Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Coombs, PhD candidate in Nura Gili Indigenous Studies, UNSW

Eleven years after Australia adopted the Closing the Gap strategy, many pressing First Nations health issues remain unresolved.

The gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous life expectancy, currently 10.8 years for men and 10.6 years for women, is actually widening.

Similarly, the target to close the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous child mortality has not been met. The Indigenous rate of 164 deaths per 100,000 children aged 0-4 years is still 2.4 times the non-Indigenous rate of 68 deaths per 100,000 in this age group.

Read more: Indigenous health programs require more than just good ideas

The causes of Indigenous health inequality are complex. They stem from social determinants such as employment, education, social inclusion, and access to traditional land, rather than strictly biomedical causes.

Government policies have a critical role to play here. But funding cuts, policy incoherence, and governments retaining control over resources and decision-making explain why the gaps between Indigenous and non-Indigenous health outcomes are not closing.

Regardless of who wins the federal election on May 18, these enduring health issues affecting Indigenous Australians will require sustained and concerted policy attention.

A look at the major parties’ policy promises reveals some signs of hope, but also plenty of room for improvement.

Read more: Three reasons why the gaps between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians aren’t closing

The Coalition’s commitments

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander groups criticised the lack of Indigenous-specific health measures in the Morrison government’s first budget detailed in April.

The budget did include A$35 million for First Nations solutions to family violence, and A$10 million for the Lowitja Institute for health research.

Indigenous youth suicide remains an urgent policy concern, with Indigenous children five times more likely to die in this way than non-Indigenous children. A coronial inquest recently identified complex causes including intergenerational trauma, poverty, and problems stemming from the home environment.

Read more: Indigenous health leaders helped give us a plan to close the gap, and we must back it

The Coalition’s budget committed A$5 million over four years to address Indigenous youth suicide. This figure has since been increased to A$42 million following criticism from First Nations organisations and advocates.

Meanwhile, the budget directed A$129 million towards the expansion of a cashless welfare card system that operates in a number of Aboriginal communities. The card quarantines 80% of welfare recipients’ income for use in government-approved stores, and on government-approved items, to prevent spending on alcohol, cigarettes and gambling. This decision was taken despite a lack of evidence these cards reduce social harm or public expenditure.

The government also made some pre-budget commitments around Indigenous health. These included:

The Coalition also honoured a previous commitment of A$550 million for remote housing in the Northern Territory.

The Morrison government deserves some credit for its part in reaching an agreement between the Council of Australian Governments and a coalition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peak organisations in December 2018.

This agreement commits governments and Indigenous peak bodies to shared decision-making and joint accountability in devising and working towards new Closing the Gap targets.

Read more: Budget 2019 boosts aged care and mental health, and modernises Medicare: health experts respond

Labor’s commitments

In keeping with its election campaign emphasis on health spending, Labor recently announced a A$115 million Indigenous health package.

The package includes almost A$30 million to reduce Indigenous youth suicide and mental ill-health.

It also offers A$33 million to address rheumatic heart disease, a preventable condition that disproportionately affects Indigenous children. The National Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation (NACCHO) highlighted rheumatic heart disease as one of ten Indigenous health priorities for this election.

Labor has also promised A$20 million for sexual health promotion in northern Australia, A$13 million to combat vision loss, and A$16.5 million for the “Deadly Choices” initiative, which aims to prevent chronic disease through education.

Further, the opposition has announced a compensation scheme and healing fund for surviving members of the Stolen Generations and their families. This could help manage the effects of intergenerational trauma.

What’s lacking

Both parties’ funding commitments must be assessed in the context of the 2014 budget cut of more than A$500 million dollars to Indigenous affairs by the then Coalition government, which only the Greens have committed to restoring.

Impacts have been severe for specific programs, especially those run at the community level. These include youth services in Maningrida (NT) and employment and training programs in Inala (Queensland).

Funding for crucial Indigenous health infrastructure and capital works is also lacking, with the current shortfall estimated at A$500 million. Many Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Services are run from old buildings in desperate need of upgrades to accommodate increasing patient numbers and rising demand for services. The Coalition recently announced an incremental increase to infrastructure funding, but much more is needed.

Read more: Antibiotic shortages are putting Aboriginal kids at risk

Neither the Coalition nor Labor has made any substantial commitment to a national Indigenous housing strategy. Inadequate, insecure and poor quality housing worsens physical and mental health through overcrowding, inadequate heating and cooling, injury hazards, and stress.

Similarly, both parties have been silent on reducing poverty in Indigenous communities. Poverty is another social determinant that contributes to Indigenous physical and mental ill-health, as well as high incarceration levels.

What about self-determination?

Labor has stated it will prioritise Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisations as the vehicles for delivering much needed health services.

As the Close the Gap steering committee’s shadow report emphasised, “when Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are involved in the design of the services they need, we are far more likely to achieve success”.

The Coalition has been silent on the issue of community control, and funding reforms under the Indigenous Advancement Strategy and the Indigenous Australians’ Health Programme have destabilised the position of Aboriginal organisations.

Read more: The Coalition’s report card on health includes some passes and quite a few fails

Community control is threatened by the government’s focus on competitive tendering, where First Nations organisations compete with “mainstream” service providers trying to secure contracts to deliver Indigenous health services.

Neither the Coalition nor Labor has outlined a response to these structural issues.

A final verdict

It’s difficult to identify major differences between the two parties’ Indigenous health promises. The likely impact of these polices is also hard to gauge given the significant role played by state and territory governments in service delivery.

Labor has promised to support Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisations but specific details have not been announced. Labor’s significant funding pledge for rheumatic heart disease, though, makes their Indigenous health offering perhaps slightly more likely to achieve health gains than the Coalition’s.

Read more: Why are Aboriginal children still dying from rheumatic heart disease?

– ref. How the major parties’ Indigenous health election commitments stack up – http://theconversation.com/how-the-major-parties-indigenous-health-election-commitments-stack-up-115714

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Loughran, Research Fellow, University of Wollongong

Screen time has arguably become the most concerning aspect of development for modern-day parents. A 2015 poll identified children’s excessive screen time as the number one concern for parents, overtaking more traditional concerns such as obesity and not getting enough physical activity.

This is the issue explored in David Gillespie’s new book, Teen Brain. The tagline explains that the book delves into

why screens are making your teenager depressed, anxious, and prone to lifelong addictive illnesses – and how to stop it now.

This provides some idea of the emotive and provocative way the book’s content is delivered.

Given smartphones and tablets are everywhere, a message on limiting their use could not be more timely. The Australian government recently released guidelines recommending a maximum two hours per day of recreational sedentary screen time for teens.

It also recommended parents establish consistent boundaries around the duration, content and quality of such screen use.

Read more: Eight things that should be included in screen guidelines for students

However, Gillespie has missed an important opportunity to communicate this with his book. In the introduction Gillespie says he’s “made some pretty outrageous claims” but they will all be backed up by solid science. He delivers on the first part, but too often the solid science is lacking.

Dodgy science

After what can only be described as a controversial introduction – in which puberty is referred to as a period when all “males turn into large, hairy, smelly beasts with no impulse control and a desire for danger and sex” – Gillespie attempts to explain some basics of the workings of the human brain.

But this explanation is simplified and selective, which is problematic because it is then used as a basis for many of the arguments throughout the book. And the brain, and associated human behaviour, is far more complex than Gillespie’s seeming understanding.

The second section largely focuses on teen issues intertwined with parenting tips, with reference back to the brain basics. This information is aimed at managing, and ultimately avoiding, negative outcomes in teens – such as risk-taking behaviours, addiction and adverse mental-health issues.

According to Gillespie, such consequences are largely attributable to screen-based electronic devices.

This section contains statements that aren’t referenced at all, such as:

the stimulant effect of caffeine is identical to the stimulant effect of the dopamine-stimulating apps installed on your child’s device

Those that are – such as those under the heading “Teen depression and anxiety are on the rise” – often have selective references that fit the author’s narrative rather than reflecting the current state of the science.

In regards to anxiety, the book only presented parts of the research paper that it noted suggested anxiety had alarmingly tripled between 2003 and 2011. What had tripled were the presentations of anxiety symptoms. The overall diagnosis of anxiety actually remained stable.

The paper’s authors themselves state that what the results mean remains unclear. They could reflect a genuine increase in anxiety, but could also be attributed to an increased awareness by GPs or increased help-seeking behaviour of teens.

Then there are statements that are actually just plain wrong. For instance, Gillespie suggests

something else must lie at the heart of the epidemic of teen anxiety and depression, and there’s good evidence that this something is being home-delivered by the modern equivalent of a textbook – the tablet device.

Not surprisingly, this so-called “good evidence” is not provided.

In several places throughout the book, Gillespie links smartphones and electronic devices with dramatic decreases in teen pregnancy, alcohol consumption, illicit drugs and violent crime.

While it’s true there have been declines in teen pregnancy, substance use, and crime, this is not necessarily true for all countries.

For example, a recent study showed although substance use, unprotected sex, crime, and hazardous driving were reducing in US adolescents, the same trends did not apply consistently across other developed countries.

And although the study noted smartphones and social media were one possibility behind these declines, the way in which they might do this, and if in fact they actually do, is yet to be investigated.

Read more: Australian teens doing well, but some still at high risk of suicide and self-harm

Declines in risk-taking and addictive behaviours in teens can only be seen as a good thing, but Gillespie manages to use this to fit his narrative. That is, that smartphones and electronic devices are indeed responsible for these positive changes, but at a cost.

That cost is that the use of such devices is replacing these teen problems with a whole set of new ones: dramatic increases in teen anxiety, depression, self-harm and suicide. But again, this is done with the use of misleading, or completely absent, evidence.

Teenager aren’t all the same

Gillespie presents a one-size-fits-all kind of approach throughout his book, which is also problematic, because not all teenagers are the same. There are large differences among individuals and how they are able to manage things such as anxiety, drug or alcohol use.

Genetics, as well as our environment, influence our behaviour. So what may work for one teenager, may not necessarily work for another.

The book places a large emphasis on the role hormones play in our reward pathways and addiction. One example is oxytocin. Gillespie says that “teenagers are uniquely susceptible to the power of oxytocin” and that “adolescence is a phase when the addictive power of oxytocin is magnified enormously”.

But there are substantial differences in oxytocin levels between individuals, and how each person’s system reacts to these, which the book completely ignores.

Read more: How childhood trauma changes our hormones, and thus our mental health, into adulthood

The book culminates with five key points for how parents should “harden up to save their kids”. These include parents making the rules, and breaches of the rules being punished consistently.

Gillespie also advises that “all teens need eight hours’ sleep a night”. This recommendation falls outside the amount of sleep those under 14 years old need (9-11 hours for 5-13 year olds), and only represents the bare minimum recommended for those 14 years and older (8-11 hours for those aged 14-17).

The real shame overall is that the key message, that we should limit our teens’ screen time, is actually a good one. Although research remains scarce, there are some initial reports suggesting excessive screen use may have an impact on teens’ well-being, particularly sleep, anxiety and depression.

But Gillespie has reported it all in a way that is grossly over the top and overstated, and at times incorrect or just plain offensive.

This kind of communication only serves to perpetuate fear and create anxiety – the exact things that the author claims his book will fix.

– ref. David Gillespie’s ‘Teen Brain’: a valid argument let down by selective science and over-the-top claims – http://theconversation.com/david-gillespies-teen-brain-a-valid-argument-let-down-by-selective-science-and-over-the-top-claims-115142

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jon Piccini, Lecturer, Australian Catholic 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.

As far as 1960s policy issues go, none were bigger than the Vietnam War. Images of helicopter gunships and long-haired protesters overlaid with rock music are the era’s stock footage. But, was it ever a major election issue in Australia?

In November 1966, an Australian Labor Party that had been in opposition for 17 years finally saw victory within its grasp. And the party’s ageing leader, Arthur Calwell, focused on the war as Labor’s main point of difference with a seemingly divided, aimless government.

Organisations like the Australian Peace Council, Save our Sons and the Youth Campaign Against Conscription pushed hard for a Labor victory. But, in the end, Prime Minister Harold Holt not only won the contest, his Liberal-Country Coalition actually gained 10 seats, leaving Labor to lick its wounds.

Read more: Student protests won’t be the last, and they certainly weren’t the first

Australia’s involvement in the war

Australia’s involvement in Vietnam began in 1962. What started as a 30-person training deployment quickly grew to a battalion after then-Prime Minister Robert Menzies announced – inaccurately at the time – that South Vietnam had requested further assistance in its defence against the North Vietnamese-backed communist insurgents in April 1965.

This was a strategy of “forward defence” that marked Menzies’ policy towards Asia, which was widely supported by the Australian electorate as a way to stop the spread of communism across Southeast Asia. This strategy mirrored fears of a “domino theory” that would bring communism to Australia’s shores.

However, conscription was not as popular as the war among Australians. Polling in October 1966 showed that the public opposed conscription for overseas service by about 60%. Calwell, who had been the Labor leader since 1960, knew this and made it the most important issue in the next election.

Menzies’ retirement in January gave Labor confidence going into the 1966 election. Holt was a relative unknown who barely differed from Menzies on policy. At the same time, Labor was modernising its platforms by doing away with things like support for the “White Australia” policy.

Also, an October 1966 visit from US President Lyndon B. Johnson, which Holt hoped would buoy his chances, was marred by anti-war protests that were broadcast around the world.

Labor’s failed conscription tactic

Yet, if anything, the focus on conscription showed not Labor’s revival but its continued stagnation. During the first world war, Calwell had been involved in the defeat of conscription in two national referendums in 1916 and 1917. Fifty years later, Labor hoped to use the timing of the anniversary of those defeats to its political advantage.

Speaking in April 1966, Calwell cautioned that conscription was a “sinister word” for Australians that would “split the nation and leave the same bitter memories as did the referendum campaigns of 50 years ago”. Then, in a campaign speech only days before the vote, Calwell condemned those who wished to plunge their “arthritic hands wrist deep in the blood of Australian youth”.

While not particularly innovative politically, Holt’s relative youth and seeming vigour – demonstrated by somewhat salacious photographs he took on the beach with his young daughters-in-law – seemed a breath of fresh air.

But this was just one of the reasons Calwell’s rhetoric fell flat. The audience for his messaging was also unclear. Australia was an increasingly youthful nation, but the voting age of 21 meant the “baby boom” generation had little electoral weight.

And while growing numbers of young people were protesting the war, they did so without reference to the first world war, but with theatrical protest tactics from overseas.

Legacies of the 1966 election

Holt’s unexpected landslide victory – winning twice as many seats as his opponent –proved politically explosive. While receiving little credit for the win, which most put down to Calwell’s ineptitude, Holt used his remaining year in parliament to cement an independent reputation through such initiatives as the May 1967 referendum on Indigenous rights.

His disappearance off Cheviot Beach in December of that year left an unfinished legacy.

Read more: The photographer’s war: Vietnam through a lens

As for the antiwar movement, Labor’s election failure led to disenchantment and reorientation. Increasing numbers of young agitators saw the result as a sign of deep public apathy with the movement. This led to more provocative and controversial protests, such as the daubing of soldiers with fake blood during parades, raising money for the Viet Cong and rioting outside the US Consulate in Melbourne.

Labor largely went quiet on Vietnam after its defeat, only returning to the barricades in time for the Moratorium marches of May 1970, by which time public opinion had finally turned against the war. It has been said that the 1966 election’s most significant legacy was as

the last stand of a distinctive Labor style – impassioned, traditionalist [and] Irish-Catholic.

Calwell’s post-election position proved untenable and he was replaced by the deputy leader, Gough Whitlam, who would spend the next five years modernising a party many considered stuck in the past. In the end, Calwell’s overzealous commitment to wielding the past as a political weapon only fast tracked this process.

– ref. Issues that swung elections: Labor’s anti-war message falls flat in landslide loss in 1966 – http://theconversation.com/issues-that-swung-elections-labors-anti-war-message-falls-flat-in-landslide-loss-in-1966-114745

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Caron Beaton-Wells, Professor, Melbourne Law School, University of Melbourne

Compared with the grand cause of climate change or the pointed self-interest of income tax, competition policy is a decidedly unsexy election issue. So it’s hardly surprising that no party is running hot on the issue – not even the Labor Party, although it has put some notable reforms on the election slate.

But competition policy matters to all of us.

It’s what stands between being able to pick and choose goods and services with a range of prices and quality on the one hand, and on the other being dictated to by one or a handful of sellers charging as much and offering as little possible.

Keeping markets competitive necessitates a debate about economics, law and regulation. It may be technical but we pay dearly if we don’t have it.

Existing policies to protect competition in Australia are not in bad shape. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) is regarded as one of the world’s best competition regulators. But there is always more that can be done.

Most of all, the commission needs more empirical evidence to know if it is doing enough to prevent competitive markets being distorted by a few dominant companies.

Highly concentrated

Many Australian markets are concentrated – dominated by a few big players. Think of banks, energy retailers, telecommunications, supermarkets and petrol sellers.

Each year the ACCC considers hundreds of mergers or acquisitions that add to concentration.

The competition watchdog has the power to begin formal proceedings to block a merger if it is judged to give the merged entity too much market power. In reality, however, the regulator opposes very few acquisitions.

In 2017-18, for example, the ACCC examined 281 mergers. It “pre-assessed” 252 as not requiring a review. Of the 29 reviewed, 17 (61%) were cleared unconditionally. This means just 4% of all examined mergers were opposed. The previous year it was also just 4%.

Whether Australia’s high concentration levels are due to lax merger control standards is open for debate. So too is whether concentration necessarily harms competition.

The Grattan Institute has pointed the finger at other factors: too much regulation in some sectors, creating barriers to entry (such as zoning laws for grocery retailers), and too little regulation in others (such as access conditions for ports).

It is generally accepted that a higher degree of industrial consolidation may be justified to enable efficiencies of scale in an economy that is relatively small and geographically dispersed. Enhanced efficiency should mean lower prices for consumers.

At least, that’s what the economic theory tells us. But is that what has been happening in practice?

Merger retrospectives

In other countries, economists and policy makers have the benefit of empirical studies that measure what effect mergers or acquisitions have had on prices and other aspects of market performance. The studies look at merger deals not blocked by competition authorities. They examine whether acquisitions live up to the claims made by the merging parties at the time of the deal.

These “merger retrospectives” have shown that mergers, in reducing the number of competitors, do indeed raise prices. A comprehensive review of merger retrospectives in the US found prices rose by 4.3% in nearly 95% of cases where mergers led to six or fewer significant competitors in a market. This finding is not unique to the US. A 2016 study in Europe had similar results.

Retrospective analyses are regularly done by agencies overseas, including in Canada and Britain. But not in Australia.

Doing so would tell us if the ACCC’s system for making merger assessments is working. Depending on their scope, merger retrospectives might also provide valuable data for other important policy debates, such as whether concentration levels suppress investment, innovation and wage growth, or increase inequality.

Labor proposals

In 2013 the Abbott government initiated a major independent review of Australia’s competition policy framework and laws. Known as the Harper review, it was completed in 2015. Several significant amendments were made as a result. The most prominent was introducing an “effects test” – to determine if unilateral conduct has the purpose or likely effect of substantially lessening competition.

Read more: Explainer: what is the competition ‘effects test’?

Now federal Labor is supporting further reforms, including retrospective analysis of mergers.

These reviews may be complex and expensive, but Labor is also proposing an increase in the ACCC budget.

It is also proposing higher fines for companies breaking competition laws. This is based on Australia being an outlier on the international stage in terms of the relatively low fines it imposes to punish and deter breaches of competition laws.

The proposal is to increase the maximum penalty for a breach of consumer and competition laws from A$10 million to A$50 million, or 30% of the annual sales of the product or service relating to the breach, multiplied by the duration of the infringement. This emulates the European approach to calculating fines. It would mean the starting point for the fine imposed in the notorious Visy price-fixing case would have been more than A$200 million, instead of A$36 million.

Read more: Cartels caught ripping off Australian consumers should be hit with bigger fines

The ACCC supports increasing corporate fines, so this proposal should be taken seriously.

But reforms should not just be concerned with anti-competitive conduct after it happens. That won’t undo the damage to businesses, workers and consumers.

What matters as much, if not more, is having a legal framework to ensure markets do not become overly concentrated, affording undue power to just a handful of firms, in the first place.

– ref. Are too many corporate mergers harming consumers? We won’t know if we don’t check – http://theconversation.com/are-too-many-corporate-mergers-harming-consumers-we-wont-know-if-we-dont-check-115378

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Haydon Manning, Adjunct Associate Professor, Politics, Policy and Global Affairs, College of Business, Government and Law, Flinders University., Flinders 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.

The 1993 election is known as the “unlosable election” for the Liberal Party. It highlights how the course of a campaign can shift voter opinion to produce a result few would have predicted a month out from polling day.

As the current election campaign unfolds, a foreboding message may resonate from the 1993 campaign. Namely, that being the clear frontrunner tends to foster complacency, and touting a “big target” invites more intense scrutiny.

Read more: ‘Fake news’ is already spreading online in the election campaign – it’s up to us to stop it

Labor’s unlikely triumph

Labor in 1993 was a triumph, comparable to Whitlam’s 1972 win. After a year languishing in the polls, Labor won a fifth term and increased its majority by two seats.

In his victory speech, Prime Minister Paul Keating declared it “the sweetest victory of all”, and “a victory for the true believers – the people who in difficult times have kept the faith”.

For some, these words reflected one of the great Labor speeches; for others, they reflected the hubris that would eventually envelop the Keating government.

To win a fifth term having recently presided over a severe economic recession and a bitter leadership challenge was unprecedented. The combination of these factors should have sunk the Keating government.

Why Labor should have lost

The early 1990s recession was far worse than the 1974 or 1982-3 recessions that contributed to the Whitlam and Fraser governments’ defeat. And Keating appeared heartless when, as treasurer in November 1990, he remarked:

This is a recession that Australia had to have.

A year later, he challenged Prime Minister Bob Hawke in a leadership spill and defeated him by 56 votes to 51.

For the nation, mired in recession, Labor seemed indulgent and power-hungry. It was no surprise that the Liberals led comfortably in the polls.

Hewson’s policy platform was a ‘large target’

Keen to move beyond the bitter rivalry between Andrew Peacock and John Howard during the 1980s, the Liberal party turned to John Hewson after the 1990 election.

Hewson was inexperienced in politics, having only entered Parliament in 1987, but skilled in his working life as a merchant banker, former advisor to John Howard and professor of economics at UNSW.

Hewson was a visionary who managed to unite both the Liberal and National Parties around one of the most significant policy platforms ever enunciated in Australian politics: a 650-page document titled “Fightback!”.

Fightback’s enduring virtue lies in its coherent articulation of reform, accompanied by detail. Its problem was that it pushed too far into the realms of a neo-liberal economic reform. With such a “large target” as Fightback, Keating was able to make the opposition the issue during the campaign.

Read more: The budget’s dirty secret is the hikes in tax rates you’re not meant to know about

Fightback’s centrepiece was a 15% GST, set alongside big personal income tax cuts. Fightback also detailed the introduction of enterprise bargaining, cuts to Medicare bulk billing, the sale of government owned assets, and other commitments aimed at limiting the size of government expenditure.

Over the course of 1992, voters observed a colossal political struggle as Hewson worked at selling Fightback to voters, and Keating warmed to the task of dismantling its vision. This would reach a crescendo in February-March 1993, with one of Australia’s most memorable election campaigns.

The Australia Election Study surveys show this election stood out because voters recognised that there was “a good deal of difference” between the parties.

Different styles of leadership

Arguably, this was not just about policy, it was also about the fact that Hewson and Keating had different leadership styles.

Hewson was committed to “policy as an end in itself” and he tended to shun the hard sell, preferring a more earnest type of advocacy delivered through public rallies.

Hewson’s problem was with Fightback’s complexity. According to the political journalist Laurie Oakes, he often appeared “mean and shifty” when he tried to explain the details. This was most evident when he tried to explain on television how the GST would apply to a birthday cake.

Keating fundamentally believed that the strength of political leadership would prevail. Lampooning Fightback, Keating said:

If you don’t understand it, don’t vote for it; if you do understand it, you’d never vote for it!

With his superior command of rhetoric, Keating framed the campaign as one about core Australian values. Keating shied away from defending Labor’s achievements, instead making his opponent the focus. He championed Australian egalitarianism while painting Hewson as a radical. Keating once referred to Hewson as “the feral abacus”, a theorist hopelessly out of touch with average voter.

By the eve of the election, the parties were evenly balanced, but pundits were still predicting a Liberal win.

Read more: Discontent with Nationals in regional areas could spell trouble for Coalition at federal election

In favour of a detailed policy platform

Why did Hewson take such a political risk with Fightback? The answer can be found in Hewson’s valedictory speech to parliament.

In the speech, Hewson reflected on the purpose of Fightback. He said it was to convince voters “in the midst of the worst recession in 60 years” that significant change was required, that the Liberal Party was once again credible because it “stood for something”, and that it was prepared to “challenge vested interests”.

He also said that entering government required a mandate based on detailed policy if there was to be any hope of getting legislation through the Senate. It is worth noting how pertinent this last point is today.

Since Fightback, no opposition has put forward such detailed policy. Putting aside one’s own ideological preferences, Hewson’s Fightback should be viewed as positive because voters deserve to be presented with detailed policy choices rather than just political spin.

– ref. Issues that swung elections: the ‘unlosable election’ of 1993 still resonates loudly – http://theconversation.com/issues-that-swung-elections-the-unlosable-election-of-1993-still-resonates-loudly-114924

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Greg Neely, Associate Professor , University of Sydney

Warm Australian waters are home to the box jellyfish (Chironex fleckeri), which is considered to be one of the most venomous animals on the planet.

Box jellyfish stings lead to excruciating pain lasting days, tissue death and scarring at the site of the sting, and with significant exposure, death within minutes. While most jellyfish stings do not lead to death, pain and scarring is quite common.

Read more: Why we don’t know if Irukandji jellyfish are moving south

Despite its potent ability to cause pain and death, to date we’ve had very little understanding of how this deadly venom works. This makes it very difficult to understand how it can cause so much pain – and how to develop medicines to block venom actions.

Published today, our new research has uncovered a potential antidote for box jellyfish venom. By working with humans cells and the gene-editing tool CRISPR, we identified a common, cheap drug that is already on the market and which could be a candidate for treating box jellyfish stings.

Flipping all the switches

This work began in 2012, when we set out to determine what it was about box jellyfish venom molecules that made them so effective in causing pain and damage.

The venom didn’t seem to work through the known pathways that cause cell death. So we used CRISPR genome editing technologies in human cells grown in the laboratory. This let us systematically turn off each gene in the human genome, and test to see which of these is needed for the jellyfish venom to kill the cells.

Read more: What is CRISPR gene editing, and how does it work?

It’s kind of like flipping all the switches in a house, trying to figure out which one turns off the kitchen lights, but at the whole genome level. We actually didn’t even know if it would be possible to find single genes that when turned off could block the venom action.

But luckily, we were successful. While normal human cells exposed to venom die in the laboratory within five minutes, we identified gene-edited cells that could last for two weeks continually exposed to venom.

Putting the evidence together

Then using new DNA sequencing technologies (that allow us to identify CRISPR guide RNAs targeting specific genes), we identified which human genes had been switched off in our genome editing experiments.

By putting the evidence together, we worked out which genes the box jellyfish venom needs to target in order to kill human cells in the lab.

One we identified is a calcium transporter molecule called ATP2B1, and is present on the surface of cells.

We tested a drug that we know targets this gene. If we added the drug before the venom, we could block cell death, but if we added the drug after the venom, it didn’t have any effect.

So this helped us understand more about how the venom works – and maybe even how it causes pain. We are still looking at this particular pathway in more detail, but at the moment it doesn’t seem promising for a therapy.

Read more: Going to the beach this Easter? Here are four ways we’re not being properly protected from jellyfish

Stopping cell death

Next we looked at the pathways involved in how box jellyfish venom kills cells.

We found four of the top ten genes required for venom action were all part of a pathway that makes cholesterol in cells.

Since cholesterol has been heavily studied over the last 30 years, there are already drugs available that target lots of different steps in cholesterol regulation. We focused on drugs that could bind to cholesterol and remove it quickly, basically acting like a cholesterol sponge.

We found these drugs could completely block the box jelly fish venom’s ability to kill human cells in the lab if added before venom exposure. We also found there is a 15-minute window after venom exposure where if we add this cholesterol sponge, it still blocks venom action.

This was exciting, as the capacity to have effect after the venom means the drug could work as a treatment in the case of being stung by a box jellyfish.

So far our additional studies show that these same drugs can block pain, tissue death and scarring associated with a mouse model of box jellyfish stings.

Moving towards a human treatment

The really cool thing about this work is that the potential box jellyfish antidote we found is in a family of drugs called cyclodextrins. These are known to be safe for us in humans, and are cheap and stable.

So now we are trying to work with the state or national government, or first responders, to see if we can move this venom antidote forward for human use.

As well as developing a topical application at the site of a sting, we also aim to develop this idea as a potential treatment for cardiac injection in the emergency room in the case of very severe box jellyfish sting cases.

– ref. How we used CRISPR to narrow in on a possible antidote to box jellyfish venom – http://theconversation.com/how-we-used-crispr-to-narrow-in-on-a-possible-antidote-to-box-jellyfish-venom-116283

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Cassandra Cross, Senior Lecturer in Criminology, Queensland University of Technology

Australian singer-songwriter Casey Donovan opened up again last night about the six years she thought she was involved in a relationship with a man she never met, someone called “Campbell”.

The Australian Idol winner told the Andrew Denton: Interview show, on Channel 7, how she was a victim of catfishing – a cruel hoax in which someone creates a false identity to play on the romantic emotions of a person by pretending to be someone they’re not, either online or, in Donovan’s case, over the phone.

“Hope kept me there,” she told the program. “To think that no-one could actually do that to another human being and to think of all the shit I’d already encountered in my life, to be at that point and to […] just have everything fall apart, it really hurt.”

Read more: The abuse tactics fraudsters use to break the hearts and wallets of those looking online for love

Donovan has spoken about her case before and there are many others who have been catfished – just do a quick search of YouTube.

There are some similarities between catfishing and online romance fraud, something I’ve been involved in studying for more than ten years.

So is there anything we can do to avoid being deceived by both?

They play with your heart

My research on romance fraud has focused on the use of online deception to destroy both the hearts and wallets of victims worldwide.

Latest figures on romance fraud in Australia show victims lost more than A$24 million in 2018 cases reported to ScamWatch, run by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. About A$19.5 million were loses reported by women.

While catfishing arguably uses the same types of deception and manipulation as romance fraud, the ultimate end goal is different. Those who catfish others online usually don’t have a financial motive.

Unfortunately, there are no known statistics on the prevalence of catfishing, so the extent of this type of victimisation is largely unknown.

While the statistics on romance fraud are problematic – the 2018 ScamWatch figure is up $4.1 million on the year before – it is still officially recognised as a form of fraud and a legitimate form of victimisation.

Catfishing itself is not a crime. It is only the deception associated with it that can be classed as fraud, and is therefore criminal.

A catfish captured

Earlier last month, Lydia Abdelmalek was found guilty in a Melbourne Court of stalking six people.

Adbelmalek was also a catfish.

In her case she took on the persona of Australian actor Lincoln Lewis to deceive several women online. The depth of her deception and the extent of her harassment and ongoing threatening behaviour to her victims tragically resulted in one of her victims taking her own life.

Abdelmalek is to be sentenced in June.

Victim violation

The sense of violation and betrayal is common across both romance fraud and catfishing.

In romance fraud, it is termed the “double hit” of victimisation, whereby the emotional loss is actually more severe and traumatising than the financial loss itself.

This same sense of emotional harm is evident in the case of those who are catfished.

The same issues around acknowledgement of victimisation and reporting are consistent. Many victims likely do not ever realise they are involved in a relationship with someone who doesn’t exist or who has been lying to them.

If they are aware, it is also likely that many do not report or disclose to family or friends. The level of embarrassment, shame and stigmatisation experienced by victims is likely to be similar.

How it works

The techniques used by catfish are similar in many ways to what we know about romance fraud.

The same social engineering techniques, the same grooming process that seeks to develop trust and rapport with the victim. The same level of patience used by offenders to maintain the ruse for weeks, months, and even years in the case of Donovan.

Nobody sets out to be a victim of online deception, whether it is catfishing or romance fraud. These perpetrators identify a weakness or vulnerability in a potential victim, and exploit this by whatever means necessary.

Why do people catfish?

There is limited research as to why individuals engage in online deception, across both catfishing and romance fraud. For romance fraud, there is a strong argument that offenders are motivated to defraud victims for financial reasons.

There is also emerging links of romance fraud to global organised crime networks.

But this does not hold for catfishing. Rather, the small amount of research that explores the reasons fuelling catfish activities, link to a perpetrator’s feelings of loneliness, low self-esteem, escapism, and a desire to explore their sexuality through a different persona.

These are all focused on the offender themselves, rather than being concentrated on any victim characteristic.

Given the extent of the harm incurred by online deception, it is imperative to gain a better understanding of the factors which motivate those behind both romance fraud and catfishing.

How not to get caught in a scam

Online deception is difficult to guard against. How can you convince someone that the person they are in love with is not real?

In the case of romance fraud, all prevention messages revolve around the inevitable request to send money. But in the case of catfishing, this message is redundant.

But there are similar signs to look out for. A refusal to meet in person or sometimes to communicate via other social media platforms. Inconsistencies in the stories used by those who perpetrate these acts. A gut feeling that something is not quite right.

On the US television documentary series Catfish, hosts Nev and Max use a range of techniques to try to find the real identities of those who are behind the online catfish.

Sometimes, a simple reverse image search on pictures used by the catfish may provide answers.

Ultimately, looking for love or friendship online comes with risk, in the same way that driving to work each day carries with it an understood level of risk.

But we should not disengage from social media or communicating online. Instead, we need to take precautions to reduce the likelihood that we become victims to online deception, in the form of either catfishing or romance fraud.

– ref. From catfish to romance fraud, how to avoid getting caught in any online scam – http://theconversation.com/from-catfish-to-romance-fraud-how-to-avoid-getting-caught-in-any-online-scam-115227

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Collins, Professor in Nutrition and Dietetics, University of Newcastle

There are many reasons people go vegan, from wanting to be healthier, to reducing their environmental footprint, to concerns about animal welfare.

No matter what the reason, many people find it difficult to meet the nutrient intake targets for specific vitamins and minerals while on a vegan diet. These include vitamin B12, iron, calcium, and iodine.

Here’s how to make sure you’re getting enough of these vitamins and minerals while following a vegan diet.

Read more: Vegan diet: how your body changes from day one

1. Vitamin B12

Vitamin B12, or cobalamin, is essential for making red blood cells, DNA (your genetic code), fatty acids located in myelin (which insulate nerves), and some neurotransmitters needed for brain function.

Vitamin B12 is stored in the liver, so a deficiency probably won’t happen in adults in the short term.

Symptoms of B12 deficiency

Symptoms of vitamin B12 deficiency include tiredness, lethargy, low exercise tolerance, light-headedness, rapid heart rate or palpitations, bruising and bleeding easily, weight loss, impotence, bowel or bladder changes, a sore tongue, and bleeding gums.

Other symptoms related to the nervous system include a loss of sensation in the hands or feet, problems related to movement, brain changes ranging from memory loss to mood changes or dementia, visual disturbances, and impaired bowel and bladder control.

Testing for B12 deficiency

Your doctor may request a blood test to check your vitamin B12 status and determine whether indicators are in the healthy range.

Vegan food sources of B12

Vitamin B12 is abundant in animal foods including meat, milk and dairy products.

For vegans, plant sources of vitamin B12 include some algae and plants exposed to bacterial action or contaminated by soil or insects. While traces of vitamin B12 analogues can be found in some mushrooms, nori or fermented soy beans, more reliable sources include vitamin B12-supplemented soy or nut “milks”, or meat substitutes. Check the nutrition information panel on the label for the the B12 content.

Crystalline vitamin B12 added to these products can boost the B12’s absorption rate to a level similar to that from animal products.

2. Calcium

Calcium is needed to develop and maintain the skeleton bones, and is stored in the teeth and bones. It is also essential for heart, muscle and nerve function.

Testing for calcium deficiency

Low calcium intakes are associated with osteoporosis or “brittle bones” and a higher risk of bone fractures.

A bone scan is used to measure bone density, with osteoporosis diagnosed when bone density is low.

Both low calcium intakes and low vitamin D levels increase the risk of osteoporosis. Check your bone health using the Know Your Bones online quiz.

Vegan food sources of calcium

Although the richest sources of calcium are milk and milk-based foods, vegans can get calcium from tofu or bean curd, some fortified soy or nut beverages, nuts, seeds, legumes, and breakfast cereals.

Calcium needs can be higher for vegans and vegetarians due to the relatively high oxalic acid content of foods such as spinach, rhubarb, beans, and the high phytic acid content of seeds, nuts, grains, some raw beans, and soy products. These specific acids can lower the calcium absorption from these foods by 10-50%.

In a study of calcium intakes of 1,475 adults , vegans were below national recommendations and had lower calcium intakes compared with vegetarians, semi-vegetarians, pesco-vegetarians, and omnivores.

Read more: Explainer: how do our bones get calcium and why do they need it?

3. Iodine

Iodine is needed to make thyroxine, a thyroid hormone used in normal growth, regulation of metabolic rate, and development of the central nervous system. Iodine is concentrated in the thyroid gland.

Symptoms of iodine deficiency

Iodine deficiency can lead to the enlargement of the thyroid gland, a goitre, or hypothyroidism.

Symptoms of hypothyroidism include lethargy, tiredness, muscular weakness, feeling cold, difficulty concentrating, poor memory, weight gain, depression, facial puffiness, hair loss, dry skin, constipation, and slower heartbeat.

In women, iodine deficiency can increase risk of miscarriage and stillbirth, and congenital anomalies, including mental retardation and cretinism.

Testing for iodine deficiency

Your iodine status can be assessed by a range of tests, including thyroid hormones in your blood, the size of your thyroid gland, or the presence of a goitre. Talk to your doctor about these tests.

Vegan food sources of iodine

The iodine content of food depends on the iodine content of plants, which in turn depends on soil iodine content. When soil content is low, iodine may need to be supplemented.

Major sources of iodine are seafood, dairy products, and eggs.

For vegans, iodised salt, commercial bread made using iodised salt, fortified soy or nut milks (check the product label) and seaweed are important.

Substances called goitrogens, which are found in brassica vegetables – including cabbage, broccoli and Brussels sprouts, sweet potato and maize – can interfere with the production of thyroid hormones.

Read more: Lack of dietary iodine threatens brain development in children

4. Iron

Iron is needed to make haemoglobin in red blood cells, which carries oxygen around your body.

Iron is also needed for the production of energy in your muscles, and for concentration and a healthy immune system.

Symptoms and testing for iron deficiency and anaemia

Not having enough iron leads to iron deficiency, and is associated with reduced work capacity, impaired brain function, lower immunity, and delayed development in infants.

The first stage of iron deficiency is referred to as low iron stores and your doctor may refer you for a blood test to check your iron status.

Read more: I’ve been diagnosed with iron deficiency, now what?

Vegan food sources of iron

In Australia and New Zealand, the biggest contributors to iron intake are wholegrain cereals, meats, chicken, and fish.

The amount of iron absorbed from food depends on a person’s iron status (with those who are iron-deficient absorbing more), as well as the iron content of the entire meal, and whether iron is haem (from animal foods) or non-haem iron from plant sources such as grains and vegetables.

Although iron from plant sources is less able to enter the body, you can boost your absorption by adding lemon or lime juice (citric acid) or other vitamin C-rich vegetables and fruits, which convert non-haem iron to a form than is better absorbed.

Take care with food components that inhibit absorption of both haem and non-haem iron, including calcium, zinc and phytates in legumes, rice and other grains, and polyphenols and vegetable proteins that can inhibit absorption of non-haem iron.

Read more: Why iron is such an important part of your diet

Long-term vegans will also need to keep an eye on levels of vitamin D, omega-3 fat and protein.

A good strategy is to check in with your GP periodically to review your health and well-being, and an accredited practising dietitian can check whether you’re getting all the nutrients you need.

– ref. Have you gone vegan? Keep an eye on these 4 nutrients – http://theconversation.com/have-you-gone-vegan-keep-an-eye-on-these-4-nutrients-107708

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Matthew Currell, Associate Professor in Environmental Engineering, School of Engineering, RMIT University

Adani’s groundwater dependent ecosystem management plan for its proposed Carmichael coal mine was recently approved by federal Environment Minister Melissa Price, despite a review from CSIRO and Geoscience Australia that points out major problems with the modelling.

According to the minister, approval was granted only after the company made commitments to fully address these issues (a claim later called into question).

Read more: Morrison government approves next step towards Adani coal mine

However, when we look closely at the flaws in Adani’s plan it’s not clear they can credibly be remedied. There’s a very real chance the mine could cause irreversible harm to the nationally significant Doongmabulla Springs.

What a groundwater model is supposed to do

The primary purpose of the model – as is the case for most groundwater models used in mining impact studies – is to determine the likely effect of mining on groundwater levels and flows of water to and from key areas.

One important goal of the model is to estimate the drawdown (decrease in groundwater levels) in aquifers around the mine as it pumps water and digs through aquifers to reach the coal.

Drawdown may cause groundwater levels to decline below thresholds critical to the function of whole ecosystems, such as (in this case) the Doongmabulla Springs.

Groundwater models can also be used to assess changes in flows of water to and from springs and streams, such as the Carmichael River, which crosses the mine site.

What flaws in Adani’s modelling were identified?

CSIRO and Geoscience Australia’s review pointed out three major flaws:

1. Over-prediction of flow from the Carmichael River to groundwater

Groundwater and surface water are intimately connected in the water cycle. For example, in some areas surface water can “recharge” aquifers, while in others aquifers provide water that keeps rivers flowing.

According to the review, Adani has overestimated how much water would flow from the Carmichael River into the aquifers below. This means there is in reality less water available to replenish the groundwater system below the river, which in turn means that the mine will likely cause greater groundwater drawdown than predicted.

2. The hydraulic parameters chosen for key geological units

A fundamental part of any groundwater model is the hydraulic properties selected for each geological layer through which groundwater moves. The most important is hydraulic conductivity: a measure of how much water can be transmitted through an aquifer over time. The review found that Adani’s model uses hydraulic conductivity values significantly different from the values estimated by previous testing of the geological layers at the mine site.

For example, Adani’s model assigned one key layer (the Rewan Formation) much lower hydraulic conductivity values than actually indicated when consultants tested this layer.

This is critically important, as it is the main layer separating the coals that will be mined from shallower aquifers. CSIRO and GA’s conclusion was that this also caused the model to predict less drawdown at the Doongmabulla Springs than is likely in reality.

Read more: Traditional owners still stand in Adani’s way

3. Bore heights used to calibrate the model were incorrect

According to the Australian Groundwater Modelling Guidelines, groundwater models should be calibrated. This involves comparing predictions made by the model with already measured water levels and other field data.

Calibration fine-tunes models, ensuring they are capable of replicating known behaviour, before predicting future behaviour. Correcting errors identified in the heights of some bores used in the model resulted in a lower overall match between modelled and observed water levels from the site.

Significance of these issues

These flaws are of major significance. If the model is corrected to address them, the review points out that the drawdown at the Doongmabulla Springs will in all likelihood be higher than required under Adani’s federal approval conditions.

We have published peer-reviewed science pointing out additional problems, which the review also noted.

A key uncertainty yet to be resolved is determining the predominant aquifers contributing water flow to the Doongmabulla Springs. It’s possible there exists a deeper source aquifer (rather than, or in addition to, the aquifer assumed by Adani). This has further implications for the level of impact the mine will have on the springs, and the effectiveness of the proposed monitoring program.

Adani was not required to address these problems prior to federal approval of its groundwater plans and is not required to do so until two years after mining activity begins (although, the Queensland government may yet require this).

This raises questions about the environmental approvals process, which currently allows major scientific issues to remain unresolved. Prior to approval, there are opportunities for scrutiny of a project’s impacts, which can result in major project modifications, strict operating conditions or even (in rare cases) rejection. Following approval, opportunities for independent scientific and public input and further modifications are far more limited.

‘Adaptive management’ will not protect the Doongmabulla Springs

In the decision reached by the Queensland Land Court following an objection to the mine in 2014-15, significant uncertainty about its future impacts was recognised. However, it was concluded “adaptive management” would nonetheless safeguard the Doongmabulla Springs. This argument was also the basis for federal approval under the then environment minister, Greg Hunt.

But what is “adaptive management” and can it be meaningfully used here? We would argue no.

Adaptive management is essentially when a company commits to flexibly changing its approach as it learns more about the environmental impact of its activities.

Read more: Why does the Carmichael coal mine need to use so much water?

However, there is a significant risk that the mine may cause the Doongmabulla Springs to irreversibly cease flowing. Adaptive management, as the US Department of the Interior points out, cannot be used if decisions cannot be meaningfully revisited and modified.

Indeed, Adani has not defined substantive corrective measures for reversing future spring-flow impacts from mining – an essential element of adaptive management. It’s critical Adani puts forward its plan for dealing with these very real risks. Without a credible plan, regulators cannot hope to make an informed decision about the risk the mine poses to the Doongmabulla Springs.

– ref. Unpacking the flaws in Adani’s water management plan – http://theconversation.com/unpacking-the-flaws-in-adanis-water-management-plan-116161

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gillian Kidman, Associate Professor, Science Education, Monash University

Inquiry-based learning emphasises a student’s role in the learning process and asks them to engage with an idea or topic in an active way, rather than by sitting and listening to a teacher. The overall goal of an inquiry-based approach is for students to make meaning of what they are learning about and to understand how a concept works in a real-world context.

The inquiry approach is sometimes known as project-based or experiential learning. To learn about a topic, students explore resources, ask questions and share ideas. The teacher helps students apply new concepts to different contexts, which allows them to discover knowledge for themselves by exploring, experiencing and discussing as they go.

Learning through inquiry can be done differently depending on the subject area and the age of the student. Inquiry-based teaching and learning practices feature in many classrooms across the world. Teachers are conducting lessons with an inquiry-based approach, or aspects of it, without realising it.

How does it actually work?

If you’ve read the Harry Potter books, or watched the movies, you may remember that, in “The Order of the Phoenix”, Harry’s class gets an unpopular Defence Against The Dark Arts teacher, Dolores Umbridge. Her teaching method is based on learning through textbooks and discipline.

Harry questions whether this type of learning will help young wizards and witches if they ever come across the dark lord, Voldemort. So Harry sets up his own classroom in secret, where the class practise spells and learn from each other. This is a good example of inquiry-based learning.

US philosopher and liberal education reformer John Dewey advocated learning through inquiry. His work to change pedagogical methods and curricula in 1916 was developed into classroom experiences in the 1930s. Although initially influencing schools in the United States, Dewey’s influence spread worldwide.

A key characteristic of inquiry is that it is externally and internally motivated, by the student. External motivation includes members in the team, the nature of the project and feedback from teachers. Intrinsic motivations include an eagerness to learn.

Although the inquiry is motivated by the student, it is guided by the teacher. A skilled inquiry teacher will vary their role along a continuum – from explicit instruction (where the teacher has clear goals as to what he or she will present to the students) to an inquiry approach that helps students control their learning.

Read more: Explainer: what is explicit instruction and how does it help children learn?

From primary to secondary

The primary school classroom offers rich inquiry opportunities as there is usually one teacher per class and s/he can use inquiry to link ideas and activities between learning areas. I observed a Year 1 classroom where the teacher and students were exploring nursery rhymes while developing early reading skills.

During the reading of Jack and Jill, a six-year-old boy asked: “What is the hill made out of?” The teacher built on this question to create an inquiry experience spanning five weeks. The children learnt concepts in science (forces, pushes, pulls, friction, soil types, rock types) and mathematics (slopes, fractions, time).

In doing so, children’s reading, writing and spelling (push, pull, trip, fall, tumble, slope etc) were enhanced. The class explored the geography of hills and mountains. Literacy, mathematics, science and humanities lessons revolved around learning about hills and answering the original question.

The class concluded that Jack slipped on wet clay and Jill tripped on a rock embedded in the clay. The class also discussed pushing and shoving each other, with one child asking if Jill could have been pushed by the same person who pushed Humpty Dumpty off the wall.

In secondary schools there are multiple teachers and classes, and therefore reduced opportunity for integrated inquiry. So the inquiry is generally within disciplines.

Different disciplines have different models for inquiry. In history, for instance, Telstar prompts inquiry by checking questions for guiding student progress. And in science, there are the 5 Es where literacy is emphasised in five consecutive phases – engage, explore, explain, elaborate and evaluate.

Teachers usually start with these generic models to accompany information contained in curriculum documents.

Challenges and misconceptions

The main challenge with an inquiry approach is assessment. Standardised testing monopolises educational assessment, which puts a value on core literacies: reading, writing, computation, and the accumulation of facts and figures. Educators are only beginning to identify parameters through which they can assess students’ discovery of knowledge and making meaning.

Read more: Why your child will benefit from inquiry-based learning

Global culture has become one of innovation, discovery and interdisciplinary thinking, which means solely relying on a standardised way of learning and testing is at odds with the outside world. Educators promoting an inquiry-based learning system believe it is only a matter of time until inquiry skills take precedence over learning content.

Misconceptions about using inquiry-based learning in the classroom include inquiry being too difficult for most students (that it is for the older gifted child) and that during inquiry the teacher does little and the class is in chaos.

But inquiry-based learning, guided by a teacher who models the process to various students, is valuable for the whole class. Classroom chaos is rarely seen in situations where the teacher is an active learner alongside their students.

Inquiry is part of human nature, but one can benefit from learning how to be a good inquirer. This includes learning skills such as how to ask and answer questions, solve problems and conduct investigations and research. To be an inquirer is liberating, exciting and transformative. It involves taking risks and is intellectually demanding. And, above all, it helps us learn.

– ref. Explainer: what is inquiry-based learning and how does it help prepare children for the real world? – http://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-inquiry-based-learning-and-how-does-it-help-prepare-children-for-the-real-world-115299

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Deo Prasad, Scientia Professor and CEO, Co-operative Research Centre for Low Carbon Living, UNSW

Too often it takes a crisis to trigger changes in legislation and behaviour, when forward thinking, cooperation and future planning could have negated the risk in the first place. Australia’s building and construction industry is under the microscope and changes in the law are in the wind, due to situations that could have been avoided. These include the evacuation of Sydney’s Opal building and the fires in Melbourne’s Lacrosse tower in 2014 and the Neo200 apartment building in February, both of which were fuelled by combustable cladding, as was the 2017 fire in London’s Grenfell Tower that killed 72 people.

The Shergold Weir report made 24 recommendations to improve the National Construction Code to ensure compliance, integrity and more. Commissioned by federal and state building ministers, the report was made public at the Australian Building Ministers Forum in April 2018. But implementation has been too slow to prevent the problems in the Opal and Neo200 apartment buildings. And it included no changes to climate-proof buildings.

Read more: Australia has a new National Construction Code, but it’s still not good enough

A new National Construction Code comes into effect on May 1. Recent events have, however, exposed inadequate construction standards and increased public pressure for further change. This presents an opportunity to future-proof our cities as well as restore public confidence in our construction industry.

Construction codes were created to eliminate “worse practice”, but we are now in a position to make them “best practice”. Importantly, we must prepare for climate change. Australia is increasingly experiencing more extreme weather patterns, but are we ready?

The legislative overhaul must also include building sustainability and higher performance requirements. A low-to-zero-carbon future must be part of the picture.

Construction code changes are needed urgently, not just for increased safety, but to ensure future urban developments:

• are ready for higher energy demands to cool and heat buildings
• are designed to maximise sun and shade at the appropriate times to cool and warm both building and street
• use materials that reflect heat for hot climates and absorb it for cooler ones
• maximise insulation to reduce energy use
• provide enough green space to give shade, produce oxygen and sustain a healthy environment
• use water features to cool common and public areas
• install smart technology to monitor and manage buildings and precincts.

Read more: As climate changes, the way we build homes must change too

Many leading developers are taking the initiative to ensure projects include high-performance, zero-carbon, highly energy-efficient buildings, with top star ratings, but action needs to be across the board. This can only be done via tough legislation and enforced compliance.

The University of NSW’s Tyree Building is an excellent example of a high-performance building, as is One Central Park, Sydney, which features hanging gardens and an internal water recycling plant. But its most striking feature is its “heliostat”, a large array of mirrors that reflect sunlight to areas that would otherwise be in shadow.

Around the world, high-performance buildings are on the increase, such as 313@Somerset in the heart of Singapore, and the Sohrabji Godrej Green Business Centre in Hyderabad – India’s first Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) platinum-rated building. There are many more.

Changing the law

New building standards and compliance are required to ensure high-performance buildings are the norm, not the exception. The construction industry should fulfil a “cradle to cradle” objective for materials. This means accounting for:

• where materials come from
• how materials are made
• safety levels
• carbon component
• recyclability at demolition.

Laws covering low-carbon building design are imperative, setting standards for geography, maximising natural light, air flow, insulation and smart technology. Technology can monitor and run a building’s utilities to ensure it’s not only energy-efficient but also delivers a health standard that’s adaptable to the future pressures of climate change.

Read more: Green buildings must do more to fix our climate emergency

Sustainable buildings are achievable now

Current know-how makes all this achievable. Over the past seven years the Cooperative Research Centre for Low Carbon Living and its industry partners have funded research into most low-to-zero-carbon aspects of the built environment. This has led to many recommendations in reports like Built to Perform, produced by the Australian Sustainable Built Environment Council.

The many research projects include:

• 17 living laboratories providing cutting-edge data
• creating low-carbon communities
• developing tools to measure carbon outputs, from materials to services
• studying the effects of heatwaves in Western Sydney and ways to cool cities
• research into low-carbon concrete made of fly ash.

This plethora of data reveals that sustainable cities and precincts are achievable, while providing for a growing communities. Blockchain and solar technology, for example, is now proven for managing a precinct’s energy needs and can help turn energy users into providers.

Read more: Beyond Bitcoin: how blockchains can empower communities to control their own energy supply

Although we are more global than ever, online and social media have in turn made us locally focused. We can know what’s going on in our street at a click and this technology is applicable to the operation of our future, sustainable cities.

We have the data, expertise, tools and knowledge to make safe, low-to-zero-carbon cities part of our future. But there’s much work to do. We still need to implement this knowledge, use the tools, change behaviour and instil 100% trust in the design and construction process. There’s no time to waste.

– ref. Don’t forget our future climate when tightening up building codes – http://theconversation.com/dont-forget-our-future-climate-when-tightening-up-building-codes-113365

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Matthew Hill, Senior Lecturer in Contemporary Music, Southern Cross University

The history of popular music is littered with stories of internal feuds and external relationships that drive cracks in bands or tear them apart. The Beatles, Metallica, the Stones, Oasis – the list is long.

These fights make great reading and help sell ageing musicians’ biographies by the bucketload. But what is often not talked about is the way conflict can have a positive effect on the quality of the songs written.

The Beatles’ 1968 hit Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da certainly succeeded by pop music’s measure of chart success. As Geoff Emerick, their long time sound engineer, recalls, it might never have seen the light of day if John hadn’t got fed up with Paul’s “granny music shit” and started madly pounding at the piano keys in frustration. This suddenly brought the track to life, becoming the song’s famous opening.

Fast forward 25 years to 2003, when Metallica hired a performance enhancing coach, Phil Towle, to be on hand in the studio while they were recording their 8th album, St. Anger. The internal feuding was well documented in the fascinating film Some Kind of Monster.

Vocalist James Hetfield was so controlling that he insisted they only work on the album for four hours a day; the rest of the band couldn’t do anything else musically outside of this time frame. This riled other band members such as drummer Lars Ulrich. Yet the album went on to top charts around the world.

When romantic attachments within a band lead to a break up, things are more complex. Still, even these conflicts can be a source of great art. Think of Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours – with tracks such as The Chain and Go Your Own Way – which sold 20 million copies in the United States alone. Or Richard and Linda Thompson’s last album as a husband and wife duo, Shoot out the Lights, which became their most critically acclaimed work.

Of course not all band conflicts end with great art. Some just get messy. The Smiths broke up in 1987. When the band’s former drummer Mike Joyce took Morrissey and Johnny Marr to court in 1996 over royalty claims, the judge found in favour of Joyce, saying that Morrissey was “devious, truculent and unreliable”. The Police, The Clash and The Pixies are other great bands that didn’t survive internal conflict.

But we rarely hear about the precise moment when songs are being created, and how conflict between band members can be crucial to making better music.

As a contemporary music lecturer, I am often in a room with students deep into the songwriting process. I stress the importance of respectful and constructive communication when collaborating. But I’m aware that in studios and garages around the world there are bands at each other’s throats arguing about whether the chords in the bridge are any good or if the guitar sound in the chorus is right or whether that beat sounds too much like their last five songs.

In my own band, we argue all the time. We have been together for nearly 20 years and made five albums. The tracks for the last two albums were made mostly by the three of us in a room thrashing away at our instruments to generate and refine ideas.

Creative sledging

We set up a video camera in the corner of the room to capture the process. Later, we looked at the footage and found two 30-minute sections of intense argument as we tried to come up with a bridge section in one song. The most interesting discovery was how important such moments of conflict were in propelling the musical ideas forward.

If we were stuck for an idea, or playing something that one of us thought was just lame, our drummer would often stop and offer a provocative sledge. “Play something other than clown music!” he’d say. Or, “this is not university, this has to be something that sounds good and has a bit of attitude”. Then we’d try again. This process worked in the opposite way that sledging does on the cricket field – it improved our musical performance.

Of course as a band we have a long shared history with a fair share of ups and downs. I would not recommend the “conflict as strategy” approach to a new band, and definitely not to a group of students.

It takes time for a band to reach what American psychologist and creativity expert Keith Sawyer calls a state of group flow. Or as UK music psychologist Fred Seddon would put it, a state of empathetic attunement. But the results can move you way beyond the contemporary equivalent of “granny music shit”.

– ref. Why artistic differences in a band can be a good thing – http://theconversation.com/why-artistic-differences-in-a-band-can-be-a-good-thing-110711

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sunanda Creagh, Head of Digital Storytelling

We are but a few weeks from a federal election, and the way the wind is blowing may depend on what state you’re in.

Trust Me, I’m An Expert – along with Politics with Michelle Grattan – is bringing you state-focused podcast episodes as polling day approaches. To catch up on all the political drama unfolding in NSW, I spoke to political scientist (and self-described political tragic) Andy Marks, who predicted a Labor victory on May 18.

“Labor will win this election. I think that’s virtually unquestionable. We’re just not seeing enough movement, even in the polls at this point, in the primary vote level, to say the Libs or the Coalition will hang on. I think this is going to be a Labor victory,” he said.

Read more: The myth of ‘the Queensland voter’, Australia’s trust deficit, and the path to Indigenous recognition

Take this week’s Newspoll – which appeared to show the gap between the two major parties – with a grain of salt, he said.

“Early in April, we saw exactly the same primary vote polling as we saw on the weekend. So, there hasn’t really been a discernible shift. You need to see a gap open up to the degree of around about five or six points, for the Coalition to even look like hanging on. It will stay tight, I think until polling day, but I’d suggest the momentum is with Labor and it hasn’t substantially shifted.”

You can read the full transcript below, and hear The Conversation’s chief political correspondent Michelle Grattan talk with experts on the seats and issues to watch in WA and Victoria on the Politics with Michelle Grattan podcast.

Production assistance by Tilly Gwinner.

Read more: Politics with Michelle Grattan: Caroline Fisher on the spin machines of #AusVotes19

New to podcasts?

Podcasts are often best enjoyed using a podcast app. All iPhones come with the Apple Podcasts app already installed, or you may want to listen and subscribe on another app such as Pocket Casts (click here to listen to Trust Me, I’m An Expert on Pocket Casts).

You can also hear us on Stitcher, Spotify or any of the apps below. Just pick a service from one of those listed below and click on the icon to find Trust Me, I’m An Expert.

Additional audio

Kindergarten by Unkle Ho, from Elefant Traks

SBS news report

ABC news report

Image

AAP Image/NIC ELLIS

Transcript:

Andy Marks: I’m Andy Marks, I’m a political scientist and Assistant Vice-Chancellor at Western Sydney University.

Sunanda Creagh: So Andy, let’s just catch up on where things are up to in New South Wales. What do you see as the key issues in voters’ minds in New South Wales as polling day approaches?

Andy Marks: New South Wales is a strange case. It’s the usual suspects in terms of issues but not in the usual way. So we’re seeing the economy feature but we’re not hearing too much in the way of big ticket reform. We are hearing some of that from Labor of course and it’s not about fiscal performance. That’s not winning votes anymore. It’s about issues like cost of living, it’s about issues like wage stagnation. At the other end, you have issues around negative gearing reform and franking credits which are more at the investment end. So a very unusual take on the economy in terms of elections.

The other issues that feature, of course, Labor have made it about health in terms of cancer care and the package they have there. Alternatively, the Libs have sought to bring it back towards security and issues around border protection, of course, that we saw with John Howard coming into the campaign on the weekend.

The big sleeper is climate and it’s a sleeper in the sense that it’s coming to the fore from a number of angles. We’re seeing the issue of energy reform come up from industry who are madly seeking coherent energy policy from both sides of the parliament. We’re seeing the issue of the environment played out with issues like Adani, and water, of course, is the big one in terms of agriculture and rural electorates across the country. So there’s three different lenses being applied but they all come up in terms of how both sides address the issue of climate.

Sunanda Creagh: You mentioned negative gearing there. Sydney, being the centre of the property boom in Australia, people here seem to be mortgaged up to their eyeballs. Lots of people negatively gearing properties. Do you think that issue might be a decider for some Sydney voters who do take advantage of that policy?

Andy Marks: Negative gearing will factor on the minds of many voters, but not in the seats that are pressure cookers, so they’re not going to swing seats. I think, for example, certainly among the retirement community those issues, particularly around the franking credits matter, are of importance. The housing market in Sydney and across the eastern states more broadly is softening anyway ahead of this measure. It’s hard to tie a definitive link to that and the coming reforms, should Labor win government. It’s not an issue that’s going to turn swinging seats, but it will factor into some more rusted-on voters.

Sunanda Creagh: And speaking of seats, what do you see as the key seats to watch?

Andy Marks: Across New South Wales, I reckon there’s about five that are up for a change. At the outset, I have to say this election won’t be won or lost in New South Wales. It’s most likely Queensland where you have up to eight seats and margins of 4% or less that will decide it. In Victoria, there’ll be some significant movement as well. There’s about five that I’m looking at in New South Wales in terms of potential change. Wentworth, of course, is the big one with the contest between Kerryn Phelps and Dave Sharma. Lindsay, where Emma Husar has been moved aside through misconduct allegations, and you have a contest there and out at Western Sydney. Banks, the immigration minister faces a challenge there on a 1.4% margin.

Then we, move into some coastal regional seats. Gilmore, where former ALP president Warren Mundine is running against Labor’s Fiona Phillips. Robertson on the Central Coast which is held by just 1.1% by the Libs, so they’re the ones where I think you can see some movement. Now the exciting stuff, in terms of drama, Warringah, of course, where former PM Tony Abbott is facing a challenge. In Reid, Turnbull-backer Craig Laundy turned that razor thin margin into almost a moderately safe seat for the Libs, and that’s up in play again as well.

Sunanda Creagh: You mentioned Gilmore, that’s an area that takes in places like Shoalhaven, Jervis Bay, and some of those Batemans Bay type areas. Tell us, what are some of the issues that will be in voters minds in that area?

Andy Marks: Look that’s a difficult one to pick. It’s really a four-way contest. You have a candidate in Warren Mundine who was essentially parachuted in by Morrison. The controversy there, of course, being his former role with Labor.

You also have Katrina Hodgkinson, who was a former Nationals New South Wales minister and really reputable individual running against the Labor candidate Fiona Phillips. And Grant Schulz, the Lib turned independent who was passed over by Mundine. So, it’s interesting in the sense that the way the vote splits over the course of the election will be something to watch. It’s really one that’s very uncertain for all of the players.

Sunanda Creagh: You mentioned Reid, which takes in Canada Bay, Burwood, Strathfield and is currently held by Craig Laundy for the Liberals. He’s been somewhat of a comparatively moderate voice. What do you think will be the issues there?

Andy Marks: Reid is an interesting one. Laundy was an incredibly strong local member and he stood up against his own party’s attempted reforms of the anti-discrimination act. That area was lost to Labor in the recent New South Wales election, due to comments made by the Labor opposition leader around Asians taking jobs. Really retrograde comments on his part. So the momentum probably was with Labor, whether the voters have forgiven the foibles of the state party though will remain to be seen. But, that’s a big loss to the Libs in Craig Laundy moving on.

Sunanda Creagh: I wanted to ask you about the seat of Farrer. That’s a regional seat, it takes in places like Hay, Murrumbidgee. Some of those areas around the Murray Darling, the Central Darling. With the seat of Farrer, what do you think of some of the issues there?

Andy Marks: Look Farrer is an interesting one – you wouldn’t be talking about an electorate with a 20% plus margin as being one that’s up for grabs, but it is. We saw swings in the state election against the coalition of up to 26% in Murray, 19% in Barwon, and around 37% in Orange. So these rural electorates are very volatile and the issue of water management, of course, is the dominant thread across a seat like Farrer. But it’s a diverse seat. So you have areas like Albury, where unemployment is very high, educational attainment is quite low, economic activity has been suppressed through the drought. So the issues across that electorate are incredibly diverse and equally you don’t have in the New South Wales case we had the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party running against the Nationals quite successfully in three seats. They’re not a consolidated force at the federal level.

Really, Farrer’s in play because of the Albury Mayor Kevin Mack, who is running the strongest challenge against Sussan Ley. She’s held onto that seat since 2001 and that’s Tim Fischer’s old seat. So, it should be a sure bet for them. This is suddenly a seat that’s in play.

Sunanda Creagh: So you mentioned water being an issue in the seat of Farrer, and certainly that’s shaping up to be an issue across the board. If you believe what you read on social media, suddenly everybody’s talking about water buybacks and we’ve had the big story breaking around the water buybacks issue that involved Barnaby Joyce. I’m interested to know what you think on how that issue may influence voters in the lead up to polling day.

Andy Marks: Look, there’s already a bit of disaffection towards the Nationals. I think their own internal troubles around leadership, and the other controversies they’ve had around Andrew Broad and other figures have given weight to the perception that their mind is not on the game. They’ve taken their eye off the ball in terms of the concerns of rural voters. So, that’s why we are seeing such a pronounced reaction against them in some seats. Whether that anger was spent, at the New South Wales election and the earlier Victorian poll remains to be seen. I can’t see a repeat of the swings we saw in the state election here in NSW. But certainly, some very generous margins will be really damaged, I think.

Sunanda Creagh: So let’s talk about Warringah where Tony Abbott is facing that strong challenge from independent Zali Steggall, who’s been supported by GetUp! in her campaign. That’s also become a point of contention and a point of attack for her political foes. How do you see things playing out?

Andy Marks: Look, there’s no doubt it’s going to be a contest. Zali Steggall will take it down to the wire. People need to be aware though that Tony Abbott loves a fight, shifting him on that margin of over 11% is going to be incredibly difficult. It’s not like Bennelong, for example, where we saw John Howard go as a result of demographic shifts and other factors. And it’s not like Wentworth where, of course, Turnbull stepped aside. A former PM, even one that’s controversial, still attracts some traction among voters. Zali Steggall has done well in opening the debate up into issues that challenge the principles that Tony Abbott’s put forward. So, forcing him to for example to talk more about climate, to talk more about issues where he’s clearly a little uncomfortable, has been a good tactic on her part. Obviously, the work of groups like GetUp! will influence things as well.

I just can’t see it shifting. I think Tony Abbott is far too an experienced player to go down without a fight, and this is the guy that loves to be backed into a corner. I might be proven wrong, but I think he’ll just hang on in Warringah.

Sunanda Creagh: And you mentioned former PMs, speaking of which, let’s talk about Wentworth. Do you think voters will punish the Coalition for turfing out Malcolm Turnbull? We saw Turnbull’s son, Alex Turnbull actively encouraging people not to vote for the Liberal candidate Dave Sharma. And as it turned out Kerryn Phelps did win that seat. So how will things play out there?

Andy Marks: Wentworth is an interesting one. I like to call it the contest for the soul of the Liberal Party. Because really, it’s about whether the party will choose to push forward in a progressive way, or revert more to those hard right tendencies that we’ve seen in recent times. The thing to watch at Wentworth will be whether Phelps has managed to translate in a really short timeframe that protest vote into a base. And that would mean Phelps has to have really strong points of differentiation on issues like climate, immigration and border protection. Which she’s, to a very large extent, done on the latter issue. Whether that’s enough to shift people across for good remains to be seen. That’s one that’s too hard to call.

Sunanda Creagh: So, Andy Marks what’s your prediction? Who do you think is going to win this federal election?

Andy Marks: Look, Labor will win this election. I think that’s virtually unquestionable. We’re just not seeing enough movement, even in the polls at this point in the primary vote level to see the Libs or the Coalition hang on. I think this is going to be a Labor victory.

Sunanda Creagh: Even with Newspoll saying it’s tightening as voting day draws closer?

Andy Marks: You have to look again at that primary vote figure. Early in April, we saw exactly the same primary vote polling as we saw on the weekend. So, there hasn’t really been a discernible shift. You need to see a gap open up to the degree of around about five or six points, for the Coalition to even look like hanging on. It will stay tight, I think until polling day, but I’d suggest the momentum is with Labor and it hasn’t substantially shifted. So with the Coalition on 38% and Labor on 37%, I don’t see it shifting sufficiently for there to be a change in the momentum.

Sunanda Creagh: Let’s talk about the upper house. What do you see as the issues to watch there?

Andy Marks: Look, that’s an interesting one from the New South Wales point of view. Jim Molan, arguably their highest profile senator, finds himself in an unwinnable spot on their ticket. This is largely due to reforms that he instigated, internal party reform. So it’s a big ask therefore for somebody to get up. You know, you’re going to require a quota in excess of 14% of the vote to get a spot. Brian Burston’s the other interesting one. He’s a former One Nation representative, now with Clive Palmer’s outfit, and he’s their parliamentary leader in the house. It’s a very interesting contest there. There’s Doug Cameron, a long-standing senator for Labor, retiring, and Tony Sheldon, the former Transport Workers Union secretary coming in on his spot.

Sunanda Creagh: And just lastly, what do you want to say about preferences? Do you think preferences will make a big difference in this election?

Andy Marks: Look, there’s no doubt that the question around where the United Australia Party’s preferences flow has been a dominant issue in Queensland. I don’t see it being of sufficient weight to shift the momentum, which again in those marginal electorates, up to eight of them, is all with Labor at the moment. So, it will make things a little trickier to call earlier. But, I still see things going Labor’s way in those key seats.

Sunanda Creagh: Any final comments?

Andy Marks: Look, this is a contest where New South Wales will provide plenty of action. But it’s not going to be the place where it’s won or lost. But it’s certainly going to be the place of high drama.

Sunanda Creagh: Andy Marks, thank you so much for your time.

Andy Marks: Thank you.

– ref. ‘Labor will win this election. I think that’s virtually unquestionable’: political scientist Andy Marks on #AusVotes2019 and the key issues in NSW – http://theconversation.com/labor-will-win-this-election-i-think-thats-virtually-unquestionable-political-scientist-andy-marks-on-ausvotes2019-and-the-key-issues-in-nsw-116273

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Annah Piggott-McKellar, PhD Candidate, The University of Queensland

The original Fijian village of Vunidogoloa is abandoned. Houses, now dilapidated, remain overgrown with vegetation. Remnants of an old seawall built to protect the village is a stark reminder of what climate change can do to a community’s home.

Vunidogoloa is one of four Fijian communities that have been forced to relocate from the effects of climate change. And more than 80 communities have been earmarked by the Fiji government for potential future relocation.

Read more: For Pacific Island nations, rising sea levels are a bigger security concern than rising Chinese influence

Low lying coastal communities like these are especially vulnerable to threats of sea-level rise, inundation of tides, increased intensity of storm surges and coastal erosion. Extreme, sudden weather events such as cyclones can also force communities to move, particularly in the tropics.

But relocating communities involves much more than simply rebuilding houses in a safer location.

It involves providing the right conditions for people to rebuild the lives they knew, such as equitable access to resources and services, social capital and community infrastructure.

Our research documents the experiences and outcomes of relocation for two of these Fijian communities – Vunidogoloa and Denimanu.

The relocated villages

My colleagues and I visited Vunidogoloa and Denimanu, villages in Fiji’s Northern Islands, at the end of 2017 and spoke to village leaders and community members to learn how they felt about the relocation process.

All 153 residents of Vunidogoloa and roughly half of the 170 people in Denimanu moved away from their climate ravaged homes.

Flooding in Vunidogoloa

Vunidogoloa is a classic example of the slow creep of climate change. For a number of decades the residents have fought coastal flooding, salt-water intrusion and shoreline erosion. The village leaders approached the Fijian government, asking to be relocated to safer ground.

The relocation was originally set for 2012 but, after delays, the entire village moved roughly 1.5 kilometres inland two years later. This is often recognised as the first ever village in Fiji to relocate from climate change.

Cyclone in Denimanu

In contrast to Vunidogoloa, Denimanu experienced sudden onset effects of climate change.

While the village had been experiencing encroaching shorelines for years, it was Tropical Cyclone Evan, which hit in 2012 destroying 19 houses closest to the shoreline, that prompted relocation.

Read more: Sidelining God: why secular climate projects in the Pacific Islands are failing

These homes were rebuilt roughly 500 metres from the original site on a hill slope. With the remaining houses still standing on the original site, the village was only partially moved.

Was relocation a success?

The relocation was a success in Vunidogoloa, and residents said they now feel much safer from climate change hazards. One villager told us:

We were so fearful because of the tides living at the old site. We were happy to move away from that fear.

But in Denimanu, where the relocated villagers live on a slope, fears of coastal threats have now been replaced by a fear of potential landslides. This is especially concerning as the village’s primary school was recently destroyed by a nearby landslide.

A relocated Denimanu local said:

We were delighted with the move to the new houses, but we were still worried about the landslide because the houses were on the hill and we know this place.

Ultimately, residents in both villages were happy with many aspects of the relocation process.

For example, they were provided solar power, rainwater tanks, and household facilities that weren’t available in the original villages. Vunidogoloa also received pineapple plants, cattle, and fish ponds, which have helped reestablish their livelihoods.

But it’s not all good news. While new housing was built for the community, they were built to a poor standard, with leaking through the doors and walls, especially in periods of high rainfall. Fiji is located in the tropics, so these infrastructure problems are likely to get worse.

Read more: Don’t give up on Pacific Island nations yet

And moving the Vunidogoloa villagers away from the ocean might damage their livelihoods, as fishing is one of their dominant sources of food. The ocean also provides an important spiritual connection for local people.

The impacts of climate change are set to rise, especially if global action to halt greenhouse gas emissions stagnates. More vulnerable communities will need to move away from their current homes.

While relocating communities to safer, less exposed areas is one option to help people manage climate hazards, it’s not a viable solution for all those affected.

Our research shows relocation must be done in a manner that accounts for the rebuilding of local livelihoods, with sustainable adaptation solutions that put local priorities at the centre of this process.

And we need them before more coastal villages are impacted by both slow and sudden onset climate impacts, putting more people in danger.

– ref. Climate change forced these Fijian communities to move – and with 80 more at risk, here’s what they learned – http://theconversation.com/climate-change-forced-these-fijian-communities-to-move-and-with-80-more-at-risk-heres-what-they-learned-116178

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christopher Sainsbury, Senior Lecturer Composition, Australian National University

Indigenous composers have been around for a long time, with Deborah Cheetham and myself working in composition for some 30 years, Troy Russell for 25 years, and William Barton for 20 years, amongst quite a few others. Many more are now emerging, but most are seldom heard.

This is at odds with the fact that numerous Australian composers have referenced Indigenous music and culture in their works, many of which have received much attention.

Some have used Indigenous melodies or songs, themes or narratives, culture or language in original pieces without appropriate engagements with Indigenous peoples. I call it “Indigenous referencing”: either serious overreaching, or various “lite” appropriations.

Almost 20 years ago, I talked to a leading composer about my heritage and identity, to which he responded “you don’t look it”. In a similar talk with another late composer, he simply talked about “the real ones”. I can personally let go of being dismissed. However, in acknowledgement that there are now many more Indigenous composers, such attitudes need gentle correction.

Admittedly I’m a fair-skinned Koori, but the heritage and identity of any Indigenous person is not the call of anyone, and especially not composers who’ve made a focus on referencing Indigenous culture in their works. This referencing can effectively disempower Indigenous composers. Can we imagine artists doing the same in the art sector?

Read more: Indigenous cultural appropriation: what not to do

A way forward

As a composer and Dharug/Eora descendant, I’ve documented the Ngarra-burria First Peoples Composers program, of which I am the founder, in a new Platform Paper.

I do understand the referencing of Indigenous music and culture by non-Indigenous composers. It makes sense as we collectively seek to understand the evolving Australian identity and our place in this land. In some ways, composers such as Peter Sculthorpe were effectively saying “look to Indigenous peoples”, and there’s a depth in that.

However, there are ways to engage with Indigenous peoples, music and culture that are meaningful for all parties. I recommend going to the source, rather than having Indigenous music filtered through the pen of non-Indigenous composers (genuine partnerships between Indigenous musicians and composers are not what I’m concerned about).

The First Peoples Composers Program aims to develop and support Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander composers working in scored music formats and new music styles. Our goals include composer development, making industry connections, lifting visibility, and exploring new expressions of culture.

My Platform Paper recommends such things as including Indigenous composers when making work that references Indigenous culture and sustaining that relationship over the years.

We should throw core funding at Indigenous composers and not just some kind of special funding, because then it’s real. And become informed about cultural agency, or who has authority over cultural expression. Fred Copperwaite, co-artistic director from our partner Moogahlin Performing Arts talks of “First Peoples first”.

And of course we recommend hanging out with Indigenous people. I worked at the Eora Centre for Aboriginal Visual and Performing Arts Sydney for about 25 years, and noted that no composer from the Sydney University Music Department, which was 300 metres away, ever visited us.

Ultimately this Paper is an opportunity to say Indigenous composers are there: they need support, they deserve profiling, and they will enrich the music sector.

Artful expressions of culture

The composers in the first Ngarra-burria program of 2016-18 – Rhyan Clapham, Brenda Gifford, Tim Gray, Troy Russell and Elizabeth Sheppard – have explored artful ways to articulate their culture.

Troy Russell’s Nucoorilma talks of a real-life foot journey over a great distance that his grandmother took about 100 years ago, to marry a man from another region. She and her family were welcomed into that distant country region/language area by locals.

In his piece, we get the picture that in the old times a “welcome to country” was potent with inherent physical effort, and it sounds in his music. Today it brings meaning for all of us about “welcomes”.

Rhyan Clapham (winner of the Create NSW Peter Sculthorpe Fellowship 2017) engages in language reclamation through his music.

He simply takes four words from his Murrawarri language, assigns them to four instruments, and uses the rhythms and the contours of each word to shape the rhythms and the contours of the musical ideas. He is graciously passing language reclamation into the hands of listeners.

The other composers, too, are eager to be heard and share. And this year we have a new group of another five Indigenous composers. Composer mentors have included Kevin Hunt, Kim Cunio, Deborah Cheetham and me.

Indigenous composers must have a place to be heard, and music organisations and ensembles need to take on part of the responsibility for profiling them. Cultural agency needs to be prioritised, and respectful long-term relationships created with Indigenous parties in any music project.

Dr Chris Sainsbury is the author of the new Platform Paper, Ngarra-Burria: New music and the search for an Australian sound, to be launched on May 1 by Currency House.

– ref. It’s time to properly acknowledge – and celebrate – Indigenous composers – http://theconversation.com/its-time-to-properly-acknowledge-and-celebrate-indigenous-composers-115839

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael (Mike) Joy, Senior Researcher; Institute for Governance and Policy Studies, Victoria University of Wellington

A recent update on the state of New Zealand’s environment paints a particularly bleak picture about the loss of native ecosystems and the plants and animals within them.

Almost two-thirds of rare ecosystems are threatened by collapse, according to Environment Aotearoa 2019, and thousands of species are either threatened or at risk of extinction. Nowhere is the loss of biodiversity more pronounced than in Aotearoa New Zealand: we have the highest proportion of threatened indigenous species in the world.

This includes 90% of all seabirds, 84% of reptiles, 76% of freshwater fish and 74% of terrestrial birds. And this may well be an underestimate. An additional one-third of named species are listed as “data deficient”. It is likely many more would be on the threatened list had they been assessed. Then there are the species that have not been named and we have no idea about.

Read more: Climate change is hitting hard across New Zealand, official report finds

Why biological diversity matters

Biodiversity is a word that means different things to different people. Its use has exploded recently as more people appreciate the magnitude of its decline and its importance to people’s future.

Popularly biodiversity is understood as the number of species in a given country or ecosystem. For scientists, the concept is deeper. It includes genetic and ecosystem diversity and has crucial components such as endemicity (species found nowhere else), native diversity (the proportion of native species) and keystone species (species that are crucial to ecosystem function).

Globally, biodiversity in all its guises is undergoing an unprecedented decline. Estimates are that we are now losing species at more than 1,000 times the background or natural rate. People are also moving species outside their native ranges, and this results in a global biological homogenisation and has helped a small number of species to thrive in human-dominated habitats across the world.

The classification of threat status, globally and in New Zealand, is complex. There are multiple levels, ranging from “nationally critical” to “at risk”. When describing levels of biodiversity decline, it is simpler to look at the proportion of species listed as “not threatened”.

In New Zealand, only around 18% of beetles, 26% of freshwater fish, 38% of marine mammals, 12% lizards, 5% of snails and 50% of plants are listed as not threatened or not at risk. This is a rather dire situation, especially given the 100%-pure slogan used to market Aotearoa New Zealand overseas.

Ineffective legal protection

Another important facet of biodiversity decline is that New Zealand has many endemic species, with around 40% of plants, 90% of fungi, 70% of animals and 80% of freshwater fish found nowhere else. If they are lost here they are lost entirely.

In a recent report to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, the Department of Conservation could not say whether New Zealand’s biodiversity is declining or not. One quarter of the nearly 4,000 species currently classified as threatened or at risk have only been assessed once and there is no way to know whether their conservation status has changed. Of the remaining roughly 3,000 threatened or at risk species, 10% had worsened to a more threatened ranking. Only 3% had improved.

The numbers above show the failure of legislation intended to protect biodiversity in Aotearoa New Zealand. The Wildlife Act (1953) purportedly gives absolute protection to all wildlife. But it is not enforced in any meaningful way, and therefore has had no impact on biodiversity conservation.

The Native Plants Protection Act (1934) stipulates that native plants have protection on conservation land but makes no mention of protection outside that and, in any case, is not enforced. Native fish are not covered by the Wildlife Act and the Freshwater Fisheries Act affords them no protection either.

Human impact on land

Apart from ineffective species protection, another factor is the loss of habitat and ecosystems through land-use change for agricultural and urban intensification. The first changes happened with Polynesian arrival, and then again after European colonisation, including massive forest clearance and wetland drainage. More recently, the expansion of dairy farms has contributed to significant biodiversity losses.

Freshwater fish are a good example. The increase in the proportion of threatened species has gone from around one-quarter in the early 1990s to three-quarters now. This recent loss reveals the failure of successive governments to protect biota, their habitats and ecosystems. Lowland coastal forests and wetlands in particular continue to be degraded by human activity.

Read more: New Zealand’s urban freshwater is improving, but a major report reveals huge gaps in our knowledge

Indigenous terrestrial vegetation cover is now less than 30%, down from approximately 90% in pre-human times. One-third of the country is covered in exotic grasslands.

About one-third of the country is putatively protected by being within the conservation estate. This sounds impressive, but it obscures the true state of protected areas. The ecosystem types in the estate are far from a representative selection. It mostly contains areas that are too steep to farm and too inhospitable to live in.

The failure to protect habitats is reflected in the reduction in ecosystem diversity: 62% of the ecosystems classified as rare are now listed as threatened, and more than 90% of wetlands have been destroyed. This loss is not confined to the past. Estimates are that 214 wetlands (1,250 ha) were lost between 2001 and 2016, and a further 746 wetlands declined in size.

Marine conservation

Protection levels of marine habitats are even worse. New Zealand’s marine area is 15 times larger than its land area, but marine biodiversity is poorly regulated. Only 0.4% is covered by “no-take” marine reserves.

Read more: Squid team finds high species diversity off Kermadec Islands, part of stalled marine reserve proposal

As a signatory to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), New Zealand is obligated to reduce biodiversity loss. We have committed to achieving SDG 14 (life under water) and SDG 15 (life on land). The former stipulates that we “conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development”. The latter that we “protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss”.

There is no sign of any real achievement in reducing biodiversity loss. While New Zealand produced a national biodiversity strategy in 2000, it has been largely ineffective at improving the state of biodiversity. As the OECD noted, the strategy and plan lack clarity and clear implementation pathways.

We have tried writing plans with no teeth. Now it is time for action from all levels of society. Cities and regions need to ensure parks and protected areas are adequately managed. Government must work to update ineffective legislation and commit to enforcing the law.

– ref. Despite its green image, NZ has world’s highest proportion of species at risk – http://theconversation.com/despite-its-green-image-nz-has-worlds-highest-proportion-of-species-at-risk-116063

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

One of the great things about science is that, when you start to observe a new object in space, you can never be sure quite what you’ll find.

We received a fantastic reminder of this during observations designed to check whether nearby stars had planetary companions. Our observations confirmed the discovery of a couple of planets, but also yielded an unexpected surprise.

Buried among our candidates was the corpse of a star – a white dwarf – a discovery we announced this month in The Astrophysical Journal.

Read more: Why Pluto is losing its atmosphere: winter is coming

The search for stellar wobbles

Our story begins with a survey called the Anglo-Australian Planet Search (AAPS), which spent 17 years looking for alien worlds using the 3.9-metre Anglo-Australian Telescope at Siding Spring Observatory in New South Wales.

We often say a planet orbits a star (Earth orbits the Sun, for example), but the truth is slightly more complicated. Instead, the two orbit around their common centre of mass. As a result, a star that hosts a planet will wobble, rocking back and forth over time.

Radial velocity surveys search for planets by attempting to detect that telltale wobble. Over its lifetime, the AAPS discovered more than 40 planets in this manner.

But it is almost certain that more planets remained undiscovered in the AAPS data. So we began searching for those hidden worlds.

In several cases we found stars that exhibited distinct signs of a wobble, but for which less than a full orbit had been completed. Without observing a full orbit, we don’t know whether the companions causing the wobble are planets, or other stars.

So how can we work out what we’ve found?

Direct imaging – a new trick

We identified 21 stars around which there could be a planet, but to be sure, we needed more data. Unfortunately, the AAPS had ended, so we needed to do something innovative.

For each of our stars, there were two possibilities: either the wobble is caused by a planet, or by something bigger (such as a brown dwarf or an unseen stellar companion).

Recent advances in astronomical imaging techniques mean we can now use the world’s largest telescopes to look at nearby stars and see objects very close to them – closer than has ever been possible before.

We used the 8.1m Gemini-South telescope in Chile to obtain high-resolution images of our target stars, to see whether we could see any previously hidden companions.

Despite the power of the technique, any planets around our targets would remain invisible. But if the observed wobbles were caused by more massive objects, we should be able to see those objects and hence rule out the planetary hypothesis.

The peculiar case of HD 118473

For 20 of our targets, things went as we expected. In some cases, we detected a previously undiscovered stellar companion. In others, we could rule out massive companions, giving us confidence in the presence of planets around those stars.

But for one star, things got weird. On the basis of the wobble data, we knew that the lowest possible mass the companion could have is around 0.44 times the mass of the Sun. That’s much too massive to be a planet.

With that much mass, we would expect the companion to be a star, fainter and cooler than the Sun, but easily visible with Gemini-South.

But when we looked at our images, no companion star was visible.

A macabre twist

The radial velocity data is clear – there is a massive companion orbiting HD118473, causing that star to wobble back and forth with a period of 5.67 years.

But it can’t be a planet (it’s far too massive), and it can’t be a star (we’d be able to see it). So what could it be?

The answer comes down to the way stars live and die.

Vast as stars are, their supply of fuel is not unlimited. Eventually the fuel runs out and the end of the star’s life is imminent. The more massive the star, the more spectacular that end will be.

A star like the Sun will eventually swell to become a red giant, then will puff off its outer layers, creating a spectacular planetary nebula, and leaving behind a glowing ember – its core, bare and exposed to space.

That core is a white dwarf – around the size of Earth, but with the mass of a star. Tiny, compared with the star from which it came, the white dwarf gradually cools and fades to obscurity over billions of years.

More massive stars die violently – as supernovae that outshine whole galaxies. But they also leave behind corpses that are faint and hard to spot. Neutron stars – the size of a city, but with a mass greater than the Sun – and black holes – tiny and invisible, except when they’re devouring something.

All this brings us back to our hidden companion to HD118473 – the mass of a star, but too faint to see. What could it be?

An unexpected ancient relic

By far the most likely answer is that the hidden companion is a white dwarf. In the distant past, HD118473 was a binary star with the two components shining bright as they orbited their common centre of mass.

Read more: Observing the invisible: the long journey to the first image of a black hole

For a few billion years, nothing changed, until the more massive of the stars reached the end of its life. It swelled to become a red giant then shed its outer layers, leaving behind a white dwarf, too dim for us to detect.

The white dwarf’s companion continues through space as we speak, still whirling in a celestial waltz with what remains of its companion. A dim, hidden relic to deceive exoplanet hunters, and a reminder of how science always has another surprise waiting around the corner.

– ref. How we found a white dwarf – a stellar corpse – by accident – http://theconversation.com/how-we-found-a-white-dwarf-a-stellar-corpse-by-accident-114089

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Fabien B. Vincent, Research Fellow; Rheumatology Research Group, Centre for Inflammatory Diseases, Monash University

Sjögren’s syndrome hit the headlines when US tennis player Venus Williams declared she was suffering from it.

What is Sjögren’s syndrome? How do you pronounce it anyway? And is there a cure?

What is it?

Sjögren’s syndrome, pronounced “Showgren’s syndrome”, is what doctors call a chronic systemic autoimmune disease. It’s when the body’s immune system mistakenly attacks itself, leading to healthy tissues being destroyed. It’s chronic because it lasts for a long time, and systemic as it affects different organs.

Read more: Explainer: what are autoimmune diseases?

It can occur on its own, when it’s known as primary Sjögren’s syndrome, or with another autoimmune condition, such as lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, or systemic sclerosis, and is then called secondary or associated Sjögren’s syndrome. Like most autoimmune diseases, there is no cure.

Read more: Why ‘It’s never lupus’ – television, illness and the making of a meme

What are the symptoms?

The most common symptoms arise when immune cells (lymphocytes) attack the body’s own saliva and tear glands. This leads to the body producing fewer tears and less saliva (the so-called sicca syndrome).

Fewer tears leads to dry eyes (keratoconjunctivitis sicca), when the eyes feel gritty and like there’s something lodged there. Eyes also get tired after a lot of reading. Less saliva leads to a dry mouth (xerostomia). The mouth often feels uncomfortable or stings, and people have difficulty chewing and swallowing food.

These symptoms of dryness often also affect other parts of the body such as the nose, upper airways, vagina, and skin.

Read more: Explainer: what is the immune system?

Fatigue, and muscle and joint pains occur in more than 80% of people with the syndrome, leading to reduced quality of life.

In 30-40% of people with primary Sjögren’s syndrome, other parts of the body are also affected, such as the skin, joints, brain, nerves, lymph nodes, kidneys, heart, and lungs.

There is also a risk of developing non‐Hodgkin lymphoma, that is roughly 14 times higher than in the general population.

Who is affected?

Sjögren’s syndrome is one of the most common autoimmune illnesses and the primary form affects about 0.3-1.0 per 1,000 people.

According to the Australian Sjögren’s Syndrome Association website, up to 0.5% of Australians have the condition, considerably more than the international figures.

However, this figure needs to be confirmed in a prospective epidemiological study, which has yet to be done.

Setting up an Australian national registry would be useful in determining whether the syndrome really is more common in Australians, and for gaining clues about what might cause this condition.

Nine times as many women are affected as men, and the syndrome is most common in 50-60 year-olds, although children and elderly people can also be affected.

It’s tricky to diagnose

This condition is as challenging to diagnose as it is to manage. General symptoms, such as unexplained fever, involuntary weight loss, pain, fatigue, and even dryness, are not specific to this illness, and can delay the diagnosis for years.

Inflammation of the muscles, joints, skin, nervous system, kidneys or lungs – which may lead to organ failure – can also mislead, as this can mimic other diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, lupus or multiple sclerosis.

It is also important to distinguish primary Sjögren’s syndrome from non-autoimmune conditions such as perimenopause, endocrine disorders, or fibromyalgia, which do not require monitoring or treatment of organs affected by the condition.

Finally, defining whether it is a primary or secondary disease is not always easy.

Read more: Hidden and unexplained: feeling the pain of fibromyalgia

Primary Sjögren’s syndrome should be suspected in someone with dryness of the mouth and eyes, joint pain and/or fatigue, with or without symptoms of systemic (other organ) complications.

Your doctor will perform a detailed clinical examination, and run non-invasive tests to measure mouth and eye dryness, in consultation with a rheumatologist.

You will also have a specific blood test to confirm the autoimmune disease, and if that is not conclusive you may need a biopsy (a small sample) of the minor salivary gland. This is a minor dental procedure performed under local anaesthetic. It can confirm primary Sjögren’s syndrome and also exclude other diseases that mimic it and need different therapy.

Researchers are looking into whether using simple ultrasound techniques can help with the difficult task of diagnosis.

Can we treat it?

As there is no cure, the best we can do is to manage the symptoms. But the few approved treatment options make this illness extremely challenging to manage.

Fatigue is difficult to treat. Other conditions that cause fatigue such as hypothyroidism and obstructive sleep apnoea need to be ruled out, and patients need to learn how to pace themselves within their limitations, while exercising and keeping as fit as possible.

Artificial tears (eye drops) help lubricate dry eyes and patients need to keep eyelids free from infection. For dental health, regular checkups and fluoride treatment are recommended, as are using sugar-free chewing gum or lozenges to stimulate saliva production.

Chemical stimulation using pilocarpine or cevimeline (the latter not available in Australia) can stimulate saliva and tear production.

Topical cyclosporine can also be used to treat eye dryness, under supervision of an ophthalmologist, and eye drops made from an extract of the patient’s blood can, in extreme cases, be useful.

Systemic (bodily) symptoms can be treated with glucocorticoids, hydroxychloroquine, or immunosuppressants such as mycophenolate mofetil, rituximab, cyclosporine, azathioprine, methotrexate or leflunomide.

However, none of these drugs used to treat the systemic symptoms have been proven to be effective in clinical trials in treating patients with primary Sjögren’s syndrome; their use is “off-label”, based on how we treat other autoimmune diseases such as lupus.

Read more: Explainer: why are off-label medicines prescribed?

Looking to the future

Several new treatments for primary Sjögren’s syndrome are being trialled for their safety and efficacy. If approved, they will allow therapy to be tailored to the individual and should lead to an improved quality of life.

Their aim is to stop the progression of the disease, halt the autoimmune process, and help reduce the use of treatments with strong side-effects, such as glucocorticoids and immunosuppressants.

Read more: Explainer: how do drugs get from the point of discovery to the pharmacy shelf?

Drugs in trials or soon to be tested include:

• belimumab (promising results from a recent phase 2 clinical trial, which targets a molecule called BAFF, and which has recently been approved for use in people with lupus)

• belimumab alone or with rituximab, in a new phase 2 clinical trial, and

• several other biological agents that target different steps in the body’s immune response, largely by interfering with the work of key enzymes or receptors.

Without knowing the precise symptoms Venus Williams lives with, her success and achievements – still competing with the world’s best tennis players at the age of 38 – is more than impressive. Her fighting spirit, always with a positive attitude, drives hope for other people with Sjögren’s syndrome.

– ref. Explainer: what is Sjögren’s syndrome, the condition Venus Williams lives with? – http://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-sjogrens-syndrome-the-condition-venus-williams-lives-with-111250

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Paul McGorrery, PhD Candidate in Criminal Law, Deakin University

In the past few years, most parts of the United Kingdom and Ireland have introduced new legislation making it a crime to engage in what’s known as “coercive control” towards an intimate partner.

Yet, with the exception of some laws that came into effect a decade earlier in Tasmania, no Australian state has yet to follow suit. It’s time for that to change.

What is coercive control?

England and Wales were first to outlaw coercive control in 2015, in a statute that was heavily influenced by the work of renowned sociologist Professor Evan Stark from Rutgers University. Ireland followed suit with similar legislation in May 2018, though it has yet to come into effect.

And just a couple weeks ago, a new offence came into effect in Scotland that Stark describes as the new “gold standard” for this sort of law.

In an edited book to be released later this year, Stark describes coercive control as a “malign pattern of domination” that can include “emotional abuse, historical abuse, isolation, sexual coercion, financial abuse, cyber-stalking, and other distal forms of intimidation.”

In other words, it describes a wide range of controlling behaviours that one person (usually a man) commits against another person (usually a woman, and usually a current or former intimate partner). These behaviours collectively strip the other person of their autonomy and sense of self-worth.

Read more: Domestic abuse: the psychology of coercive control remains a legal battlefield

This typically involves some or all of the following: physical violence, intimidation, degradation, isolation and regulation.

For the past few years, we have been keeping track of cases in which offenders have been convicted of controlling or coercive behaviour in England and Wales, and the results reveal a range of deplorable behaviours. For example, some offenders have

• threatened to expose private photographs of their partner or ex-partner

• prevented their partner from ending the relationship by threatening to, or actually engaging in, self-harm

• confiscated or destroyed their partner’s mobile phone

• deleted all male contacts on their partner’s social media

• threatened to or actually harmed their partner’s pets

• demanded that their partner eat certain foods

• demanded that their partner sleep on the floor

• prohibited their partner from seeking or continuing employment

• controlled their partner’s finances, with one giving his partner an allowance out of her own income

• conducted regular inspections of their partner’s home or body for evidence of infidelity.

In most cases (but not all), these behaviours have occurred in the context of a relationship that at some point involved actual or threatened physical violence.

And while there have been some male victims in these cases, the overwhelming majority have been female.

Read more: Sally Challen: what quashing of murder conviction means for similar cases alleging coercive control

Aren’t those behaviours already illegal in Australia?

Few issues have received as much attention in Australia in recent years as family violence. Yet for all the work that has been done, it is perhaps surprising to note that most of the above behaviours – with the exception of actual or threatened physical violence and stalking – are not criminal. (At least, they aren’t criminal unless a court has previously issued an intervention or protection order, but what message does it send to victims if the abuse they suffer is only criminal if it violates a court order?)

A number of Australian law reform bodies have considered introducing a new coercive control offence here. These include the Australian Law Reform Commission in 2010, the Special Taskforce on family violence in Queensland in 2015, and the Royal Commission into Family Violence in Victoria in 2016. However, all ultimately rejected this course of action.

But most of these decisions were made before the UK laws came into effect, or at least before we knew how such an offence would work in practical terms. That is no longer the case.

Read more: Australia should be cautious about introducing laws on coercive control to stem domestic violence

Now that we know what sorts of behaviours this offence would target, it is time to ask again: should coercive control be made a crime in Australia?

The Victorian Law Reform Commission certainly seems to think so. It was recently asked to consider whether family violence victims should be entitled to compensation from the state if they have been subjected to non-physical abuse, even though it is not yet a crime. The commission rejected that approach, and instead suggested the more appropriate response would be to “criminalise such conduct”.

The Coalition party in Queensland had also promised to introduce a similar coercive control offence in that state if it won the 2017 election. The Coalition lost, but the idea was put out there nonetheless.

Arguments against implementing a law

There are some who still adamantly oppose the introduction of a new offence that criminalises what many family violence victims, including those on a recent episode of ABC’s You Can’t Ask That, have called the “worst part” of abuse.

Some of these critics are concerned that women could be mistakenly identified as primary aggressors if police aren’t properly trained. For example, recent research by Women’s Legal Service Victoria found that women had been misidentified as the primary aggressor in about 10% of police-initiated applications for intervention orders.

Critics are also concerned that a new law could divert vital resources away from domestic violence prevention. They also worry the male-centric and adversarial nature of the criminal justice system might make it an inappropriate forum to address an issue that overwhelmingly affects women.

We agree that these issues would need to be addressed as part of any law reform process. But these are obstacles to be overcome, particularly through the involvement of victims of coercive control and advocacy groups in the drafting of any new laws.

These aren’t reasons to turn a blind eye. And they certainly aren’t reasons to expect victims to continue to absorb this sort of abuse as a private burden in which the state has no interest.

– ref. It’s time ‘coercive control’ was made illegal in Australia – http://theconversation.com/its-time-coercive-control-was-made-illegal-in-australia-114817

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Merja Myllylahti, Co-Director JMAD research center, Auckland University of Technology

This week New Zealand’s largest newspaper, the NZ Herald, launched digital subscriptions for its online content, making history at the same time.

Its paywall is the first for a general newspaper in New Zealand.

Back in 2011, the NZ Herald’s parent company APN (now NZME) launched a digital-first initiative which was deemed critical for its future digital revenue. As a part of that initiative, APN was considering digital subscriptions for the NZ Herald.

Eight years later, this future imagined by APN bosses has arrived and will affect other players in New Zealand media.

Digital access to news

The National Business Review, a business newspaper, has charged its readers since 2009, and digital news outlet Newsroom already charges for its premium content.

The New Zealand portfolio of Stuff, which is now owned by Australian Nine, includes digital news site Stuff, print newspapers and the community site Neighbourly. Stuff has no paywall, but the NZ Herald’s move to paid online content raises the question of whether it will follow its competitor. My bet is that a similar move is unlikely.

Stuff has built its revenue model on e-commerce activities and is now selling broadband access, electricity and health insurance among other things.

Read more: Nine-Fairfax merger rings warning bells for investigative journalism – and Australian democracy

Benefits of online traffic

For years, NZME and Fairfax Fairfax NZ (now part of Nine) avoided charges for their digital news content because of their duopoly in the New Zealand print and online news markets. The two companies feared that if one of them would introduce paid content, the other one would reap the benefits and gain in traffic.

On the other hand, traffic is perhaps not the main concern of the NZ Herald as it is targeting to convert a proportion of its audience to paid readers. For the first year, its aim is modest. It is aiming to gain 10,000 digital subscriptions.

To put the current situation into context, in 2018 Stuff had a unique audience of 2.1 million and the NZ Herald 1.7 million. According to SimilarWeb data, in the first quarter of 2019, Stuff had 34 million monthly visits compared to the NZ Herald’s 27 million.

For several years, NZME and Stuff pursued a proposal to merge. But when ruling against the merger in 2017, the Commerce Commission observed:

Both NZME and Fairfax have currently decided against introducing some form of paywall primarily because of the threat of readers switching to their competing online news websites and the risk of putting advertising revenue at risk.

That risk still exists, and it will be interesting to see whether Stuff gains in audience, traffic and advertising now that the NZ Herald paywall is going up.

The Commerce Commission was also concerned that if the merger had gone through, the combined company would introduce a more expensive paywall. As the merger was denied, this worry does not apply. But we don’t know how restrictive or pricey a joint paywall would have been.

Bundled with syndicated content

The NZ Herald paid content model is a freemium model. It allows readers free access to some content, but the premium content such as business news will be behind a paywall. It is also a very bundled model as the paper promises paid readers syndicated material from the New York Times, the Financial Times, The Times and Harvard Business Review, to name a few.

At this point it is not clear how much and what content exactly this large syndicate offers for the NZ Herald readers, but clearly the deal does not include full access to these sites.

The paper’s premium content editor, Miriyana Alexander, said:

While our major focus is on the delivery of the very best New Zealand journalism, we know that the addition of these four publishers, alongside the likes of the Washington Post and The Daily Telegraph will make for a terrific, unrivalled package of journalism and content.

As indicated in the table below, the annual digital subscription to the NZ Herald will cost NZ$240, compared to The Age’s and The Sydney Morning Herald’s NZ$294. Compared to prices of The New York Times (US) and The Telegraph (UK) it is cheaper, but compared to Le Monde (France) it is substantially more expensive.

All about business

It remains to be seen how much of the NZ Herald’s content will be behind a paywall and how much will continue to be freely accessible. Interestingly, academic studies of paywalled content have found that paywalled newspapers offer news sourced from newswires and syndicates for free whereas the most valuable content such as hard news, financial news, politics and opinion pieces have been hidden behind a paywall.

Alexander says the paper invests especially in business coverage, and it aims to be “the go-to destination for specialist, insightful and essential business journalism”.

The National Business Review and Newsroom Pro are competing in the same market, and they already have paid content strategies in place. I do wonder if the New Zealand market is really big enough for three players focusing and charging for business content.

One major decision is where to draw the line between free versus paid content. In France, Le Monde paywalls roughly 37% of its content, so readers have free access to the majority of its articles. According to Digiday, the paper found that putting more than 40% of its content behind a paywall had a negative impact on the potential of gaining new subscribers. When the paper reduced the number of its paid articles last November, its traffic rose from 84 million to 97 million in a month, increasing its pool of potential subscribers.

Getting the balance rights seems to matter.

– ref. How the decision to paywall NZ’s largest newspaper will affect other media – http://theconversation.com/how-the-decision-to-paywall-nzs-largest-newspaper-will-affect-other-media-116152

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Lee, Associate Professor of History , UNSW

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.

In 1961, the Australian Labor Party came within a whisker of an unlikely victory.

At the time, the ALP was still recovering from a split with the Democratic Labor Party and was not viewed as a serious threat to the Liberal-Country Party Coalition. The DLP was a conservative, Catholic-based, anti-communist party that consistently gave its preferences to the Coalition over the ALP.

In the 1958 federal election, aided by DLP preferences, the government of Robert Menzies was returned to power in a major swing against the ALP. The Coalition gained 54% of the two-party preferred vote, with 77 seats in the House of Representatives to the ALP’s 45.

What nearly cost the Coalition the next election, though, was the Menzies government’s “credit squeeze”.

Read more: Turnbull is right to link the Liberals with the centre – but is the centre where it used to be?

The end of import restrictions and the credit squeeze

Despite its huge electoral advantages, the Menzies government began to encounter political problems in the early 1960s. From 1952 to 1960, the Menzies government had been forced to license imports because Australia’s rural exports did not earn enough to pay for its imports. An opportunity to abolish import licensing came at the end of the 1950s, when inflation started to rise.

Harold Holt, the then-treasurer, urged the government to end import licensing to boost imports and thereby dampen inflationary pressure. Sir John Crawford, the secretary of trade, disagreed. He feared a blow-out in the balance of payments, and urged caution and a gradual easing of import controls.

Read more: Menzies, a failure by today’s rules, ran a budget to build the nation

Despite Crawford’s objections, the Cabinet preferred Holt’s plan and abolished import restrictions in February 1960. The result, as Crawford predicted, was a balance of payments crisis. In November 1960, Menzies took drastic action, sharply increasing sales taxes and imposing restrictions on credit to bring the economy back into balance.

The consequence of the “credit squeeze” was a minor recession. Unemployment, rose to 53,000 people at the end of 1960, and 115,000 at the end of 1961. The Menzies government’s longevity after 1949 had partly been due to its achievement of high levels of employment. Even moderate levels of unemployment posed a significant danger for a government that would have to face re-election in 1961.

But Menzies remained optimistic. He said:

I do not think we will be beaten. There are no circumstances which would suggest even a remote possibility of the opposition winning 17 seats.

The 1961 election

The ALP, led by Arthur Calwell and Gough Whitlam, seized the opportunity given them by the Menzies government’s apparent mismanagement of the economy. Calwell, despite being a far less impressive television performer than Menzies, campaigned doggedly on the economy. Calwell also received support from the Sydney Morning Herald, whose owner, Sir Warwick Fairfax, had become disenchanted with Menzies.

Calwell promised that, if elected, the ALP would reduce unemployment through a series of selective import controls and expanded social services. Menzies lampooned Calwell’s ideas as pie-in-the-sky rhetoric, and broadened his attack to include the ALP’s alleged closeness to the Communist Party.

Queensland was the key state. The Coalition held 15 of the 18 Queensland seats in the House of Representatives, and the ALP needed to win a swag of them to have any chance of victory. But election observers predicted that the ALP would not pick up more than two or three in Queensland, and that the ALP’s overall gains would be limited to seven or nine seats.

Read more: Memories. In 1961 Labor promised to boost the deficit to fight unemployment. The promise won

Following a frantic whistle-stop tour by Whitlam to north Queensland, the results of the December 9 election surprised everyone. For days, the election hung in the balance.

In the end, the ALP won a total of 15 seats, eight in Queensland. But the vote count finally tipped in Menzies’ favour when Billy Snedden was returned in Bruce and James Killen in Moreton, both supported by DLP preferences.

Menzies was so shell-shocked by the results that he did not congratulate Killen on his victory, forcing Killen to concoct a story that the prime minister had famously greeted him with the words:

Killen, you were magnificent.

Consequences of the election

In the long-term, Menzies and his colleagues were able to turn the near-defeat in 1961 into another decade of Coalition rule, aided by further electoral victories in 1963, 1966 and 1969.

When Labor was finally able to win office in 1972, it faced three years of unremitting hostility from the Senate, non-Labor states and an opposition that regarded an ALP government as so exceptional as to be illegitimate.

If Labor had won in 1961 and lasted until 1964, or perhaps longer, could this have had a longer-term impact on the country? Would Australia have entered the Vietnam War? Would conscription have been introduced? Would Australia have officially recognised the People’s Republic of China a decade earlier?

Menzies’ legacy also would have been cut short by what would undoubtedly have been considered one of the biggest election upsets in Australian history.

– ref. Issues that swung elections: the ‘credit squeeze’ that nearly swept Menzies from power in 1961 – http://theconversation.com/issues-that-swung-elections-the-credit-squeeze-that-nearly-swept-menzies-from-power-in-1961-115140

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nicola Short, Lecturer, Auckland University of Technology

Controversy over a rare cultural heritage landscape in South Auckland highlights significant failures of heritage protection in New Zealand.

The case of Ihumaatao shows how culturally and historically important landscapes continue to fall through the cracks of the heritage system.

New Zealand was the last major landmass to be settled some 800 years ago. Ihumaatao is internationally and nationally significant as one of the earliest settlements.

Read more: Local Māori urge government to address long-running dispute over rare cultural heritage landscape

On the Ihumaatao peninsula, 32 hectares of highly contested, privately-owned land is known to mana whenua (local Māori) as “Puketaapapa”. Others call it the “Wallace Block” after the Scottish settler family who were granted the land following Crown confiscation in 1863.

Now known as “Special Housing Area 62” (SHA62), this land is politically contested because the current legal owner, Fletcher Building Limited, plans to build 480 dwellings there. For mana whenua, this land is not only wāhi tapu (a sacred place) but also part of the adjoining Ōtuataua Stonefields Historic Reserve. It contains evidence of continuous Māori and Pākehā (colonial settlers) settler occupation.

Defining heritage status

Heritage New Zealand is the crown entity responsible for managing the national list and protection of historic heritage sites. But within the current planning and policy regime, it is not possible to demonstrate that Ihumaatao meets the threshold of national importance.

The absence of a national strategy or framework, combined with the fact that the strongest planning and protection policies lie with local or regional authorities, has created perverse outcomes. Nationally significant cultural heritage places can be more at risk than locally significant ones.

A comparative understanding of heritage sites on the basis of their national, regional or local significance cannot be established by looking at New Zealand’s heritage lists and schedules. Determining the commensurate level of protection for these places is difficult and at times flawed.

A bias operates in favour of Pākehā heritage. Currently, built colonial heritage represents over 80% of the country’s national heritage list. The vast majority of what the nation identifies and values as New Zealand heritage derives from the last 200 years of occupation. More than 700 years of Indigenous settlement is represented by less that 10% of places and the remaining 10% is either mixed, or the information is unclear.

Weakened legal protection

The ability of Heritage New Zealand to prevent the destruction of Māori heritage, which is largely archaeological, was significantly weakened by the passing of the Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga Act in 2014. This legislation replaced the Historic Places Act 1993, strengthening private property rights and emphasising advocacy and mitigation over protection. The result was a developer friendly regime.

From 2014 to March 2017, Heritage New Zealand granted over 97% (877 of 907) of applications for the modification or destruction of archaeological sites (information sourced through an Official Information Act request).

In the case of Ihumaatao, despite detailed heritage arguments for its protection, Heritage New Zealand granted an authority to modify or destroy archaeological heritage on the special housing block in 2018.

A subsequent Environment Court appeal failed for two main reasons. First, Auckland Council’s planning provisions offered no protections for Māori heritage on private land. Second, Heritage New Zealand’s policies for finding alternatives to modifying or destroying cultural heritage landscapes were not considered legally enforceable because of an exclusive focus on archaeological sites in the statutory provisions.

Read more: Traditional owners still stand in Adani’s way

Funding heritage

Another bias exists. A disproportionate level of resourcing is available for colonial built heritage over cultural heritage landscapes, wāhi tapu and archaeology. Most of the funding for the protection and enhancement of heritage is focused on buildings. The Heritage Equip Fund, only available for earthquake strengthening of heritage buildings, was recently increased to NZ$12 million. Additional funds from government include examples such as Auckland’s St James Theatre (NZ$1.5 million from central government and a NZ$15 million suspensory loan from Auckland Council), Dunedin Court House (NZ$20 million central government) and Christchurch Cathedral (NZ$10 million grant and NZ$15 million suspensory loan from central government, as well as NZ$10 million Christchurch City Council).

Compare this with the National Heritage Preservation Incentive Fund of around NZ$500,000 annually. This fund can be used for wāhi tapu sites and heritage buildings, but in the 2018 year it distributed 97.7% of its allocation to built heritage and only 2.3% to wāhi tapu sites (Opihi rock art site in South Canterbury).

To address the imbalance in heritage listing and conservation, New Zealand needs a national strategic framework. This framework would offer a “big picture view” that implements obligations under the Treaty of Waitangi and equitably speaks to the country’s past.

Ihumaatao is a symptom of a broken system. If the issues are not addressed, it will continue to allow the destruction of New Zealand’s unique heritage, especially our rare cultural heritage landscapes.

– ref. How a bias towards built heritage threatens the protection of cultural landscapes in New Zealand – http://theconversation.com/how-a-bias-towards-built-heritage-threatens-the-protection-of-cultural-landscapes-in-new-zealand-115042

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Miller-Jones, Associate Professor, Curtin University

We often think of black holes as one-way valves that consume everything they come across. But they are also powerful engines that emit radiation and drive energetic jets out into the cosmos.

In research published in the journal Nature, we looked at the emissions from a nearby black hole that’s “feeding” off its orbiting stellar companion.

While bright black hole outbursts have been studied in the past, this black hole is behaving in a way never seen before.

Read more: Observing the invisible: the long journey to the first image of a black hole

So what makes this one different? To answer that, we need to look at what happens when things fall towards a black hole.

A release of energy

Our everyday experience tells us that a rock falling off a cliff on Earth will speed up as its gravitational potential energy is converted into the kinetic energy of motion.

In a similar way, the release of gravitational energy as gas falls towards a black hole can power some of the most dramatic phenomena in our universe.

The infalling gas swirls around the black hole in a thin disk, known as an accretion disk, whose inner regions become so hot they emit X-ray radiation.

The strong magnetic fields close to the black hole help generate narrow beams of energy and matter called jets. These jets move away from the black hole at close to the speed of light.

We seem to see jets anywhere in the universe where there are inflows of matter onto a central object such as a black hole. But we do not yet understand the nature of this connection between the inflowing gas and the outflowing jets.

A black hole ‘feeding frenzy’

In June 2015, we had a perfect opportunity to study this link. It occurred during an extraordinarily bright outburst of a black hole in a binary system (two objects gravitationally bound together) known as V404 Cygni, about 7,800 light years away in the constellation of Cygnus.

This binary system comprises a black hole (about nine times the mass of our own Sun) in a 6.5-day orbit with a normal star (about 70% of the mass of our Sun). The star is big enough that its outer layers are captured by the black hole’s gravity.

During the 2015 outburst, the black hole was feeding extremely rapidly. It generated more energy every second during the outburst than the Sun emits over three days.

Astronomers all over the world trained their telescopes on this outburst, providing data right across the electromagnetic spectrum, from radio waves to X-rays.

Our team focused on the bright radio emissions from the outflowing jets, using the National Science Foundation’s Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA). This is a continent-sized array of ten 25-metre wide radio dishes, spread across the United States from Hawaii to the Virgin Islands.

This allowed us to make detailed images of the jets, zooming in to a region roughly the same size as our Solar System. This is the equivalent of seeing a dollar coin in Sydney from a location in Perth.

Usually, we make radio images by combining all the data from a single observation together. But the jets from this black hole were changing so rapidly that we only saw a blur – as if we were trying to take a picture of a waterfall with a one-second shutter speed.

To see what was going on, we had to break up our data into much shorter images, each made from only 70 seconds of data.

Rapidly wobbling jets

This allowed us to track the movements of the jets over the course of our four-hour long observation.

But our research showed something unexpected. Rather than moving along the same channel, the jet direction was changing rapidly over time.

In the few systems where jets have previously been seen to change direction, this has occurred relatively slowly, on timescales of months. In V404 Cygni, the jet direction was changing on timescales of hours, or even minutes.

Our best explanation for such rapid changes is that the jets were being redirected by a wobbling inner accretion flow around a spinning black hole.

During the bright outburst, the intense radiation from the black hole caused the inner few thousand kilometres of the accretion disk to become puffed up into a doughnut-shaped structure.

According to Einstein’s General Relativity, the spinning black hole drags spacetime – the very fabric of the universe – around with it.

If the binary orbit is not aligned with the black hole spin axis, this frame dragging will cause the puffed up inner disk to precess – it wobbles around like a spinning top that is slowing down. We believe that the precessing inner disk is responsible for redirecting the jets.

To generate a precessing disk, the plane of the binary orbit and the black hole spin must be out of alignment. This can happen when a black hole is formed in a supernova explosion.

Read more: Why Pluto is losing its atmosphere: winter is coming

The explosion gives a kick to the system, pushing it out of alignment. We suggest that similar jet precession could occur any time a spinning black hole is feeding rapidly from a disk that is not aligned.

X-ray observations of other stellar-mass black holes show that such misalignments are likely to be common. Other misaligned situations could include phenomena such as tidal disruption events, where a supermassive black hole’s enormous gravity shreds a star that wanders too close, and the black hole feeds on the resulting debris.

– ref. Like a spinning top: wobbling jets from a black hole that’s ‘feeding’ on a companion star – http://theconversation.com/like-a-spinning-top-wobbling-jets-from-a-black-hole-thats-feeding-on-a-companion-star-116067

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Danielle Wood, Program Director, Budget Policy and Institutional Reform, Grattan Institute

The 2019 election has been heralded as a “generational election” or an “age war”. Labor goes to the election with a series of policies on climate change, housing affordability, wages and budget sustainability clearly designed to appeal to young and middle-aged Australians concerned about their future.

But while the record numbers of enrolled young voters may make this look like a political masterstroke, the fact remains that the Australia’s voter base, like its population, is ageing. Baby boomers will remain a political force in this country for some time to come.

Youth enrolment is rising, but not just because of the marriage equality plebiscite

Youth voter enrolment is at an all-time high, with 88.8% of eligible 18- to 24-year-olds — some 1.7 million Australians — enrolled to vote. This is somewhat higher than the previous peaks for the marriage equality plebiscite (88.6%) and the 2016 election (86.7%).

Many commentators have credited the marriage equality plebiscite with driving increased youth engagement and participation. Between August 8 and 24, 2017, in the lead-up to the plebiscite, the Australian Electoral Commission added almost 100,000 people to the electoral roll. Around two-thirds of these were aged 18 to 24.

But while the numbers sound impressive, this uptick in youth enrolment was actually smaller than the normal increase we see before a federal election.

Around 300,000 Australians turn 18 every year, so younger voters are continually being added to the electoral roll. However, many new voters — whether new citizens or young Australians who have recently turned 18 — complete their enrolment paperwork in the lead-up to elections. This is why we see a sharp increase in enrolments, and particularly in youth enrolments, in the months before a poll.

Enrolments for 18- to 19-year-olds jumped by more than 80,000 people in the final weeks before the 2013 and 2016 elections. In contrast, net enrolments only grew by around 48,000 for the 18-19 age group in the weeks prior to the marriage plebiscite.

Because the marriage equality plebiscite was held in the normal three-year window between elections, it probably brought forward some of the enrolments that would normally have occurred in the lead-up to the 2019 election. But it is not clear that the plebiscite had the sizeable and lasting effect on youth enthusiasm that has been claimed. Enrolments for under-25s for the 2019 election are around 2 percentage points higher than for the 2016 federal election.

The more significant change in youth enrolments occurred between 2013 and 2016, and for reasons that had little to do with any increased political engagement among young people.

In 2012, the government empowered the AEC to directly enrol citizens (and update their details) once it had sufficient information from other government agencies, including Centrelink and the national driver licence database. The AEC also introduced entirely online enrolments in the lead-up to the 2013 election.

The AEC says direct enrolment resulted in almost 279,000 new enrolments between the 2013 and 2016 elections; online enrolments accounted for another 365,000.

An ageing population means an ageing voter base

The effect of an ageing voter population dwarfs the modest growth in youth enrolments.

The biggest change in voter demographics since the last federal election in 2016 was the enormous growth in voters aged 70 and over. As Australians live longer and healthier lives, voters will, on average, be older.

Around 300,000 more voters age 70 and over are enrolled to vote now than for the 2016 election, a 13% increase in just three years. In the same period, enrolments for younger voters aged 18 to 34 have only grown by around 135,000, or 3%.

The recent increase in older voters is part of a long-term trend towards an ageing population overall. The first time Australia had more residents 55 and over than aged 18 to 29 was in 1991. Since then, the relative share of those 55 and older has continued to increase and is forecast to grow further over the next two decades.

Older Australian residents are also more likely to be citizens than younger Australians because new residents tend to be younger than the average Australian. This factor decreases the relative proportion of younger Australian residents enrolled to vote.

How might this affect the election outcome?

If Labor is relying on a surge of younger voters to deliver it victory then its hopes may be misplaced. Of course, that doesn’t mean a platform focused on some of the environmental and economic concerns of younger Australians cannot succeed.

But it does suggest that electoral success will depend on persuading enough older voters that Labor’s proposals can provide future generations with the same standard of living that they have enjoyed.

– ref. More grey tsunami than youthquake: despite record youth enrolments, Australia’s voter base is ageing – http://theconversation.com/more-grey-tsunami-than-youthquake-despite-record-youth-enrolments-australias-voter-base-is-ageing-115842

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jack Anderson, Professor of Sports Law, Melbourne Law School, University of Melbourne

Earlier this month, Australian rugby player Israel Folau wrote on Instagram that hell awaits “drunks, homosexuals, adulterers, liars, fornicators, thieves, atheists and idolaters.”

Rugby Australia subsequently announced that his comments breached the game’s code of conduct and it would seek to terminate his four-year contract of employment signed only last year and worth a purported A$4 million.

Exercising his right under the code, Folau has sought a full code of conduct committee hearing on the matter. Here are the legal arguments likely to be made at the hearing, scheduled for Thursday.

Rugby Australia’s case

In seeking to terminate Folau’s contract, Rugby Australia won’t rely on any specific term in the player’s contract. Rather, its arguments will be premised on the general contractual clause that players employed by Rugby Australia must abide by its code of conduct.

Read more: Israel Folau’s comments remind us homophobia and transphobia are ever present in Australian sport

The preamble to the code outlines Rugby Australia’s “core values”, including a safe, fair and inclusive environment for all involved in the game. More specifically, a key clause states that players must “use social media appropriately”. Examples of related breaches of the code include making

any public comment that would likely be detrimental to the best interests, image and welfare of the game.

In addition, there is a clause in the code that asks players to

treat everyone equally, fairly and with dignity regardless of gender or gender identity, sexual orientation, ethnicity, cultural or religious background, age or disability.

Rugby Australia’s argument is likely to be that Folau breached all of the above, entitling the organisation to seek unilateral termination of his contract. This would also take into account the fact that Rugby Australia had previously warned Folau about the exact same behaviour in April 2018.

In brief, Rugby Australia’s case will be that Folau breached his duty as an employee to obey the lawful, reasonable instructions of the employer and, given the repeated nature of the misconduct, termination of contract is justified.

Israel Folau’s case

There are likely to be two principal aspects to Folau’s submissions at the hearing – procedural and substantive unfairness.

On procedural unfairness, Folau may argue that even before a hearing was arranged, Rugby Australia had prejudged its outcome by declaring it would seek to terminate his contract. He may also point to comments by the national team coach, Michael Cheika, that he would have difficulty ever selecting Folau for the national team again.

Folau’s substantive unfairness argument also seems likely to be two-fold – one based on an interpretation of the code and one, possibly, based on human rights or discrimination law.

Read more: Taking sides: sport organisations and the same-sex debate

On the first element, Folau could argue that the phrase in the code about using “social media appropriately” is overly subjective, and its scope left to be defined at the whim of the employer.

Rugby Australia’s reply here would be crucial. It could counter that Folau’s activity on social media prior to the disputed Instagram post of April 10 – he posted 52 times on Instagram, of which 43 had a religious theme – is evidence of the organisation’s respect of his right to hold such views.

Human rights and discrimination law

Central to this whole affair is Folau’s faith. Australia doesn’t have a federal bill of rights or a religious discrimination act. Neither does New South Wales, where the hearing is to be heard.

But Australia has ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). Article 18 of the ICCPR says that everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion.

If this point is argued, the issue will be whether the restrictions Rugby Australia have placed on Folau’s freedom to manifest his religious beliefs are legitimate, necessary and proportionate, given that Folau’s views conflict with another fundamental right – the right not to be discriminated against because of one’s sexual orientation. This is protected under Articles 2 and 26 of the ICCPR.

In sum, the point of contention may well be, as is often the case in human rights law, a matter of conflicting rights. To quote Anthony Whealy, former NSW Supreme Court judge,

Clearly the intent [of the code] is to whole-heartedly “include” the gay community in the rugby movement. But is its intention to “exclude” traditional Christian and other religious beliefs?

At the federal level, a person who suffers discrimination in employment on the basis of religion has two options. First, that person can make a complaint to the Australian Human Rights Commission. Secondly, he or she could make an application to the Fair Work Commission for breach of the Fair Work Act 2009, which prohibits employers from terminating a person’s employment for reasons including religious views.

Read more: Australia needs a better conversation about religious freedom

NSW’s Anti-Discrimination Act of 1977 also protects against discrimination of one’s “ethno-religious origin”.

In contrast, Rugby Australia’s member protection policy, which works in tandem with the code of conduct, goes further than NSW law by specifically protecting “religion, religious beliefs or activities” against discrimination.

It will be interesting to see whether Folau, as part of his defence, will counter-claim that Rugby Australia has breached its own member protection policy

Possible outcomes of the hearing

If Folau doesn’t succeed at the hearing, he has a right to appeal and may well decide to pursue the matter in federal court.

Rugby League’s code of conduct is currently being argued in federal court: Jack de Belin is seeking various remedies against the National Rugby League pursuant to its policy to stand down players who are facing serious criminal charges, pending the outcome of the criminal trial.

Even if Folau succeeds at his hearing, a point so far underplayed in this whole affair is what is called the concept of “mutual trust and confidence” between employer and employee. Put simply, employment law recognises that there is little point reinstating a worker who has been terminated unless the parties are able to work with mutual trust and confidence in a viable, productive way.

Given the unique employment environment of sport, it seems reasonable to suggest that even if Folau succeeds in the hearing, it is highly unlikely he will ever play again for the Wallabies or even the Waratahs.

In fact, if Folau wins, it is likely there will be a settlement to pay out his contract. The full-time player will then be free to become a full-time preacher.

– ref. Explainer: does Rugby Australia have legal grounds to sack Israel Folau for anti-gay social media posts? – http://theconversation.com/explainer-does-rugby-australia-have-legal-grounds-to-sack-israel-folau-for-anti-gay-social-media-posts-116170

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Duckett, Director, Health Program, Grattan Institute

Opposition leader Bill Shorten declared on Sunday that Labor has a “vision of universal access to dental care in Australia”.

Labor’s pensioner dental plan would would give aged pensioners up to A$1,000 of subsidised dental care every two years.

The policy is a welcome advance, but both sides should go further. The current system is a mess. It leaves many Australians without timely access to dental care, which only causes more painful and costly problems down the track.

Australians should demand their politicians introduce a universal dental care scheme. As with Medicare, this would ensure all Australians have access to subsidised basic dental care, including check-ups and treatment for tooth decay.

The Labor scheme is just a start on this road, covering pensioners over 65 and Seniors’ Health Care Card holders.

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

The mess we’re in

Dental care is a glaring gap in our health system. When Australians need to see a GP, Medicare picks up all or most of the bill. When they need to see a dentist, most Australians are on their own.

The result is that about two million Australian adults each year don’t get dental care when they need it because of the cost.

There have been various attempts to expand Commonwealth support for dental care over the years. But most have been abolished – whether because of cost overruns, a budget crunch, or change in governmental priorities.

Australia does offer some public dental care for adults, but the system is woefully inadequate. All state and territory governments operate means-tested public dental schemes, generally restricted to pensioners and concession card holders.

About five million adults fit the eligibility criteria, but the schemes aren’t funded anywhere near enough to provide services to all eligible people who need care. Only about one-fifth of eligible adults receive care in the public system each year.

In most states and territories, most people who seek public dental care have to wait more than a year to be seen. The wait is sometimes more than two years.

The states and territories spend A$836 million a year of their own money on public dental care. The Commonwealth chips in another A$108 million under a National Partnership Agreement that’s set to expire next year.

The total is well short of what’s needed. By way of comparison, the federal government spends more than A$700 million each year subsidising dental care through the private health insurance rebate.

From little dental problems, big problems grow

The situation is a little better for children. More than half of Australian children are covered by the Child Dental Benefits Schedule (CDBS), a federal government initiative in place since 2013.

The scheme covers children who live in low- and middle-income households – those that receive Family Tax Benefit Part A or another Commonwealth payment.

Read more: Dental report card fail: half of adults and one-third of kids don’t brush twice a day

The main problem with the child dental scheme is that not many children use it.

When the scheme was introduced, the Commonwealth expected about 80% of eligible children would use it. In the event, only 35% did so, and the figure has barely budged since then.

It may be that usage is so low because many parents just don’t know that the child dental scheme exists and that their children are eligible for care under the scheme.

Whatever the reasons, the Commonwealth should work with the states to promote the scheme and boost uptake – and in the process, rigorously determine which strategies are most effective in getting kids to the dentist.

Filling the gap in Australia’s health system

As we recommended in a recent Grattan Institute report, the Commonwealth government should fill the gap in Australia’s health system by moving towards a universal dental care scheme.

This scheme should build on the child dental scheme, which provides a useful model that could be expanded to ultimately cover everyone.

Read more: Grattan Orange Book. What the election should be about: priorities for the next government

A universal scheme should allow care to be delivered by either private dentists or public clinics, just as the child dental scheme does. Consultations should be bulk-billed, meaning patients have no out-of-pocket costs.

Prices should be set out in a tightly controlled schedule, much as in Medicare, with reasonable and closely monitored caps on usage.

Dental practices that participate in the scheme should make public a range of data so the government – and taxpayers – can monitor their performance and the oral health outcomes of their patients.

Steps towards a universal dental system

It would be impractical to adopt a universal scheme overnight. We calculate it would cost about A$5.6 billion a year.

The development of such a scheme would entail reshaping of Commonwealth-state relations, and would require more dentists and other oral health professionals than we currently have in Australia.

Because of these challenges, we recommended the Commonwealth outline a ten-year plan for a universal scheme and start progressively expanding the number of people who are eligible for publicly funded care.

Read more: Child tooth decay is on the rise, but few are brushing their teeth enough or seeing the dentist

The Labor policy broadly fits with our recommendations. It builds on the child dental scheme and uses the public-private model we recommended.

The extra funding – A$2.4 billion over the next four years, according to Labor – would represent a very big increase in public funding for dental care.

Importantly, Labor sees this policy as a step towards a universal system. Once implemented, this pensioner dental scheme and the existing Child Dental Benefits arrangements will still leave a lot of Australians without subsidised Commonwealth dental cover.

The next step is setting out a plan to get to provide that cover. When will coverage be extended to other Australians who need care? How will we expand the oral health workforce to ensure we can provide care to everyone who needs it?

Australians should demand answers to these sort of questions – from both Labor and the Coalition.

– ref. Too many Australians miss out on timely dental care – Labor’s pledge is just a start – http://theconversation.com/too-many-australians-miss-out-on-timely-dental-care-labors-pledge-is-just-a-start-116169

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Simon Coghlan, Senior lecturer in health ethics, University of Adelaide; Research fellow in robot ethics, University of Melbourne

Vets often grapple with the moral dilemma of when a client wants to kill an inconvenient pet. Clients might, for instance, hint that caring for the pet has become too much trouble, or that it interferes with their lifestyle or living situation. This is called “convenience euthanasia”.

Most vets have no qualms about euthanasia and believe it’s necessary for animals suffering severely or threatening public safety because of uncontrollable aggression.

But vets may also feel strongly that killing animals for insufficient reasons is, though legal, contrary to their professional role.

Read more: Why you shouldn’t bury your pet in the backyard

A recent North American study found nearly 27% of vets across different practice types “sometimes or often” received what they considered inappropriate requests for ending animal lives. Most vets had received such requests at least once, only about 7% had never received them.

Just over 75% said they never or only rarely carried out “inappropriate” euthanasia.

Another 2018 study focusing on small animal practice found 83% of vets did not agree that euthanasia was always ethical.

I argue in a recent journal article vets should be strong advocates for their patients. A veterinary professional who is a strong patient advocate works diligently on behalf of animal patients to promote their interests.

As health care professionals, vets are powerfully guided by a duty to protect their patients from harm, including premature death.

Moral dilemmas

Veterinary boards and associations say euthanasia is sometimes morally necessary and should occur when suffering cannot be relieved. Vets often have to persuade clients it’s time to “let go”.

It’s true some medical and behavioural conditions cannot be adequately treated. But sadly, some owners cannot afford veterinary treatment for treatable problems. This can lead to agonising moral decisions for both pet owners and veterinarians.

Some owners assume vets must administer a lethal injection to their pet on request.

But vets are free to conscientiously decline “inappropriate euthanasias”. The Guidelines of the Veterinary Practitioners Registration Board of Victoria make this professional freedom explicit:

Veterinary practitioners may refuse to euthanise animals where it is not necessary on humane grounds if they have a moral objection but must give the client the option of seeking the service elsewhere.

Euthanising healthy or treatable animals

What if the animal presented for euthanasia is healthy, or has a problem that is treatable and affordable? What if the client has overestimated the severity of the condition, refuses to explore other options, or is mistaken about the animal’s quality of life?

Read more: Vets can do more to reduce the suffering of flat-faced dog breeds

Even when requests for euthanasia go beyond mere “convenience”, they can still be deeply morally troubling for vets. This can cause moral distress to veterinarians.

Moral distress is thought to be one reason why veterinarians suffer professional burnout and compassion fatigue. In fact, vets have a higher suicide rate than the general population.

Of course, vets should not ignore clients’ genuine interests and should foster the bond between humans and animals. Vets should be prepared to sympathetically explore with clients why they are struggling to care for their pets, and to suggest other options where appropriate.

The problem with refusing euthanasia

Some vets worry that euthanasia refusals risk owners illegally mistreating or killing the animal themselves. This assumption may sometimes be true, but it often lacks evidence.

Read more: Pets and owners – you can learn a lot about one by studying the other

Owners absolutely intent on killing their healthy or treatable pets can still attend a willing vet clinic or animal shelter. But it is possible that in light of the vet’s clear moral stance, some owners will reconsider their decision to end their pets’ lives – now and in the future. And at least some owners will be persuaded to surrender their pet to another home.

Another concern is that conscientious objection unfairly shifts responsibility from one vet to another. But declining to kill animals for inadequate reasons should be prioritised over any notion of being “unfair” to other vets.

What’s more, many clients who love their pets may be reassured that their vet is a strong patient advocate who does not kill animals for frivolous or inadequate reasons.

So, when your pet is suffering irremediably, your veterinarian is very likely to recommend euthanasia. But when a companion animal is not ready to die, you may or may not find that your vet will, for ethical and professional reasons, decline a request to end the animal’s life. And often it will be their moral imperative to do so.

– ref. Why your veterinarian may refuse to euthanise your pet – http://theconversation.com/why-your-veterinarian-may-refuse-to-euthanise-your-pet-110263

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nicole Gurran, Professor of Urban and Regional Planning, University of Sydney

Despite the cooling property market, affordable rental housing remains in critically short supply across Australia. Unable to get a private rental unit or social housing, many low-income renters must resort to informal and insecure accommodation. These range from share homes or rooms, to dwellings that breach planning or building regulations.

Our newly released study sought to shed light on this problem. We found more people are living in shared rooms or dwellings, often in uncrowded and unsuitable conditions. And illegal dwellings are on the rise in Sydney.

Read more: Tracking the rise of room sharing and overcrowding, and what it means for housing in Australia

What is informal housing?

“Informal housing” usually costs less because it breaches planning, building or tenancy rules, or offers residents few protections under these rules. Examples include unauthorised or illegally constructed dwellings, as well as informal rental agreements, like share housing or room rentals.

Wherever there is a shortage of affordable housing or barriers to access, a market for informal alternatives will emerge.

In Australia’s major cities, low-income earners, recent migrants and international students face particular barriers to getting affordable rental housing. These groups often face discrimination, lack rental references or or may fall prey to international agents who offer inadequate accommodation at inflated costs.

Read more: Room sharing is the new flat sharing

In England, illegal “beds in sheds” are a well-recognised problem. In parts of the United States such as California, unauthorised dwellings may contribute around 5% of new housing supply.

No similar estimates exist in Australia. Our standard housing indicators – new dwelling completions, rent and sales data, as well as five-yearly Census changes in tenure – conceal the informal and illegal arrangements that proliferate in unaffordable markets.

Homelessness growth in Greater Sydney by classification, 2011-2016

More are resorting to informal arrangements

Informal arrangements like renting a room in someone’s home or sharing with friends have always been part of Australia’s housing system.

Living in a share house might well be a rite of passage for young people. Sharing well into adulthood and into retirement is a different matter.

Share housing in the Greater Sydney region increased across all age groups above 24 years old between 2011 and 2016, according to the ABS Census. Those aged over 45 now amount to 20% of sharers. In particular, many more older women are sharing because they lack the means to own their own home or rent independently.

Greater Sydney share households (persons) by age group, 2011 and 2016, and % female 2016

Read more: Generation Share: why more older Australians are living in share houses

For our study, we interviewed council building inspectors and tenant support workers serving inner and southwestern Sydney. We also examined informal housing types emerging within suburban neighbourhoods.

Our study found the types of share accommodation are changing. As well as few legal protections, sharers often live in uncrowded and unsuitable conditions, where conflict between residents becomes more likely. Tenants informally renting rooms or secondary dwellings from onsite owners report uncomfortable feelings of surveillance and insecurity.

Read more: Overcrowded housing looms as a challenge for our cities

Secondary dwellings, or “granny flats”, are often viewed as a flexible or informal housing type. Unlike other states, New South Wales planning law encourages these developments as a form of affordable rental supply. This offers a sensible relief valve in Sydney’s tight housing market.

But in some areas – such as Fairfield – granny flats have come to dominate new housing development.

Secondary dwelling development and proportion of all dwelling approvals in Fairfield

This is because “codification” – fast, often privately certified approval for compliant applications – has made granny flats a low-cost option for home owners who want to increase the utility of their properties. Landlords see secondary dwellings as a low-cost, high-yield investment.

But it’s unclear whether these secondary dwellings are being rented out as lower-cost accommodation and, if so, whether they are an appropriate and secure rental housing option in the long term.

Read more: When granny flats go wrong – perils for parents highlight need for law reform

Illegal dwellings on the rise

One problem our study focused on was the growing incidence of illegal dwellings in Sydney. These include secondary dwellings that are built, or converted from a garage or shed, without planning permission.

These arrangements can be very dangerous. Unsound construction, inadequate or absent insulation, ad hoc electrical wiring, and poorly drained sites expose occupants to serious health and safety risks. The invisible nature of informal housing increases fire risks – with emergency response staff less likely to suspect people are living in a garage or outbuilding.

Illegal dwellings may be more accessible for lower-income earners and others facing rental discrimination. But they are not necessarily low cost. Our study found evidence of illegal granny flats being advertised for over $300 a week. A building inspector commented: “There’s nothing affordable about paying good money for rubbish.”

A lot of resources are needed to identify and remove illegal dwellings. Building inspectors usually become aware of illegal dwellings through complaints from neighbouring residents. Participants in our study described the problem as endemic, as local government lacks the resources for proactive enforcement strategies.

Informal housing solutions?

Informal housing is not necessarily exploitative or dangerous. In fact, it can offer solutions beyond prevailing models of private or public housing provision. For instance, self-organised housing cooperatives or “deliberative” developments are promising alternatives to private rental or ownership. But these remain niche options in Australia.

Read more: Supersized cities: residents band together to push back against speculative development pressures

The message from our study is that the informal housing sector needs to be recognised and monitored within the wider housing system. Measures to improve security and living conditions for occupants, and to ensure informal dwellings comply with planning rules, are critical.

Structurally, it’s essential to remove the barriers to private rental experienced by lower-income and vulnerable groups. As many others have argued, this means adequate funding for social and affordable housing, inclusionary planning to ensure affordable homes are included in new developments, adequate resourcing for tenant advice and crisis services, and further tenancy reform.

Read more: Co-housing works well for older people, once they get past the image problem

– ref. Informal and illegal housing on the rise as our cities fail to offer affordable places to live – http://theconversation.com/informal-and-illegal-housing-on-the-rise-as-our-cities-fail-to-offer-affordable-places-to-live-116065

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emily Millane, Research Fellow and PhD Candidate, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University

In the field of tax, hard truths are playing out in this year’s election. The first is that special concessions that privilege older, wealthier voters have created a constituency very opposed to change.

The second is that the longer these settings are left in place, the harder it is becoming to change them.

Political science tells us that constituencies emerge around policy settings. The mushrooming of age-based constituencies is making tax reform difficult, with implications for intergenerational equity.

The more pressing that reining in generous and ever more expensive concessions grows, the easier it is becoming for political parties to use scare tactics about taking them away in order to muster support.

Tax measures get labels, like ‘retiree tax’

Hence, the Coalition’s use of the phrase “retiree tax” to describe Labor’s proposal to end cash payments of unused dividend imputation tax credits. The payments were introduced by the Howard government, and allow share market investors to make use of credits for company tax paid in creating their dividends to receive the credits in cash.

It is a “retiree tax” only to the extent that self-managed superannuation funds that don’t pay tax in the retirement phase make use of them and superannuants who don’t pay tax because superannuation income is tax free make use of them.

Chair of the House Economics Committee, Liberal member of parliament Tim Wilson, has conducted hearings around the country on the “retiree tax”, while operating a website entitled “stop the retirement tax” that offers visitors draft submissions opposing the tax to send to his inquiry, a matter Labor wants taken up by the parliament’s privileges committee.

Policies get called ‘super lies’ and ‘death taxes’

There was Shorten’s “super lie” in the first week of the campaign. In response to a question about whether a Labor government would increase taxes on superannuation, Shorten said it would not. His statement was technically incorrect given that Labor has for a long time planned to further tighten some of the super tax concessions tightened by the Turnbull government in 2016. Labor isn’t proposing to go any further than it said it would in 2016.

A cynic could be forgiven for thinking that the first weeks of the campaign were so tepid that the media needed something with which to entertain itself. Shorten’s gaffe was the reason week one of the campaign was judged to have been won by the prime minister, who labelled Shorten a liar.

Now both sides are accusing the other of planning a “death tax”.

The reality is that neither side in planning one, despite it being an efficient and worthwhile addition to the tax system.

New political movements are growing

Outside of government, we now have the “Save our Super” group, formed in opposition to the superannuation tax increases imposed by the Turnbull government, and this year a “Self Managed Super Fund Party” which didn’t register in time to field candidates.

Each illustrates the power of age-based privilege.

The “retiree tax,” the “super lie,” “Save our Super” and the “SMSF Party” all coalesce around the same type of issue: the prospect of a largely aged-based tax concession being ended or reduced. In the case of the “death tax” it refers to the threat of new tax where none currently applies.

In a society where fewer people will be of working age and able to contribute to revenue through taxes on wages, the government will have two options: either increase taxes (on someone) or cut spending (on someone).

The 2009 Henry Tax Review pointed to another option: increased private funding of retirement costs.

Exactly where Australia is going to strike a balance is an open question. It is a choice.

And age is becoming the ultimate political divide

The other choice is how about whether we manage the transition to an ageing society in a way that ensures the economic security of the young. The Coalition is banking on the broad appeal of its income tax cuts while at the same time getting stuck into Labor’s “retiree tax”.

Labor has set out an agenda of reducing tax concessions that it argues go to older, wealthier Australians and investing the proceees in childcare. But it can’t shake the “retiree tax” label. Its website is fighting back, pointing to Tony Abbott’s attmept to cut payments to pensioners and Scott Morrision;s support of a pension age of 70.

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

The “retiree tax” label is haunting Labor in a similar way that Prime Minister Theresa May in Britain was was haunted by talk of a “dementia tax’” during the 2017 elections. It was a proposal to include the value of the family home in the means test for in-home care.

We are heading down the road of aged-based entitlement and political expediency. Whether it’s too late to turn back, time and this election will tell.

– ref. The newest election faultline isn’t left versus right, it’s young versus old — and it’s hardening – http://theconversation.com/the-newest-election-faultline-isnt-left-versus-right-its-young-versus-old-and-its-hardening-116079

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robert Hassan, Professor, School of Culture and Communication, University of Melbourne

It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. Winston Smith, his chin nuzzled into his breast in an effort to escape the vile wind, slipped quickly through the glass doors of Victory Mansions, though not quickly enough to prevent a swirl of gritty dust from entering along with him.

As novel-openers go, they don’t come much better than this one in George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four. See how the unexpected “striking thirteen” runs powerfully into the beginnings of characterisation and world-building in just two arresting sentences.

Orwell knew that words could both grip the attention and change the mind. He wrote the book as the Cold War was becoming entrenched, and it was meant as an explicit warning on the nature of state power at that time.

The book still sells by the thousands, and is read by students who are compelled to do so. But it can be read voluntarily and profitably, and it can tell us a lot about contemporary politics and power, from Donald Trump to Facebook.

A world of ‘doublespeak’

Nineteen Eighty-Four became an instant classic when published in 1949. People could see in it a world that could easily become a reality. The memory of Nazi dictatorship was still fresh, the Soviet Union had erected the Iron Curtain, and the USA had the atomic bomb.

The novel’s setting is a dystopian Britain, which has become a part of Eurasia, a region in perpetual war with the other super-regions of Oceania and Eastasia. Oppression, surveillance and control are facts of life in a society ruled by the Party and its four Ministries of Truth, Peace, Plenty and Love.

It is a world of “doublespeak” where things are the opposite of what they appear; there is no truth, only lies – only war and only privation.

Read more: What does ‘Orwellian’ mean, anyway?

One of Orwell’s innovations is to introduce us to a new political lexicon, a “Newspeak” where he shows how words can be used and abused as a form of power. Words like “Thoughtcrime”, where it is illegal to have thoughts that are in opposition to the Party; or “unperson”, meaning someone who has been executed by the Party (e.g. for Thoughtcrime) will have all record of his or her existence erased.

Not only do we use many of these words today, but the manipulative function that Orwell described is still intact. For example, when Kellyanne Conway, advisor to US president Donald Trump, stated in 2017 that the Administration has its own “alternative facts”, she was indulging in “doublethink”: an attempted psychological control of reality through words.

Nineteen Eighty-Four became an Amazon bestseller following the election of Trump and the airing of this interview.

Within the corridors of Orwell’s Ministry of Love, though, there’s a tiny flickering of real love that develops between protagonist Winston and co-worker Julia. They share unlawful thoughts about other possible ways of living and thinking, based upon vague and unreliable memories of a time before world wars and Big Brother and the Party.

But through its immense powers of surveillance and the efforts of the Thought Police, Big Brother knows everything, and soon the lovers are suspects. Winston is arrested and brought before O’Brien, the novel’s antagonist and a Party heavyweight who is openly cynical about the power structure of society. For him power is a zero-sum equation: if you don’t use it to keep others down, they will use it similarly against you.

There is much drama, suspense and even horror in Orwell’s book. He wrote about what he saw around him, but filtered it with an acute sensitivity to the innate fragility of civilisation. In 1943, when the plot-lines of Nineteen Eighty-Four were probably gestating in his head, Orwell wrote:

Either power politics must yield to common decency, or the world must go spiralling down into a nightmare into which we can already catch some dim glimpses.

1984 goes digital

These days, a lot of power politics circulates online. Orwell, who worked for the BBC during the war, was sensitive to the power of communications. What he calls the “telescreen” is essentially a surveillance device that “received and transmitted simultaneously”.

He writes of the device that “any sound that Winston made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by it; moreover […] he could be seen as well as heard”. Remind you of anything? Alexa or Siri and their ilk may be fads, but the technology now exists; and so then does a new kind of power.

Such power is contingent and shifting and does not always reside with governments.

Donald Trump wields a new digital power through Twitter and Facebook and can “speak to his base” whenever he’s angry, bored or overcome by impulse. But through ownership of new digital technologies, new actors – data corporations – have acquired old powers. These are the powers to manipulate, surveil, and influence millions of people through access to their data.

And their power in turn can be leeched by hackers, state-sponsored or independent. The complexity of political power today means we need to be more attuned to its changing forms, to more effectively strategise and resist.

Orwell’s “common decency” reference may now sound rather quaint. But its very absence in social media is a problem.

The algorithms that Twitter, Facebook and Google insert into our communications act essentially as “manipulation engines” that can cause division, favour extreme views, and set groups of people against each other.

Divide-and-rule is not their intention – getting you online in order to sell your data to advertisers is – but that is the effect, and democratic politics is the worse for it.

Read more: How political engagement on social media can drive people to extremes

Understanding the nature of political power is even more important today than when Orwell wrote. Oppression and manipulation were “simpler” and more brutal then; today, social control and its sources are more opaque.

Orwell’s imperishable value as a writer is that he provides a template on the character of political power that tells us that we cannot be complacent, cannot leave it to government to fix, and cannot leave it to fate and hope for the best.

Things did not turn out so well for Winston Smith. Pushed to the limit by torture and brainwashing, he betrays Julia. And in his abject state he convinces himself, finally, of the rightness of the Party: “He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother.”

The story ends there. But for Orwell the writer and activist, the struggle for Truth, Peace, Plenty and Love was only beginning.

Today, Nineteen Eighty-Four comes across not as a warning that the actual world of Winston and Julia and O’Brien is in danger of becoming reality. Rather, its true value is that it teaches us that power and tyranny are made possible through the use of words and how they are mediated.

If we understand power in this way, especially in our digital world, then unlike Winston, we will have a better chance to fight it.

– ref. Guide to the classics: Orwell’s 1984 and how it helps us understand tyrannical power today – http://theconversation.com/guide-to-the-classics-orwells-1984-and-how-it-helps-us-understand-tyrannical-power-today-112066

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

The Perth studio audience of undecided voters gave the campaign’s first debate to Bill Shorten by a decisive margin.

Of the 48 present, 25 thought the opposition leader won, 12 believed the night was Morrison’s and the rest were undecided.

In my opinion, the outcome was less clear cut. I’d score it pretty evenly. Shorten had more to say. Morrison had more energy.

At one level the Seven West Media debate was an unsatisfying encounter, perhaps because we’d heard almost all of it before. But nevertheless it was revealing because, despite forced grins, the strain and effort were so visible in this “best in show” hour.

Perched uncomfortably side by side, with questions coming from two journalists and audience members, both leaders had tried to prep to the nth degree, although Shorten had a couple of lapses.

There were a few spontaneous comebacks – debating is part of a politician’s skill set, though perhaps not as well-developed as once – and the audience managed a handful of laughs.

The exchanges did lay out the essence of how these two leaders are fighting this campaign.

Shorten has the detailed policy, with big initiatives that will appeal to voters. But his program is costly, and he has to mount a heavy argument to support the tax changes that will pay for it all. He describes these as closing loopholes; Morrison casts them as massive increases.

Morrison is running hard on lines that boil down to stick-with-what-you-know, and you-can’t-trust-Bill. In the campaign he is all attack and that, and a certain quickness, came through repeatedly in the debate.

The contrast in messaging was summed up at the end. “He’s not telling you what the cost of change is,” Morrison said – in other words, don’t venture down the scary Shorten road.

Shorten’s riposte was to point to “the cost of not changing” – in other words, voters would be worse off – in everything from hospital care to climate change – unless they took the new path he offered.

Shorten was caught out when asked the price of a popular electric car.

This was the modern version of that old question to leaders about the price of milk and bread.

“I haven’t bought a new car in a while so I couldn’t tell you,” he admitted.

Like the cocky kid in the class, Morrison jumped in to say: “I can tell you how much [an] electric car costs, more than [a] standard – it’s $28,000 […] that’s for the same type of car”.

That gave Shorten the opportunity for a quip to cover his inability to answer what someone who is advocating an ambitious target for new electric cars should have known.

“Well that’s great, we’ve got a Prime Minister spending his times in the motor pages” he said.

Morrison quickly came back: Well that’s where most Australians often spend their time, mate […] they read about cars, they read about footy, they read about the races […] “

Shorten provided a robust defence of Labor’s policy to cancel cash refunds from franking credits, but Morrison forced him to concede on a detail.

Pressed on the cost of Labor’s emissions reduction policy Shorten said there wasn’t “one number”, but was strong on the need for action. Morrison didn’t get far on trying to raise the alarm on border security.

Asked about the awkward subject of Clive Palmer and preferences, Morrison abandoned his earlier line of leaving Palmer to speak for himself, saying “Clive Palmer should pay his workers and Clive Palmer should settle things up. […]

“Clive Palmer should do what every other Australian should do and that is they should abide by the law […] But “do we think that the United Australia Party would be more dangerous to the Australian economy than Bill Shorten, the Labor Party and the Greens? Well I’m sorry, I think Bill Shorten, the Labor Party and the Greens are”.

Shorten drove home the point that Palmer owed $70 million to the taxpayers, asked rhetorically how Morrison and his government had been taken hostage by Palmer and Pauline Hanson, and conjured up the spectre of Palmer calling in a debt from the government.

Each leader stepped carefully when pressed on what they admired about the other.

The true answer probably is “bugger all”, but that’s not an acceptable one.

Morrison came closest to it however, saying “I respect anyone who serves in the Australian Parliament”.

Shorten produced unexpected praise for what Morrison was doing on mental health and for being “a man of deep conviction”.

When asked why voters should trust them to do what they promised, and what they would do to restore trust, both sounded lame.

Morrison pointed to party rule changes to protect prime ministers and then defaulted to “who do you trust” on economy, immigration etc.

Shorten referenced Labor’s plan for an anti-corruption commission, and said Labor had put all its policies out for people to see.

But on trust, neither had a fundamental answer to what is at present the unanswerable question in Australian politics.

– ref. View from The Hill: Shorten had the content, Morrison had the energy in first debate – http://theconversation.com/view-from-the-hill-shorten-had-the-content-morrison-had-the-energy-in-first-debate-116218

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David McCooey, Professor of Writing and Literature, Deakin University

The death of the Australian poet Les Murray at the age of 80 is a profound loss for his family and friends. It is also a great loss for literature. Whether one writes “world literature” or “Australian literature” here signifies not only Murray’s standing, but also a profound tension in his status as a poet. Murray has long been seen, not only as Australia’s pre-eminent living poet, but also as its national poet.

Often referred to as the “Bard of Bunyah” — after the property in New South Wales on which he grew up, and to which he returned in adulthood — Murray was often seen as an unofficial Australian poet laureate (though he repeatedly said he was not interested in such a role).

He was the poet that John Howard turned to when, as prime minister, Howard wanted help with drafting a preamble to the Australian constitution. (The preamble was, along with a proposed Australian republic, sunk at the 1999 referendum.)

Murray was the poet of the rural poor, and many of his poems deal with Australian life beyond the metropolitan centres, as well as with Australian history.

But he was, especially since the 1990s, lauded as a global poet; routinely name-checked with figures such as the Saint Lucian Derek Walcott and the Irish poet Seamus Heaney. Indeed, Murray was touted for a time for the Nobel Prize, which Heaney won in 1995. And just as Murray’s poetry can be seen as “intensely Australian”, it can also be seen as “intensely transnational”, concerned with global histories, languages, and cultures.

Perhaps not surprisingly then, as a supposedly “national poet”, Murray is no Banjo Paterson. He was not an easy poet. His signature style was a potent mix of ordinary language, specialist vocabulary, and eccentric syntax. His poetry cannot be mistaken for anyone else’s.

It is something of a critical cliché to say that poetry makes us see things anew, but Murray’s really did that with its extraordinary linguistic power. This was the case particularly with his representation of the animal world, as seen in the sequence of poems entitled “Presence” from Translations from the Natural World (1992). Who else has described cows as Murray does in The Cows on Killing Day?

All me are standing on feed. The sky is shining.

All me have just been milked. Teats all tingling still

from that dry toothless sucking by the chilly mouths

that gasp loudly in in in, and never breathes out.

And what about this description of an Emu in Second Essay on Interest: The Emu? “Weathered blond as a grass tree, a huge Beatles haircut / raises an alert periscope and stares out / over scrub”.

Certainly, his poems also deal with the “big subjects”: death, nation, religion (Murray was a Catholic convert), family, and poetry itself. Many of his best poems are about such topics. We see this in his extraordinary elegy for his father, The Last Hellos, and in essayistic poems such as Poetry and Religion, The Tin Wash Dish, and The Instrument.

But as Second Essay on Interest, and other serio-comic poems like it show, one should never underestimate the importance of play and comedy in Murray’s work. His poems, like the poet himself, are profoundly creative because they are profoundly uninterested in compliance, whether with majority opinion, political ideology, or the literary history that so profoundly informed his art.

Non-compliance

This anti-authoritarian streak shaped Murray’s career from the beginning. When he had to write a statement for Australian Poetry Now (1970), a poetry anthology notable for its avant-gardist experimentation, Murray provocatively stated that “Real experiment would be Baptist, or funny, or popular, or charitable in spirit and tone —something unthinkable like that”.

This connection between creativity and non-compliance, between comedy and art, is one that Murray himself thematised. As he wrote in Cycling in the Lake Country, “We are a colloquial nation, / most colonial when serious”. (For the radical-conservative Murray, to be “colonial” was akin to being authoritarian.)

As Murray’s peer, the poet and critic Chris Wallace-Crabbe once wrote, “Time burns the isms”. While Murray’s various forays into cultural and political controversies will remain of interest to historians, it is the poetry — recently brought together in Murray’s latest Collected Poems (the last in his lifetime, as it turned out) — that will be read for many years to come.

In Collected Poems, as well as his masterly long work, the verse novel Fredy Neptune (1998), we can see his extraordinary poetic strengths: his linguistic capaciousness, his formal range (from epigram to epic), his wit and playfulness, his originality, his difficulty and his clarity.

While Murray was associated with the political right, his best poems are everything that a One-Nation version of Australia would distrust: complex, witty, genuinely anti-authoritarian, transnational, and encyclopedically knowledgeable.

They are also profoundly human, alive not just to the poet’s sufferings, but also to those of others. Murray’s humanity is perhaps most clearly shown in his generosity, his sharing of his attentive, thoroughly original, view of the world.

In the end, poetry knows no national boundaries, and poetry, and the English language, is the poorer for his passing.

– ref. Vale Les Murray, a witty, anti-authoritarian, national poet who spoke to the world – http://theconversation.com/vale-les-murray-a-witty-anti-authoritarian-national-poet-who-spoke-to-the-world-116186