Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emil Jeyaratnam, Data + Interactives Editor, The Conversation

As Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s ministry is sworn in today, we’re taking a closer look at the members of the newly revamped cabinet.

Some of the faces are new – Stuart Robert, for example, takes over the new portfolio overseeing the National Disability Insurance Scheme. And some of the portfolios have shifted, notably Sussan Ley replacing Melissa Price as environment minister.

We’ve asked our experts to appraise the performances of the ministers and highlight what could be the key challenges in their new roles.

In some cases, ministers hold more than one portfolio. To simplify the policy analysis, we’ve chosen a key policy area for which they’re responsible and asked our experts to analyse those.

– ref. A closer look at Scott Morrison’s new ministry – http://theconversation.com/a-closer-look-at-scott-morrisons-new-ministry-117909

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Euan Graham, Executive Director, La Trobe Asia, La Trobe University

The 2019 federal election, unlike previous campaigns, did not feature a dedicated debate on foreign affairs or defence. The conventional cynicism – that there are no votes in foreign policy – does not adequately explain this. It seems Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Labor leader Bill Shorten reached a shabby consensus that foreign and security policy questions were uniformly too hot to handle.

Foreign affairs is in fact among the most important challenges facing the Morrison government. The simple reason: the status quo that has served Australia so well in the past couple of decades is fast coming to an end.

Australia has uniquely avoided recession among the developed economies because it has surfed a once-in-a-generation wave of Chinese demand for commodities. Australia’s security has also been assured through its longstanding alliance with the US, while its military commitments have been kept largely at arm’s length in the Middle East and Afghanistan.

Read more: Foreign policy should play a bigger role in Australian elections. This is why it probably won’t

However, as Asia-Pacific scholar Nick Bisley has commented, Australia now finds itself caught between two different forms of revisionism: the strategic revisionism of Xi Jinping’s China and the economic revisionism of Donald Trump’s United States.

Trump’s trade wars and protectionist policies are likely to be a continuing point of friction with Australia, which remains heavily reliant on Asian markets (not only China) for trade.

But China is the most important external challenge Australia faces. It’s so all-encompassing that it transcends traditional foreign, trade and defence policy silos, and includes a significant domestic dimension in terms of political interference, as well.

Even though Morrison has already served the better part of a year in office, it’s hard to be sure of his convictions on China. With his mandate secured, he now has both the opportunity and obligation to show his true colours.

Caught between a rock and a hard place

In theory, the Coalition’s election victory should mean continuity in foreign policy, as signalled by Morrison’s decision to retain Marise Payne as foreign minister.

When China was – belatedly – raised during the campaign, Morrison repeated a well-worn mantra about not having to “pick sides” between the United States and China. The former he characterised as Australia’s “friend”, labelling China as a “customer”. While this description no doubt raised eyebrows in Beijing, Morrison was arguing Canberra could “stand by” both.

The Morrison administration has generally sought to position Australia somewhere in between its chief ally and its chief customer. His reticence thus far to make waves with the country’s number one customer may be borne of a desire to maintain Canberra’s room for manoeuvre as a middle power, though this is getting steadily harder.

If the prime minister truly believes Australia can play an intermediary role, few in Canberra’s foreign policy and defence circles would agree. To do so would only expose Australia to heightened risk, precipitating the kind of invidious strategic choices that Morrison wishes to avoid.

It also plays into the Chinese Communist Party’s objective of sowing discord between the US and its Pacific allies.

Read more: In his first major foreign policy test, Morrison needs to stick to the script

If Morrison is privately more attuned to the strategic risks China poses – and after nine months of intelligence briefings he should be – then he has a duty to prepare the public for the likelihood of tougher times ahead. Should Australia-China relations take a darker turn, it may prove difficult for the government to persuade the public to back a significant adjustment in national security policy, including increased defence spending.

Moreover, there are risks to publicly framing US-China strategic competition as a destabilising factor for Australia’s security. Australians could judge the prospect of entrapment in a confrontational US policy towards China as potentially more threatening to Australia’s security than Beijing’s deliberate challenge to the “rules-based order” in the region.

This could undermine public support for Australia’s alliance with the US, which remains the bedrock of our security.

Stepping up in the Pacific

The Pacific is where the strategic interests of China and Australia clash most directly. Morrison’s most important security policy decision thus far, announced at last year’s APEC summit, was to establish a joint naval base with the US and Papua New Guinea at Lombrum on Manus Island. This was partly aimed at denying the location to China, as well as establishing a forward ADF presence in the Pacific.

It is also notable that Morrison will visit the Solomon Islands on his first post-election overseas trip. China is inevitably part of the subtext here, as Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare is reported to be swaying towards switching allegiances from Taiwan to Beijing – yet another sign of China’s growing influence in the region.

Of course, there is more than geopolitics to the Pacific region and Morrison must be careful to demonstrate empathy and humility, given Australia’s patchy engagement with the region and the Coalition’s ambivalence on climate change – a major grievance for most Pacific nations.

Morrison’s appointment of Alex Hawke as both minister of international development and Pacific and assistant defence minister provides easy ammunition to critics, who will charge that the government’s Pacific “step up” is narrowly conceived through a geopolitical lens.

But Morrison appears to take the step up seriously, and a commitment to reversing the relative decline in Australia’s influence in its immediate neighbourhood (note: not “backyard”). A volatile political situation in PNG further demands a close watch on the Pacific.

Other key alliances to shore up

Elsewhere in the neighbourhood, Morrison has fallen on his feet now that friendly incumbents in Indonesia and India – President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo and Prime Minister Narendra Modi – were also returned in recent elections, making it easier for continuity to be maintained.

Morrison was quick off the mark to congratulate Jokowi on Twitter, who promptly replied that Australia is one of Indonesia’s “greatest allies.”

By pulling off an unlikely election victory, Morrison is in the fortunate position of being the first prime minister for some time who is not looking immediately over his or her shoulder for political assassins within their party.

Morrison also has more bandwidth to devote to foreign issues than any leader since Kevin Rudd. He is disadvantaged, however, by his relative inexperience and the thinness of his front bench. That places a special burden on whoever will be advising Morrison on international security – a role sure to take on greater importance in his administration – to provide the counsel he needs and to wrangle the bureaucracy into line. For there will be no shortage of challenges ahead.

– ref. Scott Morrison’s biggest foreign policy test: keeping peace with both China and the US – http://theconversation.com/scott-morrisons-biggest-foreign-policy-test-keeping-peace-with-both-china-and-the-us-117598

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Claire McKie, Senior Lecturer, Clinical and Communication Skills, Deakin University

In January, 107-year-old Daphne Keith broke her hip and became the oldest Australian to have a partial hip replacement. This isn’t something you would have heard of two or three decades ago.

For Daphne, the decision was fairly clear-cut. Surgery, with all its risks, was a better option than the alternative: to be stuck in bed for the rest of her life. As she summed it up, “What do I have to lose?”

But in many cases the balance between benefits and harms of surgery for older people is not as clear-cut.

Advances in anaesthetic and surgical techniques (especially keyhole surgery) now allow older adults to undergo operations and procedures that were previously not possible.

As the population ages, we’re operating on older and older people. Rates for elective surgery in Australia are increasing the most among those aged over 85.

So how do we decide who should and shouldn’t undergo surgery?

Age is a factor, but not the only one

As we age there are increasing differences between individuals in terms of how our minds and bodies function. Younger people – whether they’re aged five, 20 or even 40 – are generally very similar to their age-matched peers, in terms of their cognitive and physical abilities.

But if we compare older adults, there are marked differences in their function. Some 70-year-olds are fit, healthy and still working full-time. Other 70-year-olds have multiple medical conditions, are frail and living in nursing homes.

So decisions about surgery shouldn’t be based on age alone.

Read more: What’s happening in our bodies as we age?

However, we can’t ignore the changes associated with ageing, which means sometimes the potential harms of surgery will outweigh the benefits.

The harms associated with surgery and anaesthesia include death, surgical complications, longer hospital stays and poorer long-term outcomes. This might mean not being able to return to the same physical or cognitive level of function or needing to go into a nursing home.

The changes in our body as we age, as well as an increase in the number of diseases, and therefore medications we take, can increase the risks associated with surgery and anaesthesia.

Frailty is the strongest predictor of poor outcomes after surgery. Frailty is a decrease in our body’s reserves and our ability to recover from stressful events such as surgery. Frailty is usually associated with increasing age, but not all older people are frail, and you can be frail and still relatively young.

Consider the patient’s preferences

Patients tend to overestimate the benefits of surgery and underestimate the harms. This highlights the importance of shared decision-making between patients and clinicians.

Shared decision-making means the patient and clinicians come to a decision together, after discussing the options, benefits and harms, and after considering the patient’s values, preferences and circumstances.

Read more: Surgery isn’t always the best option, and the decision shouldn’t just lie with the doctor

Research shows that as we age many of us become less focused on longevity and prolonging life at all costs and much more focused on what that life is like, or our quality of life.

Outcomes such as living independently, staying in our own home, the ability to move around, and being mentally alert often become increasingly important in the decision-making process. This information about a person’s values is critical for shared decision-making conversations.

When considering these preferences, the discussion becomes more than just “could” we do this operation – it’s about “should” we do this operation? Someone living at home with early dementia may decide the risk of this worsening, and the possible need to move to a nursing home, is not worth any benefits of surgery.

It’s also important to note that, in some cases, cognitive impairment and dementia associated with ageing mean it’s not the patient (but their appointee) making decisions about surgery.

Not everyone should be offered surgery

The ageing of our population raises challenges for policymakers. More surgeries means greater pressure on the health budget. We don’t have a bottomless pit of health funding, so how do we decide who is eligible, based on fair and equitable resource allocation?

Given the marked variability between individuals as we age, decisions and policies about access to medical care (including surgery) should not be based on age alone. There should not be policies that say “no” to surgery based on age.

Equally, when considering resource allocation, it should not just be about how many years a person has to live, or blunt assessments based on how much their operation might cost the health system.

Take a decision about performing a hip replacement on a 90-year-old with arthritis, for example. A patient who has an elective hip replacement for arthritis and is able to remain living at home will probably “cost less” overall than if that same person would otherwise have had to live in a nursing home.

Read more: Who gets a piece of the pie? Spending the health budget fairly

However, this also does not mean we can, or should, offer surgery to everyone.

The practice of medicine, especially when considering older adults, needs to remain focused on individualised patient care. Decisions should be based on medical appropriateness of treatment combined with a patient’s goals and values.

To do this we need to train clinicians in shared decision-making and how to have these often difficult discussions. The goal is to have clinicians who are able to explore a patient’s values and preferences around outcomes, effectively communicate individualised information about options, benefits and harms, and then come to a decision together.

– ref. Surgery rates are rising in over-85s but the decision to operate isn’t always easy – http://theconversation.com/surgery-rates-are-rising-in-over-85s-but-the-decision-to-operate-isnt-always-easy-116814

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Rogers, Senior Lecturer in Sociology of Law, Macquarie University

Privacy was not a hot topic in the recent Australian election, but it should have been. This is because the City of Darwin is adapting elements of the Chinese social credit system for use in Australia. The Chinese system’s monitoring of citizens’ behaviour has been widely condemned as “Orwellian”, with frequent comparisons to the dystopian near-future sci-fi of Black Mirror. But for Australians it’s pitched as progress towards a digitally integrated future, embedded innocuously in the “Switching on Darwin” plans for a smarter city.

Read more: China’s Social Credit System puts its people under pressure to be model citizens

To see why this is a worrying development for Australian democracy one must first play a patient game of join the dots.

Dot 1. One of Darwin’s six “sister cities” is Haikou, capital of the Chinese island province of Hainan. Links established through sister-city relationships are commonly understood to be a springboard to wider networks of co-operative arrangements. Such connections may provide opportunities for cultural exchange, but also for technological exchange.

Recently there have been reports on how smart city plans in Darwin draw inspiration from the Chinese social credit surveillance system.

The potential of the system for gathering data on citizens’ use of public services, such as Wi-Fi, has been noted. The potential to enhance council profitability through sale of user data to the private sector is significant. More so is the potential for this system to track citizen movements in real time.

Dot 2. The 2019 Northern Territory government budget earmarks A$1.4 million for expanding the local CCTV network as part of “Investing in a Safer Territory”. This figure might yet be supplemented by “proceeds of crime” funds, making the investment much larger.

That’s enough money to roll out biometric facial recognition software, which can link your face from a live CCTV image to your driver licence or passport, as well as “triggerfish” apps that can access, for example, identifying data on your smartphone remotely without your knowledge. All of these systems can be automated.

Read more: Big brother is watching: how new technologies are changing police surveillance

Dot 3. The Encryption Act, rushed through federal parliament in December 2018, gave law enforcement and intelligence agencies unprecedented access to communications technology. Telecommunications providers must now provide potentially unlimited back doors into private data. They must also, by law, conceal that they have done so from customers/citizens.

Read more: The government’s encryption laws finally passed despite concerns over security

Foundations of a surveillance state are in place

Each dot offers a point of triangulation for very real fears about the form and nature of Australian democracy in years to come. Combine these points of technology and law and we see the foundation of a surveillance state.

The ability of agencies to track citizen activity extends from which websites you browse on your mobile to what you write in your private messages to where you are right now. Given how grey these laws are, and the absence of a constitutionally protected right to privacy in Australia, this could extend to criminal records, medical files, payslips, spending patterns and browsing histories.

The Northern Territory News reported:

Darwin council will use Chinese-inspired surveillance technology to gather data on what people are doing on their phones and to put up ‘virtual fences’ that will instantly trigger an alert if crossed.

That is correct. This technology can track a smart phone. It can also, potentially, identify the user. Darwin City’s general manager for innovation, growth and development services, Josh Sattler, told the NT News:

We’ll be getting sent an alarm saying, ‘There’s a person in this area that you’ve put a virtual fence around.’ […] Boom, an alert goes out to whatever authority, whether it’s us or police, to say ‘look at camera 5’.

That equates to real-time tracking of a private citizen by law enforcement and local council. And this in a free and democratic country.

Is it smart for the public to be so trusting?

The Encryption Act takes on a different tint when looked at through this lens. Law enforcement and intelligence organisations have been empowered by law to invade your privacy and protected by law from you knowing that they have done so.

Such data can be used to place restrictions on free movement, a hard limit placed on a universal human right. Such data may also be sold to third parties, either in exchange for deals with government or to boost city coffers. The potential for abuse and the lack of safeguards for Australian citizens are staggering.

The public are told to place angelic trust in the honesty of government agencies, agencies that by and large regulate themselves. There is toothless public oversight by groups like the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption, which are all too often hamstrung by a culture of silence.

But, remember, if you’ve got nothing to hide you don’t need to be afraid! After all, it’s only a smart city Wi-Fi program for better street lights.

Read more: Australians accept government surveillance, for now

The City of Darwin and City of Palmerston have also bought five new high-definition mobile CCTV units with A$635,000 in funding from the Australian government’s Safer Communities Fund. Northern Territory Police will deploy these across both municipalities. The camera systems will be used to police “crime and anti-social behaviour” and to “protect organisations that may face security risks”.

Remember the city of the future is a safer and more vibrant space. And, if you want to be in it, you will be watched both online and offline, wherever you go. All the time.

– ref. Is China’s social credit system coming to Australia? – http://theconversation.com/is-chinas-social-credit-system-coming-to-australia-117095

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Geoff Hanmer, Adjunct Lecturer in Architecture, UNSW

Unless the federal government changes its funding policy for universities, less well-off ones, particularly regional universities, are going to fail.

In Britain, it is already happening. Several bankruptcies are imminent.

In Australia, many are clearly in financial difficulties and are trying to raise money any way they can.

During the election campaign, ABC’s Four Corners highlighted questionable practices in the recruitment of full-fee paying international students at institutions including Murdoch University and Central Queensland University.

Desperate for funds…

The Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency has found “severe shortcomings” in the performance of Charles Sturt University, sufficient to reduce its period of accreditation from seven to four years.

In an extraordinary move, the departing Vice Chancellor of the University of Canberra has asked his staff to donate up to A$1,000 per annum to “support students”.

It’s easy to blame the universities themselves, but it is the government that has designed the policies that have forced them up against a financial brick wall.

This situation has come about partly because of a pea and thimble trick performed by both Labor and the Coalition. While recurrent funding has risen due to the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd government’s introduction of “demand driven” funding, it has been followed by a withdrawal of capital funding.

…but it’s not their fault

In 2015 the Coalition axed A$11 billion Education Investment Fund set up by Labor in 2008 to maintain infrastructure “in urgent need of attention”. In 2017 it froze recurrent funding.

Four years after the Education Investment Fund was axed, estimates from the higher education facilities consultancy ARINA put the maintenance deficit at more than the $23 billion dollars that was estimated at the time. That’s what’s needed to return campuses to a condition where they are fit for purpose.

Although the new government has announced small additional funding for regional universities, it is nowhere near enough. Many have dilapidated campuses that are hard to work or study in. University buildings constructed during the 1960s are nearing the end of their useful lives.

It’s alright for the Group of Eight

The current funding model works best for the prestigious Group of Eight (Go8) universities – those named after the cities of Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide as well as the states of NSW, Queensland and Western Australia plus Monash University and the Australian National University.

The universities in Sydney and Melbourne have the best access to high-quality full-fee paying international students, although even for them there are issues.

The Go8 universities require huge amounts of capital to build facilities to support research in the STEM disciplines: science, technology, engineering and medicine. Under current funding policy, most of which now has to come from recurrent student income.

The proportion of international students at the biggest Go8 campuses climbs year by year. And they are continuing to expand domestic enrolments as fast as they can.

For the rest, options to fund capital works are limited. While some may have recruited international students regardless of quality, others are getting new buildings by doing deals with property developers.

There are few options for others

Western Sydney University is renting its new “state of the art” campus in the Parramatta CBD. Unfortunately, the rental model carries risks because it narrows the options for reducing costs if revenue falls.

Revenue can fall for many reasons outside the control of the university, including an abrupt reduction in the number of international students due to geopolitical factors or changes in government policy on immigration.

Rent is also more expensive than direct funding because the price charged includes margins for commercial risk and profit. The property sector likes the idea, but then it would, wouldn’t it?

The best way to fund needed capital works on university buildings, and make sure they survive, is for the government to return to making capital payments on the basis of need. It would mean that universities facing a chronic shortage of capital wouldn’t need to resort to extreme measures.

Direct funding would mean they would have to conform to government-imposed area and cost standards for buildings. This would put welcome downward pressure on building costs, which have soared for some of the big city universities that have access to cash from international students.

City universities are paying too much for buildings

General academic buildings, and those providing offices and teaching space, are in some cases being delivered for twice as much as they were 20 years ago, corrected for inflation, in large part because they have become unnecessarily elaborate, in part to attract foreign students.

The Monash Teaching and Learning building and the University of Melbourne Architecture building are examples, as is the $180 million University of Technology Sydney business school building.

Instead of making every new university building an award-winning icon, we ought to be content with making at least some of them just good.

Providing capital funding to universities is likely to cost at least an extra A$1.5 billion a year. But that’s small compared to the more than A$30 billion international education exports are said to pump into the economy.

It is also small compared to what would happen if they folded or failed to deliver the research we need.

Others can afford little

The sector can help its own case by focusing more on building costs and less on winning design awards. University peak bodies in Britain play an active role in benchmarking building and operational costs. Universities Australia should consider doing the same.

It ought to be in a position to document improvements in the operational efficiency of universities and highlight the magnitude of the maintenance funding needed. At the moment, it is not.

Read more: How has education policy changed under the Coalition government?

No one, including the government, really wants a university to fail. The cost of recovery would probably end up being borne taxpayers and the impact on students would be devastating.

It is in the interests of all Australians to have a university funding model that does not send less well-off universities to the wall, including most of our regional universities.

The current model generates perverse incentives to reduce acceptance standards for international students, encourages universities to use expensive developer-provided sources of capital and has driven the creation of mega campuses that are more about income than student outcomes. We can and should do better.

– ref. Why regional universities are at risk of going under – http://theconversation.com/why-regional-universities-are-at-risk-of-going-under-109374

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Julian CH Lee, Associate Professor, Global Studies, RMIT University

The monsters that stalk us in popular culture embody fears about our contemporary human condition. As a new Godzilla film opens in cinemas this week, we might gain insight into what currently haunts us most.

The endless waves of zombies in film, TV and literature are said to reflect the mindlessness of our behaviour, whether as a cog in the industrial machine, or as noted by film scholar Leo Braudy, as “an unthinking member of a mass consumer society”.

For Braudy, zombies “may best represent the anxieties of the 21st century” because these nameless monsters can represent whatever fear most consumes us as individuals, which might include pandemics, globalisation, or the anonymity imposed by impersonal technology.

However, the age we are currently living in requires another monster – one that is capable of representing the awesome complexity and enormity of the challenges facing humanity today. That monster is Godzilla.

The consequences of human-induced climate change are now spoken of with increasing alarm, with prominent experts, including David Attenborough, suggesting the possibility of civilisational collapse. With the new film upon us, audiences may see their fears about the damage we have wrought reflected back at them.

A monster of awe

In their 1987 book Angels Fear, anthropologists Gregory and Mary Catherine Batseon proposed a fictional god called Eco, one that would represent the importance of seeing the world as a system of interconnected organisms, or the “unity in which we make our home”. They hoped that the existence of such a god might encourage humanity to behave more respectfully towards our world.

However, in today’s world, a figure such as Eco does not inspire the awe or respect which our age of existential crisis demands. A monster is needed, and as I have argued in my co-authored book Monsters of Modernity: Global Icons for Our Critical Condition, Godzilla is the perfect monster to make us think about the consequences of our actions.

From the first Japanese Godzilla film in 1954, all the way through to Godzilla’s latest outing in this year’s aptly named Hollywood blockbuster Godzilla: King of the Monsters, Godzilla has been understood as a response to humanity’s mistreatment of the earth.

The first case of mistreatment to provoke Godzilla in 1954 was the use of nuclear weapons. While developing a premise for the first film, Tanaka Tomoyuki, a young producer at Toho Studios in Japan asked himself: “What if a dinosaur sleeping in the Southern Hemisphere had been awakened and transformed into a giant by the Bomb? What if it attacked Tokyo?”

Subsequent films, which vary immensely in their level of earnestness or goofiness, have referenced other environmental misdeeds, such the 1971 film Godzilla vs Hedorah (aka the Smog Monster) in which mankind’s pollution becomes a nearly invincible monster. Although Godzilla defeats the Smog Monster, viewers are left in no doubt that we ignore the effects of our pollution at our peril.

As time has moved on, so has the particular crisis that brings forth the monster. In the words of a protagonist in the trailer for the 2019 movie, “Our world is changing. The mass extinction we feared has already begun and we are the cause. We are the infection. But like all living organisms, the earth has unleashed a fever to fight this infection”.

Here lies an important trait of Godzilla’s. As the scientist Dr Serizawa says in the 2014 Hollywood movie simply titled Godzilla: “we may not have created this monster. But we summoned it. We brought this on ourselves.”

Godzilla is not on our side. It threatens humanity, although it sometimes incidentally helps humanity avert a larger threat (such as the Smog Monster) or Godzilla’s archenemy, Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster. But even when Godzilla and humanity share a common goal, it is not that Godzilla takes our side or that we make Godzilla “our pet”, as it is put in the 2019 trailer. Instead, Dr Serizawa observes, “we would be his”.

Wherever Godzilla appears, the triviality of humanity’s accomplishments and defences are made plain. Godzilla treats us and our great cities with the contempt and disregard with which we regularly treat our world.

Read more: Friday essay: is this the Endgame – and did we win or did we lose?

The Godzilla principle

In project management, The “Godzilla Principle” refers to the idea that problems should be addressed while small, because “left unchecked and uncared for, they wax, not wane, until they are too big too handle”. However, I argue that the lesson of Godzilla is in fact starker. The Godzilla Principle is that there is no forgiveness.

There is no forgiveness because Godzilla is our environmental transgressions reflected back to us, personified in the form of a monstrous reptile. In this way, Godzilla echoes Bateson and Bateson’s Eco: it “is of no avail to tell [Eco] that the offense was only a small one, that you are sorry and that you won’t do it again.” Every one of our misdeeds against the world irrevocably rebounds against us.

In reality, the impacts of our vandalism or thoughtlessness can remain in out-of-sight lands or immense garbage patches in our oceans, or be borne in the future. However, in fiction, Godzilla is karma incarnate, bringing ruin today to the cities that represent “civilisation”.

Although people can forgive the wrongdoings of each other and start afresh, our world cannot forgive in this way. We must act from the outset with an awareness of the gravity of our actions, to avoid awakening unstoppable “climate monsters”.

Godzilla, then, is the monster for our times. Godzilla is awful, implacable, and irresistible. Our only hope is not to bring it upon ourselves.

– ref. Why Godzilla is the perfect monster for our age of environmental destruction – http://theconversation.com/why-godzilla-is-the-perfect-monster-for-our-age-of-environmental-destruction-116996

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Guihot, Senior Lecturer in Law, Queensland University of Technology

Australia is among 42 countries that last week signed up to a new set of policy guidelines for the development of artificial intelligence (AI) systems.

Yet Australia has its own draft guidelines for ethics in AI out for public consultation, and a number of other countries and industry bodies have developed their own AI guidelines.

So why do we need so many guidelines, and are any of them enforceable?

Read more: Artificial intelligence in Australia needs to get ethical, so we have a plan

The new principles

The latest set of policy guidelines is the Recommendation on Artificial Intelligence from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

It promotes five principles for the responsible development of trustworthy AI. It also includes five complementary strategies for developing national policy and international cooperation.

Given this comes from the OECD, it treads the line between promoting economic improvement and innovation and fostering fundamental values and trust in the development of AI.

The five AI principles encourage:

1. inclusive growth, sustainable development and well-being

2. human-centred values and fairness

3. transparency and explainability

4. robustness, security and safety

5. accountability.

These recommendations are broad and do not carry the force of laws or even rules. Instead they seek to encourage member countries to incorporate these values or ethics in the development of AI.

But what do we mean by AI?

It is hard to make specific recommendations in relation to AI. That is partly because AI is not one thing with a single application that poses singular risks or threats.

Instead, AI has become a blanket term to refer to a vast number of different systems. Each is typically designed to collect and process data using computing technology, adapt to change, and act rationally to achieve its objectives, ultimately without human intervention.

Read more: To protect us from the risks of advanced artificial intelligence, we need to act now

Those objectives could be as different as translating language, identifying faces, or even playing chess.

The type of AI that is exceptionally good at completing these objectives is often referred to as narrow AI. A good example is a chess-playing AI. This is specifically designed to play chess – and is extremely good at it – but completely useless at other tasks.

On the other hand is general AI. This is AI that it is said will replace human intelligence in most if not all tasks. This is still a long way off but remains the ultimate goal of some AI developers.

Yet it is this idea of general AI that drives many of the fears and misconceptions that surround AI.

Many many guidelines

Responding to these fears and a number of very real problems with narrow AI, the OECD recommendations are the latest of a number of projects and guidelines from governments and other bodies around the world that seek to instil an ethical approach to developing AI.

These include initiatives by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, the French data protection authority, the Hong Kong Office of the Privacy Commissioner and the European Commission.

Read more: Call for independent watchdog to monitor NZ government use of artificial intelligence

The Australian government funded CSIRO’s Data61 to develop an AI ethics framework, which is now open for public feedback, and the Australian Council of Learned Academies is yet to publish its report on the future of AI in Australia.

The Australian Human Rights Commission, together with the World Economic Forum, is also reviewing and reporting on the impact of AI on human rights.

The aim of these initiatives is to encourage or to nudge ethical development of AI. But this presupposes unethical behaviour. What is the mischief in AI?

Unethical AI

One study identified three broad potential malicious uses of AI. These target:

• digital security (for example, through cyber-attacks)

• physical security (for example, attacks using drones or hacking)

• political security (for example, if AI is used for mass surveillance, persuasion and deception).

One area of concern is evolving in China, where several regions are developing a social credit system linked to mass surveillance using AI technologies.

The system can identify a person breaching social norms (such as jaywalking, consorting with criminals, or misusing social media) and debit social credit points from the individual.

When a credit score is reduced, that person’s freedoms (such as the freedom to travel or borrow money) are restricted. While this is not yet a nationwide system, reports indicate this could be the ultimate aim.

Read more: China’s Social Credit System puts its people under pressure to be model citizens

Added to these deliberate misuses of AI are several unintentional side effects of poorly constructed or implemented narrow AI. These include bias and discrimination and the erosion of trust.

Building consensus on AI

Societies differ on what is ethical. Even people within societies differ on what they regard as ethical behaviour. So how can there ever be a global consensus on the ethical development of AI?

Given the very broad scope of AI development, any policies in relation to ethical AI cannot yet be more specific until we can identify shared norms of ethical behaviour that might form the basis of some agreed global rules.

Read more: To protect us from the risks of advanced artificial intelligence, we need to act now

By developing and expressing the values, rights and norms that we consider to be important now in the form of the reports and guidelines outlined above, we are working toward building trust among nations.

Common themes are emerging in the various guidelines, such as the need for AI that considers human rights, security, safety, transparency, trustworthiness and accountability, so we may yet be on the way to some global consensus.

– ref. Will we ever agree to just one set of rules on the ethical development of artificial intelligence? – http://theconversation.com/will-we-ever-agree-to-just-one-set-of-rules-on-the-ethical-development-of-artificial-intelligence-117744

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonathan Ritchie, Senior Research Fellow, Deakin University

In recent days, Papua New Guinea’s Prime Minister Peter O’Neill has announced his resignation, failed to formally resign, and is now taking legal action to prevent a parliamentary vote to remove him from office.

For most of PNG’s more than eight million inhabitants, today will not be substantially different from any other day. It will be a day of toil, hardship, humour, love, fear – and of negotiating how to survive in PNG’s villages and squatter settlements.

There are crises aplenty in the lives of these Papua New Guineans, but most won’t be worrying too much about the crisis unfolding in the nation’s capital, Port Moresby. Yet, this dispute is dominating the waking hours of the educated urbanites and social media commentators there and in the country’s major centres – as well as a small group of people watching PNG from Australia, and elsewhere.

Will Peter O’Neill really resign? Will he somehow manage to cling to the prime ministership? Will he leave, only to be replaced by one of his allies through whom he could continue to exercise power?

Read more: If there’s one thing Pacific nations don’t need, it’s yet another infrastructure investment bank

A reshuffling of the political cards

While we acknowledge the divide between the great majority of struggling Papua New Guineans and PNG’s elites, we shouldn’t minimise the importance of the current crisis engulfing the country. O’Neill’s departure has the potential for a wholesale shift in the policy direction taken by PNG’s government.

It could result in PNG moving away from the big spending on major projects of the past few years, which many Papua New Guineans see as having benefited Port Moresby at the expense of everywhere else in this still largely rural nation.

But the suspicion of at least some informed Papua New Guinean observers is that it will result only in the rearranging of the deck chairs. A reshuffling of the cards that will lead to another privileged insider, another member of PNG’s political class, taking over the PM’s role from the mostly unlamented O’Neill.

Rural citizens are disenfranchised and disengaged

Despite their apparent failure in Australia’s recent federal election, most people would still agree that polls and surveys are a valuable way of gauging popular opinion. One of the more curious (and frustrating) aspects of PNG’s public affairs is that there has never been a successful attempt to conduct systematic and reasonably reliable opinion surveying.

This means that it is basically impossible to say with any certainty what “the average Papua New Guinean” thinks about O’Neill and the current political crisis. We don’t really know if O’Neill’s departure would be celebrated, or mourned.

PNG’s geographical challenges, along with inadequate transport and communication structures, suggest that most people will hear the news of Port Moresby politics at several removes. Should they feel sufficiently energised to want to act on what they hear – well, events will have moved on by that time.

Most Papua New Guineans living in villages, in highland valleys, islands, or other remote places, are disenfranchised, and certainly disengaged, from what goes on in Port Moresby. The same observation could be made about the people who live in the mushrooming settlements in Port Moresby, Lae, Mt Hagen, and other centres. Even if they are notionally urban dwellers, their connection with the complexities of these events is remote.

So we tend to rely on what we hear from the city residents who are more engaged in public life, and especially those who are social media-savvy.

Read more: Morrison to unveil broad suite of measures to boost Australia’s influence in the Pacific

City-dwellers resent O’Neill

What this group thinks about the O’Neill situation is fairly apparent. Ever since he replaced the ailing Michael Somare as Prime Minister in 2011, resentment against O’Neill has been expressed in a range of forums (including social media, to the annoyance of O’Neill and his supporters).

The wave of anger has built over the years since then, and has crested recently with the revelations about O’Neill’s involvement with the Oil Search-UBS loan affair, which many regard as confirming every suspicion they held about the Prime Minister’s character. The A$1.2 billion loan from the Swiss UBS bank, which enabled the PNG government to buy shares in Oil Search Ltd, was, in the words of PNG’s Ombudsman Commission, “highly inappropriate”. It was undertaken in the face of contrary advice from PNG’s then Treasurer, Don Polye, whom O’Neill sacked.

Anti-O’Neill sentiment over the years failed to garner much support from the Members of PNG’s National Parliament. Until very recently, O’Neill’s People’s National Congress (PNC) and its coalition partners dominated the House. Crucially, and mostly driven by the UBS revelations, this has now changed.

The prime minister is becoming increasingly isolated as more parliamentarians defect from the O’Neill party to join the disparate collection of MPs who are gathering at one of Port Moresby’s luxury hotels. While some social media commentators reckon that his recent “resignation” may be merely a ploy, it is looking like the game might be up for Peter O’Neill – unless through the cunning and political adeptness he is known for, he is still able to turn the tables on his political enemies.

At the time of writing, O’Neill is pursuing action in the PNG Supreme Court over the legality of a “vote of no confidence” in his government.

Read more: Deep sea mining threatens indigenous culture in Papua New Guinea

Leadership isn’t the only crisis facing PNG

There is a crisis in PNG at the moment. Indeed, there are several. The country is suffering from significant health issues, ranging from the reappearance of TB and polio to the inadequacy of its pharmaceutical and medical supplies.

In October, the people of Bougainville may vote to secede from the rest of the country, of which they have been part since 1975.

The billions of kina spent on development has largely been confined to the cities, and most Papua New Guineans have experienced little change in their living standards over the past four decades.

These are the real challenges facing PNG, and the current leadership crisis in Port Moresby might – or, as some fear, might not – produce a meaningful response to them.

The author would like to acknowledge the contribution of Brime Olewale to this story.

– ref. Crisis? What crisis? A new prime minister in PNG might not signal meaningful change for its citizens – http://theconversation.com/crisis-what-crisis-a-new-prime-minister-in-png-might-not-signal-meaningful-change-for-its-citizens-117841

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nicole Kalms, Director of XYX Lab + Associate Professor in the Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture at Monash University, Monash University

[I] walk this route to the train station. I often get cat-called whilst walking to the train. It’s also very poorly lit at night. (Female, age 27)

In 2019, The Australia We Want report noted that at least half of Australian women do not feel safe walking alone at night. This is unsurprising given the prevalence of sexual harassment and gender violence women manage when moving through cities every day. Women’s avoidance of areas of the city creates a complex internal geography of exclusion zones and “take extreme care” zones – all in the hope that this vigilance will keep them out of harm’s way.

Protecting women from the violence committed by some men is a priority. So too is recognising that most cities are gender-blind and disregard women’s needs and experiences.

Read more: Crowd-mapping gender equality – a powerful tool for shaping a better city launches in Melbourne

We need to understand the patterns that exclude women from areas of cities and not defer to the usual responses – brighter lighting, more CCTV cameras and more authority figures. In fact, our research into unsafe “hotspots” has found young women’s perceptions of urban safety do not correlate with the most brightly lit spaces.

We know that creating safer cities for women requires one fundamental shift: that we listen to women’s voices. We need to develop urban strategies and planning policies that draw on women’s experience and expertise as users of city spaces.

I pass through here twice a day to get to work and am routinely verbally abused by men. I feel unsafe and would never go through here at night. I wish the police or government would listen to women’s stories and do something about this place. (Female, age 25)

Read more: To design safer parks for women, city planners must listen to their stories

What does the research tell us?

Plan International, the Monash University XYX Lab and ARUP lighting researchers have pooled their expertise to drill down into the stories of young women and analyse the relationship between urban lighting and women’s perceptions of safety.

The research struck on some compelling correlations between light levels and unsafe places. Analysing over 80 of the most unsafe “hotspots” identified by women in Melbourne, the research found that high illuminance – or very bright and overlit spaces – does not correlate with young women’s perceptions of urban safety.

This is important information as planners often light spaces to a high “P” Category (a measure used in urban place-making guidelines) of lighting. It’s assumed this will reduce the risk of crime and increase the feeling of safety.

But our research shows that designing lighting that is positive for women’s urban experience requires more nuance. The findings show that sites with higher light levels are more likely to be perceived as unsafe sites – the average light level across these sites was twice what was measured across safe sites. This is a finding with the potential to radically change a city’s approach to lighting for safety.

Never felt safe walking in this area, even if I am not alone. The lighting is terrible and the design of the walkways leaves a lot of spots hidden from view. (Female, age 19)

This area feels so dodgy. The light level means you can’t see who is approaching you. (Female, age 39)

The analysis showed that consistent and layered lighting – where there are multiple light sources and where surfaces with different reflective values are taken into consideration – makes women feel most safe. This kind of lighting reduces the “floodlit effect”, the sharp drop-off of light beyond the path, and the potential for glare and contrast to blind and disorientate.

The emphasis on LED lights for their energy efficiency is unquestioned. But in urban lighting they are mostly a higher colour temperature such as 4000K “cool white” and above. This new research challenges the effects of this approach.

ARUP’s research shows the human visual spectrum reacts better to warm light, and the data from young women showed how sensitive they are to cool white light with regard to feeling safe in cities. Spaces with warmer colour temperatures are perceived as safer places.

Looking deeper into the quality of light in our cities, the majority of bad areas had a very large range of colour rendering. The lowest colour rendering came from sodium luminaires that make everything look overly yellow. Women preferred a high-quality LED light that enabled them to distinguish shapes and colour, helping to create a sense of safety.

Read more: Safe in the City? Girls tell it like it is

What does this mean for urban design?

More broadly, the research challenged the assumptions that urban lighting design relies on in general, and the effect it has on the character of our cities at night.

At present, illuminance (the measure of light falling on a surface, or Lux) is the only unit of measurement required to comply with the P Categories of the Australian Standards. Based on the results, it appears other metrics such as luminance (light bouncing off a surface and hitting the observer’s eye) should be considered too. This will ensure the context of material finishes and surface intensity is taken into account for how the eye perceives space.

Through research such as this, we have the knowledge, data and technology to engage women in trialling new ways of co-designing better outcomes for cities after dark. We can use considered urban design as a tool for positive change.

This article was co-authored by ARUP VIC/SA lighting leader Tim Hunt. The site analysis was led by ARUP lighting designer Hoa Yang.

– ref. More lighting alone does not create safer cities. Look at what research with young women tells us – http://theconversation.com/more-lighting-alone-does-not-create-safer-cities-look-at-what-research-with-young-women-tells-us-113359

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Bryoni Trezise, Senior Lecturer in Theatre and Performance Studies, UNSW

Review: Prima Facie, Griffin Theatre Company

Suzie Miller’s one-woman play Prima Facie is an unsparing study of the Australian legal system’s treatment of sexual assault cases. The play, which opened to standing ovation, concludes with a simple but compelling statement – spoken by the character Tessa, played by Sheridan Harbridge – “something has to change”.

This is not a plea, and it is more forceful than a call-to-arms. It is a voice of steely reckoning that contains within its very timbre the rage of being a woman. The voice not only carries the rage – its strength comes from having been conditioned by it.

Tessa is a criminal defence barrister who is proudly at the top of her game, having conquered class and gender barriers to get there. She enjoys the pace of the kill and plays expertly on witness vulnerabilities, with sleek mastery of the unemotional palette needed to win.

In the words of 1980s feminist playwright Caryl Churchill, Tessa is a “top girl”, a career woman who believes she has accessed patriarchal power by reaching the higher echelons of her field.

Then Tessa is raped by a colleague. Her journey is one from enabler of the legal system to its victim. It shows how rape ruptures not only body and psyche, but the narrative that binds them together. Yet the legal system expects coherence. Where rape ruptures sense of self, the legal system demands that a witness speak from a place of reasoned agency.

In the age of #MeToo, Prima Facie puts on the record that women’s experiences of assault have been silenced for as long as women have been abused by men and systems of power. It offers similar insight into the legal system to Queensland author Bri Lee’s award-winning 2018 memoir, Eggshell Skull.

The play states the problem plainly:

A woman’s experience of sexual assault / does not fit the male-defined system of truth. So it cannot be truth / and therefore there cannot be justice.

Miller’s text won last year’s prestigious Griffin Award for an outstanding play or play or performance text that displays an authentic, inventive and contemporary Australian voice. It is easy to see why. It is punchy, leaving almost no time for pause – witty and despair-making in equal measure.

Harbridge is dynamic as she moves Tessa through varying social vernaculars (such as when she imitates her Mum) and into a range of emotional tempos, activating every angle of an increasingly suffocating stage. Barring one exit, Tessa spends 100 minutes on a raised platform that feels much more confining than the usually intimate space of Sydney’s Stables Theatre. Most often starkly lit, and before an audience who plays quasi-theatrical jury, Harbridge does not miss a beat.

Sound is used only occasionally, with the depth of an inner eardrum/heart beat. Sparing projections mark the shifts in time as well as the legalese that Tessa traverses. The understated elegance of these elements allow the physical detail to mould the weight of the story: the rhythmic nuances of Miller’s script, their expression through Harbridge’s Tessa, and their unflinching, empathic direction by Lee Lewis.

This production seems to make clear that beyond the law, it is female labour – in myriad guises – which tries to change the present in view of its history.

Structurally, the play performs a process of finding voice. Narratively, this is conveyed as Tessa’s coming to terms with her own experience – a conflict that she describes as landing between “legal truth” and autobiographical truth. Beyond this particular story, the process of finding voice becomes a comment on the theatrical form itself. Where legal avenues fall short, theatre can testify, the play seems to declare – only it does so differently, and for different ends.

In her program notes, Miller draws her background as a lawyer into focus, explaining that the work “has been playing out in [her] mind since [her] law school days”. The implication here is that the inadequacies of the legal system in part led Miller to carve new ways of making justice happen. In the play, Tessa finds her voice, explaining, “it’s a different voice, but I keep talking”. Perhaps this is a subtle nod to Miller’s own trajectory into the realm of theatre-as-tribunal.

Prima Facie shows how rape becomes nullified by the legal system, which fails to recognise the ways in which this form of violence shatters. Prima Facie’s strength is that it fashions itself out of the shards of this shattering. And this is why it is so compelling and so resonant.

Prima Facie is on at SBW Stables Theatre in Sydney until June 22.

– ref. In Suzie Miller’s Prima Facie, theatre finds a voice of reckoning on sexual assault and the law – http://theconversation.com/in-suzie-millers-prima-facie-theatre-finds-a-voice-of-reckoning-on-sexual-assault-and-the-law-117588

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Thomas Mortlock, Senior Risk Scientist, Risk Frontiers, Adjunct Fellow, Macquarie University

Most major airports in Australia are located on reclaimed swamps, sitting only a few metres above the present day sea level. And the risk of sea level rise from climate change poses a greater threat to our airports than we’re prepared for.

In fact, some of the top climate scientists now believe global sea-level rise of over two metres by 2100 is likely under our current trajectory of high carbon emissions.

Read more: Torres Strait Islanders ask UN to hold Australia to account on climate ‘human rights abuses’

This makes Cairns (less than 3m above sea level), Sydney and Brisbane (under 4m), and Townsville and Hobart (both around under 5m) airports among the most vulnerable.

In the US, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has recommended that global mean sea level rise of up to 2.7 metres this century should be considered in planning for coastal infrastructure.

This is two to three times greater than the upper limit of recommended sea level rise projections applied in Australia.

But generally, the amount of sea level rise we can expect over the coming century is deeply uncertain. This is because ice sheet retreat rates from global warming are unpredictable.

Read more: Climate change forced these Fijian communities to move – and with 80 more at risk, here’s what they learned

Given the significant disruption cost and deep uncertainty associated with the timing of sea level rise, we must adopt a risk-based approach which considers extreme sea level rise scenarios as part of coastal infrastructure planning.

Are we prepared?

As polar ocean waters warm, they can cause glaciers to melt from beneath, leading to more icebergs breaking off into the ocean and then a rapid rise in global sea level. This has happened multiple times in the Earth’s past and, on some occasions, in a matter of decades.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) puts sea level rise projections for Australia somewhere between 50 to 90 centimetres by 2090, relative to the average sea level measured between 1986 to 2005. But the emerging science indicates this may now be an underestimate.

Some studies suggest if substantive glacial basins of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet were to collapse, it could contribute at least a further two metres to global sea levels.

Most Australian airports have conducted risk assessments for the IPCC projections.

In fact, there is no state-level policy that considers extreme sea level rise for the most critical infrastructure, even though it is possible sea levels could exceed those recommended by the IPCC within the coming century.

Read more: Young people won’t accept inaction on climate change, and they’ll be voting in droves

And for airports, the planning implications are stark when you compare the current projection of less than a metre of sea level rise and the potential of at least a two metre rise later this century.

Taking the most low-lying major airports in Australia as an example, our modelling suggests a collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet would see their near complete inundation – without any adaptation in place.

For more elevated locations, coastal infrastructure may still be inoperable more frequently when the combined effect of storm surges, waves, elevated groundwater or river flooding are considered.

A $200 billion problem

Our airports and other forms of infrastructure near the coastline are critical to the Australian economy. The aviation industry has an estimated annual revenue of over A$43 billion, adding around A$16 billion to the economy in 2017.

While there are many uncertainties around the future cost of sea-level rise, a study by the Climate Council suggests over a metre sea level rise would put more than A$200 billion worth of Australian infrastructure at risk.

It is difficult to assign a probability and time-frame to ice sheet collapse, but scientific estimates are reducing that time frame to a century rather than a millennium.

Read more: Climate change: sea level rise could displace millions of people within two generations

Uncertainty generally comes with a cost, so proactive planning would make economic sense.

Adapting our most critical coastal assets while sea levels rapidly rise is not an option – mitigation infrastructure could take decades to construct and may be prohibitively expensive.

Given the deep uncertainties associated with the timing of ice-sheet collapse, we suggest airport and other critical coastal infrastructure is subjected to risk analysis for a two to three metre sea level rise.

– ref. Rising seas threaten Australia’s major airports – and it may be happening faster than we think – http://theconversation.com/rising-seas-threaten-australias-major-airports-and-it-may-be-happening-faster-than-we-think-115374

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Glenn Hyndes, Professor in Coastal Ecology, Edith Cowan University

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.

How do sea creatures stand the salt? – Marshall, age 9, Murrumbeena.

Everything in our bodies is made of cells. And these cells need chemicals, such as salt, in and around them to work properly. The chemical balance needs to be just right.

If we don’t get enough salt, a lot of our cells won’t work. But too much salt? That’s also a problem.

Drinking enough fresh water will help dilute the salt in our bodies. And depending on what and how much we eat and drink, our kidneys will remove excess salt and put it in our urine so we can get rid of it.

However, our kidneys can only process small amounts of salt. If we drank a lot of salty seawater, we’d feel sick and could even die.

Sea animals and sea salt

Animals that live in the sea cope with seawater in different ways, depending on how much salt their bodies can withstand.

Some animals, such as ghost shrimps, can take in large amounts of salt and will maintain a balance similar to the water around them.

They can do that even when they are in water that is saltier than seawater.

Animals that do this are known as “osmoconformers”, and the cells in their bodies can withstand big changes in salt concentrations.

They don’t necessarily drink seawater the way we do, but they can suck water and salt through their skin via processes called osmosis and diffusion.

Many invertebrates (animals without backbones, such as jellyfish) survive in salty water like this. They can cope with a level of saltiness that would be dangerous for us.

However, even these animals have their limits. And if the salt concentrations in their bodies get too high, they need to move to less salty water or they will die.

Read more: Curious Kids: What sea creature can attack and win over a blue whale?

Fish and some invertebrates such as some sea snails need to maintain salt concentrations that are less than seawater.

Fish tend to have concentrations that are about a third of that of seawater. They have developed ways to manage the amount of salt in their bodies and are known as “osmoregulators”.

When a fish drinks sea water, its kidneys (like ours) removes excess salt and gets rid of it via their urine. They can also get rid of salt via their gills, and even their skin.

But different fish have different limits. Some saltwater species, if they are trapped in more salty water, will die.

Others can live quite happily in saltier water, but even these will die if they get trapped in really salty water.

Freshwater fish have a different problem

Fish that live in freshwater have the opposite problem. Their bodies have higher levels of salt compared to the water that surrounds them. These fish needed to evolve a way to stop the salt leaking out of their bodies and into the water.

They do this by eating foods that have salt in them and drinking lots of water and keeping as much salt as they can in their bodies.

They also actively absorb a small amount of salt from the surrounding water through the gills and skin. If you move these freshwater fish into the ocean, however, they would get very sick and die.

Seabirds and turtles

Seabirds and turtles also need to remove salt from their bodies, but they have what we call “glands” to help.

Glands are special organs in their heads that help remove the salt. If you look at seabirds closely, they dribble water out of their beak nostrils. This water is very salty.

Turtles remove the excess salt from the eyes, which is why they sometimes look like they are crying.

And seabirds and turtles also have kidneys that remove salt in the same way that fish do.

So, the reason marine animals don’t get sick when they drink seawater is because the species have lived in marine water for a very long time and are adapted to living in that environment.

It comes down to what levels our bodies have evolved to cope with.

Read more: Curious Kids: Why do you blink when there is a sudden loud noise close by?

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: how do sea creatures drink sea water and not get sick? – http://theconversation.com/curious-kids-how-do-sea-creatures-drink-sea-water-and-not-get-sick-110979

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Maria Craig, Professor University of Sydney and University of NSW Paediatric Endocrinologist, Children’s Hospital at Westmead, UNSW

Diabetes is the fastest growing chronic condition in Australia. At least 1.2 million Australians live with diabetes, and about 10% of them have type 1 diabetes.

Diabetes sees the body become resistant to the effects of insulin, or lose its ability to produce insulin from the pancreas. Insulin keeps the body’s blood glucose levels, or “blood sugar”, within a healthy range. Everyone with type 1 diabetes, and some people with type 2 diabetes, will need to self-administer regular insulin injections.

People with diabetes, particularly type 1, must continually monitor their blood glucose levels to manage their condition. Over the years, a number of different innovations have allowed people to do this.

The most traditional method is finger prick testing, which requires a person to prick their finger to draw a drop of blood. They test the blood on a strip that’s inserted into a blood glucose testing device, and must do this several times a day. This technique can be painful and disruptive.

But now we have a new and exciting tool that can help ease this burden for people living with type 1 diabetes. It’s called the flash glucose monitoring system.

Read more: Between health and faith: managing type 2 diabetes during Ramadan

What is it?

Flash glucose monitoring was first introduced in Europe in 2014, and has been available in Australia since 2016.

This glucose monitoring system involves a small, water-resistant sensor applied to the back of the upper arm. The technology automatically measures and continuously stores tissue glucose levels 24 hours a day. The patch only needs to be changed once every two weeks.

The devices are suitable for adults and children over the age of four who have diabetes that requires insulin. This includes the 120,000 people living with type 1 diabetes and a sizeable portion of people living with type 2 diabetes.

To gain a reading, a reader or compatible smartphone is simply scanned over the sensor for one second. The reader or the smartphone then displays the current glucose reading, a glucose trend arrow (indicating whether a person’s blood sugar has gone up or down) and a chart showing glucose levels over the previous eight hours.

What are the benefits?

Flash glucose monitoring gives people living with diabetes a chance to see the full picture of their glucose levels that is not possible with traditional blood glucose test strips.

Patients also have the option to share their readings with their health-care providers, giving them deeper insights to make more informed treatment decisions.

One of the most beneficial things is that it is discreet and allows people living with diabetes to keep an active lifestyle while maintaining their blood glucose levels within safe ranges.

Read more: How Australians Die: cause #5 – diabetes

Global data suggests users of flash glucose monitoring check their glucose levels on average 12 times per day, which is considerably more than the number of finger prick tests most people are doing.

More scans give people a stronger awareness of their blood glucose highs, lows and trends, resulting in better overall blood glucose control and a lower risk of recording a severely low blood glucose level.

This technology needs to be more accessible

Outgoing British PM Theresa May has been seen wearing a flash glucose monitoring device. Closer to home, AFL footballer Paddy McCartin has brought awareness to diabetes by wearing his on the football field.

But attaining subsidised flash glucose monitoring devices remains a challenge for everyday Australians. People have to pay for it out of pocket, which adds up to approximately A$2,400 a year.

And this cost is only a fraction of the financial burden a person with diabetes has to face. Other expenses can include maintaining their insulin pump, and appointments with endocrinologists, diabetes educators, optometrists, podiatrists, psychologists and general practitioners.

Right now, flash glucose monitoring is not on the National Diabetes Services Scheme product list, which means it’s not subsidised by the government. While traditional forms of blood glucose monitoring are subsidised, people who would benefit from flash glucose monitoring are largely not able to access it.

Flash glucose monitoring was supposed to be subsidised from March 1 2019 for select groups, such as people under 21, expectant mothers and breastfeeding women. But nothing has come of it. According to the Department of Health, this is due to ongoing price negotiations.

Funding flash glucose monitoring devices has been seen as a priority in other parts of the world. It’s currently subsidised in more than 30 countries, including Spain, Ireland and Greece.

Diabetes Australia supports the subsidy of this technology to make it more accessible for people with diabetes.

Read more: Explainer: what is diabetes?

The bigger picture

If patients don’t properly manage their diabetes, they risk heart disease, kidney failure, loss of vision and amputations. All of these complications require extensive health investments, but are avoidable with the right resources.

So subsidising a technology that’s going to help more people better manage their diabetes is worthwhile not just for the people that will see positive impacts in their day-to-day lives. This is an important investment on a broader scale.

– ref. Flash glucose monitoring: the little patches that can make managing diabetes a whole lot easier – http://theconversation.com/flash-glucose-monitoring-the-little-patches-that-can-make-managing-diabetes-a-whole-lot-easier-117249

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonathan Broadbent, Associate Professor in Dental Public Health, University of Otago

In New Zealand, wealth determines dental health. Inequalities in untreated tooth decay are wider in New Zealand than in Australia, Canada or the United States.

The latest New Zealand Health Survey, run annually by the Ministry of Health, reported that cost prevents an estimated 15% of New Zealand adults (just over half a million) from seeing a GP about a medical problem and nearly 7% (around a quarter million) from filling a prescription. For dentistry, cost stopped 44% of adults (around 1.6 million) from accessing care. In the young adult age group, this was over half the population.

New Zealand’s dental health-care system needs change. The government is currently reviewing the health and disability system, and all dental public health specialists in New Zealand (myself included) made a joint submission to that review. We see adult dental health care as a neglected health policy issue and here, I summarise how I see our ideas for improving the system.

Read more: Two million Aussies delay or don’t go to the dentist – here’s how we can fix that

The problems

The risk for dental problems is determined in early childhood and can be intergenerational. Those born into disadvantaged families go on to have greater rates of tooth decay as adults.

Young adulthood is when incomes are often at their lowest, but untreated dental decay is at its highest. In New Zealand, dental care for children is free, but the use of dental services declines sharply after the age of 18, when free access ceases. This affects oral health and sets the stage for losing teeth as an adult.

Conventional wisdom has it that the best approach to reducing inequalities is to educate the public, but that doesn’t work. To address social inequalities, we need to address the underlying structural issues and ensure timely access to quality dental care. In dentistry, inequalities in the delivery of dental care services are greater than inequalities in the disease itself. There is a definite gradient in the rate of tooth decay for those from disadvantaged childhood situations, but it is much greater for losing teeth than for decay.

Read more: Why some kids are more prone to dental decay

Public or private?

Some argue dentistry is changing from being a health profession to a simple commercial enterprise. People on low incomes miss out while some dentists are busy meeting targets for “high value work”. Dentists have to turn a profit to stay in business, so most dental practices are concentrated in well-off areas with better oral health.

The company with the biggest market share (15% dental practices in New Zealand), is squarely focused on the middle to high end dental market. It has described New Zealand’s dental health care sector as a “lucrative market” for investment.

On the other hand, the Minister of Health David Clark recently said:

There is widespread unmet need for dental care among adults in New Zealand.

Is “widespread unmet need” an opportunity for profit? Or is it a public health problem for the nation to grapple with?

The government spends around NZ$16 billion annually on health, but private expenditure for general health problems is estimated at just one-fifth of total expenditure. On the other hand, the government currently spends around a quarter of a billion dollars a year on dental care, but New Zealanders spend upwards of five times that amount in private dental health care. Estimates of the annual spend in the New Zealand private dental market range from NZ$0.8 billion to NZ$1.8 billion, reflecting real uncertainty about what actually goes on.

The solutions

New Zealand’s dental care system demonstrates why we can’t rely on market forces to equitably distribute population health services. The cost of introducing universal coverage for dental care would be high, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t consider the idea, or variations of it. People certainly have a taste for free dental care.

We should start with prevention. Preventing dental problems isn’t just about brushing teeth and water fluoridation. Just as Scotland has done successfully, New Zealand needs to increase our spend on preventive dental care to save on the high costs of dental interventions. Many people miss out on preventive dental care and population-level prevention represents a very small component of the public dental health care budget.

Cardiovascular disease, diabetes and obesity have many of the same causes as dental diseases. Stricter limits on the marketing and sale of sugary drinks and lollies, better regulation of “hidden sugars”, and continued efforts for tobacco control would have benefits beyond dental health. If publicly funded dental services are to be expanded, then the government should seriously consider balancing the costs by applying a health tax at the point of purchase of products that cause oral disease.

Dentistry is poorly integrated with other areas of health care. Neither is it funded like other areas of health care, and this needs to change. Dental surgery is expensive, just like any form of surgery. Accessible dental health care can’t happen without funding.

Our first steps towards the goal that all New Zealanders should be able to access affordable comprehensive dental care should be population-level prevention and ensuring that disadvantaged groups can access emergency dental care.

– ref. High cost means more than half of NZ’s young adults don’t access dental care – http://theconversation.com/high-cost-means-more-than-half-of-nzs-young-adults-dont-access-dental-care-117494

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Cathal D. O’Connell, Researcher and Centre Manager, BioFab3D (St Vincent’s Hospital), University of Melbourne

I work in the field of bioprinting, where the aim is to build biological tissues by printing living cells into 3D structures.

Last month I found my Facebook news feed plastered with an amazing story about “the first 3D printed heart using a patient’s own cells”. A video showed a beautiful, healthy-looking heart apparently materialising inside a vat of pinkish liquid.

Big news. According to an impact tracking algorithm, the story has been picked up by 145 news outlets, tweeted 2,390 times to 3.8 million followers (as of May 27, 2019). Articles on Facebook have at least 13,000 shares, and videos about the story have been viewed well over 3 million times.

Unfortunately, many of these media reports don’t match up well with the original science.

Over-reporting of medical science is unethical, and occasionally dangerous. It’s a problem all of us who work in the creation and telling of science can act to fix.

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

How they printed a ‘heart’

In the original printed “heart” scientific paper, Isreali scientists describe how they built on their own earlier work on bio-inks (printable materials and cells) to create 3D structures in the laboratory. The main focus was to print a square “patch” of heart cells and blood-vessels using a “personalised” bio-ink; one where all of the cells and materials came from a particular patient. This is important because bio-inks typically contain some synthetic or animal-derived materials.

As a final flourish the team also printed the cells into a thumbnail-sized, heart shape. The text of the original paper clearly states the printed heart-shaped structure is not a real heart, and lacks most of the features required to make a heart work. But, along with those striking visuals, this is the aspect of the work that helped the paper become such a media hit.

This might sound like the envious griping of a rival scientist. However, I’m not criticising the science. This is impressive work – the cardiac patches may indeed turn out be an important development in the field.

I’m more worried about media reports giving the impression that our field of research is far more advanced than it is.

When medical research is overplayed

Sensationalism is rife in science journalism. And the 3D bioprinting field is interesting in particular, as it is currently fuelled by a “perfect storm” of hype: it builds on the wider buzz around 3D printing, is deceptively easy to understand, and blends ideas of science fiction with potential impact in real health outcomes.

There are other recent examples of sensationalised reporting in the bioprinting field.

For example, Wake Forest University had to issue a clarification notice following reports its scientist Anthony Atala had “printed” a human kidney live on stage

In December 2015, news articles announced that a 14-year old boy had become the first human patient to be implanted with a “3D printed nose”. In reality, 3D printing was only used to make a template to help the surgeon piece together pieces of donor cartilage into the correct shape.

We’re left with the impression that 3D bioprinting is a mature, clinically available technology, when currently it is not.

Read more: Edible seaweed can be used to grow blood vessels in the body

What’s the harm in a bit of hype?

There are numerous ethical downsides linked with over-enthusiastic portrayals of bioprinting in the media.

The problem is, mass media is one of the most important sources of health and medical information for the general public, especially prospective patients.

Positive portrayals of a novel technology in the media can affect patient consent to undergo treatment and can even prompt prospective participants to request enrolment in clinical trials.

I’ve seen this myself. Whenever our own research is reported, particularly on television, the next morning I get phonecalls from people who want to sign up for a particular treatment. On TV the message is rarely communicated that we are still at an experimental stage, with human trials still years away.

In the worst case, the buzz around new technology can provide an opportunity for unscrupulous charlatans, such as the cosmetic surgeon who reportedly sold an unapproved stem-cell technology in Beverley Hills. One patient ended up with fragments of bone in her eyelid.

Media reports of infamous thoracic surgeon Paolo Macchiarini’s implantation of a “synthetic trachea” arguably provided him a platform to accelerate his research program. Seven of the nine patients who received one of his synthetic trachea transplants have since died.

Read more: Whose hearts, livers and lungs are transplanted in China? Origins must be clear in human organ research

An anatomy of hype

Fed by enthusiastic reporting, technologies tend to follow a pattern called the Gartner Hype Cycle: first buoyed to an unsustainable “peak of inflated expectations” before falling to the “trough of disillusionment”.

The phenomenon can bring benefits to many players in the industry of science. So how can we fix the situation?

The exaggerated claims around particular stories tend to build upon one another in a snowball effect. This means all of those involved in creating and sharing the stories of science can step up: scientists, journals, universities and journalists.

Read more: Science journalism is in Australia’s interest, but needs support to thrive

Salesmanship has become an indispensable skill for modern scientists – really, every grant application is a sales pitch. Indeed academic science as a whole seems to be tending toward ever more bluster.

In published papers the use of positive terms such as “innovative,” “unprecedented” and “groundbreaking” have increased by thousands of percent over the past four decades. Scientists need to be wary of this trend and keep themselves in check when speaking to the media – especially in cases where their words will be taken very seriously by prospective patients and patient advocacy groups.

Journals and article reviewers can take responsibility for ensuring they publish top quality science, and also that the language in an article is accurate and not overblown. This includes the article title, which is sometimes the only part of an article journalists and general readers can see.

Language choices are also vital in materials coming out of university press offices.

Some reporters take press releases at face value, regurgitating lines or paragraphs verbatim. Non-specialist science reporters may not understand a field in enough detail to question this interpretation, or they don’t invest time in placing a new announcement in a broader context. Asking other experts for their views on a new piece of research is vital in science reporting.

A risky symbiosis

A symbiosis has evolved between scientists and the media: scientists need the media to bolster their record of exposure and “impact” on the next grant application. The media needs scientists for those shareable (and all too rare) positive, feelgood stories.

There is a stark mismatch between the elements required of a modern news story (novelty, impact), and the reality of medical research (slow, meticulous, often incremental). This can result in a distorted depiction of medical research.

When these pressures push the story too far, they can end up spinning a fairytale. And with medical research in particular, fairytales can be dangerous.

– ref. Misreporting the science of lab-made organs is unethical, even dangerous – http://theconversation.com/misreporting-the-science-of-lab-made-organs-is-unethical-even-dangerous-116987

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sung-Young Kim, Lecturer in the Department of Modern History, Politics & International Relations, Macquarie University

From an appalling environmental scorecard 20 years ago, China has pioneered a “global green shift” towards renewable energy and recycling. The country’s drive to dominate renewables manufacturing benefits both China and the world, by sending technology prices plummeting.

Many have attributed this success to China’s authoritarian political regime.

Unlike a democracy, this line of reasoning goes, the state can override special interest groups or opposition parties to impose “authoritarian environmentalism”. This allows a rapid and encompassing response to severe environmental threats.

We take a different view. As the chief investigators on an Australia Research Council Discovery Project examining East Asia’s clean energy shift, we are examining why and how some East Asian countries – including China – are pursuing ambitious renewable energy transformations, and what Australia might learn from these countries’ experiences.

We argue China’s success in greening and growing its economy is not because, but in spite of, its authoritarian government.

Read more: What we can learn from China’s fight against environmental ruin

Not that different

China’s approach to greening shares much in common with democratic countries such as Germany, South Korea and Taiwan. All have ambitious programs to rapidly build domestic clean energy industries and “green” their power generation.

As such, our project emphasises the link between China’s green shift and what we call “developmental environmentalism”.

Developmental environmentalism refers to a state approaching greening as an opportunity to promote national techno-economic competitiveness. It helps explain both the drivers of the green shift and the means of its execution.

The “means” are less about authoritarianism and more about the state’s capacity to induce the private sector into a cooperative relationship.

This type of negotiated relationship between the state and industry is the exact opposite of authoritarianism, which pursues its goals irrespective of the wishes of the private sector. Indeed, the pages of history tell us authoritarian leaders are far more likely to misuse their concentrated economic power, resulting in developmental failure.

Democratic successes

China is not alone in its green shift. In fact, some of the world’s most ambitious national greening programs have sprung to life in democratic settings.

Germany

The clearest example is Germany and its widely admired Energiewende (“energy transition”). Germany took an early lead in the development of solar devices through government-sponsored industrial programs.

Then in 2011, in the wake of the Fukishima nuclear disaster, Chancellor Angela Merkel announced the shutdown of Germany’s nuclear power stations.

Countries around the world are now emulating Germany’s Energiewende.

South Korea

In one of East Asia’s most vibrant democracies, South Korea, the election of President Lee Myung-bak in 2008 signalled a shift from intensive fossil-fuel development to “low-carbon, green growth”.

Lee’s focus was on greening the economy by investing in renewables and related infrastructure such as smart grids. His successor in 2013, President Park Geun-hye, continued this approach.

Finally, after President Moon Jae-in swept into power in 2017, South Korea committed to scaling down its use of nuclear energy.

Taiwan

Taiwan provides another fascinating example of a proudly democratic country that has followed in Germany’s footsteps. National efforts to establish a renewables industry began in 2009 under President Ma Ying-jeou. These initiatives targeted various clean energy industries for promotion, including generating solar and wind facilities and batteries.

However, just like Korea, the country’s over-reliance on nuclear energy (facilitated by a state-owned monopoly in the power sector) prevented the growth of a market for renewables.

A breakthrough in the country’s highly contentious debate over nuclear energy came with the election of President Tsai Ing-wen in 2016, who committed to the complete shutdown of nuclear reactors in the country.

Developmental environmentalism in action

These examples provide a clue that China’s ability to green its economy stems from something other than its authoritarian political system. We argue China’s success in greening stems from developmental environmentalism in action.

This does not simply mean a state that is “pro-development” and “pro-environment”. Rather, policymakers see greening the economy as chance to gain a competitive edge over other countries. The pursuit of strategic industry development goals involves nurturing – not displacing, as would occur in an authoritarian setting – “governed interdependence” with the private sector.

Best depicted by the Korean example, developmental environmentalism as a policy initially emerged as a response to threats to national industrial competitiveness. These included acute dependence on fossil-fuel imports, which are highly volatile, and global competitive pressures in the race to gain an early lead in the green economy.

Developmental environmentalism is also a strategic response to domestic challenges, such as the need to drive new sources of economic growth.

Lessons for Australia

If an authoritarian government provides little to no advantage for coordinating a green shift, what lessons might these countries have for Australian policymakers?

The key lesson is it’s not about designing the perfect constellation of policies or about pouring more money into entire industries.

Developmental environmentalism involves the political will to take big risks. Policymakers must target technologies – or segments of the economy – where government support could build national competitiveness.

Of course, this means creating a strategic, long-term approach to industry development, coordinated with the private sector.

Despite political gridlock, Australia is well placed to establish a foothold in the rapidly growing clean energy industry.

As the nation’s leaders engage in a fruitless debate over building new coal-fired power stations, Australian companies with world-class strengths in clean energies are emerging. Nowhere is this growing confidence more evident than in the blossoming of companies that have commercially ready smart microgrid and energy-storage solutions.

It would be a great shame – if not a national tragedy – if these companies were allowed to be picked off one by one by foreign multinational enterprises. This is the sad and familiar story of Australian manufacturing: highly innovative companies – a testament to our wealth of knowledge – are bought out, intellectual property rights absorbed, and manufacturing eventually outsourced. Often, shells of our prized national assets (typically the marketing and sales divisions) are all that remain.

Read more: Wake up Australia, and take a lesson on solar from Korea

Yet, in the absence of a coordinated national strategy that focuses on building a national value chain or ecosystem of upstream and downstream players – as the Koreans and Taiwanese have done in smart microgrids – this future appears all but settled.

– ref. China succeeds in greening its economy not because, but in spite of, its authoritarian government – http://theconversation.com/china-succeeds-in-greening-its-economy-not-because-but-in-spite-of-its-authoritarian-government-115568

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amanda Keddie, Professor, Education, Deakin University

Media reports of findings from the latest National Community Attitudes towards Violence against Women Survey caused a stir in recent days, with some highlighting the importance of education programs to teach young people about gender-based violence.

The survey of young people, aged 16-24, revealed some concerning findings. Nearly one-quarter of respondents agreed that women tend to exaggerate the problem of male violence. One in seven said women often make false allegations of sexual assault. One in eight weren’t aware non-consensual sex in marriage is a criminal offence.

But the 2017 survey also showed positive shifts in young people’s understanding of family violence compared to the survey in 2013. Young people showed an increase in their understanding of the different forms of violence against women and more respondents endorsed gender equality.

Schools play a significant role in educating young people about gender-based violence and helping change the underlying attitudes that lead to it.

The Victorian government began a rollout of respectful relationships education in primary and secondary schools in 2016. This is a whole-of-school program that aims not only to develop students’ gender awareness and respect but also to transform school cultures to be more gender-inclusive.

An evaluation of the program in secondary schools found positive results. One principal told researchers:

There were male teachers in positions of authority [who] used aggression as their method to get what they wanted. That just became unacceptable.

History of gender-based violence education

Schools have long played a significant role in teaching students respect and equity. Social and moral learning is embedded in the Melbourne Declaration, a 2008 document that sets out the agreed national goals of schooling. These values are also embedded in national and state curricula.

More than 25 years ago, the federal education department was commissioned to develop a position on gender-based violence education. This led to the development of “No Fear” – a teaching resource and whole-of-school approach to addressing the attitudes and behaviours that underpin gender-based violence.

Read more: Why education about gender and sexuality does belong in the classroom

Researchers in the mid-1990s highlighted the high levels of sexual harassment in schools, including early childhood settings. Others pointed to the broader gender equity and structural inequalities that impact girls’ options after leaving school.

All of this led to a high visibility and resourcing of gender (and other) equity reforms across Australian schools. By the late 1990s, however, anti-feminist backlash and government funding cuts led to a policy vacuum in this space.

Respectful relationships education

Governments have recently renewed efforts to address gender-based violence in schools through what is now referred to as respectful relationships education.

This kind of education is included in the Australian Curriculum but not all state and territory governments have been proactive in making it mandatory. Victoria’s 2016 Royal Commission into Family Violence recommended respectful relationships education be mandatory in every school from prep to Year 12.

The program is now being rolled out in more than 1,000 government, Catholic and independent schools in Victoria.

Read more: Respectful relationships education isn’t about activating a gender war

Respectful relationships education seeks to prevent violence before it occurs. This is fostered through supporting schools to challenge and find alternatives to the rigid gender roles that support gender inequality and lead to violence against women. It encourages schools to examine gender in terms of:

• staffing (is there gender disparity in leadership positions, teaching responsibilities and extracurricular activities?)
• school culture (does the school have an inclusive and welcoming climate?)
• professional learning (are teachers provided with adequate and ongoing support to teach about gender, identity, power and violence?)
• support (are schools well-equipped to deal with disclosures of violence?)
• teaching and learning (how do curriculum and pedagogy foster students’ critical awareness of gender, power, identity and violence?)
• community connections (how are schools working with their broader community, including families, local services and sporting clubs, to challenge rigid gender norms?).

Research conducted by the charity OurWatch and Deakin and Swinburne universities has highlighted the potential of this model to change attitudes and school structures. Students expressed thoughtful and informed views about gendered violence following their participation in the program.

One student said:

People think sexual assault is about sex, but it’s about power […] It’s about a sense of entitlement.

Another noted:

I think it’s a good idea to have this sort of program in more schools. It’ll stop the system; boys growing up thinking that they should be the more dominant person in the relationship and learning this now might stop that and make it less of a problem.

Teachers and school leaders also relayed positive accounts of the program’s impact. One teacher observed students were now more respectful of each other.

Another said:

Respectful relationships education develops an understanding of the links between the language the students use with each other and how that leads to situations where women are not treated equally, undervalued or misrepresented.

There are still hurdles

Teachers, leaders and students have generally welcomed respectful relationships education. But there are still many challenges to ensuring the program is embedded in primary and secondary schools. These include:

• addressing misinformation, resistance and backlash – for example that respectful relationships education is about “gender engineering” or that it alienates and shames boys and men
• acknowledging the complexities of violence against women as intersecting with poverty, Indigeneity, ethnicity, culture, and disability, among other factors
• adequate funding to support ongoing professional learning for school leaders and teachers in relation to implementing a whole-school approach
• supporting schools to work with and educate families
• supporting schools to better respond to disclosures and violence-related trauma.

Schools are not a panacea for transforming the ills of society. Ending violence against women will require major and far-reaching social change. The history of respectful relationships or gender-based violence education indicates schools can play a significant role in this process.

But it is clear short-term, inadequately funded approaches do little to recognise the complexity of change and the time it takes to bring an education community to a common understanding, awareness and commitment to change.

– ref. Let’s make it mandatory to teach respectful relationships in every Australian school – http://theconversation.com/lets-make-it-mandatory-to-teach-respectful-relationships-in-every-australian-school-117659

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emma Power, Senior Research Fellow, Geography and Urban Studies, Western Sydney University

Growing numbers of Australians are locked out of home ownership or struggling in insecure and unaffordable private rental markets. There are concerns about home owners drowning in debt. And for lower-income earners, high housing costs mean that paying for food, energy bills and health costs is an ongoing challenge.

It is time for a new way of talking about housing in Australia. The housing crisis is quickly turning into a crisis of care.

We call on the newly re-elected Morrison government and new Housing Minister Michael Sukkar to recognise that the value of housing is not just economic. Housing is an infrastructure of care. Australian governments need to ask: is this a housing system that cares?

Read more: Is social housing essential infrastructure? How we think about it does matter

A location for essential care

Houses are hubs of care practices and relations. They are places of everyday care, of cooking, cleaning and washing, of care between household and family members. Houses are where we care for children, elders, partners and ourselves.

Houses are also anchors for community and neighbourhood-based care. We keep an eye on neighbours’ homes, support older neighbours to age in place, and care for pets.

This care work is what keeps us alive.

Even though care is not always done well, it is an essential practice that is connected in fundamental ways with housing. Without housing it can be very difficult to meet basic needs.

The care work of housing

But housing is more than just a place where care takes place. Housing systems – through housing policy, markets and design – organise the distribution of care and the ability of people to give and receive care.

In our research this drives us to ask: how does the housing system support or limit the capacity of households to care?

We argue that housing is a care infrastructure and call for this understanding of housing to be at the centre of housing reform.

Home owners benefit

In Australia we value housing as an individual investment and asset. The economic values of housing (how much we can buy, sell or otherwise leverage housing for) are at the heart of how housing is usually discussed.

Read more: Explainer: the financialisation of housing and what can be done about it

For affluent households housing markets can work very well as a care infrastructure. This is because these households can more readily afford housing that meets household care needs. They are also more able to invest in housing to cover the costs of care in later life and to support the needs and ambitions of children. For home owners housing is a private welfare net for funding care needs.

Australian housing and related policies create and reinforce the value of home ownership. Subsidies for first home owners, the proposed First Home Loan Deposit Scheme (which will be a focus of efforts by the new housing minister), preferential treatment for owner occupation in pension tests and tax breaks for investor landlords underpin the value of home ownership as an infrastructure of care.

However, for the growing numbers of households not in a position to own a home the picture is less rosy. In many cases housing becomes an infrastructure that inhibits access to necessary care. As increasing numbers of households rent for longer periods, we risk a housing system that only cares for some.

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

Housing affordability

Housing affordability is a central concern. Lower income earners have less ability to choose to live in places that are well serviced or where family-based care networks are located. Less affluent areas often have less access to public and private care services like doctors and other specialists.

Housing affordability also shapes the ability to afford other care resources like quality food and electricity. Households that face high housing costs are often forced to compromise in these areas.

In Emma’s and other related research older retirees in the private rental market depended on local food charities for nutritious food. And in winter they restricted their use of heating to avoid bill blow-outs.

Read more: Life as an older renter, and what it tells us about the urgent need for tenancy reform

There are also connections between paid work, caring capacity and housing affordability. High-cost housing markets can drive people to work longer hours and multiple jobs, or require multiple income earners within a household. This can reduce the ability of individuals and households to meet domestic care responsibilities.

Tenure and care

Non-home owners also face restrictions around their use of private rental properties. For a start, rental housing is notoriously insecure. There are also restrictions on the ability of renters to make a house into a home.

Private rental legislation typically does not require landlords to agree to property modifications to meet the needs of a person with disability or ageing body, even when tenant-funded.

Women in Emma’s research reported losing bonds to cover costs associated with removing modifications that had been agreed to during a tenancy. In Kathy’s research, the fear of eviction meant private renters found it difficult to ask for and be granted repairs that would make their homes habitable. They endured leaking roofs and mouldy walls that made housing unsuitable for meeting basic care needs.

Such policies reinforce the value of owned homes as powerful care infrastructures for home owners, while undermining the caring capacity of households that don’t own their homes. While social housing enhances the caring capacity of many households, social housing is chronically underfunded and undersupplied.

Read more: Ideas of home and ownership in Australia might explain the neglect of renters’ rights

Diversity helps meet different needs

As growing numbers of households find themselves locked out of home ownership and face difficulties securing affordable housing in our expensive private rental markets, Australia badly needs housing reform.

The care work of housing must be at the centre of housing policy. The new government and minister for housing must ask: first, is this a housing system that cares? And, second, who does this housing system care for?

Historically, this question has been answered with calls to increase home ownership. But there is value in a diverse housing system because different households have different needs.

Further, those who invest in housing are dependent on the people who will rent that housing. These people in turn have the right – and need – for housing that supports their care needs. Affordable housing is only the starting point.

– ref. Is this a housing system that cares? That’s the question for Australians and their new government – http://theconversation.com/is-this-a-housing-system-that-cares-thats-the-question-for-australians-and-their-new-government-117311

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By George Denny-Smith, Scientia PhD Researcher, UNSW

Adelaide football great Eddie Betts was just 15 when he moved to Melbourne from Port Lincoln, South Australia, to pursue his AFL career. Hawthorn legend Cyril Rioli was 14 when he left his family in Darwin.

They are among many Indigenous players in Australian football who have covered great distances – moving thousands of kilometres, often as teenagers, for a shot at the big time.

Not all make it. Sometimes the separation from kin and culture is too much.

It’s not just a predicament for those with a chance to be a sporting star. Many Indigenous people in regional and remote Australia face a hard choice between their mob and a job.

What price would you put on leaving your family, community and other things you value? How good would a job have to be to make it worthwhile?

This a dilemma for those who make and administer the policies and programs intended to “close the gap” between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australia.

Indigenous people don’t necessarily see the benefits of working being worth the required costs the same way as non-Indigenous people. Any policy that doesn’t account for this crucial human factor is probably doomed to fail.

Indigenous procurement policies

We’re studying how unacknowledged cultural differences shape the effectiveness of government programs and policies in the context of Indigenous procurement policies.

Our focus is the construction industry, because it is one of the largest employers of Indigenous Australians. The federal government has also committed A$75 billion in to building transport infrastructure investment over the next decade. This makes the sector especially important to Indigenous employment.

Indigenous procurement policies involve governments requiring private-sector suppliers and contractors to employ a minimum number of Indigenous workers on their projects.

They are increasingly being used by local, state and federal governments, in preference to approaches such as directly subsidising jobs, such as occurred under the old Community Development Employment Projects scheme.

The Commonwealth Indigenous Procurement Policy (IPP) requires at least 4% of the workforce deployed on a contract, and 3% of the workforce of the contractor, be Indigenous. Government departments have to meet contract targets to satisfy performance requirements.

The policy is so far regarded as a success, because it has exceeded initial targets. Under “IPP 2.0” there will be a further target – that 3% of the financial value of federal contracts go to Indigenous businesses by 2027.

Good intentions drive such procurement policies. The Indigenous employment rate is barely 48%, compared to 72% for non-Indigenous Australians of working age. The government set a target ten years ago to halve the gap.

But any Indigenous jobs policy is flawed if it doesn’t grapple with the cultural problem of someone having to move “off country” and be separated from his or her community for an extended period.

Policies need to appreciate the importance of connection to country and kin in Indigenous culture. They cannot assume an equal commitment to the hegemonic values of individualism and materialism.

Evaluating success

We have been talking to people in Indigenous communities and organisations to better understand the personal experience of procurement policies.

Appreciating both positive and negative impacts has important implications for governments wanting to properly evaluate the true social value of the policies.

The federal government has evaluation guidelines, which recommend involving stakeholders using participatory approaches. But the risk of miscalculating the social value created by Indigenous procurement policies is increased when an Indigenous sense of social value is not reflected in the contract targets and financial values that measure policy success.

There’s a risk of putting limited resources into the wrong initiatives, not the ones that create real value for Indigenous Australians.

There is already concern Indigenous procurement policies have mostly benefited a small group of Indigenous business people and their partners. Last year the federal minister for Indigenous affairs, Nigel Scullion, ordered a crackdown on sham arrangements to exploit the system (a practice known as “black cladding”).

What good is a policy that fails on many human levels yet gets counted as a success?

Not that there has been a lot of measurable successes.

A decade ago the Australian government set the target of halving the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous employment rates.

The deadline has come and gone. Virtually “no progress” has been made on this or other Closing The Gap targets.

It’s clear we need a new paradigm to evaluate Indigenous policies and programs.

– ref. It’s time we moved the goalposts on Indigenous policies, so they reflect Indigenous values – http://theconversation.com/its-time-we-moved-the-goalposts-on-indigenous-policies-so-they-reflect-indigenous-values-112282

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael J. I. Brown, Associate professor in astronomy, Monash University

UFOs over Cairns. Lights over Leiden. Glints above Seattle. What’s going on?

The launch of 60 Starlink satellites by Elon Musk’s SpaceX has grabbed the attention of people around the globe. The satellites are part of a fleet that is intended to provide fast internet across the globe.

Improved internet services sounds great, and Musk is reported to be planning for up to 12,000 satellites in low Earth orbit. But this fleet of satellites could forever change our view of the heavens.

Starlink’s ambitious mission

Starlink is an ambitious plan to use satellites in low Earth orbit (about 500km up) to provide global internet services.

Read more: What caused the fireballs that lit up the sky over Australia?

This is different from the approach previously used for most communication satellites, in which larger individual satellites were placed in high geosynchronous orbits – that stay in an apparently fixed position above the Equator (about 36,000km up).

Communications with satellites in geosynchronous orbits often require satellite dishes, which you can see on the sides of residential apartment buildings. Communication with satellites in low Earth orbit, which are much closer, won’t require such bulky equipment.

But the catch with satellites in low Earth orbit, which move quickly around the world, is they can only look down on a small fraction of the globe, so to get global coverage you need many satellites. The Iridium satellite network used this approach in the 1990s, using dozens of satellites to provide global phone and data services.

Starlink is far more ambitious, with 1,600 satellites in the first phase, increasing to 12,000 satellites during the mid-2020s. For comparison, there are roughly 18,000 objects in Earth orbit that are tracked, including about 2,000 functioning satellites.

Lights in the sky

It’s not unusual to see satellites travelling across the twilight sky. Indeed, there’s a certain thrill to seeing the International Space Station pass overhead, and to know there are people living on board that distant light. But Starlink is something else.

The first 60 satellites, launched by SpaceX last week, were seen travelling in procession across the night sky. Some people knew what they were seeing, but the silent procession of light also generated UFO reports. If you’re lucky, you may see them pass across your skies tonight.

If the full constellation of satellites is launched, hundreds of Starlink satellites will be above the horizon at any given time. If they are visible to the unaided eye, as suggested by initial reports, they could outnumber the brightest natural stars visible to the unaided eye.

Astronomers’ fears were not put to rest by Musk’s tweets:

Satellites are very definitely visible at night, particularly in the hours before dawn and after sunset, as they are high enough to be illuminated by the Sun. The Space Station’s artificial lighting is effectively irrelevant to its visibility.

In areas near the poles, including Canada and northern Europe, satellites in low Earth orbit can be illuminated throughout the night during the summer months.

Hundreds of satellites being visible to the unaided eye would be a disaster. They would completely ruin our view of the night sky. They would also contaminate astronomical images, leaving long trails across otherwise unblemished images.

The US$466 million Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, based in Chile, is an 8-metre aperture telescope with a 3,200-megapixel camera. It’s designed to rapidly survey the sky during the 2020s.

With the full constellation of Starlink satellites, many images taken with this telescope will contain a Starlink satellite. Longer exposures could contain dozens of satellite streaks.

Dark skies or darkened hopes?

Is there any cause for optimism? Yes and no.

Musk has produced some amazing feats of technology, such as the SpaceX Falcon and Tesla cars, but he’s also disappointed some on other projects, such as the Hyperloop tunnel transport plan.

Read more: A guide to ensure everyone plays by the same military rules in space: the Woomera Manual

While Starlink certainly blew up on Twitter, for now at least, Musk is 11,940 satellites short of his 12,000.

Also, initial reports may have overestimated the brightness of the Starlink satellites, with the multiple satellites closely clustered together being confused with one satellite.

While some reports have indicate binoculars are needed to see the individual satellites, they also report that Starlink satellites flare, momentarily becoming brighter than any natural star.

If the individual satellites usually are too faint to be seen with the unaided eye, that would at least preserve the natural wonder of the sky. But professional astronomers like myself may need to prepare for streaky skies ahead. I can’t say I’m looking forward to that.

– ref. Lights in the sky from Elon Musk’s new satellite network have stargazers worried – http://theconversation.com/lights-in-the-sky-from-elon-musks-new-satellite-network-have-stargazers-worried-117829

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael J. I. Brown, Associate professor in astronomy, Monash University

UFOs over Cairns. Lights over Leiden. Glints above Seattle. What’s going on?

The launch of 60 Starlink satellites by Elon Musk’s SpaceX has grabbed the attention of people around the globe. The satellites are part of a fleet that is intended to provide fast internet across the globe.

Improved internet services sounds great, and Musk is reported to be planning for up to 12,000 satellites in low Earth orbit. But this fleet of satellites could forever change our view of the heavens.

Starlink’s ambitious mission

Starlink is an ambitious plan to use satellites in low Earth orbit (about 500km up) to provide global internet services.

Read more: What caused the fireballs that lit up the sky over Australia?

This is different from the approach previously used for most communication satellites, in which larger individual satellites were placed in high geosynchronous orbits – that stay in an apparently fixed position above the Equator (about 36,000km up).

Communications with satellites in geosynchronous orbits often require satellite dishes, which you can see on the sides of residential apartment buildings. Communication with satellites in low Earth orbit, which are much closer, won’t require such bulky equipment.

But the catch with satellites in low Earth orbit, which move quickly around the world, is they can only look down on a small fraction of the globe, so to get global coverage you need many satellites. The Iridium satellite network used this approach in the 1990s, using dozens of satellites to provide global phone and data services.

Starlink is far more ambitious, with 1,600 satellites in the first phase, increasing to 12,000 satellites during the mid-2020s. For comparison, there are roughly 18,000 objects in Earth orbit that are tracked, including about 2,000 functioning satellites.

Lights in the sky

It’s not unusual to see satellites travelling across the twilight sky. Indeed, there’s a certain thrill to seeing the International Space Station pass overhead, and to know there are people living on board that distant light. But Starlink is something else.

The first 60 satellites, launched by SpaceX last week, were seen travelling in procession across the night sky. Some people knew what they were seeing, but the silent procession of light also generated UFO reports. If you’re lucky, you may see them pass across your skies tonight.

If the full constellation of satellites is launched, hundreds of Starlink satellites will be above the horizon at any given time. If they are visible to the unaided eye, as suggested by initial reports, they could outnumber the brightest natural stars visible to the unaided eye.

Astronomers’ fears were not put to rest by Musk’s tweets:

Satellites are very definitely visible at night, particularly in the hours before dawn and after sunset, as they are high enough to be illuminated by the Sun. The Space Station’s artificial lighting is effectively irrelevant to its visibility.

In areas near the poles, including Canada and northern Europe, satellites in low Earth orbit can be illuminated throughout the night during the summer months.

Hundreds of satellites being visible to the unaided eye would be a disaster. They would completely ruin our view of the night sky. They would also contaminate astronomical images, leaving long trails across otherwise unblemished images.

The US$466 million Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, based in Chile, is an 8-metre aperture telescope with a 3,200-megapixel camera. It’s designed to rapidly survey the sky during the 2020s.

With the full constellation of Starlink satellites, many images taken with this telescope will contain a Starlink satellite. Longer exposures could contain dozens of satellite streaks.

Dark skies or darkened hopes?

Is there any cause for optimism? Yes and no.

Musk has produced some amazing feats of technology, such as the SpaceX Falcon and Tesla cars, but he’s also disappointed some on other projects, such as the Hyperloop tunnel transport plan.

Read more: A guide to ensure everyone plays by the same military rules in space: the Woomera Manual

While Starlink certainly blew up on Twitter, for now at least, Musk is 11,940 satellites short of his 12,000.

Also, initial reports may have overestimated the brightness of the Starlink satellites, with the multiple satellites closely clustered together being confused with one satellite.

While some reports have indicate binoculars are needed to see the individual satellites, they also report that Starlink satellites flare, momentarily becoming brighter than any natural star.

If the individual satellites usually are too faint to be seen with the unaided eye, that would at least preserve the natural wonder of the sky. But professional astronomers like myself may need to prepare for streaky skies ahead. I can’t say I’m looking forward to that.

– ref. Lights in the sky from Elon Musk’s new satellite network has stargazers worried – http://theconversation.com/lights-in-the-sky-from-elon-musks-new-satellite-network-has-stargazers-worried-117829

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Tregear, Honorary Principal Fellow, University of Melbourne

Review: Il Viaggio a Reims, Opera Australia

In 1864, four years before his death, Italian composer Gioachino Rossini recalled to his biographer Alexis Azevedo that he would probably have ended up a “chemist or an olive oil salesman” had it not been for the French invasion of Italy. That invasion had begun in 1792, the year of Rossini’s birth.

By 1797, Napoleon Bonaparte had established the short-lived Cisalpine Republic in Northern Italy, in turn raising hopes a unified Italian state might soon emerge. Only two years later, however, an Austro-Russian coalition mounted a successful counter-offensive. Italian unification would not come until 1871.

Nevertheless, in Italy as elsewhere in Western Europe, the Napoleonic age heralded great social and cultural change. Opera houses became places of mass entertainment – Rossini could now contemplate a career as a freelance composer on a scale that had been denied to his forbears such as Handel and Mozart.

At first it seems ironic, that Rossini would eventually compose one of his finest works to celebrate a restored French monarchy. Il Viaggio a Reims (The Journey to Rheims) was conceived as a celebratory cantata (essentially a set of hymns of praise set to music) to mark the coronation of Charles X (1757–1836) and was first performed in Paris on June 19 1825.

Rossini never expected Il Viaggio a Reims to become a repertoire staple. Despite it being a popular triumph at its premiere, it received only four performances. Rossini instead repurposed about half of the music for his later opera Le comte Ory (1828).

It was only through musicological detective work that the original score was returned to life, receiving its first modern performance in 1984. But as a result, we can now appreciate how much Il Viaggio a Reims is as much a work of political satire as political propaganda.

The work is now receiving its first complete staging in Australia in collaboration between Opera Australia, Dutch National Opera, and the Royal Danish Theatre.

The opera’s plot setup is one familiar to us due to murder mysteries such as Agatha Christie’s, Murder on the Orient Express, or Quentin Tarantino’s, The Hateful Eight. In these, an ensemble of eccentric characters are forced to spend time with each other due to unforeseen circumstances.

In the original work, a group of aristocrats from Germany, Poland, Russia, Spain, England, Italy and France arrive at a hotel in the spa town of Plombières-les-Bains, on their way to Rheims Cathedral for Charles’ coronation. A lack of available horses to take them the remaining 300 odd kilometres, however, thwarts their plans.

But their sojourn provides the excuse for a kind of allegorical diplomatic convention in song; the Concert of Europe in concert, no less.

The fact that the desired journey to Rheims never actually eventuates is one of a number of elements that suggests Rossini, and his librettist Luigi Balocchi, set out to subtly satirise some of the political pretensions of royalist France.

Charles’ decision to be crowned in Rheims was a deliberate act of provocation to his anti-royalist enemies. The last French king to have been crowned there had been the ill-fated Louis XVI. Constructing a commemorative work of theatre in which an imagined group of guests did not make it to Rheims for the occasion suggested an implied commentary concerning the credibility of Charles’ enthronement.

A new interpretation

Perhaps unsure how to engage a modern audience with such elements of historical political intrigue, director Damiano Michieletto’s production instead shifts the time and place to a present-day art museum on the cusp of a major exhibition opening.

Madama Cortese, the “Tyrolean hostess” in the original setting, now becomes the museum’s curator (here sung by Julie Lea Goodwin channelling Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada). The scholarly Don Profondo (superbly sung and acted by Giorgio Caoduro) becomes an art auctioneer; the Englishman Lord Sidney (charismatically portrayed by Teddy Tahu Rhodes) an art restorer, and so on.

The remaining assemblage of foreign nationals are transformed into the subjects of paintings that progressively emerge from their frames or their packing cases in a manner reminiscent of Shawn Levy’s film Night at the Museum, or Gilbert and Sullivan’s satirical opera Ruddigore.

While this directorial fancy does nothing to alleviate the work’s already episodic nature, there is no doubt it also makes for a very entertaining evening on the stage.

The original context of the work is nevertheless eventually acknowledged, in spectacular fashion, when Paolo Fantin’s lavish set and the whole ensemble combined to recreate the painting “The coronation of Charles X” (1827) by François Gérard at the opera’s conclusion.

Standouts among the 14 principals include baritone Warwick Fyfe, who gave a marvellous comic turn as the Barone di Trombonok, and tenor Juan de Dois Mateos (Cavalier Belfiore) and sopranos Ruth Iniesta (Corinna) and Emma Pearson (Contessa di Folleville), who each sang with great beauty and virtuosity.

Orchestra Victoria delivered Rossini’s sophisticated score with great style, thanks to the superb direction of Daniel Smith (making a well overdue debut in his native Australia), fine continuo accompaniment work from Anthony Hunt on a fortepiano, and some terrific solo work from Lisa-Maree Amos (flute) and Megan Reeve (harp).

The latter’s two ravishing duets, with Ruth Iniesta and Emma Pearson respectively, were a particular musical highlight.

The second of these forms the inevitable song of praise to Charles which closes the opera. But it is the first (which itself slyly references the contemporaneous Greek struggle for liberation from Ottoman rule) that I suspect directs us to the more universal political message that Rossini wished to convey: the hope that “one day the dawn of the golden age will reappear, and fraternal love will reign in human hearts.”

Il Viaggio a Reims is on at Arts Centre Melbourne until June 1.

– ref. A night at the opera: art comes alive in a modern twist on Rossini’s Il Viaggio a Reims – http://theconversation.com/a-night-at-the-opera-art-comes-alive-in-a-modern-twist-on-rossinis-il-viaggio-a-reims-117807

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Catriona Vi Nguyen-Robertson, PhD Candidate, University of Melbourne

Australia has a fashion problem. More than 500,000 tonnes of clothing waste is sent to landfill each year. But a new way of recycling could redirect some of our unwanted textiles from polluting the environment, by repurposing cotton waste into anything from new clothes to prosthetic knees.

Developed by our team at Deakin University, where we work on designing materials and processes for a circular economy, this solution for recycling textiles involves dissolving cotton and regenerating it into brand-new cellulose – a complex, strong carbohydrate with many industrial uses.

Read more: Six simple ways to fill your wardrobe with sustainable clothing

With the textile industry generating so much waste, the only way to keep up with the demands set by fashion trends and the wear and tear of our clothes is to make the industry sustainable.

The cost of clothes

Textile waste consumes nearly 5% of all landfill space, and 20% of all freshwater pollution is a result of textile treatment and dyeing. Growing cotton requires harmful pesticides and fertilisers, and textile-manufacturing plants release hazardous waste into the nearby land.

Synthetic dyes also come at a cost to the environment. The dyeing process involves a lot of water, and not all of it is efficiently cleaned before re-entering our environment.

Waste water from textile dyeing can affect the entire water ecosystem. This is because some dyes don’t ever degrade in water. Those that do degrade produce harmful byproducts – sometimes carcinogenic.

Read more: Fashioning science: the next revolution in wearables

Importantly, despite the energy and resources used in the production process, not all cotton produced makes it into our clothes. Around 23.6 million tonnes of cotton is produced each year, but the weight of stems, leaves and lint from the plant amounts to 18-65% of each bale of cotton.

From what is left, even more cotton fibre is lost in the process of spinning cotton buds into yarn because some fibres break during spinning. Some of this raw material waste can be used to make products such as soaps, animal feed or cotton seed oil, but the rest is thrown away.

Wasted raw cotton material aside, it can take nearly 2,700 litres of water to produce a single cotton T-shirt and more than 7,600 litres to make a pair of jeans.

It’s no wonder that we want greener clothes!

How we’re closing the cotton circle

To counter the fast-fashion industry, circular fashion is taking off. Textile waste can now be recycled into usable products.

Read more: Sustainable shopping: how to rock white sneakers without eco-guilt

Cotton fibres are almost purely comprised of cellulose and can therefore be turned into other cellulose-based products.

At Deakin University’s Institute for Frontier Materials we have developed a chemical-based recycling process to produce high-quality, regenerated cellulose from cotton.

The regenerated cellulose can be used in many ways. It can be used in textile manufacturing again, in the production of cellophane and paper, insulation and filtration, or in biomedical applications such as drug delivery and tissue engineering.

Cotton waste has traditionally been recycled through a mechanical process that produces poorer-quality recycled cotton. Only a small fraction of recycled cotton could be incorporated into new garments.

But our recycling process dissolves the cotton waste and regenerates it as cellulose. Even cotton-blended fabrics, such as cotton-polyester blends, can be recycled in this process, so nothing goes to waste.

This regenerated cellulose has many different possible uses. It can be spun into a textile fibre similar to native cotton or used to make aerogels – synthetic, ultralight materials comprised of a network of micron-sized pores and nanoscale tunnels.

Read more: Sustainable shopping: for eco-friendly jeans, stop washing them so often

The aerogels produced from our recycling process can be moulded into a structure almost identical to cartilage in the joints of the body. We manipulate the size and distribution of tunnels to mould the aerogel within into synthetic cartilage with an ideal shape to replace damaged knee cartilage in arthritic patients.

While we haven’t used them in patients yet, we’ve found that the aerogels have a remarkable similarity to cartilage tissues when tested. They can replicate the type of lubrication mechanism used by cartilage in joints to protect against wear and damage.

Rescuing dyes

We can also shred cotton fabrics and mill them into coloured powders to dye new clothes. Since 2017, many Chinese factories that produced synthetic dyes for textiles were shut down following environmental inspections, highlighting the need for change in dyeing practices.

We need new textile dyeing methods that save water, reduce pollutants, save energy and protect human health.

Our recycling process offers an environmentally friendly alternative. This process not only gives purpose to old clothing, but also eliminates much of the energy and water involved in the normal dyeing process.

We are rescuing denim and other cotton-based clothes from landfill to create cellulose fibres, aerogels and dyes from 100% of the waste.

Read more: For a true war on waste, the fashion industry must spend more on research

Textile waste is a global challenge with significant environmental issues. We’ve created a recycling solution to tackle this pollution head-on.

– ref. Circular fashion: turning old clothes into everything from new cotton to fake knees – http://theconversation.com/circular-fashion-turning-old-clothes-into-everything-from-new-cotton-to-fake-knees-115636

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Carla Pascoe Leahy, Australian Research Council DECRA Fellow, University of Melbourne

Over the past few decades of Australian life, government policies have gradually offered more support to working mothers, particularly through childcare subsidies and parental leave.

But what motivates Australian parents in their choices around work and childcare?

I’ve interviewed successive generations of Australian mothers to find out what combination of care and paid work they chose, and why. The results reveal a yawning gap in the way we talk about working families.

While our public debates remain solidly mired in the rational and the economic, mothers describe their decision-making processes as significantly motivated by emotions.

Read more: When it comes to childcare, grandparents are the least stressful option for mum and dad

1970s: little support for working mothers

Australian government support for working mothers was minimal before the women’s liberation movement. Childcare services were introduced in the 1970s to support workforce participation of women, but working mothers were still considered controversial.

Sally’s story

Sally and her husband split the day into two halves after their first child was born in 1978, sharing paid work and caring responsibilities evenly:

…because I was the primary breadwinner, I went back when the child was just over six weeks old. […] I was half-time teaching and he was with the baby in the mornings. I’d come home, breasts engorged and ready to feed and then he’d go off and do his classes in the afternoons and evenings.

But Sally felt conflicted about whether she should be with her baby, and recalls that attitudes about working mothers and childcare were still fiercely contested.

1980s: navigating childcare shortages

Childcare services expanded under Labor governments in the 1980s, and legislation was passed with the intention of facilitating female employment. At the same time, Australian mothers faced continued obstacles to participating in the workforce, particularly a shortage of childcare that met their needs and desires.

Hazel’s story

Hazel’s progressive employer entitled her to maternity leave, and provided childcare on site. Although she felt judged by others for working when her child was young, she realised that the maintenance of her pre-maternal career was important for her emotional well-being:

I realised very early on, you know that your world contracts […] I wasn’t ever tempted to take more time off when I returned to work even though it was a juggle […] Somebody once said to me: happy mother, happy child, when I was worrying about going back to work. My mother-in-law, in particular, was very, very critical of that.

Genevieve’s story

Genevieve left her job in advertising when her first child was born because she felt that “mothering was a valuable role” and “a job that deserved respect and equal status”. But she felt some people judged women for “only” staying at home, and saw professional childcare as superior to maternal care:

That harping of, ‘Children love it! They’re so stimulated! They’d be bored at home! They’ve got all those toys, and they’re socialising with the other children, and it’s just fabulous’. I’d had this for years and years.

Read more: A new project shows combining childcare and aged care has social and economic benefits

1990s: parental leave is introduced

Parental leave was introduced into federal awards in 1990, which entitled either parent to unpaid leave after the birth of a baby. In the 1990s, Australian views on whether mothers should engage in paid work, and whether children should be in childcare were mixed.

Caitlyn’s story

Living in a small regional town, Caitlyn says she felt judged for returning to paid work when her first born was 15 months old in 1991:

Childcare back then seemed like a dirty word. There was no childcare centres here […] and the fact that you would leave your child all day in someone else’s care kind of almost made you a bad parent because you were shirking your responsibilities or something…

Katherine’s story

Even in big cities, choices were limited. When Katherine’s partner’s part-time salary could not cover their expenses, she reluctantly went back to paid employment when her baby was three months old. Facing long waiting lists for local centres, she instead found a woman nearby who offered family day care:

…for me this whole thing of them going to one woman who may not have been perfect in every way, but she was their person, you know, it wasn’t an institution.

By the end of the 1990s, childcare was still viewed as the private responsibility (and problem) of women. Australian mothers increasingly engaged in paid work outside the home, but they continued to struggle amid an inconsistent policy environment that sent mixed messages.

2000s: new childcare subsidies

In a new tax benefit arrangement introduced in 2000, the Howard government granted working parents the right to 50 hours of childcare subsidy per week for each child, while non-salaried parents could claim 24 hours.

A 2005 survey of parental views of childcare found that:

• 27% were concerned about cost
• 22% couldn’t get a place at their preferred centre
• 20% couldn’t get the hours they needed
• 18% couldn’t find a service in the right location.

Time use surveys revealed that mothers managed this impossible juggle by reducing their own leisure time, so that the burden of inadequate policy supports fell upon them rather than employers or children.

Kristen’s story

Kristen had her first child in 2009 and decided not to return to paid employment until her youngest was in kindergarten. In her middle-class suburb of professional women, this decision has left her feeling socially isolated:

I have a friend […] who did the expected thing and went back to work after twelve months […] she was very stressed out, going back to work, and I’ve spared myself that stress and that anxiety by making a decision I had a very clear conscience about, as a mother […] Philosophically, for me, motherhood was easy –and I think in that regard, I was quite different from a lot of my friends…

2010s onwards: more support, but mixed emotions

From 2007 to 2013, Labor governments reformed early childhood education and care with the intention of building workforce participation, and therefore productivity. Government-funded maternity leave was introduced for the primary carer in 2011, and in 2013, dad and partner leave was introduced. Despite these gains, many mothers felt mixed emotions.

Rowena’s story

Rowena decided to work part-time around her mothering after watching her own mother battle with working full-time and feeling constantly guilty and stretched:

…if I’m lucky enough to have kids, I want to focus on you know having them and nothing else really matters as much. Like, people think they’re indispensable at work but everybody’s replaceable.

Read more: Childcare shake-up neglects family day care workers, but we can learn from garment workers’ experience

Changing the way we talk about child care

These accounts reflect a wide diversity of experiences of Australian mothers, but there are consistent threads in their narratives. Most mothers want some continuity with their pre-maternal identity, to feel a sense of meaningful contribution to their society, and to enjoy their relationships with their children.

If government fails to comprehend the reasons why mothers choose to engage with different supports, family policy will be of limited effectiveness. Workforce participation and economic productivity are reasonable objectives of government policy, but they are not sufficient on their own.

Ignoring the equally important objectives of maternal and child well-being risks exacerbating already high rates of perinatal depression and anxiety. Increasing numbers of Australian women will ask the reasonable question: why choose motherhood, when your society fails to adequately support that choice?

Carla Pascoe Leahy will present a longer version of this paper at the Second Australian Policy History Conference at Deakin University on June 12-14, 2019

– ref. Mothers explain how they navigated work and childcare, from the 1970s to today – http://theconversation.com/mothers-explain-how-they-navigated-work-and-childcare-from-the-1970s-to-today-117617

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tim Lindsey, Malcolm Smith Professor of Asian Law and Director of the Centre for Indonesian Law, Islam and Society, University of Melbourne

The violent riots that shook Jakarta last week led to at least six deaths, over 700 injured and more than 200 arrests. Demonstrations and rallies are common in Indonesia, but street violence like this had not been seen since the fall of Soeharto in 1998.

Protests began peacefully in front of the Elections Supervisory Agency (Bawaslu) on May 20, after the General Elections Commission (KPU) made the surprise decision to release its official count at 3am that morning.

By 9pm on Tuesday, rioters supporting the defeated presidential candidate, former general Prabowo Subianto, (including some apparently linked to Islamic State) were burning cars and buildings, and using rocks, petrol bombs and fireworks to attack police.

Security forces responded with tear gas, water cannons and rubber bullets. They claim not to have used real bullets, although families of at least two victims claim they died of bullet wounds and the National Police Hospital says autopsies show four died this way.

Read more: Joko Widodo looks set to win the Indonesia election. Now, the real power struggle begins

The violence was repeated the next night and spread beyond Jakarta, with incidents in East Java and Potianak (Kalimantan) as well. The government called in the army to help control the situation. Obviously deeply concerned, it took the extraordinary step of slowing down the internet to obstruct the sharing of provocative material across social media sites. Two nights later, the government seemed to have the situation under control.

On Friday, Prabowo’s campaign lodged protests against the election results with the Constitutional Court. They argue that the convincing 10%-plus margin of victory of his rival, President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, was fraudulently obtained. To date, they have not been able to produce convincing evidence to back this up.

If, as likely, the court rejects the petition to annul Jokowi’s win, that may well spark another round of rioting. This is particularly so because Prabowo’s camp has been saying for weeks that the court is biased in favour of the government.

But even if the rioting starts up again, it is very unlikely to topple Jokowi, given the government, police and army seem to have closed ranks behind him.

Many members of the elite do not particularly like Jokowi, a provincial politician who made a spectacular leap to the presidency five years ago and remains somewhat of an outsider. But he has the huge advantage of incumbency. Leaders of the bureaucracy and security forces owe their positions, wealth and power to his administration. They fear being replaced in the purge of senior positions that would follow if Prabowo somehow took over.

Even though Prabowo’s fourth bid to become president seems doomed and Jokowi is doubtless confident of being sworn in on October 20, that does not mean Jokowi’s second and final five-year term will be smooth sailing. The riots seem to have fizzled out, but they are the product of tensions over the place of Islam in Indonesian life and what is now a deep cleavage in Indonesian politics.

How the fall of Ahok started it all

To explain how this has happened, we need to go back to 2017 and the major crisis of Jokowi’s first term: the prosecution and conviction for blasphemy of then Jakarta Governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama (known as Ahok, or BTP, as he now prefers).

Ahok had been the deputy governor under Jokowi and stepped up when Jokowi resigned to run for the presidency. An ethnic Chinese Christian governor was seen as unacceptable to hardline Islamists. They used comments about the Qur’an made by Ahok while campaigning for re-election to launch a massive and bitter populist campaign against him. Hundreds of thousands took part in rallies that targeted Ahok and, eventually, his former friend and close colleague, Jokowi, at one stage even marching on the palace.

After Ahok’s fall, some of the Muslim organisations that had formed the so-called “212 movement” to tear him down began aggressively targeting Jokowi. In response, Jokowi has taken tough measures against them, including giving himself new powers to ban civil society groups. He also backed criminal charges against figures he saw as leading public criticism of his government.

As a result, the disgruntled Islamist conservatives who loathe Jokowi lined up behind Prabowo, the only alternative candidate.

This split meant that many members of the world’s largest Muslim organisation, Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), which is generally more tolerant of religious difference, sided with Jokowi, particularly after he chose NU leader Ma’ruf Amin as his running mate.

Read more: Biggest winners and losers in Indonesia’s legislative elections

The world’s second-largest Muslim organisation, Muhammadiyah, traditionally NU’s rival, was officially neutral. But many of its members clearly sided with Prabowo. So did other, more conservative, Muslim organisations, such as the Islamist PKS party, and more extreme groups like the thuggish Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) – and, of course, the 212 alumni.

The result was a vicious social media campaign, full of trolling, hoaxes and conspiracy theories, fake news and online vilification. Rumours that Jokowi is a closet Christian from a communist family were circulated once again.

The election thus polarised Indonesia, reviving old divisions in an atmosphere of renewed anxiety about ethnic and religious identity. Jokowi prevailed in Javanese communities linked to NU and in areas where non-Muslims are a majority or a large minority, like Papua, Bali, East Nusa Tenggara and North Sulawesi.

On the other hand, majority Muslim outer islands often associated with Muhammadiyah largely fell to Prabowo, such as West Sumatra. Likewise, Prabowo took back South Sulawesi, Southeast Sulawesi, Bengkulu and Jambi from Jokowi, who won them in 2014.

West Java tells the story. Although part of Java, it has never been a NU stronghold but is seen as historically a centre for Islamist conservatism. It went for Prabowo. Jakarta, urban and more urbane, but on the cusp of West Java, was split.

Divisions show no sign of healing

Prabowo’s defeat does not spell the end of his supporters’ aspirations for a less tolerant Indonesia that privileges their brand of Islam. The election’s geopolitical polarisation is likely to be a continuing source of problems for Jokowi in the years ahead.

With NU in the vice-presidential office and very likely to continue its stranglehold on the Ministry of Religious Affairs, resentment from Muhammadiyah, PKS and others will be maintained. It will play out in conflicts in the legislature and in and around government.

The tough measures Jokowi’s administration – obviously worried – deployed in recent weeks to try to head off the riots has only exacerbated the situation. Former general Wiranto, now coordinating minister for politics, law and security, ominously formed a team to investigate “unconstitutional behavior”.

Twenty or so people linked to Prabowo, including two former generals, have been arrested on charges including treason and weapons smuggling. At one stage a warrant was issued to bring Prabowo himself in for questioning (although this was quickly rescinded).

These measures reflect a wider trend towards so-called “soft authoritarianism” in Jokowi’s administration, which has concerned many Indonesian and foreign observers. It also feeds the narrative promoted by his Islamist opponents of a president willing to use the full force of the state to marginalise them, and that simply entrenches the battlelines.

Jokowi is a pragmatic politician who values stability and cohesion above most other things. Once the riots die down, Jokowi’s instinct will be to “buy in” the Muslim right and Prabowo’s core supporters. He may do this by offering them positions in the incoming administration or access to resources.

If that doesn’t work, we can expect more trouble ahead.

– ref. Jakarta riots reveal Indonesia’s deep divisions on religion and politics – http://theconversation.com/jakarta-riots-reveal-indonesias-deep-divisions-on-religion-and-politics-117818

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lorenzo Buscicchi, PhD Candidate, Teaching assistant, University of Waikato

New Zealand will release its first well-being budget this week, based on a suite of measures that track how New Zealanders are doing, including how happy they are.

The latest World Happiness Report, issued by the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network, ranks New Zealand eighth in the world, after the Nordic nations but two spots above Australia.

Critics may suggest that happiness is a meaningless political goal that can be propagandised both by turbo-capitalists and green socialists. Supporters of the politics of happiness see it as a concept that helps us to rise above partisan politics, emerging nationalism, and other ideological barriers to harmony and progress.

Read more: It’s time to vote for happiness and well-being, not mere economic growth. Here’s why:

The paradox of happiness

Since well before pants and shirts replaced togas, philosophers have been the main source of wisdom about happiness and the good life. A central tenet of this ancient wisdom is the “paradox of happiness”.

In essence, the paradox of happiness states that if you strive for happiness by direct means, you end up less happy than if you forget about happiness and focus on other goals. Ancient wisdom advises us not to pursue happiness directly.

But philosophers have a natural inclination for splitting hairs. As such, we would be failing our discipline if we did not point out that the paradox of happiness is not, in a strict sense, a paradox. It is an empirical irony. Normally valuable things are achieved by striving for them, but according to ancient wisdom, happiness bucks this trend.

Why does striving for happiness tend to result in unhappiness or disappointment? Many people frequently experience happiness, but both philosophers and psychologists note that we are so inept at pursuing it that if we do strive for it we fail, sometimes catastrophically, and end up far less happy than if we had never tried.

The political paradox of happiness

What does the paradox of happiness mean for the new politics of well-being?

Happiness plays only a relatively small role in New Zealand’s new well-being approach to public policy. New Zealand’s policymakers, just like many philosophers and most psychologists working on happiness, distinguish between happiness and the much more holistic concept of well-being.

New Zealand’s Living Standards Framework is a well-being framework that lies at the heart of Treasury’s policy advice. It is composed of 12 domains: subjective well-being, civic engagement and governance, cultural identity, health, housing, income and consumption, knowledge and skills, safety, social connections, environment, time use, and jobs and earnings. If we understand happiness as feeling good (and not bad) and being satisfied with life, then it only directly features in one of the domains: subjective well-being.

Read more: New Zealand’s well-being approach to budget is not new, but could shift major issues

Another example is Indicators Aotearoa, developed by Stats New Zealand to measure national progress in areas New Zealanders care about. Subjective well-being is one of 27 domains in this suite of indicators. So, even if the political paradox of happiness is true, it would be an overreaction to advise abandoning a well-being approach to public policy based on one problematic domain.

Research to the rescue

Critics might still argue that the political paradox of happiness poses an important problem for part of the well-being approach to public policy in New Zealand and other nations. Why include happiness as a goal at all if doing so will result in worse outcomes than if it had been left out entirely? Luckily for the nations that already include happiness as a policy goal, this worry can easily be dealt with.

As with the original paradox of happiness, the mechanism behind the political paradox of happiness is likely to be incompetence. Both paradoxes get their power from a contingent factor – being very bad at knowing how to pursue happiness effectively.

Fortunately, thousands of researchers and policymakers have been advancing global knowledge about the causes and effects of happiness and happiness-promoting activities for decades. We learn more every day about how best to measure and increase the happiness of individuals and groups with a variety of backgrounds and in a variety of contexts.

Scientific experts at the Global Happiness Council publish annual reports with research-based policy recommendations for promoting happiness. This year’s report includes a chapter on measuring well-being for central government (that mentions New Zealand 33 times) and a chapter outlining why and how to use a happiness-based approach to guide policy on health care. Such an approach would recommend putting more emphasis on mental health and end-of-life care.

Given this wealth of happiness research, politicians and policymakers can now make competent policies based on evidence. Assuming relevant data gathering and evidence-based policy making, nations like New Zealand will only get more competent at pursuing happiness over time.

– ref. The paradox of happiness: the more you chase it the more elusive it becomes – http://theconversation.com/the-paradox-of-happiness-the-more-you-chase-it-the-more-elusive-it-becomes-112217

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Darren Curnoe, Associate Professor and Chief Investigator, ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, University of New South Wales, UNSW

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.

Are humans going to evolve again? Thank you. – Temi Bisiriyu, age 10, London.

Thanks for a great question, Temi. This is something I get asked a lot.

The short answer is that humans are evolving right now and will continue to do so even if we don’t notice it. This might sound a bit far-fetched, so let me explain what I mean.

Read more: Curious Kids: Where did the first person come from?

The big changes

Biologists who study evolution do so by examining evidence on two scales. The first scale is what we call macroevolution (“macro” means big). These are the big changes we see in the fossil record. They happen over long periods like hundreds of thousands, millions, or even tens of millions of years.

Think, for example, about the evolution of flowering plants or the appearance of mammals, both of which happened before 150 million years ago.

Or a bit closer to home, think of the evolution of our own biological group, the two-footed apes or hominins about 8 million years ago. Or of our species, Homo sapiens, which appeared in Africa more than 300,000 years ago.

I think this is the kind of evolution you have in mind. Most people think that evolution can only really be seen on this macro scale. Big changes like the evolution of two-footed walking or large human brains are examples of macroevolution.

The small changes

The other kind or evolution, which is not so obvious, happens on a very small scale. Scientists call it microevolution (“micro” means small).

These tiny changes have to do with genes and while they may not result in a new species forming, they can have big implications for the people involved.

One way this happens is completely at random, because of the way genes shuffle about when a new baby is made. Geneticists have found that with every new generation – say you and your friends – the makeup of your genes as a group will be a little bit different to your parents and their friends.

Geneticists call this “random genetic drift” and it can be very strong in small populations of people leading to rapid changes over short periods.

This process can explain why some problems like autoimmune disease, which were once rare, have become more common today. Multiple sclerosis and coeliac disease are examples of autoimmune diseases.

How we live and what we eat

Sometimes, the environment in which a group of people lives can led to changes in the gene pool of this community. And those changed genes can get passed on to the next generation.

A really powerful example is when people first began farming wheat, maize (corn) or rice many thousands of years ago. Because of that change, humans started to eat lot more starchy foods.

This led to some big physiological changes because some of these first farmers weren’t really able to digest large amounts of starch.

Over a short period of time — a couple of thousand years or even less — a gene that helped them digest starch (the amylase gene) became much more common in early farming communities.

In fact, people alive today whose ancestors were growing starchy foods have many more copies of this gene in their DNA than people whose ancestors didn’t.

Another example involves the gene that produces an enzyme called lactase, which allows adults to digest milk and other dairy products. If your ancestors drank a lot of milk, chances are you inherited that gene. Other people may have dairy intolerance because their ancestors didn’t drink as much milk.

So, as you you can see human evolution hasn’t really stopped. And understanding our evolution can tell us a lot about the health challenges we face today.

It might even help us to understand where we could be headed as humans shift the climate globally, perhaps even changing the future course of our evolution.

Read more: Curious Kids: how do bushfires start?

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: are humans going to evolve again? – http://theconversation.com/curious-kids-are-humans-going-to-evolve-again-116990

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Zerilli, Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Otago

New Zealand is a leader in government use of artificial intelligence (AI). It is part of a global network of countries that use predictive algorithms in government decision making, for anything from the optimal scheduling of public hospital beds to whether an offender should be released from prison, based on their likelihood of reoffending, or the efficient processing of simple insurance claims.

But the official use of AI algorithms in government has been in the spotlight in recent years. On the plus side, AI can enhance the accuracy, efficiency and fairness of day-to-day decision making. But concerns have also been expressed regarding transparency, meaningful human control, data protection and bias.

In a report released today, we recommend New Zealand establish a new independent regulator to monitor and address the risks associated with these digital technologies.

Read more: To protect us from the risks of advanced artificial intelligence, we need to act now

AI and transparency

There are three important issues regarding transparency.

One relates to the inspectability of algorithms. Some aspects of New Zealand government practice are reassuring. Unlike some countries that use commercial AI products, New Zealand has tended to build government AI tools in-house. This means that we know how the tools work.

But intelligibility is another issue. Knowing how an AI system works doesn’t guarantee the decisions it reaches will be understood by the people affected. The best performing AI systems are often extremely complex.

To make explanations intelligible, additional technology is required. A decision-making system can be supplemented with an “explanation system”. These are additional algorithms “bolted on” to the main algorithm we seek to understand. Their job is to construct simpler models of how the underlying algorithms work – simple enough to be understandable to people. We believe explanation systems will be increasingly important as AI technology advances.

A final type of transparency relates to public access to information about the AI systems used in government. The public should know what AI systems their government uses as well as how well they perform. Systems should be regularly evaluated and summary results made available to the public in a systematic format.

Read more: Avoid the politics and let artificial intelligence decide your vote in the next election

New Zealand’s law and transparency

Our report takes a detailed look at how well New Zealand law currently handles these transparency issues.

New Zealand doesn’t have laws specifically tailored towards algorithms, but some are relevant in this context. For instance, New Zealand’s Official Information Act (OIA) provides a right to reasons for decisions by official agencies, and this is likely to apply to algorithmic decisions just as much as human ones. This is in notable contrast to Australia, which doesn’t impose a general duty on public officials to provide reasons for their decisions.

But even the OIA would come up short where decisions are made or supported by opaque decision systems. That is why we recommend that predictive algorithms used by government, whether developed commercially or in-house, must feature in a public register, must be publicly inspectable, and (if necessary) must be supplemented with explanation systems.

Human control and data protection

Another issue relates to human control. Some of the concerns around algorithmic decision-making are best addressed by making sure there is a “human in the loop,” with a human having final sign off on any important decision. However, we don’t think this is likely to be an adequate solution in the most important cases.

Read more: Automated vehicles may encourage a new breed of distracted drivers

A persistent theme of research in industrial psychology is that humans become overly trusting and uncritical of automated systems, especially when those systems are reliable most of the time. Just adding a human “in the loop” will not always produce better outcomes. Indeed in certain contexts, human collaboration will offer false reassurance, rendering AI-assisted decisions less accurate.

With respect to data protection, we flag the problem of “inferred data”. This is data inferred about people rather than supplied by them directly (just as when Amazon infers that you might like a certain book on the basis of books it knows you have purchased). Among other recommendations, our report calls for New Zealand to consider the legal status of inferred data, and whether it should be treated the same way as primary data.

Bias and discrimination

A final area of concern is bias. Computer systems might look unbiased, but if they are relying on “dirty data” from previous decisions, they could have the effect of “baking in” discriminatory assumptions and practices. New Zealand’s anti-discrimination laws are likely to apply to algorithmic decisions, but making sure discrimination doesn’t creep back in will require ongoing monitoring.

The report also notes that while “individual rights” — for example, against discrimination — are important, we can’t entirely rely on them to guard against all of these risks. For one thing, affected people will often be those with the least economic or political power. So while they may have the “right” not to be discriminated against, it will be cold comfort to them if they have no way of enforcing it.

There is also the danger that they won’t be able to see the whole picture, to know whether an algorithm’s decisions are affecting different sections of the community differently. To enable a broader discussion about bias, public evaluation of AI tools should arguably include results for specific sub-populations, as well as for the whole population.

A new independent body will be essential if New Zealand wants to harness the benefits of algorithmic tools while avoiding or minimising their risks to the public.

Alistair Knott, James Maclaurin and Joy Liddicoat, collaborators on the AI and Law in New Zealand project, have contributed to the writing of this piece.

– ref. Call for independent watchdog to monitor NZ government use of artificial intelligence – http://theconversation.com/call-for-independent-watchdog-to-monitor-nz-government-use-of-artificial-intelligence-117589