Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ari Mattes, Lecturer in Media Studies, University of Notre Dame Australia

Revenge films remain popular, in part, because they re-stage a formative aspect of human culture – the bonding of societies around communal acts of violence. As René Girard has written, scapegoating – the designation and punishment of the victim – is one of the foundational cultural moments.

The staging of violence, within the controlled environment of the cinema, fascinates viewers, eliciting a troubling mixture of desire to see punishment enacted upon another body (especially another deserving body) and revulsion at this desire.

Australian writer-director Jennifer Kent’s recent film, The Nightingale, is, as far as revenge films go, watchable if uninspired. The story follows Irish convict Clare (Aisling Franciosi) as she seeks revenge for her rape, and the murder of her husband – and baby – at the hands of a group of soldiers led by the unbelievably repulsive Hawkins (Sam Claflin).

Assisted by guide Billy (Baykali Ganambarr), an Indigenous Tasmanian with his own axe to grind against the British colonisers, Clare traverses the Tasmanian wilderness in search of her antagonists, eventually catching up with them in Launceston.

It’s a requirement, for this kind of melodramatic fare to work, that the actions of the antagonists are so reprehensible in the eyes of the viewer – and unforgivable – that the blood-lust of the protagonist can be justifiably acquitted.

Consider Michael Winner’s Death Wish, the prototype of 1970s and 1980s revenge films, and the brutality with which the thugs attack Paul Kersey’s (Charles Bronson’s) family in that film. Or Tarantino’s Kill Bill films – Bill (David Carradine) has to have done some pretty bad stuff to justify his ultimate decapitation by The Bride (Uma Thurman) – and, spoiler alert, he has!

The Nightingale certainly meets this requirement. The baddies are so irredeemably bad, that there is never any doubt about the outcome that awaits them at the end. Indeed, at the screening I attended, members of the audience cried out in triumph when they were killed.

Clare’s life has been so completely destroyed by the actions of Hawkins and his underlings, that her quasi-suicidal desire for vengeance makes perfect emotional sense. After all, how would one survive seeing their infant murdered?

Where the film isn’t as effective, is in the realisation of this vengeance. For this kind of fantastic genre fare, its tone is remarkably dour, and, given the one dimensional characterisations, it lacks the complexity to lend necessary interest to its gravitas.

And this is the problem: the film seems to imagine it is doing or saying something more interesting about the colonial experience than it is.

What it actually suggests – that the Tasmanian genocide was genocidal for Indigenous Tasmanians, and that the colonial life was hard for women (especially for women convicts) – is so painfully obvious, and its treatment so heavy-handed, that the whole thing is rather underwhelming. (For comparison, see the 1970s exploitation film Journey Among Women, which much more effectively visits similar ground.)

Despite being a well-made, and engaging film, The Nightingale is, in short, disappointing. This is more so the case, given Kent’s previous film, The Babadook, is one of the best Australian genre films of the 21st century, a masterclass in psychologically grounded, genuinely terrifying horror cinema.

The performances in The Nightingale are good if unspectacular. Franciosi as Clare tries hard to embody the role, but is overly dependent upon facial expressions. Hers is the kind of facially-driven performance – mouth twitching when angry, eyebrows furrowing in consternation – we often see from early-career cinema actors.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the film is the controversy surrounding its reception in relation to its violence, including a particularly confronting scene of infanticide. Given hundreds, if not thousands of more violent films have emerged from Hollywood and world cinema since the 1960s – many of which are extremely popular – one cannot help but ask if this controversy has anything to do with the gender of Kent.

Perhaps women (or, at least, non-French women) are not supposed to make films that depict brutal rape and murder?

Still, I think the mixed reception of the film has less to do with its violence, and more to do with the tension between its attempts at sombre realism and the fundamental absurdity of its revenge narrative.

Revenge films are essentially idiotic (but pleasing) fantasies, so attempts at gritty realism in the genre will always be in tension with their Manichean, good vs. evil narrative structures. This grates, I suspect, with viewers at an intuitive level.

Don’t get me wrong – it’s nice to see a well-made Australian genre film on the big screen – one just feels that The Nightingale could have been much more interesting than it is.

– ref. The Nightingale – much ado about nothing – http://theconversation.com/the-nightingale-much-ado-about-nothing-118683

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Matthew Marino, Lecturer and Researcher, RMIT University

Uber Air will start test flights of its aerial taxi service in 2020, and move to commercial operations by 2023, the ABC reported today.

Melbourne, Dallas and Los Angels have been named as three test cities for the trial.

As a researcher in unmanned aerial systems, I was asked recently if I would ride on an Uber Air taxi. After a brief ponder, my answer is “yes”.

The introduction of Uber Air in 2023 may feel way out of reach for many people, but I believe this is a feasible and exciting development in air travel.

If Australia’s Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) has signed off on the safe operation of this new aircraft I would love to experience an aerial taxi.

Read more: Uber drivers’ experience highlights the dead-end job prospects facing more Australian workers

Passenger drones

The aviation industry is well developed, and various aircraft share the skies. Helicopters, general aviation and large commercial aircraft are all regarded as a safe and considered an acceptable form of transportation.

A newer addition to the industry is the passenger carrying drone, and one which is being introduced at speed.

Boeing’s GoFly competition has been set up to “foster the development of safe, quiet, ultra-compact, near-VTOL personal flying devices capable of flying twenty miles while carrying a single person”. (VTOL refers to vertical take-off and landing).

US$2 million is up for grabs for successful designs and prototypes. Of the competitors, five phase two winners were announced in March 2019, and the competition is still ongoing to find the most innovative and optimum solution for a passenger-carrying aircraft.

Dubai’s police force is reportedly conducting trials with a hovering vehicle, something that resembles a flying motorcycle.

Uber says it has a vision to provide VTOL ride share services for passengers throughout the world.

Whether the first Uber Air vehicle will be piloted by a human on board or remotely, or via an autopilot is still unknown. This will depend on the required levels of safety set by CASA.

I believe the end goal would be to be fully autonomous, however, this would require extensive proof these system are completely safe.

Quite simple technology

Unlike a helicopter, the technology base of a drone is far simpler. Controlled by computers, they use electricity as a primary power source from batteries and brushless electric motors to make them thrust into the sky. This type of system has been used with great success with smaller drones in the commercial market.

Current smaller drones have the capability of flying autonomously: no pilot is needed. A pick up location and a return location can be programmed into the drone, and it is able to land, takeoff and fly without pilot assistance.

This is not strictly considered to be an artificial intelligence system. Drones operate through a series of checkpoints in the sky, which they track all the way to the final destination. This is reliant on GPS, much like the GPS in your phone or navigating the streets using a Google Maps.

The scaling up of this technology to carry passengers was only a matter of time.

But the clear next step is research on how safe these aircraft are going to be. This is important not just for future passengers on board, but also for the people and property they will fly over.

Read more: Flying taxis within five years? Not likely

Like traditional aircraft which go through a rigorous certification process, drones may be subjected to the same amount of scrutiny.

Due to the simplicity of the drone system, this type of certification may take less time than a traditional aircraft (which can take many years, depending on the complexity of the design being certified).

Fortunately, we have a very proactive regulatory body in CASA. This authority is seen as a world leader in not only drone policies and procedures for safe drone operation, but it already actively consults and assists people in the drone industry.

It’s likely CASA played a role in getting Uber Air trials assigned to Melbourne.

A few nerves

Much like the helicopter when it was introduced back in the 1940s, people are likely to be apprehensive about a passenger-carrying drone in the first instance. The idea that unmanned vehicles may soon be flying through the sky raises many questions and concerns about the implications on people’s lives and the safety of the community.

This is a natural response. It takes time to develop confidence in new technology – especially one that has the responsibility of flying people around cities.

Over time helicopter technology progressed, and it was made safe and reliable – it was eventually seen as an acceptable mode of transportation. A similar progression with drones is likely.

We can be confident the technology will be properly tested and proven safe before the common citizen will be able to phone order an Uber Air trip across town.

Australia is the perfect place for testing, especially this country’s capacity for rapid development and continuous testing in outback Australia.

Google and other international bodies have tested new drone technology in Australia in a safe and regulated manner.

The Uber Air taxi will be no different with extensive testing to improve the technology, efficiency and reliability.

Read more: Driverless cars are going to disrupt the airline industry

– ref. Uber in the air: flying taxi trials may lead to passenger service by 2023 – http://theconversation.com/uber-in-the-air-flying-taxi-trials-may-lead-to-passenger-service-by-2023-118681

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Troy Baisden, Professor and Chair in Lake and Freshwater Sciences, University of Waikato

Internationally, the Ardern government is seen as a progressive beacon, and its recent budget was watched closely as a milestone in the “year of delivery” for Ardern’s well-being agenda.

The budget is a leap ahead of other Western democracies in that it replaces the gross domestic product (GDP) with a set of well-being measures and six focal areas to justify investment. Transforming the economy and society towards environmental sustainability is one of them.

The recently released state of the environment report highlighted deep concerns about trends in biodiversity conservation, greenhouse gas emissions and freshwater health. Budget 2019 signals a meaningful shift, but more in intention than sufficient funding.

Read more: NZ has dethroned GDP as a measure of success, but will Ardern’s government be transformational?

Two tactics for delivery

Two very different tactics are at play in the well-being budget, and both can be seen in areas related to the environment. First, in conservation, government officials know where support is needed and can use the budget to address historic underinvestment.

Where the path for delivery isn’t clear, the government has budgeted a minimum credible investment over four years and is working through the complexity of directing that investment. This second tactic dominates climate change, freshwater, and their convergence in sustainable land use.

To better understand how these tactics play out, it helps to look at the way information is presented in New Zealand’s budgets, which are seen as a model for transparency. Announcements describe investment of new money, typically over four years, but not necessarily how the money will be spread out across the years. More detailed information that appears with the budget helps to clarify when spending will occur, as well as whether spending will really happen.

A budget includes main estimates, estimated actuals and actuals, listed over three years. These reveal useful insights, including a persistent pattern through the past decade of underspending compared to what was announced in budgets.

Conservation spending

The conservation budget provides a typical example, showing how significant the signalled increases in funding will be. Expenditure increases from steady budget estimates of less than NZ$450 million from 2008 to 2018 to NZ$600 million in 2020.

But from 2010 through to 2016, there was a persistent pattern of underspending by NZ$30–49 million each year, relative to the budget announcements. The pattern ended after becoming controversial, but resulted in a cumulative underinvestment of NZ$275 million, which the latest budget aims to redress.

Budget 2019 also highlights major investments in biosecurity. By 2020, this budget will be nearly double the NZ$205 million spent in 2017. Historically, funding for biosecurity has been stable but low compared to the benefits of maintaining New Zealand’s natural isolation from pests and disease. Such benefits are hard to measure until they are lost following an incursion of a new pest or disease.

Several such cases are a main driver of increased funding for biosecurity, including Mycoplasma bovis infecting cattle throughout much of New Zealand, the arrival of myrtle rust and the disease-causing Kauri dieback.

Climate change and freshwater

The budget includes a sustainable land use package of NZ$229 million over four years, including several components. It addresses the mounting environmental challenges facing agriculture. The sector generates excess nutrient flows to iconic lakes and rivers, and roughly half of New Zealand’s greenhouse gas emissions.

Read more: New Zealand’s urban freshwater is improving, but a major report reveals huge gaps in our knowledge

The government has committed to transforming the economy toward sustainability, but the budget signals only the broad direction of investment. One clear signal in the budget is an end to government subsidies for intensifying agriculture, confirming last year’s decision to end support for large irrigation projects, on which the previous government spent NZ$13 million in 2017.

But most components in the new package will not reach full funding levels until the 2021 financial year. The amounts of funding signal a credible start, but are unlikely to be enough. On an annual basis, the new package is only about 0.14% of the NZ$40 billion value of land-based primary sector exports.

Past budgets show that complex expenditure that depends on further planning, reorganisation or new structures is often delayed beyond initial projections. This applies to this budget, too. A major freshwater taskforce is now underway but was delayed from its original plan, which means its work is not reflected in this budget. Reform of the software platform that links farm management to environmental regulations will receive NZ$30.5 million, but there are no clear objectives.

Overall, spending with an environmental classification increased 40% from NZ$0.92 billion in 2017 to NZ$1.28 billion last year. However, with a decrease to NZ$1.17 billion estimated for this year, it may make sense to ask whether the projected increase to NZ$1.55 billion for 2020 will be achieved.

To understand the challenges of funding complex environmental issues, we can look to the history of items in the budget – officially called appropriations – containing the words climate change. Budget projections went as high as NZ$64 million to be spent in 2009. But actual spending peaked at NZ$49 million in 2010. This spending bottomed out under NZ$12 million in 2014, and is estimated to be NZ$30 million this year. Estimated expenditure for 2020 exceeds the 2009–10 peak for the first time, at nearly NZ$70 million.

Estimates overshot actual spending by an average of NZ$7 million each year from 2010 through 2018. It makes sense to assume this signals a backlog of work to figure out what needs to be done on climate change issues.

Overall, for science and the environment, a first glance suggests this is hardly a “year of delivery”. Despite a focus on transformation in six areas of spending, including natural and social capital rather than GDP, the budget kicks any real plans for change down the road. But it prioritised achievable goals fairly well, given the big constraints posed by past underinvestment combined with a political commitment to fiscal responsibility.

If the budget succeeds in delivering for New Zealand’s environment, it will be by spending wisely to reverse past underinvestment in specific areas and ensuring that degradation stops and reverses in the relevant areas of environmental well-being. Success can only come through the latter, if groups like the climate change commission and freshwater task force forge clear paths through the political constraints that will guide investment in future budgets.

– ref. How New Zealand’s well-being budget delivers for the environment – http://theconversation.com/how-new-zealands-well-being-budget-delivers-for-the-environment-118109

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hannah Brown, Postdoctoral Research Affiliate, University of Adelaide; Chief Science Storyteller, South Australian Health & Medical Research Institute

In recent years, we’ve seen increasing scrutiny about the procedures being delivered in the IVF clinic, often referred to as “add-on” or supplementary technologies.

These are optional extras you may be offered on top of your normal fertility treatment, often at an additional cost.

Today in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology (ANZJOG), Australian researchers report the use of one very commonly used technology called ICSI (intra-cytoplasmic sperm injection) may be ineffective in certain groups to which it’s offered.

This is concerning because prospective parents using IVF are often vulnerable, and willing to pay thousands of dollars for any procedure they believe might improve their chance of conceiving. We need to ensure whatever they’re being offered is grounded in the strongest scientific evidence.

Read more: Your questions answered on donor conception and IVF

What is ICSI?

ICSI involves injecting a single sperm into an egg to facilitate fertilisation (which would normally happen in the fallopian tube, or in a dish in the process of in vitro fertilisation).

It was originally developed to help couples with male-factor infertility (when a fertility issue is identified with the male, such as poor quality or very low numbers of sperm).

For these couples, where fertilisation may be the barrier to fertility, the barrier is removed by injection of the sperm directly into the egg.

While ICSI may not necessarily be classified as an add-on technology, it’s now used widely in IVF clinics – notably, more widely than just for couples diagnosed with male infertility.

Data collected from Australia and New Zealand shows that almost 65% of couples are having ICSI as part of their fertility treatment. These numbers reflect global trends, with some countries such as Italy reporting almost exclusive use of ICSI.

But the level of male infertility in couples with fertility issues is only about 40-50%.

What does this research find?

Researchers from a Melbourne IVF clinic looked at historical data collected between 2009 and 2015.

In reviewing more than 3,500 cycles of fertility treatment, they examined couples who had exclusively female-factor infertility (the female has an identified cause of fertility), or unexplained fertility, and excluded couples who had male-factor infertility.

They went on to compare the success rates of both in vitro fertilisation (natural fertilisation in a dish), and ICSI (sperm injection directly into the egg). They wanted to understand whether ICSI was beneficial to more couples than just those with male-factor infertility, given the widespread use of the technology around the world.

Read more: Five traps to be aware of when reading success rates on IVF clinic websites

They found couples who had standard in vitro fertilisation were more likely to to take home a baby than couples who had ICSI, suggesting the technology may actually be hindering a couple’s chance of starting a family.

They report that for every 15 couples who have the ICSI procedure when the couple do not have diagnosed male-factor infertility, one less pregnancy is achieved.

What can’t we assume from the paper?

When scientists perform retrospective analyses (those done on historical data which is already collected), there are a number of things which are impossible to extract and understand (limitations).

While the paper reports that couples won’t benefit from ICSI if they don’t have a male-factor infertility diagnosis, unpicking all of the factors that may have led to that outcome is very difficult.

For example, we don’t know if a clinician was encouraging the use of ICSI in couples who appeared to be more infertile, meaning this group were less likely to conceive regardless of the intervention.

We need more evidence

Given ICSI is an additional cost to couples seeking fertility care (hundreds of dollars on top of in vitro fertilisation), this study supports the need for further exploration of the benefits (or lack thereof) of technology in the fertility sector.

The highest quality of evidence comes from randomised controlled trials, where data is collected prospectively, once a research question and hypothesis have been determined, and with strict criteria for patient inclusion and treatment.

Read more: Considering using IVF to have a baby? Here’s what you need to know

Randomised controlled trials would be the ultimate way to determine whether ICSI – and many of the add-on technologies in the IVF arena such as time-lapse imaging, embryo glue, and assisted hatching – will improve a couple’s chances of taking home a healthy baby.

Many of the technologies currently used for fertility treatment lack this high-level empirical evidence.

Asking the right questions

ICSI is still a suitable treatment for many fertility patients, and your doctor can explain why the procedure is right for you and your infertility diagnosis – particularly if you have confirmed male-factor infertility.

When discussing your treatment with your fertility specialist, you should ask them if all the technologies they are suggesting are supported by the highest quality scientific evidence.

Read more: Health Check: when does fertility decline?

If you have learned about add-on technologies in your own searches, you should ask your doctor to explain the current state of evidence with that particular technology, for a patient in your situation (age, fertility status, and so on). There is also useful advice to be found online.

Researchers and doctors still don’t have all the answers when it comes to IVF add-ons. But asking these questions may save you from unnecessary costs and procedures.

– ref. Fertility miracle or fake news? Understanding which IVF ‘add-ons’ really work – http://theconversation.com/fertility-miracle-or-fake-news-understanding-which-ivf-add-ons-really-work-118585

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Caitlin Syme, PhD Candidate, Vertebrate Palaeontology, The University of Queensland

Curious Kids is a series for children. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to curiouskids@theconversation.edu.au You might also like the podcast Imagine This, a co-production between ABC KIDS listen and The Conversation, based on Curious Kids.

Why did the dinosaurs die? – Whitaker, age 4.

That’s a great, and tricky question!

We know that dinosaurs ruled the Earth for about 180 million years. Then, around 66 million years ago, a huge rock from outer space (called an asteroid) smashed into the Earth.

It crash-landed near Mexico. It shook the ground. It made big waves in the sea. Any animals and plants that were nearby would have gotten squashed or washed away!

The asteroid made lots of dust and dirt and rocks to fly up into the air. All that dust and dirt covered the planet and made the sky dark. There were many forest fires too.

Before the asteroid hit Earth, there were lots of volcanoes erupting in what we now call India. They made smoke, and ash, and gases fill up the air. We are not sure if the asteroid then hitting Earth made more volcanoes erupt. Maybe it was just very bad timing.

From cold to hot

It was so dusty and dark that the warm sunshine couldn’t reach the ground. This made the Earth very cold.

But after the dust settled and the sun came out, the Earth got very hot indeed. The sea creatures, plants, and land animals didn’t like that very much. The plants probably had a hard time growing. The plant-eating animals ran out of plants to eat, and then the animals that ate other animals also ran out of food. So it became very hard for dinosaurs to survive.

But it’s still really hard to know for sure exactly why the dinosaurs died. Dinosaur-scientists (palaeontologists) still wonder whether it was because of the asteroid, or the volcanoes, or both the asteroid and volcanoes. Did the animals get too cold or too hot? Did they run out of food?

We might not ever know for sure, but we will always keep looking for answers!

Read more: Curious Kids: How many dinosaurs in total lived on Earth during all periods?

Who went extinct and who didn’t?

Most of the dinosaurs died. We call this going “extinct”. An animal is extinct when it doesn’t exist anymore anywhere in the world.

It wasn’t just most dinosaurs that went extinct 66 million years ago. Among others that went extinct were: flying reptiles called pterosaurs, huge reptiles that swam in the ocean called plesiosaurs and pliosaurs, creatures with curled, spiral shells called ammonites, and lots of other plants and animals.

But others survived. Different types of insects, lizards, crocodiles, mammals, birds, sharks, fish, crabs, snails, flowers, ferns and trees all made it through.

How? We don’t really know.

It could be because the animals were small and didn’t need much food. Maybe it was because they could eat crunchy seeds the dead plants left behind, or mushrooms growing on the dead plants, or tiny scraps of old, dry meat. Maybe it was because they could burrow into the ground to keep warm. Maybe it was because they could swim far away to keep safe. And maybe some of those dry, crunchy seeds could grow into plants after they were buried for a long time.

But we know they survived.

Those animals and plants found new homes. And as the plants grew bigger and stronger, the animals could grow bigger too. They could take the place of the big dinosaurs that had died. Big woolly mammoths, giant kangaroos, and whales now roamed the land and sea. New types of plants grew, like grass. And a long time later, human beings evolved – that’s us!

Now mammals rule the Earth.

Not all the dinosaurs died

Did you know that not all the dinosaurs went extinct 66 million years ago? They’re not the type of dinosaurs you might be thinking of, like Tyrannosaurus, or Brachiosaurus, or Muttaburrasaurus. The dinosaurs that survived were… birds!

That’s right! All birds are actually dinosaurs.

Ancient birds lived beside other dinosaurs. They survived the asteroid and volcanoes. And now birds live alongside us today.

Read more: Curious Kids: Are mermaids real?

I think it’s sad that all the other dinosaurs went extinct so long ago. But we can remember them by visiting museums and looking at fossils, or by reading books about them, or by watching birds fly through the sky.

But if it weren’t for all the other dinosaurs going extinct so long ago, fluffy little mammals wouldn’t have had room to grow and evolve. And there wouldn’t be any humans.

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

Please tell us your name, age and which city you live in. We won’t be able to answer every question but we will do our best.

– ref. Curious Kids: why did the dinosaurs die? – http://theconversation.com/curious-kids-why-did-the-dinosaurs-die-111912

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Carolyn Holbrook, ARC DECRA Fellow at Deakin University, Deakin University

This article was developed from a series of interviews with politicians, officials and other key players, including former Immigration minister Chris Evans and former Victorian premier Steve Bracks. Others preferred to remain anonymous.

We know very little about the kind of government Scott Morrison runs. After beating Peter Dutton and Julie Bishop to the prime ministership in August last year, most commentators assumed Morrison was keeping the chair warm until Labor’s Bill Shorten won the 2019 election.

Following the Coalition’s unexpected victory, it’s time to ask more searching questions, not only about Scott Morrison’s political values and policy aspirations, but about his prime ministerial style.

Recent history suggests processes of policy decision-making can make or break governments.

Read more: Cruel, and no deterrent: why Australia’s policy on asylum seekers must change

Labor’s shambolic attempts to create asylum seeker policy during the Rudd-Gillard years are emblematic of the dire consequences when tried-and-tested processes of policy advice fail.

In the face of internal dissent, thousands of asylum seekers arriving by boat and a marauding opposition leader, the government rejected its most vital source of advice, the public service.

It began in 2009

In mid-October 2009, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was informed that a vessel carrying 78 Sri Lankan asylum seekers was in danger of sinking in Indonesian waters. Rudd negotiated directly with the Indonesian president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and decided to dispatch a Customs vessel, the Oceanic Viking, to rescue the asylum seekers and return them to Indonesia.

The then immigration minister Chris Evans first heard of the plan when he received a phone call from Rudd’s chief of staff, Alister Jordan.

Jordan was not consulting the immigration minister, but rather informing him of a plan that had been enacted. Evans rang his departmental secretary, Andrew Metcalfe, who told him the plan would not work because the asylum seekers would refuse to disembark.

As Metcalfe had foreseen, the asylum seekers refused to leave the Australian boat at Bintan. Australian voice surveillance revealed there was talk of mass suicide.

Read more: How the next Australian government can balance security and compassion for asylum seekers

The standoff lasted four weeks, until a deal was struck that saw the Sri Lankans resettled in countries including New Zealand.

Officials in the Immigration Department were dumbfounded. One told me:

The Oceanic Viking was a thought bubble from Rudd … It was an absolute debacle. It was crazy. It had nothing to do with immigration but we were asked to go in and fix it up. And that scuttled any possibility of us doing anything with Indonesia for a long time.

The boats kept coming. There were 6,555 boat arrivals in 2010. On the night he lost the prime ministership to Julia Gillard, Rudd told the Labor caucus that if he won the leadership vote, he would “not be lurching to the right on question of asylum seekers”.

What Rudd didn’t mention was that the government had been actively exploring offshore options for some time.

The Immigration Department had prepared a list of possible sites for offshore detention that included Malaysia, Pakistan, Thailand, Indonesia, and East Timor.

Sounding out the East Timorese government

Evans was focused on pursuing a multilateral solution. His officials consulted with members of the refugee lobby, including the prominent lawyer David Manne, about being part of a broader regional arrangement that had the approval of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

Evans and his department worked on an offshore deal that would meet with the approval of Australian stakeholders, neighbouring countries, and the UNHCR. But meanwhile, a small group of ministers focused on East Timor.

Read more: A refugee law expert on a week of ‘reckless’ rhetoric and a new way to process asylum seeker claims

The former Victorian premier, Steve Bracks, was approached at an airport and asked to sound out the East Timorese government about a processing centre. Bracks reported back that Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao was interested, but he would need some time to win support within his government.

Gusmao wanted negotiations to be done through the president, Jose Ramos Horta. This process was in train when Kevin Rudd was overthrown as prime minister on June 24, 2010.

In a speech to the Lowy Institute on July 5, the new prime minister, Gillard, announced she had discussed with Horta the possibility of establishing a regional processing centre in East Timor. But in going public, she had pre-empted the internal East Timorese process. Gusmao distanced himself from the plan and it quickly fizzled.

Meanwhile, the public servants who had been working on the multilateral solution were left scratching their heads. One official told me:

I have no idea where [East Timor] sprang from.

We were working on arrangements … and one of the really difficult things was thought bubbles kept coming from funny quarters and then you’d have the media onto it, laughing at it or making a joke of it.

Failed Malaysia initiative

After the 2010 election, the new immigration minister Chris Bowen secured an offshore processing arrangement with Malaysia. Immigration Department officials had encouraged Bowen to bring refugee stakeholders and the UNCHR on board.

Read more: Refugees are integrating just fine in regional Australia

But Bowen, who was facing immense political pressure from opposition leader Tony Abbott, preferred to deal unilaterally with his Malaysian counterpart, Hishamuddin Hussein, with whom he had developed a strong rapport.

Hours before the first 16 asylum seekers were due to be transported to Malaysia, Manne obtained an injunction against their removal from Australia, pending a challenge to the legality of the government’s agreement with Malaysia.

In September 2011, the High Court decided in a six-to-one decision that the Malaysia agreement contravened the Migration Act because the refugees would not be given the protection required by the Australian legislation.

According to a key player, the High Court ruling was the product of a profound failure of process:

the government did a very bad job at … going to the organisations who would be part of any solution. And, instead, pissed them off so comprehensively they went to the High Court.

Read more: Robert Manne: How we came to be so cruel to asylum seekers

After the failure of the Malaysia initiative, the Gillard government hurriedly reopened the Nauru and Manus Island processing centres.

When Rudd replaced Gillard in June 2013, he announced that no one who arrived by boat would ever be settled in Australia. The boats slowed, but it was the institution of boat turnbacks under the Abbott government’s Operation Sovereign Borders that stopped them altogether.

The consequences of the Rudd and Gillard governments’ blundered handling of asylum seeker policy were considerable. Indonesia and East Timor were unnecessarily offended, the government’s political fortunes suffered and, most significantly, asylum seekers were again subjected to processing on Nauru and Manus Island.

Read more: In Manus, theatre delivers home truths that can’t be dodged

It is conceivable that Manus and Nauru would have remained closed and Operation Sovereign Borders rendered unnecessary had the Rudd and Gillard governments heeded the advice of the Immigration Department to bring key refugee stakeholders and UNHCR on board into the process.

The institution of rigorous decision-making processes will not guarantee Scott Morrison’s success, but they could help him avoid many of the pitfalls that contributed to the downfall of the Rudd and Gillard governments.

Carolyn Holbrook is presenting a talk on this topic at the Australian Policy and History ‘History and the Hill’ Conference at Deakin University on Thursday, June 13

– ref. The shameful history of blundering asylum seeker policy – http://theconversation.com/the-shameful-history-of-blundering-asylum-seeker-policy-118396

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Caroline Fisher, Assistant Professor in Journalism, University of Canberra

Australian news consumers access news less often and have lower interest in it compared to citizens in many other countries. At the same time, Australians are more likely to think the news media are doing a good job keeping them up to date and explaining what’s happening.

These findings are contained in the Digital News Report: Australia 2019. In its fifth year, the Digital News Report Australia is part of a 38-country survey coordinated by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford.

In comparison to the other countries, the survey of 2,010 online adults shows that Australian news consumers:

• are the “lightest” news consumers out of 38 countries
• use fewer sources to access news
• are less interested in news and politics
• are more likely to subscribe to Netflix than news
• are less likely to check the accuracy of a story.

Read more: Australian political journalists might be part of a ‘Canberra bubble’, but they engage the public too

‘Light’ consumers of news

The survey finds almost half (48%) of Australian news consumers are “light” users, who access news once a day or less, whereas the global average across the 38-countries was one-third (34%).

Correspondingly, Australia also has the lowest number of “heavy” news consumers, who access news more than once a day, at 52%. This is compared to an average of 66% across the other countries.

Reliance on a single news source

Australians also use fewer sources or platforms to access news. Just one third say they get their news from four or more sources, such as online, social media, TV, newspapers, social media and so on. This is well below the 38-country average of 44%.

More Australians rely on just one source to get their news (21%), which is higher than the 38-country average (17%). Only three other countries in the survey (Japan, South Korea and the US) have more people relying on just one source to access news than Australia.

The data tell us that Australians who rely on just one source of news also tend to consume less of it. Those who use four or more sources to get their news, also seek news more often.

Preference for Netflix over news

Globally, news consumers are more likely to pay for video streaming services such as Netflix than news, but Australians have a stronger preference for entertainment over news than consumers in other countries.

More than a third (34%) of Australians say they would prioritise a subscription for a video streaming service, compared to an average of 28% across 16 countries where the question was asked. Only 9% of Australians say they would choose online news first.

This year, survey participants were asked whether they thought the news media in their country was doing a good job across five areas:

• scrutiny
• relevance
• negativity
• keeping them up to date
• explaining.

Australians delivered a mixed report card on these questions and the results vary compared to the global average. On a positive note, two-thirds of Australian news consumers (66%) agree the news keeps them up to date, which compares favourably to the global average of 62%.

But Australian news consumers are also more likely to think the news is too negative (44%) compared to the country average (39%). Australians are also slightly more likely to agree that the news is not relevant to them (28%) compared to the international average of 25%.

According to the data, perceptions of news performance are strongly influenced by age and gender. Younger news consumers are the least likely to feel the news is relevant to them, particularly Gen Z women. This points to opportunities for more content that speaks to this age group.

Significantly, Australian news consumers who rely on legacy media for their main source of news, such as TV and newspapers, are more likely to think journalism is performing well. This highlights the ongoing importance of well-resourced traditional news brands as part of the hybrid mix of online and offline news sources.

Read more: A matter of (mis)trust: why this election is posing problems for the media

Australians are less interested in politics

The lower rates of news consumption in Australia can perhaps be explained by the fact that Australian news consumers are less interested in both news and politics.

58% of Australians say they have a high interest in news, which is below the 38-country average (60%). When compared to other English-speaking democratic countries (UK, US, Canada and Ireland), Australians and Canadians are the least interested in news, and Americans and UK news consumers are the most interested (67%).

Australians are also slightly less interested in politics. Two thirds of Australians (65%) said they have little or no interest in politics, compared to 63% across the other countries. In contrast, Turkish news consumers have the highest interest in politics (67%) and Malaysians the lowest (19%).

When compared to other English-speaking democratic countries Australians are the least interested in politics, and news consumers in the US are the most interested (59%).

Analysis of the data clearly shows that interest in politics is one of the strongest indicators of engagement with news. Those who are interested in politics are more likely to have a high interest in news, access it often, use more sources, have higher trust in it and are more likely to pay for it.

The connection between political interest and news interest is supported by a range of academic studies examining citizen participation in politics and the role of the news media. Generally speaking, the research finds a reciprocal relationship, but some types of news consumption inspire greater interest in politics than others.

A 2018 study found those who rely on commercial TV for news, rather than a public broadcaster, have lower interest in politics. Given the high rates of commercial TV news consumption in Australia this might help partly explain the lower interest in both news and politics – but this requires further research.

Interest in news by age and gender

It’s possible that people’s interest in news and politics has been displaced. Rather than adverse events causing people to disconnect, their interest and attention has been drawn to other things. This is the primary thesis of the “attention economy”, and we see evidence of this in the levels of interest in news between genders and generations, and the platforms they tend to get news from.

Women and Gen Z have lower interest in news, but they are also more likely to get their news from social media than men, and older generations. Whereas, men and older generations are better conditioned to engage with politics and news via traditional channels.

Read more: Mounting evidence the tide is turning on News Corp, and its owner

Trust in news and politics is low overall

A further contributor to Australians’ low interest in news could well be the general malaise among the Australian population toward the news media and politics. Research shows trust in politics, politicians and the news media to be at an all-time low.

This year’s Digital News Report also finds general trust in news is low, at 44%. Trust in news found on social media (18%) and search engines (32%) is even lower. Given that more Australians (57%) use online sources as the main source for news, this isn’t surprising.

Over the past year, there has been a lot of turbulence in the news media, with takeovers, closures, job losses and a leadership crisis at the national public broadcaster. This general turmoil in the news media was echoed in the corridors of power, with a third prime minister installed in as many years.

This overall climate of instability reflects a degraded political and news environment, which can be seen in some of the findings this year.

– ref. Australians are less interested in news and consume less of it compared to other countries, survey finds – http://theconversation.com/australians-are-less-interested-in-news-and-consume-less-of-it-compared-to-other-countries-survey-finds-118333

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Simon Walters, Senior Lecturer in Sport and Recreation, Auckland University of Technology

Playing sports has clear social, physical and mental health benefits for children. But evidence shows that youth sports in Western societies have become increasingly controlled and regulated by adults, which takes the fun out for many children.

Participation rates by adolescents have been declining and recent statistics released by the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) show a 60% surge in sports injuries for children in the 10 to 14 age group over the past decade in New Zealand.

In response to concerns about declining participation from this age group, the North Harbour Rugby Union recently decided to remove representative junior teams. The decision was based on a considerable body of research that suggests children’s sport is increasingly driven by adults ambitions.

Read more: Five tips to help your kid succeed in sport – or maybe just enjoy it

Policy based on evidence

The decision attracted national and international attention. Several ex-All Blacks were vocal about it, with some players for (notably Wayne “Buck” Shelford and Jeff Wilson) and some against.

The move was backed by Sport NZ, the crown entity responsible for governing sport and recreation in New Zealand, and by the New Zealand Rugby Union. It also received support from other sports in New Zealand, including New Zealand Cricket.

Despite similar earlier moves by Netball NZ and messages of support from sport leaders, there was considerable backlash on social media. Typical responses fell back on the argument that political correctness had gone mad, which is a common response that tends to close off any meaningful debate. For example, one father interviewed on a news segment said the decision had effectively closed off a “career pathway” for his two boys. But sports journalist Dylan Cleaver pointed out that:

The only pathways kids should be on until well into their teens are footpaths. The idea that a 12-year-old is on the pathway to a professional sports career is ridiculous and speaks only to parental obsession , not reality.

North Harbour Rugby based its decision on research that shows young people play sport primarily for fun, to be with their mates and for the sheer joy and exhilaration it provides.

The period of adolescence is the time most associated with dropout from sport, and a key reason commonly cited is that sport stops being fun. In the US, researcher Amanda Visek drilled deeper. Her research found that “fun” for children meant up to 81 different things. Number one was “getting compliments from coaches”, followed by “playing well during a game”. Winning came in at number 30.

Read more: Pay to play: is participating in sport becoming too expensive for everyday Australians?

Culture change in children’s sports

Sport NZ has acknowledged that there are issues with child and youth sporting systems. In 2015, they funded a youth sport “culture change” project, Good Sports, which ran over a three-year period in the Auckland area. The project was designed and implemented by Aktive Auckland, in close collaboration with researchers in youth sports.

A key focus was to have research-informed conversations with parents, coaches, volunteers and teachers, as well as the organisations that put the structures in place, about what makes a quality sporting experience for a young person. It was in a large part due to these conversations that North Harbour Rugby decided to scrap representative junior rugby.

Aside from concerns about dropout, research also shows that an overemphasis on representative teams and performance at an early age promotes early specialisation. Our NZ-based research suggests that over-engagement in organised sport (often associated with early specialisation) can increase risk of overuse injuries, possibly contributing to the increased injuries in young people identified by ACC.

Representative teams at early ages have also been associated with over-the-top adult behaviour at sporting events and with selection that biases older and more physically mature children. This further supports the concerns of North Harbour Rugby that their player development may be closing doors for talented but less physically mature children. The move to remove junior representative teams has since been replicated by a number of other provincial rugby unions.

The international media attention the decision received suggests that there is a need for a culture change in other sports and other countries. It is the children’s game, not ours.

– ref. Children have fun playing sports and don’t need to satisfy adults’ ambitions – http://theconversation.com/children-have-fun-playing-sports-and-dont-need-to-satisfy-adults-ambitions-115373

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Blaskovich, Senior Research Officer, The University of Queensland

To mark the International Year of the Periodic Table of Chemical Elements we’re taking a look at some of the elements used by researchers in their work.

Today’s focus is silver, an element seen as a marker of second place – but this reputation is undeserved.

Silver has long played second fiddle to other elements. In sport, it is the symbol of second place, giving way to gold in the medals. In jewellery, airline frequent flyer programs and credit cards, silver is also topped by gold and platinum.

But in the world of useful elements, silver should be gold.

My interest in silver originated when growing up in Canada, searching through loose change for pre-1968 quarters (25 cents) that were made from 80% silver (currently worth at least US$2.24 each).

Read more: From the bronze age to food cans, here’s how tin changed humanity

More recently, in my current scientific role fighting antimicrobial resistance, my interest has been piqued by silver’s association with killing bacteria.

The silver medical treatment

Silver has a long history of antibacterial activity. The Phoenicians lined clay vessels with silver to preserve liquids (around 1300BCE), the Persians and Greeks used silver containers to store drinking water (around 5000-300BCE) and Americans travelling west during the 1880s added silver coins into water barrels.

More recently, both American and Russian space programs have used ionic silver to purify water, including on the International Space Station.

Colloidal silver, a suspension of very small nanoparticles of silver metal, has found widespread use as a popular home remedy for a range of ailments, but is often marketed with dubious claims and is not supported by the scientific community.

Some websites claim the use of silver cutlery and dinnerware by wealthy Europeans in the Middle Ages may have helped favour their survival during the bubonic plague, though evidence supporting this is scant.

On a related note, one version of the origin of the term “blue blood” to describe the wealthy is based on their use of silver dinnerware, with significant silver ion ingestion known to cause argyria, or purple-grey skin.

Despite these nonscientific associations, silver has found widespread acceptance in the medical community for specific applications of its antibacterial properties.

Silver for burns

Silver nitrate solutions were found to prevent eye infections in newborns in the 1880s, and were still commonly used for this in the 1970s. Solutions were also used to treat burn injuries, leading to many scientific reports in the 1960s, such as a 1968 study on treating extensive thermal burns with 0.5% silver nitrate solution that describes an apparent reduction in death.

Both 0.5% silver nitrate solution and 1% silver sulfadiazine cream are still used in burn care and are accompanied by new silver-based wound dressings.

The antimicrobial use of silver has crept into consumer products, such as antibacterial bandages, socks and deodorants, and antibacterial coatings on a range of products such as refrigerators.

While this may sound like a good idea, there are concerns that widespread use of silver could cause bacteria to become resistant, not only to silver, but also to our important antibiotics.

It’s not known exactly how silver kills bacteria, but it seems to work by multiple mechanisms, including cell membrane damage and free radical generation.

Our work on silver is looking at whether it can help existing antibiotics work more effectively, especially against resistant bacteria. This research, which has been ongoing for more than five years, has identified that there is better synergy between silver and some types of antibiotics than others, but we don’t yet know why.

Eventually, this research could lead to new formulations of antibiotics with better activity, where the actual antibiotic remains the same but it is delivered as a salt with silver, instead of a more common ion like sodium.

The silver resources

The actual word silver stems from the Anglo-Saxon name for it, siolfur, while its chemical symbol Ag comes from the Latin name for silver, argentum.

Silver can sometimes be found as nuggets of pure metal, though this form is more rare than gold. Most often it is found combined with other elements in ores such as argentite (with sulfur) or galena (with lead).

The ores are mined and the silver generally removed by smelting (heating combined with chemical reactions). It is believed this technique was discovered before 2000BCE.

Historically, the major use of silver has been as coinage and in jewellery. Traditional photography uses silver halides for the photosensitive film, while mirror backings and Christmas ornaments use silver-plated glass.

Read more: Titanium is the perfect metal to make replacement human body parts

Silver lies in the middle of the periodic table. It is encircled by other useful and well-known metals such as (clockwise from above) copper, zinc, cadmium, mercury, gold, platinum, palladium and nickel.

I would argue that silver shines brightly above its neighbours – it actually does, as it has the highest reflectivity of any metal – and also is the best at conducting electricity and heat.

So silver really does deserves top of the podium: a gold for silver!

If you’re an academic researcher working with a particular element from the periodic table and have an interesting story to tell then why not get in touch.

– ref. Silver makes beautiful bling but it’s also good for keeping the bacterial bugs away – http://theconversation.com/silver-makes-beautiful-bling-but-its-also-good-for-keeping-the-bacterial-bugs-away-115367

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jennifer Burn, Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Technology Sydney

We might not want to believe it, but human trafficking and slavery happens in Australia. Slavery is not an historical artefact, but a tragic reality for millions of people around the world, including in Australia.

Recently, the term “modern slavery” has been used to contrast contemporary forms of slavery from historical slavery such as that seen during the transatlantic slave trade.

In practice, modern slavery is an umbrella term that is often used to describe human trafficking, slavery and slavery-like practices such as servitude, forced labour and forced marriage.

But slavery is timeless. It has always been about the commodification of the body of a man, woman or child, the theft of liberty and sometimes life.

Read more: Modern Slavery Bill a step in the right direction – now businesses must comply

Anti-Slavery Australia, at the University of Technology Sydney, started researching and assisting trafficked and enslaved people in Australia back in 2002. For over 17 years, Anti-Slavery Australia has provided access to legal advice and assistance to hundreds of people who have experienced modern slavery.

In 2018 alone, Anti-Slavery Australia helped over 123 people who had been trafficked to or from Australia, or had faced slavery-like conditions while in Australia, including forced marriage, servitude and forced labour.

But this is just the tip of the iceberg. A recent report by the Australian Institute of Criminology estimates that only one in five victims are detected. This means that the cases we see are likely to be a small proportion of the scale of trafficking and slavery in Australia.

Read more: At last, Australia has a Modern Slavery Act. Here’s what you’ll need to know

Vulnerable people of any background or status can be cruelly exploited. Some groups, such as migrant workers or young people, are more vulnerable than others.

So what does modern slavery look like in Australia?

Here are four real world examples, with names of individuals and businesses changed, to explain the different kinds of exploitation seen at Anti-Slavery Australia and considered in Australian courts.

Slavery/domestic servitude

In Australian law, slavery is defined as

the condition of a person over whom any or all of the powers attaching to the right of ownership are exercised, including where such a condition results from a debt or contract made by the person.

Essentially, slavery is when a person is controlled as if they were mere property.

Eventually, with the help of one of Mr and Mrs K’s family members, Mary was able to leave this situation.

This example is based on a case that ultimately led to Mr and Mrs K being found guilty of slavery offences and sentenced to eight and four years’ imprisonment respectively.

Servitude

Servitude is when a person does not consider themselves to be free to stop working or leave their workplace, because of threats, coercion or deception; and the person is significantly deprived of their personal freedom in their life outside of work.

Eventually, Tom managed to escape from the house, flagged down a motorist and contacted police. Police responded and found 49 other exploited people who had been coerced and controlled.

This example is based on a case that led to two people being found guilty of causing a person to enter into or remain in servitude and sentenced to three years’ and two-and-a-half years’ imprisonment.

Forced labour

Forced labour is when a person does not consider themselves free to stop working, or to leave their workplace, because of threats, coercion or deception.

Eventually, John was able to get help, but he was in very poor health and died a few years later.

Forced marriage

A forced marriage is when a person is married without freely and fully consenting because of either coercion, threat or deception. It could also be because they’re incapable of understanding the nature and effect of a marriage ceremony, possibly because of their age or mental capacity.

A forced marriage is different from an arranged marriage or a sham marriage. The main difference is that there is consent in arranged and sham marriages.

To find out more about the scenarios you have read, additional information and confidential legal advice contact Anti-Slavery Australia. See www.antislavery.org.au. For information and advice on forced marriage see www.mybluesky.org.au. ​

– ref. Human trafficking and slavery still happen in Australia. This comic explains how – http://theconversation.com/human-trafficking-and-slavery-still-happen-in-australia-this-comic-explains-how-112294

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Melissa Mulraney, Postdoctoral research fellow, Murdoch Children’s Research Institute

Three-quarters of Australian children with mental health disorders aren’t getting professional help, according to our new research. Girls, younger children and families from non-English-speaking backgrounds are the least likely to access mental health services.

We looked at the mental health of just under 5,000 Australian children aged eight to 13 via parental surveys of their child’s emotional and mental health. We then linked the results with Medicare data to see which families had accessed help.

Fewer than one in four children we identified as having a mental health problem saw a health professional in the 18 months after we surveyed them.

Read more: What’s the best way to screen for child mental health issues?

Left unaddressed, mental health problems can become more entrenched and harder to treat. And mental health problems in childhood can have lifelong ramifications including increased risk of mental health problems in adulthood, poor educational attainment, unemployment, and contact with the criminal justice system.

So ensuring children and adolescents who experience mental health problems receive access to timely and effective care is essential.

What types of mental health problems do kids have?

Around 14% of children and adolescents aged four to 17 meet diagnostic criteria for at least one mental health disorder.

The most common mental health disorders in Australian children in this age group are anxiety disorders, which affect 6.9% of children, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), which affects 7.4% of children.

Around 50% of all adult mental disorders begin before the age of 14. Yet in 2017-18, children under the age of 15 had the lowest use of Medicare-rebated mental health services (5.1%) of any Australian age group.

Read more: How to know if your child is addicted to video games and what to do about it

Younger children

Younger children were less likely to access services than older children. Some 20-27% of children aged 12-13 years accessed services, compared to 9-15% of children aged eight to nine years.

Young children respond to and process emotional experiences and traumatic events in ways that are very different from adults and older children. Consequently, it can be more difficult to recognise problems in early childhood.

A child acting up in the classroom, for example, may be perceived as being “naughty” rather than having mental health problems. Or a child may experience stomach aches and headaches which are caused by anxiety but thought to be a physical problem.

When problems are recognised, families may delay getting help for young children in the hope that they will “grow out of” the mental disorder.

While this may apply in some cases, treatment is still important. Take ADHD, for example. Although about 80% of children with ADHD will grow out of it by adulthood, children with ADHD often find it hard to make friends. If they miss out on developing their social skills early in life, it can become increasingly difficult to make friends during adolescence and adulthood when peer relationships become more complex.

In our study, the factors most consistently associated with getting support were symptom severity and parent perception that the child needed help.

The gradual onset and increase in severity over time of many mental health problems means children and their parents are more likely to seek services when the symptoms become severe or impact significantly on the child’s ability to function. This typically occurs as they grow older.

Read more: Children’s well-being goes hand in hand with their dads’ mental health

Boys versus girls

We found girls were less likely to receive care than boys. Girls made up 50% of children with mental health problems in the study, yet accounted for just 30% of children who received support for emotional problems at ages eight to 11.

This may have something to do with the fact that mental health conditions can be more difficult to recognise in girls.

Boys are more likely to externalise problems such as anxiety by reacting angrily when asked to do something that upsets them. Girls are more likely to internalise these issues by withdrawing or appearing very quiet, making problems harder to detect. In an environment like the classroom, boys’ problems are more likely to get noticed because of their disruptive nature.

Culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds

Around 14% of children with emotional problems came from a non-English speaking background, but they only accounted for 2% who received help.

The reluctance of parents from non-English speaking backgrounds to get help may be related to different cultural understandings of mental health and illness. They may also struggle to find services for their child in their own language.

Mental health conditions may also be more difficult to recognise among children from non-English speaking backgrounds, where quietness in the classroom may be mistaken for a language issue rather than a mental health issue.

We need change

Over the past 20 years there has been little change in the prevalence of child and adolescent mental disorders in Australia despite increased investment in resources. This is likely in part because the quality and the intensity of services provided have not improved.

Children may not be receiving sufficient treatment sessions or treatment sustained over a long enough period to meaningfully impact on their symptoms. It’s recommended that children receive at least eight sessions of cognitive behavioural therapy for the treatment of anxiety, for example, but many children will require more.

Australia’s health system rewards discharging patients from care within a set number of appointments rather than once they have improved. The Medicare Better Access scheme allows for a maximum of ten subsidised appointments with a psychologist in a calendar year. But again, many children require more.

Read more: What about the mental health of kids with intellectual disability?

We need a system-level shift to funding based on measured symptom improvement rather than a capped number of appointments both in hospital settings and in the community.

Our research suggests we need to better understand parent and child drivers of why children miss out on care, particularly girls, younger children, and those from diverse backgrounds. Doing so and ensuring access to high-quality care will benefit not only the child and their family now but also the adult they will become.

– ref. 3 out of 4 kids with mental health disorders aren’t accessing care – http://theconversation.com/3-out-of-4-kids-with-mental-health-disorders-arent-accessing-care-118597

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Chloe Lucas, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University of Tasmania

So much for Australia’s “climate election”. In the event, voters in last month’s federal poll didn’t put climate policy at the top of their wish list.

Contrary to opinion polls predicting a groundswell of support for Labor’s relatively progressive agenda on climate and economics, the election results revealed that Australians are more divided on climate change than we thought.

Read more: Australians disagree on how important climate change is: poll

Voters for progressive climate policy were dismayed at the re-election of a prime minister who famously brought a lump of coal into Parliament. Perhaps understandably, one of the immediate responses among these progressive voters was to express anger at those who don’t share their concern.

But anger feeds a divisive politics that cannot help us to address our big collective challenges. By retreating into social media echo chambers where mockery and disrespect are the norm, we risk losing entirely the social cohesion and trust needed for democracy to work.

A whole-of-society discussion about our collective future is urgently needed. Now is the time to reinvent how we communicate about climate change, particularly with those who don’t see it as an urgent concern. Here’s how.

Addressing the ‘climate-unconcerned’

Contrary to the assumption that unconcern about climate change is evidence of selfishness or politically motivated denial, our research shows that people who resist climate concern are just as likely to be caring, ethical and socially minded as anyone else.

While there is a small minority of people who actively campaign against climate action, within society at large, those who are simply unconcerned about the climate crisis encompass a broad range of political views and levels of political engagement.

Far from being prejudiced, unreasonable, apathetic or ignorant, our studies in Australia and the UK show that many people who are unconcerned about the climate nevertheless care about issues including justice, the common good, and the health of ecosystems.

Belonging to a social group that doesn’t have its own narratives of climate concern is one of the most common reasons for unconcern. People who are unconcerned about climate change often see it as a “greenie” issue. If they identify themselves as opposed to green politics, they are unlikely to prioritise calls for climate action.

The rural/city divide also plays a key part in polarising narratives of climate action, as regional and outer-urban Australians, who are more likely to be economically dependent on natural resources, feel ignored and devalued by policies designed to appeal to capital city electorates. If we want to break down polarisation on climate change, we need to understand what matters to rural and conservative social groups.

Bridging the divide

Our findings suggest a set of principles for engaging with people who are unconcerned about climate change:

• Respect difference. Don’t assume that being unconcerned about climate change is a moral failing. People have other active concerns that are no less valid.

• Listen. Build relationships with people who have different life experiences to your own, by asking what is important to them. Appreciate that some people may find social change more threatening and immediate than climate change. Empathising with this feeling can foster understanding of the core concerns that underpin resistance to change, and potentially help identify ways to address these concerns.

• Value values. Avoid arguments based on appeals to the authority of science, or the consensus of expert opinion. “Debating the science” is a red herring – people’s responses to claims about climate change are motivated primarily by what they value, and the narratives of their social group, not their acceptance of scientific fact. Focus on values you might have in common, rather than getting caught up in disputes over facts.

• Move beyond Left and Right. Don’t conflate political ideology with stance on climate. Showing that climate is not a defining issue for social groups is really important to avoid polarisation. We need to work against the idea that action on climate is an exclusively left-wing or “greenie” agenda.

Adopting these principles can help to build a political culture around climate science and policy that responds to the different priorities of Australians, all of whom are simply seeking a safe and secure future. This approach recognises that no action on climate change is possible without public trust and involvement in democratic institutions.

What can we learn from the UK?

Australia’s parliamentary system and media environment have much in common with that of the UK. Although the UK has not been immune to political divisions on climate change, with levels of concern typically higher on the political left than on the right, Britain has maintained a bipartisan approach.

With the help of intiatives supporting a pluralistic approach to climate policy discussions, the UK Climate Change Act passed into law in 2008 with almost unanimous cross-party support.

Read more: The UK has a national climate change act – why don’t we?

Research in the UK has provided an evidence-based set of language and narratives to use when discussing climate change. This is focused on core socially conservative values such as maintaining the status quo (protecting it from a changing climate), avoiding waste (of household energy), and investing in secure (renewable) energy. There is also a push to reinvigorate democratic debate through citizens’ assemblies on climate change.

Now is the time for Australians to listen to each other, and develop a pluralistic approach to discussions on our shared future. The alternative is to sink deeper into partisan hostility and recrimination. And after a decade of division on climate policy, is that really the best way forward?

– ref. Not everyone cares about climate change, but reproach won’t change their minds – http://theconversation.com/not-everyone-cares-about-climate-change-but-reproach-wont-change-their-minds-118255

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christina Ho, Senior Lecturer, Social & Political Sciences, University of Technology Sydney

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian has re-ignited the ongoing debate about selective schools by announcing a new selective school will be built in the “key growth area” of southwest Sydney. In announcing the school, the premier said:

There is strong demand for selective schools, with around 15,000 applications for only 4,200 places. This new school will provide another convenient local option for these students and their families.

But selective schools are never a “local option”. Selective school entry is open to anyone who meets the cut-off in the admissions test, regardless of where they live. Selective school students routinely travel for hours across Sydney to get to and from school.

And despite claims selective schools provide opportunities for gifted students across all socioeconomic backgrounds, the data actually show otherwise – selective schools are mainly comprised of advantaged students.

What are selective schools?

Fully selective schools have no catchment zones like other public schools. This means students in southwest Sydney will receive no priority when they seek admission to this new school. So, despite claims the school is needed to cater for population growth in this area, this school will never be a local school.

Selective high schools are public schools that cater for high-achieving, gifted students. NSW has more selective schools than the rest of the states combined. This new one will be the 49th if both both fully and partially selective schools are included. Victoria has only four selective schools, Queensland three and Western Australia one.

Read more: Should gifted students go to a separate school?

Each year, selective schools dominate the HSC leader boards, comprising virtually all the top ten performing schools in NSW. These remarkable outcomes come from grouping together high-achieving, gifted students, and teaching them using specialised methods and materials.

The positive aspects lie in selective school students spurring each other on to reach their potential. And sometimes in a comprehensive school gifted students are bored or bullied. But the disparity selective schools create outweighs the benefits.

They ‘select’ the most advantaged

An average of 73% of students in NSW’s fully selective schools came from the highest quarter of socio-educational advantage (SEA) in 2016. The SEA is based on factors shown to have an impact on students’ educational outcomes, such as parents’ occupation and education.

At NSW’s highest-scoring school, James Ruse Agricultural High School, 89% of students came from the top SEA quarter in 2016. Only an average 2% of students across all of NSW’s fully selective schools came from the lowest SEA quarter.

Gifted students do exist in lower-income families and research shows they are underachieving due to lack of opportunity – but selective schools don’t seem to be the answer. The data on selective schools show gifted students from disadvantaged backgrounds are being locked out of the selective system.

In fact, students in selective schools are now so advantaged they surpass those in many high-fee private schools. The My School website calculates an Index of Socio-Educational Advantage (ICSEA) for each school in Australia. ICSEA is set at an average of 1,000 across Australia. The higher the ICSEA, the higher the level of educational advantage of students attending the school.

As the table below shows, in 2016 just over half of the 20 most advantaged high schools in NSW were selective schools.

They don’t reflect the community

Selective schools don’t reflect the communities in which they are located, meaning they are not the “local option” Berejiklian hopes the new school will be.

While public schools have traditionally been local community hubs, exposing students to the full range of diversity in their neighbourhoods, selective schools are not able to fulfil that function. Their level of advantage almost always exceeds that of other local schools. And this is true in wealthy as well as lower-income areas.

As the table below shows, ICSEA scores for selective schools in Penrith, Campbelltown, Gosford, Newcastle and Wollongong far surpassed those of surrounding local schools.

Selective schools also don’t reflect the ethnic composition of our community and are overwhelmingly dominated by students from language backgrounds other than English (LBOTE). On average, 83% of students in Sydney’s fully selective schools were from a LBOTE in 2017. At James Ruse, the figure was 97%.

Most selective school students are children of skilled migrants, particularly from Asia, who tend to be highly educated and who invest heavily in their children’s education. This includes paying for many hours of private tutoring, especially in the lead-up to the selective schools admission test.

The use of tutoring to secure a competitive edge is another barrier preventing lower-income families from accessing the selective system.

Read more: Selective entry schools: tutoring improves student outcomes, but adds pressure

High-achieving students need more access to educational programs that will enable them to reach their full potential. But this new selective school is not the solution.

– ref. Selective schools mainly ‘select’ advantage, so another one won’t ease Sydney’s growing pains – http://theconversation.com/selective-schools-mainly-select-advantage-so-another-one-wont-ease-sydneys-growing-pains-118449

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alan Morris, Research Professor, University of Technology Sydney

Loneliness is increasingly recognised worldwide as a critical social issue and one of the major health hazards of our time. Our research shows older private renters are at high risk of loneliness and anxiety. This is a growing concern as more Australians are renting housing later in life. By contrast, only a small proportion of the social housing tenants we interviewed said they were lonely.

The links between housing arrangements and loneliness could have profound implications for our health. As former US surgeon general Vivek H. Murthy said:

The reduction in life span [for people experiencing loneliness] is similar to that caused by smoking 15 cigarettes a day, and it’s greater than the impact on life span of obesity … Look even deeper, and you’ll find loneliness is associated with a greater risk of heart disease, depression, anxiety and dementia.

Read more: Why secure and affordable housing is an increasing worry for age pensioners

What causes loneliness?

The causes of loneliness are multifaceted and complex. The number of people living alone in Australia is clearly a factor. In 2016, just under one in four households (24.4%) were single-person households. That’s up from one in five in 1991.

Read more: One in four Australians are lonely, which affects their physical and mental health

Research suggests low-income individuals are more likely to experience loneliness. So, too, are people who have a serious mental or physical health condition or have had a serious disruptive event (financial or job loss, illness or injury, or relationship breakdown) in the last couple of years.

The impact of housing tenure on loneliness has received little attention. While recognising that there are no definite associations, we interviewed about 80 older (65-plus) private renters and social housing tenants who depended on the Age Pension for their income. These in-depth interviews indicated that their housing tenure was a critical factor in their risk of experiencing loneliness.

Read more: When falling home ownership and ageing baby boomers collide

Many older private renters are lonely

Many older private renters have little disposal income, because the cost of housing uses up much of their income. They also live with the constant possibility that they may be asked to vacate their accommodation. Their limited budgets mean they often end up living in a poorly located property. These features, individually or in combination, create fertile ground for anxiety and loneliness.

Their dire financial situation was often an obstacle to social activities. One interviewee told of how she had to choose between food or breaking her isolation by using public transport.

Well, you sort of think what you can do with $2.50. That’s a loaf of bread type of thing. – Beverley *

A 72-year-old woman living by herself said she could not afford the outings organised by her church.

There’s quite an active social club at the church for over-55s but I can’t go to any of those … Sometimes I think it would be nice to go on something that appeals to me, yes. And they might have an afternoon at somebody’s home and you’re asked to bring a plate [of food]. You see, I couldn’t afford to do that.

Peter, 67 and divorced, had left the workforce prematurely due to ill-health.

I’ve become very isolated. I used to, before I had the hip operation, I used to play tennis and I loved to play tennis … but I really can’t afford it. I’ve found a few clubs that I could go and play in. I’d like to get back to it, but they say, ‘Ah, the fees are this and you pay it annually,’ and I can’t come up with $150 or $200 or whatever.

Lack of money and insecure tenure were sources of enormous distress and anxiety, which further discouraged social contact. Brigette (67) was brutally honest:

You do get depressed and I believe that’s why people suicide … And there have been times when I’ve thought, what is the point to life? I really have thought this can’t go on, you know … I feel sorry for people because it is hard, and once you stay in it’s like crawling out of a slime pit … I have to say, ‘Get up and go out, go up the shops … Pretend you need potatoes or something.’

Not all of the private renters interviewed experienced loneliness. These interviewees usually had strong family ties or had managed to find affordable and secure accommodation.

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

Social housing tenants feel less isolated

In sharp contrast, only a small proportion of the social housing tenants interviewed said they were lonely. Almost all were adamant they did not experience loneliness and felt they had strong social ties. Their affordable rent, security of tenure, long-term residence and having neighbours in a similar position meant they could socialise and were not beset by anxiety.

An 85-year-old long-established social housing tenant’s response to the question about loneliness and isolation was typical:

I do like it around here. I know where everything is and I know all the people, especially around these units you know. I know everyone and they know me. I like it around here. This is my home, you know. This is a community, I think. Like I know all the people and we’ve become really good friends. I couldn’t think of being anywhere else. – Kay

Pam, who had been a private renter before being allocated social housing, reflected on how her life had changed:

Well, it is changed because I’m happier and I think I’m healthier and I have a lot of new friends. I also have a lot more people around me for support if anything does happen. If I get sick and if they don’t see me for a few days someone will come and say, ‘Pam, are you OK?’ In private housing there was nobody.

The residualisation of social housing meant some tenants were living in what they perceived to be unbearable conditions. However, they generally were able to deal with their situation. Patricia coped with her very challenging neighbours by going to the local community centre.

No, I hate it [public housing]. I live here [at the community centre] every day. Yes, I’m on the committee here and I do things every day. This is my home, my family. Everybody is friendly with everybody. We have outings and things.

What the interviews indicate is that the housing tenure of age pensioners often plays a fundamental role in whether they are able to escape the experience of loneliness. Older private renters are far more likely to experience loneliness than their counterparts in social housing and that loneliness can be acute.

* All the names used are pseudonyms.

Read more: Designing cities to counter loneliness? Let’s explore the possibilities

– ref. ‘I really have thought this can’t go on’: loneliness looms for rising numbers of older private renters – http://theconversation.com/i-really-have-thought-this-cant-go-on-loneliness-looms-for-rising-numbers-of-older-private-renters-118046

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rachel Ong ViforJ, Professor of Economics, School of Economics, Finance and Property, Curtin University

The number of mature age Australians carrying mortgage debt into retirement is soaring.

And on average each mature age Australian with a mortgage debt owes much more relative to their income than 25 years ago.

Microdata from the Bureau of Statistics survey of income and housing shows an increase in the proportion of homeowners owing money on mortgages across every home-owning age group between 1990 and 2015. The sharpest increase is among homeowners approaching retirement.

More mortgaged for longer

For home owners aged 55 to 64 years, the proportion owing money on mortgages has tripled from 14% to 47%.

Among home owners aged 45 to 54 years, it has doubled.

Meanwhile, the average mortgage debt-to-income ratio among those with mortgages has pretty much doubled across every home-owning age group.

In the 45-54 age group the mortgage debt-to-income ratio has blown out from 82% to 169%.

For those aged 55-64 it has blown out from 72% to 132%.

Three reasons why

The soaring rates of mortgage indebtedness among older Australians have been driven by three distinct factors.

First, property prices have surged ahead of incomes.

Since 1970 the national dwelling price to income ratio has doubled.

Despite weaker property prices, the ratio remains historically high. This means households have to borrow more to buy a home. It also delays the transition into home ownership, potentially shortening the the remaining working life available to repay the loan.

Second, today’s home owners frequently use flexible mortgage products to draw down on their housing equity as needed for other purposes. During the first decade of this century, one in five home owners aged 45-64 years increased their mortgage debt even though they did not move house.

Third, older home owners appear to be taking on bigger mortgages or delaying paying them off in the knowledge that they can work longer than their parents did, or draw down their superannuation account balances.

Super could be changing our behaviour

For mortgage holders aged 55-64 years, there is evidence to suggest that larger debts prolong working lives.

In 2017 around 29% of lump sum superannuation withdrawals were used to pay down mortgages or purchase new homes or pay for home improvements, up from 25% four years earlier.

In the Netherlands, where a mandatory occupational pension scheme along the lines of Australia’s super scheme has been in place for much longer, over one-half of home owners aged 65 and over are still paying off mortgages.

The implications are huge

Internationally, studies have found that indebtedness adds to psychological distress. The impacts on wellbeing are more profound for older debtors, without the ability to recover from financial shocks.

Debt-free home ownership in old age used to be known as the fourth pillar of the retirement incomes system because of its role in reducing poverty in old age. It allowed the Australian government to set the age pension at relatively low levels.

Growing indebtedness will increase after-housing-cost poverty among older Australians and create pressure to boost the age pension.

Mortgage debt burdens late in working life will also expose home owners to unwelcome risks, as health or employment shocks can ruin plans to pay off their mortgages.

During the first decade of this century, around half a million Australians aged 50 years and over lost their homes.

Taxpayers will be under pressure to help

Those losing home ownership are often forced to rely on rental housing assistance. Moreover, as older tenants they are unlikely to ever leave housing assistance. This will put pressure on the government to boost spending on housing assistance, which is likely to further boost demand for housing assistance.

Super and government housing assistance could become the safety nets that allow retirees to escape their mortgages.

It wasn’t the intended purpose of superannuation, and wasn’t the intended purpose of housing assistance. It is a development that ought to be front and centre of the inquiry into the retirement incomes system announced by Treasurer Josh Frydenberg.

It is a change we’ll have to come to grips with.

Read more: Home ownership foundations are being shaken, and the impacts will be felt far and wide

– ref. More people are retiring with high mortgage debts. The implications are huge – http://theconversation.com/more-people-are-retiring-with-high-mortgage-debts-the-implications-are-huge-115134

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Susan Broomhall, Professor of History, University of Western Australia

Every day, thousands of people from around the world crowd into a stark, beige room at Paris’s Louvre Museum to view its single mounted artwork, Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa.

To do so, they walk straight past countless masterpieces of the European Renaissance. So why does the Mona Lisa seem so special?

The mystery of her identity

The story told by one of Leonardo’s first biographers, Giorgio Vasari, is that this oil portrait depicts Lisa Gherardini, second wife of a wealthy silk and wool merchant Francesco del Giocondo (hence the name by which it is known in Italian: La Gioconda).

Leonardo likely commenced the work while in Florence in the early 1500s, perhaps when he was hoping to receive the commission to take on a massive wall painting of The Battle of Anghiari.

Accepting a portrait commission from one of the city’s most influential, politically-engaged citizens might well have helped his chances. A recently discovered marginal note by Agostino Vespucci, one-time assistant to the diplomat and writer Niccolò Machiavelli, records that Leonardo was working on a painting of “Lisa del Giocondo” in 1503.

The Italian painter Raphael, a great admirer of Leonardo, leaves us a sketch from around 1505-6 of what seems to be this work. When Leonardo later moved to France in 1516, he took this still unfinished work with him.

However, art scholars have increasingly voiced doubts about whether the image in the Louvre can indeed be Vasari’s Lisa, for the style and techniques of the painting match far better Leonardo’s later work from 1510 onwards.

Additionally, a visitor to Leonardo’s house in 1517 recorded seeing there a portrait of “a certain Florentine woman, done from life,” made “at the instance of the late magnificent Giuliano de Medici.” Medici was Leonardo’s patron in Rome from 1513 to 1516. Was our visitor looking at the same image Vasari and our marginal diarist describe as Lisa, or another portrait of a different woman, commissioned later?

All in all, just who we are seeing in the Louvre remains one of the work’s many mysteries.

A portrait stripped bare

In comparison to many contemporary images of the elite, this portrait is stripped of the usual trappings of high status or symbolic hints to the sitter’s dynastic heritage. All attention is thus drawn to her face, and that enigmatic expression.

Before the 18th century, emotion was more commonly articulated in painting through gestures of the hand and body than the face. But in any case, depictions of individuals did not aim to convey the same kinds of emotions we might look for in a portrait photograph today — think courage or humility rather than joy or happiness.

Additionally, a hallmark of elite status was one’s ability to keep the passions under good regulation. Irrespective of dental hygiene standards, a broad smile in artworks thus generally indicated ill-breeding or mockery, as we see in Leonardo’s own study of Five Grotesque Heads.

Our modern ideas about emotions leave us wondering just what Mona Lisa might have been feeling or thinking much more than the work’s early modern viewers likely did.

A 20th century phenomenon

In fact, there is a real question as to whether anyone before the 20th century thought much about the Mona Lisa at all. The historian Donald Sassoon has argued that much of the painting’s modern global iconic status rests on its widespread reproduction and use in all manner of advertising.

This notoriety was “helped” by its theft in 1911 by former Louvre employee, Vincenzo Peruggia. He remarkably walked out of the museum one evening after closing time with the painting wrapped in his smock coat. He spent the next two years with it hidden in his lodgings.

Shortly after its return, the Dadaist Marcel Duchamp used a postcard of the Mona Lisa as the basis for his 1919 ready-made work, LHOOQ, initials that sound in French as “she has a hot ass”.

Although not the first, it is perhaps among the best known examples of Mona Lisa parodies, along with Salvador Dali’s Self Portrait as Mona Lisa, 1954.

Cultural furniture

From Duchamp and Dali, we have increasingly seen the Mona Lisa used as a trope. Balardung/Noongar artist Dianne Jones has reprised the work in her inkjet photographic portraits of 2005, which are less pointed in their swipe at white European art and more luminous in their appropriation of Mona Lisa’s sense of dream-like plenitude.

The painting appears as cultural furniture in the recent music video Apeshit, 2019, by Beyoncé and Jay Z, in which they romp across the Louvre backed by a troupe of scantily clad dancers, striking Lady Hamilton-like poses in front of famous works of art.

Apeshit itself closely imitates earlier works of contemporary high culture, not least French New Wave film director Jean-Luc Godard’s Bande à Part (Band of Outsiders), 1964, in which three friends, including Mona Lisa-like Anna Karina (Godard’s famous muse), meet up and run through the Louvre in record time.

Meanwhile, the notorious theft of a work of art by German performance artist Ulay in 1976, in which he removed the most famous (and kitsch) painting in the National Gallery in Berlin, Carl Spitzweg’s 1839 portrait of The Poor Poet, was a reprise of the theft of the Mona Lisa in 1911.

Many contemporary artists have rubbished all the reverence surrounding bucket-list art visits such as that to the Mona Lisa.

Recently, Belgian art provocateur Wim Delvoye (whose shit-producing machine, Cloaca, 2000, is one of the centrepieces of Hobart’s Museum of Old and New Art) installed Suppo (2012), a giant steel corkscrew suppository, under the Louvre’s central glass entry pyramid. This made it the first sighting of art in the museum to which the Mona Lisa’s visitors flock.

Still, the mysteries of the Mona Lisa look set to intrigue us for years to come. It is precisely the breadth and depth of possible interpretations that makes her special. Mona Lisa is whoever we want her to be – and doesn’t that make her the ultimate female fantasy figure?

– ref. What’s so special about the Mona Lisa? – http://theconversation.com/whats-so-special-about-the-mona-lisa-117180

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

When Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton told his departmental secretary Mike Pezzullo he shouldn’t go ringing up senators to set them straight, it was a rebuke laced with empathy, a message delivered from one hard man to another in a sympathetic manner.

After last week’s police raid on News Corp journalist Annika Smethurst’s home (a day before the raid on the ABC), Centre Alliance senator Rex Patrick issued a statement declaring that Dutton and Pezzullo “clearly hate media scrutiny”.

He said the police actions “are very clearly intended to have a chilling effect on journalistic inquiry”. There would be questions to be answered when the Senate sat, the senator warned.

Pezzullo, a veteran of sparring with Senate committees and never one to take a backward step, decided to get in first, with some direct answers to his critic.

He’s been angry ever since publication of the Smethurst article, which revealed bureaucratic discussions about widening the remit of the Australian Signals Directorate, an agency that carries out electronic spying. Elements of the story were denied at the time, as misconstruing what was being discussed.

Pezzullo contacted Patrick. According to Patrick, Pezzullo told him he considered his remarks slanderous, although quickly making it clear he wouldn’t be pursuing that element. He said it was unfair for Patrick, holding a high office, to criticise him when he had no way to publicly rebut the criticism.

Patrick said Pezzullo was polite – he wasn’t aggressive or offensive. Pezzullo told him the Smethurst article had been inaccurate and referred back to evidence he had given to a Senate committee on it.

Patrick said it wasn’t the content of the call but its intent that concerned him, when he reflected on what it had been about.

He concluded Pezzullo was trying to stop him criticising the Home Affairs department. But, he added, as a former submariner “I’ve lived in an environment of sharks – much bigger sharks than Mr Pezzullo”.

Pezzullo has rejected the construction Patrick put on the call. He told the ABC: “My sole request […] was to ask that he reflect on his adverse references to my purported view of media scrutiny.

“His comments were unfounded and not able to be responded to by me in the media as quite properly I lack the public platform that he has, and uses.

“I was grateful that he took my call and appreciative of the fact that he undertook to consider my representations, which of course he was under no obligation to do.”

Asked whether he had any concerns at Patrick saying he felt Pezzullo was trying to intimidate him, Prime Minister Scott Morrison told reporters: “I do find those things concerning”.

He and Dutton had discussed the matter, he said, and Dutton “has had an appropriate conversation with the secretary”.

That “appropriate conversation” was not a harsh one. The statement later issued by Dutton included both a sharp negative character reference on Patrick and an understanding of where Pezzullo was coming from.

“Secretary Pezzullo and I discussed the matter this morning. Like me he is disgusted at some of the outrageous lies and slander he and I are regularly subject to, but nonetheless I advised the secretary it was inappropriate to contact Senator Patrick even if just to point out the inaccuracies in the senator’s press release,” Dutton said.

“Further I advised it was counter productive because I have always found Senator Patrick to be a person of the sort of character who would seek to misrepresent the secretary’s words, and the secretary agreed the contact was not appropriate and that is where the matter ends.”

Patrick – who has foreshadowed a private member’s bill for a referendum to write press freedom into the constitution – said as far as he was concerned also “that’s the end of the matter. I’m relatively confident [Pezzullo] won’t do something like that again”.

But more generally, the issues of the raids and press freedom are far from at an end. There is consideration of a Senate inquiry, or a review of some other kind. Senate leader Mathias Cormann has indicated more will be said later in the week.

In deciding its reaction, the government is trying to gauge how much the press freedom issue is a matter of public concern – as distinct from the concern of the media itself.

ABC chair Ita Buttrose met Morrison on Tuesday. The meeting was arranged before the raid on the ABC and covered other matters, but Buttrose made it clear she would take a strong line in the talks on media freedom. She said afterwards that Morrison had “taken on board” what she had said.

Asked whether he would support a parliamentary inquiry into press freedom, Morrison said on Tuesday, “What I’m going to do on this issue is listen carefully. I think we have to keep these matters in perspective”.

He pointed to stronger legal protections for journalists that had been enacted.

He said it was important to honour two principles – that no one was above the law and that press freedoms were central to our democracy.

“And if there is a suggestion, or evidence, or any analysis, that reveals that there is a need for further improvement of those laws, well the government is always open to that. […] I intend to proceed calmly, and soberly, and consultatively.”

Asked whether better protections were needed for whistleblowers in the public service, Morrison said: “This is something that is regularly looked at”, suggesting it would be a topic in any review. “But it is also important that we balance the issues of national security, the primacy of our laws, and that no one stands above them, whether they’re politicians, or journalists, or editors, or anyone else.

“And that the rule of law applies to everybody in this country.”

– ref. View from The Hill: A soft reprimand from one hard man to another – http://theconversation.com/view-from-the-hill-a-soft-reprimand-from-one-hard-man-to-another-118619

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Evangeline Mantzioris, Program Director of Nutrition and Food Sciences, University of South Australia

If you’re a red meat-eater, there’s a good chance you’re eating more of it than you should. At last count, Australians ate an average of 81 grams of red meat per day.

The planetary health diet was developed by researchers to meet the nutritional needs of people around the world, while reducing food production’s environmental impact. It recommends reducing our red meat intake to around 14g a day. That’s around 100g of red meat a week.

Read more: How to feed a growing population healthy food without ruining the planet

Australia’s dietary guidelines are more conservative and recommend limiting red meat intake to a maximum of 455g a week, or 65g a day, to reduce the additional cancer risk that comes from eating large quantities of red meat.

So, what should you eat instead? And how can you ensure you’re getting enough protein, iron, zinc and vitamin B12?

Protein

Animal sources of protein provide essential amino acids, which the body uses to make muscle, tissue, hormones, neurotransmitters and the different cells and antibodies in our immune system.

The planetary health diet offers a good blueprint for gaining enough protein from a variety of other animal sources. It recommends eating, on average:

• 25g of chicken per day
• 28g of fish per day day
• 1.5 eggs per week
• 200g of milk per day day
• 50g of cheese per day.

In addition to the 14g of red meat in the planetary health diet, these foods would provide a total of 45g of protein per day, which is around 80% of our daily protein needs from animal sources.

The remaining protein required (11g) is easily met with plant foods, including nuts, legumes, beans and wholegrains.

Iron

Iron is essential for many of the body’s functions, including transporting oxygen to the blood.

Iron deficiency can lead to anaemia, a condition in which you feel tired and lethargic.

Read more: Why iron is such an important part of your diet

Pre-menopausal women need around 18 milligrams a day, while men only need 8mg. Pre-menopausal women need more iron because of the blood they lose during menstruation.

So, how can you get enough iron?

Beef, of course, is a rich source of iron, containing 3.3mg for every 100g.

The same amount of chicken breast contains 0.4mg, while the chicken thigh (the darker meat) contains slightly higher levels, at 0.9mg.

Pork is similarly low in iron at 0.7mg.

But kangaroo will provide you with 4.1mg of iron for every 100g. Yes, kangaroo is a red meat but it produces lower methane emissions and has one-third the levels of saturated fat than beef, making it a healthier and more environmentally friendly alternative.

Plant protein sources are also high in iron: cooked kidney beans have 1.7mg and brown lentils have 2.37mg per 100g.

If you wanted to cut your red meat intake from the 81g average to the recommended 14g per day while still getting the same amount of iron, you would need to consume the equivalent of either 50g of kangaroo, 100g of brown lentils or 150g of red kidney beans per day.

Zinc

Zinc is an essential mineral that helps the body function optimally. It affects everything from our ability to fight bugs, to our sense of smell and taste.

Zinc requirements are higher for men (14mg a day) than women (8mg a day) due to zinc’s role in the production and development of sperm.

Of all meat sources, beef provides the most zinc, at 8.2mg per 100g.

Chicken breast provides just 0.68mg, while the chicken thigh has 2mg.

In kangaroo meat, the levels of zinc are lower than beef, at 3.05mg.

The richest source of zinc is oysters (48.3mg).

Beans such lentils, red kidney beans and chickpeas all provide about 1.0mg per 100g.

To meet the shortfall of zinc from reducing your red meat intake, you could eat 12 oysters a day, which is unlikely. Or you could eat a combination of foods such as 150g of red kidney beans, one serve (30g) of zinc-supplemented cereals like Weet-bix, three slices of wholegrain bread, and a handful of mixed nuts (30g).

Vitamin B12

Vitamin B12 is important for healthy blood and nerve function. It’s the nutrient of most concern for people cutting out meat products as it’s only found in animal sources.

Requirements of vitamin B12 are the same for both women and men at 2.4 micrograms (mcg) a day.

Beef and kangaroo provide 2.5mcg per 100g serve, while chicken and turkey provide about 0.6mcg.

Dairy products also contain vitamin B12. One glass of milk would give you half your daily requirement requirement (1.24mcg) and one slice of cheese (20g) would provide one-fifth (0.4mcg).

Vitamin B12 can be found in trace amounts in spinach and fermented foods, but these levels aren’t high enough to meet your nutritional needs. Mushrooms, however, have consistently higher levels, with shiitake mushrooms containing 5mcg per 100g.

To meet the shortfall of vitamin B12 from reducing red meat intake, you would need to eat 75g kangaroo per day or have a glass of milk (200ml) plus a slice of cheese (20g). Alternatively, a handful of dried shiitake mushrooms in your salad or stir-fry would fulfil your requirements.

Don’t forget about fibre

A recent study found fibre intakes of around 25 to 29g a day were linked to lower rates of many chronic diseases such as coronary heart disease, type 2 diabetes, stroke and bowel cancer.

Yet most Australian adults currently have low dietary fibre levels of around 20g a day.

By making some of the changes above and increasing your intake of meat alternatives such as legumes, you’ll also be boosting your levels of dietary fibre. Substituting 100g of lentils will give you an extra 5g of fibre per day.

With some forward planning, it’s easy to swap red meat for other animal products and non-meat alternatives that are healthier and more environmentally sustainable.

– ref. How to get the nutrients you need without eating as much red meat – http://theconversation.com/how-to-get-the-nutrients-you-need-without-eating-as-much-red-meat-110274

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By William Peterson, Associate Professor, Flinders University

Review: Bigger and Blacker, Adelaide Cabaret Festival, Sun 9 Jun

Nothing beats the Adelaide winter blues quite like a superb, well-crafted cabaret show in a warm, cosy, intimate space. And few theatre spaces are more suited to cabaret than the Famous Spiegelent, which returns for the 2019 Adelaide Cabaret Festival, now under the leadership of Artistic Director Julia Zemiro.

Among the opening weekend highlights was the world premiere of self-described “faboriginal” Steven Oliver’s autobiographical Bigger and Blacker, a series of poignant, and hard-hitting stories told through song, prose, and spoken word poetry. Many will know Oliver from his brilliant character sketches on the ABC series, Black Comedy.

Working with musical director and cabaret stalwart Michael Griffiths, Oliver, a gay Aboriginal man, presents stories of “being lost and found again”. The journey touches on his recent success, one that suddenly made him if not famous, at least “gaymous”.

It takes us through his setbacks in finding love, the pain of confronting racism in the online world and his struggle with depression to his offer to open up cultural space for Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians to meaningfully engage with one another.

Oliver brilliantly and relentlessly plays with words from a position of his double-marginalisation as “a minority within a minority”. As we travel with him, we are guided through unlikely spaces, including the back room of a gay bar where, as he observes, Aboriginal men “won’t be hard to find because we’re the only blacks”.

In a smart, black suit and bow tie, Oliver commands the stage with his presence and his stories. His spoken word poetry alternates with his original songs: both possess a confessional, soulful quality.

Words pour out of his body and heart, sometimes erupting like a geyser, then a raging river, winding down into a narrow stream, a patter, punctuated by a pause. He is at times a conjurer, using language like a preacher, taking it into the realm of incantation. It is as if by saying it, he makes it so.

Read more: Black Comedy: the ABC makes a bold foray into race relations

Throughout, his hands and body only briefly come to a full stop, and then only for dramatic effect.

Oliver is a beautiful mover, swaying and rocking, at one point launching into a jaunty tap routine while engaged with a bit of playful banter with the ever-dapper Griffiths, seated at the piano. But his hands are his most expressive physical tool. They accentuate and underline words, flittering, exploding and twirling at speeds that sometimes appear to be faster than light.

Oliver’s rhyming is clever, at times brilliant, as he lets the movement of the words guide him into storytelling, rapping, and then transitioning into song. Griffiths adeptly supports him, leading from spoken word to song with musical phrases that appear as if out of the air.

Griffiths also provides back-up vocals and harmonies for Oliver, while never overpowering him. It is a musical collaboration marked by generosity, restraint, and mutual respect.

At times, Oliver gives us more naughty than nice, causing jaws to drop a bit, as when, early in show, while speaking of the therapeutic value of dance, he says, “When you shake your ass, you shake off a lot of shit”. Taking a beat, he adds, “ohhhh, that came out wrong”, requiring another beat, ending with an audible audience groan.

Oliver shows himself to be a master at drawing the audience into the material, an essential feature of cabaret. Many of his musical numbers caused spectators to involuntarily tap their feet on the wooden floor of the Spiegeltent, physically connecting us to one another.

Though intensely personal, Oliver’s words and songs are consistently interwoven into the larger social fabric of being Indigenous in Australia. Speaking of trolling on Facebook on social media, he observes trenchantly, “The thing about racism is that it teaches you how to behave”. When he later recounts his struggle with depression, he connects it to a story about a boy bullied for being effeminate, calling for a world where such a boy would “not just dance to sadness, but just dance”.

Bringing the personal and the political together, Oliver ended the evening with another urgent spoken word piece. “I’m a blackfella”, he asserts, observing that learning to engage starts “by talking to me”.

With Bigger and Blacker, Oliver jump-starts such a conversation by bringing us along for a ride that is thrilling, exhilarating, and at times, equal parts naughty and challenging.

Adelaide Cabaret Festival is on until June 22.

– ref. ‘Faboriginal’ Steven Oliver jump-starts a conversation about race in a thrilling new show – http://theconversation.com/faboriginal-steven-oliver-jump-starts-a-conversation-about-race-in-a-thrilling-new-show-118582

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anthony Forsyth, Professor of Workplace Law, RMIT University

Former Wallabies rugby star Israel Folau is the latest in a series of Australian employees to lose their jobs because of social media posts in recent years.

Through a combination of common law rules and broadly expressed codes of conduct, employers have increasingly been able to control their workers’ private activities, including on social media.

But what makes Folau’s case different is that it sets up a clash between employment contract law and legal protections against discrimination on the basis of religion.

This could set an important employment law precedent for future cases like this, which is especially contentious at a time when religious freedom is being so fiercely debated in Australia.

What claim has Folau brought?

Rugby Australia terminated Folau’s employment contract last month after a tribunal determined his actions had breached the organisation’s code of conduct. The offending behaviour was an Instagram post by Folau in April, warning homosexuals (among others): “Hell Awaits You. Repent! Only Jesus Saves.”

Read more: Egging the question: can your employer sack you for what you say or do in your own time?

Folau has now brought a claim under Section 772 of the Fair Work Act alleging the termination was because of his religion and, therefore, unlawful.

The application argues that as a manifestation of his Christian religion, including regular church attendance and preaching, Folau is:

…compelled to communicate the word of God and the message contained within the Bible.

According to media outlets, he is claiming around A$5 million in lost salary and an additional A$5 million in compensation for other missed opportunities, including sponsorships.

What the Fair Work Act says in cases like this

Rugby Australia maintains that Folau was dismissed not because of his religious beliefs, but because he breached the player code of conduct.

The code is typical of that of many businesses. It requires players to treat everyone equally and with dignity, regardless of their sexual orientation; not to use social media to breach expected standards of behaviour; and not to make public comments or otherwise act contrary to the best interests of the game.

What makes Folau’s claim unique is that it depends on the court’s view of whether he was dismissed for reasons that included his religion, as specified under Section 772 of the Fair Work Act.

Read more: The ‘gay wedding cake’ dilemma: when religious freedom and LGBTI rights intersect

This claim could be easier for Folau to prove than another part of the Fair Work Act commonly relied upon in discrimination cases, Section 351.

Case law tells us that Section 351 requires the employee to prove an employer was motivated to discriminate against him or her because of religion. So, if an employer can point to an employee’s breach of their employment obligations as the reason for dismissal – instead of a discriminatory motive – then the employee’s claim fails.

In contrast, under Section 772, Folau only has to show that his religion was merely among the reasons for the dismissal.

However, in order to make his case, he will also need to demonstrate that his Instagram post constituted an exercise of his religion.

There are some big questions to be resolved here: how far does a person’s right of religious expression extend? Does being a Christian necessarily mean you can express the views of your faith in any public forum?

And does it allow Folau to express his views in the way that he did (noting that he says he was simply quoting from the Bible)?

Are there any precedents in case law?

Discrimination law doesn’t help us out much here.

Various state and territory laws protect a person from being discriminated against due to religious “belief”, “conviction” or “activity.” However, the case law shows that only certain characteristics of those who observe a particular religion fall within these protections, for example, a Hindu who practices fasting, or a Sikh wearing a turban. Previous cases haven’t dealt with the question of speech associated with a person’s religion.

For further guidance, we can turn to cases involving an employee’s right to express political opinions. But here, too, we find a bit of a mixed bag.

Academics seemingly have more latitude to express political opinions because their free speech rights are backed up by “intellectual freedom” clauses found in most university enterprise agreements.

Read more: Explainer: does Rugby Australia have legal grounds to sack Israel Folau for anti-gay social media posts?

This enabled former James Cook University physics professor Peter Ridd to successfully contest his dismissal for public comments critical of climate science. Academic freedom was also behind the claim mooted by La Trobe University’s Roz Ward, who was suspended in 2016 for social media comments criticising the “racist Australian flag,” before the university eventually backed down.

By comparison, federal public servants are subject to very restrictive policies curtailing their free speech rights.

However, the case of former Department of Immigration official Michaela Banerji shows that public service employees may be able to rely on the implied constitutional freedom of political communication. She won a workers’ compensation case on the basis that her dismissal for anonymous tweets criticising government policies breached her constitutional rights. The federal government is now contesting that ruling in the High Court.

New territory for employment law

Outside the academic and public sector contexts, we don’t yet have a definitive ruling on the apparent conflict between an employer’s right to control employees’ social media comments and the protections of religious or political freedom found in discrimination law.

Many of these cases settle out of court, such as Angela Williamson’s claim against Cricket Australia for unfair termination following tweets she sent that were critical of Tasmanian government policy on access to abortion.

It’s highly likely that a settlement will be reached in the Folau case, as well. But if it does go to trial, I think the employer’s contractual right to impose standards of behaviour will trump the rugby star’s right to express his religious views.

Court rulings have tended to favour employers seeking to enforce their behavioural policies and codes, including the regulation of employees’ private activities. The Folau case is an important opportunity to see whether the right to express religious views can halt the steady march of employer control in the era of social media.

– ref. Why the Israel Folau case could set an important precedent for employment law and religious freedom – http://theconversation.com/why-the-israel-folau-case-could-set-an-important-precedent-for-employment-law-and-religious-freedom-118455

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Barry Hart, Emeritus Professor Water Science, Monash University

The health of the Murray-Darling Basin, Australia’s largest and most complex river system, is in rapid decline, and faces major challenges over the next 30 years as the climate changes.

In our view, there are still major problems with the implementation of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. These must be addressed to make sure the system is resilient enough to have a reasonable chance of bouncing back from future shocks to the river’s ecosystems, particularly due to climate change.

Read more: Damning royal commission report leaves no doubt that we all lose if the Murray-Darling Basin Plan fails

Here are five ways the government can clean up the Murray-Darling Basin Plan so the river system has a chance of surviving in the long term.

1. Allow the rivers to spill into the floodplain

There are restrictions in all states on deliberately using environmental water (water set aside to keep the rivers healthy) to go over the river bank and inundate the floodplain. When this happens, it’s known as “overbank flow”, and is restricted to areas and times of year when it’s permitted.

Overbank flow is the connection between rivers and their floodplain, and is essential for two reasons.

The first is to ensure floodplain wetlands and forests are resilient. For example, without additional water, the current red gum forests along the River Murray are likely to die and be replaced with black box trees, which need less water.

The second is for the exchange of nutrients and organic matter between rivers and floodplains. Without these inputs from the floodplain, the river system would only be able to support a much smaller number of fish.

Governments have been reluctant to work towards increased overbank flows, largely because of a potential backlash from landholders who don’t want their floodplain land to be flooded.

Read more: Aboriginal voices are missing from the Murray-Darling Basin crisis

But in several regions, such as the Edward-Wakool system in New South Wales, landowners and government officials are working through the issues that infrequent flooding has on riverside agricultural land, such as stock being unable to graze flooded areas, crops being innundated by floodwaters, and loss of access to parts of their property through road flooding.

We hope their discussions will lead to a balance, where overbank flows can still occur with minimum impact on landholders.

Still, without changes to state policies on overbank flows, parts of the Basin’s floodplain systems are unlikely to have sufficient resilience to absorb future stresses.

2. Better management of the rivers

The Commonwealth and states now have almost 3 trillion litres (3 gigalitres) of dedicated environmental water, purchased from irrigators, many of whom have made significant water savings by upgrading their irrigation equipment.

This is called “held” environmental water. Currently, there is around 3 trillion litres of held environmental water, and 13.7 trillion litres of water allocated to irrigators in the Murray-Darling Basin.

Management of this environmental water is relatively new, compared with the management of water for irrigators, which has been occurring for the better part of 80 years in rivers such as the Murray, Goulburn and Murrumbidgee.

There is a major difference in when environmental and irrigation water is needed through the year. Farmers have their highest water demand for irrigation in late spring and summer, while the major environmental water demand is often highest in late winter and early spring. This is when high natural inflows would have filled river channels and spilled into floodplain forests and wetlands.

The use of the river channels to deliver irrigation water has lead to large flows in the summer when naturally the river flows would have been low. This has resulted in environmental problems, such as bank erosion and the wrong triggers for fish breeding.

3. A greater focus on river refuges

During periods of low or no flow, many of the Basin’s rivers exist as networks of waterholes. In such dry periods, these waterholes are vital habitats, or “refuges”, for fish, frogs, waterbugs, and other species that need permanent water.

Changes in land use, flow regimes and the condition of riverbank vegetation all threaten the ability for these waterholes to act as refuges for these species. These waterhole refuges also need a full set of structural habitats, such as snags and riverbank vegetation.

Read more: A good plan to help Darling River fish recover exists, so let’s get on with it

Maintaining a “mosaic” of refuges with different levels of connection is required for the full suite of species to be able to survive droughts.

4. Better protection of planned environmental water

Runoff – rainwater that drains from the land and into the rivers – will be seriously affected by climate change.

A predicted 20% reduction in rainfall is expected in the southern Basin by 2050. This would translate to a 40-50% reduction in runoff, and would impact on all water in the Murray-Darling Basin.

Disturbingly, the current policy in the Basin Plan safeguards the entitlements to irrigation water and held environmental water, but not the rest of the flow – which is largely also “environmental” water. Currently, this makes up around half of the total flow (32.5 trillion litres per year) in the Murray-Darling Basin a very large volume.

The effect varies over the basin, but by 2030, overall losses are predicted to be two to three times greater for water that is outside of these entitlements, compared with irrigation water and held environmental water.

Unless this policy is changed, climate change will have an excessive impact on the river’s health. Entitlement-holders will continue to take the same amount of water while the overall river flow drops dramatically. This deficiency must be addressed when the Basin Plan is reviewed by 2026.

5. Linking water and other natural resource management

The Basin’s water resources do not exist in isolation from other “natural capital”, such as riverbank habitats, floodplain land, and the surrounding catchments.

Before the Basin Plan, the Murray-Darling Basin Commission had in place an integrated natural resource management strategy, but this has now been discontinued.

River scientists know “the catchment rules the river”. But the water and catchments are now managed separately, despite many calls over the years for better integration.

Poor agricultural practices result in sediment, nutrients and salt entering the rivers in runoff. This reduces water quality and harms the Basin’s ability to provide essential “ecosystem services”, such as water quality improvement and the effective functioning of the ecosystem.

Read more: It’s time to restore public trust in the governing of the Murray Darling Basin

We believe a more coordinated management of all natural resources in the Basin, and attention to other complementary measures, should be addressed when the current Basin Plan is reviewed in 2026.

We submit that continuing with the existing Basin Plan, it’s unlikely the Murray-Darling Basin will be resilient enough to withstand future climate impacts, and we will see major detrimental changes to the basin’s ecosystems.

At the very least, we must properly implement the current Basin Plan by addressing the first three issues above, and also make the necessary policy change to ensure the other two issues – protection of planned environmental water and better links with other natural resources – are addressed in the next Basin Plan in 2026.

– ref. 5 ways the government can clean up the Murray-Darling Basin Plan – http://theconversation.com/5-ways-the-government-can-clean-up-the-murray-darling-basin-plan-116265

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alan Collins, Professor of Geology, University of Adelaide

Curious Kids is a series for children. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to curiouskids@theconversation.edu.au You might also like the podcast Imagine This, a co-production between ABC KIDS listen and The Conversation, based on Curious Kids.

Where do rocks come from? – Claire, age 5, Perth, WA.

Wow, Claire, what a great question. Sitting in a university, I rarely get asked such brilliant questions. So, thank you.

As strange as it sounds, rocks are made from stardust; dust blasted out and made from exploding stars.

In fact, our corner of space has many rocks floating around in it. From really fine dust, to pebbles, boulders and house-sized rocks that can burn up in the night sky to make meteors or “shooting stars”.

The Moon and our local planets – Mars, Venus and Mercury – are just the largest rocks floating around our part of space. These are all made from space dust stuck together over billions of years.

Read more: Curious Kids: how was the Earth made?

The ‘light’ rocks are on the Earth’s surface

Planet Earth is a rock too, but so much has happened since it was formed from dust and small rocks that smashed and stuck together 4.543 billion years ago.

As the space dust hit each other to make the earth, it got super hot and melted. The Earth was, at that time, a spinning ball of red-hot lava flying through space.

In this melted lava planet, heavy bits of the earth sank and the light frothy bits gathered on the surface.

Have you ever looked closely at a glass of milky coffee at a cafe? The dark heavy coffee is at the bottom, whereas the light, frothy milk sits on the top. Well, our planet was a bit like that coffee billions of years ago.

We don’t see the really heavy rocks these days because they sank deep in the planet very early on. The rocks we see on the surface are like the frothy milk! They were light and rose to the top. Then, as time moved on, the planet cooled and froze to become the solid earth we have now.

I know most rocks are heavy. But in fact some rocks – even really big ones like Uluru – are actually much lighter than the rocks found in the deep Earth.

Lava and plates

Those rocks on the Earth’s surface actually move around. Large chunks the size of continents (called “plates”) jostle each other and this can cause earthquakes. Some of them get forced under other plates and heat up and eventually melt. This forms more lava. The lava erupts from volcanoes, then cools and forms new rocks.

Here are some pictures of lava in the melted state and then after it has cooled down:

Read more: Curious Kids: how do mountains form?

Mountains and gems are also rocks

Mountains form where two plates smash into each other. The rocks that get caught between two of the Earth’s plates get squashed under huge pressures and heat up. These can form really beautiful rocks. Sometimes gems form in these rocks and people try to find them to make jewellery.

Rain and ice break up the rocks in mountains. These form sand and mud that get washed out to form beaches, rivers and swamps. This sand and mud can get buried, squashed and heated, which eventually turns them into rocks.

Rocks contain a record of the history of our planet; what is has been through and what is capable of. We are only just learning how to read it.

So, next time you see a rock, just think what an incredible story it contains.

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

Please tell us your name, age and which city you live in. We won’t be able to answer every question but we will do our best.

– ref. Curious Kids: where do rocks come from? – http://theconversation.com/curious-kids-where-do-rocks-come-from-116429

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Melissa de Zwart, Professor, Adelaide Law School, University of Adelaide

In a sign the Australian Space Agency is already opening up new doors for Australian industry, NASA says it will be launching rockets from Arnhem Space Centre, in Nhulunbuy in the Northern Territory, in 2020.

Minister for Industry, Science and Technology Karen Andrews has also indicated she will encourage space tourism from Australia. She wants passengers to experience zero-gravity from the convenience of a domestic airport.

Read more: Five ethical questions for how we choose to use the Moon

But who gets to decide what can be launched into space? That depends on where the launch takes place, and in the case of Australia those rules are currently under review.

International treaty

The authority for who approves, supervises and grants permission for launch of space objects is based on UN treaties that provide a framework for international space law. The most important is the Outer Space Treaty (OST), which entered into force in 1967.

Article VI of the OST provides that nation states (that is, countries) bear “international responsibility” for “national activities” undertaken in outer space by government and commercial users alike.

States remain responsible for activities undertaken by commercial entities – for example, companies such as SpaceX – and are obliged to undertake ongoing supervision of such activities.

How individual countries choose to conduct such supervision is left entirely up to them, but in most cases it is done by way of domestic space law.

Another international treaty, the Liability Convention provides that the liability of the state extends to all launches that are made from that state’s territory. For example, the US is legally responsible for all launches that take place from that country as well as for launches elsewhere that it procures.

This imposes a significant burden on the state to ensure that international requirements are complied with.

Domestic space law regulates matters such as the granting of launch permits, and insurance and indemnity requirements. In Australia, this is achieved through the Space Activities (Launches and Returns) Act 2018. In New Zealand, the Outer Space and High-altitude Activities Act 2017, applies.

The Starlink network

In the US, it’s the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) that gave Elon Musk’s SpaceX permission to launch thousands of Starlink satellites as part of a plan to create a low-orbit internet network.

The licence is for one constellation of 4,409 satellites and a second constellation of 7,518 satellites. The FCC requires launch of half of the total number planned within six years.

The first 60 satellites were launched into orbit last month, and have already given rise to a number of concerns.

Read more: Lights in the sky from Elon Musk’s new satellite network have stargazers worried

Scientists and astronomers are worried such a large constellation of satellites will be visible to the naked eye in the night sky. In response, Musk has already agreed to make the next batch less shiny.

Penalties apply

As well as granting launch licences, the FCC can also issue fines for any unlicensed launch by US operators.

Swarm Technologies launched four SpaceBee satellites from India in January 2018, after having been denied a licence from the FCC. The FCC was concerned the satellites were too small to be effectively tracked by the US Space Surveillance Network.

FCC subsequently fined Swarm US$900,000, partly as a way to spread the word that licensing of launching is a serious business but because the company had also performed other activities that required FCC authorisation.

In addition to presenting issues for tracking, new satellites also presented a hazard in terms of their potential to create large debris fields.

Notably, there are no binding international laws with respect to the creation of space debris. There are non-binding Space Debris Mitigation Guidelines issued by the UN Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee. But these are only guidelines and are frequently overlooked in the interests of commercial expediency.

The 2018 Australian Act does require the applicant for various Australian licences (such as a launch permit) to include “a strategy for debris mitigation”. This may include, for example, a plan to de-orbit the satellite after a certain number of years.

Launches from Australia

Australia’s first claim to fame as a space-faring nation was the launch of WRESAT (the Weapons Research Establishment Satellite) from Woomera, South Australia, in 1967.

But the launch platforms on nearby Lake Hart were dismantled following the departure to French Guiana in 1971 of the European Launcher Development Organisation (ELDO) – whose name ELDO still graces the sole hotel in Woomera, in outback South Australia.

From this time until the late 1990s there was little interest in space launches from Australia.

Read more: Lost in space: Australia dwindled from space leader to also-ran in 50 years

The Space Activities Act 1998 was enacted in response to a brief interest in US company Kistler Aerospace developing a spaceport at Woomera, SA.

But no spaceport was constructed nor any launches conducted. A review of the Space Activities Act and of the Australian space industry in 2016-2017 led to the new Space Activities (Launches and Returns) Act in 2018.

This Act envisions a broader role for domestic space industries, including but not limited to, launch.

The rules which flesh out the details of the application of that licensing regime are currently open for public review and comment. The deadline for making a submission closes at the end of this week.

– ref. NASA and space tourists might be in our future but first we need to decide who can launch from Australia – http://theconversation.com/nasa-and-space-tourists-might-be-in-our-future-but-first-we-need-to-decide-who-can-launch-from-australia-117912

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Francisco Perales, Senior Research Fellow (Institute for Social Science Research & Life Course Centre) and ARC DECRA Fellow, The University of Queensland

Almost two years after the heated discussions accompanying the 2017 marriage equality postal survey, LGB Australians remain at the centre of public debates. For example, there are ongoing issues around religious freedoms, and homosexuality was at the centre of Israel Folau’s controversial statements.

But one aspect about the Australian LGB populations that is often ignored is who, and how many, belong to them.

In fact, there is a large degree of uncertainty internationally about the share of the non-heterosexual population. The accuracy of early US studies by Alfred Kinsey has been largely discredited. More recent work by demographer Gary Gates provided more robust information, but left many questions unanswered.

Read more: Marriage equality was momentous, but there is still much to do to progress LGBTI+ rights in Australia

In Australia, there is comparatively less information – notwithstanding recent research efforts. Understanding the prevalence of non-heterosexuality — as well as how this varies according to who, what and when we ask — is an important endeavour.

It can contribute to more inclusive social policies and services. It also allows us to reflect critically on traditional narratives about sexual orientation and their applicability to current debates within Australian society.

Here, we collate and discuss estimates of the prevalence of sexual-minority status in contemporary Australia, leveraging recent information from several major social and health surveys.

Dimensions of sexual orientation: what you ask

Academic scholarship usually distinguishes between three dimensions of sexual orientation: behaviour, attraction, and identity. These lead to different definitions of non-heterosexuality:

• engaging in same-sex sexual behaviour;

• feeling some degree of sexual attraction towards people of the same sex; and

• self-identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or other smaller sexual-orientation groups (for example, asexual, pansexual, demisexual).

Few Australian studies collect information on the three domains of sexual orientation from the same sample. But those that do provide an interesting picture: the prevalence of non-heterosexuality varies drastically depending on the domain asked about.

Take, for example, the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women’s Health, a long-running health survey tracking several cohorts of women over time. Its youngest cohort, comprising roughly 17,000 women, was asked about sexual orientation at ages 22-28 years in 2017. When sexual-minority status was defined on the basis of identity, 38% of these young women fell into a category other than “exclusively heterosexual” (that is, “mostly heterosexual”, “bisexual”, “mostly lesbian” or “lesbian”).

However, the “mostly heterosexual” category accounted for the bulk of this figure, and some might question whether these women should be counted as non-heterosexual. Excluding the “mostly heterosexual” category, the share of sexual-minority women falls to about one in eight (12.4%).

If sexual-minority status was defined using same-sex sexual behaviour (having had sex with other women at some point of their lives), about a third (32.9%) of the young women in the study would fall into this group. Yet only 3.7% of them reported that their sexual experiences with women were at least as frequent as those with men.

Finally, 43.5% of women in this sample acknowledged feeling some sexual attraction to other women. But again, a more conservative measure — feeling as intense a sexual attraction for women as for men — reduces this statistic to 1 in 10 (9.9%).

Interestingly, the degree of overlap between measures is not as large as could be expected. While 52.9% of the young women reported some non-heterosexuality on at least one dimension (identity, attraction or behaviour), only 23.4% did on all three dimensions.

Gender differences: who you ask

Some surveys ask sexual-orientation questions of both men and women, which allows comparisons by gender.

The Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey, for example, asked a sexual-identity question of approximately 16,000 men and women aged 15 years or older in 2016. A greater share of women (1 in 25, or 3.9%) than men (1 in 33, or 2.9%) identified as gay/lesbian or bisexual.

However, these figures are likely to be underestimated, as 6.1% of women and 4.8% of men chose uninformative response options – “other”, “don’t know”, and “prefer not to say” — which suggests that many of them may not be heterosexual.

Estimates of non-heterosexuality from the 2014 General Social Survey for the Australian population aged 18 years and older are slightly lower, at 2.5% for women and 2.4% for men.

The Longitudinal Study of Australian Children asked a sexual-attraction question to a sample of about 3,500 boys and girls aged 14-15 years in 2014. In this youth sample, 1.2% of girls reported feeling sexually attracted to other girls exclusively, 4.4% feeling attracted to both boys and girls, and 4.4% being “unsure” about their attractions.

Among boys, 0.4% reported feeling sexually attracted only to other boys and 2% to both boys and girls, while 1.7% were “unsure”. Therefore, as for the adult population, more adolescent girls than boys fell into the combined sexual-minority category — 1 in 18 (5.6%) compared with 1 in 42 (2.4%), excluding the “unsure” group.

The higher propensity for women (and girls) compared to men (and boys) to fall into the sexual-minority group has also been observed in other countries, such as the US, and attributed to lower acceptance of male than female homosexuality and greater erotic plasticity and sexual fluidity among women.

Sexual fluidity: when you ask

This phenomenon of sexual fluidity gives rise to other fascinating statistical patterns surrounding the prevalence of non-heterosexuality. For example, our recent research demonstrates that women’s sexual orientation should not be assumed to be static.

Rather, some women experience shifts in their sexual orientation over time, responding to changes in their personal and social circumstances. Thus, the prevalence of non-heterosexuality also varies as a function of age and life-course stage.

We used Australian Longitudinal Study on Women’s Health data to track a cohort of women born between 1973 and 1978 from ages 22 to 27 years in 2000 to ages 34 to 39 in 2012. Approximately one in eight (12.5%) changed their response to the sexual-identity question on at least one occasion. The most common changes involved movements from “exclusively heterosexual” to “mainly heterosexual”, and vice versa.

However, the results were very different when we repeated this exercise using data from a younger cohort of women, born between 1989 and 1995 and followed from ages 18 to 23 years in 2013 to ages 22 to 28 years in 2017. Approximately one in three (32.8%) of these young women changed their response to the sexual-identity question at least once. The most common changes involved moving away from the “exclusively heterosexual” and “mainly heterosexual” categories.

Societal change

Less is known about change over the time in the number and share of Australians who are non-heterosexual. This is because most data collections only began asking about sexual orientation in recent years.

Estimates based on the 2001/2002 and 2012/2013 instalments of the Australian Study of Health and Relationships (each canvassing about 20,000 men and women age 16-59), suggest an increase in the prevalence of non-heterosexuality across different measures.

The share of men identifying as homosexual or bisexual went up from 2.5% to 3.2%. The share of women identifying as lesbian or bisexual also rose, from 2.2% to 3.8%. While the share of men expressing some same-sex sexual attraction increased slightly (6.8% and 7.4%), this increased more markedly for women (12.9% and 16%). Similarly, the prevalence of lifetime same-sex sexual experience increased for both sexes, with the increment being more pronounced among women (8.5% to 14.7%) than men (6% to 6.6%).

Similarly, Australian Census data suggest a marked increase in the number of same-sex couples — from about 10,000 in 1996 to about 47,000 in 2016. The 2016 figure means that, on that year, approximately one in 100 Australian couples was a same-sex couple.

What does it all mean?

The variability in estimates of sexual-minority status according to who, what or when you ask might come as a surprise to many. It also casts doubts over traditional “us and them” narratives about sexual orientation.

Using certain definitions, Australian sexual minorities appear in fact pretty “major”. While only one in 25 Australians identify as gay, lesbian or bisexual, feeling some attraction to members of the same sex or seeing oneself as “mainly heterosexual” is fairly common—especially among women.

Read more: Australia has finally achieved marriage equality, but there’s a lot more to be done on LGBTI rights

Which of these indicators of sexual orientation is a better predictor of life outcomes in contemporary Australia? How does structural stigma affect these different groups? Which domains of sexual orientation should we ask about in official statistics? How should we ask these questions to elicit accurate and unbiased responses?

More broadly, the nuances here serve as an important remainder of the complexity of human sexuality. Large-scale quantitative studies have only scratched the surface. More information on, for example, less socially salient but clearly emerging sexual-orientation and gender-identity groups (for example, asexual, pansexual, demisexual, transcurious, and bigender) is needed to fully map gender and sexuality in our society.

Then we can better understand how these personal traits contribute to shaping the lives of everyday Australians.

– ref. How many Australians are not heterosexual? It depends on who, what and when you ask – http://theconversation.com/how-many-australians-are-not-heterosexual-it-depends-on-who-what-and-when-you-ask-118256

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christopher M Fisher, Associate Profressor in Young Peoples Sexual Health & Sex Education, La Trobe University

Just under half of year 10 to 12 students have had sex, according to research released today.

They know more about sexually transmitted infections (STIs) than you might think and are using a variety of sources for their sexual health information.

But there’s room to improve condom use and STI testing for sexually active teens. Only 13% of all those surveyed thought they were likely to get an STI.

Read more: Good sex ed doesn’t lead to teen pregnancy, it prevents it

In 2018, we surveyed 6,327 secondary students in years 10 to 12 from across Australia in all kinds of schools, for the Sixth National Survey of Secondary Students and Sexual Health.

We asked them a range of questions about their sexual health. These included where they turned to for information about sexual health, and how often. We asked if they liked their sex education. And yes, we asked about their sexual activity, or lack of it.

All up, 47% of students told us they had sex – defined as vaginal and/or anal intercourse regardless of the gender of the partner.

That might sound a lot. But rest assured, it was age-dependent. Year 10s were much less likely to have had sex yet (34% had ever had sex) compared to year 11s (46%) and 12s (56%).

Read more: ‘Do I need to shave my pubic hair before having sex?’

Recent US reports suggest teens are having less sex than they used to. The US Centers for Disease Control found between 1991 and 2017 the percentage of students who’d had intercourse dropped from 54% to 40%.

In Australia since 2012, the rate has dropped 3% from 50%, which is within the margin of error, meaning there might be no actual decline.

The average age at which students had begun engaging in various sexual activities ranged from 13 for masturbation to 15 for mutual touching and oral sex.

The average age for the 47% who had experienced sexual intercourse in our survey was about 16 years old. This is slightly lower than other researchers have found. But our survey results may not represent Australian teens as a whole.

Of those who were sexually active, most (76%) were having sex in their homes, in a relationship (65%) or with a partner about the same age as them (86%).

They largely reported responsible behaviours. These included discussing having sex (81%) beforehand and protecting their health (77%). They used condoms (56%) and/or the pill (41%).

In short, teens in Australia are doing pretty well in relation to sex. And this isn’t new: the findings echo what has been seen in previous versions of the same survey over the past 25 years.

How about unwanted sex?

We also continue to find about a quarter (28%) reported some kind of unwanted sex at some point in their lives.

“Unwanted” means very different experiences for different people. A quarter (23%) of those reporting unwanted experiences wrote in comments. Many suggested it was a sense of “meh” or “just wasn’t really into it at the time”. But they provided no indication of regret.

While the survey did not ask about rape or sexual assault, slightly less than 1% of all participants did write explicitly about such experiences.

Despite this, we found 93% wanted their last sexual encounter. Overall, 85% indicated they felt extremely good and happy about their last experience and fewer (less than 20%) reported feeling upset, worried or guilty.

Shifts in school-based sex education to include a greater emphasis on relationships and skills in communication might, in part, explain the good sex teens are reporting.

How about smartphones and sexting?

Some things have changed, like using the internet to find sexual health information. That’s almost double what was reported in 2013 (44% then, 79% now). This isn’t surprising, given the pervasiveness of the internet today – 88% did the survey on an internet-enabled mobile device.

Rates of sexting seemed to have gone down by about 3% across each of the specific behaviours asked about. Overall about a third of students had engaged in some form of sexting. For those who were sexting, it was mostly with a partner or friend and only a few times in the previous two months.

Good marks, but room for improvement

So when it comes to sex and sexual health, Australia’s students are receiving pretty good marks. But there is room to continue improving.

The levels of reported unwanted sex, and the complexity of it, suggest a more nuanced approach may be warranted. Talking to teens about unwanted sex could expand beyond rape, sexual assault and issues of consent to cover communicating about desires and pleasure in a relationship leading to hopefully less “meh”.

Rates of STIs among young people suggest there is room to improve condom use and testing among sexually active teens. Only 13% thought they were likely to get an STI.

Luckily, Australian teens are having healthy conversations with partners, part of realising a happy, healthy and pleasurable sex life.

Read more: How to make your next sexual health check less, erm … awkward

– ref. Around half of 17-year-olds have had sex and they’re more responsible than you think – http://theconversation.com/around-half-of-17-year-olds-have-had-sex-and-theyre-more-responsible-than-you-think-118337

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Philip Laird, Honorary Principal Fellow, University of Wollongong

The Melbourne-Sydney air corridor is now the second-busiest in the world. That’s true for either the number of passenger planes flying between the two airports or by counting actual passenger numbers, now over 9 million passengers a year. That’s an increase of 28% since 2009.

On an average day, some 12,330 people get on a plane in Sydney to fly to Melbourne. A similar number make the reverse journey.

Most passengers will have taken some time to get the airport and waited well over half an hour at the airport just to get on the plane. Once on board, the cramped conditions in economy once prompted comedian Jean Kittson to observe that even battery hens feel sorry for the passengers.

Read more: Let’s get moving with the affordable medium-speed alternatives to the old dream of high-speed rail

Contrast this with getting on a high-speed rail (HSR) train that can travel at speeds of 250km/h or more from city centre to city centre on selected routes. Starting with Japan in 1964, these trains now operate in 12 countries in Asia, Europe, the UK, and now Morocco.

Australia’s high-speed rail investigations since 1984 have cost an estimated A$125 million in today’s terms. However, not even one kilometre of corridor has been reserved. High-speed rail has often been promised, often before elections (including a Melbourne-Geelong service in the latest one) – as The Chaser observed in 2016 – only to vanish afterwards.

How does this compare to other countries?

Japan’s network has been slowly but surely extended, from the initial Tokyo-Osaka 515km Shinkansen in 1964 to more than 2,750km of lines on new dedicated track. More lines are under construction. To date, there have been more than 10 billion passenger movements with no loss of life from collision or derailment.

China has had a rapid rollout of trains moving up to 350km/h. Starting in 2008 with Beijing to Tianjin taking 30 minutes to cover 120km, China’s high-speed rail network now extends over 20,000km. This includes Beijing-Shanghai (opened in 2011 with a fatal collision that year) and Beijing-Guangzhou (the longest HSR route in the world). In 2018, the short Guangzhou-Hong Kong section opened.

Germany’s high-speed rail is of interest to Australia, with a mixture of new track construction (Neubaustrecken) one section at a time and upgrading of existing track. This progressively improves rail capacity and reduces travel times.

Many other countries have medium-speed rail, with trains moving at speeds of 160-240km/h. In Uzbekistan, for example, Talgo tilt trains take about 2 hours to move between Tashkent and Samarkand. This is a distance similar to Sydney to Canberra, which is currently a train journey of over four hours.

So what’s stopping Australia?

High-speed rail has been studied repeatedly since 1984 in Australia. The Howard government raised expectations before the 1998 election with a Sydney-Canberra Speedrail proposal. John Howard said this “nation-building project” would deliver “ourselves – and our children – a visionary new transport system of which we can all be proud”.

The proposal was to use existing track from Sydney’s Central Station to near Campbelltown, then new track to Canberra airport. The train would take just 84 minutes to complete the trip. The cost was then about A$4.5 billion, with the private sector to finance all but about A$1 billion.

The Howard government withdrew support for the project in December 2000. Instead, it commissioned yet another study and shut down high-speed rail for another decade.

The Gillard government commissioned more studies. In 2013 the cost of a new Sydney-Canberra high-speed rail sector was estimated at A$23 billion with an east coast network to cost A$114 billion.

In its 2017 budget, the Turnbull government moved the focus to medium-speed rail or “faster rail”. The National Faster Rail Agency will come into being on July 1.

What are the prospects for faster rail?

There is a good case for pursuing “faster rail”, given the difficulties of making progress on high-speed rail. Australia could follow the lead of Germany and other countries in building isolated new sections of track to high-speed standards, one at a time. These sections can link with existing mainlines, to allow for new trains to run faster than cars.

This has worked well in Victoria since 2006 with the introduction of regional fast rail on four corridors. These trains run at up to 160km/h on upgraded tracks. Further track upgrading is under way in Victoria.

Queensland and Western Australia also have trains that can move at 160km/h on good tracks.

However, in New South Wales, the preponderance of mainline track with “steam age” alignment with many tight curves means intercity train speeds are too slow. The NSW government, along with ordering new intercity trains, has retained an overseas expert, Professor Andrew MacNaughton, to advise on high-speed rail versus faster rail and track upgrades to speed up trains. This is for the four main lines from Sydney to each of Newcastle, Orange, Canberra, and Wollongong.

These lines offer good potential to speed up trains by rebuilding old sections of track. In fact, between Sydney and Junee, there is scope to reduce the point-to-point distance by 60km to speed up freight trains plus reduce fuel use and emissions.

This track upgrade, along with tilt trains, would also allow the 11-hour Sydney-Melbourne XPT travel time to be cut to about six hours or less.

– ref. We can halve train travel times between our cities by moving to faster rail – http://theconversation.com/we-can-halve-train-travel-times-between-our-cities-by-moving-to-faster-rail-116512

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dorothy Ann Lee, Stewart Rearch Professor of New Testament, Trinity College, University of Divinity

In the wake of the royal commission into child sexual abuse, Christian churches in this country need not only radical reform of their principles and practices, but also ways of recovering their integrity. For the Catholic Church, with its patriarchal structures, ordaining women to the priesthood is one way to achieve this.

In 2016, Pope Francis appointed a commission to report on women in the early church, asking the question of whether women could be ordained as deacons. (Deacons are the first level of ordination in the Catholic Church before priesthood.)

Now the pope has said the commission was divided on the issue. The commission agreed there were women deacons in the early church, but disagreed on whether they had any power. The pope has handed the report to a gathering of the heads of female religious orders, and may call the commissioners back for further input.

Note that, in all this, the Catholic Church has not even begun to debate the question of whether women can be priests (the second and more powerful level of ordination in the church). Yet if we look closely at the Bible and the history of the church, there are very good reasons why women should hold these positions of high authority.

As the mother and grandmother of Catholic children, it pains me that women cannot be ordained in the Catholic Church. I can tell my grandson that he might think about becoming a Catholic priest when he grows up, but I cannot say the same to my granddaughters.

As an Anglican priest, I have seen ordained women of extraordinary capacity working in the Anglican Church and exercising authority. I know women deacons, women priests and women bishops, and can testify to the marvellous work of ministry they are doing.

I also know scores of Catholic women who would make truly remarkable priests. They are loving, self-giving, intelligent and responsible, with spiritual depth and wisdom. They would do much to restore the church’s integrity.

Idolatry of maleness

The main argument used in the Catholic hierarchy to exclude women from priesthood is that, to represent Christ at the altar in Mass, the priest must be male. The priest stands in for Jesus and therefore has to have a “natural resemblance” to him, and that resemblance is his maleness.

Opponents to women priests also claim that, at the Last Supper, Jesus ordained the 12 male apostles and no women. In subsequent church tradition, they say, women were never priests and to ordain them now would make the church contradict its own tradition.

Yet there are a number of arguments, from within the church’s own theological framework, that strongly support the ordaining of women as priests. At the most basic level, the church baptises (christens) females as well as males; there is no gender barrier around baptism. This has enormous implications.

In baptism, a person takes on something of the identity of the Risen Christ. He or she now belongs to Christ in a unique way. Not only are they committed to living a Christlike life of love and justice, they are also able to represent Christ in loving service to others. Yet supposedly only at the altar are they unable to represent Christ!

Jesus was not only male but also Jewish. Priests in the Catholic Church are not required to be Jews, but can represent Christ from widely divergent ethnic and cultural backgrounds.

Maleness, in other words, is given a significant weighting over all other social and cultural differences, including femaleness. In this sense, this belief represents an idolatry of maleness – an exalting of male over female, despite the inclusive impetus of baptism and despite the fact that, in creation, women as well as men are made equally in God’s image. The “natural resemblance” to Christ that is needed is not maleness but rather humanness.

Biblical scholars, moreover, have argued that Jesus ordained no-one in his lifetime: neither at the Last Supper nor anywhere else. It is even possible that women were present at this event.

There is compelling evidence that women, in the ministry of Jesus and the early church, held positions of leadership and authority. Mary Magdalene was the first to meet the risen Christ and the first to proclaim its message to the other disciples; the later church called her the “apostle of the apostles”.

Read more: Friday essay: who was Mary Magdalene? Debunking the myth of the penitent prostitute

We find references in the New Testament to a female deacon (Phoebe), to a female apostle (Junia) and to a host of women who were leaders in ministry. The same is true for the early centuries where there is evidence of women deacons and priests, and even of a female bishop.

The exclusion of women from leadership in the church came at a later date (possibly in the fourth century and later in some places) when it lost something of its radical beginnings, inherited from Jesus. Here the argument from tradition – that women never were ordained or held positions of leadership – simply does not hold.

Change is necessary

The Catholic Church believes that tradition is dynamic: unfolding and developing throughout history (this was most famously articulated by John Henry Cardinal Newman in 1845). New perspectives and understandings can and do come in new contexts. The ordination of women belongs arguably in this category of new and emerging truths.

In a number of Anglican churches, particularly in places where terrible abuse occurred in the past, the appointment of senior, ordained women has had a vital role to play in reforming and transforming the church.

Women’s ordination is necessary in the current climate of the Catholic Church. There is no better time for it to happen than now. It will confirm, in ways beyond mere words, the church’s determination to move beyond the sins of the past. It will mean a significant move beyond the old structures where only men made decisions and a protective boys’ club existed within leadership.

This is not a call coming only from outside the Catholic Church. Many of the faithful within believe the same thing, and Catholic women in places such as Ireland and Germany are becoming more vocal and organised in their fight for women’s ordination.

In Australia, too, there are Catholic women working to be heard on the issue, supported by both laity and priests. Now is the time for something new to emerge from the ashes of the past.

– ref. Women priests could help the Catholic Church restore its integrity. It’s time to embrace them – http://theconversation.com/women-priests-could-help-the-catholic-church-restore-its-integrity-its-time-to-embrace-them-118115

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Bruce Englefield, PhD Student. Faculty of Veterinary Science, University of Sydney

There are few checks done to see how well injured or orphaned Australian animals survive after they’ve been released into the wild, we found in our new research published today.

That’s a worry for the more than 50,000 native animals that are released in Australia each year. It’s especially worrying for any orphans who’ve never experienced life in the wild.

But we found the rules governing the return of wildlife are not always in the animal’s best interest.

Read more: Not just activists, 9 out of 10 people are concerned about animal welfare in Australian farming

Our review of Australian animal welfare legislation, regulations, codes of practice and policies found a complex regulatory system that varies between states and territories. It’s a system that is fragmented, contradictory and inconsistent.

This makes it difficult for the many thousands of volunteers and others who try to rescue and rehabilitate native animals.

Australia lags in animal welfare

We believe Australia lags behind the developed world in animal welfare and animal law. This situation evolved haphazardly and is hampered by policies that rely on assumptions based largely on neither scientific nor factual evidence.

Current policy mandates that rehabilitated rescued animals must be placed into the wild. The survival of these animals after release depends on their behavioural and physical attributes, yet some could be ill-equipped to survive.

From our reading of current regulations, any such assessment of an animal’s suitability for release is either negligible or questionable.

There is also no reliable method of identifying animals after release. Indeed, most jurisdictions forbid it and, perhaps as a direct result, there is minimal monitoring to show what happens to released animals.

Return to where?

In general, all Australian jurisdictions require rehabilitated animals to be returned to the wild. But rather than using a more general definition of rehabilitation we should think of returning the animal to its natural habitat or state.

The distinction between these two possible destinations is far from semantic. It can be argued the natural habitat (or state) of a hand-reared orphan animal, is one of captivity.

Many wildlife carers releasing an animal and seeing it disappear into the wild may equate this with success, but this may be an unfortunate convenient illusion.

The released animal may not be the happy state that carers may prefer to assume. Vague assumptions that naturalness in releasing animals to the wild is reliably associated with better well-being are largely unfounded.

But wildlife carers have no choice in the matter. They are required to consign the animals, to which they have devoted hours of care, to an uncertain fate for which they may be very poorly prepared.

And they must do so even if their knowledge, experience and pragmatism directs their thinking to more favourable alternative solutions. These include allowing some native animals to be kept in large-scale facilities such as private fenced enclosures, national parks, islands and other fenced options.

Concern for orphans in the wild

The regulations make no distinction between animals that are injured, rehabilitated and released, and those that are rescued as orphans. These are often physically unharmed but require milk substitute feeding from a bottle and nurturing by – and possible inadvertently bonding with – humans prior to release to the wild.

Adult and juvenile native animals raised in the wild usually have all their innate and learned behaviour instincts intact when they are injured and rescued.

Unless they remain in captivity for a prolonged period, or are subjected to inappropriate housing and handling, their instincts generally persist and kick-in once they have been released. They have an opportunity to survive.

In contrast, the chances for orphans to survive after release seems remote.

Orphans that needed hand-rearing generally become habituated to the smells, sounds and sights of human presence and the captive environment.

The requirement to return orphans to the wild, with no account taken of their mental state, may be difficult to defend on conservation, ethical, moral and practical grounds.

Think of the carers

The physical and mental protection of Australian injured or orphaned native wildlife should be recognised as an important animal welfare issue. The physical and mental well-being of the wildlife carers who rehabilitate them is just as important as a human welfare issue.

Read more: Man’s stressed friend: how your mental health can affect your dog

In the absence of criteria that take into account the mental well-being of the animals and their carers, the current policy of releasing all hand-reared wildlife to the wild must be reviewed.

Using a One Welfare approach – that considers the the animals, the humans and the environment – would see a regulatory framework that balances the needs of rescued wildlife, wildlife carers and conservation.

The public and Australia’s extraordinary wildlife carers deserve to be confident that regulation is consistent among jurisdictions and reflective of best practice for the rescued wildlife and the environment.

– ref. Simply returning rescued wildlife back to the wild may not be in their best interest – http://theconversation.com/simply-returning-rescued-wildlife-back-to-the-wild-may-not-be-in-their-best-interest-118521