Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Chris Wallace, Associate Professor, 50/50 By 2030 Foundation, Faculty of Business Government & Law, University of Canberra
Federal Labor marginal seat members face a very nervy Christmas.
The most recent Newspoll showed the Coalition government ahead of the Labor opposition by 51-49% on a two-party-preferred basis. It’s a relatively small margin, but Labor MPs have indelibly etched on their minds that the final Newspoll before the 2019 election had Labor ahead on 51.5%, yet it won only 48.5% of the vote and suffered a shock loss on election day itself. This was within Newspoll’s margin of error, but that was little comfort for those banking on a win because of the headline number.
Newspoll’s design was tweaked in the wake of the 2019 election but two-party-preferred estimates remain vulnerable to discretionary polling design decisions and pollster “groupthink” – that is, the herd behaviour that leads to models generating results clustered around pollsters’ intuitive assessment of how the major parties are travelling.
If the 51.5% forecast for Labor at the 2019 election turned out to be 48.5% on election day, how much worse than Newspoll’s 49% last week might Labor’s vote be if an election was held this weekend?
In How To Win an Election, I argue one of the big lessons from the 2019 election was to focus on that part of polls least subject to discretionary design decisions and pollster groupthink: the primary vote.
Since Federation, Labor has only once formed a majority government with less than 40% of the primary vote. That was in 1990, when the Hawke government won with 39.4%. In 2010, Julia Gillard patched together a minority government with just 38%. The latest Newspoll has Labor’s primary vote on 36%.
Hence the very nervy Christmas Labor’s marginal seat holders face this year. Right now, they’re giving speeches about JobSeeker. Privately, they’re wondering whether next year they’ll be on it.
Labor seems stuck. Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese is well liked and enjoys widespread loyalty. The pandemic has made Albanese’s job extra difficult this year.
However, the government has presented a rich target on a range of issues from robodebt to the repatriation of stranded Australians overseas, without the opposition landing a convincing blow. The feeling has taken hold in Canberra, and generally, that Labor is drifting inexorably to another loss.
Albanese’s stolid leadership is the central concern. Prime Minister Scott Morrison is easily besting him with the flimsiest of performances, and despite a pressing array of problems besetting the government.
Morrison’s behaviour suggests the LNP considers Albanese a political asset worth preserving. The government relentlessly attacked Bill Shorten when he was opposition leader, yet treats Albanese as Labor did Malcolm Turnbull in the previous parliament, and for the same reason: because they see him as eminently beatable compared to the alternatives.
The conversation being had around many end-of-year work functions goes like this. “Do you think Albo can win?” “No.” “Who do you think would win?” The names that come up are Tanya Plibersek, Jim Chalmers and, occasionally, Chris Bowen and Richard Marles.
When you ask who would be the best deputy to their first choice, it’s Plibersek or Chalmers. Overwhelmingly, Plibersek-Chalmers or Chalmers-Plibersek is seen as the election-winning team.
Many within Labor feel a leadership team of Tanya Plibersek and Jim Chalmers might offer their best hope of winning the next election.AAP/Samantha Manchee
Wistful musings then follow along the lines of “what happened to Albo?” One puzzled person commented to me that “he went from a ‘people eating out of the palm of his hand’ kind of guy you’d want at your barbecue to boring dude you avoid at office parties quick smart”. When your own supporters say things like this, it’s hard to see how you could win swinging voters over no matter how sharp your political cunning, the thing Albanese considers his competitive advantage.
These are the kinds of conversations Labor’s marginal seat holders are going to have at barbecues all summer as they contemplate a very uncertain 2021. Do they continue loyally marching into the valley of political death behind a leader no-one thinks can win, or do they save their political hides, and the interests of Labor voters, by installing someone who can?
The “how” is easier than many realise. By a simple majority vote, caucus can amend in any way it likes the rule change Kevin Rudd instigated to shore up his position as party leader in 2013. That amendment can instigate a fresh leadership contest, either through a straight caucus vote as occurred for a century before the Rudd rule change, or with rank-and-file party member involvement in the way that has occurred since 2013. Albanese could emerge victorious and re-energised, or Labor could have a new leader who can do better than the uninspiring effort it is weighed down by now.
After all, the Liberal Party does it all the time – and keeps winning elections. In its previous term in office, Liberal MPs replaced Turnbull with Morrison and won the 2019 election. The term before that they replaced Tony Abbott with Turnbull and won the 2016 election. The Liberals’ all-time record was replacing John Hewson with Alexander Downer, and then Downer with John Howard, in one term of opposition, setting up Howard’s 1996 election win.
Having the fittest leader is one of the keys to how to win an election. Labor still has time, if it gets a move on, to ensure it does.
As we head towards our first COVID-era Christmas, many Australians will be excited that it is once again possible to travel domestically to be with family and friends.
While international travel isn’t yet routine, some people continue to fly overseas with valid exemptions.
Of course, air travel moving forward is going to look a bit different. Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce recently declared international passengers will need to have had a COVID vaccine, and this statement has attracted some backlash.
But until a vaccine is widely available — and even beyond — testing is going to be a requirement for some travellers.
Do I need to produce a negative test to fly?
For domestic travel in Australia, airlines do not require proof of a negative COVID test. But you will still need to follow the border requirements of each state. For example, Western Australia continues to restrict visitors and require a 14-day isolation period for those who cross into the state from South Australia.
Your airline should have up-to-date information on any quarantine or other requirements, which you should check before flying. You can also check with the state government of your destination.
For people wanting to travel out of Australia who have a valid exemption from the Department of Home Affairs, some airlines and countries do require a COVID flight clearance. This is paperwork showing you have recently tested negative for the COVID-19 virus.
The clearance requirements differ depending on the airline you’re flying with and the countries through which you’re travelling. This is also something you should be able to check with your airline, as well as the government of your destination country.
For example, Emirates states that Australian tourists flying into Dubai “must present a negative COVID‑19 PCR test certificate that is valid for 96 hours from the date of the test before departure”.
Domestic travel is ramping up again, and we’re likely to see more international travel in 2021.Richard Wainwright/AAP
Where can I get a COVID flight clearance test?
In Australia, anyone can access a free COVID test through a public health facility, mobile testing centre, or GP medical centre that offers bulk billing. You might have to pay for the consultation with your GP if they don’t offer bulk billing, but the test itself is free.
However, the tests are funded through Medicare, our national health insurance program, paid through our taxes. Medicare funds are intended to support the health and safety of Australians, rather than to be used for travel purposes.
For a flight clearance certificate, you can speak to your GP for a referral to a testing clinic, but be prepared that you may be asked to pay for the test.
Certain airlines also list recommended clinics. If you know you need a COVID test to travel, it’s a good idea to check whether your airline has nominated any particular clinics.
If you need a COVID flight clearance test, you will need verified evidence, which the provider will send to you once they have the result. You will have to present a printed certificate when you travel — a text message won’t cut it.
And make sure you check the time frame with your airline (for example, if you need the clearance no more than 72 hours before travelling, you can plan accordingly).
The cost of the test and subsequent clearance certificate may vary depending on where you go. One report suggested it would be around A$140.
Travel in the age of COVID-19 is likely to look different, even once a vaccine becomes widely available.Matt Hartman/AP
Testing is an important measure, but it’s not foolproof
A negative test result does not guarantee a person is not infected with SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19), particularly if they’ve been exposed very recently. This is why people quarantining after travel or exposure are not immediately released following a negative test result.
It’s also possible for somebody who is truly negative to pick up the virus in transit.
Even with a COVID vaccine, clearance certificates may still be required to protect other passengers on a flight. The intent of a vaccine is to protect a person from becoming very sick with COVID-19. But we don’t know yet whether a vaccine will render people completely immune to SARS-CoV-2, and importantly, whether it will stop the virus spreading.
Wherever you’re travelling — domestically or internationally — stay informed in the lead-up to your trip by checking the requirements of the state or country you’re travelling to, as well as the airline you’re flying with.
And if you have any questions about your own ability to travel, it’s best to consult your GP.
The emergency approval of the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine in the UK and the imminent roll-out of several other vaccines in 2021 raises serious questions about New Zealand’s likely uptake of this vital public health response.
Recent research into New Zealanders’ attitudes to vaccination suggest positions have become more polarised over the last decade, with 60% identifying as “vaccine believers” and 30% as “vaccine sceptics”.
This follows a global trend. In 2019, the World Health Organization (WHO) identified “vaccine hesitancy” as one of the top ten threats to global health, along with non-communicable diseases (such as diabetes, cancer and heart disease), resistance to antibiotics and HIV.
The trend also raises legal issues in relation to the right to health. Aotearoa New Zealand recognised this right in 1978. It includes the right to information and the state’s obligation to educate the public about community health issues.
The origins of vaccination hesitancy can be traced back to the first vaccines that emerged in the early 19th century in Britain, and later laws on compulsory (but free) immunisation.
There were two key features to the public’s resistance. One, the liberal values of the time worked against any form of state intervention that might limit individual freedoms and personal choice. The second was more specific — a mistrust of, and lack of confidence in, the science.
Those factors continue to be felt in the current debate, but vaccine hesitancy today has a third feature: the shrinking number of people, in the developed world at least, who remember and can share their experiences of the terrible consequences of diseases such as smallpox and polio.
And here lies the paradox. Many New Zealanders no longer see and fear such wide-scale death and suffering — because vaccinations work. But it is hard to “see” the lives of those who have been saved by vaccination. For example, between 2000 and 2018, an estimated 23.3 million people did not die from measles.
And yet the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine is still linked to fears it causes autism, despite there being no scientific proof of it. The original paper making the claim more than 20 years ago was later withdrawn and the researcher shown to have manipulated the data.
How can we inspire confidence in vaccines?
Overcoming hesitancy and winning public trust will be about ensuring scientifically accurate information is promoted that explains what the vaccines are, what they contain and how they work.
Anecdotes and unsubstantiated claims about the dangers of vaccination fuel vaccine hesitancy.
Public information campaigns should perhaps counter this with scientifically substantiated statistics and real-life stories that build confidence in vaccination. False side effects may be an issue that will need to be managed in messaging.
Similarly, public education campaigns could draw on our understanding of how people respond to messaging — including that we tend to trust the version of information we hear or read first.
Vaccine education should therefore be spread repeatedly using trusted, diverse sources the population relates to.
This is also key to the messaging about safety, which needs to be evidence-based to avoid confirming any reasons people might have for not trusting a vaccine. This aspect is especially important for members of vulnerable and diverse communities.
Where severe side effects do arise, clear messaging about the steps taken to deal with those effects will also have to be communicated, immediately and with the utmost transparency.
That transparency should extend to the motivations behind the message, where a major challenge is overcoming distrust of large pharmaceutical companies and their own perceived financial motives.
With the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine (for which NZ has a pre-purchase order) now approved in the UK, the speed with which vaccines are being developed, tested and approved must be addressed in New Zealand’s information campaign.
Related to this is the fact that more than one vaccine will be available, each made using a different technology. The two vaccines expected to be available in New Zealand next year include one based on viral messenger RNA (mRNA) and another using a modified cold virus (which no longer causes disease) to express the surface spike protein of the COVID-19 virus.
The different methods used to make the vaccines and how they work will require explanation, too, and may raise new questions. A failure to address these questions adequately risks some New Zealanders choosing to refuse vaccination altogether (the vexed question of compulsion aside).
COVID-19 has highlighted the destructive force of a new disease on populations that had perhaps become complacent with vaccines. But we can be prepared for the next phase of our response. A wide-ranging and calm national conversation about vaccination is required.
Our time of social isolation under COVID-19 restrictions has reinforced the importance of taking care of each other, particularly the most vulnerable in our community. As we consider what our post-COVID social world will look like, we have an opportunity to deliver services that make our cities safer and more inclusive. An example of how we might achieve this can be found in a Sydney harm-reduction service that has assisted tens of thousands of nightlife revellers who are vulnerable, in distress or at risk of harm since 2014.
A newly released evaluation conservatively estimates the benefits of the Take Kare Safe Space (TKSS) program from December 2014 to April 2019 at A$7.46 million. That benefit includes the value of serious harm averted and the value attached to lives saved through program interventions.
While it may have been less prominent in our public and political consciousness this year, nightlife, and the way we socialise after dark, is a major part of our social and cultural life. It will return.
In Sydney, where trading restrictions – the so-called lockout laws – were lifted in January following five years of controversy, we need to do nightlife better. We need to find the balance between safety and vibrancy. The city is a great place to go out, but also a place where we need to provide the right services for when things inevitably go wrong.
The TKSS program has been doing this throughout the lockout period in Sydney. Now operated by Stay Kind, the TKSS program was launched in 2014 following the unprovoked attack and subsequent death of Thomas Kelly in Kings Cross in 2012.
Operating year-round from 10pm to 4am on Friday and Saturday nights, it’s a non-judgmental, non-government, harm-reduction service. The program looks after nightlife revellers who are vulnerable, in distress or at risk of harm.
Teams of Take Kare ambassadors work in co-operation with the City of Sydney’s CCTV control room and other nightlife services to patrol key precincts, acting as critical intermediaries between emergency services.
During the evaluation, TKSS operated three static safe spaces at Town Hall, Kings Cross and Darling Harbour. Here, nightlife revellers can go to chill out, get help, charge their phones, or receive basic first aid.
A 2019 Current Affair report on Sydney’s Take Kare Safe Spaces.
Between December 2014 and April 2019, TKSS supported 66,455 people. Two-thirds of them were aged 18-25. Many (46%) were perceived as heavily intoxicated and at risk of harm.
What is the evidence? Does it work?
Researchers from UNSW Sydney and Central Queensland University recently completed a comprehensive independent evaluation of the TKSS program. Funded by the NSW Department of Communities and Justice, the evaluation team analysed crime, emergency department and ambulance data to establish the benefit-cost ratio of the program. We also interviewed key stakeholders and “clients” about their perceptions of the program.
From December 2014 to April 2019 (inclusive), the benefits were estimated at $7.46 million. With operating costs of $2.79 million, the benefit-cost ratio was 2.67:1. In other words, a $1 investment in the program resulted in $2.67 of benefits. When the TKSS program was fully operational in all three safe space sites (in 2016-17), the benefit-cost ratio increased to 3.83:1.
These results are conservative. The return on investment is likely to be much higher given the analysis does not quantify the full spectrum of benefits associated with the program. These include: improved public safety and amenity; more efficient resource allocation for service providers; improved partnership, communication and resourcing to manage Sydney nightlife; and flow-on effects for tourism and investment.
While the lockout laws were contentious, the easing of regulations has probably increased the need to protect revellers from harm.Paul Miller/AAP
These non-quantifiable benefits featured strongly in interviews with stakeholders. They included staff from NSW Police and Ambulance, St Vincent’s Emergency Department, City of Sydney, licensed venues and those who used the service. They highlighted a number of key program strengths, including:
1. the program fills a critical gap in nightlife safety – TKSS staff act as intermediaries between licensed premises and emergency services by providing services in public city spaces where people are most vulnerable – and it’s also easy to deploy in different locations as needed
2. the non-judgmental, non-authoritative nature of the program meant intoxicated, vulnerable and distressed nightlife patrons were more comfortable speaking with TKSS ambassadors than other services – such as police, ambulance, venue security or city rangers – and this rapport helped encourage at-risk patrons to willingly get medical help when needed
3. police, ambulance and accident and emergency staff said the TKSS program allowed them to focus on more urgent and pressing jobs
4. the ambassadors are able to de-escalate conflict and provide welfare services through their early, proactive and non-judgmental interventions.
The evaluation shows the TKSS program provides a critical harm-reduction service in Sydney after dark. Its net economic benefit to the city is greatest when the full complement of Safe Spaces are operating and supported by sustained and stable funding. There is a clear case that the program should be part of the long-term future planning of a safe, inclusive and vibrant night-time economy.
Note: The TKSS program was suspended in March 2020 due to COVID-19 and is due to re-open in January 2021.
Before the coronavirus crisis, about 100,000 of these crew changed over each month, typically after serving contracts capped at 11 months under the United Nations Maritime Labour Convention. But since March, border closures have prevented for many seafarers, forcing some crew into indefinite service, unable to even take shore leave.
And their work has never been more important to the rest of us. Before the pandemic cargo ships carried about 80% of all global trade. With the curtailment of international air travel reducing air cargo capacity by about 20%, shipping has become even more crucial to the global economy.
But the personal costs are enormous. Working on a cargo ship is taxing as the best of times. Now the work is even harder, with no respite.
In June the number of stranded seafarers was estimated to be 150,000. By September it was 400,000 (there are no more recent estimates). Some crew have now been at sea for 18 months.
The damage to mental health is great, increasing the risk of occupational accidents and environmental disasters.
Stuck at sea
Their plight is one to which I can personally relate.
In early March I boarded a two-masted schooner, the Avontuur, one of the few cargo ships operating under sail, as part of my research into decarbonising the shipping industry. I planned to be on board for a three-week voyage from Tenerife in the Canary Islands to Guadeloupe in the Caribbean.
By the time we reached port at Point-à-Pitre in Guadeloupe, Caribbean nations were restricting air travel and closing borders due to COVID-19. On March 24, after extended negotiations, we were allowed to briefly dock to take provisions. But no one was allowed ashore.
On April 10, we reached Puerto Cortés in Honduras, to load a cargo of green coffee. Stevedores came aboard to load the bags, but we were prohibited from going ashore. A week later we loaded cacao in Belize City, but again were refused permission to step on land.
Loading a cargo of cacao in Belize.Christiaan De Beukelaer
So my trip extended port after port.
We spent ten days off the Mexican port of Veracruz, waiting for cargo, repairs and favourable winds. Again authorities did not allow us to step ashore. It wasn’t until late June, after more than 120 days on board, in Horta, that we were able to go ashore for a few days on the Azorean island of Faial. But given travel restrictions, we continued on for another three weeks to Hamburg.
The routine of work on a sailing ship occupied our time. Everyone worked eight hours a day in three different watches (four hours on, eight hours off).
But my ordeal was limited. I had confidence that in Hamburg I would be able to disembark and return to Australia. This is something many seafarers do not have. For many, there is still no light at the end of the tunnel.
Crew change possible, but difficult
Cargo ship crews need to keep watch and maintain the vessel at all times. They work 12 hours a day. Without weekends. Without seeing family or friends. Shore leave is increasingly rare, due to tight turnaround times in port, and often confined to docks.
Cargo ships off the coast of Thailand.Avigator Fortuner/Shutterstock
Labour unions and seafarers initially accepted crew change limitations due to COVID-19 border closures as “force majeure” – an issue beyond anyone’s control. As a result, flag states, unions, and port state authorities allowed ship owners to extend contracts beyond Maritime Labour Convention rules.
Since May, many organisations have been appealing to governments to recognise seafarers as “key workers” and permit them to cross borders. Ship owners have also been under fire for not doing enough.
In early September the head of the International Maritime Organisation, Kitack Lim, said progress was being made by many countries in allowing for crew changes, but not at a rate to keep pace with the backlog.
Most nations now permit seafarers to cross borders, but the process is hampered by bureaucracy, screening and quarantine requirements, limited and hugely expensive air travel, and changing rules due to new waves of COVID-19. So while travelling home is technically possible, many seafarers remain stuck at sea.
The consequences, Kitack Lim warned, are dire:
Seafarers cannot remain at sea indefinitely. In addition to the humanitarian crisis that has been caused by keeping seafarers effectively trapped on their vessels, the safety issues that arise from requiring overly fatigued and mentally exhausted seafarers to continue operating vessels are a matter of great concern.
These concerns have been echoed by the Consumer Goods Forum, comprising the top executives of about 400 multinational retailers and manufacturers, which wrote to United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres calling for action to end a situation that had “inadvertently created a modern form of forced labor.”
The International Transport Workers’ Federation called the shipping industry “a ticking timebomb”, with its survey of seafarers showing 60% believed they or crew mates were more likely than not to be “involved in an accident that could harm human life, property or the marine environment due to tiredness or fatigue”.
Oil leaks from the MV Wakashio, a Japanese bulk carrier ship that ran aground off the coast of Mauritius in August 2020.Gwendoline Defente/AP
United Nations call for action
Where I live, the Australian Maritime Safety Authority announced last month it would end interim arrangements permitting seafarers to serve longer than 11 months on ships from 28 February 2021.
But as the International Transport Workers’ Federation noted – welcoming the decision while also expressing disappointment at the unnecessary delay – this is only the start of action needed from port states to help resolve the crew change crisis.
On December 1, the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution calling on all governments to promptly take steps to facilitate crew changes, including by expediting travel and repatriation efforts and ensuring access to medical care.
A key step is designating seafarers as essential workers, with permission to cross borders, priority access to international flights, and to vaccinations when they become available.
The urgency is clear: the global economy depends on the work of seafarers.
When we celebrate Christmas with family and friends, feasting on imported delicacies and exchanging gifts shipped in from overseas, let’s not forget the ordeal of the hundreds of thousands stranded far from home who made that possible.
Australia guards its AAA credit rating with care. Successive governments from both sides of politics have framed federal budgets with one eye on the economy and the other on what ratings agencies such as Standard and Poor’s will do.
This should make bond holders less keen to own the bonds, which should push up the rates the corporation or government will have to offer to sell them.
A very good reason to pay attention to Standard and Poor’s you might imagine.
And it is for the governments of states such as Victoria and NSW whose ratings were downgraded on Monday.
Ratings agencies can’t hurt the Commonwealth
Those states will probably have to pay more for their borrowings, even though the Reserve Bank of Australia is in the market snapping up state as well as Commonwealth bonds.
Australia owes money in a currency it prints.Nerthuz/Shuttersrtock
But the Commonwealth of Australia is different.
Research to be published next year by University of Adelaide graduate student Matthew Crocker suggests that the Commonwealth and other governments with a high degree of monetary sovereignty including those of the United States, Japan, Canada, New Zealand, Korea, Switzerland, Norway and the United Kingdom are well placed to ignore Standard and Poor’s and all the other ratings agencies.
Governments have a high degree of monetary sovereignty if, like Australia’s, they issue and collect taxes and borrow in their own currency and if that currency is on neither a gold standard or a fixed exchange rate.
In a careful study of members of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development between 2000 and 2020, Crocker finds that ratings downgrades do indeed push up the cost of borrowing for countries without monetary sovereignty (such as most members of the Euro-zone), but have no significant impact on the cost of borrowing for monetary sovereigns such as Australia.
Lenders know this well
One lesson from this is that the Australian government should ignore credit ratings when framing its budgets, as modern monetary theorists have been saying for years.
Since 2004 Australia has only issued bonds in Australian dollars, which is another way of saying it has only borrowed in a currency it is able to create.
Although there are many constraints on what governments such as Australia’s can do (including the risk of inflation) such governments can’t become insolvent in their own currencies, because they are always able to supply them.
Strictly speaking, they don’t need to borrow at all. They choose to do so. Where they do borrow, their lenders face a zero risk of default.
The other lesson is that buyers of bonds understand this. They behave as if there is a zero risk of default, whatever the agencies say.
Those that didn’t, including fund managers who bet against Japanese and US government bonds in anticipation of downgrades, lost an awful lot of money.
The implications are important
It would be great if others understood this. It has implications for the balance between fiscal and monetary policy, for federal-state financial relations and for privatisations and public investments.
Pressure to privatise.JAMES ROSS/AAP
Governments at both levels have borrowed more than A$100 billion to fund measures to fight the recession. It won’t limit what the federal government is able to do down the track, but it might limit what the states can do.
In order to fund the extra debt payments those states will be under pressure to outsource and privatise things that aren’t yet privatised, even though on one estimate none of Australia’s privatisations over the past 30 years has ended up benefiting the public.
The pressure will increase if the states are downgraded and the cost of their payments increase.
The Reserve Bank is buying state and territory bonds, but that doesn’t write the debt off, it only kicks it down the road.
The best thing would be for the federal government to take-over states’ COVID-related debts. It can’t run out of dollars, and the states are doing much of its work for it, supporting the economy. The move would make the ratings agencies even less relevant.
Reserve Bank Governor Philip Lowe was half right when he said in August
I think preserving the credit ratings is not particularly important; what’s important is that we use the public balance sheet in a time of crisis to create jobs for people
Credit ratings aren’t important for the federal government. Right now they matter for the states. The Feds are able to help them out.
Can Christmas be about gender? Apparently so, if the paucity of female Santas is anything to go by. There have, in fact, been cases of Australian women donning the secular red and white Santa attire as far back as 1930 — and there is no reason why we couldn’t have more female Santas today.
In 1935, Queensland’s Daily Mercury reported on aviator Nancy Bird Walton, “The Angel of the Outback”, piloting a female Santa Claus into the north-western corner of New South Wales.
Daily Pictorial, Thursday 25 December 1930.
Bird was a volunteer with the Far West Children’s Health Scheme, flying nurses to remote parts of Australia, and transporting patients. “A girl was the first Father Christmas for the isolated area,” the article noted.
Before Bird, in 1930, the Daily Pictorial had published a photo titled: “Sydney’s Woman Santa”. The caption described, “Mrs Thelma Lewis, of Randwick, believed to be Australia’s only woman Santa Claus”, filling a role she adored.
These cases from 1930s Australia provide a glimpse of women breaking the rules of socially accepted female behaviour. (Bird was temporarily suspended from flying in 1935 when a state politician pronounced ladies were not “biologically suited” to the activity).
During the second world war, as with the first, women assumed male roles out of necessity. This included donning a Santa suit. In 1942, Perth’s Daily News reported: “Female Santa Claus this Year”. The article read:
There will be a subtle change in the person of Santa Claus this year. He will probably be slimmer and smaller, and he probably won’t talk, because his voice won’t be quite as deep as it should be. Mother will have the difficult job of deputising for Santa Claus this year, as most fathers in camp and on ships will not get leave.
Women stepped in during wartime in the United States too, although the response was not as pretty. A 1941 article in the St. Louis Star-Times, insisted
There is one male domain, however, that should be defended at all costs … A woman Santa Claus? Heaven forbid! That would be stretching the credulity of guileless little children too far.
Why can’t a woman don the wig, beard and suit?Frank Schwichtenberg, GNU Free Documentation License,
In Australia, the practice also continued after the war. On December 10 1949, Brisbane’s Courier-Mail reported on a “Mother Christmas” who visited children at a childcare centre.
The story was titled, “Santa Was A Lady”. The caption for the photograph read, “Woman invaded man’s realm yesterday when a Mother Christmas (Mrs. E. J. Lewis) operated at Kurilpa Child Care Centre. She got the same glad welcome that Father Christmas gets.”
In 1950, meanwhile, a “Glamorous Girl ‘Santa’” cycled into the Christmas party at Freidelle’s, a Wollongong-based manufacturer of children’s clothes. The reporter described her arrival thus:
Furiously riding a bicycle, and with scant consideration to traffic regulations, the ‘Girl Santa’ arrived on the scene at Freidelle’s Xmas Breaking-up party on Thursday and challengingly announced ‘Well, here I am!’
Freidelle’s employed women and was one of the main industries in the region to provide jobs for migrants. In such a context, its female Santa seems to have made sense.
In the final decades of the 20th century, there was more resistance to female Santas. In Australia, Santa became a bloke again. In the US, the few women Santas working in department stores were either sacked or encouraged to seek alternative employment.
In 1999, a female Santa sued a Walmart in Louisville for unfair dismissal after a customer complained it was a man’s job. She lost.
But the tide may be turning as we settle into the new millennium. In 2018, in Gisborne, New Zealand, Santa was a “female, regional, Maori, queer”. Also in 2018, in Park City Mall in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, “Tranta Claus” (a transgender Santa) came to town.
The future of our beloved Santa — the guy in the red suit originating from the story of St Nicholas in fifth century Turkey — may be increasingly contested. And with older, overweight men said to be at a higher risk of catching coronavirus, now is the time to rethink the notion of who can play Santa.
A firefighter in the role of the Befana descends from the Palazzo dei Consoli in Gubbio (2011).
Gender switches at Christmas are really nothing new. In Italy, the Christmas tradition of a magical being bearing gifts has been part of culture for hundreds of years in the form of a folkloric witch called The Befana.
First recorded in a poem in 1549, the Befana is old, rides a broomstick, carries a sack full of treats (and coal), and wears a black shawl and either a headscarf or tall hat. Like Santa, she enters homes via chimneys, filling the socks or stockings of children with gifts
Male cross-dressing is part of an age old tradition of pantomime throughout Europe, prevalent around Christmas. So in Italy, the Befana is often performed by men donning female attire.
The government is set to rush through parliament this week its legislation enabling parts of the militant CFMMEU to break away.
Labor on Monday night was ready to support the legislation – aimed at construction heavyweight John Setka and his allies, who have created havoc internally as well as industrially and brought the mega union into disrepute.
The legislation would allow the mining and energy division, led by Tony Maher, to leave the union, and follows negotiations between Maher and Industrial Relations Minister Christian Porter.
Maher recently resigned as national president of the CFMMEU, and Michael O’Connor, the head of the manufacturing division, quit as national secretary, amid bitter infighting.
The bill is due to be introduced on Wednesday. Labor’s position was discussed in shadow cabinet on Monday night and will go to caucus on Tuesday.
Opposition leader Anthony Albanese some time ago forced Setka out of the ALP.
The legislation, which allows demergers to take place in a union after the present cut off time of five years, would enable a proposal to split away to be put to vote of members of the mining division. The manufacturing division might also leave.
Passage of the legislation would culminate years of the Coalition trying to curb the construction union.
Meanwhile, for the first time, employers committing “egregious” wage theft would face the threat of federal criminal charges, under the Morrison government’s proposed industrial relations omnibus legislation to be introduced on Wednesday.
This is separate legislation from the demerger bill, and won’t be dealt with until next year.
The maximum penalty would be $1.11million or four years imprisonment, or both, for individuals and $5.55 million for a company.
But it is clear the application of the criminal penalty would be very rare. The government says the offence would apply where a “national system employer dishonestly engages in a deliberate systematic pattern of underpaying one or more of their employees”.
The offence wouldn’t apply to one-off underpayments, inadvertent mistakes or miscalculations.
ACTU secretary Sally McManus said while the ACTU welcomed any laws that would address wage theft, the bar the government proposed was too high.
“It is unlikely any employer will ever be caught and it will wipe out stronger and better laws in Queensland, Victoria and the ACT,” McManus said.
For less serious cases, the legislation would increase the present civil penalties.
For most wage underpayments, the maximum penalty would rise by 50%. This will take it from $13,320 to $19,980 for an individual. and from $66,600 to $99,900 for a body corporate including small businesses.
For larger businesses, maximum penalties would be based on the higher of either twice the benefit obtained or $99,900.
Penalties for “serious” wage underpayments by bigger businesses would be based on the higher of either three times the benefit obtained or $666,600.
Porter said that “overwhelmingly there was a view amongst the business groups that there shouldn’t be a criminal offence of wage theft at all”. But he stressed the criminal offence was different from “inadvertent underpayment”.
Asked on Sky whether he could give examples of instances that would meet the criminal threshold, Porter could not.
But he did point to the 7-Eleven scandal as “the most egregious and blameworthy example of the underpayment scenario”.
The Fair Work Ombudsman reported in October: “Between September 2015 and February 2020, 7-Eleven Stores Pty Ltd have back-paid $173,610,752 in wages, interest and superannuation to 4,043 current and former franchisee employees.”
The FWC said it had “brought 11 litigations against 7-Eleven franchisees resulting in courts awarding more than $1.8 million in penalties against them, including for operating unlawful cash-back schemes, paying unlawful flat rates to workers, and falsifying records”.
The Australian Industry Group said it opposed criminal penalties for wage underpayments but if the legislation was to include them they must be fair and balanced, applying only to “deliberate, dishonest and serious conduct”.
For the first time, employers committing “egregious” wage theft would face the threat of federal criminal charges, under the Morrison government’s proposed industrial relations omnibus legislation to be introduced on Wednesday.
The maximum penalty would be $1.11million or four years imprisonment, or both, for individuals and $5.55 million for a company.
But it is clear the application of the criminal penalty would be very rare. The government says the offence would apply where a “national system employer dishonestly engages in a deliberate systematic pattern of underpaying one or more of their employees”.
The offence wouldn’t apply to one-off underpayments, inadvertent mistakes or miscalculations.
ACTU secretary Sally McManus said while the ACTU welcomed any laws that would address wage theft, the bar the government proposed was too high.
“It is unlikely any employer will ever be caught and it will wipe out stronger and better laws in Queensland, Victoria and the ACT,” McManus said.
For less serious cases, the legislation would increase the present civil penalties.
For most wage underpayments, the maximum penalty would rise by 50%. This will take it from $13,320 to $19,980 for an individual. and from $66,600 to $99,900 for a body corporate including small businesses.
For larger businesses, maximum penalties would be based on the higher of either twice the benefit obtained or $99,900.
Penalties for “serious” wage underpayments by bigger businesses would be based on the higher of either three times the benefit obtained or $666,600.
Industrial Relations Minister Christian Porter said that “overwhelmingly there was a view amongst the business groups that there shouldn’t be a criminal offence of wage theft at all”. But he stressed the criminal offence was different from “inadvertent underpayment”.
Asked on Sky whether he could give examples of instances that would meet the criminal threshold, Porter could not.
But he did point to the 7-Eleven scandal as “the most egregious and blameworthy example of the underpayment scenario”.
The Fair Work Ombudsman reported in October: “Between September 2015 and February 2020, 7-Eleven Stores Pty Ltd have back-paid $173,610,752 in wages, interest and superannuation to 4,043 current and former franchisee employees.”
The FWC said it had “brought 11 litigations against 7-Eleven franchisees resulting in courts awarding more than $1.8 million in penalties against them, including for operating unlawful cash-back schemes, paying unlawful flat rates to workers, and falsifying records.
The Australian Industry Group said it opposed criminal penalties for wage underpayments but if the legislation was to include them they must be fair and balanced, applying only to “deliberate, dishonest and serious conduct”.
Last weekend, The Age reported on a Victorian government plan, quietly unveiled three months ago, that would revolutionise the collection of the private medical data of every Victorian who has ever used public hospitals or health services.
Known as clinical information sharing (CIS), the plan allows the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) to gather and collate every patient’s medical records. The records will be stored on a government database and made available to clinicians as required. The database will include information such as clinical details, demographics, attendance information, medications, allergies and adverse reactions, discharge summaries and test results.
According to the proposal, CIS will be expanded over time to include information about treatment pathways, family and social history, and lifestyle factors. The department has also flagged extending the initiative to include patient details not only from public sources but also private hospitals, general practitioners, mental health systems and ambulance services.
The need for better sharing of medical data was highlighted in an independent report commissioned by the government in 2015. It followed several potentially preventable baby deaths at the Bacchus Marsh Hospital.
While this all sounds highly meritorious, there is one problem: unlike the federal government’s controversial My Health Record, it is not possible for anyone to opt out. About 10% of people have opted out of My Health Record, which is not unexpected.
Victorians will have no such option. True, they will have access to the data through an electronic portal, but they won’t be able to change anything or delete information.
This creates a dilemma for the government: even with the best motives, when it comes to anything to do with human services, compulsion is always a sticking point. One abandons the requirement of consent at one’s peril.
On the one hand, assembling all medical information of all eligible people from a broad range of sources into one database provides public hospitals and health services with an immediate and complete picture of any patient’s history. Health professionals will have quick access to medical images and laboratory results.
Indeed, it is sometimes impractical to obtain the consent of a person in emergency situations when treatment is required to prevent death, serious damage to health, or significant pain or distress. This is especially so when patients are not conscious and are not on record as having given any prior consent.
CIS is also designed to facilitate access to the information in a patient’s My Health Record, including information from other states and territories.
On the other hand, there are concerns.
While sensitive to the need for privacy safeguard mechanisms, the Victorian Healthcare Association strongly recommends there be a two-year pilot scheme before the plan is rolled out. This will help ease concerns the data will simply duplicate a lot of what is contained in the My Health Record system.
Others have been more scathing of the CIS proposal. In a blog on the Australian Health Information Technology site, a medical practitioner comments:
The idea of aggregating locally held clinical data from the private and public sector with the variably complete and timely data held in the #myHR is surely both overly complex and a uniquely difficult data management task – even if the private sector data was accessible. Of course, privacy, consent and data sensitivity issues seem not to even warrant a real mention and the claimed benefits are all pretty nebulous and unproven.
So where do we go from here?
The starting point is that governments must ensure no policy sacrifices our right to keep private what we would prefer to be private in the pursuit of a goal that can be attained by less intrusive methods. This has been the successful mantra of the drive to contain the COVID-19 pandemic.
Certainly, legislative protections are in place in Victoria for health information when it is handled by public and private sector organisations. There are general data privacy rights under the Privacy and Data Protection Act 2014, but this act does not apply to health records. The protections for these data are contained in the Health Records Act 2001, which is overseen by the Health Complaints Commissioner. It is a good system, but data protection is never completely foolproof.
Data leakage is the biggest risk to public confidence. The concern is that there are always risks associated with giving a broad range of service providers ready accessibility to highly sensitive personal records, which in turn might be used to discriminate, or even worse.
This information might include historical data concerning sexually transmitted diseases, pregnancy terminations, mental ill-health episodes, DNA tests and matters to do with family violence and child protection. This material can be highly embarrassing to some people. In the wrong hands (journalists, insurance companies, private investigators, personal opponents), it could be politically and personally damaging.
The CIS is a three-year initiative. The project is in phase one, and the DHHS is seeking feedback. The public will need assurances that CIS will be able to balance appropriately the public interest in the legitimate and essential use of that information with the public interest in protecting the privacy of health information.
If parliament is to amend the Health Records Act and abandon the requirement of consent, it will need to be rock solid behind data security assurances, and emphatic in its list of uses to which the data can be put. The Victorian government cannot afford to get this wrong.
This week, Lassie returned to the screens, with a remake of the 1943 film coming 80 years since Eric Mowbray Knight’s classic novel was first published.
In this retelling of the story, Lassie and a young boy named Florian are inseparable. But Lassie is temporarily rehomed, after Florian’s father loses his job and the family is forced to move to an apartment where pets are not allowed. Lassie has other ideas. She escapes to begin an epic journey back to the boy she loves. At the same time, Florian sets out to find her.
At the end of a tough year, the modern remake of Lassie Come Home, reminds us of our simple, healing, and mutually beneficial bond with dogs.
‘Lassie!’ ‘Woof woof!’
A long lead
What is it about the bond between a boy and his dog Lassie that has stood the test of time? Recent statistics show that 40% of Australian households own at least one dog. Global dog ownership rates are as high as 66% in Argentina. American households and those in the UK are less keen with rates of 50% and 27% respectively.
We and our canine companions share a long history. Dogs were the first domesticated species. While, we don’t know for sure how far back our relationship goes, current evidence suggests it dates back to at least 12,000 years.
Young Elizabeth Taylor appeared in the original Lassie Come Home (1943) as did dog ‘Pal’ and Roddy McDowall.IMDB
The story of Lassie doesn’t go back quite that far. After the initial hit Lassie movie there were six more films before the Collie dog became a star of the small screen. The TV series was produced from 1954–1974 and featured numerous dogs (all males playing the female Lassie).
This is a modern German retelling of the original movie but don’t expect it to be the same as the series. The story focuses more on the challenges both Florian and Lassie face before finally reuniting rather than the interactions between them. It is an equally enjoyable watch for adults and kids.
Florian and his dog Lassie are willing to travel great distances to be reunited. The love we humans have for our dogs is real. Thousands of years of co-evolution, has meant that even a dog’s gaze can increase our oxytocin levels, a hormone associated with bonding.
Dogs really are the best people.Warner Bros
Interacting with a dog can decrease blood pressure, and increase both oxytocin and other feel good hormones like dopamine. Further, during times of emotional distress, children turn to dogs, sometimes over humans, as a source of support and comfort.
The original Lassie Come Home was set in tough times when the Depression forces a family to sell their beloved pet.
During this year’s COVID-19 pandemic, we’ve seen a significant increase in dog ownership. Perhaps, getting a dog during the pandemic provides us with comfort during these uncertain times. Dog ownership may also help promote physical activity, and the human animal bond may protect against psychological distress and reduce feelings of isolation.
Just as Florian longs for his dog. Lassie longs for him too. She is by no means a lone wolf.
This long history of co-evolution means that our dogs may actually love us back. Remember how our oxytocin level increases when we gaze at our dogs? Our dog’s levels also increase. Spoiler alert: Lassie’s oxytocin levels would most definitely have increased upon her reunion with Florian and, as a viewer, yours might very well too.
There seems to be something special about dogs, in particular. Even hand-raised wolves rarely gaze at their owners and do not show a preference for human companionship in the way that dogs do. Dog’s may attach to humans in a similar way children attach to their caregivers.
Dogs will often search for their owner when they leave and will greet them more enthusiastically upon their return compared to a stranger. Wolves, in contrast, may only demonstrate some of these behaviours if they are intensely socialised.
In the Lassie series, this difference was highlighted by the recurring role of “Blaze: the untrappable wolf dog”, with one episode called Lassie and the Savage.
Not only do dogs love us, but they also can understand us. Dogs demonstrate the ability to follow human pointing and can even pick up on our emotional cues. The dogs who played the original Lassie reportedly knew hundreds of commands.
‘Gee mum, I want to be a naturalist … you get to live outdoors and make friends with all the animals.’
Although our dogs demonstrate this ability to read us humans, we have a little more to learn when it comes to reading our canine companions. Dog bites result in hundreds of hospital admission and emergency department presentations, with children particularly at risk.
The bond between humans, especially children and their dogs, is truly beautiful and the new Lassie film captures this well. But, be mindful to supervise children and learn the cues that tell us when our very own Lassies aren’t enjoying interactions as much as we are.
If you want to be reminded of the special bond between humans and dogs, watch Lassie Come Home, then give your own dog (or someone else’s) a pat. With permission, of course.
New research is questioning the popular notion that cybercriminals can make millions of dollars from the comfort of home — and without much effort.
Our paper, published in the journal Trends in Organised Crime, suggests offenders who illegally sell cybercrime tools to other groups aren’t promised automatic success.
Indeed, the “crimeware-as-a-service” market is a highly competitive one. To succeed, providers have to work hard to attract clients and build up their criminal business.
They must combine their skills and employ business acumen to attract (and profit from) other cybercriminals wanting their “services”. And the tactics they use more closely resemble a business practice playbook than a classic Mafia operation.
Specifically, we looked at a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) stresser. A “DDoS stresser”, also called an IP booter, is an online tool that offenders can rent to launch DDoS attacks against websites.
In such attacks, the targeted website is bombarded with numerous log-on attempts all at once. This clogs up the site’s traffic and leads to all users being denied access, effectively causing the site to crash.
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The stresser we analysed was taken down by Dutch law enforcement after six months of operation. Since all the identities involved were anonymised, we’ve called it StressSquadZ.
We explored StressSquadZ’s service operations and payment systems to observe how its service provider interacted with customers. Contrary to the idea of organised cybercrime looking like a cyberpunk version of The Godfather, their strategies seemed to come straight from a business playbook.
StressSquadZ’s provider offered clients a range of marketing and subscription plans. These started at an introductory trial price of US$1.99 for ten minutes of limited service, through to pricier options. Clients wanting a “full power” attack could buy a VIP bespoke service for US$250.
Clearly, StressSquadZ’s provider had a hankering to maximise profit. And just as we all appreciate a good bargain, their customers aimed to pay as little as possible.
The communication data we analysed, mapped below, indicated the clientele compromised of three distinct groups of hackers: amateurs (red), professionals (green) and skilled non-professionals (yellow).
Some users who started with buying trials later graduated to more expensive premium services, which were pathways into more powerful attacks. The lines in this figure represent payments for DDoS stresser services.
The low-impact trial plan was the most popular purchase. These users, which made up about 40% of the total customer pool, are very likely driven by the thrill of transgression rather than pure criminal intent.
A smaller group had more serious intentions, as their more expensive subscription levels indicated. Having invested more, they’d need a higher return on their investment.
Notably, we found the average yield for those involved was low, compared to yield obtained during other cybercrime operations studied. In fact, StressSquadZ operated at a loss for most of its life.
Two things help explain this. First, the service was short-lived. By the time it started gaining traction, it was shut down. Also, it was competing in a large market, losing potential customers to other similar service providers.
Complicit in the act
While stressers can be used legally to test the resilience of security systems, we found the main intent to use StressSquadZ’s was as an attack vehicle against websites.
There was no attempt by the service provider to prevent clients from illegal use, thus making them a facilitator of the crime. This in itself is a crime under computer misuse legislation in most Australian jurisdictions.
That said, the group of criminals tapping into StressSquadZ was very different to a more archetypal and hierarchical criminal group, such as the Mafia. Without a “boss” StressSquadZ was sometimes disorganised and duties and benefits were more equally distributed.
We now face fewer (but stronger) DDoS attacks
The emergence of DDoS stressers over the past decade has actually led to an overall reduction in the number of DDoS attacks.
According to CRITiCaL project, out of 10,000 cyberattacks between 2012 and 2019 – of which 800 were DDoS attacks – the number of attacks fell from 180 in 2012 to fewer than 50 last year.
This may be because individual attacks are now more powerful. Early DDoS attacks were weak and short in duration, so cyber security systems could overcome them. Attacks today carry out their purpose, which it to invalidate access to a system, for a longer duration.
There’s been a massive increase in the scope and intensity of attacks over the past decade. Damage once done on a megabyte scale has now become gigabytes and terabytes.
This graph shows the increase in size of DDoS attacks in megabytes from 2007 to 2018.Carlos Morales/Arbor Network
DDoS attacks can facilitate data theft or increase the intensity of ransomware attacks.
In February, they were used as a persistent threat to seek ransom payments from various Australian organisations, including banks.
Also in February we witnessed one of the most extreme DDoS attacks in recent memory. Amazon Web Services was hit by a sustained attack that lasted three days and reached up to 2.3 terabytes per second.
The threat from such assaults (and the networks sustaining them) is of huge concern — not least because DDoS attacks often come packaged with other crimes.
It’s helpful, however, to know stresser providers use a business model resembling any e-commerce website. Perhaps with this insight we can get down to business taking them down.
Yet, nothing could have prepared the nation for the breathtaking contents of the landmark report by Major General Paul Brereton into the actions of special forces, released last month after a four-year investigation. The reaction across Australia was one of horror and disbelief.
The inquiry found credible evidence to support allegations that 39 Afghan civilians were illegally killed by Australian soldiers, some having weapons planted on them to make them appear to have been combatants.
Prisoners were shot for reasons as obtuse as saving the need for a second helicopter trip. Others were allegedly killed in a practice known as “blooding”, in which new soldiers were encouraged to achieve their first “kill”. In one particularly appalling incident, special forces allegedly slit the throats of two 14-year-old boys and dumped their bodies in a river.
For most Australians, this is more than just rogue soldiers being found out for despicable behaviour. The depth of revulsion felt by many reflects the special place the country reserves for its armed forces, who have come to personify all that is best about Australia.
Chief of Defence Force Angus Campbell has been under pressure from some politicians to resign.Mick Tsikas/AAP
Where the Anzac legend originated
Military history sits at the heart of the Australian national identity — most visibly through the Anzac legend.
The word “Anzac” is an acronym for “Australian and New Zealand Army Corps”. It was coined during the early phases of the first world war, when Australians and New Zealanders were part of an allied force that landed at Gallipoli in modern-day Turkey in April 1915.
The invasion, devised by Britain’s first lord of the admiralty, Winston Churchill, was unsuccessful in its goal of reaching Constantinople and knocking the Ottoman Empire out of the war.
British, Australian and New Zealander soldiers constructing bombs at Gallipoli in 1915.Archives New Zealand/Wikimedia Commons
But the young Australian nation, federated in 1901, took from the failed campaign a mythology of national birth.
Australia had been created during an age of elevated propaganda about empire, monarchy and the glory of battle. War was held to be the truest test of the character of men and nations.
In this era of “new imperialism”, the peaceful union of Australia’s six British colonies carried a taint of illegitimacy because no blood had been spilled (the frontier wars with Aboriginal peoples did not count). The British journalist Alfred Buchanan wrote in 1907 that he
pitied the little Australian […] looking to nourish the flame of patriotic sentiment, [for …] the altar has not been stained with crimson as every rallying centre of a nation should be.
So, by the first world war, it was believed that a good showing in battle would expunge the convict stain and prove Australians worthy members of the British empire.
This is why the date of the Gallipoli invasion, April 25, quickly became Australia’s most sacred national day. The young nation was drenched by a tide of khaki nationalism that has ebbed and flowed ever since.
War memorials and monuments were raised in towns and cities around the country, where citizens still gather each Anzac Day to engage in the rituals of what the late historian Ken Inglis called Australia’s “civil religion”.
The first Anzac Day parade in Sydney on April 25, 1916.Century of Pictures, Penguin Books/Wikimedia Commons
How the Anzacs continue to be revered
Beginning in the 1990s, Australian politicians have also consciously and cleverly linked this nostalgia-tinted history to the work of the modern and highly professionalised Australian Defence Force.
When the honour of Australia’s revered soldiers is questioned, so too is the national self-image.
For example, a 2011 report into the culture and personal conduct of members of the Defence Force, prompted by accusations of sexual harassment and other indiscretions, noted the Anzac legend provided an exemplar for the current military.
Similarly, in his 2015 dawn service speech on the centenary of the Gallipoli landings, then-Prime Minister Tony Abbott lauded the Anzacs for their qualities of compassion, perseverance and mateship.
In reverential tones, Abbott called them the “founding heroes of modern Australia”, said they set an example for modern day Australians to follow:
Yes, they are us; and when we strive enough for the right things, we can be more like them.
Poignantly, Ben Roberts-Smith, Australia’s most decorated contemporary soldier and among the men accused of war atrocities in Afghanistan, has also drawn inspiration from the Anzac legend.
Roberts-Smith has said that Gallipoli is “a big part of who we are as Aussies”, and reflected on his boyhood fascination with the Anzacs:
While other boys had posters of sporting heroes, I had posters of soldiers.
A history of misconduct in war
But the idealisation of this Anzac history has always required Australians turn a blind eye to uncomfortable truths.
Australian soldiers in the first world war killed prisoners, deserted in record numbers, caught venereal disease at phenomenal rates and outperformed all other Western Front forces in causing trouble.
In the second world war, Australians were often reluctant to take Japanese prisoners, choosing to illegally bayonet or shoot them instead. And Australian soldiers are known to have committed atrocities alongside their American counterparts in Vietnam, including “bloodings” and “throwdowns” (planting weapons on civilians after they were killed).
In recent years, we have become increasingly reluctant to see our Anzacs as killers, even when such killing is legitimate on military grounds.
As represented most famously in Peter Weir’s 1981 film, Gallipoli, the Anzac legend has become less about the combat ability of Australian soldiers and more about their suffering. It is war commemoration stripped down and refitted for the age of post-traumatic stress disorder.
The Anzacs that our nation so often lauds are fictional creations, shorn of the malevolence and downright murderous behaviour they frequently exhibited.
The alleged SAS atrocities do not fit this kinder, gentler version of the legend. They upend the way Australians like to imagine their armed forces, and by implication, themselves.
The final scene in the 1981 film Gallipoli, starring Mel Gibson.
Tethering war to national self-image
We see two possibilities for how the current crisis will play out. The first is the alleged war crimes will slowly be forgotten, just as previous atrocities have been.
There are already signs this is happening. Prime Minister Scott Morrison last week said he remained “incredibly proud” of the ADF and emphasised that the alleged crimes were committed by “a small number in a very big defence force”. He maintained the reputation of the broader defence force would be unaffected.
Soldiers march during the Anzac Day parade in Brisbane in 2019.Glenn Hunt/AAP
The other possibility is Australia will adopt a more realistic attitude towards its soldiers and the conflicts they fight in.
These conflicts are complex, and rarely conducted without some descent into the moral abyss. Some of our soldiers are not good people, and those that are good are capable of lapses. War is an ugly business, and we pay a price for tethering it so tightly to our national self-image.
As historians of Australia’s war experiences, we hope and wish for a national reckoning about our record of war atrocities. But as historians of Anzac, we anticipate that the great mythological behemoth will barely sway from its course in the face of these allegations.
Every four years, the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) releases data on how effective countries are in teaching mathematics and science in Years 4 and 8. Called TIMSS, (Trends in International Mathematics and Science), the 2019 results will be released tomorrow evening.
This is the seventh time the TIMSS test has been administered. Over the years, the results have attracted considerable attention from governments and those interested in education.
The first TIMSS test was in 1995. Results from the last cycle, TIMSS 2015, showed the maths and science achievement of Australia’s Years 4 and 8 students had flatlined. But many other countries had improved — including the United States and England.
What is TIMSS?
What many are wondering about the results tomorrow include:
how does Australia’s education system compare internationally – which countries are doing better than we are and which are doing worse?
how are we doing internally — across states and territories, between girls and boys, or children from different socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds?
Year 4 and Year 8 students involved in TIMSS complete tests in maths and science. They also answer questionnaires on their background and experiences in learning maths and science at school.
School principals and the students’ maths and science teachers also complete detailed questionnaires.
This information helps to paint a picture of what happens in schools and classrooms and what might influence student learning.
TIMSS is a sample assessment. It’s not possible to test every Year 4 or Year 8 student (that would take too long and cost too much).
So a representative random sample is drawn from all schools in each system being tested. One class from each school is then randomly selected to complete the paper-based or online assessment of maths and science.
TIMSS was not designed to provide scores for individual students or schools — students don’t even complete the same test as all of the other students in the room. In TIMSS 2019, for example, there were more than 14 different test forms, covering different parts of the assessment.
TIMSS tests maths and science concepts, like the effect of the earth rotating on its axis.Shutterstock
Those test scores are then put together statistically to form an overall picture of achievement.
In Australia, 571 schools and 14,950 students participated in TIMSS 2019.
What the test looks like
TIMSS looks at how well Year 4 and Year 8 students have mastered the factual and procedural knowledge taught in school maths and science curricula.
For example, do students know:
how many legs an insect has
what causes rust
what happens when light passes through a prism
what is the sum of the angles of a triangle
how to convert ¾ to a decimal
how to calculate an average.
Test questions can either be “constructed response” or “multiple-choice”.
For “constructed response” questions, students are asked to give a written response that could be as short as a single word or number, or as long as a couple of sentences.
Here’s an example of a constructed response question from Year 4 mathematics:
Hanif starts to write a number pattern: 6, 13, 20, 27 … He adds the same number each time to get the next number. What is the next number he should write in his pattern?
Answer = 34.
For multiple-choice questions, students select the correct answer from a selection of pre-written options. Here’s a multiple-choice question from Year 8 science:
Earth rotates on its axis. What does this cause?
A. the seasons
B. a solar eclipse
C. day and night
D. high and low tides
Answer = C. day and night.
TIMSS is different to other international tests
TIMSS is not the only international assessment Australia participates in.
In December 2019, results from the OECD’s PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) made headlines as Australia’s PISA scores in maths and science were the lowest they had ever been.
While both TIMSS and PISA test maths and science, they are very different in terms of who they test and what the test is like. There are three main differences:
TIMSS tests students in middle primary and lower secondary. PISA tests 15 year olds, who are usually in Years 9, 10 or 11 in Australia and nearing the end of their compulsory schooling in many countries
TIMSS focuses on how well students have learnt the content of a defined curriculum. PISA focuses on how well students can apply reading, maths, science skills to real-life situations
TIMSS assessment content is jointly developed by participating countries based on a detailed analysis of national curricula. PISA assessment content is developed by OECD-selected experts based on the skills they think students should have mastered.
Testing at Year 4 and Year 8, rather than at the end of school, allows countries to see how well students are doing early in their education journey and where more effort might be needed. Focusing on a defined curriculum can help find where gaps in a country’s own curriculum might lie.
TIMSS also provides a lot of contextual information collected through questionnaires from school principals, teachers and students. The questionnaire examine what is intended to be taught in science and maths (the intended curriculum) and how these things are actually taught (the implemented curriculum). While the assessment describes what students have learned (the attained curriculum).
Together, information from TIMSS can help improve Australia’s maths and science curricula and, ultimately, the educational outcomes of all Australian students.
If you own an apartment – or are thinking of buying one – the recent news about building quality has been worrying. There have been evacuations at the Opal and Mascot apartment towers in Sydney, cladding fires at the Lacrosse and Neo200 towers in Melbourne and the Grenfell Tower tragedy in London. While most buildings won’t have such serious defects, many do have significant problems, and owners must get these fixed so they aren’t a health and safety risk.
Even if the defect doesn’t affect their apartment, this is often the shared responsibility of all owners in the building. It’s essential they have access to good guidance on dealing with defects in strata properties – but this isn’t always easy to find. To help owners, we’ve worked with the Strata Community Association (NSW) to produce a free guide to rectifying defects.
This how-to guide takes current and potential owners through the steps of identifying and rectifying defects, with links to helpful resources. It includes advice on getting a defect report, whether the developer or builder might be responsible for fixing the issue, how to choose and manage building experts, and how to manage communication with owners and workers.
The guide has been developed for New South Wales, but may also be helpful if you have a strata property elsewhere in Australia.
So what key things should owners know?
Each building’s experience with defects will differ. But there are some key principles owners should always keep in mind – these underpin all the advice in our guide.
Information is power: gather all the information you can when investigating defects. For buyers, a good strata report is essential. For owners of new buildings, getting a professional defects report is particularly important. It’s worth the cost.
Focus on potential fire, waterproofing or structural issues. These defects can be hard to see but expensive to fix. They also have major impacts on health and safety.
The big things to look out for are potential fire risks and waterproofing or structural issues. Though often hard to see, these problems can turn out to be costly.AAP
The early bird catches the worm: you can never start looking for and dealing with defects too early. Be aware of time limits on building warranties.
In NSW, for minor defects, you have two years to start the process of getting the builder or developer to fix the defect. For major defects, you have six years. If your building is outside the warranty period, you may have to fund rectification yourself.
Sharing is caring: make sure you report defects to people who need to know. This will include your owners corporation, but also your insurer(s) and Fair Trading (especially if the defect is major).
Keeping good records is also important. Records are needed in case there are disputes and to show future buyers the building is well-maintained.
Look after yourself: dealing with defects can be financially and emotionally draining. Conflict can occur, and collective decision-making can feel very slow.
To help navigate the process, you want the best experts by your side. They include lawyers, building specialists, strata managers and project managers. And always get a second opinion if in doubt.
A Mascot Towers apartment owner feels the emotional toll in August 2019 after giving his statement to a NSW parliamentary inquiry into building standards and disputes.Dean Lewins/AAP
What else can be done to improve the situation?
While our guide will help apartment owners and buyers to work through defect issues, state and territory governments could also do more to help out owners.
These legal changes are important, but they are unlikely to completely get rid of building defects. And buildings built before the new laws might still have problems down the track.
One way governments can help owners who face such issues in the future is to make it easier for them to get the information they need to deal with defects effectively and efficiently.
Currently, strata buyers and owners suffer from what economists call “information asymmetry” – they don’t have access to all the information they need to make informed decisions about building quality. For example, developers might not give new owners all the details about how their building was built, what materials were used, or which builders and tradespeople worked on it.
Developers should be required to give owners better information, as well as taking more responsibility for fixing defects.
Owners corporations should be encouraged to keep building records on defects up-to-date and make this information available to prospective buyers and relevant authorities.
And governments should support further professionalisation of the strata and building management industries, to make sure owners have the best possible support to navigate defects issues and care for their buildings.
When Bauer Media announced the closure of its New Zealand magazine operation just a week into level 4 lockdown in early April, things looked ominous for local media. Revenues and newsrooms were already contracting. It was hard to see things improving.
However, while the full picture is still unclear, it seems most of New Zealand’s TV, radio and print outlets have come through the COVID-19 crisis bruised and battered — but alive. Sadly, an estimated 637 media jobs have disappeared in the process.
In short, 2020 has left the New Zealand media market profoundly restructured.
Perhaps most significantly, as the tenth New Zealand Media Ownership Report shows, there are now more independent news outlets in the market than at any time in the past decade.
That trend was underscored by Australian Nine Entertainment selling (for NZ$1) its New Zealand subsidiary Stuff to CEO Sinead Boucher. The sale returned the country’s largest digital news platform and 12 national and regional newspapers to local ownership.
The magazine massacre
Many of these structural changes in the country’s media might have happened anyway, but the pandemic certainly accelerated some decisions.
A case in point was Bauer. The company blamed its closure on “the severe economic impact of COVID-19”, but it had been facing declining advertising revenue well before the pandemic hit. This was made worse when magazines were not included among essential goods and services during the lockdown in March and April.
Bauer also closed titles in Australia, but in June the company’s Australasian magazines were sold to Australian private equity group Mercury Capital. The new owner resumed publication of Woman’s Day, New Zealand Woman’s Weekly, Australian Women’s Weekly NZ, Your Home & Garden, NZ Listener and Kia Ora.
Later, flagship current affairs titles North & South and Metro were sold to independent publishers and relaunched in November.
A government lifeline
You might say the country’s media survived the pandemic with a little help from friends — and even frenemies: the government, readers and Google.
In April, the government announced a $50 million media crisis support package — the lion’s share went to broadcasting.
But most of the country’s news outlets received support from the government’s wage subsidy scheme, including NZ Media and Entertainment (NZME) and Stuff, the two largest print and online news publishers.
Without that government support it’s clear many news outlets would have been more severely affected. The NZ Herald received $8.6 million in wage subsidy and Stuff $6.2 million. State-owned broadcaster TVNZ received $5.9 million and the private-equity-owned MediaWorks $3.6 million.
The scheme also kept many smaller digital news outlets afloat, and some even expanded.
The Google factor
Some news outlets received additional funding from Google’s Journalism Emergency Relief Fund — slightly ironic, given the impact of the digital giant on traditional media advertising revenues (hence the “frenemy” tag).
A total of 76 news organisations across the Pacific benefited from Google’s “short-term relief”. While smaller publishers welcomed it, the money spent per outlet was unlikely to make any serious dent in Google’s budget — it was more a gesture of goodwill.
For example, Queenstown-based non-profit media outlet Crux received $5,000. To put that in context, in the first half of 2020 search engines — mainly Google — received $361 million in digital advertising revenue in New Zealand, along with the social media platforms gobbling up 72% of the country’s total digital advertising spend.
For its part, Google says it has done more for the country’s journalism than providing financial aid, and has “trained almost 600 journalists in dozens of newsrooms across the country”.
Higher traffic and increased donations
News companies also got by with a little help from their readers during the pandemic. The NZ Herald reported “overall print-digital readership […] at record levels and newspaper readership [at] its highest in almost a decade”.
Independent digital news outlets Newsroom and The Spinoff also reported spikes in readership and donations or subscriptions. Web analytics confirm overall news site traffic increased quite substantially during the pandemic.
According to data analysts SimilarWeb, total visits to the NZ Herald website grew from 36.5 million in May to 46.4 million in August. Similarly, total visits to the Stuff site went from 39.7 million in May to 43 million in August, while The Spinoff grew from 2.4 million in May to 2.9 million in July.
These positive developments were offset by plenty of negatives, however. Many commercial newsrooms shrank substantially, with hundreds of jobs lost. The full effects of the pandemic will not be known for some time, and what the industry will look like in 12 months is hard to predict.
What is clear, though, is that more government support will be needed in the coming years if New Zealand wants a healthy media system as part of its democracy.
In a new series, writers pay tribute to fictional detectives on the page and on screen.
Detective fiction is my go-to when I need to wash away the exigencies of everyday life.
I’m not alone. Sales and TV viewing figures show the enormous popularity of the form; its benefits have been observed for mental health and well-being, and it provides theorists with the pleasure of analysing social structures, identity and political imperatives through its lens.
I like Morse’s car, his taste in music, his capacity to disentangle mysteries as perplexing as Gordian knots. But I don’t like his old-man grouchiness and his dated gender politics.
This frees me to take real pleasure in the prequel centred on his younger self, Endeavour Morse (played by Shaun Evans), untrammelled by any need to relate Baby Morse to the curmudgeon he would later become.
Endeavour, or to quote critic Graeme Virtue, “Inspector Morse with a moustache”, has been attracting fans since the show’s 2012 inception. (The moustache has come and gone over seven seasons screened so far, but Endeavour’s quirky, difficult self continues to grab my attention.)
‘He thinks he’s the brightest person in the room, often,’ says actor Shaun Evans of his character.
An Oxford University dropout, Endeavour is brilliant, canny and willing to do whatever is necessary to achieve the public good. In this he is a closer match to the Ancient Greek king Odysseus, as depicted by philosopher Martha Nussbaum, than to television versions of Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot or G.K. Chesterton’s Father Brown. And like Odysseus, he seems always to be searching for a home.
Endeavour is unimpeachable, displaying a touch of arrogance that frequently offends others, especially Chief Superintendent Bright (Anton Lesser) who regularly slaps him down. His self-belief similarly puts off the the dons and upper-crust toffs he encounters in his investigations.
When Morse starts out he is told to keep his head down and his nose clean. He doesn’t always follow that advice.
Step back in time
The story begins in the early 1960s, in a Britain still recovering from war, and it progresses, season by season, to 1970. It is beautifully filmed, providing all the visual nostalgia one could hope for: heavy-flanked cars, aggressively loud wallpaper, dim and grim interiors. Outside, there is the glowing presence of the dreaming spires that signal “Oxford” to the viewer.
Endeavour moves with aplomb through disturbing situations that tend to draw together unlikely elements of Oxford society. Fey schoolgirls drift about in white gowns like some cold-climate transplants from Picnic at Hanging Rock. Public schoolboy bullies and drug-runners abound. Academics go rogue. London gangsters in Kray Brothers suits show murderous intent and rough manners.
There’s a piling up of bodies, week by week, that is worthy of Midsomer Murders, all underscored by haunting music created by the prolific Australian composer Barrington Pheloung, who died last year and was said to sneak clues and red herrings into his compositions.
A real delight is found in the community Endeavour inhabits. Alongside Chief Superintendent Bright is the lugubrious Detective Inspector Fred Thursday (Roger Allam), who doubles as Endeavour’s surrogate father.
Young Morse looks up to DI Fred Thursday, a father figure in the series.IMDB
Colleagues include DC Jim Strange (Sean Rigby) — less capable than Endeavour, but much better at the institutional game. There is also the rather unfocused and short-lived DC George Fancy (Lewis Peek); and George’s girlfriend, WPC Shirley Trewlove (Dakota Blue Richards), who matches Endeavour in insights, observation and clarity of thought, before heading off to greener pastures after her Fancy is killed in action.
(Note the cryptic poetry of the officers’ names, which seem to be crying out for a code-breaker — and note too: Endeavour was a cipher clerk before joining the police.)
Off duty
Outside the station community we get to know Thursday’s wife, Winifred (Caroline O’Neill), and their daughter, Joan (Sara Vickers), for whom Endeavour hopelessly yearns. Both women are independently minded and their stories help shape the narrative arc of the series.
There’s the nurse Monica Hicks (Shvorne Marks), Endeavour’s neighbour and, for a time, his girlfriend. She is tender and generous, but finally intolerant of his failings in romance. There’s also the courageous, ethical editor of the Oxford Mail, Dorothea Frazil (Abigail Thaw, daughter of Morse star John Thaw).
Endeavour wears his Oxford education lightly, but draws on its foundation to solve the crimes; his fellow officers routinely turn to Endeavour to find answers to the really complex cases — particularly those that depend on opera, or archaic poetry, or codes. Consistently he fulfils what philosopher Slavoj Žižek calls “the detective’s role” — to demonstrate how the impossible is possible.
He sees the order in apparently random events; demonstrates how a distraught woman had in fact arranged the murder-at-a-distance of her husband; recognises where the killer is likely to make his next appearance; stitches together hints and glimpses so he can deliver the checkmate move in whatever case he is pursuing. What seems impossible, or magical, becomes lucid under his analytical gaze.
Finally, Endeavour reminds me how difficult it was to be young. To know you don’t fit in any of the places where you need to be. To have conviction in some aspects of life and be so uncertain in others.
Endeavour must accommodate triumphs that deliver not restoration to order or, in the words of fellow Oxford man W.H. Auden, “the state of grace in which the aesthetic and the ethical are as one”. Rather, his successes give way to an exhausted and saddening awareness of how damaged everyday people are, stumbling through our everyday lives.
“Casual” employment will be defined and a universal standard spelled out for casuals to convert to full or part-time employment in industrial relations legislation introduced this week.
Separately, the government is making a fresh effort to take on the militant elements of the Construction, Forestry, Maritime, Mining And Energy Union, with a bill to enable parts of the union to “de-merge” from it. This follows deep fractures within the union over the behaviour of construction heavyweight, John Setka.
The industrial relations package, which will also contain changes to facilitate enterprise bargaining, comes after tripartite negotiations between the government, unions and business.
Neither business nor unions will agree with all of it. There will be a Senate inquiry and further tooing and froing, and its fate won’t be decided until next year.
The existing definition of a “casual” is considered too general and lacking in clarity, and so subject to court interpretation.
Under the new Commonwealth statutory definition, a person will be defined as a casual if employment is offered “without any firm advance commitment” that it will continue indefinitely and follow an agreed pattern, and the employee accepts it on that basis.
The strengthened process for converting into full or part time employment will be an enhancement of existing rights of conversion under some awards. It will make the right to convert from casual to permanent available to all casuals.
An employer must make a conversion offer if
the employee has worked for the employer for a year and worked a regular pattern of hours for the past six months (previously 12 months)
the employee could continue to work as a full or part time worker without significant change to their hours
an employer may decide not to make an offer or accept a request if they have reasonable grounds.
If a worker declined an initial conversion offer, they would retain the right to request every six months.
The IR package will also quash the potential for “double dipping” opened by a federal court finding that regular casuals are entitled to a range of paid leave entitlements, and employers can’t use the casuals’ extra pay to offset that.
Casual rates are normally some 25% higher to offset the fact these workers don’t have various paid entitlements. The minister for industrial relations, Christian Porter has claimed the court decision could cost business up to $39 billion in back pay.
The legislation will ensure businesses do not have to meet this back pay, and prevent future double dipping.
It will enable employers to offset amounts already paid via casual loadings against any claims for benefits to be paid.
The pandemic put the issue of casual employment front and centre. The risk of the virus spreading in the aged care and health sectors was increased because many of these workers have several jobs.
The court decision further complicated the issue of casual workers.
“We cannot do nothing when we have a situation where employers are delaying making hiring decisions because of ongoing confusion about the legal status of casual employment,” Porter said.
“Similarly, Australia’s 2.3 million casual employees need certainly about their work arrangements and entitlements,” he said.
He conceded the government’s definition of casual employment would be broader than some business groups wanted, while unions would want it broader still.
Porter said the changes to casual conversion rights struck a balance, “ensuring those working regular shift patterns who want greater job security can convert … while maintaining the existing rights for employers to refuse such requests if there are reasonable grounds for doing so”.
Under the proposed legislation for union de-mergers, the Fair Work Commission will be able to approve an application for a ballot to withdraw from an amalgamation after five years. At present five years is the cut off.
The CFMMEU’s mining and energy division secretary, Tony Maher, had discussions with Porter about the plan, which would allow his division and also the manufacturing division to quit the union, which has been wracked by the disruptive behaviour of the construction section.
Earlier efforts by the government to deal with the militant element of the union have failed.
Maher recently resigned as the union’s national president; Michael O’Connor, brother of Labor frontbencher Brendan O’Connor, also recently resigned as national secretary. He remains head of the manufacturing division.
Porter said “the appalling behaviour of the CFMMEU has driven some divisions within that organisation to consider their options”.
He said the legislation, if passed, would mean “decent, hard-working parts of an amalgamated union that are dissatisfied with the state of their union will have an opportunity to leave, if that is their wish”.
The move triggered another round of infighting in the union.
Dave Noonan, CFMEU construction secretary, said in a Sunday statement: “Tony Maher did not inform the CFMMEU, the ACTU nor any other union about his secret meeting with Christian Porter. He still hasn’t told anyone what deals he has done with the Attorney General and the Morrison Government.
“The government will use this bill to divert attention from the Industrial Relations Omnibus Bill it is putting to Parliament … which is the beginning of a march back to WorkChoices.”
Maher on Sunday made it clear he would press for a demerger if there was the opportunity.
“If the bill passes through parliament and a new union structure is available that would put mining and energy workers in a better position, then we have an obligation to put it forward to members for their consideration,” he said.
“The Mining and Energy Division’s Central Council has instructed us to look at all options for our future direction.”
“Disamalgamation provisions should be more workable. It’s a weakness of the current legislation that unions can only demerge within a narrow time window, regardless of the circumstances. It’s undemocratic.”
Maher said he was “regularly in dialogue with the federal government on a range of issues affecting my members, and the current highly restrictive demerger laws are among the issues I have raised”.
Australia has just recorded its hottest November on record, only months after the devastating bushfires of last summer that ruined the lives and livelihoods of thousands.
As our continent continues to warm, we will have to endure harsher heatwaves and more severe storms. The cyclones in our far north will be more intense, causing floods that will destroy homes, businesses and lives.
Health authorities need to do more. The federal health department says its vision is “better health and wellbeing for all Australians, now and for future generations”. Yet there is little mention of the greatest health risk facing our future generations: climate change.
Currently, what the World Health Organisation calls one of the world’s greatest health risks doesn’t rate a mention in Australia’s Long Term National Health Plan, or the Department of Health’s forward-looking Corporate Plan.
The department’s A$5 billion investment plan for the Medical Research Future Fund describes 20 funding initiatives for the next decade and identifies “areas of national priority”. But it doesn’t once mention climate change.
At the national level, there is an evident unwillingness to speak about the damage climate change is already doing to Australians’ health. And things are only going to get worse.
Bushfires can have many and varied effects on human health.Shutterstock
The coronavirus pandemic provides a model. Australia’s response to COVID-19 was led by a national cabinet and informed by the national and state chief medical and health officers, meeting as the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee (AHPPC).
Our political leaders listened to the science presented by these expert advisers. They used this evidence and advice to make unprecedented decisions in unprecedented times to protect the lives and livelihoods of millions of Australians.
They must do the same with climate change. Governments should establish a “climate change and health” subcommittee of the AHPPC, tasked with generating research and providing advice on climate change adaption and mitigation.
The new subcommittee should incorporate research that touches on climate change and is already done by existing committees such as the Communicable Diseases Network Australia, the Environmental Health Standing Committee, and the National Health Emergency Standing Committee. Officials on the climate change and health subcommittee should meet regularly, share strategies, and encourage coordinated and consistent national action where appropriate.
More must be done at the national level. The Commonwealth Department of Health must add the health risks posed by climate change to its priority list. Climate change should feature prominently in its Long Term National Health Plan and in its National Preventive Health Strategy, currently in development, to ensure proper resources are made available.
All governments should ensure the health sector incorporates climate change into risk assessments and disaster planning. This could be done by mandating a new requirement in the National Safety and Quality Health Service Standards for health services to assess climate change risks.
Australia should take lessons from its COVID response in addressing the impact of climate change on health.James Ross/AAP
With the world’s sixth-largest landmass spanning a wide variety of climates, Australia faces a unique combination of climate-related health challenges. Our research institutions must get more support to pursue climate-health knowledge. Between 2013 and 2020, the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) awarded less than A$2 million out of A$6.3 billion to climate-and-health research topics — just 0.03% of the total.
After years of little interest, the NHMRC has just announced A$10 million in dedicated funding to “improve Australia’s preparedness and responsiveness to human health threats from changing environmental conditions and extreme weather events”, to begin in 2021. This is a step in the right direction, but Australia will need to provide much more support for climate change and health research.
The Medical Research Future Fund investment plan should have a dedicated focus on climate change and health research, so Australia’s researchers can help us all better understand our problem.
In the coming years and decades, Australia’s climate will become more dangerous and destructive. In 2020, with strong leadership and evidence-based decision-making, Australia had remarkable success in confronting the challenges of COVID-19. Now we must do it again on climate change.
Oceans 21 is a Conversation international series examining the history and future of the world’s ocean.
Five profiles open our series on the global ocean, delving into ancient Indian Ocean trade networks, Pacific plastic pollution, Arctic light and life, Atlantic fisheries and the Southern Ocean’s impact on global climate.
Explore the series in the link below.
Thanks to Hannah Hoag, Jack Marley, Nicole Hasham, Fidelis Satriastanti, Jennifer Weeks, Jennifer Gallé, Nontobeko Mtshali, Veronika Meduna, Wes Mountain, Lucía Caballero.
The Southern Ocean, also called the Antarctic Ocean (or even the Austral ocean), is like no other and best described in superlatives.
Storing heat and carbon
Let’s first look at the Southern Ocean’s capacity to store excess heat and carbon. The world’s oceans take up more than 90% of the excess heat generated by the burning of fossil fuels and a third of the additional carbon dioxide.
The Southern Ocean is our planet’s primary storage of heat and carbon.Crag Stevens, Author provided
The Southern Ocean, south of 30°S, is estimated to store about 75% of this global oceanic uptake of excess heat and about 35% of the global uptake of excess carbon from the atmosphere. It is the primary storage of heat and carbon for the planet.
The Southern Ocean connects all major ocean basins, except the Arctic. The link is the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) – the largest ocean current on the planet. It carries more than 100 times the flow of all the rivers on Earth and transports enough water to fill Lake Ontario in just a few hours.
A combination of strong winds and a nearly uninterrupted passage around Antarctica give the ACC its strong flows and speed.
The Roaring Forties, Furious Fifties and Screaming Sixties are all popular names for the strong westerly winds that blow, nearly uninterrupted, across the Southern Ocean, creating equally impressive waves. This results in a massively energetic – and hard to measure – ocean surface.
Strong westerly winds and the circumpolar current create massive waves in the Southern Ocean.Craig Stevens, Author provided
But the heat and carbon exchanges across this complicated interface are globally important, and oceanographers have designed tools specifically for this challenging environment.
Ocean currents with different properties mix, rise and sink.Craig Stevens, Author provided
To really comprehend the Southern Ocean, one must think in three dimensions. Waters with different properties mix both horizontally and vertically in eddies.
Relatively warm subtropical water is mixed south, deep cool water from the North Atlantic rises back up toward the surface and colder polar water masses mix northward and sink back down.
This complex interplay is guided by the wind and by the shape of the seafloor.
To the north, there are only three major constrictions: the 850km-wide Drake Passage, and the submarine Kerguelan and Campbell Plateaus. To the south, the ACC butts up against Antarctica.
Here the ocean plays another crucial role in the global climate system by bringing relatively warm — and warming — Circumpolar Deep Water into contact with the ice fringing Antarctica.
Annual thaw and freeze of sea ice
The annual cycle of sea ice growing and melting around Antarctica is one of the defining rhythms of our planet and an important facet of the Southern Ocean. The two polar regions couldn’t be more different in this regard.
The Arctic is a small, deep ocean surrounded by land with only narrow exits. The Antarctic is a large landmass with a continental shelf surrounded by ocean. Each year, 15 million square kilometres of sea ice advance and retreat in these waters.
The annual freezing and thawing of sea ice around Antarctica is the world’s largest seasonal change.Shutterstock/Maxim Tupikov
In contrast to the clear and dramatic changes in the north, the rhythm of Antarctic sea ice has followed less obvious patterns. In the face of a warming ocean, it was actually slowly expanding northward until around 2016, when it suddenly started to contract.
Looking at the annual cycle of Antarctic sea ice, one might think it simply grows and melts in place as things get cold and warmer through the year. But in truth, much of the sea ice production happens in polynya – sea ice factories near the coast where cold and fast Antarctic winds both create and blow away new sea ice as fast as it appears.
This process brings us back to global ocean circulation. When the new ice grows, the salt from the freezing sea water gets squeezed out and mixes with the seawater below, creating colder and saltier seawater that sinks to the seafloor and drains northward.
Polynya are in effect a metro stop on a global transport system that sees water sinking at the poles, flowing north to be mixed upwards in a cycle lasting close to 1,000 years.
Not all ice shelves respond the same
Computer simulations have shown how the ice shelves at Antarctica’s fringe have waxed and waned over past millennia.
Because these floating extensions of the ice sheet interact directly with the ocean, they make the ice sheet sensitive to climate. Ocean warming and changes in the source of the water coming into contact with an ice shelf can cause it – and in turn the whole ice sheet – to change.
Floating ice shelves act like a buttress to hold back Antarctica’s massive ice sheet.Shutterstock/sirtravelalot
But not all ice shelves will respond to warming in the same way. Some ocean cavities are cold and slowly evolving. Others are actually described as hot – in polar terms – because of their interaction with Circumpolar Deep Water. The latter are changing rapidly right now.
We can observe many cryosphere processes from space, but to truly understand how far the ocean reaches beneath the ice we have to go hundreds of metres beneath the ice surface.
Making climate predictions requires an understanding of detailed processes that happen on short timescales, such as tidal cycles, in parts of the planet we are only beginning to explore.
How do we sample something so big and so stormy? With robots.
Satellites have been observing the ocean surface since the 1980s. This technology can measure properties such as temperature and ocean surface height, and even be used to estimate biological productivity. But satellites can’t see beneath the surface.
When the game-changing Argo programme started in the 1990s, it revolutionised earth science by building a network of drifting ocean sentinels measuring temperature and salinity down to a depth of two kilometres.
Argo probes measure salinity and temperature as they drift with currents in the Southern Ocean.NIWA/Daniel Jones, Author provided
The research vessel Kaharoa holds the record for the most deployments of Argo probes in the Southern Ocean, including its most recent storm-tossed, COVID-19-impacted voyage south of Australia and into the Indian Ocean.
The Argo program is only the start of a new era of ocean observation. Deep Argo probes dive to depths of 6km to detect how far down ocean warming is penetrating.
The past and future Southern Ocean
Earth hasn’t always looked as it does today. At times in the planet’s past, the Southern Ocean didn’t even exist. Continents and ocean basins were in different positions and the climate system operated very differently.
From the narrow view of human evolution, the Southern Ocean has been a stable component of a climate system and subject to relatively benign glacial oscillations. But glacial cycles play out over tens of thousands of years.
We are imposing a very rapid climate transient. The nearly three centuries since the start of the industrial revolution is shorter than the blink of an eye in geological context.
Antarctica’s ice is changing as global temperatures rise.Shutterstock/Bernhard Staehli
Future changes in the short (say by 2050) and long (by 2300) term are difficult to project. While the physics are relatively clear about what will happen, predicting when it will happen is more challenging.
Simulation tools that get the ocean, atmosphere and ice processes right are only starting to include ice shelf cavities and ocean eddies. The most recent synthesis of climate models shows progress in the simulated workings of the Southern Ocean. But sea ice remains a challenge to simulate well.
This is the frontier: a global research community working to connect data with rapidly improving computer models to better understand how this unique ocean operates.
Life in a sub-zero ocean
At first glance, Antarctica seems an inhospitable and almost barren environment of ice and snow, speckled with occasional seabirds and seals.
But diving beneath the surface reveals an ocean bursting with life and complex ecosystems, from single-celled algae and tiny spineless creatures to the well-known top predators: penguins, seals and whales.
The Southern Ocean is home to more than 9,000 marine species – and expeditions and studies keep revealing more.
The RV Polarstern battles through a storm in the Southern Ocean.Huw Griffiths, Author provided
It’s not easy to study life in the Southern Ocean. Waves can be more than 20 metres high, and icebergs and sea ice lurk among them.
The water temperature is often sub-zero – freshwater freezes at 0℃, but saltwater freezes at closer to -2℃. Although scuba diving is possible, a lot of research on life in the Southern Ocean is done through remote sampling.
Marine scientists use robotic tools such as remotely operated underwater vehicles to look at and collect samples, and grabs and dredges to bring up bottom-dwelling organisms. We take genetic samples from marine mammals by shooting tiny biopsy tubes (like needles), attached to a cord for retrieval, into the animal’s flesh from a distance.
We can glean wider information on diversity from environmental DNA (eDNA). Traces of organisms are filtered from samples of water and analysed using genetic tools that can usually identify what sorts of species are or were present.
Every expedition reveals new species – some of which are potentially commercially valuable, and all of which are important parts of the Southern Ocean ecosystem. Our knowledge of the diversity of the region is growing rapidly.
Nonetheless, the Southern Ocean is vast, and much of it remains either unsampled or undersampled.
Down at the bottom of the food chain
In the Southern Ocean, primary producers (organisms at the start of the food chain) range from single-celled algae – such as diatoms with intricately detailed shells made of silica – through to large macroalgae like kelp.
Algae growing on the underside of sea ice.Andrew Thurber, Author provided
Kelp and other large seaweeds generally only survive where icebergs don’t often scrape the seafloor. Diatoms are diverse, and some species thrive on the underside of sea ice.
Ice algae form an important food source for krill, small crustaceans that are a critical part of Southern Ocean food webs.
Antarctic krill is a key species in the Antarctic marine ecosystem.British Antarctic Survey, Author provided
Astonishingly, the cold Southern Ocean is also home to hot hydrothermal vent systems. These communities, which include huge densities of crustaceans and echinoderms, get their energy from chemicals that seep out of Earth’s crust, rather than from the Sun.
An Antarctic hydrothermal vent on the East Scotia Ridge. The image was taken by a remotely operated vehicle during the ChEsSO expedition.ChEsSO/NERC, Author provided
Antarctic invertebrates make up more than 90% of the species in the Southern Ocean. More than 50% are unique to this ocean.
These invertebrates are often much larger than their relatives in more northern, warmer waters. This phenomenon is know as “polar gigantism” and is found across many groups, with giant sea spiders, huge sponges and scale worms the size of a forearm.
A selection of invertebrates commonly found by scientists diving at Rothera Station, Antarctica.British Antarctic Survey, Author provided
Nobody is quite sure why Antarctic invertebrates grow so large, but it may be related to high oxygen levels, slow growth rates or the absence of key predatory groups such as sharks and brachyuran crabs.
Marine invertebrates on the seafloor off the Antarctic coast.Alfred Wegener Institute, OFOBS team, Author provided
Higher up in the food chain
In the marine food chain, Antarctic krill swim between the algal primary producers and the iconic top predators we always associate with Antarctica.
Baleen whales get much of their energy from great gulps of swarming krill (10,000–30,000 individual animals per cubic metre), and the pink streaks in penguin and seal poo show they are also keen on these tasty crustaceans.
Chinstrap penguins on Deception Island. Many penguins pooh in pink, because their diet is rich in krill.Michelle LaRue, Author provided
Fish and cephalopods (squid and octopus) thrive in the Southern Ocean, providing food for deep-diving marine mammals such as elephant seals. Some fish species are so well adapted to the oxygen-rich cold waters they no longer produce red blood cells but instead produce antifreeze proteins in their blood to help them survive in the subzero waters.
Many whale species depend on Antarctic ecosystems for summer feeding and migrate to warmer, lower latitudes for winter breeding. But Antarctic minke whales are resident all year round.Huw Griffiths, Author provided
Protecting marine environments
Arguably the most voracious predators in the Southern Ocean are humans.
Antarctica might be remote, but in the 200 years since its discovery, the seas around Antarctica have been heavily exploited by people.
First came the sealers, then the whalers, driving species to the brink of extinction. Even penguins were harvested for their oil.
An abandoned whaling station.Ceridwen Fraser, Author provided
More recently, fish and krill (which is fished for food or dietary supplements) have been the main targets, and populations of some species have declined sharply as a consequence.
When more indirect impacts like ocean warming and acidification combine with fishing, this can lead to declining populations of krill, which in turn leads to reduced numbers of top predators such as whales.
Fishing in the Southern Ocean can be hard to regulate because these waters do not belong to any one nation. To help manage the impact of fisheries, quotas that limit catches are now managed by the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR).
This international body is also working to establish more marine protected areas. Without these efforts to manage catches, critical parts of the food web (such as krill) could be exploited to such an extent that ecosystems could collapse.
Changing environments mean changing ecosystems
More than 21,000 tourists and scientists visit Antarctica each year, potentially bringing pollution, diseases and invasive species. To manage human impacts on Antarctic ecosystems, and to help with political negotiations, the Antarctic Treaty came into force on June 23, 1961.
The treaty regulates all activity south of 60°S and includes an environmental protection protocol.
The impacts of global climate change and ocean acidification are nonetheless evident in the Southern Ocean, with warming ocean temperatures, reduction in sea ice and collapsing ice shelves.
Antarctic ocean waters are warming dramatically.Ceridwen Fraser, Author provided
Increasingly, research is showing that even the distant Southern Ocean is not truly cut off from the rest of the world, with warming, plastic pollution and non-native species making their way to Antarctic waters from beyond the mighty polar front.
Southern bull kelp does not grow in the Antarctic, but it floats well and recent research has shown that it can drift to Antarctica, travelling tens of thousands of kilometres across the Southern Ocean.Author provided
Rafts of floating seaweeds from outside the Antarctic, some carrying animal passengers, are now able to cross the Southern Ocean and reach Antarctic shores. At the moment, they don’t seem able to survive the extreme climate of Antarctica, but that could change with warming.
New species moving in and setting up shop will put a lot of pressure on Antarctica’s unique plants and animals.
Adélie penguins rest and breed on land ice, but go to sea to forage for food.Michelle LaRue, Author provided
It’s not all doom and gloom, though. Over the several decades since the Antarctic Treaty came into force, we’ve seen that nations can work together to help resolve challenges facing the Antarctic. One example is the establishment of Antarctic Marine Protected Areas (MPAs).
This level of international cooperation should give us hope not just for the future of the Southern Ocean, but also for other key challenges the world faces.
This story is part of Oceans 21 Five profiles open our series on the global ocean, delving into ancient Indian Ocean trade networks, Pacific plastic pollution, Arctic light and life, Atlantic fisheries and the Southern Ocean’s impact on global climate. All brought to you from The Conversation’s international network.
Pacific Media Centre director Professor David Robie with PJR designer Del Abcede
and MC John Pulu of Tagata Pasifika … how a Pacific ‘reset’
can benefit the centre’s future evolution. Image: PMC
PACIFIC journalism and media researchers have gathered “live” in Auckland and “virtually” from Australia, Indonesia, and the region to showcase their projects and initiatives – and they spoke of the key challenges ahead.
Presentations at the AUT Pacific Media Centre-organised event yesterday included cross-cultural documentaries, an industry panel on “transition”, Pasifika “brown table” initiatives, a forthcoming Asia-Pacific conference, and an Internews project on climate and coronavirus reportage.
Organisers also revealed that PMC founding director Professor David Robie was retiring from the role and stepping down as editor of Pacific Journalism Review research journal, which he started in Papua New Guinea, to concentrate on his own writing and creative projects.
The showcase, hosted by MC John Pulu of Tagata Pasifika, also launched the latest edition of PJR, which is themed on a range of climate crisis and pandemic papers.
The recent new fields of research (FoR) classifications adopted by the Australian and New Zealand Standard Research Classification (ANZSRC) were described by Sydney journalism professor and author Dr Chris Nash as “a huge victory”.
Speaking by video link, Dr Nash, a retired foundation journalism professor at Monash University and author of the ground-breaking book What is Journalism? The Art and Politics of a Rupture, told the symposium: “We have retained our positive in creative arts and there is a whole new field of journalism that fits within indigenous studies FoR codes”.
“This is a huge opportunity for journalism in universities in many ways,” he said.
While as a former journalist and documentary maker he had come to research through cultural studies, he had realised that “in the end it had become a bit of a strait jacket”.
Journalism research advocates
He cited journalism research advocates such as the late James Carey of the United States who argued that “journalism had to break out of that”.
However, it was not going to be easy “by a long shot” given the contest over positions, money and income that flowed from the large numbers of journalism students in universities.
Dr Nash said the opportunity was there for journalism to “branch out and be its own self”.
He praised the latest edition of PJR and the role of founding editor David Robie, designer Del Abcede and associate editors Philip Cass, Wendy Bacon, Nicole Gooch and Khairiah Rahman.
“It’s a fantastic achievement to take the journal to the position it is in now – two consecutive editions of over 300 pages is a massive, massive achievement.”
He said this gave the journal a firm foundation to go forward.
Dr Chris Nash …. speaking from Melbourne on journalism as research.
Image: David Robie/PMC
Stepping down as editor
Dr Robie is retiring from the PMC at the end of the year and associate editor Dr Philip Cass is taking over as editor of PJR, although he will retain an advisory role on the journal. Colleagues paid tribute to both his work and the contribution of Del Abcede to the university.
Pacific Media Centre advisory board chair Associate Professor Camille Nakhid and board member Khairiah Rahman praised his contribution to the media research and publication landscape and for building up the centre from scratch in 2007.
The announcement of his retirement had caught them by surprise and was “bittersweet as it celebrates and farewells our dear friend, colleague and mentor”, said Rahman.
Some of the participants at the PMC symposium.
Image: Del Abcede/PMC
Following news of Dr Robie’s retirement, tributes had “poured in from PMC’s immediate networks”, among them:
Dr Shailendra Singh, Senior Lecturer and coordinator of journalism at the University of the South Pacific, in Suva, Fiji: “Credits David for introducing him to academia 19 years ago along with his three colleagues, and the major impact that David has made through his mentorship in Pacific journalism.”
Nicole Gooch from the University of Technology in Sydney: “Describes David as ‘a giant of journalism and journalism education in the region’ for having built ‘a solid pathway for future journalists whilst leaving a huge, indelible mark on the journalism-social-political landscape through David’s astonishing work’.
Professor Wendy Bacon, an Australian academic, investigative journalist, and political activist: “She congratulates David and … Del, for her amazing contribution without which many projects would not have been possible.”
‘Fearless, unwavering hero’
“For many of us, David is the fearless, unwavering hero that speaks truth to power,” added Rahman.
He has the support of Dr Robie and the other core editorial board members.
The industry panel featured journalists who had recently made the transition from media schools to journalism with successful careers and, in one case, a postgraduate student from a developing nation in crisis who carried the weight of expectations of his indigenous community.
Corazon Miller, a political reporter of Newshub Nation, spoke of her dual Filipino-New Zealand heritage and her change from a nursing career into journalism that took her to BBC World News and other opportunities; Blessen Tom, an Indian-New Zealand video producer talked of how his 2018 documentary work on a PMC Bearing Witness project prepared him for work with TVNZ Fair Go; and West Papuan postgraduate student Laurens Ikinia discussed the challenges he faced in a region facing repression and real dangers.
AUT documentary maker and lecturer Jim Marbrook and Fetaui Iosefo of Auckland University reflected on their collaboration over the 2020 NZ International Film Festival’s featured documentary Loimata: The Sweetest Tears and their “returning” narratives in their current projects.
Lecturer Dr Janet Tupou discussed her Tongan community work and affiliations and new strategies about diversity at AUT, including a “brown table” to encourage research collaboration.
Professor David Robie pointing out some of the PMC associates
on the PJR waka. Image: PMC
Strong Asian connection
Khairiah Rahman spoke of the university’s collaboration with the Taipei-based Asian Congress for Media and Communication (ACMC) conference next year on November 25-27.
The conference had originally been scheduled for last month, but New Zealand’s covid-19 lockdowns and global uncertainties forced the postponement.
Rahman is also leading a seven-year collaboration with the Centre for Southeast Asian Social Studies at Gadjah Mada University (UGM) in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. AUT and UGM have published collaborative research on climate change and have a partnership between the two journals PJR and Ikat: The Indonesian Journal of Southeast Asian Studies.
A group of West Papuan students also participated in the symposium and staff, students and media people staged a separate Morning Star flag ceremony during the event.
Laurens Ikinia from West Papua … among the participants.
Image: David Robie/PMC
Other tributes:
Kia ora rā kōrua and congratulations on the appointment Phil and David!
David, I know you’ve been concerned about succession planning for some time, and I hope this is the first step in cementing the Pacific Media Centre’s future.
You have made an extraordinary contribution to journalism research and advocacy in the region, and I look forward to seeing how it blooms and grows over coming years.
Phil, you’ve been doing wonderful work as Associate Editor – let us know if JERAA can help in any way during the transition.
I know some of you who work closely with David Robie will realise this, but for those who might have missed it, David is handing over the editorship of PJR to Phil Cass, a wonderful scholar whom I’ve known since his days in Central Queensland.
But I didn’t want to let the moment pass without paying tribute to David Robie, and his scholarly leadership in the Pacific over many decades.
David has made an extraordinary contribution to the quality of journalism, and journalism scholarship in his time in NZ, Fiji and PNG. Long before I knew him in person I admired his work (he was on the Rainbow Warrior, spent time in South Africa [and France], before settling back in NZ).
Whenever I think of David, I think of a warrior for press freedom, and as a fighter for all the issues we should be concerned about as journalists and journalism educators. I hope his legacy long continues in PJR.
I know he and Del will continue to be part of our scholarly community, but I thought it was important to at this point to note his great work, thus far.
PS – The new edition is out – have a read, it’s filled with wonderful articles, yet again.
Kia ora JEANZ whānau
You may have heard Professor David Robie is stepping down as editor of Pacific Journalism Review.
I’d like to congratulate David and acknowledge his extrordinary work in the academic publishing field over 26 years, and the countless opportunities he helped create for other researchers, including JEANZ members, to make a visible impact.
Indeed, many Aotearoa New Zealand researchers found their publishing feet because PJR was dedicated to the region and interested in their work.
As we discussed at our AGM last week, PJR is central to journalism studies, and so to journalism and journalism education, in this country and further abroad.
Long may that continue. So, thank you David and team for so many countless hours and so much resilient spirit over many years and many issues.
Incredible.
And congrats and all the best to Philip Cass, the new editor of PJR (which will take a sabbatical next year).
Ngā mihi, Greg Treadwell JEANZ President
Auckland
30 November 2020
Media giant Stuff, after a protracted study of its own history, announced this week that much that it has published on Māori has been racist. It has apologised for this and introduced guidelines (a Treaty of Waitangi-based charter) to improve its record.
Surprisingly, left-leaning journalist Chris Trotter has condemned these initiatives, saying apologising for your history is to admit you don’t understand it (with which I disagree) and that the apology is likely to result in a White backlash, with which, unfortunately, I cannot disagree.
But he appeared unconcerned or unaware of the ongoing Māori backlash evident since at least the 1950s. He did not mention Nga Tamatoa, Bastion Point, the Land March, the Raglan and Wanganui protests, the foreshore and seabed issues, or the creation of the Māori Party.
He wrote of rewriting history while failing to recognise that it had in fact already been rewritten, by commission and omission— by Pākeha.
Only relatively recently have the “Māori” Wars and the Wairau “Massacre” been renamed the Land Wars and the Wairau Affair.
Until relatively recently the Treaty of Waitangi was considered meaningless, and a number of influential Pākeha still think so.
What is more, Māori are still being held solely responsible for the consequences of the Pākeha rewriting and resultant marginalisation: their poor health and crime rates, poor education levels, family breakdown, child abuse, drug use, and on and on.
The appalling story of Parihaka Trotter wrote that to rewrite was to not understand, but the appalling story of Parihaka that he mentioned in passing was not even known to Pākeha until Dick Scott, who died this year aged 97, wrote The Parihaka Story (1954) and its expanded Ask that Mountain (1975).
Te Whiti-o-Rongomai … arrested and imprisoned without trial. Image: Crosbie Walsh blog
In 1881, some 1600 troops equipped with cannon invaded the village on the slopes of Mt Taranaki (Mt Egmont?) in response to Māori removing surveyor pegs and ploughing confiscated land. The ploughmen and leaders Te Whiti-o-Rongomai and Tohu Kākahi were arrested and imprisoned without trial. Te Whiti was arrested again in 1883 and 1886.
Today, if you see Taranaki women wearing white feathers in their hair it is in memory of Parihaka and Te Whiti whose repeated peaceful passive resistance has been likened to that of Mahatma Gandhi.
Not too long ago, no Māori language, cultural mores or history were taught in our secondary schools (indeed, there were few Māori teachers) and the universities were little better.
I well remember a quite heated argument with my history lecturer at Victoria, Mary Boyd, in the early 1960s. She maintained the Treaty had no validity or use. I only got a “B” in that paper!
I remember also the PPTA Journal article in 1970 concerning teachers’ college students who researched Wairau. They concluded Māori had ambushed the NZ Company, starting the killing, ignoring the fact that it was only after Te Rangihaeata’s wife had been killed that the Māori responded in earnest; the fact that the NZ Company had illegally provoked the affair, hoping to forestall Commissioner Spain’s enquiry that was likely to determine the NZ Company’s title was invalid.
Māori land was invaded It was Māori land that they had invaded.
This is not what those teachers’ college students were taught, or what they would teach to their pupils. I know because one of them was a young colleague of mine.
The Journal printed my response (“Another view of the Wairau Affair”) but much of the damage was already done. What was taught in our schools and universities, if it was taught at all, was this sort of a Pākeha version of history.
I’m sorry, Chris Trotter. We definitely need to rewrite history, if only to correct what little we know.
Thoughts on the Stuff’s Charter Stuff’s charter recognises the media’s “enormous impact in shaping public thought … and societal norms”. It claims to be “a brave new era for NZ’s largest media company”.
The intentions of the charter are commendable but there’s no mention in the charter of Māori editors, columnists and journalists, only a separate acknowledgement by the CEO to redress their under-representation.
Also, there appear to be no explicit Māori organisational structures within the organisation, and no mention of any Māori inputs to the charter. I wonder if any Māori helped to write the charter, or whether this is another example of well wishers hoping to do things to and for Māori?
Without these structures and “by Māori” inputs, good intentions may not amount to very much. We’ll have other Oranga Tamariki sagas.
But it’s a start in the right direction for which Stuff should be congratulated. I wonder how many other organisations will follow its example.
Indonesia’s Presidential Staff Office says it regrets the raising of the Morning Star flag – which is identified with Papuan independence – at the Indonesian Consulate General (KJRI) in Melbourne, Australia, this week.
Presidential Staff Office deputy for political, legal, security and human rights affairs Jaleswari Pramowardhani insisted that the area in and around the consulate must be respected.
Pramowardhani pointed to the stipulations in the Geneva Convention on respect for foreign consulates and international legal customs.
“The host country, in this case Australia, has an obligation based on international law to maintain security in the area of the Consulate General of the Republic of Indonesia,” said Pramowardhani.
“Above all breaking in or infiltrating without authorisation. So the incident which occurred at the Melbourne KJRI cannot be justified and conflicts with international law,” she added.
Earlier on Tuesday, December 1, a video of the Morning Star flag flying over the Melbourne consulate went viral on Twitter. The owner of the Twitter account @Tbuch2, Tim Buchanan, shared a video of six people standing on the Melbourne consulate’s roof.
Two of them were holding a banner with a picture of the Morning Star flag with the message “Free West Papua”, while four others held a Morning Star flag and a poster with the message, “TNI [Indonesian military] Out, Stop Killing Papua”.
Officials grappled with the protesters trying to prevent the flags and banner being unfurled.
LIVE RIGHT NOW! 5 People have scaled the walls of the Indonesian consulate in Melbourne & are currently on the roof, they have raised the Morning Star flag of the West Papuan independence movement & banners reading TNI OUT: Stop Killing Papuans & FREE WEST PAPUA” #FreeWestPapuapic.twitter.com/Pkwuv1A3bl
Pramowardhani has asked the Australian government to take a “firmer stand” so that a similar incident does not reoccur.
This is not the first incident of its kind. In 2017, a Free Papua Organisation (OPM) sympathiser also managed to climb the wall surrounding the Melbourne Indonesian consulate and raise the Morning Star flag.
A renewed declaration of independence by an exiled West Papuan leader has stirred a negative response from other Papuan independence fighters who are part of the West Papua liberation army force clashing with Indonesian security troops.
The rival fighters have rejected the peaceful unilateral claim of independence and in particular the claim that Benny Wenda is Papua’s provisional president, reports CNN Indonesia.
On December 1 – West Papua’s national flag day when protests across Indonesia and globally each year raise the banned Morning Star flag in defiance – the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) chairperson Benny Wenda declared Papuan independence.
He did not make the declaration on Papuan soil but rather through a press release on the ULMWP’s official website.
In his declaration, Wenda said that he would no longer submit to the constitution and Indonesian law and that Papua will have its own laws and constitution.
Aside from declaring Papuan independence, Wenda also stated that he had been appointed as the interim president of the provisional administration of the republic of Papua.
“Today, we announce the formation of the West Papua provisional administration. We are ready to take over our territory, and we will no longer submit to Jakarta’s illegal military laws,” Wenda said.
“Starting today, December 1, 2020, we will begin to apply our own constitution and reclaim our sovereign land.”
Hot debate in news media Indonesian news and current affairs programmes such as on TV One have hotly debated the diplomacy challenge raised by Wenda. Two prominent human rights advocates have spoken out in support of West Papuan right to self-determination.
Commentators on Indonesian television hotly dispute Benny Wenda’s diplomacy challenge over West Papua’s future. Image: TV One PMC screenshot
The declaration has been disputed by other Papuan independence fighters who are part of the West Papua National Liberation Army-Free Papua Organisation (TPNPB-OPM).
“Starting today December 2, 2020, we from the TPNPB-OPM National Committee Central Management Office declare a motion of no confidence in Benny Wanda,” said TPNPB-OPM spokesperson Sebby Sambon in a written release.
The OPM believes that the claim of independence announced by Wenda will actually damage the Papuan people’s unity who are in the midst of an immediate struggle.
Sambon even accused Wenda of working in the interests of foreign capitalists from the European Union, the United States and Australia.
This, claimed Sambon, conflicted with the revolutionary principles of the Papuan nation.
“According to international law Benny Wenda declared and announced his state and claim in a foreign country, namely in the country of the British monarchy, this is totally wrong and cannot be accepted by any sensible person,” he said.
‘No significant impact’ says military Wenda’s declaration of Papuan independence has not had any significant impact on the situation in Papua itself, claim Indonesian military leaders.
The spokesperson for the Indonesian military’s (TNI) Joint Defence Area Command III, Colonel Czi IGN Suriastawa who said that so far the situation in Papua was “still favourable”.
Suriastawa said that the declaration by Wenda is a matter for law enforcement officials and the TNI could only confirm that the situation in Papua was currently under control.
“It’s pretty smooth in Papua. Let the police deal with BW (Benny Wenda) because [his declaration] leans in the direction of makar [treason, rebellion, subversion],” he said.
Despite this, House of Representatives (DPR) Commission I member Sukamta has asked the administration of President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo not to take Wenda’s declaration lightly.
According to Sukamta the government must immediately deal with this protracted problem through a comprehensive approach so that Papua did not suffer the same fate as East Timor which separated from Indonesia.
“Don’t treat this development lightly, we don’t want Papua to end up like East Timor.
“Shootings and attacks on the security forces and civil society are still continuing, showing that the situation in Papua is not yet stable,” said Sukamta.
Declaration of independence Although it is widely held that West Papua declared independence from Indonesia on 1 December 1961, this actually marks the date when the Morning Star (Bintang Kejora) flag was first raised alongside the Dutch flag in an officially sanctioned ceremony in Jayapura, then called Hollandia.
The first declaration of independence actually took place on 1 July 1971 at the Victoria Headquarters in Jayapura where the OPM raised the Morning Star flag and unilaterally proclaimed West Papua as an independent democratic republic.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Ellerton, Senior Lecturer in Critical Thinking; Curriculum Director, UQ Critical Thinking Project, The University of Queensland
The three recent appearances (and two subsequentremovals) of “monoliths” in Romania, Utah and California are intriguing examples of what can capture the public’s imagination.
These constructions are metallic-looking structures about three or four metres tall, with a simple geometric design and reflective surface.
They’ll look familiar to fans of Arthur C. Clarke’s Space Odyssey novels, sharing an uncanny resemblance to a monolithic structure pivotal to the story.
Adding to the mystery, the Utah monolith was reportedly in place long before it came to light on November 18. While its location wasn’t announced, members of the public found Google Earth images of the object dating back to 2016.
So far, no credible source has suggested the structures are a product of alien technology or supernatural influence. And unlike with UFO sightings and Area 51 news, governments have not been accused of a cover-up.
So even though Google Trends data shows global search interest in “monolith” has shot up since the structures were found, they’re not yet the subject of widespread conspiracy. And a reflection of past similar phenomena suggests they won’t be.
Intriguing artefacts
The maker (or makers) of the curious objects are likely still around, but they’re not talking. In the meantime, the structures call to mind some major oddities and artefacts from the past, all of which gained considerable fame.
Peru’s Nazca lines are one example. These shallow depressions in rock from around 500 BCE form colossal shapes of animals and plants which, intriguingly, are best observed from the air.
The ancient Nazca lines in Peru cover almost 1,000 square kilometres, and form about about 300 different figures.Flickr
The crop circle phenomenon may also strike a chord. These complex geometric patterns which apparently form overnight in fields across the world have captured imaginations for decades.
Both these phenomena have produced exotic accounts claiming to explain them. Some have said the Nazca lines were created to communicate with space travellers. Crop circles, others say, are the product of alien labour meant to send us a message.
No one knows why the ancient Peruvians made their lines. Their motivations may be hidden forever. Crop circles, however, are a modern occurrence.
And despite claims they couldn’t possibly be made by humans, humans make them all the time, often for the enjoyment of their effect on others. Crop circles also drivetourism in certain parts of the world.
Crop circles in fields tend to be heavily geometric and often display concentric circles.Flickr
But why are we so easily grabbed by such peculiarities anyway? After all, our lives aren’t impacted by them.
There are many possible reasons people fix their attention on potential oddities, and even start believing strange things about them. One is that they short-circuit our sense of how the world works — injecting novelty into an otherwise routine and coherent existence.
…the thing that doesn’t fit is the most interesting.
The tendency to imagine alternatives and to entertain a “what if?” scenario is the same reason we love reading speculative fiction.
If the Nazca lines really were etched to communicate with aliens — and if crop circles really represent alien messages targeted at us — the model of the world in our heads would be flipped.
There’s nothing to suggest the above phenomena are evidence of anything extraordinary.
The Antikythera Mechanism is an out-of-place artefact. These are artefacts of historical, archaeological, or paleontological interest which challenge widely accepted historical chronology.Flickr
Another interesting “out-of-place” artefact is the ancient Antikythera mechanism. This is seemingly an analog computer once used to predict astronomical positions and events.
But perhaps most notorious are the old favourites: Egypt’s Great Pyramid of Giza (and the widespread conjecture surrounding its construction), Stonehenge in England, and the enigmatic Easter Island statues. All have been connected to aliens, lost wisdom or extinct civilisations.
In case you need a summer project
When it comes to creating a spectacle worthy of the public’s attention, there are some key lessons to be learned from past successes in making artefacts, including:
Go big
It pays to do something on a large scale, either by making a big artefact, or having small ones appear over a very large area.
Stay obscure
The meaning of the artefact should remain unclear, or at least allow room for interpretation. It’s in these situations of uncertainty that the human imagination can run wild.
While the monoliths’ intent is unclear, they could be explained as art. Reportshave pointed to their similarity with artwork by minimalist sculptor John McCracken.
Aesthetics matter
It’s nice if the artefact is aesthetically pleasing or interesting. The geometric precision of pyramids and crop circles speaks to significant care and perhaps mathematical sophistication. The monoliths are comparatively basic.
Be original
A display that has never been seen before is far more newsworthy. The monoliths are highly derivative of those appearing in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Be difficult to copy
The monoliths could have been knocked up in a workshop. The “wow” factor for artefacts usually comes through an appreciation of their complexity, or seeming impossibility of their manufacture. The scale of the Nazca lines speak to this, as do potential efforts to construct Giza and Stonehenge.
Humans can do amazing things
Whatever the true explanations, most phenomena can be attributed to human ingenuity and a willingness to persevere. Simply, we must ask:
is it likely the means of construction were accessible to humans?
is it likely it served a meaningful purpose for the maker?
In most cases, the former is true. Although the time and resources required must have been momentous, it was clearly not impossible to build Giza. We’ll probably have to face the fact humans are just very clever and industrious.
It’s harder to be sure the second point is true, although that doesn’t mean it isn’t.
But every now and then we also like to have fun with artefacts and generate something unique and novel, even if it is for entertainment value alone.
It has been embraced by the government, which took almost a year to consider the classified report (described by Attorney-General Christian Porter as needing “to be carried around in a wheelbarrow”).
The undertaking was enormous. In the 19 years since the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, federal parliament has introduced 124 separate acts concerning the national intelligence community. On the whole, these acts have enhanced government power, increased secrecy, and scrambled to keep up with a constantly evolving threat environment. The result is one of the most complex legislative landscapes in the world.
The intelligence community operates in the shadows. So it is significant that this extensive (and expensive, to the tune of A$18 million) inquiry has resulted in a public report and recommendations. The report provides a valuable insight into the intelligence sector: its powers, functions and room for improvement.
But it must be acknowledged this was essentially – and perhaps necessarily – an internal inquiry.
The review was chaired by retired senior public servant Dennis Richardson. His former roles include head of ASIO and secretary of both the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Department of Defence. Consultation focused on Commonwealth, State and Territory agencies and departments. Only 16 submissions were received from non-government sources.
Since the September 11 terror attacks, Australia has enacted 124 separate acts concerning the intelligence community.AAP/AP/Richard Drew
This means the inquiry had the high-level access and expertise necessary for a truly comprehensive review.
It also makes it less surprising the government has agreed (in whole or part) to all but four of the review’s recommendations. Indeed, many of the recommendations affirm the current state of the law and the sector as a whole. The review’s engagement with civil liberties, democratic freedoms, whistleblower protections and such, is restrained. Instead, it focuses on other aspects of the rule of law, particularly legal clarity and (internal) oversight.
An electronic surveillance act is a good idea – in principle
The sheer scope of the Richardson review means its far-reaching recommendations will be mulled over for years.
However, the report contains one clear centrepiece: the introduction of a new electronic surveillance act. This, Porter says:
…would be perhaps the biggest national security legislative project in recent history.
While Richardson estimates the introduction of the act could take five years and a budget of A$10 million, the government has agreed to pursue the idea.
An electronic surveillance act would retain the same basic processes that exist now; the changes would focus on clarity and modernisation.
The attorney-general would also keep a key role in issuing a range of warrants – the report advises against a greater role for the judiciary in this respect. The primary focus remains on intelligence and investigatory aims.
The centrepiece of the Richardson review is a new Electronic Surveillance Act, which could take five years to implement.Shutterstock
New powers and access to telecommunications data would be granted to the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (AUSTRAC), Australian Border Force and corrective services agencies.
But the report warns against giving other agencies new powers. The Australian Signals Directorate, for example, (which a leaked 2018 memorandum suggesting it could be given domestic surveillance powers) should not be given “an onshore crime-fighting role” as this would “dilute its mission” and “constitute a profound break with the principles which have stood us in good stead”.
Oversight is crucial for the powerful security sector, but also presents tricky problems of security and secrecy (as demonstrated by the Witness K affair). Richardson decries the existing oversight framework in the TIA act as “a dog’s breakfast”, and recommends centralising national oversight in the Commonwealth Ombudsman.
A similar emphasis is given to the Inspector General of Intelligence and Security (IGIS). Numerous enhancements to the oversight powers of the IGIS are recommended, including allowing the Parliamentary Joint Committee of Intelligence and Security to request the IGIS undertake an investigation. However, this latter recommendation has been wholly rejected by the government.
While this marks the culmination of an immense investigation, the Richardson report is the beginning, rather than the end, of a journey.
It needs to be read alongside the countless other reports and inquiries that have recommended important changes to Australia’s counterterrorism, data surveillance, whistleblower protection and other frameworks.
The government has committed to a complete overhaul of its electronic surveillance powers and processes. The Richardson report lays the groundwork for this. It synthesises the views and experiences of Australia’s vast intelligence community and presents a crucial starting point for reform.
However, the process of rewriting the rules on electronic surveillance should include myriad voices beyond the intelligence community. Ideally, this would involve not only experts in law, rights and privacy, but also technology, AI, telecommunications, criminology and more.
The review gives a nod to a few of the complicating factors in the future of electronic surveillance – including the rise of artificial intelligence, the capacity to use the 5G network as a tracking device, and the pervasiveness of cyber crime.
Data surveillance laws are rarely subject to effective oversight or public accountability. This was borne out, for example, in the Commonwealth Ombudsman’s 2019 report on warrantless access to retained telecommunication data. It revealed widespread misconduct and an average of 1000 accesses to Australians’ data each day.
An electronic surveillance act is a good idea, in theory. It will take a lively and considered public debate to ensure it becomes a good idea in practice – capable of not only protecting our safety and security, but democratic accountability and basic freedoms as well.
Note Spain, United Kingdom and Germany. Chart by Keith Rankin.
Analysis by Keith Rankin.
Note Spain, United Kingdom and Germany. Chart by Keith Rankin.
This week, Covid19 cases in most large European countries are passing their peak following four months of exponential growth, thanks to belated new ‘lockdown’ restrictions. The exception – or laggard – is Germany, which has generally been praised as the European exemplar of how Covid19 should be managed. Germany has converged with the other four shown.
The same general story applies to Covid19 deaths, which are now peaking; though France has peaked and Germany has yet to peak.
Look at the beginning of July, around days 130 to 140. In July I heard a report on the media suggesting that Spain’s resurgence of cases was being caused by British tourists. The chart is consistent with that story.
In June 2020, the United Kingdom had Covid19 cases and deaths about half an order of magnitude higher than the other big four western European countries. Spain is a particularly significant lifestyle and package tourism destination for British people. And British tourism represents a large part of Spain’s economy. We may also note that, for the most part, people fly from Britain to Spain, rather than catch a train or drive. Many British people will have had flights booked that they could not get refunds on; so, they flew to Spain (and also Portugal, and other places) rather than cancel their holidays. (I suspect there will not be nearly as many British sunseekers on the Iberian peninsula in the northern summer of 2021.)
Spain clearly led the way in the Covid19 restart in Europe, followed by close neighbour France; then Germany. France probably restarted Germany. Italy was last of the five to restart. Interestingly, Italy is a particularly popular holiday destination for Germans; the Italian wave seems to clearly follow that of Germany.
Note Sweden, Portugal and Netherlands. Chart by Keith Rankin.
Looking at the smaller European countries, Sweden, Portugal and Netherlands standout as being particularly slow to bring Covid19 under control, thanks to more lenient lockdowns. Netherlands – with its higher level of excess deaths and its refusal to take Covid19 testing seriously – will have been worse than Sweden at the first peak, and closer to Sweden on the way down.
Portugal is interesting. Its initial death rates were much lower, meaning its reported case data was closer than the others to the actual number of cases; ie Portugal has substantially less underreporting. Essentially, Portugal followed a strategy more like the developed Asian countries (excl. China) – more testing and more immediate follow-up, and less locking down. The problem for Portugal is that the Covid19 simply festered, albeit at a lower level than United Kingdom. The second problem for Portugal is that – like Spain – it is a major destination for British holiday makers. And it was more open to British tourism in May and June than was Spain. Thus Portuguese tourism may have played a significant role both in keeping Covid19 high in United Kingdom and in facilitating the restart in its neighbour Spain.
Sweden – more complete in its reporting than Netherlands, though a slow reporter – persevered with Covid19 longest in Europe in the first European wave, and was the last in western Europe to restart. It now (with Austria) has the highest case incidence in western Europe; at case magnitude 4.6, these countries are on a present par with the United States. Sweden, Netherlands and Portugal appear – once again – to be Europe’s recovery laggards; along with Germany mentioned above.
Note Denmark, Canada and South Korea. Chart by Keith Rankin.
The third chart looks at countries with various similarities to New Zealand. (Austria represents a central European comparator.) Of particular note are Denmark and Canada. Denmark’s rise since July follows the general European pattern, though with a number of prominent stops and starts. Situated between Sweden and Germany, like them it is showing little evidence that the worst is over. Further, I understand that – at least compared to New Zealand (where facemasks are redundant because there are no community cases) and Sweden – people in Denmark and Germany do wear facemasks. My impression is that, while facemasks will have had some impact at the margin, the general story is that they fall well short of a substitute for lockdowns.
This conclusion is reinforced by the experience of South Korea, in a region where facemasks are more a part of the culture, cases have now returned to magnitude three, close to Korea’s peak in the first week or March 2020. If New Zealand’s border reopens in say March 2021, New Zealand’s incidence of Covid19 may also rise tenfold – to magnitude three – next winter. Mask use on Auckland’s buses is unlikely to have any impact, even at the margin, given that very few cases of Covid19 in New Zealand in 2020 have been contracted through the use of domestic public transport.
Canada also has had months of exponential growth of Covid19, despite mask mandates in the worst-hit provinces; it shows little sign of peaking. Canada was also like Sweden and Portugal and USA, with a very slow decline in cases after its initial April peak.
Today, Joe Biden says that Americans will have to wear masks for 100 days in the indoor spaces over which he will have the power to mandate. That sounds like a very good plan, quite different to the petty tyranny in New Zealand, where people riding Auckland’s near-empty buses are subject to an indefinite masking requirement. (Many of the drivers don’t bother, or wear their masks around their chins. Most passengers wear their masks only when they have to, and remove their masks on alighting.) Maybe we could have a referendum in 2022 – at the time of the local elections – for a decriminalisation of non-mask use on Auckland’s trains and boats and buses?
December 1 flag day protests have taken place in several cities around Indonesia including the capital Jakarta, Yogyakarta (Central Java), Ternate (North Maluku) and Sinjai (South Sulawesi), reports Arah Juang.
The actions were launched to commemorate West Papua Independence Day.
But even before the actions were launched, security forces attempted to thwart them by blocking protesters, breaking up rallies and arresting demonstrators.
The following are reports on the actions in Jakarta and Yogyakarta:
Jakarta In Jakarta, protesters from the Papuan Students Alliance (AMP), the Indonesian People’s Front for West Papua (FRI-WP) and the Papuan Central Highlands Indonesian Student Association (AMPTPI) had began preparing to launch actions since 5.30am.
The protesters gathered at the Jakarta Legal Aid Foundation (LBH Jakarta) in Central Jakarta holding banners reading “Reject Special Autonomy and Give the Right of Self-Determination to the West Papuan Nation” along with posters with similar demands.
The women demonstrators wore sali (traditional Papuan women’s clothing) while others painted pictures of the Morning Star independence flag on their faces and bodies.
The protesters then moved off in an orderly manner to the intersection near the Indonesian Alkitab Foundation before taking vehicles to the United States Embassy in Central Jakarta.
At 6am the demonstrators had gathered in front of the US Embassy and were giving speeches. AMP member Roland Levy said in a speech that Special Autonomy (Otsus) had failed to protect the Papuan people.
“Many Papuan people have been killed, evicted, discriminated against and labeled as separatists. Because of this the solution is independence for the West Papuan nation as a democratic solution”, he said while shouting “Referendum? Yes!”
Following this, the protesters moved off to the nearby Presidential Palace but were blocked by police from entering the National Monument from the west near the Hotel Indonesia traffic circle.
The demonstrators then gave speeches, made up games, performed the Wisisi dance (a traditional Papuan dance) and prayed together to commemorate the declaration of West Papuan independence on 1 December 1961.
One of the participants read out a poem about the Papuan people’s spirit of nationalism for December 1. One of the women then related how independence was the right of all nations.
A statement was read out at 9.30am and the action closed with a prayer.
At the end of the action as the protesters were to return to the starting point, they were provoked by a small group of unknown individuals. The demonstrators restrained themselves and did not respond, referring to the group as “1000 or so people”, meaning a group hired by the Unitary State of the Republic of Indonesia (NKRI).
Yogyakarta In Yogyakarta, thousands of students from the Free Papua December 1 Movement Alliance launched an action commemorating the declaration of independence in Papua.
The action, which started at 9am, involved a long-march from the Papuan student dormitory to the nearby Zero Kilometer point in front of the Central Post Office. During the march the protesters shouted slogans such as “Free West Papua”, “NKRI no” and “Referendum yes”.
They also took turns in giving speeches with Momiake Gresya saying, “We Papuan people constantly live under the shadow of death, being killed, tortured like animals, and all of this is perpetrated by the TNI [Indonesian military] and Polri [Indonesian police]”.
“An example of this is in Nduga [regency] today. For two years more than 40,000 people have fled seeking shelter and 240 have died as a result of Indonesian military operations,” said Gresya.
In another speech, FRI-WP representative Muhamad Iis explained about the ordinary Indonesian people’s support for the Papuan struggle for independence.
“Today we declare our full support for Papuan independence”, he said.
Iis said that colonialism in Papua was not supported by all the Indonesian people.
“Colonialism is not the position of the majority of Indonesian people, just a greedy handful of people,” he said.
Accompanied by the song “Let the Coordination Post be Torn Down”, at 1pm the protesters danced around the command vehicle waving two MorningStar flags.
This managed to incite security personnel who tried to move into the crowd but demonstrators succeeded in blocking them and the situation returned to normal.
The action ended at 2.30pm with the reading out of a statement and shouts of “Free West Papua, Free West Papua, Free West Papua”.
Other demands A number of other demands were also made during the demonstrations, including:
putting the perpetrators of human rights violations in Papua on trial;
the withdrawal of all organic and non-organic troops and an end to military operations;
an end to the theft of land and natural resources,
that the Indonesian government acknowledge that West Papua has been independent since 1961;
the closure of PT Freeport and other mining operations; for the UN to take responsibility for and be active in an act of self-determination;
the “straightening out” of history and resolving human rights violations in Papua;
allowing access for national and international journalists to report in Papua; an end to racial discrimination against Papuans;
the ratification of the Draft Law on the Elimination of Sexual Violence; and for
the government to revoke the recently enacted Jobs Law.
Declaration of independence Although it is widely held that West Papua declared independence from Indonesia on 1 December 1961, this actually marks the date when the Morning Star (Bintang Kejora) flag was first raised alongside the Dutch flag in an officially sanctioned ceremony in Jayapura, then called Hollandia.
The first declaration of independence actually took place on 1 July 1971 at the Victoria Headquarters in Jayapura where the OPM raised the Morning Star flag and unilaterally proclaimed West Papua as an independent democratic republic.
University of Canberra Professorial Fellow Michelle Grattan and University of Canberra Vice-Chancellor and President Professor Paddy Nixon discuss the week in politics.
This week Michelle and Paddy discuss the bilateral relationship between Australia and China, including a ‘repugnant’ tweet from a Chinese government official, Scott Morrison’s response, and China’s demand that Australia take steps to fix the relationship.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lachlan G. Howell, Casual Academic and PhD Candidate | School of Environmental and Life Sciences, University of Newcastle
More and more threatened species are relying on captive breeding to avoid extinction. Some species on the brink only exist in captivity, and others depend on captive breeding for their recovery before they’re released to the wild.
Captive breeding programs face major challenges to achieve the best conservation outcomes, particularly high economic costs, and loss of vital genetic diversity from wild populations after even a few generations in captivity.
Our economic and genetic modelling published today shows how freezing genetic material and using assisted reproduction could provide a much-needed support-tool for captive breeding programs, solving genetic and economic issues and allowing zoos to breed more species and expand their valuable work.
European bison would be extinct without captive breeding.Shutterstock
Captive breeding is expensive in resources, labour and capital. Programs have high start-up costs, in the hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars. High annual on-going costs, on average, are over $200,000 per year for a single species. Many programs are open-ended and will be required for many years or even decades if they are to achieve their objectives.
The high costs of current programs prevent conservationists from assisting many species that desperately need captive breeding. Amphibians are a case in point. Disease and habitat loss is decimating wild amphibian populations globally. There are now over 900 amphibian species which need captive populations. Over 200 of these species need it urgently to avoid extinction. Despite hundreds of species in need, the estimated global capacity and available resources can provide captive populations for no more than 50 amphibian species.
The costs are one thing, the genetics are something else. Captive breeding programs face significant challenges with genetic diversity. These are common even in some of the longest running and well-resourced captive breeding programs, such as giant pandas and Tasmanian devils.
Genes are lost after even one generation of captive breeding, and in just a few generations, animals most likely to thrive and breed in captivity show traits of domestication and adaptation to captivity. Inbreeding depression is unavoidable in small captive colonies typical of some captive programs. The loss of wild genes affects the overall fitness of captive bred animals for release back to the wild.
To counter the loss of genes in captive populations, the common global target for captive programs is to maintain 90% of the original captive population’s genetic diversity for one hundred years. This is considered gold standard practice and aims to ensure reintroductions of animals into the wild long in the future will occur using animals with minimal genetic issues.
Orange-bellied Parrots are bred in captivity.Shutterstock
This target is unachievable in most programs because it is not feasible to keep colonies large enough to reduce inbreeding rates to the level required. But using biobanking and existing or developing assisted reproductive technologies could solve genetic and cost issues and finally make this target achievable.
What is biobanking?
Biobanking is the frozen storage of various living cells from threatened species, particularly sex cells, including sperm, eggs and embryos. Frozen samples can be kept long-term as insurance against extinction or thawed for use in conservation genetic management.
Biobanking is not uncommon. Large commercial biomedical biobanks routinely store cell lines for cancer and other medical research. Biobanking is used extensively to store seeds of crops and threatened plants and in animal agriculture to store rare or valuable breeds of livestock animals.
The Southern Corroborree Frog is critically endangered.Shutterstock
What we found
Using real data on the economic costs of captive breeding, we generated models for the threatened Oregon spotted frog (Rana pretiosa), a native of Canada and North America, which predict program costs and rates of genetic diversity loss for captive populations of any size. We then calculated how these costs change, and inbreeding rates reduce, when genes are added back into captive populations each generation using cryopreserved sperm. These models will work on any species where costs of captive breeding are available.
The results for the Oregon spotted frog model were startling. Biobanking dramatically slowed the rate of inbreeding and required far fewer live frogs to be held. Under normal captive breeding conditions, over 1,800 live frogs were required to meet the genetic target. By using biobanking, this number was reduced to 58 live frogs.
The estimated cost savings and the improved genetic fitness for the Oregon spotted frog were profound. The conventional captive population required to meet the genetic target of 90% genetic diversity would cost over $2.8 million to set up, followed by $537 million in a total 100-year program. The biobanked population would cost $121,000 to set up, followed by total costs of only around $20 million over the same period. This represents a 26-fold reduction in overall costs from normal captive breeding to the biobanking approach.
We looked at breeding programs for the Oregon spotted frog which is native to North America and Canada.Shutterstock
A new era of captive breeding?
Investment in the biobanking approach could allow captive breeding institutions to maintain animals that are fitter and more like those from wild populations. Captive breeding programs could meet genetic targets which have never been achieved and produce animals more suited for release to the wild.
The drastically reduced costs would allow institutions to hold many more species. With investment in research on the underlying technologies, the approach would not be limited to amphibians and could work in any species. Building in biobanking could usher in a new era of captive breeding for a much greater number of species in desperate need.
Apropos of nothing but a bowl of jello placed before him, a stifled laugh escapes from Oliver Sacks, the famed neurologist, writer and public intellectual.
“What are you thinking about?” asks a voice offscreen.
Sacks demurs at first — or perhaps feigns reluctance — then relents.
Until a few years ago, I would wake up at night with an erection. Nothing to do with sexual excitement … But it was at times irritatingly persistent. So, I would sometimes cool my turgid penis in orange jello.
Such vignettes from Oliver Sacks: His Own Life reveal the usually shy, but often cheeky and sometimes shockingly honest character of the late Sacks.
Shortly after receiving a fatal diagnosis in January, 2015, Sacks invited documentarian Ric Burns and crew for a series of interviews in his New York City apartment. Sacks’ second memoir, On the Move, would be published in April. He passed away just a few months later.
The film is structured around Sacks reading brief passages from his memoir, accompanied by archival footage of the avuncular physician in action. Also interspersed are pithy recollections from fellow neurologists, writers, editors, patients, family and friends.
Oliver Sacks reminded us to ‘treat the person and not the disease’.
Rather than retreading previous thoughts on Sacks’ style of “romantic science”, it’s worth considering what the documentary offers that existing memoirs, biographies and other accounts do not.
Firstly, for those unfamiliar with Sacks, the film provides the most efficient but palatable — jello anecdotes aside — summary of his life, work and character.
Moreover, it reconciles how Sacks’ seemingly wild contradictions would (eventually) become complements. A recurring theme is that Sacks was “immoderate in all directions”, living a life that whiplashed between extremes of hedonism and self-discipline.
Sacks possessed a curious mix of extraordinary erudition, voracious appetite and self-destructive tendencies. This was leavened by seemingly boundless empathy for the neurologically marginalised, for whom he so poetically advocated.
By all accounts, including those of his partner Bill Hayes, Sacks could be painfully shy, yet effusively gregarious when taken by “sudden, ebullient outbursts of boyish enthusiasm”.
As a young man wracked with anguish regarding his sexuality and unrequited affections, Sacks once resolved never to live with anyone again. So began 35 years of celibacy, when Sacks took on an almost monastic dedication to his work.
A need for speed. A handsome young Sacks with his beloved motorbike.Madman
However, Sacks first turned to drugs “as a sort of compensation”, acquiring a fierce amphetamine habit that proved inspiring and corrosive.
Yet Sacks also sought mastery over his body, becoming an exceptional weightlifter.
Oscillating between roles as “Dr Squat” the athlete, “Wolf” the speedfreak biker, and “Ollie” the kindly but unconventional neurologist, Sacks often remained ill at ease.
Perhaps only in his very late years, through his relationship with Hayes — including a very late discovery of French kissing on his 76th birthday — did Sacks find comfort.
Born into a “typical, Orthodox Jewish, middle-class family” during the 1930s, Sacks’ father, Sam, was an affable GP, while his mother, Elsie, was a highly regarded gynaecologist, and among the first women surgeons in England.
Sacks reports an “an uneasy closeness” with his mother.
I think she wanted me to be like her. Sometimes, especially when I was very young … she would bring a fetus home, and suggest I dissect it. That was not so easy for a child of ten or eleven.
Later, upon discovering Oliver was gay, his mother declared him an “abomination”. Though they remained close, Sacks lamented that “her words haunted me for much of my life”.
When she found out he was gay, Sacks’ mother called him ‘an abomination’.Supplied
Sacks and his brother Michael were sent to boarding school during the Battle of Britain. Soon after this harrowing experience Michael was diagnosed with schizophrenia. Sacks became both “terrified of him, terrified for him” and retreated into a fondness for chemistry.
Neurologist as naturalist
Only after many years could Sacks work his way back towards contemplating the minds of others.
Famously clumsy, Sacks initially aspired to be a lab scientist, but after numerous calamities was instructed to “Get out, see patients, you’ll do less harm”.
His vocational approach as a neurologist often more resembled a naturalist than a clinician. For Sacks, observation and play trumped diagnosis and prescription.
Indeed, in a biography by Lawrence Weschler, Sacks notes his “main neurological tool is the ball … You can learn much from how patients play”.
‘I’m very interested in how people adapt to extremes.’ Oliver Sacks in 1996.
To compress any life — let alone one as Forrest Gumpian as Sacks’ — into a two hour film is something of a fool’s errand.
Hence, narrative compromises were always likely. Sacks’ travels in Canada, where he briefly tried joining the Royal Canadian Air Force, are skipped entirely.
Similarly, perhaps in deference to a subject granting privileged access during his last days, the documentary veers ever so slightly into hagiography, framing Sacks as a unifying figure between the clinical and experimental neurosciences.
Still, Sacks’ influence is undeniably staggering, and His Own Life provides a compelling account of the empathetic labours needed for otherwise lost souls to be “storied into the world”.
How do you know that something you are looking for is not there? Looking for a needle in a haystack is fundamentally easy – however laborious and tedious – if you know it’s definitely there. Looking for something, not finding it, and therefore concluding it does not exist is a different problem.
In Victoria, at the time of writing, we have had 35 consecutive days of zero newly detected COVID-19 infections. But, obviously, not everyone in the state has been tested.
So what does the lack of new cases tell us about the true frequency of infections in the Victorian population? Or, to put it another way, what is the maximum number of infections that could still lurk out there undetected?
Number of daily tests carried out in Victoria since October 31 2020.Michael Stumpf
These are what statistician call sampling problems. We do not test everyone, but instead rely on people with symptoms to come forward for testing. If everyone with symptoms gets themselves tested, this should give us a good idea of how many cases there are.
There are caveats: some people do not come forward for testing while others get tested several times; cases tend to cluster in families. But we can account for such uncertainties in the analysis framework that we use below.
Plenty of people are still getting tested. People check the Department of Health and Human Services’ social media feeds to see the daily “0” (the celebrated “doughnut”); some are concerned about the number of tests performed each day; and many people seriously worry about the chance of a return of the virus.
Working out the probabilities
However, we can estimate the probability the virus is still out there in Victoria. There are different ways to do it, but ultimately they all give very similar results.
One good way is to adopt a “Bayesian” approach, which also lets us work out how accurate the estimate is likely to be, given the uncertainties in our assumptions and inputs. We could do the calculations exactly (using a paper and pencil, or computer algebra software), but for making predictions we usually use simulations.
For our estimate we need to know a few numbers:
N: the total number of people in Victoria (about 6.5 million)
n: the number of tests carried out
p₀: what we think (or fear) the frequency of infected people in the Victorian population is, before we look at the testing data.
With this we can estimate p, the frequency of cases, after taking into account that we found 0 positives among n tests. A p value of 1 would mean everybody in Victoria has COVID, and 0 would mean nobody does.
Running the numbers
In the Bayesian framework we calculate p as a compromise between our prior knowledge (or beliefs) and the new information gleaned from the data.
The prior forces us to state explicitly what we expect or believe reality to look like. And because it is a probability it also accounts for our level of certainty or ignorance. When possible we can, for example, use information from previous studies to generate the prior.
To be cautious, we will start with the very pessimistic assumption that an average of 1% of people in Victoria are actually infected. (We can be confident the real number is much smaller, but we are interested in a worst-case scenario.)
We put this 1% figure into our model as a probability distribution (called a “beta distribution”) that produces variable results with an average of 0.01 (which is another way of writing 1%).
If there are 0 positive tests among n tests then this will happen with probability (1 – p)n. The bigger p is, the more people have the virus, and the smaller the chances we would see 0 positive results.
Just a few lines of code (here shown in the Julia programming language) can simulate the probability that there are still cases in Victoria.Michael Stumpf
With these two ingredients, the prior knowledge and the information from the data, we can now estimate the true frequency of infection in the Victorian population.
On the first day of the ongoing sequence of zero cases, October 31, 2020, there were 19,850 tests performed (thus n=19,850). The expected value for the true positive rate in Victoria on that day was therefore a tiny 0.0000000041 (4.1 × 10–9). We ran a million simulations of this scenario, and only in 260 instances were there any cases at all left in the population, with a maximum of 986 possible hidden cases.
Now after over a month of zero cases, and a total number of 438,950 tests between October 31 and December 2, the estimated probability has gone down even further to 0.00000000011 (1.1 × 10–10). The highest number of lurking infections in one million simulations is now 39 cases (and only 132 of our million simulations contained any cases at all).
Expected number of cases in Victoria per day since the 31st of October 2020. We expect there is less than 1 case in the community (about 1/10,000). If this is true it would mean that we have achieved elimination of the virus in the community.
What we can learn from this
Three points are worth considering, especially when applying this approach in the context of other states and territories, or Australia as a whole.
These estimates are based on assumptions, but we can test how changes (or errors) in our assumptions affect the analysis. In this case relatively little: it is extremely unlikely there is even a single COVID case left in the Victorian community.
We can also ask when we would be likely to detect cases of COVID-19 if it re-enters the community. The current testing regime turns out to be remarkably sensitive. Even with only 5,000 randomly(!) administered tests we would have a better than 50-50 chance of detecting a case if only 0.0014% of Victorians – or about 91 people – were (asymptomatically) infected. If people with symptoms continue to get tested even single cases will be detected and that is what we want.
Testing is therefore important and the key to prolonged suppression. The simplistic statement that you get more cases if you do more testing fails to take into account just how important testing is to control the disease, especially in the early and the final suppression stages. For as long as testing is easily accessible throughout the state and used by (a large fraction of) people exhibiting COVID-like symptoms we should be able to detect and quell any resurgence, even before a vaccine becomes available.
We were arguably lucky to get to zero cases, but we can be very confident that we have now eliminated COVID-19 in the community. The absence of evidence for coronavirus infections has slowly become evidence for the absence of the virus from Victoria.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Julie Jomeen, Professor of Midwifery and Dean in the Faculty of Health Sciences, Southern Cross University
Many pregnant women worry about birth. Some, however, suffer from a much more serious condition called tokophobia: a severe and unreasoning dread of childbirth, which is sometimes accompanied by a disgust of pregnancy.
At its most extreme, tokophobia can lead to:
an obsessive use of contraception to prevent pregnancy
termination of pregnancy
not attending maternity care appointments
post-traumatic stress disorder and/or other mental health disorders and mother-baby bonding difficulties.
Tokophobia comes in two forms: primary (in women who have not had a baby before) and secondary (women who have previously had a baby). Women with tokophobia in a previous pregnancy are more likely to have it in a subsequent pregnancy, resulting in a potential cycle of anxiety and depression.
Our new paper, published in the Journal of Reproductive and Infant Psychology, reflects on a recent meeting of researchers and clinicians about what’s missing from the way we identify and treat tokophobia.
It’s hard to say how many women are affected by tokophobia; it’s been defined and measured using different questionnaires. One research paper estimated the prevalence of tokophobia at 14% of pregnant women worldwide.
Screening for tokophobia is not common practice around the world. Screening questionnaires sometimes ask the woman questions about her mood, whether she has fears for herself or her baby, about feeling so afraid of childbirth she’s considered terminating the pregnancy, or feeling fear so overwhelming it interferes with eating, work or sleep.
In other words, tokophobia goes beyond normal childbirth concerns and worries, and becomes an intense and irrational fear of pregnancy and/or labour.
It’s important women with this condition are identified as soon as possible but that often only happens when they seek specialised professional help. This can sometimes (but not always) take the form of a request for a termination of pregnancy or caesarean section.
An obsessive use of contraception to prevent pregnancy is one possible symptom of tokophobia.Shutterstock
Treatment options
Treatment for tokophobia remains patchy but should be determined based on factors such as the woman’s level of fear, stage of pregnancy and her individual wishes.
Early conversations about fear of childbirth — and understanding exactly what those fears are — may reduce negative impact and prevent anxiety.
For women with birth trauma (and potential secondary tokophobia), helping them prepare for uncertainty and building trust in themselves and their caregivers can result in a future positive experience.
Approaches that may help include:
additional midwifery support to discuss the birth, with continuity of care, which is where the same midwife and/or midwifery care team sees the woman throughout pregnancy and labour
involvement of the obstetrician in decision-making around birth
Many pregnant women worry about birth. Some, however, suffer from a much more serious condition called tokophobia.Shutterstock
Pathways of care
The way childbirth is often depicted in the media may play a role in setting birth up in women’s minds as a negative experience. But it’s important women share birth stories – the good and the bad. Like-minded peer support mechanisms, including parenting forums, which can be really helpful for some women.
During pregnancy, women should be encouraged to share their fears with their maternity care provider and ask questions.
Our understanding of fear of childbirth has undoubtedly increased, and some pioneering “pathways of care” for women with tokophobia already exist.
But there is much work left to do if we are to understand and identify when standard worries deviate from expected levels to problematic levels.
We owe it to women and babies everywhere to find better ways to support women with tokophobia and maximise their chances of a positive birth experience.
The Northern Marianas is ready for its allocation of covid-19 vaccines from Pfizer after acquiring 10 ultra-cold freezers from South Korea.
The acquisition of the freezers came as the CNMI waits for the Pfizer vaccines to get Emergency Use Authorisation approval from the US Food and Drug Administration.
Even though the vaccines had not arrived as initially planned, the CNMI had been working on preparing and securely setting up equipment.
The plan is to have two ultra freezers on Rota and two on Tinian, while the remaining six freezers would be located on Saipan.
Meanwhile, the Northern Marianas had already received 10 vials of Bamlanivimab, a treatment for mild-to-moderate covid-19, and would receive another 10 vials soon.
Bamlanivimab is an intravenous drug which is applicable for patients who are 12 years and older and weighing at least 40 kilogrammes and who are at high risk .
The drug will only be administered to those who are covid-19 patients who are at risk of becoming worse.
A total of 1310 doses of the drug had been allocated for US territories and freely associated states.
This article is republished by the Pacific Media Centre under a partnership agreement with RNZ.
Just as writers and artists today are responding to the Anthropocene through climate fiction and eco art, earlier generations chronicled an environmental crisis that presaged humanity’s global impact.
The Anthropocene is a proposed geological epoch that powerfully expresses the planetary scale of the environmental changes wrought by human activity.
Yet almost a century ago, New Zealand and Australia were at the forefront of an environmental crisis that was also profoundly geological in nature: erosion. And it, too, left its mark on culture.
He warned that European colonisation threatened a similar fate for other parts of the world. These concerns came back with a vengeance in the 1930s, when the Dust Bowl in the United States began to raise alarm about the long-term security of global food supply.
In the 1930s, south-eastern Australia was also plagued by dust storms. The biologist Francis Ratcliffe, in Flying Fox and Drifting Sand: The Adventures of a Biologist in Australia (1939), described the situation in South Australia as a fight for survival.
Nothing less than a battlefield, on which man is engaged in a struggle with the remorseless forces of drought, erosion and drift.
In New Zealand’s different climate and topography, another version of the erosion crisis was also becoming evident. Geographer Kenneth Cumberland described the growing desolation of the North Island’s hill-country pasture.
Miles upon miles of the Hawkes Bay, Poverty Bay, Wanganui and Taranaki- Whangamomona inlands have slip-scarred slopes […] The recent history of these regions is one of abandonment, of decreasing population, of a succession of serious floods, and of slip-severed communications.
Cumberland argued in 1944 that New Zealand’s soil erosion problems “attain the extreme national significance […] of those of the United States.”
Similarly, in 1946, the geographer J. M. Holmes claimed:
No greater peace-time issue faces Australia than the conquest of soil erosion.
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Cultural crisis
Because agriculture is so central to western ideas of civilisation, commentators found that cultural and environmental questions were inextricable. This overlapping of science and ideology is evident in G. V. Jacks and R. O. Whyte’s The Rape of the Earth: A World Survey of Soil Erosion (1939), written by two scientists at Oxford’s Imperial Bureau of Soil Science.
The organisation of civilised societies is founded upon the measures taken to wrest control of the soil from wild Nature, and not until complete control has passed into human hands can a stable superstructure of what we call civilisation be erected on the land.
The belief that nature must be subdued and remade was especially potent among the settler populations of Australia and New Zealand. There colonial identity and economic survival were both inextricably bound up with the success of agricultural and pastoral production.
Elyne Mitchell, now best known as the author of the Silver Brumby children’s books, wrote extensively in the 1940s about how cultural norms of white Australians were directly impacting the soil.
To fit Australia into the pattern of Western civilisation, economically and socially, we have upset the natural balance and turned ourselves into destroyers instead of creators.
The cultural commentator Monte Holcroft used even stronger language to express a similar thought in Creative Problems in New Zealand (1948).
But we see also the bare hillsides, the remnants of forest, the flooding rivers, and in some districts the impoverished soil. The balance of nature has changed. Are we to assume that a people which possessed the land in this manner — raping it in the name of progress — can remain untroubled and secure in occupation?
As the title says, erosion was now a “creative problem”. Even as they were committed to colonial forms of society, settler writers were increasingly aware that their environmental foundations were not as stable as had previously been assumed.
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Soil mysticism
In New Zealand literature, the landscape wasn’t simply a backdrop: writers often depicted Pākehā identity as being produced through a direct confrontation with geology. The poet and critic Allen Curnow described the sense “that we are interlopers on an indifferent or hostile scene” as a “common problem of the imagination”. As Curnow wrote in his poem, The Scene, in 1941:
Here among the shaggy mountains cast away
Man’s shape must be recast
Settlement was also described as an encounter between “man” and the landscape in an influential poem by Charles Brasch, The Silent Land, in 1945:
Man must lie with the gaunt hills like a lover,
Earning their intimacy in the calm sigh
Of a century of quiet and assiduity.
Critic Francis Pound has described this nationalist preoccupation as a “soil mysticism”. In focusing so closely on the soil, Pākehā writers were also able to overlook its occupancy by Māori and their own deep knowledge of the land.
Awareness of erosion
Yet Brasch’s appeal is to “gaunt hills”: the landscape of literature was more often than not eroded rather than untouched.
Frank Sargeson’s 1943 short story, Gods Live in Woods, drew on the experience of his uncle, who had felled the forest to establish a hill country farm in Te Rohe Pōtae/the King Country.
And places where the grass still held were scarred by slips that showed up the clay and papa. One of these had come down from above the track, and piled up on it before going down into the creek. A chain or so of fence had been in its way and it had gone too. You could see some posts and wires sticking out of the clay.
Erosion also spread into the common stock of literary imagery. In a short poem by Colin Newbury, In My Country (1955), it appears as a metaphor for disappointed love.
He stands close to the earth,
My obdurate countryman,
Drawing from the wind’s breath,
The arid sweetness of flower and mountain;
Knows no green herb for the heart’s erosion.
Such texts demonstrate the ecological concept of “shifting baseline syndrome”, as described by Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing and her collaborators, whereby “newly shaped and ruined landscapes become the new reality”.
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Alternative possibilities
Although so much of Pākehā writing about geology from this time imagines the relationship between humanity and nature as hostile and irreversibly damaged, some offered glimpses of alternative possibilities. One was Ursula Bethell, whose poem Weathered Rocks (1936) stretched her Christian beliefs to find common ground with geology. Through this she imagined a less antagonistic relationship with nature.
When a block of land passes, as it may do through the hands of ten holders in half a century, how can long views be taken of its rights? Who under these conditions can give his acres their due?
Auē, taukari e, anō te kūware o te Pākehā kāhore nei i whakaaro ki te mauri o te whenua. Alas! Alas! that the Pākehā should so neglect the rights of the land, so forget the traditions of the Māori race, a people who recognised in it something more than the ability to grow meat and wool.
This view of the land as a political partner, endowed with independence and rights, appears to offer a new environmental perspective that in fact draws on the long-standing Indigenous legal principles of tikanga Māori.
Mid-20th century settler writing about erosion holds renewed interest today because it conveys a strikingly literal, visible sense of the Anthropocene: the geological impact of colonisation was plainly evident in sand drift, dust storms and scarred hillsides.
Writers were not blind to environmental damage, but in the main their responses are reminiscent of what critic Greg Garrard has called the present-day “gloomy trio of Anthropocenic futures — business-as-usual, mitigation and geo-engineering”.
But writers such as Bethell and Guthrie-Smith demonstrate the ongoing importance of creative work for questioning the values that created and sustain the Anthropocene we now all inhabit.
Before most people wake up this Sunday morning, a small space capsule will be dropped off to Earth, landing in Woomera, South Australia. The capsule contains fragments of the surface of a near-Earth-orbit asteroid, Ryugu, collected by the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) with the Hayabusa2 spacecraft last year.
The fragments of rock and dust will tell us a lot about how asteroids form, where they have been, what they are made of, and how long Ryugu has been orbiting in close proximity to Earth.
Scientists at Woomera conduct a ‘dress rehearsal’ for finding and collecting the Hayabusa2 sample capsule when it lands.Trevor Ireland, Author provided
Where asteroids come from
Asteroids are rocky bodies that mainly occur in the “asteroid belt” between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.
Jupiter is the largest planet in our Solar system, and in some ways the bully of our planetary family. The powerful attraction of the gas giant’s gravity stopped a lot of material falling closer to the Sun to build up Mars, and may also have prevented the many rocks of the asteroid belt clumping together to form another planet.
But Jupiter may also have been responsible for redirecting Ryugu, or at least the rocks that formed it, towards Earth. Ryugu appears to be a “rubble pile” asteroid, assembled from the detritus of a planetary collision, that now looks something like a spinning top.
Ryugu may once have inhabited the asteroid belt, but is now a near-Earth asteroid, travelling around the Sun between the orbits of Earth and Mars.
The two kinds of asteroid
Asteroids come in two main flavours. S-type (for “stony”) asteroids are made of ferromagnesian minerals, rich in iron and magnesium, such as olivine and pyroxene. They can be identified by their bright spectrum of reflected infrared light.
The second kind, C-type (for “carbonaceous”) asteroids, are dark objects that reflect little light with no mineral features. This is shown clearly by the twin “headlights” of the Occator crater on Ceres: the spots, likely made by an upwelling of brine, look so bright because Ceres is one of these extremely dark C-type asteroids.
The first Hayabusa mission collected tiny pieces of an S-type asteroid named Itokawa and returned to Woomera in 2010. It was only the fifth ever successful effort to return samples from objects beyond Earth.
That mission collected 1,000 or so particles, which we explored in exquisite detail in our laboratories. They showed Itokawa is related to a specific class of meteorite (a piece of rock that falls to Earth from space) called the LL chondrites.
These meteorites are indeed rich in ferromagnesian minerals, and many other characteristics of their chemistry closely matched the particles brought back by Hayabusa from Itokawa.
The ingredients of life?
So what exactly will Ryugu turn out to be? Based on its spectrum of reflected light, Ryugu is a C-type asteroid. The closest match we have from our meteorite collections is a relatively rare group of meteorites called carbonaceous chondrites.
The surface of asteroid Ryugu, as observed by the Hayabusa2 spacecraft just before landing. The spacecraft’s solar panels cast a shadow on the surface.JAXA/U. Tokyo/Kochi U./Rikkyo U./Nagoya U./Chiba Inst. Tech./Meiji U./U. Aizu/AIST, CC BY
These meteorites are uncommon, but they are perhaps the most intriguing of all. They contain organic molecules and large amounts of water. They are potentially the carriers of the ingredients of life on Earth.
Soon after the Hayabusa2 capsule gets back, it will be returned to Tokyo and carefully opened. The images taken when the spacecraft touched down on Ryugu showed a great burst of material from the surface, so we expect a good sample.
This sample may reveal connections between the origin of life and rocky bodies such as Ryugu. The asteroid may have only formed quite recently, in terms of the 4.5 billion-year history of the Solar system, but it may hold an ingredient in the mix that came to be our habitable Earth.
Some time on Sunday, you are likely to see video of a fireball that is the tiny space capsule returning to Earth after six years orbiting the Sun. Hayabusa2 left Earth to travel around the Solar system to land on a rocky body less than a kilometre across.
Having kissed the asteroid, it has returned, targeting our backyard in Woomera. Yes, it is rocket science.
The precision and accuracy required is a testament to JAXA and the project team members. The spacecraft was on the other side of the Solar system during sampling, which meant signals to and from mission control on Earth took 17 minutes to travel each way.
The view from Hayabusa2 as it approached asteroid Ryugu, collected a sample, and departed.
What’s next?
Once we have the capsule, the sample science mission can begin. A full retinue of the best analytical techniques available in the world, including our own cosmo-chemical laboratories in Australia, will be brought to bear on the samples.
But that’s not the end of the Hayabusa2 spacecraft. The original Hayabusa had a spectacular arrival (and demise) at Woomera in 2010, because the released space capsule was accompanied by the re-entry of the mothership.
The spectacular re-entry of the first Hayabusa spacecraft in 2010.NASA / Ed Schilling
This time the plan is for Hayabusa2 to drop its sample capsule and then deflect away from Earth to carry on its mission, visiting maybe two more asteroids in its ongoing journey through space. Unfortunately, it isn’t equipped to collect any more samples, but it will give us more family photos of the small rocky bodies lurking close to Earth, shedding material we see as meteorites.
