Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tom Fairman, Future Fire Risk Analyst, The University of Melbourne

Eucalypt forests are well known for bouncing back after fire, and the green shoots that emerge from eucalypts stems as they begin their first steps to recovery provide some of the most iconic images of the Australian bush.

Resprouting allows trees to survive and quickly start photosynthesising again, which keeps carbon “alive” and stored in the tree. On the other hand, if a tree dies and slowly rots, the carbon stored in the tree is released into the atmosphere as a source of greenhouse gas emissions.

But our new research finds more frequent, severe bushfires and a hotter, drier climate may limit eucalypt forests’ ability to resprout and reliably lock up carbon. This could seriously undermine our efforts to mitigate climate change.

Our findings paint a cautionary tale of a little known challenge posed by climate change, and gives us yet another reason to urgently and drastically cut global emissions.

We need forests to fight climate change

At the international climate summit in Glasgow last month, more than 100 nations pledged to end and reverse deforestation. This put a much-needed spotlight on the importance of the world’s forests in storing carbon to mitigate climate change.

Victoria’s national parks alone store almost 1 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent. For perspective, that’s roughly a decade’s worth of Victoria’s net CO₂ emissions in 2019 (91.3 million tonnes).

Read more:
Climate change is testing the resilience of native plants to fire, from ash forests to gymea lilies

Australia’s forests have forged a tight relationship with bushfire. But climate change is already changing – and will continue to change – the size, severity and frequency of bushfires. In Victoria, for example, over 250,000 hectares have been burned by at least two severe fires in just 20 years.

This unprecendented frequency has led to the decline of fire sensitive forests, such as the iconic alpine ash.

While resprouting eucalypts can be resilient to periodic fires, we know surprisingly little about how they’ll respond to increasingly common severe fires, particularly when combined with factors like drought.

Early evidence shows resprouting can fail when fire is too frequent, as seen in snow gum forests in the Victorian alps.

Understanding why is an area of active research, but reasons could include damaged resprouting buds (as their protective bark is thinned by successive fires), or the depletion of the trees’ energy reserves.

Forests burned by two fires stored half the carbon

If resprouting after fire begins to fail, what might this mean for carbon stores in widespread fire-tolerant eucalypt forests?

In our new paper, we tackled this question by measuring carbon stored in Victoria’s dry eucalypt forests. We targeted areas that had been burned once or twice by severe bushfire within just six years. In these places, severe fires usually occur decades apart.

In general, we found climate change impacts resprouting forests on two fronts:

1. as conditions get warmer and drier, these forests will store less carbon due to reduced growth

2. as severe fires become more frequent, forests will store less carbon, with more trees dying and becoming dead wood.

First, we found carbon stores were lower in the drier and hotter parts of the landscape than the cooler and wetter parts. This makes sense – as any gardener knows, plants grow much better where water is plentiful and it’s not too hot.

When frequent fire was added to the mix, forest carbon storage reduced even further. At warmer and drier sites, a forest burned by two severe fires had about half as much carbon as a forest burned by a single severe fire.

Read more:
We are professional fire watchers, and we’re astounded by the scale of fires in remote Australia right now

More trees were killed with more frequent fire, which means what was once “living carbon” becomes “dead carbon” – which will rot and be a source of emissions. In fact, after two fires, less than half of the forest carbon was stored in living trees.

The carbon stored in large living trees is an important stock and is usually considered stable, given larger trees are generally more resilient to disturbance. But we found their carbon stocks, too, significantly declined with more frequent fire.

What do we do about it?

Given how widespread this forest type is in southern Australia, we need a better understanding of how it responds to frequent fires to accurately account for changes in their carbon stocks.

We also must begin exploring new ways to manage our forests. Reinstating Indigenous fire management, including traditional burning practices, and active forest management may mitigate some of the impacts we’ve detected.

We could also learn from and adapt management approaches in the dry forests of North America, where the new concept of “pyro-silviculture” is being explored.

Read more:
Australia, you have unfinished business. It’s time to let our ‘fire people’ care for this land

Pyro-silviculture can include targeted thinning to reduce the density of trees in forests, which can lower their susceptibility to drought, and encourage the growth of large trees. It can also involve controlled burns to reduce the severity of future fires.

With the next, inevitable fire season on Australia’s horizon, such approaches are essential tools in our management kit, ensuring we can build better resilience in forest ecosystems and stabilise these crucial stocks of carbon.

Tom Fairman has received funding from Australian Research Council and has previously worked in forest management and research for the Victorian Government.

Craig Nitschke has received funding from the Australian Research Council, Department of Environment, Water, and Planning through the Integrated Forest Ecosystem Research Program, Parks Victoria, Melbourne Water, VicForests, Eucalypt Australia, and Australian Alps Liaison Office

Lauren Bennett has received funding from the Australian Research Council, Forest and Wood Products Australia Limited, and the Victorian Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning through the Integrated Forest Ecosystem Research program.

– ref. Australian forests will store less carbon as climate change worsens and severe fires become more common – https://theconversation.com/australian-forests-will-store-less-carbon-as-climate-change-worsens-and-severe-fires-become-more-common-173233

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Marshman, Honorary Principal Fellow, Melbourne Centre for the Study of Higher Education, The University of Melbourne

Two years into the pandemic, what impacts have COVID-19 really had on Australian university finances and staffing in 2020 and in 2021? Our recently published research shows the impacts varied greatly across the sector. However, staff cuts appear to have been disproportionate to overall financial losses.

About 10% of the university workforce (in full-time equivalent terms) lost their jobs. Although that broadly matches the loss of fees and charges income in 2020, overall revenue fell by only 5%.

The impacts of the pandemic on revenue have been generally less than predicted. About half of Australia’s public universities suffered medium to high financial impacts. Eight universities increased or had essentially the same total income in 2020 as in 2019.

Looking ahead, anticipated increases in other revenue provide a healthy buffer against any further fall in international student revenue.

COVID halted a decade of growth

From 2010 to 2019, domestic student enrolments grew by 27% and overseas student enrolments by 56%. Total annual revenue from continuing operations increased by 65% to nearly A$37 billion in 2019.

As a share of revenue, government financial assistance, including student HECS payments, decreased from 56% to 49%. Revenue from fees and charges grew from 23% to 32%.

By the end of 2019, universities’ total equity was $61.5 billion. Many universities, but not all, had a strong buffer to manage the financial challenges of the pandemic.

In mid-2020, amid first-wave lockdowns and border closures, several commentators predicted the impact on international student enrolments would be worse than the actual 2020 outcome. We predicted a 2020 fee loss of up to $3.5 billion. It turned out to be $1.16 billion – a 10% reduction in fee income.

In February 2021, Universities Australia announced universities had lost $1.8 billion in revenue for 2020 and faced a $2 billion loss in 2021.

In August 2021, federal Education Minister Alan Tudge said the sector had begun the year in a relatively strong financial position, with an overall operating surplus of about 2%. He said international student enrolments had fallen by only 5% in 2020 and by 12% by mid-2021 against the record levels of 2019.

Staffing typically accounts for 57% of university spending. Universities Australia reported in February 2021 at least 17,300 university jobs had been lost. By September 2021 the Australia Institute’s Centre for Future Work calculated one in five tertiary education jobs had been lost – including 35,000 at public universities.

Read more:
As universities face losing 1 in 10 staff, COVID-driven cuts create 4 key risks

6 conclusions about the impacts

The outcomes in 2020 are now well documented. However, mixed messages about revenue losses in 2021 and beyond make for a confusing picture. Based on our research, we offer six conclusions.

1. The impact of the pandemic on higher education finances in 2020 was significant but not catastrophic.

For 2020, total revenues fell by 5% or $1.82 billion to $36 billion.

Fees and charges revenue (mostly international student fees) fell by 10% or $1.2 billion.

The loss of investment revenue ($1.3 billion) in 2020 was similar.

Increased government grants and other revenue partly offset these losses.

2. The impacts on individual universities were highly variable.

Eight universities increased or had essentially the same total income in 2020 as in 2019. They include the three South Australian public universities, four regional universities and ACU as a multistate university. Charles Darwin University reported a sector-high revenue increase of 7.5%.

Ten universities reported revenue losses exceeding 8%. Four were regional, two were in the Group of Eight and three were in Victoria, the state most affected by lockdowns in 2020. ANU reported a sector-high revenue loss of 17.4%.

Among the larger universities, Monash was a standout. It had only a 1.6% revenue loss and a 2.9% increase in fees and charges revenue despite lower international student enrolments.

We conclude the pandemic had a high financial impact on ten universities and a medium impact on another ten.

3. International student enrolments – and hence fees and charges revenue – appear to be declining much faster in 2021 than for 2020.

As at September 2021, the Commonwealth’s Provider Registration and International Student Management System (PRISMS) database shows:

• commencing international student enrolments fell by 24% compared to 2020 and by 41% compared to 2019

• for all international enrolments, numbers fell by 13% compared to 2020 and by 17% compared to 2019.

The initial 4% fall in PRISMS enrolments in 2020 corresponded to a 10% decline in total fees and charges revenue. It appears reasonable, then, to assume the 13% decline in PRISMS enrolments for 2021 might equate to a 20-30% reduction.

Read more:
Why the international education crisis will linger long after students return to Australia

4. Anticipated increases in other revenue in 2021 will provide a healthy buffer against further falls in international student revenue.

University revenue from government grants, student HECS payments and other income increased by 3% in 2020. We expect the Job-Ready Graduates Package and other sources will enable universities to increase revenue from these sources by at least 5%, or $1.1 billion, in 2021.

The Commonwealth also allocated an extra $1 billion in research funding in 2021.

As financial markets have improved significantly since December 2020, investment revenue can be expected (barring another major disruption) to return at least to 2019 levels of $1.3 billion.

These three items combined represent an increase of $3.4 billion.

International fee revenue would need to fall by at least 30% in 2021 to outweigh these gains.

We conclude that 28 of 37 public universities could sustain greater fee losses in 2021 than in 2020 and still have higher total incomes.

5. If borders reopen and international students return for semester one in 2022, revenue losses will probably bottom out in 2021 and 2022.

Universities are expected to be highly flexible in enrolling international students during 2022. This suggests commencing student numbers will progressively offset the numbers who have completed courses.

Any additional losses in fees and charges revenue in 2022 are likely to be modest and offset by revenue from increasing domestic enrolments.

Responses to new COVID-19 variants remain a significant risk in assessing likely revenue impacts.

The outlooks for individual universities vary greatly. In part, these depend on pandemic impacts on international student markets across various countries. It is unlikely there will be a standard pattern of re-engagement.

Read more:
Australia’s strategy to revive international education is right to aim for more diversity

6. The impact on staffing levels appears to have been disproportionate, with workers employed on casual and fixed-term contracts the worst affected.

Before the pandemic, the number of university employees totalled 137,575 full-time equivalent (FTE) positions. In FTE terms, some 95,500 were full-time staff, 17,205 fractional full-time and 24,873 casual.

We extrapolated the numbers of jobs lost by December 2020 based on annual reporting by the seven Victorian universities (the only ones to provide such data). These data suggest 20,000 jobs (equating to 7,000 FTE) had been lost across the sector by the end of 2020.

The Centre for Future Work, using ABS data, later calculated public university job losses had risen to 35,000. Extrapolating the Victorian data, this would amount to around 14,000 FTE positions or 10% of the workforce on a FTE basis. The difference between positions lost and the full-time equivalent number suggests casual, fixed-term and part-time staff suffered the greatest impact.

Read more:
COVID hit casual academics hard. Here are 5 ways to produce a better deal for unis and staff

Given recent announcements of further job losses, these estimates may be conservative.

A loss of 10% of the FTE workforce broadly matches the loss of fees and charges income in 2020, though overall revenue fell by only 5%. If university finances do bottom out in 2021, the overall impact of the pandemic has amounted to a fall in annual revenues of around 5%. In this case, university staff appear to have contributed disproportionately to bridging the gap between revenue and expenditure.

It also suggests that, should revenues and the international student market rebuild, either universities will face significant workforce recruitment challenges or they entered the pandemic with significantly oversized workforces.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. After 2 years of COVID, how bad has it really been for university finances and staff? – https://theconversation.com/after-2-years-of-covid-how-bad-has-it-really-been-for-university-finances-and-staff-172405

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By M.W. Shores, Lecturer in Japanese, University of Sydney

Rakugo is among Japan’s more humble performing arts: a solo performer, dressed in traditional kimono, sits on a plush cushion and narrates stories lasting twenty or thirty minutes, assuming the roles of every character. A simple folding fan and handkerchief stand in for anything from a writing brush to a roasted sweet potato.

While rakugo has been described as “sit-down comedy”, it’s far from an Eastern analogue of what we know as stand-up comedy. It is an orally transmitted art with a much longer history. With two distinct traditions based in Osaka and Tokyo, rakugo as we know it dates back about 150 years, but precursors go back centuries.

Today more artists than ever (around 850) call rakugo their occupation. Respected as knowledgeable conveyors of history and cultural heritage, many are also on radio and TV. But it has always been a traditionally male art form. The first woman, Tsuyu no Miyako, joined the profession in 1974, and still today women make up only 7% of rakugo artists.

Read more:
Japan’s politics is opening up to women, but don’t expect a feminist revolution yet

A young apprentice

Women began to gain a quiet presence in the art form in the 1980s.

In the 2000s, there was a surge in new rakugo performers, notably women. This was partly thanks to books, movies and TV shows spotlighting rakugo, some, such as Life’s Like a Comedy and Rakugo musume featuring women undertaking arduous apprenticeships to a happy end.

These no doubt enticed some of the young adults weighing their options as Japan’s “lost decades” – or decades of economic stagnation – idled on.

When she was in her early 20s, Nishii Fumi saw a famous rakugo artist on TV and went to see him in a live show. She knew nothing of rakugo at the time, but kept going to shows until she determined she wanted to be the one making audiences laugh.

After veteran rakugo artist Katsura Yoneji agreed to take on Fumi as an apprentice at 24 in 2011, he followed convention by giving her a stage name: Katsura Niyō. For her, rakugo seemed like the perfect job: it would allow her to play the clown full-time.

“I was always a joker when I was small and aspired to bring that into my adult life”, she told me this weekend.

But Niyō understood women behaving improperly isn’t something that Japanese society looks highly upon: “Men act like fools all the time, and get applauded for it, but not women”.

She viewed rakugo as a road to freedom, to be herself. Yet, though a handful of women had been on stage for decades prior to her beginning, she wasn’t blind to the fact women were rarely viewed as true artists.

Read more:
Japan’s gender-bending history

A man’s domain

Niyō asked to work with Yoneji because she wanted to do “real rakugo”. The art form’s first professional woman, Miyako, had formed a growing school of female pupils, but Niyō didn’t want to be identified as a woman storyteller. She wanted to be seen as a rakugo artist, full stop.

She faced numerous hardships during her training. Everyone training in rakugo must memorise long stories, but Niyō also faced the perceived “awkwardness” of a woman playing in a man’s domain. Some were awfully explicit with their view that women have no place in rakugo, but Niyō refused to give up.

Rakugo artists establish authenticity and advance their careers in various ways, including winning televised contests and receiving honours from local and national government.

Early on, Niyō began entering contests to challenge herself and assert her legitimacy. Last year she was a finalist at the influential NHK Newcomer Rakugo Awards, and this year, with the traditional story Long-Nosed Goblin Hunting (Tengu sashi), she took the Grand Prize over 106 other professionals from Osaka and Tokyo.

She is the first woman to win the award in its 50 year history.

The new face of rakugo

Niyō is now upheld by NHK as the “new hope for the rakugo world”.

Her perfect score at the contest seen as nothing short of monumental, drawing even The New York Times to interview her over several days, to Niyō’s surprise (and honour). The Hanjōtei, Osaka’s premier rakugo hall, will honour her with a full week of shows from January 31.

Niyō’s success is noteworthy for other reasons. Unlike some women who came before her (whom she thanks for opening doors), she insists on performing rakugo without modifying repertoire pieces or changing male characters to female. “It made me pretty happy that I could win top prize doing that” she told me.

Niyō has been told time and again women don’t have what it takes to perform traditional rakugo, but this only convicted her further. Having received such an esteemed prize, there’s no question she has changed some narrow minds.

Off stage she’s relishing the fact she could do something to face down gender bias. And to her detractors, she has one thing to say: “Did you see what I just did? Eat that!”

M.W. Shores does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Meet Katsura Niyō: the young female rising star in the traditionally male Japanese art form, rakugo – https://theconversation.com/meet-katsura-niyo-the-young-female-rising-star-in-the-traditionally-male-japanese-art-form-rakugo-173236

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

Greens leader Adam Bandt is hopeful his party could have 12 senators in the next parliament.

Only three of the party’s nine senators are up for re-election (in Victoria, Western Australia and Tasmania). So, assuming they hold their seats, with possible wins in South Australia, Queensland and NSW there is the opportunity to bring the total to a dozen, he says.

Bandt says that in 2019, 10% of Australians voted for the Greens and “that is a very strong show of support and one that I hope will grow and that will help put us in a strong position after the next election.”

Given there’s currently a lot of speculation about the possibility of a hung parliament, Bandt says the Greens have “got a real chance of being in balance of power in both houses of parliament.”

With the government talking up a scare about a Labor-Green alliance in government – which Labor says it would not enter – Bandt says if there was a “power sharing” parliament the Greens would seek to work with Labor. But “we would approach that situation with strong principles, but an open mind as to how best to ensure that we have a stable, effective and progressive government to replace the current terrible Morrison government”.

“There will be principles that we have and policies that we want to see enacted. We want to tax the billionaires, get dental and mental health care into Medicare and act on coal and gas. They will be the priorities for us.”

“I think people want to see politicians and parties work together, especially on something so important as the climate. We in the Greens are willing to do that.”

On this core issue for their party, the Greens are firm that “we need to do what the science requires, and it is clear now that after Glasgow, where the world reaffirmed the commitment to limit global heating to 1.5 degrees, there’s no room for coal, oil and gas in that future.

The Greens want Australia’s coal-fired power stations and coal exports phased out by 2030.

Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Politics with Michelle Grattan: Adam Bandt on hopes for a dozen Greens senators and a ‘power-sharing’ parliament. – https://theconversation.com/politics-with-michelle-grattan-adam-bandt-on-hopes-for-a-dozen-greens-senators-and-a-power-sharing-parliament-173430

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Chari Larsson, Senior Lecturer of art history, Griffith University

Review: Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, Queensland Art Gallery and Gallery of Modern Art

The Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art has earned its rightful place in Australia’s cultural calendar for the ambitious scope of its artistic programming, highlighting the diversity and range of artistic practices across the Asia Pacific region. This 10th triennial, ATP10, features 150 artists and collectives from 30 countries.

The curatorial gambit characterising the triennial since its inception in 1993 has always been highly complex: how to give representation to the region’s complexity, without homogenising or flattening cultural differences?

To answer this question, I would point to two interconnected concerns or themes that distinguish APT10: an emphasis on First Nations’ perspectives and a gentle excavation of underexamined or invisible histories.

Cross-cultural conversations

The extraordinary Yolngu/Macassan Project draws attention to the richness of the cultural, social, and spiritual connections between the Macassan sailors from southern Sulawesi in Indonesia and the Yolngu people of north-eastern Arnhem Land.

For hundreds of years, this pre-colonial relationship was based on the Macassan trading tamarind in exchange for sea cucumbers (trepang), until the practice was banned in the early 1900s. The project includes a Yolngu-crafted Macassan sail, bark paintings and pottery shards and underscores the enduring influence of the Macassan’s visits on the Yolngu people.

Co-curated by Abdi Karya and Diane Moon, the richness of the Yolngu/Macassan Project accentuates the crucial educational role played by APT10: by investing in research and collaboration, meaningful cross-cultural conversations are reignited and brought to the attention of broader audiences.

Another important curatorial collaboration is Between Earth and Sky: Indigenous Art from Taiwan. Co-curated by Paiwan artist Etan Pavavalung and Makatao curator Manray Hsu, eight Indigenous artists from Taiwan work across mediums to retrieve cultural techniques and criticise the corrosive effects of colonisation.

For over two decades, Yuma Taru has driven the revival of Atayal weaving and dyeing. Seeking guidance from her grandmother and Tribal Elders, Taru established a collective of local women dedicated to preserving traditional weaving practices and techniques.

The spiral of life – the tongue of the cloth (yan pala na hmali) – a mutual dialogue (2021) is a textile-based installation hung from the ceiling and gives visible representation to the Atayal oral language.

According to the Atayal Elders, words must be akin to the cloth’s softness, so thoughts can be conveyed without injury or damage to the listener.

Ideas of scale

Themes of migration and displacement are taken up by Suva-born, Melbourne raised Salote Tawale. Tawale has exploited the scale of GOMA’s dramatic central gallery space by installing a large bamboo raft No location (2021).

The raft was inspired by a traditional Fijian watercraft, bilibili, Tawale remembers seeing in the Fiji Museum in Suva as a child. The vessel becomes a metaphor for moving between cultures and the threat of sea-level rise activated by climate change.

Sitting adjacent is Kuwaiti-Puerto Rican artist Alia Farid’s large-scale installation In Lieu of What Was (2019). Kuwait’s water consumption is amongst the highest in the world, however, it has no rivers and so Kuwait relies on desalination plants and the importation of water.

Farid’s sand-coloured sculptures stand desolately in the gallery space. It is as if they have been excavated from the future as archival “relics” from when the Gulf region still had access to water.

The impressiveness of scale is also at play in Balinese artist I Made Djirna’s installation Kita (2021). Like strings of enormous beads, hundreds of pumice stones hang from the ceiling, evoking an immersive jungle-like experience.

With its textured and layered cascading pumice stones (traces of the island’s volcanic activity), coconut husks and terracotta masks, the spectator’s attention is focused on the installation’s physical and material presence.

Curiosity and care

Cambodian artist Svay Sareth spent his childhood in a refugee camp on the Thai-Cambodia border during the devastating war-ravaged years of the Khmer Rouge regime (1975-79). Sareth has taken up durational performance as a metaphor for Cambodia’s traumatic and violent history.

In the video work Mon Boulet (2011), Sareth wheeled an enormous 80-kilogram metal ball for approximately 250 kilometres. He had no provisions, prompting chance encounters and interactions for obtaining food, water, and shelter with many people over the course of his six-day journey.

An adjacent cinema series Under the Radar highlights film making from across Asia and the Pacific. Combined with a comprehensive children’s program, APT10 promises to provide a range of experiences drawn from both within and around the region over the summer months ahead.

While the global pandemic grinds on in the background, APT10 feels fresh, forward looking and optimistic. After almost two years of closed and restricted borders, the exhibition delivers a poignant reminder: we are all globally interdependent, however, our local differences demand both our curiosity and care.

APT10 is showing at QAGOMA until April 25 2022.

Chari Larsson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art shows how our local differences demand curiosity and care – https://theconversation.com/asia-pacific-triennial-of-contemporary-art-shows-how-our-local-differences-demand-curiosity-and-care-173241

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Erin Roger, Citizen Science Program Lead, CSIRO

Thanks to technological advances, citizen science has experienced unprecedented global growth over the past decade. It’s enabled millions of people to get involved in science, whether by gathering data, sharing health information or helping to map galaxies.

And just because you live in a city, it doesn’t mean you can’t observe, learn about and contribute to scientific understanding of the natural world. Sometimes, it just means looking a little closer.

However, our recent study revealed in Australia, the number and diversity of urban ecology citizen science projects is relatively low.

This is despite cities being important places of conservation and discovery. There’s enormous value in citizen science projects that encourage urbanites to learn about what is often, quite literally, on their doorsteps.

Cities are important for conservation

Recent COVID-19 restrictions mean many of us became more intimately connected to the environment around us. But there is still an overriding perception of urban areas as wastelands devoid of rich and diverse species.

It’s true that for many centuries, vegetation in urban areas has been removed to make way for buildings, roads and other human structures. In many cases, this had led to a more homogeneous composition of species and, in Australia’s case, a seeming predominance of introduced plant and animal species.

However, recent literature has shown cities remain vital habitats for many native species. This includes threatened species such as the fringed spider orchid, found only in Greater Melbourne.

Recent research found 39 nationally threatened species live only in Australian cities and towns, including the western swamp tortoise in Perth and the angle-stemmed myrtle in Brisbane.

It’s important to preserve native vegetation remnants in towns and cities, as well as traditional urban green spaces like parks, cemeteries and backyards.

But it’s just as important to understand which species call these areas home and why. That’s where citizen science can play a big role.

Read more:
Where the wild things are: how nature might respond as coronavirus keeps humans indoors

What we found

We set out to examine the extent to which urban ecology projects in Australia harnessed the resources of citizen scientists. We did this by analysing the projects listed in the Citizen Science Project Finder, hosted by the Atlas of Living Australia.

Of 458 active citizen science projects, only 19 (or 5.3%) were focused on urban environments. Given the number of urban residents in Australia, this constitutes a significant under-representation of projects tailored for these people.

Most of the 19 projects focused on four major cities – Sydney, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide – while other major cities were notably omitted.

Eight projects focused on broad census approaches – essentially ad hoc observations focused on birds or all flora and fauna in a region.
Documenting the presence of various species in urban areas is important. But there’s potential for citizen scientists to help answer more targeted research questions.

For example, grey-headed flying foxes have been documented re-colonising habitat in Melbourne they were once absent from. As cities continue to grow, knowing which species can persist and which have been pushed out is incredibly valuable – and citizen scientists can help in this task.

Also, many of the 19 projects did not provide an easy way to participate, such as easy links to platforms to record and upload data. We were also unable to find scientific papers where results from any of the 19 projects had been published.

Publications would further strengthen the validity of a citizen science approach in urban environments and add another way to measure success.

Read more:
Our turtle program shows citizen science isn’t just great for data, it makes science feel personal

Citizens are good for science

More than 70% of Australians live in a major city. This offers a large pool of potential participants in citizen science projects.

And cities are home to people from a variety of cultures, backgrounds, ages and mobilities. There is increasing acknowledgement that science is enhanced by increasing the diversity of people involved. So a greater number of urban citizen science projects would be good for science.

What’s more, urban projects can provide data from places not typically accessible to professional scientists such as backyards and school grounds. They also allow for the collection of observation-rich and continuous data, which is rare even in professional settings.

And of course, citizen science projects benefit the participants themselves – encouraging people to get outdoors, get active and connect more deeply with nature.

Read more:
From counting birds to speaking out: how citizen science leads us to ask crucial questions

A tool for measuring change

Increasing citizen science in cities could help to shift an overriding narrative that cities are not important places for biodiversity. This may in turn afford greater concentrated effort towards conserving remaining urban green spaces.

Citizen science could help answer key ecological questions about urban environments. For example, research last year showed how citizen scientists helped document species seeking refuge in urban areas following Australia’s horrific 2019-20 bushfires. Expanding such an approach could lead to a better understanding of how cities function as biodiversity refuges.

And a greater focus on citizen science in cities would also enable residents to engage in their surroundings, share their knowledge and help inform the management of the environment around them.

Erin Roger is a Projects Manager for the Atlas of Living Australia based in CSIRO Sydney. Erin is also the former Chair of the Australian Citizen Science Association

Alice Motion is an Associate Professor at the School of Chemistry at the University of Sydney. She receives funding from a Westpac Research Fellowship and a NSW Education Grant. She is Deputy Director (Outreach and Training) for the Sydney Nano Institute, Co-Chair of the Charles Perkins Centre Citizen Science Node and a member of the Australian Citizen Science Association Management Committee in her role as host representative.

– ref. Nature is hiding in every nook of Australia’s cities – just look a little closer and you’ll find it – https://theconversation.com/nature-is-hiding-in-every-nook-of-australias-cities-just-look-a-little-closer-and-youll-find-it-168256

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Richard Baka, Adjunct Fellow, Olympic Scholar and Co-Director of the Olympic Research Network, Institute for Health and Sport, Victoria University

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has announced a diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympics in Beijing in February. This means that while athletes will still compete in the games, no officials will represent Australia at the event.

The move follows the United States’ announcement earlier this week of a diplomatic boycott. New Zealand has also said it will not send officials to the winter games, and other countries are expected to follow suit.

Morrison said the Australian boycott was due to China’s treatment of the mostly-Muslim Uighurs in the far western province of Xinjiang. In explaining the decision, he said

people have been very aware that we have been raising a number of issues
that have not been received well in China, and there’s been a
disagreement between us on those matters.

Read more:
Australia will follow US in diplomatic boycott of China’s Winter Olympics

What is the purpose of a diplomatic boycott?

A “diplomatic boycott” is a new phenomenon – even the term itself appears to be a new invention. Traditionally, when it comes to the Olympic Games, countries either opted for a full boycott – which meant they did not attend in any capacity – or they participated.

So a diplomatic boycott appears to offer those countries engaging in it the best of both worlds: they still allow their athletes to compete (a full boycott would likely be very poorly received in their home countries), but they also register their dissatisfaction with China’s human rights record in the process.

It is something of a slap in the face to China, and the initial reaction from Beijing has been hostile, referring to the US’s stance as “posturing” and arguing the country hadn’t been invited in the first place.

The Olympics movement has long had difficulty managing China’s human rights record alongside the country’s hosting of games. China lost the bid for the 2000 games to Sydney in a close vote largely because of its human rights record, but it won the 2008 summer games on the promise it would improve.

In hindsight, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) should have pushed the issue harder. But they wanted to stay allied with China, and chose not to.

So is a diplomatic boycott even worthwhile?

Some officials, including the IOC’s Dick Pound, believe it will achieve little, and I tend to agree. But it’s a face-saving measure for everybody – a way of expressing discontent without actually withdrawing from the competition, and punishing the athletes in the process.

Usually, Olympics are not particularly significant diplomatic occasions in any event – they are more like a big party than a major international meeting. While officials are usually wined and dined by the host country, COVID restrictions mean that will not be happening in Beijing in 2022 to the usual extent, so officials are not missing much, and Morrison is probably saving Australian taxpayers some money.

Read more:
As the Beijing Winter Olympics countdown begins, calls to boycott the ‘Genocide Games’ grow

Previous Australian diplomatic boycotts

Threats or talk of Olympics boycotts have long been louder than actual boycotts – once a live option at the height of the Cold War, they are no longer in fashion.

Australia’s most notable dalliance with an Olympic boycott was at the Moscow games in 1980. President Jimmy Carter announced the US would boycott the summer games in response to the Soviet Union’s 1979 invasion of Afghanistan.

Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser wanted to follow suit, but the Australian Olympic Committee – which operates independently of government – decided Australia would still compete. In response, Fraser withdrew funding from the AOC.

A few Australian athletes decided not to go to the games, and those who did marched under the Olympic flag in the opening ceremony instead of the Australian flag.

But years later, Fraser conceded an attempted boycott was the wrong move, saying it was a “divisive” idea that had a terrible affect on the athletes.

The US-Soviet Union tit-for-tat boycotts endured for some years. The Russians didn’t go to the Los Angeles games in 1984. But since then, boycotts have fallen out of fashion, in acknowledgement, perhaps, that they achieve little and punish only the athletes.

Will the athletes be affected by the diplomatic boycott?

It is very unlikely there will be any repercussions for athletes in all of this. The Chinese will be happy the athletes are competing, and while the politicians will express their discontent with each other, it’s unlikely to have any real impact on competitors.

That is, of course, unless there are noticeable protests by the athletes themselves at the games. The IOC recently changed its policy to allow mild protest at the games – but not during events or awards ceremonies. If this happened, Chinese officials, the IOC or national Olympic committees would likely take action.

Read more:
The Olympics have always been a platform for protest. Banning hand gestures and kneeling ignores their history

Richard Baka does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Why Australia’s ‘diplomatic boycott’ of the Beijing Winter Olympics is important, but unlikely to have any significant impact – https://theconversation.com/why-australias-diplomatic-boycott-of-the-beijing-winter-olympics-is-important-but-unlikely-to-have-any-significant-impact-173422

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

Australia will impose a diplomatic boycott on the February Winter Olympics in China. But the Australian team will still take part.

The government’s move follows the United States’ lead, triggered by China’s human rights breaches.

Announcing the decision on Wednesday, Scott Morrison said: “People have been very aware that we have been raising a number of issues that have not been received well in China and there’s been a disagreement between us on those matters.

“The human rights abuses in Xinjiang and many other issues that Australia has consistently raised – we have been very pleased and very happy to talk to the Chinese government about these issues and there’s been no obstacle to that occurring on our side.

“But the Chinese government has consistently not accepted those opportunities for us to meet about these issues.

“So it is not surprising, therefore, that Australian government officials would […] not be going to China for those Games.”

But Australian athletes would be competing, he stressed. “Australia’s a great sporting nation and I very much separate the issues of sport and these other political issues. They’re issues between two governments.”

The Prime Minister’s Office confirmed the boycott would include non-attendance by officials from the Australian embassy.

The government’s position differs from that of the Fraser government which urged a full boycott of the 1980 Olympics in Moscow, in protest against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. This followed the stand by then US president Jimmy Carter.

The Fraser government’s stand led to a split with the then Australian Olympic Federation which voted by a narrow margin to send a team, although some athletes did not go.

The chief executive officer of the Australian Olympic Committee, Matt Carroll the AOC was “heartened” by Morrison’s support for the Australian team.

“Human rights are extremely important, but the considered view of diplomats is that keeping channels of communication open is far more impactful than shutting them down, ” Carroll added.

The AOC is expecting to send about 40 athletes to the Beijing Games.

Labor said in a statement from shadow foreign minister Penny Wong and sports spokesman Don Farrell that it supported the decision not to send officials and dignitaries.

“We hold deep concerns about ongoing human rights abuses in China, including towards Uyghurs and other ethnic and religious minorities, and about athlete safety given questions about the treatment of tennis player Peng Shuai.

“This decision, alongside other countries’ diplomatic boycotts, sends a strong signal that these are not the behaviours of a responsible global power.

“Our athletes have trained hard for years towards this opportunity and didn’t choose where the Winter Olympics are being held. It is appropriate that they are not the ones asked to make a sacrifice.

“The Australian government must ensure our team is supported by Embassy staff on the ground,” Labor said.

Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Australia will follow US in diplomatic boycott of China’s Winter Olympics – https://theconversation.com/australia-will-follow-us-in-diplomatic-boycott-of-chinas-winter-olympics-173425

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Kendall, PhD Candidate in Law, The University of Queensland

Terrorism has been one of Australia’s most significant threats to national security since the September 11 terrorist attacks. But this is set to change.

Australia’s domestic spy agency ASIO anticipates espionage – spying – will supplant terrorism as Australia’s principal security threat over the next five years. They do not explicitly say why, but note this is “based on current trends” and that “espionage attempts by multiple countries remain unacceptably high”.

Espionage can harm our independence, economy and national security. For example, stealing trade secrets would give a foreign country an advantage on the international market, which would undermine Australian businesses. Or stealing information about military weapons would give our enemies the chance to develop their own technology to obstruct our use of these assets.

But what exactly is the nature of this espionage threat? And are our laws enough to protect us?

The espionage threat

According to ASIO, foreign espionage is:

the theft of Australian information or capabilities for passage to another country, which undermines Australia’s national interest or advantages a foreign country.

Unlike the world wars or Cold War, foreign spies today do not just want to steal military or intelligence information. They seek any kind of sensitive or valuable information or things, including proprietary and commercial information, new technologies, and information about our relations with other countries.

Foreign spies steal this information by developing relationships with people working in sectors such as government, academia, business, science and technology.

They also engage in cyber espionage – today’s spies can steal large amounts of data in seconds. They can also do this anonymously and from outside Australia. The cyber espionage threat has been amplified by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has seen a drastic increase in the use and availability of cybertechnologies.

Espionage attempts are by no means a rare occurrence. ASIO warns they occur every day, in every Australian state and territory. And they are not just by China. A wide range of countries are attempting espionage against Australia.

The threat is real, sophisticated and wide-ranging. And ASIO warns that it will increase during times of “heightened tension”, like during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Australia’s espionage laws

To combat the growing threat of espionage, in 2018 the federal government introduced a complex scheme of 27 different espionage offences. These include a suite of underlying offences, plus a preparatory offence and a solicitation offence.

Foreign spies – and those who assist them – face life in prison if they break one of these serious national security laws.

All of Australia’s espionage crimes apply to people within Australia. They also apply to people in other countries too. This means they can capture spies who engage in cyber espionage from beyond Australia’s borders.

The underlying espionage offences

The underlying espionage offences criminalise dealing with information on behalf of, or to communicate to, a “foreign principal”, which includes foreign governments as well as entities they control, such as foreign intelligence agencies.

Read more:
ASIO chief Mike Burgess says there are more spies in Australia ‘than at the height of the cold war’

Here, “information” means any information or thing. This means the laws apply no matter what kind of information is taken, from classified government information and sensitive samples of new products (like vaccines) to seemingly innocuous information about Australia’s relations with other countries. They also apply no matter how that information is taken – it could be in person or via cybertechnologies.

Some of the offences require the person to have intended to (or been reckless as to whether) they would prejudice Australia’s national security or advantage the national security of a foreign country. Here, “national security” means traditional defence and intelligence matters. It also extends to Australia’s political and economic relations with other countries. So, the underlying offences would capture those who take information on behalf of another country and seek to harm our security, economy, or international relations – exactly what foreign spies do.

The preparatory offence

The aim of counterespionage is not to wait until espionage has happened, but to prevent espionage from occurring in the first place. With this in mind, the 2018 espionage reforms introduced a novel “preparatory offence”, which was modelled on similar terrorism offences.

The preparatory offence criminalises any act done to prepare or plan for espionage. It captures conduct far before the commission of any espionage offence, such as purchasing a laptop or googling the type of encryption used by the Australian Defence Force.

To amount to espionage, though, a person doing these kinds of things would need to intend to commit espionage at some time in the future.

Where foreign spies or their associates are concerned, this offence might be easier to prove than the underlying offences. It also gives law enforcement the power to intervene before the spies take anything.

The solicitation offence

The espionage offences take aim at the earliest stages of espionage in another way. The “solicitation offence” makes it a crime to do any act, intending to obtain someone else to commit espionage. The offence can be committed even if the other person never engages in espionage.

The solicitation offence would apply to foreign spies who try to develop relationships with Australians to get them to hand over valuable information.

Are our laws enough?

Australia’s revamped espionage laws are broad enough to capture modern – including cyber – espionage. But they are not enough to protect us from espionage.

One problem with the laws is that people who commit cyber espionage from outside Australia must be extradited here to face prosecution. This could be a significant impediment to prosecutions, especially where the spy is in a country that does not have an extradition treaty with Australia (or the treaty is not yet in force), such as China or Pakistan.

Read more:
You could break espionage laws on social media without realising it

Another problem is identifying who the spy is, and therefore who to charge. This is a big issue where a person engages in cyber espionage because they can use things like anonymous proxy servers to hide their identity.

These problems mean that our espionage laws may not be as effective as they could be, and other measures may be necessary to prevent espionage from occurring in the first place. These measures include robust and effective cyber security – not just for government agencies, but in our homes and workplaces too. They also include public awareness campaigns about the nature of modern espionage. Every Australian must know what to look out for so that they do not inadvertently hand valuable information over to a spy.

Our espionage laws serve as a warning that broader does not necessarily mean better.

In addition to their questionable effectiveness, the breadth of the laws means they can capture entirely innocent conduct too, like social networking, media reporting, and academic research.

So, in attempting to capture spies, the laws may also catch innocent Australians.

Sarah Kendall does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Espionage is set to overtake terrorism as Australia’s top security concern – are our anti-spy laws good enough? – https://theconversation.com/espionage-is-set-to-overtake-terrorism-as-australias-top-security-concern-are-our-anti-spy-laws-good-enough-170462

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By GVS Murthy, Professor of , Indian Institute of Public Health, Gandhinagar

After a deadly second wave of COVID-19 overwhelmed hospitals in India earlier this year, the country is battling yet another viral outbreak. Hospitals are struggling to treat dengue, a viral disease that spreads through the bite of the Aedes aegypti mosquito.

At least 15 Indian states have been badly affected, including the capital city of Delhi that reported a five-year high in the number of cases.

Data from the federal health ministry suggests more than 100,000 dengue infections and 90 deaths were reported in the country from January to October.

Federal teams have been rushed to nine of the worst-affected states to assist them in controlling the outbreak. Health systems in India have been struggling to treat patients with dengue. Bed shortages have been reported across several states.

Read more:
Explainer: what is dengue fever?

Dengue infections occur cyclically, peaking every alternate year. Last year there were fewer than 45,000 cases.

This time, the challenge is compounded by patients with both COVID and dengue. Since the initial presentation of dengue and COVID infections are similar, they can be misdiagnosed, leading to catastrophic, including fatal, consequences.

Dengue causes a wide spectrum of disease, ranging from asymptomatic infection to severe flu-like symptoms. Severe dengue infection, though less common, can be accompanied by any number of complications including severe bleeding, organ impairment and plasma leakage from the blood into surrounding tissue.

The risk of death is higher if severe dengue is not managed properly. Some 90% of those with severe dengue needing hospitalisation are children below five years of age; 2-3% of children in this age group infected die from dengue.

How do you catch dengue?

Dengue is an urban-centric disease spread by the Aedes mosquitoes that bite during the day.

The Aedes mosquito breeds in stagnant artificial collections of water which abound in homes and other urban areas in India. A teaspoon of stagnant water is enough for thousands of Aedes mosquitoes to breed. This mosquito is a lazy one. It does not travel beyond 300-500 meters and therefore, most breeding spots are close to residential premises or within homes.

The dengue virus belongs to the Flaviviridae family, with four closely related but distinct strains – DENV-1, DENV-2, DENV-3, and DENV-4. The incubation period for the virus is between four and ten days after the mosquito bite, and symptoms last two to seven days. This year, DENV-2, marked by early onset of symptoms and rapid progression of illness, has been found to be responsible for the rise in the number of cases.

Peak numbers for dengue are recorded in the post-monsoon period in India. This year, early signs of a particularly bad outbreak were reported in the northern state Uttar Pradesh. Reports of a “mystery fever” that caused several deaths among children surfaced in late August. Dengue fever was found to be the main cause.

The dengue situation in India

Dengue is among the top ten diseases prioritised by the World Health Organization for the period 2019 to 2024. This is because incidence of this viral disease has increased over 30-fold in the last five decades.

A third of the global burden of dengue is in India. Of the 96 million cases reported each year, 33 million of them are in India.

However it’s thought this is a huge underestimate of the number of cases worldwide. It’s estimated the real figure could be as high as 400 million, since many are undiagnosed.

A nationally representative, community-based survey in India showed close to half of the population (48.7%) has been exposed to dengue infection in India at some point in their life. The highest numbers are in the southern states (76·9%), followed by the western (62·3%), and northern (60·3%) states.

Given the makeup of these states, these statistics show urbanisation is one of the main drivers for rising dengue incidence in India. No urban part of India is now untouched by the disease.

Can we stop the virus?

The disease caused to humans has no specific treatment. However, several interventions have been successfully used to reduce this type of mosquito breeding. These include indoor and outdoor residual spraying of walls, the use of attractive toxic sugar baits to trap female mosquitoes and larvae-killing agents like gambusia fish. Personal protection measures like screens for windows, and mosquito repellent creams are also important deterrents.

Results of a trial conducted by Monash University on the efficacy of infecting mosquitoes with a bacteria called Wolbachia show the technique reduced the incidence of dengue by 77%. The Wolbachia bacteria competes with other viruses in the mosquito’s system, such as dengue, zika, chikungunya or yellow fever. This makes it harder for these viruses to reproduce inside the mosquitoes.

Read more:
How we convinced people to trust a new innovative approach to eliminate dengue

Male mosquitoes infected with the bacterium are released in areas where the disease is endemic. They breed with the wild female mosquitoes. Over time, the percentage of mosquitoes with Wolbachia increases, meaning fewer mosquitoes which are able to transmit harmful viruses to humans.

The process of infecting, breeding and then releasing mosquitoes in the community has not yet been cleared for use in India. But experimental studies are taking place to study its effects in certain regions. It could be a useful intervention for India.

Isn’t there a vaccine for dengue?

There is a dengue vaccine on the market but its use is very limited. For those who have never had dengue it can make infection more severe, so it is only recommended for people who have previously had dengue and live in regions where the virus is endemic.

Read more:
Here’s why we don’t have a vaccine for Zika (and other mosquito-borne viruses)

Work on a new vaccine that could be effective against all four strains of the virus in the same vaccine is currently being undertaken in India and elsewhere. Trials are to commence soon.

Community measures are also imperative in curbing dengue transmission. This includes removing all sources of stagnant water around your home – from flower pots, air coolers and old tyres lying around, at least once a week. Reducing the burden of dengue is something we all must take part in.

GVS Murthy does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. After a horrific COVID wave, India’s health system is now overwhelmed by a different virus – https://theconversation.com/after-a-horrific-covid-wave-indias-health-system-is-now-overwhelmed-by-a-different-virus-172685

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Patrick Rule, Research Fellow, Monash University

The pig-nosed turtle, an endangered freshwater turtle native to the Northern Territory and southern New Guinea, is unique in many respects. Unlike most freshwater turtles, it is almost completely adapted to life in water. It has paddle-like flippers similar to sea turtles, a snorkel-like “pig-nose” to help it breathe while staying submerged, and eggs that will only hatch when exposed to the waters of the wet season.

It is also the last surviving species of a group of tropical turtles called the carettochelyids, which once lived throughout the northern hemisphere. Scientists thought pig-nosed turtles only arrived at Australia within the past few millennia, as no pig-nosed turtle fossils had ever been found here – or so we thought.

A 5-million-year-old fossil from Museums Victoria’s collections has now completely rewritten this story. Discovered at Beaumaris, 20km southeast of Melbourne, this fossil lay unidentified in Melbourne Museum’s collection for almost 100 years until our team came across it.

We identified the fossil as a small section of the front of a pig-nosed turtle’s shell, as we report today in the journal Papers in Palaeontology. Although the fossil is just a fragment, we were lucky that it was from a very diagnostic area of the shell.

The fossil shows that carettochelyid turtles have been living in Australia for millions of years. But what was a pig-nosed turtle doing in Beaumaris 5 million years ago, thousands of kilometres from their modern range?

Well, in the past, Melbourne’s weather was a lot warmer and wetter that it is now. It was more akin to the tropical conditions in which these turtles live today.

In fact, this isn’t the first prehistoric tropical species discovered here: monk seals, which today live in Hawaii and the Mediterranean, and dugongs also once lived in what is now Beaumaris.

Read more:
The most endangered seals in the world once called Australia home

A tropical Melbourne?

Millions of years ago, Australia’s eastern seaboard was a tropical turtle hotspot. The warmer and wetter environment would have been perfect for supporting a greater diversity of turtles in the past. This is in stark contrast to modern times; today, Australia is mostly home to the side-necked turtles.

Tropical turtles would have had to cross thousands of kilometres of ocean to get here. But this is not unusual – small animals often cross the sea by hitching a ride on vegetation rafts.

So where are these turtles now? Why is the modern pig-nosed turtle the last remaining species of the carettochelyids? Well, just like today, animals in the past were threatened by climate change. When Australasia’s climate became cooler and drier after the ice ages, all the tropical turtles went extinct, except for the pig-nosed turtle in the Northern Territory and New Guinea.

This also suggests that the modern pig-nosed turtle, already endangered, is under threat from human-driven climate change. These turtles are very sensitive to their environment, and without rain their eggs cannot hatch.

This is true of a lot of Australia’s native animals and plants. In reptile species such as turtles and crocodiles, sex can be determined by the temperature at which eggs are incubated. This is yet another factor that could put these species at risk as the climate changes.

The treasure trove of fossils from Beaumaris shows just how important Australia’s previously tropical environment was for ancient animals. Southern Australia used to be home to many tropical species that now have much more restricted ranges.

Just last year, the discovery of tropical monk seals fossils from Beaumaris completely changed how scientists thought seals evolved. This shows just how much we still have to learn about Australia’s prehistoric past, when it was so different from the sunburnt country we know today.

Read more:
Scientists thought these seals evolved in the north. 3-million-year-old fossils from New Zealand suggest otherwise

James Patrick Rule receives funding from an Australian Research Council Discovery Project (DP180101797). Museums Victoria receives support for research on The Lost World of Bayside from Bayside City Council, Community Bank Sandringham, Beaumaris Motor Yacht Squadron, Bayside Earth Sciences Society, Sandringham Foreshore Association and generous community donations to Museums Victoria.

William Parker receives funding from an Australian Government RTP Stipend and a Museums Victoria – Monash University Robert Blackwood Scholarship.

– ref. Rare fossil reveals prehistoric Melbourne was once a paradise for tropical pig-nosed turtles – https://theconversation.com/rare-fossil-reveals-prehistoric-melbourne-was-once-a-paradise-for-tropical-pig-nosed-turtles-173242

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sara Holton, Senior Research Fellow, Deakin University

Most Australians are counting down to a festive season with newfound freedom surrounded by family and friends.

Meanwhile, front-line health workers are bracing for a potential summer surge in COVID cases and hospitalisations.

They’re also concerned about the potential impact of the new Omicron variant.

A summer surge would put even more pressure on health workers who, as our research shows, are already experiencing high levels of distress.

While the bulk of the responsibility for addressing the well-being of clinical staff falls on health services and governments, we can all do our bit to prevent a mass health worker exodus.

What did our study find?

Health workers often experience high levels of stress as a result of working long hours or shift work, providing emotional support to patients and their families, and patient deaths. The pandemic has increased this stress.

We surveyed almost 3,700 health workers including nurses, midwives, doctors and allied health staff such as social workers, physiotherapists and occupational therapists in Australia and Denmark.

We found COVID negatively affected health workers’ psychological well-being and personal lives, despite the relatively lower numbers of cases and deaths in Australia compared with other countries.

About a quarter of those we surveyed reported symptoms of psychological distress, including depression, anxiety and stress.

Their main concerns were contracting the virus, putting family members at risk and caring for infected patients.

We also found:

• three-quarters of health workers agreed with the statement “people close to me have been concerned about my health”

• almost one-quarter of respondents avoided telling people they worked at a health service. Several reported receiving a negative reaction when they wore their uniform in public

• pregnant staff were concerned about the potential impact of COVID on themselves and their baby

• wearing personal protective equipment (PPE) was challenging and resulted in headaches and dehydration

• health workers had difficulties managing their paid work and family responsibilities, including supporting children with remote learning.

Read more:
Here’s the proof we need. Many more health workers than we ever thought are catching COVID-19 on the job

Employees who thought their health service had responded appropriately to the pandemic and provided sufficient staff support had better mental health than those who didn’t.

This suggests investing resources in support initiatives helps protect health worker well-being, and health services to assist and retain staff.

Without adequate support, the safe, high-quality care we rely on could be eroded by a mass job exodus, rising rates of absenteeism, and reduced quality of patient care.

What can we do to help?

We all have a role to play in protecting the well-being of this crucial workforce and ensuring the sustainability of health services.

Government and health services urgently need to:

1) implement best practice mental health and well-being initiatives for health workers. A range of initiatives have been implemented during the pandemic, but if they don’t meet the needs of health workers, they’re unlikely to be used or successful. New models of support need to be co-designed with health workers and tested so we know what works

2) build an ongoing system to monitor health worker mental health and well-being. Most data collected about health worker well-being during the pandemic is from single-site studies of a fixed point in time. Large, ongoing studies can help us track health worker well-being and any changes over time, including the long-term impact of the pandemic

3) encourage health workers to access support when needed.

Read more:
High rates of COVID-19 burnout could lead to shortage of health-care workers

The public can also play a role by:

4) getting vaccinated, including your booster, when eligible. And following the public health guidelines in your area. High vaccination rates help reduce the risk of new variants emerging and protect us if they do emerge. A booster dose will give you stronger and longer lasting protection against COVID

5) using 000 and hospital emergency departments only for medical emergencies. If the situation isn’t urgent contact your GP, local pharmacist or Health Direct on 1800 022 222 (or Nurse-On-Call in Victoria on 1300 60 60 24)

6) being kind and respectful to health workers, who have experienced higher levels of aggression and abuse than normal during the pandemic. Health workers should feel safe at work.

Sara Holton has received funding from several sources including the NHMRC and the ARC

Bodil Rasmussen has received funding from NHMRC and MRFF.

Karen Wynter and Kate Huggins do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. 6 ways to prevent a mass exodus of health workers – https://theconversation.com/6-ways-to-prevent-a-mass-exodus-of-health-workers-172509

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Charith Rathnayaka, Lecturer in Mechanical Engineering, University of the Sunshine Coast

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) has been touted, again and again, as one of the critical technologies that could help Australia reach its climate targets, and features heavily in the federal government’s plan for net-zero emissions by 2050.

CCS is generally when emissions are captured at the source, such as from a coal-fired power station, trucked to a remote location and stored underground.

But critics say investing in carbon capture and storage (CCS) means betting on technology that’s not yet proven to work at scale. Indeed, technology-wise, the design of effective carbon-capturing materials, both solid and liquid, has historically been a challenging task.

So could it ever be a viable solution to the fossil fuel industry’s carbon dioxide emissions?

Emerging overseas research shows “liquid marbles” – tiny droplets coated with nanoparticles – could possibly address current challenges in materials used to capture carbon. And our modelling research, published yesterday, brings us a big step closer to making this futuristic technology a reality.

Issues with carbon capture

Under its Technology Investment Roadmap, the Morrison government considers CCS a priority low-emissions technology, and is investing A$300 million over ten years to develop it.

But the efficacy and efficiency of CCS has long been controversial due to its high-operational costs and scaling-up issues for a wider application.

Read more:
Why the oil industry’s pivot to carbon capture and storage – while it keeps on drilling – isn’t a climate change solution

An ongoing problem, more specifically, is the effectiveness of materials used to capture the CO₂, such as absorbents. One example is called “amine scrubbing”, a method used since 1930 to separate, for instance, CO₂ from natural gas and hydrogen.

The problems with amine scrubbing include its high costs, corrosion-related issues and high losses in materials and energy. Liquid marbles can overcome some of these challenges.

This technology can be almost invisible to the naked eye, with some marbles under 1 millimetre in diameter. The liquid it holds – most commonly water or alcohol – is on the scale of microlitres (a microlitre is one thousandth of a millilitre).

The marbles have an outer layer of nanoparticles that form a flexible and porous shell, preventing the liquid within from leaking out. Thanks to this armour, they can behave like flexible, stretchable and soft solids, with a liquid core.

What do marbles have to do with CCS?

Liquid marbles have many unique abilities: they can float, they roll smoothly, and they can be stacked on top of each other.

Other desirable properties include resistance to contamination, low-friction and flexible manipulation, making them appealing for applications such as gas capture, drug delivery and even as miniature bio-reactors.

Read more:
Morrison to link $500 million for new technologies to easing way for carbon capture and storage

In the context of CO₂ capture, their ability to selectively interact with gases, liquids and solids is most crucial. A key advantage of using liquid marbles is their size and shape, because thousands of spherical particles only millimetres in the size can directly be installed in large reactors.

Gas from the reactor hits the marbles, where it clings to the nanoparticle outer shell (in a process called “adsorption”). The gas then reacts with the liquid within, separating the CO₂ and capturing it inside the marble. Later, we can take out this CO₂ and store it underground, and then recycle the liquid for future processing.

This process can be a more time and cost-efficient way of capturing CO₂ due to, for example, the liquid (and potentially solid) recycling, as well as the marbles’ high mechanical strength, reactivity, sorption rates and long-term stability.

So what’s stopping us?

Despite recent progress, many properties of liquid marbles remain elusive. What’s more, the only way to test liquid marbles is currently through physical experiments conducted in a laboratory.

Physical experiments have their limitations, such as the difficulty to measure the surface tension and surface area, which are important indicators of the marble’s reactivity and stability.

In this context, our new computational modelling can improve our understanding of these properties, and can help overcome the use of costly and time-intensive experiment-only procedures.

Read more:
Carbon capture and storage: where should the world store CO₂? It’s a moral dilemma

Another challenge is developing practical, rigorous and large-scale approaches to manipulate liquid marble arrays within the reactor. Further computational modelling we’re currently working on will aim to analyse the three-dimensional changes in the shapes and dynamics of liquid marbles, with better convenience and accuracy.

This will open up new horizons for a myriad of engineering applications, including CO₂ capture.

Beyond carbon capture

Research on liquid marbles started off as just an inquisitive topic around 20 years ago and, since then, ongoing research has made it a sought-after platform with applications beyond carbon capture.

This cutting-edge technology could not only change how we solve climate problems, but environmental and medical problems, too.

Magnetic liquid marbles, for example, have demonstrated their potential in biomedical procedures, such as drug delivery, due to their ability to be opened and closed using magnets outside the body. Other applications of liquid marbles include gas sensing, acidity sensing and pollution detection.

With more modelling and experiments, the next logical step would be to scale up this technology for mainstream use.

Charith Rathnayaka is affiliated with QUT (Queensland University of Technology) as an Adjunct Lecturer.

Emilie Sauret receives funding from the Australian Research Council (FT200100446).

Nam-Trung Nguyen receives funding from Australian Research Council DP170100277 and DP180100055.

Yuantong Gu has received funding from the Australian Research Council.

– ref. Liquid marbles: how this tiny, emerging technology could solve carbon capture and storage problems – https://theconversation.com/liquid-marbles-how-this-tiny-emerging-technology-could-solve-carbon-capture-and-storage-problems-171962

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sheila Fitzpatrick, Professor of History at the Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences, Australian Catholic University

Imagine that in 2023, in the fourth year of a pandemic that has exacerbated tensions and damaged the economy, after months of wrangling over internal borders and a sharp rise in the prestige of state premiers vis-à-vis the prime minister, the premiers of New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia meet secretly and declare that the Commonwealth of Australia has effectively ceased to exist and the states will henceforth be independent nations.

(Western Australia, let us imagine, has already proclaimed its independent sovereignty, with Tasmania and Queensland not far behind.) While the US Ambassador has prior warning of the premiers’ move, the Australian Prime Minister does not. Within a few weeks, the PM has been forced to resign and the Australian flag is lowered for the last time in Canberra.

This isn’t exactly what happened in the Soviet Union as a result of the Belovezh Accords, signed by the leaders of three Soviet republics at a state dacha in Belorussia on 8 December 1991, but close enough.

It’s been 30 years since the Soviet Union dissolved in the wake of a bungled reform effort by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, elected General Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party in 1985.

The Soviet crisis of 1991

The Soviet Union, created by the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, consisted of 16 constituent republics, named for their majority nationality (Russian, Ukrainian, Georgian and so on).

Despite some notorious episodes of repression, such as the deportation of Chechens from the Caucasus during World War II), ethnic discrimination was generally discouraged.

For all the vaunted centralisation of the Soviet system – run from Moscow by the Politburo of the country’s sole political party, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, with branches down from republic to workplaces – Moscow in practice delegated substantial powers to its appointed republican leaders. Moscow had the power to fire, of course, but since the 1970s, it had been sparingly used.

The Soviet crisis of 1991 was brought on not by a pandemic but by Gorbachev’s “revolution from above’”, which promised democratic openness (glasnost) and economic restructuring (perestroika) to stimulate initiative and make the top-down system more flexible.

Unfortunately, Gorbachev left the economy as the last priority and started with democratisation, which had the effect of stirring up waves of criticism that undermined authority and trust, and things quickly became shambolic.

By mid 1991, with the glue of the Communist Party coming unstuck, most of the republican leaders had stopped listening to Moscow and changed their title from first party secretary to republican president.

The Baltic states and Armenia had already claimed sovereignty when the three presidents of Russia, Ukraine and Belorussia met in the Belovezh forest (Gorbachev not invited) and voted for independence and an end to the Union. On 25 December, Gorbachev resigned the Soviet presidency, and the Soviet flag over the Kremlin came down.

Decline of an ‘empire’

Only the three Baltic states, a late incorporation into the Soviet Union never fully accepted by the population, had well-developed popular independence movements, so there was urgent catching up to be done in the new successor states. Popular nationalism had to be stoked and national histories written, usually in terms of colonial oppression under Soviet (Russian) rule.

Western historians, who had not previously called the Soviet Union an “empire”, rushed to adjust their terminology: if a multinational state fell apart into national segments, what else could it be than a revolt of the colonies against imperial rule?

The term wasn’t even wholly inaccurate: Russia had been the largest and most populous republic, Moscow was the Union’s capital, and Russian its lingua franca.

At some times in Soviet history, the flow of resources (“economic exploitation”) had mainly been from periphery to centre, though latterly more often the opposite.

If the Soviet Union was an empire, however, it was an odd one. Leaving aside its revolutionary founders’ anti-imperial ideology, there was the fact that, fearing undue Russian dominance, they had given the Russian Republic fewer powers and prerogatives than other republics, and generally discouraged Russian nationalism.

Read more:
Back in the USSR: my life as a ‘spy’ in the archives

The Russian republic

Until Soviet career politician Boris Yeltsin fell afoul of Gorbachev and built up a power base in the Moscow party, the Russian republic had never played a significant role in Soviet high politics.

But when Yeltsin was elected president of the Russian Republic, Moscow became home to two presidents, which was clearly one too many. Gorbachev lost the contest, and the collapse of the Soviet Union was an almost unintended byproduct.

The march of the republics out of the Soviet Union was not a result of popular unrest (the Baltics being something of a special case) but of decisions taken by the republics’ (Soviet) bosses, with Yeltsin, president of the putative “imperial” nation, leading the way.

Shock and chagrin

If my imagined scenario ever took place in Australia, Australians would be plunged into a state of shock, surprise and confusion. That is exactly what happened to Soviet citizens, who until 1991 had assumed that, for better or worse, the USSR was an immutable fact of life.

Shock was the key word of 1990s Russia, accompanied by chagrin at losing superpower status and world respect. As Vladimir Putin said, anyone who didn’t regret the passing of the Soviet Union “had no heart” (though he added that those who sought to resurrect it “had no brain”), and sure enough, for years Russian opinion polls confirmed this.

The Soviet Union, its military and security services intact to the end, had seemed so armoured against change, so boringly solid. To give Putin the last word, “Who could have imagined that it would simply collapse?”

Sheila Fitzpatrick’s book The Shortest History of the Soviet Union will be published by Black, Inc in March

Sheila Fitzpatrick does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. This December is the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Soviet Union – how does an empire collapse? – https://theconversation.com/this-december-is-the-30th-anniversary-of-the-fall-of-the-soviet-union-how-does-an-empire-collapse-172869

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Matthew Hobbs, Senior Lecturer in Public Health and Co-Director of the GeoHealth Laboratory, University of Canterbury

As New Zealand gets ready for the festive season under the new traffic light system, the emergence of the Omicron variant is a reminder this pandemic is far from over.

The new variant of concern is already fuelling a new wave of infections in South Africa and there is some evidence hospitalisations are increasing.

Omicron has already arrived in Australia and the question now is whether it will get to New Zealand during the summer holiday season and potentially affect plans for border openings.

New Zealand is currently planning to start opening its borders and allowing quarantee-free entry from early 2022, first to fully vaccinated New Zealand citizens arriving from Australia after January 16, and then for New Zealanders arriving from all other countries after mid-February. There’s already some discussion about whether this plan may have to be reviewed.

Omicron contains 32 mutations in the spike protein alone. These are mutations that may make the virus more transmissible and better at evading immunity. There is also some evidence to suggest it poses a higher risk of reinfection.

Other anecdotal evidence suggests more children are being hospitalised with moderate to severe symptoms with Omicron.

However, it is still too early to draw any firm conclusions. Data over the next few weeks will help determine the variant’s full impact.

Delta has taught us important lessons

New Zealand’s elimination strategy resulted in good economic performance, the lowest COVID-19 mortality in the OECD and increases in life expectancy. However, the emergence of the Delta variant forced us to abandon that strategy.

Perhaps most importantly, Delta also taught us that when new variants emerge, they do not stay in one place for very long.

So, how prepared is New Zealand?

In the short term, New Zealand is well placed to deal with Omicron. Our strong border controls, testing and rapid genome sequencing mean that when Omicron arrives at our border, we can respond quickly and prevent community incursion.

It is unlikely it will be our unwanted guest this Christmas. Despite this, significant challenges lie ahead in the long term, including vaccination inequity and disruptions to routine healthcare.

Percentage of the double vaccinated

Click the button in the top right corner to expand the interactive map – then swipe down for Māori vaccination rates and up for the overall population to compare.

iFrames are not supported on this page.

In several regions, including Auckland and Canterbury, 90% of the eligible population are now fully vaccinated. High vaccination rates may blunt the extent of future potential waves of infection, but significant inequities in vaccination levels remain.

We know that vaccinated people transmit COVID-19 less than unvaccinated people, but only 70% of Māori have received both doses.

Read more:
Are new COVID variants like Omicron linked to low vaccine coverage? Here’s what the science says

Even without COVID-19 spread widely, there is already pressure on hospital capacity and staff with delayed surgeries now more common, be that in Hawke’s Bay, Dunedin or Christchurch.

So far, New Zealand has been luckier than other countries where concerns are growing about disruptions to routine healthcare. Delays may leave patients with treatable conditions suffering illnesses that can become fatal.

New Zealand has one of the lowest ICU capacities in the world. While the government has announced $644 million to raise ICU capacity, it will take time to build capacity and train staff.

Although unlikely, should Omicron breach our border like Delta did, it will have to be tackled against the backdrop of trying to manage the current Delta outbreak.

Child vaccinations are set to start at the end of January. However, low vaccination levels are often in areas where health provision and hospitals are a long way away. This will need to be incorporated into the rollout strategy to ensure equitable childhood vaccination rates.

Looking forward to Christmas and beyond

The Auckland border will lift on December 15 and many are bracing themselves for a COVID summer. Calls for staycations have emerged as popular summer holiday spots such as Matai Bay close and iwi are asking people to stay away from some destinations.

Our analysis by regional tourism areas in the map below supports this. It shows most regional tourism areas have low vaccination rates, especially for Māori and Pacific peoples.

Click the button in the top right corner to expand the interactive map – then swipe down for Māori and Pacific peoples vaccination rates and up to compare to overall population.

iFrames are not supported on this page.

As New Zealand heads into the holiday season, public health measures such as mask wearing, physical distancing, hand hygiene, contact tracing, case isolation and vaccination will remain essential.

Mandating the COVID tracer app increased the number of scans while less than 1% of paid staff at St John’s ambulance service left due to the vaccine mandate.

Some experts have suggested the emergence of Omicron could be a result of low levels of vaccine coverage in developing nations.

The root of this is that the world isn’t doing enough to stop the spread of COVID-19.

Read more:
Are new COVID variants like Omicron linked to low vaccine coverage? Here’s what the science says

While some countries, including New Zealand, have had domestic success at controlling COVID-19, wealthy countries around the world continue to hoard vaccines. This ultimately gives the virus more opportunities to replicate and mutate.

Omicron should act as a wake-up call to ensure worldwide equitable vaccine delivery before even more concerning variants emerge.

Matthew Hobbs receives funding from New Zealand Health Research Council, A Better Start National Science Challenge, Cure Kids and IStar for this research.

Lukas Marek has previously received funding from the Ministry of Health.

– ref. The uninvited Christmas guest: is New Zealand prepared for Omicron’s inevitable arrival? – https://theconversation.com/the-uninvited-christmas-guest-is-new-zealand-prepared-for-omicrons-inevitable-arrival-172937

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

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg will announce on Wednesday a comprehensive reform of regulations governing the payments system, to bring it up to date with innovations such as digital wallets and cryptocurrency.

The government says without the changes – the biggest in 25 years – Australians businesses and consumers could increasingly be making transactions in spaces beyond the full reach of Australian law, where rules were determined by foreign governments and multinationals.

It points out that in three decades payment methods have gone from cash to cheques, cheques to credit cards, credit cards to debit cards and now to “tap and go” via digital wallets on phones or watches.

Around a decade ago, cryptocurrency was a concept. Currently, there are more than 220 million participants in the worldwide crypto market, including many in Australia.

The planned reforms will centralise oversight of the payment system by ensuring government plays a greater leadership role. The treasurer will be given more power to intervene in certain circumstances.

Consumer protection will be strengthened, and more competition and innovation will be promoted.

The reform program will be in two phases. There will be consultations in the first half of next year on those that are most urgent and easy to implement. Consultations on the rest will be done by the end of the year.

Read more:
The paradox of going contactless is we’re more in love with cash than ever

The government says the present one-size-fits-all licensing framework for payment service providers will be replaced graduated, risk-based regulatory requirements.

There will be consideration of the feasibility of a retail central bank digital currency, and an examination of “de-banking” (where a bank declines to offer a service to a business or individual).

Frydenberg says the comprehensive payments and crypto asset reform program would “firmly place Australia among a handful of lead countries in the world.

“It is how we will capitalise on the opportunity for Australia to lead the world in this emerging and fast-growing area which has almost endless potential applications across the economy,” he says.

“For businesses, these reforms will address the ambiguity that can exist about the regulatory and tax treatment of crypto assets and new payment methods.

Read more:
Can Bitcoin be a real currency? What’s wrong with El Salvador’s plan

“In doing so, it will drive even more consumer interest, facilitate even more new entrants and enable even more innovation to take place.

“For consumers, these changes will establish a regulatory framework to underpin their growing use of crypto assets and clarify the treatment of new payment methods.”

Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Overhaul of payments system to cover digital wallets, buy now pay later, cryptocurrency – https://theconversation.com/overhaul-of-payments-system-to-cover-digital-wallets-buy-now-pay-later-cryptocurrency-173331

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

As well as Michelle Grattan’s usual interviews with experts and politicians about the news of the day, Politics with Michelle Grattan now includes “Word from The Hill”, where all things political will be discussed with members of The Conversation’s politics team.

This week they discuss Labor’s newly announced climate policy which includes a target of 43% emissions reduction. They discuss how this plan differs from the Coalitions target and the support it has from key business groups.

They also canvass the push for former NSW Premier Gladys Berejilikan to run for the federal election in a bid to win the seat of Warringah back from Independent Zali Steggal. This move, if it goes ahead, is controversial as there is still an ongoing ICAC investigation into her conduct.

The United States has announced that they will hold a diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympics, with speculation that the Morrison Government will follow the lead of the US. This boycott is over human rights in China. This is a diplomatic gesture rather than a full boycott, as the athletes would still attend.

Michelle Grattan no recibe salario, ni ejerce labores de consultoría, ni posee acciones, ni recibe financiación de ninguna compañía u organización que pueda obtener beneficio de este artículo, y ha declarado carecer de vínculos relevantes más allá del cargo académico citado.

– ref. Word from The Hill: Michelle Grattan on Labor’s climate policy and Liberal’s fight for Warringah – https://theconversation.com/word-from-the-hill-michelle-grattan-on-labors-climate-policy-and-liberals-fight-for-warringah-173346

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Madeline Gleeson, Senior Research Fellow, Andrew & Renata Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law, UNSW

Late last month, at least 27 people drowned after their inflatable dinghy capsized while trying to cross the English Channel to the UK. The International Organization for Migration has called it the biggest single loss of life in the channel since data collection began in 2014.

While British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he was “shocked and appalled and deeply saddened” by the tragedy, it will no doubt spur on efforts to rush through the country’s much-maligned Nationality and Borders Bill.

This bill, which is being debated in the UK parliament again this week, seeks among other things to “deter illegal entry into the United Kingdom”.

The sense of urgency mounting around this issue does not sweep aside the need for reasoned and rational policymaking. In Australia, we have seen the damage caused by hurried and ill-conceived asylum policies. It is deeply disturbing to see the UK barrel down the same path.

Flawed assumptions about Australia’s system

Much of the UK’s proposed “solution” to channel crossings borrows from Australia’s efforts to “stop the boats” and deter people in need of protection from seeking (or finding) it here.

The UK proposal to “offshore” asylum seekers by sending them to Albania or some other country is modelled on Australia’s experience sending asylum seekers to the Pacific nations of Nauru and Papua New Guinea.

Given all we now know about the ramifications of offshore processing, it is astonishing the UK is seeking to replicate it. Offshore processing has been an unmitigated policy failure here.

Read more:
UK Nationality and Borders Bill Q&A: how will it affect migration across the English Channel?

A group of Conservative MPs, including David Davis, have rightly challenged the humanity, feasibility and cost of the UK adopting Australian-style offshore processing. They have tabled an amendment which would see offshore processing struck from the bill.

However, some other MPs have been led to believe the Australian model of offshore processing is “the best way to control illegal immigration” and “the single most important step any sovereign nation can take in protecting its own borders against illegal immigration”.

One MP claimed that when offshore processing was introduced in Australia, the number of asylum seekers arriving by boat “fell off a cliff straightaway”.

Many of us watch these developments from afar with bewilderment. The UK government appears to be taking at face value claims by the Australian government that offshore processing was a success in stopping boat arrivals.

These claims do not stack up to scrutiny. They belie the government’s own data and are not supported by any independent source.

Misleading evidence about Australia’s program

In September, George Brandis, the Australian high commissioner to the UK, gave what we believe to be [inaccurate and misleading evidence](https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2021-09-23/debates/7ca593db-c83d-48c0-98ff-300ed88e15ce/NationalityAndBordersBill(ThirdSitting) about offshore processing to the UK parliamentary committee tasked with considering the bill.

My colleagues at the Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law and I submitted to parliament a point-by-point rebuttal to this evidence, addressing just some of the errors and misrepresentations.

One of the most serious issues was the conflation of two very different policies – boat turnbacks and the offshore processing system.

“Offshore processing” involved sending asylum seekers from Australia to Nauru and PNG to have their claims processed there. Australia stopped transferring new arrivals offshore in 2014.

By contrast, the policy of boat turnbacks is ongoing, and has largely achieved its goal of deterring the arrival of people by sea. Since late 2013, the policy has involved intercepting asylum seekers at sea and sending them straight back to their countries of departure, without allowing them to apply for asylum. The humanitarian consequences of the turnback policy can be dire, especially for those returned to persecution and serious human rights abuses. It is also contrary to international law.

Brandis wrongly claimed that offshore processing and boat turnbacks were introduced at the same time. This gave the false impression that they are inseparable elements of a single approach to boat arrivals, the effectiveness of which can only be assessed holistically.

In fact, offshore processing was introduced in August 2012, a full year before boat turnbacks. During that year, boat arrivals continued to increase. In fact, more asylum seekers arrived in Australia by sea than at any other time in history.

Indeed, just three months after the offshore processing policy was announced, the government was already forced to admit that more people had arrived by boat than could ever be accommodated offshore.

Read more:
Multibillion-dollar strategy with no end in sight: Australia’s ‘enduring’ offshore processing deal with Nauru

Exporting a cruel, inhumane and costly system

The fact that offshore processing did not stop people travelling by boat to Australia should be sufficient to put an end to debate in the UK. But there are other reasons this Australian “model” should not be adopted elsewhere.

First, extreme cruelty is an inherent and unavoidable part of the system.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees and Médecins Sans Frontières have found the rates of mental illness of asylum seekers and refugees in Nauru and PNG to be among the highest recorded in any surveyed population, and some of the worst they had ever encountered.

Paediatricians reported children transferred to Nauru were among the most traumatised they had ever seen.

In fact, the Australian government was eventually forced to evacuate all families back to Australia when previously healthy children developed a rare psychiatric condition known as traumatic withdrawal syndrome, or “resignation syndrome”. In the most serious stage of this condition, children enter an unconscious or comatose state.

No liberal democracy should entertain the possibility of inflicting such cruelty and suffering on human beings, let alone do it.

The Australian experience also shows that it is extraordinarily expensive to implement offshore processing.

Costs continue to mount with each passing year, with the policy expected to cost more than A$800 million (£424 million) in the financial year 2021-22, despite there being less than 230 people left offshore. The cost to hold a single person offshore on Nauru is now believed to have risen to A$4.3 million (£2.28 million) each year.

The UK government will need to account to taxpayers for billions of pounds spent on a policy that likely will not achieve its stated aims.

Read more:
Debunking key myths about Britain’s ‘broken asylum system’

The UK is also hanging its hat on a policy which may be ruled unlawful and never get off the ground.

In Australia, offshore processing has faced a constant barrage of legal challenges, many of which have forced the government to alter its policies or pay out large sums in damages.

In the UK, where human rights law limits government power, the legal obstacles will be even bigger.

The prospect of sending asylum seekers “offshore” might sound like a convenient solution in theory. But the reality of this policy in Australia has proven it to be difficult, ineffective, expensive, cruel and controversial.

Madeline has previously provided oral and written evidence to the UK House of Commons on the proposal to introduce offshore processing.

– ref. Australia’s asylum policy has been a disaster. It’s deeply disturbing the UK wants to adopt it – https://theconversation.com/australias-asylum-policy-has-been-a-disaster-its-deeply-disturbing-the-uk-wants-to-adopt-it-172141

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Hawkins, Senior Lecturer, Canberra School of Politics, Economics and Society and NATSEM, University of Canberra

Australian economics has lost one of its most internationally renowned scholars with the passing of Geoffrey Harcourt AC at the age of 90. He was also one of its most prolific.

He wrote more than 30 books and 400 articles.

The award of Companion in the Order of Australia in 2018 cites his

eminent service to higher education as an academic economist and author, particularly in the fields of post-Keynesian economics, capital theory and economic thought.

He was a distinguished fellow of the Economic Society of Australia in 1996 among numerous other honours.

An historian of ideas

Geoff gained his first class honours degree at the University of Melbourne. It was there he made a life-long commitment to work toward alleviating poverty and against social and racial discrimination.

As he later wrote, “I became an economist because I hated injustice, unemployment and poverty”.

He then moved to Cambridge where he got his PhD. He was supervised by economics greats Nicky Kaldor and Ronald Henderson. He taught for many years at the University of Adelaide.

He was not just an ivory tower academic. He worked with some colleagues on the very practical 1974 “Adelaide Plan”, which proposed disallowing tax deductions for wage increases above a certain level as a means of reining rampant inflation.

Read more:
Geoff Harcourt: Why treasurers should go back to economics school

Another part of the plan was trading off wage increases for personal income tax cuts. It was not adopted, but later found an echo in the prices-wages accords of the Hawke government.

He declined an offer by Jim Cairns, briefly treasurer in the Whitlam government, to be appointed Governor of the Reserve Bank.

When Whitlam was dismissed, Geoff’s son (the economist Tim Harcourt) recalled his father speaking at a protest rally just as he had at anti-Vietnam war rallies a few years earlier.

In 1979, during the term of the Fraser Coalition government, he drafted an economic policy programme for a future Labor government. He later joked that Hawke followed it for “at least a good half-hour”.

A Cambridge man

While always Australian, he was also very much a Cambridge man. He visited there to lecture in 1964-1966, 1972-1973 and 1980. He moved there on a more permanent basis from 1982 to 1998.

He was president of Jesus College for most of the period 1988 to 1992. He was on the University Council for eight years.

Read more:
Geoff Harcourt: climate challenge calls for a rethink of economics

Some of his best-known work revolved around Cambridge. He wrote on the “Cambridge controversies”. This refers to an argument about the nature of capital between economists from the University of Cambridge and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

He co-wrote the definitive intellectual biography of famous Cambridge economist Joan Robinson. (Geoff, like many others, thought she should have been the first woman to win the Economics Nobel Prize.)

Recollections

Geoff described himself as an “all-rounder” with a range of research interests. He is probably best remembered for his work on what is now termed “post-Keynesian economics”.

Both authors of this hastily-written obituary remember Geoff with great affection.

Harry Bloch, the incoming co-editor of History of Economics Review, remembered Geoff as “the beating heart of the history of economic thought in Australia”.

The review will feature a tribute to Geoff in due course.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Remembering Geoff Harcourt, the beating heart of Australian economics – https://theconversation.com/remembering-geoff-harcourt-the-beating-heart-of-australian-economics-173330

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ken Nosaka, Professor of Exercise and Sports Science, Edith Cowan University

Many physically active people get muscle pain after exercise, known as “delayed onset muscle soreness” or DOMS.

Foam rolling has emerged as a popular means of alleviating delayed onset muscle soreness and stiff muscles.

You’re likely to find foam rollers in any gym, or you may have one yourself, and many people swear by using them before and after exercise.

But what does the science say? Is foam rolling actually effective in reducing delayed onset muscle soreness, and in increasing flexibility?

Unfortunately, it’s often the case that scientific studies don’t necessarily support anecdotal evidence.

This seems to be the case with foam rolling. The evidence doesn’t strongly support the use of foam rollers – though some studies do show a small benefit.

Read more:
Health Check: why do my muscles ache the day after exercise?

What is foam rolling?

Foam rolling is a type of self-massage, usually using a cylindrical foam roller.

They were first used in the 1980s, and are now usually used in warm-up and/or cool-down exercises.

Proponents say foam rolling can reduce muscle pain, and increase flexibility (also known as range of motion).

But the mechanisms underlying these claims are not well known.

Read more:
Physio, chiro, osteo and myo: what’s the difference and which one should I get?

How does foam rolling work?

Foam rollers and other similar devices are claimed to release the tightness of “myofascia”.

Myofascia is a thin connective tissue that surrounds our muscles. It prevents friction between tissues, and transfers force generated by muscle fibres to the bone.

Myofascia can become sticky and tight because of a sedentary lifestyle, repetitive movements that overworks one part of the body, injury, or surgery. Tight myofascia can reduce flexibility.

My research team and I at Edith Cowan University investigated the role of myofascia in delayed onset muscle soreness.

Participants in our study did ten sets of six bicep curls, and developed very sore arms in the following days.

We assessed their muscle soreness one, two and four days after the exercise.

We also assessed their pain using an “electrical stimulator” to quantify the sensitivity of the bicep fascia and muscle to electric current.

We found the fascia surrounding the muscle became more sensitive to electrical stimulation than the muscle itself.

Scientists think tiny tears in muscle fibres are responsible for delayed onset muscle soreness. But our research suggests damage to, or inflammation of, myofascia is more associated with delayed onset muscle soreness than damage to muscle fibres.

Foam rolling claims to stretch the myofascia and thereby could reduce such soreness and inflammation.

But the evidence for foam rolling is mixed

The evidence is still emerging, but there have been some studies into foam rolling.

A systematic review article of foam rolling based on 49 studies concluded foam rolling reduced muscle stiffness and pain, and increased range of motion. But the authors stated it should be used in combination with dynamic stretching and an active warm-up before exercise.

Another study examined whether foam rolling was effective in reducing delayed onset muscle soreness and enhancing muscle recovery. The participants performed two workouts four weeks apart, each involving ten sets of ten back squats.

One group then foam rolled for 20 minutes immediately, 24 and 48 hours after exercise, while another group did no foam rolling at all. Foam rolling had a moderate effect on reducing delayed onset muscle soreness.

Read more:
Feeling sore after exercise? Here’s what science suggests helps (and what doesn’t)

But another recent review article with meta-analysis (which combines the results of multiple scientific studies) of 21 studies on foam rolling concluded the effects of foam rolling on performance and recovery were very minor, and foam rolling should be used as a warm-up activity rather than a recovery tool.

The article also found foam rolling before exercise resulted in a small improvement in flexibility by 4%. And rolling after exercise reduced muscle pain perception by 6%.

But statistical significance doesn’t necessarily reflect practical significance. A 4% increase in flexibility and 6% reduction in pain may not be noticed very much by most people.

Also, multiple studies found foam rolling increased range of motion, but only for roughly 20 minutes.

So, the effects of foam rolling on flexibility do not appear to be large and the long-term effects are inconclusive.

One problem with this area of research is the rolling protocols used in the studies were diverse with no definitive agreement regarding the ideal number of sets, duration, rolling frequency, or intensity.

Interestingly, the magnitude of the effect on range of motion following foam rolling is similar to that of stretching.

So if your goal is to increase range of motion, both stretching and foam rolling can be considered as adequate warm-up routines. No previous studies have clearly showed foam rolling was more effective than other interventions to improve flexibility before exercise.

But remember: though foam rolling is generally considered safe, it’s better to avoid it if you have a serious injury such as a muscle tear, unless your doctor or a physical therapist has cleared you first.

Ken Nosaka receives funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council and Defence Science and Technology.
He is affiliated with the Stay Sharp Program (not-for-profit group in a community in Perth).

– ref. Is foam rolling effective for muscle pain and flexibility? The science isn’t so sure – https://theconversation.com/is-foam-rolling-effective-for-muscle-pain-and-flexibility-the-science-isnt-so-sure-170878

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Martin, Visiting Fellow, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University

The architect of the ingenious mechanism at the heart of Labor’s plan to sharply cut carbon emissions is about to leave the parliament.

Throughout the pandemic, Greg Hunt has been best known as Australia’s health minister. But before that, when the Coalition was swept to office in 2013, he became Tony Abbott’s environment minister, charged with destroying Labor’s carbon tax.

(I’m calling it a “carbon tax” here to distinguish it from the mechanism Greg Hunt quietly slipped in to replace it, and also because the Bureau of Statistics decided it was a tax when it recorded it as a tax in the national accounts.)

Labor’s scheme taxed (or “charged” if you must) each big emitter in the industries covered A$23 for each tonne of carbon dioxide or equivalent they pumped into the atmosphere.

There were all sorts of problems with Labor’s scheme, problems Hunt was keenly aware of, having co-authored a prize-winning research paper on carbon taxes at university and having been immersed in the topic when Labor was last in power, as the Coalition’s environment spokesman under leaders Nelson, Turnbull and Abbott.

One big problem was that Australian exporters (of products such as steel and aluminum) would be placed at a disadvantage by having to pay the tax, while their overseas competitors did not.

Steel and aluminium would still be sold to the eventual customers but from a country other than Australia that didn’t charge the tax, a phenomenon known as carbon leakage.

Labor’s carbon tax had problems

And not only exporters. Australian producers of products for local consumption stood to suffer in the same way, losing sales to foreign suppliers who weren’t charged the tax, a problem the European Union is trying to fix at the moment by imposing a so-called Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, or “carbon tariff”.

Labor’s solution was to grant firms in “emissions-intensive trade-exposed” sectors free permits to the tune of 94.5% of industry average carbon costs in the first year (and less exposed firms free permits to cover 66% of costs), a gift that would be wound back 1.3% each year.

Another solution, being pursued by Hunt as he took soundings while in opposition, was to limit Australian facilities to emitting no more than they are now.

Over time the entitlement could be wound back.

But the problem was it would stop firms expanding.

BHP, for instance, might get a big contract that required it to double its output of steel but be unable to fulfil it without halving its emissions intensity – the amount it emitted per unit of steel produced.

Hitting on a baseline winner

Hunt’s solution, the one he and independent senator Nick Xenophon slipped into legislation being drawn up to replace the carbon tax with direct grants, was to set up “baselines” for each large emitter.

To be determined by the Clean Energy Regulator in accordance with rules set by the minister and disallowable by parliament, the baselines set the maximum amount each big plant can emit without being in breach and paying penalties.

Importantly, the baselines were to be calculated on the basis of previous emissions. Facilities were to be allowed to emit what they had, but no more.

More importantly, plants could have their baselines calculated on the basis of emissions intensity – the amount emitted per unit of production, which would mean they would be able to expand so long as they didn’t emit more per unit.

More importantly still, the Clean Energy Regulator is in the process of converting almost all baselines to emissions intensity baselines.

All Labor has to do, and what intends to do, is to make use of the mechanism Hunt and Xenophon put in place.

Business is backing baselines

Each facility that emits more than 100,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent per year – 215 of them – is subject to a baseline.

What Labor has pledged to do, and it is backed by the Business Council, is to get the Clean Energy Regulator to wind down those baselines “predictably and gradually over time” to support the transition to net zero.

Businesses that are already reducing their emissions want this, because they want other firms to be made to do the same.

The beauty of the mechanism set up on Abbott’s watch is that each facility, each
“gas well, aluminium smelter and coal line” as Labor’s Chris Bowen puts it, will have its tightened baseline calculated individually.

Each will be asked to do no more than what is needed after considering what it can cope with.

Within minutes of Friday’s announcement, Energy Minister Angus Taylor labelled it “a sneaky new carbon tax on agriculture, mining and transport”, but it is better described as a system of guidelines and penalties, one legislated by Taylor’s side of politics.

Quite a lot will be needed. Labor’s modelling, released on Friday, didn’t spell out what would be needed to get emissions to net-zero by 2050, but the Coalition’s modelling, released in November, did.

No matter what reasonable assumptions the model included, including “global technology trends”, it couldn’t get all the way to net-zero by 2050.

Read more:
Labor’s 2030 climate target betters the Morrison government, but Australia must go much further, much faster

So the Coalition’s modellers added in something fanciful which they named “further technology breakthroughs” to get the remaining 15%.

Greg Hunt retires as health minister and retires from parliament at the next election. He has set us on the path to getting where we will need to be.

Peter Martin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Who’s the unsung architect behind Labor’s climate plans? A retiring Coalition minister – https://theconversation.com/whos-the-unsung-architect-behind-labors-climate-plans-a-retiring-coalition-minister-173313

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Joe Dortch, Adjunct Senior Research Fellow, The University of Western Australia

Western Australia’s Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Bill 2021 is set to become law, replacing the Aboriginal Heritage Act 1972. The Bill will be read tonight for the third and final time in Western Australia’s state parliament upper house.

It has been spruiked by the McGowan government as a step forward for the management of heritage in WA in the wake of the 2020 Juukan Gorge disaster.

However many First Nations peoples in WA instead fear it will continue a long tradition of Labor and Liberal WA Aboriginal Affairs ministers signing off on heritage destruction.

The key objection to the new legislation is that a single elected official will have the final say on whether a heritage site can be destroyed for development.

Read more:
Australia has a heritage conservation problem. Can farming and Aboriginal heritage protection co-exist?

A history of failure to protect Aboriginal heritage

In the 49 years since the existing Act was created, successive ministers on both sides of politics have proven weak on heritage protection in Western Australia. Almost every minister for Aboriginal affairs, on either side of the political spectrum, has failed to protect Aboriginal heritage.

*Look at the history. *

Read more:
The NSW government needs to stop prosecuting Aboriginal fishers if it really wants to Close the Gap

How this proposed bill is more of the same

No matter how important the site, the minister for Aboriginal affairs has rarely rejected a development application. Of 463 mining-related applications to impact sites under section 18 of the Act since 2010, none were rejected. This bill gives little reason to expect change.

Much like the old Aboriginal Heritage Act, the proposed bill allows that when a developer wishes to impact a site despite objections by Aboriginal Traditional Owners or custodians, a government-appointed council overseen by the minister will be the one to make decisions.

However the developer can appeal to the state administrative tribunal over ministerial decisions they don’t like. The Aboriginal custodians for that area will not have an equivalent right of appeal.

There is a convoluted process requiring engagement between Aboriginal people and developers. However, developers will be able to decide when they must talk to Aboriginal parties about possible impact on a cultural heritage site. Aboriginal people will not have the right to prevent such an impact, only the right to be told about it.

Aboriginal parties will have no on-going resourcing to fulfil new responsibilities to manage heritage listings and protect sites. This is a concern for smaller and less resourced groups and sets up obvious conflicts if the developer is to fund all costs for managing heritage on a project, as currently proposed.

Read more:
Why the Australian government must listen to Torres Strait leaders on climate change

We need a better way forward

All this flies in the face of the findings of the recommendations of the report released in October of the federal inquiry into the Juukan Cave disaster, A Way Forward. This report called for, among other things, the right for Indigenous people to withhold consent to destruction of an important place.

This fundamental human right is not a veto against development. Impacting Juukan Gorge was not critical to the success of the Brockman 4 mine proposal. A robust business case does not depend on access to a single site.

Where the Bill fails heritage, it creates risk for business certainty and undermines “social license” – the support that large businesses need in the community. Last month, ACSI and HESTA, representing major funds commanding hundreds of billions of dollars, publicised their concerns about investing in WA projects that would be approved under the proposed system.

Aboriginal community support is thin. In October, Aboriginal Affairs Minister Stephen Dawson was unable to identify any Aboriginal organisation that supports the bill. Since then, one Aboriginal organisation voiced support. Their view must be respected, but this does not represent consensus across affected communities.

A Way Forward sets out better models. For example, in the Northern Territory there is an authority board of Aboriginal law men and women who administer the functions of their Act, with practical independence from the NT Minister for Aboriginal Affairs.

To Premier McGowan and Minister Dawson, we say:
If you want to change a history of heritage destruction to a future of heritage protection, Aboriginal people should have an independent right of review for ministerial decisions, and have genuine power to make decisions about heritage sites.

Joe Dortch is a Director of Dortch Cuthbert (a heritage consultancy), and Adjunct Senior Research Fellow at the University of Western Australia. He is the President of the Australian Archaeological Association and a Full Member of the Australian Association of Consulting Archaeologists Incorporated. Both organisations have made submissions to the Joint Standing Committee on Northern Australia on the destruction of sites at Juukan Gorge and to the Western Australian Government on the Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Bill. In 2019-2020 he was a Heritage Advisor at Rio Tinto but was not involved with any of the events mentioned in the article, which are documented in public sources.

Anne Poelina is affiliated with the following:

Murray Darling Basin Authority Advisory Committee on Social, Economic and Environmental Science

Jo Thomson is the owner of Thomson Cultural Heritage Management (a heritage consultancy), and PhD candidate at the University of Western Australia. She is a Full Member of and the Chairperson of the Western Australian chapter of the Australian Association of Consulting Archaeologists Incorporated (AACAI); is a full international member of the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS); and is a member of the Australia ICOMOS Indigenous heritage reference group. Both organizations have made submissions to the WA government on the proposed WA Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Bill and also to the Joint Standing Committee on Nothern Australia on the destruction of sites at Juukan Gorge.

Kado Muir is chair of the National Native Title Council and affiliated with Aboriginal Heritage Action Alliance. Kado once served a term as Specialist Anthropologist with the Aboriginal Cultural Materials Committee.

– ref. A history of destruction: why the WA Aboriginal cultural heritage bill will not prevent another Juukan Gorge-like disaster – https://theconversation.com/a-history-of-destruction-why-the-wa-aboriginal-cultural-heritage-bill-will-not-prevent-another-juukan-gorge-like-disaster-173232

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Heather Handley, Adjunct Associate Professor, Monash University

The eruption of Mount Semeru in Indonesia on Saturday tragically claimed the lives of 22 people, with another 22 still missing and 56 injured. More than 5,000 people have been affected by the eruption, and more than 2,000 people have taken refuge at 19 evacuation points.

Saturday’s eruption produced an ash plume that reached 15km into the atmosphere, along with hot pyroclastic flows – dense, fast-moving clouds of solidified lava, ash and gas. Volcanic mudflows called lahars also tumbled down the volcano’s steep slopes. Heavy ash blanketed nearby villages and plunged some areas into temporary darkness.

Several villages have been buried in up to 4 metres of volcanic material and debris, more than 3,000 buildings have been damaged, and Gladak Perak Bridge, which connected Lumajang with the nearby city of Malang, has collapsed.

The Volcano Observatory Notice for Aviation (VONA) has since reported further pyroclastic flows travelling down the the volcano’s slopes, and ash plumes reaching 4.5km above its summit. There are also reports of lava flows at the summit crater.

Mt Semeru is one of the most active volcanoes in Java, with activity taking place in 74 of the past 80 years. The volcano’s current eruptive phase began in 2014, with frequent emissions of ash plumes to hundreds of metres above the crater, pyroclastic flows and glowing lava avalanches.

Unexpected larger-scale eruption

But Saturday’s eruption was, unexpectedly, much larger than the ongoing background of activity. The Head of the Geological Agency of the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources, Eko Budi Lelono, said a thunderstorm and persistent rain had eroded part of the volcano’s lava dome – a “plug” of solidified lava at the summit. This caused the dome to collapse, triggering the eruption.

Lava dome collapse is a common trigger of volcanic eruptions, and has been behind some of the deadliest eruptions in history. Collapse of the unstable dome of solidified lava is rather like taking the top off a fizzy drink bottle, depressurising the system and triggering an eruption. Lava domes sometimes collapse under their own weight as they grow, or they can be weakened by external weather conditions, as was evidently the case at Mt Semeru.

The fact that Saturday’s eruption was triggered by an external factor, rather than conditions inside the volcano, would have made this event harder to forecast.

Volcano monitoring typically relies on signs of increased unrest inside a volcano. Increased earthquake activity can be a sign that magma is moving around beneath the ground. Another warning sign is a change in the temperature or type of gases emitted. Sometimes, small changes in the shape of the volcano or lava dome can be detected on the ground or from satellites.

Another fatal, hard-to-predict explosive eruption happened in 2019 at Whakaari (White Island) in New Zealand. That event was thought to have been driven by an explosion of pressurised steam rather than by magma, which made it challenging to predict.

Read more:
Why White Island erupted and why there was no warning

Living with active volcanoes

As the world’s population grows, more and more people are living close to active volcanoes. According to one estimate, more than a billion people (14% of people on the planet) live within 100km of an active volcano.

In Indonesia, more than 70% of the population live within 100 km one or more of the country’s 130 active volcanoes – that’s a staggering 175 million people. More than 8.6 million Indonesians live within 10km of an active volcano – well within range of deadly pyroclastic flows.

Read more:
Under the volcano: predicting eruptions and coping with ash rain

The fertile soils typically found near volcanoes mean these communities need to balance their livelihoods with the risks. Keeping an eye on dozens of active volcanoes poses a continuous challenge to Indonesia’s volcano monitoring and disaster management authorities.

Heather Handley receives funding from the Australian Research Council. She is Co-Founder of Women in Earth and Environmental Sciences Australasia (WOMEESA) and Co-Founder of the Earth Futures Festival. Heather is Governing Councillor of the Geological Society of Australia.

– ref. Mount Semeru’s deadly eruption was triggered by rain and storms, making it much harder to predict – https://theconversation.com/mount-semerus-deadly-eruption-was-triggered-by-rain-and-storms-making-it-much-harder-to-predict-173240

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sonya Suares, Guest Lecturer, WAAPA, Edith Cowan University

Review: Moulin Rouge! The Musical

Someone wise once observed that theatre is the only artform to acknowledge its audience, and that’s why it will never die. As patrons press eagerly into Melbourne’s Regent Theatre, Derek McLane’s blood-red set is already pulsating and several pairs of eyes regard us coolly.

Liquid limbs and lacey-leather costuming set an unmistakably erotic tone. Two women swallow swords for our amusement. Enter the impresario, Harold Zidler (Simon Burke).

Just as he greets aspiring songwriter, Christian (Des Flanagan), bohemians Toulouse-Lautrec (Tim Omaji) and Santiago (Ryan Gonzalez), and The Duke of Monroth (Andrew Cook), Zidler enthuses in our direction:

Welcome, you gorgeous collection of reprobates and rascals, artistes and arrivistes, soubrettes and sodomites!.

We take our seats inside the Moulin Rouge.

Those familiar with Baz Luhrmann’s wildly successful movie musical (2001) are primed and practically frothing for Lady Marmalade. Samantha Dodemaide, Olivia Vasquez, Ruva Ngwenya and Christopher J Scalzo do not disappoint. They tear into the number, teeth and all, and we’re away!

A fiercely talented line-up

This long-awaited local incarnation of the ten-time Tony award-winning Broadway production follows the film’s storyline pretty faithfully.

Our penniless, poetic hero falls instantly for Satine (Alinta Chidzey), superstar of the Moulin Rouge. She, mistaking him for the wealthy Duke she must seduce, lets her guard drop long enough to be swept up in love at first sight. The club, home to waifs, strays and lost souls, hangs in the balance of their doomed romance. Oh – and to add to the urgency of it all, Satine is dying of consumption.

Read more:
To make films is human, to Baz Luhrmann, divine

There are some notable points of departure. The orientalism that was so heavy-handed in the film is mercifully diminished. There are counterpoint scenes set against the backdrop of the Parisian elite. And the score has been revamped considerably.

More than 70 songs propel us through this tragic love story. Anthems and chart-toppers like Chandelier and Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It) give way to unexpected strains of Such Great Heights. Omaji delivers a haunting version of Nature Boy. Katy Perry’s 2010 hit Firework is wonderfully re-imagined to reveal the dual imperatives at play for Satine: her fatigue and fast-declining health versus her desire to explode onto the stage with the full force of her being.

As Satine, Chidzey does exactly that. It is a virtuoso performance, powerful and mercurial, vocally dexterous, technically precise and piercingly vulnerable. From the moment of her arrival, all eyes slide towards her. While this effect is clearly supported by lavish staging, lighting, costuming and choreography, it is the humanity she brings to the role that compels us.

In a fiercely talented lineup of artists, special mention is also due to Tim Omaji for his playful yet deeply raw portrayal of the artist-cum-revolutionary, Toulouse-Lautrec; Andrew Cook for his reinvention of the dastardly Duke as supremely assured and menacing; Samantha Dodemaide for her rough-edged, comic yet wonderfully layered Nini; and Simon Burke for his huckster-with-a-heart-of-gold, Zidler.

The ensemble stand out in their own right. As impressive as they are diverse, they give the lie to the tired (read: racist, gendered, etc) assumption that inclusive casting somehow means “sacrificing standards”.

These are performers who can belt out a tune, dance a tango and quite literally fly through the air – sometimes simultaneously. This depth of representation on stage lends authenticity to the depiction of the Moulin Rouge as a haven for marginalised artists.

Darker dynamics

And now that we’re back to the club and our relative positions therein, I must note that the audience experience remains jarringly safe throughout.

Though we are seated within the Moulin Rouge and are told that Satine came to be there via child prostitution, we are never made to feel uncomfortable or complicit in her commodification.

We hear of the fate of those discarded by merciless patrons and ex-lovers: slit throats, acid disfigurement – we even see it stylised in the Roxanne dance sequence. But the violent dynamics of this world are attributed purely and simply to the character of the Duke.

They are individualised in the text in precisely the same way that the social phenomenon of male violence against women is attributed to individual men. It’s not the system that’s rotten, it’s just a few bad apples.

Yes I know – this is a critique of the book and not the production, which is intended as a raunchy romp. But I believe in audiences. We can handle a bit of complexity, especially when it lends resonance to a work.

Still, the show is an undeniable theatrical accomplishment – a spectacular, spectacular feast for the senses. Its key creatives should be enormously proud. My final shout out is to the musical directors, a category of creative often overlooked in reviews of musicals, oddly enough.

Kudos to Luke Hunter and Vicky Jacobs, local legends both, for their wrangling of this extravagant and demanding score. Melbourne audiences, do not miss this sparkling diamond of a show.

Moulin Rouge! The Musical is at the Regent Theatre until May 2022, after which it transfers to Sydney.

Sonya Suares does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Moulin Rouge! The Musical is a spectacular feast for the senses – https://theconversation.com/moulin-rouge-the-musical-is-a-spectacular-feast-for-the-senses-172866

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Prudence Flowers, Senior Lecturer in US History, College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences, Flinders University

Last week, the US Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case that is the most significant threat to abortion rights in the US in decades.

The case, Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization, centres on a 2018 Mississippi law banning abortion after 15 weeks except in “medical emergencies or for severe fetal abnormality”.

It is part of a wave of state abortion bans passed since the 2016 US presidential election that take aim at Roe v Wade, the landmark 1973 Supreme Court decision that guaranteed abortion as a constitutional right.

So, what is this Mississippi challenge based on and could it eventually lead to the overturning of Roe v Wade?

Two issues at stake in the Mississippi case

The Supreme Court, which likely won’t make a decision in the case until mid-2022, is faced with two key issues.

One of the central elements of Roe is that the state and federal governments cannot ban abortion before viability, the point at which a fetus can theoretically survive outside the pregnant person’s body (defined as approximately 23-24 weeks gestation).

The Mississippi ban falls well short of the viability threshold. As such, the Supreme Court is now considering whether all pre-viability bans on elective abortions are unconstitutional.

Read more:
Supreme Court signals shift on abortion – but will it strike down Roe or leave it to states to decide when ‘personhood’ occurs?

The second issue is respect for legal precedent. Since the Supreme Court was established in 1789, it has reversed its own constitutional precedents only 145 times, or in 0.5% of cases.

Roe v Wade, decided 48 years ago, is sometimes described as a “super precedent” decision, because the Supreme Court has repeatedly reaffirmed it.

Constitutional scholar Michael Gerhardt defines “super precedents” as

constitutional decisions in which public institutions have heavily invested, repeatedly relied, and consistently supported over a significant period of time.

Conservatives, including several on the Supreme Court, reject the inclusion of Roe v Wade in this definition.

Why does the court’s makeup now matter?

In oral arguments, Mississippi’s lawyers invited the Supreme Court to use this case to overturn Roe v Wade. Anti-abortion lawyers and activists are optimistic their arguments will fall on receptive ears.

In 2016, Donald Trump, like every Republican presidential candidate dating back to Ronald Reagan, campaigned on a promise to appoint “pro-life judges” to the Supreme Court.

Despite serving only one term in office, Trump was able to deliver. He appointed Neil Gorsuch in 2017, Brett Kavanaugh in 2018, and Amy Coney Barrett in 2020 to fill Supreme Court vacancies. Conservatives on the bench now have a 6-3 majority.

While conservative Chief Justice John Roberts is no supporter of abortion rights, he has been a swing vote on a range of issues and has an established interest in protecting the reputation of the Supreme Court. However, after Barrett was sworn in, conservatives no longer needed to appeal to him to form a majority.

And while Kavanaugh claimed in his confirmation hearings to believe Roe v Wade was “settled as a precedent of the Supreme Court”, last week in oral arguments he read from a list of Supreme Court cases that overturned precedent.

Read more:
Who is US Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, and where does he stand on abortion?

How states have chipped away at abortion access

Abortion rights have survived serious attacks before.

In Planned Parenthood v Casey (1992), three appointees of Republican presidents sided with two liberal justices to uphold Roe v Wade, arguing “liberty finds no refuge in a jurisprudence of doubt.”

That judgement reiterated the viability threshold for legal abortions, but allowed states to pass restrictions as long as they did not place an “undue burden” on the right to an abortion.

Since the 1990s, anti-abortion lawmakers have pushed to find the limits of an “undue burden,” pursuing laws and test cases that erode abortion access.

Many states now mandate 24- or 72-hour waiting periods, ultrasounds, parental consent requirements for teenagers and counselling that repeats anti-abortion claims.

Since 2010, conservative states have also passed hundreds of targeted regulation of abortion provision (TRAP) laws, which place prohibitive and medically unnecessary restrictions on doctors and clinics that provide abortion care.

This anti-abortion strategy of chipping away at Roe v Wade has been extraordinarily successful.

Between 2011–16, over 160 abortion providers closed or stopped offering terminations, the largest rate of closures since 1973. Multiple states, including Mississippi, have one remaining abortion clinic in operation.

New strategy: more aggressive challenges to Roe v Wade

After Trump’s victory, opponents of abortion shifted to a more aggressive strategy of directly challenging Roe v Wade.

Most of these recent laws, such as Alabama’s 2019 near-total abortion ban, have been blocked by the lower courts.

A new Texas law banning abortion after six weeks is currently in effect while the Supreme Court considers whether its unique enforcement mechanism, which allows private citizens to sue anyone they think has broken the law, can be challenged in the courts.

Read more:
Jim Crow tactics reborn in Texas abortion law, deputizing citizens to enforce legally suspect provisions

And the partisan makeup of the current Supreme Court makes it almost certain that Mississippi’s law will stand.

What is not clear is whether the justices will restrict themselves to the question of fetal viability or whether they will completely overturn Roe v Wade, allowing states to ban abortion at will.

If the Supreme Court allows the states to ban abortion before viability, this will have a significant impact on the small number of pregnant people who seek abortions in the second trimester.

Generally, these people have either received a devastating medical diagnosis or they have complex personal circumstances, including domestic violence, mental illness, and/or drug addiction. These patients, as well as the doctors that provide this care, are highly stigmatised.

The long-term effects of overturning Roe v Wade

If Roe v Wade is overturned and abortion rights are returned to the states, access to abortion will effectively be a geographical lottery.

Twenty-two states have laws that could be used to ban or severely restrict abortion, while 15 states and the District of Columbia have laws that protect the right to abortion.

Abortion is a routine, common type of reproductive health care. Approximately one in four American women will have an abortion before they are 45.

Despite the political controversy and polarising rhetoric, polling this year indicated that 80% of Americans support abortion in all or most cases, and at least 60% support Roe v Wade.

However, while abortion is common, three-quarters of US abortion patients are low income and more than half are people of colour. They already face significant financial and logistical barriers in accessing this essential health care.

If Roe v Wade is overturned, abortion will still be safely and legally accessible for those who can afford it. The devastating consequences of such a decision will fall primarily on the shoulders of those least able to bear it.

Prudence Flowers has received funding from the South Australian Department of Human Services. She is a member of the South Australian Abortion Action Coalition.

– ref. Will Roe v Wade be overturned, and what would this mean? The US abortion debate explained – https://theconversation.com/will-roe-v-wade-be-overturned-and-what-would-this-mean-the-us-abortion-debate-explained-173156

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Swanson, PhD Student, University of Otago

Christopher Luxon’s ascendancy to the National Party leadership has highlighted – once again – the precarious balance between the party’s liberal and conservative wings. So his newly appointed shadow cabinet attempts to establish some equilibrium, particularly in the choice of liberal Nicola Willis as deputy.

But persistent questioning about Luxon’s own evangelical Christian faith tends to reinforce perceptions that National’s “broad church” is not an entirely unified congregation.

These perceptions have their roots in National’s origins as a political party. The question now is, why does this need for balance exist? And why, under MMP, has National not devolved into multiple, more ideologically coherent, parties that negotiate with each other come election time?

To answer those questions we need to look at the formation of National from a merger between the United and Reform parties in 1936. In that history we can see the origins of the modern party and the challenges it faces in the MMP era.

The birth of a party

The United and Reform parties had first formed a coalition in 1931 to see off a challenge from the Labour Party, and won that year’s general election. But in 1935 the coalition lost to Labour, leading to the formal merger as National.

United’s predecessor, the Liberal Party, dominated New Zealand politics up to the first world war, and was the country’s first organised political party. The Liberals enjoyed support from urban liberals and workers, but the formation of the Reform Party in 1909 and Labour in 1916 saw a steady decline in the party’s fortunes.

Read more:
Luxon takes the controls – can the former Air NZ CEO make National straighten up and fly right?

For its part, the Reform Party was the first consolidation of conservative politicians in New Zealand, coming to power for the first time in 1912 and staying in government until 1928.

It’s establishment went back to the Liberal government’s land and welfare reforms, which were branded as “socialism” and an attack on farmers. Support from social conservatives and rural communities continued to be core components of the Reform Party until the 1936 merger.

Meanwhile, a group of Liberal members had formed the United Party in 1927, supplanting the Liberals as the main challenger to the Reform Party. United gained support from urban centres, the business community and socially liberal (in the 1920s sense) interest groups.

The MMP effect

If this all seems oddly familiar, that’s because many aspects of the United and Reform parties still exist within National today.

Under the First Past the Post (FPP) electoral system, the merger of those two parties made sense. Forming a single block that represented the centre-right in New Zealand allowed them to build a well-supported political apparatus.

More importantly, the merger allowed the two parties to stop fighting each other, and instead counter Labour.

Under MMP (which replaced FPP in 1996), however, the need for single parties that dominate whole sides of the political spectrum has decreased. Instead, there’s an opportunity for parties to have more refined policy platforms based on clear ideologies, rather than broad-based appeal.

Read more:
Judith Collins may be gone but New Zealand’s search for a credible and viable opposition is far from over

This doesn’t mean socially conservative or liberal parties can’t work together – MMP allows for this as part of governing coalition negotiations, rather than the tensions playing out as internal party machinations.

Proportional representation systems tend to increase diversity within political systems – not just in terms of gender or ethnicity, but also by providing more specific political channels for different ideological perspectives, and encouraging open collaboration and compromise between those various groups.

Looked at this way, the obvious outcome is for a devolution of major “one size fits all” parties into smaller ones that take clearer policy and ideological positions. To some extent this has already happened on the left, with the advent of New Labour, and subsequently the Alliance (which contained the Green Party), splitting out of Labour in the early 1990s.

No motive for change

So, if that’s the way MMP works, could such a devolution occur within National, and what might that look like? Might we see modern versions of United and Reform – one socially liberal, the other conservative – emerge to represent different groups on the right?

Similarly, could we witness the same process on the left, with socially conservative elements of Labour forming their own party, separate from but aligned to the Labour Party?

It’s not impossible, but for the time being seems unlikely. The main reason for that is scale – staying a single entity gives a party size, and size brings resources. So while devolution might make sense in theory, the current system rewards major political blocs, particularly through campaign funding.

Read more:
Labour makes it easier to change leaders, but Jacinda Ardern has no reason to go – yet

Segmenting into new parties would also result in a splintering of support, with consequences for funding streams. The consolidation of resources and support was, of course, one of the main forces that pushed United and Reform together in the first place.

Unless there’s major fallout within National, with one cohort having severely reduced influence over policy, it’s unlikely there will be significant change any time soon. For decades, National’s liberal-conservative balance has seen the party able to unify a broad base around core values, making National the key player on the centre-right.

Given all of this, until the 2023 election we can expect to hear far more about Christopher Luxon’s conservatism being balanced out by the urban liberal values of Nicola Willis. For now at least, there will be no going back to the future for National.

Michael Swanson is a member of the National Party

– ref. History made the National Party a ‘broad church’ – can it hold in the MMP era? – https://theconversation.com/history-made-the-national-party-a-broad-church-can-it-hold-in-the-mmp-era-173319

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Simon Chapple, Director, Institute for Governance and Policy Studies, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington

When Minister of Finance Grant Robertson announced in this year’s budget that his government was developing a social unemployment insurance scheme, people could have been forgiven for seeing this as largely positive.

Robertson suggested the scheme would be “ACC-like” and hinted it would pay low and middle-income earners who lost their jobs about 80% of their previous earnings (up to some maximum cap) for somewhat less than a year.

What’s not to like? We argue there is actually more than a little cause for concern, not least because there has been a worrying lack of public consultation on policy alternatives.

Furthermore, there’s the risk of creating a two-tier welfare system, given those eligible will be people with a stable employment history and payments will be related to their pre-redundancy earnings.

Private insurance problems

In our just published Policy Quarterly paper we ask what problems a social insurance scheme might solve, and we conclude the case for one is not persuasive.

To see why, it helps to look at how existing private insurance markets work. People generally want to protect themselves from things like job loss, illness, death, theft or destruction of property – so they buy insurance policies.

However, there are two problems with the private insurance market, meaning they under-provide relative to people’s real need.

Read more:
Why is New Zealand’s Labour government trying to push through a two-tier benefit system?

The first problem is called “adverse selection”, meaning people choosing to buy insurance have better information about the risks facing them than insurance businesses do, and no good reason to disclose that information.

To protect themselves from this, insurance companies set premiums higher. In turn, due to the costs, this leads to people being under-insured. Ultimately, society’s best interests aren’t met.

There’s also the problem of “moral hazard” – if a person has insurance they may take on more risk, without the insurer knowing exactly which customers are adopting riskier behaviour.

Again, insurance companies set higher premiums and people are generally under-insured. And again, this isn’t in society’s best interests.

What would justify change?

These market failures mean there is potential for well-designed government interventions to meet the social interest. In particular, making everyone join a social insurance scheme would fix the adverse selection problem.

But a compulsory social insurance system also expands the scope for moral hazard. People might change their behaviour to increase their eligibility for an insurance payout. They might take on jobs with higher redundancy risks, or be less motivated to look for work, because the consequences are now less severe.

Read more:
10 ways New Zealand employers can turn the ‘great resignation’ into a ‘great recruitment’

Market failure isn’t the only possible rationale for a compulsory social insurance scheme, however. Economies of scale, for example, could allow the government to reduce the cost of such a scheme – subsidising the private sector to lower premiums would be an alternative.

Finally, there is the paternalistic justification: if people are unwilling, financially unable or simply too shortsighted to insure themselves, the government can do it for them.

What is already working?

But the government also needs to consider what other kinds of insurance already exist and are working. A (now dated) study from 2012 estimated that one in six New Zealand households had private income protection of some sort for sickness or unemployment.

Of course, there is already the working age welfare system to mitigate the risks of unemployment. Informally, as well, people insure against job loss by saving, upskilling, accumulating annual leave and reducing household costs.

Double-income, couple households have a form of in-built insurance in each other, and wider families often provide for one another when a person loses work.

Read more:
Are low-paid jobs really a stepping stone to better pay? A new study suggests it’s not that simple

Some workers will already have redundancy provisions in their employment contracts. A decade ago, the OECD reported more than half of displaced workers in New Zealand had an average redundancy entitlement of over NZ$28,000. That’s not inconsiderable insurance.

Similarly, the student loan scheme funds education and training, including re-skilling if one is made redundant. What’s more, the three million plus people with KiwiSaver accounts (which had an average value of $26,000 in 2021) can access the funds in emergencies, including unemployment.

Lastly, an effective monetary and fiscal policy that keeps unemployment low and stable is likely to eliminate much of the need for an unemployment insurance system.

Reasons to be cautious

While always imperfect, these substitutes go a considerable way to mitigating the failure of the primary private insurance market. Policymakers advocating for state-provided social insurance need to ask the question: does a social insurance solution add anything to this existing mix?

If it turns out there are gaps in the current system, advocates of social insurance must also consider:

• such a scheme may simply be substituting for one or several of the existing solutions, which would then reduce if the scheme were introduced

• reforming and improving what already exists may be preferable in terms of cost, effectiveness and equity than introducing an entirely new system

• there may be implications for both equity and erosion of the core welfare system of creating a separate, higher tier of assistance for some.

Read more:
Young and ethnic minority workers were hardest hit at the start of COVID, but not anymore

Too many unknowns

Like what it seeks to replace, social insurance will itself be an imperfect substitute for the private insurance market because it’s a one-size-fits-all solution with no allowance for human diversity.

And it creates significant incentives for both employers and employees to game the system by shifting the costs of employment disputes (such as performance management and personal grievances) onto third parties – other levy payers.

The behavioural responses to such a scheme and thus the size of the policy gamble being taken are anyone’s guess.

Failures in the policy process to ask and answer these kinds of questions mean we remain unpersuaded about the social insurance conclusions to which the Labour government has apparently jumped.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. NZ’s unemployment insurance scheme will be the biggest welfare shakeup in generations – is it justified? – https://theconversation.com/nzs-unemployment-insurance-scheme-will-be-the-biggest-welfare-shakeup-in-generations-is-it-justified-170710

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Karin Hammarberg, Senior Research Fellow, Global and Women’s Health, School of Public Health & Preventive Medicine, Monash University

At age 35, one in four Australian women and one in three men were hoping to have a child or more children in the future. But by age 49, about half report they haven’t yet had the number of children they hoped for.

That’s according to the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) 2021 report, released today. Over 20 years, HILDA has tracked more than 17,500 people in 9,500 households.

While some of the 49-year-old men may still father a child later in life, this is unlikely to be the case for women at that age.

In Australia and other high-income countries, there has been a long-term downward trend in the fertility rate: the average number of births per woman. In 2019, Australia hit a record-low of 1.66 babies per woman.

Read more:
Australians want more children than they have, so are we in the midst of a demographic crisis?

Low fertility rates are partly a result of more people not having children, either by choice or through circumstance. About a quarter of Australian women in their reproductive years are likely to never have children.

Why are women having fewer children?

There are many reasons why people have no or fewer children than planned towards the end of their reproductive years.

One contributing factor is the average age when women have their first child has increased in the last few decades and is now almost 30 years. This is in part explained by women spending more time in education and the workforce than they used to.

Read more:
Balancing work and fertility demands is not easy – but reproductive leave can help

Another reason is some women don’t find a suitable partner or have a partner who is unwilling or “not ready” to commit to parenthood.

It’s also possible limited knowledge about the factors affecting fertility leads to missed opportunities to have the number of children originally planned.

But whatever the reason, having children later in life will inevitably affect the number of children people ultimately have. While most women who try for a baby will succeed, some won’t, and some will have fewer children than they had planned to have.

Fertility declines with age – so does IVF success

The risk of not achieving pregnancy increases as a woman gets older because the number and quality of her eggs decline.

By 40, a woman’s fertility is about half the level it was when she was 30. And sperm quality decreases with age too, starting at around age 45.

Increasingly, people who struggle to conceive turn to assisted reproductive technology (ART) such as in-vitro fertilisation (IVF).

There was a 27% increase in the number of treatment cycles in the 2020–2021 financial year compared to the previous year, according to data released today by the Victorian Assisted Reproductive Treatment Authority (VARTA).

But unfortunately, IVF is not a good back-up plan for age-related infertility.

On behalf of VARTA, researchers at the University of New South Wales tracked thousands of women who started IVF in Victoria in 2016 to see what had happened to them by June 30, 2020. The graph below shows the proportions of women who had a baby after one, two or three stimulated IVF cycles, including the transfer of all fresh and frozen embryos that resulted from these.

Women who started IVF when they were 30 years old had a 48% chance of a baby after one stimulated cycle, a 62% chance after two cycles and a 67% chance after three cycles.

But for a woman who started IVF at age 40, there was only a 13% chance of a baby after one stimulated cycle, a 21% chance after two cycles and a 25% chance after three cycles.

Fertility options for over-35s

So, what are the options for women in their mid-30s who want to have a child or more children?

The Victorian Assisted Reproductive Treatment Authority data reveal some women aren’t waiting to find a partner. Over four years, there has been a 48% increase in single women using donor sperm to have a child, and a 50% increase among same-sex couples.

But the number of men who donate sperm in Victoria has remained the same, so there is now a shortage of donor sperm.

The option of freezing eggs for later use is also used by more and more women. Almost 5,000 women now have frozen eggs in storage in Victoria, up 23% on the previous year.

But it’s important to remember that although having stored eggs offers the chance of a baby, it’s not a guarantee.

For women in their 40s, using eggs donated by a younger woman increases their chance of having a baby. Our study showed women aged 40 and over who used donor eggs were five times more likely to have a live birth than women who used their own eggs.

But finding a woman who is willing to donate her eggs can be difficult. Most women who use donated eggs recruit their donor themselves and some use eggs imported from overseas egg banks.

So while people might think pregnancy will happen as soon as they stop contraception, having a baby is not always easy.

Read more:
Egg freezing won’t insure women against infertility or help break the glass ceiling

Karin Hammarberg receives funding from The Australian Government Department of Health. She is a Senior Research Officer at the Victorian Assisted Reproductive Treatment Authority.

– ref. Half of women over 35 who want a child don’t end up having one, or have fewer than they planned – https://theconversation.com/half-of-women-over-35-who-want-a-child-dont-end-up-having-one-or-have-fewer-than-they-planned-173151

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Diana Bogueva, Team Manager/ Adjunct Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Sydney

Eating meat comes with an enormous environmental footprint, with food systems responsible for an estimated 34% of global emissions. And yet, in most countries, meat consumption is continuing to rise.

Our new study investigated whether meat consumption increases as income increases. We specifically tested if there’s a point at which improvements in GDP per capita are no longer associated with greater meat consumption. In other words, in a world of increasing GDP, when might meat consumption peak?

After analysing data for 35 countries, we identified such a tipping point at around US$40,000 (A$57,000) of GDP per capita. Only six of the 35 countries, however, had reached this, with other countries continuing on an increasing trajectory.

Overall, we found each person worldwide ate, on average, 4.5 kilograms more meat per year in 2019 than in 2000. While we can’t say what’s behind the general choice to eat more meat, our study identifies some insightful trends.

The problem with meat

Emissions from meat production are largely due to land clearing, including deforestation, to create more pasture and grow feed for livestock.

To put it into perspective, human settlements occupy only 1% of the planet’s landmass, while livestock grazing and feed production use 27%. Compare this to 7% used for crop production for direct human consumption, and 26% occupied by forests.

As a result, a recent UK study found a vegetarian diet produces 59% less emissions than a non-vegetarian one. And interestingly, it found that the average diet for men in the UK had 41% more emissions than that of women, because of their greater intake of meat and other animal-based products.

Despite the growing evidence and awareness of the climate impact of our diets, we found the average amount of meat – beef, poultry, pork and sheep – a person ate each year increased from 29.5kg in 2000 to 34kg in 2019.

Poultry is the most popular option (14.7kg), followed by pork (11.1kg) and beef (6.4kg).

Poultry on the rise

Nearly all countries studied (30 of 35) experienced a steady increase in annual per capita poultry consumption between 2000 and 2019. It doubled in 13 countries, with more than 20kg eaten each year in Peru, Russia and Malaysia.

In addition to the poultry industry’s long-term focus on creating cheap and convenient food, many western consumers are now replacing beef with poultry. One possible reason is because of its smaller environmental footprint: chickens require less land and generate much lower emissions than cattle.

However, this comes at a price. It exposes the world, including Australia, to new virus outbreaks such as the bird flu, and results in the overuse of antibiotics in farm animals. This could lead to antimicrobial resistance developing, and the loss of antibiotics to treat human bacterial infections.

Industrial farming practices have added further pressures, with animals raised in confined spaces where they’re easily exposed to pathogens, viruses and stress, making them more prone to disease.

We have seen similar impacts in China, the world’s largest producer and consumer of pork. Our analysis revealed major dietary fluctuations, such as when pork consumption dropped substantially in 2007 after prices increased by over 50%, following outbreaks of swine influenza and SARS outbreaks in humans at the time.

Which countries have reached peak meat?

While meat consumption increased around the world on average, taking a closer look at individual countries reveals a more complicated story.

Of the 35 countries we studied, 26 had a clear correlation between GDP growth and meat consumption levels. For the remaining nine, there was no such a correlation, while six appeared to have reached a meat consumption peak: New Zealand, Canada, Switzerland, Paraguay, Nigeria and Ethiopia. The reasons for this span both sides of the economic wealth spectrum.

Read more:
Coronavirus: live animals are stressed in wet markets, and stressed animals are more likely to carry diseases

The three western countries may have reduced meat consumption because of conscious preferences for plant-based foods, as the health and environmental benefits become more well known. Most notably, people in New Zealand decreased their average consumption from 86.7kg in 2000 to 75.2kg in 2019.

For the remaining three countries, reaching the peak probably wasn’t voluntary, but related to economic downturn, weather calamities and virus outbreaks. In Paraguay, for example, an outbreak of foot and mouth disease in 2011 resulted in cattle slaughter.

Australia continues to be one of the world’s top meat-eating countries, with an annual consumption of 89.6kg per capita in 2019, up from 88.2kg per capita in 2000. Most of this was poultry.

Outdoor livestock are extremely vulnerable to extreme weather events, such as droughts, heat waves and floods. This is one reason the share of beef in Australia’s meat exports decreased by 15%, due to weather extremes and drought during 2019. Beef consumption in Australia still remains high in relative terms.

Meat was left out of climate talks

Meat consumption was largely left out of the debates at the international climate change summit in Glasgow, Scotland, last month. Our study makes it clear this omission is unacceptable.

The food we eat is a personal choice, but it needs to be an informed personal choice. The climate, environmental and health and welfare implications of our food choices require awareness and role setting not only by climate warriors such as activist Greta Thunberg, but also by policy leaders.

Read more:
Meat eating is a big climate issue – but isn’t getting the attention it deserves

There were two positive developments at the climate summit: the agreement to put a stop to deforestation (which was joined by Australia) and the collective pledges to reduce the levels of methane (which Australia did not join).

The relationships between deforestation and livestock, and between methane emissions and livestock, must be made transparent. Otherwise, it will be difficult to expect people to shift their food preferences towards more plant-based meals.

The change could start with what we put on our plates this holiday season.

Clare Whitton receives funding from an Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship, and is a member of the Public Health Association of Australia, and the Citizens’ Climate Lobby.

Clive Phillips consults occasionally to PETA and Animals Australia. He has received funding for his research from RSPCA Australia, Voiceless, Open Philanthropy Project, Australian Veterinary Association, Humane Slaughter Association, Humane Society International, Meat and Livestock Australia, the Australian Research Council, and the Australian, NZ, Malaysian and EU governments. He sits on the Voiceless Scientific Committee and several Queensland government committees associated with animal welfare. He is also a director of Humane Society International.

Diana Bogueva and Dora Marinova do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. How much meat do we eat? New figures show 6 countries have hit their peak – https://theconversation.com/how-much-meat-do-we-eat-new-figures-show-6-countries-have-hit-their-peak-172507

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rohan Fisher, Information Technology for Development Researcher, Charles Darwin University

While southern Australia experienced a wet winter and a soggy spring, northern Australia has seen the opposite. Extreme fire weather in October and November led to bushfires across 120,000 square kilometres of southern savanna regions.

Significant fires continue to burn in the Kimberley, the Top End, Cape York and the northern deserts. And while recent rain across the central deserts has reduced the current fire risk, it will significantly increase fuel loads which creates the potential for large wildfires in summer.

We are professional fire watchers. The lead author of this article, Rohan Fisher, maps and monitors fires across the tropical savannas and rangelands that comprise 70% of the Australian continent. The scale of burning we’re now seeing astounds us – almost as much as the lack of interest they generate.

This continent’s fire ecology is poorly understood by most Australians, despite recent significant bushfire events close to big cities. But as we enter the Pyrocene age under worsening climate change, good fire knowledge is vitally important.

Read more:
Australia, you have unfinished business. It’s time to let our ‘fire people’ care for this land

In the desert, fire and water are linked

Fires in arid Australia are extensive, largely unmanaged, often destructive and significantly under-reported. Improving their management involvement is crucial to both Traditional Owners and the ecological health of our continent.

To improve pyro-literacy, we developed a mobile app to map fires across most of Australia in real-time.

This year, Western Australia and the Northern Territory experienced serious heatwaves late in the year and a late start to the wet season. This provided the perfect bushfire conditions.

In contrast, central Australia has experienced rare flooding rains, including at Alice Springs which recorded the wettest November on record. This creates dangerous fuel loads heading into summer.

In the desert, water and fire is coupled in both space and time. Fire burns where water flows, because that’s where fuel – in the form of vegetation – is heaviest.

The below satellite image from the Pilbara illustrates this point. It shows the path of an arid-zone fire flowing like water along dry creeks and drainage lines.

Where country is not managed for fire, it can lead to catastrophic outcomes.

The incidence of previous fire also influences fire spread. Without the regular application of fire, large tracts of desert can accumulate heavy fuel loads, primed for ignition.

Over a few months in 2011, our data show more than 400,000 square kilometres in central Australia burned – almost twice the size of Victoria. It was one of the largest single fire events in recent Australian history and coincided with the wet La Nina period in 2010-12.

Watching from satellites in space, we mapped the spread of the fires in near-real time, as this video shows:

Fire management through time

For many thousands of years, Australia’s Indigenous people have skilfully burned landscapes to manage country. Most fires are relatively low-intensity or “cool” and do not burn large areas. This results in a fine-scale mosaic of different vegetation types and fuel ages, reducing the chance of large fires.

Researchers have looked back in time to provide insight into fire management as it once was. This was done using aerial photography taken in the 1940s and 1950s in preparation for missile testing at Woomera in South Australia.

The below aerial photo from 1953 reveals a complex mosaic of burn patterns and burn ages – a result of fine-scale land management by Traditional Owners.

But following the displacement of Indigenous people and the decline of traditional burning practices, fire regimes changed dramatically. The average fire size today is many orders of magnitude greater than those set under Aboriginal management.

The change has been implicated in the decline and extinction of some mammals and plant species. One massive and fast-moving October fire in the Tanami desert – home to endangered bilbies – burned nearly 7,000 square kilometres over a few days, our data show.

Read more:
Not all blackened landscapes are bad. We must learn to love the right kind

Back to desert burning

Like everywhere on this continent, fire in our vast deserts must be well-managed. Getting people back on desert country to reintroduce complex fire mosaics is difficult work but will have significant benefits for both nature and Indigenous people.

Challenges include building capacity amongst ranger groups and communities, overcoming legal and insurance hurdles and employing novel techniques to apply “cool” fires at a near-continental scale.

The role of Indigenous ranger groups is critical here. Organisations such as 10 Deserts – a partnership between Indigenous and conservation organisations – are supporting desert fire work.

Peter Murray is chair of the 10 Deserts project and a Ngurrara Traditional Owner from the Great Sandy Desert. On the importance of this work, he says:

Right now, we’re working on Indigenous “right way” cultural burning as a means of preventing wildfires. We’re developing dedicated male and female ranger teams to look after the land and develop tourism. And we’re encouraging traditional owners to return to the desert to share and exchange knowledge as well as collecting and storing that knowledge to pass onto younger generations.

Living in the Pyrocene

As climate change worsens, we’re now living in a global fire age dubbed the Pyrocene. This will bring challenges across the Australian continent.

Throughout remote Australia, increasing extreme fire weather will see more severe bushfires. Good fire management in these landscapes is urgently needed. In the northern tropical savannas, Indigenous-led fire management at the landscape scale is already producing some of the worlds best fire management outcomes.

The challenge is to introduce similar scales of fire management across our vast deserts. These regions are rich with nature and culture, and they deserve far more attention than they’ve received to date.

Read more:
5 big ideas: how Australia can tackle climate change while restoring nature, culture and communities

Rohan Fisher receives funding from the federal Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment and the Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources.

Neil Burrows is affiliated with the Liberal party

– ref. We are professional fire watchers, and we’re astounded by the scale of fires in remote Australia right now – https://theconversation.com/we-are-professional-fire-watchers-and-were-astounded-by-the-scale-of-fires-in-remote-australia-right-now-172773

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Roger Wilkins, Professorial Fellow and Deputy Director (Research), HILDA Survey, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne

Around 400,000 people under the age of 25 leave full-time education and embark on their careers each year. The latest HILDA Survey Statistical Report, released today, shows how they have been faring since 2001. Full-time work has become harder, and the pay advantage university graduates enjoy has decreased. Yet, overall, new recruits to the workforce remain at least as happy with their jobs as they have been over the past two decades.

Over most of this century, and probably much of the 20th century, getting a foothold in the labour market and progressing up the career ladder has been a significant challenge for these young people.

Today, about 40% find full-time work in their first year out of full-time education. A further 35-40% get part-time work.

Their median hourly earnings are about two-thirds of median earnings of all workers. But, because many don’t have full-time jobs, their median weekly earnings are just over half those of the median worker.

Read more:
Students’ choice of university has no effect on new graduate pay, and a small impact later on. What they study matters more

Five years after entering the workforce, about 85% are employed, two-thirds of them full-time. Earnings have also increased relative to the median worker five years after entry, but remain about 10% lower.

The educational attainment of young new entrants has increased considerably since 2001. The proportion with a university degree has increased from 15% in the early 2000s to 23% in recent years. The proportion who did not complete high school has halved from 24% to 12%.

Poorer rewards for better qualifications

Despite having better qualifications, young people’s employment outcomes and trajectories have not improved at all. Indeed, since the boom years before the global financial crisis (GFC), there has been a marked deterioration.

Full-time employment in the year of labour market entry has fallen from 50% to 41%. Unemployment has risen from 8.4% to 11.2%. Full-time employment rates in the following years have similarly fallen.

Read more:
1 in 4 unemployed Australians has a degree. How did we get to this point?

The fall was most dramatic between the pre-GFC boom years (2004-2007) and the 2012-2015 period, and has been especially large for university graduates.

Those graduating in the pre-GFC boom years had a full-time employment rate of 68%. This fell to 53% for those graduating between 2012 and 2015.

In the boom years, graduates’ median earnings were 97% of overall median earnings in the year after graduation. By 2012-15, that proportion had fallen to only 82%.

There has since been a slight improvement. Some 56% of those who graduated between 2016 and 2018 were employed full-time in the year following graduation. However, outcomes for graduates were still considerably down on the early years of this century.

Read more:
Want to improve your chances of getting a full-time job? A double degree can do that

Perhaps most striking is the decline in the relative earnings of university graduates in the years after they join the workforce. Career trajectories are now considerably “flatter” for more recent graduates.

For example, five years after entering the workforce, median earnings for those graduating in the first three years of this century were 23% greater than overall median earnings. By contrast, for graduates who entered the labour market in 2013 and 2014, median earnings five years later were still slightly below overall median earnings.

More part-timers, paid less, but fairly satisfied

In short, new entrants to the workforce are more likely to be part-time and paid less relative to the general population of workers. Curiously, however, they do not seem to be unhappy about their jobs. In some ways, quite the reverse is true.

The HILDA Survey measures workers’ satisfaction with a variety of aspects of their jobs. These aspects include the job overall, pay, job security and flexibility to balance work and non-work commitments.

Moreover, a battery of questions are administered each year that provide measures of “job quality”. These include the extent to which the job makes (excessive) demands of the worker, the level of autonomy the worker has, the interest and variety of the work, the security of employment and the fairness of the pay.

On all of these measures of job satisfaction and job quality, young new entrants report their jobs being at least as good now as they did in the early years of this century.

It is of course possible that job quality has on average improved. Aspects that come to mind include job security, flexibility to balance work and non-work commitments, job demands, autonomy and task variety.

However, it remains somewhat perplexing that, on a 0-10 scale (0 represents complete dissatisfaction and 10 complete satisfaction), average satisfaction with pay has increased from 6.7 to 7.4 between early this century and recent years. Similarly, average agreement of workers with the statement that they are fairly paid has risen from 4.4 to 4.9 on a 1-7 scale (1 corresponds to strong disagreement and 7 to strong agreement).

Objectively, pay has declined for new entrants relative to the broader workforce, particularly for university graduates. It therefore seems new entrants’ expectations have been recalibrated to reflect the harsher reality of the modern labour market.

Still, it is hard to understand why subjective assessments of jobs have improved in the context of objective data to the contrary. Perhaps young new entrants have lowered their expectations too much.

Roger Wilkins receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

– ref. Graduates lose pay advantage in tougher times, but overall workforce entrants seem surprisingly satisfied – https://theconversation.com/graduates-lose-pay-advantage-in-tougher-times-but-overall-workforce-entrants-seem-surprisingly-satisfied-173152

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Giuseppe Carabetta, Senior Lecturer, Sydney University Business School, University of Sydney

Australia’s Fair Work Commission has made its first ruling against an employer mandating COVID-19 vaccination as condition of work. But this isn’t the decision those opposed to vaccine mandates have been hoping for.

On Friday a full bench of the commission ruled that global miner BHP’s directions to employees at its Mt Arthur coal mine, in NSW’s Hunter Valley, regarding deadlines for vaccination were not lawful and reasonable.

This is a significant decision by Australia’s industrial relations umpire in a number of ways. It is the first ruling to question the validity of mandatory vaccination policies, and the first regarding an employer COVID-19 mandate not backed by a public health order. It is also a full bench decision, involving five tribunal members, which gives the ruling extra weight.

But contrary to social media chatter, it’s not a decision spelling defeat for employers mandating COVID-19 vaccination as condition of work.

Indeed the ruling isn’t really about the overall validity of Mt Arthur’s vaccine mandate. Its focus is instead management’s failure to properly consult with its employees under work health and safety laws.

It doesn’t question employers’ general right to introduce issue mandatory vaccination policies. In fact, it endorses this right – so long as they are “lawful and reasonable”.

Background to the BHP vaccine dispute

The dispute on which the Fair Work Commission adjudicated arose from management at BHP’s Mt Arthur mine site announcing on October 7 that all workers had until November 9 to show they had received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine (and to be fully vaccinated by 31 January 2022).

After November 9 passed, about 50 workers were stood down without pay for failing to show evidence of vaccination.

About 1,700 people work at the mine. About 700 are covered by the Mt Arthur Coal Enterprise Agreement 2019 and represented by the Construction, Forestry, Maritime, Mining and Energy Union.

The union applied to have the Fair Work Commission rule on whether management directions to employees covered by the enterprise agreement were lawful and reasonable.

Unions have made similar claims in the past about employers failing to adequately consult on mandatory vaccination policies, such as the Australian Manufacturers Workers Union’s gripe with Victorian fruit-canning company SPC Australia.

Read more:
Why unions support vaccination — but not employer mandates

General principles confirmed

The full bench agreed management had not sufficiently consulted with workers over its announcement of deadlines for vaccination.

Its judgement reaffirmed two general principles made in previous rulings regarding non-COVID vaccination policies.

First, employers have a right to ask an employee to be vaccinated without a public health order, an express term in an employment contract or other specific law, but the direction must be be “lawful and reasonable”.

Read more:
Qantas has grounds to mandate vaccination, but most blanket policies won’t fly

Second, whether a direction is reasonable depends on factors including the nature of the work, established practices, industrial instruments (such as awards and enterprise agreements); and consultation requirements such as those under work health and safety laws.

In other words, its reasonableness depends on the circumstances.

Broad observations on vaccine policies

While noting “it is not appropriate to make general statements about whether a direction of a particular character is a lawful and reasonable direction”, the Full Bench did think there was “some utility in making some broad observations” relating to such policies.

These were:

• If the purpose of a direction is to safeguard workplace health and safety, it is likely to be lawful, because it falls within the scope of the employment contract and there is nothing unlawful about being vaccinated.

• The reasonableness of a direction is essentially a question of “fact and balance”, assessed case by case.

• There may be a range of options open to a particular employer that satisfy reasonableness, and it is not necessary to show a policy accords with ‘best practice’.

Factors in favour of a mine mandate

In the case of the Mt Arthur mine dispute, the ruling lists six factors that would count in favour of the reasonableness of the vaccine mandate:

• It was directed at ensuring the health and safety of workers of the mine.

• It was logical and understandable.

• It was a reasonably proportionate response.

• It was developed having regard to the circumstances at the mine.

• The timing was determined by reference to local circumstances.

• It was implemented only after the employer had spent considerable time encouraging vaccination.

The mine’s management fell short on one crucial thing – its obligation under under work health and safety law to consult with employees. As the ruling states:

Had the Respondent consulted the Employees in accordance with its consultation obligations − such that we could have been satisfied that the decision to introduce the Site Access Requirement was the outcome of a meaningful consultation process – the above considerations would have provided a strong case in favour of a conclusion that the Site Access Requirement was a reasonable direction.“

So this is an important victory for employees and unions, acknowledging the importance of genuine and meaningful consultation. But any celebration by those opposed to vaccinations is likely to be short-lived.

The ruling leaves room for BHP to recommence the consultation process. The Fair Work Commission has offered to facilitate these discussions. BHP can then reintroduce the policy.

Following the full bench’s requirements provides a “road map” for other major employers to follow without a detour to the industrial relations tribunal.

Giuseppe Carabetta does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. BHP’s vaccine policy ‘not lawful and reasonable’ – but this is no win for mandate opponents – https://theconversation.com/bhps-vaccine-policy-not-lawful-and-reasonable-but-this-is-no-win-for-mandate-opponents-173234

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jacqueline Burgess, Associate Lecturer in International Business, University of the Sunshine Coast

Some of the most popular video game series are those that use historical settings, and research has revealed players have extremely high standards when it comes to the accuracy of the history presented.

We surveyed players of the Assassin’s Creed series, one of the most famous video game series to use historical settings, to understand how important accurate depictions of history in video games were for players.

The Assassin’s Creed series depicts a millennia-old conflict between the secret Assassin Brotherhood and Templar Order. In the majority of games, the player takes control of a historical assassin in a historical setting, but with cuts to a modern-day, science-fiction framing story.

The games are known and loved for their historical tourism appeal. The series has allowed players to explore Cleopatra’s Egypt, the Middle East during the Third Crusade and the Italian Renaissance among other settings.

And players expect to see due diligence done when it comes to reflecting real-life historical facts and settings.

Respecting history in gaming

58% of players felt video game developers should minimise changes to the historical record. Another 21% felt it depended on the game. For example, some respondents accepted developers could and should make changes for alternate history or fantasy games.

One noted, “unless a major part of the gameplay is creating an alternative history, or there’s a major sci-fi/fantasy element making the historical accuracy unimportant, developers should strive to make their games as accurate as possible”.

In general, respondents felt games needed to be fun and entertaining, so changes to history should be made to ensure that. Otherwise, the history developers were using should be respected.

As another respondent put it, “the developers should stay as close as possible [to historical fact] unless doing so would hinder the gameplay or story.”

Some respondents even thought changes to the historical record should be disclosed to players in some way.

Accuracy in gaming

Video games are one of the newer popular entertainment media but are sometimes still thought of as an industry for adolescents, despite the average age of players in Australia being 35.

Our research shows players have high expectations when it comes to the accuracy of information being presented to them.

With over three billion worldwide players, video games are how a lot of people are being exposed to history.

And they are very influential in shaping players views about history. Video games are interactive which means their players can actively engage with historical events and people and explore historical worlds.

Some of the most popular and long-running video game series, such as Assassin’s Creed, Total War, and Civilization use historical settings as a key part of the game’s plot and appeal. For example, the Assassin’s Creed series alone has sold more than 150 million copies since 2007.

Introducing audiences to history

It used to be that film was the most influential media for exposing audiences to history. Thanks to the popularity and interactivity of video games, this has shifted somewhat.

Video game developers have embraced historical accuracy when creating their games. For example, during the development of L.A Noire, a film-noire inspired game set in Los Angeles in 1947, over 180,000 sources including newspaper articles, photographs, and police records were examined to ensure the city was recreated accurately.

The Assassin’s Creed series itself is also well-known for hiring historians and academics as consultants and recreating detailed versions of historical cities for its games.

Read more:
Assassin’s Creed TV series: why it’s so hard to adapt video games for the screen

For Assassin’s Creed Unity, set in Revolutionary Paris, developers consulted over 150 maps of the city and spent two years modelling Notre Dame. This even involved tweaking individual bricks and consulting historians to establish which paintings were on display.

The audience hunger for this sort of rigorous research and details in games has created opportunity for video game developers and companies.

Developers can add their use of history to their marketing. Branded podcasts, social media, tie-in books and website content can explore the research developers have undertaken. They can also present information about the actual history and explain why changes were made.

The popular History Respawned podcast, which explores the history presented in popular video games, is one model the industry can use. Another is the in-game historical encyclopaedia the Assassin’s Creed series features, and other games could use.

Video games also regularly offer high-priced collector and limited editions with statues, soundtracks and artbooks included, and these could be another avenue for providing players with the historical information they want.

Including historical inaccuracy

However, what is accurate and what is not is not always obvious.

Notre Dame, as it appears in Assassin’s Creed Unity, features the cathedral’s famed spire. However, historically it wasn’t installed yet, and was added after test players felt the cathedral was inaccurate if it wasn’t featured.

When it comes to making video games with historical settings, developers must carefully choose what accurate and inaccurate aspects they include. Sometimes, making a game that matches what a player believes is authentic to the time period actually requires inserting inaccurate aspects.

And, of course, a game has to be fun. The ship-to-ship combat in Assassin’s Creed Black Flag, set during the Golden Age of Piracy, is much, much faster than actual naval battles and features tactics real-life pirates would never use. And yet Black Flag is one of the most beloved games of the series.

Developers have a tricky paradox to navigate. To give the players what they want, they sometimes have to give them what it appears they do not want.

Jacqueline Burgess does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Even in the colourful world of video games, most players demand historical accuracy – https://theconversation.com/even-in-the-colourful-world-of-video-games-most-players-demand-historical-accuracy-172307