Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jane Kelsey, Professor of Law, University of Auckland

There was a brief moment of euphoria last week, when it seemed that COVID-19 vaccines, medicines and supplies might be liberated from the World Trade Organization’s intellectual property rights straitjacket and a patent waiver would make them available and affordable to the unvaccinated in the global south.

But on closer scrutiny, Big Pharma and their parent states have won again.

The leaked “solution” agreed by the informal “quad” (US, EU, India and South Africa) is insufficient, problematic and unworkable. There are too many limitations to make any significant difference and it is a far cry from the original proposal from India and South Africa that would have effectively addressed the barriers.

While the WTO makes decisions by consensus, it is unclear how far this deeply flawed text can, or will, be reopened when members debate it next week. Given its fraught history, it is unlikely they will agree to remedy its defects.

Let us recall some stark and distressing facts. Into the third year of this pandemic, only 14% of people in low-income countries have been vaccinated even once. Wealthy countries like New Zealand are 90% vaccinated and on our third shots. Indeed, by the end of last year, more boosters had been given in high-income countries than total doses in low-income ones.

Read more:
The big barriers to global vaccination: patent rights, national self-interest and the wealth gap

A second stark and disturbing fact: in November last year the People’s Vaccine Alliance reported that Pfizer, BioNTech and Moderna, the companies behind two of the most successful COVID-19 vaccines, were together making US$65,000 (NZ$92,000) every minute.

They had received more than US$8 billion in public funding to develop the lucrative COVID-19 vaccines. Pfizer and BioNTech had delivered less than 1% of their total vaccine supplies to low-income countries, while Moderna has delivered just 0.2%.

Pharma’s profits and property rights before right to life

An important guarantor of pharmaceutical companies’ profits is a little-known trade agreement, the Agreement on Trade-related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS).

During negotiations to form the WTO during the early 1990s, the US had demanded strong protections for its corporations’ intellectual property rights as the price for agreeing to discuss genuine trade issues such as subsidised agriculture. The WTO’s members, aside from the least developed countries, have to implement these rules in their domestic laws.

The significance of the TRIPS was exposed in the late 1990s when pharmaceutical giants threatened legal action against South Africa and Brazil for producing generic versions of patented HIV-AIDS anti-retroviral medicines.

A global name-and-shame campaign led them to back down and saw a Declaration on TRIPS and Public Health adopted at the WTO ministerial conference in 2001. That compromise was a forerunner of the COVID-19 scenario.

Read more:
Wealthy nations starved the developing world of vaccines. Omicron shows the cost of this greed

To date, only one country, Rwanda (which belongs to the group of least developed countries), has been able to jump the hurdles and import pharmaceuticals under the amendment to TRIPS.

Tentative deal limited to vaccines only

Two decades later, in October 2020, South Africa and India led moves for a TRIPS waiver for COVID-19 vaccines, medicines, test kits and other supplies. Despite another global campaign, which included New Zealand public health advocates, unions, churches and development agencies, the European Union, Switzerland and UK blocked the waiver every step of the way.

The Biden administration shifted its position in May 2021 to support negotiations for a waiver, but limited it to vaccines. That announcement brought a fence-sitting New Zealand on board.

Read more:
US support for waiving COVID-19 vaccine patent rights puts pressure on drugmakers – but what would a waiver actually look like?

The proposal remained stuck for 18 months. Some richer countries demanded completely unrelated trade-offs to advance their commercial objectives, while the hard core refused to budge. Last December, the talks moved to a new phase where the “quad” of key WTO members tried to broker a deal.

When that tentative deal was announced last week and the text was leaked, the euphoria quickly subsided.

The text applies only to patents on vaccines, and only for COVID-19, which means a similarly fraught process would be required for future pandemics. WTO members will decide in six months whether to extend it to medicines, diagnostics and therapeutics, as South Africa and India had proposed. Realistically, that won’t happen.

Odds continue to be stacked against poorer countries

Beyond these limitations, there is no guarantee that governments can access the “recipe” for all currently patented vaccines, let alone second-generation vaccines still applying for patents, or the technology needed to produce them.

There are many legal uncertainties. A WTO member state can authorise “use of patented subject matter” that is otherwise protected under TRIPS Article 28.1 “to the extent necessary to address the COVID-19 pandemic”.

When does COVID-19 cease being a pandemic, who decides, and what happens when COVID-19 is just endemic? Which uses of patented subject matter will be considered “necessary” (a restrictive concept in trade law) and which go too far? The text still allows those matters to be taken to a dispute.

The odds are stacked further against poorer countries. Eligibility is limited to WTO developing countries that exported less than 10% of the world’s vaccines in 2021. That means China and non-WTO countries are excluded, as are countries like Brazil that recently surrendered their developing country status.

Coverage of least developed countries is unclear. And the complex and burdensome notification and compliance requirements are likely to be as unworkable as the previous TRIPS waiver.

Four things remain to be seen. First, will the deal actually be gavelled through without debate and amendment in another travesty of the WTO’s consensus process?

Second, what trade-offs will richer countries demand in return for their support?

Third, will this be the end of moves to set aside TRIPS rules, even temporarily, to secure genuine access to life-saving COVID medicines, vaccines and medical supplies for the majority of the world’s people in the developing world once the immediate COVID-19 crisis has subsided?

And will the New Zealand and Australian governments be complicit in this happening?

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

– ref. Why a leaked WTO ‘solution’ for a COVID patent waiver is unworkable and won’t make enough difference for developing countries – https://theconversation.com/why-a-leaked-wto-solution-for-a-covid-patent-waiver-is-unworkable-and-wont-make-enough-difference-for-developing-countries-179642

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rowena Maguire, Associate professor, Law School, Queensland University of Technology

The devastating floods in Queensland and New South Wales have taken everyone by surprise.

People have been left to fend for themselves while bickering governments scrambled to provide a coordinated and adequate disaster response.

The intensity of the rainfall may not have been possible to predict, but having a clear roles for governments, emergency services, the military, the charity sector, volunteers and individuals is possible – and absolutely necessary.

Our research

In upcoming research, we look at disaster risk reduction policies at the international, federal, state, regional and local government levels. We found all these policies refer to the principle of “shared responsibility” – yet none adequately defines what this means.

The research involved a detailed analysis across 12 disaster polices and pieces of legislation to identify how vulnerable populations were protected.

These included the National Disaster Risk Reduction Framework, the Australian Disaster Preparedness Framework and the Australian Emergency Management Arrangements.

We found these documents repeat terms such as “resilience” and “shared responsibility” without clearly defining the meaning or process for implementation. And they fail to specify who is responsible for increasing “resilience”.

A move towards individual responsibility

During the 1990s, there was a growing sense the public had become too reliant upon emergency services and needed to develop their own disaster management capacity.

A 2004 Council of Australian Governments report on bushfire management emphasised the idea of “shared responsiblity”. From 2011, the principle of shared responsibly was embedded across federal and state disaster policies to signal individuals and households were expected to develop their own disaster resilience.

Academics understand “shared responsibility” to be about distributing obligations among different groups or sectors. But what sounds reasonable in theory becomes messy and unworkable in the midst of a crisis.

Read more:
Homeless and looking for help – why people with disability and their carers fare worse after floods

Studies have shown shared responsibility actually means “diffused responsibility,” making it more difficult to determine responsibility – and accountability.

Indeed, our research was unable to determine who was actually responsible for helping vulnerable flood communities prepare for and respond to disasters. There seemed to be an assumption that volunteers and the charity sector would mobilise as needed.

Emergency Management Arrangements

For example, the federal government’s Australian Emergency Management Arrangements aim to establish “disaster resilient” communities.

These guidelines explain the roles of federal, state and local governments and households. But the largest portion of responsibility lies with individuals. For example,

It is the role and responsibility of families and individuals to attain the highest degree of physical and financial self-reliance – before, during and after an emergency.

These arrangements suggest government and the volunteer/charity sector do not have the ability or the responsibility to fully offset the economic, social, cultural and human losses incurred during a disaster.

They also assume the individuals are responsible for adequate property and personal insurance. This of course is highly problematic as insurance premiums escalate and become unaffordable and some regions become uninsurable.

Volunteers, charities and resources

All the legislation we examined says managing and coordinating volunteers is a local government job.

But this assumes volunteers and charities will have adequate resourcing, skills and capacity to handle disaster recovery. The recent floods have shown much volunteer activities is are largely unregulated, with people having to take matters into their own hands.

This is becoming more common as structured programs like those run through charities and state emergency services struggle to retain volunteers.

Some of these unregulated volunteers have literally saved lives. But some were in need of help themselves or took advantage of the situation to loot resources from flood victims.

Blame games

Shared responsibility is also highly susceptible to politicisation. We have seen this play out since the flood disaster hit, with continued arguments between state and federal governments.

Following criticism over the speed and scale of federal assistance, Prime Minister Scott Morrison argued

States obviously respond to emergencies. They run the SES [State Emergency Service], they run the police, they run the hospitals.

Assistant Treasurer Michael Sukkar also claimed the federal government had to wait for state premiers to declare an emergency and request federal help before it could send the military.

This is despite legislation which gives the federal government power to declare an emergency unilaterally. (Incidentally, this law was introduced following a recommendation from the bush fire royal commission, following confusion over responsibility for emergency declarations).

Read more:
People could’ve prepared for the floods better if the impacts of weather forecasts were clearly communicated

At the local level, disagreements have also erupted between opposing members of local government as to the adequacy of drainage infrastructure, emergency alerts and volunteer coordination.

These politically driven disagreements are enabled by the ambiguity of shared responsibility, and ultimately undermine the effectiveness of disaster response.

What needs to happen instead

Clearly we need a better understanding of what “shared responsibility” actually means. Questions we need to answer include:

• Who makes the decision over the allocation of tasks at each stage of the disaster?
• Have all relevant groups and people been included in agreeing upon this allocation?
• Have duties been communicated and understood?
• Have allowances been made for unexpected situations?

Until we have these answers, the trauma of natural disasters will be compounded by confusion, inaction, political blame games and a lack of resources. And it will be individuals and vulnerable communities left to pick up the pieces.

Rowena Maguire receives funding from the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) and the Cotton Research Development Corporation (CRDC).

Amanda Kennedy receives funding from the Australian Research Council. She is affiliated with the IUCN Academy of Environmental Law.

Melissa Bull receives funding from Australian Research Council.

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

– ref. Governments love to talk about ‘shared responsibility’ in a disaster – but does anyone know what it means? – https://theconversation.com/governments-love-to-talk-about-shared-responsibility-in-a-disaster-but-does-anyone-know-what-it-means-179459

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By William Peterson, Adjunct Associate Professor, Auckland University of Technology

Review: Manifesto, choreographed by Stephanie Lake, Adelaide Festival

Nine drummers, nine dancers, what’s not to love? So ran my imaginary opening line for this review.

But Manifesto, choreographed by Melbourne-based Stephanie Lake is much more complex and satisfying than the mere pairing of dancers with drummers might suggest.

As the show opens, drummers are seated and equipped with a standard drum kit: bass, snare and tom drums and cymbals.

Charles Davis’s classy set is reminiscent of a 1930s Busby Berkeley movie. Drummers occupy raised positions along the back of the stage. Lush, red hanging curtains fill the visual field, with a niche for each drummer.

The work starts with simple beats. Beats don’t necessarily create rhythm. Beats can simply be sounds that seem to come from nowhere and suddenly stop, as they do early in the work.

On the silent beat, dancers freeze in a dramatic tableau, enhanced by Bosco Shaw’s beautifully focused lighting. Single beats turn into a succession. Dancers seem to magically appear from nowhere. Freezing, they create unexpected focal points.

Gesture and composition direct the eye, often to an individual dancer. But just when you think a pattern is being established, a new sequence of beats and images sears into the retina.

Sounds become increasingly complex, with drum rolls, shallow beats and rolling trills on the snare drum. The clang of the cymbals suggests a storm moving in. Later, drummers make seemingly impossible sounds reminiscent of industrial noise.

Continuously morphing

Like the choreography of Twyla Tharp, the movements of Lake’s dancers are often recognisable from daily life, though enhanced and embellished. Each successive movement is utterly unpredictable, executed in a delightfully relaxed and fluid manner, with seemingly effortless falls, leaps and catches.

Movement is at times silly, as in a butt wiggle that makes the kids in the audience squeal with delight, but also sexy, with hips and asses drawing attention to the beauty of human form in motion.

When the dancers come together, we don’t see formations being set up as they’re unfolding so fluidly and rapidly. Everything shifts constantly, continuously morphing: a series of collective shapes and forms that can’t be predicted.

Beats turn into longer rhythmic sequences as bodies are held aloft, on the floor, flying across and off the stage, constantly shifting. Moments of high drama increasingly come fast and furiously.

At times dancers appear to be fighting to regain control of bodies, as if the body has a mind of its own.

As the drumming builds and the energy heats up, the men doff their shirts. It’s as if a series of perpetual motion machines have been activated.

In another sequence, choreography focuses on the hands and arms manipulating the body in uncomfortable and disturbing ways. It is reminiscent of the choreography of Pina Bausch, but unlike Bausch’s work, Lake’s dancers are not being acted upon by others, but touch their own body as if it is not their own.

Anything can happen

As dancers roll, fly, and bounce off the floors individually and in pairs and small groups, it is clear how Lake’s choreography highlights the individual strengths of her cast. Similarly, composer Robin Fox has successfully marshalled a clearly differentiated set of drummers with diverse skill sets and sounds.

Racing toward the final coda, dancing becomes increasingly hyperkinetic. With jumping kicks, the work takes on an almost gladiatorial, confrontational quality.

Just as quickly, the movement switches into a kind of whirling dervish mode, enhanced by the swaying light fabric of Paula Levis’ costumes. These costumes drape, move, flow, and enhance movement, drawing attention to the diverse body styles of the dancers and turning dancers into characters we can track.

In the work’s penultimate moment, a heart beat brings all the dancers together, then apart, then together.

A rhythmic sequence is introduced and repeated, a kind of military tattoo the audience can discern and unconsciously anticipate. The dancing takes on an increasingly ecstatic quality and we’re with them on the beat.

There is a purposeful contrast between the precision and repetition of the martial, parade-like beat, and the free and playful – even sexy – spirit of the dancers, increasingly moving into a state of wild abandon.

Dancers move down to the lip of stage as total mayhem results. One streaks naked across the stage. The work ends at an absolute fever pitch. When I saw it, the audience leapt to their feet, compelled to rise and shout.

Manifesto is a beautifully and carefully crafted work, one that continually keeps the audience in a state of not knowing what will happen next.

Anything can happen in this tightly crafted, remarkably innovative and thrilling work. And it does.

Adelaide season closed. Manifesto will play at Rising: Melbourne in June.

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

– ref. ‘Innovative and thrilling’: Stephanie Lake’s Manifesto is a joy – https://theconversation.com/innovative-and-thrilling-stephanie-lakes-manifesto-is-a-joy-175332

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jay Marlowe, Associate Professor, Co-Director Centre for Asia Pacific Refugee Studies, University of Auckland

An estimated three million people have fled Ukraine in the last three weeks, triggering an extraordinary response from governments around the world, including New Zealand. But the question begs to be asked – why have Ukrainians been welcomed when others fleeing violence have not?

The New Zealand government’s announcement to grant temporary protection to 4,000 Ukrainians who are family members of people already living here is welcome. It will provide a sense of relief knowing that there is a short-term solution to provide safety and security in a situation that has quickly spiralled out of control.

Of course, Ukrainians need to get somewhere safe, and we know there needs to be an international response to ensure neighbouring countries keep their borders open. Let’s face it, they’re not countries that usually welcome refugees and asylum seekers.

A Eurocentric approach

But there’s something very Eurocentric in this response, starting within the borders of Ukraine itself. In the early stages of the Russian invasion there were numerous reports of people from African, Asian, Middle Eastern and Caribbean nations being refused passage through the checkpoints leading up to the border to Poland and then being refused admission when they finally reached the crossings.

We can see similar dynamics playing out across Europe and other Western nations. The outpouring of support and even opening of people’s homes is being witnessed at a scope and scale not seen during the height of the so called ‘European refugee crisis’ in 2015 as hundreds of thousands of equally desperate people made their way across land borders and the Mediterranean to escape persecution following the Syrian civil war.

There were notable exceptions at the time, but the Ukrainian situation has very different political overtones and public receptivity.

This concerning trend is not just about protecting those “like us” but also about keeping the “other” out. Thus, the label of Eurocentrism is not strong enough. This trend highlights how racism often operates in implicit and, at times, explicit ways.

A quick response is possible

The New Zealand government’s announcement regarding the Ukrainians fleeing their homes shows that we can act relatively quickly to humanitarian crises. However, the current response is disproportionate to recent conflicts in other parts of the world.

Read more:
As the Taliban’s grip on Afghanistan tightens, New Zealand must commit to taking more refugees

According to the 2018 Census, 1,281 Ukrainians are living in New Zealand. There are also 1,635 Ethiopians residing here. Why wasn’t such a scheme developed when the conflict in Tigray escalated into war in late 2020? An estimated half a million people have died in the region from protracted conflict, famine and lack of health care, and two million have been forcibly displaced.

As the Taliban stormed into Kabul with breathtaking speed, I watched Afghan friends and colleagues despair as they saw very limited options to support those who were directly targeted.

The New Zealand Government did finally respond by introducing Critical Purpose Visa. According to the Immigration New Zealand website, 1,168 Afghans have arrived under several visa schemes since August 2021.

However, these visas were designated for those who worked for or supported New Zealand government initiatives, military, and human rights defenders, especially women. They were not primarily intended for family reunification.

The Rohingya people from Myanmar continue to struggle to support their families in the world’s largest refugee camp in Bangladesh, with little prospect of being able to safely return home. Approximately 745,000 people (an estimated 400,000 of them children) remain stuck in Cox’s Bazar following state sanctioned violence and persecution in 2017.

Read more:
New Zealand has one of the lowest numbers of refugees per capita in the world — there is room for many more

Similar stories can be told of South Sudan, Yemen, Iraq – the list continues, asking tough questions of who is deserving of protection and who is less so.

Meeting our commitments

So, what more can be done in the New Zealand situation?

The New Zealand government doubled its annual historic refugee quota of up to 750 people to 1500 in 2020. Due to the Covid pandemic, however, these numbers have never been realised, with the 2020-2021 intake only accommodating 260 people.

The current intake year is expected to take fewer than 1,000. Similarly, planned and budgeted increases to family reunification have fallen well short.

Last year, just one person was reunited through this visa category and only 54 people of the 600 allocated spaces have arrived this year. At the very least, New Zealand could commit to taking these places retrospectively, ensuring we meet obligations we have already signed up to.

There are other areas where we could bolster our commitment to the universal rights to refugee protection, regardless of race, religion or other factors leading to persecution.

For example, asylum seekers whose claims for refugee status have already been approved face delays of several years before their permanent residence is granted, meaning they cannot apply for reunification of family members who often remain in precarious situations.

Our recent report, entitled Safe Start, Fair Future highlights how these delays have more than tripled over the last decade. In 2011, 90% of applications were completed in 309 days; it now takes nearly 1,000. Fast-tracking these applications would make a real and tangible difference to people creating a new life in New Zealand.

While the specific policy details are still coming to light, New Zealand has an important role to play in protecting Ukrainians and other populations forcibly displaced in humanitarian crises. The Ukrainian response is welcome. Now let’s lift this standard to other groups equally deserving of support and protection.

Jay Marlowe receives funding from the Royal Society Te Apārangi under a Rutherford Discovery Fellowship.

– ref. Why has New Zealand welcomed Ukrainians fleeing war and not others trying to do the same? – https://theconversation.com/why-has-new-zealand-welcomed-ukrainians-fleeing-war-and-not-others-trying-to-do-the-same-179467

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Chris James, ARC DECRA Fellow, Centre for Hypersonics, School of Mechanical and Mining Engineering, The University of Queensland

The BOLT II hypersonic flight experiment will launch tonight from NASA’s Wallops Test Flight Facility in Virginia.

Hypersonic vehicles, which can fly much faster than passenger jets, would allow passengers to go from Sydney to Los Angeles, for instance, in just a couple of hours.

They could also offer more flexible options for launching payloads into space than conventional rockets and their speed and manoeuvrability mean they have a range of potential tactical military uses too.

Russia and China already claim to have operating hypersonic missiles, but hypersonic passenger aviation is still a dream rather than reality.

Read more:
Hypersonic missiles are fuelling fears of a new superpower arms race

Nevertheless, several types of hypersonic vehicles already exist, including rockets, planetary entry vehicles such as SpaceX’s Dragon capsule and intercontinental ballistic missiles.

What is hypersonic flight?

Hypersonic flight is faster than supersonic flight – the latter term, by definition, means faster than the speed of sound.

To break the sound barrier – and surpass “Mach 1” – you need to travel faster than about 1,235km per hour, or a kilometre in just under 3 seconds. Mach 2 is twice as fast, and so on.

There is no clearly defined Mach number that marks the boundary between supersonic and hypersonic flight. But Mach 5 is generally taken by aerospace engineers to be where hypersonic speed begins.

Hypersonic travel presents a few extra problems that aren’t encountered at more pedestrian speeds. Chief among these is the fact that the air flow over the vehicle causes so much friction the outside of the craft can exceed 1,000℃.

Like all aircraft, flying depends on not having too much mass on board. So specialist materials, either high-temperature ceramics or “ablative” materials that slowly burn away during flight, are required on the outside of vehicles to insulate the craft against this heat and still be light enough to fly.

Hypersonic engines, called scramjets (supersonic combustion ramjets), need to burn fuel in a supersonic air flow, which is very complicated.

Another persistent issue is that hypersonic flight is difficult to model accurately, because of the interplay of various different physical effects that come into play at extreme speeds.

So if you want to understand everything together, you have to do real flight tests such as today’s launch. But these are expensive and technically demanding.

Read more:
The race to hypersonic speed: will air passengers feel the benefits?

Testing boundaries

One of the trickiest hypersonic problems is predicting something called the “boundary layer transition location”.

When an aircraft flies through the air, a thin layer of air forms around its surface and is dragged along with the vehicle.

This “boundary layer” is very important, as most of the heating happens here, along with a significant portion of the drag forces that try to slow down the vehicle.

As this boundary layer grows along the vehicle’s length, it will eventually “transition” from the calm “laminar” flow near the leading edge of the vehicle, to violent “turbulent” flow further downstream.

While we understand what leads to this “boundary layer transition”, we can’t perfectly predict it, especially at hypersonic speeds.

The problem is that predicting the boundary layer transition location accurately is very important for designing hypersonic vehicles. In most cases, turbulent flow is bad. It greatly increases both heating and drag.

Uncertainty in where the flow will be turbulent is a major issue, as large
heating and drag uncertainties make some vehicle designs inefficient or completely unfeasible.

BOLT II: a new transition flight experiment

BOLT (short for Boundary Layer Transition) was a US$6 million hypersonic flight test that launched in June 2021 from Esrange Space Center in northern Sweden to study boundary layer transition.

But it failed to reach hypersonic speeds, after problems with its rocket launch mechanism.

BOLT II (this time short for Boundary Layer Transition and Turbulence) is the next planned flight in the program, with a similar budget but a larger vehicle to ensure more flow turbulence can be studied.

Both the BOLT and BOLT II vehicles have a complex, swept geometry with a concave surface to represent a real hypersonic vehicle. The aim is to produce complex, real-world data that engineers and scientists can use to improve their models for predicting transition on hypersonic vehicles.

A separate experiment is run on each side of the vehicle, with one “smooth” side and one “rough” side. The flow running length along the vehicle is 1 metre, slightly larger than the original BOLT vehicle.

BOLT II will be launched on a suborbital trajectory by a two-stage sounding rocket. During its ascent, it is planned to reach Mach 6, where an ascent flight experiment will occur. It will turn over in space and then re-enter the atmosphere, before performing a descent experiment at Mach 5.5.

BOLT II is a fully autonomous vehicle and it has more than 400 sensors and instruments mounted onboard to capture data about the flow environment during the experiments.

Assuming that BOLT II’s planned trajectory will be similar to the planned original BOLT flight trajectory, BOLT II will reach a maximum altitude of around 281km. The whole mission will be over in less than 10 minutes after launch.

Where to from here?

To develop the hypersonic vehicles of the future, we need to properly understand how to predict boundary layer transition on realistic vehicle shapes and what the minute effects of turbulent flow on hypersonic vehicles are. Data from the BOLT II flight experiment will help do just that.

Read more:
Sydney to London in an hour? The future of hypersonic air travel

The launch will be livestreamed on the NASA Wallops Youtube channel, so we’ll know straight away if the flight is a success or not. Assuming it is, in the coming years we will see many scientific papers published on the breakthroughs from this significant experiment.

The ability to accurately predict hypersonic boundary layer transmission will bring us much closer to hypersonic passenger flight one day. NASA’s planned NASP hypersonic space-plane was cancelled in the 1990s, partly due to the inability to accurately predict its transition location. Hopefully, soon we can move past that.

However, many issues will still remain. Air-breathing hypersonic engines are still in their infancy; the materials used to shield hypersonic vehicles are very expensive; and the design of hypersonic vehicles is still very complicated. Companies like Australia’s own Hypersonix, which aims to use an air-breathing hypersonic vehicle to launch small payloads into orbit, will hopefully bring us closer to making the hypersonic flight dream a reality.

Chris James receives funding from the University of Queensland, the Australian Research Council, and the U.S. Office of Naval Research..

– ref. The BOLT II hypersonic flight test could bring superfast global travel a step closer – https://theconversation.com/the-bolt-ii-hypersonic-flight-test-could-bring-superfast-global-travel-a-step-closer-179556

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Matthew Sussex, Fellow, Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s barbaric and cack-handed invasion of Ukraine perversely makes him look like a great re-unifier. Russia is now the most sanctioned country in the world, thanks largely to a broad transatlantic coalition that looked anything but cohesive just prior to Russian troops crossing the border into Ukraine.

The European Union has stopped dithering about Putin and is finally acting cohesively and firmly against the Kremlin’s self-appointed role as the wrecking ball of the European security order. And NATO has been reinvigorated to such an extent that Sweden and Finland are considering putting up their hands to join.

But as tempting as it is to see Putin as the reason for this newfound sense of European and transatlantic unity, the reality is more complex and less comforting. In fact, the real trigger for the West’s momentum has been the resistance of Ukraine’s people, its armed forces and its president.

A scruffy populist with global appeal

To begin with, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has skilfully personified Ukraine’s image overseas as a peaceful and democratic underdog beset by a fanatical neighbourhood bully. His messaging has been near-flawless: thanking leaders and nations for every ounce of help he gets, gleefully trolling Putin and humbly begging for more assistance.

His heartfelt speech to the US Congress – combined with a video of airstrikes and destruction that bluntly revealed the human cost of Russia’s invasion – unsurprisingly earned him a standing ovation.

In a sense, Zelenskyy has also become a lightning rod for Western values and democracy. Intuitively, this is an odd claim given the widespread problems with corruption that have been well-documented in Ukrainian politics for decades.

But Zelenskyy appeals to Western audiences in ways that compare favourably to the many disappointments they perceive in their own leaders. He is refreshingly honest rather than shiftily mouthing slogans. He is scruffy and casually dressed rather than polished and manicured. He is a populist without being crudely bombastic.

Ukraine’s spirited resistance and Zelenskyy’s adroit messaging, therefore, put pressure on Western governments to act – and, more importantly, to be seen to be acting.

This is happening in two ways. First, Zelenskyy’s appeals play to a sense of regret at the top levels of Western governments that more was not done to prevent Putin from invading. In fact, it was just the opposite: NATO members sent a clear message to Putin they would not fight for Ukraine under any circumstances.

Second, the vivid images of destroyed Ukrainian towns, bombed-out maternity hospitals and wounded civilians have resonated deeply with Western audiences. They want to do more to assist Kyiv, and their leaders are acutely mindful of this.

The West has a newfound strength, thanks to Kyiv

This is why Zelenskyy walked away from his speech to the US Congress with US$800 million in military hardware.

It may not have been the no-fly zone he has been calling for – this is a bridge too far for NATO leaders anxious not to goad Putin into a wider war. But it will go a long way towards keeping Ukraine’s armed forces supplied with what is tactically the next best thing: portable anti-tank and air defence systems, which have proven highly effective against Russian forces.

Read more:
How do anti-tank missiles work – and how helpful might they be for Ukraine’s soldiers?

The large US commitment also guarantees that European nations will follow suit. And the longer Ukraine’s forces can hold out, the louder the calls will become for some form of limited no-fly zone in the form of protected humanitarian corridors.

Beyond merely resupplying Zelenskyy’s forces, though, the West owes Ukraine a great deal more for its newfound sense of unity and purpose.

Putin calculated that the West would not have done much more than impose a tokenistic round of sanctions if he invaded. And this would almost undoubtedly have been proven correct had Russian forces managed to take Kyiv and force Ukraine’s surrender in a few days.

Yet, the West is now presenting an entirely different face to the cautious and fragmented one it displayed on the eve of Russia’s invasion: it is firm and committed. The West is also sending a clear warning to other authoritarian regimes about the consequences of territorial aggrandisement.

Read more:
Volodymyr Zelensky: the comedian who defied the might of Putin’s war machine

A wake-up call, with lasting repercussions

But it is not Putin, nor his actions, that are primarily responsible for this. His expansionist intentions have been known at least since his infamous speech at the Munich Security Conference in 2007, where he essentially claimed the former Soviet republics were rightfully Russian proxies.

Critically, the West has kicked the can of managing Putin down the road for decades, fearful of provoking gas supply wars in Europe, and in the process enriched Putin both personally and politically. This helped him centralise his power base and rearm his military.

That means the West bears its share of the blame for the suffering of Ukrainians today. The very least it can do is to rebuild Ukraine once the conflict ends with a comprehensive reconstruction plan, provide it with a pathway to joining the European Union, and deliver a de facto guarantee of its security against future Russian adventurism.

Triumphalist noises being made in the West about Ukraine being a war NATO had to have to provide it with a clear existential threat are also disingenuous. NATO is not fighting this war at all – it is watching as Ukrainians fight it.

If Ukraine’s suffering is to be the West’s wake-up call, then this is the last time NATO and the EU can seek strategic outcomes without risk, and only limited economic discomfort. To do so would be nothing short of betrayal, implying it is content to let Ukrainians fight and die for the hope of joining a West that is unprepared to make the same sacrifices.

It would also reinforce the perception the West will only countenance limited police actions in weak or failing states, and not meet hard power in kind. In the messy and much more adversarial world that is now emerging, this will prove to be little to no deterrent at all.

Read more:
Remembering the past, looking to the future: how the war in Ukraine is changing Europe

Matthew Sussex has received funding from the ARC, International Studies Association, the EU and various Australian government agencies for research not related to this piece.

– ref. The West owes Ukraine much more than just arms and admiration – https://theconversation.com/the-west-owes-ukraine-much-more-than-just-arms-and-admiration-179383

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Shannon Brincat, Senior Lecturer in Politics and International Relations, University of the Sunshine Coast

Republican senator Lindsey Graham has been among those calling for the assassination of Russian president Vladimir Putin in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The Biden administration immediately denied any such plans. But despite the White House’s best attempts to deny targeting Putin, it begs the question, when is it acceptable to assassinate a tyrant?

In Libya, a US drone was involved in the airstrike that lead to the death of former Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi in 2011. In 2003, the invasion of Iraq began with “decapitation” strikes directly aimed at killing Saddam Hussein.

No wonder Putin is reported to be “extremely paranoid” about being assassinated.

International law and assassination

Since the second world war and the Nuremberg trials, the international culture has been to prosecute tyrants rather than kill them. The assassination of heads of state is also prohibited under the 1973 New York Convention, which covers “internationally protected persons”, and is outlawed under the laws of war, first established in the 19th century.

The US itself has specifically prohibited assassination under its rules of war since 1863, and each president since 1976 has reaffirmed executive orders against assassinating foreign leaders.

It also remains a rare event. Only ten leaders have been assassinated by a foreign state between 1875 and 2004.

Legal philosophy

There is a huge grey area around the issue of tyrannicide – the killing of a ruler who rules illegitimately, oppressively, and/or acts aggressively at home or abroad. Putin appears to meet this definition.

Towering figures of classical jurisprudence (or legal philosophy) like Hugo Grotius and Emer de Vattel claimed tyrants were “common enemies of humankind” who should be targeted like pirates.

But the issue of whether such tyrants can be targeted under international law is somewhat confused, with arguments both for and against.

We also know assassination has substantial effects on political stability at both national and international levels.

Political philosophy

There have been at least three different historical approaches to tyrannicide in political thought.

Read more:
Weapons of mass destruction: what are the chances Russia will use a nuclear or chemical attack on Ukraine?

In Ancient Greece and Rome, if the ruler was harmful, they could be legitimately and violently deposed. For example, in The Republic, Plato condemned tyranny as the most degenerate political crime. In De Officiis, Cicero claimed tyranny was a pestilence on the body politic which, because it injures the rest of the body, should be severed.

During the medieval period, some philosophers justified complete submission to the god-given order, including tyranny. However, theologians such as Thomas Aquinas and protestant reformers like Martin Luther and John Calvin generally argued private individuals had a tacit mandate of tyrannicide when no other means of ridding the community of the tyrant were available.

In the modern period, especially with the advent of liberalism around the 17th century, there was a push to institutionalise a protective right of the people against tyranny. For example, in 1689, John Locke argued the people retained the ability of saving themselves from tyranny through the existence of a “supreme power” or “implied reserve”.

These principles can be traced to the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence and the American Constitution, widely believed to include a right to “alter or abolish” and bear arms against tyranny. This has recently led to confused attempts at subverting democratic processes also, as we saw at Capitol Hill in January 2021.

The US approach

Yet we know the US has used assassination in its foreign and military affairs. For example, a 1953 CIA training manual bluntly called “Study of Assassination” is easily found online.

Since 2001, the US has also killed over 4,000 targets in drone strikes and retains “kill lists” of terrorist suspects. The 2011 assassination of Osama Bin Laden has been popularised in a film partly written by the CIA.

So clearly, the US does assassinate people, and quite often – but can it ever be justified against a leader of a foreign state?

In 1975, a US Senate committee concluded the US had supported a number of plots to kill foreign leaders, though there was no evidence of direct involvement.

Interestingly, the very conundrum posed by Russia’s invasion was anticipated by the committee. In these circumstances, assassination may be compatible with American values, it said:

This country was created by violent revolt against a regime believed to be tyrannous, and our founding fathers (the local dissidents of that era) received aid from foreign countries […] we should not today rule out support for dissident groups seeking to overthrow tyrants.

Human rights vs chaos

Today, the justifications for tyrannicide revolve around self-defence and protecting human rights. Arguably, these justifications could be made in the defence of a state like Ukraine and the human rights of its citizens. However, these exact arguments could also be said of the illegal American-led war in Iraq.

Still, the answer is unclear.

One of the main problems is the outcome is unpredictable. In the case of Iraq, it created a hotbed for terrorism in the form of ISIS and in Libya it allowed slavery to return.

Read more:
Putin is on a personal mission to rewrite Cold War history, making the risks in Ukraine far graver

Another fear is tyrannicide will spawn an even worse leader. Or result in an escalation of hostilities and retaliation. What leader would be safe in such a world?

Ultimately, the problem of tyrannicide is not only ethically vexing but legally complex and politically doubtful. More than 2,000 years after Plato, we still don’t have a definitive answer.

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

– ref. The Putin problem: is there ever a case to kill tyrants? – https://theconversation.com/the-putin-problem-is-there-ever-a-case-to-kill-tyrants-179295

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ashwin Swaminathan, Senior Lecturer, Australian National University

It seems not a day goes by without learning someone in our inner circle of family, friends and colleagues has COVID. When we ask how unwell our acquaintance is, the responses vary from “they’re really crook” to “you wouldn’t even know they had it”.

This is in line with studies that report moderate to severe illness in a minority of people (usually older with other risk factors) and that up to one in three positive people exhibit no symptoms.

Given the ubiquitous presence of this highly infectious coronavirus in our community and the high rate of asymptomatic illness, those who have not been diagnosed with COVID might wonder, “how would I know if I had been infected?” And, “does it matter if I have?”.

Read more:
Has Australia really had 60,000 undiagnosed COVID-19 cases?

How COVID is diagnosed

Most people know they’ve had COVID because they had a fever or upper respiratory tract symptoms and/or were exposed to an infected person AND had a swab test (PCR or rapid antigen) that detected the COVID virus (SARS-CoV-2) in the upper airway.

At the beginning of 2022, many people with consistent symptoms or high-risk exposures were not able to access PCRs or RATs to confirm their diagnosis, but instead presumed themselves positive and quarantined.

It is possible to diagnose past infection in those who never tested positive. A blood test can look for SARS-CoV-2 antibodies (also known as immunoglobulins). When we are infected with SARS-CoV-2, our immune system launches a precision counter strike by producing antibodies against viral targets, specifically the Spike (S) and Nucleocapsid (N) proteins. COVID vaccination induces a similar immune response against the S protein only. The S antibody “neutralises” the invader by preventing the virus from attaching to human cells.

These antibodies can be detected within one to three weeks after infection and persist for at least six months – potentially much longer. A blood test that shows antibodies to S and N proteins indicates someone has been previously infected. Detection of antibodies to the S protein only indicates vaccination (but not infection).

Read more:
How accurate is your RAT? 3 scenarios show it’s about more than looking for lines

The problem with antibody tests

Before you rush off to get a COVID antibody test, there are a few notes of caution. There is still much to learn about the characteristics of the immune response to COVID infection. Not everyone mounts a detectable antibody response following infection and levels can decline to undetectable levels after several months in some people.

Because there are other circulating seasonal coronaviruses (such as those that cause the common cold), tests may also pick up antibodies to non-SARS-CoV-2 strains, leading to “false positive” results.

Commercial and public hospital pathology labs can perform SARS-CoV-2 antibody testing, but the interpretation of results should be undertaken carefully.

So, antibody testing should really only be done when there’s a good reason to: say, when confirming past infection or effectiveness of vaccination is important for the current care of an individual. Diagnosing a post-infectious complication or eligibility for a specific treatment, for example. It could also be useful for contact tracing or for assessing the background population rate of infection.

Antibody testing a population

“Seroprevalence studies” test for the presence of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in repositories of stored blood that are representative of the general population, such as from a blood bank. This data helps to understand the true extent of COVID infection and vaccination status in the community (and informs our assessment of population susceptibility to future infection and reinfection). It’s more useful than daily reported case numbers, which are skewed towards symptomatic individuals and those with access to swab testing.

New research from the World Health Organization, which is yet to be reviewed by other scientists, reported the results of a meta-analysis of over 800 seroprevalence studies performed around the world since 2020. They estimated that by July 2021, 45.2% of the global population had SARS-CoV-2 antibodies due to past infection or vaccination, eight times the estimate (5.5%) from a year earlier.

There are plans to conduct fresh seroprevalence studies in Australia in the coming year, which will update local data and help us understand to what extent the Omicron wave has washed through the population.

Does it matter if I have had COVID and didn’t know?

For most people, knowing your COVID infection status is unlikely to be more than a topic of dinnertime conversation.

While some studies have pointed to a less robust and durable antibody response following mild or asymptomatic infection compared with severe illness, it is not known how this influences protection from reinfection. Certainly, the knowledge we have antibodies from past infection should not deter us from being fully up-to-date with COVID vaccination, which remains the best protection against severe illness.

There are reports of people with mild or asymptomatic COVID infection developing long COVID – persistent or relapsing symptoms that last several months after initial infection. Symptoms can include shortness of breath, physical and mental fatigue, exercise intolerance, headaches, and muscle and joint pain.

However, the likelihood of developing this condition appears higher in those who suffer a heavier initial bout of COVID illness. This might be linked with higher viral load at that time.

Read more:
Here’s why you might need a 4th COVID vaccine dose this winter

Bottom line

As we enter the third year of the COVID pandemic and given that up to one in three infections may be asymptomatic, it is likely many of us have been infected without knowing it.

If you are experiencing lingering fatigue, brain fog or other symptoms that could be long COVID, you should talk to your GP. Otherwise, knowing our COVID infection status is unlikely to be of much practical benefit. Antibody testing should be reserved for specific medical or public health indications.

Being up-to-date with COVID vaccination is still our best defence against severe illness moving forward.

Ashwin Swaminathan has previously received funding for medical research from the National Health and Medical Research Council.

– ref. Could I have had COVID and not realised it? – https://theconversation.com/could-i-have-had-covid-and-not-realised-it-178630

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tim Nelson, Associate Professor of Economics, Griffith University

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is happening half a planet away from Australia.

But the ripple effects are plain to see at every petrol station and, potentially soon, your electricity bill.

As a result of the invasion and Western sanctions on Russian exports, energy prices have skyrocketed.

If that makes you think nations should have taken steps to secure alternatives to fossil fuels years ago, you’re not alone. As it is, the much higher energy prices are likely to accelerate the exit of coal – and gas – from our energy grids.

This should be a wake-up call. It doesn’t matter that Australia is far from the battlefield. Everyone in the world will be affected in some way.

What’s the link between the invasion and Australian energy prices?

You might think Australia’s domestic supply of coal and gas means we’d be immune to price rises. Not so.

Due to formal sanctions and informal shunning of Russian exports, oil, coal and gas are now extremely expensive on a global scale. Thermal coal prices have increased five-fold to an unprecedented ~$A500 per tonne. Oil is ~$140 a barrel and up 60% year on year. Natural gas in Europe is around 50% higher than last October, but since the invasion, prices have spiked as high as ~200% higher than 2021 levels.

Read more:
Will Russia’s invasion of Ukraine push Europe towards energy independence and faster decarbonisation?

Coal buyers are locking in supply, concerned that Russian sanctions will continue. Russia is the third largest exporter of coal and its existing customers are now under pressure to find alternative supplies.

Russia’s aggression is not just resulting in a major humanitarian and political crisis. It is also causing pain at the bowser for Australian consumers due to the surge in oil pricing and may soon result in higher electricity bills.

Australia’s east-coast electricity market is still heavily reliant upon coal. While many coal-fired power stations have existing supply contracts, the much higher global coal price may increase the cost of any extra coal purchases by existing power stations.

Not only that, but our gas-fired power stations are facing potential increases in operating costs due to much higher global gas prices.

Unfortunately, we may see the result in rising power bills. The price of future contracts for wholesale electricity next year in NSW are now twice what they were a year ago. Assuming this flows through to end-users, prices for residential customers could increase by as much as 10–15%.

So what should Australia do?

While it’s too late to dodge this bullet, we can prepare for future shocks by doubling down on firmed renewables. The faster we move, the less we’ll be hit by the price and reliability risks of coal.

Already under pressure from cheaper renewable technologies, coal power station operators now find themselves potentially facing much higher costs in the short-term. There’s no relief for coal in the long term either, with the rapid rise of renewables and other zero-carbon technologies.

Not only that, but most of our coal power stations are near the end of their lives, and industry doesn’t want to build new ones. That means coal will become more and more expensive, as the plants become increasingly unreliable.

Wind and solar technologies are now much cheaper per unit of energy generated and can be integrated with energy storage to provide dispatchable “firmed” energy. The faster we transition to renewables firmed by storage, the better.

If we do this, our new grid will also be more reliable. Continuing to rely upon coal is like relying upon a 1970s car to travel from Sydney to Melbourne on the hottest day of the year.

State governments around the nation are already embracing this approach, with the New South Wales government moving ahead with plans for 12 gigawatts (GW) of new renewables and storage and the Victorian government announcing plans for 9GW of offshore windfarms.

Governments must carefully design policies to avoid guaranteeing profits for private sector players while socialising any losses across taxpayers and energy consumers. In NSW, alternatives are being considered.

As European and many other nations scramble to reduce their dependency on Russian coal, oil and gas, Australia now has a once in a generation opportunity to become a leading exporter of new clean energy.

We have truly enormous clean energy resources in the form of free sunlight and wind. To export it, we can either run underseas cables to neighbouring countries, or convert cheap renewable power into green hydrogen and ship this to the world just as we currently do with LNG.

What else can we expect to see?

Surging fossil fuel prices has supercharged the existing disruption to an already rapidly changing domestic energy industry. In the past month, Origin announced it would abandon coal more rapidly, with the closure of its NSW coal-fired power station, Eraring, in 2025.

Meanwhile, AGL has been pursuing a “demerger” with a view to splitting off its coal assets and pursuing new energy technologies. This comes as Australian tech billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes and Canadian asset fund Brookfield offered to buy AGL for $8.25 a share, though they were not successful. Their plan was to accelerate the closure of AGL’s coal assets, which would move AGL from the highest carbon emitter in Australia to a clean energy company. The age of coal power is ending, and much faster than most of us realise.

Read more:
Green hydrogen is coming – and these Australian regions are well placed to build our new export industry

This crisis should spur us to build a future-proofed fleet of “firmed” and well-distributed renewables with a known cost structure.

By doing this, we will protect ourselves from the pain of geopolitically driven fossil fuel prices. And we will have a platform ready if we want to provide clean energy to the world in the form of green hydrogen.

We have had decades to make full use of our wealth of renewable energy resources. We haven’t embraced this as fully as we should have.

It turns out localised clean energy production is not just necessary to tackle climate change. It will prove a vital resource as we navigate the highly turbulent decade we have found ourselves in.

Tim Nelson is an Associate Professor at Griffith University and the EGM, Energy Markets at Iberdrola Australia, that develops renewable projects and batteries.

Joel Gilmore is an Associate Professor at Griffith University and the GM, Energy Policy & Planning at Iberdrola Australia, that develops renewable projects and firming assets.

– ref. Energy bills are spiking after the Russian invasion. We should have doubled-down on renewables years ago – https://theconversation.com/energy-bills-are-spiking-after-the-russian-invasion-we-should-have-doubled-down-on-renewables-years-ago-179336

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Naomi Barnes, Senior Lecturer, School of Teacher Education & Leadership, Queensland University of Technology

The political attention education issues are getting in the lead-up to the federal election may be an opportunity to demand politicians focus on issues that matter to schools and their communities.

Education has recently been characterised as a “political football”. The Coalition (LNP) government has focused on the impacts of gender and sexuality legislation on religious schools and nationalistic history as part of the Australian Curriculum. The Labor Party, should it win office, plans to require students to get a “digital licence” to protect them from online dangers.

Local school experiences, teachers’ expertise and the educational research that should inform Australian schooling will tell you these issues are all framed too simply. Some have called on the media to be more responsible in reporting education issues.

Read more:
The national history curriculum should not be used and abused as an election issue

So why do politicians focus on issues like these?

The reason for building a political platform on moral panic is that politics today is tapping into a general fear of either change or being left behind. This is a solid strategy, especially when anxiety is on the rise.

The LNP’s issues of choice are typically conservative. They offer voters a romanticised view of school before rapid change swept the world.

The issue chosen by the ALP is typically progressive. It presents education as a process of catching up to overcome an uncertain future. But the ALP is also trying to play a romantic game by linking outdated, non-inclusive understandings of internet safety to outdated, non-inclusive “pen licences”.

Understanding why politicians frame education in the ways they do can help teachers and parents make sense of the issues raised by the major parties. And if they understand what is happening, voters can apply localised pressure to the parties in the election campaign.

Why moral panics?

Politicians are no longer connected to localised issues. The diversity and complexity of these issues, coupled with the ubiquity of information on the internet, present a problem for politicians trying to understand the “typical Australian”. So much information is available that it is difficult to know what policy promises to make.

To solve this problem, governments and political parties have drawn on a new class of knowledge brokers to decipher the information and make recommendations. Federal politicians use their partisan knowledge brokers, often employed at think tanks, to look for issues that appeal to their interpretation of the average Australian. These think tanks work as a buffer between politics and the public.

We are researching the effects that buffer organisations, like think tanks, have on education policy development and the politics that goes along with education reform.

Read more:
Still ‘Waiting for Gonski’ – a great book about the sorry tale of school funding

We have concentrated our research at this stage on the partisan organisations. But even if they claim to be non-partisan, their work often reveals gaps in their knowledge about education issues.

For example, a recent analysis of teachers’ workloads recommended creating materials for teachers to use, so they could concentrate on how to teach, rather than what to teach.

What this recommendation failed to note was that such a scheme has been running in Queensland for nearly a decade. The Curriculum into the Classroom (or C2C) project has been highly problematic. It has even reportedly increased teacher workloads.

What can voters do about it?

The election presents an opportunity for the public to demand courageous education policy. With more and more independent candidates standing in their local electorates, voters don’t need to engage with moral panic. Independents present an opportunity for schools and their communities to pitch the local education issues of most concern to them.

Read more:
What’s going on with independent candidates and the federal election?

Ultimately, local candidates represent local issues, but party candidates will always have to balance local concerns with the party platform. Truly independent candidates can be more receptive to issues locals regard as important. Local issues raised with these candidates are more likely to be reflected in their platforms.

The major parties are increasingly fearful of being outflanked by independent candidates. As a result, these parties could feel the need to adopt aspects of the independents’ policies, or pay more attention to the concerns they raise.

What sort of issues are we talking about?

At a symposium in June 2020, Keith Heggart and Steven Kolber asked teachers, principals, politicians, journalists, education researchers, parents, public intellectuals and community members to discuss democratic issues faced by Australian schools. The two authors have compiled a soon-to-be-published edited collection based on the symposium. They summarise key issues as:

• teachers’ rapidly increasing workload
• lack of trust in teachers and their professional judgment
• lack of scrutiny of the expensive adoption of new technology
• the quality of research used for so-called evidence-based policy.

Read more:
Want to improve our education system? Stop seeking advice from far-off gurus and encourage expertise in schools

Suggested approaches for tackling these issues include:

• more effective and personalised professional learning for teachers
• more parental and community involvement in schools
• more targeted support for early-career teachers by linking them to professional networks and teaching communities
• a revitalisation of teacher unions, including a return to grassroots work with members, but also through expanding connections with the broader education community, including parents, professional associations and think tanks.

Underpinning all of these issues was a central theme: teachers must have the flexibility, trust and quality of research essential for education that serves local needs.

Thank you to Cameron Malcher and Tom Mahoney for their assistance.

Keith Heggart receives funding from the Independent Education Union of Australia.

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

– ref. If only politicians focused on the school issues that matter. This election is a chance to get them to do that – https://theconversation.com/if-only-politicians-focused-on-the-school-issues-that-matter-this-election-is-a-chance-to-get-them-to-do-that-177554

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Geoff Hanmer, Adjunct professor at the University of Adelaide, University of Technology Sydney

Thirteen years ago, during the global financial crisis, Australia announced what became a A$16 billion program called Building the Education Revolution.

Designed to provide building work in almost every suburb and town in Australia, it funded projects in more than 8,000 primary schools, most of them school halls.

There’s an argument now for something that would make a greater, even more important, mark: safe air.

Thanks to tight controls and an awareness of what unsafe water can do, nearly all the water we drink is clean. Nearly all the air we breathe is not.

The discovery in the 1800s that water contaminated with sewage caused diseases including typhoid and cholera was a catalyst for huge investments in sewerage and water treatment in Western Europe during the late nineteenth century.

Until then, world population had grown very slowly. But from 1870 to 2000, it soared from 1.5 billion to 6 billion people, growing by a factor of four.

Over the same period, global GDP grew by a factor of 60 and fossil fuel use by a factor of more than 60.

This unprecedented growth was principally caused by investments in sanitation: in sewers and in clean drinking water.

A key side effect of increased fossil fuel use has been pollution of the air.

The concentration of carbon dioxide in has been increased from around 280 parts per million in pre-industrial times to more than 410 now, causing significant global warming and more frequent and more severe bushfires, floods and droughts.

Human health has been negatively impacted by an increase in nitrogen oxides (NOx) and particulates that are mainly produced by industry and vehicles using combustion. Particulates smaller than 2.5 microns in diameter (PM 2.5) have been shown to be particularly damaging because they penetrate deep into lungs and tend to stay there.

The World Health Organisation says PM 2.5 pollution causes 4.2 million premature deaths per year.

Read more:
We should install air purifiers with HEPA filters in every classroom. It could help with COVID, bushfire smoke and asthma

Bad air hurts GDP

Particulates and NOx are prime causes of asthma and are associated with illnesses including heart disease and cancer, two of the biggest causes of death in developed countries.

Airborne pathogens including viruses, bacteria, mould, pollen and fungi also contribute to respiratory and cardiovascular diseases. In an average year prior to COVID, Australia lost about 2% of its GDP to unplanned health-related absences, most caused by respiratory illness.

Women who were pregnant during the 2019-20 bushfires experienced significant health impacts, including high blood pressure, diabetes, and low birth weight.

Read more:
An investment in clean indoor air would do more than help us fight COVID – it would help us concentrate, with lasting benefits

Study after study has shown that human health is improved by improving indoor air quality. This is particularly evident in people who are older, have chronic diseases, or have bodies under stress during events such as pregnancy.

There are two main ways to do to air what we did to water. One is to reduce concentrations of particulates and nitrogen dioxide by transitioning to using renewable energy quickly.

The other is to improve the quality of indoor air by improving ventilation, both natural and mechanical.

Open windows don’t stay open

At times this will mean excluding outdoor air, such as in bushfires.

At other times this will mean ensuring windows are open. Under Australian building regulations, high occupancy facilities such as schools, nursing homes, pubs, nightclubs and shops can be solely reliant on ventilation from windows. This can work well while they are open.

When windows are shut, as they often are during hot or cold weather, ventilation is inadequate, particularly where occupancy is high, as in classrooms or common spaces in nursing homes. Nearly all COVID super-spreader events in Melbourne’s second wave occurred in buildings designed to rely on natural ventilation.

Falling asleep in class during winter is more than an indication of boredom; it’s also characteristic of high carbon dioxide levels, with a measurable impact on learning and cognition.

The simplest solution is to mandate mechanical “fallback” ventilation for naturally-ventilated public buildings in the National Construction Code, so that when the windows are closed filtered air circulates automatically.

The system would incorporate high-efficiency particulate absorbing (HEPA) filtration to deal with bushfire smoke, dust storms and particulates.

Building the Ventilation Revolution

Initially, the requirement would apply only to public buildings (Class 9 Buildings in the National Construction Code). But over time the regulations would be extended to all buildings that provide public access, including shops, pubs and restaurants.

Eventually, consistent national air quality standards would apply to all buildings.
Although this proposal would require a substantial investment, and would use some energy, the cost will be offset by reduced healthcare costs and improvements in student learning and worker productivity through better cognition and fewer absences.

Energy consumption can be tackled by producing more renewable energy and also by improving building thermal performance.

Read more:
Poorly ventilated schools are a super-spreader event waiting to happen. It may be as simple as opening windows

We are prepared to use energy to heat and cool buildings and to pump sewage and supply water. It would be odd if we weren’t prepared to use it to make our air as safe as our water.

By committing to a five-year program to improve ventilation and air quality in schools and aged care, the government could guard against future pandemics and would improve health and the quality of life.

How much would a program for schools and aged care cost?

Stage 1 would cost $13 billion

There are 9,581 schools with 4,030,717 students in Australia in 2021.

My architectural firm estimates the cost of upgrading all of these would be about A$10 billion in today’s dollars, or $2 billion per year over five years.

Similarly, there are 180,900 Australians in 2,695 aged care facilities.

The cost of upgrading these would be about A$3 billion in today’s dollars, or $600 million per year over five years.

The total cost of ensuring the provision of clean air in both schools and aged care facilities would be about $13 billion – $2.6 billion per year over five years. These estimates would be refined by competitive tendering among mid-size contractors.

Read more:
Schools need to know classrooms’ air quality to protect against COVID. But governments aren’t measuring it properly

Not all the money would come from government: for-profit aged care operators and high-fee private schools would also be expected to contribute.

$2.6 billion per year is about 5% of the money Australian governments already spend on infrastructure every year, mostly on roads and railways.

It is less than the cost of the $16 billion Building the Education Revolution, and the benefits would spread further.

Improved indoor air quality would better prepare Australians for the next pandemic and help Australian children and workers learn and work more effectively. It would be value for money and a lasting legacy.

Geoff Hanmer has consulted to a number of organisations that are improving their ventilation to reduce the risk of COVID transmission, principally in a voluntary capacity. He has also assisted in assessing a number of air purification devices in a voluntary capacity, although ARINA has been provided with samples of equipment for test. He is a member of the OzSAGE Executive and chairs its ventilation group.

– ref. Building the Ventilation Revolution would clear indoor air, helping our kids and older Australians breathe easier – https://theconversation.com/building-the-ventilation-revolution-would-clear-indoor-air-helping-our-kids-and-older-australians-breathe-easier-177068

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Marion Terrill, Transport and Cities Program Director, Grattan Institute

Brace for the federal election – the transport promises have begun. Some are pretty big, such as Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce’s A$678 million for the Outback Highway, and Opposition leader Anthony Albanese’s $500 million down-payment on faster rail between Newcastle and Sydney. If history is any guide, a rush of small local promises won’t be far behind.

As a new report from Grattan Institute reveals, federal government spending on small local transport projects has grown dramatically in recent years.

Under the two most recent Labor terms of government, each electorate received an average of $26 million worth of small transport projects (projects worth up to $10 million each) per year. In the following three Coalition terms, that number increased tenfold to $264 million per electorate per year, on average.

But just because there’s more spending on small local projects, does it follow that it’s partisan political spending, or “pork-barrelling”? This new report shows what really matters is whether or not the money is allocated under objective, transparent criteria.

Read more:
Of Australia’s 32 biggest infrastructure projects, just eight had a public business case

Taking a closer look at transport spending patterns

Two long-standing transport programs allocate federal funds according to relatively objective criteria: the Black Spot program, and Roads to Recovery.

The Black Spot program helps fund road-safety initiatives. To be eligible for funding, initiatives must have a benefit-to-cost ratio of at least 2-to-1, and the site must have a history of at least three casualty crashes in the past five years. The program was worth $104 million in 2020–21.

Roads to Recovery helps fund maintenance of local roads. The federal government provides funding to all local councils, using a formula based on population and road length. The program was worth $592 million in 2020–21.

Both programs are designed to favour rural and remote electorates. And that’s what’s happened under both Labor and Coalition governments, even though rural and remote seats are mostly held by the Coalition, often very safely.

In urban areas, too, the pattern of distribution of funds under these two programs has been remarkably similar under both Labor and Coalition governments. Black Spot and Roads to Recovery funds have been about as likely to go to safe as to marginal seats, and about as likely to go to government-held as to opposition-held seats.

In contrast, the $4.9 billion Urban Congestion Fund does not have eligibility criteria on its website. It’s the clearest case of a slush fund on the federal government’s books.

One component of the Urban Congestion Fund, the $660 million commuter carpark fund, has attracted significant public interest since the auditor-general published a scathing report on it last year. But the allocation of the remaining $4.2 billion has received less attention.

Grattan Institute’s latest report shows marginal seats clearly get a bigger share of funds than safe seats under the Urban Congestion Fund. More funding has gone to the most marginal seats, such as Lindsay in Sydney, Higgins in Melbourne, Moreton in Brisbane, Hasluck in Perth, and Boothby in Adelaide.

And seats held by a Coalition member get a bigger share of the funds than seats held by Labor, the Greens, other minor parties, or independents.

For instance, the luckiest electorate in Sydney was Lindsay, centred on Penrith, which received close to $200 million; Melbourne’s Aston, centred on Boronia, received close to $300 million; and Brisbane’s Forde, centred on Beenleigh, received $234 million.

Meanwhile, the electorate containing Sydney’s CBD got no funding, the electorate containing Melbourne’s CBD got $5 million, and the electorate containing Brisbane’s CBD got $2 million.

Some might say a similar pattern of allocation of small funds, regardless of which party is in government, looks like a fair distribution. But there’s a broader issue: there has been massive growth in these small grants in recent years.

Aggregate federal transport spending has crept up only modestly over recent years, so a bigger proportion of the aggregate is now being directed to small projects – which is the proper and agreed remit of the state or local government, not the federal government.

The spending on small local projects by a national government should stop. Whichever party wins the 2022 federal election should strengthen the transport spending guardrails.

Instead of sprinkling public money on small projects around the country, the federal government should retreat to its proper transport funding role as a national government – no more roundabouts, overpasses, or carparks, just nationally significant infrastructure funded in an even-handed way.

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Grattan Institute began with contributions to its endowment of $15 million from each of the Federal and Victorian Governments. In order to safeguard its independence, Grattan Institute’s board controls this endowment. The funds are invested and Grattan uses the income to pursue its activities. Marion Terrill does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any other company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond the academic appointment above.

– ref. As federal government spending on small transport projects creeps up, marginal seats get a bigger share – https://theconversation.com/as-federal-government-spending-on-small-transport-projects-creeps-up-marginal-seats-get-a-bigger-share-179464

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

Move over Mark McGowan and make some space for South Australia’s Peter Malinauskas on Scott Morrison’s recently-installed couch of Labor “besties”.

After Malinauskas’ sweeping victory on Saturday, Morrison told his Sunday news conference he’d already spoken to the premier-elect.

We had a very constructive discussion about the many projects that are already underway in South Australia […] And I look forward to working with him on those many projects.

The Morrison government might have bagged Labor states at various times over the last two years – Western Australia, Queensland, and Victoria all received criticism – but that’s history.

As far as the PM is concerned, just now he’s at a high point of co-operative federalism.

The SA election has only limited federal implications – we all know people distinguish their federal and state votes.

Nevertheless, the result – the first time since COVID a state or territory government has lost an election – has some federal relevance. So close to the national election, it does affect the vibe.

Think of it this way: if Steven Marshall had had an unexpected victory, what would have been the reaction? People would have said it showed again how wrong polls can be. The result would have inserted a discount into assessments of Anthony Albanese’s chances.

Read more:
Labor easily wins South Australian election, but upper house could be a poor result

SA Labor’s win will be a psychological boost for the federal opposition, and a further dampener on the government’s mood.

The Marshall government’s loss will reduce the enthusiasm and probably the resources of the local Liberals’ federal campaign in that state. And that’s at the least – the worst thing for the federal Liberals would be if their SA brethren, who are faction-riven, fell into a nasty blame game.

Fortunately for Morrison, SA has minimal seats at risk of changing. Mainly the contest will centre on Boothby where Liberal Nicole Flint is retiring.

Nationally, attention this week will quickly move on from South Australia, as the Morrison government ramps up its public preparation for Tuesday week’s budget and pre-releases various measures.

Read more:
Liberals’ brutal loss in South Australia reflects the fragmented politics of the centre-right

On Friday, Josh Frydenberg set out the budget’s priorities, which boiled down to giving some relief to people feeling cost of living pressures, and starting to address budget repair and Australia’s high debt.

The cost of living has rapidly escalated as a major issue for the May election.

Whatever the government does, there will be some smoke and mirrors. For example, the budget is set to contain an early payment for low and middle income earners. But the trade off is said to be that it won’t roll over the tax offset that would have given them a rebate in 2023.

Frydenberg has said the cost of living measures will be “targeted” and “proportionate”. There’s been pressure for the government to act on petrol excise, but increasingly strong arguments against doing so.

Read more:
It’s hard to find a case for a cut in petrol tax – there are other things the budget can do

Deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce said last week that cutting the excise wouldn’t ease the cost of living and would take money away from roads.

The Deloitte Access Economics budget monitor, released Monday, says in framing the March 29 budget the government is in a better position than it earlier expected. This is due to a combination of the economy recovering faster than anticipated and rising commodity prices.

But that first factor fades over time […] And the second factor is also only a temporary tailwind,“ the monitor says. “In other words, the Lucky Country becomes less lucky over time.

Just at the moment, the opposition finds itself more than a little distracted from the pre-budget debate, as friends of the late senator Kimberley Kitching continue to prosecute their claims that she was bullied by Labor’s Senate leadership team – claims denied by the three senior Senate women, Penny Wong, Kristina Keneally, and Katy Gallagher.

The three senators, and many of their accusers will be at Kitching’s funeral at St Patrick’s Cathedral in Melbourne on Monday. As well as being a deeply sad occasion for a grieving family, it will be a fraught one for Labor.

Albanese has not been handling the issue of the allegations well, and Wong was unconvincing when she appeared on Nine on Sunday. She was keeping a commitment arranged earlier, but the interview inevitably was dominated by the bitter Kitching controversy.

Read more:
View from The Hill: Labor’s treatment of Kimberley Kitching – ‘tough politics’ or ‘bullying’?

Wong said: “There is a common decency that I think we would all hope […] is demonstrated when someone has died. And I would invite some of those making claims and sharing views to consider and reflect on whether or not they have demonstrated that now.”

The trouble with that superficially plausible plea is that it is Kitching’s friends who are making the claims (whether these are justified or not) because they believe she was treated badly.

The government has to be careful with such a sensitive matter, but it is pushing hard. “This is a very, very serious issue,” Morrison said on Sunday. “They’re serious issues that Anthony Albanese has to deal with. This is on his watch.”

The Liberals are trying to turn it into a character test for Albanese.

On a day when you would have expected he might have relished a public appearance, the opposition leader didn’t make one on Sunday.

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

– ref. View from The Hill: SA result is morale boost for Albanese, but he’s struggling with Kitching allegations – https://theconversation.com/view-from-the-hill-sa-result-is-morale-boost-for-albanese-but-hes-struggling-with-kitching-allegations-179637

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rob Manwaring, Associate Professor, Politics and Public Policy, Flinders University

In the end, the results came in much more quickly than expected. Due to COVID and the general trend to postal voting, the results of the South Australian state election were not anticipated until at least the middle of next week.

But about an hour and half after polls had closed, the results indicated a brutal loss for Steven Marshall’s one-term Liberal government.

This was expected to be a very tight election – most likely resulting in a hung parliament, with either side reliant on key independents. This, after all, has been a common pattern in South Australia.

Going into the election, the picture was delicately balanced. Marshall’s Liberals held 20 seats in the 47-seat chamber, while Peter Malinauskas’ Labor Party held 19 seats, with six independents on the cross-bench.

The Marshall minority government was propped up by a number of those independents, including former Liberal and current Speaker of the House Dan Cregan in the seat of Kavel.

However, the final polls and betting odds were indicating that a change of government was possible, perhaps even by a solid margin. By the end of Saturday evening, the extent of the loss was clear: Labor had already secured enough support to win 25 seats, with 24 needed to form a majority government.

According to the ABC, there are still nine seats in doubt. In what would be a truly remarkable outcome, Labor is predicted to finish with 28 seats, the Liberals reduced to 14, with a cross-bench of five.

Read more:
Labor easily wins South Australian election, but upper house could be a poor result

Two key factors shaped the election result. First, as ABC election analyst Antony Green put it, Nick Xenophon has had “more impact on this election than the last one”. In 2018, a resurgent SA Best, led by Xenophon, had secured strong support in key seats, with 15-20% of the vote in many marginals. What happened in South Australia this year is that a much higher proportion of those voters decided to support the Malinauskas challenge, showing a loss of faith in Marshall’s government.

Second, the Liberals lost ground in those key suburban seats, especially those surrounding Adelaide. The key target marginal seats, including the ultra-marginal Newland, King and Elder, and Adelaide itself, all fell quickly to Labor.

This pattern reflects a familiar structural problem for the Liberals in South Australia, where its support base has disproportionately been in rural and regional areas. However, the swing to Labor was enough this time to see them take Davenport, and potentially Gibson, which had previously been held by Liberals by relatively strong margins.

What went wrong for Marshall?

In his moving poem, The Mistake, the poet James Fenton reflects upon the agonies of hindsight. Given the surprising scale of Labor’s win, we should caution against simplistic judgements about the result. But there are a range of factors that seemingly shaped the removal of Marshall’s government.

First, the Marshall campaign lack bite. The general theme focused on a strong economy, but it lacked any memorable pledges on economic and fiscal policy.

In 2018, Marshall had a set of policies around land tax, payroll tax, shopping hours deregulation, and reducing the cost of living through reductions in taxes such as the emergency services levy. It didn’t help that Marshall couldn’t deliver on some of these pledges.

This time around, the Liberals’ spending promises were modest, and its overall macro-economic strategy was less clear.

In contrast, Labor tapped into a public appetite for more significant infrastructure spending, crucially in the realm of health. The issue of hospital ramping has bedevilled South Australia for a long time, and it was an ongoing pressure point for the Liberals. Labor was cannily able to use the issue to build its campaign around new public funding in this area.

The politics of COVID was also a likely factor. This was the first time an incumbent government had been ejected in an election since the pandemic. Yet, what’s clear is voters are comfortable with ambitious spending policy agendas – and new forms of stimulus. COVID has changed electoral dynamics, and Marshall’s government paid a price for a reasonably well-handled approach to the pandemic.

Implications for the federal election

Will the South Australia result impact the imminent federal election? Only indirectly. Australians tend to treat state and federal elections separately, and distinctive local and national factors shape the results of each.

Read more:
As South Australians head to the polls, Labor is favourite but there are many unknowns

However, indirectly, the failure of the Marshall government is really a story about the fragmentation of the right in Australian politics. The absence of a strong Nationals presence in the state arguably throws out of balance the ideological differences within the Liberal party.

The fraying of the Liberals, and the inability of Marshall to keep factional balances and in-fighting in check, reflects a more general national trend for independents to challenge in “non-Labor” seats.

Given the Marshall government delivered successful and progressive social reforms, not least the decriminalisation of abortion and introducing euthanasia legislation, it ironically reflects the structural failure of moderate liberalism in the country.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison, a far more conservative-minded leader, and an electoral drag in South Australia, faces a sterner challenge in reconciling this fragmented politics.

Near the end of his poem, Fenton intones the protagonist to “lay claim to this mistake”. Given the outgoing premier’s upbeat assessment of his single term of office, it might take a new generation to learn the lessons from this devastating loss.

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

– ref. Liberals’ brutal loss in South Australia reflects the fragmented politics of the centre-right – https://theconversation.com/liberals-brutal-loss-in-south-australia-reflects-the-fragmented-politics-of-the-centre-right-177917

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne

With 54% of enrolled voters counted in Saturday’s South Australian election, the ABC is calling Labor wins in 25 of the 47 seats, enough for a three-seat majority. The Liberals have won nine seats and independents four. The current final results prediction is Labor 28, Liberals 14 and independents five.

Vote shares are 40.4% Labor (up 7.7% since the 2018 election), 34.6% Liberals (down 3.4%), 9.6% Greens (up 2.9%), 3.8% Family First (up 0.8%), 2.7% One Nation and 8.7% for all Others – mainly independents (up 3.3%). The big crash was Nick Xenophon’s former SA-Best, which was down 14.0% to just 0.2%.

Labor gained the four very marginal Liberal seats of Adelaide, Elder, King and Newland, which were all held by 2% or less. They also gained Davenport, which the Liberals held by an 8.1% margin. The Liberals lost Stuart to independent Geoff Brock, who had contested this seat after his political base was moved out of Frome in a redistribution.

Read more:
Labor landslide likely in South Australian election, but Labor-Greens unlikely to control upper house

Votes counted so far include only those cast on election day in home electorates. A large number of pre-poll, postal and election day absent votes remain to be counted; this will occur next week. Postal votes nearly always favour the Liberals strongly relative to other votes in Australia, while the smaller numbers of absent votes favour Labor.

The Liberals have many seats where they are currently just ahead, but are likely to extend their leads in those seats once all votes are counted. A Labor win in Gibson, where they currently lead by 51.6-48.4, is more doubtful.

Analyst Kevin Bonham has a discussion of messy seats. In Finniss, the Liberals are well ahead on primaries, with independent Lou Nicholson just behind Labor. If Nicholson maintains her current position in the remaining vote, she probably passes Labor on minor party preferences, and goes on to win Finniss.

In Waite, Labor is just ahead of the Liberals on primary votes with 27.4% to 24.5%. Liberal MP turned independent Sam Duluk is on 18.9%, another independent on 15.3% and the Greens 12.0%. While it’s possible one independent makes the final two, it’s more likely this is a Labor vs Liberal contest. The electoral commission needs to re-do its two candidate count so it’s between the Liberals and Labor.

Federal implications and poll performance

After 16 years of Labor government in SA from 2002-18, the Liberals were defeated after a single term. The federal government’s unpopularity will be blamed for the state Liberal loss, and it will be seen as a pointer to the federal election expected in May.

We already know from the federal polling, such as the last Newspoll that gave Labor a 55-45 lead, that the federal government is currently in trouble. What matters from a federal election perspective is not the SA result, but what happens in federal polling between now and the election. It’s unlikely, but still possible, that the government recovers by the election.

The final SA state Newspoll had Labor winning by 54-46 from primary votes of 41% Labor, 38% Liberals, 9% Greens and 12% Others. A YouGov poll had Labor winning by 56-44, from primary votes of 41% Labor, 33% Liberals, 11% Greens and 15% Others. While both polls were conducted by the same company, they were not the same due to different weighting – see this Poll Bludger post.

When all votes are counted, the Liberals are likely to finish between the 33% and 38% these two polls gave them, with Labor below the 41% both polls had and the Greens on 9%, close to Newspoll. Although Newspoll was likely more accurate, both polls did reasonably well.

The worst poll catastrophe was an early February seat poll for Stuart from uComms, reported by The Poll Bludger, that gave Brock just 11.3% of the primary vote; he’s currently on 48.5%!

Read more:
As South Australians head to the polls, Labor is favourite but there are many unknowns

Upper house could be poor result for Labor

Eleven of the 22 upper house seats were up for election. SA uses statewide proportional representation with optional above the line preferential voting. A quota is one-twelfth of the vote, or 8.3%.

Read more:
Labor landslide likely in South Australian election, but Labor-Greens unlikely to control upper house

With 53% of enrolled voters counted for the upper house, Labor had 4.45 quotas, the Liberals 3.97, the Greens 1.18, One Nation 0.50, the Liberal Democrats 0.42, Family First 0.39, Legalise Cannabis 0.27 and Animal Justice 0.18.

Four Labor, four Liberals and one Green will be elected. One Nation is likely to win one seat, but the big question is Labor. On current counting, Labor would win a fifth upper house seat, but the danger is that their vote slides in late counting, putting their surplus after four quotas behind the Lib Dems and Family First.

In this case, Labor will need preferences from the Greens, Legalise Cannabis and Animal Justice to overcome a deficit. But above the line preferencing is optional in SA.

Despite Labor’s thumping victory in the lower house, there is some chance that the upper house is 6-5 to right-wing parties with One Nation and either the Lib Dems or Family First joining four Liberals.

Even if Labor wins the last seat, Labor and the Greens would not control the upper house as the 11 members elected in 2018 are not up until 2026. These members are four Liberals, four Labor, two SA-Best and one Green. SA-Best won just 0.13 quotas, so their two members elected in 2018 are very unlikely to survive 2026.

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

– ref. Labor easily wins South Australian election, but upper house could be a poor result – https://theconversation.com/labor-easily-wins-south-australian-election-but-upper-house-could-be-a-poor-result-178998

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Joël Brugger, Professor of Synchrotron Geosciences, Monash University

More than ten years ago, the so-called “rare earth crisis” highlighted the fragility of the supply chain of these metals, which are crucial for the transition to a carbon-neutral economy. Most of the world’s supply of these minerals comes from a handful of giant ore deposits, but we still know little about how these deposits formed.

Despite the name, the rare earths are relatively widespread in Earth’s crust, compared with elements such as gold and platinum. Large, concentrated deposits suitable for mining, however, are much more scarce.

To understand how these deposits form, we recreated the hellish temperatures, pressures and chemical environments that occur kilometres below Earth’s surface, and used intense X-rays to probe the behaviour of rare earth elements down to the molecular level.

We discovered a previously unknown process whereby rare earth elements can bind to a common chemical called carbonate in hot fluids at high pressure. This provides hints about how rare earth deposits form, and also about how we can reverse-engineer the process to extract these rare metals in a more sustainable way.

What does it take to form a giant rare earth deposit?

The rare earth elements are a group of 15 soft, silvery heavy metals found at the bottom of the periodic table (from lanthanum to lutetium). Two more elements (scandium and yttrium) are also often included in the group, because of similarities in their chemical behaviour.

Today’s giant deposits of rare earth elements are associated with unusual types of molten rock called carbonatite and alkaline magmas. These magmas do not contain much silicon (the second-most abundant element in the Earth’s crust after oxygen), but instead include a lot of alkali metals (sodium and potassium), calcium and volatile elements such as carbon, fluorine or phosphorus.

Read more:
What are rare earths, crucial elements in modern technology? 4 questions answered

All rocks around us contain significant amounts of rare earth elements, but they become concentrated in these exotic magmas through slow crystallisation in Earth’s crust. This is usually not enough to make an ore deposit, which consists of millions of tonnes of rock made up of between 5 and 50% by weight of rare earth elements. A second step of concentration is required.

In giant deposits such as Bayan Obo in Inner Mongolia, hot fluids loaded with carbonate appear to have undergone this extra concentration step. But exactly how has been a mystery.

A safe ticket to Hades, with X-ray vision

We think rare earth ores formed kilometres below Earth’s surface. Millions of years ago, high temperatures (200-800℃) and pressures (hundreds to thousands of times greater than atmospheric pressure) transformed pre-existing concentrations of rare earth elements into valuable ores.

There is no way for geologists to go and watch ore forming, but we tried to do the next best thing.

We were able to recreate and study something like the conditions that reigned during ore formation, using the French Absorption Spectroscopy Beamline (FAME) at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) in Grenoble, France.

We used a specially designed autoclave (a geological cooking pot) to create temperatures up to 600℃ and pressures up to 200 megapascals, which corresponds to depths of about 7km in Earth’s crust.

At the ESRF synchrotron, which is effectively a giant X-ray gun 100 billion times more powerful than a hospital X-ray device, we can probe the composition and molecular structure of fluids and dissolved materials inside the cooking pot. A safe ticket to Hades provided by X-ray vision!

Specifically, we probed how rare earth elements bonded with chlorine, fluorine, hydroxide or carbonate present in fluids at high pressures and temperatures. Reactions between the rare earth elements and these so-called “ligands” are responsible for the solubility of rare earth minerals.

New ways to extract rare earth elements

The results were unexpected. First, we discovered that fluids rich in carbonate can carry large amounts of rare earth elements. Second, adding fluorine had little effect on the fluids’ ability to carry rare earth elements.

This means that hot carbonate-rich fluids could transport rare earth elements and fluorine together – so common ore minerals such as bastnaesite (which is made of rare earth elements, carbonate and fluorine) could precipitate out of the fluid when it cools.

Our experiments also show that carbonate-rich fluids will concentrate more light rare earths (such as lanthanum) or heavy ones (such as gadolinium and ytterbium) at different temperatures. This is important for determining the economic value of ores, as some rare earth elements are more expensive than others.

Most importantly, the economic and environmental costs of rare earth element mining are strongly affected by the difficulty of separating the different elements. Many ores also contain radioactive elements such as uranium and thorium, which need to be dealt with.

Read more:
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Our results reveal a new avenue for rare earth element processing: using environmentally benign carbonate solutions to leach rare earth elements from ore at high temperatures.

In this way, we may be able to reverse-engineer the ore-forming process to extract the metals needed to sustain the world’s transition to a carbon-neutral economy.

Joël Brugger receives funding from public (Australian Research Council) and private (mining companies) organisations.

Marion Louvel receives funding from DFG (German Research Foundation) and EU Horizon 2020.

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

– ref. Powerful X-rays reveal the birth of giant rare earth element deposits – and may give clues for sustainable mining – https://theconversation.com/powerful-x-rays-reveal-the-birth-of-giant-rare-earth-element-deposits-and-may-give-clues-for-sustainable-mining-178781

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

The so-called “mean girls” story following the death of Victorian Labor senator Kimberley Kitching, has opened up issues of alleged bad behaviour by very senior figures within the Labor party.

The allegations are serious, and Anthony Albanese and his colleagues were never going to get away with denying them oxygen by pushing them aside, as they hoped.

But the fact the claims and denials are being played out even before Kitching’s funeral takes them into an extraordinary realm.

Although only junior in the parliamentary pecking order, Kitching – who was a close friend and ally of former Labor leader Bill Shorten – made herself a substantial presence in the senate, and a strong voice on issues including China and national security.

Some of her views were more akin to those of the Liberals than to her own side, and she had good friends in the government.

For these and other reasons, she became a square peg in the round Labor hole. She was accused of leaking by Labor’s Senate leadership and frozen out, including being removed from the tactics committee.

From what we know now, she was highly upset by her treatment, but she also fought back, reportedly late last year complaining of bullying by her colleagues to a consultant brought in as part of the effort to clean up Parliament House’s toxic culture.

Earlier, she had complained to deputy Labor leader Richard Marles about how she was being treated. Marles refuses to be drawn, repeatedly saying in a Friday TV interview, “I’m just not going to walk down that path”.

Apart from the pressure she felt under in the parliamentary party, recently Kitching had been stressed by her preselection being up in the air.

Kitching’s friends allege Labor’s Senate leader Penny Wong, her deputy Kristina Keneally and Katy Gallagher, manager of opposition business in the Senate, bullied her. The Australian reported Kitching and her supporters had dubbed these senators “the mean girls”.

Like Albanese, at first the senators refused to engage with the allegations. By Friday, with more information dribbling out, this had become unsustainable.

Wong, Keneally and Gallagher issued a statement saying: “The allegations of bullying are untrue. Other assertions which have been made are similarly inaccurate.”

The statement went on: “Politics is a challenging profession. Contests can be robust and interactions difficult. All of its participants at times act or speak in ways that can impact on others negatively. We have and do reflect on this, as individuals and as leaders.

“It is for this reason Senator Wong wishes to place on record a response to specific claims regarding an exchange in a meeting with Senator Kitching.”

This related to a 2019 discussion in Labor about school children participating in civil disobedience at climate protests.

Kitching’s opposition to this brought the response from Wong who said “if you had children, you might understand why there is a climate emergency.”

In Friday’s statement, Wong said when the incident was publicly reported more than two years ago she had apologised to Kitching.

“Senator Wong understood that apology was accepted. The comments that have been reported do not reflect Senator Wong’s views, as those who know her would understand, and she deeply regrets pain these reports have caused,” the statement said.

While it will seem shocking to many people that all this is playing out even before Kitching’s funeral on Monday, it is also relevant that most of the information and claims being put forward are from Kitching’s friends.

Albanese has denounced the way the Kitching issue has been “politicalised”. He defended his senior Senate women, saying “politics is a really tough business”.

The latter observation is something Kitching would have understood extremely well. In the Victorian Labor party over the years she was one of the very tough players herself.

In the context of the battle between government and opposition, the internal Labor claims about how one of its women was treated reduce the scope for Labor to point fingers at the Liberals, who’ve had much trouble themselves on this front.

There have been calls for Albanese to launch an inquiry into the allegations. With the alleged victim dead, it is hard to see what this could achieve. And that’s leaving aside the political considerations, when Labor is weeks from the election.

There’s no doubt Kitching was subjected to harsh treatment by her party. Whether this is judged as “tough politics” or “bullying” is more complex, depending on who is doing the judging. It can be a fine, albeit very important, line between the two.

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

– ref. View from The Hill: Labor’s treatment of Kimberley Kitching – ‘tough politics’ or ‘bullying’? – https://theconversation.com/view-from-the-hill-labors-treatment-of-kimberley-kitching-tough-politics-or-bullying-179580

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anthony Zwi, Professor of Global Health and Development, UNSW Sydney

Reports earlier this week of Russian attacks and siege of a major hospital in the Ukraine city of Mariupol indicate a particularly bleak and dark phase of the war.

Sergei Orlov, the city’s deputy mayor, told the BBC how Russian forces had entered the building, preventing doctors and nurses from leaving. About 400 people had been effectively taken as “hostages”.

Health workers, operating from the basement of the hospital, were apparently trying to provide health services despite the dire situation.

This comes after attacks on a maternity hospital in the same city the previous week.

While these examples made headlines around the world, there have been many more attacks on health facilities and health workers since the start of the war.

The World Health Organization records 44 attacks on health facilities, health supplies, health workers or patients in Ukraine. Of those, 34 attacks have impacted health facilities. Violence with heavy weapons as well as abduction, arrest or detention of health staff are recorded. The list updates as more reports come in.

The effects of such attacks go far beyond the tragic loss of life. Destroyed infrastructure, inability to refer to other health facilities, diminished access to technology, equipment and drugs, and lack of power or fuel for generators affect how hospitals function under such circumstances.

Such attacks also undermine the morale of health professionals and community members. They deter people who need health care from accessing remaining services. People may feel unsafe leaving bomb shelters to seek care if hospitals become targets or are insecure.

Read more:
Putin puts international justice on trial – betting that the age of impunity will continue

These attacks are deliberate

Despite the legal protections afforded to health facilities in wartime under international law, we continue to see such attacks in many conflicts including Yemen, Syria, Afghanistan, Bosnia and Myanmar.

Given the sophistication of modern weaponry and laser-guided munitions, there are few who believe attacks on such facilities are “accidental”. Rather, history shows us they are part of a strategy of war and aim to achieve certain objectives.

In his book Killing Civilians: Method, Madness and Morality in War, UK academic and policy advisor Hugo Slim explores why parties to conflict might resort to such tactics.

He says this includes attempts to annihilate certain groups, efforts to demonstrate extreme power and to dominate and subjugate others, and/or to inflict revenge and collective punishment.

In some cases, he says such ruthlessness is strategic or tactical. Terror and atrocity magnify a party’s power and control. It also undermines the public’s morale, and trust in the reliability and safety of health services.

Australian academic Michael Humphrey, in his book The Politics of Atrocity and Reconciliation: From Terror to Trauma, says those who seek to terrify are willing to go to extremes to achieve their objectives, even if they may be committing war crimes.

Read more:
Ukraine: what the rules of war tell us about the deliberate targeting of civilians

This is what health workers face

Health workers in Ukraine are members of families and communities; they experience what the community experiences, but have additional stressors.

They are under pressure to serve their communities under physically and psychologically challenging circumstances. They are driven to provide care to those who need it; this may even include wounded enemy personnel.

This pressure mounts over extended periods of conflict, sieges and deteriorating conditions, exerting a heavy toll.

In situations of ongoing brutality and violence, morale will be undermined given the inability to deliver the quality of care they know is required and in normal circumstances they could deliver.

Exhaustion, lack of materials and back-up support, distress among colleagues and overwhelming needs will take a toll on even the strongest and most positive professionals.

Read more:
The challenges faced by doctors and nurses in conflict zones

How do we help?

First, these attacks must stop.

We also need to provide health workers with psychological and moral support. Where available, communication technologies from Zoom to WhatsApp would enable health workers access to skilled advisors and health consultants to help manage difficult conditions or resolve dilemmas.

Appreciating the importance of mental health care and self-care ought to be reinforced and supported. Strategies to reduce stress, get rest and debrief with colleagues will play a part. COVID has shown the importance of supporting health care workers this way. These challenges are intensified in periods of conflict.

Health workers need extra supplies of medicines and medical equipment, personal protective equipment, power generators and sterilisation equipment. Countries of the European Union, and other supportive authorities operating through the United Nations and non-government organisations, can help provide these when there are lulls in the conflict.

Unequivocal demands to end attacks on health-care facilities are crucial. These play some part in deterring perpetrators, educating community members, health professionals and armed forces.

Read more:
The International Court of Justice has ordered Russia to stop the war. What does this ruling mean?

We must document health workers’ stories and challenges. Efforts by the World Health Organization, International Committee of the Red Cross, a range of human rights organisations (such as Physicians for Human Rights and Human Rights Watch), researchers and academics can play a valuable role in documenting in real time the impact of conflict and violence on health, health personnel and health care.

Key will be prosecuting war crimes and crimes against humanity – for which detailed evidence and documentation will be required.

We also need independent, robust and transparent investigations into attacks on hospitals to facilitate such prosecutions. Trusted health agencies, human rights organisations, and health researchers in and outside Ukraine should assist.

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

– ref. Attacks on Ukraine’s hospitals are deliberate and brutal. The world must respond to these acts of terror – https://theconversation.com/attacks-on-ukraines-hospitals-are-deliberate-and-brutal-the-world-must-respond-to-these-acts-of-terror-179374

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

University of Canberra Professorial Fellow Michelle Grattan and Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Change Governance Dr Lain Dare discuss the week in politics.

With Anthony Albanese drawing level with Scott Morrison as “better PM” in Newspoll, they canvass the PM’s ill-judged dig at the opposition leader over his ‘makeover’, and Morrison’s attempt to make WA Premier Mark McGowan his new best friend while campaigning in Western Australia.

They also discuss the priorities for the March 29 budget that Josh Frydenberg has outlined – some targeted help on the cost of living and an attack on the nation’s debt.

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

– ref. VIDEO: Campaigning in WA, Morrison distinguishes good Labor from bad Labor – https://theconversation.com/video-campaigning-in-wa-morrison-distinguishes-good-labor-from-bad-labor-179555

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Philip Britton, Senior lecturer, Child and Adolescent Health, University of Sydney

Australia is dealing with its first-ever major Japanese Encephalitis outbreak.

Japanese Encephalitis is the most severe form of disease caused by Japanese encephalitis virus (JEV). The disease is being found for the first time in southern areas of Australia, spreading through piggeries in Victoria, South Australia, New South Wales and also Queensland.

There have been 20 confirmed cases in humans so far, and two people have died.

Around 99% of people infected with JEV will have no or very mild symptoms. But in less than 1% of cases, it can become serious.

Read more:
Japanese encephalitis virus has been detected in Australian pigs. Can mozzies now spread it to humans?

What is Japanese Encephalitis?

JEV is an infection that can be transmitted to people if they are bitten by a mosquito carrying the virus. It can’t be transmitted from person to person.

Mosquitoes become infected if they bite an infected bird in the wild (usually wetland wading birds) or an infected mammal such as a pig.

Pigs are the greatest risk as a source of infection to people because they get very high levels of the virus in their blood when infected. Mosquitoes bite infected pigs, and then bite humans, infecting us.

But people don’t get infection directly from interacting with pigs or eating pork, because JEV is transmitted by mosquitoes.

Encephalitis means inflammation of the brain, and myelitis means inflammation of the spinal cord. This inflammation of the brain or spinal cord is most often triggered by an infection. JEV is the leading infection that causes encephalitis in South and East Asia, causing approximately 50-70,000 cases of encephalitis and around 15-20,000 deaths each year.

There are many other infectious causes of encephalitis. The specific features of the disease depend on the cause, but these features often overlap. Diagnosis of a specific cause can require testing of multiple samples on repeated occasions.

Diagnosis of JEV encephalitis requires direct detection of the virus by “PCR” test in blood or in the fluid surrounding the brain or spinal cord, which is sampled from the lower back.

Or, it can be detected through the body’s response to the virus by testing for immune proteins (called antibodies) in the blood or in the fluid surrounding the brain or spinal cord.

What does JEV do to your body?

If a person is bitten by an infected mosquito, the virus is injected into the skin. The first cycle of replication then begins inside our skin cells.

The virus is then transferred to the local lymph glands, for example, under the arm or in the neck. This process lasts around a week. The infection can be stopped by our immune system at this point.

A second cycle of replication may result in the virus being spread through our blood stream. Again, the virus can be stopped by our immune system in this phase, but this phase may be associated with symptoms like fever, rash, aches and pains, vomiting or diarrhoea. This phase lasts around one to four days.

When JEV spreads in the bloodstream, the virus can cross into the brain or spinal cord. This happens in less than 1% of infections, but if it does, JEV efficiently replicates in the brain and spinal cord.

The virus itself, and the inflammation that results, alter the functioning of the brain and spinal cord, often irreversibly.

The key symptoms include:

• fever

• headache

• confusion

• seizures or fits

• and limb weakness.

Inflammation also leads to swelling, and swelling of the brain in the enclosed skull can lead to death.

All forms of encephalitis can be severe and result in brain injury, but JEV has shown itself to be one of the more severe forms, and potentially more severe in young children than in adults. For the 1% of people where JEV infection develops into encephalitis, it causes death in around 20% of cases, and around half of survivors will have some kind of neurological disability.

What should I do if I think I’ve been exposed?

Exposure to mosquitoes in and around those parts of NSW with large pig populations is the main risk, although at present only a relatively small number of cases have been identified in Australia.

If you think you have been exposed and have developed any of the symptoms, you need to see your doctor. If you or someone you know has the more severe symptoms of encephalitis, you need to seek urgent assessment.

Read more:
Japanese encephalitis virus has been detected in Australian pigs. Can mozzies now spread it to humans?

Unfortunately, there are no specific treatments that have proven effective in treating JEV. However, high-quality supportive care available in Australian hospitals does improve outcomes.

Prevention is better than cure. So, now’s the time to do what you can to avoid mosquito bites.

Also, there are effective vaccines. State and federal public health authorities are currently working on how these may be best used to control the current outbreak and prevent disease.

At the moment, the vaccine is free and has been prioritised for certain groups including people:

• who need to work at or visit piggeries or pork abbatoirs

• who work directly or indirectly with mosquitoes, such as environmental health workers

• lab workers who may be exposed to the virus.

Philip Britton receives funding from the Royal Australasian College of Physicians, Commonwealth and NSW departments of Health and US National Institutes of Health.

– ref. Japanese encephalitis virus can cause deadly brain swelling – but in less than 1% of cases – https://theconversation.com/japanese-encephalitis-virus-can-cause-deadly-brain-swelling-but-in-less-than-1-of-cases-178985

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Barbara Rugendyke, Adjunct Professor in Geography, Southern Cross University

The flood crisis in northern New South Wales has left lives shattered. Those worst affected are dazed and struggling to comprehend the loss of life, homes, livelihoods and possessions.

We are both residents of the hard-hit Lismore region, as well as researchers with skills in geography, community development and resilience. One of us, Jean Renouf, also works for Fire and Rescue NSW. We are both helping people devastated by the recent floods and its aftermath.

We’ve seen the heartbreak in Lismore first-hand. Shock and pain is evident in people’s eyes. The reality has hit that there’s no longer a coffee shop in the town centre, no pub, restaurant, hairdresser, clothing store, pharmacy or newsagent. Horror at the annihilation of the town they love is palpable.

There is also a strange feeling of déjà vu. The town struggled back to life after the flood of 2017. Now, people talk of leaving Lismore. As one business owner said:

I survived ten years here. I picked myself up and started again after the last flood. I simply haven’t got it in me to do it again.

So what will it take to rebuild Lismore? And how might the new town be more resilient?

A flood-weary town

Lismore sits on a vast flood plain beside the Wilsons River.

In the town’s early days, the river provided water and a transport route. Its fertile flood plains were ideal for food production and the river provided a major trade route for Lismore’s timber and farming industries.

Over the years, improvements in road transport and other services mean Lismore’s riverside CBD location has become less necessary.

Lismore is a town accustomed to floods, but the most recent flood was at least two metres higher than those previously recorded. Aboriginal elders, however, report “big floods” in the past topped Lismore’s cathedral hill, as this one did.

Climate change is expected to result in more frequent and intense rainfall, increasing the flood risk further.

Read more:
Under-resourced and undermined: as floods hit south-west Sydney, our research shows councils aren’t prepared

A techno-fix won’t work

Historically, engineered solutions have been introduced to reduce Lismore’s flood risk.

A one-in-ten year flood levee was built in 2005 to protect the CBD. However in 2017, water spilled over the levee and caused one of the most damaging floods this century.

When levees are topped, flood waters can rise rapidly and become trapped rather than draining away. Levees also give a false sense of safety to Lismore businesses.

Constructing buildings using specific materials and design can make them flood-resilient. But the contents cannot be flood-proofed or affordably insured.

Other engineering solutions have been proposed, including excavating river bends to speed up the exit of floodwater. But such measures can worsen flooding downstream and are unlikely to help during major floods.

Lismore residents are unlikely to support proposals for a new dam upstream, which would create environmental and social damage.

Lismore re-imagined

Clearly, Lismore urgently needs radical change – and that requires bold and creative land-use planning.

Key to a re-imagined Lismore would be a staged move of the CBD to higher ground.

One strategy would be to encourage land swaps, with Lismore City Council exchanging commercial land in the CBD for land on high ground (either land it currently owns or land it purchases). A well considered “structure plan” – used to manage growth and change – with careful rezoning could encourage changed land use and attract new commercial development.

Financial incentives could encourage owners of commercial premises to rebuild in safer locations. This could create new, smaller hubs for professional offices, a retail precinct or cultural activities.

Consideration should be given to locating multiple services on flood-free land owned by state or federal authorities. This might, for example, bring together emergency services, health services and government support offices.

Houses deemed unsafe should not be rebuilt in the same place. Housing blocks may need to be bought back by authorities. Where houses can be repaired, some may be relocated to higher ground.

Before this year’s floods, housing in Lismore was already in short supply. Creative planning could address this – perhaps allowing landholders to build tiny houses or granny flats on high ground.

During the recent floods, we saw police, SES and fire stations engulfed by floodwaters, rendering them inoperable. Emergency service bases located below maximum flood heights must urgently be relocated or adapted.

And what to do with the riverside land where the CBD sits now?

The riverine environment could be restored. Impervious surfaces such as asphalt and concrete could be replaced with regenerated bushland to slow water runoff.

Expansive parklands could replace commercial premises beside the river. This “green heart” could incorporate new facilities such as an ampitheatre and sports fields in areas less likely to flood, retaining some heritage buildings for public use.

If these sites did flood, they would be more easily restored afterwards than is the case for current commercial premises.

Read more:
Weather forecasts won’t save us – we must pre-empt monster floods years before they hit

A new town heart

This new Lismore will not be easily achieved. Significant public and private funds will be needed. It will take political will and, above all, community support.

This might all seem very hard, but towns have been fully or partially relocated for similar reasons in the past – most recently, at the Queensland town of Grantham.

Many Lismore people would love to live in a safer and more prosperous town with a new CBD and verdant riverside community precinct.

Such changes will encounter justifiable resistance, however, including from business and property owners in the CBD. Earlier this month, Lismore mayor Steve Krieg summed up the sentiment of some, telling the media:

Forty years ago people tried to [move Lismore] but what you have to understand is that Lismore people love Lismore. They don’t want it to move or be taken away from them.

However, the economic, social and emotional cost of this flood is incomprehensible. Residents and businesses are considering leaving Lismore for good.

This town with heart now needs a new heart.

Read more:
Scott Morrison’s tone-deaf leadership is the last thing traumatised flood victims need. Here are two ways he can do better

Jean S. Renouf is affiliated with Resilient Byron.

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

– ref. ‘I simply haven’t got it in me to do it again’: imagining a new heart for flood-stricken Lismore – https://theconversation.com/i-simply-havent-got-it-in-me-to-do-it-again-imagining-a-new-heart-for-flood-stricken-lismore-178982

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Paul McInerney, Research Scientist, CSIRO

Am I not pretty enough? This article is part of The Conversation’s series introducing you to Australia’s unloved animals that need our help.

For children growing up in rural areas, going “yabbying” in farm dams is a rite of passage. The common yabby (Cherax destructor) is the most widely distributed Australian crayfish, inhabiting rivers and wetlands across southeast Australia.

And although the humble yabby is not as cute and cuddly as some better-known Australian icons, from an ecosystem perspective, we argue they may be more important.

Yabbies are a staple food for platypus, many waterbird species, and fish such as Murray cod and golden perch. And yabbies’ diet is largely made up of algae, detritus (dead organic material) and small animals. This means they link energy from the very bottom of the food chain to apex predators at the top.

And yet, little is known how their diets influence their growth and alter their quality as a food source. Our recent research starts to fill this critical gap.

We found yabbies in wetlands are better food source for fish than those in rivers, because wetland yabbies eat more foods rich in high-quality fatty acids. While more research is needed, these results show how higher quality yabby diets can increase the total biomass of predators, such as Murray cod, that riverine ecosystems can support.

Untangling the food web

Food webs describe what eats what within ecological communities and provide a useful way to illustrate how energy moves through the environment.

But it’s more complex than big fish eats little fish. Within food webs, organisms can be lumped into two groups:

1. autotrophs: organisms that obtain energy from the sun via photosynthesis, such as plants
2. heterotrophs: organisms that obtain energy by eating other organisms, such as bacteria, fungi, and animals.

Algae fall in to the first group, providing a high-quality energy pathway in food webs because they can synthesise so-called “long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids”: omega 3 and omega 6.

If you grew up in the 1980s you’re probably familiar with the term “polyunsaturated fatty acids” from its association with margarine (though few probably understood its relevance back then). Today, we more often hear the term around seafood.

We’re encouraged to eat oily fish because of the omega 3 and omega 6 they provide, which the body needs for brain function and cell growth. We source these fatty acids from fish thanks to algae, which underpins many aquatic food webs. Fatty acids are essential for the growth of all animals, including yabbies.

The other primary energy source in freshwater comes from detritus – organic debris and decomposing material. In wetlands and rivers, detritus accumulates from falling leaves and branches along banks, which can be washed into rivers during high flows.

But while detritus is often abundant, it’s considered poorer quality because it’s difficult to digest and has low concentrations of some important fatty acids. And in food webs, poor quality food provides less bounce for the ounce, so to speak.

The yabby is an omniovore – algae, detritus and other animals are its food, but we know little about how these different energy sources affect yabby growth and survival – or how it might affect animals that rely on yabbies for food.

You are what you eat

Our research investigated how different quality fatty acid diets affected yabby growth, and how this might influence other animals up the food chain.

We found yabbies fed poor quality diets in the laboratory, made up of only dead plant matter, barely grew at all. These yabbies also represented a poor-quality food resource for predators.

In contrast, yabbies fed mixed diets rich in high quality polyunsaturated fatty acids grew the most – more than doubling in mass over a 70-day trial. They also retained higher concentrations of these fatty acids in their body tissue, making them a good food resource for other animals.

Yabbies are tough. They’re well adapted to Australia’s extremes, capable of surviving dry conditions by lying dormant in burrows dug in dried waterways. During wetter periods, they can travel long distances in search of a new home – usually wetlands or rivers.

So how might their environment affect their diet? We found wild yabbies that live in wetland habitats ate foods with higher concentrations of these fatty acids compared to yabbies that live in rivers.

And as with our laboratory fed yabbies, wild wetland yabbies eating high quality foods also represented a better food option for fish than riverine yabbies. This is likely due to wetlands containing a higher proportion of diatoms (single-celled algae) and green algae, which both synthesise long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids.

What does this mean for freshwater ecosystems?

Australia’s floodplain rivers are dynamic. Wet periods with high flows connect rivers to wetlands that lie on the floodplain. In dry periods with low flows, this connection is interrupted, leaving wetlands on floodplains isolated, sometimes even drying out completely.

Connectivity between rivers and their floodplain is important for many reasons. It provides habitat and breeding opportunities for birds and fish, revitalises plants, and an exchange of nutrients.

Water in the Murray-Darling Basin is shared between irrigators, municipal water supply and the environment, and is largley regulated with infrastructure such as dams and weirs.

Read more:
We looked at 35 years of rainfall and learnt how droughts start in the Murray-Darling Basin

Our research is an example of the many benefits that come with ensuring we have adequate water for the environment. Our work shows that an important aspect of connection is to allow riverine predators access to high quality food resources – yabbies – in floodplain wetlands.

If yabbies are thriving and passing essential fatty acids up the food chain, populations of popular recreational fish, such as Murray cod and golden perch, will benefit accordingly.

It’s critical we improve our understanding of these complex relationships. This includes recognising other drivers of riverine population success such as competition, habitat, life history traits and spawning cues, to ensure Australia’s riverine animals can thrive.

Read more:
Leaf oysters: the unsung heroes of estuaries are disappearing, and we know almost nothing about them

Paul McInerney receives funding from the Murray-Darling Basin Authority and the Commonwealth Environmental Water Office

Gavin Rees receives funding from the Murray-Darling Basin Authority and Commonwealth Environmental Water Office

– ref. It may not be cute, but here’s why the humble yabby deserves your love – https://theconversation.com/it-may-not-be-cute-but-heres-why-the-humble-yabby-deserves-your-love-175910

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Marnie Lloydd, Lecturer in Law and Associate-Director New Zealand Centre for Public Law, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington

News that a New Zealand army veteran is already in Ukraine helping train civilian fighters, and more are planning to travel to the war zone, raises important questions about what is lawful and what the risks of such actions might be.

As the number of volunteers for the International Legion for the Defense of Ukraine rises to a reported 20,000 from over 50 countries, how does New Zealand respond?

Firstly, there is a difference between “foreign enlistment”, where someone joins another country’s armed forces, and what is often called “foreign fighting”, where someone takes up arms as an individual or volunteer in a group.

Foreign enlistment generally poses little problem. Its lawfulness depends on the domestic law of the person’s home country (does it allow citizens to fight for another country’s armed forces?) and the law of the destination country – for instance, does it allow non-citizens to enlist?

New Zealand does not generally prevent people joining another country’s military. In Ukraine, a 2016 presidential decree made it possible for non-Ukrainian citizens to enlist in Ukraine’s armed forces, and in February this year it was announced the International Legion will form part of the nation’s armed forces.

In contrast to foreign enlistment, application of the law to foreign fighting – both internationally and domestically – has always been guided by the nature and context of the conflict, and has varied depending on what was at stake in different political moments in history.

Few barriers to volunteering

In New Zealand, mercenary activities are prohibited – but the law’s definition of a mercenary is relatively limited. Criteria include that a person must be motivated by private gain and be paid substantially more than local soldiers.

New Zealand’s terrorism suppression laws are also relevant to foreign fighting, but these only apply if the person engages in terrorism.

Apart from these two categories, there is no specific law governing foreign fighting, and therefore nothing that prevents someone from volunteering to fight in Ukraine.

Read more:
What does it mean to be ‘neutral’ over Ukraine – and what responsibilities come with it?

This is in line with international legal provisions, which likewise do not explicitly prohibit “foreign fighting” in a general way, and different countries’ laws vary in their permissiveness.

Even if New Zealand has not taken stronger legislative steps to prevent volunteer fighting more generally, its government is certainly not encouraging it. New Zealand has advised against travel to Ukraine, and may not be able to provide consular assistance to citizens who choose to fight there.

Danger on all sides

Under the laws of war, someone fighting in Ukraine can be targeted by the other side. If they act only as a medic or first responder, they remain protected from direct targeting, but are nevertheless put at great risk of incidental harm.

Russia has also reportedly threatened to treat foreigners fighting in Ukraine as mercenaries and to refuse them prisoner of war status. Even if this is legally wrong, captured foreigners risk prosecution or worse by Russia.

Read more:
Boycotting Russian products might feel right, but can individual consumers really make a difference?

War can also attract all sorts. There have been volunteers fighting on both sides in Ukraine since 2014, with both also claiming a heritage to the international brigades of the Spanish Civil War. Some of those foreign volunteer fighters in Ukraine have reportedly held right-wing extremist views.

There are also concerns that the experience of war may see volunteers bring violence back to their home country, as well as suffering long-term injury or other trauma.

Crucially, anyone fighting in Ukraine must follow international humanitarian law, including the Geneva Conventions. This requires respect for and protection of civilian populations, places such as hospitals, cultural property, neutral humanitarian workers and others protected by the laws of war (such as captured soldiers).

Risk of war crimes

People fighting without adequate military training – including in the rules of war – is a major concern. Despite good intentions or bravery, war crimes can be committed. Civilians, who are already bearing the brunt of the conflict, or other people protected by the laws of war, may end up being harmed.

In other words, foreign volunteer fighting can escalate and complicate a situation, and they could be prosecuted for the commission of war crimes upon their return to New Zealand. Because of its commitment to the Geneva Conventions, New Zealand is obliged to ensure respect for the laws of war in whatever feasible way it can.

New Zealand Defence Force soldiers are trained in the laws of war, so former military personnel volunteering may be of less concern. The same may apply where people are fighting as part of state armed forces, where command and control structures will be in place.

Read more:
Beyond sanctions: 5 more ways New Zealand can help support Ukraine and punish Russia

However, as Australia’s Brereton Report showed, even highly trained soldiers can become involved in alleged crimes amidst the heat and tragedy of war.

Thinkers like writer George Orwell and philosopher Simone Weil, who were both volunteer fighters in the Spanish Civil War, warned about the way war sees even those on the “good” side committing violence and abuse.

All these factors should give governments pause for thought. Even if we feel solidarity with a cause, we may feel torn by the idea of individuals taking up arms on their own prerogative, especially when there are other, non-violent alternatives.

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

– ref. There is little to stop New Zealanders leaving to fight in Ukraine – but few legal protections if they do – https://theconversation.com/there-is-little-to-stop-new-zealanders-leaving-to-fight-in-ukraine-but-few-legal-protections-if-they-do-179558

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Flavio Macau, Associate Dean Teaching & Learning, Edith Cowan University

Russia’s first McDonald’s store in opened in 1990, just months after the fall of the Berlin Wall. It was a potent symbol that the Cold War was ending and a great ideological wound healing.

Now every McDonald’s in Russia is closed, as nations and corporations reduce, suspend or sever ties in response to the invasion of Ukraine.

The scale of economic sanctions imposed on Russia are unprecedented. It has been suggested this conflict could be remaking the world order, with Russia choosing territorial hegemony over global trade. As Craig Fuller, the chief executive of supply-chain information service Freightwaves, has put it:

If the Russia-Ukraine conflict’s international ramifications keep spreading, we face a real possibility of a bifurcating global economy, in which geopolitical alliances, energy and food flows, currency systems and trade lanes could split.

This is likely to be an exaggeration. Nonetheless shock waves are spreading through already battered supply chains. In this article I’m going to focus on three elements – energy, food and trade lanes.

Energy exports still flowing

Fears over Russia’s huge fossil fuels export being interrupted has led to global oil and gas prices spiking. Oil tanker freight rates have tripled as ship owners weigh the risk of being stuck with cargo they can’t offload.

So far, though, there has been no significant disruption to Russia’s exports. The US and UK (and Australia) are banning all imports of Russian oil, but these are not significant markets (and the UK timeline to end imports is by the end of 2022).

More important is what European Union nations do, given their high dependence on both Russian oil and gas. So far the EU has imposed financial sanctions on Russian energy producers while still buying their product.

Moving away from Russian oil is not easy. Russia has a 12% global share, and global refineries are fine-tunned to work with specific types of oil found in specific regions. Where possible, reducing production to change the oil mix that goes in takes weeks and require changes in equipment. Severing ties with Russian oil may not be an option in the short-term.

Replacing Russian gas is even more challenging. The European Union takes more than 40% of its gas imports from Russia. Pipelines like Nord Stream, connecting Russia to Germany, are unmatched. Sea transportation is limited. If oil tankers are oversized tin cans, LNG carriers are super-cooled cryogenic tanks that keep the gas liquefied at minus 160℃ degrees (-260℉). There are few players in this game, with the volume of gas transported globally about 0.1% that of oil.

Food supplies

In 2020 Russia and Ukraine accounted for 25.6% of global wheat exports (Russia 17.6%, Ukraine 8%), 23.9% of global barley exports (Russia 12.1%, Ukraine 11.8%) and 14% of global corn exports (Ukraine 13.2%, Russia 1.1%).

With higher energy prices also driving up food prices, the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization has raised the alarm overfood security in Africa and the Middle East.

À lire aussi :
Russia’s war on Ukraine is driving up wheat prices and threatens global supplies of bread, meat and eggs

Ukraine’s exports have all but stopped. No one knows for sure how much its next harvest will be affected. Fertilisers, pesticides and fuel are scarce. Men are being summoned to join the fight. Farm supplies are redirected to besieged cities and to the army. The remaining trade routes to the west are threatened.

Russia has temporarily banned grain exports to its former Soviet Union neighbours. Along with these self-imposed restrictions, its Ministry of Industry and Trade has also “recommended” halting fertiliser exports.

Russia is the world’s biggest producer of ammonium nitrate, accounting for about a third of global exports. This will have knock-on effects for other major grain exporters such as Brazil, which imports about 85% of its fertilisers, mostly from Russia.

À lire aussi :
Ukraine: how the global fertiliser shortage is going to affect food

Trade lanes

The 27 nations of the European Union, the United States and Canada have closed their airspace to Russian planes. Russia in return has closed its airspace to 36 nations. This has consequences for transport costs.

Going around Russia, the largest country in the world with 11% of its land mass, is not trivial if you are flying from Asia to Europe. The cargo division of Germany’s flag carrier Lufthansa estimates doing so will reduce its airfreight capacity by about 10%. FedEx has added a war surcharge.

The war also has consequences for China’s new “Silk Road” to Europe, the world’s longest freight rail line, on which the nation has spent US$900 billion.

While China’s exports by rail are still tiny compared to shipping, they have been growing quickly. Rail routes helped alleviate the pressure on Chinese ports during the pandemic. These pressures have been building again with COVID outbreaks and hard lockdowns in port cities such as Tianjin, Shenzhen and Shanghai (the world’s largest port).

The main route from China to Europe goes through through Russia and Belarus. There is an alternative route to Turkey through Azerbaijan, Georgia and Kazakhstan but this is less established. China can also, of course, continue to use container ships. But a key geostrategic goal of its Belt and Road initiative is to secure trade routes safe from the US navy. This may dampen China’s enthusiasm for an extended conflict between Russia and the NATO nations.

The Russian invasion is a tragedy for the Ukrainian people, a challenge to European democracies, and a strong head wind to economic recovery everywhere. A potentially long conflict may be ahead of us. It is reshaping global supply chains, but for how long and by how much remains to be seen.

Flavio Macau is affiliated with the Australasian Supply Chain Institute (ASCI)

– ref. Battered but not broken: how global trade is responding to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – https://theconversation.com/battered-but-not-broken-how-global-trade-is-responding-to-russias-invasion-of-ukraine-179001

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Maartje Abbenhuis, Professor of History, University of Auckland

There’s a popular cartoon by Tom Toro that’s been doing the social media rounds since 2012, in which two historians sit in a book-lined library as one complains:

Those who don’t study history are doomed to repeat it. Yet those who do study history are doomed to stand by helplessly while everyone else repeats it.

As a historian, I don’t much prescribe to the histoire se répète (history repeats itself) school of thought. No two moments are ever “the same”. Context changes everything – and the complexities of context are as important to understanding an event as the potential similarities with another moment in time.

I find many of the historical analogies being bandied about over the war in Ukraine banal. There is nothing to be gained from equating Putin with Hitler or likening Russia’s invasion of Ukraine with Germany’s invasion of Poland in 1939.

But what is useful in studying past wars is that they help us understand what aspects of a current crisis might be worth asking critical questions about.

In that sense, Toro’s cartoon is apposite, especially when it comes to interrogating our collective responsibility for the war in Ukraine and its victims. Is watching in horror as the war unfolds all we can do? What responsibilities do we have as non-belligerent “neutrals”?

Neutrals and non-belligerents

I’ve spent much of my academic career studying international systems and great power diplomacy, particularly in time of war. I’ve written several books about neutrality, peacemaking and avoiding war. My most recent (co-authored) title, Global War, Global Catastrophe, integrates the history of neutrals and non-belligerents into the global history of the first world war.

This research highlights the many ways in which governments and communities approach wars in which they’re not actively involved as belligerents. Neutrality is the formal term used for a state that chooses not to go war when other countries do.

While we rarely use the word “neutral” today to describe countries that are not fighting a war (preferring to reserve that term for non-aligned countries like Switzerland), in a legal sense everyone who remains non-belligerent in this conflict is neutral according to the laws of war.

Read more:
On the 3rd anniversary of the Christchurch attack, the Ukraine crisis asks the West to rethink its definitions of terrorism

Neutrals and non-belligerents feature in all international conflicts. Even in the age of collective security that evolved after 1918 and through the Cold War, there were always neutrals and non-aligned states.

But the world watching the war in Ukraine today is most akin to the 19th-century age of neutrality, when most wars were fought by a small number of states, while the rest opted out as neutrals, including many great powers.

Neutrality helped these wars stay localised and limited, preventing them turning into major conflicts involving more of the militarised world. Much like today, there were always more non-belligerents watching a war than belligerents fighting it.

Neutrality isn’t passive

This history reveals that neutrality was not (and cannot be) a value-neutral concept. Neutral countries and communities are never politically impartial or evenhanded in their response to a military conflict, even if they have legal obligations regarding the warring parties.

As such, sanctioning Russia and sending military equipment to Ukraine are not, on the face of it, anti-neutral acts – although they certainly send powerful messages to Russia about the limits of what the rest of the world will allow or endure over Ukraine.

Read more:
‘I have a need’: How Zelenskyy’s plea to Congress emphasized shared identity with US

As in the past, neutral countries and non-belligerent organisations and communities often take on a range of key responsibilities and actions to help alleviate the suffering of a war or bring it to an early close.

Neutral governments are often the mediators and arbitrators of international crises and offer safe spaces for the warring parties to negotiate a solution. They also offer humanitarian support for the victims of war, including front-line medical care and havens for refugees.

And since all wars are also information wars, independent media sources play an influential role: unmasking the extreme violence of war, establishing how the watching world understands what the war is about, and determining which belligerent is perceived as being on the side of “right”.

Neutrality and ending war

Neutrals, then, actively determine what is at stake in a war. Winning the “hearts and minds” of the people watching as non-belligerents is therefore vitally important to the warring parties.

At the moment, Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, is doing an exceptional job of influencing the watching world’s expectations and framing what the invasion of Ukraine is about. He needs that global support to help set the terms of any peace negotiations with Russia.

Historians of warfare almost always fixate on the actions of those actually doing the fighting or falling victim to the violence of a war. Today, too, we seem fixated on understanding Russia and Putin and on explaining why Ukraine is so important.

Read more:
Ukraine: Putin isn’t mad – he’s following a long-established great power playbook for conquest

But it’s as important to ask questions about the responsibilities and actions of the neutral and non-belligerent world – those of us watching the war unfold in real time – as it is to interrogate those of any warring parties.

Just as in the 19th century, neutral parties have a massive role to play in the conduct, outcome and terms of this war. Their assessments will help to determine how we understand the conflict in years to come.

Alongside asking serious questions about why Russia invaded Ukraine, we should therefore also train our mirrors on ourselves as non-belligerents. How are we shaping the contours of this conflict? How are we responding to it? Where are our responsibilities to bring its suffering to a successful and speedy close?

Maartje Abbenhuis receives funding from the Royal Society of New Zealand Marsden Fund and Waipapa Taumata Rau University of Auckland.

– ref. What does it mean to be ‘neutral’ over Ukraine – and what responsibilities come with it? – https://theconversation.com/what-does-it-mean-to-be-neutral-over-ukraine-and-what-responsibilities-come-with-it-179457

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stuart McFarlane, Researcher, Auditory Perception and Cognition, RMIT University

With the return to office work – and no longer being able to roll out of bed and straight into a Zoom meeting – many of us will be waking up earlier to beat the morning rush. So it’s important to ensure we’re on top of our alarm game.

But what type of alarm provides peak alertness upon waking? Pythagoras posited this same question in around 500 BCE. He believed specific songs – melodies that roused the energies – had the ability to counteract the drowsiness waking may bring.

And he appears to have had a point. Research has now shown certain alarm sounds can indeed enhance our alertness upon waking.

In particular, alarms that have the qualities of “tunefulness” (think ABC by The Jackson 5) have melodies that energise the listener, and are great for effective waking.

But to understand why this is the case, we first need to understand how our brains respond to complex stimuli when moving out of the sleep state.

Waking up right is important

Waking up groggy never feels right. And how we wake up can not only affect our mood and the day’s outlook, but also our cognition and mental performance.

In some instances, grogginess after waking has the potential to be dangerous several hours later, by reducing our performance in critical decision-making (such as in health settings, emergency responses, security or while driving).

This cognitive state of reduced alertness is referred to as “sleep inertia”. It’s a growing concern as it can have serious consequences while performing high-risk tasks, including driving.

How does the brain wake up?

Transitioning from sleep to alertness does not follow an on/off switch-like system, as brain imaging techniques have revealed.

Waking relies on complex biological processes, including increased blood flow allocation to the brain. Studies show the brain regions important for alert performance (the prefrontal cortical regions) take longer to “start-up” than other areas (such as the basal ganglia) which are important for arousal. This means you can be awake, but not quite with it.

Research has also shown blood flow activity within the brain to be diminished after waking, in comparison to the pre-sleep state. Thus, alert wakefulness may in part require mechanisms that encourage a redistribution of blood flow to the brain – something certain types of sound and music can do.

Another factor that influences alertness upon waking is the stage of sleep at the time. You’re less likely to feel groggy if you wake up from a light sleep, compared to a deeper slow-wave or REM sleep.

A light sleep stage is characterised by Theta wave frequencies (as measured from the brain’s electrical activity) and can be associated with feeling drowsy. In this sleep stage, arousal from external stimuli such as an alarm can quickly draw a person out of sleep.

Conversely, deep sleep or slow-wave sleep consists of Delta wave frequencies, which are associated with unconsciousness. This is the more challenging sleep stage to fully wake up from.

Alarm effectiveness also depends on age. Young adults aged 18 to 25 need louder alarms than older people, and preteens need an even greater threshold than young adults. You may require an alarm as much as 20 decibels louder at 18 than you would at 80.

Read more:
Why do kids hate going to sleep, while adults usually love it?

Is sound frequency and tune important?

But when it comes to choosing an alarm, what exactly is the best choice? A growing body of evidence suggests different alarm sounds can positively influence human performance after waking.

Our systematic review published in 2020 showed temporal frequencies (the pitch of the sound as measured in Hertz) around 500 Hz are better at arousing young children than 2000+ Hz varieties.

We lack research to say whether this also applies to adults, but it’s assumed the same alarm types would be beneficial.

Voice notifications such as a person yelling “wake up!” work better than higher frequencies. However, they are not as effective as 500 Hz tonal beeping alarms – similar to those preinstalled in most mobile phones.

Our research also explores how qualities of music, and specifically melody, play a role in encouraging alert wakefulness. We found that the way in which people interpret their alarms “tunefulness” also reflects how groggy they feel after waking.

Here, people who use alarms that carry a tune they will readily hum along to will experience less grogginess than those with a standard “beeping” alarm.

With this in mind, we developed a custom rhythmic melody that led to significantly better performance upon and after waking, when compared to standard beeping alarms.

Other studies have also found popular music (which can be interpreted as being melodic) is good to counteract sleep inertia after a short nap, and even more yet if it is music the listener personally enjoys.

What can I do to improve my waking alarm?

What does all this mean for the day-to-day? Well, given all of the above, we believe the perfect alarm must sound something like this:

• it has a a melody you can easily sing or hum along to
• it has a dominant frequency around 500 Hz, or in the key of C5 and
• it is not too fast or too slow (100 – 120 beats per minute is ideal).

Also remember the alarm must be louder for younger people (or for particularly deep sleepers).

If we consider the default alarms available on our devices, much more work is needed – especially since research in this area is relatively new. Hence, we suspect the availability of custom alarm downloads will increase with time.

Most pre-loaded alarms at the appropriate loudness will wake you, but specific designs (such as the one above) have been modelled on the latest research to not only encourage arousal, but also provide increased alertness.

Read more:
Snooze blues? How using your favourite song as an alarm can help you wake up more alert

Stuart McFarlane has received funding from the Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship.

Adrian Dyer receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

– ref. Is there such a thing as the perfect alarm tone? We think so (and this is what it might sound like) – https://theconversation.com/is-there-such-a-thing-as-the-perfect-alarm-tone-we-think-so-and-this-is-what-it-might-sound-like-178902

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amy Maguire, Associate Professor in Human Rights and International Law, University of Newcastle

Russia’s war on Ukraine is driving some of the most rapid movement of refugees ever seen. Its invasion and increasingly intense bombardment is generating a dire humanitarian crisis. Over 3 million people have fled across borders to Poland and other surrounding countries since February 24.

Ukraine has accused Russia of blocking and bombarding a humanitarian escape corridor. It also claims Russia is holding 400 patients and staff hostage in a Mariupol hospital.

The scale of the exodus from Ukraine would be even greater if its government had not banned the departure of men aged 18-60.

Read more:
Why banning men from leaving Ukraine violates their human rights

Ukraine’s departure ban

I (Maguire) wrote about this ban earlier this month, noting it violates the right of conscientious objection to military service. It places Ukrainian women, many fleeing with children, under great strain. It also raises important strategic questions for Ukraine’s self-defence.

Since my earlier article, I have heard from two men in Ukraine who feel trapped by the ban and do not want to fight. One reports he is trapped between the approaching Russian army and the Ukrainian border service.

Another says he is hiding with relatives who are buying food for him. By order of the Lviv mayor, he says he is required to report for military service, but he cannot imagine using a weapon against another person. He says very few men are excused from service – only those with three or more children or severe health conditions.

I have also heard from three men who fear for their partners – gay men unable to flee Ukraine. These correspondents have asked me what organisations can help their partners to escape, because they fear persecution as Russian forces advance.

Ukraine’s departure ban heightens humanitarian risks

The UN Refugee Agency estimates four million people could flee Ukraine. But millions more are already displaced internally, and the western regions of the country are being overwhelmed.

One of my correspondents describes the situation in a small town near Lviv:

Ukraine’s current border policy is a major contributor to an ongoing humanitarian catastrophe. Millions of people are fleeing into west Ukrainian regions that are still relatively safe, but those regions simply can’t accommodate every fleeing person. The housing and other basic needs are getting less affordable and accessible, tents are now being erected to house people in Lviv, and the situation might only worsen, as Russian occupation of the country progresses and more people are displaced.

This man told me many families, including his own, do not want to separate and leave service-age men behind.

International human rights and humanitarian law confirm the right of all families – as the natural group units of society – to unity.

A children’s rights crisis

The ban on men leaving Ukraine should be lifted. But even if more people could escape from Ukraine, many will remain trapped and subject to humanitarian and rights violations resulting from Russia’s aggression.

As the fighting rages, Ukrainian children are particularly vulnerable.

There are 7.5 million children among Ukraine’s population of 44 million. Over 1.5 million children are among those who have fled across national borders – almost one new child refugee every second. As the departure ban on men aged 18-60 persists, the vast majority of children are travelling with their mothers, many of whom fear this separation will be permanent.

The number of separated child refugees without any family support also continues to rise in what has been termed an “escalating child protection crisis”. There are significant concerns for the safety of these children. In the absence of any family support, they are at a heightened risk of threats including homelessness, violence, abuse, sexual exploitation and human trafficking.

There are also serious and immediate concerns for the safety and well-being of the children who remain in Ukraine. The recent bombing of a children’s and maternity hospital in Mariupol serves as one of the most shocking and brutal examples of Russia’s war crimes against vulnerable people, including pregnant women and newborn babies.

Read more:
Remembering the past, looking to the future: how the war in Ukraine is changing Europe

Reports also suggest access to aid and evacuation corridors has been cut off. This has left millions of people without basic supplies including medicine, power and communication. Children have been unable to enjoy their right to education as schools and kindergarten buildings come under attack.

Children with disabilities are particularly vulnerable. A significant number live in residential care facilities and may be unable to flee due to their health conditions. Ukraine has an extensive network of institutional care settings, with an estimated 1.3% of all children living in out-of-home care – one of the highest rates in Europe.

As civilian buildings and infrastructure such as apartments, hospitals and schools come under increased attack, many Ukrainians are forced to seek shelter, often for hours on end, in nearby bomb shelters. The right of access to safety and shelter may not be available for those with disabilities who cannot relocate easily or quickly. Many shelters are also inaccessible to people with physical disabilities, and information on emergency evacuation protocols is not available in accessible formats.

The human rights implications of the war are incalculable, especially for children and vulnerable people. Children have the right to live with their families, the right to shelter, to be educated, to receive adequate health care and to be free from all forms of violence and abuse. The scale of the war and the atrocities inflicted by Russia will have a lifelong impact on all Ukrainian people, not least on the most vulnerable.

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

– ref. Russia’s bombardment and Ukraine’s departure ban leave children and those with disabilities most vulnerable – https://theconversation.com/russias-bombardment-and-ukraines-departure-ban-leave-children-and-those-with-disabilities-most-vulnerable-178991

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Pye, Associate Professor, School of Engineering, ANU, Australian National University

Australia is the world’s number one exporter of both iron ore and metallurgical coal, the key ingredients of traditional steel making. Together, these materials make up a very large part of Australia’s export income.

But as the world moves towards net-zero emissions by 2050, the conventional way of making steel, using coal to power a blast furnace, will come under question.

Iron and steel production, in total, account for close to 7% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. This is incompatible with a net-zero world economy, where residual emissions would need to be compensated through carbon dioxide uptake from the atmosphere. The mature technology of coal-fired blast furnaces currently dominates the steel industry, generating 90% of its emissions.

For years, decarbonising steel production has been seen as particularly challenging. But now, alternatives to the centuries-old practice of using coal to produce iron and steel are emerging. Researchers have been working on a number of new pathways to make steel with little or no emissions. The most promising process relying on the use of hydrogen.

Our new research shows the steel industry can develop and implement green steel production processes to contribute to the great decarbonisation effort needed. For Australia, this presents an enormous new opportunity to future-proof and expand our steel industry as the world acts on climate change.

How can we produce green steel?

To eliminate emissions from this sector, several things are needed. First, we must use steel efficiently in well-designed structures. Second, we must recover and recycle steel after use. Thirdly, we must find the best and most scalable processes to reduce and eventually eliminate the emissions produced when making new steel.

In Australia, there have been several recent efforts to improve steel production processes. Rio Tinto developed the HIsarna technology, which can cut emissions by up to 80% – as long as the carbon is captured and stored. Other emission reduction technologies have also been developed here, such as dry slag granulation, polymer injection technology and charcoal-based reduction. However these technologies cannot scale up to decarbonise all steel produced globally.

Are there other options? Yes. We’re beginning to see real world trials of advanced green steel technologies which can make emissions-free steel.

These techniques rely on hydrogen to strip oxygen molecules from iron ore to produce metallic iron. Frontrunners include hydrogen shaft furnaces like HYBRIT and fluidised-bed systems such as HYFOR. Both of these processes are undergoing testing in Europe.

We could even see the direct electrolysis of steel, using electric currents to strip off the oxygen, and avoid the need for hydrogen.

Read more:
‘Green steel’ is hailed as the next big thing in Australian industry. Here’s what the hype is all about

How quickly do we need green steel?

Australia has recently pledged a 2050 net-zero target.
Over the last two years, many of Australia’s major trading partners also made ambitious emission reduction pledges, including major iron ore buyers China, Japan and South Korea.

So how can the steel industry help? We examine five different decarbonisation scenarios in our recent paper. We found the only scenario compatible with keeping global warming to under 2℃ includes the aggressive development and adoption of green steel technologies.

This would mean ending the use of blast furnaces by 2060, maximising recycling of steel, as well as some transitional use of gas in direct-reduced iron making. Under this zero-carbon scenario, green steel technologies would take over by 2060.

In creating our scenarios, we relied only on existing technologies, rather than promising but still unproven technologies such as direct air capture and storage of carbon dioxide.

Here’s how Australia could benefit

Australia need not lose from the transition away from metallurgical coal.

More than 95% of all our iron ore comes from Western Australia’s Pilbara region, which also happens to have excellent solar resources. Our modelling suggests we could produce electricity from solar panels almost a third cheaper than some overseas industrial hubs.

So Australia could be well positioned to become a green steel producer, adding significant value to our exports.

The Pilbara could become a region where iron ore is mined, smelted into iron and possibly into steel without producing carbon dioxide, and shipped overseas. We could export intermediate products, such as pellets or hot-briquetted iron, or perhaps even finished steel.

Even if no green steel industrial operations develop in Australia, we will come up against a world shifting away from metallurgical coal.

Not only that, but we’ll have to make sure future green steel technologies can use Australian ores, or we risk losing market share. That’s because other major exporters have iron ores with different purity and chemistry, and it’s not clear yet how green steel processes will drive demand for different ores. It looks likely that low emissions steel will require high grade ore, but this is still an evolving area of research.

Read more:
Australians want industry, and they’d like it green. Steel is the place to start

Change is coming, like it or not. We need good policies in place now to ensure Australia can keep its major role in the global iron and steel supply chain.

We’ll need local research and development, international partnerships with leading technology producing and steel-consuming nations and government backing for the major investments required to establish a green iron or steel industry in Australia.

The world is changing rapidly. If we want to grasp the major opportunity presented by green steel, we must act now to explore the benefits of having iron ore mines, solar resources and ports close to each other.

John Pye receives funding from the Heavy Industry Low-Carbon Transition Cooperative Research Centre (HILTCRC) and the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA).

Alireza Rahbari receives funding from the Heavy Industry Low-Carbon Transition Cooperative Research Centre (HILTCRC) and the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA).

Emma Aisbett leads and has led research projects funded by a variety of funders. None present a conflict of interest on this topic

Frank Jotzo leads and has led research projects funded by a variety of funders. None present a conflict of interest on this topic.

Zsuzsanna Csereklyei received research funding by a variety of funders. None present a conflict of interest on this topic.

– ref. Red dirt, yellow sun, green steel: how Australia could benefit from a global shift to emissions-free steel – https://theconversation.com/red-dirt-yellow-sun-green-steel-how-australia-could-benefit-from-a-global-shift-to-emissions-free-steel-179286

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Marg Rogers, Senior Lecturer, Early Childhood Education, University of New England

The Australian Defence Force (ADF) is about to get a lot bigger. Defence Minister Peter Dutton has announced plans to expand the ADF by 18,000 members by 2040. This nearly 30% increase, the largest since the Vietnam War, will require not only a renewed focus on recruitment, but also on retaining current sailors, soldiers and aviators.

Families of these uniformed personnel will be crucial to the success of these efforts. The families of defence personnel, especially those with children, experience significant impacts as a result of their service. Our research has highlighted the experiences of young children and the pressures on defence families.

The increase in ADF personnel will require a major rethink of policies and procedures to protect the well-being and education of children in defence families. The ADF needs to become an employer of choice to retain these families as well as attract recruits with families. Our research findings offer some ideas that could inform the policy changes needed to achieve this boost to defence numbers.

Read more:
Government announces long-term boost to Australia’s defence numbers

Slaves to two greedy masters

Recruitment is challenging because the military is a “greedy institution” demanding great sacrifice from personnel and their families. Likewise, families are also “greedy institutions”, demanding enormous sacrifices from parents.

Defence families’ efforts to satisfy each master are doomed from the start and many personnel list “family reasons” when they leave.

Dutton acknowledged these issues last week:

“[W]e lose people at way too young an age after we’ve invested an enormous amount in them. I am very conscious of people being posted for two years, and their children being dragged from school to school. I’m conscious of the impact on predominantly mothers, wives, in that arrangement […]”

Read more:
‘Fit for service’: Why the ADF needs to move with society to retain the public trust

The kids are not alright

Key aspects of military life, like deployments and relocations, have a big impact on children. It can seem like children’s well-being, education and special needs are sacrificed to ADF members’ career needs. This includes compromising secure relationships with their early childhood educators and peers.

The impacts on children’s learning are severe because quality early education relies on interactions within secure relationships with educators.

Young children can struggle to understand the changes at home when they relocate, or a parent goes away on deployment or extended training. The trouble children have in understanding the demands of military service is clear in this exchange between two-year-old Emily, one of our research participants, and her mother:

“But where’s Dad?”

“Daddy’s gone on the plane, darling. Remember, we took Dad to the airport yesterday.” (Emily starts crying and throws herself on the ground.)

While deployment is challenging, reintegrating defence parents back into the family can be harder. In the same study, one mother said her coping strategy was to have a very relaxed style of parenting when her partner deployed. They ate when they were hungry and her son went to bed in front of the TV.

“I go to pieces in the last month again. We have to sort of prepare for him
coming home. […] Paul is like a military man. You know, routines. There are
mealtimes, he says what we are watching when the TV is on. […] There are bedtimes. So I say to Jack, ‘You know what we do now is just our thing. When Daddy gets home we have to do it his way.’ ”

Relocation and a parent coming and going from the house for lengthy training sessions and deployments mean many transitions for the household. During these times, children can experience regressions in learning and social, emotional and physical skills. This also increases parent’s fatigue and their ability to cope.

“Bethany (four years old) has […] trouble sleeping. She has slept in our bed every night except two, when Ule (sibling) came in. It is really tiring. She was fine before deployment.”

Read more:
How to support children whose parent works away for long periods

As they move between schools and states, school-aged children can miss whole units of learning, putting them on the back foot. This often leads to children acting out as they struggle to keep up and make friends. Rates of behavioural and emotional difficulties are higher in children from military families.

Children also suffer from disrupted social networks as a result of relocations. They lose their connection with community groups and miss out on extracurricular activities.

A lack of understanding among children’s peers and the general community can also be harmful. One participant’s older sibling had been teased at school when the class found out her parent had deployed, which increased fears for the parent’s safety:

“Your Dad’s gonna get shot! Ha ha!”

Recommendations

Drawing on research, this report recommends policies that safeguard families. One recommendation is that families with children only be relocated up to three times until their youngest child is 18.

Also recommended is a flexible model for deployment, with longer, less frequent deployments. That way, training episodes of the military personnel can be built into deployment to reduce disruptive transitions at home.

These recommendations would provide more opportunities for children and their families to plug into protective supports. Sources of support include educators, extended family, community and defence friends, counselling, health and family workers, social media groups and ADF supports. They could then create a buffer to help families during rough times.

Parents and educators have complained about the lack of resources to support young children from military families, and their educators. Recent funding has meant free research-based resources are now available to build resilience. These also include resources to assist children whose parents have sacrificed their health in service, and their family workers.

Acknowledging and respecting the incredible resilience and contribution of children and partners in defence families should be the starting point for the policy changes needed to boost defence.

Marg Rogers receives funding from The Ian Potter Foundation, University of New England and The Association of Graduates in Early Childhood Studies for the Early Childhood Defence Program project.

Amy Johnson receives funding from The Ian Potter Foundation, University of New England and The Association of Graduates in Early Childhood Studies for the Early Childhood Defence Program project. She has lived experience as a member of the ADF Reserves and the spouse of an ADF veteran.

– ref. A bigger defence force will affect more military families’ children – their well-being must be protected – https://theconversation.com/a-bigger-defence-force-will-affect-more-military-families-children-their-well-being-must-be-protected-179312

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Paul Burke, Professor, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University

Australia’s electricity system is on the road to becoming 100% renewable as coal-fired power stations close and wind and solar takes their place.

But as a proportion of electricity consumed domestically, it’s on the road to more than 100% renewable. That’s because renewable power set to be produced in Australia’s north could be exported in ways such as via subsea cables.

And if we get really serious about bringing down global emissions we will be doing much, much more.

In a newly-published study carried out as part of a multi-disciplinary team under the Zero-Carbon Energy for the Asia-Pacific project we analyse the potential for Australia to produce and export not only clean energy but also green value-added commodities, eliminating emissions that would have taken place elsewhere.

We find there is substantial scope for Australia to use its solar, wind and land endowments to become a major exporter of green electricity, green hydrogen, green ammonia, and green metals.

Australia’s exports are emission-intensive

Australia is the world’s largest exporter of coal and liquefied natural gas, mostly to countries in the Asia-Pacific. Each year, the emissions from overseas use of these fuels vastly exceed the total emissions from Australia itself.

Australia is also a major producer and exporter of other commodities that go on to be used in emissions-intensive ways in destination markets – among them iron ore, bauxite and alumina.

Read more:
Australia is in the box seat to power the world

The figure below shows our calculations of the “consequential emissions” associated with Australia’s exports of several key commodities.

To avoid double counting, coking coal is not shown. Its emissions are instead included in the emissions tied to the overseas use of Australian iron ore.

The consequential emissions associated with the key commodity exports shown below account for about 8.6% of total greenhouse gas emissions in the Asia-Pacific and about 4% of global emissions.

While importing countries are certainly not absolved from responsibility for emissions from use of Australian exports, the calculations show just how important Australia’s upstream role is.

Australia could export zero-carbon products and energy

To get an indication of the production possibilities, we calculated the land area and energy requirements for an indicative scenario in which Australia:

• exports the same quantity of energy in green electricity and hydrogen as it exports in thermal coal and liquefied natural gas.

• processes currently-exported iron ore, bauxite, and alumina into green steel and green aluminium for value-added export.

Using 2018–2019 data, we calculate that about 2% of Australia’s land mass would be needed for solar and wind farms. This is a large area, although small relative to the area currently dedicated to livestock grazing and other agricultural activities.

Read more:
Why Aboriginal people have little say over energy projects on their land

The energy requirement would also be large, involving about 7,000 terawatt-hours of solar and wind generation per annum – about 27 times Australia’s current electricity output and use.

Water would be needed for electrolysis to produce hydrogen. This could be largely based on desalination of seawater, an activity that would involve minimal additional energy requirements.

The best locations for mega-scale solar and wind farms for export commodities are commonly in arid or semi-arid areas outside the most productive agricultural zones, so negative implications for food supply could be avoided.

Land and electricity requirements under a zero-carbon export scenario

Key priorities include ensuring that the sustainable development opportunities for Indigenous communities from these projects are harnessed and protecting the natural environment.

Reducing the need for new coal mines and other fossil fuel projects would be a major environmental benefit.

There’s private sector interest

Australia is already a world-leader in the adoption of solar and wind power, and there is substantial private-sector interest in zero-carbon export opportunities.

Proposals for exports of solar electricity (Sun Cable), green hydrogen (including Fortescue Future Industries and the HyEnergy Project) and green ammonia (including the Asian Renewable Energy Hub, Western Green Energy Hub, and Yara Pilbara) are pointing the way.

The combined renewable electricity peak capacity for these projects alone (>100 GW) already exceeds Australia’s present electricity generating capacity by a considerable margin.

They are opportunities we should grab

Achieving the rates of investment required to realise our clean commodity export potential will require world-class policy.

In 2019 Australia released a National Hydrogen Strategy, and most states and territories have similar plans. The Technology Investment Roadmap, the Australian Renewable Energy Agency and the Clean Energy Finance Corporation are further examples of “green industrial policy” at work.

To facilitate access to premium markets, we need to ensure it is easy for new industries to prove that their production is clean. Australia is currently undertaking efforts to develop hydrogen certification.

Read more:
Morrison has embraced net-zero emissions – it’s time to walk the talk

International regulatory collaboration is essential. Negotiations for an Australia-Singapore Green Economy Agreement are a step in the right direction.

In October 2021 Australia announced a target of net-zero emissions by 2050.

Our research finds domestic emissions are only part of the story. Australia has an opportunity to contribute to global net-zero emissions via clean exports.

Paul Burke has led and worked on research projects funded by a variety of funders. None present a conflict of interest on this topic.

Emma Aisbett leads and has led research projects funded by a variety of funders. None present a conflict of interest on this topic

Ken Baldwin has led and worked on research projects funded by a variety of funders. None present a conflict of interest on this topic.

– ref. To really address climate change, Australia could make 27 times as much electricity and make it renewable – https://theconversation.com/to-really-address-climate-change-australia-could-make-27-times-as-much-electricity-and-make-it-renewable-179311

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Phoebe Macrossan, Lecturer in Screen Media, University of the Sunshine Coast

Netflix’s first ever Australian reality docu-soap series Byron Baes follows a bunch of young, beautiful Instagram influencers in NSW beachside town Byron Bay.

As a reality series it ticks all the boxes for compelling content: picturesque trendy location, young conventionally-attractive (and slightly self-absorbed) cast, and a revolving schedule of fancy parties, fashion shows, product launches and competing love interests that let emotions spill over.

Throw in a side of alternative health and wellness, crystals, and performative caring about the environment that comes with Bryon and you have a cringe-filled but binge-worthy watch.

But while the show might be an easy watch, it’s worth thinking about what exactly goes into that Instagram-perfect “reality” television.

The ordinary celebrity

Discovering the “ordinary” person behind the big movie star has always driven narratives of fame. This is why magazines run exclusive in-depth interviews with Nicole Kidman and ask about her marriage, kids and cake recipes – to give us the behind-the-scenes look at who she “really” is.

This has been happening since the Golden Age of Hollywood. During the first half of the 20th century, fan magazines worked with studios to provide upbeat coverage of Hollywood stars’ “ordinary” lifestyles, hairstyles and love lives.

In recent years, social media has encouraged everyday people to engage in celebrity practices online. Everyone who posts on Instagram is consciously aware of an audience, and curates their content for their followers in the same way a celebrity would for their fans.

Instagram influencers – like most of the cast of Byron Baes – have turned this into a business model. Influencers build a brand and a following (much is made of Jade’s 1.2 million Instagram followers) then get paid by companies for sponsored posts or collaborations.

Byron Bay is host to big movie stars like the Hemsworth brothers but is also now believed to have more social influencers per capita than any other town in Australia.

The fact that many Australian viewers will have visited Byron Bay (or at least know of it) and definitely know someone who can be a bit “extra” on Instagram adds another layer of familiarity.

Read more:
Friday essay: why there’s still something about Byron, beyond Insta influencers and beige linen

Crafting the narrative

Reality television is, as the name suggests, sold on the basis of being a representation of “reality”.

New forms of stardom and celebrity created in reality television and on social media rely on the performance of “authenticity”: the idea that somehow we are seeing “real” people and accessing their true authentic self.

In Byron Baes, this is helped along by the fact that a lot of these influencers are into wellness and spirituality – spheres where authenticity and being true to oneself are highly valued.

The fact is, of course, that Instagram and reality shows are just as manipulated, scripted and filtered as any fictional series or doctored photographic image.

Reality television constructs the illusion of authenticity through the idea it offers immediacy, intimacy and closeness. We often see reality television stars in extreme displays of emotion: losing their cool, rolling their eyes, bitching behind someone’s back, or confessing their secret love.

We are invited into their homes and businesses. We see photos of them as children, meet their parents and hear their struggles with bullying, loneliness and self-doubt.

The low-fi, offhand nature of the handheld camera footage and the direct one-on-one interviews where the cast speak directly to the camera calls on notions of the “real” associated with documentary genres. These one-on-ones are the show’s attempt to convince the audience these are genuine moments of real emotion behind the scenes – not staged for the camera.

But even the casting is an act of manipulation. There are types producers tend to cast: ones that cause drama and stir the pot (Alex, Jade); ones that bring energy, keep the story moving and are natural on camera (Jess, Nathan, Saskia); ones who are a little bit kooky and add flavour (Cai, Heather, Simba); villians (Elle) and heroes (Sarah) – and models (Elias) who just look really really good on camera.

Manipulating our perceptions

The beauty of reality television is that everything anyone says is captured on camera. When Elle denies calling Sarah fake, the series can conveniently cut back to the moment it happened.

Of course, this never happens in real life, so viewers delight in the delicious justice of a “real life” person being caught in a lie.

The producers can also manipulate our own perceptions of Elle by showing us one-on-one interviews where she describes herself as “one of the most generous, loving, open-hearted people that I know,” then follows up with “if someone dishonours me, I certainly wouldn’t want to be them.”

For viewers, while these manufactured conflict storylines make for dramatic content (there’s also a handy feud between Nathan and Elias over Sarah, and Jade and Alex over Instagram followers), the real appeal is in the illusion that these people are “just like us”.

Despite the community backlash during filming and mixed reviews, Netflix’s gamble on a Byron reality show paid off.

But while getting swept up in this “reality” it is worth remembering that, much like an Instagram filter, just because something is presented as real, it doesn’t mean it is “authentic” – a notion which is itself, just as constructed.

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

– ref. From cringe to binge: the ingredients that make Byron Baes compelling reality television – https://theconversation.com/from-cringe-to-binge-the-ingredients-that-make-byron-baes-compelling-reality-television-179284

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lauren Breen, Professor of Psychology, Curtin University

Last week marked the second anniversary of the World Health Organization’s declaration of a pandemic.

In these two years, over 5,500 Australians have died from COVID, and approximately 300,000 Australians have lost their lives in total.

Necessary public health protections have affected people’s access to dying loved ones, limited their participation in important rituals like funerals, and reduced the physical social support they would otherwise receive from friends and family.

Read more:
COVID pandemic 2nd anniversary: 3 things we got wrong, and 3 things to watch out for

More than half reporting problematic grief symptoms

Australia has seen relatively low numbers of COVID infections and deaths, particularly prior to recent months. So understanding the impact of COVID deaths on the people left behind has meant looking overseas.

As a member of The Pandemic Grief Project, I partnered with overseas researchers to survey people in the United States who had a person close to them die from COVID.

We found more than half (57%) of those surveyed reported problematic grief symptoms such as a change in identity, feelings of meaninglessness, and wishes to die, to a degree where psychological therapy would be advised.

Further, 70% of the sample coped with their loss using drugs or alcohol for at least several days in the past two weeks.

In our second study of people in the US who had a person close to them die from COVID, we found most of the participants reported high levels of symptoms of generalised anxiety (70%), depression (74%), problematic grief (66%) and impaired functioning in key areas of life such as work, leisure and family relationships (63%).

Deaths from COVID versus other causes

These studies couldn’t tell us whether grief from a COVID death might be different to deaths from other causes. So we designed our next study to answer this question.

We surveyed people in the US who had a person close to them die from any cause during the pandemic. Nearly three-quarters (72%) reported problematic grief symptoms and 77% reported functional impairment.

When we compared those bereaved by losing someone to COVID to those whose loss was from another cause, we found no differences in levels of problematic grief symptoms or functional impairment.

Further, the three groups (those bereaved by COVID, another natural cause, or a violent cause) reported levels of functional impairment equal to or greater than bereaved people who had problematic grief prior to the pandemic.

We concluded grief from deaths during COVID may warrant similar clinical concern as deaths from COVID.

What do these findings mean for Australia?

I’m part of team that designed a national study to answer this question. We aim to understand the grief experiences and support needs of people in Australia who have been bereaved from any cause during the COVID pandemic.

So far, more than 2,000 bereaved Australians have participated to tell us about their experiences of grieving, the support they needed, and the effects of COVID public health measures on their grief.

Early results suggest people who have lost a loved one during the pandemic are experiencing more grief, anxiety and depression than we would expect prior to the pandemic.

The study is open for recruitment until the end of March and you can access the survey here.

The team intends to develop a national bereavement action plan in coming months to help address grief support needs during the COVID pandemic and any future pandemics.

Read more:
Coping with loss: We need a national strategy to address grief beyond the coronavirus pandemic

Sustained struggles with grief

The international findings coupled with the preliminary Australian findings are a strong indicator that, as the pandemic continues, we’re likely to see sustained struggles with grief.

Bereaved people commonly seek support for their grief, yet my colleagues and I have found almost one-third report not receiving the support they would’ve liked. Research from the UK shows the pandemic has exacerbated this gap between support need and support received.

One reason for this gap is that all of us – individuals, health professionals and communities – need to be more grief literate. Grief literacy combines the knowledge of grief and loss, values of compassion and care, and skills to enable supportive action.

Read more:
As COVID-19 restrictions lift, grief literacy can help us support those around us

The pandemic has shown more than ever we must do more to understand and support grieving people, strengthen their supporters and boost collective well-being in the wake of everyday loss and large-scale disasters.

Lauren Breen works for Curtin University. She has received funding from Wellcome Trust, Medical Research Future Fund, Australian Research Council, Department of Health (Western Australia), Silver Chain, Royal Perth Hospital Medical Research Foundation, MND Research Institute of Australia, iCare Dust Diseases Board (New South Wales), Cancer Council (Western Australia). She is on the board of the Australian Centre for Grief and Bereavement and Lionheart Camp for Kids. She is the managing editor of Death Studies.

– ref. COVID has changed how we live, how we die, and how we grieve – https://theconversation.com/covid-has-changed-how-we-live-how-we-die-and-how-we-grieve-177731

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

The March 29 budget will contain “targeted and proportionate” help for families with cost of living pressures and move fiscal policy towards stabilising and reducing debt.

These are the messages in Treasurer Josh Frydenberg’s speech, released before its Friday delivery, laying out the priorities and fiscal setting of the budget, which will be a launch pad for the government’s campaign for the May election.

“The time for large scale, economy-wide emergency support is over,” Frydenberg says, pointing to where the government has already ended emergency measures and rejected requests for more support.

Fiscal settings “need to be normalised,” with the government moving to the next phase of its fiscal strategy.

Government sources stressed this doesn’t mean the government is planning to start cutting. Rather, they said, it aims to control new spending while continuing to grow the economy so there can be a steady then declining ratio of debt to GDP.

With the government under pressure over the cost of living, especially with the soaring of petrol prices, Frydenberg points to what it has done on power prices, child care and tax.

In the budget “there will be further measures to support families to meet the cost of living pressures, in a targeted and proportionate way”, he says.

His speech comes as unemployment fell to 4% in February, in figures released on Thursday. This is the equal lowest in 48 years.

“The Australian economy has recovered strongly and now has real momentum,” Frydenberg says.

“The initial phase of our fiscal strategy has delivered on its objective, with full employment in sight.” The budget “will show the fiscal dividend of this strong recovery.

“With our recovery well underway it is now time to move to the next phase of our fiscal strategy.

“This will see a focus on stabilising and then reducing debt as a share of the economy. Rebuilding our fiscal buffers without risking growth.”

Frydenberg says the budget “will confirm that this is the trajectory we are now on”.

The bottom line will show “substantial improvement”, he says, a result of more people in work and fewer on welfare.

Gross debt as a proportion of GDP will be forecast to peak lower than expected in the December budget update. It is projected to decline over the medium term.

“This is the fiscal dividend of a strong economy”.

Frydenberg stresses the uncertainties ahead, including the pandemic’s continued presence and the war in Europe which has heightened geopolitical risk and threatens global economic growth. Supply chains are strained, and energy prices and inflation are being driven up.

“As we saw entering this crisis, a strong budget and a strong economy put us in the best position to respond.

“That is why it is important to move to the next phase of our fiscal strategy, which will stabilise and reduce debt as a share of the economy”.

Frydenberg emphasises the need for the pace of fiscal consolidation to be gradual.

“It is about striking the right balance. A sharp and sudden tightening in the fiscal settings would likely be counterproductive, undermining the economic recovery and ultimately hurting the budget.”

He says Australia’s debt to GDP levels, even when they peak, will remain low by international standards. “Even as interest rates gradually rise, our debt servicing costs will remain manageable”.

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

– ref. Frydenberg targets budget at cost of living and attacking debt – https://theconversation.com/frydenberg-targets-budget-at-cost-of-living-and-attacking-debt-179487

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

Polls this week were once again music to Labor ears. Newspoll showed the opposition maintaining its strong election-winning margin. A poll in selected Western Australian seats had the Morrison government on the nose.

Polls, as everyone stresses, aren’t predictive – they register the mood of the moment. Nevertheless, and despite their unreliability in the last election, politicians and media take a lot of notice of them, and for Anthony Albanese their story is very positive.

So what could possibly go wrong on the opposition leader’s path to The Lodge? Plenty, as Labor knows, reinforced by that 2019 experience of false expectations. When voters really started concentrating during that campaign, they soured on the opposition.

Viewed from Labor’s campaign bunker, the weeks between now and election day in May are very high risk for Albanese, littered with both anticipated and unforeseeable hurdles.

There was a lesson this week in how damaging things can come out of the blue, when Albanese was confronted with (contested) allegations, reported in The Australian, that senior Labor women senators, including Penny Wong, had treated their colleague Kimberley Kitching badly.

While Kitching’s complaints had apparently circulated within Labor, it took her sudden death last week from a suspected heart attack for them to burst into the media.

The claims about Labor’s “mean girls” (the term the article said Kitching and her supporters used) were confronting when set against the background of a year’s debate about parliament house’s “toxic” culture.

Albanese and Labor generally sought to throw a blanket over the story, refusing to engage with it on the grounds of respect for Kitching. Scott Morrison tried to spur it along, saying these matters should be taken very seriously and addressed, and “I’ll leave that to the leader of the Labor Party”.

The so-called “mean girls” story will blow over, but it’s a reminder that in a campaign context (which is where we are, although the election hasn’t yet been called) the unexpected, in whatever form, often deals itself in.

An unknown of the coming weeks is how Albanese will perform under the intense hour-by-hour scrutiny that will build every day. “No one has seen Albanese under extreme pressure,” says one Labor man. “That’s the hinge-point around the campaign.”

Albanese is not, by nature, quite the relaxed character he might seem. The spring is coiled. This is not necessarily a criticism, but something to be managed. With the Liberals targeting him personally and mercilessly, his ability to perform without serious mistakes in a high political temperature will be pushed to the limit.

In a campaign, a small slip or awkward moment can quickly becomes negative news, as Bill Shorten found when a Queensland man challenged him about tax relief for higher-income workers. The media played the exchange repeatedly.

Campaigns “stress test” policies. Shorten’s 2019 climate policy did not contain enough detail to be campaign-resilient. A pesky journalist’s persistent questioning at one news conference had Shorten on the spot and showing the strain.

Spectacularly, in 1987 the Howard opposition’s tax policy had a double-counting error – the mistake dogged the Liberals’ campaign.

Campaigns are two-horse races: if one horse is lame (Malcolm Turnbull in 2016) it matters.

Two scheduled events will be significant in whether Albanese holds his advantage, or the government claws back ground: Tuesday week’s budget and the opposition leader’s budget reply two days later.

For a government in what seem dire straits, the budget is its chance to direct the voters’ attention to the economy, its preferred and stronger ground, and to offer some inducements.

But it’s become a balancing act for Morrison and Treasurer Josh Frydenberg. They’ve flagged the budget will address people’s concern about the rising cost of living, but they can’t afford to look profligate, given addressing the high level of debt must also be a priority.

Albanese will use his reply to counter the budget and announce some big-bang policy. His delivery will need to be well-pitched and the policy attention-grabbing and credible.

In the next few weeks Albanese, who’s still to define himself in the public’s consciousness, must convince people he’s a safe pair of hands on the economy. That might be more challenging than the issue of national security, on which the government’s efforts to damage him seem so far to have missed their mark.

While Labor is wary of being sucked in by the polls, the government is fearful of their consistent message.

Morrison finally got to Western Australia this week, coinciding with polling published in the West Australian newspaper showing several Liberal seats at high risk.

Read more:
Albanese level with Morrison as better PM in Newspoll as Labor maintains big lead

The poll, by Utting Research, indicated Labor was travelling strongly in Hasluck, Pearce (the seat Christian Porter is leaving) and Swan. In Tangney, held by Special Minister of State Ben Morton, a close confidant of Morrison, the numbers were knife-edge.

Morrison adopted a novel campaign strategy: a bromance with Labor premier Mark McGowan, who was returned last year in a stunning victory that all but wiped out the state parliamentary Liberal Party.

According to the prime minister’s “spin” on their partnership, the federal government’s joining Clive Palmer’s case against WA over its border closure should be seen as just part of the pandemic learning process. “The premier raised his concerns with me […] and we ultimately agreed with him”, and withdrew from the case, Morrison said.

The PM’s line to WA voters is that “federal Labor under Anthony Albanese is not the same as state Labor under Mark McGowan. There are two very different animals”. Regardless of who people vote for at the election, “Mark McGowan will be the premier the next day”.

When the two appeared together at a news conference, where new construction funds were announced, Morrison was effusive.

“I want to thank the premier for his partnership. It’s been a good partnership. It’s been an honest partnership. It’s been a candid partnership. Haven’t agreed on everything, but we’ve always been prepared to listen to each other and where […] I think I’ve had to change my view based on the premier’s representations, I certainly have.”

Appearing by himself later, McGowan reassured Labor he would be campaigning with and for Albanese.

Excluded by the closed border for so long, Morrison has been desperate to get to the west. But whether his physical presence and his largesse will erode those Labor leads is another matter.

In general, the federal Liberals in WA are a much-diminished bunch, in power and presence. They no longer have the sparkle of a Julie Bishop, or the strong dour presence of a Mathias Cormann. The star of Christian Porter burned brightly briefly, then fell to the ground spectacularly.

This weekend, eyes will be on another state. In South Australia, according to polling, Labor may dislodge the Marshall Liberal government.

While SA politics is anything but riveting for people outside that state, the outcome will be especially watched federally because if Labor wins it will be the first time since COVID struck that an incumbent government has been defeated. The symbolism wouldn’t be missed.

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

– ref. Grattan on Friday: Anthony Albanese is sitting pretty for the election – so what could possibly go wrong? – https://theconversation.com/grattan-on-friday-anthony-albanese-is-sitting-pretty-for-the-election-so-what-could-possibly-go-wrong-179475