one) and 11% for all Others (steady).
Despite Labor’s gain on voting intentions, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s net approval dropped five points to +16, with 53% satisfied (down three) and 37% dissatisfied (up two). This is Albanese’s worst net approval in Newspoll since becoming PM.
Liberal leader Peter Dutton’s net approval was also down six points to a new low of -19. Albanese led Dutton by 54-28 as better PM, a narrowing from 58-26 previously. Newspoll figures are from The Poll Bludger.
The Resolve poll below gave Labor a much bigger lead, but Resolve has skewed to Labor since the 2022 federal election, and Morgan and Essential polls last week also implied little change in Labor’s lead.
Two polls below show support for the Indigenous Voice to parliament slumping since December, but Essential and Resolve polls last week had the Voice’s support slightly up since March. The Morgan poll was particularly bad for the Voice at 54-46 “yes” excluding undecided.
A Resolve poll for Nine newspapers, conducted April 12-16 from a sample of 1,609, gave Labor 42% of the primary vote (up three since March), the Coalition 28% (down two), the Greens 12% (down one), One Nation 6% (up one), the UAP 1% (steady), independents 9% (steady) and others 2% (steady).
Resolve does not give a two party estimate until close to elections, but applying 2022 election preferences to these primary votes gives Labor over a 61-39 lead, a two-point gain for Labor since March. Resolve has been the most pro-Labor regular pollster since the last federal election.
Albanese extended his lead over Dutton as preferred PM from 51-22 in March to 55-21. By 56-30, voters thought Albanese was doing a good job; his net approval of +27 was up three points since March. Dutton’s net approval crashed 17 points to a new low of -28, as he had a 54-26 poor job rating.
Labor widened its lead on economic management over the Liberals to 36-30 from 33-32 in March. On keeping the cost of living low, Labor’s lead increased to 31-21 from 29-22.
Support for Voice slumps in Morgan and Freshwater polls
A Morgan SMS poll, conducted April 14-18 from a sample of 1,181, gave “yes” to the Voice 46% (down seven since December), “no” 39% (up eight) and undecided 15% (down two). If undecided is excluded, “yes” leads by 54-46. This is the narrowest lead for “yes” in any Voice poll.
Other polls, like Essential which gave “yes” a 60-40 lead last week, have had high levels of Coalition support; Essential had 41% of Coalition voters supporting “yes”. In Morgan, just 6% of Coalition voters supported The Voice, with 74% opposed.
A Freshwater poll for Sky News, conducted April 9-12 from a sample of 1,002, had “yes” to the Voice at 42% (down eight since December), “no” at 34% (up eight) and 24% undecided (steady). On a two-answer choice, “yes” led by 56-44.
NSW upper house final result: 21-21 tie between left and right
The New South Wales upper house has 42 members, with 21 up for election every four years, so members serve eight-year terms. All 21 are elected by statewide proportional representation with optional preferences. A quota for election is 1/22 of the vote or 4.5%.
At last Wednesday’s distribution of preferences, the Coalition’s seventh candidate defeated Animal Justice by over 10,000 votes or 0.05 quotas to win the 21st and final seat. The margin narrowed only slightly from the 0.07-quota gap on primary votes.
This means Labor won eight of the 21 seats up for election on March 25 (up one), the Coalition seven (down two), the Greens two (steady), One Nation one (up one), Legalise Cannabis one (up one), the Liberal Democrats one (up one) and the Shooters one (steady). Animal Justice and the Christian Democrats lost their two seats.
The seats won are compared with those won in 2015, the last time these 21 seats were up for election. Defections are ignored.
The overall upper house will have 15 Labor out of 42, 15 Coalition, four Greens, three One Nation, two Shooters, and one each for the Liberal Democrats, Animal Justice and Legalise Cannabis.
Left-wing parties (Labor, the Greens, Legalise Cannabis and Animal Justice) won the 21 seats up at this election by 11-10, but the right had an 11-10 win in 2019. So the overall upper house is tied 21-21 between left and right. The seats elected in 2019 will be up for election in 2027.
The president of the NSW upper house does not vote except to break ties. If Labor can persuade a right-winger to take the presidency, the left would have a 21-20 floor majority. Otherwise, Labor will need at least one vote from the right to pass legislation.
LNP takes lead in a Queensland state poll
The next Queensland state election is in October 2024. A YouGov poll for The Courier Mail, conducted March 30 to April 5 from a sample of 1,015, gave the LNP a 51-49 lead, a one-point gain for the LNP since December. Primary votes were 39% LNP (up one), 33% Labor (down one), 13% Greens (steady), 10% One Nation (down one) and 5% for all Others (up one).
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk’s lead over LNP leader David Crisafulli as preferred premier slumped to 31-29 from 39-28 in December. The LNP led Labor on best party to manage cost of living, health and youth crime, with Labor only ahead on delivering the Olympics. Poll figures are from The Poll Bludger.
A Queensland Resolve poll for The Brisbane Times, conducted between mid-January and mid-April from a sample of 945, gave Labor 35% of the primary vote (down two since September to December), the LNP 33% (down two), the Greens 12% (up one), One Nation 7% (up one), independents 10% (up three) and others 2% (down two).
Analyst Kevin Bonham estimated this poll would be 53-47 to Labor, unchanged on September to December. Palaszczuk’s lead as preferred premier narrowed from 42-30 to 39-31. Palaszczuk’s net ratings became negative after registering +8 last time.
Fieldwork for the Resolve poll began in January, and Resolve’s federal and state polls have generally shown a pro-Labor skew relative to other polls. So the YouGov poll is likely to be closer to voting intentions now.
Adrian Beaumont ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d’une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n’a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.
The recent media rounds of the new chair of the Australian War Memorial Council, Kim Beazley, appear to presage a major shift in the institution’s attitude to the frontier wars. Beazley explained it is “enormously important” that the current $550 million renovation of the war memorial provides significant coverage of violent conflict between settler and Indigenous Australians. He elaborated:
We must give the Aboriginal population the dignity of resistance.
Beazley’s attitude, which complements that of Veterans’ Affairs Minister Matt Keogh, signals that the Australian War Memorial is not impervious to the changed political landscape. Yet there remains resistance to Beazley’s vision on a war memorial council composed of Coalition government appointees and ex officio military officers, and among conservatives more generally.
A constantly evolving memorial
Some of those who are resistant to coverage of the frontier wars assert the war memorial is hamstrung by its legislation, which restricts its remit to overseas wars or those fought by uniformed personnel. In truth, the Australian War Memorial Act 1980 contains a very broad definition of the institution’s role as
a national memorial to Australians who have died as a result of any war and warlike operations.
In any case, over its history, the memorial has adapted to shifting political imperatives and social mores.
Charles Bean conceived the Australian War Memorial during the first world war. After serving as Australia’s official correspondent, he dedicated his life to sanctifying the Anzacs. Through his editorship of the 12-volume Official History of Australians in the War of 1914-1918, and his advocacy for a shrine that would also serve as a museum and archive, he did more than anyone to promote the belief that the Anzacs had made the nation.
Charles Bean working on the Official History of Australians in the War of 1914–1918. Wikimedia Commons
When the war memorial opened in 1941, it was already apparent that a new world war would need to be recognised. In 1952, during the Korean War, the memorial’s charter was altered so it could cover all wars in which Australia had been, or would be, involved.
The war memorial has changed so much since Bean first conceived it, that former director Brendan Nelson included a space for “emotional release” in the blueprint for the current expansion. Bean might have been puzzled by Nelson’s claim that the memorial should provide “a therapeutic milieu” for veterans.
A wealth of historical research to draw from
Aside from claiming that frontier violence sits outside the memorial’s governing legislation, opponents routinely deride the issue as a “woke” preoccupation.
They might be surprised to learn it was the conservative historian Geoffrey Blainey who suggested more than 40 years ago that what he termed “irregular warfare” between Indigenous and settler Australians be depicted in the memorial.
While the Australian War Memorial dissembled, historical research consolidated the claim that there had indeed been a violent and sustained conflict on the frontier that should be understood as warfare.
Jeffrey Grey’s A Military History of Australia, first published in 1990, left readers in no doubt on this score. A chapter titled “The Military and the Frontier, 1788-1901” explored such things as doctrine, technology, tactics and morale in seeking to understand how the war was “fought and why the outcome was so decisive”.
Grey’s argument received powerful confirmation in the more detailed research of historians John Connor and Stephen Gapps for the period before 1838.
A large body of writing on frontier violence across Australia, including Ray Kerkhove’s recently published How they Fought, has disclosed the use of military-style forces and tactics to suppress Indigenous resistance.
Significant research such as the University of Newcastle’s massacre mapping project, Colonial Frontier Massacres, Australia, 1788 to 1930, and the recent television series The Australian Wars, likely contributed to an environment in which the war memorial felt it needed to gesture towards the demand for recognition.
Trailer for the three-part documentary series, The Australian Wars.
How to properly capture the gravity of the tragedy?
The war memorial’s plans at present seem rather modest. As David Stephens, Peter Stanley and Noel Turnbull of the Honest History group have pointed out, the current plan is for the addition of a small amount of space to the Colonial Conflicts (Soldiers of the Queen) gallery, from 385 to 408 square metres. They rightly argue that such an approach is unsatisfactory given the importance of the frontier wars in Australia’s history.
According to the director, this will be renamed the Pre-1914 Galleries – a choice that ignores the killing of First Nations people in northern Australia well into the 1920s. The war memorial is still apparently committed to the idea that the frontier wars, if they are to be acknowledged as wars at all, were some kind of distant and unrelated prehistory to Anzac.
There is a need for serious research, reflection and discussion on how to create a gallery worthy of the gravity and tragedy of the frontier wars.
How, for instance, will native mounted police – Indigenous men recruited to use violence to overcome resistance by other Indigenous people – be represented?
How will settler deaths be framed? How will the war memorial deal with those old settler family names that figure in the context of frontier warfare – names that will sometimes also appear in the present Roll of Honour?
The Australian War Memorial is a morally charged national space that promotes a powerful national origin story. National character finds its purest expression in Anzac, we are told.
The story of frontier warfare is another powerful – and arguably alternative – foundation story. It tells us Australia was built on invasion, dispossession and violence, and that the nation can only ever approach authenticity and wholeness once it gives a proper recognition to this reality.
As we prepare to head to a referendum later this year to vote on the proposal for an Indigenous Voice to Parliament, it is worth remembering that the Voice is the proposed first stage in a three-step process: Voice, Treaty, Truth.
For the Australian War Memorial to include meaningful exhibits about the wars that were fought on this land would be a powerful act of truth-telling in service of the nation.
Carolyn Holbrook receives funding from the Australian Research Council. She is a member of the Executive Committee of the Australian Historical Association.
Frank Bongiorno is President of the Australian Historical Association and is a Past President of Honest History
Michelle Arrow is the Vice-President of the Australian Historical Association. She receives funding from the Australian Research Council.
If you have respiratory symptoms as we head towards winter and flu season, could it be COVID or the flu? Or something else entirely?
Now, we have a range of home tests that can distinguish between flu and COVID with one swab. They use technology you might be used to. They’re rapid antigen tests or RATs.
Here’s what you need to know about the tests, why they might be useful, and what they don’t tell us.
What’s new about these tests?
Most people were introduced to RATs while testing at home for COVID.
But RATs to detect the flu have been available for years, albeit used by health workers to test patients.
The latest RATs are different for two reasons. One, they detect both COVID and flu with one swab (a “combo” test). Two, they can be used at home.
The first of these combo home tests for flu/COVID was approved in September 2022. Now several are on the market.
These tests let you check, with one test kit, if you are infected with two types of flu (influenza A and B) and SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID).
These RATs contain antibodies that can detect influenza A, influenza B, and SARS-CoV-2.
Some kits have a test cassette with one well to add drops to and one window labelled: C (control), A (influenza A), B (influenza B) and T (test for COVID).
Some tests have two wells and two test windows. You view the influenza results in one window and the COVID results in the other.
Some test cassettes have two wells, like this one. TGA
In the influenza window you will see markings C, A and B. If a line becomes visible at A (and C), you have tested positive for influenza A. If a line becomes visible at B (and C), you are positive for influenza B. If lines are visible at A, B and C you have tested positive for both influenza A and B.
If either A or B has a line but not C, or if none of them do, the test is invalid and you will need to take a new one.
The COVID window works the same way as in a standard RAT for COVID. If a line becomes visible at C and T, you are COVID-positive. If there is a line at C but not T, you are COVID-negative. If there is no line at C the test is invalid.
If you have respiratory symptoms, there are some practical reasons for knowing whether you are positive for COVID or flu.
One, if you know you have COVID, this will affect the timing of your booster vaccine. The Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation recommends adults wait six months after a COVID infection to get a booster to increase the time you have protective immunity. So it helps to know if you have been infected.
Two, if you need antiviral treatment, the medications differ depending on whether you have flu or COVID.
Three, knowing you have flu or COVID means you can take steps to protect others. This could mean working at home, avoiding contact with vulnerable people, and wearing a mask in company.
The Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) lists approved tests on its website. Type the term “combination” in the search box. All combo tests currently listed use nasal swabs to collect the sample.
Most are listed as “very high sensitivity”. This means they get the same result in detecting positive cases as the gold standard PCR test 95% of the time. The others have “high sensitivity” (90% agreement with a PCR).
The best time to take the test is within four days of developing symptoms, as this is when it is easiest to detect both flu and COVID. The tests are more reliable if you have symptoms.
Other pathogens (disease-causing microorganisms) or health conditions can also cause respiratory symptoms. If you are concerned, consult your doctor for medical advice.
The price of combo kits advertised online varies from A$8.95 to $59 (excluding delivery) so it pays to shop around.
It’s worth trying to avoid catching the flu rather than testing for it later. Flu vaccination reduces your chances of catching the flu by 40-60% when the vaccine is well matched to circulating strains. Flu vaccines for the 2023 flu season are available now.
Thea van de Mortel teaches into the Master of Infection Prevention and Control program at Grififth University.
This article is part of our series on big ideas for the Universities Accord. The federal government is calling for ideas to “reshape and reimagine higher education, and set it up for the next decade and beyond”. A review team is due to finish a draft report in June and a final report in December 2023.
According to the Universities Accord discussion paper stakeholders have already
raised concerns about insecure work and underpayment in the higher education sector, particularly for casual or sessional staff.
The discussion paper also notes 50 to 80% of undergraduate teaching in Australia is now done by casual or sessional staff (who are hired for a semester). However, the true figure is likely to be higher as universities report on “full-time equivalent” staff rather than the actual number of people employed on contracts.
The Universities Accord represents the best opportunity in a generation to fix the dire employment practices in higher education.
If it is going to do this, it needs to recognise the significant contribution of those in precarious employment to both teaching and research in Australian universities. We must stop treating casuals as though they are an afterthought, rather than a vital part of higher education.
A huge rise in casual staff
Employment of casual staff has been on the rise since the late 1980s. According to the National Tertiary Education Union, the number of casual and fixed-term staff in higher education grew 89% between 2000 and 2019. The number of continuing (or permanent) staff increased by 49% over the same period.
The union also estimates more than A$100 million in unpaid wages is owed to casual academic staff in Australia.
Up to 80% of Australian undergraduate teaching is done by casual or sessional staff. Fauxels/Pexels
A key difference for Australian academics is the proliferation of highly casualised project-specific roles. These roles lead to semester-based employment for teaching and hours-based contracts for research work.
So, rather than being employed by one institution for a fixed period, Australian academics juggle a variety of contracts in both teaching and research, across multiple universities. This sees them work long hours with little time for their own research – an imperative for researchers looking to make a career in academia.
There are no statistics for the number of people employed at multiple institutions, but most casual academics we encountered in our research work across multiple universities. This has also been reported in media investigations about casual staff in the higher education sector.
Our research: ‘a trend of overwork’
Our research investigates the experiences of those employed in precarious positions in Australia. Between 2018 and 2019, we spoke with 27 academics employed in a range of insecure roles at universities in Australia and the UK.
Two of the main issues for casuals is insecurity and a lack of career progression. As one researcher, with more than a decade of experience, told us:
I did have someone I was working with one time saying, ‘Oh, you need to think about your career, and your career path’ and I just thought, ‘I’ve got too much to do to think about my career’. I think really […] if you can just get a job and keep working, that’s an achievement in itself.
Our interview research also showed contract researchers are often employed on grant funding for projects in which they may have little expertise. These researchers frequently work additional unpaid hours to “prove their worth” and increase the possibility of future employment.
As one interviewee who has worked on a number of hours-based contracts in social sciences notes:
I’d work probably three or four days, at the start, for just one day of [paid] work. So, I think there is very much a trend of wanting to overwork, when you’re starting out as a casual research assistant, because you really want to prove your worth.
Despite the huge proportion of contract researchers, interviewees report they are treated as disposable and not part of the “real” academic workforce. Unfortunately, there is no requirement for universities to report on the continuation of contracts or career development for those in precarious positions.
Sessional teaching staff face similar challenges, with some allocated only ten minutes to read a piece of work and provide feedback. They are also not given any paid time to support struggling students.
The temporary nature of the funding means there is little oversight of their employment conditions, training or career progression. A 2019 union survey of more than 6,000 casuals found only 18% were satisfied with their “mode” of employment. More than two thirds of those surveyed preferred permanent work.
A dramatic overhaul of university employment structures is required.
This should begin by including practices that are considered “normal” in other industries, namely: payment for all work completed, payment for attendance at compulsory meetings, payment for a minimum number of hours per “shift”, adequate time to complete work, career progression, professional development and stability of income.
Universities should also recognise the diversity of employees’ employment aims and focus on fair conditions for all staff. For example, not all academics would like to work full-time or undertake research. Universities could create part-time teaching-focused roles for those who would like to maintain currency in their industry whilst working at a university, or for those who want flexible working arrangements.
Casual staff should be paid for all the work they do. Lum3n/Pexels
These jobs should not be considered peripheral to the “real” work of universities but acknowledged as a core component of modern university employment structures. Those who choose to remain in causal employment should be paid fairly for all work completed and have easier mechanisms to convert to permanent employment should they wish to do so.
Universities should also support academics in ongoing employment to have the time and capacity to improve their supervision and mentoring of casual or contract staff.
As part of this, stable and continuous funding to universities is essential.
To start with, the percentage of Gross Domestic Product invested in research could be increased. Australia spends 1.8% of GDP on research, down from 2.25% in 2008 and well behind the OECD average of 2.68%. 2020 figures show universities funded more than half of their own research and development, which accounts for 36% of all Australian research.
The current lack of funding certainty makes it much harder to plan projects and employ researchers in an ongoing capacity.
More secure funding along with policy settings that steer universities away from a corporatised model (where spending on staff is cut in the name of budget bottom lines), could have a significant difference on how universities employ staff.
The impacts of these changes extend beyond the individual employee. If staff are more secure and better supported, this will also support improvements in teaching and learning as well as world-leading research.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Makoto Shinkai has found a winning formula with the release of his newest anime Suzume, already the fourth-highest-grossing anime film of all time.
Shinkai released his debut animated feature film, The Place Promised in our Early Days, in 2004. Popularly referred to as the “new Miyazaki”, Shinkai is known for his detailed and realistic scenery.
His seventh feature film, Your Name (2016), about a pair of teenagers who have never met but randomly start swapping bodies, became an international sensation and brought Shinkai to mainstream attention.
In Suzume, the teenage titular character travels across Japan with a cat and a mysterious young-man-turned-talking-chair, sealing doors between worlds to prevent natural disasters.
In many ways, Suzume is light-hearted and action-filled, but at its core it is a tale of courage in the face of trauma.
Themes of disaster, loss and the environment are common across many of Shinkai’s films. But this film is his clearest exploration yet of the alignment of collective and personal trauma.
The 2011 Japanese earthquake, referred to colloquially as the “triple disaster” due to the subsequent tsunami and meltdown at the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Plant, looms omnipresent in contemporary Japanese fiction and film.
Kazuto Tatsuta’s manga Ichi-F（いちえふ) (2013-15) explored the author’s experience cleaning up after the disaster as a worker at the plant in 2011.
An archive of oral histories, photographs and real-time tweets about the disaster, named The East Japan Earthquake Archive, includes oral testimonies geomapped onto a Google Earth map.
Chinese artist Ai Weiwei completed a Fukushima Art Project in 2015, visiting the nuclear exclusion zone and installing two art installations in response.
Fukushima 50 (2020) is a movie telling the story of how the employees of Fukushima Dai-ichi responded to the nuclear meltdown. Homeland (2014) is the story of a young man who returns to live in the no-go zone of Fukushima. Odayaka (2012) follows flatmates in Tokyo concerned about radiation and toxicity immediately after the earthquake.
Shinkai’s Your Name has been interpreted as his own indirect response to the catastrophe. In this anime, Taki’s hometown Itomori is wiped out by a comet – Shinkai’s reference to the earthquake.
Suzume is part of an ongoing project for many Japanese creators: to represent the trauma of disaster through a personal, empathetic story.
In Suzume, Shinkai tackles individual trauma, but the film also reflects a wider cultural trauma.
When she was five, Suzume lost her mother during the chaos following the 2011 earthquake and tsunami. Now 17, she carries the burden of this childhood trauma.
Memories of this event return in her dreams and as she nears her childhood home. But she is not just experiencing her own individual trauma. She shares the wider trauma of the memory of Fukushima and the earthquake with others.
When Suzume prevents new disaster by desperately remembering those who lived in these towns, she draws upon and connects with this collective memory and loss.
The art of recovery
The film follows Suzume’s journey to north-east Japan, beginning by ferry boat from Kyushu to Shikoku, then on to Kobe, Tokyo and Tohoku.
The threat of earthquakes is an everyday reality: notifications light up phones, crowds stand on sidewalks waiting to see what will happen, and then – after the shock – ordinary life returns.
Shinkai’s depiction of devastated countryside, destroyed homes and displaced ships in Suzume’s memories directly draws on footage that emerged from the Tohoku region in 2011, combining Shinkai’s trademark realism with a nation-wide memory of disaster.
Although the film alludes to the nuclear accident through contaminated soil trucks in one scene, this is not the main focus. The focus is on the survivors of the earthquake and tsunami, which claimed 15,500 lives and left 450,000 people homeless.
Suzume has limited but painful memories of this time when she lost both her mother and the world as she knew it. Her only record is a diary where she blacked out those days.
In Suzume, trauma is a “black hole” in which there is no light and in which time does not pass.
This is depicted in the liminal space of tokoyo (“ever after”), a concept from Japanese mythology: a timeless space Suzume enters via wooden doors dotted across Japan. In mythology, tokoyo can also mean the place of the dead. In this film, Suzume became lost in the tokoyo as a girl. In returning to tokoyo, she can seek out and attempt to comfort her childhood self.
She can seek to comfort herself and understand the experience, but she cannot erase the tragic events or their impact.
Moving forward
Suzume could be seen as scriptotherapy – a story written to help the author come to terms with a traumatic event and rediscover a sense of control.
The film uses the journey across Japan, fantastical imagery and evocative comedic music to represent collective and personal healing.
Some of the film’s representations of trauma are a little too clean: ultimately, Suzume’s emotional release is fully achieved through returning an item tied to her lost mother to her younger self.
Yet the film stands its ground in the large collection of films and literature coming to terms with the memory of Japan’s 2011 triple disaster. It also invites consideration of how we might continue to heal from and memorialise our current era: how will we ultimately remember the trauma of the COVID pandemic and what stories will we tell?
Suzume is in Australian cinemas now.
Gwyn McClelland has previously received funding from the Japan Foundation, Tokyo.
Laura Emily Clark has previously received funding from the Japan Foundation, Sydney.
Lili Pâquet does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Emissions from human activities are substantially increasing the atmospheric concentrations of the greenhouse gases CO₂, methane, CFCs and nitrous oxide. These increases will enhance the greenhouse effect, resulting on average in an additional warming of the Earth’s surface.
Long-lived gases would require immediate reductions in emissions from human activities of over 60% to stabilise their concentrations at today’s levels.
These are not statements from the latest report released by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). They come from its first assessment in 1990.
Back then, the IPCC acknowledged there were uncertainties in the predictions due to incomplete scientific understanding of sources and sinks of greenhouse gases. But what has actually happened in the 30 years since largely matches the predictions:
an average rate of global sea level rise of 30-100mm per decade due to the thermal expansion of the oceans and the melting of some land ice
an increase of global mean temperature of about 0.3℃ per decade under business as usual.
The IPCC also predicted the rise in temperature would slow as we ramped up efforts to cut emissions, but this scenario hasn’t been tested because emissions reductions never happened.
In 1990, the IPCC also presented the first warnings about potential climate change impacts. It then repeated them in one form or another in the following five assessment reports. But emissions continued to rise each year, resulting in a global temperature increase of 1.1-1.2℃.
On a more positive note, annual emissions from 18 countries have peaked during the past decades – but not always as a result of climate policies. For example, the UK’s manufacturing capacity reduced significantly as companies moved off-shore. Nevertheless, global emissions kept rising.
Chapters in IPCC reports covering agriculture, land-use change, energy supply, transport, buildings, industry and urban settlements repeatedly provided clear guidance on emissions cuts, such as this section from 2001:
Hundreds of technologies and practices for end-use energy efficiency in buildings, transport and manufacturing industries account for more than half of the potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Details of how to reduce emissions from improved energy efficiency in all sectors have been repeated in all six IPCC assessments. But many opportunities to reduce energy demand, and save costs, have not been implemented. Although scientific knowledge has advanced since 1990 and a range of low-carbon technologies have evolved and improved, the key IPCC messages have remained the same.
Given the many repeated warnings, why have global greenhouse gas emissions continued to rise? Typical answers include population growth, the rise of the middle classes in many developing countries, increased consumerism, greater tourism, lobbying by the fossil fuel industry and higher consumption of animal proteins.
National and local governments have also struggled to implement strong climate policies because the majority of their citizens and businesses remain unwilling to change their behaviour. This is even the case when co-benefits are clearly evident, including improved health, reduced traffic congestion and lower costs.
The conclusion of the IPCC’s latest report earlier this year marked the end of its sixth assessment cycle. Earth Negotiations Bulletin, CC BY-ND
A possible future for the IPCC
Having assessed thousands of published research papers over 33 years, what has the IPCC actually achieved since its inception in 1988? And what should be its future role given that many of its strong messages have largely gone unheeded?
Arguably, present and future climate impacts would have been even worse without the IPCC’s work. With each report, the urgency to act on both mitigation and adaptation increased. Few climate deniers now remain. More people want their governments to act.
Although total global emissions continue to rise, energy-related carbon dioxide emissions may be reaching a plateau. According to the International Energy Agency, these emissions rose by under 1% in 2022 – less than initially feared after the COVID dip – largely because of the growth of solar, wind, electric vehicles, heat pumps and improved energy efficiency measures.
So there is hope. But after 25 years of personal involvement with six IPCC reports, my view is that it’s time to review the role of the IPCC and its three main working groups before the next assessment cycle begins.
Since climate science continues to evolve, the IPCC’s Working Group One on the science of the climate system should continue to assess and present the latest knowledge every five to six years.
The need for adaptation and resilience is finally receiving greater attention, mainly as a result of more extreme climate impacts and growing insurance claims. Therefore, Working Group Two should continue but report every two years so that both scientific analyses and local real-world experiences can be shared quickly between local and national governments.
Measures to cut emissions have evolved as newer technologies have been developed and refined. The present understanding of the policies and solutions to reducing emissions across all sectors is similar to 1990 knowledge – we just need to get on with implementing solutions by removing remaining barriers through regulation and advice.
Research to reduce and capture carbon dioxide emissions will continue, but given the urgency, it is too risky to hope that new low-carbon technologies and systems will one day prove to be commercially successful. Overall, the IPCC’s Working Group Three on mitigation has done its job and should be replaced by a new working group on changing human behaviour.
Behavioural science has been included in various chapters within more recent IPCC reports. Without significant social change in the near term, the emissions curve will not bend downwards. Renewed emphasis on how to best achieve societal change across cultures as a matter of urgency is crucial.
Ralph Sims has received travel funding from NZ Government to support his previous role as an IPCC author.
