Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Toby Walsh, Professor of AI at UNSW, Research Group Leader, UNSW Sydney

ChatGPT is the latest and most impressive artificially intelligent chatbot yet. It was released two weeks ago, and in just five days hit a million users. It’s being used so much that its servers have reached capacity several times.

OpenAI, the company that developed it, is already being discussed as a potential Google slayer. Why look up something on a search engine when ChatGPT can write a whole paragraph explaining the answer? (There’s even a Chrome extension that lets you do both, side by side.)

But what if we never know the secret sauce behind ChatGPT’s capabilities?

The chatbot takes advantage of a number of technical advances published in open scientific literature in the past couple of decades. But any innovations unique to it are secret. OpenAI could well be trying to build a technical and business moat to keep others out.

What it can (and can’t do)

ChatGPT is very capable. Want a haiku on chatbots? Sure.

Chatbots, oh so wise

Endlessly processing

Answers from the void.

How about a joke about chatbots? No problem.

Why did the chatbot cross the road?

To get to the other side – of your screen!

ChatGPT can do many other tricks. It can write computer code to a user’s specification, draft business letters or rental contracts, compose homework essays and even pass university exams.

Just as important is what ChatGPT can’t do. For instance, it struggles to distinguish between truth and falsehood. It is also often a persuasive liar.

What is the fastest marine mammal?

The fastest marine mammal is the sailfish.

The sailfish is not a mammal.

You are correct, the sailfish is not a mammal. I apologize for the mistake. The fastest marine mammal is the peregrine falcon.

ChatGPT is a bit like autocomplete on your phone. Your phone is trained on a dictionary of words so it completes words. ChatGPT is trained on pretty much all of the web, and can therefore complete whole sentences – or even whole paragraphs.

However, it doesn’t understand what it’s saying, just what words are most likely to come next.

Open only by name

In the past, advances in AI have been accompanied by peer-reviewed literature.

In 2018, for example, when the Google Brain team developed the BERT neural network on which most natural language processing systems are now based (and we suspect ChatGPT is too), the methods were published in peer-reviewed scientific papers and the code was open-sourced.

And in 2021, DeepMind’s AlphaFold 2, a protein-folding software, was Science’s Breakthrough of the Year. The software and its results were open-sourced so scientists everywhere could use them to advance biology and medicine.

Following the release of ChatGPT, we have only a short blog post describing how it works. There has been no hint of an accompanying scientific publication, or that the code will be open-sourced.

To understand why ChatGPT could be kept secret, you have to understand a little about the company behind it.

OpenAI is perhaps one of the oddest companies to emerge from Silicon Valley. It was set up as a non-profit in 2015 to promote and develop “friendly” AI in a way that “benefits humanity as a whole”. Elon Musk, Peter Thiel and other leading tech figures pledged US$1 billion towards its goals.

Their thinking was we couldn’t trust for-profit companies to develop increasingly capable AI that aligned with humanity’s prosperity. AI therefore needed to be developed by a non-profit and, as the name suggested, in an open way.

In 2019 OpenAI transitioned into a capped for-profit company (with investors limited to a maximum return of 100 times their investment) and took a US$1 billion investment from Microsoft so it could scale and compete with the tech giants.

It seems money got in the way of OpenAI’s initial plans for openness.

Profiting from users

On top of this, OpenAI appears to be using feedback from users to filter out the fake answers ChatGPT hallucinates.

According to its blog, OpenAI initially used reinforcement learning in ChatGPT to downrank fake and/or problematic answers using a costly hand-constructed training set.

But ChatGPT now seems to be being tuned by its more than a million users. I imagine this sort of human feedback would be prohibitively expensive to acquire in any other way.

We are now facing the prospect of a significant advance in AI using methods that are not described in the scientific literature and with datasets restricted to a company that appears to be open only in name.

Where next?

In the past decade, AI’s rapid advance has been in large part due to openness by academics and businesses alike. All the major AI tools we have are open-sourced.

But in the race to develop more capable AI, that may be ending. If openness in AI dwindles, we may see advances in this field slow down as a result. We may also see new monopolies develop.

And if history is anything to go by, we know a lack of transparency is a trigger for bad behaviour in tech spaces. So while we go on to laud (or critique) ChatGPT, we shouldn’t overlook the circumstances in which it has come to us.

Unless we’re careful, the very thing that seems to mark the golden age of AI may in fact mark its end.

Read more:
The ChatGPT chatbot is blowing people away with its writing skills. An expert explains why it’s so impressive

Toby Walsh receives funding from the Australian Research Council via a Laureate Fellowship on Trustworthy AI.

– ref. Everyone’s having a field day with ChatGPT – but nobody knows how it actually works – https://theconversation.com/everyones-having-a-field-day-with-chatgpt-but-nobody-knows-how-it-actually-works-196378

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rachael Sharman, Senior Lecturer in Psychology, University of the Sunshine Coast

There’s an annual underground phenomena happening right now around Australia: couples who have decided to separate, but are putting on a happy face to perform their final Christmas as an intact family. January is known by family court lawyers as “divorce month” for this very reason.

Compared to 2020, last year saw an increase of nearly 14% in divorces granted in Australia. Nearly half of those couples had children aged under 18 years.

Some of this increase is put down to changes in court processing times. But some of it is also likely due to enforced time together in lockdown making relationship difficulties worse (COVID divorces).

These numbers are further expanded by same-sex couples who were granted the right to marry in 2017, and who are now also starting to trickle through the divorce system.

Separation has important impacts on kids. There are a higher number of mental health problems observed in children from one-parent, step or blended families compared to those living in their original family.

There is also a well-established link between high levels of post-separation parental conflict and childhood maladjustment.

Studies suggest the relationship between the parents post-separation strongly influences the development of childhood problems. With hostile, disengaged or unconstructive conflict behaviours particularly associated with maladaptive childhood behaviours.

So what can parents do to best prepare their kids and avoid falling into the same old interpersonal conflicts that have led them to separate in the first place?

1. Tell them together

First of all, tell your kids what is happening as a united front. Sit them down in a quiet time with no distractions (TV, devices) where they will have plenty of time to process the information and ask questions (not as you’re about to rush off to an appointment).

Read more:
How will my divorce affect my kids?

2. Keep the adult arguments out of it

Keep your personal/adult arguments off the table. Even if there has been infidelity, addiction, strong feelings of betrayal or blame, that is not your children’s burden.

One exception may be if you have older teenage kids who may have figured out on their own what has been going on. In which case honesty is the best policy – if they are older, smarter and have it half-figured out, prepare yourself for an uncomfortable grilling.

3. Prepare for a range of reactions

Just as some children are blindsided by the news of their parents’ impending separation, some parents are equally shocked at the reaction of their children.

They may seem rather ambivalent, or become immediately distressed and even angry. They may side with one parent from the outset or beg you both to work it out. It’s near impossible to predict how children will respond in these scenarios.

Keep to the high ground, reassure them none of this is their fault and that they are loved and cared for. Don’t be tempted to “defend” yourself or bag the other parent in what may be an emotional and tense moment.

4. Focus on the practical

Most kids – from youngsters to teens – will want to know how this is going to affect them. Where will they live, go to school, can they still play footy? Make sure you and your partner have at least some idea of a negotiated parenting plan going in.

Mediation via Relationships Australia can help with this aspect for those who are struggling to reach agreement.

Read more:
What type of relationship should I have with my co-parent now we’re divorced?

5. Let others know

It’s probably a good idea to alert your close and trusted family members before you tell the kids. They can help provide support for upset children, and a friendly ear to your own difficulties. Your parents/siblings and even aunts/uncles may know you and your kids individually well enough to tailor useful supports as well.

If you have a good relationship with your child’s school let their teachers know what is happening – they can be on the lookout for any obvious adjustment difficulties and refer kids to school-based supports if necessary.

6. Talk about it

Remember this won’t be a one-and-done discussion. Children are likely to come back to you with more questions and requests as your new lives take shape.

It’s also worth remembering that as they get older, children may “re-process” the events differently, with their new, improved, older brain. Questions that didn’t occur to them at four years of age may suddenly crop up at 14 years (“Why did you leave?” “Did you try counselling?”).

7. Stick to it

It’s best to strive for a new relationship together as amicable co-parents. Negative talk about the other parent is effectively criticising 50% of your child’s DNA – they won’t thank you for it in the long run.

Disagreements about parenting plans, and things like where to spend Christmas are likely to arise. Have a plan in place to keep difficult discussions out of earshot of youngsters and don’t be afraid to use a mediator if you hit a roadblock.

Read more:
How to co-parent after divorce

Couples don’t go into a romantic partnership expecting it to dissolve, but roughly a third of Australian marriages will end in divorce and nearly half of those un-couplings will involve minor children.

While you may have moved on from each other, your capacity to co-parent well will have a huge influence on how your child adjusts to their new family structure. Buffering them from unnecessary harm is a worthy priority from the get-go.

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

– ref. Are you and your partner thinking of separating? Here’s how to protect the kids’ mental health – https://theconversation.com/are-you-and-your-partner-thinking-of-separating-heres-how-to-protect-the-kids-mental-health-194912

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Zsofia Korosy, Postdoctoral Fellow in Law, UNSW Sydney

At the crucial COP15 nature summit in Canada, almost 200 countries are reckoning with the world’s extraordinary loss of the variety of life. Climate change, mining, urban development and more are threatening Earth’s biodiversity to an extent never before witnessed in human history.

The conference will see countries negotiate a global 2030 plan, called the Global Biodiversity Framework, to set worldwide targets for a range of issues, from establishing national parks to habitat destruction. The framework will hopefully be delivered by next Monday (19 December).

But so far, the draft text is lacking a fundamental element: adequate inclusion of language and perspectives from Indigenous peoples and local communities. Without Indigenous and local community leadership, any biodiversity targets will remain out of reach.

Despite comprising less than 5% of the global population, Indigenous peoples protect an estimated 80% of global biodiversity. Yet, the capacity of Indigenous peoples and local communities to continue to exercise this stewardship is being actively eroded across the world. Issues of power and inclusion in the current draft framework must therefore be resolved.

Indigenous and local community leadership is critical

Indigenous land management delivers better outcomes for biodiversity – the fabric of life on Earth.

Indigenous peoples influence management of more than a quarter of land on Earth. Indigenous lands account for at least 40% of global protected lands. And an estimated 80% of global biodiversity is on lands owned, occupied or used by Indigenous peoples.

Read more:
Indigenous lands have less deforestation than state-managed protected areas in most of tropics

A 2019 study involving Australia, Brazil and Canada found total numbers of birds, mammals, amphibians and reptiles were highest on lands managed or co-managed by Indigenous communities.

Another study last year looked at tropical forests in Africa, central and South America and the Asia Pacific region. It found deforestation rates on Indigenous lands were between 17 and 26% lower on average, compared to unprotected tropical forests worldwide.

Yet, maintaining and expanding Indigenous forms of land management is threatened by other interests, such as mining, transport, energy production and distribution, and commodity production.

The former Bolsonaro administration’s attacks on Indigenous rights in Brazil is a clear example. There, the combination of human rights violations and unsustainable extraction led to murders, cultural erosion, and degradation of forest ecosystems.

Meanwhile, in the Pacific Islands, climate change reduces the capacity of local people to care for their ecosystems and threatens their livelihoods. For example, warming waters due to climate change will alter the breeding patterns and habitats of many coastal fish species.

Indigenous and local knowledge is key to ensuring the resilience of marine ecosystems in the Pacific in the face of global environmental change.

Resolving issues of power and inclusion

The Global Biodiversity Framework is important because, if concluded, it will set more than 20 worldwide targets for biodiversity.

One key target being negotiated is to protect 30% of land and sea by 2030, commonly referred to as the 30×30 Initiative.

Another addresses inclusion and participation, particularly as it relates to Indigenous peoples and local communities. This target exists thanks to efforts of the International Indigenous Forum on Biodiversity.

Read more:
Avoiding climate breakdown depends on protecting Earth’s biodiversity — can the COP15 summit deliver?

But considerable disagreement still surrounds the language of targets such as these.

In negotiated text, square brackets are placed around words on which countries do not yet agree. Much of the current text of the framework remains in brackets.

As we enter the final week of negotiations, the extent of remaining disagreement is deeply concerning. There is a risk that, even if the framework is concluded, it will include, at best, heavily watered down targets.

Indigenous representatives have raised significant concerns about the lack of language and perspectives of Indigenous peoples and local communities in the framework’s draft text.

The International Indigenous Forum on Biodiversity highlights issues with the negotiation process as well as the text itself.

For example, the 30×30 Initiative aims to use area-based conservation measures, such as protected areas or parks. Many Indigenous people are concerned about how this target could affect their rights.

Indigenous people worldwide have experienced exclusion from their ancestral homes, often in the name of “conservation” or under the guise of “wilderness”. The rationale is that it’s necessary to remove people and their practices to protect land and seascapes rich with diverse life.

For example, in South East Asia the traditional farming method of swidden cultivation has been banned or disincentivised as part of larger conservation programs, despite evidence that the practice supports livelihoods and ecosystem health.

Such exclusion of Indigenous people ignores their important roles over millenia securing and maintaining biodiversity over lands and seas for thousands of years.

The negotiation process makes it difficult for key voices to be heard. Large Ocean Island States of the Pacific – such as Fiji, Kiribati and Cook Islands – often have to negotiate as a bloc to ensure their voices and concerns are heard amid competing changes to framework text.

This is even more difficult for Indigenous peoples. During negotiations, countries speak first on which text they’d like amended. This ordering process means Indigenous peoples have two options.

One, they can work with countries to negotiate on their behalf. Or two, they have to wait until all countries have had their turn to speak.

Waiting for other countries to speak can take a long time, often leading well into the night before Indigenous peoples and observers can speak and texts are accepted (if there is agreement).

There are positive signs

Encouragingly, Indigenous participation and influence in global environmental agreements has increased over time.

There are also positive signs from the High Ambition Coalition for Nature and People – an intergovernmental group of more than 100 countries. This coalition has increasingly shifted its position to acknowledge the people who help conserve nature as the negotiations have progressed.

Read more:
‘Revolutionary change’ needed to stop unprecedented global extinction crisis

But Indigenous representation at these forums, including voting for preferred text, remains vital. And Indigenous people’s rights must be reflected in the way targets are set. Different types of Indigenous conservation areas around the world must be recognised and, importantly, properly funded and resourced.

Also crucial is for all Pacific nations, including Australia and New Zealand, to ratify the Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit-sharing, which deals with the respect for and protection of Indigenous knowledge.

Unless rapid and transformative change occurs across societies and economies, we risk losing much of the variety of life. Indigenous leadership is fundamental to stop this from happening.

Zsofia Korosy receives funding from the Sustainable Development Reform Hub at UNSW for a project on Power and Inclusion in Biodiversity Governance.

Anthony Burke is a Principal of the Planet Politics Institute.

Daniel Robinson receives funding from the Australian Research Council for a Discovery Project called Indigenous Knowledge Futures, and previously received funding from the EU and GIZ for a project called ABS Initiative for implementing the Nagoya Protocol to the Convention on Biological Diversity in the Pacific.

Katie Moon received funding from the Sustainable Development Reform Hub at UNSW for a project on Power and Inclusion in Biodiversity Governance.

Margaret Raven receives funding from: Australian Research Council. National Health and Medical Research Council.

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

– ref. Without Indigenous leadership, attempts to stop the tide of destruction against nature will fail – https://theconversation.com/without-indigenous-leadership-attempts-to-stop-the-tide-of-destruction-against-nature-will-fail-196208

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jay Rutovitz, Research Director, Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology Sydney

To get Australia’s grid 82% powered by renewables by 2030 is a huge increase. At present, the electricity powering eastern and southern states is around 33% renewable.

To get there means a lot of work. Over the next seven years, it would be equivalent to installing dozens of large wind turbines every month, and tens of thousands of solar panels every day.

And work needs workers. To make this happen, our modelling shows 15,000 more workers are needed by 2025 – less than three years away. That’s amid a skills shortage, an infrastructure boom and unemployment rates at the lowest level in decades.

So how to do it? We need to train more skilled workers and give them more security. Renewable projects have tended to operate on boom-bust cycles when it comes to jobs. But to get where we need to be, we need to shift to a long-term boom mentality. We’re going to need people doing these jobs for decades to come.

How big is this issue?

Big. Getting to 82% renewables and fast means we need to greatly scale up the electricity sector workforce in generation, storage and transmission line construction.

We estimate the current workforce is around 41,000, including 12,000 working in coal and gas power stations or supplying those power stations with fuel. This is only an estimate, as updated figures won’t be available until the federal government delivers its promised energy employment report.

Read more:
Wind turbines off the coast could help Australia become an energy superpower, research finds

Australia’s energy market operator, AEMO, publishes regularly updated pathways to a clean-energy future. Now we have federal backing for accelerated timelines, the most likely outcome is the so-called “step change scenario”. This scenario envisages nine times more wind and solar by 2050, to boost capacity to 141 gigawatts, and four times more rooftop solar.

Under this scenario, 15,000 more workers must be ready and able to build and operate renewables and storage, or build transmission lines, by 2025.

The problem is, these workers don’t exist at present. Many existing skilled workers are already paid well by major infrastructure projects, such as metro rail projects in Melbourne and Sydney and regional projects such as inland rail. What’s more, unemployment rates are the lowest in decades, and peak demand for labour to build wind and solar projects is set to outstrip the entire current workforce in some regional areas where the renewable projects will be concentrated.

To add to the challenge, skilled workers tend to live in major population centres – but clean energy projects are virtually all in the regions. So the clean energy sector must compete with big infrastructure projects in the cities, which pay more and don’t involve travel. You can see the challenge. If we don’t get this right, the clean energy transition just won’t happen.

The common answer to workforce shortages is to train more workers. But here, too, there are challenges. Our skilled training sector has long been in the doldrums, with demand spread thin across far-flung regions and policy uncertainty leaving many gaps in capacity.

15,000 new skilled workers are just the start

We modelled the workforce needed to achieve three of the AEMO scenarios: the step change, the hydrogen superpower and the slow change. We also modelled an offshore wind scenario, using AEMO’s modified step change “sensitivity” which takes into account Victoria’s ambitious target for offshore wind.

Under the step change scenario, we found the demand for skilled jobs will increase 37,000 from 2023 and peak at 81,000 in 2049.

But if Australia becomes a major exporter of renewable energy in the form of green hydrogen or green ammonia, as backers like iron ore billionaire Twiggy Forrest are hoping, that’s a different story. It would require up to twice the workers of the step-change scenario in the 2030s, and up to triple in the 2040s.

That’s a staggering peak demand of 237,000 jobs, with an average demand of 110,000. To get there, we would need 34,000 extra workers within three years.

Where will the jobs be? New South Wales will be the leading state in most scenarios, with a demand for over 20,000 skilled workers annually until 2050 under the step-change scenario. Across NSW, Queensland and Victoria, the job split by technologies is very similar in this scenario: 37% of jobs in solar, 27–30% for wind, and 17–22% in batteries. The pattern is similar in the offshore wind and slow-change scenarios.

What about the hydrogen superpower scenario? This would change things dramatically. Here, the highest demand for renewable jobs would be in Queensland, South Australia and Tasmania. Compared to the step-change scenario, Queensland would add over 100,000 jobs, while jobs in South Australia would more than treble and Tasmania quadruple from 2,200 to 9,400. Relatively modest growth is projected for NSW and Victoria – 4,000 new jobs in both states compared to the step change.

We can’t just leave it to the market

Coordinated action is needed to plan and implement skills, training and workforce development. Here, state and territory governments can build on the recent creation of Renewable Energy Zones – essentially, renewable rich areas where transmission lines exist or will be built – to boost collaboration between industry and government on training strategies and programs.

Workforce planning should be brought into overall energy system planning, to help reduce the employment boom-bust cycle. Most electricity planning favours “just in time” construction, where infrastructure is built as it is needed. That means demand for labour is volatile. The NSW government has created an electricity infrastructure jobs advocate and created EnergyCo to co-ordinate the development of the renewable energy zones and maximise local benefits.

Given current shortages of workers, it’s vital governments take action now. Acting early would help future-proof our clean energy workforce and maximise benefits for regional areas. Even better, we could help boost numbers of workers from under-represented groups such as women and First Nations communities.

Read more:
How can Aboriginal communities be part of the NSW renewable energy transition?

Jay Rutovitz received funding for this work from the RACE for 2030 CRC, the Government of NSW, and the Government of Victoria. The Australian Energy Market Operator was a partner in the work.

Chris Briggs received funding for this research from the RACE for 2030 CRC, the Government of NSW, and the Government of Victoria. The Australian Energy Market Operator was a partner in the work.

Rusty Langdon received funding for this research from the RACE for 2030 CRC, the Government of NSW, and the Government of Victoria. The Australian Energy Market Operator was a partner in the work.

– ref. To clean up Australia’s power grid, we’re going to need many thousands more skilled workers – and fast – https://theconversation.com/to-clean-up-australias-power-grid-were-going-to-need-many-thousands-more-skilled-workers-and-fast-195906

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amy Hume, Lecturer In Theatre (Voice), Victorian College of the Arts, The University of Melbourne

Have you ever thought about your pronunciation of the word “no”? If you say it out loud now, can you sense the movement of your tongue and lips as you form the “o” sound? You may notice there’s a lot to the pronunciation of the word in an Australian accent.

Clips of Australians saying this short, two-letter word have been trending on TikTok over the last year, with listeners fascinated by its pronunciation.

Speakers from outside Australia are also having a go at pronouncing the word themselves. Interestingly, when they write it out, they spell the word “naur”.

So, what is it people are hearing in the Aussie “no”, and why do they think there is an “r” sound at the end?

Read more:
Oi! We’re not lazy yarners, so let’s kill the cringe and love our Aussie accent(s)

What sorts of sounds make up speech?

To be able to understand what is happening in an Australian pronunciation of the word, we need to first have a look at some of the elements of speech. Words are made up of vowels and consonants, and vowels themselves can be long or short.

Try saying out loud these words with long vowels: keep, dawn, far, soon and curl. Now these words with short vowels: cat, bed, hut, kid, nod and put.

Short and long vowels are all examples of monophthongs, vowels that have one single vowel element from start to finish.

Another category of vowels is diphthongs. These are vowels that have two distinct elements in one syllable. Words such as loud, prize, bay and void all contain diphthongs.

If we focus on the word “void”, try mouthing this word slowly as you say it out loud, and you may be able to sense your lips starting rounded in the shape of “aw” and then spreading to the shape of “ee”. Even though there are two distinct shapes within the vowel, the entire sound comprises one syllable, so it is called a diphthong.

Read more:
The Aussie accent is drink-related? That’s just a hangover from our cultural cringe

Okay, so what about the word ‘no’?

What can happen in the word “no” is that the vowel becomes a triphthong – meaning there are three distinct elements to the vowel sound within one syllable.

While some Australian speakers would pronounce “no” as a diphthong, starting on “oh” as in dog and ending on “oo” as in put, others begin with an unstressed “a” (the sound at the end of the word “sofa”), then move to the “oh” and then “oo”.

Triphthongs are far less common, we don’t hear them often, which could be why the sound stands out to listeners.

You might be wondering how a speaker comes to pronounce “no” as a triphthong, when other words with the same vowel (such as boat, cone, loaf and oak) are pronounced as diphthongs. This could occur because the word “no” is an example of what linguists call an open syllable, meaning it has no consonant at its close. This allows the speaker to lengthen the vowel and draw it out – a feature we love in different Australian accents!

In actor-training, we view vowels and consonants as having two different roles in language: vowels are the emotional components of words, and consonants are the intellect. In a word like “no”, a lot of emotion and feeling can be conveyed in the vowel, allowing a variety of meaning to come through in its pronunciation.

Just think of how many meanings the word “no” can have, from a polite “No” to an emphatic “No!”, to an unsure or contemplative “Noooo”. You would say the word in hundreds of different ways every week. Using intonation, modulation and emphasis, the word is given meaning depending on how you say it.

But where does the ‘r’ come in?

To return to the spelling that has taken off on TikTok – why do people think they hear an “r” at the end of an Australian pronunciation?

It could be that the listener is linking the sound to ones they have in their own accent. Another possibility is that when an Australian speaker holds the final part of the triphthong (the short “oo” as in “put”), their tongue may be moving closer to the roof of their mouth, beginning to sound like an “r”. However, they wouldn’t be going there consciously, and it may not feel anything like an “r” to them!

It’s important to note there are many varieties of Australian accents and not every speaker would pronounce “no” in the ways discussed here. Social media has created new platforms for sharing the voices of everyday speakers, not just those trained for media, stage, or screen. We’re now hearing different accent varieties that otherwise may not be heard by a global audience.

Read more:
Curious Kids: Why do Aussies have a different accent to Canadians, Americans, British people and New Zealanders?

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

– ref. Naur, yeah: Australia, you’re performing linguistic magic when you pronounce the two-letter word ‘no’. Here’s why – https://theconversation.com/naur-yeah-australia-youre-performing-linguistic-magic-when-you-pronounce-the-two-letter-word-no-heres-why-194519

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

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

In this podcast Michelle and politics + society editor Amanda Dunn review the year, which is finishing with the surprise recall of federal parliament to pass the Albanese government’s legislation to contain power price increases. They also canvass what’s coming up in 2023, when the government will be grappling with the cost of living crisis, the May budget, and the Voice referendum.

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

– ref. Word from The Hill: 2022 retrospective, and a look at 2023 – https://theconversation.com/word-from-the-hill-2022-retrospective-and-a-look-at-2023-196493

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kelly Hine, Lecturer in Criminology, University of the Sunshine Coast

In an horrific incident on Monday night, two police officers and a member of the public were fatally shot in an ambush attack in Queensland. Another two officers were injured in the attack.

Our research shows attacks on police are increasing both domestically and internationally, which may be a result of growing civil unrest.

Data prior to the COVID pandemic revealed that civil unrest had doubled globally in the past decade, including an increase in violent riots and demonstrations. This tension between authorities and the public is thought to have intensified further during the COVID pandemic.

Read more:
6 dead, including 2 police, in Queensland shooting. How dangerous is policing in Australia?

Serious assaults against police appear to be more common and more violent, with recent protests (such as Black Lives Matter, anti-lockdown, and #defundthepolice) intensifying conflicts between sections of society and police.

For example, anti-lockdown protests produced the “most violent” Victorian protests in 20 years, putting at least nine officers in hospital.

The rise of ‘anti-police’ sentiment

This phenomenon is not unique to Australia. In the US, officers have been shot and police stations burnt down by protesters. In Hong Kong, violent and organised protesters have attacked and beaten officers with umbrellas, batons, and bricks. And in the UK, the Metropolitan Police recently reported a 38% increase in assaults on officers during high-profile protests. Understanding why these assaults are occurring is key to preventing further harm to police officers.

There are several potential catalysts for this “anti-police” ideology and consequent behaviour. First, citizens may feel frustrated about political issues, such as COVID lockdowns and vaccination laws. Here, anti-police behaviour, such as violence and lawbreaking, are a by-product of frustration towards the government. The police are simply the most present and visible government representative.

Second, and more concerning, are that anti-police ideologies are capturing the attitudes of those in society who are frustrated with how they perceive police to be conducting themselves.

The Australia New Zealand Policing Advisory Agency predicts distrust in “big government” to be a major policing challenge post-2020. There is growing concern about groups or individuals who act violently towards police to express these attitudes, leading to the injuries, assaults, and even homicides of Australian police officers. This is also exacerabted by widespread social media access and conspiracy-driven extremism.

Read more:
Road crashes, assaults and being spat on: the dangers facing Australian police in the line of duty

What do assaults on police look like?

The public rely on the police to protect them from harm. But there has been an increasing rate of attacks on police officers. Moreover, these attacks are becoming more violent and serious.

Research has found that 31% of Australian police fatalities between 2001 and 2019 were the result of assaults. Like the recent incident, almost all cases involved shootings.

More recently, violent anti-lockdown protests in Australia have resulted in several officers being assaulted and hospitalised. In 2021, for example, the Western Australian Police Union reported that assaults on Western Australian police were higher than the past four years. Assaults in Perth were the highest in ten years. Research into officer injuries found that officers were more likely to sustain injuries with physically aggressive suspects, and young, offenders who had consumed alcohol/drugs in the early hours of the weekend were more likely to resist officers.

When assaults on police officers occur, they can have devastating consequences for a wide range of people. Aside from the physical impact (such as injuries, permanent disabilities, or even death), assaults on police officers can have psychological impacts (such as PTSD, anxiety, and depression).

Police have ranked the top three significant stressors as killing someone, a fellow officer being killed, and being physically attacked. The physical and psychological impact of assaults on police is exemplified by the Capitol riots in the US, which resulted in 138 police officer injuries, one officer fatality and the subsequent suicide of four officers.

Subsequently, these physical and psychological consequences carry an economic burden. These costs can include medical, legal, and wage costs among others. The cost of police assaults are likely to be much higher when considering economic impacts beyond the officer themselves (for example, the economic impact on colleagues, family, and friends as well as organisational costs such as low morale and high staff turnover).

Furthermore, assaults on police can have societal impacts, leading to a lack of confidence in police to be able to protect members of the community. In addition, attacks on police may also reflect “an attack on the rule of law and defiance of the justice system itself”, in turn, leading to societal breakdowns. This lack of confidence and trust in police and authorities is illustrated in the #defundthepolice social movement.

The role of police requires them to encounter some of the most violent and dangerous situations. Understanding attacks on police will help identify ways to reduce the impact of harms and prevent such incidences from occurring. We need to better understand these situations so we can protect those who protect us.

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

– ref. Queensland shootings highlight increase in anti-police sentiment around the world – https://theconversation.com/queensland-shootings-highlight-increase-in-anti-police-sentiment-around-the-world-196476

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hassan Vally, Associate Professor, Epidemiology, Deakin University

The Australian government’s latest COVID management plan, released yesterday, maps how the nation will learn to live with COVID. This means transitioning from the emergency phase of the pandemic response, to responding to it in a similar way to other respiratory diseases.

However, as part of this transition, we are still going to need to respond to COVID waves which, although expected to be less destructive, are likely to occur for some time to come.

Under the plan, PCR testing will be prioritised for people who are at greater risk of severe disease from COVID – they will still be able to get a PCR test for free. Others will need a doctor or nurse practitioner referral to access free PCR tests, unless they visit a state or territory-run clinic.

Much of the new plan is based on individuals assessing and mitigating their own COVID risk, with more options available to those who are at greatest risk.

So what are the options going forward to protect yourself from COVID? And how do you assess your own risk?

How can you protect yourself and others from COVID?

The most effective thing all of us can do to decrease the risk of COVID is to be up-to-date with our vaccinations and boosters. COVID vaccines aren’t perfect and don’t completely stop transmission, but they greatly reduce your likelihood of becoming seriously ill.

Read more:
Previous COVID infection may not protect you from the new subvariant wave. Are you due for a booster?

Under this plan, testing for COVID will move from a surveillance tool, where we aimed to detect most cases, to a targeted testing system aimed to identify those who are eligible for COVID antivirals. However, people at low-risk of severe illness are still encouraged to do a rapid antigen test (RAT) if they have COVID symptoms so they can confirm if they are infected and isolate appropriately.

People who are at higher risk of severe COVID (older Australians, First Nations people, and people with disability, compromised immune systems or complex underlying health conditions) may be eligible for COVID antivirals. These are highly effective in reducing the rate of hospital admission but need to be started within five days of symptoms starting. Antivirals are available to eligible people after either a positive RAT or PCR test.

In addition to the use of vaccines and medicines to reduce COVID risk, we can also reduce the likelihood of spreading COVID by using the strategies we’ve become so familiar with since the start of the pandemic, including masking up, avoiding crowded settings, socialising outdoors where possible and in well-ventilated spaces when indoors, and staying away from others if feeling unwell.

We all have a different tolerance for risk

One of the difficulties we all face is working out how we assess and manage our own risk in a world where COVID is a constant presence.

The SARS-CoV-2 virus poses a much greater risk to certain groups, particularly those who are older and people who have chronic health conditions.

For others, the risk the SARS-CoV-2 virus poses is much lower. However, we still have much to learn about long COVID, so we need to factor this into our considerations.

Read more:
Four tips to avoid your office Christmas party turning into a superspreader event

So how do you work out how far to go in protecting yourself and others from COVID?

In addition to our actual risk being different, we all differ in our tolerance to risk, which is determined by our psychological make up as well as social and cultural factors. This impacts our risk-benefit calculations, and our subsequent decisions.

People who face similar risks may experience this risk in very different ways. One person may perceive the risk of contracting COVID as too high to take part in certain social activities. Another may see the risk as acceptable when they weigh it up against the costs of social isolation on other aspects of their health and wellbeing.

One of the things we are all going to have to do is to accept these differences in risk tolerance between people and understand that individual risk-benefit calculations are personal, complex and nuanced.

For some people, getting COVID is a much greater threat

Although for many people, the risk calculus is now at a point where their lives can start to look more normal than they have for some time, for others the sense of vulnerability to COVID remains high.

The government’s plan aims to leave no-one behind and will prioritise care and support for groups at higher risk, including First Nations people, those in aged care, people with disability and culturally and linguistically diverse communities. This includes prioritising vaccination, testing, access to antivirals and targeted outreach programs.

However, based on the bumpy journey we’ve had over the past few years, one would be forgiven for reserving their judgement on how successful these efforts will be.

The biggest difficulty we face in the next 12 months is navigating the reality that not only are some people going to be impacted to a much greater degree than others, we are all going to vary in our risk tolerance. Therefore, it’s important that we respect others’ circumstances in the decisions we make.

Read more:
Doing away with COVID isolation rules means increased isolation and risks for people with disability

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

– ref. We’re entering a new phase of COVID, where we each have to assess and mitigate our own risk. But how? – https://theconversation.com/were-entering-a-new-phase-of-covid-where-we-each-have-to-assess-and-mitigate-our-own-risk-but-how-195912

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

Booking a place to stay on holidays has become a reflex action.

The first thing many of us do is open a site such as Wotif, Hotels.com or trivago (all of which are these days owned by the US firm Expedia), or their only big competitor, Booking.com from the Netherlands.

Checking what rooms are available – anywhere – is wonderfully easy, as is booking, at what usually seems to be the lowest available price.

But Australia’s Assistant Competition Minister Andrew Leigh is concerned there might be a reason the price seems to be the lowest available. It might be an agreement not to compete, or the fear of reprisals against hotel owners who offer better prices.

Agreements to not compete

Leigh has asked the treasury to investigate, and if that’s what it finds, it may be the booking sites have the perverse effect of keeping prices high, especially when the substantial fees they charge hotels are taken into account.

For now, the treasury is seeking information. It has set a deadline of January 6 for hotel operators and booking sites to tell it:

• the typical fees charged by online booking platforms

• the details of any agreements not to compete on price

• whether hotels that try to compete get ranked lower on booking sites.

What’s likely to come out of it is a ban on so-called price-parity clauses that prevent discounting, or a ban on “algorithmic punishment,” whereby hotels that do discount get pushed way down the rankings on the sites.

But in the meantime, there are things we can do to get better prices, and they’ll help more broadly, as I’ll explain.

Flight Centre precedent

Back in 2018, in a case that went all the way to the High Court, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) forced Flight Centre to pay a penalty of A$12.5 million for attempting to induce airlines not to undercut it on ticket prices.

That the ACCC eventually won the case might be an indication price-parity clauses are already illegal under Australian law. But it’s a difficult law to enforce. This is why the treasury is considering special legislation of the kind in force in France, Austria, Italy and Belgium.

The ACCC has known for some time that Expedia and Booking.com have included clauses in their contracts preventing hotels offering the same room for any less than they do, even directly.

Rather than take the big two to court, in 2016 the ACCC “reached agreement” with them to delete the clauses that prevented hotels offering better deals face-to-face.

The concession that conceded little

From then on, hotels were able to offer better deals than the sites over the phone or in person, but not on their own websites. Given we are less and less likely to walk in off the street or even use the phone to book a hotel, it wasn’t much of a concession.

Then, in 2019, with the Commission under renewed pressure from hotel owners for another investigation, Expedia (but not Booking.com) reportedly waived the rest of the clauses, giving hotel owners the apparent freedom to advertise cheaper prices wherever they liked including on their own sites without fear of retribution.

Except several appear to fear retribution, and very few seem to have jumped at the opportunity.

Algorithmic punishment

An Expedia spokesman gave an indication of what might be in store when he was quoted as saying a hotel that undercut Expedia might “find itself ranked below its competitors, just as it would if it had worse reviews or fewer high-quality pictures of its property”.

Being ranked at the bottom of a site is much the same as not being ranked at all, something Leigh refers to as “algorithmic punishment”.

It’s not at all clear the present law prevents it, which is why Leigh is open to the idea of legislating against it.

Read more:
Tax take shrinks as online accommodation agents rake it in

Although you and I may not often think about what hotels are paying to be booked through sites such as Wotif and Booking.com, and although what’s charged to the hotel isn’t publicised, it appeard to be a large chunk of the cost of providing the room.

One figure quoted is 20%. Leigh says hotel owners have told him the fees are in the “double digits”, something he says is quite a lot when you consider the sites don’t need to clean the toilets, change the sheets or help on the front desk.

‘Chokepoint capitalism’

What this seems to mean (the treasury will find out) is almost all bookings are more expensive than they need to be because firms that sit at the “chokepoint” between buyers and sellers are squeezing sellers.

A hotel could always abandon the sites and offer much cheaper prices, but for a while – perhaps forever – it will be much harder to find.

In their defence, the operators of the platforms might say they need to get the best offers from hotels in order to make it worthwhile for the operators to invest in their sites, an argument the treasury is inviting them to put.

Read more:
Chokepoint Capitalism: why we’ll all lose unless we stop Amazon, Spotify and other platforms squeezing cash from creators

In the meantime, with some hotels reluctant to put their best rates on their websites, but with them perfectly able to offer better rates over the phone, there’s a fairly simple way we can all get a better deal – and help fix the broader problem by weight of numbers.

If we look up the best deal wherever we want online, and then phone and ask for a better one (or a better room), we might well find we get it. We might be saving the owner a lot of money.

Leigh reckons the more we do ring up, the more the sites might feel pressure to discount their own fees, helping bring prices down even before he starts to think about writing legislation.

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

– ref. Hotel booking sites actually make it hard to get cheap deals, but there’s a way around it – https://theconversation.com/hotel-booking-sites-actually-make-it-hard-to-get-cheap-deals-but-theres-a-way-around-it-196460

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexander Gillespie, Professor of Law, University of Waikato

Although it has yet to begin work, the first finding of the forthcoming royal commission into New Zealand’s COVID-19 response has probably just been written by Chief Ombudsman Peter Boshier.

The royal commission will likely agree with his finding: while it was justifiable for the government to restrict and control the flow of people coming into the country during the global pandemic, this should have been done with more finesse and empathy than actually occurred.

The Ombudsman’s report comes on the heels of the High Court’s April decision in a case brought by lobby group Grounded Kiwis. That decision found the border restrictions breached the right of New Zealand citizens to enter the country, as contained in the Bill of Rights – but that the border measures were still justified.

The self-initiated investigation by the Ombudsman focused on hundreds of complaints that claimed the managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ) allocation system was unlawful, unfit for purpose, unfair and poorly managed.

As such, the investigation took a broader view than the High Court’s specific focus on rights. This bigger picture took in considerations of reason, justice, sympathy, honour and fairness. Taken together, the two findings give a clear picture of what happened and why.

Border controls were justified

The High Court decision accepted that having to possess a voucher to get into MIQ did not, in and of itself, amount to an unjustified infringement of the right to enter the country.

Similarly, the isolation requirements placed reasonable and proportionate limits on the right to enter, while those requirements were in operation. Other options would not have achieved the public health objectives the government had legitimately set.

À lire aussi :
How will history – and the law – judge New Zealand’s mothballed MIQ system?

The Ombudsman’s opinion also recognised the important aims of MIQ and the vital role it played in preventing outbreaks of COVID-19 in the community. Boshier also commended the work of the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) and the wider public service in managing New Zealand’s COVID response.

The system was working in a novel and complex policy context, under time pressure, and in a high-stakes environment with limited access to reliable information.

The Ombudsman is also clear that MBIE did not act unreasonably in its efforts to increase MIQ capacity, given the limitations imposed by public health settings and workforce constraints.

A blunt instrument

But while MIQ was a critical component of the government’s elimination strategy, which achieved positive health outcomes, the High Court decision reasoned that the combination of the “virtual lobby” system and the narrow emergency criteria was too blunt.

The system should ideally have been able to detect and prioritise differences in individual circumstances, the High Court found. As it was, the virtual lobby did not prioritise New Zealand citizens over non-citizens, nor did it prioritise based on need or timing. The offline emergency process was too tightly constrained to compensate for this deficiency.

À lire aussi :
New Zealand’s border quarantine has intercepted thousands of COVID cases, but is it time to retire the flawed system?

At the time, there appeared to be have been no proper system to gather information from overseas New Zealanders about their circumstances. While the MIQ system achieved the government’s health objectives, the result was that some New Zealanders experienced unreasonable delays in exercising their right to enter the country, according to the High Court decision.

The Ombudsman reached a similar conclusion. He reasoned that MIQ, and the operation of the managed isolation allocation system in particular, caused immense stress and frustration for tens of thousands of people.

Granted, a more individualised allocation system that considered and prioritised personal circumstances would have been difficult and costly. But this should have been done, given the profound impact the system was having on people.

À lire aussi :
Prior’s warning: what would NZ’s greatest 20th century philosopher have said about civil liberties in the COVID age?

Should the government apologise?

The royal commission will probably learn from the decision of the High Court and the opinion of the Ombudsman. And it’s to be hoped future generations will not suffer from the same mistakes. But the more immediate question is whether the ministers involved should apologise.

While the Ombudsman has been clear that for some people in certain situations a personal apology from MBIE may be necessary, he lacks the legal jurisdiction to make the same recommendation for the ministers involved.

There’s something of an anomaly here, given key decisions about the allocation system were made by ministers. A firmer recommendation might come out of next year’s royal commission.

For now, however, the ethics of an apology have less to do with the law and everything to do with politics.

Alexander Gillespie ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d’une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n’a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.

– ref. The High Court and the Ombudsman have found fault with NZ’s MIQ system – should the government apologise? – https://theconversation.com/the-high-court-and-the-ombudsman-have-found-fault-with-nzs-miq-system-should-the-government-apologise-196468

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sara Oscar, Senior Lecturer, Visual Communication, School of Design, University of Technology Sydney

In Western art history, a mise en abyme is a technique of placing one image inside another, or a story inside a story. It serves the purpose of illuminating the hidden meaning in an image. This can also be thought of as an allegory.

To say this technique is being used in The White Lotus, season 2 would be an understatement.

Everything in the show from painting and sculpture to film and literary references, to fashion, and even an erupting Mount Etna in the distance, function as allegorical clues to the show’s unfolding drama.

The White Lotus serves as a criticism of the rich and the entanglement of money, power, and sex against the backdrop of a luxury hotel adorned with art historical artefacts.

Fans of the show will be familiar with the widespread phenomenon on social and popular media of interpreting the meaning of the books read by characters in season 1. In season 2, it’s the artworks that have drawn attention.

Read more:
Freud, Nietzsche, Paglia, Fanon: our expert guide to the books of The White Lotus

Renaissance art and film

The placement of art in the show is both masterful and purposeful. Fans spent much of the season using visual interpretations of the artwork to try and solve the mystery of who died in the opening minutes of a flashback in episode 1.

Videos on social media show fans performing the role of a quasi-art historian in a mock BBC documentary to interpret the allegories in key paintings featured in each episode. For example, one such fan has pointed to the visual resonance between the character Albie Di Grasso (Adam DiMarco) and the painting Saint Sebastian by Pietro Perugino (1495).

In the painting, Saint Sebastian is tied to a column and his flesh pierced by arrows. We see the painting in the background of a scene where Albie is being brought to orgasm by a woman, Lucia, who he doesn’t know is a sex worker. It’s hard to ignore the ironic symbolism of the bleeding martyr next to the love-struck, innocent and clueless Albie. The painting gives us a clue to his own potential martyrdom: rescuing Lucia from her occupation.

In another scene, Lucia (Simona Tabasco) the sex worker, sneaks into Albie’s grandfather’s room to shower after an all night orgy with other guests. While packing her bag to leave, she notices her namesake, Saint Lucy in a painting by Domenico Beccafumi (1521). Seeing the painting, Lucia pauses and superstitiously performs the sign of the cross, as though she were asking for the saint’s forgiveness.

While there has been intense focus on the Renaissance art in the show, there are also filmic and literary references. The script plays with themes of the patriarchy, hetereosexual dynamics and the male gaze directly from Michelangelo Antonioni’s l’Avventura (1960) and Francis Ford Copolla’s The Godfather (1972). There are also references to Elena Ferrante’s novels adapted to television show, My Brilliant Friend (2018), through the “escorts” Lucia and Mia (Beatrice Grannò) who bear striking resemblance to the “good” and “bad” girl characters, Lenù and Lila.

The most iconic film reference is to Antonioni’s l’Avventura, where Harper retraces Monica Vitti’s footsteps as she is objectified by countless men who look at her lustfully under the steps of Noto Cathedral, Sicily.

For those with prior knowledge to the above references, the appropriation of iconic scenes and characters from cult films extends the viewer’s cultural investment in the television show, showing how art imitates art.

Art as a commodity of the rich

While these novel forms of interpretation are entertaining, they gloss over one of the show’s critiques: the role of art in the lives of the rich.

This critique offers us a clue to understanding the role that art plays in the show – as decoration, art signifies luxury and taste, it offers a veneer of culture that is bought rather than learnt or made.

Like a vase bought from IKEA for a holiday rental, in this luxury hotel, art serves the ubiquitous purpose of furnishing a tourist attraction and reinforcing wealth and status.

As Tanya (Jennifer Coolidge) says to Quentin in the final arresting episode, “What a life you have. I mean, this boat, your villa. Oh, my God, everything you have is a work of art.”

Art: a way into a character’s inner world

One of the more interesting functions of art in the show are the interactions between the characters and artworks at pivotal moments of psychological turmoil.

There is the infidelity warning of the Testa di Moro legend. These vases decorate the hotel. The legend is amplified in a scene when Harper’s husband, Ethan believes his wife to have cheated on him in revenge for his own close encounter with sex workers. He looks ominously at the decapitated head of the Testa di Moro in his hotel room, a colourful ceramic vase of a Moorish-appearing man who wears a crown adorned by fruits and flowers.

The scenes that feature Tanya are packed with the most symbolism. She is the drama’s ultimate tragedy and her vulnerability and mortality connect most powerfully with art historical references.

Her tears are symbolised in the painting of a hunched over weeping woman grasping a dagger. By interpretation, the pathos of the figure in the painting is transferred to Tanya who is always crying.

This pathos (as well as the dagger) also connect to the scene of Tanya at the opera. Clues to her fate are linked to the tragedy of Madame Butterfly.

It’s clear the artworks personify the characters in the show, serving as an entry point into their inner turbulent worlds. The scenes connecting the art to the characters suggests an alternative reading to the empty, lost, or insidious sociopathy that is central to the critique in The White Lotus.

The artworks are the show’s silent witnesses, observing the characters’ moral compasses, looking upon them beneath the world of luxury, class, taste, sex and wealth.

In this world of appearances and resort wear, art and allegory grant us access to what sits below the visible surface of shiny things, and as the climax reveals, below the Mediterranean sea.

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

– ref. Artworks are more than just plot clues in The White Lotus season 2 – they are the show’s silent witnesses – https://theconversation.com/artworks-are-more-than-just-plot-clues-in-the-white-lotus-season-2-they-are-the-shows-silent-witnesses-196374

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David King, Senior Lecturer in General Practice, The University of Queensland

Perhaps you have been happily attending the same GP for many years. They know your medical history better than anyone. Then all of a sudden they retire, or the practice closes, or it gets taken over by a bigger company and everything at the practice changes. Or maybe you’ve just had an unexpected visit to hospital and they ask who your GP is on discharge, then you realise you’re in need of one.

More than 80% of Australians visit a GP each year and those with chronic medical conditions will attend multiple times within the same period. It’s important to have a good GP who can coordinate your care. So how do you find a new one to develop a trusted relationship with?

As practising GPs ourselves, we are often asked: “Do you know a good GP?” This can be a somewhat difficult question to answer, as each person’s perception of “good” is highly subjective, dependent on many factors.

Studies of peoples’ preferences have varied results. One study found the listening ability of the GP to be important. Other studies found patients put more value in clinical competency, a trusting relationship or continuity of care.

So a better question is: what GP will be a good fit for me?

Read more:
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What factors are important to you? 6 aspects to consider

Here are some tips to help speed up your search for your new GP. Remember though, it may take a few visits to develop a trusting relationship and know if the fit is right for you.

1. Your health needs

If you are young and healthy, a GP offering a convenient service and who is easy to book in quickly with may suffice. For those living with chronic complex conditions or disabilities who need to visit often, a consistent and thorough doctor is recommended.

2. Cost

Bulk-billing doctors are becoming rarer given the rising cost of services, salaries, equipment and utilities. To stay afloat, these doctors are having to see more patients in less time.

This could result in a poorer understanding of you as an individual and your health values and goals. Again, this might not be a problem for simple consults. But if you get a serious disease down the track, you might wish you’d had a regular GP all along, because they would know you and your history.

If you’re able to wear some extra cost but wondering how much to pay, consider the Australian Medical Association recommendation as your guide – a standard 15-minute consult cost is $86 with a $39 rebate from Medicare.

3. Accessibility and practice size

Consider the distance you need to travel and the opening hours you may need, including weekend availability.

Bigger practices are more likely to be able to get you in to see a doctor, if not your doctor, and often have longer opening hours. Having more than one preferred GP within the same practice can provide more flexibility and they will each be able to access your medical records and results. You may want to enquire also about disability access and telehealth options.

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4. Reviews

Online recommendations can be tricky to interpret. Only 6–8% of people post online reviews for doctors. And there are plenty of people out there who have inappropriate requests or expectations of GPs, which may be their basis for a negative review. Also, someone who has been happily seeing their GP for decades is less likely to post a rating than a one-off visitor.

Be sure to consider what reasons were given for a negative review – was it because of actions taken, an attitude, or a personality clash? – and how those reasons align with your preferences. In saying that, community Facebook groups are often a hotspot for discussions about local GPs and recurrent positive recommendations can and should be held in higher regard.

5. New doctors

There are many young GPs starting off in the profession or new to the area. Many will be fantastically caring and competent. But these doctors are not going to come with recommendations yet.

These GPs often have plenty of appointment slots, and the most recent up-to-date training. Being an early adopter of their services could be to your benefit.

Read more:
How do you fix general practice? More GPs won’t be enough. Here’s what to do

6. Sub-specialists

Many GPs have special interests and advanced skills, such as skin cancer care, musculoskeletal medicine, women’s health or mental health.

They may have done postgraduate training, usually listed on the practice website along with their special interests. They are likely to have a shorter waiting time and lower costs than specialists – so consider these doctors if your needs match their expertise.

Other things to check

About 80% of practices go through a practice accreditation process, which proves attainment of standards set by the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners. Such practices will advertise this status on their website and at the entrance to the clinic.

You can also ask about a doctor’s qualifications and about the standard consultation length. This may range from 10 to 20 minutes. Don’t be afraid to ask these questions when calling a practice about your first visit.

The final and arguably most important test is how you connect when you meet them in person. Finding a GP can be like finding your favourite cardigan. You don’t know it’s your favourite until it has been worn in.

Similarly you don’t know that your GP is great until you’ve journeyed with them through some potentially challenging times of your life. We encourage you to use the above tips to find a suitable GP, then give them some time to get to know you and grow a therapeutic relationship.

With continuity of care, trust will grow, as will knowledge about you and your values. This will ultimately improve your overall health care experience.

Read more:
General practices are struggling. Here are 5 lessons from overseas to reform the funding system

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

– ref. With so many GPs leaving the profession, how can I find a new one? – https://theconversation.com/with-so-many-gps-leaving-the-profession-how-can-i-find-a-new-one-190666

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Terry Goldsworthy, Associate Professor in Criminal Justice and Criminology, Bond University

On Monday night, two police officers, Constable Rachel McCrow, 26, and Constable Matthew Arnold, 29, were shot and killed, and two other officers were injured, after being ambushed by offenders at a remote property in Wieambilla, in Queensland’s Western Downs. A civilian was also shot and killed. Specialist police then arrived at the scene, where they shot and killed three suspects, two men and a woman.

Such event are relatively rare in Australia, and shock us when they occur.
So how dangerous is policing in Australia?

Have we seen previous incidents similar to this?

Reports so far indicate police attended the address at the request of NSW police to conduct a missing person inquiry, and were then ambushed as they walked up the driveway of the property. This is not the first time police in Australia have been ambushed.

In 1988, two Victorian Police constables were lured to Walsh Street, South Yarra, with reports of a located stolen vehicle. Shortly after they arrived, Constables Steven Tynan, 22, and Damian Eyre, 20, were gunned down in an execution-style attack.

In 1995, two NSW police officers were gunned down while responding to an incident in the township of Crescent Head, where the offender had camouflaged himself and was armed with a high powered rifle. The officers were armed with revolvers. The inquest into the deaths resulted in police being issued with semiautomatic pistols to better defend themselves against armed offenders.

In 2017, Queensland police officer Brett Forte was shot and killed after he and other police were ambushed by wanted suspect Ricky Maddison with an automatic weapon on a country road in the Lockyer Valley, west of Brisbane. The intelligence provided to Forte and his colleagues about the risk posed by Maddision has been the focus of coronial hearings.

How dangerous is policing in Australia?

A study into police deaths in Australia showed 28 officers were killed by attacks between 1981 and 2007. Shootings, stabbings, or assaults were the main causes of attack. The study also showed that from 1981 to 2007, 22 of the police killed in attacks – or 79% – were killed by gunshot.

The Australian National Police Memorial lists those police who have been killed on duty or have died as a result of their duties. Since 2010, five police have died as the result of actions of armed offenders in Australia, of these four involved firearms and one a knife.

While the number of deaths is small, their impact of loved ones and colleagues is great, it must be acknowledged that policing is an inherently dangerous and difficult occupation. In addition to fatal injuries there are significant numbers of nonfatal assaults inflicted on police. In New South Wales, for example, there were 2,694 reported assaults against police in 2022.

How does Australia compare to other jurisdictions?

In the United States, some 224 officers were killed as a result of attacks between 2018-2021. Over the same period in Australia, one police officer was killed by attack. Longer term data in Australia indicate a rate of one officer per year being killed in attacks between 1981-2007.

Between 2010-2021, six police were killed in attacks the UK: four were shot, one stabbed and another died in a car bomb explosion.

The higher rates in the US can be attributed to a higher degree of gun ownership and a higher rate of violent crime involving guns.

Where does the investigation go now?

This matter will now be referred to the coroner for an inquest, where much of the focus will be on what happened and why. The inquest will examine the circumstances leading up to the deaths, the actions of police on the day, the response of the Queensland Police after the shootings. It will also include recommendations as to any preventative changes or policies that could reduce the likelihood of deaths occurring in similar circumstances.

The information that was available to attending police will also be scrutinised, as will any threat assessment conducted and the plan of approach adopted by the police in attending the incident, both initially before the ambush occurred and then when specialist squads were sent in to attend the violent scene. The intelligence made available to the attending police will be of crucial importance.

But first and foremost, the police and wider community will need to mourn the senseless loss of those killed in this terrible incident. Those involved in the incident will need to undergo a critical incident operational debrief. Ongoing psychological first aid will also be needed to support those affected. Ultimately many will be left wondering why and how this could happen.

Terry Goldsworthy tidak bekerja, menjadi konsultan, memiliki saham, atau menerima dana dari perusahaan atau organisasi mana pun yang akan mengambil untung dari artikel ini, dan telah mengungkapkan bahwa ia tidak memiliki afiliasi selain yang telah disebut di atas.

– ref. 6 dead, including 2 police, in Queensland shooting. How dangerous is policing in Australia? – https://theconversation.com/6-dead-including-2-police-in-queensland-shooting-how-dangerous-is-policing-in-australia-196459

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonti Horner, Professor (Astrophysics), University of Southern Queensland

It’s the most wonderful time of the year… not because Christmas is coming, but because it’s time for the Geminid meteor shower – an annual spectacle to bring joy and good cheer to all!

The Geminids are the best meteor shower of the year – a reliable show that graces the heavens every December. Active for around a fortnight, the shower peaks on the evening of December 14.

This year, the Moon will interfere with the best view of the Geminids. Rising just before or around midnight (depending on where you live), its glare will wash out and hide the fainter members of the shower.

For a normal meteor shower, that would be the kiss of death – but the Geminids are so good that, even fighting the glow of the Moon, they can still put on a spectacular show.

So where (and when) should you look? And where do the Geminids come from?

Read more:
Explainer: why meteors light up the night sky

The Geminids are fragments of a rock comet

Our Solar System is full of debris, left behind from when the planets formed. That debris includes comets and near-Earth asteroids – objects whose orbits around the Sun cross that of Earth itself.

Comets and asteroids are dirty beasts. They both have a tendency to shed dust and debris to space as they move around our star. The parent of the Geminids is an asteroid called 3200 Phaethon; its extremely elongated orbit around the Sun takes it in closer than Mercury, and out beyond the orbit of Mars. With each lap, the temperatures on Phaethon vary dramatically – from extreme cold (below -100℃) to extreme heat (above 750℃) and back again.

The result? The rocks on Phaethon expand and contract with the heat, fracturing and fragmenting, causing shards of debris to go out into space. Over thousands of years, that debris has spread around Phaethon’s orbit, creating a vast “tube”. We go through that debris each December as we move around the Sun, and it ablates (often described as “burning up”, though no fire is involved) high in our atmosphere, giving birth to the Geminid meteor shower.

So where and when should I look for the Geminids in 2022?

For most of the fortnight the Geminids are active, their rates are low. At that time, Earth is passing through the outer regions of Phaethon’s debris stream, where the dust is widely spread.

But for around 24 hours, centred on the evening of December 14, Earth will be passing through the densest part of the meteor stream. That’s when the view will be best.

While Geminid meteors can appear in any part of the sky, all will point back to the same area. That region, in the constellation Gemini, is known as the shower’s “radiant”. When the radiant is below the horizon, meteors from the shower are hitting the far side of our planet, and so no shower meteors will be visible.

The time at which the Geminid radiant rises is in the table below for cities around Australia. That marks the start of the show, and is a good time to head out and start getting adapted to the darkness.

In the first hour after the radiant rises, Geminids will be few and far between, but those that do appear have the potential to be spectacular. Entering Earth’s atmosphere at a very shallow angle, these “Earthgrazers” can appear to travel from horizon to horizon, an amazing sight.

As the hours pass, the show would normally get better and better, with the best rates visible in the early hours. This year, however, the waning gibbous Moon will rise roughly a couple of hours after the Geminid radiant. The moonlight will add glare to the night sky, hiding the fainter Geminids. Despite this, the show will continue to be spectacular – just a bit less so than in a normal year!

This year, the best time to observe might just be the hour or so before moonrise (and a little while after, when the Moon is still low in the sky). That’s a good time to lie back, relax, and gaze up at Mars – brilliant, red and brighter than the brightest stars in the night sky. This year, Mars will be a perfect guide to view the Geminids.

If you can relax and find Mars, and keep it roughly in the centre of your vision, you’ll be well placed to see plenty of Geminids. While the meteors can appear anywhere in the sky (always pointing back to the radiant), we’ve found that looking about 45 degrees from the radiant and about 45 degrees above the horizon seems to be the sweet spot to get the best display.

Find somewhere comfortable to relax, and enjoy the show. Remember, though, that meteors are a bit like buses. While you might hope to see 20 or 30 in the hour before moonrise (more, if you’re lucky), don’t expect them to fall as regularly as clockwork. You’ll wait ten minutes, then three will come along at once!

What if it’s cloudy? You might have better luck next year!

The Geminids are an annual spectacle – something wonderful to set your calendar by. If you miss the peak this year, all is not lost. The nights either side of the maximum (December 13 and 15) will still put on a decent show, albeit not as good as the maximum. If all three are lost to cloud, then let’s look forward to next year’s show. There’s good news there – in 2023, the Moon will be new, and won’t interfere at all.

In the meantime – fingers crossed for clear skies! Hopefully we’ll all get a good chance to see the best meteor shower of 2022. And if not, well, there’s always next year.

Read more:
Explainer: why meteors light up the night sky

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

– ref. Get ready, a spectacular meteor shower is hitting our skies in the next few days – https://theconversation.com/get-ready-a-spectacular-meteor-shower-is-hitting-our-skies-in-the-next-few-days-193711

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Pamela Hanrahan, Professor of Commercial Law and Regulation, UNSW Business School, UNSW Sydney

When cryptocurrency exchange FTX Group collapsed in the Bahamas last month, its local subsidiaries FTX Australia Pty Ltd and FTX Express Pty Ltd fell over too.

The Australian companies were placed into administration on November 11 and within days the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) had suspended the Australian financial service licence FTX Australia had held since March 2022.

The fact that FTX Australia had an Australian financial service came as a surprise to some people, who had wrongly assumed everything crypto-related was beyond the reach of Australia’s regulators.

It also raised questions – including for Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones – about how FTX Australia managed to acquire its Australian financial services licence, and how ASIC seemed to have missed the chance to intervene sooner.

And it draws wider attention to the 20-year-old licensing system and what an Australian financial service actually means for the firms that have them.

Licensed to do what, precisely?

When FTX commenced operations in Australia this year, its media release was headed: “FTX launches fully registered and licensed Australian operations”.

But what exactly was it licensed to do?

The Australian financial service (AFS) licensing regime in place since the late 1990s authorises each firm to do specified things, in relation to specified financial products, for specified clients.

Each firm’s licence is different, and what is required by ASIC is different depending on what the firm is authorised to do.

FTX Australia’s licence authorised it to deal in, make a market for, and provide general advice relating to derivatives and foreign exchange contracts to retail and wholesale clients. That’s it.

Note that crypto-assets are not specified, nor is running a crypto-asset exchange.

The jury is still out globally on whether crypto-assets (as distinct from investments derived from crypto-assets) are financial products at all.

It is possible to think of them as like gold bullion or fine art – or pet rocks – where the asset itself is not a financial product, but a financial product might be constructed from it.

If a cryptocurrency is not a financial product, then licensing laws can’t apply, which might explain why one of the two firms set up in Australia – FTX Express, which operated the crypto-exchange – was not AFS licensed.

Read more:
‘I thought crypto exchanges were safe’: the lesson in FTX’s collapse

The lesson is that knowing a firm has an AFS licence only takes you so far, and often not very far at all.

Unless you check the specific authorisations, there’s no way of knowing how little the firm you are dealing with is licensed to do.

And ASIC-regulation doesn’t involve prudential regulation, which is directed at the stability of the company itself, ensuring among other things that it should be able to meet its financial commitments under reasonable circumstances.

Prudential regulation is the job of the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority, which regulated neither FTX Australia nor FTX Express.

Licences for sale

FXT Australia’s ASIC licence was originally granted to someone else entirely back in 2008. A series of takeovers meant it passed through a number of hands until it ended up with FXT in March this year.

While an original applicant has to satisfy rigorous checks, this hasn’t always been the case for subsequent purchasers.

ASIC has known for years that its ASF licences were ending up in new hands when companies were bought and sold. In 2017, it asked the government’s ASIC Enforcement Review Taskforce to recommend changes to the law that would allow it to revisit an AFS licence when its owners changed.

The change that was eventually legislated in 2020 only required licensees to notify ASIC when a licence changed hands, within 30 days.

It did not require ASIC to approve the change in control.

Limited ASIC powers

ASIC is able to inquire further to determine whether there is reason to believe a new licensee was likely to contravene its statutory obligations or is “fit and proper” – but it is not required to do so.

If it finds either that the licensee is likely to contravene its obligations or that it is not fit and proper, it is able to suspend or cancel the licence after giving the new owners a fair hearing.

Read more:
How ‘bad credit’ lender Cigno has dodged ASIC’s grasp

But such inquiries have not become routine. Most of the (hundreds of) licensee purchases notified each year seem to go through to the keeper, as did FTX’s.

Even if ASIC had reviewed FTX’s purchase of the licence in March 2022, it might well have found no grounds to revoke it, given the very limited range of activities it authorised.

The FTX collapse may result in ASIC changing its attitude to change-of-control transactions involving AFS licensees, for which it might need more resources.

But even if that happens, clients would still be well advised to take care to understand exactly what “AFS licensed” really means.

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

– ref. How FTX Australia was able to get away with claiming it was ‘ASIC-licenced’ – https://theconversation.com/how-ftx-australia-was-able-to-get-away-with-claiming-it-was-asic-licenced-196361

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Julien Louys, Deputy Director, Australian Research Centre for Human Evolution, Griffith University

The place we call Australia today was in many ways vastly different 80,000 years ago.

Perhaps nowhere is this more evident than in the animals that would have roamed the plains and inhabited the forests of the continent. Huge marsupials ruled the land, including giant kangaroos, giant koalas and giant wombats.

In a study published today in Papers in Palaeontology, we describe the most complete skull of one of these giant wombats, a hitherto poorly known species called Ramsayia magna. This marsupial bore more than a passing resemblance to a giant beaver crossed with a modern hairy-nosed wombat.

A wombat impostor and a unique skull

Among the charismatic megafauna of Australia, perhaps the best known is the giant marsupial Diprotodon, often referred to as the “giant wombat”.

Contrary to what this moniker suggests, however, Diprotodon is not a wombat at all. Rather, it belongs to a family as distinct from wombats as hippos are from pigs, or as we are from monkeys.

Nevertheless, “true” giant wombats are known from Australia – Phascolonus, the largest, Sedophascolomys, the smallest, and finally Ramsayia, the rarest (roughly cow, goat and sheep-sized, respectively). Ramsayia was previously only known from isolated tooth and jaw fragments.

In the caves of Mount Etna just outside Rockhampton in Queensland, we uncovered a fossil that turned out to represent the most complete remains of this animal ever found. Our detailed anatomical study of this remarkable new specimen revealed what the animal looked like, its unique adaptations to grazing, and the evolutionary history of the giant wombats.

Air pockets in the skull

One of the first things we noted about Ramsayia was that the back of its skull preserved evidence of air pockets or sinuses not found in modern wombats.

These sinuses develop for two primary reasons. The outside of a mammal’s skull sometimes grows at a different pace to the brain cavity and the bones that directly surround it. While an animal (and its skull) can reach enormous sizes, its brain size may lag behind; a very large animal doesn’t always need a much larger brain than its smaller relatives.

To accommodate a huge skull and moderately sized brain without adding too much weight, sinuses develop – air cavities supported by bony struts. A larger skull with sinuses also provides more surface area for the attachment of larger chewing muscles, letting the animal process much tougher or poorer-quality foods than smaller species.

Although these sinuses have been found in other extinct giant marsupials, this is the first time they’ve been recorded in any wombat species.

They would have given Ramsayia a more rounded head than modern wombats, who have famously flat skulls that may be an adaptation to their underground lifestyle. This could mean Ramsayia did not live in burrows like wombats do today.

Interestingly, cranial material for another giant wombat, Phascolonus, (known for decades but still not studied in detail) suggests the top of its head was “dished-in”. This would indicate that like modern wombats, Phascolonus did not develop these sinuses and they may be unique to Ramsayia.

A sizeable snout

The second major feature we noted was the development of a vertical bony spine where most other marsupials have elongated, horizontal nasal bones.

Called a “premaxillary spine”, it most likely developed to provide structural support for a large fleshy nose: not quite a trunk, but certainly a sizeable nasal appendage. In this regard, as well as in the highly curved shape of its gape (the diastema) and incisors, it closely resembles Diprotodon, as well as giant fossil beavers found in America and Eurasia.

Using the features preserved in the skull of Ramsayia, we compared it to other wombats and wombat-like creatures, to better understand the evolution of giant wombats.

One interesting finding was that all three giant wombats – Phascolonus, Sedophascolomys, and Ramsayia – are more closely related to each other than they are to other extinct and modern wombats. This indicates that gigantism in wombats evolved only once and early in their evolutionary history.

A trend to gigantism was likely in response to the gradual drying out of the Australian continent that started about 20 million years ago and the need to process poorer quality food such as grasses – harder to ingest than leaves and fruits.

A mysterious extinction

To find out the age of the specimen, we used a combination of dating methods known as uranium series and electron spin resonance. These techniques allow us to date beyond the radiocarbon dating window of around 50,000 years.

Our results indicate this individual lived approximately 80,000 years ago in the Rockhampton region. We also found traces of this species even farther north, towards the Chillagoe area. This shows Ramsayia inhabited temperate to tropical grasslands of ancient Australia.

What caused its final extinction? While some have argued the species was wiped out by the arrival of humans, the truth is we don’t yet have enough data to be able to say.

Our paper provides the first ages for this species, and important insights into what it looked like and how it lived. But many more records will be needed to best determine why this giant wombat is no longer with us today.

We thank Eleanor Pease and Ian Sobbe who also contributed to this article.

Julien Louys receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the National Geographic Society.

Gilbert Price receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

Mathieu Duval receives funding from the Spanish State Research Agency (AEI). He works as a Senior Research Fellow for the National Research Centre on Human Evolution (CENIEH), Burgos, Spain. He is also Adjunct Senior Research Fellow at the Australian Research Centre for Human Evolution (ARCHE), Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia.

Robin Beck receives funding from the UK’s National Environmental Research Council.

– ref. For the first time ever, we have a complete skull description of a true fossil giant wombat – https://theconversation.com/for-the-first-time-ever-we-have-a-complete-skull-description-of-a-true-fossil-giant-wombat-196037

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David John Hallford, Senior Lecturer and Clinical Psychologist, Deakin University

From January 1 the number of psychology sessions covered by Medicare will be reduced to ten per year, down from the 20 the government has been subsidising during the pandemic.

But we know ten is not enough sessions for many mental health issues, and is an arbitrary number that may not reduce costs in the long run.

The federal government commissioned a review into public support and outcomes of psychology services, which has just been released. Patients and providers supported the additional sessions, which had more uptake and greater benefit for those with more severe issues. It recommended the 20 sessions per year should be retained.

Where did the number 10 come from in the first place?

In 2006, the federal government introduced the Better Access initiative through Medicare. This enabled Australians with a mental health disorder to obtain a mental health care plan from their GP and receive rebates for psychological therapy.

Initially, this allowed for up to 12 sessions per calendar year, with an additional six in exceptional circumstances. The Better Access scheme was taken up enthusiastically by the public, reflecting the high rate and burden of mental illness in the Australian community. The scheme was evaluated as having positive outcomes.

By 2011, the scheme had been capped to ten sessions a year. This appeared to be an attempt to rein in spending, while diverting funds to other mental health programs. In 2020, during the COVID pandemic, an additional ten sessions were introduced, allowing consumers to access up to 20 per calendar year.

As it currently stands, this extra ten will be removed at the end of the year. In the absence of other rationales, this appears to be another attempt to constrain government spending on the scheme.

What does the evidence say about number of sessions?

As with medicines, evidence for the use of psychological treatments is based on clinical trials. The majority of evidence for the effectiveness of psychological therapy comes from trials with a treatment length of more than ten sessions.

That’s the case for conditions including depressive disorders, anxiety disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorders, post-traumatic stress disorder, personality disorders, and schizophrenia.

Research shows between 13 and 18 sessions are required for 50% of people to reliably improve in psychological therapy.

Research also shows a dose-response relationship for psychological therapy, meaning the number of people who respond to treatment will increase when higher numbers of sessions are provided.

Findings from everyday practice show optimal doses for effective treatment range from four to 26 sessions or more. Higher numbers of sessions may be needed when mental illness is more complicated. This might be because people are experiencing multiple disorders, or where there are more severe symptoms or impacts on their life at the start of treatment.

Ten sessions won’t provide adequate treatment for many suffering from mental ill-health. And waiting until the next calendar year for the next ten sessions could see symptoms spiral in the meantime. The government has recognised this issue in the context of eating disorders, for which people may currently access up to 40 sessions of psychological treatment per calendar year by meeting specific criteria.

This is to be commended, and a step in the right direction. But it’s unclear why the same isn’t available for other significant mental illnesses.

Read more:
Netflix psychiatrist Phil Stutz says 85% of early therapy gains are down to lifestyle changes. Is he right?

What happens if people don’t get enough treatment?

When people are under-treated, symptoms can remain and continue to adversely impact their psychological and physical health, and quality of life.

These residual symptoms are one of the strongest predictors of relapse back into full-blown illness, including for more common disorders such as major depression and anxiety disorders.

A useful, and common, analogy for this under-treatment can be made with medical treatments. Australians would not be satisfied being prescribed half-courses of medicines. Nor would they be satisfied if bandages or casts were removed before wounds or breaks were healed.

To be effective, some treatments necessitate higher doses or longer care. Some Australians have enough money to pay privately for additional sessions, but for those who rely on bulk billing, a cap of ten sessions will leave them under-treated.

This is likely to mean individual and societal costs are persistent, whereas effective treatment in the first instance may save this burden in the long term.

How should the system work?

A fit-for-purpose system would provide the option of longer courses of treatment for those who have more severe issues or need more treatment to recover (and to stay recovered).

The number of sessions could be based on markers of severity (impact on day-to-day life and symptoms), complexity (duration of illness, presence of several disorders) and individual circumstances.

This “stepped” or “staging” model of treatment is not new to health care in Australia.

It’s already built into the Better Access scheme, whereby an initial six sessions are signed off, and then another four can be obtained after a second review, and then a further ten after another review again.

Changes to the number of sessions for eating disorders is a step in this right direction. But the needs of Australians with other mental illness also exist on a spectrum. Future iterations of Better Access should acknowledge and respond to these needs.

The author would like to thank Professor Caroline Hunt for her input into this article.

Read more:
Want to see a therapist but don’t know where to start? Here’s how to get a mental health plan

David John Hallford is a practising clinical psychologist and regularly sees Australians who utilise the Better Access scheme. He is also a member of the Australian Clinical Psychology Association and is one of their representatives on the 2022 Better Access evaluation stakeholder engagement group.

– ref. Seeing a psychologist on Medicare? Soon you’ll be back to 10 sessions. But we know that’s not often enough – https://theconversation.com/seeing-a-psychologist-on-medicare-soon-youll-be-back-to-10-sessions-but-we-know-thats-not-often-enough-194338

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Burnett, Honorary Associate Professor, ANU College of Law, Australian National University

Federal Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek has announced a much-anticipated overhaul of Australia’s national environment law. The plan is rich with welcome new policies – but the path to change is littered with hurdles.

The changes largely follow the recommendations of a major review of the law, known as the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act. The review by Professor Graeme Samuel was released in 2020. Speaking to ABC radio last week, Samuel expressed “complete elation and unqualified admiration and respect” for Plibersek’s comprehensive policy response.

The path of this big agenda stretches far beyond the one-term political horizon. I was a senior public servant responsible for managing and reforming the EPBC Act from 2007 to 2012. I’ve seen firsthand the obstacles to ambitious environmental reform.

Here are four hurdles Plibersek will have to jump, just for starters.

1. The absence of a climate trigger

The Greens and several crossbenchers have criticised Plibersek’s failure to include a so-called “climate trigger” in the reforms. This means the legislation’s passage through the Senate is not assured.

Legislating a climate trigger would mean a project’s future contribution to climate change would be assessed as part of the approvals process. This could mean a heavy-emitting project, such as an industrial plant or coal mine, is refused or its operations curtailed.

Plibersek has argued the federal government’s safeguard mechanism already regulates polluting facilities, and there’s no need to duplicate this.

Fair point. But critics also make a fair point: that Australia’s foremost environmental law does not deal with the most significant environmental threat of all.

There are opportunities for the federal government to introduce a limited climate trigger – for example, to large-scale land clearing. Such destruction is a significant contributor to Australia’s emissions, but is not covered by the safeguard mechanism.

Read more:
The Greens’ climate trigger policy could become law. Experts explain how it could help cut emissions – and why we should be cautious

2. Eliminating weasel words

The government’s new national environmental standards are the central plank of the reforms. Introducing such standards is a cutting-edge policy. The new federal Environmental Protection Agency will be tasked with ensuring the standards are adhered to.

Some standards will clearly describe the outcomes developments must meet – spelling out exactly what a healthy environment looks like. Projects will be required to align with this vision.

Other standards will describe processes needed to support the law’s proper functioning.

But drafting major changes to legislation is a fraught process – and the devil may yet creep into the detail.

The federal government must, in particular, weed out weasel words that might rob the standards of their punch – terms such as “as far as possible”.

And while the government’s reforms have been broadly welcomed by the business sector, it can expect opposition to its plan to extend standards to regional forestry agreements.

These agreements are currently exempt from the EPBC Act. In 2009, the Rudd Labor government dismissed a recommendation to review this exemption.

The Albanese government, very cautiously, says it will “begin a process” of applying the new national standards to regional forest agreements, in consultation with stakeholders.

No doubt Labor can still feel the rumbling of the 1995 blockade of Parliament House, when logging trucks blocked all entrances to the building for five days, after a dispute with the Keating government over woodchipping.

3. The difficulty of regional planning

Regional environmental plans will work in concert with the new national standards.

Regional plans will give guidance to decision makers, developers and communities on exactly what needs to be protected and where development should occur.

The federal government will partner with states and territories to identify locations where regional plans are needed. Plibersek has moved early, signing an agreement with Queensland to work together on the plans.

Even so, this is a long and winding road. Devising the plans is likely to be time-consuming, expensive and politically challenging. It will require new federal-state processes and good local consultation, and may highlight tensions about the future of particular regions.

4. Indigenous views and values

Plibersek has committed to giving First Nations people a greater say in environmental protection. As a start, the national standards applying to Indigenous engagement will be developed as a priority.

But respectful engagement is just the first step.

The Rudd government endorsed the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People. A parliamentary committee is now considering how it might apply in Australia.

Key to the declaration is the principle of free, prior and informed consent. Among other things, this means Traditional Owners should have the right to veto a development on their land – something the Native Title Act does not currently provide.

Read more:
Water injustice runs deep in Australia. Fixing it means handing control to First Nations

Backing the future

Many other significant hurdles lie in the way of the government’s reforms.

Chief among them is the thorny issue of environmental offsetting, in which damage caused by a development in one area is compensated for by improving the environment “like for like” elsewhere.

Under the reforms, if a “like for like” replacement can’t be found, a proponent must make a “conservation payment” to fund biodiversity improvements elsewhere. As others have noted, this strategy is fraught with issues.

And it remains to be seen if the private sector will embrace the government’s plans to make it easier for the private sector to invest in environmental improvements, by creating “biodiversity certificates” to be bought and sold.

Unless the government offers incentives, it’s hard to see businesses rushing to take part. Special cases aside, there’s rarely profit to be made in restoring nature.

Finally, and most importantly, Plibersek must secure budget funding to implement these wholesale reforms. One recent study found federal and state spending on threatened species alone was 15% of what’s needed.

Above all else, the success of Plibersek’s plan requires strong backing from Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and his cabinet.

Read more:
Half of Australia’s biggest companies have net-zero emissions plans, but climate action may come too late

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

– ref. ‘Complete elation’ greeted Plibersek’s big plans to protect nature – but hurdles litter the path – https://theconversation.com/complete-elation-greeted-pliberseks-big-plans-to-protect-nature-but-hurdles-litter-the-path-196287

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tim Pitman, Senior Research Fellow, Curtin University

Over this week and next, year 12 students around Australia will receive their exam results. This is a time of great expectations and intense pressure for many young people.

For some, their individual subject marks and university admission rank (ATAR) will be a cause for celebration. But others will be dealing with disappointment and perhaps concern, if they didn’t receive what they were hoping for.

Here, a higher education expert and a clinical psychologist share their advice on how to handle your results.

‘Don’t lose sight of what you want to do’

Associate Professor Tim Pitman, higher education policy expert and senior research fellow, Curtin University

First, take a breath. It’s not the end of the world and you’re definitely not the first student to have received a grade that was less than they were hoping for. Countless students have been in this position before you and have gone on to study, and succeed, in higher education.

The second thing to remember is, don’t lose sight of what you want to do. If you’re passionate about a certain degree or profession, it’s better to take some extra time and effort to get there, than do something else that your heart might not really be in.

Read more:
Don’t stress, your ATAR isn’t the final call. There are many ways to get into university

If they haven’t told you already, ask your university what options are available to having your offer reconsidered. These might include:

• applying for some form of special consideration. Most universities have processes to take into account significant factors that affected your academic performance, for example illness, study load and work commitments

• sitting some form of alternative admissions test, such as the Special Tertiary Admissions Test

• submitting a portfolio of academic achievements and qualifications, other than your ATAR, to demonstrate your readiness for university. Some universities also consider informal and non-formal learning (such as work-based experience)

• enrolling in a summer program run by the university before the start of semester. There may even be a longer bridging program, preparing you to start in second semester or the following year.

If none of these options are available to you, they might be available at another university, which offers the same course. You might be able to start at that university then switch to your preferred university after passing a certain number of subjects – and get credit for those subjects. And who knows, you might end up preferring your new university!

You could also consider enrolling in a vocational educational course, such as TAFE, that could count towards your preferred course. Again, check with your university what courses are eligible, and if you will receive any credit for your studies.

And again, remember you are not the first person in this position and there are still plenty of options available to you.

‘A single number does not and will not define who you are’

Dr Madeleine Ferrari, clinical psychologist and lecturer, Australian Catholic University

After the build-up and expectations from family, friends, school, and especially ourselves, receiving a grade you don’t want is tough. There’s no downplaying this, it is hard. This situation is likely to trigger a range of self-critical thoughts, uncomfortable feelings and avoidant behaviours. An avoidant behaviour, which is triggered by shame or embarrassment, may include wanting to withdraw and not see or speak to others.

This is completely normal and to be expected. It is helpful to normalise and validate these reactions. Make space for them and experiment with healthy ways to express them.

It might be watching a sad movie and letting yourself have a good cry, or putting pen to paper and writing anything that comes to mind. You could call a friend you trust, go for a run, or use art, music or boxing to move these feelings from inside our bodies to the external world. The more we express them, the less we carry them and the less they control us.

However, there is one reaction to keep an eye out for – self-criticism. If left unchecked, it can make you susceptible to mental ill-health and psychological distress. Psychologist’s view self-criticism as toxic. There’s a difference between thinking, “I’m disappointed with this grade, next time I’d approach study differently” compared to, “I’m disappointed with this grade, it’s all my fault, I’m useless, I’ll never amount to anything”.

Read more:
Self-compassion is the superpower year 12 students need for exams … and life beyond school

Give your self-critical voice a name (mine’s called Voldemort), and label it when it pops up. This will help you notice and get some space from it. When you do catch Voldermort flaring up, rather than believing them, gently ask yourself, would you say these things to a good friend who you cared about? What would you say instead? You deserve the same kindness and support.

This is called self-compassion. And when times are tough – such as receiving a disappointing grade – self-compassion can help keep things in perspective.

Self-compassion is treating ourselves with non-judgemental understanding, acceptance, encouragement, warmth, and wanting the best for ourselves. It creates a protective buffer in times of stress, and becoming more self-compassionate is linked with fewer anxiety, stress and depression symptoms.

Read more:
You’ve got a friend: young people help each other with their mental health for 3.5 hours every week

A single number does not and will not define who you are. It may not feel like it right now, but you will survive this, and as time passes, the sting of the number will fade. It will simply be another experience in the library of memories about yourself and you will start to have more confidence you can survive tough situations.

Difficult moments can be a powerful opportunity from a clinical psychologist’s perspective. Surviving such moments forms the building blocks for resilience you will carry across your life.

If this article has raised issues for you or someone you know, you can call Lifeline on 13 11 14 or Kids Helpline on 1800 55 1800.

Tim Pitman receives funding from the National Centre for Student Equity in Higher Education

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

– ref. Disappointed by your year 12 result? A university expert and a clinical psychologist share advice on what to do next – https://theconversation.com/disappointed-by-your-year-12-result-a-university-expert-and-a-clinical-psychologist-share-advice-on-what-to-do-next-196289

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Pamela Hanrahan, Professor of Commercial Law and Regulation, UNSW Business School, UNSW Sydney

When cryptocurrency exchange FTX Group collapsed in the Bahamas last month, its local subsidiaries FTX Australia Pty Ltd and FTX Express Pty Ltd fell over too.

The Australian companies were placed into administration on November 11 and within days the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) had suspended the Australian financial service licence FTX Australia had held since March 2022.

The fact that FTX Australia had an Australian financial service came as a surprise to some people, who had wrongly assumed everything crypto-related was beyond the reach of Australia’s regulators.

It also raised questions – including for Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones – about how FTX Australia managed to acquire its Australian financial services licence, and how ASIC seemed to have missed the chance to intervene sooner.

And it draws wider attention to the 20-year-old licensing system and what an Australian financial service actually means for the firms that have them.

Licensed to do what, precisely?

When FTX commenced operations in Australia this year, its media release was headed: “FTX launches fully registered and licensed Australian operations”.

But what exactly was it licensed to do?

The Australian financial service (AFS) licensing regime in place since the late 1990s authorises each firm to do specified things, in relation to specified financial products, for specified clients.

Each firm’s licence is different, and what is required by ASIC is different depending on what the firm is authorised to do.

FTX Australia’s licence authorised it to deal in, make a market for, and provide general advice relating to derivatives and foreign exchange contracts to retail and wholesale clients. That’s it.

Note that crypto-assets are not specified, nor is running a crypto-asset exchange.

The jury is still out globally on whether crypto-assets (as distinct from investments derived from crypto-assets) are financial products at all.

It is possible to think of them as like gold bullion or fine art – or pet rocks – where the asset itself is not a financial product, but a financial product might be constructed from it.

If a cryptocurrency is not a financial product, then licensing laws can’t apply, which might explain why one of the two firms set up in Australia – FTX Express, which operated the crypto-exchange – was not AFS licensed.

Read more:
‘I thought crypto exchanges were safe’: the lesson in FTX’s collapse

The lesson is that knowing a firm has an AFS licence only takes you so far, and often not very far at all.

Unless you check the specific authorisations, there’s no way of knowing how little the firm you are dealing with is licensed to do.

And ASIC-regulation doesn’t involve prudential regulation, which is directed at the stability of the company itself, ensuring among other things that it should be able to meet its financial commitments under reasonable circumstances.

Prudential regulation is the job of the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority, which regulated neither FTX Australia nor FTX Express.

Licences for sale

FXT Australia’s ASIC licence was originally granted to someone else entirely back in 2008. A series of takeovers meant it passed through a number of hands until it ended up with FXT in March this year.

While an original applicant has to satisfy rigorous checks, this hasn’t always been the case for subsequent purchasers.

ASIC has known for years that its ASF licences were ending up in new hands when companies were bought and sold. In 2017, it asked the government’s ASIC Enforcement Review Taskforce to recommend changes to the law that would allow it to revisit an AFS licence when its owners changed.

The change that was eventually legislated in 2020 only required licensees to notify ASIC when a licence changed hands, within 30 days.

It did not require ASIC to approve the change in control.

Limited ASIC powers

ASIC is able to inquire further to determine whether there is reason to believe a new licensee was likely to contravene its statutory obligations or is “fit and proper” – but it is not required to do so.

If it finds either that the licensee is likely to contravene its obligations or that it is not fit and proper, it is able to suspend or cancel the licence after giving the new owners a fair hearing.

Read more:
How ‘bad credit’ lender Cigno has dodged ASIC’s grasp

But such inquiries have not become routine. Most of the (hundreds of) licensee purchases notified each year seem to go through to the keeper, as did FTX’s.

Even if ASIC had reviewed FTX’s purchase of the licence in March 2022, it might well have found no grounds to revoke it, given the very limited range of activities it authorised.

The FTX collapse may result in ASIC changing its attitude to change-of-control transactions involving AFS licensees, for which it might need more resources.

But even if that happens, clients would still be well advised to take care to understand exactly what “AFS licensed” really means.

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

– ref. How FXT Australia was able to get away with claiming it was ‘ASIC-licenced’ – https://theconversation.com/how-fxt-australia-was-able-to-get-away-with-claiming-it-was-asic-licenced-196361

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anna Hickey-Moody, Professor of Media and Communication, RMIT University

The SBS drama Latecomers is an insightful, witty and superbly produced exploration of the fragility of human life and the fear of rejection that accompanies the human need for intimacy.

Starring Angus Thompson (as Frank) and Hannah Diviney (as Sarah), actors with cerebral palsy, the show’s most distinctive appeal is how it explores the fear of rejection which accompanies all attempts at intimacy: successful or otherwise.

Globally, the screen industry has struggled to employ actors with a disability. Films such as Breathe (2017), Me Before You (2016), Margarita with a Straw (2014), The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007) and many others all employ actors without a disability in disabled roles.

Latecomers, however, stars actors with a disability playing characters with a disability. It is a joy to see.

Actors with a disability need to be included in screen media more often. Latecomers is particularly important because of the way it considers sex, pleasure and disability.

Disability, sexuality and sex in Australian cinema

Perhaps the one of the most significant early Australian films about living with a disability is Annie’s Coming Out (1984), an adaption of a book written by Rosemary Crossley and Anne McDonald based on a true story exploring the life of children with a disability who are institutionalised by their parents.

Annie’s Coming Out was significant because of the performance given by Tina Arhondis, an actor with cerebral palsy who was cast to play the role of Annie.

The film follows Annie’s institutionalisation and misdiagnosis as intellectually and physically disabled, before the realisation she has no intellectual disability.

Her physical therapist fights to have her released and succeeds.

The history of institutionalising people with a disability in Australia begins with colonisation. European settlers brought their asylums with them. Intellectually disabled people together with physically disabled people were also included in these group homes. By 1841, one eighth of the population in South Australia relied on public relief. The Adelaide Destitute Asylum was full beyond capacity.

Similar reliance on asylums characterised life for people with any kind of disability in Perth (Freemantle Asylum), Melbourne (the Ballarat Asylum and later the Kew Idiot’s Ward), Sydney (Parramatta, Callan Park, Gladesville Asylums). Intellectual disability was slowly extracted from psychiatric illness in the late 19th century.

By 1887 three million Australians were registered as “insane”, but institutions still housed people with “incurable” disabilities and women who had post natal depression. For example, in 1898 children with intellectual disability began being moved out of the Adelaide lunatic asylum.

It was not until the 1970s that institutional living began to be critiqued. De-institutionalisation took place unevenly over the 1980s and 1990s. In 1981, 195,243 people lived in health and welfare institutions in Australia. By 1991, this number had dropped to 168,940 and it continued to fall.

Read more:
By naming ‘Pennhurst’, Stranger Things uses disability trauma for entertainment. Dark tourism and asylum tours do too

The film Dance Me to My Song (1998) also looked at women with disabilities in institutional living facilities. Written by the late Heather Rose, an actor and screen writer with cerebral palsy, the film explores Julia’s sexuality and her complicated relationship with her abusive carer.

The rates of sexual abuse of women with disabilities in institutional living facilities in Australia were alarming. Primarily instigated by male carers working in institutions, the forced sterilisation of women with disabilities in institutions became a way of “managing” – hiding – this abuse.

If women could not become pregnant there was no material evidence the abuse was taking place. Women were not only stripped of the right to choose to have sex, they have their reproductive rights taken away in an effort to cover up systemic sexual abuse.

Even today, one in four Australian women with a disability have experienced sexual violence after the age of 15, compared with 15% without disability.

This is the context in which Latecomers’ presents its exploration of disability and sexuality.

Just as Dance Me to My Song spoke to themes of power, sex and sexual control, Latecomers looks at the role of sex and sexuality in the lives of disabled people. But here, we get to join in with friendships, humour, the fear of rejection and the excitement of sex. We also get to laugh at the failure of sex at times.

Read more:
‘What matters is hope, freedom and saying who you are.’ What LGBTQ+ people with intellectual disabilities want everyone to know

Witty approaches to disability and sex

Latecomers begins with a date. Angus Thompson’s Frank doesn’t care about a nice meal, or interesting conversation, Frank just wants to get drunk and get laid.

In trying to achieve these goals, Frank is keen to pursue the strategy made popular by generations of Australian men – tell Hannah Diviney’s Sarah she is “unfuckable”.

This statement has a complexity specific to Sarah and Frank’s disabilities that makes it more powerful than it might otherwise be. However, women who are both disabled and not disabled will relate.

These relationships are complicated by power relationships surrounding disability and these tensions play out as the show continues.

Sarah ditches Frank for a nice guy, (Patrick Jhanur) who likes her for her wit and intelligence and who doesn’t want to tell his mates all about sex. In a media landscape characterised by sexual fantasies, I am personally relieved to see a sex scene that is not played out between two able-bodied white people.

It is a welcome change to see disabled people enjoying sex on screen. May we see much more of it.

Latecomers is a tonic for the pain and loneliness that is part of all our embodied lives – and an important step forward in how the stories of people with a disability are told on screen. Released in the same year that neurodivergent actor Chloé Hayden from Heartbreak High won the AACTA best actress audience choice awards, Latecomers signals a shift in consumer taste.

Anna Hickey-Moody receives funding from funding from the Australian Research Council. She grew up in Australia with a father who was severely disabled and has been researching questions of disability, gender and representation since her late teens.

– ref. Sex, comedy and vulnerability: Latecomers on SBS is an important shift in disability representation – https://theconversation.com/sex-comedy-and-vulnerability-latecomers-on-sbs-is-an-important-shift-in-disability-representation-195931

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrea Carson, Associate Professor, Department of Politics, Media and Philosophy, La Trobe University

In a time of falling trust in the news media, it is vital journalists do not engage in news-gathering methods that further harm their credibility. Thanks to the rise of social media, misinformation and disinformation are rampant. Trust in news matters, so we can tell fact from fiction. Without it, democracy suffers.

In our new book, Undercover Reporting, Deception and Betrayal in Journalism, we ask whether deception is ever an acceptable method for journalists to use. In other words, is it ever okay to lie to a target to get a story?

We find it can be ethically justifiable under very specific conditions. We offer a six-point checklist for journalists (and the audience) to test if deception and betrayal are warranted.

Deception is one of the most common ethical problems in journalism. It ranges in seriousness from misrepresentation to the use of undercover reporting.

In fact, it is so common that some argue it is inherent in what journalists do. The late American writer and journalist Janet Malcolm, for instance, in her renowned book The Journalist and the Murderer, said in her opening paragraph:

Every journalist who is not too stupid or too full of himself [sic] to notice what is going on knows that what he does is morally indefensible. He is a kind of confidence man, preying on people’s vanity, ignorance, or loneliness, gaining their trust, and betraying them without remorse.

While we argue Malcolm pushes her argument too far, we present a range of case studies that show not only the range of deceptive practices in contemporary journalism, but also their seriousness.

Three of the case studies are drawn from high-profile undercover operations or acts of deception.

One concerns the use by Cambridge Analytica of data gathered by Facebook on 87 million of its users worldwide. These data were used to influence elections in several countries, including the United States in 2016.

Another involved the infiltration by Al Jazeera of the National Rifle Association in the US. It then repeated this with the One Nation party in Australia in 2019.

The third case is the deception and betrayal inflicted on thousands of innocent people in Britain by Rupert Murdoch’s News of the World newspaper in hacking their mobile phones. This is perhaps the most egregious example of journalists failing their ethical duty in Britain in the past century.

From our examination of these cases, including interviews with key journalists, and building on the work of two distinguished American journalists and scholars, Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel, we developed our six-point framework for assessing the ethical justification for the use of undercover techniques, including those of masquerade and entrapment.

Read more:
Hacking trial verdict: Coulson guilty and Brooks cleared, but end of an era for the red tops

Using this test, we concluded that the operation against Cambridge Analytica was ethically justified. It told the public important truths that we would not otherwise have known. The most notable of these was that Cambridge Analytica was in the business of interfering in sovereign elections – a direct threat to democratic wellbeing.

But we also find that the operations against the NRA and One Nation were not justifiable; nor in any way could the phone hacking of celebrities and ordinary citizens such as the murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler ever be justified to produce stories for News of the World.

Our framework consists of these six questions:

1. Is the information sufficiently vital to the public interest to justify deception?

2. Were other methods considered and was deception the only way to get the story?

3. Was the use of deception revealed to the audience and the reasons explained?

4. Were there reasonable grounds for suspecting the target of the deception was engaged in activity contrary to the public interest?

5. Was the operation carried out with a risk strategy so it would not imperil a formal investigation by competent authorities?

6. Did the test of what is “sufficiently vital” to the public interest include an objective assessment of harm or wrongdoing?

We consider a further case study to look at other aspects of deception and betrayal.

It concerns the deceptive conduct that goes under the general name of “hybrid journalism”. This is where advertising is presented in a way that is difficult to distinguish from news.

It goes under a variety of names such as “branded content”, “sponsored content” or “native advertising”. More recently, another label has come into fashion: “From our partners”. Reputable platforms use typography that distinguishes this from news content, but less reputable ones make it difficult to discern one from the other.

Journalists also engage in a range of more everyday deceptive practices. These include failing to declare oneself as a journalist; attempting to ingratiate oneself with a person by feigning a romantic interest in them; agreeing to publish information known to be untrue in order to serve the interests of a valued source; and ambushing a subject by having a microphone open or a camera rolling when the subject has no reason to think they are being recorded.

As these case studies show, deception and betrayal in journalism take many forms, and the ethical decisions surrounding them are far from straightforward. However, they are not inherent to the practice of journalism. Whether they are justifiable must be closely scrutinised, because the public’s trust in the media is at stake.

Andrea Carson receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

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

– ref. Is it ever okay for journalists to lie to get a story? – https://theconversation.com/is-it-ever-okay-for-journalists-to-lie-to-get-a-story-196358

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alan Brent, Professor and Chair in Sustainable Energy Systems, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington

Greater electrification of the economy is an essential part of Aotearoa New Zealand’s climate policy, as set out in the emissions reduction plan.

But the national electricity system depends heavily on the fluctuating storage capacity of hydropower lakes, which makes the country prone to energy shortages during dry years.

The NZ Battery Project aims to address this. One of the options being investigated is the Onslow pumped storage hydropower (PSH) scheme.

A feasibility study is due to be completed and cabinet is expected to decide early in the new year whether to continue to the next phase of establishing a detailed business case.

Pumped storage hydropower is an established technology. It accounts for more than 94% of the globally installed energy storage capacity.

Worldwide, pumped storage hydropower has been ramping up. In 2021, 4.7GW capacity was added, up from 1.5GW in 2020. If it continues, the Onlow project will be one of the largest PSH schemes in the world, adding up to 1.5GW of generation capacity.

The proposed scale of the Onslow project requires a considerable investment – at least NZ$4 billion. To justify this, we argue the scheme should be seen as a public-good and multi-purpose asset. It would not only support electricity generation but also address water and other sustainability priorities in the face of climate change.

Read more:
Batteries of gravity and water: we found 1,500 new pumped hydro sites next to existing reservoirs

Making the investment worthwhile

Pumped storage hydropower is well known to be a cost-competitive option for energy storage. While the capital expenditure is high, the cost of the energy is one of the lowest, at 20-40 cents per kWh. Return on investment in pumped storage hydropower is considerably better than for conventional batteries.

The Onslow project is also likely to qualify for a climate bond because its carbon emissions may reasonably be under the limit of 50gCO₂/kWh. To achieve this, it must use renewable energy resources for the pumping and its construction footprint has to be reduced.

Other environmental and social impacts (and opportunities) also need to be addressed. This includes the planting of an indigenous forest around the reservoir to prevent sediment erosion.

A multi-purpose asset

The Onslow infrastructure provides a way of managing dry years by storing water during rainy periods.

It can also participate as a conventional electricity generator. This will have implications for the wholesale electricity market because variability (from renewable generators) is currently mitigated by existing hydropower and fossil-fuel generation.

From a technical perspective, the challenge for Transpower is to maintain a consistent frequency and voltage in the power network. The Onslow infrastructure will assist with frequency regulation for the entire electricity network.

It offers a fast-acting and large-scale dynamic load, as is the case for other pumped storage hydropower projects such as the UK’s Coire Glas project or France’s Grand Maison. Both are also located remotely in the network similar to Onslow.

Globally, PSH schemes are viewed as multi-purpose assets. The Wivenhoe Dam (in Queensland, Australia) is a lower reservoir for a pumped storage hydropower scheme and provides drinking water and flood mitigation for Brisbane.

Another example is the hydropower infrastructure of the Durance Valley in France. It was designed, built and regulated to guarantee the operator provides drinkable water (740 million cubic metres per year) for 5 million inhabitants. It also supplies water to more than 170,000 hectares of cultivated lands (1.5 billion cubic metres per year in a dry season), generates reliable low-carbon electricity (for over 2 million people per year) and protects the valley from extreme flooding – and it’s become a visitor attraction, drawing 2.5 million tourists annually.

Read more:
Batteries get hyped, but pumped hydro provides the vast majority of long-term energy storage essential for renewable power – here’s how it works

Onslow would offer similar water-management services. It could be delivering fresh water to Dunedin and other towns in the area, potentially free water to surrounding farmers and flood protection for towns along the Clutha River.

Another benefit is the regeneration of the Waiau and Waitaki rivers by freeing capacity (and water) from the Manapouri hydro system and the lakes at Tekapo and Pukaki.

Hydropower schemes are also viewed as territorial objects or public management tools. The schemes in the Drac Valley in the French Alps are a good example. While some of the agricultural land in the alpine valley was lost, the real estate values have increased substantially. Recreational activities now provide the main income for the area, estimated at €3 million (NZ$5 million) over five years.

The schemes have an enormous impact on local economies. The operators pay local taxes and provide employment, including local subcontracts, worth an estimated NZ$88 million.

Read more:
How to ensure the world’s largest pumped-hydro dam isn’t a disaster for Queensland’s environment

The Onslow project would obviously bring employment opportunities (more than 1,000 direct and more indirect) during the construction and throughout its operation. But it could also provide financial benefits to the local community in the form of a local tax paid by the operator to maintain roads and infrastructure networks (telecom, water, energy) as well as other public services.

To ensure Onslow manifests as a sustainable, public-good asset requires careful upfront co-ordination to avoid complications. If the project goes ahead and is managed well, Onslow may become a long-lasting asset that offers the opportunity to diversify a low-carbon, self-resilient economy in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Gregory Guyot is affiliated with IAHR (International Association for Hydro-environment, Engineering and Research).

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

– ref. NZ’s proposed pumped storage hydropower project will cost billions – here’s how to make it worthwhile – https://theconversation.com/nzs-proposed-pumped-storage-hydropower-project-will-cost-billions-heres-how-to-make-it-worthwhile-195430

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Laura A. B. Wilson, ARC Future Fellow, Australian National University

Compared to men, we know much less about how women experience disease.

Biomedical research helps us understand the timeline of diseases and how we can treat them. In the past, most of it has been conducted on male cells and experimental animals, such as mice. It has been assumed the results from such “pre-clinical” research on males apply to females too.

Yet men and women experience disease differently. That includes how diseases develop, the length and severity of symptoms, and the effectiveness of treatment options.

Smaller bodies?

Although these differences are now widely acknowledged, they are not fully understood. And women are often worse off as a result.

This is the case for prescription drugs. Women experience around 50-75% more adverse reactions than men. This results in many drugs being pulled from the market due to concerns over health risks for women.

Drug reactions in women have been argued to be due to sex differences in body weight rather than differences in how the drug works in the body.

Therefore, it’s thought that if drug doses are adjusted according to body weight, women will often receive lower doses than they do now – which may alleviate adverse reactions.

But that may not be the case.

In new research published today in Nature Communications, we show this basic assumption in biomedicine – that females are “smaller versions” of males – is not supported for most pre-clinical traits (things like glucose levels, for example).

So, drug reactions in women are unlikely to be alleviated simply by adjusting the dose to one’s body weight.

Adverse drug reactions are common and costly for healthcare

Basing women’s healthcare decisions based on research conducted on men – and vice versa – has potentially profound consequences. In the case of adverse drug reactions, the impacts are significant from both a clinical and economic perspective.

A recent study estimated that 250,000 hospital admissions in Australia each year are medication related, costing the healthcare system around $1.4 billion annually.

Read more:
As pharmaceutical use continues to rise, side effects are becoming a costly health issue

Drug reactions have also been shown to lengthen hospital stays. In a large UK study, patients admitted to hospital with an adverse drug reaction stayed for a median of eight days.

Women often cite adverse reactions as the reason for discontinuing medications. If weight-adjusted dosing of drugs could reduce adverse drug reactions, we would see women receive greater potential benefit from the healthcare system.

The weight of evidence

But what evidence do we have that weight adjustment will work? The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has already recommended dosage changes for women for some drugs (such as the sleep drug zolpidem). Additionally, weight-adjusted dosing for some antifungal drugs and antihypertensive drugs appears to work.

On the other hand, drug reactions are strongly linked to what the drug does in the body in women , and less so in men. There are also many documented differences in physiology between men and women that relate to how drugs are absorbed and cleared by the body, and not to body weight.

To get to the bottom of this, a broad scale approach is needed. We borrowed a method routinely used in evolutionary biology, known as “allometry”, where a relationship between a trait of interest and body size is examined on a log scale.

We applied allometry analyses to 363 pre-clinical traits in males and females, comprising over two million data points from the International Mouse Phenotyping Consortium.

We focused on one of the most common disease model animals: mice. We asked whether sex differences in pre-clinical traits – such as fat mass, glucose, LDL cholesterol – could be explained by body weight alone.

Read more:
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Our analyses recovered sex differences in many traits that cannot be explained by body weight differences. Some examples are physiology traits, such as iron levels and body temperature, morphology traits such as lean mass and fat mass, and heart traits such as heart rate variability.

We found the relationship between a trait and body weight varied considerably across all the traits we examined, meaning that the differences between males and females could not be generalized: females weren’t simply smaller versions of males.

Ignoring these differences in some cases, such as measures of blood cells, bone and organs, could result in missing a lot of the population variation for a particular trait: up to 32% for females and 46% for males.

This complexity means we need to consider sex differences for drug dosing on a case-by-case basis.

One size does not fit all

In an era where personalised medicine interventions are within reach, and patient-specific solutions are on the horizon, we now know that sex-based data are much needed to advance care in an equitable and effective manner.

Our study uncovers the ways in which males and females can vary across many pre-clinical traits, indicating that biomedical research needs to focus more closely on measuring how and in what ways the sexes differ.

Particularly, when a relationship between sex and drug dose is uncovered, our data suggest dose-response is likely to be different for males and females.

The methods in our study could help clarify the nature of these differences and provide a path forward to reducing drug reactions.

Read more:
The evolutionary history of men and women should not prevent us from seeking gender equality

Laura A. B. Wilson receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

Shinichi Nakagawa receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

– ref. Women are 50–75% more likely to have adverse drug reactions. A new mouse study finally helps explain why – https://theconversation.com/women-are-50-75-more-likely-to-have-adverse-drug-reactions-a-new-mouse-study-finally-helps-explain-why-195358

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Natalie Sheard, Lawyer and PhD Candidate, La Trobe University

The use of artificial intelligence (AI) and other automated decision-making tools in recruitment is on the rise among Australian organisations. However, research shows these tools may be unreliable and discriminatory, and in some cases rely on discredited science.

At present, Australia has no specific laws to regulate how these tools operate or how organisations may use them.

The closest thing we have is new guidance for employers in the public sector, issued by the Merit Protection Commissioner after overturning several automated promotion decisions.

A first step

The commissioner reviews promotion decisions in the Australian public sector to make sure they are lawful, fair and reasonable. In the 2021-22 financial year, Commissioner Linda Waugh overturned 11 promotion decisions made by government agency Services Australia in a single recruitment round.

These decisions were made using a new automated process that required applicants to pass through a sequence of AI assessments, including psychometric testing, questionnaires and self-recorded video responses. The commissioner found this process, which involved no human decision-making or review, led to meritorious applicants missing out on promotions.

Read more:
Algorithms can decide your marks, your work prospects and your financial security. How do you know they’re fair?

The commissioner has now issued guidance material for Australian government departments on how to choose and use AI recruitment tools.

This is the first official guidance given to employers in Australia. It warns that not all AI recruitment tools on the market here have been thoroughly tested, nor are they guaranteed to be completely unbiased.

AI recruitment tools risky and unregulated

AI tools are used to automate or assist recruiters with sourcing, screening and onboarding job applicants. By one estimate, more than 250 commercial AI recruitment tools are available in Australia, including CV screening and video assessment.

A recent survey by researchers at Monash University and the Diversity Council of Australia found one in three Australian organisations have used AI in recruitment recently.

The use of AI recruitment tools is a “high risk” activity. By affecting decisions related to employment, these tools may impact the human rights of job seekers and risk locking disadvantaged groups out of employment opportunities.

Australia has no specific legislation regulating the use of these tools. Australia’s Department of Industry has published AI Ethics Principles, but these are not legally binding. Existing laws, such as the Privacy Act and anti-discrimination legislation, are in urgent need of reform.

Unreliable and discriminatory?

AI recruitment tools involve new and developing technologies. They may be unreliable and there are well-publicised examples of discrimination against historically disadvantaged groups.

AI recruitment tools may discriminate against these groups when their members are missing from the datasets on which AI is trained, or when discriminatory structures, practices or attitudes are transmitted to these tools in their development or deployment.

There is currently no standard test that identifies when an AI recruitment tool is discriminatory. Further, as these tools are often made outside Australia, they are not attuned to Australian law or demographics. For example, it is very likely training datasets do not include Australia’s First Nations peoples.

Lack of safeguards

AI recruitment tools used by and on behalf of employers in Australia lack adequate safeguards.

Human rights risk and impact assessments are not required prior to deployment. Monitoring and evaluation once they are in use may not occur. Job seekers lack meaningful opportunities to provide input on their use.

While the vendors of these tools may conduct internal testing and auditing, the results are often not publicly available. Independent external auditing is rare.

Power imbalance

Job seekers are at a considerable disadvantage when employers use these tools. They may be invisible and inscrutable, and they are changing hiring practices in ways that are not well understood.

Job seekers have no legal right to be told when AI is used to assess them in the hiring process. Nor are they required to be given an explanation of how an AI recruitment tool will assess them.

Read more:
Artificial intelligence can deepen social inequality. Here are 5 ways to help prevent this

My research has found this is particularly problematic for job seekers with disabilities. For example, job seekers with low vision or limited manual dexterity may not know they will be assessed on the speed of their responses until it is too late.

Job seekers in Australia also lack the protection available to their counterparts in the European Union, who have the right not to be subjected to a fully automated recruitment decision.

Facial analysis

The use of video assessment tools, like those used by Services Australia, is particularly concerning. Many of these AI tools rely on facial analysis, which uses facial features and movements to infer behavioural, emotional and character traits.

This type of analysis has been scientifically discredited. One prominent vendor, HireVue, was forced to cease the use of facial analysis in its AI tool as a result of a formal complaint in the United States.

What’s next?

The Services Australia example highlights the urgent need for a regulatory response. The Australian government is currently consulting on the regulation of AI and automated decision-making.

We can hope that new regulations will address the many issues with the use of AI tools in recruitment. Until legal protections are in place, it might be best to hold off on the use of these tools to screen job seekers.

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

– ref. Will AI decide if you get your next job? Without legal regulation, you may never even know – https://theconversation.com/will-ai-decide-if-you-get-your-next-job-without-legal-regulation-you-may-never-even-know-196282

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter McNeil, Distinguished Professor of Design History, UTS, University of Technology Sydney

Alexander McQueen: Mind, Mythos, Muse was first conceived at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

That museum, like many around the world, is being completely redeveloped to embrace not just spectacular new buildings, but new attitudes towards museum collections.

Gone are the boundaries between materials, forms, cultures, nationalities and hierarchies of the arts. No more gallery of, say, “18th century North American silver” or “Medieval and Renaissance art in the European North”. Instead, arts from varied times, places and hierarchies all sit together.

An exhibition of the work of Alexander McQueen (1968-2010) was an interesting response to this challenge of a new museum, which also highlighted the relatively late arrival of fashion as a category worthy of study in the global museum.

It paired garments by McQueen – many specially donated by one woman collector – with the rich Los Angeles County Museum of Art collections in order to suggest the ways in which McQueen had generated his ideas.

Now the exhibition has come to the National Gallery of Victoria, with most of the McQueens on display here donated by Melbourne fashion philanthropist Krystyna Campbell Pretty.

Read more:
The gothic vision at the heart of Alexander McQueen’s savage beauty

Flourishing postmodernism

This new show is extensive. We have 120 McQueen looks and 80 other works of art. Paintings and decorative arts star in this show, notably the spectacular Jean-Baptiste Greuze painting of a young French actress in Turkish-style dress, on loan from Los Angeles.

The visual pairings, which range from 18th century English porcelain figures to lavish Russian gold-woven cloths, drive much of the tempo.

Important loans from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art are joined by treasures from the NGV, including a spectacular Morris embroidered wall cloth and the Netherlandish flower paintings that contain within them the idea of memento mori – remember that you die.

Lee Alexander McQueen was born in 1968, so he was young in the 1980s, absorbing all the flashes of art, design and culture in which postmodernism flourished.

Working-class, McQueen did not first go to art school as his middle-class counterparts might. Instead, he apprenticed in Savile Row, the epicentre of bespoke British tailoring, mastering the cut of jackets and trousers.

He became so technically proficient that when he applied to tutor technique at art school he was invited to enrol in a Masters.

And so the celebrated – and often controversial – McQueen high fashion design was born.

An immersive experience

As well as new ways of dressing for women, McQueen gave us new ways of representing fashion: high concept runways, fashion films, live screenings and putting Paralympian Aimee Mullins on the runway, generating new modes of beauty.

At the NGV we have a fully immersive experience and bold scenography.

“Mythos” examines three collections through the filter of mythology and theology. McQueen loved to make the present strange by incorporating elements from religious practice, even prejudice, from the past.

Everything from angels to demons, from witch burning to Catholic rites might be incorporated for design, fabrication or the runway.

These go past simply being artistic source material to generate new ways of looking and appearing for women. “I want people to be afraid of the women I dress,” he said.

This exhibition celebrates McQueen’s technical bravura across both tailoring and soft dressmaking, two categories of making clothes that were often conducted separate from the other in the west.

Intimate backstage photographs are shown, indicating how the clothes were really worn by models and friends. Here the “muse” is no longer a house model or elegant confidant, but rather a whole set of cultural reflections.

The third and final section is called “Fashion Narratives”. Here we see a visual imagination ranging across Siberia, Tibet and other exotic locales.

McQueen might, in this section, be accused of cultural appropriation, but this would be unfair.

Rather than appropriation, his fashion designs were about fantasy, and fantasy put to good ends, making things from gender to place to sexuality off centre or strange, so we are aware of the fragile accord we have between our identities and our appearances.

As Catherine Brickhill, the first designer employed by McQueen to work on his label notes in the catalogue, McQueen:

delved deep into the differences between our culture and other cultures. It wasn’t cultural appropriation, but an openness to and curiosity to be explored and celebrated.

Other narratives in this section include the most controversial ones that swirled around McQueen, notably Highland Rape collection, in which McQueen suggested the appearance of Scottish widows during the Highland Wars in ripped and tattered clothes.

It would be as silly to accuse McQueen of misogyny here as it would to claim Elsa Schiaparelli hated women for dressing them in ripped dresses suggestive of assault or accident in the 1930s.

Instead, McQueen gives us clothes not just as theatre but as “choreographed deception”, in which male and female elements come together to cancel the other out.

Beyond good

In an era of increasing specialisation, vocational training and narrow fields of research and investigation, this exhibit shows us how a great designer goes beyond good.

It shows us how his vision extended well beyond clothes to how they were imagined, and how women might imagine themselves, at all times.

When you wear trousers with a very low rear; slip on a digitally printed fabric or has allusions to nature – crystals, leaves, water; wear an asymmetrical outfit with slightly extended shoulders; don impossible shoes to your New Year’s party; or put on an eyeshadow that makes you look like a hummingbird: McQueen was there first.

Alexander McQueen: Mind, Mythos, Muse is at NGV International, Melbourne, until April 16 2023.

Read more:
Clothes women wanted to wear: a new exhibition explores how Carla Zampatti saw her designs as a tracker of feminism

Peter McNeil will lead a tour for Academy Travel to view the McQueen exhibition in February 2023.

– ref. ‘I want people to be afraid of the women I dress’: the celebrated – and often controversial – designs of Alexander McQueen – https://theconversation.com/i-want-people-to-be-afraid-of-the-women-i-dress-the-celebrated-and-often-controversial-designs-of-alexander-mcqueen-194731

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Esterman, Professor of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, University of South Australia

Last month, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) released a report of mortality statistics. It showed that from January to July 2022, there were 17% more deaths (16,375) than the average expected for these months.

This historical average is based on an average of the deaths for 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2021. They did not include 2020 in the baseline for 2022 data because it included periods where numbers of deaths were significantly lower than expected. The difference between the expected number of deaths based on historical data, and the actual number, is called “excess deaths”.

However, as the ABS points out in its report, using previous years as the predictor for the expected number of deaths does not take into account changes in population age structure over time, or potential improvements in mortality rates.

As we will see, the excess deaths this year were likely lower than the ABS estimate – but still overwhelmingly related to COVID and its effects on health.

Read more:
There are still good reasons to avoid catching COVID again – for one, your risk of long COVID goes up each time

A different approach

Last week, the Australian Actuaries Institute released its report looking at excess deaths. Actuaries are statisticians who specialise in assessing risk, and most often work for insurance companies, superannuation funds, banks or government departments.

Unlike the ABS, the actuaries’ report adjusts the expected deaths for differences in age distributions over time using a method called “direct age-standardisation”.

The report also uses a counterfactual approach which basically asks, what would the number of deaths have been in the absence of the pandemic? Their comparison between recorded and expected deaths is likely to be more accurate than the ABS comparison.

What the actuaries saw

Both the Actuaries Institute report and the ABS separate COVID deaths into two categories:

• deaths from COVID, where COVID is listed as the primary or underlying cause of death

• deaths with COVID, where the underlying cause of death has been determined as something other than COVID, but the virus was a contributing factor.

The Actuaries Institute report shows 13% excess mortality for the first eight months of 2022 (approximately 15,400 deaths), substantially lower than the ABS estimate for the first seven months.

Just over half of the excess mortality – 8,200 deaths, are deaths from COVID. Another 2,100 deaths are deaths with COVID. The remaining excess of 5,100 deaths makes no mention of COVID on the death certificate.

Read more:
Even mild COVID raises the chance of heart attack and stroke. What to know about the risks ahead

So what is the likely cause of those non-COVID excess deaths?

The actuaries’ report gives the following possible explanations for excess deaths not listed as from or with COVID:

Long COVID and interactions with other serious health conditions

A previous COVID infection can cause later illness or death. We know COVID is associated with higher risk of death from heart disease, cancer and other causes.

But a doctor tasked with completing a death certificate may not identify a link between the death and a COVID infection months earlier. Therefore, it seems likely some deaths were due to late COVID effects.

Delayed deaths from other causes

Deaths from respiratory disease in 2020 and 2021 were lower than expected. This is presumably due to public health measures like mask wearing. While those measures were in place, people caught fewer respiratory diseases. Some people may have died earlier had their systems been stressed by respiratory disease during this time. So, some of the reported non-COVID excess deaths may be due to the catch-up effect of those people succumbing to underlying illnesses.

Delays in emergency care

Around Australia, our health systems are under pressure, with staff absences due to COVID, ambulance ramping, and bed blocks in our acute hospitals.

Unfortunately, there have been cases of people dying while waiting for an ambulance. It could be that people with conditions such as heart disease, cancer or diabetes may not be getting lifesaving emergency care due to these factors.

Read more:
COVID death data can be shared to make it look like vaccines don’t work, or worse – but that’s not the whole picture

Delays in routine care

Over the pandemic period we have seen delays in people seeking routine health care or attending screening tests for breast and cervical cancer.

There have also been delays in elective surgery. And people may have have been avoiding health-care settings due to fear of catching COVID. These delays in routine care may have led to deaths that would have been prevented in previous years.

Pandemic lifestyle changes

There is evidence in Australia and the United Kingdom a higher proportion of people made less healthy lifestyle choices during lockdowns, such as drinking more alcohol and exercising less. Higher risks for childhood obesity were also noted. We could be starting to see the impact of these changes.

Undiagnosed COVID

It is almost certain some of the excess deaths are from unidentified COVID. Unfortunately in Australia, we have no firm data on the percentage of undiagnosed COVID cases, and even less on how that percentage might have changed over time.

So, the good news is the ABS excess death estimate of 17% more deaths in the first eight months of this year is likely an over-estimate, with the true rate closer to 13%. Of this 13%, some 7% are deaths from COVID, 2% are deaths with COVID, and much of the remaining 4% is likely to still be COVID-related in some way.

Last week, there were 219 COVID-related deaths reported. If the actuaries’ analysis is accurate, then the true number of COVID-related deaths last week was closer to 250 – a sobering thought as we approach the festive season.

Read more:
We were on a global panel looking at the staggering costs of COVID – 17.7m deaths and counting. Here are 11 ways to stop history repeating itself

Adrian Esterman receives funding from the MRFF, the NHMRC and the ARC.

– ref. Thousands more Australians died in 2022 than expected. COVID was behind the majority of them – https://theconversation.com/thousands-more-australians-died-in-2022-than-expected-covid-was-behind-the-majority-of-them-196281

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tully Barnett, Senior lecturer, Flinders University

In 2007, a life-changing encounter at South Australia’s Flinders Medical Centre became the catalyst and symbol for a national arts and health movement.

A young woman, Becky Corlett, was being transported through the hospital where an artist-in-residence, Rebecca Cambrell, was painting a mural. Becky had suffered a stroke and cardiac failure. She had stopped eating and was non-responsive even to family. When Becky passed the mural, however, she made a noise of interest.

Cambrell instinctively drew Becky closer and gave her a paint brush. To everyone’s surprise, Becky started adding dabs of paint to the canvas, and then she smiled. The wonder of this moment only dawned on Cambrell when she turned around.

“Her parents were convinced that the moment she touched that paintbrush, something was triggered inside Becky that made her want to live”, remembers Cambrell.

Becky’s story is just one of many collected in our new report Telling the Story of Arts in Health in South Australia.

What is ‘arts and health’?

Arts and health is broadly defined as using arts practice to deliver health outcomes, be they specifically targeted interventions or general wellbeing benefits.

Arts and health work comes in many forms. It can be play about mental health issues in rural areas. It can be a university competition to design solutions to community wellbeing challenges. It can be the integration of art throughout an entire hospital to create a calming environment.

In an interview with us, design researcher Jane Andrew said the breadth of arts and health work means participant involvement can range “from passively viewing to making to being in the environment”.

The benefits are diverse. A 2019 World Health Organisation study looking at over 900 peer-reviewed publications found arts and health can do everything from encouraging health-promoting behaviours to supporting end-of-life care.

The diversity of the arts and health field is represented by the perspectives of our report’s 47 interviewees. We spoke to arts therapists, managers of hospital-based arts and health programs, government arts agency staff, CEOs of local health networks and former ministers. We asked them about their past experiences with arts and health, the present challenges and opportunities for the field, and how best to advance this work in the future.

Read more:
How psychological aspects of healing are important for hospital design

Art and health in Australia

Although benefits of the arts to health have been recognised for millennia, the formal field of arts and health work first emerged across South Australia and the rest of the nation through the community arts movement of the 1970s and the rise of health promotion in the 1980s.

The establishment of the Flinders Medical Centre’s Arts in Health program in the late 1990s provided a major step for the field into health settings, and the program remains an innovative leader today.

The former director of the program, Sally Francis, recalled how, “on a regular basis” the program would have “three, four, five stories of someone who has been critically ill and had an arts engagement that’s changed their life.”

But Becky Corlett’s story had, as Francis describes it, a “huge and far-reaching effect” on arts and health in Australia. Days after Becky’s first painting experience, former South Australian Minister of Health and Assistant Arts Minister, John Hill, visited the hospital:

I was just walking along, and I saw the painting going on and there was this little girl busily doing art. […] Her parents came up to me and had tears in their eyes. […] She was reconnected with life.

Inspired by this encounter, Hill and Francis led a push to have arts and health formally recognised by the state and then federal government. The National Arts and Health Framework was officially endorsed in 2014.

This historic statement declared the Australian federal, state and territory governments’ recognition of and support for the field. The framework aimed to raise awareness of arts and health, and to encourage government departments and agencies across the country to integrate arts and health work into their services.

However, it did not make any funding or legislative requests, meaning no permanent arts and health policy followed its endorsement.

Read more:
Brain research shows the arts promote mental health

What next for arts and health?

Next year marks ten years since the framework’s endorsement.

While there is continuing good work in this space across the country, our interviewees believe arts and health remains underutilised. Community artist Lisa Philip-Harbutt told us there is a lack of “connection between all the various things that people are doing” – different arts and health projects often aren’t speaking to each other.

To regain momentum for the field, interviewees recommend developing educational pathways for prospective arts and health workers, conducting a review and update of the National Arts and Health Framework to embed it in policy, and establishing research partnerships between universities and arts and health programs.

The hope is that the next generation of leaders will be inspired by witnessing arts and health’s life-changing power.

According to Deborah Mills, a key driver of the National Arts and Health Framework:

If you want passionate advocates, they have to have a visceral understanding of what creative activity does.

Read more:
Online arts programming improves quality of life for isolated seniors

Tully Barnett receives funding from the Australian Research Council

Joanne Arciuli currently receives funding from the Australian Research Council, The Channel 7 Children’s Research Foundation, and the Ian Potter Foundation.

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

– ref. ‘An arts engagement that’s changed their life’: the magic of arts and health – https://theconversation.com/an-arts-engagement-thats-changed-their-life-the-magic-of-arts-and-health-196212

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katherine Kent, Lecturer in Public Health, Western Sydney University

Growing numbers of Australians are reported to be struggling to put enough healthy food on the table every day as the cost of living soars. But Australia doesn’t collect enough data on food insecurity. The lack of data makes it difficult for policymakers to grasp the extent of the problem, let alone take effective action to solve it.

Food insecurity can range from being anxious about not having enough food in the house, to eating cheaper, less healthy foods due to a lack of money, to regularly skipping meals and going hungry.

Estimates from before 2020 suggested between 4% and 13% of the general Australian population were food insecure and 22% to 32% of the Indigenous population, depending on location. A recent study found levels of food insecurity are worse than before the COVID pandemic.

In Australia, food insecurity is usually due to financial hardship. This can be a result of low wages, unexpected bills, or inadequate government support payments.

Food insecurity has a powerful influence on health. It leads to worse physical and mental health in both adults and children. And the impacts get worse as the severity of food insecurity increases.

Read more:
‘I’m scared we won’t have money for food’: how children cope with food insecurity in Australia

Some Australians turn to food charity for temporary relief. But little is being done to change the root causes of food insecurity.

In response, Australia’s leading food insecurity researchers have joined forces to develop the Household Food Security Data Consensus Statement. To be launched on December 14, the statement calls for Australia to use a reliable and internationally comparable measure of food insecurity. It proposes using the full-length, 18-question United States Department of Agriculture Household Food Security Survey Module.

If you don’t measure it, you can’t mend it

Having enough food is a basic human right. Yet despite Australia producing enough food for three times its population size, not all Australians have enough.

Federal, state and territory governments do not regularly measure and report on food insecurity. This leaves researchers, organisations and policymakers short of information about Australians experiencing food insecurity.

The information we have has been collected using many different measurement tools. This means we can’t easily compare the results.

And these existing tools often underestimate the true level of food insecurity. This is because they don’t ask enough questions about the range of experiences of food insecurity, such as eating poor-quality food, or worrying about running out of food.

Read more:
‘If only they made better life choices’ – how simplistic explanations of poverty and food insecurity miss the mark

To fill the gap, we often turn to data collected by the emergency and community food sector. However, food security policy and government responses must be supported by independent, rigorous data collection. That’s the only way to ensure we have an accurate picture of food insecurity in the whole population.

Without this data, people in power seem to have no motivation to act in a timely way to prevent Australians experiencing food insecurity.

Read more:
Hunger in the lucky country – charities step in where government fails

What can be done about these problems?

Other high-income countries, like Canada and the USA, have regular and reliable monitoring systems. These countries measure food insecurity every one to two years. Their reliable data enable them to respond with targeted policies.

Australia can learn from these countries. Regular, high-quality data about food insecurity will support action at all levels of society. It will help ensure policy responses are timely and targeted.

The solutions are many and varied. Actions might include:

• collaborations at the local level – for example, Western Australia’s Food Community project is working with community members to develop place-based solutions in different regions

• emergency food relief

• school-based initiatives such as meal programs that provide food and help children understand healthy eating

• education programs that develop nutrition knowledge and cooking skills in people at risk of food insecurity

• broad policy interventions, including increasing government support payments.

Read more:
Australian schools are starting to provide food, but we need to think carefully before we ‘ditch the lunchbox’

A call to properly monitor food insecurity in Australia

Regular national monitoring of food insecurity will mean we have enough good information about Australians’ experiences of food insecurity. We can then use this information to take action that helps those struggling to afford basic necessities like food.

The consensus statement being issued this week will be used in conversations with people in positions of power to shine a light on the importance of measuring food insecurity.

The US Household Food Security Survey Module recommended in the statement is a freely available measurement tool. It takes a few minutes to complete, has been translated into several languages and is relatively easy to use. Importantly, it can measure food insecurity in households with both adults and children.

We know food insecurity is a growing problem in Australia. What we need now is for all levels of government to commit to regularly monitoring food insecurity. Only then can targeted responses be developed.

No one in Australia should go hungry.

Katherine is a member of the Nutrition Society of Australia and is affiliated with the Australian Right to Food Coalition.

Fiona McKay is affiliated with the Public Health Association of Australia (Victoria Branch)

Miriam Williams is affiliated with the Australian Right to Food Coalition.

Stephanie Godrichis affiliated with Edith Cowan University’s Centre for People, Place and Planet. Stephanie receives funding from Healthway and the Western Australian Future Health Research and Innovation Fund, which is an initiative of the WA State Government. Stephanie was previously a national co-convenor for the Right to Food Coalition.

Sue is a member of Dietitians Australia and is affiliated with and convenes S.H.A.R.E (Solutions supporting Household Food Security in Australia through Research and Evidence) Collaboration.

– ref. How many Australians are going hungry? We don’t know for sure, and that’s a big part of the problem – https://theconversation.com/how-many-australians-are-going-hungry-we-dont-know-for-sure-and-thats-a-big-part-of-the-problem-195360

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Paul Mazzola, Lecturer Banking and Finance, Faculty of Business and Law, University of Wollongong

Anthony* (a friend) called a few weeks ago, deeply worried.

A deputy principal of a high school in Queensland, over the past year he spent hundreds of thousands of dollars buying cryptocurrencies, borrowing money using his home as equity.

But now all his assets, valued at A$600,000, were stuck in an account he couldn’t access.

He’d bought through FTX, the world’s third-biggest cryptocurrency exchange, endorsed by celebrities such as Seinfeld co-creator Larry David, basketball champions Steph Curry and Shaquille O’Neal, and tennis ace Naomi Osaka.

With FTX’s spectacular collapse, he’s now awaiting the outcome of the liquidation process that is likely to see him, 30,000 other Australians and more than 1.2 million customers worldwide lose everything.

“I thought these exchanges were safe,” Anthony said.

He was wrong.

Not like stock exchanges

Cryptocurrency exchanges are sometimes described as being like stock exchanges. But they are very different to the likes of the London or New York stock exchanges, institutions that have weathered multiple financial crises.

Stock exchanges are both highly regulated and help regulate share trading. Cryptocurrency exchanges, on the other hand, are virtually unregulated and serve no regulatory function.

They’re just private businesses that make money by helping “mum and dad” investors to get into crypto trading, profiting from the commission charged on each transaction.

Indeed, the crypto exchanges that have grown to dominate the market – such as Binance, Coinbase and FTX – arguably undermine the whole vision that drove the creation of Bitcoin and blockchains – because they centralise control in a system meant to decentralise and liberate finance from the power of governments, banks and other intermediaries.

These centralised exchanges are not needed to trade cryptocurrency, and are pretty much the least safe way to buy and hold crypto assets.

Trading before exchanges

In the early days of Bitcoin (all the way back in 2008) the only way to acquire it was to “mine” it – earning new coins by performing the complex computations required to verify and record transactions on a digital ledger (called a blockchain).

The coins would be stored in a digital “wallet”, an application similar to a private bank account, accessible only by a password or “private key”.

A wallet can be virtual or physical, on a small portable device similar in appearance to a USB stick or small phone. Physical wallets are the safest because they can be unplugged from the internet when not being used, minimising the risk of being hacked.

Before exchanges emerged, trading involved owners selling directly to buyers via online forums, transferring coins from one wallet to another like any electronic funds transfer.

Decentralised vs centralised

All this, however, required some technical knowledge.

Cryptocurrency exchanges reduced the need for such knowledge. They made it easy for less tech-savvy investors to get into the market, in the same way web browsers have made it easy to navigate the Internet.

Two types of exchanges emerged: decentralised (DEX) and centralised (CEX).

Decentralised exchanges are essentially online platforms to connect the orders of buyers and sellers of cryptocurrencies. They are just there to facilitate trading. You still need to hold cryptocurrencies in your own wallet (known as “self-custody”).

Centralised exchanges go much further, eliminating wallets by offering a one-stop-shop service. They aren’t just an intermediary between buyers and sellers. Rather than self-custody, they act as custodian, holding cryptocurrency on customers’ behalf.

Exchange, broker, bank

Centralised exchanges have proven most popular. Seven of the world’s ten biggest crypto exchanges by trading volume are centralised.

But what customers gain in simplicity they lose in control.

You don’t give your money to a stock exchange, for example. You trade through a broker, who uses your trading account when you buy and deposits money back into your account when you sell.

A CEX, on the other hand, acts as an exchange, a brokerage (taking customers’ fiat money and converting it into crypto or vice versa), and as a bank (holding customer’s crypto assets as custodian).

This is why FTX was holding cash and crypto assets worth US$10-50 billion. It also acted like a bank by borrowing and lending cryptocurrencies – though without customers’ knowledge or agreement, and without any of the regulatory accountability imposed on banks.

Holding both wallets and keys, founder-owner Sam Bankman-Fried “borrowed” his customers’ funds to prop up his other businesses. Customers realised too late they had little control. When it ran into trouble, FTX simply stopped letting customers withdraw their assets.

The power of marketing

Like stockbrokers, crypto exchanges make their money by charging a commission on every trade. They are therefore motivated to increase trading volumes.

FTX did this most through celebrity and sports marketing. Since it was founded in 2019 it has spent an estimated US$375 million on advertising and endorsements, including buying the naming rights to the stadium used by the Miami Heat basketball team.

Such marketing has helped to create the illusion that FTX and other exchanges were as safe as mainstream institutions. Without such marketing, it’s debatable the value of the cryptocurrency market would have risen from US$10 billion in 2014 to US$876 billion in 2022.

Read more:
Why sports sponsorship is unlikely to save cryptocurrency firms from ‘crypto winter’

Not your key, not your coins

There’s an adage among crypto investors: “Not your key, not your coins, it’s that simple.”

What this means is that your crypto isn’t safe unless you have self-custody, storing your own coins in your own wallet to which you alone control the private key.

The bottom line: crypto exchanges are not like stock exchanges, and CEXs are not safe. If the worst eventuates, whether it be an exchange collapse or cyber attack, you risk losing everything.

All investments carry risks, and the unregulated crypto market carries more risk than most. So follow three golden rules.

First, do some homework. Understand the process of trading crypto. Learn how to use a self-custody wallet. Until governments regulate crypto markets, especially exchanges, you’re largely on your own.

Second, if you’re going to use an exchange, a DEX is more secure. There is no evidence to date that any DEX has been hacked.

Lastly, in this world of volatility, only risk what you can afford to lose.

Read more:
Crypto: what could more regulation mean for the future of digital currencies?

*Name has been changed.

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

– ref. ‘I thought crypto exchanges were safe’: the lesson in FTX’s collapse – https://theconversation.com/i-thought-crypto-exchanges-were-safe-the-lesson-in-ftxs-collapse-195800

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sonia Lewycka, Epidemiologist, Oxford University Clinical Research Unit (OUCRU)

Racism in Aotearoa New Zealand has been increasingly under the spotlight in recent years. The 2019 Christchurch mosque attacks amplified conversations about racial equality that continued in the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests.

But racism is a complicated topic and not all minorities experience it in the same way or to the same extent. As our recent research found, financial wealth and a person’s ability to “pass” as white can have a significant impact on how they experience racism. This challenges the conventional wisdom that systemic and interpersonal racism affects all minorities equally.

Recently, the government and other agencies have explicitly prioritised efforts to address racism. In 2022, the government launched the National Action Plan Against Racism, which is committed to progressively eliminating racism in all its forms.

But there is lack of agreement on what racism looks like, and consequently what constitutes effective anti-racism action. In part, this is because racism is largely still defined by histories of colonisation, although societies like New Zealand have transformed socially, culturally and demographically.

In the context of our work, racism can be broadly understood as prejudice that racial or ethnic minority groups experience within personal relationships and social institutions.

A different lived experience

Our research focused specifically on the experiences of racism among New Zealand’s “ethnic” youth – peoples from Asia, Latin America, Africa and the Middle East.

Ethnic youth make up about 17% of New Zealand’s total youth population. Many are either themselves migrants or children of migrants. There are significant disparities in visa, residency and socioeconomic status among them – from permanent, well-settled and affluent, to temporary, precarious and disadvantaged.

We argued against the assumption that all ethnic youth are equally discriminated against based solely on their ethnicity. This oversimplifies the experience of racism.

Read more:
Whiteness is an invented concept that has been used as a tool of oppression

Given the diversity of ethnic migrants, we wanted to identify the factors that protected them or, alternatively, made them more vulnerable to racism.

To investigate this, we used the concept of “flexible resources” – assets or attributes that individuals possess (for example, wealth, family name, personal traits and physical features) that could act as buffers against racism.

In our study, we focused specifically on the wealth of minorities, the effect of their skin tone, and their ability to “pass as white”.

Wealth and whiteness

We examined if wealth and whiteness could protect against the race-based disadvantages ethnic youth experience. Specifically, we looked at poverty, emotional and mental distress, issues with healthcare access, bullying and discrimination by teachers, police and health providers.

We used longitudinal data from the Youth2000 survey series of over 20,000 New Zealand secondary school students (aged 13-19), collected between 2000 and 2019.

We found that, compared to their European peers, ethnic minorities experienced higher levels of poverty, overt interpersonal racism and poorer health outcomes. Both wealth and whiteness provided protections against these forms of racism, but in strikingly different ways.

Read more:
Social inclusion is important in Aotearoa New Zealand — but so is speaking honestly about terrorism

Wealthier ethnic youth were less likely to experience the effects of institutional racism. This means they lived in affluent neighbourhoods, attended better-resourced schools and had fewer worries about meeting daily basic needs.

Ethnic youth from poorer backgrounds struggled on all these counts. This struggle persisted across generations.

Perceived whiteness provided protections against interpersonal racism. Ethnic minority youth who were white-passing were less likely to report being discriminated against by those in authority.

Although our study largely focused on ethnic migrant youth, our analysis also included Māori and Pasifika. The beneficial effects of wealth and whiteness were similarly evident among them.

Whiteness offers more protection

We also compared wealth and whiteness to see which of the two was more significant in protecting against racism. Quite strikingly, our results showed that being perceived as white was more protective than having wealth for New Zealand’s ethnic minority youth.

Our study significantly advances research on racism and wellbeing – showing the limitations of a one-size-fits-all approach. We need more nuanced understandings of racism, wealth and whiteness when designing anti-racism interventions.

Based on the evidence, there is a strong case for economic support – through scholarships and free healthcare – to ensure upward social mobility of minorities.

However, funding alone is not enough.

In what may be a first in New Zealand, we provide quantitative evidence for “colourism”, or biases against dark skin tones. Thus, anti-racist interventions should include wider education against the implicit and widespread advantage of whiteness in society.

Racism is an enduring form of oppression of minorities. But in today’s ethnically diverse societies it manifests in a range of ways. Researchers, policymakers and activists interested in eliminating racism must reckon with its historical continuities as much as its contemporary complexities.

Sonia Lewycka receives funding from the Medical Research Council, UK, and Wellcome,

Rachel Simon-Kumar receives funding from Royal Society of New Zealand’s Marsden Grant; MBIE-Endeavour Fund; Health Research Council.

Roshini Peiris-John receives funding from Health Research Council of New Zealand.

– ref. A new study shows NZ’s young minorities feel racism differently – wealth or being able to ‘pass’ as white makes a difference – https://theconversation.com/a-new-study-shows-nzs-young-minorities-feel-racism-differently-wealth-or-being-able-to-pass-as-white-makes-a-difference-194722

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sam Baron, Associate Professor, Philosophy of Science, Australian Catholic University

Scientists made headlines last week for supposedly generating a wormhole. The research, reported in Nature, involves the use of a quantum computer to simulate a wormhole in a simplified model of physics.

Soon after the news broke, physicists and experts in quantum computing expressed scepticism that a wormhole had in fact been created.

Media coverage was chaotic. Outlets reported that physicists had created a theoretical wormhole, a holographic wormhole or perhaps a small, crummy wormhole, and that Google’s quantum computer suggests wormholes are real. Other outlets soberly offered the news that no, physicists didn’t make a wormhole at all.

If this has you confused, you’re not alone! What’s going on?

Wormholes and entanglement

The Universe is vast. It’s so big that travelling from one side to the other by conventional means is impractical.

Wormholes are a kind of loophole: shortcuts between two regions of the Universe that might allow one to traverse vast distances in a much shorter time. Wormholes are permitted by Einstein’s theory of relativity, but none have ever been found in nature.

Recently, physicists have been toying with the idea that wormholes are related to another phenomenon, known as entanglement.

Entanglement is a peculiar, quantum phenomenon involving particles. When particles are put into an entangled state, measurement of one particle seems to affect the other particle immediately. This is the case even when the two particles are too far apart for causation to be possible.

Some physicists have suggested that a wormhole may just be a way of describing a certain kind of quantum entanglement. If correct, this would forge a link between two prominent theories of physics: quantum mechanics and general relativity.

General relativity explains how gravity works, and describes the Universe on large scales. Quantum mechanics explains the other fundamental forces, and describes the Universe on very small scales.

Both are extremely successful theories. However, they are yet to be reconciled into a single, unified theory.

A unified theory would preserve the insights of both quantum mechanics and general relativity, while at the same time providing an account of how gravity works in the quantum domain, something we don’t currently understand.

Because wormholes are distinctive of general relativity, and entanglement is distinctive of quantum mechanics, the potential similarity between them is exciting. It suggests the two theories may, at some level, be describing the very same thing.

Quantum gravity on a chip?

How would we look for this potential similarity between wormholes and entanglement?

Well, we know how to entangle particles experimentally. We’ve been doing that for some time.

So we can try to build a particular kind of quantum system: one that can be described using the same physics we use for wormholes. If we can build such a system in the lab and it behaves like a wormhole, it would support the idea that entanglement and wormholes are two sides of the same coin.

Read more:
Explainer: quantum computation and communication technology

In quantum computers, the basic components can be put into various quantum states that can be used to run quantum experiments. So, it seems they present an opportunity to test the relationship between wormholes and entanglement.

This is perhaps why it was reported that physicists had used a quantum computer to generate a wormhole. But that does not seem to be what actually happened, though understanding why is not straightforward.

Not a wormhole

What physicists did was organise the basic components of a quantum computer into a specific quantum state. They were then able to transfer information from one part of the computer to another through the quantum system.

The quantum system, and the way the information was transferred, can be described using a particular model in physics. According to this model, the kind of information transfer that occurred within the computer is descriptively similar to the way that something passes through a wormhole.

Read more:
What are wormholes? An astrophysicist explains these shortcuts through space-time

However, the model being used has at least two limitations.

First, it appears to make unrealistic assumptions about the physics of our world. It assumes, in particular, that spacetime – the fabric of the Universe – has certain properties that it may not have.

Second, the model has been simplified to describe a simple system that can be implemented with a quantum computer. Such a simplified model may be physically inaccurate.

So while we can describe what happened within the computer as though it were a wormhole, using a specific kind of model, it is unclear whether the model represents the world as we know it.

Experiment and simulation

Some commentators have offered a different reason to be sceptical that a wormhole was created: it was just a simulation. As one critic put it, taking the system to be a wormhole “is like claiming that playing the videogame Portal involves creating an actual wormhole because it depicts something akin to the theoretical concept onscreen”.

We must indeed be careful about drawing inferences about reality from simulations. However, the quantum aspect of this simulation makes it more like an experiment than the ordinary simulation you might run on an everyday computer.

So it seems the simulation may legitimately tell us something about the quantum system it is simulating. However, the problem remains that we can only interpret the system as a wormhole in a specific, potentially unrealistic model of physics.

No wormholes, but still impressive

So we should perhaps be sceptical that any wormholes were created. Still, there is reason to be impressed.

For one thing, the team used machine-learning techniques to simplify the model they were using to simulate it in a useful way.

The use of machine learning to produce the simplified model is neat, and we should expect to see more uses of machine learning like this in the future.

It’s also important that a quantum computer was used to run the type of quantum experiment at issue. That this can be done at all opens the way toward running further experiments. This may open up an experimental paradigm that can be used to make progress in physics.

There is also the possibility – albeit rather distant – that some aspect of the model that was used to describe the quantum system will be vindicated. This may lead to the discovery of a relationship between quantum entanglement and wormholes in the future.

But this remains very speculative.

Sam Baron receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

– ref. Did physicists make a wormhole in the lab? Not quite, but a new experiment hints at the future of quantum simulations – https://theconversation.com/did-physicists-make-a-wormhole-in-the-lab-not-quite-but-a-new-experiment-hints-at-the-future-of-quantum-simulations-195816

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Thea van de Mortel, Professor, Nursing, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Griffith University

You’ve tested negative for COVID using a rapid antigen test (RAT), but are a close contact of a positive family member and have symptoms. So you might be wondering if you’re really COVID-negative or if the test is working as well as it should.

There are many reasons why your RAT may not give you the results you expect. But one factor is whether RATs can detect the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID).

We know the virus has mutated during the pandemic. So health authorities and researchers are investigating whether RATs can still detect the more recent versions of the virus.

The good news is, based on the limited data released, all RATs meant for use at home in Australia that have been independently tested so far seem to be able to detect Omicron. The bad news is that not all RATs have been independently tested yet. Yours might be one of those.

Read more:
15 things not to do when using a rapid antigen test, from storing in the freezer to sampling snot

What do mutations have to do with RATs?

RATs diagnose COVID infection by detecting specific viral proteins. So there are concerns that as the virus evolves and produces altered viral proteins, this may affect the tests’ ability to diagnose COVID as well as they detected previous variants.

Whether RATs can adequately detect Omicron has been raised by authorities and researchers in various countries including The Netherlands, Belgium and Chile, as well as Australia.

One Australian study
tested six RATs on Delta, and Omicron lineages BA.4, BA.5 and BA.2.75. The researchers found the kits performed equally well across the different samples at higher viral loads (higher concentrations of the virus), although one kit’s overall sensitivity fell below minimum sensitivity requirements.

However, some international studies have found RATs are less able to detect Omicron, particularly when viral loads are lower.

Read more:
My RATs are negative but I still think I might have COVID. Should I get a PCR test?

So what’s the case in Australia?

Australia’s regulator, the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA), initially relied on test data provided by RAT manufacturers to determine the test kit met World Health Organization standards for acceptable sensitivity (ability to detect a positive case).

The TGA also requires manufacturers to send updated test data as new variants arise to demonstrate their test still meets those WHO standards.

But the TGA has also commissioned independent testing of RATs to verify how well they detect the more recent COVID variants.

They are tested for their ability to detect the wild-type virus (the original strain), the Delta variant, and the Omicron variant. The TGA does not state which specific lineages (descendents) of Omicron are included in the testing.

As it completes its analysis on individual tests (or groups of tests), the TGA reports them in a table that’s publicly available, which will be updated as more data come in.

Read more:
From Centaurus to XBB: your handy guide to the latest COVID subvariants (and why some are more worrying than others)

What does the table tell us?

You can look up the brand name, manufacturer and batch number of the RAT you have at home. Look for those labelled “self-tests” (more on the different types of tests and their results later).

The most important columns in the table are those that indicate whether the kit passed its independent validation. Look for four ticks to indicate the kit meets minimum standards for detecting the original virus, Delta and Omicron variants, and has passed the quality test. A cross indicates is has not passed that component of the validation.

Haven’t found a result for your RAT?

If a product comes in two versions – a self-test and a type of test used in health-care facilities known as a point-of-care test (POCT in the table) – only one may be tested.

If that’s the case, the symbol † means testing was only done on one version and you can use those results for your test. Look for a matching registration number to make sure you’re comparing like with like.

The final column indicates what type of data the manufacturer has provided. Some manufacturers have tested the sensitivity of their kits for Omicron lineages BA.4 and BA.5.

Read more:
Why are there so many new Omicron sub-variants, like BA.4 and BA.5? Will I be reinfected? Is the virus mutating faster?

What does the table not tell us?

Just because your test has no ticks or crosses against it, this doesn’t mean it can’t detect Omicron. It could be that the independent validation has yet to be completed or uploaded to the table. So the jury is out.

The table also does not tell us what lineages of Omicron were tested for, although in some cases the manufacturer has supplied clinical test data.

The table data were only current as of October. Seeing as the number of cases of sub-variant infections has risen since then, so we don’t really know if that is impacting on the sensitivity of even those tests that have recently been validated.

Read more:
What can we expect from this latest COVID wave? And how long is it likely to last?

I’ve grappled with the table, now what?

If your brand of RAT has the ticks, particularly for Omicron, it has been assessed has having an acceptable sensitivity. If you are buying a RAT, check the table to see if that brand has been tested for sensitivity to the Omicron variant.

If your test has been sitting in a cupboard for months, check the expiry date before you use it. Also consider whether it has been stored at the correct temperature during that time (the instruction leaflet will tell you what that is).

Read more:
How accurate is your RAT? 3 scenarios show it’s about more than looking for lines

Thea van de Mortel teaches into the Griffith University Master of Infection Prevention and Control program.

– ref. Is my RAT actually working? How to tell if your COVID test can detect Omicron – https://theconversation.com/is-my-rat-actually-working-how-to-tell-if-your-covid-test-can-detect-omicron-196210

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Melissa Starling, Postdoctoral researcher, University of Sydney

Over thousands of years of firm friendship between humans and dogs, we have successfully created about 350 different breeds. We’ve relied on terriers for hunting, sheepdogs for herding, and all for companionship – but how much are dog personalities defined by their breed?

In a new paper, researchers from the United States zoomed into the genetic codes of more than 4,000 different dogs, and surveyed 46,000 pet owners. They identified many genes associated with behaviours typical of certain breeds, such as the tendency for terriers to catch and kill prey.

Their findings ultimately suggest the type of breed does indeed explain many aspects of a dog’s unique personality.

But dog owners also play an enormous role in shaping their dog’s personality – such as whether they’re playful, tolerant of others, attention-seeking or quick to bark. So let’s take a closer look at how you can raise a good canine citizen.

What the research found

Dog breeds are a fascinating window into selective breeding, and some behaviour patterns we see in different breed groups – for example, herding and retrieving – are difficult to explain. The new US paper gives us hints as to how some of those patterns may have emerged.

The researchers analysed DNA samples from more than 200 dog breeds. Based on DNA data, they managed to whittle these down to ten major genetic lineages, including terriers, herders, retrievers, sighthounds, scenthounds, and pointers/spaniels.

Each lineage corresponds to a category of breeds historically used for tasks, such as hunting by scent versus sight or herding versus protecting livestock.

This means breeds that are not closely related, but bred for the same purpose, may share common sets of genes. This has been very difficult to show in the past.

For example, the paper identifies herding breeds, such as Kelpies or border collies, as characterised by high “non-social fear”, which is fear of environmental stimuli such as loud noises, wind or vehicles. Terriers, such as Jack Russells, are characterised by high predatory chasing. And scenthounds, such as Beagles, by low trainability.

These align with what these dogs were bred for: herding breeds for their high environmental awareness and sensitivity, terriers for chasing and killing prey, and scenthounds for their independent focus on non-visual signals (scent).

Read more:
Is your dog happy? Ten common misconceptions about dog behaviour

The researchers take a more detailed look at herders, because of their easily identifiable and usually innate behaviour of herding.

Interestingly, the gene found to be common among sheepdogs – called EPHA5 – has also been associated with anxiety-like behaviours in other mammals, as well as attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in humans. The researcher team says this might explain the breed’s high energy and tendency to hyperfocus on tasks.

What dog owners need to know

The fact dog behaviour varies with breed has generally been accepted among researchers for a while, to varying degrees. But it’s important not to discount how a dog’s upbringing can also shape their personality.

In fact, a different genetic study earlier this year suggested that while a dog’s lineage is one influencer of behaviour, it’s probably not the most important.

Those researchers stress that dog behaviour is influenced by many different genes that existed in dogs before breeds were developed, and these genes are present in all breeds. They argue modern breeds are mainly distinguished by their looks, and their behaviour is likely more heavily influenced by environmental factors such as upbringing and learning history, than genetics.

Read more:
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So what does that mean for dog owners? Well, while a dog’s behaviour is influenced by its breed, there’s much we can do to shape a good canine companion.

This work is particularly important over the first one to two years of a dog’s life, starting with early socialisation when they’re puppies. They should be exposed to all the stimuli we want them to grow up accepting, such as kids, vehicles, other animals, pedestrian malls, weekend sport, travelling and grooming.

We then need to continue training and guiding dogs to behave in ways that keep them and others safe as they grow up. Just as human children and teenagers need guidance to learn how to make good decisions and get along with others, so our dogs need the same guidance through adolescence to adulthood (usually around age two).

While breed alone might not be a good predictor of the behaviour for any individual dog, it’s certainly sensible to pay attention to what breeds were originally bred for. The new study supports that sentiment. Those behavioural patterns that helped dogs do their original job for humans are probably still strong in the population.

That means if you already own backyard chickens or pocket pets such as rabbits, think carefully before adopting a terrier, and plan what you’ll do if the terrier wants to hunt your small animals.

If you live in the city or an apartment block where the environment is constantly busy, this is likely to be very challenging for a herding breed. And if you want a dog super responsive to you, scenthounds are probably not a great bet.

Selecting a dog that will work well with your lifestyle is a probability game. It’s perfectly possible to find a very responsive and trainable scenthound, or a terrier that can live peacefully with, for instance, pet rats.

But if that’s something you specifically need from a dog, play the odds by starting with a breed developed for that lifestyle. Then pour lots of time and effort into socialisation and training.

Dogs are mostly what we make of them, and they repay the effort we put into their behaviour tenfold.

Read more:
How hot is too hot? Here’s how to tell if your dog is suffering during the summer heat

Melissa Starling owns Creature Teacher, an animal behaviour consulting business.

– ref. Genetic research confirms your dog’s breed influences its personality — but so do you – https://theconversation.com/genetic-research-confirms-your-dogs-breed-influences-its-personality-but-so-do-you-196274

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ben Arnold Lohmeyer, Lecturer in Social Work (Youth), Flinders University

Content warning: this article contains explicit language.

School bullying is a huge and distressing problem. In 2015, 43% of Australian year 8 students experienced bullying each month. A 2022 Mission Australia survey of Australians between 15 and 19 found 47% were “extremely” or “somewhat” concerned about bullying.

The picture is similar overseas. In 2020, the World Health Organization reported one in three students around the world aged 11-15 years suffered bullying in the preceding month.

Despite all the research about bullying, it is rare to hear directly from young people about what bullying looks like in their everyday lives. A lot of school bullying research also relies on large-scale but shallow survey techniques.

In a new research project, I spoke to 11 young people in South Australia. Over multiple interviews and focus groups, I listened to their school bullying experiences. My approach gave young people time to think about and reflect on their experiences and provide deep insights.

My research

I asked two small groups of young people to talk with each other about what bullying and violence looked like in their school, how they define bullying and violence, and what could be done about it.

One group of young people came from a private high school and the other was from an alternative education program for disengaged young people. Some of the most striking things both groups discussed were the places and times where bullying happens.

This was not necessarily where adults or teachers expect it to happen.

Bullying happens in places where adults aren’t looking

Two students told stories about the secluded places in and around schools where bullying happens, as well as students’ creativity about finding them. As Drew* told me:

there’s a lot of places where you can go and you can’t be seen […] we literally kind of went around looking for all the places which were just really secluded in the school […] we found way more than we were expecting to. And then we just realised like, wow, it’s a lot of places where people could just do not good stuff here.

Similarly, Alex said bullying did not often happen in the schoolyard because “the teachers are around”.

But it can [happen] on social media, at say where people go to catch their buses after school and stuff, that’s really common […] after you leave the school gates. And everyone’s catching buses home and stuff in places where people drink alcohol obviously, the bay and in town that’s like really common.

But it can happen out in the open

Some participants talked about spaces in schools that encourage bullying or violence. These were public places, but did not necessarily have a teacher around. Two interviewees talked about “the spine”, a long corridor through their school. As Mason said:

there is a long hallway down the entire school […] And because the hallway that went through the school was only about, I’d say, four people wide […] they [bullies] would just line up and just try and bump people out of the way.

Owen noted that students were aware of the dangers of this area.

you see a group of kids come through the spine […] and you’d be like, ‘oh what’s happening?’, and they’d be like, ‘oh someone is gonna go start a fight over here, let’s go’, and then it’s just like, ‘oh ok’.

These comments show how the shape and size of spaces in schools can encourage bullying and violence. This suggests the planning and architecture of a school can make a big difference in bullying.

And it can even happen around teachers

Classrooms and schoolyards where teachers are present are expected to be safe spaces. But the young people in our research said bullying can be hidden by the expectation that young people should deal with these problems themselves, or that this behaviour is normal. As Owen explained:

if you’re a victim, it can and can’t be stopped. Like you can, you can stop it but like, it’s seen as [being] a pussy, if you’re going to go to the teacher all the time and be like, ‘This kid’s bullying me’. But like, you know, if a cunt is just being annoying, then just go. Go to the teacher and just be like, ‘Nah fuck that guy, like he’s being a dick’, like 24-7.

Although there did seem to be limits to students’ violence or bullying around adults. This is particularly the case in classrooms or alternative school spaces with lots of teachers and extra support around. As Drew described:

the point is, there are literally teachers around nearly everyone […] So, if you were going to bully someone in there, you’re literally a fucking idiot.

We need a better understanding of bullying

Young people in this research talked about how bullying is hidden by physical buildings and social expectations in schools. To tackle this problem, research and policy need to move beyond interventions just focused on individuals (that is, victims, perpetrators and bystanders).

We also need to listen closely to young people’s experiences of physical and social space. This could help us understand not only when and where bullying happens, but also why bullying is sometimes invisible to adults.

*Names have been changed

If this article has raised issues for you or your child, you can call Lifeline on 13 11 14 or Kids Helpline on 1800 55 1800.

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

– ref. ‘There’s a lot of places where you can’t be seen’: how bullying can be invisible to adults – https://theconversation.com/theres-a-lot-of-places-where-you-cant-be-seen-how-bullying-can-be-invisible-to-adults-195926

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Paul Mazzola, Lecturer Banking and Finance, Faculty of Business and Law, University of Wollongong

Anthony* (a friend) called a few weeks ago, deeply worried.

A deputy principal of a high school in Queensland, over the past year he spent hundreds of thousands of dollars buying cryptocurrencies, borrowing money using his home as equity.

But now all his assets, valued at A$600,000, were stuck in an account he couldn’t access.

He’d bought through FTX, the world’s third-biggest cryptocurrency exchange, endorsed by celebrities such as Seinfeld co-creator Larry David, basketball champions Steph Curry and Shaquille O’Neal, and tennis ace Naomi Osaka.

With FTX’s spectacular collapse, he’s now awaiting the outcome of the liquidation process that is likely to see him, 30,000 other Australians and more than 1.2 million customers worldwide lose everything.

“I thought these exchanges were safe,” Anthony said.

He was wrong.

Not like stock exchanges

Cryptocurrency exchanges are sometimes described as being like stock exchanges. But they are very different to the likes of the London or New York stock exchanges, institutions that have weathered multiple financial crises.

Stock exchanges are both highly regulated and help regulate share trading. Cryptocurrency exchanges, on the other hand, are virtually unregulated and serve no regulatory function.

They’re just private businesses that make money by helping “mum and dad” investors to get into crypto trading, profiting from the commission charged on each transaction.

Indeed, the crypto exchanges that have grown to dominate the market – such as Binance, Coinbase and FTX – arguably undermine the whole vision that drove the creation of Bitcoin and blockchains – because they centralise control in a system meant to decentralise and liberate finance from the power of governments, banks and other intermediaries.

These centralised exchanges are not needed to trade cryptocurrency, and are pretty much the least safe way to buy and hold crypto assets.

Trading before exchanges

In the early days of Bitcoin (all the way back in 2008) the only way to acquire it was to “mine” it – earning new coins by performing the complex computations required to verify and record transactions on a digital ledger (called a blockchain).

The coins would be stored in a digital “wallet”, an application similar to a private bank account, accessible only by a password or “private key”.

A wallet can be virtual or physical, on a small portable device similar in appearance to a USB stick or small phone. Physical wallets are the safest because they can be unplugged from the internet when not being used, minimising the risk of being hacked.

Before exchanges emerged, trading involved owners selling directly to buyers via online forums, transferring coins from one wallet to another like any electronic funds transfer.

Decentralised vs centralised

All this, however, required some technical knowledge.

Cryptocurrency exchanges reduced the need for such knowledge. They made it easy for less tech-savvy investors to get into the market, in the same way web browsers have made it easy to navigate the Internet.

Two types of exchanges emerged: decentralised (DEX) and centralised (CEX).

Decentralised exchanges are essentially online platforms to connect the orders of buyers and sellers of cryptocurrencies. They are just there to facilitate trading. You still need to hold cryptocurrencies in your own wallet (known as “self-custody”).

Centralised exchanges go much further, eliminating wallets by offering a one-stop-shop service. They aren’t just an intermediary between buyers and sellers. Rather than self-custody, they act as custodian, holding cryptocurrency on customers’ behalf.

Exchange, broker, bank

Centralised exchanges have proven most popular. Seven of the world’s ten biggest crypto exchanges by trading volume are centralised.

But what customers gain in simplicity they lose in control.

You don’t give your money to a stock exchange, for example. You trade through a broker, who uses your trading account when you buy and deposits money back into your account when you sell.

A CEX, on the other hand, acts as an exchange, a brokerage (taking customers’ fiat money and converting it into crypto or vice versa), and as a bank (holding customer’s crypto assets as custodian).

This is why FTX was holding cash and crypto assets worth US$10-50 billion. It also acted like a bank by borrowing and lending cryptocurrencies – though without customers’ knowledge or agreement, and without any of the regulatory accountability imposed on banks.

Holding both wallets and keys, founder-owner Sam Bankman-Fried “borrowed” his customers’ funds to prop up his other businesses. Customers realised too late they had little control. When it ran into trouble, FTX simply stopped letting customers withdraw their assets.

The power of marketing

Like stockbrokers, crypto exchanges make their money by charging a commission on every trade. They are therefore motivated to increase trading volumes.

FTX did this most through celebrity and sports marketing. Since it was founded in 2019 it has spent an estimated US$375 million on advertising and endorsements, including buying the naming rights to the stadium used by the Miami Heat basketball team.

Such marketing has helped to create the illusion that FTX and other exchanges were as safe as mainstream institutions. Without such marketing, it’s debatable the value of the cryptocurrency market would have risen from US$10 billion in 2014 to US$876 billion in 2022.

Read more:
Why sports sponsorship is unlikely to save cryptocurrency firms from ‘crypto winter’

Not your key, not your coins

There’s an adage among crypto investors: “Not your key, not your coins, it’s that simple.”

What this means is that your crypto isn’t safe unless you have self-custody, storing your own coins in your own wallet to which you alone control the private key.

The bottom line: crypto exchanges are not like stock exchanges, and CEXs are not safe. If the worst eventuates, whether it be an exchange collapse or cyber attack, you risk losing everything.

All investments carry risks, and the unregulated crypto market carries more risk than most. So follow three golden rules.

First, do some homework. Understand the process of trading crypto. Learn how to use a self-custody wallet. Until governments regulate crypto markets, especially exchanges, you’re largely on your own.

Second, if you’re going to use an exchange, a DEX is more secure. There is no evidence to date that any DEX has been hacked.

Lastly, in this world of volatility, only risk what you can afford to lose.

Read more:
Crypto: what could more regulation mean for the future of digital currencies?

*Name has been changed.

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

– ref. ‘I thought crypto exchanges were safe’: the lesson for everyone in FTX’s collapse – https://theconversation.com/i-thought-crypto-exchanges-were-safe-the-lesson-for-everyone-in-ftxs-collapse-195800

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jennifer Green, Postdoctoral Fellow In Australian Sign Languages, The University of Melbourne

Some people are surprised when they first hear about Australian Indigenous sign languages.

While the broader community is increasingly aware of the richness of First Nations spoken languages, sign has generally been below the radar until recently. Yet sign languages are widespread, culturally valued and of great antiquity.

Sign appears in records that go back to the early days of colonisation. Some even speculate that the handshapes found in some forms of rock art in Australia and other parts of the world may be evidence of age-old forms of signing or signalling.

Indigenous sign languages are mainly used by hearing people. They vary across the country, and there are differences in the size of their vocabularies, with an upper limit of well over 1,000 signs, as Adam Kendon found for the Warlpiri people from the Tanami Desert.

People in the Gurindji community of Kalkaringi in northern Australia call their sign language “Takataka”.

Takataka is used across the generations, and young children learn some signs and simple sign phrases before they talk. Sign is used to show respect for particular kin relations.

In times of bereavement or “sorry business” certain relatives of the deceased observe bans of silence. Gurindji wangu (widows) sign to metaphorically “keep the volume down” by not talking.

Sign is useful when hunting, not because wild animals are dangerous for humans, but because speaking could scare them off. Sign is also used when people are visible to each other yet out of hearing range, for example to communicate between people in cars about who is going where.

Documenting Gurindji sign language

Between 2016 and 2018, we worked closely with the local art centre, Karungkarni Art, to make video documentations of Takataka. Our recently published study is the first description of Gurindji sign.

We also made educational resources for signs. We created a set of posters and a series of short films for ICTV.

One of the posters illustrates some common kin signs. The sign for ngaji (father, also used for some aunts, nephews and nieces) is formed by touching the chin.

The sign for ngumparna (husband) and mungkaj (wife) is formed by touching the back of one hand with the palm of the other.

Apart from signs for people there are signs for plants, animals, and places, as well as signs for recent phenomena such as police and money.

Read more:
The 14 Indigenous words for money on our new 50 cent coin

Signs of the times

Pointing is another important part of the communicative toolkit at Kalkaringi, and it almost always accompanies discussions of locations, both near and far. People point in the correct direction, even to places out of sight.

Using accurate pointing to locate places and objects is also reflected in the spoken language. As is the case for many other Indigenous peoples, Gurindji speakers use the cardinal terms north, south, east and west to describe where things are, rather than the words left and right. It is not uncommon to hear sentences like “The flour is to the west of the sugar on the shelf”.

Another way the Gurindji demonstrate their anchoring in the world is in their signs for time. Relating times of day to the position and path of the sun is one time-reference strategy found in some sign languages of the world. Other sign languages may use the front and back of the body, or its left and right sides to distinguish past and future.

In Takataka, “tomorrow” is signed with an arced movement of the hand from east to west, as if tracking the sun and fast forwarding through the day. “Yesterday” is signed with a similar arc sweeping from west to east – a “day in reverse”.

Other Gurindji signs, and signs from other language groups, can be found on iltyem-iltyem, a website dedicated to the signing practices of Indigenous peoples from across Central and Northern Australia.

Diversity of sign languages

Takataka is not related to Auslan, the most widespread deaf community sign language used in Australia. However, some influences from Auslan can be seen in recent innovations to Gurindji sign.

One mother of a deaf Gurindji child told us how lucky she was to discover pictures of Auslan fingerspelling in the telephone directory in the early 1990s. The mother learnt the system herself and then went on to teach her child and their classmates.

The study of Australian Indigenous sign languages contributes to the worldwide picture of diversity in sign languages and shows how the human genius for communication enlists useful resources to fulfil changing needs.

Change and innovation is a characteristic of all human languages, signed languages being no exception.

Read more:
The origins of Pama-Nyungan, Australia’s largest family of Aboriginal languages

Jennifer Green received funding from an ARC (Australian Research Council) Fellowship (DE160100873), and from the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language (CoEDL) (CE140100041).

Felicity Meakins received funding from an ARC (Australian Research Council) Fellowship (FT170100042), and from the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language (CoEDL) (CE140100041).

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

– ref. Tradition and innovation: how we are documenting sign language in a Gurindji community in northern Australia – https://theconversation.com/tradition-and-innovation-how-we-are-documenting-sign-language-in-a-gurindji-community-in-northern-australia-194524