Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Marianna Sigala, Professor of Tourism – Director of the Centre for Tourism & Leisure Management, University of South Australia

The scope and scale of the so-called “sharing economy” has increased exponentially over the past decade, to the point where it affects almost every aspect of our lives.

Ride sharing has changed how we move. Food delivery apps have changed our eating habits. Airbnb has changed how we holiday. Dating apps have changed how we meet our partners. And some of these apps may have influenced how we work, and whether or not we can pay our rent.

This shift to peer-to-peer transactions is often portrayed as an antidote to the consumer culture of modern society because it supports sharing instead of ownership. But have sharing platforms simply created a new form of capitalism?

Research suggests that rather than transforming us, the sharing economy simply repackages our same old consumerist impulses in a more appealing message.

Read more: Sharing economy sounds caring, but let’s put it to the ethical city test

We evaluate commercial and shared services in the same way

The sharing economy both shapes and is shaped by the providers and consumers of shared services.

Studies have shown that people perceive, select and evaluate shared experiences in a similar way to commercial offers. For example, the criteria we use to select Airbnb accommodation or Uber drivers is similar to how we evaluate commercial accommodation and transportation services. That is: price, location, service quality and reputation.

Studies also confirm the factors influencing satisfaction and the likelihood of rebooking are the same.

This affects how suppliers develop services. Sharing platforms use peer review comments and ratings to calculate the quality scores of service providers, recognising those of a higher quality.

Similar to TripAdvisor reviews of hotels, scores on the Airbnb peer review system influence the amount sharing providers can charge.

The commercialisation of authenticity

The number of people quitting their full-time jobs to become entrepreneurs of the sharing economy has increased. Data from across 36 countries show 43% of millennials and 61% of Gen Z envision leaving their jobs within two years. Among millennials who would quit their jobs, 62% regard the gig economy as a viable alternative.

These entrepreneurs invest in assets, such as real estate or cars, and hire other micro-entrepreneurs to manage them. The kinds of management services that might be outsourced include cleaning, pricing, marketing and booking, book keeping, and meeting and greeting services.

In these cases, the owners of the “shared” asset rarely interact with their guests. So instead of experiencing genuine feelings of hospitality and intimate social interactions, customers experience fleeting interactions and professional encounters.

Read more: Airbnb regulation needs to distinguish between sharing and plain old commercial letting

By adapting and transferring traditional professional services from the commercial economy to the shared economy, these entrepreneurs contribute to the commercialisation of “authentic” experiences.

And it’s hard for entrepreneurs to avoid using these kinds of services if they want their offering to be competitive among many other alternatives. Studies show non-professional hosts face operational inefficiencies, such as lower occupancies and pricing, compared to their professional counterparts.

Sharing platforms contribute to this. Airbnb provides a pricing tool, similar to those used by professional hotels, so hosts can monitor market trends and their competitors’ prices. Photography services help hosts present themselves professionally, as research shows the way hosts construct and present their online personality and identity influence their competitiveness.

Success on Airbnb is determined by the extent to which service providers can convince customers to consume their professionally curated “authentic” experiences. In order to thrive, micro-entrepreneurs need to adopt a professional operational mindset and commercial management practices.

Not really communal or sustainable

The sharing economy is often romanticised as a shift away from the evils of capitalism to a more communal and socially conscious way of life.

Some studies do suggest micro-entrepreneurs and customers do not discriminate on the basis of race, gender or sexual orientation when deciding how, and with who, they will “share” resources.

But if that’s true, then why do people from minority groups earn less on sharing plaftorms? And why are platforms focusing on niche markets – such as noirbnb.com for people of colour and misterbandb.com for gay travellers – thriving?

If the sharing economy is supposed to increase environmental sustainability by reducing the ownership and production of bicycles and cars, how do we account for the waste visible in China’s “bike share graveyards”?

China’s bike sharing “graveyard”.

Peer-to-peer marketplaces that redistribute and recycle food, industrial waste and other resources burden the logistics and transportation sector to an extent that may offset any other socio-economic benefit of food sharing. More research is required before we know whether the positives outweigh the negatives across the whole supply chain.

Read more: Why people trust sharing economy strangers more than their colleagues

Consumption hasn’t gone away

People who participate in the sharing economy are primarily motivated by financial rewards. Service providers use the income from “sharing” their assets to purchase larger houses or better cars, while customers seek cheaper deals than traditional providers can offer.

The sharing economy enables people to consume during the economic crisis, satisfying materialist needs, values, priorities and lifestyles in different ways – through “sharing” and “access”, rather than “ownership”.

People see the practice of sharing resources as a way to achieve self-image, self-promotion, social appreciation and recognition. Even people living in more collectivist cultures see the sharing economy as a way to express community and social values.

For example, dating and “partner rental” platforms have boomed in China, a culture where it is taboo for young people to be gay or remain single. People aren’t using these platforms to seek to find and meet new friends, rather they seek to satisfy a social need to present a certain lifestyle.

The sharing economy has not changed people’s mindsets, values, lifestyles or behaviours. People still wish to consume at the same levels and they do consume for the same reasons, but in a different way. The sharing economy disrupts the traditional economy, but it has not transformed it.

– ref. The ‘sharing economy’ simply dresses up our consumerist tendencies in a more palatable ideology – http://theconversation.com/the-sharing-economy-simply-dresses-up-our-consumerist-tendencies-in-a-more-palatable-ideology-99090

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexandra Hansen, Chief of Staff, The Conversation

Pregnancy can be a magical time, but also a stressful one. With so many things you can and can’t do, it can get confusing. Guidelines recommend women without complicated pregnancies should be maintaining fitness. But how?

Many women love the alone time pounding the pavement for a nice run out in nature, but is this too strenuous? We asked five experts if it’s safe to run while pregnant.

Five out of five experts said yes

Here are their detailed responses:

If you have a “yes or no” health question you’d like posed to Five Experts, email your suggestion to: alexandra.hansen@theconversation.edu.au

– ref. We asked five experts: is it safe to run while pregnant? – http://theconversation.com/we-asked-five-experts-is-it-safe-to-run-while-pregnant-104489

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Julie Sonnemann, Fellow, Grattan Institute

Australia needs to lift the status of teachers to attract the best and brightest to teaching. The world’s top-performing school systems make it a national priority to attract the strongest candidates. Improving teacher selection improves student results.

Australia’s brightest students are increasingly rejecting teaching. The greatest falls were in the 1980s. But entry standards have slipped further over the past decade.

Author provided, Author provided

In 2018, only one in four students offered a place in undergraduate teaching based on their Australian Tertiary Admission Rank (ATAR) had an ATAR of 80 or more, compared to one in two across all courses.

To stop the decline, New South Wales and Victoria have tightened entry standards. Victoria will increase minimum ATAR requirements from 65 to 70 this year.

Federal Labor’s shadow education minister Tanya Plibersek wants to make entry to teaching far more competitive by significantly increasing ATAR requirements towards an ATAR of about 80. She has threatened to cap teaching places if universities don’t lift entry standards themselves. She says too many high-achieving school students get told not to “waste their ATAR” by going into teaching.

The federal minister, Dan Tehan, says better career paths and pay reforms are key to making teaching a more attractive profession. His Parliamentary Inquiry into teaching status will report back soon.

Read more: Viewpoints: should teaching students who fail a literacy and numeracy test be barred from teaching?

Both arguments have merit. Making entry more selective will help lift status, but the low status of teaching is more than an image problem. There also needs to be deeper reforms to the job itself, such as higher pay at the top end, better opportunities for career advancement, and improvements to the professional working environment.

These reforms would have dual benefits: they would help attract talented people to teaching, and empower existing teachers to be more effective.

Entry to teaching should be more selective

Tightening teacher selection can deliver big improvements in student results. Yet universities tend to have a knee-jerk reaction to proposals to raise ATAR entry standards. For example, earlier this month the President of the Australian Council of Deans of Education, Tania Aspland, claimed “there is no evidence to show that those with higher ATARs become better teachers”.

But the world’s top-performing systems, such as Singapore, Korea and Finland, invest heavily in screening candidates on admission to teaching. Prospective teachers are assessed on their prior academic ability, as well as traits such as dedication to teaching.

Singapore even assesses student teacher performance in a real-world classroom trial. Only one in ten students who apply to be teachers in Singapore are accepted.

Making entry to teaching more selective will need careful management. from www.shutterstock.com

Several rigorous studies find prior academic performance is a good indicator of who will go on to become a great teacher, not just on standardised tests but also according to on-the-job performance reviews. One 2018 multi-country study found countries with teachers who have high academic aptitude get better student maths and literacy results.

Yes, some studies find no link between markers of cognitive ability (such as the SAT scores of US teachers) and student results. But on balance, the evidence suggests requiring prospective teachers to have a higher ATAR – along with other predictive factors such as leadership capabilities and dedication to teaching – will increase the likelihood of recruiting more effective teachers.

Read more: In the ATAR battle, one thing is clear: teaching needs to attract better recruits

Making entry to teaching more competitive will need to be carefully managed. To ensure diversity in the future workforce, there will need to be adequate alternative pathways for students from a variety of backgrounds or specialist skills. But alternative pathways should not be used as a smokescreen for lowering overall entry standards.

Deeper reforms are needed to help raise teacher status

Tightening selection into teaching will help make it more prestigious, but lifting the profession’s low status requires at least three other reforms.

First, lift teacher pay at the top end. Teachers in Australia start on a good salary compared to other graduates, but the pay is too low at the top end. Australia’s top teacher salary is 40% higher than the starting salary, well below the OECD average of 80%. To attract high-achievers, the top-end salary needs to be competitive with their options elsewhere.

There are no easy fixes. from www.shutterstock.com

Second, offer better career pathways. The best teachers should have fast-track opportunities that give them responsibility for developing other teachers and driving improvement in their school and beyond. Job descriptions such as this exist on paper, but they don’t necessarily happen in practice.

Better career options for those passionate about mastering teaching should sit alongside school leadership pathways, so teachers don’t have to switch into school management to gain promotion and a pay rise.

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

Third, improve the professional work environment for teachers. Teachers need more opportunities to develop on the job, with meaningful feedback on how to improve their classroom practice. They need more high-quality, tried-and-tested materials – and fewer time-consuming administrative tasks.

There are no easy fixes to the entrenched problem of low teacher status in Australia. Making entry to teaching more selective would be a good first step, but deeper reforms to pay, career and the work environment are also necessary.

– ref. Lift teacher status to improve student performance – http://theconversation.com/lift-teacher-status-to-improve-student-performance-110095

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Heather Shearer, Research Fellow, Cities Research Institute, Griffith University

Mention “tiny house” in any social gathering and people almost always say, “Oh I love tiny houses.” The enthusiasm for tiny houses isn’t matched, however, by the take-up of tiny house living. Very few people actually live in tiny houses. So, why the discrepancy?

As a follow-up to my research (in 2015 and 2017), I interviewed people around the country (in person and on social media) about their lived experience in tiny houses. I also stayed in a tiny house.

Read more: Australians love tiny houses, so why aren’t more of us living in them?

Read more: Interest in tiny houses is growing, so who wants them and why?

Tiny houses need to maximise use of every space. Heather Shearer, Author provided

Most of the people I interviewed were in southeast Queensland, but some were in Victoria and Tasmania. The majority were situated in rural or semi-rural areas, although a couple lived in suburban locations (Brisbane and Logan).

Most were aged in their 20s, or were 55-plus, and were couples or singles, the majority women. A few had children.

Nearly all had built their own tiny house, but some had bought their homes from tiny house builders. Interestingly, few homes were the archetypal tiny house on wheels – there were container houses, converted buses, and even tents.

This accords with research on the typology of tiny houses, which found they can take a number of forms. Note: “True tiny houses … (whether on foundation or wheels) are generally smaller than 400 sq ft (37m²).”

So how do people feel about tiny house life?

People had lived in their tiny houses from weeks to a couple of years. The majority had only positive things to say about tiny house living. As one respondent enthused:

I LOVE it. Love living in it; independent side of things … it’s much better than [living in] the caravan – own shower, kitchen, composting toilet, complete independence.

Another said:

I actually enjoy to live in a smaller space, because you don’t feel overwhelmed, and with kids you can see all the time, you can hear them and see what they’re up to. I love tiny house living, and I would love to help other people getting into it, it would be awesome.

Some tiny houses can be found in the suburbs. Heather Shearer, Author provided

Other positive experiences included:

• freedom from debt – “the real cost savings and availability to be an actual home owner instead of permanent debt”
• community – “joining the community of like-minded people”
• having one’s own space.

People also often mentioned the ease of maintenance. Nearly all commented on how easy it was to keep clean and to heat or cool. One respondent said:

Cleaning the house takes half an hour and I know where everything is. I don’t accumulate things I don’t need.

Another commented:

A tiny house is a breeze to clean.

Those who were negative expressed minor concerns with issues such as cleaning composting toilets and small spaces. One commented:

The multipurpose nature of each room means that the bedding smells like fish when I cook salmon.

You can have a decent kitchen, but think twice about cooking anything that you don’t want to smell throughout the house. Jekka Shearer, Author provided Making do: the basin doubles as a baby bath. Jekka Shearer, Author provided

But, more seriously, longer-term concerns included:

• insecurity of tenure
• lack of privacy
• inability to get bank loans
• difficulties with having young children in a very small space.

One young Tasmanian couple with a 15-month-old son moved out of their tiny house (which they had built themselves) partly because it was too difficult to keep their active child content in the small space during the cold and wet winter months.

Read more: Tiny houses look marvellous but have a dark side: three things they don’t tell you on marketing blurb

Here to stay but planning laws haven’t kept up

An ongoing issue is where to put tiny houses. Planning laws are still the major obstacle to tiny house living.

One respondent said:

I don’t like the fact that there is no surety that I can stay legally in one place. I don’t like knowing that I can’t stay long-term. You know what your timeframe is for renting, [you’re] not going to be moved for a ridiculous reason. There’s no protection if in a tiny house. Silly [council] rules like I [have to] stay in it for two nights, then move into the main house for one night, I get why these things have been put into place … waste and water, amenity; but I don’t see why [regulations] for that can’t be implemented.

Read more: Tiny houses: the big idea that could take some heat out of the housing crisis

The biggest challenge with tiny houses isn’t making them comfortable and homely, it’s finding a site with long-term security of tenure. Jekka Shearer, Author provided Interior of a tiny house for sale. Heather Shearer, Author provided

Major findings of this and other research are that tiny houses are here to stay. They are definitely not just a niche market, but are more suited to certain demographics.

Interestingly, those who had moved to more conventional houses seemed almost guilty about having left. Tiny houses should be more realistically viewed as one stage in the lifetime housing journey, which may suit some and not others.

Housing in the 21st century needs to be more flexible to suit various lifestyle stages and households, not just singles and nuclear families. Safe shelter is a fundamental human right, but conventional housing has become increasingly unattainable for many.

Read more: We need more flexible housing for 21st-century lives

Local governments in particular could be far more proactive by adapting their planning schemes to permit more flexible types of dwellings, obviously in accordance with building, health, safety and environmental regulations. This would enable people to live in security without being afraid that they are going to be moved off because some neighbour might complain.

As long as safe and sanitary, and not an environmental eyesore, then why not? It’s very easy to say, if you have a certain size property, then you can have x tiny houses, [at a] certain distance.

Finally, as the owner of a property that has a number of tiny houses said:

I have worked in urban development for 20 years and the concept of affordable housing is a furphy unless we change legislation and allow people to live smaller. I am passionate that housing should be accessible by all, that people shouldn’t have to resort to social and public housing. Tiny housing offers a major disruptive solution to an ever-growing housing unaffordability and social divide in housing.

– ref. Life in a tiny house: what’s it like and how can it be made better? – http://theconversation.com/life-in-a-tiny-house-whats-it-like-and-how-can-it-be-made-better-110495

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Susan Broomhall, Professor of History, University of Western Australia

In 1635, María, a slave woman from the Indian sub-continent living in the Spanish-controlled Philippine Islands, enters the historical record. We know that women as well as men were involved in forced movements like María’s around the region but historical documentation about their lives is rarely available.

Hernando Guerrero OSA, Archbishop of Manila from 1635 to 1641. Wikicommons.

María was owned by an artilleryman named Francisco de Nava who was then living in Manila. In 1635, the city’s archbishop, Don Hernando Guerrero, began an investigation into, in the words of the contemporary documents, “illicit communication” between the two.

Nava explained that they had an understanding. “He had brought [María] from India, saying that he was going to marry her, as he had taken her while she was a maiden”.

This was, in his eyes at least, a contract for her virginity: María would gain a respectable marriage in exchange for her sexual labour.

A slave’s autonomy

However, the evidence surrounding this case suggests María had other ideas. She “left the house, going to that of Juan de Aller, a kinsman of Doña Maria de Francia, wife of Don Pedro de Corcuera, whom she asked to buy her.”

A contemporary report noted that “the slave girl said that she preferred to belong to another” than to be Nava’s wife.

Maria de Francia, an influential woman who was the wife of the governor’s nephew, “became fond of her” and sought to buy María from Nava, with support from the archbishop.

Female slaves such as María were vulnerable to the sexual expectations of their masters and as migrants, they generally had few familial or other social networks to assist or protect them.

How did María attract the attention and sympathy of powerful local citizens to assist her? She had managed to engage ecclesiastical authorities and elite women in her plight, who were prepared to step in, in order to instil Catholic moral values.

Johannes Vingboons, The town of Manila, c. 1665, Nationaal Archief NL-HaNA_4.VELH_619.69, Wikipedia. Wikipedia

The sexual behaviour of women and men in Manila was of great concern to Spanish secular and ecclesiastical officials. The city was a known trading centre for slaves but Spanish authorities were anxious about the “many offenses to God” that took place between female slaves, in particular, and men in the city.

In 1608, King Felipe III had outlawed the “evil” of the passage of female slaves aboard vessels, but the practice continued. In November 1635, the governor, Don Sebastian Hurtado de Corcuera, once again complained about the “great license and looseness of life” in Manila.

María’s case may thus have offered authorities an opportunity to discipline the wider population and reinforce moral expectations. They were willing to recognise a slave woman’s capacity to resist sexual exploitation, although not, it seems, a right to freedom from slavery itself.

A tragedy

At María’s departure, Nava was reportedly “so beside himself over the loss of the said slave that he refused to sell her at any price, saying that he wished, on the contrary, to marry her.”

But there were other stories circulating that complicated his narrative. The governor, for example, reported that Nava “had said the year before that he had been married in Nueva España.” Could his marrying María be even legally possible?

Still, Nava went to de Francia’s house, “to request that they should give him the slave,” whereupon he was beaten and placed in the stocks.

His reaction to the loss of María was perceived by onlookers as excessive, and shortly afterwards, an order was given that he should be treated as if he were mad.

On Sunday, 8 August 1635, at three in the afternoon, María was passing by in the street in a carriage with her new mistress. Nava approached them, asking María if she recognised him as her master.

Interestingly, one account provides another hint of a possible assertion of autonomy in María’s actions: “The slave answered him with some independence”, it was reported. But María’s precise words were not considered worthy of note for the historical record.

The encounter ended tragically for María. “Blind with anger,” Nava “drew his dagger in the middle of the street and killed her by stabbing her, before anyone could prevent it.”

Nava was condemned to death. On 6 September 1635 he was executed on gallows raised at the site where María had been killed, in front of the San Agustin Church.

María’s agency

This is not a celebratory history, for María’s life ended abruptly. We don’t know what María looked like or how she felt about her plight except through her actions as they were recorded by others. What we do know about her comes from documents created by Nava’s crime.

But these documents provide small insights into the experiences of displaced and marginal women who are typically among the most silent in the archives.

They reveal María’s forms of agency and resistance — not only in her access to support mechanisms among the powerful Catholic elite of colonial Manila, but also in her most basic impulse to refuse to accept her situation and to seek a better life within the limited choices before her.

– ref. Hidden women of history: María, a slave in Manila who resisted sexual exploitation – http://theconversation.com/hidden-women-of-history-maria-a-slave-in-manila-who-resisted-sexual-exploitation-110182

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tony Walker, Adjunct Professor, School of Communications, La Trobe University

The arrest of an Australian-Chinese citizen in China for unspecified reasons is the last thing Australia needs at a sensitive moment in the reset of a relationship that has chilled over the past two years.

But whether it likes it or not, Canberra is being drawn into a broader controversy over China’s detention of foreign nationals on grounds that are opaque and at the mercy of an unpredictable Chinese justice system.

The arrest last weekend of author and diplomat Yang Hengjun raises the question of whether he has become part of a pattern of retaliatory measures by a Chinese government that finds itself under stress from within and without.

Read more: Huawei executive’s arrest will further test an already shaky US-China relationship

At this stage it has not been revealed why Yang, a critic of China’s Communist Party, has been detained. On a previous visit to China in 2011 he was arrested and released without charge. He described that episode as a “misunderstanding”.

What should concern Australian officials is that Yang will find himself lumped with other foreign nationals from countries that may have displeased China and therefore become hostages to a wider diplomatic game.

Beijing’s initially muted response to Australia’s decision to exclude, on security grounds, the Chinese technology behemoth Huawei from building its 5G network may have disguised more intense displeasure.

In the case of the arrest late last year of two Canadian nationals on accusations of “endangering national security”, it is hard to place any other interpretation on their detention than that they are pawns, even hostages, in a broader conflict.

Diplomat Michael Kovrig and businessman Michael Spavor were arrested following the detention in Vancouver of the chief financial officer and daughter of the founder of Huawei, pending her extradition to the United States.

Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou. AAP/EPA/ Maxim Shipenkov

The US Justice Department is bringing charges against Meng Wanzhou for violating sanctions against Iran.

Her case is highly sensitive and enmeshed in a complex US-China relationship scarred by an ongoing trade dispute. In all of this, Canada, in its response to a US extradition request, finds itself the target of Chinese reprisals.

In the case of the unfortunate Canadians ensnared in a diplomatic argument that originated in Washington, a Chinese saying could be applied:

Kill the chicken to frighten the monkey.

In this case, Canada is the “chicken” and the United States is the “monkey”.

Whatever China’s tactics are in all of this, the arrest of the Canadian nationals on national security grounds represents a very serious development. The ripples from it are spreading as more and more countries become alarmed at China’s resort to what could be described as hostage-taking to protect – or advance – its interests.

One lesson might be that if a country, or a company for that matter, finds itself in a dispute with China, then advice to its nationals or employees should be to steer clear of the People’s Republic.

China’s behaviour in this latest stage would hardly seem to correspond with respect for a rules-based international order.

What can be read into these worrying developments is that under pressure, the Chinese regime is adopting a more combative approach to dealing with its foreign policy challenges as its size and reach brings it into conflict with the United States and its allies.

A slowing Chinese economy is adding to pressures on a regime whose tenure depends on maintaining employment and countering unrest.

Above all else, the issue of “stability” preoccupies China’s leaders, who are familiar with the chaos that has swept the country in its long history.

In Beijing this week, President Xi Jinping expressed his concerns about a difficult period ahead for China as it grapples with challenges at home and abroad.

Speaking to officials he warned of a “black swan” event, in which China might be obliged to deal with unexpected developments that threw it off its course. This included what he called a “grey rhinoceros event” – a reference to known risks that are ignored until too late. He said:

In the face of a turbulent international situation, a complex and sensitive environment, and the arduous task of reform… We must be highly vigilant against “black swan” and “grey rhinoceros” incidents.

These sentiments are hardly surprising given the challenges China faces in transforming its economy from an investment-led to a demand-driven model in a slowing economic environment. But they do suggest a higher-than-usual level of anxiety in Beijing in this latest period.

In the years since China began opening up to the world in the late 1970s, it is hard to identify a period that is more challenging for a hard-pressed Chinese leadership. One possible exception is a period in the early 1990s when the country struggled with inflationary pressures and risks of a hard economic landing from a retrenchment in government spending.

The difference between now and then is that China’s economy then was a fraction of the size it is today. Ripples from a Chinese slowdown were hardly felt beyond China’s shores.

Read more: Australia and China push the ‘reset’ button on an important relationship

Today, the effects of a slowing Chinese economy will have an impact across the globe. This is not least in Australia, one-third of whose exports in goods and services are bound up in a trading relationship.

Australian official cautiousness over the detention of an Australian-Chinese national is explained by a desire not to elevate a dispute with Beijing beyond what is necessary.

Foreign Minister Marise Payne has joined her Canadian and other colleagues in expressing “concern” over the detention of the two Canadians in apparent retaliation for the detention of the Huawei official.

If it transpires that an Australian-Chinese citizen has been similarly detained, Payne will have to go beyond simply expressing concern in solidarity with the Canadians.

In defence of their nationals, including a third individual whose sentence of 15 years for drug smuggling was converted to a death penalty, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland have been outspoken.

What should now be clear is that expectations of China becoming a benign power are mistaken. These latest episodes are proving to be a lesson in dealing with a country that is no longer “hiding its capacities” and “biding its time”, as former paramount leader Deng Xiaoping advised.

– ref. Australian-Chinese author’s detention raises important questions about China’s motivations – http://theconversation.com/australian-chinese-authors-detention-raises-important-questions-about-chinas-motivations-110433

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Elizabeth Joyce, PhD candidate, James Cook University

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

It’s a pale rebel with a mysterious past, who doesn’t play by the family rules. You might not guess from looking at it, but Geosiris australiensis is my pick for the Sexiest Plant of 2019.

I might be biased though: my colleagues and I have just uncovered the amazing life, and evolutionary history of this mysterious herb. It was only found in Australia in 2017, so there’s plenty left to discover.

But here are five things we do know about this strange, alluring guy.

Read more: Native cherries are a bit mysterious, and possibly inside-out

You’re no sun of mine!

Geosiris (literally, “earth iris”) grow as small (5-12 cm high), pale, perennial herbs on the floor of the tropical rainforest. A single stem arises from an underground rhizome which produces a white or pale purple flower after every wet season.

Geosiris doesn’t photosynthesise. Most plants are autotrophic (auto = self, trophic = feeding) – that is, they make their own food using energy from the sun through photosynthesis. Plants photosynthesise by using green chlorophyll, stored in part of the cell known as a chloroplast.

The Conversation

However Geosiris is mycoheterotrophic (myco = fungus, hetero = other, trophic = feeding). Instead of photosynthesising, it steals the food from autotrophic plants and uses fungi as the middle man. That is why Geosiris isn’t green: it doesn’t photosynthesise so there is no green chlorophyll.

So how does Geosiris get away with this? It’s unclear, but our best guess is that Geosiris has found a way to cheat an already well-established system.

More than 90% of all plants have a cooperative relationship with fungi in the soil, in which the fungus offers up soil nutrients (such as phosphorus) to the plant in exchange for carbon. However, when plants evolve mycoheterotrophy, they work out a way of hijacking this system: mycoheterotrophs take nutrients from the fungus as well as the carbon it harvested from the photosynthesising plant.

This relationship is thought to be very specialised, with specific mycoheterotroph, autotroph and fungus species involved in each interaction. We think this is what Geosiris does, but much more research is needed into how it gets away with such a scandal, what’s in it for the fungus, and what species of fungus is involved.

The sun feeds most plants, and Geosiris steals from them using fungal associations. Author provided

They’re the family rebel…

Mycoheterotrophy is surprisingly common in plants. Occurring in more than 500 species of flowering plants, this stealthy feeding strategy has evolved at least 47 separate times in 36 plant families, one species of liverwort, and (possibly) one conifer.

However, Geosiris earns its rebel status by being the only mycoheterotrophic genus in its family, Iridaceae, which contains many popular garden genera such as Iris, Gladiolus, Freesia and Dietes.

Read more: Spinifex grass would like us to stop putting out bushfires, please

Geosiris split off from its autotrophic ancestors about 53 million years ago. During this time away from the family, Geosiris did away with photosynthesis and became mycoheterotrophic.

…with a sexy, slimmed-down genome

This loss of photosynthesis was accompanied by a major change in the genes of Geosiris. Genes responsible for photosynthesis are found in the chloroplast genome. The chloroplast genome mostly contains genes responsible for photosynthesis, however also contains a few genes important for processes like energy production.

Over the past 53 million years, the number of functional genes in the Geosiris chloroplast genome has roughly halved compared with its autotrophic relative Iris missouriensis. This reduction in number of genes is not random though. The genes lost were those responsible for photosynthesis, while the genes retained have vital functions like energy production that Geosiris still needs.

Think of it like a Fitbit. You buy one with the intention of seeing your New Year fitness resolutions through, but come March your exercise regime falls by the wayside. In the meantime your Fitbit stops working but you don’t mind: you’re not using it anymore so there is no need to get it fixed. Eventually that Fitbit ends up in the bottom of your drawer, lost forever along with sundry cables, batteries and the SoFresh Greatest Hits of 2010.

In the case of Geosiris, over time photosynthetic genes become mutated but the cell doesn’t bother to fix the mutated genes because they aren’t needed. These gene mutations are passed on to offspring, and over generations the genes are eventually lost forever.

They’re rare…

For more than 100 years, there was only one species of Geosiris known to science: Geosiris aphylla from the rainforests of Madagascar. It wasn’t until 2010 that a second species was discovered in the Comoro Islands, just north of Madagascar. But then, in 2017 botanists on an expedition discovered a new species_ – Geosiris australiensis – in the Daintree Rainforest of Queensland, Australia.

Author provided

So how did such a small, mycoheterotrophic herb find its way across the vast Indian Ocean?

…and glamorous globe-trotters

The Iridaceae family originated in Australia (back when Australia was still connected to Antarctica), but around 53 million years ago the ancestor of Geosiris travelled across the Indian Ocean to Madagascar. Then, around 30 million years ago, a lineage of Geosiris managed to travel back to Australia, splitting off into the newly discovered species Geosiris australiensis.

There are a few explanations as to how the ancestors of Geosiris did so much travelling in a time before Qantas frequent flyer points. One is that they did, literally, jump across the Indian Ocean, with seeds carried by wind between Madagascar and Australia. Geosiris has minuscule “dust seeds”, only about 0.2 millimetres wide. They’re so small they can be carried by wind for long distances. Records show that similar dust seeds from orchids have been carried thousands of kilometres by wind dispersal.

A second, more likely explanation, is that Geosiris travelled overland along the perimeter of the Indian Ocean. Geosiris jumped continents during periods when the global climate was especially hot and humid. During these times tropical rain forests extended from Africa, around the coast of the Indian Ocean, all the way to Southeast Asia.

Read more: Stringybark is tough as boots (and gave us the word ‘Eucalyptus’)

As a result, there was a lovely tract of suitable habitat for Geosiris to inhabit and travel through. If this is the case, perhaps there are even more species of the inconspicuous and mysterious Geosiris waiting to be discovered in the rainforests of Southeast Asia.

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

– ref. Geosiris is an early contender for Sexiest Plant of 2019 – http://theconversation.com/geosiris-is-an-early-contender-for-sexiest-plant-of-2019-109889

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Caroline Wake, Senior Lecturer in Theatre and Performance, UNSW

Review: Beware of Pity, Sydney Festival 2019

Performances in the Roslyn Packer Theatre typically begin when the house lights go down, the stage lights come up, and the audience falls silent. In Beware of Pity, the house lights stay up and the audience is still talking when the seven members of the Schaubühne Berlin ensemble skip lightly onto the stage, assume their positions and stare out at the audience.

It is more akin to the entrance of an orchestra than a theatre ensemble. The audience responds with tentative applause; one actor nods in acknowledgement but the rest continue staring. This soliciting of attention, only to disdain it once it arrives, is central to Beware of Pity.

The play is based on Austrian author Stefan Zweig’s novel of the same name. The book was published on the eve of one war in 1939, and is set on the eve of another in 1914. Don’t let the dates fool you: this is no modernist affair.

Beware of Pity is performed by the Schaubühne ensemble at the Sydney Festival. Jamie Williams

Instead it is closer to a bildungsroman, or coming-of-age novel, that tells the story of the young soldier Anton Hofmiller and his entanglement with, and brief engagement to, Edith Kekesfavla, the daughter of a wealthy baron. Approximately 80 years after the book’s publication, the London-based Complicité and Berlin-based Schaubühne have adapted it for the stage, premiering it in 2015 and touring it since.

Both the novel and the play are told as stories-within-stories that start approximately in the present day – 1937 in the novel and 2013 in the play – before rapidly rewinding to 1914. Rather than disposing of the descriptive passages and focusing on dialogue, as most theatrical adaptations do, this one retains both, with the ensemble alternating between reading the narrative and enacting the events within it.

The events themselves are minor but take on major proportions in the minds of the characters. The catalysing event occurs when Hofmiller (Laurenz Laufenberg, the only actor to play a single role) invites Edith to dance, unaware that she is paralysed from the waist down.

Marie Burchard as Edith and Laurenz Laufenberg as Hofmiller in Beware of Pity. Jamie Williams

The mortified Hofmiller – Toni to his friends – makes amends by spending a month’s pay on a preposterously large bunch of roses. Edith responds by inviting him to tea and soon he is visiting every day, apparently oblivious to her growing affection for him. It is not until she demands a goodnight kiss with what he perceives to be an unbecoming appetite that he comes to realise what has happened.

Midway through the performance, Beware of Pity goes back in time again, through a story that Edith’s doctor (Johannes Flaschberger) tells Hofmiller. It turns out that Edith’s father is not a baron by birth and obtained his castle by deceiving the woman who inherited it. He pays her vastly less than it is worth, but takes pity when he realises that she has nowhere to go, inviting her to stay on at the castle as his wife.

The doctor’s own marriage is also one of suggested imbalance: he married a former patient of his who is described as “blind and plain”. Is Hofmiller merely the latest in a long line of men who have been tricked into marriage by women manipulating their capacity for pity? Or is it more complicated than that?

The set, costumes and performances in Beware of Pity are all superb. Jamie Williams

There is no doubt that the play is out of step with contemporary sensibilities. It would fail the Bechdel Test for its representation of women, the Fries Test for the representation of people with disabilities, and any other test you might care to administer.

Nevertheless, it is beautiful to watch: the set (Anna Fleischle), costumes (Holly Waddington) and performances are all superb. On the night I attended, however, the English surtitles were not well positioned. One screen was too distant while the other was obscured, but hopefully this has since been remedied.

Soft spots and stark slices of light (Paul Anderson) bring the actors in and out of focus, in concert with the sound design (Pete Malkin). The sounds are mostly naturalistic: birds to evoke the garden and amplified footsteps to convey the spaciousness of the castle.

Others are more suggestive, such as when a heartbeat throbs through the space to convey a character’s anxiety, or when the strings and harp of Mahler’s Symphony No 5, Adagietto float through the air.

The actors perform with vigour and precision. Marie Burchard lip-syncs Edith’s lines in a scene with Hofmiller, while Eva Meckbach speaks her dialogue into a microphone. Laufenberg leans forward to hand a photograph to Burchard while another actor downstage places the photographs in front of the camera, sending the live feed to a large screen upstage.

Laurenz Laufenberg as Hofmiller is the only actor in Beware of Pity to play a single role. Jamie Williams

The most satisfying moments come when all seven performers and the screens coincide, as when the actors frantically flap their hands as if to clap while the screen displays scores of hands clapping.

Sometimes all this activity makes the performance feel over-engineered, for example when one character mentions black gas and a projection of black gas appears upstage. These moments of over-illustration are not only unsubtle but also untrusting of the audience.

Light and sound work together to bring Beware of Pity to life. Jamie Williams

When not participating in a scene the actors sit, smoke, drink, and watch the action. As this mode of meta-spectatorship – we watch them watching – combines with the story-within-a-story and the marriages-before-the-marriage, Beware of Pity becomes almost too self-reflexive.

Indeed, much of the play seems concerned with “the pleasure of creativity” generally – as Hofmiller puts it – and with theatricality specifically. Edith is described as walking “like a marionette”, while Hofmiller laments his inability to act, or rather to lie, saying “I was not convincing”.

The final scene takes place at a performance of Gluck’s Orpheus, where the elderly Hofmiller glimpses the even more elderly doctor. Why would a military man go to the theatre? To be re-sensitised to suffering and reawaken his sense of pity, or to dull it further and persuade himself that every death is fictional or at least accompanied by an aria?

Both Hofmiller and Beware of Pity seem to want it both ways. Hofmiller wants to confess to a crime but also be forgiven for it. Likewise, Beware of Pity comes to warn us against pity via the medium most closely associated with it. Pity is described as a force of nature throughout the performance: a “poison”, a “surge”, a “double-edged weapon”.

So, yes, beware of pity but even more so beware of those who issue such a warning. Chances are they want that pity for themselves.

– ref. Beware of Pity is beautiful to watch, but clashes with modern sensibilities – http://theconversation.com/beware-of-pity-is-beautiful-to-watch-but-clashes-with-modern-sensibilities-110440

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

University of Canberra Vice-Chancellor Deep Saini speaks with Michelle Grattan about the week in Australian politics. They discuss Scott Morrison’s decision to install former Labor president Warren Mundine as the candidate for the ultra-marginal NSW seat of Gilmore, Kelly O’Dwyer’s announcement that she would not be contesting the next election, and the government’s Australia Day plan to force councils to conduct citizenship ceremonies on January 26 or have their right to do so at all revoked.

– ref. VIDEO: Michelle Grattan on Morrison’s first political plays of 2019 – http://theconversation.com/video-michelle-grattan-on-morrisons-first-political-plays-of-2019-110500

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

Last year, a Danish study reported a link between nitrate in drinking water and the risk of developing colorectal (bowel) cancer. This finding could have important implications for New Zealanders.

New Zealand has one of the highest bowel cancer rates in the world. Recent data show also that drinking water supplies in some parts of New Zealand have nitrate levels more than three times higher than the threshold level for colorectal cancer risk identified in the Danish study.

This study and other research raise an important question about the contribution nitrate exposure through drinking water may be making to New Zealand’s high rates of bowel cancer.

Read more: What’s behind the increase in bowel cancer among younger Australians?

Health implications of nitrates in drinking water

Nitrate fertiliser is added to pasture and crops to accelerate plant growth. Much of it enters waterways either directly with rain and irrigation or through animal urine.

The Danish study, published in the International Journal of Cancer, was extensive both in number of participants and length of follow-up. It included 2.7 million people over 23 years and monitored their individual nitrate exposure levels and colorectal cancer rates.

The findings confirmed widely held suspicions that long-term exposure to nitrate may be linked to cancer risk. The investigators propose that the risk results from nitrate converting into a carcinogenic compound (N-nitroso) after ingestion.

The research found a statistically significant increase in colorectal cancer risk at 0.87ppm (parts per million) of nitrate-nitrogen in drinking water. There was a 15% increase in risk at levels over 2.1ppm, compared with those who have the least exposure.

One key implication is that the current nitrate standard for drinking water used in most countries, including New Zealand, is probably too high.

International nitrate standards

The cancer risk level (0.87ppm) identified in the study is less than a tenth of the current maximum allowable value (MAV) of nitrate-nitrogen of 11.3ppm (equivalent to 50ppm of nitrate). This level has been in use in many countries for decades and comes from the World Health Organisation’s limit. It is based on the risk of “blue baby syndrome” (infantile methaemoglobinaemia, a condition that reduces the ability of red blood cells to release oxygen to tissues) – but not the risk of cancer.

Rates of bowel cancer vary across New Zealand, with the highest incidence in South Canterbury, with an age-standardised rate of 86.5 cases per 100,000 people. Bowel cancer is the second-highest cause of cancer death in New Zealand and each year around 3,000 people are diagnosed and 1,200 die of the disease.

A recent epidemiological review estimated the contribution of a range of modifiable “lifestyle” risk factors to colorectal cancer in New Zealand. In order of importance, these factors are obesity, alcohol, physical inactivity, smoking and consumption of red meat and processed meat. It would be useful to conduct more research to see if nitrate exposure in drinking water should be added to this list.

This map shows the nitrate-nitrogen trends at monitored sites. The Canterbury region, on the east coast of the South Island, shows that groundwater quality has worsened. Ministry for the Environment, Stats NZ, CC BY-ND

A recent Fish and Game New Zealand investigation of drinking water supplies in the Canterbury region found that nitrate levels in drinking water sourced from groundwater in areas of intensive farming and horticulture are already high and rising. The findings are consistent with data from the regional council Environment Canterbury. The latest groundwater report showed that half of the wells they monitor have values greater than 3ppm nitrate-nitrogen, more than three times the Danish study’s trigger level for colorectal cancer risk.

Christchurch City Council data show that of 420 samples collected during five years from 2011 to 2016, 40% exceeded 0.87ppm.

Read more: You’ve heard of a carbon footprint – now it’s time to take steps to cut your nitrogen footprint

Impact on ecosystems

When nitrate enters waterways, it accelerates algae growth. Freshwater scientists have long been pushing for nitrate limits to curtail algal proliferation, but restrictions have been slow and in some regions non-existent. An important coincidence is that the Australian and New Zealand guideline for healthy aquatic ecosystems for nitrate is at 0.7mg/l nitrate-nitrogen, close to the level required to stay under the colorectal cancer risk value found in the Danish study.

The Canterbury region exemplifies the problems resulting from the failure of central and local government policy in New Zealand to protect both ground and surface water. These failures cannot be blamed on a lack of awareness as these outcomes were predicted decades ago. For example, in 1986 the Ministry of Works predicted the nitrate contamination we now see as a consequence of regional irrigation schemes. It made it clear that alternative drinking water supplies would have to be found for Canterbury residents.

Apart from health and ecological concerns, another worry is that public fears about drinking water safety will prove a boon for water bottling companies, which have free access to New Zealand’s cleanest water.

While many New Zealanders face significant and increasing costs for water treatment, water bottlers pay virtually nothing. The only cost, apart from bottling costs, is a one-off 35-year regional council consent fee. This anomaly highlights the urgent need for government to put tougher limits on nitrate loss and face up to dealing with water ownership issues in New Zealand.

In conclusion, surface water in many parts of New Zealand is highly contaminated with nitrates as a result of intensified farming. These elevated levels are undoubtedly damaging freshwater ecosystems and biodiversity, and may also be harming human health.

At the very least, public health authorities need to conduct a systematic survey to assess current nitrate levels in New Zealand drinking waters, including those that are not part of the routinely monitored networked system. This information could then be used to provide a quantitative estimate of the colorectal cancer burden in New Zealand that can be attributed to this hazard.

– ref. Drinking water study raises health concerns for New Zealanders – http://theconversation.com/drinking-water-study-raises-health-concerns-for-new-zealanders-108510

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sally Baker, Lecturer, School of Social Sciences, UNSW

For some time, lowering standards and inadequate English language proficiency have dominated discussions about international students in Australia. Studies show many international students struggle in their relationships, with their finances, feelings of isolation and belonging, all of which affect their educational experience.

The suggestion that raising entry standards would ensure success and a higher quality of international graduates is not necessarily true. Achieving a higher level of English proficiency through a standardised test will not guarantee international students’ motivation to fully participate in their degree programs.

Read more: English test for international students isn’t new, just more standardised

Universities need to look beyond language proficiency at the point of entry, and do more to support all facets of academic, linguistic and social development. These include discipline-specific language, mental health, and culturally appropriate pastoral support throughout their degrees. While language proficiency is the most important factor, these other factors have been shown to impact students’ academic performance.

Focusing only on increasing entry scores on standardised tests like the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) is unlikely to help. We also need to provide them with support after they’ve arrived at an Australian university. If we don’t, the number of international students who choose to study in Australia could decrease, hurting the A$32 billion a year industry.

What is IELTS and how does it work?

One of the most popular proficiency tests is the International English Language Testing System, which costs A$340 and consists of four tests. Despite its dominance in global language testing, the IELTS has been criticised by university academic and administrative staff for being a poor predictor of academic performance.

The federal government requires student visa applicants to achieve at least a 5.5 on the test. Alternatively, they can get a 5.0 and do at least 10 weeks of intensive English language learning, or a 4.5 and do at least 20 weeks of intensive English language learning. The highest a person can achieve is a 9.0.

The test is comprised of a 15-minute speaking test, 40 multiple choice questions each in listening and reading, and a two-part writing test. Here is what a 5.0 sounds like:

This test-taker has enough vocabulary to talk about familiar and unfamiliar topics, but meaning is occasionally lost through limited vocabulary. Her basic grammar is reasonably accurate but she struggles with complex sentences.

A student who achieved a band 8.0 speaks much more fluidly, drawing on a wide range of less common words and phrases, but she still has to occasionally pause to search for the right words.

Like all standardised tests, IELTS suffers from the weight of expectation about what it can actually assess. IELTS can only offer a snapshot of students’ use of language. As you can hear in the video, the activities test-takers do in the IELTS test are generic and poorly reflect the kinds of language use and literacy students will need to complete their degrees.

It also can’t assess understandings of cultural norms, conversational ability, or capacity to engage in the host country’s social life. These are also important for success. The score can only indicate someone’s proficiency in a familiar testing context, and their tolerance for high-stakes exams.

For success, international students need ongoing support

Universities profit massively from international student enrolments. If they don’t do anything to support these students through their studies (instead of just raising the entry requirement), they’re likely to lose significant income. There is also a moral obligation for universities to better respond to the needs of these students.

Universities should recognise that for international students, disciplinary specific, people-rich supports work better than general study skills models for most students. Accessing medical or mental health support through digital booking systems could prevent international students from seeking help. They’re already less likely than domestic peers to seek support.

Read more: More international students should mean more support for communication and interaction

Despite the economic incentive to make sure international enrolments remain steady, collaborating to set up and share more responsive forms of support on the ground is difficult. The siloed nature of university departments hinders collaboration.

For example, there are many language specialists in English Language Intensive Courses for Overseas Students (ELICOS) centres at universities. Universities could draw on their expertise to work with university teachers in their specific disciplines to support international students. They could help the students learn the language and literacy practices relevant to their disciplines, as well as help improve their oral and written expression.

So what would work?

Universities need to work towards students feeling confident about asking for help, and knowing who to talk to and where to find the right information.

Read more: Using university language tests for migration and professional registration is problematic

Universities need to ensure support services are targeted to the needs of culturally and linguistically diverse students. They also need to ensure there are many types of support available to avoid a backlog that would see students giving up or not having access to the right support at the right time. This should be a core part of university business.

Specific strategies to promote cultural and linguistic diversity include:

• taking an approach to teaching and learning that encourages multilingual students to use multiple languages to make sense of course content

• establishing language ambassadors who can help newly-arrived international students navigate their new university and find services such as counselling or language supports

• explicitly teaching cultural diversity to students and staff, offering safe spaces to unpack assumptions and biases and creating culturally safe institutions which promote inclusive and supportive environments in both policy and practice.

Finally, universities need to encourage and offer training to support staff to engage in these practices. Many academics and support staff come up with excellent strategies, but these are often ad hoc or isolated. Universities should also offer incentives to collaborate and showcase best practice strategies for others to use and adapt.

– ref. Higher English entry standards for international students won’t necessarily translate to success – http://theconversation.com/higher-english-entry-standards-for-international-students-wont-necessarily-translate-to-success-110350

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nicholas Gruen, Adjunct Professor, Business School, University of Technology Sydney

It’s almost Australia Day and hundreds of us are in line for an award.

Sadly, as unpublished research by my firm Lateral Economics reveals, many will get it for little more than doing their job. And the higher the job’s status, the higher the award.

Governors General, High Court Justices and Vice Chancellors of major universities would hope for the highest Companion of the Order (AC). Professors, public service departmental heads and senior business people should hope for the next one down – an Officer of the Order (AO). School Principals would generally slot in next for Members of the Order (AM).

If you’re lucky, or you’ve done your job extraordinarily well, you’ll be promoted one rank, but that’s pretty much it.

We reward most the already rewarded

Meanwhile, those who succeed in some achievement principally in and for their community usually qualify for the lowest award, if that; the Medal of the Order (OAM). And usually only if they’ve become conspicuous.

The level of gratitude among recipients seems to follow an equal and opposite arc. Those at the bottom seem the most thrilled for being recognised the least.

Distinction in putting others first gets short shrift. As Anne Summers lamented in 2013:

Seven years ago I nominated a woman I admire for an Australian honour. It took two years but it came through and she was awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) for a lifetime of work with victims of domestic violence. I was disappointed she had not been given a higher award – I had hoped for an AM (Member of the Order of Australia) at the very least – but she was thrilled and so was her family.

Money, fame and status are nothing to be sneezed at if they are honestly earned. But they are their own reward. Why should they beget other rewards?

We could be putting awards to use

Here’s an idea. Why don’t we award honours to encourage people to do more than their job? In a world that is lavishing increasing rewards on the “haves”, the worldly rewards for doing your job need little bolstering.

Knowing awards are reserved for people who do more than their jobs might encourage us to choose more selfless and socially committed lives at the outset of our careers.

There’s a hunger among the young to do just that – to combine good, privately rewarding careers with serving their community and tackling social ills.

If honours are “the principal means by which the nation officially recognises the merit of its citizens” as the 2011 Government House review put it, I’d like to use it to encourage those people the most.

Wouldn’t it be more consistent with Australian values?

It’d make them more Australian

Government House provides online biographies of all those awarded honours. Lateral Economics sampled about half of them back to 2013 looking specifically at the gender division of honours and the extent to which those biographies included descriptions of work done without personal gain.

Barely more than a quarter of Order of Australia recipients recorded voluntary work in their biographies.

And those that did were more likely to be near the bottom of the awards ladder.

More than a third of those receiving the very bottom award, the OAM, were engaged in obviously selfless work, compared with a fifth at the top (just two out of ten ACs).

Still we may be making a little progress. Perhaps spurred by sentiments such as those expressed by Anne Summers, last year saw a higher percentage of women than in any previous year. Unusually, six women got the top honour, the AC, compared with four men, and the proportion with voluntary service broke through the 30% barrier for the first time.

I wonder what Australia Day will bring. I’m thinking that, whatever it is, we can do a lot better, for our community, and our country.

Thanks to Shruti Sekhar for research assistance.

– ref. We’re awarding the Order of Australia to the wrong people – http://theconversation.com/were-awarding-the-order-of-australia-to-the-wrong-people-110487

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Paul Salmon, Professor of Human Factors, University of the Sunshine Coast

Artificial intelligence can play chess, drive a car and diagnose medical issues. Examples include Google DeepMind’s AlphaGo, Tesla’s self-driving vehicles, and IBM’s Watson.

This type of artificial intelligence is referred to as Artificial Narrow Intelligence (ANI) – non-human systems that can perform a specific task. We encounter this type on a daily basis, and its use is growing rapidly.

Read more: When AI meets your shopping experience it knows what you buy – and what you ought to buy

But while many impressive capabilities have been demonstrated, we’re also beginning to see problems. The worst case involved a self-driving test car that hit a pedestrian in March. The pedestrian died and the incident is still under investigation.

The next generation of AI

With the next generation of AI the stakes will almost certainly be much higher.

Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) will have advanced computational powers and human level intelligence. AGI systems will be able to learn, solve problems, adapt and self-improve. They will even do tasks beyond those they were designed for.

Importantly, their rate of improvement could be exponential as they become far more advanced than their human creators. The introduction of AGI could quickly bring about Artificial Super Intelligence (ASI).

While fully functioning AGI systems do not yet exist, it has been estimated that they will be with us anywhere between 2029 and the end of the century.

What appears almost certain is that they will arrive eventually. When they do, there is a great and natural concern that we won’t be able to control them.

The risks associated with AGI

There is no doubt that AGI systems could transform humanity. Some of the more powerful applications include curing disease, solving complex global challenges such as climate change and food security, and initiating a worldwide technology boom.

But a failure to implement appropriate controls could lead to catastrophic consequences.

Despite what we see in Hollywood movies, existential threats are not likely to involve killer robots. The problem will not be one of malevolence, but rather one of intelligence, writes MIT professor Max Tegmark in his 2017 book Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence.

It is here that the science of human-machine systems – known as Human Factors and Ergonomics – will come to the fore. Risks will emerge from the fact that super-intelligent systems will identify more efficient ways of doing things, concoct their own strategies for achieving goals, and even develop goals of their own.

Imagine these examples:

• an AGI system tasked with preventing HIV decides to eradicate the problem by killing everybody who carries the disease, or one tasked with curing cancer decides to kill everybody who has any genetic predisposition for it

• an autonomous AGI military drone decides the only way to guarantee an enemy target is destroyed is to wipe out an entire community

• an environmentally protective AGI decides the only way to slow or reverse climate change is to remove technologies and humans that induce it.

These scenarios raise the spectre of disparate AGI systems battling each other, none of which take human concerns as their central mandate.

Various dystopian futures have been advanced, including those in which humans eventually become obsolete, with the subsequent extinction of the human race.

Others have forwarded less extreme but still significant disruption, including malicious use of AGI for terrorist and cyber-attacks, the removal of the need for human work, and mass surveillance, to name only a few.

So there is a need for human-centred investigations into the safest ways to design and manage AGI to minimise risks and maximise benefits.

How to control AGI

Controlling AGI is not as straightforward as simply applying the same kinds of controls that tend to keep humans in check.

Many controls on human behaviour rely on our consciousness, our emotions, and the application of our moral values. AGIs won’t need any of these attributes to cause us harm. Current forms of control are not enough.

Arguably, there are three sets of controls that require development and testing immediately:

1. the controls required to ensure AGI system designers and developers create safe AGI systems

2. the controls that need to be built into the AGIs themselves, such as “common sense”, morals, operating procedures, decision-rules, and so on

3. the controls that need to be added to the broader systems in which AGI will operate, such as regulation, codes of practice, standard operating procedures, monitoring systems, and infrastructure.

Human Factors and Ergonomics offers methods that can be used to identify, design and test such controls well before AGI systems arrive.

For example, it’s possible to model the controls that exist in a particular system, to model the likely behaviour of AGI systems within this control structure, and identify safety risks.

This will allow us to identify where new controls are required, design them, and then remodel to see if the risks are removed as a result.

In addition, our models of cognition and decision making can be used to ensure AGIs behave appropriately and have humanistic values.

Act now, not later

This kind of research is in progress, but there is not nearly enough of it and not enough disciplines are involved.

Read more: Why R2D2 could be your child’s teacher sooner than you think

Even the high-profile tech entrepreneur Elon Musk has warned of the “existential crisis” humanity faces from advanced AI and has spoken about the need to regulate AI before it’s too late.

The next decade or so represents a critical period. There is an opportunity to create safe and efficient AGI systems that can have far reaching benefits to society and humanity.

At the same time, a business-as-usual approach in which we play catch-up with rapid technological advances could contribute to the extinction of the human race. The ball is in our court, but it won’t be for much longer.

– ref. To protect us from the risks of advanced artificial intelligence, we need to act now – http://theconversation.com/to-protect-us-from-the-risks-of-advanced-artificial-intelligence-we-need-to-act-now-107615

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Darren Pennay, Campus Visitor, ANU Centre for Social Research and Methods, Australian National University

In the cultural warfare over whether January 26 should be retained as Australia Day, survey results are deployed like guided missiles. But what do Australians really think about the continuing debate?

A recent study undertaken by the Institute of Public Affairs found that three-quarters of Australians agreed that Australia Day should be celebrated on January 26.

In a survey taken late last year, before the annual Australia Day debate commenced, the Social Research Centre asked members of its Life in Australia research panel a similar question:

To what extent do you agree or disagree that 26 January is the best day for our national day of celebration?

And from the 2,167 responses, it received similar results: 70% of respondents agreed (37% strongly agreed/33% agreed).

But this is where the story becomes interesting.

Support for 26 January increases with age. It is 73% for Generation X (39-53 years) and 80% among Baby Boomers (54-72 years). Among the Silent Generation (73 years or older), support for January 26 is nearly unanimous (90%). But it is notably lower among the younger generations at 47% and 58% for Generation Z (aged 23 years or younger) and Millennials (24-38 years).

These results may explain why the ABC shifted its Triple J Hottest 100 away from 26 January after taking a poll in which 60% of the 65,000 who voted supported the move.

Read more: Henry Reynolds: Triple J did the right thing, we need a new Australia Day

Support was also lower among those with a university degree (55%) compared to those without (75%). In terms of geography, support for January 26 was highest in Western Australia (83%) and lowest in Victoria (65%), and higher in the regions (78%) than the capital cities (66%). These results seem consistent with what we know about the patterns of progressive and conservative political values in Australia.

There are stark differences according to party affiliation. Support is highest among Coalition (85%) and One Nation (94%) supporters compared with 62% of Labor supporters and just 38% among Greens. On these results, perhaps the federal Labor Party’s present support for Australia Day might eventually come under pressure from within.

Those who disagreed that January 26 was the best day for our national celebration were asked:

On which day do you think Australia should have its national day?

Ten options were offered or an alternative could be nominated.

Reconciliation Day on May 27 – the anniversary of the 1967 referendum – was the most popular alternative at 24%. It was followed by January 1, Federation Day (18%). Somewhat bizarrely, 15% of those opposed to January 26 being the date nominated May 8, because it sounds like “mate”. At present, no date clearly stands out as a popular alternative to January 26 as Australia Day.

To gain a better insight into what January 26 actually means to Australians, we then asked a series of questions to explore which aspects of Australia’s culture and heritage were most strongly associated with Australia Day.

Read more: Why Australia Day survives, despite revealing a nation’s rifts and wounds

Just over two-thirds (68%) of respondents agreed that January 26 celebrated our British culture and heritage. 63% believed the current timing was a celebration of our democracy and system of government. And 58% believed it celebrated the contribution of all immigrants to Australia.

The view that Australia Day recognised the contribution of all immigrants to Australia received stronger endorsement from those born overseas (65%) than the Australian born (55%). This suggests that the long-standing official Australia Day emphasis on unity in diversity has to some extent spoken to their sense of belonging. There is no other date in the Australian calendar that could be considered to represent the contribution of migrant communities.

The association of Australia Day and British culture and heritage was highest in New South Wales (73%). This possibly reflects the particular significance of January 26 for the history of that state, but it is still below the levels observed in the Australian Capital Territory – 81% – and the Northern Territory – 77%. The association with British culture and heritage is highest amongst Coalition and One Nation supporters, at 73% and 71% respectively. For the Silent Generation, the celebration of Australia Day on 26 January is particularly evocative of British culture and heritage: more than four out of five agreed.

Official proponents of Australia Day have fudged the association of January 26 and Britishness as far back as the 1988 Bicentenary. They have more often emphasised diversity and belonging. Yet, fewer respondents accepted that the day was a celebration of migrant contributions relative to its association with British heritage.

In a similar vein, only a minority – although a large one (40%) – believed January 26 celebrated Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture and heritage. This proposition is rejected most strongly by Labor and Greens supporters, those living in the capitals and the young.

Yet perhaps the most striking of all our findings is that 45% of respondents agreed the day was offensive to Indigenous Australians. This figure is higher than that found in an Australia Institute poll of January 2018, which put the figure at 37%.

The survey also found that women (49%) are more likely than men (42%) to see things this way, possibly reflecting the modern pattern for women to have more progressive political views. Those with a university degree (59%), Victorians (51%) and capital city residents (48%) were also more likely to hold this opinion. And the party divide on this issue is clear. Labor and Greens (50% and 75%) supporters are much more likely to agree than Coalition and One Nation voters (32% and 12%).

Nearly three in ten (29%) of respondents who agree with having Australia Day on January 26 also recognise the date is offensive to Indigenous people. It seems that many of us are sensitive to their objections, but not concerned enough to want to change the date. Australians incorporate in their historical consciousness a range of perspectives on the Australian past, and their significance for present-day commemoration, even when they are apparently in conflict with one another.

Read more: First reconciliation, then a republic – starting with changing the date of Australia Day

So what factors are at play here? One school of thought is that many Australians are mindful of the day’s negative connotations, but place a high value on it because it is an important marker in the calendar. The attachment to this last summer public holiday before the school year starts possibly outweighs concern about offence. Previous research has shown that when people were asked to associate three words with Australia Day, the favourites were “barbecue”, “celebration” and “holiday”.

Still, the mix of attitudes we have uncovered seems likely to ensure the day remains contentious. Any expectation that January 26 might perform a similar kind of civic function to July 4 (Independence Day) in the United States or July 14 (Bastille Day) in France is fanciful.

It may be that the fortnight or so surrounding Australia Day is evolving into an annual season in which some of the deepest paradoxes of Australian identity play out in public.

– ref. New research reveals our complex attitudes to Australia Day – http://theconversation.com/new-research-reveals-our-complex-attitudes-to-australia-day-110035

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kristine Macartney, Professor, Discipline of Paediatrics and Child Health, University of Sydney

Australia was declared free of measles in 2014. Yet this summer we’ve seen nine cases of measles in New South Wales, and others in Victoria, Western Australia, South Australia and Queensland.

High vaccination rates in Australia means the measles virus doesn’t continuously spread, but we still have “wildfire” outbreaks when travellers bring measles into the country, often unknowingly.

If you haven’t received two doses of measles vaccine, you are at risk of contracting measles.

Read more: What’s behind the sudden rise in measles deaths in Europe?

How can you catch it?

Measles is a highly contagious virus that spreads by touching or breathing in the same air as an infected person. The virus stays alive in the air or on infected surfaces for up to two hours.

An infected person is contagious from the first day of symptoms (fever, cough and runny nose). These general symptoms start about four days before the rash develops, meaning contagious people can spread the virus even before they realise they have measles.

If you’re not immune to the virus, through vaccination or past infection, the chance of becoming ill after being near someone with measles is 90%. Being in the same café, waiting in line at the checkout or flying on the same aeroplane as an infected person could be enough to pick up the disease.

Why is it so dangerous?

Measles causes a fever, cough, and a rash that starts around the hairline and then spreads to the whole body.

The red rash starts around the hairline, then spreads. Phichet Chaiyabin/Shutterstock

It can also cause middle ear infections (otitis media), chest infections (pneumonia), and diarrhoea.

Swelling and inflammation to the brain (encephalitis) occurs in 1 in every 1,000 cases and can lead to permanent brain damage or death. In 2017, 110,000 people died from measles worldwide.

Even after surviving the initial illness, measles can cause a devastating and fatal complication known as subacute sclerosing panencephalitis (inflammation of the brain) many years later.

Why are people in their 20s to 50s more at risk?

To protect yourself against measles, you need two doses of measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine.

Children in Australia routinely get this vaccine at 12 and 18 months of age. The second dose is given in combination with the chickenpox vaccine.

Read more: Vaccine program changes protect kids, but with fewer ouches

It’s important to have two doses of MMR vaccine, especially if you haven’t reached your mid-50s. Most people older than this would have been infected with measles before vaccination was routine.

People aged in their 20s to early 50s (those born from 1966 and 1994) are most likely to have only had one dose of MMR vaccine.

While we’ve had the measles vaccine in Australia since 1968, a two-dose program was only introduced in 1992. A brief school-based catch-up program from 1993 to 1994 offered school children a second dose. For those missed out on the school program, catch-up vaccinations were given on an ad-hoc basis via GP clinics.

So not everyone in this age group would have received two doses of the measles vaccine.

If you are this age, you may not be not fully protected against measles. Checking with a GP or immunisation nurse is the best way to be sure. They will check your records, and may do a blood test if you have no proof of immunisation.

Even if you can’t be sure of past vaccinations, it’s still safe to have an extra vaccine. And it’s free for those who need a catch-up dose.

It’s not harmful to have an additional dose of the MMR vaccine. Shutterstock

If you have a child under 12 months of age and you’re heading to a country with measles, an early additional vaccine dose can be given to protect your baby from measles. This ideally should be done at least a month before you travel, to ensure an immune response has time to develop. The routine scheduled doses at 12 months and 18 months will still need to be given later.

Read more: Autism and vaccines: more than half of people in Britain, France, Italy still think there may be a link

What if you’re not protected?

Unfortunately, there is no treatment for measles. Getting adequately vaccinated is the best form of defence against this serious disease.

If you think you’ve been exposed or may be ill from measles, see your GP or call Health Direct or your public health department as soon as possible.

If exposed, but not yet ill, it may not be too late to get a protective vaccine and ensure you don’t spread the disease to others.

If you are unwell, and suspect measles, call ahead to let the clinic know so they can make provisions to keep you away from other patients in the waiting room.

Other, more common, diseases can look like measles, so an urgent specific test (throat swab) must be done to confirm the infection. If measles is proven, public health workers will trace your contacts and your treating doctor will monitor you for complications.

Are we at risk of measles returning in Australia?

Australia currently has all-time high vaccine coverage, with 94.5% of five-year-old children fully immunised at the end of 2017.

By keeping vaccine coverage near or above 95%, herd immunity where there are enough people vaccinated helps prevent measles from spreading to others, including those who cannot be vaccinated.

But in our interconnected world, we must work together to reduce the threat of measles worldwide by boosting immunisation programs in regions with low coverage, including in the Asia Pacific.

Read more: Why it’s hard to run a mass measles campaign in Nigeria’s war-torn states

Measles have resurfaced in some countries due to falls in vaccine coverage from unfounded safety concerns as well as weak health systems. In the first six months of last year, for instance, Europe had 41,000 cases of measles, nearly double the total number of the previous year. This, among other factors, has prompted the World Health Organisation to list vaccine hesitancy as a top ten threat to global health in 2019.

A continued global coordinated effort will be required to maintain elimination and prevent resurgence of this deadly disease in Australia.

– ref. Why people born between 1966 and 1994 are at greater risk of measles – and what to do about it – http://theconversation.com/why-people-born-between-1966-and-1994-are-at-greater-risk-of-measles-and-what-to-do-about-it-110167

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Steve Turton, Adjunct Professor of Environmental Geography, CQUniversity Australia

If you think the weather this month has been like Groundhog Day (albeit much hotter), you’d probably be right! Much like a stuck record, weather systems seem to have stalled over most of the country.

Brisbane residents are questioning the lack of rain, storms and heat. Darwin has just endured its second-latest monsoon onset on record after weeks of heat and humidity. Interior towns and cities have experienced significantly hot weather with a number of new maximum and minimum temperature records broken, along with records for consecutive days over 35℃.

Read more: Coastal seas around New Zealand are heading into a marine heatwave, again

Perth has largely escaped the heat so far this summer, while Sydney and Hobart have had a mixed bag. Coastal sea breezes have tempered conditions in the south and southeast of the continent. However, heatwaves are forecast for Melbourne and much of the southeast, with the arrival of strong, hot northerly winds. This will also bring extreme or severe fire weather conditions in many areas, including Tasmania. Adelaide, meanwhile, has sweltered through the hottest day on record for any Australian capital.

Bureau of Meteorology

These weather patterns across the country are largely due to a stubborn blocking high-pressure system that has remained over the Tasman Sea since early January, affecting weather on both sides of the ditch. This type of strong high-pressure system typically forms further south than usual, and remains almost stationary for an extended period, thus blocking the west-to-east progression of weather systems across southern Australia.

Read more: Australia’s ‘deadliest natural hazard’: what’s your heatwave plan?

Sometimes, these blocking highs position themselves over the Great Australian Bight. They can occur at any time of year, and can stay in the Australian region from several days to several weeks.

This schematic shows a ‘blocking high’ preventing weather systems moving across Australia. Understanding Climate Change in Australia report

Winds rotate anticlockwise around high-pressure systems in the Southern Hemisphere. On the northern flank of the blocking high, southeast trade winds have been affecting northern New South Wales and eastern Queensland due to a persistent ridge of high pressure. These winds have been largely cool and dry, with only the far north of Queensland experiencing significant showers. The ridge has kept the inland trough further west over inland NSW and Queensland, preventing normal afternoon thunderstorm activity in the inland, and adding to the woes of the extended drought.

Cool, moist weather from the Southern Ocean is being displaced southeast by the blocking high, resulting in prolonged continental heatwaves and lack of rain. On the western flank of the blocking high, hot dry northerly winds from the arid centre are pushing through South Australia and Victoria, generating heatwave conditions.

Read more: Why we’re hardwired to ignore safety advice during a heatwave

Across the ditch, cooler and drier southerly winds are affecting much of New Zealand. Only the southwest of the South Island is getting any significant rain due to persistent moist westerlies on the southern flank of the blocking high.

An unusually strong ridge of high pressure across Queensland, extending up to Cape York, has kept the monsoon trough north of the continent. This pattern is forecast to change as a deep tropical depression forms in the Gulf of Carpentaria over the coming days and moves south into northern Queensland. Unfortunately, the stubborn ridge of high pressure over central Queensland is likely to block the rain-bearing low from moving much further south over drought-stricken parts of inland Queensland and NSW.

Read more: Coping with heat waves: 5 essential reads

While parts of the country have sweltered, the far southwest of Australia has experienced cooler and wetter than average conditions this month. Cape Leeuwin, Australia’s most southwesterly point, set a 123-year daily rainfall record for January, recording a massive 57mm of rainfall.

Bureau of Meteorology

In the short term, there is no indication that the blocking high will break down or move eastward. Forecasters on both sides of the Tasman expect the pattern to continue until February at least.

Read more: Are heatwaves ‘worsening’ and have ‘hot days’ doubled in Australia in the last 50 years?

– ref. The stubborn high-pressure system behind Australia’s record heatwaves – http://theconversation.com/the-stubborn-high-pressure-system-behind-australias-record-heatwaves-110442

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tim Harcourt, J.W. Nevile Fellow in Economics, UNSW

The sea cucumber is a marine animal that has a leathery skin but soft body. Its shape and size resembles a cucumber. In Australia we commonly call it trepang, adopted from a Malayan word. It was Australia’s first export to Asia, where it is regarded as delicacy, particularly in Chinese cuisine.

There is evidence fishermen from Makassar, on what is now the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, were visiting the coast of what is now Arnhem Land to collect sea cucumbers as early as the mid-1600s to sell to Chinese merchants. The fishermen camped on the beach to boil and dry their caught trepang, and exchanged goods with the local Indigenous tribes.

Read more: Long before Europeans, traders came here from the north and art tells the story

Through the lens of trade, therefore, the story of modern Australia, a nation interacting with the global economy, begins long before January 26, 1788.

There are many debates that surround Australia Day. But we can all celebrate our history of trade. Like any history, there are episodes of engagement we can’t admire or be proud of. But on the whole, what began with seafood trade on the coast of Arnhem Land has proven a remarkable success.

Arrivals, departures, department stores

Two of Hong Kong’s most iconic department stores provide another example of historic interaction with Asia.

Throughout the 19th century large numbers of Chinese, particularly Cantonese, migrated to Australia’s goldfields. As in any gold rush, it was those who ended up selling supplies that usually prospered more than the prospectors (the 19th century equivalents of Atlassian). In Victoria, Chinese merchants became prominent in the development of retail sectors in Ballarat and Bendigo.

Some Chinese migrants who opened stores in Australia eventually returned to China, and took what they had learned with them.

A Sincere store in Mongkok, Hong Kong. Wikimedia, CC BY-NC-SA

One of those was Ma Ying Piu, who in 1990 does he mean 1890? opened Hong Kong’s first Chinese-owned department store, called Sincere. The store is said to have been inspired by David Jones in Sydney.

Hong Kong’s second Chinese-owned department store, Wing On, was started by brothers Kwok Lok and Kwok Chuen, who returned to China from Australia in 1907. Both businesses opened branches in Shanghai and became two of the “four great department stores of China”.

Such entrepreneurial spirit from around the world enabled the separate Australian colonies to boom for much of the 19th century. Admittedly some paid a heavy price (convicts and Indigenous people treated like slaves, for example). But great economic growth was achieved, as economic historian Ian McLean points out in Why Australia Prospered, without a national government or “many of the institutions and sources of advice now regarded as essential for macroeconomic management”, such as trained economists.

The long march to the Asian century

Colonial governments ran trade missions to China, South East Asia and Japan in the 19th century. After federation in 1901, the Commonwealth government set up trade offices in Shanghai, Tokyo and Batavia (Jakarta) before the interruption of World War II. In the post-war era there have been “four waves” of Asian engagement.

The first three were: the Japan-Australia Commerce agreement in 1957; Gough Whitlam’s recognition of China in 1971; and the Hawke-Keating economic reforms between 1983 and 1996.

The fourth wave is the Asian Century. It began after Australia survived the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997-99 and realised its future did lie in Asia.

To get to that point was a long process. Paul Keating might have been the prime minister who most enthusiastically spruiked engagement with Asia, but he was certainly not the first to advocate closer ties.

That was then, and this is now

So that’s some of our history. What about now?

There are many contemporary things we can be cheerful (and proud about) in 2019 that echo our history.

We can be very pleased about successful Indigenous exporters and entrepreneurs – the successors of our first traders from Arnhem Land.

Think of Ros and John Moriarty of Balarinji, the design agency that has developed all of the motifs used by Qantas in its Flying Art series.

Balarinji oversaw translating Emily Kame Kngwarreye’s 1991 painting ‘Yam Dreaming’ for application on a Qantas jet. Qantas

Or Peter Cooley, who founded Blak Markets to provide economic development opportunities to Indigenous people. (He also hosts his own business show.)

Or David Williams and the members of the Bangarra dance company.

At my business school at the University of NSW a new generation of Indigenous business students have just completed summer school. I am hopeful many will become our business stars of tomorrow.

Along with homegrown talent, Australia has been blessed by waves of immigrants rich in the same entrepreneurial spirit that enabled Chinese merchants to prosper despite the racism of the 19th century.

From the first fleet, we’ve had English, Scots and Irish seeking freedom from poverty and persecution. We’ve had East European Jews, Vietnamese Buddhists, Lebanese Christians and Afghan Muslims fleeing persecution and war.

About one in four Australians were born overseas, but they represent one in every two exporters, and two out of every three entrepreneurs. Immigration has been a good story for Australia in terms of trade and entrepreneurial talent.

Read more: How Australian cities are adapting to the Asian Century

The books Why Nations Fail and Why Australia Prospered show Australia has developed much more successful economic institutions (such as property rights) and political institutions (such as democratic rights) than other nations with similar natural resources, agricultural endowments and increases in human capital through immigration.

This is partially due to our successful record as a trading nation.

No nation is perfect. They all have their failures and aspects of their history not to be proud of. But the things we have gotten right are worth remembering.

So even if you throw a shrimp on the barbie, at least remember the sea cucumber.

– ref. Throw a sea cucumber on the barbie: Australia’s trade history really is something to celebrate – http://theconversation.com/throw-a-sea-cucumber-on-the-barbie-australias-trade-history-really-is-something-to-celebrate-110266

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Heidi Norman, Professor, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Technology Sydney

For the communities of Coonabarabran in New South Wales and her grasslands Gomeroi people, Mary Jane Cain is a revered figure. Cain lived from 1844 to 1929. In the late 1880s, she successfully advocated for Aboriginal land security – a rare coup for an Aboriginal woman at the time. In 1920, she penned a 23-page manuscript detailing her life, her observations of new land owners and their workers, and a list of Gomeroi words.

She was born when frontier violence was at its zenith. Decades long guerrilla warfare had raged as the Gomeroi people resisted pastoral invasion and violent recriminations. Some estimate as few as 10% of the Aboriginal populations survived these killing times.

Mary Jane Cain’s mother, Jinnie Griffin, a “full blood” whose life likely spanned pre and post-contact, had married an Irishman, Eugene Griffin. They moved between Mudgee and Coonabarabran where they operated, for a time, as travelling sales people. After being held up by bushrangers, they spent decades working on pastoral runs – Jinnie as a shepherd and Eugene as a dairyman. At the time of Mary Jane’s birth, they’d been working on Toorawindi property for some years.

The advent of gold mining in 1852 marked a significant shift on the pastoral frontier. As Cain wrote in her 1920 manuscript, all the white people working on one station “left to go mining”. Renewed interest in Aboriginal people as shepherds and stock workers contributed to an easing in frontier violence on Gomeroi lands. This created opportunities for Aboriginal families to get back to their country, but in very different circumstances – as workers, generally without pay.

A page of Mary Jane Cain’s hand written manuscript. State Library of NSW.

By the 1880s Cain had begun agitating for Aboriginal land rights. The 1890s depression caused a further wave of displacement of Aboriginal workers. In this context, the Aboriginal Protection Board emerged, partly in response to rising numbers of Aboriginal people now relegated to the fringes of towns. The board introduced ways to control Aboriginal populations including containment on reserves.

Mary Jane had married Aboriginal stockman Joe Cain in 1865 at Weetalabah station, where they were both living and working, in the home’s “best parlour”. By the 1880s she was living closer to town and shepherded her goats to the mountains and back each day. Her husband Joe became unwell and as she wrote to the Crown, she needed to secure land to support him and her nine children. She petitioned for land at Forky Mountain, about six miles from Coonabarabran, where she could run her goats.

Read more: Hidden women of history: Ruby Lindsay, one of Australia’s first female graphic designers

The politics of land

In February 1892, Cain secured 400 acres. Further land grants in 1902, 1906 and 1911 saw her recover 600 acres that became home to displaced Aboriginal families up until the late 1950s. These families made homes from kerosene tins lined with glued sheets of newspaper, grew vegies, milked their cows, hosted pantomimes and lived lives recalled with enormous fondness. Over this site, Mary Jane Cain was Queen.

Cain’s grandchildren all recalled “multiple letters” from Cain addressed “to the Queen” (Victoria) requesting the land at Forky Mountain and her trips to Sydney to meet with government officials to petition for her land. Her descendants emphasised that Queen Victoria granted Cain land to manage as a place “for the dark people to live on”.

Mary Jane Cain, right, and grandsons George and James. The sun dancin’ : people and place in Coonabarabran (Aboriginal Studies Press, 1994).

While Aboriginal reserves and missions are often viewed as sites of segregation and genocidal violence, Mary Jane Cain’s story highlights the economic, social and political context that saw reserves, at least initially, self-selected and defended by Aboriginal families; where Aboriginal worlds survived and where political organisation occurred.

In NSW, of the 85 Aboriginal reserves created in the period 1885 to 1895 more than half (47) were initiated by Aboriginal families. The new interest in taking up reserves coincided with a downturn in the two dominant economies – pastoralism and gold mining. Land likely represented an option for Aboriginal security in the wake of decades of colonial violence and disease that caused loss of land, people and livelihood.

Read more: Hidden women of history: Elsie Masson, photographer, writer, intrepid traveller

‘Queen Mary Jane’

Cain’s grandchildren, Julia and Violet Robinson, Ethel Sutherland, Joe Cain and Emily Chatfield share generous and proud stories of “Queen” Mary Jane: she was a great cook, hand stitched marvellous outfits from hessian and old sugar bags and ran a large, immaculately scrubbed, loving home.

They loved her dearly and worked hard to fetch her goats from the mountains; they say she dressed beautifully and descriptions of her “sharp features” suggest they thought her beautiful. She was generous and kind, loaned money to those in need, and welcomed all to Burra Bee Dee (as the Aboriginal reserve was known from 1912). She was Queen of the reserve and Queen in the eyes of her family.

“Queen” was clearly a title Mary Jane was comfortable with: her 1920 manuscript is annotated at page 23 “by M.J. Cain, Queen 1920”. Available studio photos show a regal figure and flanked by her grandsons in military uniform, her own clothing and stature match this formal authority.

Visiting missionaries to Burra Bee Dee in 1909 were also reminded and duly acknowledged her Queen status. They fondly reported on the performances, poetry recital, dancing and the singing, at the end of a long evening, of God Save the King. Mary Jane Cain implored a further and final recital in her honour: God Save the Queen. They obliged.

She also held a powerful place in white society. After her death in 1929, the Coonabarabran Times described Mary Jane as being,

known and loved by all from a very great distance round this district and outside it … and a word against her, … would have evoked the undying hostility from the oldest and most respected families of the North Western slopes and Central West.

Read more: Hidden women of history: Hop Lin Jong, a Chinese immigrant in the early days of White Australia

Cain’s keen sense of justice is evident in one entry in her 1920 manuscript where she refers to organising a petition in 1864 “which everyone signed” in defence of two brothers and “a young [‘half caste’] man … whom they hired” who had been wrongly arrested and charged for cattle stealing.

She writes that: “I presented the petition to Thomas Gordon Danger who was at that time member of Parliament”, which had the effect of reducing their sentence and “them liberated at five years”.

Mary Jane Cain Bridge over the Castlereagh River in NSW. Wikimedia Commons

Aboriginal people negotiated the rapid change to their worlds as the grasslands country came to be intensively farmed. At Burra Bee Dee and through the oral history of Mary Jane Cain’s descendants we hear the stories of matriarchs who acquired the skills of the new world – literacy, shepherding and stock work, knowledge of political systems and how to effect change – and who built ways to sustain Aboriginal worlds in dramatically altered circumstances.

Today, after several years of careful community work, the history of Burra Bee Dee is beautifully documented with signage and photos detailing where families lived. The adjacent cemetery is a site of return for many generations to come. The bridge over the Castlereagh river bears Mary Jane’s name, the local rotary club has installed a plaque in her honour and her life has inspired an art exhibition. Still, the story of this matriarch and queen to her people deserves to be more widely told.

Professor Heidi Norman is a descendant of the Gomeroi people. Her Nan’s uncle (Charles Ruttley) married Mary Jane’s daughter (Eliza Josephine).

– ref. Hidden women of history: Mary Jane Cain, land rights activist, matriarch and community builder – http://theconversation.com/hidden-women-of-history-mary-jane-cain-land-rights-activist-matriarch-and-community-builder-110186

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

As a new round of the culture wars bubbles, West Australian Liberal senator Dean Smith has urged that we should legislate to “protect” the January 26 date of Australia Day.

Smith came to national prominence as one of the small coterie of Liberals who forced the Turnbull government to act on same-sex marriage. He advances his causes with moderation and respect, and always warrants a hearing. But in this instance he lacks a compelling case.

Australia Day’s date – which marks the First Fleet’s landing – has become increasingly contentious in recent years, opposed by Indigenous and other critics on the grounds that it is really “invasion day”.

If we were starting again, I think it would be better to have Australia Day on January 1, to celebrate the birth of the Commonwealth.

But given the present date has strong community support, there is not a compelling case for change. Equally, there isn’t a case to bake in the current date either. (This date, incidentally, only appears in legislation as a public holiday)

In an opinion piece in Thursday’s Australian Smith writes that “Australia Day remains unprotected and could easily fall victim to the whims of a political party or special interest lobby group interested in political point-scoring rather than celebrating the virtues of a contemporary and forward-looking Australia.”

He proposes legislation to “guarantee that January 26 ceases to be Australia Day only after the Australian people have been consulted directly, and that to change the date of Australia Day an alternative date must be submitted to every Australian elector.”

In reality, the January 26 date won’t “fall victim” to “whims”. No government would change it lightly.

An alteration would only happen if there was evidence of a big shift in community sentiment. Maybe that will come in future years – if it does, so be it.

It is not on the cards any time soon. Bill Shorten remains committed to January 26.

The Coalition has been using the (annual) debate about Australia Day as political ammunition.

This became a little messy, however, because Warren Mundine, Scott Morrison’s star candidate for the marginal NSW seat of Gilmore, has been a forthright advocate of moving Australia Day to January 1.

Read more: View from The Hill: Morrison’s Gilmore candidate is the man who’s been everywhere

Mundine wrote on January 24, 2017: “The 26th of January is the wrong day to celebrate Australia Day.

“Firstly, Australia wasn’t founded on January 26, 1788. It was founded on January 1, 1901 …

“Secondly, the tension between commemorating British conquest on the one hand and celebrating Australian identity and independence on the other isn’t going away. This isn’t a recent tension drummed up by Lefties. It’s always been there, even before anyone cared about what indigenous people think.”

Despite his new status Mundine is sticking to his view – he’s just saying now that this is not a priority issue for him. “I’ve got 100 different things in front of that, before I even get to that stage,” he told a news conference as he stood beside his leader on Wednesday.

He declines to be drawn on his position if he were elected and faced a Smith private member’s bill. He told The Conversation, “I’ll jump that hurdle when I get there. At the moment I’m fighting a tough battle to win the seat”.

As this Australia Day approached Morrison ramped up the nationalistic and culture war rhetoric in general, and accompanied it with some controversial actions.

The Liberal party tweeted, “The Government is taking action to protect Australia Day from activists.”

The government proposes to force local councils to hold citizenship ceremonies on Australia Day, after the refusal of some to do so. Councils defying the edict would not be allowed to conduct them at all.

This has come with a recommended dress code for these occasions – no thongs or board shorts. “I’m a prime minister for standards,” declared Morrison, to something of a national horse laugh.

Councils have been given to the end of next month to provide feedback.

Morrison has struggled to differentiate himself from Shorten over Australia Day, since they are at one about the date.

“It’s not good enough to say that you just won’t change it. You’ve got to stand up for it and I’m standing up for it, ” he declared. “Bill Shorten will let it fade away”. It’s true the level of rhetoric around Australia Day has varied over the years but the notion of it just “fading away” is ridiculous.

This week the debate moved on to Captain Cook, with Morrison’s announcement of $6.7 million for the Endeavour replica to circumnavigate Australia to mark next year’s 250th anniversary of Cook’s arrival and take the story of Cook to 39 communities across the country. (The money is from $48.7 million set aside earlier to mark the anniversary.)

Morrison – who was visiting Cooktown in North Queensland – was described by Shorten as having a “bizarre Captain Cook fetish”. (Liberal MP Warren Entsch recalls Morrison’s special interest in Cook from his days in tourism. In parliament Morrison happens to represent the seat of Cook.)

Morrison – who argues that the narrative of Cook can be used as one pillar for Indigenous reconciliation – hit back by accusing Shorten of “sneering at Australia’s history”, declaring “you can’t trust this guy on this stuff.”

He added that “political correctness … is raising kids in our country today to despise our history”, and alleged that Shorten wanted to “feed into that”.

For some in the right of the Liberal party, the culture and history wars are a continuing preoccupation.

But these issues hover on the fringe of politics in this election year, even if they do resonate in Hansonland and similar territory.

It mightn’t have been front and centre, but the battle that’s been going on this week between treasurer Josh Frydenberg and his shadow Chris Bowen about the economy, tax policy and the like is a lot more relevant to most voters than the culture wars and political correctness.

– ref. Grattan on Friday: Liberals stir the culture war pot but who’s listening? – http://theconversation.com/grattan-on-friday-liberals-stir-the-culture-war-pot-but-whos-listening-110445

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

This is an article from I’ve Always Wondered, where readers send in questions they’d like an expert to answer. Send your question to alwayswondered@theconversation.edu.au

You might have noticed how bright green your plants look after rain. Or you may have been watering your garden this summer, over many hot days and weeks.

So, which water is best for your plants? The stuff that falls out of the sky or the water that comes out of the tap?

You might be surprised to find that rain, especially during a thunderstorm, has special qualities that can give your plants a boost.

Read more: Why does some tap water taste weird?

Lightning can be a tonic

This summer, much of the east coast of Australia has been affected by a series of intense summer thunder storms. A rare combination of events saw thunderstorms stretch from North Queensland to Tasmania. Tropical cyclone Penny also caused very heavy rain in far north Queensland.

Although winds and hail can damage a garden, rain during thunder storms can be particularly special for plants. That’s because lightning helps add nitrogen to your garden.

It’s about the nitrogen

Australian soils are notoriously poor in nutrients and nitrogen is no exception. Plants crave nitrogen for a range of reasons, in particular to produce chlorophyll, the green photosynthetic pigment. If plants are deficient in nitrogen, they might look yellowish. If the nitrogen levels are very low for extended periods of time plants might be stunted, get sick or die.

Nitrogen makes up about 78% of the atmosphere but plants cannot access it directly from the sky as it takes too much energy to turn it into a form they can actually use.

Instead, plants can get their nitrogen from other sources, in processes scientists broadly refer to as nitrogen fixation.

Nitrogen can come from added fertilisers, the decomposition of organic matter in the soil, and organisms that can break down atmospheric nitrogen into something usable.

Plants can also get their nitrogen from high-energy processes in the atmosphere, like solar radiation and lightning, which is where summer storms come in.

Rainfall during a thunderstorm can help plants unlock nitrogen from the atmosphere. from www.shutterstock.com

The enormous heat and pressure that lightning generates provides enough energy to break down and convert atmospheric nitrogen into a number of reactive nitrogen species. When mixed with oxygen and water in the atmosphere the resulting rainfall will contain greater levels of nitrates and ammonium.

For over a billion lightning flashes around the globe each year, 2 billion kilograms of reactive nitrogen is produced.

Read more: Carbon catch-22: the pollution in our soil

The total amount of nitrogen in rainfall varies depending on where you live and the season. A coastal region that is subject to industrial activity may have greater nitrogen deposition.

Once the rain drops reach the ground they deposit ammonium and nitrates that can be used by plants, whilst bacteria and fungi in the soil can further transform the available nitrogen in a process known as nitrification.

So, if you have had wet summer thunderstorms roll over your property, not only will your plants have had a good watering, they will have had a top up of nitrogen.

How about other factors?

Comparing tap water, that is supplied as treated drinking water, with rainwater that falls outside of summer storms can be tricky. That’s because some tap water is more alkaline (a higher pH) or saltier (have a higher ionic strength) than others. Prolonged watering with water that has a higher levels of chloride (and to a lesser extent, fluoride) can also stop the plant from taking up available nitrate. Plants can also be harmed by the surprisingly high levels of sodium in some drinking water supplies.

Read more: Your drinking water could be saltier than you think (even if you live in a capital)

Processed drinking water is almost always a poor source of nitrate. There is a very good reason for this. Water authorities all seek to minimise the nitrate content of drinking water, because high concentrations can be dangerous for babies and trigger blue baby syndrome.

Most gardeners want a slightly acidic pH because it makes nutrients more available for plants and is better for overall soil health. Here, rainwater might be your friend (pH 5.6). Tap water is more alkaline (between pH 6-8.5) depending on where your drinking water is sourced. So certain tap waters can work against you and your plants.

Read more: Better boil ya billy: when Australian water goes bad

In a nutshell:

So what kind of water should you use on your plants, if you have the choice? Here’s the order, in best to worst:

• rainwater following a thunderstorm,
• clean rainwater,
• river water,
• low-ionic tap water,
• high-ionic tap water, and
• bore water (can be salty).

There are also other reasons why plants sometimes look greener after rain. It can also be from the rain washing dust from plants. This is quite plausible given the dust storms in recent weeks.

– ref. I’ve Always Wondered: is rain better than tap water for plants? – http://theconversation.com/ive-always-wondered-is-rain-better-than-tap-water-for-plants-109714

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rick Sarre, Adjunct Professor of Law and Criminal Justice, University of South Australia

This week, an animal rights charity, Aussie Farms, unveiled an interactive map of factory farms, slaughterhouses and other “animal exploitation” facilities across Australia.

The group’s website says the map

is an effort to force transparency on an industry dependent on secrecy. We believe in freedom of information as a powerful tool in the fight against animal abuse and exploitation.

The map – which also encourages visitors to upload photographs or videos obtained at the properties – drew ire from some farmers and politicians. National Farmers’ Federation President Fiona Simson called it a “gross invasion of privacy” and told the ABC it bordered on “terrorism”. She also said Aussie Farms should be stripped of its charitable status.

Agriculture Minister David Littleproud was equally unimpressed, calling the map an “attack list” for activists. He said it posed biosecurity and other personal risks by encouraging vigilantes to break into properties.

So what does the law say about publicising materials like the map, or airing footage that may have been obtained when trespassing on private property?

Read more: Whistleblower law needs more bite to fight greyhound cruelty and corporate fraud

Footage obtained through trespass

The law is somewhat ambivalent when it comes to trespassing on property to photograph and film the conduct of landowners. Trespassing itself is only one factor to be weighed up by the courts in determining whether to protect farmers’ interests.

Courts will only ban the use of footage obtained from private properties as a last resort. They will do so only if the trespasser acted in a manner that the average citizen would regard as unfair, and if the owner would suffer irreparable harm if the publication were to go ahead.

The leading case on this subject is ABC v Lenah Game Meats. DATE? 2001? Activists had placed a hidden camera without permission inside a factory in Tasmania’s Lenah Valley. They later retrieved the camera, which contained evidence of cruelty to brush-tail possums being processed for export.

On objection from the meat processors, a lower court granted an injunction, banning the ABC’s 7.30 Report from airing it on the show. The ABC appealed to the High Court.

The High Court lifted the injunction. It decided that although the footage had been filmed without the owners’ permission and involved a trespass, it was more important for the evidence of animal cruelty to be screened.

The public interest in witnessing greater transparency into suspect meat processing methods trumped the interests of a private business trying to shield its practices from public scrutiny.

What about just punishing trespassers?

So, if they cannot stop the publication, can the farmers targeted by Aussie Farms punish the trespassers privately through the courts?

Farmers can sue for damages (compensation), but they would need to find the actual trespassers and be able to quantify their losses, both of which may be difficult.

Also, what if the people supplying the footage were not trespassers but whistle-blowing employees? There is no joy for farmers here either, because there is no trespass.

Read more: Why shield laws can be ineffective in protecting journalists’ sources

Can farmers stop someone who is simply filming over the fence? The law does not assist landowners here either. We go back 80 years to find a High Court decision that says the rights of an occupier or owner don’t include a right to prevent neighbouring occupiers from looking over the fence, or filming from adjacent land.

What about filming from drones? The old law was if you owned the land, you owned the sky. This is no longer the case. The rule today is you “own” the land and sky to a depth and height only for your reasonable use and enjoyment of the land.

Unless the drone is a persistent nuisance, there is no remedy for breach of privacy.

What about revealing personal details?

But surely there must be a remedy for farmers whose personal details, such as names, addresses and maps of their properties, can be found online? Well, no, not unless the farmer can establish, under defamation law, he or she suffers an injury to their character by that publication.

The test is: does that website, in naming people who it asserts may be cruel to animals, hold them up for contempt or ridicule, and harm their reputation in the eyes of right-minded observers? It’s not an easy case for farmers to win, because few people are going to think less of farmers just because they are slaughtering meat for the market.

Read more: Penalties for animal cruelty double in SA, but is this enough to stop animal abuse?

The defendant may argue a right-minded person would give some leeway for primary producers in putting food in the marketplace, so the activists’ information-spreading exercise can’t be defamatory.

And if there was clear evidence of cruelty, the activists have a defence against a claim for defamation because what they were saying was true.

One would hope a constructive dialogue will emerge out of this that will usher in a world of best-practice farming. This should improving the live animal export business, which remains perpetually under a cloud. But it’s unlikely the use of the term “terrorism” by the critics of Aussie Farms is an ideal start for any such dialogue.

– ref. Animal activists v private landowners: what does the law say? – http://theconversation.com/animal-activists-v-private-landowners-what-does-the-law-say-110279

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Melissa Norberg, Associate Professor in Psychology, Macquarie University

Australia is the sixth-largest contributor of household waste per capita in the world. We spend more than $A10.5 billion annually on goods and services that are never or rarely used.

One-quarter of Australians admit to throwing away clothing after just one use, while at the other end of the extreme, 5% of the population save unused items with such tenacity that their homes become dangerously cluttered.

If unnecessary purchases come at such a profound cost, why do we make them?

Read more: Time for a Kondo clean-out? Here’s what clutter does to your brain and body

Why do we buy so much stuff?

We acquire some possessions because of their perceived usefulness. We might buy a computer to complete work tasks, or a pressure cooker to make meal preparation easier.

But consumer goods often have a psychological value that outweighs their functional value. This can drive us to acquire and keep things we could do without.

Possessions can act as an extension of ourselves. They may remind us of our personal history, our connection to other people, and who we are or want to be. Wearing a uniform may convince us we are a different person. Keeping family photos may remind us that we are loved. A home library may reveal our appreciation for knowledge and enjoyment of reading.

Family photos show our connection to people we love. istock

Acquiring and holding onto possessions can bring us comfort and emotional security. But these feelings cloud our judgement about how useful the objects are and prompt us to hang onto things we haven’t used in years.

Read more: When stuff gets in the way of life: hoarding and the DSM-5

When this behaviour crosses over into hoarding disorder, we may notice:

1. a persistent difficulty discarding possessions, regardless of their actual value

2. that this difficulty arises because we feel we need to save the items and/or avoid the distress associated with discarding them

3. that our home has become so cluttered we cannot use it as intended. We might not be able to sit on our sofa, cook in our kitchen, sleep in our bed, or park our car in the garage

4. the saving behaviour is impacting our quality of life. We might experience significant family strain or be embarrassed to invite others into our home. Our safety might be at risk, or we may have financial problems. These problems can contribute to workplace difficulties.

Will the KonMari method help?

According to Japanese tidying consultant Marie Kondo, “everyone who completes the KonMari Method has successfully kept their house in order”.

But while some aspects of the KonMari method are consistent with existing evidence, others may be inadvisable, particularly for those with clinical hoarding problems.

Kondo suggests that before starting her process, people should visualise what they want their home to look like after decluttering. A similar clinical technique is used when treating hoarding disorder. Images of one’s ideal home can act as a powerful amplifier for positive emotions, thereby increasing motivation to discard and organise.

Read more: Marie Kondo: a psychologist assesses the KonMari method of tidying

Next, the KonMari Method involves organising by category rather than by location. Tidying should be done in a specific order. People should tackle clothing, books, paper, komono (kitchen, bathroom, garage, and miscellaneous), and then sentimental items.

Organising begins with placing every item within a category on the floor. This suggestion has an evidence base. Our research has shown people tend to discard more possessions when surrounded by clutter as opposed to being in a tidy environment.

However, organising and categorising possessions in any context is challenging for people with hoarding disorder.

People who hoard might have an emotional reaction to all their books. Sharad Raval/Shutterstock

Marie Kondo gives sage advice about whether to keep possessions we think we’ll use in the future. A focus on future utility is a common thinking trap, as many saved items are never used. She encourages us to think about the true purpose of possessions: wearing the shirt or reading the book. If we aren’t doing those things, we should give the item to someone who will.

Another Kondo suggestion is to thank our possessions before we discard them. This is to recognise that an item has served its purpose. She believes this process will facilitate letting go.

However, by thanking our items we might inadvertently increase their perceived humanness. Anthropomorphising inanimate objects increases the sentimental value and perceived utility of items, which increases object attachment.

People who are dissatisfied with their interpersonal relationships are more prone to anthropomorphism and have more difficulty making decisions. This strategy may be particularly unhelpful for them.

Read more: When possessions are poor substitutes for people: hoarding disorder and loneliness

One of Kondo’s key messages is to discard any item that does not “spark joy”.

But for someone with excessive emotional attachment to objects, focusing on one’s emotional reaction may not be helpful. People who hoard things experience intense positive emotions in response to many of their possessions, so this may not help them declutter.

Think about how you get rid of things

Sustainability Victoria recently urged Netflix-inspired declutterers to reduce, reuse, and recycle rather than just tossing unwanted items into landfill.

Dumping everything into the op-shop or local charity bin is also problematic. Aussie charities are paying A$13 million a year to send unusable donations to landfill.

Ultimately, we need to make more thoughtful decisions about both acquiring and discarding possessions. We need to buy less, buy used, and pass our possessions on to someone else when we have stopped using them for their intended purpose.

Read more: So you’ve KonMari’ed your life: here’s how to throw your stuff out

– ref. My possessions spark joy! Will the KonMari decluttering method work for me? – http://theconversation.com/my-possessions-spark-joy-will-the-konmari-decluttering-method-work-for-me-110357

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jenny Graves, Distinguished Professor of Genetics, La Trobe University

Mismatch between biological sex and gender identity, culminating in its severest form as gender dysphoria, has been ascribed to mental disease, family dysfunction and childhood trauma.

But accumulating evidence now implies biological factors in establishing gender identity, and a role for particular genes.

Variants – subtly different versions – of genes linked with gender identity might simply be part of a spectrum of gender and sexuality maintained throughout human history.

Read more: Explainer: what treatment do young children receive for gender dysphoria and is it irreversible?

Transgender and gender dysphoria

Some young boys show an early preference for dressing and behaving as girls; some young girls are convinced they should be boys.

This apparent mismatch of biological sex and gender identity can lead to severe gender dysphoria. Coupled with school bullying and family rejection, it can make lives a torment for young people, and the rate of suicide is frighteningly high.

As they move into adulthood, nearly half of these children (or even more when the studies are closely interrogated), continue to feel strongly that they were born in the wrong body. Many seek treatment – hormones and surgery – to transition into the sex with which they identify.

Although male to female (MtF) and female to male (FtM) transitions are now much more available and accepted, the road to transition is still fraught with uncertainty and opprobrium.

American television personality Caitlyn Jenner has spoken openly about being transgender. from www.shutterstock.com

Transwomen (born male) and transmen (born female) have been a part of society in every culture at every time. Their frequency and visibility is a function of societal mores, and in most societies they have suffered discrimination or worse.

This discrimination stems from a persistent attitude that transgender identification is an aberration of normal sexual development, perhaps exacerbated by events such as trauma or illness.

However, over the last decades, growing recognition emerged that transgender feelings start very early and are very consistent – pointing to a biological basis.

This led to many searches for biological signatures of transsexualism, including reports of differences in sex hormones and claims of brain differences.

Sex genes and transgender

In the 1980s I was swayed by the passionate advocacy of Herbert Bower, a psychiatrist who worked with transsexuals in Melbourne. He was revered in the transgender community for his willingness to authorise sex change operations, which were highly controversial at the time. Aged in his 90s, he came to my laboratory in 1988 to explore the possibility that variation in the genes that determine sex could underlie transgender.

Dr Bower wondered if the gene that controls male development might work differently in transgender boys. This gene (called SRY, and which is found on the Y chromosome) triggers the formation of a testis in the embryo; the testis makes hormones and the hormones make the baby male.

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

There are, indeed, variants of the SRY gene. Some don’t work at all, and babies who have a Y chromosome but a mutant SRY are born female. However, they are not disproportionately transgender. Nor are the many people born with variants of other genes in the sex determining pathway.

After many discussions, Dr Bower agreed that the sex determining gene was probably not directly involved – but the idea of genes affecting sexual identity took root. So are there separate genes that affect gender identity?

Evidence for gene variants in transgender

The search for gene variants that underlie any trait usually starts with twin studies.

There are reports that identical twins are much more likely to be concordant (that is both transgender, or both cisgender) than fraternal twins or siblings. This is probably an underestimation given that one twin may not wish to come out as trans, thus underestimating the concordance. This suggests a substantial genetic component.

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

More recently, particular genes have been studied in detail in transwomen and transmen. One study looked at associations between being trans and particular variants of some genes in the hormone pathway.

Studies of twins help us learn about the genes involved in determining identity. Keisha Montfleury/Unsplash, CC BY

A recent and much larger study assembled samples from 380 transwomen who had, or planned, sex change operations. They looked in fine detail at 12 of the “usual suspects” – genes involved in hormone pathways. They found that transwomen had a high frequency of particular DNA variants of four genes that would alter sex hormone signalling while they had been developing in utero.

There may be many other genes that contribute to a feminine or a masculine sexual identity. They are not necessarily all concerned with sex hormone signalling – some may affect brain function and behaviour.

The next step in exploring this further would be to compare whole genome sequences of cis- and transsexual people. Whole genome epigenetic analyses, looking at the molecules that affect how genes function in the body, might also pick up differences in the action of genes.

It’s probable that many – maybe hundreds – of genes work together to produce a great range of sexual identities.

How would “sexual identity genes” work in transgender?

Sexual identity genes don’t have to be on sex chromosomes. So they will not necessarily be “in sync” with having a Y chromosome and an SRY gene. This is in line with observations that gender identity is separable from biological sex.

This means that among both sexes we would expect a spread of more feminine and more masculine identity. That is to say, in the general population of males you would expect to see a range of identities from strongly masculine to more feminine. And among females in the population you would see a range from strongly feminine to more masculine identities. This would be expected to produce transwomen at one end of the distribution, and transmen at the other.

There is a natural range in masculine and feminine identity. John Schnobrich/unsplash, CC BY

This occurrence of a range of differing identities would be comparable with a trait such as height. Although men are about 14 cm taller than women on average, it’s perfectly normal to see short men and tall women. It’s just part of the normal distribution of a certain human characteristic expressed differently in men and women.

This argument is similar to that which I previously described for so-called “gay genes”. I suggested same–sex attraction can readily be explained by many “male-loving” and “female-loving” variants of mate choice genes that are inherited independently of sex.

Read more: Born this way? An evolutionary view of ‘gay genes’

Why is transgender so frequent then?

Transgender is not rare (MtF of 1/200, FtM of 1/400). If gender identity is strongly influenced by genes, this leads to questions about why it is maintained in the population if transmen and transwomen have fewer children.

I suggest genes that influence sexual identity are positively selected in the other sex. Feminine women and masculine men may partner earlier and have more kids, to whom they pass on their gender identity gene variants. Looking at whether the female relatives of transwomen, and the male relatives of transmen, have more children than average, would test this hypothesis.

I made much the same argument to explain why homosexuality is so common, although gay men have fewer children than average. I suggested gay men share their “male loving” gene variants with their female relatives, who mate earlier and pass this gene variant on to more children. And it turns out that the female relatives of gay men do have more children.

These variants of sexual identity and behaviour may therefore be considered examples of what we call “sexual antagonism”, in which a gene variant has different selective values in men and women. It makes for the amazing variety of human sexual behaviours that we are beginning to recognise.

– ref. How genes and evolution shape gender – and transgender – identity – http://theconversation.com/how-genes-and-evolution-shape-gender-and-transgender-identity-108911

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stefano Verrelli, PhD Scholar, University of Sydney

Although Australia has now achieved marriage equality, the topics of sexuality and gender identity continue to spark heated – and often discriminatory – public debates.

Most recently, the issues of religious freedoms and anti-discrimination laws, the Safe Schools program, and gay conversion therapy have dominated public and political discourse.

Read more: In long-awaited response to Ruddock review, the government pushes hard on religious freedom

New research has suggested that such divisive debates have the potential to harm the mental health of LGBT people. These findings come from our nationwide study conducted during the Australian Marriage Law Postal Survey in 2017.

Mental health and discrimination

The mental health of LGBT people is among the poorest in Australia. According to the most recent estimates, LGBT Australians are more likely than non-LGBT Australians to be diagnosed with a mental disorder, attempt suicide and commit acts of self-harm in their lifetimes. The most common explanation for this is related to their frequent experiences with prejudice and discrimination.

During the postal survey, many mental health organisations and marriage equality advocates publicly argued against a national vote on same-sex marriage. They often cited previous international research that showed marriage equality debates are a health risk for the LGBT community.

To test if this would also be the case in Australia, we asked 1,305 same-sex-attracted people from across Australia to report how often they were exposed to messages from each side of the marriage debate, as well as their current levels of depression, anxiety and stress.

The opposing sides of the 2017 same-sex marriage debate. AAP/Regi Varghese/Samantha Manchee

We found that increased exposure to the “no” campaign was related to poorer mental health. This included increased levels of depression, anxiety and stress, and was independent of people’s age, gender and socioeconomic status. On the other hand, people’s exposure to the “yes” campaign had no overall benefit for same-sex-attracted Australians.

Fortunately, this was not the whole story.

Social support protects mental health

We also examined an important factor that could protect the mental health of same-sex-attracted Australians during this period. Past research has shown that feeling accepted and supported by the people around you is important for mental well-being.

To test the role of social support during the marriage equality debate, we asked participants whether they believed their immediate social circles voted “yes” or “no” for same-sex marriage.

Perceiving that close family and friends voted ‘yes’ for same-sex marriage promoted acceptance and mental well-being. AAP/Sam Mooy

The results showed that same-sex-attracted people who believed their close family and friends had voted in favour of marriage equality reported significantly better mental health. Support from one’s immediate social circles was also found to shield against some of the harm done by the negative side of the same-sex marriage debate.

Although we initially found that people’s exposure to the “yes” campaign was unrelated to their mental health, the final results painted a far more complex picture. Same-sex-attracted people who believed they did not have support for marriage equality at home or at work actually benefited the most from these public messages of support.

Our findings confirm what we already knew going into the national vote on same-sex marriage: public debates on issues relevant to the rights of minority groups have the potential to harm their mental health. But important lessons can be learnt from this research.

Read more: Six months after marriage equality there’s much to celebrate – and still much to do

First, as our nation continues to debate issues of sexuality and gender identity, we need to ensure that these discussions are conducted with care and respect. Failing to do so can have serious mental health consequences for many of Australia’s most vulnerable populations.

Second, in the current social and political climate, LGBT allies and community organisations play an important role in promoting messages of support and acceptance. These messages are being heard loud and clear, especially among those who need to hear them the most.

If this article has raised issues for you or if you’re concerned about someone you know, please contact Lifeline Australia on 13 11 14 or QLife on 1800 184 527 for nationwide counselling and referral services.

For those in the LGBT community who don’t feel accepted by their immediate social circles, there is always a place close to home for you to reach out to for support.

– ref. New research reveals how the marriage equality debate damaged LGBT Australians’ mental health – http://theconversation.com/new-research-reveals-how-the-marriage-equality-debate-damaged-lgbt-australians-mental-health-110277

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Terry Goldsworthy, Associate Professor in Criminology, Bond University

The murder last week of International student Aiia Maasarwe has again drawn attention to the safety of women in Australia, and people in general. The focus is on safety at night in public spaces.

Maasarwe’s murder has gained national and international attention and follows the murder of Melbourne comedian Eurydice Dixon, who was also killed six months ago, in similar circumstances – by a stranger while walking home.

Both of these murders occurred in Victoria. As the sister of Maasarwe said:

She was living a dream in Melbourne, a dream that ended up being worse than a nightmare.

So, is Australia a dangerous place? And what are the statistics when it comes to lethal violence against women in public spaces?

Read more: ‘Stay safe’: why women are enraged by advice to steer clear of violent men

How dangerous is Australia?

The Australian Institute of Criminology’s latest report on national homicide trends for the years 2012-13 and 2013-14 shows the incident rate is the lowest on record in the past 25 years. Homicides in this data set are cases where a person is charged with murder or manslaughter.

The country’s homicide rate has decreased from 1.8 homicides per 100,000 people in 1989-90, to 1 per 100,000 in 2013-14. The rate has been decreasing since 2005.

The overall number of homicide incidents continues to decline. In the period from 2012-13 to 2013-14 there were 487 homicide incidents, involving 512 victims and 549 offenders.

With regards to comparable democracies Australia’s homicide rate is similar to that in the UK (which, in 2011, was 1 per 100,000 compared to 1.1 in Australia). The US was most dangerous at 4.7, compared to Sweden at 0.9.

But Australia’s rate is much lower than the average global homicide rate of 6.2 per 100,000, as estimated by the United Nations Global Study on Homicide report. Countries with high homicide rates in 2012 included Colombia (30.8), Mexico (21.5), and South Africa (31).

International visitors and crime

The Australian Institute of Criminology completed a study of homicides involving overseas visitors to Australia in 2013. It looked at homicide offences in Australia between 1994–95 to 2009–10 and identified 58 incidents which involved 76 victims who were overseas visitors. The rate of homicide for overseas visitors was 0.55 per million visitors each year.

Read more: Three charts on: Australia’s declining homicide rates

In 2018 there were 9.2 million visitor arrivals in Australia. In 1999 a New South Wales study found that of 2,480 tourists, 0.4% experienced an offence of assault or robbery.

Gender and homicide

The Australian Institute of Criminology’s latest report on homicide rates showed the rate for both male and female victims in Australia was low in 2013-14. And the rate of women who have died from a homicide remained steady at 0.8 per 100,000. This means less than 1 woman per 100,000 will be a victim of homicide in Australia.

The rate for males was the lowest since 1989-90. Victimisation rates for males decreased by 49% between 1989–90 (2.53 per 100,000) and 2013–14 (1.28 per 100,000), and for females by 41% (1.36 per 100,000 in 1989–90).

A 2018 United Nations report on the gender-related killing of women and girls estimated the total global rate of female homicide in 2017 was 2.3 per 100,000 of the female population.

Where does the danger lie?

Random murders of women are tragic and capture the attention of the media. They understandably lead to concern over women’s safety. But they are rare.

Examination of homicide data for Australia shows that, in homicides where the relationship between the offender and victim is known, stranger homicides make up the smallest category for female victims, compared to acquaintance and domestic homicides.

From 2012-2014 stranger homicides accounted for just 3% of female murder victims (5 out of 184). In 2012-13, around 57% of stranger homicides occurred in the street or an open area. In 2013-14 that figure dropped to 41%.

Does Victoria have a problem?

Both of the recent high profile homicides of women by strangers have occurred in Victoria. The high-profile murder of Jill Meagher in 2012 also occurred on a popular street in an inner suburb of Melbourne.

Read more: FactCheck: does Victoria have Australia’s highest rate of crime?

Data provided by the Victorian Crime Statistics Agency shows 23% of female victims were murdered by non-family members from 2009-2013. This fell to 19% in 2014-2018. A recent examination of crime rates in Victoria for murder and other offences showed they are lower than most states, including NSW, QLD and the NT. The homicide rate in Victoria has remained relatively stable in the last five years.

Australia is safe

Murders of women in public spaces by strangers are not commonplace. But sometimes perceptions do not match reality. This is currently the case in Australia due to the extensive media coverage such crimes generate here and overseas.

It’s good this is in the public eye and leading to more awareness. Society as a whole should work to bring down crimes against women, through measures ranging from better school education to more appropriate sentencing regimes.

But it’s important to remember murder in Australia is not increasing, and Australia is a safe place to visit or live when compared to many other countries.

– ref. How safe is Australia? The numbers show public attacks are rare and on the decline – http://theconversation.com/how-safe-is-australia-the-numbers-show-public-attacks-are-rare-and-on-the-decline-110276

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian de Jonge, Lecturer in Paramedic Science , CQUniversity Australia

With more suspected drug-related deaths at festivals this summer, the debate around testing these illegal drugs to check their purity and for contaminants has flared up once more. But from a user perspective, when should a person seek help for themselves or a friend after taking a pill? What can ambulance paramedics do to help if you do?

Read more: While law makers squabble over pill testing, people should test their drugs at home

What are these pills and what do they do?

Generally party drugs contain MDMA (ecstasy). Less commonly they may contain methamphetamine (speed) or cathinone (bath salts).

All of these drugs are taken for the euphoric side effects they produce. A person who has taken these pills may find themselves less inhibited and filled with energy.

It’s normal for the user’s heart rate and breathing rate to increase slightly. Their pupils will be wider than normal.

When to become concerned?

It’s normal for the heart rate to increase a little, if it increases a lot or if the user starts to feel tightness in their chest it’s time to get some help.

Likewise it’s normal to loosen up a bit, but the user should still be orientated to where they are and what is going on.

If several pills have been taken (or a single particularly strong pill) users can suffer something called “excited delirium”. This is where they become confused, very hot and sweaty, and possibly aggressive. If not treated, the condition can lead to death. If you see a friend who has taken a pill acting agitated and confused, it’s time to get help.

Pills are usually stimulants: they increase energy and alertness. If too much alcohol is consumed though, a person can still fall unconscious. When this happens the person can lose their ability to keep their airway open. They can lose the ability to breathe due to vomit in their airway or even their own tongue falling back into their throat. You should roll unconscious people onto their side and seek further assistance.

Sometimes when taking these drugs people can have seizures. This could be from a combination of the pill, the heat, the alcohol, and any underlying conditions the person has. Roll a seizing person onto their side and get some help.

Read more: Six reasons Australia should pilot ‘pill testing’ party drugs

When you arrive at a festival, find out where the medical tent is. from www.shutterstock.com

What can paramedics do to help?

When you or a friend present to the ambulance service or medical tent a few things will happen. You will have to give your name and date of birth, this allows for proper continuity of care between the ambulance service and the hospital. You will have your vital signs taken, paramedics will check your heart rate, breathing rate, blood pressure, the electrical activity of your heart, temperature and blood sugar level.

If a person who has taken a pill has a racing heart they will be monitored with an ECG (electrocardiogram) machine. If they start to develop chest pain they may be given specific sedatives designed to relax the body and slow everything down. If they develop the agitation and confusion seen in excited delirium they may be given an injection that will put them to sleep, where they can be safely monitored and cared for.

If a person has fallen unconscious they will need to be closely monitored by paramedics. Often this will involve simply rolling the person onto their side so their tongue flops forward and keeps their airway clear. In very serious situations the paramedics may need to insert a breathing tube down the person’s throat to get air to their lungs.

Paramedics carry medications that stop seizures and can monitor the person afterward to make sure they recover normally.

After their initial assessments and interventions, the paramedics will take you to hospital until you have fully recovered.

Read more: Here’s why doctors are backing pill testing at music festivals across Australia

Whether they are tested or not, whether users know what they are taking or not, drug use at music festivals happens and a key factor in good patient outcomes is how early a person presents to a health service. Find out where the ambulance tent is at the next festival you attend and get help when needed.

– ref. When to seek help after taking a pill – http://theconversation.com/when-to-seek-help-after-taking-a-pill-109876

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sven Teske, Research Director, Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology Sydney

The world can limit global warming to 1.5℃ and move to 100% renewable energy while still preserving a role for the gas industry, and without relying on technological fixes such as carbon capture and storage, according to our new analysis.

The One Earth Climate Model – a collaboration between researchers at the University of Technology Sydney, the German Aerospace Center and the University of Melbourne, and financed by the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation – sets out how the global energy supply can move to 100% renewable energy by 2050, while creating jobs along the way.

It also envisions how the gas industry can fulfil its role as a “transition fuel” in the energy transition without its infrastructure becoming obsolete once natural gas is phased out.

Read more: Want to boost the domestic gas industry? Put a price on carbon

Our scenario, which will be published in detail as an open access book in February 2019, sets out how the world’s energy can go fully renewable by:

• increasing electrification in the heating and transport sector

• significant increase in “energy productivity” – the amount of economic output per unit of energy use

• the phase-out of all fossil fuels, and the conversion of the gas industry to synthetic fuels and hydrogen over the coming decades.

Our model also explains how to deliver the “negative emissions” necessary to stay within the world’s carbon budget, without relying on unproven technology such as carbon capture and storage.

If the renewable energy transition is accompanied by a worldwide moratorium on deforestation and a major land restoration effort, we can remove the equiavalent of 159 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere (2015-2100).

Combining models

We compiled our scenario by combining various computer models. We used three climate models to calculate the impacts of specific greenhouse gas emission pathways. We then used another model to analyse the potential contributions of solar and wind energy – including factoring in the space constraints for their installation.

We also used a long-term energy model to calculate future energy demand, broken down by sector (power, heat, industry, transport) for 10 world regions in five-year steps. We then further divided these 10 world regions into 72 subregions, and simulated their electricity systems on an hourly basis. This allowed us to determine the precise requirements in terms of grid infrastructure and energy demand.

Interactions between the models used for the One Earth Model. One Earth Model, Author provided

‘Recycling’ the gas industry

Unlike many other 1.5℃ and/or 100% renewable energy scenarios, our analysis deliberately integrates the existing infrastructure of the global gas industry, rather than requiring that these expensive investments be phased out in a relatively short time.

Natural gas will be increasingly replaced by hydrogen and/or renewable methane produced by solar power and wind turbines. While most scenarios rely on batteries and pumped hydro as main storage technologies, these renewable forms of gas can also play a significant role in the energy mix.

In our scenario, the conversion of gas infrastructure from natural gas to hydrogen and synthetic fuels will start slowly between 2020 and 2030, with the conversion of power plants with annual capacities of around 2 gigawatts. However, after 2030, this transition will accelerate significantly, with the conversion of a total of 197GW gas power plants and gas co-generation facilities each year.

Along the way the gas industry will have to redefine its business model from a supply-driven mining industry, to a synthetic gas or hydrogen fuel production industry that provides renewable fuels for the electricity, industry and transport sectors. In the electricity sector, these fuels can be used to help smooth out supply and demand in networks with significant amounts of variable renewable generation.

A just transition for the fossil fuel industry

The implementation of the 1.5℃ scenario will have a significant impact on the global fossil fuel industry. While this may seem to be stating the obvious, there has so far been little rational and open debate about how to make an orderly withdrawal from the coal, oil, and gas extraction industries. Instead, the political debate has been focused on prices and security of supply. Yet limiting climate change is only possible when fossil fuels are phased out.

Under our scenario, gas production will only decrease by 0.2% per year until 2025, and thereafter by an average of 4% a year until 2040. This represents a rather slow phase-out, and will allow the gas industry to transfer gradually to hydrogen.

Our scenario will generate more energy-sector jobs in the world as a whole. By 2050 there would be 46.3 million jobs in the global energy sector – 16.4 million more than under existing forecasts.

Read more: The government is right to fund energy storage: a 100% renewable grid is within reach

Our analysis also investigated the specific occupations that will be required for a renewables-based energy industry. The global number of jobs would increase across all of these occupations between 2015 and 2025, with the exception of metal trades which would decline by 2%, as shown below.

Division of occupations between fossil fuel and renewable energy industries in 2015 and 2025. One Earth Model, Author provided

However, these results are not uniform across regions. China and India, for example, will both experience a reduction in the number of jobs for managers and clerical and administrative workers between 2015 and 2025.

Our analysis shows how the various technical and economic barriers to implementing the Paris Agreement can be overcome. The remaining hurdles are purely political.

– ref. Here’s how a 100% renewable energy future can create jobs and even save the gas industry – http://theconversation.com/heres-how-a-100-renewable-energy-future-can-create-jobs-and-even-save-the-gas-industry-110285

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Darcy, Adjunct Professor, School of Social Sciences and Psychology, Western Sydney University

Southern Cross Housing, a non-profit community housing provider, took over management of just under 1,000 public housing dwellings on the New South Wales South Coast last October. This transfer from the NSW Department of Family and Community Services nearly doubled Southern Cross’s portfolio. More than 3,000 transfers have since been made to community housing providers on the NSW North Coast and in northern Sydney.

These are the first of over 14,000 tenancies being contracted out to community housing providers over coming months. The “whole-of-location” transfer program will result in the department closing housing offices in four regions. Non-government organisations will manage all government housing assistance programs in these regions.

This is not an entirely new development. Nationally, community providers were responsible for about 20% of 400,000 social housing dwellings in 2016. Most are managed under contract for state authorities, which retain ownership of the properties.

The current transfers represent a major acceleration in the growth of community housing providers’ share of the social housing sector. It will bring NSW to within a few points of the 35% target agreed by the Housing Ministers’ Council in 2009. This will be achieved in the next few years with transfers resulting from large estate redevelopment projects.

Read more: We still live here: public housing tenants fight for their place in the city

It is the first time a state government housing agency has effectively contracted out the entirety of its operations, albeit in particular regions. Rents collected will fund the management of all housing programs in these areas.

The policy narrative surrounding this program is richly positive. The government is promising improved customer experience and, importantly, more resources for social housing in general. Last month, NSW Minister for Family and Community Services Pru Goward said:

By transferring management to Community Housing Providers … we are harnessing over $1 billion of additional funding over 20 years that will improve the experience of people living in social housing. I am delighted that, as part of the transfer, tenants will have the support and services they need to improve their lives.

So where is the extra money coming from?

The extra A$1 billion represents Commonwealth funds that will be captured by the NSW social housing system without appearing in either state or federal budgets. This results from an anomaly in federal income security arrangements: very low-income community housing tenants can receive up to about $67 per week (singles) in Commonwealth Rent Assistance (CRA), whereas public housing tenants are not eligible for this benefit.

Public housing rents are calculated at 25% of income (or market rent if this is lower). But community housing organisations can add the entire amount of CRA received by the tenant to this figure. This effectively increases the rent payable for a single pensioner by up to 70%.

Under changes in the law in 2016 tenants have no option but to accept the changes. If a tenant delays or fails to apply for CRA for any reason they are deemed to be receiving it and their rent correspondingly adjusted.

A Southern Cross Housing video explaining how Commonwealth Rent Assistance will be used to boost rental revenue.

What about the housing maintenance backlog?

According to the Productivity Commission, in 2016 more than a quarter of public housing dwellings in NSW failed to meet a basic standard of functionality and structural integrity. This was the worst result of any state.

It is highly likely that the transferred properties carry a substantial backlog of maintenance and repairs. The cost of this work will be effectively shifted to the federal government. However, as CRA is an income security entitlement, this will not appear as housing expenditure in the federal budget.

Attending to the backlog of public housing maintenance and repairs is likely to be a costly exercise. Dan Himbrechts/AAP

Maintenance issues are the most common reason for complaints and tenant dissatisfaction, so tenants will welcome more spending on maintenance. However, community providers are required to use the government’s existing maintenance contractors at least until contracts expire.

Read more: Tenants’ calls for safe public housing fall on deaf ears

Providers contend that higher staff-to-tenant ratios will lead to more humanised management and greater responsiveness to individual tenants’ needs. This claim will be tested against the fact that the community providers are dramatically expanding their portfolios and scope of operations, and will absorb many displaced department staff.

For some tenants it appears more local “hands-on” management is not always experienced as a positive. Analysis of NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal (NCAT) data sourced by advocates somewhat surprisingly reveals that community providers are heavily over-represented in taking tenants to the tribunal. At the same time, the break-up of management among many providers will limit the possibility of moving or swapping houses for employment or family reasons.

Lack of title limits new housing supply

In the UK and Europe, non-profit housing organisations are now the major developers of new social housing. They do this by borrowing against their assets and partnering with the development industry.

Australian community housing managers have long argued that they should be given freehold title to state properties. In theory, this would enable them to borrow and provide extra social housing stock without adding to public debt.

Read more: Community sector offers a solid platform for fair social housing

State governments have resisted asset transfers on accountability grounds, preferring to simply outsource management.

So, rather than adding to social housing supply, the marked growth of the community housing sector over the last decade has been almost entirely at the expense of public housing. Australia’s population increased by 12.6% between 2011 and 2016. The number of social housing dwellings (public and community housing) grew by less than 3% in that time. Most of that growth resulted from federal stimulus funding during the global financial crisis.

The current program in NSW excludes any expectation that providers will leverage additional income to develop new housing.

Social housing as percentage of all dwellings. Source: Michael Darcy, Author provided

In 2013 the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute published a comprehensive analysis of social housing transfers. The report concluded that potential benefits included maximising revenue, improving services and leveraging growth. However, it noted that “there has been an unrealistic loading of objectives onto this one policy mechanism”.

The authors called for a clearer and more realistic rationale for housing transfers and better opportunities for tenants to be involved in shaping the outcome.

Five years on it is apparent that revenue is the key driver at the expense of increased supply and tenant choice or voice. Support for the growth of community housing has been restated in the new National Housing and Homelessness Agreement where it appears as a national priority area.

Read more: The new national housing agreement won’t achieve its goals without enough funding

In NSW, a wide range of former government responsibilities and access to a Commonwealth-funded revenue stream have been handed over without the accountability and grant management mechanisms that traditionally apply to community-based service providers. Tenants are expected to apply for federal funds on behalf of the state social housing system and bear a significant cost if they don’t comply.

– ref. ‘Growth’ of community housing may be an illusion. The cost-shifting isn’t – http://theconversation.com/growth-of-community-housing-may-be-an-illusion-the-cost-shifting-isnt-108598