Employees of the National Capital District Commission (NCDC) have challenged the legality of the “no jab, no job” policy imposed by NCDC on Port Moresby with a lawsuit.

Lawyer George Kaore, representing the NCDC Workers Association, appeared before Deputy Chief Justice Ambeng Kandakasi to seek certain interim orders at the National Court in Waigani.

City manager Bernard Kipit, Governor Powes Parkop and NCDC were named as defendants in the case.

Kaore said the NCDC employees filed the case for the court to enforce the rights of the workers pursuant to section 41 of the Constitution (Prescribed Acts) and section 48 of the Constitution (Freedom of Employment).

He said the covid-19 vaccination should not be mandatory in the workplace.

However, Justice Kandakasi advised Kaore to provide to the court a list of NCDC workers who were vaccinated and those who were not vaccinated.

Justice Kandakasi also told Kaore to provide a list of the non-vaccinated NCDC staff who had taken a covid-19 test.

‘Basic information’ not provided
Justice Kandakasi said such basic information was not provided by the plaintiffs to the court.

After considering submissions from the parties, he ordered the National Executive Council (NEC), Health Minister Jelta Wong, and the National Pandemic Response Controller David Manning to be added as defendants to the case.

The court ordered the government through NEC, Wong and Manning to provide a copy of the National Covid-19 Pandemic Response plan, the strategic implementation plan and all relevant details about the covid-19 awareness, contact tracing and isolation.

Justice Kandakasi said the case by the NCDC Workers Association would be heard together with the case filed by the Human Rights Advocacy International.

The Human Rights Advocacy International filed the case in the National Court claiming that the “no jab, no job” policy implemented by some government agencies, private companies and public statutory institutions was unconstitutional.

The case has been adjourned to November 16.

Charles Moi is a reporter for The National newspaper. Republished with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

One of the world’s first deep sea mining pilot tests has resulted in a huge machine being stuck on the seafloor of the Pacific Ocean, reports Greenpeace.

A broken cable has resulted in the mining company Global Sea Mineral Resources (GSR) losing control of its 25-tonne robot “nodule collector” Patania II on the deep seabed in its Clarion Clipperton concession zone.

GSR has confirmed that “the connection between the Patania II and the cable has indeed come loose, so that Patania II is currently on the seabed.”

Dr Sandra Schoettner, a deep-sea biologist from Greenpeace Germany speaking from on board the Rainbow Warrior nearby in the Pacific Ocean, said: “It’s ironic that an industry that wants to extract metals from the seabed ends up dropping it down there instead.

“This glaring operational failure must act as a stark warning that deep sea mining is too big a risk. Losing control of a 25-tonne mining machine at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean should sink the idea of ever mining the deep sea.

“The deep sea mining industry claims it’s ready to go, but investors and governments looking at what happened will only see irresponsible attempts to profit from the seabed spinning out of control.

“This industry has ‘risk’ written all over it and this is exactly why we need proper protection of the oceans – a Global Ocean Treaty that helps to put huge areas off-limits to industrial activity,” said Dr Schoettner.

Not the first time
This is not the first time GSR’s Patania II has failed during pilot tests. In 2019, the company had to stop the trial of the same prototype nodule collector due to damage caused to the vehicle’s communications and power cable (‘umbilical cable’).

Last week, Greenpeace International activists painted “RISK!” across side of the ship Normand Energy, the ship chartered by GSR to operate the Patania II, to highlight the threat of deep sea mining to the oceans.

GSR has been awarded a 75,000 sq km exploration contract area – 2.5 times the size of Belgium – to operate in and was scheduled to do another test series in Germany’s contract area.

The tests were supposed to be a significant step for the industry’s planned development.

In New Zealand, the threat of seabed mining also looms large.

So far, environmental groups, iwi and hapū have successfully opposed attempts by Australian mining company Trans Tasman Resources to begin a 30-year mining operation off the Taranaki Coast, but Greenpeace Aotearoa is now calling on Jacinda Ardern to make New Zealand the first country to ban the risky practice altogether.

Already, almost 10,000 people have signed the petition to ban seabed mining in New Zealand since its launch earlier this month.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Academics are increasingly expected to share their research widely beyond academia. However, our recent study of academics in Australia and Japan suggests Australian universities are still very much focused on supporting the production of scholarly outputs.

They offer relatively limited support for researchers’ efforts to engage with the many non-academics who can benefit from our research.

One reason engagement is expected is that government, industry and philanthropic sources fund research.

And when academics share their research with the public, industry and policymakers, this engagement is good for the university’s reputation. It can also lead to other benefits such as research funding.

But the work involved in sharing our ideas beyond academia can be diverse and substantial. For example, when we write for The Conversation, it takes time to find credible sources, adopt an appropriate tone, communicate often complex ideas simply and clearly, and respond to editor feedback.

We also need to be able to speak to the media about our findings, and respond to public comments when the piece comes out.

Unis don’t allow for the time it takes
However, as one respondent said in explaining why they were not sharing research with end users beyond academia:

It’s not recognised by uni. So, when it is not recognised, it means that I don’t have any workload for that, and obviously I’m work-loaded for other stuff, and that means that I don’t actually have enough time to do this.

Sharing our findings beyond academia isn’t typically seen as part of our academic workload. This is problematic for academics who are already struggling to find time to do all the things their complex workload requires of them.

In our research, time and workload constraints were the most often-cited barriers to sharing research beyond academia. One respondent said they saw lots of opportunities to build partnerships with practitioners in their field, but added:

[I] just cannot do that, because I’m doing other things that, in my work, are a priority.

When we spend our time sharing our research with academic readers through journal articles, conference papers and academic books, our employers clearly value and expect these scholarly publications.

These works, and how the scholarly community receives them, have more weight in evaluation of our performance. Last year an Australian academic nearly lost her job for failing to meet a target for scholarly publications.

Our research found Japan-based academics feel a greater weight of expectations than their Australian counterparts to engage with diverse audiences beyond academia.

Universities clearly expect this engagement. Yet they often don’t back it up with support such as workload recognition, resourcing and training.

Universities need to offer better support if they wish to increase academics’ engagement with diverse audiences. They should also consider both the benefits and risks of this engagement.

Academics see the benefits of sharing research
The academics we spoke with valued the benefits of engaging with diverse audiences. They were pleased to see others putting their research to use. Sharing research often helped to secure funding.

They also saw engagement as an opportunity to learn from end users. This helped ensure their research was responding to real-world needs.

Even very early in their careers, many researchers look to engage with audiences beyond academia. In previous research, we found doctoral candidates may opt for a thesis by publication rather than a traditional thesis approach due to their desire to share findings.

What other problems do researchers face?
The early-career researchers we interviewed noted other barriers and risks in sharing their work with diverse audiences. Universities often did not help with these issues.

They described communication skill gaps when seeking to tailor research content for diverse audiences. For example, the way research is communicated to industry experts needs to be different to how it is shared with governments or the general public.

Researchers may need to learn to communicate their ideas in many different forms. They may have to be skilled in producing industry reports, doing television or radio interviews or presenting their findings in professional forums.

Some encountered frustrations when sharing research via the bureaucratic processes of government. For example, a respondent explained:

There’s still that much back and forth because there’s three or four different government departments that are involved in the process and it goes to different people. Some people don’t want it to be changed because they’re vested in the old way of doing things, and then they’ve got to bring ministers up to speed, and then all of a sudden you’re got a new state government that comes in, so that all changes.

Many felt unprepared to deal with the media.

One respondent described being cautious about overstating the impact of their research. In their field, they saw messages claiming: “This is the be all and end all. This will cure cancer.” They were “wary of accidentally going down that path and making a claim bigger than is true”.

Respondents also described risks in sharing controversial and sensitive research beyond academia.

What can universities do?
For respondents in both Australia and Japan, demanding and diverse workloads crowded out opportunities to share findings. Universities cannot just expect engagement responsibilities to be absorbed into an already swollen workload.

If universities are serious about supporting the sharing of research beyond academia, they need to recognise these contributions in meaningful ways. For example, Australian academics usually must meet teaching, research and service requirements in their workloads.

If sharing research with audiences beyond academia were counted toward service, academics could have this work properly taken into account in performance management and when seeking promotion.

Universities can do better at supporting academics to share their research with the public, industry and government. Improving access to training and mentoring to communicate research findings both in academia and beyond would be an important step forward.

By Dr Margaret Kristin Merga, senior lecturer in education, Edith Cowan University and Dr Shannon Mason, assistant professor in education, Nagasaki University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz