Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Arrow, Professor of History, Macquarie University

Our writers nominate the TV series keeping them entertained during a time of COVID.

In our household, watching comedy in the evenings has been a crucial part of our lockdown survival strategy. We powered through a lot of comedy series last year, and watched some more than once. (I’m looking at you, Schitt’s Creek). Stuck in lockdown for the foreseeable future, I suggested we might re-watch those Fountain Gate foxymorons, Kath and Kim, and my 12-year-old daughter’s eyes lit up.

She’s not alone. When Netflix added Kath and Kim to its service in 2019, it introduced the show to a generation born well after its early 2000s heyday. Its renewed popularity has spawned Tik Tok challenges and Instagram fan accounts. The resurgence of 80s fashion (especially so-called “mum jeans”) means many Gen Z’s share Kath’s fondness for a “foot-long fly” and acid wash denim.

A suburban sitcom about Kath Day, that “high maintenance” foxy lady, her “hornbag” daughter Kim, and Kim’s “second best friend” Sharon Strezlecki, Kath and Kim remains one of Australia’s best loved comedy series. Premiering in 2002 on the ABC, it was the top-rating series on television in 2003-2004.

Creators Jane Turner and Gina Riley moved to Channel 7 for the show’s final season in 2007, and produced a telemovie, Da Kath and Kim Code (2005) and a feature film, Kath and Kimderella (2012).

For decades, Australian television comedy typically relegated women to the sidelines, as objects to ogle or as sidekicks to male characters. Kath and Kim was an amazing showcase for Riley, Turner and Magda Szubanski. The male performers (Peter Rowsthorn and Glenn Robbins) are terrific but the women are the stars.

The trio were popular cast members of the late 1980s Channel 7 comedy series Fast Forward, revealing a talent for parodying media culture, precise observations of Australian women’s speech, and an utter lack of vanity. Kath, Kim and Sharon’s characters first appeared in a series of sketches called “Kim’s Wedding” in their comedy series Big Girl’s Blouse, which ran for a single season in 1994.

Big Girl’s Blouse was ground-breaking because it emerged from a female, even feminist perspective. In Midweek Ladies, a brilliant “documentary” about the leadership turmoil in a ladies tennis club, the trio parodied the self-seriousness of men’s political machinations on the national stage, while also hinting at smaller but no less meaningful dramas playing out in women’s lives across Australia.

Female-centred satire

Australian culture has a long history of satirising, or looking down on, suburbia. From Robin Boyd’s Australian Ugliness to Barry Humphries’s Mrs Edna Everage, many of these critiques were created by men.

Riley and Turner understood the broad appeal of poking fun at suburbia, the place where so many of us grew up. Their humour is broad and specific (or “pacific”, as Kath would say) at the same time, but it always emanated from a keenly observed, female perspective. Only women of a certain age and class could make a joke about Kim being a “Country Road size ten”.

Among the bigger comedic moments (Kath’s wedding, any scene featuring Kath and Kel’s dancing) were dozens of small, well observed details: the squeaky back door of Kath’s house, or Kath sneaking extra rubbish into her neighbour’s bins.

Kath and Kim has endured partly because of its quotable scripts and catchphrases. Most of us like to imagine we’re more sophisticated than we really are, and it is this gap between self-perception and reality that fuels Kath and Kim’s malapropisms.

Read more:
The horror and pleasure of misused words: from mispronunciation to malapropisms

Kath announces her engagement by telling Kim that “Kel and I have decided to make our beautiful, sensual relationship a mere formality”; Kim decides she will spend some time “sowing her rolled oats” rather than return to her husband, Brett.

As an historian, I find the show fascinating for its commentary on what Hugh Mackay called the “dreamy period” of the early 2000s, when a combination of increasing prosperity and anxiety about security meant

Australians […] disengaged from the issues that had been preoccupying them; they shut down, or at least went into retreat.

When Kath and Kim was at the peak of its ratings success in 2003, it was jostling with renovation reality shows, The Block and Backyard Blitz. It was also the era of Big Brother and Australian Idol, and the last gasp of tabloid magazine culture before it was swallowed up by the internet.

Class and ‘effluence’

Kath and Kim were true to the spirit of the Howard era in their aspirations to be, in Kim’s words, “effluent”. As she tells her daughter,

you are effluent, Kim. I mean look at what you’ve got, a Hyundai to hightail it round in, a half share in a home unit, a DVD player, a mobile. I mean, what else is there?

Yet the series not only poked fun at “aspirationals”, but at the wealthy as well. Prue and Trude, the grey-bobbed homewares store employees, with “jojoba leftover from October”, highlighted the myth of Australia’s “classless” society.

In 2021, with our horizons reduced by COVID lockdowns and more time spent at home, perhaps the tiny domestic dramas of Kath and Kim (“that was my last fat-free fruche, Sharon!”) are a little more relatable than they used to be.

Certainly, my daughter and I have had time to work on our Kath and Kim impersonations. That’s noice, different, unusual.

Kath and Kim is streaming on Netflix.

Michelle Arrow receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

– ref. Noice. Different. Unusual. Watching Kath and Kim as a (locked down) historian – https://theconversation.com/noice-different-unusual-watching-kath-and-kim-as-a-locked-down-historian-166261

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Julie Sonnemann, Fellow, School Education, Grattan Institute

The early NAPLAN results for 2021 released today suggest the average impact of COVID school closures on literacy and numeracy in 2020 has been relatively small.

This was the first NAPLAN test since students moved to remote learning, and involved 1.2 million students in years 3, 5, 7 and 9.

The results show the national average for literacy and numeracy in 2021 has held up fairly well despite last year’s disruptions. There has been little change in the NAPLAN average results in 2021 compared to 2019 in all states and territories, including Victoria, which had the longest period of remote schooling in 2020.

To understand how well children are doing at school, it is important to look at the progress of students’ learning over time, not just where they are at any one point in time.

According to our student progress metric for NAPLAN, Victoria’s progress in literacy and numeracy is generally in line with the national average over 2019-21. We can also see progress at a national level for 2019-21 was similar to historical rates of progress.

These results are a testament to the hard work of students, parents, teachers and school leaders around the country. But it is too early to claim victory.

We will have to wait until the full NAPLAN data is released in December to understand what the impact has been on vulnerable students, in particular.

It’s also important to remember that NAPLAN only tests literacy and numeracy. Gaps that may have emerged in other parts of the curriculum, such as science and the humanities, aren’t picked up in this data.

Nor do these results help us understand the impact of school closures on broader students’ social development and mental health.

They don’t change the fact governments should be carefully planning how to get kids back to class safely, and as soon as possible.

Disadvantaged students may have fared worse

Students around the country missed a significant amount of school in 2020, especially in Melbourne where some students missed around 21 weeks of school. In New South Wales, schools were closed for around seven weeks.

Many disadvantaged students are likely to have found remote schooling harder than other groups. Our 2020 report estimated the achievement gap between advantaged and disadvantaged students widens at up to triple the rate when kids are trying to learn at home rather than in regular class.

Read more:
Disadvantaged students may have lost 1 month of learning during COVID-19 shutdown. But the government can fix it

Students most likely to be impacted by remote learning are those from low socio-economic families, Indigenous backgrounds or remote communities, as well as those with poor mental health, disabilities and special learning needs.

Students in the early years who are still developing foundational skills in reading and writing are also at risk of falling behind.

Emerging international data suggests COVID school closures have had significant negative impacts on student learning in some countries and that disadvantaged students have suffered most. The findings of different studies vary, but one study from Holland estimates learning loss is 60% greater for struggling students.

Given the potential negative impacts for vulnerable students, the NSW and Victorian governments made significant investments in new tutoring programs to help these students catch up. These programs have been in place since the start of 2021.

Read more:
Victoria and NSW are funding extra tutors to help struggling students. Here’s what parents need to know about the schemes

Opening schools safely should be a national priority

The early NAPLAN data is promising, but our leaders need to stay focused on getting children back to school.

For disadvantaged students in particular, there may be other negative impacts on learning we don’t yet know about.

Academic performance aside, there are broader implications of sustained school closures. There are real concerns about the potential impacts on students’ mental health and social development.

Nor is it clear what the cumulative effects of school closures may be on students or teachers. As remote schooling continues in Victoria and NSW and now the ACT, fatigue is setting in.

The Murdoch Children’s Research Institute has shown closures are associated with increased harm to children’s physical and mental health – and welfare – due to social isolation, increased anxiety, neglect, or even abuse. These findings are reinforced by growing overseas evidence.

Read more:
Are the kids alright? Social isolation can take a toll, but play can help

The COVID pandemic continues to upend the daily school routines for millions of young Australians, interrupting their learning, development and friendships.

The NAPLAN results give us reason to hope that with hard work from students, families and teachers – along with targeted supports when schools reopen – we can keep students’ learning on track, despite the odds.

But we must ensure the students who have struggled the most get the help they need to remain engaged in school and to keep progressing in their learning. Getting all children back to school, safely, should be a national priority.

Grattan Institute received funding from Origin Energy Foundation to support our report Covid catch-up: helping disadvantaged students close the equity gap.

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

– ref. Early NAPLAN results show promise, but we don’t know the full impact of COVID school closures yet – https://theconversation.com/early-naplan-results-show-promise-but-we-dont-know-the-full-impact-of-covid-school-closures-yet-166737

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Duckett, Director, Health and Aged Care Program, Grattan Institute

One consequence of the escalating COVID outbreak in New South Wales has been increased political tension around the “national plan” for COVID reopening.

The prime minister has argued that states signed up to the plan – albeit “in principle”, whatever that means – and they should do whatever the plan says, whenever the plan says to do it.

Some premiers are now pushing back, arguing the Doherty Institute modelling was based on certain assumptions which no longer hold true so the previous agreement no longer stands.

There are three distinct questions at issue here. Is the Doherty Institute modelling still applicable? How does the national plan stack up? And what should happen next?

1. Is the Doherty Institute modelling still applicable?

The Doherty Institute was given a very specific remit. It was asked “to define a target level of vaccine coverage for transition to Phase B of the national plan”, where lockdowns would be “less likely, but possible”.

Read more:
Australia has a new four-phase plan for a return to normality. Here’s what we know so far

In identifying the vaccination coverage target for the transition to Phase B, Doherty’s experts assumed that testing, tracing, isolation, and quarantine (TTIQ), would be central to maintaining lower case numbers.

They highlighted two scenarios in terms of testing-tracing-isolation-quarantine capacity – an “optimal” scenario and a “partially effective” scenario – summarised in the table below.

Doherty Institute modelling outcomes

While these numbers may look acceptable, the assumptions underlying them are now hanging by a thread.

Case numbers have been rising rapidly, putting significant pressure on testing-tracing-isolation-quarantine capacity.

Doherty Institute described its assumptions thus:

We assume that once community transmission becomes established leading to high caseloads, TTIQ [testing-tracing-isolation-quarantine] is less efficacious than the optimal levels observed in Australia because public health response capacity is finite.

This tells us that given our current high case numbers, we can probably only assume, at best, “partially effective” testing-tracing-isolation-quarantine capacity.

It’s also important to note the Doherty modelling did not incorporate scenarios where the virus was in uncontrolled spread after target vaccination levels are achieved.

But it now seems unlikely that NSW – and maybe even Victoria – will be able to suppress COVID down to zero before any vaccination target is reached.

If lockdowns are eased according to the modelled targets, while there is still substantial community transmission, testing-tracing-isolation-quarantine is unlikely to be enough to suppress further spread sufficiently, potentially resulting in higher numbers of hospitalisations and deaths than initially modelled.

2. How does the national plan stack-up?

The federal government used the Doherty Institute report’s findings as the basis of the “national plan” it put to National Cabinet.

But it glossed over the options, scenarios, and caveats in the Doherty modelling, and assumed the most optimistic testing-tracing-isolation-quarantine scenario: that everything would be rosy if Australia started opening up once 70% of adults (equivalent to only just over half the population) are vaccinated.

Read more:
National Cabinet’s plan out of COVID aims too low on vaccinations and leaves crucial questions unanswered

The transition to Phase C, where lockdowns would be targeted and vaccinated people would be exempt from restrictions, was also optimistically adopted at 80% adult vaccination, despite the lack of modelling for this scenario in the Doherty report.

In a bid to make it appear convincing – but also realistic, given all the uncertainty – a veil of vagueness was cast over the national plan. The document is full of weasel-words and caveats, which means it is impossible for anyone to be held to account.

The equivocal “in-principle” condition on National Cabinet’s approval makes it even harder to know exactly what premiers signed up to.

But the severity of the New South Wales outbreak has forced some of our leaders to take off the rose-coloured glasses and adopt a more realistic view. Premiers are now saying they did not sign up to high death tolls.

According to Doherty modelling, deaths could reach 1,500 within six months of implementing Phase B. Agreeing to such a scenario is politically untenable for states that currently have zero cases.

3. So, what should happen next?

With states divided over the national plan, and the modelling potentially out of date, it’s time for National Cabinet to come back with a new approach. We need a revised national plan – one that all states can sign up to, one that is not full of caveats and conditions.

This should include a realistic plan for scaling up testing-tracing-isolation-quarantine capacity so that it can manage in a feasible way when each infected person could have at least ten new contacts per day.

And it should include a plan to protect primary schools and childcare centres while a vaccine remains unavailable for younger children.

Grattan Institute has also done its own modelling.

But our model was about Phase D – what Australia needs to do to avoid obtrusive restrictions such as lockdowns altogether – which was not modelled by the Doherty Institute.

We argued that it is only safe to open the borders, to lift restrictions, and to manage without lockdowns and use only unobtrusive measures such as masks on public transport, if we vaccinate at least 80% of the total population and continue the vaccination rollout to 90% throughout 2022.

Recent modelling from other academics has come to similar conclusions, with some even suggesting a slightly higher threshold for safe re-opening.

Governments cannot keep making unrealistic promises about easing restrictions at 70% and 80% adult vaccination, a plan that relied on optimistic scenarios in the first place, and one that now bears little relation to the real world. It is irresponsible to build public momentum and hope around targets that are unlikely going to be enough.

Australia needs the National Cabinet to come clean and accept that the changing circumstances require a change in the plan.

Grattan Institute began with contributions to its endowment from each of the Federal and Victorian Governments, BHP Billiton, and NAB. In order to safeguard its independence, Grattan Institute’s board controls this endowment. Grattan Institute also receives funding from corporates, foundations, and individuals to support its general activities as disclosed on its website.

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

– ref. Opening with 70% of adults vaccinated, the Doherty report predicts 1.5K deaths in 6 months. We need a revised plan – https://theconversation.com/opening-with-70-of-adults-vaccinated-the-doherty-report-predicts-1-5k-deaths-in-6-months-we-need-a-revised-plan-166659

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katrina McLean, Assistant Professor, Medicine, Bond University

Last year in the COVID-19 pandemic, children were not catching or spreading the virus much. The main focus was on protecting our elderly and vulnerable.

But the Delta strain has changed things. Children around the world are contracting Delta in high numbers and some frontline doctors believe they may also be getting sicker from this strain.

Many parents and schools have concerns about how to best protect children from COVID-19. There’s also the worry children will catch the virus at school and take it back to their families and communities.

While many children are now well-accustomed to washing and sanitising their hands, this is simply not enough to tackle the spread of COVID-19, especially now we know the virus is airborne. We need a whole toolbox of strategies.

There are three key areas to focus on that we believe are evidence-based, easy to implement and will help protect our children: masks, ventilation and vaccination.

1. Masks

In certain Australian states, children aged 12 and above are currently required to wear a mask in public areas (schools included).

Meanwhile, Victoria’s chief health officer Brett Sutton has recommended children aged five and up wear masks in the face of rising Delta transmission among children.

As GPs, parents often ask us if it’s safe for children to wear masks. While we understand concern from parents, we reassure them masks have been found to cause no harm in children over the age of two. When children wear masks it doesn’t affect their breathing or reduce their oxygen levels.

Importantly, when worn properly, masks are effective at reducing the spread of COVID-19, for adults and children alike.

Read more:
Under-12s are increasingly catching COVID-19. How sick are they getting and when will we be able to vaccinate them?

A few quick tips. Fabric masks should be treated like underwear: wash them regularly, ensure they cover everything, and don’t share. These are a better option for the environment.

Label fabric masks like school hats — they will go missing!

Surgical/disposable masks are single use. Like using a tissue to blow your nose, make sure it goes in the bin once used and then wash your hands.

And masks should fit snugly — the less gaps there are the better they will work.

Like anything new, getting used to masks can take time. Children may initially be anxious, especially if their parents are too. Though most kids adapt really quickly (much quicker than adults, in our experience).

While the majority of children will adapt quickly there will be some who have specific and legitimate concerns, for example disabilities and sensory issues. GPs and paediatricians can help work out what the safest approach is for these children.

2. Ventilation

SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, can float in the air like smoke. If you’re inside in a small enclosed room with other people and the ventilation is poor, it will only be a matter of time before you’re all breathing in each other’s air.

Schools have lots of children inside enclosed classrooms, often for hours, so what can be done?

Ventilation is something schools can and should address. Some simple strategies include:

• get outside as often as is practical. Call children into the classroom only once the day has started. Hold some lessons outside the classroom. During breaks and lunch time children should be outside whenever possible too

• open doors and windows

• set air conditioning or heating systems to bring in as much outdoor air as possible

• check the air with carbon dioxide monitors. This is occurring overseas.

Why do we care about CO₂? Well, we breathe in oxygen and breathe out CO₂. In confined spaces with lots of air that has been “breathed out”, monitors will detect higher levels of CO₂.

All that “breathed out” air could be full of viral particles, so if the monitor is measuring high, airflow needs to be improved immediately by opening a door or window.

In stuffy rooms, or rooms that measure high for CO₂ (indicating the ventilation is poor), a longer-term plan to clean the air should be considered. What’s encouraging is that the technology already exists to address this.

Air cleaners, also known as air purifiers, scrubbers, or HEPA filters, can actually help to “clean” the air we breathe. Lots of schools around the world are now actively improving ventilation systems and air quality monitoring.

Improving the air quality in schools may also prevent some of the other colds and flus kids pick up at school, and reduce asthma and allergy symptoms.

3. Vaccination

At this stage in Australia the Pfizer vaccine is recommended for vulnerable children aged 12-15, including those registered on the National Disability Insurance Scheme.

Vaccinations for all children 12 and over are now under way in New Zealand.

Many other countries have been giving vaccines to children for several months now. For example, in the United States, more than one-third of 12 to 15-year-olds are fully vaccinated and nearly 50% have had at least one dose.

We know the vaccines work well in this age group and just like in adults, there is very close monitoring of adverse events from these vaccines in children. It’s reassuring to see very few serious reactions, and even those that are (for example myocarditis — inflammation of the heart) are treatable.

Vaccine trials are under way in children under 12 in the US (for Pfizer and Moderna), and once we have the safety and efficacy data we can start making decisions around vaccinating them too.

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

Katrina McLean is a Fellow of the RACGP and current Chair of General Practice Gold Coast

Natasha Yates is a Fellow of the RACGP and Deputy Lead of General Practice, Bond University

– ref. Masks, ventilation, vaccination: 3 ways to protect our kids against the Delta variant – https://theconversation.com/masks-ventilation-vaccination-3-ways-to-protect-our-kids-against-the-delta-variant-166413

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kyla Raby, PhD Candidate researching the role of consumers in eradicating modern slavery in supply chains, University of South Australia

When the Australian government introduced its Modern Slavery Bill to parliament in 2018, it heralded it as the start of a “race to the top”.

But it has turned out to be less a race than a meander.

The bill required companies with annual revenues greater than $100 million to report on action they take to ensure their supply chains are free of slave labour. The premise was that transparency and accountability were enough to drive reform.

“Business feedback indicates the primary driver for compliance will be investor pressure and reputational costs and benefits,” a government spokeswoman said at the time. “This will drive compliance more effectively than legislated penalties and encourage a business-led race to the top”.

That bill was passed in December 2018.
But so far, according to research published last month by the Australian Council of Superannuation Investors, most companies are engaged in a “race to the middle”, disclosing only the minimum and not wishing to reveal more than their key peers.

Could more be done?

Yes — but the possibilities and pitfalls are shown by a private member’s bill that passed the Senate this week.

Proposed by South Australian independent senator Rex Patrick, the Customs Amendment (Banning Goods Produced By Forced Labour) Bill 2021 would amend federal customs regulations to prohibit the import of any goods made using forced labour.

It passed the Senate on Monday with support from the Labor Party, the Greens and One Nation senators. But Coalition senators voted against the bill. This was despite it reflecting the recommendations of a inquiry chaired by Liberal senator Eric Abetz, who said Patrick’s bill was “worthy of consideration and support, in principle”.

Without government support the bill won’t pass the House of Representatives to become law. Nonetheless, it is worth considering why senators as disparate as the Greens and One Nation have backed it. Despite the Modern Slavery Act, there’s much more to be done before Australians can be confident the goods they buy are free of slave labour.

The call for a stronger approach

Patrick began with less expansive ambitions, introducing a bill in December 2020 to ban the import of goods from China produced by Uyghur forced labour.

This was in response to mounting evidence of the Chinese government’s detention of more than a million Uyghurs (and other ethnic minorities) in the western province of Xinjiang, forcing them to work making goods sold by Western companies.

Patrick’s bill was referred to the Senate Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, chaired Abetz. After considering about 60 submissions, in June the committee recommended (among other things) amending the Customs Act and other legislation “to prohibit the import of any goods made wholly or in part with forced labour, regardless of geographic origin”.

Read more:
Four Corners’ forced labour exposé shows why you might be wearing slave-made clothes

Its inquiry report stated:

The committee endorses without reservation the objectives of the bill. The state-sponsored forced labour to which the Uyghur people are being subjected by the Chinese dictatorship is a grave human rights violation. It is incumbent on the government to take steps to ensure that Australian businesses and consumers are not in any way complicit in these egregious abuses.

Slavery is all around us

Patrick’s revised bill reflects this sentiment.

While the Chinese government may be detaining up to a million Uyghurs, the anti-slavery organisation Walk Free Foundation estimates globally about 4 million people are forced to work by state authorities, with further 21 million people exploited in private supply chains.

The foundation estimates each year goods worth more than US$350 billion (about $A480 billion) imported into G20 countries are at at-risk of having been produced, at least in part, by forced labour.

No country or industry is untouched. The estimate for imports into Australia is US$12 billion (about A$16.5 billion) a year. It’s highly likely at some stage you’ve bought something that has been made with exploited labour.

It might have been clothing made in China. Or it might have tinned tuna from Thailand, cotton milled in India. Or chocolate made from cacao farmed West Africa.

Australia’s Modern Slavery Act has been part of international moves to make companies accountable for the conditions of workers in the global supply chains from which they profit. This law requires reporting entities to submit an annual “Modern Slavery Statement” to a public register.

The law, however, has been criticised for lacking any real bite. There’s no real penalty for noncompliance. Instead it relies on the fear of being “named and shamed” — and as the research from the Australian Council of Superannuation Investors suggests, this doesn’t seem enough.

How did the government respond?

So why didn’t the government support Patrick’s bill?

In the words of Abetz, speaking in the Senate on Monday, “my heart says yes to this bill but my head says not yet”.

The government’s hesitancy is understandable. If passed, the law will require every Australian company — not just the big ones — to prove that any goods it imports are slave-free. That’s a huge leap from what is currently required.

Some large corporations are already struggling with how to adhere to the spirit and less strenuous requirements of the Modern Slavery Act. Many small- and medium-sized enterprises and not-for-profits may also not have the expertise or resources to comply.

But even if this particular bill isn’t right, the issues with Australia’s current response to modern slavery cannot be ignored. The enslavement of human beings shouldn’t be an issue where a progressive, but painfully slow, approach is accepted.

Senator Patrick’s bill may not become law. But it has helped shine a light on the deficiencies with the current law and shown there is broad community support for stronger action.

As the famous abolitionist William Wilberforce said: “You may choose to look the other way, but you can never say again that you did not know.”

Kyla Raby is affiliated with the Australian Red Cross

Katherine Christ has previously received funding from CPA Australia.

– ref. Senate’s vote to ban slave-made imports shows the weakness of Australia’s Modern Slavery Act – https://theconversation.com/senates-vote-to-ban-slave-made-imports-shows-the-weakness-of-australias-modern-slavery-act-166647

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Julian Meyrick, Professor of Creative Arts, Griffith University

Our writers nominate the TV series keeping them entertained during a time of COVID.

Her face is long and austere. Her dark hair is pulled back over a high forehead, and her eyes are large and unblinking. When she moves, she lowers her head and pushes forward, purposeful and soft, like an animal padding through a forest.

In season one of the Danish television series The Killing, when detective Sarah Lund (Sofie Gråbøl) learns of the death of her colleague, Jan Meyer — a death she is partly responsible for — she is standing next to a Russian container ship called Alexa. It means “defender of man”. Lund is a common Scandinavian surname. It means “grove”.

This is the real beginning of the series, the dark waters of ethical awareness Lund never tries to escape thereafter. Even before, she was alone. Now she is doubly so, existentially isolated in the manner of the protagonists of Greek tragedy — Antigone, Iphigenia, Phaedra — figures marked out for an outsize portion of loss and grief. Their response is not anger or resentment, a hardening of the psyche, but the opposite: a deeper vulnerability, fluid and super-sensitive.

This is what is made available to us through Lund’s face: a universal point of identification and address. Not everyone is Sarah Lund. But anyone might be.

Read more:
Rutherford Falls: a laugh-out-loud funny TV show about colonisation

A forensic gaze

The Killing (Forbrydelsen) is a three-season, Scandi-noir detective drama spread over a 15-year (ish) time span, that first aired in 2007 (an American version was made in 2011). Season one consists of 20 50-minute episodes, which is long even by the standards of long-form drama. The story does not move quickly. There is time to examine an aspect of murder downplayed by more conventional police procedurals: its human consequences.

Each season has a triangular shape. As the narratives unfold, they switch between corners, showing their interrelationship. In season one, the triangle is the government, the police and an ordinary Danish family. In season two, the government, the police and a Danish army unit. In season three, the government, the police and a Danish oil company.

Gradually, the political focus shifts higher: from an aspiring mayoral candidate, to a newly appointed Minister of Justice, to a Prime Minister facing the next election.

Lund is what my son when he was small would have called “very look-y”. She soaks in everything happening around her through her quiet stare. She is the opposite of hypercritical. The intent of her gaze is forensic not judgemental. What happened? Who did it? Why?

In respect of delivering a final verdict, only in the last episode, does she claim that right. It destroys both the man she judges and her own life.

Politicians avoiding responsibility

What makes The Killing right for this moment is its portrayal of how contemporary politics infects contemporary life, a politics of constant displacement and mendacity. Governments avoid responsibility, then avoid taking responsibility for taking responsibility. It’s not so much that they lie. Rather the truth is not an epistemological category, only a strategic factor.

Over three seasons, The Killing’s politicians juggle different narrative framings to find one that will stick. The line between plausibility and veracity is obliterated. Perception is all. Public debate collapses into popular opinion. Politicians do the right thing up to a point. When media attention is averted, or if one of them looks like getting into trouble, it is immediately abandoned.

These are the politicians we have largely come to accept as our own: a morally plastic breed whose every move is about obtaining or retaining power.

Read more:
Five of the best crime dramas to be banged up with under lockdown – from a screenwriter

To be adequate to our moment — one marked by the long term health and economic effects of COVID-19, the terror of the latest IPCC report, and the failure of US post-millennial military excursions — requires the sort of courage Sarah Lund shows.

Yet she is without heroic properties. She isn’t “special” in the way Hollywood heroes are. She is ordinary. She does not “recover”. She is not “resilient”. She grows, ethically, emotionally, spiritually. Every killing marks her more deeply. That’s a lesson we can take to heart.

A home for grief

Lund has no luck with men. In season one, her engagement founders as she is swallowed up by an investigation into a murdered girl. In season two, she falls for a detective who turns out to be a psychopathic killer. In season three, an old flame appears and it’s on. But she wrecks everything and has to flee from the beginnings of a happy life.

Lund has no memorable quirks, unless you count being unable to cook and a taste for chunky knit jumpers (now famous in their own right). She is not witty, or especially charismatic. When annoyed, she rarely shouts. Instead, she purses her lips and pushes on with whatever she’s doing, like a truculent child. She makes mistakes, sometimes big ones. If she does the right thing it’s because she chooses to, never because it’s easy.

“When people are killed, it’s important” she says to a weary Afghan army officer in season two, when she is investigating the murder of a family in the middle of a war-zone.

Lund can be abrupt, cutting people off mid-sentence, or mid-phone call, or suddenly walking out of a room. Later, she will shrink into herself, aware of what she has done. Her face shows remorse in ways that don’t involve her having to open her mouth and say “I’m sorry”. She has the courage to feel overwhelmed.

In season three, a couple whose daughter has been kidnapped visit a Lutheran pastor who tells them, “Grief is love that has become homeless”. In Lund, grief finds a home again and turns back into love. It isn’t her fault that nature, to balance her analytical gifts, deprives her of expressive ones.

Lund is the least political creature. She does what we all do. She gets on with the job. Only at the end does she see what she is up against, and act to save the future when no one else will. Knowingly, sufferingly, she walks into hell.

The Killing is airing on SBS on demand.

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

– ref. The Killing’s Sarah Lund: an anti-hero for our COVID moment – https://theconversation.com/the-killings-sarah-lund-an-anti-hero-for-our-covid-moment-166654

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jessica Oliva, Lecturer, Psychology, James Cook University

It may come as no surprise to dog owners in lockdown, but walking the dog can be the highlight of the day.

With exercise being one of the few reasons for leaving the house for millions of Australians, walking the dog clearly benefits both dog owners and their furry friends.

But walking the dog isn’t the only thing you can do to lift your spirits and ease loneliness.

Our study found three things you can do at home with your dog to make you feel better, which your dog will probably love too.

1. You can meditate with your dog

Our study showed it helped to take time out to focus on your dog’s fur or the warmth of their body using “mindfulness meditation”.

This type of meditation involved people listening to a recording that guided them to activate their senses (for instance, touch) as a way of enhance their engagement with the task.

Dog owners who did this for seven minutes once a week or more felt relaxed, calm, enjoyed the process, said they felt more connected to their dog, and helped them focus on the present.

For many dog owners in our study, these effects also lasted for several minutes or hours after stopping the activity.

Read more:
Mindfulness meditation in brief daily doses can reduce negative mental health impact of COVID-19

If you want to try this for yourself, create a space in your home where you are not likely to be interrupted and turn off your phone. Sit comfortably on the floor, on a mat, cushion or blanket and invite your dog to come and sit next to you or on your lap.

Place one or two hands on your dog and sit up tall. Start by closing your eyes and taking a few deep breaths. Be aware of your sense of touch and notice the sensations in your hand and fingertips. Stay with this awareness and if your mind starts to wander, gently escort it back to your feeling of touch and your dog’s fur. Stay with this practice for seven minutes or more.

Although we didn’t specifically measure the impact on dogs, we suspect they appreciate the close, calm and private space this creates for both of you.

2. You can play hide and seek

If mindfulness meditation isn’t your thing, our study showed setting aside seven minutes of undivided playtime with your dog had similar results. This might be an interactive game, such as hide and seek.

Dog owners who did this said they enjoyed this, had a better connection with their dog, and helped them focus on the present. They also thought their dog had fun.

How might this work as well as mindfulness meditation? Mindfulness is simply about being present in the moment. So if we put the phone away, pets can be great facilitators to help bring us into the present and centre our mind on one thing — them.

Read more:
Routine and learning games: how to make sure your dog doesn’t get canine cabin fever

3. You can talk to your dog

If you really want to increase the connection with your dog, try some
calm and focused interactions. This might be seven undivided minutes of affection with your dog, such as giving them a good belly rub, or spending seven undivided minutes talking to them.

Out of all the activities we tried, these worked best to connect with your dog.

While some people in our study said they felt awkward talking to their dog, our earlier research showed others seem to love it.

For people living alone in lockdown, having a pet dog was an excuse to talk out loud, and this may play an important role in their well-being.

Making time to be affectionate towards your dog also made owners feel relaxed and calm, at similar levels to those who practised mindfulness meditation.

Completely focusing on your dog this way increases the release of molecules associated with relaxation (such as oxytocin) and reward (such as dopamine) in both owner and dog.

Read more:
Lockdown can be stressful for pets too – here’s how to keep your dog entertained

Making time for your dog

Not all dog owners are spending their time in lockdown going on long walks with their furry friends. One study found some dog owners walked their dog less often or went on shorter walks during the pandemic.

Whether that’s been your experience, or if you want to try something new, these three types of interactions with your dog don’t take a lot of time. You could even continue them after lockdown’s over.

This might end up become the new highlight of your dog’s day, making the long wait for you to return home from work completely worth it.

Read more:
Your dog’s nose knows no bounds – and neither does its love for you

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

– ref. At home with your dog? 3 ways to connect and lift your spirits – https://theconversation.com/at-home-with-your-dog-3-ways-to-connect-and-lift-your-spirits-166331

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

The Doherty modelling is the government’s underpinning for a proposed easing of COVID restrictions once we reach targets of 70% and 80% of the adult population vaccinated.

But the exit path has put Scott Morrison at odds with Western Australia and Queensland, states which would inevitably have to give up their present status of having little or no COVID.

The model’s priority is pivoting from reaching zero cases, to limiting COVID by vaccination, minimising serious illness, hospitalisation, and deaths.

This week, Professor Sharon Lewin, Director of the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity joins the podcast to explain into the much-discussed modelling and its policy implications.

In the event things open up, our “first line of defence” will be the public health capacity, says Lewin. The ability to trace, test, isolate, and quarantine limits the explosion of cases and keeps the transmission potential “less than one”.

Some critics have said the 70-80% target won’t sufficiently protect the entire population from COVID. Lewin notes that amongst the varying models there is agreement we cannot open up on vaccine uptake alone.

“You can’t just open up a 70% with nothing else in place. There is no ‘Freedom Day’. You do need these additional public health measures.”

In particular, while “tremendous advances have been made in capabilities[…] it’s not universal across the country. In particular, First Nation communities, which have been prepared and boasted an “effective community lead response” earlier in the pandemic, will require a strengthening of their public health facilities.

Additional audio

A List of Ways to Die, Lee Rosevere, from Free Music Archive.

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

– ref. Politics with Michelle Grattan: Doherty’s Sharon Lewin on pivoting from chasing COVID zero – https://theconversation.com/politics-with-michelle-grattan-dohertys-sharon-lewin-on-pivoting-from-chasing-covid-zero-166740

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Willow Hallgren, Adjunct Research Fellow, Centre for Planetary Health and Food Security, Griffith University

For three days this month, 7 billion tonnes of rain fell across Greenland — the largest amount since records began in 1950. It’s also the first time since then that rain, not snow, fell on Greenland’s highest peak.

This is alarming. Greenland’s ice sheet is the second largest on the planet (after Antarctica) and any rain falling on its surface accelerates melting. By August 15, the amount of ice lost was seven times greater than is normal for mid-August.

This is just the latest extreme climate event on the island, which sits in the North Atlantic Ocean. In a single day in July this year, the amount of ice that melted in Greenland would have covered the US state of Florida with 5 centimetres of water. And last October, research showed ice in Greenland is melting faster than at any other time in the past 12,000 years.

Melting in Greenland threatens to significantly hamper humanity’s efforts to mitigate climate change. That’s because, after a certain point, it may create catastrophic “feedback loops”. Let’s look at the issue in more detail.

Rising temperatures in the Arctic

Greenland’s vast ice sheet comprises almost 1.7 million square kilometres of glacial land ice. It covers most of the territory and contains enough ice to raise sea levels by more than 7 metres if melted.

The Greenland and Antarctica ice sheets lost a combined 6.4 trillion tonnes of ice between 1992 and 2017. Melting in Greenland has contributed to 60% (17.8 millimetres) of the Earth’s overall sea-level rise due to melting ice sheets, even though Greenland is much smaller than Antarctica.

This may be partly because half of Greenland’s melting is the result of rising air temperatures, which cause surface melting. In Antarctica, most ice loss is from ocean water melting glaciers that spill from land into the sea. And the rate of ice loss in both Greenland and Antarctica is accelerating — increasing sixfold since the 1990s.

Rain falling on ice exacerbates this process. So what’s behind the recent unprecedented weather?

Temperatures in the Arctic are rising twice as quickly as the rest of the planet for a number of reasons, including changes in cloud cover and water vapour, the reflectivity of the surface, and how weather systems transport energy from the tropics to the polar regions. This has made extreme weather events more common.

Read more:
Climate explained: why is the Arctic warming faster than other parts of the world?

In recent years in Greenland, rain has fallen further north, and more rain has fallen in winter. This is not normal for these regions, which usually get snow, not rain, in below-freezing temperatures.

This month’s rain is the result of warm, moist air flowing up from south-west of Greenland and remaining for several days. In the morning of August 14, temperatures at the 3,216-metre summit of Greenland’s ice sheet surpassed freezing point, peaking at 0.48℃. Rain fell on the summit for several hours that morning and on August 15.

This was particularly shocking given the above-freezing temperatures occurred so late in Greenland’s normally short summer. At this time of year, large areas of bare ice are exposed from a lack of snow, which leads to greater runoff of rainwater and meltwater into the oceans.

When melting is self-reinforcing

Rainfall makes the ice sheet more prone to surface melt since it exacerbates the so-called “ice-albedo positive feedback”. In other words, the melting reinforces itself.

When rain falls, its warmth can melt snow, exposing the underlying darker ice, which absorbs more sunlight. This increases temperatures at the surface, leading to more melting.

Unfortunately, this isn’t the only positive feedback loop destabilising the Greenland ice sheet.

The “positive melt-elevation feedback” is another, where the lower height of the ice sheet leads to faster melting because higher temperatures occur at lower altitudes.

Also worrying is when higher temperatures cause coastal glaciers to thin, allowing more ice to slip into the sea. This both speeds up the rate of glacier flow towards the sea and lowers the ice surface, exposing it to warmer air temperatures and, in turn, increasing melting.

What does this mean for the planet?

These positive feedbacks can lead to tipping points — abrupt and irreversible changes in the climate system after a certain threshold is reached. We are more likely to reach these tipping points as emissions increase and global temperatures rise.

While the science on tipping points is still emerging, the most recent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said they cannot be ruled out. The report identified likely tipping points such as widespread Arctic sea-ice melting and the thawing of methane-rich permafrost.

Read more:
‘Failure is not an option’: after a lost decade on climate action, the 2020s offer one last chance

Recent studies show what humanity may be up against. A study from May this year showed a substantial part of the Greenland ice sheet is either at, or about to reach, a tipping point where melting will accelerate, even if global warming is stopped. Scientists are concerned reaching this point may trigger a cascade effect, leading to other tipping points being reached.

Melted ice from both the Arctic Ocean and Greenland have caused an influx of freshwater into the North Atlantic Ocean. This has contributed to the slowing of a system of crucial ocean currents, which carry warm water from the tropics into the colder North Atlantic. This current, called the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), has slowed by 15% since the 1950s.

If the AMOC slows down any further, the consequences for the planet could be profound. It could destabilise the West African monsoon, cause more frequent drought in the Amazon rainforest and accelerate ice loss in Antarctica.

An existential threat

The rising likelihood of tipping points being reached beyond 1.5℃ of warming represents a potential, looming existential threat to human civilisation. However, even if we’ve already crossed some tipping points, as some scientists suggest, how fast the impacts unfold is still within our control.

If we limit global warming to 1.5℃ this century, we give ourselves longer to adapt to heating already locked into the Earth’s system. But the window is rapidly closing; estimates indicate we may reach the crucial 1.5℃ threshold as soon as the mid-2030s.

The message for humanity is urgent: hard science, not cloying political spin, needs to dictate climate action in the coming years. As with COVID-19, listening to the scientists gives us the best hope of saving the planet.

Read more:
When Greenland was green: rapid global warming 55 million years ago shows us what the future may hold

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

– ref. What Greenland’s record-breaking rain means for the planet – https://theconversation.com/what-greenlands-record-breaking-rain-means-for-the-planet-166567

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Denis Muller, Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Advancing Journalism, The University of Melbourne

The news that Craig Kelly, MP, serial purveyor of COVID misinformation, is to join Clive Palmer’s United Australia Party in order to fund his damaging ravings on a grander scale, confronts Australian democracy with a dilemma.

How is he to be prevented from adding to the harm he is already doing to the public welfare without trespassing unjustifiably on his right of free speech?

It is a classic example of how populists are exploiting the rights conferred by democracy to undermine democracy.

Kelly is frank about what he intends to do. Referring to his joining the UAP, he told The Sydney Morning Herald:

The crude reality is that I’ll have greater resources.

I have been screaming this stuff from the rooftops for a long time. It’s very hard to get this message through. We have a huge war chest, we can run television commercials, ads, we can finance a proper campaign that no other minor party or independent can.

He says that because these advertisements would be considered party-political advertisements, blocking them would be unconstitutional.

Whether or not he is right about that, it reveals his attitude: a preparedness to exploit a law protecting freedom of political speech so he can go on spreading COVID misinformation in pursuit of elected office.

The electoral and trade practices laws have no provisions to stop him. Section 329 of the Commonwealth Electoral Act is confined to the issue of whether a publication is likely to mislead or deceive an elector in relation to the casting of a vote. Sections 52 and 53 of the Trade Practices Act, which make false or misleading representations an offence, have nothing to say about political advertising.

Read more:
Why Clive Palmer’s lockdown ads can be rejected by newspapers on ethical grounds

However, there are two philosophical bases for arguing the electoral laws should be amended to thwart this kind of harmful exploitation.

One is John Stuart Mill’s harm principle, which says the prevention of harm to others is a legitimate constraint on individual freedom.

The other is from John Locke’s A Letter Concerning Toleration. Locke’s principle is that society is not obliged to tolerate actions or positions that undermine the civil order. Corrupting the electoral process as Kelly proposes – by misleading voters – falls well within that compass.

To borrow from Locke’s other great contribution to the development of modern democracy, his Second Treatise on Government, such actions or positions would breach the social contract. This contract is built on trust. Individuals submit themselves to the law on the condition that everyone else will do the same. Breaches of that trust are not to be tolerated.

This principle may be extended to other behaviours that breach the public trust: unethical conduct and anti-social conduct that might fall short of illegality but still do harm. Unethical conduct is embodied in Kelly’s stated intention to use Palmer’s millions to amplify his COVID misinformation, which would be to the detriment of public health.

In common with other mature democracies, Australia has predicated its laws on certain norms concerning truth, responsibility and the preservation of the social contract.

The problem is that in an age when populist politicians, social media and influential elements of mass media combine to spread harmful content, these norms – the guard rails of democracy – are being tested to breaking point.

In Washington on January 6 2021, when the mob invaded Congress, we saw what happens when the guard rails give way. For months leading up to and during the US presidential election, the then President Donald Trump and his mouthpiece, Fox News, abandoned the norm of truth-telling and persuaded a significant plurality of voters that the election was fraudulent.

This confronts democracies with a paradox. If they extend free speech even to those who use it to do serious harm, then tolerant societies become defenceless against the baneful effects of this behaviour.

It is akin to Karl Popper’s argument concerning what he called the tolerance paradox:

Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.

In common with other democracies, Australia places restrictions on free speech when it does unjustified harm. The defamation and contempt of court laws are just two examples among many.

There is no reason why this principle should not be extended to speech that causes provable harm to the public welfare in pursuit of election to parliament. Those harms could be defined and circumscribed in the Electoral Act without too much difficulty and would certainly include harms to public health.

Read more:
Right-wing shock jock stoush reveals the awful truth about COVID, politics and media ratings

There is precedent. In the aftermath of the Christchurch terrorism in March 2019, Parliament enacted the Criminal Code Amendment (Sharing of Abhorrent Violent Material) Act. Abhorrent violent material was confined in its definition to mean murder or attempted murder, a terrorist act, torture, rape or kidnapping. There are provisions to allow for the reporting of these acts.

At the same time, great care needs to be taken to avoid overreach, particularly in a society like Australia’s, which has no constitutional protection for free speech. That situation only sharpens the paradox.

As matters stand, Australia is leaving it to powerful foreign sources such as YouTube, unelected and unaccountable, to restrain the likes of Kelly, as when it recently suspended Sky News for spreading COVID misinformation.

Instead of confronting the paradox, the Australian parliament seems content to outsource to the global media platforms control over how our democratic freedoms are governed. Neither of the major parties has shown the slightest interest in engaging with this problem.

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

– ref. Craig Kelly’s move to Palmer’s United Australia Party shows the need for urgent electoral law reform – https://theconversation.com/craig-kellys-move-to-palmers-united-australia-party-shows-the-need-for-urgent-electoral-law-reform-166663

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anna Powles, Senior Lecturer in Security Studies, Massey University

By first denying and then granting visas to more than 100 Afghan contractors who guarded its embassy in Kabul, Australia has shone a light on the murky world of the private security industry.

According to the lawyer and former army officer representing the security guards, his clients had yet to receive the humanitarian visas and the about-face was merely an attempt by Australian officials “to look like they have done their job when they sat on their hands for so long”.

The Australian case mirrors the British government’s policy reversal concerning 125 Afghan security guards at its Kabul embassy.

They, too, were initially informed they were ineligible for emergency evacuation due to being employed by Canadian private security firm GardaWorld, only for the decision to be overruled late last week.

In both cases, these Afghan contractors have fallen into the shady legal gap between the private security company that employed them locally and the governments that contracted their employers.

As one GardaWorld employee said when he was told his contract would be terminated:

No one asked whether we are safe or not. No one asked whether our lives are in danger or not.

Privatising and outsourcing war

Afghanistan, famously known as “the graveyard of empires”, has been a gravy train for the global private security industry for the past two decades, as the war was increasingly privatised and outsourced.

Under the Trump administration, private security companies with Pentagon contracts numbered nearly 6,000, costing US$2.3 billion (A$3.1 billion) in 2019. When the US military withdrawal began, these private contractors dropped to about 1,400 by July.

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

Until now, however, private security firms were such a critical element of the war effort that their departure was considered a key factor in the collapse of the Afghan army.

The appeal of these private security contractors lies in their arms-length advantage — they are relatively disposable and carry little political cost. This allows the industry to operate opaquely, with little oversight and even less accountability.

In the case of the Australian embassy guards, it would appear their direct employers have done little to secure their safety. How, then, can these companies and the governments that employ them be held accountable?

Little binding protection

The Montreux Document on Private Military and Security Companies – which reflects inter-governmental consensus that international law applies to private security companies in war zones – requires private security companies “to respect and ensure the welfare of their personnel”. Unfortunately, this is not a binding agreement.

The International Code of Conduct for Private Security Service Providers (ICoCA) – known as “the code” — lays out the responsibilities of private security under international law. It requires signatory companies to:

[…]provide a safe and healthy working environment, recognising the possible inherent dangers and limitations presented by the local environment [and to] ensure that reasonable precautions are taken to protect relevant staff in high-risk or life-threatening operations.

Read more:
The Taliban may have access to the biometric data of civilians who helped the U.S. military

Australia is a signatory to the ICoCA, as are private security companies Gardaworld, Hart International Australia and Hart Security Limited, all of which operate in Afghanistan and have at various times been contracted by the Australian government.

But again, like the Montreux Document, the ICoC is non-binding. However, ICoC Executive Director Jamie Williamson has said:

The situation in Afghanistan is shining a spotlight on the duty of care clients of private security companies have towards local staff and their families […] We expect to see both our government and corporate members ensure the safety and well-being of all private security personnel working on government and other contracts, whatever their nationality.

Still no guarantee of safety

This duty of care now appears to have been extended to those guards who worked for the Australian and British governments in Afghanistan — albeit at the last minute. As one contractor told Australian media, he and his colleagues first applied for protection visas in 2012.

But their safety remains uncertain. The visas do not guarantee safe passage to Kabul’s international airport where evacuation efforts are chaotic. In the past weekend alone, 14 civilians were killed trying to flee the Taliban takeover.

There are also concerns about safe passage through Taliban checkpoints not being properly coordinated by US and NATO
allies, leaving dangerous alternative routes the only option.

Read more:
Where do Afghanistan’s refugees go?

Sheltering until they can safely travel to the airport is also fraught. As one guard explained:

Every day there is news that the Taliban will start a search for each house […] looking for people who have served the army and those who have served the foreign army.

Australia has made a legal and moral commitment to provide refuge to these people. But with the Taliban’s so-called red line of August 31 looming, the window to evacuate them and their families is closing.

And while the global private security companies may have shut up shop in Afghanistan for now, the consequences and human costs associated with outsourcing war linger on.

Dr Anna Powles has consulted on security sector reform and private security sector governance with the United Nations Development Programme and co-leads a research project on private security companies in the Pacific.

– ref. The plight of Afghan security contractors highlights the legal and moral risks of outsourcing war – https://theconversation.com/the-plight-of-afghan-security-contractors-highlights-the-legal-and-moral-risks-of-outsourcing-war-166730

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Muhammad Nadeem Malik, Senior Lecturer, The University of Melbourne

Pakistan has long played a critical, yet confusing role in Afghanistan. It has been one of the strongest US allies in its “war on terror”, yet it has also covertly backed the Taliban in its fight against US-led forces for years.

The paradox remained visible after the Taliban swept into Kabul last week.

Pakistan’s official response by its foreign minister was hope for a peaceful settlement in Afghanistan through an inclusive, transition government following broad-based consultations with all ethnic groups and stakeholders.

Moreover, in a televised address, Pakistan’s army chief urged the Taliban leaders to fulfil their promise to the international community regarding respect for women’s rights and human rights

Both statements align with America’s aspirations. But in contrast, Prime Minister Imran Khan declared that Afghans had broken “the shackles of slavery”, which seems to mock the US establishment.

How regional powers are responding

Despite this mixed messaging from Pakistani leaders, a coordinated regional response to the Taliban takeover appears to be shaping up.

As western countries hold back from recognising the new government, the regional powers of Russia, China, Iran and Pakistan have kept their embassies open in Kabul and expressed their willingness to work with the Taliban.

According to a senior security journalist I spoke with in Pakistan, both Russia and Iran supported the Taliban fight against the US-sponsored Afghanistan government to contain the threat from the Islamic State.

Iran’s influence on the Taliban can be gauged by the fact the group’s leadership participated in the Shia’ Majlis (a religious council delivering sermons) in Kabul after its takeover, which is highly unusual for the extremist Sunni Taliban.

Moreover, Iran and Russia have been so involved in Afghanistan and the politics of the Taliban that when then-President Donald Trump cancelled a planned meeting with Taliban leaders in late 2019, the group reacted by going to both countries to get advice from their leaders on how to respond.

Overall, the strategies of these regional powers will greatly influence the politics in Afghanistan in the coming days — but it’s Pakistan that likely has the greatest sway over the Taliban leaders.

Read more:
Afghanistan: western powers must accept defeat and deal realistically with the Taliban

A brief history of Pakistan’s support for the Taliban

Pakistan has provided political and military support for different factions within Afghanistan since the early 1970s. During the 1980s, Pakistan was a major backer of the Afghan mujahideen (holy warriors) fighting against the Soviet invasion and hosted millions Afghan refugees fleeing the war.

Pakistan was also a major ally of the US at this time. The US channelled some US$2-3 billion (A$2.7-4.1 billion) worth of covert assistance through Pakistan to the mujahideen, training over 80,000 of the fighters.

Even after the withdrawal of Soviet troops in 1989, Pakistani military officers continued to provide training and guidance to the mujahideen and eventually to Taliban forces to combat their enemies.

In addition, senior members of Pakistan’s intelligence agency and army are accused of helping the Taliban plan major military operations against the government during the Afghan civil war in the 1990s. Pakistani support for the group attracted widespread international criticism, including from then-UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who called it “deeply distressing”.

Read more:
As Afghanistan falls, what does it mean for the Middle East?

Pakistan was then just one of three countries to officially recognise the new Taliban government when it took power in 1996.

General Hamid Gul, a former head of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), acknowledged in 2014 that Pakistan even used US aid to continue funding the Taliban after the September 11 terror attacks.

He told a television audience,

When history is written, it will be stated that the ISI defeated the Soviet Union in Afghanistan with the help of America. Then there will be another sentence. The ISI, with the help of America, defeated America.

Pakistan is still likely to provide covert political and logistic support to the new Taliban leaders in Afghanistan today.

In the past, the Taliban leadership had three consultative councils, known as shuras, based in Pakistan. At least one of these shuras, based in Quetta, still probably seems to be operating from Pakistan.

The Taliban also operated in the country throughout the American occupation in Afghanistan, even though the Pakistan government denies supporting the group and denies the existence of the Quetta shura.

Given this history, it’s no wonder many people around the world are blaming Pakistan for the Taliban’s recent military success, reflected in the #SanctionPakistan campaign on Twitter.

Read more:
As the Taliban surges across Afghanistan, al-Qaeda is poised for a swift return

What does Pakistan stand to gain or lose?

Pakistan’s biggest gain is that India will lose its influence in Afghanistan, which was seen as a threat to Pakistan’s security. The Taliban takeover also allows Pakistan to boost its bilateral trade with Afghanistan and provides an unrestricted trade route to the countries of central Asia.

However, Pakistan can lose from the Taliban’s ascendancy, as well. If the Taliban fails to ensure stability, this can trigger another wave of refugees crossing the border. The Taliban’s takeover could also embolden domestic terror groups within Pakistan.

As a result, Taliban rule in Afghanistan could have adverse security repercussions for Pakistan, particularly with regard to the Pakistani Taliban (TTP). The TTP considers the takeover of Afghanistan by its Afghan counterparts a significant ideological victory.

The TTP has launched several violent attacks in Pakistan over the years, including an attack on a school in Peshawar in 2014 that killed more than 150 people, mostly children.

Some of the TTP’s leaders were also reportedly freed from prisons by Afghan Taliban fighters in recent days.

As a former member of Pakistan’s parliament told the Financial Times, “a stable Afghanistan will work in Pakistan’s favour”.

The key to creating peace and stability in Afghanistan will be Pakistan’s strategic cooperation with all of the regional powers, as well as the US. Such cooperation, however, may be a challenge to achieve, given the competing interests that have long torn this country apart.

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

– ref. How Pakistan stands to gain — or lose — from the Taliban’s victory in Afghanistan – https://theconversation.com/how-pakistan-stands-to-gain-or-lose-from-the-talibans-victory-in-afghanistan-166414

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jamin Wood, PhD Candidate at the Australian Centre for Water and Environmental Biotechnology (formerly Advanced Water Management Centre), The University of Queensland

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report released earlier this month sounded a “code red for humanity”. At such a crucial time, we should draw on all possible solutions to combating global warming.

About one-quarter of greenhouse gas emissions are associated with the manufacture of the products we use. While a small number of commercial uses for carbon dioxide exist — for instance in the beverage and chemical industries — the current demand isn’t enough to achieve meaningful carbon dioxide reduction.

As such, we need to find new ways to transform industrial manufacturing from being a carbon dioxide source to a carbon dioxide user.

The good news is that plastics, chemicals, cosmetics and many other products need a carbon source. If we could produce them using carbon dioxide instead of fossil hydrocarbons, we would be able to sequester billions of tonnes of greenhouse gases per year.

How, you may ask? Well, biology already has a solution.

Read more:
There aren’t enough trees in the world to offset society’s carbon emissions – and there never will be

Gas fermentation

You may have heard of microscopic organisms, or microbes — we use them to make beer, spirits and bread. But we can also use them to create biofuels such as ethanol.

They typically need sugar as an input, which competes with human food consumption. However, there are other microbes called “acetogens” which can use carbon dioxide as their input to make several chemicals including ethanol.

Acetogens are thought to be one of the first life-forms on Earth. The ancient Earth’s atmosphere was very different to the atmosphere today — there was no oxygen, yet plentiful carbon dioxide.

Acetogens were able to recycle this carbon using chemical energy sources, such as hydrogen, in a process called gas fermentation. Today, acetogens are found in many anaerobic environments, such as in animals’ guts.

Not being able to use oxygen makes acetogens less efficient at building biomass; they are slow growers. But interestingly, it makes them more efficient producers.

For example, a typical food crop’s energy efficiency (where sunlight is turned into a product) may be around 1%. On the other hand, if solar energy was used to provide renewable hydrogen for use in gas fermentation (via acetogens), this process would have an overall energy efficiency closer to 10-15%.

This means acetogens are potentially up to twice as efficient as most current industrial processes — which makes them a cheaper and more environmentally friendly option. That is, if we can bring the technology to scale.

Sustainable carbon recycling

Gas fermentation is scaling up in China, the United States and Europe. Industrial emissions of carbon monoxide and hydrogen are being recycled into ethanol to commercially produce aviation fuel from 2022, plastic bottles from 2024 and even polyester clothes.

In the future this could be expanded to produce chemicals needed to make rubber, plastics, paints and cosmetics, too.

But gas fermentation currently isn’t done commercially with carbon dioxide, despite this being a much larger emission source than carbon monoxide. In part this is because it poses an engineering and bioengineering challenge, but also because it’s expensive.

We recently published an economic assessment in Water Research to help chart a pathway towards widespread acetogen-carbon dioxide recycling.

We found economic barriers in producing some products, but not all. For instance, it is viable today to use carbon dioxide-acetogen fermentation to produce chemicals required to make perspex.

But unlike current commercial operations, this would be enabled by renewable hydrogen production. Increasing the availability of green hydrogen will greatly increase what we can do with gas fermentation.

Looking ahead

Australia has a competitive advantage and could be a leader in this technology. As host to the world’s largest green-hydrogen projects, we have the capacity to produce low-cost renewable hydrogen.

Underused renewable waste streams could also enable carbon recycling with acetogens. For instance, large amounts of biogas is produced at wastewater treatment plants and landfills. Currently it’s either burned as waste, or to generate heat and power.

Past research shows us biogas can be converted (or “reformed”) into renewable hydrogen and carbon in a carbon-neutral process.

And we found this carbon and hydrogen could then be used in gas fermentation to make carbon-neutral products. This would provide as much as 12 times more value than just burning biogas to generate heat and power.

The IPCC report shows carbon dioxide removal is required to limit global warming to less than 2℃.

Carbon capture and storage is on most governments’ agendas. But if we change our mindset from viewing carbon as a waste product, then we can change our economic incentive from carbon disposal to carbon reuse.

Carbon dioxide stored underground has no value. If we harness its full potential by using it to manufacture products, this could support myriad industries as they move to sustainable production.

Read more:
Our ability to manufacture minerals could transform the gem market, medical industries and even help suck carbon from the air

Jamin Wood receives funding from The Warwick and Nancy Olsen Scholarship and Research Training Program.

Bernardino Virdis receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

Shihu Hu receives funding from Australian Research Council.

– ref. From jet fuel to clothes, microbes can help us recycle carbon dioxide into everyday products – https://theconversation.com/from-jet-fuel-to-clothes-microbes-can-help-us-recycle-carbon-dioxide-into-everyday-products-165242

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Zuleyha Keskin, Associate Professor, Charles Sturt University

With the world still in shock over the Taliban’s lightning-fast takeover of Afghanistan, Afghan people, especially women, wonder what kind of life awaits the nation. When pressed about preserving the rights of women, a Taliban spokesperson said the Taliban would not discriminate against women and would give them their rights “within the bounds of shariah”.

These seemingly moderate messages from the Taliban give the impression they might have changed. But their track record in the 1990s, their interpretation of Islam, and the events that transpired in the past two decades give us a good idea of how they are likely to implement shariah.

What is shariah and how did it come about?

Shariah literally means “the way to a watering source” in Arabic. It came to denote a unique legal system based on the sources of Islam.

When Prophet Muhammad established the first Muslim community in Medina in 622, there was a need to have a legal system better than the crude customs of the tribal Arabian Peninsula. The revelations of the Quran and the Prophet’s own reforms set out the legal principles and practices that laid the foundations of shariah.

The legal approach of the Prophet was progressive and moderate for its time. Prophet Muhammad’s wife Ai’sha said whenever he was confronted with a matter regarding people, he would always choose the easier option for people and he never took revenge. This is an important point for the Taliban to keep in mind.

When Islam grew rapidly from Spain to India by the end of the seventh century, the need for a common legal system became paramount. Instead of replicating the Roman and Persian legal systems, caliphs and Muslim scholars built a complex and detailed legal system on the foundation laid by the Quran and Prophet Muhammad.

Scholars identified higher objectives of the law. In the 14th century, influential Muslim jurist Abu Ishaq al-Shatibi identified the highest objective of law as:

to promote good and to benefit human beings and to protect them from evil, from harm and from subsequent suffering.

Muslim jurists deduced five basic human rights for Islamic law to guarantee – the right to life, property, freedom of religion, freedom of mind (including speech) and to raise a family. Caliphs and sultans could not violate these individual rights.

Legal pluralism was also practised in the Muslim world. Many schools of law were established, having developed over centuries, and implemented in much of the Muslim world. Five such schools survived – Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi’i, Hanbali and Jafari. The last is for Shiite Muslims, and the others for Sunnis.

Shariah became the most sophisticated and developed legal system in the world from the eighth to the 17th century. It served as the common legal code across the vast Muslim lands and populations characterised by racial, cultural, religious and geographic diversity.

Read more:
The Taliban wants the world’s trust. To achieve this, it will need to make some difficult choices

Why does shariah appear backwards today?

Why, then, does Islamic law appear to have a medieval flavour and appear backwards when it is implemented in modern times? There are five main reasons.

First, from the 11th century onwards, Muslim scholars declared the closure of the gate of ijtihad (legislation) and discouraged new legal interpretation. The 11th through to the 14th centuries was the era of the Crusades, Mongol invasion of Muslim heartlands and the plague. It was not the time to make new interpretations with so many crises taking place. Anyway, scholars reasoned, Islamic law was quite developed.

Second, European colonisation of the majority of the Muslim world from the 19th century onward collapsed the political, legal and religious institutions. Busy with independence movements and dealing with the onslaught of modernity on conservative society, Muslim leaders and scholars had no time to develop Islamic law.

Third, when Muslim nations gained their freedom, mostly after the second world war, they began nation-building. The political leadership were mainly secular modernists who wanted to westernise and modernise their nations. There was no place for Shariah in their vision. The new Republic of Turkey, for example, implemented direct translations of Swiss civil codes instead of Shariah.

Fourth, the historical role of Muslim scholarship has shifted. Newly established secular nation states nationalised rich endowments that belonged to religious institutions. Muslim scholars were persecuted for fear of dissent and opposition. Islamic scholarship was reduced to a small, underfunded university faculty. Talented Muslims chose professions other than Islamic law.

The result is a major loss in the quality of scholarship and a gap of at least 150 years with no practical development in Islamic law.

The last attempt to align Islamic law with a modern legislative framework was made by the Ottoman Empire in its Majalla civil code project. Completed in 1876, Majalla consisted of 16 volumes and 1,851 articles. Since then, the world has changed dramatically without an adequate theoretical and practical response from Islamic law.

A fifth factor is the influence of puritanical Salafism among jihadist groups such as Al-Qaeda, the Taliban and Islamic State. These groups often ignored the vast Shariah legal literature, scholarship and historical experience. They cherry-picked and implemented certain Quranic verses and prophetic traditions as Islamic law.

So, Islamic law appears relatively underdeveloped when compared to other legal systems. It simply did not have a chance to develop in the modern era.

Contemporary Muslim views on shariah

Muslims have differing views on the contemporary application of shariah law.

One view held by secular and modernist Muslims is that shariah was more suited to classical agrarian societies. Given the world and Muslim societies have changed dramatically, shariah is no longer applicable.

The opposite view is held by ultra-conservative Muslims and Islamists. They insist shariah is complete and perfect as it is, and modern societies should be changing to conform with shariah.

A third group, holding perhaps the majority view, believes Shariah is applicable at all times. The key is to know how to apply it correctly, given the changes in time and place.

The third view considers the complexity of the world and proposes committees made up of Islamic scholars alongside scientists and sociologists to fully examine Islamic law. Using the principles and methodology of Shariah, old legal rulings could be evaluated and, if there are grounds, modified. New issues not found in classical Islamic law would also be responded to.

Read more:
Owning up: Australia must admit its involvement in Afghanistan has been an abject failure

Taliban’s idea of shariah and Women

Almost certainly, the Taliban holds the second view – society has to change in line with the shariah. This means a move away from the liberalism Afghans grew accustomed to in the past two decades.

The next important question is whether the Taliban will follow the puritanical Salafism or a more traditional Islamic legal school?

In the 1990s, with its support of Al-Qaeda and use of harsh punishments, the Taliban appeared to follow puritanical Salafism. Their fall in 2001, Islamic State’s demise in 2019, and regression of Al-Qaeda after Osama bin Laden’s death would suggest they have learned a lesson or two.

Muslims of the subcontinent and central Asia traditionally follow the Hanafi legal school, which is one of the more liberal of the four Sunni Islamic legal schools. Even if this legal school is implemented, its most recent form is the 150-year-old Ottoman Majalla legal code. It will be curious to see if Taliban will consider Majalla at all.

An important consideration is the degree of change the world and Afghanistan have gone through since the first Taliban rule. The Taliban were isolated when they first came to power. But now all of their officers have smartphones connected to the internet and social media. Most importantly, they are using them effectively. Online access to the world would certainly have a moderating effect.

In the first Taliban rule, women had almost no rights. Women had to cover their body and face with the burqa, and they could not get education or work. They could only travel with a male chaperone.

The Taliban today claims to be more inclusive and tolerant of women. While wearing the burqa may not be imposed, women (and men) will be required to cover the rest of their bodies, much like in Iran.

Girls would be allowed to receive an education in girls-only schools staffed by female teachers and administrators. Women would be able to work in a narrow list of professions where there will be limited or no mixing of genders.

In short, life for women in Afghanistan will be better than during the first Taliban rule, but worse than the liberal rights they enjoyed in the past two decades.

Zuleyha Keskin is affiliated with ISRA Academy

Mehmet Ozalp is affiliated with ISRA Academy.

– ref. Explainer: what is shariah law and what version of it is the Taliban likely to implement? – https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-shariah-law-and-what-version-of-it-is-the-taliban-likely-to-implement-166490

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nicholas Wood, Associate Professor, Discipline of Childhood and Adolescent Health, University of Sydney

In July Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) provisionally approved the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine for kids aged 12-15.

The Australian Technical Advisory group on Immunisation (ATAGI) subsequently recommended kids in this age group with underlying chronic medical conditions, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and kids living in remote communities should be prioritised.

We’re expecting advice from ATAGI as to whether the rollout should be extended to all 12 to 15-year-olds, as countries like the United States and Canada have done.

But where does that leave children under 12? We know they’re making up a large proportion of new infections in Australia’s current outbreaks, which was not the case last year.

Do they need to be vaccinated? What are the benefits of vaccinating children, both for the child and the community? And how will we know the vaccines are safe and effective for young children?

COVID in kids

Throughout the pandemic, fortunately, we’ve seen children are very unlikely to get severely unwell or die from COVID-19.

Australian data from January 1 to August 1 this year show 2.5% of children aged up to nine and 2.9% children and teenagers aged 10-19 who contracted COVID were hospitalised. This is compared to 7.7% of young adults aged 20-29, with the rates continuing to increase with age.

Cases are on the rise among children in New South Wales, but to date this hasn’t been accompanied by a large increase in paediatric hospitalisations.

Recent data show increased rates of hospitalisation among children in the US with COVID-19 compared to last year, alongside rising infections with the Delta variant.

But even though the rate has gone up, it remains low. In children and adolescents aged 17 and under the rate is 0.38 per 100,000 people, well below the rate in adults aged 60 to 69 (5.63 per 100,000) and those over 70 (8.07 per 100,000).

However, some kids who have chronic medical conditions are at a higher risk of getting really sick from COVID, which is why ATAGI has listed them as a priority group.

Read more:
Should we vaccinate children against COVID-19? We asked 5 experts

One of the complications of COVID-19 is long COVID where a person experiences lasting symptoms such as breathlessness, anxiety and “brain fog” (reductions in attention and concentration).

Reassuringly, a recent study found only a small proportion of children had symptoms beyond four weeks after their initial COVID infection, and almost all children had recovered by eight weeks.

So what are the benefits of vaccinating kids?

While the Delta variant is more infectious than other strains of the coronavirus, and more kids are becoming infected, there’s not a scientific consensus at this stage that it’s causing more severe disease in children.

That said, a small minority will get sicker than others and need hospital care.

If vaccines are found to be safe and effective for younger children there would be benefit in protecting the individual child.

What about collective benefits? Will vaccinating young children reduce transmission in the community and improve our herd protection?

Recent modelling from the Doherty Institute doesn’t appear to consider whether vaccinating children under 12 would or wouldn’t contribute to reducing community transmission.

Other modelling has suggested vaccinating younger children and adolescents will be important if Australia is to reach the elusive “herd immunity”.

Trials are under way

Clinical trials of the mRNA vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna in children aged 12 and up have shown good results (though at this stage Moderna is only approved in Australia for adults).

Before we move to vaccinating children under 12 we’ll need safety and efficacy data from trials in this age group.

It’s important to conduct clinical trials specifically in children because their immune systems are different. For example, children may experience different side effects following vaccination, and may need a smaller dose.

Read more:
How to prepare your child for a COVID test

Trials of the COVID-19 mRNA vaccines in younger children are under way. The Moderna trial KidCOVE is currently recruiting in the US. So far close to 7,000 kids are enrolled.

Meanwhile, Pfizer is aiming to enrol 4,500 children under 12 across the US and other countries.

The studies are divided into children aged six to 11, aged two to five, and six months to less than two years old. They are aiming to assess safety and immune responses after two vaccinations with three different dose sizes.

For Pfizer, the three doses being trialled are 10 micrograms, 20 micrograms, and 30 micrograms (the latter is the dose given to older teens and adults).

A trial of AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine in children aged 6-17 commenced in March 2021 in the United Kingdom. However this trial was paused as a precautionary measure following reports of blood clots in adults who received this vaccine.

What now?

You may be wondering when children under 12 will be able to be vaccinated. The short answer is we don’t know for sure.

We need strong safety and efficacy data from the clinical trials before considering vaccinating young children. Currently, it’s anticipated the first data on children younger than 12 may be available for review later this year.

For now though, it’s reassuring to know children still appear less likely to end up in hospital with COVID compared to adults.

Read more:
Is it more infectious? Is it spreading in schools? This is what we know about the Delta variant and kids

Further, it seems many of the cases we’re seeing in children are due to transmission in the household, often from an infected adult to the child.

So the best way to protect younger kids for now is to ensure as many adults as possible are fully vaccinated.

High vaccine coverage in the community will also benefit children by reducing the need for lockdowns and school closures, which we know can have negative effects on their education, socialisation and mental health.

Nicholas Wood receives funding from the NHMRC for a Career Development Fellowship. He holds a Churchill Fellowship

– ref. Under-12s are increasingly catching COVID-19. How sick are they getting and when will we be able to vaccinate them? – https://theconversation.com/under-12s-are-increasingly-catching-covid-19-how-sick-are-they-getting-and-when-will-we-be-able-to-vaccinate-them-165948

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Martin, Research Scientist, Taronga Conservation Society Australia & Adjunct lecturer, University of Sydney

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

A whopping 191 different bat species live in the Pacific Islands across Micronesia, Melanesia, and Polynesia — but these are, collectively, the most imperilled in the world. In fact, five of the nine bat species that have gone extinct in the last 160 years have come from this region.

For too long, the conservation of Pacific Island bats has been largely overlooked in science. Of the 191 existing species, 25% are threatened with extinction, and we lack information to assess the status of a further 15%.

Just as these bats are rare and far-flung across the Pacific islands, so is the expertise and research needed to conserve them along with the vital ecosystem services they provide, such as pollination, seed dispersal, and insect control.

The first-ever Pacific Islands Bat Forum, held earlier this month, sought to change this, bringing together a new network of researchers, conservationists, and community members — 380 people from 40 countries and territories — dedicated to their survival.

So, why should we care about these bats anyway?

Conserving Pacific Island bats is paramount for preserving the region’s diverse human cultures and for safeguarding the healthy functioning of island ecosystems.

In many Pacific Island nations, bats have great cultural significance as totems, food, and traditional currency.

Bats are the largest land animals on many of the Pacific islands, and are vital “keystone species”, maintaining the structure of ecological communities.

Yet, Pacific Island bats are increasingly under threat, including from intensifying land use (farming, housing, roads) invasive species (rats, cats, snakes, ants), and human harvesting. They’re also vulnerable to climate change, which heightens sea levels and increases the intensity of cyclones and heatwaves.

So let’s meet four fascinating — but threatened — Pacific Island bats that deserve more attention.

1. Pacific sheath-tailed bat

Conservation status: endangered

Distribution: American Samoa, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, Palau, Samoa, Tonga

The Pacific sheath-tailed bat (Emballonura semicaudata) weighs just five-grams and has a weak, fluttering flight. Yet somehow, it has colonised some of the smaller and more isolated islands across the Pacific, from Samoa to Palau. That’s across 6,000 kilometres of ocean!

Over the past decade, this insect-eating, cave-roosting bat has disappeared from around 50% of islands where it has been recorded. The reasons for this are unclear. Disturbance of cave roosts, introduced species such as lantana and goats, and increasing use of pesticides, may all have played a part.

Unfortunately, the Pacific sheath-tailed bat is now presumed extinct in many former parts of its range, including American Samoa, Tonga, and several islands of the Northern Mariana Islands. This leaves Palau, the Federated States of Micronesia, and Fiji as remaining strongholds for the species, though data is limited.

2. Montane monkey-faced bat

Conservation status: critically endangered

Distribution: Solomon Islands

There are six species of monkey-faced bat — all are threatened, and all are limited to islands across the Solomon Islands, Bougainville, and Fiji.

The montane monkey-faced bat (Pteralopex pulchra) is one species, and weighs around 280 grams, eats fruit and nectar, and has incredibly robust teeth. But perhaps most startling is its ruby-red eyes and wing membranes that are marbled with white and black.

The montane monkey-faced bat has been recorded only once by scientists on a single mountain (Mt Makarakomburu) above the altitude of 1,250 metres, on Guadalcanal Island. This tiny range makes it vulnerable to rare, extreme events such as cyclones, which could wipe out a whole population in one swoop. And being limited to mountain-top cloud forests could place it at greater risk from climate change.

It’s an extreme example of both the endemism (species living in a small, defined area) and inadequacies of scientific knowledge that challenge Pacific island bat conservation.

3. Ornate flying-fox

Conservation status: vulnerable

Distribution: New Caledonia

Like many fruit bats across the Pacific, New Caledonia’s endemic ornate flying-fox (Pteropus ornatus) is an emblematic species. Flying-foxes are hunted for bush meat, used as part of cultural practices by the Kanaks (Melanesian first settlers), are totems for some clans, and feature as a side dish during the “New Yam celebration” each year. Their bones and hair are also used to make traditional money.

Because they’re so highly prized, flying-foxes can be subject to illegal trafficking. Despite the Northern and Southern Provinces of New Caledonia having regulated hunting, flying-fox populations continue to decline. Recent studies predict 80% of the population will be gone in the next 30 years if hunting continues at current levels.

On a positive note, earlier this year the Northern Province launched a conservation management program to protect flying-fox populations while incorporating cultural values and practices.

4. Fijian free-tailed bat

Conservation status: endangered

Distribution: Fiji, Vanuatu

In many ways, the Fijian free-tailed bat (Chaerephon bregullae) has become the face of proactive bat conservation in the Pacific Islands. This insect-eating bat requires caves to roost during the day and is threatened when these caves are disturbed by humans as it interrupts their daytime roosting. The loss of foraging habitat is another major threat.

The only known colony of reproducing females lives in Nakanacagi Cave in Fiji, with around 7,000 bats. In 2014, an international consortium with Fijian conservationists and community members came together to protect Nakanacagi Cave. As a result, it became recognised as a protected area in 2018.

But this species shares many characteristics with three of the nine bat species that have gone extinct globally. This includes being a habitat specialist, its unknown cause of decline, and its potential exposure to chemicals through insect foraging. It’s important we continue to pay close attention to its well-being.

Where do we go from here?

The perspectives of local knowledge from individual islands aren’t always captured in global scientific assessments of wildlife.

In many Pacific Islands, bats aren’t protected by national laws. Instead, in many countries, most land is under customary ownership, which means it’s owned by Indigenous peoples. This includes land in Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu. Consequently, community landowners have the power to enact their own conservation actions.

The emerging Pacific Bat Network, inspired by the recent forum, aims to foster collaborative relationships between scientific conservationists and local leaders for species protection, while respecting cultural practices.

As the Baru Conservation Alliance — a locally-led, not-for-profit group from Malaita, Solomon Islands — put it in their talk at the forum:

conservation is not a new thing for Kwaio.

Now the forum has ended, the diverse network of people passionate about bat conservation is primed to work together to strengthen the conservation of these unique and treasured bats of the Pacific.

John Martin receives funding from the Australian Research Council. PacBat consists of a core, but growing, group of conservationists, the authors of this article acknowledge the valuable contribution of each of you.

david.waldien@cnu.edu receives funding from private foundations including The Waterloo Foundation, The Christensen Fund, The Woodtiger Fund, and National Geographic. I am affiliated with the Harrison Institute, Lubee Bat Conservancy, and the IUCN Species Survival Commission – Bat Specialist Group. I have active collaborations with the PacBat network.

Justin Welbergen is President of the Australasian Bat Society, a not-for-profit organisation that aims to promote the conservation of bats. He receives funding from the Australian Research Council (DP170104272, LP200100331).

Nicola Hanrahan is an executive committee member of the Australasian Bat Society

Tigga Kingston receives funding from the US National Science Foundation, Award Number 2020595 “AccelNet: Global Union of Bat Diversity Networks (GBatNet): Bats as a model for understanding global vertebrate diversification and sustainability”. She is co-Chair of the IUCN SSC Bat Specialist Group, with responsibility for the Old World.

Tyrone Lavery receives funding from the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund

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

– ref. Pacific Island bats are utterly fascinating, yet under threat and overlooked. Meet 4 species – https://theconversation.com/pacific-island-bats-are-utterly-fascinating-yet-under-threat-and-overlooked-meet-4-species-165765

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By T.J. Thomson, Senior Lecturer in Visual Communication & Media, Queensland University of Technology

Almost everyone can agree communication is important. There is much less agreement about what, exactly, communication is or how best to develop skills in it.

Communication today is more multi-modal than ever, but we still tend to give and receive the most training in writing. Our national survey of introductory communications courses in 2020, just published in the journal Communication Research and Practice, found more than 70% of assignments in the sample evaluated only a single communication mode. Perhaps unsurprisingly, 85.7% of these were in written form.

Read more:
5 tips on writing better university assignments

Less than a third of the assessment pieces were multi-modal. And only 11% enabled students to practise their spoken, written and visual communication skills in an integrated way.

While writing is certainly a critical communication skill, it’s not the only one. We make and receive messages in spoken or visual form every day. We sometimes seem to believe just by using these modes we’ll naturally get better at them over time.

Sadly, anyone who’s sat through a typical PowerPoint presentation or unending Zoom meetings knows even senior professionals and heads of government often are unaware of or ignore best practices for crafting an effective message in written, spoken or visual form.

And with these three modes being increasingly bundled together, it’s time to stop studying them in isolation. We need to start learning how to thoughtfully integrate them.

Read more:
In a world of digital bystanders the challenge is for all of us to design engaging online education

A growing field but writing dominates

Universities are a prime training ground for students to learn what communication is. It’s here they should be able to hone communication skills in all its forms before entering the workforce. Despite this, universities have a long history of privileging the written word over other communication types.

English departments, for example, have existed for more than 250 years but not until 1974 did Australia’s first communication degree enter the scene. Interest in communication has grown since then – 86% of Australian universities now offer a degree in this field.

However, the ways communication is defined and taught vary widely across the country. In part, this reflects the diversity of where communication degrees are housed. They can be found everywhere from faculties of arts to education, social science, law, business and even health.

Our survey of first-year undergraduate courses found class sizes ranged from as few as 16 students to as many as 1,000 or more. The average was 343.

Such large classes make it hard to achieve consistency across the large teaching teams required to staff these units.

The COVID-19 pandemic has introduced new challenges and increased existing ones related to catering to students from potentially many time zones. In our survey, 20% of universities did not provide synchronous tutorials, where students and teaching staff meet in real time.

Asynchronous learning opportunities, where learners and teachers aren’t meeting in real time, can be convenient for students. However, they don’t allow them to hone the dynamics of real-time conversation and communication.

When assessment tasks are pre-recorded or pre-prepared, are we modelling real-world communication to our students?

Read more:
Digital learning is real-world learning. That’s why blended on-campus and online study is best

The challenges of holistic communications teaching

Another challenge relates to the background and skills of the teaching team. More than half the universities surveyed had only a single lecturer for the unit. Expecting one person to be able to adequately support the very different modes of written, spoken and visual communication is unrealistic.

A co-taught lecturing approach might better position these programs to define and teach communication more holistically. Our survey found the most popular way to support learning was through student group work. This team-based approach mirrors how much of the professional workforce operates and deserves a closer look.

Shrinking university budgets and reduced teaching teams mean much of the work of providing feedback in large units is relegated to group work and peer critique. This can be valuable but shouldn’t substitute for expert feedback.

Encouragingly, unit co-ordinators surveyed are keen to experiment with more innovative assessment types and to consider communication more holistically.

Read more:
What is the point of assessment in higher education anyway?

To achieve these goals, significant barriers need to be navigated. These include:

1) the length of the semester or degree program, as only so much can fit into a few months and Australia’s degrees are shorter than those in the United States

2) the disciplinary background of the teaching team

3) workload and marking considerations

4) university bureaucracy, as universities sometimes require a year or more to make changes to how classes are taught, which doesn’t encourage innovation and allow co-ordinators to be nimble.

In this age of lockdowns and remote working, being able to present a message in written, spoken and visual forms is more critical than ever. We need holistic training in all three modes so we can become more effective, empowered and responsible communicators.

T.J. Thomson receives funding from Australian Research Council through Discovery project DP210100859: Amplifying Voices from the Royal Commission into Aged Care and from the Australian Academy of the Humanities.

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

– ref. Communication is changing — and most universities haven’t kept up – https://theconversation.com/communication-is-changing-and-most-universities-havent-kept-up-165754

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alison Taylor, Senior Teaching Fellow, Bond University

Based on the autobiographical books of notorious stand-over man and self-made celebrity Mark Brandon “Chopper” Read, Andrew Dominik’s outlandish biopic Chopper detonated on Australian screens in 2000.

The film was an audacious combination of hard-hitting crime and oddball charm, perhaps reflecting Australian cinematic culture at the time.

In 1992, Romper Stomper’s ugly portrayal of neo-Nazi violence was so incendiary critic David Stratton famously refused to rate it. Later, the emotionally eviscerating The Boys (1998) forced Australians to recall the horrific murder of Anita Cobby.

Meanwhile, films like The Adventures of Priscilla Queen of the Desert (1994), Muriel’s Wedding (1994) and The Castle (1997) treated Aussie quirk as endearing. Chopper’s eccentric mood was one of reckless abandon, courting an uncomfortable laughter with its sheer audacity.

An unhinged performance

Opening with Read incarcerated in Melbourne’s Pentridge Prison in 1978, Dominik’s film charts Chopper’s select exploits over two decades. These include the senseless murder of a fellow inmate and his decision to mutilate his own ears as a ploy to be transferred to a new jail, away from prisoners bent on retaliation.

In 1986, out of jail, Read is a paranoid menace reigniting old hostilities with Melbourne’s criminal underworld, while moonlighting as an unreliable police informant.

Finally, in 1991, we see him back behind bars, lapping up the fleeting spoils of his celebrity status.

Chopper’s success is in no small part dependent on Eric Bana’s unhinged performance as the feckless thug. Bana balances hard man and funny man, this harsh exterior occasionally betrayed by moments of insecurity.

Everything about Bana’s performance is captivating. His high nasal inflection of voice is utterly incongruous with the tough guy facade. He can radically shift the tone of a scene with a flash of his eyes.

With this performance, Chopper catapulted Bana’s career from TV sketch comic to an international acclaimed actor.

A bizarre national curiosity

The film is quick to acknowledge its undoubtedly embellished source material. A title card declares “narrative liberties have been taken.” As Read quips:

You know me! Never let the truth get in the way of a good yarn!

Such nods permit mischievous flourishes of style. We see the murder of “Sammy the Turk” from several, sometimes contradictory, perspectives. The most ostentatious of these has characters take turns describing their role in the incident straight to camera in rhyming verse.

Chopper also taps into Australia’s long-standing fascination with anti-authoritarian figures. Our first feature film was The Story of the Kelly Gang (1906), controversial even on its release for presenting a bushranger as sympathetic figure.

Read more:
True History of the Kelly Gang review: an unheroic portrait of a violent, unhinged, colonial punk

Chopper does not so much glorify Read as present him as a bizarre national curiosity. His iconic handlebar moustache and innumerable tattoos draw attention away from his earless profile.

The film’s humour simultaneously heightens and undermines the cruelty it depicts. Viewers are repeatedly stranded in the farcical chasm between the severity of Read’s actions and his disproportionate response.

But Dominik’s film undoubtedly spurred Read’s notoriety on-and-off-screen. In 2018, the miniseries Underbelly Files: Chopper saw the role reprised by Aaron Jeffery to mixed reviews.

In the wake of Chopper, Read continued to court controversy until his death from liver cancer in 2013. From a comedic speaking tour to his foray into children’s literature, Read was a perennial iconoclast.

Absurdity meets reality

On its cinematic re-release two decades on, Chopper retains its shock-factor. The film is aggressively self-aware in its provocations, goading its audience with a conspiratorial wink.

At every turn, Chopper shows up the gulf between deadpan absurdity and brutal reality, daring you to laugh at things you know you shouldn’t.

This dynamic is revealed early when Read stabs a fellow inmate in a graphically depicted unprovoked attack. While his victim bleeds , Read calmly informs responding guards “Keithy seems to have done himself a mischief” — a wry one-liner that has since entered the Australian vernacular.

Read is at his most ludicrous during interactions with underworld figure Neville Bartos (Vince Colosimo). When detectives ask Read about a bungled stick-up that ended with a frenzied trip to the hospital, the crim’s denials highlight his own cockeyed logic:

Why would I shoot a bloke – BANG – and then put him in the bloody car and whizz him off to the hospital at a hundred miles an hour? It defeats the purpose of having shot him in the first place.

Likewise, Read’s boasting to a news reporter that he is a bestselling author despite being “semi-bloody-illiterate” retains its humour.

Yet, while some of the film’s absurdities will still turn an uneasy grin, at other times its wilful envelope-pushing is tougher to stomach.

Confronting girlfriend Tanya (Kate Beahan) at her mother’s home over alleged infidelity, Read savagely beats her before headbutting the older woman. This brutality is offset with another preposterous remark (“Have a look what you’ve gone and done. Your mum’s upset!”) soliciting the audience for more uncomfortable amusement.

Given the shift in the public conversation about domestic abuse over the last decade, viewers may have a different response than they did 20 years ago.

Will today’s audiences still embrace Chopper? I suspect most will, even if some of its excesses are freshly abrasive. Others will still be put off by its graphic violence and caustic humour.

Chopper won’t please everyone. But, as our titular character opines, “even Beethoven had his critics”.

Chopper is in select cinemas from August 26.

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

– ref. Chopper is a knowing wink at the audience. Will audiences 20 years later still wink back? – https://theconversation.com/chopper-is-a-knowing-wink-at-the-audience-will-audiences-20-years-later-still-wink-back-165748

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

With the government’s announcement last week that 12–to-15-year-olds can now receive the Pfizer vaccine for COVID-19, New Zealand has joined a growing list of countries expanding their vaccination rollouts.

A Ministry of Health survey in June found 58% of caregivers were likely to allow their 12–to-15-year-old children to be vaccinated, up from 55% in May.

The survey also found the number of parents who had decided not to vaccinate their children had increased slightly. Parents’ key concerns were the vaccine’s safety in children and its long-term effects.

So, while the Pfizer vaccine has been given provisional approval by Medsafe, the rollout still raises the important issue of what New Zealand law says about children’s consent to medical treatment.

Who can give consent?

The Care of Children Act provides that a child over the age of 16 can give or refuse consent to medical treatment.

However, this does not mean all children under the age of 16 cannot consent to medical treatment. Key to this is how competent a child is to make such a decision.

Read more:
Should we vaccinate children against COVID-19? We asked 5 experts

There is no defined age at which any person may be regarded as competent, but the Code of Health and Disability Services Consumers’ Rights (which originates from the Health and Disability Commissioner Act) provides some guidance.

This states that everyone – adult or child – is presumed to be competent to make such decisions unless there are reasonable grounds for thinking otherwise.

Are children competent to consent?

When it comes to the Care of Children Act, the view of the New Zealand courts follows a British case in which the House of Lords decided a child under 16 was legally competent to consent to medical examination and treatment — if they had sufficient maturity and intelligence to understand the nature and implications of that treatment.

Similarly, under the New Zealand code, if a health professional is satisfied the young person fully understands what is involved with the treatment, then the young person can consent.

Read more:
High priority: why we must vaccinate children aged 12 and over now

When it comes to consenting to vaccination, a health professional must be satisfied the child understands why it is necessary and the reasons for it. They must also be satisfied the child understands the risks, benefits and outcomes involved.

Equally, everyone can refuse medical treatment under the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, including children.

However, the courts have also decided this applies only to those who are competent and who fully understand what is involved in making the decision.

The courts only tend to override the views of the child in serious, usually life-threatening, situations.

Respecting the rights of children

More broadly, vaccination or immunisation is part of the general human right to the highest attainable standard of health, which includes the right to be free from non-consensual medical treatment. This right must be balanced with the state’s obligation to prevent and control disease.

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child contains important provisions concerning consent to medical treatment, including:

• the child’s best interests should be a primary consideration in all decisions, and in the resolution of conflicts between parents and health workers

• the child’s right to freely express their views is protected, and the child’s views are also central in determining what is in their best interests (two principles reflected in the Care of Children Act)

• every child has the right to life, countries must do all they can to ensure the survival and development of the child, and this should be part of any assessment of what is in the child’s best interests.

These provisions also occupy a special status within the convention as guiding principles. Adhering to these principles can also help prevent violations of other rights, such as the child’s right to health.

Striking a balance

The convention also seeks to balance parental rights and responsibilities in guiding children with their own developing ability to make important decisions about their health and well-being.

It is essential, therefore, that children, parents and health workers have adequate guidance on who can give consent and what rights everyone has.

Read more:
Long COVID in children: what parents and teachers need to know

Concerns about vaccination safety are natural, and access to reliable information about the vaccine is important for children and their parents. It’s particularly important to be transparent about possible side effects — of the vaccine, but also of COVID-19 itself.

Respecting the overall right of children to participate in making decisions that affect them is the best way to navigate these complex situations.

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

– ref. What rights do NZ children and their parents have when giving consent to be vaccinated? – https://theconversation.com/what-rights-do-nz-children-and-their-parents-have-when-giving-consent-to-be-vaccinated-166495

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

Scott Morrison has taken to likening Australia’s coming out of COVID to the Croods, a family in a children’s film, emerging from a cave. That’s when he is not urging us to focus on the light at the end of the tunnel.

Anthony Albanese’s riposte is that Scott is “not the light at the end [of the tunnel], he’s the gaslight on the hill”.

The country is probably unlucky it’s grappling with the pandemic’s third wave as a federal election looms early next year. That puts a thick patina of politics on this national crisis.

Trite comparisons, slogans, personal jibes abound, and political considerations inevitably feed into the government’s desperation to lift the pall COVID’s lockdowns and border closures are imposing on the economy and our lives.

Morrison sees the Doherty Institute modelling – with its 70% and 80% vaccination gateways – as the nation’s and his government’s way out. But, leaving aside any criticism of the modelling, there are two big problems for the PM on the road ahead.

The most talked about is the recalcitrant states. Despite his four-stage plan, Morrison can’t guarantee when the whole country might be open because that will be decided by the states.

The premiers of Western Australia and Queensland will open their borders or keep them closed according to their calculations of their states’ interests.

There’ll be some short term politics in their decisions, but that should be limited because both have recently had elections, which they won well. They don’t have to give nearly as much thought to their own political fortunes as Morrison does to his. Some observers think these Labor premiers will have an eye to what might help Anthony Albanese, but this is likely to be minor, given the stakes.

The situation of states that are basically COVID free was summed up on Monday by Perth radio interviewer Oliver Peterson when he spoke to Morrison. “Can you see the conundrum here, … [at] 70 %, WA has to go backwards in putting restrictions like the two square metre rule, caps on venues and stadiums? Right now we’re living in a restriction-free life”.

Precisely. If, as things go forward to the required vaccination rates, Mark McGowan were to open his border as early as Morrison would like, he would be accepting that COVID would break out in his state. That would bring health and economic uncertainties he would have to manage.

That isn’t to argue WA should delay, or to maintain COVID zero can be maintained in a state forever. Rather, it’s to say that one can understand McGowan’s caution, when facing a decision that could involve a trade off between the interests of his population and wider Australian interests.

Recalcitrant states, however, might be the lesser of the problems facing Morrison in coming months. We know all about Doherty’s existing modelling on vaccine targets. Attention must now move to the next stage of modelling.

The institute said in its Monday’s statement: “The team of modellers from across Australia led by the Doherty Institute is now working through the implementation issues specific to the states and territories, specific populations and high risk settings.”

When we reach the vaccination targets, we are looking at what we might dub “pinch points”, and if they are not properly prepared for, the situation could be ugly.

We know when things are opened (even with some restrictions maintained and safeguards imposed) cases will increase and spread, and fast. While hospitalisations and deaths will be contained by most people having been vaccinated, there will still be severe pressure on the health system in particular.

The Australian Medical Association on Tuesday drew attention to this threat, issuing an ABC interview by its vice president Chris Moy.

Moy said: “Focusing on the Doherty numbers – great – but you’ve got to look at what’s really going to be the reality, which is the health system is going to have to bear this burden.

“Remember, next year we’re still going to be vaccinating, potentially with booster shots as well. So it’s a real perfect storm: while having to cope with what we look after now, plus COVID, plus delayed [health] care, plus having to vaccinate next year. It’s going to be a big year in health and not a smaller year,” Moy said.

“We’re a fairly long way from being able to be ready for a very large influx of infectious patients who have to be cared for, for a long period of time, and that planning needs to happen now.”

Morrison wants the country open and the economy humming by election time, with COVID off the front pages. He and Health Minister Greg Hunt are confident the hospital situation will be in hand. But, ahead of its start, they were confident about the vaccine program too.

If the “pinch point” of escalating cases – and don’t believe Morrison’s hope there wouldn’t be attention on case numbers anymore – and overloaded hospitals coincided with the approaching election, that could be a political as well as an actual nightmare.

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

– ref. View from The Hill: Achieving vaccine targets could be followed by a (pre-election) health ‘pinch point’ – https://theconversation.com/view-from-the-hill-achieving-vaccine-targets-could-be-followed-by-a-pre-election-health-pinch-point-166678

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

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

In this episode, politics + society editor Amanda Dunn and Michelle discuss the frictions as vaccination rates rise and the debate turns to lifting lockdowns and border restrictions. They also canvass the Morrison government’s modest promise on Afghan refugees, and crossbencher Craig Kelly’s announcement he’ll lead Clive Palmer’s United Australia Party at the election.

Additional audio

Gaena, Blue Dot Sessions, from Free Music Archive.

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

– ref. Podcast with Michelle Grattan: The battle to exit COVID – https://theconversation.com/podcast-with-michelle-grattan-the-battle-to-exit-covid-166679

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Wendy Steele, Associate Professor, Centre for Urban Research, RMIT University

Across the world, people worried about the impacts of climate change are seeking creative and meaningful ways to transform their urban environments. One such approach is known as “quiet activism”.

“Quiet activism” refers to the extraordinary measures taken by ordinary people as part of their everyday lives, to address the climate emergency at the local level.

In the absence of national leadership, local communities are forging new responses to the climate crisis in places where they live, work and play.

As we outline in a book released this month, these responses work best when they are collaborative, ongoing and tailored to local circumstances.

Here are three examples that show how it can be done.

Read more:
Disaster season is here — do you have a Resilience Action Plan? Here’s how the small town of Tarnagulla built theirs

Climate for Change: a Tupperware party but make it climate

Climate for Change is a democratic project in citizen-led climate education and participation.

This group has engaged thousands of Australians about the need for climate action — not through public lectures or rallies, but via kitchen table-style local gatherings with family and friends.

As they put it:

We’ve taken the party-plan model made famous by Tupperware and adapted it to allow meaningful discussions about climate change to happen at scale.

Their website quotes “Jarrod”, who hosted one such party, saying:

I’ve been truly surprised by the lasting impact of my conversation amongst friends who were previously silent on the issue – we are still talking about it nine months on.

Climate for Change has published a “climate conversation guide” to help people tackle tricky talks with friends and family about climate change.

It has also produced a resource on how to engage your local MP on climate change.

EnviroHouse: hands-on community education

EnviroHouse is a not-for-profit organisation based in Western Australia committed to local-scale climate action through hands-on community education and engagement projects, such as:

• facilitating workshops on energy efficiency

• visiting schools on request to provide sustainability services

• collecting seeds to grow thousands of she-oaks, paperbarks and rushes along the eroded Maylands foreshore in Perth

• teaching workshops on composting, worm farming and bokashi techniques to community members

• giving talks on sustainable living

• running a home and workplace energy and water auditing program.

Climarte: arts for a safe climate

Climarte is a group that

collaborates with a wide range of artists, art professionals, and scientists to produce compelling programs for change. Through festivals, events and interventions, we invite those who live, work and play in the arts to join us.

This group aims to create a space which brings together artists and the public to work, think and talk through the implications of climate change.

Why quiet?

Quiet activism raises questions around what it means to be an activist, or to “do activism”.

While loud, attention-grabbing and disruptive protests are important, local-scale activities are also challenging the “business as usual” model. These quiet approaches highlight how ordinary citizens can take action every day to generate transformative change.

There is a tendency within climate activism to dismiss “quiet” activities as merely a precursor to bigger, more effective (that is, “louder”) political action.

Everyday local-scale activities are sometimes seen as disempowering or conservative; they’re sometimes cast as privileging individual roles and responsibility over collective action.

However, a growing range of voices draws attention to the transformative potential of small, purposeful everyday action.

UK-based researcher Laura Pottinger emphasises that these everyday practices are acts of care and kindness to community — both human and non-human.

Her interest is a “dirt under the fingernails” kind of activism, which gains strength from a quiet commitment to practical action.

Climate action, here and how

The climate crisis has arrived and urgent action is required.

By creatively participating in local climate action, we can collectively reimagine our experience of, and responses to, the climate emergency.

In doing so, we lay the foundation for new possibilities.

Quiet activism is not a panacea. Like any other form of activism, it can be ineffective or, worse, damaging. Without an ethical framework, it risks enabling only short-lived action, or leading to only small pockets of localised activity.

But when done ethically and sustainably — with long-term impact in mind — quiet activism can make a profound difference to lives and communities.

Read more:
From veggie gardening to op-shopping, migrants are the quiet environmentalists

Wendy Steele receives funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC)

Diana MacCallum receives funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC).

Donna Houston receives funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC).

Jason Byrne undertakes research in partnership with the Southern Tasmanian Councils Authority, Local Government Association of Tasmania and Tasmanian Climate Change Office. Jason has previously received research funding from the Australian Research Council. He is a member of the Planning Institute of Australia, and sits on the Tasmanian Divisional Committee.

Jean Hillier has received funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC) for the project ‘Enabling Social Innovation for Local Climate Adaptability’ (DP150100299) undertaken with the co-authors of this article.

– ref. Ordinary people, extraordinary change: addressing the climate emergency through ‘quiet activism’ – https://theconversation.com/ordinary-people-extraordinary-change-addressing-the-climate-emergency-through-quiet-activism-160548

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

Have you heard about the latest wage figures? I hope not. They’re meaningless.

What the widely quoted measure of average weekly earnings purports to show is that wages grew a mere 0.1% over the year to May. It’s not true. It’s not what happened. For most of us, wages grew by much more.

That’s not to say wage growth has been high — the best estimate is that private sector wages have climbed 1.9% over the past year and public sector wages a record low 1.3% — but both are still well above nothing, and generally well above our near-record low rates of consumer price inflation.

A check-in with reality would tell you that mid last year the Fair Work Commission lifted award wages 1.75%. Mid this year it lifted them 2.5%.

So how could it be that the official figures, published by a trusted organisation, the Australian Bureau of Statistics, show average earnings static, climbing just 0.1%?

The first thing to say is that the bureau is probably embarrassed by the figures.

They are “not designed to produce movement in earnings data” it says on its website, before acknowledging that’s exactly what they are used for.

‘Not designed’ to measure wage growth

Australia’s pensions are adjusted twice a year in accordance with a formula that includes average weekly earnings.

The figure is built into private contracts and contracts for student loans and child support. If it wasn’t published, a lot of contracts wouldn’t work.

To create it, the bureau surveys about 5,130 employers every six months, asks what they are paying their workers, and uses the answers to calculate an average female wage, an average male wage, an average part-time wage, an average full-time wage, and a lot of other averages besides.

The ‘average wage’ isn’t typical

One problem is that averages are not representative. The survey suggests the average full-time wage is A$90,330, whereas in reality six in ten earn less.

The mid-way (median) full-time worker earns $10,000 less. The average is boosted by a few enormously high earners and can’t be taken seriously.

An entirely separate problem arises when you try to use averages to calculate growth. The average is only an average of what’s averaged, and that can change.

When low-wage workers lose jobs…

Here’s an example. What would happen if a recession caused everyone working only four hours per week to lose two hours? It would push their earnings down and push down average weekly earnings, which would be about right.

But what if each of those people lost a further two hours, taking their hours down to zero. Their low hours would no longer be included in the total to be averaged, and (without them in it) average earnings would climb.

…the average wage goes up

That’s what happened a bit over a year ago. The bureau says COVID restrictions “led to a large decrease in the number of jobs, people employed and hours worked, with lower-paid jobs and industries particularly impacted, including jobs in accommodation and food services, arts and recreation services”.

The loss of those lower-paid and low hours jobs in catering, the arts and other industries “had the effect of increasing the value of average weekly earnings”.

Layoffs pushed the average wage up.

Fortunately, the bureau says by November many of the low-wage workers laid off got some hours back, depressing growth in the average wage (but not growth in any actual wages) resulting in recorded growth of just 0.1% in the year to May.

Many have probably since lost hours with this year’s renewed lockdowns, pushing average wages (but not actual wages) higher again.

It’s enough to make you think the legislation and contracts should switch from a measure that’s close to worthless to one that actually measures wage growth.

The bureau offers such a measure. It’s called the wage price index, and the bureau has been trying to encourage people to switch to it since 1998.

À lire aussi :
Other Australians don’t earn what you think. $59,538, is typical

It is also built around a survey of employers, but rather than asking how much they pay each worker, it asks how much they pay for each job title and classification. The bureau calculates growth by comparing like with like, regardless of how many people were employed in each classification at the time.

Wage Price Index

The results are believable: private sector like-for-like wages climbed 1.9% over the past year, and public sector wages 1.3%.

But even they are not right when it comes to the wage growth of individuals.

Individuals get promoted, and (much less often) demoted. They change jobs, usually for better ones.

People aren’t positions

So if you were trying to use the recent like-for-like wage growth of around 2% per year as a guide to what will happen to your own wage (in order, for instance, to work out whether you could afford a mortgage) you would probably guess too low.

It’s why many Australians — those who’ve got not only regular pay rises but also promotions — wonder what the fuss about low wage growth is about.

À lire aussi :
Top economists say cutting immigration is no way to boost wages

A good measure of the actual wage growth of Australians doesn’t yet exist, although it might soon. The bureau is working on tracking individuals through the use of payroll data reported to the tax office.

In the meantime the (HILDA) Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia survey that tracks 17,000 Australians over time finds that the actual wage growth of full-time workers is indeed higher than the like-for-like figure suggests (which might help explain soaring home prices) although it too is weakening.

Part time workers don’t seem to get the same benefit.

As Mark Wooden, director of the HILDA survey puts it, “Australians in full-time work are doing pretty well – provided they remain in employment”.

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

– ref. The official figures say wages aren’t growing —
here’s why they’re wrong – https://theconversation.com/the-official-figures-say-wages-arent-growing-heres-why-theyre-wrong-166566

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brendan Zietsch, Associate Professor, The University of Queensland

Same-sex sexual behaviour may seem to present a Darwinian paradox. It provides no obvious reproductive or survival benefit, and yet same-sex sexual behaviour is fairly common — around 2-10% of individuals in diverse human societies — and is clearly influenced by genes.

These observations raise the question: why have genes associated with same-sex sexual behaviour been maintained over evolutionary time? Given that evolution depends on genes being passed down through the generations via reproduction, how and why were these genes passed down too?

In a new paper published in Nature Human Behaviour, my colleagues and I tested one possible explanation: that the genes associated with same-sex sexual behaviour have evolutionarily advantageous effects in people who don’t engage in same-sex sexual behaviour.

Specifically, we tested whether those genes are also associated with having more opposite-sex partners, which might therefore confer an evolutionary advantage.

To investigate this, we used genetic data from more than 350,000 people who had participated in the UK Biobank, a huge database of genetic and health information.

These participants reported whether they had ever had a same-sex partner, and also how many opposite-sex partners they had had in their lifetime.

We analysed the association of millions of individual genetic variants with each of these self-reported variables. For both variables, there were not only one or a few associated genetic variants, but very many, spread throughout the genome. Each had only a tiny effect, but in aggregate, their effects were substantial.

We then showed that the aggregate genetic effects associated with ever having had a same sex partner were also associated — among people who had never had a same-sex partner — with having had more opposite-sex partners.

This result supported our main hypothesis.

Further exploration

We then tried replicating and extending our findings.

First, we successfully replicated the main finding in an independent sample.

Second, we tested whether our results still held true if we used different definitions of same-sex sexual behaviour.

For example, did it still hold true if we tightened the definition of same-sex sexual behaviour to cover only those individuals with predominantly or exclusively same-sex partners (rather than including anyone who has ever had one)?

Our results remained largely consistent, although statistical confidence was lower due to the smaller sub-samples used.

Read more:
‘Gay gene’ search reveals not one but many – and no way to predict sexuality

Third, we tested whether physical attractiveness, risk-taking propensity, and openness to experience might help to account for the main result.

In other words, could genes associated with these variables be associated with both same-sex sexual behaviour and with opposite-sex partners in heterosexuals?

In each case, we found evidence supporting a significant role for these variables, but most of the main result remained unexplained.

So we still don’t have a solid theory on exactly how these genes confer an evolutionary advantage. But it might be a complex mix of factors that generally make someone “more attractive” in broad terms.

Simulating evolution

To investigate how the hypothesised evolutionary process might unfold, we also constructed a digital simulation of a population of reproducing individuals over many generations. These simulated individuals had small “genomes” that affected their predispositions for having same-sex partners and opposite-sex reproductive partners.

These simulations showed that, in principle, the kind of effect suggested by our main result can indeed maintain same-sex sexual behaviour in the population, even when the trait itself is evolutionarily disadvantageous.

Crucially, our simulations also showed that if there were no countervailing benefit to genes associated with same-sex sexual behaviour, the behaviour would likely disappear from the population.

These findings give us intriguing clues about the evolutionary maintenance of same-sex sexual behaviour, but there are important caveats too.

An important limitation is that our results are based on modern, Western samples of white participants – we cannot know to what extent our findings apply to other ethnicities or cultures in different places and times. Future studies using more diverse samples may help clarify this.

Read more:
African scientists recognise that diverse sexuality is the norm

On a final note, I am aware some people believe it is inappropriate to study sensitive topics such as the genetics and evolution of same-sex sexual behaviour. My perspective is that the science of human behaviour aims to shine a light on the mysteries of human nature and that this involves understanding the factors that shape our commonalities and our differences.

Were we to avoid studying sexual preference or other such topics due to political sensitivities, we would be leaving these important aspects of normal human diversity in the dark.

Brendan Zietsch received funding from the Australian Research Council.

– ref. Why has same-sex sexual behaviour persisted during evolution? – https://theconversation.com/why-has-same-sex-sexual-behaviour-persisted-during-evolution-166571

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Deb Massey, Associate Professor, Chair of Nursing, Faculty of Health, Southern Cross University

Rising COVID cases in several Australian states means demand for intensive care unit (ICU) beds and specialist critical nurses will rise.

This increase in demand is on top of the typical workload ICUs might see.

And because of the nature of COVID itself and other factors, this puts pressure on the entire hospital system.

Read more:
How are the most serious COVID-19 cases treated, and does the coronavirus cause lasting damage?

What happens in ICU?

The ICU is where we care for the most critically unwell patients, where treatments are designed to support breathing and circulatory problems affecting the heart, blood, or blood vessels.

The most unstable and sickest ICU patients require airway support in the form ventilation to help them breathe. They also need circulatory support in the form of drugs to improve blood pressure and heart function.

Patients come to ICU as a planned admission (for example, after a complex operation), or as an emergency admission (for example, after a serious car accident).

Read more:
ICU ventilators: what they are, how they work and why it’s hard to make more

Patients stay for, on average, three days in ICU before recovering enough to be moved to a ward, or sadly, dying.

Because patients in ICU are unstable and critically unwell, there is usually one nurse to care for each patient. This is a highly skilled job. Most ICU nurses have extra postgraduate qualifications.

COVID changed the type of patients we see

Patients who are critically ill with COVID are often sicker than other ICU patients and may require more support for their breathing and circulation. Often, they need to stay in ICU longer than other patients.

This creates challenges for hospital systems, because beds in ICU become blocked, and planned operations may be cancelled because of the lack of ICU beds.

Once patients with COVID no longer need ventilation or circulatory support, they are transferred to the ward for additional care. They may have experienced painful procedures and have a degree of physical impairment.

They may also have witnessed a number of stressful events in the ICU, such as emergency resuscitation procedures and deaths, which may increase the risk of post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, and depression.

Although we don’t have definitive long-term data, patients who have been critically ill from COVID often have a long and difficult journey of recovery and will likely remain dependant on health care services for some time.

Read more:
Younger adults can get very sick and die from COVID too. Here’s what the data tell us

COVID changed how we nurse

ICU staff looking after COVID patients have the additional demands of working in full personal protection equipment (PPE), which can be hot and uncomfortable and very challenging to work in.

The need to use PPE correctly, and the constant concern about becoming infected or dying if there’s an infection breach, adds to nurses ongoing stress.

The International Council of Nurses’ latest analysis shows the number of nurses who have died after contracting COVID-19 globally is greater than 2,200 – more than any other health-care worker. This data are from earlier this year, so we expect those figures to have risen since then.

Read more:
Here’s the proof we need. Many more health workers than we ever thought are catching COVID-19 on the job

COVID challenges Australia

In Australia, there has been more time to respond to the challenges of COVID. In many states, the numbers of ventilators increased, models of care were developed for COVID-positive patients, and snap lockdowns ensured scarce ICU resources were not overwhelmed.

However, the increasing number of positive cases in New South Wales in particular, coupled with the highly infectious Delta variant, means ICUs risk reaching capacity.

At the time of writing, 109 patients were in Australian ICUs and 37 of these patients required ventilation.

Australia has 191 ICUs with 2,378 beds and the capacity to increase this by by up to 4,258 beds.
But there may not be enough specialised nurses or equipment match this bed increase.

Surge capacity also varies between ICU categories and jurisdictions, with tertiary hospitals reporting more capacity. So deteriorating patients may need to be air-lifted to major metropolitan or regional centres.

Read more:
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What can happen in the future?

Fortunately, public health measures have meant Australia has been spared the horrors of countries that were unable to successfully increase their ICU resources to meet demands, for example, Spain, Italy and the United Kingdom.

Yet, hospitals are still feeling the impact of a rise in critically unwell COVID patients in many ways, and will do so in the future.

Undergraduate student nursing placements, for example, have been delayed and many universities have moved their education online. So student nurses may struggle to achieve the clinical hours required to graduate. This may mean a shortfall of clinically competent and educated ICU nurses in the future.

The best we can do

So the next time you hear the latest number of COVID patients in ICU, think of what’s behind those numbers and what this means for the whole hospital system and its staff.

Protect them, yourself and others by sticking to the public health advice, including getting tested with the mildest of symptoms. Most importantly, get vaccinated. People fully vaccinated against COVID rarely end up in ICU.

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

– ref. We’re seeing more COVID patients in ICU as case numbers rise. That affects the whole hospital – https://theconversation.com/were-seeing-more-covid-patients-in-icu-as-case-numbers-rise-that-affects-the-whole-hospital-165966

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Caitlin Vincent, Lecturer in Creative Industries, The University of Melbourne

Many of the world’s most popular operas are rife with misogyny and gendered violence — and things aren’t much better for women behind the scenes.

Opera production has long been dominated by male directors and designers, with the role of costume designer one of few exceptions.

Yet there has been little empirical data that tracks the precise degree to which women are under-represented in opera. Most data is either anecdotal or, more often, compiled by arts journalists in response to male-heavy season announcements.

In our new study, we addressed this knowledge gap by investigating women’s representation at one of the world’s leading opera companies.

The Royal Opera in Covent Garden is the largest and best funded opera company in the UK and a recognised leader in the international field.

The company has also publicly committed to addressing gender inequality.

In 2019, The Royal Opera joined the Keychange 50/50 initiative, pledging that women would make up 50% of all creatives on new opera productions by 2022.

In order to assess the status of women working at the company — and the likely impact of this pledge — we turned to historical production data. We analysed the production credits of 325 operas staged between 2005/06 and 2019/20. Drawing on the self-identified pronouns used in professional biographies, we then mapped the gender profile of 1,342 credited directors and designers.

The man at the top

The role of stage director was critical to our study because directors assume a leadership position over the artistic vision of a staged work. They are also responsible for selecting the other members of the creative team.

Over the 15 seasons included in our study, 90% of all opera productions at The Royal Opera credited a male director.

Men were significantly more likely to be credited on more than one production, while women were more likely to be “one-offs”. 44% of men directed at least two different operas, compared to 14% of women directors.

Because the majority of women directors only had one opportunity to direct at the company, we also considered the repertoire — or the specific opera — they were chosen to direct.

Repertoire matters

Opera companies tend to stage a combination of works, including canonical operas, less common or non-canonical works, and modern operas written in the 20th and 21st centuries, including world premieres.

Canonical operas are essentially the “greatest hits” of the operatic stage, written by the likes of Mozart and Puccini. They are reliably popular at the box office and frequently revived later.

Modern operas, in contrast, are high risk in terms of audience appeal and are rarely revived in later seasons.

Non-canonical operas sit somewhere in between: not as well-known as the greatest hits, but still far less risky than modern operas from an organisational perspective.

Women directors were more likely to be credited on modern operas than men. Almost half of the operas directed by women fell into this category. Meanwhile, 92% of the canonical operas staged over the 15 seasons were directed by men.

As a consequence, 92% of all revival productions presented by the company were also directed by men. 61% of men directors saw one or more of their original productions revived in a later season, compared to 27% of women directors.

Building a creative team

We also analysed the relationship between the gender profile of the director and that of the other key creatives.

Under the artistic leadership of the stage director, the set designer, lighting designer, costume designer, and projection/video designer play critical roles in creating the world of an opera on stage.

Our analysis showed that male directors were significantly more likely to work with other men in these important creative roles. 36% percent of operas directed by men did not credit a single woman designer. 38% credited only one woman in any designer role. More than half the time, this role was costume designer.

In other words: out of all the operas directed by men at The Royal Opera, nearly 75% had low rates of representation for women on creative teams.

In comparison, 81% of female-led productions credited women in two or more key creative roles.

Change must start with the director’s chair

Women’s low rates of representation at the company has significant consequences for their prestige and visibility.

Because men worked more frequently and were more likely to direct high-profile operas, in turn, more likely to be revived, they could accrue professional capital at a much higher rate than their female peers.

Men’s over-representation in the role of stage director — combined with their tendency to work primarily with other men — had a further negative effect on women’s representation on creative teams.

Read more:
Opera is stuck in a racist, sexist past, while many in the audience have moved on

These findings have clear implications for efforts to address gender inequality in opera, and highlight where The Royal Opera’s 50/50 pledge falls short.

Opera companies must place the role of stage director at the centre of any gender-equity initiatives.

Any approach must also consider the compounding effects of repertoire and production type. Women directors must be actively prioritised for popular canonical operas, which are most likely to be revived and incorporated into long-term artistic programming plans.

Above all, in a sector that benefits heavily from public funding, opera companies must be held accountable for the ways in which they perpetuate gender discrimination and disadvantage through their institutional choices.

Caitlin Vincent is a member of OPERA America’s Women’s Opera Network and Victorian Opera’s Peer Review Panel.

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

– ref. New study revealing stark gender inequality at UK’s The Royal Opera has lessons for the industry worldwide – https://theconversation.com/new-study-revealing-stark-gender-inequality-at-uks-the-royal-opera-has-lessons-for-the-industry-worldwide-166491