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

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Laichang Zhang, Professor Mechanical Engineering, Edith Cowan University

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

Today’s it’s titanium, a metal known for its strength and lightness so it’s ideal for making replacement hips, knees and other parts of our bodies, but it’s also used in other industries.

Titanium gets its name from the Titans of ancient Greek mythology but this thoroughly modern material is well suited to a huge range of high-tech applications.

With the chemical symbol Ti and an atomic number of 22, titanium is a silver-coloured metal valued for its low density, high strength, and resistance to corrosion.

I first studied titanium via a Master’s degree at the Institute of Metal Research in the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1999. One of my projects was to investigate the formation of titanium alloys for their high-strength characteristics.

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

Since then, the applications for this metal have grown exponentially, from its use (as titanium dioxide) in paints, paper, toothpaste, sunscreen and cosmetics, through to its use as an alloy in biomedical implants and aerospace innovations.

Particularly exciting is the perfect marriage between titanium and 3D printing.

Custom design from 3D printing

Titanium materials are expensive and can be problematic when it comes to traditional processing technologies. For example, its high melting point (1,670℃, much higher than steel alloys) is a challenge.

The relatively low-cost precision of 3D printing is therefore a game-changer for titanium. 3D printing is where an object is built layer by layer and designers can create amazing shapes.

This allows the production of complex shapes such as replacement parts of a jaw bone, heel, hip, dental implants, or cranioplasty plates in surgery. It can also be used to make golf clubs and aircraft components.

The CSIRO is working with industry to develop new technologies in 3D printing using titanium. (It even made a dragon out of titanium.)

Advances in 3D printing are opening up new avenues to further improve the function of customised bodypart implants made of titanium.

Such implants can be designed to be porous, making them lighter but allowing blood, nutrients and nerves to pass through and can even promote bone in-growth.

Safe in the body

Titanium is considered the most biocompatible metal – not harmful or toxic to living tissue – due to its resistance to corrosion from bodily fluids. This ability to withstand the harsh bodily environment is a result of the protective oxide film that forms naturally in the presence of oxygen.

Read more: Hydrogen fuels rockets, but what about power for daily life? We’re getting closer

Its ability to physically bond with bone also gives titanium an advantage over other materials that require the use of an adhesive to remain attached. Titanium implants last longer, and much larger forces are required to break the bonds that join them to the body compared with their alternatives.

Titanium alloys commonly used in load-bearing implants are significantly less stiff – and closer in performance to human bone – than stainless steel or cobalt-based alloys.

Aerospace applications

Titanium weighs about half as much as steel but is 30% stronger, which makes it ideally suited to the aerospace industry where every gram matters.

In the late 1940s the US government helped to get production of titanium going as it could see its potential for “aircraft, missiles, spacecraft, and other military purposes”.

Titanium has increasingly become the buy-to-fly material for aircraft designers striving to develop faster, lighter and more efficient aircraft.

About 39% of the US Air Force’s F22 Raptor, one of the most advanced fighter aircraft in the world, is made of titanium.

Civil aviation moved in the same direction with Boeing’s new 787 Dreamliner made of 15% titanium, significantly more than previous models.

Two key areas where titanium is used in airliners is in their landing gear and jet engines. Landing gear needs to withstand the massive amounts of force exerted on it every time a plane hits a runway.

Titanium’s toughness means it can absorb the huge amounts of energy expelled when a plane lands without ever weakening.

Titanium’s heat resistance means it can be used inside modern jet engines, where temperatures can reach 800℃. Steel begins to soften at around 400℃ but titanium can withstand the intense heat of a jet engine without losing its strength.

Where to find titanium

In its natural state, titanium is always found bonded with other elements, usually within igneous rocks and sediments derived from them.

The most commonly mined materials containing titanium are ilmenite (an iron-titanium oxide, FeTiO₃) and rutile (a titanium oxide, TiO₂).

Ilmenite is most abundant in China, whereas Australia has the highest global proportion of rutile, about 40% according to Geoscience Australia. It’s found mostly on the east, west and southern coastlines of Australia.

Both materials are generally extracted from sands, after which the titanium is separated from the other minerals.

Read more: Where did you grow up? How strontium in your teeth can help answer that question

Australia is one of the world’s leading producers of titanium, producing more than 1.5 million tonnes in 2014. South Africa and China are the two next leading producers of titanium, producing 1.16 and 1 million tonnes, respectively.

Being among the top ten most abundant elements in Earth’s crust, titanium resources aren’t currently under threat – good news for the many scientists and innovators constantly looking for new ways to improve life with titanium.

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

– ref. Titanium is the perfect metal to make replacement human body parts – http://theconversation.com/titanium-is-the-perfect-metal-to-make-replacement-human-body-parts-115361

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Chris Wallace, ARC DECRA Fellow, Australian National University

The high tide of analysis concerning the Australian Labor Party’s shock 2019 federal election loss has been reached. It looks like so much flotsam and jetsam with the odd big log – leadership popularity, Queensland – prominent among the debris. Sorting through it, making sense of it, and weighting the factors driving the result really matters. It matters because decisions influencing the outcome of the next federal election will flow from it.

The learner’s error is to grasp onto a couple of factors without considering the full suite, weighting them and seeing the connections between them. What does the full suite look like?

1. Leadership popularity

Labor’s Bill Shorten was an unpopular leader, neither liked nor trusted by voters. The shift from Shorten in private to Shorten in leadership mode in the media was comparable to the shift in Julia Gillard when she moved from the deputy prime ministership to prime minister: the charm and wit went missing, replaced by woodenness and lack of relatability.

Shorten accepted advice to appear “leader-like”, creating a barrier Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who sought to directly connect with voters, was not hampered by. “It is often said of democratic politics,” historian David Runciman has said, “that the question voters ask of any leader is: ‘Do I like this person?’ But it seems more likely that the question at the back of their minds is: ‘Would this person like me?’” Morrison passed and Shorten flunked that test.

Read more: Why the 2019 election was more like 2004 than 1993 – and Labor has some reason to hope

Shorten generally failed the “theatre of politics”. His suits often looked too big, making him look small. Television footage of him jogging in oversized athletic clothes during the campaign made him look small. Poor production of Shorten in these ways diminished perceptions of him as an alternative prime minister – a professionalism fail that could have easily been fixed but was not.

Lesson: Leadership unpopularity costs votes. Successful “theatre of politics” matters.

2. Supporting players’ unpopularity

Shorten was weighed down by frontbenchers in the key economic and environment portfolios who fell well short in the performativity stakes too. The camera is not kind to shadow treasurer Chris Bowen. While he developed serious policy chops, partly through sustained study of Paul Keating’s history as a reforming treasurer of historic stature, he also picked up Keating’s hauteur, but without actually being Keating and able to pull it off.

The arrogance of Bowen’s franking credits policy comment that “if people very strongly feel that they don’t want this to happen they are perfectly entitled to vote against us” was a defining misstep of the Shorten opposition. It made the leader’s job that much harder.

Shadow environment minister Mark Butler is another to whom the camera is unkind. He embodied the soft, urban environmentalist persona that is poison in those parts of Australia where Labor needed to pick up seats. An equally knowledgeable but more knockabout environment spokesperson – Tony Burke, for example – would have been the cannier choice in a “climate election” where regional voters had to be persuaded to Labor’s greener policy agenda.

Lesson: Appoint frontbenchers capable of winning public support in their portfolios.

3. Misleading polls The maths wasn’t wrong but the models on which the two-party-preferred vote is calculated have been blown up by this election, an event foreshadowed by recent polling miscalls in Britain.

Long-time conservative political consultant Lynton Crosby’s presence in the Coalition campaign has been invisible except for the tiny but crucial, and completely overlooked, detail that the Liberals’ polling “was conducted by Michael Brooks, a London-based pollster with Crosby Textor who was brought out from the United Kingdom for the campaign”.

The Coalition had better polling. Labor and everyone else were relying on faulty polling that misallocated preferences and uniformly predicted a Labor win – false comfort to Labor, which stayed a flawed course instead of making necessary changes to avoid defeat.

Lesson: Focus on the primary vote, the polling figure least vulnerable to modelling assumptions.

4. Media hostile to Labor

The Murdoch media have created an atmospheric so pervasively hostile to Labor that it has become normalised. It contributed significantly to Shorten’s unpopularity and Labor’s loss. Its impact is only going to get worse with Australia’s nakedly partisan Fox News-equivalent, “Sky After Dark”, extending from pay-TV to free-to-air channels in regional areas.

Read more: Outrage, polls and bias: 2019 federal election showed Australian media need better regulation

Lesson: Labor has to be so much better than the Coalition to win in this dire and deteriorating media environment. It needs a concrete plan to match and/or neutralise the Murdoch media’s influence.

5. Regional variations

Labor failed to win support in resource-rich states where it needed to pick up seats to win, and suffered a big fall in its primary vote in Queensland.

There is a danger of this being overplayed as a factor since, in fact, not much really changed at this election: the Coalition has two more seats and Labor two less seats than in the last parliament. Further, there are nuances to be engaged with even in hard-core resource areas. More Queenslanders, for example, are employed in the services sector in industries like tourism than are employed in the coal sector; and Labor has a strong tradition in Queensland and is capable of renewal.

The concerns of both sides need to be woven into a plausible policy path forward, with opportunities for different, deeply-held views to be heard and acknowledged as part of the process.

Lesson: Develop “ground up” rather than “top down” policies that integrate diverse concerns without overreacting to what was actually a modest change in electoral fortunes.

6. Weak advertising strategy

Labor’s advertising campaign was complacent, unfocused and completely failed to exploit the leadership chaos and chronic division in the Coalition parties for the previous six years. Why? Labor’s decision not to run potent negative ads on coalition chaos in parallel with its positive advertising campaign is the biggest mystery of the 2019 election – naive in the extreme. It left Labor defenceless in the face of a relentlessly negative, untruthful campaign from the other side.

Lesson: Have brilliant ads in a sharply focused campaign that doesn’t fail to hit your opponents’ weaknesses.

7. Massive advertising spending gap

Along with the hostile media environment created by the Murdoch press, the unprecedented spending gap between the Labor and anti-Labor sides of politics and its role in the Coalition win has passed largely unremarked.

The previous election was bought by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull with a $1.7 million personal donation that boosted Coalition election advertising in the campaign’s crucial last fortnight. That now looks like small beer next to the 2019 election’s anti-Labor advertising spending (approximately $80 million when one adds the Coalition’s $20 million spend to the Clive Palmer-United Australia Party spend of $60 million-plus). This is four times the size of Labor’s $20 million ad budget – a huge disparity.

Palmer’s gambit, which creates a friendly environment for him to gain regulatory approval for a Queensland coal mine vastly bigger than Adani’s during this term of parliament, takes Australia into banana republic territory in terms of money politics.

Lesson: Australia already needed campaign finance laws to stop the purchasing of elections. It needs them even more urgently now.

8. Large policy target

Misleading polling showing it was persistently ahead gave Labor false comfort pursuing a “big” policy agenda – that is, making policy offerings normally done from government rather than opposition. If everything else goes right in an election, and with a popular leader and effective key supporting frontbenchers, this may be possible. That was not the case in the 2019 election.

Lesson: When in opposition, don’t go to an election promising tax changes that make some people worse off. Save it for government.

9. Green cannibalisation of the Labor vote

The primary vote of the Labor Party (33.5%) and the Greens (9.9%) adds up to 43.4% – a long way off the 50%-plus required to beat the conservatives. For a climate-action-oriented government to be elected in Australia, Labor and the Greens are going to have to find a better modus vivendi.

They don’t have to like each other; after all, the mutual hatred of the Liberals and Nationals within the Coalition is long-standing and well-known. But like the Liberals and Nationals, though without a formal agreement, Labor and the Greens are going to have to craft a way forward that forestalls indulgent bus tours by Green icons through Queensland coal seats and stops prioritising cannibalisation of the Labor vote over beating conservatives.

Lesson: For climate policy to change in Australia, Labor and the Greens need to strategise constructively, if informally, to get Labor elected to office.

10. Every election is winnable

Paul Keating won an “unwinnable” election in 1993 and pundits spoke of the Keating decade ahead. John Howard beat Keating in a landslide three years later, despite being the third Coalition leader in a single tumultuous parliamentary term.

Morrison won the 2019 election despite internal Coalition leadership turmoil, political scandals and a revolt of the party’s women MPs against the Liberals’ bullying internal culture.

Lesson: Every election is there to be won or lost. Take note of Lessons 1 to 9 to do so.

– ref. How might Labor win in 2022? The answers can all be found in the lessons of 2019 – http://theconversation.com/how-might-labor-win-in-2022-the-answers-can-all-be-found-in-the-lessons-of-2019-117742

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Gilroy, ARC Research Fellow in Indigenous Health, Disability and Community Development, University of Sydney

We welcome the recently announced Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability.

At the same time, the enquiry must consider certain issues in its approach to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people with disabilities.

Experiences of cultural discrimination are amplified for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people with disabilities. They desperately need support that recognises and responds to their cultural needs.

The Commission also must note Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people with disabilities are contending with abuse in their families and communities at higher levels than in non-Indigenous communities, and are often living in poverty.

Read more: Understanding the NDIS: the scheme does not yet address all the needs of Indigenous people with disabilities

The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander disability rights movement has gained significant momentum over recent years. This has included participation in the planning and development of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS).

Now we must ensure the diversity of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander voices is heard in this Royal Commission.

Higher rates of disability, but lower rates of accessing supports

In the latest Census for Disability, Ageing, and Carers, nearly 25% of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in households reported experiencing disability. This doesn’t include people with disabilities living in out-of-home care, so the prevalence is likely much higher.

In the same survey, 17.5% of the non-Indigenous population reported experiencing disability.

While we have no direct data which explains this higher prevalence, it’s likely disability is more common among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people due to higher rates of chronic health conditions, disease, poverty, and lack of accessible services in remote regions.

Read more: Here’s how we can stop putting Aboriginal people with disabilities in prison

Globally, experiences of disability among Indigenous populations have been linked to colonial imperialism, racism, and dispossession from traditional lands and food sources, and social alienation.

Around 5% of NDIS participants are of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander heritage. This figure doesn’t reflect the rates of disability in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, meaning Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people with disabilities are not well-engaged with the NDIS.

Experiences of discrimination

The Commission must acknowledge that for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people with a disability, their experience is entwined with both disablism – discriminatory behaviour arising from the belief that people with a disability are inferior to others – and cultural discrimination. We call this “racial-ableism”, as separating the two is impossible.

Experiences of racial-ableism influence how Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people with disabilities engage with the disability service system. Day-to-day experiences of discrimination include non-Indigenous people accusing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people with a disability and/or challenges related to motor coordination of being intoxicated when they are not.

It’s imperative these stories are part of the Commission, as their telling can help build a narrative to prevent abuse towards people with disability.

Read more: Indigenous people with disability have a double disadvantage and the NDIS can’t handle that

We need a culturally responsive system

Establishing disability support systems on a Western model that doesn’t consider Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ cultural needs can be seen as a form of abuse.

My (Gilroy’s) research has shown the history of the institutionalisation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people with disability spans more than one century. This includes many examples of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people being forced to live in large residential centres, excluded from towns, or wrongly incarcerated.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people with disabilities may live in disability institutions that meet their support needs, but don’t meet their cultural and social needs, such as connecting to community and Country.

Many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people with disabilities in remote and very remote regions have to move off their traditional lands away from family and live in regional or metropolitan centres due to limited disability services in their communities.

For Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, these are forms of cultural abuse. A culturally responsive system is one that meets cultural and social needs and connects Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to their traditional lands, while at the same time accommodating their disability needs.

Read more: Why Aboriginal people with disabilities crowd Australia’s prisons

There are challenges in the communities, too

Simply focusing on disability institutions would be turning a blind eye to the chronic abuse of vulnerable people living among their families and communities, including people with a disability, children, and the elderly.

Our research has shown family violence has contributed to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children with a disability being placed in out-of-home care arrangements.

The Commission needs to acknowledge abuse of people with a disability can occur in the family and community.

Read more: Aboriginal Australians want care after brain injury. But it must consider their cultural needs

Meanwhile, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people with a disability experience higher rates of poverty, poorer rates of education attainment, and higher rates of homelessness than non-Indigenous people with a disability. In remote regions where services are scarce, poverty can mean people with disabilities go without food or even shelter.

Our governments must urgently act to address this crisis.

A strengths-based approach

A deficit model focuses solely on the challenges and negative experiences associated with disability, such as “suffering” and “impoverishment”. The Commission should instead be premised on a strengths-based framework.

This gives people the opportunity to express both negative and positive experiences about living as an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander person with disability.

A strengths-based approach draws attention to what people with disability can achieve, like enrolling in a qualification, securing employment, or winning a martial arts competition – despite the barriers they face.

Read more: Finally, people with disabilities will have a chance to tell their stories – and be believed

The Commission desperately needs to be attuned to the voices of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people with disability, their carers and peak agencies by including them as key parts of the Commission.

The appointment of an Indigenous Commissioner, in Andrea Mason, is an important start.

– ref. Why Aboriginal voices need to be front and centre in the disability Royal Commission – http://theconversation.com/why-aboriginal-voices-need-to-be-front-and-centre-in-the-disability-royal-commission-115056

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kristen Lyons, Professor Environment and Development Sociology, The University of Queensland

Climate change threatens Australia in many different ways, and can devastate rural and urban communities alike. For Torres Strait Islanders, it’s a crisis that’s washing away their homes, infrastructure and even cemeteries.

The failure to take action on this crisis has led a group of Torres Strait Islanders to lodge a climate change case with the United Nations Human Rights Committee against the Australian federal government.

It’s the first time the Australian government has been taken to the UN for their failure to take action on climate change. And its the first time people living on a low lying island have taken action against any government.

This case – and other parallel cases – demonstrate that climate change is “fundamentally a human rights issue”, with First Nations most vulnerable to the brunt of a changing climate.

The group of Torres Strait Islanders lodging this appeal argue that the Australian government has failed to take adequate action on climate change. They allege that the re-elected Coalition government has not only steered Australia off track in meeting globally agreed emissions reductions, but has set us on course for climate catastrophe.

In doing so, Torres Strait Islanders argue that the government has failed to uphold human rights obligations and violated their rights to culture, family and life.

This case is a show of defiance in the face of Australia’s years of political inertia and turmoil over climate change.

It is the first time people living on a low-lying island – acutely vulnerable in the face of rising sea levels – have brought action against a government. But it may also be a sign of things to come, as more small island nations face impending climate change threats.

Breaching multiple human rights obligations

Driving this case is an alliance of eight Torres Strait Islanders, represented by the Torres Strait land and sea council, Gur A Baradharaw Kod, along with a legal team from ClientEarth and 350.org. They argue that their way of life has come under immediate and irreversible threat.

On this basis, they accuse the Australian government of breaching multiple articles of the UN Human Rights Declaration, including the right to culture, the right to be free from arbitrary interference with privacy, family and home, and the right to life.

In the early 1990s, the Torres Strait Islands were at the centre of struggles to secure Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander land rights in Australia.

Securing these rights were made possible through the historic Mabo Decision, and these rights remain central to land and human rights debates today as Torres Strait Islanders’ land and seas are threatened by climate change.

Torres Straight Islanders are on the frontlines

Some Torres Strait Islands are less than one metre above sea level and are already affected by climate change.

Rising tides have delivered devastating effects for local communities, including flooding homes, land and cultural sites, with dire flooding in 2018 breaking a sea wall built to protect local communities.

Increasing sea temperatures have also affected marine environments, driving coral bleaching and ocean acidification, and disrupting habitat for dugong, salt water crocodiles, and multiple species of turtle.

In the same way settler colonial violence dispossessed First Nations people from their ancestral homelands, climate change presents a real threat of further forced removal of people from their land and seas, alongside destruction of places where deep cultural and spiritual meaning is derived.

Parallel threats across the Pacific

While the Torres Strait appeal to the UN is groundbreaking, the challenges facing Torres Strait Islanders are not unique.

Delegates at the Pacific Islands Forum in Fiji last week described climate change as the “single greatest threat” to the region, with sea level rise occurring up to four times the global average in some countries in the Pacific.

Climate change is already causing migration across parts of the Pacific, including relocation of families from the Carteret Islands to Bougainville with support from local grassroots organisation Tulele Peisa.

The Alliance of Small Island States, an intergovernmental organisation, has demanded that signatories to the Paris Agreement, including through the Green Climate Fund, recognise fundamental loss and damages communities are facing, and compensate those affected.

The growing wave of climate litigation

Across the Torres Strait, the Pacific, and other regions on the frontline of climate change, there are a diversity of responses in defence of land and seas. These are often grounded in local and Indigenous knowledge.

They show the resolve of First Nations and local communities, as captured in a message from the Pacific Climate Warriors:

We are not drowning. We are fighting.

There are parallel appeals to the Torres Strait Islanders’ case. Around the world, First Nations people are calling on the UN to hold national governments to account on human rights obligations, including in the context of mining and other developments that drive greenhouse gas emissions.

In Australia, Wangan and Jagalingou Traditional Owners have submitted multiple appeals, including last year alleging government violations of six international human rights obligations in their effort to advance Adani’s proposed Carmichael mine.

There is an array of other climate litigation underway. This includes citizens suing their governments for failing to take action on climate, such as in the Netherlands, where a judge ordered the government to take hefty action to reduce national emissions.

Similarly, a group of 21 children in the United States are pursuing a lawsuit to demand the right to a safe climate.

Given the parlous state of climate politics in Australia, further litigation can be expected. The significance of the current appeal by a group of Torres Strait Islanders lies in its potential to lay bare the adequacy or otherwise of Australia’s response to climate change as a human rights issue.

First Nations people already have a moral authority in defending their human rights in the era of climate change. Over time, they and others, including children, will also test the grounds on which they might have the legal authority to do so.

– ref. Torres Strait Islanders ask UN to hold Australia to account on climate ‘human rights abuses’ – http://theconversation.com/torres-strait-islanders-ask-un-to-hold-australia-to-account-on-climate-human-rights-abuses-117262

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jutta Beher, Spatial analyst in conservation and ecology, University of Melbourne

From climate change to armed conflict, our world is struggling with urgent global issues. But disagreements about how to solve them can spiral out of control.

The only way to resolve intractable conflicts is to overcome desire to talk to allies more often than opponents. Here, a social psychologist, two ecologists and a cartoonist explain the toolbox of communication we need to resolve difficult issues.

– ref. Comic: how to have better arguments about the environment (or anything else) – http://theconversation.com/comic-how-to-have-better-arguments-about-the-environment-or-anything-else-98554

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emma Rowe, Senior Lecturer in the School of Education, Deakin University

More advantaged public secondary schools across Australia generate nearly six times the amount of funding contributions from parents than less advantaged schools receive.

Our study, published in The Australian Educational Researcher journal, examined private levels of funding in public secondary schools.

We found annual parent contributions per school were on average A$352,956 in schools serving the most disadvantaged students. Schools serving the most advantaged students generated an average A$1,584,974 from parents per year.

Parent contributions in our study included funding for charges such as essential learning items, excursions and specialist programs. They did not include fundraising.

Read more: What the next government needs to do to tackle unfairness in school funding

Do parent contributions match status?

This is the first comprehensive study that has examined inequalities in school funding as exclusively generated by parents in public secondary schools.

We examined parent monetary contributions for 150 public secondary schools in Melbourne and Geelong. We wanted to know whether parent contributions were related to school socioeconomic status.

We used the parent fees, charges and contributions reported on the MySchool website from 2013-2016. MySchool defines “fees, charges and parent contributions” as “income received from parents for the delivery of education services to students”.

The types of voluntary financial contributions parents can make to public schools differ across states. Victorian legislation mandates the “standard curriculum program” must be provided free of charge.

But parents are required to pay for what the school categorises as “essential student learning items” and there is little oversight in how schools determine what fits this category.

So it varies widely. It could be textbooks, uniforms, stationery or mandatory excursions. It can encompass any additional materials the school considers “essential” for a learning task.

Read more: Public schools actually outperform private schools, and with less money

Schools can also request parent payments for “optional items” offered in addition to the standard curriculum. These include extracurricular programs, music tuition, excursions and camps, as well as “voluntary financial contributions”, which are typically delegated for a special initiative such as a building fund.

We compared the parent contributions to the School Index of Community Socio-Educational Advantage (ICSEA) – a measure that allows a comparison of the levels of educational advantage or disadvantage students bring to their academic studies.

Our study used ICSEA as a proxy for school socioeconomic status. The ICSEA includes parent occupation and parent education, school remoteness and the percentage of Indigenous student enrolment.

Majorly unequal

We calculated the per student amount averaged over four years for each school, the per school amount averaged over four years, and the total amount per school, summed over four years.

We then compared this to student enrolment in each school. This enabled us to comprehensively examine the reported differences and gaps, and how these correlate with school advantage or disadvantage across different metrics.

Public schools that serve more advantaged student cohorts generated, on average, 5.8 times greater levels of income, in comparison to schools that serve disadvantaged student cohorts.

The difference was greater when comparing per school parent contributions, in comparison to per student. This is because schools that serve more advantaged student cohorts tend to be larger.

The median per student parent contribution in the most advantaged schools is more than four times greater (A$1,399) than for the most disadvantaged schools (A$335).

Annual funding per school, when averaged over the four years, was A$352,956 for schools serving the most disadvantaged students. Schools serving the most advantaged students generated an average A$1,584,974.

The majority of schools we examined were not socially integrated, meaning they enrolled mostly students from advantaged or disadvantaged backgrounds, but not both. Only one-quarter of schools enrolled students from both advantaged and disadvantaged backgrounds.

Why this matters

Parent-generated funding disparities between advantaged and disadvantaged schools are a form of educational inequality associated with socially segregated schooling.

It’s relatively unsurprising schools with more advantaged students report higher annual contributions from parents. But it’s concerning these amounts differ so substantially between advantaged and disadvantaged schools.

These disparities can further fuel school segregation which is already higher in Australia than in most other countries in the OECD.

The OECD argues reducing school segregation is one of the best ways to reduce achievement gaps between advantaged and disadvantaged students, and improve educational effectiveness more generally.

Previous research has linked school segregation with other inequalities. For instance, schools that mainly serve disadvantaged students can struggle to attract and retain experienced teachers.

Read more: To reduce inequality in Australian schools, make them less socially segregated

Policymakers should consider measures to reduce disparities between schools as part of a larger effort to improve educational equity and effectiveness.

Governments could create additional funding schemes for disadvantaged schools to support special initiatives and programs that in other schools would typically be subsidised by parent contributions.

Alternatively, governments could limit the amount of money schools can ask or expect parents to pay. Or they could pool all parent-generated income that is then equitably divided among schools, as is done in Canada.

Whatever the approach, parent contributions need to be monitored.

– ref. Some public schools get nearly 6 times as much funding, thanks to parents – http://theconversation.com/some-public-schools-get-nearly-6-times-as-much-funding-thanks-to-parents-117268

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Makiko Nishitani, Lecturer, La Trobe University

Established migrant communities in regional and rural areas are often ignored in favour of policies focused on attracting new intakes of skilled migrants. A striking example is the substantial population of Pacific Islanders in horticultural areas in Australia.

They are largely unacknowledged or even invisible to policymakers in Canberra. Their working-age children now struggle to move beyond the seasonal, precarious horticultural work their parents do. Appropriate supports could help them increase their skills and make a valuable contribution to the rural economy.

Since the mid-1990s, the Australian government has tried to tackle problems on two fronts – congestion in urban areas, and population decline and associated labour shortages in rural areas – through diverse migration schemes.

In March this year the Morrison government launched a plan for Australia’s future population. It emphasised skilled migration as a means of “ensuring regional communities are given a much-needed boost”. The plan includes new regional visas for skilled workers and scholarships for domestic and international students to study in regional tertiary institutions.

Read more: Settling migrants in regional areas will need more than a visa to succeed

A neglected community

The rhetoric around settling people in regional areas tends to neglect the untapped potential of migrant populations that already live there. Our research in the Sunraysia region shows Pacific people have been largely trapped in seasonal farm work since they began moving there in the 1980s.

The government’s lack of acknowledgement of these established communities was evident in its planning and introduction of the Seasonal Worker Program. Their potential to provide pastoral care for temporary workers from the Pacific islands was neglected. In both the 2011 final evaluation of the Pacific Seasonal Worker Pilot Scheme and the 2016 report of the parliamentary inquiry into the Seasonal Worker Program this is seen as the responsibility of approved employers.

However, such “official” pastoral care is insufficient. We have found settled communities are supporting workers in getting health care and often provide them with food and other supplies.

But the government has seen the settlers in negative terms, as potentially encouraging Pacific people employed through the Seasonal Worker Program to overstay their visas. This claim was made, for instance, in a 2016 call for expressions of interest in research for the Labour Mobility Assistance Program.

Rather than relying only on bringing in new waves of skilled migrants, most of whom stay for the required period then move to the cities, why not focus on resolving structural problems and increasing the skills of those who already live there? This would mean tackling the barriers the local Pacific populations face, including their relative invisibility in regional communities.

Read more: Forcing immigrants to work in regional areas will not boost regional economies in the long run

In regional Australia, social services are directed mainly to new migrant and refugee arrivals, as well as Indigenous Australians. Some of our Pacific research participants said their communities’ needs remain largely unmet. A Tongan community leader we interviewed in Mildura raised two questions that prevent Pacific people from accessing support in Sunraysia: “Are you a refugee? Are you an Indigenous [person]?”

A high school principal echoed this point. She knew who to contact when she needed support for Koorie students or students from a “Muslim background”, but eligibility criteria often excluded Pacific youth from these services.

Many Pacific young people in Sunraysia express a strong desire to remain in their home towns, yet feel they face significant barriers to entering the workforce.

Their teachers confirm that Pacific youth are less likely to be considered for apprenticeships. They need targeted programs to ensure they get skills training that will broaden their employment opportunities.

Yet their rates of participation in TAFE and university are low. This is partly due to their lack of knowledge about their options.

In a workshop with teachers they also told us some Pacific students come to high school with insufficient literacy and numeracy skills. Early support could have overcome this problem.

The problems are structural

Much of the debate about employment relies on the idea of individual empowerment, which assumes academic achievement leads to skilled work. However, David Farrugia argues that youth unemployment rates will not decline without overcoming structural problems in regional Australia.

Read more: Youth unemployment: local communities essential for helping young people find work

An example of these problems in Sunraysia is that some local industries that give workers stable hourly rates prefer to employ working holidaymakers or backpackers. This leads migrants and second-generation youth to work in more precarious piece-rate farm jobs. The local advocacy body for employing settled workers told us the preference for working holidaymakers is linked to their connections with other industries such as accommodation providers that benefit from this transient population.

Despite being born and raised locally, and in many cases being Australian citizens, Pacific youth experience significant discrimination and marginalisation. Like their parents’ generation they are stigmatised as “fruit pickers”.

Many of them come to see farm work as the only option if they stay in the area. And even that is becoming increasingly precarious because they have to compete with temporary workers, such as those in the Seasonal Worker Program, working holidaymakers and irregular migrants.

Enabling the full participation of Pacific youth in more stable and skilled employment would contribute to the regional economy and improve social cohesion. But the policy focus is still on how to bring in new migrants. Population planning needs to have a long-term perspective and for regional areas a focus on the needs of the well-established migrant populations is crucial.

Dean Wickham, executive officer of Sunraysia Mallee Ethnic Communities Council, contributed to our research project and writing this article.

– ref. The forgotten people in Australia’s regional settlement policy are Pacific Islander residents – http://theconversation.com/the-forgotten-people-in-australias-regional-settlement-policy-are-pacific-islander-residents-116277

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Siobhan Lyons, Scholar in Media and Cultural Studies, Macquarie University

Last month, audiences got their first glimpse of the trailer for the upcoming film, Joker, which explores the origins of its iconic title character, last seen in the Batman franchise. The trailer came just weeks after Captain Marvel was released to cinemas, detailing the back story of Carol Danvers, a superhero who suffers from amnesia and struggles to find out about her past.

Joker is not the only prequel in the works. DC entertainment (also behind Joker) will follow up with The Batman, a 2021 film set to focus on a younger Bruce Wayne. The sixth instalment of Die Hard, titled McClane, will also be an origin story focusing on John McClane in his 20s.

And after the critically acclaimed Better Call Saul – a prequel to Breaking Bad – it was recently announced that classic TV show The Sopranos would be followed up with a prequel movie. Even Game of Thrones will be filming a prequel series.

Prequels and origin texts focus on the back story of our favourite characters. Traditionally much rarer than sequels, they are fast becoming a popular mode of storytelling, alongside the recent boom of 90s remakes. Prequels allow filmmakers to stay in familiar territory while also developing new storylines for old (and even dead) characters.

While prequels present a unique opportunity for storytelling, they are often poorly received, from Dumb & Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd, to Exorcist: The Beginning. On the list of film prequels on Wikipedia, 36 were direct-to-video. Prequels like Godfather Part II and Better Call Saul appear to be the exceptions to the rule.

Read more: It’s happening again … our love affair with TV reboots

Why the appeal?

Society loves origins. Much like our obsession with the lives of celebrities “before they were famous”, we’re naturally curious about the past of characters. The great attraction of the prequel and origin story is that we get to take a look into a character’s elusive past.

Film scholar Darren Mooney argues origin stories offer what the late Stan Lee called the “illusion of change”, so that our understanding of the character can evolve, even when the character themselves remains more or less the same.

Prequels rely on this process of change, and if we can watch this unfold, it can make certain enigmatic characters more relatable – from the Joker to Tony Soprano. This might explain the popularity of prequels in the horror genre, where we see the early years of killers from Norman Bates to Hannibal Lecter.

Just like sequels, the prequel format is a particularly lucrative business model; Captain Marvel has grossed more than US$1 billion worldwide, continuing Marvel’s blockbuster run. By taking advantage of the prequel angle, production companies can capitalise on their films without needing to be particularly original. This means the big film franchises will likely continue their cinematic reign under the guise of “novel” storytelling techniques.

As film studies scholar Andrew Scahill puts it:

the prequel offers the pleasure of familiar characters and settings while further exploring the narrative world of the existing text and possibly deepening the audience’s connection with central characters.

Yet he also acknowledges that “as an industrial mode, the prequel provides the financial safety of a tested storyline with a built-in audience”. This means popular culture, once a thriving field of experimental storytelling, risks becoming ever more derivative as it heads into the next decade.

When prequels go wrong

Prequels are more difficult to pull off than a sequel, because we already know how the story ends. As AMC President Sarah Barnett said of Better Call Saul: “We know clearly the end was already written before the beginning began.” Filmmakers must also contend with the natural process of time, since actors inevitably age. The task is to make the back story both engaging and authentic to the original narrative.

The Star Wars prequels illustrate how easy it is to do a bad job. The first two films in particular were poorly received and accused of bad writing, equally terrible acting, and falling well short of the original trilogy in regards to storytelling. When prequels are weak, it often seems as though they are simply there to make money for production companies.

While sequels and reboots defined the 2010s in popular culture, prequels are set to define the 2020s, which is not necessarily good news. Ironically, there is no longer anything particularly original about origin stories, as the format has already started to exhaust itself.

– ref. A long time ago… why prequels are taking us back to the future in popular film – http://theconversation.com/a-long-time-ago-why-prequels-are-taking-us-back-to-the-future-in-popular-film-115132

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

Scott Morrison’s new ministry mixes stability with dashes of innovation, box ticking, and the rewarding of friends.

The Prime Minister has maintained his record number of women (seven) in cabinet, and created a new entry to the history books by appointing the first indigenous cabinet minister, Ken Wyatt, who will become minister for indigenous Australians.

Let’s hope this is not a poisoned chalice for Wyatt, who previously held aged care and indigenous health in the outer ministry. It is one of the hardest jobs and the expectations and pressures on him from indigenous people will be enormous.

Morrison has highlighted the priority he wants to give to improving program implementation, including and especially the National Disability Insurance Scheme.

Rewards for friends

Stuart Robert, one of the Morrison friends and supporters promoted in the reshuffle, becomes minister for government services and minister for the NDIS, and is elevated to cabinet.

Robert will oversee a new Services Australia agency to “drive greater efficiencies and integration” of service delivery.

Addressing senior public servants the other day, Morrison lectured them on the need for “congestion busting” in the bureaucracy. The NDIS has had serious teething problems. Time will show whether Robert, who moves from assistant treasurer, can deliver on improving delivery. He personally has been the centre of political controversies and last year had to pay back about $38,000 for excessive internet use at home.

Read more: Scott Morrison hails ‘miracle’ as Coalition snatches unexpected victory

Ben Morton, a Morrison confidant who travelled with him in the campaign, becomes assistant minister to the prime minister and cabinet, one of those nice “in close” positions that are all about relationships.

Greg Hunt, much praised by Morrison during the election, adds to his health job the position of minister assisting the prime minister for the public service and cabinet, which gives him extra access to the PM’s ear.

Energy and emissions together

In a major move, Morrison has brought together energy and emissions reduction under Angus Taylor. This means Taylor, whose performance as energy minister has been underwhelming, has responsibility for the climate change area as well as continuing to try to achieve lower power prices.

The government skated through the election with climate change not having as much electoral bite as expected and high energy prices failing to extract the political toll they might have. But this is going to be a hard policy area in the coming term, as industry will be looking for more investment certainty, and consumers will want better results on prices. Taylor will need to lift his game.

As expected and despite Morrison’s commitment during the campaign, Melissa Price is out of environment and out of the cabinet. She’s now in the outer ministry, in defence industry, where she can continue to be neither seen nor heard. As Morrison put it with delicate understatement: “Melissa and I discussed her role and she asked to be given a new challenge and I was happy to give her one”.

Senators to New York, Washington

Two top level diplomatic jobs make space for appointments to the Senate. Mitch Fifield, who held communications, is off to be United Nations ambassador in New York, and Arthur Sinodinos, who seemed a monty for a cabinet post after his return from sick leave, will replace Joe Hockey in Washington. Morrison said Fifield’s exit was by choice – that he could have stayed in his portfolio.

Jim Molan, who unsuccessfully attempted to survive as a senator by appealing for people to vote for him “below the line”, will hope to get the NSW Senate spot; Sarah Henderson, who lost Corangamite, will seek preselection for the Victorian vacancy.

Paul Fletcher, with a background in Optus, takes over Fifield’s communications portfolio.

A minister for housing

The core economic team of Josh Frydenberg in treasury and Mathias Cormann in finance remains, with Michael Sukkar, from the hard right in Victoria, becoming assistant treasurer and housing minister. He will be in charge of implementing the Coalition’s election promise for a deposit guarantee for first home buyers.

Alan Tudge keeps population, cities and urban infrastructure while being promoted to cabinet.

Notably, responsibility for industrial relations (previously with the now-departed Kelly O’Dwyer), has been handed to Christian Porter, who stays attorney-general and becomes leader of the House. Porter immediately signalled his law-and-order priority in industrial relations: “my initial focus will be on the law enforcement aspects of the portfolio, ensuring adherence with Australia’s industrial relations laws, particularly on building sites across Australia”.

Promotions for women

Of the females in cabinet Marise Payne, who retains foreign affairs, is the new minister for women, while Michaelia Cash, who was in a heap of trouble last term, has employment, skills, small and family business, gaining employment.

As he promised, Morrison has elevated Linda Reynolds, whom he appointed to cabinet in March, to defence, formerly held by Christopher Pyne, who left parliament at the election. This is a huge job for Reynolds, regardless of her background in the military. Alex Hawke, who is close to Morrison, becomes assistant defence minister, and minister for international development and the Pacific.

Sussan Ley is back in cabinet after a break, taking the downsized environment portfolio. Anne Ruston is promoted to cabinet, as minister for families and social services. Karen Andrews remains in industry and in cabinet.

Victorian senator Jane Hume, with a background in the superannuation industry, becomes an assistant minister in that area; former whip Nola Marino also becomes an assistant minister.

Fewer Nationals

The Nationals have lost a cabinet position, going from five to four – this results automatically from the change in their ratio within the Coalition – despite the fact they did well at the election.

Morrison confirmed that McCormack chose who went into the portfolios the Nationals have. Nationals sources say McCormack pressed for a better deal on portfolios, Liberal sources deny this.

Nationals deputy leader Bridget McKenzie has got agriculture (first women in that job), which means David Littleproud, who previously held agriculture and water resources, ends up with water resources, drought and other bits and pieces.

Read more: VIDEO: Michelle Grattan on Morrison’s ‘miracle’ election win – and Labor’s leadership search

Among those not moving, Peter Dutton stays in home affairs, Dan Tehan in education and Simon Birmingham in trade.

Morrison has put his stamp on his team without being radical. Notably, no one was dumped to the backbench.

And the chance of an early return for parliament

Meanwhile Morrison also hinted he was hoping that, despite the current advice, there was a chance parliament could be brought back before July 1 to pass the tax cuts so the first tranche could be delivered from then.

He told his news conference:

We are awaiting advice from the [Australian Electoral Commission] as to when the return of writs will be provided.

At present they’re saying that’s June 28 and there’s a possibility of that occurring earlier. That presents different opportunities for when might be able to recall parliament.

Delivering those tax cuts right on time is something Morrison would really like to do. It’s a fair bet the AEC is being urged strongly to “deliver” those writs early, if it’s humanely possible.

Meanwhile on the Labor side, Richard Marles is now assured of becoming deputy leader to Anthony Albanese, after Clare O’Neil – who like Marles is from the Victorian right – said on Sunday she would not contest the deputy leadership.

For the fridge door:

– ref. View from The Hill: Morrison rewards friends, avoids making enemies and announces new ambassadors – http://theconversation.com/view-from-the-hill-morrison-rewards-friends-avoids-making-enemies-and-announces-new-ambassadors-117806

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Holly Cullen, Adjunct professor, University of Western Australia

Australians woke to the news on Friday that the United States had unveiled new charges against Wikileaks co-founder Julian Assange.

The indictment, issued by the US Department of Justice, includes 17 charges of espionage:

• one count of conspiracy to receive national defense information
• seven counts of obtaining national defense information
• nine counts of disclosing national defense information.

These charges are in addition to the charge of conspiracy to commit computer misuse contained in the initial US request for extradition in April.

Here’s what the new charges mean for Assange, how he could fight them, and what’s likely to happen next.

Read more: Julian Assange on Google, surveillance and predatory capitalism

What factors will affect whether the UK approves extradition to the US?

Extradition includes a mixture of judicial and political processes. Assange could plead a number of legal objections to his extradition, including human rights concerns. This could see the case go through all levels of the English court system, as happened in 2011-12. The charges could also be challenged in the European Court of Human Rights.

Assange’s main legal objection to extradition is likely to be that the offences charged are political offences, and therefore not extraditable offences under the treaty.

In addition to the American extradition request, the Swedish prosecutor has announced she is reopening the investigation of a rape accusation against Assange. She has applied to the Swedish courts for a detention order, which is the first step towards the issuing of a European Arrest Warrant (EAW).

Both the EU’s Framework Decision on the European Arrest Warrant and the US-UK extradition treaty allow the UK to decide which of the two competing extradition requests to prioritise. There’s a good chance that the UK would decide to prioritise the Swedish request because the rape prosecution must be brought by August 2020, at the latest. It’s likely that the English courts would expedite any legal challenges to prevent time running out.

If the UK decides to prioritise the American request, it would effectively prevent the Swedish prosecution being brought in time.

Read more: Chelsea Manning and the rise of ‘big data’ whistleblowing in the digital age

If he goes to Sweden first to face the rape charges, would Sweden be more or less favourable on the US indictment?

The US-Swedish extradition treaty appears to be stricter than the US-UK treaty. It only allows extradition for listed offences, and espionage is not listed.

Given that the treaty was adopted in 1961, computer crimes are not listed, although they might be understood to be included in one of the forms of fraud listed in the treaty.

The US-Swedish treaty also prohibits extradition for political offences or when the death penalty is imposed.

The Swedish government declares that it will not extradite:

if there is reason to fear that the person whose extradition is requested runs a risk – on account of his or her ethnic origins, membership of a particular social group or religious or political beliefs – of being subjected to persecution threatening his or her life or freedom, or is serious in some other respect.

Do these charges attract the death penalty?

These offences could lead to a long prison sentence, but do not attract the death penalty.

Like the US-Swedish treaty, the US-UK extradition treaty also allows the UK to refuse extradition if the accused is likely to face the death penalty, unless the US gives assurances that the death penalty will not be imposed.

Could Assange be protected under the US constitution?

Civil liberties groups and journalists in the United States argue that the charges in the new indictment are unconstitutional. The First Amendment of the American Constitution guarantees freedom of expression, and American courts have historically provided strong protection for journalism.

Many argue that what Assange and Wikileaks did in obtaining information from Chelsea Manning about the detainees at Guantanamo Bay and rules of engagement in Iraq, and disseminating it, is not meaningfully different from what news outlets do on a regular basis. American officials who worked for the Obama administration say their decision not to pursue Assange was based on concerns that such a prosecution would be contrary to the First Amendment.

Assange’s legal team are likely to argue that extradition to the US would constitute a violation of Assange’s right to freedom of expression under international law. If the extradition occurs, it’s likely they would seek to have the charges thrown out by American courts as unconstitutional.

Read more: Is part of Chelsea Manning’s legacy increased surveillance?

Will these new charges change the way the Australian government treats the case?

The new charges are much more serious than the computer misuse charge in the initial extradition request. The total sentence could be up to 175 years in jail – effectively a “whole of life” sentence, which some human rights advocates consider to be a form of cruel and inhumane treatment.

Australian government support for its nationals caught up in criminal proceedings overseas is largely negotiated out of the public eye. Nonetheless, there have been cases, such as the recent campaign to bring Hakeem al-Araibi back to Australia from Thailand, where the government was a public advocate.

Assange’s Australian legal adviser Greg Barns has called on Foreign Affairs Minister Marise Payne and Prime Minister Scott Morrison to raise his case personally with the US and UK governments.

Assange’s case is certainly exceptional, and the human rights concerns over US extradition could justify exceptional intervention.

– ref. New indictments set up a confrontation between the US and Julian Assange – http://theconversation.com/new-indictments-set-up-a-confrontation-between-the-us-and-julian-assange-117741

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

The government’s tax relief package is shaping up as the first test of incoming opposition leader Anthony Albanese, with Treasurer Josh Frydenberg declaring on Friday it must be supported “in its entirety” when put to the new parliament.

But Albanese has only guaranteed support for the first tranche. As for the later cuts for higher income earners, “we will consider that,” he said on Friday.

But let me tell you, it is a triumph of hope over experience and reality that the government knows […] what the economic circumstances are in 2025 or 2023, in the middle of the next decade.

Appearing with Albanese on the Nine Network, Trade Minister Simon Birmingham said:

Albo, it would be remarkable if your first act as leader of the opposition was […] to oppose a long term package of tax relief – that would show a real tin ear for the Australian people”.

In an interview with The Conversation, Frydenberg refused to be drawn on what the government would do if unable to get the whole bill through.

It would, however, be hard for it to avoid splitting the bill – to hold out would deny the immediate relief pledged in the April budget.

All or nothing

Nor could Frydenberg say when parliament will meet to consider the legislation, although the government has effectively conceded it will not be in time for the promised July 1 start of the additional tax offset promised in the budget. (A smaller offset from last year’s budget will be paid from then.)

But Albanese said the tax cuts could be passed in time for July 1, because it would only need a couple of hours of sitting. “We’ll do a deal. I can do that. One speaker a side, and Bob’s your uncle.”

Frydenberg said Reserve Bank Governor Philip Lowe had highlighted the positive impact the tax cuts would have on household incomes.

“Let’s too not forget that $7.5 billion will flow to households in the coming financial year, as a result of these tax cuts,” Frydenberg said.

Tax cuts as good as rate cuts

“This benefit to households and the economy is equivalent to two 25 basis point interest rate cuts and is one reason why growth and household consumption is projected to pick up,” he said.

“The tax reforms we are putting to parliament are not just providing immediate relief, but leading to long term structural change. This will tackle bracket creep and reward aspiration.

“Earning more is nothing to be ashamed of and should be encouraged not punished. Rewarding aspiration is in the Coalition’s DNA and will be a fundamental driver of our policies in government.”

In his assessment of the economic outlook, Frydenberg had two messages.

He said in his discussions with some of Australia’s biggest employers, “I’ve been buoyed by their confidence and their desire to work with the government, to support continued economic growth and job creation”.

Headwinds worsening

But the economy “faces significant headwinds. Trade tensions between the United States and China have increased, with the potential to negatively impact global growth.

“Were there to be another round of US tariff increases, the potential for which has been flagged publicly, the proportion of global trade covered by recent trade actions would double from 2% to 4%.”

Also, flood, drought and fires had taken a toll and the housing market slowdown was hitting dwelling investment and having an impact on consumption.

The challenges made the government’s agenda for growth, including tax relief, so important and time critical.

Asked whether the “headwinds” faced by the Australian economy were stronger than at budget time, when he also spoke of headwinds, Frydenberg said: “I think the tensions between China and the US have increased”.

Read more: Their biggest challenge? Avoiding a recession

Frydenberg spoke with the US Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin this week and the two will meet in Japan at the G20 finance ministers meeting in a few weeks. Frydenberg stressed in the conversation the importance of free trade to Australia and its wish to see disputes resolved as amicably as possible.

Asked whether, if the economy deteriorated further, the government would be willing to live with a smaller surplus next financial year than the $7.1 billion projected in the budget, Frydenberg said, “that’s the amount that we’re committed to”.

He would not be drawn on the signal this week from Lowe that an interest rate cut was coming.

The Treasurer said the current unemployment rate of 5.2% reflected “strong labour market performance”.

While there are no plans for an overhaul of federal-state relations by the re-elected government, Frydenberg said he would work closely with the states on infrastructure and managing population.

Read more: Cutting interest rates is just the start. It’s about to become much, much easier to borrow

He said he would respond fully to the Productivity Commission report on superannuation, although he had not set a date for this.

“The issues that were raised through the Productivity Commission report which we need to have a good look at are about the unintended multiple accounts and the under-performing funds,” he said.

“The royal commission [on banking] recommended having a single default [account], which we accepted and Labor accepted, so we’ll go ahead and do that”.

Read more: Grattan on Friday: Shocked Labor moves on – but to what policy destination?

– ref. Frydenberg declares tax package must be passed ‘in its entirety’ – http://theconversation.com/frydenberg-declares-tax-package-must-be-passed-in-its-entirety-117768

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter "PJ" Holtum, Postdoctoral research fellow, The University of Queensland

Being an Uber driver doesn’t seem like a great job. Conditions aren’t great and the rate of pay, already typically less than the minimum wage, is declining.

So why do Uber drivers keep driving?

Read more: Uber drivers strike: Organizing labour in the gig economy

When we asked them, they told us the job was better than any others they had.

That’s something that should concern us all.

Across the world the proportion of people in “insecure” jobs is creeping upwards. Less than half of all Australian workers now have permanent full-time jobs.

As the “gig-economy” grows, casuals and contractors without protections such as paid leave and job security may become the new normal. So too may be the experiences of those who end up driving for Uber.

The best of a bad situation

Our team interviewed 24 Uber drivers in Brisbane. Most had worked in hospitality or service sectors. These drivers were earning A$10 to A$17.50 an hour. Almost all reported some form of economic insecurity working for Uber.

Yet most said they were satisfied working as a “driver-partner” because their other options were awful. Many turned to Uber because of chronic underemployment, with their current job not giving them enough hours.

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, 8.1% of Australian workers are underemployed, up from 2.5% in the 1970s. The graph below shows Australians want more work but aren’t finding it.

Surprisingly this was an experience related to us by drivers who had been working in areas such as advertising, business management and finance. They told us about “commission only” jobs, and having to “win” projects from potential employers, which meant they always felt insecure and didn’t have reliable income.

Uber was essential to them in making up the difference. In fact, for many Uber became their primary income.

Others told us about even worse working conditions at their old jobs. Former hospitality workers struggled with too few hours, unpaid work outside of shifts and terrible managers.

While they earned less per hour driving than working at a restaurant, they were free to work as long as they wanted. That flexibility meant they could do things such as pick up their children from school without having to take time off.

So in many ways Uber has been a step up for these workers.

Driving into uncertainty

While Uber drivers have greater flexibility and earn extra income, should workers have to choose between bad and worse?

This points to a bigger problem than just ride-sourcing: precarious, insecure and non-standard work with uncertain job length, few benefits and unpredictable pay is becoming an issue for more and more Australians.

The Australian Council of Trade Unions regards Australia as a “global pacesetter in creating precarious jobs”. It says about 4 million people now work on short-term contracts, for labour hire companies and as so-called independent contractors, as is the case with Uber drivers.

The proportion of Australian workers in some type of non-standard employment is the third-highest in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (behind the Netherlands and Switzerland), according to a 2015 report.

Non-standard work includes any job that is not full-time and permanent. It is less likely to have the same rights and entitlements, such as sick leave and paid holidays.

This type of employment was historically common in industries such as hospitality and retail. But our interviews with skilled workers turning to Uber presents evidence that non-standard work is spreading to other industries.

Read more: Sugar daddy capitalism: even the world’s oldest profession is being uberised

Closing legal loopholes

Businesses such as Uber use legal loopholes to avoid responsibilities as employers. As more companies try to “uberise” their workforce, the future of work becomes more precarious.

Worker organisations are important for protecting individual workers. But federal and state governments must do more to close the legal loopholes and protect all workers.

Read more: People power is finally making the gig economy fairer

The most important change is ensuring workplace laws cover non-standard workers. The law should ensure contractors such as Uber drivers are protected from unfair dismissal, minimum wage violations and safety violations.

Non-standard forms of employment can be useful for entrepreneurs, primary carers and students. But without basic guarantees of income and regular work, contractors are at the mercy of whoever pays their bill.

If almost half of Australians are precariously employed, we need a change.

– ref. Uber drivers’ experience highlights the dead-end job prospects facing more Australian workers – http://theconversation.com/uber-drivers-experience-highlights-the-dead-end-job-prospects-facing-more-australian-workers-116973

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonti Horner, Professor (Astrophysics), University of Southern Queensland

Over the past few days a pair of spectacular fireballs have graced Australia’s skies.

The first, in the early hours of Monday, May 20, flashed across the Northern Territory, and was seen from both Tennant Creek and Alice Springs, more than 500km apart.

The second came two days later, streaking over South Australia and Victoria.

Such fireballs are not rare events, and serve as yet another reminder that Earth sits in a celestial shooting gallery. In addition to their spectacle, they hold the key to understanding the Solar system’s formation and history.

Crash, bang, boom!

On any clear night, if you gaze skyward long enough, you will see meteors. These flashes of light are the result of objects impacting on our planet’s atmosphere.

Read more: Look up! Your guide to some of the best meteor showers for 2019

Specks of debris vaporise harmlessly in the atmosphere, 80-100km above our heads, all the time – about 100 tons of the stuff per day.

The larger the object, the more spectacular the flash. Where your typical meteor is caused by an object the size of a grain of dust (or, for a particularly bright one, a grain of rice), fireballs like those seen this week are caused by much larger bodies – the size of a grapefruit, a melon or even a car.

Such impacts are rarer than their tiny siblings because there are many more small objects in the Solar system than larger bodies.

Moving to still larger objects, you get truly spectacular but rare events like the incredible Chelyabinsk fireball in February 2013.

That was probably the largest impact on Earth for 100 years, and caused plenty of damage and injuries. It was the result of the explosion of an object 10,000 tonnes in mass, around 20 metres in diameter.

On longer timescales, the largest impacts are truly enormous. Some 66 million years ago, a comet or asteroid around 10km in diameter ploughed into what is now the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico. The result? A crater some 200km across, and a mass extinction that included the dinosaurs.

Even that is not the largest impact Earth has experienced. Back in our planet’s youth, it was victim to a truly cataclysmic event, when it collided with an object the size of Mars.

When the dust and debris cleared, our once solitary planet was accompanied by the Moon.

Impacts that could threaten life on Earth are, thankfully, very rare. While scientists are actively searching to make sure no extinction-level impacts are coming in the near future, it really isn’t something we should lose too much sleep about.

Smaller impacts, like those seen earlier this week, come far more frequently – indeed, footage of another fireball was reported earlier this month over Illinois in the United States.

In other words, it is not that unusual to have two bright fireballs in the space of a couple of days over a country as vast as Australia.

Pristine relics of planet formation

These bright fireballs can be an incredible boon to our understanding of the formation and evolution of the Solar system. When an object is large enough, it is possible for fragments (or the whole thing) to penetrate the atmosphere intact, delivering a new meteorite to our planet’s surface.

Meteorites are incredibly valuable to scientists. They are celestial time capsules – relatively pristine fragments of asteroids and comets that formed when the Solar system was young.

Most meteorites we find have lain on Earth for long periods of time before their discovery. These are termed “finds” and while still valuable, are often degraded and weathered, chemically altered by our planet’s wet, warm environment.

By contrast, “falls” (meteorites whose fall has been observed and that are recovered within hours or days of the event) are far more precious. When we study their composition, we can be confident we are studying something ancient and pristine, rather than worrying that we’re seeing the effect of Earth’s influence.

Tracking the fireballs

For this reason, the Australian Desert Fireball Network has set up an enormous network of cameras across our vast continent. These cameras are designed to scour the skies, all night, every night, watching for fireballs like those seen earlier this week.

If we can observe such a fireball from multiple directions, we can triangulate its path, calculate its motion through the atmosphere, and work out whether it is likely to have dropped a meteorite. Using that data, we can even work out where to look.

In addition to these cameras, the project can make use of any data provided by people who saw the event. For that reason, the Fireballs team developed a free app, Fireballs in the Sky.

Read more: How we solved the mystery of Libyan desert glass

It contains great information about fireballs and meteor showers, and has links to experiments tied into the national curriculum. More importantly, it also allows its users to submit their own fireball reports.

As for this week’s fireball over southern Australia, NASA says it was probably caused by an object the size of a small car. As for finding any remains, they are now likely lost in the waters of the Great Australian Bight.

– ref. What caused the fireballs that lit up the sky over Australia? – http://theconversation.com/what-caused-the-fireballs-that-lit-up-the-sky-over-australia-117672

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

University of Canberra Deputy Vice-Chancellor Geoff Crisp speaks with Michelle Grattan about the week in politics. They discuss the Coalition’s shock victory and the contradicting polls and predictions; Bill Shorten standing down as leader of the Labor party and his likely successor Anthony Albanese; and Scott Morrison’s trouble over delivering his policy of immediate tax cuts.

– ref. VIDEO: Michelle Grattan on Morrison’s miracle election win – and Labor’s leadership search – http://theconversation.com/video-michelle-grattan-on-morrisons-miracle-election-win-and-labors-leadership-search-117746

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tim Collins, PhD candidate , University of New England

In 2002, I went on a bushwalk with plant taxonomist David Albrecht, and had a big surprise. He pointed to a plant I thought I knew, and said: “that’s probably a new species.”

A new species? How could it be that this plant had not already been scientifically described and named?

I was in for another surprise when I learnt there are estimated to be thousands of undescribed plant species in Australia. But just because one botanist says a plant is a new species, it doesn’t mean that everyone else automatically agrees.

As a researcher, I had the opportunity to study one of Australia’s most iconic plant groups – the eucalypts.

Herbarium records of an endagered eucalyptus species, the Northern Blue Box (Eucalyptus magnificata), showed populations from the Northern Tablelands in New South Wales scattered up to the Granite Belt in southern Queensland.

But on closer inspection, I discovered there were different ecosystems between populations. E. magnificata, for instance, is found on rims of gorges in Oxley Wild Rivers National Park, whereas E. baueriana is typically found on riverbanks and flood plains.

The question I wanted answered was: are all these populations really E. magnificata or have some been misidentified and represent other common species? Or, alternatively, are they new, undescribed rarer species?

So when my supervisors, Professor Jeremy Bruhl and Dr Rose Andrew, and I visited the mystery trees near Dalveen in southern Queensland, we knew immediately they were something exciting. They just looked different to everything else we’d seen.

Eucalyptus that smells sweet and fruity

To find out, I’d been sampling eucalyptus (collecting, pressing and drying specimens) and had spent the past two days with my supervisors. With our heads craned back, we stared through binoculars to search the tree canopy at dozens of sites on the Northern Tablelands looking for the buds and fruits that enable eucalypt identification.

Not only did these trees at Dalveen look unlike anything else we’d seen on the trip, they also had a different smell. When we crushed a leaf, the aroma was sweet, mild and fruity, quite unlike the familiar eucalyptus oil.

Back at the university, I could compare the different collections. I examined and recorded differences in the size and shapes of the leaves, buds and fruits. I grew seedlings of my field collections and saw that seedling leaves were also consistently different.

And I extracted the mixture of aromatic chemicals in the leaf oils collected during fieldwork. Then, I used a chemistry laboratory technique, called Gas Chromatography Mass Spectrometry, to compare their concentrations with closely related species, such as E. baueriana and E. polyanthemos.

The results clearly explained why the leaves had a unique scent. That sweet and fruity aroma was due to larger molecules, called sesquiterpenes, which dominated the leaf-oil. There were only traces of the familiar-smelling cineole molecule common to most eucalypts.

A new species, or just an uninhibited sex romp?

Sequencing the DNA of the tree added another piece to the puzzle.

We had collected samples from all of the closely related common species. We had strong evidence from the shape of the leaves, fruits and flower buds suggesting the Dalveen trees were different. But the possibility remained that they were just hybrids.

Eucalyptus trees can be wickedly promiscuous and hybrid trees with similar characteristics are common. In some parts of eastern Australia, for instance, eucalypts naturally form hybrid swarms, the botanical equivalent of a wildly uninhibited sex romp!

But the DNA told us the trees from Dalveen were genetically distinct, and with no suggestion of shared ancestry.

Now, with three very different data sets all supporting the same conclusion, it became imperative we publish our findings and describe the new species, which we named Eucalyptus dalveenica, or the Dalveen Blue Box.

New species have to be named using a universal and internationally accepted naming system. Names and descriptions must be published, and a pressed and dried specimen must be nominated to be the representative that other collections can be compared to.

Most importantly, convincing evidence must be presented that persuades the botanical community the newly named species should be accepted.

But naming a new species is only the first step in knowing what it is. Importantly, naming tells us what it isn’t. The trees at Dalveen are not Eucalyptus magnificata, nor do they belong to another more common species, E. baueriana or E. conica.

Eucalyptus dalveenica is a rare and endangered part of Australia’s natural heritage. Taxonomic description of new species (classifying, describing and naming) provides the framework for ongoing accurate identification, species conservation and further study.

We are fortunate to live in a beautiful part of the world, with diverse and unique wildlife. Describing biodiversity and communicating new discoveries develops connections between people and their local environment, leading to a broader understanding of our home.

– ref. How I discovered the Dalveen Blue Box, a rare eucalypt species with a sweet, fruity smell – http://theconversation.com/how-i-discovered-the-dalveen-blue-box-a-rare-eucalypt-species-with-a-sweet-fruity-smell-115561

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rachel Morgain, Knowledge Broker, Fenner School of Environment and Society, Australian National University

The environment was a key concern in the recent federal election. It was also a polarising one, with concerns raised about regional industries and livelihoods. But jobs and environment need not be locked in battle: there are pathways that secure a better future for both our environment and future generations.

It’s just over two weeks since the global announcement that extinction looms for about a million species. The warning may have been partially lost in the noise of Australia’s election campaign, but it should resonate long after the political dust settles. This scale of loss will have catastrophic consequences not only for nature, but for us too.

Read more: ‘Revolutionary change’ needed to stop unprecedented global extinction crisis

The good news is many of the key steps to addressing Australia’s ecological challenges are also wins for jobs, industry and social well-being. Others involve more difficult choices, but could be helped with careful strategic planning and the active involvement of all those with a stake. All require factoring in costs and benefits not only to our generation, but also to generations of the future.

Here are seven suggestions to get us started.

1. Support wildlife-friendly agriculture

More than 60% of Australia is managed for agricultural production. Agriculture is a major driver of species loss both at home and abroad. Yet we know it is possible to manage our agricultural landscapes for wildlife and productivity. Actions like restoring native vegetation, establishing shelterbelts, and creating wildlife-friendly farm dams can help maintain or even boost farms’ productivity and resilience, including in times of drought.

Many farmers are already doing this but their efforts are undermined by policy instability. Political leadership and incentives such as stewardship payments and direct carbon investments are needed to support farmers as they increasingly support the nature from which we all benefit.

2. Nature-based solutions for our cities

About 90% of Australians live in cities, and the rapid expansion of our urban areas brings serious livability challenges. Urban nature can be a key part of the solution, providing a remarkable range of health and well-being benefits.

Urban greenery keeps cities cooler, improves air quality, and even boosts economic prosperity.

Cities can be hotspots for threatened species, and are justifiable locations for investing in nature for its own sake. There is substantial opportunity to create policy and regulation that can allow investment and innovation in nature-based solutions in cities.

3. Help Indigenous Australians care for natural heritage

Indigenous people prospered for millennia in Australia by forging deep connections with land, water and sky. But these connections are ever harder to maintain in the face of two centuries of colonialism and disruption to traditional lore and custom.

Traditional ownership is now recognised for nearly half of Australia’s protected area estate. Increasing investment in Indigenous ranger programs from the current 6% of the conservation estate budget and incorporating traditional knowledge could deliver many social, environmental and economic benefits.

Long-term stability with these programs provides for healthy communities, maintains connection to country, and delivers enormous environmental benefits.

4. Invest in species recovery

Many valiant efforts to help threatened species are undertaken by dedicated groups with often limited resources. They have shown that success is possible. But to prevent extinctions we need much greater investment in strategic and committed management of species, and of pervasive threats like changed fire regimes and changed water flows. Australia’s investment in biodiversity conservation is low compared with other countries, particularly in light of our high rates of species loss.

Investing in threatened species and conservation works. Involving the community in recovery actions can also create employment, skills and many other benefits, especially to rural and Indigenous communities.

5. Build strategically important safe havens and strengthen biosecurity

Much of Australia’s wildlife is threatened by introduced species – predators, herbivores, weeds and disease. Chytrid fungus, introduced through the pet trade, has devastated frog populations. New pathogens like myrtle rust, which affects many Australian plants, look set to repeat this scale of loss. Invasive predators such as cats and foxes are the single biggest threat to most of Australia’s threatened mammals, some of which survive only on islands and inside fenced areas.

Strong biosecurity, of the kind that has long helped Australian agriculture, is vital to prevent introductions of new invasive species. New havens are needed in strategic locations, underpinned by national coordination and partnerships, to help protect species like the central rock rat that are still not safe from predators.

6. Support integrated environmental assessments

Regional development, mining and urban expansion are part of our economy. They can also harm species and ecosystems.

Improving resourcing for decisions about environmental approvals can ensure they are underpinned by sound science. Independent oversight and review could help ensure environmental approvals are credible, transparent, and consistent with Australia’s conservation commitments. Strengthening and expanding protections for critical habitat could ensure our most vulnerable wildlife is protected.

Development can be designed to avoid wholesale devastation or “death by 1,000 cuts”. But ensuring that crucial species habitats are protected will require careful planning based on strong environmental and social science. Applying existing provisions for integrated environmental assessments, fully resourcing these processes, and ensuring all affected people – including local and Indigenous communities – are involved from the start, can help plan a future that works for industries, communities and natural and cultural heritage.

7. Minimise and adapt to climate change, including by investing in biodiversity

Climate change threatens our communities, economy, health, and wildlife – it is changing our country as we know it. It has already contributed to the extinction of species such as the Bramble Cay Melomys. Impacts will certainly worsen, but by how much depends on whether we take strong action.

Many communities, businesses and governments are aiming to tackle climate change. Strategies such as greening cities to reduce heat islands can help native species too. Investing in biodiversity-rich carbon storage (such as old growth forests) can boost regional economies. Options include restoring native ecosystems, boosting soil carbon, managing fire, and transitioning native forests from timber harvesting to being managed for carbon, while sourcing wood products from plantations.

Read more: Government needs to front up billions, not millions, to save Australia’s threatened species

Our economy, communities, cultures, health and livelihoods depend on environmental infrastructure – clean water, clean air, good soils, native vegetation and animals. As with Indigenous sense of place and identities they are entangled with the creatures that share our unique and diverse continent. We steal from future generations every time a species is lost.

For our sake and that of our descendants, we cannot afford to disregard this essential connection. Investing in natural infrastructure, just as we invest in our built infrastructure, is the sort of transformational change needed to ensure our communities and economy continue to flourish.

– ref. As the dust of the election settles, Australia’s wildlife still needs a pathway for recovery – http://theconversation.com/as-the-dust-of-the-election-settles-australias-wildlife-still-needs-a-pathway-for-recovery-117406

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Roy Hay, Honorary Fellow, Deakin University

Over the next two weekends, the Australian Football League celebrates the contribution of Indigenous peoples to the history of the game.

At the same time, a new documentary will show how one of the modern Indigenous superstars of the sport, Adam Goodes, was driven from it by prejudice and repeated denigration.

Clearly, Indigenous players have made huge inroads in professional Australian football leagues. In fact, to mark this year’s Indigenous round, the AFL Players Association recently updated its map celebrating the 84 male Indigenous players and 13 female players in the league and showing where they come from.

But in order to understand how we got to this point, it’s important to know the full history of Indigenous involvement in the sport, including the discrimination faced by players like Goodes, and all those who came before him.

The early days on missions and stations

In my latest book, [Aboriginal People and Australian Football in the Nineteenth Century,](https://www.cambridgescholars.com/aboriginal-people-and-australian-football-in-the-nineteenth-century](https://www.cambridgescholars.com/aboriginal-people-and-australian-football-in-the-nineteenth-century) I examine the long history of Aboriginal involvement in Australian football since the game was codified in the middle of the 19th century. It’s a story of resilience in the face of sometimes overwhelming obstacles to their participation.

By the 1860s, the Indigenous population of Victoria had been drastically reduced to just a few thousand people, due largely to massacres, disease, and the other impacts of European settlement. Most of these people were confined to missions or stations in remote parts of the colony under the control of “protectors.”

Read more: The Aboriginal football ethic: where the rules get flexible

In the second half of the century, the Indigenous inhabitants of these institutions saw the white settlers playing football and sought to take part. They brought skills developed in hunting and their own games like marngrook and joined the white players in football games, first as individuals and then by forming their own teams.

Eventually, the Indigenous teams started taking part in and then winning local leagues. It was a triumph of the human spirit in the face of appalling adversity.

This story can only be told because the deeds of these early generations of Indigenous players were reported in the sports pages of newspapers digitised by the National Library of Australia. Indigenous deeds on the field were being recounted positively, a contrast to the typical media reports of the day focused on “outrages” committed by – or less often, against – our original inhabitants.

Dominating and winning league titles

The numbers of Indigenous players remained small throughout the 19th century and getting leave to compete from the missions and stations was often difficult or inconsistent. Indigenous Australians may have found it slightly easier to break into individual sports like pedestrianism or boxing than team games like cricket and football at the time.

But many Indigenous teams found success. At Coranderrk in the Upper Yarra Valley near Melbourne, Indigenous people from the station began playing regularly in the 1890s, forming a team to compete in local competitions involving three non-Aboriginal teams, Healesville, Lilydale and Yarra Glen.

Read more: What if Indigenous Australians didn’t play footy?

Dick Rowan was invited to play with the South Melbourne club in 1892, but when he sought permission to play again the following season, he was refused by the Board for the Protection of Aborigines of Victoria. Their reason: if he was allowed to play, others would wish to follow. The board wanted to keep Indigenous people on the periphery.

In 1911, the Coranderrk team won the local league against white teams for the first time, but could not field a team the following year after several of their players were recruited by other clubs.

Other dominant Indigenous teams of the era included Framlingham, Lake Condah, Lake Tyers and above all Cummeragunja. Cummeragunja had suffered heavy defeats in the late 1880s, but the team eventually became so strong that it won the Western and Moira League five out of six years, and was promptly handicapped. (They were not allowed to field players over the age of 25.) In 1900, they ran rings around a strong Bendigo team and gave a Ballarat team a close game, as well.

Lake Tyers in Gippsland followed a similar pattern. After the first world war, the team became the receptacle for Indigenous players moved from other stations and missions around the state and was extremely successful, winning the East Gippsland League in 1934, 1938 and 1939.

Critics will point out that this was only “bush football”, but that was all that was on offer to Indigenous teams. They could not get regular matches against professional Melbourne teams, and Indigenous players were denied opportunities to play in senior leagues owing to racial bias.

There were a few exceptions, including Doug Nicholls from Cummeragunja, who was later knighted and became governor of South Australia. He rhapsodised about playing the game:

Once on the football field, I forget everything else. I’m playing football. I never take my eyes off that ball. My aim is not only to beat my opponent, but also to serve my side. I realise that in football as in other things, it’s team-work that tells.

Read more: Indigenous players didn’t invent Australian rules but did make it their own

My aim in writing this book was to show how the history of the game could be rewritten to better reflect Indigenous contributions and experiences by using newspapers and other materials of the day as a basis, even the much maligned “colonial record”. This may assist Indigenous peoples to tell the story from their perspective about what happened to their ancestors and their more recent history.

As the Wiradjuri historian Lawrence Bamblett argues, this could have a positive impact on the sport and help counter the racism and discrimination that Indigenous peoples still face both on and off the field.

…broadening the discourse will bring representations of Aborigines in the writing about sport more closely into line with the richer lived experiences of individuals, and this in itself combats racism.

My hope is that some young Indigenous people with an interest in football will take up this story and tell it from their unique perspective.

– ref. The long and complicated history of Aboriginal involvement in football – http://theconversation.com/the-long-and-complicated-history-of-aboriginal-involvement-in-football-117669

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Hemer, Senior Research Scientist, Oceans and Atmosphere, CSIRO

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

Why are there waves? – Evie, age 5.

Thanks for a great question, Evie.

When you look at the waves breaking at the beach, those waves might be at the end of a long journey. The waves might have been created thousands of kilometres away, or they could have been created near you.

There are lots of types of waves in the ocean, but the waves you usually see at a beach are created by the wind. When the wind blows over a smooth ocean, it creates little waves or ripples on the surface. If the wind continues to blow, the waves grow bigger.

Read more: Curious Kids: How does the Moon, being so far away, affect the tides on Earth?

Faster, bigger, longer

The faster the wind blows (like in a strong storm out at sea), the bigger the waves will grow.

The further the wind blows (or the bigger the area of the storm), the bigger the waves will grow.

And the longer the wind blows (like in a storm that lasts a long time), the bigger the waves will grow.

If the wind stops, or changes direction, the waves will stop growing, but they won’t stop travelling.

They will keep travelling away from where they were created in a straight line, sometimes for days, until they run into something like a beach where they are stopped because they break. That’s why there are still waves at the beach, even when it is not windy.

Waves trip over themselves

Imagine you were running really quickly. But then suddenly, you ran into thick gloopy mud. Your feet would slow down, but the top half of your body would still be going fast. You’d trip over.

Waves do the same thing and that is when they break.

As waves approach the shore, the water is shallower, and the bottom of the wave starts to feel the sand and rocks and seaweed. The bottom of the wave slows down, and soon, the top of the wave is going faster than the bottom part of the wave, so the top spills forward and topples over in a big splash.

Waves can travel a long way

Scientists who study the ocean (called oceanographers) have measured waves created in the Southern Ocean, and seen them travel all the way across the Pacific Ocean and break on the beaches of North America more than a week later.

Try counting the seconds between waves breaking on the beach. If the time between waves is 10 seconds or more, the waves have come from a long way away. If the waves were created nearby, the time between waves will be short, perhaps five seconds or fewer.

Sometimes when we look at the sea we might see different waves (some big, some small) all happening at the same time. These waves were created at different places, perhaps by different storms, but ended up in the same spot at the same time.

Freak waves

During big storms, waves can get very big. If big waves from two different storms meet together, that can create enormous waves that we call “freak waves”. The largest waves measured are around 25 metres high (that’s five giraffes standing on top of each other!) and they can tip over ships.

Read more: Curious Kids: How do plastic bags harm our environment and sea life?

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

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

– ref. Curious Kids: why are there waves? – http://theconversation.com/curious-kids-why-are-there-waves-112015

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Paul Lacaze, Head, Public Health Genomics Program, Monash University

DNA testing to predict disease risk has the potential to prevent disease and save lives. Yet few Australians can currently access predictive DNA testing via the health-care system.

That may soon change.

As technology improves, the cost of DNA testing declines, and the Australian government invests in genomics, universal DNA screening is becoming feasible.

DNA screening would involve large numbers of otherwise healthy people having DNA testing, by providing a simple blood or saliva sample, to identify risk of certain conditions. This includes types of cancer or heart disease that run in families – and can be prevented.

Being identified at increased risk doesn’t mean you’ll get the disease. But identifying risk early and before symptoms appear provides the opportunity for prevention. Prevention can be achieved through regular check ups, medications or even risk-reducing surgeries.

The new opportunities for prevention genomics offers could transform public health.

Read more: Why we should test everyone’s genes to predict disease

But a number of challenges exist. How would we provide DNA testing to millions of people and deliver the required health services to all those at high risk?

What about genetic discrimination? Could testing cause more harm than good, and lead to over-diagnosis? How would the health-care system fund this level of testing, and would it be cost-effective? Do people even want testing?

The concept of population DNA screening is daunting. But the benefits could be huge.

Australia has the chance to do it properly. Here are five things to know.

1. DNA screening is not a crystal ball, but it identifies risk

DNA testing can’t tell us everything. It estimates risk well for certain types of diseases, mostly those caused by single gene changes. These are distinct from other common diseases where genetic risk accumulates from hundreds of genes and is harder to predict.

Potential candidates for screening include cancers such as breast and ovarian cancer caused by the BRCA genes, colorectal and other cancers caused by Lynch syndrome, inherited high cholesterol and other types of genetic heart disease.

Although each of these conditions alone are relatively rare, together they put an estimated one in 38 adults at high risk.

Read more: Should doctors share gene tests after a death in the family?

Genetic risk for these conditions is often identified too late, after cancer is diagnosed or someone dies from a cardiac arrest. Limited health budgets mean testing is usually offered only to people diagnosed with genetic diseases and their families, not healthy people.

This means thousands of Australians are missing out on DNA testing that could be life-saving, and don’t know they’re at risk of a condition they might be able to prevent.

2. DNA screening could prevent different types of genetic conditions

There are measures people can take to reduce the risk for many genetic conditions. Once risk is identified through testing, people can enter risk surveillance programs, which are highly effective, especially for some types of cancer and high cholesterol. These can detect symptoms at an early (and more treatable) stage.

Some preventive medications can also reduce risk of breast cancer (tamoxifen), bowel cancer (aspirin), high cholesterol (statins) and genetic heart disease (beta blockers).

In some cases, preventive surgeries are available, such as mastectomy to significantly reduce breast cancer risk.

Read more: Angelina Jolie has had a double mastectomy, so what is BRCA1?

3. DNA screening would be cost-effective

We modelled the health and economic benefits of offering population DNA screening in Australia, focusing on young adults aged 18-25 years (about 2.6 million Australians).

Young adults are most likely to benefit from screening, being old enough to provide informed consent, but below the average age of onset for preventable adult genetic conditions, and below the average age of having their first child.

We modelled screening for four well-understood cancer genes. We calculated screening for these genes alone would prevent 2,411 cancers and save 1,270 lives in Australia over the populaiton’s lifespan, compared with current rates of DNA testing.

At an estimated A$400 per test, this would cost the Australian government around A$600 million (four to five times more than current expenditure on genetic testing for these conditions).

But we estimated screening would save around A$300 million in prevented cancer treatment costs, making DNA screening highly cost-effective in this population.

At A$200 per test (which could be realistic in the near future), savings in treatment costs could outweigh screening costs, saving the health-care system money and saving lives.

Read more: Explainer: what is pre-pregnancy carrier screening and should potential parents consider it?

We also modelled the impact of providing screening results for family planning. This would identify “carrier” parents for rare genetic diseases that occur when children inherit two defective copies, one from each unaffected parent (such as cystic fibrosis).

Options like prenatal testing to identify affected pregnancies, or using IVF to ensure only unaffected embryos are implanted, are available to high-risk couples. Adding reproductive information to the model further improved the cost-effectiveness.

4. DNA screening raises ethical and regulatory concerns

Despite its potential to save lives and money, DNA screening raises ethical questions. Some people may not want testing due to concerns including DNA privacy, insurance discrimination or the “right not to know”. The shared nature of DNA also means testing implicates family members, and issues such as non-paternity may arise.

Those identified as high-risk by DNA screening may be stigmatised. Genetic discrimination already occurs in Australian life insurance, and evidence shows many people at high risk of certain conditions refuse testing for this reason.

Reproductive screening also introduces difficult decisions related to using IVF and termination of pregnancy. Ethical positions vary across religious and cultural groups, and must be respected.

Read more: Sharing isn’t always caring: genetic privacy must come first

Making screening routine may also risk pressuring some people towards irreversible medical interventions, such as surgery or termination of pregnancy.

As a society, we must carefully consider these ethical issues. A recently-launched nationwide study will offer reproductive carrier-screening to 10,000 Australian couples to see if they are carriers of inheritable conditions. This will be crucial for building public awareness and examining these ethical concerns.

5. DNA screening will be feasible in the near future

As the cost of DNA testing falls, publicly-funded population DNA screening is becoming realistic. Genetic testing for risk of breast and ovarian cancer is already reimbursed on the Medicare Benefits Schedule in Australia for individuals at high risk, and more tests will likley be added in coming years.

If widespread testing is not provided by the health-care system, consumers will likely turn to cheap internet-based alternatives, which don’t necessarily follow Australian standards for scientific validity or quality.

Read more: Five things to consider before ordering an online DNA test

Population DNA testing through the health-care system would ensure higher standards of quality control. It would also facilitate equity-of-access to testing that is required to maximise population health benefits.

The federal government has already published guidance on population screening. But before Australia can launch a universal DNA screening program, we need more public education, regulatory protection, and increased funding to expand genetic health services.

– ref. Population DNA testing for disease risk is coming. Here are five things to know – http://theconversation.com/population-dna-testing-for-disease-risk-is-coming-here-are-five-things-to-know-112522

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Wright, Senior Lecturer in Environmental Science, Western Sydney University

This week Melbourne’s water storage dropped below 50%, a sign of the prolonged and deepening drought gripping eastern Australia. Sydney is only marginally better off, at 53.8% of full storage.

Along with many regional towns across southeastern Australia, the two largest capital city water supplies are steadily shrinking.

But while Melbourne’s water levels are lower, if we look at the last 12 months we see another story: Sydney has plummeted from 72.3% to 53.8%, while Melbourne has only dropped from 58.9%.

Melbourne’s average residential water consumption is 161 litres per person per day. In Sydney, for 2018, it was 210 litres per person. That is nearly 50 litres more per person – a difference of about 30%!

So why do Sydney residents use so much more water than people in Melbourne?

Sydney is thirsty

Sydney is using far more water than experts predicted. In March 2017, Sydney released a Metropolitan Water Plan. Among the glossy pictures is a graph that indicates how thirsty Sydney is.

It predicted that by 2018, Sydney would be using around 550 gigalitres (GL) a year. But Sydney’s actual 2018 consumption was 600GL, far higher than the “high use” estimate.

In fact, back in 2017 experts thought Sydney would only need 600GL for normal use in 2040, when the population would be far higher.

Sydney’s actual water use is shown below. Crucially, the 2016 mark – where water use begins a sharp increase – is the same time water prices in Sydney fell by 13.5% (more on this in a moment).

It must be remembered that Sydney and Melbourne residents both consume less water than before the millennium drought. Sydney guzzled more than 600GL a year for seven of the years between 1991 and 2003.

Due to the influence of water restriction and the millennium drought, consumption fell to about 480GL. In Melbourne stores also fell steeply, even more sharply than in Sydney, from 500GL in 2000 to a low of 343GL in 2010.

Desalination

Both Sydney and Melbourne have large and expensive desalination plants, which supplement their water supplies.

Sydney Water will begin preliminary planning to double the size of its desalination plant when water stores fall to 50%. Based on recent months, this is likely to be reached in the next two months or so.

Sydney’s desalination plant is relatively small, as it currently is capable of supplying 15% of the daily water demand. In comparison, Perth’s two desalination plants can produce about 50% of its water demand.

Is water too cheap?

The lower water use per resident of Melbourne is a major element in the city’s lower water thirst. If you live in Sydney and use the average amount of water a day (210 litres per person per day) that will cost you just 48 cents per day. The price is A$2.28 per thousand litres.

Water is far more expensive in Melbourne, which has variable pricing for residential water. The more water you use, the higher the progressive cost per litre.

Each of Melbourne’s three water retailers charge more money for low and high water usage. For example, Yarra Valley Water charges A$2.64 (per 1,000 litres) for water use less than 440 litres a day. For more than 881 litres a day it charges A$4.62, which is 75% higher than the lowest water use charge. For intermediate amounts the charge is A$3.11. This sends an important price signal to residents – it pays to conserve water. In comparison, Sydney charges a flat rate for each litre of water, with no penalty for higher water users.

Sydney is not alone in charging a flat price for residential water use. So do Darwin and Hobart. Canberra has the highest charge for higher water users (A$4.88 per 1,000 litres).

Was dropping Sydney’s water prices in 2016 a mistake?

It is not a simple thing to change water prices in Sydney – the prices Sydney Water charges its customers are set by an independent pricing regulator (IPART).

Based on advice from Sydney Water, IPART dropped the price of residential water in 2016 by 13.5%. This was broadly welcomed as a reduction in the cost of living in Australia’s most expensive city.

This coincides with a sharp rise in the total consumption of water in Sydney in 2016, 2017 and 2018.

As drought continues to bite in southeastern Australia the water authorities have a number of plans to save water, especially water lost from leaking infrastructure.

Currently about 7.5% of Sydney’s water (129.5 megalitres per day) is lost from leakage from its 22,000km of pipes. Sydney Water has explained that hotter weather in 2018 made clay soils expand and crack underground water pipes, exacerbating this problem.

Prepare for water restrictions

Compulsory water restrictions are planned to begin in Sydney as soon as the available storage drops below 50%.

This follows major success in millennium drought, when Sydney had water restriction from 2003 to 2009.

The Victorian government has laws in place to impose fines and even jail for offenders that breach water restrictions during the most severe drought conditions.

With no end to the drought it sight, it may be time for Sydney to learn from Melbourne. Sydney could easily put a higher price on water, with higher users eventually paying more per litre.

– ref. Why Sydney residents use 30% more water per day than Melburnians – http://theconversation.com/why-sydney-residents-use-30-more-water-per-day-than-melburnians-117656

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brendon Hyndman, Senior Lecturer and Course Director (Postgraduate Education courses), Charles Sturt University

You may have heard of play. It’s that thing children do – the diverse range of unstructured, spontaneous activities and behaviours.

Children play in many ways, including by exploring movements, constructing with equipment, creating games, using imagination and chasing others around a playground.

The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child recognises play as every child’s basic right. But play is becoming extinct. Global studies, across generations, have confirmed outdoor children’s play has been declining, across all age groups, for decades.

Unstructured play improves learning and social and physical development. Providing a variety of play options, improved play access and fewer restrictions can encourage children to engage in physical activity with peers in line with their imaginations.

Read more: Why suburban parks offer an antidote to helicopter parenting

Play is becoming extinct

Australian children’s active or independent travel has been declining over the past two decades, consistent with other countries.

There are many reasons researchers are describing child’s play as “endangered” and “extinct”. These include more use of electronic devices and parents wanting to protect children from strangers, traffic, pollution and bullying.

Research also points to a low awareness of the importance of play, more pressure on children to do well in class and more restrictions on play. Hectic schedules, such as parents’ jobs and children’s extra-curricular activities, may also contribute.

Parents have reported their children are playing outdoors far less than they used to when they, themselves, were children. Parents are noticing fewer children walking and cycling to school or actively playing after school.

Modern parents are more likely to accompany children, by driving them to school, attending their excursions, supervising them on school grounds, or keeping them indoors altogether.

More than half of the world’s population lives in cities. Urban environments are prone to decreasing play opportunities with less open, natural spaces for outdoor play.

Why this matters

Children have fewer opportunities to engage with nature. Providing more contact with nature can enhance children’s creativity, boost their mood, lower stress, improve well-being, promote physical activity and improve attention spans.

Nature play is also becoming more important as a counterbalance to children’s technological saturation. It is important for children to connect with nature early, as they are then likely to learn to appreciate nature into adulthood.

Read more: Children are our future, and the planet’s. Here’s how you can teach them to take care of it

In primary school, children spend around 30 hours per week at the school and have more than 4,000 recess periods. If play opportunities are becoming limited around the home and community, schools are the best place for children to meet their play requirements.

How schools can help

Research shows introducing simple objects from around the home (such as milk crates, pipes and wooden planks) into school playgrounds may influence children to work cooperatively. They discover new ideas and solve problems by constructing, observing, designing and learning from each other.

Read more: Children need to play outdoors, but we’re not letting them

Providing more options for children to play outdoors ensures they are intellectually challenged and engaged to find new ways to use such spaces for discovery. If loose play equipment, such as balls, bats and blocks, isn’t available children can still use what nature provides, such as twigs, leaves, rocks, feathers, petals, mud and sand.

The diversity of outdoor objects and features offers children a variety of shapes, sizes and locations they can use to discover, explore and invent games or designs. It’s better for play objects not to be fixed as this helps with exploration, discovery and creativity.

Many Australian school playgrounds are fixed in the same spot. But new and replenishing play opportunities are important for children. For schools and parents to maximise children’s play, play environments should include:

• spaces for thinking, so school children can make discoveries, learn and be intellectually engaged
• spaces for doing, so school children can take moderate risks, undertake play challenges and extend themselves physically
• spaces for being, so school children can be themselves away from the confines of classroom walls or overly restrictive rules, regulations and routines
• spaces for feeling, so school children can explore and independently embrace their senses and play decisions with a diversity of colours and features.

The Australian Curriculum recognises the importance of play and outdoor learning. Ensuring children can access quality outdoor play can help align with national curriculum objectives.

– ref. Let them play! Kids need freedom from play restrictions to develop – http://theconversation.com/let-them-play-kids-need-freedom-from-play-restrictions-to-develop-117586