Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Meryl Larkin, PhD Candidate, Southern Cross University

When we think of Australia’s threatened corals, the Great Barrier Reef probably springs to mind. But elsewhere, coral species are also struggling – including a rare type known as “cauliflower soft coral” which is, sadly, on the brink of extinction.

This species, Dendronephthya australis, looks like a purple cauliflower due to its pink-lilac stems and branches, crowned with white polyps.

The coral primarily occurs at only a few sites in Port Stephens, New South Wales, and is a magnet for divers and underwater photographers. But sand movements, boating and fishing have reduced the species’ population dramatically.

Recent flooding in NSW compounded the problem – in fact, it may have reduced the remaining coral population by 90%. Our recent research found cauliflower soft coral may become extinct in the next decade unless we urgently protect and restore it.

Lilac underwater gardens

Cauliflower soft corals are predominantly found in estuarine environments on sandy seabeds with high current flow. They rely on tidal currents to transport plankton on which they feed.

The species is most commonly found in the Port Stephens estuary, about 200 kilometres north of Sydney. It’s also found in the Brisbane Water estuary in NSW, and has been found sporadically in other locations south to Jervis Bay.

The coral colonies form aggregations or “gardens”. At Port Stephens, these gardens are the preferred habitat for the endangered White’s seahorse and protected species of pipefish. They also support juvenile Australasian snapper, an important species for commercial and recreational fishers.

In recent months, the cauliflower soft coral has been listed as endangered in NSW and nationally.

Read more: Marine life is fleeing the equator to cooler waters. History tells us this could trigger a mass extinction event

An alarming decline

Scientists first mapped the distribution of the cauliflower soft coral in 2011. They found none of the biggest colonies in the Port Stephens estuary were protected by “no take” zones – areas where fishing and other extractive activities are banned.

In research in 2016, we found a sharp decline in the extent and distribution of cauliflower soft coral.

Our recent study examined the problem in more detail. It involved mapping the southern shoreline of Port Stephens, using an underwater camera towed by a vessel.

We found the cauliflower soft coral in the Port Stephens estuary has declined by almost 70% over just eight years. It now occurs over 9,300 square metres – down from 28,600 square metres in 2011.

Our subsequent modelling sought to identify what was driving the corals’ decline. We found a correlation between coral loss and sand movements over the last decade.

Human changes to shorelines, such as marina developments, have changed the dynamic of currents across the estuary. For example, previous research found a large influx of sand from the western end of Shoal Bay smothered cauliflower soft coral colonies at two nearby locations. As of 2018, those colonies had disappeared completely.

While diving as part of the project, we identified other causes of damage to the coral. Dropped boat anchors and the installation of moorings had damaged some colonies. Others were injured after becoming entangled in fishing line.

It is possible that disease, and pollution or other water quality issues, may also be contributing to the species’ decline.

Then the floods hit

Some 18 months after our most recent mapping, cauliflower soft corals suffered yet another blow. Major flooding in NSW in March this year caused a massive amount of fresh water to discharge from the Karuah River into the Port Stephens estuary, where sea water is dominant. Fresh water can kill cauliflower soft corals.

Following the floods, we conducted exploratory dives at locations where the cauliflower soft corals had been thriving at Port Stephens. We found much of the coral had disintegrated and disappeared. In fact, we estimated as much as 90% of the remaining cauliflower soft coral population was gone.

We plan to remap the estuary in the coming weeks, and feel confident our initial estimates will be close to the mark. If so, this means less than 5% of the species area mapped in 2011 now remains.

The floods also devastated kelp forests and other canopy-forming habitats in the estuary. Further work by scientists at the NSW Department of Primary Industries is underway to quantify these losses and monitor the recovery.

Read more: Sydney’s disastrous flood wasn’t unprecedented: we’re about to enter a 50-year period of frequent, major floods

Urgent work required

The cauliflower soft coral urgently needs protecting. This will require ongoing, coordinated research and management.

Clearly, action must be taken to reduce threats such as anchoring, fishing, and development that may magnify sand movement.

Best-practice rehabilitation is also needed. This may involve rearing the coral off-site and transplanting it into suitable habitat. Such trials at Port Stephens have shown promising signs.

Human activities are causing species loss at an alarming rate. We must do everything in our power to prevent the extinction of the cauliflower soft coral, and other threatened species, to preserve the balance of nature and its ecosystems.

Read more: Australia’s threatened species plan sends in the ambulances but ignores glaring dangers

– ref. Beautiful, rare ‘purple cauliflower’ coral off NSW coast may be extinct within 10 years – https://theconversation.com/beautiful-rare-purple-cauliflower-coral-off-nsw-coast-may-be-extinct-within-10-years-160184

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Meryl Larkin, PhD Candidate, Southern Cross University

When we think of Australia’s threatened corals, the Great Barrier Reef probably springs to mind. But elsewhere, coral species are also struggling – including a rare type known as “cauliflower soft coral” which is, sadly, on the brink of extinction.

This species, Dendronephthya australis, looks like a purple cauliflower due to its pink-lilac stems and branches, crowned with white polyps.

The coral primarily occurs at only a few sites in Port Stephens, New South Wales, and is a magnet for divers and underwater photographers. But sand movements, boating and fishing have reduced the species’ population dramatically.

Recent flooding in NSW compounded the problem – in fact, it may have reduced the remaining coral population by 90%. Our recent research found cauliflower soft coral may become extinct in the next decade unless we urgently protect and restore it.

Lilac underwater gardens

Cauliflower soft corals are predominantly found in estuarine environments on sandy seabeds with high current flow. They rely on tidal currents to transport plankton on which they feed.

The species is most commonly found in the Port Stephens estuary, about 200 kilometres north of Sydney. It’s also found in the Brisbane Water estuary in NSW, and has been found sporadically in other locations south to Jervis Bay.

The coral colonies form aggregations or “gardens”. At Port Stephens, these gardens are the preferred habitat for the endangered White’s seahorse and protected species of pipefish. They also support juvenile Australasian snapper, an important species for commercial and recreational fishers.

In recent months, the cauliflower soft coral has been listed as endangered in NSW and nationally.

Read more: Marine life is fleeing the equator to cooler waters. History tells us this could trigger a mass extinction event

An alarming decline

Scientists first mapped the distribution of the cauliflower soft coral in 2011. They found none of the biggest colonies in the Port Stephens estuary were protected by “no take” zones – areas where fishing and other extractive activities are banned.

In research in 2016, we found a sharp decline in the extent and distribution of cauliflower soft coral.

Our recent study examined the problem in more detail. It involved mapping the southern shoreline of Port Stephens, using an underwater camera towed by a vessel.

We found the cauliflower soft coral in the Port Stephens estuary has declined by almost 70% over just eight years. It now occurs over 9,300 square metres – down from 28,600 square metres in 2011.

Our subsequent modelling sought to identify what was driving the corals’ decline. We found a correlation between coral loss and sand movements over the last decade.

Human changes to shorelines, such as marina developments, have changed the dynamic of currents across the estuary. For example, previous research found a large influx of sand from the western end of Shoal Bay smothered cauliflower soft coral colonies at two nearby locations. As of 2018, those colonies had disappeared completely.

While diving as part of the project, we identified other causes of damage to the coral. Dropped boat anchors and the installation of moorings had damaged some colonies. Others were injured after becoming entangled in fishing line.

It is possible that disease, and pollution or other water quality issues, may also be contributing to the species’ decline.

Then the floods hit

Some 18 months after our most recent mapping, cauliflower soft corals suffered yet another blow. Major flooding in NSW in March this year caused a massive amount of fresh water to discharge from the Karuah River into the Port Stephens estuary, where sea water is dominant. Fresh water can kill cauliflower soft corals.

Following the floods, we conducted exploratory dives at locations where the cauliflower soft corals had been thriving at Port Stephens. We found much of the coral had disintegrated and disappeared. In fact, we estimated as much as 90% of the remaining cauliflower soft coral population was gone.

We plan to remap the estuary in the coming weeks, and feel confident our initial estimates will be close to the mark. If so, this means less than 5% of the species area mapped in 2011 now remains.

The floods also devastated kelp forests and other canopy-forming habitats in the estuary. Further work by scientists at the NSW Department of Primary Industries is underway to quantify these losses and monitor the recovery.

Read more: Sydney’s disastrous flood wasn’t unprecedented: we’re about to enter a 50-year period of frequent, major floods

Urgent work required

The cauliflower soft coral urgently needs protecting. This will require ongoing, coordinated research and management.

Clearly, action must be taken to reduce threats such as anchoring, fishing, and development that may magnify sand movement.

Best-practice rehabilitation is also needed. This may involve rearing the coral off-site and transplanting it into suitable habitat. Such trials at Port Stephens have shown promising signs.

Human activities are causing species loss at an alarming rate. We must do everything in our power to prevent the extinction of the cauliflower soft coral, and other threatened species, to preserve the balance of nature and its ecosystems.

Read more: Australia’s threatened species plan sends in the ambulances but ignores glaring dangers

– ref. Beautiful, rare ‘purple cauliflower’ coral off NSW may be extinct within 10 years – https://theconversation.com/beautiful-rare-purple-cauliflower-coral-off-nsw-may-be-extinct-within-10-years-160184

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christina Lee, Senior Lecturer in Literary and Cultural Studies, Curtin University

Last week, the trailer dropped for what will be the 26th movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe franchise: Eternals, directed by Chloé Zhao. Opening with a dreamy, misty shoreline, we hear Skeeter Davis’s The End of the World. An ominous spaceship appears over the ocean, and the Eternals begin to prepare for the impending battle.

This year, Zhao was only the second woman (and first woman of colour) to win Best Director at the Academy Awards: a reminder of Hollywood’s entrenched gender and race biases. The cinematic world of Marvel, which began with Iron Man in 2008, has been similarly male and white.

Of the 23 Marvel films released so far, just one has been directed by a woman (Anna Boden, who co-directed Captain Marvel with Ryan Fleck) and two by people of colour (Ryan Coogler for Black Panther, and Taika Waititi for Thor: Ragnarok).

But things are changing.

In July, Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson) — one of the original Avengers — will finally get her own film in Black Widow, directed by Australian Cate Shortland.

In September, Destin Daniel Cretton’s Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings will showcase a predominantly Asian cast, where superhero Shang-Chi (Simu Liu in the character’s film debut) encounters the terrorist group Ten Rings.

Read more: Oscar winners: how the pandemic led to a record-breaking year of diversity

Zhao’s Eternals, to be released in November, will see an immortal alien race forced out of hiding after thousands of years in a quest to save humanity. Starring a multicultural, ensemble cast including Gemma Chan, Salma Hayek and Angelina Jolie, Eternals will feature Marvel’s first openly queer superhero — Phastos (Brian Tyree Henry) — and deaf superhero — Makkari (Lauren Ridloff).

Asian American Cretton has said:

Growing up, I didn’t have a superhero that looked like me and it’s really exciting to give a new generation something I did not have.

Owned by Disney, Marvel Studios is an entertainment giant, which has grossed over US$22.5 billion (A$29 billion) at the global box office. Its investment in more diverse stories, characters and directors is clever marketing. But it is also an indication of the dynamic relationship between one of the world’s biggest film franchises and its fan base, and how they both sit within the broader culture.

Marvel, like all film studios, has found itself creating popular culture during a period of great social and political upheaval. Global movements such as #MeToo, #BlackLivesMatter and #StopAsianHate have been a clarion call for social justice.

These movements have exposed and challenged discrimination and violence against marginalised groups, including exclusion from representation on screen and behind the scenes.

Pressure from #MeToo activists has seen Hollywood hire more female filmmakers since 2018. In the wake of #BlackLivesMatter’s growth in 2014 came #OscarsSoWhite in 2015, a movement which led to a remarkable change in the diversity of filmmakers — and the recognition they received.

Knowing their audience

2018’s Black Panther broke new ground with its all Black lead cast and Coogler as the franchise’s first African American director. Making US$1.34 billion (A$1.72 billion) at the box office, it is the second highest grossing Marvel film in the US.

Read more: How I marvelled at Black Panther’s reimagining of Africa

2019’s Captain Marvel, the franchise’s first standalone female superhero film, with its first female director, made US$1.13 billion (A$1.45 billion) at the box office.

This year we had a Black Captain America for the first time in the Disney+ spin-off series The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. Directed by Kari Skogland, the series was the streaming service’s most watched premiere ever.

This casting, and the story the series told about race, resonated with viewers who were frustrated and angry at the criminalisation and disempowerment of Black men playing out time and again in the news media.

This is not to suggest Marvel is radically undoing the biases of society and the film industry, smashing stereotypes shored up by centuries of patriarchal or colonial domination. That would be an insurmountable challenge even for the Avengers.

Rather, Marvel’s increasingly liberal steps stem from an understanding of the power of the people. The franchise’s continued success depends on remaining culturally relevant and, crucially, not underestimating what its audiences want — and who its audiences are.

Familiar tropes of Asian-ness will appear in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (Shang-Chi’s powers are, of course, martial arts skills). But by handing over the keys to Cretton and his culturally diverse creative team, we can expect Marvel’s first standalone Asian superhero film to be a nuanced, multifaceted depiction of Asian cultures and identities not seen before in the genre.

As an immigrant female director and Marvel enthusiast, Zhao perhaps epitomises the future — and logical endpoint — of Marvel’s quest for inclusion and diversity.

“I’m not just making [Eternals] as a director,” she said. “I’m making the film as a fan.”

– ref. ‘I didn’t have a superhero that looked like me’: Marvel’s new female, culturally diverse and queer protagonists mirror our times – https://theconversation.com/i-didnt-have-a-superhero-that-looked-like-me-marvels-new-female-culturally-diverse-and-queer-protagonists-mirror-our-times-160917

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Richard Bean, Research Fellow, The University of Queensland

The United States National Security Agency — the country’s premier signals intelligence organisation — recently declassified a Cold War-era document about code-breaking.

The 1977 book, written by cryptologist Lambros Callimahos, is the last in a trilogy called Military Cryptanalytics. It’s significant in the history of cryptography, as it explains how to break all types of codes, including military codes, or puzzles — which are created solely for the purpose of a challenge.

The first two parts of the trilogy were published publicly in the 1980s and covered solving well-known types of classical cipher.

But in 1992, the US Justice Department claimed releasing the third book could harm national security by revealing the NSA’s “code-breaking prowess”. It was finally released in December last year.

Lessons for code-breakers

A key part of Callimahos’s book is a chapter titled Principles of Cryptodiagnosis, which describes a systematic three-step approach to solving a message encrypted using an unknown method.

An intelligence agency might intercept thousands of messages made in a target country’s ciphers, in which case they already know the method. But if they encounter something new, they must first and foremost figure out the encryption method, or risk wasting time.

As Callimahos details in his chapter, the code-breaker must begin with all the necessary data. This includes the ciphertext (the enciphered text hiding the real message), any known underlying plaintext (text from before the encryption was applied), as well as important contextual information.

Read more: Cryptology from the crypt: how I cracked a 70-year-old coded message from beyond the grave

For puzzles, part of the plaintext may be given to help the solver. With confidential military messages, the solver may suspect certain words have been encoded into the ciphertext, based on past knowledge. For example, there may be key terms such as “message begins”, “message ends” or “secret”, or specific names, places or addresses.

The code-breaker then arranges and rearranges the data to find non-random characteristics. After this, they can recognise and explain these characteristics. In other words, they’ve found the cipher method.

Applying these steps is an example of “Bayesian inference”. The code-breaker considers the weight of evidence and guesses the likely cause of an observed effect.

The Zodiac and Kryptos ciphers

Last year, the famous 1969 Zodiac killer cipher, known as Z340, was solved by an international team of code-breakers after 51 years. The team carefully and systematically developed a list of observations over many years.

Using a process called Monte Carlo sampling, they tested whether the patterns observed in the ciphertext were random or not. Together with a detailed knowledge of the context of the cipher and a solution for a previous cipher by the Zodiac killer, they correctly guessed the encryption method used.

One of the Zodiac cipher solvers, David Oranchak, said in his opinion it was “at about a seven or eight out of ten in difficulty to decipher”.

Similarly, US artist Jim Sanborn’s famous Kryptos sculpture, located at the Central Intelligence Agency, has long confounded attempts to unlock its code. It contains four encrypted passages to challenge the agency’s employees. The final passage, known as K4, remains unsolved after 30 years.

When Kryptos’s code designer Ed Scheidt was asked to rate the cipher’s difficulty, he estimated it as being around a nine out of ten on the same scale. He said his intention was for it to be solved in five, seven or maybe ten years.

So what has made K4 so difficult? For one, with only 97 letters the passage is very short, meaning less data and fewer clues. The enciphering method used to create it is unknown, and there’s little context as to how it may have been enciphered.

One classic book on mathematical problem solving, How to Solve It by George Pólya, suggests a general principle for solving any problem is to refer to a similar problem that has already been solved. This principle applies in the historical puzzle world, too.

However, Scheidt also noted there was a “change in the methodology” as the Kryptos message progressed — done intentionally to make it increasingly difficult.

It could also be that Sanborn accidentally introduced an error in K4 during the construction of the Kryptos sculpture, which would mean solvers are wasting their time. Making a mistake during enciphering can render a puzzle impossible to solve. In such cases, the creator should admit this to prospective code-breakers.

Lessons for code-makers

Looking at a puzzle from the code-maker’s perspective is important. A skilled code-maker should leave at least some non-random patterns in the cipher, so as to not make their puzzle impossible.

Imagine you’ve created a puzzle, but after many years your intended audience has failed to solve it. If you still want it solved, you have to start releasing clues. Some puzzles, such as the 1979 book Masquerade and the Decipher Puzzles, were only solved after clues were released.

However, if nobody has solved your puzzle even after you release many clues, then the code is simply too tough to crack.

Cryptographer Helen Fouché Gaines wrote about this in her 1939 book. The creator of such a puzzle, she said, “fails to submit material in proportion to the amount of complication he has introduced”.

This means you may have to eventually reveal the method you used. One example is a complex algorithm known as Chaocipher. While Chaocipher messages were designed to be highly difficult, they’re virtually impossible to decipher without knowing the method.

A 2007 NSA presentation about Kryptos mentions how “dozens” of agency staff have failed to solve K4. But as more historical texts become declassified and our computational, storage and networking capacity grows, perhaps one day an amateur code-breaker will crack the elusive passage — and not an agent of the NSA.

Read more: How hard is it to scramble Rubik’s Cube?

– ref. Declassified Cold War code-breaking manual has lessons for solving ‘impossible’ puzzles – https://theconversation.com/declassified-cold-war-code-breaking-manual-has-lessons-for-solving-impossible-puzzles-161595

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jack Anderson, Professor of Sports Law, Melbourne Law School, The University of Melbourne

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) is adamant the Tokyo Olympics will begin as scheduled on July 23, followed by the Paralympic Games on August 24. Polls indicate the Japanese public is equally adamant that neither event should go ahead.

Public sentiment against the games has recently been accompanied by disquiet from local sponsors. A research institute has also argued that while the cancelling the games would cost Japan ¥1.81 trillion (A$21.3 billion), the economic loss would still be smaller than the costs associated with a nationwide post-Olympics state of emergency.

And Naoto Ueyama, the head of the Japan Doctors Union, has even suggested the Olympics might prompt the mutation of a new COVID variant.

These medical and economic concerns are speculative, but they are nonetheless real.

A number of prefectures in Japan, including those in which Olympics events will take place, remain in a state of emergency, extended now to June 20. And Japan’s vaccination rate is one of the lowest in the developed world, at less than 5%.

Both of the above factors support the wider public’s concern that the risks of hosting the games in July appear too high to continue.

The IOC’s extraordinary powers

And yet, Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga has said the decision to cancel the games lies ultimately and unilaterally with the IOC.

It seems extraordinary that a private entity such as the IOC can wield such influence in a sovereign state faced with a severe public health challenge.

Suga’s comments have been explained by both political rigidity and national pride. But they are also reflective of the language and obligations in the host city contract signed between the IOC and Tokyo in 2013.

Read more: Olympic athletes speak up: current COVID plans aren’t enough to keep them safe

This is an extraordinary document. An example of the nature of the power granted to the IOC can be seen in clause 72.

If, over the next few weeks, the Japanese government seeks to pass a law or even a public health regulation, which has adverse consequences for the hosting of the games (and thus adverse commercial consequences for the IOC), this could be considered a breach of contract. And this would justify termination of the contract by the IOC.

Clause 66 contains the full range of powers the IOC has to terminate the contract. If Japan decides in the next few weeks it simply cannot deliver the games, this clause permits the IOC at its sole discretion to simply walk away from the contract.

Under either scenario, Tokyo would not only bear the costs for the preparations to date, but would also remain obliged to indemnify the IOC from any third-party claims, actions or judgements.

Even if the organisers were to invoke the clause in the contract that may allow for a cancellation for unforeseen events or undue hardship — a force majeure-type clause — the IOC is not obliged to consider such a request.

Significantly, the powers granted to the IOC apply not only to a cancellation before the games, but also at any time during the games.

If, for example, the IOC has grounds to believe the safety of participants would be seriously threatened or jeopardised by say, a sudden COVID spike, it can terminate the contract at its sole discretion. Again, the associated costs would largely have to be absorbed by the organisers.

Read more: The Tokyo Olympics are going ahead, but they will be a much compromised and watered-down event

While the games organisers have insured themselves against possible cancellation of the games (as has the IOC), the nature of the losses, insurable or otherwise, must be put in some context.

The budget for Tokyo 2020 was set at A$16.3 billion, but it has since blown out to A$19.9 billion officially, a record for a Summer Olympics. There is some speculation the final spend will be double the original budget.

If the games were to be cancelled, the insurance industry is braced for the largest global event claim in history, estimated at between A$2.5-3.8 billion.

And even with a claim, Tokyo would still stand to be out millions of dollars in capital costs for infrastructure built for the games.

Liability for athletes’ health

As the IOC moves into delivery mode now, there are other risks and legal obligations to deliver a safe event and avoid the nightmare of a “superspreader” scenario.

By pressing ahead, the IOC assumes more of the logistical and legal responsibility — or a duty of care — for its safe delivery.

According to the World Players Association, the IOC must do much more to ensure the safety of the athletes. The group’s executive director said,

The IOC and all others responsible for the games have a fundamental duty of care to protect public and athlete health from harm, which means that no expense can be spared. Reports that up to three athletes will be sharing small rooms in poorly ventilated facilities are simply unacceptable.

Harm to athlete and public health must not be collateral damage in staging the world’s largest mega-sporting event.

The IOC, led by its vice president, John Coates, has argued vociferously that its playbook, endorsed by the World Health Organisation, is an operationally, medically and legally sound basis on which to proceed.

The lack of specific logistical details in the playbook, however, has been met with some criticism. Some observers argue there is a risk assessment gap between what the playbook aspires to achieve in advance of games and what can actually be done.

In addition, IOC President Thomas Bach has been asked to provide more specific details on his claim that 80% of athletes will be vaccinated before arriving in Tokyo.

Read more: Why haven’t the Olympics been cancelled from coronavirus? That’s the A$20bn question

Then there are the matter of the waivers athletes are being asked to sign, which prevent the IOC and Tokyo organisers from being held responsible should an athlete become ill.

The IOC’s playbook says that while every effort will be taken to mitigate the risks involved in participating in the games,

risks and impacts may not be fully eliminated, and therefore you [the athlete] agree to attend the Olympic and Paralympic Games at your own risk.

The IOC has reassured athletes such as clause is “standard practice” for major sports events. That is true, as is generally the case with any waiver or disclaimer that is signed before undertaking an obviously risky sporting activity.

However, it’s important to note that a disclaimer like this has no effect if the reason an athlete becomes ill is due to negligence. The IOC still has a “duty of care” to all athletes taking part in the games.

Put simply, if the IOC does not reasonably comply with the protocols in its own playbook and this causes harm to an athlete, a claim of negligence could follow.

Will Japan rally behind the games?

The IOC is of the view that once the games begin, the event will achieve its own momentum and provide a welcome diversion for the Japanese public and the wider world.

And yet, the diversion of medical and logistical resources the games will entail — and the continued opposition of the Japanese public — may yet be the IOC’s greatest opponent. An unwanted games is no games at all.

– ref. Can the Olympics still be cancelled? Yes, but the legal and financial fallout would be staggering – https://theconversation.com/can-the-olympics-still-be-cancelled-yes-but-the-legal-and-financial-fallout-would-be-staggering-161739

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Fiona Russell, Senior Principal Research Fellow; paediatrician; infectious diseases epidemiologist, The University of Melbourne

In the face of changing eligibility for the AstraZeneca vaccine, new variants of the coronavirus and supply constraints, many people are wondering whether they can “mix and match” COVID-19 vaccines.

This means, for example, having the AstraZeneca vaccine as the first dose, followed by a different vaccine such as Pfizer as the second dose, and boosters with other vaccines later on.

While many studies are ongoing, data has recently been released from mix and match trials in Spain and the United Kingdom.

This data is very promising, and suggests mix and match schedules may give higher antibody levels than two doses of a single vaccine.

While Australia’s drug regulator, the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA), hasn’t yet approved a mix and match COVID-19 vaccination schedule, some countries are already doing this.

So how does this work, and why might it be a good idea?

What’s the benefit of mixing and matching?

If the COVID-19 vaccine rollout can mix and match vaccines, this will greatly increase flexibility.

Having a flexible immunisation program allows us to be nimble in the face of global supply constraints. If there’s a shortage of one vaccine, instead of halting the entire program to wait for supply, the program can continue with a different vaccine, regardless of which one has been given as a first dose.

If one vaccine is less effective than another against a certain variant, mix and match schedules could ensure people who’ve already received one dose of a vaccine with lower effectiveness could get a booster with a vaccine that’s more effective against the variant.

Some countries are already using mix and match vaccine schedules following changing recommendations regarding the AstraZeneca vaccine because of a very rare side effect of a blood clotting/bleeding condition.

Read more: What is thrombocytopenia, the rare blood condition possibly linked to the AstraZeneca vaccine?

Several countries in Europe are now advising younger people previously given this vaccine as a first dose should receive an alternative vaccine as their second dose, most commonly mRNA vaccines such as Pfizer’s.

Germany, France, Sweden, Norway and Denmark are among those advising mixed vaccination schedules due to this reason.

Is it safe?

In a UK mix and match study published in the Lancet in May, 830 adults over 50 were randomised to get either the Pfizer or AstraZeneca vaccines first, then the other vaccine later.

It found people who received mixed doses were more likely to develop mild to moderate symptoms from the second dose of the vaccine including chills, fatigue, fever, headache, joint pain, malaise, muscle ache and pain at the injection site, compared to those on the standard non-mixed schedule.

However, these reactions were short-lived and there were no other safety concerns. The researchers have now adapted this study to see whether early and regular use of paracetamol reduces the frequency of these reactions.

Another similar study (not-peer reviewed) in Spain found most side effects were mild or moderate and short-lived (two to three days), and were similar to the side effects from getting two doses of the same vaccine.

Is it effective?

The Spanish study found people had a vastly higher antibody response 14 days after receiving the Pfizer booster, following an initial dose of AstraZeneca.

These antibodies were able to recognise and inactivate the coronavirus in lab tests.

This response to the Pfizer boost seems to be stronger than the response after receiving two doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, according to earlier trial data. The immune response of getting Pfizer followed by AstraZeneca isn’t known yet, but the UK will have results available soon.

There’s no data yet on how effective mix and match schedules are in preventing COVID-19. But they’re likely to work well as the immune response is similar, or even better, compared with studies using the same vaccine as the first and second dose. This indicates they will work well in preventing disease.

Might this be one way to help resolve Australia’s slow rollout?

In Australia, we’ve seen many people wanting to “wait for Pfizer” and not have the AstraZeneca vaccine. This is despite the UK’s recent real-world findings that, following two doses, both vaccines are similarly effective against the variants circulating in the UK.

Delays in vaccine uptake have also been due to concerns regarding the very rare but serious blood clotting/bleeding syndrome after the first dose of AstraZeneca, as well as changing age restrictions in terms of who can receive this vaccine.

This caused widespread uncertainty and meant some younger people in some countries in Europe who had already received a first dose were excluded from getting a second dose.

The results from these mix and match studies support the possibility of vaccinating people who have received the first dose from AstraZeneca, with a different booster, if the need arises.

Further studies are underway to evaluate mix and match schedules with Moderna and Novavax vaccines, both of which Australia has supply deals with.

Don’t delay getting vaccinated

As Victoria tackles its current outbreak, many other countries in our region are experiencing a surge in cases too. These include Fiji, Taiwan and Singapore, countries previously hailed as excellent examples of how to manage COVID-19.

These examples highlight the difficulty of sustained suppression in the absence of high vaccination coverage. This will be further exacerbated by the new, more transmissible variants.

The current cases in Victoria are caused by the B.1.617.1 (“Indian”) variant. Both vaccines are effective against the closely related B.1.617.2 variant (albeit a bit lower than against B.1.1.7) and we would expect similar effectiveness against B.1.617.1.

Read more: COVID is surging in unvaccinated Taiwan. Australia should take heed

It’s not clear what kind of evidence regulatory authorities, like Australia’s TGA, would require for a mixed schedule to be approved for use.

While we are waiting, it’s critical eligible people don’t delay getting vaccinated with the vaccine that’s offered to them now. Vaccination is an essential part of the pandemic exit strategy.

It’s likely the vaccination schedule will be modified in the future as boosters may be needed. This is normal for vaccination programs — we already do this each year with the influenza vaccine. This shouldn’t be seen as a policy failure, but instead an evidence-based response to new information.

– ref. Can I get AstraZeneca now and Pfizer later? Why mixing and matching COVID vaccines could help solve many rollout problems – https://theconversation.com/can-i-get-astrazeneca-now-and-pfizer-later-why-mixing-and-matching-covid-vaccines-could-help-solve-many-rollout-problems-161404

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jacqueline Peel, Professor of Environmental and Climate Law, The University of Melbourne

Three global fossil fuel giants have just suffered embarrassing rebukes over their inadequate action on climate change. Collectively, the developments show how courts, and frustrated investors, are increasingly willing to force companies to reduce their carbon dioxide pollution quickly.

A Dutch court ordered Royal Dutch Shell to slash its greenhouse emissions, and 61% of Chevron shareholders backed a resolution to force that company to do the same. And in an upset at Exxon Mobil, an activist hedge fund won two seats on the company’s board.

The string of wins was followed in Australia on Thursday by a court ruling that the federal environment minister, when deciding whether or not to approve a new coal mine, owes a duty of care to young people to avoid causing them personal injury from climate change.

The court rulings are particularly significant. Courts have often been reluctant to interfere in what is viewed as an issue best left to policymakers. These recent judgements, and others, suggest courts are more prepared to scrutinise emissions reduction by businesses and – in the case of the Dutch court – order them to do more.

Court warns of ‘irreversible consequences’

In a world-first ruling, a Hague court ordered oil and gas giant Shell to reduce CO₂ emissions by 45% by 2030, relative to 2019 levels. The court noted Shell had no emissions-reduction targets to 2030, and its policies to 2050 were “rather intangible, undefined and non-binding”.

The case was brought by climate activist and human rights groups. The court found climate change due to CO₂ emissions “has serious and irreversible consequences” and threatened the human “right to life”. It also found Shell was responsible for so-called “Scope 3” emissions generated by its customers and suppliers.

The Chevron upset involved an investor revolt. Some 61% of shareholders supported a resolution calling for Chevron to substantially reduce Scope 3 emissions generated by the use of its oil and gas.

And last week, shareholders of ExxonMobil, one of the world’s biggest corporate greenhouse gas emitters, forced a dramatic management shakeup. An activist hedge fund, Engine No. 1, won two, and potentially three, places on the company’s 12-person board.

Engine No. 1 explicitly links Exxon’s patchy economic performance to a failure to invest in low-carbon technologies.

Read more: In a landmark judgment, the Federal Court found the environment minister has a duty of care to young people

Climate-savvy shareholders unite

As human activity causes Earth’s atmosphere to warm, large fossil fuel companies are under increasing pressure to act.

A mere 20 companies have contributed 493 billion tonnes of CO₂ and methane to the atmosphere, primarily from the burning of their oil, coal and gas. This equates to 35% of all global greenhouse gas emissions since 1965.

Shareholders – many concerned by the financial risks of climate change – are leading the corporate accountability push. The Climate Action 100+ initiative is a leading example.

It involves more than 400 investors with more than A$35 trillion in assets under management, who work with companies to reduce emissions, and improve governance and climate-related financial disclosures. Similar movements are emerging worldwide.

Shareholders in Australia are also stepping up engagement with companies over climate change.

Last year, shareholder resolutions on climate change were put to Santos and Woodside. While neither resolution achieved the 75% support needed to pass, both received unprecedented levels of support – 43.39% and 50.16% of the vote, respectively.

And in May 2021, Rio Tinto became the first Australian board to publicly back shareholder resolutions on climate change, which subsequently passed with 99% support.

Read more: Wondering if your energy company takes climate change seriously? A new report reveals the answer

The litigation trend

To date, the question of whether corporate polluters can be legally forced to reduce greenhouse emissions has remained unanswered. While fossil fuel companies have faced a string of climate lawsuits in the United States and Europe, courts have often dismissed the claims on procedural grounds.

Cases brought against governments have been more successful. In 2019, for example, the Dutch Supreme Court affirmed the government has a legal duty to prevent dangerous climate change.

The decision against Shell is significant, and sends a clear signal that corporations can be held legally responsible for greenhouse pollution.

Shell has previously argued it can only reduce its absolute emissions by shrinking its business. The recent case highlights how such companies may have to quickly find new forms of revenue, or face legal liability.

It’s unlikely we’ll see identical litigation in Australia, because our laws are different to those in the Netherlands. But the Shell case is emblematic of a broader trend of climate litigation being brought to challenge corporate polluters.

This includes the case decided on Thursday involving young people opposed to a company’s coal mine expansion, and Australian cases arguing for greater disclosure of climate risk by corporations, banks and super funds.

Read more: Climate change will cost a young Australian up to $245,000 over their lifetime, court case reveals

Change is nigh

Oil and gas companies often argue Scope 3 emissions are not their responsibility, because they don’t control how customers use their products. The Shell finding and shareholder action against Chevron suggest this claim may hold little sway with courts or shareholders in future.

The Shell case may also set off a global avalanche of copycat litigation. In Australia, legal experts have noted the turning tide, and warned is it’s only a matter of time before directors who fail to act on climate change face litigation.

Clearly, a seismic shift is looming, in which corporations will be forced to take greater responsibility for climate harms. These recent developments should act as a wake-up call for oil, gas and coal companies, in Australia and around the world.

– ref. Four seismic climate wins show Big Oil, Gas and Coal are running out of places to hide – https://theconversation.com/four-seismic-climate-wins-show-big-oil-gas-and-coal-are-running-out-of-places-to-hide-161741

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Silvia Griselda, Postdoctoral research fellow, The University of Melbourne

Boys perform better than girls in tests made up of multiple-choice questions.

Multiple-choice questions are considered objective and easy to mark. But my research shows they give an advantage to males.

I compared around 500,000 test results of boys and girls who sat the same international test, but whose exam papers differed by detail (although not difficulty). The difference included a varied proportion of multiple-choice questions as opposed to open-ended questions.

I found the gender gap in math scores widened with the share of multiple-choice questions in the exam — advantaging males.

This shows the generally better performance of males in maths exams has to do more with the format of the test than their maths knowledge.

How I conducted my research

Standardised exams are widely used to test students and screen job candidates. Australians take several standardised tests throughout their education — such as the NAPLAN, High School Certificate (HSC) and the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA).

Such exams, especially when maths is involved, regularly include multiple-choice questions.

For example, more than 70% of NAPLAN’s 2016 numeracy section was made up of multiple-choice questions. Every year, the maths HSC tests include a section with multiple-choice questions.

These prompt students to identify the correct response from a set of possible answers.

I analysed data from PISA 2012 and 2015. PISA is the largest international standardised test in maths, reading and science. Every three years, more than 500,000 students aged 15, from more than 60 countries, including Australia, take the test.

Read more: The PISA world education test results are about to drop. Is Australia getting worse?

Each student taking the PISA receives a different set of questions which are of similar context and difficulty. But there is a random variation in the proportion of multiple-choice questions each student gets in their test booklet.

For instance, in 2015, some students received an exam mostly made up of multiple-choice questions (70%), while other students’ exam papers contained only 30% multiple-choice questions.

I exploited this random variation in the proportion of multiple-choice questions to investigate how gender differences in maths performance vary.

What I found

Females performed worse than males on multiple-choice questions — this was especially the case when they received an exam booklet with 60% or more multiple-choice questions.

An increase in the share of multiple-choice questions by ten percetage points (such as from 50% to 60%) increased the gender gap in maths scores by 50% in favour of boys.

Why is this happening?

I also analysed how students approached the answers by tracking the time it took them to respond to a question, as well as the number of questions each student skipped.

PISA data allows me to identify students who answer questions too fast (say in under three seconds, which does not allow for careful reading of the question).

Answering questions too fast or skipping them entirely can be seen as a sign of low effort or inattentiveness.

I found a gender difference in the approach students took to answering questions.

Overall, boys were less engaged in the test than girls. They answered questions faster and skipped more of them. However, this difference started to reverse the more multiple-choice questions there were in the test.

Girls who received an exam with more multiple-choice questions were more likely to show a lack of effort than when there were more open-ended questions.

Previous research supports the idea girls can be less engaged with multiple-choice questions. Girls tend to prefer questions that require more analysis and varied solutions while boys are more likely to just state their answers.

Confidence matters too

A student’s confidence in their maths knowledge can also play a part in their performance. For example, a higher level of confidence affects how fast students can rule out an incorrect responses.

PISA 2015 didn’t provide a measure of students’ levels of confidence.

However, previous research has shown girls with mothers working in science, technology, engineering or maths (STEM) occupations are more confident in maths and less likely to believe the stereotypes boys are better than girls.

Read more: Girls score the same in maths and science as boys, but higher in arts – this may be why they are less likely to pick STEM careers

So, I used maternal occupation as a measure of girls’ level of confidence and beliefs in their maths abilities. I found the negative effect of multiple-choice questions on girls’ performance actually disappeared in girls whose mothers worked in STEM-related occupations.

These findings suggest multiple-choice exams may not be the most appropriate tools to measure students’ levels of knowledge.

– ref. Multiple-choice exams favour boys over girls, worsening the maths gender gap – https://theconversation.com/multiple-choice-exams-favour-boys-over-girls-worsening-the-maths-gender-gap-160724

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brendan Coates, Program Director, Economic Policy, Grattan Institute

Australia should not target skills shortages when it selects workers for permanent residency.

That’s the firm conclusion from our new Grattan Institute report released this morning entitled Rethinking permanent skilled migration after the pandemic.

At present, the government allocates employer-sponsored and points-tested visas only to occupations deemed to be in short supply in “the medium term”.

With government officials lacking timely data on changes to wages and employment for each of the one thousand or so six-digit occupation codes, industry and other groups have considerable input into selecting those occupations in a process described by experts as a “black box”.

As a senior official from the department of jobs and small business described the process,

a lot of the time we will have submissions and other views put forward by stakeholders, but there’s not necessarily evidence or a dataset

Even if the list is compiled well, there is no particular reason to think that temporary or even “medium term” skill shortages are the best criteria for selecting permanent migrants who will live and work in Australia for decades to come.

Most skill shortages are temporary.

Australia’s demand-driven education and training systems are designed to fill shortages over time. Where they don’t, wages for workers with those skills will stay high.

Shortages ought to be temporary

But our “skilled shortage” lists include many low-skill low-wage occupations.

The chart below shows each occupation by its size, an average “competency” score as derived from the Australian Skills Classification, and the share of workers in the occupation earning more than $80,000 a year – about the median full-time wage.

It shows that the main list for permanent skilled workers, the medium and long-term strategic skills list (MLTSSL), excludes some high-skill, high-wage occupations, but includes many low-skill and low-wage occupations.

In part this is because targeting permanent skilled visas on the basis of occupations ignores the fact that jobs and wages vary within occupations.

As an example, there were 40,000 full-time solicitors at the 2016 Census. While half had salaries above $120,000 a year, a quarter had incomes below $80,000.

Jobs tell us more than occupations

Jobs, and the wages they offer, are a better guide to skills than occupations.

The chart below breaks occupations into their jobs.

It shows how poorly the MLTSSL targets high-wage jobs.

There is a better way.

Rather than drawing up occupation lists, the government should assess which migrants bring valuable skills simply by looking at the wages their jobs attract.

Wages tell us the most of all

Employer sponsorship should be available for workers in all occupations, provided they earn above the median full-time wage of $80,000 a year, as illustrated in the chart below.

Existing safeguards to prevent fraud and underpayment would remain.

Employers would still be required to offer a wage above the relevant annual market salary rate, and wages would require verification via a certified employment contract.

This change would not alter the total number of jobs eligible for sponsorship in the labour market, but it would shift the pool of jobs eligible for employee-sponsorship away from often arbitrarily-selected occupations to workers with valuable skills that attract high salaries.

We believe the change could boost the lifetime taxes paid by each annual intake of permanent skilled migrants by at least A$9 billion.

Points-tested visas should be reexamined

The same points apply to the occupation lists used to prioritise applicants for the separate system of points-tested visas.

Applicants ought to be assessed on whether they are likely to succeed in the Australian economy long term.

Age, experience and education are strong predictors of future success. But the current points test is bloated, offering points for characteristics (like regional study) that don’t predict long-term success.

The extra state-nominated and regional points-tested streams produce poorer outcomes still in terms of the skills and incomes of selected migrants.

They need to be reviewed.

– ref. Selecting what matters: skill shortages are no basis for picking permanent migrants – https://theconversation.com/selecting-what-matters-skill-shortages-are-no-basis-for-picking-permanent-migrants-161579

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

Rebel federal backbencher Joel Fitzgibbon says Labor should scrap the rank and file’s role in electing the leader, returning all the power to the caucus.

Fitzgibbon, speaking on Sky, said introducing the system that divides power in electing the leader between the caucus and the party membership on a 50-50 basis had been “a mistake”.

The change from having caucus alone elect the leader was driven by Kevin Rudd, as part of reforms to prevent coups like the one against him in 2010.

The more democratic system is to the potential advantage of the left, because the rank and file is left leaning.

Fitzgibbon, who is waging a battle to push federal Labor policy to the right – especially on coal and gas, and in its general pitch to working class aspirational voters – said there was no doubt the party was becoming more progressive and the “excessive progressives” were gaining increasing power within it.

“The country is becoming more progressive,” he said.

“But it is also true that who I call the ‘excessive progressives’ are on the march within the party.

“What’s happening in the branches is that in the regions people are either literally dying, or losing interest in the party because it’s become so progressive.

“And of course, in the capital cities, they’re flowing off the university campus into the city branches.

“Now, Kevin Rudd gave all those rank and file members a vote in the leadership. So if you want to be the leader of the Labor Party, you have to constantly be thinking about those people.”

Fitzgibbon argues those in caucus are best placed to judged leadership contenders, and “you don’t want a populist”.

At a state level, the rank and file input means NSW Labor faces the prospect of a long delay in replacing Jodi McKay, who resigned on Friday in the wake of the Upper Hunter byelection, if there is a contest.

Former leader Michael Daley has announced he will run and Chris Minns, who resigned from the frontbench last week, is regarded as a likely candidate.

Fitzgibbon denied he wanted Anthony Albanese replaced, although he said they did have “some fairly significant disagreements about policy”.

“I think there’s an opportunity for us to all meet halfway,” he said, adding that he had “not insignificant support” in caucus and the community about Labor’s “disconnect” with its traditional base.

“If we can get some middle ground there, get the party back to the centre, I still think Anthony Albanese can win.”

Fitzgibbon also said Labor would be “crazy” not to support the government’s stage three tax cuts, which are already legislated and due to take effect in 2024. These favour higher income earners and Labor is still debating internally whether in government it would leave them as they are or try to rework them.

Fitzgibbon said the reforms of the Hawke-Keating era “gave birth to a whole generation of aspirational voters”.

“And they’re not unsympathetic to those who want a hand up, or who need a hand up – not unsympathetic. And the Labor Party is still the best party to provide for those people who need a bit of a helping hand.

“But you have got to win. And you can’t be taking tax cuts, legislated tax cuts, off those aspirational voters.”

Fitzgibbon said he had not yet decided whether he would run again for his seat of Hunter. He said he didn’t think he could lose the seat, despite the disastrously low Labor vote at the Upper Hunter byelection.

“The reality is, I might be stuck there regardless[…] I might be the only one that is capable of holding it.”

– ref. Joel Fitzgibbon says rank and file ballots for Labor leader should be scrapped – https://theconversation.com/joel-fitzgibbon-says-rank-and-file-ballots-for-labor-leader-should-be-scrapped-161790

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katie Steele, Associate Professor in Philosophy, Australian National University

The International Energy Agency’s recent, landmark report put another glaring spotlight on Australia’s failure to act on climate change. On the same night the report was released, warning against any new fossil fuel projects, the federal government announced A$600 million for a new gas-fired power plant.

This announcement is disappointing, but not surprising.

It’s just the latest embarrassing incident from the Morrison government when it comes to climate change, as it fails to set any meaningful new targets, international climate summit after climate summit.

If we take a philosophical perspective on the issue, I believe there’s a cautious and strategic way for Australia to do its fair share, one that hasn’t been widely considered: adopting “conditional committents”.

Tackling a ‘collective action’ problem

Conditional commitments are promises to raise (or lower) emissions reduction efforts, depending on what others do. For example, imagine if Australia were to publicly affirm our Asian neighbours’ climate ambitions, and seize the opportunity to make these ambitions more concrete via a conditional offer: that we would introduce a carbon tax if China or Japan were to do so first.

So far, conditional commitments have been the domain of developing countries seeking international finance. We can see this in the “nationally determined contributions” — long-term goals under the Paris Agreement — of Angola, Nigeria and other countries, which involves raising their emissions reduction targets conditional on (typically unspecified) financial support from richer nations.

But let’s look at why conditional commitments can also work in a more effective way to boost the climate change mitigation efforts of richer countries.

Climate change has the structure of a “collective-action problem”, where many nations have an interest in jointly preventing harm. Yet the independent efforts of each are arguably not cost effective, even for relatively “altruistic” nations that place higher premium on global well-being, due to making little difference to the global outcome.

This is why Australia’s contribution to climate change is unexceptional, and yet our response to the problem significant.

Read more: International Energy Agency warns against new fossil fuel projects. Guess what Australia did next?

If you take a “non-consequentialist” ethical stance towards collective harms, you might think the case for ambitious emissions reductions is straightforward: it’s not acceptable to contribute to a large harm, despite making a relatively small difference.

But those with “consequentialist” reasoning will maintain we must pick our battles and concentrate on where we can do the most good. That’s the charitable reading of the Morrison government’s half-hearted climate policies.

Such a strategy certainly guards against the risks of other nations free-riding off our possible climate efforts, rendering them costly and futile. In other words, we might spend big and yet make very little difference to the climate problem and hence the well-being of Australians and other global citizens.

But will a concerted Australian effort to mitigate climate change necessarily achieve little good? It’s extremely risky to assume so.

Either Australia will be left out in the cold should an effective coalition of cooperating nations emerge, perhaps on the back of the slew of ambitions recently announced at US President Joe Biden’s global climate summit.

Or else the future will be as bleak for Australia, as for any other nation, should all cooperative efforts fail and we’re left to face an inhospitable climate.

Joining the climate club

Joining and enhancing an international coalition for climate action (or “climate club”) is a less risky way to negotiate a collective-action problem where much is at stake.

Read more: In a landmark judgment, the Federal Court found the environment minister has a duty of care to young people

An important diplomatic strategy, to this end, are conditional commitments — pledges to undertake mitigation efforts in the event other nations fulfil similar obligations.

In this way, we can ensure when we buy one small “share” in a stable climate, we get many more shares for free. That is, while the direct effects of our emissions reduction on climate change would be small, the total indirect effects — the sum of all international emissions reductions in tandem with our own — would be substantial. And well and truly worth the punt.

Let’s say there was a conditional commitment that extended to fossil fuel production: Australia would tax our coal production, if China were also to do so. If the free-rider problem is what prevents Australia from doing its fair share on climate change, this should be an attractive way forward.

Australia could then play a pivotal diplomatic role in extending the circle of conditional commitments to the other major coal producers in our region, such as India and Indonesia.

Read more: The Paris Agreement 5 years on: big coal exporters like Australia face a reckoning

There would be no reason for countries genuinely concerned about the global climate, such as the US under the Biden administration, to defect from this “coal tax club”. But broadening membership beyond such countries would require incentives, including special trading benefits, among those in the climate club.

This could be in the form of commitments to pursue trade in new green products, such as green steel and zero-carbon hydrogen, or exemption from border taxes (as per the European Union’s strategy).

If the more reluctant members failed to follow through on their commitments, they would be expelled from the club. But provided the incentives were good enough, this would be unlikely. And even then, it woudn’t be devastating to the collective effort, if enough enthusiastic cooperators remained.

Like a stack of dominoes

Of course, conditional commitments must be credible — others must believe they’ll be followed through. And that’s not easy to establish.

But this is where international meetings and treaties can play a crucial role. The next major international summit, COP26, will be held in November this year, where world leaders will try to agree on a new plan to tackle climate change.

Read more: Spot the difference: as world leaders rose to the occasion at the Biden climate summit, Morrison faltered

With so much at stake, there’s no reason not to make grand and far-sighted conditional commitments that reflect the kind of climate we want to collectively bring about.

With careful treaty design, nations can effectively hedge their bets: either others will come to the party and make it worthwhile to invest heavily in emissions reduction, or others will not come to the party and we make a terrible situation no worse by lack of investment.

In this way, the risks of high costs and no appreciable climate benefit are reduced for those at the vanguard of climate action. And, like a stack of dominoes, the risks are reduced for everyone else, including those yet to be born.

– ref. ‘Conditional commitments’: the diplomatic strategy that could make Australia do its fair share on climate change – https://theconversation.com/conditional-commitments-the-diplomatic-strategy-that-could-make-australia-do-its-fair-share-on-climate-change-148925

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Carl Rhodes, Professor of Organization Studies, University of Technology Sydney

While the financial well-being of everyday Australians has been hit hard by COVID-19, it’s quite the opposite at the top end of town.

“Australia’s billionaires have thrived during the pandemic year”, is how the AFR puts it. But let’s not laud this as an achievement.

It’s a glaring signal the system is stacked. Through the worst economic crisis in a generation, the elite got richer while millions of Australians just hung on, or saw their slim assets evaporate.

COVID-19 inequalities

In 2020, as lockdowns were enforced across the country, unemployment and underemployment soared. Even for those in stable jobs, wages growth was stagnant.

To cope, more than 3 million Australians withdrew more than $37 billion from their superannuation.

Collectively the Australian people also took on a debt of A$311 billion through federal government spending to mitigate the effects of the pandemic. National debt is expected to grow to $1 trillion by the mid-2020s.

Read more: COVID-19: how rising inequalities unfolded and why we cannot afford to ignore it

Who’s got the loot?

Meanwhile the wealthiest Australians got wealthier.

Again in top spot is mining heiress Gina Rhinehart (net worth $31.06 billion, up from $28.9 billion). Second is iron ore magnate Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest (net worth $27.25 billion, up from $23 billion).

Their campaign a decade ago against the resources profits super tax has proved to be most profitable.

Clive Palmer is in seventh spot (A$13.01 billion, up from $9.8 billion).

Wealth from privatising the value of land, either by digging it up or building on it, accounts for almost half of the wealth of the top 200 – $107.8 billion for the resources sector and $105 billion for property.

Next comes the technology sector ($78.4 billion). The two co-founders of collaboration software company Atlassian accounted for half of that. Mike Cannon-Brooks is third spot with $20.18 billion and Scott Farquhar fifth with $20 billion.

Atlassian has courted controversy over how little tax it pays in Australia, with the AFR’s own columnist Joe Aston calling Cannon-Brooks an “epic freeloader” in February 2020 over Atlassian’s aggressive approach to tax avoidance.

Read more: Swollen executive pay packets reveal the limits of corporate activism

The pandemic has been good for the rich

The 2021 rich list shows the extent of economic inequality in this country, as well as the increasing prevalence of the wealthiest Australians. Internationally, Australia is the country with the fifth-highest number of “ultra-high-wealth” citizens.

The good fortune of Australia’s ultra-rich follows the same pattern elsewhere in the world.

A study by the US progressive think tank the Institute for Policy Studies has called 2020 a “billionaire bonanza”, with the long trend in growth in the ultra-rich uninterrupted by the pandemic. The Biden administration has proposed increasing taxes on the wealthy as a way of funding services such as child care and education.

In Australia, the Morrison government has no such plans.

But if COVID-19 has taught us anything, it is that with real political will governments have the power to intervene in the economy at a fundamental level. Lockdowns, border controls, wage subsidies and massive borrowing and expenditure to stimulate the economy have all been bold and unprecedented policies.

Yet when it comes to demanding that the ultra-rich pay a little more and address economic inequality, the same level of political will is nowhere to be seen.

If we really are all in this together, it’s time for that to change.

– ref. The AFR’s 2021 Rich List shows we’re not all in this together – https://theconversation.com/the-afrs-2021-rich-list-shows-were-not-all-in-this-together-161738

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ben Newell, Professor of Cognitive Psychology, UNSW

Imagine two doctors presented with identical information about the same patient giving very different diagnoses. Now imagine the reason for the difference is because the doctors have made their diagnosis in the morning or afternoon, or at the beginning or the end of the week.

This is “noise” – the reason human judgements that should be identical vary – which Daniel Kahneman, one of the world’s best-known psychologists and winner of the 2002 Nobel Prize in Economics, tackles in his latest book, Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment.

Kahneman won his Nobel prize for his pioneering work with fellow Israeli psychologist Amos Tversky on how cognitive biases shape judgement. Their work, beginning in the late 1960s, laid the foundation for the new field of behavioural economics, which challenged the economic orthodoxy that decisions are rational.

Kahneman’s previous book Thinking, Fast and Slow, published in 2011, brought much of this work to the attention of a broader audience and cemented his reputation as a foundational figure in the understanding of human behaviour.

In Noise, co-authored by Olivier Sibony and Cass Sunstein he explores a different phenomenon to cognitive bias.

Bias is a psychological process, and can be detected in individual judgement, the genial 87-year-old explained to me when I interviewed him (via video) for the UNSW Centre for Ideas. “But we cannot identify noise in a particular judgement.” Instead we must look at sets of judgements to identify noise.

Noise is a statistical concept

Kahneman’s new book presents several compelling cases from business, medicine, and criminal justice in which judgments appear to vary for no “good” reason.

One example is fingerprint analysis, with the same analyst making different judgements about the same print at different points in time. If the analyst has only the fingerprint to look at – and no other information about the case – and decides on one occasion it is a match and on another it is inconclusive, that’s noise.

If, on the other hand, the analyst changes their mind because of extra information (for example they are told ballistics evidence suggests a different conclusion), that’s bias.

Both are a problem, Kahneman says. But because noise can only be identified in statistics, it is more difficult to think about, and so tends to go undiscussed.

Noise in system judgements

Kahneman’s book discusses many different types of noise, but the most significant discussion relates to system noise – the variability in decisions arising in systems meant to produce uniform judgements.

There are lots of situations in which diversity of opinion is highly desirable. “Noise is the variability where you don’t want it,” Kahneman said.

Think of the judicial system producing sentences, or the underwriting system to set insurance premiums. Such systems are meant to speak with “one voice”. We want judicial sentences to reflect the crime, not the judge that happens to hear the case. We want two underwriters with exactly the same information to calculate the same or similar premiums.

The challenge, then, is to identify unwanted variability and then do something to mitigate it.

The trouble with intuition

On this, the book offers a key insight that you can apply to your own decision making: resist “premature intuition” – the feeling you “know” something even if you are not sure why you know.

In some cases intuition is very useful for making instant decisions. In other, less time-critical situations, Kahneman says judgements based on intuitive feelings need to be disciplined and delayed.

Read more: Explainer: what is intuition?

Act on intuition only after you have made a balanced and careful consideration of evidence, he advised. As much as possible gather that evidence from diverse sources, and from people who have made their own independent judgement of the evidence.

Without this, Kahneman said, noise can easily be amplified.

Turning to artificial intelligence

One response to the prevalence of noise in judgements is to turn to machines, and let computers decide.

Kahneman is not yet an enthusiast. He believes artificial intelligence is going to “produce major problems for humanity in the next few decades” and is not ready for many of the domains in which judgement is required.

Read more: Algorithms workers can’t see are increasingly pulling the management strings

In the longer term, however, he does see a world in which we might “not need people” to make many decisions. Once it becomes possible to structure problems in regular ways and to accumulate sufficient data about those problems, human judges could become superfluous.

Until then there is plenty to do in reducing human error by improving human judgment, rather than eliminating it by outsourcing decisions to machines.

Knowing about noise (and bias) will help with that goal.

A recording of Daniel Kahneman’s full conversation with Ben Newell is avaiable on the UNSW Centre for Ideas’ website.

– ref. Daniel Kahneman on ‘noise’ – the flaw in human judgement harder to detect than cognitive bias – https://theconversation.com/daniel-kahneman-on-noise-the-flaw-in-human-judgement-harder-to-detect-than-cognitive-bias-160525

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

University of Canberra Professorial Fellow Michelle Grattan and University of Canberra Vice-Chancellor and President Professor Paddy Nixon discuss the week in politics.

This week Michelle and Paddy discuss the scrutiny faced by the government over the course of the parliamentary sitting week – in relation to the vaccine rollout, the fourth lockdown in Victoria, and the handling of the Brittany Higgins matter by the Department of Parliamentary Services and the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet.

– ref. VIDEO: Michelle Grattan on a week of Senate estimates and question time – https://theconversation.com/video-michelle-grattan-on-a-week-of-senate-estimates-and-question-time-161742

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Asha Bowen, Program Head of Vaccines and Infectious Diseases, and Head of Skin Health, Telethon Kids Institute

Yesterday Victoria announced a snap lockdown to last at least seven days starting from 11:59pm last night.

As part of the lockdown, schools will close and move to remote learning, and today is a pupil-free day while schools prepare to teach online. Only the children of authorised workers and vulnerable kids will continue to be able to learn in person.

It’s another episode of schools being closed seemingly as par for the course in any COVID-19 outbreak. While communities are concerned about the outbreak, the inclusion of schools in the lockdown should be as an extension of controls if transmission is more widespread, rather than the immediate response.

Despite good evidence, the previously developed traffic light system isn’t being used for schools during outbreaks in Australia. There’s currently no national plan to guide states and territories on how to manage schools during COVID outbreaks, and to advise them on the evidence and best-practice. This needs to change.

We argue schools should be prioritised to remain open, with transmission mitigation strategies in place, during low levels of community transmission.

What’s more, if schools are a priority, then vaccinating all school staff is something we should be urgently doing as part of these strategies.

Schools should be a priority

As paediatricians and vaccine experts, we believe kids’ well-being and learning should be among the top priorities in any outbreak.

We advocate for strategies to reduce the risk of COVID transmission in schools during outbreaks, including measures like:

• minimising parents and other adults on the school grounds, including dropping kids off at the school gate rather than entering the school

• parents, teachers, other school staff, and high-school students wearing masks

• focusing on hand hygiene

• enhanced physical distancing

• good ventilation in classrooms and school buildings.

On top of this, we believe if schools, teachers and kids are viewed as a priority by decision makers, then vaccinating all school staff should urgently be considered.

Vaccinating all school staff would reassure those who have concerns about being at work in a school environment during a lockdown, and potentially lower the risk of spread in schools even further. This would increase the confidence in schools remaining open.

Kids are not major drivers of transmission

Kids can and do get sick with the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, though they tend to get less severe disease.

The best available evidence suggests kids and schools are not major drivers of transmission, even though children can transmit the virus.

Read more: Why do kids tend to have milder COVID? This new study gives us a clue

Snap lockdowns have become the new norm in Australia for managing COVID transmission emerging from hotel quarantine. We strongly argue snap lockdowns shouldn’t automatically include schools. Data from overseas, where widespread community transmission is occurring, suggests schools remaining open with public health measures in place hasn’t changed transmission rates very much.

We advocate for schools to remain open, and if a student or teacher attends a school while infectious, the measures in place to test, trace, and isolate the primary and secondary contacts are activated. We have done it before. NSW was able to continue with face-to-face learning and had 88% attendance in term three 2020 even with low levels of community transmission.

When there’s rampant community spread like some countries overseas, this changes the risk-benefit equation and school closures may be needed. The traffic light system has been developed for exactly this scenario.

Read more: We can’t close schools every time there’s a COVID outbreak. Our traffic light system shows what to do instead

But with an outbreak of 30 cases so far, we don’t think Victoria is near the flexion point where school closures are necessary. If there were many more, the risk equation would change, and the traffic light system could be applied.

Also, there’s a different risk equation for primary and secondary school students. Primary school kids are much less likely to transmit the virus than secondary school students. Daycare and early childhood centres remain open in Victoria. The evidence supports at least primary schools remaining open too.

We need a national plan on schools

Our concern is that jurisdictions are reaching for school closures as an almost predictable part of lockdown, without relying on a national plan to guide these decisions. The only current guidelines are the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee’s (AHPPC) statement from February on reducing the risk of COVID spread in schools.

Only about 13% of Australians have received at least one COVID vaccine dose, and ongoing community COVID outbreaks are expected for at least the next year or more. So, we need a proper national plan on COVID and schools. States and territories would benefit from a national plan, as they could lean on it to make informed decisions on schools during outbreaks.

School closures cause enormous strain

Whenever school closures are announced, we hear many parents sigh and say things like “I won’t be able to get any work done!”. Indeed, school closures put enormous strain on families, especially working parents with pre-school or primary school aged children. Younger children require some supervision and are less likely to have the skills necessary to get value out of online learning, compared to older kids in the latter stages of high school who may be more independent.

Challenges might also include poor or no internet, not being able to have relevant supervision, or not having the right devices.

Home learning has a substantial impact on children’s well-being and mental health. Over 50% of Victorian parents who participated in a Royal Children’s Hospital poll in August 2020 reported homeschooling had a negative impact on their kids’ emotional well-being during the second wave in 2020. This was compared to 26.7% in other states. Jurisdictions keep playing into this risk if they keep closing schools.

It’s an absolute priority we find and use ways to support kids to continue face-to-face learning in times of low community transmission, especially primary schools. One important way to do this is to prioritise teachers and other school staff for COVID vaccines.

Read more: Children, teens and COVID vaccines: where is the evidence at, and when will kids in Australia be eligible?

– ref. We need to prioritise teachers and staff for COVID vaccination — and stop closing schools with every lockdown – https://theconversation.com/we-need-to-prioritise-teachers-and-staff-for-covid-vaccination-and-stop-closing-schools-with-every-lockdown-161657

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brian Long, Teacher in Arts and Cultural Management, The University of Melbourne

When lockdown was announced in Melbourne on Thursday, it came on the same morning as the opening of Rising, a large new cultural festival designed to “re-synchronise” and “re-energise” the city that spent much of 2020 in hibernation.

The festival has announced a “pause” on shows for the coming week.

The arts are again confronted with the total loss of ticket revenue, just as the sector was tentatively recovering. It is another terrible setback for a bruised industry.

Lockdowns and border closures in 2021 have already forced shows to cancel at the Sydney, Adelaide and Perth festivals, while Byron Bay Bluesfest was cancelled at the last minute. Reacting to the developing situation in Melbourne, Tasmania’s Dark Mofo — scheduled for June — has delayed ticket sales.

We need to do better in putting a floor under losses for the live-performance industry.

A publicly funded insurance scheme to compensate companies and their performers for COVID-19 related losses would give the sector planning confidence, and accelerate the return of cultural life to Australia’s cities.

Shutdowns without support

Some performance companies weathered the storm of 2020 well.

Last week, Victorian Opera reported a $2.5 million profit for 2020, and Sydney and Melbourne’s symphony orchestras have also reported healthy profits in large part due to the companies being eligible for various government schemes, and saving on production-related expenditure.

But 2021 will be a very different proposition.

During previous lockdowns, some artists and arts workers were eligible for JobKeeper. This support is no longer available.

Read more: The government says artists should be able to access JobKeeper payments. It’s not that simple

Festivals, like Rising and Bluesfest, have been hit particularly hard. Festival seasons are compressed into as little as a few days or weeks, and when lockdowns occur at the eleventh hour, most costs are already committed.

While arts events are required to hold public liability insurance, many cannot afford insurance to cover losses from forced public-emergency closures — or insurance companies are now excluding closures due to pandemics and communicable diseases altogether.

Insuring the film industry

In 2020, the government introduced the Temporary Interruption Fund to insure the film industry against pauses to production caused by COVID-19. Last month, this scheme was extended until the end of 2021.

This scheme pays out on the basis of production budgets, with a cap of 60% of the total budget. Run on a rolling basis, with the insurance transferring between projects as they enter and conclude production, by April 2021 the scheme had reportedly enabled more than 12,000 production roles.

Both Labor and the Greens have now joined industry calls for the government to establish an insurance scheme covering live performance and entertainment in the case of COVID-19 related losses.

Such an arrangement would be particularly useful for events like festivals, when costs have mostly been paid before the curtain goes up and there can be particular difficulties in re-scheduling to a later date.

Catastrophic human and financial losses from bushfires, coastal erosion, flooding and other forms of climate risk have become increasingly common, and highlight the limitations of commercial insurance markets. Before COVID, Australia’s summer festivals were already struggling to pay bushfire-related insurance premiums.

There is a growing expectation that government will play a role when the commercial insurance market fails to provide the cover people need in the face of natural and health disasters.

What’s at stake

One reason some arts organisations achieved healthy profits in 2020 was because their forced hibernation dramatically reduced expenditure.

The risk we face in not providing a publicly funded insurance scheme is arts festivals could now choose to hibernate until we have better vaccination coverage, and an associated commitment to end lockdowns and state border closures.

Read more: A litany of losses: a new project maps our abandoned arts events of 2020

Unfortunately artists and arts workers cannot hibernate in the same way as 2020: they need income now.

A publicly-funded insurance scheme to underwrite companies and their performers for COVID-19 related losses would provide more income stability for artists and arts workers.

It would give the producers of festivals and other cultural events the confidence to take on the risk of producing during the pandemic. And it would help to ensure these festivals and events survive for future generations of creators and audiences.

– ref. Rising on pause; Dark Mofo ticket sales delayed. The government must insure our arts events – https://theconversation.com/rising-on-pause-dark-mofo-ticket-sales-delayed-the-government-must-insure-our-arts-events-161737

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kate Cantrell, Lecturer in Writing, Editing, and Publishing, University of Southern Queensland

Eric Carle, author and illustrator of beloved children’s book, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, died on Sunday — the same day his famous caterpillar is born.

One Sunday morning, the warm sun came up — and pop! — out of the egg came a very tiny and hungry caterpillar.

Described by author Mo Willems as a “gentleman with a mischievous charm”, Carle might have appreciated the irony.

All living things grow and change and die.

But while a caterpillar’s life is spectacularly short, Carle lived for 91 years. He wrote more than 70 books. His most celebrated, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, is frequently cited as one of the best picture books of all time. With just 224 words, it has sold roughly a copy per minute since its publication in 1969.

Growing wings

Despite The Very Hungry Caterpillar’s success, Carle always seemed baffled by the persistent buzz.

In 2014, when asked about the book’s popularity, Carle responded, “I haven’t come up with an answer, but I think it’s a book of hope”.

A decade earlier, he seemed more settled on the idea:

I remember that as a child, I always felt I would never grow up and be big and articulate and intelligent. ‘Caterpillar’ is a book of hope: you, too, can grow up and grow wings.

Remarkably, Carle remained humble. In an interview he gave not long before his death, Carle quietly acknowledged the importance of his work.

“You know, now it’s sinking in,” he said. “It’s taken me a long time to realise, and it is sinking in.”

A glimmer of hope

Like many children’s authors, Carle enlists fantasy to serve the narrative. He speaks to children through animals and insects. In books like Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? (written by Bill Martin) he gives agency to bugs and beetles, and situates the smallest creatures on the same continuum as humans. His work comforts us. The predictable and non-controversial behaviour of animals is reassuring.

Unlike humans, animals are consistent.

Carle’s caterpillar might be gluttonous, but at least he is true to himself. And he doesn’t apologise for his appetite. He is very hungry, after all.

(In fact, Carle reportedly fought his publisher over the inclusion of the punitive stomachache. Carle didn’t believe children should be concerned with such things. His publisher, worried the episode would promote gluttony, disagreed).

Read more: Empathy starts early: 5 Australian picture books that celebrate diversity

The book hasn’t been without controversy.

Both George W. Bush and Hilary Clinton read the book to children on their campaign trails — with Bush earning digs for refusing to read any other books, and naming Caterpillar as his favourite children’s book, even though it came out when he was 23.

The American Academy of Pediatrics uses the book as a learning tool to promote healthy eating and educate about the risks of obesity — even though Carle once said he didn’t “recognise childhood obesity […] no one should”.

Read more: Abused, neglected, abandoned — did Roald Dahl hate children as much as the witches did?

A book full of holes

A child of wartime trauma, with a background in graphic design and advertising, Carle was playing around with a hole punch when he had the idea for a story about a bookworm. The Very Hungry Caterpillar was originally titled A Week with Willi the Worm. But Carle’s first choice of critter was abandoned at the suggestion of his editor, Ann Beneduce, who insisted worms didn’t make likeable characters.

Thus, The Very Hungry Caterpillar emerged, followed by The Very Busy Spider, The Very Quiet Cricket, and The Very Lonely Firefly.

Carle went on to write about grouchy ladybugs, dejected chameleons, even homeless hermit crabs — but never a worm.

Art of wonder

Despite his prolific publishing career, Carle didn’t think of himself as an author, preferring instead the term “picture writer”.

His style is distinct: minimalist text, vibrant illustrations and a multisensory reading experience that moves beyond the simple turning of a page.

The Very Lonely Firefly, for example, includes a set of battery-operated twinkling lights. Mister Seahorse, the story of a fish father who cares for his babies, contains transparent inserts printed with sea environments that can be overlayed as semi-opaque pages.

In Caterpillar, the page width is progressively increased to reflect the quantity of food consumed. Each image of food has a caterpillar-sized hole cutout, as if it has been chomped through.

Ultimately, after some mild abdominal pain and a medicinal green leaf, he transforms into a handsome butterfly.

Carle’s multifaceted practice, combined with his distinctive visual language, transforms his books into objects of wonder and play, lending themselves to repeated readings.

Moreover, while Carle’s images are carefully constructed through technical processes, his work maintains a childlike quality.

His images reflect how children see their world — a series of bold shapes, exaggerated features and fields of moving colour (an effect achieved by collaging on hand-painted tissue).

Indeed, Carle’s bold and bright colours are particularly effective given what we know about the developmental stages of a child’s vision: younger children are better able to perceive and distinguish between bright colours than fainter shades.

Carle called his work “deceptively simple”, a great accomplishment for a man, who — in his words — tried “all his life to simplify things”.

Read more: Unpacking the magic of Miffy, a simply drawn, bunny-shaped friend

– ref. Vale Eric Carle: creator of The Very Hungry Caterpillar, a story of hope … and holes – https://theconversation.com/vale-eric-carle-creator-of-the-very-hungry-caterpillar-a-story-of-hope-and-holes-161664

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christian Moro, Associate Professor of Science & Medicine, Bond University

How come the inside of your body is happy at 37 degrees but when the outside temperature is 37 degrees your body is very unhappy? — Patrick, aged 8.

Great question, Patrick!

You’re right. Most people’s bodies are happiest when their inside temperature sits around a nice 36.5-37.5℃. These temperatures allow your body to work the best.

But your body temperature does go through small changes. It can be a bit lower when you’re asleep. It can also change during the day when you feel hungry, tired or cold. And when you’re sick, your temperature can rise. That’s when you might have a fever.

Read more: Curious Kids: why are our top eyelashes longer than our bottom eyelashes?

A happy body

It’s really important to keep your body temperature at around 37℃ otherwise you can overheat and get quite sick.

To do this, muscles, such as the ones in your arms and legs, tighten (or contract). This process generates, or “makes”, heat. Your blood then carries this heat around your body.

But to stop your inside temperature getting too high, for example when you’re exercising on a hot day, your body needs to lose some of that heat.

Warm blood travels through blood vessels close to your skin. This heat is then “lost” to the air around you.

If that’s not enough to cool you down, your body will also start sweating. This speeds up how you lose heat through your skin.

You usually feel the most comfortable when it’s around 18-24℃. This seems to be a nice temperature that allows any extra heat to escape into the air. But it’s also not so cold that you need to move around to keep warm.

Phew, it’s stinking hot!

Things that get in the way of losing heat through the skin can make you feel hot, such as wearing a woolly jumper in summer.

But you can also feel uncomfortable on a hot and humid day. That’s because the warm outside temperature makes it hard for you to lose heat from your skin to the air around you (because the air is already quite warm). And without a breeze, it’s even harder for the heat to be carried away.

Read more: Curious Kids: how do scabs form?

How to keep cool

If it’s very hot or humid, your body may find it hard to lose extra heat. So to keep cool on these days:

• drink water often. This not only keeps your body happy, it gives you extra liquid to turn into sweat. Sweating helps you lose heat

• avoid direct sunlight, and try to keep to the shade or places with a cool breeze

• wear thin clothing and natural fibres, which can allow a clear flow of air

• wear light-coloured clothing, as this can keep you cooler than darker colours

• avoid running, jumping or riding your bike in the middle of the day

• on hot days, jump in a pool, or try to escape the heat by putting on the air-conditioning inside

• sit in front of a fan. This breeze carries heat away from your skin and into the air around you, cooling you down quickly.

Hello, Curious Kids! Have you got a question you’d like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to curiouskids@theconversation.edu.au

– ref. Curious Kids: if our bodies are happy at 37℃, why do we feel so unhappy when it’s too hot outside? – https://theconversation.com/curious-kids-if-our-bodies-are-happy-at-37-why-do-we-feel-so-unhappy-when-its-too-hot-outside-159134

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Matthew Ankers, PhD Candidate , Flinders University

More than 19,000 Australian children were recorded homeless on census night in 2016. That’s about one in six of the nation’s homeless population.

Many more children live in insecure housing, overcrowded spaces with a lack of privacy or security, or have to move often between accommodation, making it difficult to establish a routine.

Housing stress, spending more than 30% of the family budget on accommodation, can see families have utilities cut off. They may also not have the resources to buy or cook nutritious food, afford school uniforms or transport to school.

Read more: Family break-up raises homelessness risk, and critical period is longer for boys

A large proportion of homeless children are affected by family breakdown and violence. In 2017-18, almost half (45% or 29,600) of children receiving help from specialist homelessness services did so for reasons related to family violence or breakdown.

Homelessness, inadequate housing and family violence can seriously impact a child’s well-being. And with the COVID-19 pandemic making it harder to keep a job, stay in secure housing and remain free of family violence, the situation is likely to get worse.

Read more: ‘I didn’t want to be homeless with a baby’: young women share their stories of homelessness

How does homelessness affect children?

The impacts of homelessness and inappropriate shelter on Australian children are considerable.

Inappropriate shelter can result in poorer academic outcomes for children. Frequently moving home or schools, disturbed sleep, a lack of space to study and costs associated with transport, school supplies and uniforms are key issues for people who are homeless or suffering housing stress. These factors all reduce a child’s ability to engage with school.

Health care may be put off, or be piecemeal, due to the cost and ability to access services.

Read more: Childhood homelessness makes for adult unemployment: study

Our study from 2019-20 found 24% of children presenting for care had a severe health issue that required immediate treatment. Only 6% had a full vaccination history. And 62% of all children presented with some form of ill health.

This is due, in part, to waiting times for health services being longer than the period homeless services can secure accommodation for families in need.

In our study, for example, clients had been asked to wait 12 months for urgent medical/surgical care, but only had accommodation approved for three months. This means families may move on before an appointment is available.

This disengagement of children from social systems, such as health and education, when coupled with inappropriate shelter, results in poorer physical and mental health outcomes, as well as missed developmental milestones.

This all adds up to poorer outcomes across the life span.

Health impacts

Housing insecurity and homelessness are detrimental to children’s health. For example, the stress from frequent moves, lack of security and/or parent fighting can impact a child’s respiratory health and immune function.

Similarly, studies from the United States found up to 40% of homeless school-age children had a mental health condition requiring professional help.

Children may also have difficulty with behavioural regulation, or self-esteem and confidence issues, especially from the stigma associated with their housing situation.

Read more: Homeless numbers will keep rising until governments change course on housing

Improving access to health care

To address these service gaps, we established a nurse practitioner-led model of care, in a metropolitan homelessness service, to allow quicker acccess to health care for children impacted by inappropriate shelter.

The nurse practitioner in our service performs an in-depth assessment of the child using standardised clinical appraisal tools, and can diagnose and prescribe medicines, within a defined area of speciality. The nurse practitioner partners with families to develop care plans and referrals, while bulk billing to eliminate costs.

Additional barriers to accessing health care such as transport are addressed by giving families travel vouchers or the nurse practitioner visiting them at home. The nurse practitioner also works with the homeless service to liaise directly with schools to address education concerns, such as attendance, equipment or homework.

Children remain an invisible part of Australia’s homeless population, and in its insecure housing community. Interventions, (like our nurse practitioner service) delivered at the first point of contact, such as specialist homeless services, help reduce further impact to the child. Nurse practitioner visits can also be cost effective when compared with attending the emergency department for health care.

Our research has also shown nurse practitioners integrate well with GPs to extend care options for the family. The nurse practitioner model of care is also designed to be easily expanded to similar services across Australia, with the aim of preventing the negative impact of homelessness and housing insecurity on Australian children.

– ref. Insecure housing and overcrowding risk children’s health. But we’ve found a way to help – https://theconversation.com/insecure-housing-and-overcrowding-risk-childrens-health-but-weve-found-a-way-to-help-160692

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael (Mike) Joy, Senior Researcher; Institute for Governance and Policy Studies, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington

As countries explore ways of decarbonising their economies, the mantra of “green growth” risks trapping us in a spiral of failures. Green growth is an oxymoron.

Growth requires more material extraction, which in turn requires more energy. The fundamental problem we face in trying to replace fossil energy with renewable energy is that all our renewable technologies are significantly less energy dense than fossil fuels.

This means much larger areas are required to produce the same amount of energy.

Earlier this year, data from the European Union showed renewable electricity generation has overtaken coal and gas in 2020. But previous research argued that to replace the total energy (not just electricity) use of the UK with the best available mix of wind, solar and hydroelectricity would require the entire landmass of the country. To do it for Singapore would require the area of 60 Singapores.

I am not in any way denying or diminishing the need to stop emitting fossil carbon. But if we don’t focus on reducing consumption and energy waste, and instead fixate on replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy, we are simply swapping one race to destruction with another.

Read more: Climate policy that relies on a shift to electric cars risks entrenching existing inequities

The carbon causing our climate problem today came from fossilised biology formed through ancient carbon cycles, mostly over the 200 million years of the Mesozoic era (ending 66 million years ago).

We must stop burning fossil fuels, but we must also understand that every technology to replace them, while attempting to maintain our current consumption, let alone allowing for consumption growth, requires huge amounts of fossil energy.

Environmental impact of renewables

Carbon reduction without consumption reduction is only possible through methods that have their own massive environmental impacts and resource limitations.

To make renewable energy, fossil energy is needed to mine the raw materials, to transport, to manufacture, to connect the energy capture systems and finally to produce the machines to use the energy.

The new renewable infrastructure requires rare earth minerals, which is a problem in itself. But most of the raw materials required to produce and apply new energy technology are also getting harder to find. The returns on mining them are reducing, and the dilemma of declining returns applies to the very fossil fuels needed to mine the declining metal ore.

Read more: Techno-fix futures will only accelerate climate chaos – don’t believe the hype

Globally, despite building lots of renewable electricity infrastructure, we have not yet increased the proportion of renewable energy in our total energy consumption.

Electricity is only 20% of our total energy use. Renewable electricity has not displaced fossil energy in most countries because our consumption increases faster than we can add renewable generation.

The problems with wanting to maintain industrial civilisation are many, but the starkest is that it is the actual cause of our climate crisis and other environmental crises.

If we carry on with life as usual — the underlying dream of the “green growth” concept — we will end up destroying the life-supporting capacity of our planet.

What happened to environmentalism?

The green growth concept is part of a broader and long-running trend to co-opt the words green and environmentalist.

Environmentalism emerged from the 1960s as a movement to save the natural world. Now it seems to have been appropriated to describe the fight to save industrial civilisation — life as we know it.

This shift has serious implications because the two concepts — green growth and environmentalism — are inherently incompatible.

Traditionally, environmentalists included people like Rachel Carson, whose 1962 book Silent Spring alerted Americans to the industrial poisons killing birds and insects and fouling drinking water, or environmental organisations like Greenpeace saving whales and baby seals.

In New Zealand, being green had its roots in movements like the Save Manapouri campaign, which fought to save ancient native forests from inundation when a hydropower dam was built. Environmentalism had a clear focus on saving the living world.

Now environmentalism has been realigned to reducing carbon emissions, as if climate change was our only impending crisis. Parliamentary Greens seem set to want to reach net zero carbon by 2050 at any cost.

The word “net” allows champions of industry-friendly environmentalism to avoid considering the critical need to reduce our energy consumption.

Read more: Climate scientists: concept of net zero is a dangerous trap

We must somehow drag ourselves away from our growth paradigm to tackle the multiple crises coming at us. Our only future is one where we consume less, do less, waste less and stop our obsession with accumulating.

If we keep trying to maintain our current growth trajectory, built on a one-off fossil bonanza, we will destroy the already stressed life-supporting systems that sustain us. Protecting these and their essential biotic components is true environmentalism — not attempting to maintain our industrial way of life, just without carbon.

– ref. The idea of ‘green growth’ is flawed. We must find ways of using and wasting less energy – https://theconversation.com/the-idea-of-green-growth-is-flawed-we-must-find-ways-of-using-and-wasting-less-energy-160432

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Chris Gibson, Professor of Human Geography, University of Wollongong

Musicians are often concerned about environmental problems, but entangled in them through the materials used in their instruments. The guitar industry, which uses rare woods from old-growth trees, has been a canary in the coal mine — struggling with scandals over illegal logging, resource scarcity and new environmental regulations related to trade in endangered species of trees.

We spent six years on the road tracing guitar-making across five continents, looking at the timber used — known in the industry as tonewoods for their acoustic qualities — and the industry’s environmental dilemmas. Our goal was to start with the finished guitar and trace it to its origin places, people and plants.

We first visited guitar factories in Australia, the United States, Japan and China. There we observed materials and manufacturing techniques. From factories, we visited the sawmills that supply them. And then we journeyed further, to forests, witnessing the trees from which guitars are made.

Our task proved more complicated than imagined. At Martin Guitars alone, based in the US, wood comes from countries on six continents and 30 different vendors.

And the timber supply chains on which the guitar industry relies have been secretive. Many sources of wood are from places with historical legacies of environmental conflict, colonial violence and dispossession: spruces from the Pacific Northwest; rosewoods from Brazil, Madagascar and India; mahogany from Fiji and Central America.

We learnt about the guitar’s environmental footprint, while appreciating the skills and experiences of behind-the-scenes people, and the capacities of the forests and trees to adapt. And we saw how Australian guitar-makers, such as Maton and Cole Clark, are leading the way in embracing sustainable options, salvaging recycled wood, and sourcing native species from timber suppliers in Victoria, Tasmania and Queensland.

Read more: Redefining the rock god – the new breed of electric guitar heroes

How are guitars made?

Around 2.6 million guitars are produced annually, constituting a US$1 billion industry.

Unlike the timber used in construction or mass produced furniture — plantation species selected for fast growth and quick returns on investment — guitars use rare woods from old-growth trees. This is because the slices of wood used on guitars are quartersawn: cut perpendicular to the tree’s growth rings to ensure stability and sound wave projection. The slices have to be wide enough to become the front face, backs or sides of the instrument, hence large diameter logs are needed.

From carefully cut timber, guitar parts are then carved (whether by hand or machine), sanded and assembled. The soundboard (the top) is most critical. The guitar is musical because the strings are pulled extremely tight.

With their solid bodies, electric guitars can withstand tension better than acoustics. On acoustic guitars, the soundboard must be strong, but also light, and reverberate responsively, its stiffness harnessed for tonal qualities.

Until recently, a narrow range of timber species were considered suitable for guitars. Through centuries of European craft tradition, luthiers established spruces (Picea) worked best as acoustic and classical guitar soundboards.

They had the strength to be cut thinly and yet not collapse under extreme string tension, with straight and parallel grains that, in the words of guitar makers William Cumpiano and Jonathan Natelson, “impart a natural symmetry to the instrument, both visually and acoustically”.

For necks, guitar-makers use mahogany (Swietenia macrophylla) or maple (Acer species); for fretboards and bridges, ebony (Diospyros species) or rosewoods (Dalbergia species); and for acoustic guitar backs and sides, rosewoods and mahogany.

Since the inter-war Hawaiian music craze, koa (Acacia koa) has featured on acoustics, electrics and ukuleles.

Some of the woods used are plentiful and well managed. Leo Fender’s Telecaster captures the electric guitar’s rock ‘n’ roll sensibility: an unpretentious “slab” of swamp ash (Fraxinus species) and a one-piece, maple neck, bolted together in utilitarian simplicity. When we visited the Fender factory in California in 2018, Mike Born, head of wood technology explained:

We were fortunate that the old Fender designs used very easy-to-get American woods. Leo Fender was a very economical kind of guy looking to make inexpensive instruments, and developed them around woods that weren’t used for other things. Swamp ash is a good example: it was a throwaway product from furniture wood.

Other woods used in guitar making have more fraught histories and sustainability problems. Sitka spruce (Picea sitchensis), used on guitar soundboards, comes from trees at least 400 years old, but these are increasingly scarce. Ebony is threatened in its African habitat, with tightening restrictions on its use.

Habitat destruction for agriculture and urbanisation led to Brazilian rosewood — once considered the “gold standard” for guitars — being effectively banned from use since 1992. Guitar companies replaced it with similar species from other places, but they too were over-harvested.

Scandals have engulfed the industry since the Gibson Guitar factories in Nashville and Memphis were raided by US Fish and Wildlife marshals (in 2009 and again in 2011) over allegations of illegally sourcing and improperly verifying Madagascan ebony and rosewood.

Read more: Photos from the field: capturing the grandeur and heartbreak of Tasmania’s giant trees

Alternative sounds?

Attachments to “traditional” instrument woods have prevented heritage brands from switching to more sustainable options. As guitar historian Dick Boak explained, convincing guitarists to switch to instruments made from sustainable materials is difficult: “musicians, who represent some of the most savvy, ecologically minded people around, are resistant to anything about changing the tone of their guitars”.

But attitudes are shifting. Musicians are increasingly concerned about the provenance and environmental impact of their instruments, encouraging guitar brands to improve transparency and rethink their ecological entanglements.

One necessity will be to embrace a more diverse range of alternative timbers. These will include more plentiful plantation species, salvaged trees and urban forestry.

On this, Australian brands Maton and Cole Clark are among those leading the way. Decades ago, Maton pioneered the use of Australian native species. In recent times, it and Cole Clark have worked with specialist guitar timber suppliers Kirby Fine Timbers in Queensland, Otways Tonewoods in Victoria and Tasmanian Tonewoods to established bunya pine (Araucaria Bidwillii) as a credible, quality alternative for soundboards, Blackwood (Acacia melanoxylon) for backs and sides, and Queensland maple (Flindersia brayleyana) for necks.

Meanwhile, guitar-makers have salvaged timbers from urban trees. In 2018, Cole Clark’s head of wood technology, Karl Krauss, heard of a municipal council near Melbourne removing sycamore-maple trees (Acer pseudoplatanus) seen as a fire hazard. He recalled their historical use in Renaissance instruments and salvaged them for a limited run of guitars.

Other salvaged urban timbers have included California redwood (Sequoia sempervirens) planted in Victorian parks in the 1850’s by then colonial government botanist, Baron Ferdinand von Mueller, and southern silky oak (Grevillea robusta). Such urban recovery sources now constitute 30% of timbers on Cole Clark guitars.

Around the world, relationships between sawmills and forest resource managers are also shifting. Indigenous communities are asserting custodianship of trees. Commercial relationships are being forged between these communities, specialist companies supplying guitar tonewoods and guitar firms. There is considerable potential for working with Indigenous and ecological values rather than in spite of them.

Read more: Comic explainer: forest giants house thousands of animals (so why do we keep cutting them down?)

Growing future guitar forests

Taking matters into their own hands, guitar timber people are also planting trees for future sustainable instrument-making on their properties, and in partnership on cattle ranches and Indigenous-owned and managed lands. These efforts are guided by an ethic of care for trees, forests, communities and guitars.

The goal is to ensure wood for future guitar-making well beyond individual lifetimes. As Born emphasised at Fender’s factory: “We don’t have a lot of choice in what was planted generations ago but we certainly do for the future”.

On Maui’s volcanic slopes land managers are working with the US-firm Taylor Guitars and Pacific Rim Tonewoods (a US specialist wood supplier) to regrow koa forests.

In Washington state, Pacific Rim Tonewoods claims it is growing “the world’s first tonewood forest”, cultivating fiddleback maple in a 100-acre plot near its sawmill. Taylor also supports ebony replanting in Cameroon, in partnership with Spanish tonewood supplier, Madinter.

In the Sunshine Coast hinterland, specialist tonewood supplier David Kirby cultivates Queensland maple and bunya pine, as well as blue quandong (Elaeocarpus angustifolius) used by Maton in Melbourne for electric guitar models. He also manages century-old “legacy stands” on private land in the region.

Although these plantings are not large by forestry’s standards, once a certain density and diversity is achieved, they “take care of themselves”, in Kirby’s words, providing enough wood for small harvests annually without degrading ecological values. Still, access to suitable land for growing trees and skilled labour to care for them will determine future success.

Earlier in their careers, the guitar timber people we interviewed did not intend to become forest stewards — although all profess a life-long love for plants. They have assumed stewardship roles after personal experiences of industrial forestry’s inability to sustainably manage forests to supply high quality timbers from centuries old trees.

The guitar industry has breached the factory gates, extending its activities and influence upstream, into forests. As Steve McMinn from Pacific Rim Tonewoods put it,

the world’s primary forests are nearly mined out. If you want wood for a specific purpose, you need to grow it.

Sustainable guitars in a changing climate

The most significant uncertainty facing the sustainability of guitar timbers is climate change. Global warming has already altered the geographic distribution of trees, insects and pathogens, posing severe threats to forests.

As we were on the road, insect pathogens surviving unprecedented warmer winters in the Rockies attacked and killed millions of Engelmann spruce trees (Picea engelmannii). The emerald ash borer (Agrilus planipennis) has killed millions of American ash — of Fender Telecaster fame. Environmental scientist Jared Beeton is now working with guitar companies to experiment with using the affected spruce for guitar-making.

In Queensland, David Kirby admits his planted trees may not survive:

It could be a massive screw up of everything I’ve done in my life. But at the end of the day, what if I don’t do it? If everybody planted trees for future generations, of course, that would help stop climate change. I can’t be the one to say I’m not going to plant trees because they might not survive.

Cities may prove vital future habitats for guitar trees too. Fender’s Mike Born outlined a new initiative between Fender, the US Forest Service and the Baseball Hall of Fame, to encourage tree replanting schemes in inner cities. Like Telecasters, baseball bats are made from American ash.

As the emerald ash borer annihilates trees across the continent, the two niche industries share the same problem of securing future resource supply. The idea is to replant a variety of urban street trees to disperse the genetic and geographic base of vulnerable species.

“We have a chance now”, Born explained, “to replant old street trees”. Instead of gearing management of forest resources towards short-term profit, “we could think a century down the road”.

Are there trees that at the end of their life cycles can have a future life? What should we be planting for the future? It’s a worldwide discussion we need to have.

The Guitar: Tracing the Grain Back to the Tree, is published by The University of Chicago Press.

– ref. Friday essay: the guitar industry’s hidden environmental problem — and the people trying to fix it – https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-the-guitar-industrys-hidden-environmental-problem-and-the-people-trying-to-fix-it-159211

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Richard Oloruntoba, Associate Professor of Supply Chain Management & Supply Chain Management Lead, Curtin University

On May 7, a pipeline system carrying almost half the fuel used on the east coast of the United States was crippled by a major cyber attack. The five-day shutdown of the Colonial Pipeline resulted in widespread fuel shortages and panic-buying as Virginia, North Carolina and Florida declared a state of emergency.

The attack highlights how vulnerable critical infrastructure such as fuel pipelines are in an era of growing cyber security threats. In Australia, we believe the time has come to make it compulsory for critical infrastructure companies to implement serious cyber security measures.

Collateral damage

The risk of cyber attacks on critical infrastructure is not new. In the wake of the events of September 11, 2001, research demonstrated the need to address global security risks as we analysed issues of vulnerability and critical infrastructure protection. We also proposed systems to ensure security in critical supply chain infrastructure such as seaports and practices including container shipping management.

The rise of “ransomware” attacks, in which attackers seize important data from an organisation’s systems and demand a ransom for its return, has heightened the risk. These attacks may have unintended consequences.

Read more: Colonial Pipeline forked over $4.4M to end cyberattack – but is paying a ransom ever the ethical thing to do?

Evidence suggests the Colonial shutdown was the result of such an attack, targeting its data. It appears the company shut down the pipeline network and some other operations to prevent the malicious software from spreading. This resulted in a cascade of unintended society-wide effects and collateral damage.

Indeed, the attackers may have been surprised by the extent of the damage they caused, and now appear to have shut down their own operations.

We have seen how critical supply chain infrastructure can be severely disrupted as collateral damage. We must consider how severe the fallout might be from a direct attack.

The events in the US also raise another important question: how vulnerable is our critical supply chain infrastructure in Australia?

Critical infrastructure is an attractive target

Australian society is dependent on many international and domestic supply chains. These are underpinned by critical supply chain infrastructure that is often managed by advanced and interlinked information and communication systems. This makes them attractive targets for cyber attackers.

Cyber risk frameworks are often derived from traditional risk management approaches, addressing issues of a potential cyber attack as routine conventional risk. These risk management approaches weigh up the costs of preventing a cyber attack against the costs and probability of a breach.

In some industries, this assessment will factor in the cost of a lost customer base who may never return. However, providers of critical services such as transportation, medical care, electricity, water, and food see little risk of losing customers.

After the Colonial incident, customers trooped back to petrol stations as soon as they could and went on buying fuel. Thus, critical industries may perceive less cost from a breach than companies in other industries because their customers will return.

Time for compliance

Australia’s national efforts in cyber security are coordinated by the Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC) under the auspices of the Australian Signals Directorate. The ACSC works with public and private sector organisations to share information about threats and guidance on best practices for security.

ACSC documents such as the Essential Eight provide guidance for organisations on baseline security measures. These are supplemented by more comprehensive resources including the Australian Government Information Security Manual.

However, our research has shown the best practices are not universally followed, even by the Australian government’s own websites.

Read more: The Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack and the SolarWinds hack were all but inevitable – why national cyber defense is a ‘wicked’ problem

Lack of knowledge is not the problem. Security best practices are generally well understood and documented by the ACSC. The ACSC also provides specific guidance for critical sectors and industries, such as a security framework developed for the energy sector.

The challenge here is that these are guidelines only. Companies can choose whether to follow them or not.

What Australia needs is a cyber security compliance program. This would mean making it compulsory for companies that manage critical infrastructure such as ports or pipelines to follow some kind of rules.

A first step might be to demand these companies comply with the existing guidelines, and require certification of a baseline of cyber security.

Lessons from the United States

The US government responded to the Colonial cyber attack with an executive order to improve cyber security and federal government networks. The order proposes a raft of measures to modernise standards and improve information sharing and reporting requirements. These are valuable measures, many of which are already within the scope of the existing duties of Australia’s ACSC.

Another measure in the US order is the establishment of an independent Cyber Safety Review Board. Australia could likewise establish a partnership between government and industry to oversee cyber security. A similar body already regulates aviation: the Civil Aviation Safety Authority.

Read more: Australia is facing a looming cyber emergency, and we don’t have the high-tech workforce to counter it

Such an organisation would provide robust analysis and reporting of cyber incidents. It would also share information with information technology managers, software and hardware developers, public administrators, crisis managers, and others.

Cyber security threats create high levels of uncertainty for the public and private sector. Attacks that disrupt critical supply chain infrastructure have widespread impacts on society and trade.

A cyber security compliance program may be financially costly, but would be a worthwhile investment given the societal impact of a successful cyber attack.

– ref. Cyber attacks can shut down critical infrastructure. It’s time to make cyber security compulsory – https://theconversation.com/cyber-attacks-can-shut-down-critical-infrastructure-its-time-to-make-cyber-security-compulsory-160991

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tony Walker, Vice-chancellor’s fellow, La Trobe University

In Beijing, the secret trial on spying charges of Australian citizen Yang Hengjun will constitute another sour chapter in Australia-China relations, which remain locked in a downward spiral.

Yang’s trial is set to begin this week with no family, friends or Australian consular officials present. He will be represented by his lawyer.

Penalties under Chinese law for espionage range from three years to death. Acquittal rates in the Chinese court system are minuscule.

This will be the baleful reality for Yang when he is brought handcuffed into a Beijing intermediate court. The sentencing may take months, in which time the Australian citizen will remain in custody, and likely subject to further mistreatment.

He has been held in solitary confinement for much of the time since his arrest in 2018, deprived of consular access and direct contact with his family. By any reasonable definition, his treatment amounts to torture.

In an eloquent note to his family, friends and supporters, Yang, a former diplomat turned writer and blogger, has denied all charges against him.

I have no fear now. I will never compromise […] I love you all and I know that I am loved.

In this latest jarring moment in Australia-China relations, Yang is a victim of a poisonous relationship that has developed between Beijing and Canberra since the Malcolm Turnbull era.

Read more: Yang Hengjun case a pivotal moment in increasingly tense Australia-China relationship

The Chinese-born Australian citizen is paying a price for Australia’s stumbling attempts to manage its relations with its largest trading partner and, until recently, fastest-growing source of foreign investment.

Chinese investment has fallen off a cliff as a consequence of the deteriorating relationship. Shipments of coal, wine, barley, rock lobster and other commodities have slowed to a trickle as China imposes a range a tariff and non-tariff barriers on Australian imports.

Record exports of iron ore have meant aggregate trade figures are holding up, but the situation is precarious because these numbers depend on a single commodity.

China accounts for one-third of Australia’s merchandise trade.

Read more: Why scrap Victoria’s ‘meaningless’ Belt and Road deal? Because it sends a powerful message to Beijing

Under Turnbull, Australia enacted foreign interference laws that were aimed at China’s attempts to interfere in Australian domestic politics. These measures contributed to the souring of relations.

Turnbull’s successor, Scott Morrison, has not restored relations to a reasonable footing. In some ways they have got worse.

Not least of the Morrison government’s misjudgements was a closer than prudent alignment with the Trump administration in its up-and-down management of relations with China.

Inevitably, Canberra got caught in the backwash of Chinese displeasure with the United States. In reprisals on the trade front, Australia has been made a scapegoat regionally, and further afield – an example of what might happen if a country incurs Beijing’s wrath.

Other countries have criticised China on a range of issues without experiencing a similar backlash. These include China’s mistreatment of its Uighur minority; its disregard for agreements with the United Kingdom over Hong Kong’s relative independence under a “one country, two systems” formula in place until 2047; its resort to hostage diplomacy to further its diplomatic ends; and its smash and grab approach to asserting itself in the disputed waters of the South China Sea.

It is telling that no Australian prime minister has visited China since Turnbull in 2016. Australia’s trade minister can’t get his Chinese counterpart on the phone.

Symbolically, China announced this month it was suspending “indefinitely” the China-Australia Strategic Economic Dialogue. This arrangement dates from the Julia Gillard era.

Morrison and foreign minister Marise Payne have struggled to come to terms with the sort of statecraft that might be expected of custodians of Australia’s most important trading partnership and most crucial regional relationship.

For example, and at no discernible benefit to the country, it was Payne who got out in front of the international community in calls for an independent inquiry into the COVID-19 virus, which appears to have originated in the central Chinese city of Wuhan.

Such an intervention was unnecessary, in any case, because the World Health Organisation was already mounting its own inquiry, supported by much of the international community.

Australia’s clumsy attempts to force-feed an investigation will have looked to Beijing like Canberra was doing Washington’s bidding at a moment when Trump was referring to COVID-19 as the “Wuhan virus”, the “Chinese flu” or, crudely, “Kung-flu”.

Inexplicably, Morrison referred to “weapons inspectors” in his calls for an inquiry.

None of this will be any comfort to Yang Hengjun, or journalist Cheng Lei, the other Australian in detention since last August on alleged breaches of national security. This charge could mean anything, from spying, to peddling state secrets, to criticising Communist Party rule.

Read more: Yang Hengjun’s legal prospects in China appear grim, despite Australia’s forceful defences

On social media, the outspoken Cheng had criticised China’s initial response to the virus outbreak in Wuhan, including attempts to silence doctors who raised the alarm.

Properly, Payne has criticised China’s handling of the Yang case as “lacking procedural fairness”. China’s embassy in Canberra then described her intervention as “deplorable”.

In these latest developments, the cases of Yang and Cheng cannot be separated from those of the Canadians Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, both of whom stood trial in March on spying charges. Sentences are pending.

These two cases are chilling examples of hostage diplomacy, given the Canadians’ arrest came on the heels of authorities in Vancouver detaining Meng Wanzhou, the daughter of the founder of Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei.

The US is seeking Meng’s extradition on charges of breaching its sanctions regime against Iran. Her removal to the US is being appealed in the Canadian court system.

In the meantime, there is no prospect of Kovrig, a former diplomat, and Spavor, a businessman, being released as they await sentencing. They are hostages to developments in the Vancouver courts and in Washington.

Kovrig’s employer, the International Crisis Group, has campaigned assiduously for his release. In a recent statement it said:

[…] his sole offence was to be a Canadian citizen who was at the wrong place at the wrong time.

Given the circumstances, it is impossible to put any other interpretation on his detention in 2018, along with that of Spavor.

In February, Australia joined an international coalition of 57 countries, led by Canada, in condemning the practice of hostage diplomacy. The US, the UK, Japan and most of the 27-member European Union endorsed a statement saying:

The arbitrary arrest or detention of foreign nationals to compel action or to exercise leverage over foreign Government is contrary to international law, undermines international relations, and has a negative impact on foreign nationals travelling, working and living abroad.

This might be regarded as an understatement.

A Beijing intermediate court in the Yang case will be paying scant attention to international criticism of the Chinese judicial system. China’s jurisprudence, shielded from public scrutiny, is a merciless process.

– ref. As Australian-Chinese writer Yang Hengjun’s trial begins, his prospects remain bleak – https://theconversation.com/as-australian-chinese-writer-yang-hengjuns-trial-begins-his-prospects-remain-bleak-161581

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

Australian prime minister Scott Morrison’s flying visit to Queenstown this weekend will be unlikely to include jet boating or bungee jumping. But, given what’s up for discussion, you might still call it a form of adventure tourism.

In fact, Morrison’s first overseas trip of 2021 takes place against a background of strained bilateral relations and wider international tension.

Despite his assertion that “Australia and New Zealand are family”, the vexed questions of dealing with China and trans-Tasman migration hang over his meeting with Jacinda Ardern.

While the two issues may seem quite separate, in the world of foreign affairs all things are connected. Resolving one could quite possibly help resolve the other — or at least go some way to improving the relationship.

China vs Australia at the WTO

It’s no secret Australia has problems with China, not least due to recent rhetoric in Canberra about the possibility of a war over Taiwan. For its part, New Zealand has been offside with its Five Eyes security partners by appearing to prioritise the trade relationship with China over security and human rights concerns.

Behind those headlines, however, lies a longer term and highly complex trade battle between Australia and China that is coming to a head at the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

Read more: What’s at stake for NZ in Australia’s case against China at the World Trade Organisation?

The immediate issue is China’s imposition of tariffs on Australian barley, with wine exports next in line for resolution. In late April, China refused Australia’s request for a three-person independent panel to adjudicate, so the dispute has moved to the WTO’s Disputes Settlement Body (DSB).

The DSB meets today (May 28), just days before Morrison arrives in New Zealand. While the eventual process may play out over a year (depending on appeals), the question right now is where New Zealand stands.

Like it or not, New Zealand cannot avoid being involved. As foreign minister Nanaia Mahuta warned recently:

We cannot ignore, obviously, what’s happening in Australia with their relationship with China. And if they are close to an eye of the storm or in the eye of the storm, we’ve got to legitimately ask ourselves — it may only be a matter of time before the storm gets closer to us.

Australia would undoubtedly prefer New Zealand to become involved as an official third party to the dispute process. China will likely want the opposite.

The diplomatic question, then, is what could New Zealand ask for in return for supporting Australia at the WTO? And this is where the issue of trans-Tasman migration could come into play.

Read more: Taking China to the World Trade Organisation plants a seed. It won’t be a quick or easy win

The migration problem

We can trace the current impasse back to the original 1973 Trans-Tasman Travel Arrangement that allowed for the free movement of citizens between the two countries.

For a long time (from 1840 to the late 1960s) more Australians came to New Zealand than vice versa. That reversed markedly later on, but since 2015 migration flows have been roughly neutral.

The most recent pre-COVID figures show 31,300 people migrated from New Zealand to Australia in the year ended June 2019, while 27,600 migrated the other way. Kiwis now make up only a small fraction of net migration into Australia.

Despite this, Australian policy reflects that earlier time when hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders moved across the Tasman. From 2001, Australia began tightening its social security and benefit system for New Zealanders.

Read more: Why New Zealanders are feeling the hard edge of Australia’s deportation policy

In 2016, Australia began prioritising skilled immigrants for permanent residency and closing off pathways to citizenship for others.

Perhaps most contentiously, in 2014 Australia amended its migration laws and ramped up deportation of non-citizens with criminal convictions under section 501 of its Immigration Act. From early 2015 to mid-2018, about 1,300 New Zealand ex-prisoners had been returned.

After a brief interlude, things reached something of a nadir during the height of COVID-19 restrictions when deportations resumed, with Australia’s then Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton likening the process to “taking the trash out”.

On top of this, Australia cancelled the passports of dual citizens suspected of links to designated terrorist organisations, meaning they became New Zealand’s problem.

A compromise on deportations

Meanwhile, New Zealand remained committed to the spirit of the original 1973 agreement, treating Australians more or less equally on residency and benefits. While New Zealand’s deportation rules are similar to Australia’s, Australians don’t feature much among the 5,972 people deported from New Zealand between 2011 and 2020.

However, if New Zealand wants a fairer deal from Australia on welfare and access to citizenship, it will need to give some ground too. A starting point would be agreeing to a prisoner exchange agreement, rather than simply reacting angrily to 501 deportations.

Read more: New Zealanders have a right to be angry when Australia deports a 15-year-old

Part of the problem is that New Zealanders are over-represented in Australian jails (1,048 inmates, or 3% of the total prisoner population). There were only about 36 Australians in New Zealand jails (albeit including the Christchurch mosque terrorist) out of about 320 foreign inmates.

A mature compromise might be an arrangement whereby criminals sentenced above a certain threshold are sent back to their home country to serve their time. Australia’s International Transfer of Prisoners Act already allows for the transfer of prisoners with various other countries.

So far, however, New Zealand has shown little interest in such agreements, and this needs to change. By meeting Australia in the middle, New Zealand could open a broader dialogue over reciprocal pathways to citizenship and welfare treatment.

New Zealand should back Australia

While it can’t be a quid pro quo, an improved migration situation might help win New Zealand’s support at the WTO. Both countries need to compromise.

New Zealand will, of course, need to consider the merits of the WTO case and whether Chinese claims of Australia dumping barley in its market are valid.

But if New Zealand does stand for a robust, multilateral, rules-based trading system, it should join the WTO process as a third party. At a minimum, it should not be silent.

To speak out might mean stepping away from its carefully cultivated neutrality where China is concerned. And China will almost certainly not approve. But for two countries with such a long shared history, it is surely the right thing to do.

– ref. Twin challenges of China and trans-Tasman migration loom over Scott Morrison’s New Zealand visit – https://theconversation.com/twin-challenges-of-china-and-trans-tasman-migration-loom-over-scott-morrisons-new-zealand-visit-160344

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Schoeman, Professor of Global-Change Ecology, University of the Sunshine Coast

Just as caged canaries once warned coal miners of the risk of carbon monoxide poisoning, free-flying seabirds are now warning humanity about the deteriorating health of our oceans.

Seabirds journey vast distances across Earth’s seascapes to find food and to breed. This exposes them to changes in ocean conditions, climate and food webs. This means their biology, particularly their breeding successes, can reveal these changes to us on a rare, planet-wide scale.

We collated and analysed the world’s largest database on seabird breeding. Our findings reveal a key message: urgency in the Northern Hemisphere and opportunity in the south.

The Northern Hemisphere ocean systems are degraded and urgently need better management and restoration. Damage to Southern Hemisphere oceans from threats such as climate change and industrial fishing is accelerating, but opportunities remain there to avoid the worst.

Oceans at a crossroads

Seabirds often travel far across the planet. For example, many sooty shearwaters breed in New Zealand, yet travel each year to the productive waters of the northeast Pacific. Arctic terns migrate even further, travelling each year between the Arctic and Antarctic.

Scientists often use satellite-derived data sets to determine, for example, how the oceans’ surfaces are warming or how ocean food webs are changing. Few such data sets span the globe, however, and this is where seabirds come in.

Over its long journey, a seabird eats fish and plankton. In doing so, it absorbs signals about ocean conditions, including the effects of pollution, marine heatwaves, ocean warming and other ecological changes.

Seabird breeding productivity (the number of chicks produced per female per year) depends on the food resources available. In this way, seabirds are sentinels of change in marine ecosystems. They can tell us which parts of oceans are healthy enough to support their breeding and which parts may be in trouble.

Read more: It might be the world’s biggest ocean, but the mighty Pacific is in peril

Deciphering seabird messages

In some cases, seabirds tell us directly about major distress in the oceans. This was the case in 2015-16, when around a million emaciated common murres died, many washing up on beaches from California to Alaska. The seabirds experienced severe food shortages caused by an acute marine heatwave.

In other cases, seabird health can hint at longer-term and more subtle disruption of ocean ecosystems, and we are left to decipher these messages.

In this task, seabird breeding provides important clues about marine food webs that are otherwise difficult or impossible to measure directly, especially at global scales. Thankfully, seabird scientists around the world have consistently measured breeding productivity over decades.

Our research team included 36 of these scientists. We collated a database of breeding productivity for 66 seabird species from 46 sites around the world, from 1964 to 2018. We used the data to determine whether seabirds were producing relatively more or fewer chicks over the past 50 years, and whether the risk of breeding failure was increasing or decreasing.

Striking findings

In the Northern Hemisphere, breeding productivity of plankton-eating birds such as storm petrels and auklets increased strongly over 50 years, but breeding productivity of fish-eating birds declined sharply.

In the Southern Hemisphere, by contrast, breeding productivity of plankton-eating seabirds declined weakly, but increased strongly for fish eaters.

In short, fish-eating seabirds in the north are in trouble. Decreasing breeding productivity leads to population declines, and the low breeding rate of seabirds (many species only have one chick per year) means populations recover slowly.

More worrying, though, were our findings on the risk of breeding failure.

In the Southern Hemisphere, the probability of breeding failure was low throughout the study period. The same was true for Northern Hemisphere plankton feeders. But fish eaters in the north showed dramatically increasing risk of breeding failure, most acutely in the years since 2000.

Importantly, increasing risk of breeding failure was also much higher for seabirds that feed at the ocean’s surface, such as black-legged kittiwakes, compared with those that feed at greater depths, such as puffins.

Read more: Birds on beaches are under attack from dogs, photographers and four-wheel drives. Here’s how you can help them

What this tells us

Unfortunately, these results match what we know about human-caused damage to the ocean.

First, many pollutants such as plastics collect close to the ocean surface. They are often eaten by surface-feeding seabirds, potentially hampering their ability to produce chicks.

Similarly, the rate of ocean warming has been more than three times faster, and the change in number of marine heatwave days twice as large, on average, in the Northern than Southern Hemisphere over the past 50 years.

Likewise, northern oceans have sustained industrial fisheries for far longer than those in the south. This has likely reduced food supplies to Northern Hemisphere fish-eating seabirds over longer periods, causing chronic disruptions in their breeding success.

But human impacts in the Southern Hemisphere are accelerating. Ocean warming and marine heatwaves are becoming more intense, and industrial fisheries and plastic pollution are ever-more pervasive.

We must heed the warnings from our seabird “canaries”. With careful planning and marine reserves that take account of projected climate change, the Southern Hemisphere might avoid the worst consequences of human activity. But without action, some seabird species may be lost and ocean food webs damaged.

In the Northern Hemisphere, there is no time to waste. Innovative management and restoration plans are urgently needed to avoid further deterioration in ocean health.

This story is part of Oceans 21
Watch for new articles ahead of the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow in November. Brought to you by The Conversation’s international network.

– ref. Seabirds are today’s canaries in the coal mine – and they’re sending us an urgent message – https://theconversation.com/seabirds-are-todays-canaries-in-the-coal-mine-and-theyre-sending-us-an-urgent-message-160279

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Hattie, Professor, Melbourne Graduate School of Education, The University of Melbourne

Last month, Federal Education Minister Alan Tudge launched a six month review into teacher education. The review aims to attract and select high quality candidates into teaching and prepare graduates to be more effective teachers.

The announcement was met with criticism from many in the sector. Some education experts have said the review’s focus on teacher education is too limited. Others found it offensive of the minister to suggest Australia’s teachers are not already effective.

But the review is necessary. Its focus complements and adds to the previous review into teacher education in 2014.

What’s happened since the previous review?

In 2008, prominent education academic William Louden noted there had been around 101 reviews or inquiries into teacher education since 1979. It’s understandable then, why many people believe another is unnecessary.

But the current review’s terms of reference don’t double up on the last review, in 2014. In fact, they continue its progress.

The Teacher Education Ministerial Advisory Group was put together in 2014 to review teacher education with a focus on student outcomes. Its report’s title Action Now: Classroom Ready Teachers summed up the mission.

Read more: Minister Pyne announces… yet another education review

Since then, many universities offering teacher education and organisations such as the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL) have been engaged in implementing the report’s 30+ recommendations. These include:

• a review of accreditation standards for teacher education programs. (The revisions to the standards occured in 2015, with further updates made in 2018 and 2019)

• ensuring higher education providers select the best candidates into teaching courses. (Guidelines were agreed to by all Australian education ministers in September 2015 and a document developed by the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership)

• for course providers to use a national literacy and numeracy test to demonstrate all pre-service teachers are in the top 30% of the population in personal literacy and numeracy. (The Australian government instituted the Literacy and Numeracy Test for Initial Teacher Education Students (LANTITE in 2016)

• improved data on teacher supply and demand (The AITSL now hosts the Australian Teacher Workforce Data (ATWD), which connects data on teacher education and the workforce around Australia. Its first report came out in 2020)

• help for graduate teachers starting their careers (such as AITSL’s My Induction app)

• for course providers to equip all primary student teachers with at least one subject specialisation, prioritising science, maths or a language. (This became part of the accreditation standards for teacher education programs. AITSL requires course providers to publish specialisations available on their websites and report numbers of commencing, enrolled and completing graduates per specialisation annually).

Improvements such as those above can be credited to deans, teacher registration boards and education staff.

Overall, teacher education is improving. In Victoria, where the minimum ATAR to get into teaching has been 70 since 2019, average ATAR scores have risen. The percentage of students and school principals who argue graduates are well prepared for teaching has increased, and the number of teacher education programs across Australia has dropped (to 359 — a decrease from 425 in 2013).

We do have excellent teacher education programs across Australia. The aim now is to make more programs attain a high level of excellence.

Why we need this review

Despite what many critics and pundits may say, the current review is not a review of teaching in general. Rather, it’s specific to some of the issues that have arisen out of the implementation of the 2014 TMAG report.

Read more: Yes, quality teaching improves student outcomes. But that means all teachers need support – not just those in training

One example of such an issue is how universities assess their student teachers as classroom ready.

A major recommendations of the 2014 review was for the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL) to develop a national assessment framework to help universities assess the classroom readiness of student teachers throughout the duration of their program.

The teaching institute did promote teacher performance assessments (or TPAs) which require student teachers to collect evidence of their positive impact on students during the final term of their study.

Universities must have their TPAs reviewed by an expert advisory group to ensure the quality of these is consistent across providers. While many universities have had their teacher performance assessments reviewed, some have yet to do so.

The first half of the current review attends to issues of classroom readiness — particularly improving the teacher performance assessment process. It asks about the extent of evidenced-based teaching practices in the teacher education programs.

It invites discussion on how student teachers can get practise in schools (COVID highlighted some of the problems) and how school staff play a greater role in developing teacher education programs (and help reduce first year of teaching shock for some).

Read more: The education minister wants graduating teachers to be ‘classroom-ready’. But the classroom is not what it used to be

It also asks how teacher education providers can play a stronger role in ongoing professional development and support of teachers.

The other half is about attracting and selecting high-quality candidates into the teaching profession.

In 2017, the average age of starting a teacher education course was 23-29, so many come as a second career.

Giving up two years of earnings is a high price to pay, so finding ways to make programs attractive needs debate, as does ways to entice high performing and motivated school leavers to choose teaching as a career.

Teaching is a hard career to move into for mid to late career professionals. The announced review asks if there are ways to make this transition more feasible.

Almost half the students who enrol into teaching programs don’t complete their course (about 30,000 enter each year and 18,000 complete). Of the students who started an undergraduate teacher education program in 2012, 47% had completed their study after six years (the length of an undergraduate course is usually four years full time).

There is little evidence on who drops out and why.

The teacher workforce in many schools is mostly female and white. This does not reflect the school population. Are there ways we can attract a more diverse cohort into studying teaching so teachers better mirror the diversity in school and society?

The review aims to answer these questions. It’s a critical enquiry, aiming to build on the success teaching educators have built over the past seven years. It is focused, addressing unresolved issues from the last review, and it deserves submissions from as many people as possible representing a broad range of views.

We have a chance to be proactive, scale up success, and promote the high quality teacher education programs across Australia.

– ref. John Hattie: why I support the education minister’s teacher education review – https://theconversation.com/john-hattie-why-i-support-the-education-ministers-teacher-education-review-160181

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

Despite Australian forces spending most of two decades in Afghanistan, at Tuesday’s Coalition parties meeting only one government backbencher questioned the closure of our embassy in Kabul.

When the Liberals’ Dave Sharma, a former ambassador to Israel, expressed concerns about the reported move – which had been flagged in The Australian that morning – Scott Morrison was firm. Cabinet’s national security committee had made the decision and a media release was going out, he said. That was that.

Subsequently, the announcement the resident embassy will be replaced after this week by fly-in-fly-out diplomacy has attracted very limited interest, and even less debate.

The opposition said the decision would harm Australia’s “ability to deliver and monitor our ongoing development partnership with Afghanistan” and called for interpreters and local staff to be provided quickly with visas. But Labor didn’t seek to elevate the issue of the closure.

A country that prime ministers from both sides of politics assured Australians was so important to us – donning body armour as they repeatedly visited Australian troops there – is now not significant enough to keep a handful of diplomats based in its capital.

The decision comes as the last Australian troops prepare to leave, following the United States giving notice it would pull out its forces.

Read more: Australian troops to leave Afghanistan by September

Morrison and Foreign Minister Marise Payne in their announcement said the departure of international and Australian forces would mean “an increasingly uncertain security environment”.

“The government has been advised that security arrangements could not be provided to support our ongoing diplomatic presence,” they said.

The presence of coalition forces had been the back-up protection for the embassy, on top of the extensive – and very expensive – security arrangements for it.

But these security considerations should be put in perspective. The government doesn’t provide official figures but it’s understood we’ve had about 15-20 Australians in the embassy (plus support staff). They worked and lived in a compound.

Yes, it’s a dangerous posting, but so are postings in a number of other countries. Some risk goes with these jobs.

After the Australian announcement the Taliban told the AFP news service it would not pose any threats to foreign diplomats and staff of humanitarian organisations. “In the future, they don’t have to worry about running their business as usual,” a spokesman said.

While one is sceptical of anything the Taliban says, some sources believe the statement has a degree of credibility given the Taliban wants to run the country and knows it would need international funds including for humanitarian purposes.

The Afghanistan conflict was Australia’s longest war and there were 41 Australian soldiers killed. Very many more lives have been ruined, as we often hear from veterans.

Morrison accords those who serve, or have served, in the military a special place, acknowledging them, as he does indigenous Australians, when he makes speeches. What does this decision say to the many thousands who were deployed in Afghanistan?

Morrison and Payne said it was expected the embassy closure would be “be temporary and that we will resume a permanent presence in Kabul once circumstances permit”.

Read more: Australian embassy in Afghanistan to close its doors as security situation worsens

Sharma says that “having worked as a diplomat in dangerous overseas environments myself, I appreciate that the security of our people must be a first-order consideration.

“Nonetheless, I deeply hope that the removal of our embassy is a temporary measure only, and we will shortly find a way to restore a permanent diplomatic present in Kabul.”

Realistically, however, the chances of this happening are minimal. The general security situation in Afghanistan will only get worse, and it is hard to think the government will have any appetite to set up the embassy again. The “temporary” line in the statement looked like an attempt to put a softer edge on the decision.

Fly-in-fly-out arrangements are better than nothing but they’re of limited value, in terms of making and maintaining contacts, gathering information, and monitoring aid efforts delivered through international bodies.

Shaharzad Akbar is chair of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission and lives and works in Kabul. She tells The Conversation: “Closure of the embassy and the public messaging about it furthers the sense of uncertainty and anxiety about the next few weeks and months among Afghans. The public perceives this as certain foretelling of increased violence and chaos across the country and in Kabul.

“It reinforces the message that the world is leaving the Afghans behind with a war that was initiated and supported by the international military and Afghans, specially those who can’t leave, are left to bear the consequences that might be bloody and devastating,” she says.

The embassy closure is also likely to make more difficult the current Australian investigation of war crimes allegedly committed by Australian special forces. This is the follow up to the Brereton report and is directed to gathering material for possible prosecutions.

From the Afghan end, Akbar says: “For us in the AIHRC, we are concerned about what this means for our ability to pursue accountability and reparations for victims of alleged war crimes of Australian forces in Uruzgan.”

Wafiullah Kakar, an official in Afghanistan’s Ministry of Refugees and Repatriation, is scathing.

“Both as an Afghan and public servant, I believe that the decision is selfish in its entirety.”

He says it undermines the achievements made in the last two decades and also passes a very negative message to Afghans and to the country’s international partners.

“I find this decision lacking a holistic approach in evaluating its impact on the peace-process, Afghans in general and women rights in particular.

“If this decision was based on a wider consultation with Australia’s partners in the commonwealth, the NATO member states, particularly the US, we can only wonder what we shall expect next – other countries to follow? And what message does this convey to the Taliban who are determined to taking over Afghanistan militarily?

“Why did Australia choose to opt for the last resort at a stage where only basic precautions are required?” Kakar asks.

If the government had wanted more security for its diplomats, it could have sought to move in with the Americans, where our diplomats were located for a time some years ago.

The central driver of Australia’s entry to the war in Afghanistan was the American alliance. Post the war, our alliance considerations are turned elsewhere.

However much Australia declares it still cares about Afghanistan, its action in closing the embassy tells another story, which is not to the credit of this country.

Read more: Afghanistan pullout: Nato betrays its own values if interpreters and other local staff are left at risk

– ref. Grattan on Friday: Closing embassy in Kabul reflects badly on Australia – https://theconversation.com/grattan-on-friday-closing-embassy-in-kabul-reflects-badly-on-australia-161661

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

Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly on Thursday changed the medical advice as the government rushed to vaccinate those Victorian aged care residents and workers who remained unprotected.

Kelly said they should receive COVID shots even if they have just had their flu jabs.

The advice previously has been for a two week interval between the flu and COVID shots.

As Victoria goes into a seven day lockdown amid escalating cases, the federal government pulled out all stops to finalise the vaccination of the aged care sector in the state.

There are 598 residential aged care facilities in Victoria. On Wednesday the government said 569 facilities had received a first dose (with 361 fully vaccinated with both doses).

It said the remaining 29 facilities would be prioritised.

Health Minister Greg Hunt said on Thursday all Victorian facilities would be done by Friday.

He said 582 out of 598 facilities had been vaccinated. “So that’s significantly advanced on yesterday again. Seven further today, and the remaining nine tomorrow.”

Before the acceleration, the Victorian facilities would not have been finished until next week.

In a letter to aged care providers and health professionals, Kelly said while the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation had advised the preferred interval between the flu and COVID shots was 14 days, it had also said shortening the time was justified when circumstances required.

“This includes if there is an imminent need to administer either of these vaccines because of the prevailing local epidemiological situation, for example for protection from influenza or COVID-19,” Kelly said.

In light of the Victorian situation, he strongly recommended residents and workers in residential aged care receive their COVID-19 shots “as quickly as possible”. The shortened interval would not affect the effectiveness of the two vaccines, Kelly said.

In Victoria’s COVID second wave last year the residential aged care sector was hit disastrously, with hundreds of deaths.

The Victorian Aged Care Response Centre has been stood up again.

With businesses and citizens in Victoria bracing yet again for tough restrictions, the state’s acting premier James Merlino took a shot at the slow rollout. “If we had … the Commonwealth’s vaccine program effectively rolled out, we may well not be here today.”

The lockdown applies across the state, as some 10,000 primary and secondary contacts are traced.

Among the limited purposes for which people are allowed to leave their homes is to get vaccinated, and the outbreak is spurring many people to do so.

Merlino warned the outbreak could become uncontrollable unless quickly contained.

“We’re dealing with a highly infectious strain of the virus, a variant of concern which is running faster than we have ever recorded,” he said.

– ref. Federal government changes vaccination advice in rush to protect Victorian aged care sector – https://theconversation.com/federal-government-changes-vaccination-advice-in-rush-to-protect-victorian-aged-care-sector-161687