Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Crosby, Professor, Monash University

In 1995 I co-authored a paper with Diane Brown and Louise Malady which examined economic outcomes under Labor and Liberal governments in Australia to that time.

We found very little difference in the economic performance of the two sides of politics, once proper controls had been put in place for the state of the world economy and other things that affect Australia.

Despite the Liberals making much of their economic credentials, I don’t think we’ll see any difference in economic outcomes such as the unemployment rate, GDP growth, or inflation under a Labor or a Liberal government, and in other writings in this outlet Anne Garnett and I have argued that government spending and government debt and deficit are typically little different under either side of politics.

Little difference then, little difference since

The table below shows some data relevant to questions about economic outcomes under different governments since the Hawke government won the federal election in March 1983.

It shows clearly a drop in the rate of growth of Australia’s gross domestic product since the Howard government left office, but there’s little difference between the rates under Rudd/Gillard (RG) and Abbott/Turnbull/Morrison (ATM).

Economists would explain the drop in the rate of growth since Howard more by pointing to the the global financial crisis and the end of the mining boom than by weaker economic management by either side.

The rest of the table provide little evidence of better macroeconomic management by one political party or the other.

Inflation and the Reserve Bank’s cash rate were higher under Hawke/Keating (HK), but that was a time of globally high inflation and interest rates. The “recession we had to have” in the early 1990s brought the inflation rate down, and also explains the high unemployment rate average under HK.

As far as unemployment goes, it is the state of the world economy that would explain most of the differences between the governments in the table.

On spending and tax, the Howard government benefited greatly from the mining boom and were able to keep spending below tax revenue on average. Since then the ATM Liberals have had no more success than the RG Labor government in keeping spending below tax.

Success has many fathers

Hawke and Keating have recently been claiming responsibility for Australia’s recent strong economic performance on the grounds that they initiated many of the reforms that have put Australia in good stead since the last recession in the 1990s.

I think they are overstating their case a little. Earlier reforms such as the Whitlam tariff cut in the 1970s and later reforms such as Howard government’s labour market changes and the introduction of the goods and services were also important.

Australia has been fortunate to have had a well managed economy over much of the past 40 years and prime ministers and treasurers on both sides of politics who have been equally up to the job and responsible for our relatively good outcomes.

Labor (and Liberals) can manage money

Currently I would be equally comfortable with the ability of the incumbent (Josh Frydenberg) and his shadow (Chris Bowen) to deliver solid economic outcomes as treasurer over the next three years. I would be much more comfortable if either of them showed a stronger commitment to further economic reform.

Of course we will see different decisions under a Labor or a Liberal government leading to different economic outcomes. Labor’s proposed tax and other reforms will benefit some and hurt others, but the point here is the differnce in their overall impact on the macroeconomy is likely be minimal.

Read more: Vital Signs: When it came to the surplus, both Bill and Scott were having a lend

Things are much more interesting when it comes to their effects on income inequality. But even on that front it isn’t clear to me which party’s policies will deliver better outcomes.

So who should you vote for on Saturday? I’ll leave that to you, but don’t make your decision on the basis that it will make any difference to the state of the economy.

– ref. Trick question: who’s the better economic manager? – http://theconversation.com/trick-question-whos-the-better-economic-manager-116968

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tess Scholfield-Peters, PhD candidate in Creative Arts, University of Technology Sydney

Why do we tell stories, and how are they crafted? In a new series, we unpick the work of the writer on both page and screen.

Former Fairfax journalist and lawyer Cynthia Banham voices the silenced pain of generations in A Certain Light, her evocative, hybrid work of docu-memoir.

In an effort to process the trauma she experienced while on assignment more than ten years ago – a plane crash over Indonesia claimed both her legs and left 60% of her body covered in full thickness burns – Banham locates her own experience within her wider family’s narrative.

Banham’s memoir was released in 2018. Her story was once again in the news earlier this year, when Eddie McGuire mocked her pre-match coin toss at an AFL game (McGuire later apologised and said his comments were not about Banham).

In the book, Banham confronts the impact of the accident on her identity, and the ways in which her own resilience can be traced backwards through her heritage. She writes of her family: “We were shaped by each other’s trauma, just like we were shaped by each other’s love.”

Her voice shifts between the investigative (she incorporates historiography, images, documents, footnotes and parentheses) and the insightful and emotional first person. Yet her journalistic attention to detail is constant. Woven together, these voices comprise her fragmentary memoir, an arduous journey into the past and ultimately, resolution.

Banham says A Certain Light is written for her young son, so he will one day know about his family’s history. The book begins with an epistolary prologue that speaks directly to him, predominantly through first person but sometimes in second.

We are invited by Banham into the intensely personal space of the text. She reveals to us her maternal indecision – the desire for her son to know, yet be shielded from, her trauma’s painful excesses.

Banham writes: “Will you, my son, grow up with memories of your mother’s suffering, feeling that you are somehow my compensation?” The first of many rhetorical questions throughout the text reminds us of her vulnerability, and the fraught task of communicating trauma through generations.

Connected narratives

Banham’s painful telling of her rehabilitation after the crash is threaded through other, broader stories of the past, an act of deflection perhaps signifying the difficulty endured in writing about the crash itself.

She retraces the trauma narratives of her grandfather, Alfredo; Alfredo’s sister, Amelia; and Banham’s mother, Loredana. She collects memories from family members across Europe, and artefacts and documents she has chosen to incorporate into the text, reflective of her own pieced-together family narrative.

The images are haunting at times and lend an immense gravity to Banham’s storytelling. Connecting stories of suffering to a face or a real artefact allows the reader to explore her own empathic ties with the story.

Banham finds a connection between the experiences of these relatives and her own. While her grandfather’s plight as an Italian prisoner of war in Nazi Germany is of course different to her own experience, Banham draws effective comparisons.

For example, she likens her thirst immediately after the plane crash as she waited, unable to move, in a foreign hospital hallway, to the excruciating thirst felt by victims of war.

In her research she encounters an image of German soldiers who had lost their legs. “War wounds”, she writes, “how did I end up with war wounds?” These comparisons show a lingering resonance of war in her mind, of the shared, transcendental suffering that connects generations.

Through her mother’s story as an Italian immigrant to Australia during the 1950s, Banham connects to a deep feeling of shame – the shame of difference, of abnormality. Shame was so innate that her mother was reluctant to let the surgeons amputate Banham’s legs in life-saving surgery, for fear of what her daughter’s life might be like without a “normal” body.

Banham leans painfully into her trauma in the final chapter of the book, titled Crashing. She revisits the site of the plane crash, and the days immediately before and after – the most distressing moments.

Tension builds as she recalls a handful of details: the description of her hotel room; the clothes she chose to wear that morning (might her life be different now if she had worn pants instead of a skirt?); the trivial pre-flight conversation she had with fellow journalists about Indonesia’s air crash record.

The actual recount of the crash is surreal. Banham writes: “Shit, I was thinking. Is this really happening? Then: Oh God.” On the next page: “Shit, actually, this could be it, this could be the end, maybe this is how I am going to die.”

The terror Banham experienced in those moments is beyond comprehension, and yet the incredibly human, common thoughts of panic incite an immense sense of empathy in the reader. It reminds us this could happen to anyone.

This is Banham’s second book – her first, Liberal Democracies and the Torture of Their Citizens, was derived from her PhD undertaken at the Australian National University several years after her accident.

A Certain Light reconciles the woman she was before the plane crash with the woman who writes this text. Banham explores the fragility of memory and the shared longing to know the stories of family members who can no longer speak, or perhaps do not want to.

“Memory is fluid, malleable, untrustworthy”, Banham writes, yet ultimately it’s memory that has created her narrative, her identity reclaimed from trauma. A Certain Light is a reminder that despite even the greatest tragedy, time moves on and there is light in the darkness – if we choose to see it.

– ref. Inside the story: writing trauma in Cynthia Banham’s A Certain Light – http://theconversation.com/inside-the-story-writing-trauma-in-cynthia-banhams-a-certain-light-115301

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

Scott Morrison has made a late bid for the support of younger voters with a promise that a re-elected Coalition government would provide a guarantee to help them bridge the deposit gap for their first home.

But as the campaign enters its desperate last days, Labor immediately declared that it would match the government’s initiative.

Shadow treasurer Chris Bowen said in a statement: “After six years of failure, and six days before an election, the Liberals are desperately trying to tell young Australians they understand their struggles to buy their first home.

“We back genuine support for first home buyers – that’s why we are also reforming negative gearing for future purchases, so young Australians don’t have to keeping losing out to wealthy property speculators.”

Under the Morrison scheme, those who saved at least a 5% deposit would be able to take advantage of the guarantee.

Deposits of 20% are often required to buy a house.

The plan, which would start on January 1, would be directed to first home buyers earning up to A$125,000 a year, or $200,000 for couples. The value of homes eligible under the scheme would be determined on a regional basis, given the different property markets.

Although the pitch is primarily directed to younger people trying to get into the housing market, the political thinking behind it also takes into account the fact that many parents are concerned about the difficulty their children have in getting together enough finance for a house, unless they can call on their families for assistance.

The timing of the promise appears to be designed to make an impact, without leaving much time for examination of the detail. But with Labor promising to match it the political effect of this initiative will presumably be lost.

Mostly the government has relied in this campaign on its economic record and an attack on Labor for proposing tax increases. Apart from the budget tax plan, much of which would not be delivered for years and infrastructure commitments, it has not made many headline promises.

The housing pledge came in Morrison’s low key launch in Melbourne. Victoria has been a weak state for the Liberals, who are pulling out all stops to minimise their losses in the state. Sarah Henderson – who holds the ultra-marginal seat of Corangamite, which is now notionally Labor, was the first speaker.

In contrast to the razzmatazz of Bill Shorten’s launch last weekend in Brisbane, Morrison’s was an exercise in minimalism.

It very much concentrated on Morrison and his family – he was introduced by his mother Marion, his wife Jenny and his two daughters, Abbey and Lily. A video featured he and Jenny talking about their courtship and their struggle to have children. There was a heavy emphasis on Mother’s Day.

Attack ads on Labor were prominent in the other video material shown at the launch.

While Morrison’s team was not featured in the prominent way that Shorten highlighted his last week, the prime minister did go out of his way to mention particular ministers in his speech.

Deputy Liberal leader and Treasurer Josh Frydenberg got a rousing response when he addressed his hometown audience. The Nationals leader and deputy prime minister Michael McCormack also spoke.

Announcing the housing plan Morrison told the launch: “I want more Australians to be able to realise the dream of owning their own home.” He said there were 112,000 new first home owners last year, a nine year high.

But “it’s hard to save for a deposit, especially with the banks pulling back and larger deposits of 20% now being standard. It’s not getting easier.

“We want to help make the dreams of first home buyers a reality.”

He said the scheme was similar to one that had been running in New Zealand. It would cut the time to save for a deposit by at least half or more. The plan would give preference to working with smaller banks and non-bank lenders to boost competition.

The lenders would do the normal checks to make sure the borrowers could meet their repayments, Morrison said, stressing that “this isn’t free money”. He said the support would remain in place for the life of the loan – when people refinanced after their equity increased the guarantee would cease.

While the plan is a guarantee scheme it would be underpinned by $500 million in government money. The government says the scheme will also save people about $10,000 by not having to pay lenders mortgage insurance.

The National Housing Finance and Investment Corporation would partner with private lenders to deliver the scheme, with the government investing $25 million in the corporation to establish the plan.

Morrison also announced $53 million to tackle perinatal depression, declaring this was a cause close to his own family. “Too many parents have suffered in silence,” he said.

In a bid to put a floor under votes in Melbourne’s east, the government is promising $4 billion for the East-West link project, which has previously been blocked by the state government. This is $1 billion more than the federal Coalition originally promised. The remaining money would come from the private sector. The project would require no state government money but it would require state approval.

Morrison cast next Saturday’s election as a series of choices.

“The choice of who you can trust to keep the promise of Australia, to all Australians as Prime Minister. Myself or Bill Shorten.

“The choice between a government that knows how to manage money, has returned the budget to surplus and will now pay down debt. Or Bill Shorten and Labor, whose reckless spending and higher taxes will put all of that risk, at the worst possible time. “There are storm clouds and tensions ahead. The choice between a government that will ensure you keep more of what you earn, or Bill Shorten and Labor that will hit you and weaken our economy, which impacts all 25 million Australians with $387 billion in new and higher taxes. “The choice between a stronger economy under my government, that can guarantee funding, real funding, for hospitals, schools and roads, and Labor who always runs out of money and always comes after yours. “It’s the choice between a prime minister in myself who just wants to back, acknowledge and cheer on the decent and simple and honest aspirations of Australians – and Bill Shorten, who just wants to tax all of those aspirations more.” So far about 2.2 million people have cast their votes at pre-polling.

– ref. View from the Hill: Quick on the draw Labor matches Morrison’s first home owners scheme – http://theconversation.com/view-from-the-hill-quick-on-the-draw-labor-matches-morrisons-first-home-owners-scheme-116969

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

Is there a “big black hole” in Labor’s election costings? It’s unlikely.

The final campaign before the arrival of the Parliamentary Budget Office in 2012, the 2010 Gillard versus Abbott contest, was full them.

Abbott was in opposition, Joe Hockey was his treasury spokesman. A treasury analysis of the costings document he produced, delivered to the newly-elected independent members of parliament to help them decide who would form government found errors including double counting, purporting to spend money from funds that sweren’t there, using the wrong time period to calculate savings, and booking debt interest saved from a privatisation without booking the dividends that would be lost.

All up, the mistakes were said to amount to A$11 billion.

Opposition costings used to be awful

In order to give his calculations a veneer of respectability Hockey engaged two accountants from the Perth office of a firm then known as WHK Horwath and wrongly said they had audited them.

“If the fifth-biggest accounting firm in Australia signs off on our numbers it is a brave person to start saying there are accounting tricks,” he told the ABC. “I tell you it is audited. This is an audited statement.”

It wasn’t. The letter of engagement later seen by Fairfax Media explicitly said the work was “not of an audit nature”. Its purpose was to “review the arithmetic accuracy” of Hockey’s work.

The Institute of Chartered Accountants later fined the two accountants who it found had breached professional standards by allowing their work to be represented as an audit.

Three years on, with the Parliamentary Budget Office in place, Hockey’s costings were comparatively controversy-free, as were Chris Bowen’s when Labor was in opposition in 2016.

Now, they’re fairly controversy-free

Costings have become straightforward. The Parliamentary Budget Office prepares the best possible estimate of the cost of each policy, then a panel of eminent Australians goes over its calculations and adds the costs together.

Labor’s panel this time was the same as its panel last time: Professor Bob Officer, who chaired the commissions of audit for the Howard and Kennett Coalition governments, Dr Michael Keating, who used to head the department of prime minister and cabinet and finance under the Hawke and Keating governments, and company director James MacKenzie.

They found the Parliamentary Budget Office costings to be “of a similar quality as budget estimates generally”.

They provided “a reasonable basis for assessing the net financial impact on the Commonwealth budget”.

Labor’s costings are propped up by savings

That impact was a return to “strong surplus” of $22 billion under Labor in 2022-23, four years ahead of the Coalition, in a year which the Coalition is forecasting a surplus of less than half the size – $9.2 billion.

Labor is able to do it because it will raise (or avoid spending) more than the Coalition. Over ten years it will save

• $58 billion by winding back payouts of dividend imputation cheques to people who don’t pay tax

• $32.5 billion by winding back negative gearing and capital gains tax concessions

• $29.8 billion by reducing superannuation tax concessions

• $26.9 billion by more fully taxing trusts

• $6.9 billion by cracking down on multinational tax avoidance and the use of high fees for tax advice as tax deductions, and

• $6.3 billion from reintroducing for four years the Coalition’s temporary budget repair levy of 2% on the part of high earners’ income that exceed $180,000

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg attacked the costing saying Labor had confirmed “$387 billion in higher taxes; higher taxes on retirees, higher taxes on superannuants, higher taxes on family businesses, on homeowners and renters and low-income earners,” which it had, although it had hardly been a secret.

The tax measures are how Labor builds its bigger surpluses.

The best an opposition can produce

Frydenberg said Labor had failed explain the “economic impact these higher taxes will have across the economy”, a charge Labor had responded to earlier by saying that wasn’t a service the Parliamentary Budget Office provided.

It was work the treasury was able to do, but the resources of the treasury weren’t available to the opposition.

Besides which, a fair chunk of those savings would be spent, on programs such as Labor’s Medicare cancer plan, its pensioner dental plan, extra hospital funding and greater childcare subsidies. They would boost the economy.

Unlike the Coalition, Labor isn’t locking in tax changes years out into the future (although its costings set aside $200 billion for extra tax cuts at some point over the next ten years); it is giving itself flexibility in order to manage the economy as needed when the time came.

Read more: Why Labor’s childcare policy is the biggest economic news of the election campaign

Frydenberg identified as the “big black hole in Labor’s costings”, what he said was its “failure to account for the increase in spending that they have promised with changes to Newstart, to aid, to research and development”.

Four years out is conventional

It wasn’t much of black hole. Labor has not promised changes to the Newstart unemployment benefit – it has instead promised to review it. Without the result of the review or without an indication of how much Newstart might be lifted or when it would be lifted, it’d be a hard thing to cost.

Frydenberg’s other beef was with programs Labor’s document costed in detail for four years but not in detail for ten. But that is how his own budget presented its figures. It’s how every previous budget has presented its costings.

Since the late 1980s it’s been the convention to cost programs in detail only four years ahead. Before that, the budget convention was to cost programs in detail only one year ahead.

Read more: Mine are bigger than yours. Labor’s surpluses are the Coalition’s worst nightmare

It is possible that Labor’s costings document is less than perfect. It is possible that the three eminent Australians who lent their names to it have been hoodwinked. But the contours of the document are clear. Labor will tax more and spend more than the Coalition, and deliver bigger surpluses.

But it only plans to tax more up to a certain point: 24.3% of gross domestic product, which was the tax take in the final year of the Howard government. The Coalition’s limit is 23.9% of GDP, which will mean it finds it harder than Labor to build up a big surplus quickly.

The days of black holes are behind us, thankfully.

– ref. Labor’s costings broadly check out. The days of black holes are behind us, thankfully – http://theconversation.com/labors-costings-broadly-check-out-the-days-of-black-holes-are-behind-us-thankfully-116904

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Joanna Mendelssohn, Honorary Associate Professor, Art & Design: UNSW Australia. Editor in Chief, Design and Art of Australia Online, UNSW

Tony Costa’s portrait of fellow artist Lindy Lee has won the 2019 Archibald Prize. His subject, Lindy Lee is both one of Australia’s most distinguished artists and a former trustee of the Art Gallery of New South Wales. Costa has painted her wearing a traditional robe, in meditation, a reminder of both her Chinese heritage and her Zen Buddhist faith.

The annual announcement of the Archibald Prize is one of Sydney’s great spectacles. There is the crowd of journalists, photographers, television crew, some of the artists, their dealers, friends and many of the subjects.

Those of us who have been here before try to read the runes in the positioning of the podium from where the announcement is made.

This year it is directly in front of David Griggs’ large portrait of Alexie Glass-Kantor. That means this was not in the final group of works to be considered, as cameras require an uncluttered view of the winner the instant it is announced. No furniture can get in the way.

The Chairman of Trustees, David Gonski, is one of the most experienced of showmen, and knows how to string out an announcement. He starts with the lesser prizes. First, the Sulman, judged this year by Fiona Lowry, awarded to McLean Edwards for The first girl that knocked on his door, an almost plaintive expression of emotional vulnerability.

Then he slowly moves onto the Wynne, teasing the waiting journalists with the two lesser prizes – the Trustees’ Watercolour Prize goes to Robyn Sweaney for her country cottage, Perfect Uncertainty. This is followed by the awarding of the Roberts Family Prize to Noŋgirrŋa Marawili for Pink Lightning, a luminous account of the lightning snake that spits fire into the sky in her Baraltja country.

The Wynne Prize goes to Sylvia Ken who, with her sisters, was awarded the same prize in 2016. Her subject, Seven Sisters, is one of the great songlines of Aboriginal Australia.

And now, for the big one, the room goes silent. Gonski thanks all 919 people who entered the prize. It’s a reminder of the achievement of the 51 who have been selected to hang. He points out how arduous the process of judging has been and highly commends Jude Rae’s portrait of Sarah Peirse as Miss Docker in Patrick White’s A cheery soul. Rae’s portrait captures the actor in character, isolated on the stage. Not getting the prize, but being signalled out for praise, is a good omen for future years.

Read more: Puckish charm and no politicians: the 2019 Archibald Prize

But as Gonski says, there is only one winner. This is the fourth time Costa has been an Archibald finalist, so he fits the criteria of recent winners.

There is a tranquility to this painting, echoing the meditative quality of Lee’s own work. Costa has painted a portrait that is both a reflection of his subject’s culture, faith, and approach to making art.

The strong lines that define the shapes within the painting almost appear to quote archaic prints. It’s a similar approach to that taken by Costa in previous portraits, notably last year’s portrait of Claudia Chan Shaw and Simon Chan in 2017.

As Archibald Winner, Tony Costa is in for a dizzying time of feasting and fun, but that will fade with the next news cycle. The real impact of the prize will last a lifetime.

The 1985 winner, Guy Warren, was able to buy a studio in Leichhardt with his winnings. Sadly, even with the decline of Sydney real estate, the prize money (now $100,000) won’t go so far these days. But there will most likely be future portrait commissions, successful exhibitions, and a slightly less precarious life for the artist.

– ref. The zen of portraiture: Tony Costa wins the 2019 Archibald Prize – http://theconversation.com/the-zen-of-portraiture-tony-costa-wins-the-2019-archibald-prize-116807

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Eileen Webb, Professor, School of Law, The University of South Australia; Adjunct Professor, Curtin Law School, University of South Australia

New laws in Western Australia will make it easier for people escaping family violence to “break” their leases.

The laws are “unashamedly victim-focused” – the latest development in a legal shift across Australia that seeks to alleviate the legal and financial barriers to leaving an abusive household. The WA legislation draws heavily on Canadian and US models to make the process of leaving timely and more efficient.

Under traditional laws, joint tenants are equally liable for lease expenses. If a lease is terminated early, the tenants remain responsible for expenses – including rent. Failure to comply has serious consequences, including the loss of a security deposit (often essential to find new accommodation) and “black-listing” on a tenancy database.

This places a person experiencing family violence in a vulnerable position if they need to leave. To stay is unsafe, but a victim may be unable to find a new, affordable home without being burdened by expenses arising from the previous lease.

Read more: Why doesn’t she just leave? The realities of escaping domestic violence

What the new laws do

Here’s what the new laws mean for people experiencing family violence in Western Australia.

Reduced notice period

Under the legislation, tenants can end a tenancy directly with the landlord or agent with seven days’ notice. They need to provide a termination notice, along with evidence that the circumstances involve family violence.

This development is significant because, unlike in most other states and territories, a person experiencing family violence won’t necessarily have to navigate law enforcement or the court system before they can leave.

Evidence might take the form of a court order, but it could also be a declaration signed by a medical professional or other independent third party to confirm that the lease is being terminated because of family violence. A broad range of people can make the declaration, including police, psychologists, social workers or people in charge of refuges. This means the evidence can be obtained in a timely and uncomplicated way.

The tenant may leave immediately for safety, although is responsible for the rent until the end of the seven-day notice period. This means the lease can be terminated quickly and cleanly with less financial burden than there would be in the case of the usual notice period.

Fast dispute resolution

The legislation also provides an efficient system to address disputes about unpaid rent, property damage and the disbursement of the security bond. The aim of the provisions is to allow for financial issues to be resolved quickly and ease the victim’s pathway out of the lease. For example, a victim will not be responsible to pay for any damage caused by the perpetrator.

Read more: How housing affordability hurts women and kids fleeing violence

Removal of perpetrator from lease

Should the tenant choose to do so, the legislation allows a tenant to stay in the rented premises, but remove the perpetrator from the lease by application to the Magistrates Court.

If children are in school in the local area, for example, it’s best for a tenant to be able to remain in the rented premises. The court may make an order terminating the perpetrator’s interest in the lease after considering matters such as the best interests of any child living on the premises, or the effect the order might have on any pets kept on the premises.

Permission to install extra security

A tenant can change or add locks and security devices without the landlord’s permission if the tenant believes, on reasonable grounds, that an act of violence is likely to be committed against them or any of their dependants.

This is an important development because, although some jurisdictions permit this in an emergency, generally residential tenancy laws require that a tenant must obtain the permission of the landlord prior to making any alteration. That included for locks, alarms and security screens. In some cases, there is an unacceptable, and dangerous delay in obtaining consent and enhancing security.

Legislation can be beneficial to landlords too

The new laws draw heavily on models from the US and, in particular Canada. Indeed, the WA provisions are modelled on those operating in Alberta and, although controversial to some, do not go as far as those in some jurisdictions. In Ontario, for example, a lease can be terminated through the use of an online form and a tenant’s statement about sexual or domestic violence.

Obviously, these amendments have concerned landlord and real estate representatives because of the potential to “use” the new laws as an excuse to break leases and disadvantage landlords. But evidence suggests that this type of legislation can actually be beneficial to landlords.

In Canadian provinces such as Alberta, where similar legislation has been operating for several years, there has been little to no evidence of the provisions being misused. And, in comparison to the expense of having to go through a court or tribunal process to terminate the lease in the usual way, the new process is more efficient and cost effective for the landlord.

The landlord has the certainty of knowing that the lease will be terminated in seven days, there is less risk of damage to the premises, and the property can be advertised promptly (rather than wait for court or abandonment processes). Of course, in a slow rental market there may be a delay in finding a new tenant, but, on balance, the process is likely to be beneficial to both the tenant and the landlord.

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

The scourge of family violence touches many. Although all Australian states and territories have introduced some measures to alleviate the difficulties faced by a person wanting to end a lease because of family violence, the Western Australian provisions provide an example of best practice in balancing safety, efficiency and the interests of both tenant and landlord.

– ref. New laws in Western Australia will help victims of family violence end their tenancies – http://theconversation.com/new-laws-in-western-australia-will-help-victims-of-family-violence-end-their-tenancies-116800

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nick Fitzgerald, PhD candidate, University of Tasmania

Sunny interludes punctuate showers of rain, hail and sleet as furious winds sweep clouds across the sky. It’s a typical summer day on Macquarie Island, a sliver of ocean floor that rose more than 2.5 km from the depths of the Southern Ocean, halfway between Tasmania and Antarctica, around 12 million years ago.

On this February day in 2013, my colleague Jennie Whinam and I are visiting monitoring sites for the critically endangered Macquarie Island cushion plant, Azorella macquariensis, which has been suffering extensive dieback.

It is a short walk from our cosy field hut to Skua Lake on the opposite side of the island – a mere four kilometres of steep off-track walking, head-first into the icy wind.

We make a small detour to the shoreline of Skua Lake, the only known location for perhaps the rarest plant on the island, the subantarctic bedstraw (Galium antarcticum). This small herb had not been seen since it was first recorded on Macquarie Island in the early 1980s, despite several searches in the subsequent 30 years.

It seemed likely the humble bedstraw was extinct on Macquarie Island, and we weren’t confident we’d see one that day. It is a small herb, growing to a few centimetres in size, with reddish leaves clustered on sprawling stems and tiny inconspicuous white flowers. Not the easiest plant to spot amongst the lush growth of a subantarctic meadow.

But within five minutes of arriving at the shoreline of Skua Lake, we spotted a reddish-coloured herb unlike any other plant there, partly hidden among dense mosses and grasses.

Excitedly, we set about searching for others, finding hundreds of the tiny plants!

But our celebratory feeling was soon blown away by a flurry of horizontal snow carried across the lake. Skua Lake is perched on the top of an escarpment 130 metres above the ocean with no shelter from the winds that travel unimpeded around the globe at these latitudes.

We were so cold we had to start moving again. And turning our backs to the wind, we marched across grassy hills dusted with fresh snow.

Hidden for three decades

Our rediscovery of this critically endangered species raised a couple of questions. Where had it been hiding for 30 years? And, given the abundance of apparently suitable habitat on the island, why was it restricted to one location?

These questions remain unanswered. But four years later, in 2017, botanists Cath Dickson and Alex Fergus stumbled upon a second population of subantarctic bedstraw on the opposite side of Skua Lake, comprising an estimated 1,000 plants. But why it is not even more widespread remains a mystery.

Perhaps the bedstraw was preferentially grazed by invasive rabbits, which have had a dramatic impact on the vegetation of Macquarie Island. Or, the plant could be a recent immigrant to the island yet to expand its range.

Galium is a large and widespread genus of herbs (commonly called bedstraw) in the Rubiaceae family, with several native and introduced species in Australia including the familiar garden weed cleavers or sticky weed. Many species have distinctive bristly hairs, whereas G. antarcticum is hairless.

With a total known population of 1,500 plants confined to a few square metres of windswept tundra, Galium antarcticum remains critically endangered in Australia.

Travelled across vast seas

Macquarie Island is a young and very remote landmass with an unusual cold maritime climate. Its flora was born from long-distance dispersal and largely composed of subantarctic specialists.

Subantarctic bedstraw is one such specialist, and is also found in Patagonia, South Georgia, the Falklands, Crozet and Kerguelen islands. This wide distribution throughout most of the Subantarctic, including islands separated by thousands of kilometres of ocean, suggests this species has been dispersed by seabirds.

The future prospects for the species on Macquarie Island are uncertain. It may benefit from the recent eradication of rabbits, expanding its range, or it may struggle to compete with taller growing plants as the short grassland transitions to a more closed vegetation community in the absence of grazing pressure. Or it may continue to be a mystery.

– ref. How I stumbled on a lost plant just north of Antarctica – http://theconversation.com/how-i-stumbled-on-a-lost-plant-just-north-of-antarctica-115631

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kellie Bousfield, Associate Head of School, School of Education, Charles Sturt University

Bill Shorten shared his mother’s story on Q&A this week. Dr Ann Shorten aspired to a career in law. But financial responsibilities led her to teaching instead. In response to Shorten’s heartfelt anecdote #MyMum began trending on twitter. Tweeters shared stories of “wasted potential”, of those who aspired to medicine, law, and science but, through lack of opportunity, were made to settle for less.

While these tweets were well-intentioned, the association of teaching with wasted potential touches on a narrative all too prevalent in Australia. A discourse that deems teaching second-rate, a fall-back position, something one does when marks fall short. It speaks directly to Australia’s current crisis in the status of teaching – a crisis that threatens and undermines the importance and significance of teachers’ work.

Why teaching status matters

Teacher status is measured by social standing, career desirability, remuneration, trust, and autonomy. The status of teaching impacts teacher recruitment, teacher retention, job satisfaction, teacher performance and student outcomes.

In short, teachers’ status matters.

The state of teacher status in Australia, however, is of continued concern. The issue is complex, but current research suggests the following as significant contributors to teachers’ status decline:

The representation of teachers in the media is a key factor in teachers’ public image. In Australia this is particularly problematic. For example, research demonstrates how teachers are frequently portrayed as:

Such criticism is disturbingly widespread. While more often than not lacking credibility or recognition of the broader context of education, “teacher bashing” is not the domain of journalists alone.

Criticism stems from politicians, parents, and in some cases, even teaching colleagues. When it comes to education, what is being done, and what should be done, it seems everyone is an expert. That is, except teaching professionals themselves.

It’s little surprise such representations leave teachers feeling both undermined, and undervalued. It should.

An inquiry shelved

November 2018 saw a glimmer of hope for Australian teachers. In recognition of growing concerns around teachers’ status, Education Minister Dan Tehan launched an inquiry into the status of the teaching profession. Teachers welcomed the opportunity for productive conversation and informed solutions. It also offered the chance to reaffirm the vital role of teachers in community, economy, and society.

Read more: To raise status of teaching, Australia needs to lift pay and cut teacher numbers

The formal intention of the inquiry was to not only report on the status of the profession but also consider opportunities to improve in a range of areas. The inquiry launch also prioritised valuing Australia’s teachers. The terms of reference were to:

• increasing the attractiveness of the profession

• provide appropriate support services

• reduce the burden of out-of-work hours

• increase teacher retention rates.

The inquiry was met with enthusiasm. Beyond the six public hearings held in venues across Queensland, Victoria, New South Wales and South Australia, there were 90 individual written submissions, comprised of almost 1,200 pages of considered responses. These included contributions from teaching associations, universities, parent associations, unions, government departments, and individual teachers.

The final report produced from the inquiry, however, was both underwhelming and disappointing. In its entirety, a four-page word document summarising issues that arose from the public hearings, and a one-page media release. No acknowledgement of the 90 individual submissions. No clear way forward.

The inquiry lapsed on the dissolution of the House of Representatives in April 2019, prior to the federal election. While teachers – those at the heart of the inquiry – may (and arguably should) be disappointed, it seems the government is satisfied with the outcome. According to the committee, the four-page summary will “lay the foundation for any further examination of these matters in a future Parliament”.

Read more: Seven reasons people no longer want to be teachers

Chair of the standing committee MP Andrew Laming claimed production of the final report as “warp speed for an inquiry of this size” and as “a pretty good achievement”. Forgive us if we don’t agree.

The regard with which this inquiry evolved is telling. That a government inquiry concerned with valuing teachers can lapse with barely a murmur and no concrete government response is indicative of the regard with which issues of teacher status are held in the political sphere.

Is this the best teachers’ can hope for? If so, the status of the profession is unlikely to change any time soon.

– ref. Teaching is too often seen as a fall-back option, and that’s unlikely to change anytime soon – http://theconversation.com/teaching-is-too-often-seen-as-a-fall-back-option-and-thats-unlikely-to-change-anytime-soon-116805

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Sivey, Associate Professor, School of Economics, Finance and Marketing, RMIT University

The number of people who attend the doctor for free has gone from 82% under Labor to 86% under us.

– Health minister Greg Hunt, during the health policy federal election debate at the National Press Club, May 2, 2019.

During a debate with shadow health minister Catherine King, Hunt was defending the Coalition government’s track record on bulk-billing, claiming the number of people who visit their doctor without having to pay any out-of-pocket expense has risen since Labor’s time in power.

Verdict

The figures are accurate, but bulk-billing rates for GPs have been rising since a low point of 68.6% in 2004, meaning rates have risen during Labor’s time in office as well as since the Coalition won power in 2013.

Bulk-billing rates for specialist consultations are much lower than for GP visits, although they too have risen during the past decade.

Checking the source

In response to a request for a source on which the claim was based, a spokesperson for Hunt provided The Conversation with a spreadsheet of Department of Health data documenting annual Medicare statistics from 1984-85 to 2017-18.

It shows that 86.3% of “non-referred attendances (excluding practice nurse items)” at doctors’ surgeries were bulk-billed in 2017-18. In 2012-13, the last full financial year of the Labor government, the rate was 82.5%.

Free doctor visits

Patients who are bulk-billed when they visit the doctor do not pay a fee; the doctor accepts the Medicare rebate as full payment. In this sense, bulk-billed patients can be said to be visiting the doctor “for free”.

Bulk-billing rates are published annually by the Department of Health, and so are easy to compare over time. (The spreadsheet referenced by Hunt’s office can be downloaded via this page.)

The bulk-billing rate for GP consultations over the past 20 years has been steadily increasing, from a low of 68.6% in 2003-4 to the most recent figure of 86.3% in 2017-18. In the last full financial year of the Labor government, in 2012-13, the rate was 82.5%.

There is no specific entry for “GP visits” in the government figures. The closest approximation is the data for “total non-referred attendances (excluding practice nurse items) out of hospital”. The bulk-billing rates for these services are shown in the upper line of the graph below.

The lower line in the graph shows bulk-billing rates for specialists. Patients visit non-hospital specialists (such as dermatologists) when referred by a GP, but bulk-billing is less common for these consultations.

Bulk-billing rates for these services have increased over the past decade, but are still quite low at 41.3%. This means most patients who use these specialist consultations make an out-of-pocket payment for them.

Why is GP bulk-billing on the rise?

The long-run increase in bulk-billing rates for GPs (and to a lesser extent, for specialists) is a bit of a mystery. In the mid-2000s, when the rising trend began, it seems likely this was spurred by the introduction of bulk-billing incentives which offer extra payments to GPs who don’t charge an out-of-pocket fee to patients, and the increase in the Medicare benefit to 100% of the Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS) fee for GP services – this was a one-off A$4.60 increase in the Medicare rebate for a standard patient visit.

However, when government funding for GP services began to be cut in real terms by the medicare rebate freeze in 2013, bulk-billing rates nevertheless continued to rise.

One possible explanation is that competition between GPs is keeping bulk-billing rates high. This theory is supported by the fact that the number of GPs in Australia is growing faster than the population.

Also worth noting is that while the proportion of GP consultations that are bulk-billed has continued to rise, the fees paid by the minority of patients who aren’t bulk-billed has continued to rise faster than inflation. – Peter Sivey

Blind review

This FactCheck is fair and accurate with respect to the data presented on the percentage of GP consultations that are bulk-billed. However, the minister’s quote referred to the percentage of people who are bulk-billed. This is a slightly different metric to the percentage of consultations.

This is because the people who are more likely to be bulk-billed (such as concession card holders) are also more frequent users of GP services. In fact, there is evidence that the reforms in the mid-2000s, referred to above, led to higher costs for patients who were not concession card holders. This is further evidenced by a 2018 report from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW, which compiles official government statistics on health benefits) showing that in the 2016-17 financial year, 34% of patients who made at least one Medicare-subsidised GP visit incurred an out-of-pocket cost. In other words, only 66% of people were consistently bulk-billed during that year.

As these data have not been routinely reported by the AIHW, we cannot judge whether the percentage of people bulk-billed rose or fell during the Coalition’s term in office. We can say that in 2016-17 this percentage was much lower than that claimed by the health minister. – Kees Van Gool

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 86% of people visit the doctor for free? – http://theconversation.com/factcheck-do-86-of-people-visit-the-doctor-for-free-116726

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

It probably wasn’t exactly how egg-tossing activist Amber Holt thought her hit on prime minister Scott Morrision would go down. The egg bounced off his head. He cracked jokes about it. She’s been charged with common assault, and may yet lose her job for her efforts.

“I’ve got to go to work, no comment,” she told media after the incident, with a Cotton On Kids lanyard visible around her neck. The clothing company has since confirmed Holt is a casual employee and that it is “investigating” the incident.

“The Cotton On Group is disappointed to hear about yesterday’s incident involving one of our team members,” it said in a statement. “While individuals are entitled to hold their own opinions, we do not condone this behaviour and it does not align with our company values.”

Does Cotton On, or any other employer, have the right to sack an employee for something they say or do in their own time?

The short answer is, in many cases, yes – especially if the business can show the employee’s actions reflect badly on it. In this case the company might find Holt has breached her obligations as an employee to protect the company’s image.

Employment law

Australian employment law requires that an employee cooperate with their employer, and not engage in any conduct that would undermine the business or bring it into disrepute.

These are terms implied into every employee’s contract of employment by the common law. Over the past 30 years or so, the courts have increasingly interpreted these principles to enable employers to control the private or out-of-hours conduct of employees.

You could therefore find yourself lawfully sacked for untoward behaviour at a work Christmas party, or for posting derogatory comments about the business on Facebook – so long as your employer can show there is a sufficient connection to the employment.

That connection will exist where, for example, drunken behaviour at a party affects your workplace relationships (or constitutes sexual harassment), or where your “private” Facebook post damages the employer’s reputation.

This is why Fair Work Australia upheld a Good Guys franchise dismissing an employee because of his Facebook comments about colleagues, including one interpreted as a threat.

On the other hand Fair Work ruled lighting company LED Technologies had unfairly dismissed an employee for “rude and vulgar” Facebook comments, which he argued was about his mother’s workplace, not his own.

Codes of conduct

Employers have also sought to extend the common law obligations of employees through company policies and codes of conduct. Typically these documents impose very high standards of employee behaviour in a wide range of situations. The employer is then able to discipline or dismiss you for behavioural breaches, even outside the workplace or work hours, especially where (as is common) you have signed a contract in which you agree to observe company policies.

In the past five years we have seen many examples of the collision between “corporate values” and employees’ right to a “private life”.

In 2015, SBS dismissed sports journalist Scott McIntyre for tweeting on Anzac Day a series of comments critical of Australia’s obsession with the Anzac legend. McIntyre’s Twitter account identified him as an SBS employee, and he had more than 30,000 followers. SBS sacked him the next day on the grounds his “disrespectful” comments breached the public broadcaster’s code of conduct and social media policy.

McIntyre contested his dismissal in the Fair Work Commission. He argued he had a legal right to express a political opinion and had been discriminated against for exercising that right. The parties reached a settlement out of court, so we didn’t get a ruling on a few important issues. Did the tweets amount to “political opinion”? If they did, would anti-discrimination laws have trumped employer policies?

Read more: Anzacs behaving badly: Scott McIntyre and contested history

Last month, the Federal Circuit Court ruled James Cook University had unlawfully dismissed a physics professor, Peter Ridd, for making public comments critical of university colleagues for their research on the effects of climate change on the Great Barrier Reef.

This case was a bit different, though. The university argued Ridd breached its code of conduct. But the court decided Ridd had a right to intellectual freedom under the university’s enterprise agreement (a common feature of academic employment).

Later this year the High Court will consider an appeal by Comcare, the federal workers’ compensation agency, against an Administrative Appeals Tribunal ruling that the Department of Immigration and Border Protection unfairly dismissed public servant Michaela Banerji in 2013 for (anonymously) tweeting comments critical of the federal government’s immigration policy.

The tribunal determined Banerji’s right to make such comments was protected by the implied constitutional freedom of political communication. Her dismissal therefore constituted unlawful administrative action. The tribunal likened seeking to control the anonymous political comments of a departmental employee to the Orwellian notion of “thoughtcrime” in 1984.

Read more: Is liking something on Facebook ‘protected political speech’? It depends

In 2017 the Australian Public Service Commission was widely criticised for issuing a new social media policy seen to intrude excessively on the right of government employees to engage in free speech.

And of course we’re now witnessing the Israel Folau case. A Rugby Australia panel this week decided he breached the players’ contract through his social media posts critical of homosexuality. It is yet to decide on a penalty but if he’s sacked, I can definitely see this one being challenged, Folau arguing discrimination on the basis of his religion.

Employer’s prerogative

Cotton On’s employee code of conduct is not publicly available – possibly because of the adverse publicity it received in 2015, when it was revealed its code required employees to “keep it real” and observe other company values like being “fun”, “ethical” and “entrepreneurial”.

However, I expect the code of conduct would include language broad enough for Cotton On to argue Holt has engaged in misconduct that has damaged its public reputation. An important factor here is that she is charged with high-profile criminal behaviour. She might try to argue she was expressing political views, protected by discrimination law, but this doesn’t look like the right “test case” to win that argument.

Only where there are clear protections of employee free speech (such as for academics) is the steady march of employer policies controlling employees’ private conduct likely to be halted. Unfortunately most of the Australian workforce is not covered by these protections.

– ref. Egging the question: can your employer sack you for what you say or do in your own time? – http://theconversation.com/egging-the-question-can-your-employer-sack-you-for-what-you-say-or-do-in-your-own-time-116880

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

Independent Kerryn Phelps has dug herself into the Sydney seat of Wentworth, with the Liberals facing a tough battle to dislodge her, according to focus group research done this week.

“Traditional Liberal voters who gave Phelps a go at the byelection like what they’ve seen, or haven’t seen enough and are prepared to give her another go,” the report on the research says. “The byelection handed these voters a brave new world of life with an independent”.

The four groups, held on Monday and Tuesday, totalled 41 “soft” or “switched” voters (those who are undecided or have switched their vote to a different party or person since the November byelection, which was prompted by Malcolm Turnbull’s resignation). The work was done by Landscape Research for The Conversation.

It should be stressed this is qualitative research – a guide to attitudes and not predictive. Also, campaigns are moveable feasts, sometimes right to the end.

Read more: Grattan on Friday: Bill Shorten’s moment of ‘connection’ brings back memories of Beaconsfield

Wentworth, which has borne its name since federation, stretches along the southern shore of the Harbour, and has been traditionally Liberal.

The Australian Electoral Commission describes its commercial makeup as including “finance, property, service, wholesale and retail trade, tourism, education, sport and recreation”. Its voters are more prosperous than average: in the 2016 census the median weekly household income was $2380, compared with the national figure of $1438.

The seat’s voters tend to be politically switched on, especially given the attention they received at the byelection.

The government has been hopeful that, with the efflux of time since the August coup that so angered these voters, the electorate might move to Liberal candidate Dave Sharma, who lost by just 1,850 votes in November. Sharma, 43, a former diplomat who served as ambassador to Israel, has moved into the electorate since the byelection.

But the research found that while some people might have voted for Phelps initially in reaction to the skewering of Turnbull “they now see her as a viable option in her own right. The genie is out of the bottle and the Liberal party may struggle to get it back in, if enough switched voters are prepared to give Phelps a go of a full term,” the report says.

“Phelps should be given more time,” said an older semi-retired salesman who’d been a lifelong Liberal voter.

Phelps, 61, is also appealing to younger voters in a way Sharma, though much younger, so far is not. “I feel she’s very in touch with us youth much more than any other politician,” said a 19-year-old university student.

Phelps’ professional background and personal profile appeals to voters as much as that she is an independent. In spite of high name recognition, Sharma is far less well-known. “I have no sense of his personality,” said a semi-retired woman from Waverley.

Sharma has been campaigning as a self-proclaimed “Modern Liberal” – a moniker used by high-profile Victorian Liberal Tim Wilson – which has voters guessing about what that really means. “Caring while still staying economically grounded?” suggested a 20-year-old university student from Clovelly. And voters have widely noted Sharma has removed traditional Liberal branding from his campaign posters, causing them to wonder if he’s trying to distance himself from the party.

“I question his motivation by removing the Liberal logos,” said a 46-year-old project manager from Bellevue Hill. “It’s like a marketing ploy. It’s trying to incentivise people to vote for him,” a Rose Bay university student said.

Read more: Labor and Greens unlikely to win a Senate majority on current polling; Greens jump in Essential poll

Unsurprisingly, given the nature of this electorate, Scott Morrison is almost universally more trusted to lead Australia than Bill Shorten. But that alone isn’t doing enough to help bolster Sharma.

“Morrison is not the charismatic Turnbull or the statesmanlike Howard. At best, he is seen as ‘basically decent’, ‘honest’, ‘genuine’, ‘pleasant’, ‘well-meaning’, a ‘family-man’; a ‘larrikin’, and ‘approachable’ – someone who can ‘relate to an ordinary guy in the street’,” the research found.

At worst, Morrison is seen by older voters as a “Sharks-supporting salesman’, ‘a typical bogan’, ‘a typical politician’, a ‘bully’, and by younger voters as ‘the local butcher, not the PM’, ‘a privileged white guy’, ‘insipid, religious, racist’, ‘sly’ and an ‘arrogant hypocrite’”.

“Some see him as opportunistic for the way in which he claimed the leadership, describing him as ‘smirking’, ‘smug’ and a ‘backstabber’. The youngest voters (aged 20-23) don’t buy that Morrison wasn’t involved in Turnbull’s downfall. Middle-aged and older voters don’t particularly blame Morrison but see the Liberals as undifferentiated from Labor with respect to toppling their leaders,” the report said.

The PM’s message about strong economic management resonates in this affluent inner city seat, as does the Liberal advertising message “The Bill you can’t afford” with those who are financially engaged. Labor’s “Top end of town” tag for Morrison isn’t achieving the desired cut through here because the don’t see themselves as the top end of town. Middle-aged and older voters feel Shorten’s policies will hurt many of them, even if they are not personally affected by franking credits and negative gearing. One young student lamented the cutting back of investment opportunities in the future.

Labor is viewed as playing class politics with its negative gearing and franking credits policies. While many voters agree with the intent (to make things more equitable), they think the policies are poorly crafted and have unintended consequences not thought through. This leads them to question Labor’s credibility and capability in government, if they can’t target these policies correctly. “It’s a wrongly-targeted, mean policy,” one older voter said of changes to negative gearing. “It’s ideological, but a damp squib because it’s grandfathered and still allows negative gearing on new properties,” said another.

(Phelps is opposing Labor’s negative gearing and franking credits policies “in their current form”.)

A factor working for Sharma is voters having an eye to the national outcome – as distinct from that in Wentworth – and not wanting a Labor win. “An independent vote is a wasted vote, as much as I like Kerryn. I want my vote to help go towards a Liberal government,” said a 52-year-old female travel specialist from Bellevue Hill. And as one switched Liberal described voting for an independent: “A change is as good as a holiday. But sometimes holidays have to be short.”

Shorten isn’t much liked, and some voters are sceptical of his stress on stability. Despite Labor’s change to rules making it hard to change its PM, some think Shorten’s “wishy washy” leadership is being tolerated by Labor for now, until someone replaces him later. “He’s likely to join the revolving door that is our prime ministership,” said a woman in her 30s from North Bondi.

As they lament Australia’s uninspiring leadership, these Wentworth voters gaze across the ditch. As one puts it:“We are all looking at [Jacinda] Ardern and saying: why can’t we have a leader like that?”

Most of these voters include climate change when they name the issues important for the nation. (Indeed a couple of sceptics were howled down.) But in Wentworth this is not a “climate change election”. Rather, seen to be having the right views on the subject is just a necessary condition for being in the race.

“You can’t be elected now by saying you don’t believe,” said one younger voter from Bellevue Hill. “Even Tony Abbott is talking about the environment in a more sustainable way.”

Notwithstanding their views on climate change, some are more circumspect when it comes to specifics like coal mining. While both younger and older voters are looking for a transition away from coal, and many eschew the Adani mine going ahead, they acknowledge there is no quick fix in the short term. “We’re not ready to go 100% to renewables yet,” said one younger voter. “You take away coal and a company like BHP will go broke,” said another.

Read more: Look at me! Look at me! How image-conscious but visionless leaders have made for a dreary campaign

A stable economy and budget surplus are also seen as critical for the nation. Even those with scant understanding of fiscal policy intuitively believe a budget surplus is a good thing. “It means more money to spend on hospitals and schools,” said a 40 year old administration officer from Paddington.

Wentworth voters are also concerned about living in an equitable and inclusive country, including treating refugees and indigenous people better, and they point to the policy failures of both major parties in this regard.

“It’s all about expectations. You expect the Liberals to be opposed to refugees, whereas Labor, you expect to be disappointed,” said one participant.

Local issues weighing on these voters included housing affordability in the area, over-development, traffic congestion and public transport.

Wentworth remains one of the most interesting individual contests in this campaign, in which there has been so much talk about centre right independents, often women, who are small-l liberal on social issues but inclined to be Liberal-leaning on key economic questions. One could argue that Wentworth voters are spoilt for choice, in that both Phelps and Sharma tick many of the boxes important to them.

– ref. View from The Hill: Focus groups suggest Wentworth is embracing Phelps, but Sharma helped by fear of Labor – http://theconversation.com/view-from-the-hill-focus-groups-suggest-wentworth-is-embracing-phelps-but-sharma-helped-by-fear-of-labor-116897

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

University of Canberra Vice-Chancellor Deep Saini speaks with Michelle Grattan about the week in politics. They discuss the final impressions made at the leaders debates, the leaders’ prospective cabinets, Bill Shorten’s campaign moment in relation to his late mother, Labor’s policy costings, and Scott Morrison’s strategy for the Liberal party launch on Sunday.

– ref. VIDEO: Michelle Grattan on Shorten’s campaign moment – and Morrison’s battle plan – http://theconversation.com/video-michelle-grattan-on-shortens-campaign-moment-and-morrisons-battle-plan-116884

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Julian Savulescu, Visiting Professor in Biomedical Ethics, Murdoch Children’s Research Institute; Distinguished Visiting Professor in Law, University of Melbourne; Uehiro Chair in Practical Ethics, University of Oxford

This essay is part of our occasional series Zoom Out, where authors explore key ideas in science and technology in the broader context of society and humanity.

Middle-distance runner Caster Semenya will need to take hormone-lowering agents, or have surgery, if she wishes to continue her career in her chosen athletic events.

The Court of Arbitration in Sport (CAS) decided last week to uphold a rule requiring athletes with certain forms of what they call “disorders of sex development” (DSD) – more commonly called “intersex” conditions – to lower their testosterone levels in order to still be eligible to compete as women in certain elite races.

The case was brought to CAS by Semenya, as she argued discrimination linked to a 2018 decision preventing some women, including herself, from competing in some female events.

This ruling is flawed. On the basis of science and ethical reasoning, there are ten reasons CAS’s decision does not stand up.

But first let’s take a quick look at the biology involved.

Read more: Caster Semenya: how much testosterone is too much for a female athlete?

Semenya underwent medical testing in 2009: at the time she was told it was a doping test. The results are confidential, but it has been widely reported that she does have an intersex condition. It seems reasonable to assume she has XY chromosomes, as she is covered by the CAS ruling. Her testosterone levels have not been disclosed, but since the ruling applies to her, they must almost certainly be in what they classify as the “male range”.

According to CAS, the DSD regulations require athletes who want to compete in some female events, who have XY chromosomes and in whom testosterone has a biological effect to reduce their natural testosterone levels to an agreed concentration (below 5 nmol/L).

In women referred to as “46 XY DSD” – the most common intersex condition among female athletes – the presence of a Y chromosome causes the development of testes. These do not descend from the abdomen but do produce testosterone. However the receptors for testosterone are abnormal, with the result that the individual develops as female with a vagina, but no ovaries or uterus. Circulating testosterone may have no biological effect in the case of complete androgen insensitivity syndrome (AIS), or some effect in partial AIS.

Now let’s consider what’s wrong with the ruling.

1. It confuses sex with gender

Sex refers to biology, and gender refers to social role or self-identification. In sport, the definition of male and female used to be based solely on sex. This was assessed anatomically in the 1960s, then by biological tests such as the presence of a structure called a “Barr body” in cells (found only in genetic females), or the gene for testicular development.

Sex determination was abandoned in the 1990s in favour of gender. From the 2000 Sydney Olympics forwards, there were no tests of gender other than self-identification.

Caster Semenya’s gender is uncontroversially female. She is legally female, was from birth raised as female and identifies as a female. So, on the current definition, Semenya is a female. Indeed, there has been no question of her gender.

Sex determination itself is not simple, with chromosomal, gonadal (presence of ovaries or testes), or secondary sex characteristics (physical) all possible definitions that would include or exclude different groups.

Read more: What makes you a man or a woman? Geneticist Jenny Graves explains

The CAS decision relates to “XY females with disorders of sexual development.” XY denotes the male sex chromosomes. This reverts back to the old biological categories. Behind this ruling is the view that Semenya is really a man competing in the women’s category. This view is embodied beautifully in an article entitled “A victory for female athletes everywhere.”

But Semenya is a female by the rules used by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) – so she should be allowed to compete to the best of her potential in her category.

An alternative is to retreat to the old sex-based definition based on the presence of a Y chromosome. But that carries its own questions on definitions, and also comes at great political and individual cost. It would imply that Semenya is a male with a disorder of sexual development.

2. It discriminates against some forms of hyperandrogenism

Hyperandrogenism is a term used to describe high levels of testosterone.

But the CAS decision does not cover all forms of hyperandrogenism. It only refers to women who have XY chromosomes, such as partial androgen insensitivity syndrome (AIS).

It does not cover a condition called congenital adrenal hyperplasia, which can cause elevated levels of testosterone in women with XX chromosomes.

The implication is that XX females are real women, while those with XY chromosomes are not.

3. It’s based on inadequate science

The significant problem in partial AIS is that although testosterone is elevated in the blood, the receptors for testosterone do not respond to the hormone in the usual way. That is why these individuals have typical external female physical characteristics.

While the testosterone may have some impact on how the body works, it is impossible to quantify how much effect it is having. For example, the difference testosterone makes between males and females in all events is estimated to be up to 12% (all other items being equal). But Semenya’s best time is only 2% faster than her competitors. It is not possible to determine how much of this 2% is due to testosterone, and how much due to other factors about her as an athlete, or her psychology.

The study on which the current decision is based contains only correlations and is flawed in several ways, with a call for its retraction on scientific grounds. It is a single study, conducted by the IAAF and the full data have not been released for independent replication. The sole ground for the claim that Semenya derives “material androgenizing effect” (that is, biological impact) appears to be the “statistical over-representation of female athletes with 46 XY DSD” in the relevant events, as documented in this single, poorly conducted study.

Even if Semenya’s times were to drop after the reduction of testosterone, this could be a side-effect of the drugs used to reduce testosterone, or a function of reductions in mental or physical functions which are themselves legitimate entitlements of the athlete.

Her body has grown up in the presence of a certain level of testosterone of uncertain function. Our bodies are complex, and still poorly understood. A change of this kind may lead to unexpected results. Some of these reductions in functions may be unjust.

Read more: Testosterone: why defining a ‘normal’ level is hard to do

No one has given a complete description of the role of testosterone in someone like Semenya, nor how much it ought to be reduced to achieve a supposedly fair outcome. The comparisons are only with XX chromosome women, who have a very different physiology and normal functioning testosterone receptors.

Put simply, a level of 5 nMol/L testosterone is meaningless in Semenya’s case because the receptors are not responding in the usual way. It does not achieve a “level hormonal playing field”.

This is an example of “decimal point science smokescreen.” There is the impression of much greater confidence and sensitivity than the science warrants by appealing to figures with multiple decimal points. The science around testosterone in intersex conditions is poorly understood, let alone as it applies to individuals. This is a level chosen for convenience, not a level that will negate any perceived advantage, but go no further.

4. It’s inconsistent with values of sport and human rights

The self-professed values of sport include the development of one’s own talent .

Yet Semenya is asked to cobble her natural potential as a female competitor. She must take risky biological interventions to reduce her performance.

The United Nations Human Rights Council has stated that the regulations contravene human rights “including the right to equality and non-discrimination […] and full respect for the dignity, bodily integrity and bodily autonomy of the person”.

Read more: It’s not clear where human rights fit in the legal ruling on athlete Caster Semenya

5. It’s inconsistent with treatment of other athletes

Other women with disorders resulting in higher than expected levels of testosterone, such as congenital adrenal hyperplasia, are not required to reduce their biological advantage.

Competitors with genetic mutations causing increases in red blood cell mass, and who experience enhanced oxygen-carrying capacity as a result, are not required to reduce their biological levels.

The Finnish skier Eero Mäntyranta had a genetic mutation that boosted his red blood cell count by 25-50% (he produced more blood hormone erythropoetin, or EPO). He and won several Olympic medals with this natural form of doping.

6. It’s unjust

The decision is unjust in several ways.

Firstly, it was the IAAF which moved from sex to gender definition of female in 1990s. Semenya has entered competition, trained and competed fairly under the rules. To change them now will be undermine her capacity to compete, work and live, after a lifetime of investment.

If the rules are to be changed, they should not affect athletes who agreed to the current rules, but future athletes. There should be a “grandmother clause” for current athletes, like Semenya or else they are unfairly burdened by the bungles of the IAAF. Even if these rules could be considered justified, they should apply to future athletes as soon as possible after puberty.

Secondly, justice is about giving priority to the worst off in our society – but this ruling adds disadvantage to the worst off. Those with intersex conditions are already stigmatised, discriminated against, in many cases cannot bear children even if they want to. They are the socially disadvantaged. This ruling adds further discrimination and disadvantage.

Thirdly, it sets back integration of intersex people, by stigmatising and marginalising them. We have told them: be yourself, society will accept you. But this sends the message: you are really male, we don’t accept you, you should be castrated.

7. It is an inappropriate reaction to fear of a ‘slippery slope’

At the heart of this decision is the fear of displacement of cisgender women on the podia by increasing debate over transgender athletes. The concern is that if “XY females” are allowed to compete in the female category, formerly male transgender females will follow and rob cisgender women of their medals.

Read more: Explainer: what does it mean to be ‘cisgender’?

This is a separate issue. Transgender athletes have normal testosterone receptors and would have grown up in the presence of male levels of testosterone acting on normal receptors. Intersex athletes have not grown up in this way and are typically raised as female.

The perceived problem of transgender domination of female sports can be dealt with by separate rules that do not disadvantage existing intersex athletes, though they will raise contentious issues of their own.

8. It is disproportionate and unreasonable

All methods of reducing testosterone involve some risk. For example, the administration of high-dose birth control medication involves risk of clots, including fatal lung clots.

Read more: How to choose the right contraceptive pill for you

These interventions interfere with a normally functioning organism for highly uncertain benefits to other people. This is disproportionate and unreasonable.

9. It can’t be implemented

The World Medical Association has advised doctors not to administer testosterone-lowering interventions, describing the regulation as “contrary to international medical ethics and human rights standards”.

Their use would be “off label” and is for purposes other than the athlete’s health. The rules involve “strict liability” which means the athlete is responsible for any failure to comply, even if unintentional and outside of the athlete’s control.

10. There are fairer, safer alternatives

I have argued athletes should be able take performance-enhancing substances within the normal physiological range. This would mean cisgender female athletes could take testosterone up to 5 nMol/L. This would reduce any advantage Semenya may have.

It would also deal with the problem that up to 40% of elite athletes are currently doping anyway. Semenya received the London 2012 800m gold medal after the original winner was disqualified for doping. It is highly likely that some of her current competitors are also doping.

No doubt part of the resistance to allowing Semenya to “naturally dope” is that it will encourage other athletes to engage in doping. But they already are, and a better approach to “de-enhancing” Semenya is to regulate and monitor the enhancement of other athletes.

Spectacular fail

Rarely does a public policy fail so spectacularly on so many ethical grounds.

CAS acknowledged that its decision constituted discrimination:

“The panel found that the DSD Regulations are discriminatory but the majority of the panel found that, on the basis of the evidence submitted by the parties, such discrimination is a necessary, reasonable and proportionate means of achieving the IAAF’s aim of preserving the integrity of female athletics in the restricted events.”

The UNHRC has refuted this claim of proportionality: “there is no clear relationship of proportionality between the aim of the regulations and the proposed measures and their impact”.

This ruling is neither necessary, reasonable nor proportionate. It is simply unjust discrimination.

Read more: Caster Semenya’s impossible situation: Testosterone gets special scrutiny but doesn’t necessarily make her faster

Thanks to Michelle Telfer and Ken Pang for comments

This article builds on arguments presented in the paper Time to re-evaluate gender segregation in athletics?.

– ref. Ten ethical flaws in the Caster Semenya decision on intersex in sport – http://theconversation.com/ten-ethical-flaws-in-the-caster-semenya-decision-on-intersex-in-sport-116448

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Diana Perche, Senior Lecturer and Academic Coordinator, Nura Gili Indigenous Programs Unit, UNSW

First Nations people in Australia face structural barriers to political participation. The institutions of government remain predominantly white, and almost 60 years after being given the right to vote, very few Indigenous people have been elected to parliament in a system dominated by two major parties. Candidates who do stand for election are subjected to racism and open discrimination.

But things are beginning to change for the better. The 2016 election resulted in the highest-ever number of Indigenous members of parliament with Ken Wyatt (Liberal, Hasluck) and Linda Burney (Labor, Barton) elected to the House of Representatives, and Patrick Dodson (Labor, WA), Malarndirri McCarthy (Labor, NT) and Jacqui Lambie (Jacqui Lambie Network, Tasmania) in the Senate. (Lambie was later forced to resign under Section 44 of the constitution due to dual citizenship.)

The 2016 federal election campaign also saw a record number of First Nations candidates, with 17 standing for election, including 11 pre-selected for one of the major parties. For the upcoming election, that record has been broken, with at least 22 candidates counted on the IndigenousX website. However, only eight of these are running for the major parties, and even fewer in winnable seats.

Read more: Constitutional reform made easy: how to achieve the Uluru statement and a First Nations voice

Another sign of progress: Wyatt was appointed minister for Aged Care and Indigenous Health in 2017 – the first Indigenous MP to be promoted to the ministry – and Burney and Dodson currently serve on the frontbench of the opposition. If Labor is elected, Dodson will be named Indigenous Affairs minister, another first for First Nations people.

Indigenous candidates to watch

In the House of Representatives, Wyatt is recontesting the marginal seat of Hasluck in WA, and Burney, the ALP shadow minister for social services, is recontesting the safer NSW seat of Barton. In the Senate, McCarthy and Dodson will also likely be re-elected.

Other candidates to watch include Liberal Warren Mundine, who has been controversially “parachuted” in to contest the NSW seat of [Gilmore]. Mundine was national president of the ALP in 2006-7 and previously contested elections for Labor. In this election, he is running against a strong ALP candidate in Fiona Phillips, the Nationals’ Katrina Hodgkinson, and Grant Schultz, who lost his pre-selection to Mundine and is standing as an independent.

In the NT, two First Nations candidates are competing against ALP member Warren Snowdon in Lingiari – Jacinta Price for the Country Liberal Party and George Hanna for the Greens. (Price has called for Hanna to be dropped by the Greens after he posted a racially insensitive meme about her on social media.)

Most other First Nations candidates face long odds to win their races.

In New South Wales, Susan Moylan-Coombs is running as an independent in Warringah against Tony Abbott, but is overshadowed in media coverage by independent Zali Steggall. In Wentworth, Dominic Wy Kanak is running again for the Greens against high-profile candidates Kerryn Phelps and David Sharma.

Likewise, Labor’s Jana Stewart has little chance of unseating Treasurer Josh Frydenberg in the safe Liberal seat of Kooyong.

At least eight more Indigenous candidates are standing for the Senate, but their chances of election are also not strong. Former Senator Jacqui Lambie is recontesting in Tasmania for her Jacqui Lambie Network. And former Senator Joanna Lindgren is standing for the Australian Conservatives in Queensland after losing her seat in the 2016 election as Coalition candidate against Pauline Hanson.

Respected Ngarrindjeri elder Major Moogy Sumner is on the Greens ticket in South Australia, but his chances are very slim. And Tania Major, who is well-known in Queensland for her work with Noel Pearson’s Cape York Institute and was Young Australian of the Year in 2007, is standing for the ALP in Queensland. After a bitter pre-selection, though, she has been relegated to fourth on the ticket and is unlikely to be successful.

A balancing act for many

Research shows that First Peoples face “representational dilemmas” once in parliament, as they are forced to manage expectations of diverse First Nations communities, while also serving the needs of non-Indigenous constituents and supporting their party’s overall policies.

While the support of a major party is often critical to getting elected, the challenges of obeying party discipline once in parliament can be deeply frustrating. In 2014, Wyatt notably persuaded the Liberal Party room to reverse its decision to soften racial vilification laws by threatening to cross the floor of parliament. Two years later, he indicated he would be open to reviewing the language in the act.

Wyatt has also been unable to convince his party to move forward on constitutional recognition of Indigenous peoples and has been forced to defend the Coalition government’s lack of progress on Indigenous issues.

Why representation matters

In the same way that Julia Gillard’s rise to prime minister prompted more women to take an active interest in politics, the visible presence of First Nations MPs can encourage other Indigenous candidates to stand for election, recognising the power and everyday impact of the decisions made by parliamentarians. This may help lift the chronically low levels of Indigenous voter enrolment and turnout, and support efforts by the Australian Electoral Commission to increase participation, particularly in remote areas.

Another critical element of Indigenous representation in parliament is the diversity of viewpoints it brings to policy-making. First Nations MPs have frequently spoken of their own personal histories and life experiences in debates, especially in their first speeches.

Their connections with First Nations communities are also vital in holding the government accountable. McCarthy and Dodson have played a critical role in questioning Nigel Scullion, the current minister for Indigenous Affairs, in Senate estimates hearings about the impact of government policies on Indigenous communities. In 2016, for instance, Dodson said Scullion showed:

An appalling demonstration of ignorance about the criminal justice system and its interface with Indigenous peoples, about existing cultures in prisons, within police departments.

First Nations representation in parliament has also had a policy impact. Burney has observed that First Nations MPs actively work together across the party divide to raise issues of importance to Indigenous communities, including constitutional recognition.

Within the Labor Party, they have formed a First Nations caucus, which has played a significant role in developing policy. Dodson credited the caucus with the development of Labor’s “Fair Go for First Nations” platform, which includes enshrining an Indigenous voice to parliament in the constitution and creating regional assemblies to get First Nations input on policy-making. Dodson says the ALP wants to be the “party of choice” for First Nations people.

Read more: How the major parties’ Indigenous health election commitments stack up

The significance of the role played by these First Nations MPs in changing the policy agenda, even in opposition, cannot be overstated. The Coalition government’s Indigenous Advancement Strategy, cashless welfare card and remote employment program have come under sustained and informed criticism by Indigenous members of the opposition and remain important issues in this campaign.

And importantly, despite the Turnbull government’s rejection of the demands of the Uluru Statement from the Heart, the issues of “voice, treaty, truth” remain on the agenda, thanks to the unstinting efforts of activists and supporters both outside and inside parliament.

– ref. More First Nations people in parliament matters. Here’s why. – http://theconversation.com/more-first-nations-people-in-parliament-matters-heres-why-115633

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Chris Aulich, Adjunct Professor at the University of Canberra, University of Canberra

Our “state of the states” series takes stock of the key issues, seats and policies affecting the vote in each of Australia’s states.

We’ll check in with our expert political analysts around the country every week of the campaign for updates on how it is playing out.

New South Wales

Chris Aulich, Adjunct Professor at the University of Canberra

The Senate election in NSW has drawn 105 candidates for the six seats on offer. Senate representation in NSW has traditionally been stable, with the Coalition and Labor winning a similar number of seats and the final one or two seats a contest between minor parties. 2019 is likely to follow that pattern.

In the 2016 double dissolution election, a lower quota of just 7.7% was required, enabling the election of three candidates from minor parties: the Greens, the Liberal Democrats and United Australia Party (originally Pauline Hanson’s One Nation). These three positions are now up for reelection, together with two Coalition and one Labor vacancy.

Given that a quota this time will be more than 14%, it is likely that the two major parties will each secure two representatives with the final two positions contested between Labor, the Coalition and a number of minor parties, such as the Greens, the Liberal Democrats, United Australia Party (UAP) and Pauline Hanson’s One Nation (PHON).

This will be the first half-Senate poll based on optional preferential voting. Voters need only mark six parties if they choose to vote above-the-line, or they can vote below-the-line for a minimum of 12 candidates.

Most people vote above the line (94% nationally in 2016) needing only to select six parties to cast a formal vote. For this Senate election in NSW, it means that voters are likely to ignore 29 of the 35 parties standing. But it also means that, for many, their votes will be “exhausted” before all vacancies are filled. This represents a significant number of votes that will not count towards the election of the final one or two members, making it very difficult to predict the final result.

Voting below the line is not likely to influence the outcome, unless there is a candidate with a huge personal following. NSW conservative, Jim Molan, is counting on that. A replacement for the Nationals’ Fiona Nash, who was excluded under a section 44 breach, Molan has been relegated to what is usually an unwinnable fourth position on the Coalition ticket. Backed by colleagues from the conservative right of the party, including Tony Abbott, Molan is trying to pull off the rare feat of winning at least 150,000 below-the-line votes.

He has broken with tradition by appealing directly to voters, hoping to emulate the success of Tasmania’s Lisa Singh, who won from an extremely difficult ballot position in 2016. Singh successfully conducted a campaign separate from that of her party. Molan’s campaign focuses on his leadership credentials and expertise in national security strategy, but it will be an extraordinary achievement for him to win in NSW. The parallel with Singh is best understood as a result of factional arrangements, rather than any particular strength or weakness of the two candidates.

Read more: Explainer: how does preferential voting work in the Senate?

Victoria

Nick Economou, Senior Lecturer in the School of Political and Social Inquiry at Monash University

There have been few new developments in the Victorian campaign. The two major party leaders have been in Melbourne, with Bill Shorten returning to Monash University (where he was once a student) to participate in the ABC’s Q&A program, beamed to Australia from the Robert Blackwood Hall. Scott Morrison, meanwhile, was out and about “sandbagging” electorates like Deakin, La Trobe and Corangamite that the government simply must hold on to if it is to have any hope of being returned on May 18.

There have been more ugly developments in the conduct of the campaign. Campaign posters for sitting Liberal member Josh Frydenberg were vandalised with anti-Semitic graffiti during the week. Albury is in New South Wales, of course, but the goings on in this major regional centre – and this includes throwing an egg at the prime minister in protest at his government’s asylum seeker policy – can have an influence on the perspectives of voters in the Victorian north-east, including the seat of Indi. The Liberal cause to retake the seat formerly held by independent Cathy McGowan might have received a boost as a result of this incident.

Labor, meanwhile, thinks it has flushed out another Liberal candidate with a record of having made discriminatory anti-marriage equality statements and has called on the Liberal candidate for Scullin, Gurpal Singh, to withdraw from the contest.

These rather puerile manifestations of the campaign actually reflect the reemergence of a recurring theme in national elections, where a comparative lack of truly marginal seats renders Victoria of tertiary importance to New South Wales and Queensland in the ranking of states that are important to the federal contest.

Queensland

Maxine Newlands, Senior Lecturer in Political Science at James Cook University

With eight days to go until the country goes to the polls, nearly a quarter of a million people have already voted in Queensland. The hubris and big ticket items early in the campaign have seen many already make up their minds.

More than 10,000 voters in the country’s tightest seat, Herbert, have already decided. The LNP is claiming victory in the pre-polling, with a constant repetition of their mantra of jobs for locals. Neighbouring Dawson is close behind, with 10,065 by Tuesday.

Traditionally, the larger parties spend big in the last few days of a campaign. In a push to capture the dwindling undecided voters, the minor parties – Katter’s Australia Party (KAP), PHON, the Animal Justice Party, and Fraser Anning’s Conservative National Party – will need something special to be heard in the final week.

To date, minor parties remain relatively under the radar, with the silence from candidates almost deafening. The usual bold statements from Bob Katter are gone; Clive Palmer has been lying low in Brisbane, focusing on the national, not local, messaging. Neither Pauline Hanson nor Fraser Anning have been seen with their candidates, and the Greens and the Animal Justice Party are quiet.

Cash was splashed early in the election period. The LNP promised over A$200 million for infrastructure projects, and Labor promised A$300,000 if elected. These big dollar tickets may be why pre-polling has been so high.

Dickson also began strongly on pre-polling, and it’s gathering momentum with 3,093 people pre-polling in the first two days of this week. Incumbent Peter Dutton was back in the spotlight with former Prime Minister John Howard shoring up support in this marginal seat of 1.6%. GetUp! will ramp up their Ditch Dutton campaign this week, with the first in a series of events starting Saturday.

Queensland is a key target for both the Coalition and Labor, so we can expect more focus on jobs and climate change policy in the final few days.

Read more: Labor and Greens unlikely to win a Senate majority on current polling; Greens jump in Essential poll

Western Australia

Ian Cook, Senior Lecturer of Australian Politics at Murdoch University

It wasn’t exactly bad news for the Coalition government out of the West this week. But it wasn’t exactly good news either.

This week, The West Australian published results from a YouGov Galaxy poll showing that the Liberal Party is staying just ahead of Labor in two of its marginal seats in WA: Pearce and Swan. And it’s making no progress in winning Labor’s most marginal seat: Cowan.

Perhaps the worst news for the Coalition was that they didn’t bother polling voters in Hasluck, which the Liberals hold by 2.1%. According to this poll, support for the Liberals has fallen by around 5.5%, so it’s no surprise that they saved their money by not polling the seat.

Both Pearce and Swan are sitting on a two-party preferred of 51 to the Liberals and 49 to Labor. But the two-party preferred distribution assumes that UAP and PHON voters give their second preference to the Liberals. Whether they will do so is not that clear.

UAP and PHON are different sorts of parties – as revealed by a story about a WA PHON candidate owning his semi-naked Instagram posts from 2018 – so predicting how UAP and PHON voters will direct second preferences is never easy.

The report in The West also said that the polling indicated that the Greens primary support has taken “a pummelling”:

primary support for the Greens has fallen from 15% in 2016 to 11% in Swan, 7.6% in 2016 to 6% in Cowan, and remained steady in Pearce at 11%.

The Greens in WA are sorely missing Scott Ludlam.

It was also a mixed week for election night tragics in WA after Clive Palmer’s High Court bid to make Eastern staters wait until 7.30 WST failed. This means that we won’t make everyone else wait for us to finish voting before they start to see results. But it also means that the High Court doesn’t accept that Western Australian voters have been jumping on the bandwagon of whichever party is leading after the vote counting over east.

South Australia

Rob Manwaring, Senior Lecturer in Politics and Public Policy at Flinders University

In common with the rest of the country, the overall amount of early voting in South Australia is at records levels. In two critical seats in SA, voters seem to have made up their minds.

In the critical non-Labor seat of Mayo, over 6,000 people voted in the first week. The other striking number of early voters is in the marginal seat of Boothby, where Liberal incumbent Nicolle Flint is facing a strong challenge from Labor’s Nadia Clancy.

Will this matter? As The Tally Room blogger Ben Raue rightly notes, the timing of vote decision might in and of itself prove decisive. Yet, this leaves open to question how the parties will shape their campaigns, given that the Liberals have not yet even had their official campaign launch.

Rebekha Sharkie, the Centre Alliance MP in the seat of Mayo, did receive a strong boost this week, with a positive poll commissioned by The Advertiser. With 557 people polled, the indicative results suggest that Sharkie is now firmly entrenched in the seat and has a primary support of 43% compared to Liberal Georgina Downer’s 38%. If this result plays out, then Sharkie should win with 57% of the vote.

The same poll also contained a really interesting result: showing that Clive Palmer’s UAP was only polling at 3% in the seat. This could prove intriguing, as on one level it would suggest that despite the extraordinary media blitz, the UAP vote may not be particularly high in SA. This makes the Senate race in South Australia all the more complex to read.

We might expect the majors to win at least two seats apiece, and Labor remain optimistic of a potential third. There have been doubts cast that the Greens Sarah Hanson-Young might lose out, but it remains far from clear how preferences will play out. There will be a strong tussle between the Greens, The Centre Alliance, the Australian Conservatives and of course the UAP picking up Senate seats.

A strong Centre Alliance showing could well prove difficult for a fresh Shorten Labor government, with clear opposition to a number of key policies.

Read more: Shorten and Morrison make their final cases in third leaders’ debate: our experts respond

Tasmania

Richard Eccleston, Professor of Political Science and Director of the Institute for the Study of Social Change at the University of Tasmania

Dain Bolwell, Research Associate with the Institute for the Study of Social Change at the University of Tasmania

The rural Tasmanian seat of Lyons has been in the national spotlight in recent days following revelations that Liberal candidate Jessica Whelan had made a series of Islamophobic comments on social media.

The Liberal party responded by disendorsing Whelan, who, in turn, resigned from the party. There are some parallels with Pauline Hanson’s original campaign in Oxley in 1996, although there are important differences too.

Like Hanson, Whelan has decided – after some indecision – to contest Lyons as an independent. She will still appear as a Liberal candidate as it’s too late to change ballot papers. Unlike Hanson, Whelan, an elected councillor in Brighton, north of Hobart, insists she isn’t anti-Muslim and that her posts have been taken out of context.

Is the “Whelan affair” likely to influence the final election outcome in Tasmania?

Even before the events of last week, most pundits expected Labor’s Brian Mitchell to hold Lyons because, with the exception of 2013, the seat has been safe Labor territory since 1993. Also, as in most rural seats, incumbency matters, and Mitchell has had three years to build his profile in country towns and communities across the length and breadth of the state.

An embarrassed Liberal party will urge supporters in Lyons to vote for National Party candidate Deanna Hutchinson. But the Nationals did not have a serious presence in Tasmania until Jacqui Lambie’s successor, Steve Martin, joined the party in May 2018, so the prospects of unseating Mitchell seem slim.

The unanswered question is whether the Liberals’ campaign woes in Lyons will have any impact on the neighbouring battleground seats of Bass or Braddon, which recent polls suggest the Liberals could regain.

If there is a late swing back to Labor in northern Tasmania, then indiscretions on social media may not only have ended a candidate’s political career, but may have cruelled the Coalition’s chances in two key marginal electorates.

– ref. State of the states: will Whelan disendorsement make a difference in Tasmania? – http://theconversation.com/state-of-the-states-will-whelan-disendorsement-make-a-difference-in-tasmania-116797

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Ashton, PhD Candidate, Monash University

Pornography is ubiquitous, highly accessible, and vivid. It is increasingly influential in the sex lives and sexual development of consumers around the world.

Public discussion of pornography tends to emphasise its potential for harm. However, our research investigating what pornography means to women aged 18-30 who have (or intend to have) sex with men, found its contribution to their lives was complex and often contradictory.

Most of the 27 women we interviewed said they found pleasure in pornography. It gave them new sexual ideas and could make them feel like their body and their sexual preferences were normal.

We were forced to conclude, however, that pornography reinforces existing social inequalities and stigma. We found that, when they spoke about sexual pleasure and pornography, women’s focus tended not to be on their own pleasure but on their male partner’s needs, desires, and expectations.

Women said female pleasure was often misrepresented in the pornography they had seen, with women actors always ready for sex, easily aroused to noisy orgasm, and prepared to try anything their partners wanted. It made some young women feel abnormal and set up unrealistic expectations in them and their partners.

It was assumed, by their partners and sometimes also by the women, that they would go along with their partner’s pornography-informed preferences, even if the women did not enjoy it.

Read more: Porn viewers prefer women’s pleasure over violence

Sometimes women participated in sexual acts they had seen in pornography, despite their lack of enjoyment, because it was so important to them to do what (they thought) their partners desired. In effect, women turned themselves into objects to be acted upon by another person.

Understanding women’s pleasure

The meaning of pleasure in solo or partnered sex varies from woman to woman and is influenced by physiological, psychological, relational, and cultural factors. All of this must be considered in order to understand her pleasure.

Because each woman is different and pleasure is contextual, communication and experimentation are essential for a woman to understand how she experiences pleasure on any occasion. Such diversity is rarely acknowledged or featured in mainstream pornography.

Most pornography is made by men, for men. What it depicts, therefore, tends to cater for what the makers assume men might find pleasurable.

Read more: How highly sexualised imagery is shaping ‘influence’ on Instagram – and harassment is rife

Pornography communicates specific, detailed models of gendered relationships and sexual behaviour relevant to the representation of men’s pleasure, including their sexual and social dominance.

When these models are linked to sexual arousal (which increases the power of the message) and repeated consumption, it is clear that pornography is a potent, compelling source of information and influence.

Gender inequality is bigger than porn

Pornography isn’t the source of the problem. Pornography is one of many vehicles that distribute public discourse and reinforce the status quo. Sexual pleasure is just an (often hidden) example of more widespread gendered inequality.

Women’s sexuality more generally has historically been seen in an extreme binary: the Madonna and the whore.

Women who express sexual desire or pursue sexual pleasure tend to be judged as promiscuous, unlike sexually active men who are heroic studs. These men are praised; the women are slut-shamed.

A sexually naïve woman is identified as virtuous and nurturing. If she resists a man, of course, she is called frigid.

This limited positioning of sexual expression denies women their right to sexual pleasure on their own terms.

Men have been socialised within the same culture that encourages the prioritisation and pursuit of their pleasure as intrinsic to masculinity and a requirement of their social status.

Men may not have had the opportunity to learn about women’s pleasure or what it’s like to prioritise or even consider women in sex and relationships. If they use pornography as their point of reference, even the most well-meaning man may be misinformed about how to pleasure his female partner.

So, what can we do?

To challenge entrenched cultural expectations, we need to invite discussion about sexual needs and preference in the public domain, in health care, and in relationships.

We need to be asking our sexual partners what feels good and what doesn’t, without judgement or agenda.

Read more: We need a new definition of pornography – with consent at the centre

We need to speak up about what we do and don’t enjoy, and expect to be heard. These conversations are important for women, men, and people who don’t identify as either.

Sexual equality contributes to healthy relationships through increased intimacy and enjoyment. The hormones released when we experience pleasure promote improvements in physical and psychological health.

Sexual pleasure is fundamental to the human experience. It’s time we started talking about it.

– ref. Many young women find pleasure in sexually explicit material but it still reinforces gender inequality – http://theconversation.com/many-young-women-find-pleasure-in-sexually-explicit-material-but-it-still-reinforces-gender-inequality-114370

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Don Driscoll, Professor in Terrestrial Ecology, Deakin University

Humans are causing the Earth’s sixth mass extinction event, with an estimated one million species at risk of extinction.

Addressing this crisis requires transformative change, including more effective environmental law and implementation.

Improved legislation is one of five main levers for realising change identified in the recent United Nation’s global biodiversity report and the key lesson arising from the Senate’s interim report into Australia’s faunal extinction crisis.

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

The Senate’s interim report, based on 420 submissions and five hearings, shows Australia is a world leader in causing species extinctions, in part because Australia’s systems for conserving our natural heritage are grossly inadequate.

To allow the continued erosion of this continent’s spectacular and remarkable array of globally unique plants and animals is a travesty of the highest order.

Inadequate protections

One of the problems is species may decline from common to extinct quite rapidly – faster than the time it takes species to be listed as threatened under the federal Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act.

The Christmas Island forest skink was formally listed as a threatened species only four months before the last individual died in captivity, but 15 years after the decline was first reported.

Extinction of the forest skink, Bramble Cay melomys and Christmas Island pipistrelle between 2009 and 2014 may have been averted if the risk was formally recognised in a more timely manner and effective conservation actions, such as captive breeding programs, were implemented.

Currently, if a species is not listed, it is not a “matter of national environmental significance” and federal agency staff generally have no legal basis for acting to protect it.

The black-throated finch has been listed as threatened on the EPBC Act for 14 years and during this time 600,000 ha of potential finch habitat has been destroyed. Worse still, five large coal mines, including the Carmichael Coal Mine, have been given approval (pending environmental conditions being met in Queensland) to clear more than 29,000 ha of black-throated finch habitat in one of its final strongholds, the Galilee Basin.

Coal mining will drive these finches into the critically endangered threat category, pushing them perilously close to extinction, and all with federal government approval.

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

The controversial Toondah Harbour development in Brisbane is another example of how ministerial discretion can allow disastrous environmental outcomes. The project plans to build 3,600 apartments on wetlands that provide habitat for migratory waterbirds, including the critically endangered eastern curlew.

Despite being described as “clearly unacceptable” by the federal environment department and knocking it back twice, the minister allowed a third submission to proceed for further assessment.

It was reported this decision was made in the context of legal threats and donations from the developer in question. If true, this context would make it very difficult to make impartial decisions that protect biodiversity, as environmental law intends.

Increasing ministerial discretion was a key result of 2007 amendments to the EPBC act, which meant recovery plans were no longer required for threatened species.

The amendment allowed the minister to develop “conservation advices” instead of recovery plans. This amendment downgraded protections for threatened species because a minister can legally make decisions that are inconsistent with conservation advice, but not a recovery plan.

Read more: It’s not worth wiping out a species for the Yeelirrie uranium mine

New environmental legislation

Based on these examples and many others that demonstrate the failings of current laws, the interim report concludes that we should rip up the EPBC act and develop stronger and more effective environmental legislation.

This includes establishing an independent Environmental Protection Agency to ensure enforcement of environmental laws, and, in a forward-looking addition by the Greens senators, an independent National Environmental Commission to monitor effectiveness of environmental legislation and propose improvements.

Australia needs a well-resourced, independent umpire for the environment, with powers to investigate environmental concerns and scrutinise government policy, akin to New Zealand’s Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment. While Australia’s Threatened Species Commissioner is an excellent champion for the environment, this role provides no ability to question government actions regarding environmental protection and nature conservation.

Read more: Australia’s species need an independent champion

Although replacing the EPBC act with new legislation may seem like a radical step to some (but not all), the interim Senate report, and the global UN report, have independently concluded major reform is essential. We are not in a moment of time when tweaking the current system will do the trick.

Changing Australia’s environmental legislation is a relatively minor update compared with the fundamental social and economic changes recommended by the UN report.

Such changes are already recommended by scientific societies like the Ecological Society of Australia, non-government organisations like Birdlife Australia and the Australian Conservation Foundation, and are demanded by a growing section of society. New, fit-for-purpose legislation must be enforceable, apolitical and responsive.

Read more: Australia’s draft ‘Strategy for nature’ doesn’t cut it. Here are nine ways to fix it

Opinion polls show that the level of environmental concern is higher in Australia than in other countries , while 29% of ABC Vote Compass respondents ranked the environment as the most important issue, up from 9% in 2016.

This groundswell of environmental concern has spawned mass protest movements like Extinction Rebellion. Young Australians also have shown their concern. In March 2019, thousands of school students took part in 50 rallies across the country to protest against “the destruction of our future”.

Decisions about what and how much we buy, what we eat, how much we travel and by what means, and family size, all contribute to our environmental footprints, and are the fundamental instigators of the biodiversity crisis.

However, we must also look to our political leaders to support effective change. The simplest and most powerful action you can take to reverse the extinction crisis is to vote for a party with policies best aligned with credible scientific advice on how we can get out of this mess.

– ref. We must rip up our environmental laws to address the extinction crisis – http://theconversation.com/we-must-rip-up-our-environmental-laws-to-address-the-extinction-crisis-116746

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alan Pears, Senior Industry Fellow, RMIT University

In this election, often dubbed the “climate election”, voters are refusing to settle for weak policies on climate change.

But between the “will they/won’t they” question of whether the coalition will meet their climate targets and the costing of the ALP’s targets, there is a lot of misunderstanding, even among experts.

Unsurprisingly, even the best-informed voter is liable to struggle, particularly when generic terms like “carbon credits” are used to describe completely different things.

Read more: Australia is counting on cooking the books to meet its climate targets

Broadly, carbon credits work as a certificate permitting someone to emit greenhouse gases. To assess Australia’s performance, it’s important to understand the differences between the types of certificate.

Just because we can count something as climate performance does not mean we should. Both approaches from the two major parties have their own issues, but that does not mean they are equal.

What are Kyoto carry-over credits and carbon offsets?

Kyoto carry-over credits

Carry-over credits are “certificates” that translate our international commitments as a number of tonnes. These credits represent emissions we could have released into the atmosphere under our international commitments, but didn’t.

As we come to the end of the second international commitment period, we have a lot of leftover credits. The government wants to use credits from the first and second periods (2008-2012 and 2013-2020) to satisfy our obligations under the third (2021-2030).

Carbon offset credits

In the case of offsets, these certificates come from actions that reduce emissions. These actions should be measurable and new. Sadly, they do not always meet that simple standard.

Read more: The government is miscounting greenhouse emissions reductions

Offset credits are a trading “currency” that, in principle, reduces the overall cost of emission reduction.

Emission reduction can be costly or difficult for some, and offsets allow individuals or businesses to buy certificates from others who can cut or capture emissions at lower cost.

Rules to create, trade and monitor offsets can be set at an international, regional or national level. Some offsetting is voluntary, but most is to comply with legal requirements.

The carry-over credit debate

The Coalition plans to use credit from our “over-achievement” in meeting Kyoto targets, as a shortcut to meet the Paris Agreement targets.

Under the Paris Agreement, Australia has voluntarily agreed to reduce its cumulative emissions to 26-28% below 2005 levels by 2030. If we use the Kyoto-era credit for the Paris Agreement, it will take only a 15% reduction on 2005 levels to successfully meet our commitment.

But the Kyoto Protocol only applied to developed countries, while the Paris agreement applies to many developing countries.

This means many signatories to Paris have no “carry-over” credits they can use. Among those developed nations that do have this credit, almost all have said they will not use Kyoto carry-over credits to meet their Paris commitments.

So the coalition’s position is widely seen as morally dubious. And there are real questions around whether our supposed credit from the Kyoto era can be used at all.

Read more: Flying home for Christmas? Carbon offsets are important, but they won’t fix plane pollution

Given the nature of the Paris Agreement, the international community will unlikely enforce an express ban on using carry-over credit.

But that doesn’t mean we should use it. Australia’s international reputation depends on rejecting the use of Kyoto carry-over. More importantly, so does our climate.

Carbon offsets

Under the Kyoto Protocol, several offsetting schemes were created between countries, so-called “flexible mechanisms”. Among these emission reduction opportunities is the Clean Development Mechanism.

The Clean Development Mechanism is an offset scheme where developed countries fund emission reduction action in developing countries.

If projects meet the requirements of the mechanism, the developing country claims certificates equal to the amount of emissions reduction they can prove. They then sell the certificates they have earned to developed countries.

This scheme has seen a number of renewable energy projects constructed, such as hydroelectric dams and projects that consume waste to create electricity.

Offsetting carbon voluntarily

Voluntary use of carbon offsets has also grown. For example, Australia’s voluntary National Carbon Offsets Standard allows organisations to use offsets as part of their emission reduction strategy.

Australia’s Carbon Farming Initiative is one such example. This offsetting scheme was originally designed by the ALP, but now underpins the coalition’s Emissions Reduction Fund.

Read more: The Nationals should support carbon farming, not coal

Projects registered under this scheme can create Australian Carbon Credit Units through methods such as revegetation, capture and combustion of methane or surrender of land clearing rights.

The government buys these credits through reverse auctions – one buyer with many potential sellers. They’re also frequently purchased by Australian facilities caught by the safeguard mechanism (a framework for the largest emitters to measure, report and manage their emissions) and individuals looking to voluntarily offset their own emissions.

The ALP plans to tighten the baselines under the safeguard mechanism, compelling Australia’s major emitters, such as our largest resource companies, to either reduce on-site emissions or purchase Australian Carbon Credit Units.

In a 2014 report, the Climate Change Authority recommended Australia adopt an emission reduction target between 45% and 65% below 2005 levels by 2030. It noted international carbon offsets would help ensure Australia could meet this more ambitious target.

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

The ALP’s approach is superficially compatible with the Climate Change Authority, though it plans to negotiate the detail if elected. A lot will hang on where these negotiations fall.

Using offset credits is undoubtedly better than taking no action at all. But offsetting must have integrity, not accounting sleight-of-hand. If genuine, they can help cut global emissions at the lowest cost while also delivering local social, economic and environmental benefits.

It is important offsetting methods continue to be refined and debated, while keeping a critical eye on whether they provide environmental benefit.

– ref. Carry-over credits and carbon offsets are hot topics this election – but what do they actually mean? – http://theconversation.com/carry-over-credits-and-carbon-offsets-are-hot-topics-this-election-but-what-do-they-actually-mean-116748

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andy Sheppard, Research Director CSIRO Health & Biosecurity, CSIRO

This week many people across the world stopped and stared as extreme headlines announced that one eighth of the world’s species – more than a million – are threatened with extinction.

According to the UN report from the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) which brought this situation to public attention, this startling number is a consequence of five direct causes: changes in land and sea use; direct exploitation of organisms; climate change; pollution; and invasion of alien species.

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

It’s the last, invasive species, that threatens Australian animals and plants more than any other single factor.

Australia’s number one threat

Australia has an estimated 600,000 species of flora and fauna. Of these, about 100 are known to have gone extinct in the last 200 years. Currently, more than 1,770 are listed as threatened or endangered.

While the IPBES report ranks invasive alien species as the fifth most significant cause of global decline, in Australia it is a very different story.

Australia has the highest rate of vertebrate mammal extinction in the world, and invasive species are our number one threat.

Cats and foxes have driven 22 native mammals to extinction across central Australia and a new wave of decline – largely from cats – is taking place across northern Australia. Research has estimated 270 more threatened and endangered vertebrates are being affected by invasive species.

Introduced vertebrates have also driven several bird species on Norfolk Island extinct.

The effects of invasive species are getting worse

Although Australia’s stringent biosecurity measures have dramatically slowed the number of new invasive species arriving, those already here have continued to spread and their cumulative effect is growing.

Recent research highlights that 1,257 of Australia’s threatened and endangered species are directly affected by 207 invasive plants, 57 animals and three pathogens.

These affect our unique biodiversity, as well as the clean water and oxygen we breath – not to mention our cultural values.

When it comes to biodiversity, Australia is globally quite distinct. More than 70% of our species (69% of mammals, 46% of birds and 93% of reptiles) are found nowhere else on earth. A loss to Australia is therefore a loss to the world.

Some of these are ancient species like the Wollemi Pine, may have inhabited Australia for up to 200 million years, well before the dinosaurs.

Read more: Wollemi pines are dinosaur trees

But invasive species are found in almost every part of Australia, from our rainforests, to our deserts, our farms, to our cities, our national parks and our rivers.

The cost to Australia

The cost of invasive species in Australia continue to grow with every new assessment.

The most recent estimates found the cost of controlling invasive species and economic losses to farmers in 2011-12 was A$13.6 billion. However this doesn’t include harm to biodiversity and the essential role native species play in our ecosystems, which – based on the conclusions of the IPBES report – is likely to cost at least as much, and probably far more.

Rabbits, goats and camels prevent native desert plant community regeneration; rabbits alone impacting over 100 threatened species. Rye grass on its own costs cereal farmers A$93M a year.

Aquaculture diseases have affected oysters and cost the prawn industry $43M.

From island to savannah

Globally, invasive species have a disproportionately higher effect on offshore islands – and in Australia we have more than 8,000 of these. One of the most notable cases is the case of the yellow crazy ants, which killed 15,000,000 red land crabs on Christmas Island.

Read more: A tiny wasp could save Christmas Island’s spectacular red crabs from crazy ants

Nor are our deserts immune. Most native vertebrate extinctions caused by cats have occurred in our dry inland deserts and savannas, while exotic buffel and gamba grass are creating permanent transformation through changing fire regimes.

Australia’s forests, particularly rainforests, are also under siege on a number of fronts. The battle continues to contain Miconia weed in Australia – the same weed responsible for taking over 70% of Tahiti’s native forests. Chytrid fungus, thought to be present in Australia since 1970, has caused the extinction of at least four frog species and dramatic decline of at least ten others in our sensitive rainforest ecosystems.

Myrtle rust is pushing already threatened native Australian Myrtaceae closer to extinction, notably Gossia gonoclada, and Rhodamnia angustifolia and changing species composition of rainforest understories, and Richmond birdwing butterfly numbers are under threat from an invasive flower known as the Dutchman’s pipe.

Australia’s rivers and lakes are also under increasing domination from invasive species. Some 90% of fish biomass in the Murray Darling Basin are European carp, and tilapia are invading many far north Queensland river systems pushing out native species .

Invasive alien species are not only a serious threat to biodiversity and the economy, but also to human health. The Aedes aegypti mosquito found in parts of Queensland is capable of spreading infectious disease such as dengue, zika, chikungunya and yellow fever.

And it’s not just Queensland that is under threat from diseases spread by invasive mosquitoes, with many researchers and authorities planning for when, not if, the disease carrying Aedes albopictus establishes itself in cooler and southern parts of Australia.

Read more: Stowaway mozzies enter Australia from Asian holiday spots – and they’re resistant to insecticides

What solutions do we have?

Despite this grim inventory, it’s not all bad news. Australia actually has a long history of effectively managing invasive species.

Targeting viruses as options for controlling rabbits, carp and tilapia; we have successfully suppressed rabbit populations by 70% in this way for 50 years.

Weeds too are successful targets for weed biological control, with over a 65% success rate controlling more than 25 targets.

The IPBES report calls for “transformative action”. Here too Australia is at the forefront, looking into the potential of gene-technologies to suppress pet hates such as cane toads.

Read more: We’ve cracked the cane toad genome, and that could help put the brakes on its invasion

Past and current invasive species programs have been supported by governments and industry. This has provided the type of investment we need for long-term solutions and effective policies.

Australia is better placed now, with effective biosecurity policies and strong biosecurity investment, than many countries. We will continue the battle against invasive species to stem biodiversity and ecosystem loss.

– ref. Invasive species are Australia’s number-one extinction threat – http://theconversation.com/invasive-species-are-australias-number-one-extinction-threat-116809

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christine Adams-Hosking, Honorary Research Fellow, The University of Queensland

Today the Australian Koala Foundation announced they believe “there are no more than 80,000 koalas in Australia”, making the species “functionally extinct”.

While this number is dramatically lower than the most recent academic estimates, there’s no doubt koala numbers in many places are in steep decline.

It’s hard to say exactly how many koalas are still remaining in Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and the Australian Capital Territory, but they are highly vulnerable to threats including deforestation, disease and the effects of climate change.

Once a koala population falls below a critical point it can no longer produce the next generation, leading to extinction.

Read more: Koalas sniff out juicy leaves and break down eucalypt toxins – it’s in their genome

What does ‘functionally extinct’ mean?

The term “functionally extinct” can describe a few perilous situations. In one case, it can refer to a species whose population has declined to the point where it can no longer play a significant role in their ecosystem. For example, it has been used to describe dingoes in places where they have become so reduced they have a negligible influence on the species they prey on.

Dingoes are top predators, and therefore can play a significant role in some ecosystems. Our innocuous, leaf-eating koala cannot be considered a top predator.

For millions of years koalas have been a key part of the health of our eucalyptus forests by eating upper leaves, and on the forest floor, their droppings contribute to important nutrient recycling. Their known fossil records date back approximately 30 million years so they may have once been a food source for megafauna carnivores.

Functionally extinct can also describe a population that is no longer viable. For example in Southport, Queensland, native oyster reef beds are functionally extinct because more than 99% of the habitat has been lost and there are no individuals left to reproduce.

Finally, functionally extinct can refer to a small population that, although still breeding, is suffering from inbreeding that can threaten its future viability. We know that at least some koala populations in urban areas are suffering in this way, and genetic studies on the Koala Coast, located 20kms south-east of Brisbane, show that the population is suffering from reduced genetic variation. In South East Queensland, koalas in some areas have experienced catastrophic declines

Read more: Safe passage: we can help save koalas through urban design

We also know that koala populations in some inland regions of Queensland and New South Wales are affected by climate extremes such as severe droughts and heatwaves and have declined by as much as 80%.

Exhaustive multi-disciplinary koala research continues apace in an effort to find ways of protecting wild koala populations and ensuring that they remain viable now and into the future. Habitat loss, population dynamics, genetics, disease, diet and climate change are some key areas being studied.

How many koalas are there?

Koala researchers are often asked “how many koalas are in the wild?” It’s a hard question to answer. Koalas are not stationary, are patchily distributed throughout an extremely wide range encompassing urban and rural areas in four states and one territory, and are usually difficult to see.

To determine whether each population of koalas scattered across eastern Australia is functionally extinct would require a gargantuan effort.

In 2016, in an attempt to determine population trends for the koala within the four states, a panel of 15 koala experts used a structured, four-step question format to estimate bioregional population sizes of koalas, and changes in those sizes.

The estimated percentage of koala population loss in Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia was 53%, 26%, 14% and 3%, respectively. The estimated total number of koalas for Australia was 329,000 (within a range of 144,000–605,000), with an estimated average decline of 24% over the past three generations and the next three generations.

Since May 2012, koalas have been listed as vulnerable in Queensland, New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory because populations in these regions have declined significantly or are at risk of doing so.

In the southern states of Victoria and South Australia, koala populations vary widely from abundant to low or locally extinct. Although not currently listed as vulnerable, these koalas are also experiencing a range of serious threats, including low genetic diversity.

To date, the present “vulnerable” listing has not achieved any known positive results for koala populations in Queensland and New South Wales. In fact, recent research invariably shows the opposite.

Read more: Koalas can learn to live the city life if we give them the trees and safe spaces they need

This is because the key threats to koalas remain, and are mostly increasing. The primary threat is habitat loss. Koala habitat (primarily eucalyptus woodlands and forests) continues to rapidly diminish, and unless it is protected, restored, and expanded, we will indeed see wild koala populations become “functionally extinct”. We know what comes after that.

– ref. A report claims koalas are ‘functionally extinct’ – but what does that mean? – http://theconversation.com/a-report-claims-koalas-are-functionally-extinct-but-what-does-that-mean-116665

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Wendy Boyd, Senior Lecturer, School of Education, Southern Cross University

As the global climate crisis accelerates, early childhood teachers and researchers are considering whether and how to approach the issue with children. Should we talk openly about the crisis and encourage children to change their daily practices? Or is there a risk that in doing so, we are inflicting anxiety on young minds, still in critical and early stages of development?

The UN sustainable development goals note that children are

critical agents of change and will find in the new goals a platform to channel their infinite capacities for activism into the creation of a better world.

Australia’s quality standards on early childhood education and care call for childcare services to support children to become environmentally responsible. But how can this policy be turned into a living practice?

Contact with nature is a crucial part of sustainability education in early childhood education and care. This helps children develop an appreciation for the Earth and all its inhabitants. Educators in childcare settings can provide a learning culture where children develop skills to take care of nature through play and creativity, without inflicting mass anxiety on them.

Programs to helps kids learn

There are many ways in which play can help children to love the world around them. For instance, the nursery rhyme about Dingle Dangle Scarecrow could help engage children in vegetable gardening. Children can pretend the scarecrow will keep the garden safe.

They could build a scarecrow themselves, which would inspire creativity and educate them about the living environment at the same time.

Our recent research (not yet published) explored an educational program with 200 children between the ages of three and five. The children learnt how to sort, reduce and recycle waste into different colour-coded bins. As they sorted food waste, the children also fed chickens and compost worms.

Educators expanded on these activities by telling the children how living things are connected, which the children had themselves witnessed when feeding the chickens and worms. This new knowledge carried over into the children’s home environments, where we found children reminded families about sorting household waste. This then impacted on parents’ recycling practices.

Read more: Being in nature is good for learning, here’s how to get kids off screens and outside

In New South Wales a program helped children learn about water. Children in three pre-schools (aged 3-5) were asked to report dripping taps, taught about half-flush toilets and told to advise families to take shorter showers. An evaluation of this program found children had developed courage and agency when it came to water awareness, because their feelings, thoughts, and questions were taken seriously and met with empathy and interest by adults.

From despair to hope

Adults are strong role models for the way children understand the importance of the world around them. If adults act in a respectful way towards animals, and even creatures such as spiders, children will receive the message these creatures are entitled to care and protection.

If you’re quick to swipe a spider in front of a child, this may create biophobia, where creatures are considered as fearsome pests.

Studies have found including sustainability practices into early childhood education may make educators uncomfortable. Studies show educators may have a limited understanding of sustainability issues, and little confidence in teaching such a values-laden topic.

But teachers don’t need to know the ins and outs of climate change to teach children how to respect the planet. They could simply encourage children to play in nature and role model behaviours that show appreciation for the environment.

Finland’s approach to early childhood education and care offers a good case study for how to incorporate sustainability practice into preschool education. The Finnish curriculum is based on a playful learning approach where respectful dialogue between children and adults supports learning.

The curriculum gives teachers tools to meet children´s worries with approaches that encourage actions, which create hope. Young children see themselves as more a natural part of the environment than older children. Teachers can support young children’s actions from this position.

For example, an adult could relocate a spider to a position where it won’t be trod on. Children could then watch to ensure it is safe, which gives them a sense of agency in their environment. In this way, children can feel they have control over the smaller elements of nature and that they can have an effect on it. This gives them a sense of empowerment rather than feeling overwhelmed and helpless, which leads to despair and anxiety.

Read more: Hug a tree – the evidence shows it really will make you feel better

Sustainability education for children can best be approached by helping them understand their place in the web of life, which supports their existence in terms of clean air and water, food and clothes, and other necessities for a decent life.

It’s about fostering a sense of belonging, respect and care for all living creatures, and an understanding of how to handle material resources in a limited world. Sustainability education is about fostering the world-view that we are in this together. Only through our common actions can despair be turned into hope.

– ref. Children are our future, and the planet’s. Here’s how you can teach them to take care of it – http://theconversation.com/children-are-our-future-and-the-planets-heres-how-you-can-teach-them-to-take-care-of-it-113759

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Paola Favaro, Senior Lecturer Architecture Faculty of Built Environment, UNSW

The legacy of Ancient Rome has exerted a powerful influence on town halls and parliamentary buildings around the world, and especially Washington DC’s urban form and identity. With its classically inspired architecture and political system, it is evident that Washington’s founders looked to Rome as a model. However, Washington’s current administration has forgotten Rome’s early history as a site of asylum where refugees were granted protection.

Revisiting the story of Romulus’s Asylum in Livy’s History of Rome and the physical site of this sanctuary on Rome’s Capitoline Hill shows us how the current governments in Rome and Washington have strayed from their civic origins and founding ideals in their attitude towards migrants and refugees.

Read more: Why we should still be reading Democracy in America

Livy and the Origins of Rome

Among the many writers about the origins of Rome, the historian Livy is one of the most well known. He devoted his life to writing Ab Urbe Condita Libri (The Early History of Rome), 142 books spanning Rome’s mythic foundation to the ninth century BC. Livy’s version of Rome’s founding includes the famous tale of the abandoned twins Romulus and Remus who were suckled by a she-wolf.

It is in Livy’s work that we read the origins of asylum. After Romulus became Rome’s first king, he established a site called Asylum in a valley between two hills called Arx and Capitolium.

[…] to help fill his big new town he threw open in the ground – now enclosed – between the two copses as you go up the Capitoline hill, a place of asylum for fugitives. Hither fled for refuge all the rag-tag-and-bobtail from the neighbouring peoples: some free, some slaves, and all of them wanting nothing but a fresh start. That mob was the first real addition to the City’s strength, the first step to her future greatness. – Livy, The Early History of Rome.

As the caput mundi (capital of the world), Rome embodied two contradictory ideas: dominion and integration. The Roman Empire may have been established through violence and conquest but it is also described as an open civilisation that accepted and integrated diverse populations. Belief in an open society founded on the concept of asylum eventually led Rome to adopt the Antonine Constitution, which granted citizenship to all free men in the empire.

Read more: Guide to the classics: Tacitus’ Annals and its enduring portrait of monarchical power

Asylum in Ancient Rome

The decision to offer asylum to free citizens and fugitive slaves alike was partly driven by the desire to increase the city’s population.

But it was still a confident statement about Rome’s belief in its future. It spoke of optimism and a sense of future abundance. Rome’s message was: “Come to Rome and you will thrive.”

The entrance to the asylum was, appropriately, through a gate called Pandania, which means “always open”.

Rome’s attitude of accepting strangers and integrating people from different backgrounds was the secret to its success. Acceptance meant foreigners could become citizens and rise to the highest political office. Examples of non-Latin emperors include Septimius Severus from Libya and Philip the Arab from Syria.

Michelangelo’s Preservation of the Asylum

The site of Romulus’s Asylum is now known as Piazza del Campidoglio on Capitoline Hill. The piazza is well known for its geometric paving and statue of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius.

The Capitoline has been renovated and changed many times during the centuries. It owes its present form to Pope Paul III, who in 1538 commissioned Michelangelo to transform the site.

The site of the piazza contains three buildings. The Senatorial Palace stands behind the statue of Marcus Aurelius. On the right is the Palace of the Conservators. On the left, the New Palace now houses the Capitoline Museum. Michelangelo constructed the New Palace at the same angle to the Senatorial Palace, which results in a trapezoidal-shaped piazza.

It’s hard to know if Michelangelo had in mind the original function of this place when he redesigned the piazza. Nevertheless, the composition of the three buildings creates an encircling wall that emphasises the void of the open space – the historic site of Asylum.

Visitors reach the piazza by ascending the Scalinata or ramp from the Via del Teatro di Marcello, which is the street below. Encircled by the surrounding buildings, people enjoy staying here and walking within the intimate elliptical space of the outdoor room. Michelangelo’s design, regardless of whether or not he intended it, creates an excellent architectural metaphor for asylum – the piazza is a place where one arrives rather than merely a space that one passes through.

Read more: Reinventing heritage buildings isn’t new at all – the ancients did it too

Continuing the legacy of Romulus’s Asylum

The site of Romulus’s Asylum gained further significance in 1957, when the Treaty of Rome was signed at the Palace of the Conservators on Capitoline Hill. The treaty was signed by a number of European countries and created the European Economic Community, allowing Europe to open its borders. This event is commemorated on the Italian 50-cent euro.

Michelangelo’s Piazza del Campidoglio has become a model for town halls and parliamentary buildings around the world. It is no accident that when Pierre Charles l’Enfant drew up his plans for Washington, he placed the US Congress on Capitol Hill. In doing so, he adopted the layout of Rome’s Capitol as the centre of the city.

In the 19th and 20th centuries, the US’s optimism and vision mirrored that of Rome and is echoed in the inscription on the Statue of Liberty:

Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

In contrast, recent political leadership in the US has been dominated by fear of the future. Growing inequality in the West along with job insecurity, wage stagnation, low growth and disruptive technology have fuelled this fear. The response has been a vision of a “walled city”: let’s make America great again by building a wall.

In doing so, Donald Trump’s Washington and even Matteo Salvini’s Rome have departed significantly from the Roman legacy they have inherited. The fear of neighbouring people, like those from Livy’s History, has grown so intense that Washington’s aspiration for future greatness is geared towards protectionism and insulation. This approach is far from Ancient Rome’s optimism and openness.

Romulus’s Asylum as a synonym of an open political institution has certainly fallen into oblivion, as has the understanding of what makes a citizen. But these are not anachronistic themes; they are as relevant today as they were more than 2,500 years ago.

Read more: The asylum seekers who frightened Elizabethan England

– ref. Ancient Rome inspired Washington but its legacy of being open to all has fallen into oblivion – http://theconversation.com/ancient-rome-inspired-washington-but-its-legacy-of-being-open-to-all-has-fallen-into-oblivion-113924

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Warren Staples, Senior Lecturer in Management, RMIT University

This article is part of an election series on wages, industrial relations, Labor and the union movement ahead of the 2019 federal election. You can read other pieces in the series here.

Australia’s prime minister, Scott Morrison, has warned that the head of the trade union movement, Sally McManus, will “be a board member, figuratively” of every single company should he lose the election.

If he’s spooked by a figurative trade unionist, how might he feel about thousands of employee-elected and union-nominated directors serving on every company board?

The Australian Council of Trade Unions passed a motion at its national congress last year urging a future Labor government to “implement a policy of installing employees on company and government managed boards”.

Labor’s own platform says it will examine measures “including worker representation on boards, giving consideration to global models currently in operation and any practical pathways that could lead to their adoption”.

Worker representatives on company boards is also on the agenda in other parts of the English-speaking world.

In the US, Democratic presidential aspirant Elizabeth Warren is pushing the idea for companies with a turnover of more than US$1 billion. In Britain, Conservative leader Theresa May raised the idea during her 2016 campaign to be prime minister and the Labour Party has promised to make all organisations employing more than 250 people give a third of board positions to worker representatives (along with other employee ownership measures).

Read more: How Britain could benefit by bringing workers into the boardroom

It’s an idea that is neither new nor particularly radical. Worker representation on boards has been a feature of Germany’s corporate landscape for decades. The model was once considered so successful that Australia, Britain and the US were all close to doing the same in the 1970s.

Then the idea fell out of fashion. Now it’s back in vogue, in part because of recognition that the current system of governance, in which board directors are appointed to represent shareholders’ interests, is broken.

Codetermination model

Germany embraced employee-elected and union-nominated representatives on company boards after World War II. The system of “codetermination” initially applied only to the coal and steel sectors but spread to other areas. In 1976 legislation mandated that all companies employing more than 2,000 employees give workers equal representation on their supervisory boards.

Codetermination also gives employees the right to elect representatives to a “works council”, which represents their interests to management on operational issues.

What this means is that, whereas an Australian company generally has an all-powerful board of directors, the typical German corporate governance model involves at least three separate boards.

There’s a supervisory board, representing both shareholders and workers. A management board, comprising senior management, is accountable to the supervisory board. Then there’s a works council, which oversees the implementation of employment laws and rights and negotiates with management over issues such as hirings and firings.

A model to emulate

Some regarded the embrace of the principles of industrial democracy with codetermination as a big part of the German economic miracle. By the early 1970s European neighbours such as Denmark, Sweden and Norway were adopting the model. The European Union considered making it a common standard.

Australia, Britain and the US were also close to emulating codetermination. But there was fierce pushback by employers and others committed to unfettered capitalism. Two economists associated with the Chicago School of Economics, Michael Jensen and William Meckling, confidently predicted in 1979 that codetermination would lead to Germany’s economic collapse.

With the electoral victories of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, the opportunity to adopt codetermination passed.

Union movements chose different paths to democratise their economies. In Australia, it was compulsory superannuation. In the US, employee share ownership plans. In Britain, the cooperative sector.

Renewed interest

Now waves of corporate governance failures, not to mention the fact Germany’s economy has not collapsed, is rehabilitating codetermination.

It is increasingly recognised that our broken corporate governance system – in which companies maximise shareholder profits at the expense of all other stakeholders – has contributed to wider economic underperformance, poor social outcomes and political instability.

Read more: Solving deep problems with corporate governance requires more than rearranging deck chairs

The codetermination model offers a number of governance improvements. It requires thinking about a wider set of stakeholders. It increases accountability and oversight. It promotes cooperation.

This is not to say it solves all problems. Corporate governance failures can still occur, as in the case of Siemens and Volkswagen.

But research suggests employee directors and work councils do improve governance, and also help positively shape company strategy. Confounding the critics, there is certainly little evidence that promoting internal cooperation has impeded the competitiveness of the Germany economy. The nation is the world’s second-largest exporter of manufactured goods, after China.

That’s why prominent economists such as Thomas Piketty are now saying codetermination is a model worthy of emulation. To be truly effective, though, introducing codetermination in Australia will require rethinking our approach to other areas of worplace relations, such as enterprise bargaining and vocational education and training.

– ref. Giving workers a voice in the boardroom is a compelling corporate governance reform – http://theconversation.com/giving-workers-a-voice-in-the-boardroom-is-a-compelling-corporate-governance-reform-115463

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

One of the more telling moments in the third and final election debate between Scott Morrison and Bill Shorten on Wednesday night was when moderator Sabra Lane asked if, faced with an economic downturn, both leaders would be able to maintain a budget surplus.

Remarkably, if not at all surprisingly, both leaders said they would.

This is the state of budget-balance fetishism in Australia. Even if there was a major economic downturn like the Great Recession of 2008 – or the Great Depression of the 1930s, for that matter – both party leaders would probably claim they would still balance the books.

They wouldn’t. And they shouldn’t.

Living in stimulating times

Two things happen in the face of a major economic downturn.

The first is pretty mechanical. The economy contracts and unemployment rises. That means income tax receipts (corporate and personal) fall and GST revenue drops. On the flip side, government expenditures rise – there are more unemployment and other welfare benefits to pay. This puts a big dent in the government’s budget.

The second thing that happens is that a role for government stimulus spending arises.

The Reserve Bank would want to cut interest rates. But that may not be enough, as in 2008. Or it may not have much room to cut, as is the concern now.

That leaves an important role for fiscal policy. Government spending can plug the hole that is left by a contraction in private spending. This is the classic “Keynesian” response to a reduction in what economists call aggregate demand.

But a more modern and better way to understand the role of fiscal stimulus by government is that it affects people’s expectations.

The economics of expectation

The real danger in a major economic crisis is that I expect you to stop buying what I produce, so I don’t produce, which leads me not to have the income to buy what you produce, so you don’t produce. This quickly leads to a kind of expectations death spiral. My fear reinforces your fear.

As I have said in praising Ken Henry and Kevin Rudd’s reaction to the 2008 crisis in Australia, stimulus spending helps break and reverse this downward spiral. But to do so it needs to be big, bold and, most of all, credible. You can’t change people’s beliefs if they don’t think you will follow through.

That means it has to be expensive. The A$52 billion the Rudd government spent in 2008 was what it took to be big, bold and credible.

Read more: Vital Signs: the GFC and me. Ten years on, what have we learned?

The current prime minister said during Wednesday’s debate – and at other times on the campaign trail as well – that the problem with Labor’s approach to the 2008 crisis was it “locked in spending” that led to a long-term run-up in government debt, only now being redressed.

Reasonable minds can differ as to whether that’s a fair characterisation of the 2008 stimulus spending. It’s not like those school halls continued to be built over and over again. But the general point is certainly valid. Temporary stimulus needs to be, well, temporary.

On Wednesday the opposition leader made the reasonable point that Labor plans to run larger budget surpluses than the Coalition in the years ahead thanks to its reforms to franking credits and negative gearing. This gives Labor more fiscal breathing room to fight a future economic downturn.

Policy ‘space’ important

As the noted economists Christina and David Romer have pointed out, using evidence from 24 advanced economies, fiscal and monetary policy “space” is important in ensuring stimulus programs work.

Read more: Now is the time to plan how to fight the next recession

What neither leader did is own up to the fact that if there is a major economic downturn – and at some point there will be – there is going to be a lot of red ink. At some level it is just the arithmetic of lower tax receipts and more government expenditure. At another level it is what policy makers have learned, through the painful experience of the Great Depression, is the optimal response.

But apparently politicians can’t be honest about that in the current Australian political climate. Admitting the budget might need to be in deficit seems to be the third rail of Australian politics: you step on it and you die.

– ref. Vital Signs: When it came to the surplus, both Bill and Scott were having a lend – http://theconversation.com/vital-signs-when-it-came-to-the-surplus-both-bill-and-scott-were-having-a-lend-116806

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Janna Thompson, Professor of Philosophy, La Trobe University

When actor Kevin Spacey was accused of attempted sexual assault of a teenage boy, his role in the Ridley Scott film, All the Money in the World, was erased and reshot with Christopher Plummer. When the celebrated Torres Strait Island painter Dennis Nona went to jail for raping a 12-year-old girl, Australian art galleries responded by taking his works off their walls and putting them into storage. R Kelly’s concerts were cancelled and his RCA contract was not renewed because of his alleged sexual abuse of underage women.

The history of art is full of artists who were cruel, exploitative, prejudiced or predatory. Picasso mistreated women, the Renaissance painter Caravaggio was a murderer. Wagner was an anti-Semite, Alfred Hitchcock tried to ruin Tippi Hedren’s career as an actress because she refused his sexual advances.

The #MeToo movement has thrown a spotlight on contemporary cases of artists and producers harassing and bullying those in their power.

Those who harass or rape should be exposed and punished. The license to break moral rules that genius is sometimes thought to bestow on artists has to be revoked. But should the character of an artist affect how we judge their works?

Should the works or performances of wrongdoing artists be censored, shunned, or locked away? Should good behaviour be a criterion for exhibiting an artist’s works? “Once we start removing paintings from walls, where do we stop?” asks arts editor and art historian Ashleigh Wilson.

Shunning art because of the behaviour of the artist offends against traditional assumptions about the value of art and the relationship between artists and their works.

We are supposed to value artistic expression and oppose attempts to suppress artistic works even when people are deeply offended by their content. Piss Christ, a photograph by Andres Serrano of a crucifix submerged in a tank of his urine, was exhibited in galleries even though many Christians viewed it as sacrilegious.

But if it is wrong to censure art or refuse to display it because of its content, how can it be right to shun it because of the behaviour of the artist? What’s the difference?

The perils of biography

The view that we shouldn’t judge art because of the behaviour of the artist is backed up by common ideas about how we should appreciate art. A work of art or a performance is supposed to have value and meaning in its own right. It’s supposed to be judged for what it is and not its relation to extraneous factors. This view allows that the biography of the artist can be used to provide an insight into the work, but the life of the artist is not supposed to affect our judgement of the aesthetic value of his or her works.

Artists themselves warn against taking their works as a reflection of who they are. When asked whether his films helped him work through his life dilemmas, Woody Allen denied any relation between his life and his works. “Movies are fiction. The plots of my movies don’t have any relationship to my life.” If works of art belong to a realm separated off from the life of the artist they can’t be polluted by the bad things artists do.

The separation of life and character from art is far from complete. In his new book On Artists, Ashley Wilson finds a scene in Allen’s Annie Hall that suggests the wrong kind of attitude to children’s sexuality. This scene is especially disturbing because of Allen’s daughter Dylan’s accusation that he sexually assaulted her as a child, which Allen denies. Wilson also cites dialogue in Hitchcock’s Marnie that seems to reveal his perverse obsession with Hedren.

Some of R Kelly’s lyrics can be interpreted as condoning sexual harassment and it is not all difficult to find anti-Semitic or pro-nationalist elements in Wagner’s operas.

But does this matter? Works of art now regarded as classics frequently contain assumptions about race or the roles of women that we now reject. Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice makes anti-Semitic assumptions about Jews and Taming of the Shrew has its misogynous moments. But they do not significantly detract from the value we find in these works.

We should be willing to accept that artists are not free from the prejudices of their culture, from blindness to its prejudices or from faults of character. We should make allowances for that when we evaluate their art and not let ourselves be distracted from appreciating its values. When Spotify took R Kelly off its playlist it faced the objections of fans who value his music. The brilliance of Michael Jackson’s music transcends accusations of paedophilia levelled against him. Many people, including Wilson, believe that Wagner’s works deserve veneration despite their dubious elements.

Read more: Don’t ban Michael Jackson’s music – talk about the accusations

When is a ban justified?

The distinction between art and the artist breaks down when the intention of the artist is to support a racist or sexist ideology. Leni Riefenstahl used her talents as a filmmaker to celebrate Hitler’s regime. D.W. Griffith defended the prejudices of white Southerners in Birth of a Nation.

It also breaks down when the artist is a celebrity and a role model. One museum director defended her refusal to exhibit Nona’s art because showing it would endorse his status as a role model in his Indigenous community. Football players are suspended for acting badly. Why not penalise artists by taking their art out of circulation?

If a work of art vilifies a group or incites violence then there are legal as well as moral reasons for banning or censoring it. If showing an artist’s work impacts on his community and causes serious distress to his victims, then these people should have a say about what should be done with it.

But a ban on a work of art is only justifiable so long as the danger or harm exists. Nona has apologised for his deeds and has tried to rehabilitate himself. There is no good reason why his works should not reappear on gallery walls.

The #MeToo movement provides the most plausible reason for shunning or boycotting the works of artists who rape, assault or bully others. This movement arose from women’s complaints about their treatment by powerful men as actors and producers – men whose position and fame gave them the power, the women allege, to wreck careers and get away with sexual assault and harassment.

Punishing these men through the courts is a difficult course of action. The charges are often hard to prove and cultural acceptance of bad behaviour by artists sometimes makes it difficult for judges, juries and witnesses to regard their acts as serious wrongs.

What is needed, most #MeToo advocates agree, is a cultural change. An effective way of changing the culture of artists is to prevent them from exhibiting their works or performing their roles. Kevin Spacey’s removal from All the Money in the World (despite the fact that he has pleaded not guilty to the charge that he assaulted an 18-year-old busboy in a Nantucket bar) sent the message that sexual assault would no longer be overlooked or tolerated. It was both a punishment and an expression of moral distaste. It vindicated the status of the victims and it warned others to avoid offending.

A dangerous way to achieve cultural change

But this strategy for achieving cultural change has obvious dangers. Wilson is right to worry about where we are going when we start removing pictures from gallery walls or preventing actors from performing. If the character of the artist becomes a criterion for judging art then the door is open to the exclusion of artists because they belong to a despised group or because they have said or done something that many people do not like.

Removing or censoring art works can also be an unfair way of achieving a moral goal, especially when wrong doing by artists has been encouraged by the complicity of others.

In an interview after Hitchcock’s death, Tippi Hedren refused to allow the wrong he did to override her judgement about his talent and contribution as a film director. “I still admire the man for what he was.”

The distinction she insists on making is worth preserving. We should expose the wrongdoing of artists and but we should not be prevented from admiring their works.

– ref. Friday essay: separating the art from the badly behaved artist – a philosopher’s view – http://theconversation.com/friday-essay-separating-the-art-from-the-badly-behaved-artist-a-philosophers-view-116279

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

On Friday morning the Coalition’s worst dream will come true.

All throughout the campaign, and all through the two terms in office and three prime ministers and three treasurers that preceded it, they’ve argued that they they than Labor as managing money. They had budget surpluses under Howard that Labor didn’t have under Rudd and Gillard.

In the last election, Labor allowed them to get away with it. Its costings document actually forecast a better budget position than the Coalition’s over ten years (because it rejected the Coalition’s expensive company tax cuts) but a worse position over the immediate four-year “forward estimates”, because of its more generous programs.

The Coalition focused on the four years, not the ten, and painted Labor as irresponsible.

Bigger, sooner surpluses

On Friday morning, it won’t make the mistake again. Yes, it’ll detail (and have year by year costs for) programs that are more generous than the Coalition’s, among them cheaper childcare, its Medicare cancer plan and its pensioner dental plan.

But it’ll be able to more than pay for them in every one of the next ten years because of a number of courageous decisions that’ll save money, the most financially important of which is the decision to stop sending company tax refund cheques to people who don’t pay tax. It’ll save it A$5 billion in the first year and more in future years because the cost of the refunds has been balooning.

The result will be a larger budget surplus in every one of the next ten years, including each year of the forward estimates and including the financial year about to start, which is when the budget is scheduled to return to surplus.

Read more: Words that matter. What’s a franking credit? What’s dividend imputation? And what’s ‘retiree tax’?

So big will be these bigger surpluses that Labor has them on track to hit the Coalition’s target of 1% of gross domestic product four years earlier than Coalition in 2022-23 rather than 2026-27.

That means that in Labor’s first budget, which it will deliver in August this year if elected as a means of resetting forecasts, its projections will show the long-awaited surplus of 1% of GDP (A$22 billion) within the forward estimates, rather than beyond them as the Coalition’s budget.

All it took was courage, and the ability to withstand complaints from people who own shares but don’t pay tax and are naturally upset about losing government cheques they have, become used to.

And lower government debt

Bigger surpluses, and the much more rapid delivery of a substantial surplus will mean much quicker reductions in government debt. The budget had the government on track to eliminate net debt by 2030. Labor’s costings will have it on track to eliminate it much sooner.

Despite what the Coalition would like to claim, the key reason why Labor’s surpluses will be bigger than its isn’t that Labor won’t be matching its longer term tax cuts. Bracket creep means tax rates need to be cut of thresholds adjusted from time to time to ensure the personal tax take doesn’t climb too high. Labor’s costings recognise this, including a built-in assumption of tax cuts after the tax take hits 24.3% of GDP, a figure cunningly selected because it was the tax take when Howard left office.

If delivered as income tax cuts, at about the time the Coaltion’s high end tax cuts are due, it’ll cost $200 billion, but the method of delivery will depend on circumstances at the time.isn’t locked in.

With future tax cuts baked in

Labor’s “technical assumption” that the tax take won’t climb beyond 24.3% of GDP is different to the Coaltion’s “guarantee” that it won’t climb beyond 23.9% of GDP. It is a technical assumption rather than a promise, of the kind usually included in budget documents as a way of allowing for inevitable future tax cuts.

Without it, Labor’s surplus projections would have been much bigger, and would have been hard to believe. With it, the projections should be credible.

Read more: Election tip: 23.9% is a meaningless figure, ignore the tax-to-GDP ratio

The secret sauce in the Labor’s better budget projections isn’t that it isn’t adopting the Coalition’s tax cuts. It is that is tackling the handing out of billions of dollars in dividend imputation cheques to people who don’t pay tax in a way the Coalition wasn’t prepared to.

Not that it didn’t think about it. A file list seen by Fairfax Media shows that treasury created a file entitled “Tax Policy – Dividend Imputation” in the lead up to then Treasurer Scott Morrision’s 2017 budget.

The tax reform discussion paper commissioned by his predecessor Joe Hockey found “revenue concerns with the refundability of imputation credits”.

– ref. Mine are bigger than yours. Labor’s surpluses are the Coalition’s worst nightmare – http://theconversation.com/mine-are-bigger-than-yours-labors-surpluses-are-the-coalitions-worst-nightmare-116833

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

Some old Labor hands have been recalling this week the appearances of Bill Shorten during the 2006 Beaconsfield mining rescue, that brought the then union leader and political aspirant to the nation’s attention.

They showed, above all, a skill in using an occurrence to connect with the public.

Shorten demonstrated that ability again on Wednesday, in his emotional retelling of his mother’s life story, saying how his politics had been driven by her inspiration. It was a moment of great “connection” just when he needed it.

Who knows what, if any, impact this will have directly on votes. But it did, and will, have its effect on the unfolding final stretch of the campaign. The first thing it did was give “the day” to Shorten.

In politics, personal stories have always grabbed the public’s attention. These days social media magnifies them a thousand percent, as people don’t just relate to the anecdote but translate it into their own experience and share that widely.

Suddenly, many people were on social media talking of their mothers’ histories. Likewise in the party focus groups, Shorten’s teary words were what people wanted to chat about.

Read more: View from The Hill: Shorten turns Daily Telegraph sledge to advantage

The opposition leader who, Beaconsfield notwithstanding, over years has been unable to persuade voters to like him, had suddenly been “humanised”. The Daily Telegraph, with its reprehensible “Mother of Invention” story about what Shorten left out in Monday’s shorter account of his mother’s career, had managed, inadvertently, to give him a significant platform – and he did not let the opportunity pass.

It’s perhaps a long bow, but Shorten may also have gained a little fireproofing for the run up to polling day, at a time when the government wants to demonise him personally, as well as Labor policies.

With the polls close, the coming week will be fierce, because the Coalition’s strongest weapons remain its multiple scare campaigns.

The competing pitches of the election – economic responsibility and the dangers of Labor versus the case for change and the need for a “fair go” – are now well-defined.

There is surely little fresh to be said on the central issues, but each side is reinforcing its arguments and its defences in the final sprint.

Labor’s release of its costings on Friday comes earlier than these exercises normally do. This partly reflects the opposition’s confidence in its numbers. Such confidence is possible because contemporary costings are done by the highly credible Parliamentary Budget Office, making them harder to demolish.

Unlike 2016, when Labor proposed to have a deficit of about A$16.5 billion more across the forward estimates than that in the official Pre-election Economic and Fiscal Outlook (PEFO), this time the opposition is bettering the Coalition’s bottom line. It has bigger projected surpluses through the budget period.

Shadow treasurer Chris Bowen says that based on the recent PEFO numbers, Labor’s budget plan would have a surplus in 2019-20 and every year after. “We will show bigger budget surpluses over the forward estimates and the medium-term, achieving a surplus of 1% of GDP by 2022-23, four years earlier than the current government trajectory.” A 1% of GDP surplus would be about $22 billion in that year, compared with the government’s projected surplus of $9.2 billion.

While Labor has rejected the Coalition’s longer term tax cuts for higher income earners, Bowen stresses that under a Shorten government “further tax relief can be prudently provided when the budget is back in healthy surplus, if the economic and fiscal circumstances allow”.

The costings show budget savings of $154 billion over a decade by a crackdown on multinationals’ tax avoidance and closing tax “loopholes” (including dividend imputation reform, negative gearing and capital gains tax reform, trusts and superannuation concessions).

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

Labor hopes its budget numbers will help counter the government’s line that the opposition’s program is economically irresponsible. But while having the costings out at this stage might take the edge off the overall “scare”, that won’t necessarily lessen the impact of “scares” about particular policies on specific groups, such as retirees and those with negatively-geared properties.

Sunday is another campaign marker day, when the Liberals hold their formal launch in Melbourne.

Morrison this week has gone out of his way to play down the launch as a “party” occasion, saying it’s about his having “a direct conversation with Australians about the future”.

In keeping with what many have described as Morrison’s presidential campaign (it’s accurate, though the word always sounds odd in the Australian context), the launch is to be focused on him rather than, as in Labor’s case, the team.

Let’s face it, options were limited. The Coalition’s ongoing “team” has been shrunk by multiple departures at the election; as for having former leaders featured – they’d be like cats in a bag.

Read more: View from The Hill: Lots of ministry spots to fill if Morrison wins, while many Shorten ministers would return to a familiar cabinet room

(Not, incidentally, that the ex-PMs necessarily worked a treat for Labor, despite the media excitement on the day. It was a gesture of unity but would also have reminded many voters of past Labor divisions, and Paul Keating’s later sounding off about the “nutters” in the security agencies harming Australia’s relations with China was distinctly unhelpful.)

Morrison repeated on Thursday that Sunday would not be “a party hoopla event. It’s not an event where, you know, the party comes together and there’s lots of backslapping.”

The ALP launch had just shown “the Labor Party are more interested in themselves than they are in the future of this country. This event on the weekend is all about laying out very clearly what the choice is for Australians, and what my plan is, taking Australia forward,” he said.

Read more: View from The Hill: Shorten presents the ‘case for change’ in sleek launch

When you think about it, there’s a touch of desperation about this way of looking at things. We still in Australia elect parties, not simply their leaders, even if we have moved towards the “presidential”.

Beyond election day, “the team” is integral to how a government runs. A prime minister doesn’t do it all. One of our more admired post-war governments was Bob Hawke’s – its achievements depended crucially on a combination of two elements, his leadership and a highly talented cabinet.

When he went back to the Liberal party’s roots in Albury soon after becoming leader, Morrison said he had come “with the next generation of the leadership of the Liberal party”.

We’ve not been seeing much of that generation in this campaign. And total focus on a prime minister who, let’s face it, is still on training wheels, does make the whole show look rather thin.

– ref. Grattan on Friday: Bill Shorten’s moment of “connection” brings back memories of Beaconsfield – http://theconversation.com/grattan-on-friday-bill-shortens-moment-of-connection-brings-back-memories-of-beaconsfield-116854

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

If fact-checking units can award politicians ticks for telling the truth, surely we should award them clown faces for telling good jokes. And despite some honourable mentions, fewer such honours will be granted during the 2019 federal election than previous campaigns.

Of course, spontaneous humour is harder for our current crop of candidates, nursed through cosseted campaigns and covered by 24-hour media. In long-ago campaigns their forebears competed on soapboxes on corners, often outside opposing pubs, or in raucous town hall meetings. This frequently aggressive street theatre was no holds barred and, like stand-up comedians, politicians had to shout down hecklers.

A consummate performer of this art was Australia’s fourth prime minister, George Reid (1904-5). His large girth prompted one heckler to point at his large stomach and ask, “What are you going to call it, George?”, to which Reid replied:

If it’s a boy, I’ll call it after myself. If it’s a girl I’ll call it Victoria. But if, as I strongly suspect, it’s nothing but piss and wind, I’ll name it after you.

In 1972, the famously quick-witted Gough Whitlam had this to say to a man who incessantly badgered him about abortion:

Let me make quite clear that I am for abortion and, in your case, sir, we should make it retrospective!

Clearly the “good ol’ days” of politics were not solely filled with calm and reasoned debate. The humour could be personal but also persuasive, something that has been known since Aristotle (384–322 BCE) composed his lectures on rhetoric.

A speaker can make an audience laugh in a way that increases our regard for their standing and reputation, which is known in rhetoric as ethos. That is why comedian Mort Sahl contributed jokes to John Kennedy’s campaign and Gerald Ford employed a comic speechwriter.

At his campaign launch, and after his wife had introduced him, Shorten joked:

I’m sure that everyone here and across Australia can understand why I’m happy to be known as Chloe Shorten’s husband.

He had taken a lead from John Kennedy at a Paris media luncheon in 1961:

I do not think it altogether inappropriate to introduce myself to this audience. I am the man who accompanied Jacqueline Kennedy to Paris, and I have enjoyed it.

A politician may want to prove their ethos by showing they can take jokes and insults, as the then NSW premier, Mike Baird, did when emulating Barack Obama by reading mean tweets.

Similarly, LNP Senator Matt Canovan put the joke on himself with one of the basic onion recipes from Tony’s Kitchen Rules.

Of course, election are also slugfests, and nasty jokes aimed at opponents can be devastating if done well. To that end, the parties have digital units, such as Innovative and Agile Memes and ALP Spicy Meme Stash, which use current cultural memes such as Married at First Sight to demolish the aspect of ethos known as moral character.

The Coalition’s sole strategy is to undermine Shorten and ignore everything else outside that personal frame. Here’s an example from LNP Senator James McGrath:

For his part, Shorten provided the major (probably prepared) joke of the first debate when he rebuffed Morrison with “you’re a classic space invader” in order to retake the advantage.

The Coalition has been unable to drop a comedic barrage on the formidable Penny Wong, who is promoted by the ALP as one of the strong team surrounding Shorten that Morrison doesn’t have. Unsurprisingly, she mocked that vacuum:

Analysts of humour since Sigmund Freud have known humour can express superiority over others, even to the extent of wanting to discipline others to comply with certain social values and conduct. So we must not shy away from the fact that we can enjoy nasty humour, even based in stereotypes of other parties:

Because of the long history of anti-politics animus in our democracy and humour, we feel little compunction in hurling vitriol at politicians, especially ones we don’t like:

An old quandary of satire since Thomas More’s 1551 treatise Utopia is the conflict over the path of purity or pragmatism in politics. In partisan politics, this can be simplified for advantage into the accusation of a sell-out.

Paul Keating is remembered as a deft exponent of political humour, yet his most memorable zingers were from his parliamentary performances, which turned off many people. Question Time is more structured for combat than difficult and fluid campaigns.

In the final week of the 1996 campaign, Keating appeared in an interview with Roy and HG. Despite being on a comedy show, Keating was serious, attempting to ameliorate the common view of his aggressive ethos. In effect HG accuses him of being a shadow of his former rambunctious self in the “whimpering to the line” of both sides.

Read more: Up close and personal: Morrison and Shorten get punchy in the second leaders’ debate. Our experts respond.

Politicians and parties are not comedians like Frankie Boyle or Jim Jefferies aiming to provoke social boundaries. There are important limits to humour in politics. That is why Advance Australia failed spectacularly with its Captain GetUp! character rubbing himself against a billboard of Zali Steggall, Tony Abbott’s challenger in Warringah. Equally, GetUp! failed when lampooning Abbott as a uninterested lifesaver shortly after two people had drowned.

Much of the humour in this election seems to preach to the converted. Nevertheless, we can easily enjoy not only nasty humour but also negative campaigning, despite our principled avowals to others of the opposite. We want the luxury of enjoying both our principles and our character assassinations.

– ref. Funny, that: why humour is a hit-and-miss affair on the election campaign trail – http://theconversation.com/funny-that-why-humour-is-a-hit-and-miss-affair-on-the-election-campaign-trail-116513

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Johan Lidberg, Associate Professor, School of Media, Film and Journalism, Monash University

Remember the Daily Telegraph’s 2013 front page headline “Kick this mob out”?

Although some could argue that Labor after the Rudd-Gillard years was in a deep mess and not fit to govern, such a headline was deeply partisan and far from neutral election campaign coverage. The Guardian’s Roy Greenslade said at the time of News Corp chief Rupert Murdoch:

There is not the slightest attempt to conceal his agenda. It is blatant, bold and belligerent. And it confirms yet again the way in which he links political interventions to his commercial desires.

Fast-forward six years and little has changed in News Corp’s approach to covering the federal election campaign.

Read more: FactCheck: does Murdoch own 70% of newspapers in Australia?

The similarities between Labor in 2013 and the Coalition in 2019 are uncanny. They have done the same number of replacements of sitting PMs (Labor 2010-2013: Rudd-Gillard-Rudd. Coalition 2015-2019: Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison). And both parties have suffered from disunity and division, although the Coalition is perhaps even more divided than Labor was in 2013 on core policy issues such as climate change.

And yet, we have seen no “Kick this mob out”-style headlines targeting the Coalition from News Corp Australia’s publications in this campaign. Instead, it’s been a steady drumbeat of one-sided, positive coverage (or convenient lack of scrutiny) of the Coalition’s candidates and policies, compared to a barrage of criticism of Labor and Bill Shorten.

News Corp’s campaign coverage so far confirms that growing partisanship in political reporting seem to have become increasingly entrenched in the organisation.

A case in point is The Daily Telegraph’s much-maligned front page story on Wednesday that implied Shorten hadn’t told the full story when describing his mother’s educational opportunities on Q&A earlier earlier in the week.

The article can only be described as an ultra-partisan hatchet job. Shorten called it a “new low”, while Kevin Rudd went so far as to compare News Corp with the People’s Daily newspaper in China on Twitter.

Interestingly, the Telegraph’s story on Shorten’s mother appears to have backfired, creating a huge social media moment – #myMum – devoted to people’s stories of their mothers.

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

But the article illustrates how damning it is for diversity and plurality when media ownership is as concentrated as it is in Australia, with News Corp being the dominant player by far. If the dominant outlet in such a media landscape decides to wholeheartedly back one side of politics, it will undoubtedly impact the tenor of a campaign and skew the information voters rely on to make up their minds.

It’s not good for a healthy democracy and a fair election campaign.

News Corp’s partisan climate coverage

Backing one side of politics is nothing new for News Corp. There is plenty of empirical research spanning decades documenting how Murdoch’s media empire has sought to influence politics in Australia, the UK and the US. One of the most comprehensive and damning studies is David McKnight’s Rupert Murdoch: An Investigation of Political Power, which is a devastating read illustrating how Murdoch has used partisan journalism for decades to gain political influence benefiting the media empire’s financial bottom line.

Indeed, this is what Labor claims is the driver behind News Corp’s scathing coverage of its policies in this campaign. Deputy leader Tanya Plibersek and assistant treasury spokesman Andrew Leigh tied the partisan coverage to Murdoch’s desire to protect “tax loopholes” in Australia by keeping Labor out of power.

One of the case studies in McKnight’s work is News Corp’s undermining of climate science and meaningful action on climate change. This can also be seen in its coverage of the current Australia election campaign.

Read more: Lies, obfuscation and fake news make for a dispiriting – and dangerous – election campaign

In spite of polls showing growing support in Australia for action on climate change (59%) and renewables (84%), the environment is still treated as a second- or third-tier election topic by most media (with the notable exceptions of Crikey and the Guardian). This is particularly the case with outlets owned by News Corp.

When climate change has been covered by News Corp in the campaign, it’s predominately been done in an alarmist way to slam Labor’s policies. For example, The Australian reported a week ago that Shorten’s climate policies aiming to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 45% by 2030 could cost the country A$264 billion – a figure based on modelling by a former government economist that Shorten dismissed as “propaganda.”

Though notable climate experts and academics also disputed the estimate, it was widely repeated across News Corp’s other outlets.

Meanwhile, News Corp has asked few critical questions about the Coalition’s much less ambitious climate plan. Most importantly, hardly any coverage has been offered by the large legacy media outlets (such as the ABC, The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald) on seriously assessing the cost of inaction on climate change. (A study to track climate change coverage during the campaign is currently underway by myself and a colleague.)

Overall, the media coverage of climate change thus far can only be described as a failure (with a few exceptions). A failure of giving it enough prominence during debates, panel discussions and crucial press conferences. A failure of deeply scrutinising climate change policies from all parties.

The next generation has made it abundantly clear where it stands on the issue in school strikes and protests across the country. It’s time we all, including the media, start listening to them and give them a voice in the final week of election coverage.

– ref. ‘New low’ for journalism? Why News Corp’s partisan campaign coverage is harmful to democracy – http://theconversation.com/new-low-for-journalism-why-news-corps-partisan-campaign-coverage-is-harmful-to-democracy-116796

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Joanna Jaaniste, Career Development Fellow, Western Sydney University

People with dementia can flourish and show creativity in ways they, their caregivers and loved ones never thought possible. Under the guidance of a trained therapist, creative arts therapies use painting, drama, dance and music to help improve quality of life for people with dementia.

Around 50 million people worldwide have dementia and it’s on the rise. The condition affects the brain and can result in memory loss and inability to carry out everyday activities, recognise faces or remember words.

Every person with dementia has a different experience of the disease and their own life stories. This is where creative arts therapies come in.

Read more: Why people with dementia don’t all behave the same

What are creative arts therapies?

Each arts therapy has its own way of engaging the imagination:

• art therapy brings imagery and self-awareness to people, some of whom don’t think they can make art. Participants work with paints and clay, and have the opportunity to extend their world with colour

• drama therapy uses performance, role play and improvisation to recreate memories, encourage problem-solving, and reawaken social skills

• dance-movement therapy engages rhythm and body gesture, helping integrate the mind and spirit, and enabling non-verbal communication

• music therapy can help ground anxious participants, and allow tolerance for tension and the expression of joy and sadness.

What can these therapies do?

Coming together to play music or sing increases social interaction and communication, and reduces the risk of social withdrawal. It can also help reduce depression.

Drama therapy can improve quality of life for people with dementia by awakening memories and helping patients “work through” troubling issues from their past. It helped one study participant, for example, let go of an obsessional memory of being emotionally abused by a teacher at the age of nine, even a year after the drama therapy ended.

Drama therapy can also help people with dementia to cope with grief, loss, and cognitive and physical decline.

Read more: Looking for a nursing home place for your parent with dementia? Here’s what to consider

In terms of visual arts, research shows participation in art therapy results in significant improvements in mood and cognition, which last long after the sessions have finished.

One such program in Western Australia encourages Indigenous Noongar elders to make dolls, sharing birthing stories from a time when birthing happened on reserves, in missions, or under the stars because mothers were not allowed to give birth in hospital in their part of the country.

Finally, dance-movement therapy stimulates many of the senses and exercises both the body and mind. An important role of these therapies is to help older people reflect on the final stages of life, and express their grief about losing friends and loved ones.

An alternative to medical intervention

Hearings in the aged care royal commission have begun to focus on how to improve the quality of life for older people with dementia and reducing the overuse of drug interventions. This is possible – and creative arts therapies can play an important role.

We still need further research with greater numbers of participants to continue to rigorously evaluate creative arts therapies. But so far, we know these therapies are a safe and holistic way to deliver a level of creativity and calm to people with dementia in aged care.

Read more: Finding momentary pleasure: how viewing art can help people with dementia

– ref. Creative arts therapies can help people with dementia socialise and express their grief – http://theconversation.com/creative-arts-therapies-can-help-people-with-dementia-socialise-and-express-their-grief-114623

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Julienne van Loon, Vice Chancellor’s Principal Research Fellow, School of Media & Communication, RMIT University

Why do we tell stories, and how are they crafted? In a new series, we unpick the work of the writer on both page and screen.

Stephanie Bishop’s latest novel, Man Out of Time (Hachette, 2018), is a disturbing read. It is also a sophisticated work, particularly in terms of the way the author has managed narrative temporality – that is, the relation between story and time. Other novelists and aspiring writers would do well to look closely at what Bishop has achieved here.

Literary scholar Mark Currie has suggested that stories help us to reconcile what we expect with what we experience. Narrative fiction, he argues, can help us to think about the way that we anticipate, or sometimes fail to anticipate, what lies ahead.

Man Out of Time opens on a chapter that follows the central character, Leon, through some of his last hours of life. It is illustrated by photographs Leon has taken of a landscape marked by humans but empty of human form.

Leon’s disengagement with the world is clear, and his death is foreshadowed by references to the multiple scripts he has taken out for painkillers using false names, and by an intention to make “no error this time”.

In the next chapter, the adult Stella will take a phone call from her mother, Frances. Leon has gone missing. “Has he made contact?” Frances asks Stella. He has not, and probably will not. He is most likely already dead via suicide. The weight of this knowledge sits heavily on the reader, and on the character Stella.

Bishop’s achievement in Man Out of Time is an affecting portrait of a family rocked by the patriarchal figure’s long-term depression. In particular, its focus is on the parent/child relationship and because of this, it is an interesting companion piece to Jessie Cole’s Staying (2018), and to Adam Haslett’s Imagine Me Gone (2016).

Depressive illness has a particular relation to time and to tense. It is as if the depressive’s perception takes place outside of ordinary continuity, unharnessed from normative understandings of cause and effect. “In what way does one thing lead to the next?” asks Leon. “He struggled with this connection”.

Shifting perspectives and tenses

Parent/child relationships, in contrast, are very often concerned with how a parent creates and influences a child’s future. While Man Out of Time is a story largely told in retrospect – after the opening chapters, we move backwards in time to Stella’s childhood and adolescence, and to Leon and his family’s early experiences with his diagnosis and treatment – the novel’s key preoccupation is inheritance.

Will the suffering that Leon has experienced – as well as caused – be repeated by his daughter in the future?

In the middle of the novel, Bishop shifts from using third person to second, and from past tense to present, to get us closer to Leon’s perspective while he’s in hospital receiving treatment: “One morning you are wheeled from your room into another smaller room”.

Here is description largely devoid of embellishments. After Leon’s electric shock therapy, Bishop sharply demonstrates Leon’s profound loss of narrative desire:

When you wake it is to think; No … No to the hum of the fridge. No to dripping umbrellas … No to jazz. No to sequins and leopard print. No to the banal. No to the false. No to verisimilitude.

As the chapter moves towards its conclusion, the author shifts our attention to a post-hospital phase that is future-oriented, but also just as likely to be shot through with discontinuity:

Afterwards. You are told before the treatment what you cannot do afterwards – because of your memory, the problems with memory that arise of the consequence of this particular treatment. One is not to drive a car.

Paradoxically, Leon’s disconnection from an ordinary life narrative and from time means that which lies ahead is deeply anticipated in this book – for Stella, for Leon and for Frances. The future will come regardless. It is coming now.

During a period of convalescence at home, Leon acknowledges “a terrible sense that anything and everything that might possibly go wrong in [Stella’s] life would always be construed as his fault”. But Stella is deeply loyal to him, despite his transgressions, including his fleeting sexual abuse.

Menacingly, during her adolescence, Leon tells Stella that everything she ever writes will in some way be about him. And perhaps the novel itself, which is framed as Stella’s invention, is evidence of this. Even well beyond the (by-then) acknowledged fact of Leon’s suicide, the play between the foreseeable and the unexpected is a key source of tension for Stella.

While many stories move from not knowing to knowing, or from uncertainty towards explanation, this is not one of those novels. If anything, as Currie would phrase it, “progress is a process of increasing bafflement.”

In the second to last chapter, years after her father’s death, Bishop describes a dream the adult Stella has, in which she is confused by an imagined set of directions from Google Maps:

She did not know which path to take. She had taken neither path before. There was nothing to indicate whether the slower path would be more interesting, or whether it would simply be more tiring, and because she had never been to the place she was heading towards, there was no knowing whether the quicker route would deliver her faster to a good and pleasurable thing, or whether the experience to which her route led would be bad or unwelcome or just dull – a destination that was not so necessary after all – in which case she’d be better off taking the means without end: the slower, perhaps prettier path that she may or may not be about to take, now, as she stands at her open door, watching the pulsing signal that represents her real self, and wondering where it might go.

In his critical work, The Unexpected (2013), Currie has argued that any understanding of how temporality works in contemporary narrative needs to take in what he calls a philosophy of surprise.

It is instructive, in this context, that Bishop concludes a book very much slowed and distorted by Leon’s out-of-timeness with this part hopeful, part anxiety-ridden focus on the unforeseen.

– ref. Inside the story: Man Out of Time and the inheritance of suffering – http://theconversation.com/inside-the-story-man-out-of-time-and-the-inheritance-of-suffering-112406

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

There are 76 senators – 12 in each state and two in each territory. At a normal half-Senate election, half the state senators and all territory senators are elected, so 40 of the 76 senators are up for election on May 18. As tied votes are lost, it takes 39 of the 76 seats to control the Senate.

As the 2016 election was a double-dissolution, with all senators up for election, half the state senators were awarded long six-year terms expiring in June 2022, and the other half received short three-year terms expiring on June 30. The order-of-election method was used: the first six senators elected in each state won long terms, and the last six got short terms.

Read more: Major parties to allocate long and short Senate terms using order-of-election method

There have been several disruptions. First, SA Liberal Senator Cory Bernardi, who has a long term, defected from the Liberals to form his Conservative party. Family First Senator Bob Day was disqualified by the High Court, and replaced by Lucy Gichuhi, who later joined the Liberals. This means that the Liberals swapped a long-term senator (Bernardi) for a short-term senator (Gichuhi).

Tim Storer sat as an independent when he replaced the disqualified SA Centre Alliance senator Skye Kakoschke-Moore. As Kakoschke-Moore had a short term, Storer also received a short term. Storer will not contest this election.

Former One Nation short-term senators Fraser Anning and Brian Burston have left the party, and will contest this election for different parties – Anning for his own party, and Burston for Clive Palmer’s United Australia Party (UAP).

When Jacqui Lambie was disqualified by the High Court in Tasmania, Steve Martin was elected as her replacement. However, Lambie had a large below-the-line vote, and these votes did not flow strongly to Martin. As a result, while Lambie was elected with a quota and had a long term, Martin did not get a quota. The Liberals received an additional long term, while Martin got a short term. Martin later joined the Nationals, so this change is not as important as it looked.

Read more: Liberals gain a Tasmanian long Senate term due to citizenship saga, while polling on Adani is mixed

The table below shows the 36 senators that are not up for election. Centre Alliance (CA) was formerly the Nick Xenophon Team. The one Other is Cory Bernardi.

The table below shows the 40 senators that are up for election. The five Others are the Liberal Democrats and Burston (UAP) in NSW, Derryn Hinch in Victoria, Anning in Queensland and Storer in SA.

Labor currently has 26 senators and the Greens nine, for a Labor/Greens total of 35 of the 76 seats. To win 39 seats and a majority, the two parties would need to gain a combined four seats.

Effectively, that means Labor needs to gain four seats, as the Greens are defending seats in every state, and are very unlikely to win two seats in any state. The only possible gain for the Greens is in the ACT, but that would require the Liberal vote to fall well below 30% – a quota is one-third of the vote, or 33.3% with two seats.

A quota for election in the states is one-seventh of the vote, or 14.3%. It will be difficult for Labor to gain in Queensland, a state where populist parties do well, or WA, a conservative state where Labor habitually wins two Senate seats at half-Senate elections. In Tasmania, Labor will probably struggle to defend its three seats.

Labor should gain a seat from Others in NSW and SA, and is a chance to gain Hinch’s seat in Victoria. If Labor held all their other seats, they would have 29 senators.

The Greens are defending six seats. They should retain comfortably in Victoria, WA and Tasmania – states where they won two seats at the double dissolution. NSW, Queensland and SA are more problematic.

The most optimistic scenario for Labor and the Greens gives them 39 Senate seats. That requires Labor gaining seats in NSW, SA and Victoria, and the Greens gaining an ACT seat. Both parties would need to defend all their existing seats. This scenario is not probable, and it is more likely that Labor and the Greens end up with around 36-37 seats.

The Coalition is only defending two seats in every state except SA, so the only likely loss is that third SA seat. If the Coalition does unexpectedly well, they could gain several seats, rising into the mid-30’s in seats from their current 31.

Other than the Coalition, Labor and the Greens, it is more likely than not that a right-wing populist (One Nation and the UAP are most likely) will win a Queensland Senate seat. The UAP or One Nation could also be a threat in NSW. Hinch could win again in Victoria, the Centre Alliance is running in SA and Lambie in Tasmania.

With the higher quota at a half-Senate election, parties probably need at least 5% of the vote to be in contention for a seat (or 5% beyond their second quota for the major parties).

Group ticket voting for the Senate was abolished before the 2016 election. Voters are told to number six boxes above the line, but only one is required for a formal vote. To vote below the line, voters are instructed to number 12 boxes, but only six are required. It is possible with this system that the many small right-wing parties contesting could cause seats to fall to the left that should go to the right.

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

I had a detailed explanation of how the Senate voting and counting system works in this article about how Anning won his seat on just 19 below the line votes.

Read more: How Fraser Anning was elected to the Senate – and what the major parties can do to keep extremists out

Essential poll: 52-48 to Labor with Greens at 12%

This week’s Essential poll, conducted May 2-6 from a sample of 1,079, gave Labor a 52-48 lead, a one-point gain for Labor since last week. It is the first time in this election campaign that a poll has moved to Labor. However, primary votes were not pleasing for Labor: 38% Coalition (down one), 34% Labor (down three), 12% Greens (up three) and 7% One Nation (up one).

By 54-46, voters expected Labor to win the election (59-41 last week). Scott Morrison led Bill Shorten by 42-31 as better PM (40-31 last week). 16% (down three since last week) said they had paid no attention to the election campaign, 29% a little attention (steady), 36% some attention (up three) and 19% a lot of attention (down one).

Essential asked about six policies of both major parties. The least-supported Labor policy was reducing tax concessions for investors and self-funded retirees (39-32 support). There were two Coalition policies with more opposition than support: investigating building a new coal-fired power station (34-32 opposed) and allowing doctors less of a say over the treatment of asylum seekers (34-28 opposed).

Overall, voters supported the Labor policy package over the Coalition’s package by a 46-36 margin.

Morgan poll: 51-49 to Labor

This week’s Morgan poll, conducted May 4-5 from a sample of 826, gave Labor a 51-49 lead, unchanged since last week. Primary votes were 38.5% Coalition (down 1%), 34% Labor (down 2%), 11% Greens (up 1.5%), 4% One Nation (up 1.5%) and 3.5% UAP (up 1.5%). As with Essential and Ipsos, Morgan has a gain for the Greens at Labor’s expense. Newspoll is the only poll this week with no Greens gain.

As discussed on Monday, Morgan’s face-to-face methodology tends to skew against politically incorrect parties like One Nation and the UAP.

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

Seat poll of Mayo

The Poll Bludger reported a YouGov Galaxy poll of the SA seat of Mayo, conducted for The Advertiser May 2 from a sample of 557. The Centre Alliance’s Rebekha Sharkie led Liberal Georgina Downer by 57-43 (57.5-42.5 at the July 2018 byelection). Primary votes were 43% Sharkie, 38% Downer, 7% Labor, 7% Greens and 3% UAP. By 60-18, voters approved of Sharkie. Seat polls are unreliable.

UK local elections and Spanish election results

I wrote for The Poll Bludger about the UK local elections on May 2 and the Spanish election on April 28. The UK Conservatives lost over 1,300 councillors, but Labour went backwards too. In Spain, national left-wing parties won the election, but are short of a majority.

– ref. Labor and Greens unlikely to win a Senate majority on current polling; Greens jump in Essential poll – http://theconversation.com/labor-and-greens-unlikely-to-win-a-senate-majority-on-current-polling-greens-jump-in-essential-poll-116414