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

Bill Shorten’s many town hall meetings stood him in good stead in the Sky “people’s forum” in Brisbane on Friday night.

His engagement with the audience was more direct than Scott Morrison’s, and he packed multiple references to his promises into his answers.

Shorten was forceful, especially on the topic of Labor’s plan to cancel cash refunds from franking credits, a policy that is troublesome for the opposition. He insisted on getting enough opportunity to explain his arguments and would not be shut down by moderator David Speers until he had made his points comprehensively.

When it comes to offerings for the future, Morrison has much less in his kit bag than Shorten, so his emphasis was on defending the government’s record.

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

As in Monday night’s Perth debate, Morrison was on top of his facts and figures. Shorten, for his part, seemed better prepared than in their first encounter, when he was caught short a couple of times.

Like Shorten, Morrison was assertive, in his case physically as well as verbally. This produced the “line” of the night, when in response to Morrison moving close in Shorten declared him “a classic space invader”.

Those who claimed it was a “Latham moment” – a reference to Mark Latham’s famous fierce shaking of John Howard’s hand in the 2004 campaign – have over-vivid imaginations. Shorten’s quip played to the crowd – and he got a laugh.

The audience of 109 undecided voters broke almost evenly between the two leaders: 43% favoured Shorten, 41% Morrison, while 16% remained undecided after the hour’s encounter. Shorten’s “win” in the room was by a much smaller margin than he scored with the Perth studio audience.

As often happens with this “forum” format, the questions were an eclectic mix, ranging from education and climate change to the plight of local post offices. On the latter, Shorten mused that ways could be found to give these small businesses the ability to compete with the banks in regional areas, though he conceded he didn’t have a policy to do so.

One questioner suggested people should be able to determine how their tax was spent. Another was concerned about religious freedom, specifically that of Christians to speak in public forums about their beliefs on matters such as abortion and same-sex marriage.

When the subject of youth mental health came up, Shorten asked people to put up their hands if they’d known a family affected by suicide. Morrison was among the many who did so.

There were moments of agreement on topics such as mental health and sexual assault.

But inevitably much of the discussion and many of the clashes focused on money and tax. The conflicting arguments have been well rehearsed throughout the campaign.

Read more: Leaders try to dodge them. Voters aren’t watching. So, are debates still relevant?

Morrison dwelt on his theme of the need to manage money to pay for priorities. “If you can’t control your taxes you can’t control your spending.” Shorten’s pitch was familiar too. “The economy is not working in the interests of working and middle class people” .

Shorten said that his government would give “across the board” tax cuts when the budget could afford it. (This is how he covers that glitch on the campaign trail when he held out the prospect to one worker that Labor would give a tax cut to high income earners – although its policy is to reject the Coalition’s high-end tax relief.)

He flagged that Sunday’s Labor launch will promise a further crackdown on multi-nationals’ tax avoidance.

Labor will release its costings on Thursday or Friday of next week, he said, with bigger surpluses than in the budget. Labor planned “to have a budget surplus each year we are in government”.

Plans for a third debate remain fluid.

– ref. View from The Hill: Bill Shorten at ease in town hall-type forum – http://theconversation.com/view-from-the-hill-bill-shorten-at-ease-in-town-hall-type-forum-116555

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rob Manwaring, Senior Lecturer, Politics and Public Policy, Flinders University

The best line of the second leaders’ debate between Scott Morrison and Bill Shorten wasn’t about policy, it was about … personal space.

Some in Queensland may have skipped the debate to watch the Friday night rugby, but they would have missed a pretty spirited clash between the Labor and Coalition leaders over everything from franking credits to religious freedom to even the closure of post offices across Australia.

Free to pace the stage and talk directly to voters in the “people’s forum” debate format in Brisbane, both Morrison and Shorten looked far more comfortable – and were certainly more confrontational – than in Monday’s more staid, conventional first debate in Perth.

Here’s what our academic experts thought.

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

When they are finally published, the no-doubt low viewing figures might well confirm that it is only a minority of committed political nerds whose idea of a great Friday night is to watch the leaders’ debate (albeit behind a TV paywall)!

Yet, once the debate got going, this was a strangely engrossing contest, covering a range of issues including religious freedom, post office closures, climate change, mental health, and inevitably, the economy.

What helped set up this oddly watchable debate was the first question on how the major parties will tackle high rates of sexual assault. It seemed to re-set the “mood”. There was a good degree of bipartisanship here, although a fault line did emerge over Labor’s commitment to introduce paid domestic violence leave.

This was a strong segment, perhaps reinforcing the best of what these debates can offer where political leaders are seeking to engage directly with the public concerns.

There were similarly compassionate discussions on other issues, especially about mental health and young people, as well as a question about support for veterans. Bill Shorten, on a number of occasions sought to engage people directly, perhaps most effectively asking the audience to indicate, with raised hands, if suicide and mental illness had impacted on their friends and family. Almost all hands went up.

On a lighter note, the debate itself had some decent jokes – for example, Scott Morrison amusingly allowing more time for Shorten to talk, as he “had more taxes to explain”. Later, as a questioner muddled their names, Shorten laughed off the claim that they looked the same.

An interesting flash point was during an increasingly heated exchange on income tax cuts for high-income earners when a fired-up Morrison moved to “stand over” and lecture Shorten. Shorten called out the PM as a “classic space invader”, and it had echoes of Mark Latham’s infamous encounter with John Howard in 2004, with the roles reversed.

Morrison tended to be better with numbers, Shorten stronger on key social policies and climate change. It was messy in places, but it was also considered, and there were clear policy and value differences at play. It was strangely watchable – much like Australian democracy.

Read more: Leaders try to dodge them. Voters aren’t watching. So, are debates still relevant?

Alexandra Wake, Program Manager, Journalism, RMIT University

Even Sky News’ Peta Credlin effectively gave the second leaders’ debate to Bill Shorten, albeit through gritted teeth.

The Sky News panel agreed it was close, but by tackling issues like franking credits and negative gearing front on, Shorten came across as confident in Labor’s policy positions.

Both leaders did well, effortlessly using the campaign playbook to attempt to win over the 109 audience members chosen to attend by Galaxy Research. Shorten out-polled Scott Morrison as winner of the debate among audience members, but it was very close, just 43% to 41%. The rest were undecided.

There was a broad range of questions, most dedicated to familiar issues. But three questions were related to mental health in some way, and that appears to be the sleeper issue in this campaign.

A surprising question about the value of post offices in communities saw Shorten hint that an incoming government might use the country’s postal service as a possible competitor to the big banks.

Morrison, meanwhile, stuck to the Liberals’ core campaign message of better budget management and spending. He didn’t fluff his lines, but it’s not clear that his stock-standard responses will resonate with voters.

Shorten worked the room harder, and engaged the audience well by asking everyone who had been affected by suicide or mental illness to raise their hands. That’s an adept political tactic.

There were some light-hearted moments between the pair, but Shorten’s quip that Morrison was a “space invader”, as the taller PM came a little too close, might grab the headlines.

It’s easy to suggest the Twitterverse of political junkies hash-tagging #auspol with their sausage icon were also the real winners.

Scheduling the second leaders’ debate on Sky News in Brisbane at the same time as an NRL game – and in front of a Galaxy-selected audience – might have seemed like a stroke of PR lunacy.

But those Canberra-based commentators who scoffed at the terrible time and station for a debate clearly overlooked the fact Sky News is broadcast on WIN’s free-to-air network for regional Australia.

Morrison and Shorten were clearly tuned into 2018 Digital News Report Australia, which found that TV remains the main source of news for 36% of Australian news consumers – and it’s more popular in regional areas than metropolitan ones.

Read more: Morrison and Shorten take aim at one another in leaders’ debate: experts respond

Mark Rolfe, Honorary Associate in Social Sciences, UNSW

For those who like sporting metaphors, this rumble in the jungle – well, a debate in Brisbane – showed that neither party leader is Muhammad Ali or George Foreman.

However, the “people’s forum” format made for a more free-flowing discussion that partially mitigated the leaders’ desire to control it and deliver prepared moves. Sure, they often returned to pet themes and slogans where they could. As such, we were presented with warnings of the danger of change and the failure to change, and both fought for the last word.

But both Scott Morrison and Bill Shorten were determined to emphasise civility and bipartisanship where they could. They wanted to appease the anti-politics sentiment and disillusion that abounds in Australia now, but also present differences in a palatable way to voters. Just like on Monday, Shorten got the better on these points with his queries to questioners and attempts to connect with their backgrounds.

They also had to demonstrate their spontaneity and knowledge when answering audience questions on important issues not usually highlighted in debates, such as domestic violence, sexual assault, mental health and veterans. In the process, the need to be flexible showed the personalities of both men, an important measure when there is still so much public suspicion of politicians.

With that, Shorten was more humorous, as demonstrated by his quip about Morrison being “a classic space invader” when he got too close.

And Shorten was prepared to directly demonstrate respectful disagreement with interrogators rather than avoid their questions, such as on the issue of freedom of religious expression. In this way, he aimed to present himself as not the usual politician but a man of substance.

Both leaders supplied substance with data and details of policies on issues such as profit-shifting, transfer pricing and taxing. Yet, both men were defensive on the vulnerabilities we’d expect: Morrison on climate and the Ruddock report on religious freedom; Shorten on franking credits and taxing multinationals.

Fortunately, they could avoid discussing the Labor and Liberals candidates who had walked the plank this week over imbecilic social media posts. But that is typical of a campaign so far absent the culture war battles of the past, although they still rumble below decks amongst some media.

– ref. Up close and personal: Morrison and Shorten get punchy in the second leaders’ debate. Our experts respond. – http://theconversation.com/up-close-and-personal-morrison-and-shorten-get-punchy-in-the-second-leaders-debate-our-experts-respond-116521

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

University of Canberra Deputy Vice-Chancellor Leigh Sullivan joins Michelle Grattan to talk about the week in politics. They discuss the first leaders debate on Monday held in Western Australia, the loss of candidates from multiple parties over offensive social media posts, questions around the cost of Labor’s climate change policy and the big number of votes cast in the first week of pre-polling.

– ref. VIDEO: Michelle Grattan on candidate troubles – and pre-polling – http://theconversation.com/video-michelle-grattan-on-candidate-troubles-and-pre-polling-116530

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Paul Scott, Lecturer, School of Creative Industries, Faculty of Education and Arts, University of Newcastle

The Newcastle Herald has won eight Walkley awards for journalistic excellence over the past seven years. This includes a Gold Walkley for the groundbreaking reportage that led to Australia’s royal commission into institutional responses to child sex abuse. It has told stories of national and international importance.

But this local newspaper, serving the NSW regional city of Newcastle and the surrounding Hunter region, is not profitable enough for Nine Entertainment Co, which acquired it in the takeover of Fairfax Media last year.

Read more: Media Files: What does the Nine Fairfax merger mean for diversity and quality journalism?

Nine has offloaded it and the rest of Fairfax’s Australian Community Media (ACM) division, comprising about 160 regional news titles, 130 community-based news websites and 650 editorial staff.

But this is the best news the staff of the Newcastle Herald have had for a long time. There’s a cautious optimism among both staff and readers that the newspaper (which began as the Newcastle Chronicle and Hunter River District News in 1858) could undergo – like the city itself – revitalisation.

Cautious optimism

The new owner is a consortium of former Fairfax real estate supremo Antony Catalano and the Thorney Investment Group, a company that “concentrates on producing absolute returns for shareholders over the medium to long term”.

Catalano has said he plans to “grow the business, not shrink it to greatness”. He has assured Herald staff that he is about “hiring, not firing”. That’s comforting following cutbacks and two brutal rounds of redundancies in the past seven years.

Yet these inspiring assurances may prove hard to keep.

Newspapers – and journalism more generally – still face structural headwinds. Neither platform prophets nor philanthropists have found a dead-cert solution to the dried-up rivers of gold once richly fed by classified and display advertising streams.

Read more: How the decision to paywall NZ’s largest newspaper will affect other media

The ACM division is still profitable, but its revenue in the first half of the 2019 financial year was down 8% on the previous year (A$194.1 million, against A$212.1 million), with advertising revenue down 13% (to A$121.2 million).

So optimism about the benevolence of the Herald’s new owner must be cautious indeed.

Benefiting the community

But optimistic we must be. Research provides empirical evidence to support just how important a local newspaper is to a local community.

According to a US study published in the Columbia Journalism Review in 2018, local government becomes more wasteful without a local newspaper.

The researchers compared local government costs in counties where a newspaper had closed with demographically comparable counties still with a newspaper. It’s evidence media scrutiny is essential to governments being kept accountable.

Local media coverage is also associated with better informed voters and higher voter turnouts, the study’s authors suggest.

Good local journalism sees, knows and cares about the local community. It reflects that community’s history, present and where its future might lie.

Setting the agenda

This is certainly the case with the Newcastle Herald.

Newcastle is the nation’s second-biggest non-capital city, with a population of about 325,000; the population of the Greater Hunter Region is about 625,000. The Newcastle Herald is the only newspaper serving the region six days a week.

As such the newspaper plays a significant role in setting the news agenda for other local media.

Journalists and production staff at remaining commercial news outlets in Newcastle all operate – in the words of one senior newsroom contact – on the smell of an oily rag. Repeated savage cuts and increased networking have played their part in reducing commercial radio bulletins to rip-and-reads of the day’s Herald. Even the ABC has decreased the number of local radio bulletins it provides.

The Newcastle Herald clearly influences the city’s only local commercial television news bulletin (from NBN Television, owned by Nine Entertainment).

Local, original stories

The Herald has maintained its relevance largely because of the local, original stories it has pursued. It has done this despite its own newsroom being slashed, with a third of the journalists it had seven years ago.

Its much admired reporting on child sexual abuse (the Catholic diocese of Newcastle-Maitland diocese was a hotspot of crimes and cover-ups) is just one example.

Read more: Review: Spotlight’s revealing story of child abuse in my home town – and maybe yours

The paper has also led the way with coverage of the medical traumas of local women that propelled a Senate inquiry into pelvic mesh devices in 2017.

It also exposed the story of Cabbage Tree Road, a cluster of 50 cancer cases near a drain carrying toxic chemicals from the Williamtown RAAF base. The Herald’s reporting came from journalists knocking on the door of every home on the road. (The NSW Health Department has dismissed there being a link.)

Investigative journalism is expensive to produce. No other local commercial outlet in the area has the resources to do public-interest and accountability journalism. They all rely on the Newcastle Herald to set the agenda.

For the good of the Newcastle and dozens of other local regional and rural communities, we can only hope the Herald’s new owner can do better than its last.

– ref. What a local newspaper means to a regional city like Newcastle – http://theconversation.com/what-a-local-newspaper-means-to-a-regional-city-like-newcastle-116276

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tara Murphy, Professor and ARC Future Fellow, University of Sydney

The hunt for gravitational waves is back on with the announcement overnight of the detection of signals from what’s thought to be the merger of two neutron stars, the incredibly dense remains of a collapsed star.

The signals were actually picked up on Thursday April 25 – ANZAC Day here in Australia – from a binary merger named S190425z), only the second ever neutron star merger to be observed.

The twin detectors of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) – in Washington and Louisiana in the United States -— along with Virgo, located at the European Gravitational Observatory (EGO) in Italy, only resumed their operations on April 1 after a year and a half of upgrades. The latest result shows hunt is back with a bang.

Read more: Signals from a spectacular neutron star merger that made gravitational waves are slowly fading away

This is the third observing run (named O3) and soon after the merger signal was detected, astronomers around the world started searching for a host galaxy, but this time there was an extra challenge.

Where is the signal coming from?

When LIGO detects gravitational waves – the ripples in space-time predicted by Albert Einstein – we can work out some information quite accurately, such as the mass of merging neutron stars.

The images (below) of all the signals detected in the first and second observing runs of the detectors (named O1 and O2) show how each signal is unique. These differences allow us to work out the masses and distances to the objects.

But one thing that is harder to work out is where the signal is coming from?

We do this by triangulating the signal received at the three detectors (the two LIGO detectors in the US and the Virgo detector in Italy).

For the first detection of merging binary neutron stars, GW170817, we got lucky. We were able to narrow down the signal to a region of 28 square degrees on the sky (about 140 times the area of the full Moon).

But S190425z was only detected in a single LIGO detector and Virgo, and hence the localisation region was 10,000 square degrees. That’s about a quarter of the entire sky.

The neutron star merger is also estimated to have happened about 500 million light-years away from Earth.

Needle in a haystack

Astronomers around the world, including Australian teams, have been using telescopes from the outback of Western Australia to The Canary Islands in the Atlantic Ocean, to search for possible counterparts: galaxies that could be hosting the neutron star merger.

To do this we had to work out which of the 45,000 possible galaxies in the region would be the most likely hosts.

No confirmed matches have been found, so far, but on the way, we’ve found lots of other interesting events such as new supernovae – the explosions that occur when massive stars die.

This effort is an integral part of the Australian gravitational-wave hunting team at OzGrav. OzGrav supports more than 100 scientists and engineers who are making critical contributions to improving LIGO instrumentation, data analysis software, and interpretation of the results.

How far can LIGO see now?

The recent upgrades of LIGO and Virgo mean astronomers can now detect gravitational waves from binary neutron star mergers further than ever before, up to 500 million light years away.

Any signals we detect from these distant mergers would have left their host galaxy around the time the first fish evolved on Earth (two hundred million years before dinosaurs came along).

Every second counts when astronomers are trying to use gravitational wave triggers to capture the last moments as neutron stars collide.

The team at the University of Western Australia node of OzGrav has developed a real-time search program (called “SPIIR”) to trigger gravitational waves from the LIGO-Virgo data within ten seconds.

The team has already identified four gravitational-wave candidates, and in the future it may even be possible to eventually alert astronomers before the emission of any light from a merger.

Beating the noise

An important part of the LIGO O3 upgrade was the installation of instruments called “quantum squeezers”, designed by OzGrav scientists at the Australian National University.

One of the most significant engineering challenges in building LIGO is reducing noise that can drown out the miniscule gravitational-wave signals. This noise comes from many different sources, such as seismic noise from earthquakes, ocean waves and even vehicle traffic.

Another source of noise is quantum noise, due to the discrete nature of light. The squeezers dampen this quantum noise by changing the quantum properties of the light used by LIGO to detect ripples in the fabric of spacetime.

Another event detected

With the third observing run now well underway, we’re already seeing the results of these improvements to LIGO instrumentation and software.

Read more: How we found a white dwarf – a stellar corpse – by accident

In addition to the technical improvements there’s another marked contrast with previous observing runs: all detections are being released to the astronomy community, and the wider public, straight away.

In the midst of the excitement about S190425z there was another gravitational-wave alert a day later – a candidate signal with properties that suggest it could be a merger of a neutron star and a black hole.

This was picked up by all three detectors but as yet we also have no host identified for this, so we are not yet sure of the nature of this event. But it’s another hint of the exciting results yet to come.

– ref. We’ve detected new gravitational waves, we just don’t know where they come from (yet) – http://theconversation.com/weve-detected-new-gravitational-waves-we-just-dont-know-where-they-come-from-yet-116267

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gwenda Tavan, Associate Professor, Politics and International Relations, La Trobe University

With taxes and health care emerging as key issues in the upcoming federal election, we’re running a series this week looking at the main issues that swung elections in the past, from agricultural workers’ wages to the Vietnam War. Read other stories in the series here.

The 2001 Australian federal election was a remarkable contest. Widely expected to see the Howard coalition government lose office after two lacklustre terms, the Tampa refugee crisis and the September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States allowed the government to turn its political fortunes around.

Winning a presumed unwinnable election on the back of a strong national security agenda gave Howard’s team renewed impetus and assured its place in history. It fundamentally reshaped Australia’s political culture.

Read more: Leaders try to dodge them. Voters aren’t watching. So, are debates still relevant?

The Howard government had rocky start to 2001. It had won the 1998 GST election, but failed to gain a majority of the popular vote. Resentment over the GST remained strong. Ultraconservative voters were turning to Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Party, and Newspoll surveys showed the Coalition’s approval ratings trailing Labor’s (39 to 45).

Conservative governments fell in Western Australia and the Northern Territory, and voter support for the coalition parties collapsed in the Queensland state election. The loss of the once safe seat of Ryan, and the leaking of a report by the Liberal Party president stating that the Coalition was mean, tricky and out of touch, added fuel to the fire. Most political analysts agreed that the government was doomed.

The Tampa crisis

Howard tried to stem the flow, and victory in a byelection in the Victorian seat of Aston in July suggested some progress. But, the real circuit-breaker came in August, with the Tampa crisis. Those dramatic events saw the arrival of a Norwegian tanker in Australian waters – and the refusal of the Howard government to accept the passengers seeking asylum – give birth to the infamous “Pacific Solution”.

What followed was a highly politicised and militarised response to the “problem” of unauthorised maritime arrivals. This included the excising of islands from Australia’s migration zone in order to prevent asylum-seekers making visa applications, the legalisation of offshore processing, the removal of boats from Australian territorial waters by the navy, and the co-opting of Pacific nations like Nauru and Papua New Guinea into offshore detention management programs.

Some commentators have interpreted Howard’s Tampa battle as pure political opportunism. But, this ignores the evidence that his government was already primed for a fight on border control. After low levels of boat arrivals for most of the 1990s, they rose to 3,721 in 1999, declined slightly in 2000 then rose significantly again in 2001 to 5,516.

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

Concern for the irregular boat arrivals began to build. This was made visible by increasingly strident public discourse and tough border control measures, like the Border Protection Legislation Amendment Act 1999 and Migration Legislation Amendment Act 1999. The treatment of asylum-seekers caught in indefinite mainland detention was a source of constant media attention and political embarrassment for the government.

Tampa was Howard’s line in the sand. It profoundly challenged his commitment as leader to the protection of national security and sovereignty. It confirmed his affinity with the mood and aspirations of the Australian people – a bond powerfully articulated in his declaration that:

We will decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come.

As a seasoned politician, Howard also recognised Tampa’s electoral potential. From the beginning, his government was willing to politicise the issue. Labor’s evident ambiguity towards the Border Protection bills – agreeing, then refusing to support the Coalition’s legislation, and finally buckling under political pressure – was seen as “wishy-washy”. Claims were made in parliament that Labor was prepared to put the interests of people smugglers and “illegal immigrants” ahead of Australians.

September 11

Within weeks of Tampa, catastrophic terrorist attacks took place in the United States. Howard, in Washington DC at the time, was deeply affected and invoked the 50-year-old ANZUS treaty in support of its ally.

By October, when the election was called, the public mood had changed. Polls showed the Coalition’s approval ratings now at 50%, compared to Labor’s 35%. Howard’s personal rating was at a five-year high of 61%.

Incumbents enjoy advantages in campaigns. Nevertheless, the Howard government’s political mastery was evident in its ability to reframe the election as a referendum on national security. It created a link between the twin “threats” of terrorism and asylum-seekers in the public’s mind, and asserted its superior national security credentials.

The ALP campaigned well on some issues, but failed to provide a convincing counter-narrative to Howard’s agenda. Howard repeatedly pointed to Opposition Leader Kim Beazley’s ambivalence over the Pacific Solution as proof that he lacked the “ticker” to be prime minister.

Evidence that the government manipulated the facts surrounding the scandalous “children overboard” affair did not curb the popular view that dangerous times demanded strong leadership. In the end, the government was re-elected on November 10 with a swing of almost 2%, though barely any seats changed hands.

National security still on the agenda

The 2001 election changed Australia. It sealed Howard’s reputation as a strong leader, and gave him six more years in office. Success legitimated his hawkish outlook, and set the policy agenda for almost two decades. Australian troops, already committed to the conflict in Afghanistan as part of the US-led War on Terror, became ensnared in the illegal Iraq war.

Stringent anti-terrorism laws enhanced executive power, undermined civil liberties and alienated Muslim-Australians. Refugees, terrorism and national security remained major issues for both parties, but Labor struggled to establish its own agenda. Legislation to prevent irregular boat arrivals hardened into one of the harshest asylum-seeker regimes in the world, polarising public opinion.

Have the dynamics of that political contest dissipated?

In the current campaign, healthcare, climate change and economics have dominated, but the lure of “national security” for electoral advantage is still difficult to resist.

Read more: State of the states: more preference deals as pre-polling begins

Many of the policy and political priorities established in 2001 remain intact. Both major parties are committed to offshore processing, mandatory detention and push-backs as deterrent mechanisms for asylum seekers. The fact that 915 refugees and asylum-seekers are still languishing on Nauru and Manus Island, confirm that politics, not pragmatism or human rights, still shapes Australian asylum-seeker policy.

The fight against terrorism continues. Extreme right-wing political movements are growing, emboldened by the the politics of hate unleashed in 2001. It is almost 20 years since Tampa and 9/11, but those events continue to cast their shadow over the Australian political landscape.

– ref. Issues that swung elections: Tampa and the national security election of 2001 – http://theconversation.com/issues-that-swung-elections-tampa-and-the-national-security-election-of-2001-115143

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christa Lam-Cassettari, Interim Leader MARCS Institute BabyLab, Western Sydney University

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

How do babies learn to talk? – Ella, age 9, Melbourne.

What a great question, Ella!

Babies are born ready to learn and although they don’t “talk” in the first weeks of life, they know how to communicate what they are feeling. They do this by crying. And it is something they do a lot before they produce words.

Babies begin to learn the rules of language as soon as the little bones inside their ears and connections to their brain have grown. They can hear the rhythm and melody of their mother’s voice for three months before they are born and this changes the way their brain develops.

The experience that babies get from eavesdropping on their mother’s conversations in utero helps their brain tune into the language that they will learn to speak once they are born.

Read more: Curious Kids: Can chimpanzees turn into people?

Infant-directed speech

Have you ever heard someone talking to a baby with a funny voice that sounds almost like they are singing? People often use a higher pitch, speak slower and repeat what they say when they talk to babies.

Research from baby labs all over the world shows that adults help babies work out the sounds of language by using this special style of speech. Researchers call it infant-directed speech.

Scientists have developed different methods to test what babies like to listen to. We know that in the first year of life, babies turn their heads towards a speaker using infant-directed speech. Or they may suck on a dummy that will play recordings of someone who is using infant-directed speech instead of the flatter style of speech adults use to talk to each other.

This shows that babies prefer infant-directed speech to adult-directed speech.

Using a sing song voice helps babies tell the difference between words like “mummy” or “daddy” because:

1) the higher pitch draws the baby’s attention to speech

2) speech sounds like “ma” and “da” are exaggerated, simplified or repeated. That gives babies a better chance at hearing the difference between them.

3) the affectionate tone of voice encourages infants to play with caregivers who draw attention to different words by speaking more loudly or slowing down their speech.

Learning a language

When babies listen to lots of speech, the connections in their brains are more sensitive to speech that is spoken in the environment around them.

So a baby who hears lots of Cantonese or Mandarin, for example, will learn that the difference in the tone of the speaker’s voice is important and can change the meaning of a word.

A baby learning English, on the other hand, will learn that the tone of a speaker’s voice does not necessarily have the same effect on meaning.

Did you know?

Parents who respond to their baby’s happy babbling sounds by imitating them or talking about the sounds they were making might be onto a good idea. Researchers found that this was linked to the baby making more complex sounds and developing language skills sooner.

Infants can understand many words before they can say them. By nine months of age, babies can usually understand words like “bye-bye” and wave when somebody says it.

As infants get older, they babble more and their babble begins to sounds more like words than non-speech sounds.

By the time babies reach their first birthday, most infants have started to produce their first words. At one year of age, babies can usually understand as many as 50 words, and can say one or two words like “mama” or “dada”.

The story of how babies learn to talk is a fascinating one, Ella. It is amazing to think that you and I, and even your own parents were once little babies learning how to use language to communicate.

Read more: Curious Kids: Why do birds sing?

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

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

– ref. Curious Kids: how do babies learn to talk? – http://theconversation.com/curious-kids-how-do-babies-learn-to-talk-111613

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

In a continuation of a recent trend, there are no politicians in this year’s Archibald Prize. The last time a portrait of a politician was awarded the prize was in 1992, when Bryan Westwood’s portrayal of Paul Keating’s Zegna suit, as worn by the then Prime Minister, was given the gong.

The closest we get to actual political figures is with studies of journalists and political commentators, including a strange little portrait of Leigh Sales, and Jordan Richardson’s portrait of Annabel Crabb, looking like a particularly severe Greek goddess.

Keith Burt’s portrait of journalist Benjamin Law manages to imply a Puckish charm, while Angus McDonald has painted lawyer Mariam Veiszadeh as Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring.

The importance of the Archibald goes beyond its status as an instant snapshot of Australian social history. Forty years ago, after the newly appointed Director Edmund Capon and New South Wales premier Neville Wran combined to reform the governance of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, this annual prize fest is the only time the Gallery’s Trustees can express their own taste in art.

In the past it was possible to work out the most likely winner from where the work was displayed, but this is no longer the case. The Trustees have selected the 51 Archibald and 29 Wynne finalists and will deliver their final judgement on May 10 – but they did not hang the exhibition. The Archibald, Wynne and Sulman prizes are hung at the direction of the curator, Anne Ryan.

This year Ryan has privileged the Sulman Prize entries, “for subject painting, genre painting or mural project” – in other words, something with figures in it. These are often the most interesting works in the exhibition but, as the prize money is less, they have in the past been shunted into the final room.

This year visitors enter the exhibition to the sight of a very interesting Ken Done, Dive 3, which hangs adjacent to Noel McKenna’s whimsical Apartment. The viewer is also confronted by Abdul Abdullah’s Everything ever all at once.

The return of the Archibald

The reconfiguring of the exhibition means that the Archibald has returned to the central exhibiting gallery. All the portraits in this room are of artists and those who enable art – this is perhaps not surprising as portraits of artists are the majority of the chosen entries.

However there is a special poignancy in John Beard’s Edmund (+ Bill), a precisely pixelated portrait of the late Edmund Capon with a Bill Henson photograph. This hangs opposite David Griggs’ frenetic Tracing the antiquity of Jewish alchemy with Alexie Glass-Kantor. Here, the Mona Lisa-like tranquility of the woman best described as the powerhouse of contemporary curatorship, is overladen with the chaotic elements that turn angst into exhibitions. It is a face-off of two generations of cultural leadership.

Vincent Namatjira’s appropriately named Art is our weapon – portrait of Tony Albert is surprisingly quiet in comparison with his previous entry. Albert is a master of cloaking intense political engagement with an unassuming persona, and Namatjira captures that well.

I really admire Blak Douglas’s White shells, black heart, a large portrait face of Eora artist Esme Timbery. There are real shells embedded into the background behind that study of a wise old woman.

Blak Douglas is also hung in the Wynne Prize – in collaboration with the late Elaine Russell, Ashes, damper and kangaroo stew for dinner. Douglas was given permission to complete the work after her death, which means the resulting work is an interesting cross-generation, cross-cultural synthesis.

This year’s Wynne has some truly eccentric entries, including Glen Clarke’s Australian warhead with rising tide of human rights abuses, a sculpture consisting of origami shirts made of bank notes.

There is also Noŋgirrŋa Marawili’s exquisite Pink Lightning, a bark painting that evokes the lightning over the sea. Its intense magenta tone comes from discarded printer cartridges, a creative form of recycling. It hangs in the same room as Jun Chen’s painterly Magnolia Trees. Both beautiful evocations of place, painted in completely different styles.

Most visitors to the exhibitions will, however, concentrate their gaze on the Archibald entries. They will compare media images of artistic director of Queensland Ballet Li Cunxin, playwright Nakkiah Lui, and actors Madeleine Madden and Sarah Peirse, among others, with the artist’s interpretations.

One of these, Tessa MacKay’s portrait of David Wenham, has already been awarded the Packing Room Prize, an award that reflects the taste of Brett Cuthbertson, the man in charge of those who handle the art (and artists).

Every artist whose work has been hung is already a winner. They are the small minority of 107, selected from a field of 2176 entries. The public exposure they receive from having their work on view both at the gallery – and the subsequent national tour – inevitably leads to invitations to exhibit and commissions from private collectors.

As well as being invited to the official announcement and opening party, there are a number of discreet social events organised by the gallery. Here they have the opportunity to get to know each other, and potential future patrons. This extra level of support encourages a community of artists, something to be valued in an otherwise competitive contest.

The winners of the Archibald, Wynne, Sulman Prizes 2019 will be announced on May 10. Finalists will be exhibited at the Art Gallery of New South Wales from May 11 to September 8.

– ref. Puckish charm and no politicians: the 2019 Archibald Prize – http://theconversation.com/puckish-charm-and-no-politicians-the-2019-archibald-prize-116346

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dr Angela Pattison, Research scientist at Plant Breeding Institute, University of Sydney, University of Sydney

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

The species Solanum centrale, also known as kutjera in several Aboriginal languages, or the desert raisin in English, stands out in Australia’s wild bush tomato family in more ways than one.

A typical desert raisin plant in the wild looks fairly unimpressive from the surface, and certainly a lot less striking than the photos which pop up in an internet search.

In fact, if you don’t know what you are looking for, you may miss them. They are fairly scrawny with greeny-grey hairy leaves and grow no taller than to the bottom of your shin.

You might only spot a shoot every few metres between other shrubs. Each shoot only has a handful of leaves, and it typically carries three to 10 sultana-sized fruit. Like sultanas, they’re unappealingly brown and shrivelled. And you’ll only see them if they have escaped hungry desert fauna.

But its humble appearance belies its significance to both people and the environment.

The fruit from this plant has been a staple in desert communities for thousands of years. It resembles a raisin but tastes like a piquant or smoky sun-dried tomato, and because it dries on the plant it has a long storage life relative to other fruit.

Read more: Can we be Australian without eating indigenous food?

Its cultural significance and ability to grow in sandy arid areas where almost no other domesticated plants survive makes this species a prime target for an enterprise based in remote Aboriginal communities, producing a unique fruit with plenty of health benefits to consumers.

What makes the desert raisin unique?

Iceberg-like growth

Like an iceberg which is much bigger under the surface than appears from above, the desert raisin plant is much bigger under the surface of the ground than it appears. A single plant in the wild can span dozens of metres through hardy underground connections. The largest confirmed single plant was about one quarter of a hectare – but who knows how big these plants can really grow?

It expands in multiple directions from the seed plant over successive rains via roots which grow roughly parallel to the surface, producing new shoots as it expands.

Root sprouting allows a plant to grow a new shoot many metres away from the previous shoot while avoiding a vulnerable seedling stage. This feature is common among many unrelated desert plant families.

For example, a single Populus euphratica tree in the hyper-arid Taklamakan Desert of China was found to produce clonal shoots over an area of 121ha.

Unabated resilience

Desert raisins are known to grow vigorously following a disturbance, either natural or man-made. It is quite common, for instance, when driving through Australia’s arid interior to find piles of sand beside freshly graded roads covered in bush tomato shoots after rain.

Read more: The black wattle is a boon for Australians (and a pest everywhere else)

This is because a grader, a tool that smooths the surface of a road, cuts dormant roots and throws them, mixed with sand, onto the side of the road. The roots are ready to re-sprout as soon as they get wet.

And its not only chopping roots that appears to stimulate growth – targeted fires, fruit collection by Indigenous groups and grazing by desert marsupials have all been known to increase the vigour of patches of wild bush tomatoes over the long term.

The traditional custodians of this country knew how to manage this species for sustainable production, and people from Aboriginal nations which span the large range of edible bush tomato species have passed this knowledge down for centuries.

Cultivation

Do the unique root properties of the desert raisin remind you of a weed?

Well, yes.

Other root sprouters in the Solanum family from temperate areas are vigourous weeds in cropping regions around the world.

Colonies are very difficult to eradicate as the viability of roots is not affected by cultivation and most herbicides. In fact, cultivation stimulates sprouting from root fragments.

So how does this influence the way this species can be used as a food crop?

Read more: Warrigal greens are tasty, salty, and covered in tiny balloon-like hairs

There are currently several cultivated stands in regional and remote Australia, and the benefits of growing the species are becoming clearer, particularly for Aboriginal communities.

With water and nutrition in their natural habitats, bush tomatoes can become incredibly productive. When cultivated, the plants are large and thick, sometimes as high as the knee, with dozens of flowers per plant. But over the seasons they respond less to water and fertiliser.

It is at this point that perhaps a disturbance can be used to stimulate production from underground lateral roots – although if they pop up in the space between beds, it can create havoc for other operations!

It is no wonder that a plant, which normally hides its massive size so it can persist in harsh conditions, becomes a showy, vigorous plant when given the same kind of treatment as horticultural plants.

Read more: Why Aboriginal people need autonomy over their food supply

One final note. Much of the knowledge on how bush tomato and other food plants native to this country work is held by the traditional custodians of the species, the Aboriginal people.

We must all learn from Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander people, listen, and work together so the amazing fruits of this land return to their place in human diets and landscapes, including the mighty desert raisin.

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

– ref. The tasty, weed-like desert raisin plant is as big as a carpark – http://theconversation.com/the-tasty-weed-like-desert-raisin-plant-is-as-big-as-a-carpark-115121

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Shirleene Robinson, Associate Professor and Vice Chancellor’s Innovation Fellow, Macquarie University

With taxes, health care and climate change emerging as key issues in the upcoming federal election, we’re running a series this week looking at the main issues that swung elections in the past, from agricultural workers’ wages to the Vietnam War. Read other stories in the series here.

Johannes (Joh) Bjelke-Petersen’s reign as Queensland’s premier began in 1968 and came to a dramatic and inglorious end 19 years later with the Fitzgerald Inquiry into police corruption. He is still Queensland’s longest-serving premier, but he leaves a complicated legacy. For many, he is remembered most for his rigid control of over all areas of government and his anti-democratic stance on public protests.

Bjelke-Petersen governed the state as leader of the Country Party (which later became the National Party) until his downfall in 1987.

In May that year, the ABC television programme Four Corners aired the first public allegations of organised crime and police corruption in Queensland. Bjelke-Petersen would hang on to office for only a few more months before being forced to step down.

The Fitzgerald Inquiry, launched in the aftermath of the Four Corners programme, continued for another two years, uncovering a deep and systematic web of corruption that implicated many at the highest levels of Queensland government and the Queensland Police Force.

Read more: The man who would be commissioner: Bjelke-Petersen’s crooked pick

For Bjelke-Petersen, not only was his career as a state premier over, but so, too, were his national ambitions. In early 1987, Bjelke-Petersen had launched an ill-fated “Joh for PM” campaign in a brazen attempt to challenge then-Liberal Party leader John Howard as head of the Coalition, then run against Prime Minister Bob Hawke in that year’s federal election.

His bid for power split the federal Coalition. Capitalising on the internal dissent of the Opposition, Hawke easily won the 1987 election, holding onto the prime-ministership for another four years.

An ill-fated run for federal office

Hawke’s win in the 1987 election had been far from inevitable. The Coalition had actually been ahead in the polls for much of Hawke’s 1984-1987 term. However, internal divisions, typified by the rivalry between Howard and Andrew Peacock over the Liberal leadership, put pressure on the party. Tensions were further stoked when Bjelke-Petersen announced his intention to enter the federal arena.

In January 1987, when Bjelke-Petersen announced that he intended to run for parliament, he assumed that his success in Queensland could be duplicated at the federal level. Fresh from a win in the state election the previous year, he and his backers did not acknowledge the distinctive set of circumstances in Queensland that had given rise to his long time in office.

His bid for PM did make a brief splash in the national media, drawing further attention to the deep ideological rifts within the federal Coalition. Howard, leader of the Liberals, and Ian Sinclair, leader of the Nationals, struggled to contain the division caused by Bjelke-Petersen’s ambitions. The discord reached a breaking point at the end of February 1987, when the Queensland National Party decided to withdraw its 12 federal MPs from the Coalition in support of Bjelke-Petersen’s efforts. The Coalition formally split soon after.

Hawke seized on the Coalition’s infighting and quickly called an election on May 27. Bjelke-Petersen was not even in the country at the time, having gone to the United States. Outplayed and dealing with increased coverage of corruption and dissent in Queensland, Bjelke-Petersen swiftly abandoned his plan to run for prime minister.

Read more: The larrikin as leader: how Bob Hawke came to be one of the best (and luckiest) prime ministers

By the end of the year, Howard’s Coalition was fatally divided. Labor was returned to government and increased its majority in the House with 86 seats to 43 for the Liberals and 19 for the National Party.

The win allowed Hawke to take his place in history as the party’s longest-serving prime minister.

A tarnished legacy in Queensland

The failings of the Bjelke-Petersen government in Queensland extended far beyond the arrogance that saw him attempt an ill-conceived move into federal politics.

Under his leadership, Queensland was not democratic. His government exploited the state’s electoral gerrymander, which over-represented rural electorates at the expense of urban ones. The state’s unicameral parliament meant the checks and balances a second house would have provided were absent.

Bjelke-Petersen also relied on a police force rife with corruption to prop up his government. Dissenters faced brutalisation at the hands of police when they took to the streets. A repressive set of laws that banned protests meant taking to the streets could result in time in prison. For too long, the media were silent about the corruption taking place in the state.

Read more: Jacks and Jokers: Bjelke-Petersen and Queensland’s ‘police state’

Journalist Evan Whitton called Bjelke-Petersen “the hillbilly dictator” in reference to his carefully cultivated parochial style of leadership. Yet, Bjelke-Petersen was guided by a shrewd political awareness. He styled himself as a defender of a unique Queensland sensibility and scorned the more progressive southern states. He was not opposed to using fear and prejudice for electoral gain.

His treatment of LGBTIQ issues provides one strong example. During the 1980s, the Bjelke-Petersen government made efforts to prevent gay and lesbian teachers from being employed and gay students from forming support groups. When the AIDS epidemic reached Australia, his government demonised LGBTIQ individuals. As most other Australian states decriminalised sex acts between men, Bjelke-Petersen’s government attempted to introduce anti-gay licensing laws and criminalise lesbianism. In 1986, the Sturgess Inquiry into Sexual Offences Involving Children and Related Matters was used by the government to further ostracise gays and lesbians and turn the public against them.

The Bjelke-Petersen era provides a cautionary tale. It is difficult to imagine any other premier maintaining his or her position for this long again. His ill-fated bid for federal politics also reveals the impact that egomaniacal and divisive figures can have on political parties.

Bjelke-Petersen may not have been the only factor behind Hawke’s 1987 win, but his intervention certainly did Howard no favours – and deepened a rift in the Coalition that took years to mend.

– ref. Issues that swung elections: the dramatic and inglorious fall of Joh Bjelke-Petersen – http://theconversation.com/issues-that-swung-elections-the-dramatic-and-inglorious-fall-of-joh-bjelke-petersen-115141

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Samuel Berhanu Woldemariam, PhD Candidate (Law), University of Newcastle

In the case of Julian Assange, focus has turned to the United States’ efforts to extradite him from Britain to the US to face a charge of conspiracy “to commit computer intrusion”.

The initial extradition hearing, which took place on Thursday, was a preliminary step in what will be a long, drawn-out process. Assange appeared before the court by video link and made it clear he opposes extradition. The next procedural hearing is set for May 30.

Assange had been arrested by London Metropolitan police on April 11, and removed from the Ecuadorian embassy. He had been granted asylum by the embassy seven years earlier, after fleeing arrest out of fear he would be extradited to the United States.

Earlier this week, Assange was convicted of breaking the conditions of his bail in 2012, and sentenced to 50 weeks imprisonment.

Read more: Is the Assange indictment a threat to the First Amendment?

What happens next?

The actual extradition hearing will be some time off, following these preliminary hearings. After an initial decision by a judge, either side may have access to an appeal procedure through the courts.

Regardless of that outcome, the final step rests with Home Secretary Sajid Javid. Despite pressure from UK lawmakers, Javid cannot make a political decision on whether to extradite Assange – rather, his role is to approve a court order for extradition unless there are statutory provisions that prohibit it.

His decision to extradite Assange might also be subject to High Court appeal.

What is extradition?

Extradition is a legal process that states use to facilitate the transfer of a person from one jurisdiction to another in order for that person to be prosecuted for a crime. Many extradition arrangements between states rely on bi- and multilateral extradition and mutual assistance treaties.

The US and UK signed an extradition treaty in 2003. Under this treaty, both countries agreed to extradite people sought for trial or punishment for extraditable offences. An offence is extraditable where the conduct is punishable under the laws of both countries

by deprivation of liberty for a period of one year or more.

The offence for which Assange is wanted in the US is punishable by up to five years’ imprisonment. It is grounded in an allegation that Assange engaged in a conspiracy with Chelsea Manning to hack US Department of Defence files, and publish classified information on Wikileaks.

Assange maintains his innocence, and his defenders argue that his extradition would set a dangerous precedent for journalism and the publication of truthful information – particularly as it may affect the US.

It is important to note the parallel, but now lapsed extradition claim from Sweden, which had earlier sought Assange for a preliminary investigation and possible prosecution for rape charges. Assange had claimed an extradition to Sweden to face those charges would result in another extradition from there to the US. Having lost his protection under Ecuador, Assange now faces exactly that prospect.

Read more: Julian Assange Q+A: WikiLeaks founder arrested in London

Constraints on extradition

Extradition is a heavily regulated and multi-stage process. Rules and procedures within and beyond the 2003 Extradition Treaty potentially protect Assange from extradition to the US, or at least constrain its conditions.

Political offences

The 2003 extradition treaty between the UK and the US explicitly provides:

Extradition shall not be granted if the offence for which extradition is requested is a political offense.

It is common for countries to retain a power to refuse extradition where it is sought in relation to political offences. Such an exemption can protect whistleblowers and others who legitimately challenge the exercise of governmental power.

Pure political offences are those that directly target the government, such as treason, sedition or espionage. Relative political offences are ordinary offences that are “committed for political motives or in a political context”.

The UK does not have a statutory or generally accepted judicial definition of a relative political offence. However, the Anglo-American system uses the “incidence-test” according to which

the act must be incidental to and forming a part of political disturbances.

The “requested state” may also refuse extradition if it determines that the request was politically motivated.

Assange’s lawyers are expected to make this a chief argument against extradition. Such an argument could not succeed on the basis that conspiracy to commit computer intrusion is a pure political offence under UK legislation, because it is not.

However, the UK courts or authorities may regard the charge Assange faces as a relative political offence. Alternatively, they may be convinced by Assange’s argument that his work with WikiLeaks is purely journalistic and the US charge politically motivated.

Read more: Explainer: what charges does Julian Assange face, and what’s likely to happen next?

The ‘Rule of Speciality’

The “Rule of Speciality” under the extradition treaty offers Assange protection against new charges. According to this rule, an extradited person may only be charged for the offence for which the extradition is granted, or for crimes committed thereafter. However, the requested state may waive the rule of speciality in which case Assange may end up facing more charges than originally specified.

This rule is important for both Assange and the UK authorities. The UK is entirely opposed to the imposition of the death penalty in any circumstances. The UK would be bound to refuse to extradite Assange to the US were he to face charges that carried a possible death penalty.

There will be pressure on the UK authorities to respect the rule of speciality, in which case Assange would face a maximum of five years imprisonment should he be extradited to the US.

Time and appeal procedures

Final decisions on extradition requests take considerable time. For example, the extradition of Abu Hamza from the UK to the US took eight years. Progress of the extradition request is likely to be slow through the UK courts and bureaucracy. It will be further delayed by any appeal procedures Assange seeks to utilise, whether through the UK courts or the European human rights system.

It is impossible to say, for now, what awaits Assange. At the very least, following the completion of his current prison sentence, there will be renewed uncertainty about his liberty. Controversy, of course, will persist over whether Assange deserves protection against political prosecution, if he may actually have nefarious links to Russia, or indeed whether the most just course would be for the Swedish charges to be revived first.

– ref. Julian Assange has refused to surrender himself for extradition to the US. What now? – http://theconversation.com/julian-assange-has-refused-to-surrender-himself-for-extradition-to-the-us-what-now-116173

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrea Carson, Associate Professor at La Trobe University. Department of Politics, Media and Philosophy, La Trobe University

This federal election is a tale of two campaigns. The first is the old-style, business-as-usual campaign: party leaders criss-crossing the country attending set events to garner as many headlines and votes as they can.

The other is a campaign dynamic where the old rules no longer apply. With more ways for candidates to connect with voters, mainstream media are less influential than they were in the last century. Changing electoral dynamics have also shaped this campaign, such as the sharp rise in the number of early voters, the growing appeal of minor parties and the widespread use of social media for paid and free political messaging.

It is in this re-imagined political environment that controversial businessman Clive Palmer can spend at least A$55 million on political marketing to rebrand himself as a preference deal kingmaker, despite a poor attendance record in parliament after his 2013 victory.

Debate dodging and tussles over timing

Even the great election debate tradition is caught between these old and new campaign dynamics. In one sense, nothing has changed since the first Australian televised debate between Bob Hawke and Andrew Peacock in 1984. Party officials continue to argue over the number of debates, where they will be held and under what circumstances.

These heated negotiations occur because, unlike the United States, Australia does not have an independent debate committee – Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) – to determine the rules and conduct of these verbal contests well before polling day. The Australian approach is more ad hoc, a tussle between parties and the media to work out the logistics.

In this campaign, Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Opposition Leader Bill Shorten have agreed to three debates: Monday night’s first debate in Perth, a second tonight in Brisbane and a third next Wednesday at the National Press Club.

It took some time for them to get to three. Shorten initially turned down offers by ABC and Nine for a third primetime debate, then proposed a third debate during lunch time (not prime time), prompting Morrison to accuse him of trying to dodge scrutiny:

A prime time debate would provide as many Australians as possible, including those who work during the day, the best opportunity to scrutinise the choice on offer at this election

Ordinarily, incumbents are more reserved about committing to a debate, not wanting to give their opponents a platform where they are considered as an equal contender. Remember when Hawke declined to debate then-Opposition leader John Howard in 1987?

During the 2016 campaign, Shorten was so keen to debate Malcolm Turnbull that he signed up for four debates: a traditional prime-time debate on ABC; a “people’s forum” hosted by Sky News; an experimental, live-streamed debate on Facebook Live in partnership with News Corp; and a second “people’s forum” in Brisbane, where he debated himself after Turnbull turned down an invitation to attend.

Now, Shorten is the one reluctant to agree to debates. This is because Labor is leading in the polls and Shorten is the one with a much larger following on social media (important for getting political messages out). Shorten has also been in the Opposition leader’s job for six years, while Morrison came to the prime ministership just eight months ago. Behind in the polls, and with a smaller social media footprint, the Coalition feels more like the underdog in this contest.

Yet, when voters are asked to nominate their preferred prime minister in polling, Morrison consistently tops Shorten. This is why Morrison pushed so hard for a third debate on prime time television. Here, he likely has the advantage, while Shorten arguably has the most to lose.

Read more: Morrison and Shorten take aim at one another in leaders’ debate: experts respond

Audiences are largely tuning out

This may account for why Labor agreed to Monday’s debate on the Seven network’s lesser-viewed channel, 7Two. The debate managed just over 600,000 viewers from the five main capital cities including an encore edition, though this was still well behind Lego Masters on Nine, which topped the night’s ratings with 1,053,000 viewers.

The second debate will likely draw far fewer viewers, given it’s on a Friday night when television viewership is generally down, and it will be on the Sky network behind a paywall. In 2016, the “people’s forum” broadcast by Sky News, also on a Friday night, for example, drew just 54,000 viewers.

Political debates in the US and Britain are far more popular. In fact, the first televised debate between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton during the 2016 US presidential campaign drew a record 84 million viewers.

Read more: Trump and Clinton face off in first US presidential debate: experts respond

Australians, by contrast, do not flock to watch election debates. The Australian Election Studies (AES), which has tracked televised election debate since 1990, shows a steady decline in audience interest. Just 21% of Australians reported watching a debate in 2016, down from 71% in 1993.

This is likely because Australian debates are generally staid affairs with little genuine debate. They are also sometimes held at inconvenient times when few people are likely to be interested, such as Friday nights.

Even when people do tune in, they don’t stay for long. For example, the prime time ABC debate between Turnbull and Shorten in 2016 attracted a respectable audience of 875,000. But not for long. It lost 150,000 viewers with the first three minutes. At one point, the audience plummeted to 570,000.

This suggests that the format and content of the debates are failing to keep audiences engaged, despite some recent, American-style experimentation with “town hall” settings. Voters can tell when leaders are using questions to simply repeat their campaign messages.

Compare this with overseas debate formats that provide more lively interaction. In the 2012 US presidential debate, for example, Mitt Romney and Barack Obama roamed the stage in a forum full of potential voters who asked them questions, with a moderator on the sidelines just to keep order.

Britain, which only held its first televised debate in 2010, has taken to including minor parties in its debates, with seven speakers on the stage to offer a broader range of viewpoints.

Why debates still matter

There are good, democratic reasons to insist on political debates, if the format genuinely involves voters, parties and the media in a “trialogue”.

From the parties’ perspective, they are cheaper than political advertising and can help sway undecided voters. The long-tail effect of social media and the news media means that voters who don’t watch the debates can still read and hear what happened after the event.

From the voters’ perspective, debates still play an educational role by illuminating important issues and revealing differences in parties’ positions. And from the media’s point of view, debates allow reporters to set the agenda and scrutinise issues on behalf of the public, particularly those the leaders have inadequately addressed.

So, will the leaders’ debate gain a new lease of life in this electoral contest or will it be more of the same? Anything is possible in this tale of two campaigns.

– ref. Leaders try to dodge them. Voters aren’t watching. So, are debates still relevant? – http://theconversation.com/leaders-try-to-dodge-them-voters-arent-watching-so-are-debates-still-relevant-115456

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Diesendorf, Honorary Associate Professor, UNSW

As the federal election approaches, Labor has two principal climate and energy targets: a 45% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from the 2005 level by 2030, and for half of Australia’s electricity to come from renewable sources by 2030 (up from its current share of 19%).

The renewable electricity target is easily achievable with inexpensive extensions to Labor’s existing policies, but that policy would still leave Labor far short of its emissions target.

Read more: Labor’s climate policy: a decent menu, but missing the main course

Because electricity contributes only 34% of Australia’s total emissions, more substantial policies are needed to reduce emissions from both electricity and the rest of the energy sector to achieve Labor’s greenhouse target.

How much greenhouse gas are we talking about?

In 2015 the government chose 2005 as the baseline for its Paris target, presumably because it was one of our highest-emission years since 1990 (2015 emissions were much lower).

In the year ending September 2005, Australia’s emissions were equivalent to 605 million tonnes (MT) of carbon dioxide. From 2007, emissions dropped sharply due to a reduction in land clearing and then again between mid-2012 and mid-2014 due to Labor’s carbon price.

In the year ending September 2018, the latest year for which we have firm numbers, Australia’s emissions total was 536MT of CO₂ equivalent. Since 2015 our annual total has risen slightly, due to increases in non-electricity emissions outweighing reductions in electricity emissions.

Labor’s emissions target is a 45% reduction from 605MT, which is equivalent to a goal of 333MT. Therefore its policies have to cut 203MT from our 2018 annual emissions by 2030.

How much emissions does 50% renewable electricity cut?

As shown in the pie chart below, electricity currently contributes 34% of Australia’s annual emissions, or 182MT.

Let’s assume Labor’s proposed energy policies stop the growth in non-electricity emissions, and that annual electricity emissions don’t increase.

Then, taking into account that renewable energy is already 19% of total electricity generation, Labor’s 50% target would cut electricity emissions by 56MT.

Successfully cutting 56MT from the annual emissions total 203MT gives us a gap of 147MT.

Closing the gap

Let’s look at some feasible options for Labor to reduce this emissions gap. These are not all independent and so cannot simply be tallied up, but they do nevertheless offer some concrete targets.

The two most substantial options are increasing the renewable electricity target to 100%, and improving overall energy efficiency by 20%.

Further goals could include electrifying one-quarter of vehicles by 2030 and charging them only with renewable energy; electrifying half of non-electrical heat; halving non-energy industrial emissions; and halving fugitive emissions.

So how attainable are these objectives?

100% renewable electricity

Electricity is the easiest and cheapest energy supply option to transition to renewables. A 100% renewable energy target, together with no increase in non-electricity emissions (and without electrification of transport and heating), would cut 2018 annual emissions by 182MT, from 536MT to 354MT, and reduce the gap to 21MT.

Key federal policies needed for 100% renewable energy are:

• reverse auctions with contract-for-difference for solar and wind farms in the states that don’t have these auctions (NSW and WA),
• funding of key transmission links both interstate and intrastate,
• substantial additional funding to the Clean Energy Finance Corporation and the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) specifically for storage, and
• reform of the National Electricity Market objective, structure and rules.

Labor’s policy specifies A$10 billion for the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, A$5 billion for upgrading the electricity grid, and A$200 million for household batteries – all big steps forward – but doesn’t mention reverse auctions which can have zero net cost to government.

Energy efficiency

The second biggest potential reduction is in energy efficiency. Improving overall energy efficiency by 20% would save 88MT of CO₂.

To achieve this, we would need to see a suite of policies along the following lines, none of which have been mentioned explicitly by Labor:

The other targets

Electrifying one-quarter of land transport and charging vehicles with renewable electricity is more substantial than Labor’s current transport target, namely that half of new vehicles should be electric by 2030.

Under Labor’s policy, the vast majority of vehicles would still have internal combustion engines and most of the remainder would be charged from a grid that’s 50% fossil-fuelled. A realistic emissions reduction from Labor’s modest transport target would be about 8MT.

However, if battery costs fall substantially over the next decade, the market could make the majority of new vehicles electric by 2030.

With a transition to nearly 100% renewable electricity by 2030, electric cars would be charged either from a “green” grid or rooftop solar. If a quarter of all cars are electric, this could contribute up to 17MT of emissions cuts.

Electrifying half of non-electrical heat, which currently comprises 19% of annual emissions, would contribute about 40MT of emissions reductions, assuming 100% renewable electricity; this would be challenging but possibly achievable with policies to shift gas heating to electrical.

Halving non-energy industrial emissions, which currently comprise 6.5% of our annual emissions, would save around 17MT. This goal needs regulation to implement research and development; one good starting point is to phase out traditional Portland cement and replace it with geopolymer cement.

Labor’s proposed baseline and credit scheme, Safeguard 2.0, would in theory reduce non-electrical heat and non-electrical industrial emissions, but in practice the enormous political power of big businesses with annual emissions greater than 25,000 tonnes would probably at best halt, instead of reducing, growth in industrial emissions.

Fugitive emissions (accidental methane leaks) from gas pipelines and some oil and gas fields would also shrink with success in electrifying heat, but would still continue from the Gorgon gas field and disused open-cut coal-mines. Halving these fugitive emissions would also save another 28MT.

Read more: Fugitive emissions: what is the real footprint of coal seam gas?

Carbon budgets

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, to keep global warming below 2℃ the world has a total CO₂ budget of 1,000 billion tonnes, or gigatonnes (GT), measured from 2011. To keep the world below 1.5℃, that budget shrinks to 400GT.

Australia contributes 1.5% of global emissions, and annually our emissions have been hovering around 0.55GT. That gives us 23 years of emissions at the current level to hit the 2℃ target. If we aim for the more ambitious 1.5℃ – which most experts agree is necessary to avoid climate disaster – that shrinks to just 5 more years at our current emission levels.

Australia is the world’s biggest exporter of both coal and liquefied natural gas. From a global perspective, we need an urgent strategy to phase out these exports (and thus increase their international prices) and replace them with exports of hydrogen or ammonia produced from renewable energy.

– ref. Fixing the gap between Labor’s greenhouse gas goals and their policies – http://theconversation.com/fixing-the-gap-between-labors-greenhouse-gas-goals-and-their-policies-115550

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 Liberals proclaim their party is a “broad church”, embracing a spectrum of views. But like most churches, there is always the potential for schism. These schisms were played out in the 45th parliament, culminating in the removal of a prime minister. They also caused policy paralysis on matters such as climate change mitigation, immigration, water management and broad based taxation reform.

Simmering tension between moderates and conservatives are evident in a number of urban seats, where centre-right independents are challenging conservatives. It’s also evident in several regional seats, where the challenge to Coalition seats is coming from nonaligned, but generally right-leaning independents.

In the NSW seat of Farrer, former Coalition minister Sussan Ley is being challenged by Albury Mayor, Kevin Mack. At this stage, Mack is being priced by the bookies for a win, overcoming a 20% buffer enjoyed by Ley. Given that the federal electorate takes in two state seats that fell to the Shooters Fishers and Farmers at the recent state election, Farrer can now be described as marginal.

As with many other rural seats, especially in the irrigation areas, there is palpable anger with the Coalition’s handling of water management. Barnaby Joyce, the former Minister for Agriculture and Water, further alienated locals with his explosive interview with the ABC’s Patricia Karvelas last week. In this environment, the stocks of rural independents have risen.

Read more: Facebook videos, targeted texts and Clive Palmer memes: how digital advertising is shaping this election campaign

In the Northern NSW seat of Page, sitting Nationals MP Kevin Hogan has suggested that he might sit on the crossbench if Labor forms government (as he did in 2018 in protest against the dumping of Malcolm Turnbull). Early internal polling suggests that Hogan is slightly ahead of Labor’s Patrick Deegan. Hogan may well find himself sitting with other regional independents, perhaps even holding the balance of power.

In Gilmore, on the south coast, Ann Sudmalis decided not to recontest the seat, resigning amid complaints of “bullying, betrayal and backstabbing” by local colleagues. The Liberals nominated Grant Schultz, but this nomination was overturned after the prime minister using a “captain’s call” to nominate former ALP President Warren Mundine. Schultz has since resigned from the party and is standing as an independent.

To add to this complexity, former Nationals member Katrina Hodgkinson has also nominated, and has enlisted as her campaign coordinator for Gilmore former Liberal member Joanna Gash. Labor and the Nationals are likely to be advantaged by Schultz’s decision not to preference any party, and this may be sufficient for Labor’s Fiona Phillips to secure the 0.7% of votes needed to win the seat.

Victoria

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

Nothing in the campaign so far suggests that Victoria will not be really difficult for the government, with Liberal seats such as Chisholm, La Trobe and Michael Sukkar’s seat of Deakin under threat. The Liberal cause has been further undermined by the disendorsement of candidates in unwinnable seats who had been exposed as having made bigoted utterances. Labor triumphalism over this has been tempered by one of its candidates being accused of having made light of sexual violence against women.

Matters of substance to arise in Victoria over the last few weeks (during which time pre-polling commenced) relate to preference deals for both the House of Representatives and the Senate.

In the seat of Flinders, held by health minister Greg Hunt with a 7.0% margin, high profile independent candidate Julia Banks – formerly the Liberal member for Chisholm – announced that her how-to-vote card would be advising supporters to direct their preferences to Labor ahead of the Liberal candidate. While Hunt is on a fairly significant margin, reports have suggested that the local Liberal campaign has become very concerned about this development.

Senate how-to-vote cards have also appeared in time for the pre-polling period. Of significance here is the Labor party decision to advise its supporters to give preferences to the Derryn Hinch Justice Party ticket. Not only does this boost Derryn Hinch’s chances of being reelected, the Labor how-to-vote card is a potential blow to the Greens’ Janet Rice if the Green ticket’s primary vote was to fall well short of the quota. The Greens will doubtlessly benefit from a flow of Animal Justice Party preferences, but in a half-Senate election, the combined vote may not achieve the 14.4% required for Rice’s re-election.

The Liberal-National ticket, meanwhile, directs preferences to Clive Palmer’s United Australia Party. One wonders if this might not be the basis on which Palmer’s party secures a seat in Victoria, particularly if, as seems very likely, the Liberal-National primary vote falls below three quota (43.2%).

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

Queensland

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

Herbert was always to going to be a tight race for the minor parties. The biggest battle should have been between One Nation and United Australia Party. In the 2016 election, One Nation gained in Palmer’s absence. This time around, One Nation could struggle to gain a foothold thanks to the Liberals’ legitimisation of Clive Palmer’s Canberra bid via preference deals. One Nation’s own implosion, and the fact that its Herbert candidate comes from outside the electorate compound its problems.

While minor parties traditionally rely on protest votes, this year pre-polling could scupper any last minute announcements. Smaller parties tend to spend big in the last few weeks of a campaign, but that might be in vain if large numbers of people have already voted.

Pre-polling is going to play an important role in this election. Pre-poll votes within the first 24 hours are almost double the number at the same stage in 2016. The Queensland electorates of McPherson, Lilley and Herbert recorded the highest numbers of pre-pollers in the first 24 hours.

Herbert’s Hyde Park booth was the third highest in Queensland to pre-poll in the first 24 hours. At 1,414, it is more than double the previous election. By Wednesday, Hyde Park had 3,175 votes lodged – the highest in Queensland.

Both Herbert and Dickson were in the top ten electorates for pre-polling in 2016. Dickson pre-polled at 1,343 in the first 24 hours. This week’s housing market announcement could affect those pre-polling in Dickson, with house prices and negative gearing a key election issue.

GetUp! has ramped up the pressure in Dickson this week with its “Ditch Dutton” campaign, which involves door knocking, calling voters, media stunts, testimony of disenfranchised Dickson voters, and plastering the electorate with Ditch Dutton signs.

Western Australia

Ian Cook, Senior Lecturer of Australian Politics at Murdoch University

The leaders’ debate may have returned Western Australia to the political spotlight, but less attention was being paid to what important players in WA’s 2017 state election were saying about a Liberal preference deal with Clive Palmer’s United Australia Party.

In 2017, a desperate Liberal Party did a preference deal with Pauline Hanson’s One Nation to try to save the election. The results were not what the Liberals had hoped for. It might have helped them to hold Geraldton, but the general damage to the party was considerable.

Both important players in WA’s 2017 state election worried about the Chinese government’s reaction to a preference deal with Palmer’s UAP. Former Premier, Colin Barnett, and current Premier, Mark McGowan, called attention to Palmer’s ongoing spat with Chinese officials and warned that any deal with Palmer would upset Australia’s most important trading partner. Palmer responded by accusing WA Labor of sucking up to the Chinese.

More importantly, at least when it comes to the current election result, Barnett warned of a backlash from more progressive Liberal voters, for whom a deal to swap preferences with a populist party is offensive. Barnett should know. That’s what happened to him when party officials made the deal with One Nation. It didn’t help that soon after the deal, Hanson said that voters hated Barnett, and One Nation candidates said they weren’t going to preference the Liberals. But the general effect of some Liberal voters rejecting the deal and the party was real.

This brings us to the blue-riband seat of Curtin, which the Liberals hold by a 20% margin. While it’s an ultra-safe seat, like Wentworth, it contains the kind of progressive Liberal voters who helped to elect independent Kerryn Phelps.

Curtin’s gotten a little curious, though. The former Member for Curtin and Liberal star Julie Bishop’s first choice to replace her lost in the preselection process. This was yet another moment of rejection by a party that Bishop had served with great distinction for two decades. It also meant that a conservative was preselected to a seat where there are likely to be plenty of progressive Liberal voters.

Then former Fremantle MP and Minister for International Development in the Rudd government, Melissa Parkes, nominated for the seat and soon resigned as Labor candidate after comments she made that were critical of Israel returned to haunt her.

Finally, and even more bizarrely, the independent candidate who might have done a Phelps and snatched a blue-riband seat from the Liberals passed “results” from what turned out to be a fake opinion poll to the West Australian, which led the paper to publish a headline story about the Liberals losing the seat. So, we even had fake news!

South Australia

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

The election campaign is steadily cranking up in South Australia, and we just are beginning to see some frays and cracks at the local level of campaigning. The past week has been dotted with a number of incidents – none of which in and of themselves may prove decisive – but certainly add to the colour of the campaign.

Rather unfortunately, Shaun Osborn, the Liberal candidate for Adelaide, sent out a letter with his first name misspelled on the header. This gaffe followed an apology to a local café owner, after Osborn had invited local members to an event where he had not sought prior permission.

A more serious incident took place in the much more tense battle for the seat of Mayo, held by Centre Alliance MP Rebekha Sharkie. One of Sharkie’s volunteers was charged by the police with stalking high-profile Liberal candidate Georgina Downer. The volunteer in question now faces the magistrates court in mid-May, and Sharkie has ordered that the man takes no further part in her campaigning in a seat she holds by just 2.9%.

Finally, racist graffiti was scrawled over a campaign poster for the Greens Senate candidate, and Ngarrindjeri elder Major “Moogy” Sumner. While these events have added some drama, it has distracted from a focus on local issues.

South Australia’s key, distinctive, policy contributions to the overall campaign are likely to remain water policy and energy policy.

The water issue was given fresh impetus when Labor Senator Penny Wong took a swipe at the Liberals’ preference deal with Clive Palmer’s UAP. Senator Wong argued strongly that the UAP water policy was to scrap the current Murray Darling Basin plan. Energy is a key issue, and has remained prominently associated with South Australia since the 2016 blackout. Bill Shorten is trying to pivot this into his campaign agenda, with his announcement to create a new “renewable energy zone” in the Spencer Gulf.

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

Tasmania

Lachlan Johnson, PhD Candidate in Politics and International Relations and Research Assistant at the Institute for the Study of Social Change at the University of Tasmania

This week has seen Tasmania emerge as an important battleground with polls narrowing across the country. Reporting from the past week that the Coalition is confident of Gavin Pearce’s chances in Braddon has been bolstered by new uComms polling now giving the Liberal candidate a slim lead in the rural North-Western electorate.

While Braddon was always expected to be close, perhaps the bigger news from recent polling is a Coalition resurgence in Bass, which covers Launceston and the state’s North-East. That poll, also by uComms, gave the coalition a two-party preferred lead of 54-46%.

This suggests the disproportionately large amount of time spent by Scott Morrison and Michael McCormack in northern Tasmania, relative to some other marginal areas, may be paying dividends.

Bill Shorten also visited Tasmania on Saturday, unveiling new funding commitments in Hobart and Launceston. The opposition leader promised A$120 million in federal tourism funding, plus A$25 million towards a Tasmanian AFL team should it win office on May 18. Of that tourism funding, A$50 million would support the development of a new hotel and theatre at MONA. Interestingly, neither MONA nor AFL funding have been well received in the state’s two crucial northern electorates.

Unsurprisingly, the MONA announcement has generated significant interest and controversy. Also, given that Labor is in little danger of losing Lyons, and even less danger of winning Clark – held by independent Andrew Wilkie – the strategy behind the MONA proposal is puzzling. Millionaire proprietor David Walsh has suggested that the funding wouldn’t change even his vote, adding that Wilkie remains a safe bet. Now that Liberal Lyons candidate Jessica Whelan has resigned (following discovery of anti-Muslim social media posts in her name) these south-eastern electorates are unlikely to need much further intervention from Labor, who will instead redouble their efforts in Bass and Braddon.

It may therefore be the case that this tourism funding boost to the state’s major population areas is an attempt to garner upper house votes in what will surely be a very tight contest for a third Senate quota between the two major parties. Despite the government currently having four more Senators than the ALP nationally, a 2016 below-the-line voting campaign for Lisa Singh means that Tasmania is the only state in which Labor has more senators up for reelection than the Coalition this time around.

With both Bass and Braddon now in play, and a Senate challenge from the Coalition, Greens, and high-profile independents, this week has seen Labor looking increasingly vulnerable in Tasmania.

– ref. State of the states: more preference deals as pre-polling begins – http://theconversation.com/state-of-the-states-more-preference-deals-as-pre-polling-begins-116364