Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Shireen Daft, Lecturer, Macquarie Law School, Macquarie University

Recent media attention has drawn global focus on an escalating number of Iranian schoolgirls falling ill over the past few months because of suspected chemical attacks. Accounts differ, but many reports cite more than 1,000 cases of poisoning at schools across Iran. At least 58 schools in ten provinces across the country have been affected.

The first known cases were reported in the city of Qom in November. There has been an escalation of reported cases, with 26 schools affected in a wave of attacks last week. The students have reported respiratory problems, nausea, dizziness and fatigue, with several girls hospitalised. Parents have been keeping their daughters home from school to protect them from these attacks.

Escalating public unrest and international attention has led Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to publicly denounce the attacks as a “major and unforgivable crime”, promising an investigation and swift punishment for those responsible.

This follows months of contradictory statements from government officials, the arrest of a journalist investigating the issue earlier this week, and the reported use of tear gas to disperse an organised demonstration about the poisonings in Tehran on Sunday.

Many consider the attacks a direct response to the ongoing protests in Iran since the death of Mahsa Amini in September. Students, mostly university students but also schoolgirls, have been at the forefront of those protests.

To date, there has been no direct evidence about who is responsible for the poisonings, and continued uncertainty about how they are carried out. Part of the difficulty in collecting information is the extreme limits imposed on press freedom in Iran. There have been calls from the international community for the United Nations to conduct an independent investigation.

Read more:
Women-led protests in Iran gather momentum – but will they be enough to bring about change?

There are some claims that question whether there has in fact been any chemical attacks at all. Instead, they speculate that this is in fact evidence of a mass psychogenic illness.

This would not be unprecedented – in an investigation of alleged poisonings of schoolgirls in Afghanistan between 2012-16, the UN concluded it was most likely a result of mass psychogenic illness, after finding no trace of chemical gas or poison.

However, the reality is that poisonous substances can degrade rapidly, especially nitrogen dioxide, which one government probe in Iran has indicated may be the cause. There have also been unconfirmed witness reports of suspicious objects being thrown into schoolyards.

Global threats to girls’ education

Another reason that the deliberate poisonings of the Iranian schoolgirls is so credible is that it is far from unusual. While education, including girls’ education, is highly respected in Iran, schoolgirls globally are all too often the object of attacks.

A report conducted by the Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack looked at attacks on girls’ education between 2014 and 2018 in regions of conflict and instability. It found that schoolgirls and female teachers have been directly targeted in at least 18 countries, including Afghanistan, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Colombia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, India, Iraq, Libya, Mali, Myanmar, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines, South Sudan, Syria, Venezuela, and Yemen.

The nature of attacks is wide and varied, including the bombing of girls’ schools and abduction of girls. Teachers and students have been attacked either en route to school or while there. There have also been reports of sexual violence and sometimes forced marriage of both girls and their female teachers.

One of the most infamous cases of violence directed at girls for “daring” to attend school remains Malala Yousafzai being shot in the head in 2012 in Pakistan. There are also less direct forms of attacks, including the repurposing and shutting down of girls’ schools as a lower priority than boys’ education, threats to keep girls away from school, and the imposition and violent enforcement of restrictive dress codes.

Attacks on schools have escalated sharply in recent decades, but this escalation has been particularly acute in relation to schools dedicated to girls. All too often, these attacks occur with impunity.

The impact of attacks on education for girls

Even if the effects of the poisonings on the Iranian schoolgirls have so far not shown any evidence of serious impacts on their health, there are still long-term psychological effects of being the target of a systematic and gendered attack, and unknown long-term physical consequences.

Aside from the direct impact on the right of everyone to an education for the “full development of the human personality and […] dignity”, attacks on education have a profound and lasting effect on girls.

Girls deprived of an education are more likely to be vulnerable to child or forced marriages, usually also resulting in reduced reproductive and sexual autonomy. There is also increased risk of domestic violence and a life of poverty. Attacks on schools have also been linked to an increased likelihood of girls being forced into recruitment to armed groups and becoming victims of human and sexual trafficking.

More generally, the violation of the right to education, and systemic gender discrimination results in girls and women having fewer opportunities to participate meaningfully in political, cultural, and social life. This loss affects not just individual girls and women, but society generally.

Read more:
Not ‘powerless victims’: how young Iranian women have long led a quiet revolution

There is no quick fix

Unfortunately, there is no simple fix to such attacks on girls’ education. While the investigation and prosecution of those responsible in Iran is an important step for accountability, it does not address the underlying problems.

Girls’ education under attack is always going to be part of broader contexts of systemic and widespread discrimination against women, and systems of oppression that reinforce stereotypical attitudes towards girls and women.

But protecting the right of girls to an education should be the cornerstone of any efforts towards gender equality. Such blatant and horrific attacks on girls in schools, as in Iran, should act as a clarion call for urgent change.

Shireen Daft 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. Is the poisoning of schoolgirls in Iran a new front in the war against girls’ education? – https://theconversation.com/is-the-poisoning-of-schoolgirls-in-iran-a-new-front-in-the-war-against-girls-education-201291

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

Tuesday’s tenth successive Reserve Bank interest rate hike is the culmination of a process that has added $1,080 to the monthly cost of payments on a $600,000 variable mortgage.

I’ve calculated this increase in payments – which amounts to $12,960 per year – by comparing payments on the National Australia Bank’s base variable mortgage rate before the Reserve Bank started its series of hikes in May 2022 with payments after the NAB lifts its rates in accordance with Tuesday’s decision.

Before the Reserve Bank started hiking in May 2022, the NAB rate was 2.19%. After nine Reserve Bank hikes, ahead of Tuesday’s meeting, it was 5.24%.

It will soon be 5.49%, meaning the monthly payment on a 25-year $600,000 NAB base variable mortgage will have climbed from $2,600 to $3,680.

And Tuesday’s statement from the Reserve Bank indicates there’s more to come.

But an end to these rate rises is within sight – possibly as soon as mid-September.

Bank on at least 1 more rate rise

The best guide to what the Reserve Bank has in mind is usually the first few words of the final paragraph of its statement.

Last time, in February, those words referred to further interest rate “increases”, making it clear the bank expected more than one.

This time, there’s no plural. The sentence refers merely to “further tightening”, which could mean as little as one more increase, and not necessarily next month.

The statement, like the last, says rate hikes work “with a lag, and that the full effect of the cumulative increase in interest rates is yet to be felt in mortgage payments”. That’s a reference to the large number of borrowers who are about to be hit with higher payments as they come off low fixed rates.

Read more:
The Lowe road – the RBA treads a ‘narrow path’

And, unlike the last statement, this one says inflation may have peaked.

So there are reasons for easing off, but also – as I’ll explain shortly – important institutional forces propelling Governor Philip Lowe to keep going.

Reasons for easing off on further rate hikes

The whole point of the dramatic interest rate hikes has been to make sure Australia’s sudden reemergence of high inflation is only temporary.

Inflation hit 7.8% in December, well outside the Reserve Bank’s 2-3% target zone and the most since 1990.

The good news is to the extent that inflation comes from overseas in the prices for fuel and other imports, it seems to be easing.

US inflation has been falling for seven months now, from a high of 9.1% in June to 6.4% in January. UK inflation has been falling for three months, from 10.1% to 9.1%.

To the extent that inflation is driven by a surge in spending at home, that surge has stopped. Retail spending has been flat (unchanged) for four months notwithstanding a growing population and growing prices.

We’re winding back spending

This means what’s bought per person is falling, as would be expected if we were tightening our belts in response to higher interest rates and higher prices.

In February consumer confidence, as measured by Westpac and the Melbourne Institute, dived to its lowest point since the 2020 COVID recession.

Asked whether now was a good time to buy a major household item, only 17% of Australians surveyed said yes. Twice as many – 39% – said no.

Last week’s national accounts showed gross domestic product, the official measure of everything earned, bought and sold in the economy, climbing only 0.5% in the three months to December.

But buried in the fine print was something worse. Were it not for a fall in imports in the December quarter, GDP would have gone backwards.

Read more:
RBA’s latest forecasts are grim. Here are 5 reasons why

It is one of the truly-bizarre mathematical oddities of the way the GDP is calculated that a fall in imports boosts measured GDP, even though it is a sign we are tightening our belts.

And we’ve been having to tighten our belts. Wage figures released since February’s board meeting show growth of just 3.3% in the year to December, way below the increase in prices, and way below the entrenched growth of 5% the governor has said would concern him.

One of the reasons wages aren’t yet climbing particularly fast is that (unusually) wage earners expect inflation to fall. Throughout most of its life, the Melbourne Institute survey of inflation expectations has pointed to higher inflation than was actually experienced. At the moment it is pointing to lower inflation.

Nevertheless, the RBA board “remains alert to the risk of a prices-wages spiral” according to Tuesday’s statement. This implies it isn’t yet reassured by the official figures and that it’s liaison program with 600 or so business operators has identified increases yet to come.

6 months left to leave a legacy

That’s the economics, which points to taking things gently on rate rises from here on. But as I mentioned, there’s something else at play that might propel Governor Lowe to keep going a little further.

Governor Lowe’s five-year term expires on September 17. As his predecessor did, he would like to hand over the bank in good order.

That means having clearly broken the back of runaway inflation. It might mean going harder for longer on interest rate rises than he otherwise would to get things in order. It’s what his predecessor did for him in August 2016.

Glenn Stevens cut interest rates one last time before he left office to make sure Lowe didn’t take over the bank having to do it himself. Lowe left rates unchanged for almost three years. He had been handed the keys to a car in working order.

Seen this way, Lowe’s determination to be sure inflation is on the way down before leaving office is a matter of etiquette. He has six months left to get his house in order.

It’s a consideration that might mean more mortgage rate pain than would have been the case had Lowe not been near the end of his term.

Peter Martin 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 RBA interest rate hikes could end by September – but brace for at least one more – https://theconversation.com/why-rba-interest-rate-hikes-could-end-by-september-but-brace-for-at-least-one-more-201281

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

As well as her interviews with politicians and experts, Politics with Michelle Grattan includes “Word from The Hill”, where she discusses the news with members of The Conversation’s politics team.

In this podcast Michelle and politics + society editor Amanda Dunn discuss the tenth interest rate rise and Jim Chalmers’ response, the polling reaction to the superannuation tax hike, Anthony Albanese’s visit to India (where cricket is on the program), and the latest development in the extraordinary fight between teal independent Monique Ryan and her now former staffer Sally Rugg.

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. Word from The Hill: Another rate rise; support for super tax hike; PM’s India trip; Rugg V Ryan – https://theconversation.com/word-from-the-hill-another-rate-rise-support-for-super-tax-hike-pms-india-trip-rugg-v-ryan-201300

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

Tuesday’s tenth successive Reserve Bank interest rate hike is the culmination of a process that has added $1,080 to the monthly cost of payments on a $600,000 variable mortgage.

I’ve calculated this increase in payments – which amounts to $12,960 per year – by comparing payments on the National Australia Bank’s base variable mortgage rate before the Reserve Bank started its series of hikes in May 2022 with payments after the NAB lifts its rates in accordance with Tuesday’s decision.

Before the Reserve Bank started hiking in May 2022, the NAB rate was 2.19%. After nine Reserve Bank hikes, ahead of Tuesday’s meeting, it was 5.24%.

It will soon be 5.49%, meaning the monthly payment on a 25-year $600,000 NAB base variable mortgage will have climbed from $2,600 to $3,680.

And Tuesday’s statement from the Reserve Bank indicates there’s more to come.

But an end to these rate rises is within sight – possibly as soon as mid-September.

Bank on at least 1 more rate rise

The best guide to what the Reserve Bank has in mind is usually the first few words of the final paragraph of its statement.

Last time, in February, those words referred to further interest rate “increases”, making it clear the bank expected more than one.

This time, there’s no plural. The sentence refers merely to “further tightening”, which could mean as little as one more increase, and not necessarily next month.

The statement, like the last, says rate hikes work “with a lag, and that the full effect of the cumulative increase in interest rates is yet to be felt in mortgage payments”. That’s a reference to the large number of borrowers who are about to be hit with higher payments as they come off low fixed rates.

Read more:
The Lowe road – the RBA treads a ‘narrow path’

And, unlike the last statement, this one says inflation may have peaked.

So there are reasons for easing off, but also – as I’ll explain shortly – important institutional forces propelling Governor Philip Lowe to keep going.

Reasons for easing off on further rate hikes

The whole point of the dramatic interest rate hikes has been to make sure Australia’s sudden reemergence of high inflation is only temporary.

Inflation hit 7.8% in December, well outside the Reserve Bank’s 2-3% target zone and the most since 1990.

The good news is to the extent that inflation comes from overseas in the prices for fuel and other imports, it seems to be easing.

US inflation has been falling for seven months now, from a high of 9.1% in June to 6.4% in January. UK inflation has been falling for three months, from 10.1% to 9.1%.

To the extent that inflation is driven by a surge in spending at home, that surge has stopped. Retail spending has been flat (unchanged) for four months notwithstanding a growing population and growing prices.

We’re winding back spending

This means what’s bought per person is falling, as would be expected if we were tightening our belts in response to higher interest rates and higher prices.

In February consumer confidence, as measured by Westpac and the Melbourne Institute, dived to its lowest point since the 2020 COVID recession.

Asked whether now was a good time to buy a major household item, only 17% of Australians surveyed said yes. Twice as many – 39% – said no.

Last week’s national accounts showed gross domestic product, the official measure of everything earned, bought and sold in the economy, climbing only 0.5% in the three months to December.

But buried in the fine print was something worse. Were it not for a fall in imports in the December quarter, GDP would have gone backwards.

Read more:
RBA’s latest forecasts are grim. Here are 5 reasons why

It is one of the truly-bizarre mathematical oddities of the way the GDP is calculated that a fall in imports boosts measured GDP, even though it is a sign we are tightening our belts.

And we’ve been having to tighten our belts. Wage figures released since February’s board meeting show growth of just 3.3% in the year to December, way below the increase in prices, and way below the entrenched growth of 5% the governor has said would concern him.

One of the reasons wages aren’t yet climbing particularly fast is that (unusually) wage earners expect inflation to fall. Throughout most of its life, the Melbourne Institute survey of inflation expectations has pointed to higher inflation than was actually experienced. At the moment it is pointing to lower inflation.

Nevertheless, the RBA board “remains alert to the risk of a prices-wages spiral” according to Tuesday’s statement. This implies it isn’t yet reassured by the official figures and that it’s liaison program with 600 or so business operators has identified increases yet to come.

6 months left to leave a legacy

That’s the economics, which points to taking things gently on rate rises from here on. But as I mentioned, there’s something else at play that might propel Governor Lowe to keep going a little further.

Governor Lowe’s five-year term expires on September 17. As his predecessor did, he would like to hand over the bank in good order.

That means having clearly broken the back of runaway inflation. It might mean going harder for longer on interest rate rises than he otherwise would to get things in order. It’s what his predecessor did for him in August 2016.

Glenn Stevens cut interest rates one last time before he left office to make sure Lowe didn’t take over the bank having to do it himself. Lowe left rates unchanged for almost three years. He had been handed the keys to a car in working order.

Seen this way, Lowe’s determination to be sure inflation is on the way down before leaving office is a matter of etiquette. He has six months left to get his house in order.

It’s a consideration that might mean more mortgage rate pain than would have been the case had Lowe not been near the end of his term.

Peter Martin 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 RBA interest rate hikes could end by September – but brace for at least 1 more – https://theconversation.com/why-rba-interest-rate-hikes-could-end-by-september-but-brace-for-at-least-1-more-201281

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Lothian, Lecturer and Academic Barrister, Australian National Centre for Ocean Resources and Security, University of Wollongong, University of Wollongong

Delegates gave a jubilant cheer at United Nations Headquarters in New York on Saturday night, as nations reached an agreement on ways to protect marine life in the high seas and the international seabed area.

It has been a long time coming, debated for almost two decades. It took nine years of discussions by an Informal Working Group, four sessions of a Preparatory Committee, five meetings of an Intergovernmental Conference and a 36-hour marathon final push to reach agreement.

So why was it so hard to achieve? And what does it do?

In short, the Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction agreement paves the way for the establishment of more high seas marine protected areas. Only 1% of the high seas are currently fully protected, so the new agreement is a vital step towards achieving the recently adopted Kunming-Montreal biodiversity pact, which pledges to protect 30% of terrestrial and marine habitats by 2030.

In turn, the designation of more high seas marine protected areas could assist in curbing fishing activities in these waters. At present, distant water fleets can scoop up almost everything that swims or scuttles thousands of kilometres from their home country. As the high seas are also teeming with marine life, the new agreement also ensures this genetic wealth is shared fairly and equitably among the international community.

It’s not too much to say this agreement marks a significant turning point in the protection of our deep oceans.

Where are we talking about?

Nations have rights to marine resources out to 200 nautical miles (370 kilometres) from their coastline. After that? It’s almost completely unregulated, much like the Wild West. It’s a huge area, representing over 60% of our oceans.

But this agreement doesn’t just cover what lives in the high seas water column. It also covers the seabed, ocean floor and subsoil beyond a coastal country’s continental shelf.

Read more:
When fishing boats go dark at sea, they’re often committing crimes – we mapped where it happens

Major discoveries on the ocean floor have dispelled the long perceived myth that the deep seabed is a barren desert and featureless plain. One important breakthrough has been the discovery of hydrothermal vents and their rich biological community. These seabed habitats, have been labelled one of the richest nurseries of life on Earth and harbour unique organisms of particular interest to science and industry alike. These organisms may offer a limitless catalogue of medical, pharmaceutical and industrial applications. They may even hold the cure for cancer.

Isolation is no longer protection

Due to their remote nature, the high seas were long considered protected from human impact. But only 13% of the ocean is now classified as marine wilderness, completely free from human disturbance, with most being located in the high seas.

International law, as it stands, is not up to the task of protecting this region. Regulations and rules are haphazard, with some regions and resources (like marine genetic resources) not protected at all. Enforcement is weak, and cooperation lacking, as I have found in my research.

Without adequate regulation, the high seas are being heavily exploited with 34% of all fished species now overfished. Illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing is also a serious problem on the high seas.

There is also growing interest in deep-sea mineral resources. The International Seabed Authority has entered into contracts with companies to mine deep-seabed areas, but the long term impacts of this mining activity are difficult to predict and its effects could have irreversible consequences for marine ecosystems. Marine pollution is also a growing problem with approximately 6.4 million tonnes of litter entering our oceans every year.

What solutions does this agreement offer?

Under this agreement, the door is open to establish marine parks and sanctuaries covering key areas of the high seas. Fishing could be banned or heavily restricted in these areas along with other activities that could have a detrimental impact on marine life.

You might have expected fishing to be a key reason for the long delay in getting this agreement across the line. However, one of the main stumbling blocks was how to share the genetic wealth of the high seas. Under the agreement, all countries will have to share benefits – financial and otherwise – from efforts to harness the benefits to be derived from these resources. Think of the possible new cancer treatments coming from compounds in sponges and starfish.

Why was this a challenge? It was difficult to find common ground on how to share benefits from this genetic wealth, with a clear divide between developed and developing nations. But it was achieved and now data, samples and research advances will need to be shared with the world.

What’s next?

Reaching agreement has been achieved. To make it legally binding, it must be adopted and ratified by countries. Will the world’s nations sign up? We’ll need as close to universal participation as possible to make this work. The first part is done. But getting States to sign on, ratify and follow the agreement is likely to be a harder task.

Read more:
The UN Ocean Decade: can a UN resolution turn into a scientific revolution?

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

– ref. We now have a treaty governing the high seas. Can it protect the Wild West of the oceans? – https://theconversation.com/we-now-have-a-treaty-governing-the-high-seas-can-it-protect-the-wild-west-of-the-oceans-201184

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Cortie, Physics Discipline Leader, University of Technology Sydney

When it comes to gold, how pure is pure? And how does anybody know?

As recent revelations about the Perth Mint have shown, gold buyers and sellers take purity very seriously. Questions have been raised over impurities found in some A$9 billion worth of gold sold to the Shanghai Gold Exchange.

While the gold reportedly met the industry standard for 99.99% (or “4N”) purity, it failed to meet extra agreed specifications for the level of silver.

The question of testing the purity of gold has been a live one for thousands of years, with increasingly precise methods being devised. But despite these techniques, most of the time the gold industry still runs on trust and reputation.

A eureka moment

The ancient Greek mathematician Archimedes is said to have struck upon one way to test the purity of gold while getting into the bath.

The story goes that the king of Syracuse had asked the mathematician to determine whether a golden crown was made of the pure metal, or whether impurities had been mixed in by a dishonest goldsmith.

After thinking on the problem, Archimedes took a bath, and noticed that the level of the water rose when he stepped in. He leapt out immediately and ran into the street, crying “eureka!” (or “I’ve found it!”).

Read more:
How gold rushes helped make the modern world

He had realised that submerging the crown in water would let him determine its volume, and hence its density. Because gold is denser than most other metals, this can be used to measure the crown’s purity.

There are debates about the historical accuracy of the tale, and the exact mechanism of the test he would have used, but the gist is in keeping with the principles Archimedes laid out in his treatise On Floating Bodies.

Fire and fluorescence

Despite the ingenuity of Archimedes’ method, it is not in use today. Some of the most common methods used in the modern gold industry are the fire assay, X-ray fluorescence, and inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (or ICP-MS).

The fire assay is the traditional method used in the hallmarking industry (to certify gold in jewellery as 9 carat or 18 carat, for example), and also often used in gold mines to test the quality of ore.

This is a destructive method, so it wouldn’t have worked for Archimedes. You take a small amount of metal from the item you’re testing, mix it up with various chemicals, and melt it down in a furnace or crucible.

Read more:
From medicine to nanotechnology: how gold quietly shapes our world

The process is designed to remove everything except gold. So if you weigh the sample you put in and the gold you get out, you can figure out how pure the sample was.

However, the fire assay only tests for the amount of gold – it won’t tell you what else is in the sample.

Another common test (this one is non-destructive) involves X-ray fluorescence. You fire X-rays at the item you want to test, which excites the atoms in your sample and makes them spit out X-rays of different wavelengths. Analysing these wavelengths can tell you what’s in the sample. The machine will give you a readout telling you the amount of gold, silver, copper and so on.

The gold standard

To get real precision, there are several different, more elaborate tests you could try. In Australia, the “gold standard” would be what’s called inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS).

This process effectively vaporises a sample and then weighs the different atoms in it. It can tell you the composition of a sample with an accuracy of parts per billion.

It’s an expensive, bespoke process, though. You wouldn’t use it for jewellery. It’s mainly used by scientists, or mining companies that want to determine the exact composition of a sample.

You would typically only use this kind of testing if you had a great need for exactness, or a reason to be suspicious of a sample.

The importance of trust

In practice, these tests are not typically used by people buying gold. The gold industry largely runs on trust.

If a reputable seller tells you they’re giving you gold that is 99.99% pure, you generally believe them. You don’t test every coin or every bar.

For whatever reason (perhaps their extra conditions about silver content), the Shanghai Gold Exchange didn’t take the Perth Mint’s word about the purity of the gold it delivered.

Now the Perth Mint may have a trust problem. And when trust is broken, it’s not easily restored.

Michael Cortie 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. How can you test if gold is pure? Some methods are more destructive than others – https://theconversation.com/how-can-you-test-if-gold-is-pure-some-methods-are-more-destructive-than-others-201288

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Flavio Macau, Associate Dean – School of Business and Law, Edith Cowan University

If there’s any lesson from the past three years of supermarket shortages, it’s that it pays to stock up on a few favourite items at all times (if you’ve got room in your pantry or freezer) and to be flexible in your choices of products and brands.

And don’t panic. That doesn’t help anyone.

I’ve made these points before – from the demand-driven stockpiling of toilet paper and pasta during COVID lockdowns, to the supply-driven shortages of meat, lettuce, eggs and potato chips since.

But they are worth repeating, as Australia faces another potential post-COVID supermarket shortage – this time of any groceries that require refrigerated transport (frozen food, meat, dairy and fresh fruit and vegetables) following the collapse of Australia’s largest cold-chain refrigeration transport company.

Scott’s Refrigerated Logistics – with more than 1,500 employees, 500 trucks, 1,000 trailers and warehouses in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth – was placed into administration on February 27.

Administrator KordaMentha has been unable to find anyone to buy the stricken business from Anchorage Capital Partners, a private-equity company that bought Scott’s in 2020 for A$75 million.

Without a buyer, the company will be liquidated, with its assets sold off piecemeal. KordaMentha has warned of a “genuine risk of an uncontrolled wind down”, leading to supermarket supply shortages.

This will likely mean sporadic shortages and restocking delays. But sensationalist headlines that a “supermarket disaster looms” are overblown. As long as we don’t make things worse, shortages should be short-lived – an inconvenience, but not a disaster.

Why did Scott’s Refrigerated Logistics fail?

Why has Scott’s failed, despite being Australia’s biggest cold transport trucking company? Part of the reason, at least, was probably due to being “Australia’s only truly dedicated national temperature-controlled supply chain network”.

The past few years have been difficult for trucking companies – and even more so for cold-transport trucking.

Moving goods around the world from one port to another is relatively simple. The cost of transporting an item thousands of kilometres across oceans typically adds just a few cents per unit to costs. It’s when those goods get loaded onto trucks – first to be transported from the dock to a warehouse, then to a distribution centre or store, then to the end consumer’s home – that the costs mount.

There is traffic and limits to operating hours. There are different trucks instead of standardised containers. Routes change all the time, as orders are updated daily. So-called “last-mile delivery”, from the final distribution hub to the home, is the most complicated and expensive leg, generally accounting for at least half of logistics costs.

These costs are compounded when items need to be kept cold or frozen. Refrigeration equipment is expensive to buy and maintain. Temperature controls must work seamlessly. If the refrigeration breaks down, the cargo must be quickly transferred to another vehicle.

Refrigerated warehouses and vehicles use more energy. Warehouses are coping with more heat as average temperatures rise with climate change. Vehicles must run their engines to keep their cargo cold. So increases in both fuel and electricity prices over the past year will have eroded the bottom line.

Along with these issues are the challenges facing all transport companies, such as finding drivers. There is a global shortage of truck drivers, intensified by the pandemic, which has forced employers to offer higher wages to recruit workers.

Then there is the highly concentrated nature of Australia’s grocery retail sector, with Coles and Woolworths controlling about 65% of the market (and Aldi another 10%). This puts any company in the food supply chain at a disadvantage when it comes to negotiating contracts.

Assurances from Coles and Aldi in recent days that they have contingency plans to replace the services provided by Scott’s is indicative of this power imbalance.

Read more:
Floods, pandemics, wars and market forces: what’s driving up the price of milk

What this means for you

So what does the risk of an “uncontrolled wind down” of Scott’s businesses mean for shoppers?

You may see gaps in the fresh food, dairy, meat and frozen food aisles similar to those in early 2022, then driven by COVID-related absenteeism among transport, distribution and shop workers. These shortages should be short-lived, as other businesses pick up the slack and supply is mended.

Read more:
Supermarket shortages are different this time: how to respond and avoid panic

Thankfully, the industry has learned a few lessons from the past. Supply chain orthodoxy has moved a bit more from just-in-time to just-in-case.

Hopefully, also, most customers have learned from the past, and won’t be shocked by empty shelves. Panicky stockpiling behaviour will only makes shortages worse. Many of us (who can afford it) now also keep stocks at home in anticipation of rainy days.

Read more:
‘Panic-buying’ is the new normal: how supply chains have adapted

In the longer term, though, you should expect to pay higher grocery prices.

Contingency plans as those put in place by Coles and Aldi are costly, and the sustainability of the food distribution systems would indicate that supermarkets will need to pay more for refrigerated transport next time contracts are negotiated. These extra costs will most likely be transferred to you, the customer.

We have not yet turned the corner around supply chain issues. This is unlikely to be the last struggle that affects supplies. Occasional empty shelves in your local supermarket are the “new normal”, at least for now.

But, all in all, we are a better position to cope with these shocks than three years ago. So don’t panic.

Flavio Macau is affiliated with the Australasian Supply Chain Institute (ASCI).

– ref. Cool it: Australia’s biggest cold trucking firm has collapsed, but reports of a supermarket supply disaster are overheated – https://theconversation.com/cool-it-australias-biggest-cold-trucking-firm-has-collapsed-but-reports-of-a-supermarket-supply-disaster-are-overheated-201171

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Catherine Speck, Emerita Professor, Art History and Curatorship, University of Adelaide

Review: Andy Warhol and Photography: A Social Media, Art Gallery of South Australia.

Andy Warhol is well known for his slick pop art imagery which fetches staggering amounts at auction. His Shot Sage Blue Marilyn sold in 2022 for US$195 million.

But there is a little-explored side to Warhol-the-photographer, whom curator Julie Robinson explores in a brilliant new exhibition.

Here, Warhol emerges as a compulsive photographer whose images range from snapshot polaroids of the everyday, to portraits of the rich and famous, to Warhol himself in various self-portraits.

His camera was the iPhone of today, obsessively putting out images well before the phrases “social media” and “selfie” were invented.

Read more:
Five reasons Andy Warhol is so popular right now

Warhol and the camera

Warhol began using a polaroid camera in 1957 to record himself and his friends. He was a leading magazine illustrator in New York and he moved to using the camera as a source for imagery in commissions such as a photo spread for Harper’s Bazaar in 1963, and a cover image for Time Magazine in 1965 – both on display in the exhibition.

Photography for Warhol was a key part of his working method, even though some of his images have a snapshot quality.

He famously said:

I think anybody can take a good picture. My idea of a good picture is one that’s in focus and of a famous person doing something unfamous.

By 1961 he was using his photo-based imagery for his pop art silkscreens in his Campbell’s Soup Can series. His polaroid photographs continued to be the basis for many silkscreens, such as his exuberant Mick Jagger series (1975), co-signed by each.

His Ladies and gentlemen (1975) captured Black and Latino trans and drag queens. The models were sourced from the Gilded Grape bar, a nearby haunt of Factory photographers.

A stunning set of photographs on show come from his time in the 1970s and ‘80s producing gelatin-silver photo portraits of the celebrity figures based on initial Big Shot Polaroid images.

The dazzling array, which includes David Hockney, Henry Kissinger embracing Elizabeth Taylor, Liza Minnelli and Joseph Beuys, come from a mix of polished and in-situ photoshoots.

Late in his relatively short life, Warhol began stitching photographs together. Empire State Building (1982), showing multiples of the same image in grid formation, signals this new direction.

The Factory

This isn’t just an exhibition of Warhol, but also of his collaborators and contemporaries. The exhibition begins recreating the famous silver-lined Factory, the studio of Warhol and fellow photographers from 1964-68.

The Factory is remembered now as a site of legendary photographs and experimental films.

Warhol’s loosely scripted and silent experimental films on show from this time include the touchingly intimate Haircut (1964) and the delightfully chaotic Camp (1965). The “actors” were all, in fact, friends and acquaintances.

You sense the intensity of life there. Billy Name, the Factory’s archivist, said

it was almost as if the Factory became a big box camera – you’d walk in, expose yourself and develop yourself.

In this exhibition, Warhol’s photographs sit alongside photographs from Name, Steve Schapiro, Brigid Berlin and Robert Mapplethorpe.

Warhol himself is the subject in some photographs. Warhol would hand the camera around to other photographers like Jill Krementz who would capture him on film.

She is the photographer of Andy and Hitchcock, but the image is credited to Warhol, as often happened.

Other polaroids on show include Warhol’s homoerotic male torsos (1977), and the kissing series by Warhol’s collaborator Christopher Makos for a Valentine’s Day issue of Interview magazine, including Andy kissing John Lennon (1978).

Fleshing out the character

This is a large exhibition of 250-plus exhibits, including marked-up contact sheets, photobooth strip images, various cameras including the polaroid camera, issues of Interview magazine featuring Warhol’s photographs, and a video of his last exhibition in London in 1986 (he died unexpectedly in February 1987).

The final painting on show from that exhibition is Warhol’s camouflage-covered Self-portrait no. 9 (1986), an image that could be a composite of the many photographic portraits such as Makos’s Andy Warhol in American Flag, Madrid (1983).

The many portrayals of Warhol himself add flesh to his reputation as self-seeking, but they also penetrate the mask he so successfully cultivated. The Altered Image by Makos shows Warhol with a blond wig and wearing female make-up.

Makos recalled Warhol saying “I want to be pretty, just like everyone else”.

Read more:
Andy Warhol still surprises, 30 years after his death

An astounding output

This exhibition is a wholly immersive time capsule capturing life in New York for Warhol and his circle in the 1960s, ’70s and early ’80s. It shows just how astounding Warhol’s output was as a photographer, and how photography underpinned his entire oeuvre.

As Makos observed at the opening, he had seen many a Warhol exhibition, but never one that captured this side of Warhol – and so perfectly too.

It is well worth a trip to Adelaide. It is not a touring exhibition and brings together key work from international and national collections.

The only inexplicable aspect is the lack of an exhibition catalogue, from a gallery with a reputation for producing prize-winning catalogues. Exhibitions are, by their nature, ephemeral events; the record lies in the catalogue.

For a groundbreaking one like this, presenting a new side to Warhol and his collaborative photographic practice, a record is needed.

Andy Warhol and Photography: A Social Media is at the Art Gallery of South Australia until May 14.

Read more:
Did pop art have its heyday in the 1960s? Perhaps. But it is also utterly contemporary

Catherine Speck (with Joanna Mendelssohn, Catherine De Lorenzo and Alison Inglis) received ARC funding to research Australian exhibition history.

– ref. Polaroids of the everyday and portraits of the rich and famous: you should know the compulsive photography of Andy Warhol – https://theconversation.com/polaroids-of-the-everyday-and-portraits-of-the-rich-and-famous-you-should-know-the-compulsive-photography-of-andy-warhol-200081

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jinhyun Cho, Senior Lecturer in Translation and Interpreting at Macquarie University, Macquarie University

The Korean reality survival show Physical: 100 has become a global hit, topping Netflix’s non-English lineup in just a week following its premier on January 24 2023.

The name of the show says it all: 100 contestants with superb physiques participate in a variety of challenges to win 300 million Korean won, equivalent to A$335,000.

There are several reasons behind the success of the show. First, the idea of finding the fittest body through a series of gruelling real-life challenges is unprecedented.

Second, the show is reminiscent of another Korean entertainment success, Squid Game. From the studio settings to the ways the challenges operate, Physical: 100 has obviously been inspired by its fictional blockbuster predecessor. Third, the sheer scale of the challenges – such as moving a 1.5-tonne ship – is just mindboggling.

There is one element that is rarely talked about, despite its pivotal contribution to the success of the show: translation.

Without translation, the show would never have been able to reach a global audience. The same goes for all the Korean dramas, movies and shows that have gained huge popularity around the world. Translation is central to tectonic shifts in global cultural consumption, which has been traditionally led by the West.

The rise of Korean culture as a gamechanger

For decades, people in the East have looked to the West (mostly the United States and Europe) as a source of cultural consumption. Korea was no exception.

Local movies were once looked down upon by Korean people, who considered Western counterparts more advanced. It was not until the late 1990s that the Korean movie industry began to thrive, thanks largely to systematic government support.

Another contributor to the global popularity of Korean culture is the ascendance of Korean pop culture, better known as K-pop. This new genre of visually packed musical performance has benefited enormously from YouTube and has produced global household names such as BTS and Black Pink. As of 2021, the number of K-culture fans was estimated at more than 150 million.

Who translates Korean cultural products?

The rise of Korean culture has witnessed a rapid growth of a dedicated global fandom and, interestingly, fan-led translation. Initiated by BTS fans, an enormous community also known as “Army”, fandom translation basically covers everything relating to their favourite artists. From YouTube videos and lyrics to news articles, fans from around the world who are proficient in the Korean language voluntarily translate it all into other languages and share them through social media.

Paid translation work is in demand too. Iyuno SDI, for example, provides translation services in more than 100 languages to global media companies such as Netflix, Disney and Amazon. It is, however, not always humans who translate: AI-enabled machine translation (XL8) does much of the work. Draft translation done by machines is then reviewed and edited by more than 30,000 freelance translators across the world.

Despite the growth of the translation industry, working conditions for translators are often problematic, as many translators are short of time to complete work and underpaid. Through this mass production process, cultural consideration may sometimes get lost, as happened in Physical: 100.

Translation challenges in Physical: 100

If you’ve watched the show, you will remember Choo Sung-Hoon, a celebrity mixed martial arts (MMA) fighter. After Choo won his first one-on-one match against another MMA fighter, Shin Dong-Kook, Shin bowed deeply before Choo, with his head touching the ground. Is this standard practice among MMA fighters? No, the answer lies in the Korean term, sunbae-nim, which Shin used consistently to refer to Choo, but was not translated in the show.

Sunbae-nim refers to a person who is older or more experienced in a workplace, school, military unit or social context. Virtually all Koreans would know several people whom they consider as sunbae-nim.

Shin clearly idolises Choo, who is older and has been a big gun in the MMA field for almost two decades. It is therefore only natural for Shin to call Choo sunbae-nim, a term intended to deliver the amount of respect that Shin held for Choo. As there is no exact English equivalent, however, the term was often replaced in the subtitles by Choo’s given name, “Sung-Hoon”.

This might have given the wrong impression when Shin suggested to Choo that they have an MMA match, rather than playing the ball game prescribed in the show. Here is what Shin said (in the English subtitles) when he made the suggestion:

It would be rude of me to challenge a respected senior just to play with a ball.

“Respected senior” here refers to dae-sunbaenim (literally “great sunbaenim”) yet it sounds odd and unnatural. My suggestion? “It wouldn’t do justice to your distinguished MMA career if we just played with a ball.”

Read more:
Squid Game and the ‘untranslatable’: the debate around subtitles explained

Translation as a mutual process

Titles and forms of address in Korean are always challenging to translate.

As someone who specialises in English-Korean translation, I believe it would be best to retain these original expressions. In this digital era, information is at one’s fingertips and is easy to look up. Just as “señor” or “monsieur” need no translation, Korean titles should be respected on their own terms.

When we recognise translation as a mutual process of engaging with an audience, a cultural shift from the West to the East may be achieved in a genuine sense.

Jinhyun Cho 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. From Squid Game and Physical: 100 to K-pop and BTS, translation is central to tectonic shifts in global cultural consumption – https://theconversation.com/from-squid-game-and-physical-100-to-k-pop-and-bts-translation-is-central-to-tectonic-shifts-in-global-cultural-consumption-200259

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sally Robinson, Professor, Disability and Community Inclusion, Flinders University

The Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability is moving into its final phase and will report its findings in September.

For the last four years the commission and the media has reported a disturbing stream of violence and harm in the community and disability services. Less media attention has been paid to the commission’s work to find solutions.

Our research for the commission focuses on what we can do to change attitudes towards people with disability so that we are all included in our communities. This form of social change will improve the lives of the one in five Australians who identify as disabled. And achieving this kind of inclusion will also create a more diverse and interesting community.

When we value and respect people with disability, they are less likely to be subjected to harm.

Read more:
Australia is lagging when it comes to employing people with disability – quotas for disability services could be a start

5 ways to change attitudes

How we treat each other depends on how we think about ourselves and other people, our ideology and beliefs. The things we believe about other people influence how willing we are to act. People may find violence and abuse against people with disability repugnant. But they may also look away, and treat this as a problem in systems rather than a crisis for citizens.

Changing attitudes means looking deeper into our beliefs and actions, and how they can either set up the conditions where it is more likely for people to be harmed, or to be safer and better included. Improving inclusion means we need to remove the biases and discrimination in our attitudes, and across the ways that we think, believe and act.

In our research we listened to people working in advocacy, community organisations, business, government and academia. They were people with and without disability. They told us about five ways community attitudes can be changed to improve inclusion.

Here are five goals for inclusion with examples of them in action.

1) People with disability are active in all spheres of everyday life

This encourages diversity and contact in schools, work and our local communities. We need contact with people with disability and information about what they want. The Council for Intellectual Disability’s Our Health Counts campaign is an example. It has harnessed widespread support to improve the health of people with intellectual disability through improving GP practice, training in universities and raising public awareness of health disparity.

2) People with disability lead change

Changing attitudes works when leaders in the community are people with disability, and when governments and other community leaders value the diverse contributions of people with disability. One vital step is work training for young people with disability, such as the Road to Employment initiative, run by social enterprise Purple Orange.

Another example is the appointment of people with disability to leadership roles in the National Disability Insurance Agency, such as Kurt Fearnley and Maryanne Diamond.

Read more:
A disabled NDIA chair is a great first move in the NDIS reset. Here’s what should happen next

3) Multiple types and levels of policy and action are targeted together

These can range from walkability checklists and transport strategies in local government environmental guidelines (to identify accessibility issues) to policies and laws to require and enforce inclusion, like the Disability Inclusion and Action Plans and the Australian Disability Discrimination Act. Working at various levels at once means everyone expects inclusive attitudes.

4) Actions are sustainable

Changes that are long-term need enough resources to make a difference to the way organisations, government and business work. Inclusive education – which “values and supports the full participation of all children
together within mainstream educational settings” – is an example of a resourced, long-term policy that has fundamental community-wide impact on attitudes and behaviour.

It not only affects the attitudes of students, teachers and families in schools today, but also affects the attitudes and behaviour of students with and without disability throughout their lifetimes.

5) Measuring, monitoring and research are prioritised

Keeping track of change can support organisations to make decisions about the action they take and ensure they are accountable for what they say they will do. This is one goal of the Australian Disability Strategy outcomes framework and local government disability action plans.

Read more:
People with disabilities in group homes are suffering shocking abuse. New housing models could prevent harm

What’s next?

You can make sure the things you do in your work and play welcome people with disability.

What the government can do is encourage and enforce changes to attitudes and behaviour to improve inclusion of people with disability. Attitudes, behaviours and outcomes should be measured. This will help us to know what works to make change and what does not.

Later this year, the disability royal commission will report its findings and propose solutions. Then it will be up to everyone to make sure change happens.

Sally Robinson receives funding from the Australian Research Council. This research was funded by the Disability Royal Commission.

Christy Newman receives funding from the Australian Research Council, the National Health and Medical Research Council, and state and federal Australian government departments of health. This research was funded by the Disability Royal Commission.

Jan Idle is employed through a grant from the Australian Research Council. This research was funded by the Disability Royal Commission

Karen R Fisher receives funding from the Australia Research Council. This research was funded by the Disability Royal Commission

Gianfranco Giuntoli 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. Inclusion means everyone: 5 disability attitude shifts to end violence, abuse and neglect – https://theconversation.com/inclusion-means-everyone-5-disability-attitude-shifts-to-end-violence-abuse-and-neglect-199003

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Martin Brook, Associate Professor of Applied Geology, University of Auckland

Just over a month after the Auckland flood, and three weeks on from Cyclone Gabrielle hitting the North Island, the scale of the disasters and the rebuild is clear – as is a sense of being in limbo for those worst affected.

At Muriwai on Auckland’s west coast, locals were reportedly left frustrated by a lack of information after a community meeting called by Auckland Council last week. So far, 113 homes have been “red-stickered” in the small settlement, with another 75 along Domain Crescent yet to be assessed due to the street’s ongoing instability.

At the centre of it all sits section 124 of the New Zealand Building Act. This is the piece of law governing the red or yellow notices (“stickers”) pasted onto houses or buildings deemed “dangerous, affected, or insanitary”.

The situation now playing out at Muriwai provides a case study of the kinds of “pinch points” the use of section 124 can create for territorial authorities and their communities. The lessons learned should inform future disaster responses.

Listen to the science

Ultimately, councils want to keep people safe. But there can be tension when communities feel the risk from a hazard has diminished enough for them to return home and pick up their lives. Not least are concerns that a red sticker on the front of their house is an invitation to thieves.

Talk of “shutting the stable door once the horse has bolted” or “throwing the baby out with the bathwater” is often heard in the aftermath of a natural disaster. The storm has passed, the sun is shining and people want to return to what might seem a more benign environment.

Read more:
Landslides and law: Cyclone Gabrielle raises serious questions about where we’ve been allowed to build

But what is “safe” is vague, and everyone has their own interpretation of risk – including engineers. Some parts of Aotearoa recover faster than others, and councils have different ways of operating. So it’s important local authorities make balanced decisions by prioritising the science.

In Gisborne in November 2021, for example, widespread landslides occurred, including a substantial slip involving several residential streets. This transitioned into an earthflow, with the most mobile material probably characterised as mudflow.

Contractors quickly installed concrete blocks at the toe of the slope to stop any more debris sliding onto the road (see picture below). Disruption to the community was kept to a minimum.

Avoiding extremes

There are other examples, however, of government agencies and councils failing to keep people safe – or being over-zealous in their approach to hazard management and community safety.

Most infamously perhaps, in 1966 at Aberfan in South Wales a saturated pile of coal “spoil” slumped and flowed down the valley side. The result of no effective monitoring at all, the slide engulfed a primary school and killed 144, including 116 children.

Read more:
Massive outages caused by Cyclone Gabrielle strengthen the case for burying power lines

Still in the UK but the other end of the scale, the Cumbria County Council acted very quickly in 2021 when cracks appeared in the soil at the end of a hot summer at Parton on the Cumbria coast. The council evacuated the village for more than a week, and the local school was only reopened 14 months later.

A klaxon warning alarm was installed as a precaution, but the geotechnical investigation showed there had actually been no recent movement of the slope at all. The “tension cracks” were more likely shrinkage cracks due to the soils drying out, not from tensional stresses within an unstable slope.

Both examples demonstrate the importance of understanding the true stability of a slope. Monitoring can be done by remote sensing from helicopter-borne LiDAR (as at Muriwai at present), or space-borne InSAR. But knowing what is happening to a slope means being able to see, in high resolution, its physical behaviour over time.

The technology exists

A good example of state-of-the-art monitoring is the ALERT system pioneered by the British Geological Survey at the Hollin Hill landslide test site in North Yorkshire. This uses ground surface markers, with a variety of motion and listening sensors installed below in geotechnical boreholes at different depths within the slope.

Monitoring moisture is often the key, as rising soil moisture is often the precursor to any measurable slope movement. The installed sensors stream data directly to a geologist’s office computer, providing the basis for science-based decision-making.

Read more:
Why a temporary flood levy on higher earners would be the fairest way to help pay for Cyclone Gabrielle

The international mining industry has also pioneered the monitoring of unstable slopes within open-pit mines. A land-based radar unit is pointed at a slope and provides measurements in real time to a control room. Trigger levels are set so that movement beyond certain allowable thresholds raises an alarm and the pit floor is evacuated.

A classic example of its effectiveness is a landslide at Bingham Canyon Mine in Utah in 2013. When radar detected slope movement above the acceptable thresholds, more than 100 workers were evacuated. A 60 million cubic metre rock avalanche occurred the next day. It was the largest non-volcanic landslide recorded in the US, and no one was harmed.

Finding the balance

Getting the balance right isn’t easy. Councils struggle to keep communities safe (recognising there is no such thing as zero risk) while also involving those communities in key decisions. It’s a dilemma local authorities and government agencies wrestle with across most OECD countries.

An approach to planning and mitigation of hazards based on te ao Māori (the Māori world view) has been advocated, but it’s yet to be determined how this would play out across the Aotearoa’s varied communities and cultures.

Read more:
‘Build back better’ sounds great in theory, but does the government really know what it means in practice?

But based on Muriwai’s experience, an agile and empathetic approach seems important. This would involve community participation in local hazard planning, coupled with rapid installation and application of state-of-the-art monitoring technology.

Anxious communities recovering from tragic events need to feel they are being listened to. Engaging them in the decision-making process – as well as demonstrating the science behind those decisions – is vital. This is especially so when people’s homes and lives depend on the application of section 124 of the Building Act.

Martin Brook receives funding from MBIE, Toka Tū Ake EQC, and the Royal Society Te Apārangi.

– ref. The red and yellow sticker dilemma – how do we balance safety with the desire to return home after a disaster? – https://theconversation.com/the-red-and-yellow-sticker-dilemma-how-do-we-balance-safety-with-the-desire-to-return-home-after-a-disaster-201283

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rebecca Wilcoxson, Lecturer in Forensic Psychology, CQUniversity Australia

Popular culture is fascinated with the ability to detect liars. Lie detector tests are a staple of police dramas, and TV shows such as Poker Face feature “human polygraphs” who detect deception by picking up tell-tale signs in people’s behaviour.

Records of attempts to detect lies, whether by technical means or by skilled observers, go back at least 3,000 years. Forensic science lie detection techniques have become increasingly popular since the invention of the polygraph early in the 20th century, with the latest methods involving advanced brain imaging.

Proponents of lie detection technology sometimes make grandiose claims, such as a recent paper that said “with the help of forensic science and its new techniques, crimes can be easily solved”.

Despite these claims, an infallible lie detection method has yet to be found. In fact, most lie detection methods don’t detect lies at all – instead, they register the physiological or behaviour signs of stress or fear.

From dry rice to red-hot irons

The earliest recorded lie detection method was used in China, around 1000 BC. It involved suspects placing rice in their mouths then spitting it out: wet rice indicated innocence, while dry rice meant guilty.

In India, around 900 BC, one method used to detect poisoners was observations of shaking. In ancient Greece a rapid pulse rate was taken to indicate deceit.

The Middle Ages saw barbaric forms of lie detection used in Europe, such as the red-hot iron method which involved suspected criminals placing their tongue, often multiple times, on a red-hot iron. Here, a burnt tongue indicated guilt.

What the polygraph measures

Historical lie detection methods were based in superstition or religion. However, in the early 20th century a purportedly scientific, objective, lie detection machine was invented: the polygraph.

The polygraph measures a person’s respiration, heart rate, blood pressure, and skin conductance (sweating) during questioning.

Usually a “control question” about a crime is asked, such as “Did you do it?” The person’s response to the control question is then compared to responses to neutral or less provocative questions. Heightened reactions to direct crime questions are taken to indicate guilt on the test.

The overconfidence of law enforcers

Some law enforcement experts claim they don’t even need a polygraph. They can detect lies simply by observing the behaviour of a suspect during questioning.

Worldwide research shows that law enforcers are often confident they can detect lying. Many assume a suspect’s nonverbal behaviour reveals deceit.

A 2011 study with Queensland police revealed many officers were confident they could detect lying. Most favoured a focus on nonverbal behaviour even over available evidence.

However, research shows that law enforcers, despite their confidence, are often not very good at detecting lying.

Law enforcement officers are not alone in thinking they can spot a liar. Global studies have found that people around the world believe lying is accompanied by specific nonverbal behaviours such as gaze aversion and nervousness.

What’s really being tested

Many historical and current lie detection methods seem underpinned by the plausible idea that liars will be nervous and display observable physical reactions.

These might be shaking (such as in the ancient Indian test for poisoners, and the nonverbal behaviour method used by some investigators), a dry mouth (the rice-chewing test and the hot-iron method), increased pulse rate (the ancient Greek method and the modern polygraph), or overall heightened physiological reactions (the polygraph).

Read more:
How’s your poker face? Why it’s so hard to sniff out a liar

However, there are two major problems with using behaviour based on fear or stress to detect lying.

The first problem: how does one distinguish fearful innocents from fearful guilty people? It is likely that an innocent person accused of a crime will be fearful or anxious, while a guilty suspect may not be.

This is borne out with the polygraph’s high false-positive rate, meaning innocent people are deemed guilty. Similarly, some police have assumed that innocent, nervous suspects were guilty based on inaccurate interpretations of behavioural observations.

The second major problem with lie detection methods based on nervous behaviour is there is no evidence that specific nonverbal behaviours reliably accompany deception.

Miscarriages of justice

Despite what we know about the inaccuracy of polygraph tests, they haven’t gone away.

In the US, they are still used in some police interrogations and high-security job interviews. In the UK, lie detector tests are used for some sex offenders on probation. And in China, the use of polygraphs in law enforcement may even be increasing.

Australia has been less enthusiastic in adopting lie-detection machines. In New South Wales, the use of lie-detector findings was barred from court in 1983, and an attempt to present polygraph evidence to a court in Western Australia in 2003 also failed.

Many historical and current lie detection methods emulate each other and are based on the same assumptions. Often the only difference is the which part of the body or physical reacion they focus on.

Using fallible lie detection methods contributes to wrongful convictions and miscarriages of justice.

Therefore, it is important that criminal-justice practitioners are educated about fallacious lie detection methods, and any new technique grounded in fear or stress-based reactions should be rejected.

Despite outward appearances of technological advancement, over many millennia little has changed. Fearful innocents remain vulnerable to wrongful assumptions of guilt, which is good news for the fearless guilty.

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. Lie detection tests have worked the same way for 3,000 years – and they’re still hopelessly inaccurate – https://theconversation.com/lie-detection-tests-have-worked-the-same-way-for-3-000-years-and-theyre-still-hopelessly-inaccurate-200741

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Blaxland, Professor, Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is expected to visit Washington in the next two weeks to announce the long-awaited roadmap for the AUKUS submarine agreement alongside UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and US President Joe Biden.

So, what’s involved, what’s at stake, and what are the challenges?

Can Albanese balance the imperatives of the alliance, technological requirements, and regional concerns? And can the plan be implemented in a timely manner?

How did we get here?

In September 2021, then Prime Minister Scott Morrison held a surprise virtual three-way meeting alongside Biden and then UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson to announce a trilateral technical agreement, called AUKUS.

The deal is to enable Australia to acquire nuclear-powered submarines, as well as deepen defence industry collaboration between the three nations.

It followed a stop-start approach to domestic submarine manufacturing. The 2009 Defence White Paper called for 12 new diesel-electric propulsion submarines. The global financial crisis saw funding cutbacks and delays.

Later, Tony Abbott hoped to buy Japanese-built submarines, but with pressure for local industry input and his grip on power weakening, he was overruled.

His successor, Malcolm Turnbull, set up a multi-billion dollar deal with France instead, with Australia saying it would buy a fleet of conventional submarines.

The French deal was then scrapped by Morrison in favour of the AUKUS plan.

Read more:
‘I don’t think, I know’ – what makes Macron’s comments about Morrison so extraordinary and so worrying

Why nuclear-powered subs?

Technological developments made conventional diesel-electric submarines obsolete for Australia.

Australia’s submarines face long transits between ports, let alone to potential distant hot spots. Advances in artificial intelligence and persistent surveillance make detection easier to the point where a short “snort” to recharge batteries is detectable. To lose stealth is to lose the key advantage of submarines, so something had to give.

Nuclear-powered subs can stay underwater for far longer than diesel-electric models.

Another part of the rationale is that the deal would add to deterrence of China as its influence in the Pacific grows.

Read more:
Why nuclear submarines are a smart military move for Australia — and could deter China further

What do critics say?

The Morrison government’s clumsy handling of cancelling the French deal significantly harmed relations.

AUKUS also generated consternation in Indonesia and some other Southeast Asian nations, who worried the deal would lead to an arms race and greater tensions in the region.

Critics see AUKUS as a retrograde step, damaging Australia’s regional standing and its nuclear non-proliferation credentials. The Albanese government has pushed back, and its imminent meeting in Washington means it will now wholly own the endeavour. The government still needs to allay regional concerns, but progress has been made.

Critics have also suggested AUKUS compromises Australian sovereignty. Albanese has rightly rejected this view, arguing deployment of military assets in the event of any conflict was

a decision for Australia as a sovereign nation, just as the United States will maintain its sovereignty and the United Kingdom will maintain its.

The irony is that for a boutique defence force like Australia’s, reliance on US technology has come to be an integral part of the plan for defending Australia’s sovereignty.

Restoring relations

The Albanese government set about restoring relations with France, and earlier this year France’s ambassador to Australia said the two countries have repaired the relationship.

As for relations with neighbours in the South Pacific and Southeast Asia, Foreign Minister Penny Wong and Defence Minister Richard Marles have been actively seeking to allay concerns over nuclear non-proliferation, and of Australia’s commitment to remain engaged as respected partners of ASEAN and the Pacific Islands Forum.

Read more:
Why is southeast Asia so concerned about AUKUS and Australia’s plans for nuclear submarines?

The Albanese government has been stressing that a strengthened defence capability is a net plus for security partners in Southeast Asia and the Pacific.

Its initiatives have been well received so far, with Indonesia promising to sign a new pact with Australia to facilitate increased military cooperation.

More work to be done

One of the most critical concerns remains the question of how willing the US government and bureaucracy will be to facilitate Australia’s ready access to nuclear propulsion technology beyond the current electoral cycle.

For this to happen, significant extra work is required to overcome US rules that limit the export of nuclear technologies, which are required under AUKUS. Some significant voices are advocating for this on Australia’s behalf.

Australia has become more important for enhanced US military contingency planning, meaning the US has a vested interest in making the Australia alliance work.

With so much at stake, and with evident bipartisan support for AUKUS, tripartite arrangements will likely survive the tempest of local political ebbs and flows.

An interim solution?

The government’s plan is to manufacture nuclear-powered subs onshore, though this wouldn’t happen until well into the future. Meanwhile, Australia’s current Collins class submarines are due for a life extension refit to see them through beyond the next decade.

So there’s been intense speculation about an interim solution.

Some have suggested Australia may operate UK-built nuclear-propulsion submarines as a stop-gap until Australia’s production kicks in. The US produces larger boats but its production line is at capacity, while the British option is smaller and easier to crew.

Crew size is a critical limitation for the Australian submarine arm, which has challenges crewing even the significantly smaller Collins class submarines.

What’s more, with Britain facing significant financial pressures, a couple of submarines from the UK production line may act as a lifeline to its naval construction industry, while also providing the Albanese government with the promise of a face-saving submarine delivery before the end of the decade.

We won’t know exactly what the plan is until the official announcement, and we may not get any interim subs at all. Such an outcome would leave Australia reliant on Collins submarines well past their use by date.

A bumpy road ahead

Challenges aplenty remain. Australian nuclear technology know-how is limited, and its naval construction industry is experiencing considerable turbulence with long gaps between contracts. The university sector has an important role to meet the nuclear workforce requirements and several, like ANU, are making steady progress.

But the imperatives for closer collaboration are accentuated by darkening clouds in international affairs.

It’s often said that weakness invites adventurism, even aggression. The AUKUS plan is an ambitious, costly and risky one. But these are challenging times. It’s an important plank for bolstering resilience and deterrence and, in turn, reducing the likelihood of adventurism.

The forthcoming Defence Strategic Review, likely to be released in April, can be expected to build on the ties that the AUKUS plan represents.

Now comes the hard part – making the plan come to fruition.

John Blaxland has received funding from the Australian Signals Directorate for an official history project, but the project was cancelled at short notice in 2020.

– ref. The long-awaited AUKUS submarine announcement is imminent. What should we expect? – https://theconversation.com/the-long-awaited-aukus-submarine-announcement-is-imminent-what-should-we-expect-200994

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sathana Dushyanthen, Academic Specialist & Lecturer in Cancer Sciences & Digital Health| Superstar of STEM| Science Communicator, The University of Melbourne

Barely a month goes by without headlines announcing yet another advancement in cancer vaccines.

Just last month, the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted breakthrough therapy designation to Moderna and Merck’s skin cancer vaccine. This allows expedited development and review of drugs intended to treat serious conditions.

We already have a vaccine to prevent human papillomavirus (HPV), which causes cervical and other cancers. We also have a vaccine to protect against the hepatitis B virus, which can cause liver cancer.

But you may have heard of new types of cancer vaccines being developed using technology similar to that used for COVID vaccines. Decades before COVID vaccines, scientists had been working on messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) vaccines targeting cancer.

Rather than preventing disease, these vaccines are a personalised treatment for cancer, to combat disease.

How do they work?

Traditionally, vaccines inject part or all of a weakened virus (or other pathogen) into the body to provoke an immune response.

mRNA works by injecting only the genetic instructions and allowing the body’s cells to make part of the cancer protein (antigen) itself. This trains the immune system to develop antibodies against the protein.

When these same proteins are present on an invading tumour cell, the immune system stimulates an immune response against it.

While COVID mRNA vaccines respond to one antigen – the spike protein on the outside of coronavirus – cancer vaccines act on several antigens present on the tumour surface.

The mRNA cancer vaccines train the patient’s immune system to fight their own cancer. Most trials are manufacturing vaccines for individual patients based on the specific antigens present on their tumours.

It takes around two months to produce a vaccine.

How are they made?

To make these vaccines, a sample of the patient’s tumour and healthy tissue is taken. These samples are DNA-sequenced to compare differences between the DNA in the cancerous cells and the healthy cells.

Scientists identify problem mutations driving disease. These can then be used as antigen targets in the mRNA vaccine.

Bespoke approaches allow scientists to target a wider range of cancer antigens. Targeting multiple antigens decreases the odds that cancer cells will mutate and become resistant to vaccines, because the immune system attacks on multiple fronts.

Personalised medicines are extremely expensive because they are bespoke products. Manufacturing costs for bespoke treatments remain high. However, with rapidly falling costs of different aspects such as genome sequencing (some companies are now offering genome sequencing for just US$100), sequencing the entire genome is becoming more viable.

As large-scale manufacturing increases in future for off-the-shelf vaccines, there will be resource efficiencies that reduce cost.

What vaccines are in development?

In December 2022, Moderna and Merck (known outside the United States and Canada as MSD) published the results of its early phase (2b) clinical trial. The trial was investigating a combination therapy of an mRNA vaccine and immunotherapy (a drug that stimulates an immune response) in advanced stage melanoma patients.

After one year of treatment in 157 patients, they found the combination reduced the risk of cancer recurrence or death by 44%.

Now, Moderna and Merck plan to follow up their initial trial with a phase 3 trial for advanced melanoma in 2023. Phase 3 trials test for safety and efficacy in larger groups of patients.

Read more:
Moderna’s experimental cancer vaccine treats but doesn’t prevent melanoma – a biochemist explains how it works

BioNTech has several mRNA cancer candidates in the works, including for advanced melanoma, ovarian cancer and non-small cell lung cancer. It will release results from its own phase 2 melanoma trial (of 131 patients) using immunotherapy and an mRNA vaccine combination later this year. Its primary aim is to measure cancer progression and survival over 24 months in previously untreated patients.

A third company called CureVac is also developing mRNA vaccines targeting a range of cancers including ovarian, colorectal, head and neck, lung and pancreatic.

CureVac has a deal with Tesla, the electric car manufacturer, to develop small, portable mRNA bioprinters to automate the process of producing patient mRNA. These can be shipped to remote locations where they are able to churn out vaccine candidates based on the DNA template (recipe) fed into the machine.

A lot of these vaccines, including those targeting cancer, are in pre-clinical to phase 1 stages of development, to test the effects and side effects in the laboratory, animal models or small groups of patients.

When will they become available?

Overseas, Moderna and Merck’s mRNA cancer vaccine was fast-tracked for review by the US FDA in February 2023.

Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration has not approved the use of mRNAs for use either alone or with other cancer treatments yet.

In January 2023, the United Kingdom’s National Health Service partnered with BioNTech to fast-track the development of mRNA cancer vaccines over the next seven years. Eligible UK cancer patients will get early access to clinical trials from late 2023 onwards. By 2030, these mRNA vaccines will be made clinically available to around 10,000 cancer patients.

Read more:
Cancer vaccine trials could start in the autumn – UK signs deal with BioNTech

In Australia, BioNTech is establishing its Asia-Pacific mRNA clinical research and development centre in Melbourne, in partnership with the Victorian government. This would develop mRNA vaccines for research and clinical trials, including personalised cancer treatments.

Meanwhile, Moderna will develop Australia’s first large-scale mRNA vaccine facility at Monash University by 2024, in partnership with the state and federal government. This will give Australians priority access to mRNA vaccines made locally.

What else could the technology be used for?

Aside from cancer, there is huge potential to use mRNA technologies across many gene therapies.

There are studies underway testing mRNA vaccines for various diseases such as evolving COVID strains, seasonal influenza, malaria, HIV, cystic fibrosis and even allergies, giving new hope for many previously incurable diseases.

Read more:
3 mRNA vaccines researchers are working on (that aren’t COVID)

Sathana Dushyanthen 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. What are these ‘cancer vaccines’ I’m hearing about? And what similarities do they share with COVID vaccines? – https://theconversation.com/what-are-these-cancer-vaccines-im-hearing-about-and-what-similarities-do-they-share-with-covid-vaccines-197988

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Declan Kuch, Vice Chancellor’s Research Fellow, Institute for Culture and Society, Western Sydney University

Western Sydney is being developed rapidly, increasing its already high vulnerability to climate change. One day in January 2020, Penrith was the hottest place on Earth. Residents who have endured searing heat, bushfires, heavy rain, floods and huge damage bills in recent years are now a political force.

In addition to being overwhelmed by such events, residents sometimes feel they are not heard. During the COVID-19 lockdowns, essential workers in Western Sydney felt alienated and over-policed, and demanded their predicaments be taken into account. In the recent federal election, local candidates gained traction due to their trusted presence in the community.

The preferences of the region’s culturally and economically diverse voters are no longer predictable. They could also have a substantial influence on the March 25 state election.

Our newly published report, Climate Matters to Western Sydney: Everyday Sustainability Practices in Uncertain Times, documents 100 residents’ responses to our survey about their environmental practices and their struggles to secure their families’ wellbeing. Their aspirations for a sustainable future emerge clearly from the survey responses.

Our findings challenge the idea that Western Sydney residents’ financial concerns, such as costs of living and energy, are somehow separate from and outweigh their environmental concerns. There is a strong desire to adapt creatively to the challenges of an uncertain climate.

Read more:
Western Sydney will swelter through 46 days per year over 35°C by 2090, unless emissions drop significantly

Shared air, shared infrastructure

In 1837, British inventor and mathematician Charles Babbage wrote:

The air itself is one vast library on whose pages are forever written all that man has ever said or woman whispered.

The COVID pandemic made it impossible to ignore that the quality of the air around us is measured and qualified, and it’s both intimately personal and shared. Air quality is a signature of wellbeing – it’s pivotal to household comfort and sustainable cities. Our respondents understand the complexities of these interactions with air very well.

As with earlier research, we’ve found a divide between people who have air conditioning and those who don’t. More than half of our study participants didn’t have it at home.

However, air-conditioning users are more attuned to their environment than the idea of a “new climate denial” would suggest. Three-quarters said they had a comfort or precise temperature threshold, ranging from 22℃ to 40℃, for turning it on.

Read more:
The new climate denial? Using wealth to insulate yourself from discomfort and change

Most respondents, including those with air conditioning, used blinds to cope with increasing heat. They also used fans and cross-ventilation, shading and planting, and went to air-conditioned shared spaces like libraries and shopping malls to cope with increasing heatwaves.

It’s not all about cost of living

Our participants told us the ways that the movement of both air and water is crucial for their wellbeing, household comfort and urban sustainability. For example, one Parramatta resident of mixed heritage in their 50s reported:

I wrap myself in wet clothes – neck, head, douse myself in water in the yard – when working in the garden.

Residents adapt to changing environmental conditions using both low and high-tech solutions to balance wellbeing, sustainability and cost. This includes using blinds, fans and other ways of regulating the temperature. They also design solar-passive solutions themselves, such as vines and other external shading. Planners often overlook these solutions, but they are crucial to household comfort.

Air is both common and private, affected by energy, architecture and urban gardening. Coming out of the COVID experience, being at home in Western Sydney increasingly extends beyond the walls of the house to include community and creative spaces, parks and gardens. While half our respondents reported staying put during heatwaves, the other half sought out public pools and beaches or common air-conditioned spaces, such as shopping centres.

Our respondents were emphatic: the cost of living is not just its price. While households play a significant role in climate change and contribute to environmental pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, they also act in ways that promote ecological sustainability. These extend from preserving local parks and creating community gardens to pressuring federal and state governments to act on their responsibilities. For example, a resident told us:

Insist that green cover be measured and monitored very publicly […] insist that
tree cover remains. Identify all sites that can remain parks and totally protect
them from any private enterprises, leases and developments.

Read more:
Half of Western Sydney foodbowl land may have been lost to development in just 10 years

Shared solutions for shared problems

Councils, electricity networks and other organisations at the front lines of the climate crisis are asking profound questions about how we live together: where will people go during the next catastrophic fires? How can we create community refuges that will be safe and have dependable communications and electricity?

These are not questions that can be answered simply with more housing supply or lower interest rates. While private homes can offer a refuge in times of crisis, acknowledging our air, water and even electricity are common resources – our “vast library” – helps start a different discussion about responsibilities, rights and our shared existence.

The voters of Western Sydney understand this, and politicians ignore it at their peril.

Read more:
Future home havens: Australians likely to use more energy to stay in and save money

Declan Kuch has received funding from the Australian Research Council, Australian Renewable Energy Agency and Cooperative Research Centres.

Stephen Healy has received funding from the Australian Research Council.

Malini Sur and Sukhmani Khorana 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. As Western Sydney residents grapple with climate change, they want political action – https://theconversation.com/as-western-sydney-residents-grapple-with-climate-change-they-want-political-action-200917

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jenny Gore, Laureate Professor of Education, Director Teachers and Teaching Research Centre, University of Newcastle

The past four decades have seen an endless stream of reviews into teacher education. Australia has clocked up more than 100 since 1979. This comes amid constant concerns teachers are not adequately prepared for the classroom.

Our latest research, published in the Australian Education Researcher, provides a powerful counternarrative to concerns about teacher education and early-career teachers.

We analysed data from two major studies over the past decade and found it did not matter if teachers had less than one year of teaching experience or had spent 25 years in the classroom – they delivered the same quality of teaching.

These results indicate teaching degrees are preparing new teachers to deliver quality teaching and have a positive impact in their classrooms right away.

Recent reviews into teacher education

The most recent review into teacher education was finalised in February 2022. Led by former federal education department secretary Lisa Paul, the review found an “ambitious reform agenda” was needed to attract “high quality” students and make sure teacher education was “evidence-based and practical”.

Sydney University vice-chancellor Mark Scott (who also chairs The Conversation’s board) is now leading another expert panel, partly in response to Paul’s review and partly due to concerns about teacher shortages. It is looking at how to “strengthen” teacher education. It is also looking at developing a “quality measure” for teaching degrees and whether funding for universities should be tied to quality.

In among this, we have already seen an emphasis on attracting the “best and brightest” into teaching degrees and increasing requirements to graduate. To enter a classroom, teachers now need to have passed extra literacy and numeracy tests on top of their degrees.

The underlying assumption in all this government messaging and accompanying media commentary is that failings in education are those of teachers and teacher educators (the academics who teach teachers).

Read more:
No wonder no one wants to be a teacher: world-first study looks at 65,000 news articles about Australian teachers

Our research

Our research used direct observation of 990 entire lessons to investigate the relationship between years of teaching experience and the quality of teaching.

We analysed the teaching of 512 Year 3 and 4 teachers from 260 New South Wales public schools in separate studies conducted over 2014-15 and 2019-21.

The schools involved in the study were representative of schools across Australia, and the lessons observed included a range of subjects, with the majority in English and mathematics. Most of the teachers observed had between one and 15 years of experience, although almost a quarter of the observations were of lessons taught by teachers with 16 years’ experience or more.

How we assess quality teaching

We used the Quality Teaching Model as the basis for the observations. The model was developed by education academic James Ladwig and me for the NSW Department of Education in 2003. It has been the department’s framework for high-quality teaching since.

It is based on research into the types of teaching practice that make a difference to student learning and centres on three dimensions:

1. “intellectual quality” – developing deep understanding of important knowledge

2. “a quality learning environment” – ensuring positive classrooms that boost student learning, and

3. “significance” – connecting learning to students’ lives and the wider world.

Under these three dimensions are 18 elements of teaching practice that enable detailed analysis of lesson quality. Researchers coded the lessons they observed, with more than one researcher coding many of the lessons to ensure a high level of reliability.

Read more:
‘It hurt my heart and my wallet’: the unnecessary test stressing teachers before they even make it to the classroom

Our findings

We found no statistically significant differences in average teaching quality across the years of experience categories.

Even when we broke down the experience categories in different ways to test for accuracy, we continued to find that years of experience did not equate to differences in the quality of teaching delivered.

On the graph below, each dot represents the average Quality Teaching score of an observed lesson. These have been grouped in a line based on how experienced a teacher is.

The average lesson quality in each experience category is represented by the large black dot and the horizontal lines represent the margin of error. The average Quality Teaching score across all the experience categories falls within the same margin of error range illustrating no statistically significant difference.

Why does experience appear to make no difference?

Teaching quality is consistently described as the most important in-school factor affecting student outcomes.

Our finding that newly graduated teachers deliver teaching of a similar quality to that of their more experienced peers is surprising and somewhat counterintuitive. There are at least two possible explanations for this result.

First, the result suggests graduate teachers are entering the profession “classroom ready” because initial teacher education programs are performing far better than is typically assumed in policy and the media.

That is not to say improvements in teaching degrees aren’t possible or warranted, or that graduate teachers don’t face difficulties. We know attrition among teachers in their first five years is high and is a major contributor to teacher shortages.

Second, on-the-job experience is insufficient on its own to raise teaching quality. While experienced teachers make many valuable contributions through leadership and mentoring, it could be that much of the professional development they do over the course of their careers makes little difference to the quality of their teaching practice.

Teachers need professional development that builds knowledge, motivates them, develops their teaching techniques and helps them make ongoing changes in their classroom practice. It should be backed by rigorous evidence of a positive impact on teaching quality and student outcomes.

Teachers and teaching

Part of the problem in debates about schools and education is the relentless use of “teacher quality” as a proxy for understanding “teaching quality”. This focuses on the person rather than the practice.

This discourse sees teachers blamed for student performance on NAPLAN and PISA tests, rather than taking into account the systems and conditions in which they work.

While teaching quality might be the greatest in school factor affecting student outcomes, it’s hardly the greatest factor overall. As Education Minister Jason Clare said last month:

I don’t want us to be a country where your chances in life depend on who your parents are or where you live or the colour of your skin.

We know disadvantage plays a significant role in educational outcomes. University education departments are an easy target for both governments and media.

Blaming them means governments do not have to try and rectify the larger societal and systemic problems at play.

Jenny Gore receives funding from the Australian Research Council, Paul Ramsay Foundation and NSW Department of Education.

– ref. Our study found new teachers perform just as well in the classroom as their more experienced colleagues – https://theconversation.com/our-study-found-new-teachers-perform-just-as-well-in-the-classroom-as-their-more-experienced-colleagues-200649

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jim Stanford, Economist and Director, Centre for Future Work, Australia Institute; Honorary Professor of Political Economy, University of Sydney

The three years since the onset of the pandemic have witnessed a dramatic redistribution of national income, away from labour compensation and towards business profits.

No one should be surprised. Supply-chain disruptions, pent-up consumer demand and inflation have provided businesses with a golden opportunity to increase their margins. Many have taken it.

The latest GDP data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics confirms that, in the three years since December 2019, corporate gross operating profits have risen 43.6% – more than twice the growth in wages.

As a result, the share of GDP going to corporate profits has increased by 3.6 percentage points. Conversely, labour’s share shrank by 2.3 percentage points, despite low unemployment rates and rising nominal wages. Even hard-pressed small businesses, personified by the friendly neighbourhood café owner, did better.

The 29% share of national income now going to corporate profits is the highest in Australian history – higher even than 2020 when profits were temporarily boosted by JobKeeper payments and other business subsidies. Meanwhile, workers’ share of GDP reached its lowest point ever (just 45%).

The decline has implications for inequality and social cohesion. It is translating into a notable decline in workers’ real living standards, and exacerbating the rise in inflation.

No, it’s not all about mining

Some claim the rise in profits is solely due to supercharged energy and mining prices, and hence does not indicate any general shift in distribution patterns.

The Business Council of Australia’s head, Jennifer Westacott, has even claimed that the profit share of non-mining businesses has fallen.

Her calculation is flawed: it excludes mining from one part of the equation (profits) but not the other part (nominal GDP). In 2022 mining’s contribution to GDP exceeded 15%.

An apples-to-apples comparison, measuring non-mining profits to non-mining GDP, shows profits have grown relative to GDP in most of the economy, not just in mining. Whiile mining profits surged 89% in the three years to December 2022, non-mining profits increased 29% – faster than non-mining GDP, and much faster than wages.

In sum, the redistribution of national income is occurring across the economy, with a smaller share for workers and a larger share for the owners of the businesses they work for.

Real wages have plummeted

This decline in labour’s share of GDP just since the pandemic represents foregone earnings of close to A$5,000 a year per employee, on average.

This extends a longer-term ongoing erosion of labour’s share of GDP that has been occurring since the 1980s. It has occurred despite a modest uptick in nominal wage growth, and statutory increases in superannuation contributions by employers (which are included in the statistics above).

Post-COVID inflation has caused a steep fall in the absolute purchasing power of wages.

This is confirmed by the ABS Wage Price Index (WPI), which reports changes in average wage levels. It’s a good measure of pure wage inflation, analogous to the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for consumer goods and services.

The latest WPI data shows nominal wages rose 3.3% in the 12 months to December 2022. But with the CPI rising 7.8% in the same period – the biggest gap between the WPI and CPI since the Australian Bureau of Statistics began gathering this data in 1997 – wage growth has now lagged consumer prices for seven consecutive quarters. This is also a record.

As a result, real wages have fallen by 5% in the three years since December 2019.

(The temporary spike in real wages in mid-2020 was an unusual consequence of lockdowns, which most affected low-paid jobs in sectors like hospitality and retail. The loss of these jobs pumped up average wages for the rest, but that was reversed when those sectors re-opened after the lockdowns.)

The real purchasing power of wages is now back to the same level as 2010. More than a decade’s worth of gradual improvement for Australian workers has been wiped out.

Read more:
The certainty of ever-growing living standards we grew up with under Queen Elizabeth is at an end

Worse, more losses are to come through 2023, and likely much of 2024, according to Reserve Bank of Australia forecasts.

Why is the RBA focused on wages?

Claims that businesses are mere intermediaries in inflation – simply passing on higher costs to consumers – are disproved by the growth in corporate profits.

This is most starkly visible in mining and energy prices, one of the largest sources of recent CPI inflation. But even in non-mining sectors prices have increased faster than required simply to offset higher costs.

In other research, I have estimated the rise in corporate profits since December 2019 (both mining and non-mining) accounts for 69% of the jump in inflation above the RBA’s 2.5% target.

Workers are already paying for higher inflation through falling purchasing power. They will pay again through job and income losses from any economic slowdown (potentially a recession) caused by the RBA’s response to that inflation.

Yet the RBA remains narrowly obsessed with supposedly overheated labour markets and rising wages. Its February Statement on Monetary Policy mentions wages more than 70 times. Profits are mentioned just once.

Read more:
Profits push up prices too, so why is the RBA governor only talking about wages?

Acknowledging reality

Concern over the redistribution of national income from labour to capital is not class envy. For working-class households it has resulted in an increasing struggle to make ends meet.

Addressing and ameliorating the effects of this historic redistribution will require a comprehensive and complex range of policy responses. Crucially it requires wages growing faster than prices, both to make up for past real wage losses, and to reflect ongoing productivity growth.

Possible measures to short-circuit this profit-price inflation, and support a recovery in real wages, include price controls in energy, housing and other strategic sectors; redistributing excess profits in sectors such as mining through tax and transfer mechanisms; and stronger collective bargaining provisions.

Such responses are controversial, and will spark debate. They will need careful research and design to ensure they do more good than harm.

But the first step is to acknowledge that this reapportionment of the economic pie, from labour to capital, is indeed happening – and is a problem.

Jim Stanford is a member of the Australian Services Union.

– ref. Underlying Australia’s inflation problem is a historic shift of income from workers to corporate profits – https://theconversation.com/underlying-australias-inflation-problem-is-a-historic-shift-of-income-from-workers-to-corporate-profits-200700

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Shiva Chandra, Research Assistant, Western Sydney University

Much of World Pride has been about the visibility of LGBTQIA+ people. This is important to affirming who we are, our place in the world, and celebrating ourselves as LGBTQIA+ individuals. Social media offers new opportunities to be visible, and many people have shared their celebrations of Pride during this time. However, not everyone.

Our new research shows that LGBTQIA+ young people are deciding what to post on social media sites with their families in mind, to foster and maintain ties with them.

We conducted focus groups and interviews with 65 LGBTQIA+ people aged 16 to 30, across all state and territories in Australia. These young people identified with a diverse range of sexualities and gender identities, and came from multiple ethnic backgrounds.

Family as risk?

Studies to date on LGBTQIA+ online experiences have often spoken about the family in terms of “risk”. LGBTQIA+ people may inadvertently be “outed” to family, and their gender or sexuality accidently revealed online.

However, our study found that for certain young people, social media sites, like Facebook and Instagram, are actually spaces to maintain ties with family and care for them. This affects how they manage (or curate) their online social media spaces.

New research (by the lead author of this article) suggests considerations about family are more important than often thought to LGBTQIA+ people. Often, the idea of homophobic families means little consideration has been given to how families can be important to LGBTQIA+ people’s lives and identities.

‘I don’t want my family to cop anything’

One of our respondents, a 17-year-old bisexual cis-gender male, explained he is not open about his sexuality on Facebook. He stated he did not want to strain relationships with family-friends who had known him since he was a child. He explained:

If I was to come out or whatever it wouldn’t just affect me […] I wouldn’t want my family to cop anything for that um, either.

A 17-year-old trans man had a similar reason for not being open about his gender on the same platform. He told us:

[…] mum’s struggling with it anyway. And if it [my gender identity] was more out, out to the rest of the family and the world, I reckon she’d struggle a lot more.

For these LGBTQIA+ young people, being invisible and intentionally not sharing information about their gender and/or sexuality means they curate social media spaces that protect their loved ones.

Read more:
For some LGBTQ+ older people, events like World Pride can be isolating – we need to better understand how to support them

Learning about how to navigate family relationships

Social media sites were also discussed as providing valuable information on how to navigate family relationships when one has a diverse sexuality and/or gender identity. This information can come from peers who share their experiences.

For instance, a 29-year-old bisexual non-binary respondent explained they are not out to their family but have plans to come out in the next year. Reading people’s experiences on Facebook helped them understand other people’s coming out experiences, and provided valuable information on what to expect, and “how to navigate it as well”.

Read more:
From TV to TikTok, young people are exposed to gambling promotions everywhere

What needs to be done?

Social media platforms are important to LGBTQIA+ young people. They are spaces where careful curation is about sustaining family relationships, and exploring and learning about family. They can be harnessed for their potential as support.

Services and practitioners, such as counsellors, psychologists and LGBTQIA+ organisations could:

1. Ensure LGBTQIA+ young people have the digital literacy to carefully navigate social media spaces, so that they can sustain ties and care for families.

2. Suggest online peer spaces and groups, such as Facebook groups, to help individuals find valuable information on navigating complicated family relationships, and to access support from others. This requires ensuring young people understand the risks of joining such groups from their individual accounts.

Social media platforms also need to better understand that privacy and hiding information play an important role in maintaining offline relationships. There are increasing resources to support LGBTQIA+ young people online, but there can be greater focus on family relationships in this context.

The results of this study show us that LGBTQIA+ young people use social media to sustain and make sense of family relationships. This can be about love, care, and concern for family, and the nurturing of ties.

When viewed this way, online spaces are not simply about danger and risk, from family, but they are complicated sites shaped by feelings and attachments. In other words, the family is “not something that is simply curated against, but rather something that is curated for”.

We would do well to remember that being visible and invisible during events like World Pride has a lot to do with this.

This article is based on a paper titled ‘‘I wouldn’t want my family to cop anything’: Examining the family of origin and its place in LGBTQIA+ young people’s social media practices’ (2022) published in the Journal of Youth Studies by Shiva Chandra and Benjamin Hanckel: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13676261.2022.2156781

Benjamin Hanckel received funding from Meta as a foundational gift, as well as internal funding from Western Sydney University, in support of this project. He is also a current member of Meta’s ‘Combatting Online Hate Advisory Group’.

– ref. More than just risk: LGBTQIA+ young people use social media to sustain and make sense of family relationships – https://theconversation.com/more-than-just-risk-lgbtqia-young-people-use-social-media-to-sustain-and-make-sense-of-family-relationships-200534

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Bronwyn Eager, Senior Lecturer Freelancing, Small Business, and Entrepreneurship, University of Tasmania

It was once thought physical labour jobs would be the most at risk from the rise of artificial intelligence. But recent advances suggest we can expect disruption across a vast range of sectors, including knowledge-based industries.

We certainly need to have conversations about how AI will change the future of work. But perhaps we should also look beyond fear and ask how it might bring opportunity.

It’s expected that within five years AI will have replaced some 85 million jobs with 97 million new ones.

Many people will need to secure new opportunities to survive the shift towards an AI-based economy. If you’re considering competing in the AI-powered jobs market, now is the time to get ahead of the curve.

Here are five ways AI can help you do so.

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

1. Strengthen your professional network

Experts say the majority of vacant positions aren’t formally advertised, and instead reside in what’s called the “hidden job market”. This means your networks are incredibly valuable.

This week LinkedIn released an AI-powered conversation starter tool called Collaborative Articles, which is expected to help users demonstrate their expertise and connect with others in their field.

There are also AI tools that can help you amplify the power of your networks through integration with LinkedIn. For instance, the paid tool Clay uses data sourced from your contacts’ social media accounts to identify shared interests, and makes suggestions for ways to re-engage with contacts.

It can also use location data to suggest opportunities for “chance encounters” which, although potentially a bit creepy, could be worthwhile.

Other paid AI tools that integrate with your LinkedIn profile include Taplio and Engage AI.

2. Write a winning job application

AI tools can help you write CVs and cover letters that highlight your skills while also being tailored to the role you’re applying for.

Tools for writing resumes and cover letters, such as the paid application Rezi, typically integrate with LinkedIn. They let you import your work and education history, and generate customised job applications based on an advertised position’s description and the name of the hiring company.

Other similar tools include Jasper and Resume Worded.

To ensure spelling and grammar errors don’t hold your career back, you can run your CV and cover letter through tools such as QuillBot or Writer – while ChatGPT can help you improve word choices and phrasing.

3. Polish your interview skills

Preparing for an interview can be stressful if you’re not sure which questions might be asked.

Although it’s not advisable to get ChatGPT to write your entire job application for you, there’s no reason you can’t use the conversational AI chatbot to help you prepare for a job interview.

For instance, you could try the following prompt:

Can you provide me with a list of potential interview questions for the position of {insert job title} at {insert company name}?

ChatGPT will then generate a list of potential interview questions based on the job title and company name you provided.

You could also try:

What should I talk about when giving an interview for a job in/at {insert industry or company name}?

You can even refine the outputs by including more information, such as the key skills and capabilities listed in the job selection criteria. Use these outputs to practise your responses and build your confidence going into the interview.

4. Tactfully resign

If you’re ready to turn the page on your current job, you can ask ChatGPT to help you write a resignation letter that will keep your professional relationships intact long after you’ve left.

Here’s a prompt you could use:

Can you please suggest some polite and professional language for a resignation letter that expresses gratitude for the job, explains the reason for leaving, including {insert 1 or more reasons}, and provides an offer to assist my current employer with the transition?

Of course, you should amend the output to properly reflect your intentions – but ChatGPT provides a great starting point.

5. Ask for a promotion

ChatGPT can also provide an encouraging nudge towards what is arguably one of the most daunting tasks when trying to climb the career ladder: asking for a promotion or raise. For this, you might try the following:

I’m planning to ask for a {promotion/raise} from my boss, but I’m not sure how to approach the conversation. Can you give me some tips on how to prepare for the meeting and what to say to make a compelling case for why I deserve a {promotion/raise}?

Looking to the future

AI has already led to increased automation in many industries, including manufacturing, logistics and customer service. This makes sense: machines can perform routine and repetitive tasks more efficiently and cost-effectively.

However, not all jobs are easily replaceable by AI. Job seekers of the future will need to identify and showcase their unique humanness: those traits that are harder for AI to replicate, such as empathy, transparency, creativity, authenticity and the ability to cultivate trust through positivity and consistency.

For now, the advantages of leveraging AI are comparable to a road race where only a few competitors are driving cars while everyone else is pedalling a bicycle.

But this window of opportunity will narrow as AI tools become mass market products. Just as everyone traded in their Nokia 8210s for smartphones, soon the AI playing field will level and the first-mover advantage will be lost.

Even if AI itself doesn’t replace you in your workplace, another person who knows how to use it could soon be your main competitor.

Read more:
What’s the secret to making sure AI doesn’t steal your job? Work with it, not against it

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. AI could take your job, but it can also help you score a new one with these simple tips – https://theconversation.com/ai-could-take-your-job-but-it-can-also-help-you-score-a-new-one-with-these-simple-tips-199883

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amie Hayley, Rebecca L. Cooper Al & Val Rosenstrauss Fellow and Senior Research Fellow, Swinburne University of Technology

Australia is a nation of car owners with a rapidly ageing population. Drivers aged over 70 have nearly doubled in number in the past 20 years. The trend is the same for hospitalisations and fatalities due to crashes involving older drivers.

Ageing itself is not a barrier to safe driving. Even so, our ability to drive safely can become compromised as we get older. It can be difficult to know what to do if you have concerns about someone’s driving.

So, how can we ensure ageing family members and friends are safe on the roads? And should regular assessment of drivers over a certain age be mandatory? Some states and territories require it, others don’t.

What affects our ability to drive safety?

Driving is a complex task. A driver must be alert and respond quickly to any changes, especially in an emergency.

Substance usage, fatigue and distraction all affect a person’s ability to drive safely. So, too, do many of the changes that happen with advancing age.

Declining mobility, eyesight or hearing can impact some of the more obvious skills needed for safe driving. This might include the ability to turn and check mirrors, or to hear other vehicles. Advancing age can also lead to a decline in more hidden skills of safe driving, including our ability to plan effectively, think quickly and react appropriately.

Many older people are able to keep driving safely, though, and recognising the signs of a potential problem can be tricky. However, there are practical steps individuals, families and friends can take to ensure the safety of older drivers and other road users.

What rules apply around Australia?

Licensing requirements for senior drivers vary a lot among Australian states and territories.

Broadly speaking, drivers aged 75 years and older must have a medical assessment each year to keep their licence in New South Wales, Queensland, Western Australia (over 80) and the ACT. In Tasmania senior drivers are asked to volunteer information about any conditions that might negatively affect their driving.

People can drive freely up to any age in South Australia, Victoria and the Northern Territory. It’s up to the individual to ensure they’re medically safe to drive.

So, do these differences between states have a major impact on the safety of older drivers? Not really. Some early research showed older drivers in jurisdictions with more stringent rules (such as NSW) were no less likely to be injured or killed in a traffic crash than people in states with voluntary reporting requirements (such as Victoria).

This finding points to the need for multi-tiered – rather than simply age-based – assessment for identifying older at-risk drivers. It requires the involvement of a range of health practitioners in more elaborate types of assessment.

Despite these differences in rules and regulations, a common theme is to ensure a person can drive safely, independently and legally. Exactly what that means, and how it is evaluated, is decidedly less clear.

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How do you know if someone is safe to drive?

There is no standard way to test a person’s fitness to drive.

National driver medical guidelines outline minimum standards that people should meet to be considered medically safe to drive. The guidelines do not outline how medical safety is assessed nor how we can help older people recognise the signs of declining driving ability. They also do not provide advice on exactly what tests can be used.

Requiring older drivers to complete an advanced driving test (such as on a closed track) would clearly show whether they are fit to drive. However, these tests are very costly, impractical and difficult.

Cognitive screening tests are a practical stand-in solution to test for a decline in many functions needed for driving, such as vision, cognition and motor abilities. The tests range in difficulty from the simpler pen-and-paper clock drawing or the trail-making test, which can be done at home, to the more complicated Montreal Cognitive Assessment. While these tests are not able to diagnose medical disorders, they reliably indicate whether a person has dementia.

A recent study in Japan found a decrease in motor vehicle collisions after a cognitive screening test became mandatory during licence renewals for its relatively high proportion of drivers over 75. As this test also assessed whether they were likely to have dementia, it helped identify and remove the most impaired drivers. This approach might help provide a standard way to quickly identity Australian drivers who are most at risk.

Read more:
Should older people and those with dementia have their licences revoked?

Not being able to drive also has impacts

For many older Australians, having a driver’s licence provides a critical link between health outcomes, mobility and social connectedness. It’s worth noting the Japanese study found cycling and pedestrian injuries increased in the age group affected by mandatory cognitive testing. This was attributed to the enforced change in their options for getting around.

Read more:
We all have to walk across roads — why aren’t pedestrians a focus of road safety?

Therefore, determining whether an older person is fit to drive should involve proactive conversation, with the goal of enabling them to keep driving for as long as it is safe.

Some easy ways to help older drivers remain confident and safe include:

• planning trips in advance

• driving in daytime only

• avoiding peak-hour traffic

• getting regular check-ups that test sight, hearing and mobility.

Another thing to consider is that older drivers are more likely to drive old vehicles that lack the technology that keeps us safe before, during and after a crash. Choosing a vehicle that provides the best protection makes a difference – drive the safest one you can afford.

If driving has become too difficult or unsafe, it is important that family and friends help with the transition from driving. There’s a need to consider how life can best continue as normal without the use of a vehicle. This might involve conversations about how to access community services and other ways of getting around, whether public or private transport.

Advancing age does not always mean a loss of driving ability. Nonetheless, recognising warning signs will help all drivers safely use the roads. Regular health assessments that include cognitive screening tests, making proactive changes in driving practices and choosing the safest vehicle possible are all practical ways we can help ensure older drivers stay safe.

Amie Hayley is supported by an Al and Val Rosenstrauss Fellowship from the Rebecca L. Cooper Foundation in her role at Swinburne University of Technology. She is the Assistant Treasurer at the International Council for Alcohol, Drugs and Traffic Safety (ICADTS), and is the Founding Chair of the working group for Driver Monitoring Systems.

She has previously received grant funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC), the Department of Transport, the Department of Health and Human Services and Cannvalate. She currently receives federal funding from the Department of Infrastructure (Office of Road Safety), and industry funding from Seeing Machines Ltd.

– ref. When is it time to stop driving? Will mandatory assessments of older drivers make our roads safer? – https://theconversation.com/when-is-it-time-to-stop-driving-will-mandatory-assessments-of-older-drivers-make-our-roads-safer-200352

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Lindenmayer, Professor, The Fenner School of Environment and Society, Australian National University

Australia has the world’s worst mammal extinction record, with nearly 40 native mammal species lost since European colonisation. By contrast, the United States has lost three.

Last year, the federal Labor government made a welcome commitment to stop further extinctions. One essential tool to do this is protecting habitat in dedicated conservation reserves.

Reserves can and do work – especially when well designed and then well managed. By some estimates, a quarter of the world’s bird species have been saved from extinction because of conservation reserves. Here too, the government is to be commended for plans to conserve 30% of the continent by 2030.

In light of this, we analysed Victoria’s newest conservation reserves – called Immediate Protection Areas – designed to conserve forest biodiversity in Victoria as the state prepares to phase out native forest logging by 2030.

We found Immediate Protection Areas didn’t do what they were supposed to do. The protected areas were small, and well short of the area needed to adequately conserve threatened species. Many Immediate Protection Areas were established in forests already burned, logged, or both, meaning their value as habitat was limited. Some areas even appeared to have been chosen because they were no longer needed for logging, rather than for their conservation value.

As we accelerate plans to protect more Australian habitat, we must watch for problems like this. Land with high conservation value must be prioritised for protection.

What were these new conservation reserves meant to do?

Victoria’s state government has pledged to conserve biodiversity. This includes measures such as protecting the critically endangered Leadbeater’s Possum, ambitious investments to protect the Southern Greater Glider, and ending native forest logging by 2030.

As a prelude, the government established Immediate Protection Areas to better protect forest species from the impacts of logging.

We compared the known and mapped ranges of threatened species against the new conservation reserve areas. We wanted to see where 53 threatened species – including animals such as Leadbeater’s Possum and Southern Greater Glider – were most likely to occur. We also examined what had happened to these areas previously, to determine their habitat value. Had they been logged or burned?

The results were sobering. The Immediate Protection Areas, combined with Victoria’s existing set of formal conservation reserves, fell well short of adequately protecting remaining areas of habitat for 23 of the 53 species analysed, such as the Southern Greater Glider, Leadbeater’s Possum, and Barred Galaxias.

This wouldn’t matter so much if the forests outside Victoria’s existing parks and reserves weren’t under pressure from continued industrial-scale logging of native forests by the state-owned forestry business, VicForests.

Read more:
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But they are. And worse, areas of highest conservation value for threatened forest-dependent species, such as the Central Highlands north east of Melbourne, and East Gippsland in the far east of Victoria, will actually be targeted for logging under the Timber Release Plan.

These high conservation value areas are important because they provide critical habitat for rare and threatened species, including endemic species found nowhere else.

Even as native forest logging is supposedly winding down, a major conflict between logging and conservation remains.

VicForests is legally bound to supply 350,000 cubic metres of logs from native forests to industry until 2030. This is the same year the Victorian government intends to cease native forest logging in Victoria.

In 2020, VicForest’s senior legal counsel testified in court that VicForests would have to shut down all its operations in the Central Highlands if it couldn’t continue to log threatened species’ habitat.

This is at at odds with both federal and state governments’ commitment to stop extinctions. Logging the remaining high conservation value habitat is going to accelerate rather than prevent extinctions.

Protect all remaining habitat for species on the edge

An outsider might wonder why there has to be conflict. Aren’t there enough native forests to sustain seven more years of logging, especially now these Immediate Protection Areas have been established?

For many species, the answer is no. The number of sites occupied by species teetering on the edge of extinction, such as Leadbeater’s Possum, has fallen by half in the last 25 years. Logging is a major driver of its decline.

Protecting all Mountain and Alpine Ash forests where Leadbeater’s Possum occur should not be controversial. The federal government’s Threatened Species Scientific Committee declared in 2015 that the most effective way to prevent further decline and rebuild the possum population was to cease logging in Mountain Ash and Alpine Ash forests of the Central Highlands.

But this isn’t just a cautionary tale about logging in Victoria. Unless we’re careful, we’ll see the same story again and again.

Protecting 30% of Australian land by 2030, as the government intends, means rapidly protecting large areas of land. At present, around 20% of our land is protected in some way. Increasing this by half again in seven years is fast.

The danger is that governments will look for ways to rapidly boost the percentage of land area under protection without determining whether the land is effective for conservation.

As important as the size of the areas of land protected is what lives on it, and the ecosystem services it provides. To prevent extinctions in Australia, some ecosystems will need total protection of every fragment remaining, especially those under significant threat where key species are in marked decline.

Read more:
Protecting 30% of Australia’s land and sea by 2030 sounds great – but it’s not what it seems

David Lindenmayer receives funding from Australian Research Council, and the Australian and Victorian Governments. He is a member of Birds Australia.

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

– ref. When is a nature reserve not a nature reserve? When it’s already been burned and logged – https://theconversation.com/when-is-a-nature-reserve-not-a-nature-reserve-when-its-already-been-burned-and-logged-200528

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Melissa Conley Tyler, Honorary Fellow, Asia Institute, The University of Melbourne

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov made headlines over the weekend when his claim the Ukraine war was “launched against” Russia provoked laughter from the audience during a forum in India.

But I was in the room and can report he also received applause and indifference. Understanding why can help explain the differences in views on the war between developing countries and the West.

The incident happened at the Raisina Dialogue, India’s premier geopolitics forum featuring more than 26 foreign ministers and six current and former heads of state. Many represented the developing countries in Latin America, Africa, Asia and the Pacific that have variously been called the “Global South” or “majority world”.

The organisers’ decision to invite Lavrov to speak was controversial. To be fair, it was counterbalanced by speakers such as former US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis and Australian Chief of Defence Angus Campbell, who eloquently presented the case that Russia is involved in an illegal war.

While pro-Ukraine parts of the audience openly laughed at the claim Russia was the victim in the war, there were also those who showed support for Russia’s side.

On Twitter, Indians voiced opinions ranged from neutral to suspicious of the West and resisting taking sides, given India’s long-standing links with Russia.

The rest of the audience seemed simply disengaged.

One of the European experts I spoke to posed the question starkly – why doesn’t the Global South care more about the war?

Why some countries understand Russia’s point of view

Past links with Russia are clearly important in how countries have responded to the Ukraine war. This is most evident for India, but also for others such as Vietnam and Laos. They may have bonds of affection with Russia or more tangible links, such as a reliance on Russian arms.

These three countries were among 32 that abstained from voting on a resolution at the UN General Assembly last week – alongside China, South Africa and others – calling for an end to the war and demanding Russia leave Ukraine’s territory.

And some countries in the Global South are repulsed by what they see as Western hypocrisy and double standards. Lavrov received audience applause, for example, when he criticised the US-led invasion of Iraq and other Western transgressions.

He also tried hard to paint the flow-on effects of the war – such as the impact of the Ukraine war on grain supplies to developing countries – as the fault of the West.

These factors tend to push countries towards a pro-Russian or neutral stance.

But it is vital to the international system that countries are prohibited from using force against other countries. Even if all the things Lavrov said about Ukraine were factually true, it would still fall short of justifying an invasion.

The fact that Western countries have broken international law – such as the invasion of Iraq – doesn’t mean we should give up on it.

Read more:
Food shortages, millions of refugees, and global price spikes: the knock-on effects of Russia’s Ukraine invasion

But why are so many countries simply disengaged?

For countries that are disengaged from the Ukraine war, there are other factors at play.

They may see Ukraine’s plight as something unique to countries with a great power as a neighbour. The reaction of such countries to Ukraine might be: “It’s terrible to be you. But I don’t have the same concerns.”

There’s some evidence that countries adopting stronger positions against Russia tend to have a more acute sense of vulnerability.

Some developing countries may also believe that while the invasion of Ukraine is a bad thing, it’s not something they can do much about. There might be a sense of fatalism that this is simply “how the world is” and the Global South has limited ability to change it.

This plays into the most important factor why so much of the Global South is disengaged by the war – it has other problems and challenges to deal with. These include equitable access to healthcare, climate adaptation, insufficient digital infrastructure, terrorism, lack of development finance, food and fuel insecurity, the debt crisis and the overriding imperative of sustainable growth.

Read more:
Russia-Ukraine war: decoding how African countries voted at the UN

This can explain why a country like Brazil has condemned the invasion but not offered significant support to Ukraine.

This point was made strongly by India’s foreign minister, S. Jaishankar, in a video clip at the start of the Raisina Dialogue:

Europe has to grow out of the mindset that Europe’s problems are the world’s problems but the world’s problems are not Europe’s problems.

This seemed to prompt self-reflection with some in attendance. Slovakia’s foreign minister and others repeated the same point.

Could India be a bridge to greater understanding?

I left the forum thinking perhaps there is more of a role for India in building understanding than I’d initially thought.

Meenakashi Lekhi, the minister of state for external affairs, suggested India can act as a bridge as a country of the north (geographically), south (economically), east (culturally) and west (democratically).

She talked with passion from the perspective of the Global South – the part of the world that has been subject to imperialism and exploitation – making her argument more persuasively than any Global North politician could.

In her view,

Whenever a conflict breaks out in any part of the globe, it is going to impact an individual at a faraway distance.

This is exactly what we’ve seen with the invasion of Ukraine causing a spike in the cost of food, fertiliser and energy, which has been devastating for developing countries.

Precisely because India cares about being a “voice for the voiceless”, it’s more likely to be listened to in the Global South.

This drives home an important point that Western leaders should keep top of mind: If the West wants developing countries to care about its concerns, it needs to care about the issues that matter to the developing world. Development and defence are linked.

Melissa Conley Tyler is Executive Director of the Asia-Pacific Development, Diplomacy & Defence Dialogue (AP4D) which receives funding from the Australian Civil-Military Centre and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. She attended the 2023 Raisina Dialogue as a guest of the Observer Research Foundation.

– ref. Russia’s foreign minister got laughter, cheers and shrugs in India. Outrage over the war isn’t universal – https://theconversation.com/russias-foreign-minister-got-laughter-cheers-and-shrugs-in-india-outrage-over-the-war-isnt-universal-201163

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Janet Bray, Associate Professor, Monash University

With over 26,000 cardiac arrests occurring every year in Australia and over 76% of them occurring in the home, some of our youngest Australians are learning how to help.

But why kids? It’s simple. Anyone can learn to save a life.

Basic life support includes cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and using a portable defibrillator (AED) if required. These emergency procedures aim to save the lives of people in cardiac arrest.

What is a cardiac arrest?

A cardiac arrest occurs when the heart stops beating. This means the heart stops acting like a pump, which stops oxygen getting to the brain. When this happens, the person quickly becomes unconscious and stops breathing. Without immediate CPR, the person is likely to die.

Performing CPR involves pushing down on the chest, which mimics the pumping action of the heart and pushes blood and oxygen around the body and, importantly, to the brain.

An AED works by analysing the person’s heart rhythm and delivering an electric shock, if necessary, to restore a normal heartbeat. AEDs are designed to be used by the public, and typically provide recorded audio instruction and visual prompts to guide users through the process.

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Anyone can perform these life-saving skills, and the quicker they are performed the more likely the person will survive. The Australian Resuscitation Council, of which we are both members, believes teaching basic life support skills, CPR and how to use an AED in schools is the best way to reach and train whole generations how to save a life.

A patchy approach in schools

The current Australian curriculum supports basic life support education in some years. But schools vary in its implementation. Some schools have organisations come in to teach students, like the Red Cross or St John Ambulance, but teachers are also well placed to provide this education.

The Aussie Kids Save Lives program, an initiative being run by the Australian Resuscitation Council and partners, is aiming to provide teachers with the resources to be able to teach high school students.

A pilot study is currently underway in Victoria. Teachers are guided in instruction and students are practising skills using Ambulance Victoria’s Call, Push, Shock kits that instruct young people how to call for help, perform push (compressions) and deliver lifesaving shocks with a defibrillator.

So far, more than 550 Victorian Year 7 and 8 students have been taught in the pilot, with more than 3,000 expected to be taught in 2023. Early data from the ongoing evaluation of this program is encouraging, with teachers and students finding the materials engaging and effective.

The Australian Resuscitation Council plans to use a report of the evaluation to lobby the federal government to introduce two hours of mandatory training in every year of school.

How young is too young?

The World Health Organization has endorsed two hours of teaching CPR to children every year from the age of 12. However, this isn’t to say younger children shouldn’t be taught how to respond to emergencies.

Children as young as four years of age can be taught how to recognise an emergency and how to call an ambulance.

Progressive annual learning can help children of all ages learn how to save a life. Initial learning should use simplified methods of instruction, such as Call, Push Shock. Older students can be taught the more technical DRSABCD acronym that guides them to look for danger and responses, send for help, and check airways and breathing before starting CPR and defibrillation.

There is an added bonus in teaching children, as they can be encouraged to pass their learning on to their family, perhaps as homework. This increases community awareness of basic life support skills.

Read more:
In cases of cardiac arrest, time is everything. Community responders can save lives

Intervention is vital

Data reported by the Australasian Resuscitation Outcomes Consortium shows that even though CPR instructions are given in 000 calls and the person is asked if there is an AED available, only 38% of Australians in cardiac arrest receive bystander CPR and less than 2% receive an AED shock.

Research listening to emergency calls has uncovered this often happens because the caller lacks confidence in their ability to perform CPR skills. Most callers do not know what a defibrillator is.

But areas of Australia with higher rates of trained community members have higher rates of bystander CPR.

Help at home

We encourage parents to advocate for basic life support training in their children’s schools and even teach their children simple CPR themselves using online videos.

While it may take some time, it is vital to have every Australian know what to do if they find someone collapsed in cardiac arrest, including our youngest. Without any intervention, the person is likely to die. Any attempt is better than nothing.

Read more:
When is it OK to call an ambulance?

Associate Professor Janet Bray receives funding from a Heart Foundation of Australia Fellowship, and grants from the National Health and Medical Research Council and the Australian Resuscitation Council.

Associate Professor Janet Bray works with Greg Page on the AUSSIE KIDS SAVE LIVES Working Party.

Dr Kathryn Eastwood receives funding from a Heart Foundation of Australia Postdoctoral Fellowship. Dr Eastwood represents the Australasian College of Paramedicine on the Australian Resuscitation Council and the International Liaison Committee on Resuscitation.

– ref. Anyone can save a life, including kids. Here’s why they should learn CPR and basic life support – https://theconversation.com/anyone-can-save-a-life-including-kids-heres-why-they-should-learn-cpr-and-basic-life-support-200337

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Apisalome Movono, Senior Lecturer in Development Studies, Massey University

With COVID-19 travel restrictions largely a thing of the past for
Australian and New Zealand tourists, Pacific destinations are enjoying the return of visitors – albeit at a slower pace than in other parts of the world.

Tourism in Fiji, Samoa, Vanuatu and the Cook Islands was hit hard by the pandemic, but patience and resilience are starting to pay off. Foreign dollars are once again circulating in those small economies. Recently, Kiribati welcomed its first international cruise ship since 2020.

But this isn’t a simple case of returning to normal. The past three years have allowed time for reflection, leading to a rising awareness of possible alternatives to pre-pandemic tourism models.

From senior levels within governments to grassroots tourism operators and citizens, there has been serious discussion about the resumption of business as usual, including several regional symposiums hosted by the South Pacific Tourism Organisation.

Issues of sovereignty and future resilience have been very much to the fore – quite untypical in a global tourism industry largely focused on boosting numbers as soon as possible. Questions remain, however, about the gap between rhetoric and reality.

Flipping the narrative

The Pacific Sustainable Tourism Leaders Summit in November 2022 brought together tourism ministers and industry stakeholders to discuss the future of regional tourism. This led to a regional commitment signed by 11 countries focused on promoting sustainable tourism.

Essentially, the aim is to flip the narrative: rather than Pacific nations being seen as dependent on tourism, regional tourism itself depends on the Pacific and its people surviving and thriving. Accordingly, Pacific countries are calling for fairer and more meaningful relationships with tourism partners.

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Traditional skills help people on the tourism-deprived Pacific Islands survive the pandemic

Cook Islands’ associate minister of foreign affairs and immigration, Tingika Elikana, urged other Pacific leaders at the summit to rebuild tourism in a way that was equitable and inclusive:

[It] is crucial that lessons are learned from recent crises and that steps are taken to embed long-term inclusivity, sustainability, and resilience into our tourism offering as it faces evolving challenges and risks.

Vanuatu has been heading in this direction since early in the pandemic, when it made “destination wellbeing” central to its tourism recovery. The aim of “moving beyond solely measuring visitor arrivals and contribution to GDP” then fed into the country’s Sustainable Tourism Strategy, launched at the height of the pandemic.

Push-back on resorts and cruise ships

This reappraisal of scale and priorities has perhaps been most evident in Fiji where there has been strong opposition to a US$300 million mega-project proposed by Chinese developers.

The hotel, apartment and marina complex would be built in an area containing one of the last remaining remnants of mangrove forest near the capital, Suva. Conservationists and local residents have been critical of the environmental and infrastructural impact of the proposed development, as well as the authenticity of its design.

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There is now doubt about whether the government will renew the developer’s lease, due to expire in June. The minister for lands and mineral resources has said “there’s been a lack of transparency” from the developers, and that he “will continue to monitor the remaining conditions of the development lease”.

A leading opponent of the project, Reverend James Bhagwan, told Radio New Zealand:

We’re not anti-development, but what we’re saying is we need to look at development from a perspective that places the environment at the centre, not at the periphery.

There is a precedent here: approval for a multi-million-dollar resort and casino development on Malolo island was revoked in 2019 after another Chinese developer, Freesoul Investments, destroyed part of a reef, dumped waste and disrupted traditional fisheries. In 2022, the High Court fined the company FJD$1 million. It was the first time a developer had been punished for an “environmental crime”.

Environmental concerns are also causing other Pacific countries to resist a return to mass tourism. In Rarotonga, Cook Islands, annual visitor numbers before the pandemic were ten times the island’s local population. The ability to cope with that level of tourism has since been seriously questioned.

And in French Polynesia, the government has banned port calls for cruise ships with a capacity greater than 3,500 passengers. The decision was based on concerns about air pollution, stress on the marine environment and social impacts. Daily cruise arrivals to Bora Bora are now restricted to 1,200 passengers, much to the relief of locals.

Read more:
Pacific aviation is struggling to take off after the pandemic – how can the ‘blue continent’ stay connected?

A new kind of tourism?

In the face of uncertainties due to climate change and geopolitical tensions in the region, it’s encouraging to hear local voices being heard in debates about the future of Pacific tourism – and political leaders appearing to respond.

The Pacific Island Forum leaders’ retreat in Fiji late last month discussed the tourism industry. The forum’s signature Blue Pacific Strategy for regional co-operation recognises tourism is an important component of national development, and the need to balance economic pressures with environmental and cultural protection.

Read more:
As borders reopen, can New Zealand reset from high volume to ‘high values’ tourism?

But despite the apparent political will and regional focus on building resilience, tourism development will undoubtedly continue to challenge the desires and initiatives of Pacific peoples seeking more sustainable futures.

While the policy rhetoric sounds good, it remains to be seen whether Pacific governments will remain steadfast and united under mounting pressures from major cruise operators, Chinese commercial interests and large hotels looking to maximise occupancy rates.

Many Pacific people reported the natural environment – along with social, spiritual, physical and mental wellbeing – improved during the pandemic pause in tourism. But the reality of putting local wellbeing ahead of profits and increased tax revenue is yet to be fully tested as tourism bounces back.

Apisalome Movono receives funding from the Royal Society Te Apārangi Marsden Fast-Start Grant. He is also on public record expressing his opposition to the Fijian development (in its proposed and current form) referred to in the article.

Regina Scheyvens receives funding from the Royal Society Te Apārangi, James Cook Fellowship.

– ref. Resistance to mega-tourism is rising in the South Pacific – but will governments put words into action? – https://theconversation.com/resistance-to-mega-tourism-is-rising-in-the-south-pacific-but-will-governments-put-words-into-action-201071

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne

A federal Newspoll, conducted March 1-4 from a sample of 1,530, gave Labor a 54-46 lead, a one-point gain for the Coalition since the previous Newspoll in early February. Primary votes were 37% Labor (down one), 35% Coalition (up one), 10% Greens (down one), 7% One Nation (up one) and 11% for all Others (steady).

While the Coalition only gained one point on two party vote, the change in primary votes implies that the Coalition’s gains were greater, and that rounding saved Labor from a 53-47 Newspoll.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s ratings dropped, with 55% satisfied (down two) and 38% dissatisfied (up five), for a net approval of +17, down seven points. Since the December Newspoll, Albanese has lost 16 points of net approval.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton’s net approval was down one point to -11. Albanese led Dutton as better PM by 54-28 (56-26 in February). Newspoll figures are from The Poll Bludger.

By 64-29, voters approved of the proposed changes to super that would increase the tax rate from 15% to 30% for account balances above $3 million.

I agree with this article by Peter Brent in Inside Story: Labor would have been better off implementing the super changes in July 2024, not July 2025. Implementing them in 2024 would give the changes time to get bedded down before the next election, and for voters to get used to them. The 2025 implementation date will give the Coalition an opportunity for a scare campaign at the next election.

There is precedent for governments’ polling improving once a major change has been implemented, and the sky hasn’t fallen in. As Brent says, this applied to both the introduction of the GST in July 2000 and to the introduction of the carbon tax in July 2012.

Labor and Albanese’s current slide in the polls is probably much more due to high inflation and interest rates than policy issues.

Federal Morgan poll: 56.5-43.5 to Labor

In last week’s federal Morgan poll, conducted February 20-26, Labor led by 56.5-43.5, a two-point gain for the Coalition since the previous week. Primary votes were 37% Labor, 34.5% Coalition, 13.5% Greens and 15% for all Others.

NSW Resolve poll: Labor increases large lead

The New South Wales state election will be held on March 25. A Resolve poll for The Sydney Morning Herald, conducted February 22-26 from a sample of 803, gave Labor 38% of the primary vote (up one since January), the Coalition 32% (down two), the Greens 11% (down one), independents 13% (up one) and others 7% (up two).

Resolve did not give a two party estimate for this poll, but analyst Kevin Bonham estimated 56-44 to Labor, a one-point gain for them since January.

Independent support is almost certainly being overstated by Resolve, and it is likely they will crash back to something more plausible in the final Resolve poll, which will be based on actual lists of candidates after nominations close on Wednesday. A slump for independents occurred in both Victoria and federally close to elections.

Read more:
Victorian Labor slumps in Resolve poll but still in winning position; Labor failure on upper house reform comes back to bite

Liberal Premier Dominic Perrottet had a 38-34 lead as preferred premier over Labor leader Chris Minns (33-29 in January). By 45-40, voters thought Perrottet had performed well in recent weeks, while for Minns this was a 43-28 good performance.

Since the 2022 federal election, Resolve has generally been more favourable to Labor than other pollsters in both its federal and state polls. This poll is far better for Labor than the NSW Freshwater and Morgan polls below and the NSW Newspoll that I covered last Monday. All these polls were conducted at about the same time in late February.

Read more:
Labor’s lead reduced in a NSW Newspoll four weeks before election; Voice support steady

NSW Freshwater poll: 53-47 to Labor

The Poll Bludger reported that a NSW Freshwater poll for The Financial Review gave Labor a 53-47 lead, a one-point gain for the Coalition since last October’s Freshwater poll. Primary votes were 39% Labor (up two), 37% Coalition (up two), 10% Greens (down one), 5% independents (steady) and 9% others (down three).

Liberal Premier Dominic Perrottet led Labor leader Chris Minns by 46-34 as preferred premier, reversing a 41-38 lead for Minns in October. On issue salience, cost of living was way ahead of any other issue. This poll was conducted February 23-25 from a sample of 1,247.

A Freshwater seat poll, reported by Bonham, of the safe Liberal seat of Pittwater, also for The Financial Review, had the Liberals leading independent challenger Jacqui Scruby by a 52-48 margin. Primary votes were 41% Liberals, 30% Scruby, 16% Labor, 4% Greens and 9% others. Seat polls are unreliable.

NSW Morgan poll: 52.5-47.5 to Labor

A NSW Morgan SMS poll, conducted February 24-28 from a sample of 981, gave Labor a 52.5-47.5 lead. Primary votes were 33.5% Labor, 32.5% Coalition, 11% Greens, 8.5% One Nation, 3.5% “teal independents”, 3% Animal Justice and 8% others.

One Nation is unlikely to contest most lower house seats. In seats they don’t contest, their voters are likely to benefit the Coalition. Bonham said the Coalition would benefit on preferences from the absence of One Nation candidates as NSW uses optional preferential voting, so a primary vote for One Nation may exhaust, but not one for the Coalition.

In forced choice questions, Perrottet had a 53-47 approval rating, but Minns led as better premier by 54-46. This poll should not be compared with the NSW January Morgan poll as that used a different methodology.

Tasmanian EMRS poll: Liberals retain lead

A Tasmanian EMRS poll, conducted February 14-19 from a sample of 1,000, gave the Liberals 42% (steady since November), Labor 30% (up one), the Greens 13% (down one) and all Others 15% (down one). Liberal incumbent Jeremy Rockliff led Labor’s Rebecca White by 44-36 as preferred premier (46-34 in November).

Tasmania does not use a single-member system for its lower house elections, so a two party vote is not applicable.

Adrian Beaumont 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. Labor slides in a federal Newspoll; NSW polls give Labor a modest lead – https://theconversation.com/labor-slides-in-a-federal-newspoll-nsw-polls-give-labor-a-modest-lead-200734

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Geraint Lewis, Professor of Astrophysics, University of Sydney

Is our universe all there is, or could there be more? Is our universe just one of a countless multitude, all together in an all-encompassing multiverse?

And if there are other universes, what would they be like? Could they be habitable?

This might feel like speculation heaped upon speculation, but it’s not as crazy as you might think.

My colleagues and I have been exploring what other parts of the multiverse might be like – and what these hypothetical neighbouring universes can tell us about the conditions that make life possible, and how they arise.

What-if universes

Some physicists contend that a burst of rapid expansion at the cosmic dawn known as inflation makes some form of multiverse inevitable. Our universe would really just be one of many.

In this theory, each new universe crystallises out of the seething background of inflation, imprinted with its own unique mix of physical laws.

If physical laws similar to ours govern these other universes, then we can come to grips with them. Well, at least in theory.

Within our universe, physics is governed by rules that tell us how things should interact with each other, and constants of nature, such as the speed of light, that dictate the strengths of these interactions. So, we can imagine hypothetical “what-if” universes where we change these properties and explore the consequences within mathematical equations.

This might sound simple, but the rules we tinker with are the fundamental makeup of the universe. If we imagine a universe where, say, the electron is a hundred times heavier than in our universe, then what would its consequences be for stars, planets and even life?

What does life need?

We recently tackled this question in a series of papers where we considered habitability across the multiverse. Of course, habitability is a complex concept, but we think life requires a few choice ingredients to get going.

Read more:
The multiverse is huge in pop culture right now – but what is it, and does it really exist?

Complexity is one of those ingredients. For life on Earth, that complexity comes from the elements of the periodic table, which can be mixed and arranged into a myriad of different molecules. We are living molecular machines.

But a stable environment and a steady flow of energy are also essential. It is no surprise that Earthly life began on the surface of a rocky planet, with an abundance of chemical elements, bathed in the light of a long-lived stable star.

Tweaking the fundamental forces

Do similar environments exist across the extent of the multiverse? We started our theoretical exploration by considering the abundance of chemical elements.

In our universe, other than primordial hydrogen and helium that were formed in the Big Bang, all elements arise through the lives of stars. They are either generated through the nuclear reactions in stellar cores, or in the supreme violence of supernovae, when a massive star tears itself apart at the end of its life.

Read more:
We are lucky to live in a universe made for us

All these processes are governed by the four fundamental forces in the universe. Gravity squeezes the stellar core, driving it to immense temperatures and densities. Electromagnetism tries to force atomic nuclei apart, but if they can get close enough, the strong nuclear force can bind them into a new element. Even the weak nuclear force, which can flip a proton into a neutron, plays an important role in the ignition of the stellar furnace.

The masses of the fundamental particles, such as electrons and quarks, can also play a pivotal role.

So, to explore these hypothetical universes, we have many dials we can adjust. The changes to the fundamental universe flow through to the rest of physics.

The carbon–oxygen balance

To tackle the immense complexity of this problem, we chopped the various pieces of physics into manageable chunks: stars and atmospheres, planets and plate tectonics, the origins of life, and more. And then we pinned the chunks together to tell an overall story about habitability across the multiverse.

A complex picture emerges. Some factors can strongly influence the habitability of a universe.

Read more:
Does a planet need plate tectonics to develop life?

For example, the ratio of carbon to oxygen, something set by a particular chain of nuclear reactions in the heart of a star, appears to be particularly important.

Straying too far from the value in our universe, where there are roughly equal amounts of the two elements, results in environments where it would be extremely difficult for life to emerge and thrive.

But the abundance of other elements appears to be less important. As long as they are stable, which does depend on the balance of the fundamental forces, they can play a pivotal role in the building blocks of life.

More complexity to explore

We have only been able to take a broad-brush approach to unravel habitability across the multiverse, sampling the space of possibilities in very discrete steps.

Furthermore, to make the problem manageable, we had to take several theoretical shortcuts and approximations. So we are only at the first stage of understanding the conditions for life across the multiverse.

In the next steps, the full complexity of alternative physics of other universes needs to be considered. We will need to understand the influence of the fundamental forces at the small scale and extrapolate it to the large scale, onto the formation of stars and eventually planets.

A word of caution

The notion of a multiverse is still only a hypothesis, an idea that has yet to be tested. In truth, we don’t yet know if it is an idea that can be tested.

And we don’t know if the physical laws could be different across the multiverse and, if they are, just how different they could be.

We may be at the start of a journey that will reveal our ultimate place within infinity – or we may be heading for a scientific dead end.

Geraint Lewis receives funding from Australian Research Council.

– ref. What are the best conditions for life? Exploring the multiverse can help us find out – https://theconversation.com/what-are-the-best-conditions-for-life-exploring-the-multiverse-can-help-us-find-out-200829

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Carolyn Holbrook, Senior Lecturer in History, Deakin University

If you think you are seeing a lot more gambling ads on television and online platforms, you are not imagining it. They are so common that high-profile AFL players have refused to participate in sponsored gambling.

Online gambling companies are ploughing huge amounts of money into advertising, and for good reason. The ads work. While fewer people are gambling overall, online gambling is a booming industry.

There are uncanny parallels between the public health challenges posed by gambling advertising today and tobacco advertising 50 years ago. In 1970, a tobacco ad ran on Australian television every eight to 14 minutes. These ads portrayed smoking as cool and adult, and often relied on celebrity endorsements. They worked, driving a new generation of youth into smoking amid predictions of a dramatic increase in the future cancer burden.

Like the tobacco industry in earlier decades, online gambling advertising targets young people. Advertisements that use laconic, blokey humour and carefully selected celebrities like former American basketball superstar Shaquille O’Neal and American actor Mark Wahlberg are skilfully designed to appeal to 18-to-24-year-old men. Young women also represent a growing customer base.

Worryingly, research has shown children as young as 11 are susceptible to the marketing and sales tactics of betting agencies, and that 75% of 8-to-16-year-olds think gambling is just a normal or common part of sport.

Read more:
As Netball Australia eyes betting sponsorship, women and girls are at increased risk of gambling harm

As with Commonwealth governments in the 1960s when faced with tobacco advertising, today’s politicians have tinkered around the edges of gambling advertising reform, but shied away from decisive action.

In 2018, the Turnbull government banned gambling ads before 8.30pm on live sports events. But gambling companies easily circumvent these laws. They simply flood the half-time break and post-match coverage with ads. They have even breached the law.

Streaming services remain completely unregulated, and ads are ubiquitous on platforms like YouTube, TikTok and Instagram.

Gambling companies, like tobacco companies before them, proclaim their own efforts at self-regulation by providing embedded warnings that champion “responsible gambling”.

Read more:
As Netball Australia eyes betting sponsorship, women and girls are at increased risk of gambling harm

Yet phrases used in their ads, such as “bet responsibly, no matter who you bet with”, have no demonstrable effect on dangerous gambling behaviours. Punters simply ignore warnings against excessive or problem gambling. They buy into the responsible gambling trope and believe they have control.

As with the link between smoking and lung cancer, the harms associated with gambling are well established. Apart from the massive financial losses – an estimated $25 billion in 2018-19 – there are cascading physical and mental health impacts. These include suicide, incapacity to work or study, damage to close relationships and, in some cases, a resort to criminal behaviour.

In 1970, a large majority of the Australian public (74%) disliked cigarette ads and wanted them banned. The figure is similar for gambling advertising today. In a 2022 survey, 71% agreed these ads should be banned.

In the face of such a compelling case for action, why won’t governments act? Back in the 1970s, the tobacco industry and the television and radio stations on which they advertised (to the tune of $125 million a year in today’s money) were powerful lobby groups that reached into the heart of government.

While health experts and organisations like the Anti-Cancer Council of Victoria (now Cancer Council of Victoria) advocated for reform, tobacco growers, cigarette companies, the media and those politicians beholden to these interests pushed back.

In a familiar pattern, the online gambling industry exerts its influence increasingly in the political arena. Sportsbet, for example, donated $313,424 to political parties in 2022, spreading its contributions between the Coalition and the ALP.

It donated $19,000 in 2022 to the election campaign of the now Communications Minister Michelle Rowland, whose portfolio includes advertising regulation. Given that gambling companies provide a significant and expanding source of revenue for both conventional and new media companies, they form a powerful coalition of self-interest.

Read more:
From TV to TikTok, young people are exposed to gambling promotions everywhere

So, how did the anti-tobacco lobby burst through a similar impasse 50 years ago? And can we transfer these lessons to the present?

The Victorian Anti-Cancer Council, then led by Dr Nigel Gray, and other cancer control bodies led a sustained program of non-partisan, evidence-based advocacy to government about the health effects of smoking, and the links between advertising and youth smoking uptake.

But the act that finally embarrassed the government into action was a series of 26 anti-tobacco ads starring celebrity actors Warren Mitchell and Miriam Karlin from the UK and Australian Fred Parslow. Conceived by Gray, his director of public education, David Hill, and advertising creative John Bevins, the ads lampooned tobacco advertising with satire.

For instance, they contrasted the illusion of the international jet-setting lifestyle portrayed in the adverts with the realities of lung cancer and repulsive coughing. An important feature of the campaign was the inclusion of one “straight” educational advertisement on the dangers of smoking and the effect of tobacco ads on youth by the first Australian of the Year, esteemed Nobel Prize-winning scientist Sir Frank McFarlane Burnet.

The television channels played into Gray’s plan by refusing to air the Anti-Cancer Council ads. The print media picked up the story of Burnet being denied a chance to speak to the public. The Coalition government was criticised for failing to intervene despite public support for limiting or banning tobacco advertising, and the evidence from Denmark, the US and the UK, presented by Gray, showing that banning tobacco advertising reduced youth smoking.

Embarrassed, the government forced the TV stations to air the anti-tobacco ads in July 1971, creating even more media scrutiny. The public attention brought by this debacle finally pressured the McMahon government into introducing some limits on tobacco advertising.

When Gough Whitlam won the 1972 election, Labor legislated a phased ban on tobacco advertising. Despite internal debate within the Liberal Party, the subsequent Fraser government maintained it and implemented a total ban on tobacco advertising on television and radio by 1977 — a major win for tobacco control and public health.

The media environment has clearly changed markedly since the 1970s. But the success of the highly creative 1971 anti-tobacco campaign offers some inspiration for taking on gambling, which is among the major public health issues of our time.

Gray recognised that merely providing honest information about smoking was not enough. The tobacco control effort had to galvanise public dissatisfaction and motivate media action through evidence-driven, high-profile advocacy. A similar approach could be a way of forcing government to take action against the powerful interest groups supporting pervasive gambling advertising today.

Carolyn Holbrook receives funding from the Australian Research Council. This research was supported by Australian Research Council Linkage grant LP210100204, ‘Cancer Culture: Understanding Anti-Cancer Campaigns in Australia’.

Thomas Kehoe receives funding from the Australian Research Council. This research was supported by Australian Research Council Linkage grant LP210100204, ‘Cancer Culture: Understanding Anti-Cancer Campaigns in Australia’. He is affiliated with Cancer Council Victoria.

– ref. How the push to end tobacco advertising in the 1970s could be used to curb gambling ads today – https://theconversation.com/how-the-push-to-end-tobacco-advertising-in-the-1970s-could-be-used-to-curb-gambling-ads-today-200915

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonine Jancey, Academic and Director Collaboration for Evidence, Research and Impact in Public Health, Curtin University

It’s easy to buy vapes or e-cigarettes online. When we looked at websites selling them to buyers in Australia and New Zealand, we found a variety of slick, false or misleading marketing claims.

In our new research we outlined how these included health claims – how vapes contain “zero” carcinogens, are an effective aid for quitting smoking, and lead to improved breathing “in a matter of days”.

Vapes were also marketed as sexy, sleek and environmentally friendly.

We saw a range of products on sale – including several bundled together as “starter kits”. Most vaping liquid contained nicotine. There were price discounts, loyalty schemes and free delivery.

Here’s why this is all such a concern and what we can do about it.

Read more:
Vaping-related lung disease now has a name – and a likely cause. 5 things you need to know about EVALI

What we did and what we found

We investigated 20 Australian and New Zealand online retailers of vapes and vaping products.

We looked at their product range, how they verified buyers’ ages, as well as their marketing strategies and claims.

Most websites only needed buyers to click on a box to confirm they were 18 years old or over. When buyers clicked through, they could find a range of nicotine and no-nicotine vapes and vaping liquids. Some didn’t ask buyers’ ages at all. Only one site needed buyers to verify their age with formal identification.

Outlandish marketing claims

Unsubstantiated or blatantly false health claims were the most common claims we found. These included:

vaping has been proven to be up to 95% less harmful than smoking cigarettes.

This statement stems from a study criticised for its lack of hard evidence, yet it remains a common claim.

Other health claims included:

you will feel your breathing improve in a matter of days.

and:

if you are vaping high quality tested liquids, then you can be puffing on ZERO carcinogens.

When it came to quitting smoking, websites claimed:

e-cigarettes are a more effective tool for helping smokers quit than nicotine replacement therapies, including patches and gum.

These claims are unfounded as the jury remains out as to whether these products help people quit smoking. A major review of the literature found there was insufficient evidence to promote vapes for this.

Websites also called vaping “sleek”, “stylish” and futuristic.

One website claimed:

Some people vape because it’s sexy.

Another site claimed:

Creative design, advanced technology, [product name] will bring you infinite pleasure.

There were environmental claims too, such as:

don’t buy a disposable [e-cigarette] that isn’t fully recyclable – our device is friendly to the planet.

Marketing vaping products as something creative, innovative, sleek, sexy and environmentally friendly would be particularly appealing to younger buyers.

We found multiple payment methods, price discounts and opportunities to earn loyalty discounts. Delivery options including postal and courier services. Sometimes, delivery was free.

Why is this an issue?

Vapes are not harmless products. They contain hundreds of chemicals, originating from the e-liquids, from the device and formed by the heating element, many of which are toxic. Risks include addiction, poisoning, seizures, burns and injuries, lung injury, and environmental pollution (from plastics and lithium batteries).

Vaping use almost tripled among Australian adults between 2013 and 2019 and young adults are taking up vaping in droves.

Buying vapes online is popular. An Australian study reported adolescents mainly get vapes from “friends”. However, adults (25+ years) tend to buy them online. It’s likely “friends” who provide vapes to adolescents could be buying at least some of these online.

An international study also reported Australians mostly (65.2%) bought their vape products online. In fact, the study found Australians were many times more likely to buy them online compared with people in Canada, the United States and England.

Read more:
We asked over 700 teens where they bought their vapes. Here’s what they said

What needs to happen next?

Nicotine-containing vapes are only legally available to adults in Australia with a doctor’s prescription to help people stop smoking.

In New Zealand, nicotine-containing vapes can be legally purchased as a regulated product. However, in both countries, it is illegal for manufacturers or retailers to sell them to those under 18.

Despite these restrictions, it’s clear both nicotine and no-nicotine vapes are being sold to under 18s, and to people without prescriptions.

Australia’s Health Minister Mark Butler has recently met with state and territory health ministers to discuss vaping regulation. The Therapeutic Goods Administration earlier this year finished taking public submissions about proposed vaping reforms.

It’s time we stop the promotion of, and easy access to, vaping products through online retailers. We also need to ban the use of unsubstantiated marketing claims.

This will require improved surveillance, monitoring, and regulations that curb the online sale and importation of vapes, along with improved border controls.

Read more:
How can we reverse the vaping crisis among young Australians? Enforce the rules

Jonine Jancey receives funding from the WA Health Promotion Foundation. She is a Board member of the Australian Council on Smoking and Health.

– ref. Sex and lies are used to sell vapes online. Even we were surprised at the marketing tactics we found – https://theconversation.com/sex-and-lies-are-used-to-sell-vapes-online-even-we-were-surprised-at-the-marketing-tactics-we-found-200446

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Simon Chapman, Emeritus Professor in Public Health, University of Sydney

When smoking first became popular we were told it was healthy, it was heavily marketed (including to young people) as being cool, and the time it took for us to learn otherwise was long, and came too late for many. Unfortunately, it seems history is repeating itself with vaping.

Before the invention of machines to make cigarettes, they were hand-rolled – with an experienced roller making around 240 cigarettes an hour. When mechanisation arrived in the late nineteenth century, early machines could make 12,000 per hour. Eventually, they could churn out 1.2 million an hour.

This made smoking immensely affordable, accessible to those on even meagre incomes. These machines would go on to become perhaps the worst development in public health history.

Combined with mass cigarette advertising, including the infamous 1940s “More doctors smoke Camel than any other cigarette” which successfully distracted the population from early concerns about harm, cheap cigarettes saw smoking prevalence skyrocket globally.

Two in three long-term smokers died from their addiction.

Ever since, governments have been struggling to introduce potent controls on Big Tobacco. The World Health Organization’s 2003 Framework Convention on Tobacco Control has an entire section devoted to ways of minimising industry interference.

Lung cancer was rare

Despite heavy industrial air pollution in cities dating from the early 1800s, lung cancer was a rare disease. US surgeon Alton Ochsner, recalling attendance at his first lung cancer autopsy in 1919, was told he and his fellow interns “might never see another such case as long as we lived”.

He saw no further cases until 1936, and then saw another nine cases in six months. Given the smoking boom that occurred in the US with World War I, Ochsner was quick to assume cigarettes were to blame.

Since the 1960s, lung cancer has been (by far) the world’s leading cause of cancer death. Lung cancer (almost all of which can be attributed to smoking) was responsible for 18% of all cancer deaths in 2020, with the next most frequent killer, liver cancer, at 8.3%.

Most public health graduates in recent decades are familiar with a famous 1994 graph illustrating the shape of the tobacco-caused disease epidemic across time. The graph shows four stages of the smoking and disease epidemics.

Nations in the first 20 year-long stage have accelerating smoking but negligible tobacco-caused disease. By the fourth stage, smoking is declining but disease is growing more rapidly than ever. These gaps are known as latency periods in epidemiology.

Mesothelioma caused by breathing asbestos fibres also follows this pattern. The latency period between initial exposure and the onset of symptoms can be up to 50 years.

Enter nicotine vaping products

Vaping has only been widespread for about ten years. So, if it causes serious diseases such as lung cancer, cardiovascular or respiratory disease, we would expect very few cases by now. This has not stopped cavalier declarations that vaping is “95% less dangerous than smoking”.

This statistic is still used by many, despite the paper that gave birth to this factoid admitting there is a lack of evidence for most of the criteria used to assess vaping’s harms.

There is a great deal of early evidence now available that vaping is likely to be anything but benign. For example, recent reviews on vapes have found they contain carcinogens known to cause lung cancer, are correlated with asthma, and impair our vascular systems.

Knowledge about the deadly toxicology of tobacco smoke emerged over decades. By contrast, the many thousands of flavouring chemicals in vapes present bewildering challenges for regulators.

In 2021, the US Flavour and Extracts Manufacturing Association declared “E-cigarette manufacturers should not represent or suggest that the flavor ingredients used in their products are safe […] because such statements are false and misleading”. Regulators have never allowed asthma drug inhalers to contain flavourants.

All forms of tobacco advertising and promotion have long been banned or seriously restricted in many nations. But vaping emerged in the internet era where regulation presents formidable barriers. Social media today are awash with vaping promotions, with illegal vapes flagrantly being sold as “fruit” on Facebook Marketplace.

Research has shown indoor areas with many vapers contain airborne particulate matter concentrations higher than crowded bars in the days when smoking was permitted. No airline in the world permits in-flight vaping.

Read more:
Passive vaping – time we see it like secondhand smoke and stand up for the right to clean air

Repeating the same mistakes

With children’s vaping accelerating dramatically in Australia, Canada, the US, United Kingdom and New Zealand, governments are scrambling to find solutions to the problem they created by rash, rushed policies.

Vaping advocates argue laws and regulations for vapes should be no more harsh than those that apply to cigarettes. So with no restrictions on where cigarettes can be sold, we see tobacco industry-led efforts today in Australia trying to allow vapes to be sold under the same conditions.

The first baby steps in Australian tobacco control were tiny health warnings that appeared in 1973. It then took 40 years to fight for all the policies and quit campaign funding that have together taken smoking down to its lowest ever levels.

This 40 years was due to both early ignorance of the latent size of the emerging smoking disease epidemic, and sustained pressure from the tobacco industry to defeat, delay and dilute every policy that threatened to reduce smoking.

Just as the tobacco industry for decades denied targeting children, we are seeing almost identical claims and strategies being used by vaping industries today. And it’s important to note all major tobacco companies are now also manufacturing vapes, so it’s not just the same game, it’s the same players.

Read more:
Marketers are targeting teens with cheap and addictive vapes: 9 ways to stem rising rates of youth vaping

It’s often said that if cigarettes were invented tomorrow, and we knew now what we didn’t know then, no government in the world would permit their sale (let alone allow them to be sold in every convenience store). But this is what is happening now with vapes.

With pharmaceutical products that save lives, treat illness and reduce severe pain, we allow only people with a four-year pharmacy degree to sell them, and only to those with a temporary licence (a dose- and time-limited prescription) issued by a doctor. With cigarettes, we foolishly allowed them to be sold everywhere.

All health departments in Australia, most major political parties, nearly every health and medical agency in Australia and many internationally, including the WHO, are saying vapes should be strongly regulated.

Vaping advocates argue we need vapes to help smokers quit, but the evidence they do that is weak.

Currently vaping devices are widely available, but those including vaping liquids containing nicotine are only legally available with a prescription in Australia. This doesn’t stop people buying them easily online or from many convenience stores blatantly breaking the law.

The previous health minister tried to ban personal importation of nicotine vapes and liquid, and the current one expressed interest in doing the same before a period of public consultation via the Therapeutic Goods Administration.

As with Australia pioneering plain packaging laws in 2012, if the import ban is implemented we will again quickly be emulated by other nations. And again detested by the tobacco giants.

Read more:
Learning about the health risks of vaping can encourage young vapers to rethink their habit

Simon Chapman in the past has receive funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council and the US National Institutes of Health.

– ref. A potted history of smoking, and how we’re making the same mistakes with vaping – https://theconversation.com/a-potted-history-of-smoking-and-how-were-making-the-same-mistakes-with-vaping-200708

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nigel Marks, Associate Professor of Physics, Curtin University

Japanese authorities are preparing to release treated radioactive wastewater into the Pacific Ocean, nearly 12 years after the Fukushima nuclear disaster. This will relieve pressure on more than 1,000 storage tanks, creating much-needed space for other vital remediation works. But the plan has attracted controversy.

At first glance, releasing radioactive water into the ocean does sound like a terrible idea. Greenpeace feared the radioactivity released might change human DNA, China and South Korea expressed disquiet, while Pacific Island nations were concerned about further nuclear contamination of the Blue Pacific. One academic publication claimed the total global social welfare cost could exceed US$200 billion.

But the Japanese government, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and independent scientists have declared the planned release to be reasonable and safe.

Based on our collective professional experience in nuclear science and nuclear power, we have reached the same conclusion. Our assessment is based on the type of radioactivity to be released, the amount of radioactivity already present in the ocean, and the high level of independent oversight from the IAEA.

How much water is there, and what’s in it?

The storage tanks at Fukushima contain 1.3 million tonnes of water, equivalent to around 500 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

Contaminated water is produced daily by ongoing reactor cooling. Contaminated groundwater also collects in the basements of the damaged reactor buildings.

The water is being cleaned by a technology called ALPS, or Advanced Liquid Processing System. This removes the vast majority of the problematic elements.

The ALPS treatment can be repeated until concentrations are below regulatory limits. Independent monitoring by the IAEA will ensure all requirements are met before discharge.

The main radioactive contaminant remaining after treatment is tritium, a radioactive form of hydrogen (H) that is difficult to remove from water (H₂O). There is no technology to remove trace levels of tritium from this volume of water.

Tritium has a half-life of 12.3 years, meaning 100 years passes before the radioactivity is negligible. It is unrealistic to store the water for such a long time as the volumes are too great. Extended storage also increases the risk of accidental uncontrolled release.

Like all radioactive elements, international standards exist for safe levels of tritium. For liquids, these are measured in Bq per litre, where one Bq (becquerel) is defined as one radioactive decay per second. At the point of release, the Japanese authorities have chosen a conservative concentration limit of 1,500Bq per litre, seven times smaller than the World Health Organization’s recommended limit of 10,000Bq per litre for drinking water.

Why is it acceptable to release tritium into the ocean?

One surprising thing about radiation is how common it is. Almost everything is radioactive to some degree, including air, water, plants, basements and granite benchtops. Even a long-haul airline flight supplies a few chest X-rays worth of radiation to everyone on board.

In the case of tritium, natural processes in the atmosphere generate 50-70 peta-becquerels (PBq) of tritium every year. This number is difficult to grasp, so it’s helpful to think of it as grams of pure tritium. Using the conversion factor of 1PBq = 2.79g, we see that 150-200g of tritium is created naturally each year.

Looking at the Pacific Ocean, around 8.4kg (3,000PBq) of tritium is already in the water.
By comparison, the total amount of tritium in the Fukushima wastewater is vastly smaller, at around 3g (1PBq).

Japanese authorities are not planning to release the water all at once. Instead, just 0.06g (22TBq) of tritium is scheduled for release each year. Compared with the radioactivity already present in the Pacific, the planned annual release is a literal drop in the ocean.

The current levels of tritium radioactivity in the Pacific are not of concern, and so the small amount to be added by the Fukushima water won’t cause any harm.

What’s more, tritium only makes a tiny contribution to the total radioactivity of the oceans. Ocean radioactivity is mostly due to potassium, an element essential for life and present in all cells. In the Pacific Ocean there is 7.4 million PBq of radioactivity from potassium, more than 1,000 times greater than the amount due to tritium.

Read more:
Nuclear power: how might radioactive waste water affect the environment?

How do other countries manage the discharge of tritium?

All nuclear power plants produce some tritium, which is routinely discharged into the ocean and other waterways. The amount generated depends on the type of reactor.

Boiling water reactors, such as at Fukushima, produce relatively low quantities. When Fukushima was operating, the tritium discharge limit was set at 22TBq per year. That figure is far below a level that could cause harm, but is reasonably achievable for this type of power plant.

In contrast, the UK Heysham nuclear power plant has a limit of 1300TBq per year because this type of gas-cooled reactor produces a lot of tritium. Heysham has been discharging tritium for 40 years without harm to people or the environment.

Annual tritium discharge at nearby nuclear power plants far exceeds what is proposed for Fukushima. The Fuqing plant in China discharged 52TBq in 2020, while the Kori plant in South Korea discharged 50TBq in 2018.

Each of these power plants releases more than twice the amount to be released from Fukushima.

Are there other reasons for not releasing the water?

Objections to the planned release have been the subject of widespread media coverage. TIME magazine recently explained how Pacific Island nations have been grappling for decades with the legacy of Cold War nuclear testing. The Guardian ran an opinion piece from Pacific activists, who argued if the waste was safe, then “dump it in Tokyo, test it in Paris, and store it in Washington, but keep our Pacific nuclear-free”.

But the Pacific has always contained radioactivity, from potassium in particular. The extra radioactivity to be added from the Fukushima water will make the most miniscule of differences.

Read more:
Fukushima: ten years on from the disaster, was Japan’s response right?

Striking a different tone, The Pacific Island Forum commissioned a panel of experts to provide independent technical advice and guidance, and help address concerns on the wastewater. The panel was critical of the quantity and quality of data from the Japanese authorities, and advised that Japan should defer the impending discharge.

While we are sympathetic to the view that the scientific data could be improved, our assessment is the panel is unfairly critical of ocean release.

The main thing missing from the report is a sense of perspective. The public seminar from the expert panel, available on YouTube, presents only a portion of the context we provide above. Existing tritium in the ocean isn’t discussed, and the dominance of potassium is glossed over.

The most reasonable comments regard the performance of ALPS. This is largely in the context of strontium-90 and cesium-137, both of which are legitimate isotopes of concern.

However, the panel implies that the authorities don’t know what is in the tanks, and that ALPS doesn’t work properly. There actually is a lot of public information on both topics. Perhaps it could be repackaged in a clearer way for others to understand. But the inferences made by the panel give the wrong impression.

The most important thing the panel overlooks is that the contaminated water can be repeatedly passed through ALPS until it is safe for release. For some tanks a single pass will suffice, while for others additional cycles are required.

The big picture

The earthquake was the primary environmental disaster, and the planet will be dealing with the consequences for decades. In our view, the release of Fukushima wastewater does not add to the disaster.

It’s easy to understand why people are concerned about the prospect of radioactive liquid waste being released into the ocean. But the water is not dangerous. The nastiest elements have been removed, and what remains is modest compared with natural radioactivity.

We hope science will prevail and Japan will be allowed to continue the recovery process.

Read more:
Radioactive waste isn’t going away. We’ve found a new way to trap it in minerals for long-term storage

Nigel Marks is an Associate Professor in the Physics department at Curtin University. In 1996/97 he worked at the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology (ANSTO) in the reactor division. He has received grants from the Australian Research Council, ANSTO and Los Alamos National Laboratory to study radiation processes in solids.

Brendan Kennedy is a Professor of Chemistry at the University of Sydney. He is a past president of the Australian Institute of Nuclear Science and Engineering. He is a long time user of advanced nuclear facilities in Europe, USA and Japan.

Tony Irwin is a Chartered Engineer and Honorary Associate Professor ANU with extensive experience of reactor operations in the UK and Australia. Tony was the first Reactor Manager for ANSTO’s OPAL reactor.

– ref. No, the Fukushima water release is not going to kill the Pacific Ocean – https://theconversation.com/no-the-fukushima-water-release-is-not-going-to-kill-the-pacific-ocean-200902