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

A third of the world’s forests are cut for timber. This generates US$1.5 trillion annually. But
wildfire threatens industries such as timber milling and paper manufacturing, and the threat is far greater than most people realise.

Our research, published today in the journal Nature Geoscience, shows that between 2001 and 2021, severe wildfires worldwide destroyed timber-producing forests equivalent to an area the size of Great Britain. Severe fires reach the tree tops and consume the forest canopy.

The amount of timber-producing forest burning each year in severe wildfires has increased significantly in the past decade. The western United States, Canada, Siberia, Brazil and Australia have been most affected.

Timber demand is expected to almost triple by 2050. Supplying demand is clearly going to be challenging. Our research highlights the need to urgently adopt new management strategies and emerging technologies to combat the increasing threat of wildfires.

Read more:
Our planet is burning in unexpected ways – here’s how we can protect people and nature

What we found

We combined global maps of logging activity and severe wildfires to determine how much timber-producing forest was lost to wildfire this century. Between 2001 and 2021, up to 25 million hectares of timber-producing forest was severely burned. The extent of fire has jumped markedly in the past decade, from an average of less than one million hectares a year up to 2015 to triple that since then.

At a national scale, the three countries with the largest absolute wildfire-induced losses of timber-producing forest were Russia, the US and Canada. When it comes to proportion of their forestry land lost, the nations with the highest percentages burnt were Portugal, followed by Australia.

Why are more forests burning?

Climate change is a major driver of fire weather and fire behaviour. The increased risk of high-severity wildfire is an entirely expected outcome of warmer temperatures and, in some places, reduced rainfall.

However, it remains unclear why so much wood-production forest is being lost, and why the increase in burnt area has been so marked in the past decade.

One possible reason is logging makes forests more flammable. This has been documented in parts of southeastern Australia, where intact forest always burnt at lower severity than harvested forest across the entire footprint of the Black Summer fires. Forests that have been subject to thinning also are at risk of high-severity wildfire.

What does this mean for us?

Whatever the reason, it is clear these fires in wood-production forests will have profound impacts on global timber supplies and all the industries associated with them. This is a huge problem for society and the environment, because timber demand is expected to triple by 2050, in part to facilitate the transition away from carbon-intensive cement in construction.

In many parts of the world, it typically takes 80–100 years or even longer to grow a tree to a size at which it can be a sawlog for products like furniture and floorboards. So the increased frequency of high-severity wildfire means fewer areas of forest will escape fire for long enough to reach timber harvesting age.

This is especially problematic where logging makes forests more prone to burning in a high-severity wildfire.

Furthermore, given the long-term nature of timber production, typically on cutting cycles ranging from 40 years to more than a century, future timber crops will face a very different climate as they mature.

Read more:
Why Tasmania and Victoria dominate the list of Australia’s largest trees – and why these majestic giants are under threat

Responding to the challenge

If wood production from forests becomes increasing costly and timber is increasingly hard to source, there may be more pressure from industry and government to log other places, such as tropical forests, with high biodiversity and conservation value.

One way to tackle the problem is to grow more timber in plantations. Plantations already produce a third of the main forms of wood-producing timber – called industrial roundwood. They do this from just 3% of the area of natural forests.

Well managed plantations can grow a successful timber crop within a couple of decades. This is a lot shorter than the many decades and sometimes even centuries required to grow sawlogs in native forests. Having a shorter growing time in plantations increases the chances of harvesting trees before they are destroyed in a wildfire.

But plantations, like some logged and regenerated native forests, can be highly flammable. Fire risks need to be carefully managed. That includes planning, to avoid putting neighbouring areas and human communities at greater risk of being burnt.

Another key strategy to better protect timber resources will be to adopt new technologies to more quickly detect and then rapidly suppress ignitions such as those originating from lightning strikes.

Big fires start as small fires. The best time to suppress fires is when they are small, and as soon as ignition occurs. We have been involved in the development of drone fleets and unmanned aerial water and fire suppressant dispensing craft to more quickly detect and extinguish wildfires.

New technologies, as well as more, better planned and managed plantations will be crucial in not only protecting forests, but also safeguarding the flow of marketable timber and the industries dependent upon them.

Read more:
Yes, climate change is bringing bushfires more often. But some ecosystems in Australia are suffering the most

David Lindenmayer receives funding from the Australian Government and the Victorian Government. He is a Councillor in the Biodiversity Council.

Chris Bousfield received funding for this research from the Natural Environment Research Council, UK.

David Edwards 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. Fire is consuming more than ever of the world’s forests, threatening supplies of wood and paper – https://theconversation.com/fire-is-consuming-more-than-ever-of-the-worlds-forests-threatening-supplies-of-wood-and-paper-216643

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Taren Sanders, Research Fellow, Institute for Positive Psychology and Education, Australian Catholic University

Ask any parent and it’s likely they’ll tell you they’re worried about their kids’ screen time. A 2021 poll found it was Australian parents’ number one health concern for their kids – ahead of cyberbullying and unhealthy diets. But how worried should parents be?

The information that’s out there can be confusing. Some psychologists have compared it to smoking (amid concerns about “secondhand screen time”), while others are telling us not to worry too much about kids and screens.

Academics are also confused. As The Lancet noted in 2019, researchers’ understanding of the benefits, risks and harms of the digital landscape is “sorely lacking”.

In our new research, we wanted to give parents, policymakers and researchers a comprehensive summary of the best evidence on the influence of screens on children’s physical and psychological health, education and development.

What we did

Meta-analyses are one of the best forms of evidence because they summarise the findings of lots of research all at once.

This can give us a much better view of what is happening than just looking at a single study of one group of people. So we gathered all meta-analyses conducted in English on any form of screen time in children, regardless of the outcome.

We found 217 meta-analyses, with almost half published in just the last two years. These meta-analyses represent the findings from 2,451 individual studies and have a combined sample size of more than 1.9 million children and adolescents up to 18 years. The individual studies were done between 1954 and 2021 and the meta-analyses were done between 1982 and 2022.

The good news

We found some things that should reassure parents.

The overall size of the influence of screens across the outcomes (for example, depression, body weight, literacy and sleep) in children were small.

Almost all of the results had correlations less than 0.2, which is about the same as the correlation between height and intelligence. That doesn’t mean the effect for an individual child will always be that small, just that on average, the relationship is small.

How kids use screens matters

We also found it’s not the screen itself that really matters but what’s on it and the way kids use it.

Television is a form of screen time that has worried parents for more than half a century. We did find general television viewing was associated with poorer academic performance and literacy skills. Our study did not give us time limits, but found a linear relationship. That is, the more TV a child watched, the poorer their literacy skills were.

But if the program was educational or if the child was watching with a parent, we found there was a benefit to their literacy. This is probably because it gives parents an opportunity to talk about things in the show (“I think Bluey is feeling dissapointed”) or ask questions (“what is Bingo drawing?”) which develops language skills.

Read more:
More Bluey, less PAW Patrol: why Australian parents want locally made TV for their kids

The not so good news

We did find some forms of screen time are consistently associated with harm and had no evidence of benefits.

Chief among these was social media, which was associated with depression, anxiety and risk taking. Again, our research found a relationship between the more time a child spent on social media, the more likely they were to have a mental health issue.

This is similar to the advice released this year from the US Surgeon General. This noted while social media could provide community and connections for young people (particularly from marginalised groups), it could also harm their mental health.

Read more:
Excessive screen time can affect young people’s emotional development

What does it mean?

As other education experts have noted, “screen time” is a bit of a useless term.

Nobody thinks facetiming Nanna and scrolling TikTok are equivalent, but both would fall into the category of “recreational screen time” in the Australian guidelines.

So, a key message from our study is to focus less on an unachievable time limit, and instead focus on what kids are actually doing on screens. Try to steer them towards educational apps, TV programs and video games.

But it can’t be education all the time – kids also need time for recreation. And if you watch with your child, it can also have benefits.

Read more:
If your kid is home sick from school, is unlimited screen time OK?

Don’t forget to be active

Regardless of what screen-based activities you choose to allow, remember most screen time is sedentary. Long periods of sitting aren’t great for kids (or adults!), so breaking up these periods with movement is still important.

Ultimately, the most important factor for child development is quality parenting. Being present, spending quality time and creating a caring environment are what really make a difference for children. You matter more to your child’s mental and physical health than the screen.

Taren Sanders receives funding from the Australian Research Council, NSW Department of Education, and Sport Australia.

Chris Lonsdale receives funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council, Medical Research Future Fund, Australian Research Council, NSW Department of Education, and Sport Australia.

Michael Noetel receives funding from the Australian Research Council, the Medical Research Future Fund, Sport Australia, and the National Health and Medical Research Council. He is a director of Effective Altruism Australia.

Philip D Parker receives funding from the Australian Research Council, the National Health and Medical Research Council, the Northern Territory Department of Education, and Catholic School NSW.

– ref. TV can be educational but social media likely harms mental health: what 70 years of research tells us about children and screens – https://theconversation.com/tv-can-be-educational-but-social-media-likely-harms-mental-health-what-70-years-of-research-tells-us-about-children-and-screens-216638

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Matilda Hatcher, PhD Candidate, Australian National University

At 20, Peter Weir’s 2003 masterpiece Master and Commander remains a captivating historical drama – and an emblem of wholesome masculinity.

A deeply detailed film set in the British Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars, Master and Commander follows Captain “Lucky” Jack Aubrey (Russell Crowe) and his men aboard HMS Surprise. Accompanied by the eccentric amateur naturalist Stephen Maturin (Paul Bettany), the crew are hunting the French ship Acheron through the Pacific Ocean.

Its depiction of life at sea is gritty and brutal: intense battle scenes; Maturin performing surgery on himself; Hollom’s suicide. And yet Master and Commander delivers a nostalgic, idealised lifestyle that still has many men dreaming of ditching their office jobs and sailing the high seas.

But it is not necessarily the masculine, nautical adventures that appeal to men so much as the film’s healthy and loving male relationships.

Gentle, subtle and lifelike

Jack Aubrey is a classic masculine hero. In the face of apparently impossible odds, he simply remarks: “well then, there’s not a moment to lose.”

Fighting against the tyranny and oppression of the French, his is the classic underdog tale. Acheron has twice the guns and twice the men. Taking it on is a test of nerve, discipline and courage.

The performances of the protagonists are gentle, subtle and lifelike. Crowe gives a rugged and charismatic performance as the tradition-loving Aubrey. Bettany as the charmingly lubberly Maturin is the perfect complement to Aubrey, even as he differs from his book counterpart, his role as an intelligence agent being conspicuously absent from the script.

The portrayals of these two men and their friendship – their abiding love for each other overcoming differences of politics and personality – carry the film. At times, Weir’s film seems to be a pure character study; the Acheron’s chase and capture matter much less than the development of this key male friendship.

Director Taika Waititi has called it his comfort film as well as his favourite romance movie, saying their relationship is “palpable”.

It is this aspect of the film, among a surplus of amputation, hard tack, hierarchy and public flogging, that has great appeal to men.

The dangers of the manosphere

Men are increasingly facing issues of loneliness, mental ill health and disenfranchisement.

The online “manosphere” can seem like an opportunity for some men to deal with their very real issues of hopelessness and isolation. These online communities say they are looking to combat feminism and restore the role of traditional male dominance in society, offering men a space of connection and comradeship.

Read more:
The draw of the ‘manosphere’: understanding Andrew Tate’s appeal to lost men

But this online masculine ideal is rigid and conservative, emphasising toughness, hypersexuality, aggression, control and self-sufficiency.

Rather than offering a positive community, these online spaces have been increasingly associated with toxic masculinity characterised by violence, hostility to women and emotional repression. These ideals create harm towards men themselves and those around them.

Read more:
‘Toxic masculinity’: what does it mean, where did it come from – and is the term useful or harmful?

The HMS Surprise offers an alternative picture of male camaraderie. On board Surprise, the masculine environment is a supportive one. It allows men to feel their differences while still inspiring and caring for each other. From gentle, scientific sorts to burly able seamen, all take pride in their community on board their “little wooden world”.

Online, 20 years after the film’s release, many men are finding comfort and inspiration in this contrasting picture of what masculinity can look like.

Wholesome masculinity

Master and Commander’s intimate study of male friendship makes the film a touchstone of wholesome masculinity. Memes abound attesting to audiences’ yearning for a life of honest work and male companionship.

One meme captions a heroic picture of Jack Aubrey standing against the sea asking: “is the cure to male loneliness sailing the high seas with your bros?”

A tweet announces the “hot new bachelor party activity” is historic gunnery exercises, with the “boys hooting and hollering as they drink grog firing three broadsides in two minutes”.

One Reddit commenter, explaining its popularity, describes it as a “wholesome bromance, which is the ultimate catnip for straight dudes”.

This admiration of the Surprise’s masculine community, where different kinds of men are celebrated, serves as a positive counter model to the angst and toxicity of the manosphere.

At sea, men like Jack Aubrey enact traditional masculine values without the fear of losing power and without restrictive gender norms: they share joy, grieve together, and play music together.

Despite epic battles and award-winning cinematography, by far the most iconic scenes in Master and Commander are quiet examples of our protagonists’ friendship: Jack and Stephen playing a duet, or doubly delighting and exasperating each other with various puns.

By the closing frame, the HMS Surprise and her men are no closer to capturing their prize than when they started out. And yet, as Jack and Stephen strum their instruments companionably, the Surprise’s endless drift into the future is a promise of an unending life of adventure, community and companionship.

It is this promise that keeps men returning, two decades later, to Master and Commander. Much like Stephen’s flightless bird, it’s not going anywhere.

Read more:
Building healthy relationship skills supports men’s mental health

Matilda Hatcher receives funding from an Australian Government Research Training Program (RTP) Scholarship.

– ref. Master and Commander at 20: how a film about men fighting at sea is actually a safe harbour of positive masculinity – https://theconversation.com/master-and-commander-at-20-how-a-film-about-men-fighting-at-sea-is-actually-a-safe-harbour-of-positive-masculinity-215593

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

Australians getting ready for Christmas this week had reason to believe even the best of preparations were not enough after a cyberattack hit all its major ports.

DP World, which operates container ports in Australia and the region, first detected problems last Friday so unplugged its systems to minimise the impact while it examined what had happened.

While operations resumed at the ports yesterday, the cause is still unclear and the incident continues to be investigated.

With responsibility for about 40% of freight movement at Australian ports, and a significant 10% of global trade through its international operations, the attack disrupted the flow of goods coming from ports DP World operates.

Deliveries of import items such as videogames, air-conditioners, furniture and pharmaceuticals were held up.

As well, Australian exports of goods including processed meat, dairy products and fruits, all with limited shelf life, were delayed.

Why this cyber attack is significant

While DP World seems to be recovering, the incident highlights the potential vulnerability of global networks.

Supply chains rely on fully integrated solutions, from sellers overseas to buyers in Australia, to work efficiently. Information technology is embedded into them through equipment automation and data processing. Product visibility, customs clearance and checks for biosecurity risks rely on cargo information detailing where goods come from, who is responsible for them and their trading value.

With sensitive data linked to the movement of containers, it is no wonder logistics professionals recognise cybersecurity as a major threat to operations – not to mention their obligations under the Security of Critical Infrastructure Act.

If there is still no certainty of the specific nature of the incident with DP World, there are few likely causes.

Ransomware has been on the rise, with incidents aligned to prolific cyber-criminal gangs including REVil and more recently LockBit.

In an attack, data is usually extracted from an organisation and then rendered inaccessible to users – typically using encryption. The organisation will usually receive a ransom demand to “unlock” the data, often payable using a crypto-currency.

In recent years the trend of double-extortion has become common, where the criminals incentivise their victims to pay by threatening to release the data publicly if they refuse.

While refusal is a possibility, the nature of the disruption could mean a loss of access to critical systems and information. If data is inaccessible, operations would need to be halted, leading to even greater losses.

Recovering systems would require restoration from backups and a thorough inspection for any traces of the original infection or compromise. Finally, checks would be needed to ensure no data had been lost and to identify any missing consignment data after the previous backup had taken place.

Read more:
Major cyberattack on Australian ports suggests sabotage by a ‘foreign state actor’

If the incident is a direct cyber-attack that infiltrated systems and stole or modified data, this would also require a complete system shutdown. Without the integrity of systems, consignment data cannot be trusted and the Australian Border Force would be unable to verify the content of shipments. There would also be issues with the collection of duties, taxes and fees.

Disconnecting DP World from networks allowed the investigating team to inspect systems to look for impacted systems and to evaluate the depth of any infection. This process also needs to consider the original infection mechanism – you don’t want the systems re-infected.

The timing could have been worse

The cyberattack caused the ports operated by DP World to start filling up with containers, but it had not yet become critical.

While Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Christmas are an extra busy time for retailers, there is usually a marginal increase in movement compared to other times of the year, typically less than 10%. With around 1.4 million containers to be moved in the last three months of the year, the impact of losing a few days should be minimal.

Read more:
Is Australia a sitting duck for ransomware attacks? Yes, and the danger has been growing for 30 years

Big retailers typically start making orders for Christmas in August, with deliveries starting as early as October. While they keep inventory in check, it is unlikely that operations work in just-in-time mode.

Especially in Australia, where the distance from major global flows, the lack of alternatives such as railroad imports and lessons learned from COVID has bred risk averse businesses that are extra cautious to avoid empty shelves.

Also, ports can quickly recover. When container volumes go up, extra labour and equipment can be organised to increase the output of a terminal. In the last three years the number of time slots used by trucks has seldom reached 90% of total availability.

DP World should quickly be able to resolve any backlogs arising from this incident.

The hidden problem behind this attack

A problem for Australia is the potential effect of the cyberattack on its reputation as a shipping destination. When port facilities fill up with containers to the point where ships are delayed, costs quickly escalate to millions of dollars.

And numbers haven’t been shiny lately.

The Maritime Waterline 69 report shows ship turnaround time increased from 35 hours early in 2020 to more than 50 hours in 2022. Port congestion went from a little over 10% of ships waiting for more than two hours to over 22%. And average waiting time at anchorage went up from 17.3 hours before COVID to 126.5 hours in mid-2022.

Add the risk of cyberattacks to this and Australian ports may lose their competitiveness, with fewer companies interested in sending their ships down here – or requiring a premium price to do so.

While the DP World cyberattack is unlikely to upset Christmas, the aggregated impact such attacks could have on Australia’s reputation as an important shipping hub, must be taken seriously.

Flavio Macau receives funding from the Planning and Transport Research Centre – PATREC. He is currently involved in the Last Mile Delivery (LMD) project which looks at parcel distribution to the end consumer. This article, and the ports impacted in this incident, are not connected with the LMD project or the funding provided by PATREC.

Paul Haskell-Dowland receives funding from the Cyber Security Cooperative Research Centre. He is currently involved in the Augmenting Cyber Defence Capability (ACDC) project which looks at cyber security in Maritime Ports. This article, and the ports impacted in this incident, are not connected with the ACDC project or the funding provided by the Cyber Security Cooperative Research Centre.

– ref. Has the cyberattack on DP World put Australia’s trade at risk? Probably not … this time – https://theconversation.com/has-the-cyberattack-on-dp-world-put-australias-trade-at-risk-probably-not-this-time-217533

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amy Clair, Lecturer, Australian Centre for Housing Research, University of Adelaide, and Research Associate, ESRC Research Centre on Micro-Social Change, University of Essex

People’s experiences of private rental housing are linked to faster biological ageing, our recent research finds.

While chronological ageing happens at the same speed for everyone, biological ageing varies greatly. It depends on the lives we lead and the risks we’re exposed to. Biological age reflects the gradually accumulating damage to cells and tissues in the body.

Our research explored associations between pace of ageing and many aspects of housing and other social determinants of health. Our strongest finding about housing was that people living in a privately rented home tended to age faster than those who owned their home outright. Every year of private renting was associated with an extra 2.4 weeks of ageing on average.

Our findings also suggest being a private renter has a greater effect on biological age than being unemployed (adding about 1.4 weeks of ageing per year), obesity (about 1 week), or being a former smoker (about 1.1 weeks).

The insecurity of private renting appears to be the key factor in its biological ageing effect. The good news is that policies that improve housing security can redress this.

Read more:
The insecurity of private renters – how do they manage it?

How do we measure biological age?

Faster ageing is associated with poorer health. Outcomes include poorer physical and cognitive function and a higher risk of chronic illness and even early death.

To measure ageing, we use an indicator of DNA methylation. This is an epigenetic process – a way in which the environment can affect how our genes are expressed. By analysing the locations of DNA methylation across a person’s DNA, we can estimate their pace of biological ageing.

Read more:
Difficult childhood experiences could make us age prematurely – new research

It’s hard to get the data for this sort of analysis. We needed blood samples that have gone through complex processing to estimate biological ageing, as well as survey data on many aspects of people’s lives. We controlled for income and health behaviours, among other things.

The data we used describe the British population, but our findings are directly transferable to Australians. Given the increasing numbers of renters in Australia, many in insecure housing, our findings are directly relevant to our current housing debate.

Read more:
More rented, more mortgaged, less owned: what the census tells us about housing

The experiences of private renting are similar in Britain and Australia. Short tenancy agreements (12 months on average in Australia) mean insecurity is a feature of private renting in both nations.

No-fault/no-grounds/no-cause evictions in some states further undermine renters’ security. Even renters who do everything right can be evicted at short notice.

Insecure housing is bad for your health

We found no negative effects for people renting social housing. In both Britain and Australia, social renters have far greater security of tenure than private renters. This suggests it is not renting itself that is related to faster ageing, but specifically the insecurity of private renting.

These findings are important for Australian housing policy. The social housing sector – managed by state or community providers – has shrunk. Today less than 4% of households are in social housing.

Governments have edged away from publicly provided social housing. They prefer to subsidise renters in the private sector.

The role of private rental housing has also changed in both countries. Rather than being a form of housing in which a relatively small number of people live in for a short time while studying or starting their career, more people are living in privately rented homes for longer. As access to both social housing and home ownership becomes harder, many will probably rent for life.

This means more people are exposed to housing insecurity and the negative health impacts for longer.

Read more:
Stability and security: the keys to closing the mental health gap between renters and home owners

What does this mean for policy?

Public debate and health messaging often focus on individual behaviours and characteristics such as smoking and obesity. Our research emphasises how important housing is for people’s health. It’s also an area where policy changes can make a big difference.

The insecurity of private renting in Australia and Britain is not inherent to private renting itself. It’s a result of policy choices that:

• emphasise housing as an asset
• minimise the state’s role in providing or regulating housing
• do little to protect renters.

This approach can change, and the appetite for change appears to be increasing. There are efforts to end no-fault/no-grounds evictions in both Australia and Britain.

State governments have talked about ending no-grounds evictions. New South Wales has yet to do anything about it. Despite reforms in other states, they still permit no-grounds evictions when fixed-term leases end.

Scotland has adopted a new model of tenancy that does not permit no-fault evictions with few exceptions – to allow landlords to sell the property, for example. The UK government has been talking about ending such evictions since 2019, but progress has been slow.

However, there are glimmers of hope. The Australian government is paying more attention to renters’ needs. South Australia is working to end no-grounds evictions for both fixed and periodic tenancies. In NSW, the new government has promised to end such evictions.

In the UK, the Renters (Reform) Bill finally had its second reading on October 23.

Private renting can work better for tenants, but shouldn’t be the only option for people who don’t own their homes. Our finding that renting social housing was no different to outright ownership lends weight to calls for greater support for social housing. Housing should be good for everyone’s health, whether or not they own their home.

Emma Baker receives funding from the Australian Research Council, the National Health and Medical Research Council, and the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute. She holds a voluntary board position with Habitat for Humanity.

Meena Kumari receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council (ES/T014083/1; ES/S012486/1).

Amy Clair 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. Insecure renting ages you faster than owning a home, unemployment or obesity. Better housing policy can change this – https://theconversation.com/insecure-renting-ages-you-faster-than-owning-a-home-unemployment-or-obesity-better-housing-policy-can-change-this-216364

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Avril Horne, Research fellow, Department of Infrastructure Engineering, The University of Melbourne

When it was clear the Murray-Darling Basin Plan could not be completed on time, Federal Water Minister Tanya Plibersek announced a new agreement (without Victoria) to deliver in full the plan’s aim of restoring the health of this vast river system.

The new agreement required changes to the Water Act to allow more water for the environment to be purchased from irrigators (water buybacks). Concerns about these changes prompted a Senate inquiry.

The report from that inquiry, released on Friday, supports buybacks but also makes key recommendations to remove “constraints” to water delivery. These are physical constraints or limits to the movement of water through the river system. Managers can only deliver so much water before it spills out of the river onto private land.

The report goes so far as to ask whether constraints should be removed before more water is recovered. This is a question we have been asking in our research. And our results suggest the answer is yes.

Currently, we cannot physically deliver all of the water recovered from other uses for the environment (known as environmental water) to where it’s needed without flooding private property along the way. And the government is not prepared to do that.

Read more:
Murray-Darling Basin Plan to be extended under a new agreement, without Victoria – but an uphill battle lies ahead

Basin health is improving but challenges remain

Under the Basin Plan, about 20% of water used for irrigation a decade ago is now used for environmental purposes. This has improved river health, encouraging fish to spawn and plants to grow, and reduced salt levels in the Lower Lakes and Coorong.

These benefits rely on the river’s flow regime, not just the annual volume. Higher flows inundate wetlands, move sediment down the river, and provide natural triggers for various species to breed or migrate.

But raising water levels in the river channel isn’t enough to get environmental water everywhere it’s needed. Sometimes larger flows are required. Unfortunately, sending more water down the river runs the risk of inundating private property or damaging infrastructure such as low-lying pumps on floodplains.

Restoring the river’s health requires not only recovering water but also completing projects that allow more of this water to flow despite physical constraints such as a narrow stretch of river. These projects might involve modifying or improving infrastructure such as low-lying roads and bridges, as well as working with communities to limit damage and compensate for flooding of private property.

The Senate inquiry report highlights the challenges for these projects. It also supports improving the approach to delivering these projects across the southern basin.

Challenges, priorities and solutions may differ

Our research on the Goulburn River in Victoria’s part of the Murray-Darling Basin shows recovery of additional water for the environment does not guarantee environmental outcomes.

This is because the amount of water that can be sent down the river is constrained. So having more environmental water at your disposal does not help, because it is physically impossible to get all the water to where it is needed, when it is needed, without risking inundation of private property.

Current river system operations, including rules and physical constraints, prevent the full volume of environmental water held in Goulburn River being delivered at the right time and in the right way to achieve the best environmental outcomes.

Narrow sections of the river and adjacent private development limit releases from Lake Eildon. River managers are not allowed to deliberately inundate the floodplain if it risks private property.

So the volume of environmental water available in the Goulburn River is not the issue – delivering this water is the challenge. In this regard, Victoria’s refusal to sign up to the new basin deal is understandable, because more water buybacks would potentially cause more pain to the local community than gain to the local environment.

However, neither Victoria nor New South Wales has addressed these capacity constraint issues, significantly limiting the ability to get better environmental outcomes with less water. So the challenge is much more complex than simply redistributing entitlements and buying back environmental water.

Read more:
Water buybacks are back on the table in the Murray-Darling Basin. Here’s a refresher on how they work

The elephant in the room: climate change

Temperature, rainfall and streamflow have already changed in parts of the Murray-Darling Basin. Over the coming decade these changes will become more pronounced, widespread and entrenched, causing more frequent floods and droughts.

While the precise consequences for water availability remain to be seen, the impact on the basin will be immense.

But climate change simply adds to the need to have difficult conversations around the future of communities along the Murray-Darling. Focusing on whether buyback targets have been achieved does not resolve this. In many regions, there will not be enough water, with or without buybacks, to achieve current management objectives.

Buybacks should be placed in the context of this imminent threat. In rivers like the Goulburn, addressing capacity constraints provides the single best climate adaptation option to improve environmental outcomes in the short and medium term.

Removing these constraints would allow more water onto the lower Goulburn River floodplain, with due care for land and infrastructure that could be affected. For example, projects may offer landholders options to avoid or compensate for any water damage and associated costs.

This is because removing constraints gives river managers more flexibility, which can increase the resilience of the environment to a wider range of future climates. More water from buybacks provides very limited additional benefit because it doesn’t change how environmental water can be delivered.

The senate report emphasises the need to embed consideration of climate change in the Water Act and Basin Plan. The decisions we are making now on water recovery and constraints relaxation will have big impacts on communities.

Our work shows considering climate change is essential to ensuring lasting benefits and resilient outcomes for the rivers and communities that rely on them.

The first basin plan took a big step towards sustainable management of the vast Murray-Darling river system. But it was always meant to be the first step in an adaptive policy process. Priorities and solutions will look different across the basin. We need a holistic approach where buybacks may very well be part of the solution, but are not the whole solution. We also need to ensure we can deliver this water where and when the environment needs it.

Read more:
Victoria’s plans for engineered wetlands on the Murray are environmentally dubious. Here’s a better option

Avril Horne receives funding from the Victorian Government Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action.
Avril has recently been appointed as a member of the Murray-Darling Basin Authority Advisory Committee on Social Economic and Environmental Sciences.

Andrew John receives funding from the Victorian Government Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action.

– ref. Murray-Darling water buybacks won’t be enough if we can’t get water to where it’s needed – https://theconversation.com/murray-darling-water-buybacks-wont-be-enough-if-we-cant-get-water-to-where-its-needed-203142

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Tuffley, Senior Lecturer in Applied Ethics & CyberSecurity, Griffith University

A serious cyberattack has disrupted operations at several of Australia’s largest ports, causing delays and congestion. Late on Friday, port operator DP World detected an IT breach that affected critical systems used to coordinate shipping activity.

DP World is one of Australia’s largest port operators, handling approximately 40% of the nation’s container trade across terminals in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne and Fremantle.

DP World reacted quickly to contain the breach, including shutting down access to their port networks on land, to prevent further unauthorised access. This means they essentially “pulled the plug” on their internet connection to limit possible further harm.

DP World senior director Blake Tierney said it is still possible to unload containers from ships, but the trucks that transport the containers cannot drive in or out of the terminals. This is a precaution when the full extent of a data breach is not known.

The latest media reports suggest cargo could be stranded at the ports for several days.

Australian Federal Police and the Australian Cyber Security Centre are investigating the source and nature of the attack, deemed a “nationally significant incident” by federal cybersecurity coordinator Darren Goldie.

Is there evidence of this being a malicious attack?

The timing, scale and impact of the disruption do suggest this was a targeted attack.

It occurred on a Friday night, when most staff were off duty and less likely to notice or respond to the incident. The target was a major port operator that handles a significant share of Australia’s trade and commerce. Such an attack can have serious consequences for Australia’s economy, security and sovereignty.

The identity and motive of the attackers are not yet known, but the skills needed to mount such an attack suggest a foreign state actor trying to undermine Australia’s national security or economic interests.

In recent years, cyberattacks on ports and shipping have become more common. For instance, in February 2022, several European ports were hit by a cyberattack that disrupted oil terminals. In another incident early this year, a ransomware attack on maritime software impacted more than 1,000 ships. Also in January 2023, the Port of Lisbon was targeted by a ransomware attack which threatened the release of port data.

These incidents highlight the vulnerability of the maritime industry to cyber threats and the need for increased cybersecurity measures.

How might the attack have happened?

So far, the details have not been disclosed. But based on what we know about similar cases, it is possible the attack took advantage of vulnerabilities in DP World’s system. These vulnerabilities are normally closed by applying a “patch” in the same way your browser needs updating every week or two to keep it safe from being hacked.

Once hackers gained access, the breach likely pivoted to infiltrate the operational systems that directly manage port activities. Failing to isolate and secure these control networks allowed the incident to impact operations.

It is also possible access was gained via a phishing email or a malicious link. Such an attack may have tricked an employee or a contractor into opening an attachment or clicking on a link that installed malware or ransomware on the network.

Read more:
Don’t click that link! How criminals access your digital devices and what happens when they do

Now what?

DP World is working urgently to rebuild affected systems from backups. However, resetting port management networks is a complicated process that could take days or weeks. Until the operator’s core systems are securely restored, cargo flows may face ongoing delays.

The Australian government is closely involved in managing the situation, providing support and advice to DP World and other affected parties through the Critical Infrastructure Centre and the Trusted Information Sharing Network. These government agencies are equipped to provide timely support in times of crisis.

How can we prevent future attacks?

The DP World cyberattack is a clear warning of the risks to the essential transportation services that power Australia’s trade and commerce.

Ports are difficult targets. To cause such a disruption, the attackers would have to be highly skilled and plan ahead. The fact ports have been successfully hacked more than once in recent times suggests threats from cybercriminals are steadily increasing.

For companies such as DP World, it’s important to continuously monitor networks in real time, promptly install security updates and keep critical systems separated from each other.

Dedicated, well-resourced cybersecurity personnel, employee training and incident response plans are key to improving preparedness.

Ports should closely coordinate with government counterparts and industry partners on intelligence sharing and cybersecurity best practices. Cyberthreats evolve so quickly, always being prepared for the latest one is a significant challenge.

For a seamless flow of goods, we need to be constantly vigilant of potential threats to our supply chain infrastructure. This latest attack is an urgent reminder that cyber resilience must be a top priority.

Read more:
How to make fragile global supply chains stronger and more sustainable

David Tuffley 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. Major cyberattack on Australian ports suggests sabotage by a ‘foreign state actor’ – https://theconversation.com/major-cyberattack-on-australian-ports-suggests-sabotage-by-a-foreign-state-actor-217530

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Shannon Davis, Lecturer in Landscape Planning, Lincoln University, New Zealand

Auckland Council recently voted to decrease the amount of city fringe land available for development, citing flood risks and infrastructure costs.

Meanwhile in Christchurch, plans for an 850-home development north of the city have been rejected because of the area’s “existing rural nature and the lack of public transport and local jobs”.

Cities around the world face a similar dilemma: population growth and housing shortages mean urban expansion often encroaches on rural productive land.

Fertile soil is one of the reasons why many cites were originally set up in certain sites, but now the loss of these food-producing landscapes to urban growth is widely recognised as a concern to local food security.

The edges of cities – the “peri-urban” zone – are critically important for urban resilience. Apart from food, they supply ecosystem services such as flood and stormwater mitigation, cooling and climate regulation, carbon storage, waste treatment and recreation.

It could be said that the conversion of peri-urban agricultural land for urban expansion unwittingly undermines the very life support on which city dwellers depend.

Our research explores possible solutions that allow food production and housing to co-exist within peri-urban zones.

Read more:
How sustainable, liveable and resilient housing can help us adapt to a changing future

The housing-agriculture conundrum

In Aotearoa New Zealand, the competition for land for either housing or food production within the peri-urban zone is intense. Local and regional councils
have to attempt to mediate between two recently gazetted national policy statements that seem at odds.

The 2020 National Policy Statement for Urban Development requires councils to remove barriers to urban expansion, both up and out. The 2022 National Policy Statement on Highly Productive Land requires councils to avoid urban encroachment and protect highly productive land for agriculture.

A recent Ministry for the Environment report states:

The area of highly productive land that was unavailable for agriculture (because it had a house on it) increased by 54% from 2002 to 2019.

Urban resilience and food production

Peri-urban zones have an important role in supplying locally produced food. This helps reduce transport emissions to meet New Zealand’s emissions reduction targets. But there is a growing disconnect between where New Zealand’s food is produced and where the majority of New Zealanders live.

The dominant approach to urban growth is through greenfield development (building on undeveloped land), and this ultimately compromises the productive land belt around many cities and settlements. This can result in the irreversible loss of some of our most fertile soils.

Read more:
National’s housing u-turn promotes urban sprawl – cities and ratepayers will pick up the bill

Multiple factors affect where food can be produced within the peri-urban zone. This includes policy, land value, soil versatility, natural resources such as water and, increasingly, the level of “reverse sensitivity” – a term used to describe, in this instance, the impacts of newer land uses (such as housing) on prior activities (agriculture) in mixed-use areas.

Planning policy often fails to keep up with changes in housing markets, agricultural practice and lifestyle choices. This then results in reactive planning approaches, putting high-value soil and other land suitable for food production at continued risk of development and fragmentation.

This is compounded by public and political pressures that can lead to tensions between food producers and their residential neighbours.

Combined land use

Our team has surveyed households and food producers living and operating within the peri-urban zone of Ōtautahi Christchurch to better understand the issues. We also wanted to explore opportunities arising from food production and housing co-existing within peri-urban zones.

Based on the views of surveyed participants, we developed five land-use design concepts, which were then evaluated by participants during a public workshop.

Of these five options, a multi-functional green belt (below) was most favoured. This green belt is a publicly accessible buffer between urban areas and conventional farms, including public open spaces, community gardens, sports fields, walking tracks, native plantings, stormwater management zones and playgrounds.

Other scenarios included different options of either separating or integrating urban and rural land uses.

What did peri-urban residents and food producers say?

Our research reveals that residents like having food-producing landscapes close to where they live. More than 60% of respondents felt “extremely positive” and 32% “mostly positive” towards these landscapes.

One of our key findings suggests residents were mostly happy to accept the day-to-day nuisances of farm operations, but they wanted their household to benefit by being able to access food produced locally.

Food producers expressed more neutral feelings towards operating in the peri-urban zone. For them, being close to their potential customers, as well as benefiting from urban infrastructure such as high-speed internet, was important.

But our survey also highlights that peri-urban residents are concerned about possible negative impacts of nearby intensive farming, and producers fear facing complaints from their urban neighbours. Both groups called for greater agricultural literacy for urban New Zealanders.

Read more:
Building on the greenbelt is central to solving the housing crisis – just look at how the edges of cities have changed

Integrating people and production

How should we prioritise peri-urban food production alongside strategic urban expansion?

The loss of agricultural land to urban development, the disconnect between local farms and their urban markets, and the recent drive to create more sustainable infrastructure within and around cities, have all engendered planning and urban design programmes that aim to protect and reconnect cities with their food.

Redesigning peri-urban land-use patterns to integrate housing with productive land uses has the potential to connect New Zealanders with the land while mitigating the current rural-urban dichotomy approach to planning.

Embedding mana whenua values of connectedness with the environment offers significant opportunities to nourish both the land and communities that reside within. The reintegration of mahinga kai (food-gathering sites) and māra kai (food gardens) principles would support the health and resilience of both people and the land connected to cities.

Accessible local food production is an essential component of long-term urban resilience. To achieve this, we argue that we need a new approach to peri-urban land-use planning for Aotearoa New Zealand in which landscapes for both people and production are integrated and mutually beneficial.

We are grateful for the significant contribution to this research made by Guanyu Hanley Chen and Naomi Darvill from Lincoln University, and John Blyth, Sara Hodgson and Lydia Shirely from BECA.

This research was funded by the National Science Challenge: Our Land and Water. Shannon is a member of the New Zealand Institute of Landscape Architects.

– ref. Growing NZ cities eat up fertile land – but housing and food production can co-exist – https://theconversation.com/growing-nz-cities-eat-up-fertile-land-but-housing-and-food-production-can-co-exist-215706

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Elizabeth Handsley, Adjunct Professor of Law, Western Sydney University

In the era of proliferating streaming platforms, choosing what to watch on family movie night can be hard.

Parents have a greater need than ever for good advice to help them narrow down the options, and they should be able to turn to the government’s classification system.

When they do, they will usually trust that if something is rated G or PG, it’s suitable for young children.

You might be surprised to learn, then, the current media classification system has no basis in evidence about children’s developmental needs.

Read more:
Episode – Choose Your Story: the inappropriate game your kids have probably played

Where did classifications come from?

Australia’s National Classification Scheme for films, games and publications was established in 1995. The Commonwealth and the states and territories agreed to replace what was then known as the “censorship” system.

The scheme classifies media content based on the perceived impact (very mild, mild, moderate, and so on) of elements such as violence, sex, and themes related to social issues including crime, racism and suicide.

The ratings aim to give effect to four principles listed in the National Classification Code. One of those is that “minors should be protected from material likely to harm or disturb them”.

Initially there was no R18+ classification for games.

After intense debate in the late 2000s, the adults-only classification was introduced in 2013.

Flawed attempts at reform

The Commonwealth referred classification law to the Australian Law Reform Commission for review in 2011.

The 2012 report revealed little about the efficacy of the scheme for families.

The review led to very few changes. None were of any real significance for consumers.

Recommendations from the latest review of the scheme were submitted to the Morrison government in 2020.

Read more:
There are no age restrictions for gambling in video games, despite potential risks to children

There was no action on those until the Albanese government, in April 2023, announced a couple of fairly significant changes, such as mandatory minimum classifications for gambling-related content.

Unfortunately, however, useful information for families is still hard to come by.

Vague terms not based in fact

The current system is based entirely on “impact”, which is undefined.

The efficacy of the system in protecting children from harm or disturbance is diminished because it’s not based on evidence of children’s developmental needs.

For example, there is strong evidence that scary content poses risks for children’s mental wellbeing.

But unless it’s actually violent (which it isn’t always), you have to hope it will be picked up under the “themes”.

If we had an evidence-based system, scariness would be established as a separate criterion during the classification process.

Regarding violent content, there is evidence as to which kinds pose greater risks than others.

But a study of the Classification Review Board’s thought processes around violence shows these are often at odds with the evidence.

For example, they tend to downplay “superhero violence”.

However, research shows appealing perpetrators whose violence is justified are more likely to foster an attitude in viewers that violence is an appropriate way to resolve conflict.

The most recent review of the scheme recognised the need for an evidence-based system, but stopped short of recommending it.

Overhaul needed to better guide parents

Parents need reliable information to judge the suitability of content for children of different ages.

The G and PG ratings, for example, effectively lump everyone under 15 into a single age group. This means they don’t provide any guidance about whether or not content is suitable for any particular age group under that threshold.

The 2020 review suggested an additional category (PG13) could be appropriate.

This may help address the vast range of content lumped in the current PG category, but only if it was based on evidence about the developmental needs of children under 13.

And even if PG13 was introduced, the system would still fail to address the differing developmental stages of children aged 1 to 12 years.

An overhaul of the system is needed, including a move away from “impact” to a test based on children’s developmental needs.

This could help support parents to make well-informed decisions for their children. The Commonwealth is obliged to do this under article 18 of the UN’s Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Policy-makers should also be seeking the thoughts of parents, who ultimately interact with the system most.

Previous government research hasn’t focused on parents enough.

A 2022 report found 74% broad agreement with the statement “classification categories do not need to change”. But participants, only 30% of whom were parents or carers, were not given an alternative model for comparison.

We cannot know what participants would have said if they had been asked to consider other options, such as an age-based set of categories.

Research we are currently undertaking fills this gap.

Our survey informs parents and carers about the current Australian system and asks them to rate content using an evidence-informed framework.

It will provide important information about the usability of the scheme. Then, we can propose a model of classification that better reflects the needs of its primary users – one that is actually based on evidence.

Elizabeth Handsley is President of Children and Media Australia, the national peak non-profit organisation representing children’s rights and interests as media users. In this capacity she made submissions and representations to the Stevens review of the National Classification Scheme.

Fae Heaselgrave is conducting research with Children and Media Australia about the usability of the Australian Classifications Scheme for parents and carers.

– ref. Australia’s media classification system is no help to parents and carers. It needs a grounding in evidence – https://theconversation.com/australias-media-classification-system-is-no-help-to-parents-and-carers-it-needs-a-grounding-in-evidence-216004

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Denghua Zhang, Research fellow, Australian National University

China has been steadily increasing its footprint in the Pacific in recent years as it attempts to deepen its influence and challenge the traditionally strong relationships many countries have with the US and Australia.

But what do people in the Pacific think of China’s expanding interest and engagement in the region?

To find out, we conducted surveys with local residents in two countries where China has focused its outreach in recent years – Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands. Both countries have embraced a foreign policy professing to be a “friend to all and enemy to none”.

With the Pacific Islands Forum holding its annual summit last week, we asked experts on the Pacific to examine the great power competition in the region. How are countries like the US, Australia, China and others attempting to wield power and influence in the Pacific? And how effective has it been? You can read the rest of the series here.

PNG is China’s principal diplomatic and trading partner in the region. Prime Minister James Marape just concluded a visit to Beijing where he and Chinese leaders discussed deepening their economic and security ties, including possibly establishing a common currency trading arrangement.

Solomon Islands’ relationship with China, meanwhile, has boomed since it abandoned its diplomatic recognition of Taiwan in September 2019. China has made huge efforts to promote cooperation with Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare’s government on aid, trade, agriculture, health, fisheries and policing cooperation.

Beijing intends to develop this partnership to serve as a role model for other Pacific Island nations that still recognise Taiwan.

While the PNG and Solomon Islands governments welcome China’s growing engagement with their countries, however, our research found this wasn’t always the case with the local populations.

Read more:
Both the US and Australia are adamant the Pacific “matters”. But only one is really moving the dial

Overwhelming concern of environmental pollution

Our first survey sought to gauge the corporate social responsibilities of the China-owned Ramu NiCo project in Papua New Guinea through the eyes of those who are currently living or have lived in Madang Province, where it’s located.

We collected 100 responses in total, mainly from current and former Divine Word University students and staff.

In 2019, the nickel mine operator had to apologise for accidentally spilling some 200,000 litres of toxic slurry into a bay in the province.

The vast majority (98%) of our respondents said they were concerned about environmental pollution, while nearly 60% thought the mine project has not benefited PNG.

In response to the question, “Looking back, do you support the [previous] government’s approval of the China-owned Ramu NiCo project”, nearly 70% said “no”.

However, those living in the area of the mining lease tended to have a more positive view of the venture because of the direct financial benefit they receive in the form of royalties or ancillary businesses.

And 72% of our participants said they support the PNG government developing a closer relationship with China.

Scholarships improve impressions of China

Our second survey asked 78 PNG students who had received Chinese government scholarships for their perceptions on the program and Chinese soft power, more generally.

A large majority of respondents (87%) said they would recommend the program to their friends. Studying in China also appeared to change their impressions of the country itself.

Before these students went to China, they were asked to score the Chinese political system on a scale of one to five (from a very low impression to very high), as compared to political systems in Western countries.

The students gave China’s system an average score of 3.45 out of five before their study abroad. After they started the program and lived in China for some time, this average score increased to 4.01.

The scholarship program also changed their views about China’s environmental sustainability from an average score of 3.17 before they went to China to 3.73 after they arrived. Similarly, the students’ average score for China’s foreign policy was boosted from 3.47 to 3.80.

Read more:
What does China want in the Pacific? Diplomatic allies and strategic footholds

‘Very helpful in building our roads’

For our third survey, we canvassed 93 students from Solomon Islands National University on their views of China and more traditional Pacific partners like the US and Australia.

Two-thirds of our respondents were supportive of a closer bilateral relationship between China and Solomon Islands, but support for a closer relationship with the US was even higher (76%).

Nearly four-fifths of these students also supported China’s Belt and Road projects in Solomon Islands. One participant wrote, “they are very helpful in building and upgrading our roads”.

The other fifth, however, had a more negative view. For example, one student said, “their purpose is to create a debt risk for our government and that leads the Chinese to control the whole of our resources”.

Another student commented, “for a country like Solomon Islands with a weak economy, this Belt and Road project will be a debt trap”.

NGOs more wary of Belt and Road

While some of the students we surveyed in PNG and the Solomon Islands think positively of China, the views of non-governmental organisations in the Pacific can be less rosy.

For example, another survey of 57 NGOs in PNG, Fiji and Tonga conducted in 2021 by Denghua Zhang (one of the authors) found that a majority in each country disapproved of China’s Belt and Road Initiative.

Their concerns included human rights violations, bad governance, debt risks, environmental pollution and an influx of small Chinese businesses and low-quality goods into their countries. For example, one Fijian NGO representative said, “feels that Fiji can go down the same path as Sri Lanka with their port example.”

Our new surveys paint a more mixed picture of local feelings in the Pacific about China. Our participants did not simply “love China” or “hate China”, but had far more complicated, nuanced perceptions of the country.

This is many times not represented in media reports on China’s influence in the region, but is important for policymakers in the US and Australia to understand as they seek to counter moves by China to deepen its relationships here.

The authors would like to thank Lincy Pendeverana and Jeffers Teargun Heptol for their contributions to some of our research projects.

Bernard Yegiora is affiliated with the Lowy Institute as part of its PNG-Australia emerging leaders network.

Denghua Zhang 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 do people in the Pacific really think of China? It’s more nuanced than you may imagine – https://theconversation.com/what-do-people-in-the-pacific-really-think-of-china-its-more-nuanced-than-you-may-imagine-212781

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sapha Shibeeb, Senior lecturer in Laboratory Medicine , RMIT University

Blood tests are a common medical procedure, offering valuable insights into a person’s health. Whether you’re getting a routine check-up, diagnosing a medical condition or monitoring treatment progress, understanding the process can make the experience more comfortable and effective.

For the majority of patients, blood collections are a minor inconvenience. Others may feel uneasy and anxious.

Preparation strategies can help get you through the procedure.

How blood is collected

During venipuncture (blood draw), the phlebotomist (blood collector) inserts a needle through the skin into a vein and a small amount of blood is collected and transferred into a test tube.

Tubes are sent to a laboratory, where the blood is analysed. A laboratory technician may count or examine cells and measure the levels of minerals/salts, enzymes, proteins or other substances in the sample. For some tests, blood plasma is separated out by spinning (centrifuging) the sample. Others pass a light beam through the sample to determine the amount of a chemical present.

For collection, the phlebotomist usually selects a vein in the crook of your elbow, where veins are readily accessible. Blood can also be drawn from veins in the wrists, fingers or heels. A tourniquet may be applied to restrict blood flow and make the chosen vein puff out.

Read more:
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Different tests require different preparation

Before a blood test, the GP or health-care provider will give you specific instructions.

These may include fasting for up to 12 hours or temporarily discontinuing certain medications.

It is crucial to follow these guidelines meticulously as they can significantly impact the accuracy of your test results. For example, fasting is required before glucose (blood sugar) and lipids (blood fats) testing because blood sugar and cholesterol levels typically increase after a meal.

If the blood test requires fasting, you will be asked not to eat or drink (no tea, coffee, juice or alcohol) for about eight to 12 hours. Water is allowed but smoking should be avoided because it can increase blood sugar, cholesterol and triglyceride levels.

Generally, you will be asked to fast overnight and have the blood collection done in the morning. Fasting for longer than 15 hours could impact your results, too, by causing dehydration or the release of certain chemicals in the blood.

If you have diabetes, you must consult your doctor prior to fasting because it can increase the risk of hypoglycemia (low blood sugar) in people with type 1 diabetes. Most type 2 diabetics can safely fast before a blood test but there are some exceptions, such as people who are taking certain medications including insulin.

5 tips for a better blood test

To improve your blood collection experience, consider these tips:

1. Hydrate

Drink plenty of water right up to 30 minutes before your appointment. Adequate hydration improves blood flow, making your veins more accessible. Avoid strenuous exercise before your blood test, which can increase some blood parameters (such as liver function) while decreasing others (such as sodium).

2. Loose clothing

Wear clothing that allows easy access to your arms to ensure a less stressful procedure.

3. Manage anxiety

If the sight of blood or the procedure makes you anxious, look away while the needle is inserted and try to keep breathing normally. Distraction can help – virtual reality has been trialled to reduce needle anxiety in children. You could try bringing something to read or music to listen to.

4. Know your risk of fainting

If you’re prone to fainting, make sure to inform the phlebotomist when you arrive. You can have your blood drawn while lying down to minimise the risk of passing out and injury. Hydration helps maintain blood pressure and can also reduce the risk of fainting.

5. Discuss difficult veins

Some people have smaller or scarred veins, often due to repeated punctures, chemotherapy or blood thinner use. In such cases, venipuncture may require multiple attempts. It is important to talk to the phlebotomist if you feel discomfort or significant pain. A finger prick can be performed as an alternative for some tests, such as blood glucose levels. But other comprehensive tests require larger blood volume.

Read more:
What can go wrong in the blood? A brief overview of bleeding, clotting and cancer

Blood draws after lymph node removal

Historically, there were concerns about drawing blood from an arm that had undergone lymph node removal. This was due to the risk of lymphedema, a condition marked by fluid build-up in the affected arm. Lymph nodes may have been removed (lymphadenectomy) for cancer diagnosis or treatment.

However, a 2016 study showed people who’ve had lymph nodes removed are not at a higher risk of developing lymphedema following blood draws, even when drawing blood from the affected arm.

Read more:
What are lymph nodes? And can a massage really improve lymphatic drainage?

After your blood test

The whole blood test procedure usually lasts no more than a few minutes. Afterwards, you may be asked to apply gentle pressure over a clean dressing to aid clotting and reduce swelling.

If you do experience swelling, bruising or pain after a test, follow general first aid procedures to alleviate discomfort. These include applying ice to the site, resting the affected arm and, if needed, taking a pain killer.

It is usually recommended you do not do heavy lifting for a few hours after a blood draw. This is to prevent surges in blood flow that could prevent clotting where the blood was taken.

Sapha Shibeeb 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. Worried about getting a blood test? 5 tips to make them easier (and still accurate) – https://theconversation.com/worried-about-getting-a-blood-test-5-tips-to-make-them-easier-and-still-accurate-216073

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 Resolve poll for Nine newspapers, conducted November 1–5 from a sample of 1,602, gave Labor 35% of the primary vote (down two since October), the Coalition 30% (down one), the Greens 13% (up one), One Nation 7% (steady), the UAP 2% (steady), independents 9% (steady) and others 4% (up two).

Resolve does not give a two party estimate until close to elections, but an estimate based on applying 2022 election preference flows gives Labor a 57–43 lead, unchanged since October. While this poll was published today, it was taken over a week ago, before the November 7 interest rate rise.

Resolve’s polls since the 2022 election have been far better for Labor than other polls. Other recent federal polls have been last week’s Newspoll and Redbridge poll that gave Labor respectively a 52–48 and a 53.5–46.5 lead, a 52–48 Labor lead in Morgan and a 48–46 Labor lead in a late October Essential poll including undecided voters.

While Resolve’s voting intentions are much better for Labor than other recent polls, their leaders’ ratings are not. On Anthony Albanese, 46% thought he was doing a poor job and 39% a good job, for a net approval of -6, down seven points since October. Albanese’s net approval was +27 after the May budget.

Dutton’s net approval improved 11 points since October to -4, his best net approval since the election and the first time in any poll Dutton has had a better net approval than Albanese. Albanese led Dutton as preferred PM by 40–27, a narrowing from 47–25 previously.

The Liberals extended their lead over Labor on economic management from 35–33 to 34–27. On keeping the cost of living low, the Liberals reversed a 31–27 Labor lead in October to take a 29–24 lead. These are the Liberals’ best results on these issues since the election. With 52% naming cost of living as the highest priority for their vote, this issue matters.

Voters are pessimistic about the economic outlook. In the next three months, 50% expect the economy to get worse and just 8% improve. In the next year, it’s 41% get worse and 23% improve.

By 60–19, voters said their income had not kept up with inflation over the past year. By 64–8, they expected inflation to get worse in the near future. By 65–9, they did not think interest rate rises are coming to an end.

Morgan poll and additional questions from other polls

In last week’s Morgan federal poll, conducted October 30 to November 5 from a sample of 1,371, Labor led by 52–48, a one-point gain for the Coalition since the previous week. Primary votes were 35% Coalition, 31.5% Labor, 13.5% Greens and 20% for all Others.

Voters in last week’s Newspoll were also asked whether they approved or disapproved of five measures to help with cost of living.

Subsidising energy bills was most supported at 84% approve, followed by subsidising fuel prices (81%), cutting government spending (77%), giving tax cuts to individuals (73%) and giving cash payments to low-income families (56%).

In additional questions from Redbridge, by 50–36 voters thought the Albanese government was not focused on the right priorities. By 50–30, they thought the Coalition was not ready for government.

Essential had questions on the Melbourne Cup that were released on Cup Day November 7 in The Guardian from the previous national Essential poll in late October.

On interest in the Cup, 11% said they had high interest (down four since 2022), 24% moderate interest (down seven), 27% low interest (up three) and 35% no interest (up seven). On betting, 13% regularly bet on horses and the Cup (down five) and 26% rarely bet on horses but make an exception for the Cup (down three).

On attitudes to the Melbourne Cup, 65% said it is a unique part of Australia’s national identity (down seven), 48% said it promotes unhealthy gambling behaviour (up three) and 36% said it normalises animal cruelty (up two).

US off-year elections

While the United States presidential election is in November 2024, there were some state elections on November 7. I covered the results for The Poll Bludger. Democrats performed well in the headline races, holding the Kentucky governorship and gaining control of the Virginia legislature, while Ohio passed two referendums supported by Democrats.

However, the legislative elections were mediocre for Democrats, as they did worse than Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election. US polls show Biden struggling against Donald Trump, and these elections should not change our opinion of 2024.

NSW Resolve poll: drop for both major parties’ primary votes

A New South Wales state Resolve poll for The Sydney Morning Herald, conducted with the federal October and November Resolve polls from a sample of 1,100, gave Labor 36% of the primary vote (down two since September), the Coalition 32% (down four), the Greens 13% (up four), independents 12% (down one) and others 7% (up three).

No two-party estimate was provided, but The Poll Bludger estimated a 56.5–43.5 Labor lead, a 2.5-point gain for Labor since September. Labor Premier Chris Minns held a 35–13 lead over the Liberals’ Mark Speakman as preferred premier (41–14 in September).

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

– ref. Labor still far ahead in Resolve poll, in contrast to other recent polls – https://theconversation.com/labor-still-far-ahead-in-resolve-poll-in-contrast-to-other-recent-polls-217187

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Garnett, Professor of Conservation and Sustainable Livelihoods, Charles Darwin University

When you went out today, did you see any birds? A galah perhaps, or a crow?

If you did, there’s a decent chance the bird you saw lives nowhere but Australia. Out of about 850 species found in Australia, 45% are “endemic”, which means they’re unique to Australia. The only other country with more endemic species is Indonesia.

Thanks to their wings, birds are the world’s greatest travellers. So why is it that such a high proportion of Australian birds aren’t found anywhere else?

Climate rules

The story starts more than 45 million years ago, when Australia first split from Antarctica and started to head north. It was the events that occurred during this trip – particularly in relation to our climate – that led to the diversity in Australia’s birds today.

When it first set out, Australia was covered in lush rainforest. As it drifted, however, the climate became much drier. Our distinctive flora of grasslands and eucalypt woodlands started to spread across the continent.

But this drying trend wasn’t consistent. Particularly in the last million years, dry periods associated with the ice ages alternated with wetter times, such as the Holocene epoch – which is what we’ve had for the past 10,000 or so years.

But the climate didn’t just vary over thousands of years. It also varied, as we know too well, from year to year. Australia has long been the land of long droughts, sometimes lasting decades, interspersed with flooding rains.

What’s climate got to do with birds?

The diversity in Australia’s birds arose partly because of the list of passengers aboard the good ship of Australia. This included ancient parrots and the ancestors of what were to become the world’s first songbirds: the lyrebirds and scrub-birds. Both groups are highly adaptable and have bigger brains than other birds relative to their size.

However, it was ultimately the climate that gave us so many endemic species. Every time the climate dried, birds that preferred forests were pushed to the damper margins of the continent, where they evolved into separate species. In wetter times, some forests spread and reconnected – but now there were two or more species, not just one.

The same was true for the arid land birds, which got divided when it became extra dry. One ancient group called grasswrens has different species in almost all the isolated blocks of arid habitat across the country.

The parrots and cockatoos also diversified into a huge range of species, from tiny budgerigars to huge black cockatoos.

One-way traffic

But that’s only part of the story. You might have heard of the original supercontinent, Pangaea, which split into Gondwana and Laurasia about 200 million years ago. When Gondwana eventually split, some of the continents moved north and shared their faunas with the regions they ran into in the Northern Hemisphere.

As Africa and India collided with Asia and Europe, the species from the old supercontinents of Gondwana and Laurasia mixed. North and South America also exchanged plants and animals when their land masses joined. Australia was different. And once again, it came down to the climate.

As Australia pushed north, the shifting tectonic plates threw up islands that acted as stepping stones to Asia. These allowed Australian songbirds to head out into the wider world, where they did exceptionally well. In fact, researchers think all the world’s 5,000 or songbird species came from Australia.

The question is, why was this traffic one way? Why didn’t Asian and American birds such as woodpeckers hop on over to Australia? One reason could be that by that time Australia was already full of tough birds that had evolved to cope with a pretty mean climate.

In contrast, the birds from Asia had evolved in fertile rainforests. Any that did disperse south along the chain of islands leading to Australia would have been ill-equipped to cope with its aridity. They would also have had to compete with parrots and songbirds that already knew how to take full advantage of the resources available.

A few did make it, including a lovely set of finches, but they are an exception proving the rule.

Budgies are the best

It’s probably no coincidence the world’s most popular cage birds come from Australia. Cage living isn’t for every bird; most birds are delicate creatures that need constant care if bred in captivity.

In contrast, budgerigars, cockatiels and zebra finches from Australia’s fickle arid zone know they must do what it takes while the going’s good, because the next El Niño may start next week. And it helps if you can cope with temperatures that vary from -10°C to more than 40°C.

Australia also shares many bird species with New Guinea. This isn’t surprising, given we’re on the same continental plate.

The Torres Strait is so shallow that drops in sea levels during an ice age would form a land bridge that even a cassowary could walk across (which is why cassowaries are shared with New Guinea).

For most other Australian birds found elsewhere, such as shorebirds and seabirds, water is no barrier.

But most of our birds are ours alone. Ours to enjoy and ours to care for – because they have no other home.

Read more:
Listen to the Albert’s lyrebird: the best performer you’ve never heard of

Stephen Garnett receives funding from the Australian Research Council. I am an active member of BirdLife Australia.

– ref. Australia has more native bird species than almost anywhere else. What led to this explosion of diversity? – https://theconversation.com/australia-has-more-native-bird-species-than-almost-anywhere-else-what-led-to-this-explosion-of-diversity-215809

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Kenny, Professor, Australian Studies Institute, Australian National University

Halfway through the 47th federal parliament, we can begin cautiously to gauge the potential historical significance of the “teal” independents.

Contemporaneous analysis, of course, can be problematic but it can also direct attention to emergent dynamics in the way politics operates in Australia. This includes how well voters are represented, politico-cultural shifts and the influence on how laws are made.

The next election will tell us if the 2022 infusion of these independents marked an electoral realignment of longer-term substance or merely a short-term reaction to circumstances. In other words, was it a movement or a moment?

There are three key issues that will help answer this question.

First, many or all of the new crossbench MPs could be defeated, casting their 2022 victories as an aberration driven largely by the unpopularity of the Morrison government rather than by something deep and structural.

Alternatively, they may all be returned, consolidating their respective support locally.

A third outcome builds on the second and would see their ranks swell in 2025, confirming a trend of voter disillusionment with the major parties.

In the second option, Australia would have been politically transformed. In the third, that transformation could be regarded as highly significant, heralding an era of minority governments becoming the most common election result.

The pre-conditions of such a change are already there. The crossbench in the House of Representatives now stands at 16 – a record since the two-party era settled in after the first dozen years of the federation.

Read more:
Is this the end of the two-party system in Australia? The Greens, teals and others shock the major parties

Given how finely balanced the political contest appears halfway into this term, a hung parliament looms as more than a mere possibility. Outside of a huge government scandal, a parliamentary majority for the Coalition seems unattainable – that is, without unseating the teals and making other gains. More on that in a moment.

Labor is in a stronger position as the incumbent government, but is hardly ascendant. It confronts a serious cost-of-living crisis that has the potential to cause serious voter unhappiness. While the most recent Newspoll reported a two-party-preferred result of 52-48 in favour of the Albanese government, there is some suggestion the government’s post-election popularity may have topped out and could decline from here.

With a record-low 32.6% primary vote delivering a slender two-seat majority, (a third was gained at the Aston byelection) Labor has little ground to give. The “majors” appear to be managing their prospects in a climate of declining brand loyalty.

For the independents, the opposite may be true. This stark reality is what made the federal election in May 2022 feel like a watershed.

In 2022, teals picked up six seats (Curtin, Goldstein, Kooyong, Mackellar, North Sydney, and Wentworth), adding to two formerly safe Liberal seats (Indi and Warringah)that community independents gained in 2019 and successfully defended in 2022.

It is now plausible to conceive of the “teals” as a loose grouping of eight centrist independents occupying once-safe Liberal seats. Important to that conception also is that all are female and that, on any issue, not all eight automatically align.

Election 2022 was also a watershed because the Australian Greens quadrupled their lower house holdings with three upset wins in Queensland, a state where no “teals” were running.

The future of these Greens seats is an important factor to add into considerations.
As independents, the teals cannot ensure legislative change or drive through private members’ bills to a final vote. However, they have proved influential in raising issues, improving legislation and, in some cases, in stiffening government resolve.

This was the case with the government’s emissions reduction legislation. The Greens’ public pressure succeeded in convincing Labor to make its 2030 emissions reduction target of 43% a floor rather than a ceiling. This was a significant change given Labor’s timidity around the electoral politics of emissions.

The government’s National Anti-Corruption Commission – which eventually passed with Coalition support – was also a product in part of the moral leadership from Indi independent Helen Haines. Her private member’s bill ultimately provided the basis of the government’s formula.

Perhaps the biggest macro-political change wrought by the teals has been in the conduct of politics and parliamentary behaviour. This can be difficult to measure, but most observers I’ve spoken to concede the overall tone of parliament has improved in this term, due in no small part to the presence and the articulate advocacy of female MPs, primarily the teals.

Government ministers treat their questions in the House with more respect and civility than was the standard response to crossbenchers under previous governments, most pointedly during the former Morrison period.

Another strength of the teal MPs is their combination of active local representation and clear leadership. This was evident in the referendum. Australia may have rejected the proposed Voice to Parliament by 60% to 40%, but in the 2022 teal seats, where the majority of constituents had been life-long Liberal voters until recently, the Voice registered majority support.

Read more:
Voice to Parliament referendum has been heavily defeated nationally and in all states

For these voters, it appears it was the campaigning of the new MP that was persuasive, rather than the Liberal-National Coalition’s bellicose opposition to the proposal.

Among the enlarged group of eight, it was only in the “pre-teal” seat of Indi, held by Haines, that the proposal was rejected. This result is probably explained by the electorate’s status as “rural” according to the Australian Electoral Commission.

Beyond the voter rejection of populist and divisive politics in these inner-urban electorates, the immediate significance of the “yes” vote points to another hurdle for the Liberal Party if it is to reclaim them.

Take the example of Goldstein in Victoria, where independent MP Zoe Daniel ran a vigorous local campaign involving 600 volunteers, 285 Voice-related local events and the specific strategic targeting of some 10,000 homes for doorknocking.

Organised, engaged, locally driven but professional campaigning such as this is beyond even the major parties these days. Along with socio-economic factors, this may be a key reason the teals did better for the Voice than many pro-Voice Labor MPs, whose constituents went decidedly the other way.

More worrying for the Liberals is that the teals have had the benefit now of running a mid-term electorate-wide local campaign in which they could hone their organisational capabilities, connect meaningfully with their constituents outside of an election context, and energise their supporters.

With a well-resourced ground game like that, based on the kind of responsive local representation the established parties more often talk about than actively deliver, the teals may prove supremely hard to dislodge.

Mark Kenny 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. Halfway through their term, the ‘teal’ MPs look here to stay – and may present a huge challenge in 2025 – https://theconversation.com/halfway-through-their-term-the-teal-mps-look-here-to-stay-and-may-present-a-huge-challenge-in-2025-216528

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jennifer Lacy-Nichols, Research fellow, The University of Melbourne

Alcohol, tobacco, food and gambling industries are among those that lobby government ministers and their advisors to help shape public policy.

But when we looked for details of who’s lobbying whom in Australia, we found government lobbyist registers largely left us in the dark.

In our recently published research, we found these registers were time-consuming to navigate and not detailed enough. The registers couldn’t give us a comprehensive picture of who’s lobbying whom, and how often. Most registers weren’t set up to do so.

We’re concerned about this lack of transparency and the potential for business interests to have undue influence over health policies. This has the potential to diminish trust in government, a risk to democracy.

Read more:
It’s not just tax. How PwC, KPMG and other consultants risk influencing public health too

Why are we concerned about lobbying?

In Australia, anyone can lobby governments and has a right to represent their views. It’s an important part of the democratic process. Yet not everyone has fair access to decision makers.

Some individuals and businesses have outsized and undue influence on government decision making. Lobbying is one form of such influence.

For instance, in the past ten years or so, the alcohol industry has lobbied to delay implementation of pregnancy warning labels.

The gambling industry, which has funnelled millions of dollars into both major political parties, has lobbied to weaken gambling regulations.

The tobacco industry sued the Australian government for its plain packaging laws, after concerted lobbying had failed to derail plans to introduce them. While the lawsuit was unsuccessful, this has deterred other governments from implementing similar laws.

Read more:
Why businesses want the ear of government and are willing to pay for it

A deep dive into lobbyist registers

Understanding who is seeing which government ministers or their advisors and what they are meeting about is the first step towards protecting against undue political influence and fostering political integrity.

So we decided to look at lobbyist registers to see what they tell us. These registers are like digital phone books, with information about lobbyists. The aim of these registers is to guard against undue or unethical political influence.

Last year, we systematically extracted information from all lobbyist registers in Australia. All jurisdictions, except for the Northern Territory, have one. We:

• compared the disclosure requirements of Australian with international registers

• mapped the population of lobby firms, lobbyists and clients that were active in each jurisdiction

• identified which lobby firms represented tobacco, alcohol, gambling and ultra-processed food organisations.

Here’s what we found

Compared to international lobbying registers, Australian registers provided little information. In the United States, for instance, companies must disclose how much money they spend on lobbying.

Only four jurisdictions (federal, Australian Capital Territory, Victoria and Queensland) provided information about whether a lobbyist had previously worked in government. We need to know this to gauge whether there are any conflicts of interest.

Of the registers that provided this information, few provided enough detail to identify the specific position or the exact date a lobbyist left government. Of particular concern, 96 lobbyists said they both had and had not worked in government, raising questions about oversight of these registers.

Read more:
Politicians who become lobbyists can be bad for Australians’ health

Which industry hired the most lobby firms?

Of the four industries we explored, gambling organisations hired the most lobby firms, followed by food, alcohol and tobacco.

Tobacco companies hired lobby firms in six jurisdictions, potentially contravening Article 5.3 of the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, which warns against the tobacco industry lobbying governments.

Most registers are a directory of lobbyists rather than their activities. So, as most registers did not require disclosure of lobbying activities, it is unclear what service the firms provided for the tobacco industry.

Read more:
We worked out how many tobacco lobbyists end up in government, and vice versa. It’s a lot

What’s missing?

Registers only provide information about “third party” lobbyists that work for professional lobby firms. This excludes many lobbyists working in Australia, such as those working directly for tobacco or alcohol companies or industry associations. In practice, this means a great deal of lobbying is hidden from the public.

Except for Queensland, registers did not provide a record of lobbyist meetings or contact with government officials. This information is important to understand who meets whom, and why.

The lobbyist registers hold no information about how much money is spent on, or received for, lobbying activities.

Lastly, we cannot see which individual lobbyists worked for which client. For firms that represent organisations with different interests, this raises questions about potential conflicts of interest.

Greater transparency and oversight needed

In the past year, Australia has created the National Anti-Corruption Commission and recommendations about reforming political donations. Lobbying reform is the next logical step to ensure an integrated and coherent approach to political integrity.

The Australian government, like others, has a lobbying code of conduct with rules about ethical behaviour. It also stipulates that former members of government are not allowed to work as lobbyists for a “cooling off period” of 12 or 18 months (depending on where someone worked in government).

However, in the lobbying code, “lobbyist” is only understood as those working for third-party firms (such as the ones we analysed). It places no restrictions on ministers or government officials taking jobs with companies they used to regulate, or the consulting sector. Expanding the definition to include all forms of lobbying would help close this loophole.

We also need better enforcement of the rules around lobbying with sanctions and fines imposed to improve compliance.

Read more:
The revolving door: why politicians become lobbyists, and lobbyists become politicians

Jennifer Lacy-Nichols receives funding from the Victorian Health Promotion Foundation. She is a member of the People’s Health Movement, Healthy Food Systems Australia and the expert advisory group on commercial determinants of health for the World Health Organization. The findings of the research reported in this article, and the views expressed, are hers alone and not necessarily those of the above organisations.

Katherine Cullerton receives funding from the NHMRC and the Children’s Health Foundation. She is on the executive of the Food and Nutrition Special Interest Group for the Public Health Association of Australia.

– ref. Who’s lobbying whom? When it comes to alcohol, tobacco, food and gambling firms, we’re in the dark – https://theconversation.com/whos-lobbying-whom-when-it-comes-to-alcohol-tobacco-food-and-gambling-firms-were-in-the-dark-216835

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Deborah Lau, Ending Plastic Waste Mission Director, CSIRO

After years of discussion, international negotiations on a global plastics treaty resume this week in Nairobi, Kenya, at the UN Environment Programme headquarters.

The third session of the UN Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee on Plastic Pollution will take place from today until Sunday November 19.

The committee’s goal is to develop a legally binding agreement, finalised in 2024, to address the full life cycle of plastics – including their production, design and disposal.

Involving 175 nations, the treaty aims to transform plastic waste management, paving the way for new technologies and industries.

The problem of plastic pollution is too big for any one nation to handle. That’s why we need a global approach. It’s worked before with the ozone layer and acid rain and it can work again with plastic.

Read more:
Plastic waste treaty: expert Q&A on the promise of a global agreement to reduce pollution

How we repaired the ozone layer

At CSIRO I lead the Ending Plastic Waste Mission, which aims to change the way we make, use, recycle and dispose of plastic. Our work aligns with the aims of the proposed UN plastic treaty, so I have been following the negotiations closely.

Multilateral agreements have helped create significant change in the past. The Montreal Protocol shaped environmental and industrial landscapes globally. Enacted in 1987, the protocol’s objective was to phase out substances causing ozone depletion.

The protocol is widely recognised for its global ratification – everyone got on board. And countries continued to adhere to the changes. This ongoing work has not only contributed to the tangible recovery of the ozone layer, but also prevented millions of potential cases of skin cancers and cataracts.

The protocol also sparked chemical industry innovation. Industries had to transition away from ozone-depleting substances such as chlorofluorocarbons or CFCs to more environmentally friendly alternatives.

The earliest replacements – hydrofluorocarbons or HFCs – were quickly recognised as a potent greenhouse gas, resulting in the 2016 Kigali Amendment to the protocol to phase them out too and use climate-friendly alternatives. As a result of this global process, we now have safer chemicals for refrigeration and air conditioning.

Read more:
Saving the ozone layer: why the Montreal Protocol worked

Global legislation can deliver real change

Clean air legislation is another example. Acid rain became a prominent environmental concern in the latter half of the 20th century. It happens when sulphur dioxide (SO₂) and nitrogen oxides are released into the atmosphere, typically from industrial processes and the burning of fossil fuels.

Once in the atmosphere, these pollutants react with water vapour to form sulphuric acid and nitric acid. As they fall to the ground mixed with rain or snow, the high acidity harms aquatic ecosystems, forests and even human-made structures.

In response, various countries enacted clean air legislation. For instance, the United States Clean Air Act of 1963, amended several times in the following decades, motivated change in industrial and automotive sectors.

The laws forced industries to transition to cleaner technologies and invest in advanced pollution-control equipment. This paved the way for a widespread adoption of catalytic converters and more fuel-efficient engines.

Read more:
Air pollution: your exposure and health risk could depend on your class, ethnicity or gender

How multilateral agreements can force change

Regulatory tools such as multilateral agreements introduce restrictions. Instead of doing business as usual, these restrictions then foster cleaner, more sustainable practices. They blend environmental responsibility with business imperatives. As a result, the regulatory changes open up new market opportunities.

Additionally, global collaborations driven by these agreements often encourage the transfer of technologies across borders. This speeds up the adoption of cleaner technologies.

Multilateral environmental agreements can drive technological progress and industrial innovation. By establishing high standards and fostering global collaboration, these agreements blend environmental stewardship with industrial evolution.

Read more:
Container deposit schemes reduce rubbish on our beaches. Here’s how we proved it

Now for the UN plastic treaty

The global plastic treaty will address the pervasive challenge of plastic pollution, which affects our oceans, marine life and carbon footprint. It is expected to usher in transformative regulations on waste management, reduce the use of single-use plastics and advocate for the circular economy principles of eliminating waste and keeping materials circulating in use.

We are already seeing a shift in plastics manufacturing towards more sustainable, biodegradable, or recyclable plastics. Industries are developing more circular business models that emphasise the reuse and recycling of products and reducing waste.

To reduce single-use plastics, the packaging industry is transitioning towards reduction, reuse and recyclability. Advanced recycling technologies and better bio-derived plastics are expected to emerge as industry standards.

The multilateral treaty and its implementation will help to reduce problematic and unnecessary plastics. It will also speed up the removal of harmful chemicals from product supply chains.

The UN plastic treaty is set to be finalised in 2024. If we can get a global agreement on this, we have a real opportunity to significantly reduce plastic waste for a sustainable future.

Read more:
Here’s how the new global treaty on plastic pollution can help solve this crisis

CSIRO’s Ending Plastic Waste Mission is funded through contributions by CSIRO, industry, government, university, and other organisations to develop cutting-edge science and innovation to tackle plastic waste.

– ref. We need a global treaty to solve plastic pollution – acid rain and ozone depletion show us why – https://theconversation.com/we-need-a-global-treaty-to-solve-plastic-pollution-acid-rain-and-ozone-depletion-show-us-why-207622

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Trevor Mazzucchelli, Associate professor, Curtin University

Parents may be familiar with this scenario: a child is well behaved at school and polite to their teachers but has a meltdown at home in the afternoon.

Or they say please and thank you at a friend’s house but are rude with their family. They follow the rules if they visit a neighbour but have to be constantly reminded about not slamming doors and raiding the pantry at home.

Why is this so? And is there anything you can do about it?

Children learn early their behaviour matters

Even well behaved children misbehave from time to time.

When young children get tired, such as after a play date or a long day at daycare or school, they can become irritable and disruptive. Children are also naturally curious and may misbehave sometimes just to see what happens.

However, some children seem to behave consistently worse at home than with other people. To understand this phenomenon, it’s necessary to understand why children behave the way they do.

From the very beginning, a child’s behaviour produces results or outcomes. For example, babies soon learn crying is a very effective way of signalling they are in distress. Parents quickly learn to change a wet nappy or feed their infant when they cry. A smile often results in an adult smiling back, cooing or cuddling the baby.

So children quickly realise their behaviour can be an effective way of controlling the actions of others.

The bad behaviour pay-off

Children’s behaviour, whether desirable or undesirable, is influenced by the consequences it produces.

Sometimes, the reactions of parents or siblings can accidentally reward misbehaviour, and children learn undesirable behaviour has a payoff.

For example, children may learn that when they don’t do as they’re told, they get extra attention from their parents. This attention may be reasoning, discussing, arguing, nagging or repeating instructions over and over. It may not be seen as a “reward” to adults, but children are getting more attention from mum or dad.

Children may also learn when they whine and complain for an electronic device they are more likely to get it.

Unfortunately, in this scenario, the child is rewarded for whining and the parent is rewarded for giving them the iPad because it stops a highly irritating noise (at least in the short term). As both the child and the parent are rewarded, this interaction is likely to occur again.

Read more:
What the *#@%?! How to respond when your child swears

Why are kids better at school?

When children are with less familiar people, they do not know how others will respond or what behaviour will result in a payoff. In these circumstances it is common for there to be less undesirable behaviour, at least temporarily.

Children can also behave better at school than at home because teachers have very good systems in place. Children are kept busy with a variety of engaging activities, expectations of children’s behaviour are clear, and the payoff for desirable behaviour is reliable. Teachers are well practised at recognising and rewarding desirable behaviour through attention, praise and sometimes token reward systems.

Children also tend to imitate their peers’ behaviour, particularly if they see it gets results, such as attention from the teacher or access to prized activities.

How can parents help kids to behave better at home?

The good news is if children behave well in one setting, we know they are capable of doing the same at home.

Parents can value children’s need to relax at home while still expecting them to be polite and follow rules. By making some small changes, it’s usually possible to see much improved behaviour.

Here are some practical things parents can do:

• establish routines. Have a routine for when your child gets home from school or outings. This might include allowing your child to unwind and relax, giving them a healthy snack, and then setting them up with an engaging activity. Routines make it easier for everyone to transition from one setting to another. It is even better if the routine includes activities – such as colouring-in or a run around outside – that are calming or burn off energy.

• set simple house rules. Have a few simple rules that clearly communicate to your child how you expect them to behave. For example: “use an inside voice” or “keep the toys on the floor”.

• notice good behaviour. Let your child know when they have done the right thing. Do this by describing what you are pleased with (“you two are sharing the toy so nicely”). This will make it more likely the behaviour will occur again.

• spend small amounts of time with your child regularly. This is especially important when your child approaches you for help or attention. It shows you’re there for them and they do not need to become louder or act out to get your attention. Spending small amounts of time – as little as one or two minutes – often throughout the day is a powerful way of strengthening your relationship with your child and preventing problem behaviour.

• have realistic expectations. Change is easier if you focus on one or two goals at a time. Also, when striving to improve behaviour, expect occasional setbacks. No child (or parent) is perfect!

Read more:
Parents make mistakes. So what does ‘good enough parenting’ look like?

Trevor Mazzucchelli is a co-author of Stepping Stones Triple P – Positive Parenting Program and a consultant to Triple P International. The Parenting and Family Support Centre is partly funded by royalties stemming from published resources of the Triple P – Positive Parenting Program, which is developed and owned by The University of Queensland (UQ). Royalties are also distributed to the Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences at UQ and contributory authors of published Triple P resources. Triple P International (TPI) Pty Ltd is a private company licensed by UniQuest Pty Ltd on behalf of UQ, to publish and disseminate Triple P worldwide. He has no share or ownership of TPI, but has received and may in the future receive royalties and/or consultancy fees from TPI. TPI had no involvement in writing of this article.

– ref. Why are my kids good around other people and then badly behaved with me? – https://theconversation.com/why-are-my-kids-good-around-other-people-and-then-badly-behaved-with-me-217279

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gilberto Roque, Lecturer, Filmmaker and Cinematographer, School of Creative Arts, University of Southern Queensland

How does one successfully navigate obstacles such as extreme weather, a tight deadline and a spontaneous shot list in a foreign country as a solo cinematographer on a 360 project?

In December 2019 I was in a group of Griffith Film School master’s degree students who travelled to Hungary and Latvia to create an immersive short documentary film using 360 virtual reality (VR) technology.

Sorella’s Story, written and directed by Peter Hegedus, associate professor and filmmaker at Griffith University, showcases re-enactments based on photos of atrocities committed against Jewish people during the Holocaust in Latvia.

The shot schedule was ambitious. We had five exterior scenes to be shot in only a few hours because of the limited daylight. We had a crew of about ten people.

I was director of photography and the only cameraperson. A daunting task in any filmmaking situation, it was made tenfold more challenging by being a 360 project that no one on the crew had experience working with.

Read more:
The air we breathe: how I have been observing atmospheric change through art and science

New technology brings new challenges

Viewed through virtual reality lenses, 360-degree films offer the viewer an opportunity to watch a video from all angles.

Unlike traditional cameras with a single lens, our 360 camera looks like a soccer ball, with six small lenses placed throughout the body.

It was a new technology for me and I was curious to see how it was going to change our approach. For example, the six lenses film simultaneously, so the operator and crew need to ensure we have a safe spot to hide to avoid being caught in the frame.

The distance actors appear from the lens is especially important in 360 filming. This is because the images are “stitched” together in post-production. If the subjects are too close to the lenses, the images can’t be combined to create the appearance of a single shot.

After our test shoots, we gave actors marks to hit in and out of frames and the maximum and minimum distances they could be from the camera. These modifications enabled us to capture the action from all 360 angles.

We needed precise blocking and rehearsed co-ordination between actors and crew to capture the entire scene. Every time a scene was recorded, the director would call action, and the sound and camera crew would have a few seconds to run and hide out of frame. Only then would the actors begin to move.

360 inherently brings with it technical challenges, but Sorella’s Story had the compounding issues of weather, a remote location and myself as a cinematographer without a crew and limited time to learn the technology.

Shooting plan

Prior to filming a conventional project, directors and cinematographers break down the script into a shot list – a written breakdown of every shot that will be undertaken – and storyboard, visually symbolising those shots through illustrations or sketches.

Both tools help the filmmaking process and ensure the creative vision is realised on set.

Storyboards are less important in 360: you aren’t considering how different angles will be used in a shoot, and there is much more spontaneity in the actors’ movement. There is so much action to capture at once storyboards would just confuse the issue.

Instead, a shot list and script were followed in some moments, but were used as only a guide.

Obstacles and problem-solving

December is one of the coldest months of the year in Budapest, Hungary, with average temperatures of no more than 1°C. At this time of year the days are short, the nights are long, and icy weather conditions are expected. Those conditions brought another challenge: the battery life of electronic devices.

I quickly learned cold weather drains the battery. I tried to reduce cold exposure on the camera by covering the camera with my beanie, with limited success. Battery life that was usually two hours was down to 20 minutes.

Because of the limited budget, we had only two batteries for each device. Ideally, we would have one battery in the camera and the other plugged into the charger.

However, we had no power supply on set. Every time a battery ran out it would be 10 minutes to the nearest power supply, plus at least 30 minutes to recharge.

Shooting in this cold climate, ensuring I was invisible on set and maintaining the delicate balance of the distance of actors from the camera demanded a complete re-evaluation of my filmmaking approach. It forced me to be agile in my workflow and engage in real-time problem-solving.

Despite the inherent challenges, working on this project provided me with invaluable experience in this cutting-edge technology. With the current interest in immersive experiences, 360 cinematography has a part to play in cinema’s future.

Read more:
Google Earth is an illusion: how I am using art to explore the problematic nature of western maps and the myth of ‘terra nullius’

Gilberto Roque was a master’s student at Griffith Film School when working on Sorella’s Story.

– ref. A 360 camera, 1℃ weather and an ambitious VR documentary: what I learnt as cinematographer on Sorella’s Story – https://theconversation.com/a-360-camera-1-weather-and-an-ambitious-vr-documentary-what-i-learnt-as-cinematographer-on-sorellas-story-212699

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Trish Keeper, Associate professor in Commercial Law, School of Accounting and Commercial Law, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington

When independent supermarket startup Supie went bust last month, the company’s 120 employees were told they wouldn’t be paid for their last two weeks of work, or receive any of their owed annual leave pay.

The subsequent appointment of voluntary administrators again highlighted New Zealand’s limited protection for employees when their employer becomes insolvent.

Supie’s employees are not the first, nor will they be the last, to lose out when their employer goes under. In 2019, staff at restaurant chain Wagamama were owed NZ$50,000 when the company went into liquidation.

In both cases, the wages were eventually paid out by someone outside the company. In the case of Wagamama, by the franchise head office in the United Kingdom. Supie staff received their wages from an anonymous donor.

While the loss of money for any creditor is difficult, the double impact of losing wages as well as a job is particularly hard for employees.

So, what is it in New Zealand’s current legislation that puts employees in this difficult situation? And what can be done to protect staff when businesses fail?

The current pecking order

In terms of corporate insolvencies, there are three options: voluntary administration, receivership and liquidation.

Liquidations are the most common form of corporate insolvency process. When this happens, the company ceases to trade and a liquidator is appointed.

Under the Companies Act 1993, the liquidator’s role is to sell the company assets to repay unsecured creditors. In practice, only those assets not under a prior legal claim by one or more of the company’s creditors (for example, collateral used to secure a bank loan) are available to the liquidator to sell.

Read more:
Failed NZ businesses leave a trail of destruction. Here are 3 things Inland Revenue could do to minimise damage

Once a liquidator has sold the company’s remaining assets, the Companies Act sets the order in which the debts are to be paid.

Preferential claims are to be paid before the claims of other unsecured creditors. Employees are considered preferential creditors.

There are five classes of preferential creditors in the Companies Act. Costs relating to the liquidation, including the liquidators’ fees, are ranked first, followed by the payment of unpaid wages and specified other amounts owed to employees.

Accordingly, amounts owed to employees are paid out after liquidation costs have been sorted – and only if there is any money left from the failed business. There is also a cap on what each employee can claim – currently set at $25,480 –regardless of what they are owed.

In practice, this means there is no guarantee employees will receive their unpaid wages when a business fails.

It all depends on whether there is enough money after secured creditors have accessed the assets used as collateral and the liquidator has paid their own fees. And this is often not the case.

Liquidators can take company directors to court for breaching their duties, such as recklessly trading. But this sort of action takes time, and there is no guarantee it will increase the amount of money available to unpaid staff. It took a decade for liquidators to secure a final judgement against the four directors of failed construction company Mainzeal.

Law changes could protect workers

New Zealand’s approach to protecting workers compares badly to other countries, where government schemes bolster the protections for unpaid employee debts. Such schemes operate alongside the preferential creditor rules in corporate law.

For example, in the Australian Corporations Act 2001, unpaid wages, superannuation contributions and certain other payments owed to employees are classed as preferential debts.

However, there is also a nationally-funded scheme that operates as a safety net for employees, which allows them to claim up to 13 weeks of unpaid wages, annual leave and other entitlements.

After the scheme makes a payment to employees, it then takes the employees’ place as a preferential creditor in the liquidation. A similar scheme operates in the UK.

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

Other options adopted in some countries include granting employee claims (capped or uncapped) “super-priority” status, which means they are paid before secured and other unsecured debts.

The previous New Zealand government, with support from Business New Zealand and the Council of Trade Unions, proposed introducing a social insurance scheme.

This would have paid up to seven months of wages at 80% of salary for most workers, funded through employee and employer contributions. But Labour eventually put the policy on ice, and the National Party has opposed such a scheme.

Because the government doesn’t collect the data, it is hard to say how many employees receive all or part of the amounts owing to them as preferential creditors when the company they work for fails.

But what is clear is that the current approach of labelling New Zealand workers privileged creditors does not guarantee they will see any money if their employers go into liquidation. The situation would be improved if New Zealand followed the best overseas examples.

Trish Keeper 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. NZ workers have few protections if their employer goes bust – fixing the Companies Act would help – https://theconversation.com/nz-workers-have-few-protections-if-their-employer-goes-bust-fixing-the-companies-act-would-help-216811

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

Jewish organisations have criticised Foreign Minister Penny Wong over her latest comments on the Israel-Gaza conflict, while Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles has said Jewish Australians “have never felt less safe”.

As pro-Palestinian demonstrations continued in the major Australian cities at the weekend, Wong on Sunday called on Israel to “cease the attacking of hospitals” in Gaza.

She said steps towards a ceasefire were needed but it could not be one-sided. “We know that Hamas is still holding hostages and we know that a ceasefire must be agreed between the parties,” she told the ABC.

“But we can also say that Israel should do everything it can to observe international humanitarian law. We have seen a harrowing number of civilians, including children, killed. This has to end. We are particularly concerned with what is happening with medical facilities.

“International humanitarian law does require the protection of hospitals, of patients and of medical staff. We do call on Israel to cease the attacking of hospitals,” Wong said.

“We understand the argument that Hamas has burrowed into civilian infrastructure, but […] the international community, looking at what’s occurring at hospitals, would say to Israel, these are facilities protected under international law and we want you to do so.”

Wong’s remarks follow mounting international pressure for a ceasefire and a strong call from French President Macron for Israel to stop bombing Gaza.

But in a joint statement late Sunday the Zionist Federation of Australia and the Executive Council of Australian Jewry said they were “highly concerned” at Wong’s comments.

“The Foreign Minister stated that ‘we all want to take the next steps towards a ceasefire’, while noting that no ceasefire could be ‘one-sided’. But unless and until Hamas is removed from power, a ceasefire will inevitably further endanger Israel,” the statement said.

In relation to her call for hospital attacks to cease, the statement said under the Geneva Convention hospitals lost their protection if used for military purposes – as Hamas did.

“The libel that any Israeli attack on Gazan hospitals from which Hamas operates would amount to war crimes only serve to demonise the state of Israel and its supporters. These libels are central to Hamas’
objectives […] and are reverberating across the world in a new wave of antisemitism,”the statement said.

It said the Australian government “should not be lending any credibility to this false and harmful narrative.”

Amid rising fears about the division in Austrlaia the conflict is inflaming, Marles condemned Friday’s demonstration in the Melbourne suburb of Caulfield.

He told Sky the demonstration “on behalf of Palestine in the heart of the Jewish community was unacceptable.”

Late Friday, pro-Palestinian and pro-Israel supporters clashed, and a nearby synagogue was evacuated.

The incident followed a fire at a burger shop owned by a man of Palestinian heritage, although police did not believe the fire was related to the man’s attendance at an earlier pro-Palestinian rally. Organisers, Free Palestine Melbourne, apologised for using an area near the synagogue.

Marles told Sky:“I think it’s fair to say that right now Jewish Australians have never felt less safe, and that is a real problem and we need to be moving to fix that. Clearly, anti-Semitism doesn’t have a place in our country and it’s very important that we are able, no matter what is happening elsewhere in the world, to maintain social cohesion here in Australia.

“Clearly people have a right to protest what’s happening in the Middle East. What’s happening in the Middle East is an unfolding tragedy. And people have the right to put pressure on their country’s government, on us, but there shouldn’t be demonstrations which are aimed at other members of the community. And Jewish Australians, as all Australians, clearly have a right to feel safe within their country.”

Australia has voted for a UNESCO resolution, drafted by Arab countries, that invites the governing bodies of relevant UNESCO conventions and programs “to assess the deteriorating situation in Gaza and develop measures to address its repercussions across UNESCO fields of competence”.

But Australia’s ambassador to UNESCO, Megan Anderson, recorded that despite its support, Australia believed the resolution incomplete because it did not make reference to the Hamas October 7 attack.

The motion passed 96 to 8 with 33 abstentions, with the United States voting against.

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. Jewish groups ‘highly concerned’ at Wong’s Middle East comments, as Marles says Australian Jews don’t feel safe – https://theconversation.com/jewish-groups-highly-concerned-at-wongs-middle-east-comments-as-marles-says-australian-jews-dont-feel-safe-217522

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jane McAdam, Scientia Professor and Director of the Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law, UNSW Sydney

For many years, I have been calling for the Australian government – along with other governments – to play its part in assisting Pacific communities affected by the adverse impacts of climate change and disasters.

Our region is already experiencing some of the most drastic effects of climate change. Pacific communities are showing enormous innovation and resilience in the face of these challenges, but as a matter of international solidarity and climate justice, additional support and cooperation is needed.

One way of providing assistance is by creating migration pathways for people who wish to move. Australia’s recent Pacific Engagement Visa is one such example – enabling up to 3,000 workers and their families from the Pacific and Timor-Leste to migrate permanently to Australia each year.

In addition, the new announcement this week of a Australia–Tuvalu Falepili Union Treaty is groundbreaking. Under this deal, Australia will provide migration pathways for people from Tuvalu facing the existential threat of climate change. It is the world’s first bilateral agreement on climate mobility.

How the new visa program will work

Based on the principles of “neighbourliness, care and mutual respect”, the treaty is a result of a request by Tuvalu for Australia to support and assist its efforts on climate change, security and human mobility.

According to Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, “developed nations have a responsibility to provide assistance” to countries like Tuvalu that are deeply impacted by climate change.

Under the treaty, Australia will implement a special visa arrangement to allow Tuvaluans to work, study and live in Australia. This is not a refugee visa, but rather will allow up to 280 Tuvaluans (from a population of around 11,200) to migrate to Australia each year – presumably on a permanent basis.

They will be able to access Australian education, health care, and income and family support on arrival. This is a welcome development that will provide people with both legal and psychological security. Despite longstanding “promises” that Australia would not sit by as disasters continue to affect the Pacific, this program provides the long-awaited security that many have wanted.

Historically, most Pacific visa programs in Australia (and the region) have been tied to labour mobility. And none has specifically referenced climate change as a driving rationale. In contrast, the measures announced this week are deliberately framed in the context of climate change and – furthermore – are not tied purely to work.

Read more:
Both the US and Australia are adamant the Pacific “matters”. But only one is really moving the dial

Indeed, it remains to be seen just how far the special visas may extend. Beyond “work” and “study”, the treaty says Tuvaluans can also come to Australia to “live”. This implies the visa may potentially provide a humanitarian pathway for people who want – or need – to move. This would include older people, who would not qualify for existing Pacific labour migration programs.

Despite the threats posed by climate change, however, most Pacific peoples do not want to leave their homes. Being dislocated from home is one of the greatest forms of cultural, social and economic loss people can suffer. It can often lead to inter-generational trauma.

The treaty itself recognises Tuvaluans’ “deep, ancestral connections to land and sea”, and pledges Australia will work with Tuvalu to help people “stay in their homes with safety and dignity”. At the same time, people want to know they have safe options to move if they need to – with dignity and choice.

How novel is the new treaty?

While there are other programs in the Pacific that facilitate mobility, this is the first to do so specifically in the context of climate change. It also operates differently from arrangements implemented by New Zealand and the United States.

As part of the “realm” of New Zealand, for instance, people from the countries of Niue, Tokelau and Cook Islands are considered New Zealand citizens, so they have the right to move there if they wish.

New Zealand has also long had its “Pacific Access” visa category and the Samoa quota resident visa, which together enable around 2,400 people to move from the Pacific to New Zealand on a permanent basis each year.

The United States, meanwhile, has compacts of free association with the Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia and Palau, which enable eligible citizens to enter the US visa-free and live and work there indefinitely. However, those migrants do not have access to many government benefits and can easily fall through the cracks.

Last year, Argentina announced a special humanitarian visa program for people displaced from 23 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean due to disasters. Unlike the Australia–Tuvalu treaty, which allows for migration in anticipation of climate-related disasters, access to the Argentinian program is only available after displacement has occurred. As yet, no one has used the scheme.

For at least two decades, Pacific governments have made perennial requests for special visa pathways or relocation to Australia for their citizens.

In 2019, former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd proposed that Australia accept people from Tuvalu and other Pacific countries on account of projected climate impacts – but in exchange for “their territorial seas, their vast exclusive economic zones, including the preservation of their precious fisheries reserves”.

He was shot down by the then-prime minister of Tuvalu, Enele Sopoaga, who labelled it “imperial thinking”.

What could come next?

Last week, Pacific Leaders endorsed a world-first Pacific framework on climate mobility, which has gone relatively unnoticed, despite the Australia–Tuvalu announcement.

I had the privilege of working and consulting with Pacific governments and communities to draft the early versions of the framework. It will hopefully inspire the creation of further visa arrangements and other concrete mobility mechanisms to ensure Pacific peoples have dignified pathways to move when they wish, as well as support and assistance to remain in place when possible.

Read more:
Australia has long viewed the Pacific as a place of threats that must be contained. It’s time for this mindset to change

Earlier this year, Samoan Prime Minister Fiame Naomi Mata’afa suggested the Pacific could create a European Union-like entity, “based on cooperation and integration”, that would enable free movement across the region.

If enacted, it would follow a similar agreement signed by leaders in eastern Africa that specifically allows people in that region to cross borders in anticipation of or in response to disasters.

Though this is still a long way off in the Pacific, the agreement between Australia and Tuvalu could help pave the way for similar mobility pathways across the region and – ultimately – a broader regional scheme. If, and when, that time comes, the choice, agency and dignity of affected communities must be front and centre.

Jane McAdam receives funding from the Australian Research Council. In 2022, she was commissioned to lead the drafting of the world’s first regional framework on climate mobility for Pacific governments. In 2018, she co-led the drafting of the International Law Association’s Sydney Declaration of Principles on the Protection of Persons Displaced in the context of Sea Level Rise.

– ref. Australia’s offer of climate migration to Tuvalu residents is groundbreaking – and could be a lifeline across the Pacific – https://theconversation.com/australias-offer-of-climate-migration-to-tuvalu-residents-is-groundbreaking-and-could-be-a-lifeline-across-the-pacific-217514

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mary Anne Kenny, Associate Professor, School of Law, Murdoch University

This week, the High Court of Australia ordered the release of a Rohingya man from immigration detention where he had been for the last five and a half years.

Commentators and human rights groups have been celebrating this decision, which indicates the court will overturn a 20-year-old precedent.

The court has stated it will release its decision at a later time. It is important to wait for that judgement to determine the full implications of the decision and how it may limit the government’s power to detain non-citizens.

But here’s a brief rundown on the background of the case and some considerations of what could happen next.

Read more:
‘I have no rights’: what happens to stateless people in Australia after the High Court’s ruling?

What laws did the case focus on?

The laws in question are in the Migration Act, which states a non-citizen who does not hold a visa must be detained.

Currently people in immigration detention do not have the right to have a court determine whether their detention is necessary, reasonable, and/or proportionate. These assessments are undertaken by departmental officials and the minister.

The law considers detention mandatory, irrespective of the individual’s circumstances.

In the case of Al-Kateb v Godwin, the chief justice of the High Court described the need for detention:

A person […] might be young or old, dangerous or harmless, likely or unlikely to abscond, recently in detention or someone who has been there for years, healthy or unhealthy, badly affected by incarceration or relatively unaffected. The considerations that might bear upon the reasonableness of a discretionary decision to detain such a person do not operate.

The detained person must remain so until granted a visa or is removed.

Removal, if it’s needed, must occur as soon as “reasonably practicable”.

Over the years, many cases have tested these laws, and until now, the High Court has upheld them.

The lack of time limits on detention, and the inability to challenge it, have made Australia an outlier internationally.

The laws have also been heavily criticised, both domestically and globally.

Such has been the egregious nature of the system that the High Court allowed the UNSW Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law and the Human Rights Law Centre to argue the international human rights dimensions of the case.

Despite this, the policy has had bipartisan political support for decades.

Read more:
‘Futile and cruel’: plan to charge fees for immigration detention has no redeeming features

Who was at the centre of the case?

The Rohingya refugee at the centre of the case is referred to as “NZYQ”. He’s around 30 years old.

As a Rohingya, he had not been able to obtain citizenship of Myanmar and was stateless.

He had arrived in Australia by boat in 2012. He had been granted a temporary visa, but this was cancelled in 2015 after he committed a criminal offence and was sentenced to a term in prison.

Still unable to get a visa, he was transferred to immigration detention once he’d served his sentence.

Australia accepted the man could not be sent to Myanmar, and instead tried unsuccessfully to have a number of other countries take him via their refugee or humanitarian programs.

Having found there was no country he could be removed to in the “reasonably foreseeable future” and his visa refused, the man was facing the prospect of remaining in detention indefinitely.

In light of this, the High Court found his ongoing detention was unlawful and they ordered his immediate release from detention.

Law that comes with a cost

There is an increasing number of people in detention who remain there for long periods of time. Some are stateless, and others who can’t be returned to their home countries due to risk of persecution.

Over the past five years, the average length of detention has increased from 445 days to 708 days. Some people have been detained for more than 10 years.

One of the many criticisms levelled at this system is that it’s extremely expensive.

Between 2020 and 2021, the average cost to the Australian taxpayer for one person in an immigration detention facility was $428,542.

That’s not to mention the significant physical and mental health toll on people.

There have been close to 3,000 incidents of self-harm, real and threatened, in detention over the past five years.

So what happens in the short term?

As a first step, the government may be facing the prospect of releasing a number of people who have been detained for several years.

It is estimated there may be 92 people impacted by the judgement.

The government has stated the Rohingya man in the case has been released on “strict conditions”, but we don’t know what sort of visa he might be on.

It is not clear what those conditions are, but legally, a person can be released from detention on a temporary “bridging visa”.

The Department of Home Affairs can impose conditions on a bridging visa which could include:

• where the person lives

• reporting regularly to the Department of Home Affairs

• that the person “not engage in criminal conduct”

• that they comply with a specific “Code of Behaviour”.

This, of course, should be accompanied by a range of psychological and social support services, which are currently very limited.

There will need to be consideration for better pathways to more visa certainty and permanent residency, especially for stateless people.

Legislative reform on the cards

We need to wait for the judgement to determine what, if any, legislative reform may be needed, but the government will be considering a number of options.

We should use this opportunity to ensure our laws comply with our human rights obligations.

International standards specify that a person detained for immigration purposes must be brought before a judicial authority “promptly” and that their detention must be subject to “regular periodic reviews”.

Read more:
New immigration detention bill could give Australia a fresh chance to comply with international law

There is a substantial body of evidence demonstrating that hasn’t been the case for far too long.

A key legislative reform should be to make detention discretionary instead of mandatory. People should also have access to independent review of their detention.

There has been a wealth of inquiries, submissions and examples from overseas which the government could look to, for a start.

More will be revealed about this case in the coming weeks and months, but there are many things the government can start doing immediately to better balance this unfair and punitive system.

Mary Anne Kenny has previously received funding from the Australian Research Council and sitting fees from the Department of Home Affairs

– ref. The High Court has decided indefinite detention is unlawful. What happens now? – https://theconversation.com/the-high-court-has-decided-indefinite-detention-is-unlawful-what-happens-now-217438

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Eileen O’Brien, Professor of Law, Discipline of Law, Justice and Society, University of South Australia

Each year, many older Australians experience abuse, neglect or financial exploitation, usually at the hands of their adult children or other close relatives.

A recent national prevalence study revealed one in six older Australians living at home experiences elder abuse. This may encompass various forms of abuse, such as emotional, financial, social, physical and sexual abuse, or neglect.

Despite elder abuse being such a common problem, older people often don’t get the help they need. With the right responses, we can make it easier for those working with older people, and the wider community, to support them.

Our new research reveals the key reasons older people experiencing harm do not receive the support they so desperately need.

Our study included a survey of nearly 700 service providers throughout Western Australia. Respondents worked in diverse fields including healthcare, law, aged care, financial services and law enforcement. We found four key obstacles to people getting help with elder abuse.

Read more:
Explainer: what is elder abuse and why do we need a national inquiry into it?

1. Older people are too scared to report abuse.

Older people are often afraid to report abuse because they fear repercussions both for themselves and for the perpetrator, usually an adult child or other close relative.

These concerns can mean an older person endures abuse for a long time. They may only seek help when the situation escalates to an extreme level or when someone else notices the ongoing mistreatment.

Equally important, they may fear other negative outcomes of reporting abuse. They may fear having to leave their home and enter residential care. They may fear increased isolation and loneliness, or that the abuse will get worse.

All these fears combined create a formidable barrier to older people promptly reporting abuse and getting the help they need.

2. Older people don’t know where to turn for help

Elder abuse cases are often complex, involving long family histories and complicated relationships. Older people trying to improve their situation may need support from multiple service providers. The challenge of accessing the right services and acting on their advice can be daunting.

Addressing complicated matters may require intensive support and advocacy for an extended time. In the words of one experienced advocate,

People don’t need to know the next ten steps. They need to know one step, maybe two, and then see where they are at.

Helping older people feel empowered to seek help requires simple, accessible channels of assistance, promoted through multiple formats and outreach efforts.

3. Government-funded responses to family violence are more focused on intimate partner violence and child protection, leaving elder abuse out of the picture

Most programs targeting family violence prioritise intimate partner violence and child protection, inadvertently sidelining elder abuse. Services such as shelters and perpetrator programs are not always compatible with the distinct characteristics of elder abuse.

Additionally, the gendered nature of family violence responses fails to address the diverse demographics of elder abuse, which includes older men. As a result, older people, regardless of gender, may struggle to access supports suited to their needs.

A refuge manager explained:

When a bed becomes available we have this awful job of deciding who’s more high-risk and who gets the bed. If an older person needs the bed, as opposed to a single mum with a newborn, unfortunately we would go with the mum. That really presents a barrier where there isn’t refuge accommodation specifically for older people.

There is a pressing need for a shift in focus to better recognise elder abuse as a significant issue and tailor responses to meet the specific needs of older people. This includes creating safe and accessible refuge options and providing specialised support services to address the multifaceted nature of elder abuse.

4. There’s low public awareness about what elder abuse looks like or how to respond

Awareness of elder abuse remains surprisingly low, hindering effective responses. Changing this requires clear public information campaigns and community-wide conversations about abuse. This includes greater awareness of the challenge for well-meaning adult children who might limit the choices of their older relatives, thinking they know best. This can result in unintended social isolation or even neglect.

A society that speaks openly about elder abuse, without stigma, is better equipped to support victims and intervene. By building public knowledge and promoting a culture where such issues can be freely discussed, we lay the groundwork for reducing its incidence.

We are living longer lives than ever before, meaning we can expect to spend more years in older age than previous generations. This is good news, but also means we need to do more work to support people to age well. Positive steps we can all take include tackling ageism when we see it and normalising conversations about abuse so older people can feel confident to seek help when it’s needed.

Catriona Stevens has received funding as an initiative of the WA Strategy to Respond to the Abuse of Older People (Elder Abuse) 2019-2029.

Professor Loretta Baldassar has received funding as an initiative of the WA Strategy to Respond to the Abuse of Older People (Elder Abuse) 2019-2029.

Eileen O’Brien 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. About 1 in 6 older Australians experiences elder abuse. Here are the reasons they don’t get help – https://theconversation.com/about-1-in-6-older-australians-experiences-elder-abuse-here-are-the-reasons-they-dont-get-help-216827

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Eileen O’Brien, Professor of Law, Discipline of Law, Justice and Society, University of South Australia

Each year, many older Australians experience abuse, neglect or financial exploitation, usually at the hands of their adult children or other close relatives.

A recent national prevalence study revealed one in six older Australians living at home experiences elder abuse. This may encompass various forms of abuse, such as emotional, financial, social, physical and sexual abuse, or neglect.

Despite elder abuse being such a common problem, older people often don’t get the help they need. With the right responses, we can make it easier for those working with older people, and the wider community, to support them.

Our new research reveals the key reasons older people experiencing harm do not receive the support they so desperately need.

Our study included a survey of nearly 700 service providers throughout Western Australia. Respondents worked in diverse fields including healthcare, law, aged care, financial services and law enforcement. We found four key obstacles to people getting help with elder abuse.

Read more:
Explainer: what is elder abuse and why do we need a national inquiry into it?

1. Older people are too scared to report abuse.

Older people are often afraid to report abuse because they fear repercussions both for themselves and for the perpetrator, usually an adult child or other close relative.

These concerns can mean an older person endures abuse for a long time. They may only seek help when the situation escalates to an extreme level or when someone else notices the ongoing mistreatment.

Equally important, they may fear other negative outcomes of reporting abuse. They may fear having to leave their home and enter residential care. They may fear increased isolation and loneliness, or that the abuse will get worse.

All these fears combined create a formidable barrier to older people promptly reporting abuse and getting the help they need.

2. Older people don’t know where to turn for help

Elder abuse cases are often complex, involving long family histories and complicated relationships. Older people trying to improve their situation may need support from multiple service providers. The challenge of accessing the right services and acting on their advice can be daunting.

Addressing complicated matters may require intensive support and advocacy for an extended time. In the words of one experienced advocate,

People don’t need to know the next ten steps. They need to know one step, maybe two, and then see where they are at.

Helping older people feel empowered to seek help requires simple, accessible channels of assistance, promoted through multiple formats and outreach efforts.

3. Government-funded responses to family violence are more focused on intimate partner violence and child protection, leaving elder abuse out of the picture

Most programs targeting family violence prioritise intimate partner violence and child protection, inadvertently sidelining elder abuse. Services such as shelters and perpetrator programs are not always compatible with the distinct characteristics of elder abuse.

Additionally, the gendered nature of family violence responses fails to address the diverse demographics of elder abuse, which includes older men. As a result, older people, regardless of gender, may struggle to access supports suited to their needs.

A refuge manager explained:

When a bed becomes available we have this awful job of deciding who’s more high-risk and who gets the bed. If an older person needs the bed, as opposed to a single mum with a newborn, unfortunately we would go with the mum. That really presents a barrier where there isn’t refuge accommodation specifically for older people.

There is a pressing need for a shift in focus to better recognise elder abuse as a significant issue and tailor responses to meet the specific needs of older people. This includes creating safe and accessible refuge options and providing specialised support services to address the multifaceted nature of elder abuse.

4. There’s low public awareness about what elder abuse looks like or how to respond

Awareness of elder abuse remains surprisingly low, hindering effective responses. Changing this requires clear public information campaigns and community-wide conversations about abuse. This includes greater awareness of the challenge for well-meaning adult children who might limit the choices of their older relatives, thinking they know best. This can result in unintended social isolation or even neglect.

A society that speaks openly about elder abuse, without stigma, is better equipped to support victims and intervene. By building public knowledge and promoting a culture where such issues can be freely discussed, we lay the groundwork for reducing its incidence.

We are living longer lives than ever before, meaning we can expect to spend more years in older age than previous generations. This is good news, but also means we need to do more work to support people to age well. Positive steps we can all take include tackling ageism when we see it and normalising conversations about abuse so older people can feel confident to seek help when it’s needed.

Catriona Stevens has received funding as an initiative of the WA Strategy to Respond to the Abuse of Older People (Elder Abuse) 2019-2029.

Professor Loretta Baldassar has received funding as an initiative of the WA Strategy to Respond to the Abuse of Older People (Elder Abuse) 2019-2029.

Eileen O’Brien 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. About one in six older Australians experiences elder abuse. Here are the reasons they don’t get help – https://theconversation.com/about-one-in-six-older-australians-experiences-elder-abuse-here-are-the-reasons-they-dont-get-help-216827

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lauren Roman, ARC DECRA Fellow, Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies, University of Tasmania

In October and November, horrified beachgoers often find dead and dying muttonbirds washing up in an event called a seabird “wreck”.

Again this year, there are reports of Australia’s beautiful east coast beaches turned grim with hundreds of dying seabirds.

Here’s what we do and don’t know about seabird wrecks, and what you can do if you come across one.

Wrecks are becoming more common

Millions of short-tailed shearwaters (Ardenna tenuirostis), commonly known as muttonbirds, return to southern Australia from the Arctic each spring – a round trip of up to 35,000km.

Not all birds survive their long migration. The fit and healthy largely return in late September and October. The less fit lag behind. To some extent, deaths are natural.

Muttonbirds keep a strict timetable and, while failed migrants can wash up any time during spring, mass mortalities can occur from mid-October to November. Muttonbird wrecks have happened on rare occasions since time immemorial, but are becoming more common.

The many ideas about what is causing wrecks range from storms and overfishing to plastic, blue-green algae and irradiated water from Fukushima.

University of Tasmania researchers have studied the muttonbirds for decades. While we can’t pinpoint the exact cause for every wreck, we can explain what we know and eliminate the unlikely culprits.

What we know

When muttonbird wrecks occur, the casualties are starving. These birds weigh only half their healthy body weight. The factors leading to this starvation start before they reach Australia.

Muttonbirds chase an eternal summer. After returning to Australia from the North Pacific, they lay eggs in late November on Australia’s southern islands and raise a single chick. When the weather cools in April the adults depart on a great migration north where the sea ice is melting on the Bering Sea ahead of an Arctic summer.

Ecosystem changes in the sub-Arctic, where the birds fatten up over the northern summer, can lead to death on Australian beaches.

Many marine animals share the North Pacific Ocean with muttonbirds. Among them are several salmon species, which compete with muttonbirds and other marine wildlife for the same zooplankton prey – the abundant small animals floating in the surface waters of the ocean.

Read more:
It might be the world’s biggest ocean, but the mighty Pacific is in peril

The pink salmon (Oncorhynchus gorbuscha), in particular, is central to the muttonbirds story. You may have seen them in documentaries, being eaten by bears on the annual “salmon run”. You may also eat them yourself, as tinned salmon.

Pink salmon live hard and fast. Their life cycle from hatching to spawning lasts two years. However, wild numbers couldn’t satisfy consumer demand and by the mid-20th century the species was in trouble.

To take pressure off wild fish stock and meet soaring demand, salmon hatcheries now release billions of fry, many more than would exist through nature, into the North Pacific Ocean. Pink salmon numbers, both hatchery and wild fish, have more than doubled in recent decades.

Increased salmon numbers have caused crashes in zooplankton in odd-numbered years, when most pink salmon reach spawning size and are 25 times more abundant than in even-numbered years. The effect is so strong that even healthy breeding muttonbirds arriving in Tasmania are lighter most odd-numbered years.

Other factors are also affecting zooplankton. The Arctic seas are among the fastest warming on Earth. Marine heatwaves have been causing shifts in where and when zooplankton occur, and how large they grow.

When seabirds on a strict schedule arrive to feed, they can miss the zooplankton buffet. This has led to devastating wrecks for Arctic and sub-Arctic seabird species, including muttonbirds.

Read more:
Seabirds are today’s canaries in the coal mine – and they’re sending us an urgent message

In 2013, millions of muttonbirds starved along Australia’s coast from K’gari/Fraser Island to Tasmania. Though we don’t know the exact cause, this was likely influenced by a double whammy: competition for food with salmon and a severe marine heatwave called “the blob”.

But what about the other causes? Examination of wrecked birds rules out plastic, blue-green algae and irradiated water from Fukushima as causes of death.

Birds are already in poor condition when they arrive. Storms or strong winds might push an already poorly muttonbird over the edge, but are generally not the cause of its poor condition. People often find muttonbirds after storms because onshore winds blow them from the sea onto beaches.

What should I do if I find a muttonbird?

If a muttonbird is too weak to fly, sadly it’s unlikely to recover.

If you want to give them a chance, though the odds are low, contact a specialist seabird rescue group. Seabirds have very specific care needs. Taking one home or feeding it, while well intended, may cause more harm than good.

If you find more than a few along the beach, you can report the wreck by emailing the author or contacting the University of Tasmania. Note the time, date, location and number of birds per kilometre.

If you find a muttonbird (or any bird) with a metal ring on its leg, please report the number to the Australian Bird and Bat Banding Scheme.

Read more:
With hundreds of call-outs every day, wildlife rescue services can help us understand the threats to our native animals

What if I find other dead seabirds or waterbirds?

There’s another reason to watch out for unusual bird deaths this summer.
A deadly bird disease has a high probability of reaching Australia’s shores. High pathogenicity avian influenza (HPAI) has killed millions of birds worldwide, including seabirds.

The disease could enter Australia if carried by birds, including muttonbirds, migrating from the Northern Hemisphere (where HPIA is infecting wild bird populations) to Australia.

If you find an unusual number of sick or dying seabirds, shorebirds or waterbirds, report the incident to Wildlife Health Australia.

Read more:
Migrating birds could bring lethal avian flu to Australia’s vulnerable birds

Lauren Roman receives funding from the Australian Research Council.
She would like to thank Professor Emeritus Alan Springer and Dr Natalie Bool for providing advice on earlier drafts of this article. Alan led the initial discovery and research about the connection between pink salmon and shearwater wrecks. Natalie completed her PhD thesis on the foraging ecology of short-tailed shearwaters. Their contribution and expertise is much appreciated.

– ref. Why are dead and dying seabirds washing up on our beaches in their hundreds? – https://theconversation.com/why-are-dead-and-dying-seabirds-washing-up-on-our-beaches-in-their-hundreds-217349

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Wood, Professor, epidemiological modelling of infectious diseases, UNSW Sydney

Australia is now into its next COVID wave. We’ve seen hints of this for a while. Case numbers and indicators of severe disease began rising in Victoria in August. But it has taken several months for a consistent pattern to emerge across Australia.

Now we see evidence of this new wave via wastewater surveillance for traces of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID. We also see rises in COVID-related hospital admissions and antiviral prescriptions. Compared to past waves, this one has built up slowly and over a longer period.

Here’s what we know about this new wave and what to expect over the coming weeks.

Read more:
A COVID inquiry has been announced. But is COVID still a thing? Do I need a booster?

How do we know we’re in a new COVID wave?

In earlier waves, when more people were testing for COVID and reporting their results, we were more confident case numbers were a reasonable reflection of how COVID was tracking.

However, now, a more useful indicator for COVID nationally is to look at trends in the number of prescriptions for the antiviral medications ritonavir (Paxlovid) and molnupiravir (Lagevrio) on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS).

In the graph below, which is drawn from national prescribing data, you can clearly see script numbers rising.

When will we hit the peak?

It has become more difficult to predict the size and timing of the peak. Reduced access to COVID testing and fewer requirements or opportunities to report test results, combined with the slow growth rate for this wave, give a wider range of possibilities.

The wave is also likely to differ between states and territories, as some got off to a later start.

However, given the wave’s slow growth rate and further increases in hybrid immunity (immunity from both vaccination and infection) over 2023, it’s reasonable to expect this to be the smallest Omicron wave so far.

We also expect it will be over by early in the summer holiday period. That’s when rates of community contact decline significantly, as work and school contacts are much reduced. That means fewer opportunities for the virus to spread between networks of family and friends.

Read more:
Ah, memories of 2020. Why it’s important to remember our COVID holidays, good or bad

Why now?

It’s unlikely this latest COVID wave stems from changes in behaviour. People are generally out and about, fewer people are wearing masks in public. But we don’t see any dramatic shifts in this type of behaviour in 2023 compared with 2022.

It’s not a seasonal cause, given respiratory viruses tend to spread better in winter, when we’re cooped up indoors with others.

It’s unlikely it’s our waning immunity from infection or vaccination that’s prompting these successive waves.

Instead, we’re seeing the result of a constantly mutating virus. Successful SARS-CoV-2 variants are gradually acquiring mutations. Some of these changes reduce the ability of existing antibodies to bind to and neutralise the virus. So it appears it’s still the “immune escape” variants that are behind these latest waves.

Read more:
With a COVID ‘variant soup’ looming, New Zealand urgently needs another round of vaccine boosters

Which variants are to blame?

The primary viral lineage in Australia this year has been XBB. Over the past six months, its two most influential mutations have been:

• the F456L mutation that led to the rise of EG.5.1, also known as Eris

• more recently, the paired “FLip” mutations F456L+L455F. We see these in offspring of Eris and in much-less closely related lineages. This is a clear sign these mutations help the virus spread better.

Both the single and paired mutations make existing antibodies less effective at blocking SARS-CoV-2 from binding to critical receptors on our cells. This increases our susceptibility to infection.

The novel BA.2.86 lineage – colloquially known as Pirola – was first reported in Denmark in August and has many unique mutations. It has not been influential so far in this wave in Australia. But it has continued to evolve. And we may see it play a much bigger role in Australia in 2024.

Read more:
How evasive and transmissible is the newest omicron offshoot, BA.2.86, that causes COVID-19? 4 questions answered

Who is most at risk during this COVID wave?

Since the start of the pandemic, rates of COVID-related death and severe disease have greatly declined. That’s due to widespread vaccination and hybrid immunity, and a major change in the Omicron variant that’s made the virus less-likely to infect the lung.

However, provisional statistics show there have been about 3,000 registered COVID deaths in Australia from January to July 2023.

Older people and those with weaker immune systems are expected to remain at greatest risk of developing severe COVID during this current wave.

This is the rationale for the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation’s (ATAGI) September recommendation for people aged 75 or older to get boosted if more than six months had passed since their last vaccine dose.

ATAGI also recommended people aged 65-74, and people 18 years and over with severe immunocompromising conditions, consider having another booster.

But, by the end of October 2023, it was estimated only one-quarter of Australians aged 65-74, one-third of people aged 75 or over and fewer than half (45%) of people in aged care had received a COVID vaccine in the past six months.

Read more:
Millions of Australians still haven’t had their COVID boosters. What message could convince them now?

Which vaccines are available?

Currently available bivalent vaccines protect against the original ancestral strain of SARS-CoV-2 (now extinct) plus the newer BA.1 or BA.4/5 variants. These bivalent vaccines also protect us against severe disease from the Omicron variants circulating now, such as XBB.

But we can expect newer monovalent XBB.1.5 vaccines soon, now the Therapeutic Goods Administration has approved them. These are expected to provide better protection against newer Omicron variants than the currently available bivalent vaccines.

In the meantime, boosting with any available COVID vaccine will provide good protection for vulnerable people.

Read more:
CDC greenlights two updated COVID-19 vaccines, but how will they fare against the latest variants? 5 questions answered

What might we expect from COVID in 2024?

The Northern Hemisphere appears to have settled into an approximate seasonal pattern of COVID infections in 2023 and it’s plausible Australia will follow suit.

If so, we should plan for overlapping seasonal epidemics of our three most important respiratory viruses: SARS-CoV-2, influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV). So hospitals may need to plan ahead for larger peaks in admissions.

Hopefully, new vaccines for RSV, and more broadly protective flu and COVID vaccines to be developed over the next decade, should help.

Read more:
RSV is everywhere right now. What parents need to know about respiratory syncytial virus

James Wood receives funding from NSW Health and the National Health and Medical Research Council for projects on COVID-19. He has previously received funding from the federal government as part of COVID responses in 2020-21 and from WHO Western Pacific Regional Office in 2020. He is a current member of the Australian Technical Advisory Committee on Immunisation.

Bette Liu receives funding from the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council and Australian Government.

Katie Flanagan receives funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council, Medical Research Future Fund, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Clifford Craig Foundation. She is involved in research projects studying the impact of COVID-19 vaccine boosters. She is a member of the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation and President of the Australasian Society for Infectious Diseases.

Stuart Turville receives funding from the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council, Medical Research Future Fund and Covid grants (Round 2 Covid grant and VIIM vaccine group) awarded from the NSW state government.

– ref. We’re in a new COVID wave. What can we expect this time? – https://theconversation.com/were-in-a-new-covid-wave-what-can-we-expect-this-time-216820

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonti Horner, Professor (Astrophysics), University of Southern Queensland

If you can get your hands on a telescope, there are few sights more spectacular than the magnificent ringed planet – Saturn.

Currently, Saturn is clearly visible in the evening sky, at its highest just after sunset. It’s the ideal time to use a telescope or binoculars to get a good view of the Solar System’s sixth planet and its famous rings.

But in the past few days, a slew of articles have run like wildfire through social media. Saturn’s rings, those articles claim, are rapidly disappearing – and will be gone by 2025!

So what’s the story? Could the next couple of months, before Saturn drops out of view in the evening sky, really be our last chance to see its mighty rings?

The short answer is no. While it’s true the rings will become almost invisible from Earth in 2025, this is neither a surprise nor reason to panic. The rings will “reappear” soon thereafter. Here’s why.

Tipping and tilting Earth

To understand why our view of Saturn changes, let’s begin by considering Earth on its constant journey around the Sun. That journey takes us through the seasons – from winter to spring, summer and autumn, then back again.

What causes the seasons? Put simply, Earth is tilted towards one side, as seen from the Sun. Our equator is tilted by about 23.5 degrees from the plane of our orbit.

Read more:
What is a solstice? An astronomer explains the long and short of days, years and seasons

The result? As we move around the Sun, we alternately tip one hemisphere and then the other towards our star. When your home hemisphere is tilted more towards the Sun, you get longer days than nights and experience spring and summer. When you’re tilted away, you get shorter days and longer nights, and experience autumn and winter.

From the Sun’s viewpoint, Earth appears to “nod” up and down, alternately showing off its hemispheres as it moves around our star. Now, let’s move on to Saturn.

Saturn, a giant tilted world

Just like Earth, Saturn experiences seasons, but more than 29 times longer than ours. Where Earth’s equator is tilted by 23.5 degrees, Saturn’s equator has a 26.7 degree tilt. The result? As Saturn moves through its 29.4-year orbit around our star, it also appears to nod up and down as seen from both Earth and the Sun.

What about Saturn’s rings? The planet’s enormous ring system, comprised of bits of ice, dust and rocks, spreads out over a huge distance – just over 280,000km from the planet. But it’s very thin – in most places, just tens of metres thick. The rings orbit directly above Saturn’s equator and so they too are tilted to the plane of Saturn’s orbit.

So why do Saturn’s rings ‘disappear’?

The rings are so thin that, seen from a distance, they appear to vanish when edge on. You can visualise this easily by grabbing a sheet of paper, and rotating it until it is edge on – the paper almost vanishes from view.

As Saturn moves around the Sun, our viewpoint changes. For half of the orbit, its northern hemisphere is tilted towards us and the northern face of the planet’s rings is tipped our way.

When Saturn is on the other side of the Sun, its southern hemisphere is pointed our way. For the same reason, we see the southern face of the planet’s rings tilted our way.

The best way to illustrate this is to get your sheet of paper, and hold it horizontally – parallel to the ground – at eye level. Now, move the paper down towards the ground a few inches. What do you see? The upper side of the paper comes into view. Move the paper back up, through your eye line, to hold it above you and you can see the underside of the paper. But as it passes through eye level, the paper will all but disappear.

That’s what we see with Saturn’s rings. As the seasons on Saturn progress, we go from having the southern side of the rings tilted our way to seeing the northern side. Then, the planet tips back, revealing the southern side once more.

Twice per Saturnian year, we see the rings edge on and they all but vanish from view.

That’s what’s happening in 2025 – the reason Saturn’s rings will seemingly “disappear” is because we will be looking at them edge on.

This happens regularly. The last time was in 2009 and the rings gradually became visible again, over the course of a few months. The rings will be edge on once again in March 2025. Then they’ll gradually come back into view as seen through large telescopes, before sliding out of view again in November 2025.

Thereafter, the rings will gradually get more and more obvious, reappearing first to the largest telescopes over the months that follow. Nothing to worry about.

If you want to clearly see Saturn’s rings, now is your best chance, at least until 2027 or 2028!

Jonti Horner 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. Will Saturn’s rings really ‘disappear’ by 2025? An astronomer explains – https://theconversation.com/will-saturns-rings-really-disappear-by-2025-an-astronomer-explains-217370

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Erin Morton, Associate Professor, Health Data & Clinical Trials, Flinders University

More than half our population (50.7%) are born with ovaries and will experience perimenopause in midlife. This occurs as hormone levels decrease and ovaries slow their release of eggs.

Perimenopause usually begins in the early to mid-40s. Some people even begin perimenopause earlier, due to premature ovarian insufficiency or medical treatments such as chemotherapy or surgical oophorectomy (ovary removal).

Menopause is technically the single day 12 months after your last period. It usually occurs five to ten years after perimenopause begins, between ages 45 and 55.

Up to 80% of people in perimenopause experience symptoms. But it’s not just hot flushes – symptoms can be incredibly varied and range in severity.

Read more:
What is perimenopause and how does it affect women’s health in midlife?

What are the symptoms?

Oestrogen affects every system in the body and so too can perimenopause symptoms. These include:

• depression and anxiety
• body aches
• “brain fog” and forgetfulness
• irregular periods or periods of unusual heaviness or lightness
• insomnia
• night sweats
• hot flushes
• vaginal dryness
• no interest in sex
• urinary urgency.

It’s impossible to anticipate which, if any, symptoms you’ll experience, or in what order they will begin.

What impact does perimenopause have on work and life?

Around 30% of symptomatic Australians find their perimenopause symptoms significantly interfere with daily activities, including their ability to work.

The Australian Women’s Health Survey reported 46% of participants have taken an extended break from work, study or exercise due to menopause symptoms.

Thanks to the personal nature of many symptoms, and the stigma surrounding them, these statistics may still under-report the impact of perimenopause on both individuals and society.

The Australian Institute of Superannuation Trustees estimated the retirement of women due to menopausal symptoms would equate to lost earnings and super of more than A$15.2 billion for every year of early retirement.

Read more:
How to design menopause leave policies that really support women in the workplace

Some women experience significant deterioration in their mental health in the lead up to menopause. Perimenopausal depression (PMD) is a serious illness and is categorised as a subset of major depression. It certainly shouldn’t be dismissed as female “hysteria” or a bad mood when someone is seeking care or support. In fact, female suicide rates increase from ages 40–60.

Know when to seek help

Each woman’s experience will be different, and not all symptoms are related to menopause, but with early recognition and seeking help when needed, this life transition can be a smoother journey.

There are various treatment options for perimenopausal symptom relief. The gold standard is menopausal hormone treatment, which used to be called hormone replacement therapy. This works by counterbalancing the hormone losses of perimenopause and comes in a range of doses and formulations, including gels, patches, pessaries, creams and tablets.

The period after menopause is associated with higher risks for heart disease, diabetes, osteoporosis and dementia. If menopausal hormone treatment is started within ten years of menopause, it may also reduce these risks.

Some women find it helpful to go through a symptom checklist before seeing their GP (or going through it with their GP) if they want an official diagnosis of perimenopause or treatment for symptoms.

There are also national specialist telehealth menopause services available if you’re not getting the care you need locally (currently A$295 or $165 concession, before the Medicare rebate, for a long appointment with a doctor and a detailed report to send to your GP).

And it’s important to know you can seek a second opinion if you’re not being listened to.

Perimenopause doesn’t just impact those personally going through perimenopause, it also affects their partners, families, businesses, workforce participation and gender equity. We all need to be educated about perimenopause and consider how to increase flexibility and support in our workplaces and other environments.

The federal parliament has just commenced a Senate inquiry into issues related to menopause and perimenopause. This will include the economic cost, physical impacts, government policies and programs, and cultural and societal factors. So we can expect to see more discussion of these issues until the final report is delivered in September 2024.

Read more:
All the reasons you might be having night sweats – and when to see a doctor

Erin Morton is a member of the Australasian Menopause Society.

– ref. Perimenopause usually begins in your 40s. How do you know if it has started? – https://theconversation.com/perimenopause-usually-begins-in-your-40s-how-do-you-know-if-it-has-started-215806

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katie Robertson, Director – Stateless Legal Clinic, The University of Melbourne

The decision by the High Court of Australia this week overturning the legality of indefinite immigration detention marks a watershed moment in Australian legal history.

For almost two decades, stateless people have faced the prospect of spending their lives behind bars.

Now, a stateless Rohingya refugee has been released from detention.

With no “stateless” visa category or pathway to permanency, stateless people will continue to face a life of uncertainty in the Australia community, begging the question; what next?

Read more:
Government must use trauma-informed approach to end uncertainty on refugee visa applications

Overturning decades of precedent

This week the Australian High Court ordered the immediate release of the stateless refugee, known as “NZYQ”, from immigration detention.

He’d been held there for more than five years.

The Court found that because there was no real prospect of his removal from Australia “becoming practicable in the reasonably foreseeable future”, his detention was unlawful.

This decision is highly significant, overturning almost twenty years of legal precedent established in 2004.

In that case, the High Court upheld the ability of the Australian government to detain people for an unlimited period.

That looked to be the fate of the man at the centre of this week’s case.

Having had his visa cancelled due to a criminal conviction and unable to be returned to Myanmar as a stateless refugee, he faced potentially being detained for the rest of his life.

Australia’s system of mandatory indefinite detention, a bipartisan policy introduced in 1992, is unique, even when compared with countries with similar legal traditions, such as the UK.

Available government statistics indicate there are currently over 1,000 people in immigration detention, 31 of whom are stateless.

The average length somebody is detained in Australia is a staggering 708 days.

More than 100 people have been held for more than five years.

What does is mean to be stateless?

There is little understanding of statelessness in Australia, despite the fact it affects millions of people globally.

A stateless person is someone with no nationality. Legally speaking, they are recognised as “belonging” to no country in the world.

While the causes of statelessness vary, the dominant root cause is usually discrimination of one kind or another, including on the grounds of gender, race or religion.

The legal definition of statelessness does not do justice to the lived reality.

Read more:
A migration review could close some disability discrimination loopholes – but not for people already waiting or refused visas

Statelessness has the potential to impact almost every aspect of a person’s day-to-day life.

It can inhibit freedom of movement, access to education, housing, employment and medical care.

In Australia, these challenges are compounded by an often overwhelming sense of uncertainty about the future and the ever-present threat of detention.

The lived reality of statelessness is perhaps better understood in the words of Amir, a stateless father living in Australia:

Being stateless has been a huge source of sadness for me in my life. At times it has made me question my very existence and made me wonder why my parents chose to bring me into this world. I’ve never felt like I have a future. Wherever I’ve gone, I have no rights.

We must never forget that behind legal judgements are the lives of real people. Many stateless families we work with in the Stateless Legal Clinic have spent years in immigration detention, including Australian-born children who marked their first birthdays behind the wire.

The ongoing health impacts of detention, especially on children, have been well documented.

A lack of legal protections means an uncertain future

Along with the harmful effects of detention is the gap in legal protections stateless people experience in the Australian community.

Australia doesn’t have a distinct visa category for stateless people or pathway to permanent residency.

Many live with crippling prohibitions on their ability to build a secure life for themselves and their children. Access to some of the basic rights many of us take for granted – such as education – can be challenging. In the words of stateless mother Nur:

Being stateless makes things challenging for us here. My children feel Australian – yet we are often reminded they are not […] our eldest child, Iman started kindergarten this year. It was so difficult trying to enrol him – they asked about his passport, his visa, his status. I felt embarrassed having to explain he has no passport – no identity. No certainty of his future.

Australian law does not adequately protect the rights of stateless people in this country.

Read more:
Why the government’s plan to overhaul the asylum system is a smart use of resources – and might just work

This week’s High Court decision is a critical first step in protecting stateless people from being indefinitely deprived of their liberty. What happens next is just as important.

In the absence of being recognised as citizens of any country in the world, Australia can – and must – do more to offer stateless children and adults a life of certainty in this country.

Michelle Foster receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

Katie Robertson 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. ‘I have no rights’: what happens to stateless people in Australia after the High Court’s ruling? – https://theconversation.com/i-have-no-rights-what-happens-to-stateless-people-in-australia-after-the-high-courts-ruling-217363

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Rowe, Emeritus Professor of Cultural Research, Institute for Culture and Society, Western Sydney University

Looming over the Swan River in Perth, a shiny sporting structure boldly declares “OPTUS STADIUM Yes”. After the disastrously prolonged communication outage this week, many will have shouted “No”, or other words requiring asterisks in respectable media.

Sport stadium naming rights are controversial at the best of times – so why do corporates pay so much for them? And what are the risks?

Read more:
In a crisis, Optus appears to be ignoring Communications 101

Collateral damage

Optus bought the ten-year rights from the Western Australian government in 2017 for a reported A$50 million.

This week’s public relations disaster stands in stark contrast to the company’s optimistic announcement that year, celebrating “a combination of mobile network expansion, coupled with game-changing entertainment experiences for events at the new Optus Stadium”.

Instead, the arrangement has become a focus of consumer anger towards the company, with the sport site suffering collateral damage.

The game has indeed changed, but not in the desired direction.

Named and shamed

From the outset, Perth Lord Mayor Basil Zempilas objected to the erasure of Perth from the stadium’s title.

Instead of anchoring the stadium to place for global marketing purposes, he argued, it could be anywhere in the world.

Optus’s troubles this week gave him a free kick on X (formerly Twitter), where he said:

The Optus Stadium naming rights arrangement never looks good on days like this. Bad decision any day – terrible look today.

Given the risks of such associations, why are businesses attracted to having their names and logos mounted on sports infrastructure?

Ever since sport and media converged, corporate brands joined the party.

It should be a fairly straightforward exchange – sport receives money and kudos, sponsors get profile and assumed good will. This is why companies advertise on sport clothing and equipment.

Stadium naming rights, though, make brands even more prominent by imprinting themselves on the cathedrals of sport.

But in the middle of a corporate crisis, reputations can be reduced to rubble.

Sydney’s newly rebuilt Commbank Stadium was hardly the best advertisement for rugby league in Parramatta during the Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry, for example.

Self-inflicted brand casualty Qantas previously had naming rights over the Sydney Entertainment Centre, which was known as the Qantas Credit Union Arena. Once home of the Sydney Kings and Sydney Uni Flames basketball teams, the venue was eventually demolished.

After its recent PR disasters, it seems unlikely Qantas would be rushing to get its name all over big venues again. It could, as in the Optus case, end up serving as a costly, flashing focal point for consumer rage.

The stadium curse?

Some analysts have argued acquiring sport stadium naming rights is a sign of corporate indulgence, frequently indicating a company is in decline.

Others have called it the “stadium curse” or “stadium jinx”, whereby stadium naming rights are mysteriously associated with corporate peril, even collapse.

Yet, despite these anxieties, sport stadia have no lack of big-time suitors in pursuit of prestige signage. Entry to this club takes a lot of capital, which is why banks, insurance companies, car manufacturers, hoteliers, communication conglomerates, entertainment companies and airlines predominate.

The likes of Melbourne’s AAMI Park and Kia Arena, or Brisbane’s Suncorp Stadium, are conspicuous examples of the corporate love affair with sporting real estate.

Smaller venues like PointsBet Stadium (Cronulla) and BlueBet Stadium (Penrith) are named after sport gambling companies, especially in association with rugby league. Here, physical spaces are used to attract customers to “punt” online.

This gamblification of sport is unpopular among citizens and politicians who are troubled by the cultivation of children and the malign social impact on vulnerable adults.

Traditionalist fans also resent the names of their hallowed stadium being hawked around the marketplace and switched with the latest contract.

Confusingly, Melbourne’s Disney-themed Marvel Stadium has also been known as Colonial Stadium, Telstra Dome and Etihad Stadium in the last two decades.

For this reason, the Melbourne Cricket Ground, Adelaide Oval and the Sydney Cricket Ground have all resisted commercial naming rights.

Accor Stadium in Sydney is still often called Stadium Australia by the historically inclined and ABC broadcasters concerned about their editorial independence and integrity.

Aversion to a rival team’s sponsor

Stadium naming is a conspicuous means of marking sports territory, but fans may even feel an aversion to a rival team’s sponsor in the highly partisan world of sport.

Marketing scholars have developed the concept of oppositional loyalty to capture this antagonism of sport fans to the products and services associated with “the enemy”.

So branding a home stadium might turn both diehard fans and their fiercest opponents off the company paying so much for the naming rights.

Nonetheless, the association of sports, sponsors and grand buildings has enduring appeal.

The Sydney Opera House may not be a sport stadium as such, but it does host sport events.

Its famous sails are coveted by many sports, especially horse racing, to the chagrin of those who protest “our house is not for sale”.

On the other side of the continent, Optus Stadium would likely just settle for a full house with a functioning communications network.

Read more:
The Sydney Olympics: How did the ‘best games ever’ change Australia?

David Rowe 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. Perth’s Optus Stadium has drawn more consumer anger after the outage. Another case of the ‘stadium curse’? – https://theconversation.com/perths-optus-stadium-has-drawn-more-consumer-anger-after-the-outage-another-case-of-the-stadium-curse-217369

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Timothy Welch, Senior Lecturer in Urban Planning, University of Auckland

With National, ACT and NZ First locked in coalition negotiations, various urgent and climate-related transport challenges hang in the balance.

Based on pre-election rhetoric, the Clean Car Discount (CCD) scheme may soon be gone. While popular with the public, National has criticised the electric vehicle rebate portion as a “Tesla subsidy”, and the fees charged for high-emissions vehicles as a “ute tax”.

Transport agency Waka Kotahi has already put funding for cycling, pedestrian and public transport initiatives on hold, pending a “clear direction from the incoming government on its transport investment priorities”.

If the CCD does end, it’s likely the upward trend in SUV and ute purchases, which lost steam with the introduction of the programme, will once again pick up. Combined with any lost momentum on developing other transport modes, the impact on road safety and emissions reduction could be significant.

Utes and SUVs take over

Big vehicles already dominate New Zealand streets.

In 2009, over 75% of annual passenger vehicle registrations were for small cars, sedans and hatchbacks. SUVs and utes made up just 20% of imports.

By 2022, 87,669 (53%) of the 164,813 new vehicles sold in New Zealand were SUVs of some variety, and 35,056 (21%) were utes. All other vehicles, including passenger cars, vans and buses, comprised about 25% of new registrations.

Read more:
Where did the cars go? How heavier, costlier SUVs and utes took over Australia’s roads

Four of the five top-selling vehicles in the passenger segment in 2022 were utes and SUVs. They included (in order of sales volume) the Ford Ranger, Toyota Hilux, Mitsubishi Outlander and Mitsubishi Triton. Combined, these four big vehicles accounted for 40% of new registrations.

The low fuel economy of these vehicles directly translates to higher carbon emissions. Depending on the model, the Ford Ranger has a fuel economy rating between 7.6 litres per 100 kilometres and 11.5 L/100km; the Toyota Hilux has a range of 7.1 L/100km to 9.7 L/100km.

By comparison, the best-selling conventionally fuelled compact car, the Suzuki Swift, manages a significantly more efficient 4.6 to 6.1 L/100km.

Blind spots and safety

SUVs and utes are also much taller, weigh more, have higher grilles and bonnets, and have more blind spots than more compact vehicles. This makes them more dangerous in urban environments, for pedestrians and cyclists in particular.

In a crash, a vulnerable pedestrian is more likely to suffer a direct strike to the head from a ute or SUV than from a smaller car, where they are more likely to roll onto the bonnet and hit their head with less blunt force.

Read more:
Four reasons SUVs are less safe and worse for the environment than a regular car

A recent report from the Vias Institute in Brussels found that if a ute hits a pedestrian or cyclist, “the risk of fatal injuries [increases] by nearly 200%”.

The same report showed ute occupants are 65% less likely than other vehicle type occupants to suffer a serious or fatal injury in a crash. Safety is one of the main reasons SUV and ute owners cite for buying a larger vehicle.

Conversely, the risk of serious or fatal injury for occupants of smaller cars that collide with utes increases by 50%.

Problems with a technological fix

SUV and ute manufacturers have recognised the increased danger blind spots pose to vulnerable road users. New technology has been added to the vehicles, including proximity sensors, 360-degree cameras and automatic emergency braking (AEB).

The technology is geared primarily to avoid collisions with other vehicles and improve safety for vehicle occupants. Studies have shown it can reduce vehicle-to-vehicle collisions by up to 25%.

The record with pedestrians and cyclists is less clear. But one obvious problem is the inability of the technology to function when the vehicle is turning, operating in adverse weather conditions, or at a very slow speed.

Read more:
70 years of road-based policies created today’s problems – does National’s transport plan add up?

A recent study from the US Insurance Institute for Highway Safety showed fatal collisions with crossing pedestrians were more likely when a vehicle is turning than when it was not.

The rates were about twice as high for SUVs, nearly three times as high for vans and minivans, and nearly four times as high for pickups as they were for cars.

The Ford Ranger’s AEB system “does not react to pedestrians in turning scenarios”, according a safety testing report from the Australasian New Car Assessment Program (ANCAP), the independent vehicle-testing organisation used by Australia and New Zealand. The Toyota Hilux and Mitsubishi Triton have no ANCAP data on turning.

Danger and discouragement

Utes and SUVs also tend to have more blind spots than smaller cars when reversing. In New Zealand, five children are killed every year in driveway “backover” incidents.

As far back as 2011, before the big shift to larger vehicles, a Safekids New Zealand report on child driveway injuries found:

Cars run over more children than any other type of vehicle, but light trucks, commercial vans, four-wheeled drive and sport utility vehicles (SUVs) are consistently identified as being over-represented in the numbers of vehicles involved.

According to ANCAP safety tests, none of the four top-selling SUVs and utes in New Zealand have AEB systems tested or operated in backover scenarios.

Pedestrians and cyclists are over-represented in road deaths. Last year was particularly deadly for vulnerable road users, with cyclists making up 5% of all road deaths despite accounting for only about 1% of all trips.

The sad irony is that the dominance of SUVs and utes reduces the ability of communities to create safer streets that would encourage more walking and cycling. If the new government reverses transport policies aimed at encouraging walking and cycling and reducing the prevalence of large vehicles, those efforts will be set back even further.

Timothy Welch 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. SUV and ute sales slowed due to NZ’s Clean Car Discount – expect that to reverse under a new government – https://theconversation.com/suv-and-ute-sales-slowed-due-to-nzs-clean-car-discount-expect-that-to-reverse-under-a-new-government-215983

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Bill Bateman, Associate professor, Curtin University

In October, a paper titled “Assembly theory explains and quantifies selection and evolution” appeared in the top science journal Nature. The authors – a team led by Lee Cronin at the University of Glasgow and Sara Walker at Arizona State University – claim their theory is an “interface between physics and biology” which explains how complex biological forms can evolve.

The paper provoked strong responses. On the one hand were headlines like “Bold New ‘Theory of Everything’ Could Unite Physics And Evolution”.

On the other were reactions from scientists. One evolutionary biologist tweeted “after multiple reads I still have absolutely no idea what [this paper] is doing”. Another said “I read the paper and I feel more confused […] I think reading that paper has made me forget my own name.”

As a biologist who studies evolution, I felt I had to read the paper myself. Was assembly theory really the radical new paradigm its authors suggested? Or was it the “abject wankwaffle” its critics decried?

Hackle-raising claims

When I sat down to read the paper, the very first sentence of the abstract had my hackles up:

Scientists have grappled with reconciling biological evolution with the immutable laws of the Universe defined by physics.

I had no idea we scientists grappled with this. No biologist I know has a problem with the laws of physics or sees any problem with reconciling them with evolution.

Read more:
Life: modern physics can’t explain it – but our new theory, which says time is fundamental, might

The abstract goes on to note that the laws of physics do not predict “life’s origin, evolution and the development of human culture and technology”, and claims we need a “new approach” to understand “how diverse, open-ended forms can emerge from physics without an inherent design blueprint”.

The complaint that biological evolution seems incompatible with the laws of physics, taken with the use of loaded terms like “design blueprint”, is reminiscent of creationist arguments against evolution. No wonder the blood pressure of evolutionary biologists was spiking.

In the words of one Nature commenter: “Why so many creationist tropes in the first few sentences?”

Biology and physics

Before I go further, I should note that I may, along with some of scientists quoted above, not fully understand the aim of the paper. But I have problems with what I do understand of it.

First of all, the claim that evolution is at odds with the immutable laws of physics does not seem to be supported.

The paper says “the open-ended generation of novelty does not fit cleanly in the paradigmatic frameworks of either biology or physics”, which doesn’t seem to make much sense.

In the paradigm of biology, we understand there is a variation in biological forms through genetic drift, mutation and selection. Does this need to “fit the paradigm of physics”, as long as it doesn’t break any laws of physics?

Another troubling statement: “To comprehend how diverse, open-ended forms can emerge from physics without an inherent design blueprint, a new approach to understanding and quantifying selection is necessary.”

Is it? One of the tenets of evolutionary theory is that there is no “teleology” – no goal or aimed-for endpoint – in the process. So how could there be a “design blueprint”? Why would its absence need to be explained?

Putting numbers on the odds of evolution

So what is assembly theory trying to do? According to Cronin, it “aims to explain selection & evolution before biology”; as such its goal is a theory that unifies inert and living matter and seeks to explain their complexity or otherwise, in the same way.

The paper itself says it is a “framework that does not alter the laws of physics, but redefines the concept of an ‘object’ on which these laws act”.

[Assembly theory] conceptualizes objects not as point particles, but as entities defined by their possible formation histories. This allows objects to show evidence of selection, within well-defined boundaries of individuals or selected units.

The “object” in assembly theory is then what “laws of physics” act on. For any object, we can calculate its “assembly index”, a number that measures how complex the object would be to make.

Any object that is both abundant and has a high assembly index is unlikely to have arisen by chance, so it must be a product of evolution and selection. This, in itself, is neither problematic nor new – apart from this calculated “index”.

How do we figure out that assembly index? We count the number of steps it would take to build a molecule, say, or a bodily organ, or a whole organism. The higher the index, the more likely it is to have evolved.

So assembly theory is an attempt to quantify the complexity of something and the likelihood of it having evolved.

A problem that doesn’t exist?

Is this useful? It’s hard to say.

For one thing, it implies there is only one pathway to produce a complicated (high assembly index) object such as a biochemical molecule, which is simply not the case.

Also, as another scientist pointed out:

it’s obvious that if a molecule is complex and there are lots of copies of it, then it likely emerged from some process of evolution. And most chemists could spot such cases without the need for assembly theory. Although trying to put numbers on it is very neat.

My own feeling is that this is a poorly written paper, as evidenced by the inability of many biologists to understand what it is trying to do, and much of the negative reaction to the work springs from the hard-to-follow framing and use of phrases that echo creationist talking points.

Read more:
Physics has long failed to explain life – but we’re testing a groundbreaking new theory in the lab

As for assembly theory itself, it seems to have been developed in the course of Cronin and Walker’s efforts to find a general way to recognise signs of life on alien planets, and even create artificial life. And perhaps, in those contexts, it may prove useful.

However, as a sweeping new paradigm aiming to unify evolution and physics, assembly theory appears – to me and many others – to be addressing a problem that does not exist.

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

– ref. A new theory linking evolution and physics has scientists baffled – but is it solving a problem that doesn’t exist? – https://theconversation.com/a-new-theory-linking-evolution-and-physics-has-scientists-baffled-but-is-it-solving-a-problem-that-doesnt-exist-216639

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Kemish AM, Adjunct Professor, School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry, The University of Queensland

During the 2022 federal election campaign, the Morrison government was all too eager to brandish its national security credentials. Its message to voters was that the Asia Pacific was brimming with threats from aggressive, authoritarian China.

Then, when Solomon Islands signed a secret security deal with China, Australian media attention swung sharply to the Pacific and commentators with little real experience of the region sprang into action.

The debate seemed to treat the Pacific as a vacant expanse where China was locked in a contest with the West, led by Australia as its chief representative. There was little discussion about the people of the Pacific themselves, their concerns about climate change and environmental degradation, or their development aspirations.

Since coming into office, the Albanese government has engaged the region with energy and a more positive tone. But as Australians we still need to do more to elevate the quality of public discussion about the region. Like others whose work focuses on the Pacific, I find it disappointing that media interest evaporates if there is no obvious “China angle”.

As the Pacific Islands Forum is holding its annual summit this week, we’ve asked experts on the Pacific to examine the great power competition in the region. How are countries like the US, Australia, China and others attempting to wield power and influence in the Pacific? And how effective has it been? You can read the rest of the series here and here

To be sure, China’s behaviour in the Pacific is a legitimate matter of concern for both Australia and the region.

Beijing is investing heavily in its defence relations with the Pacific and promoting a different model of governance based on an authoritarian set of values. Many islanders are also concerned about creeping Chinese influence on the governance, media freedom and political independence of their nations.

The trouble is the way Australians talk about the Pacific often conveys the impression that “strategic denial” is the only motivation underpinning the country’s approach to the region – that we are more interested in excluding others than we are in the region itself.

There is nothing new about this. We are simply continuing a pattern that can be traced back to the very beginnings of colonial Australia.

Preventing settlement on the continent

Denying the Pacific to others was among the reasons behind Britain’s decision to establish the New South Wales colony. The planners argued it would provide a base from which to attack Spanish commerce in the ocean. They also saw an opportunity to deny French occupation of the continent.

As British Home Secretary Lord Sydney noted in 1786, a settlement at Botany Bay would

be a means of preventing the emigration of Our European Neighbours to that Quarter.

The appointment of Arthur Philip as the first governor of the colony effectively put him in charge of the entire eastern half of the continent, as well as a vast expanse of ocean radiating out from Cape York in the north to the southern tip of what is now Tasmania.

In the early 1800s, the Australian colonies responded with anxiety to a series of strategic threats – real or perceived – from foreign powers in the Pacific.

For example, just after war broke out between Britain and Napoleon Bonaparte’s France in 1803, Governor Philip King dispatched an expedition to settle Van Diemen’s Land out of concern it might be of strategic use to France.

Two decades later, rumours of French plans for a colony in Western Australia motivated Britain to establish its own there, too.

Russia followed closely behind France as a perceived threat in the Pacific. This intensified in the 1850s when Britain was part of an alliance that fought Russia in the Crimean War. The movement of a Russian naval squadron near Australian waters in 1854 prompted the reorganisation of imperial forces in the colonies and the construction of defensive batteries around Sydney Harbour.

Then, in the late 19th century, alarm bells rang about the French again. Colonial officials and newspapers strongly opposed the establishment of a French penal colony in New Caledonia and settlement in New Hebrides (now Vanuatu), not far from Australia’s shores.

A new threat emerges

Around the same time, the newly unified Germany came to be regarded in the colonies as the main threat to “natural” British dominance in the Pacific. This concern focused on the island of New Guinea as German missionary and trading activity expanded there from the early 1870s.

The authorities in London thought the Australians’ concerns were overblown and had no wish to provoke either Berlin or Paris at a delicate time in European affairs.

This tension, however, led to one of the more dramatic moments in colonial history. Fearing imminent German annexation of New Guinea, Queensland Premier Thomas McIlwraith sent a police magistrate to Port Moresby in 1883 to claim the island on behalf of the British empire.

British authorities, however, suspected the move was motivated by a desire to source “blackbirding” labour for Queensland’s sugarcane plantations and refused to approve the action, sparking colonial outrage.

Just a year later, the British ended up establishing a protectorate in southeastern New Guinea anyway, after Germany moved into the northeastern corner. But Australian anger about the British “betrayal” did not subside, helping drive the push for an independent policy towards the Pacific and eventually Australian nationhood.

A national mindset on the Pacific takes hold

In fact, the first major convention of the colonies to discuss federation in 1883 was prompted by an immediate need to oppose French and German colonisation in the Pacific.

Around the same time, renewed tensions between Russia and Britain in the Pacific led to an expansion of the colonies’ military forces and the establishment of an auxiliary Royal Navy squadron in Australian waters.

So, when the Constitution was drafted in 1901, the framers specifically gave the Commonwealth the power to make laws “with the islands of the Pacific”. This reflected the growing sense that British authorities were not taking the colonies’ security concerns about the Pacific seriously enough.

A new national way of thinking of the Pacific was beginning to take hold. Early Australian leaders saw the Pacific similarly to how it was depicted during the 2022 election campaign – a vast, empty region where alien powers threatened Australian security interests.

And just like today, arguments for greater national sovereignty in defence came up against the belief that Australia’s security could best be guaranteed through an alliance with a major power.

For example, the Australian public strongly approved of a visit by the US Navy in 1908, which demonstrated to a rising Japan that Australia had powerful friends. But some voices were also critical of relying too heavily on the United States. The Bulletin magazine opined that if Japan was to attack,

there may be one chance in ten that the United States will be our ally.

Shifting our perspective

Throughout the 20th century, more conflicts and geopolitical rivalries have only strengthened this mindset that Australia must retain hegemony over the Pacific to keep threats at bay.

The second world war in the Pacific was crucial to shaping Australia’s defence posture and the misgivings it continues to have about potential threats.

In recent years, this concern has shifted from Japan and Germany to China. As it has emerged as a regional power, Beijing has taken an aggressive approach to security issues in the Pacific and attempted to woo Pacific partners with concessional finance arrangements and opaque support for politicians.

On the plus side, Australia’s relations with the region have matured. Canberra respected the post-war drive for independence in the Pacific and has poured billions of dollars in aid money into the region to help the new nations develop.

Australian diplomacy has also become more responsive to the concerns of island nations, and has been in the spotlight again this week during Prime Minister Anthony Albanese visit to Cook Islands for the Pacific Islands Forum.

But our public discussions about the Pacific still contain echoes of the past. This contributes to a narrow, seemingly insecure, viewpoint on the region.

The Morrison government’s mishandling of its communication with Pacific countries about the AUKUS initiative shows how a singular focus on strategic denial can undermine our relations. Pacific nations were shocked by the idea that nuclear-powered submarines would be deployed in their region, particularly those that had experienced nuclear testing in the past.

Some leaders lashed out, like Fijian Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama:

If we can spend trillions on missiles drones, and nuclear submarines, we can fund climate action.

Our diplomacy on this issue has improved since.

Successive Australian governments stretching back to the early colonial administrators were not necessarily wrong in pointing to the potential security threats arising from the activities of others in the region.

But the real failing – then and now – has been to project only these concerns in the way we talk to, and about, the Pacific.

Ian Kemish AM is affiliated with the ANU National Security College, Griffith Asia Institute and University of Queensland. His strategic advisory business Forridel assists private and public sector organisations with stakeholder engagement across the Indo-Pacific region. He also chairs KTF, a foundation which partners with the Australian Government, PNG authorities and several private sector entities.

– ref. Australia has long viewed the Pacific as a place of threats that must be contained. It’s time for this mindset to change – https://theconversation.com/australia-has-long-viewed-the-pacific-as-a-place-of-threats-that-must-be-contained-its-time-for-this-mindset-to-change-212772

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kate Mannell, Research Fellow in Digital Childhoods, Deakin University

For many of us, group chats are part of the texture of our social lives. These groups, formed on apps like Messenger or Whatsapp, can be as large as a hundred people or as small as three.

We use them for organising one-off tasks or events, managing recurring coordination between groups like sports clubs or work teams, and keeping in touch with family and friends.

In the best cases, group chats can provide important spaces for building and maintaining relationships. They can be places of joy, solidarity and refuge.

But they can also be burdensome, and create feelings of anxiety and worry. I researched group chat dynamics and these are the three biggest issues I encountered.

1. You’re overwhelmed by the volume of messages

The volume of messages and notifications group chats generate can be overwhelming.

In my own research, a participant recalled accidentally leaving her phone at home, and returning to find she’d missed 200 messages in a group chat about buying a birthday gift.

Another explained that their most active group chat kicked off at 8am and didn’t quiet down until 1am.

A recent survey of people in the United States and United Kingdom suggests this is a common problem, with 40% of the respondents indicating they were overwhelmed with group chat messages and notifications. And then there’s notifications from email, social media, calendars, news apps, and so on.

People often manage this by muting group chats. But this can mean missing important information or plans to catch up, or having to dip in and out of the group chat to check for relevant conversations.

Read more:
Say what? How to improve virtual catch-ups, book groups and wine nights

People can also find the chaos of group chat conversations overwhelming. In large groups, multiple conversations can be running at once, making it hard to keep track of what is being discussed or planned.

These problems can make group chats ineffective for the tasks they were set up to complete. Especially in large groups of acquaintances, planning can devolve into a mess of opinions, alternatives and side conversations.

One participant in my research described a group chat about a birthday gift getting sidetracked by two people having their own catch up.

Another recounted a disastrous group chat involving 20 people trying to organise a potluck dinner. Rather than reaching a consensus about who would bring what, the conversation devolved into a debate about whether potlucks were a bad idea, with one person insisting professional catering would better account for dietary requirements.

2. You don’t want to be there – but can’t leave

Other, possibly more significant, challenges are the difficult or awkward social dynamics that can arise. The ease of creating groups and adding members means people can be included in groups they wouldn’t have chosen to join.

In one instance of this, a woman was added to a group for organising a shared gift for a colleague. She would have preferred not to contribute to the gift but found it too awkward to leave.

Challenging dynamics can also arise when relationships change after a group chat has been established.

One participant told me about a group chat started by four close friends when they began university. A year later, one person had grown distant and become largely silent in the group chat, although the other three still used it to chat and organise catch ups. My participant found this dynamic incredibly awkward and had become cautious about starting group chats as a result.

Other participants described feeling trapped in group chats they would prefer to leave. The blunt “x has left the group” notification made them reluctant to formally quit but ignoring the group was also uncomfortable.

Many of these challenges stem from the rigid membership of group chats (you’re either in or you’re out) which doesn’t always gel with the complexity of our relationships. These challenges may also be exacerbated by unclear or contested social etiquette around group messaging.

3. You feel excluded

The most difficult issues arise when processes of social exclusion play out in group chats.

Back channel groups can emerge, where some group members create a new group to privately communicate about what’s happening in the main chat.

In the most dramatic cases, participants described people getting kicked out of groups because of disagreements or because someone felt the group chat had become too large.

Read more:
Research Check: is it true only half your friends actually like you?

Research suggests that being removed from a group is rare and mostly occurs when a relationship has ended.

But guessing whether you’ve been excluded from a group chat can be cause for anxiety, especially because you might not just be missing out on gossip and cat videos but also plans to catch up in person.

So what can you do?

Our relationships with each other can be weird, awkward and messy – group chats reflect this social reality but with an added layer of technological complexity thrown in.

Generally, research suggests that the group chats people enjoy most are smaller groups with closer friends.

So, until app design improves and we collectively figure out etiquette for awkward group chat moments, your best bets are to:

• use group chats with a handful of people who know each other, or who you’re confident will get along

• find another way of organising that potluck. Use other forms of organisation for more complex events or with larger groups (invitations, Facebook events or one-on-one texts)

• mute those crazy chats if you’re struggling with distraction or aren’t that interested. Muting is common and increasingly expected. If the chat is often used for organising things you don’t want to miss, let someone in the group know so they can keep you posted or make a routine of checking in

• if you’re feeling weird about some group chat social dynamics, raise it with the person in the group you know best. We can make lots of assumptions about what other people’s messaging behaviours mean but the lack of extra social cues mean our assumptions can be off. That person might not be avoiding you – they might just have the chat muted!

The Conversation is commissioning articles by academics across the world who are researching how society is being shaped by our digital interactions with each other. Read more here

Kate Mannell 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. Overwhelmed by group chat messages? You’re not alone – https://theconversation.com/overwhelmed-by-group-chat-messages-youre-not-alone-215879

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Macintosh, Professor and Director of Research, ANU Law School, Australian National University

This article is part of a series by The Conversation, Getting to Zero, examining Australia’s energy transition.

A time bomb is ticking inside the Albanese government’s climate policy. When it explodes, Australia will fall short of its climate targets and leave a gaggle of investors shirtless.

The problem arises from a poorly understood aspect of the net zero transition: carbon credits or offsets.

The centrepiece of Australia’s climate policy is a carbon pricing scheme known as the Safeguard Mechanism. It places caps on the emissions of around 220 of the country’s largest mining, gas and industrial facilities, based on the emissions intensity of their operations. Every year through to 2030 these caps will decline by between 1% and nearly 5%.

Read more:
Is nuclear the answer to Australia’s climate crisis?

The facilities have two ways to keep their emissions within the caps. They can reduce them, or they can buy and surrender one of two forms of credits, the most significant being Australian carbon credit units (ACCUs) issued under Australia’s carbon offset scheme.

How the offset scheme works

Under the scheme, landholders, energy users and other emitters can register projects that avoid emissions or sequester carbon dioxide in trees, soils or geological formations. Those who do so in line with specified rules receive ACCUs, a tradeable financial instrument.

Each carbon credit unit is supposed to represent additional and permanent abatement of greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to one tonne of CO₂.

Read more:
Australia’s new dawn: becoming a green superpower with a big role in cutting global emissions

Reducing the emissions of facilities covered by the Safeguard Mechanism is likely to be difficult and expensive, at least in the short term, as most are in the oil and gas, coal and other mining sectors. For some, the only viable way to significantly reduce emissions is to stop production.

Carbon credits enable these facilities to meet their obligations by effectively paying someone else who can cut emissions more cheaply. In theory, allowing facilities with high abatement costs to use offsets lowers the economy-wide cost of reducing greenhouse gases, without sacrificing climate outcomes.

But for the scheme to work, the ACCUs must have “integrity”: they must represent an actual reduction in emissions that would not have otherwise occurred. And to the extent the reduction involves sequestration of CO₂ in a sink (such as a forest), it must stay in the sink permanently.

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Since the offset scheme started in 2011, 137 million ACCUs have been issued. Three-quarters of these have come from three project types: avoided deforestation in western New South Wales, combustion of methane from landfills (largely to create electricity), and human-induced regeneration of native forests in arid areas of inland Australia.

Our research shows that most of these projects have low integrity. People are getting carbon credits for not clearing forests that were never going to be cleared anyway, for growing trees that already exist, for growing forests in places that will never sustain them, and for operating electricity generators at landfills that would have operated anyway.

Putting net zero in peril

These projects do serious damage to Australia’s emissions reduction efforts. They enable Safeguard Mechanism facilities to increase their emissions – and governments to approve new fossil fuel projects – on the grounds that carbon credits will provide offsetting reductions elsewhere. But credits with no integrity produce no offsetting reductions.

The flood of low-integrity credits in the ACCU market also artificially lowers the carbon price faced by the Safeguard Mechanism facilities. The lower price causes the facility operators to rely more heavily on offsets and delay onsite emission reduction efforts. It also warps the offset market by making high-integrity offset projects unviable – a form of Gresham’s Law, where bad projects drive out the good.

The situation with Australia’s offset scheme is not unique. Research on other offset schemes has found similar integrity problems. That’s because generating high-integrity credits is difficult.

Scheme regulators have a challenging job. Along with having to measure emissions and removals from dispersed and often naturally variable sources and carbon sinks, they must try to screen out phoney emissions reductions offered by project proponents.

The latter have both a huge information advantage over regulators and strong incentives to claim credits for doing what they were already doing or planning to do anyway – such as retaining forests they never intended to clear.

Read more:
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But regulators also have an incentive to increase the supply of credits, even if it risks reducing integrity. This is because low credit supply is taken as a sign of scheme failure.

Tight integrity standards reduce credit supply and push up credit prices, which in turn increases compliance costs for polluters and destabilises political support for carbon pricing schemes. Liquid markets built on a healthy supply of credits (regardless of quality) make regulators look good and keep emitters and politicians happy.

The failings of the Chubb Review

In 2022, the Albanese government commissioned former chief scientist Ian Chubb to lead a review of the ACCU scheme. The review’s report was confused and contradictory. It dismissed concerns about the scheme’s integrity, even those expressed by developers of offset projects.

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Despite not analysing the performance of a single project, the review confidently concluded that the level of abatement credited under the scheme had not been overstated. Its evidence for this was limited to one sentence: “While the Panel was provided with some evidence supporting that position (that integrity problems existed), it was also provided with evidence to the contrary.” It gave no details of what that contrary evidence was.

The panel then recommended substantial changes, including an end to the untenable situation in which the Clean Energy Regulator, the statutory authority charged with implementing legislation to reduce emissions, was responsible for making and administering the scheme rules and then buying most of the credits. The panel also proposed repeal of the avoided deforestation offset.

These changes, while welcome, were carefully designed to leave existing projects untouched. For example, repeal of the avoided deforestation method will not affect 63 existing projects, which will generate credits for years to come.

Conveniently, this will ensure that the supply of ACCUs and their price remain in a politically acceptable range until at least 2030.

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What the government must do

Truly fixing the scheme requires the government to stop crediting low-integrity projects and methods. The credit tap must be turned off for all avoided deforestation projects and most human-induced regeneration projects, and crediting arrangements for landfill projects must be radically improved.

The government’s political problem is that it needs to keep the carbon price within a palatable range for Safeguard Mechanism facilities. If it stopped crediting low-integrity projects, prices would skyrocket and not enough high-integrity credits exist to meet demand.

The government could solve the problem by introducing a standard cap price into the Safeguard Mechanism. Instead of surrendering credits, facilities could pay, for instance, A$50 per tonne on excess emissions. But that would open the government to claims that the scheme is just another carbon tax.

Fixing these flaws is challenging. But by refusing to face the problems head-on, the government has sabotaged its own climate policy. Its failure could also permanently stain the reputation of offsets.

Like Robodebt, the scheme is badly designed, unethical, and destined to fail, albeit for different reasons. We can only hope that when it unravels, it doesn’t do Australia’s decarbonisation efforts permanent harm.

Andrew Macintosh is a director of the Paraway Pastoral Company, which has offset projects registered under the ACCU scheme. He has also received funding for research projects involving analysis of the operation of the ACCU scheme.

Don Butler receives funding from the Australian Government.

– ref. The unsafe Safeguard Mechanism: how carbon credits could blow up Australia’s main climate policy – https://theconversation.com/the-unsafe-safeguard-mechanism-how-carbon-credits-could-blow-up-australias-main-climate-policy-213874

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Westaway, Australian Research Council Future Fellow, Archaeology, School of Social Science, The University of Queensland

For almost ten years, debate has raged over the book Dark Emu by Aboriginal historian Bruce Pascoe. In it, Pascoe argues many pre-colonial Aboriginal groups were farmers, pointing to examples like eel aquaculture in Victoria, and grain planting and threshing of native millet in the arid centre.

The debate has drawn in everyone from academics to Aboriginal communities invested in food futures to shock jocks claiming it is a warping of history.

For our group of archaeologists and First Nations people, the fact this debate has raged so long suggests there are shortcomings in how we think of food production and how we investigate it in Australian archaeology.

Farmers versus foragers is a huge oversimplification of what was a mosaic of food production. After all, Australian landscapes differ markedly, from tropical rainforest to snowy mountains to arid spinifex country. For many Aboriginal people, the terms “farming” and “hunter-gatherer” do not capture the realities of 60 millennia of food production.

In our new research published in the Archaeology of Food and Foodways, we argue that to better understand millennia-old systems, archaeologists must engage deeply with fields such as plant genetics, ethnobotany, archaeobotany and bioarchaeology as well as listening more carefully to the views of Aboriginal people. Here’s how.

We need to use better methods

For decades, archaeologists have grappled with the task of understanding ancient food production. We are by no means the first to point to the lack of appropriate methods as a reason why this has proved hard.

Archaeobotanists Anna Florin and Xavier Carah have observed that food production systems in northern Australia are very similar to those in Papua New Guinea. While we accept Papuan food gardens, Australian archaeologists have been less eager to embrace this idea for Australia.

In part, this is a failure of terminology. Aboriginal food production was enormously varied.

The solution lies in better methods. For instance, many Aboriginal groups lived semi-permanently in gunyah (bark hut) villages, as Dark Emu demonstrates by quoting colonial observers.

These settlement sites are vital to gaining a better understanding of how people lived. By excavating gunyah sites and fireplaces where food was prepared, we can recover seeds by sieving dirt and ash to find out which plants people used. The problem? Many of the sieves used were not fine enough to capture the tiny seeds of vital plants such as native millet. Most seeds used by Aboriginal groups were less than 1mm in radius.

This can be fixed. In south-west Asia, archeobotanists have long used fine mesh sieves to recover ancient seeds. You also need reference collections of seeds to be able to identify them from fireplaces.

Genetics – and archaeology?

It might not sound like a natural fit. But around the world, combining plant genetics with archaeology has dramatically changed our understanding of how people used plants, how they moved them about the landscape and how they changed these plants into forms better suiting our use. The wild precursor of corn, for instance, looks almost nothing like what we moulded it into through selection.

Combining these approaches is only in its infancy in Australia. But early applications together with Aboriginal knowledge of plant use has revealed dramatic new insights into how Aboriginal people moved important species such as black bean Castanospermum australe around the landscape and cultivated them.

The legacy of these food production techniques may still be visible today. For instance, when we look at the four species of native rice, we would not expect them to have large seeds. But all four species do. For millennia, Aboriginal groups in Australia’s wet north farmed these floodplain grasses. They may well have provided some selective pressure that resulted in larger grains, as early farmers did elsewhere.

To date, we don’t know this for sure. But we can find out. Careful genetic analysis of remaining wild populations should tell us if these large grains came from human rather than natural selection. We can also analyse genetic diversity between wild rice populations, to see if Aboriginal groups were involved in spreading these useful plants further.

Read more:
Friday essay: how our new archaeological research investigates Dark Emu’s idea of Aboriginal ‘agriculture’ and villages

Reading the story of bones

Every bone tells a story. In your bones lie traces of how fast you grew, what you ate and how hard your life was.

Studying ancestral remains is a very sensitive issue due to the colonial practice of collecting Aboriginal remains for research. But when done sensitively and respectfully, it yields fresh insights.

Bones and teeth can tell us many things about life in Aboriginal Australia. Tracking changes in isotope ratios in teeth can tell us if people were shifting to a more sedentary way of living. Stress in bones can tell us about difficult food production techniques such as labour-intensive seed grinding.

The past can shape the future

Aboriginal culture is 60 millennia old, during which time the climate shifted several times. Sea levels rose, flooding the Bass Strait and the coastal plains connecting Cape York to Papua New Guinea.

For a culture to survive that long means it had to rely on sustainable food production. Finding out how exactly this was done could yield lost knowledge and make it possible for current-day Aboriginal groups to recapture these methods and crops.

To date, renewed interest in bushfoods has not spread far beyond boutique food industries such as gourmet breads and specialised plant foods like Kakadu plum and quandongs.

Learning more about drought-resilient crops such as native rice and native millet (Panicum decompositum) could help farmers adapt to climate change and diversify food production. In central Victoria, the Dja Dja Wurung group is exploring the potential for kangaroo grass (Themeda triandra) for use as a food and as drought-resistant cattle fodder.

The better we understand ancient food production, the more likely we are to be able to bring this knowledge to bear on today’s challenges – and give a fuller answer to the questions raised by Dark Emu.

Read more:
Book review: Farmers or Hunter-gatherers? The Dark Emu Debate rigorously critiques Bruce Pascoe’s argument

Michael Westaway receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

Alison Crowther receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

Robert Henry receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

Rodney Carter is the CEO of the Dja Dja Wurrung Corporate Group, the Dja Dja Wurrung Clans Aborginal Corporation and Dja Dja Wurrung Enterprises.

Nathan Wright 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. Farmers or foragers? Pre-colonial Aboriginal food production was hardly that simple – https://theconversation.com/farmers-or-foragers-pre-colonial-aboriginal-food-production-was-hardly-that-simple-216988

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Virginia Beal, Senior Marketing Scientist, Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for Marketing Science, University of South Australia

Federal and state governments have just launched a A$10 million advertising campaign to “raise the status” of teachers in Australia and encourage people to consider a career in school education.

Called “Be That Teacher”, the campaign features emotive stories from eight real teachers who have positively affected their students’ lives and futures.

For example, Mr Wang, a maths teacher from Victoria talks about how a Year 10 student wrote him a note to say “thank you for making me feel smart for once”. Mrs Kentwell, a primary teacher from Queensland, spoke about holding the hand of a young blind student in a running race, while other students cheered him on.

The rewarding feeling you get from teaching is something I’ve never felt from any other job.

The campaign, by ad agency Clemenger BBDO, is running across social media, television, cinema, billboards and at bus stops and train stations until next April.

Why do we need it?

The campaign comes amid an ongoing teacher shortage crisis in Australia. Federal government modelling has predicted a shortfall of more than 4,000 teachers by 2025. Last month, the New South Wales government revealed a 42% drop in casual teacher numbers meant 10,000 lessons in the state were going without a teacher each day.

We also know the number of students enrolling in teaching degrees has dropped 12% in the past ten years. Of those who do enrol, only 50% finish the degree and 20% of those who graduate leave the profession within three years.

Australian studies have also told us teachers do not feel valued by the community, are abused and disrespected by parents, and receive poor media coverage.

Is this campaign the answer? Can advertising help solve Australia’s teacher shortage?

Read more:
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Advertising can work

There is evidence to show advertising can work. A clever way to demonstrate advertising’s value is to examine what happens in its absence. Our 2023 study showed, on average, brands experience a decline in sales when they stop advertising for more than one year.

But there are no certainties with advertising. So what increases the chance of a successful campaign?

Advertising works primarily by creating and refreshing memories – in this case by establishing a link between “teaching” and “positive career option”. This heightens the chance teaching will come to someone’s mind when considering careers. The freshness of a memory (how recently they saw the ad) increases the chances they will think of teaching.

This means the campaign should run while the shortage persists, to increase the chance it will be in potential students’ minds and particularly during the lead-up to university preference cut-off dates over the summer.

Do the ads themselves work?

The campaign gets an A on several factors.

The videos are beautifully crafted, capturing attention by using human faces, voices and authentic storytelling. All these elements improve the chances of campaign success by evoking an emotional response, which heightens memory retention.

The “Who will you inspire?” tagline used in the campaign is also both emotive and memorable.

The branding needs more work

Beyond the ads, the Be That Teacher website contains information about pursuing a teaching career (how to do it, available scholarships and support). While the campaign can create a memory or pique someone’s interest, this information will help people decide if teaching is the career for them.

Here, the branding aspect (or identity) of the campaign needs more work. Be That Teacher is new to Australians and it needs to be more prominent in the videos and still images to stand out and capture attention.

Introducing the line “Be That Teacher” visually at the beginning of the ads and adding a verbal mention, rather than just at the end, heightens the chance it will be processed and remembered. This is crucial if the campaign is going to push people to the website.

Of course we also need more than ads

Recruitment and retention issues in education are not new. Teachers report feeling overworked, underpaid and overly burdened by administrative tasks.

These are all complex issues and clearly, advertising will not be the sole fix to the teacher shortage (nor are governments suggesting it will be).

But with teachers so essential to Australia’s future, every effort should be made to build and retain our teaching workforce. Good advertising like this campaign can help generate more interest in the profession and provide a gentle nudge towards improving the status of this vital career.

Read more:
How do we retain teachers? Supporting them to work together could help

Virginia Beal 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. ‘Thank you for making me feel smart’: will a new campaign to raise the status of teaching work? – https://theconversation.com/thank-you-for-making-me-feel-smart-will-a-new-campaign-to-raise-the-status-of-teaching-work-217362

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Phoebe Macrossan, Lecturer in Screen Media, University of the Sunshine Coast

When you think of great Aussie musicals, some key films from the 1990s and 2000s come to mind: Strictly Ballroom, Muriel’s Wedding, Moulin Rouge!, Bran Nue Dae and The Sapphires. These films are often framed as “reviving” the musical genre for Australian audiences, due in large part to their box-office success.

While certainly fantastic films, there is actually a long history of Aussie musicals that have been popular with cinema audiences since the 1930s.

There are 73 films that have been classified as a “musical” or containing musical elements by the National Film and Sound Archive. They include comedies, children’s and animated films, dramas, revues, backstage musicals, biopics, dance films, rock musicals, soundtrack films, television musicals and live concert films.

So where to begin? These are my top five Aussie musicals you may not have heard of but should definitely try to see.

These films represent just a snapshot of the rich history of musical cinema in Australia. They demonstrate how Australian cinema responds to international trends in musical cinema production, but also how it influences and innovates in the global musical genre.

These films are hard to get a hold of and only occasionally pop up on streaming services – if at all. However, you might catch them on DVD or at your local indie film festival or retrospective (there were several screenings of Starstruck when the NFSA released a digitally restored version in 2015).

Read more:
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1. Funny Things Happen Down Under

Olivia Newton-John’s 1965 debut feature, Funny Things Happen Down Under, directed by Joe McCormick, was an adaptation of the Terrible Ten children’s television show from 1959–60.

It’s Christmas time in the bush and a group of country children make a plan to save their woolshed, under threat because the sheep station has to be sold.

After they accidentally turn a goat’s wool multi-coloured because it drinks a strange concoction of Christmas pudding, flowers and fizzy water, they decide to feed it to the sheep to sell rainbow-coloured wool.

While certainly of its time (there is a scene that involves yellow face), the film has some great songs by Newton-John and New Zealand singer Howard Morrison, as well as an athletic final dance number around the shed called Click Go the Shears.

2. Oz

Directed by Chris Lofven, the 1976 film Oz (also known as Oz: A Rock ‘n’ Roll Road Movie, or 20th Century Oz on its release in the United States) is a version of The Wizard of Oz as a rock ‘n’ roll road movie set in the Australian outback.

Dorothy (Joy Dunstan) is hitchhiking to the city to see glam rocker The Wizard. Along the way she meets brainless surfie (Bruce “Stork” Spence) – the scarecrow – a mean mechanic (Michael Carman) – the tin man – and an overly confident bikie (Gary Waddell) – the lion.

Ross Wilson, the frontman of Daddy Cool and Mondo Rock, wrote and produced Oz’s musical score. The singles Livin’ in the Land of Oz by Wilson and Beating Around the Bush by Jo Jo Zep and the Falcons were both released in 1976 from the soundtrack.

Much like motorcycle road movie Easy Rider (1970), which had become a symbol of New Hollywood, Oz made a direct appeal to young audiences and the counterculture via a compilation soundtrack of contemporary popular music.

3. Starstruck

Gillian Armstrong’s Starstruck (1982) is a backstage musical set in 1980s Sydney. Barmaid Jackie (Jo Kennedy) lives above her family pub The Harbour View Hotel in The Rocks in Sydney with her mum, Nanna, cousin Angus and their pet cockatoo.

Jackie dreams of being a star, falls for a guitarist and joins a band called The Wombats so they can enter a TV talent competition.

Cue numerous musical numbers including Body and Soul, where Jackie dances on the bar, and an eventual performance at the Opera House after the band sneak on stage.

There’s also a fabulously camp Busby Berkeley-eque rooftop swimming pool number complete with co-ordinated lifeguards in speedos.

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4. Dogs in Space

Rather than a traditional musical, Richard Lowenstein’s Dogs in Space (1986) is set in the underground punk scene in late 1970s Melbourne. It follows rocker Sammy (played by Aussie icon Michael Hutchence) through performing, partying, falling in love – and taking lots and lots of drugs.

The film has some amazing cinematography with winding long takes of the cast at their crammed inner-city terrace house as it gets progressively trashed by party after party.

Sammy’s love story with girlfriend Anna (Saskia Post) ends in tragedy and the final song, Rooms for the Memory, effectively uses Hutchence’s brooding star presence and vocals to great effect.

Read more:
Friday essay: Dogs in Space, 30 years on – a once maligned film comes of age

5. One Night the Moon

Based on true events from 1932, One Night the Moon (2001), written by First Nations director Rachel Perkins, features Aussie singer-songwriter Paul Kelly as the father of a girl (played by Memphis Kelly, his real daughter) who goes missing in the outback.

The girl’s mother (played by Kelly’s then wife and Memphis’ mother, Kaarin Fairfax) wants to employ an Aboriginal tracker (Kelton Pell) to help find the girl. Her father refuses, thus sealing the fate of his daughter through his prejudice.

With haunting songwriting and sweeping shots of the unforgiving landscape, this is a beautiful and moving story.

Phoebe Macrossan received funding from the University of the Sunshine Coast and assistance from the National Film and Sound Archive and the Australian Film Institute Research Collection for this research.

– ref. 5 Aussie musicals you might not have heard of – but really should see – https://theconversation.com/5-aussie-musicals-you-might-not-have-heard-of-but-really-should-see-213646

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

It’s helpful for the Albanese government to have all mainland states in Labor hands – but only up to a point.

This week we’ve seen the Queensland government bite back at federal plans to curb the national infrastructure program, while Victorian resistance to changes to the Murray-Darling water plan prompted Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek to lash out.

Infrastructure is always a vexed issue. The program is full of pork barrelling, whoever is in power. Even when that’s not involved, what to build and when it should be built is often contested.

In May, the government announced a 90-day review of the $120 billion infrastructure pipeline it inherited from the Coalition.

Infrastructure Minister Catherine King said projects had increased from about 150 to 800. The government’s aim was to reduce the number of projects (many of them small) and rearrange priorities.

High inflation, cost overruns and shortages of labour and materials are plaguing the program.

The political difficulties of abolishing or changing projects, often involving negotiation with states and territories, are obvious enough. Now they have become significantly worse.

The government has received its stocktake, and Treasurer Jim Chalmers says the overall cost of the program has blown out by some $33 billion.

Also, an International Monetary Fund report last week said infrastructure projects should be rolled out at a “more measured and co-ordinated pace, given supply constraints, to alleviate inflationary pressures”.

Chalmers is pushing this message, but it’s not being received well in Queensland.

State Treasurer Cameron Dick was blunt. “Queensland is Australia’s growth state and we need more infrastructure, not less,” he said in a tweet. “If infrastructure cuts are needed, they should be made to southern states with low growth and high debt.” (Fun fact: the electorate offices of Queenslanders Chalmers and Dick share a common wall.)

Queensland Police Minister Mark Ryan said:

I’ve got a clear message for Jim. Jim’s a mate of mine. Jim, those projects better not be in Queensland.

The last thing the Palaszczuk government wants is for projects to be cancelled, slashed or delayed. It is in a particularly precarious position – it faces an election in a year’s time and will be fighting for survival.

Queensland has an obvious political self-interest in resisting infrastructure cuts, but there’s a national point too. With large numbers of migrants coming into Australia, the demand for transport and other infrastructure will be increasing, rather than decreasing. Whatever cuts and slowdowns are made will need to be well judged.

The federal government argues the existing pipeline is unrealistic and without change could not be delivered anyway. But even if the decisions about what to cut, scale back or defer are economically sound, in political terms they could store up electoral time bombs for the government.

Even minor and unworthy projects can be sensitive in marginal seats. Scrapping them could open opportunities for the opposition. Also, available funds for new projects presumably will be limited.

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When the government finishes its negotiations with the states and the outcomes are announced, King will be the main minister defending the decisions.

As we saw in the row over the rejection of Qatar Airways’ bid for extra flights, she struggles when under pressure. She could find the task challenging.

The fight over the government’s water changes centre on its planned amendments to the Murray-Darling Basin plan.

The legislation, soon to be considered by the Senate, broadens the activities that can be funded and extends the times for delivery of water-recovery projects. Most importantly, it removes the cap on the federal government’s “buybacks” of extra water for the environment.

The Murray-Darling plan is always fraught, because the interests of upstream and downstream users and their governments differ. Nevertheless, Queensland, South Australia and New South Wales have signed on – although NSW has done so reluctantly.

But Victoria, where the Andrews government has built a close relationship with irrigators, has held out, defending its position on the basis of work done by Frontier Economics](https://www.water.vic.gov.au/our-programs/murray-darling-basin/social-and-economic-impacts-of-the-basin-plan-in-victoria).

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Its report argues that “previous water recovery has resulted in less irrigation […] putting the viability of major irrigation districts and the industries and communities they support under pressure”.

“Further water recovery from irrigators (buybacks and on-farm projects) will add to the impacts already being felt and undermine the ability of irrigation communities to plan for the future.”

Plibersek declared, in an interview with the ABC, that it was “extraordinary that we’ve got a Labor government using dodgy modelling to join up with Barnaby Joyce and David Littleproud”.

Victoria’s Water Minister Harriet Shing retorts: “This isn’t about party politics, and it’s disappointing to see it framed that way. We don’t apologise for standing up for Victorian communities and environments.”

But Plibersek has backing from Jamie Pittock, from the Australian National University’s Fenner School of Environment and Society. He says:

The Victorian government can usually be relied on to make decisions based on solid data. In the case of the Murray-Darling Basin, bizarrely, it has relied on low-quality consultants’ reports that exaggerate the socio-economic costs and ignore the benefits from water buybacks.

The legislation will come to a vote in the Senate this year, and there will be wrangling with the crossbench.

Assuming the legislation passes, the federal government can override Victoria and proceed with the buybacks of water for the environment. But it will still face the opposition of farming and irrigator groups, and some local communities.

It would be hard to find political observers who believe Peter Dutton can win the next election, due by May 2025. But there is increasing talk about the possibility that Labor, given it has a very narrow majority, could find itself in minority government. (Contrast a year ago, when all the talk was about Labor’s prospects for increasing its majority.)

Being pushed into minority is something Albanese – a senior figure in the minority Gillard government – would want to avoid at all costs. It would hamper the government’s flexibility to pursue its program, mean constant negotiation with crossbenchers including bolshie Greens, and encourage the Coalition to run maximum disruption.

The challenge of keeping out of minority increases the importance of the “ground game” in Labor’s marginal electorates. And it could make controversies over local issues – scrapped infrastructure projects, or unpopular new ventures including ugly transmission lines for renewable energy – potentially dangerous for the incumbents in those seats.

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

– ref. Grattan on Friday: When Labor states don’t dance to the Albanese government’s tune – https://theconversation.com/grattan-on-friday-when-labor-states-dont-dance-to-the-albanese-governments-tune-217280

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark A Gregory, Associate Professor, School of Engineering, RMIT University

This week’s Optus outage affected 10 million people and hundreds of businesses. One of the early reasons given for the failure was a fault in the “core network”. The latest statement from the company points to “a network event” that caused the “cascading failure”.

The internet is complex, so most carriers, including Optus, use the concept of the “three layer network architecture” to explain it. This abstraction splits the entire network into layers.

The access layer

This layer consists of the devices you use to connect to the internet. They include the customer equipment, National Broadband Network firewalls, routers, mobile towers, and the wall sockets you plug into.

This layer generally isn’t interconnected, meaning each device sits at the end of the network. If you want to call a friend, for example, the signal would have to travel deeper into the network before coming back out to your friend’s phone.

An outage in the access layer might only affect you and your local neighbourhood.

The distribution layer

This layer interconnects the access layer with the core network (more on that later). Remember that the access layer regions aren’t connected to each other directly, so the distribution layer is the interconnecting layer.

Another term for the interconnection cables is “backhaul.”

It is a bit more abstract but generally includes large switches in local exchange buildings, and the cabling that joins them together and to the core network.

The main purpose of the distribution layer is to route data efficiently between access points. An outage in this layer could affect whole suburbs or geographic regions.

The core layer

The core layer is the most abstract. It is the central backbone of the entire network and connects the distribution layers together and connects telecommunication carrier networks with the global network.

While physically similar to the distribution layer, with switches and cables, it is much faster, contains more redundancy and is the location on the carrier’s network where device and customer management systems reside. The carrier’s operational and business systems are responsible for access, authentication, traffic management, service provision and billing.

The core layer’s primary function is volume and speed. It connects data-centres, servers and the world wide web into the network using large fibre optic cables.

An outage in the core layer affects the entire country, as occurred with the Optus outage.

Why three layers?

A big problem with networking is how to keep everyone connected as the network expands.

In a small network it may be possible to link everyone together but as a network grows this would be unwieldy, so the network is divided into layers based on function.

The three layer model provides a functional description of a typical carrier network. In practice, networks are more complex, but we use the three layer model to assist with the understanding of where equipment and systems are found in the network, e.g., mobile towers are in the access layer.

The core layer is designed to ensure that access layer traffic coming from and going to the Internet or data-centres is processed and distributed quickly and efficiently. Today many terabytes of data moves through a typical carrier core network daily.

Now you can see why a core layer failure could affect so many people.

Mark A Gregory 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. Explainer: what is the ‘core network’ that was crucial to the Optus outage? – https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-the-core-network-that-was-crucial-to-the-optus-outage-217375