More than 50 years of “torture” has been inflicted on the Papuan people by the Indonesian government. With the complicity of Western governments, great fear has been put in the hearts and minds of people across the Pacific.
These terrors have become cancerous tumours in the body of the peaceful Pacific island community.
Indonesia’s Pacific 2019 Exposition in Auckland last week was another calculated deception attempted by Jakarta’s elites to try to “cure” this cancer.
But Indonesians have failed to recognise that this malignance cannot be removed by mere trade talk with the people of the Pacific Islands. This cannot be cured merely by bringing a few Pacific diplomats to attend a weekend event, such as the one organised in Auckland.
The Indonesian government might be successful in making friends with a few Pacific leaders through their diplomatic networks, but they will not win the hearts and minds of scores of communities across Oceania.
“We are currently focusing on developing telecommunications in Papua, West Papua, Maluku, and East Nusa Tenggara, where the people of each province have similarities with those in the Pacific countries.”
Music at the Indonesian Pacific Expos 2019 … “Jakarta’s desperate effort to try to bury West Papua’s right to be part of the Pacific family, as well as the global human family”. Image: Yamin Kogoya/PMC
Two crucial issues Two crucial issues emerged out of this statement – firstly, a broken human spirit cannot be fixed simply by developing and connecting high speed broadband communication.
Secondly, after 57 years, Indonesia has failed to understand the deepest desires of the Papuans.
Indonesia has broken the human spirit of Pacific Islander communities by invading the already independent country of West Papua in 1963. Since then, Jakarta has established a new colonial system in West Papua, to influence the Papuans with all kinds of Indonesian-based development projects but it has failed.
The Indonesian government in Jakarta has been trying to forcefully compel the people of Eastern Indonesia, such as Maluku, to be part of West Papua and make West Papua part of Eastern Indonesia.
All of this is simply Jakarta’s desperate effort to try to bury West Papua’s right to be part of the Pacific family, as well as the global human family.
Jakarta has been devious in its approach since the 1960s, when – with the help of Western governments – it removed the Papuan rights to determine their own future during the phoney 1969 UN-sponsored Act of Free Choice, which Papuans refer to as the “Act of NO Choice”.
For 57 years, both Jakarta’s domestic and foreign policies regarding West Papua, have been a cover up immense untruths and propaganda. The illegal incorporation of an already Independent West Papua by manipulating the UN’s process from the 1950s, leading up to the so-called Act of Free Choice, was the greatest lie Indonesia has been endeavouring to cover up.
Decades old lie This decades old lie has turned into an incurable cancer within the bodies of both Indonesia and the Pacific. This cannot be simply cured by high speed broadband communication development, or by trade and business deals among the leaders.
The Dutch East Indies ruled over Indonesia for more than 300 years, but the colonial Dutch failed to turn Indonesia into a manufactured European state with their tricks and lies. The Dutch did not establish the colonial system based on the principle of equality for all humans, but rather based it on a European doctrine of controlling, subjugating and civilising others.
In a similar manner to the Dutch, Indonesians have a comparable developmental aim and a wish to “civilise” the Papuans as they see fit.
Jakarta has assumed that Papuans want development, but this assumption is wrong and Indonesian leaders have failed to recognise it.
What Papuans need is not high-speed broadband development as advocated by the Ministry of Communications and Informatics in Auckland. What Papuans need is the awakening of high-speed human spirit that connects us all together and to recognise that the genocide of Papuan humans is the annihilation of all humans.
I have my doubts that Indonesian engagement with the original people of Oceania (Melanesian, Polynesian, Micronesian and Australian Aborigines) will effectively change their fundamental worldview.
Indonesian leaders in Jakarta cannot go to Pacific island countries and say, “we are one family and we have one culture”, while simultaneously “torturing” the Papuans.
Real Papuan issues It is also unfortunate to note that there was no accommodation made at Indonesia’s Pacific Exposition 2019 in Auckland to disclose the real issues Papuan people face. What Indonesians did display in terms of the Papuan image at this expo was misconstrued.
The central issue here is not about Indonesia’s broadband speed communication development projects for West Papua or Maluku. It is not about trade and business partnership deals with the Pacific countries.
The core issue that gives nightmares to Indonesian military generals in Jakarta and drive their foreign policies towards Pacific island countries, as well as other countries around the world, is all about West Papua independence.
Peters probably knew deep in his heart that West Papua’s Independence was the reason Indonesia’s Pacific Exposition 2019 was organised.
Finding answers to the minister’s question will help cure the cancer Indonesia has created in the minds, hearts and bodies of communities across the Pacific.
The integrity of Indonesia’s public images promoted in the international arena, with the slogan, “Wonderful Indonesia” can never really be fully appreciated and respected by the world’s communities if they continue to terrorise the Pacific Melanesian population of West Papuans.
Yamin Kogoya is a West Papuan academic who has a Master of Applied Anthropology and Participatory Development from the Australian National University who contributes to Asia Pacific Report. From the Lani tribe in the Papuan Highlands, he is currently living in the Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia, and he attended the Auckland Expo.
Protesters with images of the West Papuan independence flag Morning Star – banned in Indonesia – picket the SkyCity venue of the Pacific Expo 2019 in Auckland last week. Image: Yamin Kogoya/PMC
In my capacity as Minister for Police, I represented the James Marape-led government to be on the ground to pay respects to those killed and prepare and provide a brief to the Prime Minister on the circumstances behind the incident – what, who, when, how and why.
Tribal fights are not new in PNG and in recent years they have become more prevalent in the highlands region; one may argue they have been going on since the beginning of time.
However since that time the rules of engagement have always been that the elderly, women and children have been off limits.
So killing of innocent women and children in tribal conflicts until recently was unheard of. Last week’s merciless killings have changed everything. The immediate concern is that it will become the new trend.
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I guess the questions people are asking are why did it happen, will it happen again and more importantly what is being done to prevent it from ever happening again?
Why it happened On the first issue, why it happened:
What people would not be aware of was that last week there were three separate killings in Tagali local level government relating to a tribal conflict that has been going on for almost two decades.
The conflict has been between two tribes, one headed by a man called Oi Kiru, who comes from Pajaka 2 village, and the opposing tribe, led by Libe Koi and his second in charge Ha’gu’ai, who come from Yaganda village.
In June 2019, a key tribesman of Libe was killed. His name was Eganada and he lived in Munima village. Usually, when tribes go to war they solicit the support of surrounding villages they are married into or provide protection to.
In this case, a key ally to Libe was Eaganda, who in June was killed by his own cousin A’gun’ai (a known drug body) over an ongoing dispute between them. It is alleged A’gun’ai killed Eganada and in fear of his life fled to Oi Kiru’s village. As the saying goes, the enemy of your enemy is your friend.
However, while in the protection of Oi’ Kiru’s tribesman, we were told A’gun’ai, with a number of his own tribesman, killed six of Oi Kiru’s clansmen including his mother.
They returned to their village and threatened a nearby village called Karita, which A’gun’ai is married into, insisting that Karita village pay them protection money or face a similar attack.
Peace ceremony On Sunday, July 7, Munima and Karita village got together to stage a peace ceremony, Karita offering 10 pigs and 4,000 kina to A’gun’ai and his clansmen.
Unbeknownst to them, Oi Kiru, learning of his mother’s death, raided a village near Munima called Peta, killing three women and three children – they were all shot to death using high powered rifles.
Following the killing at Peta village, on Monday morning around 6am young tribesman attacked Karita Village killing nine women and seven children. Two of the women were pregnant. They were killed after being attacked by the young men with machetes.
Why were women and children attacked at Karita village?
It appears the killing of women and children stemmed from the killing of Oi Kiru’s mother by men under the influence of marijuana. What followed was the payback killing of three women and three children at Peta village that triggered the further payback killing of nine women and seven children at Karita village.
On Tuesday, members of Police Mobile Squad and the Defence Force were deployed to the area. Following the recent visits by the governor of Hela Philip Undialu and me, the killings have stopped for now. Reports indicate those involved have fled the province.
The Governor and I visited both Munima and Karita villages to get a first-hand account of what happened and provide an assurance that the Marape-Steven government will bring those responsible to account.
I had intended to stay overnight at Karita village, since that was the last village to have suffered a major loss, however I was advised against it as Munima village would expect the same treatment.
Community leaders Despite my disappointment in not spending enough time in the villages, the fact that the governor and I were on the ground prompted the community leaders from Munima and Karita not to continue to retaliate.
So what happens now.
Following consultation with Provincial Governor, Provincial Administrator and the Provincial Police Commander, including Acting Deputy Commissioner of Police David Manning, a platoon from the Defence Force and Police Mobile Squad is being stationed at Munima Primary School to provide round-the-clock security, to prevent any further escalation of violence.
High level discussions on a strategic deployment action plan, using drone technology and satellite surveillance, will be used to track and apprehend those on the run. An intelligence unit will also be established to gather information from community.
While a number of plans are being put into action to ensure peace prevails, to prevent such devastating acts of violence in our communities it is important that for the long term that we find a different way of resolving conflict that rejects revenge but encourages resolution through dialogue.
I intend to return to the province in a week’s time to get an update.
This article is republished by Asia Pacific Report with permission from Keith Jackson’s blog PNG Attitude.It was originally published on Bryan Kramer’s Facebook page Kramer Report.
Humans’ distant ancestor Australopithecus africanus had a unique approach to raising their young, as shown in our new research published today in Nature.
Geochemical analysis of four teeth shows they exclusively breastfed infants for about 6-9 months, before supplementing breast milk with varying amounts of solid food until they were 5-6 years old. The balance between milk and solid food in this period varied cyclically, probably in response to seasonal changes in food availability.
This knowledge is useful on several fronts. From an evolutionary point of view, it helps us understand the particular biological and behavioural adaptations of Australopithecus africanus compared to other extinct human ancestors and modern humans.
However, breastfeeding for up to 5-6 years is metabolically expensive – it requires a certain input of calories for the lactating mother. Using milk as a supplemental food for older offspring may have hampered the ability of the A. africanus species to successfully survive during a period of substantially changing climate.
Perhaps this way of life hastened the extinction of A. africanus around 2 million years ago.
A puzzling hominin
A. africanus was first discovered in 1924 by Australian-born scientist Raymond Dart at Taung in South Africa, and represented the first early human ancestor identified from Africa.
A century of excavation and research later, Taung and other sites across South Africa produced a rich record of early human ancestors. This region is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site known as “The Cradle of Humankind”.
This hominin species, a member of the human evolutionary lineage, had a mixture of ape-like characteristics and more specialised ones. It has only been recovered from fossil sites in South Africa that date to between 3 million and 2 million years ago.
Because only a few specimens exist, we have little information about how A. africanus lived and its relationship to other fossil hominin species such as the eastern African species of Australopithecus, the robust Paranthropus, and our own genus, Homo.
Illustration of a mother Australopithecus africanus and her young offspring.Jose Garcia and Renaud Joannes-Boyau
Zapping teeth
Our research takes advantage of cutting-edge analytical techniques. We used a laser to zap tiny pieces off fossil teeth, and then used an instrument called a mass spectrometer to determine their chemical composition.
This is much less destructive than traditional methods that require the sample to be crushed and dissolved before analysis. This makes it a crucial technique for rare specimens such as those of A. africanus.
Our laser method also allowed us to map the composition of a specimen across the entire surface of a tooth – illuminating changes in diet, mobility or climate through time. This is an important advance, as it can reveal information that has been impossible to establish using conventional palaeontological methods.
Schematic diagram of the use of laser ablation analysis to map the concentration of strontium and uranium within a tooth.Renaud Joannes-Boyau, Author provided
In this study, we mapped changes in the concentration of barium, strontium and lithium in fossil teeth of two individuals. The amounts of these elements in our bodies can change significantly depending on our diet, and these changes are reflected in the composition of our bones and teeth.
While our bones continue to change composition as they remodel during our lives, our teeth don’t change after they form during childhood. Teeth are thus a perfect chemical time capsule of our childhood diet.
The concentration of barium in breast milk is very high, so infant teeth that form during breastfeeding will also have a high concentration of this element. This concentration gradually drops as other sources of food are introduced.
The samples we analysed from A. africanus show a different pattern, with cyclical fluctuations in barium concentration. This suggests mothers would increase or reduce the amount of additional food, probably depending on the availability of other resources. This is an adaptation to food stress also used by modern orangutans.
The concentration of lithium in these teeth also varies cyclically, although not always at the same time as barium. The precise cause of lithium variations is still unclear but it seems to be linked to variations in body fat reserves or how much protein is eaten.
This suggests A. africanus regularly faced food stress, causing their diet and/or fat reserves to change with the seasons.
Australopithecus africanus canine showing a first period of nursing behaviour followed by a cyclical signal in the lithium, strontium and barium distribution.Renaud Joannes-Boyau
We compared the results from A. africanus to modern animals from similar savannah biome regions, which supported our results by showing cyclical signal linked to seasonal variations mix with another signal interpreted as cyclical breastfeeding also seen in mdoern orangutans.
Close to home
We also investigated the strontium isotope composition of these teeth to help understand where A. africanus was moving through the landscape. Isotopes of the same element can be distinguished by their mass.
Strontium isotopes are often used for this purpose in palaeontology, as different regions have characteristic isotope values that are taken up through food and drink.
The two A. africanus individuals in our study seemed to have lived most of their lives near the Sterkfontein cave where their remains were found.
Strontium isotopic ratio along the growth axis of an Australopithecus africanus tooth.Renaud Joannes-Boyau
Living in a region with limited food resources meant these early hominins would have eaten lots of different kinds of foods collected from varying habitats in order to survive.
Our research provides the first understanding of the nursing behaviour of A. africanus. We now know this hominin had an extended period of breastfeeding supplemented by varying amounts of solid food that caused their fat reserves to fluctuate significantly.
This was likely part of a largely successful survival strategy for the species.
But as ecosystems changed with climate around 2 million years ago, the metabolic stress on mothers may have contributed to the eventual extinction of this species.
Curious Kids is a series for children. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to curiouskids@theconversation.edu.au You might also like the podcast Imagine This, a co-production between ABC KIDS listen and The Conversation, based on Curious Kids.
Can people live outside Earth? – Holly, age 7, Toowoomba.
That’s a great question, Holly. The short answer is yes, but it’s really, really difficult.
Humans are great at living in tough places. Even before we developed modern technology, we had spread out to live in all of Earth’s continents – from the really cold areas in North America, Europe and Asia, to the hottest parts of Australia. But there are still lots of places on Earth humans can’t normally survive – like underneath the ocean, or at the South Pole.
Those places are dangerous – without protection, you would die in seconds or minutes. But, thanks to modern technology, we’ve worked out how to live there. People can live for months at a time under the oceans, or down at the icy South Pole.
How do they manage it? Well, they find a way to make the conditions there more like what we’re used to at home.
To live underwater, people build submarines. They’re warm and dry inside – perfect conditions for people to live in. People take food, oxygen and water with them into submarines, and use electricity to power lights and heaters. In other words, they change a cold, dark and dangerous place (deep beneath the ocean) into something like a home.
We do the same at the South Pole. We build special buildings, and dig tunnels, and make them warm and dry. The people who live there take food and water with them, and there’s extra heating so people don’t freeze in the Antarctic winds and ice.
But you can’t live in these cold, dark places forever. Humans don’t cope well if they don’t get enough sunlight, so they do need to get back to “normal life” after a while. And it’s really expensive to bring all the food, water, air and energy to these places.
People live at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station all year around – even during the six month long Antarctic night!Mradyfist at English Wikipedia
Space is very dangerous – and without protection, people would not be able to survive there. In space, there’s no air – so you couldn’t breathe. It’s cold – so you’d freeze. And there’s lots of nasty radiation (from the Sun, and from the rest of the Universe), so you’d get really, really bad sunburn. But despite all that, we have people living in space all the time!
There’s this amazing place orbiting the Earth called the International Space Station – and there are people who live there, all day, every day. You can sometimes even see it from your back yard, on a clear night!
That white line is the International Space Station passing overhead. This picture was taken using a photographer’s trick called ‘long exposure’ which makes the space station show up as a white line in the night sky.Flickr/Adam Baker, CC BYThis is what the International Space Station looks like, close up.NASA/Crew of STS-132 [Public domain]
The space station is like a submarine built especially for space. A giant tin can, filled with air, and kept nice and warm – not too hot, and not too cold. It protects the astronauts from the cold of space, gives them air to breathe, and protects them from all that nasty radiation. We send up regular shipments of food and drink – everything they need to survive.
In other words – we’ve found a way to let people live outside Earth, and we do it by making the place we want to live just like home. Again, though, it’s not safe for people to live their forever, and being in space for a long time isn’t good for your body.
If people ever get to live on Mars, or on the Moon – or other places in the Solar system (and beyond) – it will be because we have found a way to make those places nice, safe and a bit more like home.
Whilst living on the Moon or Mars sounds like science fiction, people are talking seriously about doing just that in the future. It would be very dangerous, and really expensive. But who knows what the future holds?
Hello, curious kids! Have you got a question you’d like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to curiouskids@theconversation.edu.auPlease tell us your name, age and which city you live in. We won’t be able to answer every question but we will do our best.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Joyce Y.M. Nip, Senior lecturer, Department of Media and Communications; Department of Chinese Studies, University of Sydney
As China grows more powerful and influential, our New Superpower series looks at what this means for the world – how China maintains its power, how it wields its power and how its power might be threatened. Read the rest of the series here.
China is known for the strict control it exercises on information, especially online. Discussion of events that might reflect unfavourably on the government is often censored, or framed in such a way that it becomes pro-government propaganda.
Online discussion of the recent protests in Hong Kong against a now-suspended extradition bill was no different. But this was also a rare occasion when China’s news propaganda machine was mobilised to simultaneously target several audiences both inside and outside China.
China’s propaganda network is made up of a constellation of domestic and international news outlets. They span social media, mobile apps, websites and traditional media.
The news is tailored to particular audiences according to different agendas. Everything, however, comes under the direction of the Central Publicity (formerly translated as “Propaganda”) Department of the Chinese Communist Party.
Over the past few weeks, we’ve seen the China extradition bill elevated from a local Hong Kong controversy to a story of international concern following the protesters’ lobbying campaign targeted at the G20 summit.
As events escalated from peaceful rallies focused on a single issue to at times violent confrontations seeking a range of demands, including the resignation of Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam, the agendas of several spheres of China’s propaganda converged.
Here’s how it unfolded.
China’s de-facto media and new media allies in Hong Kong
The first day protesters took to the streets was March 31. That was two days after the extradition bill was published in the Gazette, the official publication of the Hong Kong government.
The same day, two Chinese-language newspapers that have long acted as de-facto official media of the Chinese government in Hong Kong (but not openly declared as such) swung into action.
Wen Wei Po and Ta Kung Pao both used either the entire or the majority of the second pages in the news sections to proclaim the merits of the bill. They also, to a lesser extent, attacked the bill’s opponents.
These outlets are on the semi-periphery of China’s propaganda machine, targeting a local audience in Hong Kong. They cannot ignore negative news about China or the Beijing-endorsed Hong Kong government, despite the fact China has co-opted most traditional media outlets in Hong Kong in recent decades. They seek instead to counter it with a positive spin while discrediting opposing voices.
Their messages were reinforced by relatively new digital media outlets in Hong Kong that are supportive of the Chinese regime. These outlets form the periphery of China’s propaganda in the city and focus a great deal of coverage on bashing the government’s perceived enemies.
After the extradition bill was published, outlets like the Silent Majority of Hong Kong and Hong Kong G Pao pumped out positive propaganda stories about it and the Hong Kong police and negative propaganda about the opponents of the bill.
One of the three articles, published by the Silent Majority of Hong Kong on May 31, for example, attacked the publisher of the Apple Daily Newspaper, one of few media outlets in Hong Kong that is openly critical of Beijing, for the “nonsense” he expressed that the bill would harm press freedom.
The articles employed the outlet’s usual tactics: singling out individuals and pitching them against the interests of society. Silent Majority also encourage readers to “like” their stories, forming supportive public opinion while helping the news to spread.
China’s central media outlets followed suit
The core news propaganda outlets of the Chinese state, such as People’s Daily, and CCTV, didn’t address the Hong Kong protests until April 17, more than two weeks later.
These outlets target the domestic audience inside mainland China, and as such, tend to ignore stories like this on sensitive subjects or those that paint the party in a bad light.
The mission of core state media is to foster a positive image of China, either for a domestic or international audience. Usually this involves reporting on China’s achievements. When China comes under pressure, the core media attempt to justify the government’s actions as reasonable.
The establishment of a group in Hong Kong that supported the extradition bill gave the online edition of the People’s Daily an opportunity for positive propaganda on April 17. One story read, in part:
The group calls on citizens to participate in a signature petition organised by it to support the passage of the amendment bill, so as to improve the legal system and demonstrate justice and avoid Hong Kong becoming a place for criminals to evade legal responsibility.
Targeting an international audience, the English-language China Daily dismissed concerns about the bill in an editorial on April 29, the day after the second protest against it. Part of it read:
…the opposition camp and its foreign backers have gone to great lengths to present scary scenarios the amendments could lead to in order to garner support for their own political agenda.
On June 12, protesters encircled Hong Kong’s legislative chamber and clashed with police. The following day, China’s national news agency, Xinhua, published a story claiming that the majority of the Hong Kong public supported the bill.
Then, on July 1, a group of protesters occupied Hong Kong’s legislative chamber. The action drew strong and extensivestatements of condemnation from China’s core propaganda outlets in the following days.
The rule of law in Hong Kong cannot be challenged.
Resolutely support the SAR Government in pursuing serious violations of the law.
Attack on HK legislature a ‘political act’ with ‘hidden agenda’.
Why language matters in coverage, too
These three layers of propaganda target different audiences and operate in different information environments. They follow different tactics.
This involves using different language. The news about the extradition bill in China’s core propaganda outlets is full of statements from official state agencies and other organisations that are supportive of the bill. The language is formal and repeats stock phrases, including:
The same stock phrases are supplemented by more accusatory words in the semi-peripheral layer of China’s news propaganda, including:
riot
terrorism
mob
independentist
colour revolution.
Some of the digital-only outlets on the periphery, operating in the clickbait-driven online environment, show little restraint in using abusive, colloquial language, such as by calling opposition politicians “scoundrels.” They sometimes also fake facts and doctor images to attack opponents. This differentiates them from the traditional news media, which follow journalistic principles more closely.
Studying China’s core state media alone overlooks the complementary way each layer of the propaganda machine works with the others. Using different communication tactics in different spheres, each outlet reinforces the others to create a coherent world view.
What they have in common, though, is an adherence to the main party line – and with this, the party hopes to control the message on the Hong Kong protests, even as it struggles to control the streets.
Hiu-long Chu, a Masters student of Social Work at the Australian College of Applied Psychology, contributed to this report.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Trent Yarwood, Infectious Diseases Physician, Senior Lecturer, James Cook University and, The University of Queensland
This year’s flu season is off to an early start, with 144,000 confirmed cases so far in 2019. That’s more than twice as many confirmed cases of the flu than for all of 2018 (58,000), and almost as many as the 2017 horror flu season (251,000).
The number of cases so far this year, including more than 231 deaths nationwide, led the NSW opposition health spokesperson to call for hand sanitisers in public spaces to help slow the spread.
Influenza spreads via droplets from coughing and sneezing, which is why it’s a good idea to catch your cough. But coughing into your hand can leave flu virus on your hands, which is why we recommend coughing into your elbow or sleeve and washing your hands afterwards.
Along with getting vaccinated and staying home if you’re sick, washing your hands is the best defence against getting the flu.
If the government can make this easier by providing hand sanitisers in public places, it may be worth the investment. It won’t solve our flu problem but it might be an important tool in the toolbox of measures to reduce its spread.
What does the research say?
The scientific literature on hand sanitisers isn’t so clear-cut.
A 2019 study in university colleges showed the use of hand hygiene and face masks didn’t protect against flu any better than mask use alone. But unlike some other countries, Australia doesn’t have a strong habit of mask use when people are unwell, so this may not be very helpful to us.
While these studies make it sound like hand sanitiser is not very effective, that’s not the end of the story.
Other studies show a positive effect – a 16% reduction in respiratory illness in one and a 21% reduction in another. For some infections, the evidence is even stronger – for example, gastroenteritis, most of which is also viral.
However, few of these studies showing the benefits of hand sanitisers were done during a large disease outbreak, which means the potential benefit may be even greater.
Not all influenza-like illness is caused by the flu – it can be other viruses as well, so the estimates are a bit rubbery at best. Hand sanitiser trials which look at influenza-like illness or respiratory infections generally are more likely to show benefits than those that just look for influenza – meaning good hand hygiene prevents other infections as well.
Although preventing infection in hospitals is not the same as doing it in the community, there are two important lessons from hospital infection control.
First, in hospital hand-hygiene programs, hand sanitiser is more effective than soap-and-water hand-washing, provided your hands aren’t visibly dirty.
This is partly because of the rapid effect of the alcohol, but mostly because it’s much quicker and therefore more likely that staff will use it.
The second important point from hand hygiene and other areas of hospital infection control is that introducing a “bundle” of strategies usually reduces healthcare-associated infection rates – even when the individual parts of these bundles don’t show benefits alone.
This could be because the individual effect sizes are too small, or that change in practice highlights a “safety culture”.
Sanitisers can be one of many strategies
Installing hand rub in public areas won’t solve this year’s flu outbreak by itself. But it can be part of a bundle of strategies – as long as the dispensers are kept topped up.
And it’s certainly a safe intervention – despite some desperate hysteria about the safety of hand gels, or the risk of people drinking them, there is little evidence this actually occurs in reality.
Hand sanitiser is also likely to be easier to implement than fixing the much larger social problem of Australians going to work when they’re sick. This may be because of inadequate sick leave, concerns about “letting the team down”, or other logistical problems such as child-care.
Get your flu vaccine – even now it’s still not too late – and get it for your kids as well, for their sake as well as your own.
Remember to stay home if you’re unwell, and always to cough into your sleeve. And don’t forget to clean your hands – even if the government doesn’t end up making it easier for you.
Governments are looking to fast rail services to regional cities to relieve population pressures in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. The federal government is funding nine business cases for such schemes. But what economic effect might these fast links have on the regional cities?
The current fast rail schemes seem oriented at relieving population pressures in the major cities rather than a productive regional economic purpose. The minister for population, cities and urban infrastructure recently stated:
… the National Faster Rail Agency begins operating from today [July 1]. The new Agency will oversee the government’s 20-year fast rail agenda, which will connect satellite regional cities to our big capitals. This will allow people to reside in regional centres with its [sic] cheaper housing and regional lifestyle but still access easily and daily the major employment centres.
The argument seems built on a pitch to city workers priced out of metropolitan housing markets. It treats regional towns as remote dormitories for metropolitan workers rather than as regional cities that serve as service hubs and employment centres. But will subsidising metropolitan workers to live in cheaper regional towns have a positive economic effect on those towns?
One of the biggest mistakes we’ve made was being naïve about connectivity – give infrastructure and it spreads. Well, often it concentrates. The high-speed train network in France, guess what it did. It advantaged Paris.
While Paris is seen as benefiting the most from the national fast rail TGV service, the regional cities of Lyon and Lille have strengthened their economic positions. The Lyon and Lille fast rail stations form the hub of their respective regional transport networks and have attracted new commercial activity. They also sit at intersections of major European fast rail networks.
It’s a pattern that cannot be easily achieved for Australia’s regional cities due to our widely dispersed settlements. So what does this mean for our regional cities?
Improving transport infrastructure doesn’t just improve regional business access to metropolitan markets. It decrease the costs of trade in both directions. And large cities are typically more productive economically. This is because they offer more specialised goods and services and can leverage the agglomeration effects of shared high-quality labour markets and infrastructure, plus a concentration of skills and knowledge.
Reduced travel times can mean regional businesses become less efficient than metropolitan competitors that can offer a wider range of specialist goods and services. This may lead to regional business closures, employment losses and wage decline. Unless a regional city is able to develop a specialised set of high-skill, high-wage industries that complement or outcompete the metropolis it risks being economically disadvantaged by faster rail.
New regional demand arising from commuter population growth might counter the loss of higher-order regional jobs due to improved transport links. But that will largely be in lower-value retail and personal service sectors. The result will still be a net economic gain for the metropolis.
An influx of commuters earning metropolitan wages might also inflate regional housing markets. This would disadvantage lower-paid regional workers. The beneficiaries of this scenario are likely to be local rentiers, such as landholders and developers who can profit from land-price inflation.
This interest group will likely vocally promote regional fast rail. But sustainable economic prosperity for regional cities requires more than population-driven land speculation.
The most advanced of the current Australian proposals is the Geelong-Melbourne route. It has received federal and state funding for planning with an estimated total cost of at least A$10 billion. But planners need to ask how this spending will provide a net economic benefit, and how the benefits will be distributed.
Growth in commuter population and the services this attracts may be seem like a resolution to metropolitan population problems, but could further concentrate higher-paid jobs in Melbourne. Faster commutes mean Melbourne-based firms will have a greater pick of Geelong-based workers, thus consolidating metropolitan competitive advantage. Fast rail thus risks placing Geelong at a competitive disadvantage, with jobs and workers being exported to Melbourne.
To resolve this conundrum, thought must be given to what specialised high-value jobs will be attracted to regional cities to accompany fast rail investments, so these cities remain competitive and productive, regionally, nationally and internationally. This might include policies such as relocating public agencies, regional targeting of university-based research and development spending, boosting services such as schools and hospitals, and providing incentives for innovative private companies to relocate to regional towns.
Policymakers should also consider positioning regional cities as rail network hubs in their own right. An example would be connecting Geelong, Ballarat and Bendigo by rail, along with better linkages to national and international airports.
We don’t yet know for sure what the effects of fast rail on regional cities will be. But the impact of this infrastructure needs to be assessed very carefully lest it turns Australia’s regional cities into dependent population dormitories rather than regional dynamos, at vast public expense.
With China’s western-most province of Xinjiang being turned into a mass internment camp, last night’s ABC Four Corners program reported on the Chinese Communist Party’s alleged plans to put up to a million detained Uyghurs to work.
The exposé highlights how global supply chains make it possible for the clothes you’re wearing, and many other things you own, to have been made using slavery.
The program featured the cases of several women who say they have been forced to work in textile factories. According to China scholar Adrian Zenz, government documents reveal plans for “re-education” through labour. Satellite photos show what look like large warehouses close to detention camps.
Target, Cotton On, Jeanswest, Dangerfield, IKEA and H&M are among the brands in Australia sourcing cotton from Xinjiang, according to Four Corners. In response to questions from the ABC, Target and Cotton On declared they would investigate their relationships with suppliers.
Activists protest the treatment of Uyghur Muslims outside the headquarters of the European Union, in Brussels, in February 2019.Alexandros Michailidis/Shutterstock
Modern slavery: a snapshot
For many of us it is hard to believe modern slavery is now more prevalent than at any time in history.
But the ubiquity and lack of accountability in global supply chains mean an estimated 25 million people around the world are in forced labour. A further 15 million are in forced marriage.
About two-thirds of the total number of people in modern slavery are in the Asia-Pacific region, where most Australian companies source their materials and products.
The problem is so widespread it’s unlikely any companies’ operations or supply chains are completely free of modern slavery.
Yet many businesses are unaware of what modern slavery is and what it might look like in their operations and supply chains. And some companies – and their customers – may be complicit in creating a “race to bottom” by demanding cheaper goods and services without checks on social (and environmental) credentials.
Anti-Slavery Australia
Australia’s legal reforms
This problem was recognised with Australia passing modern slavery legislation last year. The Modern Slavery Act 2018 requires businesses of a certain size to report their efforts to keep their supply chains slavery-free. The requirements came into effect this month.
Modelled on the UK Modern Slavery Act 2015, Australia’s law requires businesses with a consolidated annual revenue of more than $100 million a year to publish an annual modern slavery statement.
The statement must address seven mandatory criteria (including risks in the business’ operations and supply chains and the actions taken to address those risks).
The government has the power to publicly name those that fail to comply, but not to fine or penalise them in other ways. It is hoped fear of shaming will be enough icentive to avoid the reputational, financial and other risks that might arise from public scrutiny.
Without penalties, civil, shareholder and consumer activism will be crucial to motivate businesses.
If nothing else, as shoppers we can become better informed about the risks in business supply chains and challenge companies and governments to do better through social media and other avenues. Each purchase of a good or service can be an ethical choice.
More to be done
In the end, the Australian modern slavery legislation is about ensuring businesses do their part to ensure the food, clothes and electronics we buy have not been made using modern slavery.
Drawing on Anti-Slavery Australia’s legal casework experience with survivors of modern slavery, we also know victims aren’t just overseas. An estimated 1,500 people in Australia are victims of modern slavery. They are often migrants, who fear coming forward and are intimidated by the legal system.
We continue to advocate for further improvements of the Modern Slavery Act, including for penalties and independent oversight.
NSW has its own legislation that’s about to go under review and it includes an independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner and penalties for up to A$1.1 million for failing to comply or making false or misleading statements. These would be welcome additions to the federal regime, along with more support for survivors, and better monitoring and data collection.
We’ve taken a step in the right direction, but as the ABC Four Corners’ exposé indicates, there is much more to be done.
Anti-Slavery Australia, based at the University of Technology Sydney, is Australia’s only specialist legal research and policy centre focused on the abolition of modern slavery in all its forms. For more information or confidential legal advice, contact www.antislavery.org.au. For information and advice on forced marriage, see www.mybluesky.org.au.
Wholesale prices in the National Electricity Market have climbed significantly in recent years. The increase has coincided with a rapid increase in the proportion of electricity supplied by wind and solar generators.
But that needn’t mean the increase in wind and solar generation caused the increase in prices. It might have been caused by other things.
Colleagues Songze Qu and Tihomir Ancev from the University of Sydney and I have examined the contribution of each type of generator to wholesale prices, half hour by half hour over the eight years between November 1, 2010 and June 30, 2018.
We find that, rather than pushing prices up, each extra gigawatt of dispatched wind generation cuts the wholesale electricity price by about A$11 per megawatt hour at the time of generation, while each extra gigawatt of utility-scale solar cuts it A$14 per megawatt hour.
Merit order matters
Here’s how.
In Australia’s National Electricity Market, prices are determined at five-minute intervals and averaged over 30-minute intervals for settlement. Generators place bids for supplying electricity to meet the expected demand which are accepted in a “merit order” of cheapest to most expensive.
The final price – awarded to all the bidders accepted – is determined by the final and most expensive bid accepted, which is often a bid by a gas generator.
Wind and utility-scale solar generators bid into the market at low cost because their power is essentially free when the wind is blowing or the sun is shining. They displace higher cost bids, usually from gas or diesel turbines that have high fuel costs. We find this effect on prices (known as the “merit order effect”) has grown as wind and solar generation has grown.
The daily impact of wind and solar on wholesale prices is somewhat lower. A 1 gigawatt per hour increase in daily wind generation is associated with about a A$1 per megawatt hour decrease in the average daily wholesale price. The same increase in solar generation is associated with A$2.7 per megawatt hour decrease in daily wholesale electricity prices.
These findings and those of others since 2003 challenge the previous conventional wisdom that mandating renewable generation necessarily increases prices.
So why are prices climbing?
Natural gas prices have been climbing dramatically over the recent years, mainly due to the opening up of east coast export capacity and the integration of the Australian market with international markets. The higher prices have made it more expensive to run gas turbines and have pushed up the price of what is often the last bid to be accepted.
We find the price of natural gas has a strong positive effect on wholesale electricity prices. An increase of A$1 per gigajoule in the natural gas price pushes up wholesale electricity prices by about A$5 per megawatt hour.
Although in recent years the upward price pressure from more expensive gas has overwhelmed the downward pressure from greater wind and solar capacity, it is nevertheless true that wholesale prices are lower than they would have been without renewable generation.
Therefore, a continued expansion of renewables is likely to put downward pressure on wholesale prices for some time.
There’s a case for moving away from gas peaking plants
This means that rather than reconsidering renewables, authorities should reconsider their reliance on gas plants for handling peaks in demand. While peaking plants are more needed with the increased penetration of renewables, there is a case for switching to alternative providers of peaking power, such as large-scale batteries and pumped hydro.
In doing so governments should also consider something else. Wholesale prices that are too low will discourage investment, leading to higher prices down the track.
The lower prices go, the more the government might need to provide investment incentives.
For now, all other things being equal, more wind and solar power means lower wholesale prices. But they’ll have to be watched.
During the conference The Conversation is publishing a selection of articles by the authors of papers being delivered at the conference.
The Disability Support Pension is important in the lives of the Australians who receive it. The latest figures show that’s 4% of the working age population.
Yet a huge proportion of claims for it are rejected. Over the four years from 2011-12 to 2014-15 the average “grant rate” was 43%, meaning 57% of claims were rejected.
The largest non-medical reason given for rejection is failure to supply the requested information, accounting for one in eight rejections.
In a paper to be presented to the Australian Conference of Economists in Melbourne on Tuesday I examine the extent to which that is due to a specific kind of disability – an inability to properly complete the form.
Does form-filling matter?
The Bureau of Statistics survey of disability, ageing and carers provides rich data the on employment, socio-demographic characteristics and health conditions of disabled Australians, including the extent to which they have assistance with reading and writing.
One question is
do/does you/he/she receive assistance from any organised services to help with reading and writing tasks?
Another is
do/does you/he/she receive assistance from anyone else, such as a partner or spouse/parent, family, friends or neighbours to help with reading and writing tasks?
I combined the answers to these questions to create a yes/no answer to the broader question of whether or not an applicant for the Disability Support Pension obtained help with reading and writing from any source.
Confidentialised unit record files from 2003, 2009 and 2015 gave me data on 18,141 disabled Australians between the ages of 16 to 64.
Help with reading does matter…
I found that reading and writing assistance is associated with an increase of about 20% in the probability of getting the Disability Support Pension.
Most of that reading and writing support comes from informal sources (family, friends and neighbours) rather than formal ones.
And it seems to be more than an association. Using statistical techniques to set aside the impact of other things that might be driving the effect, I find that the impact of help with literacy is even greater.
Ideally, help shouldn’t have much impact, but the claim form for the Disability Support Pension is 33 pages long.
The government has introduced new assessment tables in a legitimate and successful attempt to restrain the growth of the Disability Support Pension.
But there can be no case for (unintentionally) using complexity as another means of restraining growth in use of the pension.
…we should be taking it mainstream
The strong positive impact of the reading assistance that has been available builds a case for providing more of it, through formal means, to ensure that fewer people are deterred from applying for benefits for which they are eligible.
Greater formal provision of help would also ease the pressure on informal helpers, making it easier for them to stay in the workforce and improving their emotional well-being.
This finding has implications for the National Disability Insurance Scheme, for which reading and writing is even more important to navigate. The NDIS emphasises individual choices, making the application process particularly complex.
Disability with paperwork should not be a barrier to receiving disability benefits.
Bluey is a ground-breaking Australian children’s television series and the most downloaded show in ABC iView history. Since premiering in October 2018, Bluey has been played on iView over 100 million times, and it is set to stream internationally on Disney’s streaming platform starting later this year.
The show follows the adventures of a blue heeler puppy, six-year-old Bluey, and her close-knit family: her four-year-old sister Bingo and their dad Bandit and mum Chilli. It is a gem of Australian art, carefully distilling the essence of family life and – between laughs – capturing the wonder and joy of parenting, and delivering precious nuggets of parenting wisdom along the way.
In fact, the messages the show subtly imparts are remarkably consistent with the scientific literature on parenting and parental wellbeing. Here, then, are just a few poignant examples of “Bluey” wisdom.
Play matters
Play is the powerhouse of child development. It is linked to language abilities, creativity and emotional intelligence. Parents can feel so pressured by other demands on their own and their children’s time, though, that it’s easy to forget that play is one of the most important, enriching activities needed for children to flourish. As Bandit tells his daughter, “Making up games is more important than you think”.
In fact, we are beginning to understand that play is important for adults too. Emphasising the importance of work, at the expense of play, undermines long-term achievement, health and happiness, so finding a balance is key.
Bandit and Chilli are masters at maintaining connection with their daughters, squeezing precious moments of play (like pretending to be a sick patient who has swallowed a cat or an employee who really just wants to dance) between work and household tasks. Their playfulness is clearly beneficial for them as well.
Be the parent you want to be, even when you don’t feel like it
Every day, we each have to choose between taking the “easy” option – whatever makes us feel better in the moment – or investing time and energy in doing what really matters.
Psychologists describe this as living in accordance with our values. Although the easy option can bring immediate relief from feelings like sadness or anger – and, let’s face it, we all find ways to avoid negative emotions now and then – it can become a big problem when this way of dealing with challenges becomes a pattern.
Living out our values is not always easy. It can be tough, and making room for difficult emotions is part of moving towards living a meaningful life. Bluey’s parents, Bandit and Chilli, frequently give a sigh and a skywards glance before playing yet another game of “hospitals” or “hotels” with their children – it is clear that it isn’t always easy for them – yet, being a fun and playful parent is clearly a core value for both of them. So they jump right in regardless.
Emotions are opportunities for learning and connection
We can all can forge deeper connections with others – including our children – through emotional exchange: by listening to their expressions of emotion, validating their emotions and gently exploring them. This process is called “emotion coaching” and has been linked to better emotional and social skills in children.
Bandit and Chilli are master emotion coaches. Whether it is Bluey’s sorrow at the death of a bird, or her frustration while trying to learn to ride a bike, they listen, validate and explore their children’s emotional worlds through conversation or play.
Bluey’s parents recognise the importance of play.IMDB
Natural and logical consequences
There’s a trap we will all fall into at some stage in our parenting careers: using a whole lot of talking to get through to our children, all the while protecting them from the consequences of their actions – and then becoming frustrated that they aren’t learning the “lesson”!
Bandit and Chilli aren’t afraid to allow Bluey and Bingo to experience the natural consequences of their own actions. For example, Bluey learns that when you spend your money on a toffee apple at the market, changing your mind about your purchase doesn’t mean you get your money back.
Bandit and Chilli skilfully demonstrate the use of logical consequences too. Logical consequences are parent-generated, but are comparable to the kinds of consequences that truly happen in the world, so children are learning a genuine and useful life lesson.
For example, in the episode “Wagonride”, when Bluey impatiently interrupts Bandit, wanting to move straight to the monkey bars, Bandit uses a logical consequence – stopping the wagon – to impart an invaluable life lesson: doing activities with other people requires give and take, and a bit of patience.
Bluey is a landmark Australian show for many reasons. But an important one is this: amid the ridiculous and the ordinary, Bluey’s parents regularly find themselves both sharing and receiving the poignant wisdom that comes with the drudgery and absurdity of parenting. And Australian parents can relate to that.
New Caledonia has a healthy lead on the Pacific Games medals table after the first week of the competition.
The French Territory has won 42 gold medals after the first six days of competition and more than 50 silver and bronze, with host nation Samoa the nearest challenger with 26 gold medals while Tahiti have 21.
Another six first place finishes on the final night of swimming action brought New Caledonia’s total haul in the pool to 25 gold, 11 silver and 13 bronze medals.
Swimming Team Manager Cyril Huet said it’s an even bigger haul than they managed in Port Moresby four years ago.
“We are very happy and the team is very unique,” he said. “We win the games because it’s an objective we want to win the games, but behind you you have the team of Fiji it’s a very good team too and finished No.2 (in swimming) and is very good. To have competition with Fiji, Samoa, Tahiti, Cooks, it’s very good competition.”
-Partners-
“All the team is high level. The girls win 12 gold medals, the boys win 11 gold medals. It’s a group, it’s a unique group. Not one swimmer is better – it’s all the group, I think. We want all the time to work all together,” he said.
Elsewhere in Apia, Dgeniva Matauli won the women’s singles title in badminton and teamed up with Johanna Kou to take the doubles crown, while the French Territory proved unbeatable on the golf course, winning the men’s and women’s team events, with Dylan Benoit and Emilie Ricaud winning individual gold.
New Caledonia’s Emilie Ricaud won gold in the women’s golf tournament. Image: RNZ Pacific
Meanwhile sailor Juliette Bone won gold in the women’s laser radial – Samoa won the team event – and Avelino Monteiro won gold in the men’s para table tennis.
Samoan weightlifters wow home crowd Sanele Mao set five Oceania and Commonwealth records in front of a raucous home crowd as Samoa’s weightlifters finished with an impressive haul of 16 Pacific Games gold medals.
Competing in the men’s 109kg division, the 32 year-old Mao snatched 160kg before clean and jerking 206kg to finish with a monster total of 366kg. That was enough to win three Pacific Games gold medals, while he broke the Oceania senior record in all three disciplines and set a new Commonwealth best in the clean and jerk and total.
Petunu Opeloge won gold in the men’s 102kg snatch, Iuniarra Sipaia won gold in the women’s +89kg clean and jerk, while Lauititi Lui rounded off Samoa’s golden haul with victory in the men’s +109kg snatch.
Papua New Guinea’s Steven Kari won two gold medals in the men’s 96kg division, with Israel Kaikilekofe from Wallis and Futuna taking out the snatch title.
Meanwhile there was also success for New Zealand and Tongan lifters on Saturday afternoon, as Laurel Hubbard upstaged Samoan flag-bearer Feagaiga Stowers to win gold in the women’s +87kg snatch and total and silver in the clean and jerk.
It was the 41 year-old’s first major medals since the 2017 World Championships and comes 15 months after she injured herself competing at the Commonwealth Games.
Hubbard was unavailable for comment but the high performance director for Olympic Weightlifting New Zealand, Simon Kent, was delighted with her performance in Apia.
“She performed particularly well today. A full house, full home crowd cheering on all their lifters but she really put in a performance she can be proud of,” he said. “It’s good healthy competition and I think it was Laurel’s third snatch there on 125kg that just about set up that victory today.”
“She’s been training hard, she’s been based in Noumea for the last couple of weeks training with the (Oceania Weightlifting) Institute lifters. She certainly came here with a lot of confidence. She’s been very much part of our team and I think she will be delighted with her performance today.”
New Zealand’s Commonwealth Games champion David Liti could only manage a silver medal in the men’s +109kg snatch and failed to complete a lift in the clean and jerk, with Tonga’s Aisake Tuitupou winning the Kingdom’s first two gold medals of these Pacific Games in the clean and jerk and total.
Around the grounds Tahiti won the final two V6 marathon races at Mulifanua to finish with 10 gold medals from 12 events in Va’a.
Swimmer Rahiti De Vos won gold in the men’s 400m, Heiava Lamaud prevailed in the women’s para table tennis, while Remi Rossi was involved in three badminton gold medals, winning the men’s singles before teaming up to also claim victory in the men’s and mixed doubles events.
Vanuatu reigned supreme in table tennis, winning the men’s and women’s titles in singles and doubles, to triple their overall gold medal haul to six.
History repeated as the Samoa women’s cricket team defeated Papua New Guinea by four wickets to win the gold medal, with the winning runs struck just moments before rain began to bucket down at the faleata cricket field.
History repeated as the Samoa women’s cricket team defeated Papua New Guinea by four wickets the win gold medal. Image: RNZ Pacific
The host restricted PNG to 72 for 7 from their 20 overs and finally reached their target with nine balls remaining.
Captain Regina Lili’i said it was even more special to win in front of a home crowd.
“It puts all the hard work that we have done as a group, as a collective leading up to this tournament,” she said. “All that hard work is worthwhile when you come out with this result, with a gold medal,” she said.
“To have the support of our home crowd here – noisy all throughout the match – I don’t really have any words for it but as you could see with our girls they were all crying at the end and it just meant so much for us in front of our family and friends here.”
Defeat avenged It wasn’t all bad for Papua New Guinea as the Barramundis defeated defending champions Vanuatu by 32 runs in the men’s final to avenge their defeat in Port Moresby four years ago.
Meanwhile Fiji defended both rugby sevens titles, with the Fijiana women beating Australia 14-7 and the men holding off hosts Samoa 7-5, despite conceding two yellow cards.
Men’s coach Gareth Baber said they didn’t have a lot of ball but the players worked hard and defended well, even when they had less players than the opposition.
“Two sin bins but I think Samoa could have got two sin bins as well, I think it was that type of game,” he said.
“We know when we play against Samoa there’s going to be that and it’s going to get to that level but it’s who can control that at the end of it and I thought that when we went down to the sin bins we worked extremely hard to make sure that the six did the job for the seven.”
The Pacific Games resumed on Monday for the second week with the start of athletics at Apia Park among the highlights.
This article is published under the Pacific Media Centre’s content partnership with Radio New Zealand.
A few months ago, I received a call from a barrister who asked me if I could evaluate whether voice identification testimony submitted in a criminal case against an Indigenous man was based on appropriate analysis.
He told me a police officer had been working on a criminal investigation when he heard a voice on a covert audio recording that he believed was one of three suspects in an unrelated armed robbery investigation.
The police had mobile phone and location data on two of the suspects in the case. However, they did not have direct evidence tying the third suspect to the crime. To prove his involvement, the prosecution sought to use voice identification evidence, in addition to other evidence that I was not privy to.
After a single meeting with the suspect in custody, the officer investigating the case identified the voice on the recording as his. The police officer said he was certain of the match because the suspect, like the voice on the recordings, had
a low voice. He speaks with a kind of a drawl and occasionally sounds like a bit of a whine.
The suspect pleaded not guilty to the crime and questioned the validity of the voice identification. It was at this point the lawyers contacted me.
I reviewed the police procedures used in the case with another linguistics professor at the University of Sydney, Mark Post, and a team of graduate students, and we agreed the voice identification did not meet the standards for forensic linguistic evidence used in trials.
The evidence had been submitted by a so-called “ad hoc expert,” in this case, the police officer, who had no training or expertise in forensic linguistics. As part of our brief, our job was limited to reviewing whether sufficient language analysis had been carried out to substantiate the voice identification. In our expert opinion, it had not.
According to the barrister, the judge was convinced of the suspect’s identification based on all the evidence in the case, not just the voice evidence. The man was ultimately convicted and sent back to prison.
The problem with voice evidence
Multiple studies have warned about the reliability of voice evidence in criminal cases. For example, one recent study concluded that the way such evidence is used in trials is inconsistent with scientific research and needs to be revised.
Other studies have found that while there are a number of legal requirements around the use of eyewitness testimonies in trials, voice identification testimony has not been sufficiently scrutinised.
One of the problems is that both Commonwealth and state laws currently permit voice identification evidence to be provided by so-called “ad hoc experts”, such as a police officer or interpreter who listens to a recording of a person accused of a crime and then matches that voice to a specific suspect.
This is a problem because these people usually lack the linguistic training and expertise to make an accurate identification.
Another issue is “expectancy bias,” which occurs when an expert listens to the same recording multiple times and develops an expectation as to the person’s identity, leading to a biased result.
Other socio-economic and racial biases also come into play and can result in a false identification.
In the testimony that our team examined, for instance, it was our opinion that the words “low voice”, “drawl” and “bit of a whine” in the police officer’s testimony suggested a negative attitude towards the English dialect spoken by some Indigenous Australians.
Studies have also shown that factors such as fatigue, drug or alcohol use, and emotional distress can significantly alter voice quality (including, but not limited to, recordings) and impact the reliability of voice identification testimony.
In other cases where the quality of an audio recording is poor, voice enhancements or forensic transcripts may be provided to the jury. But, this, too can be problematic.
Evidence suggests that voice enhancements can also lead to false identifications. If the person enhancing or editing the audio has certain biases, for instance, he or she can digitally edit the audio recordings in a way that promotes particular “hearings” or interpretations of the recording.
Forensic transcripts can likewise be influenced by the perceptions or biases of the person transcribing the audio.
Possible legal solutions
The Australian legal system, like the rest of the world, needs to respond to these issues by engaging with language experts and considering changes to the guidelines regarding the admissibility of voice evidence.
Such changes should include a re-evaluation of the type of voice evidence allowed in trials, how it’s analysed by experts, and what types of enhancements or transcripts are permitted.
Questions around voice identification evidence need to be addressed urgently. If false identifications often occur based on this type of evidence, imagine all the wrongful convictions it could be resulting in.
Around 55,000-50,000 years ago, a population of modern humans left Africa and started on the long trek that would lead them around the world. After rapidly crossing Eurasia and Southeast Asia, they travelled through the islands of Indonesia, and eventually as far as the continent of Sahul – modern-day Australia and New Guinea.
Their descendants are the modern human populations found right across this enormous region today.
In new research published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, we detail how during this remarkable journey the ancestors of modern humans met and genetically mixed with a number of archaic human groups, including Neandertals and Denisovans, and several others for which we currently have no name. The traces of these interactions are still preserved in our genomes.
For example, all modern non-African populations contain about 2% Neandertal ancestry. This strong universal signal shows that the original Neandertal mixing event must have happened just after the small founding population left Africa.
We can even use the Neandertal genetic signal to date when they left Africa. The large size of Neandertal DNA fragments in the genome of an ancient skeleton from southern Russia, which is 45,000 years old, shows that at most 230-430 generations could have passed since the initial mixing event (dating it around 50-55,000 years ago).
By analysing where the archaic genetic traces are found today (from previous genetic studies) and using paleovegetation maps that identify favourable savannah-like habitat along the route 55,000 years ago, we have reconstructed the likely geographic locations and number of the archaic hominin mixing events.
A map showing where the ancestors of modern humans appear to have met and mixed with archaic hominins.Author provided
Leaving Africa
One of the first mixing events after the Neandertals appears to have taken place during the movement across southern Asia. The archaic human group involved was neither the Neandertals or Denisovans, but something similar – which currently has no name.
The genetic traces of this archaic group can be found from modern Punjabi and Bengal populations all the way through to New Guinea and Australia. As a result, we think this mixing event (marked 1 on the map) likely took place somewhere around northern India, which is the most “upstream” or westerly position it is first observed.
The ancestral population of modern humans then appears to have split as it moved across Asia with one pulse dispersing north into mainland Asia, where it met and mixed with a Denisovan group (marked 2 on the map). These Denisovans were genetically close to those we already know about from the Altai mountains. The traces of this event can be seen in East Asia today, and also in North and South America populations, who stem from northeastern Asia.
Island Southeast Asia was already crowded
The other pulse of modern humans headed south down the Malaysian Peninsula and into Island Southeast Asia (ISEA) where a big surprise awaited. They found the area was already crowded with different archaic human groups, including completely different species.
Recent fossil finds of small skeletons have shown that apparent relatives of Homo erectus (whose early fossils are common on Java) had survived on the Philippines and Flores (where they are known as “hobbits”) until around 52,000 years ago. Effectively right up until the modern humans arrived.
The incoming modern human population apparently first met and mixed with a distant relative of the Denisovans in the area, leaving a signal in the genomes of Australo-Papuans and several ISEA populations. These signals are very different from the above East Asian mixing event, and instead come from a Denisovan relative that had separated genetically from the Altai/East Asian Denisovans around 280,000 years ago. This mixing event appears to have been somewhere around southern Malaysia/Borneo (marked 3 on the map).
Landfall in Australia
The wave of modern humans does not appear to have waited long to cross Wallace’s Line – the famous biogeographic barrier that effectively marks the edge of the ISEA landmasses joined together during past glacial periods, when sea levels were up to 120 metres lower.
We know this because a sudden appearance of archaeological sites right across Australia around 50,000 years ago indicates that modern humans had quickly crossed the marine gaps through ISEA.
While there is one much earlier Australian site, the 65-80,000 year old Madjedbebe rock shelter in Arnhem Land, it is a complete outlier to the rest of the Australian record and the age of the site has been queried.
While moving through ISEA, the modern human population appears to have met – and mixed with – two more archaic human groups. Hunter-gatherer populations in the Philippines preserve signals of yet another Denisovan-mixing event (marked 4 on the map), after they had diverged from the main wave of modern humans moving through ISEA.
Similarly, a genetic study of the short-statured modern day population that lives around the Flores cave where the tiny skeletons of the “hobbits” were found identified signals of DNA not from Homo erectus, the target of the study, but an enigmatic signal from something else. The source was neither Neandertal nor Denisovan but something of similar age – yet another currently unknown archaic group (marked 5 on the map).
What the different genetic studies across this region tell us is that the ancestors of modern humans appear to have met and mixed with four different archaic hominins, in at least six events. And this all happened in the very short window of time between leaving Africa 50-55,000 years ago, and arriving in Australia and New Guinea at most 5,000 years later.
Remarkably, none of these genetic mixing events appears to have involved fossil species in ISEA that we know were still around when modern humans arrived, such as Homo luzonensis (Philippines) and the Flores hobbits.
ISEA was clearly a very crowded place around 50,000 years ago, occupied by many different archaic human groups on many different islands. But shortly thereafter there was only one survivor: us.
In my capacity as Minister for Police, I represented the Marape-Steven government to be on the ground to pay respects to those killed and prepare and provide a brief to the Prime Minister on the circumstances behind the incident – what, who, when, how and why.
Tribal fights are not new in PNG and in recent years they have become more prevalent in the highlands region; one may argue they have been going on since the beginning of time.
However since that time the rules of engagement have always been that the elderly, women and children have been off limits.
So killing of innocent women and children in tribal conflicts until recently was unheard of. Last week’s merciless killings have changed everything. The immediate concern is that it will become the new trend.
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I guess the questions people are asking are why did it happen, will it happen again and more importantly what is being done to prevent it from ever happening again?
On the first issue, why it happened:
What people would not be aware of was that last week there were three separate killings in Tagali local level government relating to a tribal conflict that has been going on for almost two decades.
The conflict has been between two tribes, one headed by a man called Oi Kiru, who comes from Pajaka 2 village, and the opposing tribe, led by Libe Koi and his second in charge Ha’gu’ai, who come from Yaganda village.
In June 2019, a key tribesman of Libe was killed. His name was Eganada and he lived in Munima village. Usually, when tribes go to war they solicit the support of surrounding villages they are married into or provide protection to.
In this case, a key ally to Libe was Eaganda, who in June was killed by his own cousin A’gun’ai (a known drug body) over an ongoing dispute between them. It is alleged A’gun’ai killed Eganada and in fear of his life fled to Oi Kiru’s village. As the saying goes, the enemy of your enemy is your friend.
However, while in the protection of Oi’ Kiru’s tribesman, we were told A’gun’ai, with a number of his own tribesman, killed six of Oi Kiru’s clansmen including his mother.
They returned to their village and threatened a nearby village called Karita, which A’gun’ai is married into, insisting that Karita village pay them protection money or face a similar attack.
Last Sunday, Munima and Karita village got together to stage a peace ceremony, Karita offering 10 pigs and 4,000 kina to A’gun’ai and his clansmen.
Unbeknownst to them, Oi Kiru, learning of his mother’s death, raided a village near Munima called Peta, killing three women and three children – they were all shot to death using high powered rifles.
Following the killing at Peta village, on Monday morning around 6am young tribesman attacked Karita Village killing nine women and seven children. Two of the women were pregnant. They were killed after being attacked by the young men with machetes.
Why were women and children attacked at Karita village?
It appears the killing of women and children stemmed from the killing of Oi Kiru’s mother by men under the influence of marijuana. What followed was the payback killing of three women and three children at Peta village that triggered the further payback killing of nine women and seven children at Karita village.
On Tuesday, members of Police Mobile Squad and the Defence Force were deployed to the area. Following the recent visits by the governor of Hela Philip Undialu and me, the killings have stopped for now. Reports indicate those involved have fled the province.
The Governor and I visited both Munima and Karita villages to get a first-hand account of what happened and provide an assurance that the Marape-Steven government will bring those responsible to account.
I had intended to stay overnight at Karita village, since that was the last village to have suffered a major loss, however I was advised against it as Munima village would expect the same treatment.
Despite my disappointment in not spending enough time in the villages, the fact that the Governor and I were on the ground prompted the community leaders from Munima and Karita not to continue to retaliate.
So what happens now.
Following consultation with Provincial Governor, Provincial Administrator and the Provincial Police Commander, including Acting Deputy Commissioner of Police David Manning, a platoon from the Defence Force and Police Mobile Squad is being stationed at Munima Primary School to provide round-the-clock security, to prevent any further escalation of violence.
High level discussions on a strategic deployment action plan, using drone technology and satellite surveillance, will be used to track and apprehend those on the run. An intelligence unit will also be established to gather information from community.
While a number of plans are being put into action to ensure peace prevails, to prevent such devastating acts of violence in our communities it is important that for the long term that we find a different way of resolving conflict that rejects revenge but encourages resolution through dialogue.
I intend to return to the province in a week’s time to get an update.
This article is republished by Asia Pacific Report with permission from Keith Jackson’s blog PNG Attitude.
It was originally published on Bryan Kramer’s Facebook page Kramer Report.
Curious Kids is a series for children. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to curiouskids@theconversation.edu.au You might also like the podcast Imagine This, a co-production between ABC KIDS listen and The Conversation, based on Curious Kids.
Did the velociraptors have feathers? – Evelyn Fisk, age 5, Portland, Maine.
Hi Evelyn. This is a good question because it tells us a lot about science versus movies.
Have you seen the movies Jurassic Park and Jurassic World? The first one came out in 1993, when your parents were probably kids. The second one came out much later in 2015, when they were already grownups.
But in the time between Jurassic Park and Jurassic World coming out, scientists made a lot of new discoveries about dinosaurs. Our ideas about what they might have looked like changed a lot.
Back in 1993, we didn’t know which dinosaurs had feathers. But in 2007, quite a few years after the Jurassic Park movies were made, some people found a fossil Velociraptor arm bone with little bumps along its edge.
These bumps were where feathers would have grown from. This made palaeontologists (meaning dinosaur experts) think that Velociraptor had fluffy, feathery arms.
Palaeontologists then wondered if Velociraptor had feathers covering the rest of its body.
It seems most likely that Velociraptor had feathers on its whole body and not just its arms. This is an artist’s impression of Velociraptor mongoliensis.Fred Wierum/Wikimedia, CC BY
It’s hard to find dinosaur fossils with feathers. Dinosaur bone is hard and can become fossilised, and that’s why most dinosaur fossils are bony skeletons. Skin and feathers are soft and often rot before they can turn into fossils.
But sometimes palaeontologists are lucky and can find a “feathery” fossil. Since the 1990s, we have known about fossils of dinosaurs that were “cousins” to Velociraptor that had feathers on their arms, legs, and tails. But they didn’t fly like birds do.
They might have used their feathers to keep warm, or to “talk” with other dinosaurs by waving their tails and wings to make friends or to scare their enemies away!
It seems most likely that Velociraptor had feathers on its whole body and not just its arms.
So why don’t the velociraptors in Jurassic World have feathers?
If you have seen this movies, you will know that Velociraptors in Jurassic World (the more recent movies) don’t seem to have feathers. Even though we knew by then that they had feathers, the Velociraptors in the Jurrasic World movies look smooth and leathery, like in this clip (just ask your parents’ permission before you watch it, because it is a bit scary).
So some palaeontologists were pretty annoyed when the movie Jurassic World came out in 2015 and the Velociraptors didn’t have feathers at all. A character in the film actually gives an excuse, saying that (in the story) theme park customers wouldn’t want dinosaurs with feathers.
Movies don’t have to show dinosaurs like they were in the real world, but I think it would be really good if they did.
There is a lot of wonderful information we can see from dinosaur fossils, so why shouldn’t the movies share it and show off these fluffy, feathery beasts?
Hello, curious kids! Have you got a question you’d like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to curiouskids@theconversation.edu.auPlease tell us your name, age and which city you live in. We won’t be able to answer every question but we will do our best.
The Oxford City Council is to award West Papuan activist Benny Wenda the Honorary Freedom of the City accolade for his tireless fight for West Papuan self-determination.
Wenda, whom the United Kingdom granted political asylum in 2002, lives in Oxford with his family and it serves as the headquarters of his campaign to liberate the people of West Papua.
According to the Oxford City Council, the Freedom award is the highest honour the City of Oxford can bestow and is one of the oldest surviving traditional ceremonies still in existence.
It is an honorary status only, with no other rights than to attend formal council meetings, such as Annual Council, and ceremonial occasions such as civic church services.
In a Council press release, Leader of Oxford City Council, Councillor Susan Brown said “ever since Benny Wenda made Oxford his home and base for campaigning for the people of West Papua, Oxford residents and the City Council have taken his cause for their own.”
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“We are delighted to give this honour to an Oxford resident who has campaigned so tirelessly on behalf of his people.”
Wenda thanked the Oxford City Council and people of Oxford for their generosity and support in conveying the award.
“When I escaped from an Indonesian prison in West Papua in 2002, Oxford was one of the first places in the world that welcomed me and my family,” he said.
“I was given asylum in the UK and have made Oxford my home. Oxford was one of the first to hear the cry of the West Papuan people for justice, human rights and self-determination and this award shows that the people of Oxford are listening and responding.
“The West Papuan people know that our struggle is not just an issue for West Papuans now, but has become an issue that has touched the hearts of thousands around the world. My journey has taken me here from the jungles of West Papua and the inside of an Indonesian prison cell.
“But until we are able to return to an independent West Papua, my family and I are not truly free. I thank the people of Oxford for all their assistance as we work to finish our long journey home.”
According to the press release, Wenda settled in the city after reading Oxford-resident George Monbiot’s book ‘Poisoned Arrows’, which first brought to light the story of the tribal people of western New Guinea and described the Indonesian government’s transmigration campaign to drive them off ancestral lands into poverty and starvation.
He has acted as special representative of the Papuan people in the UK Parliament, United Nations and European Parliament. In 2017 he was appointed Chairman for the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP), a new organisation uniting the three main political organisations struggling for the independence of West Papua.
The Freedom will be awarded at a special meeting of the Full Council to be held in Oxford Town Hall, at 5pm on July 17.
Wenda and West Papuan activists outside the Oxford Town Hall in 2015 with the ‘Morning Star’ flag raised. Image: Bennywenda.org
A few months ago, I received a call from a barrister who asked me if I could evaluate whether voice identification testimony submitted in a criminal case against an Indigenous man was based on appropriate analysis.
He told me a police officer had been working on a criminal investigation when he heard a voice on a covert audio recording that he believed was one of three suspects in an unrelated armed robbery investigation.
The police had mobile phone and location data on two of the suspects in the case. However, they did not have direct evidence tying the third suspect to the crime. To prove his involvement, the prosecution sought to use voice identification evidence, in addition to other evidence that I was not privy to.
After a single meeting with the suspect in custody, the officer investigating the case identified the voice on the recording as his. The police officer said he was certain of the match because the suspect, like the voice on the recordings, had
a low voice. He speaks with a kind of a drawl and occasionally sounds like a bit of a whine.
The suspect pleaded not guilty to the crime and questioned the validity of the voice identification. It was at this point the lawyers contacted me.
I reviewed the police procedures used in the case with another linguistics professor at the University of Sydney, Mark Post, and a team of graduate students, and we agreed the voice identification did not meet the standards for forensic linguistic evidence used in trials.
The evidence had been submitted by a so-called “ad hoc expert,” in this case, the police officer, who had no training or expertise in forensic linguistics. As part of our brief, our job was limited to reviewing whether sufficient language analysis had been carried out to substantiate the voice identification. In our expert opinion, it had not.
According to the barrister, the judge was convinced of the suspect’s identification based on all the evidence in the case, not just the voice evidence. The man was ultimately convicted and sent back to prison.
The problem with voice evidence
Multiple studies have warned about the reliability of voice evidence in criminal cases. For example, one recent study concluded that the way such evidence is used in trials is inconsistent with scientific research and needs to be revised.
Other studies have found that while there are a number of legal requirements around the use of eyewitness testimonies in trials, voice identification testimony has not been sufficiently scrutinised.
One of the problems is that both Commonwealth and state laws currently permit voice identification evidence to be provided by so-called “ad hoc experts”, such as a police officer or interpreter who listens to a recording of a person accused of a crime and then matches that voice to a specific suspect.
This is a problem because these people usually lack the linguistic training and expertise to make an accurate identification.
Another issue is “expectancy bias,” which occurs when an expert listens to the same recording multiple times and develops an expectation as to the person’s identity, leading to a biased result.
Other socio-economic and racial biases also come into play and can result in a false identification.
In the testimony that our team examined, for instance, it was our opinion that the words “low voice”, “drawl” and “bit of a whine” in the police officer’s testimony suggested a negative attitude towards the English dialect spoken by some Indigenous Australians.
Studies have also shown that factors such as fatigue, drug or alcohol use, and emotional distress can significantly alter voice quality (including, but not limited to, recordings) and impact the reliability of voice identification testimony.
In other cases where the quality of an audio recording is poor, voice enhancements or forensic transcripts may be provided to the jury. But, this, too can be problematic.
Evidence suggests that voice enhancements can also lead to false identifications. If the person enhancing or editing the audio has certain biases, for instance, he or she can digitally edit the audio recordings in a way that promotes particular “hearings” or interpretations of the recording.
Forensic transcripts can likewise be influenced by the perceptions or biases of the person transcribing the audio.
Possible legal solutions
The Australian legal system, like the rest of the world, needs to respond to these issues by engaging with language experts and considering changes to the guidelines regarding the admissibility of voice evidence.
Such changes should include a re-evaluation of the type of voice evidence allowed in trials, how it’s analysed by experts, and what types of enhancements or transcripts are permitted.
Questions around voice identification evidence need to be addressed urgently. If false identifications often occur based on this type of evidence, imagine all the wrongful convictions it could be resulting in.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Philip Russo, Associate Professor, Director Cabrini Monash University Department of Nursing Research, Monash University
Most people expect hospital treatment to make them better. But for some, a stay in hospital can actually make them sicker. Their wound might get infected after an operation or they might get a blood infection as a result of a medical procedure.
Our study, published today in the international journal Antimicrobial Resistance and Infection Control, found one in ten adult patients in hospital with an acute (short-term) condition had a health care associated infection.
In the first study of its kind in Australia for over 30 years, we also uncovered unexpected infections, like pneumonia and urinary tract infections, as well as high numbers of patients with multi-drug resistant organisms (superbugs).
Most of these infections can be prevented. So it is important to know what type of infections they are, how common they are and which patients get them. Once we have this information, we can work out a way to prevent them.
Left unchecked, these infections can make already sick patients sicker, can divert hospital resources unnecessarily, and can kill.
Most hospitals in Australia have ongoing surveillance for specific infections, such as wound and bloodstream infections.
Some states have well coordinated programs like the Victorian program VICNISS, leading to detailed data on health care associated infections. This data is then used to inform hospital strategies on how to prevent infections. However, this type of surveillance method requires extensive resources and does not capture all infections that occur in a hospital.
Instead, we conducted a “point prevalence” survey, which takes a snapshot of the current situation on any given day. This is less resource intensive than ongoing surveillance and it provides valuable information on the distribution and occurrence of all infections in a hospital.
In Europe, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control co-ordinates national point prevalence studies every four years. These have provided valuable insight into the burden of health care associated infections. They have also been used to track the emergence of multi-drug resistant organisms in Europe. The US, Singapore and many other countries also run them.
Unlike most OECD countries, Australia does not have a national health care associated infection surveillance program and does not undertake national point prevalence studies.
The only national data routinely collected relates to bloodstream infections caused by the microorganism Staphylococcus aureus. These infections are serious but rare and only represent a tiny fraction of all infections in hospitals.
To improve our understanding of health care associated infections across Australia, we used the same study method as the Europeans. Over a four month period in 2018, we visited 19 large hospitals across Australia and collected information on all infections in adult acute inpatients. Four of the hospitals were regional, the others major city hospitals.
What infections did we find?
Of the 2,767 patients we surveyed, we found 363 infections in 273 patients, meaning some patients had more than one infection. The most common infections were wound infections after surgery (surgical site infections), pneumonia and urinary tract infections. These accounted for 64% of all the infections we found.
This is important as most hospitals do not normally look for pneumonia or urinary tract infections and there is no routine statewide or national surveillance for these.
Our findings mean these infections are commonly occurring but undetected. A potential source of information on these types of infections is hospital administrative coding data. However, these codes were mainly designed for billing purposes and have been shown to be unreliable when it comes to identifying infections.
We also found patients with a medical device, such as a large intravenous drip, or urinary catheter (a flexible tube inserted into the bladder to empty it of urine), were more likely to have an infection than those who did not.
Intensive care units treat patients who are gravely unwell and at greater risk of infection. So it was unsurprising to find that 25% of patients in intensive care units had a health care associated infection.
The emergence of multi-drug resistant organisms (superbugs) is a concern worldwide. Previously unknown, our study revealed that 10% of the adult acute inpatients in our study had a multi-drug resistant organism.
What have other studies found?
For the first time in 34 years we have a glimpse of how common health care associated infections are in Australian hospitals. Although the only other previous study was larger, a major strength of our study is that we used the same two trained data collectors to collect the data from all hospitals.
This reduced the potential inconsistency in finding infections that might occur if hospital staff collected their own data. It also minimised the use of hospital resources to undertake the survey.
Importantly though, we did not survey all types of hospitals. It is possible that if the same survey was extended to include children, babies and cancer hospitals, higher rates of infection may be found given the vulnerability of these patients.
What can we do better?
As one of the authors has previously noted, a major gap in Australia’s effort to combat health care associated infections, and the emergence of multi-drug resistance organisms, is the lack of robust national data.
This means we cannot measure the effect of national policy or guidelines despite significant investment.
In the absence of a national surveillance program, we recommend that large-scale point prevalence surveys, including smaller hospitals, specialist hospitals and the private sector be undertaken regularly. Data generated from these studies could then be used to inform and drive national infection prevention initiatives.
In 2015, the Australian federal government proclaimed that violence against women had become a national crisis. Despite widespread social and economic advances in the status of women since the 1970s, including growing awareness and action around gender violence, its prevalence remains alarming.
Australian Bureau of Statistics data shows that a third of all women in Australia have been assaulted physically and a fifth of all women have been assaulted sexually. In 2016, nearly a fifth of adult women also reported they had been sexually harassed in the past 12 months.
Other statistics show that one woman is murdered by an intimate partner in Australia each week, and family violence is a leading factor in a third of all cases of homelessness.
The resulting strain on government services and lost productivity is estimated to cost the Australian economy around A$13.6 billion a year.
Gender violence seems to have reached a particularly significant moment in Australia. But violence against women is often represented as a timeless and universal phenomenon. This creates the perception that the problem is too large to fix, or that only the worst abuses are worthy of attention.
Family violence and domestic violence are frequently referred to as a “silent epidemic” that is quietly engulfing Australia.
A culture of silence at the individual level means victims are often too fearful or ashamed, and bystanders too uncomfortable or conflicted, to speak out.
This may suggest gender violence was invisible in Australia’s past, or that it was only recently recognised as a social problem. This is not the case.
As Australian feminist historical scholarship began to emerge in the 1970s, historians started to discover a range of source material on the everyday lives of Australian women, including their experiences of family, sexual, and other forms of violence.
Kay Saunders, for example, commented on the “surprising abundance of primary sources” about violence against women when she published her seminal 1984 article on domestic violence in colonial Queensland. Looking for court records on a completely different topic, she had been struck by the frequency of domestic assault cases brought before 19th century courts.
And Australian newspapers made these cases known to the community. The language may have been different – 19th and early 20th-century journalists referred to domestic violence as “wife-beating” – but the issue was far from silent.
A cartoon published in the Recorder newspaper depicting the pervasiveness of wife-beating in Australia in the 1930s.National Library of Australia
Into the 20th century, the belief persisted that husbands had the right to “chastise” their wives’ behaviour, including through corporal punishment. However, there was also a general acknowledgement that unjustifiable wife-beating was a widespread problem.
But then, as now, positive action to confront this problem was less forthcoming than expressions of concern about it.
When it came to sexual violence, there was not only awareness of the problem as far back as the 19th century, but legislative attempts to address it, albeit with limited success.
Historian Andy Kaladelfos points out that Australian jurisdictions were among the first in the world to try to tackle the problem of child sexual abuse within families by making incest a specific criminal offence.
Concerns about sexual violence against women (at least white women), especially on the colonial frontier, also meant that Australian jurisdictions retained the death penalty for rape long after its use was abolished in England in 1841.
However, in most Australian jurisdictions across the late 19th to mid-20th century, only around 56%-63% of men prosecuted for the rape of adult women were convicted. In NSW, this figure dropped down to a mere 32%.
Juries’ reluctance to convict men was due in large part to victim-blaming attitudes that research shows has never disappeared from Australian courtrooms.
A culture of violence
Historically, these attempts to reduce gender violence usually floundered because legislation failed to address the underlying causes enabling this culture of violence.
For instance, Australian society has told men they need to be physically and mentally tough, which normalised male aggression. During the 19th and 20th century, housewife manuals routinely instructed women, as the “gentle sex”, that it was up to them to manage the moods of the men around them.
This implied that a truly “womanly” woman would be able to avert a man’s anger or violence.
A newspaper illustration from 1877 depicting the body of an Eaglehawk woman. Her husband was charged with her murder.State Library of Victoria
For much of the 19th century, men far outnumbered women within the European population of the Australian colonies. This produced a culture that prized hyper-masculinity as a national ideal.
Historian Elizabeth Nelson reveals that the first world war further embedded these cultural attitudes, exacerbating gender violence during the interwar period.
These legacies of Australia’s past contributed to the development of a particularly virulent toxic masculinity that persists today.
Another key factor was gender-based economic inequalities in early Australian society. Historically, the limited and low-paying nature of women’s work prevented many from leaving men who were abusive to them or their children. When husbands were charged with assaults, wives would often petition magistrates for clemency to avoid the financial ruin that would come if the family breadwinner was sent to prison.
Historian Judith Allen argues that there were two major cultural changes that empowered more Australian women to leave violent men.
One was the decline in family fertility between 1880 and 1920, which meant women had fewer dependants to support in the event of relationship breakdown. The other was the post-war rise in opportunities for paid female employment.
This underlines the importance of recognising how non-physical forms of abuse – such as economic abuse – continue to prevent women from leaving unhealthy relationships.
In a society where men still largely control the economic livelihoods of women, this also perpetuates a culture of sexual violence.
Vulnerable communities
Gender violence can affect anyone. But historical legacies have rendered some communities more vulnerable than others.
Frontier violence routinely led to the sexual and economic exploitation of Indigenous women, who became particularly vulnerable to gender violence when isolated from kinship networks.
Again and again, the media has amplified some reports over others. Its sensationalist approach engendered a focus on the almost wholly specious “white slave panic”, an early 20th century phenomenon that cultivated fears about white women and girls being sold into international sex slavery. This increased the stigmatisation of migrant women who did wish to engage in sex work, leaving them prey to exploitative conditions.
Cultural attitudes towards sexuality have also influenced patterns of gender violence. Although the term “homophobia” emerged from the gay and lesbian activism of the 1970s, historian Shirleene Robinson argues it has its roots in the late 19th century.
One outcome of this history is that the media continues to personify white women as a type of ideal victim, while routinely characterising women of colour, the LGBTIQ community, migrant women, and sex workers as culpable for their own victimisation.
Reform and resistance
Women’s rights reformers and feminists have fought hard to pass laws against gender violence in Australia since the late 19th century. These range from arguing for statutes to raise the age of consent in the 1880s and 1890s to criminalising marital rape a century later.
Activist women have also long challenged the sensationalist approach of the media in its coverage of gender violence by developing emotional appeals that humanise violated women and link gender, race and class to the root causes of the issue.
Today, digital initiatives such as Destroy the Joint’s Counting Dead Women project continue this important work.
Historical gains against gender violence in Australia only occurred because of the willingness of some to stand against complacency. The problem will not be solved by the simple march of time. Action is needed.
The National Sexual Assault, Family & Domestic Violence Counselling Line – 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732) – is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week for any Australian who has experienced, or is at risk of, family and domestic violence and/or sexual assault.
From early this year it’s been apparent the 2019 Australian influenza “season” was going to be different. Normally, the flu season coincides with the winter months of July and August, sometimes stretching to September and October.
So what’s been happening, and is it really as bad as the media have been reporting? Here we look at some of the latest data on cases and their outcomes to see if it is indeed “a horror flu season”.
The impact of influenza on the community is measured in several ways. The most basic measure is to simply count the number of cases of people presenting to their GP with influenza-like illness.
Sometimes the doctor will take a swab, and these are tested in the laboratory to confirm that influenza virus is present (it’s possible another respiratory virus or bacteria might be causing the flu-like symptoms).
Cases of influenza-like illness were increasing in early March, peaked in early June, and are now decreasing. Laboratory confirmed cases (the results of which we see in the above chart) show a similar trend. We haven’t included July in this chart because it’s not finished yet, but we’re still seeing a high number of cases into July.
Compared to previous years, 2019 looks like a big year with more than 120,000 cases of lab confirmed influenza up to the end of June. But it’s not nearly as bad as 2017, which had more than 250,000 cases reported to the National Notifiable Diseases Surveillance System (NNDSS) by the end of the year. As this season occurred much later than 2019’s, 2017 had only 24,000 cases reported up to July 7.
The good news is that as the 2019 season started earlier, it’s also likely to finish earlier than usual. This is because once the main influenza season starts, it usually ends around 12-16 weeks later, when the number of susceptible people drops below the level required to maintain efficient circulation.
Another measure of how severe the influenza season is can be gauged by the number of hospitalisations, including admissions to ICU (intensive care units).
Hospital admissions show from April 1 to June 30 this year, there have been 1,309 admissions to the Australian sentinel surveillance hospitals (a number of hospitals where flu admissions are tracked each year).
This figure is much higher than previous years at the same time point. In 2018, there were 90 admissions, and in 2017, 311. But in 2017 the season arrived much later and more seriously and ultimately resulted in 3,969 admissions for that year.
It’s also useful to look at the proportion of people attending hospital with influenza infections who are admitted directly to ICU. In 2019 it’s been 6.7% of admissions compared to 2018 (a mild influenza year) with 8.1% of admissions, and 2017 (a very severe year) with 8.9% of admissions.
The 2019 ICU rate is at the lower end of historical figures which range from 8.7% in 2015 to 14.2% in 2013. By this measure, the 2019 season is of a similar severity to that seen in previous seasons and is therefore not exceptional.
While hospital admissions can be measured relatively easily, measuring deaths due to influenza is more complicated for a few reasons. The flu often paves the way for secondary bacterial infections, like pneumonia, which can lead to hospitalisation and death, particularly in the elderly. When this happens, it can be difficult to link death directly to an earlier influenza infection.
And, death data is often very delayed. So readily available death data collected by the NNDSS is considered a significant underestimate of the actual number.
To the end of June 2019, there were 231 influenza-related deaths reported to the NNDSS. Virtually all of these were due to the influenza A strain. They spanned all ages, but most deaths were in the elderly (80 years and older).
This compares to 24 and 21 deaths over the same period in 2018 and 2017 respectively. But these figures grew to 55 deaths and 598 deaths reported by the end of 2018 and 2017 respectively.
Clearly 2019 is more severe than 2018, based on the measures detailed above, but at this stage it looks like it will be less severe than 2017. However, we’ll need to wait for a number of weeks yet to be sure.
When we look at what’s happened in each state of Australia so far this year, we see some interesting differences in how the season has played out. Most states began to see significant rises in cases in April, while South Australia had already peaked in April and this number of cases was maintained into May. This means that most other states still have a number of weeks of influenza circulation to endure.
People of all ages are susceptible to influenza, and this is reflected in the wide range of ages at which people are infected. Young children (especially those under 10 years of age) and the elderly (especially those over 80 years of age) are more susceptible, and are often more severely affected by influenza infections – as are pregnant women.
Interestingly, different types of influenza affect different age groups, with influenza B and influenza A(H1N1) more common in the young and influenza A(H3N2) more common in the elderly.
At this stage we can conclude that the 2019 influenza season is quite different to our usual seasons and overall, is likely to be one of the more severe seasons seen in the last 20 years.
So while 2019 doesn’t appear to be the worst season we’ve ever seen – that’s likely to remain with 2017 – it may well run a close second place. But we’ll have to wait another month or two before we can be sure.
The New South Wales government last week revealed plans to ease shooting restrictions on feral deer. If the plans go ahead, deer will be stripped of their status as a game animal and will no longer be afforded protection under the state’s animal control laws.
This will mean that a game hunting licence would not be required for recreational, commercial and professional hunting of deer species. Restrictions on how and when deer can be hunted would also be lifted.
Feral deer will be treated the same as other pest animals in NSW, including red foxes, feral cats and rabbits.
Removing the game status of deer is the next logical step towards controlling existing deer numbers in NSW, and slowing their spread to new areas. Deer currently cover 17% of NSW, and this area has more than doubled since 2009.
Deer now cover 17% of NSW.NSW Dept of Primary Industries
Effective control is needed to stop the spread of feral deer in Australia.Emma Spencer
The impacts of deer
Feral deer remain one of Australia’s least studied introduced mammals. Yet the evidence shows they have a substantial impact on Australia’s ecosystems and agriculture.
Since 2005, grazing and environmental damage by feral deer has been listed as a key threatening process under NSW legislation. Deer are known to graze on threatened plant species, and also cause erosion and soil compaction. They damage pasture; destroy fences and contaminate water sources; harm trees via antler rubbing; rip up the ground during rutting season; and potentially contribute to the spread of livestock diseases.
Deer are a threat to humans too. The Illawarra region south of Sydney, a hotspot for deer activity, has seen one death and multiple serious injuries between 2003 and 2017 due to vehicle collisions with deer.
Ground-based shooting is the main way to manage deer in the urban fringes, regional areas and national parks. Unfortunately, coordinated ground shoots have only been effective for areas of less than 1,000 hectares, and there is no evidence that uncoordinated shooting by recreational hunters actually works to control deer on a widespread basis.
Aerial shooting can potentially be more successful over large tracts of land, but may not be a good option when tree cover is high and visibility is low. Poison baiting could help, although there is no method available to deliver baits safely, effectively and specifically to deer.
Irrespective of the control method, a coordinated approach is needed. We need a strategy that not only controls deer where damage is worst, but also prevents their spread to new areas. This will require NSW to work closely with the ACT and Victoria.
A red fox feeds on a culled feral deer.Emma Spencer
Rigorous monitoring will also be vital. This is important to gauge success (how many deer were culled, and the ethics of shooting, trapping and baiting), and to determine whether the control efforts have unintended impacts on the environment, such as deer carcasses providing food for scavenging pests.
Scavenging pests have been observed feeding on carcasses, but whether culling deer and other feral animals actually increases their abundance and impacts is unknown. Carcasses also provide a source of food for native scavengers such as eagles and ravens, and are integral to the structure and function of ecosystems.
The negative and positive impacts of deer culling on the broader ecosystem therefore needs consideration when developing and implementing monitoring plans. NSW can be the leader in this regard, starting from day one after removing the status of the deer as a game species.
In response to these trends, the Chinese government released a national urbanisation plan (2014-2020), with a focus on the quality of Chinese urbanisation and public spaces. So the policymakers’ concern is not solely with the economic development of China’s cities but also a healthier built environment and increased well-being for its citizens.
In addition to growing population pressures, Chinese cities face battles with pollution and climate change. Furthermore, China is now the third-most-visited country, behind France and the United States. No doubt the country’s growing tourism industry is an important driver for developing better cities.
The rise of private public partnership projects and growing private interests in China’s built environment also call for a fresh look at urban design. Connecting urban planning and architecture, public spaces and private buildings, metropolitan scale and street scale, urban design can help to balance private interests and public needs while developing urban areas.
If those challenges are quite recent for China, they have been experienced, tested and theorised in Western countries for the past two centuries. Thus there might be an interest in learning from Western urban design principles, both to draw inspiration from the good practices and to avoid repeating the mistakes.
Urban design is well established in Australia
Some major Chinese cities such as Guangzhou and Shanghai have recently created their own urban design guidelines. However, many Chinese cities don’t have any.
In Australia the situation is quite different. Urban design theory and practices are well grounded. More than 20 guidelines have been published since the 2000s at all levels of government.
Urban design guidelines in Australia at federal, state and local government level.Lucile Jacquot, 2019, Author provided
The diversity of Australian guidelines means that urban design research is very active and responsive to the evolution of technologies, lifestyles and expectations. Also, the outcomes are often considered successful – Australian cities usually do well in rankings of urban quality of life. For example, Melbourne, Adelaide and Sydney are consistently ranked in the top ten of the Global Liveability Index.
Good examples of urban design are also acknowledged in Australia – for example, through the annual Australian Urban Design Awards. The recognition of best practices and fostering of healthy competition create a rich urban design culture.
How can Chinese cities be improved?
Dalian is a good example of an emerging city in China. Its location between the sea and the mountains and its rich colonial heritage make it a major tourist destination. Nevertheless, the experience of Dalian’s urban spaces could be improved in many ways.
Firstly, one of the main goals of urban design is to provide adequate public facilities such as pedestrian pathways, sitting areas and public toilets. In Dalian, an increase in such facilities could encourage the city’s residents to make more use of the public space. Similarly, shaded areas and water fountains could make public spaces more liveable, no matter the hour of the day or the weather.
Secondly, installing such facilities is not enough on its own to make the city engaging and attractive. Dalian’s urban spaces are quite monochromatic and a more vibrant cityscape could improve the overall ambience of the city. One way to achieve this would be through the use of different colours, textures and materials to define spatial difference between private and public space, and create new pedestrian experiences.
The differences in urban design of pedestrian squares in Dalian (left) and Melbourne are clear.Images: K. Dupré (left), L. Jacquot (right), Author provided
Lastly, the main purpose of designing the look and feel of a city is to engage people with their surroundings. The urban space not only has to cater for all types of people and their needs, but also to provide safe socialising opportunities.
In Dalian, providing more playgrounds, for example, could enhance these interactions. All the benefits of good urban design come together in a safe urban space where all types of people can meet, exchange and feel comfortable.
Public spaces in Dalian (left) and Gold Coast.Images: K. Dupré (left) and picswe.net (right), Author provided
Australian cities can also learn from China
While Australia’s urban design principles are considerably more advanced, its cities face similar challenges to those in China.
For example, Australia is still grappling with the relationship between people and their urban space. Most Australian cities are car-dominated, going against contemporary understanding of a healthy, sustainable and liveable city.
Car use is dramatically affecting the urban fabric of Chinese and Australian cities. In particular, it has impacts on the experience of pedestrians. The wide streets are difficult to cross, footpaths are often sacrificed for the benefit of the car, and cyclists’ safety is compromised. Good urban design would definitely strive towards a more people-based city model.
Another common challenge is climate change. Both Australian and Chinese cities must deal with rising temperatures. The positive impact urban design can have to moderate urban temperatures is now widely recognised. Major Australian cities have now developed guidelines on measures to counter heat, while China is actively working on the issue.
But in one area, the battle to reduce carbon footprints, Chinese cities lead the way. The Chinese government has also developed a substantial green policy. So, while Chinese cities could certainly learn from Australia, the converse seems equally true.
A “loyalty tax” occurs when discounts are offered to new customers while longer-term customers pay more. Often this involves increasing premiums at the first and subsequent renewals.
As the NSW government’s Insurance Monitor, charged with making sure insurance companies do not charge unreasonably high prices or mislead policy holders, I have had my office research the prevalence of loyalty taxes.
Our research last year showed, on average, customers renewing their insurance policy paid 27% more than new customers. Our most recent data indicates the gap has risen to 34%. This translates to hundreds of dollars for the average home and contents insurance policy.
Loyalty taxes appear to be widespread in Australia. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission concluded from different pricing inquiries that loyal customers of both banks and energy providers end up paying more. It also demonstrated the price difference for insurance in northern Australian – with one insurer on average charging renewing customers 15-20% more than new customers.
In Britain, regulators have calculated that customers are, by their fifth renewal, paying about 70% more than a new customer. The Competition and Markets Authority estimates the total cost of loyalty taxes in five British markets – mortgage, savings, home insurance, mobile phone contracts and broadband – to be about £4 billion (about A$7 billion) a year.
Translating this British estimate to the equivalent sectors in Australia (taking into account differences in population and GDP), the cost to consumers could be as high as A$3.6 billion, or at least $140 a year per person. This estimate does not include the energy sector, where evidence suggests the practice of charging longstanding customers more is rife.
Deceptive practice
Discounting to win new customers is not fair if the costs of that discount are passed on to longstanding customers. It discriminates against people who do not or cannot easily switch to another supplier. Vulnerable consumers – elderly consumers, those on low incomes, low education, or those with a disability – are disproportionately affected.
Complicated pricing structures often make it hard for consumers to compare quotes to see if one deal is better than another.
Consumer awareness of the loyalty tax appears to be low. It’s quite possible they may not be aware they are paying more each year. Companies can get away with making large price increases over successive renewals with little fear a customer will switch.
This practice is deceptive and falls short of community expectations. Greater respect for loyal customers is something the Hayne Royal Commission said financial institutions should have better regard for.
In NSW, in my role as Insurance Monitor, I introduced a requirement that insurers must display last year’s premium on the renewal notices to policyholders. The information is provided in a similar way as it is on a domestic water bill. It’s now a mandatory requirement in NSW, coming into effect this month.
But the good news is that all of the major insurers have decided to make the change nationally.
Ensuring customers can see just how much their bill has gone up since last year is a significant reform – one I have been pushing over the past five years, since I was involved in monitoring the pricing of insurance in the context of an insurance levy reform in Victoria.
Information empowers consumers. It puts pressure on insurers to justify any increases.
If you are not happy with the increase, or the explanation for it, you should shop around and reassess your options.
You will need to get a couple of quotes. Our research shows major variations in insurance quotes for identical homes with identical risks. Every quarter we seek quotes for a specified home with identical risk, and the highest quotes are up to 2.7 times that of the cheapest.
More can be done
The insurance market is in many respects like other sectors. While there are lots of brands to choose from, the market is highly concentrated and not particularly competitive. Like the banking industry, there are just four major players.
The larger problem, however, is on the demand side. Consumers are generally not well informed. The complexity of products and the large amount of fine print in contracts makes it hard for customers to tell if they are getting a fair deal. Once they’ve made a choice, most will not think about switching, because it’s time-consuming, costly and inconvenient.
I hope this reform will help increase awareness of what consumers are paying – and not just for insurance. I encourage governments and policymakers around Australia to support and continue with reforms aimed at better disclosure for consumers. NSW has taken a small step. But much more can be done.
During the conference The Conversation will publish a selection of pieces written by the authors of papers to be delivered at the conference.
More than in many countries, in Australia home ownership has traditionally been seen as a journey, with most of us aspiring to own a home and pay down a mortgage by the time we retire.
Because it’s been seen as a one-way street, we have tended to worry most about the first big transition: moving from renting to getting a mortgage, assuming that afterwards things will be okay. But things are becoming more complicated.
The charts below are built from microdata from the Bureau of Statistics survey of income and housing. Each shows the changing housing profiles of Australians in a particular age group between 1990 and 2015.
The bars show – from left to right – the share of Australians who are renting, have large mortgage debt, moderate mortgage debt, low mortgage debt; and have become outright owners, both in 1990 and 2015.
In each age group there is more renting and less ownership than there used to be.
And among owners, there is much less outright ownership and much more high debt than there used to be, exposing more of them to the risk of losing their homes.
Indeed, data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics survey shows that in the first decade of this century alone, nearly 2 million people left home ownership and returned to renting.
These “leavers” represent one fifth of all home owners in the decade.
But this wasn’t a one-way street either. Of those who lost their home, nearly two-thirds regained home ownership later in the decade. Astonishingly, 7% of these “churners” moved in and out of home ownership more than once.
Who’s leaving, who’s churning?
The edges of home ownership are becoming permeable, in an especially Australian way. Leavers and churners are more common in Australia than in Britain, a country which on the surface has a similar high home ownership rate and a well-developed mortgage market.
Those who are able to find rent-free housing, say from parents, find it easier to save for a deposit to get them back into home ownership.
Some are able to directly access the “bank of mum and dad”. It is a leg up only available to those with wealthy and willing parents, accentuating the socio-economic divide between owners and renters.
What will have to change?
There are at least three important implications.
First, debt-free home ownership in old age can no longer be regarded as the norm; instead, mortgage stress in old age will become more common as churners take on more debt later in order to regain home ownership.
This raises complex questions around how ageing mortgage holders will manage retirement strategies, superannuation payouts and spending to cope with mortgages that aren’t extinguished.
Second, lifelong renting will become more common. This means governments will need to prepare for an upsurge in spending on housing assistance and pressure for legislation to provide greater security of tenure for private renters.
Evidence suggests mortgage indebtedness depresses wellbeing. On the other hand, people who have abandoned their mortgage experience a notable rebound in wellbeing, especially if they get secure rental tenure.
Finally, governments cannot just focus on programs that help first home buyers, such as the First Home Loan Deposit Scheme announced during the election. They will need to design programs that help prevent people from dropping out and help former owners get back.
The growing twilight zone between being an owner and being being a renter is largely unrecognised in the political imagination.
During the conference The Conversation will publish a selection of pieces written by the authors of papers to be delivered at the conference.
Since the surprise re-election of the Coalition, there has been renewed debate about the role the “aspirational” Australian played in the final outcome. The debate is taking place against the backdrop where income inequality has been growing in most developed countries over the past half-, including in Australia.
Bureau of Statistics figures released on Friday show that the wealth of Australia’s wealthiest households has grown much faster than the wealth of the rest.
Household net worth by quintile (top fifth to bottom fifth)
AUD millions, top quintile is the wealthiest 20% of households.ABS 6523.0
Over the course of the 20th century, income equality has been U-shaped, a point noted by French economist Thomas Piketty and Australia’s Productivity Commission.
In Australia, the income share of the top 1 per cent peaked at 14% in 1950, then fell to a low of 5% in the early 1980s before climbing again to 9% by 2015.
Wealth inequality has also followed a long term U-pattern, and in many countries wealth is even more concentrated than income.
The Productivity Commission finds that in Australia, a person at in the top 10% of wealth distribution has 40 times as much wealth as a person in the bottom 10%. That person has four times as much income.
Income shares of the top 1%, by country
Per cent of unequivalised gross taxable income earned by the top 1% of adult income earners, 1913 to 2013.Productivity Commission, 2018
In a paper to be presented to the Australian Conference of Economists in Melbourne on Tuesday, my colleague Monica Jurin and I shed light on wealth inequality over the past three decades through the lens of Australia’s super rich – the richest 200 households and families.
Based on the Rich List, compiled by the Business Review Weekly since the 1980s, and now updated annually by the Australian Financial Review, we examine the importance of inherited wealth versus entrepreneurship among Australia’s super rich.
The Rich List confirms the rise in wealth inequality. In 2019, the richest 200 families accounted for 3.6% of the aggregate net worth of all Australian families, up significantly from 2.3% in 1989.
But the importance of inherited wealth appears to have diminished.
Those with inherited wealth and family businesses today make up one-third of the super rich, well below 43% in 1989, with a gradual decline over each of the past three decades. Inherited wealth by itself accounts for 37% of the Rich List’s net worth today, well below 55% in 1989.
Today, the technology sector accounts for almost 8% of the Rich List’s net worth, compared to almost none in 1989.
The results seem somewhat less egalitarian when we examine whether those on the list have appeared on it before.
They’ve more persistence, less inheritance
For instance Frank Lowy, co-founder of Westfield, is considered to be self made. But once on the list, he remained on in each of the four decades we examined.
Whatever the sources of one’s entry to the Rich List, members like Mr Lowy provide evidence of persistence. Conditional on being on the list a decade earlier, members have a slightly higher probability of remaining on it than they did in 1999, controlling for death and other factors.
They find that inherited wealth has become less important and being college educated has become more important.
In Australia we find that a substantially higher share of the richest individuals are tertiary qualified today than they were in 1989, but we are reluctant to draw strong conclusions because the entire society has greater access to tertiary education than it did in 1989.
The super rich have occupied a unique place in modern Australian culture since the emergence of conspicuous entrepreneurs and the emergence of the Rich List in the 1980s.
They are changing, and probably in a good way, even as inequality is growing.
Algebra, alchemy, artichoke, alcohol, and apricot all derive from Arabic words which came to the West during the age of Crusades.
Even more fundamental are the Indo-Arabic numerals (0-9), which replaced Roman numerals during the same period and revolutionised our capacity to engage in science and trade. This came about through Latin discovery of the ninth-century Persian scholar, Al-Khwarizmi (whose name gives us the word algorithm).
This debt to Islamic civilisation contradicts the claim put forward by political scientist Samuel Huntington in his book The Clash of Civilizations some 25 years ago, that Islam and the West have always been diametrically opposed. In 2004, historian Richard Bulliet proposed an alternative perspective. He argued civilisation is a continuing conversation and exchange, rather than a uniquely Western phenomenon.
Even so, Australia and the West still struggle to acknowledge the contributions of Islamic cultures (whether Arabic speaking, Persian, Ottoman or others) to civilisation.
In an initial curriculum proposed by the Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation, only one Islamic text was listed, a collection of often-humorous stories about the Crusades from a 12th-century Syrian aristocrat. But Islamic majority cultures have produced many other texts with a greater claim to shaping civilisation.
Many of the scientific ideas and luxury goods from this world came into the West following the peaceful capture of the Spanish city of Toledo from its Moorish rulers in 1085.
Over the course of the next century, scholars, often in collaboration with Arabic-speaking Jews, became aware of the intellectual legacy of Islamic culture preserved in the libraries of Toledo.
Their focus was not on Islam, but the philosophy and science in which many great Islamic thinkers had become engaged. One was Ibn Sina (also known as Avicenna), a Persian physician and polymath (a very knowledgable generalist) who combined practical medical learning with a philosophical synthesis of key ideas from both Plato and Aristotle.
Portrait of Ibn Sina (Avicenna) on a silver vase from Museum at BuAli Sina (Avicenna) Mausoleum, Hamadan, Western Ira.Adam Jones/Wikmedia, CC BY-SA
Another was Ibn Rushd (or Averroes), an Andalusian physician and polymath, whose criticisms of the way Ibn Sina interpreted Aristotle would have a major impact on Italian theologist and philosopher Thomas Aquinas in shaping both his philosophical and theological ideas in the 13th century. Thomas was also indebted to a compatriot of Ibn Rushd, the Jewish thinker Moses Maimonides, whose Guide to the Perplexed was translated from Arabic into Latin in the 1230s.
While there is debate about the extent to which the Italian writer Dante was exposed to Islamic influences, it is very likely he knew The Book of Mohammed’s Ladder (translated into Castilian, French and Latin), which describes the Prophet’s ascent to heaven. The Divine Comedy, with its account of Dante’s imagined journey from Inferno to Paradise, was following in this tradition.
Dante very likely heard lectures from Riccoldo da Monte di Monte Croce, a learned Dominican who spent many years studying Arabic in Baghdad before returning to Florence around 1300 and writing about his travels in the lands of Islam. Dante may have criticised Muslim teaching, but he was aware of its vast influence.
Domenico di Michelino, Dante and the Divine comedy, fresco, 1465. Dante is thought to have been influenced by Islamic cultures.Wikimedia Commons
Islam also gave us the quintessential image of the Enlightenment, the self-taught philosopher. This character had his origins in an Arabic novel, Hayy ibn Yaqzan, penned by a 12th-century Arab intellectual, Ibn Tufayl. It tells the story of how a feral child abandoned on a desert island comes through reason alone to a vision of reality.
Hayy ibn Yaqzan was published in Oxford, with an Arabic-Latin edition in 1671, and became a catalyst for the contributions of seminal European philosophers including John Locke and Robert Boyle. Translated into English in 1708 as The Improvement of Human Reason, it also influenced novelists, beginning with Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe in 1719. The sources of the Enlightenment are not simply in Greece and Rome.
Civilisation is always being reinvented. The civilisation some call “Western” has been, and still is, continually shaped by a wide range of political, literary and intellectual influences, all worthy of our attention.
But what about a sense of touch? This is easier said than done and there are limitations to some of the current methods being looked at, but we’re developing a new technique that can overcome some of those problems.
For humans, touch plays a vital role when we move our bodies. Touch, combined with sight, is crucial for tasks such as picking up objects – hard or soft, light or heavy, warm or cold – without damaging them.
In the field of robotic manipulation, in which a robot hand or gripper has to pick up an object, adding the sense of touch could remove uncertainties in dealing with soft, fragile and deformable objects.
Quantifying touch in engineering terms not only requires the precise knowledge of the amount of external force applied to a touch sensor, but you also need to know the force’s exact position, its angle, and how it will interact with the object being manipulated.
Then there is the question about how many of these sensors a robot would need. Developing a robot skin that could contain hundreds or even thousands of touch sensors is a challenging engineering task.
But a significant barrier for the development of smart skin is the electronics required.
Human skin has a multitude of sensors.
Everyday force and touch measurement
The sense of touch is generally measured by a sensor that can translate pressure into a small electrical signal. When you use a digital scale to weigh yourself or measure out ingredients in your kitchen, the scales are probably using a piezoelectric transducer.
This is a device that turns a force into electricity. The tiny electrical current from the transducer is then run through wires to a small microchip that reads the strength of the current, converts that into a meaningful weight measurement, and displays it on a screen.
Despite being able to sense different levels of force, these electronic devices have several limitations that make then impractical for smart skin. In particular, they have a relatively slow response time to the force.
There are other types of touch sensors based on a material changing its other electric characteristics, such as capacitance or resistance. Your mobile phone screen may have this technology built in, and if you use a trackpad on your computer it will certainly use touch sensors.
There has been great progress in recent years in making touch sensors that can be embedded into soft and flexible materials. This is exactly what we need for smart skin.
But many of these developments completely fail (due to the sensing type) in the presence of moisture. (Have you ever tried a wet finger on your smart phone’s touch screen?)
Water and some types of touch sensing technology do not mix.
Medical applications are now a main driver behind the demand for flexible and robust force sensing. For example, smart skin could be used to restore sensory feedback to patients with skin damage or peripheral neuropathy (numbness or tingling). It could also be used to give prosthetic hands basic touch-sensing ability.
Recently, researchers from MIT and Harvard have developed a scalable tactile glove and combined it with artificial intelligence. Sensors uniformly distributed over the hand can be used to identify individual objects, estimate their weight, and explore the typical tactile patterns that emerge while grasping them.
The researchers created a glove with 548 sensors assembled on a knitted fabric containing a piezoresistive film (which also reacts to pressure or strain) connected by a network of conductive thread electrodes.
This is the first successful attempt at recording such signals at large scale, revealing important insights that can be used in future design of prosthetics and robot grasping tools.
But just like almost all other touch interfaces that are designed with capacitive, resistive or piezoelectric techniques, this tactile technology does not work well with wet fingers or underwater.
OLED technology is normally found in television and smartphone screens. Our approach to measuring the sense of touch is based on optical force sensing.
The OLED elements (called diodes or pixels) are actually fully reversible. This means that as well as being able to produce light (like in a TV screen), these pixels can also detect light.
Using this principle we can manufacture a tiny, opaque, flexible dome with a reflective coating that is placed above some OLED pixels. Light emitted from the central pixel is uniformly distributed across all other pixels under the dome if the dome is not disturbed.
A single touch element made up of a dome over some OLED pixels. Top, when nothing touches the dome an equal amount of light reflects from the light emitting pixel B, to the light detecting pixels A and C. Bottom, when something touches the dome, it is deformed and the amount of reflected light changes between pixels A and C.Ajay Pandey, Author provided
But if the dome is pressed – by touching something – it will deform, resulting in an unequal response from the pixels being used to detect the reflected light. Combining the responses from dozens of these domes in the area of contact it will be possible to estimate the force being applied.
This approach is a significant step towards simplifying the smart skin layout for large area applications and we hope that we will soon see robots that can have full body sensing in the air, when wet or even underwater.
A report released last week showed quality preschool would deliver a two-for-one return on investment for Australia: that is, for every dollar governments invest in preschool, two dollars will be returned to the economy.
Commissioned by early childhood research organisation the Front Project, and conducted by data analysts PwC, the analysis looked at the impact of Australia’s current system, which provides 15 hours a week of early childhood education in the year before school.
The report is the first comprehensive Australian analysis of the economic impact of early childhood education. It adds a uniquely Australian perspective to the international evidence base about the benefits of investing in preschool.
Research on return on investment in early learning became prominent in the mid-2000s, and drove a global reform agenda to invest more in early childhood education and care. US economist James Heckman has since famously found high-quality support for early learning can deliver US$13 for every dollar spent over a lifetime.
But the promised returns on investment in preschool won’t just happen. They depend on a complex chain of events, from preschool through to adulthood, involving the child and their family.
The chain of events
Here’s what needs to happen for an Australian child, and the Australian economy, to reap the two-for-one return.
First, the child must have access to a preschool in their local area, and a family willing and able to enrol them. Their family must also be able to transport them to and from the preschool each day.
The economic benefits increase if the adults in the family decide to increase their hours of paid work while the child attends preschool. This depends on meaningful work being available for parents, which would fit with the availability of the preschool program.
Second, the preschool must be of high-enough quality to make a difference to the child’s learning and development. International studies emphasise benefits are most likely to be delivered by quality preschools – low-quality preschools will not have the same impact.
Quality preschools run play-based learning programs in which children are encouraged to discover and explore. These play experiences provide opportunities for children to develop essential skills such as co-operation, concentration, problem-solving and self-control.
Third, if the preschool gets the child off to a good start, then the school system must also be of sufficient quality to sustain the gains in their learning. This is easiest if the child lives in a family where there is strong support for learning, but harder to sustain when home support is limited.
Fourth, if the child can sustain their learning advantage, the next set of economic benefits are delivered through their participation in tertiary education. To realise this benefit, there needs to be a place for them in university, or in quality vocational education and training.
And finally, the full set of economic benefits are delivered when that child (now a young adult) takes their tertiary qualification into the labour market. For these benefits to be realised, there needs to be a healthy supply of jobs for tertiary graduates for which the young adult is well-prepared.
Every weak link in this chain reduces the overall economic gains. A quick scan of the Australian policy environment shows some clear opportunities for the chain to be strengthened.
Any weak link in the chain threatens the opportunity for a full return on investment.from shutterstock.com
Of the early childhood services that provide preschool, 7% of stand-alone preschools and 21% of long day care services don’t yet meet the National Quality Standard.
Australia’s schools deliver unequal benefits for learners from different backgrounds. The widening gap between wealthier and poorer children suggests schools aren’t sufficiently equipped to support children who need extra support to sustain their learning.
Overall participation rates in tertiary education are projected to decline under current policy settings. If we produce more great learners at earlier stages of learning, there need to be tertiary places for them.
Even with weak links in the chain, investment in preschool can still deliver returns. The Front Project report tests a number of versions of its economic modelling and finds preschool is still a worthwhile investment, even under less optimistic scenarios about its long-term effects.
Investment in early learning is not just about economic returns. At the centre of each scenario is a child who has a right to receive support from the government to help them learn and thrive.
Governments willingly invest in school education, recognising the right to education means they have an obligation to their youngest citizens. Yet government investment in early childhood education in Australia still seems to depend heavily on economic arguments.
While these arguments may be important for engaging policy-makers with their eye on the budget, there are other compelling reasons to provide Australian children with quality early learning.
Treasurer Josh Frydenberg has cut deeming rate for large investments from 3.25% to 3%, and for smaller ones from 1.75% all the way down to 1%, backdated to the start of July.
But exactly is a deeming rate, and why does it matter so much to about one million Australians on benefits, among them around about 630,000 age pensioners?
It’s a topic I covered in The Conversation mid last week in an explainer that went all the way back to the beginning, or at least the most recent beginning, when treasurer Paul Keating brought deeming rates back to Australia’s benefits system in 1991.
Before that, applicants for the pension were able to pass income tests by ensuring that their assets didn’t earn much income, a service banks and other institutions were happy to provide for them.
From 1991, on applicants for the age pension (and later other benefits) were “deemed” to have earned from their financial assets amounts set by the government, whatever they actually earned.
Of late, deeming rates haven’t kept up
For most of the past two decades both the high deeming rate (which at the moment applies to financial assets in excess of A$51,800 for singles and $86,200 for couples) and also the low deeming rate (for lesser assets) have been below the Reserve Bank’s cash rate, benefiting applicants who could earn more than those low rates while continuing to get benefits.
Deeming rates versus RBA cash rate, July 1996 – July 2019, per cent
Then, beginning with prime minister Kevin Rudd (who, to be fair to him, in 2019 delivered the biggest ever increase in the pension – $100 a fortnight for singles and $76 for couples) and continuing under his successors Gillard, Abbott, Turnbull and Morrision, the government adjusted the deeming rate more slowly, meaning that as the Reserve Bank’s cash rate fell, both the high and low deeming rates ended up above it.
The new deeming rates: 3% and 1%
The decisions announced by Frydenberg on Sunday go a long way to putting things right.
The lower deeming rate will once more be close to the cash rate (exactly at the cash rate, for as long as the cash rate stays at 1%). The higher deeming rate will not be, but then it probably shouldn’t be.
The higher rate applies to the return on financial assets (including shares) worth more than $51,800. As Frydenberg pointed out on Sunday, many of those assets return much more, not much less, than the deeming rate:
It could apply to superannuation returns, and that’s averaging around 5.5%. Or to yields on ASX 200 stocks, which are averaging about 4.5%
The low deeming rate is on the face of it unfair, because few bank deposits pay 1%. The special retirees accounts offered by ANZ and the Commonwealth pay 0.25%. Many deposit accounts pay nothing.
But the low rate applies to financial assets all the way up to $51,800 ($86,200 for couples), and to all types of assets. Many pension applicants are likely to earn a total return on those assets well above 1%.
Deeming is by design, rough and ready. There will always be complaints, and of late those complaints had force. They are now back broadly where they should be.
By Jigger J. Jerusalem in Cagayan De Oro, Mindanao, Philippines
In the wake of an attack against a hard-hitting Filipino broadcaster in Kidapawan City – the 14th media practitioner to be killed during the administration of President Rodrigo Duterte – the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) is holding a forum in Cagayan De Oro this weekend to discuss the safety of journalists in Mindanao.
Pamela Jay Orias, chair of NUJP’s Cagayan de Oro chapter, said the forum gathered the union’s key officers throughout Mindanao to discuss the current state of media safety and security in the region.
Orias described the present situation as “alarming and the atmosphere no longer secure for journalists working in Mindanao”.
On Wednesday night, Kidapawan City broadcaster Eduardo Dizon was gunned down while driving home.
Prior to the shooting, Dizon had received threats to his life.
-Partners-
The continuing attack against journalists in the country since the end of the Marcos dictatorship in 1986 has left a bad mark on its democratic credentials.
Adding to the muddled scene is the continued imposition of martial law throughout Mindanao, Orias explained.
The forum, Orias said, hoped to provide “a much-needed venue for journalists to bring these issues and discuss them with colleagues” in the spirit of sharing approaches and techniques in handling similar situations.
The NUJP, according to Orias, has kept reminding journalists of the utmost importance of safety “in doing coverage, especially in conflict areas, or when tackling sensitive topics”.
“As they say, ‘no story is worth dying for,’” Orias said.
Report by Dr David Robie – Café Pacific. – The new video produced by Blessen Tom and Sri Krishnamurthi for AUT’s Pacific Media Centre.
By Sri Krishnamurthi
“It’s a bit of a lighthouse” for vital regional news and information, says former contributing editor Alex Perrottet summing up the value of the Pacific Media Centre’s Pacific Media Watch freedom project for New Zealand and Pacific journalism.
The Radio New Zealand journalist is among seven international media people involved in the 23-year-old project featured in a new video released this week.
Pacific Media Watch – The Genesis is a 15-minute mini documentary telling the story of the project launched by two journalists at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) and the University of Papua New Guinea (UPNG) in 1996 and adopted by Auckland University of Technology’s Pacific Media Centre in 2007.
Pacific Media Watch has become a challenging professional development opportunity for AUT postgraduate students seeking to develop specialist skills in Asia-Pacific journalism.
It is was launched by Professor David Robie, then head of the UPNG journalism programme in Port Moresby and Peter Cronau, editor of Reportage investigative magazine at UTS.
Now Dr Robie is director of the Auckland-based PMC and Cronau is an award-winning senior producer of the ABC’s flagship Four Corners investigative journalism programme.
Video producers, Blessen Tom of TVNZ’s Fair Go, and Sri
Krishnamurthi of the Pacific Media Centre. Image: PMC
The ‘Tongan three’
The catalyst for Pacific Media Watch was the jailing of the “Tongan Three” – founding editor of Taimi ‘o Tonga Kalafi Moala, his deputy Filokalafi Akau’ola, and pro-democracy MP ‘Akilisi Pohiva, now Prime Minister of Tonga – for contempt of Parliament in 1996.
Dr Robie and Cronau could not sit back and allow this happen – the second major attack on media freedom in the Pacific after Fiji was thrown into turmoil with the first coup in 1987.
“The Tongan Three was really how we got started,” recalls Dr Robie about their response to the unprecedented and “outrageous” 30-day jailing sentence imposed on the trio at the time.
Peter Cronau says: “The case of the three was just a shock and it was a rallying point.”
Since then Pacific Media Watch has grown to become a reliable media outlet based on professional development for student journalists but it also has a network of contributing media and academic correspondents around the region.
Many events
The PMW has covered many events in the Pacific including tsunamis, Fiji peacekeepers being taken hostage in the Golan Heights, beatings and torture of a prisoner by the security forces in Fiji, two Fiji general elections, the New Caledonian independence referendum and – most recently – the massacre of 51 Muslims at two mosques in Christchurch and the impact on journalism.
Blessen Tom pushing a dolly for the Pacific Media
Watch documentary. Image: PMC
So far nine postgraduate student contributing editors and two reporters have been trained on the PMW project, and between them at least 11 awards have been won at the annual Ossie Awards for the cream of student journalism in Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific.
For Blessen Tom, who produced last year’s Bearing Witness climate change project short film Banabans of Rabi along with Hele Ikamotu, and I, producing this Pacific Media Watch programme was a deeply satisfying project.
We hope that through our six interviews and countless hours spent in the editing suite that we have made a fitting tribute to the work of David, Peter, Kalafi and all those who have made the Pacific Media Watch project what it is today.
Media freedom challenge
In London yesterday, the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and 31 other press freedom and media development agencies met in advance of the Global Media Freedom Conference.
They called on all nations taking part to ensure the protection and safety of all journalists and media workers in compliance with their existing obligations and international standards.
The group, representing and working with hundreds of thousands of journalists and media workers throughout the world, said new pledges would only be credible if countries immediately:
Release all imprisoned journalists;
Stop killing, attacking and denigrating journalists; and
Investigate and prosecute all murders of journalists.
The group demanded that all states hold themselves and their counterparts accountable and show demonstrable progress.
Several countries attending the conference have imprisoned journalists and unsolved murders.
Journalism is not a crime, which is why we must support Wikileaks founder Julian Assange in his battle against extradition to the United States, where he would be tried for offences under the Espionage Act.
On Wednesday last week, it was Assange’s birthday. His last seven birthdays were spent in Ecuador’s London embassy where he had sought refuge to prevent extradition. After UK police violently removed him from the embassy in April, he spent this year’s birthday in Belmarsh high-security prison.
In February, there will be a hearing to decide if Assange will be extradited to the United States. If convicted, he could spend the rest of his life in prison. Assange is literally in mortal danger.
He referred to a “relentless and unrestrained” campaign since Wikileaks started publishing evidence of war crimes and torture in 2010, to criminalise its investigative journalism in violation of both the US Constitution and international human rights law.”
Melzer said this campaign includes intimidation, defamation and an “endless stream of humiliating, debasing and threatening statements in the press and on social media, but also by senior political figures, and even by judicial magistrates.”
Support for media freedom – not based on who you like or don’t like Media freedom is very much in the news. Earlier this month, Australia’s most senior media bosses from the ABC, Newscorp and Nine fronted the National Press Club to argue for media law reforms that would strengthen the capacity of journalists to expose the truth.
This followed Federal Police raids on the ABC and the home of The Australian’s reporter Annika Smethurst.
Reform is badly needed. Giant messages of collective solidarity – Journalism is Not a Crime – were beamed across social media. Those messages of solidarity are not based on our opinion of the individual journalists nor the record of Smethurst’s employer Newcorp, which has bullied its critics and promoted climate denialism.
Those matters are irrelevant to our support when it comes to an issue of the freedom of journalists to publish in the public interest. Let’s remember this when we approach the terrible predicament of Assange.
Assange has been a member of the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance since 2007. In 2011, Assange won a Walkley Award for his “outstanding contribution”. The Walkley judges said that Wikileaks applied new technology to “penetrate the inner workings of government to reveal an avalanche of inconvenient truths in a global publishing coup”.
One of those many inconvenient truths was the exposure by video of US helicopter attacks in Baghdad that killed 11 civilians including two Reuters journalists. These are the very same acts of journalism that are now the basis of the US Espionage charges.
Much will turn in any US trial on whether First Amendment protection of free speech is offered to Assange as a journalist and publisher. The issue of his relationship to journalism could turn out to be critical.
Let’s consider the significance of his act of publication – an important test of journalism is whether the publication was in the public interest.
Nine years have passed since acts of journalism for which the US government wants to put him on trial. Younger Australians may not remember the massive furore caused by the publication in 2010 of the Collateral Murder videos. Thousands of other documents revealed secret manoeuvres by US, Australian and other politicians, and their mendacious public stances.
The impact of these publications needs to be remembered in the context of revelations that the US justification for the war on Iraq was based on fabricated US intelligence fed to uncritical politicians and journalists, including in Australia. The 2010 leak was a blow to the US security state not because anyone was harmed, but because it threatened public support and compliance for US foreign policy goals.
Chelsea (then Bradley) Manning was subsequently imprisoned and tortured for her role in releasing the files. She has currently been reimprisoned and is facing bankruptcy for refusing to testify in Grand Jury proceedings investigating Assange.
Back in 2010, US and Australian leaders threatened Assange with criminal action, the international community of journalists stood in solidarity with him. This is not to say that there were no detractors but to acknowledge an international groundswell of respect and support for Assange.
“It is unacceptable to try to deny people the right to know,” said Aidan White, general secretary of the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) that covers 600,000 journalists in scores in more than 140 countries. “These revelations may be embarrassing in their detail, but they also expose corruption and double-dealing in public life that’s worthy of public scrutiny.
“It’s untenable to allege, as some people have, that lives are being put at risk here. The only casualty here is the culture of secrecy that has for too long drawn a curtain around the unsavoury side of public life.”
In accepting a Walkley Award, leading journalist Laurie Oakes said he was ashamed of the Australian government’s hostile response and called on journalists to reject then PM Julia Gillard’s view that the Wikileaks publication was illegal. This was greeted with applause.
In 2012, the UK National Union of Journalists also acknowledged the “important contribution made by Julian Assange himself” and stated that “the type of journalism to which Wikileaks has made a significant contribution represents a real challenge to those governments, wherever they are, which rely on propaganda, torture, warfare and subversion to accomplish their political and economic aims.”.
In 2011, Assange was also awarded the Martha Gellhorn prize for brave reporting. This award is given for reporting that “a human story that penetrates the established version of events and illuminates an urgent issue buried by prevailing fashions of what makes news.”
The winner must tell an ” unpalatable truth, validated by powerful facts, that exposes establishment conduct and its propaganda …”.
Seven years on, we live in more conservative times. There is no denying that support from journalists this year has been muted, but it is worth noting that there are many journalists, filmmakers and other media workers among 200 people who wrote recently to Assange’s union – the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA) – calling on it to build its campaign in support of Assange.
The MEAA has written two strong letters seeking to meet with the government and opposing extradition. The union wrote, “the extradition of Assange and prosecution by the United States for what are widely considered to be acts of journalism would set a disturbing global precedent for the suppression of press freedom”.
US indictment criminalises journalistic inquiry
The International Federation of Journalists, representing more than 600,000 media professionals in more than 140 countries, recently passed an urgent motion at the request of the MEAA. It wrote in a statement, “… this indictment would criminalise journalistic inquiry by setting a dangerous precedent that can be abused to prosecute journalists for their role in revealing information in the public interest. By following this logic, anyone who publishes information that the US government deems to be classified could be prosecuted for espionage.”
The range of those supporting Assange is impressive. But there are also a few dissenting voices including Peter Greste, himself imprisoned in Egypt on journalistic freedom issues.
Shortly after Assange’s arrest, Greste published a piece in the Sydney Morning Herald, arguing that Wikileaks was not a news organisation. He argued that Assange simply “dumped” hundreds of thousands of documents onto his website, free for anybody to go through, regardless of their contents or the impact they might have had.”
Contacted by the author, Greste who is now a spokesperson for the newly formed Alliance for Journalists’ Freedom said that his board was “constantly reviewing the case, at this stage the AJF has not changed its position. We appreciate Julian’s awards and his membership of the MEAA, but for the time being, the AJF is standing by its current thinking.”
Experienced investigative journalist Andrew Fowler, who previously worked at Four Corners and has closely studied Wikileaks, strongly rejected Greste’s views. Respected retired SBS broadcaster Mary Kostakidos is also a strong supporter of Assange.
It is not correct to say that Wikileaks just dumped documents. Here, for example, is the introduction providing context for the publication of the Collateral Murder videos. (As far as I am aware the material providing at wikileaks.org is the same material as was there in 2011.)
Back in 2011, University of Technology Sydney (UTS) published a piece I wrote for World Press Freedom day on its website. It was also published by the Pacific Media Centre and on this blog. After pointing out that Wikileaks described itself as a media organisation, I wrote: “According to its website, the criteria WikiLeaks applies in deciding whether to publish leaks are these: that the information has not previously been revealed; that it was previously restricted, censored or otherwise withheld from the public; and the information is of political, diplomatic, ethical or historical significance.
“WikiLeaks also has a practice of querying issues about the veracity of information …The real issue is the openness of governments and whether they are actively misleading the citizens of their own and other countries. What is at stake are the boundaries of secrecy and whether citizens have a right to know what governments and large corporations are doing.”
Journalists will disagree about where those boundaries. There will be differences between journalists about how far deletions of names in leaked documents should go and whether documents on which stories rely should be published in full. Wikileaks’ focus on publishing documents to enable transparency influenced other news organisation. What is routine today was still unusual in 2010.
It has been acknowledged by the US State Department that no sources were found to have been harmed by the 2010 document publications. In any case, the 2010 documents had already been seen by hundreds of thousands of people. What we can say is that Wikileaks has a very strong record in publishing genuine documents and protecting hits own sources. That is the job of a journalist.
There is no space here to review all the accusations against Wikileaks. The opponents who constantly trivialised the threat from a US grand jury were wrong.
Given the campaign to denigrate his character, the least we can say is that personal allegations against him need to be validated by evidence, and there is much debate about their veracity.
Accusations of sexual misconduct I will just say this on the matter of sexual assault allegations against Assange. As a feminist, I absolutely support the right of all women to make complaints and not to be abused or denigrated for doing so. There is now only one woman whose matter is an ongoing issue. There is no doubt that her statement raises suspicion that Assange had unprotected sex with her without consent.
But it equally true that Assange has provided evidence in the form of a statement that provides a different account consistent with his innocence. He waited years before being given the opportunity to do that. He has not been charged and deserves to be afforded natural justice – certainly, his guilt should not be asserted. It is no criticism of the woman to argue that the Swedish prosecutors have behaved inconsistently.
There is evidence that they have been pushed by UK authorities. (For those who want to read more about this topic, Professor Melzer published this considered response to some critics of his statements two days ago. He has found that in the Swedish case, “the responsible authorities have deliberately abused Swedish law, procedures and institutions for the purposes of persecuting Assange…”.)
This case cannot currently be resolved.
My support for Assange is not based on an issue of whether he is a good person or whether everything he has ever published was based on sound decision-making. I do not know him. This is about whether journalists who publish information in the public interest are criminals.
It is time to focus on the substance of the US Espionage charges. which place him in grave danger. We must hope that Assange does not spend his next birthday in a US prison. If we fail, other journalists who are not compliant with the goals of governments will be exposed to ever increasing risks.
Here is a link to a video of a speech I gave at a NSW Greens forum on Wikileaks in 2010.
Wendy Bacon is a Sydney investigative journalist and retired journalism professor. She is on the advisory board of the Pacific Media Centre and Frontline editor of Pacific Journalism Review. This is an edited version of an article by her published by Altmedia last week. It was also the basis for a speech I gave at a vigil in support of Julian Assange.
Michelle Grattan talks with University of Canberra Vice-Chancellor Professor Deep Saini about the government’s proposal to put a referendum this term to recognise Indigenous Australians in the Constitution. They discuss whether Indigenous leaders are likely to make the concession to not include the Voice in the Constitution, and the chances of reaching a bipartisan agreement on the referendum question itself. They also canvass the ongoing John Setka saga.
Sign up to the Beating Around the Bush newsletter here, and suggest a plant we should cover at batb@theconversation.edu.au.
River red gums, Eucalyptus camaldulensis, are among the most iconic of Australia’s eucalypts. They are the most widely distributed of all the eucalypts. They grow along rivers, creeks, waterways and flood plains where many Australians like to picnic, so most of us get to know and love them.
Formerly known as Eucalyptus rostrata, the species was one of the first eucalypts encountered in parts of Australia by European settlers. Curiously, the name camaldulensis comes from the Italian monastery of Camaldoli near Naples, where a specimen grown from seed in a private garden was given the name Eucalyptus camaldulensis in 1832. No one knows how the seed got to be there!
The Conversation
River red gums can be very large spreading trees with huge trunks more than 5 metres around. In parts of Australia, such as along the Murray River, they can be very erect trees reaching more than 45m tall.
Most specimens have smooth bark with a mottling of multiple colours ranging from creams to orange and red, but there may be a skirt of fibrous grey bark for the first few metres of the base. They are called river red gums because they grow along rivers and their wood when freshly exposed is a bright red; almost blood-coloured.
River red gums have been used by Indigenous people for canoes, bowls, shields, and other utensils. The wood is red is because it contains very high levels of chemicals such as polyphenols, which are a natural antiobiotic when combined with air.
These chemicals not only protect the living tree from disease and some pest attacks, but make the timber very durable. These chemicals meant river red gums were used for medicinal purposes by Indigenous people. The wood has been widely used for railway sleepers, fence posts, and piers and wharfs where durability and water resistance are desirable. They have been widely planted overseas and in some countries pose a serious weed problem.
The trees can have very long lives, and may reach 1,000 years of age. They grow very rapidly when conditions are favourable and so become large trees quite quickly. But as they get older it is very difficult to age them without damaging the tree and putting it at risk of disease and decay. So their ages are estimated, as no one wants to be responsible for killing a grand old tree just to confirm its age!
Older specimens almost always develop large hollows, which can take centuries to form. The hollows provide refuges for birds, mammals and reptiles. The nesting sites are often raucously defended by brightly coloured parrots. The trees and the nectar from their small white flowers are also very important for honey production – a large tree in full flower over the warmer months can attract so many bees that the whole tree can be heard humming from many metres away; it’s a wonder the tree doesn’t take off.
At certain times of the year, often during summer, river reds can be very heavily grazed by insects to the point where their leaves are skeletonised. The trees look as though they are about to die, but they are very resilient and a few months later most are back to a full and healthy canopy. Another insect, the psyllid, also feeds on and skeletonises the leaves. It has a sweet, waxy covering called a lerp that protects the vulnerable insect nymphs beneath. Some Indigenous groups scrape off the lerps, roll them into a ball, and eat them like a lolly.
Surviving floods and driving rain
Any tree that can live for a millennium must be adaptable, so like some other eucalypt species, river red gums can shed up to two-thirds of their foliage when soils dry out during a drought, which reduces water demand and prevents the trees from wilting. This shedding often causes people to complain about the trees when they grow in towns and cities, but when the rains come a few months later they rapidly produce new leaves and are soon once again in full canopy.
River red gums can tolerate immersion in flood waters for up to nine months. They do this by having extensive roots, some of which contain a spongy, air-filled tissue called aerenchyma that allows for the accumulation and transport of much-needed oxygen in waterlogged soils. This adaptation to stressed soils also means river red gums can do quite well in disturbed urban soils when the urban sprawl impinges on their natural domain.
River red gums readily seed after flooding events and great numbers of young trees may germinate. However, relatively few survive to maturity due to competition from other red gums, other trees, and weeds. They may also struggle to survive in some places due to a lack of water.
Because river reds occur in some of the driest and harshest parts of the Australian mainland, you might think they are very efficient users of water. However, nothing could be further from the truth. The trees can have very deep, spreading and searching root systems, which tap into subterranean water, even if the water is many metres from the trunk. They are luxury water users with very little capacity for water use control. If water becomes really limiting, they simply wilt.
Territorial trees
E. camaldulensis produces a water-soluble chemical that is washed from its leaves by rain. These chemicals inhibit the growth of other plants, including river red gum seedlings, under the canopy. This phenomenon is called allelopathy, and along with a dense canopy inhibits plant growth under the trees. These chemicals are washed from the soil by flood water, which makes way for the germination of seedlings after floods. This is a wonderful mechanism that ensures seedlings do not germinate when conditions are dry and where they would compete with the parent tree for limited water, but germination is facilitated when there is plenty of water and soils are wet.
River red gums clear out the ground around them with toxic chemicals that discourage the growth of competitors.allelopathy/Flickr, CC BY-NC-SA
Some people think river red gums are dangerous because they shed large limbs without warning on calm, still, summer days. There is no doubt this does happen, but there is no clear evidence they shed limbs more often than other species.
The problem is complex, because they tend to grow everywhere people want to go. They provide shade along waterways on a hot, dry continent. In going to places where the trees grow, people tend to compact the soil with their vehicles and footpaths, which can be causes of limb shedding. The compaction of the soil affects soil moisture and aeration, which can lead to limb shedding.
In other contexts such as farms where limbs are shed, many old river red gums are growing in highly disturbed or changed ecosystems. Furthermore, many of these remnant specimens are often stressed and getting older and so more prone to shedding.
River red gums trace the watercourses of mainland Australia, and are easily seen from aeroplanes as you cross the continent. They connect the continental fringes with its arid heart. Their lives can span many human generations and it is nice to think that the majestic old trees that pull at our heartstrings have done the same to previous generations and, if we and they are lucky, will continue to do so for generations of Australians yet to come.
The proposed ban on some textured breast implants announced by the Australian pharmaceuticals and medical devices regulator earlier this week tells us something very disquieting about the effectiveness of consumer protection.
It will not reassure women living with breast implants concerned about their risk of cancer, or anyone else with an implantable medical device regulated by the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA).
It also exposes inadequacies in the regulatory system that have been apparent for years.
What’s new?
The proposed ban relates to the import and distribution of certain types of breast implants with a textured surface because of their well documented link with a rare type of cancer known as anaplastic large cell lymphoma. The proposal is unsurprising given bans in Europe.
But Australia’s proposal comes after months of criticism by consumers, medical specialists and legal academics who wanted to see an earlier and and better-communicated ban.
The TGA also says it is seeking advice from Allergan, the manufacturer whose implants were the focus of restrictions in Europe.
Yet concerns about the safety of a succession of implants and the inadequacy of Australia’s regulatory responses are not new. Advice from Allergan should have been sought a year ago.
Here’s what we asked the TGA last year
In responding last year to our queries about implants, the TGA indicated that although importation of the textured implants had been stopped after the ban in France there were no restrictions on implanting those devices in Australia.
The TGA was unaware of how many implants were available for implantation. (Unawareness about what is on the shelf was also evident regarding pelvic mesh, a similar regulatory failure).
The TGA was not going to inform potential recipients of the implants, something that is at odds with its new-found recognition that patients are concerned about potential harms.
What we have now is a proposed rather than actual ban. It is driven by criticism rather than TGA initiative and does not provide much reassurance about the TGA’s capacity to prevent harms rather than slowly respond to harms.
What if you are living with these implants?
The proposal announced this week is restricted to import and distribution. It does not require removing all breast implants or all textured breast implants. It does however mean that people with the implants listed on the TGA website should be watchful.
The TGA lists the affected breast implants on its website, and says the risk of anaplastic large cell lymphoma associated with these is between 1-in-1,000 and 1-in-10,000.
Yet it’s likely many women will experience fear, alongside anger or bewilderment that the TGA has taken so long to act.
Some people will deal with that fear through preemptive surgery: removal of the implants after getting specialist advice. Costs will come out of their own pockets. Some will talk to lawyers.
What’s the legal issue?
Uniquely, consumers cannot sue the TGA if it gets things wrong. The TGA has a special exemption in its Act regarding civil litigation.
However, people who are injured by implanted medical devices can take manufacturers and medical specialists to court. Their challenge is to prove that the devices caused cancer or other injury.
Litigation in Australia with defective joint implants demonstrates that manufacturers have deep pockets and will be adversarial when it comes to class actions (litigation by groups of injured people) or individual victims. Litigation will often take years. Injury compensation will sometimes be inadequate.
That is one reason why better regulation is fundamental. We need to prevent the injury through timely action by government agencies rather than trying to fix a foreseeable serious harm via legal action once it has occurred (and hope victims have the strength to fight for their rights).
How engaged is the regulator?
The TGA is funded by the businesses it regulates. Like its counterpart the FDA in the United States, it is underfunded and demoralised. It views its mission through the eyes of those businesses, an example of regulatory capture. It has been the subject of numerous inquiries about its performance.
Regrettably, the TGA has been described as unresponsive. It is comfortable dealing with the businesses it is supposed to regulate. It is uncomfortable dealing with the public. It faces ongoing criticism about its apparent indifference. In response to such criticism it belatedly announced an action plan regarding oversight of devices. There hasn’t been much action.
In practice, meaningful regulation of devices is being left to investigativejournalists, academics with a specialisation in law and medicine, and consumer advocates. Neither the Coalition nor the ALP have wanted to grasp the TGA hot potato, but reform is necessary.
What is needed?
Our forthcoming research demonstrates the cost of running the TGA is dwarfed by the cost to patients, national productivity and the taxpayer of the TGA’s failures.
TGA legislation needs to be amended, in particular to ensure that the protection of consumers comes ahead of relations between the regulator and business. Independence of manufacturers is imperative. Adequate resourcing is essential. So is a cultural change within the TGA, including meaningful engagement with consumers rather than closed-door consultations with business.
Underpinning those changes we need a comprehensive database of implants and incidents, one readily accessible by epidemiologists.
We need trust in the health system and in gatekeepers such as the TGA. Anyone with an implant or considering an implant needs to know that the TGA will actively minimise harms rather than relying on assurances from businesses that have a vested interest in minimising disclosure. Good regulation involves more than a quiet life for regulators.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Larissa Christensen, Lecturer in Criminology & Justice | Co-leader of the Sexual Violence Research and Prevention Unit (SVRPU), University of the Sunshine Coast
Jeffrey Epstein, a powerfully connected American financier, is facing charges of sex trafficking, bringing underage girls as young as 14 years old into homes in various locations across the US.
He reportedly had a network of more than 50 victims, and evidence against him included hundreds of lewd photographs of girls and young women.
Accusations against high-profile people such as Epstein temporarily raise awareness of this significant human rights violation. But regardless of the outcome of this case, the ugly truth is this is just the tip of the iceberg.
Child sex trafficking is a critical issue affecting more than one million children worldwide, many of whom are left to suffer in silence.
Some consider human trafficking as the world’s fastest-growing crime. Worldwide, about 20% of trafficking victims are children, with up to 100% in some regions.
Sex trafficking is the most common form of human trafficking. Globally, an estimated 4.8 million people are forced into sexual exploitation.
And this industry produces $99 billion in profits a year for traffickers.
Who is targeted?
Most child trafficking victims are girls and often between the ages of 12 to 16. Although, when children under 12 are the victim, boys have been found to outnumber girls in some samples.
While trafficking often implies “transporting” across borders, trafficking can very often be a domestic matter with little to no transportation. For example, one study found more than 80% of sex trafficking incidents in the United States involved US citizens.
A child can become a victim of commercial sexual exploitation when they’re vulnerable, and some of the risk factors include: substance abuse, poverty, exposure to family violence or criminality, running away or told to leave home, abuse and neglect (including sexual victimisation), involvement in delinquency, poor mental health, and involvement in child protective services.
While these are some common risk factors, it’s important to note that there is no definitive set of risk factors – or single risk factor – that can determine whether a child will become a victim.
How are victims recruited?
Traffickers may recruit victims through “guerrilla pimping”. This involves aggression, threats and violence to engage and enslave the victim.
In other instances, recruitment through what appears to be kindness and compassion is shrouded in manipulation from food, money, shelter or drugs. This is referred to as “finesse pimping”. These exploited children, often victim to abuse and neglect in childhood, are promised shelter, love, and protection.
And some children might fall victim to “survival sex”, with no other option to attain food, money, shelter, or drugs. Such vulnerability places these children in high-risk situations where they may be manipulated and forced into exploitation.
Traffickers quite frequently use “recruiters” to identify vulnerable youth. While these recruiters might be other adults, victims themselves can eventually become involved in the recruitment. “Friends” may recruit peers into the commercial sex trafficking population through their social networks.
In fact, some research has found almost half were recruited by “friends” into the commercial exploitation industry as opposed to adults “preying” on susceptible youth. Recruitment to the industry by friends is particularly dangerous, as youth are less suspecting of their peers compared with adults.
In some instances, youth involved in sex trafficking will even be given financial incentives, to introduce their friends to the exploitation population. Epstein allegedly used this tactic, paying his victims to recruit other girls.
As a consequence, victims can suffer long-term physical, psychological, and even neurological trauma, which can continue for their whole lives.
And the impacts of the trauma can also affect others, including families and wider society.
Why can’t victims just leave?
Once recruited, it’s difficult to leave. Experts have drawn parallels between the theoretic constructs of human trafficking to that of intimate partner violence, in terms of power and control.
In particular, the victim may be isolated as well as controlled emotionally and physically. The victim can easily become entangled through such controlling techniques or even through “traumatic bonding”. This is where the victim has appreciation towards the trafficker for being able to live, coupled with entrenched fear.
In some instances, a victim recruited through “finesse pimping” might feel indebted and obliged to stay with the trafficker.
Other tactics to maintain control can include food deprivation or forced drugs. And older victims have reportedly been threatened that if they don’t cooperate, or if they don’t earn a certain sum of money that day, the victim’s child will be sold.
The ability to maintain total control over the victim may also be compounded by their vulnerability to manipulation (for example, by virtue of age), and potentially complicated by substance use problems, learning disabilities, and poor mental health.
With sex traffickers being strategic in their recruitment and ability to entangle the victim physically and psychologically, it’s not difficult to see how victims become entrapped.
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