Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Marc Hudson, Researcher, University of Manchester, University of Manchester

Since the news broke of his passing, Bob Hawke has been feted as the “environmental prime minister”. From saving the Franklin River, to protecting Antarctica from mining, conservationists have praised his environmental legacy in the same way economists have lauded his financial reforms.

Hawke was in the Lodge during the crucial period when Australia first became aware of – and tried to grapple with – the issue of climate change. And the trajectory of his leadership, not to mention the manner and timing of his political demise, leaves behind a huge question of what might have been.

Read more: Vale Bob Hawke, a giant of Australian political and industrial history

Hawke had been in the public eye since becoming head of the ACTU (a far more consequential body back then) in the late 1960s.

Famously, he took the leadership of the Australian Labor Party from Bill Hayden on the morning that then Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser called the 1983 election. That election had a major environmental issue: the proposed damming of the Franklin River in Tasmania.

Labor promised to halt the project if elected, and it duly did so, winning the court case later that year. But elsewhere Labor remained reluctant to use its federal environmental powers in a wholesale way. Although there was a National Conservation Strategy, Hawke and his senior ministers remained focused on transforming Australia’s economy, bringing down tariff barriers, floating the dollar, and much else.

There were specific battles over the Wet Tropics, uranium mining, and other “green” issues. But something was coming down the track that would ultimately outstrip them all.

Climate conundrum

Barry Jones, Hawke’s science minister from 1983 to 1990, tried in vain to get ministers interested in climate change. Jones mournfully noted in 2008 that he had raised the alarm in 1984, but his cabinet colleagues did not listen:

The response from my political colleagues in Canberra was distinctly underwhelming. I think some of them were persuaded by (industry) lobbyists to say sooner or later a technological fix will come up.

Political journalist Niki Savva’s memoir, So Greek (p.136), gives a clue as to the possible reasons behind this:

Bob Hawke couldn’t stand Barry. A few journos, included myself, were talking to Hawke at the back of his VIP aircraft once about his ministers, when one of my colleagues said to him: “Take Barry Jones…” Hawke interrupted and said testily, “No, you take him.”

It would take a different, more politically cunning minister in Hawke’s next cabinet (1987-90) to bend his colleagues’ ears towards the climate question. The incoming environment minister, Graham Richardson, realised the electoral importance of green issues – whether the ozone hole, deforestation or sewage – in helping Labor differentiate itself from the Liberals. Meanwhile, Hawke had other advisors who were also fighting the green fight from within, and noisy large environment groups without.

After the Commission for the Future (a Barry Jones initiative) had launched the Greenhouse Project in 1987, Hawke began to give speeches about the importance of action against the emerging threat of global warming.

In June 1989, Richardson, having proposed a greenhouse emissions target only to see the idea nixed in cabinet by treasurer Paul Keating, noted:

The environment is galloping up the hit parade, and will be top of the pops pretty soon. It’s come from nowhere as an election issue to be Number Two to interest rates.

Hawke’s 1989 statement on the environment (jokingly called the World’s Greatest Environmental Statement) contained little detail on the idea of emissions reductions. Ironically enough, the Liberals went to the March 1990 election with a more ambitious emissions target than Labor.

After winning the 1990 election with Green preferences, the Hawke government established the “Ecologically Sustainable Development” policy process. It featured nine working groups in areas including agriculture, tourism, energy use, and so on, with an overarching “greenhouse” group added later.

However, by 1991, the climate issue was slipping down the charts once more, eclipsed by concerns such as the first Gulf War and the “recession we had to have”. What’s more, Hawke’s relationship with Keating had broken down after he reneged on his promise to stand aside after a third term, and the airwaves were now dominated by political intrigue.

Rising resistance

Meanwhile, the business community was growing more organised in its resistance to environmental regulation. After Hawke vetoed a uranium mine in Kakadu National Park in 1991, industry formed the Australian Industry Greenhouse Network (see Guy Pearse’s High and Dry for the full story) to make sure climate policy didn’t follow the same path.

Hawke stuck to his guns. In October 1991, at a Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Harare, Zimbabwe, he pledged to go to the following year’s Earth Summit in Rio and apply maximum pressure for global action.

Hawke’s days as prime minister, however, were numbered. In December 1991, after a lacklustre parliamentary response to John Hewson’s “Fightback!” policy launch, Keating’s forces moved in for the kill. Hawke’s time as leader had begun and ended with leadership coups – a tactic that has become an even more potent threat in recent years as the climate wars have heated up.

Read more: Carbon coups: from Hawke to Abbott, climate policy is never far away when leaders come a cropper

Keating didn’t go to Rio in 1992, making Australia the only OECD country that didn’t have its top political leader present at the landmark summit.

Australia produced an eye-wateringly weak National Greenhouse Response Strategy that was not worth the paper it was written on, and was within two years challenged by greens seeking a carbon levy.

There was an effort to get more meaningful domestic policy ahead of the first round of UN climate talks in 1995. But this was defeated by a beefed-up constellation of energy companies, academics and think-tankers, with newspapers and unions helping. Since then, Australian climate policy has been, to put it mildly, inadequate.

Could it have been different?

Hawke had a penchant for the grand gesture – from “no Australian child will be living in poverty” to “Australian servicemen not dying overseas” – and this naturally prompts us to ask “what if”?

What if he had been at Rio? What if Australia had invested properly in energy efficiency, solar and other renewables? Of course it’s entirely conceivable that the business community’s response would simply have been even more ferocious, and the environmental movement’s early-1990s malaise all the more pronounced. But it’s not impossible to imagine that Hawke’s forceful determination would have carried the day, as it did on so many others.

There’s been a lot of carbon dioxide pumped into the atmosphere since Hawke was prime minister, and plenty of hot air pumped into the climate policy debate. But although Hawke fell agonisingly short of finding out who would prevail in 2019, the next prime minister’s climate task is clearer than his, and far more difficult: preparing Australians for inevitable consequences of past policy failures.

– ref. Bob Hawke, the environmental PM, bequeathed a huge ‘what if’ on climate change – http://theconversation.com/bob-hawke-the-environmental-pm-bequeathed-a-huge-what-if-on-climate-change-117318

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rob J Hyndman, Professor of Statistics, Monash University

Australia has changed in many ways over the past two decades. Rising house prices, country-wide improvements in education, an ageing population, and a decline in religious affiliation, are just some of the ways it has changed. At the same time, political power has moved back and forth between the two major parties. How much can we attribute changes in political power to changes in who we are?

Quite a lot, as it turns out.

Finding the ‘average’ electorate

We analysed election results from 2001 to 2016 and mapped them against data from the census to see how socio-demographic characteristics influence voting patterns, and how this has changed over time.

A simple way to measure voting patterns is to consider the two-party preferred (2PP) vote, looking at only the Coalition and the Labor party.

More than 30 socio-demographic characteristics were considered, and an “average” electorate was created using the national electoral average for these characteristics. The influence of each characteristic is then measured by how much the two-party preferred vote differs from the average electorate due to that particular socio-demographic characteristic.

So, which factors strongly influence how we vote?

Read more: Compare the pair: key policy offerings from Labor and the Coalition in the 2019 federal election

Income, unemployment and education

Successive Labor leaders accuse the Coalition of only caring about the “top end of town”. The Labor party typically campaigns on more progressive policies, which often include tax policies that adversely affect higher income earners. Conversely, the Coalition tend to favour policies that reduce taxes.

So it is no surprise that wealthier electorates are more likely to support the Coalition, with incomes having a strong positive effect on the Coalition’s two-party-preferred vote. Unemployment however, is not as influential.

And since 2007, electorates with higher education levels are associated with supporting the Labor party, although this effect is significant only in 2016. Before 2007, education had a negligible effect.

Industry and type of work

Despite the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) traditionally supporting Labor, electorates with higher proportions of workers in “extractive” industries (mining, gas, water, agriculture, waste and electricity) and “transformative” industries (construction or manufacturing) are consistently linked with higher support for the Coalition, with the impact of this effect slightly increasing over the years.

This is not surprising. The Coalition is seen as the party with closer ties to traditional energy industries, which still see a role for fossil fuels in Australia’s energy mix. Labor, on the other hand, introduced the mining tax in 2012 (which was first floated by Kevin Rudd in 2010), and has a renewable energy target of 50% electricity generation by 2030 .

Similarly, electorates with proportionally more workers in managerial, administrative or sales roles are also more likely to support the Coalition.

Diversity

Larger migrant populations from the Middle East and South-Eastern Europe are associated with Labor support. Whereas the number of people born in Asia, the United Kingdom and elsewhere have no discernible effect.

However, speaking languages other than English appears to have a far stronger effect. Electorates with more diverse languages are associated with higher support for the Coalition from 2004 onwards.

In 2016, an electorate with a high proportion of people who speak a language other than English favour the Coalition by more than 12% when compared to the average electorate (on a 2PP % basis).

Other influencing factors: household mobility, relationship types and age

In each of the six elections, electorates with a higher proportion of people that have recently (in the past five years) moved house were more likely to favour the Coalition.

Our analysis controls for characteristics of home ownership and rental prices, so this effect is not simply due to electorates having low rates of home ownership, or due to electorates having high rental prices. Instead, it suggests people who are more transient are also more likely to be conservative voters, regardless of their home ownership or rental status. (This would need further study, as we do not have individual level voting data.)

De facto relationships, but not marriages, are also found to be an important (and significant) predictor of the two-party preferred vote in all six elections, with more de facto relationships associated with higher support for the Labor party.

Older people are often believed to be more conservative, and indeed we found that electorates with a higher median age are more likely to support the Coalition party.

Read more: More grey tsunami than youthquake: despite record youth enrolments, Australia’s voter base is ageing

Against the tide

When does an electorate vote very differently from what their socio-demographics would suggest?

The ten electorates with the largest difference between actual and predicted results in 2016 are shown below:

This suggests something beyond socio-demographic characteristics is impacting the results. For example, the Coalition had a much higher vote in Wentworth than predicted in 2016 (and also in 2013), probably due to the popularity of Malcolm Turnbull.

Read more: View from The Hill: Focus groups suggest Wentworth is embracing Phelps, but Sharma helped by fear of Labor

Jeremy Forbes, a former Monash University Honours student in econometrics, coauthored this analysis with Rob Hyndman and Di Cook.

The full analysis is available here and the code used for the analysis can be found in the github repository.

– ref. You are what you vote: the social and demographic factors that influence your vote – http://theconversation.com/you-are-what-you-vote-the-social-and-demographic-factors-that-influence-your-vote-116591

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

It’s always easy to romanticise the past – in celebrating the prime ministership of Bob Hawke it is important to remember it had its peaks and troughs.

Trouble marked many years – the fall of ministers, nasty spats between the PM and his treasurer – and it ended badly. After winning four elections, Hawke was dumped by caucus.

And Hawke’s successes look easier in retrospect than they were, or appeared, at the time.

Having imposed that reality check, another reality is that without doubt, Hawke did more, and did it better, than any of the prime ministers we’ve had in the last decade, and probably any PM since he left.

Many Liberals put John Howard up there with Hawke, but the totality of his achievements don’t warrant that conclusion, despite his legacies of gun control and the GST.

And Paul Keating’s major contribution was as treasurer. In the top job, his most singular success was clinching the unwinnable election; he had policy victories, such as the Mabo legislation, but it was a prime ministership of unfulfilled promise. Arguably, one factor was he got the post too late.

Read more: Vale Bob Hawke, a giant of Australian political and industrial history

So if Hawke was the best of our modern prime ministers, what was special about his governing?

Partly – but only partly – the times make the leader.

When Hawke won power in 1983, the Australian economy was under pressure to open itself to the world. Any government would have had to deal with that. It was a question of how to make the adjustments, which inevitably would involve some pain.

While the challenges imposed by the time put exceptional demands on Hawke and his government, they also provided the opportunities to shine.

Although it’s less than four decades ago, this was a very different political environment in which to operate, one with a vigorous mainstream media but without social media or the 24-hour news cycle. Paradoxically, it was an easier time in which to have a serious policy debate.

At the heart of Hawke’s political strength was his character, and his personal story. The Australian people had a great love affair with their future PM well before he entered parliament.

They admired, albeit wondered at, his free-wheeling style – the I’ll-do-it-my-way nature of the man. For many people, Hawke typified what they thought of as the true Australian, even if that was a caricature.

This was vital politically because it enabled Hawke to connect with the public. People were inclined to trust him, even when his government’s policies demanded sacrifices or involved U-turns.

Days before the 1983 election, Hawke paved the way for breaking promises if the circumstances he inherited demanded it. When things panned out that way, there was more public understanding than you’d see today.

Read more: What I learned from Bob Hawke: economics isn’t an end itself. There has to be a social benefit

Hawke had the temperament for governing. Before he became leader, some critics wondered about his suitability for the job. Would he be too volatile to run a team? Would he lack personal restraint?

In fact he was adept at disciplining himself and, in general, managing his ministers. Secure in his skin – he had a large ego but not a fragile one – he usually knew how much rein to give ministers, and when to rein them in. Gareth Evans wrote: “So long as ministers weren’t screwing up, or deviating too far from the government’s collective storyline, he let us get on with the job”.

The relationship with Keating was highly productive, though progressively harder to handle. On policy, Keating was angry when Hawke overrode him to abandon the push for a broad-based consumption tax, settling for more modest reform. For Hawke, it was a matter of what the traffic would bear.

Hawke’s biggest management failure was his own exit. Having agreed on a succession plan with Keating, he went back on it and stayed too long, fracturing the government and leading to his forced departure.

He was very fortunate in those around him – his cabinets contained some quality players.

Apart from Keating, ministers such as John Button, John Dawkins, Evans, Neal Blewett, Susan Ryan, Bill Hayden, Kim Beazley, Brian Howe, and Peter Walsh were among those who were notable not just in their areas but as contributors to the collective discussions. Hawke and those around him had also learned what not to do from the Whitlam experience.

In Hawke’s day, Labor’s caucus and the ALP’s extra-parliamentary wing were noisier beasts than now. Wrangling the caucus could be testing work, for Hawke, Keating, individual ministers and factional chiefs. Party conferences still had real teeth, and they too, had to be cajoled to endorse what many in the rank and file thought “unLabor” policies.

A linchpin of the Hawke government, facilitating trade offs between economic reform and social wage benefits for workers, was the accord with the union movement. Keating did much of the negotiating under its framework, but Hawke’s deep roots and connections in the union movement were invaluable.

Read more: ‘The golden bowl is broken’ – tributes to the nation’s loved larrikin leader

So what can be taken from then and applied to now?

We can’t conjure up a Hawke-style personality. No present leader touches him for charisma, popularity or communications skills, even leaving aside the larrikin history (which some say could never pass muster in our more politically-correct era).

These are harder times in which to govern – because of the low level of public trust in politicians, the nature of the news cycle, and much else. Nor are there those compelling circumstances to help shape a government’s agenda and drive change.

But Hawke’s emphasis on bringing people together, in the community, in his party, in his cabinet, carries lessons for a contemporary prime minister. The ability he showed to look to the longer term while still balancing out the immediate politics is much needed today, as are ministers able and willing to bring intellect to arguing their cases, not just talking points.

– ref. View from the Hill: Bob Hawke was master of managing government – http://theconversation.com/view-from-the-hill-bob-hawke-was-master-of-managing-government-117326

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Thornhill, Research botanist at the Botanic Gardens and State Herbarium of South Australia/Environment Institute, University of Adelaide

Sign up to the Beating Around the Bush newsletter here, and suggest a plant we should cover at batb@theconversation.edu.au.

On the western side of Mount Bartle Frere, the tallest mountain in Queensland, grows a tree that shares an ancient link to Australia’s most dominant plant group.

To get there, you must find a track hidden by rainforest and then walk for around an hour up and down a dirt path, until you reach cathedral-like giant red barked trees. This is Stockwellia quadrifida, also known as “Vic Stockwell’s puzzle”: a close but anciently separated relative of the eucalypts.

Read more: A detailed eucalypt family tree helps us see how they came to dominate Australia

This ancient tree is best suited for wetter and warmer environments, a throwback to when this continent was still connected to South America and Antarctica 40-50 million years ago, in the supercontinent Gondwana.

But this rare plant is now at risk by an introduced threat, myrtle rust, a plant disease that was accidentally introduced to Australia from South America.

Sister to the eucalypts

In my opinion, Stockwellia trees are in the same league as California Redwoods – they’re both old, with very few close living relatives. In fact, they are probably more special, as only around 400 Stockwellia trees remain.

Some of the trees I saw in Queensland have large buttressed roots and are hollowed out so you can walk inside the tree and stare upwards. Their bark is strikingly red, and their enormous size means you have to crane your neck to see the top.

Stockwellia takes its name from a Queensland forest ranger named Victor Stockwell who worked in the Boonjee area on Mount Bartle Frere where the trees grow. While the species wasn’t officially scientifically described until 2002, it had been known to botanists for many decades.

The trees were first identified using aerial photography. For Vic Stockwell, the tree was a “puzzle” because despite his vast experience in the forests of Far North Queensland, he was surprised to come across a species of tree he didn’t recognise.

Ancient rainforest groups

In the early 2000s, a DNA study found Stockwellia belonged to a group of rainforest trees called the “mesicalypts”, a name coined by my colleagues and I.

Mesicalypts are a sister group to Australian eucalypts, and are made up of four species of rainforest plants, including Stockwellia. Eucalypts, on the other hand, have more than 800 species growing all over Australia, in much drier conditions.

DNA results suggest there is also another evolutionary group in between mesicalypts and eucalypts which only grows in New Caledonia, a species called Arillastrum gummifera. We have informally named this single species group “newcalypt” – New Cal-(edonian) (eucal)-ypt – because we didn’t want to make it feel left out from getting a new informal name.

Puzzling history

Molecular dating of these groups revealed some even more enigmatic things about the divergence of the mesicalypts and the newcalypt from the eucalypts.

The sole New Caledonian species is estimated to have had a common ancestor with the eucalypts around 59 million years ago. This poses an interesting question. How did a plant that old end up on a land mass that we think is only 30 million years old?

We don’t really know yet, and botanists still debate about where it came from and how it got there.

Read more: How Earth’s continents became twisted and contorted over millions of years

Mesicalypts are also around 60 million years old and we estimate Stockwellia diverged from its nearest living relative around 30-40 million years ago. This was in an epoch called the late Eocene when the world was much wetter and warmer, and when Australia was still connected to South America and Antarctica.

With no fossil record of any ancient mesicalypts, it’s unclear how diverse and widespread they were back then. If we assume more species of mesicalypts once existed, then the ones we see today are the last living survivors from a very different past.

Their history is also the tale of two different fortunes.

The mesicalypts are better suited to live in wetter and warmer environments, and their relatives – the eucalypts – are better suited to drier and hotter conditions.

When Gondwana finally split and Australia started drifting north, one group had to hang on as their suitable growing conditions began to shrink, while the other hit the jackpot and became the dominant vegetation of the continent.

An extinction threat

Once, the main threat to the small number of Stockwellia populations appeared to be only white cockatoos eating their seeds.

But now they are menaced by something more sinister than birds. More than a decade after the species was officially named, I was taken to see the Stockwellia by Stuart Worboys from the Australian Tropical Herbarium.

Read more: Invasive species are Australia’s number-one extinction threat

On this trip Stu found leaves of Stockwellia with myrtle rust on them – the first such recording for the tree.

Myrtle rust is a disease of the Myrtaceae family, and was accidentally introduced from South America in the late 2000s. It attacks plant leaves, fruit and, in some cases, kills the plant outright.

The Australian Myrtaceae have had no time to adapt to myrtle rust. What is happening now could cause the extinction of some extremely unique Australian plants – including Stockwellia.

It is sad to think a plant group that has hung on for so long, in a secluded part of Australia, minding its own business, now faces an introduced threat.

The hunch is that the myrtle rust was introduced to Stockwellia from the shoes of one of its human visitors. Unfortunately, we may have loved the tree to death.

Let’s hope it’s tough enough to withstand the rust and live for many more millions of years. If it is lost, it would take with it 40 million years worth of evolutionary history in Myrtaceae. And after surviving so much tumultuous history of changing continental climates, cyclones, and everything else that a tropical environment could throw at it, that would be a very sad thing.

Sign up to Beating Around the Bush, a series that profiles native plants: part gardening column, part dispatches from country, entirely Australian.

– ref. Vic Stockwell’s Puzzle is an unlikely survivor from a different epoch – http://theconversation.com/vic-stockwells-puzzle-is-an-unlikely-survivor-from-a-different-epoch-113370

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Richard Holden, Professor of Economics, UNSW

Opinion polls haven’t done too well in some important recent elections.

Polls failed to foresee the Brexit decision, and suggested Hillary Clinton would be elected president of the United States in 2016.

There’s good reason to think polls now have a harder time predicting election outcomes than in the past.

They rely on a representative sample of voters, since it is a basic fact that certain demographic groups are more likely to vote one way or the other.

For instance, if you are polling Australian voters and get a lot of 65-year-old self-funded retirees in your sample, you are going to overweight the Liberal Party vote. Get a lot of 20-year-old university students in your sample and the poll will tell you the Greens are set to become Australia’s largest political party.

The trouble is that technology has made it harder to poll.

It used to be the case that pretty much everyone had a landline phone and a fairly representative sample of folks would answer when the polling firm called at 6pm.

Not any more. The people who are not on the national do-not-call registry and willing to spend 10 minutes at 6pm answering the questions of a stranger about politics are not a representative cross-section of the electorate.

Lots of young people only have a mobile phone. Plenty of others are unwilling or unable to spend time answering a polling firm’s questions.

What pollsters do in response is weight the answers they do get. They know they’re getting a lot of older folks, for example, so they weight the responses of younger respondents to try to even things out.

This creates even more statistical problems because the legimitate margin of error of a poll goes up with this reweighting. Highly reputable pollsters adjust for this and report it, but not all do.

In money we trust

This is where another piece of internet-enabled magic enters the picture: prediction markets (aka online bookies).

Instead of just asking people what they are going to do, one can create a market where people can put their money where their opinions are. Economists like these sort of things because we are generally sceptical that people will just tell you the truth. We are generally confident about results when there’s money at stake.

The basic idea is as follows. Think of a “security” that you can buy or sell (it’s actually called an “Arrow Security” after the famous economist Kenneth Arrow). It pays $1 if an event occurs, and nothing if it does not. The event could, for example, be Donald Trump getting re-elected president of the United States in 2020.

Because this security is traded on a market, supply and demand will lead to an “equilibrium” price that balances different valuations of the security. At the extreme ends will be those that think it is worth a $1 and those who think it worthless. In between are people considering probabilities, some thinking the price should be higher and others lower.

If the security trades at 50 cents the market is saying there is a 50% chance Trump will be re-elected. If you have information that leads you to believe Trump has a higher chance than 50%, you could buy the security and make money in expectation.

The key is that if you buy it you help drive up the price. In doing so, your information is incorporated into the market price. Call it “the wisdom of crowds” – or, to really impress people at your next dinner party, “a fully revealing rational expectations equilibrium”.

For a more extended discussion of prediction markets and how they have been used in a wide range of contexts see this terrific paper.

The markets have spoken

What are betting markets saying about the May 18 Australian federal election? They’re saying Labor has a roughly 85% chance of winning, and the Coalition about 15%.

Some of the seat-by-seat markets are even more striking. Plenty of commentators think Wentworth, in which independent Kerryn Phelps is pitted against Liberal Dave Sharma, is a toss-up. The betting markets think Sharma has a 90% chance of winning.

Now, markets aren’t always efficient and market prices don’t always perfectly reflect or “aggregate” all available information.

One particular concern is manipulation. If people use the market prices to make important decisions then unscrupulous actors might be prepared to lose money on the bet to influence the decision.

Another consideration is that there might not be much money at stake. Is anyone putting $1 million on the outcome of individual seats such as Capricornia or Corangamite? No. So-called “thin markets” tend not to be very informationally efficient.

In fact, when economists started getting all excited about these prediction markets I was pretty sceptical about their efficiency and concerned about their potential to be manipulated.

But the data have spoken.

It turns out these markets are really pretty good predictors on average. A security that trades at 70 cents pays out about 70% of the time on average. There is what financial economists call “excess volatility”, but if you want the best predictor of an election outcome, look at the markets, not the polls.

– ref. Vital Signs: for the best election predictions, look to the betting markets, not the opinion polls – http://theconversation.com/vital-signs-for-the-best-election-predictions-look-to-the-betting-markets-not-the-opinion-polls-117076

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Rolfe, Honorary associate, School of Social Sciences, UNSW

It can be hard for a political cause to get noticed in a jaded world awash with information, but conspiracy theories can go a long way.

This could help explain the motivations of the lobbying group Advance Australia (AA) in this election campaign. Advance Australia was founded late last year as a conservative antidote to the left-leaning GetUp! and has attracted prominent business leaders as financial backers.

Liberal luminaries like Eric Abetz have long been wary of GetUp!, viewing it as an arm of Labor and the Greens (despite the fact the Australian Electoral Commission has ruled the group is independent of any political party).

Following GetUp!‘s success in unseating Liberal Bass MP Andrew Nikolic in the 2016 election, these conservative factions are now annoyed by the group’s aggressive campaigning against Tony Abbott in Warringah in this campaign.

Read more: New style lobbying: how GetUp! channels Australians’ voices into politics

This is where the conspiracy theories come in.

According to a video released by Advance Australia in April, GetUp! is “imposing its secret agenda on Australia and seeking to control the Australian way of life”. It “flies under the radar” and is “hoodwinking well-meaning Australians into implementing their radical agenda”.

The video also warns that GetUp! is linked to “a foreign network of left-wing activist groups” known as OPEN, which is authoritarian (“reminiscent of the old-style Soviet Union”) but somehow also “globalist”.

This hissy-fit of hyperbole prevents Advance Australia from seeing what stares the group in the face. GetUp! is none of those things. Rather, the organisation gives ordinary people a way to get involved in political life at the grassroots level – a commonplace phenomenon in American politics that is only possible in Australia outside our more dominant party structures.

GetUp!’s growth and influence

GetUp! has emerged as a target in this campaign because of its increasing influence as a mobiliser of this sort of grassroots political participation.

GetUp!’s mission is to “bring participation back into our democracy” through various online and offline activities such as protests, vigils, door-knocking campaigns and donation drives – a strategy modelled on the American grassroots political group MoveOn. Its signature campaign was its push for marriage equality in Australia, with this powerful video garnering more than 16 million views on YouTube.

GetUp! now boasts more than 1 million members and aims to make 1 million phone calls in target electorates during this campaign – often organised through hundreds of “calling parties” in homes across Australia – and to knock on countless doors in key marginal seats.

It is not formally aligned with Labor or the Greens, but it certainly leans left: on its website, it vows to kick out the “hard right MPs” who it says have:

…wrecked progressive policies and stifled public debate on climate change, refugees, multiculturalism, economics and democratic participation.

Advance Australia is small by comparison, with just 32,000 members. Its leader, Gerard Benedet, has noted how previous attempts at building a conservative grassroots movement in Australia have failed, but Advance Australia is aiming to be different.

However, the group’s awkward campaign tactics, which include a widely mocked anti-GetUp! superhero figure and reliance on wealthy backers instead of small donations, show it still has a long way to go in adopting a participatory model.

The origins of grassroots campaigning

The rise of GetUp! and other similar grassroots campaigns being run by independents – such as Zali Steggall’s “Voices For Warringah” campaign and the “Voices For Indi” campaigns of first Cathy McGowan and now Helen Haines – is linked in part with early American ideals of participatory democracy, anti-politics, and the power of the internet.

Beginning in the 1980s, American writers such as Steven Levy, Howard Rheingold, Bruce Sterling and a bevy of followers championed the internet as a way of helping empower those at the bottom against political elites. They linked the digital era to the sentimentalised American ideal of populist anti-politics and romanticised the digital-savvy outsiders who harnessed the power of grassroots democracy to ride into office and clean up Washington DC.

Read more: More than ‘slacktivism’: we dismiss the power of politics online at our peril

One of the first notable internet campaigns was Howard Dean’s presidential run in 2004, which adopted the digital innovations and political advice of MoveOn.

Barack Obama’s presidential campaign of 2008 then further adapted the Dean model by creating a movement hinting at direct democracy and melding an online and offline grassroots organisational strategy through MyBarackObama, the campaign’s social network. This included more than 200,000 events, such as barbecues and parties, for the volunteers who were door-knocking and telephone canvassing for votes and donations.

The ALP hoped for similar success by importing senior American personnel from the 2012 Obama campaign to help run grassroots strategy for its 2014 Victorian state election campaign. It also imported Blue State Digital, a strategy and technology firm that has been important to Democrats since 2005 and managed Obama’s digital campaign in 2008, to aid its less-successful 2013 federal campaign.

These efforts, however, were confined to party and union members, not the broader grassroots base now being reached by GetUp!.

Similarly in 2013, the Republican-aligned digital strategy firms IMGE and Engage were brought in to help the Liberal Party with digital fundraising and data-mining techniques. These innovations, though, also did not embrace participatory campaigning outside party members.

Independents also embracing digital campaigning

In this year’s campaign, independents like Steggall and Haines are also enthusiastically embracing community-based campaigning.

Both candidates, for instance, rely on NationBuilder, a Los Angeles-based software company, to create platforms for their online donations and communications efforts and offline activities for their volunteers. Since 2013, NationBuilder has also been the online platform of choice for ALP, Greens and the Australian Council of Trade Union campaigns.

Read more: Not so grassroots: how the snowflake model is transforming political campaigns

Like McGowan and Haines, Steggall campaigns as a cleanskin unsoiled by party politics, with a “non-partisan community group” aiming to “bridge the gap between people and politics”. This anti-politics mantra contrasts with Abbott, who is viewed by many as one of the people responsible for Australians’ widespread distrust and disillusionment with government.

This distrust is a problem for the major parties, but a boon to GetUp! and the independents, who are projected to do well in this election. If the next government cannot counter such feelings among voters, these influential outsiders will continue to flourish in the foreseeable future with the help of digital outreach and the flush of excitement in ordinary citizens who want change, whatever that means to them.

Maybe even Advance Australia will start to harness this grassroots power on the conservative side, minus the conspiracy theories.

– ref. GetUp!’s brand of in-your-face activism is winning elections – and making enemies – http://theconversation.com/getup-s-brand-of-in-your-face-activism-is-winning-elections-and-making-enemies-116672

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

University of Canberra Deputy Vice-Chancellor Leigh Sullivan speaks to Michelle Grattan about the week in politics. They discuss the passing of former Labor prime minister Bob Hawke and his legacy, as well as the final campaign push by Scott Morrison and Bill Shorten as Australia heads to the polls on Saturday.

– ref. VIDEO: Michelle Grattan on the passing of Bob Hawke – and the final campaign push – http://theconversation.com/video-michelle-grattan-on-the-passing-of-bob-hawke-and-the-final-campaign-push-117315

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Felicity Fenner, Associate Professor at UNSW Art & Design, UNSW

The 58th Venice Biennale of Art opened last weekend, the world’s first and still largest biennale exhibition in a field that now numbers over 100 major events internationally. It is often referred to as the Olympic Games of art, a comparison grounded both in its establishment and repute.

While the selection of artists for Venice is a much more subjective process than the selection of athletes for the Olympics, both see each nation put forward its “best” practitioners for a once-in-a-lifetime event that is anticipated worldwide and watched by millions.

When it began in 1895, the Venice Biennale aimed to reestablish the city as a fixture on the Grand Tour by drawing visitors away from the foul-smelling canals around San Marco to the Gardens to the east of city. With the Salon exhibition in Paris becoming increasingly conservative and less fashionable by the 1890s, it was also an opportunistic moment for Venice to reclaim its artistic renown in Europe.

This year the international exhibition is curated by New York native, London-based curator and Hayward Gallery director Ralph Rugoff and contains the work of 79 artists. However it is the national pavilions, of which there are 92 this year, that make up the majority of the Biennale in terms of real estate, volume and public interest.

The pavilions require each of the participating countries to assume curatorial, production and funding responsibility for their exhibition, which typically feature just one or a small number artists’ work. In addition to its long history and colossal scale, it is this national pavilion format that distinguishes the Venice Biennale from the scores of biennales elsewhere.

In times of global conflict, the Venice Biennale, like the Olympics, offers an opportunity for nations to come together in a spirit of shared participation and dialogue. Unfortunately, however, the national pavilion model discourages cross-cultural dialogue, instead fostering a separatist mentality that inevitably results in competition between nations. (Indeed, the most sought after prize at the Venice Biennale is the Golden Lion Award for the Best National Pavilion, won this year by Lithuania.)

A glamorous graveyard

The international art world’s glamorous graveyard to national cultural identity, the Biennale Gardens are an anomaly in our globalised 21st century. The perpetuation of this Victorian era perspective of the world is in part due to architecture: within the Gardens, the historic centre of the exhibition, 30 nations each have a discrete gallery (“pavilion”) to house their biennial art exhibition.

When the Gardens were deemed fully occupied a generation ago, countries seeking to exhibit at the Biennale commandeered spaces in the event’s second venue, the sprawling Arsenale complex of former shipyards, or rented spaces in deconsecrated churches and palazzi across the city.

Australia was one of the last nations to be granted a plot in the Biennale Gardens, in 1988. Since then, a succession of mostly one-person Australian pavilion exhibitions have demonstrated the international calibre of Australian art, or have attempted to convey a sense of Australian culture, or both.

The cultural background of this year’s representative, Angelica Mesiti, typifies that of many international contemporary artists today. She is of Italian heritage, lives in Paris and makes work across the world, most recently in Aarhus, Denmark for her piece in last year’s Adelaide Biennial, and in Rome and Canberra for her current Venice Biennale work.

Mesiti is exhibiting an immersive video installation on the subject of democracy, a fitting subject given the state of global politics today and the promise of the Venice Biennale as a forum for open dialogue. Filmed inside the senate chambers of both countries, “Assembly” is viewed from inside an amphitheatre constructed within the pavilion. The audience looks across to each of the three screens in an architectural design that in its circularity and red palette evokes a legislative assembly.

In deploying the pavilion as a conversation pit, Mesiti not only refers to the ties between Australia and Italy – both personal and in the setting of the Biennale – but also to the idea of a pavilion itself. Traditionally a pavilion is a place of shelter, a temporary structure offering respite on a journey or refuge from the elements.

It implies safety and sanctuary, a meaning complicated at the Venice Biennale by the word “national”, which in current times evokes “nationalism” and its associated extremism. Mesiti has created a forum for exchange within the confines of the Australian pavilion: the challenge for the Venice Biennale is to overcome the existing disconnection between national pavilions to make the event more conducive to genuine exchange.

Greed and trauma

It was noted at a symposium in Venice last week that if all the countries in the world had a pavilion in the Gardens, it would be more densely populated than Hong Kong. Given that the world’s population has more than quadrupled since the Biennale began, it makes sense to invite all the world’s countries into the Biennale Gardens. A densely populated community of shared pavilions would better reflect modern times, while also offering the potential for collaboration and exchange between nations.

Like Australia’s entry, very few of the national pavilions in this year’s Biennale claim to embody the national character of their country. Venezuela is one exception: the political unrest in that country has rendered its pavilion empty, the artworks having failed to arrive.

Another exception is Ghana, one of a handful of first-time pavilions at this year’s Biennale. Designed by London-based, Ghanian architect David Adjaye in a style that references African vernacular architecture in its sand-coloured walls, this unusually expansive pavilion accommodates the work of six artists across three generations.

The outstanding work is filmmaker John Akomfrah’s sweeping visual narrative depicting violence in Africa over generations, including the mass slaughter of elephants, and breathtaking footage of threatened natural land and marine environments. It is a scathing indictment of human greed and malice that has global resonance.

At a time when sovereignty of international waters is contested, it can be difficult to define where nations and their concomitant responsibilities begin and end. As part of the curated international exhibition, Swiss-Icelandic artist Christoph Büchel has towed to Venice an infamous Libyan fishing vessel that in 2015 sank between Libya and Lampedusa, killing up to 1,000 migrants trapped in its hull.

The title, “Barca Nostra (Our Boat)” refers to the Italian government’s 2013 Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) policy, instigated in response to the number of doomed migrant ships.

The sight of the rusted vessel in the Arsenale, surrounded by military and recreational watercraft on one side and by cappuccino-sipping Biennale visitors on the other, has a powerful impact on those few viewers cognisant of its story.

More than any artwork in the exhibition, by rendering visible what is generally hidden from public view, its presence encapsulates the danger, tragedy and trauma of forced migration.

It is these global issues that find shared platforms in this year’s Biennale and that make for the strongest and most relevant works – themes around political, refugee and climate crises abound. These are the new thematic “pavilions” of the 21st century.

– ref. As we face pressing global issues, the pavilions of Venice Biennale are a 21st century anomaly – http://theconversation.com/as-we-face-pressing-global-issues-the-pavilions-of-venice-biennale-are-a-21st-century-anomaly-117078

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Wright, Professor of Paediatrics and Child Health Research, University of Wollongong

Pregnancy, labour and delivery are incredibly physically demanding for women. But birth is no walk in the park for the baby either.

A new paper reveals just how much a baby’s head is pushed and distorted by vaginal delivery.

By recording MRI scans before and during labour, the researchers show the degree to which a baby’s skull bones ride over each other, allowing the whole skull to morph. The baby’s head becomes a sugarloaf shape – an elongated cone, with a rounded tip at one end – to get through the pelvis. The brain itself changes form as this happens too.

Head compression is just one of the many incredible physical changes that takes place in infants during birth. Babies undergo a massive transition during labour and delivery as they move from the supported environment of the uterus to independent existence.

Many body systems change to do this. Some have already been in transition. For example, urine output from the fetus contributes to the amniotic fluid (the liquid that surrounds the baby) in the later part of pregnancy. Other organs require a sudden change in the first few moments after delivery, such as expansion of the lungs.

These biological events are vital to maximise chances of survival in the first few minutes “outside”. But surprisingly, we are still learning many of the details.

Read more: Health Check: how long should I wait between pregnancies?

Sudden increase in oxygen

Before the baby is born, blood goes through the placenta to get rid of waste and to pick up oxygen and nutrients that come from the mother. The developing baby manages on relatively low oxygen levels while in the uterus.

After birth the child is exposed to suddenly higher (potentially dangerous) oxygen levels. This shift requires different ways to protect the newborn – so the baby has systems ramped up to cope with this sudden flood of oxygen. Mild jaundice, a temporary yellowing of the skin resulting from a delay in liver enzymes kicking in, may be one such protective mechanism seen in many infants.

Physical changes plus shifts in biology and chemistry of the body’s systems are required to cope with the outside world.

Goodbye placenta

Before birth, most of the baby’s blood circulation passes through the placenta, but bypasses the lungs.

After delivery, the placental flow stops. Instead of going from the baby’s heart to the placenta, the blood from the heart needs to redirect through the newly expanded lungs.

New research helps us understand the relationship between baby’s first breaths and the expansion of lung blood flow.

Understanding these processes in the first few minutes guides us in knowing when exactly to clamp the umbilical cord, and to time any breathing help needed for sick or premature newborns.

It doesn’t always go to plan

The many changes a baby needs to be ready for delivery do not always have a chance to take place.

For example, if a baby is born prematurely then some or all of these adaptations may not have occurred.

Premature babies may have trouble opening up their lungs, or they may not close off the relevant bits of “plumbing” to redirect blood flow to the lungs. Or they may have difficulty exchanging oxygen and other gases in the lungs.

Other body systems such as skin, guts and the body’s chemistry systems may also be relatively unprepared.

Despite this, all but the most premature of babies benefit from the boost of labour if possible. The changes associated with the onset of labour, particularly inflammation, trigger the biological signals that tell a baby to get ready for being born.

Caesarian delivery

Surprisingly, even a small deviation from normal, full-term (around 40 weeks) timing of labour may have effects.

Babies born by caesarean section without labour do not transition to the outside world as smoothly as those where labour has commenced. They have a higher rate of admission to neonatal units for respiratory problems, even after adjusting for other risk factors. Every week earlier than delivery at 40 weeks roughly doubles the risk of neonatal unit admission for babies.

Current recommendations for birth timing are to balance the risks of delivery with these immaturity risks, and not deliver too early unless it is medically required.

Some of these effects can be altered by steroids. Steroids are made naturally by our bodies, including in babies. Also referred to as “the body’s stress hormones”, these are particularly important in making sure lung maturity happens at birth.

Sometimes steroids given to the mother can trick the baby into “preparing an escape plan” and getting lungs ready for delivery before term.

Independent of mild prematurity, researchers are looking closely to determine if there are any long term health and developmental effects of being born by caesarean section, without the process of labour and delivery.

Read more: Explainer: what is pre-eclampsia, and how does it affect mums and babies?

Squashed head

But why do we have such a high-risk delivery system, one where the baby has to actually deform its skull to be born?

Humans are defined by our brains. In our species, the process of evolution has been a balancing act, where brain size and maturity have been weighed up (in terms of survival) against the risk of obstruction in labour.

Human babies are relatively immature compared with some of our close primate relatives, but we cannot safely achieve more brain growth before delivery. For us, this extra growth has to occur over the first year or so after birth.

In addition, because we walk upright, this has created a tilt in our pelvis which narrows the birth canal (the gap in the bones of the pelvis through which the baby has to pass).

Birth is still risky. Globally, obstructed labour is still a significant cause of both mother and baby deaths, and a major cause of long-term incontinence disabilities in mothers that do survive. This tightrope we humans walk between head size and the potential of terrible mother and baby outcomes is essentially the driver for the existence of modern obstetrics.

We hope that more research aimed at understanding the balance of those risks, plus looking at how babies transition from uterus to the outside world, will help us better manage safe birthing. This will improve immediate and long-term health for mothers and their babies.

– ref. This is what happens to a baby’s body during birth – http://theconversation.com/this-is-what-happens-to-a-babys-body-during-birth-117186

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Melbourne

The federal election will be held tomorrow. Polls close at 6pm Australian Eastern Standard Time in the eastern seaboard states, 6:30pm in SA and the NT and 8pm in WA. Votes cast on Election Day will mostly be counted within two hours of polls closing, but big pre-poll booths are unlikely to be counted until very late. Postal votes and other types of declaration votes will be counted over the next two weeks.

The final Ipsos poll for Nine newspapers, conducted May 12-15 from a larger than normal sample of 1,842, gave Labor a 51-49 lead, a one-point gain for the Coalition since last week. Primary votes were 39% Coalition (up three), 33% Labor (steady), 13% Greens (down one), 4% One Nation (down one) and 3% United Australia Party (UAP) (steady). As usual, Ipsos skews to the Greens and against Labor.

In better news for Labor, a YouGov Galaxy national poll gave Labor a 51-49 lead, unchanged from Newspoll early this week. Primary votes were 39% Coalition (steady), 37% Labor (steady), 9% Greens (steady), 3% One Nation (down one) and 3% UAP (down one). Lower One Nation and UAP votes reduce preference shares to the Coalition under Galaxy’s assumptions. YouGov Galaxy also conducts Newspoll.

Respondent allocated preferences were also 51-49 to Labor, the same as the previous election method. In Ipsos polling since Scott Morrison replaced Malcolm Turnbull, there has been no difference between respondent allocated and previous election preferences.

Those who had already voted favoured the Coalition by 53-47. This would include postal votes, not just pre-poll votes. Postal votes always skew heavily to the Coalition.

48% in Ipsos approved of Morrison (up one) and 43% disapproved (down one), for a net approval of +5. Bill Shorten’s net approval was up six points to -5. Morrison led Shorten by 47-40 as better PM (45-40 last week).

The Coalition’s attacks on Labor’s taxes are likely to have contributed to the narrowing in the polls. A key question is whether the story about the accused Rwandan murderers, the weak economic data and the death of Labor legend Bob Hawke can swing the contest back to Labor. At this stage, Labor is likely to only win a small majority, with a possibility of a hung parliament or a Coalition victory.

YouGov Galaxy assumes that 60% of One Nation and UAP preferences will go to the Coalition, giving the Coalition a boost in its polls relative to last election preferences. However, Ipsos’ respondent allocated preferences have shown no difference between the two measures. If this occurs, Labor will do better after preferences than Newspoll anticipates. I expect the final Newspoll tonight.

A big concern with the polling is “herding”, where the polls are artificially close to each other. All polls published during this campaign have been between 51 and 52% two-party to Labor. Analyst Kevin Bonham thinks this is a problem, although the herded polls were right in 2016. If one side overperforms relative to the polls, herding could explain it.

In economic news, on May 15 the ABS reported that wages increased 0.5% in the March quarter, and 2.3% for the year to March. While this wage growth is weak by historical standards, there was zero inflation in the March quarter, thus real wage growth was up 0.5% in the March quarter and 1.0% for the year to March.

On May 16, the ABS reported that the unemployment rate increased 0.1% to 5.2% in April, and the underemployment rate increased 0.3% to 8.5%. The increase in unemployment was due to a 0.2% increase in the participation rate. Over 28,000 jobs were created in April, but full-time jobs decreased by over 6,000.

Essential: 51.5-48.5 to Labor

The final Essential poll, with figures rounded to the nearest decimal point, gave Labor a 51.5-48.5 lead (52-48 last week). Primary votes were 38.5% Coalition (38%), 36.2% Labor (34%), 9.1% Greens (12%), 6.6% One Nation (7%) and 9.6% for all Others (9%). The poll was conducted May 10-14 from a sample of 1,201. Essential continues to use the previous election method for its preference flows.

Morrison led Shorten by 39-32 as better PM (42-31 last week). Voters expected Labor to win by 59-41 (54-46 last week). 18% said they had not paid any attention to the campaign (up two since last week), 28% had paid a little attention (down one), 35% some attention (down one) and 18% a lot of attention (down one).

49% said they would vote on Election Day, 20% said they would pre-poll vote, 12% said they would vote by post and 8% said they had already voted.

Eleven YouGov Galaxy seat polls

YouGov Galaxy, which also does Newspoll, has conducted polls of ten seats for News Corp on May 13-14 from samples of 500-600 per seat. As I wrote on Tuesday, according to The Poll Bludger, seat polls taken since the 2016 federal election have been inaccurate and somewhat biased to the Coalition. The @GhostWhoVotes twitter feed is invaluable for these polls.

Read more: Poll wrap: Labor maintains 51-49 Newspoll lead, plus many seat polls

These seat polls have strong swings to Labor and the Greens in Victoria, more modest ones in NSW and WA (see below) and little swing in Queensland.

NSW seats

In Macquarie, Labor led by 53-47 (52.2-47.8 in 2016). Primary votes were 43% Labor, 42% Liberals, 8% Greens and 5% UAP. With a combined Labor/Green primary vote of 51%, Labor is probably winning by a larger margin. The 2% for all Others appears too low.

In Reid, the Liberals led by 52-48 (54.7-45.3 in 2016). Primary votes were 44% Liberals, 36% Labor, 7% Greens and 6% UAP.

In Gilmore, Labor led by 52-48 (50.7-49.3 to Liberals in 2016). Primary votes were 40% Labor, 26% Liberals (Warren Mundine), 17% Nationals, 7% Greens and 2% UAP. The Nationals did not run a candidate in 2016, and some of their preferences will leak to Labor.

Victorian seats

In Deakin, the Liberals led by 51-49 (56.4-43.6 in 2016). Compared with an April 20 Newspoll, the two party was unchanged. Primary votes were 44% Liberals (down two), 37% Labor (down two), 9% Greens (up one) and 4% UAP (down one). That leaves 6% for all Others, more realistic than Newspoll’s 2%.

Read more: Poll wrap: Palmer’s party has good support in Newspoll seat polls, but is it realistic?

In La Trobe, there was a 50-50 tie (53.2-46.8 to the Liberals in 2016). Primary votes were 43% Liberals, 39% Labor, 7% Greens and 3% UAP.

In Higgins, the Liberals led the Greens by 52-48 (57.4-42.6 in 2016). Primary votes were 45% Liberals, 29% Greens, 18% Labor and 4% UAP. The Liberal primary vote is 9% higher than in a Greens-commissioned poll previously discussed Tuesday, and Labor’s primary vote is 12% lower.

Queensland seats

In Dickson, Liberal Peter Dutton led by 51-49 (51.7-48.3 in 2016). Primary votes were 41% Dutton, 35% Labor, 10% Greens, 9% UAP and 3% One Nation. Dutton is relying on Galaxy’s assumption that 60% of UAP voters preference the LNP.

In Flynn, the LNP led by 53-47 (51.0-49.0 in 2016). Primary votes were 37% LNP, 33% Labor, 11% UAP, 7% One Nation and 3% Greens. Primary votes for the major parties had little change, but the assumed preference flow to the LNP strengthened.

In Forde, there was a 50-50 tie (50.6-49.4 to LNP in 2016). Primary votes were 42% LNP, 41% Labor, 7% One Nation, 5% Greens and 4% UAP.

In Herbert, which Labor barely won in 2016, there was a 50-50 tie, a two-point gain for Labor since a May 9-11 Newspoll. Primary votes, with shifts since Newspoll, were 32% LNP (down three), 31% Labor (up one), 14% Katter’s Australian Party (up one), 9% UAP (up two), 6% One Nation (down one) and 5% Greens (down two).

In Leichhardt, the LNP led Labor by 51-49 (53.9-46.1 in 2016). Primary votes were 40% LNP, 34% Labor, 8% Greens, 7% Katter’s Australian Party, 5% UAP and 4% One Nation.

Five more YouGov Galaxy seat polls in WA

YouGov Galaxy conducted five seat polls for The West Australian on May 14-15 from samples of 500-600. The seats polled were Hasluck, Swan, Cowan, Pearce and Stirling. Three of these seats – Pearce, Swan and Cowan – were previously polled on May 1.

Read more: Poll wrap: Newspoll and Ipsos have contrasting leaders’ ratings trends; Abbott trails in Warringah

In Cowan, Labor led by 53-47 (50.7-49.3 in 2016). That’s a two-point gain for Labor since the May 1 poll. Primary votes were 42% Labor (up one), 38% Liberals (down two), 5% One Nation (up one) and 2% UAP (down two). No vote for the Greens was listed; they had 6% last time.

In Swan, there was a 50-50 tie (53.6-46.4 to Liberals in 2016), a one-point gain for Labor since May 1. Primary votes were 41% Liberals (down three), 38% Labor (up one), 9% Greens (down two), 5% UAP (up one) and 2% One Nation (up one).

In Pearce, the Liberals led by 51-49 (53.6-46.4 in 2016), unchanged since May 1. Primary votes were 42% Liberals (up two), 36% Labor (up one), 10% Greens (down one), 4% UAP (up two) and 3% One Nation (down two).

In Hasluck, there was a 50-50 tie (52.1-47.9 to Liberals in 2016). Primary votes were 39% Liberals, 36% Labor, 9% Greens, 5% One Nation and 5% UAP. The assumed flow of UAP preferences to the Coalition is helping them in this poll.

In Stirling, the Liberals led by 51-49 (56.3-46.7 in 2016). All I can see from the primary votes reported is that that One Nation is at 2% and the UAP at 1%.

– ref. Final poll wrap: Race tightens in Ipsos and Dutton just ahead in Dickson, plus many more seat polls – http://theconversation.com/final-poll-wrap-race-tightens-in-ipsos-and-dutton-just-ahead-in-dickson-plus-many-more-seat-polls-116803

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Richard Holden, Professor of Economics, UNSW

Bob Hawke will be remembered variously as Labor’s longest and Australia’s third-longest serving prime minister, as a union leader, and a larrikin.

But most of all, he will be remembered as a reformer -— presiding over a set of economic reforms that modernised the Australian economy and set the stage for the prosperity of the last three decades.

On Sunday March 6 1983, hours after the election that swept him to victory, Hawke and his treasurer-designate Paul Keating met the head of the treasury John Stone, a contemporary of Hawke’s from Perth Modern high school, in the empty saloon bar of Canberra’s Lakeside Hotel, where Hawke had spent the night.

Stone told him the dollar was far too high and recommended a huge and immediate devaluation of 10%. Hake’s new economic advisor Ross Garnaut soon formed the view that it was crazy manually adjusting the dollar to stop too much money pouring into and out of the country. When, later in the year, Stone opposed the idea of a float and the Reserve Bank recommended inching slowly towards it, Hawke said words to the effect of “why not right now?”.

From Monday December 12, 1983, buyers and sellers set the value to the dollar, allowing its price to adjust (mostly) smoothly as needed to meet supply and demand. The economy has better managed itself.

When Hawke took power the Australian banking system was hopelessly insular and concentrated. Four major banks held 81% of the assets and only one new banking authority had been granted since World War II.

In early 1985 the government injected some real competition into Australian banking, inviting applications for new banks.

Later that year the government relaxed restrictions on foreign investment in Australia.

Together these reforms allowed a capital-thirsty Australian economy the much-needed fuel it required to unlock a huge range of investment opportunities.

The wage-price spirals that bedeviled advanced economies in the 1970s continued in Australia until the prices and incomes accord of 1983. High inflation led to large wage claims so that living standards were not eroded, further fueling inflation.

To key was to find a way to break this vicious circle of expectations. The “first ” Accord, which involved wages increases every six months indexed to the CPI, did just that. Once people knew that wages weren’t going to gallop ahead of prices, there was less impetus to raise prices, which put less pressure on wages, and so on.

There was a raft of other changes to industrial relations through to the 1991 introduction of enterprise bargaining, all of which reformed an outmoded industrial relations system. But it was the action in February 1983 that was in many ways the most dramatic.

Although the Whitlam government began the removal of tariff barriers with a dramatic 25% cut in 1973, it was under Hawke that a further and systematic reduction in tariffs and other trade barriers occurred. It was also coupled with adjustment assistance for affected workers – although I have said consistently that this did not go far enough.

A raft of government assets began to be privatised under Hawke. From the Commonwealth Bank to Qantas, these large Australian companies were lazy, slow-moving, and insulated from competition. Qantas used to fly direct to Rome several times a week. Why? Well, which politician or diplomat doesn’t like a trip to Rome and wouldn’t want to change at Heathrow?

By removing political meddling and subjective these companies these companies to competitive pressure they served their customers better, employed more people in the long run, and provided returns to most Australians courtesy of their superannuation holdings.

The above is an incomplete list of Hawke’s reforms and achievements, but his government was much more than a list of policy accomplishments, however important.

Hawke, and the government he led was the Third Way before we knew what that term meant. He was Clinton before Clinton, and Blair before Blair.

It took a Labor government to make these market-oriented reforms. Matched with policies like the reintroduction of Medicare the reforms reflected an ideology which was pro-market, but also prosocial.

And while Paul Keating as Treasurer must surely receive a good measure of credit, so too the then opposition—especially John Howard—for not mindlessly blocking many of the reforms, it was the leadership of Hawke that made everything possible.

A charismatic leader, master tactician, and pathbreaking economic reformer. We will miss you, Bob Hawke.

– ref. Hawke was our larrikin, but also our reformer – http://theconversation.com/hawke-was-our-larrikin-but-also-our-reformer-117308

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Harjinder Singh, Senior lecturer, Curtin University

The Australian government encourages citizens to protect their privacy and personal information.

Most of the tips provided by the Office of the Information Commissioner are pretty intuitive – know your rights, read privacy policies, use security software and more.

But you might be surprised to know “check your credit report” is also on the list of recommended actions.

Read more: Seven ways the government can make Australians safer – without compromising online privacy

Checking your credit report, preferably annually, is a good way to ensure incorrect information is not listed against you. Having the right information in place can protect you against identity theft, so is an important component of privacy in this sense.

The Privacy Act 1988 is an Australian law which regulates the handling of personal information about individuals. The Privacy Act has very strict rules, reflected in 13 Australian Privacy Principles, that control the way information about you is accessed, used and corrected.

The Privacy Act gives you the right to find out what’s in your credit report and change any incorrect information in your report.

As well as stopping others from stealing your identity, having an accurate credit report is also crucial if you want to borrow money. For example, when applying for credit such as a home loan, the lender will obtain your credit report to assess your credit worthiness and also your ability to repay the loan. You really don’t want your application for a home loan to be knocked back because of errors in your credit report, do you?

How to check your credit report

The first step is getting a copy of your credit report. This can be obtained free from credit reporting agencies such as Equifax, illion and Experian. Tasmanians can also refer to the Tasmanian Collection Service.

Make sure you spend a bit of time looking carefully for this free option – it is there, but can sometimes be a little buried.

The report will be sent to you in about ten days. If you are in a hurry and need it faster, you can pay between A$30 to A$50 dollars and the credit report will arrive in a day or two.

Read more: Another day, another data breach – what to do when it happens to you

Look at the details

Once you have your credit report, there are certain things that you must check.

First, as a minimum, check that your personal details such as name, date of birth, employment and driver’s license or other identifying documents are correct.

Second, have a look at your credit history in the report. This will include details of all credit or loans that you applied for, any overdue payments more than 60 days for which default actions have been initiated, and any other credit infringements. Such credit infringements can be listed on your credit report for between five to seven years, depending on their severity.

Third, examine your repayment history to determine whether you missed any payments on due dates.

Last, check whether any recorded serious adverse credit activities such as bankruptcies, court judgements and debt agreements are correct and accurately reflect your circumstances.

What happens if it’s wrong?

You are entitled to request changes to any incorrect listing and this should be done free for you.

In the first instance, you can contact the credit reporting agency directly and they will be able to fix small errors immediately. For other errors originating from a credit provider such as a bank, they will sometimes even contact the bank on your behalf.

However, if you have to contact the credit provider yourself, do so and explain why the listing is incorrect. Most often, they will fix the mistake. If they refuse, you can then go to an independent dispute resolution scheme, such as the Australian Financial Complaints Authority.

If all else fails, you can also contact the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner who will deal with your complaint if it is not older than a year.

So, what are you waiting for? It really is in your best interest to check your credit report, and no one else can do it for you.

– ref. Your credit report is a key part of your privacy – here’s how to find and check it – http://theconversation.com/your-credit-report-is-a-key-part-of-your-privacy-heres-how-to-find-and-check-it-116999

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jane Rosemary Walker, Research Fellow, University of Technology Sydney

Women are going to prison at a higher rate than ever in Australia. Our tough sentencing policies sent women to prison at twice the rate of England and Wales in 2018.

At least one in two imprisoned women in Australia has a history of mental illness, and/or abuse as a child.

Indigenous women are over-represented in prisons. They make up more than one-third of Australia’s female prisoner population, but only 3% of our female population as a whole.

Read more: As we imprison more adults, what’s happening to the children?

One in two imprisoned women are mothers, and 5-10% are pregnant. They desperately want to be with their babies and young children, few of whom will be cared for by their fathers.

When grandparents or other relatives aren’t able to step in, the only option is usually foster care, or, for some mothers, having their child live in prison with them.

In new research published this week, we investigated what Australian prisons are doing to keep mothers and babies together. We looked at the programs on offer, explored policies and principles, and talked to staff and prisoners about their views and experiences.

What does life look like for mothers and children in prison?

The age of children living in prison ranges from newborn to up to five years, but children over three are rare.

Women can apply to have their baby or young child live in prison with them in seven states and territories in Australia, with South Australia the only exception.

We don’t have data that tells us how many young children are living with their mothers in prisons across Australia, but roughly 13 women’s prisons around the country can accommodate children.

Read more: Australia is locking up too many women but the UK offers a blueprint for a radical new approach

These prisons have rooms set aside, sometimes purpose-built. Most are single-storey houses with space for up to ten mother-child pairs. Each pair has their own bedroom, and shares a living area, kitchen and bathroom with other residents. Women have to work together to clean, buy food and prepare meals.

While this may conjure up images of a student share house, the reality is less palatable.

If your own baby isn’t keeping you awake at night, there’s a good chance somebody else’s baby is. Women in these settings are subject to constant surveillance and commentary on their parenting, while access to necessities otherwise taken for granted, like affordable nappies, isn’t guaranteed.

Women distance themselves from each other to avoid trouble. Mother-of-one Jemma says she’s had a difficult life and has been to jail ten times, but having her baby in prison is the hardest thing she’s had to contend with.

[It’s] the biggest thing I’ve ever had to face in my life. Like, it’s one thing to do a long sentence in jail – that’s hard enough – but to do it with a child, even though he’s with me, oh my god. It makes it two times harder.

Despite the struggles, women are relieved and grateful their child is with them, not in the foster care system many of them grew up in. Where most mothers in prison are separated from their kids, they know they’re the lucky ones.

But these women also know it’s seen as a privilege, which they could lose if they “slip up”.

The staff perspective

To get a place in the program, women sign a contract to accept sole responsibility for their child. But officers worry they will be held responsible for children on their watch. They set boundaries using their own parenting values and ideas about risk. Prison officer Vanda said:

If I see something that’s not right […] it’s my responsibly to tell the mother, “Hey, hang on a minute. You’re not doing the right thing. This is how you should be handling the baby.” And we case-note every single thing that they do wrong. So, put it on their file so they know that a few close mishaps, we’ll send the baby out.

We don’t have routine data on how often a baby gets taken away from their mother in prison, but it could happen after a mother fails a drug test, experiences acute mental health problems, or following a series of disciplinary issues.

This might result in the child being placed in the care of a suitable family member, or in foster care.

Read more: Three charts on: Australia’s booming prison population

Keeping mothers and their babies together is a good thing, but we could do it better

Prisons aren’t intended or equipped to enable young children to thrive. But most women in prison are there for one year or less, and children have the right not to be separated from their parents (unless for their own protection).

Evidence shows the quality of a young child’s bond with their mother or carer affects early social and emotional development. This needs to be weighed up against children’s other rights and interests, and long-term outcomes for children who live in adult prisons, about which little is known.

Governments can do better. Residential programs should include help for when a mother and her child get out of prison, connecting her with services offering social support, health care, economic security, stable accommodation, and a safe environment.

Parenting and life skills development would be well-placed in prison programs, to help women whose childhoods were unstable and whose schooling was cut short.

Read more: Women who commit violent crimes need programs to help them while in prison

We’re calling for all Australian jurisdictions to work together to address standards, access and equity issues. For example, we need transparent application processes for mothers seeking to bring their children into prison, timely decision-making, and better access to the residential programs for Indigenous women.

International experience shows improvements are possible. In the UK, mother and baby units in prisons have child care plans for all residents. There are policies on child nutrition, and crèche or nursery facilities run by qualified childcare workers.

Scandinavian countries have collaborated to develop Children’s Officers – specially qualified prison officers who understand the needs of mothers and children in prisons. Finland recently recognised the welfare of an imprisoned parent also benefits their child.

– ref. Babies and toddlers are living with their mums in prison. We need to look after them better – http://theconversation.com/babies-and-toddlers-are-living-with-their-mums-in-prison-we-need-to-look-after-them-better-117170

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ben Phillips, Associate Professor, Centre for Social Research and Methods, Director, Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR), Australian National University

99% of people on Newstart are actually on another type of benefit.

–Treasurer Josh Frydenberg during the treasurers’ debate at the National Press Club, May 6, 2019.

During a debate with shadow treasurer Chris Bowen, Frydenberg was asked why the Coalition has not offered to consider raising the Newstart Allowance for jobseekers.

He replied that 99% of those receiving Newstart also receive other benefit payments, such as “parental allowance or another form of support”.

Verdict

It is true that Newstart Allowance recipients almost always receive additional payments. But given the small nature of many of the additional payments to a large number of recipients, it is disingenuous to infer that the Newstart Allowance is considerably more generous than the headline figure suggests.

Checking the source

In response to a request for a source on which the claim was based, a Treasury spokesperson provided a link to the Department of Social Services (DSS) payment demographic data, and told The Conversation:

Ninety-nine per cent of Newstart Allowance recipients receive supplementary payments and allowances, including Commonwealth Energy Supplement, Pharmaceutical Allowance, Commonwealth Rent Assistance, Family Tax Benefit and Telephone Allowance. This has been calculated from DSS admin data.

How many people are on Newstart, and how much do they receive?

The Newstart Allowance is the main income support payment for unemployed people in Australia.

The current payment maximum rate for Newstart is A$555.70 per fortnight for a single person. Couples receive less, whereas older people and those with dependents receive a modestly higher payment.

According to PolicyMod, ANU’s model of Australian tax and social security payments, the average Newstart recipient receives A$490.60 per fortnight (A$12,755 per year) for their Newstart payment alone, bearing in mind that not all receipients receive the maximum Newstart payment.

According to the DSS data (which can be downloaded here), 722,923 people in Australia were receiving the Newstart payment in December 2018.

What are the other eligible benefits?

Some recipients who rent are eligible for Rent Assistance of up to A$137.20 per fortnight. All recipients are eligible for the Energy Supplement of A$8.80 per fortnight.

Newstart recipients with children are likely to receive family payments. These are complicated payments that vary by the age of the child, and are paid either on a per-child basis (Family Tax Benefit Part A) or as a per family payment (Family Tax Benefit Part B) to help single-parent or single-income families.

Not all Newstart recipients receive the full payment, as they may have other income either from small amounts of paid work or from other sources such as bank interest. The payment tapers away sharply as private income increases, with recipients losing 50 cents in the dollar for every dollar of private income above A$104 per fortnight, and 60 cents in the dollar above A$254 per fortnight. Recipients therefore tend to have only minimal other income from private sources.

Modelling the benefits

ANU’s microsimulation model, PolicyMod, can do a distributional analysis of most social security payments and personal income taxation in Australia. This means we can model the impact of the payment for detailed social and economic groupings.

The model is based on very detailed data for actual persons and families in the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ Survey of Income and Housing, but uses a range of additional government data to improve our estimates of tax and social security payments. It is also capable of modelling detailed policy change.

While the government does provide some useful administration data on Newstart recipients and other payments, for this analysis we require the more detailed data available in PolicyMod.

We analysed the share of Newstart Allowance recipients who also receive other payments such as Family Tax Benefits, Rent Assistance and the Energy Supplement.

Our analysis shows that 19% of Newstart recipients receive family payments, with those families receiving an average of A$527.80 per fortnight (A$13,722 per year) in addition to their Newstart payments.

We also found that 32% of Newstart recipients recieve Rent Assistance, at an average of A$115.30 per fortnight (A$2,997 per year) on top of Newstart.

All Newstart recipients are eligible for the Energy Supplement. In particular circumstances, Newstart recipients are also eligible for the Telephone Allowance of up to A$43.80 per year, and the Pharmaceutical Allowance, which pays A$6.20 a fortnight (and is halved for couples).

This means everyone on Newstart Allowance is eligible for some additional benefit. However, with the exception of Family Tax Benefits and Rent Assistance, these payments are generally very modest. A Newstart recipient who is single, of working age, and has no children receives an energy supplement of A$8.80 per fortnight.

On average, across all Newstart recipients, their average income from all sources of social security is A$637 per fortnight. This consists of A$101 from family payments, A$9 from the Energy Supplement, A$36 from Rent Assistance, and A$491 from their base Newstart payment. About 57% of all Newstart recipients rely on the base Newstart payment and the Energy Supplement alone.

So while it is true that almost all Newstart recipients receive at least one additional payment, in many cases these payments are comparatively small. It should also be noted that family payments are designed to cover the basic costs of children and therefore, at least in theory, are not directly intended for the Newstart recipient. – Ben Phillips and Cukkoo Joseph

Blind review

This, to my mind, is an accurate review of Josh Frydenberg’s statement. It is entirely believable that the majority of Newstart Allowance recipients receive at least some additional income support payment such as the Pharmaceutical Allowance or the Energy Supplement. However, the key point, as the article suggests, is that most of these additional payments are small.

More substantial payments in dollar terms, such as Rent Assistance or Family Tax Benefit, arguably do not cover the expense of renting a home or raising children. The adequacy of Rent Assistance in particular is called into question by Anglicare’s Rental Affordability Snapshot 2018 – Greater Sydney and the Illawarra, which states (p32):

Of the 18,446 properties advertised in Greater Sydney and the Illawarra on the weekend of 24-25 March 2018, only 57 were affordable and appropriate for households on income support payments without placing them into rental stress.

As the authors of this FactCheck point out, family payments are designed to meet the costs of children, not the living expenses of Newstart Allowance recipients. – Gerry Redmond

The Conversation’s FactCheck unit was the first fact-checking team in Australia and one of the first worldwide to be accredited by the International Fact-Checking Network, an alliance of fact-checkers hosted at the Poynter Institute in the US. Read more here.

Have you seen a “fact” worth checking? The Conversation’s FactCheck asks academic experts to test claims and see how true they are. We then ask a second academic to review an anonymous copy of the article. You can request a check at checkit@theconversation.edu.au. Please include the statement you would like us to check, the date it was made, and a link if possible.

– ref. FactCheck: do 99% of Newstart recipients also receive other benefits? – http://theconversation.com/factcheck-do-99-of-newstart-recipients-also-receive-other-benefits-116667

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jennifer Lavers, Research Scientist, University of Tasmania

Today we learnt of yet another remote and formerly pristine location on our planet that’s become “trashed” by plastic debris.

Research published today in Scientific Reports shows some 238 tonnes of plastic have washed up on Australia’s remote Cocos (Keeling) Island.

It’s not the first time the world has been confronted with an island drowning under debris. Perhaps it’s time to take stock of where we’re at, what we’ve learnt about plastic and figure out whether we can be bothered, or care enough, to do something meaningful.

Read more: This South Pacific island of rubbish shows why we need to quit our plastic habit

Taking stock

In 2017, the world was introduced to Henderson Island, an exceptionally remote uninhabited island in the South Pacific. It has the dubious honour of being home to the beach with the highest ever recorded density of plastic debris (more than 4,400 pieces per metre squared).

What’s more, a single photo taken in 1992 showed Henderson Island had gone from pristine to trashed in only 23-years.

Now, the Cocos (Keeling) Islands off the coast of Australia are set to challenge that record, despite being sparsely populated and recognised for having one of Australia’s most beautiful beaches.

A recent, comprehensive survey of the Cocos (Keeling) Islands revealed mountains of plastic trash washed up on the beaches.

Read more: Plastic warms the planet twice as much as aviation – here’s how to make it climate-friendly

While the density of debris on Cocos (a maximum of 2,506 items per square metre) was found to be less than that on Henderson Island, the total amount of debris Cocos must contend with is staggering: an estimated 414 million debris items weighing 238 tonnes.

A quarter of the identifiable items were found to be “single-use”, or disposable plastics, including straws, bags, bottles, and an estimated 373,000 toothbrushes.

At only 14 kilometres squared, the entire Cocos (Keeling) Island group is a little more than twice the size of the Melbourne CBD. So it’s hard to envision 414 million debris items in such a small area.

Lessons learned

Islands “filter” debris from the ocean. Items flow past and accumulate on beaches, providing valuable information about the quantity of plastic in the oceans.

So, what have these two studies of remote islands taught us?

On Cocos, the overwhelming quantity of debris you can see on the surface accounts for just 7% of the total debris present on the islands. The remaining 93% (approximately 383 million items) is buried below the sediment. Much like the proverbial iceberg, we’re only seeing the very tip of the problem.

Henderson Island, on the other hand, highlighted the terrifying pace of change, from pristine, tropical oasis to being inundated with 38 million plastic items in just two decades.

In the past 12 months alone, scientists have made other, ground-breaking discoveries that have emphasised how little we understand about the behaviour of plastic in the environment and the myriad consequences for species and habitats – including ourselves.

Read more: Eight million tonnes of plastic are going into the ocean each year

Here are a few of the shocking discoveries:

• microplastics were reported in bottled water, salt and beer

• chemicals from degrading plastic in the ocean were found to disrupt photosynthesis in marine bacteria that are important to the carbon cycle, including producing the oxygen for approximately every tenth breath we take

• degrading plastic exposed to UV sunlight (such as those on beaches) was reported to produce greenhouse gas emissions, including methane. This is predicted to increase significantly over the next 20 years in line with plastic production trends

• microplastic particles are ingested by krill at the base of the marine food web, then fragmented into nano-sized particles

• plastic items recovered from the ocean were found to be reservoirs and potential vectors for microbial communities with antibiotic resistant genes

• tiny nanoplastics are transported via wind in the atmosphere and deposited in cities and even remote areas, including mountain tops

Meaningful action

Clean-ups on near-shore islands and coastal areas around cities are fantastic.

The educational component is invaluable and they provide an important sense of community. They also prevent large items, like bottles, from breaking up into hundreds or thousands of bite-sized microplastics.

But large-scale clean-ups of the Cocos (Keeling) Islands, and most other remote islands, are challenging for a variety of reasons. Getting to these locations is expensive, as would be shipping the plastic off for recycling or disposal.

There are also serious biosecurity issues relating to moving plastic debris off islands. Even if we did somehow manage to clean these remote islands, it would not be long before the beaches are trashed again, as it was estimated on Henderson Island that more than 3,500 new pieces of plastic wash up every single day.

As Heidi Taylor from Tangaroa Blue, an Australian initiative tackling marine debris, puts so aptly:

if all we ever do is clean up, that is all we will ever do.

For our clean-up efforts to be effective, they must be paired with individual behaviour change, underpinned by legislation that mandates producers to take responsibility for the entire lifecycle of their products.

Single-use items, such as razors, cutlery, scoops for coffee or laundry powder and toothbrushes were very common on the beaches of Cocos. Clearly this is an area where extended product stewardship laws (following the principles of a circular economy), coupled with informed consumer choices can lead to better decisions about the types of products we use and how and when we dispose of them.

Read more: There’s no ‘garbage patch’ in the Southern Indian Ocean, so where does all the rubbish go?

The global plastic crisis requires immediate and wide-ranging actions that drastically reduce our plastic consumption. And large corporations and government need to adopt a leadership role.

In the EU, for instance, governments voted in March 2019 to implement a ban on the ten most prolific single-use plastic items by 2021. The rest of the world urgently needs to follow suit. Let’s stop arguing about how to clean up the mess, and start implementing meaningful preventative actions.

– ref. Will the discovery of another plastic-trashed island finally spark meaningful change? – http://theconversation.com/will-the-discovery-of-another-plastic-trashed-island-finally-spark-meaningful-change-117260

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Baddeley, Director, Research Professor Institute for Choice, University of South Australia

Climate change, the environment and energy policy are all key issues in this election campaign, fuelled by compelling evidence of our accelerating impact on the environment and climate. While voters agree more than you might think, there’s still a serious split on the importance of acting on climate change and preventing harm to the environment.

Australia’s major political parties fall into two broad camps on these issues. The Labor party is spruiking policies that control emissions and move towards renewables, consistent with its rhetoric about taking on the “top end of town” – including the mining industry.

Read more: Australia’s major parties’ climate policies side-by-side

In the Liberal-National view, concerns about energy and the environment are attacks on the businesses that deliver Australia’s prosperity. Moving away from coal towards renewables is typical of an opposition that has neither the ability nor inclination to support a thriving economy and control government finances: all symptomatic of the “Bill Australia can’t afford”.

But are Australians really that divided? Between April 29 and May 3, 2019, we asked 1,170 people about their attitudes and behaviours, including questions about voting intentions for those respondents eligible to vote in the upcoming election.

Energy and environment attitudes

We wanted to know how our respondents intended to vote. How did that correlate with their attitudes towards climate change, and policies around energy and the environment?

We asked respondents to rate various statements about their behaviour and attitudes on a Likert five-point scale, where 1 means “strongly agree” and 5 means “strongly disagree”.

These statements included eight questions about attitudes towards climate change, and five questions on various policies (a tax on carbon, an emissions trading scheme, business incentives for carbon-neutral production, and regulation of mining and plastic use).

We also asked respondents to rate the importance of the broad statement: “How important is it for the government to implement policies to address environmental damage and climate change?”

(Note: the main purpose of the survey was to explore people’s likely choices about smart meters. In common with any survey, there may be many sources of sampling bias. Our survey was not designed to be a representative sample of political constituencies, and so is not an attempt to predict the election outcome.)

Then we divided the responses roughly into the two “camps” – Liberal-affiliated and Labour-affiliated – excluding the 14 responses for people intending to vote for the Centre Alliance. This gave us 635 right-leaning voters and 541 left-leaning voters.

Perhaps surprisingly, we discovered a lot of agreement across the right- and left-leaning camps. On average, our respondents agreed about their commitment to recycling and also with the statement “I think it’s important that households do their bit for the environment”.

In terms of their attitudes towards conserving energy, both camps agreed that conserving energy was important because they want to control their energy bills. The left-leaning camp had no strong opinions about conserving energy to help limit climate change; the right-leaning camp disagreed that they would conserve energy because of climate change.

Read more: Carry-over credits and carbon offsets are hot topics this election – but what do they actually mean?

This suggests that – for the broadest impact – demand-side management policies should focus on how households can save money by conserving energy – and smart meters could be a key ingredient in this strategy. Behavioural tools are likely to be important too and smart meters have capabilities to combine economic incentives and behavioural motivators, as we’ve explored in previous research into behavioural insights for encouraging energy savings.

Both camps agreed that businesses should be given incentives towards carbon-neutral production. They disagreed that current government policies were good policies. So there is a strong appetite for policy change.

Neither camp had strong opinions about carbon tax or emissions trading policies. Perhaps this is because debates around these policies are old news from the Gillard-Rudd-Abbott era, or perhaps most people just aren’t sure what these policies would mean for them personally.

There were still areas of disagreement. The left-leaning camp had generally stronger opinions about climate change, agreeing that environmental damage and climate change are problems. The right-leaning camp on average neither agrees nor disagrees that these are problems.

The left-leaning camp tends to agree that the government should introduce policies to regulate plastics and mining – unsurprising given that this camp includes a substantial number of people intending to vote Green. The right-leaning camp was neutral on these issues.

Read more: Compare the pair: key policy offerings from Labor and the Coalition in the 2019 federal election

Overall, this survey suggests more consensus across Australian voters than politicians might like us to believe. Once the election is over, and there is no more political mileage to be had from the mud-slinging that has characterised this campaign, then perhaps we can hope our political leaders will start expending some energy on judiciously analysing and assessing the policy challenges ahead.

This will be essential if we are to come up with policies to mitigate climate change and environmental damage, whilst also ensuring Australia’s jobs, wages and prosperity.

– ref. Australians disagree on how important climate change is: poll – http://theconversation.com/australians-disagree-on-how-important-climate-change-is-poll-117171

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Elizabeth Taylor, Senior Lecturer in Urban Planning & Design, Monash University

Parking is a fiery issue in Australian cities. That’s because cars dominate our cities, supported by decades of unbalanced planning decisions favouring space for cars over other land uses or forms of transport. Parking is even an issue in the federal election, with both the Coalition and Labor promising to fund more spaces for commuters.

The issue of parking flared up again recently in Melbourne’s inner north. Moreland City Council wants to scrap minimum parking requirements for new apartments around its increasingly dense activity centres.

Read more: Crowded trains? Planning focus on cars misses new apartment impacts

Victoria’s planning minister, Richard Wynne, gets the final say on this plan – and it might be a “no”. He said last month the practicalities need more thought and that Moreland must “strike a balance”.

Wynne is right, but not in the way he implies.

Australian cities are generous to cars

Minimum parking requirements were introduced across Australia alongside the rise of cars in the 1950s. These set rigid ratios for parking spaces in different types of new developments.

For example, the Western Australia State Planning Policy requires at least at least 0.75–1 parking bay for every one-bedroom dwelling in an apartment building, plus at least one visitor parking space per four dwellings. A review of parking policy in Western Australia found these requirements are largely based on small, outdated surveys in the United States and do not reflect actual demand for parking in Australia.

A result of these policies is a glut of parking in Australian cities. The local council area of the City of Melbourne has over 215,000 parking spaces. However, 40-60% of households in the area do not own a car and around a third of apartment parking spaces are not used.

Removing minimum requirements is an effort by local governments to allow the varying needs of local communities to determine parking outcomes.

Read more: The elephant in the planning scheme: how cities still work around the dominance of parking space

But what about tradies, emergency workers, the disabled?

Often proposed changes to parking are criticised for being unfair to people who may rely on cars. It is great that these questions of equity are raised (including by the planning minister), but some of the common concerns are misplaced.

Firstly, developers are sensitive to market demands and will continue to provide apartments with parking for those who need it. When London removed minimum parking requirements in 2004, new developments still provided car parks – just at half the previous required rate.

Closer to home, the inner-city councils of Sydney and Melbourne have already removed some minimum parking requirements – and many new apartments still provide parking spaces.

Secondly, while apartment dwellers with insufficient off-street parking are often blamed for clogging up on-street parking in residential areas, they are rarely to blame. A recent study in Melbourne found residents of detached houses use 77-84% of on-street parking. Many of them have garages, but choose to use them for storage or living space.

Apartment dwellers were less likely to use on-street parking and more likely to have unused spaces. And more parking in apartment blocks isn’t helping people access our cities, even by car.

Read more: Empty car parks everywhere, but nowhere to park. How cities can do better

Finally, providing more housing options without rigidly attached parking spaces will encourage people who don’t actually need to drive to choose to drive less or switch to other forms of transport.

Removing minimum parking requirements will not mean that people who need to drive for work, medical or other reasons can’t find homes with parking spaces. Indeed, if we make it easier for those who don’t need to drive to get around in other ways, congestion could be eased for those workers who do need a car.

Pro-car planning policies are unfair to those who can’t drive

Policies that encourage dependence on cars marginalise people who can’t or don’t drive. These groups are often disadvantaged in other ways. For example, people with disabilities tend to rely on public transport, not cars, to participate in society.

In Australia, households in the most disadvantaged areas are the most likely not to have a car. Older Australians are also less likely to drive. Rates of driver licence ownership decrease from around the age of 60.

Providing quality public transport and walkable streets – not an oversupply of car parking – is critical to ensure children, young and older people and those with disabilities can get around independently.

Minimum parking requirements prioritise cars as the default transport option. The results include increased congestion, urban sprawl and air pollution.

Parking requirements also make apartments less affordable. Land construction costs per parking space average between A$50,000 and $80,000, as well as using valuable space at an average of 21 square metres. A parking space is bigger than a bedroom – and nearly half the size of a typical new Melbourne apartment!.

Design cities around people, not cars

Australian planning policy has favoured cars over other forms of transport for too long. This needs to change if we want our cities to be healthy, liveable and easy to get around for everyone.

Moreland’s plan to scrap minimum parking requirements may sound extreme, but it isn’t going to take existing parking spaces away, or mean all new developments will have zero parking.

Read more: Move away from a car-dominated city looks radical but it’s a sensible plan for a liveable future

The practicalities of on-street parking policy are important, but mandating the supply of more off-street parking isn’t even the best way to meet parking demand.

If we continue to plan our urban areas as if everyone needs a car (or multiple cars) to get around, we will rapidly run out of space. And the space we have left will be unpleasant to spend time in. This means more time spent in traffic for drivers and ugly, hazardous and polluted streets for locals.

Sidestepping this difficult issue in the name of “balance” isn’t fair or practical. Improving public transport in these corridors is in the state’s power and would be a much more constructive response.

– ref. Of all the problems our cities need to fix, lack of car parking isn’t one of them – http://theconversation.com/of-all-the-problems-our-cities-need-to-fix-lack-of-car-parking-isnt-one-of-them-116179

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Warwick Smith, Research economist, University of Melbourne

Clive Palmer is reportedly spending A$70 million of his own money on his party’s campaign.

How is it possible for one individual to command so much wealth and where did it come from? The sad and strange reality is that Australian governments gave him most of it by letting him dig up and sell natural resources that, by rights, belong to us not him.

We’ve a history of handing vast wealth to resource and mining magnates and companies and then watching them use that wealth to undermine our democracy in order to continue to get access to that wealth. Palmer is small fry compared to Gina Rinehart and Andrew Forrest or the corporate power of BHP, Rio Tinto and others.

So, what do state and federal governments charge for our mineral wealth? You would hope that they use state-of-the-art methods to get the best possible prices. You’d be wrong, of course.

We barely charge for resources

The federal government relies primarily on company tax and then on extra tax from employment and consumer spending and other things that are boosted as an indirect result of mining.

But many of the big mining and resource companies use the holes in our tax system to avoid paying company tax. In addition, mining is being increasingly automated, with self-driving trucks and trains becoming the norm, and ever-larger machinery meaning that fewer workers are needed for each tonne extracted and refined. These days billions can be spent with relatively few jobs created.

State and territory governments collect royalties from land-based mining companies, which are charged per unit of product. It means that when the prices of our mineral resources go up during a commodity boom the royalties do not rise with them – the mining companies benefit, but not the people who own the resources.

How much we collect in taxes is just the beginning of the story.

We also spend vast amounts of taxpayer cash on building the infrastructure needed for resource extraction; things such as roads, railways and ports. We also often end up footing the bill to clean up after mines close and the big companies sell depleted mines and their clean-up obligations to shell companies that then file for bankruptcy.

We could (and should) seek more

We could fix the system to get a fairer price.

We already have a more effective tax system for offshore oil and gas. It is, in effect, what the Rudd government tried to do in 2010 when it proposed a mining super profits tax. Foolishly, the tax was announced more than a year before it was to come into effect, giving the mining interests plenty of time to campaign against it.

They spent more than A$22 million just on advertising. Rudd abandoned the original proposal and was removed from office.

The Gillard government consulted the miners and adopted a watered-down version – the Mineral Resource Rent Tax – that was so toothless it collected almost nothing. Even though it was worthless, the mining industry still saw it as enough of a threat to pressure Tony Abbott to kill it off when he took government, which he did with Clive Palmer’s vote in parliament.

But miners have muscle

A more radical idea would be to put out tenders for the extraction and refinement of natural resources and then have the government or an independent authority owned by the government allocate them. Such a “single desk” would have considerable market power – it could demand good payments.

The truth is that all of this has been public knowledge for a long time and the solutions are well known. The problem is politics, not knowledge. The mining industry is so powerful that our leaders rarely attempt to take it on.

Given that Palmer set the record for most absent politician in two out of the three years he was in the parliament last time, why is he so keen to go back? There’s no evidence that he’s a conviction politician, trying to make the country better based on some strongly held principles; quite the opposite given how regularly he has changed his positions.

Read more: Now for the $55 million question: what does Clive Palmer actually want?

Could it be that what he really wants is political power in order to defend and increase the extent to which him and his mates rake in the cash at our expense?

In 2016 the government used it’s position as a creditor to seek the appointment of a special liquidator to look at the collapse of Palmer’s Queensland Nickel company and the actions of Palmer’s actions personally. The government’s Michaelia Cash said at that time it would use every power as it’s disposal to hold company officers to account.

On Thursday at the National Press Club Prime Minister Scott Morrison was asked how he intended to manage the conflict between pursuing Palmer in the courts and courting his vote in the Senate.

He replied that he would be able to.

We will continue to pursue that measure through the courts with full vigor – we are very confident in our ability to pursue that as we absolutely should

It is obvious that we need political donation reform to keep the influence of money out of politics but we need to go one step further and reform how we, the Australian people, sell our mineral resource wealth so that we don’t create mining giants like Palmer in the first place. He is just the tip of the iceberg.

– ref. Mineral wealth, Clive Palmer, and the corruption of Australian politics – http://theconversation.com/mineral-wealth-clive-palmer-and-the-corruption-of-australian-politics-117248

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Danielle Clode, Senior Research Fellow in Creative Writing, Flinders University

I had a momentary brain-fade when I went to the movies this week.

“Three tickets to … what’s it called again?” I asked.

“Endgame”, the ticket seller replied firmly, “What other movie is there?”

At over three hours long, it certainly is a movie for the fans, packed full of emotionally satisfying vignettes and snappy interactions for the cast of thousands that has become the Avengers trademark. I don’t think I’ve ever watched a faster three-hour movie.

Avengers: Endgame, the concluding half of Avengers: Infinity War, has quickly become one of the biggest grossing movies of all time. By pure numbers these are important and influential movies. So what are they are telling us?

Let me say at the outset that this is not a critique of the movie itself. I’m not going to document plot holes, flaws in logic or whether or not the science is correct. I’m happy to suspend a bit of disbelief for the sake of a good story. But I am interested in the function that stories like these play and what they reveal about our broader hopes and fears.

Although not pitched as one, Endgame is an environmental movie – and an apt one for our times. Its predecessor, Infinity War, saw the world under threat from powerful villain Thanos, whose home world had been destroyed by overpopulation and resource exploitation. His grief sets him on a quest (involving, naturally, a gauntlet studded with variously magical and powerful stones) to halve the population of the universe.

Despite being cast as the antagonist, it is Thanos’s character who undertakes the “hero’s journey” in this movie. By the end of Infinity War, Thanos manages to achieve his goal across the universe, without violence – painlessly and humanely, with a click of the fingers – wiping out exactly 50% of the population at random, all at once.

It’s a little unclear in Infinity War what Thanos intends to reduce: half the human population or half of all sentient life. His track record had focussed on people, killing “people planet by planet, massacre by massacre”. In Endgame the goal is broadened. Not just all humans or even all sentient life forms, not just the resource exploiters and over-users, but half of all life forms. It’s a telling ecological misstep.

Clearly, it’s the people that matter and humans in particular. Despite having the breadth of the universe as a stage, even the alien Avengers are strikingly Earth-centric, with the exception of Captain Marvel/Carol Danvers, who is the only one, aside from Thanos, who cares that the same thing is happening across thousands of planets.

Various critics have discussed whether Thanos’s population reduction strategy would work – at least in terms of halving the human population of Earth. And they generally conclude that it wouldn’t.

But this is an over-simplification of the movie’s message. The specific population reduction strategy Thanos employs can also be read as a broader environmental goal – to “restore” ecological balance. Climate change, pollution, species extinctions, overpopulation, resource use and distribution are all connected parts of the broader issue of environmental sustainability. The question is not, is population reduction a viable strategy? (Probably not.) Nor even, would a reduced human population be good for the planet? (Perhaps, if it were sustainable.)

The question Endgame poses for us is, are we willing to make personal sacrifices to save our own futures? To which the answer is a categorical no.

Our greatest fears

Eco-catastrophe fiction is often castigated for not being scientifically accurate, and for failing to promote action on any of the various threats that face our planet – overpopulation, pollution, extinction, nuclear fallout, climate change. But when my colleague and I looked at climate change fiction across the centuries, we found that such stories are not about providing answers to our problems, but articulating our greatest fears. These stories – in book or movie form – are reflections of how society imagines the world of the future.

Eco-catastrophe stories have been a part of our culture from the earliest mythological stories of floods, fires, eruptions and storms. These stories of punishment and redemption form the foundation for much of our literature, not least that of superheroes with god-like or even godly powers.

Read more: When the Bullin shrieked: Aboriginal memories of volcanic eruptions thousands of years ago

The emergence of both the novel (and modern science) in the 17th and 18th centuries saw a growing awareness of environmental change reflected in fiction. Early Romantic literature may have seen climate change as a metaphor for social progress and human advancement into a Utopia, but that rapidly shifted into the dystopian fears that dominate environmental fictional literature today.

From the mid-19th century onwards, fiction, and particularly science fiction, closely tracked developments in science. Our deeper understanding of past ice-ages and the influence of solar variation, geological instability and the oscillations of the earth on climate, emerged in stories like Gabriel De Tarde’s Underground Man, S Fowler Wright’s Deluge and William Wallace Cook’s Tales of Twenty Hundred.

Extra-terrestrial influences (comets rather than aliens) provided the catalyst for eco-catastrophe fiction in the 19th and 20th centuries. This phase was a phenomenon undoubtedly inspired by the first-hand experience of the “little Ice Age” which caused widespread famine, crop failures, and food riots across the Northern Hemisphere. Astronomer Camille Flammarion’s Omega: The Last Days of the World (1893-4) was perhaps one of the most influential of the comet-inspired fictions and marked the continuing dominance of dystopian over utopian visions for the future.

This pattern continued into the 20th and 21st centuries and, as the climate change debate expanded from a restricted scientific focus to a broader social and political dimension, the literature expanded from science fiction to a broader range of literary forms. Eco-catastrophe has emerged in every genre from thrillers to literary fiction and particularly young adult fiction. And of course, in the visual forms of storytelling – superhero, science fiction and apocalypse movies.

A sense of inevitability and hopelessness pervades much of the modern literature on climate change, irrespective of sub-genre. Rarely is climate change depicted as being solved by human agency. For many, the damage of climate change can only be overcome with the assistance of either supernatural or extra-terrestrial powers. We can see the same patterns in movies where the future of humanity is so often saved by superior intelligence rather than our own, either aliens, angels, or, as in Interstellar, our unrecognisably advanced selves.

Read more: Friday essay: how speculative fiction gained literary respectability

Distrust of scientists

The history of eco-castastrophic stories reveals that, far from being agents of resolution and improvement, scientists are mostly depicted as untrustworthy or even responsible for the crisis. Environmentalists are even less trustworthy than the scientists; they are frequently depicted as extremist and violent loonies.

This distrust is reflected throughout the Avengers franchise. The original 2012 Avengers film saw Tony Stark’s (aka Iron Man) sustainable power source, the Arc Reactor, co-opted to create a wormhole entry point for alien invasion. The shadowy law enforcement agency, SHIELD, subverts research into the environmental potential of the Tesseract, an alien object with infinite energy, for weapons development. The same theme recurs – green technology is dangerous and scientists cannot be trusted.

And nor can “environmentalists” like Thanos. On his home planet, his environmental crusade earns him the title “The Mad Titan”. By the end of Infinity War, however, he has completed his quest, accepted the sacrifice his choices entail, and his hero’s journey is at an end. Both he and the world have been transformed into a new order. Thanos sits in the countryside and watches the sunset.

Except that it’s not a happy ending. Endgame opens with a powerful scene that illustrates the central problem. Clint Barton (or to use his “made-up name”, Hawkeye) is picnicking with his family in the country – having given up his action persona – and is teaching his daughter to shoot arrows. As he turns away for a moment, his daughter, wife and two sons all suddenly disappear – victims of the 50% erasure. Hawkeye’s loss is both excessive and insurmountable. He loses everything.

Versions of this continuing loss permeate the movie. Hawkeye retreats into his vengeful violent superhero persona. Thor drinks himself, comically, into oblivion. Captain America runs group counselling sessions helping people to move on.

The differing manifestations of grief are represented in different characters – denial, anger, depression, bargaining, even acceptance. But these are not stages that characters work through. Ultimately all the characters are grief-stricken and unable to move forwards, except for Tony Stark, who has moved on but decides that, in a hastily explained piece of time-travel sleight of hand, he can fix the most of the problems without losing the future he has created for himself.

Read more: Avengers: Endgame exploits time travel and quantum mechanics as it tries to restore the universe

Nonetheless, the future in which our environmental problems are resolved is infused with melancholy. While Thanos’s rural retreat is a pastoral idyll, the rest of the world is empty, seemingly devoid of life. When Captain America mentions the environmental restoration, he is flippantly dismissed by Black Widow:

You know, if you’re about to tell me to look on the bright side – I’m about to hit you in the head with a peanut butter sandwich.

In traditional superhero stories, the hero(ine) must sacrifice the thing they love most for the betterment of the world. But in Infinity War and Endgame, the heroes sacrifice the betterment of the world to save (or at least reconcile with) the things they love best. Individual interests win out over social or environmental restoration. Rather than securing the future we need, they save the world of the past. With superheroes like this, my sympathies lie with the villains (and not just because of Tom Hiddleston).

So, is Endgame a paean to conservative values, a retreat to an idealised version of the past, a failure to meet the genuine challenges that face the Earth and its ever expanding human population?

Nathaniel Rich, author of Odds Against Tomorrow (2013) once argued: “I don’t think that the novelist necessarily has the responsibility to write about global warming … but I do feel novelists should write about what these things do to the human heart.” This is true of movies too.

What Endgame reveals is that in our hearts we are afraid that the price of environmental salvation is too high, that the losses will be too great, that we will not be able to cope with the scale of the personal sacrifice required.

An insight into the cultural zeitgeist

There is no point in complaining that there are no great climate change movies, or books, with real solutions, or which inspire real action. This is not their purpose. Movies and books don’t help us to overcome our fears, they simply express them. But surely they also reinforce them. Cliched fears about the risks of environmental change, scientists and technology may not be intentionally promoted but they risk promulgating pervasive subconscious biases that both perpetuate and delay vital cultural change.

The real risks of environmental inaction, of course, massively outweigh the risks of any environmental action. But that message does not yet seem to be permeating the popular psyche.

It may well be true, too, that the worst environmental costs will not be borne by the relatively well-off viewers of Avengers movies, but disproportionately by poorer and more vulnerable communities (something that only heightens the irony of fictional East African nation Wakanda’s role in the Avengers franchise).

Effective environmental action does not demand the destruction of half the human population. But it does require the vastly more efficient use and distribution of resources. The sacrifice is not that of the individual, but the vested interests in old-world resources and technology who would prefer not to incur the costs of change. Responding to environmental change does not threaten our comforts, but failing to act will.

Endgame isn’t the endgame: it’s an insight into the cultural zeitgeist. Neither threats nor solutions come from purple aliens, gods or superheroes. They come from us – politicians, scientists, environmentalists, industry and the general public.

Markets, technology and industries can and will adapt rapidly to changing circumstances, in milliseconds, months or even decades. Economies recover, but species do not. The environment takes millennia to adapt and what is lost never comes back. We need to face our fears and find solutions to these problems, rather than just perpetuating the fantasy of regressing into the past.

As Peter Parker says: “You can’t be a friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man, if there’s no neighbourhood.”

– ref. Friday essay: is this the Endgame – and did we win or did we lose? – http://theconversation.com/friday-essay-is-this-the-endgame-and-did-we-win-or-did-we-lose-117172

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Arezou Zalipour, Associate Professor in Screen Production and Cultural Studies, Auckland University of Technology

Migration plays an important role in shaping Aotearoa New Zealand society. New Zealand’s biggest city, Auckland, is now “more diverse than London”, and one in four New Zealanders have come from elsewhere.

The large number of arrivals from across the Pacific region has given Auckland the largest Pacific Islander population of any city in the world. Almost one-quarter of Auckland’s population is now classified as Asian. This itself is a catch-all term for a wide range of peoples and cultures covering half of humanity.

But while diversity in New Zealand is greater than ever, there is a gap between the society we see around us and what is reflected on screen.

Read more: Three ways Screen Australia can actually improve diversity in the industry

On New Zealand screens

In 2011, when I started my research, there were a few films made by and about migrant ethnic peoples in New Zealand. There was Leon Narbey’s beautifully shot Illustrious Energy (1988) about Chinese miners in the South Island, and Sima Urale and Shuchi Kothari’s Apron Strings (2008), a double story about an Indian and a Pākehā (of European descent) family in South Auckland.

There were also several short films with scarce publicity, and I came across television programmes such as Asia Downunder (1994-2011) and An Immigrant Nation — Footprints of the Dragon (1994).

In recent years, there have been more screen productions by New Zealanders of migrant ethnic descent that attempt to represent a wider range of social and cultural experiences among the contemporary population. But overall it is evident that New Zealand’s national cinema and television has so far included Pākehā and Māori films and, to a lesser degree, Pasifika films.

This includes movies of international acclaim, such as Whale Rider, The Piano and Taika Waititi’s The Hunt for the Wilderpeople, but we do not see faces, images, voices and stories of all diverse communities on New Zealand screens.

Diversity and inclusion through screens

Considering the long migrant ethnic history in New Zealand’s demographic make-up, could New Zealand screens reflect better the actual diversity of contemporary society? Could New Zealand screens include all New Zealanders?

Representation of diverse communities on screens means recognising a wider range of social and cultural experiences in contemporary society. It also means acknowledging that New Zealand audiences are more diverse than ever. Screens and media are the platforms that can increase the visibility of migrant ethnic communities in New Zealand society.

Following the Christchurch mosque attacks, New Zealanders engaged with the Muslim community, regardless of their own ethnicity, faith, gender, and all other identity markers. We have observed a sudden shift in coverage of migrant ethnic peoples in New Zealand media. This reminds us of the ways in which screen and media play a significant role in creating a sense of inclusion and construction of identities for migrant ethnic groups in New Zealand.

For young and old New Zealanders, seeing the faces they see around them reflected on screen builds a sense of social and cultural connectedness, a sense of belonging to a land they (may) want to call home.

Read more: The problem with Apu: why we need better portrayals of people of colour on television

Making communities visible

In 2017, I curated and directed the (In)Visibile New Zealand Film Festival, mainly in collaboration with the Hamilton Film Society in the Waikato region. It was a first of its kind and aimed to explore and showcase New Zealand’s diverse onscreen landscape. The discussions after films pointed at the lack of socio-cultural and ethnic exposure and awareness among New Zealand audiences. The common theme that emerged from audience responses was the feeling of confrontation.

For a long time, New Zealanders’ imaginations, beliefs and assumptions have remained largely unchallenged. The Christchurch attacks have stirred the awareness of many New Zealanders. Among them are migrant ethnic groups in New Zealand who might prefer to be more visible. It is possible to create a sense of solidarity and inclusion, but only if we do not let absence, (convenient) unawareness and assumptions cloud our horizons.

The way forward is to create more exposure and carve out more spaces for images and stories of peoples from all backgrounds who live in New Zealand. This will help develop new perceptions as well as cultural consciousness for the generations to come.

We have heard many times that creating social cohesion is the answer to the challenges that arise from diversity. To create social cohesion, we need to create the space where our stories are told, where our voices are heard, where we create new memories and histories together. The migrants’ children in this land will tell stories that will reflect their lives in contemporary diverse New Zealand life.

As more people from different backgrounds commit to a future in New Zealand, some feel the need to reflect publicly on their experience of inclusion or exclusion. The desire to shape their related experiences and perspectives into various films will help make New Zealand screens more inclusive. Not having a representative presence on New Zealand screens means peoples from different origins have not yet claimed their public space.

– ref. To build social cohesion, our screens need to show the same diversity of faces we see on the street – http://theconversation.com/to-build-social-cohesion-our-screens-need-to-show-the-same-diversity-of-faces-we-see-on-the-street-116416

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

At the end of what’s been for him a testing campaign, Bill Shorten chose to go to Blacktown, to the hall where Gough Whitlam nearly half a century ago delivered his famous “It’s Time” election speech.

For Shorten, on his last big occasion of the five weeks, to tap so conspicuously into the Whitlam spirit was a significant decision. For years Whitlam was an icon that Labor aspirants treated with caution, because his story, which started with such promise, went awry. There was no way Bob Hawke, seeking office in 1983, wanted voters to be thinking back to Gough.

But now the Whitlam government’s falling apart has faded into history and the hope he represented can be resurrected. Or that was Shorten’s gamble (some worry a hubristic one) as he gave Gough’s famous “men and women of Australia” speech-opening the contemporary twist of “women and men”.

Like Whitlam, Shorten is selling a huge bag of promises (including in those familiar Whitlam areas of health, education, environment and infrastructure – climate change is a central addition).

It was perhaps easier to persuade people of the case for change in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when voters weren’t so sour and cynical. But on the other hand, angry voters may now be more inclined to deliver punishment to incumbents.

In 1972, Whitlam was claiming his big spending could all be done without increasing tax. Shorten’s program comes with its own rigorous payment plan, a much more realistic and responsible approach, but with greater challenges too.

There’s another big difference for Labor between then and now. While Shorten plays well to a crowd of the faithful, he is no Gough Whitlam, who captured the public’s imagination with genuine charisma. If Labor wins Shorten will deserve massive credit, but no one will put victory down to his personal appeal.

Addressing the more staid setting of a National Press Club audience on Thursday, Scott Morrison observed that the consensus is Saturday’s election will be close, which wasn’t what people had been writing a few months ago.

Whether the consensus will become the reality we’ll know soon enough. But certainly in the run up to the campaign, Labor appeared to be unassailably in the box seat. Now there is more confusion, and a degree of nail biting in Labor circles. Electorates are expected to change hands in both directions.

Morrison has been a much better campaigner than anticipated. This is especially notable because he is offering relatively little – some immediate tax cuts (more than matched by Labor), with further tax relief far down the track.

Morrison’s campaign has been all about the negatives, why this is “not the time for change”, conjuring up fears about what Labor’s tax agenda would bring. It’s been focused on caution, the need for people to avoid the unknown in uncertain times.

The Prime Minister is also pitching the ultimate “trust me” message, sometimes wrapped in language smacking of the pulpit or the song circuit.

After dodging most questions at the National Press Club, Morrison ended by saying if Australians voted for him, they could be “absolutely assured that I will burn for you every day, every single day, so you can achieve your ambitions, your aspirations, your desires”. Just how he would “burn” is, however, something to be revealed in the event of victory.

As a campaigner Morrison has been a natural, partly because he’s a “whatever it takes” man and, as the underdog, he figured he’d have nothing to lose.

Shorten exceeded expectations in the 2016 campaign when he was under less pressure. This time he has been competent but patchy.

He’s had high spots, especially the set pieces, and his response to the Daily Telegraph’s story about his mother. But there were a couple of glitches, and a bit of tension between the travelling team and campaign head office. And Shorten has been on edge, fearing some strike that might derail his run when the prize is so close.

Nevertheless, Labor’s campaign has been well planned and delivered. The initiatives on cancer funding, child care, and the pensioner dental scheme are appealing. The costings have been credible. The fiscal bottom line is convincing economically and savvy politically. But Labor’s proposed curbs on negative gearing and franking credits will cost it some votes.

Shorten went into the race the favourite but like the favourite in the racetrack, he is carrying a lot of weight.

The latest polls, published Thursday, are tight but (as with all the polls for literally years) have Labor ahead. In Essential, the government trailed 48.5-51.5%.

In Nine’s Ipsos, it was behind 49-51%. The Ipsos poll had the Coalition on 39% primary vote, and also found that of those who have already voted (more than half of whom were aged over 55), the Coalition was supported 53-47% on a two-party basis.

In both polls, voters expected Labor to win.

If Labor is the victor with a narrow majority, Shorten will be anxious to proceed quickly with his ambitious and detailed program. But he would need to maintain the tight discipline Labor has shown so admirably in opposition, and that would not necessarily be easy. And favours would start to be called in from the unions and others.

The Senate would likely be a challenge to some of the ALP’s tax measures, which would have implications for the expenditure side.

If Shorten wins he would be going into office with the most ambitious Labor program since Whitlam. Would it be too ambitious? That’s impossible to anticipate.

But – unlike the Whitlam ministry which took over after 23 years of conservative rule – many on the Shorten frontbench would be steeped in previous ministerial experience. And this would be a very important safety catch.

If Saturday’s result is a hung parliament (Labor or Coalition) the voters can only blame themselves for delivering a political outcome that would make policy outcomes more difficult to bring about.

A re-elected Morrison majority government would be a big question mark. There is not a comprehensive blueprint on the record, just a hungry PM on display. “I’m just getting started,” he tells us. “The hunger for Australia and achieving the aspirations of Australia, it is burning deep within me.”

– ref. Grattan on Friday: Bill channels Gough as he hopes that his time is coming – http://theconversation.com/grattan-on-friday-bill-channels-gough-as-he-hopes-that-his-time-is-coming-117273

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Frank Bongiorno, Professor of History, ANU College of Arts and Social Sciences, Australian National University

If Bob Hawke had never become prime minister, he would still be recalled as a major figure in Australian political and industrial history. As president of the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), Hawke was as instantly recognisable as any pop star. But it is as prime minister of Australia (1983-1991) that he made his greatest mark.

Robert James Lee Hawke was born in Bordertown, South Australia, on December 9 1929, the younger of two sons of Clem Hawke, a Congregationalist minister, and his wife Ellie. The family – minus Neil, who was at boarding school in Adelaide – moved to South Australia’s Yorke Peninsula in 1935. Clem had always doted on Bob, regarding him as “special”. But following Neil’s tragic death from meningitis, Ellie’s passionate love and missionary purpose focused with a new intensity on her remaining son.

The family moved to Perth in 1939. Hawke was educated at the selective Perth Modern School and, from 1947, the University of Western Australia, where he completed degrees in arts and law. He also threw himself into student politics, eventually being elected president of the Guild of Undergraduates.

Clem’s younger brother Albert, a Labor member of the Western Australian parliament and premier from 1953 until 1959, was in these matters his nephew’s mentor and guide.

Bob’s survival of a near-death experience in a motorcycle accident confirmed his parents’ conviction that God had spared their son for a high public purpose. Hawke would abandon Christianity after witnessing poverty in India, but never lost the zeal that dictated he must fully use his talents to make a better world.

While Hawke was at university he met the attractive and intelligent Hazel Masterson, to whom he became engaged in 1950. The following year, Hawke failed to win the Rhodes Scholarship, but was determined to make another bid. Hazel then became pregnant: if they had married – as was usual for a courting couple in such straits – Bob would have been ineligible. Instead, Hazel underwent a traumatic abortion, the first major sacrifice in a marriage that would demand much of her.

Awarded the Rhodes Scholarship in 1952, Hawke travelled to Oxford, where he completed a Bachelor of Letters thesis on Australian wage determination, learned to fly, and broke a world beer-drinking record. Hazel joined him in England.

They married in Perth in 1956 and moved to Canberra, where Hawke had a scholarship to research a doctorate in law at the Australian National University. In 1958, the offer of a position as ACTU research officer led him to abandon his studies and the Hawkes – including Susan, the first of their three children – moved to Melbourne. He proved a pugnacious, knowledgeable and persuasive advocate, becoming a hero in union circles after some notable successes in the Arbitration Commission. In 1963, he narrowly missed winning the federal seat of Corio.

In 1969, Hawke was elected ACTU president, receiving the left’s support in what turned out to be a closely fought contest. During the 1970s, he became a towering figure in national political and industrial life.

Hawke was peculiarly popular at a time when unions were not, perhaps partly on account of his reputation for having the magic touch in the resolution of industrial conflict. His arched eyebrows and dark wavy hair gave him a striking, handsome appearance seemingly made for television. His educated yet unmistakably Australian speech resonated with the era’s more assertive national identity.

Hawke was also ALP president from 1973 until 1978, and he served as a governor of the Reserve Bank from 1973 until 1980. His relationship with Gough Whitlam was fraught – there was hardly room on the national stage for two egos on this scale – but Hawke was a calming influence after the dismissal, resisting calls for a general strike.

To many, Hawke’s rise to the prime ministership appeared inexorable, yet by the late 1970s there were in place some formidable personal barriers. Hawke was a champion womaniser and boozer. He was an unpleasant drunk. And his widely admired charm and charisma came with a volcanic temper, sometimes on display in his television appearances.

Some flamboyantly boorish behaviour at the 1979 ALP National Conference in Adelaide – involving intemperate criticism of party leader Bill Hayden in the presence of journalists – briefly imperilled his career. But having decided to enter parliament, he gave up the grog. A 1982 biography written by his former lover and future wife, Blanche d’Alpuget, made a clean breast of his personal excesses and family failings. By this time Hawke was the federal member for Wills and shadow minister for industrial relations, having entered parliament at the 1980 election.

Hawke’s pursuit of the federal Labor leadership showed that he was prepared to be ruthless in dealing with an opponent when they stood in the way of what he saw as his destiny. Piece by piece, he and his allies undermined Hayden’s confidence and standing. An unsuccessful bid for the party leadership in mid-1982 was followed by elevation to the leadership in February 1983 after key party powerbrokers lost confidence in Hayden’s prospects, virtually forcing his resignation. Hawke led his party to a comfortable victory on March 5.

In government, he was fortunate to have inherited the Prices and Incomes Accord, finally agreed by the federal ALP and ACTU after Hawke assumed the leadership. The accord committed unions to wage restraint in return for benefits such as Medicare.

Hawke was also endowed with a talented frontbench. But he proved himself a skilled cabinet chair, with a flair for getting the best out of people. His popularity was a valuable asset; Hawke’s approval rating soared, giving weight to his conviction that he had a special relationship with the Australian people.

Hawke was also lucky. The drought ended. The worst of the recession would soon be over. And Australia II’s victory in the America’s Cup seemed as much Hawke’s victory as that of the successful syndicate, after a jubilant prime minister announced that any boss who sacked a worker for not turning up that day was a “bum”.

An emboldened government floated the dollar – in essence, the joint decision of a highly productive partnership with his treasurer, Paul Keating. The government, helped by a High Court decision, prevented the damming of the Franklin River in Tasmania, while Hawke steered the country through a divisive debate about Asian immigration. But in the face of opposition from some states and the mining sector, the government abandoned national Aboriginal land rights legislation, and Hawke’s later commitment to a treaty, similarly abandoned, further damaged the government’s reputation in Aboriginal affairs.

In 1984, Hawke shed public tears over the heroin addiction of his daughter, Rosslyn. He was not at his best in the subsequent election campaign. Hawke won, but had lost some of his shininess.

A balance-of-payments crisis and plunge in the dollar in the mid-1980s provided the backdrop for greater financial stringency and further free-market reform. Welfare carefully targeted those most in need, university fees were reintroduced, and tariffs were lowered. Some public assets were sold.

Critics complained of the abandonment of Labor tradition and criticised Hawke’s closeness to his “rich mates”, along with his alleged subservience to the United States. Electorally, though, Hawke remained a winner, enjoying further victories in 1987 and 1990. No federal Labor leader had won three elections, let alone four.

Hawke’s prime ministership came to grief over his rivalry with Keating and the deterioration of Australia’s economy, culminating in the worst recession since the 1930s. After an unsuccessful tilt at the leadership in mid-1991, Keating defeated Hawke in a ballot shortly before Christmas. Hawke resigned from parliament.

His memoirs, published in 1994, attracted considerable interest not least for his continuing hostility to Keating who was still then prime minister. In 1995, following a divorce from Hazel, he married d’Alpuget. Hawke subsequently worked in the media, pursued a business career and served as chairman of the committee of experts of Education International, a global voice of the teaching profession.

In a 2010 survey of historians and political scientists, Hawke came second, just behind his hero, John Curtin. Hawke’s historical reputation has risen as his record has been viewed in light of the more modest achievements of every one of his successors.

He is survived by his second wife, Blanche d’Alpuget, his children by his first marriage, Susan, Stephen and Rosslyn, six grandchildren, as well as great-grandchildren.

– ref. Vale Bob Hawke, a giant of Australian political and industrial history – http://theconversation.com/vale-bob-hawke-a-giant-of-australian-political-and-industrial-history-93719

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Steven Hamilton, Visiting Scholar, Tax and Transfer Policy Institute, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University

Perhaps the most woefully misunderstood economic issue of the election campaign has been negative gearing.

I’ve been baffled by the number of times I’ve read commentary by otherwise thoughtful people describing negative gearing as a distortion to the property market – as a rort we need to crack down on.

But as someone who knows a bit about the economics of taxation, I can say that simply isn’t true.

Negative gearing is a natural, orthodox and proper feature of any market for investment. And allowing negative gearing to be tax deductible is an essential component of an efficient tax system.

Negative gearing isn’t an account in the Caiman Islands

Negative gearing is a funny term. If you search online, you won’t find the term used in most parts of the world. Not because it’s not allowed, but because the term makes it sound grander than it is. In reality, negative gearing is nothing special – it’s boring and conventional.

If it didn’t have a fancy name, perhaps so many column inches wouldn’t have been wasted writing about it. And maybe we wouldn’t have cast it as a villain that must be slain.

When you buy an asset (such as a home), you bear costs (such as interest) in exchange for two types of return: cash (such as rent) and a rise in value (called a capital gain).

To tax the entire return, we should add up the rent and capital gain over the life of the asset and deduct the interest, maintenance and depreciation expenses.

The capital gain might not be achieved for years – not until the asset is sold, so the total might come out negative for some years while the interest and other expenses exceed the rent received (that’s all “negative gearing” is).

Ordinary people do it

This needn’t mean you’re a wild speculator. With a 20% deposit, 4% interest rate and 3% annual rental yields seen in Sydney recently, you’d be running a loss until you sold.

Investors should be able to deduct this loss from their other income, or carry it forward to future years if they don’t have income that year.

This is completely orthodox economics. It ensures tax applies equally to the upside and downside of an investment (or it would, if the eventual capital gain wasn’t only half taxed – more on that later).

Restricting this will depress investment. Fewer investors will buy investment properties and those without the ability to negatively gear will spend less on maintenance and the like.

Fewer buyers of homes will mean lower prices for homes. How much lower is a matter of debate.

Removing it could push prices down, and up

On the other hand, in order to support the building of new homes, Labor will allow investors in new homes to continue to benefit from negative gearing, outlawing it only for new investors in existing homes. That’ll push up the price of new homes, and encourage the building of more new homes than are needed.

Some have blamed negative gearing for house prices that are far higher than they should be. While there’s no good evidence on that, it’s surely true that prices are higher with negative gearing than without it.

But rather than being the root cause of the housing affordability crisis – of prices that are higher than they should be – negative gearing is really more of a catalyst.

It’s an enabler rather than a problem

The real culprit is the generous 50% discount on the taxation of capital gains. It means that while losses can be written off at the full tax rate, the eventual gain is taxed at only half the full rate.

Winding back the capital gains tax concession was recommended by the Henry Tax Review, was hinted at in the Treasury tax discussion paper commissioned by Coalition Treasurer Joe Hockey, and has been adopted by Labor.

The focus of taxation when it comes to housing should be on neutrality – that decisions of whether to invest in housing are just as they would be if there were no taxes. A lower capital gains tax discount would come closer to doing that. Then negative gearing could stay.

The goal of tax policy should be neither to support nor depress house prices, but rather to let the market evolve on its own. Negative gearing can be part of that.

Read more: Confirmation from NSW Treasury. Labor’s negative gearing policy would barely move house prices

– ref. Election surprise. Negative gearing isn’t a rort — but something else is – http://theconversation.com/election-surprise-negative-gearing-isnt-a-rort-but-something-else-is-117247

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kevin Veale, Lecturer in Media Studies, Massey University

The “Christchurch Call” summit has made specific progress, with tech companies and world leaders signing an agreement to eliminate terrorist and violent extremist content online. The question now is how we collectively follow up on its promise.

The summit in Paris began with the statement that the white supremacist terrorist attack in Christchurch two months ago was “unprecedented”. But one of the benefits of this conversation happening in such a prominent fashion is that it draws attention to the fact that this was not the first time social media platforms have been implicated in terrorism.

It was merely the first time that a terrorist attack in a western country was broadcast via the internet. Facebook played a significant role in the genocide of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar, as covered in the Frontline documentary “The Facebook Dilemma”. And this study demonstrated a link between Facebook use and violence against refugees in Germany.

Read more: It’s vital we clamp down on online terrorism. But is Ardern’s ‘Christchurch Call’ the answer?

Better than expected outcome

I hope attention now turns to the fact that social media platforms profit from both an indifference to harassment and from harassment itself. It falls within the realms of corporate responsibility to deal with these problems, but they have done nothing to remedy their contributions to harassment campaigns in the past.

Online communities whose primary purpose is to terrorise the people they target have existed for many years, and social media companies have ignored them. Anita Sarkeesian was targeted by a harassment campaign in 2012 after drawing attention to the problems of how women are represented in videogames. She chronicled the amount of abuse she received on Twitter in just one week during 2015 (content warning, this includes threats of murder and rape). Twitter did nothing.

When the summit began, I hoped that pressure from governments and the threat of regulation would prompt some movement from social media companies, but I wasn’t optimistic. I expected that social media companies would claim that technological solutions based on algorithms would magically fix everything without human oversight, despite the fact that they can be and are gamed by bad actors.

I also thought the discussion might turn to removing anonymity from social media services or the internet, despite the evidence that many people involved in online abuse are comfortable doing so under their own names. Mainly, I thought that there would be some general, positive-sounding statements from tech companies about how seriously they were taking the summit, without many concrete details to their plans.

I’m pleased to be wrong. The discussion has already raised specific and vital elements. The New Zealand Herald reports that:

… tech companies have pledged to review their business models and take action to stop users being funnelled into extremist online rabbit holes that could lead to radicalisation. That includes sharing the effects of their commercially sensitive algorithms to develop effective ways to redirect users away from dark, single narratives.

Algorithms for profit

The underlying business model of social media platforms has been part of the problem with abuse and harassment on their services. A great deal of evidence suggests that algorithms designed in pursuit of profit are also fuelling radicalisation towards white supremacy. Rebecca Lewis highlights that YouTube’s business model is fundamental to the ways the platform pushes people towards more extreme content.

I never expected the discussions to get so specific that tech companies would explicitly put their business models on the table. That is promising, but the issue will be what happens next. Super Fund chief executive Matt Whineray has said that an international investor group of 55 funds, worth a US$3.3 trillion will put their financial muscle to the task of following up these initiatives and ensuring accountability. My question is how solutions and progress are going to be defined.

Social media companies have committed to greater public transparency about their setting of community standards, particularly around how people uploading terrorist content will be handled. But this commitment in the Christchurch Call agreement doesn’t carry through to discussions of algorithms and business models.

Are social media companies going to make their recommendation algorithms open source and allow scrutiny of their behaviour? That seems very unlikely, given how fundamental they are to their individual business models. They are likely to be seen as vital corporate property. Without that kind of openness it’s not clear how the investor group will judge whether any progress towards accountability is being made.

Read more: As responsible digital citizens, here’s how we can all reduce racism online

While the Christchurch Call has made concrete progress, it is important to make sure that we collectively keep up the pressure. We need to make sure this rare opportunity for important systemic changes doesn’t fall by the wayside. That means pursuing transparent accountability through whatever means we can, and not losing sight of fundamental problems like the underlying business model of social media companies.

One example of a specific step would be more widespread adoption of best ethical practice for covering extremist content in the news. There is evidence that not naming the perpetrator makes a difference, and the guidelines New Zealand media adopted for the coverage of the trial are another step in the right direction. A recent article from authors investigating the impact of digital media on democracy in New Zealand also points out concrete steps.

The Christchurch Call has made excellent progress as a first step to change, but we need to take this opportunity to push for systemic change in what has been a serious, long-term problem.

– ref. The ‘Christchurch Call’ is just a start. Now we need to push for systemic change – http://theconversation.com/the-christchurch-call-is-just-a-start-now-we-need-to-push-for-systemic-change-117259

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Wendt, Professor of Social Work, Flinders University

Domestic and family violence has devastating impacts on the physical, social, material and psychological well-being of women and children.

But the ramifications of abuse go beyond this – research has also established that domestic violence is a leading cause of homelessness among women and children, as victims fleeing abusive situations often have nowhere to go. Women’s crisis accommodation services are nearly always full. And many victims can’t rely on their social networks, as they’ve been eroded over time due to domestic violence.​

Read more: After a deadly month for domestic violence, the message doesn’t appear to be getting through

Now, the South Australia government is trying a new approach. The government recently announced funding to trial a new program that will provide accommodation, support services, and behaviour and attitudinal change interventions for the perpetrators of domestic and family violence – enabling women and children to remain in the family home.

Already, A$4 million has been allocated for shelter accommodation in South Australia for women and children, with a small proportion to be set aside for perpetrators. It is not clear yet how men will enter these shelters (mandated or voluntarily), but once there, the plan is to connect them with the support needed to properly address their abusive behaviour.

This is a rare approach to the complicated issue of how best to respond to domestic and family violence.

Why women and children leave their homes

The National Plan to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children (2010-2022) emphasises the need to hold perpetrators accountable for their actions through laws and policing, as well as interventions to force them to confront their use of violence in intimate partner relationships.

In practical terms, responses to domestic and family violence have tended to focus on victims. Government support services, for instance, typically include providing emergency and short-term accommodation for victims and safety planning (helping victims learn to be safe while living with violence).

As a result, ensuring the well-being of victims has largely focused on removing women and children from abusive situations in their family homes. This is problematic, though: it disrupts their lives and routines at a time when stability is most needed.

However, a few programs, including the trial in SA, are attempting to flip this response, asking the perpetrators – not victims – to leave the family home.

Most jurisdictions in Australia have implemented the Safe at Home program, which is a first step in this direction. This supports victims of domestic and family violence to stay at home by using legal means – exclusion clauses and protection orders – to keep perpetrators out.

But this program does not factor in the perpetrators’ accommodation needs or offer support to help them rehabilitate or change their violent behaviours. The only option available to perpetrators is a referral to a 12-week “behaviour change program”, which vary greatly in terms of success rates.

A new approach, but questions remain

Where the SA trial is different is that it seeks to remove perpetrators from the family home by offering them accommodation, as well as therapy and support services.

There are a very small number of similar programs in Australia, including Communicare Breathing Space in Western Australia and Room 4 Change in the ACT. These programs offer accommodation, individual counselling and group programs. Research on the efficacy of these programs is still needed, however.

Read more: How domestic violence affects women’s mental health

The details of the SA trial have yet to be released. Nonetheless, early indications suggest it will provide both accommodation and intensive support for perpetrators, which is why it shows such promise. However, the devil really is in the detail. Paying close attention to the following elements will be critical to the success of this initiative.

• Prioritising women and children’s safety is non-negotiable. Removing a perpetrator from a home does not guarantee an end to violence. On-going safety planning, risk assessments and protection orders must be implemented to minimise the threat of further violence.

• Women’s and children’s needs for support and counselling must be met. Domestic violence creates financial, physical and psychological issues that continue after the immediate threat of violence has ended. The already-limited funding for services must not be eroded.

• Accommodation must connect men to case management and therapeutic intervention programs. Case management is vital to address complex issues such as alcohol and drug use and mental and physical health, which can contribute to domestic and family violence. The accessibility of long-term therapy that is grounded in a gendered analysis of power is also necessary to drive behavioural and attitudinal change.

• Rigorous evaluation must also be built into the design of the trial. We are still developing the evidence base for what works to stop domestic and family violence. Change will not come through one program, or a single type of support.

Turning attention to perpetrators of domestic violence is a welcome political and policy initiative. However, the need to balance protection and accountability requires an integrated and well-funded approach. Housing is a first, not last step in achieving this change.

– ref. An innovative way to counter domestic violence: provide housing for abusers – http://theconversation.com/an-innovative-way-to-counter-domestic-violence-provide-housing-for-abusers-116597

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Roy Green, Emeritus Professor & UTS innovation adviser, University of Technology Sydney

Three years ago, then prime minister Malcolm Turnbull went to an election spruiking the wonders of innovation. “There has never been a more exciting time to be an Australian,” government advertising had enthused in the months before.

But the public wasn’t enthused, and Turnbull’s government barely scraped back into office.

Since then innovation policy has spooked the political class. They see it as a vote loser, and a threat to jobs – mostly their own.

Consequently, innovation and industry policy has received the least attention just when the decline of investment in research and development may matter most to our economic future.

Here’s how we got to where we are.

A deafening, blinding boom

After the terms of trade downturn of the 1980s and the economic reforms of the 1990s, Australia enjoyed the biggest, unanticipated mining boom in our history, thanks to the rise of China. John Howard wanted us to be “relaxed and comfortable” and we were, at least while it lasted.

Increased commodity prices boosted our terms of trade, without any extra effort on our part. By contrast with Norway, which prepared for its post-oil future with a 76% resource rent tax and sovereign wealth fund, Australians enjoyed tax cuts and a spending splurge.

However, the underlying structural problem of our economy had not gone away. Measured by the research intensity of our exports, Australia’s “economic complexity” ranks at 59, between Kazakhstan and Lebanon.

This index compiled by MIT’s Observatory of Economic Complexity is topped by Japan, Switzerland and Germany. Our position in global innovation rankings is no less dismal, especially when it comes to turning ideas into products.

While recent domestic growth has been driven by services, retail and construction, our future living standards will depend on how we pay our way in the world. This means identifying new, more sustainable sources of export income.

Of course, resources will still have a part to play, but not as unprocessed raw materials. For example, we have everything we need for renewable energy production, battery manufacture and hydrogen exports. And how could anyone contemplate continuation of the barbaric live animal trade?

The graphic below shows Australia’s export profile in 2017. Of US$244 billion in total exports, US$131 billion were mineral products.

This rebalancing won’t happen automatically through the market. It will require active intervention to manage the post-mining boom transition to an inclusive and dynamic knowledge-based economy. And to reverse the slowdown in productivity growth associated with current wage stagnation.

Too obvious to ignore

During the boom, high prices for coal and iron ore masked Australia’s deteriorating productivity performance. Now mining no longer contributes to growth, the impact on our national income has become all too obvious.

That’s why it was so important to Malcolm Turnbull to reinvigorate the national innovation and science agenda with a focus on startups and business-university collaboration, after Tony Abbott’s $3 billion cuts to Labor’s programs.

And why it was then so disappointing he could not build on his agenda for an “ideas boom” to replace the mining boom.

The Coalition government has cycled through three prime ministers and six industry ministers. It continues to cut science and innovation programs. Its latest budget “savings” included $4 billion from the Research and Development Tax Incentive scheme, $3.8 billion from the Education Investment Fund and $2.2 billion from higher education.

As a result, Australia’s total spending on research and development is now just 1.88% of GDP, from 2.11% five years ago. The government contribution (0.57%) is where it was in the 1980s. Meanwhile Japan and Sweden are committing more than 3%, and Korea and Israel more than 4%.

Read more: Profiting from the innovation of others? Why governments must manage the spoils of new ideas

Small target strategies

For any mention of innovation and industry policy in the current election campaign, you have to look hard.

The Coalition has confined itself to some low-key announcements on a new space agency, defence innovation, genomics, food, marine science and manufacturing.

It has rejected or parked the recommendations of its own Innovation and Science Australia 2030 strategy, including using any savings from winding back the R&D Tax Incentive to promote high-growth export opportunities.

Labor has committed to a “collaboration premium” to encourage business engagement with universities and the CSIRO as part of a restructured R&D Tax Incentive (another key recommendation of the 2030 strategy).

However, it will also “bank” the Coalition’s savings to achieve its budget surplus. In this context, it will be all the more challenging for a new Labor government to achieve its R&D target of 3% of GDP, given that this will require additional investment of at least $20 billion.

In addition, Labor has announced an “off-budget” $1 billion Manufacturing Future Fund and a series of initiatives on renewable technologies, biofabrication, food and fibre, artificial intelligence, blockchain, space, hydrogen, electric vehicles and “digital skills hubs”. In an important symbolic gesture, it has also promised to rescue CSIRO climate science.

These initiatives are clearly worthwhile, but do not restore the funding that has been lost, let alone increase it.

If new policy must be paid for, why not cut expenditure that actually impedes economic transition? The diesel fuel tax rebate, for example. This $6 billion scheme, whereby taxpayers subsidise fuel costs for the resources sector, is equivalent to almost half the entire annual budget outlay for research and innovation.

Weighing the costs

Most successful economies around the world use “knowledge foresights” to identify national priorities in areas of existing or potential competitive advantage. They have long-term, coherent policy frameworks for pursuing these priorities.

Read more: Five things about innovation Australia can learn from other countries

Australia’s next government will have a chance to devise such a framework, in cooperation with business, unions and research organisations. Of course, it will require substantial public as well as private investment. But we can no longer afford a “do nothing” approach.

– ref. It’s the only way to save Australia from a deep hole, but innovation policy is missing in action – http://theconversation.com/its-the-only-way-to-save-australia-from-a-deep-hole-but-innovation-policy-is-missing-in-action-116966

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Bekessy, Professor, RMIT University

Some voters heading to the polls this weekend may be casting their ballot with biodiversity in mind, after a major UN report released last week highlighted the global extinction crisis facing more than a million species.

Australia is an extinction hotspot: we are second only to Indonesia when it comes to biodiversity loss and we have had far more mammal species go extinct than any other country over the past 200 years. Conservation spending for threatened species recovery in Australia is woefully inadequate.

Read more: Australia’s major parties’ climate policies side-by-side

However a recent survey commissioned by WWF Australia found 89% of Australians agree we should invest in restoring wildlife habitats and natural places, and 68% of Australians believe a healthy environment and a prosperous economy go hand-in-hand.

So how should you cast your vote if you’re one of the many Australians who care about biodiveristy loss?

We’ve analysed policies, new investments, new initiatives and reforms from the Coalition, the Australian Labor Party, the Greens, One Nation, the United Australia Party, the Animal Justice Party and the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party.

We took these figures from party websites and policy statements, and where possible contacted party representatives directly to confirm

The Coalition

The Coalition, if returned to government, has proposed a budget of A$1.19 billion over the next four years, which includes A$100 million for new biodiversity programming. Their proposed budget for agriculture includes an additional A$30 million for a pilot biodiversity agricultural stewardship program.

Read more: South Australia’s experience contradicts Coalition emissions scare campaign

Despite highlighting new funding for watershed restoration, the Coalition does not explicitly call for funding directed at the Murray-Darling restoration.

Australian Labor Party

The Australian Labor Party has committed to invest $600 million in new environmental programs over the next four years, and will reallocate the $400 million currently committed to the Great Barrier Reef fund to public agencies dedicated to reef protection.

New initiatives include a native species protection fund, a program to restore urban rivers and corridors, doubling the number of Indigenous Rangers, reforming current environmental laws, and funding of a new independent, federal Environmental Protection Agency.

Read more: Fixing the gap between Labor’s greenhouse gas goals and their policies

One Nation

Pauline Hanson’s One Nation advocates a departure from the Paris Agreement, and contends that the Great Barrier Reef will adapt to a warmer climate – pointing instead to Crown-of-Thorns Starfish and Tropical Cyclones as key issues.

Perhaps most significantly for the diverse ecosystems of the Top End, the party advocates constructing dams in monsoonal regions of North Queensland to provide water to farmers in the Murray-Darling region. They also propose to eradicate cane toads. Costings are not provided.

United Australia Party

The United Australia Party has no formal policies regarding biodiversity conservation, but advocates for several economic policies which have likely negative biodiversity implications.

Despite its commitment to meeting the Kyoto Protocol targets via investment in renewable fuels and advocacy for an emissions trading scheme, the party supports continuing exploitation of mineral resources (mining) in Queensland and Western Australia, including supporting the controversial Adani mine and construction of a new Alpha North Coal Mine in the Galilee Basin. No costings for these policies were indicated.

Read more: Why Adani’s finch plan was rejected, and what comes next

The Greens

The Greens have committed to a A$2 billion (per annum) Nature Fund to protect and restore biodiversity across Australia. This plan aims to recover every threatened species through the creation of new havens, invasive species control and fire management.

Their initiates include doubling protected areas, increasing the number of Indigenous Rangers, and incentivising private land conservation. In addition, the Greens have committed to reform our current nature laws.

Animal Justice Party

The Animal Justice Party has many broad policies directly related to biodiversity and wildlife, and are pushing for clean energy infrastructure.

Read more: We must rip up our environmental laws to address the extinction crisis

Policies include land acquisition and habitat restoration and protection, strict penalties for harm to wildlife and an active stance against lethal control on invasive species. They will also encourage wildlife ecotourism, wildlife-sensitive education and investing in technology to reduce wildlife-human conflicts. They specify no costs for any of their policies.

Shooters, Fishers and Farmers

The Shooters Fishers and Farmers party promotes sustainable land use for farming and recreation, rather than “locking it away” for conservation. They express support for individual, community, and farm-based conservation programs if they do not impact recreational use.

However, their proposed expansions of recreational use of public conservation land (such as expanding park tracks, private game reserves and fishing) could negatively impact biodiversity. There are no expenditure details specified for these policies.

Investment in biodiversity conservation

The figure below summarises the total budget spend across the four-year electoral cycle proposed by each of the parties.

What about Adani?

As the biodiversity issue that has received the most attention this election campaign, readers may be interested on where the parties stand on the Adani development.

Read more: Interactive: Everything you need to know about Adani – from cost, environmental impact and jobs to its possible future

While the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers party have not commented specifically on the issue, the Coalition actively supports the development of the mine, as does One Nation and the United Australia Party (Clive Palmer is keen to open another big mine next to Adani).

Labor has committed to not reviewing the approval, which amounts to tacit support. The Greens and the Animal Justice Party are the only parties actively opposing the mine.

If we want to improve our depressing record of species extinctions in Australia, urgent action is needed. There appear to be substantial differences between initiatives, reforms and investment proposed by all of the parties you could vote for on Saturday.

While the details of initiatives and reforms can be difficult to interpret, international research has shown investment has a direct impact on biodiversity. In other words, the more we spend, the fewer extinctions. On this measure, the Greens are easily in front.

And don’t forget that with preferential voting, you are able to vote for your first preference without wasting your vote.

The authors would like to acknowledge the contribution of Thami Croeser and Matt Hardy to this article.

– ref. How should I vote if I care about preventing the extinction of nature? – http://theconversation.com/how-should-i-vote-if-i-care-about-preventing-the-extinction-of-nature-117197

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Greg Austin, Professor UNSW Canberra Cyber, UNSW

US President Donald Trump has raised the stakes in his country’s cyberspace confrontation with China and Russia. On May 15 he signed a new executive order that identifies sabotage (not espionage) as the main threat from foreign states, and declared a national emergency.

The executive order includes provisions for the US administration to label foreign countries as adversaries, a move sure to anger the great power competitors.

I’m not surprised at this news – US cybersecurity policy has been building to this point since at least 2015. It’s also clear Australia is firmly committed to the emerging, robust posture of the US to protect national assets from risks of sabotage in cyberspace from countries such as China.

Read more: Australia is vulnerable to a catastrophic cyber attack, but the Coalition has a poor cyber security track record

Concerns about sabotage

Sabotage in this context refers to the fear that in a political crisis or war, an adversary will have its finger on the switch of our critical infrastructure – including the internet and communications capability – and be able to turn it off.

The freshly signed US executive order calls out two threats:

• “risk of sabotage to or subversion of the design, integrity, manufacturing, production, distribution, installation, operation, or maintenance” of information and communications technology (ICT) equipment and services in the United States

• “undue risk of catastrophic effects on the security or resiliency of United States critical infrastructure or the digital economy of the United States”.

The reference to the digital economy alludes to the theft of intellectual property.

The order is not out of the blue, having been foreshadowed by strategies and policies previously issued by the White House.

Focus on Russia and China

The executive order places a complete ban on US companies or individuals conducting future business of any kind with foreign ICT corporations from a country the US administration has formally declared to be an adversary.

The order also makes it clear that banned products and services will be any that are “supplied by persons owned by, controlled by, or subject to the jurisdiction or direction of foreign adversaries”.

The United States has already been explicit that China and Russia are undertaking cyber activities that threaten US national security (though sabotage has rarely been mentioned). The US position has also been that China and Russia both maintain political influence over corporations headquartered in their countries.

So it seems inevitable that the US will soon declare China and Russia as adversary countries under the terms of the order.

Evolution of policy since Obama

This is not a Trump administration innovation, but rather the natural – some would say slow – evolution of policy under the Obama administration. A national cyberspace emergency was declared in both April 2015 and December 2016.

Trump’s move follows the introduction in 2018 of new policies designed to punish countries undertaking malicious activities in cyber space. These are contained in the Defense Department Cyber Strategy and the National Cyber Strategy issued by the White House.

Just this month, comments from head of US Cyber Command General Nakasone imply America is already launching attacks in cyber space and taking other measures to punish China and Russia for their malicious actions in cyberspace.

The Cyber Deterrence Initiative was announced as part of the National Cyber Strategy of September 2018. It involves coalition-building with like-minded states, a group that is now 27 members strong, and includes the Five Eyes countries like Australia.

Referring to “consequences of […] malicious cyber behavior” and “malign actors”, it’s now clear this initiative set the stage for Trump’s new executive order.

Read more: Explainer: how the Australian intelligence community works

Australia is involved

The actions of our government indicate Australia supports US policies on persistent engagement and cyber deterrence.

In October 2018, Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Foreign Minister Marise Payne joined other countries in linking Russia with malicious cyber activity over the previous four years.

In December 2018, Payne and Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton joined like-minded countries in attributing a continuing campaign of intellectual property theft in cyberspace to China’s Ministry of State Security.

It is difficult to gauge how far Australia or other allies will go in supporting the US in imposing more severe costs other than simply naming and shaming.

Australia, like the US, has compiled a range of consequences it will consider imposing on foreign countries for cyber attacks. This will mean responses can be much swifter in the future. They will depend on early and close international coordination, and finding the right strategies to pinpoint responsibility.

We can be certain from US policy statements in 2018 that the American list of consequences includes retaliatory cyber attacks for Chinese and Russian incursions, as well as other severe non-cyber penalties. These include trade bans on Chinese firms, and the trade war now being waged with China.

The Australian list is probably somewhat more muted. But just how far this country is prepared to go to punish China is not likely ever to be put on the public record.

Read more: Is Trump’s trade war saving American jobs – or killing them?

No Huawei

Australia’s position on the risk of sabotage was implicit in the statement by the government in August 2018 effectively banning Huawei from 5G. The statement mentions potential impacts on critical infrastructure, including their availability and integrity. It does not refer to espionage as a concern.

Huawei’s recent commitment to enter “no spy” agreements with host countries will not address the sabotage concerns.

According to strategic studies expert Hugh White, the Australian government already sees China in adversarial terms. In a recent debate on Australia’s China policy, he said war with China over Taiwan or the South China Sea is now “the de facto basis of Australian defence policy”, adding:

Australia is building a force whose primary function is to support the United States in a war with China.

While White saw such a war as still a possibility rather than a certainty – and therefore China as only a potential adversary – the Trump administration’s escalation of policies around cyber sabotage threats from China will present new policy challenges for Australia’s next government.

– ref. US ban on Huawei likely following Trump cybersecurity crackdown – and Australia is on board – http://theconversation.com/us-ban-on-huawei-likely-following-trump-cybersecurity-crackdown-and-australia-is-on-board-117250

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gerald Burke, Adjunct Professor, Education, Monash University

The Coalition has promised to create 80,000 new apprenticeships in areas of skills shortages if it wins the election. Most skilled trades (such as motor mechanics, panel beaters, carpenters, automotive electricians, plumbers, hairdressers) have recently been in shortage.

The Coalition aims to reduce the shortages through doubling employer incentive payments, making cash payments to apprentices and creating training hubs in regional areas and other areas of need.

Labor said it would pay upfront fees for 100,000 TAFE places. Labor has also said it would provide incentives for employers and apprentices for an additional 150,000 apprentices.

It’s clear trade apprentices and associated skills shortages are a central concern of both parties. But it’s not clear providing incentives is the best way to handle the issue, as history shows government incentives to employers have made little difference to the (mostly male) trade apprenticeship numbers.

Difference between apprentice and trainee

In considering the policies of both parties, it’s important to understand the differences between longer-term trade apprenticeships and shorter-term traineeships.

An apprentice, in the narrow use of the word, is contracted in a trade such as that of an electrician, carpenter, chef or hairdresser. An apprenticeship can take up to four years to complete. Trade apprentices make up a small proportion of the vocational education and training sector – around 14% of all government funded vocational students.

Many of the main trades frequently appear on the skills shortage list. Shortages are seen to inhibit productivity in industries and the broader economy.

Read more: Don’t be too quick to dismiss ‘dying trades’, those skills are still in demand

Traineeships were established in the late 1980s to provide apprentice-type training for young people in non-trade occupations such as sales and clerical, and many of the care occupations including disability and aged care.

The aim was to provide options, particularly for early school leavers, which combine work experience and learning on the job. It was hoped this would enhance early school leavers’ job prospects and add to the stock of skills in the economy.

Traineeships usually take one to two years to complete, much shorter than trade apprenticeships.

History of incentives

From the 1970s, the federal government had been providing financial incentives to employers of trade apprentices. The states also provided assistance. From the mid-1990s the federal government extended incentives to trainees, existing workers and to part-time and older workers.

Together with the introduction of a low training wage for trainees, the incentives led to a rapid expansion in the numbers of trainees in the late 1990s and to new training modes including fully on-the-job training. There was a sharp increase in the number of training organisations as employers were allowed to choose a private or public provider for off-the-job training (often one day a week).

A 1999 review into the system found some firms were using traineeships as a source of wage subsidies and, in many instances, provided little training to the trainees. For some, the skills acquired were not valued by employers over general work experience obtained during the traineeship. And the issue continued into the next decade.

In 2011, an expert panel noted Australia was the only country that paid government incentives, on a large scale, to employers of apprentices and trainees. The panel reported research that showed incentives paid to employers for the shorter traineeships represented a significant part of the wage costs (in some cases about 20%) and contributed to the large increase in trainee numbers.

For the longer, and more costly, training of trade apprentices, government payments to employers represented a much smaller proportion of the wage and training costs. And so, the incentives had only a marginal effect on the numbers of trade apprentices employed.

Read more: There is no apprenticeships ‘crisis’ in Australia

The expert panel suggested the government would be better to confine its payments to programs that added value to the economy, such as those in community services, health and information technology.

The panel also recommended the government not give funds directly as incentives to employers. Instead, both employers and government would pay into an employer contribution scheme. Employers who met benchmarks such as a strong induction process and effective mentoring would have their contribution rebated, either in part or in full.

These recommendations were particularly aimed at the non-completion rates of apprentices – on average less than half complete their apprenticeships with their first employer. The most common reason given is dissatisfaction with the employment experience including difficulties with employers or colleagues.

Drop in trainee numbers

The government at the time didn’t take up the recommendation of an employer contribution scheme. It retained incentives for apprenticeships in trades on the national skills needs list such as construction and telecommunications, and for traineeships in priority occupations in aged care, childcare, disability care and nursing.

It abolished incentives for existing workers in other traineeships. Together with cuts in state subsidies to the providers of off-the-job training in some courses, these changes led to a large fall in traineeship numbers.

For example, by 2018, traineeships in clerical and sales had fallen by more than 70% from 2012. Older and female workers were most affected.

Read more: The vocational education sector needs a plan and action, not more talk

But the numbers of starting apprenticeships in trades in the last ten years in the largest three groups – construction trades, automotive and engineering, and electrotechnology and telecommunications – is virtually unchanged. And a fall in automotive was offset by increases in the others.

These results were largely in keeping with intentions of the expert panel in 2011.

A male dominated industry

Trade apprenticeships are male dominated. In 2018, 65,000 males started trade apprenticeships compared to 9,000 females. And females bore the larger share of the reduction in traineeships since 2012. It seems unlikely many of the women who missed out on traineeships are among the entrants to higher education where women form the majority of undergraduates.

The available research shows electrotechnology and telecommunications trades and construction trades graduates are relatively well paid, while hairdressers are the worst paid.

Trade apprentices are already the best-supported VET students during training. They can access trade support loans of up to $20,000 over four years – with a 20% discount of the debt on completion. Apprentices can receive allowances for living away from home, and the government provides support for adult apprentices as well as rural and regional skills shortage incentives.

Employment of apprentices and their mentoring is assisted by the Australian Apprenticeship Support Network, at an annual cost of nearly A$200 million.

State governments also provide additional support for employers and apprentices. For instance, Queensland has a program including schemes aimed at the unemployed. Western Australia has announced the provision of employer incentives in its 2019 budget. NSW has abolished tuition fees for apprenticeships.

Extra government incentives to improve apprenticeship numbers do not seem to be the most effective, or equitable, policy. The next government must undertake a comprehensive review of incentives and all other forms of apprenticeship assistance.

The review should revisit the advice of the 2011 expert panel and ideally, should be conducted in the context of a review all tertiary funding (similar to what Labor is proposing).

Read more: VET needs support to rebuild its role in getting disadvantaged groups into education and work

– ref. Employer incentives may not be the most cost-effective or fair way of boosting apprenticeship numbers – http://theconversation.com/employer-incentives-may-not-be-the-most-cost-effective-or-fair-way-of-boosting-apprenticeship-numbers-114986

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jacqueline Laughland-Booy, Research Fellow in Sociology, Australian Catholic University

With the election campaign racing to its conclusion, there’s been a lot of talk about the impact younger voters will have on the result.

Some political leaders might view the potential voting power of young people with disdain. But it might be wise for them to listen more closely to the views of young people about why their trust of politicians is so low, and what needs to be done in order to gain the respect of younger constituents.

Since 2006, we have been conducting longitudinal research with a single-aged cohort of 2,000 young people. When the study commenced, our participants were aged 12-13 years old. They are now in their mid-20s. The information they have given us over the years offers some interesting insights into the attitudes and behaviours of young Australians.

Read more: Trust in politicians and government is at an all-time low. The next government must work to fix that

Why trust is important

Trust in government is critical for the effective operation of a democracy. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), for example, identified trust as “one of the most important foundations upon which the legitimacy and sustainability of political systems are built” (original emphasis).

Our study found that participants’ trust in politicians has dramatically declined. In 2006, 29% of the cohort told us that they trusted politicians, but by 2017, that number dropped to 9%.

With maturity, many young people will develop a healthy degree of scepticism towards those in positions of power. But the instability of federal leadership over the past decade has left many young people disillusioned with politics and disappointed in the conduct of many politicians.

Revolving door of prime ministers is a problem

We conducted in-depth interviews with many of our research participants to understand the stories behind the statistics. The fact that four prime ministers have been deposed by their own party since 2010 has left an indelible mark on how participants view Australian politics.

In 2013, the participants were first-time voters, and we interviewed some about their political views. At that time, Kevin Rudd had just been returned as prime minister, and the Labor government leadership spills of 2010 and 2013 were playing strongly on the minds of our interviewees. They were unhappy with what they saw as being disloyal behaviour demonstrated by the actors involved in these events.

Six years later, our participants are again telling us they are disappointed with leadership change becoming a common feature of Australian politics. They are disheartened that there have been so many prime ministers and, although these young people are interested in many political issues, they are not interested in the levels of party infighting and bickering that have characterised Australian politics over recent years.

Read more: After six years as opposition leader, history beckons Bill Shorten. Will the ‘drover’s dog’ have its day?

Qualities of a good political leader

With the quality of political leadership playing heavily on the minds of our participants, we asked what they want from the next prime minister.

The most common responses were stability and integrity. In terms of stability, they simply do not want to see prime ministers coming and going, as has been the case since 2010. They believe the next governing party must support their leader for the duration of the term that they are in government.

Integrity is also important. They would like the prime minster to act in the interests of all Australians and not just those who voted for them. They believe that a good leader has clearly identifiable values and advances policies that serve the broader public good.

Honesty is also important. They want a prime minister who will do what they say they are going to do. They are also looking for a leader capable of admitting when they are wrong, instead of making excuses and blaming others.

Read more: Against the odds, Scott Morrison wants to be returned as prime minister. But who the bloody hell is he?

Looking after the national interest

Somewhat unexpectedly, a recent poll found that New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is Australians’ most trusted politician. Her attributes are seen to include integrity, commitment, and relevance.

Interestingly, when we asked our participants if they could think of an Australian prime minister who had demonstrated any admirable attributes, the most common response was John Howard. This was irrespective of the party the young person supported. Although they might not have agreed with his policies, they appreciated that John Howard represented a level of stability that has not been seen since.

The Howard government’s reforms to national gun laws drew significant praise by our participants, possibly due to recent events in Christchurch. The fact that the Howard government was able to bring about significant reforms to firearms policy was admirable, especially in face of vehement opposition from its own constituency.

This may just be the key for national leaders after the election. While debates about policy are to be expected, young voters are ultimately willing to support leaders who are transparent, honest, and who will advance the national interest rather than the interests of their own faction or party.

– ref. Young Australians don’t trust politicians. Here’s one reason why – http://theconversation.com/young-australians-dont-trust-politicians-heres-one-reason-why-116259

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Feo Snagovsky, PhD Candidate in Political Science, Australian National University

Australia’s major political parties are not popular institutions. Minor parties and independent candidates have been chipping away at their primary vote for decades. While less than 10% of voters cast a ballot for them in the 1950s and 1960s, almost one in four voters turned away from mainstream parties in 2016.

According to the latest Newspoll, it seems unlikely this trend will change at this election. The major parties are understandably rattled and after a group of independents released a coordinated campaign ad last week, some pundits have been quick to portray them as a new “green-left force” determined to bring Labor into power.

So, is this new wave of independents really part of a coordinated and cohesive left-wing conspiracy, akin to a new political party? Probably not.

First off, the claim is at odds with the intention of some of the very same independents to support a Coalition minority government if the election returns a hung parliament.

What’s more, data from smartvote Australia, a voting advice application developed by the Australian National University (ANU), shows most independents actually take policy positions somewhere between Labor and the Liberals. There is also considerable variance in the positions they take.

In contrast to party-centric projects that are based on expert coding, smartvote asks voters and their local candidates to fill out the same 35-question survey. It then matches voters with the local candidates who align the closest with their views (and, if you are curious, you can see how you compare to candidates and parties running in your electorate here).

Smartvote invited all candidates and parties running for parliament in the 2019 election to participate. One week out from the election, it contained information from about 70% of the 50-plus parties that are fielding candidates. In addition, smartvote includes the answers of 40% of all independents running for the election – some of whom are incumbents or have a good chance of winning on May 18.

Read more: How much influence will independents and minor parties have this election? Please explain

Using smartvote, we can take the ideological positions of each candidate and plot them in two-dimensional space. So, what do the data tell us? The figure above shows the ideological positions of 56 independent candidates compared to the positions of the two main parties and the Greens.

Most independents who participated in smartvote find themselves somewhere between Labor and the Liberals (what some of them call the “sensible centre”). And while some are more progressive than Labor on the social dimension, none is to the left of Labor on the economic dimension.

We also analysed the personal statements each independent candidate provided to smartvote to explain why they are running for office. Independent candidates overwhelmingly stressed their ties to their local community, the need to do politics differently, and the importance of climate change.

These statements echo the main arguments they are taking into the 2019 campaign – that political parties have failed Australians. They also echo the arguments in the Independents Day video. For example, Kerryn Phelps (Wentworth) starts by saying she “ran as an independent because [she’s] sick of the two major parties”, while Zali Steggall (Warringah) goes further, claiming “the time for political parties is moving on”.

To find out what else they have in common, we examined another of smartvote’s graphical tools, the “smartspider”. This tool allows voters to compare their positions with candidates and parties on six dimensions. In the animation below, we look at the profiles of eight of the “Independents Day” candidates first and then compare them with the two large parties.

Almost all the independents in our sample have a more environmentally-friendly position than the two major parties – the very message they tried to articulate in their ad. Although this differentiates them the most from the two major parties, they hardly outflank the Greens, who get the highest score on the environment. Most independents also remain far from the Greens’ positions on the economic and social dimensions.

All data are subject to limitations, and this project is no different. Our sample of 56 independent candidates matches the proportion of women in the population of independent candidates (almost one in four). House of Representative candidates are slightly overrepresented, even though this group accounts for two-thirds of all independent candidates standing for parliament. It also includes candidates from all states and territories except the Northern Territory.

Read more: Discontent with Nationals in regional areas could spell trouble for Coalition at federal election

The percentages of candidates from New South Wales and Queensland is very similar to their percentages in the general population. However, candidates from Victoria and South Australia are overrepresented, while Tasmania and the territories are underrepresented.

That said, smartvote is unique in Australia as the only voting advice application to include independents and minor parties.

While independents did not have much success in getting elected to the lower house in 2016, more than a third of Australians voted for minor parties and independents in the Senate.

The result was a record 20 crossbenchers following the last election. With only half the Senate up for election, minor parties and independent candidates will have a harder time at this election.

We do not have to wait long to see whether more independents find themselves sitting in the House after May 18.

– ref. Are independents part of a ‘green-left’ conspiracy? New research finds they are more the ‘sensible centre’ – http://theconversation.com/are-independents-part-of-a-green-left-conspiracy-new-research-finds-they-are-more-the-sensible-centre-117094

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Steven Hamilton, Visiting Scholar, Tax and Transfer Policy Institute, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University

This is the final in a three-part series on the budget tax measures that began with an analysis of the government’s plan to flatten the tax schedule and continued with an analysis of its plan to target tax relief at low and middle earners via an expanded tax offset.

The third leg of the government’s budget (and election) tax package is an expansion of the instant asset write-off which will allow businesses to immediately write off expenses worth up to A$30,000. The key takeaway of this piece is that the plan will likely increase investment, but we ought to think carefully about whether that’s really what we want.

If more investment increases the productive capacity of the economy, then terrific. But if it’s just spending on things businesses don’t really need, then it’s nothing but taxpayer-subsidised waste.

The instant asset write-off was introduced by the Rudd government in its 2010 budget with the stated goal of boosting business investment.

The policy allows businesses to claim capital investments as expenses upfront rather than having to spread these expenses out over the lives of the assets. They get all the tax benefits of investment instantly without having to wait.

Originally, it covered expenses up to A$5,000. In 2015 the Abbott government lifted that to A$20,000 and this year the Morrison government lifted it to A$30,000.

A primer on business taxation

In principle, business taxes are levied on profits – revenues less expenses – and for good reason. By allowing firms to deduct their expenses from their revenues to determine the tax they owe, taxes affect both spending on and returns from investments equally. Indeed, if you could figure out a way to allow businesses to deduct all of their true costs –- in the broadest possible sense –- then taxes wouldn’t affect business decisions at all.

When a business only has variable inputs (such as flour for a bakery), the story is pretty straightforward because expenses are incurred at more or less the same time as the revenues are received. In practice, however, businesses have many so-called fixed inputs (like an oven for a bakery) where an expense is incurred immediately but its benefits are spread out over years.

Read more: It’s the budget cash splash that reaches back in time

If the business borrowed to pay for the asset, then there are in theory two basic ways these kinds of expenses could be recognised at tax time.

The first is if the business is able to claim as annual expenses on its tax return the interest on the loan plus the value of the asset’s lost productive capacity in that year (we call this economic depreciation).

The second is if the business is not able to claim the interest expenses but is instead allowed to claim the entire value of the asset as a single expense in the first year.

These two methods each have pros and cons for the business. The second lets you claim more now, which lowers your tax bill today, but then you lose the ability to claim your interest expenses in future years, which raises your tax bills in the future. In an ideal world, businesses should be indifferent between method one and method two.

The problem with the first method is that it’s impossible for the Tax Office to determine for every single asset held by every single business the true rate of economic depreciation. In practice, it formulates standardised depreciation schedules for different circumstances (for example, straight-line depreciation that allows a fixed portion of the asset to be written off each year). But this is necessarily imperfect, so businesses inevitably will either be under or overcompensated so they’ll either under or over invest.

What the instant asset write-off does is to allow businesses to claim the entire value of the asset as an expense upfront, as with the second method, but it also allows them to continue to claim their interest expenses in future years.

It gives them the upside of both methods and none of the downsides. For an asset with, say, a ten-year lifespan, this over-compensation could represent a significant financial benefit. So in theory it should encourage firms to investment more.

Will the instant asset write-off encourage investment?

Mostly because of limited data availability, we have little Australian evidence of the effect of taxes on businesses. This is a shame, because there’s a long history of policy changes in this area offering ample opportunity for us to assess how well tax policies have worked in practice. This is improving with initiatives like the Tax Office’s ALife database covering personal taxation, but governments of both stripes could do a lot more to support the development of a strong local evidence base to guide tax policy.

Evidence from the US (here, here and here) and the United Kingdom (here), where the business tax systems are somewhat different, suggest these kinds of policies can significantly boost business investment. But it doesn’t tell us much about the quality of the investment. You often see commentators talk about business investment like it’s a commodity – a homogeneous thing, like wheat or water, about which only the quantity matters. The more of it the better, never mind the details.

But that couldn’t be further from the truth. Businesses face complex choices along countless dimensions. Not all investments are created equal. In the absence of taxes, there are a whole range of investments that businesses would deem unworthy. Replacing your perfectly functional, if a bit tired, delivery van with a brand new one, is an example. Without a tax incentive, you mightn’t do it, but if offered one, you might be nudged into doing it.

Investment would go up. So would Australia’s gross domestic product. Mission accomplished.

Tax policy shouldn’t push or pull, but get out of the way

Not so fast.

Tax policy can absolutely be used to manipulate behaviour.

But in its most basic form, it’s about collecting the money we need to fund schools, hospitals and pensions.

In doing so, tax architects follow their version of the Hippocratic oath: first, do as little harm as possible. We assume that in the absence of tax, people will do what’s best for them. We try to design taxes that will change that as little as possible.

When it comes to businesses, that means we want businesses to innovate, and to invest, as they would have in the absence of tax. That means we want bakers to buy new ovens, but only if they would see it as prudent in a world without taxes.

You hear a lot of politicians (and sadly, some economists) talk about how more investment is necessarily better. But that’s wrong. Investment is only good when it raises the productivity capacity of the economy and in a way that more than pays for itself. Otherwise, it’s not really investment, it’s waste. If you assert that businesses aren’t investing enough as it is, then you’d better be able to explain what you mean, what you think enough is, and how you could possibly know.

If you’ve ever heard a business owner say he or she only bought something because it was a tax write-off, then you know the tax architect has failed.

And that’s really the concern with this policy. It will almost certainly encourage businesses to invest more. Business owners will buy new utes and mixers and fridges and all sorts of things – partly at taxpayers’ expense. But we really have no idea whether these will be good investments or whether tax policy will have induced all these businesses to buy things they probably shouldn’t have.

Read more: The budget’s dirty secret is the hikes in tax rates you’re not meant to know about

The Labor opposition has proposed a significant expansion of the policy. Businesses would be able to claim 20% of most investments worth more than A$20,000 upfront.

It too would overcompensate businesses for the investments they make so, it too should lead to more business investment, but on a grander scale. All of the arguments against the Coalition’s scheme apply to Labor’s scheme, only more so.

What I’d much prefer to see is a focus on business tax reform with the fundamental concept of neutrality built into its core. A business tax policy that neither discouraged nor encouraged business decisions, but just got out of its way.

That would be no write-off.

– ref. Shock. More investment isn’t necessarily better. Those instant asset write-offs are bad tax policy – http://theconversation.com/shock-more-investment-isnt-necessarily-better-those-instant-asset-write-offs-are-bad-tax-policy-116509

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Philip Oldfield, Associate Professor in Architecture, 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.

What’s the tallest skyscraper it’s possible to build? – Sophie, aged 7, Perth.

Great question! The world’s current tallest skyscraper is the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. It’s 828 metres tall, which is over two-and-a-half times as tall as any skyscraper in Australia.

However, there is a skyscraper being built in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, that will be over 1,000 metres tall when it’s finished. This will be the first building to ever rise over a kilometre high. It will also have 167 floors on top of each other!

So, how tall could we build a skyscraper? It would be difficult, but we could probably build a tower over 2,000 metres tall, which would be like ten normal skyscrapers on top of each other!

This is probably not a very good idea though. Building such a mega-tall skyscraper would use a huge amount of concrete and steel. Using lots of these materials when we don’t need to can be bad for the environment. It’s usually much better for the environment if we build smaller skyscrapers, maybe up to 300 metres tall.

In fact, there are lots of challenges when you design and build a mega-tall skyscraper.

Stopping the wind

The biggest difficulty is the wind. It blows on a skyscraper and tries to push it over, so you need to design a structure that keeps the building stable. The wind can also make a tower sway from side to side, so that people at the very top can even feel seasick.

Architects and engineers have lots of technologies to help stop this. Some of the tallest skyscrapers in the world have a giant pendulum at the top, inside the building, called a “tuned mass damper”.

Imagine a ball of steel the size of a house hanging from ropes inside a skyscraper. When the wind blows, the pendulum swings back and forth, absorbing the energy of the wind, to stop the building swaying.

Other buildings have pools of water at the top. When the wind blows it makes the water slosh around. Giant paddles in the pool absorb the water’s movement, which stops the building from swaying.

Another way to stop the wind is to use a clever skyscraper shape. When the wind blows on a skyscraper it creates swirls of air called vortices – like whirlpools in the sky.

If these happen regularly, it can make the building sway back and forth. The Burj Khalifa building in Dubai is thin at the top and wide at the bottom, with giant steps down the side. The steps make the vortices happen at different heights to help stop the building from swaying in the wind.

Getting to the top

Another big challenge is how do you get to the top of a building that is one kilometre tall? Walking up the stairs isn’t an option as there would be more than 3,000 steps!

Taking the lift would be a good idea, but you’d need a very fast lift. Otherwise it would take ages to get up or down the building.

Some of theses lifts can travel at 70km/h, the speed of cars on a highway. At that speed you would go past five floors every second and soon be at the top.

You would also need lots of lifts in a kilometre-high skyscraper. The Jeddah Tower will have 59 of them! They will have super-strong carbon fibre ropes to carry the lift, as normal ropes just aren’t strong enough.

Read more: Curious Kids: is water blue or is it just reflecting off the sky?

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: what’s the tallest skyscraper it’s possible to build? – http://theconversation.com/curious-kids-whats-the-tallest-skyscraper-its-possible-to-build-116817