Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kathleen McPhillips, Senior Lecturer, School of Humanities and Social Science, University of Newcastle

On entry to Newcastle’s The Lock-Up contemporary art space is a textile artwork by institutional child sexual abuse survivor and artist Elizabeth Seysener.

Produced as part of the community arts program running alongside the Loud Sky exhibition, the triptych depicts the three major events in her story of recovery: carrying the burden of shame for over 50 years, the traumatising year of disclosure to the Catholic Church, and finding a place of being free to speak out.

In the entry to the next room, a loop of primary school photos of survivors reminds us it is children who were harmed.

Another room features a large timeline produced by graphic design students at the University of Newcastle. It depicts the central events of two public inquiries and court cases as they unfolded between 1995 and 2022.

Television footage captures the major events. A framed document expresses the heartfelt responses of family members of survivors, whose voices are rarely heard.

This exhibition, titled Loud Sky, addresses institutional child sexual abuse through the eyes of five professional artists commissioned to work with the local survivor community.

“Loud Sky” is a riff on the Loud Fence Movement, which began in 2015 in Ballarat as a community response to the harrowing details emerging from the hearings. Community members tied coloured ribbons on the fences of Catholic churches and schools where children had been harmed.

This has since become an international movement.

Read more:
Royal commission recommends sweeping reforms for Catholic Church to end child abuse

Community art works

The Newcastle region is recognised as an epicentre in the ongoing catastrophe of church-based institutional child sexual abuse.

From the 1950s, schools and parishes harboured clerical perpetrators who were constantly moved around to avoid detection. Families of devout Catholics were socialised not to question priests and brothers. Local Catholic managers put protection of perpetrators and the reputation of the church above the safety of children.

In 2022, the Loud Sky project ran community art workshops for anyone impacted by institutional child sexual abuse. Participants enrolled in painting, drawing and photography classes with experienced art therapists. The resulting artworks range from photographs of precious objects to paintings of the safety of home, and are on display at Belmont Library.

A second community arts program, the Field of Flowers, has been “planted” at Christ Church Cathedral and Sacred Heart Cathedral. School students, survivors, supporters and parishioners made over 8,000 ribbon flowers. The field is an act of remembrance and signals the hope for healing.

Loud Sky visitors have the option to sit in the gallery and make a ribbon flower to be “planted” in one of the cathedral fields.

Listening to survivors

These community programs complement the artwork from five commissioned artists. These artists began their commission with training in trauma-informed art practice to prepare for hearing the stories from the royal commission documents and the survivor community.

Each artist worked in collaboration with the survivor community, mostly members of the Clergy Abused Network, the central survivor support group in the Hunter region.

Damien Linnane asked survivors to bring in a treasured object accompanied by a story of the object. His detailed, beautiful drawings focus on the power of memory to evoke the resilience of survival.

Lottie Consalvo worked with a survivor and his partner to produce a beautiful video around the small everyday gestures that had sustained their lives through years of pain. The slow-moving, deeply contemplative silent film evokes the power of stillness and beauty.

Peter Gardiner’s epic oil paintings depict the power of fire to both destroy and recreate, following his reading of the stories of survival from the royal commission transcripts.

Fiona Lee’s three casement windows evoke being both inside and outside, born from Lee asking survivors what motivated them to get up in the morning and find the courage of facing each new day and reaching out to connect with others.

Clare Weeks invited survivors to take a piece of paper and imagine a word that reflected their sense of resilience and hope. Each piece of blank paper was folded and scanned, the surface revealing idiosyncratic features. Large images of these scans span the walls. We are invited to take our own square of paper and imagine our own response before placing it in a large glass bowl.

The power of art

Visual art can be an important means by which affected communities come to understand the impacts of harmful events in creative and regenerative ways.

Art helps process trauma and plays a vital role in restorative justice and truth telling.

It is a powerful corrective to dominant narratives often told by influential institutions with investments in protecting corporate reputations.

How we represent these stories of injustice and pain reflects our humanity and commitment to changing damaging social practices.

Through art, we can remain awake to the impacts of child sexual abuse and listen to the stories of those who survived such harm as children.

Perhaps the final words can be given to the visitor who wrote in the exhibition logbook: “We see you, we hear you, we believe you.”

The Loud Sky is at The Lock-Up, Newcastle, until May 21.

Read more:
The Altar Boys: new questions about suicides of clergy abuse survivors should spark another inquiry

Kathleen McPhillips receives funding from the Marist Brothers, Australia.

– ref. How can art respond to stories on institutional child sexual abuse? – https://theconversation.com/how-can-art-respond-to-stories-on-institutional-child-sexual-abuse-203914

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hussein Dia, Professor of Future Urban Mobility, Swinburne University of Technology

Australia’s first National Electric Vehicle Strategy, released today, details the government’s long-awaited plans to accelerate the adoption of these vehicles.

Consultations on the strategy began last September.
The climate change and energy minister, Chris Bowen, then promised the strategy would make Australia a globally competitive market for electric vehicles. Households and businesses would have access to the best modern transport technology at affordable prices.

But does the strategy live up to these expectations? Is it ambitious enough to meet our emission-reduction targets and international commitments? And how far does it go to align Australia with world-best practice for the transition to electric vehicles?

In short, the strategy represents a step in the right direction but falls short of introducing meaningful new measures to speed up this transition, at a time when urgent interventions are needed.

Why is the strategy important?

Transport is Australia’s third-largest – and fastest-growing – source of greenhouse gas emissions. Cars produce about half of all transport emissions.

One of the quickest ways to cut these emissions is to accelerate the current slow uptake of electric vehicles.

Although EV sales almost doubled between 2021 and 2022, they represented only 3.8% of all new vehicle sales in 2022. That’s well below the global average of 12-14%. And it’s way behind world leader Norway where 87% of cars sold now are electric.

An ambitious national strategy, backed by robust fuel-efficiency standards, is vital for decarbonising Australia’s road transport. It will also improve air quality and reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and imported oil.

Read more:
A rapid shift to electric vehicles can save 24,000 lives and leave us $148bn better off over the next 2 decades

What’s good and notable about the strategy?

During consultations on the strategy, around 500 submissions were received, representing the views of more than 1,500 individuals and over 200 organisations.

A key feature of the strategy is a commitment to introduce Australia’s first fuel-efficiency standard for new cars. Frustratingly, though, the government has delayed finalising the standard until the end of 2023, pending yet further consultations with industry on its development.

Australia is the only country in the OECD without mandatory fuel-efficiency standards for road transport vehicles. They are needed urgently now as an important step to increase the supply of electrical vehicles to Australia.

Bowen said today the government will not introduce any bans or stop companies selling any type of vehicle in Australia. Instead, they will be required to sell a “good proportion”‘ of electric and fuel-efficient vehicles. But no targets were mentioned.

Aside from the planned fuel-efficiency standard, the strategy introduces one other important initiative related to recycling and reuse of electric vehicles and batteries.

The rest of the strategy falls short of providing any substantial policy directions or targets to accelerate the transition to electric vehicles. Instead, it mainly confirms existing programs and policies, such as the electric car discount, and other already announced plans to upgrade charging infrastructure and the National Reconstruction Fund to boost local manufacturing.

Read more:
Made in Australia? The electric vehicle revolution gives us a chance to revive an industry

What’s missing?

The strategy does not provide new incentives to help Australians with the cost of buying an electric vehicle. There is also no mention of targeted subsidies or measures to ensure equity. Instead, the government said it will work with states and territories on nationally consistent principles to ensure demand stays strong.

The strategy also fails to acknowledge the need for a holistic strategy to decarbonise road transport. Other policy interventions are needed to lower emissions from transport, which cannot be achieved through vehicle electrification alone.

The strategy also falls short on measures to accelerate the adoption of electric trucks and heavy commercial vehicles. Freight transport networks and supply chains present particular challenges for reducing emissions. It is equally important to incentivise adoption by providing cheap loans and increasing supply
of reliable, sustainable and cost-effective alternatives to diesel trucks.

Importantly, too, the strategy does not stop subsidies and incentives for fossil fuel vehicles.

Read more:
Why electric vehicles won’t be enough to rein in transport emissions any time soon

A credible strategy would need to consider a so-called feebate system. Feebates involve placing a levy on purchases of vehicles with high emissions and using the revenues to provide rebates for purchases of vehicles with zero or low emissions to offset their higher prices. Examples include France’s Bonus Malus and New Zealand’s Clean Car Discount. If developed carefully, these systems can be a cost-neutral method of discouraging purchases of high-emission vehicles and encouraging purchases of electric vehicles.

How does the strategy compare with plans overseas?

In the past few weeks, the United States and the European Union have announced some very ambitious plans that make the Australian strategy look very modest.

The US has proposed strict new emissions limits that would require two-thirds of vehicles sold in the US to be electric by 2032. The proposal, if ratified, will represent the most aggressive vehicle emissions reduction plan in the US. It will deliver, on average, a 13% annual pollution cut.

The EU also had plans to ban the sale of internal combustion engine cars from 2035. In February, the European Parliament approved the ban, which was later revised to allow some combustion engines running on e-fuels to be sold beyond 2035. Still, this remains one of the world’s strongest measures to phase out fossil-fuel vehicles.

Read more:
Why a shift to basing vehicle registration fees on emissions matters for Australia

The road ahead

By placing road transport decarbonisation on the national agenda, the National Electric Vehicle Strategy represents a positive step. But it falls short of matching the ambitious plans of other developed nations.

The much-anticipated fuel-efficiency standard will be key to demonstrate Australia’s commitment to reducing transport emissions. The standard will need to be mandatory, rigorous and robust. Clear targets on electric vehicle sales and timelines for phasing out internal combustion engine vehicles are needed.

If the standard is not carefully designed, we will continue to let down future generations, and the planet.

Hussein Dia receives funding from the Australian Research Council, the iMOVE Cooperative Research Centre, Transport for New South Wales, Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts, and Beam Mobility Holdings.

– ref. Australia finally has an electric vehicle strategy. How does it stack up? – https://theconversation.com/australia-finally-has-an-electric-vehicle-strategy-how-does-it-stack-up-203897

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Noor Gillani, Technology Editor

Artificial intelligence has changed form in recent years.

What started in the public eye as a burgeoning field with promising (yet largely benign) applications, has snowballed into a more than US$100 billion industry where the heavy hitters – Microsoft, Google and OpenAI, to name a few – seem intent on out-competing one another.

The result has been increasingly sophisticated large language models, often released in haste and without adequate testing and oversight.

These models can do much of what a human can, and in many cases do it better. They can beat us at advanced strategy games, generate incredible art, diagnose cancers and compose music.

Read more:
Text-to-audio generation is here. One of the next big AI disruptions could be in the music industry

There’s no doubt AI systems appear to be “intelligent” to some extent. But could they ever be as intelligent as humans?

There’s a term for this: artificial general intelligence (AGI). Although it’s a broad concept, for simplicity you can think of AGI as the point at which AI acquires human-like generalised cognitive capabilities. In other words, it’s the point where AI can tackle any intellectual task a human can.

AGI isn’t here yet; current AI models are held back by a lack of certain human traits such as true creativity and emotional awareness.

We asked five experts if they think AI will ever reach AGI, and five out of five said yes.

But there are subtle differences in how they approach the question. From their responses, more questions emerge. When might we achieve AGI? Will it go on to surpass humans? And what constitutes “intelligence”, anyway?

Here are their detailed responses:

Read more:
Calls to regulate AI are growing louder. But how exactly do you regulate a technology like this?

– ref. Will AI ever reach human-level intelligence? We asked 5 experts – https://theconversation.com/will-ai-ever-reach-human-level-intelligence-we-asked-5-experts-202515

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Helen Dickinson, Professor, Public Service Research, UNSW Sydney

NDIS Minister Bill Shorten yesterday announced a “reboot” of Australia’s National Disability Insurance Scheme and six major areas of reform. Getting the NDIS back on track, Shorten said, will require reform across all disability services.

It’s a difficult time to announce an NDIS reboot. The federal budget is weeks away and, in the context of a cost-of-living crisis, some argue NDIS costs need to be reined in.

At the same time, two major pieces of work are underway and due to report later this year: the royal commission into violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation of people with disability; and the independent review of the NDIS exploring how it can be made sustainable over the long term.

Shorten has continuously said any changes to the scheme need to be guided by people with disability, meaning it would make it difficult to make announcements about substantive changes ahead of the review reporting.

So what do we know so far, and what are the key challenges to overcome?

Tackling bed block

Since Labor came to government last year, the government has made a number of changes to the scheme, including decreasing delays to NDIS participants being discharged from hospital.

Delayed discharge means a person is medically fit to be discharged from hospital but they cannot return home safely as appropriate supports are not in place.

In his speech to the National Press Club yesterday, Shorten explained that last year, NDIS participants in Victoria waited, on average, 160 days after they were medically fit to be discharged from hospital.

Read more:
NDIS participants are left waiting for too long in hospital beds due to bureaucratic delays

After significant action from the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA), this fell to a 29-day average wait to be discharged. This is a better outcome for the people involved and is estimated to have saved the health system A$550 million.

This shows the NDIS does not exist in a vacuum. How the NDIS operates has implications for the costs of mainstream services such as health and education – and, conversely, how mainstream services operate has implications for the NDIS and its costs.

6 ways to reboot the NDIS

The government will focus on six areas for reform to ensure the NDIS is fit for purpose, which won’t come as a surprise to those familiar with the scheme.

Very little detail has been announced about these reforms and in many cases we will need to wait for the independent review to report and outline precisely how these will be achieved.

1) Increase the size of the NDIA workforce, make sure staff are appropriately trained and the agency has the technology and capacity to do its work.

2) Move participants to longer plans, where appropriate, rather than needing a new plan every year. This will give participants more certainty and allow them to focus on making their current plans work.

3) Make sure all money is spent effectively. This means not spending on “shoddy therapies” and ensuring supports are evidence-based and benefits are maximised for participants.

4) Review supported independent living services. Around $10 billion of NDIS funding goes into these services each year and supports around 30,000 people with significant disabilities to live independently. Yet too often, they don’t support participants and families in the ways that they want. The Royal Commission has also heard significant abuse and neglect occurs in these settings.

5) Target misuse of NDIS funds. This involves targeting fraud within the scheme, but also unethical practices by some providers who overcharge for services or pressure people into spending money on services that they may not want or need.

6) Increase community and mainstream supports so people who aren’t eligible for the NDIS can access other services. This isn’t focused on the NDIS but the services that sit around it.

These six areas target many of the areas that are in need of reform within the scheme and some have already seen some initial reform attempts. The real question is how these will be delivered and whether there is genuine commitment to co-design with people with disability around these areas.

Read more:
Everyone is talking about the NDIS – we spoke to participants and asked them how to fix it

More to disability care than the NDIS

The NDIS was never designed to be accessed by all people with disability. The initial scheme design supported participants via a tiered system:

• Tier 2 was for all Australians with disability and their carers by providing information and referrals to relevant services outside the NDIS (for example, mainstream services such as health and education). This tier also aimed to link people with disability into their local communities.

• Tier 3 was designed for people with disability who have significant and permanent impairments. It provides access to specialised disability supports funded directly by the scheme and allocated via individual budgets.

While much of the attention on the scheme is around Tier 3 supports, a major driver of costs is a lack of investment in Tier 2 services. If we do not see adequate investment in mainstream and community services, such as in health and education, people with disability are more likely to require Tier 3 services.

The NDIS has been called the “oasis in the desert” where people need to get services and supports through the scheme because there is a lack of other mainstream supports available. Research shows 90% of disabled Australians who didn’t have NDIS funding and took part in the research were unable to access the services and supports they needed.

We have seen particular growth in the number of young people with autism and developmental delay entering the NDIS, far beyond what was originally projected at scheme design. One in ten boys aged between five and seven have an NDIS plan when starting school.

While this could indicate the original scheme estimates were not correct, it’s likely that a significant proportion of demand for scheme entry is being driven by a lack of other available supports through mainstream services.

The government seems committed to disability services reform but it won’t be quick or easy. It will involve more than just changes to the NDIS – we need a rethink of all disability services. And this can’t be done without people with disability who need to play a strong role in designing this new scheme.

Read more:
What the NDIS needs to do to rebuild trust, in the words of the people who use it

Helen Dickinson receives funding from ARC, NHMRC and CYDA.

– ref. The NDIS is set for a reboot but we also need to reform disability services outside the scheme – https://theconversation.com/the-ndis-is-set-for-a-reboot-but-we-also-need-to-reform-disability-services-outside-the-scheme-204041

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christopher Harrison, Senior Lecturer, Sydney School of Public Health, University of Sydney

Australia’s Medicare billing system is overly complicated, bureaucratic and not meeting the needs of a modern health service, potentially leaking billions of dollars. But claims this loss is mostly due to fraudulent billing practices by GPs are inaccurate.

In October, the ABC’s 7.30 program and the Nine newspapers raised concerns about an estimated A$8 billion in Medicare waste, caused by a mixture of doctors’ errors, over-servicing and outright fraud. The examples given, however, were almost exclusively intentional fraud, mainly in general practice. This promoted health minister Mark Butler to commission an independent review, led by Dr Pradeep Philip.

The Philip review, released earlier this month, was highly critical of the current Medicare system and found non-compliance and fraud accounted for $1.5 to $3 billion of Medicare waste.

Our research team analysed GP activity recorded during almost 90,000 patient encounters to assess how GPs were billing for the services they provided.

We found GPs undercharged at 11.8% of encounters and overcharged at 1.6%. This suggests GPs aren’t routinely defrauding Medicare, and in fact have saved the system equivalent to $351 million in the 2021-22 financial year.

However, we agree the current billing system needs to be urgently reformed.

Read more:
General practices are struggling. Here are 5 lessons from overseas to reform the funding system

How does Medicare billing work?

GPs claim a fee for service, called a rebate, which is a fixed amount ascribed on the Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS), based on the type of service provided.

There are nearly 6,000 MBS item numbers. GPs can charge for one or more MBS items for a patient service.

Around 90% of MBS items claimed by GPs are considered standard consultation items (surgery, residential aged care facility visits, home visits and so on), that are in four levels (A, B, C and D) which increase in length.

The cost associated increases with each level. An example of an error would be a GP accidentally charging for a Level C consultation (requires 20 minutes or longer; $76.95 rebate) when the visit only met the criteria for a Level B (less than 20 minutes; rebate of $39.75). An example of under-billing is when a GP is entitled to claim for a Level C but charges only a Level B.

An example of over-servicing is a pathology test for blood glucose level being repeated for the same patient at consecutive visits, where the patient’s condition did not warrant the second test.

An example of fraud would be claiming for a service that had not been provided.

Examining doctors’ billing in the real world

The data we analysed in our peer-reviewed study were collected between 2013-2016 from nationally representative samples of GPs during 89,765 real-time encounters with their patients. The GPs recorded the start and finish time for each visit.

The Philip review did not try to quantify the amount of underbilling.

We decided to examine the billing data following the 7.30 Report/Nine news investigation, but the participants could not have been influenced by these reports as the data we used were collected prior to the ABC/Nine publications.

Why would doctors undercharge?

We theorised GPs were likely undercharging Medicare for two reasons:

1) while time is the predominant measure, GPs are likely to still consider content and complexity when billing standard Medicare items, rather than just billing according to the time spent with the patient

2) fear of triggering a professional services review (PSR) of their billing.

A professional services review can be triggered for a variety of reasons, for example, a GP has a higher proportion of longer consultations than might be expected. A professional services review involves an audit of the GP’s billing. It can potentially lead to a decision that can prevent the GP from being able to bill Medicare.

Read more:
6 reasons why it’s so hard to see a GP

Last week, HealthED, a health education company, included three post-webinar questions on this topic in an online survey of 1,852 GPs from across Australia. Answering these questions was not compulsory.

The results showed most (83.3%) GPs consider the length and complexity of the consultation when billing Level C and D items, even though increased complexity is no longer required (since 2011).

More than half (60.3%) intentionally under-billed Medicare in the previous week.

The most common reasons for under-billing were:

• they did not feel that the content of the consultation justified a higher MBS item (41.9%)

• fear of triggering a professional services review alert (33.5%)

• confusion around Medicare schedule criteria (30.8%).

These responses correlate with the findings from our nationally representative sample, which suggests GPs predominantly act with integrity, but also based on fear and confusion.

Time to reform Medicare billing

A simplification of the current very complex Medicare billing system would resolve a lot of waste through unintended errors. Reducing low value and unnecessary care is not a simple task as these are difficult to define, and often rely on situational judgement. When systems are no longer fit for purpose, they should be reviewed and revised, as the Philip review has recommended.

There are bad actors in every profession and those who “game” Medicare should be called out. However, the claims of widespread fraud have not been supported by our work or the Philip review.

Read more:
With so many GPs leaving the profession, how can I find a new one?

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.

– ref. Medicare billing is a problem but our research found many more GPs undercharge – https://theconversation.com/medicare-billing-is-a-problem-but-our-research-found-many-more-gps-undercharge-203561

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Aaron Eger, Postdoctoral research fellow, UNSW Sydney

Underwater forests known as kelp have been sustaining people and cultures for millennia. However, most of us are only vaguely aware of the vibrant masses of seaweed hugging the ocean shores around Earth. Furthermore, we don’t realise how valuable and necessary they really are.

In a new study published today in Nature Communications, we have produced the first global estimate of the economic value of kelp forests – revealing they provide hundreds of billions of dollars in value to humans across the world.

A human history of kelp

Along the Pacific, kelp harvest has long played an important role in Asian societies. In Japan, seaweed was among the marine products people could use to pay taxes, according to a law code from the year 701.

In Medieval Europe, kelp was used to fertilise soil and increase crop yields, to treat goitre, and was used to fortify building materials for centuries. In the 21st century kelp forests have become the main source for alginate, a common food and medical additive.

And throughout this time, kelps have supported teeming ecosystems and important fisheries of abalone, lobsters and many different types of fishes. Through their prolific productivity, kelp forests draw carbon from the atmosphere, exude oxygen, and help reduce nutrient pollution in our oceans.

A marine marvel, hidden kelp forests spread across almost one third of our world’s coastlines and lie within 50km of 740 million people. If you live in London, Tokyo, New York, Vancouver, Santiago, Cape Town, Los Angeles or Lisbon, you have one of these ecosystems on your doorstep.

Yet they tend to be forgotten or misunderstood. People often aren’t even aware of a kelp forest, and if they are, they might be most familiar with a pile of decomposing seaweed on the beach after a storm.

This disconnect has real-world implications. Despite sitting next to some of the biggest research centres on the planet and likely covering more seafloor than any other biotic habitat, research and conservation of kelp forests is terribly behind other ecosystems.

This knowledge gap impedes desperately needed action and conservation. Kelp populations in northern California, Tasmania, and the Salish Sea have all but disappeared in living memory. Elsewhere, kelp populations have been continually declining over the last 50 years.

What we value and how we value it is actually quite a complicated process. And despite the fact we make value judgements over and over each day, we have a really poor understanding of something’s value if it doesn’t have a price tag on it.

Our natural world is perhaps the ultimate value provider – everything we do in our societies is ultimately tied to nature, ecosystems, and a healthy planet. But because these processes and benefits happen with or without humans, they are often taken for granted.

So, what is the ‘value’ of a kelp forest?

Our research has brought together data from all across our oceans to produce a global estimate of the economic value of kelp forest ecosystems. Looking at six key genera of kelp – Macrocystis, Nereocystis, Laminaria, Saccharina, Ecklonia, and Lessonia – and the potential economic value of the fisheries they support, the carbon they pull from the atmosphere, and the nutrient pollution they remove from the water, we found that kelp forests are valued at US$500 billion per year.

The highest of these values was the removal of excess nitrogen from the water, which can trigger blooms of algae, reduced water quality, and ultimately oxygen-depleted dead zones.

A close second was the fisheries values – kelp forests support some of our most iconic fisheries, including lobster and abalone.

Lastly, despite finding the carbon sequestration of kelp forests was comparable to other terrestrial and marine ecosystems, the economic value was much lower, as society has yet to place a high price on carbon. This finding suggests that carbon credits may not be an economic driver of kelp conservation, but kelp forests still play an important role in the blue carbon cycle.

The future of kelp

When nature is treated as a freebie, where we can take what we want and not pay for the damages, this attitude has direct consequences; people and the environment suffer.

First, it can mean that people and government don’t see the value in protecting and restoring ecosystems. Second, development projects are able to destroy nature without compensating for those damages.

Lastly, it leads to poor management. How can we manage something if we cannot quantify it? Imagine if you didn’t know where your bank account was, or how much money was in it.

The battle to save our kelp forests is just getting started, and we need greater action to protect these intrinsically and economically valuable marine ecosystems.

That is why researchers like me have started the not-for-profit Kelp Forest Alliance, and have now launched the Kelp Forest Challenge, a global call to protect and restore 4 million hectares of kelp forest by 2040. This is a call for governments to meet their commitments to the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework and act now to save these ecosystems and #HelpTheKelp.

Read more:
Whether you’re a snorkeller or CEO, you can help save our vital kelp forests

Aaron Eger is the Founder and Program Director of the Kelp Forest Alliance, a research driven not-for-profit organization. He is also a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of New South Wales Sydney. The Kelp Forest Alliance is supported by the Nature Conservancy, The Banner Foundation, the Van Dyson Foundation, and UNSW Sydney.

– ref. A forgotten and neglected ecosystem covers a third of Earth’s coastlines, with a collective value of $500 billion – https://theconversation.com/a-forgotten-and-neglected-ecosystem-covers-a-third-of-earths-coastlines-with-a-collective-value-of-500-billion-203908

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Paul Kidson, Senior Lecturer in Educational Leadership, Australian Catholic University

There are multiple signs the Australian education system is in crisis. This includes declining academic outcomes, teacher shortages, principals facing abuse, and an upswing in school violence.

Hanging over these is the Productivity Commission’s January 2023 assessment that what we’ve done with Australian education over the past decade has done “little, so far, to improve student outcomes”.

Education authors Tom Greenwell and Chris Bonnor agree. In an ambitious new report for education initiative Australian Learning Lecture, they offer a way forward.

They propose a framework for Australian schools to increase parental choice (including for religious-based schools) and improve the inequity that afflicts the system.

What’s the problem?

Greenwell and Bonnor say too many disadvantaged students are being concentrated into communities of disadvantage. This results in

unacceptable gaps in learning [that] separate disadvantaged students from their more privileged peers.

Since the introduction of government funding to non-government schools in the 1960s, we have seen an increased concentration of advantaged students in some schools, and the same for disadvantaged students. The OECD has been warning Australia about this for some time. But current policy settings offer little incentive for change.

As Greenwell and Bonnor argue, achieving our national educational goals is unlikely when:

we are stacking the odds against the children who have the least luck in terms of the circumstances they are born into.

Read more:
The Productivity Commission says Australian schools ‘fall short’ on quality and equity. What happens now?

There is also a conflict here with the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, which affirms that education at least at primary level should be free and compulsory. Crucially, parents have “a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children”.

Australian non-government schools do provide opportunity for parents to exercise this right, but even the lowest level of fees charged by some Catholic system schools can still be beyond the reach of some parents.

As the authors note, this is not a problem for non-government schooling alone. Segregation within government schools exacerbates the situation. Selective schools (government schools that select students on their academic or performing arts ability):

draw in a high proportion of advantaged students, compounding the concentrations of the strugglers in comprehensive public schools.

Read more:
What is the National School Reform Agreement and what does it have to do with school funding?

What’s their proposal?

Greenwell and Bonnor offer a five-point plan, the first three of which are relatively uncontentious.

First, they want to fully fund school entitlements under the so-called “Gonski model”. This would ensure all schools get the funding resources they need to deliver quality learning. Some estimates show government schools currently receive less than 90% of their entitlements.

Second, they call for a frank conversation on a new common framework for Australian education. This would include not only funding arrangements, but “commensurate obligations and responsibilities” on schools.

Third, convene a national summit at which “common interests are identified and areas of agreement are developed”. Greenwell and Bonnor are at pains to point out their suggestion is not to prescribe the total solution. Rather, they invite stakeholders to come together and design a system in which “equity and choice can be expanded in a win-win manner”.

A change to school funding

Greenwell and Bonnor’s fourth point is likely to be a catalyst for much debate: they propose full public funding for all non-government schools, within a commonly agreed regulatory framework.

Yes, this means non-government schools would be fully funded by the taxpayer. But they would not be able to charge their own fees.

The authors argue this would remove the fee barrier for non-government schools and open the possibility for any family to choose a non-government school without the impost of fees. It expands, rather than restricts, parental choice. And the bonus is non-government schools “could continue to apply enrolment and other policies necessary to promote their specific religious or educational ethos”.

If non-government schools don’t want to do this, they don’t have to, but there’s a catch. Schools that “continue to charge fees or reject inclusive enrolment obligations would no longer receive any public funding”.

Their fifth point is the creation of a new authority to oversee implementation and monitoring of the new framework.

Read more:
Still ‘Waiting for Gonski’ – a great book about the sorry tale of school funding

Can it work?

The Albanese government has committed to “work with” state and territory governments to get every school “on a path to 100% of its fair funding level”, as per the Gonski model.

This will come under the microscope as the next National School Reform Agreement is developed. This ties school reforms to the funding the federal government provides the states and territories. The next agreement is due to begin in January 2025 and is currently the subject of a review.

Whole holding a national summit should be straightforward, a national common framework has substantially more barriers to overcome. The multiple sectors of education governance in Australia (state/territory, Catholic, independent), and the multiple legal instruments that govern them, make this very difficult, even from a practical perspective.

At the simplest level, education remains a state/territory constitutional responsibility that seems unlikely to be collectively ceded back to the federal government any time soon.

The idea that non-government schools would have to choose between government funding or charging their own fees is also likely to be politically difficult. This is not to say the proposal is far-fetched. UNESCO, in its Global Education Monitoring Report has noted

publicly funded education does not have to be publicly provided.

As the review into the next National School Reform Agreement gathers pace, Greenwell and Bonnor’s invitation is for us all to come together with a vision for something different in Australian education.

Certainly the evidence strongly suggests what we are doing right now is not working.

Paul Kidson 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.

– ref. A new report proposes full public funding for private schools, but there’s a catch – https://theconversation.com/a-new-report-proposes-full-public-funding-for-private-schools-but-theres-a-catch-203840

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

As the strategic rivalry between the United States and China intensifies, the invitation to discuss participation in the AUKUS security agreement presents New Zealand with a potentially momentous decision: how best to secure its own strategic interests and values in the Indo-Pacific region.

AUKUS is the 2021 agreement between Australia, the UK and the US for the “exchange of naval nuclear propulsion information”. It has been presented as the foundation for an enhanced security partnership linked to a “free and open Indo-Pacific” and a rules-based international order.

While it does not explicitly say so, the pact is a response to the perceived threat of China’s increasing assertiveness in the region. The Chinese government has condemned AUKUS as reflecting a “Cold War mentality”, involving a “path of error and danger”; it is a threat to both “regional peace” and the “international nuclear nonproliferation regime”.

As a first major initiative, Australia will buy at least three US Virginia-class nuclear-powered submarines by the early 2030s. By the mid-2050s, it will receive five or more new SSN-AUKUS submarines that combine US technology and a UK design. The cost of Australia’s nuclear submarine programme will be more than A$268 billion over the next 30 years.

AUKUS also envisages the sharing of information in cutting-edge defence technologies, including artificial intelligence, quantum capabilities and cybersecurity. This is where New Zealand has expressed some interest at a so-called “pillar two” non-nuclear level.

Rational political decision-making involves choosing the best option among available alternatives, about which a certain degree of uncertainty exists. So, the question is: what is the most rational decision for New Zealand?

The argument for AUKUS

The claim that a new Cold War between China and the US is under way is shaped by the conviction that a rising great power is almost inevitably trying to displace the US as the dominant global power.

This is happening at a time when significant parts of international law are in free fall, globalisation is at risk of stalling, and the UN Security Council is increasingly unable to resolve critical problems.

Read more:
As Australia signs up for nuclear subs, NZ faces hard decisions over the AUKUS alliance

A growing arms race and points of extreme geopolitical tension, from North Korea to Taiwan, highlight the need for an arrangement like AUKUS to provide a counterweight of like-minded partners to ensure greater stability.

In this climate, the argument goes, New Zealand’s preferred option of “hedging” between the superpowers has been squeezed. As a relatively small nation, it must now choose which side to support.

Given New Zealand’s history, liberal democratic values and existing security ties with the AUKUS partners, it makes sense for Wellington to align with the agreement’s long-term strategy to deter and contain China’s expanding military power.

Failure to do so risks New Zealand not having access to emerging state-of-the-art defence technologies.

The argument against AUKUS

The counterargument is that the Cold War analogy is inaccurate. The increasingly interconnected post-Cold-War era is fundamentally different from the period between 1947 and 1989, with its rival global economic systems and competing but comparable alliance systems.

The binary assumption that the fate of the Indo-Pacific will be largely shaped by the outcome of US-China rivalry – and by the capacity of the US and its closest allies to counterbalance Chinese ambitions in the vast Indo-Pacific region – is questionable.

Regional states such as Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam, and EU states like France and Germany, remain concerned about China’s assertive diplomacy in the Indo-Pacific. But they seem to have little confidence that AUKUS, a security arrangement involving three English-speaking states, is capable of a serious response in a region inhabited by billions of people.

Read more:
Paul Keating lashes Albanese government over AUKUS, calling it Labor’s biggest failure since WW1

Furthermore, while China’s global ambitions are real, they should not be over-hyped. The country’s impressive rise to superpower status has been built on full participation in the world capitalist economy and an outstanding trade performance. This has created a high level of economic interdependence for China and its trade partners.

Besides, AUKUS will not be able to do much in the short term to counter China’s designs on Taiwan. Despite the defence minister’s assurances, New Zealand’s participation would create real uncertainty about its independent foreign policy and its commitment to non-nuclear security in a region where many states have criticised AUKUS for fuelling nuclear proliferation.

Finally, the assumption that AUKUS is the only pathway to new military technologies overlooks Wellington’s already excellent bilateral ties with Australia and the US, its involvement in the Five Eyes partnership, and deepening links with NATO (including the prime minister’s planned visit to this year’s NATO summit).

Read more:
Finland, NATO and the evolving new world order – what small nations know

The case for caution

On balance, we believe the evidence points to New Zealand’s interests and values being best safeguarded by maintaining a cautious approach to AUKUS.

We accept New Zealand shares a great deal with Australia, the UK and the US, and should not be “neutral” in the face of authoritarian pressures from China. We also agree New Zealand’s military should be fit for purpose.

However, it must be recognised New Zealand holds a distinctive worldview, one committed to defending an international rules-based order and to deepening it (through measures like UN Security Council reform) to enhance the security of all nations.

While it is correct in principle to explore talks about AUKUS, New Zealand should have no illusions about the huge implications such involvement would have for its vision of a fairer, more secure and nuclear-free world.

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.

– ref. Approach with caution: why NZ should be wary of buying into the AUKUS security pact – https://theconversation.com/approach-with-caution-why-nz-should-be-wary-of-buying-into-the-aukus-security-pact-203915

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Maximilian Dröllner, Research associate, Curtin University

Australia’s western and eastern ecosystems are biodiversity hotspots, separated by a dry desert interior. Yet millions of years ago, many species roamed more freely between connected habitats across the continent.

Our new research, published in Geophysical Research Letters, provides insights into ancient climate change that shaped our modern landscapes and ecosystems.

We have developed a new way to reconstruct the timing of great drying episodes on the continents of our planet. This work helps to gain knowledge about drylands that are particularly impacted by current climatic stresses.

Billions of people live in drylands

Drylands cover almost half of Earth’s land surface and are home to around 3 billion people. Dramatic, record-breaking droughts are increasingly occurring around the globe.

As the driest inhabited continent, Australia (70% is considered arid or semi-arid) also faces many challenges, including droughts and bushfires. Understanding the history of dry regions and their response to past climate change is important to mitigate the impact of our warming planet’s future.

Southern Australia’s Nullarbor Plain covers an area about the size of Great Britain (roughly 200,000 square kilometres). However, it is starkly different in almost every other aspect: extremely flat, very little rain, and almost no trees. These conditions and its size make the Nullarbor Plain a natural “biogeographic barrier”, separating rich and diverse ecosystems in west and east Australia.

Today, the dusty Nullarbor Plain bears little resemblance to its vibrant past. Before roughly 14 million years ago it was covered by ocean and host to reefs. More recently, it would have been a lush home to an exotic menagerie, including the world’s biggest cuckoos.

Read more:
The world’s biggest cuckoos once roamed the Nullarbor Plain

The drying of the Nullarbor

We know Earth is constantly evolving, but often have a poor idea of exactly when environmental changes occurred in the distant past. Fortunately, some minerals that record past climatic events can be dated.

For most people, rust is something they want to avoid, as it damages our cars, fences, and steel appliances. But rust can be useful in understanding climate change. In our work, we used an iron-bearing mineral called goethite – the main part of rust – to unlock the timing of drying on the Nullarbor.

We found goethite in rocks some 25 metres below the Nullarbor Plain. These rocks mark the past level of groundwater. By dating the age of the goethite minerals, we can understand how past groundwater levels shifted in response to climate change.

We fired a laser beam into tiny pieces of goethite, roughly the size of a grain of salt, to release their atomic building blocks. We then measured the helium isotopes – variants of helium – that had accumulated since mineral formation. This provided us with a type of “clock”.

We calculated groundwater drastically declined on the Nullarbor Plain between 2.4 and 2.7 million years ago – at the same time as a period of global cooling.

As the climate shifted, the drying changed the local ecosystems, effectively creating a wall for many species. As large swathes of Australia changed from forest to dry grassland, habitat and food availability shrunk for many species.

Significantly, this barrier cut the once continuous link between the species of southwest and southeast Australia.

Splitting of the species

The evolution of many familiar species was influenced by this separation. There is the yellow-tailed black cockatoo from southeast Australia with yellow cheeks, and Carnaby’s black cockatoo with white cheeks in the southwest. Genetically, these two cockatoos are close relatives, but today live thousands of kilometres apart.

Through isolation, the drying of the Nullarbor played a key role in creating the species richness of southwest Australia. This region is one of only 35 biodiversity hotspots on Earth and home to more than 6,000 native species, with many found nowhere else.

Measuring the timescales of drying landscapes is important for conservation biology. Many native species are already facing or will face existential problems due to climate change and habitat degradation – including the iconic Carnaby’s cockatoo.

A history locked in minerals

By studying minerals formed during groundwater decline, we improve our understanding of our continent’s past and its biosphere. These minerals form as a direct result of continental drying, often in sediment with fossils of interest.

Previously, we often relied on indirect information like the chemistry of marine sediments to date continental landscape processes.

More broadly, having information on the timing of past drying events could help test theories about human evolution too. Changing landscapes and extreme drying were likely important for our own species development.

Determining the timing of environmental change lets scientists see how these events have impacted biodiversity and species evolution over time. Studying the past is also vital to understand how Earth responds to climate change. If we understand how ecosystems dry out, we can develop strategies to limit the damage.

Maximilian Dröllner receives funding from Minerals Research Institute Of Western Australia.

Chris Kirkland receives funding from Australian Research Council and the Minerals Research Institute of Western Australia.

Milo Barham receives funding from the Minerals Research Institute of Western Australia, collaborating with Iluka Resources Ltd. to investigate mineral sands, including on the margins of the Nullarbor Plain.

– ref. We found out when the Nullarbor Plain dried out, splitting Australia’s ecosystems in half – https://theconversation.com/we-found-out-when-the-nullarbor-plain-dried-out-splitting-australias-ecosystems-in-half-203052

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

There are two huge issues in Indigenous affairs at the moment: the Voice and the problems in Northern Territory Indigenous communities, especially but not only in Alice Springs.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s attention is laser-like on the Voice, and trying to get up a yes vote. Opposition Leader Peter Dutton, for a mix of motives, is focusing on the NT situation, as he campaigns against the Voice.

The issues are intertwined, not least because the government argues the Voice would help solve problems on the ground. But they are also separate, and in the near term they should be treated as such.

Dutton’s Tuesday appointment of NT Indigenous Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, as tough an opponent of the Voice as you could get, will probably assist the opposition leader’s no campaign. (That is not to say the no side will prevail – it’s far too early for predictions.)

Price, who will attract a lot of media, will put doubts into the minds of some voters, who may think that if this prominent Aboriginal figure sees no merits in the Voice, perhaps they should vote against it. On the other hand, Price is inexperienced and so a risk, if she lets her emotions get the better of her when provoked. And she will be countered by many Indigenous advocates for the yes case.

As matters stand, of the two leaders, Dutton and the prime minister, it is Dutton who is losing more skin in the referendum fight.

The most recent attacks on him, by Labor and other critics, are over his latest claims, after his trip to Alice Springs last week, of widespread child sexual abuse of Indigenous children – allegations critics see as a ploy in the battle over the Voice.

That said, the government’s wish to downplay the NT’s array of horrendous problems is both wrong in principle and perhaps ultimately a mistake tactically.

Albanese and other Labor figures have invoked a common line: if Dutton knows of cases of child sexual abuse, he should report them to the police.

This really doesn’t pass muster. It’s clear Dutton was not dealing forensically with particular cases (how could any visiting politician?), but with general information (accurate or not) he gathered during his latest visit to Alice Springs. He has said his information was “anecdotal” and that he’d spoken with police and social workers.

Read more:
Your questions answered on the Voice to Parliament

Dutton says that, earlier, he passed on information directly to Albanese, something the PM denies.

On November 30, Dutton canvassed the issue in a question to Albanese in parliament. He referenced a recent meeting with the PM “to discuss the unprecedented and tragic levels of sexual abuse of children in Alice Springs and elsewhere in the Northern Territory.” He asked Albanese to support a royal commission into the “sexual abuse of Indigenous Australians”.

But when Albanese was asked this week on the ABC’s 7:30 whether any information had been brought to him by Dutton “about children abused, children being returned to their abusers” he said “No. Not that I’m aware of. That is the first I’ve heard of it.”

Albanese went on to say he had no idea what Dutton’s recent assertions were based on. “I don’t know what the basis of it is. But certainly he has not raised any specific issue about any claim, about any individual circumstance with me. If he did, I would say to him that he should report that to the police.”

This does seem a deliberate avoidance of the issue.

Albanese’s own backbencher, Labor Senator Marion Scrymgour, formerly NT deputy chief minister, this week highlighted two issues – child protection and youth crime.

While very critical of Dutton for “irresponsible publicity-seeking claims” which cast suspicion on everyone, she said child neglect threw up “really high-risk issues”.

“If a child is being neglected, then they are more likely to be at risk of sexual abuse. So we need to unpack all of that and have a look at what is happening with those children that are falling into that category of neglect, because those numbers are increasing and not just in Alice Springs, but right throughout the Northern Territory,” she told Sky.

This, surely, is what Albanese and his government should be acknowledging.

The Voice is important. But there are serious problems here and now, and the government is negligent, or worse, if it doesn’t admit and confront that reality. The situation is obviously beyond the NT (Labor) government.

The extent of the problems needs to be assessed (and that would reveal, incidentally, whether Dutton is exaggerating). Then a strategy needs to be determined.

Read more:
People in the Kimberley have spent decades asking for basics like water and homes. Will the Voice make their calls more compelling?

Dutton wants a royal commission; Price has suggested a Commonwealth takeover of child protection responsibility. More modestly, Scrymgour has urged a Family Responsibility Commission, along the lines of the Queensland body, headed by a judicial figure, and with Indigenous leaders on it, to manage dysfunctional family situations, including 100% of their welfare income.

There is resistance to all these ideas, including from some Indigenous figures. The debate has a long way to go.

But it is already clear the Voice issue has taken the scrutiny of Indigenous affairs into areas that make governments uncomfortable. And that’s a good thing.

Michelle Grattan 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.

– ref. View from The Hill: Albanese should not try to make the Voice the only game in town in Indigenous affairs – https://theconversation.com/view-from-the-hill-albanese-should-not-try-to-make-the-voice-the-only-game-in-town-in-indigenous-affairs-204038

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

In the latest Essential poll, support for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice to parliament increased slightly to 60-40, from 59-41 in March. But hard “no” support was up two to 26%, soft “no” was down three to 14%, while 27% remained soft “yes” supporters.

Asked about Opposition Leader Peter Dutton and the Liberals’ decision to oppose the Voice, 52% said they were playing politics, while 48% thought they had genuine concerns.

On voting intentions, federal Labor had a 52-43 two-party lead, including undecided (down slightly from 53-42 last fortnight). This poll was conducted April 12-16 from a sample of 1,136 people.

Primary votes were 34% Labor (up one), 31% Coalition (up one), 14% Greens (steady), 6% One Nation (steady), 3% United Australia Party (up one), 9% for all others (down one), and 4% undecided (down one).

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s ratings dropped slightly to 51-36 approval, from 52-35 last fortnight. For the first time, Essential included an approval question on Dutton, finding him at 44% disapproval, 36% approval.

On social media usage, 57% of poll respondents they used Facebook at least once a day, followed by YouTube at 38% and Instagram at 35%. Only 14% used Twitter once a day. By 53-25, respondents did not think their right to privacy was adequately protected in law.

Read more:
Why can’t we just establish the Voice to Parliament through legislation? A constitutional law expert explains

Resolve poll: Voice support at 58-42

Voters supported the Voice by 58-42 when asked to choose “yes” or “no” with no option for undecided, as part of a Resolve poll for Nine newspapers conducted April 12-16 from a sample of 1,600 people. Support was up one point from 57-43 in March.

In surveys combined from March and April, a majority in each state were in favour, as well as nationally.

Initial preferences were 46% “yes” (steady since March), 31% “no” (down one) and 22% undecided (steady).

In a question on turnout in a referendum, 81% said they were likely to vote, 10% unlikely and 9% were undecided.

Morgan poll: 56-44 to Labor

A Morgan poll, conducted April 10-16, gave Labor a 56-44 lead. This was unchanged from the previous week but a 1.5-point gain for Labor since last fortnight. Primary votes were 37% Labor, 33% Coalition, 12% Greens and 18% for all others.

Newspoll Voice survey over three months

The Poll Bludger reported on April 5 that aggregate data from three Newspoll surveys on the Voice to parliament, conducted between February and April, gave “yes” to the Voice an overall 54-38 lead.

State breakdowns had “yes” leading by 55-36 in New South Wales, 56-35 in Victoria, 49-43 in Queensland, 51-41 in Western Australia, 60-33 in South Australia and 55-39 in Tasmania. The number of people polled per state ranged from 334 in Tasmania to 1,414 in NSW.

A “yes” vote at a referendum requires majority support in at least four of the six states, as well as majority support nationally.

Newspoll has also released its voting intentions demographic data from February to April. The Poll Bludger reported on Saturday that Labor led overall by 55-45, in Victoria by 58-42, in SA by 56-44, and in NSW and WA by 55-45. In Queensland, there was a 50-50 tie.

Queensland remains the most pro-Coalition state after it was the only state to vote for the Coalition at the last election (by a 54-46 margin).

Animal Justice now a good chance to win final NSW upper house seat

The NSW 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%.

With the NSW upper house check count complete for the March 25 election, Labor won 8.05 quotas, the Coalition 6.55, the Greens 2.00, One Nation 1.30, Legalise Cannabis 0.81, the Liberal Democrats 0.78, the Shooters 0.69, Animal Justice 0.48 and Elizabeth Farrelly 0.29.

Both major parties were short of their expected totals in the initial count, with the Coalition expected to win 6.60 quotas and Labor 8.10. As a result, Animal Justice needs to close only a 0.07 quota gap on preferences, instead of the expected 0.12 – see analyst Kevin Bonham’s commentary.

Although the final seat is clearly a contest between the Coalition’s seventh candidate and Animal Justice, a few parties will take votes that might otherwise reach the Coalition or Animal Justice. This includes Legalise Cannabis, the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers, and Liberal Democrats, as all are well short of a full quota.

So the Coalition will be competing with two other right-wing parties, while Animal Justice will be competing with Legalise Cannabis for left-wing preferences.

Bonham does not think there is a clear favourite between the Coalition and Animal Justice. However, Animal Justice won in similar circumstances from just behind on primary votes in both the 2015 and 2019
elections.

The “button” press to electronically distribute preferences is scheduled to occur at 11am Wednesday. A win for Animal Justice would give the left an overall 22-20 majority in the upper house, while a Coalition win would tie it at 21-21.

In the lower house, the Liberals won the Ryde recount by 54 votes on Saturday, a marginal difference from the original 50-vote Liberal margin. This confirms the lower house result of 45 Labor out of 93 seats, 36 Coalition, three Greens and nine independents, with Labor two seats short of the 47 needed for a majority.

Adrian Beaumont 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.

– ref. Voice support increases in Essential and Resolve polls – https://theconversation.com/voice-support-increases-in-essential-and-resolve-polls-203839

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

In the latest Essential poll, support for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice to parliament increased slightly to 60-40, from 59-41 in March. But hard “no” support was up two to 26%, soft “no” was down three to 14%, while 27% remained soft “yes” supporters.

Asked about Opposition Leader Peter Dutton and the Liberals’ decision to oppose the Voice, 52% said they were playing politics, while 48% thought they had genuine concerns.

On voting intentions, federal Labor had a 52-43 two-party lead, including undecided (down slightly from 53-42 last fortnight). This poll was conducted April 12-16 from a sample of 1,136 people.

Primary votes were 34% Labor (up one), 31% Coalition (up one), 14% Greens (steady), 6% One Nation (steady), 3% United Australia Party (up one), 9% for all others (down one), and 4% undecided (down one).

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s ratings dropped slightly to 51-36 approval, from 52-35 last fortnight. For the first time, Essential included an approval question on Dutton, finding him at 44% disapproval, 36% approval.

On social media usage, 57% of poll respondents they used Facebook at least once a day, followed by YouTube at 38% and Instagram at 35%. Only 14% used Twitter once a day. By 53-25, respondents did not think their right to privacy was adequately protected in law.

Read more:
Why can’t we just establish the Voice to Parliament through legislation? A constitutional law expert explains

Resolve poll: Voice support at 58-42

Voters supported the Voice by 58-42 when asked to choose “yes” or “no” with no option for undecided, as part of a Resolve poll for Nine newspapers conducted April 12-16 from a sample of 1,600 people. Support was up one point from 57-43 in March.

In surveys combined from March and April, a majority in each state were in favour, as well as nationally.

Initial preferences were 46% “yes” (steady since March), 31% “no” (down one) and 22% undecided (steady).

In a question on turnout in a referendum, 81% said they were likely to vote, 10% unlikely and 9% were undecided.

Morgan poll: 56-44 to Labor

A Morgan poll, conducted April 10-16, gave Labor a 56-44 lead. This was unchanged from the previous week but a 1.5-point gain for Labor since last fortnight. Primary votes were 37% Labor, 33% Coalition, 12% Greens and 18% for all others.

Newspoll Voice survey over three months

The Poll Bludger reported on April 5 that aggregate data from three Newspoll surveys on the Voice to parliament, conducted between February and April, gave “yes” to the Voice an overall 54-38 lead.

State breakdowns had “yes” leading by 55-36 in New South Wales, 56-35 in Victoria, 49-43 in Queensland, 51-41 in Western Australia, 60-33 in South Australia and 55-39 in Tasmania. The number of people polled per state ranged from 334 in Tasmania to 1,414 in NSW.

A “yes” vote at a referendum requires majority support in at least four of the six states, as well as majority support nationally.

Newspoll has also released its voting intentions demographic data from February to April. The Poll Bludger reported on Saturday that Labor led overall by 55-45, in Victoria by 58-42, in SA by 56-44, and in NSW and WA by 55-45. In Queensland, there was a 50-50 tie.

Queensland remains the most pro-Coalition state after it was the only state to vote for the Coalition at the last election (by a 54-46 margin).

Animal Justice now a good chance to win final NSW upper house seat

The NSW 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%.

With the NSW upper house check count complete for the March 25 election, Labor won 8.05 quotas, the Coalition 6.55, the Greens 2.00, One Nation 1.30, Legalise Cannabis 0.81, the Liberal Democrats 0.78, the Shooters 0.69, Animal Justice 0.48 and Elizabeth Farrelly 0.29.

Both major parties were short of their expected totals in the initial count, with the Coalition expected to win 6.60 quotas and Labor 8.10. As a result, Animal Justice needs to close only a 0.07 quota gap on preferences, instead of the expected 0.12 – see analyst Kevin Bonham’s commentary.

Although the final seat is clearly a contest between the Coalition’s seventh candidate and Animal Justice, a few parties will take votes that might otherwise reach the Coalition or Animal Justice. This includes Legalise Cannabis, the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers, and Liberal Democrats, as all are well short of a full quota.

So the Coalition will be competing with two other right-wing parties, while Animal Justice will be competing with Legalise Cannabis for left-wing preferences.

Bonham does not think there is a clear favourite between the Coalition and Animal Justice. However, Animal Justice won in similar circumstances from just behind on primary votes in both the 2015 and 2019
elections.

The “button” press to electronically distribute preferences is scheduled to occur at 11am Wednesday. A win for Animal Justice would give the left an overall 22-20 majority in the upper house, while a Coalition win would tie it at 21-21.

In the lower house, the Liberals won the Ryde recount by 54 votes on Saturday, a marginal difference from the original 50-vote Liberal margin. This confirms the lower house result of 45 Labor out of 93 seats, 36 Coalition, three Greens and nine independents, with Labor two seats short of the 47 needed for a majority.

Adrian Beaumont 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.

– ref. Voice support increases in Essential and Resolve polls; Animal Justice could win final NSW upper house seat – https://theconversation.com/voice-support-increases-in-essential-and-resolve-polls-animal-justice-could-win-final-nsw-upper-house-seat-203839

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ben Livings, Associate Professor of Criminal Law and Evidence, University of South Australia

There’s yet another twist in the Bruce Lehrmann saga. On Monday, opening statements were delivered in an inquiry into the prosecution of Lehrmann over the alleged rape of Brittany Higgins.

Lehrmann has always maintained his innocence, pleading not guilty to a charge of sexual intercourse without consent.

The inquiry will investigate the handling of the case by Australian Capital Territory authorities. It will start hearing evidence on May 1.

The first trial was abandoned by the judge in October 2022 due to juror misconduct. A second trial did not proceed due to prosecutors’ fears for Higgins’ mental health.

This investigation is separate to the ongoing defamation cases Lehrmann is pursuing against a range of media outlets.

Also on Monday, trial judge and ACT Chief Justice Lucy McCallum announced she would be maintaining a suppression order that keeps secret some elements of the case involving Higgins. McCallum said “I have no doubt that any further exacerbation of the level of media attention directed to her carries a risk to her life”.

Read more:
Lehrmann retrial abandoned because of ‘a significant and unacceptable risk’ to Brittany Higgins’ life

‘Inappropriate interference’

It’s been revealed that in November 2022, the ACT director of public prosecutions (DPP), Shane Drumgold, raised concerns about the conduct of police and their interference in his handling of the prosecution.

The Office of the DPP is an independent statutory authority created by parliament. It prosecutes criminal cases in the ACT, operating free from government influence. That is, free from the parliament and the executive, which includes police ministers and police commissioners.

In other words, the DPP is to remain above politics, and stick entirely to principles of law, and agreed prosecutorial guidelines.

The letter emerged following a freedom of information request from The Guardian. In it, Drumgold alleged there had been “inappropriate interference” by police in the case, namely that he had been pressured not to continue the prosecution.

The inquiry will investigate Drumgold’s allegations. It will try to determine whether any matters extraneous to the trial, and the attempted retrial, interfered with the fairness of the process, or disrespected the rights of those involved.

Former Queensland solicitor-general Walter Sofronoff has been appointed to head the inquiry. He said he will report back to the government by the end of June.

The task ahead

Sofronoff has quite the task ahead of him. Into this mix come a number of players, themes and factual disagreements.

For starters, there is the essential pillar of prosecution independence that prevents the government of the day (and their police) deciding who is to be prosecuted and under what circumstances. Section 20 of the Director of Public Prosecutions Act 1990 (ACT) allows the Attorney-General to “give directions or furnish guidelines” to the DPP, but these are to be “of a general nature and shall not refer to a particular case”. The decision as to whether to proceed with a prosecution remains with the DPP.

The prosecution policy of the ACT will also come under scrutiny. That is, the discretionary guidelines given to the DPP by legislation in relation to their choice to prosecute.

The role of Victims of Crime Commissioner Heidi Yates in the entire episode is likely to be examined. The role of this commissioner is to act as a victim advocate, and Yates was a prominent supporter of Higgins, appearing at numerous court hearings alongside her.

More than one politician was drawn into the matter, albeit with marked reluctance. Media celebrities weighed in. Criminologists pointed to the very low rate of guilty verdicts in prosecutions alleging sexual improprieties.

Read more:
Can juries still deliver justice in high-profile cases in the age of social media?

All of these players may fall under the scrutiny of Sofronoff as he tries to determine what influence may have been exerted by these diverse factors in the interactions between the police and the DPP.

Sofronoff is likely to want to know more about the fact that police disclosed a brief of evidence to Lehrmann’s defence lawyers, which included sensitive information such as Higgins’ counselling notes. This occurred before Lehrmann had entered a plea.

He may wish to examine the appropriateness of an apparent close engagement during the trial between the investigating officers and Lehrmann’s legal team. Sofronoff will be assisted by his reference to more than 140,000 pages of documentation.

Rarely has there been such an “after the event” examination of the way a prosecution has been conducted. In many respects, the trial is being heard all over again.

Rick Sarre is affiliated with the SA Labor Party, and is a Patron of the Justice Reform Initiative.

Ben Livings 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.

– ref. Why is there an inquiry into the Bruce Lehrmann trial? Legal experts explain – https://theconversation.com/why-is-there-an-inquiry-into-the-bruce-lehrmann-trial-legal-experts-explain-200738

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Fergus Green, Lecturer in Political Theory and Public Policy, UCL

Australia’s coal-fired power stations are exiting the grid. This transition is already well underway, as cheaper renewables displace coal and older generators close. Australia’s oldest coal plant, Liddell, is about to close. Eleven coal-fired power plants closed between 2013 and 2020, and at least seven others are slated to close between now and 2030.

Closing a power station sounds bloodless. But if it’s not done well, it can be devastating for affected workers and their families, and economically and socially disruptive to the communities in which they are based. Many towns grew up around coal mines and power plants. We cannot simply leave it to the market to smooth the transition.

To better manage the vital human part of our transition to a low-carbon electricity system, the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) recently proposed a solution. It called on the federal government to establish an independent National Energy Transition Authority.

This is an excellent idea, and well overdue given the rate at which our coal plants are closing. Countries that have embraced this approach, such as Spain, have seen the benefits, economic, social – and even political.

What would this authority do?

An energy transition authority, as envisaged by the ACTU, would have three main functions:

• develop schemes to support affected workers, including through redeployment into similar facilities, or retraining and recruitment into sustainable industries

• support, coordinate and partly finance plans to develop new industries in coal-dependent regions such as Gippsland in Victoria and the Hunter Valley in New South Wales, including attracting federal and state investment and incentives to drive investment in local sustainable industries

• ensure education and training programs and infrastructure are in place to support industrial diversification in these regions.

Do we actually need a new authority?

This isn’t the first time we’ve seen proposals for authorities like this. The union movement has proposed several variants in the past, and Labor backed a similar initiative before the 2022 federal election.

After it won government, Labor set up a net zero economy taskforce aimed at advising on how to best support regional communities during the low-carbon transition.

The Greens have also proposed an expanded version of this authority, which would take on extra advisory and law-reform functions. An inquiry into the Greens’ proposed bill by a Labor-majority committee last month described the measure as “premature”, given the government’s taskforce is exploring options to help regions.

Labor, of course, would prefer its own version gets up. That’s entirely possible – the proposed authority has broad support beyond the labour movement.

But some have been critical, with Australian Energy Council experts questioning whether such an authority would be needed, given regional development programs already exist.

Regional industrial transitions are complex, requiring sustained governance over long periods. Australia’s existing programs are not enough, and are often fragmented across a patchwork of federal, state and local government departments.

A new federal authority would help coordinate existing programs across all levels of government, bring the additional capabilities of the federal government, and take a sustained, long-term focus to the challenging task of regional transition.

In a few weeks, we’ll find out whether the Albanese government decides to fund such a body in its May budget.

Read more:
NSW’s biggest coal mine to close in 2030. Now what about the workers?

The moral case for a transition authority

An authority dedicated to smoothing the path of the energy transition is, in my view, justified on moral grounds. It would elevate the voices of workers and regional communities who are most affected by the low-carbon transition, helping to ensure the benefits and burdens of the transition are fairly shared.

Those whose jobs are at risk have a moral claim to government support to help them adjust to these changes. But so do residents in these regions who never enjoyed the benefits of highly paid unionised jobs in the fossil fuel industry in the first place. They, too, should share in the benefits.

That’s why the ACTU is right to propose a wider, community-level mandate for the authority, to spur regional development that’s not only more environmentally sustainable but also more socially diverse.

The political case

Residents of coal and gas regions are often sceptical of the low-carbon transition, and may view it as a threat. An authority like this could build local support by demonstrating what comes next.

In Spain, for instance, the incumbent Spanish Socialist Party is reaping the political benefits of the “just transition agreement” it negotiated with unions, employers and community representatives in coal regions in 2018.

This agreement made clear coal-mining would be phased out by the end of 2019. In return, the government agreed to provide €250 million (A$407 million) in support for workers and community-level investment over the next eight years.

At the April 2019 national election, the incumbents won. Interestingly, our research found their vote share in coal-mining regions covered by the agreement increased relative to comparable rural areas not covered.

Spain and Australia obviously have different political contexts. But our research does suggest there are potential political benefits – not just costs – on offer to governments that provide climate leadership grounded in a just-transition strategy.

An Australian transition authority will only be politically successful if it works with local bodies with similar mandates, such as the Latrobe Valley Authority and the Collie Delivery Unit – or helps establish them.

Working with locally supported groups is common sense. It is also backed up by research showing that fossil fuel communities do not like the idea of having their futures dictated to them by Canberra. But if they feel heard and see their concerns tackled in the transition, they are more likely to be supportive.

For years, organisations such as The Next Economy and the Real Deal project have been working on the energy transition in communities like Gladstone, one of the Queensland towns most reliant on gas and coal. This community-building expertise would be vital for the authority to draw on.

From the power stations to the mines?

If Australia creates an energy transition authority, the immediate task is to help catalyse just and politically smooth transitions in coal power-generating regions.

But there’s a bigger task lying ahead. Australia’s domestic emissions are dwarfed by the emissions from its coal and gas exports. If the authority proves itself, it could begin to support workers and communities to wind down Australia’s export-oriented coal mines and fossil-gas production industries.

Read more:
Regional towns are at risk of being wiped out by the move to net-zero. Here’s their best chance for survival

Fergus Green 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.

– ref. We need a National Energy Transition Authority to help fossil fuel workers adjust – https://theconversation.com/we-need-a-national-energy-transition-authority-to-help-fossil-fuel-workers-adjust-203333

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anne L. Bartlett, Associate Professor, United Arab Emirates University

In the last few days, a deadly conflict has erupted in Sudan’s capital, Khartoum, between rival factions of the armed forces, leaving at least 180 people dead and at least 1,800 civilians and combatants injured.

The fighting, which broke out between the Sudan Armed Forces led by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the Rapid Support Forces led by General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, saw fighter jets take to the skies over the capital and armed fighters take to the streets.

Militia vs military

The latest fighting comes as no surprise to many in Sudan, where a power struggle has been brewing for some time between the two generals, al-Burhan and Dagalo (also known as Hemedti). It has a historical tail of more than 20 years, right back to the early days of the Darfur conflict and the rise of the notorious Janjaweed militia.

From that time, Hemedti, a leader of the Janjaweed militia group from the Abbala Rezeigat tribe in northern Darfur, came to prominence for his willingness to carry out raids on villages leading to mass killings, rapes and looting on a grand scale.

What he learned very early on was that strength came from doing things that no reasonable person would do. In contrast to the army, his fighters were “free range” – able to roam around and kill people at will.

À lire aussi :
Sudan conflict: Hemedti – the warlord who built a paramilitary force more powerful than the state

His work had another function, too. Because he was “free range” and out of a direct chain of command, it meant that he could do the government’s bidding, but do it with maximum deniability.

It was this ruthless mindset and operational flexibility that brought him into the favour of the then-president of Sudan, General Omar al-Bashir, who needed an informal paramilitary group to protect him from enemies within his party, the National Islamic Front.

This militia became the Rapid Support Forces, which is currently fighting Sudan’s military. It was given special status in 2017 as an “independent security force”, not part of the regular armed forces.

It wasn’t just al-Bashir who benefited from this relationship, either. In return for his assistance, Hemedti was given free rein to access gold mines in Darfur, which has made him immensely rich.

Contrast this with al-Burhan of the Sudan Armed Forces. A career general, he has been involved in the army since 1991, running multiple campaigns. He was in Darfur since the early days of the conflict coordinating a “counter-insurgency” campaign, but he is neither as entrepreneurial as Hemedti, nor as cashed up.

Yet, as former president al-Bashir was running into trouble at the start of 2019, Hemedti was the one to stab his former patron in the back by supporting the other side. This has never been forgotten by the Islamists of Sudan.

Al-Bashir was subsequently ousted in a coup, but the generals have never been comfortable bedfellows. While they have worked together, there have been clear cases where Hemedti has attempted to undermine al-Burhan.

The region wants more business, less war

All of these developments are taking place in what are increasingly choppy geopolitical waters for Sudan, where old alliances are rapidly changing.

While Hemedti managed to forge strong ties with Saudi Arabia and an alliance of countries in the Persian Gulf by sending soldiers to fight in the war in Yemen, there are now hopeful signs this eight-year-long conflict may be coming to an end. Fuelling this hope is a détente between Saudi Arabia and Iran recently brokered by the Chinese.

À lire aussi :
Explainer: what Sudan’s coup is about and why the rest of the world needs to act

The United Arab Emirates, who hosted al-Burhan in February, has called for restraint in Sudan and for the two sides to work towards a peaceful solution to the current crisis.

Egypt, which has traditionally supported al-Burhan and the army, has also expressed its willingness to work for peace, calling for an immediate ceasefire before things spiral out of control.

Russia, which has been consolidating relations with Sudan over recent years, has also called for restraint. Russia has provided arms to Sudan’s military.

For many of the countries in the region, the overall approach to Sudan can be summed up as more business, less war. The country’s Gulf neighbours are seeking to diversify their oil-based economies and are looking to Sudan for business opportunities. Conflict disrupts those opportunities.

As the generals fight for power, civilians struggle for food

In Sudan itself, it is difficult to assess what the appetite is among the public for more fighting. Hemedti has declared himself to be the wronged party, and says he is against civilian killings and in favour of civilian rule.

Al-Burhan sees Hemedti as a criminal and an upstart.

Undoubtedly, both are aware that the longer the situation goes on, the more unsustainable their activities will become.

Yet, while the generals fight it out, the economy continues to decline and the cost of living soars. Since the coup, basic household goods such as bread are ten times more expensive than before, with other items increasing by up to 300%.

As one woman in the market in Khartoum pointed out in a recent Reuters report, as they fight to loot the country, we fight for food.

Anne L. Bartlett 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.

– ref. Explainer: why has fighting broken out again in Sudan and what does it mean for the region? – https://theconversation.com/explainer-why-has-fighting-broken-out-again-in-sudan-and-what-does-it-mean-for-the-region-203928

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Laura Nicole Driessen, Postdoctoral researcher in radio astronomy, University of Sydney

You may have heard about an asteroid set to fly near Earth that is the size of 18 platypus, or maybe the one that’s the size of 33 armadillos, or even one the size of 22 tuna fish.

These outlandish comparisons are the invention of Jerusalem Post journalist Aaron Reich (who bills himself as “creator of the giraffe metric”), but real astronomers sometimes measure celestial objects with units that are just as strange.

The idea of a planet that’s 85% the mass of Earth seems straightforward. But what about a pulsar-wind nebula with a brightness of a few milliCrab? That’s where things get weird.

Why do astronomers use such strange units?

The basic problem is that lots of things in space are way too big for our familiar units.

Take my whippet Astro, who is 94cm long. Earth’s radius is about 638 million cm, or 7.5 million Astros.

Jupiter’s radius is 11.2 Earths, or 85 million Astros. That number of Astros is a bit ridiculous, which is why we adjust our unit choice to one that makes more sense.

At an even larger scale, consider the star Betelguese: its radius is 83,000 Earths, or 764 times the radius of the Sun. So if we want to talk about how big Betelgeuse is, it’s much more convenient to use the radius of the Sun as our unit, instead of the radius of Earth (or to describe it as 632 billion Astros).

Heavy stuff

If we want to measure how heavy an asteroid is, we could do it with camels – but in space we’re more interested in mass than in weight. Mass is a measure of how much stuff something is made of.

On Earth the weight of an object, like Astro, depends on the mass of Astro and the gravitational force pulling him down to the ground.

Read more:
Explainer: what is mass?

We can think of weight in terms of how hard it is to lift an 18kg Astro off the ground. This would be easy to do on Earth, even easier somewhere with lower gravity like the Moon, and much harder somewhere with higher gravity like Jupiter.

On the other hand, Astro’s mass is how much stuff he’s made of – and it’s the same no matter which planet he’s on.

Astronomers use Earth and the Sun as handy units to measure mass. For example, the Andromeda galaxy is approximately three trillion times the mass of the Sun (or 3×10⁴¹ – that’s a 3 followed by 41 zeros – Astros).

Astronomical units and parsecs

Astronomers also use comparisons to measure how far apart things are. The Sun and Earth are 149 million kilometres apart, and we give this distance a name: an astronomical unit (AU).

For an even twistier unit of distance, we use the parsec (insert Han Solo Kessel run joke here). Parsec is short for “parallax second”, and if you remember your trigonometry, this is the length of the hypotenuse of a right-angle triangle when the angle is 1 arcsecond (1/3,600 degrees) and the “opposite” side of the triangle is 1 AU.

Parsecs are handy for measuring even bigger distances because 1 parsec = 206,265 AU. For example, the centre of our very own galaxy, the Milky Way, is about 8,000 parsecs away from Earth, or 1.6 million AU.

Magnitudes

If we want to measure how bright something is, astronomical units of measurement get even weirder. In the second century BC, the ancient Greek astronomer Hipparchus looked up at space and gave the brightest stars a value of 1 and the faintest stars a value of 6.

Notice here that a brighter star has a lower number. We call these brightness values “magnitudes”. The Sun has an apparent magnitude of –26!

Even more confusing than a negative brightness, each single step in magnitude is a 2.512 times difference in brightness. The star Vega has an apparent magnitude of 0, which is two and a bit times brighter than the star Antares with an apparent magnitude of 1.

At last, the milliCrab

The light we see with our eyes is, for obvious reasons, called “visible” light. The light we use to take pictures of your bones is called X-ray light.

When astronomers use X-ray light to observe the sky we sometimes measure brightness in “Crabs”.

The Crab is a rapidly spinning neutron star (or pulsar) in the remains of an exploded star that is extremely bright when we look at it using our X-ray telescopes. It’s so bright in X-ray light that astronomers have been using it to calibrate their telescopes since the 1970s.

So every X-ray astronomer knows how bright a Crab is. And if we’re talking about a particular object, say a black hole binary system called GX339-4, and it’s only five thousandths as bright as the Crab, we say it’s 5 milliCrab bright.

But buyer beware! The brightness of the Crab is different depending on what energy of X-ray light you’re looking at, and it also changes over time.

Whether we use lions or tigers or Crabs, astronomers make sure to define the units we’re using. There’s no use using an armadillo, or even your local whippet, unless you’ve made sure the definition is clear.

Read more:
Beating heart of the Crab Nebula

Laura Nicole Driessen is part of MeerTRAP, which is supported by the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No 694745).

– ref. From platypus to parsecs and milliCrab: why do astronomers use such weird units? – https://theconversation.com/from-platypus-to-parsecs-and-millicrab-why-do-astronomers-use-such-weird-units-203061

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Joanne Wallis, Professor of International Security, University of Adelaide

During her speech at the National Press Club this week, Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong argued that the “unprecedented” circumstances our region faces “require a response of unprecedented coordination and ambition in our statecraft”.

Wong identified many key tools of Australia’s statecraft:

• development assistance
• infrastructure investment
• security cooperation
• multilateral diplomacy, and
• military capability.

She also singled out Australia’s much-debated plan to spend A$368 billion to acquire and develop nuclear-powered submarines under the AUKUS security partnership as a key way Australia will “play our part in collective deterrence of aggression”.

Importantly, Wong also also observed that “our national power, more than anything else, comes from our people”. Yet, she noted, the number of Australian diplomats working in the Pacific had actually shrunk under the previous government.

It’s worth reflecting on this in light of the government’s massive spending on submarines – will it have enough left to invest in the people it entrusts to practice its statecraft?

What is statecraft?

Statecraft is a word increasingly used by leaders, officials and commentators to describe the actions that states take to try to influence:

• the global political or economic environment
• the policies or behaviours of other countries, or
• the beliefs, attitudes or opinions of other countries.

The concept of statecraft is having its moment as the Australian foreign and strategic policy community contemplates how to counter China’s increasingly activist role in the Indo-Pacific region.

Many believe that, to earn the most influence, Australia’s tools of statecraft should come with big price tags and flashy announcements. In the Pacific, for instance, the government is fond of announcing big pledges of developmental aid, infrastructure projects and military assistance. There’s a reason Australian officials spruik fervently on social media every time dollars are promised or spent.

But who are these Australian officials on the coalface of implementing Australia’s statecraft?

Diplomats are not all the same

If you look at their social media accounts, Australian officials are treated as interchangeable: an incoming ambassador or high commissioner takes over the account of their predecessor and assumes their persona.

The old pronouncements of their predecessor become their pronouncements. The past openings of Australian-funded facilities become their announcements, even though the person in the social media thumbnail is not same as the one in the commemorative photos.

Officially, foreign policy is as emotionless and cut-and-paste as these official Twitter accounts. Heads of mission should simply take the baton from their predecessor and run with the responsibility of implementing the government of the day’s foreign policy for a while before handing it over to someone else.

There is no mention of the differences between these individuals. It is as if Australian foreign policy officials are grown from pods in the basement of the R.G. Casey Building, the home of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in Canberra.

This is of course nonsense. Australian officials are – just like the rest of us – human beings. Each has their own foibles, habits, strengths and weaknesses. Their individual personalities are adjudicated and assessed intensely in the capital cities where they work, as are those of the Australian police officers, military officials and assorted contractors implementing their programs.

But this reality attracts surprisingly little attention in much of the analysis that is done on the effectiveness of Australia’s statecraft.

Read more:
Can Australia recapture the spirit of middle power diplomacy?

Why kindness and empathy matter

This is why we’re studying the role individuals play in implementing Australian statecraft in the Pacific Islands and Timor-Leste.

Through our work on the first season of our Statecraftiness podcast, we’ve found it is individuals, not policies, that are the most important determinants of whether Australia’s statecraft succeeds.

Two examples from our first episode illustrate our point. One senior minister in the Timor-Leste government, Fidelis Leite Magalhães, told us that when a Timor-Leste minister comes back from a meeting with their partners, the first thing they say is not what line the officials peddled or how much money was pledged, but instead what they were like.

It’s the same story in Papua New Guinea. Bridi Rice, the CEO of the Development Intelligence Lab in Canberra, reflected on research that analysed the style and approach of expatriate advisers in PNG. For PNG officials, it wasn’t the technical acumen of the advisers that stuck in their memory. It was the emotional intelligence (or otherwise) these individuals brought to the job.

We’ve heard again and again during our project that the diplomats, aid workers, governance advisers, defence officials and police officers who implement Australia’s programs overseas are not clones that can be so easily substituted. It matters if they are kind, thoughtful and empathetic.

The converse is also true. It is the kiss of death to a project if an individual is arrogant or patronising or somehow offends their hosts.

Read more:
Despite its Pacific ‘step-up’, Australia is still not listening to the region, new research shows

Roads and mobile networks only go so far

This points to an uncomfortable truth. Australia can build roads, train police, buy telcos and build submarines, but if the people representing the country and implementing its policies aren’t polite, respectful and trustworthy, then it might as well not bother.

As Angus Campbell, the chief of the Australian Defence Force, observed last month in India, “If we find ourselves in a setting in which more and more of national wealth is expended more narrowly in the military space […] statecraft is weakened.”

Our project is a reminder that Australia’s security depends on how well the people implementing its statecraft perform. Whether or not the government’s investments in submarines and other expensive tools of statecraft are wise, they shouldn’t come at the expense of investments in people power.

Joanne Wallis receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the Australian Department of Defence.

This activity was supported by the Australian Government through a grant by the Australian Department of Defence. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and are not necessarily those of the Australian Government or the Australian Department of Defence.

Gordon Peake receives funding from the Department of Defence

– ref. Penny Wong said this week national power comes from ‘our people’. Are we ignoring this most vital resource? – https://theconversation.com/penny-wong-said-this-week-national-power-comes-from-our-people-are-we-ignoring-this-most-vital-resource-203145

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Timothy Minchin, Professor of History, La Trobe University

Electric vehicle sales are surging. Australian sales doubled in 2022 to 3.8% of all new vehicle purchases, and were up 780% in the first two months of 2023 compared to a year ago.

In the United States, Europe and China, the market share of electric vehicles is much higher, helped by greater government support. As industry journal Automotive News put it:

The electric vehicle revolution isn’t coming – it’s already here.

And the revolution is accelerating. US moves to adopt strict new vehicle emissions standards could drive up electric vehicle sales tenfold. Old carmaking plants have already been revived.

There are bound to be flow-on effects in Australia, where the government is about to release a national electric vehicle strategy and new vehicle emission standards.

The rise of electric vehicles creates significant job opportunities, especially for nations with car-making experience – like Australia. A 2022 report by the Australia Institute’s Carmichael Centre identified it as a “once in a lifetime opportunity” to resurrect Australia’s car industry in an “environmentally and socially transformative way”.

Read more:
A rapid shift to electric vehicles can save 24,000 lives and leave us $148bn better off over the next 2 decades

But what’s left of vehicle manufacturing?

More than 34,000 Australians still work in the industry, making parts for global companies. Sections of the car factories – the last closed in 2017 – remain intact. “All the bones are there,” said a former site operations manager at Holden’s Elizabeth plant in 2021.

Toyota’s former plant in Altona, Victoria, even houses a “Centre of Excellence” where products for the local market are planned, designed and engineered.

If the industry is to be revived, however, political and business leaders need to act quickly and decisively. Developers have bought the old Ford sites in Broadmeadows and Geelong in Victoria, along with Holden’s Elizabeth plant in South Australia. They have plans for a mixed-use future with some industry – but no specific plans for a return to making cars.

Other challenges include finding enough workers in a tight post-COVID labour market and upgrading the skills of former car workers, plus a large number of brands limiting domestic market share of any model.

The fragmented market issue could be overcome if the industry had an export focus, particularly for valuable vehicle parts.

As for labour costs, plenty of electric vehicles – or their parts – are being made in other high-wage markets. And, as a high-wage industry, it has traditionally faced few problems recruiting workers.

Read more:
Australia’s electric vehicle numbers doubled last year. What’s the impact of charging them on a power grid under strain?

So what’s happening in the US?

The US experience – where President Joe Biden has declared half of all vehicles sold there must be emissions-free by 2030 – suggests opportunities exist to convert existing facilities. Many electric vehicles are made in factories that once made conventional vehicles, reviving parts of America’s “Rustbelt” in the process.

While Elon Musk proclaims Tesla’s flagship plant in Fremont, California, to be the “factory of the future”, it is actually a former General Motors plant. It was later operated jointly by GM and Toyota. From 1962 to 2009, Fremont made conventional cars.

In 2010, when Tesla took over the facility, it rehired many former workers. Since Tesla began production in June 2012, the same buildings have been used for a highly productive assembly line.

Read more:
Boosting EV market share to 67% of US car sales is a huge leap – but automakers can meet EPA’s tough new standards

General Motors’ compact electric vehicle, the Chevrolet Bolt, is made at a Michigan factory where workers have built 15 different models since the 1980s. They build cars with internal combustion engines alongside the Bolt, including the Chevrolet Sonic. “Everything is run down the same line, AV, EV, Sonic,” explained team leader Quentin Perea.

Japanese makers have also used existing facilities to shift into electric vehicles. Nissan’s ground-breaking Leaf is made in Smyrna, Tennessee, at a plant that has operated since the early 1980s and still makes four conventionally powered SUVs.

While not a full electric vehicle, Toyota’s best-selling RAV4 hybrid model is made in Georgetown, Kentucky. The factory has turned out petrol-fuelled cars since the 1980s. Its more than 9,000 workers now build both hybrid and conventional models.

“Electric vehicles are great,” said Dan Turke, a 50-year-old employee in Warren, Michigan. “Somebody’s still got to build them.”

Some of these factories offer unlikely comeback stories. As NBC reported, the Fremont factory “was derided as one of the industry’s worst, with reports of drinking on the job, high absenteeism, low morale and even sabotaging of cars”.

The company’s factory in Lordstown, Ohio, also has a chequered past. There was a famous strike against increased line speeds in 1972, and the factory faced closure on several occasions. Now it’s home to a landmark GM battery plant – in partnership with LG Energy.

The US experience also highlights that governments need to spend big to attract investment in electric vehicles. In early 2022, new electric car maker Rivian – backed by Amazon – announced it would build a US$5 billion plant, creating over 7,500 jobs. Georgia offered US$1.5 billion in subsidies to secure the facility.

Also in 2022, a Hyundai electric vehicle plant near Savannah, Georgia, received a government package worth US$1.8 billion. The package included free land, property tax breaks and income tax credits.

US think tank Good Jobs First estimates state and local governments have in recent years provided US$13.8 billion in incentives to land at least 51 electric vehicle and EV battery plants.

These moves reflect a longer history of subsidies to lure foreign car makers to the US. Supporters argue the long-term payoff is worth it. Car industry jobs were high-paying, strategically important and boosted the wider economy. As one US business leader said, it’s the “crown jewel in economic development”.

Australia must act decisively

In Australia, reviving the car industry will take similar bold investment and risk-taking. Another recent Carmichael Centre report concluded Australia needs a “concerted, systematic industrial policy for EV manufacturing” to take advantage of the “enormous” and “exciting” opportunities.

Australia has crucial advantages, especially as vehicle makers place high value on the availability of a workforce with industry experience. These workers are ageing, however, as are the buildings where they toiled. Time is of the essence.

Timothy Minchin receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

– ref. Made in Australia? The electric vehicle revolution gives us a chance to revive an industry – https://theconversation.com/made-in-australia-the-electric-vehicle-revolution-gives-us-a-chance-to-revive-an-industry-203909

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nicholas Wood, Associate Professor, Discipline of Childhood and Adolescent Health, University of Sydney

NSW Health recently reported three cases of tetanus and the tragic death of a woman in her 80s – the first tetanus fatality in the state in 30 years.

Tetanus is a rare but potentially fatal disease. Thankfully, it’s preventable – being up to date with tetanus vaccination is your best protection.

What is tetanus and how do you get it?

The bacteria that causes tetanus is called Clostridium tetani. Spores can enter your body usually following a skin wound, puncture or injury.

Tetanus cannot be transmitted from person to person.

The spores are ubiquitous, found in soil, dust and animal waste. They can persist in the environment for months to years, and are remarkably hardy – they’re even resistant to boiling and a number of disinfectants.

Once in a wound, the bacteria can grow and produce a toxin. It is the toxin that acts on your nervous system to cause muscle rigidity and painful spasms.

What are the symptoms?

One classic symptom of tetanus is “lockjaw”, where the muscles around your mouth go into spasms. This makes it difficult to eat and speak but patients maintain full consciousness or awareness. The muscle contractions and spasms are intensely painful and can be triggered by loud noises, physical contact or even light.

Patents with tetanus are commonly treated in an intensive care unit and require cleaning of the wound, antibiotics and injections of anti-toxin, known as human tetanus immunoglobulin, as well as a vaccine.

Read more:
(At least) five reasons you should wear gardening gloves

In severe cases, spasms of muscles surrounding your airways and lungs, alongside high and low blood pressure and heart rhythm abnormalities can lead to death.

Despite the best treatment, about 2–10% of patients die.

How does the vaccine work?

In Australia, tetanus is rare because of high vaccination coverage, with around 14 cases reported to health authorities a year.

Tetanus can occur at any age, but is more common in older adults who have never been vaccinated or were vaccinated more than ten years ago.

The vaccine is very effective in preventing tetanus. Tetanus vaccination stimulates the production of antibodies, also known as antitoxin. This means vaccination doesn’t stop Clostridium tetani growing in contaminated wounds. Rather, it protects against the effects of the toxin.

When do we need a tetanus shot?

Tetanus vaccination has been available in Australia since 1925. It’s currently on the National Immunisation Program (NIP) as an initial five-dose schedule for infants and children until five years of age, administered as a combined diphtheria-tetanus-acellular pertussis (DTPa) vaccine.

Most children (97%) in Australia complete this primary immunisation schedule.

The level of antitoxin needed for protection from tetanus is 0.1-0.2 international units (IU) per millilitre (mL). This level is reached following a fifth dose, at age four to six years.

But by middle age, about 20% of Australians have low or undetectable levels of antitoxin. This places them at risk of contracting tetanus after a wound or injury.

Read more:
Health Check: are you up to date with your vaccinations?

A single dose of tetanus vaccine produces protective levels of antitoxin in these people. This is why a booster dose of tetanus vaccine is recommended for the following people if their last dose was more than ten years ago:

• adults at 50 years of age

• adults aged 65 years or over

• travellers, of any age, to countries where it may be difficult to access timely health services if you sustain a tetanus-prone wound (any wound other than a clean, minor cut).

If you have a tetanus-prone wound and there is any doubt about your tetanus immunisation status, you should receive tetanus immunoglobulin as soon as possible. You should also receive a tetanus vaccine.

If you’re overseas, it could be hard and expensive to get access to both tetanus immunoglobulin and tetanus vaccine.

How do I check my vaccination status?

If you’re over 14 years of age, you can check your vaccine history:

• online, by setting up a myGov account and accessing your Medicare online account through the Express Plus Medicare mobile app

• by calling the Australian Immunisation Register on 1800 653 809

• by asking your doctor or immunisation provider to print a copy of your immunisation records.

If it has been more than ten years since your last dose, ask your GP about getting a booster. It could save your life.

Nicholas Wood has previously received funding from the NHMRC for a Career Development Fellowship.

Helen Quinn 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.

– ref. When did you have your last tetanus vaccine? A booster dose may save your life – https://theconversation.com/when-did-you-have-your-last-tetanus-vaccine-a-booster-dose-may-save-your-life-203763

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

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has given his campaign against the Voice added horsepower by elevating high-profile Indigenous Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price to become shadow minister for Indigenous Australians.

Price has been one of the loudest, most trenchant opponents of the Voice – at the opposite end of the Coalition spectrum from Julian Leeser, whom she replaces. Leeser resigned from the frontbench last week to campaign for the yes case, triggering the frontbench shakeup.

In a significant reshuffle, Dutton has also brought the Coalition’s other Indigenous MP, South Australian Senator Kerrynne Liddle, into the shadow ministry. Like Price, Liddle, a former journalist and businesswoman, entered parliament at last year’s election.

She will become shadow minister for child protection and prevention of family violence. Dutton has brought this issue to the fore in relation to Indigenous communities with allegations of sexual assault against Indigenous children in Alice Springs.

The reshuffle also sees Karen Andrews, who has been spokeswoman on home affairs (and previously the minister), step down to the backbench. Dutton said Andrews has recently told him she would not run again and would be happy to go to the backbench when there was a reshuffle.

Andrews will be replaced by Senator James Paterson, who under the Coalition government chaired the powerful parliamentary joint committee on intelligence and security. He is already shadow minister for cybersecurity and shadow minister for countering foreign interference.

Senator Michaelia Cash becomes shadow attorney-general, returning to an area she held in government. She retains her present responsibilities for employment and workplace relations.

The choice of Price had not seemed to be Dutton’s original plan. Coming from the Northern Territory Country Liberal Party, she sits with the Nationals.

Her promotion, following talks between Dutton and Nationals leader David Littleproud, means the Nationals’ representation is above their quota under the Coalition agreement.

Apart from the quota issue, there were other arguments against Price – that she was too inexperienced and that elevating her would put noses out of joint among Liberals who had been around longer.

But over the past week, calls increased for her appointment from vocal supporters, and she featured widely in the media including on the ABC’s Insiders on Sunday.

Dutton described Price as “a warrior for Indigenous Australians”.

“She’s always fought hard to improve the lives of Indigenous women and kids. She’s done an incredible amount of work to tackle tough issues like the scourge of sexual abuse, domestic violence and the crisis of law and order in some Indigenous communities, particularly Alice Springs most recently.”

Dutton also insisted he had raised the issue of child sexual abuse with the prime minister, despite Anthony Albanese on Monday denying this.

Dutton told his news conference: “There is a systemic problem in Alice Springs, the NT and other parts of the country and a big part of the decision to put Jacinta Price into this portfolio and Kerrynne Liddle into her portfolio is because we want to provide a brighter future for those kids.

“We can’t have a situation where we have young children being sexually abused, the impact psychologically on them, the difficulties it creates within a home environment.

“As we know, in Alice Springs at the moment, there are very significant issues.”

Andrews said that having decided “to call time” on her political career, “I wanted to ensure the Coalition has maximum time to have a replacement in the crucial home affairs portfolio, and the best replacement candidate for [her Queensland seat of] McPherson in place”.

She said in a statement she would continue to to support the Liberals’ position on the Voice. But she told a later news conference: “I won’t be out there wearing a shirt that says vote no. When people speak to me I will go through what
my concerns are, but I want to do that in a very neutral way so that
people are in a position that they can make their own mind up.”

She said she could not support the current words for the referendum, but she was open to working to get a proper set of words.

Michelle Grattan 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.

– ref. Jacinta Nampijinpa Price to be Peter Dutton’s right-hand campaigner against the Voice – https://theconversation.com/jacinta-nampijinpa-price-to-be-peter-duttons-right-hand-campaigner-against-the-voice-204016

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Premeet Sidhu, PhD Student in Media and Communications, University of Sydney

Death, dramatic diversions and dark wizards: the new Dungeons & Dragons film successfully adapts aspects of the famous tabletop game of the same name to the big screen.

Making US$71 million (A$106 million) globally and taking out the top box office spot during its opening weekend, Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves is a film that follows a group of thieves who must choose between heroism and riches in order to topple an evil sorceress.

The film is one of the latest examples of a largely well-received game adaptation. It knows which parts of the game are best portrayed through the film medium – sprawling fantasy landscapes and visual depictions of magic and monsters. It also knows which parts are best left out for film audiences, such as continual dice rolls and extended meta-narratives.

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves is a great example of why the storytelling world of Dungeons & Dragons has persisted and thrived for so many years: its adaptability to a broad range of different mediums and styles of narrative.

What is Dungeons & Dragons?

Originally published in 1974, Dungeons & Dragons (also colloquially known as D&D) is a tabletop role-playing game where groups of players meet to role-play characters, fight monsters and play make-believe with their friends – usually using dice rolls to decide how things play out.

Though traditionally played over a physical tabletop, online D&D play has become more commonplace and is an accessible alternative for players who can’t participate in person.

Historically, Dungeons & Dragons was often viewed as a complex high fantasy hobby and was stigmatised when it became associated with the Satanic Panic of the 1980s. This association began when unproven claims linked the death of two teenagers back to their Dungeons & Dragons play.

However, the game’s reputation, rules and player base have evolved since then, and it is experiencing a modern resurgence in play and popularity.

Read more:
‘Satanic worship, sodomy and even murder’: how Stranger Things revived the American satanic panic of the 80s

Even though there are official published rulebooks that help guide play, Dungeons & Dragons publishers have consistently emphasised the importance of imagination and collaboration. They have encouraged players to cater their games to their own interests by developing rules that allow for various types of gameplay to be valid. The most recent edition of the player’s handbook even states:

D&D is your personal corner of the universe, a place where you have free reign to do as you wish […] Read the rules of the game and the story of its worlds, but always remember that you are the one who brings them to life. They are nothing without the spark of life that you give them.

The modern trend of transmedia storytelling

In his book on convergence culture, media scholar Henry Jenkins describes “transmedia storytelling” as the act of telling a story across multiple formats.

At a time where we are consuming larger volumes of content across various digital and non-digital platforms, transmedia storytelling offers audiences multiple points of entry into media properties based on their own preferences. Beyond the strong financial motives, transmedia storytelling also delivers content to audiences that may not have been targeted or interested otherwise.

Dungeons & Dragons has been widely adapted over the years and many of these representations have directed greater interest and attention towards the original game.

Although the animated TV series from the early 1980s and the original trilogy of Dungeons & Dragons films from the 2000s were met with critical reviews, both adaptations lean into the strong visual affinities of their respective mediums.

This can also be seen in The Record of Lodoss War. The independently created series originated as a published campaign log of a Japanese Dungeons & Dragons game. It has since evolved into a multi-media franchise which includes manga, animation and video game adaptations.

Actual-play is a term that is used to describe how people play tabletop role-playing games like D&D for audiences. It’s growing into one of the most popular types of content for live-streaming and podcast media.

Notable and popular examples of actual-play D&D adaptations include The Adventure Zone, Critical Role, Dimension 20 and The Dragon Friends. The stories told can range from classic Dungeons & Dragons campaigns to unique and adapted stories that simply use the rule system.

Though they vary in genre, run time and production methods, these actual-play representations of Dungeons & Dragons games appeal to audiences that are interested in the players and play of Dungeons & Dragons, just as much as the stories, characters or worlds that are explored.

Dungeons & Dragons in popular culture

In addition to the game’s fantasy worlds and gameplay dynamics, Dungeons & Dragons’ capacity for social connection and personal growth has also been covered in popular culture and media.

Stranger Things, Freaks and Geeks and Community are just some examples of how popular media has successfully incorporated the social dynamics of Dungeons & Dragons play.

Characters within these shows use the game to develop skills to overcome various challenges or connect with others. Research has indicated that representations of Dungeons & Dragons in popular culture have helped reshape perceptions of the game and have likely played a part in the game’s modern resurgence.

The continued importance of D&D’s open gaming license

Dungeons & Dragons content and media is not solely created or distributed by the game’s official publishers. Since 2000, the game’s open gaming license (known as the OGL) has let audiences create content that is compatible with some of the game’s core mechanics.

However, the longevity of original and independently created content was put into jeopardy earlier this year when a new version of the license was proposed. This version of the OGL was perceived to be more restrictive and anti-competitive than the initial version, leaving the future of Dungeons & Dragons adaptations unknown.

What we do know is that Dungeons & Dragons is experiencing a resurgence in play and popularity because it’s able to leverage the way audiences currently consume content: across multiple forms and through diverse narratives.

Premeet Sidhu is a recipient of the NSW Education Waratah Scholarship.

– ref. From the basement to the big screen: how Dungeons & Dragons evolved from a game to a multi-media franchise – https://theconversation.com/from-the-basement-to-the-big-screen-how-dungeons-and-dragons-evolved-from-a-game-to-a-multi-media-franchise-203552

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nick Lomb, Honorary Professor, Centre for Astrophysics, University of Southern Queensland

This week, eclipse chasers will be visiting the small town of Exmouth, at the tip of North West Cape in Western Australia. Weather permitting, they are coming to see one of nature’s greatest sights – a total eclipse of the Sun on Thursday April 20.

Whether staying at hotels, resorts or camping sites, many would have made travel arrangements a year or more in advance. But don’t be too disappointed if you can’t be there; other opportunities to see total eclipses are coming up in the next few years. Here’s what you need to know.

A fully immersive experience

A total solar eclipse occurs on those rare occasions when the Moon lines up with the Sun and passes in front of it from our vantage point here on Earth. The bright disc of the Sun is entirely hidden for a short period – seconds or minutes. During this time, called the totality, eclipse watchers will see a dark hole in the sky where the Sun had been, surrounded by a faint glow – our star’s corona.

Read more:
Explainer: what is a solar eclipse?

This is what eclipse chasers seek to witness. The string of locations where a total eclipse will be visible to observers is called the “path of totality”. People will often travel thousands of kilometres to be in the right place at the right time. They are not only treated to the magnificent sight of the corona, but get a fully immersive experience.

The sky rapidly darkens, the temperature drops, birds stop twittering and animals start going to sleep. The gathered observers, whether from your own group or from distant countries, are united in the experience.

An addictive hobby

There are two warnings associated with total solar eclipses. One is that chasing them is addictive. Often people who have seen their first eclipse immediately want to start planning to see their second.

I can vouch for this personally – after watching my first total eclipse on December 4 2002 from the Woomera Rocket Range, I became most keen to observe another. Seeing the corona surrounding the dark Sun come into view was an awe-inspiring experience, heightened by the fascinating location and the elation of fellow observers. My next eclipse was on August 1 2008 at an even more interesting location – a beach on the shore of the Novosibirsk Reservoir in Siberia; and most recently, I watched the Far North Queensland eclipse on November 14 2012.

The other warning is this: the only time it’s safe to look directly at the Sun is during the brief period of totality. All other times, during the partial phases before and after, it is necessary to take precautions.

For this, special eclipse glasses are available from planetariums, public observatories, amateur astronomy groups and astronomy stores. Just make sure the glasses have the CE European standard mark.

Taking photographs is safe, though only during totality unless you have the appropriate filters. A tripod is essential, as the corona is faint and you will need long exposures. Seasoned eclipse observers arrive at eclipse sites loaded with professional-grade cameras and telephoto lenses. But if it’s your first time, it’s probably better to just watch and absorb the event, rather than try photographing it.

Plan ahead and stay mobile

After this week’s eclipse in Australia, the next total solar eclipse will be visible on April 8 2024 from the United States and Mexico. After passing through Mexico, the path of totality sweeps across the United States from Texas to Maine, before moving to parts of Canada.

There are many potential viewing spots along the path. However, before picking a site, it’s important to study the “climate report” for the eclipse. This grants the best chance of avoiding the eclipse watcher’s greatest enemy – clouds.

However, even with the best advance planning, last-minute clouds are possible. Seasoned observers try to stay mobile, so that if the weather forecast is bad for their location, they can move to another location to avoid the clouds.

The US total solar eclipse will be followed on August 12 2026 with one where the path of totality passes over Spain and Iceland. Then there will be one on August 2 2027, visible from Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

An upcoming eclipse of greatest interest to Australians is the total solar eclipse on July 22 2028, for which the path of totality passes from WA through the Northern Territory to New South Wales towns such as Bourke, Dubbo and Mudgee before reaching Sydney. It is rare for a major city to be in the path of totality, and the five million people of Sydney will get a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to view a total solar eclipse from their homes or backyards.

Of course, like at any other eclipse, clouds are a possibility, so keep a lookout for weather reports closer to the date. Before eclipse day, look at the forecasts from the Bureau of Meteorology and specialised astronomy websites.

As mentioned, for serious eclipse observers, mobility before a total eclipse is essential. For example, at the November 14 2012 eclipse in Far North Queensland, a Sydney Observatory group made a successful last minute dash inland to avoid the forecast poor weather.

Clouds, however, are not all bad. For the same eclipse, I was at Palm Cove Beach and fortunately, the clouds parted just at the start of totality. The excitement involved made for a fantastic and unique experience.

If you are not at North West Cape this week and want to experience the wonders of a future total solar eclipse, you may want to start planning now.

Read more:
A century ago, Australia was ground zero for eclipse-watchers – and helped prove Einstein right

Nick Lomb 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.

– ref. Want to see a total solar eclipse? Here’s how to plan for it – and how to set your expectations in case of clouds – https://theconversation.com/want-to-see-a-total-solar-eclipse-heres-how-to-plan-for-it-and-how-to-set-your-expectations-in-case-of-clouds-200540

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Paul Kildea, Associate Professor, Faculty of Law & Justice, UNSW Sydney

We asked our readers what they would like to know about the proposed Indigenous Voice to Parliament. In the lead-up to the referendum, our expert authors will answer those questions. You can read the other questions and answers here.

It would be possible for the federal parliament to establish an Indigenous Voice by passing ordinary legislation. But such a body would be fundamentally different from the constitutionally enshrined Voice we are being asked to approve at a referendum later this year.

First, only a constitutional Voice responds to the call for reform set out in the Uluru Statement from the Heart. That document was endorsed at the 2017 National Constitutional Convention at Uluru, which was the culmination of a grassroots process comprising 13 regional dialogues and involving more than 1,200 First Nations people.

The Uluru Statement calls for “the establishment of a First Nations Voice enshrined in the Constitution” as the first step of a reform process that also encompasses treaty-making and truth-telling.

Second, the act of establishing a Voice in the Constitution provides Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples with a form of constitutional recognition. This is explicit in the proposed amendment released by the government. Currently, the Australian Constitution makes no mention of the continent’s first peoples.

Third, constitutional change gives the Voice security and certainty. Once established, the Voice could only be abolished if Australians agreed to that at another referendum. By contrast, a legislative Voice would be far more vulnerable. A future government could get rid of it by passing an ordinary law. To do that, it would only need to win the support of a majority of members in the House of Representatives and the Senate.

Fourth, constitutional change will confer on the Voice a strong popular legitimacy that is not achievable through ordinary legislative change. The direct approval of the people at a referendum would bestow on the Voice a special credibility and authority. That would give additional political force to the representations of the Voice, even as the parliament and government would be free to ignore them. And the presence of the Voice in the nation’s highest law would speak to its standing.

Finally, constitutional change gives the Voice the best chance of being effective. A body that has been endorsed by First Nations people and the wider public, and enjoys the security and legitimacy that constitutional amendment provides, promises to have the most lasting and meaningful impact.

Why can’t the Voice be legislated and piloted for a few years, then put to a referendum?

It would be possible to establish an Indigenous consultative body by legislation and then subsequently hold a referendum to enshrine it in the Constitution. We could imagine this might help to familiarise some Australians with the idea of an Indigenous Voice before voting on it.

However, there are shortcomings to this approach that arguably outweigh any benefits it might bring. As the Uluru Statement makes clear, First Nations people have called for a Voice that is enshrined in the Constitution. That demand is not met by a legislated body.

Even if a sincere government pledged to put a legislated Voice to a vote after a trial period, there would be no guarantee the referendum would go ahead. After all, the priorities and composition of our governments and parliament change rapidly. There would be a risk that Indigenous people would be stuck with another representative body that, like ATSIC before it, could be dissolved with the stroke of a pen.

The lessons of any pilot period would also be limited. A statutory Voice would have a relatively weak standing and legitimacy. It could not be expected to speak as loudly as a constitutional body. As such, Australians could come to the end of the pilot period without a clear idea of the impact that a constitutional Voice might have on laws and policies.

Moreover, a pilot period would not necessarily provide Australians with greater certainty about the details of the Voice’s operation. The fact remains that parliament would retain the power to alter the Voice’s composition, functions, powers and procedures. The people might vote at the referendum with the “pilot” Voice in their mind, only to find the subsequent constitutional version takes a different shape.

Read more:
What happens if the government goes against the advice of the Voice to Parliament?

What legislation is ever debated in parliament that does NOT affect indigenous people?

The proposed Voice covers a broad range of policy areas. It would be able to make representations to the parliament and the executive government “on matters relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples”.

As the Explanatory Memorandum to the Constitution Alteration Bill explains, this wording captures both matters specific to Indigenous peoples (such as native title) as well as more general matters “which affect Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples differently to other members of the Australian community”. For instance, general election laws would fall within the scope of the Voice because of the disproportionately low enrolment and participation rates of First Nations people.

Some have argued this remit is too broad, potentially allowing the Voice to give advice on almost any issue. The opposition has said the Voice could present its views, for example, on the setting of interest rates or the formulation of climate policy.

Supporters of the government’s proposal argue it is both necessary and appropriate for the Voice to be able to speak on a wide range of matters. It is said that a broad remit will ensure that the Voice facilitates the participation of Indigenous peoples in the making of laws and policies that affect them.

Proponents say it is impossible to know in advance the sorts of issues that First Nations people will see as being of interest or concern, and that those issues are likely to evolve over time. They also argue that a narrow remit could prompt legal challenges as disputes arise over what matters fall within scope.

In practical terms, the proposed Voice will not be able to make representations on all matters that fall within its remit. It will need to decide which matters deserve priority and focus its attention and resources on them.

And if the Voice wishes to be heard, and not just to speak, it may find that it can have most impact by focusing on matters that have specific significance for Indigenous peoples. Under the government’s proposal, it will be up to the Voice to make that calculation. As Robert French, former Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia, has observed: “[The Voice’s] limits are likely to be defined by common sense and political realities”.

Paul Kildea has previously received funding from the Australian Research Council.

– ref. Why can’t we just establish the Voice to Parliament through legislation? A constitutional law expert explains – https://theconversation.com/why-cant-we-just-establish-the-voice-to-parliament-through-legislation-a-constitutional-law-expert-explains-203652

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hessom Razavi, Associate professor, The University of Western Australia

A solar eclipse will occur across the whole of Australia on Thursday morning. It will be most visible in the Ningaloo region of Western Australia. Thousands of people will visit the small coastal town of Exmouth to witness this spectacular event, while Australians elsewhere will experience a partial eclipse.

It is imperative to take steps to protect your eyes from solar retinopathy – permanent eye damage caused by looking at directly at the sun. Expert guidelines advise people to never look at the sun or an eclipse with the naked eye. Any direct viewing should only be done with the correct use of approved solar eclipse glasses that meet an international safety standard known as ISO 12312-2.

Also known as sun blindness, solar retinopathy has been recognised since Ancient Greece. It affected astronomers including Sir Isaac Newton, who once used a mirror to look at the sun and saw “afterimages for months”.

Looking too closely

In Türkiye in 1976, 58 patients sought treatment for eye damage after an eclipse. While some experienced initial improvements, the damage in others was unchanged 15 years later.

In 1999, 45 people presented to the Eye Casualty of Leicester Royal Infirmary after an eclipse seen there. Retinopathy was confirmed in 40 of them. Seven months later, four people could still see “the ghosts of the damage” in their visual field.

And after the solar eclipse of August 2017, 27 patients in the American state of Utah presented with concerns about vision.

For those people affected by solar retinopathy, the results can be devastating and lifelong.

Read more:
Humans have been predicting eclipses for thousands of years, but it’s harder than you might think

What happens to your eye when you stare at the sun?

Solar retinopathy is damage to the back of the eye (the fovea centralis in the retina) from exposure to intense light. It is typically caused by sungazing or eclipse viewing but can also result from welding without a shield, looking at laser pointers and from some surgical and photographic lighting.

A process called “phototoxicity” happens when the energy in the light forms damaging free radicals and reacts with oxygen within the retina. This disrupts the retinal pigment epithelium (a layer of supportive cells beneath the retina) as well as the choriocapillaris (blood vessels) beneath.

Fragmentation of the photoreceptors, nerve cells within the retina that detect light and colour, follows and can result in permanent loss of central vision.

Some wavelengths of light that cause solar retinopathy – such as Ultraviolet-A radiation and near infrared wavelengths – are not visible to humans, yet cause solar retinopathy in as little as a few seconds. This exposure doesn’t necessarily hurt at the time.

So eclipse gazing – even with little or no visible light and viewed briefly without pain – can lead to loss of vision.

There is no effective treatment

There is no proven treatment for solar retinopathy. Steroid medications have been tried without evidence of success, and may make things worse in some patients. Antioxidant medications are used in some eye diseases, but there are no studies showing a benefit in solar retinopathy. Vision may improve over time without treatment but many patients are left with residual deficits.

The mainstay of management is therefore prevention.

Read more:
A ‘hybrid’ solar eclipse is about to be visible in Australia. Here’s when and where you can see it

How to spot proper eclipse specs. 5 tips:

Only approved glasses will absorb the appropriate wavelengths of visible, ultraviolet and infrared light. They must:

1. be purchased from reputable vendors to ensure they are not counterfeits
2. display the correct safety certification (ISO 12312-2)
3. not be scratched, cracked or show any other signs of damage
4. fit your face properly so no gaps let light in (check they fit over your usual glasses if you need these to see normally)
5. be checked by looking at a lamp or light bulb – only light from the sun should be visible through genuine eclipse glasses. This check doesn’t risk eye damage provided the previous steps have been followed.

In Exmouth in WA, the Chamber of Commerce and Industry has purchased some 20,000 eclipse viewing glasses, which meet the international ISO safety standard.

Regular sunglasses, polaroid filters, welding shields, X-ray film, neutral density filters, red glass filters, mobile phones and homemade sun filters are not safe for viewing the sun or an eclipse.

What if you think the damage is done?

Symptoms to watch out for include blurred vision in one or both eyes within one to two days of exposure.

People may also experience blind spots, altered colour vision, visual distortion (straight lines appearing kinked or wavy), micropsia (objects appearing smaller than normal), light sensitivity and headache. There may be no symptoms at all in the first few hours to a day.

If you have symptoms, abstain from further eclipse viewing. Use dark sunglasses and painkillers (such as paracetamol) for light sensitivity and headaches. Arrange an urgent appointment with an ophthalmologist (or an optometrist, GP or emergency department, who may then refer you to a specialist).

Read more:
Explainer: what is a solar eclipse?

What about totality though?

A total solar eclipse may potentially be viewed without eye protection, but only during the brief period while the moon completely covers the sun (the period of totality).

This will only occur over the Ningaloo region of Western Australia, including Exmouth, just before 11.30am (AWST) and last between 54 and 58 seconds, depending on exact location. The Astronomical Society of Australia has an interactive map which eclipse viewers should visit, to determine the precise timing of totality in their location.

But this still has risks. Eclipse glasses should only be removed after totality has commenced, when the moon has completely covered the sun and it suddenly becomes dark. Just prior to the sun reappearing, eclipse glasses must be replaced, to keep observing the remaining partial eclipse.

Remember, totality will only occur over the Ningaloo region, so it not safe to view the eclipse without protection anywhere else in Australia.

A solar eclipse is a rare occurrence. People will naturally be curious to observe it. Following the right advice will mean they can do it safely.

Hessom Razavi 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.

– ref. Turn around, bright eyes. Here’s how to see the eclipse and protect your vision – https://theconversation.com/turn-around-bright-eyes-heres-how-to-see-the-eclipse-and-protect-your-vision-203571

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Edward Doddridge, Research Associate in Physical Oceanography, University of Tasmania

The rhythmic expansion and contraction of Antarctic sea ice is like a heartbeat.

But lately, there’s been a skip in the beat. During each of the last two summers, the ice around Antarctica has retreated farther than ever before.

And just as a change in our heartbeat affects our whole body, a change to sea ice around Antarctica affects the whole world.

Today, researchers at the Australian Antarctic Program Partnership (AAPP) and the Australian Centre for Excellence in Antarctic Science (ACEAS) have joined forces to release a science briefing for policy makers, On Thin Ice.

Together we call for rapid cuts to greenhouse gas emissions, to slow the rate of global heating. We also need to step up research in the field, to get a grip on sea-ice science before it’s too late.

The seasonal expansion and contraction of Antarctic sea ice (Animation by NASA/GSFC Science Visualisation Studio)

The shrinking white cap on our blue planet

One of the largest seasonal cycles on Earth happens in the ocean around Antarctica. During autumn and winter the surface of the ocean freezes as sea ice advances northwards, and then in the spring the ice melts as the sunlight returns.

We’ve been able to measure sea ice from satellites since the late 1970s. In that time we’ve seen a regular cycle of freezing and melting. At the winter maximum, sea ice covers an area more than twice the size of Australia (roughly 20 million square kilometres), and during summer it retreats to cover less than a fifth of that area (about 3 million square km).

In 2022 the summer minimum was less than 2 million square km for the first time since satellite records began. This summer, the minimum was even lower – just 1.7 million square km.

The annual freeze pumps cold salty water down into the deep ocean abyss. The water then flows northwards. About 40% of the global ocean can be traced back to the Antarctic coastline.

By exchanging water between the surface ocean and the abyss, sea ice formation helps to sequester heat and carbon dioxide in the deep ocean. It also helps to bring long-lost nutrients back up to the surface, supporting ocean life around the world.

Read more:
Torrents of Antarctic meltwater are slowing the currents that drive our vital ocean ‘overturning’ – and threaten its collapse

Not only does sea ice play a crucial role in pumping seawater across the planet, it insulates the ocean underneath. During the long days of the Antarctic summer, sunlight usually hits the bright white surface of the sea ice and is reflected back into space.

This year, there is less sea ice than normal and so the ocean, which is dark by comparison, is absorbing much more solar energy than normal. This will accelerate ocean warming and will likely impede the wintertime growth of sea ice.

Headed for stormy seas

The Southern Ocean is a stormy place; the epithets “Roaring Forties” and “Furious Fifties” are well deserved. When there is less ice, the coastline is more exposed to storms. Waves pound on coastlines and ice shelves that are normally sheltered behind a broad expanse of sea ice. This battering can lead to the collapse of ice shelves and an increase in the rate of sea level rise as ice sheets slide off the land into the ocean more rapidly.

Sea ice supports many levels of the food web. When sea ice melts it releases iron, which promotes phytoplankton growth. In the spring we see phytoplankton blooms that follow the retreating sea ice edge. If less ice forms, there will be less iron released in the spring, and less phytoplankton growth.

Read more:
Smoke from the Black Summer fires created an algal bloom bigger than Australia in the Southern Ocean

Krill, the small crustaceans that provide food to whales, seals, and penguins, need sea ice. Many larger species such as penguins and seals rely on sea ice to breed. The impact of changes to the sea ice on these larger animals varies dramatically between species, but they are all intimately tied to the rhythm of ice formation and melt. Changes to the sea-ice heartbeat will disrupt the finely balanced ecosystems of the Southern Ocean.

A diagnosis for policy makers

Long term measurements show the subsurface Southern Ocean is getting warmer. This warming is caused by our greenhouse gas emissions. We don’t yet know if this ocean warming directly caused the record lows seen in recent summers, but it is a likely culprit.

As scientists in Australia and around the world work to understand these recent events, new evidence will come to light for a clearer understanding of what is causing the sea ice around Antarctica to melt.

If you noticed a change in your heartbeat, you’d likely see a doctor. Just as doctors run tests and gather information, climate scientists undertake fieldwork, gather observations, and run simulations to better understand the health of our planet.

This crucial work requires specialised icebreakers with sophisticated observational equipment, powerful computers, and high-tech satellites. International cooperation, data sharing, and government support are the only ways to provide the resources required.

After noticing the first signs of heart trouble, a doctor might recommend more exercise or switching to a low-fat diet. Maintaining the health of our planet requires the same sort of intervention – we must rapidly cut our consumption of fossil fuels and improve our scientific capabilities.

Edward Doddridge receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the Australian Government.

– ref. Antarctica’s heart of ice has skipped a beat. Time to take our medicine – https://theconversation.com/antarcticas-heart-of-ice-has-skipped-a-beat-time-to-take-our-medicine-202729

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew King, Senior Lecturer in Climate Science, The University of Melbourne

As the planet warms, a key concern in international climate negotiations is to compensate developing nations for the damage they suffer. But which nations should receive money? And which extreme weather events were influenced by climate change?

Most nations last year signed up to an agreement to establish a so-called “loss and damage” fund. It would provide a means for developed nations – which are disproportionately responsible for greenhouse gas emissions – to provide money to vulnerable nations dealing with the effects of climate change.

Part of the fund would help developing nations recover from catastrophic extreme weather. For example, it might be used to rebuild homes and hospitals after a floods or provide food and emergency cash transfers after a cyclone.

Some experts have suggested the science of “event attribution” could be used to determine how the funds are distributed. Event attribution attempts to determine the causes of extreme weather events – in particular, whether human-caused climate change played a part.

But as our new paper sets out, event attribution is not yet a good way to calculate compensation for nations vulnerable to climate change. An alternative strategy is needed.

What is event attribution?

Extreme weather events are complex and caused by multiple factors. The science of extreme event attribution primarily seeks to work out whether either human-caused climate change or natural variability in the climate contributed to these events.

For example, a recent study found the extreme rain that triggered New Zealand’s February flooding was up to 30% more intense due to human influence on the climate system.

Attribution science is progressing quickly. It’s increasingly focused on extreme rain events, which in the past have been tricky to study. But it’s still not a consistent and robust way to estimate the costs and impacts of extreme events.

Read more:
COP27: one big breakthrough but ultimately an inadequate response to the climate crisis

Why can’t we use it?

Event attribution science draws on both observational weather data and climate model simulations.

Most commonly, two types of climate model simulations are used: those that include the effects of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions, and those that exclude them. Comparing the two types of simulations allows scientists to estimate how climate change influences the likelihood and severity of extreme events.

But climate models primarily simulate processes in the atmosphere and ocean. They don’t directly simulate the damage caused by an extreme weather event – such as how many people died due to a heatwave or infrastructure loss during a flood.

To directly simulate the effects of an extreme event, we need to know the exact extent to which weather components such as temperature and rainfall caused damage.
In some cases, this can be determined. But it requires high-quality data, such as hospital admissions, that’s rarely available in most parts of the world.

Also, climate models are not good at simulating some extreme events, such as thunderstorms or extreme winds. That’s because such events are sporadic and tend to occur across small areas. This makes them harder to model than, say, a heatwave that affects a large area.

So if “loss and damage” funding decisions relied too much on event attribution, then a low-income nation hit by a heatwave may receive more support than a nation damaged by storms or high winds, relative to the damage caused.

What’s more, event attribution is not yet able to estimate how climate change causes damage associated with so-called “compound” extreme events.

Compound events refer to cases where more than one extreme event occurs simultaneously in neighbouring regions, or consecutively in a single region. Examples include a drought followed by a heatwave, or sea level rise which makes damage from a tsunami even worse.

Read more:
‘Teaching our children from books, not the sea’: how climate change is eroding human rights in Vanuatu

How do we move forward?

Event attribution is not yet advanced enough to calculate “loss and damage” from climate change.

Instead, our paper suggests “loss and damage” funds are used alongside foreign aid spending to support recovery in low-income nations following any extreme events where human-caused climate change may have played a role.

We also present four major recommendations for using event attribution to estimate “loss and damage” in future. These are:

1. Help developing countries use event attribution techniques: to date, event attribution has largely been conducted by wealthy countries in their own regions

2. Address more types of extreme events: tornadoes, hailstorms and lightning are largely beyond the capability of climate models used in event attribution because they are localised and complex. New techniques to examine these events should be attempted

3. More research into the impacts and costs of extreme events: few studies have attempted to attribute the costs of extreme events to climate change. Further efforts are needed, especially in low-income nations

4. Combine event attribution with other knowledge: scientists and experts in aid and policymaking must collaborate on a strategy for using event attribution information. Better understanding of the needs of policymakers and the limitations of event attribution science could lead to more useful studies.

Read more:
Climate change is white colonisation of the atmosphere. It’s time to tackle this entrenched racism

A growing burden

Low-income nations have contributed relatively little to global emissions. Compensation from richer nations is vital to helping them manage the growing burden of climate harms.

But distributing these funds in a fair way is challenging. Until the field of event attribution advances, putting too much reliance on event attribution is a risky strategy.

The authors acknowledge the contribution of Izidine Pinto to the research underpinning this article.

Andrew King receives funding from the National Environmental Science Program.

Joyce Kimutai receives funding from Kenya’s Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Climate Change

Luke Harrington receives funding from New Zealand’s Ministry for Business, Innovation and Employment.

Michael Grose receives funding from National Environmental Science Program.

– ref. Poorer countries must be compensated for climate damage. But how exactly do we crunch the numbers? – https://theconversation.com/poorer-countries-must-be-compensated-for-climate-damage-but-how-exactly-do-we-crunch-the-numbers-202387

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Weihuan Zhou, Associate Professor, Co-Director of China International Business and Economic Law (CIBEL) Centre, Faculty of Law and Justice, UNSW Sydney, UNSW Sydney

The agreement between Australia and China to resolve a dispute over Chinese tariffs on Australian barley without World Trade Organization (WTO) adjudication is evidence of a distinct improvement in relations.

It raises confidence Australia can maintain a constructive relationship with China even as US-China relations continue to deteriorate.

China imposed an 80.5% import tariff on Australian barley in May 2020, on the grounds Australian barley was sold in the Chinese market at a price lower than its price in Australia (known as “dumping”) and was subsidised, harming China’s barley growers.

China’s Ministry of Commerce began an anti-dumping and anti-subsidy investigation into barley in November 2018. At the time it was perceived as retaliation for more than a dozen anti-dumping actions taken by Australia against Chinese imports over a decade.

Read more:
Barley is not a random choice – here’s the real reason China is taking on Australia over dumping

But the timing of the tariff decision, just weeks after Australia called for an international investigation into the origin of COVID-19, meant it was perceived as part of a broader campaign of Chinese economic coercion that included actions against Australian coal, beef, lobster and wine.

In December 2020, Australia lodged its claim against the barley tariffs with the WTO. The breakdown in the official relationship at the time made it impossible for the dispute to be resolved via consultation.

Last week (on April 11) both parties requested the WTO suspend proceedings. This follows nearly a year of efforts to repair the relationship following the election of the Albanese government.

The agreement came in the same week that Australia hosted China’s deputy foreign minister, Ma Zhaoxu, the highest-level Chinese official to visit Canberra in more than six years.

Official visits by China’s Foreign Minister, Qin Gang (who met Australia’s Foreign Minister Penny Wong in March on the sidelines of a G20 meeting in New Delhi) and senior officials from other ministries like agriculture and education, are expected to follow.

What the barley agreement means

Digging into the details of the barley deal, China has agreed to conduct an expedited review of barley tariffs in the next three or four months.

China’s Ministry of Commerce initiated a review
on April 14, based on an application lodged by the China Alcoholic Drinks Association. The review is needed for the ministry to find a reasonable ground to remove the duties. The standard time frame for such a review is 12 months.

For Australia, this offers a quicker path to get barley back in the Chinese market than proceeding with the WTO case.

While a decision from the WTO panel hearing the dispute was expected in just days, a finding that Australia wasn’t dumping barley on China could have meant another year before the tariffs were terminated. This is because China would retain the option of appealing the decision. Even if it then lost the appeal, it could still have dragged out removing the tariffs.

Read more:
Taking China to the World Trade Organisation plants a seed. It won’t be a quick or easy win

The approach sets a useful template for how Australia might similarly get China to remove the tariffs (of 116% to 218%) imposed on Australian wine in March 2021.

Australia initiated WTO proceeding in June 2021, with the WTO panel established four months later. It is expected to issue its decision by mid-2023. But continuing with the process will also take much longer for the tariffs to be removed.

This approach can also potentially be a template for the parties to suspend WTO dispute proceedings brought by China against Australia for its anti-dumping and anti-subsidy tariffs on selected Chinese imports.

Read more:
It might look like China is winning the trade war, but its import bans are a diplomacy fail

Knocking on the Trans-Pacific Partnership’s door

For China, a more strategic goal behind the agreement might be alleviating Australia’s resistance to China joining the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP).

The trade pact involves 11 Pacific-rim nations and now Britain, whose request to join was approved by the other signatories in March.

China lodged its application to join after the UK, in September 2021. It too needs consensus approval from all CPTPP parties, and Australia has made its position crystal clear: China must end its trade sanctions and show a capability and willingness to live up to the CPTPP’s high standards.

Resolving the barley dispute is a starting point. It will also demonstrate that a rules-based global trading system can influence China’s behaviour. That’s not unexpected, because no country has a bigger stake in global trade. Last year China’s goods trade reached $US6.3 trillion, nearly $US900 billion more than the US.

For Australia, beginning a discussion about China joining the CPTPP may speed up regaining market access for its exports, and be an opportunity to secure China’s commitment to a rules-based agreement that exceeds WTO minimums.

From cautious optimism to reasonable confidence

The anticipated resolution of the barley dispute is not an isolated achievement. It demonstrates the effectiveness of the Albanese government’s diplomatic approach to China.

This has involved incrementally rebuilding economic cooperation while managing disagreements on values and security issues through calm and professional engagement. Amid geopolitical tensions with the US, China is also looking to stabilise its external environment.

Economic cooperation remains a standout area of common interest. Add in political willingness and diplomatic wisdom, and an assessment of cautious optimism can be replaced by one of reasonable confidence in the upward trajectory of the bilateral relationship.

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.

– ref. Australia’s barley solution with China shows diplomacy does work – https://theconversation.com/australias-barley-solution-with-china-shows-diplomacy-does-work-203898

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Marg Rogers, Senior Lecturer, Early Childhood Education, University of New England

South Australia’s royal commission into early childhood education led by Julia Gillard has released an interim report. The key recommendation is preschool for all three-year-olds (in a move similar to other states). But the report notes one of the critical considerations around this change will be the early education workforce.

SA’s report comes as the Productivity Commission begins a wide-ranging inquiry into early childhood education and care in Australia.

As part of this, the commission is looking at the workforce. We already know there are high rates of turnover and burnout among early childhood educators. This makes it difficult for people to make a sustainable career in the sector.
It also makes it harder for services to find staff and for families to find a childcare place for their children.

Our new research looks at why early childhood educators are burning out and how we can fix this.

Read more:
More than 1 million Australians have no access to childcare in their area

Educator turnover

Like other essential sectors the issue of burnout in early education has become more pressing since the beginning of the pandemic.

A 2021 a union survey of 4,000 educators revealed 73% planned to leave the sector within the next three years due to excessive workload, stress, low pay and status, lack of professional development and career progression.

It also found 82% “always” or “often” felt rushed when performing key caring tasks in the past month.

As of, 2022, educator job advertisements had doubled since the pandemic.

Read more:
COVID chaos has shed light on many issues in the Australian childcare sector. Here are 4 of them

What is burnout?

Burnout is complex and can involve many things, including:

• ongoing physical and mental fatigue
• low sense of personal achievement
• emotional exhaustion
• depersonalisation, where you feel separate from your body or true feelings.

Burnout matters, because it harms educators’ wellbeing, the quality of children’s education, leads to educators leaving and then the ability of parents to work (especially women), and businesses to thrive.

Our new study

We wanted to understand what causes educator burnout, with the aim of helping policymakers and governments plan better support for the sector.

To do this, we reviewed 39 studies about the drivers of early childhood educator burnout from 13 countries, including Australia.

This type of a study – called a “systematic review” – is a powerful way for researchers to provide a full and clear summary of what we know about a topic.

What leads to burnout?

We found educator burnout can be driven by a range of factors.

Certain personal circumstances make an educator more likely to experience burnout. For example, those with lower household income, or those with increased family responsibility report higher feelings of burnout. This category includes those who are single, widowed, divorced or separated.

Younger, less experienced educators were particularly vulnerable to depersonalisation. Male educators were more likely to experience burnout than their female colleagues.

Educators said poor mental health (particularly depression and mental distress) played a crucial role in their burnout. More socially connected educators who are supported by friends, family and/or their faith were less likely to experience burnout.

How services treat staff matters

Educators from services where there was little or no focus on wellbeing were more likely to report burnout.

This included services with scarce emotional support strategies – such as being able to debrief with peers, or access counselling or coaching. These services also showed a lack of respect for educators’ work-life balance – such as demanding they do extra unpaid hours or not being flexible about leave for family reasons.

Educators discussed the fatigue caused by “surface acting”, where they had to pretend they were (or were not) experiencing certain emotions to please children, staff and parents. For example, an educator might be feeling exhausted and overwhelmed due to their workload, but they had to pretend to feel energetic and enthusiastic when engaging with children and families.

Poor professional relationships were associated with feelings of stress. This included feeling undermined by parents, teaching children with behavioural challenges, and negative relationships with colleagues and directors.

Read more:
How a Canadian program that helps educators ‘thrive’ not just ‘survive’ could help address Australia’s childcare staff shortage

Funding and status

Our research showed educators experienced stress when they had few resources, but very high expectations to produce “quality” learning environments and experiences for children.

Some work was more likely to cause exhaustion, such as constantly trying to prove to authorities they were providing a “quality” service by collecting data.

Inadequate income can push educators to leave their positions. It can also lead to reduced motivation, and increase the number of sick days.

Educators’ feelings of burnout were also linked to a belief they had a low status in society. This was more pronounced if they taught younger children, or if they had been working in the sector a long time.

Both groups reported being affected by a lack of professional development and opportunities for promotion.

How can we reduce burnout?

Our review showed there are some effective ways to improve educators’ wellbeing, prevent burnout and keep them from leaving their jobs.

These include coaching, so educators can get feedback and develop their careers, peer mentoring so they know they are not alone and counselling, so they have an emotional outlet to reflect on their work.

If we want to keep educators in these vital roles we need to actively support them to stay.

The author acknowledges the work of Joanne Ng (lead researcher) and Courtney McNamara for their research on the systematic review.

Marg Rogers is a Research Fellow with the Commonwealth-funded Manna Institute that builds place-based research capacity to improve mental health in regional, rural, and remote Australia through the Regional Universities Network (RUN).

– ref. Early educators around the world feel burnt out and devalued. Here’s how we can help – https://theconversation.com/early-educators-around-the-world-feel-burnt-out-and-devalued-heres-how-we-can-help-202513

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Annemarie Jutel, Professor of Health, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington

During these pandemic times, the importance of diagnosis is driven home forcefully. Being diagnosed with COVID makes sense of symptoms, determines what we should do about them, and shapes our collective responsibility to the community.

Diagnosing seems a pretty straightforward business. You have symptoms, the doctor examines or tests you, you get a name for what ails you.

But the reality is far more complex. Diagnoses are actually social agreements about what counts as disease.

Of course, there’s dysfunction of some kind at the start, but not all dysfunctions get diagnostic status, some diagnoses shift over time from one category to another and different diagnoses will have different connotations.

Even a diagnosis as seemingly clear-cut as COVID is more than just a label stuck to a virus. You can have presumed COVID, historical COVID, alpha, delta or omicron. You can have long COVID.

The latter is diagnosed as COVID, even when the virus is long gone and it could in fact be something else: chronic fatigue syndrome or fibromyalgia. Long COVID may be a particularly visible form of post-viral fatigue. That would require yet another diagnosis.

Read more:
COVID testing led to new techniques of disease diagnosis: progress mustn’t stop now

Diagnosis as storytelling

Diagnosis is so important to understanding our lives and those around us that it’s often applied outside of the health setting.

“Doing diagnosis” has become a popular form of entertainment. TV shows such as House use diagnostic mysteries to underpin plots – less Whodunit and more Whatisit.

Does Donald Trump have a narcissistic personality? Was Joan of Arc schizophrenic? What was the cause of Richard III’s hunchback? And even, does Winnie the Pooh have obsessive compulsive disorder?

What is interesting in this fascination with Trump’s presumed narcissism, or even the psychic health of Jesus, is less whether these diagnoses are valid and explanatory, but more how diagnostic frameworks have become dominant ways of telling stories.

A diagnosis is a story, in and of itself. When a doctor says “you have pneumonia”, they have actually said:

You have an infection of your lungs, probably caused by bacteria or a virus and possibly triggered by that cold you had last week. It will incapacitate you but is likely to be self-limiting if all goes well. Stay at home and take your antibiotics.

You can repeat that story by saying the same thing to your employer or your friends. They will know the narrative arc.

Stories and deviance

Diagnostic stories are explanations of deviance. By “deviance” we mean the sociological sense of the term: an inability to meet social expectations of behaviour, belief or experience.

To explain deviance, we often defer to diagnosis. Having visions, having an inflated sense of self-worth, being lethargic and unable to keep up with the pace of others are all somehow outside of normal expectations. Diagnosing them as psychosis, narcissism or depression is one way of making sense.

Diagnosis is also used as a storytelling technique for dead people, fictional characters and politicians. Vincent Van Gogh, for example, who died of a self-inflicted gunshot, has received retrospective diagnoses ranging from depression to bipolar disorder, temporal lobe epilepsy and acute intermittent porphyria.

More than 150 scientific authors have thrown themselves at finding a diagnosis to explain his deviance. Each diagnostic proposition is an example of the desire to understand Van Gogh.

In similar style, the analysis of Arthur Fleck in the film Joker is replete with learned specialists picking up what the film got wrong, what diagnosis he might actually have or what the impact of his candidate diagnoses might be on real-world sufferers.

Read more:
The Joker’s origin story comes at a perfect moment: clowns define our times

The diagnoses proposed for Joker include psychopathy, pseudobulbar affect, schizotypal personal disorder and many more. But, Fleck doesn’t exist and the cinematic objective of suspending disbelief constructs a character, not a patient.

Similarly, Winnie the Pooh does not have obsessive compulsive disorder, Roo is not autistic and Tigger does not have ADHD. They are make believe. While one could argue these stories serve as ways of helping children to see themselves, stories are sometimes just stories. Not everything is a cautionary tale, an educational tool or a self-reflexive device.

Medicalising experiences

The social practice of diagnosis as a way of talking about characters reflects our contemporary understanding of disease and illness as the master narrative to explain deviance, and to legitimise the diagnoses themselves.

These stories say more about us, the diagnosers, and our contemporary views, than the lives of those they seek to describe. But this practice is not without its downsides.

By using diagnosis to explain people, we medicalise our experience of the world and shut down other avenues of explanation. Calling someone a narcissist to explain political behaviour means we’ve given up on politics. We see pathology as the undergirding explanation for unpalatable policy, rather than structural failure.

Just as explaining an imaginary character via diagnosis means we’ve lost faith in stories. Winnie the Pooh is simply a child’s toy “of very little brain.”

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.

– ref. From Trump to Winnie the Pooh: how we use diagnosis as a narrative tool to make sense of dysfunction and deviance – https://theconversation.com/from-trump-to-winnie-the-pooh-how-we-use-diagnosis-as-a-narrative-tool-to-make-sense-of-dysfunction-and-deviance-174056

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

Former prime minister Paul Keating has launched an extraordinary fresh barrage of criticism against Foreign Minister Penny Wong, accusing her of delivering “platitudes” in her major foreign policy speech on Monday.

In a statement shortly after Wong addressed the National Press Club on “Australia’s interests in a regional balance of power”, Keating said she had provided no policy answers and had adopted the “binary” approach – in her case favouring the United States against China – that she warned others to avoid.

“Never before has a Labor government been so bereft of policy or policy ambition,” he said.

Earlier, answering a question about Keating’s recent cutting description of her “running around the Pacific Islands with a lei around her neck” handing out money, Wong said the former PM had “diminished” his legacy and the subject.

The latest vitriolic exchange reflects the long-running policy animosity between the two, particularly Keating’s hostility to Wong over the issue of China.

In her address Wong condemned commentators and strategists who viewed what was happening in the region “simply in terms of great powers competing for primacy.

“They love a binary. And the appeal of a binary is obvious. Simple, clear choices. Black and white. But viewing the future of the region simply in terms of great powers competing for primacy means countries’ own national interests can fall out of focus.

“It diminishes the power of each country to engage other than through the prism of a great power.”

Wong stressed the need for countries “with an existential interest in regional peace and stability to press for the responsible management of great power competition”.

She said “strategic competition is not merely about who is top dog, who is ahead in the race, or who holds strategic primacy in the Indo-Pacific.

“It’s actually about the character of the region. It’s about the rules and norms that underpin our security and prosperity, that ensure our access within an open and inclusive region, and that manage competition responsibly.”

À lire aussi :
Paul Keating lashes Albanese government over AUKUS, calling it Labor’s biggest failure since WW1

She said Australia employed its own statecraft “toward shaping a region that is open, stable and prosperous.

“A predictable region, operating by agreed rules, standards and laws. Where no country dominates, and no country is dominated. A region where sovereignty is respected, and all countries benefit from a strategic equilibrium.”

In her speech Wong flagged she would not be drawn into discussion of timelines and scenarios about Taiwan. That was “the most dangerous of parlour games”.

“A war over Taiwan would be catastrophic for us all,” she said; “our job is to lower the heat on any potential conflict”.

Wong said of the China relationsip: “the Albanese government will be calm and consistent”, co-operating where it could, disagreeing where it must and managing differences wisely. “We start with the reality that China is going to keep on being China.”

She said that in the pursuit of “strategic equilibrium with all countries exercising their agency to achieve peace and prosperity, America is central to balancing a multipolar region. Many who take self-satisfied potshots at America’s imperfections would find the world a lot less satisfactory if America ceased to play its role.”

Keating said: “In facing the great challenge of our time, a super-state resident in continental Asia and an itinerant naval power seeking to maintain primacy – the foreign minister was unable to nominate a single piece of strategic statecraft by Australia that would attempt a solution for both powers”.

Keating said Wong “went out of her way to turn her back on what she disparaged as ‘black and white’ binary choices, speaking platitudinally about keeping ‘the balance of power’, but having not a jot of an idea as to how this might be achieved.”

Wong had said she was “steadfast” in refusing to talk about regional flashpoints – “that is, refusing to talk about the very power issue which threatens the region’s viability.

“She told us she will turn her back on reality, speaking only in terms of ‘lowering the heat’ and the ‘benefit from a strategic equilibrium’, without providing one clue, let alone a policy, as to how that might be achieved”.

À lire aussi :
Time to grow up: Australia’s national security dilemma demands a mature debate

While Wong had eschewed “black and white” binary choices she had then made such a choice herself.

She had extolled the virtues of the US, “of it remaining ‘the central power’ – of ‘balancing the region’, while disparaging China as ‘intent on being China’”.

She had gone on to say “countries don’t want to live in a closed, hierarchical region, where the rules are dictated by a single major power to suit its own interests”, Keating said.

“Nothing too subtle about that,” he said. “She means China and is happy to mean China.

“This is the person claiming she does not wish to make binary choices. Yet tells us ‘we have to press for the management of great power competition’, while saying, ‘we want partners and not patriarchs’ but articulating not a jot of an idea of how that great power competition can be settled without war.”

Keating, who has been a strong critic of AUKUS, said Wong had said the advent of capability under AUKUS “will ‘change the calculus for any aggressor’ – of course, meaning China.

“As a middle power, Australia is now straddling a strategic divide, a divide rapidly becoming every bit as rigid as that which obtained in Europe in 1914. Australia’s major foreign policy task is to soften that rigidity by encouraging both the United States and China to find common cause and benefit in a peaceful and prosperous Pacific, ” Keating said.

“Nothing Penny Wong said today, on Australia’s behalf, adds one iota of substance to that urgent task.”

Michelle Grattan 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.

– ref. Paul Keating accuses Penny Wong of ‘platitudes’; she says he’s ‘diminished his legacy’ – https://theconversation.com/paul-keating-accuses-penny-wong-of-platitudes-she-says-hes-diminished-his-legacy-203929