Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Louise Grimmer, Senior Lecturer in Marketing, Tasmanian School of Business and Economics, University of Tasmania

Hit podcast Dolly Parton’s America is a love letter to the icon of American country music. It reveals Dolly’s broad and enduring appeal, which crosses generations, class, race and even musical tastes.

Dolly, 73, is having a “moment” that includes the podcast, 9:5 The Musical (coming to Australia in April), and the new Netflix series Heartstrings, which dramatises a Dolly song for each episode.

In a divided America, Dolly stands as the great unifier. The podcast cites her as being in the top 10 most loved celebrities globally – but also one of the least hated – based on extensive polling. Her popularity has been measured using a celebrity scoring system called the Q Score.

How do we quantify a public figure in terms of cultural cachet? And who would be Australia’s Dolly?

What is a Q score?

Created in 1963 by Jack Landis, the Q Score scoring system is owned by the US-based Marketing Evaluations Inc.

The Q Score is a quotient (or percentage) that indicates the proportion of people who have heard of a given celebrity who also consider them as one of their favourites. This is sometimes referred to as a “positive Q Score”. A “negative Q Score” can be calculated too, being the proportion of people who have heard of a given celebrity who also consider them “poor” or “fair”.

Twice a year, a representative sample of female and male adults are presented with a list of 1,800 celebrities and asked to rate them on a six-point scale from “Never heard of” to “One of my favourites”.

The data is added to the full Q Score database, which amounts to about 25,000 celebrities at any given time.

A Q Score is a measure of both familiarity and positivity. This is important, as likeability can be highly subjective, so assigning a score provides some sense of objectivity.

The score puts a price on a celebrity’s “likeability” and therefore how much their popularity is worth – handy for those looking for people to represent their products.

In the world of advertising and celebrity endorsement, the higher a celebrity rates, the more companies will be willing to pay them to promote their products and services.

Celebrities behaving badly – Charlie Sheen, Tiger Woods, Felicity Huffman – show endorsement can be a fickle business. The Q Score provides some comfort to a company or brand that a celebrity is likely to be a safe bet.

Ratings are also helpful in revealing celebrities people love to hate. Before he was US President, Donald Trump was a reality TV star with a very low Q Score (and a very high negative Q Score).

Q Scores have attracted criticism, mostly that they are “normative” and therefore often don’t reflect the views of minorities. There is a Hispanic Q Score which rates 400 Hispanic personalities; however, the sampling process inevitably leads to a hegemonic outcome reflecting the dominant social influence.

Better off dead

Deceased celebrities also have enormous value. Their images and even reanimated footage of them is used regularly in advertising (think Marilyn Monroe, Bruce Lee, James Dean or Audrey Hepburn).

The “dead celebrity” industry is worth approximately US$2.25 billion (A$3.3 billion) every year. The most popular are ranked using a similar system to Q scores, called the Dead Q, which is updated every two years.

Some celebrities earn more dead than they did alive, bringing in millions for their estates in royalties.

Deceased celebrities are very attractive to marketers because they don’t age or change the way they look, they don’t get involved in scandals (Michael Jackson notwithstanding), and they stay famous.

Read more: Chat bots, James Dean … can the digital dead rest in peace?

Australia’s own

In Australia, celebrities are also rated, though the local rating systems are not exactly the same as in the USA. Until 2010, there was a Q Score system undertaken by Audience Development Australia, which has recently been reported as set to return in 2019. However, this system is TV-oriented and mostly rates Australian TV presenters and brands. Of more relevance here is the Encore Score.

The Encore Score is sponsored by Mumbrella and was last issued in 2016.

The methodology is similar to the American Q Score, and asks a sample of 3,000 respondents to rate 1,000 TV, radio, film and media celebrities from “One of my favourites” to “I hate them”, as well as how familiar they are with the person.

In this way, the Encore Score mimics the Q Score in terms of familiarity and positivity.

In 2016, the top three Australian celebrities using Encore scoring were Hugh Jackman, Jamie Oliver and Chris Hemsworth (yes, one of these is actually British). Other notable scorers included Cate Blanchett and Nicole Kidman, Rebecca Gibney and Russell Crowe (both New Zealanders).

The 2016 Encore Score also ranked the least liked celebrities. The number one on this list: Kyle Sandilands. Shane Warne and Eddie McGuire also got mentions.

Tourism Australia’s latest campaign – featuring Hemsworth, Paul Hogan, Kylie Minogue, Terri Irwin, Kylie Kwong, Curtis Stone, Adam Hills and surfer Mick Fanning – is probably the best current gauge of who market research has identified as our favourite Australian faces, at least the ones we’re prepared to share with the rest of the world.

Our Australian Dolly? Nominate your favourite celebrities of stage, screen and airwaves in the comments below.

– ref. And I will always love you: how marketers measure Dolly Parton’s magic – http://theconversation.com/and-i-will-always-love-you-how-marketers-measure-dolly-partons-magic-126688

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

The government at the weekend piled on more pressure for Westpac heads to roll over the bank’s money laundering scandal, with Treasurer Josh Frydenberg saying the affair had a long way to play out.

“These issues develop a momentum of their own. They’ve got an AGM on December 12 – and, no doubt, there’ll be some very hard discussions between now and then,” Frydenberg said.

The treasurer also revealed the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) had become involved. APRA supervises banks and other institutions in the financial sector.

“APRA has the ability, under the Banking Executive Accountability Regime (BEAR), to disqualify boards and to disqualify executives where there’s a failure to appropriately enforce and uphold the duties under the legislation,” Frydenberg said.

“That legislation came into force in 2018. It’s not retrospective, and some of those alleged breaches date back to 2013. But … I know that APRA is looking at it”.

23 million breaches

Westpac last week was accused by AUSTRAC of 23 million breaches of the anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing law, with the alleged breaches include transfers of money to the Philippines for child sex exploitation. AUSTRAC has begun civil proceedings against Westpac.

AUSTRAC is an official agency that uses financial intelligence and regulation to disrupt money laundering, terrorism financing and other crimes.

Frydenberg’s comments came as Westpac on Sunday announced a “response plan” across three areas. These included

• “immediate fixes” – among them, closing the LitePay international funds transfer system, which facilitated low-value international payments

• lifting standards – including priority screening and improving cross-industry data sharing

• protecting people – with what the bank described as “investments to reduce the human impact of financial crime”. This will involve multi million dollar funding for programs to counter child sexual exploitation.

In political terms, the latest bank scandal comes at an awkward time for the government, which has its ensuring integrity legislation, to crack down on rogue unions and union officials, before parliament on Monday.

After accepting amendments from both Centre Alliance and Pauline Hanson, the government said on Sunday it was confident the legislation, strongly opposed by Labor, will pass.

Read more: Westpac’s scandal highlights a system failing to deter corporate wrongdoing

Asked on the ABC what form the Westpac board’s accountability should take, Frydenberg said: “There must be accountability, and that will obviously involve decisions that they take about the futures of senior management, as well as the board”.

So far, there has been no sign of Westpac taking heed of the hints and calls for resignations.

The government’s position had consistently been that membership of boards were matter for shareholders and boards determined executive teams, Frydenberg said.

“That being said, these are very serious issues. There must be accountability.

“AUSTRAC have been highly critical in their statement. And now APRA is looking into it.

“So I don’t think there’s any doubt as to the seriousness of these issues and the government’s position,” he said.

“We’re talking about a failure to adequately assess customers with links to child trafficking and child pornography.

“And we’ve seen, from AUSTRAC, a statement that there has been indifference by the board, that there’s been a systematic failure by the bank and there’s been inadequate oversight”.

Frydenberg said the Westpac board and management were “all seized of this issue, and they’re now going through a process. But with APRA providing additional focus, as well as AUSTRAC, certainly the heat is on the company”.

He said he had spoken to the bank’s chairman, Lindsay Maxsted, and CEO, Brian Hartzer.

Obviously I made very clear the seriousness of these issues. But they also made very clear to me that they have a process now underway where they’re bringing independent experts in, and they’re determined to provide a way forward. And, of course, this is before the courts too.

‘Truly sorry’

Westpac’s board has issued an unreserved apology. Maxsted said after a board meeting on Friday: “The notion that any child has been hurt as a result of any failings by Westpac is deeply distressing and we are truly sorry”.

“Our board, CEO and management team are fully committed to fixing these issues and we are taking all steps necessary to urgently close any remaining gaps and fix our policies and procedures so that this can never happen again.”

He said significant improvements had already been made “including reviewing and taking action on all of the individual customers mentioned by AUSTRAC and establishing a multi-layered review.”

In Westpac’s Sunday statement Maxsted said, “We accept that we have fallen short of both our own and regulators’ standards and are determined to get all the facts and assess accountability”.

In the interim the board had decided that either all or part of the 2019 bonuses would be withheld for the full executive team and several of the general managers “subject to the assessment of accountability”.

Under its “protecting people” measures Westpac will

• match the International Justice Mission’s current funding, investing $18 million over three years to fight online sexual exploitation of children in the Philippines

• match the federal government’s current funding for its SaferKidsPH partnership with various organisations, investing $6 million over six years to raise awareness of online sexual exploitation of children and support programs to protect children in the Philippines

• convene an expert advisory roundtable to develop a program to support prevention of online child exploitation. The bank will provide up to $10 million a year for three years to implement these recommendations.

– ref. Josh Frydenberg turns up heat on Westpac chiefs as bank issues a ‘response plan’ – http://theconversation.com/josh-frydenberg-turns-up-heat-on-westpac-chiefs-as-bank-issues-a-response-plan-127698

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robert Breunig, Professor of Economics and Director, Tax and Transfer Policy Institute, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University

Over the past month a huge political dispute has sprung up in the US about the fairness of its tax system. It is fuelling debates between Democratic presidential rivals, and it is raising questions about the fairness of tax systems everywhere, including in Australia.

It began with a New York Times article entitled The Rich Really Do Pay Lower Taxes Than You.

It was accompanied by one of the most evocative graphics you are likely to see:

Here’s what the graphic shows.

The vertical axis is total tax (US federal, state and local) as a proportion of income. The horizontal axis is income band, from lowest to highest.

At first the yellow line displays the graph for 1950 which is sloping upwards, showing that the highest earners paid the highest proportion of their income in tax (70%) and the low earners the lowest (less than 20%).

It shows what is known as a “progressive” tax system, in which those with the highest income sacrifice the greatest proportion of their income.

Read more: So you want to tax the rich – here’s which candidate’s plan makes the most sense

Hit “play” on the graphic, and the yellow line gets less progressive over time until 2018 when it becomes pretty flat, except for the few very rich Americans at the very top of the income distribution who pay less of their income in tax than everyone else.

The graph is derived from a new book by economics professors Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman entitled The Triumph of Injustice: How the Rich Dodge Taxes and How to Make them Pay.

Their claim that the US has sleepwalked away from progressive taxation is compelling partly because it is so different from the conventional wisdom.

Warren Buffet might pay less tax than his Secretary, but the traditional story is that the US tax system is progressive, along the lines of Australia’s.

That’s been the view of the US Treasury, the US Congressional Budget Office, and the US Tax Policy Centre.

It’s also the finding of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and a peer-reviewed 2018 Quarterly Journal of Economics article by Saez and Zucman themselves.

It depends on what you think is income

Heavyweights such as Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman and former US treasury secretary Larry Summers have chimed in, taking opposing positions pn #econtwitter about the veracity of the graph.

More helpfully, David Splinter from the US Joint Committee on Taxation points out that Saez and Zucman’s measure of income differs from the traditional measure in two significant respects:

• It assumes that underreported, untaxed income goes primarily to high-income earners. This under-reporting occurs when US taxpayers report less income than they earn, or claim more deductions, exemptions or tax credits than they are entitled to (a large and underappreciated issue. That explains much of the apparent low rate of tax on income at the top end.

• It excludes from its definition of income government payments other than social insurance payments and deducts payroll taxes. Given that government payments are directed more to those at the bottom end than the top, this has the effect of pushing down apparent income at the bottom and pushing up the apparent tax rate.

The impact of the first is that if a top earner gets, say, $10 million of taxable income and pays $6 million of it in tax, but is assumed to earn an extra $3 million in untaxed income and $1 million in untaxed retirement income, that person’s implied overall tax rate falls from 60% to 43%.

Read more: What did the rich man say to the poor man? Why spatial inequality in Australia is no joke

The impact of the second can be illustrated by this thought experiment: imagine increasing the marginal tax rate of those earning more than $1 million to as much as 100%, and then returning all the tax to them via a government payment.

Saez and Zucman’s method would treat this as a genuine tax rate of 100% for high earners and find that the system had become extraordinarily progressive, even though no-one’s cash position would have changed.

Without these peculiarities of measurement, calculations by Wojciech Kapczuk of Columbia University suggest that the tax system has remained pretty progressive, retaining its upward sloping graph.

Kapczuk and other economists have also questioned the imprecision of some of the data, particularly the guesses needed to calculate the tax paid by the top 400 taxpayers since 1950, and the latest data, which was incomplete when the book was published.

Harvard University’s Larry Summers and Greg Mankiw demolished Saez in a rather unforgiving fashion during a debate at a recent Peterson Institute workshop on combatting Inequality.

It might damage the cause of research

To their credit, Saez and Zucman have welcomed scrutiny and released a partial working paper responding to critiques and a Q&A dealing with some of the issues on the book’s website.

The graph has alarmed many people, and by being released in a popular book during the US primaries has had a more immediate impact than it would have had it been subject to the slower and more painful academic process designed to establish the truth.

The credibility of Saez and Zucman’s work hangs in the balance. Should it ultimately be discredited, trust in economic research more generally will suffer. We will all lose.

– ref. That moving graph of US tax rates that went viral, it’s probably wrong. Here’s why – http://theconversation.com/that-moving-graph-of-us-tax-rates-that-went-viral-its-probably-wrong-heres-why-127233

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Geddis, Professor, University of Otago

New Zealand’s deputy prime minister, Winston Peters, is under pressure following a complaint to the New Zealand Electoral Commission about his party’s mysterious funding arrangements.

Under electoral law, political parties have to disclose all donations above NZ$15,000. But the New Zealand First party, a coalition partner in the Labour-led government, has a somewhat opaque relationship with a trust called the New Zealand First Foundation, which has loaned the party tens of thousands of dollars in the past three years.

Those giving money to the foundation can remain anonymous because under electoral law, loans are not subject to the same disclosure requirements as donations.

But the foundation’s trustees are the New Zealand First party’s lawyer and an ex-member of parliament, who is now a lobbyist. This raises questions about the legality of the funding.

Read more: New Zealand politics: how political donations could be reformed to reduce potential influence

Money, politics and scandal

The relationship between private wealth and public power bedevils all democracies. In particular, constant tension surrounds the use of such wealth to fund political parties and candidates that contest public office.

This issue often emerges in the form of a scandal, where some practice or behaviour is revealed that challenges current legal or social norms. New Zealand is in the midst of such a moment.

While the loans from the foundation are legal, they have the practical effect of preventing the public disclosure of whoever provided the money in the first place. Reporting based on leaked internal documents reveals that the foundation’s funding sources include “companies and individuals who work in industries that have benefited from a NZ$3 billion Provincial Growth Fund” overseen by a New Zealand First minister.

As further reported, the foundation also appears to have directly paid for some of New Zealand First’s activities without those payments being disclosed as donations to the party. If correct, that practice looks to be at least questionable under existing electoral law.

While the New Zealand Electoral Commission is now examining the matter, its investigatory role is somewhat limited as it cannot require anyone to produce additional documentation. But should the commission conclude that the recent revelations show New Zealand First (or, more specifically, its party secretary) has committed an offence against the Electoral Act, it has a statutory obligation to refer the matter to police.

Such a referral would, of course, be politically very damaging to the party. Unfortunately, it would not be unprecedented. The country’s Serious Fraud Office already is examining allegations relating to the opposition National Party’s treatment of some NZ$100,000 in donations. To have two of New Zealand’s political parties under police investigation for possible illegal activity is hardly a ringing endorsement of the country’s political culture.

Is the law fit for purpose?

The alternative may not be all that much better. Consider what it means if, after discussing the matter with the party and the foundation, the commission concludes that no laws have been broken. After all, the leader of the New Zealand First party, Winston Peters, maintains this to be the case.

It would demonstrate New Zealand’s electoral law simply is not fit for purpose.

It would mean a key part of the government can be intimately connected to a legally opaque foundation that has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars from primary industry leaders, wealthy investors and multi-millionaires; that the foundation can use that money for the benefit of a party and its MPs; and that no one outside of the party and those who gave the money need know what is going on.

Such a state of affairs surely would threaten New Zealand’s ranking as the world’s second least corrupt nation in the world. It is important to note there is no indication that any form of quid pro quo actually exists here, but this would make it hard to sustain public trust and confidence in our governing arrangements.

Read more: A full ban on political donations would level the playing field – but is it the best approach?

For this reason, the current scandal is already generating calls for change to New Zealand’s electoral laws. Former National Party prime minister, Jim Bolger, advocates an end to private donations to political parties and a system of public funding. Author Max Rashbrooke advocates a combination of low limits on private donations and the use of “democracy vouchers”, which give every citizen a small amount of money to donate to the political party of their choice.

Those are proposals that New Zealand ought at least to consider seriously. For as long as the country continues to leave the funding of political parties and candidates up to those individuals and groups with wealth to spare, we will see scandals like the current one reoccur.

– ref. NZ deputy PM under fire, but maintains no laws broken in party donations scandal – http://theconversation.com/nz-deputy-pm-under-fire-but-maintains-no-laws-broken-in-party-donations-scandal-127596

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Elise Bant, Professor of Law, University of Melbourne

The news that Australia’s anti money-laundering regulator has accused Westpac of breaching the law on 23 million occasions points to the prospect that powerful members of corporate Australia are still behaving badly.

This despite the clear lessons offered by the Banking Royal Commission.

Regulators are still struggling to find the right balance between pursuing wrongdoers through the courts – an admittedly costly, time-consuming and highly risky business – and finding other means to punish and deter misconduct.

Australia’s anti money-laundering regulator, AUSTRAC, is seeking penalties against Westpac in the Federal Court.

Each of the bank’s alleged contraventions attracts a civil penalty of up to A$21 million. In theory, that could equate to a fine in the region of A$391 trillion. In practice, it is likely to be a mere fraction of that sum. Commonwealth Bank breached anti-money-laundering laws and faced a theoretical maximum fine of nearly A$1 trillion, but settled for A$700 million.

No doubt the reality that companies can minimise penalties is a factor in why breaches continue.

This impression is reinforced by revelations last week that financial services company AMP continued to charge fees to its dead clients despite the shellacking it received at the hands of the royal commission.

Last month a Federal Court judge refused to approve a A$75 million fine agreed between the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission and Volkswagen to settle litigation over the car company’s conduct in cheating emissions tests for diesel vehicles. The judge was reported to be “outraged” by the settlement, which meant Volkswagen did not admit liability for its misconduct.

The A$75 million is a drop in the ocean of the likely profits obtained from this systemic wrongdoing and pales into insignificance next to fines imposed in other countries.

Proposals for law reform

So business as usual, right?

Maybe not for long. The Australian Law Reform Commission has just released a discussion paper on corporate criminal responsibility.

It points out that effective punishment and deterrence of serious criminal and civil misconduct by corporations in Australia is undermined by a combination of factors.

These include a confusing and inconsistent web of laws governing the circumstances in which conduct is “attributed” to the company. Similar problems of inconsistency arguably also undermine other key areas, such as efforts to give courts the power to impose hefty fines based on the profits obtained by the wrongdoing

The repeated attempts to come up with new and more effective attribution rules arise because corporate wrongdoers are “artificial people”. For centuries, courts and parliaments have struggled with how to make them pay for what is done by their human managers, employees and (both human and corporate) agents. All too often a company’s directors disclaim all knowledge of the wrongdoing.

Read more: Three simple steps to fix our banks

To fix this, the ALRC recommends having one single method to attribute responsibility. It builds on the attribution rule first developed in the Trade Practices Act 1974 (Cth) and now used, in various forms, across various statutes.

The ALRC proposes that the conduct and state of mind of any “associates” (whether natural individuals or other corporations) acting on behalf of the corporation should be attributable to the corporation.

This goes well beyond the traditional focus on directors and senior managers and would provide some welcome consistency in the law.

Importantly, serious criminal and civil breaches that require proof of a dishonest or highly culpable corporate “state of mind” can be satisfied either by proving the state of mind of the “associate” or that the company “authorised or permitted” the conduct.

A “due diligence” defence would protect the corporation from liability where the misconduct was truly attributable to rogue “bad apples” in an otherwise a well-run organisation. There would be no protection in the case of widespread “system errors” and “administrative failures” so pathetically admitted during the royal commission.

The ALRC also proposes that senior officers be liable for the conduct of corporations where they are in “a position to influence the relevant conduct and failed to take reasonable steps to prevent a contravention or offence”.

This would place the onus on those in a position to change egregious corporate practices to show they took reasonable steps to do so.

Removing the penalty ceiling

These recommendations, if adopted could prove a game-changer for regulators asking themselves “why not litigate?” and corporations used to managing the fall-out of their misconduct as simply a “cost of business”.

The ALRC’s recommendations that the criminal and civil penalties should be enough to ensure corporations don’t profit from wrongdoing will be welcomed by many. Some academics have gone further and argued that the law should be changed to make it clear that civil, not just criminal penalties, should be set at a level that is effective to punish serious wrongdoing.

Read more: How courts and costs are undermining ASIC and the ACCC’s efforts to police misbehaving banks and businesses

The ALRC also raises the question whether current limits on penalties should be removed. The Westpac scenario might be just the kind of case to make that option attractive.

– ref. Westpac’s scandal highlights a system failing to deter corporate wrongdoing – http://theconversation.com/westpacs-scandal-highlights-a-system-failing-to-deter-corporate-wrongdoing-127619

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Bartlett, Associate Lecturer Pharmacy Practice, University of Sydney

Some people find managing their medication difficult at the best of times. But in an emergency, like a bushfire or cyclone, this can be harder still.

As catastrophic bushfires burn across Australia, here’s what to think about as part of your emergency planning to make sure you have access to the medicines you need.

Read more: What you can do about the health impact of bushfire smoke

As part of your emergency plan, list your medications and where you keep them, along with contact details for your doctor and pharmacist and any other relevant emergency services.

If you have advanced warning of emergency conditions, check both your supply of tablets and any prescriptions you may need. Your prescription label will tell you how many repeats you have left. Try and keep at least one week’s medication on hand.

I need to evacuate. Now what?

If you need to evacuate, know how best to store and transport your medication. Most medications for conditions such as blood pressure or cholesterol need to be stored below 25-30℃. These medications will be OK if temperatures are higher than this for short periods of time, while you transport them.

Medicines sensitive to temperature will need to be stored or transported with cold packs in an insulated container of some sort, such as an esky. Putting them in a ziplock bag will help protect them from moisture.

Read more: Evacuating with a baby? Here’s what to put in your emergency kit

Insulin is one common medication you need to store cold. Your current insulin pen can be stored at room temperature. But store unused pens with a cold pack in an esky until you find refrigeration.

This also applies to thyroxine tablets. Fourteen days supply (usually one strip of tablets) is OK if stored at room temperature. But keep the rest with a cold pack. If you don’t think it will be possible to keep the rest below 25℃ for a long time, also keep these with the cold pack.

Many antibiotic syrups, such as cefalexin, also need to be kept cold. But check the dispensing label or speak to your pharmacist if you are not sure.

What if I run out of medicine?

If you are caught without essential medication, doctors and pharmacists can help in a number of ways.

This is easier if you have a regular GP and pharmacist who will both have a complete record of your medication. Your pharmacist can call your GP and obtain verbal approval to supply your medication. Your GP will then need to fax or email the prescription to your pharmacist as soon as possible and mail the original script within seven days.

Pharmacists can also dispense emergency supplies of cholesterol medicines and oral contraceptives, so long as you already take them. Under so-called continued dispensing arrangements, pharmacists can dispense a single pack of these medicines once every 12 months.

If you cannot get in touch with your GP, in an emergency, most states allow a pharmacist to dispense a three-day supply of your medication. But this is only if the pharmacist has enough information to make that judgement.

Some medicines, such as strong pain medications and sleeping tablets, are not covered by these provisions.

Medicines for people with lung conditions, like asthma

People with existing lung conditions (such as asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or bronchitis), older people, young children and pregnant women are most likely to be vulnerable to the effect of bushfire smoke. They can also have symptoms long after a bushfire if fine particulate matter is still in the air.

Read more: How does poor air quality from bushfire smoke affect our health?

If you have a respiratory condition, follow the action plan you will have already discussed with your doctor, which outlines what to do in an emergency.

This plan includes instructions on what you should do if your asthma gets worse, such as taking extra doses or additional medication. It also tells you when you should contact your doctor or go to the emergency department.

If you have a respiratory condition, such as asthma, and live in a bush fire prone zone, this action plan needs to be part of your fire safety survival plan.

Read more: Thunderstorm asthma: who’s at risk and how to manage it

You also need to make sure you have enough preventer and reliever medications, for asthma for example, to hand just in case there is an emergency.

If you don’t have an action plan, taking four separate puffs of your reliever medication may relieve acute symptoms. This applies for adults and children.

In a nutshell

Being prepared for an emergency, like a bushfire, goes a long way to keeping you and your family safe. That applies to thinking about your supply of medicines well in advance, if possible.

But if conditions change rapidly and you need to evacuate, an esky containing medicines for a few days, and contact numbers for your GP and pharmacist, could save your life.

– ref. How to manage your essential medicines in a bushfire or other emergency – http://theconversation.com/how-to-manage-your-essential-medicines-in-a-bushfire-or-other-emergency-127516

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Douglas, Senior Lecturer in Law, University of Western Australia

At his Wednesday address to the National Press Club, Attorney-General Christian Porter said the federal government is pursuing “immediate” defamation law reform.

The announcement seemed a bit odd, as defamation is a subject for state and territory governments to legislate on. A NSW-led law reform process has been ongoing for years.

Last June, the NSW Department of Justice released a report on its statutory review of the NSW legislation. In February, a further discussion paper was published by a NSW-led Defamation Working Party.

The theme of these documents, and the various public submissions that followed, is that Australian defamation law is not suited to the digital age.

Holding social media companies responsible as publishers

Porter suggests we should “level the playing field” by holding social media companies responsible for defamation.

Under current laws, liability depends on an entity being a “publisher” of defamatory content. A publisher is not the same as an author.

Read more: Can you sue someone for giving you a bad reference?

For example, a newspaper can be held liable for publishing a defamatory letter to the editor. This is why they have lawyers on staff, to ensure defamatory content is filtered.

Porter’s proposal seems to be that Facebook, Twitter and other social media companies be held to the same standards as traditional media companies such as News Corp.

This means, if you write something defamatory on Facebook, not only could you be sued, but Facebook could be too.

One way the government could make this happen is by amending the Broadcasting Services Act 1992. The Act essentially provides that state and territory laws have no effect to the extent they make “internet content hosts” liable.

This could mean “internet intermediaries”, including social media companies, have some protection from defamation law.

The potential hurdles

The proposal to make social media companies responsible for defamation is problematic for a few reasons.

First, it assumes these companies cannot currently be held responsible. If the recent Dylan Voller case is anything to go by, perhaps they can.

In June, the NSW Supreme Court held media companies such as Nationwide News (a News Corp subsidiary) could be responsible in defamation for posts by users on the Facebook pages of newspapers such as The Australian. The contentious decision is currently being appealed.

Read more: Can you be liable for defamation for what other people write on your Facebook page? Australian court says: maybe

Second, even if Australian defamation law allowed Facebook and Twitter to be held liable, how would you enforce such a judgement?

The companies behind these platforms are based overseas. Some are based in the United States, where section 230 of the Communications Decency Act states “no provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider”.

Relying on this law, a US company subject to an Australian defamation judgement may simply ignore it. Or worse, it may get an order from an American court declaring it doesn’t have to comply. Google has done this before.

Third, a common theme of defamation reform rhetoric is that current laws are harsh on freedom of speech. If this reform goes through, plaintiffs will have high incentive to litigate: they’ll be able to reach into the deep pockets of tech companies.

Defamation lawyers will be licking their lips. Meanwhile, the change wouldn’t stop the average citizen who posts defamatory content from being sued. It may actually increase litigation against members of the public, sued in tandem with tech companies.

Less trivial defamation claims

Another reform flagged by Porter is the introduction of a threshold of serious harm, inspired by UK legislation introduced in 2013. This means people who aren’t actually seriously harmed by defamation would no longer be able to sue.

This may see fewer petty claims clogging up the courts, which is good.

Disputes between regular people over social media mudslinging form an increasing share of courts’ defamation work. The law should assume we have thicker skin.

But arguably, we don’t need it. A few cases have already held a publication that doesn’t cause serious harm is not “defamatory”. This proposal’s value is largely symbolic.

More substantive reforms to look out for

Porter flagged some other reforms that could have consequences. The way current legislation “caps” defamation damages, theoretically preventing huge awards of money, is controversial. If that is changed, smaller damages awarded will mean less incentive to sue.

Porter also flagged a “public interest defence”, protecting responsible communication on a matter of public interest.

But we kind of already have one, called “qualified privilege”. How a new defence interacts with what we already have could pose tricky issues even lawyers may struggle with. When it comes to law reform, trickiness is not a virtue.

Read more: Defamation in the digital age has morphed into litigation between private individuals

In my view, the biggest issue to address is corporate defamation. Currently only small companies can sue. This means McDonald’s can’t sue you for defamation over a harsh happy meal review. If this changes, freedom of speech could be massively curtailed.

Getting the balance right is not easy

There’s a lot of technical detail in defamation law, reflecting centuries of development.

Even Chief Justice Susan Kiefel describes it as complex. We all agree this area of law needs an update, but disagree on the best way forward.

In my view, enhancing media freedom is an important goal of the reform process. But that doesn’t mean we should get rid of defamation altogether.

In an environment where media power is dangerously concentrated in the hands of a few, defamation law is one of the few tools people have to protect themselves from destructive media commentary.

As Porter acknowledged, striking a balance between competing values, like freedom of speech and reputation, can be difficult. Whether these reforms will get it right remains to be seen.

– ref. A push to make social media companies liable in defamation is great for newspapers and lawyers, but not you – http://theconversation.com/a-push-to-make-social-media-companies-liable-in-defamation-is-great-for-newspapers-and-lawyers-but-not-you-127513

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

University of Canberra Vice-Chancellor Deep Saini discusses the Westpac scandal with Michelle Grattan. They then delve into the government’s recent changes to the robo-debt program, and Scott Morrison’s announcement that the government will be bringing forward infrastructure projects. They also talk about what to expect in the last parliamentary sitting fortnight, which starts on Monday.

– ref. VIDEO: Michelle Grattan on the Westpac scandal – and changes to robo-debt – http://theconversation.com/video-michelle-grattan-on-the-westpac-scandal-and-changes-to-robo-debt-127610

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Malini Sur, Senior Research Fellow, Institute for Culture and Society, Western Sydney University

Sydney and its suburbs have been enveloped in haze over the past few days. The haze is a mixture of bushfire smoke and dust blown in from western New South Wales. As particles move from rural locations, like Gospers Mountain in this case, they make grey cities.

In Australia, dust blurs the distinction between the bush and the city. Elsewhere it blurs the farmlands with the concrete jungles, and nation-states with regions.

Read more: Explainer: how a dust storm, and hazardous air quality, can harm your health

Spiralling dust challenges our usual ways of thinking about bush, farm, industry, rich city and poor city divides. It travels across geographical and socioeconomic boundaries. There is no easy way to stop it.

Dust’s composition and unfettered mobility make it a global epidemic. Once airborne, dust spares no one in its path. It sits in the lungs of cities and citizens. It is stubbornly difficult to eradicate.

The harms of dust

The dust brings with it old and new anxieties about life, death and disease. Air pollution caused 2.4 million deaths in India and China in 2017.

Last week, Delhi and Singapore reported serious air pollution from agricultural fires and industrial emissions. Particles from crop burning in the neighbouring states of Haryana and the Punjab and power plants took Delhi’s air quality index to dangerously high levels.

Dust is also generated from within cities, particularly from construction sites. Regulatory bodies seek to contain these sites within enclosures. Where the regulatory frameworks are weak, environmental bodies impose fines.

Construction dust adds significantly to air pollution in Indian cities. In Kolkata, construction materials are stored on sidewalks and roads. Even with fines, it is nearly impossible to make barriers that can contain dust.

Haze can be seen, but the threats of dust are often invisible. Dust plumes can carry bacteria and viruses. Dust can cause a variety of respiratory and circulatory diseases.

In Singapore, dust mites have been claimed to be the main cause of respiratory allergies.

Read more: Increased deaths and illnesses from inhaling airborne dust: An understudied impact of climate change

The colours of dust

Dust gathers colour. In Australia, dust storms are typically red.

The so-called “Asian dust storms” are yellow. Originating in the deserts of Northern China and Mongolia, strong winds carry yellow dust all the way to the Korean Peninsula via the jet stream.

These storms have increased in China, and the levels of industrial pollutants in the dust often have too. Yellow dust also carries viruses, fungi, bacteria and even heavy metals, none of which is good for respiratory health.

Earlier this year, Thailand was affected by yellow dust. Authorities in Bangkok used water cannons and even cloud seeding in attempts to limit the dust’s effects.

Singapore is periodically enveloped in grey dust.

The history of dust

Today, talk of smoke, haze and smog is common to the world’s cities. Once dust settles, we become habituated to it. Dust resides in landscapes and humans. And dust tells stories about historical wrongs.

Australia has a long history of death from exposure to asbestos dust. Dust wiped out the town of Wittenoom in Western Australia.

The first documented asbestos death was recorded in the UK in 1906. Although asbestos has been known since then to be deadly, it continues to be a stubborn presence around the world. Worldwide consumption of asbestos is nearly as high as it has ever been.

In the early 1930s, overcultivation of wheat on the Great Plains of the US created the Dust Bowl. Overploughing, poor land management and severe drought left the topsoil exposed. Spring winds picked up this loose soil, resulting in “black blizzards”.

The dust affected huge swathes of the country, including the cities of Chicago and New York. It deepened the economic crisis of the Great Depression and caused mass migration.

Haze from forest fires has been a regular occurrence in Singapore since at least the 1970s. These have originated in the south of Malaysia, Borneo and Sumatra. In the 1990s, transboundary pollution became the subject of two regional summits, leading to the ASEAN Agreement on Transboundary Haze Pollution in 2002.

In 2014, Singapore passed the Transnational Haze Pollution Act. This law enables regulators to prosecute companies and individuals, even beyond the nation-state’s borders, that cause air pollution.

Read more: We built an app to detect areas most vulnerable to life-threatening haze

A pervasive challenge for cities

Our bodies create dust and dust enters our bodies. Species emerge that live off dust.

What makes dust harder to reckon with in our imaginations is that its particles are almost invisible and its source is generally unknown. It is an amalgam of an uncountable number of sources, often from many different countries and producers.

Read more: African dust storms double air particle concentration in Texas

Whether resulting from geological events, deforestation, construction or some indeterminate combination of each, our inability to pinpoint dust’s source makes climate accountability extremely difficult.

A key focus for cities now and in the future is to think about how we manage dust, the plans and practices we put in place to limit dust creation and contain its spread.

– ref. What do Sydney and other cities have in common? Dust – http://theconversation.com/what-do-sydney-and-other-cities-have-in-common-dust-127515

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brendon Hyndman, Senior Lecturer in Personal Development, Health & Physical Education / Course Director of Postgraduate Studies in Education, Charles Sturt University

In a study published in The Lancet today, we find out how 1.6 million adolescent school students from across 146 countries are faring in terms of the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) physical activity recommendations.

The answer: pretty dismally. And Australia is among the worst, ranked 140 out of the 146 countries studied.

The WHO guidelines for this age group recommend a minimum of one hour of moderate to vigorous physical activity each day. That’s a jogging-like intensity that gets you sweating and puffing.

Read more: How much physical activity should teenagers do, and how can they get enough?

This benchmark has been set based on what we know about the benefits of regular movement for good physical health (fitness, strong muscles and bones) and preventing disease (such as type 2 diabetes, cancer, and heart disease). Not getting enough physical activity is one of the leading causes of death worldwide.

So if young Australians are losing out on these benefits, it’s concerning. While it’s a huge problem to tackle, we can take important steps at school and at home.

The study

The researchers analysed data students aged 11 to 17 provided in surveys. Although movement devices (such as accelerometers and pedometers) are generally the most accurate way to measure physical activity, surveys can reach large populations and provide valuable insights on a national and even global scale.

The study provided figures for two time points – 2001 and 2016. In 2016, an average of just one in five adolescents across the 146 countries met the recommended physical activity levels. More boys meet these guidelines than girls.

Australia came in seventh from the bottom when it came to the proportion of adolescents not getting enough physical activity. This placed Australia ahead of only Cambodia, Philippines, South Korea, Sudan, Timor-Leste and Zambia.

These findings align with recent national report cards that graded Australian adolescents’ physical activity as a lowly “D-”.

The researchers predicted just over one in ten Australian adolescents were meeting global physical activity recommendations in 2001 (87% were not) and in 2016 (89% were not). So if anything, things are getting worse.

Read more: How physical activity in Australian schools can help prevent depression in young people

Why is this age group doing so poorly?

Research continues to show a child’s physical activity participation has often peaked in primary school, before they transition into secondary school.

In high school, there tend to be less areas conducive to outdoor physical activities, like playgrounds. High school students are often exposed to more spaces for sitting and socialising, and research shows they can start to develop negative attitudes towards physical education.

Sedentary behaviour also increases during secondary schooling, with a higher proportion of students using electronic devices for longer than the recommended two hours per day for recreation and entertainment.

Read more: Teenagers who play sport after school are only 7 minutes more active per day than those who don’t

By secondary school, teenagers have had seven years of primary schooling to develop fundamental movement skills, so will require more advanced movement opportunities to test themselves. This can be difficult if schools don’t prioritise facilities to encourage physical activity.

The blocks of recess time for physical activity can be less in secondary school, with guidance for 30 minute periods, compared with an hour for primary. This can vary according to the priorities of each school, particularly when recess time is competing with lessons, time to eat, and other activities.

Health and physical education requires improved status, resources and time allocation across the board.

How can we improve things?

The WHO is aiming to increase the number of young people meeting physical activity guidelines by 15% in 2030. So we need to consider how we can make some positive changes.

A new national physical literacy framework and campaign is a good start.

Here are some other things we should be focusing on:

1. we need to place more value on recess periods by ensuring there is at least one hour of mandatory recess time scheduled each day for teenagers to be as active as possible. We also need to prioritise quality and accessible facilities for students to test themselves physically (for example, climbing and fitness facilities)

2. families should dedicate one hour after school each day to turning off electronic devices with the goal of moving more

3. school teachers should work to identify teenagers’ physical activity interests, levels and needs as they enter secondary school, looking to provide more physical challenges. If facilities are not available, they should plan for and include relevant excursions

4. schools should encourage more opportunities for safe active transport (travelling to and from school by walking or cycling), organised sport and recreation, student-centred PE classes (promoting choice for more enjoyable activities), and activity opportunities before and after school

5. during unavoidable and prolonged periods of using digital devices (like during classroom lessons), teachers should provide short bursts of movement tasks for even one minute, such as moving to music

6. school staff and training teachers should receive professional development for learning about, accommodating and encouraging physical activities within the context of secondary schools (especially beyond scheduled classes)

7. schools should be engaged with stakeholders such as families and community leaders in a collective effort to improve and model the value of physical activity opportunities in secondary schools.

Read more: Adapting to secondary school: why the physical environment is important too

Leaders from across sectors need to prioritise the development of physical activity strategies and resources for secondary schools. This is not a new concept, but the findings of this research make it impossible to ignore. Trialled programs or policies that encourage physical activity in secondary schools should now be brought in on a larger scale.

– ref. 140th out of 146: Australian teens do close to the least physical activity in the world – http://theconversation.com/140th-out-of-146-australian-teens-do-close-to-the-least-physical-activity-in-the-world-127434

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lisa Marriott, Professor of Taxation, Victoria University of Wellington

A Court of Appeal decision in New Zealand set a precedent last month, allowing offenders to argue their drug addiction should be considered a mitigating factor.

Methamphetamine dealers who can prove their personal addiction played a role in their offending are now eligible for a shorter sentence, reduced by up to 30%.

This change is part of an overhaul of guidelines used by judges since 2005. Another update is that lawyers and judges are encouraged to adjourn sentencing to give offenders time for rehabilitation.

The judgement follows a new law that gives police discretion to use a “health-centred approach” in some cases where individuals are found in possession of illegal drugs for personal use.

Read more: New law gives NZ police discretion not to prosecute drug users, but to offer addiction support instead

Here I argue we should extend this approach to other crimes where poverty, deprivation or addiction play a key role in the offending. My research into financial crime shows white-collar offenders are privileged in the New Zealand justice system.

Privilege for offenders who are already advantaged

In my recently published research, I have analysed the sentencing decisions in 30 high-profile white-collar financial fraud cases. I have also reviewed a similar number of blue-collar financial crime cases, such as welfare fraud.

I used judges’ sentencing notes from five years of Serious Fraud Office (SFO) prosecutions in New Zealand. This included significant mortgage fraud (the highest value was NZ$54 million) and ponzi schemes (highest value NZ$17.5 million). The average value of the prosecuted cases was NZ$3.5 million.

I analysed the extent to which factors such as good character, reputation damage, the ability to pay reparation and to provide strong references affected sentencing outcomes favourably for white-collar offenders.

These mitigating factors are frequently the benefits of privilege. It is unusual for factors such as good character or loss of community standing to be considered in determining the sentences in blue-collar financial crimes.

Read more: The global war on money laundering is a failed experiment

Changing sentencing

The sentencing process and outcome is an important part of the justice system. Not only does it determine the short- and long-term future of the offender, it also communicates society’s perspectives on crime and criminals. Therefore, increased debate is welcome.

The purposes of sentencing in New Zealand are set out in the Sentencing Act 2002. In summary, they are to hold the offender accountable, create deterrence, denounce criminal conduct, rehabilitate, provide for the interests of the victim, provide reparation and protect the community.

In sentencing, the court must consider the offender’s personal, family, community and cultural background. Relevant aggravating and mitigating factors must also be taken into account.

Aggravating factors include the particular circumstances of the offending and the culpability of the offender, the impact on the victim, whether there was a vulnerable victim, whether there was an abuse of trust or authority, any prior convictions of the offender and any loss, damage or harm from the offending.

Relevant mitigating factors include the age of the offender, whether and when the offender pleaded guilty, whether the offender had limited involvement in the offence, any remorse shown by the offender and evidence of the offender’s previous good character.

As the table below shows, in my study the good character of the offender was referred to in all 30 Serious Fraud Office cases.

It is relevant to note it’s often the good character of these offenders that facilitates the crime because they were in a position of trust.

Buying justice

The quality of references and testimonials was referred to in 50% of the fraud cases. Access to superior networks of people who can vouch for one’s prior good character and good works, despite the presence of crime, may result in a shorter sentence.

Reference to other hurt such as shame or loss of community standing was referred to in 27% of cases. The academic literature suggests white-collar offenders are in a better position to recover and maintain stable employment after committing a crime, unlike those who commit blue-collar crimes.

Restitution is another mitigating factor that can result in a sentence discount. In the cases I examined, reparation was evident in eight cases, with two offenders offering full reparation and the others offering partial reparation. Where reparation was provided, it resulted in a sentence discount.

This leads to the suggestion offenders can “buy justice”. Those who have resources to provide financial recompense may benefit from a sentence discount, when their equivalent poorer counterparts may not.

The majority of the cases outlined in the table received a discount for at least some of the mitigating factors. This is despite the presence of a range of aggravating factors (also shown in the table) such as vulnerable victims, significant harm, systematic offending over long periods of time and abuses of trust.

I propose three changes to sentencing decisions:

1. the “good character” of white-collar offenders should not be considered as a mitigating factor when the good character has been an enabler of the offending because people trusted them

2. restitution should not be treated as a mitigating factor of the offending, but rather the absence of restitution should be considered as an aggravating factor

3. other harms, such as loss of reputation or feelings of shame are a natural corollary of the offending and do not justify sentence discounts.

– ref. Why New Zealand courts should take poverty into account in sentencing decisions – http://theconversation.com/why-new-zealand-courts-should-take-poverty-into-account-in-sentencing-decisions-125799

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

Anthony Albanese puts a “productivity project” at the centre of his economic agenda in the second of his “vision statements”, which seeks to further distance him from the Shorten era.

“Productivity is the key to economic growth, international competitiveness and, ultimately, rising living standards underpinned in large part by long-term, sustainable wage growth,” he says in an address to be delivered in Brisbane on Friday but released beforehand.

Albanese describes Australia as presently in a “productivity recession”.

“When Labor left office in 2013, annual productivity growth averaged 2.2%. Under the Coalition this rate has halved. In the last two quarters it has actually gone backwards.”

Albanese says he wants to pursue his “productivity project” in partnership with business, unions and civil society, but argues the focus should be much wider than just on industrial relations and work practices.

“I want to focus our productivity debate on managing the next wave of challenges.”

Read more: Unlocking Australia’s productivity paradox. Why things aren’t that super

These include increasing wages; population settlement and the management of cities and regions; climate change, energy and environmental sustainability; an ageing population, and entrenched intergenerational poverty.

“The priorities of our productivity renewal project will be to lift investment in infrastructure, lift business investment and invest in our people.”

He links the productivity agenda to Labor’s strong support for the superannuation guarantee’s legislated rise – which has become controversial – from its present 9.5% to 12%, saying an ALP government would partner with the private sector, including the superannuation industry, in investing in infrastructure.

The speech continues Albanese’s pitch to improve Labor’s relations with business. “I want to see business confidence restored and investment renewed,” he says.

One central theme of the speech highlights the importance of micro-economic reform. “I have long been a champion of micro-economic reform,” Albanese says.

“Labor’s productivity renewal project will restart the process of micro-economic reform and the forensic analysis of how economic activity is regulated and where changes have to be made”.

Lauding the Hawke-Keating record on micro-economic reform, Albanese says “through the sheer power of their actions, they reminded us all that there is a natural and central role for the state”.

“But we have now reached the limits of the Hawke-Keating reforms. And new challenges require new impetus.”

Read more: Labor looks to boost protections for workers in insecure jobs: Albanese

In the speech Albanese essentially paints himself as a fiscal conservative well removed from Bill Shorten’s approach of big spending and higher taxation.

He stresses the reform agenda must be complemented by sound fiscal policy.

“I want our economic framework to have a soft heart and a hard head,” he says. The speech is laced with references to his personal experience growing up in straitened circumstances.

“As the child of a single mother on the invalid pension, I appreciate the value of a dollar and the importance of managing money.

“And having grown up in public housing, I also know all too well the value and the big difference government assistance can make to the lives of struggling families.

“Prudence and mutual obligation are values I learned growing up and they are values that I will take to fiscal policy,” he says.

“Our fiscal priorities will be integrated with our long-term objectives to increase our productivity and, in turn, our living standards and social mobility,” he says, putting social mobility “at the heart of Labor’s mission”.

– ref. Albanese promises a ‘productivity project’ in an economic vision statement harking back to Hawke and Keating – http://theconversation.com/albanese-promises-a-productivity-project-in-an-economic-vision-statement-harking-back-to-hawke-and-keating-127534

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rachael Helene Nolan, Postdoctoral research fellow, Western Sydney University

Why does wood crackle in a fire? – Rocco, age 6 (nearly 7!)

Hi Rocco, that’s a great question. I love sitting in front of a fire, listening to it crackle and pop.

These noises are caused by pockets of trapped steam suddenly escaping, making a mini explosion!

To know why this happens, we need to understand what happens when you place a wooden log on a fire. First, the wood starts getting hotter. Inside the wood are pockets of trapped water and tree sap, which is the sticky stuff you sometimes see on trees.

In the same way water in a kettle heats up and turns into steam, so does the water trapped inside the log. So as the fire gets hotter, the water and sap inside start to boil and turn into gas. As the fire gets even hotter, these gases start to take up more space and expand (get bigger).

How do the gases burst out?

While the water and sap turn into steam, something also happens to the wood. Wood contains something called cellulose, which is the stuff that plants are mostly made out of.

When cellulose is heated, it starts to break down, or “decompose”. If you’ve ever forgotten an apple in your lunchbox over the weekend, and it turns brown and yucky, that means it has decomposed. When something in nature (like a piece of fruit) decomposes, it changes.

Read more: Curious Kids: when I swipe a matchstick how does it make fire?

When wood in a fire gets hot enough, the cellulose inside starts to turn into gas. This is when we see smoke coming out of the wood, sometimes even before that piece of wood has burst into flames.

The flames happen when the gas escaping from the wood starts to mix with the oxygen in the air. Oxygen is like food for fires – it makes them burn really bright.

As wood burns, the mix of expanding gases and cellulose breaking down makes the pockets of trapped steam burst open from the wood, one by one. This is why you hear the crackling and popping noises.

So the more water and sap there is inside the wood, the noisier the fire will be. If you’ve ever put damp wood on a fire, you may have noticed it makes a lot more noise than really dry wood.

How does the wood get water inside it?

But how does water and sap get inside wood in the first place?

Well, wood isn’t quite as solid as it looks. It has many tiny holes, too small for our eyes to see, and these holes have water and sap inside them.

We know wood comes from trees. And when trees are alive, they stay healthy by carrying water up their trunk through these tiny holes, which are called xylem vessels. When the tree is chopped down to make firewood, there is still water trapped inside these xylem vessels.

There are other ways water can get inside wood. If firewood is left out in the rain, it can soak up water that way. Or sometimes insects make small holes in the wood, which let water in.

Read more: Curious Kids: how do bushfires start?

Sitting in front of a fire watching the flames and listening to the wood crackle and pop can be fun. Most of the time the mini explosions of the steam escaping are small.

But sometimes they can be big, and might even cause small chunks of burning wood to fly out of the fire! This is why it’s important always to keep a safe distance from a fire, or to use a fireguard.

The author thanks her nephews Aldous Nolan (6) and Fergus Nolan (5) for helping to improve this answer.

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

– ref. Curious Kids: why does wood crackle in a fire? – http://theconversation.com/curious-kids-why-does-wood-crackle-in-a-fire-126346

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ihsan Yilmaz, Research Professor and Chair in Islamic Studies and Intercultural Dialogue, Deakin University

The political influence of the far-right, along with a more salient national security agenda, has spurred a growing anti-Muslim sentiment and deep social division in Australia.

In fact, a new report from the Islamophobia Register looked at hundreds of Islamophobic incidents in 2016 and 2017. It found that while the number of incidents is steady, the attacks are becoming bolder and more physical, with the overwhelming majority directed at women.

In the face of this growing division, our new research offers hope to our multicultural society.

We looked at the experiences between Muslims and non-Muslims in Australia from the perspective of 28 young Muslim Australians. We wanted to understand how contact between these two groups shape young Muslims’ experiences of discrimination and their perceptions of integrating in Australian society.

Sadly, but unsurprisingly, all our participants said they had experienced discrimination at various times. One respondent said:

The fact that I don’t look Australian, the fact that I look brown, and no matter where I go, the first thing I’ll be asked is where I’m from because of my name and because of the way I look […] I heard things like ‘oh, you have a terrorist-sounding last name’ said to me. I’ve had comments about my skin colour.

Social psychology research on the effects of contact between cultural groups shows interaction isn’t always positive. And when there’s a negative experience, prejudice and conflict between these groups can rise.

Yet, we found Islamophobic experiences didn’t deter these young Muslim Australians from engaging with non-Muslim Australians. In fact, they indicated they were keen on engaging with the very group of Australians likely to be prejudiced against them.

Read more: How to tackle Islamophobia – the best strategies from around Europe

These participants, who said they see themselves as representatives of all Australian Muslims, not only want to be accepted as Muslims, but also say their identity can add value to Australian society.

Breaking down Islamophobia

Our research participants said they’re well aware not all Anglo-Australians hold negative attitudes towards them. But they also understand that certain groups of the population – mostly older in age and based in rural areas with little contact with Muslims – are more likely to have these prejudices.

It’s exactly this group many of our respondents want to engage with. They argue the negative views about Islam and Muslims are largely due to biased media coverage, or when people have never met a Muslim in person.

Some of these respondents even talked about how they seek opportunities to talk to Anglo-Australians about Islam to help break down the barriers between cultures.

They’re confident in their ability to change their perceptions after having had positive experiences in the past when encounters started negative, but evolved into something positive.

Often, our respondents didn’t take biased comments they received personally, stating they “do not take negative comments to heart”, “just ignore”, “walk away” and sometimes “laugh at it”. One participant described what he did in response to a woman criticising his political activism:

I approached the lady very nicely and very gently to describe that I consider myself an Australian citizen, and it is my duty to stand up for my community. We had a very short conversation.

At the end of the conversation […] she seemed very happy, she apologised for saying what she said […] at the end it had a positive result.

This was a key finding in our research: although the majority of our respondents anticipate prejudice against them from some Anglo-Australians, they believe in the power of contact, dialogue and exchange to transform negative attitudes and prejudices.

Read more: Why Muslim women wear a hijab: 3 essential reads

Even when such willingness was not expressed explicitly, this “intergroup contact” was still seen to be a good thing.

Diversity isn’t a threat

Diversity has the potential to generate deeper and more sustainable social glue that binds all Australians together through a shared commitment to inclusion, respect and intercultural understanding.

The key condition for this outcome is not suspicion, exclusion and mutual rejection. Rather, as our research shows, the key condition is empathy, mutual acceptance and meaningful contact involving everyone.

Our relatively multicultural policy can improve on mainstreaming the diversity agenda so all Australians – not only migrants from non-English speaking backgrounds – become stakeholders in the social cohesion challenge. This starts with creating the conditions for intercultural contact and exchange at the local level.

In fact, many local councils and cities across Australia are now introducing strategies for building social cohesion on the basis of improved contact, dialogue and exchange between all citizens, and not exclusively involving non-English speaking background migrants.

Read more: Morrison wants Muslim leaders to do more to prevent terrorism, but what more can they do?

Similarly, some Australian schools have led the way in incorporating intercultural understanding in curriculums to help their students develop the knowledge, attitudes and behaviours to respect others from different communities.

Australia must go beyond accepting diversity, a well-established demographic fact, to enshrining the foundations for a genuinely inclusive and harmonious society.

– ref. These young Muslim Australians want to meet Islamophobes and change their minds. And it’s working – http://theconversation.com/these-young-muslim-australians-want-to-meet-islamophobes-and-change-their-minds-and-its-working-127115

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Philippa Martyr, Lecturer, Pharmacology, Women’s Health, School of Biomedical Sciences, University of Western Australia

You might remember how Gwyneth Paltrow’s health and well-being website Goop was selling “medical” products with no proven measurable health benefits.

Decluttering expert Marie Kondo may be going down the same path.

Kondo now has a tuning fork and rose quartz crystal for sale in her online shop for US$75 (around A$110).

Striking the fork against the crystal creates pure tones that help to restore a sense of balance […] The rose quartz crystal in this set is associated with purification, connection and comfort.

Kondo’s decluttering approach draws on her personal blend of Zen Buddhist and traditional Shinto beliefs. Traditional Buddhism sees sound and vibration as building blocks of the universe. Buddhists believe chanting creates a healing resonance and reverberation that benefits the universe.

Much media discussion has focused on how Kondo’s decluttering seems at odds with running an online store. But her tuning fork does appear to reflect the philosophy that underpins her decluttering.

Her tuning fork is also part of a long history of humans using vibrations to understand our world, to treat illness, and to improve well-being. So why are we so fascinated with using vibrations to heal? And is there any evidence to back it?

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

From vibrations in the womb

Human beings have always been instinctively drawn to vibration. It may go back to our experiences in the womb, where we live daily with our mother’s heartbeat and vibrating breathing.

The idea of the music of the spheres — that the universe produces vibrations that are harmonic and hold everything in place — goes back to the ancient Greek thinker Pythagoras.

But it wasn’t until the 1960s that English osteopath Sir Peter Guy Manners developed tuning fork therapy. He believed sound vibrations could provide comfort and healing for a range of conditions: chronic inflammation, arthritis, and even bacterial infections. This was based on ideas that were common to Western alternative practitioners and traditional Eastern practitioners.

These practitioners argued all created things, including the body, are a network of living energies. These energies could be disrupted and restored by different interventions into this force field.

You will find this idea today in acupuncture (qi), Ayurvedic medicine (prana), and reiki energy healing.

Read more: From Ayurveda to biomedicine: understanding the human body

Certainly, energy is real and used in modern medicine all the time. Lasers, electricity and radiation are all forms of energy. Magnetic energy and sound vibrations also appear to have some therapeutic properties. However, we don’t fully understand these yet.

The existence of other forms of physical energy like qi or prana or “biofield energy” is unverifiable. We can’t prove scientifically they exist, even though many schools of healing believe in them and build their practice around them.

Back to the tuning fork

Kondo’s tuning fork is tuned to a frequency of 4,096 hertz. The idea is that you strike the crystal with the fork, and this sets up a reverberation of 4,096Hz in the crystal.

Quartz is an unusual mineral. It acts like a tuning fork all by itself: it transforms energy applied to it into mechanical energy, which keeps the quartz vibrating almost indefinitely.

This is very useful if you are making watches. A watch battery can run a charge through the quartz and keep it oscillating. This is why quartz movement watches are incredibly accurate until the quartz begins to deteriorate.

The Kondo tuning fork also comes with a choice of three types of quartz: clear, rose, and smoky quartz, each with different apparent effects.

However, there’s no scientific evidence to suggest crystals are associated with anything other than different structures and colours. There is also no scientific evidence connecting particular quartz frequencies with health or psychological effects. Crystals can’t really do anything by themselves except refract light.

But if you believe strongly enough that crystals are healing you — or are bringing you confidence and joy or peace or stability — then there may be a placebo effect. If you culturally associate healing or peace with a particular type of crystal, then it may help you — but again only because you believe in it. Crystals are also comparatively harmless.

Vibrators, weight loss and massage devices

With the industrial revolution, more doctors in the United Kingdom and Europe began to integrate electricity — known then as “medical galvanism” — into their treatments. This included using electricity to stimulate wasted muscles, which actually works, as does shocking a stopped heart back into action. So it’s not surprising doctors also tried to use vibration as a therapy.

In the late 19th century, it’s alleged doctors used vibrators to treat women with “hysteria”. However, this may be a myth, and a salacious one at that. There’s no real evidence to suggest this was normal practice, or even experimental practice.

Read more: Vibrators and hysteria: how a cure became a female sexual icon

Today, vibrators have moved into the sexual entertainment industry (and the home). But “massage devices” are still sold by mainstream retailers.

Then there’s the long history of why your hairdresser gives you a scalp massage while shampooing and conditioning. At the beginning of the 20th century, Australian hair salons used very popular vibrating devices to provide customers with “vibro-massage”. This was believed to keep away grey hair and stop hair loss.

Vibrating pads and belts were also popular for decades because they promised easy weight loss with no effort. However, it’s not possible to lose weight unless you are actually doing the moving, rather than the machine — that’s what burns the kilojoules.

This hasn’t stopped “fitness” vibrating devices and belts still being marketed enthusiastically today.

There’s also the idea about vibrating your whole body to lose weight at the gym. But again this hasn’t been fully tested and verified.

Read more: Whole body vibration: a genuine therapy or just another ‘weight loss’ fad?

As you read about these products, it’s possible to see the same appeal to unverifiable energies. These can’t be proven to exist. But this also means they cannot be proven not to exist.

Practitioners of this so-called “energy medicine” like to appeal to quantum theory to explain and legitimise their therapies.

The idea of “quantum healing” is that electrical and electromagnetic activity takes place at a subatomic and molecular level to bring about healing in individual cells in the body.

We have no equipment specialised enough to detect these changes in individual cells in the human body, or to measure it over time. So it can’t be proven. It also can’t be distinguished from the placebo effect.

We also need to remember there’s a difference between energy and vibrations we can’t perceive naturally (such as from oscillating crystals), and those we can perceive. Most people can tolerate or even enjoy a small amount of vibration, but too much can induce discomfort, nausea, or even injury.

Ultimately, if you want to buy Marie Kondo’s crystals and tuning forks, feel free, but buyer beware. Or you can choose to use healing techniques that have been shown to make a real difference in people’s health at a much lower cost. Some of these, like walking and singing, are free.

– ref. From Marie Kondo’s tuning fork to vibrators for ‘hysteria’: a short, shaky history of curing with vibrations – http://theconversation.com/from-marie-kondos-tuning-fork-to-vibrators-for-hysteria-a-short-shaky-history-of-curing-with-vibrations-127443

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Linda Newman, Associate Professor, University of Newcastle

Many parents and educators agree children need to take risks. In one US study, 82% of the 1,400 parents surveyed agreed the benefits of tree-climbing outweighed the potential risk of injury.

Parents cited benefits including perseverance, sharing, empowerment and self-awareness. One parent thought it allowed her son to learn what his whole body was capable of.

Read more: Should I let my kid climb trees? We asked five experts

Taking risks and succeeding can motivate children to seek further achievements. Failing can lead to testing new ideas, and finding personal capabilities and limits. In this way, children can overcome fears and build new skills.

We mentored a group of educators in a research project trialling how to best introduce kids to risk.

Parents can use some of the lessons these educators learnt to help their own children take more risks and challenge themselves.

What was the research?

Adamstown Community Early Learning and Preschool (NSW) wanted to conduct research around risky play. “Risky play” is a term which has evolved from a trend to get more children out into nature to experience challenging environments.

Adamstown wanted to find out whether adult intervention to promote safe risk-taking would play a significant role in developing children’s risk competence.

Educators engaged children in conversations about risk, asked prompting questions and helped them assess potential consequences.

The Adamstown research built on 2007 Norwegian research that identified six categories of risky play:

• play at great heights, where children climb trees or high structures such as climbing frames in a playground

• play at high speed, such as riding a bike or skateboarding down a steep hill or swinging fast

• play with harmful tools, like knives or highly supervised power tools to create woodwork

• play with dangerous elements, such as fire or bodies of water

• rough and tumble play, where children wrestle or play with impact, such as slamming bodies into large crash mats

• play where you can “disappear”, where children can feel they’re not being watched by doing things like enclosing themselves in cubbies built of sheets or hiding in bushes (while actually being surreptitiously supervised by an adult).

The educators examined their practices in these areas to see how and whether they were engaging children in risky play, and how children were responding.

Here are five lessons educators learnt that parents can apply at home.

1. Have real conversations with children (don’t just give them instructions)

Adamstown educators found children were more likely to attempt risky play when adults talked to them about planning for, and taking, risks.

Parents can use similar strategies with their children, helping them question what they are doing and why.

Phrases like “be careful” don’t tell children what to do. Instead, say things like

That knife is very sharp. It could cut you and you might bleed. Only hold it by the handle and cut down towards the chopping board.

Equally, praise with meaning, using phrases like

You cut the cake, thinking about how you held the knife and didn’t slip or cut yourself. Well done!

It is important for children to provide insight into their own problem solving. You could ask their thoughts on what might happen if they used the knife incorrectly or what safety measures they could put in place. This will help develop their risk competence.

2. Introduce risk gradually

Allow your children to try new things by slowly increasing the levels of difficulty.

At Adamstown, a process of introducing children to fire spanned nine months. First – on the advice of an early childhood education consultant – they introduced tea-light candles at meal times. This then moved to a small fire bowl in the sandpit, before children were introduced to a large open fire pit.

Read more: Ensuring children get enough physical activity while being safe is a delicate balancing act

The fire pit is now used for many reasons. In winter, children sit around it in a circle and tell stories. Educators show them cooking skills, referencing the ways Australia’s First Nations People cook. The fire pit is also used to create charcoal for art.

Children have been made aware of the safe distance they need to keep and about the potential hazard of smoke inhalation.

During the research process, as children were introduced to more risk, there were no more injuries than before and all were minor. There were also no serious incidents such as broken bones, or events requiring immediate medical attention.

3. Assume all your children are competent – regardless of gender

Adamstown educators were surprised to discover that, although they weren’t excluding girls from risky play, the data indicated they challenged and invited participation more often with boys.

Parents may hold intrinsic biases they are not necessarily aware of. So, check yourself to see if you are:

• allowing boys to be more independent

• assuming boys are more competent or girls don’t really want to take as many risks

• dressing girls in clothes that limit their freedom to climb

• saying different things to boys and girls.

4. Be close-by but allow children to have a sense of autonomy

Children don’t always want to be supervised. Search for opportunities to allow them to feel as if they are alone, or out of sight. Be close-by, but allow them to think they are playing independently.

5. Discuss risk at times that don’t directly involve it

When walking together to the shops, talk about the risks involved in crossing roads, such as fast cars. You can note safe and unsafe situations as well as encouraging your child to notice these as you go about your daily life. This can also be done in relaxed situations like in the bath.

This way, when the time comes for your child to learn a new skill like crossing the road alone, they have already had some opportunity to consider measures to keep themselves safe in a non-stressful situation.

If your child has a fall or other mishap, when everything is settled again, ask your child about why it happened and how they might suggest it could be prevented next time.

Read more: Kids learn valuable life skills through rough-and-tumble play with their dads

This article was written with Kate Higginbottom, Service Director and Nominated Supervisor at Adamstown Community Early Learning and Preschool Centre.

The Adamstown centre was part of a larger research project, in which four Australian early childhood centres in Newcastle took part as practitioner researchers.

– ref. Five ways parents can help their kids take risks – and why it’s good for them – http://theconversation.com/five-ways-parents-can-help-their-kids-take-risks-and-why-its-good-for-them-120576

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Julie Lawson, Honorary Associate Professor, Centre for Urban Research, RMIT University

In the year since the Australian government created the National Housing Finance and Investment Corporation (NHFIC), its bond aggregator, AHBA, has raised funds for affordable housing providers, allowing them to refinance loans under better conditions. Its first, A$315 million bond issue was in March. The second A$315 million bond issue this week offers providers 2.07% for ten-year interest-only loans.

The NHFIC has released its first annual report. So what progress has been made? And what could be done better?

Read more: Australia’s social housing policy needs stronger leadership and an investment overhaul

Providers get better loans

Community housing providers are certainly getting finance through the NHFIC on much better terms than their previous short-term bank loans. An example is BlueCHP’s $A70 million ten-year loan.

Borrowers’ terms should improve further as the market for quality, government-guaranteed bonds grows. This has been the experience of Swiss government-backed intermediary EGW. This month, its 62nd bond issue of CHF195 million (A$289 million) had all-in borrowing costs of 0.32% p.a. (only slightly more than the government bond) over 20 years.

Read more: Government guarantee opens investment highway to affordable housing

A good time to invest directly in new housing

To be even more effective the NHFIC needs to go beyond refinancing loans to support long-term investment in building much-needed affordable and green housing. With construction in the doldrums, experts are calling for a second Social Housing Initiative to meet critical housing needs and provide jobs. The first initiative stimulated the construction sector and the wider economy, secured 14,000 skilled jobs and inspired innovative design.

With interest rates for government borrowing near zero, the NHFIC’s impact could be maximised if coupled with long-term public investment – tied to performance targets – as exemplified by Scotland.

Many countries – including Finland, the UK, Austria and France – have long-term programs that bridge the funding gap to make green social housing a reality. Clear guidelines and responsible oversight guide direct equity investment.

AHURI has helped develop the Affordable Housing Assessment Tool to estimate the number and location of dwellings required, as well as the most effective ways of funding affordable housing.

Read more: Australia needs to triple its social housing by 2036. This is the best way to do it

The approach taken by the Housing Finance and Development Centre of Finland is widely considered Europe’s most effective. It’s an “expert partner, developer and moderniser of housing and promotes ecologically sustainable, high-quality and reasonably priced housing”.

Finland has a clear national strategy in response to well-researched market challenges. The Finnish model provides tailored grants and interest rate subsidies and selectively applies a government guarantee to drive long-term investment in affordable housing. This ranges from homelessness prevention, student housing and shared ownership for young starters to affordable home ownership and supported accommodation for the aged.

Not all social landlords qualify

Only registered not-for-profit providers that comply with the National Regulatory System for Community Housing can get a loan through the NHFIC. A review of the system is under way.

In Europe, social bonds are open to providers that satisfy basic criteria: be not-for-profit and for a social purpose, meet local needs, promote social inclusion and apply affordable rent-to-income ratios.

Despite the obvious need in Australia, NHFIC funding excludes public housing, which is also constrained by caps on public investment.

In the UK, public investment has been lifted after decades of constraint. This has generated a flurry of social house building, particularly in Scotland.

Good regulation is vital

Scotland, Finland, Switzerland and Austria are particularly careful to ensure only not-for-profit organisations with a social purpose can use special purpose funds. Australia’s regulatory system also needs to ensure social bonds serve a social purpose. For instance, the Water Bank Affordable Housing Bond has very specific guidelines on the type of provider, rent regime, household eligibility and income allocation.

Most importantly, regulation protects funds from extraction by shareholders – public or private.

Revolving funds are the lifeblood of well-maintained and growing social housing. Operating surpluses (such as savings from NHIFC refinancing or sales of social dwellings) are used for maintaining and renovating housing, or building more of it, as in Scotland and the Netherlands. They also ensure rent increases are manageable for tenants following renovations and improvements, as in Denmark and Austria.

Governments can also revolve public loan repayments to sustain supply programs, as in Austria and Finland. Even in Slovakia, the scene of mass housing privatisation in the 1990s, far-sighted policymakers established a revolving fund to ensure owners and tenants live in the best-maintained former Soviet housing today.

Board expertise matters too

The Hayne Royal Commission stressed the vital role of boards in ensuring the good conduct of their organisations and quality outcomes for stakeholders. In the case of the NHFIC, its board must have a range of relevant skills.

Land development, infrastructure and real estate experts dominate the relatively small NHFIC board. It lacks capabilities in the corporation’s core tasks of banking (credit risk assessment), treasury management, housing policy, not-for-profit regulation and development finance. The term of the only member experienced in social housing expires in 2021.

The boards of similar bodies overseas, such as Switzerland, Ireland and the UK, have capabilities in affordable housing policy, not-for-profit housing provision, public banking and treasury management.

Most boards also include representatives of governments and regulators. Both are missing from the NHFIC board.

Missing pieces of the puzzle

AHURI and the Affordable Housing Working Group have long argued that, beyond efficient financing, social housing requires other key conditions for growth. The working group recommended:

… the Commonwealth and State and Territory governments progress initiatives aimed at closing the funding gap, including through examining the levels of direct subsidy needed for affordable low-income rental housing, along with the use of affordable housing targets, planning mechanisms, tax settings, value-adding contributions from affordable housing providers and innovative developments to create and retain stock.

AHURI research has found the most effective policy levers are pro-social land policy (involving purposeful land banking and regulatory planning), needs-based direct equity investment (nuanced to match needs, land and construction costs), efficient revolving loans and not-for-profit management.

Without these features, the government will miss its own targets and underinvest in this much-needed social infrastructure. Both the precariously housed and productivity growth in the wider economy will suffer.

Read more: Is social housing essential infrastructure? How we think about it does matter

3 recommendations

We suggest the following:

1. Develop key indicators focused on the number of additional affordable dwellings and the discount to market rents achieved across different submarkets. Targets should be derived from a national housing strategy to guide the NHFIC, its corporate plan and the board’s KPIs.

2. Design a nuanced capital investment program to drive construction of green, social housing together with NHFIC loans that deliver more than refinancing.

3. Benchmark NHFIC performance against similar guaranteed bond issues, all-in loan costs and intermediary running costs and governance expertise. This would reassure government and the affordable housing sector about its cost-effectiveness.

The NHFIC is an innovative and promising initiative. It is one bright light in an otherwise bleak policy landscape. It could shine even more brightly when combined with complementary funding and land policies to end homelessness and ensure access to affordable housing for all.

– ref. How 1 bright light in a bleak social housing policy landscape could shine more brightly – http://theconversation.com/how-1-bright-light-in-a-bleak-social-housing-policy-landscape-could-shine-more-brightly-126922

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Richard Holden, Professor of Economics, UNSW

Australia’s system of childcare support is pretty good.

It ensures high-quality care is provided to a large number of children, it is targeted through income-based subsidies, and it is attentive to the needs of disadvantaged children and families.

But it has significant weaknesses.

It is extremely complex, with four different rates of subsidy based on the type of care involved, six different income thresholds plus a sliding scale for how household income affects the subsidy, an annual cap of $10,373 per child for households earning more than $188,163, and an activity test to determine eligibility.

Worse, many families find it hard to get good childcare. Children are added to waiting lists from birth.

Read more: New childcare policy still leaves vulnerable families behind

And, as the Productivity Commission and others have pointed out, the sliding income scale and caps can mean that a parents looking to expand their working hours from 3 days to 4 days a week can face effective marginal tax rates approaching 100%.

This is not a good way to give parents choice about whether to work inside or outside of the home. By restricting (mainly female) choice it restricts the potential size of the workforce.

And that, in turn, contributes to the gender pay gap. On average, women earn only 86% of what men do.

Time out of the workforce is one of the key reasons.

How to do it

This week the New Economic Policy Initiative at the University of NSW launched a report coauthored by Rosalind Dixon, Melissa Vogt and myself entitled (Un)Taxing Childcare .

Our proposal would allow households who want to to continue to use the current arrangements without modification. Household twho wanted to forego the current arrangements could instead receive a tax deduction for childcare expenses of up to A$60,000 per year.

The money could be spent on centre-based childcare, home-based care, or a nanny.

In two-parent households that took advantage of it, each parent would be able to deduct 50% of the cost at their marginal rate up to the limit.

High earners would gain a lot…

Modelling of the plan by Ben Phillips of the Australian National University finds our policy would leave more than 205,000 households better off – one in five households with children. The ability to pick systems means none would be worse off.

The average couple with children would be $618 per year better off. Highest-earning households would benefit the most, with an average benefit for the top fifth of $1,080 per year.

But the benefit for the second bottom fifth would also be high, at $626 per year, adding 1.9% to their disposable incomes.

Objections will include the skew of benefits toward higher earners, an initial hit to budget of $608 million per year, and the possibility that the deduction will allow private providers to push up prices.

…but the economy would gain the most

Against them needs to be set the boost in the size of the potential workforce big enough to make the budget cost pay for itself, and an increase in the options available to parents considering returning to work.

We estimate that if half of all eligible households took up the tax deduction option the economic benefit from additional work would amount to $3.9 billion per year, which is about the output of the entire Australian dairy industry.

Read more: Election FactCheck Q&A: does the government spend more on negative gearing and capital gains tax discounts than on child care or higher education?

The hybrid nature of our proposal means that low earners who stayed on the existing scheme would be no worse off.

But the economy would be more vibrant, skills that have been built up would be retained and enhanced, and the gender pay gap could narrow.

– ref. Vital Signs. Untaxing childcare is a bold idea that seems unfair, but might benefit us all – http://theconversation.com/vital-signs-untaxing-childcare-is-a-bold-idea-that-seems-unfair-but-might-benefit-us-all-127430

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Camilla Nelson, Associate Professor in Media, University of Notre Dame Australia

Mary Ann Evans took the pseudonym “George Eliot” because she wanted to be taken seriously as a writer.

Other female authors – Maria Edgeworth and Jane Austen, for example – had penned work under their own names, but Evans feared that if her identity was discovered her books would be dismissed as “light” and “sentimental”.

Astonishingly, in an age of patriarchy, this was not the case.

Eliot’s reputation has grown steadily in the 200 years since her birth. And her Middlemarch (1871-2) is often claimed to be the greatest novel in the English language.

Eliot’s “incognito” was shattered shortly after her first bestselling novel, Adam Bede, was published in 1859. Critics were left marvelling not only that the author they collectively imagined to be a kindly country clergyman was a woman, but also that she was an atheist living openly with another woman’s husband.

In an age in which few women were educated or owned property, and few middle class women engaged in paid employment, Eliot overcame every obstacle.

She lived a scandalous life by Victorian standards. But she was one of Queen Victoria’s favourite writers.

And in the thousands of words that were to spill across the pages of the literary quarterlies about Eliot’s books, there was far less interest in salacious gossip than in the question of whether she had drawn a picture of the world as it “really” was.

No matter how much these 19th century – mostly male – critics attacked Eliot’s novels for their political and cultural heresies, it was obvious – indeed, astonishing – that they took them seriously as fundamentally important works.

A ‘great, horse-faced bluestocking’

Born in Nuneaton, Warwickshire, England, on November 22, 1819, the third daughter of Robert and Christiana Evans, Eliot was afforded the sort of education not usually granted to women in this period. She was not considered physically attractive, and her father believed this would severely limit her prospects of marriage.

In 1850, Eliot – then calling herself Marian Evans – moved from Coventry to London, determined to become a writer.

Just a few years before, she had published her English translation of David Strauss’s The Life of Jesus, Critically Examined. Notoriously, Strauss argued that the “miracles” of the New Testament were myths and fabrications. The Earl of Shaftesbury promptly castigated Eliot’s translation as “the most pestilential book ever vomited out of the jaws of hell”.

Eliot took up residence in the house of the radical publisher John Chapman, who appointed her assistant editor of the Westminster Review. She was deeply influenced by John Stuart Mill, particularly his groundbreaking essay on gender equality, Subjection of Women.

She sympathised with the 1848 revolutions on the continent. She held great hopes for women’s education. She supported female suffrage.

At this time, Eliot formed a series of attachments to married men, including Chapman and Herbert Spencer, before meeting the critic George Henry Lewes, with whom she shared a committed, life-long relationship.

Lewes was married to Agnes Jervis, with whom he had three children. Unlike other unconventional literary liaisons of the period, Lewes and Eliot did not keep their relationship a secret.

Like so many other men, Lewes was drawn to the luminosity of Eliot’s intelligence. She had an awesome curiosity, an endless appetite for ideas.

Henry James famously characterised her as “magnificently ugly, deliciously hideous”.

And yet in his snarky, entitled way he also marvelled at his reaction to the force of Eliot’s personality. “Behold me, literally in love with this great horse-faced bluestocking!”

Her practical humanism

In 1854, Eliot translated Ludwig Feurerbach’s The Essence of Christianity, in which he declared God to be a figment of the human imagination. Instead, he wanted to think about what he called “species being” – that is, to consider what it means to think from the standpoint of being human, of being part of the wider social fabric.

Feurerbach’s ideas were fundamental in shaping the practical humanism that forms the beating heart of Eliot’s novels.

Eliot’s social consciousness, her vivid critiques of capitalism, are keenly displayed in her 1861 novel about a linen weaver, Silas Marner, and her 1876 masterpiece Daniel Deronda – a sprawling tale about a fatally self-absorbed heroine, Gwendolen Harleth, and the easy, ingrained prejudice of British society against the Jews.

But it is their capaciousness – perhaps – that is the real theme of Eliot’s books. Her novels are held together by elaborate patterns of imagery, threads of gossip, networks of feeling and connection, linking character to character.

Background scenes of the social world are interwoven with the deeper dimensions of private life and even the fabric of human consciousness, so the novelistic structure reflects the fragile, web-like ties that hold society together.

Her characters’ motivations may be ego-satisfying, self-deceiving, or concealed, even from themselves, or all of these at once. And the tangled paradoxes they encounter as they journey through their novelistic worlds force readers to reassess themselves and their perspectives.

Nobody, in short, does honesty or frailty quite like Eliot. If you read her work, and really pay attention, you will likely find out things about yourself you didn’t know, and maybe would rather not.

As Virginia Woolf famously declared of Middlemarch, it is “one of the few English novels written for grown up people”.

Middlemarch – the greatest novel in the English language

Middlemarch was published serially in eight parts at two monthly intervals from December 1871. It went on sale in December 1872 as four volumes for two guineas, selling 8,500 copies. But it was only when the cheap edition went on sale in 1874 that the novel found its real audience, selling another 31,000 copies by 1878.

The story – like those found in all Eliot’s novels – is multifaceted. It revolves mostly around Dorothea Brooke, an heiress who makes a terrible marriage to Edward Casaubon, a dusty clergyman, and the character of Tertius Lydgate, a London-trained doctor who wants to bring modern medicine to the Midlands, but chooses an unsuitable wife.

But the deeper theme of Middlemarch is the moral drama around the interaction between character and social environment that is fundamental to contemporary appreciations of 19th century realism – but was often merely puzzling to Victorian critics.

They loved the scale of the novel’s social panorama, “like a portrait gallery” that has been “photographed from the life”; they even came to see that it had, as the Times put it, a “philosophical power”. But they did not immediately grasp that it was Eliot’s most important book. They bemoaned it was not as “delightful” as Adam Bede, her earlier bucolic tale about – among other things – seduction, infanticide, class and education.

In Middlemarch, Dorothea has money; unlike in Austen, there is no threat of penury hanging over her head. Indeed, there is no need for her to marry at all. And yet she does.

She has freedom, up to a point. But her largeness of soul is circumscribed by narrowness of opportunity. Nor is provincial society entirely to blame. Dorothea yearns to do something; to achieve something; but she knows not what. This is her – and our own – tragedy.

When Dorothea, in all her married misery, is confronted by an extraordinary vision of a suffering human society, we encounter one of the most heartbreakingly beautiful passages in Eliot’s ouevre. She writes,

If we had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel’s heart beat, and we should die of that roar which lies on the other side of silence. As it is, the quickest of us walk about well wadded with stupidity.

This is the anguish that lurks in dark corners of Eliot’s novels – it is the measure of her greatness, and of our struggle to read her.

Dorothea’s quest for a substantial and meaningful life has resonated with the sensibilities of successive generations of feminists. How is she to achieve something? Where should she put her energies? How can she affect the lives of others?

We are all of us “Dorotheas”; all tragically yearning for something. As Virginia Woolf put it, Dorothea and the rest of Eliot’s heroines feel “a demand for something — they scarcely know what — for something that is perhaps incompatible with the facts of human existence.”

– ref. Friday essay: George Eliot 200 years on – a scandalous life, a brilliant mind and a huge literary legacy – http://theconversation.com/friday-essay-george-eliot-200-years-on-a-scandalous-life-a-brilliant-mind-and-a-huge-literary-legacy-127438

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

Scott Morrison’s government is heading to the end of 2019 amid a debate about its economic judgement and with a number of substantial policy moves started but not completed.

Morrison this week delivered to an audience from big business what was described as his most important speech for the rest of the year. He wanted the voters to know the government is not – underscore NOT – panicking about the economy.

Even so, it is putting in a little extra stimulus by fast tracking some infrastructure.

Whether the government should be panicking is the question – we’ll be able to better answer that when the September quarter national accounts are released next month.

Morrison points out that since the election the Coalition has injected an additional $9.5 billion for 2019-20 and 2021-22 – through tax relief, the infrastructure bring-forwards and extra funding, and drought assistance to communities.

This week’s modest infrastructure initiative will amount to little in itself in terms of economic activity – it is a holding message as the government waits to see whether it will have to do more in the near term while firming up plans for its preferred timetable of some action in the budget.

Next week begins the year’s final parliamentary fortnight, with the main attention on the fate of two bills.

The ensuring integrity legislation, to crack down on bad behaviour in the union movement, seemed set to pass the Senate last week. After amendments had been promised to Centre Alliance, the government needed just one extra vote out of the combined three votes of One Nation and Jacqui Lambie.

Read more: Grattan on Friday: Courting ‘quiet Australians’ from ‘bubble central’, it’s been a remarkable first year for Scott Morrison

Lambie had earlier declared she’d support the legislation if maverick construction union official John Setka didn’t quit his post (which he has no intention of doing).

Then Lambie baulked, worried about the danger of some unions being caught on technical breaches. Pauline Hanson’s attention, meanwhile, was on other things. Hanson has now engaged with amendments; the government has done more tweaking; the legislation again seems set to pass.

The other bill in the spotlight would repeal medevac. The government’s determination on this is driven by its desire to look tough (and reverse the humiliation the passage of medevac inflicted on it) rather than by need. Medevac applies only to the dwindling number of people still in Papua New Guinea and Nauru, not to any future arrivals; the people smuggling trade hasn’t restarted.

Lambie is the swing vote on the repeal bill and, for reasons unclear, she has been refusing to disclose her position. The bill is on the Senate notice paper for Wednesday.

Beyond immediate legislation, and despite the conventional commentary about it lacking an “agenda”, the government in fact has set itself quite a lot of work.

Much of it falls under Christian Porter, who as attorney-general and industrial relations minister is one of the busiest people in the Morrison ministry.

The issues he’s dealing with bring fierce battles. As he lamented at the National Press Club on Wednesday: “Every new task I am allotted does seem to inevitably support the observation that rights in practice collide with each other rather than neatly contouring into each other.”

Read more: Grattan on Friday: Jackie Lambie should not horse trade on medevac repeal bill

Religious freedom is an obvious case, as he’s found in consultations with more than 90 different stakeholders. He announced this week the draft bill will be changed so religious groups running hospitals and aged care facilities would be able to discriminate in favour of employing people on faith grounds, in the same way religious schools can.

Originally it had been hoped the legislation would be done and dusted this year, but this proved impossible. Indeed its eventual fate remains in question; the government will engage with Labor to try for a unity ticket.

Also in Porter’s bailiwick is press freedom, which became a hot issue after the raids on the ABC and a News Corp journalist.

A report on some aspects by the parliamentary joint committee on intelligence on security has been delayed until near Christmas. Chairman Andrew Hastie explained the committee is “endeavouring to achieve a bipartisan report, which delivers tangible areas for reform and consideration”.

One crucial area is whistle blower protection. Porter said the government would soon respond to an earlier review of this to ensure “the act is easily and readily understandable to the people who need to use it”.

How much ground the government is willing to give on media freedom is yet to be seen. It would prefer to yield as little as possible; its default position is secrecy. Porter is open to some reforms, including on problems in the freedom of information system and on whistle blowers, but it’s a matter of their degree.

Also still to come is legislation for an integrity commission. This was a reluctant pre-election commitment, essentially forced by the politics.

The body would be heavily circumscribed; as Porter reaffirmed this week, it wouldn’t be able to make “corrupt conduct findings” against politicians or public servants. Rather, in such cases it would investigate and send evidence to the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions.

Porter is also following up Morrison’s concern – which has sparked a sharp reaction – about resource companies being targeted by environmental activists.

As well as all this, Porter is running the government’s industrial relations reform process, which is taking a softly-softly-catchee- monkey approach, gradually moving through specified issues.

Read more: The Coalition’s approach to religious discrimination risks being an inconclusive, wasteful exercise

This week Morrison flagged another priority area – reducing the “administrative clutter” around awards as well as in other parts of the system.

“While the number of awards has reduced, it appears that they have not become simpler – indeed many believe that they have become more complex,” he told his business audience, again exhorting them to make the case for reform (meaning, not to leave the jawboning to him and his colleagues).

In his speech, Morrison gave the government’s plans to deregulate procedures for the approval of major projects a push along, saying environmental approval processes were “overly complex, duplicative and they take too long”.

Simplifying them seems a no brainer. The issue will always be, however, whether that goes further and cuts into proper scrutiny and environmental protections.

Among the initiatives the government has put on its plate since the election is the pursuit of indigenous recognition in the constitution.

Minister for Indigenous Australians Ken Wyatt again asserted this week: “I am committed to delivering constitutional recognition of Indigenous Australians in this term of parliament.” It is a desirable but very ambitious aspiration that will be extremely hard, if not impossible, to land.

In sum, the government will finish 2019 with a cluster of loose ends. The challenges ahead in managing the politics of trying to tie them up should not be under-estimated.

– ref. Grattan on Friday: Scott Morrison will go into 2020 with a challenging cluster of policy loose ends – http://theconversation.com/grattan-on-friday-scott-morrison-will-go-into-2020-with-a-challenging-cluster-of-policy-loose-ends-127527

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Christoff, Associate Professor, School of Geography, University of Melbourne

A new United Nations report shows the world’s major fossil fuel producing countries, including Australia, plan to dig up far more coal, oil and gas than can be burned if the world is to prevent serious harm from climate change.

The report found fossil fuel production in 2030 is on track to be 50% more than is consistent with the 2℃ warming limit agreed under the Paris climate agreement. Production is set to be 120% more than is consistent with holding warming to 1.5℃ – the ambitious end of the Paris goals.

Australia is strongly implicated in these findings. In the same decade we are supposed to be cutting emissions under the Paris goals, our coal production is set to increase by 34%. This trend is undercutting our success in renewables deployment and mitigation elsewhere.

Mind the production gap

The United Nations Environment Program’s Production Gap report, to which I contributed, is the first to assess whether current and projected fossil fuel extraction is consistent with meeting the Paris goals.

It reviewed seven top fossil fuel producers (China, the United States, Russia, India, Australia, Indonesia, and Canada) and three significant producers with strong climate ambitions (Germany, Norway, and the UK).

Read more: Drought and climate change were the kindling, and now the east coast is ablaze

The production gap is largest for coal, of which Australia is the world’s biggest exporter. By 2030, countries plan to produce 150% more coal than is consistent with a 2℃ pathway, and 280% more than is consistent with a 1.5℃ pathway.

The gap is also substantial for oil and gas. Countries are projected to produce 43% more oil and 47% more gas by 2040 than is consistent with a 2℃ pathway.

Keeping bad company

Nine countries, including Australia, are responsible for more than two-thirds of fossil fuel carbon emissions – a calculation based on how much fuel nations extract, regardless of where it is burned.

China is the world’s largest coal producer, accounting for nearly half of global production in 2017. The US produces more oil and gas than any other country and is the second-largest producer of coal.

Australia is the sixth-largest extractor of fossil fuels , the world’s leading exporter of coal, and the second-largest exporter of liquefied natural gas.

Read more: The good, the bad and the ugly: the nations leading and failing on climate action

Prospects for improvement are poor. As countries continue to invest in fossil fuel infrastructure, this “locks in” future coal, oil and gas use.

US oil and gas production are each projected to increase by 30% to 2030, as is Canada’s oil production.

Australia’s coal production is projected to jump by 34%, the report says. Proposed large coal mines and ports, if completed, would represent one of the world’s largest fossil fuel expansions – around 300 megatonnes of extra coal capacity each year.

The expansion is underpinned by a combination of ambitious national plans, government subsidies to producers and other public finance.

In Australia, tax-based fossil fuel subsidies total more than A$12 billion each year. Governments also encourage coal production by fast-tracking approvals, constructing roads and reducing royalty requirements, such as for Adani’s recently approved Carmichael coal mine in the Galilee Basin.

Ongoing global production loads the energy market with cheap fossil fuels – often artificially cheapened by government subsidies. This greatly slows the transition to renewables by distorting markets, locking in investment and deepening community dependency on related employment.

In Australia, this policy failure is driven by deliberate political avoidance of our national responsibilities for the harm caused by our exports. There are good grounds for arguing this breaches our moral and legal obligations under the United Nations climate treaty.

Cutting off supply

So what to do about it? As our report states, governments frequently recognise that simultaneously tackling supply and demand for a product is the best way to limit its use.

For decades, efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions have focused almost solely on decreasing demand for fossil fuels, and their consumption – through energy efficiency, deployment of renewable technologies and carbon pricing – rather than slowing supply.

While the emphasis on demand is important, policies and actions to reduce fossil fuels use have not been sufficient.

It is now essential we address supply, by introducing measures to avoid carbon lock-in, limit financial risks to lenders and governments, promote policy coherence and end government dependency on fossil fuel-related revenues.

Policy options include ending fossil fuel subsidies and taxing production and export. Government can use regulation to limit extraction and set goals to wind it down, while offering support for workers and communities in the transition.

Read more: Australia could fall apart under climate change. But there’s a way to avoid it

Several governments have already restricted fossil fuel production. France, Denmark and New Zealand have partially or totally banned or suspended oil and gas exploration and extraction, and Germany and Spain are phasing out coal mining.

Australia is clearly a major contributor in the world’s fossil fuel supply problem. We must urgently set targets, and take actions, that align our future fossil fuel production with global climate goals.

– ref. New report shows the world is awash with fossil fuels. It’s time to cut off supply – http://theconversation.com/new-report-shows-the-world-is-awash-with-fossil-fuels-its-time-to-cut-off-supply-126605

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Scott Hamilton, Strategic Advisory Panel Member, Australian-German Energy Transition Hub, University of Melbourne

The possibilities presented by hydrogen are the subject of excited discussion across the world – and across Australia’s political divide, notoriously at war over energy policy.

Read more: Hydrogen fuels rockets, but what about power for daily life? We’re getting closer

On Friday Australia’s chief scientist Alan Finkel will present a national strategy on hydrogen to state, territory and federal energy ministers. Finkel is expected to outline a plan that prioritises hydrogen exports as a profitable way to reduce emissions.

It is to be hoped the strategy is aggressive, rather than timid. Ambition is key in lowering the cost of energy. Australia would do better aiming for 200% renewable energy or more.

It’s likely the national strategy will feature demonstration projects to test the feasibility of new technology, reduce costs, and find ways to share the risk of infrastructure investment between government and industry.

There are still a number of barriers. Existing gas pipelines could be used to transport hydrogen to end-users but current laws are prohibitive, mechanisms like “certificates of origin” are required, and there are still key technology issues, particularly the cost of electrolysis.

These issues raise questions of what a major hydrogen economy really looks like. It may prompt suspicions this is just the a latest energy pipe dream. But our research at the Australian-German Energy Transition Hub argues that an ambitious approach is better than a cautious one.

Aggressively pursing hydrogen exports will reduce costs of domestic energy supply and provide a basis for new export industries, such as greens steel, in a carbon constrained world.

Read more: Making Australia a renewable energy exporting superpower

Optimal systems cost less

We used optimisation modelling to examine how a major hydrogen industry might roll out in Australia. We wanted to identify where major plants for electrolysis could be built, asked whether the existing national electricity market should supply the power, and looked at the effect on the cost of the system and, ultimately, energy affordability.

Our results show the locations for future hydrogen infrastructure investment will be mainly determined by their capital costs, the share of wind and solar generation and the capacity of electrolysers to responsively provide energy to the system, and the magnitude of hydrogen production.

Read more: How hydrogen power can help us cut emissions, boost exports, and even drive further between refills

We also identified potential demonstration projects across Australia, such as:

• large-scale production of liquid hydrogen and export from the Pilbara in Western Australia
• hydrogen to support steel manufacturing in South Australia
• injecting hydrogen into the gas networks in Victoria and support industry and electricity generation
• hydrogen to supply transport fuel for major users such as trucks, buses and ferries in New South Wales, and
• hydrogen to produce ammonia at an existing plant in Queensland.

An export-oriented economy

If we assume electrolysers remain expensive, around A$1,800 per kilowatt, and need to run at close to full-load capacity all the time, the result is large hydrogen exporting hubs across the country, built near high quality solar and wind power resources. Ideal locations tend to be remote from the national energy grid, such as in Western Australia and Northern Territory, or at relatively small-scale in South Australia or Tasmania.

There is much debate around the current cost of electrolysis, but consensus holds that economies of scale will substantially reduce these costs – by as much as an order of magnitude. This is akin to the cost reductions we have seen in solar power and batteries.

This infrastructure requires some major investment. However, our modelling shows that if Australia produces 200% of our energy needs by 2050, exporting the surplus, we see major drops in system costs and lower costs of energy for all Australia. If Australia can produce 400 Terrawatt-hours of hydrogen energy for export, modelling results show the average energy cost could be reduced by more than 30%.

The driving factor is our level of ambition. The more we lean into decarbonising our economy with green energy, the further the costs fall. The savings from the integrated and optimised use of electrolysers in a renewable-heavy national electricity market outweigh the cost of building large renewable resources in remote locations.

A large hydrogen export industry could generate both substantial export revenue and substantial benefits to the domestic economy.

To sum up, the picture above shows two possible hydrogen futures for Australia.

In the first, Australia lacks climate actions and electrolyser costs remain high with limited economies of scale, and we export from key remote hubs such as the Pilbara.

Read more: We need a national renewables approach, or some states – like NSW – will miss out

In the other, ambition increases and costs drop, and the hydrogen export industry connects to the national grid, providing both renewable exports and benefits to the grid. This also promotes the use of hydrogen in the domestic market. Australia embraces a true renewable economy and a new chapter of major energy exports begins.

Either way, Australia is primed to become a hydrogen exporting superpower.

– ref. Enough ambition (and hydrogen) could get Australia to 200% renewable energy – http://theconversation.com/enough-ambition-and-hydrogen-could-get-australia-to-200-renewable-energy-127117

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

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this article contains images and names of deceased people.

Review: Linear, Powerhouse Museum, Sydney

The value of Australian First Peoples’ scientific knowledge is now being more widely acknowledged.

New exhibition Linear brings artworks into this conversation about the use and adaptation of this knowledge, the impact of industrial technology and the ways new technology can foster our appreciation of place.

The exhibition features the work of more than 16 Indigenous artists and material from the Powerhouse collection, including David Unaipon’s journal and designs.

Country

The most striking feature of this ambitious and disruptive exhibition is a map of Australia, titled Corpus Australis by artist Ngarinyin Elder David Mowaljarlai. The map is a sensationally transformative view of “country”.

The conventional vision of the nation is often marked by the borders of the states and territories. Another familiar map of country is the Aboriginal map of languages and nation groups with borders of rivers, creeks, grasslands and ranges that rivals any map of Europe.

The idea of a nationwide Aboriginal political identity was forged in part through the 1967 referendum campaign and the land and liberation politics of the 1970s; where red, black and yellow captured the people, land and sky.

Mowaljarlai‘s map depicts our shared nation as a body. The gulf country in the north is the lungs. To the south, the Great Australian Bite is the pubic region and Uluru the bellybutton. The rib cage extends from the west to east.

Corpus Australis represents our country as connected through Indigenous and non-Indigenous sites and the sharing of resources and technology over millennia. This is a profound elevation of country to the fore of political debates and discussions.

Scholar Benedict Anderson explained that the modern nation is “imagined”, yet Mowaljarlai reveals its deep connections and patterns interwoven across vast landscapes.

Old ways, new technology

The work of well known figures flanks the entry to the main exhibition space.

Born in 1872, Unaipon – a celebrated inventor who was Australia’s first published Aboriginal author – appears on our $50 note.

In the exhibition, Unaipon’s work shows how he applied classical knowledge and immense intellectual curiosity to a comparison of the design features that create upward lift for both the boomerang and rotary helicopter blades.

His drawings introduce the viewer to the complexity of Indigenous knowledge: the design of the boomerang, hunting clubs and rituals depicted in bark paintings, and the wap (harpoon) used by activist Murrandoo Yanner whose right to hunt crocodile under Native Title was upheld by the High Court in 1999. Weaving, in the form of three cloaks, stands in for the powerful presence of women welcoming visitors to country.

The works range from photography to weaving, sculpture, digital technology, design and installation art. Artists include Wayne Quilliam, Lorraine Connelly-Northey, Maree Clarke, Mikaela Jade, Nicole Monks, Glenda Nicholls, Lucy Simpson, Bernard Singleton, and Vicki West. They all comment on Indigenous science.

If the map foregrounds the work, the exhibition finds closure in a 17-minute virtual reality film. Collisions by artist and filmmaker Lynette Wallworth, immerses the viewer in the land and pace of Nyarri Nyarri Morgan and the Martu people of the Western Australian desert. The film won the 2017 Emmy Award for Outstanding New Approaches to Documentary.

Wearing Virtual Reality googles, the viewer might be just off Harris Street in Ultimo, but their body sails to the desert country to sit in the back of a Toyota, complete with bumps, muffled sounds and gentle breeze. They can turn around to see the convoy of cars and cloud of red dust that followed behind.

As grass fires ignite, a view from high in the sky shows the mosaic pattern of gentle burning. The fire crackles as it moves along the grass.

On fire

The technology of burning that so shaped this ancient country has returned in some parts of Australia where Aboriginal land has been repossessed. In other parts of the country, fires are raging wild and threaten everything in their path.

Back in the VR world, we sit around the campfire and in front of a big screen that is hitched to the side of the ubiquitous Toyota (bonnet up). We watch footage of the Maralinga bombings. It starts as a mushroom cloud explosion and builds to a fierce storm front that blackens the sky as it races towards us; the bodies of dead kangaroo carcasses hurtle through the air ahead of the blast. All is dead and forlorn. What an unimaginable atrocity to inflict on Martu country.

Read more: Virtual reality film Collisions is part disaster movie, part travelogue and completely immersive

This is a dramatic and engaging exhibition. As Mowaljarlai’s map announces, it provides a new way of seeing this country: as a body and landscape not of separate nations and language groups – although that is true – but a land with shared rituals, customs and technologies.

There has long been a call for all Australians to embrace this ancient country, rather than fight against it. The Indigenous science and technology in Linear offer us new ways of thinking about the past and future of our now shared land.

Linear in showing at the Powerhouse Museum, Sydney until June 30

– ref. Dramatic and engaging, new exhibition Linear celebrates the art in Indigenous science – http://theconversation.com/dramatic-and-engaging-new-exhibition-linear-celebrates-the-art-in-indigenous-science-127023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Helen Dickinson, Professor, Public Service Research, UNSW

National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) Minister Stuart Robert this month announced a number of “practical changes” to the scheme.

Acknowledging the NDIS is not consistently living up to expectations, he said these improvements will put it “onto a business as usual even keel for the long term”.

While the proposed changes have promise, there remain some fundamental challenges plaguing the scheme that these reforms are unlikely to address.

Read more: Here’s what needs to happen to get the NDIS back on track

A scheme under pressure

The NDIS represents a massive policy reform process, so it’s unsurprising it should face teething problems and challenges during implementation.

Official figures show more than 310,000 people now have plans in place, with the scheme intended to reach around 460,000 by full roll out next year. This has all been achieved at significant pace.

Yet in recent months, we’ve seen continued criticism of the scheme and the agency that administers it (the National Disability Insurance Agency, or the NDIA).

Grievances relate to issues including failure to pay service providers enough to cover costs; provider fraud allegations; the inability of people with disability to access services; and the remuneration level of the NDIA’s new CEO.

Added to these are concerning accounts of abuse and neglect beginning to emerge from the disability royal commission.

Delivering the last 20%

Minister Robert described the NDIS as “about 80% there, with 20% left to go”. He acknowledged the last 20% is often the hardest.

The government’s plan for the NDIS focuses on six key aims including quicker access and quality decision making, equitable and consistent decisions and better long-term outcomes for participants.

While critical of the “jargon and gobbledegook” in the recent announcements, consumer groups have welcomed a number of the minister’s plans, identifying these as areas they have been advocating for over the last few years.

Read more: Understanding the NDIS: how does the scheme work and am I eligible for funding?

Some positive changes

Among the promises that should have a positive impact is the announcement people will be able to use their funding more flexibly. Currently funds are locked into particular categories of supports and activities and it’s not easy to move resources between these.

The reality is people’s lives do not fit neatly into administrative categories and the flexibility to use funds differently should make a big difference.

Further, from April next year people will be able to see a draft of their plan before it’s approved. At present most participants see their plan for the first time when they formally receive it after the planning process. Any mistakes made typically require a full review, causing delays in getting services in place and adding to the planning workload.

Participants will also be able to make small changes to their plan without it undergoing a full review, which will be a relief to those who have become mired in endless plan reviews due to changes in their situation.

Soon people will also be able to request longer plan durations, of up to three years. Currently most plans last one year. For people who have relatively stable disability – that is, their health and capacity isn’t getting any worse or any better – this will be a relief. The move also cuts some unnecessary red tape and will reduce planners’ workloads.

But it does require people to have a clear sense of their priorities and needs. It may be detrimental to people whose circumstances are more changeable – they could become locked into a plan that no longer suits their needs.

Read more: Women, rural and disadvantaged Australians may be missing out on care in the NDIS

We will also see the roll out of independent assessments to be paid for by the NDIS. This should have a positive impact as people currently either have to pay for their own assessments or wait for a significant length of time on a public waiting list. In terms of equitable access this is a significant improvement.

Finally, plans will be made accessible in additional formats including large font, audio, e-text and braille. For many outside the system it will come as a surprise this is not standard practice.

The devil is in the detail

There’s no doubt we’ve seen some real improvements in the scheme in recent months. The wait time for children to receive a plan halved over the last quarter (to 48 days). The number of people waiting for assistive technologies (like wheelchairs or communication devices) has reduced by nearly two-thirds. This is good but around 5,000 people are still waiting.

So progress can be made, but these new promises come with little detail about how they will be delivered.

Meanwhile, the system is already creaking at the seams with little spare capacity.

In 2014, a staffing cap was placed on the NDIA, restricting the numbers employed to 3,000, though the government has committed to increasing the cap gradually to 3,400 in 2020-21. Although reducing the number and frequency of full plan reviews will reduce demand for planners, it’s difficult to envision how this will free up sufficient spare capacity to support all these changes.

A number of organisations have also criticised the quality of planners, who often have limited training and experience in disability services. There seems to be little in these announcements to tackle this.

Read more: The NDIS costs are on track, but that doesn’t mean all participants are getting the support they need

It’s also important to note having a plan doesn’t guarantee being able to access services. In many parts of the country we’re seeing significant waiting lists for even the most common supports (for example, occupational therapy).

A new report found nearly one-third of disability providers reported a loss of income in the last financial year and several were concerned for their long term viability. There is an urgent need to address issues of supply within the system before we see even greater gaps emerge.

While these recent promises edge the NDIS in the right direction, the scheme is still facing some fundamental challenges. These will need to be addressed if the NDIS is to live up to the aspirations of those accessing it.

– ref. The NDIS is changing. Here’s what you need to know – and what problems remain – http://theconversation.com/the-ndis-is-changing-heres-what-you-need-to-know-and-what-problems-remain-127223

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anthony Billingsley, Senior Lecturer, School of Social Sciences, UNSW

The small number of Australians being held in prison camps in northern Syria has been an ongoing, albeit low-level, challenge for the Australian government. There are believed to be eight Australian fighters for the Islamic State in captivity, along with around 60 Australian women and children.

Despite its reluctance, the Australian government may eventually feel obliged to bring many or all these people home.

So far, the Australian public seems to have accepted the government’s line that it’s too dangerous to extract them from Syria. As Prime Minister Scott Morrison succinctly put it:

I’m not going to put any Australians in harm’s way.

An increasingly untenable position

The government believes there are valid security concerns in bringing these people back to Australia. Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton has claimed some of the women are “hardcore” and “have the potential and capacity to come back here and cause a mass casualty event”.

Identifying these people, gathering evidence about their crimes and managing domestic fears would be a big challenge.

However, the government’s position on extracting them from Syria has become less tenable after the Turkish invasion of northern Syria in October. This followed US President Donald Trump’s announced withdrawal of the American military buffer in the region.

The invasion added uncertainty to an already fraught situation. The Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces, who were central to the defeat of the Islamic State, were compelled to reinforce their forces on the border with Turkey.

Read more: Western states must repatriate IS fighters and their families before more break free from Syrian camps

Many of their forces have been engaged in controlling prison camps in northern Syria, where about 12,000 men and boys suspected of Islamic State ties, including 2,000 to 4,000 foreigners from almost 50 countries, are held. Some camps also hold about 100,000 Syrian and foreign family members of IS suspects.

The invasion focused attention on the state of the camps, which are overcrowded, unsanitary and experiencing considerable unrest. There have been some escapes from the camps, and many fear they are close to collapse.

The situation increases the possibility that young people in the camps will be radicalised.

Last week, the US government, which has repatriated some of its nationals, offered to help allies, including Australia, rescue their citizens from northern Syria. On the same day, Turkey called on Australia to repatriate its IS fighters and their families in Turkish custody.

Groups like Save the Children and Human Rights Watch have also called for the repatriation of women and children in the prison camps.

In Canberra, shadow home affairs minister Kristina Keneally has also argued Australia has a moral obligation to repatriate the women and children who were taken to Syria against their will.

Barriers to bringing detainees back

While Australia has not joined the Dutch in outright rejecting the US offer, the Morrison government has shown no enthusiasm for the idea.

Its position has been further undermined by the actions of other nations with citizens in the camps. Kosovo, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kazakhstan, for example, have already repatriated hundreds of prisoners.

And Britain is considering options for repatriating its citizens. A government document reported on last month said,

While difficult, the practical challenges in arranging and implementing an extraction (of IS suspects) are likely to have solutions.

Australia, by contrast, has continued to focus on the difficulties of extracting its citizens from the area, rather than tackling the legal challenges associated with bringing them home. Our legislative framework is still not sufficiently robust to deal with returnees.

The government has had many years to figure this out. In 2014, the UN passed a resolution obliging all countries to adopt measures to deal with the issue of foreign fighters.

Read more: Why is it so difficult to prosecute returning fighters?

There are ways to try those suspected of crimes committed in another country. The principle of universal jurisdiction, for example, would allow Australia to interrogate and prosecute those currently held in Syria.

Lower-level suspects who are desperate to escape from Syria could also be required to accept certain conditions, such as restrictions on movement and contacts and participation in re-education programmes. The Australian women in the camp have already indicated they are open to this.

But instead of looking at these options, Australia has endeavoured to keep out returning fighters and their families. Laws have been passed to strip some of their citizenship, running counter to several international conventions, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

And the temporary exclusion orders bill passed in July gives Dutton the power to bar Australian citizens from returning home for up to two years if they are suspected of supporting a terror organisation.

There are few other options

Some governments have suggested that IS captives in Syria should be transferred to Iraq, where trials of suspected IS members have already been held. The problem with this idea is that Iraq’s justice system is deeply flawed and has imposed the death penalty after some highly dubious trials.

For example, France sent some suspects there only for them to be summarily sentenced to be hanged.

Read more: Preventing foreign fighters from returning home could be dangerous to national security

Equally unacceptable would be to allow the Australian prisoners to fall into the hands of the Syrian regime.

In coming months, as conditions in the camps deteriorate and Syrian government forces expand their control of the area, we can expect mounting pressure on governments like Australia’s to repatriate their citizens.

In the long run, these are Australian citizens who should be entitled to the benefits that come from that, including due process of law. It is hard to see how the government can continue to deny their rights.

– ref. Why Australia can no longer avoid responsibility for its citizens held in Syria – http://theconversation.com/why-australia-can-no-longer-avoid-responsibility-for-its-citizens-held-in-syria-127439

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dennis McNevin, Professor of Forensic Genetics, University of Technology Sydney

Designer baby, anyone? A New Jersey startup company, Genomic Prediction, might be able to help you.

Genomic Prediction claims to be able to use DNA testing to predict disease risk in an embryo. The idea is to study hundreds or thousands of small variations in DNA, known as genetic markers, and use sophisticated computer algorithms to correlate these with diseases such as type 1 and type 2 diabetes, breast cancer and “intellectual disability”.

If the company’s recent research is any guide, it may move on to predicting other traits such as height and even educational attainment.

But the connections between genetic variations and differences in real human beings are far from straightforward. And even if we can make these connections, should we?

Lessons from forensics

In my own field, forensic genetics, we have a similar goal: to produce a “molecular photofit” or “DNA mugshot” of the perpetrator of a crime, using DNA left at a crime scene. At first, there was great optimism.

Only six genetic markers were required to predict blue or brown eye colour with reasonable accuracy. However, prediction of intermediate eye colours (green, hazel, light brown) was less accurate. Testing for hair colour soon followed (24 markers) and, most recently, skin colour (41 markers).

Eye, hair and skin colour are all largely controlled by a small number of genes related to the pigment melanin. There are two types of melanin, a dark and a light form, and between them they give rise to the spectrum of eye, hair and skin colours.

Read more: World’s first genetically modified human embryo raises ethical concerns

High doses of the light pigment are found only in individuals with European ancestry, particularly northern European. Prediction systems have really only been developed and tested rigorously on Europeans and North Americans.

This is the case with many large “genome-wide association studies” (GWAS) and data sets, including some of those used by Genomic Prediction. Individuals without European ancestry are poorly represented, and the associations between genetic markers and traits don’t always replicate in populations that don’t have European ancestry.

Slow progress

Since these first few pigmentation prediction systems, progress has been slow in forensic genetics. This is because most traits – even ones that are strongly influenced by genetics – are very “polygenic”, which means they are influenced by many different genes.

For example, height and educational attainment are both highly heritable. But they are under the influence of hundreds, if not thousands, of genetic markers, each with a very small effect on the trait.

Further, the marker variants with the largest influence are generally the rarest ones. For example, the variants with the largest influence on height each account for only one or two centimetres and are present in no more than 0.2% of the population. More common variants each account for height differences of mere millimetres or even less.

Polygenic scores add up all the tiny effects of these multiple marker variants to give an overall prediction. But there are several caveats.

First, they don’t take account of genetic synergies (epistasis). The effects of two (or more) different markers may not add up in any simple way.

Second, they completely ignore environmental effects: the “nurture” part of “nature versus nurture”. For example, although both are highly heritable, height is affected by nutrition, and educational attainment is influenced by educational expectations and parental education. So, really, what is being predicted is the genetic potential for a particular trait.

A practical and ethical minefield

Assuming Genomic Prediction can predict these potentials accurately, will they all be found in one embryo?

Let’s say you want a tall, brown-eyed, high educational achiever with a low risk of breast cancer. The odds of finding all of these potentials in one embryo is very low, like throwing dozens of dice and having them all come up with sixes.

Even if you are lucky with your roll of the genetic dice, are you sure your designer baby will thank you when they grow up? Your idea of the perfect trait might not be theirs. You are, in effect, choosing their DNA without their consent.

Read more: 3-parent IVF could prevent illness in many children (but it’s really more like 2.002-parent IVF)

Are you ready to see a prediction of what your baby might look like as an adult, or a photo-board from which to choose your future offspring? Companies are already offering to produce molecular photofits of unknown donors of crime-scene DNA. It’s not a giant leap to designer babies.

At US$1,000 per case and an additional US$400 per screened embryo for expanded pre-implantation genomic testing (EPGT is Genomic Prediction’s “flagship product”), designer babies will inevitably be more available to wealthier parents. There are valid concerns that this could lead to genetic advantage and disadvantage along socio-economic lines.

Genetic screening is already common practice, especially for chromosomal disorders. Like many others, my own daughter received a nuchal fold thickness assessment as a standard ultrasound screen for Down syndrome.

Screening for genetic risks is just one more step along this continuum. But how many steps should we take? Once we start selecting for “desirable” characteristics, it’s easy to see the moral slope becoming very slippery.

– ref. An American company will test your embryos for genetic defects. But designer babies aren’t here just yet – http://theconversation.com/an-american-company-will-test-your-embryos-for-genetic-defects-but-designer-babies-arent-here-just-yet-126833

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gavin Rowell, Associate Professor in High Energy Astrophyics, University of Adelaide

The brightest fireworks in the universe are called gamma-ray bursts and are created by the death throes of certain kinds of stars. These intense blasts release as much energy in one second as the Sun will over its whole lifetime, but we still don’t understand exactly how they do it.

We are getting closer, however. We recently had the best ever look at the incredibly high-energy gamma rays emitted by these bursts. Gamma rays are like particles of visible light, but each of these high-energy rays carries as much as 100 billion times more energy.

New research published this week in Nature by two teams of scientists from around the world (I am a member of one of them) reveals the gamma rays are more energetic than we knew and that the afterglow of the burst lasts much longer.

What are gamma-ray bursts?

In the late 1960s, secret spy satellites designed to look for gamma-ray flashes from nuclear explosions began to detect mysterious bursts of gamma rays coming from outer space. It was not until the 1990s that scientists began to unravel the mystery with data from new satellites.

We now believe at least some of these gamma-ray bursts are caused by the collapse of super-massive stars. Many stars end their lives in an enormous explosion called a supernova, but very heavy stars can create an even bigger blast called a hypernova.

Read more: Flash, aah-aah! Could a gamma ray burst eradicate all life on Earth?

In this process, the star’s core collapses and becomes a rapidly rotating black hole. The surrounding gas forms a spinning disk around the black hole, which then creates a narrow, intense jet of radiation. If this jet is pointing towards Earth, we can see it as a bright gamma-ray burst, which typically lasts no more than a minute or two.

The very high-energy gamma rays are given off by matter that is accelerated to very close to the speed of light as it whirls around the black hole.

Because the bursts are rare and don’t last long, it can be difficult to get a good look at one with a telescope.

The afterglow

On July 20 2018, gamma-ray and X-ray satellites alerted the world to a new gamma-ray burst, named GRB 180720B. It was a very strong burst and lasted for about 50 seconds – a relatively long duration, indicating the death of a massive star.

Following the alert, several observatories around the world immediately began observing the spot in the sky that the burst came from. About 10 hours later, that spot came into view for the High-Energy Stereoscopic System (HESS) gamma-ray telescopes in Namibia.

Even though 10 hours had passed, HESS was able to observe the afterglow of the burst, which still included extremely energetic gamma rays.

At HESS we have been looking at other gamma-ray bursts in this way for more than a decade. This was the first time it detected gamma rays from the high-energy afterglow at energies never seen before.

While we had anticipated the detection of gamma-ray bursts at these high energies, the discovery that they were still around many hours after the initial burst came as a great surprise.

This result suggests the accelerated particles creating the gamma rays still exist or are created a long time after the explosion, which is hard to explain with our existing theories of what happens in gamma-ray bursts.

Read more: An extragalactic mystery: where do high-energy cosmic rays come from?

Even more energy

Also just published are observations of a different gamma-ray burst (GRB 190114C) made using the Major Atmospheric Gamma Imaging Cherenkov (MAGIC) telescopes in the Canary Islands.

The MAGIC astronomers caught the “prompt” early stages of the burst, detecting gamma rays with even more energy – some of the most energetic ever seen.

These detections show we still have much to learn about gamma-ray bursts. But they also give us confidence that our methods to detect them are improving. We will be able to study plenty more in the future with the much more sensitive Cherenkov Telescope Array, which is now under construction.

– ref. A collapsing star in a distant galaxy fired out some of the most energetic gamma rays ever seen – http://theconversation.com/a-collapsing-star-in-a-distant-galaxy-fired-out-some-of-the-most-energetic-gamma-rays-ever-seen-127114

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter McPhee, Emeritus professor, University of Melbourne

We live in a world of violent challenges to the status quo, from Chile and Iraq to Hong Kong, Catalonia and the Extinction Rebellion. These protests are usually presented in the media simply as expressions of rage at “the system” and are eminently suitable for TV news coverage, where they flash across our screens in 15-second splashes of colour, smoke and sometimes blood.

These are huge rebellions. In Chile, for example, an estimated one million people demonstrated last month. By the next day, 19 people had died, nearly 2,500 had been injured and more than 2,800 arrested.

How might we make sense of these upheavals? Are they revolutionary or just a series of spectacular eruptions of anger? And are they doomed to fail?

Key characteristics of a revolution

As an historian of the French Revolution of 1789-99, I often ponder the similarities between the five great revolutions of the modern world – the English Revolution (1649), American Revolution (1776), French Revolution (1789), Russian Revolution (1917) and Chinese Revolution (1949).

A key question today is whether the rebellions we are currently witnessing are also revolutionary.

A model of revolution drawn from the five great revolutions can tell us much about why they occur and take particular trajectories. The key characteristics are:

• long-term causes and the popularity of a socio-political ideology at odds with the regime in power

• short-term triggers of widespread protest

• moments of violent confrontation the power-holders are unable to contain as sections of the armed forces defect to rebels

• the consolidation of a broad and victorious alliance against the existing regime

• a subsequent fracturing of the revolutionary alliance as competing factions vie for power

• the re-establishment of a new order when a revolutionary leader succeeds in consolidating power.

Why today’s protests are not revolutionary

This model indicates the upheavals in our contemporary world are not revolutionary – or not yet.

The most likely to become revolutionary is in Iraq, where the regime has shown a willingness to kill its own citizens (more than 300 in October alone). This indicates that any concessions to demonstrators will inevitably be regarded as inadequate.

We do not know how the extraordinary rebellion in Hong Kong will end, but it may be very telling there does not seem to have been significant defection from the police or army to the protest movement.

Read more: Is there hope for a Hong Kong revolution?

People grow angry far more often than they rebel. And rebellions rarely become revolutions.

So, we need to distinguish between major revolutions that transform social and political structures, coups by armed elites and common forms of protest over particular issues. An example of this is the massive, violent and ultimately successful protests in Ecuador last month that forced the government to cancel an austerity package.

The protests in Hong Kong and Catalonia fall into yet another category: they have limited aims for political sovereignty rather than more general objectives.

All successful revolutions are characterised by broad alliances at the outset as the deep-seated grievances of a range of social groups coalesce around opposition to the existing regime.

They begin with mass support. For that reason, the Extinction Rebellion will likely only succeed with modest goals of pushing reluctant governments to do more about climate change, rather than its far more ambitious aspirations of

a national Citizen Assembly, populated by ordinary people chosen at random, to come up with a programme for change.

Mass protests also fail when they are unable to create unity around core objectives. The Arab Spring, for instance, held so much promise after blossoming in 2010, but with the possible exception of Tunisia, failed to lead to meaningful change.

Revolutionary alliances collapsed rapidly into civil war (as in Libya) or failed to neutralise the armed forces (as in Egypt and Syria).

Why is there so much anger?

Fundamental to an understanding of the rage so evident today is the “democratic deficit”. This refers to public anger at the way the high-water mark of democratic reform around the globe in the 1990s – accompanied by the siren song of economic globalisation – has had such uneven social outcomes.

One expression of this anger has been the rise of fearful xenophobia expertly captured by populist politicians, most famously in the case of Donald Trump, but including many others from Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil to Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines and Victor Orbán in Hungary.

Read more: The Joker to Guy Fawkes: why protesters around the world are wearing the same masks

Indeed, there are some who claim that western liberalism has now failed).

Elsewhere, the anger is popular rather than populist. In upheavals from Lebanon and Iraq to Zimbabwe and Chile, resentment is particularly focused on the evidence of widespread corruption as elites flout the basic norms of transparency and equity in siphoning government money into their pockets and those of their cronies.

The broader context of today’s upheavals also includes the uneven withdrawal of the US from international engagement, providing new opportunities for two authoritarian superpowers (Russia and China) driven by dreams of new empires.

The United Nations, meanwhile, is floundering in its attempt to provide alternative leadership through a rules-based international system.

The state of the world economy also plays a role. In places where economic growth is stagnant, minor price increases are more than just irritants. They explode into rebellions, such as the recent tax on WhatsApp in Lebanon and the metro fare rise in Chile.

There was already deep-seated anger in both places. Chile, for example, is one of Latin America’s wealthiest countries, but has one of the worst levels of income equality among the 36 nations in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

Rebellions with new characteristics

Of course, we do not know how these protest movements will end. While it is unlikely any of the rebellions will result in revolutionary change, we are witnessing distinctly 21st century upheavals with new characteristics.

One of the most influential approaches to understanding the long-term history and nature of protest and insurrection has come from the American sociologist Charles Tilly.

Read more: Animal rights activists in Melbourne: green-collar criminals or civil ‘disobedients’?

Tilly’s studies of European history have identified two key characteristics.

First, forms of protest change across time as a function of wider changes in economic and political structures. The food riots of pre-industrial society, for instance, gave way to the strikes and political demonstrations of the modern world.

And today, the transnational reach of Extinction Rebellion is symptomatic of a new global age. There are also new protest tactics emerging, such as the flashmobs and Lennon walls in Hong Kong.

Tilly’s second theory was that collective protest, both peaceful and violent, is endemic rather than confined to years of spectacular revolutionary upheaval, such as 1789 or 1917. It is a continuing expression of conflict between “contenders” for power, including the state. It is part of the historical fabric of all societies.

Even in a stable and prosperous country like Australia in 2019, there is a deep cynicism around a commitment to the common good. This has been created by a lack of clear leadership on climate change and energy policy, self-serving corporate governance and fortress politics.

All this suggests that Prime Minister Scott Morrison is not only whistling in the wind if he thinks that he can dictate the nature of and even reduce protest in contemporary Australia – he is also ignorant of its history.

– ref. We live in a world of upheaval. So why aren’t today’s protests leading to revolutions? – http://theconversation.com/we-live-in-a-world-of-upheaval-so-why-arent-todays-protests-leading-to-revolutions-126505

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nicole Sadler, Associate Professor, Department of Psychiatry, University of Melbourne

A career in the Australian Defence Force (ADF), or the armed forces in any country, can be rewarding, but also demanding. Challenges include the rigorous training, frequent moves, and maintaining social connections.

Beyond this, military personnel may be exposed to trauma during combat, peace-keeping missions, border protection, disaster and humanitarian relief, and training accidents.

They may be confronted not only with threats to their own lives or safety, but also with the suffering or death of others, which can have a significant emotional and psychological impact.

So it’s not surprising we see higher rates of mental illness among veterans compared to the overall Australian population.

The rates of suicide are also concerning, particularly among younger veterans. Between 2001 and 2016, 373 Australian veterans took their lives. Male veterans under 30 had a suicide rate more than twice the national average for men the same age. These figures have led to considerable community concern, including calls for a royal commission into veteran suicide.

Whether or not this eventuates, we should be targeting veterans with a high level of care that better reflects their unique set of needs.

Transitioning back into civilian life

Recent research has highlighted one of the most challenging periods for military personnel can be transitioning back to civilian life.

Major lifestyle changes can be stressful for anyone, but leaving the ADF can feel like more than leaving a job. It will likely represent a change in a person’s way of life across the board.

While many transitioning personnel may initially experience some uncertainty and a sense of losing some part of themselves, most make the adjustment successfully. For others, the problems may not go away and for some, may become worse, unless they receive help.

Read more: From shell shock to PTSD: proof of war’s traumatic history

A comprehensive study commissioned by the Departments of Veterans’ Affairs (DVA) and Defence in 2015 found ADF members who had discharged or transitioned to the Reserves were at greater risk of experiencing mental health issues compared to both those who were still serving and the broader Australian community.

For example, in the previous 12 months, 17.7% of transitioned ADF personnel had experienced post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) compared to 8.7% still serving in the ADF full-time, and 5.2% in the Australian community.

Other common mental health conditions in transitioned ADF personnel include depression (11.2%), and anxiety disorders such as panic disorder (5.4%), agoraphobia (11.9%) and social phobia (11%), all estimated to be higher than rates in the general population.

Rates of suicidality (thinking about, planning or attempting suicide) were more than double for those who had transitioned out of full-time ADF service compared to those still serving in the ADF full-time (21.7% versus 8.8%), and ten times greater than the Australian community.

Read more: Mindfulness therapy alleviates soldiers’ PTSD, but only in the short term

Seeking and receiving help

About 75% of veterans who reported they had mental health concerns in the DVA study had sought and received assistance at some point from a GP or mental health professional. These rates are much higher than in the general community and auger well for the preparedness of veterans to seek care.

However, as is the case in the Australian community and internationally, there is an under-engagement with evidence-based treatment and practice. Only about 25% of help-seeking veterans were estimated to be receiving evidence-based care, such as cognitive behavioural therapy. This may be because veterans don’t stay engaged in health services for long enough to receive evidence-based treatments.

So while the help-seeking and care delivery for veterans is on par with, and in some ways exceeds, that of the general community, there’s room for improvement to ensure veterans remain engaged with services and receive the treatment they need.

What could we be doing better?

Coming from a health system in the armed forces where health care is organised for them, veterans may have heightened expectations about the level of coordinated and integrated practice.

So first, we need improved integration and coordination of services, including development of outreach capabilities which more proactively engage with veterans and their families and connect them to appropriate services. Outreach can be led by health professionals or intersect with existing peer support networks.

Second, we need to enhance the knowledge and skills among health professionals in the various services to which veterans are reaching out. Importantly, services and treatments should be delivered with appropriate “military cultural awareness”.

This means practitioners demonstrating they understand the types of experiences veterans may have been exposed to, and the potential lasting impacts of these experiences. Veterans are likely to be more engaged in services if they feel well understood.

Read more: Why some veterans feel alienated on campus and how universities can help

Parallel to this, we need to be aware of the needs of, and actively support, the families who often bear the brunt of the mental health problems experienced by the veterans. Open Arms – Veterans & Families Counselling, a free national counselling service, plays a large role in provision of this support.

Ultimately we need to continue to focus on innovations in the prevention of and early interventions for mental health problems among veterans, including suicidality. In doing so we must maintain a focus on well-being outcomes more broadly and not just on symptoms and conditions, ensuring our goal remains assisting veterans in living a meaningful and satisfying life in all its domains.

If this article has raised issues for you or you’re concerned about someone you know, call Open Arms on 1800 011 046 or Lifeline on 13 11 14.

– ref. Veterans have poorer mental health than Australians overall. We could be serving them better – http://theconversation.com/veterans-have-poorer-mental-health-than-australians-overall-we-could-be-serving-them-better-119525

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Aniko Blanka Toth, Postdoctoral Fellow, Macquarie University

As the world grapples with an extinction crisis, our large mammals are among the most endangered. These threatened species – rhinos, pandas, tigers, polar bears and the like – greatly influence their ecosystems. So what will happen to the smaller animals left behind?

Clues from a past megafaunal extinction could give us the answer. Thousands of years ago, many large mammals went extinct including mammoths, saber-toothed cats and Australia’s giant wombat. The extinctions happened at different times, shortly after human colonisation on each continent.

A study I led, published in the journal Science, has found after the megafauna disappeared, many surviving mammal species went their separate ways. This weakened connections between species and may have made ecosystems more vulnerable.

As human activity drives modern megafauna towards extinction, our study gives valuable insights into the potential repercussions for smaller survivors.

Surprise results

Our team analysed the fossil records of 93 mammal species at hundreds of sites in North America, dating back up to 21,000 years, before the extinctions began.

We then determined the extent to which a particular species lived alongside others at each site. We found that after the extinction of large mammals, smaller mammals often distanced themselves from neighbouring species and were found together much less often than expected.

Surprisingly, this separation occurred while many survivors were claiming new habitats after the extinctions – which meant the potential space for co-habitation had actually aincreased.

The below diagrams show how animal species may have lived alongside each other before and after the megafauna extinctions. In the first, two species occupied the same area while co-habiting (orange sites). In the second, animals occupied the same area but were more segregated (red and yellow sites).

Such segregation suggests a change in interactions between species after the extinction event. Survivors may have rapidly become more abundant as large mammals disappeared, causing more competitive interactions. This could have prompted them to exclude each another from individual sites.

Our analysis suggests the repercussions of megafauna extinctions are still being felt today – leading to species increasingly segregated across continents, and interacting more opportunistically.

Hover over an animal silhouette to learn more about it. Notice the size difference between the largest North American fauna 12,000 years ago and today

Animals need each other

Connections between species large and small are the lifeblood of a functioning ecosystem, making it stable and resilient. Today’s large mammals are comparatively smaller than the megafauna of the last ice age. However, they still play a vital role in shaping ecosystems.

Just like in the past, modern large mammals may carry out pest control, aid seed dispersal and spread nutrients (by walking long distances and pooping out digested vegetation). This benefits humans and other species.

Read more: Why we need to protect the extinct woolly mammoth

Some large animals also shape and create homes for others. For example, elephants in Africa push over trees to create open grasslands, much like their Pleistocene-era cousin, the Columbian mammoth. This enables other species adapted to grasslands, such as gazelles and zebras, to share the habitat.

If elephants became extinct and no longer pushed over trees, grasslands would change and remaining animals may die or move away. In this way, the loss of interactions may make the ecosystem less stable and more vulnerable.

And animal extinctions have a snowball effect when it comes to species interactions. If half the species in a community go extinct, at least three quarters of the possible interactions in the system die with them.

Lessons for Australian conservation

Although our study was restricted to North America, its findings have the potential to inform conservation efforts in Australia and shine a light into the past.

Australia’s fossil record and historical accounts document many species of large mammals which have become extinct. For example, more than 40,000 years ago humans wiped out large carnivores such as the marsupial lion and more recently, the Tasmanian tiger.

People also introduced invasive medium-sized carnivores such as foxes and feral cats, the spread of which went unchecked for years. This devastated the unique and diverse suite of smaller Australian marsupials.

Read more: An end to endings: how to stop more Australian species going extinct

Today, the extermination of feral cats is a major conservation problem in Australia. Had the marsupial lion still been around, feral cats may have been killed and marginalised by these larger animals, slowing their spread.

When planning animal conservation and management, it may be just as important to protect interactions as it is to save individual species. When introducing or eliminating species as part of environmental initiatives, it’s crucial to consider all possible interactions we are adding, as well as those we are taking away.

– ref. Extinction of ice age giants likely drove surviving animals apart – http://theconversation.com/extinction-of-ice-age-giants-likely-drove-surviving-animals-apart-125132

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Benjamin Nickl, Lecturer in International Comparative Literature and Translation Studies, University of Sydney

In September, the Fair Work commission rejected an unfair dismissal claim by a BP worker who made a Downfall video meme about his boss. Fair Work called it “inappropriate and offensive”.

Last week, the worker appealed Fair Work’s decision, saying the commission did not understand “the broader genre of Downfall video”.

Downfall video memes are online parodies of a bunker scene from a 2004 German film where a furious Hitler learns that his generals have let him down and the war is lost. Hitler loses it. He calls his soldiers “cowards, traitors and failures”, his veins popping with rage and spittle flying.

In the 15 years since the film’s release, the scene has taken on a life of its own. Downfall memes show “Hitler” raging about everything from cancelled exams to Twitter outages to election results, thanks to doctored subtitles.

In a robust online video culture that always hungers for the next Star Wars Kid how did an angry Hitler and this scene go viral – and stay viral – for so long?

The bunker

The original Downfall (2004; Der Untergang in German) is a historical war film about Hitler’s final days, directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel.

When it was released, a good number of German film critics and reviewers thought the humanising of Hitler’s sieg-heiling rants in a bunker filled with SS rank-and-file goons was tasteless.

Some dismissed the bunker scene in particular as unnecessary in a film premiering 60 years after WWII ended. After all, they said: we already knew Hitler was a madman and that humans can be monsters.

This is where the internet went to work. A legion of keyboard warriors around the globe lifted the scene from the original film at the time studios and film festivals were using it widely to promote Downfall.

The parodies – and our reactions – show what happens when cultural items move from one context to another. It’s a tricky leap when it comes to a figure like Hitler. When you add the move from drama to comedy , it gets a whole lot trickier.

Read more: Explainer: what are memes?

Generation phenomenon

Creative minds adapted Hitler’s German outrage. They copied and pasted, cut and inserted, and most importantly, they re-subtitled.

This readaptation is what makes video memes such a generative phenomenon.

A YouTube search for “Hitler Finds Out” or “Hitler Reacts To” yields thousands of videos. You’ll see how Hitler freaks out over global warming. He erupts when he hears about Donald Trump’s presidential bid and complains about the popularity of Pokemon Go. In one favourite he expresses fury that Christians are sending solar-powered bibles to Haiti.

The Downfall video meme has turned into a productive avenue for sociocultural commentary in each country and language it appears in, whether Chinese, Japanese or Spanish. Mostly, it gives voice to youth trends and blue-collar issues such as industrial action.

In the Fair Work unfair dismissal case, the scene was the medium via which an employee and his wife vented about his BP bosses during a drawn-out pay dispute.

Some international versions have packed political bite. One Malaysian parody refers to Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, who served as the Malaysian prime minister from 2003-2009. It has Hitler question Badawi’s turn to martial law and suppression of press freedom.

All this goes straight to the heart of the genre of Downfall video memes. Some are highly political while the vast majority turn on regional events, local slang and very limited in-group jokes. Taken together, they make a larger point about pop culture fads and stick-it-to-the-man sentiments.

A meme that stuck

Some might argue that because the Downfall video memes appropriate a representation of a filmmaker’s Hitler instead of authentic archival footage, it’s acceptable to reuse the scene for comedy.

Others feel it is highly problematic to hide the real Nazi monster who orchestrated the systematic death of millions under layers of pixels and captions for laughs.

We need to have more conversations about what happens when cultures get adapted and sensitive topics in a nation’s history go viral.

The Downfall parodies have maintained cultural relevance for more than a decade, enduring far longer than most fleeting memes like Hey Girl or Dog Shaming posts. This is because they have become a fill-in form of sorts – an empty vessel for rageful rants. One may also argue that the original film was a dark-humoured parody of Hitler to begin with.

Lawyers for the sacked BP worker are not just arguing his bosses didn’t get the joke. They are saying Downfall memes do more than simply equate someone with Hitler. Rather, they connect to the hundreds of memes which came before to poke fun at something or to vent.

Whether it was appropriate for him to share the joke with colleagues will be up to the full bench that hears his appeal.

The original film’s director approves of the meme by the way. Hirschbiegel said in a 2010 interview:

I think I’ve seen about 145 of them! Of course, I have to put the sound down when I watch. Many times the lines are so funny, I laugh out loud, and I’m laughing about the scene that I staged myself! You couldn’t get a better compliment as a director.

– ref. How Hitler memes made their way around the world and into the Fair Work Commission courtroom – http://theconversation.com/how-hitler-memes-made-their-way-around-the-world-and-into-the-fair-work-commission-courtroom-127314

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Melbourne

Two and a half months before the February 3 Iowa Democratic caucus, the highly regarded Selzer poll for CNN and the Des Moines Register gave Pete Buttigieg 25% in Iowa (up a huge 16 points since the mid-September Selzer poll).

Elizabeth Warren was second with 16% (down six), followed by Joe Biden at 15% (down five), Bernie Sanders at 15% (up four) and Amy Klobuchar at 6% (up three). No other candidate received more than 3%.

The proposed candidacy of former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg was not well received. He had just 2% support, and his favourable ratings among Democratic likely caucus attendees were 58% unfavourable, 19% favourable. Democrats are very unlikely to back a billionaire.

I believe Buttigieg’s relative youth (he’s only 37) is an asset, compared with Warren, who will be 71 by the November 2020 general election. Donald Trump will be 74 then, Biden almost 78 and Sanders 79.

Read more: US Democratic presidential primaries: Biden leading, followed by Sanders, Warren, Harris; and will Trump be beaten?

Over the last few months, Buttigieg has put many resources into Iowa, allowing him to take advantage of Warren’s stumbles over Medicare for All. He has taken votes from Biden with an appeal to more moderate voters.

However, there is a catch for Buttigieg. The two earliest states to vote in the Democratic contest, Iowa and New Hampshire (February 11), are almost all white. The overall Democratic primary electorate is far more diverse. Black voters made up 61% of the 2016 South Carolina Democratic primary electorate.

Read more: Warren placed second after Biden, as Trump’s ratings rise. But could the impeachment scandal make a difference?

The latest Quinnipiac poll of South Carolina (February 29) gave Buttigieg less than 1% among black voters. Buttigieg’s net favourable rating was +6 with black voters compared to +36 with white voters.

Buttigieg’s problems with black voters may be caused by him being gay. While blacks vote overwhelmingly Democrat at general elections, this is attributable to the Republicans’ perceived racism, and black Democrats are far more socially conservative than other Democrats, as this chart from analyst Nate Silver shows.

The question is, if Buttigieg wins Iowa, will his ratings with black voters improve? As far as winning Iowa goes, there are still two and a half months to go, and Buttigieg’s surge could deflate.

Biden continues to lead in national Democratic polls

In the RealClearPolitics average of national Democratic polls, Biden has 27.0%, Warren 20.3%, Sanders 18.8%, Buttigieg 8.3% and Kamala Harris 4.8%. Nobody else has more than 3% support. Since my previous US politics article last fortnight, Biden is down slightly and Sanders and Buttigieg up.

Read more: Trump could win again despite losing popular vote, as Biden retakes lead in Democratic polls

In the average of the five most recent Iowa polls, Buttigieg has 21.0%, Warren 18.8%, Biden 17.6% and Sanders 17.2%. In New Hampshire, Warren leads with 20.0%, followed by Biden at 18.0%, Buttigieg 16.5% and Sanders 16.0%. However, the most recent New Hampshire poll gave Buttigieg 25%, and a ten-point lead over both Warren and Biden.

In Nevada (February 22), Biden had 29.0%, Warren 20.0%, Sanders 19.8% and Buttigieg just 7.3%. Biden maintained a 19-point lead over Warren in South Carolina.

The next Democratic presidential debate is Thursday (in Australia); this debate will feature ten candidates. Six candidates have qualified so far for the December 19 debate, which has higher thresholds.

Democrats win four of five highest offices at US state elections

Most US state elections are held concurrently with federal elections, but there were elections this November in New Jersey, Virginia, Mississippi and Kentucky (all on November 5) and Louisiana (November 16). Virginia and New Jersey held legislative elections, while Mississippi, Kentucky and Louisiana held gubernatorial elections.

At the November 5 elections, Democrats gained the Kentucky governorship by a 49.2-48.8 margin. Kentucky is a very white, rural state that voted for Trump in 2016 by 30 points. Republicans held the Mississippi governorship by a 52.1-46.6 margin (Trump by 18 in 2016).

In Virginia (Hillary Clinton by five), Democrats gained control of both chambers of the state legislature, the House by 55-45 and the Senate by 21-19. Democrats easily held the New Jersey legislature (Clinton by 14). Also of note: a New York City referendum introduced Australian-style preferential voting by 73.5-26.5.

At the November 16 Louisiana state election (Trump by 20), the Democrats held the governorship by a 51.3-48.7 margin.

Thus, Democrats won the highest office in four of five state elections this November, including in two states – Kentucky and Louisiana – that voted for Trump by landslide margins in 2016. A year before the presidential general election, Democrats performed strongly in these state elections.

Trump’s ratings and general election polls

In the FiveThirtyEight aggregate, Trump’s ratings with all polls are currently 41.3% approve, 54.0% disapprove, a net approval of -12.7%, up 0.5% since last fortnight. With polls of registered or likely voters, Trump’s ratings are 42.6% approve, 53.6% disapprove, a net approval of -11.0%, up 1.2% since last fortnight.

In the FiveThirtyEight impeachment tracker, 46.8% support removing Trump from office and 45.2% are opposed (47.5-45.7 support last fortnight).

RealClearPolitics has no new national general election polls since my last update. Trump trails Biden by 10.2%, Warren by 7.3%, Sanders by 7.9% and Buttigieg by 4.5%. Buttigieg currently has far lower name recognition than the other leading Democrats, and is likely to improve his head-to-head polling against Trump if he makes a positive impression.

UK and Spanish elections

In Tuesday’s Poll Bludger article, I wrote that the Conservatives have extended their large lead, and are likely to win a landslide at the December 12 UK election.

I believe the Conservatives are being assisted by voter fatigue with the politics of the current hung parliament. This could also apply to the US: if the Democrats nominate a candidate who is not seen as extreme, they could benefit from fatigue with Trump’s Twitter behaviour.

On November 12, I covered the results of the second 2019 Spanish election for The Poll Bludger. The combined left parties won 158 of the 350 lower house seats, to 150 for the combined right, with the other 42 seats going to mostly leftist regional parties. On November 12, a tentative agreement was reached between the two largest left parties.

Australian Newspoll: 50-50 tie

In the latest Australian Newspoll, conducted November 7-10 from a sample of 1,680, there was a 50-50 tie between the major parties, a one-point gain for Labor since late October. Primary votes were 40% Coalition (down two), 35% Labor (up two), 12% Greens (down one) and 7% One Nation (up one).

Scott Morrison’s net approval was up one point to +3. Anthony Albanese had a huge 12-point jump in net approval to +5. Morrison led by 46-32 as better PM (47-32 previously). Figures from The Poll Bludger.

An Essential poll, also conducted November 7-10, failed to match Newspoll’s exuberance on Albanese’s ratings. Albanese’s net approval in Essential fell eight points from October to +3, while Morrison was also down five points to +4.

– ref. Buttigieg surges to clear lead in Iowa poll, as Democrats win four of five US state elections – http://theconversation.com/buttigieg-surges-to-clear-lead-in-iowa-poll-as-democrats-win-four-of-five-us-state-elections-127210

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Danielle Every, Senior Research Fellow in social vulnerability and disasters, CQUniversity Australia

If you live in a bushfire-prone area, you’ll likely have considered what you will do in the event of a bushfire.

The decision, which should be made well in advance of bushfire season, is whether to stay and actively defend a well-prepared property or to leave the area while it’s safe to do so.

The emphasis in bushfire safety is on leaving early. This is the safest option.

In “catastrophic” fire conditions, the message from NSW Rural Fire Service is that for your survival, leaving early is the only option.

Read more: How a bushfire can destroy a home

In other fire conditions, staying and defending requires accurately assessing the safety of your house and the surrounding environment, preparing your property in line with current best practice and understanding fire conditions.

It also requires a realistic assessment of not just your personal physical capacity to stay and defend but also your psychological capacity.

Why do people stay and defend?

Our survey of people who experienced the 2017 NSW bushfires asked what they would do next summer if there were catastrophic conditions. Some 27% would get ready to stay and defend, and 24% said they would wait to see if there was a fire before deciding whether to stay and defend or leave.

Animal ownership, a lack of insurance, and valuable assets such as agricultural sheds and equipment, are motivators for decisions to stay and defend.

Read more: How we plan for animals in emergencies

If animal owners aren’t home they will often return to their properties when bushfire warnings are issued, contrary to official advice, to retrieve or protect their animals and physical assets.

Although these decisions are understandable they can also lead people who aren’t physically or psychologically suited to staying and defending to do so.

What if you’re not psychologically up to it?

The reality is that a bushfire is a threatening, high-risk situation. It’s hard to see, hard to breathe, noisy and hot.

These conditions can overwhelm our ability to think clearly and act calmly. People in the Sampson Flat Fire in South Australia in 2015, for example, experienced high levels of stress which caused them to:

• change their plan at the last minute, including leaving late which is the most dangerous response to a fire
• drive unsafely, especially speeding
• forget to take important items (such as medication)
• leave their animals behind
• engage in unrelated tasks that took up precious time
• ignore the threat (by going to sleep, for example).

This is one person’s account of how they responded as the fire approached:

[I] grabbed my son […] saw the smoke and […] went and got the boxes that I’d prepared which I packed when he was a baby. So I had stupid things in the boxes, like baby outfits. But I can’t freak him out […]

[I]n the back of my mind I’m thinking about what do I need to do […] I’ve quarter a tank of diesel, I’d better go get diesel. I also had a back seat full of books that I’d been tidying up [from] his room, so I thought op shop, better do that because I’ll clear the back seat. […]

Came in the house like a mad woman screaming for cats, nowhere in sight. I’ve got four cats and not one of them [is there]. Grabbed a bag and then started putting stupid amounts of clothes in like 20 pair of socks, and then basically I threw the dog in the car. […] So flat panic.

Read more: Bushfires can make kids scared and anxious: here are 5 steps to help them cope

What’s going on with our thinking?

The spectrum of actions from frenzy and flight to freezing reflects the model of “affective tolerance”. When stress exceeds what we can tolerate, we can become hyper-aroused and may have racing thoughts and act impulsively.

Or we may experience hypo-arousal, where we shut down and feel numb and passive.

Our brains consist of three basic parts: the brain stem, limbic system and cortex. These are sometimes described as the primitive, emotional and thinking brains.

In most situations, our thinking brain mediates physical responses to the world around us.

But under high amounts of stress, this connecting loop between the more reactive emotional and physical parts of our brain and our thinking cortex becomes separated. University of California, Los Angeles, professor of psychiatry Dan Siegel describes this as flipping our lid.

Flipping our lid is an automatic response and, from an evolutionary perspective, it’s a highly useful one – we don’t have time to think about whether or not to run when our lives are threatened.

But in a bushfire, these automatic responses are often not the best way to respond and can prompt us to make unsafe decisions.

To survive a bushfire, we need to make complex and often highly emotional decisions in rapidly changing conditions.

How do you control the fear?

In an analysis of 33 people who survived extreme conditions in the Black Saturday bushfires, researchers tentatively concluded that the major contributor to their survival was their ability to maintain their mental focus. They could control their fear and keep their attention on the threat and how to respond.

In order to stay and defend safely, it’s vital to have the skills to re-connect the loop between the thinking and the automatic and feeling parts of the brain.

The AIM model, based on stress inoculation theory, suggests preparing before bushfire by anticipating, identifying and developing strategies for coping with stress:

• anticipate: know how the brain and body responds in an emergency (and that these are normal)

• identify: be aware that this response is occurring (what is happening in your mind/body that tells you that you are acting from the “basement brain”)

• manage: have practised strategies for switching mindsets and re-establishing the brain loop.

A large Australian study shows people who are better psychologically prepared for a bushfire:

• have accessed information on what it means to be mentally prepared
• have previous experience of bushfires
• are mindful (have the ability to stay present)
• use an active coping style such as the AIM model (anticipate, identify, manage)
• have low levels of stress and depression.

Currently, the most accessible resource on developing mental preparedness is the Australian Red Cross RediPlan guide which includes preparing your mind based on the AIM (anticipate, identify, manage) model.

Read more: Our land is burning, and western science does not have all the answers

– ref. It’s hard to breathe and you can’t think clearly – if you defend your home against a bushfire, be mentally prepared – http://theconversation.com/its-hard-to-breathe-and-you-cant-think-clearly-if-you-defend-your-home-against-a-bushfire-be-mentally-prepared-127019

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Giovanni Di Virgilio, Research associate, UNSW

Temperatures across many regions of Australia are set to exceed 40℃ this week, including heatwaves forecast throughout parts of eastern Australia, raising the spectre of more devastating bushfires.

We have already heard warnings this fire season of the possibility of firestorms, created when extreme fires in the right conditions form their own weather systems.

Read more: Firestorms and flaming tornadoes: how bushfires create their own ferocious weather systems

Firestorms are the common term for pyrocumulonimbus bushfires – fires so intense they create their own thunderstorms, extreme winds, black hail, and lightning.

While they are very rare, our research published earlier this year, found climate change is making it likely they will become more common in parts of southeast Australia.

We also identified certain regions in southern and eastern Australia, including near Melbourne’s fringe, that in the second half of this century will be far more vulnerable to these events than others.

How firestorms happen

The 2003 Canberra bushfires, devastating on a grand scale, saw a Canberra resident film a fire tornado for the first time ever. Six years later, the ferocious Black Saturday bushfires in Victoria created three separate pyrocumulonimbus events.

More recently, fire storms devastated California in November 2018.

Pyrocumulonimbus events begin with the intense heat of a very big and fast-burning wildfire, which causes a large and rapidly rising smoke plume. As the plume rises, low atmospheric pressure causes it to expand and cool. Moisture can condense into a type of cloud known as a pyrocumulus – not pyrocumulonimbus, yet. This type of cloud can be common in large fires.

However, with the right environmental conditions the plume goes much higher and pyrocumulonimbus clouds can form, towering up to 15km in some cases. As it rises, the plume cools, and the upper part of the clouds form ice particles that collide and can produce lightning.

These thunderstorms can create erratic and dangerously strong wind gusts. These can drive blizzards of embers that ignite spot fires beyond the fire font.

Lightning from the plume can start new fires, well ahead of the main fire. In one case, lightning generated in a pyrocumulonimbus cloud has been recorded starting new fires up to 100km ahead of the main fire.

How climate change makes firestorms more likely

One of the key elements to a firestorm forming is the precondition of the atmosphere above it. We wanted to investigate how a changing climate might affect the likelihood of firestorms happening.

Previous research has found there is more dynamic interaction between a large fire and the atmosphere when the air about 1.5km above the surface is relatively dry, and when there are larger temperature differences across increasing altitudes.

The larger the temperature difference, the more unstable the atmosphere may become. When higher altitudes get cold more quickly than normal, and are also very dry at low levels, it can become more likely that a pyrocumulonimbus event will develop during a large fire.

We used high-resolution climate modelling of projected lower atmospheric instability and dryness conditions to assess the risk of pyrocumulonimbus in southeastern Australia between 2060 and 2079, compared with 1990-2009. We then overlaid this information with the forest fire danger index to identify particularly dangerous fire days.

We were then able to identify how often dangerous fire weather days occurred at the same time as a dry and unstable atmosphere. Verifying our models against past observations, we then examined how often these two characteristics coincided in the future under climate change, should our greenhouse gas emissions remain on their current trajectory.

The results were startling. From 2060 onwards, we saw sharp increases in dangerous fire days across southeast Australia that coincided with atmospheric conditions primed to generate firestorms.

These extremely dangerous days also shifted across seasons, starting to appear in late spring, whereas historically Australian pyrocumulonimbus wildfires have typically been summer phenomena.

Across large areas of Victoria and South Australia, on average, we saw four or five more days every spring that were conducive to pyrocumulonimbus events.

Read more: A surprising answer to a hot question: controlled burns often fail to slow a bushfire

These were sobering findings, even in a land of extremes like Australia. Our research suggests human-caused climate change has already resulted in more dangerous weather conditions for bushfires in recent decades for many regions of Australia. These trends are very likely to increase due to rising greenhouse gas emissions.

– ref. Climate change will make fire storms more likely in southeastern Australia – http://theconversation.com/climate-change-will-make-fire-storms-more-likely-in-southeastern-australia-127225