After many years of heated debate over whether January 26 is an appropriate date to celebrate Australia Day — with some councils and other groups shifting away from it — the tide appears to be turning among some groups.

Some local councils, such as Geelong in Victoria, are reversing recent policy and embracing January 26 as a day to celebrate with nationalistic zeal.

They are likely emboldened by what they perceive as an ideological shift occurring more generally in Australia and around the world.

But what of young people? Are young Australians really becoming more conservative and nationalistic, as some are claiming? For example, the Institute for Public Affairs states that “despite relentless indoctrination taking place at schools and universities”, their recent survey showed a 10 percent increase in the proportion of 18-24 year olds who wanted to celebrate Australia Day.

However, the best evidence suggests that claims of a shift towards conservatism among young people are unsupported.

The statement “we should not celebrate Australia Day on January 26” was featured in the Deakin Contemporary History Survey in 2021, 2023, and 2024.

Respondents were asked to indicate their agreement level. The Deakin survey is a repeated cross-sectional study conducted using the Life in Australia panel, managed by the Social Research Centre. This is a nationally representative online probability panel with more than 2000 respondents for each Deakin survey.

Robust social survey
With its large number of participants, weighting and probability selection, the Life in Australia panel is arguably Australia’s most reliable and robust social survey.

The Deakin Contemporary History Survey consists of several questions about the role of history in contemporary society, hence our interest in whether or how Australians might want to celebrate a national day.

Since 1938, when Aboriginal leaders first declared January 26 a “Day of Mourning”, attitudes to this day have reflected how people in Australia see the nation’s history, particularly about the historical and contemporary dispossession and oppression of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

In 2023, we found support for Australia Day on January 26 declined slightly from 2021, and wondered if a more significant change in community sentiment was afoot.

With the addition of the 2024 data, we find that public opinion is solidifying — less a volatile “culture war” and more a set of established positions. Here is what we found:

This figure shows that agreement (combining “strongly agree” and “agree”) with not celebrating Australia Day on January 26 slightly increased in 2023, but returned to the earlier level a year later.

Likewise, disagreement with the statement (again, combining “strongly disagree” and “disagree”) slightly dipped in 2023, but in 2024 returned to levels observed in 2021. “Don’t know” and “refused” responses have consistently remained below 3 percent across all three years. Almost every Australian has a position on when we should celebrate Australia Day, if at all.

Statistical factors
The 2023 dip might reflect a slight shift in public opinion or be due to statistical factors, such as sampling variability. Either way, public sentiment on this issue seems established.

As Gunai/Kurnai, Gunditjmara, Wiradjuri and Yorta Yorta writer Nayuka Gorrie and Amangu Yamatji woman associate professor Crystal McKinnon have written, the decline in support for Australia Day is the result of decades of activism by Indigenous people.

Though conservative voices have become louder since the failure of the Voice Referendum in 2023, more than 40 percent of the population now believes Australia Day should not be celebrated on January 26.

In addition, the claim of a significant swing towards Australia Day among younger Australians is unsupported.

In 2024, as in earlier iterations of our survey, we found younger Australians (18–34) were more likely to agree that Australia Day should not be celebrated on January 26. More than half of respondents in that age group (53 percent) supported that change, compared to 39 percent of 35–54-year-olds, 33 percent of 55–74-year-olds, and 29 percent of those aged 75 and older.

Conversely, disagreement increases with age. We found 69 percent of those aged 75 and older disagreed, followed by 66 percent of 55–74-year-olds, 59 percent of 35–54-year-olds, and 43 percent of 18–34-year-olds. These trends suggest a steady shift, indicating that an overall majority may favour change within the next two decades.

What might become of Australia Day? We asked those who thought we should not celebrate Australia Day on January 26 what alternative they preferred the most.

Among those who do not want to celebrate Australia Day on January 26, 36 percent prefer replacing it with a new national day on a different date, while 32 percent favour keeping the name but moving it to a different date.

A further 13 percent support keeping January 26 but renaming it to reflect diverse history, and 8 percent advocate abolishing any national day entirely. Another 10 percent didn’t want these options, and less than 1 peecent were unsure.

A lack of clarity
If the big picture suggests a lack of clarity — with nearly 58 percent of the population wanting to keep Australia Day as it is, but 53 percent of younger Australians supporting change — then the task of finding possible alternatives to the status quo seems even more clouded.

Gorrie and McKinnon point to the bigger issues at stake for Indigenous people: treaties, land back, deaths in custody, climate justice, reparations and the state removal of Aboriginal children.

Yet, as our research continues to show, there are few without opinions on this question, and we should not expect it to recede as an issue that animates Australians.

Dr David Lowe is chair in contemporary history, Deakin University; Dr Andrew Singleton is professor of sociology and social research, Deakin University; and Joanna Cruickshank is associate professor in history, Deakin University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

A board member at RNZ appointed less than a month ago quit this week after making public comments on former Justice Minister Kiri Allan’s downfall and criticising media coverage of it.

RNZ had asked Jason Ake to stop and the government said he breached official obligations of neutrality, but he was unrepentant.

Jason Ake (Ngāti Ranginui) was one of the appointments last month to the boards of RNZ and TVNZ that represented “an exciting new era for our public broadcasters as they continue to tackle the challenges of … serving all people of Aotearoa now and into the future,” according to Broadcasting Minister Willie Jackson.

“Looking forward to the mahi ahead,” Ake told his LinkedIn followers at the time.

“Hoping to bring an indigenous perspective to the strategic direction at the public broadcasting institution,” he added, honouring the advocacy of pioneers Whai Ngata, Derek Fox and Henare Te Ua “for a much more visible Māori perspective in RNZ’s strategic direction”.

But even before he could be inducted into RNZ or attend a single board meeting, Ake resigned this week in the wake of controversy over social media comments he made about the downfall of cabinet minister Kiri Allan.

“When there’s blood in the water the sharks circle, and they’re more than happy to digest every last morsel and watch the bones sink to the depth. It’s a bloodsport,” he said in a Facebook post.

Referenced mental breakdown
He also referenced former National Party leader Todd Muller, who recovered from a mental breakdown to resume his work as an MP.

Jackson told reporters in Parliament on Tuesday Ake had “often been quite vocal about issues and he’s gonna have to stop”.

RNZ chair Dr Jim Mather had already been in touch to remind Jason Ake of his responsibilities under the Public Service Commission’s code of conduct for crown entity board members.

“When acting in our private capacity, we avoid any political activity that could jeopardise our ability to perform our role, or which could erode the public’s trust in the entity,” the code says.

Ake’s initial Facebook comment was not explicitly or aggressively politically partisan. Most of the comments could be construed as a reflection on the media as much as on politics or politicians.

But there is heightened sensitivity these days because of Te Whatu Ora chair Rob Campbell, who was sacked after publicly criticising opposition parties’ health policies recently. (That was amplified when media commentaries of other government-appointed board members were scrutinised in the wake of that).

In a statement earlier this week, RNZ’s chair acknowledged that  Ake was “new to the board of RNZ”.

An RNZ board member appointed less than a month ago quit this week after commenting on Kiri Allan’s downfall and criticising media coverage. The government said Jason Ake breached official obligations of neutrality, but he was unrepentanthttps://t.co/ttGog3rDLG

— Mediawatch (@MediawatchNZ) July 29, 2023

Communications professional
But he is also a former journalist and a communications professional who is currently Waikato Tainui’s communications manager. Along with his partner — Māori communications consultant Deborah Jensen — he is a director of a consultancy called Native Voice.

RNZ said no further comment would be made until Dr Mather and Ake had discussed the matter further.

But Ake did not wait for that.

He went on Facebook again insisting mental health was a topic that needed to be talked about, particularly because it affected Māori so much.

He also referred to “an ideological premise that we as Māori must conform”.

And while he thanked some journalists for “getting the key message”, he repeated his criticisms of the media.

“21 Māori journos got it — more than the entire compliment [sic] of our two major media entities in Aotearoa, who between them have more than 700 reporters on the staff.”

Unable to ‘stay quiet’
After that, Ake told The New Zealand Herald he had resigned from the RNZ board “on principle”, because he would have been unable to stay quiet about broadcasting decisions which impacted on Māori.

“Crown entity governance has its own tikanga and protocols that need to be observed,” Dr Mather said in a statement describing it as “a missed opportunity.”

That was reinforced by Deputy Prime Minister Carmel Sepuloni.

“It’s really important that they seem to be impartial and they’re not getting involved in the politics in any way. They’ve got really important roles to play and so the public needs to have faith in them being impartial,” she told TVNZ’s Te Karere.

Whanua Ora Minister Peeni Henare told Te Karere that crown entity board members “must represent all of Aotearoa”.

Rob Campbell wrote a piece for The New Zealand Herald the same day, applauding Ake for in his words, “having the guts to speak his truth”.

“They should not remove people, or put pressure on people to resign while in a position because the public views are not mutually shared or inconvenient. Nor should they be censored or silenced. They can appoint new directors when their term has served,” he said.

Obliged to be ‘politically noisy’
In a piece for the Herald explaining his own decision, Ake said that membership of Te Whakaruruhau o Nga Reo Irirangi o Aotearoa, the umbrella group representing more than 20 iwi radio stations around the country, obliged him to be “politically noisy”.

“This would have placed me on a collision course with the political neutrality expectations as set out in the Crown Entities guidelines,” he wrote.

“I made it clear that I came with a deep commitment to the Treaty and ensuring that it is embedded into the fabric and culture of the organisation. The Treaty is by definition a political pact and this required uncomfortable and sometimes public conversations,” Ake wrote in The Herald.

“My presence cannot be a distraction to the transformative mahi ahead of it. It would not be fair on the chair or the other board members and it will undoubtedly stymie progress for the entire organisation,” he added.

But commenting on mental health or broadcasting would not be a problem if he refrained from criticising political decisions or individual politicians, or discussing RNZ in public.

Jackson also appointed Ake to lead the Māori Media Sector Shift review back in 2020.

While in that role, Ake aired opinions on broadcasting broadly mirroring Jackson’s own aspirations for state-owned media.

Boost for Māori creators
“Where is the allowance for decent Māori stories? We’ve got an opinion and a view under a whole range of things that’s not reflected in the television in high rating programmes. It shouldn’t ghetto-ised into digital online platforms only,” Ake told Radio Waatea in 2021.

In another Radio Waatea interview, Ake said RNZ and TVNZ’s merger must be a boost for Māori content creators.

“The human capability and capacity out there is really, really limited. And it doesn’t make sense for the Māori sector to fight with itself in order to bring to the market good content. I think that’s where the merger ought to look for what a decent template would look like,” he said.

Ake also aired concerns about the commercial media organisations getting money from the Public Interest Journalism Fund for Māori journalism, content and topics.

“Why would you put yourself in front of an environment that’s diabolically opposed or structured in a way that doesn’t recognise the value that Māori bring to the discussion?

“The internal culture at some of these organisations is so ingrained that it has become part of the carpets, the curtains and everything else. So there needs to be systemic change inside these commercial organisations,” he argued.

Content funding increased
Māori broadcasting content funding was boosted by $82 million in the past two years, as part of the review which Jackson appointed Ake to oversee.

In the wake of the merger’s collapse, RNZ’s own funding has been boosted — in part to fuel the Rautaki Māori (Māori strategy) Jackson called for in the past and now supports.

Ake has rejected a governance role at RNZ at a time when his input and influence may have had its greatest effect.

He has not responded so far to Mediawatch’s calls and messages.

But his most recent post on LinkedIn announcing his resignation has this footnote for reporters: “Stop ringing me. I have mahi to do.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The global seafood market faces turmoil with the release of the Fukushima nuclear wastewater from Japan into the Pacific Ocean, computer modelling predicts.

Japan announced in 2021 it will release more than 1.25 million tonnes of treated Fukushima radioactive wastewater into the sea as part of its plan to decommission the power station when its storage capacity reaches its limit this year.

Seafood is one of the most important food commodities in international trade, far exceeding meat and milk products.

According to the United Nations Comtrade database, global seafood trade has grown from US$7.57 billion in 2009 to US$12.36 billion in 2019, an increase of 63.2 percent.

The Japanese nuclear wastewater discharge raises global worries about the safety of Japanese seafood as public opinion influences consumers’ preference for seafood.

In this empirical study involving American consumers, 30 percent of respondents said they reduced their seafood consumption following the Fukushima nuclear plant accident and more than half believe Asian seafood poses a risk to consumer health due to the disaster.

Temporary bans
Most of Japan’s seafood trading partners, such as China, Russia, India and South Korea, imposed temporary bans on food from several districts around Fukushima in the wake of the accident in 2011.

My research models the potential impact of the Fukushima nuclear wastewater disposal on the global seafood trade using the import and export data for 26 countries which make up more than 92 percent of the world’s trade in marine products.

A community classification theory of complex networks was used to classify seafood trading countries into three communities. Seafood trade is frequent among countries within each individual community and less between the communities.

The first community contains Ecuador, Italy, Morocco, Portugal and Spain. The second contains Denmark, France, Germany, Iceland, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Poland, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.

The third community contains China, India, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Taiwan of China, Russia, Thailand, the United States and Vietnam.

Modelling shows China, South Korea, and the US maintain a steady trade of seafood imports and exports between them. Data used for the modelling shows that the rate of change in trade between China and Korea, China and the US and between Korea and the US is very close to zero.

However, China, South Korea and the US are expected to increase their seafood imports from Denmark, France, Norway and other community group two countries while reducing seafood exports to them. This is because these three countries have already reduced their seafood trade with Japan.

The increase in exports from community group three to community group two nations leads to a decrease in imports and exports between countries within community group two. For example, the study notes that Denmark, Norway and France are all experiencing a decrease in seafood exports and imports between each other.

While the rates of change in trade between countries look very close, the size of each country’s import and export market is different, so the actual trade volume can vary greatly.

The model also divided the global seafood market into two segments — the first being the Japanese market and the second comprising 25 other countries. It calculated that Japan’s seafood exports fell by 19 percent in 2021, or US$259 million.

Different impacts
Public opinion after the Fukushima wastewater is discharged will have different impacts on the import and export trade of seafood for each country, especially for countries which trade with Japan.

What people think (about the discharge) is closely related to the amount of Japanese seafood imported by each country. The higher the amount of Japanese seafood imported by a particular country, the more negative public opinion is likely to be, according to computer modelling.

Japanese imports of seafood will also be reduced, predicts the computer model. However, the amount of reduction depends on how well the Japanese public accepts local seafood after the discharge of the nuclear wastewater.

The Japanese government has announced it will spend US$260 million to buy local seafood products if domestic sales are affected by the release of Fukushima wastewater.

If the Japanese public is more accepting of seafood caught in waters around the discharge area, seafood imports from other countries to Japan will likely fall. However, if public opinion does not go this way, Japan will have to import more seafood to meet local demand.

Reduced imports
If 40 percent of the reduction in Japanese seafood exports is absorbed by its own market, the modelling shows this would result in a US$272 million reduction in Japanese seafood imports from other countries.

The table pictured above from the computer model shows the predicted decrease in the trade volume of seafood exports from 25 countries to Japan. The impact of seafood exported to Japan is also related to the community classification.

Countries in the same community as Japan show a more significant reduction in their seafood exports to Japan while countries not in the same community have less impact. The planned Fukushima nuclear wastewater disposal will mainly affect countries in the same seafood trading community as Japan.

These countries will see more significant reductions in their imports of Japanese seafood and in the exports of their seafood to Japan compared to countries in other communities.

Ming Wang is a doctoral candidate in econometrics, complex networks and multi-modal transportation at the School of Maritime Economics and Management, Dalian Maritime University, China. He declares no conflict of interest. Originally published under Creative Commons by 360info via Wansolwara.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The criminalisation of activists — including those in West Papua — in 2019 and 2020 has been cited as one of the factors for the decline in the quality of democracy in Indonesia.

Based on a report by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), democracy in Indonesia scored its worst figure ever with a score of 6.3 and was placed 64th out of 167 countries.

Advocacy Team for Democracy (TAUD) member Teo Reffelsen said that the criminalisation of activists contributed to Indonesia’s poor record on civil freedoms.

“It has been marked by the criminalisation of expression and public opinion, through to repressive actions ridden with violence,” said Reffelsen in a media release, reports CNN Indonesia.

Between 2019 and 2020, said Reffelsen, TAUD recorded at last 10 incidents of the criminalisation of activists in Indonesia.

This included six Papuan activists — Watchdoc founder and senor journalist Dandhy Dwi Laksono, Jakarta State University (UNJ) sociologist Robertus Robet, musician Ananda Badudu, Papua Student Alliance (AMP) lawyer and human rights activist Veronica Koman and public policy activist Ravio Patra.

Also, 5198 demonstrators were arrested during the protests against the Omnibus Law on Job Creation in September and October 2019, Save Indonesia Action Coalition (KAMI) activists Syahganda Nainggolan and Jumhur Hidayat along with Banda Aceh Syiah Kuala University lecturer Saiful Mahdi.

12 cases in 2021
In 2021, TAUD recorded at last 12 cases of criminalisation of activists. Two of these cases were related to senior state officials, namely Presidential Chief of Staff Moeldoko and Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs and Investment Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan.

“The criminalisation of two Indonesian Corruption Watch (ICW) researchers, Egi [Primayogha] and Miftah, threats of criminalisation against [rights activist] Haris Azhar from the Lokataru [Foundation] and Fatia Maulidiyanti from Kontras [Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence],” wrote Reffelsen.

Reffelsen also said they found several cases of attacks on civil freedoms in the form of doxing or attacks in digital space against people who were critical of the government such as those suffered by Ravio Patra and critical online media Tempo.co and Tirto.id.

“The [police] cyber patrols which were legitimised by an instruction by the Indonesian police chief is another example,” said Reffelsen.

Apart from civil freedoms, another factor was that it appeared as if the government lacked the involvement of public participation in policy formulation.

The enactment to revisions to the Corruption Eradication Commission Law, the Omnibus Law and other legislation were examples.

Another aspect was actions by law enforcement agencies such as the judiciary which were seen as corrupt and the lack of seriousness on the part of the government to resolve human rights violations.

“The decline in Indonesia’s democratic index is in keeping with TAUD’s findings on the ground, primarily in relation to civil freedoms which have shrunk,” said Reffelsen.

Translated by James Balowski for Indoleft News. The original title of the article was “Kriminalisasi Aktivis Disebut Buat Indeks Demokrasi Menurun”.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Social media posts by two outspoken Suva-based lawyers have been raised in Parliament over a critical culture “that has been created”.

Attorney-General Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum told Parliament the lawyers, Jon Apted and Richard Naidu, were from a law firm that specialised in commercial law.

“But talking about confidence, let me read out these two Twitter or Facebook posts, I think: this one says, ‘Oh, well, who are we li’l folks to com-plane’.

“The next one says, ‘May be it could do a fly-past of the Minister of Economy to symbolise their strategy which, as far as I can see, is hope and prayer’.

“If we have principals of these types of law firms who Honourable Prasad [opposition National Federation Party leader Biman Prasad] and them get the advice from, they used to be the former lawyers of NFP on record, what is the hope of instilling confidence in the private sector?

“I think, I was told that they may have pulled this down after that, we got screenshots of it, but Mr Speaker, Sir, this is the kind of culture that has been created.

“We need to be able to refocus, if you really are concerned about the future, to be able to ensure that we are focused on the future, be able to provide the assistance to the people who require it now, but only God knows what is going to happen in six months’ time.

“Is there going to be another fourth, fifth, seventh, eighth variant? What are you going to do then? So, Mr Speaker, Sir, we cannot just simply think about it here and now.”

Pacific Media Watch comments that this is an astonishing assault on freedom of speech by a government minister.

Besides being a leading Fiji lawyer, Richard Naidu, is a former award-winning journalist and widely regarded as a social justice and media commentator.

Last month, he was the keynote speaker by Zoom for the Auckland-based Coalition for Democracy in Fiji’s Dr Timoci Bavadra memorial lecture in honour of Fiji’s 1987 prime minister who was deposed in the first coup.

Pacific Media Watch says that the minister should be more concerned with Fiji’s spiralling covid infection crisis than spending time criticising social media posts.

Luke Nacei is a Fiji Times journalist.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz