Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Louise Grimmer, Senior Lecturer in Retail Marketing, University of Tasmania

Even before COVID-19, social isolation and loneliness were all too common across the community. Living among millions of other people is no comfort for people in cities, where the pace of life is often hectic, and technology and digitisation often limit, rather than help with, social interaction.

The pandemic amplified these problems. In its wake, more of us report we’re lonely.

For some, a weekly shopping trip may be the only chance to interact with others. A supermarket chain in the Netherlands is helping to combat loneliness with so-called “slow” checkouts where chatting is encouraged. Could a similar approach work here?

Read more:
Why loneliness is both an individual thing and a shared result of the cities we create

We’re getting lonelier

Around a third of Australians report feeling lonely. One in six experience severe loneliness.

According to the annual Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey, people aged 15 to 24 report the greatest increase in social isolation over the past 20 years and the highest rates of loneliness. Another Australian survey found men aged 35 to 49 had the highest levels of loneliness.

Loneliness and social isolation are not the same. Social isolation is a matter of how often we have contact with friends, family and others, which can be measured.

Loneliness is more subjective. It describes how we feel about the “quality” of our interactions with others.

Technology is contributing to high rates of loneliness. Instead of meaningful face-to-face interactions, many of us now rely on social media, phone apps and video calls to socialise.

Read more:
How the digitalisation of everything is making us more lonely

We’re also working longer hours, often at home. And due to the cost of living, many of us are choosing to stay home and save money, rather than eat out or go to “the local”.

It isn’t only in Australia where this is happening. In the UK, around 3.9 million older people say television is their main company. Half a million may go five or six days a week without seeing anyone.

The World Health Organisation recognises loneliness and social isolation as public health issues and priorities for policymakers. These issues seriously affect people’s mental and physical health as well as longevity. The impacts are comparable with other risk factors such as smoking, alcohol consumption, obesity and not being physically active.

Read more:
Loneliness is making us physically sick, but social prescribing can treat it – podcast

Could slow, ‘chatty’ checkouts be part of the solution?

For many, a visit to the supermarket may be the only time they interact with others. Sadly, increased use of technology, including self-serve checkouts, and cashiers tasked with speedily processing customers can make it challenging to have a conversation.

Read more:
More than milk and bread: corner store revival can rebuild neighbourhood ties

Four years ago, the Netherlands’ second-largest supermarket chain, Jumbo, introduced Kletskassa or “chat checkout”. It’s for shoppers who want to chat and aren’t in a hurry. Recognising loneliness was an issue for many, the idea was to increase social interaction between customers and staff by slowing things down and encouraging conversation.

Jumbo’s chief commercial officer, Colette Cloosterman-van Eerd, explained:

Many people, especially the elderly, sometimes feel lonely. As a family business and supermarket chain, we are at the heart of society. Our shops are an important meeting place for many people, and we want to play a role in identifying and reducing loneliness.

The first Kletskassa, in Vlijmen in Brabant, was so successful the family-owned company started rolling out slow checkouts in 200 of its stores. Not only were customers responding positively, the concept also appealed to Jumbo’s employees. They are trained to recognise signs of loneliness and come up with local initiatives to combat social isolation.

Read more:
‘I tell everyone I love being on my own, but I hate it’: what older Australians want you to know about loneliness

Cloosterman-Van Eerd said:

We are proud our staff want to work the chat checkout. They really want to help people and make contact with them. It’s a small gesture but it’s a valuable one, particularly in a world that is becoming more digital and faster.

The original focus of Jumbo’s initiative was older shoppers. However, the trial showed people of all ages were keen to use the Kletskassa. The desire for human interaction didn’t change across age groups.

So, these “chatty” checkouts are open to anyone who will benefit from social connection. Some Jumbo stores also have an All Together Coffee Corner, where locals can enjoy a coffee and chat with neighbours and volunteers who also help out with shopping and gardening.

The Netherlands’ government is partnering a range of organisations, local government and companies to come up with solutions to combat loneliness across the country. Some 50% of the 1.3 million people over 75 report they regularly feel lonely. Jumbo’s initiatives are part of the Health Ministry’s One Against Loneliness campaign.

Supermarkets as ‘third places’ to combat loneliness

In the 1980s, sociologist Ray Oldenberg coined the term “third place” – a place that’s not home (the “first place”) and not work (the “second place”). Third places are familiar public spaces where people can connect over a shared interest or activity.

Libraries, coffee shops, book stores, community gardens, churches, gyms and clubs are examples of third places. They all provide the opportunity for close proximity, interaction and often serendipitous conversations with other people we might not usually meet.

Read more:
Many people feel lonely in the city, but perhaps ‘third places’ can help with that

Kletkassa have helped thousands of people, of all ages and backgrounds, by providing a few minutes of kindness and conversation. Imagine what could be achieved if our supermarkets offered their own version of the “slow checkout” for anyone who’s in need of a chat to brighten their day.

The first chain to introduce this sort of initiative in Australia would have a solid advantage over competitors through differentiation and prioritising customers. At the same time, it would make a small but meaningful contribution to improving social wellbeing.

Challenge extended!

Louise Grimmer 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. Feeling lonely? Too many of us do. Here’s what our supermarkets can do to help – https://theconversation.com/feeling-lonely-too-many-of-us-do-heres-what-our-supermarkets-can-do-to-help-211126

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Melissa Haswell, Professor of Health, Safety and Environment, Queensland University of Technology and Professor of Practice in Environmental Wellbeing, Office of the Deputy Vice Chancellor (Indigenous Strategy and Services) and Honorary Professor (School of Geosciences), University of Sydney

We are seeing deadly heat and fires circle the world. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warns we are fast running out of time to secure a liveable and sustainable future. Without emergency action to stop mining and burning fossil fuels, the world faces an unthinkable 2.8℃ temperature rise.

It’s incomprehensible, then, that many of our politicians support “unlocking the Beetaloo Basin” in the Northern Territory and developing another 48 oil and gas projects across Australia.

“Unlocking” means starting large-scale shale gas extraction. After drilling through 3–4km of rock and aquifers, a cocktail of chemicals, sand and water is forced down the well. This process of hydraulic fracturing is commonly known as fracking. This brings to the surface, and then into the atmosphere, carbon that had been securely stored underground for 300–400 million years.

Today we have launched a report that demonstrates the many risks of oil and gas development for human health and wellbeing in Australia. Based on a review of over 300 peer-reviewed studies, our report provides the public and decision-makers with a summary of the now-extensive evidence of these risks.

Read more:
Australia’s 116 new coal, oil and gas projects equate to 215 new coal power stations

What is the evidence against oil and gas?

There is a need to combat widely held misconceptions and repeated misinformation about the safety of the oil and gas industry. We undertook the review at the request of concerned paediatricians in the Northern Territory.

New research clearly shows that “unlocking gas” is at least as harmful to the climate as mining and burning coal. This is largely due to methane leaks at many stages of production. Methane is 86 times more powerful than carbon dioxide at trapping heat in the atmosphere over 20 years.

Read more:
Methane must fall to slow global heating – but only 13% of emissions are actually regulated

Doors opened for the 49 planned projects in Australia after state reviews of potential impacts. These reviews are flawed and outdated as the volume of published studies has grown rapidly in recent years. Reviews were undertaken, for example, in New South Wales in 2014, Northern Territory in 2017, South Australia in 2015 and Western Australia in 2018.

Our report synthesises recent scientific and public health research on five areas of concern about oil and gas operations:

1. threats to biodiversity, water and food security arising from site preparation, drilling, fracking, wastewater handling, gas pipeline transport and processing

2. contributions to the climate emergency

3. a vast array of potentially harmful chemicals

4. contamination of water, soil and air

5. physical, social, emotional and spiritual health impacts near oil and gas fields and their sprawling infrastructure.

Each fracking event to release shale gas uses 6 million to 60 million litres of fresh water. Fracking is often applied many times to each of hundreds to thousands of wells in a region. This puts water security at risk in arid areas.

Read more:
Mining vs rivers: a single line on a map could determine the future of water in the Northern Territory

Each step of gas production creates risks of contamination of surface and ground water. With vast quantities of wastewater, it can happen through spilling, leaking, flooding and overflows. Wastewater can even be deliberately spread for so-called “beneficial uses”.

This wastewater contains hundreds of chemicals. Some are naturally occurring. Others are added during drilling and fracking.

These chemicals can include heavy metals, phenols, barium, volatile organic compounds including benzene, toluene, ethylene and xylene, radioactive materials, fluoride, polyaromatic hydrocarbons, salt and many chemicals of unknown toxicity.

Air becomes contaminated with volatile organic compounds, polyaromatic hydrocarbons, nitrogen oxides, radioactive materials, diesel fumes, hydrogen sulfide, acrolein and heavy metals. Formaldehyde, particulate matter and ground-level ozone are formed and travel long distances, damaging health and agriculture.

Read more:
Companies that frack for oil and gas can keep a lot of information secret – but what they disclose shows widespread use of hazardous chemicals

What are the health impacts?

People exposed to oil and gas operations experience a long list of harms. These include:

• more severe asthma in children requiring more medical treatment, emergency department visits and hospitalisations

• higher hospitalisation and death rates due to heart attacks, heart failure, respiratory diseases and some cancers

• higher injury and fatality rates due to increased heavy vehicle traffic

• increases in depression, anxiety and social withdrawal, especially among young and pregnant women

• increases in sexually transmitted infections associated with the industry’s mobile workforces

• reproductive harms and interference with development of unborn babies, including higher risks of low birth weight, pre-term delivery and spontaneous abortion

• higher risk of severe birth defects

• higher risk of acute lymphoblastic leukemia.

Read more:
Land clearing and fracking in Australia’s Northern Territory threatens the world’s largest intact tropical savanna

Putting Indigenous people and others in harm’s way

Many of the 49 planned projects affect Aboriginal land. Some companies have allegedly violated the rights of Traditional Owners to free, prior and informed consent. The massive disruption of Aboriginal Country and life puts people at great risk of physical, social, emotional, cultural and spiritual harm.

The report also issues a loud warning about sexual violence against First Nations Americans and Canadians associated with oil and gas activities. The WA parliamentary inquiry into women’s experiences of sexual harassment and sexual violence in “fly in, fly out” (FIFO) mines suggests these risks apply equally in Australia. Yet all government assessments of oil and gas development in Australia completely ignore these risks.

Read more:
The Beetaloo drilling program brings potential health and social issues for Aboriginal communities in remote NT

In the United States, the industry has grown so vast within two decades that over 17.6 million people live within a mile (1.6km) of oil or gas wells. By 2016, the estimated cost to the community was US$77 billion. This was the cost of illness, extra health care and premature deaths (7,500) from asthma, respiratory and cardiovascular disease due to air pollution alone.

Our report makes clear any further gas development will have serious impacts on the climate, the people living in or near gas fields and the overburdened health services that serve them.

Read more:
Two trillion tonnes of greenhouse gases, 25 billion nukes of heat: are we pushing Earth out of the Goldilocks zone?

Melissa Haswell has previously received funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council, the National Suicide Prevention Strategy, the Cooperative Research Centre for Aboriginal Health, Queensland Department of Environment and Science, Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, Australian Red Cross, The Healing Foundation, Queensland Health and Australian Health Ministers Advisory Council. She is affiliated with the Climate and Health Alliance, Australian Public Health Association and the International Society for Environmental Epidemiology.

Jacob Hegedus is member of NSW Young Labor Party

David Shearman and Lisa Jackson Pulver 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. Health evidence against gas and oil is piling up, as governments turn a blind eye – https://theconversation.com/health-evidence-against-gas-and-oil-is-piling-up-as-governments-turn-a-blind-eye-212459

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Erika Penney, Lecturer in Clinical Psychology, University of Technology Sydney

Do you ever feel overwhelmed by the sight of clutter and mess in your home? Have you walked in the door only to feel overloaded by scattered papers, unwashed dishes and clothes in disarray? Maybe you’ve even had arguments because it bothers you more than it bothers you partner or housemates.

You’re not alone. Many people report a messy house can trigger feelings of stress and anxiety.

So why do clutter and chaos make some of us feel so overwhelmed? Here’s what the research says – and what you can do about it.

Read more:
Sorry, men, there’s no such thing as ‘dirt blindness’ – you just need to do more housework

Cognitive overload

When we’re surrounded by distractions, our brains essentially become battlegrounds for attention. Everything competes for our focus.

But the brain, as it turns out, prefers order and “singletasking” over multitasking.

Order helps reduce the competition for our attention and reduces mental load. While some people might be better than others at ignoring distractions, distractable environments can overload our cognitive capabilities and memory.

Clutter, disorder and mess can affect more than just our cognitive resources. They’re also linked to our eating, productivity, mental health, parenting decisions and even our willingness to donate money.

Are women more affected than men?

Research suggests the detrimental effects of mess and clutter may be more pronounced in women than in men.

One study of 60 dual-income couples found women living in cluttered and stressful homes had higher levels of cortisol (a hormone associated with stress) and heightened depression symptoms.

These effects remained consistent even when factors like marital satisfaction and personality traits were taken into account. In contrast, the men in this study seemed largely unaffected by the state of their home environments.

The researchers theorised that women may feel a greater responsibility for maintaining the home. They also suggested the social aspect of the study (which involved giving home tours) may have induced more fear of judgement among women than men.

We will all live with clutter and disorganisation to some degree in our lives. Sometimes, however, significant clutter problems can be linked to underlying mental health conditions such as obsessive-compulsive disorder, hoarding disorder, major depressive disorder, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and anxiety disorders.

This raises a crucial question: which came first? For some, clutter is the source of anxiety and distress; for others, poor mental health is the source of disorganisation and clutter.

Not all mess is a problem

It’s important to remember clutter isn’t all bad, and we shouldn’t aim for perfection. Real homes don’t look like the ones in magazines.

In fact, disorganised spaces can result in increased creativity and elicit fresh insights.

Living in constant disorder isn’t productive, but striving for perfectionism in cleanliness can also be counterproductive. Perfectionism itself is associated with feeling overwhelmed, anxiety and poor mental health.

Mess makes me anxious so what can I do about it?

It’s important to remember you have some agency over what matters to you and how you want to prioritise your time.

One approach is to try to reduce the clutter. You might, for example, have a dedicated de-cluttering session every week. This may involve hiring a cleaner (if you can afford it) or playing some music or a podcast while tidying up for an hour with your other household members.

Establishing this routine can reduce clutter distractions, ease your overall mental load and alleviate worry that clutter will spiral out of control.

You can also try micro-tidying. If don’t have time for a complete cleanup, commit just five minutes to clearing one small space.

If the clutter is primarily caused by other household members, try to calmly discuss with them how this mess is affecting your mental health. See if your kids, your partner or housemates can negotiate some boundaries as a household over what level of mess is acceptable and how it will be handled if that threshold is exceeded.

It can also help to develop a self-compassionate mindset.

Mess doesn’t define whether you are a “good” or “bad” person and, at times, it may even stimulate your creativity. Remind yourself that you deserve success, meaningful relationships and happiness, whether or not your office, home or car is a mess.

Take comfort in research suggesting that while disorganised environments can make us susceptible to stress and poor decision-making, your mindset can buffer you against these vulnerabilities.

If clutter, perfectionism or anxiety has begun to seem unmanageable, talk with your GP about a referral to a psychologist. The right psychologist (and you may need to try a few before you find the right one) can help you cultivate a life driven by values that are important to you.

Clutter and mess are more than just visual nuisances. They can have a profound impact on mental wellbeing, productivity and our choices.

Understanding why clutter affects you can empower you to take control of your mindset, your living spaces and, in turn, your life.

Read more:
Men do see the mess – they just aren’t judged for it the way women are

Erika Penney 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 is a messy house such an anxiety trigger for me and what can I do about it? – https://theconversation.com/why-is-a-messy-house-such-an-anxiety-trigger-for-me-and-what-can-i-do-about-it-211684

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ranjana Gupta, Senior Lecturer Taxation, Auckland University of Technology

The property market is New Zealand’s largest industry, adding NZ$41.2 billion a year to gross domestic product. But there is an ongoing debate over how we tax houses – particularly those sitting empty despite the ongoing housing crisis.

Housing affordability is an ongoing concern for both renters and home owners. Last year, one in four rental households spent more than 40% of their disposable income on housing costs, compared with one in five households that were paying a mortgage.

A comprehensive capital gains tax has been ruled out by both major political parties.

While the bright-line rule means home owners have to pay income tax on profits from properties sold less than 10 years after purchase, this still only applies to house sales. What about those investment properties sitting empty for investment reasons?

My forthcoming research looks at the feasibility of taxing empty homes and what I found was a potential source of substantial revenue for the government.

Empty homes during a housing shortage

Around 5% of New Zealand’s housing stock – 95,000 dwellings – were considered empty during the 2018 census.

According to the Empty Homes report, roughly 10% of the empty homes surveyed were intentionally being kept empty, while 35% were empty because they were holiday homes. A further 8% were kept empty for personal use (often as a second home), 23% were empty for renovations and repairs and about 17% were vacant rentals, sometimes due to non-compliance with Healthy Homes Standards. The remaining 6% were empty for “other reasons”, which often meant they were awaiting sale.

Read more:
Taxing empty homes: a step towards affordable housing, but much more can be done

It was not clear how much of New Zealand’s housing stock remains in the hands of overseas-based investors after rules changed in 2018 to restrict foreign ownership.

But the National Party has promised to allow foreign buyers back into the property market. Under National’s plan, foreign buyers will be limited to properties over $2 million and will need to pay a 15% tax on the sale price.

Introducing an empty homes tax

My research examines the under-utilisation of property taxes by the New Zealand government.

In the financial year 2021-22, the central government earned 4.7% of its total tax revenue from property taxes, below the OECD average of 5.7%.

But New Zealand is fertile ground for an empty house tax, which would directly impact property investors and those who have the means to own multiple properties.

An empty house tax targets home owners who let a property sit empty for a certain length of time.

New Zealand would not be breaking new ground with an empty house tax. This type of tax already exists in a number of countries.

What’s more, New Zealand has the infrastructural prerequisites needed to implement an empty house tax.

New Zealand has an existing land registry which records essential information regarding all parcels of land, bypassing the need to establish this data or to rely on self-reporting form home owners.

A potential boon for government

Some sort of empty house tax could be a source of revenue for the government, as illustrated by cities and countries overseas.

Empty properties in Paris, France, incur an annual surcharge of 160% of the standard property rates. In Vancouver, Canada, vacant homes are taxed at 3% of the property’s taxable value and failure to pay can result in fines.

In Ireland, the empty house tax is three times the property’s existing base local property tax. And in Melbourne and Sydney, house buyers who leave a property unused for six months face an annual charge of at least A$5,500 (NZ$5,978).

Read more:
Airbnb and empty houses: who’s responsible for managing the impacts on our cities?

These countries’ responses to vacant properties suggest that high rates and tax penalties steer investors toward more productive areas of the economy – a reason cited by policy makers in Vancouver and elsewhere for introducing the tax.

Following the Vancouver model, an empty homes tax on property in Queenstown could generate $255 million a year.

Time for serious consideration

New Zealand could take one of two paths when introducing an empty home tax.

The first option is to charge a tax of between 200% and 300% of rates, similar to Ireland. Alternatively, we could introduce a tax of 3-5% of land value, like Vancouver.

This tax could be tailored to cities and regions, with empty homes in cities like Queenstown and Auckland incurring higher charges than other areas.

The rules could exempt residential and rental properties, with an exception for holiday homes unless they are normally used for Airbnb. People forced to relocate from their residential homes for extended periods due to work requirements could also be exempted from paying the empty home tax.

Read more:
Proving the wealthiest New Zealanders pay low tax rates is a good start – now comes the hard part

To ensure the success of the empty house tax, we need to include credible measures to monitor compliance.

The revenue from an empty house tax could then be funnelled into building new homes.

Property investors benefit from New Zealand’s lack of an empty house tax. An empty house is still an asset accruing value, even without rent.

On the flip side, introducing an empty house tax will penalise land holdings for speculation, encourage property owners to enter the rental market – which could in turn increase rental affordability.

Ranjana Gupta 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. As NZ struggles to resolve its long-running housing crisis, investors should be taxed for keeping homes empty – https://theconversation.com/as-nz-struggles-to-resolve-its-long-running-housing-crisis-investors-should-be-taxed-for-keeping-homes-empty-212356

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

The first federal Newspoll since mid-July, conducted August 28 to September 1 from a sample of 1,200, gave Labor a 53–47 lead, a two-point gain for the Coalition. Primary votes were 37% Coalition (up three), 35% Labor (down one), 13% Greens (up one), 7% One Nation (steady) and 8% for all Others (down three).

On Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, 46% (up six) were dissatisfied and 45% (down six) were satisfied, for a net approval of -1, down 12 points. Opposition Leader Peter Dutton’s net approval improved two points to -11. Albanese led Dutton as better PM by 50–31, down from a 54–29 lead in mid-July.

In a particularly bleak result for the “yes” case in the October 14 referendum on an Indigenous Voice to parliament, “no” led by 53–38, out from a 48–41 “no” lead in mid-July. Newspoll figures are from The Poll Bludger.

Here is the chart of all 2023 Voice polls by Newspoll, Resolve, Essential and Morgan that I first published in July. As we approach the referendum, it continues to worsen for “yes”.

Just one of 25 Labor-initiated referendums have succeeded in winning the required four of the six states as well as a national majority. While not succeeding, referendums held at general elections have performed far better than those held midterm.

Read more:
While the Voice has a large poll lead now, history of past referendums indicates it may struggle

The Voice would have had a far better chance at a general election. Choosing to hold it midterm was a blunder.

Albanese’s Newspoll net approval of -1 is easily his worst this term. His previous worst net approval was -10 in late June. The graph below is an update of the graph I published with the mid-July Newspoll article.

Labor’s 53% two party vote in this Newspoll is its lowest for this term, a drop from 54% in March and late June. I believe both the Voice and the cost of living are affecting Albanese and Labor’s ratings.

YouGov used to administer Newspoll, but Pyxis Polling has now taken over. Pyxis was formed when two senior staff quit Newspoll. While YouGov’s Newspolls used fieldwork periods from Wednesday to Saturday, this Newspoll used a Monday to Friday fieldwork.

The sample size of 1,200 for this Newspoll is lower than the 1,500–1,600 used for most Newspolls conducted by YouGov. However, The Poll Bludger’s report said that the “effective” sample size (sample after weighting adjustments) for this Newspoll was near the actual sample size, while for the YouGov polls it was well under the actual sample.

Tasmanian EMRS poll: Liberals recover after slump

A Tasmanian EMRS poll, conducted August 15–21 from a sample of 1,000, gave the Liberals 38% of the primary vote (up two since May), Labor 32% (up one), the Greens 14% (down one) and all Others 16% (down two). In May, the Liberals were down six points.

Incumbent Liberal Jeremy Rockliff led Labor’s Rebecca White by 42–39 as preferred premier, reversing a White lead of 40–38 in May. Tasmania uses a proportional system for its lower house elections, so a two party estimate is not applicable.

Adrian Beaumont 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. Albanese records first net negative Newspoll approval as Voice support slumps further – https://theconversation.com/albanese-records-first-net-negative-newspoll-approval-as-voice-support-slumps-further-212368

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Sanderson, Professor of Information Retrieval, RMIT University

Today marks an important milestone in the history of the internet: Google’s 25th birthday. With billions of search queries submitted each day, it’s difficult to remember how we ever lived without the search engine.

What was it about Google that led it to revolutionise information access? And will artificial intelligence (AI) make it obsolete, or enhance it?

Let’s look at how our access to information has changed through the decades – and where it might lead as advanced AI and Google Search become increasingly entwined.

1950s: public libraries as community hubs

In the years following the second world war, it became generally accepted that a successful post-war city was one that could provide civic capabilities – and that included open access to information.

So in the 1950s information in Western countries was primarily provided by local libraries. Librarians themselves were a kind of “human search engine”. They answered phone queries from businesses and responded to letters – helping people find information quickly and accurately.

Libraries were more than just a place to borrow books. They were where parents went to look for health information, where tourists requested travel tips, and where businesses sought marketing advice.

The searching was free, but required librarians’ support, as well as a significant amount of labour and catalogue-driven processes. Questions we can now solve in minutes took hours, days or even weeks to answer.

1990s: the rise of paid search services

By the 1990s, libraries had expanded to include personal computers and online access to information services. Commercial search companies thrived as libraries could access information through expensive subscription services.

These systems were so complex that only trained specialists could search, with consumers paying for results. Dialog, developed at Lockheed Martin in the 1960s, remains one of the best examples. Today it claims to provide its customers access “to over 1.7 billion records across more than 140 databases of peer-reviewed literature”.

Another commercial search system, The Financial Times’ FT PROFILE, enabled access to articles in every UK broadsheet newspaper over a five-year period.

But searching with it wasn’t simple. Users had to remember typed commands to select a collection, using specific words to reduce the list of documents returned. Articles were ordered by date, leaving the reader to scan for the most relevant items.

FT PROFILE made valuable information rapidly accessible to people outside business circles, but at a high price. In the 1990s access cost £1.60 a minute – the equivalent of £4.65 (or A$9.00) today.

The rise of Google

Following the world wide web’s launch in 1993, the number of websites grew exponentially.

Libraries provided public web access, and services such as the State Library of Victoria’s Vicnet offered low-cost access for organisations. Librarians taught users to find information online and build websites. However, the complex search systems struggled with exploding volumes of content and high numbers of new users.

In 1994, the book Managing Gigabytes, penned by three New Zealand computer scientists, presented solutions for this problem. Since the 1950s researchers had imagined a search engine that was fast, accessible to all, and which sorted documents by relevance.

In the 1990s, a Silicon Valley startup began to apply this knowledge – Larry Page and Sergey Brin used the principles in Managing Gigabytes to design Google’s iconic architecture.

After launching on September 4 1998, the Google revolution was in motion. People loved the simplicity of the search box, as well as a novel presentation of results that summarised how the retrieved pages matched the query.

In terms of functionality, Google Search was effective for a few reasons. It used the innovative approach of delivering results by counting web links in a page (a process called PageRank). But more importantly, its algorithm was very sophisticated; it not only matched search queries with the text within a page, but also with other text linking to that page (this was called anchor text).

Google’s popularity quickly surpassed competitors such as AltaVista and Yahoo Search. With more than 85% of the market share today, it remains the most popular search engine.

As the web expanded, however, access costs were contested.

Although consumers now search Google for free, payment is required to download certain articles and books. Many consumers still rely on libraries – while libraries themselves struggle with the rising costs of purchasing material to provide to the public for free.

What will the next 25 years bring?

Google has expanded far beyond Search. Gmail, Google Drive, Google Calendar, Pixel devices and other services show Google’s reach is vast.

With the introduction of AI tools, including Google’s Bard and the recently announced Gemini (a direct competitor to ChatGPT), Google is set to revolutionise search once again.

As Google continues to roll generative AI capabilities into Search, it will become common to read a quick information summary at the top of the results page, rather than dig for information yourself. A key challenge will be ensuring people don’t become complacent to the point that they blindly trust the generated outputs.

Fact-checking against original sources will remain as important as ever. After all, we have seen generative AI tools such as ChatGPT make headlines due to “hallucinations” and misinformation.

If inaccurate or incomplete search summaries aren’t revised, or are further paraphrased and presented without source material, the misinformation problem will only get worse.

Moreover, even if AI tools revolutionise search, they may fail to revolutionise access. As the AI industry grows, we’re seeing a shift towards content only being accessible for a fee, or through paid subscriptions.

The rise of AI provides an opportunity to revisit the tensions between public access and increasingly powerful commercial entities.

Read more:
The hidden cost of the AI boom: social and environmental exploitation

Mark Sanderson receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

Julian Thomas receives funding from the Australian Research Council. Google Australia has contributed funding to the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society, which he leads.

Kieran Hegarty receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the Austrian Federal Ministry for Climate Action, Environment, Energy, Mobility, Innovation and Technology through a Digital Humanism Junior Visiting Fellowship at the Institute for Human Sciences.

Lisa M. Given receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. She is Editor-in-Chief of the Annual Review of Information Science and Technology.

– ref. Google turns 25: the search engine revolutionised how we access information, but will it survive AI? – https://theconversation.com/google-turns-25-the-search-engine-revolutionised-how-we-access-information-but-will-it-survive-ai-212367

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Suman Majumdar, Chief Health Officer, Burnet Institute

Around 5–10% of people who get infected with SARS-CoV-2 will experience symptoms that persist way beyond the initial acute period, a clinical syndrome we are learning more about, known widely as long COVID.

Shortness of breath, brain fog, lethargy and tiredness, loss of smell or taste are common features of long COVID, as is the development of new conditions such as diabetes, heart disease, stroke, depression and dementia.

But how long is the “long”? If and when do symptoms resolve?

Read more:
When does COVID become long COVID? And what’s happening in the body when symptoms persist? Here’s what we’ve learnt so far

A recent study has examined this in detail, following people for two years after their infection. This and other recently published studies on long COVID show that while symptoms do resolve in many people, their resolution is slow and imperfect.

What did the study find?

The key work, led by Ziyad Al-Aly, examines the effect of SARS-CoV-2 two years after infection in a large group of US veterans. The researchers followed 139,000 people with COVID and almost six million uninfected controls for two years, tracking deaths, hospitalisations and 80 long-term impacts of COVID, categorised into ten organ systems.

They found that people who were initially hospitalised with COVID were 1.3 times more likely to die and 2.6 times more likely to be hospitalised again, compared to the control group (people without COVID), over the two years. After two years, this “hospitalised” group remained at increased risk of 50 conditions.

People who had milder COVID (who weren’t hospitalised with their initial COVID infection) had an increased risk of death for up to six months and increased risk of hospitalisation for up to 18 months. However, at two years, they remained at increased risk of 25 conditions.

So, while people who were initially hospitalised for COVID had worse outcomes over the two-year follow-up, there was still a substantial burden of illness in people who initially had milder COVID. This included a risk of clots and blood disorders, lung disease, fatigue, gut disorders, muscle and joint disorders and diabetes.

Findings from other recent research were similar

A separate cohort study followed more than 208,000 veterans with COVID over two years. It showed that overall, 8.7% died compared with 4.1% in the uninfected control group. The risk of death was concentrated in the first six months after infection.

A third, not yet peer-reviewed and smaller cohort study of 341 people with long COVID from Spain, found only 7.6% of them recovered at two years.

Read more:
What is POTS? And how is it related to long COVID?

Another significant (not yet peer-reviewed) study from the United Kingdom assessed diabetes risk after COVID by following 15 million people in England from 2020–21. It found a 30–50% elevated risk of new type 2 diabetes after COVID. This increased risk persisted up to two years. But the risk for type 1 diabetes risk did not persist.

An Australian (not yet peer-reviewed) study followed 31 people who developed long COVID and 31 matched controls who recovered from COVID for two years. It found that most of the concerning immunological dysfunction effects that had been present at eight months, had resolved by two years. While almost two-thirds of those with long COVID (62%) reported improved quality of life over the two years, one-third were still struggling in this regard two years after their infection.

Finally, a recent whole-body positron emission tomography (PET) imaging and biopsy study showed prolonged tissue level immune-activation and viral persistence in the gut for up to a remarkable two years after COVID.

These studies have some limitations

It’s important to note the observational studies have some inherent limitations.

The US veterans cohort studied by Al-Aly is nearly 90% men, with an average age of 61 years, which is different to groups most at risk of long COVID.

They acquired their initial infection in 2020, before Omicron, before vaccination and before therapies – all of which are protective against long COVID to a degree.

Having said that, long COVID still frequently occurs in vaccinated people infected with Omicron.

We still don’t have treatments for long COVID

Increasing understanding about underlying mechanisms of long COVID, such as those involving persistent virus and effects on mitochondria – the powerhouse of the cells – can lead to treatment options that need to be trialled.

In July 2023, the White House established the Office of Long COVID Research and Practice. Two randomised trials are testing whether the antiviral nirmatrelvir-ritonavir (Paxlovid) can treat long COVID are currently recruiting patients.

A separate randomised, placebo-controlled trial has shown that metformin, a commonly prescribed anti-diabetic medication, taken for two weeks (and taken within three days of testing positive for COVID) reduced the chance of developing long COVID by 41%. The mechanism may involve an effect on mitochondria or directly on the virus.

Read more:
Paxlovid is Australia’s first-line COVID antiviral but Lagevrio also prevents severe disease in over-70s

But it’s still important to prevent COVID (re)infections

Taken together, these studies on the longevity of long COVID add substantially to the case to fast-track the development of interventions and therapies to prevent and/or cure the condition.

In the meantime, it’s crucially important to prevent (re)infections in the first place to reduce the future burden of long COVID, already estimated to be greater than 65 million people globally.

Breathe clean air by ensuring indoor spaces are well-ventilated. In poorly ventilated or crowded spaces, wear a well-fitted and high-quality mask (a P2, KN95 or N95 mask), and/or use air filtration devices suitable for the space you are in.

Keep up to date with boosters. And get tested so you can get antiviral treatment if you’re eligible.

If you suspect you have long COVID, discuss this with your GP, who may refer you to specialised services or multidisciplinary care.

Suman Majumdar, through the Burnet Institute receives grant funding from the Australian Governemnt via the National Health & Medical Research Council of Australia, the Medical Research Future Fund and DFAT’s Centre for Health Security.

Brendan Crabb and the Institute he leads receives research grant funding from the National Health & Medical Research Council of Australia, the Medical Research Future Fund, DFAT’s Centre for Health Security and other Australian federal and Victorian State Government bodies. He is the Chair of The Australian Global Health Alliance and the Pacific Friends of Global Health, both in an honorary capacity. And he serves on the Board of the Telethon Kids Institute, on advisory committees of mRNA Victoria, the Sanger Institute (UK), the Institute for Health Transformation (at Deakin University), The Brain Cancer Centre (Australia), the WHO Malaria Vaccine Advisory Committee; MALVAC, and is a member of OzSAGE and The John Snow Project, all honorary positions.

– ref. Long COVID symptoms can improve, but their resolution is slow and imperfect – https://theconversation.com/long-covid-symptoms-can-improve-but-their-resolution-is-slow-and-imperfect-212015

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Stevens, Adjunct Associate Professor, University of Adelaide

When you think of moths, do you see holes in your clothes, pests in the pantry, or pesky insects drawn to night lights spoiling your social BBQ? Or worse, do you have an irrational fear of moths? (That’s called mottephobia).

Would it surprise you to learn moths are not the poor cousin of butterflies? They’re incredibly diverse and deserve a second chance.

There are about 160,000 species of moths known to science. Compare that to 17,500 species of butterflies.

Moths vary enormously in their size, what they like to eat, how they reproduce and how they live their lives.

Read more:
Newly discovered moth is enigmatic evolutionary wonder

Life arising from biological soup

Remember the story of The Very Hungry Caterpillar? The life cycle begins with a little egg that hatches into a caterpillar, eats its way through a rainbow of food and then builds a cocoon for a complete transformation into a beautiful butterfly.

This is complete metamorphosis, where the structure of the caterpillar dissolves into a biological soup and then into an adult that looks nothing like the original.

Are butterflies just ‘flamboyant’ moths?

There’s a long-standing argument among scientists over whether butterflies are really colourful, flashy moths.

A few defining features separate moths from butterflies. Moths have larger “scales”, giving them more stocky, furry-looking bodies. Moths also have eyes suited for night vision and exhibit wing coupling, where the fore- and hind-wings join as a single wing for flight. Then there’s the colour palette.

But these features actually don’t separate all moths from butterflies, just night-flyers (nocturnal) from day-flyers.

Butterflies should perhaps be considered as a group of day-flying “flamboyant” moths. The opposite is also true, we have moths that fly during the day, just a “wannabee” butterfly perhaps.

There are 125 families of moths and just six families of butterflies. The newest moth family was discovered in 2015.

The Hedylidae family is commonly referred to as the moth-butterflies. They are dull coloured, fly at night, have bristly antenna and wing coupling (in most species). These are definitely moth features but their genetic code suggests they are most closely related to butterflies.

Moths helped flowering plants evolve

One family still living today, the Micropteridae, has been pollinating flowers for millions of years. It’s likely to be one of only a few insects that pollinated the first flowers. This most ancient moth has been found preserved in amber from 125 million years ago. That makes moths twice as old as butterflies.

As adults, these moths have chewing mouthparts. Today they use these jaws to eat flower pollen. This suggests these ancient moths contributed to the success of the first flowering plants.

Most moths and butterflies have sucking mouthparts for drinking nectar. They have a tube-like proboscis that curls up to sit just under their head. This can be uncurled to probe flowers.

This means moths are not only the night-shift pollinator, they’re also more efficient than the daytime bee pollinators we hear most about.

The big and small of it

The smaller moths are commonly grouped as “microlepidoptera”, but not necessarily related to each other. The smallest has a wingspan of only about 2.6mm.

The largest moth is the Hercules moth from northern Queensland in Australia with a wingspan of 361mm.

The family Hepialidae, commonly known in Australia as rain, ghost, splendid or swift moths, are among the heaviest of all moths with a wingspan of 250mm and weigh 35 grams.

They are considered an old group as they have no proboscis (mouth parts).

The moths emerge in huge numbers and mate almost immediately after hatching. The females then fly through the woodland dropping eggs randomly as they go.

One common species is thought to hold the world record for the number of eggs carried at around 44,000.

Although most species of Hepialidae are cryptically camouflaged, most adult moths do not live longer than a single day as they are a great food source for bats, birds and other animals. The caterpillar growing phase may take many years in the ground and yet the adults only live for around a single day.

Some moths can hear

That’s right, some moths can hear sound. But moth “ears” (tympanic organs) are not on their heads. Some groups have only two such organs but others have four, located at the bases of their legs on the body (thorax) of the animal.

These organs can help the moths detect bats, who hunt moths at night, so it is no surprise that three of the largest moths all have tympanic organs. One study also suggests the exaggerated hindwings of silk moths evolved to mess with bat sonar.

Although most moths use chemicals and pheromones to attract a mate, whistling moths use sound. The males fly around (during the day) and are thought, as they fly, to rub a scaleless ribbed area of the wing against a body protrusion making what sounds like a high pitched whistle. The females hear this noise and fly towards it.

There may be up to a million moth species on the planet and many moth species are yet to be discovered.

So next time you’re out for a walk, or spending time in your garden, day or night, look out for moths. They’re truly remarkable creatures. And perhaps you could discover a new species?

And regarding this recent tweet about a “frothy moth”: this moth belongs to the genus ‘Amerila’ (in the family Erebidae, subfamily Arctiinae) and could be ‘Amerila crokeri’ . They are known to produce the froth as a defence mechanism.

Acknowledgement: This article was coauthored with Michael Moore, Honorary Researcher at the South Australian Museum.

Mark Stevens receives funding from Australian Biological Resources Study. He is affiliated with the South Australian Museum and co-wrote this article with Michael Moore, Honorary Researcher at SA Museum.

– ref. Unveiling the enigmatic world of moths: from ancient pollinators to whistling wonders – https://theconversation.com/unveiling-the-enigmatic-world-of-moths-from-ancient-pollinators-to-whistling-wonders-209590

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Marnee Shay, Associate Professor, Principal Research Fellow, The University of Queensland

Co-design is the new buzz word being applied to relationships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples.

It has been used as a key part of the Indigenous Voice process. But it is also talked about when it comes to health policy and infrastructure design.

Even fashion brand Country Road has talked about co-design in its work with Ngen’giwumirri artist, Kieren Karritpul to develop a homewares range.

Co-design is also increasingly used in education circles.

Educational policies are emphasising the importance of schools and Indigenous peoples and communities working together in improving educational outcomes for Indigenous peoples.

But what does it mean and does it stand up to the hype? Our research has identified three clear ways we can improve co-design.

Read more:
10 questions about the Voice to Parliament – answered by the experts

What is co-design?

Co-design is open to interpretation and can mean something different to each person who comes to process.

It originally comes from academic work on participatory principles and public sector innovation. It is generally understood to be a process that gives marginalised people a say on policy or programs that affect them.

But it is more than a consultation process. It is supposed to improve outcomes through collaborative relationships.

It is not without risks. So far, there is not a lot evidence around what effective co-design looks like in Indigenous settings and how it works in practice, without reinforcing existing power imbalances.

It may also see Indigenous peoples blamed if a program fails.

Our research on co-design

So it is a critical time to explore how co-design is defined and by whom and its potential to shift outcomes.

We are looking at co-design in Indigenous education policy and practice across three domains: conceptualisation (how we define it), process (how we do it) and evaluation (how we measure its success).

Our ongoing research includes case studies of primary and secondary schools and a review of existing research on co-design in education. We will also conduct a survey later this year.

Our work so far has shown us there are three clear opportunities to improve how co-design works.

1. What is the problem?

A crucial issue in co-design is the identification of problems and who does this.

If governments or schools have already decided what the problem is and then they seek Indigenous people to co-design a solution, this is not a co-designed process.

We have heard examples of schools doing “co-design”, which is really the school presenting the community with a range of solutions and asking for their help to implement them.

The priorities of the community may well be different to the priorities of the school. For the community, the priorities might be addressing transport barriers so students can attend school more easily. For the school, it may be improving literacy and numeracy outcomes.

These examples show why it is important Indigenous people are part of identifying problems and priorities. Building Indigenous peoples and communities’ strengths means deep listening before the process even begins.

Read more:
The budget makes glossy announcements on Indigenous education, but real change requires more than just money

2. Who really has the power?

Addressing power imbalances is an obvious ingredient to good co-design. However, governments and schools are hierarchical places that have typically not enabled Indigenous leadership in their structures.

This means good co-design builds in genuine collaboration and power sharing dynamics.

One principal we spoke to talked of the need for “distributive leadership”. This means “everybody having a voice and respecting that voice as well”.

Another Aboriginal community liaison officer told us how at their school, they

have an Aboriginal person that sits down and makes decisions with the principal […] including Elders […] basically empowering the community to have a say.

3. How involved are Indigenous peoples?

Our research so far has shown us how different people’s expectations and ideas can be about the co-design process.

Indigenous people are telling us there is an expectation mob are part of the process from the problem location to the evaluation of it’s success.

But in our systematic literature review of 15 papers on co-design in Indigenous education, only six showed evidence of Indigenous engagement from the early design phase and on.

We have also seen the importance of understanding and respecting Indigenous protocols and leadership throughout. This includes understanding traditional owners in the process.

Where co-design could take us

Co-design can encompass many ideas – already advocated over past decades – such as strengthening school and community relationships and giving Indigenous people a greater say in how schools serve their families and communities.

Our research is focused on consolidating the limited research we already have on co-design in Indigenous education and generating new, Indigenous and evidence-based understandings of co-design in schools.

The next key step is evaluation, to look at whether whether co-design is effective and to make the most of its potential to transform outcomes in education.

Read more:
What did the public say about the government’s Indigenous Voice co-design process?

Marnee Shay receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the Australian Government.

Marnee Shay is a member of the Queensland Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education and Training Advisory Committee with the Department of Education Queensland.

Grace Sarra receives funding from the
Australian Research Council

– ref. ‘Co-design’ is the latest buzzword in Indigenous education policy. Does it live up to the hype? – https://theconversation.com/co-design-is-the-latest-buzzword-in-indigenous-education-policy-does-it-live-up-to-the-hype-212194

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Leah Ruppanner, Professor of Sociology and Founding Director of The Future of Work Lab, The University of Melbourne

In the toughest days of the pandemic, many dual-income families made the difficult choice to drop down to one income.

With dads being the primary earners in many heterosexual households, it was often the mother who gave up her job to manage all the extra housework, homeschooling and childcare the pandemic brought.

But what about heterosexual households where the mother was the primary earner?

Our study, published in the Journal of Marriage and Family, involved analysis of 7,139 different-sex married parents in the United States, captured at multiple time points. We found many married mothers who earned half or more of the family’s income got knocked out of employment during the first 18 months of the pandemic.

The employment rate of fathers who earned the bulk of the money over this time dropped much less, we found. In fact, it barely changed.

Our study also found the ability to work remotely was an important lifeline for mothers to retain employment. Overall, earning more of the income couldn’t guarantee mothers would be protected from employment loss, but working remotely was crucial to mothers remaining employed.

Read more:
The ‘great resignation’ didn’t happen in Australia, but the ‘great burnout’ did

Even earning more, many mothers were knocked out of employment

To track US mothers’ employment over the duration of the pandemic, we used data from the Annual Social and Economic Supplement of the Current Population Survey. The data are collected by the US Census Bureau.

Our sample included civilian respondents aged 25–54 who were different-sex, married parents with children 12 years or younger. In each case, both the respondent and their spouse reported working for pay in 2019, before the pandemic started.

We used this data set to follow mothers’ and fathers’ employment patterns over the first year of the pandemic (January 2020 to May 2021).

We found fathers in this group who were primary earners tended to remain employed over this period.

The employment rate for mothers, by contrast, dropped significantly in the first few months and never fully recovered. It didn’t matter if mothers were primary earners or not – their employment rate still dropped.

In fact, by the March to May period of 2021, mothers’ employment was over four percentage points lower than pre-pandemic levels – regardless of their earnings.

So, earning more of the family income didn’t necessarily shield mothers from employment loss. What did matter, however, was access to telecommuting.

Mothers who could work online had significantly higher employment rates across the period of our study than mothers who couldn’t. Additionally, the positive effect of telecommuting on employment was four times larger for mothers than for fathers.

Telecommuting was a lifeline for mothers’ employment during the pandemic.

The pandemic-pummelled mothers

These findings build on our previous research showing US mothers’ employment was hit hard during the pandemic.

At the start of the pandemic, our previous research found nearly 250,000 more mothers than fathers exited employment from February to April 2020.

We also found in prior studies that US mothers with children aged five or under reduced their work time four to five times more than equivalent fathers.

We also showed that in-person learning in the latter part of 2020 was lower in US districts with higher proportions of Black and Hispanic students. Remote learning across the 2020–2021 school year led mothers’ but not fathers’ employment to drop, especially for those with less education and limited access to telecommuting.

And our earlier research revealed how US mothers stepped into more housework and childcare, causing sleep problems, anxiety and stress.

As we discussed these findings with researchers and the community, one question would keep coming up: isn’t all this just the consequence of fathers earning more?

Isn’t it a “rational” choice to shield fathers from job loss, rather than mothers, because men tend to be the primary earners?

Our recently published research shows that, no, this was not necessarily about who made more money in the household – it is often about who is expected to provide care when times get tough.

Many mothers got knocked out of employment even when they were the family’s highest earner.

Where to from here?

US mothers have now returned to employment at pre-pandemic levels. But we can’t ignore the fact many mothers stepped into the added care of the pandemic while also trying to maintain their work lives. Many couldn’t and employment dropped. Others experienced significant earnings losses even while remaining employed.

For those with the option to work remotely – who are largely employed in professional jobs – this benefit was and remains critical to their ability to hold onto their job. Despite this, employers are increasingly removing this lifeline and demanding a return to the workplace.

These lessons also extend to other Western nations. In Australia, for example, mothers picked up more housework and childcare at the expense of their health and wellbeing (as did fathers). Australian workers want remote work to remain which has long been critical to mothers maintaining employment and to avoid burnout.

The pandemic showed care work is critical to our lives and we must support those who do it.

For married heterosexual mothers, this means acknowledging the tolls of the pandemic and ensuring access for all in relevant occupations to critical resources like telecommuting.

Read more:
Yet again, the census shows women are doing more housework. Now is the time to invest in interventions

Leah Ruppanner receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

Liana Christin Landivar is a senior researcher at the US Department of Labor. Views expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of the US Department of Labor.

Caitlyn Collins and William Scarborough 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. Being the main breadwinner didn’t necessarily keep married mums in work during the pandemic – https://theconversation.com/being-the-main-breadwinner-didnt-necessarily-keep-married-mums-in-work-during-the-pandemic-210897

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Catherine Strong, Associate professor, Music Industry, RMIT University

Women participate in Australia’s music industries – as musicians and workers – at rates well below men. On average, women receive less airplay on Australian radio, less pay and less representation on music boards, awards and line-ups than their male counterparts.

Understanding why women might leave their music careers and what could bring them back is an important part of solving the puzzle to increase their participation.

We recently conducted a study aimed at developing strategies to help women and gender-non-conforming people in Victoria return to music work after a career break.

One key finding – unsurprisingly – was that caring responsibilities and parenthood were common reasons for women taking a break. These responsibilities then create barriers to re-establishing careers and career progression in music.

This, of course, is not unique to music work. Women take on the majority of caring work for children. It means they take longer away from their careers, and are more likely to return on a part-time basis. This leaves them at a disadvantage compared to men who have had no career interruptions.

But there are particular circumstances in the music industry that create complications and problems specific to this field, compounding the disadvantage new parents face in any workplace and compounding the issues of insecure work in music.

Read more:
Returning to work after childbirth: still a case of ‘managing it all’

Unsociable social hours

The culture of music has been built around its role in the entertainment industries. Gigs are often held late at night, and the consumption of alcohol (and possibly other drugs) is central to many music scenes.

Even music with a more conservative image, like classical, is still performed outside normal working hours.

As one person we interviewed said:

I really had to start reinventing my world because as a single mum I couldn’t do a nighttime life, I couldn’t. I couldn’t afford babysitters, and your job is to parent. So the whole nighttime scenario was – I could occasionally get out, but I couldn’t have a career with gigs and rehearsals after hours.

Even when respondents could afford childcare, they told us the hours on offer do not match with when they are needed.

This separation of music performance from “everyday life” and domesticity means industry structures, such as venues and booking agents, often overlook basic accommodations for women with caring responsibilities.

One respondent said:

Touring is really, really difficult with a child because venues often don’t provide you with accommodation or green rooms or anywhere you can change a nappy or put a child down. You have to have a carer on tour with you to make that work and women with families manage that but it’s the exception, not the rule.

Another interviewee told us they had become sick with mastitis because of a lack of places to breastfeed or express.

Irregular work puts mothers off beat

The literal gig economy of music means not having regular hours, which makes planning financially and organisationally difficult.

It’s not an office job where you know you’re working nine to five, five days a week, and those hours are set for the whole year. I mean it can be very flexible but at the same time there’s that unpredictability [which] can be really hard with arranging childcare or additional hours.

This unpredictability and informal nature mean a lack of structures protecting workers. Often working as sole traders or on short-term contracts, women have little recourse if they face discrimination because of their parenting status, if they are underpaid, or if they face harassment.

For some women, the combination of these factors means parenting and a music career are just not compatible:

There’s been times where I’ve just gone, ‘I’m just going to take a regular job where I get sick pay and holiday pay and carer’s leave, and where I can take time off to look after my kid during the school holidays, because I’m a single parent and no one else is going to do it.’ So many roles in the music industry are self-employed, and you are left flailing to try and look after yourself.

In an industry where women and gender-non-conforming people are already facing sexism, harassment and ageism, parenthood can be the final straw.

For others, seeing how hard parenting is in music might lead them to delay having children, or not have them at all.

Making music work more accessible

Music industry employers and workers offered several suggestions to improve the conditions for parents in the music industry.

The new Centre for Arts and Entertainment Workplaces may help mothers assert their rights within music workplaces.

Grant schemes should provide a way to account for care-giving, including facilitating children being taken on tour. Funding quiet infant-feeding rooms and safe, flexible and affordable childcare options would send the message women with children are valued.

Participants told us they needed employers to be more understanding about career gaps and to provide paid parental leave beyond government requirements.

Working to change the culture of the music industry so women with children are not treated as a novelty would help retain the talent of many who struggle to balance caring and music work.

Read more:
Pay, safety and welfare: how the new Centre for Arts and Entertainment Workplaces can strengthen the arts sector

Community is key

Our key takeaways were about the importance of personal relationships.

Participants told us rebuilding connections and networks in the music industry after a career break – or maintaining them during the break – was central to being able to restart careers.

Networks are fundamental to building strong music careers. For women trying to shape careers around the constraints of motherhood, having people who had been, or were in, the same situation made them feel supported and gave them creative ideas about how to solve problems. Formal and informal mentorships were highly valued.

People in our study had formed connections with one another and were resolved to develop their careers. But opportunities for building bridges back into the music industry are still constrained.

Ongoing activism, community-building and initiatives focused on bringing parents (and others who take career breaks) back into music work are essential for diverse and thriving music cities.

Catherine Strong received funding from the National Careers Institute for this study.

Fabian Cannizzo received funding from the National Careers Institue for this study.

Shelley Brunt received funding from the National Careers Institute for this study.

– ref. ‘You are left flailing to try and look after yourself’: the music industry still constrains mothers’ careers – https://theconversation.com/you-are-left-flailing-to-try-and-look-after-yourself-the-music-industry-still-constrains-mothers-careers-210978

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dylan Bird, PhD candidate, University of Tasmania

“We’re here because this moment demands an explanation.”

So begins the first ever episode of New York Times’ The Daily podcast, delivered by host Michael Barbaro in his now famous style. It arrived on Wednesday February 1, 2017 – less than a fortnight after Donald Trump’s inauguration as President of the United States.

By the end of Trump’s term, it was wildly popular, reportedly attracting some four million daily downloads and referred to as the newspaper’s “new front page”.

The Daily’s success inspired many other news outlets to develop podcasts, including in Australia, with the likes of ABC’s The Signal (since replaced by ABC News Daily), Schwartz Media’s 7am, and Guardian Australia’s Full Story launching from 2018.

According to 2023 data from The Infinite Dial – which tracks digital media use internationally – Australia has now surpassed the US to be a world leader in podcast listening, with 43% of the population aged 12 and over having listened to a podcast in the past month.

Australia also has the third highest rate of news podcast listening, behind the US and Sweden, with 14% of news consumers listening to news podcasts in the past month.

Despite these trends, there’s been limited research on news podcast listening in Australia. My recent research, published in June, found news podcast listeners in Australia tend to be politically left-leaning, wealthier, and more highly educated than average.

I also found they tend to be politically active, and value news podcasts for enabling them to better participate in democratic life.

Interestingly, listeners didn’t appear to trust podcasts more than other forms of news in general, with 61.1% reporting “the same” level of trust. However, they reported a high level of trust in news they choose to consume.

The rise of news podcasts happened amid a volatile political climate. In 2023, as Trump prepares for another run for president, and with a political storm brewing in Australia as we approach a referendum on an Indigenous Voice to parliament, there are good reasons to consider the role this podcast genre plays in democracy.

Read more:
Michelle Obama, podcast host: how podcasting became a multi-billion dollar industry

From radio to podcast news

Radio news developed slowly following the invention of mass broadcasting in the early 1920s. It began with announcers reading press agency reports on air, giving rise to an authoritative and detached presenting style, reflecting the journalistic value of objectivity. While formats have differed, this has characterised radio news for much of its history.

Podcasting emerged in the early 2000s out of the disruption caused by the internet, and particularly the ability of users to generate and share content.

The lack of time constraints compared to radio meant podcast episodes could go for any length. And because they could be downloaded, listeners could engage with content in their own time, on their own terms.

Slate’s Political Gabfest (2005-) was one of the first “native” podcasts – that is, produced specially for digital consumption – exploring news and politics. But it wasn’t until 2014, with podcasting’s breakout moment in true-crime sensation Serial, that news podcasts began to take off.

The Daily grew out of the New York Times’ election podcast The Run-Up. It pioneered the format known as the “daily deep dive” – defined by the Reuters Institute as “heavily produced using sound design and narrative storytelling techniques”.

Many news podcasts since have similarly deployed narrative storytelling and immersive sound design to explore issues in the news. This has been championed as offering a more “human” approach to the news, featuring personal presenting styles and the harnessing of emotion.

Media fragmentation and politics

Reuters’ 2023 Digital News Report notes how in the podcasting sphere “news jostles for attention with lifestyle and specialist shows”. This may explain the degree of ambivalence around trust in news podcasts, with a wide variety of offerings categorised as “news” in podcast players such as Apple Podcasts.

Podcasting is difficult to regulate, and there’s a risk of the medium being used to spread dangerous messages, as has happened across social media generally.

Read more:
Misinformation is rife and causing deeper polarisation – here’s how social media users can help curb it

In his new book, Bruce Wolpe, Senior Fellow at the United States Studies Centre, considers what a second Trump presidency would mean for Australia. He notes the corrosive influence of Trump and his Fox News acolytes on public trust, and warns that Australia should prepare for an emboldening of the populist right-wing sentiment that accompanied his rise on the political scene.

In the face of this, independent and rigorous journalism, supported by a well-funded ABC, has an important role to play.

As my study highlights, it’s important to acknowledge news podcast listeners tend to be from the higher social classes. There’s an impetus, then, to ensure coverage includes the perspectives of those who might not otherwise be well represented across the media sphere.

This has particular importance in relation to issues like the upcoming referendum, with a risk of it being used to fan the flames of culture wars.

Read more:
Who is Joe Rogan, and why does Spotify love him so much?

At their best, news podcasts can engage us meaningfully in important issues, transporting us to unexpected places and highlighting the human impact at the heart of news stories, supported by facts and informed analysis.

With Australians among the most active news podcast listeners globally, there’s reason to have hope they can play a productive role in helping us navigate politically uncertain times.

Dylan Bird receives funding through an Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship.

– ref. Australia tops the world for podcast listening. Why do we love them so much? – https://theconversation.com/australia-tops-the-world-for-podcast-listening-why-do-we-love-them-so-much-208937

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mahya Tavan, Postdoctoral research fellow – Sustainable Nutrition Initiative, Massey University

Iron deficiency is one of the most common forms of nutrient deficiency around the world.

Severe iron deficiency, also known as anaemia, affects nearly 50% of women of reproductive age in regions like South Asia, Central Africa and West Africa (in contrast to 16% of women in high-income countries).

In New Zealand, 10.6% of women aged 15-18 and 12.1% of women aged 31-50 suffer from iron deficiency. The risk increases during the third trimester of pregnancy, and the iron status must be carefully monitored to ensure good health for both the mother and baby.

As more people consider switching to plant-based diets, the risk of iron deficiency will likely increase.

Our modelling of nutrient availability in current and future global food systems also suggests we can expect a gap in dietary iron by 2040 if global patterns of food production and supply remain unchanged.

This means we’ll have to address iron shortfalls in our diet, especially in populations with higher requirements such as adolescents and women. We argue that fortifying foods with iron could provide a one-stop solution to bridge nutrient gaps caused by inadequate dietary intake.

Read more:
Low iron is a health risk made worse by COVID. How to get more without reaching for supplements

Food fortification

Many foods in supermarket shelves, including common staples such as bread and cereals, already have added nutrients.

Unlike mandatory iodine and folic acid fortification of bread, there is currently no government initiative to encourage or mandate iron fortification in New Zealand.

Since iron-fortification strategies have the potential to prevent deficiencies in many countries, including New Zealand, we argue that introducing iron to our foods may be a convenient and cost-effective way to provide a source of dietary iron.

Shift to plant-based diets

More consumers are opting for diets that include fewer animal-sourced foods in the hope of reducing environmental impacts and emissions. Recent statistics show a 19% increase in the adoption of vegan and vegetarian diets among New Zealanders from 2018 to 2021.

Considering these plant-based diets for a sustainable food system must involve conversations about nutrient availability. Plant foods often contain high amounts of fibre and phytates, which reduce the body’s capacity to absorb the iron.

Iron in plant foods such as whole grains, nuts, seeds, legumes and leafy greens is known as non-heme and is less readily absorbed than heme iron in animal-sourced foods. In a mixed diet, consisting of vegetables, grains and animal-sourced foods, the consumption of some red meat, fish or poultry facilitates non-heme iron absorption.

Read more:
What to drink with dinner to get the most iron from your food (and what to avoid)

Fortification can be a potent strategy in helping people to shift towards plant-based diets by enriching these diets with nutrients that would otherwise be lacking.

A recent study investigating this potential revealed that fortifying foods with essential micronutrients, including iron, enables a more gradual dietary adjustment. Consumers wishing to adopt more plant-based diets without compromising nutrient adequacy may find this approach helpful.

However, there’s a caveat. These iron-fortified foods often contain wheat or cereal-based ingredients, which can act as iron absorption inhibitors. As these are common breakfast foods that may be consumed with a morning coffee or tea, the inhibition effect may be even stronger due to the presence of phenolic compounds in these beverages.

One solution could be to eat iron-rich plant foods with foods high in vitamin C, such as orange juice, which helps to convert iron to a more absorbable form.

Is NZ ready for iron-fortified foods?

Although fortified foods can offer great benefits in tackling iron deficiency, some consumers are hesitant to include these foods in their diets.

Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ), a government entity responsible for developing food regulations for both nations, found many consumers had second thoughts about reaching for fortified foods, viewing them as unnatural, processed and less healthy.

This hesitancy was particularly evident when it came to non-mandatory fortifications. Added vitamins and minerals in breakfast cereals or, more recently, in plant-based milks and meat alternatives, are examples of non-mandatory or “voluntary fortification”. Consumers often perceive this as a marketing tactic rather than a health-promoting intervention.

Given the importance of adequate dietary iron intake and the projected shortage in dietary iron, it is crucial to evaluate the benefits of fortification. Educational interventions such as promoting awareness of iron deficiency and positive impacts of fortification may help improve consumers’ acceptance of these initiatives.

Mahya Tavan receives funding from the Global Dairy Platform for developing a dietary optimisation model called The iOTA Model.

Bi Xue Patricia Soh 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. Future diets will be short of micronutrients like iron — it’s time to consider how we feed people – https://theconversation.com/future-diets-will-be-short-of-micronutrients-like-iron-its-time-to-consider-how-we-feed-people-212355

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mahya Tavan, Postdoctoral research fellow – Sustainable Nutrition Initiative, Massey University

Iron deficiency is one of the most common forms of nutrient deficiency around the world.

Severe iron deficiency, also known as anaemia, affects nearly 50% of women of reproductive age in regions like South Asia, Central Africa and West Africa (in contrast to 16% of women in high-income countries).

In New Zealand, 10.6% of women aged 15-18 and 12.1% of women aged 31-50 suffer from iron deficiency. The risk increases during the third trimester of pregnancy, and the iron status must be carefully monitored to ensure good health for both the mother and baby.

As more people consider switching to plant-based diets, the risk of iron deficiency will likely increase.

Our modelling of nutrient availability in current and future global food systems also suggests we can expect a gap in dietary iron by 2040 if global patterns of food production and supply remain unchanged.

This means we’ll have to address iron shortfalls in our diet, especially in populations with higher requirements such as adolescents and women. We argue that fortifying foods with iron could provide a one-stop solution to bridge nutrient gaps caused by inadequate dietary intake.

Read more:
Low iron is a health risk made worse by COVID. How to get more without reaching for supplements

Food fortification

Many foods in supermarket shelves, including common staples such as bread and cereals, already have added nutrients.

Unlike mandatory iodine and folic acid fortification of bread, there is currently no government initiative to encourage or mandate iron fortification in New Zealand.

Since iron-fortification strategies have the potential to prevent deficiencies in many countries, including New Zealand, we argue that introducing iron to our foods may be a convenient and cost-effective way to provide a source of dietary iron.

Shift to plant-based diets

More consumers are opting for diets that include fewer animal-sourced foods in the hope of reducing environmental impacts and emissions. Recent statistics show a 19% increase in the adoption of vegan and vegetarian diets among New Zealanders from 2018 to 2021.

Considering these plant-based diets for a sustainable food system must involve conversations about nutrient availability. Plant foods often contain high amounts of fibre and phytates, which reduce the body’s capacity to absorb the iron.

Iron in plant foods such as whole grains, nuts, seeds, legumes and leafy greens is known as non-heme and is less readily absorbed than heme iron in animal-sourced foods. In a mixed diet, consisting of vegetables, grains and animal-sourced foods, the consumption of some red meat, fish or poultry facilitates non-heme iron absorption.

Read more:
What to drink with dinner to get the most iron from your food (and what to avoid)

Fortification can be a potent strategy in helping people to shift towards plant-based diets by enriching these diets with nutrients that would otherwise be lacking.

A recent study investigating this potential revealed that fortifying foods with essential micronutrients, including iron, enables a more gradual dietary adjustment. Consumers wishing to adopt more plant-based diets without compromising nutrient adequacy may find this approach helpful.

However, there’s a caveat. These iron-fortified foods often contain wheat or cereal-based ingredients, which can act as iron absorption inhibitors. As these are common breakfast foods that may be consumed with a morning coffee or tea, the inhibition effect may be even stronger due to the presence of phenolic compounds in these beverages.

One solution could be to eat iron-rich plant foods with foods high in vitamin C, such as orange juice, which helps to convert iron to a more absorbable form.

Is NZ ready for iron-fortified foods?

Although fortified foods can offer great benefits in tackling iron deficiency, some consumers are hesitant to include these foods in their diets.

Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ), a government entity responsible for developing food regulations for both nations, found many consumers had second thoughts about reaching for fortified foods, viewing them as unnatural, processed and less healthy.

This hesitancy was particularly evident when it came to non-mandatory fortifications. Added vitamins and minerals in breakfast cereals or, more recently, in plant-based milks and meat alternatives, are examples of non-mandatory or “voluntary fortification”. Consumers often perceive this as a marketing tactic rather than a health-promoting intervention.

Given the importance of adequate dietary iron intake and the projected shortage in dietary iron, it is crucial to evaluate the benefits of fortification. Educational interventions such as promoting awareness of iron deficiency and positive impacts of fortification may help improve consumers’ acceptance of these initiatives.

Mahya Tavan receives funding from the Global Dairy Platform for developing a dietary optimisation model called The iOTA Model.

Bi Xue Patricia Soh 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. Our modelling suggests future diets will be short of micronutrients like iron — it’s time to consider how we feed people – https://theconversation.com/our-modelling-suggests-future-diets-will-be-short-of-micronutrients-like-iron-its-time-to-consider-how-we-feed-people-212355

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gregory Moore, Senior Research Associate, School of Ecosystem and Forest Sciences, The University of Melbourne

Most of us find it very difficult to identify different species of eucalypt. You often hear people say they all look the same.

Of course, they don’t. There are over 700 species of the iconic tree genus, and they can be very different in form, height, flowers and colours.

With all this variety, it’s nice to have a few species we can identify from metres away, just from looking at the colours and patterns of the bark on the trunk. The spotted gum is one of these instantly recognisable eucalypts.

You may well have seen a spotted gum growing happily on an urban street. These smooth-barked eucalypts have been planted up and down many suburban streets.

In fact, if the spotted gum has a secret superpower, it would be the ability to fit into our cities with a minimum of fuss. They’re big trees, and produce vast quantities of blossoms, attracting nectar-eaters like rainbow lorikeets in droves. They grow easily, grow straight and grow tall.

Why are spotted gums special?

Spotted gum used to be called Eucalyptus maculata. Now it’s officially Corymbia maculata after a name change about 25 years ago. Some people still debate this.

It was probably the trunk and bark of these trees which first caught your eye. These trees replace their bark seasonally, but not all at once. Instead, bits of the bark are shed and new bark grows at different rates. That leaves the famous spots on their trunks (maculatus is Latin for spotted).

Early in the growing season some of these spots can be a bright green before fading to tans and greys over the coming months. Many patterns can be stunningly beautiful.

These trees are loved by many. But there are sceptics. Some feel the trees can be a nuisance, and even dangerous because of the bark and branches they shed. There is some truth to it, as they can drop branches during droughts. Interestingly, these hardwood trees are actually considered fire resistant.

But there are very good reasons our city planners and councils turn to the spotted gum. Their wonderfully straight, light coloured and spotted trunks are impressive whether trees are planted singly, in avenues (meaning two rows of trees) or in boulevards (four rows of trees).

They often get to an impressive 30–45 metres in height. Old trees can get over 60m.

During profuse flowering, anthers (the pollen-bearing part of the stamen) shed from a single tree can cover the ground, paths, homes, roads and vehicles in a white snow-like frosting.

In nature, the spotted gum and close relatives, the lemon scented gum (C. citriodora) and large leafed spotted gum (C. henryii) grow along the east coast of Australia, from far eastern Victoria to southern Queensland. In New South Wales forests, you might be lucky enough to spot the pairing of spotted gums and native cycads (Macrozamia), ancient plants resembling palms.

Spotted gums are quick growing and hardy, if a little frost-sensitive when young. They can tolerate periods of waterlogged soil. These traits make the species well suited to urban use, where disturbed and low-oxygen soils are common due to paving, compaction and waterlogging.

Urban trees have to be able to establish quickly and with relatively little care. They need to cope with environmental stresses and very poor quality urban soils. They need tall straight trunks so people and vehicles can pass under them, and so our cities keep their clear sight lines.

But we also want street trees to have broad, spreading canopies with a dense green foliage, to give shade, privacy and beauty.

As you can see, it’s a tough set of requirements. The spotted gum meets all of these. In fact, it has the potential to be one of the great urban tree species, not just in Australia but internationally.

Read more:
Climate change threatens up to 100% of trees in Australian cities, and most urban species worldwide

Resilient trees for the future climate

Spotted gums are tough. On urban streets in many parts of Australia, they will endure as the climate changes – possibly for decades or even centuries. They possess both lignotubers, the protective swelling at the base of the trunk, and epicormic buds, which lie dormant under the bark in readiness for fire and other stresses. These let the trees cope well with the abuses urban life can throw at them.

Horticulturalists have been working to make the tree even better suited to urban use. Careful selection has created spotted gum varieties geared towards dense, spreading canopies and with reduced risk of dropping branches.

But not all spotted gums you see are like this. These varieties were uncommon or didn’t exist 50 years ago, which means old urban trees might be more likely to shed limbs or have less attractive forms.

These trees are survivors. Near Batemans Bay in New South Wales lives Old Blotchy, the oldest known spotted gum. It’s estimated to be 500 years old.

Some urban trees are already 150 years old and in fine condition. Planting good quality spotted gums in a good position is a way to leave a lasting legacy.

As climate change intensifies, city planners are looking for resilient street trees able to provide cooling shade in a hotter climate. They could do a lot worse than choosing C. maculata.

Read more:
Without urgent action, these are the street trees unlikely to survive climate change

Gregory Moore 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 humble spotted gum is a world class urban tree. Here’s why – https://theconversation.com/the-humble-spotted-gum-is-a-world-class-urban-tree-heres-why-212540

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Elek Pafka, Senior Lecturer in Urban Planning and Urban Design, The University of Melbourne

What would Goldilocks do if given the chance to pick the “just right” density for our cities? Depends who you ask.

Debates over densities in our cities divide between advocates of low-rise detached housing and supporters of higher-density towers. Both offer little diversity. In Australian cities, but also in North America, we see a clear contrast between ground-scraping suburbs and clusters of CBD skyscrapers.

The combination of these two patterns of development has produced largely car-dependent cities. Commute times are long and carbon emissions high. Options are limited for those who wish to live in a neighbourhood with corner shops, short walking distances to a local centre, communal green space and public parks.

Neighbourhoods like this are enabled by mid-rise (three to seven storeys), mid-density housing. This form of building has been dubbed the “missing middle”. Decades of planning for urban consolidation has made little difference – medium density is still missing in many of our cities.

Read more:
Houses and high-rises (and nothing in between): why land zoning hasn’t been effective for improving urban density

Lack of clarity bedevils density debates

In debates about urban density, there’s often a confused mix of different conceptions and measures of density. For example, the widely used measure of dwellings per hectare conflates building and population densities, capturing neither with precision. Often such debates don’t consider basic distinctions such as those between building and population densities, residential and job densities, internal and external densities (inside and outside buildings), measured and perceived densities.

A census can easily capture residential night-time population densities. However, fluctuating daytime densities cannot be measured accurately. Building densities can be accurately measured as floor area ratio (FAR, the total floor area of buildings divided by the total site area) but this is rarely applied.

Metrics are often heavily biased by inconsistent reference areas. What spatial scales matter for which desired outcome is seldom questioned.

For example, a reference area of about 1 square kilometre is relevant for a walkable neighbourhood. Our perceptions of densities depend on the spatial reach of our senses, mostly up to 100 metres. These include the visual sense of enclosure, the diversity and quality of the public-private interfaces, street layouts, trees and other vegetation.

If experts are unable to accurately measure urban densities, how can we expect everyone else to understand?

Read more:
Urban density matters – but what does it mean?

Buzzwords don’t solve the problem

With confusions persisting, the stigmatisation of urban density, meaning for many “too dense”, persists. This tendency has been often countered through linguistic attempts to reframe the term.

For example, in Vancouver, Canada, the urbanist Brent Toderian has been calling for “density done well”. This term has been adopted in Melbourne too. Other terms include “Goldilocks density” – “not too high, not too low, but just right” – “optimal-quality density” and “EcoDenCity”.

But these are vaguely defined terms that can mean many things to different people. Our research shows that planning professionals in Melbourne associate “density done well” with neighbourhoods as different as North Perth, Western Australia, and Friedrichshain in Berlin. Their gross floor area ratios range from 0.7 to 4.3.

Put simply, “good” density is not limited to ratio of buildings to space. And it’s prone to change over time.

Read more:
People love the idea of 20-minute neighbourhoods. So why isn’t it top of the agenda?

Getting density right depends on local contexts

The “missing middle” is sometimes exemplified by the three-to-seven-storey perimeter block. The block is formed by attached buildings aligned with the streets with a large communal courtyard in the middle. It’s common and well understood in Europe (Friedrichshain is an example above), but less so in Australia and North America.

David Sim describes this building type in detail in his book Soft City. He links it to nine quality criteria, including the diversity of buildings and open spaces.

Research testing these criteria for Melbourne shows only five larger pockets come close to meeting them, with floor area ratios of 0.6-0.7. These are inner-city suburbs built along tram lines and with diverse building types. Their buildings include two-storey terrace housing, three-storey walk-ups and occasionally taller apartments. None of these are perimeter blocks, which are largely absent in Australia.

Read more:
What makes a city tick? Designing the ‘urban DMA’

We argue that well-meaning discourses about “good” densities risk masking divergent desires through linguistic tactics. Rather, we need a better understanding of the different conceptions and metrics of densities and how they relate to people’s everyday experiences. This will require increased urban density literacy, through formal and informal education, as well as public deliberation, so we can build cities as diverse as our societies.

Goldilocks confronted very simple challenges with very simple means. But cities are made of diverse people with different tastebuds. None would have to burn their tongue if they were more aware of the knowledge and tools we have at hand.

We thank Ben Thorp for his contributions to this article. Elek Pafka 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 his academic appointment.

Merrick Morley receives a stipend from the City of Melbourne for his PhD candidature

– ref. How do we get urban density ‘just right’? The Goldilocks quest for the ‘missing middle’ – https://theconversation.com/how-do-we-get-urban-density-just-right-the-goldilocks-quest-for-the-missing-middle-211208

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nicole Boivin, Professor, Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology

In 1900 – some 22 years before he discovered the tomb of Tutankhamen – British archaeologist Howard Carter opened another tomb in the Valley of the Kings. In tomb KV42, Carter found the remains of a noblewoman called Senetnay, who died around 1450 BCE.

More than a century later, a French perfumer has recreated one of the scents used in Senetnay’s mummification. And the link between these two events is our research, published today in Scientific Reports, which delves into the ingredients of this ancient Egyptian balm recipe.

Recreating the smells of a disappeared world

Our team drew upon cutting-edge technologies in chemistry to reconstruct ancient scents from jars of Senetnay found in the tomb.

We used three variations of chromatographic and mass spectrometric techniques, which work by breaking samples down into individual molecules. Specific substances have different assemblages of molecules. Based on these characteristic compounds and through comparison to known reference materials, we identified the different ingredients.

After the excavation by Carter, two of Senetnay’s jars recovered from the tomb made their way to Germany. So, in 2020, we approached the Museum August Kestner in Hannover about the possibility of analysing the jars with these new methods.

These jars are known as canopic jars. They are made of limestone and were used to store the mummified organs of the ancient Egyptian elite.

Somewhere along the way, however, Senetnay’s jars lost their contents. All that remained of the mummified organs were faint residues on the bottom of the jars.

Remarkably, chemical analyses allow scientists to take such trace remains and reconstruct the original contents.

Read more:
Curious Kids: who was the first ancient mummy?

An ancient ingredients list

Our analysis revealed the balms used to coat and preserve Senetnay’s organs contained a blend of beeswax, plant oil, fats, bitumen, an unidentified balsamic substance, and resins from trees of the pine family (most likely larch).

One other substance was narrowed down to either a resin called dammar – found in coniferous and hardwood trees in South-East and East Asia – or Pistacia tree resin.

The results were exciting; these were the richest and most complex balms ever identified for this early time period.

It was clear a lot of effort had gone into making the balms. This suggests Senetnay, who was the wet nurse of the future Pharaoh Amenhotep II, had been an important figure in her day.

The findings also contribute to growing chemical evidence that the ancient Egyptians went far and wide to source ingredients for mummification balms, drawing on extensive trade networks that stretched into areas beyond their realm.

Since trees of the pine family are not endemic to Egypt, the possible larch resin must have come from somewhere further afield, most likely Central Europe.

The most puzzling ingredient was the one identified as either Pistacia or dammar resin. If the ingredient was Pistacia – which is derived from the resin of pistachio trees – it likely came from some coastal region of the Mediterranean. But if it was dammar, it would have derived from much farther away in South-East Asia.

Recent analysis of balms from the site of Saqqara identified dammar in a later balm dating to the first millennium BCE. If the presence of dammar resin is confirmed in Senetnay’s case, this would suggest ancient Egyptians had access to this South-East Asian resin via long-distance trade, almost a millennium earlier than previously thought.

A perfume for the ages

Senetnay’s balm would not only have scented her remains, but also the workshop in which it was made and the proceedings of her burial rites – perfuming the air with pine, balsam, vanilla and other exotic notes. The vanilla scent comes from a compound called coumarin, and from vanillic acid, and in this case likely reflects the degradation of woody tissue.

Due to the volatile nature of scents, however, Senetnay’s unique scents gradually vanished once her remains were deposited in the Valley of the Kings.

Earlier this year, we began a collaboration with perfumer Carole Calvez and sensory museologist Sofia Collette Ehrich to bring Senetnay’s lost scent back to life.

The results of this effort will go on display at the Moesgaard Museum in Denmark in October, as part of its new exhibition: Egypt – Obsessed with Life.

This new olfactory display will be like a time machine for the nose. It will provide a unique and unparalleled window into the smells of ancient Egypt and the scents used to perfume and preserve elite individuals such as Senetnay.

Such immersive experiences provide new ways of engaging with the past and help broaden participation, particularly for visually impaired people.

Read more:
Holy bin chickens: ancient Egyptians tamed wild ibis for sacrifice

Barbara Huber receives funding from the Max Planck Society and the Joachim Herz Foundation.

Nicole Boivin 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. What would an ancient Egyptian corpse have smelled like? Pine, balsam and bitumen – if you were nobility – https://theconversation.com/what-would-an-ancient-egyptian-corpse-have-smelled-like-pine-balsam-and-bitumen-if-you-were-nobility-212504

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rico Merkert, Professor in Transport and Supply Chain Management and Deputy Director, Institute of Transport and Logistics Studies (ITLS), University of Sydney Business School, University of Sydney

The government’s decision to deny Qatar Airways the right to fly an extra 21 flights per week into Australia’s three biggest cities might just be returning Australia to the old days where we protected Australia’s national carrier at the expense of Australians.

For more than 15 years I’ve had the privilege to research and teach airline strategy in the context of global aviation bilateral air service agreements.

These agreements are essentially trade deals between the 193 governments that are signatories to the 1944 Chicago Convention on Civil Aviation.

The agreements allow designated airlines in the two signatory countries to operate air services connecting them in accordance with the reciprocity principle used in trade agreements, which is broadly: “I’ll let you in if you let me in”.

Australia has traditionally tried to deregulate international aviation, to make air travel easier for both Australians and visitors.

But in July, in an initially announced decision, Transport Minister Catherine King rejected an application for Qatar to double its flights into Australia by providing what amounted to an extra flight a day into Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney.

After being asked about the decision, the minister provided four different justifications, one of which was the “national interest”.

Read more:
Grattan: Albanese’s government has questions to answer on competition

Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones this week expanded on this reasoning, saying he didn’t want to drive ticket prices down to the point at which it was “unsustainable to run an airline” and that having Qantas occasionally make a profit was “actually a good news story”.

On its face, this suggests the government is making decisions about landing rights in order to protect the profits of Qantas – a private company it hasn’t owned since 1995. This would be a seismic shift in Australia’s international aviation policy.

A case could be made that this is in breach of the Chicago convention. Regardless, it is damaging to Australia’s international reputation and Australia’s economy.

$1 billion per year in economic damage

By my conservative estimate, the decision will cost Australia’s economy about $1 billion per year in lost income from tourism, business travel and freight.

By my conservative estimate, the decision will cost Australia’s economy about $1 billion per year in lost income from tourism, VRF (visiting friends and relatives) as well as business travel and freight.

My calculations suggest capacity on the Kangaroo Route between Australia and Europe is only back to 70% of where it was before COVID, allowing current operators such as the Emirates-Qantas alliance to charge much more than they could before the pandemic.

Qantas announced last week it would add 250,000 seats to its international network, but not a single one was on flights to Europe.

The extra Qatar Airways flights would have also gone on to New Zealand, adding further capacity to that route and cutting prices for flights across the Tasman.

And it’s not only Qatar Airways. Turkish Airlines, through the Turkish government, has asked for permission to increase of the frequency of its Australian flights from four to 14 a week, providing daily services to Melbourne and Sydney.

Turkey hasn’t yet received an answer.

Extra costs in reputational damage

The message Australia is sending is a dangerous one.

When COVID hit in 2020 and airlines including Qantas grounded their fleets, Qatar Airways temporarily became Australia’s “de facto international airline”, getting Australians home who might otherwise have been stranded. During the pandemic, some Qatar flights arrived in Australia with just 20 seats filled.

Qatar might have expected Australians to remember this and keep flying with them, and it has applied for enough flights to allow it to happen.

By denying Qatar this opportunity (and denying many Australians the opportunity to travel to Europe via Doha), Australia has shown it is prepared to be ungracious, and made it easier for other countries to treat it in the same fashion.

Australia’s number two domestic airline Virgin Australia, is planning a share market float. By appearing to signal it is prepared to go out on a limb to support Qantas against competitors, Australia has perhaps unintentionally sent a powerful message to potential investors – that Virgin’s opponent gets protection it does not.

The weak case for offering Qantas protection

There might be a case for offering Qantas protection if it was at risk of needing a taxpayer-funded bailout to stay afloat. But Qantas has returned to profit – a record A$2.5 billion profit in the year to June, after doubling its revenue.

There might also be a case (and King has made this case) that Qantas needs to be protected because it has just purchased new, quieter “better for the environment” planes on which it will need to see a return and will need to spend a further A$12 billion to A$20 billion on fleet renewal to reach its net-zero target.

But for years (including after last week’s profit announcement) Qantas has been returning capital to its shareholders by share buy-backs instead of using it to buy planes. It thinks it can do both, and perhaps it is making so much profit that it can, but if it can’t do both, it can ease off on returning capital to shareholders.

Another argument (also put by King) is that supporting Qantas will support “long-term, well-paid, secure jobs by Australians in the aviation sector.”

But much of Qantas’s international skilled work is already done offshore including on its premier QF1 flight to London which is maintained by crews from the United Kingdom.

Is there something we don’t know about?

Unless there is some sort of hidden rationale, the decision to deny Qatar Airways extra flights seems inexplicable; and given Australia’s history, unAustralian.

It is important to recognise that these are trade agreements of considerable magnitude and that decisions taken by Australia invite retaliation.

As I keep telling my students, these seemingly-boring bilateral air service agreements can have big consequences if mishandled.

Years of worth of research and international best practice indicate that an open approach to air rights delivers the best economic outcomes, especially for the country doing the opening.

More trade results in a more prosperous Australia which is good for Australian travellers, Australian businesses, and ultimately Australian airlines, too.

Australia used to tell the rest of the world that trade was good. It would need to have a very good reason for behaving differently when it came to air travel.

Rico Merkert receives funding from the ARC and various industry partners. He loves to work with and for airlines, including Qantas and Virgin Australia.

– ref. What will putting the interests of Qantas ahead of Qatar Airways cost? $1 billion per year and a new wave of protectionism of legacy carriers – https://theconversation.com/what-will-putting-the-interests-of-qantas-ahead-of-qatar-airways-cost-1-billion-per-year-and-a-new-wave-of-protectionism-of-legacy-carriers-212495

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rico Merkert, Professor in Transport and Supply Chain Management and Deputy Director, Institute of Transport and Logistics Studies (ITLS), University of Sydney Business School, University of Sydney

The government’s decision to deny Qatar Airways the right to fly an extra 21 flights per week into Australia’s three biggest cities might just be returning Australia to the old days where we protected Australia’s national carrier at the expense of Australians.

For more than 15 years I’ve had the privilege to research and teach airline strategy in the context of global aviation bilateral air service agreements.

These agreements are essentially trade deals between the 193 governments that are signatories to the 1944 Chicago Convention on Civil Aviation.

The agreements allow designated airlines in the two signatory countries to operate air services connecting them in accordance with the reciprocity principle used in trade agreements, which is broadly: “I’ll let you in if you let me in”.

Australia has traditionally tried to deregulate international aviation, to make air travel easier for both Australians and visitors.

But in July, in an initially announced decision, Transport Minister Catherine King rejected an application for Qatar to double its flights into Australia by providing what amounted to an extra flight a day into Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney.

After being asked about the decision, the minister provided four different justifications, one of which was the “national interest”.

Read more:
Grattan: Albanese’s government has questions to answer on competition

Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones this week expanded on this reasoning, saying he didn’t want to drive ticket prices down to the point at which it was “unsustainable to run an airline” and that having Qantas occasionally make a profit was “actually a good news story”.

On its face, this suggests the government is making decisions about landing rights in order to protect the profits of Qantas – a private company it hasn’t owned since 1995. This would be a seismic shift in Australia’s international aviation policy.

A case could be made that this is in breach of the Chicago convention. Regardless, it is damaging to Australia’s international reputation and Australia’s economy.

$1 billion per year in economic damage

By my conservative estimate, the decision will cost Australia’s economy about $1 billion per year in lost income from tourism, business travel and freight.

By my conservative estimate, the decision will cost Australia’s economy about $1 billion per year in lost income from tourism, VRF (visiting friends and relatives) as well as business travel and freight.

My calculations suggest capacity on the Kangaroo Route between Australia and Europe is only back to 70% of where it was before COVID, allowing current operators such as the Emirates-Qantas alliance to charge much more than they could before the pandemic.

Qantas announced last week it would add 250,000 seats to its international network, but not a single one was on flights to Europe.

The extra Qatar Airways flights would have also gone on to New Zealand, adding further capacity to that route and cutting prices for flights across the Tasman.

And it’s not only Qatar Airways. Turkish Airlines, through the Turkish government, has asked for permission to increase of the frequency of its Australian flights from four to 14 a week, providing daily services to Melbourne and Sydney.

Turkey hasn’t yet received an answer.

Extra costs in reputational damage

The message Australia is sending is a dangerous one.

When COVID hit in 2020 and airlines including Qantas grounded their fleets, Qatar Airways temporarily became Australia’s “de facto international airline”, getting Australians home who might otherwise have been stranded. During the pandemic, some Qatar flights arrived in Australia with just 20 seats filled.

Qatar might have expected Australians to remember this and keep flying with them, and it has applied for enough flights to allow it to happen.

By denying Qatar this opportunity (and denying many Australians the opportunity to travel to Europe via Doha), Australia has shown it is prepared to be ungracious, and made it easier for other countries to treat it in the same fashion.

Australia’s number two domestic airline Virgin Australia, is planning a share market float. By appearing to signal it is prepared to go out on a limb to support Qantas against competitors, Australia has perhaps unintentionally sent a powerful message to potential investors – that Virgin’s opponent gets protection it does not.

The weak case for offering Qantas protection

There might be a case for offering Qantas protection if it was at risk of needing a taxpayer-funded bailout to stay afloat. But Qantas has returned to profit – a record A$2.5 billion profit in the year to June, after doubling its revenue.

There might also be a case (and King has made this case) that Qantas needs to be protected because it has just purchased new, quieter “better for the environment” planes on which it will need to see a return and will need to spend a further A$12 billion to A$20 billion on fleet renewal to reach its net-zero target.

But for years (including after last week’s profit announcement) Qantas has been returning capital to its shareholders by share buy-backs instead of using it to buy planes. It thinks it can do both, and perhaps it is making so much profit that it can, but if it can’t do both, it can ease off on returning capital to shareholders.

Another argument (also put by King) is that supporting Qantas will support “long-term, well-paid, secure jobs by Australians in the aviation sector.”

But much of Qantas’s international skilled work is already done offshore including on its premier QF1 flight to London which is maintained by crews from the United Kingdom.

Is there something we don’t know about?

Unless there is some sort of hidden rationale, the decision to deny Qatar Airways extra flights seems inexplicable; and given Australia’s history, unAustralian.

It is important to recognise that these are trade agreements of considerable magnitude and that decisions taken by Australia invite retaliation.

As I keep telling my students, these seemingly-boring bilateral air service agreements can have big consequences if mishandled.

Years of worth of research and international best practice indicate that an open approach to air rights delivers the best economic outcomes, especially for the country doing the opening.

More trade results in a more prosperous Australia which is good for Australian travellers, Australian businesses, and ultimately Australian airlines, too.

Australia used to tell the rest of the world that trade was good. It would need to have a very good reason for behaving differently when it came to air travel.

Rico Merkert receives funding from the ARC and various industry partners. He loves to work with and for airlines, including Qantas and Virgin Australia.

– ref. What will putting the interests of Qantas ahead of Qatar Airways cost? $1bn per year and a new wave of protectionism of legacy carriers – https://theconversation.com/what-will-putting-the-interests-of-qantas-ahead-of-qatar-airways-cost-1bn-per-year-and-a-new-wave-of-protectionism-of-legacy-carriers-212495

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Bartlett, Associate Lecturer Pharmacy Practice, University of Sydney

From today, there are significant changes to how some common medicines are prescribed and dispensed in Australia. This means you could walk away from the pharmacy with 60-days’ worth of your usual medicine from a single prescription.

Until now, most long-term medicines were only available for 30 days at a time. So the price of these medicines for some patients may effectively halve.

You would also need fewer trips to the GP for a prescription and fewer visits to the pharmacy to have your medicine dispensed.

But not all medicines are yet eligible for 60-day scripts and not everyone is prescribed 60-days’ worth of medicine at a time. Here’s what the changes mean for you.

Read more:
Last year, half a million Australians couldn’t afford to fill a script. Here’s how to rein in rising health costs

Can I get a 60-day script today?

If you have a current prescription, you need to use this prescription first before you get a new one. To be eligible for a prescription that provides medicine for 60 days your medication needs to be on the approved list.

Your doctor also needs to assess if you are stable on it. This is to avoid wastage. We know new treatments can result in frequent changes to medication regimens, which would result in wasted medicines if they don’t end up being used.

Your doctor may also give you “repeat” prescriptions for 60-days’ worth of medicines at a time. Under the new rules, this could mean up to 12 months’ supply of medicine (the initial script plus five “repeats”). You would have to pay for each of these repeat scripts when your medicine is dispensed every 60 days.

Read more:
What time of day should I take my medicine?

Is my medicine on the list?

The roll-out of 60-day scripts will be in three stages. The first stage, which begins today, includes medicines for cardiovascular disease (such as heart disease and stroke), heart failure, high cholesterol, gout, osteoporosis, and the gut conditions Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis.

This includes some of the most common medicines prescribed in Australia, such as atorvastatin for lowering cholesterol, and perindopril for lowering blood pressure.

The following stages, set to be rolled out over the coming 12 months, include medicines for diabetes, epilepsy, glaucoma, asthma and Parkinson’s disease.

When fully implemented, these changes will affect more than 300 prescription medicines available on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS).

These medicines have been chosen because they are appropriate treatments for people living with stable, chronic health conditions, they meet clinical safety criteria, and are considered cost-effective.

Medicines not available for 60-day dispensing are those only for short-term use and medicines known to be at risk of overuse. These include pain medicines and some medicines for mental health conditions.

Read more:
Here’s why pharmacists are angry at script changes – and why the government is making them anyway

Will I save money?

The government has brought in these changes mainly to try to make medicines more affordable. We know people do not seek medical care or fill prescriptions due to cost.

The maximum price you pay at the pharmacy for a PBS script (known as the co-payment) is not changing. It’s still A$7.30 for concession card holders and $30 for non-concession card holders. But by having 60-day dispensing, you’ll only be charged this every two months instead of every month.

But not everyone will save money from a 60-day prescription because in some cases your pharmacy may already be discounting your medicine. If the price for 60-days’ supply would not take the price over $30, you may not be getting two scripts for the price of one.

For example, a commonly discounted medicine is atorvastatin. In Australia, a non-concession patient generally pays between $8 and $22 for 30-days’ supply. But it’s likely that a 60-day supply would cost between $15 and $30.

The amount you or your family need to pay to reach the PBS safety net is also not changing. This is the threshold you need to reach before medicines become free (for concession card holders) or discounted (non-concession card holders) for the rest of the calendar year. In some instances, 60-day dispensing may result in you or your family reaching the safety net threshold later, or not at all.

Read more:
What is the PBS safety net and is it really the best way to cut the cost of medicines?

How should I store my medicine?

If you don’t store your medicines correctly at home they can become degraded and not work so well. With a 60-day supply, correct storage is even more important.

As a general rule of thumb, never store your medicines in hot rooms or your car (even in winter) and don’t store them in direct sunlight. If your medicine needs to be stored in the fridge, your pharmacist will let you know.

One example is latanoprost, which are drops for the eye condition glaucoma. You can keep the bottle you are using in the cupboard but you need to store the unopened, second bottle in the fridge.

Read more:
Health Check: what should you do with your unused medicine?

In a nutshell

Remember, 60-day dispensing is only available for new prescriptions. When you next see your doctor, if your condition is stable and your medicine is suitable, you will be provided a 60-day script. Your pharmacist will then dispense a 60-day supply.

If you have any questions about the new rules, ask your local pharmacist. Information is also available from the Commonwealth health department and the Consumers Health Forum.

Andrew Bartlett is a member of the Pharmaceutical Society of Australia, a previous director of Blooms the Chemist management services and remains a shareholder.

Associate Professor Nial Wheate in the past has received funding from the ACT Cancer Council, Tenovus Scotland, Medical Research Scotland, Scottish Crucible, and the Scottish Universities Life Sciences Alliance. He is a Fellow of the Royal Australian Chemical Institute, a member of the Australasian Pharmaceutical Science Association, and a member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. Nial is the chief scientific officer of Vaihea Skincare LLC, a director of SetDose Pty Ltd a medical device company, and a Standards Australia panel member for sunscreen agents. Nial regularly consults to industry on issues to do with medicine risk assessments, manufacturing, design, and testing.

– ref. Here’s what new 60-day prescriptions mean for you and your hip pocket – https://theconversation.com/heres-what-new-60-day-prescriptions-mean-for-you-and-your-hip-pocket-211412

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Paul Williams, Associate Professor, Griffith University, Griffith University

Whatever fate awaits Annastacia Palaszczuk over the coming weeks, Queensland’s 39th – and only the second woman – premier will never lose her standing in the Australian Labor pantheon.

Palaszczuk, the state Labor leader since 2012 and premier since 2015, is already Australia’s most successful female political leader. She was the first woman to lead a party into government from opposition anywhere in Australia, the first woman to attain three successive election victories in Australia, and the first head of a majority-female cabinet.

If Palaszczuk can survive the building pressure on her to resign, she could next year become Queensland’s fourth longest-serving – and Labor’s second longest-serving – premier since 1860. But that prospect is becoming increasingly unlikely.

In July, a Freshwater Strategy poll for the Australian Financial Review found just 39% of Queenslanders now approve of Palaszczuk’s leadership, with 47% disapproving – a net negative of eight points.

And an August Resolve Strategic Poll showed 37% of respondents preferring Liberal-National Party Opposition leader David Crisafulli as premier, compared to 36% who preferred Palaszczuk. This was the first time in almost a decade an LNP leader has taken the lead.

What a far cry from the heights of the COVID-19 pandemic. In July 2020, Newspoll found 64% of Queenslanders approving of Palaszczuk’s leadership, with 81% approving of her management of the pandemic and subsequent hard border closures. Just 29% disapproved of her leadership – a net positive of 35 points.

Worse for Labor, Resolve now pegs LNP first-preference support at 38% (up three points since the 2020 election), with Labor at just 32% (down seven). The LNP also has an after-preference lead of 53–47% over Labor.

If this lead is held, it would likely be enough to allow the LNP to win the 14 seats needed for majority government in next October’s election.

Read more:
Did someone say ‘election’?: how politics met pandemic to create ‘fortress Queensland’

A perception of a ‘checked-out’ premier

To outsiders it might appear Palaszczuk – who has dominated Queensland politics like no other since Peter Beattie more than a decade ago – has suffered a rapid fall from grace. But Palaszczuk’s decline has been a slow burn.

A year after securing her third term as premier in the 2020 election, Palaszczuk was wholly untroubled by a virtually unknown opposition leader.

But, by early 2022, Palaszczuk had found herself enmeshed in several integrity crises, including accusations the Crime and Corruption Commission had not been impartial in its investigation of alleged local government corruption, and that senior public servants had allegedly suffered political interference from ministerial staff.

Worse, Palaszczuk appeared slow to respond to the allegations before appointing three separate inquiries. One inquiry, under Professor Peter Coaldrake, published unfavourable findings.

The effect was rapid and seismic: the hitherto Teflon Palaszczuk now looked flawed, and opinion polls soon reflected Labor’s vulnerability. By June 2022, YouGov had revealed a five-point collapse in Labor’s primary vote, with the LNP, now on 38%, leading Labor for the first time.

But as the dust settled on Labor’s integrity issues, the LNP and a conservative news media cleverly switched narratives. Palaszczuk was then framed as a “checked-out”, “red carpet” premier more interested in mixing with celebrities and attending glitzy gala events with her new partner.

That narrative appeared to gain public traction when, in August last year, the media accused Palaszczuk of cancelling a cabinet meeting to spend time on a luxury yacht. The coincidental circumstance of Palaszczuk last week leaving for a holiday in Italy, just as the media storm broke over her leadership troubles, can only deepen perceptions of a “part-time” premier.

As public policy crises have continued to dominate the media over the past year, the accusation that Palaszczuk has taken her eye off the policy ball has only gained further traction. With a soaring cost of living, deepening housing crisis, overcrowded hospitals and budget blowouts in infrastructure projects, it’s little wonder voters have started to turn on her government.

But, more than any other, it’s the issue of youth crime that has most profoundly brought Palaszczuk’s leadership into question. Her government has been roundly criticised for the hastily passed legislation last week that could see children held “indefinitely” in Queensland watch houses – a move that was resisted by Labor’s majority Left faction.

Read more:
Queensland is not only trampling the rights of children, it is setting a concerning legal precedent

Who might step into her large shoes?

In short, Palaszczuk has been Labor’s best asset in Queensland since 2012; now she appears a liability.

Despite unconvincing reassurances from senior government ministers that Palaszczuk will lead Labor to the October 2024 election, the momentum of leadership change now appears beyond the point of no return. It’s almost certain Queensland will have a new Labor premier, possibly by the end of this month.

There appear to be only three candidates:

• Steven Miles, the deputy premier and leader of the Left faction of the party

• Shannon Fentiman, the health minister and a member of the Left faction

• Cameron Dick, the treasurer and head of Labor Forum, a right Labor faction

Dick has long been touted as a future premier but, given the Left has controlled the Labor caucus since 2015, either a Miles or Fentiman premiership is the more likely outcome.

Because Queensland Labor rules around leadership spills are so complicated – a ballot must be held in caucus, among grassroots members and among the unions – it’s likely Palaszczuk will be urged to resign when she returns from her holiday, with a single candidate emerging as her successor.

Either way, the next Labor leader would have very large shoes to fill. Labor had suffered a rout in the 2012 election, with the LNP capturing 78 seats in the 89-seat parliament – the then-largest majority in Australian history. When Palaszczuk put her hand up to lead the seven remaining Labor MPs, nobody would believe she’d topple the once-popular premier, Campbell Newman, just three years later.

Read more:
Who is Annastacia Palaszczuk, Queensland’s likely next premier?

But, by 2015, Queenslanders had been angered by Newman’s proposal to privatise state-owned assets. They also appeared tired of big personalities like Joh Bjelke-Petersen, Peter Beattie and Newman. Even those in regional Queensland warmed to a Labor leader who looked and sounded like a friendly next-door neighbour.

Will a leadership change be too little, too late to reverse the fortunes of a Labor Party looking for a fourth term? Probably. But it’s foolish to completely write off the party that has dominated Queensland politics for 28 of the past 33 years.

Paul Williams is an associate with Queensland’s T. J. Ryan Foundation.

– ref. Even if her leadership is now doomed, Annastacia Palaszczuk will still be a Labor legend in Queensland – https://theconversation.com/even-if-her-leadership-is-now-doomed-annastacia-palaszczuk-will-still-be-a-labor-legend-in-queensland-212446

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Bhiamie Williamson, Research Fellow, Monash University

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this article contains images of deceased people. All images featured in this article have been published with respective permissions.

Father’s Day is an opportunity to celebrate men who have shaped and inspired us.

For many Indigenous peoples, this includes our biological father, adopted fathers, as well as our grandfathers, uncles, brothers, cousins, friends, and more.

Yet Indigenous fatherhood is a contentious topic in white Australia. Even today, mainstream perceptions often frame Indigenous men as dangerous, vagrant and neglectful.

These false representations can be deeply damaging to the psyche of Indigenous men, and potentially erode the fabric of our communities.

Indigenous fathering has emerged as a key priority in my research examining Indigenous men and masculinity. It is a topic of immense personal importance to me as a Euahlayi (Yuwaalaraay) man, a son, brother, uncle, husband and father.

Indigenous traditions of fathering

Stories of fathers are as old as Indigenous societies. Many First Nations in southeastern Australia continue to hold and transmit stories of the Creator, or All-Father, known in different places as Bhiamie, Bunjil or Dharamulan.

Fathering traditions are also evident in some Indigenous languages and kin structures. It is common for some Indigenous children to have not one father but many. This was particularly the case for a child’s patrilineal uncle, who is also known to the child as father.

In the late 1700s, some European explorers observed and recorded the centrality of fathering in Indigenous societies. For example, New South Wales Judge-Advocate David Collins observed Bennelong, a senior Eora man, returning from an outing with his sister’s child on his shoulders before cooking fish while his sisters and their children slept and ate oysters in the sun.

In 1793, Bruny D’Entrecasteaux “witnessed the tokens of tenderness that these simple and kind men displayed towards their children” in Port du Nord, Tasmania.

The evidence of Indigenous fathering in historical accounts can be hard to uncover because it appeared to be so everyday and unremarkable to Europeans and anthropologists. Yet casting an eye over these various recordings of history, from both Indigenous and European records, reveals the existence of strong, consistent and widespread traditions of care, nurture and love between Indigenous fathers and their children.

Breaking the bonds of fatherhood

Colonisation significantly impacted all Indigenous societies. The introduction of foreign diseases, violent frontier conflict, removal of people from Country, and removal of children are well established historical truths.

There were also colonial impacts on Indigenous families. Colonisation caused disruptions to Indigenous fathering in many ways.

Economic conditions meant many Indigenous men were forced to be away from their children for extended periods, such as when working in pastoral or pearling industries.

Legally, Indigenous fathers were replaced as agents of care and responsibility through various protection acts in Australia’s colonies. Discourses of “protection” broke apart Indigenous families, which affected mothers, fathers and extended family and their roles caring for their children.

Introducing rations removed important roles as hunters and providers. Notwithstanding some men who did continue to hunt, these traditional sources of food were supplementary to the rations provided by colonial and religious authorities.

Social and political assaults on Indigenous men as fathers

Last week, references to Indigenous men as “violent black men” and ‘woman bashers” were heard at the CPAC conference.

The racist cartoon by the late Bill Leake showed that even as recently as 2016, a mainstream media outlet such as The Australian considered it acceptable to ridicule and denigrate Indigenous fathers.

The 2007 Northern Territory Intervention demonstrates how demonising Indigenous men can be used as a political weapon. This was done by portraying Indigenous men as neglectful, violent, unsafe, and in need of heavy-handed government responses. “You’ve got to instil responsiblity,” said the then prime minister John Howard.

Positive representations of Indigenous Dads matter

In response to Leake’s cartoon, #IndigenousDads trended on social media platforms. These intensely personal homages of Indigenous fathers presented an antidote to the tsunami of negativity towards Indigenous fathers.

Other important representation of Indigenous men have been through the publication of the book Dear Son by Thomas Mayo, as well as a range of children’s books by men including Adam Goodes, Meyne Wyatt and Briggs. Indigenous performers such as Luke Carroll and Hunter Page-Lochard now feature regularly on the ABC’s Play School.

It is clear Indigenous fathering carries its own meaning and interpretation. Features such as sharing of fathering roles, transmission of culture, the making of young boys into men, and the public affection and displays of love fathers share with children.

I draw from the gendered patterns of Emus to describe these deep constitutions of fathering. Emus are unique in their gendered patterns. During nesting season female emus lay the eggs, but it is the male emus that sit on the nests to warm the eggs and keep them safe. After the eggs hatch, the male emu rears the chicks, raising them into adulthood.

Emus are especially important to some Indigenous groups across Australia. For many, they are creation beings and an important totem. They offer food and resources such as feathers, eggs, and ointments made from fat.

I suggest a new term – “Emu Man” – as an apt description of these deeply embedded Indigenous male roles. This unique and deeply Indigenous masculinity is highly valued and integral to healthy communities.

This Father’s Day, let’s all acknowledge and honour the unique place of Indigenous fathers, and celebrate their place in our families, and contributions to healthy communities.

Let the land blossom with Emu Men once more.

Bhiamie Williamson 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. ‘Emu Men’: a new way to recognise and celebrate Indigenous fathers – https://theconversation.com/emu-men-a-new-way-to-recognise-and-celebrate-indigenous-fathers-211741

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Shane Rogers, Lecturer in Psychology, Edith Cowan University

This Father’s Day you may be rolling out your best “dad jokes” and watching your children laugh (or groan). Maybe you’ll hear your own father, partner or friend crack a dad joke or two. You know the ones:

What is the most condescending animal? A pan-DUH!

Why don’t scientists trust atoms? Because they make up everything!

Yes, dad jokes can be fun. They play an important role in how we interact with our kids. But dad jokes may also help prepare them to handle embarrassment later in life.

Read more:
The lowdown on laughter: from boosting immunity to releasing tension

What are dad jokes?

Dad jokes are a distinct style of humour consisting of puns that are simple, wholesome and often involve a cheesy delivery.

These jokes usually feature obvious wordplay and a straightforward punchline that leaves listeners either chuckling or emitting an exaggerated groan.

This corny brand of humour is popular. There are hundreds of websites, YouTube videos and TikToks dedicated to them. You can even play around with dad joke generators if you need some inspiration.

Read more:
Must love jokes: why we look for a partner who laughs (and makes us laugh)

Why are dad jokes so popular?

People seem to love dad jokes, partly because of the puns.

A study published earlier this year found people enjoy puns more than most other types of jokes. The authors also suggested that if you groan in response to a pun, this can be a sign you enjoy the joke, rather than find it displeasing.

Other research shows dad jokes work on at least three levels:

1. As tame puns

Humour typically violates a kind of boundary. At the most basic level, dad jokes only violate a language norm. They require specific knowledge of the language to “get” them, in a way a fart joke does not.

The fact that dad jokes are wholesome and inoffensive means dads can tell them around their children. But this also potentially makes them tame, which other people might call unfunny.

2. As anti-humour

Telling someone a pun that’s too tame to deserve being told out loud is itself a violation of the norms of joke-telling. That violation can in turn make a dad joke funny. In other words, a dad joke can be so unfunny this makes it funny – a type of anti-humour.

3. As weaponised anti-humour

Sometimes, the purpose of a dad joke is not to make people laugh but to make them groan and roll their eyes. When people tell dad jokes to teasingly annoy someone else for fun, dad jokes work as a kind of weaponised anti-humour.

The stereotypical scenario associated with dad jokes is exactly this: a dad telling a pun and then his kids rolling their eyes out of annoyance or cringing from embarrassment.

Read more:
Kids learn valuable life skills through rough-and-tumble play with their dads

Dad jokes help dads be dads

Dad jokes are part of a father’s toolkit for engaging with his loved ones, a way to connect through laughter. But as children grow older, the way they receive puns change.

Children at around six years old enjoy hearing and telling puns. These are generally innocent ones such as:

Why is six afraid of seven? Because seven ate nine!

As children age and their language and reasoning abilities develop, their understanding of humour becomes more complex.

In adolescence, they may start to view puns as unfunny. This, however, doesn’t stop their fathers from telling them.

Instead, fathers can revel in the embarrassment their dad jokes can produce around their image-conscious and sensitive adolescent children.

In fact, in a study, one of us (Marc) suggests the playful teasing that comes with dad jokes may be partly why they are such a widespread cultural phenomenon.

This playful and safe teasing serves a dual role in father-child bonding in adolescence. Not only is it playful and fun, it can also be used to help educate the young person how to handle feeling embarrassed.

Helping children learn how to deal with embarrassment is no laughing matter. Getting better at this is a very important part of learning how to regulate emotions and develop resilience.

Modelling the use of humour also has benefits. Jokes can be a useful coping strategy during awkward situations – for instance, after someone says something awkward or to make someone laugh who has become upset.

Read more:
Dads’ time to shine online: how laughter can connect and heal

Dad jokes are more than punchlines

So, the next time you hear your father unleash a cringe-worthy dad joke, remember it’s not just about the punchline. It’s about creating connections and lightening the mood.

So go ahead, let out that groan, and share a smile with the one who proudly delivers the dad jokes. It’s all part of the fun.

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. How ‘dad jokes’ prepare your kids for a lifetime of embarrassment, according to psychology – https://theconversation.com/how-dad-jokes-prepare-your-kids-for-a-lifetime-of-embarrassment-according-to-psychology-212109

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Matthew Mclaughlin, Adjunct Research Fellow, The University of Western Australia

Rates of cycling are falling in Australia, a national report released today shows. More people started riding bikes early in the pandemic, but that hasn’t lasted. The percentages of people who cycle are lower now than in 2011.

Less than one in six Australians report riding a bicycle weekly. Just over one in three have ridden in the past year.

During the time of pandemic restrictions, when there was less other traffic on the road, people perhaps felt safer to ride. Creating streets that are less busy, noisy and easier to ride on and cross safely encourages more people to cycle and walk.

Most people want to walk and ride more. Two-thirds of people want more transport funding to go into walking, cycling and public transport.

Even if you’re not interested in riding a bike, you should be worried about this decline. Walking and cycling are part of the solution to several of the most pressing issues facing our cities.

The decline isn’t surprising

The decline in cycling probably shouldn’t surprise us. In the past 40 years, the percentage of children who walk or ride to school has dropped from 75% to 25%.

Furthermore, cycling receives only about 2% of transport budgets. The United Nations Environment Program recommends 20% of transport funding should go to “non-motorised transport”.

Most of our transport funding goes into building wider and longer roads, embedding car dependency. However, making it easier to drive leads to more driving and ultimately more congestion, an effect known as induced demand. The problem even featured in an episode of the TV show Utopia.

Read more:
Cycling and walking can help drive Australia’s recovery – but not with less than 2% of transport budgets

Short trips by car – everyone loses

Most car journeys in Australian cities are short. Two-thirds of these trips could be done by bike in 15 minutes or less.

So, for example, of the 4.2 million daily car trips in Perth, 2.8 million are less than 5km. In Victoria, about half of all trips under 2km are driven – that’s more than 2 million a day.

These short car trips – such as the school drop-off, the short drive to the shops or the local park – are bad for public health, emissions and climate change, road safety and congestion. Walking and cycling can help solve all these problems.

Urban sprawl and car use have a high cost

Urban sprawl makes it less appealing to walk and cycle to our destination, further entrenching car dependency.

Urban sprawl costs governments too. Last week, the New South Wales Productivity Commission reported building homes closer to the city centre, rather than in outer suburbs, can save up to A$75,000 in infrastructure costs.

The extra costs of building farther away include providing schools, roads, parks, water and wastewater infrastructure.

Read more:
Urban sprawl is ‘not a dirty word’? If the priority is to meet all kids’ needs, it should be

3 transport priorities

For people to walk and cycle, we need to provide so-called healthy streets: not too noisy, easy to cross, with clean air and where people feel safe.

In 2022, the Asia-Pacific Society for Physical Activity and cycling advocacy group We Ride Australia proposed three transport priorities for Australia supported by a national alliance of 13 public health, transport, education and climate organisations.

1. Safer default speed limits

The current default speed limit of 50km/h in built-up areas is unsafe and leads to many deaths and injuries each year.

Default 30km/h speed limits in built-up areas are an immediate low-cost way to increase road safety.

Other countries are showing it can be done. For example, this month Wales is set to adopt a default speed limit of 20 miles an hour (32km/h).

Read more:
Busted: 5 myths about 30km/h speed limits in Australia

2. 1,500m school zones

Most students live within 3km of their school. That’s less than a 10-minute bike ride or a 30-minute walk.

However, to boost walking and cycling to school, parents need to feel it’s safe for their children to do so. The solution is to create safe walking and cycling routes with pedestrian priority crossings within 500–1,500m of schools. Streets along these routes are easy to cross and not too busy or noisy.

3. E-bike subsidies

Cutting carbon emissions to limit climate change and air pollution requires us to reduce private car use. Focusing purchase incentives solely on electric cars in Australia is slowing down the race to zero emissions. Indeed, research shows cycling is ten times more important than electric cars for achieving net-zero cities.

E-bikes assist the rider with pedalling, which makes them slightly faster than a regular bike. Typically e-bike users ride greater distances than regular push-bike users.

However, the upfront price of e-bikes is one of the main barriers to buying one.
Providing incentives for people to buy an e-bike would increase their uptake. Research shows a return on investment of $2–$3 for every $1 spent on these incentives.

What else can we do?

As well as the three transport priorities, we can of course take many more actions that would help increase walking and cycling. These measures include: boosting housing density, beautifying our neighbourhoods, programs to build people’s confidence and skills to walk and cycle, such as beginners bike tours, and more frequent public transport.

Read more:
12 best ways to get cars out of cities – ranked by new research

By prioritising walking and cycling for short trips, Australia can reduce the national combined cost of $67 billion a year of traffic injuries and deaths, traffic congestion, air pollution and physical inactivity.

Here are four actions you can take to help boost walking and cycling in your area:

1. look for opportunities where you can walk, wheel or cycle short journeys

2. join a community-led coalition, such as Better Streets

3. score your local neighbourhood for walkability using this tool

4. write to your local MP asking for the three transport priorities to be adopted.

Matthew ‘Tepi’ Mclaughlin receives research funding from the Australian Government’s Medical Research Future Fund and The Government of Western Australia’s Healthway. He also receives salary support through the Australian Research Council’s Centre of Excellence for Children and Families over the Life Course. He is a member of the Asia-Pacific Society for Physical Activity and a member of the Active Transport Advisory Group of Westcycle.

Peter McCue receives an Australian Postgraduate Research Award to study a PhD. He is a member of the Executive Committee and Chair of the Advocacy Committee of the Asia-Pacific Society for Physical Activity.

– ref. Fewer of us are cycling – here’s how we can reverse the decline – https://theconversation.com/fewer-of-us-are-cycling-heres-how-we-can-reverse-the-decline-212260

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Grant Rigney, Indigenous Knowledge

The federal government has struck a new deal with most of the states in the nation’s largest river system. The agreement, announced last week, extends the $13 billion 2012 Murray-Darling Basin Plan to rebalance water allocated to the environment, irrigators and other uses.

Environment and Water Minister Tanya Plibersek said the government has:

negotiated a way to ensure there is secure and reliable water for communities, agriculture, industry, First Nations and the environment.

But there is no mention of water for First Nations in the agreement. This follows a history of Indigenous peoples being shortchanged by Murray-Darling Basin planning. Yet again, this latest deal ignores First Nations’ interests, despite millennia of custodianship.

Read more:
Murray-Darling Basin Plan to be extended under a new agreement, without Victoria – but an uphill battle lies ahead

Shortchanged in reforms

The Murray-Darling Basin Plan was agreed in 2012 to try and improve the health of the largest and most complex river system in Australia.

It was a historic compromise that sought to address the often conflicting demands of states, irrigators and the environment. But the plan overlooked First Nations rights to own, manage and control water on Country. The plan’s current provisions include only weak requirements for governments to “have regard to” First Nations values and uses.

In 2018 the Turnbull government put $40 million on the table for First Nations. This deal offered a glimmer of hope as it saw the then water minister David Littleproud and Labor water spokesperson Tony Burke commit the funds to support Basin First Nations’ investment in cultural and economic water entitlements.

But despite Labor renewing the commitment as part of its 2022 election platform, the money remains with government and has not been spent. Last week, Plibersek said that when Labor came into government there was “very little work done about how this might happen”, and that “it is proceeding”.

A commitment of $40 million is also a paltry amount in the context of the wider river basin. Water research firm Aither’s 2023 Water Market Report estimates the total value of water entitlements in the southern basin as $32.3 billion, so the government commitment of $40 million is only 0.1% of the total.

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

Shortchanged in the market

First Nations organisations have maintained pressure on the federal government and attempted to hold successive ministers to account for unnecessary delays in delivering the funding.

These delays mean the committed funds are decreasing in value.

When Littleproud initially committed the $40 million, the money was equally split between the northern and southern regions of the basin. Aither analysis conducted for the Murray Lower Darling Rivers Indigenous Nations shows at today’s prices, the $20 million for Nations in the southern basin can only buy two-thirds of the water that could have been acquired in 2018. In 2023, buying the same volume of water that could have been purchased in 2018 will cost almost $11 million more.

Read more:
Terra nullius has been overturned. Now we must reverse aqua nullius and return water rights to First Nations people

A fair go: investment and reform needed

Limited government investment from other sources has supported some Basin First Nations to develop plans that could guide water use, to nourish their Country, maintain culture, and generate sustainable livelihoods.

However, realising these opportunities means they need water. In an overallocated river system, amid water scarcity and rising prices, this requires genuine political will coupled with necessary reforms and adequate funding.

As another drought looms, and water entitlement prices remain high, more than 40 Basin Nations must share very limited funding that can only acquire a tiny – and diminishing – fraction of their water needs. These deals demonstrate sustained and systemic bipartisan political indifference to First Nations’ inherent rights.

If Plibersek is sincere about delivering “secure and reliable water” for First Nations, she must listen to First Nations people, and actually deliver tangible outcomes. Governments must urgently commit adequate funding for First Nations in the basin to secure water that meets our needs, before future generations are priced out of the market forever.

Funding for cultural flows must be coupled with reform to transform the foundations of water governance and implement the Echuca Declaration. This declaration establishes cultural flows as the “inherent rights” of all First Nations in the Basin.

As a start, the Water Act 2007 needs to be strengthened to enshrine Basin Nations’ authority and ensure their voices are heard.

As the terms of the basin plan implementation are being reassessed and renegotiated, governments have an opportunity not only to listen, but also to deal First Nations in.

Grant Rigney is a citizen of the Ngarrindjeri Nation and Chair of the Murray Lower Darling Rivers Indigenous Nations (MLDRIN). He is also a member of the Committee on Aboriginal Water Interests and Chair of the Ngarrindjeri Regional Authority. Grant is a member of the Greens Party. MLDRIN receives funding from the Australian, Victorian and NSW governments.

Dr Erin O’Donnell is a settler who lives and works on unceded Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung Country. She is a member of the Birrarung Council, appointed by the Victorian Minister for Water. She receives funding from the Australian Research Council (DE230100622). She has received funding in the past from the state government of Victoria, the Murray Lower Darling Rivers (MLDRIN), the Federation of Victorian Traditional Owner Corporations, the Coalition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peak Organizations.

Fred Hooper is a Murrawarri man from the Murrawarri Nation. Fred is the Chair of the Murrawarri Peoples Council and former Chair of the Northern Basin Aboriginal Nations (NBAN). He is also a member of the Blak Sovereign Movement. NBAN has previously received funding from the federal and state governments.

Dr Lana D. Hartwig is a settler who lives and works on unceded Yugambeh Country. She is employed by Murray Lower Darling Rivers Indigenous Nations (MLDRIN). She has received funding in the past from the Murray-Darling Basin Authority and the Coalition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peak Organizations.

– ref. Labor’s new Murray-Darling Basin Plan deal entrenches water injustice for First Nations – https://theconversation.com/labors-new-murray-darling-basin-plan-deal-entrenches-water-injustice-for-first-nations-212261

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Matt McGuire, Dean, School of Humanities and Communication Arts, Western Sydney University

The federal government has been asking for “bold ideas” to “reimagine” the future of Australian higher education for decades to come.

An interim report for the Universities Accord was released in July. Feedback on this draft is due today.

While there have been many ideas floated by commentators and the review panel (such as a new national university for regional students and a levy on international student fees), there has been less discussion about what our university education system is for.

We think there is an urgent need to talk about how higher education can fuel a “knowledge economy” – an economy based on technical and scientific advances. This is crucial if we are going to move past our economic reliance on carbon.

We are not the only ones calling for a shift. On Thursday, Australian Academy of Science president Chennupati Jagadish told ABC’s Radio National “we need to move towards a knowledge-based economy […] do we really want to be so vulnerable as an economy and as a country?”

Read more:
The Universities Accord draft contains ‘spiky’ ideas, but puts a question mark over the spikiest one of all

What is a knowledge economy?

A knowledge economy is focused on activities that accelerate the pace of technical and scientific advances. Research and development generate products and services which lead to the formation of new companies, new industries and new economic opportunities.

This requires both the discovery of new technologies and the application of these technologies to new and existing industries, in both domestic and international markets.

Australia has a strong history here. We have invented Wi-Fi, solar panels and cochlear implants.

But we need to do more.

Read more:
The Job-ready Graduates scheme for uni fees is on the chopping block – but what will replace it?

Economic complexity

The Atlas of Economic Complexity is produced at Harvard University. It is better for countries to be ranked as more complex. The assumption is the more complex a country’s exports are, the less exposed they will be to cheap substitutes from rival nations.

According to 2021 data, we ranked 93rd out of 133 countries, down from 60th in 2000. This is way behind countries such as Japan (first), Germany (fourth), the United Kingdom (eigth) and the United States (14th).

As the Atlas notes, “⁨Australia⁩ is ⁨less complex than expected⁩ for its income level”.

Another huge ongoing area of weakness for Australia is our lack of investment in research. As the interim report notes with concern, Australia’s university research “has become too reliant on uncertain international student funding”.

Currently, Australia invests only 1.8% of its GDP in research and development. The OECD average is 2.7% and other countries invest significantly more. For example, Germany (3.1%), Japan (3.3%), the United States (3.5%), South Korea (4.9%) and Israel (5.6%).

As Professor Jagadish told Radio National on Thursday, Australian investment in research as a share of GDP has declined each year since 2008. “We cannot tolerate [this] if we want to stay as a smart country”.

Translating our research

In a report on innovation released earlier this year, the Productivity Commission noted Australia was a “small open economy with limited (business and public) research capacity [so] many ideas and technologies will come to Australia from overseas”.

This means our efforts should focus on how we apply and encourage the uptake of new knowledge or “knowledge diffusion”. This is about how we make the most of new technologies. An example could be the use of new accounting software to free up staff time, shorten the billing cycle or expand the analytical capacity of a business.

According to the 2022 Global Innovation Index, while Australia ranks 25th for its innovation capabilities, it is way back in 72nd for “knowledge diffusion”.

The best countries in the world for knowledge diffusion are Ireland, Finland, Israel and the Netherlands. Australia should spend more time studying the nature and performance of these small, open economies.

What is the role for universities?

Universities have a crucial role to play in securing this future for Australia. Their mission is already to discover new knowledge through research and disseminate this through teaching and learning.

Australia could learn more by studying US regions like Boston and San Francisco (where there are top-class research universities) and their impact on entrepreneurialism in their local economies. Geography matters when cutting-edge technology firms are looking to attract talented graduates, collaborate with experts and commercialise research innovation.

But it is not just STEM disciplines who will need to be involved. While science and technology are key when it comes to the discovery and development phases, the humanities and social sciences are needed to adapt and translate the research.

The World Economic Forum’s 2023 Future of Jobs Report notes how the most important skills for workers over the next five years will be analytical thinking and creative thinking and then technological literacy.

Analytical and creative thinking are key to disciplines that dominate the humanities, from history to political science and economics.

What should the Universities Accord do?

In its initial draft, the Universities Accord notes the need to promote “commercial use” of Australian research capability and to “encourage” universities to “move towards” research translation.

In its final report in December, we suggest there is far greater emphasis on the transformation needed to ensure Australia is sustainable and productive into the future.

This means adequate government funding of university research as well as a focus on the skills needed to come up with new ideas and products and then apply them in real-world contexts.

In doing so, the review panel and the government should not forget this will require a focus on humanities and social science skills, as well as the more obvious STEM skill sets.

Read more:
We solve problems in 30 days through ‘research sprints’: other academics can do this too

Matt McGuire is a Board member of the Australasian Council of Deans of Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities.

Catharine Coleborne was President of the Australasian Council of Deans of Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (DASSH) between 2020 and 2022.

– ref. Australia needs a ‘knowledge economy’ fuelled by scientists and arts graduates: here’s why – https://theconversation.com/australia-needs-a-knowledge-economy-fuelled-by-scientists-and-arts-graduates-heres-why-212366

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rico Merkert, Professor in Transport and Supply Chain Management and Deputy Director, Institute of Transport and Logistics Studies (ITLS), University of Sydney Business School, University of Sydney

The government’s decision to deny Qatar Airways the right to fly an extra 21 flights per week into Australia’s three biggest cities might just be returning Australia to the old days where we protected Australia’s national carrier at the expense of Australians.

For more than 15 years I’ve had the privilege to research and teach airline strategy in the context of global aviation bilateral air service agreements.

These agreements are essentially trade deals between the 193 governments that are signatories to the 1944 Chicago Convention on Civil Aviation.

The agreements allow designated airlines in the two signatory countries to operate air services connecting them in accordance with the reciprocity principle used in trade agreements, which is broadly: “I’ll let you in if you let me in”.

Australia has traditionally tried to deregulate international aviation, to make air travel easier for both Australians and visitors.

But in July, in an initially announced decision, Transport Minister Catherine King rejected an application for Qatar to double its flights into Australia by providing what amounted to an extra flight a day into Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney.

After being asked about the decision, the minister provided four different justifications, one of which was the “national interest”.

Read more:
Grattan: Albanese’s government has questions to answer on competition

Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones this week expanded on this reasoning, saying he didn’t want to drive ticket prices down to the point at which it was “unsustainable to run an airline” and that having Qantas occasionally make a profit was “actually a good news story”.

On its face, this suggests the government is making decisions about landing rights in order to protect the profits of Qantas – a private company it hasn’t owned since 1995. This would be a seismic shift in Australia’s international aviation policy.

A case could be made that this is in breach of the Chicago convention. Regardless, it is damaging to Australia’s international reputation and Australia’s economy.

$1 billion per year in economic damage

By my conservative estimate, the decision will cost Australia’s economy about $1 billion per year in lost income from tourism, business travel and freight.

By my conservative estimate, the decision will cost Australia’s economy about $1 billion per year in lost income from tourism, VRF (visiting friends and relatives) as well as business travel and freight.

My calculations suggest capacity on the Kangaroo Route between Australia and Europe is only back to 70% of where it was before COVID, allowing current operators such as the Emirates-Qantas alliance to charge much more than they could before the pandemic.

Qantas announced last week it would add 250,000 seats to its international network, but not a single one was on flights to Europe.

The extra Qatar Airways flights would have also gone on to New Zealand, adding further capacity to that route and cutting prices for flights across the Tasman.

And it’s not only Qatar Airways. Turkish Airlines, through the Turkish government, has asked for permission to increase of the frequency of its Australian flights from four to 14 a week, providing daily services to Melbourne and Sydney.

Turkey hasn’t yet received an answer.

Extra costs in reputational damage

The message Australia is sending is a dangerous one.

When COVID hit in 2020 and airlines including Qantas grounded their fleets, Qatar Airways temporarily became Australia’s “de facto international airline”, getting Australians home who might otherwise have been stranded. During the pandemic, some Qatar flights arrived in Australia with just 20 seats filled.

Qatar might have expected Australians to remember this and keep flying with them, and it has applied for enough flights to allow it to happen.

By denying Qatar this opportunity (and denying many Australians the opportunity to travel to Europe via Doha), Australia has shown it is prepared to be ungracious, and made it easier for other countries to treat it in the same fashion.

Australia’s number two domestic airline Virgin Australia, is planning a share market float. By appearing to signal it is prepared to go out on a limb to support Qantas against competitors, Australia has perhaps unintentionally sent a powerful message to potential investors – that Virgin’s opponent gets protection it does not.

The weak case for offering Qantas protection

There might be a case for offering Qantas protection if it was at risk of needing a taxpayer-funded bailout to stay afloat. But Qantas has returned to profit – a record A$2.5 billion profit in the year to June, after doubling its revenue.

There might also be a case (and King has made this case) that Qantas needs to be protected because it has just purchased new, quieter “better for the environment” planes on which it will need to see a return and will need to spend a further A$12 billion to A$20 billion on fleet renewal to reach its net-zero target.

But for years (including after last week’s profit announcement) Qantas has been returning capital to its shareholders by share buy-backs instead of using it to buy planes. It thinks it can do both, and perhaps it is making so much profit that it can, but if it can’t do both, it can ease off on returning capital to shareholders.

Another argument (also put by King) is that supporting Qantas will support “long-term, well-paid, secure jobs by Australians in the aviation sector.”

But much of Qantas’s international skilled work is already done offshore including on its premier QF1 flight to London which is maintained by crews from the United Kingdom.

Is there something we don’t know about?

Unless there is some sort of hidden rationale, the decision to deny Qatar Airways extra flights seems inexplicable; and given Australia’s history, unAustralian.

It is important to recognise that these are trade agreements of considerable magnitude and that decisions taken by Australia invite retaliation.

As I keep telling my students, these seemingly-boring bilateral air service agreements can have big consequences if mishandled.

Years of worth of research and international best practice indicate that an open approach to air rights delivers the best economic outcomes, especially for the country doing the opening.

More trade results in a more prosperous Australia which is good for Australian travellers, Australian businesses, and ultimately Australian airlines, too.

Australia used to tell the rest of the world that trade was good. It would need to have a very good reason for behaving differently when it came to air travel.

Rico Merkert receives funding from the ARC and various industry partners. He loves to work with and for airlines, including Qantas and Virgin Australia.

– ref. What price placing the interests of Qantas ahead of Qatar Airways? $1bn per year and a new wave of protectionism of legacy carriers – https://theconversation.com/what-price-placing-the-interests-of-qantas-ahead-of-qatar-airways-1bn-per-year-and-a-new-wave-of-protectionism-of-legacy-carriers-212495

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Grace McQuilten, Associate professor, RMIT University

When Arts Minister Tony Burke launched the bill introducing Creative Australia, the new organisation at the heart of the Revive Cultural Policy, he did so with a bold statement:

Creative Australia recognises that artists and creatives throughout our great landscape, from metropolitan cities to the red desert, are workers. In exchange for what they give us, they should have safe workplaces and be remunerated fairly.

In 2022, we surveyed 702 visual and craft artists and arts workers, making this the largest single scholarly survey of this cohort in Australia to date. We were interested to find out the ways artists combined income from various sources, within and beyond their art practice.

Our new research identifies three key areas that need to be addressed to ensure fair remuneration for all visual and craft artists. We need to acknowledge the likely under-counting of the number of artists in Australia, the gendered nature of this population, and the complex ways artists earn an income.

Read more:
‘Arts are meant to be at the heart of our life’: what the new national cultural policy could mean for Australia – if it all comes together

Counting the artists

It is impossible to provide a single estimate of the number of visual and craft artists in Australia as different surveys use different definitions of “artist”.

According to the 2021 ABS census, there are 6,793 visual art and craft professionals in Australia, 64% of whom identified as female.

But the criteria used to count being an artist as a profession in the census require art to be the “main job” of the respondent in the week before the census. This leads to an under-counting of artists, as most visual art and craft artists support themselves through other work – either related to their artwork, such as in academia or in arts management, or in an entirely different field. As such, they would not be identified in the census as visual or craft artists.

A more accurate estimate is likely provided by the ABS Survey of Cultural Participation. In this survey, 106,000 Australians reported earning some income from a visual art activity, and 94,800 from a craft activity, in the 2021–22 financial year. These figures cannot be totalled as those engaged in both activities were counted separately. Nonetheless, at a minimum the survey identifies an additional 100,000 visual and craft artists not captured within the census definition.

If all artists are to be remunerated fairly, it is critical Creative Australia ensures support mechanisms extend to the around 100,000 visual and craft artists for whom art making is not their primary occupation.

The gendered nature of the industry

In our survey, we did not impose any requirements that respondents devote a certain amount of time to their art making, nor earn a particular level of income. Instead, we left it open to respondents to self-identify as an artist.

This inclusive definition produced a much higher proportion of female artists than the census, with 73% identifying as female. This aligns with other estimates of the gender breakdown of the industry. The ABS Cultural Participation Survey estimated 67% of people who earned income from visual art activity and 79% who derived income from craft activity were female.

In our survey, 3.1% of respondents identified as non-binary, and so we were not able to collect enough data for further analysis of this cohort.

We found a distinctive experience of female artists compared to their male counterparts, suggesting policy responses need to recognise the gendered nature of art making.

Female artists in our survey reported an average annual income of A$8,507 from their arts practice, compared to the annual income reported by male artists of $22,906.

While earning 37% of male artists’ earnings, women spent 76% of the time male artists spend on their practice (29 hours compared with 38 hours per week).

So, male artists earn more from their art practice than female artists, and proportionately even more when accounting for the hours spent on their practice.

Our research suggests the shadow cohort of visual and craft artists who do not show up in census results are predominantly female. The gendered nature of the visual arts and craft sector must be front of mind in the design of remuneration policies for artists undertaken by Creative Australia.

Read more:
The gender pay gap is wider in the arts than in other industries

How artists earn a living

For many artists, the practice of visual art and craft making does not readily align with traditional concepts of an employee and is not attached to a single workplace.

In our survey, only 30% of respondents spent 100% of their working time as an artist, with 60% receiving at least some income from non-artistic work within and outside the arts sector.

The life of an artist is more likely to look like a combination of multiple part-time, casual and contract jobs, with occasional grant income and artwork sales.

Many visual art and craft artists conduct their practice from their home and operate as a sole trader. For many, outside work is the only way they can support their art practice.

Achieving the goal of remunerating artists fairly is not just about payment for art making. It is also about the other work these artists must undertake to make a living, much of which consists of part-time employment elsewhere in the arts and cultural sector.

Any policy interventions from Creative Australia to support visual and craft artists’ incomes will need to take a sector-wide approach.

Read more:
Male artists dominate galleries. Our research explored if it’s because ‘women don’t paint very well’ – or just discrimination

Grace McQuilten receives funding from the Australian Research Council for the Linkage Project ‘Ambitious & Fair: Strategies for a Sustainable Visual Arts Sector.’

Chloë Powell receives funding from the Australian Research Council for the Linkage Project ‘Ambitious & Fair: Strategies for a Sustainable Visual Arts Sector.’

Jenny Lye receives funding from the Australian Government through the Australian Research Council for the Linkage Project Ambitious and Fair: strategies for a sustainable arts sector (LP200100054)”

Kate MacNeill receives funding from the Australian Government through the Australian Research Council for the Linkage Project Ambitious and Fair: strategies for a sustainable arts sector (LP200100054)

Marnie Badham receives funding from the Australian Research Council for the Linkage Project ‘Ambitious & Fair: Strategies for a Sustainable Visual Arts Sector.’ She is affiliated with Res Artis.

– ref. Under-counting, a gendered industry, and precarious work: the challenges facing Creative Australia in supporting visual artists – https://theconversation.com/under-counting-a-gendered-industry-and-precarious-work-the-challenges-facing-creative-australia-in-supporting-visual-artists-208021

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

Thank goodness for Senate committees. This week, they’ve proved, yet again, to be worth their weight in accountability gold.

On Monday, at an inquiry into the cost of living, senators from both sides gave Qantas boss Alan Joyce a salutary roughing-up, over everything from yet-to-be-returned flight credits to the government’s blocking of extra Qatar Airways flights and Joyce’s contacts with Anthony Albanese. (Subsequently, Qantas has announced it is removing the expiry date on the COVID travel credits.)

On Tuesday, the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs References
Committee, which is probing the operation of the federal Freedom of Information laws, heard disturbing evidence from former FOI commissioner Leo Hardiman, who months ago resigned only a year into his five-year term.

Hardiman detailed a litany of obstacles in resourcing and culture in the administration of FOI, which he could not overcome.

The regular Senate estimates hearings, which grill bureaucrats, are welcomed and feared, depending where people sit in the political process.

It was Senate inquiries, it might be remembered, that did the deep diving into the PwC scandal and the entrails of other consultancy firms that receive huge amounts of taxpayer money. Labor backbencher Deb O’Neill and the Greens’ Barbara Pocock were forensic in their questioning.

Like most governments, this one arrived in office promising more accountability and transparency. Also like others, in practice it has a penchant for control and secrecy.

It did set up the National Anti-Corruption Commission, and for that it has been rightly praised.

Even there, however, there’s arguably too much secrecy – and that’s leaving aside the minimalist approach to public hearings specified in the NACC legislation.

Surely it will be a problem if we are not told what inquiries the NACC is pursuing.

Serious allegations demand investigation, but if it’s not known whether the NACC has taken the matter up (or passed it to another agency), what can a government do? It can hardly set up another inquiry, given this information vacuum.

Once the NACC has decided on an investigation, there’s a solid case for it to say so – which it has the discretion to do.

Whatever one thinks of secrecy around the NACC, there are plenty of other areas where it is clearly excessive.

Rex Patrick is a former senator who started with the Nick Xenophon Team and later became an independent. He lost his seat in 2022. While in parliament, Patrick fought the Coalition government’s secrecy; out of parliament he is in full pursuit of its Labor successor. He’s able to devote himself to poking numerous bears thanks, in part, to financial backing from business figure Ian Melrose.

Patrick defeated, in a legal judgment, the Morrison government’s attempt to keep secret all the documents of the National Cabinet. After the election, he was still given the runaround, but finally he’s nailed that one. National Cabinet documents are now treated according to ordinary freedom-of-information provisions.

Currently, Patrick is after Anthony Albanese’s official diary, Treasury’s briefing to Treasurer Jim Chalmers on the Stage 3 tax cuts, material on AUKUS and much else besides.

The PM’s diary is particularly interesting. In opposition, then shadow Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus sought then Attorney-General George Brandis’ diary and finally, after some trouble, extracted it.

But Patrick’s attempt to peek more deeply into Albanese’s schedule was blocked, as was another application from the Australian Financial Review.

In a submission to the Senate FOI inquiry, Patrick noted the reason given was that processing “would unreasonably divert” staff resources and also unreasonably interfere with the PM’s work.

Patrick said this “flew in the face” of the Federal Court decision in the Dreyfus case, in which more days of the relevant diary were sought (causing more work for fewer staff). The matter has gone to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.

The reluctance to publish the PM’s diary is at odds with the release of those of most ministers (including Chalmers and Foreign Minister Penny Wong).

Why should we have leaders’ diaries? Among other reasons, because they show who has access to a government’s top decision-maker. In Albanese’s case, it might even yield the odd clue about his relationship with Alan Joyce – who, incidentally, has been asked by those pesky senators to supply dates of any Qantas contact with the PM over the Qatar matter.

Meanwhile, Greens Senator David Shoebridge is trying to get hold of a report on the national security threats global warming poses. Albanese before the election promised an inquiry into this, and later commissioned one from the Office of National Intelligence. Now, apparently even a redacted version is too sensitive to release – because of national security.

Other crossbench senators, including independent David Pocock, have been interested in this report too. But a move in the Senate to force the issue was stymied by a cosy alliance of government and Coalition. Interesting companionships can be formed in the name of confidentiality.

Separate efforts in the Senate by Shoebridge and One Nation’s Malcolm Roberts to obtain documents relating to the March ditching of a Taipan helicopter at Jervis Bay failed. The government said there was an inquiry, which we haven’t seen. Subsequently, another Taipan crashed off the Queensland coast, with multiple fatalities.

Then there’s the politically delicate issue of the passenger manifests of VIP flights. Once, destinations and passenger lists of these flights were routinely made available by governments. That stopped under the Morrison government, and the suppression remains. A review, chaired by the Australian Federal Police and launched in 2022, recommended continued secrecy.

Again, national security is the excuse. But it’s not convincing, review or not. Knowing, well after the event, that a PM took a couple of mates, relatives or political contacts on a flight can give insights into a leader’s use of their privileges, or reveal who’s in a PM’s ear.

To some extent, this secrecy has been stymied. Passenger lists might not be available but destinations of VIP flights are, through tracking apps. At present Deputy PM Richard Marles is under criticism for taking VIP flights to Avalon, near his Geelong base, rather than catching a commercial flight to Melbourne’s Tullamarine airport.

At Tuesday’s Senate Committee hearing, Hardiman said: “FOI may not be considered a sexy subject matter or as being of life-changing importance. […] however, the FOI system is an important adjunct to the doctrine of responsible government inherent in our Westminster system of government.”

At the moment, the problem is not just the serious flaws of the FOI regime, but that the government is not living up to its own commitments to the people’s right to know.

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

– ref. Grattan on Friday: It can be a battle to get information from the Albanese government – https://theconversation.com/grattan-on-friday-it-can-be-a-battle-to-get-information-from-the-albanese-government-212606

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Vishal Mehrotra, Assistant Professor, Bond University

In what has been called the most important legal case in the history of the Australian automotive industry, the Federal Court has rejected a $650 million compensation claim against Mercedes-Benz for replacing its traditional dealership model with a fixed-price, direct-to-customer agency model.

It’s a decision that could transform the way roughly a million Australians buy a new car each year – an experience that has been consistent for decades, with shopping around for value and haggling over the price part of the ritual.

Cracks began to appear in this sales model in 2014 with the arrival in Australia of electric car maker Tesla, which sells directly to customers at set prices and has only a handful of bricks-and-mortar shopfronts. Honda followed suit in 2021, switching to fixed prices at its dealerships.

But after Mercedes-Benz shifted to fixed-price sales in January 2022, 38 of its 49 Australian dealerships banded together to seek compensation for changes they argued decimated the value of their businesses.

Read more:
Australians pay too much for luxury cars…or do they?

The parties spent seven weeks in court in 2022. Federal Court judge Jonathan Beach had been expected to deliver his decision at the beginning of the year. It was finally handed down yesterday, after a nine-month delay that highlights the significance of the case.

Justice Beach’s verdict, which runs to 567 pages, is decisive. It dismisses all the dealers’ claims against Mercedes-Benz, describing the case as “forensically complex although legally straightforward”.

Why dealers took Mercedes-Benz to court

Dealerships are independent businesses. As official franchisees, Mercedes-Benz would sell them vehicles at wholesale prices. They would the resell the vehicles at a price negotiated with customers. This allowed them to set their own profit margins.

The basis for the dealers’ compensation claim was that Mercedes-Benz allegedly bullied them into signing “agency agreements” that upended this model.

The new agreements meant Mercedes-Benz took control of the sales process. It retained ownership of the vehicles and set the sales prices, paying dealers a fixed commission on sales. A buyer could buy a car online. Their only contact with a dealership might be to pick up their new vehicle.

The dealers argued this had stripped them of valuable “customer goodwill”.

Goodwill is an intangible asset that represents the value of a business over its book value (based on assets and liabilities). This value can come from brand, reputation, customer and employee relations, intellectual property, or a loyal customer base.

With dealer showroom traffic already declining, dealers contended that reducing their interaction with customers would dramatically affect their profitability.

Mercedes-Benz’s lawyers argued the manufacturer was entitled to make this change, which was not a breach of Australia’s franchise code, and that it acted in good faith, needing to respond to rivals changing their own sales models.

Claims dismissed

While Justice Beach said the dealers’ case was “successful on many issues of fact”, it failed on fundamental issues of law. He dismissed all claims against Mercedes-Benz.

His judgement upholds Mercedes-Benz’s right to cancel its existing franchisee contracts and replace them with agency agreements. He rejected the claim that dealers were forced to sign the new agreements under economic duress.

Just because a dealer was financially worse off under the agency model compared with the dealer model, he said, that did not mean Mercedes-Benz had acted unconscionably or failed to act in good faith.

He also rejected the goodwill claim, because there is no “right at law for a franchisee to be compensated for goodwill on non-renewal of a franchise agreement”.

This judgement has potentially far-reaching consequences for all franchise agreements. It seems to expand the boundaries around what franchisers can and cannot do under their agreements, and what “goodwill” means at the end of such agreements.

In a telling statement, Justice Beach suggested the case brought by the dealerships “although unsuccessful, concerns statutory unconscionable conduct”. He unambiguously stated that “further consideration needs to be given to the terms of the franchising code and possible modification”. This may have important implications for the federal government, which this month embarked on an independent review of the Australian Franchising Code of Conduct with a view to evaluating its current fitness for purpose.

What does this mean for customers?

While many buyers will welcome fixed prices, evidence of their widespread adoption and appeal remains mixed. Fixed-price sales do not appear to blunt Tesla’s momentum, with the Tesla Model Y zooming up the charts to become Australia’s third-best-selling car.

Honda, however, in March 2023 reported a 72% decline, recording its lowest new car sales in its history in Australia.

Read more:
Who’s holding back electric cars in Australia? We’ve long known the answer – and it’s time to clear the road

What’s more, some industry experts say squeezing dealerships out of the sales process could lead to higher prices, given the elimination of price competition between rival dealerships.

Our case study of Mercedes-Benz’s new sales strategy points to the fact that while Australians are growing more comfortable with buying big-ticket items without face-to-face interactions, it is too early to provide a verdict on whether the move to an agency model is good or bad overall for car buyers.

The court verdict makes one thing clear. All parties need to reset and refine their roles and responsibilities in a rapidly evolving consumer landscape. While we know that for the forseeable future there will always be plenty of people lining up to buy new cars, the judgement raises the question of whether their days of buying them from standalone dealerships are numbered.

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. Mercedes-Benz’s legal win over car dealers could transform the way new cars are sold in Australia – https://theconversation.com/mercedes-benzs-legal-win-over-car-dealers-could-transform-the-way-new-cars-are-sold-in-australia-212189