A ping from the pizza company. A couple of pings from your socials. Ping, ping, ping from your family WhatsApp group trying to organise a weekend barbecue.
With all those smartphone notifications, it’s no wonder you lose focus on what you’re trying to do do.
Your phone doesn’t even need to ping to distract you. There’s pretty goodevidence the mere presence of your phone, silent or not, is enough to divert your attention.
So what’s going on? More importantly, how can you reclaim your focus, without missing the important stuff?
When you look at the big picture, those pings can really add up.
Although estimates vary, the average person checks their phone around 85 timesa day, roughly once every 15 minutes.
In other words, every 15 minutes or so, your attention is likely to wander from what you’re doing. The trouble is, it can take several minutes to regain your concentration fully after being interrupted by your phone.
If you’re just watching TV, distractions (and refocusing) are no big deal. But if you’re driving a car, trying to study, at work, or spending time with your loved ones, it could lead to some fairly substantial problems.
The pings from your phone are “exogenous interruptions”. In other words, something external, around you, has caused the interruption.
We can become conditioned to feeling excited when we hear our phones ping. This is the same pleasurable feeling people who gamble can quickly become conditioned to at the sight or sound of a poker machine.
What if your phone is on silent? Doesn’t that solve the ping problem? Well, no.
That’s another type of interruption, an internal (or endogenous) interruption.
Think of every time you were working on a task but your attention drifted to your phone. You may have fought the urge to pick it up and see what was happening online, but you probably checked anyway.
In this situation, we can become so strongly conditioned to expect a reward each time we look at our phone we don’t need to wait for a ping to trigger the effect.
These impulses are powerful. Just reading this article about checking your phone may make you feel like … checking your phone.
But is there any evidence our brain is working harder to manage the frequent switches in attention?
One study of people’s brain waves found those who describe themselves as heavy smartphone users were more sensitive to push notifications than ones who said they were light users.
After hearing a push notification, heavy users were significantly worse at recovering their concentration on a task than lighter users. Although push notification interrupted concentration for both groups, the heavy users took much longer to regain focus.
Frequent interruptions from your phone can also leave you feeling stressed by a need to respond. Frequent smartphone interruptions are also associated with increased FOMO (fear of missing out).
If you get distracted by your phone after responding to a notification, any subsequent procrastination in returning to a task can also leave you feeling guilty or frustrated.
There’s certainly evidence suggesting the longer you spend using your phone in unproductive ways, the lower you tend to rate your wellbeing.
We know switching your phone to silent isn’t going to magically fix the problem, especially if you’re already a frequent checker.
What’s needed is behaviour change, and that’s hard. It can take several attempts to see lasting change. If you have ever tried to quit smoking, lose weight, or start an exercise program you’ll know what I mean.
Start by turning off all non-essential notifications. Then here are some things to try if you want to reduce the number of times you check your phone:
charge your phone overnight in a different room to your bedroom. Notifications can prevent you falling asleep and can repeatedly rouse you from essential sleep throughout the night
interrupt the urge to check and actively decide if it’s going to benefit you, in that moment. For example, as you turn to reach for your phone, stop and ask yourself if this action serves a purpose other than distraction
try the Pomodoro method to stay focused on a task. This involves breaking your concentration time up into manageable chunks (for example, 25 minutes) then rewarding yourself with a short break (for instance, to check your phone) between chunks. Gradually increase the length of time between rewards. Gradually re-learning to sustain your attention on any task can take a while if you’re a high-volume checker.
Sharon Horwood 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.
On the 4th of December, TikTok user @jongraz announced his beloved pet, a pug named Noodle, had died aged 14. The announcement video received over 19 million views and 4 million likes, a testament to how widely loved Noodle was online.
Noodle and his owner Jonathan Graziano went viral on TikTok for their “Bones Day” routine. In the morning, Jonathan would film his attempts to lift Noodle out of bed. If Noodle stood up, it would be a Bones Day.
If he slouched back into bed, appearing to have no bones, it would be a No Bones Day. Jonathan would then give advice as to what kind of day viewers should expect to have, using Noodle’s Bones status as predictor of things to come.
For example, on a video with the caption “the prophet returns”, Jonathan tests Noodle and discovers it is a No Bones Day. He tells the viewers this “reading” means the audience has to be kind to themselves, they don’t have to do the dishes and are allowed to wear sweatpants for the rest of the day. Because Noodle said so.
The Bones Day phenomenon quickly became part of the Internet’s vernacular. The language spread into many online communities, and multiple TikTok musical artists made songs about Noodle. Noodle’s dad, along with illustrator Dan Travis, published a New York Times Bestseller book titled, Noodle and the No Bones Day
Noodle and Jonathan reached viral fame on TikTok one year into the pandemic, at time when many people were burnt out and experiencing deep loss. Fans online would use the Bones Day predictions as a sign of self care, coming together in the video comments to encourage Noodle and each other to rest and try again tomorrow.
Parasocial relationships and lost pets
Noodle’s death highlights the complex nature of online parasocial relationships. Introduced by Psychologists Donald Horton and R. Richard Wohl in 1956, this idea of a parasocial relationship describes when viewers of media have “an apparently intimate, face-to-face associations with a performer”.
Media scholar Janice Peck believes parasocial relationships are created when repeat contact with an online personality makes the viewer feel like they are talking to a friend. The intimate nature of how influencers share their lives online can make audiences feel closer to them. We are excited at their successes and can feel sadness when they are grieving.
If you have ever said that a celebrity’s behaviour was out of character, or felt like you understood a decision someone online was making, you might be experiencing a parasocial relationship. For example, the infamous trial between Johnny Depp and Amber Heard highlights how people eagerly take the side of one celebrity and condemn another. Shows like Love Island have incredibly strong fan attachments.
Parasociality, also called communicative intimacies by anthropologist and ethnographer Crystal Abidin, is negotiated through audience feedback, where audiences crave personal interactions – and influencers respond in kind. These kinds of relationships are common online and can also extend to pets.
There are currently millions of social media accounts dedicated to pets, many of these amassing large followings. Ester the Wonder Pig,Tuna the chiweenie, and Tikathe Italian Greyhound are some notable examples.
Pets and grief
Animal behaviourist Melissa Starling says that the loss of a pet can be deep and complex. While this grief is often invalidated by society by being seen as “lesser” than grief for a person, Starling argues it is important to recognise how the loss of a pet can be as painful as the loss of a human. Through the parasocial relationships that we form with pets like Noodle, it is not uncommon to grieve his death as we would our own pet or loved one.
Noodle is not the first beloved internet pet to pass away publicly. Earlier in the year Pot Roast, a famous cat on TikTok also died. The complex nature of the relationship between viewer and pet came to light as many fans of Pot Roast lashed out against her owner for the way she displayed her own grief.
One of the first famous pet’s death that reached headlines was the well-known Grumpy Cat, real name Tardar Sauce. Grumpy Cat amassed a massive online audience, and her owner created an entire brand around the cat’s signature grumpy face. This branding has continued long after the cat’s death.
Celebrating life after death
Users experiencing parasocial relationships, like the millions responding to Noodle’s death, use this relationship to show support and maintain relationships within online communities.
Since Noodle’s passing, thousands have posted videos memorialising his life, including other popular pet TikTok accounts like @mistermainer. @mistermainer’s video, which has over 750,000 views, is titled “Remembering an internet legend”. The video begins with close shot of the dog Maine before fading into clips of Noodle and his owner Jonathan, in a style reminiscent of funeral memorial videos.
Popular user @thechalkingdad posted a video tribute to Noodle by drawing his portrait in chalk. This video, with 1.7 million views, has soft background music, and a sombre voice over that says, “Goodbye Noodle, may every day be a bones day in heaven”.
Parasocial relationships with pets online are not only common, but can lead to very real feelings of grief. While grieving a pet may transgress the expected boundaries, these feelings are valid.
Noodle’s death reminds us of the deep, complex, and often very fulfilling relationships that users can form online. Relative strangers are able to connect over social media in a solidarity of mourning. Rather than grieving alone, they can use social media platforms to grief collectively.
Edith Jennifer Hill 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.
The release this week of Sport NZ’s new Guiding Principles for the Inclusion of Transgender People in Community Sport caused a minor and predictable controversy. One former parliamentarian called the guidelines “woke ideology”. Deputy Prime Minister Grant Robertson responded that such opposition was “petty and small-minded”.
In reality, the guidelines are the result of extensive consultation over two years. They’re a response to national sports organisations calling for help in navigating the uncharted waters of imagining sport beyond the gender binary.
They recommend supporting athletes to participate in community sport in the gender they identify as. Sports organisations are now tasked with developing new or revised policies that prioritise inclusion.
While some, such as NZ Rugby and Boxing New Zealand, are already working on transgender policies, the guidelines offer a clear road map for the consultative process, with the support of Sport NZ.
Recognising this will be different for each sport, Sport NZ CEO Raelene Castle says the guidelines are simply a good “start point for conversation”. At their core is the principle of inclusion, based on wellbeing and safety, privacy and dignity, and removing discrimination, bullying and harassment.
By gaining confidence through this process, it’s hoped sports organisations will recognise that making sport safer and more inclusive is ultimately beneficial for all. The question now, however, is whether change at the grassroots level can filter up to elite sports, which are most often governed and directed by policies set by international bodies.
Sport NZ CEO Raelene Castle speaking at the World Conference on Women & Sport in Auckland in November 2022. Getty Images
A blurry line
Sport NZ and High Performance Sport New Zealand have committed to supporting national sporting bodies navigate the rules and regulations applied by international sporting organisations. In practice, however, the boundaries between community and national and international elite sports are blurry.
Access to sport is a human right. It has many social, psychological and physical benefits that should be available to all. The principles and practices of inclusion don’t observe boundaries between community and elite sport, and many sports organisations are struggling to balance competitive fairness with inclusiveness, and governance with human rights law.
Some international organisations continue to reinforce gender binary norms in elite sport with policies based on increasingly outdated views of biological sex. Others are working towards policies that recognise changing understandings of gender in wider society.
A year ago, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) released updated guidelines for inclusion of transgender and intersex athletes. No athlete should be excluded from competing based on an “unverified, alleged or perceived unfair competitive advantage due to their sex variations, physical appearance and/or transgender status”.
The guidelines recognised decades of significant harm caused to athletes who have experienced unethical and “medically unnecessary” procedures and treatments to meet previous selection criteria. Indeed, the widespread use of so-called “sex testing” justified by sporting criteria has been a gross violation of human rights.
Lia Thomas competing at the NCAA Swimming and Diving Championships in the US in March 2022. Getty Images
Resistance and reaction
The media attention and polarising debates surrounding high-profile transgender athletes like New Zealand Olympic weightlifter Laurel Hubbard and US swimmer Lia Thomas have prompted some sports organisations to revise their policies, often under duress.
Rowing USA, for instance, has just announced a new Gender Identity Policy. Domestic athletes can now participate based on their “expressed gender identity”.
Some are concerned that opening competition in this way essentially eliminates the “women’s category”. Others see such initiatives as a move towards reimagining sport as safe, supportive and inclusive of people across the gender spectrum.
Other sports have taken a different stance. World Rugby banned transgender women from women’s rugby in 2020. And earlier this year the aquatic sports federation FINA banned transgender swimmers, reintroducing measuresdescribed by one critic as “an unacceptable erosion of bodily autonomy for women and girls”.
Bans on trans athletes are often justified on the ground of biology and science. The counter-argument is that the research on transgender sports performance is too new to make definitive calls this early. But one analysis of the literature concluded “the future of women’s sport includes transgender women and girls”.
As the new book Justice for Trans Athletes shows, transgender athletes experience many challenges, including stigma, discrimination and gender-based violence. Sport NZ is to be commended for recognising its responsibility to take such trauma into account, given the harm that can be done during “debates” about the participation of an already marginalised and often vulnerable group.
Local sporting bodies will not lose funding if they don’t adopt the principles within their inclusion and diversity policies, but the Sport NZ guidelines clearly identify expectations for best practice.
It remains to be seen how national and international sports organisations implement and regulate such guidelines if and when some sporting bodies refuse to voluntarily adopt them. Given the onus is on organisations to carve their own paths, there is a lot of room for alternative interpretations of what are essentially still only recommendations.
As sports medicine and social science scholars acknowledge, developing overarching policy on transgender participation in sport remains complex and messy. Introducing guidelines and frameworks rather than enforceable policy may be a lighter touch, but it sends a clear message of an organisational commitment to change.
Starting from a place of inclusion is an important sign of progress. But it will be a shame if this important human rights issue becomes tangled and lost in the all-too-familiar power plays and politics of global sport.
Holly Thorpe 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.
People’s Alliance candidate Lynda Tabuya claims her 16-year-old daughter was “harassed” by the Fiji Independent Commission Against Corruption (FICAC) officers last week.
Tabuya made this allegation in a video posted on social media.
“This is my daughter coming back from school and they asked her where I was,” she said.
“And she said she didn’t know and then they said to her, ‘tell your mother that FICAC is looking for her’.”
She said this step taken by FICAC was unacceptable.
“You come to my home and harass my child, my 16-year-old who was just coming back from school, just did her exam.
“It’s just very shameful.”
Made daughter panic Tabuya said this made her daughter panic and worry about what would happen to her mother.
“You know, they could have asked her, is there an adult in the home, can we see someone?
“But no, they came and my family was at home and they rang the doorbell like 10 times, 15 times in a row with my children inside.
“What are you doing FICAC. If you wanted to find me, you know where to find me, you have means to find me, but don’t harass my children.”
Questions sent to FICAC by The Fiji Times on the claims made by Tabuya remained unanswered.
Rakesh Kumaris a Fiji Times journalist. Republished with permission.
The launch of a New Zealand project to produce more Pacific news and provide a “voice for the voiceless” on the islands has highlighted the neglect of that field by Australia and New Zealand — and also problems in universities.
The new development is the non-government, non-university Asia Pacific Media Network (APMN), a research base and publishing platform.
Its opening followed the cleaning-out of a centre within the Auckland University of Technology (AUT) — in an exercise exemplifying the kind of micro infighting that goes on hardly glimpsed from outside the academic world.
Cleaning out media centre The story features an unannounced move by university staff to vacate the offices of an active journalism teaching and publishing base, the Pacific Media Centre, in early February 2021.
Seven weeks after the retirement of that centre’s foundation director, Professor David Robie, staff of AUT’s School of Communication Studies turned up and stripped it, taking out the archives and Pacific taonga — valued artifacts from across the region.
Staff still based there did not know of this move until later.
The centre had been in operation for 13 years — it was popular with Pasifika students, especially postgrads who would go on reporting ventures for practice-led research around the Pacific; it was a base for online news, for example prolific outlets including a regular Pacific Media Watch; it had international standing especially through the well-rated (“SCOPUS-listed”) academic journal Pacific Journalism Review; and it was a cultural hub, where guests might receive a sung greeting from the staff, Pacific-style, or see fascinating art works and craft.
Its uptake across the “Blue Continent” showed up gaps in mainstream media services and in Australia’s case famously the backlog in promoting economic and cultural ties.
The PMC Project — a short documentary about the centre by Alistar Kata in 2016. Video: Pacific Media Centre
Human rights and media freedom The centre was founded in 2007, in a troubled era following a rogue military coup d’etat in Fiji, civil disturbances in Papua New Guinea, violent attacks on journalists in several parts, and endemic gender violence listed as a priority problem for the Pacific Islands Forum.
Through its publishing and conference activity it would take a stand on human rights and media freedom issues, social justice, economic and media domination from outside.
The actual physical evacuation was on the orders of the communications head of school at AUT, Dr Rosser Johnson, a recently appointed associate professor with a history of management service in several acting roles since 2005. He told the Australia Asia Pacific Media Initiative (AAPMI) that the university planned to keep a centre called the PMC and co-locate its offices with other centres — but that never happened.
His intervention caused predictable critical responses, as with this comment by a former New Zealand Heraldeditor-in-chief Dr Gavin Ellis, on dealing with corporatised universities, in “neo-liberal” times:
“For many years I thought universities were the ideal place to establish centres of investigative journalism excellence … My views have been shaken to the core by the Auckland University of Technology gutting the Pacific Media Centre.”
Conflicts over truth-telling The “PMC affair” has stirred conflicts that should worry observers who place value on truth-finding and truth-telling in university research, preparation for the professions, and academic freedom.
The Independent Australia report on the fate of the PMC this week. Image: Asia Pacific Report
The centre along with its counterpart at the University of Technology Sydney, called the Australian Centre for Independent Journalism (ACIJ), worked in the area of journalism as research, applying journalistic skills and methods, especially exercises in investigative journalism.
The ACIJ produced among many investigations, work on the reporting of climate policy and climate science, and the News of the World phone hacking scandal. It also was peremptorily shut-down, three years ahead of the PMC.
Both centres were placed in the journalism academic discipline, a “professional” and “teaching” discipline that traditionally draws in high achieving students interested in its practice-led approach.
All of which is decried by line academics in disciplines without professional linkages but a professional interest in the hierarchical arrangements and power relations within the confined space of their universities.
There the interest is in theoretical teaching and research outputs, often-enough called “Marxist”, “postmodern”, “communications” or “cultural studies”, angled at a de-legitimisation of “Western-liberal” mass media. Not that journalism education itself shies away from media criticism, as Dr Robie told Independent Australia:
“The Pacific Media Centre frequently challenged ‘ethnocentric journalistic practice’ and placed Māori, Pacific and indigenous and cultural diversity at the heart of the centre’s experiential knowledge and critical-thinking news narratives.”
Yet it can be seen how conflict may arise, especially where smaller journalism departments come under “takeover” pressure. It is a handy option for academic managers to subsume “journalism”, and get the staff positions that can be filled with non-journalists; the contribution the journalists may make to research earnings (through the Australian Excellence in Research process, or NZ Performance Based Research Fund), and especially government funding for student places.
There, better students likely to excel and complete their programmes can be induced to do more generalised courses with a specialist “journalism” label.
Any such conflict in the AUT case cannot be measured but must be at least lurking in the background.
The head of school, Dr Johnson, works in communication studies and cultural studies, with publications especially about info-advertising. He indicates just a lay interest in journalism listing three articles published in mass media since 2002.
What is ‘ideology’? Another problem exists, where a centre like the former PMC will commit to defined values, even officially sanctioned ones like inclusivity and rejection of discrimination.
Undertakings like the PMC’s “Bearing Witness” projects, where students would deploy classic journalism techniques for investigations on a nuclear-free Pacific or climate change, can irritate conservative interests.
The derogatory expression for any connection with social movements is “ideological”. This time it is an unknown, but a School moving against an “ideological” unit, might get at least tacit support from higher-ups supposing that eviscerating it might help the institution’s “good name”.
What implications for future journalism, freedom and quality of media? Hostility towards specific professional education for journalism exists fairly widely. The rough-housing of the journalism centre at AUT is indicative, where efforts by the out-going director to organise succession after his retirement, five years in advance, received no response.
The position statement was changed to take away a requirement for actual Pacific media identity or expertise, and the job left vacant, in part a covid effect. The centre performed well on its key performance indicators, if small in size, which brought in limited research grants but good returns for academic publications:
“On 18 December 2020 – the day I officially retired – I wrote to the [then] Vice-Chancellor, Derek McCormack … expressing my concern about the future of the centre, saying the situation was “unconscionable and inexplicable”. I never received an acknowledgement or reply.”
Pacific futures Journalism education has persisted through an adverse climate, where the number of journalists in mainstream media has declined, in New Zealand almost halved to 2061, (2006 – 2018). Also, AUT is currently in turmoil over the future of Māori and Pacific academics and the status of the university with an unpopular move to retrench 170 academic staff.
The latest Pacific Journalism Review . . . published for 28 years. Image: PJR
However new media are expanding, new demands exist for media competency across the exploding world “mediascape”, schools cultivating conscionable practices are providing an antidote to floods of bigotry and lies in social media.
The new NGO in Auckland, the APMN, has found a good base of support across the Pacific communities, limbering up for a future free of interference, outside of the former university base.
It will be bidding for a share of NZ government grants intended to assist public journalism, ethnic broadcasting and outreach to the region. While several products of the former centre have closed, the successful 28-year-old research journal Pacific Journalism Review has continued, producing two editions under its new management.
The operation is also keeping its production-side media strengths, such as with the online title Asia Pacific Report.
Independent Australia media editor Lee Duffield is a former ABC correspondent and academic. He is a member of the editorial advisory board of Pacific Journalism Review. This article is republished with the author’s permission.
Australians desperately need more affordable homes, particularly homes for rent. The prospect of home ownership is rapidly receding for many people, especially younger generations (as the chart below shows). More people than ever are being forced into a tight rental market.
Adding to the demand for housing, households are getting smaller. The estimated shortfall of homes needed to house new households will be nearly 165,000 by 2032. An extra 20,000 dwellings a year need to be built to avoid that housing deficit.
So what can be done to provide more housing that households can afford? One emerging idea is build-to-rent developments.
Build-to-rent generally involves developing residential accommodation with a view to it being a long-term investment offering long-term homes for renters rather than home buyers. These developments are usually units and townhouses, owned by an institutional investor.
Our research project is investigating the opportunities to improve housing affordability in Australia. We have found broad agreement among leading players in the build-to-rent sector that these developments are affordable when the rent generated is right for both the households and developers. But there’s a catch: our interviewees considered the rents affordable only because they are set at a reasonable cost for their target group, middle-to-upper-income households.
So this “reasonable cost” is a market perspective. And most current build-to-rent developments are a premium product in city-centre locations. As one person in state government explained:
“It’s a market process and they do their due diligence and they work out that there’s sufficient people who can pay what they need to pay and people who are perhaps willing to pay a premium for a better product and some greater security of tenure, because they know that it’s going to be continued to be offered as a rental. The landlord’s not going to go, ‘I want to move in’, or sell it.”
Build-to-rent is well established overseas but relatively new to Australia. Unsurprisingly, there is still no single definition of exactly what it means, especially as an affordable housing option.
For example, a recent study analysing 685 media articles and housing industry reports suggested build-to-rent may not be what it seems. It might be just another way for investors to make financial gains while masquerading as a solution to the critical shortage of affordable and social housing (available at below-market rents).
It’s not yet clear whether built-to-rent will be an effective solution for people who most need affordable housing. They include low-income and vulnerable households, and those with special needs.
With this in mind, we interviewed 26 leading practitioners (CEOs, chairs of boards, national directors and state government departmental directors) across the field of affordable housing and build-to-rent in Australia to collect their views on what it is.
We found the market perspective is at odds with the needs of lower-income households. It’s quite different to the welfare approach to housing, which focuses on the needs of those with lower incomes. Many households in the bottom 40% of incomes are suffering housing stress as a result of spending more than 30% of their income on housing (known as the 30:40 affordability indicator).
To make inroads into the housing affordability crisis, built-to-rent developments will need to provide homes to all, including those falling under the 30:40 indicator, not only to the relatively wealthy.
Can build-to-rent help solve the affordable housing crisis?
Participants agreed build-to-rent developments can ease the affordability crisis. To support lower-income households, however, they said incentives, via tax concessions and inclusionary zoning, will be needed.
Tax concessions provide incentives to develop affordable housing by, for example, offering land tax credits. Inclusionary zoning either mandates or creates incentives so a set proportion of a development is affordable housing. The incentives typically include changes to development controls and planning standards and processes to reduce costs and obstacles to build-to-rent developments.
How, then, can we ensure built-to-rent delivers housing that’s affordable for all households? Our analysis points towards two main conclusions.
First, a legal or statutory definition of “affordability” in relation to build-to-rent should be established. This will allow better framing of the sector’s role in a national housing strategy. As a CEO with 40 years of experience in policy development and the provision of social and affordable housing told us:
“[Build-to-rent] settings are acutely hampered by the fact that we don’t have a national housing strategy, therefore, nobody’s really bothered to resolve the difficult issues about the definition […] that will put housing costs basis into a frame that says, is it reasonable, is it suitable, is it affordable and, once you paid for it, can you afford a reasonably decent standard of living?”
A national housing strategy should allow development of tiers of build-to-rent housing. Each tier would match the level of risk and return within a given section of the spectrum of housing types and tenures. So, these tiers represent both levels of rent and a range of housing types – high-rise, low-rise, townhouses etc.
The aim is to deliver diverse housing options with a focus on affordability and universal housing (designed to meet residents’ changing needs over their lifetime).
A senior economist overseeing nation-wide research into housing and mixed-use development said:
“So we could potentially look at a grade A BtR [build-to-rent], grade B, grade C BtR asset classes and in different locations. We need to be working more towards different kinds of BtR asset classes, like they have in the USA, UK and Canada.”
This approach will help make build-to-rent developments more predictable, replicable and scalable to match varying levels of affordability. And that will help create the confidence and enthusiasm the sector needs to produce better affordable housing outcomes.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
The parents of a New Zealand baby at the centre of a legal dispute that has made global headlines will not be appealing against a judge’s decision to hand guardianship of the child to the High Court.
The four-month-old — known only as Baby W — requires urgent open heart surgery, with both blood and blood products required for the operation and potentially its aftermath.
Te Whatu Ora/Health New Zealand took the case to court because the parents refused to allow blood transfusions from anyone who might have had the Pfizer covid-19 vaccine.
A judge on Wednesday ruled in favour of Te Whatu Ora, allowing the surgery to go ahead with whatever product the NZ Blood Service provides. Doctors, having been made agents of the court for the surgery, said on Wednesday afternoon they would be ready to operate within 48 hours.
The family’s lawyer Sue Grey and high-profile media supporter Liz Gunn said this morning there was no time to appeal against the court’s decision, but they had confidence the child would “get the best possible care with the best, safest blood” because “the government cannot afford anything to go wrong for Baby W as the world is watching”.
“The priority for the family is to enjoy a peaceful time with their baby until the operation, and to support him through the operation,” the pair said in a post on the New Zealand Outdoors and Freedom Party Facebook page.
Grey co-leads the party.
The baby will be in intensive care for up to a week and under Te Whatu Ora’s guardianship possibly until the end of January, allowing time for their recovery. The doctors were told to keep the parents “informed at all reasonable times of the nature and progress of [the baby’s] condition and treatment”.
Te Whatu Ora has been approached for comment.
Judge’s ruling expected The ruling should not have come as a surprise, University of Otago bioethics lecturer Josephine Johnstone told Morning Report on Thursday.
“This may seem like a very 2022 case and it is in many ways, but it connects to lines of decision over time where there have been disputes about what’s in the best interests of a child that has very serious medical needs,” she said.
“So this is consistent with previous cases around the refusal of blood products for children whose parents are Jehovah’s Witnesses… or refusal of medical care for cancer treatment for children whose parents have alternative health and science[ views, which is sort of similar to this. In many ways it’s consistent with those decisions. It’s not really a break in that way.”
Johnstone said the parents’ authority over their child’s health and upbringing was being limited in only a very minor way.
“The parents still have all of the other decision-making authority that parents have. And parents do have enormous latitude to make decisions about how to raise their children — what religion to raise them, what kinds of beliefs, what kinds of home to create, what kind of traditions, they have enormous decision-making power about children’s [medical treatment], but it’s not unlimited.
“In very rare cases where it’s a life-and-death situation, we can expect the courts to step in — and that’s exactly what happened.”
Johnstone’s view was backed up by Rebecca Keenan, a former nurse who now works as a barrister, specialising in medical law.
Put child ‘firmly first’ “[The court has] put the child firmly first and have gone by the evidence and supported the health board,” she told Morning Report.
“From reading the judgment, you can see that the parents have been taking their baby out of hospital, against medical opinion, and there’s obviously been a real breakdown in the relationship between the parents and the medical staff.”
Wednesday’s judgment outlined a meeting in late November during which the parents’ support person “proceeded to pressurise the specialists with her theory about conspiracies in New Zealand and even said that deaths in infants getting transfusions were occurring in Starship Hospital”.
Johnstone said while having a support person in meetings with medical staff was a right, it was clear in this case they were not helpful.
“One has to imagine that the involvement of some of the anti-vaccine campaigners has escalated not just this case at the national level, but even the discussions between the family and their medical team, so that’s explicitly mentioned in the case and is definitely a factor in how things must have got to the point where a court order would be needed.”
While not an unexpected ruling, Johnstone fears it might further strain the relationship between parents with alternative views on medical matters and their doctors.
“Any family who has these views and has a very sick child, their healthcare providers are going to have to work that much harder to keep them engaged and keep their trust … a big challenge,” she said.
Demodex are a family of eight-legged mites that live in the hair follicles and associated sebaceous or oil glands of many mammals.
Two species are known in humans – Demodex folliculorum, which lives mainly in hair follicles on our faces (especially eyelashes and eyebrows), and Demodex brevis, which sets up home in the oil glands on the face and elsewhere.
A Demodex mite under the microscope. Mohammed_Al_Ali/Shutterstock
Newborns don’t have Demodex mites. In a study looking for them on adult humans, researchers could detect them visually in only 14% of people.
However, once they used DNA analysis, they found signs of Demodex on 100% of the adult humans they tested, a finding supported by previous cadaver examinations.
If they live all over humanity, the question arises – are these mites parasites or commensal (harmless) organisms, living in harmony with their unwitting hosts? And which of our daily habits, such as face washing and make-up application, can assist or hinder the mites’ survival? This is where it gets tricky.
Disgusting companions with no anuses
Demodex mites are tiny. The larger of the two human species, D. folliculorum, is about a third of a millimetre long, while D. brevis spans less than a quarter of a millimetre. They also carry a range of bacterial species on their bodies.
A number of methods are used to directly detect mites. The best method is a skin biopsy involving a small amount of cyanoacrylate glue (superglue) on a microscope slide.
Cylindrical dandruff around infected hairs is characteristic of mites in residence due to their living habits. Mites can also be squeezed out of follicles with a zit extractor.
The mites feed on skin cells and sebaceous oils, which they predigest by secreting a range of enzymes. As they don’t have an anus, they regurgitate their waste products.
Ensconced in cosy follicle homes, the mites mate and lay eggs; after a lifespan of about 15 days, they die and decompose right there in the follicle.
These fairly disgusting habits may be one reason Demodex can cause allergic reactions in some people, and might also explain a number of associated clinical effects.
However, not all of us have negative reactions to these creatures. Humans mate randomly, and our genetics are thus highly variable – when we are infected, our genes determine our immune and other responses. Some of us don’t react at all, some of us get an itch for a while, and some get chronic debilitating conditions.
Similarly, mite numbers vary between people – if they reproduce in high levels, they are more likely to lead to issues.
Interestingly, the conditions named above and mite numbers seem to increase with age and in immune-compromised patients, suggesting a correlation with decreased immune function. It appears our immune system is key to understanding mite reproduction and their clinical effects.
Can you get rid of face mites? Or make them worse?
There are a number of therapeutic compounds that reduce mite numbers, but the consensus is that Demodex are a natural part of our skin flora, so it might be best not to eliminate them entirely.
When people suffer chronic disease, more robust treatment might be necessary against the mite population, although reinfection from human family members is highly likely.
Mites do not survive for long off their hosts. Other than direct contact, personal hygiene products probably present the main mechanism of cross-infection.
A close-up of Demodex brevis clearly shows the mouthparts they use to eat oils and skin cells off our faces. Austin Whittall/Wikimedia Commons
Sharing make-up brushes, tweezers, eyeliner and mascara is probably not a good idea, although avoiding infection in a shared bathroom might be difficult. In one study, the average survival time for Demodex in mascara was 21 hours.
Other aspects of make-up use, such as regular cleaning and washing of the face, may reduce mite numbers, although other studies suggest mites survive washing quite well.
Thus, it’s unclear how much you can affect your mite population. However, if you suffer any inflammation of the eyelids and nearby areas, avoiding make-up and seeking medical advice might be best.
Overall, as unpleasant as they might sound, Demodex appear to be a normal part of our skin flora. However, some of us do react negatively to their presence and suffer rashes and inflammation.
Controlling such reactions might be as easy as limiting mite numbers with a wash or treatment prescribed by a medical professional – just know that entirely getting rid of our mite friends is probably impossible.
Mark Sandeman 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.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tim Lindsey, Malcolm Smith Professor of Asian Law and Director of the Centre for Indonesian Law, Islam and Society, The University of Melbourne
Indonesia’s controversial new criminal code was passed into law on Tuesday, replacing a clunky old code dating back to at least 1918. Lawmakers have tried for decades to replace it. In fact, the last time legislators tried in 2019, it triggered the largest public protests in Indonesia since the 1998 fall of former president Soeharto.
This time, politicians rushed it through at short notice, despite widespread criticism and limited opportunities for public consultation. In the end, the code passed with the support of all but two small parties.
Many of its provisions are dangerously vague and wide in their scope – “rubber provisions”, as Indonesians say – that empower the state at the expense of citizens.
The provisions that have attracted the most criticism are those that impose conservative moral values about sexuality, and those that restrict rights to freedom of expression.
One positive change in the new code is the introduction of a probationary period for death sentences. A death row inmate who demonstrates good behaviour during this period and exhibits remorse can now have his or her sentence changed from death to a term of imprisonment.
This signals a welcome step away from the “no mercy” approach adopted under President Joko Widodo (known as Jokowi). If this provision had been in place in the past, it might have allowed Australian drug offenders Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan to escape the firing squad.
However, this reform is a lonely one. Too many of the changes introduced by the new code are highly regressive, removing or restricting freedoms previously won.
Extramarital sex and other ‘morality’ provisions
Two provisions have already attracted attention internationally. One punishes extramarital sex with up to a year in prison, and the other says couples who live together without being legally married also face jail. There are fears unmarried foreign couples visiting Bali, Indonesia’s holiday island, might be targeted.
However, these two offences are delik aduan, that is, complaint offences. This means they cannot apply unless a close member of the family – a husband or wife, a parent or child – report the matter to the police. That makes it unlikely the new provisions would ever be deployed against an unmarried foreign tourist couple (although it’s possible they could be used against a foreigner with an Indonesian partner if the Indonesian’s family reports them).
There is more concern about the impact of these provisions on Indonesians, especially young couples. They allow families to use the police and the courts to enforce their views about sexuality and choice of partner.
It is also feared the new law will be used to target gay and lesbian people, who cannot marry under Indonesian law. Homosexuality is not illegal in Indonesia (except in the province of Aceh) but opponents of the new code say it criminalises gay and lesbian people by stealth.
Gay and lesbian people are also likely to be targeted under another provision prohibiting “indecent acts”. This is only very vaguely defined and would probably catch public acts of affection between people of the same gender.
The new code also contains provisions that impose jail terms for the dissemination of information about contraception – even explaining how to obtain it. There are exceptions for government family planning activities, but this provision clearly limits women’s freedom to choose.
Other provisions impose a four-year sentence on any woman who has an abortion, and longer terms for those who perform it (although there are exceptions for rape victims and medical emergencies).
Restrictions on freedom of expression
The new code contains provisions that criminalise insulting public officials, including the president and members of the government. There is no defence of truth. In other words, an offence is committed if the official is insulted, even if the allegations are true.
The chilling effect this would have on open debate and press freedom are obvious. In fact, equivalent provisions were struck out of the previous code by the Constitutional Court as unconstitutional. This is a flagrant attempt to reinstate those provisions, empowering the government to crack down on its opponents.
Other provisions ban the spreading of teachings that contradict the state ideology, Pancasila. This could also be deployed against government critics.
Human rights activists are also concerned about press freedom implications of two other provisions. The first prohibits the broadcasting and distribution of fake news (which is undefined) resulting in disturbance or unrest in the community and imposes a sentence of up to two years.
The second is even more dangerous for journalists. It states any person who broadcasts or distributes news that is unverified or exaggerated or incomplete (terms that are also not defined) will also face jail.
Other very controversial provisions deal with blasphemy. The code introduces increased restrictions on religion and religious life that will strengthen and expand the bases on which minority religious groups can be persecuted. This will aggravate a growing problem in post-Soeharto Indonesia.
Constitutional Court challenge
This deeply flawed new criminal code is likely to meet with stiff opposition from lawyers and activists, including protests, even though the new code bans “unannounced demonstrations”. And it’s inevitable it will end up in the Constitutional Court, which has certainly been willing to strike out legislation that contradicts the Constitution in the past.
However, activists are now worried the recent dismissal of a Constitutional Court judge by the national legislature may have changed this.
Lawmakers claimed Justice Aswanto, who had originally been nominated by them, had acted contrary to the legislature’s interests by doing his job and striking down unconstitutional laws. Without a clear legal basis, they had him “recalled” and President Jokowi swore in a replacement.
Some predict this will make the remaining judges much more cautious when the code comes before them.
A long campaign
Most Indonesia-watchers agree democratic regression has increased over the last decade. The new code certainly fits that pattern. But it may also be linked to the hugely important presidential and legislative elections scheduled for February 2024.
President Jokowi is in his second term and cannot run again, so the elections will likely result in a major recalibration of power and wealth in Indonesia that will last for five or even ten years (if the new president wins a second term).
Politicians are already jostling for position and some have begun campaigning. The identity politics of religion and morality have played a central role Indonesia’s bitterly fought electoral contests in recent years, and the new code reflects this.
It allows the politicians who backed it to claim a “law and order” success where others had failed for years, and to assert conservative morality “family values” they think will resonate with their voters. This is particularly important for nationalist politicians seeking to bolster their religious credentials.
And, of course, the new code also delivers the government potent new legal weapons it can deploy against its critics.
The question of whether artificial intelligence (AI) can invent is nearly 200 years old, going back to the very beginning of computing. Victorian mathematician Ada Lovelace wrote what’s generally considered the first computer program. As she did, she wondered about the limits of what computers could do.
The Analytical Engine has no pretensions to originate anything. It can do whatever we know how to order it to perform. It can follow analysis; but it has no power of anticipating any analytical relations or truths. Its province is to assist us in making available what we are already acquainted with.
And this assertion has haunted the field of AI ever since. As many critics will note, computers only do what we tell them to do.
Ada Lovelace worked alongside Charles Babbage, who designed and partly built (as pictured) the Analytical Engine – considered the first mechanical computer. Wikimedia Commons
A century after Lovelace argued against machine invention, Alan Turing, one of the inventors of the electronic computer, returned to the topic. In 1950 Turing wrote what’s generally considered the first scientific paper about AI. In it, he tried to refute Lovelace’s objection:
Who can be certain that ‘original work’ that he has done was not simply the growth of the seed planted in him by teaching, or the effect of following well-known general principles. A better variant of the objection says that a machine can never ‘take us by surprise’. This statement is a more direct challenge and can be met directly. Machines take me by surprise with great frequency.
This hasn’t changed. Today, machines are increasingly surprising us. Just take OpenAI’s new ChatGPT chatbot as an example. Indeed, there’s mounting evidence AI can help humans invent – and in some cases might even be considered the inventor itself.
The question of whether machines can invent has now started to tax courts around the world. Stephen Thaler, co-founder of Scentient.ai, has filed patent applications for two inventions in which a neural network is named the sole inventor.
These applications have been rejected in almost every jurisdiction, mostly on the legal grounds that an inventor should be a human. But none of the legal cases so far have tested Thaler’s claim that the computer is indeed the sole inventor.
In an article published today in Nature Machine Intelligence, we examine Thaler’s claim. While we uncover multiple technical reasons the computer isn’t the sole inventor in this case, we also record a long history of AI being used to help people invent – and in some cases inventing itself. Here are just some examples.
3D circuits
In the 1980s, AI researcher Douglas Lenat’s Eurisko system (eurisko is Greek for “I discover”) invented a number of novel 3D circuits. A provisional US patent application was even filed for one of these.
The X-Band Antenna of the ST5 Satellite was found with genetic programming, an AI-based automatic programming technique.
Strange aerials
Starting in the 1990s, computer scientist John Koza applied genetic programming to invent several novel devices, including some rather bizarre radio antennae that resembled bent paperclips. One of these aerials is likely the first AI invention in space, as it flew on NASA’s ST5 spacecraft.
More recently, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used a deep neural network to identify Halicin – a powerful new antibiotic compound. Halicin is named after HAL, the famous AI computer in Arthur C. Clarke’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. Multiple companies with billions of dollars of funding are using AI-based strategies for drug discovery and development.
It appears AI invention is here to stay.
But is AI ‘inventing’, or helping humans invent?
The abstract idea behind how AI programs can invent is relatively simple. You define some space of concepts, and the program explores this space. The space is typically very large, maybe even infinite. Therefore considerable effort must be invested in identifying whether a part of the space is worth exploring further, as well as to confirm any promise of a new concept.
As an example, the space of concepts might be all the possible ways to bend a straight aerial. The challenge is to find which of the infinite number of ways has the best electromagnetic properties.
We asked the Jurassic-1 chatbot, a cousin of ChatGPT, to come up with a patent along the lines of one of Thaler’s patent applications. Here’s what we got:
PVC, latex or silicone rubber gloves, especially disposable gloves. The invention provides a glove having a flexible gripping portion formed from a fractal pattern. The gripping portion is formed from a continuous fractal pattern. The flexible gripping portion is sufficiently strong and rigid to perform its intended function.
To see if this idea was indeed original, or at least not patented, we searched the United States Patent and Trademark Office’s online database and found no patent with the words “glove” and “fractal”. It’s therefore possible that a glove with a flexible fractal gripping pattern could be patented.
Importantly, this idea was independently generated by the computer, without human help or prompts.
Here’s a prototype of what fractal gloves might look like as imagined by the Stable Diffusion text to image AI generator. Author provided
So where does this leave us?
Just as AI is transforming other aspects of our lives, it appears likely it will soon transform how we invent. We need to give careful thought to how the innovation system adapts to these changes. AI could reduce the time and costs associated with inventing, while also increasing the technical depth of inventions.
Will we need a new form of intellectual property to protect inventions made by AI systems? Or will patent offices be inundated with new patent applications invented with the help of (or by) AI?
Put on your fractal gloves and expect to be surprised!
Toby Walsh receives funding from the ARC via a Laureate Fellowship.
Alexandra George 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.
At the icy northern tip of Greenland, far into the Artic Circle, a deep bed of sediment beneath the mouth of a fjord has lain frozen and undisturbed for 2 million years.
Known as the Kap København Formation, this relic of a vanished world dates to a period when Earth was much warmer than it is today. The sediment built up in a shallow bay over a period of 20,000 years, before being buried beneath ice and permafrost.
Our team, led by Kurt Kjær, Mikkel Winter Pedersen and Eske Willerslev at Copenhagen University, has extracted and analysed the oldest DNA ever recovered from samples of this Greenlandic sediment. It reveals the plants, animals and microorganisms that thrived in an ecosystem unlike anything in the modern world.
As we report today in Nature, this DNA is more than a million years older than the previous record. We can now recover and directly study molecules that were made inside plants and animals 2 million years ago, opening a new window into the history of life on Earth.
A snapshot of an extinct ecosystem
Two million years ago, northern Greenland was a very different place. Average winter temperatures were more than 10℃ warmer, and there was less carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere.
Our study, carried out by more than 40 scientists from Denmark, the UK, France, Sweden, Norway, the USA and Germany, pieced together minuscule fragments of DNA and matched them to sequences of known species. We found genetic traces of ancestors of modern reindeer, hares and lemmings, as well as mastodon – extinct elephant-like creatures which were not previously known to have lived in Greenland.
Layers of sediment retain traces of the rich flora and fauna that lived 2 million years ago in Kap København in North Greenland. Kurt H. Kjær
We also found DNA traces of plants including birch and poplar trees, as well as algae and other microorganisms – and a large proportion of DNA fragments we could not match to any known species.
But it is not just the specific species that are of interest but also how they co-existed in the same prehistoric ecosystem that was much warmer than today. This can tell us a lot about the possible impact on the biodiversity during warming periods and how it may drive their evolutionary response.
In essence, our study is similar to the “environmental DNA” (eDNA) research ecologists do today to understand biodiversity in modern ecosystems. The difference is that we are looking at an ecosystem that disappeared millions of years ago, which is why the recovery and bioinformatic analysis of these short, degraded molecules becomes a lot more challenging.
Watching evolution
We know that the DNA inside cells of all living organisms mutates slowly, as environmental changes drive adaptation and evolution over many generations. However, we very rarely have a “time machine” to go back and look directly at the old DNA molecules.
To understand how DNA has changed over time, we usually compare the genomes of modern species and work backwards to create an evolutionary family tree. However, the possibility of studying DNA that is millions of years old means we will be able to directly observe the deep-time process of molecular evolution, instead of being restricted to the current genetic “snapshot” in present-day species.
What’s more, the DNA of the ancestors of modern species may show how they adapted to conditions that are very different from the ones they face today. We don’t gain those insights in this study, but if we can study those prehistoric genetic adaptations in detail in the future, it may allow us to predict if species are able to adapt to changes such as the ongoing global warming.
How long can DNA survive?
Despite what the Jurassic Park movies may tell you, DNA doesn’t last forever. It decays steadily over time – though the rate of decay depends on circumstances like temperature.
About a decade ago, my colleagues and I published a study of moa fossils that calculated a “half-life” for long-term DNA decay in bones. We predicted that recognisable fragments of DNA should be able to last more than one million years under ideal conditions, such as the deep freeze of permafrost.
And, indeed, in 2021 researchers recovered DNA from the tooth of a mammoth that lived in Siberia approximately 1.2 million years ago.
However, the new research shows something quite surprising. It seems that DNA can actually survive much longer as free molecules in sediment than in the bones of the animal it originally belonged to.
Remains of wooden branches from the forest that grew at Kap København 2 million years ago. Svend Funder
DNA molecules can bind to the surface of particles of clay which somehow protect them from the ravages of time. We do not know exactly how long DNA can survive in sediment, but if the preservation conditions are ideal, there is no reason to believe that we have found the limit here at two million years.
Once we know more about what kinds of sediment preserve DNA best, we will be able to hunt for it all over the world – though we are unlikely ever to realise the dream of examing 65 million year–old sequences of dinosaur DNA. I would be very happy to be proven wrong though!
Morten Allentoft 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.
Treating people for long COVID – that is, symptoms that last longer than four weeks after COVID infection – can be extremely complex due to the wide variety of problems associated with the condition.
While there is no “one size fits all” treatment, there is increasing recognition of the importance of allied health professionals such as physiotherapists and occupational therapists in providing treatment for people throughout various stages of COVID.
We are still learning about long COVID, but these experts can tailor exercise training, breathing techniques and ways to manage fatigue safely, to help people get back to their normal roles and routines.
While the exact mechanism of why people develop long COVID remains unclear, current evidence suggest lingering COVID virus may trigger a cascade of ongoing inflammatory and immune responses in the body.
This results in signs and symptoms across multiple body systems, including the respiratory and autonomic system, which regulates functions such as heart rate, breathing and digestion. This could explain common symptoms of long COVID such as brain fog, fatigue, headaches, breathing difficulties and changes in taste and smell.
Estimates suggest somewhere between 5% and 50% of those infected with COVID go on to develop long COVID.
Allied health professionals – who are not doctors, dentists, nurses or midwives but provide specialised care – such as physiotherapists and occupational therapists can be particularly effective at managing the signs and symptoms of long COVID.
This might be partly because they are used to working with patients to develop strategies and work towards functional goals.
Exercise training
Exercise training is the most common treatment prescribed by physiotherapists to assist people with long COVID. Studies have found exercise programs can help people with long COVID to reverse the effects of fatigue, muscle weakness, shortness of breath and exercise intolerance.
However, not all exercise programs are suitable for everyone with long COVID. For some people with ongoing fatigue issues, commencing with a graded exercise program that progresses through different positions can also be effective in improving exercise fitness and reducing levels of fatigue.
Repetitive movement exercises such as range of motion exercises may be prescribed for joint and/or muscle pain and stiffness. Other therapies such as falls prevention, muscle strengthening and balance training are also suitable for people with reduced mobility, deconditioning and muscle wastage due to long COVID.
It is important to seek advice from a physiotherapist before commencing exercises as over-exertion can set your recovery back. Thorough assessment of your heart function and fatigue symptoms before returning to exercise – and close monitoring during exercise – are essential because symptoms can fluctuate over time.
Breathing techniques and inspiratory muscle training
Apart from prescribing an exercise program, physiotherapists can provide strategies on how to manage shortness of breath, a common symptom of long COVID. For example, physiotherapists often teach people how to do relaxed controlled breathing to recover from episodes of breathlessness.
People with long COVID may also feel the ongoing need to cough or clear their chest. Secretion clearance techniques such as active cycle breathing technique can be useful.
Inspiratory muscle training involves specific exercises prescribed to strengthen respiratory (breathing) muscles. This often involves taking deep breathes through a device that provides resistance.
This form of training has proven useful to some people with long COVID, but is not beneficial to all sufferers.
It is important to consult a physiotherapist regarding the best breathing technique for your symptoms, as therapies for people with long COVID work best when they are tailored to the person.
Breathing exercises should be closely monitored, as they are not helpful for everyone with long COVID. Shutterstock
Fatigue management and other treatments
As well as rehabilitation exercises, both physiotherapists and occupational therapists can provide personalised strategies to manage symptoms and enhance participation in work and daily life for people with long COVID.
For example, they might develop strategies to enhance or compensate for poor attention and memory, or help plan a daily routine to deal with fatigue so people can re-engage in their usual roles and routines.
Other health professionals can also provide individualised treatment to assist with recovery. Psychologists may offer non-drug treatments to improve anxiety and depression. Speech pathologists may help someone who has an ongoing hoarse voice.
Functional goals and strategies might help people with long COVID get back to their usual routines. Shutterstock
How to get help for long COVID?
If you have long COVID, ask your doctor to refer you either to a multidisciplinary long COVID program where different types of health professionals work together, or to specific health professionals depending on your symptoms.
Multidisciplinary based programs have been found to be the most effective in managing people with long COVID. In Australia, there are some long COVID clinics providing monitoring and treatment. However, there is an urgent need to establish more of them across the nation.
While long COVID symptoms can be debilitating, it appears many symptoms improve with time. That said, you may be able to recover more quickly with the help of a physiotherapist or an occupational therapist.
The authors wish to acknowledge the contribution of Kerrie Saliba, who is a senior physiotherapist in the intensive care unit at Liverpool Hospital, South Western Sydney Local Health District and a Western Sydney University masters student, to this article.
Clarice Tang receives funding from NSW Government, Department of Health and the Maridula Budyari Gumal association. She is affiliated with Western Sydney University, South-Western Sydney Local Health District and is a member of the Australian Physiotherapy Association, Thoracic Society of Australia and New Zealand and the American Thoracic Society.
Karen Liu is affiliated with Western Sydney University and South Western Sydney Local Health District.
International students are flooding back to Australian universities. Some predictions say 2023 could even see record numbers of overseas students in the country.
This is not only good news for universities, but potentially good news for Australian employers. Part of the Albanese government’s plan to boost skills in Australia is to try and ensure more students stay longer after they graduate and join the workforce.
Education Minister Jason Clare recently announced those with a bachelor’s degree could stay for four years, up from two, to “strengthen the pipeline of skilled labour”, particularly likely to include graduates in healthcare, teaching, hospitality and accounting.
But the government’s simple policy change is not enough. It assumes graduates will be able to get jobs in the areas they studied. There are four key reasons why getting more skilled international graduates into jobs needs more than just a visa extension.
1. Not all graduates secure a job
Up to one-third of international graduates who stay in Australia post-study are still unemployed six months after graduating. This is the case even with historically low unemployment rates.
Up to one third of international graduates who stay in Australia have no work at all, six months after graduating. Julian Smith/AAP
Full-time employment rates for international graduates are also consistently lower than for domestic graduates. For example, in 2021, the full-time employment rate for international graduates with an undergraduate degree was 43.0% compared with 68.9% for domestic graduates.
Many international students are self-funded and report feeling stressed and under pressure to financially support themselves and their families due to the increased cost-of-living.
2. Or if they do find a job, it pays less
Finding well-paying employment in occupations related to a student’s field of study also takes time.
Many students and graduates report they are taking jobs that are not related to what they have studied, often for low wages.
Studiesalso show that even if international students with an undergraduate degree find full-time employment, they earn 20% less than domestic graduates.
3. There are not enough work experience opportunities
Another reason it is difficult for international students to get a job after graduating is the limited opportunity to work while they study.
Due to COVID and the push towards more online learning, work placements or internships have become scarce. In 2022, many universities have begun to offer internships again, but some students completed their studies without practical workplace experience.
Very few international students have local networks to draw on for job opportunities. They also tend to be less familiar with Australian workplace contexts and cultures and rely on internships to get the experience they need to secure an ongoing job.
4. Employers are hesitant
A 2020 Deakin University report found employers were hesitant to hire international graduates on temporary visas. Other research also shows employers favour those with permanent residency because they see them as more likely to stay in Australia, and worth the investment in recruiting and training.
Research has also found employers think international graduates will be more expensive to hire, and they would require more on-the-job training to be able to understand Australian workplace cultures.
Some mistakenly think language will be an issue, not realising that all university graduates need to meet the minimum English language proficiency to gain entry into any university program.
Sometimes employers think international graduates are not considered to be a good “cultural fit”. While cultural fit is a consideration when hiring, there is a real danger some employers are using this reason to discriminate against international graduates for no other reason other than their ethnic background.
International students are a trustworthy and valuable source of productivity and workplace diversity – both of which are necessary to compete in a global economy. They have different skills sets, ideas, attitudes and cultural understandings that can expand how a business operates in a cultural diverse country.
What now?
So, giving international students more time in Australia is not the whole answer. They need better career support before and after graduation.
This includes work placements but also help preparing for job applications and interviews.
Employers also need to be better informed about graduates’ capabilities and the benefits of hiring international graduates.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Australia’s first criminal case over wage theft is under way, with charges laid against the owner of a Victorian restaurant that allegedly underpaid staff by thousands of dollars.
If found guilty, the owner of the Macedon Lounge, northwest of Melbourne, faces a fine of more than $1 million and potentially jail time under Victoria’s Wage Theft Act.
The law came into effect in July 2021. The Andrews Labor government promised it before the 2018 state election, as evidence mounted that existing civil penalty fines were not a sufficient deterrent.
This week Unions NSW called for national action in a report on underpayment of migrant workers. This was based on an audit of job advertisements on Chinese, Korean, Nepalese, Punjabi and Spanish websites. It found 70% offered less than minimum rates.
The Albanese government also made a pre-election promise to criminalise wage theft, as part of its Secure Australian Jobs Plan:
Wage theft rips more than $1 billion off Australian workers each year. The Morrison government doesn’t think it’s a problem, but Labor does, and we will make wage theft a crime at a national level.
This was left out of the omnibus amendments to the Fair Work Act passed last week. It’s unclear whether the government will pursue this further in its first term.
But criminalisation may not be the best approach. Other reforms are just as important.
Now a broad-scale problem
It is clear wage theft and other forms of non-compliance with minimum labour standards are a major problem in Australia.
The issue has been the focus of numerous public inquiries, reviews and consultations and media investigations.
A Senate committee inquiry into wage theft that reported in March 2022 noted wage theft goes back at least to the 1880s, with the rampant stealing of Indigenous wages.
But wage theft on a broad scale, the inquiry concluded, is a relatively new phenomenon:
The rate of unlawful underpayment complaints and media reporting increased markedly from around 2015, with mounting evidence that wage theft practices have become widespread in the hospitality, retail, horticulture, franchise-heavy and higher education sectors.
Workers most vulnerable
The workers most vulnerable are migrants on temporary visas, young people, those in “low-skilled” jobs, non-unionised employees, and those in casual and insecure work (the reason for its prevalence in higher education).
The problem is intensified by “fragmented” employment arrangements that obscure who profits from non-compliance, such as labour hire chains featuring multi-layered subcontracting and outsourcing arrangements, or on-demand platform “gig” work.
As Alan Fels, former chair of the Australian Consumer and Competition Commission, has pointed out, wage theft makes it hard for compliant employers to compete.
It also affects government revenue – for example, in cases where payroll tax is avoided by having staff “off the books”.
Call for criminalisation
The 2022 Senate inquiry made 19 recommendations. The first was that the federal government amend the Fair Work Act to make any form of remuneration theft – including failing to pay employees their rightful loadings, penalty rates, overtime, leave, allowances and superannuation – a criminal offence. (The second recommendation was that it increase civil penalties.)
Criminal sanctions may elevate awareness and provide another avenue for redress, but whether they would foster greater employer compliance is doubtful.
This is because these would only apply to deliberate breaches, when many cases of non-compliance involve genuine and unintentional mistakes.
Nor will criminal sanctions do anything to assist employees to easily seek redress, given they are about punishment and not compensation.
There are other, better approaches
A better approach is to focus on enhanced enforcement, expanding the role of the Fair Work Ombudsman and and other regulatory agencies to investigate, enforce and recover unpaid money, with significant extra resources to do so.
This a key part of the Victorian legislation, which has established the Work Inspectorate of Victoria with resources to investigate and enforce the law.
Another reform would be to oblige employers – particularly those in high-risk sectors – to have ongoing compliance regimes in place and to regularly review their payroll processes to ensure compliance.
Finally, as recommended by the Senate inquiry report, there should be a clear avenue for the Australian Securities and Investments Commission to disqualify directors of companies found to have engaged in systemic non-compliance.
Perhaps then the message will start to get through.
Giuseppe Carabetta does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Artists all over the world, regardless of their gender, earn considerably less than professionals in occupations requiring similar levels of education and qualifications.
But there’s an additional income penalty for artists who are female.
In an analysis of gender differences in the incomes of professional artists in Australia that we undertook in 2020, we found the creative incomes of women were 30% less than those of men.
This is true even after allowing for differences in such things as hours worked, education and training, time spent in childcare and so on. This income penalty on women artists was greater than the gender pay gap of 16% experienced in the overall Australian workforce at the time.
Some sectors of the arts have tried to redress this problem. However, women continue to suffer serious and unexplained gender-based discrimination in the artistic workplace.
Cultural differences are also known to influence pay gaps in many countries.
In new research out today, we considered whether cultural factors might also affect the gender pay gap of artists in Australia. In addition, we analysed the gender pay gap for remote Indigenous artists for the first time.
A larger gap for women from a non-English speaking background
In our 2016 survey of 826 professional artists working in metropolitan, regional and rural Australia, we asked participants if they came from a non-English speaking background.
Only a relatively small proportion of artists – 10% – came from a non-English-speaking background, compared to 18% for the Australian labour force as a whole.
A non-English-speaking background appears to carry an income penalty only for women artists, not for men.
We found the annual creative earnings of female artists from a non-English-speaking background are about 71% of the creative incomes of female artists whose first language is English. But there is little difference between the corresponding incomes of male artists.
Within the group of artists from language backgrounds other than English, the annual creative earnings of female artists are about half (53%) those of their male counterparts.
By contrast, the ratio of female to male creative earnings among English-speaking background artists is 73%.
These results suggest that women artists from a non-English-speaking background suffer a triple earnings penalty – from being an artist (and hence as a group earning less than comparable professionals), from their gender, and from their cultural background.
Despite this earnings disadvantage, 63% of artists who identified as having a first language other than English thought their background had a positive impact on their artistic practice. Only 16% thought it had a negative impact.
Both male and female artists from non-English speaking backgrounds saw their heritage as important to their art. Henrique Junior/Unsplash
When artists were asked whether being from a non-English speaking background was a restricting factor in their professional artistic development, 17% of women answered “yes”, compared to only 5% of men from a similar background.
Nevertheless, like their male colleagues, these women artists continue to celebrate their cultural background in their art. They contribute to the increasingly multicultural content of the arts in Australia, holding up a mirror to trends in Australian society at large.
The gender gap is not replicated among remotely practising First Nations artists.
There are some minor variations in this finding for subgroups in different regions, depending in part on differences in the mix of visual and performing artists in the population. But whatever other differentials may exist between female and male earnings, they do not appear to be attributable to the sorts of systemic gender-based discrimination that affects the residual gender gap for other Australian artists.
A possible reason relates to fundamental differences between the cultural norms, values and inherited traditions that apply in remote and very remote First Nations communities.
Gender roles in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities have been described by researchers as distinctively different, rather than superior or inferior. The importance of both women and men as bearers of culture has been clearly articulated.
The unique cultural content of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander music, dance, visual art and literature is an essential feature of the work of these artists. These characteristics pass through to the marketplace, and there does not appear to be any obvious gender gap in the way the art from these remote communities is received.
There is always differentiation between the art produced in different remote regions of Australia which varies depending on the complexities of different inherited cultural traditions. But there is no indication of any gender-based discrimination associated with these regional differences.
David Throsby receives funding from the Australia Council for the Arts , Australian Research Council (ARC), and from the Commonwealth, WA, NT, SA and QLD governments.
Katya Petetskaya receives funding from the Australia Council for the Arts, Australian Research Council (ARC), and from the Commonwealth, WA, NT and QLD governments. She is affiliated with NAVA.
Sunny Y. Shin receives funding from the Australia Council for the Arts.
NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet is pleased that a Sydney magistrate jailed protester Deanna “Violet” Coco on Friday. But he is out of step with international and Australian human rights and climate change groups and activists, who have quickly mobilised to show solidarity.
On Monday, protests were held in Sydney, Canberra and Perth calling for the release of Coco who blocked one lane of the Sydney Harbour Bridge for half an hour during a morning peak hour in April.
She climbed onto the roof of a truck holding a flare to draw attention to the global climate emergency and Australia’s lack of preparedness for bushfires. Three other members of the group Fireproof Australia, who have not been jailed, held a banner and glued themselves to the road.
“Free Coco” protesters at Sydney’s Downing Centre. Image: Zebedee Parkes/City Hub
Coco pleaded guilty to seven charges, including disrupting vehicles, possessing a flare distress signal in a public place and failing to comply with police direction.
Magistrate Allison Hawkins sentenced Coco to 15 months in prison, with a non-parole period of eight months and fined her $2500. Her lawyer Mark Davis has lodged an appeal which will be heard on March 2, 2023.
Unusually for a non-violent offender, Hawkins refused bail pending an appeal against the sentence. Davis, who will again apply for bail in the District Court next week, said refusal of bail pending appeal was “outrageous”.
Climate change protester sentenced to jail over Sydney Harbour Bridge protest. Video: News 24
‘People shouldn’t be jailed for peaceful protest’ In Sydney, about 100 protesters gathered outside NSW Parliament House and then marched to the Downing Centre. The crowd included members of climate action groups Extinction Rebellion, Knitting Nannas and Fireproof Australia but also others who, while they might not conduct a similar protest themselves, believe in the right of others to do so.
One of the protest organisers, Knitting Nanna Marie Flood, was unable to attend due to illness. Her message called for the release of Coco and an end to the criminalisation and intimidation of climate activists.
It was read by another Knitting Nanna, Eurydice Aroney:
“Nannas have been on Sydney streets protesting about gas and coal mines for about 8 years now. Over that time we’ve had lots of interactions with the Sydney Events police, and not a lot of trouble.
“You could say we are known to the police. We were amused and surprised at the recent climate emergency rally at town hall, when one of the police said to some Nannas that he thought we’d fallen in with the wrong crowd!
“Looks like we better clear some things up.”
Knitting Nannas protesters Helen and Dom at a previous protest. Image: Environmental Defenders Office/City Hub
“We ARE the crowd who knows that climate action is urgent and it starts with stopping new gas and coal. We know the importance of public protests to bringing about social and political change.
“We will stand up against any move to take away the democratic right to protest. What is happening to Violet Coco is a direct result of the actions of the NSW government with the support of the ALP opposition.”
The message ended with a call to all climate activists: “Now is the time to BE THE CROWD — we can’t afford to fall for attempts to divide the climate movement. We all want to save the climate, and to do that we need to protect democracy.”
The Knitting Nannas have launched a challenge to the validity of the protest laws through the Environmental Defenders’ Office.
Snap rally at NSW Parliament and a march to the courts at the Downing Centre where climate activist Violet Coco was sentenced to 15 months in prison last week.
We demand repeal of the draconian anti-protest laws, an end to new fossil fuel projects and serious climate action now! pic.twitter.com/F1Yxs8L0DG
One of those attending the protest was Josh Pallas, president of NSW Council for Civil Liberties. Civil Liberties has been defending the right to protest in NSW for more than half a century.
In a media release, he said: “Peaceful protest should never result in jail time. It’s outrageous that the state wastes its resources seeking jail time and housing peaceful protesters in custody at the expense of taxpayers.
“Protesters from Fireproof Australia and other groups have engaged in peaceful protest in support of stronger action on climate change, a proposition that is widely supported by many Australians across the political divide and now finding themselves ending up in prison.
“Peaceful protest sometimes involves inconvenience to the public. But inconvenience is not a sufficient reason to prohibit it. It’s immoral and unjust.”
Deputy Lord Mayor and Greens Councillor Sylvie Ellsmore told the crowd that they had the support of the City of Sydney which recently passed a unanimous motion calling for the repeal of the NSW government’s draconian anti-protest laws.
“If you are a group of businesses in the City of Sydney and you want to close the street for a street party, this state government will give you $50,000. If you are a non-violent protester who cares about climate change and you are blocking one lane of traffic for 25 minutes, they will give you two years [in jail].
“We know these laws are designed to intimidate you… Thank you for being the front line in the fight. you are the ones to put your bodies on the line to protest about issues we all care about, ” she said.
Amnesty International support for democracy Amnesty International spokesperson Veronica Koman emphasised how important it was to see the defence of democratic rights from a regional perspective. She said that Amnesty was concerned that severe repression of pro-independence activists in West Papua was spreading across to other parts of Indonesia.
She fears the same pattern of increasing repression taking hold in NSW.
Human Rights Watch researcher Sophie McNeil, who has won many awards for her journalism, was another person who was quick to respond.
“Outrageous. Climate activist who blocked traffic on Sydney Harbour Bridge jailed for at least eight months” she tweeted on Friday.
Since then she has followed the issue closely, criticising the ABC for failing to quote a human rights source in its coverage of the court case and speaking at a protest in Perth on Monday.
Today she posted this tweet with a short campaigning #FreeVioletCoco video that has already attracted nearly 13,000 views:
Authorities in #Australia are disproportionately punishing climate activists in violation of their basic rights to peaceful protest
Violet Coco has been sentenced to 15 months in prison
‘If you’re reading this, you’ll know I am in prison’ In jailing Coco, Magistrate Hawkins went out of her way to diminish and delegitimise her protest. She described it as a “childish stunt’ that let an “entire city suffer” through her “selfish emotional action”.
Coco has been involved with climate change protests for more than four years and has been arrested in several other protests. On one occasion, she set light to an empty pram outside Parliament House.
Rather than fight on technicalities, she chosen to plead guilty, knowing that if the magistrate was hostile, she could be taken into custody at the end of Friday’s hearing.
Several steps ahead of her critics, she made a video and wrote a long piece to be published if she went to prison.
The piece begins: ”If you are reading this, then I have been sentenced to prison for peaceful environmental protest. I do not want to break the law. But when regular political procedure has proven incapable of enacting justice, it falls to ordinary people taking a stand to bring about change.”
She describes how her understanding of the facts of climate science and the inadequacy of the current response led her to decide to give up her studies and devote herself to actions that would draw attention to the climate emergency.
“Liberal political philosopher John Rawls asserted that a healthy democracy must have room for this kind of action. Especially in the face of such a threat as billions of lives lost and possibly the collapse of our liveable planet.
“But make no mistake — I do not want to be protesting. Protest work is not fun — it’s stressful, resource-intensive, scary and the police are violent. They refuse to feed me, refused to give me toilet paper and have threatened me with sexual violence.
Jailed Australian climate protester Deanna “Violet” Coco . . . “Protest work is not fun — it’s stressful, resource-intensive, scary and the police are violent.” Image: APR screenshot
“I spent three days in the remand centre, which is a disgusting place full of sad people. I do not enjoy breaking the law. I wish that there was another way to address this issue with the gravitas that it deserves.”
She describes how she has already been forced to comply with onerous bail conditions:
“I was under 24 hour curfew conditions for 20 days in a small apartment with no garden. After 20 days effectively under house arrest, my curfew hours changed — at first I could leave the house for only 5 hours a day for the following 58 days, then 6 hours a day under house arrest for the following 68 days.
“This totalled 2017 hours imprisoned in my home for non-violent political engagement in the prevention of many deaths. Cumulatively, that is 84 days or 12 weeks of my freedom.”
Premier Perrottet says he does not object to protest so long as it does not interfere with “our way of life”.
If it does, individuals should have the “book thrown at them.”
His “way of life” is one in which commuters are never held up in traffic by a protest while endlessly sitting in traffic because of governments’ poor transport planning.
A way of life in which it is fine for governments to take years to house people whose lives are destroyed by fires and floods induced by climate change, to allow people to risk death from heat because they cannot afford air conditioners, open more coal and gas operations that will increase carbon emissions and turn a blind eye to millions of climate refugees in the Asia Pacific region.
It involves only protesting when you have permission and in tightly policed zones where passers-by ignore you.
Labor still backs anti-protest laws Leader of the Opposition Chris Minns also says he has no regrets for supporting the laws which he says were necessary to stop multiple protests.
But laws don’t target multiple actions, they target individuals. He has not raised his voice to condemn police harassment of individual activists even before they protest and bail conditions that breach democratic rights to freedom of assembly.
There was no visible Labor presence at Sydney’s rally.
Perrottet and Minns may be making right wing shock jocks happy but they are out of line with international principles of human rights.
They also fail to acknowledge that many of Australia’s most famous protest movements around land rights, apartheid, Green Bans, womens’ rights, prison reform and environment often involved actions that would have led to arrest under current anti-protest laws.
They display an ignorance of traditions of civil disobedience. As UNSW Professor Luke Macnamara told SBS News: “[V]isibility and disruption have long been the hallmarks of effective protest.”
He believes disruption and protest need to go hand in hand in order to result in tangible change.
“There’s an inherent contradiction in governments telling protesters what are acceptable, passive, non-disruptive means of engaging in protests, when the evidence may well be that those methods have been attempted and have proven to be ineffective,” he said.
“It’s not realistic on the one hand to support the so-called ‘right to protest’, and on the other hand, expect the protest has no disruptive effects. The two go together.”
Wendy Bacon was previously a professor of journalism at the University of Technology Sydney and is an editorial board member of Pacific Journalism Review. She joined the protest. This article was first published by City Hub and is republished with the author’s permission.
With the Fiji general election just days away, a major political party has condemned the arrests of its deputy leaders on charges of vote buying.
People’s Alliance deputy party leaders Lynda Tabuya and Dan Lobendhan appeared in court on Tuesday after being questioned by the Fiji Independent Commission Against Corruption (FICAC).
It is alleged that Tabuya tried to gain or influence votes for the December 14 election by soliciting $1000 to the Rock the Vote Volleyball tournament in May this year.
On the alternative count of breach of campaign rule, it is alleged that she also induced the participants to vote for Lobendhan.
Lobendhan is also alleged to have offered $1000 prize money to the tournament during the campaign period to gain or influence votes.
On the alternative count, he allegedly offered a monetary inducement to the participants.
In September, a complaint was lodged by the FijiFirst Party to the Fijian Elections Office (FEO) and then referred the allegations of vote buying were referred to the anti-corruption body.
Party leader claims ‘democracy hindered’ People’s Alliance Party leader Sitiveni Rabuka has labelled the arrests as an attempt to derail their election campaign and muzzle candidates.
Rabuka said the arrest was “outrageous to democratic good governance principles” and “a ridiculous assault on our individual constitutional rights to take part in political campaign activities”.
He said after a month and a half delay, and on the eve of the election, for FICAC to move on the FijiFirst complaint was “blatant and a deliberate interference” in the country’s electoral process.
The People’s Alliance has called on the FICAC Commissioner to respect the electoral system and not hinder democracy.
“It comes as a shock considering that in his reply to the FEO letter dated September 26th 2022, Lobendahn denied having paid Rock the Vote Volleyball to exclusively invite him to events to impress his presence on social media,” said Rabuka.
“Lobendahn stated that he was invited by a colleague, working towards creating awareness to attract youths and encourage them to register to vote for the upcoming elections.”
Rabuka questioned what was unlawful about enlightening and encouraging youths to register to vote?
The matter has been adjourned to February 10.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
The university has announced that 170 academic positions are being cut, but there are concerns about whether the criteria by which staff were selected to lose their jobs was fair.
Legal proceedings have been launched by the Tertiary Education Union (TEU), which says the university has truncated the processes for dismissal set out in the collective agreement.
It argues staff were selected because they failed to meet teaching and research requirements they did not know they were subject to.
Presenter Kathryn Ryan spoke to Professor Damon Salesa, who is vice-chancellor of AUT.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Australians are currently confronting a cost of living crisis that includes soaring energy prices. Ministers have been working for weeks on a strategy to contain the prices of coal and gas, driven up by the fallout from the Ukraine war.
It’s the toughest, most complicated policy issue so far faced by Anthony Albanese, and it’s involved some head-butting with the NSW and Queensland governments.
In this podcast, we talk with Professor Bruce Mountain, Director of the Victoria Energy Policy Centre at Victoria University, about this power price conundrum, and the attempt to deal with it by price caps.
Mountain says: “One of the great difficulties in capping wholesale coal or gas prices is there’s no guarantee that that will impact the price of electricity. There’s a long chain to be followed between a wholesale cap on coal or gas and the price that the customer pays.”
When the government produces its energy policy, how quickly would that flow through to the prices manufacturers and household pay for their power?
“A cap on the wholesale price of gas might be expected to flow through to large gas users quite quickly. How it flows through in the electricity market is an altogether different story […] The wholesale caps that it has in mind perhaps have the weakest likelihood of a certain outcome that it’s seeking.
“I wish I could be more certain, but I’m afraid these issues are just so terribly complex.”
What are the implications of the crisis for renewables?
“My impression is the social licence of coal and gas has been very badly damaged here in Australia and globally.
“We hear again and again from governments a great desire to speed up the transition to ensure that they’re not in the same position again.
“I think their’s an awful clamour, obviously, to keep the lights on and to ensure customers are not exposed to the worst impacts of this. But I think there’s a great desire to not be in the same situation again.
“So it’s a strange situation, where in the short term governments are urging more exploration, more gas and coal production. But in the medium to long term, they want exactly the opposite.
“I should think that it will have stimulated investment incentives and put more lead in governments’ spine to speed up the transition in the medium to long term.”
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.
Foreign Minister Penny Wong and Defence Minister Richard Marles met with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III for the Australia-United States Ministerial Consultations (AUSMIN) in Washington, DC, on December 6.
While there is notable continuity with last year’s agenda, this year’s AUSMIN clearly bears the Albanese government’s foreign and defence policy imprint – one that has a receptive audience in the Biden administration.
With greater military co-operation, and a priority on climate action, the meeting outlines an agenda to vigorously compete with China for regional influence while advancing the alliance’s long-standing defence and security co-operation objectives.
A realist shift from 2021
There is a decidedly realist tone to this year’s AUSMIN, at least from Australia’s perspective. In her remarks at the joint press conference, Wong largely dispensed with talk of shared history and values. Instead, she cast AUSMIN as “the primary forum for us as an alliance […] to make progress on shared interests”.
Ideology has also taken a backseat. The emphasis on “democratic values” and human rights that occupied an entire section in last year’s joint statement has been condensed and accompanied by a more balanced assessment of China. This notes the need for responsible competition, risk reduction, and co-operation on issues of shared interest.
This year’s statement also sharpens the alliance’s focus on Australia’s region. The Pacific Islands are front and centre. There are four detailed paragraphs on how the Australia-US alliance is engaging these countries diplomatically, economically, militarily and in the maritime environment.
From Wong’s relentless regional engagement since taking office, to US President Joe Biden’s hosting of the first US-Pacific Islands Summit in September, and bothcountries’ Comprehensive Strategic Partnerships with ASEAN, Australia and the United States have clearly increased their diplomatic engagements with these two vital subregions.
The focus on maritime security co-operation with the Pacific Islands, in particular, complements similar alliance activities in South-East Asia, where Australia and the United States should be looking to better integrate their respective lines of effort.
By contrast, there was no reference to the Afghanistan conflict or the threat of terrorism. The statement thus reflects the conclusion of the alliance’s Middle East period.
Penny Wong’s efforts in the Pacific have been a focal point of her early months as foreign minister. Australian Department of Foreign Affairs/AAP
Incremental steps in defence cooperation
As we predicted last week, no new details of the AUKUS partnership were announced. However, Marles did emphasise the need to “uplift” Australia’s shipbuilding industry to meet the task. An update on export control reform was also not forthcoming, other than mentions of the need for “seamless” bilateral defence industrial co-operation.
On the alliance’s force posture initiatives, the meeting flagged some progress on key issues without making major new announcements. For instance, there will be an increase in the frequency and sophistication of US Air Force rotations through Australia, as heralded last year. By comparison, little was said about mooted US Army and Navy deployments to Australia.
Importantly, the statement identifies measures to strengthen the resilience and sustainability of combined Australia-US operations. This includes targeted logistics exercises and co-development of “agile logistics” capabilities, as well as efforts to enhance Australia’s ability to maintain and repair munitions in-country. This will be done by streamlining US technology transfer and information-sharing arrangements – measures that Marles emphasised during the joint press conference.
Making good on these commitments will be critical to sustaining a higher tempo of joint operations in the region.
Bringing Japan on board
Perhaps the most eye-catching development is the invitation to Japan to “increase its participation in [US-Australia] Force Posture Initiatives”. Though short on specifics, this development underscores how the Australia-US alliance has become a mechanism for “advancing a strategy of collective defence among other Indo-Pacific allies”.
Future years could see larger and more frequent deployments of Japan Self-Defence Forces in more sophisticated bilateral and trilateral joint exercises. These forces would include fighter aircraft and marines rotating through Australian facilities.
Indeed, this announcement is consistent with the trajectory of the Australia-Japan relationship set by the recently updated Joint Declaration on Security Cooperation. It makes the Australia-Japan 2+2 ministerial talks scheduled for Friday in Tokyo all the more interesting. Both countries are looking to take their defence co-operation, including with the United States, to the next level.
Climate co-operation to the fore
Wong emphasised climate co-operation as a primary area of joint collaboration. This is not entirely novel, as “climate, clean energy and the environment” received significant attention at AUSMIN 2021. There was also a brief mention in 2015.
Nevertheless, the framing of climate collaboration as one of three specific areas of focus (the others being engagement with South-East Asia and the Pacific Islands) reaffirms Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s and Biden’s November statement of climate partnership as a “new pillar” of the alliance.
The AUSMIN meeting brought climate co-operation to the fore, consolidating the discussions between Anthony Albanese and Joe Biden in November. Mick Tsikas/AAP
This is likely to be well received by domestic and regional audiences alike. The 2022 joint statement confirms the elevation of climate, with this issue addressed in second as opposed to fourth place in 2021.
Climate efforts were also prioritised in relation to regional engagement with South-East Asia and particularly the Pacific Islands. This is a marked elevation from 2021, when climate was mentioned in less stark terms within these contexts.
Finally, the visuals of this year’s AUSMIN were also notable. Watching the first Asian-Australian foreign minister standing alongside the first African-American secretary of defense was a poignant reminder of the power of identity in shaping bilateral narratives. Wong has often said that “foreign policy starts with who we are”, and it was good to see this year’s AUSMIN reflect the diversity of our multicultural societies.
The USSC Foreign and Defence Policy Program receives funding from the Australian Department of Defence, Northrup Grumman, and Thales. Peter K. Lee also receives funding from the Korea Foundation.
The USSC Foreign and Defence Policy Program receives funding from the Australian Department of Defence, Northrup Grumman, and Thales.
The Foreign Policy and Defence Program at the United States Studies Centre receives funding from the Department of Defence, Northrop Grumman Australia, and Thales Australia.
Using fire and burning, and threats to burn, as part of family violence is more common than many people realise. These tools and tactics are used to coercively control a partner or ex-partner.
Recent legal cases highlight the issue. As one of several acts of family violence against his partner, Brett doused her in diesel and set her hair alight. Similarly, one of Michael’s acts of violence against his partner was to splash her with turpentine and threaten to “watch her burn”.
Other acts of family violence include burning the survivor’s clothing or her furniture.
Yet the threat of fire and burning isn’t routinely considered by police and family violence safety services in their risk assessments and safety planning for women who have experienced family violence.
How do perpetrators use fire and burning?
After separation, abusive partners sometimes use fire to punish their partners for leaving them. The time soon after separation is particularly risky for survivors.
Rowan Baxter set alight and killed Hannah Clarke and their children soon after they separated. Similarly, recently separated Doreen Langham and her ex-partner Gary Hely died in a house fire. The coroner found Hely intentionally lit the fire.
Burns can easily be explained away as an accident, especially to those who are not aware of the connections between family violence and the use of fire and burning. This is particularly a concern where the injured woman is unable to tell her story.
Using, or threatening to use, fire is so dangerous because once ignited it spreads easily. It can cause extreme damage, pain, and trauma and, if the woman survives, the impact of injuries can be lifelong.
Perpetrators of family violence sometimes use fire and burning to coercively control or punish their partner or former partner. Shutterstock
The use of fire and burning has long been identified as a form of family violence in South Asian countries. In India, for example, a very high proportion of deaths from fire are acknowledged as likely to be associated with family violence. Kerosene burning is considered a unique form of family violence in India.
However, burn-related violence against women and girls has been reported from countries across the world, regardless of national income. Perpetrators of burn-related violence are mostly the partners or ex-partners of injured women.
Australia has been slow to recognise and address the link between family violence and burning or threats to burn. This is, in part, due to limited data collection.
One small Australian study is the exception. This study conducted at the Royal Darwin Hospital, found women were more likely to be burnt, or were threatened with burning, during interpersonal violence, compared to men. Over 80% of the victims who suffered burns in this context required surgery, with many requiring skin grafts.
However, there’s more we can do right now. Existing burns data held in emergency clinics across Australia should be analysed to identify the links. This would provide a greater understanding of how common this form of family violence really is.
Assessing the threat
We should develop our risk assessment tools so those who provide support to survivors of family violence – such as police, health workers and family violence support workers – recognise fire and burning threats.
Improved recognition of the risk of fire, burning and threats to burn may have positive implications for safety planning and prevention. This might include arranging alternative housing, upgrading smoke alarms and disposing of fire accelerants.
Risk assessment tools should identify the threat of fire and burning. Shutterstock
Notably, in risk assessments undertaken by police before Doreen Langham’s death, fire threat was not identified. However, her ex-partner, Gary Hely, had previously been investigated for setting fire to another ex-partner’s home just five years earlier.
If Hely’s suspected fire setting had been identified as a risk factor, the history might have been uncovered and more appropriate safety planning undertaken. This might have saved her.
Fire services have an important role
Australian fire services could play an enhanced role in preventing, recognising and responding to fire related family violence. We could model the approach of England, where fire services have been part of the family safety response for more than ten years.
English fire service representatives contribute to family violence risk assessments and are represented in high-risk teams working with survivors to keep them safe. English fire services also provide enhanced home fire safety checks for those who are identified to be at risk.
Australian fire services do not collect data that allows identification of connections between fire and family violence. Collection of this type of data would be useful in improving understanding, recognition and prevention of family violence related fire incidents. The Victorian fire service, for instance, doesn’t include intentional arson deaths when publishing statistics on arson deaths. Yet this is important information.
An enhanced role for fire services would require employees receive family violence training so they can recognise family violence, know how to properly secure any potential crime scene and how to respond to, and work with, survivors. Fire service staff should also have access to mental health support after attending family violence related fires.
Fire services aren’t currently part of Australia’s family violence safety system, but including them could save lives.
If this article raises issues for you or someone you know, contact 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732). In an emergency, call 000.
Heather Douglas receives funding from the Australian Research Council.
Yvonne Singer 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.
LIVE@MIDDAY NZ Time – 6pm USEST – In this, the 24th episode of A View from Afar for 2022 political scientist Dr Paul Buchanan and host Selwyn Manning will examine whether there is, in reality, such a thing as foreign policy independence in today’s world.
Specifically, Paul and Selwyn will examine the following questions:
What does it mean to be foreign policy independent, and what would independence look like?
How is foreign policy independence different from foreign policy autonomy and flexibility?
What factors inhibit or constrain foreign policy independence (domestic and international)?
In an interdependent world can FP independence be a realistic objective?
And finally: is FP independence possible for a small state in this era, if it ever was, and conversely, do great powers really exercise independence in their foreign affairs?
Threat.Technology placed A View from Afar at 9th in its 20 Best Defence Security Podcasts of 2021 category. You can follow A View from Afar via our affiliate syndicators.
Last week, four Indonesian fishermen were convicted for taking shark fins and poaching fish in Australian waters. The four men were spotted off remote Niiwalarra/Sir Graham Moore island in the Kimberley region of Western Australia, more than 150 nautical miles inside Australia’s exclusive economic zone.
But is fining them up to A$6,000 – a huge sum for these men – likely to stop sharks being killed? Hardly. The reality is, they have no capacity to pay the sum. Instead, they’ll likely serve a month or so in jail and return to Indonesia. There, they’ll face the same problem driving them into Australian waters – poverty.
Desperate Indonesian fishers are setting out across the Arafura Sea in record numbers, with 46 fishing boats detected since June this year. Many gamble with their lives – and some have lost. Authorities have found illegal fishing camps on Niiwalarra Island, alongside shark carcasses with their fins taken.
Shark fins are sought mainly in Chinese markets for use in a high-status soup and in traditional medicine. Demand has seen wholesale slaughter of these predators, essential to the proper functioning of ocean ecosystems. We’re hardly blameless – Australia exports tonnes of shark fin each year. We have to find a better way of protecting sharks in our waters – some of the last healthy populations on the planet.
Desperate fishers take the valuable fins – and leave the shark to die. Shutterstock
Would you risk your life for a shark fin?
While Indonesia’s economy is growing strongly, there’s a huge divide between rich and poor. The waters around its thousands of islands are fished heavily, and Indonesian fishers catch seven million tonnes a year, second only to China.
But heavy fishing means many fish stocks are now low, and tensions have risen between larger trawlers and small-scale fishers from villages. If you’re from a poor village and there’s nothing left to catch locally, where do you go?
You can admire the courage of fishers who set out in very small, barely seaworthy vessels with rudimentary fishing equipment to cross the Arafura to poach fish. In reality though, it’s a mix of courage and poverty-driven desperation. A 2018 report found fisher monthly income was roughly A$50 per month, well below the minimum wage in coastal regions.
You can see the choice many face. Continue in poverty – or try to catch sharks, knowing a fin can sell for as much as a month’s wages.
Not all shark fins are the same. Particularly prized are fins from the critically endangered scalloped hammerhead shark. These sharks have fins with a high thread count, meaning they are desirably fibrous. Killing of these sharks for their fins has almost wiped out populations in parts of their range – but they’re still relatively abundant in Australian waters.
How is Australia responding?
The Australian Defence Force has a near-constant presence watching for fishers through its Operation Resolute and assisting with enforcement efforts run by Australia’s fisheries management authority.
Enforcement ranges from “educating” fishers found inside Australian waters and sending them on their way to confiscating equipment and catch to criminal charges. Australia and Indonesia regularly talk about illegal fishing. And Australia has signed up to shark protection efforts internationally.
Despite this, the issue is worse than ever. Last decade, an average of 20 foreign fishing boats were intercepted each year. Last financial year, it soared to a staggering 337. Sharks aren’t the only drawcard – fishers take finfish and sea cucumber too.
Why? The pandemic. Indonesia was hit hard, with tourism drying up and many people losing income. But another is that sharks are vanishing from their usual ranges. To find them, you have to go further afield.
Why are sharks still killed for their fins?
Eating shark fins is good for no one. There are no identifiable health benefits. There’s no taste you couldn’t get from eating cartilage from farm animals instead. And when you eat the fin, you’re likely to get a dangerous dose of mercury, which accumulates up the food chain.
Shark fin soup has long been an expensive high status meal in Chinese culture, as in this 2009 photo from a Hong Kong restaurant. BionicGrrl/Flickr, CC BY
From the shark’s perspective, it’s a particularly gruesome way to die. Fins are typically cut from the shark while it’s alive. When released back to the water, it will either sink and drown, get eaten by another predator, or die from blood loss.
Sharks and their close cousins, rays, have been decimated, with populations of 18 key species falling a disastrous 70% since the 1970s. They’ve been caught as bycatch by trawlers and longliners, sought for their fins or their oily livers, or killed out of fear.
While there’s occasional good news, it is difficult to be optimistic.
Our slaughter of an estimated 100 million sharks a year is devastating for nature. Before we began killing them wholesale, shark numbers were much higher. Healthy shark populations act as a stabilising force on prey species and keeps ecosystems in balance. Tiger sharks keep seagrass beds healthy by eating the turtles which graze them.
Killing sharks can destroy other fisheries. Losing large sharks led to the end of the North Carolina scallop fishery. Without large sharks, cownose ray populations exploded, and the hungry rays ate all the scallops.
So what can we do to save our sharks from desperate fishers?
This is a wicked problem. “Education” is hardly going to stop fishers who know precisely why they’re here and what risks they’re taking, as the steep rise in illegal fishing suggests. Fines they can’t pay and the inconvenience of short prison sentences are clearly not doing the job.
You might wonder why we can’t get advance warning of fishers heading into our waters. Even modern radar struggles to spot small wooden boats across millions of square kilometres of ocean, and surveillance planes and patrol boats can’t be everywhere. Besides, until the vessels reach Australia’s exclusive economic zone, they have every right to be on the high seas.
In 2011, China launched a campaign to make shark fin soup unpopular, driving demand down 80%. But demand is still high in Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, and rising fast in places like Vietnam and Thailand. Wider campaigns like this are needed.
We should also help Indonesia find more sustainable ways of tending its own fisheries, and tackling coastal community poverty.
Jailing and fining fishers is a knee-jerk solution. As long as shark fin soup is on the menu and as long as we have valuable sharks, there will be fishers desperate enough to come into Australian waters to hunt them.
Zoe Schmidt contributed to the research basis for this article
Anthony Marinac is a partner in Pacific Maritime Lawyers, a law firm which routinely represents various Australian seafaring industries, occasionally including Australian fishers. He also served aboard patrol boats as a Transit Security Officer on Operation Resolute in 2008-09.
Before the Qatar World Cup began, FIFA launched a social campaign called “Football Unites the World”. FIFA acknowledged “the world is divided […] with conflicts and global crises”, but promised the World Cup “will bring people together to cross borders, unite and celebrate”.
It’s a similar message to that of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), in which the Olympic Games are said to “unify” the world of nations. Such aspirations aren’t simply about bringing countries together to play sport under agreed rules: these two global bodies also believe they have some capacity to shape international relations.
Yet, despite FIFA heralding unity and peace during the 2022 World Cup, the tournament has featured potent examples of political conflict and protest, while Russian attacks against Ukraine have intensified.
Political football
At the very time football was supposed to be “uniting the world”, FIFA was scrambling to quell what it saw as unwelcome criticism from some participants and many commentators. This dissent stemmed principally from widespread criticism about Qatar as World Cup host, notably the exploitation of foreign labourers, discrimination against LGBTQI+ communities, and constraints around drinking alcohol.
In response, Infantino sent a letter to football federations saying: “Please, let’s now focus on the football!” He urged them to “not allow football to be dragged into every ideological or political battle that exists”.
However, while football teams concentrate on winning games, some also promote bedrock values in modern sport such as inclusion, and rail against discrimination.
Many football teams – especially those from Western democratic cultures – have a progressive vision of what “unity” in sport and society should mean.
Rainbow dispute
FIFA’s 2017 Human Rights Policy prohibits discrimination “in the world of football both on and off the pitch”, with freedom of sexual orientation specifically protected, among other attributes.
In keeping with this, seven European countries informed FIFA they intended to showcase their support for sex and gender diverse communities at the 2022 World Cup. Team captains were to wear the “OneLove” rainbow-coloured armband, as had been done by the Dutch at the UEFA Euro 2020 championship.
What’s more, wearing the armband would not merely attract a fine. FIFA warned of on-field punishment in the form of yellow cards.
The European teams, while angry, now felt they had little choice other than to back down. But there were creative responses. The German team offered a symbolic protest before the start of their next match, covering their mouths to denounce being “gagged” by FIFA. Germany’s Interior Minister, Nancy Faeser, sported the OneLove armband while setting next to Infantino during that game.
Clash of values
FIFA, meanwhile, offered its own “solution”. The FIFA “No Discrimination” campaign was brought forward from the planned quarter-finals stage, with FIFA-approved armbands endorsing anti-discrimination, albeit without a specific focus on sex and gender diversity.
FIFA’s feeble public relations spin then quickly denigrated into doublespeak. Despite banning the OneLove armbands, FIFA announced it also “supports” OneLove and the LGBTQI+ community, and “Football unites behind [FIFA’s] call for #NoDiscrimination”.
That message would hardly resonate with Qatari authorities, for whom homosexuality is an affront to Islam and forbidden under law. Just prior to the tournament, Qatar’s World Cup ambassador, former footballer Khalid Salman, claimed to a German broadcaster that same sex attraction is “damage in the mind”.
Two weeks later, panellists on Qatar’s Alkass Sports channel mocked the German football team’s protest gesture, relishing their elimination from the Cup. These Europeans, they said, had failed to respect Qatar’s customs.
FIFA, in gifting the World Cup to Qatar as host, was well aware of this clash of values, but deferred to local norms.
That said, FIFA occasionally pushed back, most notably to quell the ire of fans prevented from conveying symbolic support for LGBTQI+ communities through their clothing. At the entry to stadiums, Qatari security initially refused entry to people wearing clothing with rainbow adornments. However, after “urgent talks” with FIFA, that position was rescinded. In this sense, fans ended up having more freedom of expression than players.
But not completely. When some England fans arrived at the opening match dressed as their country’s patron saint, often replete with faux helmets, plastic swords, and shields featuring the St George Cross, Qatari police refused them entry. This attire has a long tradition among English sports fans, but FIFA sided with Qatar, deciding that “crusader” costumes could be historically offensive to Muslims.
Meanwhile, Iranian spectators in Doha were confronted by security for the “offense” of wearing t-shirts or holding up placards in support of the recent protest movement against the Islamic Republic and its morality police.
Persian pre-revolutionary flags and items emblazoned with one or all of the words “Woman, Life, Freedom” were routinely seized, either by security forces or pro-government agents and supporters.
FIFA eventually intervened to assure Iranians that symbols of dissent would no longer be constrained by World Cup authorities, but this only happened after the Iran team had been eliminated from the tournament.
Elsewhere, Brazilian fans confronted a very different political quandary. In recent years their team’s iconic yellow jersey, the canarinho, has been deployed as an unofficial emblem of former President Jair Bolsonaro’s right-wing populist movement.
Many supporters of the new left-wing president, known as Lula, have concluded the yellow jersey is still politically tainted: after all, Bolsanaro and his supporters had used the canarinho in a similar vein to Donald Trump’s MAGA merchandise.
Future World Cups will be obliged to adhere to human rights obligations that Qatar (2022) and Russia (2018) weren’t required to follow.
Yet, such is FIFA’s cognitive dissonance that Infantino, on the eve of the cup, fantasised about the possibility of a World Cup in North Korea.
Daryl Adair 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.
New Zealand Parliament Buildings, Wellington, New Zealand.
New Zealand Politics Daily is a collation of the most prominent issues being discussed in New Zealand. It is edited by Dr Bryce Edwards of The Democracy Project.
Thousands of delegates have gathered in Montreal, Canada, for a once-in-a-decade chance to address the accelerating pace of species loss and the dangers of ecosystem breakdown.
COP15 brings together parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) with a goal of negotiating this decade’s biodiversity targets and a new global framework for biodiversity protection.
The summit risks being overshadowed by the recently concluded COP27 on climate change, but the issues are linked and the importance of biodiversity protection cannot be overstated.
About one million plant and animal species are at risk of extinction. Not only are our activities driving this mass extinction, its consequences also threaten our own health and survival.
COP15 needs to mark a step change in how quickly and how seriously the international community responds to catastrophic nature loss. The focus is expected to be on 30×30, a push to protect 30% of land and sea for nature by the end of this decade.
In recent years, the global climate crisis has made more headlines than biodiversity. Yet both are inextricably linked.
Deforestation reduces the planet’s carbon carrying capacity while simultaneously destroying habitats. Erratic weather patterns, fires and floods – caused or exacerbated by climate change – erode ecosystem integrity.
As ecosystems break down, the natural barriers separating people from zoonotic diseases are reduced, with devastating consequences, as the COVID pandemic shows.
Unlike the UN climate process, which has a clear target to limit greenhouse gas emissions to 2℃, the biodiversity convention and its COPs have so far lacked a clear goal. But this might change.
30×30 could represent a significant move towards reducing humanity’s collective footprint on the planet and allowing ecosystems to rejuvenate. But as always, the devil is in the detail. It will be important to ensure Indigenous peoples’ rights are respected and that sufficient funds are released for effective management of protected areas.
The summit will also emphasise the human right to a healthy environment, for which biodiversity is essential, and a concerted push to require mandatory nature disclosures from all large businesses and financial institutions as a measure of their impacts and dependencies on biodiversity.
Mandatory nature disclosures are receiving broad support, not least from many businesses. If adopted, this would add clarity to corporate obligations and might significantly improve transparency and accountability. But safeguards will be necessary to ensure the problems around carbon offsetting are not repeated and companies cannot unduly compensate for the loss or degradation of biologically diverse ecosystems.
Nevertheless, 30×30, the human right to a healthy environment, and #MakeItMandatory, each has the potential to capture greater public attention and to galvanise global leaders into urgent action.
About a third of New Zealand’s area is already conservation land, but only 7% of its territorial sea is protected. Getty Images
New Zealand’s ambitious biodiversity strategy, Te Mana o te Taiao, sets out a blueprint for the protection and restoration of our biodiversity, as well as for its sustainable use. But despite such ambition, New Zealand’s indigenous biodiversity remains in peril.
There are numerous challenges to the country’s ecological health. These include increasing agricultural and industrial activity, invasive alien species and introduced predators, commercial fishing and trawling, and the impacts of climate change, which already bring more weather extremes.
COP15 will focus on an initiative to protect 30% of land and sea for nature by the end of this decade. Getty Images
Leadership and ambition
COP15 was originally to take place in Kunming, China, in October 2020, but was delayed by the COVID pandemic. Although it is now happening in Canada, China retains responsibility for organising most of the summit and its leadership and ambition will be crucial to its success. This is the first time China has held the presidency of a major international environmental treaty.
The summit’s ambitious theme – building a shared future for all life on Earth – now needs to be matched by an agreement on bold and substantive commitments. Sufficient financial assistance for developing states must also be made available to ensure commitments are implemented.
There is now strong consensus that human activities are altering the planet’s climate, with significant and negative consequences. Public support for action on climate change is also high.
Our chances of avoiding catastrophic climate breakdown depend in many ways on how effectively we protect and restore Earth’s biodiversity. Framing biodiversity as a crucial component of climate stabilisation could help raise the profile of COP15. It would send a message that biodiversity isn’t a limited “green” issue but simply about ensuring a healthy and habitable planet for everyone.
Nathan Cooper 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.
For some, it’s a pinnacle of cultural achievement. For others it perpetuates class inequality and upholds “white middle class social domination”.
To controversy, we can add contradiction! We love to hear the instruments and idioms of classical music in film and television (think of the theme from The Crown or the music from the Harry Potter films), but experience has shown classical music is most effective at repelling loiterers from public spaces.
Engaging with the controversy and contradiction of this music requires more than streaming a minute or two of Mozart. Research shows we make better judgements about music when hearing and seeing it, and classical music was designed to be experienced live.
So are you considering giving classical music a go? Here are some tips for first-time concert goers.
Where should I start?
Concerts range from intimate performances by solo players to major works for choir and orchestra featuring hundreds of musicians.
Terms like “chamber” (small ensembles like string quartets), “choral” (choirs large and small), “orchestral” (ranging from larger string ensembles to giant collections of strings, winds, brass and percussion) and “opera” (companies of musicians that include orchestral players, solo singers and sometimes a chorus) describe different groups of musicians.
Each has its own repertoire and a dizzying array of terms (such as aria, concerto, sinfonia, oratorio and cantata) help describe the pieces these ensembles perform.
The more you get to know classical music, the more you’ll understand and appreciate the terminology.
One of the most common types of classical music you’ll come across is a symphony. A symphony is a substantial orchestral work with different sections or “movements”, each with a different character and tempo. Though the term “symphony” became popular in the 18th century, composers are still writing symphonies today. Symphonies differ in purpose and duration. They can be as short as ten minutes and as long as two hours.
Sammartini’s Symphony in F from 1740, for example, has three movements and lasts about ten minutes. Its movements have simple, direct structures that aren’t too far removed from pop songs in terms of complexity and scope.
Mahler’s third symphony from 1896, on the other hand, has six movements and lasts for 90 minutes. Its breadth and complexity are astounding.
I would suggest a first timer selects an orchestral concert with multiple pieces on the program. You will get to enjoy the spectacle of many musicians and many different instruments. You’re also likely to be exposed to the work of composers from different times and places.
If money is a concern, many orchestras put on free concerts.
Classical music is pretty diverse. Just as rock ’n’ roll traverses anything from Buddy Holly to Thundermother, what we colloquially know as “classical music” spans many cultures and many centuries.
Terms like “Baroque” (composed between 1600 and 1750), “Classical” (this time with a capital C, composed between 1730 and 1820), “Romantic” (around 1820 to 1900) and “Modern” (1890 to 1950) help us keep track of when the music was written.
These eras also operate with regional descriptors such as French, German, Italian or Russian.
Overlay this with subtleties of style and the distinct personalities of individual composers and you get a sense of the vast breadth of classical music.
But it is also important to know classical music isn’t only a celebration of dead Europeans. It is a living tradition whose boundaries aren’t fixed.
Classical music readily interacts with other types of music and crosses cultural boundaries to generate new styles and new sounds. Consider the Australian work Kalkadungu by William Barton and Matthew Hindson, a work “designed to explore the transition of traditional song-lines between the past, present and future”.
Though sometimes far removed from contemporary culture, every piece of classical music has something to say about the human experience. So, what to expect in the program? Expect to be surprised.
What should I wear?
Wear what makes you comfortable. While it’s not unusual for people to dress up for a concert, it isn’t compulsory, and ordinary casual clothes are fine. In the same way people dress up for the Melbourne Cup, some people wear black tie to the opera. Don’t let it faze you.
When should I clap?
While you might be moved to clap right after hearing an incredible feat of musicianship, modern audiences generally don’t clap whenever there is a pause in the music, such as between movements of a symphony.
This reflects the idea that a symphony is a “complete” musical statement – including the pauses between sections.
If you’re uncertain when to clap, wait until others do.
What else should I keep in mind?
Going to classical music should be about enjoying the concert! Here are some final tips on how to enjoy yourself.
Enjoy the spectacle. There’s much to see at classical concerts. The interactions between the conductor and the orchestra can be particularly interesting. Watch as the conductor, with a flick of the baton, unleashes awesome sonic power.
Appreciate the skill of the musicians. Classical performers are the elite in their field. It takes decades of training to do what they do.
Learn something about the composer and the work. Some classical composers are saints (Hildegard of Bingen) and some may have been psychopaths (Gesualdo). Knowing who the composer is and what they were trying to achieve in their music will add to your appreciation.
Keep in mind that your musical taste expands as you expose yourself to new and unfamiliar sounds. The more you listen, the more you are likely to enjoy.
Oh, and sometimes, if the audience is adequately enthusiastic, there’ll be a short additional piece at the end. Encore!
Timothy McKenry 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.
The solution to Fiji’s problems is to vote out the FijiFirst government, says People’s Alliance party leader Sitiveni Rabuka.
Speaking to about 1000 supporters who welcomed Rabuka with cheers of “480” — his votng candidacy number — at the party rally in Labasa last Saturday, he assured voters that his team together with the National Federation Party would do everything in their power to rid Fiji of the “damaging legacy” of Voreqe Bainimarama and Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum.
“Again I stress that we cannot do it alone,” he said.
“We want you to be partners with us in the remaking of Fiji and we will consult with you and seek your ideas in the normal way of democracy.
“I tell you right now, you the people are the change. We the PA candidates are the change and together we are unstoppable.
“We are unstoppable all over the land. We are ready to make history on December 14 and to the candidates, keep preaching the message from our manifesto, tell the people about our planes and keep emphasising that they are the centre of our mission.”
Rabuka assured his supporters of a better future.
“We will be assessing the forestry and timber industry in Vanua Levu, again in close consultation with all stakeholders to identify how we can achieve a good, sustainable return,” he said.
“Tourism too will be given close attention in this part of Vanua Levu and in the area of Savusavu and Taveuni as we want to ensure this crucial enterprise continues to be a key driver of the entire economy.”
Serafina Silaitoga is a Fiji Times reporter. Republished with permssion.
Our society faces the grand challenge of providing sustainable, secure and affordable means of generating energy, while trying to reduce carbon dioxide emissions to net zero around 2050.
To date, developments in fusion power, which potentially ticks all these boxes, have been funded almost exclusively by the public sector. However, something is changing.
Private equity investment in the global fusion industry has more than doubled in just one year – from US$2.1 billion in 2021 to US$4.7 billion in 2022, according to a survey from the Fusion Industry Association.
So, what is driving this recent change? There’s lots to be excited about.
Before we explore that, let’s take a quick detour to recap what fusion power is.
Merging atoms together
Fusion works the same way our Sun does, by merging two heavy hydrogen atoms under extreme heat and pressure to release vast amounts of energy.
It’s the opposite of the fission process used by nuclear power plants, in which atoms are split to release large amounts of energy.
Sustaining nuclear fusion at scale has the potential to produce a safe, clean, almost inexhaustible power source.
Our Sun sustains fusion at its core with a plasma of charged particles at around 15 million degrees Celsius. Down on Earth, we are aiming for hundreds of millions of degrees Celsius, because we don’t have the enormous mass of the Sun compressing the fuel down for us.
Scientists and engineers have worked out several designs for how we might achieve this, but most fusion reactors use strong magnetic fields to “bottle” and confine the hot plasma.
A donut-shaped magnetic confinement device called a tokamak is one of the leading designs for a working fusion power generator, with many such experiments running worldwide. Christopher Roux, EUROfusion Consortium, CC BY
Generally, the main challenge to overcome on our road to commercial fusion power is to provide environments that can contain the intense burning plasma needed to produce a fusion reaction that is self-sustaining, producing more energy than was needed to get it started.
Joining the public and private
Fusion development has been progressing since the 1950s. Most of it was driven by government funding for fundamental science.
Now, a growing number of private fusion companies around the world are forging ahead towards commercial fusion energy. A change in government attitudes has been crucial to this.
In the United Kingdom, the government has invested in a program aimed at connecting a fusion generator to the national electricity grid.
The technology has actually advanced, too
In addition to public-private resourcing, the technologies we need for fusion plants have come along in leaps and bounds.
In 2021, MIT scientists and Commonwealth Fusion Systems developed a record-breaking magnet that will allow them to build a compact fusion device called SPARC “that is substantially smaller, lower cost, and on a faster timeline”.
These incredible feats demonstrate an unprecedented ability to replicate conditions found inside our Sun and keep extremely hot plasma trapped long enough to encourage fusion to occur.
By focusing nearly 200 powerful lasers to confine and compress a target the size of a pencil’s eraser, they produced a small fusion “hot spot” generating fusion energy over a short time period.
We can afford to expand adoption of current renewable energy technology like solar, wind, and pumped hydro while also developing next-generation solutions for electricity production.
This exact strategy was outlined recently by the United States in its Net-Zero Game Changers Initiative. In this plan, resource investment will be targeted to developing a path to rapid decarbonisation in parallel with the commercial development of fusion.
History shows us that incredible scientific and engineering progress is possible when we work together with the right resources – the rapid development of COVID-19 vaccines is just one recent example.
It is clear many scientists, engineers, and now governments and private investors (and even fashion designers) have decided fusion energy is a solution worth pursuing, not a pipe dream. Right now, it’s the best shot we’ve yet had to make fusion power a viable reality.
Nathan Garland receives funding from Griffith University. He has previously received funding from the US Department of Energy through its funding of Los Alamos National Laboratory.
Matthew Hole receives funding from the Australian National University, the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation, and the Simons Foundation. He is an ITER Science Fellow and Chair of the Australian ITER Forum.
Last week, the Albanese government took another important step towards the referendum on a Voice to Parliament. It introduced a bill to make changes to our referendum process, including new arrangements for public education and campaign finance.
Getting the referendum process right is essential if the Voice vote is to be fair and informed. So, what changes has the government proposed, and will they help to achieve that?
Modernising our outdated referendum rules
It is more than 20 years since Australia held its last referendum in 1999. That is the longest period in our history without a vote on constitutional change. So much time has passed that only Australians over 40 have any experience voting in a referendum.
One of the effects of this long gap is that the laws governing the referendum process have become stale. Unlike election laws, they have not always been updated to reflect changes in voting and campaigning. And some aspects – like the design of the referendum pamphlet – have barely changed in over a century.
With a Voice referendum on the horizon, it was clear a big update was needed. A major parliamentary inquiry said as much in December 2021 when it called Australia’s Referendum Act “outdated and not suitable for a referendum in contemporary Australia”.
The last time Australians were asked to consider a constitutional change was in 1999, when the republic referendum was held and failed. Parliament of Australia
The federal government proposes to modernise the law in several areas. The arrangements for postal voting, authorisation of advertisements and ballot scrutiny would all be brought into line with election laws.
But the more noteworthy changes concern public education and campaign finance. These are the most sensitive areas covered by the bill and will attract the most debate in the months ahead.
In a surprise move, the government wants to drop the official Yes/No pamphlet for the Voice referendum.
For over a century, the usual practice has been for governments to mail voters a pamphlet that contains official Yes and No arguments authorised by members of parliament.
The Bill suspends this practice for any referendum held during this parliamentary term. The government says the circulation of a hard-copy pamphlet is outdated in the digital age and that MPs can make their case in other ways, including via television and social media.
The pamphlet has never lived up to its promise as an educative tool. It is designed to persuade, not inform. Past pamphlets have often contained exaggerated or misleading claims that seem designed to confuse or frighten voters. In 1974, for example, the No campaign said “democracy could not survive” a change to how electorates were drawn. At its worst, the pamphlet can serve to spread misinformation rather than counter it.
All the same, many voters will want an accessible source of official information, both on the proposal and the arguments for and against change, to help them make up their own mind. A hard-copy pamphlet can serve that purpose, even in a digital age.
Rather than ditching the pamphlet, the parliament should reform it. It should be revised to include a clear, factual explanation of the proposal, just like similar pamphlets in Ireland, California and New South Wales. The arguments for and against should be shorter, calmer and more considered. And if we can’t trust politicians to formulate quality Yes and No cases, we should give that task to public servants or an independent body.
Civics education
The government says it wants to focus its public education efforts on a civics campaign that will provide voters with information about “Australia’s constitution, the referendum process, and factual information about the referendum proposal”. The bill temporarily lifts a block on government spending to allow that to happen.
This move is promising, and there is a precedent for it – the Howard government funded a neutral education program for the republic referendum.
But the government has not provided any detail on how the campaign would run. Careful design is crucial if it is to be trusted and effective.
Here the government should heed the recommendation of the 2021 parliamentary inquiry and establish an independent referendum panel to advise on, or even run, the civics campaign. A 2009 inquiry suggested the same.
To ensure public confidence in the body, its membership could be appointed by the prime minister in consultation with other parliamentary leaders. Ideally, the members would come from diverse backgrounds. The inquiry recommended a panel comprising “constitutional law and public communication experts, representatives from the AEC and/or other government agencies, and community representatives”.
It was disappointing that last week’s announcement made no mention of this idea. The creation of a well-designed, independent body to oversee public education could make a huge difference to voters looking for accessible, balanced and reliable information on the Voice.
It’s a shame parliament has waited so long to make changes to referendum law. But now it has a brief window to explain the changes to Australians. Mick Tsikas/AAP
No public funding for the Yes and No campaigns
The government has said it won’t provide public funding to the Yes and No campaigns. Both sides will instead have to rely on private fundraising to pay for advertising and other campaign activities.
This approach has been the norm over Australia’s referendum history. Howard allocated public money to the Yes and No sides in 1999, but that remains a one-off.
Transparency and accountability in campaign finance
The bill makes long-overdue changes to the rules on referendum campaign finance.
Labor wants campaigners to publicly report donations and expenditure that exceed the disclosure threshold (which is currently set at $15,200). It would also restrict foreign influence by banning foreign donations over $100.
These changes bring referendum laws into line with ordinary election laws – for better and worse.
They will help to improve accountability and transparency. But they replicate the failings of election laws and fall well short of best practice.
The disclosure threshold is too high, ensuring some large donations will remain anonymous. And Australians will have to wait until after the referendum to find out who gave money to the Yes and No campaigns.
A better approach would be to set a lower threshold and require real-time disclosure, as occurs in some states.
Australia’s referendum laws need an overhaul. The government’s bill is a step in the right direction, although it falls short in important areas. It has been referred to the electoral matters committee and will be debated in the new year.
It is unclear if the major parties will reach consensus on all aspects of the bill. The decision to axe the pamphlet has already proved contentious. The Liberal opposition has said that suspending the pamphlet is “worrying” and “puts a successful referendum at risk”.
Unfortunately, conversations about the referendum process are much harder on the eve of a vote. Rule changes, even when well-intentioned, are more likely to be viewed as strategic or self-interested.
Given our long referendum hiatus, it is a shame parliament has waited until now to seriously consider these process reforms.
However, there is now a short window for parliamentarians to work seriously and cooperatively towards a framework that will ensure a fair and informed vote on the Voice to Parliament.
Paul Kildea has previously received funding from the Australian Research Council.
Jonah Hill’s Netflix documentary, Stutz, is an insightful journey into the mind of his therapist, renowned psychiatrist Phil Stutz. Hill delves into Stutz’ model of care, creatively using visual depictions of key concepts and “tools” drawn by Stutz himself.
This model is founded upon one’s relationship with their physical body. When he’s discussing the importance of health behaviours like exercise, diet and sleep, Stutz estimates 85% of the initial gains to someone with mental health concerns commencing therapy can come from focusing on these “lifestyle” factors. Surprised, Hill says in the film:
When I was a kid, exercise and diet was framed to me in like, ‘there’s something wrong with how you look’. But never once was exercise or diet propositioned to me in terms of mental health. I just wish that was presented to people differently. Because for me, that caused a lot of problems.
While the 85% figure is debatable, there is now good evidence therapies targeting lifestyle factors can be a critical part of treating psychiatric conditions such as depression. A recent meta-analysis (which brings together results from different research studies) shows exercise may be as powerful as anti-depressant medication for depression.
Our own research shows a modified Mediterranean diet can substantially improve symptoms and functioning of people living with moderate to severe depression.
And the benefits of these approaches can be be experienced relatively quickly, with effects evident in as little as three weeks.
Lifestyle changes can reduce the risk of common conditions such as heart disease and diabetes, which contribute to the 20-year life expectancy gap for those experiencing mental illness.
The principal organisation representing the medical specialty of psychiatry, the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists, now recommends lifestyle modification should be considered the first step in treating depression.
Despite all of this, this approach has not been comprehensively taken up by mainstream mental health-care providers in Australia or in the setting of the Stutz documentary, the United States.
‘You have to give somebody the feeling they can change right now.’
The use of lifestyle therapies is a reasonably new area to psychiatry compared to other treatments such as antidepressant medication or talk therapy with psychologists. Our randomised control trial showing diet can be a treatment strategy for depression mentioned previously was the first of its kind and was only completed in 2017.
There are various barriers to its translation in mental health care: training, funding, access and variability in quality given the historical absence of guidelines.
In October, we published the first international guidelines that can be used across any clinical setting – from general practices, to specialist mental health care and by dietitians – in any country. They cover nine established and emerging lifestyle “pillars” to support whole-of-person care. These are:
1. physical activity and exercise – improving aerobic and resistance training, yoga, reducing sedentary behaviours
2. relaxation techniques – such as guided breathing exercises
3. engaging (or re-engaging) with employment or volunteering
4. getting enough sleep
5. mindfulness-based therapies and stress management (including coping skills)
6. healthy diet that includes intake of a wide variety of plant-based whole foods and minimises highly processed foods
7. quitting smoking
8. improving social connections
9. interaction with nature – in green spaces such as forests and parks, and blue spaces like the ocean or creeks and rivers.
Exercise and engaging with natural spaces can yield mental health improvements. Shutterstock
Clinicians can shape their approach in four key ways:
increase lifestyle and social assessments. Our guidelines contain a list of recommended tools to capture changes in a patient’s health behaviours across the course of therapy as well as social screening tools to help understand their socioeconomic backdrop (such as stable housing, access to resources)
get input from allied health professionals (such as dietitians or exercise physiologists), patients’ support networks including other health professionals, community, family, carers and peers. It’s important to know, for example, how someone’s household or neighbourhood may shape their ability to give up smoking
identify behavioural change strategies. Each individual will have a different mindset in terms of their openness to changing their behaviours. Clinicians can use the guidelines to identify the best strategies for different individuals
help reduce stigma and/or assumptions that lifestyle is a choice. Instead, understand and explain to patients how individual, social and commercial factors can play a role and make it harder for them to make changes. This can make it feel less like a personal responsibility or fault and help navigate realistic changes.
While these guidelines and resources are an important first step, there are key questions in this field that remain unanswered.
These include how to best personalise treatments using a person’s unique physiology, genetics, demographics, background and individual preferences.
We need to examine how this approach compares to gold-standard care such as psychotherapy, especially for more severe depression. We are currently testing this question and recruiting participants for a national trial.
It is important to note medication and other therapies can play an important role in mental health treatment. Medications should not be ceased or changed without consulting a medical professional. We have also created a course for health professionals who want additional support.
For now, our guidelines provide a way for health professionals to begin addressing Jonah Hill’s point – that lifestyle factors should be presented to people as critical to their mental health.
If this article has raised issues for you, or if you’re concerned about someone you know, call Lifeline on 13 11 14.
Adrienne O’Neil receives funding from National Health & Medical Research Council Emerging Leader 2 Fellowship (2009295).
Dr Sam Manger is the pro-bono Vice-President of the Australasian Society of Lifestyle Medicine
Wolfgang Marx is currently funded by an NHMRC Investigator Grant (#2008971) and a Multiple Sclerosis Research Australia early-career fellowship. Wolfgang has received funding and/or has attended events funded by Cobram Estate Pty. Ltd and Bega Dairy and Drinks Pty Ltd. Wolfgang has received consultancy funding from Nutrition Research Australia and ParachuteBH.
We might look back on 2022 as the year when Australian governments finally started taking climate change as seriously as it needs to be.
Our new report shows federal, state and territory governments all substantially improved their climate action goals this year. But we’re not home and hosed yet – there’s more to do, especially if we are to hold global warming under 1.5℃.
Most of us know the federal government improved Australia’s emission reduction targets, legislating a 43% cut on 2005 levels by 2030 and net-zero emissions by 2050. But states and territories have been forging ahead too. For the first time,
the federal government and all states and territories are committed to net-zero by 2050.
That’s promising. Just last week, climate change minister Chris Bowen announced the last six months of policy announcements mean our emissions are now on track to fall 40% below 2005 levels by 2030.
A change of government makes a difference – but it’s by no means the only factor.
Policymakers have been pressing forward on many fronts for years now, often under the radar. Our national construction code now has a seven star minimum energy rating for new houses. The Australian Capital Territory and Queensland have set new electric vehicle uptake goals.
Federal and state governments are funding hydrogen hubs while the federal government will spend billions on decarbonising existing industries and developing new low-carbon industries. The federal government is planning new fuel efficiency standards, meaning Australia’s reputation as a dumping ground for high-polluting cars may end.
Larger and stronger disasters hitting farms like this one outside Sydney have intensified calls for climate action. Shutterstock
Electricity is where change is happening fastest
In 2022, the electricity sector saw the most change as state and territory governments invested heavily in renewables and grid capacity.
Queensland has set a renewable generation target of 70% by 2032, plans for two enormous pumped hydro schemes and A$280 million for better transmission infrastructure linking cities and industrial regions with new renewable energy zones.
Victoria, has also increased its ambition on renewable electricity. It’s aiming for 65% renewables by 2030 and 95% by 2035, and has plans for nine gigawatts of offshore wind by 2040.
New South Wales is accelerating plans to connect its renewable energy zones with cities and industrial regions, allocating $1.2 billion for transmission.
Western Australia will phase out state-owned coal-fired power by 2030. Tasmania is powering ahead with plans to export its abundant hydroelectricity via seabed cable to the national market.
Early mover South Australia will soon be the first gigawatt scale grid in the world. It went from 1% renewables to 65% renewable in just 15 years, and is aiming for 100% net renewables by 2030.
New transmission lines are a key part of the clean energy shift. Shutterstock
As state and territory initiatives set the pace, the federal government is helping coordinate and accelerate the shift to clean energy.
Importantly, the federal government is planning to spend $20 billion to make our old grid ready for a renewable future, through low-cost financing for the new transmission projects vital to connect Renewable Energy Zones with cities and industrial regions in need of power.
So far, this has included $2.25 billion committed to Victorian renewable energy zone projects and a new connection between NSW and Victoria, as well as joint funding for the Tasmania-Victoria undersea link and pumped hydro projects in Tasmania.
Federal support for six offshore wind zones will also give essential certainty for renewable developers to begin the long process of building our first offshore windfarms, where the winds are stronger and more constant.
Our analysis shows the collective impact of state and territory commitments and action represents the equivalent of an Australia-wide 2030 renewable target of 69%.
The federal government wants even more than that – 82% by 2030.
These figures approach what’s compatible to keeping warming to the internationally agreed goal of 1.5℃ or less, according to our analysis and the energy market operator’s long-term plan. But right now, they’re targets. It will take serious groundwork to make them reality.
Renewables unlock progress elsewhere – but we still need action on demand
Good news – investment in renewables will enable the decarbonisation of a large proportion of the rest of the economy. Once our electricity is clean, we can electrify everything else that uses fossil fuels, from transport to industry.
Even with these tailwinds, we’ll still need to push in one other key area: demand.
Using energy efficiently will be essential as energy demand grows alongside electrification.
What would that look like? Think more efficient appliances, better energy performance in industry and encouraging public and active transport.
There are promising signs. The federal government is consulting on a new strategy to give energy efficiency a boost. And building ministers have signed off on stronger requirements to ensure new houses use energy more efficiently.
Retrofitting existing homes with insulation, heat pumps and other energy efficiency measures could help us shake our reputation for owning glorified tents. Shutterstock
What else do we need?
Electric vehicles are finally starting to get traction, helped by stamp duty cuts and registration fee reductions in most states and territories. But we’ll also need to reduce demand by encouraging more people to use public transport, walk, cycle or use electric scooters or e-bikes.
Smart urban planning is needed too, to ensure non-car options are possible.
We still need to improve energy efficiency for existing homes, particularly for renters, as well as in new and existing commercial buildings. Retrofitting insulation and other energy-saving technologies can help cut emissions while boosting human health and comfort, and lowering bills.
Tough sectors such as heavy industry can look to ways to reduce energy demand to help manage the load on our grid.
So, as 2022 races to a close, it’s worth taking stock of our accomplishments. This year, the large-scale changes we need are beginning to happen.
In 2023, our governments should tackle the less visible but just as important question of demand, to ensure our path to a future without carbon emissions is as smooth as possible.
Alison Cleary works for Climateworks Centre as the Sustainable Economies System Lead. Climateworks Centre receives funding from philanthropy and project-specific financial support from a range of private and public entities including federal, state and local government and private sector organisations and international and local non-profit organisations. Climateworks Centre works within Monash University’s Sustainable Development Institute.
Sarah Fumei is part of Climateworks Centre which receives funding from philanthropy and project-specific financial support from a range of private and public entities including federal, state and local government and private sector organisations and international and local non-profit organisations. Climateworks Centre works within Monash University’s Sustainable Development Institute.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jack Beetson, Executive Director, The Literacy for Life Foundation; Adjunct Professor, University of New England
Photo credit: Adam Sharman, Author provided
Despite years of discussion and countless reviews, the incarceration rate of First Nations adults continues to increase in Australia. The federal government has said it will address this via “justice reinvestment”. That means funding programs that keep people out of the justice system.
Justice reinvestment reduces ever-growing criminal justice system costs, which frees up more funding to invest in communities. That keeps more people out of the system. And so the positive cycle continues.
One part of the justice reinvestment picture may be boosting literacy rates. In fact, a growing body of research shows the crucial role community-controlled adult literacy campaigns can play in reducing crime and improving justice outcomes.
The research was conducted as a before-and-after study looking at six communities in New South Wales. It included 162 participants who were all students in Literacy for Life Foundation’s Aboriginal adult literacy campaign. We also drew on NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research data. Study participants consented to researchers examining their criminal offence records relating to the 12-month period prior to participation in the literacy campaign, and 12-month period after participation.
The study also drew on more than 100 interviews with students, staff, community members, service providers and criminal justice practitioners.
We found:
total offences recorded (including those categorised as serious, plus other categories) declined by 32% (from 71 to 48)
among women in the study, total offences halved (from 40 to 20).
the largest reductions related to traffic offences (down 50%, from 14 to seven), public order offences (down 56%, from nine to four) and theft offences (down from five to zero).
One community leader described the impact for one participant by saying:
By the time he’d finished, he came out the other side not only having the ability to read and write, but he also came out of the other side with a licence. So that was a life-changing experience.
Low literacy can mean more contact with the justice system
Our study is among a growing body of research that highlights the correlation between low adult literacy and contacts with the police.
So what’s one got to do with the other?
Lower levels of English literacy are considered one of many factors contributing to continued inequalities in health and social outcomes for Indigenous peoples. One major area of inequality is in crime and justice.
Systemic racism and discriminatory policies across multiple sectors and over generations have contributed to Indigenous Australians facing more contacts with police, higher rates of incarceration and more contact with courts.
For many Indigenous people, entry into the judicial system is through minor, non-violent offences such as traffic infringements, in part due to insufficient literacy skills needed to pass a written driver’s licence test.
Low levels of English literacy also affect a person’s ability to understand their legal rights, seek legal counsel and read official documentation such as court attendance notifications. Not showing up to court proceedings can also result in additional charges being laid.
Convictions for these minor offences leave people with a criminal record, which make it hard to get a job. That can exacerbate issues with health and social wellbeing and perpetuate cycles of disadvantage.
Building basic literacy skills can help keep people out of jail, and for those in prison, participation in literacy and numeracy programs while in custody can help reduce recidivism (reoffending).
The Literacy for Life Foundation has recently started work with Indigenous people serving sentences in prison and it is hoped the trends highlighted in our study can be replicated.
What’s already clear is that community-led adult literacy campaigns can help reduce serious offences among participants by well over 50%, meaning the benefits extend beyond just helping people to read and write.
Research on this can help justice reinvestment programs, turning policy aspirations into practical action.
Jack Beetson is Executive Director, The Literacy for Life Foundation and Co-chair, Just Reinvest NSW. He receives funding from state and federal governments and was a Partner Investigator on the ARC Linkage Project which part-funded the research detailed in this article.
Melanie Schwartz is Deputy Dean (Education) at UNSW Sydney. She has received funding from the Australian Research Council for research into justice reinvestment.
Pat Anderson is Chair, Batchelor Institute, Director, The Literacy for Life Foundation, Chair, Remote Area Health Corps and Co-chair, Uluru Dialogue. She receives funding from state and federal governments and was a Partner Investigator on the ARC Linkage Project which part-funded the research detailed in this article.
December 7 marks the 50-year anniversary of the Blue Marble photograph. The crew of NASA’s Apollo 17 spacecraft – the last manned mission to the Moon – took a photograph of Earth and changed the way we visualised our planet forever.
Taken with a Hasselblad film camera, it was the first photograph taken of the whole round Earth and is believed to be the most reproduced image of all time. Up until this point, our view of ourselves had been disconnected and fragmented: there was no way to visualise the planet in its entirety.
The Apollo 17 crew were on their way to the moon when the photograph was captured at 29,000 kilometres (18,000 miles) from the Earth. It quickly became a symbol of harmony and unity.
The previous Apollo missions had taken photographs of the earth in part shadow. Earthrise shows a partial Earth, rising up from the moon’s surface.
Earthrise captured Earth in part shadow. NASA, CC BY-NC-SA
In Blue Marble, the Earth appears in the centre of the frame, floating in space. It is possible to clearly see the African continent, as well as the Antarctica south polar ice cap.
Photographs like Blue Marble are quite hard to capture. To see the Earth as a full globe floating in space, lighting needs to be calculated carefully. The sun needs to be directly behind you. Astronaut Scott Kelly observes that this can be difficult to plan for when orbiting at high speeds.
Produced against a broader cultural and political context of the “space race” between the United States and the Soviet Union, the photograph revealed an unexpectedly neutral view of Earth with no borders.
According to geographer Denis Cosgrove, the Blue Marble disrupted Western conventions for mapping and cartography. By removing the graticule – the grid of meridians and parallels humans place over the globe – the image represented an earth freed from mapping practices that had been in place for hundreds of years.
We have been placing grids over our maps for hundreds of years, as in this world map from 1689. Wikimedia Commons
The photograph also gave Africa a central position in the representation of the world, where eurocentric mapping practice had tended to reduce Africa’s scale.
The image quickly became a symbol of harmony and unity. Instead of offering proof of America’s supremacy, the photograph fostered a sense of global interconnectedness.
Since the Enlightenment, mapping and map making had emphasised man’s superiority over the Earth. Working against this hierarchy, Blue Marble evoked a sense of humility. Earth appeared extremely fragile and in need of protection. In his book Earthrise, Robert Poole wrote:
Although no one found the words to say so at the time, the ‘Blue marble’ was a photographic manifesto for global justice.
Blue Marble’s afterlives
The photograph has appeared across popular culture.
It is impossible to examine Blue Marble and separate it from the urgency of today’s climate crisis.
It quickly became a symbol of the early environmental movement, and was adopted by activist groups such as Friends of the Earth and annual events such as Earth Day.
The photograph appeared on the cover of James Lovelock’s book Gaia (1979), postage stamps, and an early opening sequence of Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth (2006).
The ways we have viewed and visualised Earth have changed over the decades.
Commencing in the 1990s, NASA created digitally manipulated whole-Earth images titled Blue Marble: Next Generation, in honour of the original Apollo 17 mission.
The 2002 Blue Marble showing Australia. NASA image by Robert Simmon and Reto Stöckli, CC BY-NC-SA
These are composite images composed of data stitched together from thousands of images taken at different times by satellites.
Space-based imaging technology has continued to advance in its capacity to render astonishing detail. Art historians such as Elizabeth A. Kessler have linked these new generation of images picturing the cosmos with the philosophical concept of the sublime.
The Blue Marble can inspire a similar sense of awe to images like Thomas Moran’s Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. U.S. Department of the Interior Museum
The photographs create a sense of vastness and awe that can leave the spectator overwhelmed, akin to 19th century Romantic paintings such as Thomas Moran’s The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone (1872).
In 1995, the Hubble Space Telescope revealed mountains of gas and dust in the Eagle Nebula. Known as the Pillars of Creation, the image captures gas and dust in the process of creating new stars.
This photograph of Eagle Nebula, named Pillars of Creation, was taken by the Hubble. NASA, ESA and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)
Building on the Hubble’s discoveries, the Webb is designed to visualise infrared wavelengths at a unprecedented level of clarity.
Stephan’s Quintet photographed by the James Webb Telescope. NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI, CC BY-NC-SA
These advances in technology might help explain the photograph’s enduring charm from the vantage point of 2022. The first photograph of our planet was remarkably lo-fi.
Blue Marble is the last full Earth photograph taken by an actual human using analogue film: developed in a darkroom when the crew returned to Earth.
Chari Larsson 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.
Source: Council on Hemispheric Affairs – Analysis-Reportage
William Camacaro, Caracas Frederick Mills, Washington DC
“It is no longer possible, in the case of America, to continue with the Monroe Doctrine nor with the slogan ‘America for the Americans.’” Andrés Manuel López Obrador
December 3, 2023 will mark the 200th anniversary of the Monroe Doctrine. It will also mark its obsolescence in the face of popular resistance and the Pink Tide of progressive governments in Latin America that have been elected over the past two and a half decades. The prevailing ideology of these left and left of center movements rejects the “Washington Consensus” and opts for a new consensus based on the decolonization of the political, economic, social and cultural spheres. This consensus is accompanied by encounters and conferences that advance liberatory traditions developed since the 1960’s as well as those deeply rooted in indigenous cultures. It is Washington’s failure to respect and adjust to this political and ideological process of transformation that precludes, at this time, a constructive and cooperative U.S. foreign policy towards the region.
Decoloniality and Multipolarity
One cannot comprehend decolonization from the totalizing point of view of U.S. exceptionalism[1]. U.S. exceptionalism, the offspring of the African slave trade and the conquest of Amerindia, seeks unfettered access to the region’s natural resources and labor to serve its corporate and geopolitical interests. By contrast, decoloniality was born of five centuries of resistance to colonization. It is the critical perspective of those who have been oppressed by imperial domination and local oligarchies and seek to build a new world, one that rejects necropolitics and racial capitalism; one that advances human life in community and in harmony with the biosphere. This critical ethical attitude has been expressed over the past two years in declarations of regional associations that exclude the U.S. and Canada. All share the same ideal of regional integration based on respect for sovereign equality among nations and guided by ecological, democratic, and plurinational principles.
A necessary condition of integration based on these principles is the freedom to engage economically, politically, and culturally with a multipolar world; it is only in such a geopolitical context that the region can resist subjugation to any superpower and itself become a major player on the world political-economic stage. Such engagement is already a fait accompli. From across the political spectrum, the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC, created in December 2011) has embraced a diversity of trading opportunities. For example, the China-CELAC forum[2] was formed on July 17, 2014 as a vehicle for intergovernmental cooperation between the member states of CELAC and China. The forum held its first ministerial meeting[3] in Beijing in January 2015, which was followed by two more summits (2018,[4]2021[5]), all of which produced economic, infrastructure, energy, and other agreements. Also significant with regard to trade, 20 countries[6] in Latin America and the Caribbean have now signed on to the Belt and Road initiative. According to Geopolitical Intelligence Services, GIS:
“Chinese trade with Latin America grew from just $12 billion in 2000 to more than $430 billion in 2021, driven by demand for a range of commodities, from soybeans to copper, iron ore, petroleum and other raw materials. These imports, meanwhile, were tied to an increase in Chinese exports of value-added manufactured goods. As of 2022, China is the region’s second-largest trading partner and the biggest trading partner in nine countries (Cuba, Paraguay, Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Uruguay, Peru, Bolivia and Venezuela).”[7]
Moreover, the World Economic Forum predicts that “On the current trajectory, LAC-China trade is expected to exceed $700 billion by 2035, more than twice as much as in 2020.” [8]
Rather than acknowledge this trend towards trade diversification, Washington is waging hybrid warfare against Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua, including the use of illegal unilateral coercive measures (“sanctions”), in a bid to limit the influence of Russia, Iran, and China and reimpose its hegemony in the region.
The Special Rapporteur[9] of the United Nations on the Negative Impact of Unilateral Coercive Measures on the Enjoyment of Human Rights, Alena Douhan, has visited and documented the effect of the sanctions in Syria,[10]Iran,[11] and Venezuela,[12] and on each occasion has indicated that the sanctions “violate international law” and “the principle of sovereign equality of States,” at the same time that they constitute “intervention in the internal affairs.” As a November 2022 study by the Sanctions Kill Campaign documents, sanctions against Venezuela and other targeted countries have caused devastating hardship and thousands of deaths.[13]
In order to prevent the import of vital goods to Venezuela, the U.S. went so far as jailing a Venezuelan diplomat, Alex Saab,[14] who had managed to circumvent U.S. sanctions to import urgently needed fuel, food, and medicine. In violation of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations (1961),[15] Washington has charged Saab with conspiracy to commit money laundering (other charges having been dropped). A hearing on Saab’s diplomatic immunity was scheduled for December 12, 2022 in Southern District Court. Saab threw a wrench into Washington’s “regime change” machinery, for which he has been paying a heavy price over more than two years.
“Regime change” operations against disobedient governments in Latin America and the Caribbean over the past decade by the U.S. and its right wing allies in the Organization of American States (OAS), has not reduced the influence of China, Iran, and Russia in the region. Just the opposite. For example, while Washington was stepping up its campaign against the government of Cuba, Cuban President Miguel Díaz Canal Bermúdez went to Algeria,[16]Russia,[17]China,[18] and Turkey[19] to reinforce mutual solidarity and hammer out new economic accords. Both Russia and China recognize the strategic importance of the Cuban Revolution, for its defeat would have a demoralizing impact on the cause of independence and galvanize oligarchic interests throughout the hemisphere. Moreover, in the context of the Pink Tide of progressive governments, and the disintegration of the Lima Group (a Washington backed right wing coalition) this troika of resistance (Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua) is not alone.
The Pink Tide
It is important not to isolate the period of the Pink Tide as an anomaly, for it has precursors beginning with the first indigenous uprisings and the Bolivarian resistance to Spanish rule. Today’s decolonial struggle is influenced by the spirit of Túpac Amaru, the Hatian revolution, the Sandinista revolution, the Zapatista uprising, and other challenges to conquest, colonization, and the ongoing attempt to recolonize the region.
There is no doubt, however, that the Pink Tide took a big step forward with the election of President Hugo Chávez in Venezuela (1998), Néstor Carlos Kirchner in Argentina (2003), and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in Brazil (2003). It was perhaps at the Fourth Summit of the Americas, held in November 2005, at Mar del Plata, that their combined bold leadership struck a significant blow to U.S. hegemony by rejecting then President George Bush’s proposal for a hemispheric agreement called the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). This defeat of FTAA[20] also signaled the determination of progressive movements to seek alternatives to the neoliberal imperatives of the U.S. and Canada.
Presidents Lula, Kirchner and Chávez, during the 4th Summit of the Americas in 2005, when the Free Trade Area of the Americas was rejected (credit photo: Twitter account of President Nicolás Maduro)
Although the Pink Tide of progressive governance has suffered some electoral and extra-constitutional setbacks since the Fourth Summit, it has received renewed force with the election of the MORENA party candidate, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) in Mexico in 2018. AMLO ran on a platform that promised to launch the “fourth transformation” of Mexico by fighting corruption and implementing policies that put the poor first. He has since become a major critic of the Monroe Doctrine and the OAS.
The victory of the MORENA movement in Mexico was followed by the election of left and left-of-center presidents in Argentina (Alberto Fernández, October 2019), Bolivia (Luis Arce, October 2020), Peru (Pedro Castillo, July 2021), Chile (Gabriel Boric, December 2021) and Honduras (Xiomara Castro, December 2021). Less than a year later, for the first time in its history, Colombians elected a leftist president, Gustavo Petro, in June 2022. Petro wasted no time in re-establishing diplomatic relations with Venezuela and opening their common border. This South American nation, however, still remains host to nine U.S. military bases and remains a partner of NATO. This historic win was followed by a momentous comeback of the left in Brazil with the election of former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in October 2022 after the extreme right wing rule of Jair Bolsonaro. This is big news, as Brazil is not only a major economic power in the hemisphere, but a member of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) association, which is now expected to increase commerce and integrate a growing number of member states.
Regional associations seize the moment
These electoral victories, all of which relied heavily on the support of the popular sectors, have been the subject of critical analysis at several recent meetings of regional associations. These meetings express the formation of a consensus on advancing regional sovereignty, protecting the environment, respecting indigenous peoples’ rights, and attaining social justice.
The spirit of independence and regional integration was given new impetus when AMLO assumed the pro tempore presidency of CELAC in 2020. The last CELAC Summit[21] set the basic tone for this consensus when on July 24, 2021, AMLO evoked the legacy of Simón Bolívar in the context of the ongoing cause of regional independence; this focus opened a political space for criticizing the OAS and fortifying CELAC. The Summit was held at a time of widespread condemnation of the OAS’ role in provoking a coup in Bolivia.
The message of the CELAC summit had apparently not made much of an impression in Washington. The Ninth Summit of the Americas,[22] hosted by the United States in Los Angeles, California (June 2022), excluded countries on Washington’s “regime change” list, revealing a profound disconnect between U.S. hemispheric policy and the reality on the ground in Latin America. This exclusivity inspired alternative, more inclusive summits: the People’s Summit in Los Angeles[23]and the Workers’ Summit in Tijuana.[24] These alternative summits exposed Washington’s failure to adjust to increasingly independent neighbors to the South. To avoid embarrassment however, Washington did not invite self-proclaimed president of Venezuela, Juan Guaidó, though it now stands virtually alone in pretending to recognize this comic figure and his inconsequential, corrupt shadow government.
Five months after the divisive Summit of the Americas, there was a meeting of the Puebla Group which was founded in July 2019 to counter the right wing agenda of the Washington-backed Lima Group. It held its eighth meeting in the Colombian city of Santa Marta. On November 11th, the Group issued the Declaration of Santa Marta: The Region United for Change.[25] It declared that “the region needs to incorporate and emphasize new themes for the regional agenda that in the past, for different reasons, did not have the visibility that today appears indisputable, such as . . . gender equality, the free movement of people, the ecological transition, the defense of the Amazon and of the rights of indigenous peoples, . . . and the necessity to include new social and economic actors in the regional processes of integration.”
Mapuche protest in Chile, using signs in their language, defending their right to cultural independence and land recovery (credit photo: Pressenza International News Agency, https://www.pressenza.com/)
Just a few days later, in a letter dated November 14, a group of regional leaders called upon South America’s presidents[26] to reconstitute the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR, created in 2008). The disintegration of UNASUR was a reflection of an offensive against the Bolivarian revolution, led by Washington and Bogota. When Colombia left the organization in 2018, with its right wing allies to follow, it then joined the Lima Group, whose only political goal within the OAS was the destruction of the Bolivarian cause. And in August 2018 after President of Ecuador Lenin Moreno confiscated the UNASUR headquarters in Quito, President Evo Morales reopened the UNASUR headquarters in Bolivia. Morales declared, “The South American Parliament [UNASUR] is the center of integration and the symbol of the liberation of Latin America. The integration of all of Latin America is a path without return.” At that moment, the only country allied with Venezuela in South America was Bolivia.
The letter calling for the reconstitution of UNASUR was followed by a statement by the São Paulo[27] Forum, which met in Caracas November 18 – 19, 2022 and summed up one of the principal themes of the present juncture: “We are in a historic moment for resuming and deepening the transformations in the economic and geopolitical fields that have occurred since the beginning of the century, and for accelerating the transition to a democratic multipolar world, one based on new international relations of cooperation and solidarity.”
On November 22 – 25, in Guatemala, representatives of indigenous peoples from 16 countries came together for the second meeting of the Sovereign Abya Yala movement. The conference took place at a time of renewed political protagonism of indigenous peoples throughout the continent. For example, after the fascist coup in Bolivia in November 2019, it was the fierce resistance of indigenous peoples and the Movement toward Socialism IPSP that led to the successful recuperation of democracy one year later. The theme of the second meeting was “Peoples and communities in movement, advancing toward decoloniality in order to live well (“Buen vivir”).” Its final declaration commits to the decolonization of these territories. To accomplish this, the meeting proposed pluri-nationality as a guiding political principle, “to construct new plurinational states, new laws, institutions, and life projects that make it possible for all beings sharing the cosmic community to live together in harmony.” The declaration also recognizes the need to form political organizations that can advance these goals, including in the electoral field.[28]/
There is now a solid bloc of progressive governments in the region, presenting new opportunities to advance the causes of decolonization, integration, resource nationalism, popular sovereignty, and experiments in building a post-neoliberal order. But this juncture also poses new challenges. The U.S. recent partial lifting of sanctions against Venezuela in the oil sector and support for negotiations in Mexico between the Venezuelan government and opposition is a pragmatic response to the need to access Venezuelan crude and signals a shift in U.S. tactics to an electoral means to bring about “regime change”. This is reminiscent of the U.S. strategy in Nicaragua in the late 1980’s which led to the Sandinista electoral defeat of 1990. The U.S. is also acting with restraint because given the heightened geopolitical tensions over the war in Ukraine and the political climate in this hemisphere no other path is feasible. Washington continues, however, to pursue illegal unilateral coercive measures against Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Cuba in a ploy to keep the obsolete Monroe Doctrine alive. To meet this challenge to their existence, the targeted governments are circumventing U.S. sanctions, resisting “regime change” operations, resuming efforts at integration, deepening ties to Russia and China, and diversifying their trade partners. And while hard-liners in the U.S. Congress, stuck in a cold war mentality, are scouring the hills for communists, all of Amerindia is working to end the last vestiges of armed conflict and establish a region at peace.
William Camacaro is a Senior Analyst at COHA. Frederick Mills is Deputy Director of COHA
All translations from Spanish to English by the authors are unofficial. COHA Assistant Editor/Translator Jill Clark-Gollub provided editorial assistance for this article.
[Main photo: Mapuche protest in Chile, using signs in their language, defending their right to cultural independence and land recovery. Credit photo: Pressenza International News Agency, https://www.pressenza.com/]
Sources
[1] Based on Donald E. Pease definition, “American exceptionalism has been taken to mean that America is either ‘distinctive’ (meaning merely different), or ‘unique’ (meaning anomalous), or ‘exemplary’ (meaning a model for other nations to follow), or ‘exempt’ from the laws of historical progress (meaning that it is an ‘exception’ to the laws and rules governing the development of other nations).” American Exceptionalism, https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199827251/obo-9780199827251-0176.xml
[10] “Lift ‘suffocating’ unilateral sanctions against Syrians, urges UN human rights expert.” United Nations. UN News. November 10. 2022. Accessed Dec. 3, 2022.
[13] “U.S. Sanctions: Deadly, Destructive and in Violation of International Law.” Report produced by Rick Sterling, John Philpot, and David Paul with support from other members of the SanctionsKill Campaign and many individuals from sanctioned countries. November 2022 (Updates of previous publications in September 2020 and May 2021). Accessed Dec. 5, 2022: https://sanctionskill.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/SanctionsImpactReport_v62c-3.pdf
[18] “El Secretario General y Presidente Xi Jinping Sostiene una Conversación con el Primer Secretario del Comité Central del Partido Comunista de Cuba y Presidente de la República de Cuba Miguel Díaz-Canel.” Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China. November 25, 2022. Accessed December 3, 2022: https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/esp/zxxx/202211/t20221125_10981082.html
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dominic O’Sullivan, Adjunct Professor, Faculty of Health and Environmental Sciences, Auckland University of Technology and Professor of Political Science, Charles Sturt University
Getty Images
When Fijians elect a new parliament on December 14, it’s likely their votes will be counted fairly – yet the country will remain a conditional and fragile democracy.
This will be the third election since the “coup to end all coups” in 2006, which followed two earlier coups in 1987 and a civilian overthrow of the elected government in 2000.
It shall be the overall responsibility of the Republic of Fiji Military Forces to ensure at all times the security, defence and wellbeing of Fiji and all Fijians.
In other words, overall responsibility for the wellbeing of Fiji and its people does not belong to the government or parliament. The military interprets this as meaning it is “mandated to be the guardian of Fiji”.
Democracy’s fragility is entrenched. Furthermore, Fiji’s unicameral parliament is not big enough to support robust parliamentary checks on government, even though it will grow from 51 to 55 members at this year’s election.
From self-appointed to elected prime minister: Frank Bainimarama’s FijiFirst party is likely to form a government after December 14. Getty Images
Freedom and the military
Bainimarama went from self-appointed to elected prime minister in 2014 when his FijiFirst party won the first election under the new constitution. It won again in 2018 with just over 50% of the vote in the country’s proportional representation system.
International observers found votes were fairly counted, but the campaign was marred by intimidation of opposition candidates.
Shortly before the 2018 election, opposition leader Sitivini Rabuka was charged with electoral fraud. He was acquitted just in time to take his place as a candidate.
Rabuka was prime minister between 1992 and 1999, having led the coups in 1987 and having described democracy as “a foreign flower unsuited to Fijian soil”. In 2022, however, Rabuka’s People’s Alliance, in coalition with the National Federation Party, is the most likely alternative government.
Cost of living, poverty and peaceful and orderly government are important election issues. Significantly, though, the People’s Alliance manifesto suggests exploring amendments to the constitution. It also wants to remove measures that suppress human rights, previously highlighted by Amnesty International and others.
Land rights and the protection of the indigenous iTaukei culture are also important in this campaign, to the extent they have prompted an outburst typical of Bainimarama’s florid rhetorical style. At a campaign rally last week, he said of an opponent’s land rights policy:
This conversation will cause stabbing, murder and blood spilled on our land, and unlawful entering [of property] will happen if that conversation is condoned.
Sitivini Rabuka’s People’s Alliance could form an alternative government in coalition with the National Federation Party. Getty Images
Fragile free speech
There are also restrictions on political reporting. As the Fiji Parliamentary Reporters’ Handbook (published in 2019) explains: “As in rugby, knowing the rules is the difference between enjoying the game and not being able to follow it.”
Journalists are reminded that the right to free speech does not allow “incitement to violence or insurrection”. The handbook goes on to remind them:
There is scope in the Constitution to “limit […] rights and freedoms […] in the interests of national security, public safety, public order, public morality, public health or the orderly conduct of elections”.
Interpretations of these limits can be broad. In November, for example, longstanding government critic and election candidate Richard Naidu was convicted of “contempt scandalising the court” following a lighthearted Facebook post in which he pointed out a spelling mistake in a High Court judgment.
The charge – which Amnesty International says should be withdrawn – was brought by the attorney-general.
In my 2017 book, Indigeneity: a politics of potential – Australia, Fiji and New Zealand, I argued that political stability requires ordered and principled measures for protecting iTaukei (ethnic Fijian) rights to land and culture. This is a matter of respecting human dignity, but also to ensure those rights are not used as a pretext for settling wider and sometimes unrelated conflicts.
Stability does not arise only from the freedom to vote and from being confident one’s vote will be fairly counted. It comes also from well-informed expectations of what governments should do and what constitutions should protect, including:
a free and diverse media, with a culture of detailed and critical investigation and reporting on public affairs
a politically independent military, police and judiciary that aren’t called on to intimidate opponents
a larger parliament that is more representative and allows stronger checks on the executive.
For now, while the military enjoys considerable credibility and support, its role as defender and arbiter of the public good ensures perpetual instability.
The diplomatic and economic value of its contributions to United Nations peacekeeping missions means it remains an important national institution. And the recent gift of military peacekeeping vehicles from the US is an example of the soft diplomacy used by democratic states, including Australia and New Zealand, to influence contemporary Fiji.
The effectiveness of that influence will be tested at some point. In the meantime, the Fijian people are free to change their government on December 14. But the possibility they will not be free to keep that government means, whatever the election outcome, democracy has lost before a vote is cast.
Dominic O’Sullivan 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.
He is joined by former National Party MP Hekia Parata, and the previous secretary to Treasury, John Whitehead, as commissioners.
Pasifika Futures chief executive Debbie Sorensen said Pasifika people were essentially left to form their own response during the earlier stages of the pandemic.
That was despite Pasifika people working a large proportion of jobs in MIQ facilities and at the airport and other front line locations, she said.
Many affected Pacific families experienced a great deal of hardship, she said.
It was important for the inquiry to look at the covid-19 response in regards to specific communities, she said.
Slowness of response “We’re really clear that equity in the response and in the resource allocation is an important consideration.”
One issue was the slowness of the government’s response to both Pacific and Māori communities during the height of the pandemic, she said.
“Advice was provided to the government, you know cabinet papers provided advice on specific responses for our communities and that advice was ignored.”
An important aspect of the inquiry should be reviewing how that advice was given to the government, its response to it and how the government’s sought more information, she said.
The inquiry’s initial scope appeared to be very narrow, but it could be broadened as it went along, Sorensen said.
“The impact on mental health and the ongoing economic burden for our communities is immense — you know we have a whole generation of young people who have not continued their education because they were required to go in to work.”
Sorensen said often young people had to work because they were the only person in their family who had a job at that time due to covid-19.
Mental health demand The pandemic also increased demand for mental health services which were already under pressure, she said.
Anyone who was unwell unlikely to be able to get an appointment within six to eight months which was shameful, she said.
Sorensen would have preferred the inquiry had been announced earlier, but it was an opportunity to better prepare for the future, she said.
But Te Aka Whai Ora, the Māori Health Authority, chief medical officer Dr Rawiri McKree Jansen told Morning Report he had some concerns that the probe into the covid-19 response was coming too soon to gain a full picture.
The pandemic was ongoing and starting the inquiry so early may obstruct a complete view of it, he said.
“I understand that there’s people champing at the bit and [saying] we should’ve done it before but it’s very difficult to do that and adequately learn the lessons.”
Understanding how to get a proper pandemic response was in everyone’s interest, but the pandemic was now still in its third wave, he said.
About to begin Nevertheless, the inquiry was about to get underway and it could make a large contribution if it was done well, he said.
“I’m sure there will be many Māori communities that want to have voice in the inquiry and you know contribute to a better understanding of how we can manage pandemics really well.
“We’ve had pandemics before and they’ve been absolutely tragic. We’ve got this pandemic and the outcome for us is something like two to two-and-a-half times the rate of hospitalisations and deaths, so Māori communities are fundamentally very interested in bedding in the learnings that we’ve achieved in the pandemic.”
Dr Jansen hoped the inquiry would provide enduring information about managing pandemics with a very clear focus on Māori and how to support the best outcomes for the Māori population.
Inquiry’s goal next pandemic The head of the Royal Commission said the review needed to put New Zealand in better position to respond next time a pandemic hits.
Professor Blakely said the breadth of experience and skills of the commissioners was welcome, and would help them to cover the wide scope of the Inquiry, ranging from the health response and legislative decisions, to the economic response.
Reviewing the response to the pandemic was a big job, he said.
“There’s already 75 reports done so far, I think about 1700 recommendations from those reports, New Zealand’s not the only country that’s been affected by this cause it’s a global epidemic, so there’s lots of other reports.”
The inquiry panel would have to sit at the top of all that work that had already been done “and pull it altogether from the perspective of Aotearoa New Zealand and what would help best there.
The inquiry needed to make New Zealand was prepared for a pandemic with good testing, good contact tracing and good tools that the Reserve Bank could use to support citizens in the time of a pandemic, Professor Blakely said.
“Our job is to try and create a situation where those tools are as good as possible, there’s frameworks to use when you’ve entered another pandemic, which will occur at some stage we just don’t know when.”
Professor Blakely said he was flying to New Zealand next week and would meet with Hekia Parata and John Whitehead to start thinking about the shape of the inquiry going forward.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
As Russia’s propaganda and crackdown on journalism continue to wreak havoc, the Paris-based global media freedom watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has released its new campaign video.
Devised and produced by the Paris-based advertising agency BETC, this powerful video takes just a few seconds to demonstrate the importance of journalism in combatting propaganda.
In the new video, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s mendacious speeches to the Russian people about the invasion of Ukraine are contrasted with images of reporters covering the war.
Only the facts reported by journalists can thwart the Kremlin’s propaganda. Like the #FightForFacts campaign video that RSF released at the end of 2020, this new video aims to get viewers to appreciate the importance of journalism in raising awareness and in motivating the public about issues that are decisive for their future.
RSF secretary-general Christophe Deloire said:
“Without journalists to cover the war in Ukraine, we would be powerless against disinformation and propaganda, we wouldn’t know whether the bombing of civilians in Ukraine was true or false, or whether the Bucha massacres really took place.
“After the world was stunned by the war in Ukraine, RSF wants to raise awareness about the other war being waged by the Kremlin, the information war.
The cruel reality of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Image: RSF
In the occupied territories, journalists are hunted down, arrested and given an impossible choice: collaboration, prison or death.
From day one, RSF teams mobilised. In Lviv and Kyiv, press freedom centres set up by RSF provide protective equipment, first aid kits, digital safety training and psychological support to both Ukrainian and foreign journalists covering the war.
This campaign video is intended to help RSF raise part of the funds it needs to continue its work in Ukraine and the rest of the world.
Targeted at the general public, it is being carried by TV channels, shared on social media and available to all websites that want it.
And it is available in 13 languages (French, English, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Swedish, Romanian, Azeri, traditional Chinese, simplified Chinese, Korean, Japanese and Mongolian).
The video was produced by and with the support of the BETC agency.
BETC looks to renew the relationship between brands and creation.
Out of desire, curiosity and commitment, BETC creates new synergies and produces its own content in the fields of music, film, publishing, design… BETC is at the heart of the Magasins Généraux project in Pantin, where it moved in July 2016.
It is a new space for creation, innovation, production and sharing that is located at the heart of Greater Paris.
Activists have protested at Indonesia’s Ternate Police headquarters in North Maluku demanding that the security forces release eight people arrested while commemorating West Papua Independence Day on December 1.
December 1 marked 61 years since the first raising of West Papua’s symbol of independence, the Morning Star flag.
Tabloid Jubi reports Anton Trisno of the Indonesian People’s Front for West Papua (FRI-WP) saying the demonstration where the group was arrested was a peaceful one.
“We expressed our aspirations peacefully. Some ojek (motorcycle taxi) drivers infiltrated the crowd to disperse the protesters. This is a violation to our freedom of speech,” he said.
Trisno asked the police to immediately release eight of his colleagues.
“We urge the Ternate police chief to immediately release the eight activists who are still detained. We demand the police release them unconditionally,” he said.
Different tactic Meanwhile, an activist group has reported a different tactic used by the security forces, which it says is concerning.
“The Papuan People’s Petition Action (PRP) in commemoration of the 61st anniversary of the ‘West Papua Declaration of Independence’ received escort and security unlike usual actions from the Indonesian Security (colonial military),” a statement said.
“Apart from vehicles such as patrol cars, dalmas, combat tactical vehicles, sniffer dogs, intelligence/bin, bais, and tear gas launchers or other weapons.
“There is also security in the form of hidden security, such as a [sniper] placed on the balcony of Ramayana Mall and Hotel Sahit Mariat which are near the location or point of action.
“This certainly shows that there is something planned to actually push back and close the democratic space for the people and resistance movements in the Land of Papua, especially in the city of Sorong.”
In Port Vila, Vanuatu’s Minister of Climate Change and a long-time supporter of the West Papua people, Ralph Regenvanu, attended the West Papua flag-raising day.
In line with Vanuatu’s stand in support of West Papua freedom, the Morning Star flag was raised to fly alongside the Vanuatu flag outside the West Papua International Office.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
You might not know it from reading Tuesday’s statement announcing Australia’s eighth consecutive increase in interest rates, but our Reserve Bank might finally have done enough.
The statement says inflation is still “too high” and that the bank expects to increase rates further, although it is “not on a pre-set course”.
But, as it happens, the bank is unlikely to increase rates again for a further two months. The board doesn’t meet in January, meaning the nine weeks between now and its first meeting for 2023 on February 7 will provide an unusually long time for reflection – the first after eight relentless months of hikes.
From time to time, Reserve Bank officials talk about the idea of a “pause”. AMP chief economist Shane Oliver has counted the number of occasions they have referred to the prospect of a “pause” in talks in public pronouncements in the past month. He has counted six.
Inflation to hit 8%, while weakening
Although the annual inflation figure for the year to December due on January 25 is expected to be high – the bank is expecting 8% – the quarter-to-quarter result is likely to show inflation weakening.
The Bureau of Statistics releases the quarterly inflation figures only once every three months. But for some time now it has also been calculating inflation monthly, using a smaller survey that seems to give a pretty good indication of what the larger survey is about to show.
Oliver has graphed what the smaller survey has been saying each month about inflation over the previous three months alongside what the larger quarterly survey has been saying. The two line up, except that in recent months the monthly measure has been sliding.
This suggests that the official quarterly figure released in January will be weak.
Oliver concedes that the new monthly measure needs to be interpreted with caution, particularly partly because it excludes 30% of the items included in the official quarterly measure, among them gas and electricity. But he says if 70% of the quarterly measure is cooling down, “that has to be a positive sign”.
Globally, oil prices and wheat prices and the prices of other things affected by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine are down one-quarter to one-third from their peaks in the middle of the year, undoing much of what has been driving inflation.
The US is considering moderation
In the United States, where inflation peaked at 9.1% in June and has since slid to 7.7%, the head of the Federal Reserve Jerome Powell has begun talking about “moderating the pace of rate increases” saying given all he has done, he mightn’t need to raise rates much further to tame inflation.
Australia’s Reserve Bank has already moderated the size of its increases, cutting each one from 0.5 percentage points per month to 0.25 points in September.
If it merely wants to get inflation down (as it says it does) and not needlessly damage the economy along the way, there’s a good case for leaving rates steady at its first meeting for the year in February, and then waiting until sees the full impact of what it has done so far.
Australia’s eight rate rises to date are set to push up the cost of payments on a typical $600,000 variable mortgage by a total of $1,000 per month.
The bank said in October that although most borrowers should be able to weather that increased financial pressure for some time, many would “need to curtail their consumption and some could ultimately see their savings buffers exhausted”.
If these households have limited ability to make adjustments to their financial situation (such as by increasing their hours worked) they could fall into arrears and “may eventually need to sell their homes or may even enter into foreclosure”.
For fixed-rate borrowers, things are worse. About one-third of mortgages are on fixed rates, and about two-thirds of them are due to expire next year. Many were taken out at fixed rates of around 2%. Depending on how high the Reserve Bank pushes things, those borrowers will suddenly find themselves paying 6-7%.
We’re tightening our belts
Spending plans are already crumbling. Asked whether now is a “good time to buy a major household item” in the Westpac-Melbourne Institute November confidence survey, consumers’ answers were about as dismal as they have ever been. Around 40% said they planned to spend less on gifts this year than the year before – the highest proportion since the question was first asked in 2009.
Wednesday’s national accounts will show company profits fell by a seasonally adjusted 12.4% in the three months to September, led down by profits in retail (-6%), manufacturing (-21%) and finance (-43%). Accommodation (up 64% after years in which it was hard to travel) is the only big exception.
Quarterly economic growth is expected to be weak, although the annual figure will look good because things were worse during the lockdowns a year before.
The national accounts will also show a jump in wage payments of 2.9% over the quarter, and 11% over the year – which sounds high, but much of it will be because of the extra 690,000 people employed. Pay per worker will have climbed 4.7%.
A good reading of Wednesday’s national accounts will be that eight consecutive increases in mortgage rates are starting to bite into household budgets in exactly the way the Reserve Bank wants, and that there’s a chance they’ll bite too hard.
On February 7 the board might feel entitled to take the view that it might have done enough, and hold off for a while it waits to see how things play out.
Peter Martin tidak bekerja, menjadi konsultan, memiliki saham, atau menerima dana dari perusahaan atau organisasi mana pun yang akan mengambil untung dari artikel ini, dan telah mengungkapkan bahwa ia tidak memiliki afiliasi selain yang telah disebut di atas.
