Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Carol Johnson, Emerita Professor, Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Adelaide

The Conversation is running a series of explainers on key figures in Australian political history, examining how they changed the country and political debate. You can read the rest of the series here.

Paul Keating was one of Australia’s most charismatic and controversial prime ministers.

Born in Bankstown, New South Wales, into an Irish-Catholic, working-class and Labor-voting family, he left school before he turned 15. Keating joined the Labor Party as a teenager, quickly honing the political skills that would serve him so well in later life. He entered parliament as MP for Blaxland in 1969 at just 25 years old, and briefly served as minister for Northern Australia in the ill-fated Whitlam government.

He subsequently served as a very high-profile treasurer in the Hawke government from 1983-1991, before defeating Bob Hawke in a leadership ballot in December 1991. In doing so Keating became Australia’s 24th prime minister, serving until John Howard defeated him in the 1996 election.

To Keating’s supporters, he is a visionary figure whose “big picture” ideas helped transform the Australian economy, while still pursuing socially inclusive policies. To his conservative critics, Keating left a legacy of government debt and rejected “mainstream” Australians in favour of politically correct “special interests”.

He was a skilled parliamentary performer, renowned for his excoriating put-downs and wit.

Keating played a major role in transforming Australian political debate. He highlighted the role of markets in restructuring the economy, engagement with Asia, Australian national identity and the economic benefits of social inclusion.

Economic rationalism

Keating is remembered most for his eloquent advocacy of so-called “economic rationalism” both as treasurer and later as prime minister.

Under Hawke and Keating, Labor advocated free markets, globalisation, deregulation and privatisation, albeit in a less extreme form than the Liberals advocated. For example, while Labor introduced major public sector cuts, it attempted to use means tests to target the cuts and protect those most in need. Nonetheless, Hawke and Keating embraced the market far more than previous Labor leaders had.

Along with New Zealand Labour, Australian Labor became one of the international pioneers of a rapprochement between social democracy and a watered-down form of free-market neoliberalism. Years later, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who had visited Australia during the Hawke and Keating years, was to acknowledge the influence of Australian Labor on his own “Third Way” approach to politics.

Keating justified his economic rationalism on the grounds that the Australian economy needed to transform to be internationally competitive in a changing world. To avoid becoming one of the world’s “economic museums” or “banana republics”, in Keating’s view, there was no alternative but to embrace his economic rationalist agenda.

Trade unions and the ‘social wage’

At the same time, Keating argued that his economic policies would avoid social injustices. This contrasted with the outcomes of the extreme economic rationalism of the Thatcher and Reagan governments.

Unlike in the UK or US, where anti-union policies were pursued, the Labor government was prepared to work with the trade union movement to introduce its economic policies. Under the Accord agreements, trade unions agreed to wage restraint, and eventually real wage cuts, in return for government services and benefits.

Read more: Australian politics explainer: the Prices and Incomes Accord

Hawke and Keating referred to this as the “social wage”. They claimed the resulting increased business profits would encourage economic growth and rising standards of living.

Social inclusion and economic growth

Keating saw his economic policies and progressive social policies as compatible. Increased social inclusion would contribute to economic growth.

Drawing on Hawke-era affirmative action legislation, Keating argued improved gender equality would mean women could contribute their skills to the economy.

Keating was also a passionate advocate for reconciliation with Indigenous Australians, including acknowledging the injustices of Australia’s colonial past and facilitating Native Title. He envisaged an Australia where Indigenous people would benefit from sustainable economic development, cultural tourism and could sell their artworks to the world.

National identity, Asia and the republic

In Keating’s ideal vision, Australia would engage more with Asia and benefit from the geo-economic changes occurring in the Asia-Pacific region.

Then Opposition Leader John Howard accused Keating of rejecting Australia’s British heritage. In fact, Keating acknowledged many positive British influences on Australian society. However, he argued that Australia had developed its own democratic innovations such as the secret ballot long before Britain accepted these. He also suggested Australian values had become more inclusive as a result of diverse waves of immigration.

Consequently, it was time for Australia to throw off its colonial heritage, including the British monarchy, and become a republic. Keating believed that doing so would enable Australia to be more easily accepted as an independent nation in the Asian region. He established a Republic Advisory Committee as part of preparations for a referendum on becoming a republic.

Keating’s legacy

Australia’s greater relationship with Asia has had major benefits for the economy, although Keating underestimated the downsides of increased competition. Recently, he complained about what he sees as excessive security fears in relation to China and their impact on Asian engagement. The republic remains unfinished business.

Keating’s vision has also left some unintended consequences for Labor today. Despite his patchy record in achieving them, Keating argued that both tax cuts and budget surpluses were important, even at the expense of public sector cuts.

Read more: Vale Bob Hawke, a giant of Australian political and industrial history

Consequently, it became harder for Labor leaders to make a case for deficit-funded stimulus packages when needed (as Kevin Rudd tried to do during the Global Financial Crisis). Similarly, it became harder for Labor leaders to argue for increased taxes to fund a bigger role for government, as Bill Shorten attempted during the 2019 election.

In addition, as I argue in a recent book, Keating-era policy contributed in the longer term to poorer wages and conditions for workers. Labor is predictably loath to acknowledge this. Keating also underestimated the detrimental impacts of economic rationalism on other vulnerable groups in the community.

The 2019 election result suggests many Australians no longer believe Labor governments will improve their standards of living.

Rather than the prosperous brave new world he envisaged, parts of the Keating legacy may have made things harder for subsequent Labor leaders. Nonetheless, Keating remains a revered figure in the Labor Party and one of its most memorable leaders.

– ref. How Paul Keating transformed the economy and the nation – https://theconversation.com/how-paul-keating-transformed-the-economy-and-the-nation-131562

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Caroline Fisher, Co-author of the Digital News Report: Australia 2020, Deputy Director of the News and Media Research Centre, and Assistant Professor of Journalism, University of Canberra

Australian news consumers are far more likely to believe climate change is “not at all” serious compared to news users in other countries. That’s according to new research that surveyed 2,131 Australians about their news consumption in relation to climate change.

The Digital News Report: Australia 2020 was conducted by the University of Canberra at the end of the severe bushfire season during January 17 and February 8, 2020.

Read more: Media ‘impartiality’ on climate change is ethically misguided and downright dangerous

It also found the level of climate change concern varies considerably depending on age, gender, education, place of residence, political orientation and the type of news consumed.

Young people are much more concerned than older generations, women are more concerned than men, and city-dwellers think it’s more serious than news consumers in regional and rural Australia.

15% don’t pay attention to climate change news

More than half (58%) of respondents say they consider climate change to be a very or extremely serious problem, 21% consider it somewhat serious, 10% consider it to be not very and 8% not at all serious.

Out of the 40 countries in the survey, Australia’s 8% of “deniers” is more than double the global average of 3%. We’re beaten only by the US (12%) and Sweden (9%).

While most Australian news consumers think climate change is an extremely or very serious problem (58%), this is still lower than the global average of 69%. Only ten countries in the survey are less concerned than we are.

Strident critics in commercial media

There’s a strong connection between the brands people use and whether they think climate change is serious.

More than one-third (35%) of people who listen to commercial AM radio (such as 2GB, 2UE, 3AW) or watch Sky News consider climate change to be “not at all” or “not very” serious, followed by Fox News consumers (32%).

This is perhaps not surprising when some of the most strident critics of climate change science can be found on commercial AM radio, Sky and Fox News.

Among online brands, those who have the highest concern about climate change are readers of The Conversation (94%) and The Guardian Australia (93%), which reflects their audiences are more likely left-leaning and younger.

Read more: We want to learn about climate change from weather presenters, not politicians

More than half of Australians get their information about climate change from traditional news sources (TV 28%, online 17%, radio 5%, newspapers 4%).

However, 15% of Australians say they don’t pay any attention to news about climate change. This lack of interest is double the global average of 7%. Given climate change impacts everyone, this lack of engagement is troubling and reflects the difficulty in Australia to gain political momentum for action.

The polarised nature of the debate

The data show older generations are much less interested in news about climate change than news in general, and younger people are much more interested in news about climate change than other news.

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

News consumers in regional Australia are also less likely to pay attention to news about climate change. One fifth (21%) of regional news consumers say they aren’t interested in climate change information compared to only 11% of their city counterparts.

Given this survey was conducted during the bushfire season that hit regional and rural Australia hardest, these findings appear surprising at first glance.

But it’s possible the results simply reflect the ageing nature of regional and rural communities and a tendency toward more conservative politics. The report shows 27% of regional and rural news consumers identify as right-wing compared to 23% of city news consumers.

And the data clearly reflect the polarised nature of the debate around climate change and the connection between political orientation, news brands and concern about the issue. It found right-wing news consumers are more likely to ignore news about climate change than left-wing, and they’re less likely to think reporting of the issue is accurate.

Regardless of political orientation, only 36% of news consumers think climate change reporting is accurate. This indicates low levels of trust in climate change reporting and is in stark contrast with trust in COVID-19 reporting, which was much higher at 53%.

The findings also point to a significant section of the community that simply don’t pay attention to the issue, despite the calamitous bushfires.

This presents a real challenge to news organisations. They must find ways of telling the climate change story to engage the 15% of people who aren’t interested, but are still feeling its effects.

19% want news confirming their worldview

Other key findings in the Digital News Report: Australia 2020 include:

• the majority of Australian news consumers will miss their local news services if they shut down: 76% would miss their local newspaper, 79% local TV news, 81% local radio news service and 74% would miss local online news offerings

• more than half (54%) of news consumers say they prefer impartial news, but 19% want news that confirms their worldview

• two-thirds (62%) of news consumers say independent journalism is important for society to function properly

• around half (54%) think journalists should report false statements from politicians and about one-quarter don’t

• news consumption and news sharing have increased since 2019, but interest in news has declined

• only 14% continue to pay for online news, but more are subscribing rather than making one-off donations

• TV is still the main source of news for Australians but continues to fall.

The ‘COVID-trust-bump’

In many ways these findings, including those on climate change reporting, reflect wider trends. Our interest in general news has been falling, along with our trust.

This changed suddenly with COVID-19 when we saw a big rise in coverage specifically about the pandemic. Suddenly, the news was relevant to everyone, not just a few.

We suspect that key to the “COVID-trust-bump” was the news media adopting a more constructive approach to reporting on this issue. Much of the sensationalism, conflict and partisanship that drives news – particularly climate change news – was muted and instead important health information from authoritative sources guided the coverage.

This desire for impartial and independent news is reflected in the new report. The challenge is getting people to pay for it.

– ref. The number of climate deniers in Australia is more than double the global average, new survey finds – https://theconversation.com/the-number-of-climate-deniers-in-australia-is-more-than-double-the-global-average-new-survey-finds-140450

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tony Walker, Adjunct Professor, School of Communications, La Trobe University

The case of Australian Karm Gilespie, who has been sentenced to death by a Chinese court on drugs charges pending an appeal, cannot be separated from a recent souring in Sino-Australian relations.

Gilespie was reportedly arrested with 7.5 kilograms of ice in his luggage in 2013, while attempting to leave China.

His arrest clearly pre-dates the recent deterioration of relations between Australia and China. But the sudden announcement of his death sentence raises questions about whether China-Australia tensions have influenced his case.

Certainly, the backdrop makes his prospects even more grim. Bad relations lessen the chance of securing a commutation of his sentence, or indeed his early release, in an opaque justice system.

These are very unpromising circumstances for a foreigner who falls foul of the Chinese authorities, whether that individual has done anything wrong or not. The risks are greater these days for nationals of countries – like Australia and Canada – that have displeased Beijing.

One of the ways this has played out has been in a rise in “hostage diplomacy”, a relatively modern description of an age-old diplomatic weapon. It occurs when one country detains a foreign citizen as retaliation for actions that might have displeased it, or as a bargaining chip to secure the release of one of its own nationals, or a combination of both.

In Australia’s case, it is hard to separate the example of Chinese-Australian academic Yang Hengjun from a souring of relations. Yang was arrested in early 2019. He has lived ever since under the shadow of espionage charges that carry the death penalty.

The Australian government has been pushing for Yang’s release, or at least access to him for his family and lawyers. He has been held in solitary confinement for much, if not all, of his detention.

Read more: Australian-Chinese author’s detention raises important questions about China’s motivations

Again, it is hard not suspect an element of “hostage diplomacy” at play. It has not been revealed what he is alleged to have done wrong beyond his public criticism of the communist system.

His continued detention without reasonable explanation is an affront to the sort of relationship Australia has sought to build with China.

In Canada’s case, Beijing’s ire has been directed at Canada’s detention of Meng Wanzhou, daughter of the founder of telecommunications giant Huawei, pending American-initiated extradition hearings.

Meng is accused of breaching Iran sanctions.

In retaliation, China has arrested two Canadians and held them since 2018. The continued detention of former diplomat Michael Kovrig and businessman Michael Spavor are pernicious cases of hostage diplomacy against the release of a Chinese national awaiting further extradition hearings in Canada.

Kovrig and Spavor are being detained on allegations of breaching Chinese security. No details have been forthcoming.

Unlike the Canadians in primitive detention in China, Meng is biding her time in luxury accommodation in Vancouver before court proceedings reach a conclusion.

The treatment of Kovrig and Spavor is, not to put too fine a point on it, outrageous. Beijing’s resort to this form of hostage diplomacy is a stain on its reputation.

It quashes doubt about the gulf that has opened in recent years between global aspirations for China’s compliance with a rules-based international order and its behaviour.

In the sedate world of international diplomacy, Chinese official representative are giving voice to a new and uncompromising diplomatic posture. After biding its time and holding its counsel, Beijing has unleashed on the world the sort of rhetoric that would not have been out of place during the Cultural Revolution.

The Chinese ambassador in Ottawa, Lu Shaye, wrote in a Canadian publication about Meng’s arrest in words that could have been drawn from a Maoist handbook.

The reason why some people are used to arrogantly adopt double standards is due to Western egotism and white supremacy. In such a context the rule of law is nothing but a tool of the political class and a fig leaf for their practising negotiations in the international arena. What they have been doing is not showing respect for the rule of law, but mocking and trampling the rule of law.

These words were contributed, apparently, without irony.

In recent Chinese history, hostage diplomacy is not new.

During the Cultural Revolution (1966-76), British diplomats and civilians were held hostage for several years as retaliation for humiliations colonisers had imposed on the Chinese.

Then there was the case of Reuters journalist Anthony Grey. He was detained in his apartment in Beijing for 777 days in retaliation for the arrest of a New China News Agency journalist in Hong Kong.

Red Guards killed Grey’s cat and dumped its corpse on his bed. He wrote about his experiences in Hostage in Peking.

In the annals of hostage diplomacy, China is far from alone in the modern era in detaining foreign nationals for political purposes.

While it was not referred to in those days as hostage diplomacy, perhaps the most striking example was the detention in Tehran of American embassy personnel after the fall of the shah.

Eventually, after 444 days and attempts to negotiate the return of the shah to stand trial in Tehran, the last of the Americans was released. This was not before an abortive attempt in the dying days of the Carter administration to free them by military force. Jimmy Carter’s presidency effectively crashed and burned in the wreckage of helicopters in the desert outside Tehran.

Another example of Iranian hostage diplomacy is the case of British-Australian academic Kylie Moore-Gilbert, who has been convicted of spying and sentenced to ten years in jail.

No details have emerged of what she is alleged to have done.

Read more: The Australian government needs to step up its fight to free Kylie Moore-Gilbert from prison in Iran

Over the years, terrorist groups in the Middle East have regularly taken Western hostages as bargaining chips in internal power struggles or for ransom. This is not hostage diplomacy per se, but it shares characteristics in common with “state-sponsored” hostage takers.

In China’s case, hostage diplomacy in an environment in which it feels under siege globally is a bad development. Unfortunately for those like Karm Gilespie who are arguably caught up in a wider political game, there is little sign of tensions easing. To the contrary, the atmosphere is getting worse.

To its discredit, hostage diplomacy looks set to remain part of Beijing’s diplomatic arsenal for the time being.

– ref. Karm Gilespie’s case cannot be separated completely from strained Sino-Australian relations – https://theconversation.com/karm-gilespies-case-cannot-be-separated-completely-from-strained-sino-australian-relations-140720

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gabi Mocatta, Research Fellow in Climate Change Communication, Climate Futures Programme, University of Tasmania

Many Australians enjoy a glass of homegrown wine, and A$2.78 billion worth is exported each year. But hotter, drier conditions under climate change means there are big changes ahead for our wine producers.

As climate scientists and science communicators, we’ve been working closely with the wine industry to understand the changing conditions for producing quality wine in Australia.

Read more: We dug up Australian weather records back to 1838 and found snow is falling less often

We created a world-first atlas to help secure Australia’s wine future. Released today, Australia’s Wine Future: A Climate Atlas shows that all 71 wine regions in Australia must adapt to hotter conditions.

Cool wine regions such as Tasmania, for example, will become warmer. This means growers in that state now producing pinot noir and chardonnay may have to transition to varieties suited to warmer conditions, such as shiraz.

Hotter, drier conditions

Our research, commissioned by Wine Australia, is the culmination of four years of work. We used CSIRO’s regional climate model to give very localised information on heat and cold extremes, temperature, rainfall and evaporation over the next 80 years.

The research assumed a high carbon emissions scenario to 2100, in line with Earth’s current trajectory.

From 2020, the changes projected by the climate models are more influenced by climate change than natural variability.

Temperatures across all wine regions of Australia will increase by about 3℃ by 2100. Aridity, which takes into account rainfall and evaporation, is also projected to increase in most Australian wine regions. Less frost and more intense heatwaves are expected in many areas.

Read more: An El Niño hit this banana prawn fishery hard. Here’s what we can learn from their experience

By 2100, growing conditions on Tasmania’s east coast, for example, will look like those currently found in the Coonawarra region of South Australia – a hotter and drier region where very different wines are produced.

That means it may get harder to grow cool-climate styles of varieties such as chardonnay and pinot noir.

Some regions will experience more change than others. For example, the Alpine Valleys region on the western slopes of the Victorian Alps, and Pemberton in southwest Western Australia, will both become much drier and hotter, influencing the varietals that are most successfully grown.

Other regions, such as the Hunter Valley in New South Wales, will not dry out as much. But a combination of humidity and higher temperatures will expose vineyard workers in those regions to heat risk on 40-60 days a year – most of summer – by 2100. That figure is currently about 10 days a year, up from 5 days historically.

Grape vines are very adaptable and can be grown in a variety of conditions, such as arid parts of southern Europe. So while adaptations will be needed, our projections indicate all of Australia’s current wine regions will be suitable for producing wine out to 2100.

Lessons for change

Australia’s natural climate variability means wine growers are already adept at responding to change. And there is much scope to adapt to future climate change.

In some areas, this will mean planting vines at higher altitudes, or on south facing slopes, to avoid excessive heat. In future, many wine regions will also shift to growing different grape varieties. Viticultural practices may change, such as training vines so leaves shade grapes from heat. Growers may increase mulching to retain soil moisture, and areas that currently practice dryland farming may need to start irrigating.

The atlas enables climate information and adaptation decisions to be shared across regions. Growers can look to their peers in regions currently experiencing the conditions they will see in future, both in Australia and overseas, to learn how wines are produced there.

Industries need not die on the vine

Agriculture industries such as wine growing are not the only ones that need fine-scale climate information to manage their climate risk. Forestry, water management, electricity generation, insurance, tourism, emergency management authorities and Defence also need such climate modelling, specific to their operations, to better prepare for the future.

The world has already heated 1℃ above the pre-industrial average. Global temperatures will continue to rise for decades, even if goals under the Paris climate agreement are met.

If Earth’s temperature rise is kept below 1.5℃ or even 2℃ this century, many of the changes projected in the atlas could be minimised, or avoided altogether.

Australia’s wine industry contributes A$45 billion to our economy and supports about 163,000 jobs. Decisions taken now on climate resilience will dictate the future of this critical sector.

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

– ref. Pass the shiraz, please: how Australia’s wine industry can adapt to climate change – https://theconversation.com/pass-the-shiraz-please-how-australias-wine-industry-can-adapt-to-climate-change-140024

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alice Gorman, Associate Professor in Archaeology and Space Studies, Flinders University

Only 566 people have ever travelled to space. Sixty-five of them, or about 11.5%, were women.

NASA recently proclaimed it will put the “first woman and next man” on the Moon by 2024. Despite nearly 60 years of human spaceflight, women are still in the territory of “firsts”.

Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman in space

The first woman in space was cosmonaut Valentina Vladimirovna Tereshkova, who orbited Earth 48 times from June 16 to 18, 1963.

Her flight became Cold War propaganda to demonstrate the superiority of communism. At the 1963 World Congress of Women, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev used Tereshkova’s voyage to declare the USSR had achieved equality for women.

Women across the world took heart and dreamed they too might travel to space. Ekaterina Ergardt, a Soviet state farm worker, wrote to Tereshkova:

I am eighty years old. I started to live in the years of the beginning of women’s struggle for a life of freedom and equality … now the road to space is open for women.

Earthbound again

Despite this optimism, it was 19 years before another woman was allowed to venture beyond Earth.

In the United States, women were excluded from space by the restriction that astronauts had to be military test pilots – a profession barred to them.

While the first American astronauts – known as the Mercury 7 – were training in the 1960s, aerospace doctor Randy Lovelace recruited 13 women pilots and put them through the same paces as the male astronauts. The “Mercury 13” outperformed the men on many tests, particularly in how they handled isolation.

But NASA wasn’t convinced. A congressional hearing was held to investigate whether women should qualify to be astronauts. In her testimony, Mercury 13 astronaut candidate Jerrie Cob said:

I find it a little ridiculous when I read in a newspaper that there is a place called Chimp College in New Mexico where they are training chimpanzees for space flight, one a female named Glenda. I think it would be at least as important to let the women undergo this training for space flight.

She was prepared to take the place of a chimp, if that was the only way to get into space.

Message in a bottle

Historically, even those like Lovelace who believed women should go to space have seen their role as helping men, acting as a civilising influence, or providing sex.

In one sense the first women on the Moon were Playboy playmates, in the form of pictures jokingly included in the Apollo 12 astronauts’ checklists. Their names were Cynthia Myers, Angela Dorian, Reagan Wilson, and Leslie Bianchini. The women’s bodies were likened to the lunar landscape: both the object of male conquest.

In popular culture in the 1960s, women were often associated with magic and emotion rather than science and technology.

The sitcom I Dream of Jeannie depicted the relationship between a US astronaut and a magical djinn or genie, imaginatively named Jeannie. NASA was an advisor for the series, which mirrored real space events. Jeannie represented seductive oriental femininity in opposition to the strait-laced, masculine, all-American astronauts.

(In the similar sitcom Bewitched, the witch Samantha travelled to the Moon for picnics before she renounced her craft to be a regular housewife.)

The message was clear in popular culture: women needed to stay in the kitchen – or the boudoir. These sitcoms are still aired around the world.

Read more: ‘I Dream of Jeannie’ left us with enduring stereotypes

From aprons to spacewalks

By the 1970s, the women’s movement had made great strides and NASA had to adapt. The first women were admitted to astronaut training in 1978. Not to be outdone, the USSR rushed more women into its own program.

In 1982 Svetlana Savitskaya visited the Salyut 7 space station, becoming the second woman in space and the first to perform a spacewalk. But she wasn’t allowed to forget the nature of women’s work: when she arrived, her male colleagues presented her with an apron.

The following year, Sally Ride flew as a mission specialist on the Space Shuttle Challenger, becoming the first US woman in space. The first American woman to spacewalk was Kathryn Sullivan in 1995.

In the 21st century, there are still barriers to women’s equal participation in space. In March 2019 the first all-woman spacewalk was cancelled because there were not enough medium-sized spacesuits. Astronauts Christina Koch and Jessica Meir subsequently accomplished the feat in October 2019.

Discussing the cancellation, NASA administrator Ken Bowersox made clear the ideal astronaut body is still male. He blamed women’s smaller average stature, saying they were less able to “reach in and do things a little bit more easily”.

Read more: Female astronauts: How performance products like space suits and bras are designed to pave the way for women’s accomplishments

‘Weightlessness is a great equalizer’

Is it women’s bodies that are the problem, or a space world built for men? What would space technology designed by and for women look like?

There is a massive gender data gap in space. There has been much less research on the effects of microgravity on women’s bodies than there has been for men.

However, women in many ways are ideal astronauts. Physical strength and height are not advantages in microgravity.

Women use less food and oxygen, maintain their weight better on restricted diets, and create less waste. In the words of Sally Ride, “weightlessness is a great equaliser”.

Space4Women

Women’s access to space, not just as astronauts but as users and creators of space services like Earth observation and satellite telecommunications, is still far from equal. But there are signs of progress.

One is the Space4Women program run by the United Nations Office of Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA), which aims to ensure

the benefits of space reach women and girls and that women and girls play an active and equal role in space science, technology, innovation, and exploration.

As UNOOSA director Simonetta di Pippo has noted, 40% of the targets of the UN’s sustainable development goals rely on the use of space science and technology.

NASA’s plan to land a woman on the Moon is another positive sign. On her post-orbit world tour in 1964, Valentina Tereshkova expressed her own desire to go to the Moon, but she never made another spaceflight.

Now aged 83, Dr Tereshkova has had a distinguished career in science and politics and remains a sitting member of the Russian parliament. To see a woman set foot on the lunar surface within her lifetime would truly be a ground-breaking moment.

– ref. Almost 90% of astronauts have been men. But the future of space may be female – https://theconversation.com/almost-90-of-astronauts-have-been-men-but-the-future-of-space-may-be-female-125644

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

Scott Morrison is casting himself as the “can-do” prime minister, and what’s notable is how he is forging institutions around his style.

The national cabinet was born of the COVID crisis, but has been made permanent with a broader purpose; Morrison is determined it will have less bureaucracy than surrounded the former Council of Australian Governments (COAG).

Now he has flagged the National COVID-19 Coordination Commission will have an “onward life” and “translate into a new mode soon” with “a few more voices” added (likely to include those from small business and agriculture).

Read more: Politics with Michelle Grattan: Nev Power on the role of business in a post-coronavirus world

The commission was set up to liaise with business on immediate problems created by the pandemic and had been due to finish in September. Ahead of its further blossoming, it has already branched into a much wider advisory and ideas-generating role.

It suits the approach of Morrison, who dislikes the conventional bureaucracy, with (what he would see as) its tiresome preoccupation with “process”. It fits neatly with his idea that “there is a time for having the discussion and then we will make a decision and then we’ll get on with it”.

On Monday Morrison, speaking to CEDA, also announced he was bringing the deregulation taskforce from within treasury into his department of prime minister and cabinet, where it will “zero in on areas to assist COVID-19 economic recovery”.

He described the move “as part of the government’s JobMaker agenda”; it would “further drive a whole-of-government approach to how regulatory policy is prosecuted”.

Morrison’s drive for deregulation is much more ambitious than just accelerating approval processes for infrastructure and other business projects.

Crucially, it is aimed at a general change in attitudes.

“Our focus applies as much to the culture of regulators as it does to the content of regulations,” he said. “I’m sure anyone in business would understand that point. This crisis has shown what can be achieved when regulators are pragmatic and responsive, solving problems without compromising safeguards.”

He lauded “APRA [Australian Prudential Regulation Authority] in particular working with the major banks, to ensure that we could be dealing with deferral of loan payments … just working constructively together to solve quite a serious problem that was going to have a significant impact on whether businesses could keep their doors open. The attitude of the regulator mattered as much as the regulations themselves.”

Morrison said he had asked his assistant minister Ben Morton to report back on “‘lessons learned’ in recent months, highlighting cases where governments and regulators have responded to the COVID crisis and its economic fall-out with urgency and common-sense”.

He noted diverse “encouraging examples”. In health alone, these included ensuring “unnecessary professional requirements” did not block nurses returning to the workforce, fast-tracking approvals for drug trials, making changes to promote the use of telehealth, and cutting red tape to allow companies to use overseas standards for hand sanitiser.

“And we reduced financial reporting and other requirements that would have hit firms struggling to survive the shock … businesses are able to sign documents with electronic signatures and conduct virtual AGMs”.

The mention of APRA triggered a memory.

Could it have been just short of a year ago that a government-commissioned report criticised APRA for its “strong preference to do things behind the scenes with regulated entities”? The review had come out of the royal commission into banking, which produced some horrific stories resulting from financial institutions’ bad behaviour, which had gone unchecked by regulators.

Commenting at the time on the report into APRA Allan Fels, a former head of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, said APRA had in the past been too cosy with the institutions it regulated.

APRA has lifted its game, but what happened before is a salutary reminder of the danger of too slack a “culture”.

None of this is to suggest the short cuts during COVID aren’t desirable. Or to argue regulations of all sorts should not be examined and where necessary overhauled or scrapped.

And to be fair, Morrison did talk about “solving problems without compromising safeguards”.

But his main message is about regulatory excess.

It is worth remembering that when it comes to regulations, one person’s frustrating road block is another’s useful amber light.

Writing for The Conversation, Martin Loosemore, Professor of Construction Management at the University of Technology in Sydney, has pointed out how in the residential apartment sector “poor-quality buildings have devastated people’s lives”.

It’s great we could fast track nurses into work and speed drug trials during COVID, but for the longer term let’s be sure that various regulations were not written for sound purposes. Some will have been; some won’t. Crisis times and normal times may require different balances between expediency and risk.

If the government misjudges when it takes the scissors to the red tape, it or a successor government will almost inevitably find itself being called on to string up new tape.

– ref. View from The Hill: ‘Can do’ Scott Morrison needs to take care in deregulating – https://theconversation.com/view-from-the-hill-can-do-scott-morrison-needs-to-take-care-in-deregulating-140743

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lauren Waller, Postdoctoral Fellow, Lincoln University, New Zealand

Large-scale reforestation projects such as New Zealand’s One Billion Trees programme are underway in many countries to help sequester carbon from the atmosphere.

But there is ongoing debate about whether to prioritise native or non-native plants to fight climate change. As our recent research shows, non-native plants often grow faster compared to native plants, but they also decompose faster and this helps to accelerate the release of 150% more carbon dioxide from the soil.

Our results highlight a challenging gap in our understanding of carbon cycling in newly planted or regenerating forests.

It is relatively easy to measure plant biomass (how quickly a plant grows) and to estimate how much carbon dioxide it has removed from the atmosphere. But measuring carbon release is more difficult because it involves complex interactions between the plant, plant-eating insects and soil microorganisms.

This lack of an integrated carbon cycling model that includes species interactions makes predictions for carbon budgeting exceedingly difficult.

Read more: Coldplay conundrum: how to reduce the risk of failure for environmental projects

How non-native plants change the carbon cycle

There is uncertainty in our climate forecasting because we don’t fully understand how the factors that influence carbon cycling – the process in which carbon is both accumulated and lost by plants and soils – differ across ecosystems.

Carbon sequestration projects typically use fast-growing plant species that accumulate carbon in their tissues rapidly. Few projects focus on what goes on in the soil.

Non-native plants often accelerate carbon cycling. They usually have less dense tissues and can grow and incorporate carbon into their tissues faster than native plants. But they also decompose more readily, increasing carbon release back to the atmosphere.

Our research, recently published in the journal Science, shows that when non-native plants arrive in a new place, they establish new interactions with soil organisms. So far, research has mostly focused on how this resetting of interactions with soil microorganisms, herbivorous insects and other organisms helps exotic plants to invade a new place quickly, often overwhelming native species.

Invasive non-native plants have already become a major problem worldwide, and are changing the composition and function of entire ecosystems. But it is less clear how the interactions of invasive non-native plants with other organisms affect carbon cycling.

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

Planting non-native trees releases more carbon

We established 160 experimental plant communities, with different combinations of native and non-native plants. We collected and reared herbivorous insects and created identical mixtures which we added to half of the plots.

We also cultured soil microorganisms to create two different soils that we split across the plant communities. One soil contained microorganisms familiar to the plants and another was unfamiliar.

Herbivorous insects and soil microorganisms feed on live and decaying plant tissue. Their ability to grow depends on the nutritional quality of that food. We found that non-native plants provided a better food source for herbivores compared with native plants – and that resulted in more plant-eating insects in communities dominated by non-native plants.

Similarly, exotic plants also raised the abundance of soil microorganisms involved in the rapid decomposition of plant material. This synergy of multiple organisms and interactions (fast-growing plants with less dense tissues, high herbivore abundance, and increased decomposition by soil microorganisms) means that more of the plant carbon is released back into the atmosphere.

In a practical sense, these soil treatments (soils with microorganisms familiar vs. unfamiliar to the plants) mimic the difference between reforestation (replanting an area) and afforestation (planting trees to create a new forest).

Reforested areas are typically replanted with native species that occurred there before, whereas afforested areas are planted with new species. Our results suggest planting non-native trees into soils with microorganisms they have never encountered (in other words, afforestation with non-native plants) may lead to more rapid release of carbon and undermine the effort to mitigate climate change.

– ref. Planting non-native trees accelerates the release of carbon back into the atmosphere – https://theconversation.com/planting-non-native-trees-accelerates-the-release-of-carbon-back-into-the-atmosphere-139841

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katie Pickles, Professor of History at the University of Canterbury, University of Canterbury

The global furore about the meaning and relevance of statues, memorials and place names from a racist, imperial past presents a special challenge to Aotearoa-New Zealand. In this former colonial outpost we are dealing with a double burden: the memorialisation of unsavoury historical figures, and the fact that they were imported from elsewhere.

There is the added irony of this current debate having arrived here from overseas, too. Are we ready to craft our own decolonial exit strategy? Or will we weakly copy what’s taking place at the former imperial centre?

Examining all this drills to the very bedrock of colonial history. It shakes the imperial foundations.

The Black Lives Matter protests in the US have provided the latest flashpoint for this issue. The echo in Aotearoa-New Zealand has so far involved a restaurant named after infamous Pacific slave trader Bully Hayes, a pub named after Captain Cook and a statue of New Zealand Wars figure Andrew Hamilton in the city that took his name.

As in Australia, the once unquestioned legacy of James Cook has again been challenged: having laid the groundwork for subsequent colonisation, he began the renaming of places – many still in use – and erasure of local knowledge and ownership.

Read more: Friday essay: taking a wrecking ball to monuments – contemporary art can ask what really needs tearing down

In the UK, what started with the dumping of a statue of slave trader Edward Colston into Bristol harbour has grown into a “topple the racists” movement, complete with its own interactive map. After slaver Robert Milligan’s statue was removed, London Mayor Sadiq Khan ordered a review of London’s monuments. The Māori Party has made the same call here.

The imperial past is all around us

Defacing and removing statues is nothing new. Erected as markers of power and dominance in the landscape, they represent the ideas and actions of those commemorated.

It’s no surprise, then, that as regimes change, place names are written over and statues are toppled. Fallen monuments to Stalin, Lenin and Saddam Hussein provide dramatic 20th-century evidence of societies breaking from the past.

In Aotearoa-New Zealand, memorials to the most offensive colonial characters are just the tip of the iceberg. This is a place riddled with colonial markers – a nation where British imperial culture was stamped onto the landscape as a fundamental part of settlement.

Some Māori place names were allowed to survive, but often they were supplanted by old-world people and places. British heroes were feted for imperial conquest and domination, often for their roles in subjugating Māori, such as Marmaduke Nixon whose statue stands in Ōtāhuhu, Auckland.

The imperial master was copied, with the likes of Thomas Picton and Edward Eyre (currently being shamed) the rule rather than the exception when it came to naming places. Following in their mould, settlers who emulated imperial values were memorialised most.

Read more: An honest reckoning with Captain Cook’s legacy won’t heal things overnight. But it’s a start

But the current agitation is not just a flash in the pan from a woke generation, as Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters implied. The storm has been brewing for the past decade, targeting historical figures whose legacies live on in the present. The Rhodes Must Fall campaign in Africa and Britain and the destruction of Confederate statues in the US were part of widely publicised anti-racist protests.

Removing history or rewriting it?

Arguments for and against removing statues and changing names tap into powerful forces.

On one side are those who assert they are hurtful, irrelevant and fail to represent contemporary diversity.

On the other are those who fear that effectively erasing historical evidence risks history repeating. By separating past from present, they argue, we can accept the behaviour of those cast in stone was and is reprehensible, but it should be seen in the context of its time, not erased because it offends modern sensibilities.

Others view the desecration of memorials as vandalism by those wanting to replace the past with propaganda.

Meanwhile, a heritage lobby preserves statues as art forms but shies away from critical consideration of how they represent the structure of past or present societies.

Read more: Britain’s monument culture obscures a violent history of white supremacy and colonial violence

And, taking the threat personally, a militant and reactionary right wing seeks to protect and defend statues and place names.

Short of nature intervening, as it did when the Canterbury earthquakes toppled a number of colonial-era relics, what is the way forward?

Context is everything

One solution is to acknowledge these statues as an uncomfortable part of history and move them into museums and statue parks. Again, this is nothing new. Defunct Queen Victoria statues have ended up in a Quebec museum, Sydney shopping centre and in Indian storage. In Gisborne, a James Cook statue was relocated.

This allows their legacy to be discussed while simultaneously casting them as history. Statue parks with interpretation and graffiti boards would promote further discussion. This is common, too – Coronation Park in New Delhi, for example.

Revising street and place names is more difficult because transplanted colonial names are everywhere, although the promotion of Māori place names is rapidly gaining momentum already.

But in simply mimicking the removal of some of those explicitly responsible for colonial violence, Aotearoa-New Zealand risks falling in behind what suits elsewhere. The sun may be setting once more on the British Empire, but it’s the old empire leading the charge.

In this part of the world, reconsidering monuments and place names challenges the very foundations of settler societies and the evolution of race relations. The imperial past really is a different country, and we will have to do things differently here.

– ref. Removing monuments to an imperial past is not the same for former colonies as it is for former empires – https://theconversation.com/removing-monuments-to-an-imperial-past-is-not-the-same-for-former-colonies-as-it-is-for-former-empires-140546

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lucy Strang, PhD Candidate, University of Melbourne

Is time travel possible for humans? Jasmine Burr, age 8, Canberra, ACT.

Hi Jasmine.

I wish! In books and movies, our favourite characters can use “time-turners” and treehouses to travel through time. Unfortunately, it isn’t that easy for people in real life. Let’s look at why.

First, there are two types of “time travel”: going back in time, and going forward in time.

Travelling to the past

As far as we know, travelling back in time is impossible. Even sending information back in time is difficult to imagine, because it can change things that have already happened, which should be impossible.

Say you broke your arm falling off the monkey bars. What if you could travel back in time and tell yourself to not go on the bars? If you were successful, you’d never fall and break your arm. But then you would have no reason to travel back in time. So what does this mean for your arm? Did it break, or not?

If thinking about this makes your head hurt, you’re not alone.

Time travelling is a confusing idea for most people. That’s because when we think of time, we think about it as going in a straight line, with one thing happening after another.

If we could travel back in time and change something that happened before, we would then change the order of that line. This would mean breaking a rule called “causality”.

Causality is the rule saying that a “cause” (your actions, for instance) happens before an “effect” (the result of your actions). In our monkey bar example, the cause is falling, and the effect is breaking your arm – which happens because you fell.

Causality is one of the unbreakable rules of the universe. Breaking it would have nasty consequences for the universe and all of us. Experts think that because the universe has this rule, travelling to the past must be impossible otherwise the rule would be broken all the time.

Travelling to the future

If going to the past is impossible, can we go forward in time to the future?

Well, technically we’re already travelling forward in time, because time is passing. Every second we travel one second into the future. But this happens to everyone, so it’s not really time travel, right?

Well, believe it or not, two people can feel time at different rates. Time passes differently for someone who is moving fast, compared to someone who is staying still. This is a very complicated idea called “time dilation”.

Someone flying from Sydney to Melbourne will feel like the time passed more quickly than someone waiting for them at the airport without moving for the whole time the flight was in the air. So why don’t we notice this difference?

It’s because you have to be moving much, much faster than an aeroplane before you start to notice time dilation. Even if you flew all the way around the world, the time would only feel about a billionth of a second different to someone who stayed home.

Read more: Curious Kids: Does space go on forever?

The only way scientists even know about time dilation is because of amazingly accurate experiments that have measured it.

Unfortunately, this still can’t help us “time travel”. If you flew around the world for more than four million years, people on the ground would only have experienced one more second than you!

How fast can we go?

So if it’s all down to speed, the answer must be to go faster, right? If you could go fast enough for long enough, hundreds of “human” years could slip by on your journey, meaning you would feel like you were travelling into the future!

Unfortunately, a fast enough speed to do this would be close to the speed of light, which is the fastest speed anything can go. Light travels at about one billion kilometres every hour – that’s very, very fast.

The fastest human-made thing is NASA’s Parker Solar Probe, a spaceship sent to the Sun in August, 2018. But as fast as it is, it’s only 0.064% as fast as the speed of light. So light is more than 1,000 times faster!

All of this means that if humans want to visit the future, we’ve got a long, long way to go.

Looking back to the past

Ok, so we can’t time travel. But we can see into the past, every night.

Light has a fixed speed, as we just learned. It’s really, really fast, but things in the universe are so far apart that it still takes a long time for light to reach us from faraway stars and planets.

When light arrives from the Sun, the light we see actually left the Sun eight minutes and twenty seconds ago. This means we see the Sun as it was eight minutes and twenty seconds in the past. By the way, remember never to look straight at the Sun as it can damage your eyes.

The nearest galaxy to our Milky Way is the the Canis Major dwarf galaxy, which is 25,000 light years away. This means it takes the light 25,000 years to get here!

When we look at this galaxy through a telescope, we’re actually seeing it as it was more than 25,000 years ago. So although we can’t time-travel ourselves, we can look up to the sky and see the past every night.

Read more: Time travel is possible – but only if you have an object with infinite mass

– ref. Curious Kids: is time travel possible for humans? – https://theconversation.com/curious-kids-is-time-travel-possible-for-humans-140703

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anika Gauja, Associate Professor, Department of Government and International Relations, University of Sydney

Less than 24 hours after The Age’s investigation into branch stacking in the Victorian branch of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) aired on 60 minutes, Adem Somyurek was sacked from Daniel Andrew’s cabinet. The allegations have been referred to police, and Somyurek now faces expulsion from the party.

What is branch stacking?

Somyurek is alleged to have engaged in the practice of “branch stacking”. This is where people who have no interest in joining a party are enrolled as members by having their memberships paid for by those seeking to influence the party. Some may know they’ve been signed up but not care or understand what has happened; others may not realise at all.

Through building up a base of members who otherwise have no commitment to the party, the practice allows the branch-stacker to manipulate important intra-party decisions that are taken at the local (branch) level.

One of the most important decisions branch members make is who to pre-select to run as the party’s candidate for public office. This is where we see the majority of branch-stacking activities occur – to channel those members’ votes towards a particular candidate.

Influence can then permeate further and further into the party as pre-selection is traded for political favours. It is often aligned with factional battles. It commonly involves the recruitment of people from non-English-speaking backgrounds, distributing money to pay for memberships and even the falsification of signatures of branch meeting attendance rolls where attendance at a minimum number of meetings is a requirement to vote.

How widespread is it?

Branch stacking has been a problem in both the major parties for decades, though it is more prominent in the ALP, intertwined with that party’s factional dynamics.

As pre-selection is such a high-stakes activity and a decision that is largely taken at the local level, it is no surprise it’s targeted for manipulation. It has persisted for so long because of the relatively small number of people who actually join political parties in Australia.

This means enrolling even a few members can have a disproportionate outcome on a pre-selection decision, given that so few people are involved in the process.

Pervasive branch-stacking in Queensland led to the establishment in 2000 of an inquiry by the Criminal Justice Commission (the Shepherdson Inquiry) into electoral fraud concerning several candidate selection contests conducted by the ALP during the 1980s and 1990s. The commission’s report resulted in the passing of legislation that party pre-selection contests be conducted according to the principles of free and democratic elections.

Oversight of this regime is entrusted to the Queensland Electoral Commission, which may enquire into and undertake audits of party preselection processes. Parties that breach these provisions are liable to deregistration and consequently lose public funding.

In 2019, the NSW Liberal Party was at the centre of a branch-stacking allegation involving pupils from Campion College, who were allegedly offered parliamentary jobs in return for recruiting members to the party.

In 2007, the outcome of the Liberal pre-selection for the federal seat of Cook was overturned following allegations of branch stacking. One of the unsuccessful candidates, David Coleman, now a minister in the Morrison government, even took the matter to the Supreme Court. This litigation, and others that have preceded it (notably the matter initiated by former South Australian Deputy Labor Leader Ralph Clarke), highlight just how serious and high-stakes a problem is it.

What are parties doing about it?

Branch stacking is not a condoned practice. Both the ALP and Liberal Party rules contain provisions that prohibit bulk memberships and paying the membership dues of others. The alleged activities of Somyurek clearly contravene these provisions, but the problem is one of party culture, detection and enforcement.

If political parties lack the necessary resources or incentive to enforce anti-branch stacking provisions, a system of electoral commission oversight – as was implemented in Queensland – may be one option.

Read more: NSW Liberals’ factional battles stand in way of reform, but changes in participation demand it

This was recommended in NSW by two separate reports in 2014 by the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) and the Expert Panel commissioned by the NSW government to inquire into political finance reform. Both recommended that internal good governance and compliance be explicitly linked with public funding. Despite in principle commitment for this reform, there is has been no legislative movement in this area.

Another reform option might be to introduce American-style primary contests for candidate selection, which would arguably make branch stacking more difficult by widening the pool of participants.

However, as the controversy surrounding the election of Jeremy Corbyn as UK Labour leader aided by thousands of “registered supporters” in 2015 showed, even these more inclusive methods can face similar criticisms. In other words, one person’s mobilisation of potential voters can be another’s manipulation of electoral outcomes.

Changing the culture of political party pre-selections by opening them up to greater public view and scrutiny may be a further way of removing some of the conditions conducive to branch stacking. Pre-selections, and intra-party decisions more generally, remain largely secretive in Australian politics, despite the significant public importance of these events.

In the lead-up to the 2019 Australian federal election, for example, less than 10% of pre-selections conducted received media coverage as competitive events.

Understanding the importance of party decisions, publicly scrutinising these activities and bringing intra-party politics out from behind closed doors will improve transparency, participation and make it more difficult for branch stacking to continue in Australia’s political parties.

Read more: Revealed: how Australian politicians would bridge the trust divide

– ref. Explainer: what is branch stacking, and why has neither major party been able to stamp it out? – https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-branch-stacking-and-why-has-neither-major-party-been-able-to-stamp-it-out-140726

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lisa Amir, Professor in Breastfeeding Research, La Trobe University

As the COVID-19 pandemic has taught us all too well, good health policy depends on prior planning, decisive action, and a willingness to spend money.

But there’s another area where Australia’s willingness to plan and spend has fallen far short: monitoring breastfeeding rates.

A newly released international report reveals that 41% of babies worldwide are exclusively breastfed for their first six months – well short of the World Health Assembly’s target of 50% by 2025. Australian data are missing from the latest report because the infant feeding data have not been collected.

Breastfeeding is important, just like immunisation. It protects children against illness and disease, such as gastroenteritis and later life diabetes. Women who breastfeed are less likely to suffer breast cancer in later life. Investing in breastfeeding will save the health system money in years to come.

Read more: Want to breastfeed? These five things will make it easier

In 2019 a long-awaited Australian National Breastfeeding Strategy proposed a national monitoring system for breastfeeding rates.

Governments have been talking about this for nearly two decades. Yet still there is no funding available for a national data collection network, despite its importance for women and children.

Without rigorous data, we can’t tell whether Australia’s breastfeeding rates are improving or getting worse, which groups of people need help, or whether existing programs to encourage breastfeeding are working.

Good data is crucial for good health care

Some local data in NSW and Victoria suggest that in recent years fewer women get off to a good start with exclusive breastfeeding.

The percentage of babies fully breastfed at the time of discharge from hospital in NSW fell from 82.1% in 2011 to 72.6% in 2018.

We also don’t know how COVID-19 has affected breastfeeding rates. Some women have been hindered by reduced access to breastfeeding support, as hospitals and community services divert resources towards dealing with the pandemic. On the other hand, there are anecdotal reports of mothers enjoying the less hectic pace of life during lockdown to establish breastfeeding.

But the problem is, without routine surveys of breastfeeding rates among large samples of the population, we just don’t know.

In 1995, 2001 and 2005, National Health Surveys collected data on infant feeding. In 2008 one of us (Lisa), together with colleague Susan Donath, used these data to show that breastfeeding rates did not improve, and the gap between high- and low-income families had widened during the decade spanned by these surveys. It was a shocking indictment.

Despite this, the 2007-08 National Health Surveys did not collect infant feeding data. The 2014-15 and 2016-17 surveys each only collected infant feeding data on about 1,500 children – not enough for a rigorous analysis of the nationwide trend.

Australia’s first and only comprehensive infant feeding survey happened in 2010, in response to a recommendation from the Parliamentary Best Start Inquiry.

This survey sampled 52,000 infants aged up to 24 months. It was intended as a baseline for future surveys, but the follow-up surveys never happened.

The National Breastfeeding Strategy released last year by federal, state and territory governments pledged to routinely collect data on breastfeeding rates via the Child Digital Health Record program, which is still under development. It also promised to deliver a full nationwide survey every five years.

Read more: The National Breastfeeding Strategy is a start, but if we really valued breast milk we’d put it in the GDP

Knowledge is power

Routine data collection has several advantages. It is more cost-effective than standalone surveys, and it is population-wide, meaning it can include people who are otherwise under-represented in survey data.

It is also a powerful research tool. Routine data on preterm versus full-term births in Belgium, for instance, revealed the dramatic effect of tobacco control policies on preventing premature births.

Australia already routinely collects childhood health data, perhaps most notably on immunisation rates. Policy-makers can use this valuable data to ensure adequate coverage against childhood infections and to ensure existing policies are effective.

Read more: Breastfeeding improves IQ – now have we got your attention?

The first step to investing in breastfeeding will be to fund proper data collection – both via routine data collection and regular in-depth national surveys. But so far no one has backed breastfeeding with the necessary dollars.

This article is based on a presentation hosted by the Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University, and Save the Children.

– ref. We don’t know if breastfeeding is rising or falling in Australia. That’s bad for everyone – https://theconversation.com/we-dont-know-if-breastfeeding-is-rising-or-falling-in-australia-thats-bad-for-everyone-140549

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Lee, Associate Professor of History , UNSW

As Australia begins to plot a recovery strategy from the first recession in the country in decades, the Morrison government needs to examine what has worked well in the past.

Crises require strong leadership, national cohesion and a framework for carrying out recovery efforts on a grand scale.

As such, there is a case to be made for a new Commonwealth agency to lead the recovery effort, built on the model of the Department of Post-War Reconstruction that helped Australia emerge from the turmoil of the second world war.

The Department of Post-War Reconstruction

In December 1942, Prime Minister John Curtin established the Department of Post-War Reconstruction. Even though the war was still raging, its task was to begin planning and coordinating Australia’s transition to a peacetime economy.

The department brought together a talented group of officials, many of them from the new discipline of economics, to advise the government. Its establishment reflected the efforts to which the Commonwealth government went after the war to professionalise the Australian public service.

The department did not have a large staff. It was devised as a policy department that would coordinate the work of other agencies. The treasurer, Ben Chifley, was appointed the first minister for post-war reconstruction. H. C. “Nugget” Coombs, one of Australia’s “seven dwarfs”, named for their diminutive stature, was his first departmental secretary.

Read more: Lessons from history point to local councils’ role in Australia’s recovery

One of the major successes of the department was its contribution to the full-employment policy, a goal set by post-war governments to achieve a higher standard of living and regular employment for all Australians after the war.

To that end, the department helped establish a new employment agency, the Commonwealth Employment Service, to match workers with jobs. It also helped overhaul the social welfare system and create the pharmaceutical benefits scheme.

Full employment became a bipartisan policy goal throughout the economic “golden age” from the end of the war to the 1970s. The policy was so popular that even the smallest deviation from it, such as during the “credit squeeze” of 1960-61, almost cost the Menzies government re-election.

The Department of Post-War Reconstruction didn’t succeed in pushing through sweeping new federal powers for reconstruction in a 1944 referendum. Nonetheless, it found ingenious ways to foster Commonwealth-state cooperation, for instance, through section 96 grants (which provided federal funding to the states on terms and conditions set by the Commonwealth), and the federal funding of housing, hospitals and later universities in the states.

Read more: Australia’s post-war recovery program provides clues as to how to get out of this

New Commonwealth-state bodies were also devised to support the coal and aluminium industries. The Commonwealth and NSW state Joint Coal Board, for example, completely revamped the almost moribund NSW black coal industry. A revived and mechanised NSW coal industry became internationally competitive and a significant export earner for Australia by the 1970s.

On the international front, Chifley and Coombs supported Australia’s participation in the 1944 Bretton Woods Conference, which reinvented the global financial system based on fixed exchange rates with the US dollar as a reserve currency. The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank were also established at the time.

Chifley and Coombs supported the new international arrangements because they understood the revival of the global economy was essential for Australia’s own prosperity. As they hoped, the Bretton Woods system, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and the Marshall Plan for western Europe all laid the global foundations for Australia’s domestic recovery.

How a post-pandemic agency might work

The federal government has already trialled a new policy-making agency during the COVID-19 pandemic with its “wartime” National Cabinet, which featured federal and state governments and their agencies working as one.

There are many ways a new economic recovery agency could build on the cohesion demonstrated by the National Cabinet and advise the Commonwealth government on rebuilding the economy.

Specifically, it could help replicate Curtin’s achievement in 1942 by advising on comprehensive reform of the Commonwealth-state taxation system. This process is already under way with several states calling for the substitution of land taxes for stamp duties.

A post-COVID-19 agency could also be involved in the revamping of the welfare system (post-JobKeeper/JobSeeker) to cope with the higher levels of unemployment and under-employment.

The agency could advise or coordinate a strategy for new infrastructure to create jobs, such as the building of hospitals, public housing and a transition to cleaner energy. Another possibility would be a return to independent petroleum refining, similar to Billy Hughes’s Commonwealth Oil Refineries that operated from 1919-52.

Read more: The PM wants to fast-track mega-projects for pandemic recovery. Here’s why that’s a bad idea

And a new agency could advise on reviving other major industries, such as tourism, the airlines, the higher education sector and even the banking system. During the Global Financial Crisis, the Rudd government had to underwrite loans to the banks and guarantee bank deposits. A major intervention may again be required.

Creating a Department of Post-War Reconstruction was considered by some to be the “boldest experiment” the country took after the war. And as a result, Australia’s post-war recovery was a remarkable success. This is what we need now – another bold experiment, in the spirit of bipartisanship.

– ref. Rebuilding Australia: what we can learn from the successes of post-war reconstruction – https://theconversation.com/rebuilding-australia-what-we-can-learn-from-the-successes-of-post-war-reconstruction-137899

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

Pharmacists are vaccinating more and more people, but those shots are not always ending up in your immunisation record, our report out today shows.

This means your records could be incomplete, leading to unnecessary repeat vaccinations, or it could affect your eligibility for government benefits or work.

Incomplete records also mean health authorities cannot accurately monitor vaccination uptake across the population.

And if we have a vaccine for COVID-19 delivered through pharmacies, accurate record keeping will be important for both individuals and health authorities.

Read more: Here’s why the WHO says a coronavirus vaccine is 18 months away

Pharmacy vaccination is popular and becoming more so

Our report, by the National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance, shows pharmacy vaccination is becoming more popular.

In 2017, it accounted for 0.1% of all vaccinations reported to the Australian Immunisation Register. However, by 2019, that had risen to 2.7%, the vast majority (95%) of those influenza vaccine.

Pharmacists have also been allowed to give a wider range of vaccines to younger people over recent years. For instance, appropriately trained pharmacists in all states and territories can give:

• influenza vaccine to anyone aged 10 years or over

• measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) or diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis (dTpa) vaccine to anyone aged 16 years or over.

The rules for other vaccines vary depending on the state or territory you live in.

Read more: Pharmacists can vaccinate adults against whooping cough, measles and the flu, but it might cost you more

What we found

In NSW and the ACT it’s mandatory for pharmacists to report vaccinations to the Australian Immunisation Register. It’s strongly encouraged in other states and territories.

However, we found substantial under-reporting of pharmacist vaccinations.

Pharmacies are said to have administered over one million influenza vaccinations in 2018. That’s ten times more than the number we found recorded in the Australian Immunisation Register that year.

In 2019, there were reported to be over two million influenza vaccinations in pharmacies, four times more than actually recorded.

Why does this matter?

Under-reporting of pharmacy vaccines is less of an issue for influenza vaccination, which is needed every year. But it is more important for vaccines only needed in one or two doses or at long periods apart, such as the two doses of MMR vaccine.

And as pharmacy vaccination expands to travel vaccines – such as cholera and hepatitis A (which can both now be given by pharmacists in Queensland) – having an accurate immunisation record is important when travel restrictions ease. It’s likely a long time between overseas trips and remembering which vaccinations you’ve had can be difficult.

Read more: Prepare for a healthy holiday with this A-to-E guide

As pharmacist vaccination expands to include younger ages and vaccines on the National Immunisation Program (the series of vaccinations given at specific times throughout your life) there’s greater potential for confusion if records are not complete. Any unrecorded vaccinations could affect certain government support or access to child care under No Jab No Pay or No Jab No Play policies.

An accurate record of vaccinations can also be important to meet requirements for some university courses and jobs, particularly related to health care.

Read more: Health Check: which vaccinations should I get as an adult?

It’s not just pharmacists

Generally, vaccines given to young children (who are mostly vaccinated in GP clinics) are reliably recorded, but our 2018 report found some reporting errors. So it pays to check.

Reporting of adult vaccinations has been less reliable. Another of our recent reports showed true vaccination uptake for the shingles vaccine, largely given in GP clinics, could be up to twice as high as that recorded in the Australian Immunisation Register.

Read more: How rivalries between doctors and pharmacists turned into the ‘turf war’ we see today

Many vaccinations given in workplaces – for instance hospitals and commercial providers of workplace influenza vaccination programs – are also not currently captured in the Australian Immunisation Register, although such vaccination providers can now register to report them.

How can you check your immunisation record is accurate?

If you are getting a vaccination from a pharmacist, or any other vaccination provider, you can check they will be reporting it to the Australian Immunisation Register and ask for a paper record of the vaccination.

You can then later request an immunisation history statement, which shows all the vaccinations recorded on the Australian Immunisation Register. You can do this via your Medicare online account (through myGov), the Express Plus Medicare mobile app, the Australian Immunisation Register help line (1800 653 809) or your vaccination provider.

If vaccinations are missing, you can contact the relevant vaccination provider and ask them to update your Australian Immunisation Register record.

What can we do about it?

Ultimately, it shouldn’t be your responsibility to regularly check your immunisation records are accurate and up to date. It should be the responsibility of the vaccination provider to report your vaccinations to the Australian Immunisation Register.

So we recommend further education and training for pharmacists, legislation to make Australian Immunisation Register reporting by pharmacists compulsory in all states and territories; and increasing and improving use of electronic reporting methods.

How about a vaccine for COVID-19?

If a COVID-19 vaccine becomes available, we will likely need a mass immunisation program to vaccinate as many people as possible. Pharmacists may be part of this program. Legislation in Queensland is being amended to allow for this.

Hopefully, by then, we will have addressed some of these issues.

Kaitlyn Vette, Lauren Dalton and Kristine Macartney, from the National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance, contributed to this article.

– ref. Getting vaccinated at the pharmacy? Make sure it’s recorded properly – https://theconversation.com/getting-vaccinated-at-the-pharmacy-make-sure-its-recorded-properly-140070

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Hurley, Policy Fellow, Mitchell Institute, Victoria University

International students made up more than 30% of the population in some Australian suburbs, before borders closed to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

The Mitchell Institute mapped where international students lived using data from the ABS census and Department of Home Affairs.

The results show striking growth in capital cities, and in some regional areas.

The mapping highlights how international students have become intertwined in Australia’s social fabric. Not only do they contribute A$38 billion to the economy annually and support 130,000 jobs (at any one time), they are also important members of local communities.

The Mitchell Institute research helps illustrate how, beyond universities’ suffering at the loss of international students, local businesses and communities are also being negatively affected.

Where do international students live?

City areas and suburbs close to university campuses have the most international students.

The centre of Melbourne had the largest number of international students in the country – at almost 20,000, or 38% of the resident population. The neighbouring suburb of Carlton has the next largest with 9,600 or 39% of the population.

The Canberra suburb of Acton, where ANU is located, had one of the highest proportions of international students in the country – at about 44%.

Many international students have chosen to live in suburbs further away from university campuses, too.

We estimate more than 10% of the population in the Sydney suburbs of Hurstville and Strathfield were international students.

International students made up more than 5% of the population in areas such as Dandenong and Laverton in Melbourne, Joondalup in Perth, and Regency Park in Adelaide.

Affordable property and good transport links may make these suburbs attractive options.

Regional areas have also benefited from international students, especially those with university campuses. For instance, in Darling Heights and Gatton in regional Queensland, more than 5% of the population were international students.

How local communities and economies benefit

Wherever international students live they will be important parts of communities and economies.

We also examined Universities Australia’s student finance data to identify the type of businesses that benefit most from international education.

Read more: ‘I love Australia’: 3 things international students want Australians to know

We found over 36% of international student spending goes towards retail and entertainment. This is money that will be spent in Australian cafes, markets and other venues.

Another 36% of spending went to property. As 65% of international students rent, much of this income will support Australian property investors.

The benefits international students bring extend beyond the economy. They also volunteer, contribute to Australia’s cultural diversity and enhance our international standing.

This research helps illustrate the many different roles of international students. They are colleagues, friends, neighbours, tenants, customers, classmates and future world-leaders.

Many will also become future Australian citizens. Of the international students who started their course between 2001 to 2014, 1.6 million were granted permanent residency and a pathway to citizenship.

Student visa holders outside Australia

Department of Home Affairs figures show over 120,000 current student visa holders are outside Australia.

We estimate this translates into about 13,000 fewer people living in inner Melbourne due to travel restrictions. In places like Sydney’s city and inner south, this translates into 7,000 fewer people. In Adelaide’s Central and Hills region we estimate this means 5,000 fewer people.

These losses will grow as travels bans stop new international students replacing those who have finished their studies.

Every six months international students cannot enrol due to travel bans, between 110,000 to 140,000 won’t start their courses.

Read more: Australian universities could lose $19 billion in the next 3 years. Our economy will suffer with them

Problems with the international education sector will also affect Australian students. Domestic students share in the perspectives students from around the world bring into classrooms and the extra resources education institutions can afford because of them.

Early reports suggest more school leavers will choose to study at university because of an impending recession.

But while universities have capacity, there are currently funding caps which effectively limit the number of domestic students who can enrol.

Uncapping domestic university places will help ensure our universities can properly meet the needs of school leavers.

Read more: How universities came to rely on international students

Continuing to support international students will also be vital. International students are particularly vulnerable to the economic impact of the pandemic. As non-citizens they are ineligible to access Australian government supports such as JobKeeper.

Many have had to rely on support packages offered by universities and state governments.

It is important that Australia continues to support international students who are struggling. This will signal to current and future international students that Australia values them and the enormous contribution they make to our country.

– ref. Interactive: international students make up more than 30% of population in some Australian suburbs – https://theconversation.com/interactive-international-students-make-up-more-than-30-of-population-in-some-australian-suburbs-140626

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Martin Loosemore, Professor of Construction Management, University of Technology Sydney

Many countries around the world, including Australia, are looking to the construction industry to help rebuild economies. Industry bodies such as the Master Builders Association are strongly urging governments to bring forward spending on already approved infrastructure projects. They also want these projects to be unbundled into smaller contract packages so small local businesses and the whole sector get a piece of the pie.

We should not ignore the risks involved in the rush to get the economy going again. We will pay for mistakes made now in the form of debt created by cost blowouts and unscrupulous developers. We will have to live with poor-quality, ill-conceived and environmentally damaging developments for decades.

Of course, construction and infrastructure programs provide us with a powerful stimulus tool. It’s why federal and state governments are looking to this sector to drive recovery. The social impact of investing in more construction and infrastructure could certainly be significant.

Read more: Why the focus of stimulus plans has to be construction that puts social housing first

Construction is one of the country’s largest employers. The sector employs about 1.2 million people directly, and indirectly much more. It’s one of the largest employers of apprentices, youth and disadvantaged groups such as Indigenous people and refugees.

Investment in construction flows through the broader economy. The Australian Bureau of Statistics estimates every A$1 million spent on construction output generates A$2.9 million in output across the economy as a whole. Every job created in construction leads to another three in the wider economy.

Knowing this, state and local governments are relaxing hard-won controls to fast-track projects. Planning ministers are being given more power to override many of the statutory timeframes that govern normal planning and approval processes.

Fast-track approach creates risks

This approach creates many risks as well as many opportunities. If we do not control these risks in our rush to stimulate the economy, we are likely to regret this in future.

While the construction industry includes some world-class firms, the government-commissioned Productivity Commission inquiry into infrastructure raised many concerns about the lack of transparency and trust in development and infrastructure approval processes. It noted infrastructure project overruns were common. The extra costs amount to billions of dollars.

We are already battling a crisis of confidence in the residential apartments sector. Poor-quality buildings have devastated people’s lives. In New South Wales, the state government has appointed a building commissioner to clean up the mess.

Read more: New NSW building law could be a game changer for apartment safety

Unscrupulously exploiting a crisis

Relaxing controls also opens the door to unscrupulous developers to exploit the crisis for their own personal gain. Transparency International’s recent submission to a Senate inquiry argues that powerful groups have too often prevailed over public interest. It warns:

Businesses in highly regulated industries, such as transport, mining, energy and property construction, all actively seek to influence politicians, although the channels of influence vary by industry.

In some countries we are already seeing developers exploiting the COVID-19 crisis to argue for relaxation and even removal of regulations put in place to ensure projects contribute positively to the communities in which they are built. A former senior adviser to US President Donald Trump has argued that his administration should trigger an emergency override of America’s environmental protection laws and establish “Australian-style permitting”.

If fast-tracked projects are undertaken without appropriate controls purely to boost the economy rather than meet a real community need, then we will be paying for this crisis for far longer than we expect.

Read more: Sidelining planners makes for poorer urban policy, and future generations will pay the price

Focus must be on community benefit

As Elizabeth Mossop warned in her recent Conversation article, our governments are committing taxpayers to further debt to stimulate recovery from the economic impacts of the coronavirus pandemic. Infrastructure spending is great for economic stimulus, but it still has to be the right kind of infrastructure that meets local community needs.

Mossop argues for small-scale stimulus projects focused on local small businesses, rather than multinationals, to deliver broad, long-term community value. Investing stimulus funding in local businesses means the money recycles in the community, reduces inequality and helps meet real community needs.

Of course we need to move quickly to rebuild our economy. But we must also place the community at the heart of any decisions about which projects we push through the system.

Read more: The PM wants to fast-track mega-projects for pandemic recovery. Here’s why that’s a bad idea

We could learn much from the principles of urban acupuncture, which would advocate a community-based approach to stimulus. It would also warn against awarding contracts to major multinationals. These corporations suck money out of needy communities into the pockets of shareholders with no links to the communities we need to help.

Research shows procuring from local businesses provides a 77-100% economic advantage and an 80-100% increase in jobs compared to procuring from multinationals.

If stimulus programs follow traditional approaches to infrastructure procurement in Australia, then we will miss an unprecedented opportunity to tackle growing inequity. Even before this crisis, many younger and poorer members of our society were already being left behind.

– ref. We may live to regret open-slather construction stimulus – https://theconversation.com/we-may-live-to-regret-open-slather-construction-stimulus-139967

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lee Baumgartner, Professor of Fisheries and River Management, Institute for Land, Water, and Society, Charles Sturt University

The New South Wales government plans to release two million native fish into rivers of the Murray-Darling Basin, in the largest breeding program of its kind in the state. But as the river system recovers from a string of mass fish deaths, caution is needed.

Having suitable breeding fish does not always guarantee millions of healthy offspring for restocking. And even if millions of young fish are released into the wild, increased fish populations in the long term are not assured.

For stocking to be successful, fish must be released into good quality water, with suitable habitat and lots of food. But these conditions have been quite rare in Murray Darling rivers over the past three years.

We research the impact of human activity on fish and aquatic systems and have studied many Australian fish restocking programs. So let’s take a closer look at the NSW government’s plans.

Success stories

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, the NSW restocking program involves releasing juvenile Murray cod, golden perch and silver perch into the Darling River downstream of Brewarrina, in northwestern NSW.

Other areas including the Lachlan, Murrumbidgee, Macquarie and Murray Rivers will reportedly also be restocked. These species and regions were among the hardest hit by recent fish kills.

Fish restocking is used worldwide to boost species after events such as fish kills, help threatened species recover, and increase populations of recreational fishing species.

Since the 1970s in the Murray-Darling river system, millions of fish have been bred in government and private hatcheries in spring each year. Young fish, called fingerlings, are usually released in the following summer and autumn.

Read more: Australia, it’s time to talk about our water emergency

There have been success stories. For example, the endangered trout cod was restocked into the Ovens and Murrumbidgee Rivers between 1997 and 2006. Prior to the restocking program, the species was locally extinct. It’s now re-established in the Murrumbidgee River and no longer requires stocking to maintain the population.

In response to fish kills in 2010, the Edward-Wakool river system was restocked to help fish recover when natural spawning was expected to be low. And the threatened Murray hardyhead is now increasing in numbers thanks to a successful stocking program in the Lower Darling.

After recent fish kills in the Murray Darling, breeding fish known as “broodstock” were rescued from the river and taken to government and private hatcheries. Eventually, it was expected the rescued fish and their offspring would restock the rivers.

Words of caution

Fish hatchery managers rarely count their fish before they hatch. It’s quite a challenge to ensure adult fish develop viable eggs that are then fertilised at high rates.

Once hatched, larvae must be transported to ponds containing the right amount of plankton for food. The larvae must then avoid predatory birds, be kept free from disease, and grow at the right temperatures.

Read more: Last summer’s fish carnage sparked public outrage. Here’s what has happened since

When it comes to releasing the fish into the wild, careful decisions must be made about how many fish to release, where and when. Factors such as water temperature, pH and dissolved oxygen levels must be carefully assessed.

Introducing hatchery-reared fish into the wild does not always deliver dramatic improvements in fish numbers. Poor water quality, lack of food and slow adaptation to the wild can reduce survival rates.

In some parts of the Murray-Darling, restocking is likely to have slowed the decline in native fish numbers, although it has not stopped it altogether.

Address the root cause

Fish stocking decisions are sometimes motivated by economic reasons, such as boosting species sought by anglers who pay licence fees and support tourist industries. But stocking programs must also consider the underlying reasons for declining fish populations.

Aside from poor water quality, fish in the Murray Darling are threatened by being sucked into irrigation systems, cold water pollution from dams, dams and weirs blocking migration paths and invasive fish species. These factors must be addressed alongside restocking.

Fish should not be released into areas with unsuitable habitat or water quality. The Darling River fish kills were caused by low oxygen levels, associated with drought and water extraction. These conditions could rapidly return if we have another hot, dry summer.

Stocking rivers with young fish is only one step. They must then grow to adults and successfully breed. So the restocking program must consider the entire fish life cycle, and be coupled with good river management.

The Murray Darling Basin Authority’s Native Fish Recovery Strategy includes management actions such as improving fish passage, delivering environmental flows, improving habitat, controlling invasive species and fish harvest restrictions. Funding the strategy’s implementation is a key next step.

Looking ahead

After recent rains, parts of the Murray Darling river system are now flowing for the first time in years. But some locals say the flows are only a trickle and more rain is urgently needed.

Higher than average rainfall is predicted between July and September. This will be needed for restocked fish to thrive. If the rain does not arrive, and other measures are not taken to improve the system’s health, then the restocking plans may be futile.

Read more: We wrote the report for the minister on fish deaths in the lower Darling – here’s why it could happen again

– ref. Don’t count your fish before they hatch: experts react to plans to release 2 million fish into the Murray Darling – https://theconversation.com/dont-count-your-fish-before-they-hatch-experts-react-to-plans-to-release-2-million-fish-into-the-murray-darling-140428

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hannah Forsyth, Senior Lecturer in History, Australian Catholic University

I’m reading Thomas Carlyle’s poetic classic, The French Revolution, published in 1837. It occurred to me that the historical narrative of Australian universities and their relationship to government is like that revolution, but in reverse.

Carlyle summarised the goal of the French Revolution with the refrain “victorious analysis”. This was the foundation of Australia’s modern, rational system of government, achieved with universities. It was a triumph that turned out to be deeply flawed, as we will see.

Reversing the revolutionary process, in recent years universities have descended into the kind of aristocratic excess Carlyle described in pre-revolutionary France. This leaves a large scholarly workforce facing (this is Carlyle again) “an indubitable scarcity of bread”.

It is an admittedly dubious historical parallel, but it helps us understand something of the relationship of higher education to Australian politics, and the mess we now face.

Read more: Why is the Australian government letting universities suffer?

The foundation of the Australian university

In the mid-19th century, when Australians decided they wanted to govern themselves, political leaders knew they needed a university. Politician and university founder W.C. Wentworth went so far as to argue that self-government in New South Wales – the kind of modern, rational government increasingly in vogue since the French Revolution – would be “useless” without higher education.

Australia had no aristocracy to overthrow and the founders of our first governments sought a basis for rule that did not rest on inherited position. University graduates, Wentworth believed, were needed to “enlighten the mind, to refine the understanding, to elevate the soul of our fellow men”. They were also needed to train men – and, shortly, women – to fill “the high offices of state”.

In Carlyle’s more flowery language (citing Plato’s Republic):

Kings can become philosophers; or else philosophers Kings. Let but Society be once rightly constituted, by victorious Analysis.

This merit-based elite – which some of Wentworth’s contemporaries ridiculed as a “bunyip aristocracy” – constituted the emerging professional class. Their work as medical practitioners, lawyers, clergy, teachers, charity workers, engineers and politicians was to guide this “rightly constituted” society.

Such modern, rational governments relied on the kinds of knowledge that a university pursued. “Victorious analysis” guided Australian governments through rabbit plagues and conquered parasites and diseases that threatened food supply and human health.

But it also steered the conquest of Aboriginal lands with knowledge of geology, geography, anthropology and agriculture. And it equipped generations of teachers and clergy with the wealth that was Western history, literature and philosophy – embedded in a racialised, moral superiority.

It was not perfect. Indeed, in many ways this “victorious analysis” was downright harmful.

The kind of knowledge the university produced helped build the nation, but it did so by also developing and reinforcing ideas that expropriated Indigenous land and oppressed people of colour. It built and encouraged ideas that determined a human’s worth on the basis of race, gender and sexuality. Universities and the governments they supported structured a so-called “rational” world that extracted value from some people and concentrated it among themselves.

Exposing the flaw in ‘victorious analysis’

By the second world war, some of these problems were becoming evident worldwide. In that war, the same “victorious analysis” combined with political regimes that sought to use “rational” knowledge to commit atrocities, even genocide, and demolish cities full of civilians.

It was at work when Nazi doctor Josef Mengele compared the effects of cruel experiments on twins at Auschwitz. Through those unspeakable experiments on 1,500 sets of twins, only 200 survived.

The dangers of aligning scholarly knowledge with political regimes was further exposed when, in the Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin dismissed, imprisoned or executed thousands of biologists. The reality that their knowledge may have helped prevent a tragic famine was not more important to Stalin than that their understanding of genetics contradicted government doctrine.

Democratic regimes were not immune. “Victorious analysis” led to the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. When news of those horrors filtered through, Western democracies saw the problem engendered by the relationship between modern, rational government and scholarly research.

Protecting the independence of scholarship

This did not mean governments sought to dismantle or undermine universities. On the contrary, Australian governments, like most others, invested in them further. However, care was taken, in Australia as elsewhere, to increasingly protect universities from political interference.

At this moment, Nobel-prize-winning author Herman Hesse had his character Joseph Knecht express the significance of scholarly independence in his novel The Glass Bead Game, published in 1943. Describing an age where rulers “determined the sum of two and two” and scholars capitulated (and lost their self-respect), protested (and died) or learned the art of silence (merely going hungry), Hesse’s character concluded that scholarship and politics must not mix:

The scholar who knowingly speaks, writes or teaches falsehood, who knowingly supports lies and deceptions, not only violates organic principles. He also, no matter how things may seem at the given moment, does his people a grave disservice. He corrupts its air and soil, its food and drink; he poisons its thinking and its laws, and he gives comfort and aid to all the hostile, evil forces that threaten the nation with annihilation. The Castalian [scholar], therefore, should not become a politician.

These sentiments were not confined to fiction. As the Commonwealth government sought to support the expansion of higher education – a tricky task, since education was and is the responsibility of Australia’s states – they were conscious of the contradictions required of them.

The 1957 Murray Report, arguably the founding document for the modern university in Australia, pointed to exactly this.

Here is one of the most valuable services which a university, as an independent community of scholars and inquirers, can perform for its country and for the world. The public, and even statesmen, are human enough to be restive or angry from time to time, when perhaps at inconvenient moments the scientist or scholar uses the licence which the academic freedom of universities allows him, and brings us all back to a consideration of the true evidence and what it may be taken to prove …

… No nation in its senses wishes to make itself prone to self-delusion, or to deceit by other nations; and a good university is the best guarantee that mankind can have that somebody, whatever the circumstances, will continue to seek the truth and to make it known. Any free country welcomes this and expects this service of its universities.

On the basis of this report, Prime Minister Robert Menzies instigated what is likely the most generous funding Australian universities have ever seen.

He was building on work that Labor did during the war, establishing the Universities Commission and implementing a funding scheme that helped universities build new infrastructure.

The clashes produced by the dual need for scholarly independence and democratic accountability emerged early. “What I am asking,” argued the vice-chancellor at Sydney University in 1943, “is that you give us the money and be done with it.”

The government bureaucrat replied:

It is a large sum of money and when the Government says ‘We gave this subsidy, did the universities find it all right?’, we must be able to say something more than just ‘Trust the Universities’.

Solutions and compromises were negotiated, though the original problems of “victorious analysis” remained.

Contesting the moral foundation of the university

By the 1970s, students and academics began to point out that this rational, supposedly objective system of knowledge veiled ideologies. This was not avoidable, they argued, and so the solution was to seek knowledge systems that were inclusive and decolonising, rather than those that supported established systems of inequality.

Under Prime Minister Gough Whitlam’s policy of free public education, the university sector expanded, seeking innovative and inclusive methods of learning and teaching.

In retrospect, this disruption in the universities marked a shift in the moral focus of the professional class. Where university graduates were originally central to the colonial project and capitalist expansion, they now turned their moral efforts towards moderating both.

This put them at odds with the political and managerial classes with whom the professional class, in the mid-20th century, had managed the entire world, through institutions like the World Health Organisation.

Rise of the managerial elite

But now the professional class split from the managerial class. Using radical student critiques of old moral codes as a springboard, in the 1980s the managerial class sought freedom from traditional moral constraints, which they believed also constrained capitalist growth.

This was more than a culture war: it was conflict over the moral foundation – and thus the control – of the economy. It was a kind of class struggle between a changing professional class and a newly separate, managerial class.

New values infused government and university leadership alike, forging what became known as neoliberalism. By the mid-1980s, “victorious analysis” was no longer the basis of government. Yet, ironically, government and economy alike relied on universities more than ever. Innovation was often key to profitability, and the changing global economy required ever more white-collar workers: university graduates.

In 1987, Labor Education and Training Minister John Dawkins led a review of higher education that sought to shift the entire university and college sector from “victorious analysis” to economic asset. Rather than considering the university as a moral institution, it would now be an economic one. An international student “export” market was a key component of 1980s reforms. So too, was massive expansion in the enrolment of Australian students.

But that professional class – which included academics, journalists and teachers, in influential roles – could clearly not be trusted to prioritise capitalist expansion over moral reform.

Read more: COVID-19: what Australian universities can do to recover from the loss of international student fees

Transformations in higher education, then, wrested institutions from academic control. Over the following two decades, management of universities became a professional pathway almost entirely distinct from the pursuit of scholarship.

We must not romanticise universities run by academics under the old conditions of “victorious analysis”. As we have seen, this did a great deal of harm. But the fact that the system needed to change need not imply a managerialist solution.

Steered by government policy, an expensive managerialist epidemic infected the universities. Every year, millions of dollars in salaries alone propped up a this new “aristocracy”, a managerial elite.

Leaders assured us this was the best way to manage these growing and complex institutions. But, instead, managers encouraged one another to game the government’s funding system to achieve their KPIs (and earn spectacular bonuses). The cost has been a failure to invest in good universities that are sustainable in the long term.

Failure to build a good university sector

Looking at the state of the university sector now, we surely cannot consider the managerial salary bill to be money well spent. The present crisis was exacerbated by COVID-19 but was not unexpected.

University leaders were repeatedly warned of financial risks, of threats to the university’s legitimacy (and thus community and political support). They have also been reminded continually of their moral responsibility as public institutions. And yet, like Carlyle’s King Louis XV, they have pilfered resources that were “sufficient not to conquer Flanders, but the patience of the world”.

Like that French aristocracy, the university sector in Australia has been teetering on the edge of ruin for decades. In some ways it is astonishing it has taken so long to tip over. Carlyle, on pre-revolutionary France, noted that:

[…] it is singular how long the rotten will hold together, provided you do not handle it roughly.

Australian universities have long teetered – or, worse, arrogantly swaggered – on a precarious foundation. Their precarity goes beyond their over-reliance on international student fees and management’s tiresome reprises of what Geoff Sharrock calls “yesterday’s logic”.

All of this – the education of young people, the medical research we’ve all been sitting at home waiting to be done, our entire stock of knowledge of history, mathematics, robotics, climate science – sits atop a 93,000-strong workforce of casual academics on starvation wages. It is these academics who will probably be out of work within the month.

They will likely be followed by thousands of their better-paid, but still overworked, teaching and researching colleagues, then thousands of the indispensable workers who throughout the pandemic have kept the technology running, the exams timetabled, library resources accessible, the payroll delivered, and who have cared for troubled or confused students.

A good university sector would look at 100,000 very clever, highly qualified and extremely hard-working scholars and see a valuable resource.

A good government would work with them.

The job of building a good university out of the system we have inherited from history is a more revolutionary task. It is one we all need to share.

– ref. Universities and government need to rethink their relationship with each other before it’s too late – https://theconversation.com/universities-and-government-need-to-rethink-their-relationship-with-each-other-before-its-too-late-139963

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Luke Grzeskowiak, The Hospital Research Foundation Mid-Career Research Fellow – Robinson Research Institute & South Australian Health & Medical Research Institute, University of Adelaide

It’s well known smoking cigarettes during pregnancy can increase the risk of harm to the baby and is best avoided.

But in our research, published today in the Medical Journal of Australia, we show using cannabis during pregnancy is also associated with poorer outcomes for babies.

Read more: Pregnant in a pandemic? If you’re stressed, there’s help

Are pregnant women using cannabis?

While we don’t have data on how common cannabis use is during pregnancy, results from the 2016 Australian National Drug Strategy Household Survey showed 10-20% of women of reproductive age had used cannabis during the preceding 12 months.

Recent literature from overseas shows the number of women who become pregnant while using cannabis increased by as much as double from 2002 to 2017.

This is likely driven in large part by the legalisation of cannabis in many parts of the world. In turn, increasing social and medical acceptance of its use has led to an overall perception cannabis is a safe drug.

In places where cannabis is legal, cannabis dispensaries sometimes promote it for the treatment of nausea and vomiting in pregnancy. But there are no studies evaluating whether it’s effective in this context, let alone whether it’s safe.

A recent study found one in three pregnant women didn’t think cannabis could harm their baby.

But our research adds to a growing number of animal and human studies suggesting the opposite.

Our study

We analysed data from 5,610 women who were in their first pregnancy and at low risk for pregnancy complications.

At 14–16 weeks of pregnancy, we grouped women by self-reported cannabis use.

Of the women in our study, 314 (5.6%) reported using cannabis in the three months before pregnancy or during their pregnancy. Of these women, 97 (31%) stopped using it before pregnancy and 157 (50%) stopped during the first 15 weeks of pregnancy, while 60 (19%) were still using cannabis at 15 weeks.

Compared to babies of mothers who didn’t use cannabis before or during pregnancy, infants of those who still used it at 15 weeks had a smaller birth weight, head circumference and length. They were also born at an earlier gestational age.

This is cause for concern as these outcomes are strongly linked to future child health and development.

Read more: Legal highs: arguments for and against legalising cannabis in Australia

We saw bigger differences in these neonatal outcomes for women who used cannabis more than once a week than for those who used it less often.

We also found severe complications following birth, such as breathing problems and the need for admission to a specialist neonatal unit, were twice as likely for babies of mothers who continued to use cannabis at 15 weeks compared to babies of mothers who didn’t report using cannabis.

We’ve seen similar trends in recent studies from the United States and Canada.

Notably, we didn’t see differences in any neonatal outcomes among women who reported stopping cannabis in early pregnancy or just before becoming pregnant compared to babies of mothers who reported no cannabis use.

How cannabis might be harmful is not clear

The link between using cannabis during pregnancy and poorer neonatal outcomes could be related to the toxic compounds, such as carbon monoxide, produced when cannabis is smoked. This is similar to what we see with cigarette smoking and leads to a lower amount of oxygen reaching the baby.

Or it could be a direct effect of the compounds found in cannabis which we know can cross the placenta and reach the baby.

These active compounds, THC (tetrahydrocannabinol) and CBD (cannabidiol), influence a range of bodily functions, including in the brain. This is why people typically use recreational cannabis in the first place.

So when these compounds can reach the developing baby this raises a number of concerns about what they might do to growth and brain development.

Read more: Remind me again, how does cannabis affect the brain?

Observational research isn’t perfect

Previous studies looking at the link between cannabis use and pregnancy outcomes have attracted criticism for not properly accounting for confounding factors. These are factors often associated with cannabis use which could also increase the risk of poor pregnancy outcomes, like cigarette smoking, alcohol consumption, use of other illicit substances, or mental health issues.

While we accounted for each of these factors in our study, our research still has limitations. Cannabis use was based on self-report, and the number of women who continued to use cannabis during pregnancy was relatively small. We were also not able to account for quantity and strength of cannabis used.

Nonetheless, our research adds to a growing body of evidence suggesting cannabis use during pregnancy could be harmful.

Although we didn’t look at these outcomes in our study, other research has shown cannabis use could increase the risk of preterm birth and stillbirth.

If you’re planning a pregnancy

Given the growing body of evidence suggesting potential harms, it’s safest to avoid using cannabis during pregnancy, and even when planning a pregnancy.

Medical and regulatory bodies within Australia and across the world echo this advice.

Our data suggest that cutting back or stopping cannabis use early in a pregnancy could prevent some of the harms. This could provide reassurance for women who use cannabis before they know they’re pregnant.

Women who use cannabis and are planning a pregnancy should discuss the issue with their health-care professional.

– ref. Using cannabis during pregnancy could be bad news for your baby: new research – https://theconversation.com/using-cannabis-during-pregnancy-could-be-bad-news-for-your-baby-new-research-140443

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Murdoch, Dean and Head of Campus, University of Otago

COVID-19 is being referred to as a “once in a century event” – but the next pandemic is likely to hit sooner than you think.

In the next few decades, we will likely see other pandemics. We can predict that with reasonable confidence because of the recent increased frequency of major epidemics (such as SARS and Ebola), and because of social and environmental changes driven by humans that may have contributed to COVID-19’s emergence.

A COVID-19-type pandemic had long been predicted, but scientists’ warnings weren’t heeded. Right now, while we have the full attention of politicians and other key decision-makers, we need to start rethinking our approaches to future preparedness internationally and within our own nations. That includes countries like New Zealand, where – despite getting its active COVID-19 cases down to zero in June 2020 – big challenges remain.

Read more: New Zealand hits zero active coronavirus cases. Here are 5 measures to keep it that way

We can’t say we weren’t warned

Less than five years ago, I was one of about 100 global experts invited to a World Health Organization (WHO) meeting in Geneva, prompted by the then ongoing Ebola outbreak in West Africa.

Then, as now, WHO was criticised for its response to the outbreak. The December 2015 meeting was meant to improve international collaboration and preparation for future epidemics and other infectious disease risks.

The very last presentation was from Dr David Nabarro, then the United Nations Special Envoy on Ebola (and now a Special Envoy on COVID-19).

In the wake of the Ebola outbreak, politicians were more focused on public health than ever before. Nabarro urged us to show greater leadership and capture that interest, before political and public attention moved on. He stressed the importance of trust, respect, transparent communication, and working with nature.

Yet five years later, we’re still talking about inadequate funding for pandemic preparedness; delays in adopting preventive measures; failure to develop surge capacity in health systems, laboratories and supply chain logistics; and reduced infectious disease expertise.

Read more: The World Health Organization must answer these hard questions in its coronavirus inquiry

But there are signs that some lessons may have been learned. For example, countries most affected by SARS (such as Taiwan and Singapore) have tended to respond more quickly and decisively to COVID-19 than other countries.

Primed and ready, vaccine developers have progressed at enormous pace, with several COVID-19 vaccine candidates already undergoing clinical trials. The volume and pace of sharing scientific information about COVID-19 has been unprecedented.

We’ve also seen a number of rapid reports urging us to learn from this pandemic and past epidemics to protect us from future events – especially by taking an holistic “One Health” approach. This brings together expertise across human health, animal health and the environment.

For instance, last month the Lancet One Health Commission called for more transdisciplinary collaboration to solve complex health challenges. Similarly, the World Wide Fund for Nature’s March 2020 report on The Loss of Nature and Rise of Pandemics highlighted the likely animal origin of COVID-19, and how intimately connected the health of humans is to animal and environmental health.

Read more: Caring for community to beat coronavirus echoes Indigenous ideas of a good life

What New Zealand can learn from COVID-19

As well as working more effectively together internationally, each country will need its own strategy. So what should we be doing to protect New Zealand from future infectious diseases threats?

Our health system has, for the most part, responded well to COVID-19. Our research institutions and universities have engaged quickly and effectively to provide scientific support for the public health response.

Yet we can and must still do better. Our expertise and systems are not always well joined up – vital for coordinated and timely responses to challenges like COVID-19.

We allow scientists to work in silos, despite obvious overlapping interests and skill sets. Of particular importance for tackling infectious diseases is the need to break down artificial barriers between human, animal and environmental health.

This approach makes particular sense in New Zealand. We are an island nation vulnerable to introduced infectious diseases, and economically dependent on agriculture and the physical environment. But we’re also home to an existing indigenous Māori worldview and knowledge system that emphasises interconnectivity between humans, animals and the environment.

University-led efforts, such as One Health Aotearoa, have brought together professionals and researchers from different disciplines. But more investment is needed to get even better value from such collaborations.

We need to strengthen capability in such areas as epidemiology, modelling and outbreak management, and build pandemic plans that are flexible enough to respond to all eventualities. New Zealand has a Centre of Research Excellence in plant biosecurity – but not in animal biosecurity or infectious diseases.

We also need to better integrate science and research into the health system, a key feature of the New Zealand Health Research Strategy 2017-2027. This requires a culture change so research is regarded as business as usual for district health boards, providing the science needed to inform policy, preparedness and best practice.

Read more: As collective memory fades, so will our ability to prepare for the next pandemic

Crucially, we need a new generation of scientists and professionals who are systems thinkers and comfortable working with multiple disciplines and across the human-animal-environment interface.

And we need the kind of leadership Nabarro called for: science-informed and forward-looking, rather than reactive.

We have seen good leadership based on science in the highest levels of New Zealand’s government in response to COVID-19.

We now need to see this at all levels of health, research and politics to get us out of this pandemic in the best shape possible – and be better prepared for our next pandemic.

– ref. The next once-a-century pandemic is coming sooner than you think – but COVID-19 can help us get ready – https://theconversation.com/the-next-once-a-century-pandemic-is-coming-sooner-than-you-think-but-covid-19-can-help-us-get-ready-139976

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lee Baumgartner, Professor of Fisheries and River Management, Institute for Land, Water, and Society, Charles Sturt University

The New South Wales government plans to release two million native fish into rivers of the Murray-Darling Basin, in the largest breeding program of its kind in the state. But as the river system recovers from a string of mass fish deaths, caution is needed.

Having suitable breeding fish does not always guarantee millions of healthy offspring for restocking. And even if millions of young fish are released into the wild, increased fish populations in the long term are not assured.

For stocking to be successful, fish must be released into good quality water, with suitable habitat and lots of food. But these conditions have been quite rare in Murray Darling rivers over the past three years.

We research the impact of human activity on fish and aquatic systems and have studied many Australian fish restocking programs. So let’s take a closer look at the NSW government’s plans.

Success stories

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, the NSW restocking program involves releasing juvenile Murray cod, golden perch and silver perch into the Darling River downstream of Brewarrina, in northwestern NSW.

Other areas including the Lachlan, Murrumbidgee, Macquarie and Murray Rivers will reportedly also be restocked. These species and regions were among the hardest hit by recent fish kills.

Fish restocking is used worldwide to boost species after events such as fish kills, help threatened species recover, and increase populations of recreational fishing species.

Since the 1970s in the Murray-Darling river system, millions of fish have been bred in government and private hatcheries in spring each year. Young fish, called fingerlings, are usually released in the following summer and autumn.

Read more: Australia, it’s time to talk about our water emergency

There have been success stories. For example, the endangered trout cod was restocked into the Ovens and Murrumbidgee Rivers between 1997 and 2006. Prior to the restocking program, the species was locally extinct. It’s now re-established in the Murrumbidgee River and no longer requires stocking to maintain the population.

In response to fish kills in 2010, the Edward-Wakool river system was restocked to help fish recover when natural spawning was expected to be low. And the threatened Murray hardyhead is now increasing in numbers thanks to a successful stocking program in the Lower Darling.

After recent fish kills in the Murray Darling, breeding fish known as “broodstock” were rescued from the river and taken to government and private hatcheries. Eventually, it was expected the rescued fish and their offspring would restock the rivers.

Words of caution

Fish hatchery managers rarely count their fish before they hatch. It’s quite a challenge to ensure adult fish develop viable eggs that are then fertilised at high rates.

Once hatched, larvae must be transported to ponds containing the right amount of plankton for food. The larvae must then avoid predatory birds, be kept free from disease, and grow at the right temperatures.

Read more: Last summer’s fish carnage sparked public outrage. Here’s what has happened since

When it comes to releasing the fish into the wild, careful decisions must be made about how many fish to release, where and when. Factors such as water temperature, pH and dissolved oxygen levels must be carefully assessed.

Introducing hatchery-reared fish into the wild does not always deliver dramatic improvements in fish numbers. Poor water quality, lack of food and slow adaptation to the wild can reduce survival rates.

In some parts of the Murray-Darling, restocking is likely to have slowed the decline in native fish numbers, although it has not stopped it altogether.

Address the root cause

Fish stocking decisions are sometimes motivated by economic reasons, such as boosting species sought by anglers who pay licence fees and support tourist industries. But stocking programs must also consider the underlying reasons for declining fish populations.

Aside from poor water quality, fish in the Murray Darling are threatened by being sucked into irrigation systems, cold water pollution from dams, dams and weirs blocking migration paths and invasive fish species. These factors must be addressed alongside restocking.

Fish should not be released into areas with unsuitable habitat or water quality. The Darling River fish kills were caused by low oxygen levels, associated with drought and water extraction. These conditions could rapidly return if we have another hot, dry summer.

Stocking rivers with young fish is only one step. They must then grow to adults and successfully breed. So the restocking program must consider the entire fish life cycle, and be coupled with good river management.

The Murray Darling Basin Authority’s Native Fish Recovery Strategy includes management actions such as improving fish passage, delivering environmental flows, improving habitat, controlling invasive species and fish harvest restrictions. Funding the strategy’s implementation is a key next step.

Looking ahead

After recent rains, parts of the Murray Darling river system are now flowing for the first time in years. But some locals say the flows are only a trickle and more rain is urgently needed.

Higher than average rainfall is predicted between July and September. This will be needed for restocked fish to thrive. If the rain does not arrive, and other measures are not taken to improve the system’s health, then the restocking plans may be futile.

Read more: We wrote the report for the minister on fish deaths in the lower Darling – here’s why it could happen again

– ref. Don’t count your fish before they hatch: experts react to plans to release two million fish into the Murray Darling – https://theconversation.com/dont-count-your-fish-before-they-hatch-experts-react-to-plans-to-release-two-million-fish-into-the-murray-darling-140428

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Julie Sonnemann, Fellow, Grattan Institute

Despite massive efforts by teachers and schools during the remote learning period, many students are likely to have learnt less than they would have in the classroom. Most of these students will recover without too much trouble, but disadvantaged students will need extra help.

Our new report, COVID-19 catch-up: helping disadvantaged students close the equity gap, shows the achievement gap between disadvantaged and advantaged students widens at triple the rate in remote schooling compared to regular class.

Even if remote learning worked well, disadvantaged students are likely to have learnt at about 50% of their usual rate. This means they would have lost about one month of learning over two months of remote schooling.

The Morrison government has already committed an unprecedented A$134 billion to stimulate the economy, with more stimulus spending to come. Some should go to helping disadvantaged students catch up over the next six months.

How we made our estimates

We estimate around one in four students will need help to catch up on their learning. This is especially so for students who were already far behind, for whom the extra challenges of remote schooling are likely to have compounded existing inequalities.

This includes students from low socio-economic families, Indigenous backgrounds and remote communities, as well as students experiencing poor mental health.

Our estimates of how far behind disadvantaged students may have fallen during the remote period are only a rough indication. But they are based on a significant review of various studies on learning disruption, led by the UK Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) in May.

Read more: Schools are moving online, but not all children start out digitally equal

The EEF searched literature across a variety of scenarios that cause school disruptions including hurricanes, bushfires, summer holidays and teacher strikes. While summer holidays are different to remote schooling, they are relevant because they isolate the influence of the home on a student’s performance.

The findings from these studies show during the US summer vacation, a gap of up to three months in learning opens up between disadvantaged students and their peers. Disadvantaged students return to school being much further behind their peers than when holidays began.

Why disadvantaged students lose out

There are many reasons disadvantaged students are hit hardest by remote schooling, as the chart below shows. They tend to get less help with school work from their parents. They are less likely to have a computer, good internet service, and a desk or quiet place to study.

Disadvantaged students, on average, are also likely to be behind in their learning, making it harder to work independently.

The existing achievement gap is more than ten times greater than the gap that will have developed during the COVID-19 disruptions, as shown the chart below.

The recession will only make things harder, because disadvantaged students are more likely to have to deal with the emotional and financial stresses of a parent losing income or a job.

Read more: Number of Australia’s vulnerable children is set to double as COVID-19 takes its toll

What the government can do: put stimulus funding toward disadvantaged students

Governments are now spending big to stimulate the economy. The World Bank believes COVID-19 has sparked the worst global recession since at least the second world war.

COVID-19 and the economic downturn offers a big opportunity for a national investment in education. We recommend a recovery package of A$1.2 billion targeted at vulnerable students for the next six months. This will help one million students, around one in four, recover the learning lost during COVID.

The money should be spent on two high-priority initiatives.

First, $1 billion should go towards helping large numbers of struggling students access small-group tutoring. Tutoring would be delivered in groups of about three students, either in or outside classes, three or four times a week over a 12-week period.

Evidence shows small group tuition can boost student learning by five months over one or two terms of schooling.

Young university graduates and student teachers should be hired as tutors where possible – given young people will be hit harder by the recession than older Australians and are likely to spend the extra income quickly.

Read more: Kids shouldn’t have to repeat a year of school because of coronavirus. There are much better options

Second, we recommend investing $70 million in successful literacy and numeracy programs which can improve student learning by three or more months. For example teaching reading using synthetic phonics, as well as reading comprehension strategies and oral language interventions.

These are a priority for the early years, so students have the foundations for future learning.

We also suggest extra support for students to improve both well-being and learning. There is less evidence on what works in this area, but we suggest small trials in promising areas, such as extra training for teachers in mental health literacy and supporting students’ social skills, as well as extra resources for targeted behaviour supports.

To ensure the students who most need help are accurately identified in the first place, we recommend the national assessment body – the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority – create a A$20 million package of suitable in-class assessment tools. The right support depends on pinpointing student needs.

While costing a little over $1 billion, our suggested reform package would deliver about $3.5 billion in extra future earnings for disadvantaged students, given better results at school leads to better employment and income prospects in later life.

This reform package offers an important opportunity to trial and evaluate what works, to inform longer-term efforts to close the bigger existing equity gap.

– ref. Disadvantaged students may have lost 1 month of learning during COVID-19 shutdown. But the government can fix it – https://theconversation.com/disadvantaged-students-may-have-lost-1-month-of-learning-during-covid-19-shutdown-but-the-government-can-fix-it-140540

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Caroline Osborne, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Office of Community Engagement, University of the Sunshine Coast

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought into sharp focus the need for connection to our local community and the health challenges of the retirement village model.

We know that, as we age, most people prefer to stay in their own homes and communities instead of moving to retirement villages. Some have gone so far as to say retirement villages have had their day. However, the reality is not quite that simple.

Read more: Retire the retirement village – the wall and what’s behind it is so 2020

The challenge is that seniors are not well informed on what they could demand of the market. Planning schemes could also do more to create incentives for the changes we need now.

The challenges are complex and urgent as the global population grows and ages. Yet our housing supply reveals a bad case of the tail wagging the dog. Finely tuned financial models and development processes are driving the housing products available in the market.

What’s needed instead is adaptable housing and neighbourhoods to help people as they move through life’s stages.

Are the days of the retirement village numbered?

Many individuals and families struggle to find the right “fit” between the supported living options of retirement villages, independent living lifestyle villages and staying in the (often unsuitable) family home as their needs change.

Such villages offer viable products in the market as an important part of the housing mix. The models have some advantages in that they:

• are thoroughly costed and provide a good return for developers

• offer a range of living options to suit most budgets and level of care needs

• promise security, activities and a sense of community.

Seniors are best placed to say what they need

However, our research with seniors in south-east Queensland revealed a desire to “age in neighbourhood” and to have neighbourhoods with a mix of ages and building forms.

Planning schemes could drive this now by giving priority to, and providing incentives for, sustainable and accessible housing close to transport and other services.

We worked with more than 42 seniors in south-east Queensland to design a series of housing types. These were based on what they told us were important to them in a home and a neighbourhood.

The table below summarises the key features that they told us make a neighbourhood and a home a good place to live as they age.

The resulting principles and housing types paint a vivid picture of what older people in a subtropical environment find appealing and supportive as they age.

Many participants preferred an accessible home on one level. Ideally, it should have two bedrooms and a study. This means it can easily be adapted to changing needs.

An essential component for our participants was to take advantage of the mild climate by having both private and shared outdoor spaces. Here they could socialise, relax and enjoy pleasant outlooks from the home. Cutting planning requirements for car parks by 50% could add more shared outdoor space and cut housing and living costs for residents.

Homes should be sustainably designed. This means they capture natural light and prevailing breezes for through ventilation, take into account privacy and noise considerations in higher-density areas, and have solar and rainwater harvesting systems to save resources and money.

Also important was a neighbourhood with a variety of green, clean and safe public open spaces. This includes flat, well-maintained and shaded walkways for exercise and easy access to shops, facilities and public transport.

We then showed how all these housing types could be incorporated into one Brisbane suburb, as the image below illustrates. This would mean seniors could remain in their neighbourhood in more suitable housing, reducing the stress of moving to unfamiliar surroundings.

How to make it happen

As with all complex challenges, everyone has a role to play in achieving these goals. However, local government planning reforms can act as a catalyst for the market to change and innovate.

Planning schemes could, for example, reduce application fees for developments that include accessible or universal design within 400-800 metres of key services, facilities and transport.

Carpark allocation could also be uncoupled from housing in locations close to transport and services. This would reduce the cost of housing and encourage greater used of active (cycling, walking, etc) and public transport.

This research clearly signals to local and state government, developers and small-scale property investors how houses, duplexes and mid-rise apartments could be put together in an age-friendly suburb. This transition to mixed-density infill development would support what we call “ageing in neighbourhood”.

Further, this research suggests planning “priority zones” could give the market the incentive to invest in the future-focused neighbourhood development it should be providing to keep people connected to their community.

Phil Smith, Associate Director of Deicke Richards, co-authored this article.

– ref. ‘Ageing in neighbourhood’: what seniors want instead of retirement villages and how to achieve it – https://theconversation.com/ageing-in-neighbourhood-what-seniors-want-instead-of-retirement-villages-and-how-to-achieve-it-138729

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gary Mortimer, Professor of Marketing and Consumer Behaviour, Queensland University of Technology

Retailers have tried many overt tactics to limit theft, such as signs that display images of CCTV cameras, threats to prosecute offenders, bag checks, checkout weighing plates and electronic security gates.

These tactics are extremely costly and have failed to stamp out retail theft.

Now supermarkets are trying a different tactic, that’s part overt surveillance but also encourages “self-reflection” on any impulse to exploit loopholes in the bagging and payment systems.

In late May Australian supermarket giant Woolworths confirmed it is trialling self-service checkout terminals with built-in cameras. They display your image as you scan your items. Rival Coles started trying the technology in April 2019.

The idea is that watching yourself scan your own groceries will reduce the temptation to steal. It is supported by research that shows the effectiveness of cues that cause us to self-focus and self-regulate.

Retail theft continues to grow

Since 1990, when the Australian Insitute of Criminology published extensive research on retail crime and its prevention, it has been widely accepted crime-related losses account for about 1% of all retail revenue. Estimates of customer theft were woolier.

In August 2019 the Australia and New Zealand Retail Crime Survey came up with a specific number. It reported total crime-related retail losses amounted to 0.92% of revenue. Customer crime was 58% of that – or 0.53% of total revenue.

Though funded by retail technology company Checkpoint Systems, the survey sample is robust – almost a quarter of the retail industry in Australia and New Zealand. Also, the lead researcher, Emmeline Taylor, is a criminologist in the Department of Sociology at City, University of London respected for her expertise in retail crime.

Costs of loss prevention

Writing about her research in 2018, Taylor tells the story of a major Australian supermarket discovering it was selling more carrots than it had in stock.

Unfortunately this wasn’t a sudden switch to healthy eating or a desire to increase vitamin C intake, it was an early sign of a new type of shoplifter. Otherwise honest shoppers were using the self-service checkout to transact more expensive items – typically avocados – and put them through as carrots.

She termed these self-service checkout thieves “SWIPERS” – seemingly well- intentioned patrons engaging in routine shoplifting. As the Australia and New Zealand Retail Crime Survey states:

Their behaviour and motivations (that are often interlinked) fall into four main groups: the accidental thieves, the switchers of labels, those compensating themselves, and those that steal because they claim to have become frustrated with the process of self-checkout (e.g. triggering alerts or purchasing age-restricted items that require assistance from an employee).

Read more: The economics of self-service checkouts

Prevention techniques

The traditional approach to loss prevention involves attendants and security guards, specialised display fixtures, reinforced packaging, training, in-store signage, display alarms and more cameras.

More of these can prove counter-productive, as highlighted by the Australian Institute of Criminology’s analysis of local crime prevention strategies in 2014. It found, for example, that introducing surveillance systems or security guards made shop staff less likely to approach suspicious shoppers.

Getting away with it

The research by Taylor and others into the motivators of shoplifting points to the potential of another way to reinforce honest behaviour.

While some forms of stealing might be considered irrational – such as kleptomania – shoplifters often rationalise their thefts.

Read more: How shoplifters justify theft at supermarket self-service checkouts

How much they steal comes down to their own “deviance threshold” – the point at which they can no longer justify their behaviour alongside a self-perception as a good person. This helps explains the greater frequency of shoplifting lower value items. It’s easier to justify a small “discount” on your bill.

If it’s just a small theft, also, the chances of getting caught are smaller. If caught, the chance of getting away – passing it off as an honest mistake, perhaps – is higher. This semi-conscious calculation is known as the “denial of punishment probability”.

You are being watched

An obvious strategy for retailers is to make shoppers more aware they are being watched.

Research has demonstrated “eyes” images do this more effectively than images of security cameras or written reminders such as “you are being observed”. This is due to eyes triggering instincts connected to our evolutionary capacity for gaze detection – sensitivity to being watched.

Read more: Super-recognisers accurately pick out a face in a crowd – but can this skill be taught?

But eyes signs also have their limitations.

Newcastle University researchers Max Ernest-Jonesa, Daniel Nettleb and Melissa Bateson did an experiment in a campus cafeteria and found that posters featuring eye images resulted in less litter being left on tables than images of flowers, but less so when the café was busier.

The more people around the more we relax. Those “eyes” can’t be watching everyone.

Think of yourself

An more effective tactic might be appealing to another honed evolutionary instinct: a “think of yourself” focus.

University of East Anglia researcher Rose Melaeady and colleagues demonstrated this with experiments using signs to encourage drivers to turn off their engines at a busy rail crossing with a two-minute average wait.

After an experiment just using an “watching eyes” image (with no discernible effect) they tried two signs.

One with set of human eyes and the words: “When barriers are down, switch off your engine”

The other with just the words: “Think of yourself: When barriers are down, switch off your engine.”

With no sign, 20% of drivers switched off their engines. With the watching eyes sign, 30% switched off. With the “think of yourself” sign, 51% did so.

Self-surveillance

So the supermarkets’ self-surveillance strategy combines two tactics. First, a “traditional” external motivation to do the right thing – amplifying the spotlight effect with an overt reminder we are being watched. Second, it is also intended to evoke self-reflection and self-regulation.

These steps will likely add to concerns about personal privacy, though Woolworths and Coles say no recordings are being made.

Read more: From fare evasion to illegal downloads: the cost of defiance

Even if they were, though, the embrace of cashless transactions – with just 27% of all payments now made with cash – suggests most customers aren’t overtly concerned about how much others know about their shopping habits.

– ref. Watch yourself: the self-surveillance strategy to keep supermarket shoppers honest – https://theconversation.com/watch-yourself-the-self-surveillance-strategy-to-keep-supermarket-shoppers-honest-139977

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ben McCann, Associate Professor of French Studies, University of Adelaide

November 1959. Film director Alfred Hitchcock is at his commercial and critical peak after the successes of Vertigo (1958) and North by Northwest (1959). So what does he do next? A black-and-white made-for-TV movie hastily shot, with no big-name actors and a leading actress who takes a shower, and … well, we’ll come to that.

Psycho (1960) remains Hitchcock’s most celebrated film. But it is really two films, glued together by the most iconic scene in cinema history.

Part one is a run-of-the-mill morality tale. Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) steals $40,000 from her Phoenix employee, and goes on the run. Guilt-stricken, she pulls into a deserted motel and chats with the owner, Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins).

He seems friendly enough – he makes her sandwiches and talks fondly about his mother – and Marion resolves to return the money.

Part two is a whodunnit. Marion’s sister (Vera Miles) and her lover (John Gavin) investigate her disappearance, and trace her steps back to the motel. Soon, they begin to have suspicions about Norman.

Thriller with a twist

A few years earlier, Hitchcock had watched Henri-Georges Clouzot’s 1955 psychological masterpiece Les Diaboliques and sought out a similar project – a horrific thriller with a twist ending. He read Robert Bloch’s novel Psycho – itself inspired by the real-life Wisconsin killer Ed Gein – and optioned the film rights.

Audiences saw things in Psycho that had never been shown before on screen. A toilet flushing. A murderer who goes unpunished. A post-coital Leigh, lying on a bed, dressed only in white underwear, while Gavin stands topless over her.

All of Hitchcock’s trademark obsessions are on show: voyeurism, the dominant matriarchal figure, the blonde heroine, the untrustworthy cop.

Over his career, Hitchcock had always flouted Hollywood’s Production Code, those rigid rules that had been in place since the 1930s that prohibited onscreen nudity, sex and violence. Nowhere is Hitchcock’s brazen censor-defying clearer than in Psycho’s “shower scene”.

Marion steps into the shower, a shadowy figure rips back the curtain, and cinema’s most visceral scene unspools, brutally, before our very eyes.

Hitchcock, the master of suspense, never actually shows knife slicing flesh. Everything is implied, through liberal doses of chocolate sauce, hacked watermelons, Bernard Herrmann’s screeching violins, and Leigh’s blood-curdling screams.

In one 60-second scene, Hitchcock shatters all the rules. It’s the most famous of all bait and switches: you expect one thing, but get another. Up to that point, no film had killed off its lead character so early in the story (nowadays, such an audacious twist shows up everywhere, from The Lion King to Games of Thrones). As Leigh slides down the blinding white tiles, arm outstretched, a new kind of cinema is born: twisted, shocking, primal.

Inventing the cinema event

Hitchcock famously ordered cinemas to not let any latecomers into screenings of Psycho, to keep the element of surprise.

Previously, cinema-goers could wander into a film midway through, watch the last half, and then stick around for the restart to catch up on what they had missed. When your leading lady is butchered 45 minutes in, the film makes little sense if you arrive late – hence Hitchcock’s decree.

While the reviews at the time of its cinema release were lukewarm, cinema as an “event”, as a communal experience shared by hundreds of people in the dark, began. There were queues around the blocks in cities across America as word of mouth grew. Grossing US$32 million (equivalent to A$468 million today) off a budget of US$800,000 (A$12 million today), Psycho made Hitchcock a very wealthy man.

Other elements contributed to Psycho’s enduring influence. Saul Bass’s opening credits, all intersecting lines and sans-serif titles, anticipate the film’s fixation with duality and overlap.

Budget constraints meant that Bernard Herrmann could only rely on his orchestra’s string section. Even people who have never seen the film instantly recognise his score.

And Anthony Perkins, typecast forever after as the nervous mother’s boy with a dark secret, crafts a performance that is both sweetly disarming and deeply unsettling.

Psycho sequels

Its reputation has only grown since 1960. Critics and audiences remain transfixed by Psycho’s storytelling verve and its queasy tonal shifts (murder mystery to black comedy to horror).

Douglas Gordon’s 1993 art installation 24 Psycho slowed the film down to last a full day.

Academics have had a field day too, from Raymond Durgnat’s lengthy micro-analysis to Slavoj Žižek’s reading of Bates’s house as an illustration of Freud’s concept of the id, ego and superego.

Three progressively sillier sequels were made, as well as a colour shot-for-shot remake by Gus van Sant in 1998. Brian De Palma’s entire back catalogue pays homage to Hitchcock, with whole sections of Sisters (1972) to Dressed to Kill (1980) reworking Psycho’s delirious excesses.

Psycho’s box office success undoubtedly contributed to Hollywood’s abiding fascination with true-crime stories, serial killers, and slasher films.

More recently, the TV prequel series Bates Motel ran for four seasons, deepening Norman’s relationship with his mother and tracking his developing mental illness.

That series provides a set up for the events at the Bates Motel. Sixty years on, the setting for Psycho continues to exert such a pulsating thrill, even as we watch from behind the sofa.

– ref. Psycho turns 60 – Hitchcock’s famous fright film broke all the rules – https://theconversation.com/psycho-turns-60-hitchcocks-famous-fright-film-broke-all-the-rules-140175

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

Scott Morrison will announce a further $1.5 billion for an immediate start on small infrastructure projects in the government’s latest initiative to spur economic activity.

Of this, $1 billion will be provided to priority “shovel-ready” projects, with $500 million targeted specifically to road safety works.

The projects are nominated by the states and territories.

Addressing a Committee for Economic Development of Australia function on Monday Morrison will say this means the government will have brought forward or provided extra funding worth $9.3 billion in infrastructure investment in the past eight months.

“As we come out of the COVID crisis, infrastructure can give us the edge that many countries don’t have,” he will say.

Anthony Albanese, also speaking to CEDA, will stress the need for “productivity renewal”.

“Our post-coronavirus actions must confront the weaknesses in our pre-coronavirus world,” he will say. “And here, productivity stands out”.

A Labor government would have a productivity renewal project to “lift business investment, lift investment in people and lift investment in critical infrastructure.

“Our goal will be to drive growth through productivity and to drive fairness through growth.”

Meanwhile a poll by the Australian National University has found the most popular COVID-specific measure to help fix Australia’s economic problems would be to spend more on trying to find a vaccine and treatment.

The poll, done in May of more than 3200 people, asked about four Covid-related policies: increasing spending on the search for a vaccine and treatment, opening up pubs, clubs and cafes, extending JobKeeper and JobSeeker payments beyond the current six months, and opening Australia’s borders to tourists and international students. (On Friday the national cabinet agreed to work “to return international students on a small, phased scale through a series of controlled pilots”.)

Asked how much they thought the various measures would help fix Australia’s economic problems, greater spending to pursue a vaccine received 75.6% support, followed by easing restrictions on pubs and the like (71.7%).

Some 57.6% said extending JobKeeper and JobSeeker would help, and nearly half believed unlocking the border would assist.

More money to find a vaccine had strongest support among older people, while extending the payments had the greatest backing among young people. Coalition voters were least likely to back extending JobKeeper and JobSeeker.

Asked about several economic policies that would help to fix Australia’s problems, 82.1% agreed more spending on domestic programs like healthcare, education and housing would do so, 76.7% nominated infrastructure, 59.1% said cutting taxes, and 55.9% backed putting more money into the hands of poor people.

The study concluded that “the strongest predictor of support for these policies … was anxiety and worry regarding COVID-19. Those who were anxious and worried were far less likely to support liberalisation measures (on borders and hospitality) but far more likely to support spending measures (on vaccines and the labour market).

This highlighted a tension. “To maintain support for some of the physical distancing measures required to maintain low rates of infection, there needs to be some concern regarding COVID-19 and fear of infection if the virus once again gets out of hand.

“However, in order to implement some policies that will help support economic growth into the future, this concern and perceived risk may need to be reduced”.

– ref. Morrison commits another $1.5 billion for infrastructure – https://theconversation.com/morrison-commits-another-1-5-billion-for-infrastructure-140717