Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Toole, Associate Principal Research Fellow, Burnet Institute

As monkeypox vaccination programs roll out and health authorities release information about how to reduce the spread of the virus, progress on another aspect of the outbreak is lagging: its name.

On June 14, the Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said the agency was:

working with partners and experts from around the world on changing the name of monkeypox virus, its clades and the disease it causes.

This followed a letter signed by 29 scientists around the world calling for a non-discriminatory and non-stigmatising name for the virus.

More than eight weeks later, nothing has changed yet.

Since mid-May 2022, as of August 10, 31,425 cases of monkeypox have been reported in 82 countries – including 66 in Australia – which historically haven’t reported cases of the virus.

During the same period, 375 cases have been reported in seven countries that have historically reported monkeypox.

While the focus has been on changing the name of monkeypox, it’s the names of the two main clades (organisms derived from a common ancestor) that are most geographically discriminatory. They are currently named the Congo Basin (or Central Africa) clade and the West Africa clade.

Read more:
Monkeypox in Australia: should you be worried? And who can get the vaccine?

How is the name of a disease created?

In 2015, the WHO, in consultation and collaboration with the World Organization for Animal Health and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, identified best practices for the naming of new human diseases. These conclude:

• if the causative pathogen is known, it should be used as part of the disease name with additional descriptors; for example, novel coronavirus respiratory syndrome

• names should be short (minimum number of characters) and easy to pronounce; for example, H7N9

• potential acronyms should be evaluated to ensure they also comply with these best practices

• geographic locations, such as cities, countries, regions, and continents should be avoided; poor earlier examples include Murray Valley encephalitis and Spanish flu

• people’s names (such as Chagas disease) and the names of species (such as swine flu and bird flu) should be avoided.

Naming of the disease caused by SARS-CoV-2, COVID-19, did not include the name of the pathogen. But it did comply with the other criteria and, fortunately, was not called Wuhan disease or China virus.

Read more:
Today’s disease names are less catchy, but also less likely to cause stigma

How is the name of a virus created?

The WHO is not directly responsible for naming or renaming viruses, clades of viruses and the diseases those viruses cause. Naming virus species is the responsibility of the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses.

Monkeypox is a member of the orthopoxvirus family and related to smallpox, which was eradicated in 1979. Unlike other bugs, such as parasites like malaria (Plasmodium falciparum) and bacteria like “golden staph” (Staphylococcus aureus), there is still not a consistent system of assigning binomial (two words) Latinised names to viruses.

A subcommittee of the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses is in the process of finalising a proposal for new binomial names for all the poxviruses, including monkeypox.

Most viral conditions have different names for the disease it causes and the virus itself.

In the case of the novel coronavirus causing the current pandemic, the short name of the disease is COVID-19, while the virus is named severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2).

Why is it so hard to change the name of monkeypox virus?

Monkeypox is not a new virus; it was discovered in 1958.

While on the face of it, the name monkeypox does not seem stigmatising (other than to monkeys) some have pointed out that monkeys are rarely associated with the Western world, and this association with the global South could be seen as problematic. The word monkey has also been employed in racist slurs against people of colour.

Monkeypox is also a misnomer because monkeys are not its natural host, which is probably in rodents. The name of the virus was given because it was first identified in laboratory monkeys in Copenhagen.

Read more:
Australia secures 450,000 new monkeypox vaccines. What are they and who can have them?

However, there is a problem with the names of the virus’s clades. The two main clades are named after West Africa and the Congo Basin, the latter causing more severe illness. This contravenes the WHO’s efforts to avoid naming viral diseases after countries or continents.

Unfortunately, many media outlets use photos of Africans, often children, with the tell-tale rash. This heightens perceptions that this is an “African disease” that has escaped to the Western world.

Despite the WHO naming criteria announced in 2015, the agency has been unable to change the name of the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), caused by a camel coronavirus. In fact, one of the largest outbreaks of MERS was in South Korea.

One of the main reasons given for not changing the name is that it could disconnect future researchers from research papers written over more than five decades. This seems a weak argument because it’s almost certain that future researchers will be aware of the original name.

Another challenge is that the name would need to be changed in the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) which is used around the world for medical billing and clinical epidemiology studies.

There is an apparent consensus among virologists that the new name will be something like Orthopoxvirus monkeypox. “That’s certainly the majority proposal at this stage,” according to the chair of the poxvirus subcommittee of the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses.

This is not much of a change and is inconsistent with WHO’s naming criteria.

There is, however, more optimism the two clades could shed their geographic names to something like clades 1 and 2.

Focus on prevention and control

During the long process of changing its name, the prevention and control of monkeypox remain the same:

• surveillance
• finding cases, isolation and contact tracing
• behaviour change communication to reduce the number of sexual partners
• vaccination of close contacts and treatment of severe illness with antiviral drugs.

This needs close engagement with communities most affected by the virus – men who have sex with men. It’s crucial to prevent stigma and discrimination, not because of the name of the virus itself but those who are most vulnerable to infection.

Read more:
Monkeypox isn’t like HIV, but gay and bisexual men are at risk of unfair stigma

Michael Toole receives funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council.

– ref. Why doesn’t monkeypox have a new name yet? – https://theconversation.com/why-doesnt-monkeypox-have-a-new-name-yet-188280

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew King, Senior Lecturer in Climate Science, The University of Melbourne

The world’s focus is sharply fixed on achieving net-zero emissions, yet surprisingly little thought has been given to what comes afterwards. In our new paper, published today in Nature Climate Change, we discuss the big unknowns in a post net-zero world.

It’s vital that we understand the consequences of our choices when it comes to greenhouse gas emissions and what comes next. The pathways we choose before and after reaching global net-zero emissions might mean the difference between a planet that remains habitable and one where many parts become inhospitable.

At the moment, human activities have a warming effect on the planet. But achieving our climate policy goals would take humanity into the uncharted territory of being able to cool the planet.

Being able to cool the planet raises a number of questions. Principally, how fast would we want the planet to cool, and what global average temperature should we aim for?

Read more:
Global emissions almost back to pre-pandemic levels after unprecedented drop in 2020, new analysis shows

How are our emissions changing?

Our collective greenhouse gas emissions have warmed the planet about 1.2℃, relative to pre-industrial temperatures. In fact, despite all the talk about reducing emissions, global carbon dioxide emissions are at near-record levels.

Some countries have successfully reduced their greenhouse gas emissions in recent years, such as the United Kingdom which has halved greenhouse gas emissions relative to 1990.

There is also greater push from major emitters such as the United States and the European Union – as well as countries that emit less but already experience climate change impacts – to take stronger steps to limit the damage we are doing to the climate.

Reducing greenhouse gas emissions and reaching net-zero are humanity’s greatest challenges. As long as greenhouse gas emissions remain substantially above net-zero we will continue to warm the planet.

To be in line with the Paris Agreement goal of limiting global warming to well below 2℃ above pre-industrial levels this century, we need to drastically reduce our emissions.

We also need to increase our uptake of carbon from the atmosphere through developing and implementing drawdown technology.

Read more:
On top of drastic emissions cuts, IPCC finds large-scale CO₂ removal from air will be “essential” to meeting targets

What will come after net-zero?

Net-zero emissions will be reached when humanity’s greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere are balanced by their removal from the atmosphere. We would likely need to reach global net-zero well within the next 50 years to keep global warming well below 2℃.

If we achieve this, we could continue the process of decarbonisation to reach net-negative greenhouse gas emissions – where more of humanity’s greenhouse gas emissions are removed from the atmosphere than released into it.

This would need to be achieved through a combination of “negative emissions” technologies, likely including some not invented yet, and land use changes such as reforestation.

Continued net-negative emissions will cause the planet to cool as greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere fall. This is because the greenhouse effect, where gases such as carbon dioxide absorb radiation from Earth and warm the atmosphere, would weaken.

Read more:
The Morrison government wants to suck CO₂ out of the atmosphere. Here are 7 ways to do it

Currently, there’s almost no focus from governments, or indeed scientists, on the consequences of meeting our policy goals and going beyond net-zero. But this would be a turning point as the world would begin to cool.

Land would cool faster than the ocean. Indeed, some people may experience substantial cooling over their lifetimes – an unfamiliar concept to grasp in our warming climate.

These changes would be accompanied by effects on weather extremes and impacts to weather and climate-sensitive industries. While there’s not much research on this yet, we could, for example, see shipping routes close up as ice regrows in polar regions.

In the long-term, the best target global temperature for the planet might be something akin to a pre-industrial climate, with the human effect on Earth’s climate receding.

In our paper we call for a new set of climate model experiments that allow us to understand the range of possible future climates after net-zero.

Any decisions must be informed by an understanding of the consequences of different choices for a post net-zero climate. For example, competing interests between countries and industries may make global agreements more challenging in a post net-zero world.

Why does this matter now?

Reading this article, you may feel we’re getting ahead of ourselves. After all, as highlighted, global greenhouse gas emissions remain at near-record highs.

A key factor that will affect the behaviour of the climate system after net-zero emissions would be the maximum level of global warming that we peak at. This is dictated by our current and near-future emissions.

If we fail to meet the Paris Agreement and peak global warming reaches 2℃ or more, then future generations will endure the effects of higher sea levels and other possible disastrous climate changes for many centuries to come.

Our understanding of post net-zero impacts of different peak levels of global warming is extremely limited.

Reducing greenhouse gas emissions through decarbonisation remains our key priority. The more we can suppress global warming by reaching net-zero emissions as early as possible, the more we limit potential disastrous effects and the need to cool the planet in a post net-zero world.

Read more:
Climate change killed 40 million Australian mangroves in 2015. Here’s why they’ll probably never grow back

Andrew King receives funding from the National Environmental Science Program.

Celia McMichael receives funding from the Australian Research Council, the National Health and Medical Research Council, Australian Red Cross, and the World Health Organization.

Kale Sniderman receives funding from the Australian Research Council

Kathryn Bowen has received funding for climate and health research, policy advice and technical assistance from the National Health and Medical Research Council, Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, WHO, Asian Development Bank, UNDP, UNEP, USAID, GIZ, EU, Future Earth, City of Melbourne, Victorian Department of Health. She is affiliated with the Climate and Health Alliance as a member of the Advisory Board and sits on the Science Committee of the World Adaptation Science Program.

Tilo Ziehn receives funding from the Australian Government under the National Environmental Science Program.

Zebedee Nicholls receives funding from the European Union under the Horizon 2020 Program. He is also a co-founder of Climate Resource, which connects governments and businesses with the latest climate science.

Harry McClelland and Jacqueline Peel do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Beyond net-zero: we should, if we can, cool the planet back to pre-industrial levels – https://theconversation.com/beyond-net-zero-we-should-if-we-can-cool-the-planet-back-to-pre-industrial-levels-187781

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robyn Alders, Honorary Professor, Australian National University

Foot-and-mouth disease now poses a high threat to Australia. This highly contagious livestock virus is sweeping Indonesia – the closest it’s been to Australia since the 1980s. A large outbreak here could cause decimate the livestock industry and cause A$80 billion in economic damage over the coming decade.

The peril coincides with Australia’s first national biosecurity strategy released by the federal government this week. The plan warns Australia faces “multiple risks, on multiple fronts, at the same time” and cites foot-and-mouth disease as among the emerging challenges.

But the foot-and-mouth outbreak in Indonesia should not come as a surprise. It’s been decades in the making – just the latest consequence of biosecurity shortcomings in the region.

A suite of measures are needed to prevent exotic pests and diseases entering Australia. Crucial to this is being a good neighbour: helping other countries in our region to strengthen their biosecurity efforts.

Dwindling agriculture aid

Foot-and-mouth disease is just one of many invasive pests and diseases to have spread internationally, including in Southeast Asia in recent years.

Regrettably, Varroa mite (which attacks honeybees) and fall armyworm (which destroys crops) both entered Australia in the past two years, leading to significant economic, social and environmental harm.

This comes on the top of the economic impact of invasive species, such as the red imported fire ant and feral pigs, which is estimated to cost Australia up to $24.5 billion annually.

Read more:
Pest plants and animals cost Australia around $25 billion a year – and it will get worse

Now, foot-and-mouth disease is knocking on our door. So how did Australia become so vulnerable to such an outbreak? Declining government support for international agricultural development must take some of the blame.

Between the 1970s and the early 2000s, Australian aid worked with partner countries to boost animal health in Southeast Asia. This included support for the eradication of foot-and-mouth disease in The Philippines and the control of avian influenza in Indonesia.

Unfortunately, since 2013, such agricultural programs have ended or been greatly reduced in scope in line with decreased spending in the sector. The cuts came as part of broader reductions to Australia’s overseas aid budget – including a cut of more than 40% in aid to Southeast Asia in 2020.

Indeed, in 2021 Australia contributed just 0.22% of its gross national income towards overseas development assistance, compared to the OECD average of 0.33% for that year.

Prevention is good for the bottom line

The cost of supporting effective agricultural biosecurity services in neighbouring countries would be but a small fraction of the cost of a major disease outbreak.

Looking forward, cost-efficient biosecurity programs will require integrated risk identification and management across human, animal, plant and environmental health. Such a joined-up approach is essential to address major and interrelated sociological and environmental biosecurity challenges.

Read more:
What is foot and mouth disease? Why farmers fear ‘apocalyptic bonfires of burning carcasses’

A priority in the new national biosecurity strategy is to create “stronger partnerships” at the local, regional, national and international levels. One of the initial steps identified is to help shape global biosecurity standards, rules and conditions. It will also:

“deepen international partnerships and capacity building, including in the Indo-Pacific, to increase engagement, harmonisation, skills exchanges and information sharing on national priority pests, weeds and diseases.”

This is a great foundation for further strengthening global agricultural biosecurity systems. But to fully and effectively meet the biosecurity challenges of the 21st Century, it’s crucial to ensure agricultural biosecurity systems fully integrate with humans and our natural environment.

Coordinating the activities of different sectors – such as human health, agriculture and the natural environment – would result in more effective use of limited resources, especially those required to support frontline activities. This will ultimately be far better for the national budget.

Broader focus on livestock health

Effective agriculture aid programs require a broad focus on livestock health, rather than just tackling diseases that might threaten Australia.

For example, many small-scale farmers would prefer to vaccinate cows against diseases such as haemorrhagic septicaemia and anthrax that kill cattle, rather than only vaccinating them against foot-and-mouth disease which causes cows to produce less milk, but won’t usually kill the animal.

Controlling diseases with a high death rate would build trust from small-scale farmers in animal health services. This could, in turn, make rural communities more receptive to vaccinate their animals against other diseases such as foot-and-mouth disease.

It takes considerable effort to establish effective and efficient vaccination campaigns and other biosecurity measures. But once they’re in place, maintaining them is less costly. If funding for recurrent maintenance isn’t in place and disease outbreaks occur, this trust will be lost.

This lesson was learnt in Southeast Asian countries such as Indonesia and Laos during the avian influenza pandemic which started in 2003. During that period, poultry producers were forced by government disease control agencies to cull affected flocks without receiving compensation.

The intervention still casts a shadow over relationships between producers and animal health services, complicating efforts to control and monitor disease.

Read more:
Yes, wash your shoes at the airport – but we can do more to stop foot-and-mouth disease ravaging Australia

Beyond livestock related biosecurity risks, adequate investment is also needed in the countries of origin to improve biosecurity practices for imported plant products.

This includes cut flowers imported from developing countries where a 2021 investigation detected pests in 12% of consignments.

Taking a long-term view

Much work is needed to reduce the risk of further pests and diseases entering into Australia. This includes ongoing support to help our regional neighbours strengthen their biosecurity and associated food security systems.

Of course, this is not the only step. Australia must also ensure effective biosecurity surveillance at the border and actively engage the Australian community to report any incursions that may occur.

And most importantly, Australia’s biosecurity strategies must take a long-term, integrated view. These strategies must consider both benefits and costs and, crucially, have guaranteed bipartisan support at the state and federal levels.

Robyn Alders is an Honorary Professor with the ANU Development Policy Centre and a Senior Consulting Fellow with the Chatham House Global Health Programme. She also consults to Australian and international aid organisations and is Chair of the Kyeema Foundation and the Upper Lachlan Branch of the NSW Farmers’ Association.

– ref. To lock out foot-and-mouth disease, Australia must help our neighbour countries bolster their biosecurity – https://theconversation.com/to-lock-out-foot-and-mouth-disease-australia-must-help-our-neighbour-countries-bolster-their-biosecurity-188010

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anita Wreford, Professor Applied Economics, Lincoln University, New Zealand

New Zealand’s national adaptation plan, launched last week, offers the first comprehensive approach to how communities can prepare for the inevitable impacts of a changing climate.

Having a plan is critical. Reactive and ad-hoc adaptation could create more problems on top of those already caused by climate change.

Based on priority risks identified in the national climate change risk assessment, the plan gives clearer direction around decision making for long-lived investments such as infrastructure and housing.

It provides more clarity for local government, for example by specifying which climate change scenario they should use when assessing risks to coastal areas from sea-level rise.

It also sets out actions to review the sharing of adaptation costs between local and national government – an urgent step which means councils can begin making realistic plans for their own local adaptation.

But some aspects of the plan lack strategy and structure. It is more a series of actions, some connected, others quite discrete, with many already happening anyway.
The absence of Te Tiriti in the framing is concerning, as is the fact some of the main funding sources for adaptation research (such as the national science challenges) end in 2024.

Read more:
New Zealand has launched a plan to prepare for inevitable climate change impacts: 5 areas where the hard work starts now

Priorities for adaptation

The adaptation plan is legislated under the Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Act (2019) and is required to address risks identified in the earlier national risk assessment. This includes risks to coastal and native ecosystems, social cohesion, the economy and financial systems, and basic needs such as potable water.

The four goals that underpin the adaptation plan are essentially unarguable: reduce vulnerability to climate change impacts, enhance adaptive capacity, consider climate change in all decisions and strengthen resilience.

Four more specific priority areas are identified as:

• enabling better risk-informed decisions

• driving climate-resilient development in the right places

• laying the foundations for a range of adaptation options, including managed retreat, and

• embedding climate resilience across government policy.

The adaptation plan is structured around actions that relate either to system-wide issues or five “outcome areas”, which broadly align with the domains identified in the risk assessment. These are the natural environment; homes, buildings and places; infrastructure; communities; and the economy and financial system.

Lack of strategy

This all sounds relatively sensible so far. The principles guiding the plan are grounded in adaptation theory and concepts.

Yet the plan still lacks strategy and structured planning. It harnesses existing initiatives already underway, which makes practical sense but could make it difficult to maintain oversight of how adaptation is being implemented.

The plan rightly emphasises the need to continually evaluate the effectiveness of adaptation but it lacks a structured process, leaving it unclear how adaptation will be tracked over time. This limits the scope for how much we can learn from what works or doesn’t, and make adjustments accordingly.

Who will pay for adaptation?

The plan touches only superficially on the financing of adaptation, which is a major concern (although let’s not forget that not adapting will cost far more). The costs of managed retreat are increasingly (and justifiably) receiving attention but it remains uncertain who will be expected to pay.

Read more:
With seas rising and storms surging, who will pay for New Zealand’s most vulnerable coastal properties?

Other important questions around costs and timing are not addressed directly, including how much more difficult and costly delayed adaptation would be. We need more guidance and direction for investments in an uncertain future, because many of the tools we currently use, such as cost benefit analysis, can’t handle uncertainty very well.

Two of the priority areas identified in the climate change risk assessment involve financial stability and the economy. The requirement for listed companies to begin identifying and disclosing their climate-related risk and how they are going to minimise it is an important first step.

Read more:
‘Building too close to the water. It’s ridiculous!’ Talk of buyouts after floods shows need to get serious about climate adaptation

The plan makes clear the government cannot bear all the costs of adaptation. However, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has emphasised there will be limits to effective adaptation, particularly if we fail globally to keep warming below 1.5℃ above pre-industrial temperatures.

When adaptation is not implemented effectively or is not sufficient to cope with the severity of climate change, some of the costs may fall back on the government. This might be directly through disaster relief funding or indirectly through job losses. How government at all levels will handle these costs remains unclear.

Unintended consequences

Another point missing in the adaptation plan is how the government will manage potential unintended consequences of private-sector adaptation and conflicts between groups.

For example, coastal defences such as sea walls or stop banks may protect one area but shift the problem along the coast or downstream. Increasing irrigation to cope with variable rainfall or drought could create conflicts between other water users and the environment.

However, an inter-departmental executive board will be tasked with providing transparency of implementation, improving coordination within central government and enabling accountability. This will be critical to the plan’s effectiveness and ultimately the resilience of Aotearoa New Zealand in a changing climate.

Anita Wreford is the Impacts and Implications programme lead for the Deep South National Science Challenge.

– ref. NZ’s first climate adaptation plan is a good start, but crucial questions about cost and timing must be answered – https://theconversation.com/nzs-first-climate-adaptation-plan-is-a-good-start-but-crucial-questions-about-cost-and-timing-must-be-answered-188216

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Larissa McLean Davies, Professor of Teacher Education, The University of Melbourne

Today, state and federal education ministers will meet in Canberra to discuss the teacher shortage.

In their first in-person meeting for more than a year, they will also speak to principals, teachers and education experts about the crisis. Not only do we need more people to take up teaching as a career, experienced teachers are leaving the profession, or saying they plan to.

A recent survey found almost 60% of teachers in New South Wales plan to quit in the next five years.

Ahead of the meeting, numerous solutions have been offered by experts and advocates, including a teaching “apprenticeship”, and fast-tracking students or mid-career professionals in other fields into the classrooms.

As education academics researching the future of teacher education in Australia, we are concerned the current debate is missing the bigger picture.

While well-intended, the ideas on offer address the symptoms, rather than the complexity of the cause. We need a coherent and comprehensive plan to address the real problem: teaching is not being treated like a profession.

A teaching apprenticeship?

Ahead of today’s meeting, Universities Australia proposed a “teaching apprenticeship”. This would see student teachers get to do more time in schools with a job at the end of it.

Research shows it is very important for students to have practical experience. But calling it an “apprenticeship” implies teaching is simply a trade to be learnt on the job, rather than a complex profession that requires university study.

On top of this, getting teaching students to fill the growing shortage of teachers is not addressing the need for qualified teachers to be in classrooms.

This plan also optimistically assumes schools and teachers under pressure will be able to provide the support an increased number of “apprentice” teachers would need. Given universities are already finding it difficult to secure teaching placements, this seems unrealistic.

Fast-tracking to the classroom

Other suggestions include fast-tracking people through their teacher education, particularly if they are coming to teaching mid-career from a different profession.

While we need to welcome other skills and people’s commitment to become teachers, this is worrying.

For one thing, the strategy has not worked in the United States, because it does not address the conditions and unsustainable workloads of teachers. It also discounts teachers’ knowledge of complex teaching methods and approaches.

Read more:
Growing numbers of unqualified teachers are being sent into classrooms – this is not the way to ‘fix’ the teacher shortage

Teachers need to be able to plan lessons and units, secure good resources for these lessons, engage their students, engage students who need additional support, assess what they have learned, manage behaviour and look after young people’s wellbeing (among other skills).

We would not assume a high-school legal studies teacher, for example, would be able to become a lawyer without undertaking the appropriate tertiary study. So why do we imagine a lawyer can short-cut the education required to become a legal studies teacher?

This strategy implies content knowledge, rather than knowledge of how to teach and how best to teach particular students, is the core business of teaching. It also feeds the unhelpful myth that “anyone can teach”.

So, what is the way forward?

We need solutions that go beyond bespoke schemes and incentives.

The root of this issue is not the quality of education new teachers experience or their readiness to teach. We already have professional teaching standards, standards for teaching courses and entry and exit testing for student teachers. The education of beginning teachers is arguably the most regulated and measured part of the profession.

Read more:
No wonder no one wants to be a teacher: world-first study looks at 65,000 news articles about Australian teachers

We know the circumstances that contribute to the teacher shortage are complex and include teacher workloads, the status of teaching and resourcing. So we need solutions that look at the profession as a whole. Here are two big picture approaches to address the current crisis.

1. Teaching must be treated as a profession

Other professions – such as medicine, law or engineering – value expertise, reward the development of new knowledge, and the contribution of those who lead others.

In teaching, there has been so much focus on the initial preparation of teachers (before they are registered and teach independently in the classroom) that we don’t have a “whole-of-career” approach.

Teachers already in the classroom are often reluctant to take on student teachers because it means they have more work and little recompense for it. There is a token amount of money available for it, but this may not go directly to the teacher.

We know mentoring is critical to support teachers and keep them in the profession. So let’s make it a desirable thing to do for all teachers. If you mentor and do it well, this should be recognised through career progression and remuneration.

In professions such as medicine, you develop specialist knowledge and expertise. Or you specialise as a generalist. But in teaching, teachers are largely required to develop expertise in all teaching methods, assessments and all aspects of student health and wellbeing.

If we could rethink the work of teachers, and teachers could specialise in areas they are more interested in and are needed, this would provide them with new career pathways.

2. We need different approaches for different schools

Policies for teachers and their work often assume all education systems across all parts of the country are largely the same.

In a country as diverse as Australia, this is problematic. An analysis of NAPLAN data shows schools can be grouped into five distinct socio-economic bands. This means some schools are more demanding or complex to teach in than others.

We know the impacts of staff shortages, and teachers teaching out of their fields of expertise are more likely to be felt outside capital cities.

If we want to retain excellent teachers in all schools, then we need to acknowledge the demands on those working in rural, remote, and isolated communities are different from metropolitan schools.

Not only do these schools need to adequate resources and funding but teachers working in hard-to-staff schools should be paid and supported accordingly.

Read more:
Australia spends $5 billion a year on teaching assistants in schools but we don’t know what they do

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Australia’s teacher shortage won’t be solved until we treat teaching as a profession, not a trade – https://theconversation.com/australias-teacher-shortage-wont-be-solved-until-we-treat-teaching-as-a-profession-not-a-trade-188441

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Erin Harrington, Senior Lecturer in English and Cultural Studies, University of Canterbury

HBO’s fantasy series Game of Thrones dominated television and pop culture discourse for much of a decade. Its upcoming prequel series, House of the Dragon, is similarly generating conversation, although not in ways the producers might prefer. Much of this has centred on discussions of sexual assault and rape on screen.

This new series is set 200 years before Game of Thrones. It dramatises the Dance of the Dragons, a war of succession in which factions of the Targaryen family fight for the Iron Throne of Westeros. A key trigger is whether Princess Rhaenyra, the ageing king’s firstborn, will become the first queen of the Seven Kingdoms. The showrunners have stated that a dominant theme is whether an entrenched “patriarchy would rather destroy itself than see a woman on the throne”.

But ahead of its launch, the show is already facing questions about how it will represent sex and sexual assault. These are issues that plagued Game of Thrones. The show became notorious for its extensive use of sex and female nudity, as well as its graphic rape scenes. It notably inspired the term “sexposition”: when exposition, such as backstory or character motivation, is offered against a backdrop of sex or nudity.

“You can’t ignore the violence that was perpetrated on women by men in that time”

Miguel Sapochnik, an executive producer and co-showrunner of House of the Dragon, indicated in a somewhat contradictory fashion that the show would “pull back” on sex while also showing it as a nonchalant aspect of Targaryan life. When asked about violence against women, he replied:

[we] don’t shy away from it. If anything, we’re going to shine a light on that aspect. You can’t ignore the violence that was perpetrated on women by men in that time. It shouldn’t be downplayed and it shouldn’t be glorified.

Writer and executive producer Sara Hess since clarified these comments in a statement to Vanity Fair. She states “we do not depict sexual violence in the show”. She added, “We handle one instance off-screen, and instead show the aftermath and impact on the victim and the mother of the perpetrator.”

Conflict and violence in Game of Thrones

One of Game of Thrones’ many strengths was its representation of conflict. Extraordinary battle sequences and scenes of mass casualty illustrated the human cost of nobles’ whims. However, gendered patterns of representation quickly built up. Sexual objectification and violence against women became a metaphor for the endemic brutality of Westeros.

To claim this was a necessary and honest way to illustrate the world’s values “realistically” ignores two things. George R R Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire books draw from European medieval history and the English civil wars, but Westeros – with its dragons and ice zombies – is ultimately an invention. In fictional media, the historical past and imagined worlds are powerful lenses through which we can consider present-day values.

Additionally, Game of Thrones is not a history, but a massively successful entertainment product made for premium cable. This environment is not subject to the same broadcasting standards or advertising pressures as network television. In the past two decades, many prestige or quality dramas have used sex and nudity to differentiate themselves from network fare.

Over time, sexually explicit material and gendered violence have been offered as core expressions of the form’s narrative and thematic complexity. Shows must navigate the space between exploring misogyny and turning it into entertainment.

Read more:
Friday essay: from Daenerys to Yara – the top ten women of Game of Thrones

The male heterosexual gaze

By looking at techniques such as framing and editing, we can see how many episodes of Game of Thrones embodied an implicitly male, heterosexual gaze. Women’s bodies were over-represented as depersonalised props, or sexual objects of regard, as in frequent brothel scenes. Members of the cast, and even one of the episodes’ directors, have also commented on the pressures they felt to offer more explicit material for the purposes of titillation.

Defenders of such material may protest that these choices are gritty engagements with real-life violence, misogyny and moral complexity, or even that they offer images of female empowerment. But this ignores that we tend to see only certain types of bodies sexualised.

These are predominantly those of younger, able-bodied, conventionally attractive cis women. Women of colour are frequently fetishised and exoticised. Naked bodies of visibly ageing women remain taboo. Male nudity is certainly present in Game of Thrones, albeit at a far lower rate than female nudity and less sexualised, often acting as a representation of a character’s vulnerability or a source of humour.

This amplifies the unequal standards of gendered representation that have long dominated film, television, advertising and art. These have also diminished the nature of roles available to women.

Read more:
Game of Thrones and the fluid world of medieval gender

At its worst, presenting women’s bodies as inherently available and vulnerable perpetuates damaging, misogynistic tropes. This includes “fridging”, which presents violence against women as a plot device that helps develop a male character’s narrative arc. It also includes rape as shorthand for female character development.

This is frustrating, as there is significant scope to explore issues of power, violence and victimisation in nuanced ways. Michaela Cole’s limited series I May Destroy You, a black comedy-drama that deals with a rape and its aftermath, is a prominent example of a potent, victim-centric account of anxiety and trauma. It’s also notable that it was female-led, in an industry where women are significantly underrepresented behind the camera. The recent emergence of intimacy coordinators in productions is also a positive step.

We live in a world with atrocious rates of gendered violence. Misogyny and female objectification are a normalised part of life. One way to denaturalise patterns in representation, narrative, character and style is by highlighting their artifice. This reminds us that visual language isn’t neutral.

Art and entertainment have key roles in both perpetuating and questioning these dynamics. House of the Dragon is clearly interested in unpicking the intricacies of gender and power in a highly patriarchal society. Hopefully, the way it tells its story doesn’t inadvertently undermine this aim.

Erin Harrington does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Game of Thrones prequel House of the Dragon confirms there will be no sexual violence on screen. Here’s why that’s important – https://theconversation.com/game-of-thrones-prequel-house-of-the-dragon-confirms-there-will-be-no-sexual-violence-on-screen-heres-why-thats-important-188521

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

The federal Liberals are in a parlous state, after an election that was not just lost to Labor but where “teals” stripped them of a batch of traditional seats.

In coming months the Liberal Party faces fresh assaults, in state heartland electorates, from a similar “community candidate” movement.

Victoria goes to the polls in November, and New South Wales in March. The Liberals – in opposition in Victoria, in government in NSW – could have a good deal to fear if the tide runs again for teals.

In theory, the Victorian opposition should be in a strong position against the ageing Andrews government whose multiple skeletons are on view. In practice, it’s a shambles. Liberal leader Matthew Guy is unimpressive, and he’s now mired in the messy aftermath of a scandal around his former chief of staff’s seeking funds inappropriately.

In NSW, the Coalition government has a record that should be saleable. But it has been scandal-ridden, most recently losing two ministers, one of whom, Stuart Ayres, was deputy Liberal leader.

Ayres was caught up in the saga of John Barilaro’s appointment as trade commissioner to New York. The tortuous ins and outs of the Barilaro affair have been aired at a parliamentary inquiry this week, with the former deputy premier and Nationals leader (who eventually withdrew from the job) casting himself as an injured party.

These scandals (and many others) in the two states are political manna for the community independents movement. The public hate such shenanigans and, as happened with the federal election, community independents will make integrity and the quest for a better kind of politics a core part of their campaigns.

Last weekend former Indi independent Cathy McGowan ran an online post-federal election convention to promote community independents. It attracted 467 participants from more than 100 federal electorates, and the discussion groups included one on each of the two state elections.

Simon Holmes à Court’s Climate 200, which provided crucial funding for the teals, will likely be a player in the state contests. In July it polled key Victorian seats. It found potential support for teal-type independents in the Liberal seats of Sandringham, Brighton, Caulfield and Kew, and the Labor seat of Hawthorn. Climate and integrity resonated. For example, “integrity in politics” was nominated as the most important issue by the second or third-largest number of voters in Caulfield, Brighton and Sandringham.

Local groups have been searching for candidates. An August 7 advertisement in The Sunday Age declared “Bayside deserves independent voices” and encouraged potential candidates to come forward.

“Our communities made history in May when we elected an independent Zoe Daniel to represent us in the federal seat of Goldstein,” the advertisement said. “Polling shows that an independent can also win the Victorian seats of Brighton, Sandringham and Caulfield.”

We see from this how the push for state independents is leveraging off the federal success. But it’s notable the Voices of Goldstein group that supported Daniel will not back a state candidate. Federal teals have a political interest in reinforcing the message of their personal “independence”.

Regardless, in state areas where teal-type candidates will run, there’ll likely be ready-made volunteer cohorts to support them. Many citizens, energised by the federal successes, seem anxious to take part in what they see as a new brand of politics.

In NSW, the group North Sydney Independent (NSI), which chose successful federal teal candidate for North Sydney Kylea Tink (but is now at arm’s length from her), is looking at the three Liberal seats in the area – Lane Cove, Willoughby and North Shore. NSI co-founder Denise Shrivell says the group could back community candidates in one or even all three seats. The group will have a launch on August 28.

Shrivell says the group is finding a “mismatch” between the views of the MPs – two of whom are conservatives and one a moderate – and “the views and interests of the local community”.

“People are dissatisfied,” she says. Unsurprisingly, “issues around integrity are very top of mind. People are looking at what is happening in NSW and are fed up”, although health, education, over-development and privatisation are also concerning these voters. More generally, “people in North Sydney have caught the democracy bug,” she says.

One major problem for the community candidates in NSW is the state’s optional preferential voting system: this means they could not rely to the extent the federal teals did on preferences bumping them over the line.

As in the federal election, Climate 200 will wait until candidates emerge. It will then assess their individual suitability, the viability of their campaign structure, and their prospects of victory, before deciding whether to provide support. Holmes à Court says it “could support three to six candidates in Victoria and possibly more in NSW”.

It needs to choose carefully. One reason for the teal successes at federal level was that the candidates were so impressive – mediagenic professional women. It could be harder to find equivalent talent for state contests, which are less attractive to high flyers.

Climate 200 has its own credibility to preserve. It doesn’t want a triumph at the federal election to be followed by state pushes that flop spectacularly.

Stricter funding rules at state level impose greater constraints on the assistance Climate 200 can give. Beyond modest donations, the organisation will have to encourage donors to directly support particular candidates.

If community candidates do well at these elections, there might be potential down the track in Western Australia, where one would expect a swing in 2025 against Labor’s massive majority. The WA Liberal Party has been almost wiped out at a state level, and there is a teal federal MP, Kate Chaney, in Curtin.

Although she personally wouldn’t be involved, Chaney says some of her supporters have expressed an interest in a state effort. “By 2025 the community independent movement may have developed in a way that makes it an attractive option for communities who want to see a different type of representation,” Chaney says.

Independents have long had significant presences, and often been in the balance of power, in various state parliaments. In Victoria and NSW, both sides are said to be concerned about independents generally at the coming elections.

What’s special about the teals and other “community candidates”, arising from “voices” and similar groups, is they are part of a loose web, linked by some common funding, networking and the issues on which they campaign. This doesn’t make them a “party”, as their opponents claim, but it does make them a “democracy movement” of sorts.
Success in the Victorian and NSW elections would create fresh momentum for this movement, including at the federal level for the next election.

Federally, the community-candidate movement has eaten away at the Liberal Party’s progressive wing, cutting a swathe through the moderates in the parliamentary party.

The federal Liberals now face the existential question of how to juggle appeals to outer suburbia, where Peter Dutton feels most comfortable, and to the urban areas, currently lost, that used to be the party’s “blue ribbons” (including for fund-raising), and which are vital to winning government.

We should introduce a caution. Just as many people underestimated the chances of the teals federally, there is a risk of over-estimating their state prospects. But if the independent movement does erode the Liberal base in core areas at state level, it will all the harder for the party to re-group nationally.

Although part of the federal teal success was due to “strategic” voting by some Labor supporters, victories for state community candidates in Victoria and NSW would reinforce the message that Liberal supporters are migrating to a new political force.

For the Liberal Party, the implications would be alarming for the long term.

Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Grattan on Friday: Will ‘teals’ strike Liberals another blow in Victorian and NSW elections? – https://theconversation.com/grattan-on-friday-will-teals-strike-liberals-another-blow-in-victorian-and-nsw-elections-188596

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rod Sims, Professor in the practice of public policy and antitrust, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University

Public interest journalism is essential to a well-functioning society, even for those who do not watch or read it. It holds the powerful to account, provides a journal of record and is a forum for ideas.

Australia’s News Media Bargaining Code was a world-first: set up to value public interest journalism, it’s made it easier for most Australian news media to do deals with global platforms such as Google and Facebook.

It was conceived of and largely formulated by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, of which I was chair until March 2022.

It was passed into law by the Australian parliament in February 2021 despite threats, widely publicised around the world, to remove Google Search from Australia and to take all news and more off Facebook.

But while that code has since become a template for several other countries, there remains unfinished business in Australia.

Fixing ‘market failure’

Google and Facebook need to have news on their platforms to maximise user attention and enhance the targeted advertising on which their revenue depends, but they do not need the content of any particular news business.

On the other hand, each media business needs to be on each of the platforms.

This imbalance (“market failure”) means commercial deals cannot be expected to achieve fair payment for the benefit the platforms get from news content.

The outcome is that less journalism can be afforded and provided.

While not all market failures need to be corrected, this one did and was.

Read more:
Is the news media bargaining code fit for purpose?

Prior to Australia’s media bargaining code, news organisations were unable to negotiate with the platforms for any payment for their content.

After the code, they could require the platforms to negotiate, and trigger arbitration if those negotiations broke down.

The mere threat of arbitration evened bargaining power, as both sides wanted to avoid letting an arbitrator decide commercial arrangements.

For those with the market power, the threat of arbitration means they can no longer simply dismiss the claims of those whose products they use.

$200 million a year more for Australian journalism

Australia’s code has achieved its main objective. From not being able to engage with the platforms, Australian news organisations are getting deals worth more than A$200 million per year.

While some media companies such as The Guardian have attributed 50% of their increases in journalist and supporting staff largely to the deals done under the code, for other media organisations the outcome is less clear.

But a number of journalists have told me and others that now is a great time to be a journalist, thanks to the media bargains struck under the code.

The code was a world first. While Google and Facebook had made minor payments throughout the world, largely in the form of grants, they had never effectively negotiated commercial deals.

But some organisations have been left out

In settling the details of the News Media Bargaining Code in discussions with Google and Facebook, the federal government commendably held its ground. It did make several changes, most of which were of no consequence.

One change that meant a lot to Google and Facebook was a provision that said before considering “designating” a platform as subject to the code, the treasurer would consider whether it had already made a “significant contribution to the sustainability of the Australian news industry through agreements relating to news content of Australian news businesses”.

In order to avoid designation, Google and Facebook did deals quickly. It meant deals were done commercially, rather than by arbitration.

Read more:
The news media bargaining code could backfire if small media outlets aren’t protected: an economist explains

It’s time for designation

There remains, however, a problem. Google has completed deals with essentially all qualifying media businesses. But Facebook has not, by quite some way, leaving companies employing 15-20% of Australian journalists out in the cold.

Among others, Facebook has not done deals with the SBS, Australia’s multicultural broadcaster, or The Conversation, which brings together Australian academics and journalists to publish research-based news.

Both represent some of the purist public interest journalism in Australia.

In my view, Facebook should now be “designated” by the Australian treasurer, so it is forced to negotiate with the remaining media businesses and face arbitration if commercial deals are not reached.

As provided for in its Act, the Treasury is currently reviewing the media bargaining code and is due to report in September.

Canada, the US, UK and India following our lead

Australia’s code has been copied in many other countries.

Canada has legislation out for comment at the moment. An improvement is that the deals need to be reported to the Canadian broadcasting regulator, who would tally them up and publicly report them.

In Australia, the ACCC did this informally and I spoke to media chief executives. This allowed me to say that the deals were worth more than A$200 million per year.

I think it makes sense to formalise reporting as Canada is doing.

The Canadian bill also lists more explicit criteria for exempting a platform from designation, another improvement Australia’s review should consider.

Read more:
Is news worth a lot or a little? Google and Facebook want it both ways

The United States is debating the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act, which has key features of the Australian code, but applies only to news businesses below a certain size. This seems workable, given that the mere threat of Australian-style legislation has prodded Google and Facebook to deal with larger companies.

Britain is considering overarching legislation applying to large digital platforms with “strategic market status” that will allow a range of codes to be put in place.

The first code being contemplated when the legislation passes, hopefully next year, is one that closely resembles the Australian code.

Read more:
Stuff-up or conspiracy? Whistleblowers claim Facebook deliberately let important non-news pages go down in news blackout

Other countries are looking at adopting the approach; for instance, India’s Minister for Electronics and Information Technology and Electronics has foreshadowed bringing one in.

In all these countries, as in Australia, Google and Facebook are employing enormous resources to lobby against bargaining codes. The key to success is for media businesses to be united in pressing for change and to lobby political parties to support codes like the News Media Bargaining Code.

Governments can be strong on issues in which they have the support of all of the media and all political parties, as happened in Australia.

If news organisations get paid for their content in enough countries, journalism’s future might just become secure. It’s something worth achieving.

Disclosure: Facebook has refused to negotiate a deal with The Conversation under Australia’s News Media Bargaining Code. In response, The Conversation has called for Facebook to be “designated” under the code. This means Facebook would be forced to pay for content published by The Conversation on its platform.

Rod Sims does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Australia’s News Media Bargaining Code led the world. It’s time to finish what we started – https://theconversation.com/australias-news-media-bargaining-code-led-the-world-its-time-to-finish-what-we-started-188586

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Cleo Hansen-Lohrey, PhD Candidate, Faculty of Law, University of Tasmania

Last week, independent MP Andrew Wilkie reintroduced to federal parliament the Ending Indefinite and Arbitrary Immigration Detention Bill 2022. This bill gives Australia the chance to bring its immigration detention regime in line with basic international law requirements for the first time since 1992.

Wilkie’s bill presents a timely opportunity for the new federal government to reform a regime that leading legal and human rights organisations have called “inhumane, unnecessary, and unlawful”.

Australia’s human rights commitment

Australia has committed to uphold human rights and protect refugees, including committing to not arbitrarily or indefinitely detain adults or children. Despite this, under Australia’s current mandatory detention regime, non-citizens without a valid visa must be detained as a first resort for potentially indefinite periods and without access to review by a court.

Read more:
Nauru nightmare: immigration policy and Australia’s ‘concentration camp’

Australia’s commitments under international law are not enforceable under Australian law unless they are implemented through legislation. This means that in the absence of legislation that fully protects the right to liberty, the Australian High Court has consistently held that indefinite immigration detention is lawful under Australian law.

International criticism

The UN has repeatedly condemned Australia’s treatment of asylum seekers and refugees as contrary to Australia’s international obligations and “an affront to the protection of human rights”. This includes statements and decisions from:

• UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet in 2018

• the UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants, François Crépeau, in 2017

• the UN Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, Juan E. Méndez, in 2015 and 2017

• UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi in 2017

• The UN Human Rights Committee in 2013.

International criticisms have largely focused on Australia’s failure to respect the rights of individuals to not be detained arbitrarily or indefinitely; subjected to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment; or returned to a place where they will face a real risk of harm.

Read more:
Another day, another report: what more do we need to know about the harms of immigration detention?

Despite widespread condemnation of Australia’s system of mandatory and indefinite detention, over 1400 people remain in onshore immigration detention facilities today. A further 217 people remain on Nauru and Manus.

In April 2022, the average period of time people were held in immigration detention facilities in Australia was 726 days. Of those in onshore detention, 136 have been detained for more than five years.

“Detention without charge or guilt”

Wilkie’s bill proposes abolishing the existing system of mandatory detention. Under the bill, detention of non-citizens without valid visas could only be ordered where it is necessary and proportionate to the circumstances. This would require an individual assessment.

Detention would be authorised in Australia only (not offshore) for certain purposes, and only as a measure of last resort after all alternatives have been considered. Adults could only be detained for a maximum of three months and children for seven days. While extensions may be necessary in certain circumstances, detention would be subject to independent oversight and judicial review by the courts.

When introducing the bill, Wilkie argued this legislation was urgently needed as

we face the bizarre and outrageous situation in this country where someone, in some circumstances, can be detained indefinitely, without charge and without having been found guilty of anything.

He described this as a punitive arrangement that is immoral and shows “a terrible indifference and arrogance to international law”.

In seconding the bill, independent MP Kylea Tink said “Australia’s immigration regime is unique in the world. It is uniquely cruel.” Tink also noted Wilkie’s point that the regime came with a vast financial and human toll, costing Australian taxpayers between $360,000 – $460,000 per year to hold a person in immigration detention in Australia.

Independent MP Monique Ryan recognised that

Australia’s immigration detention regime causes severe and widespread mental and physical health impacts on people seeking refuge.

Australia’s negative human rights record also affects its ability to hold other countries to account for human rights violations. China accused Australia of human rights hypocrisy after it criticised China’s repression of the Uyghur ethnic minority. And China is certainly not alone in its criticisms.

While legislation alone is not enough, it could provide a significant first step in bringing Australia’s immigration detention regime in line with its human rights obligations.

Both major political parties in Australia have historically supported onshore and offshore mandatory detention of non-citizens.

However, with the current make-up of the parliament and a new government committed to uniting Australians around “our shared values of fairness and opportunity” and “kindness to those in need”, this is an opportunity for Australia to demonstrate a renewed commitment to international law and the fundamental principles on which the UN system is based.

Cleo Hansen-Lohrey receives funding under an Australian Government Research Training Scholarship for her PhD studies.

She previously work for the Department of Immigration, and as a humanitarian observer and advocate in immigration detention facilities.

Tamara Wood does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. New immigration detention bill could give Australia a fresh chance to comply with international law – https://theconversation.com/new-immigration-detention-bill-could-give-australia-a-fresh-chance-to-comply-with-international-law-188519

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Huw Griffiths, Senior Lecturer in English Literature, University of Sydney

Review: Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, directed by Kip Williams for Sydney Theatre Company

With their new production, Kip Williams and the Sydney Theatre Company have revisited the artistic and box office success of 2020’s The Picture of Dorian Gray. As with that show, the narrative of Jekyll and Hyde is driven forward by a dazzling mix of live performance, filmed action and recorded video. The intensity this combination brings to the storytelling is, if anything, dialled up in the new production, which hurtles towards its climactic moments with compelling force.

However, where Dorian was bathed in the gorgeously exotic colours of Wilde’s novel, the aesthetic of the new production is an austere black and white, with flashes of colour bursting out only at crucial revelatory moments. Otherwise, the look is Noirish, borrowing a visual language for Victorian London from movies such as Basil Rathbone’s 1940s Holmes films.

Gaslight, fog and mysterious doorways invite us simultaneously into the story and into the splintered psyche of its protagonists.

A bold choice for this production is to use almost all of Robert Louis Stevenson’s novella as the basis for the dialogue. The two performers narrate their action as well as performing the dialogue. They address us mostly through the camera, building an intimate picture of disintegrating personalities.

Transformations of body and voice

Ewen Leslie, as both Jekyll and Hyde (as well as most other characters), gives us the virtuoso performance we have come to expect from him. Leslie’s capacity seemingly to transform his body and voice in the blink of an eye lends itself brilliantly to the story.

The revelation for me, however, was Matthew Backer. Unlike Leslie, Backer takes on just one character: Mr Utterson, the lawyer. In Stevenson’s words, this austere “man of a rugged countenance”, “never lighted by a smile” is the person through whom we initially experience the events of the story.

Backer captures Utterson’s button-downed anxiety at what he witnesses. He seems, on the face of it, to be a censorious observer, all Victorian repression and severe commentary. However, the production’s shrewd use of Stevenson’s words, and Backer’s own subtle performance, ensures that Utterson’s own implication in London’s twilight world of pleasure and violence is foregrounded.

Double lives

It is telling that Dorian Gray and Jekyll and Hyde were written and published within years of each other. Stevenson’s brilliantly written short novella came out in 1886, with Wilde’s novel following in 1890. Darwin’s theories of evolution had already been in circulation for a couple of decades, and Sigmund Freud’s first book emerged in 1891. Both novels make their own literary contribution to this late nineteenth-century exploration of the limits of the human.

However, both of these stories of men leading double lives might have had something more urgent in their sights. Utterson’s initial suspicions, when confronted by his friend Dr Jekyll’s strange behaviour and Jekyll’s seeming tolerance of the vicious Mr Hyde, is that he is being blackmailed.

In 1885, the year before Jekyll and Hyde made their first appearance in print, a law was passed that specifically criminalised all homosexual activity between men. Known as the Labouchère amendment, it also came to be known as the “blackmailer’s charter”. It was a licence to threaten men with exposure, and it is the law under which Wilde was eventually prosecuted and sentenced just a few years later.

Read more:
The Picture of Dorian Grey review: Eryn Jean Norvill stuns in all 26 roles

Set in the all-male world of middle-class, professional London, Stevenson’s novella skirts around the possible implications of male friendship, especially as combined with urban pleasures or the potential dangers of new scientific exploration. What emerges – and what is brought out brilliantly and subtly in this production – is not so much the traditional horror story of good versus evil.

Rather, this is a more complex portrayal of a society’s moral compass being painfully realigned in a new world of discovery. Utterson is as fascinated as he is repulsed by his glimpses of a world from which he only imagines himself to be separate.

In this context, Williams’ bravura use of video technology combined with live action (just wait for the exciting “staircase” scene!) is a particularly appropriate vehicle for investigating these complex influences on both the human psyche and the human body.

It is great that the STC has been able to put this set of artists together again. From Nick Schlieper’s lighting, through to Clemence Williams’ powerful score and the video design of David Bergman, this is a production to satisfy Sydney’s darkest imaginings on these chilly winter nights.

Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is on at the Roslyn Packer Theatre until September 3.

Huw Griffiths does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. A production to satisfy Sydney’s darkest imaginings: Sydney Theatre Company’s Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde – https://theconversation.com/a-production-to-satisfy-sydneys-darkest-imaginings-sydney-theatre-companys-strange-case-of-dr-jekyll-and-mr-hyde-185596

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle O’Shea, Senior Lecturer, School of Business, Western Sydney University

A record number of female Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander athletes represented Australia at the 2022 Birmingham Commonwealth Games.

While embracing their role model status, it is worth considering the weighty expectations and costs that accompany this visibility.

On top of the pressures of representing Australia at the elite level, First Nations sportspeople also have to contend with the politicisation that still surrounds their very identity.

Read more:
Sport and physical activity play important roles for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, but there are barriers to participation

The Commonwealth Games’ colonial history

The Commonwealth Games were originally known as the British Empire Games (1930-50), then the British Empire and Commonwealth Games (1954-66), the British Commonwealth Games (1970-74), and finally the Commonwealth Games.

The Empire Games aimed to celebrate imperial prestige, and Australia’s sporting authorities considered them worthier than the Olympics. The motto “Empire above all else, Australia second” was illustrative of their status and influence at the time of the 1930s Empire Games.

At the 1962 games, a time when Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander people were not counted as citizens in Australia, high-jumper and Ngemba man Percy Hobson was told to deny his Aboriginality as “it wouldn’t look good for the gold medal winner to be a “darkie” (sic)“. He had also previously been overlooked for Australian selection owing to his cultural background.

Read more:
What the Ash Barty and ‘Special K’ tennis triumphs say about Australia and the buttoned-up sport industry

Pride in identity is finally becoming accepted

Following her win in the 400 metres final at the 1994 Commonwealth Games in Victoria, Canada, Cathy Freeman wrapped herself in both the Aboriginal and Australian flags in a symbolic reconciliatory gesture. She reflected on this in her book Cathy: Her Own Story:

I wanted to shout, “Look at me. Look at my skin. I’m black, and I’m the best.” There was no more shame.

She received widespread support, including a telegram from the then prime minister Paul Keating:

…in the circumstances, your carrying of both flags was an important reminder of your pride in your heritage as an Aboriginal Australian.

Unfortunately, the support wasn’t unanimous. Australia’s Chef de Mission for the games, Arthur Tunstall, issued a media statement reprimanding Freeman:

She should have carried the Australian flag first up, and we should not have seen the Aboriginal flag at all.

Competitors at this year’s Commonwealth Games were allowed to take a knee or display a symbol in solidarity with a cause, after organisers unveiled a revised set of “guiding principles” for athlete advocacy.

Considered sporting advocates and ambassadors one day, and too political the next, Freeman’s experience demonstrates how Indigenous athletes are always carrying the weight of the politics around their identity.

Read more:
Our national anthem is non-inclusive: Indigenous Australians shouldn’t have to sing it

Inspirational role models giving back

In 1958, Adnyamathanha woman Faith (Coulthard) Thomas became the first (and until 2019, the only) Indigenous woman to represent Australia in cricket.
Thomas was highly critical of the sport’s racial and gender inequities and had no qualms in calling them out.

Following in Thomas’s footsteps, and a key member of the Australian women’s cricket team at the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games, Ashleigh Gardner is only the second female Indigenous cricket player to represent Australia on the international stage. A Muruwari woman, she has created her own foundation which links sport, health and education.

The power and influence of Gardner and other Indigenous female athletes’ advocacy and commitment to taking back to community is perhaps best summed up by Minister for Indigenous Australians Linda Burney. Burney states:

It is not so much about the physical athleticism itself, as it is about what those sporting achievements represent and the valuable lessons they have for our young people in fields beyond sport: discipline, persistence, unity, strength and dignity.

Read more:
Sit on hands or take a stand: why athletes have always been political players

Being the ‘only one’ can often lead to burnout

Netball Australia has struggled to recruit First Nations players – Noongar netballer Donnell Wallam, who played at the Birmingham games, was the first Indigenous player in 32 years to represent the Diamonds at a Commonwealth Games. The sports governing body recently announced a commitment to breaking down the barriers that prevent Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander people from reaching their full potential in the sport.

In 2020, Netball Australia held its first Indigenous Round. Jemma MiMi, having only just discovered she was First Nations, was the only identified Indigenous player in the round. Despite being essentially the face of the round’s marketing campaign, the Queensland Firebirds did not select MiMi for the game, prompting accusations the Indigenous round was purely tokenistic.

This is work that both Indigenous and non-Indigenous people need to share. It involves truth-telling and taking responsibility for past injustices that Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander people continue to face as a result of oppression through ongoing colonisation. The shame that Australia has placed on Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander people belongs to the colonisers, so let’s not wait till 2026 to dismantle it.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. You can’t be what you can’t see: the benefits for and the pressures on First Nations sportswomen – https://theconversation.com/you-cant-be-what-you-cant-see-the-benefits-for-and-the-pressures-on-first-nations-sportswomen-188224

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Marnie Blewitt, Head, Molecular Medicine Laboratory, Walter and Eliza Hall Institute

What if we could inherit more than our parents’ genes? What if we could inherit the ability to turn genes on and off?

These possibilities have come to light after our recent study, published in Nature Communications. We found information in addition to our genes was passed down from mum to offspring to affect how their skeleton develops. That’s the “epigenetic” information that’s normally reset between generations.

Our research was in mice, the first case of its kind in mammals where a long-lasting epigenetic effect from the mother’s egg is carried down to the next generation. This has lifelong consequences for that generation’s health.

However, we cannot be certain the equivalent epigenetic changes are also inherited in humans, including the implications for how our skeleton develops and potential impact on diseases.

Hold up, what’s epigenetics again?

Our genes (packages of DNA) tell our body to make certain proteins. But our cells also need instructions to know whether a gene should be used (switched on) or not (switched off).

These instructions come in the form of chemical or “epigenetic” tags (small molecules) that sit on top of the DNA. You accumulate these tags throughout your life.

Think of how punctuation marks help a reader understand a sentence. Epigenetic tags allow the cell to understand a DNA sequence.

Without these epigenetic tags, the cell might make a protein at the wrong time or not at all.

Timing is crucial in how embryos develop. If certain genes are expressed (switched on to produce a protein) too early or too late, an embryo will not develop properly.

What did we find?

We were interested in understanding the function of a protein in mouse eggs (ova) called SMCHD1.

By removing SMCHD1 from mouse eggs, we found mice that developed from eggs lacking SMCHD1 had an altered skeleton, with some vertebrae in the spine being disrupted.

This could only be explained by an epigenetic change due to the loss of SMCHD1 in the egg.

In particular, we looked at a set of genes known as Hox genes. These encode a series of proteins known to control how mammals’ skeletons develop.

Hox genes are found in all animals, from flies to humans, and are crucial for setting up our spine. Evolution has finely tuned the timing of the expression of Hox genes during embryonic development to ensure the skeleton is assembled correctly.

Our study showed that epigenetic tags established by the mother’s SMCHD1 in her egg can impact how these Hox genes are expressed in her offspring.

The findings are a big surprise because almost all epigenetic tags in the egg are erased shortly after conception. Think of this a bit like a factory reset.

This means it’s unusual to have epigenetic information from the mother’s egg carried on to her offspring to shape how they grow.

What does this mean for us?

Our findings suggest even the genes you don’t inherit from your mother can still influence your development.

This may have implications for the children of women with variants in their SMCHD1 gene. Variations in SMCHD1 cause human diseases such as a form of muscular dystrophy.

In the future, SMCHD1 might be a target for new medicines to alter how the protein functions and help patients with diseases caused by variations in SMCHD1. So it’s important to understand what consequences the disruption of SMCHD1 in the egg might have on future generations.

À lire aussi :
Kids’ learning and health is shaped by genes they don’t inherit, as well as genes they do

How about other diseases?

Scientists are now beginning to understand that the epigenetic tags added to our genes are sensitive to changes in the environment. This can mean
environmental variations, such as our diet or level of physical activity, can affect how our genes are expressed. However, these changes do not alter the DNA itself.

The epigenetic state undergoes the most changes when the egg is developing and during very early embryonic development, due to the “factory reset” between generations. This means the embryo is more vulnerable to epigenetic, including environmental, changes during this developmental window.

As we discover more cases where epigenetic information is inherited from the mother, there may be instances where the diet or other environmental changes the mother experiences could impact the next generation.

Given that scientists can now study what happens in a single egg, we are well placed to determine how that might happen and work out what exactly we could be inheriting.

Marnie Blewitt receives funding from The National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia and has previously received funding from the Bellberry-Viertel Senior Medical Research Fellowship.

Natalia Benetti receives funding from an Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship.

– ref. Surprise discovery shows you may inherit more from your mum than you think – https://theconversation.com/surprise-discovery-shows-you-may-inherit-more-from-your-mum-than-you-think-188293

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Joanne Orlando, Researcher: Digital Literacy and Digital Wellbeing, Western Sydney University

This week, one Sydney high school made headlines for banning mobile phones during school hours. Phones can come to school but must stay in locked pouches allowing teachers to “focus on educating students”.

This follows other recent phone bans at both public and private schools around Australia. In 2020, Victoria banned phones for all state primary and secondary schools and many private schools, while prestigious Sydney girls school SCEGGS Darlinghurst banned phones in May 2022.

This is part of a worldwide trend. In a move popular with parents, schools and governments see phone bans as a way to fix bullying and student disengagement.

But research shows banning doesn’t resolve these problems. Instead, we need to educate students about how to manage these problems.

Schools in the firing line

Schools have certainly been thrown into the firing line when it comes to helping young people grapple with technology. Anecdotally, phone bans are supposed to ensure students behave better and pay more attention in class.

However, genuinely resolving issues like these in the long term is not simple. Removing one variable – a phone – cannot address the complexity needed to resolve them.

Read more:
Banning mobile phones in schools: beneficial or risky? Here’s what the evidence says

The purpose of school is to support children to develop the skills, knowledge and dispositions needed for the era in which they live.

Given we live in a digital era, the question we should be asking is not, “should we ban phones or not”. It should be how can schools support young people to engage with technology in an empowered and positive way? And where does banning mobile phones fit into this?

The research says bans don’t work

From talking to teachers for my work, I know that phones in classrooms can be frustrating. If phones are not silenced or turned over, students can be momentarily distracted if a notification comes up.

But rigorous peer-reviewed research shows banning mobile phones in class have no impact on students’ academic performance. It does not harm or improve academic results in the long-term. A 2020 Swedish study examined high school students grade points (or marks) before and after a year-long mobile phone ban and found no impact.

Despite concerns, research shows mobile phones have generally been found not to disrupt teachers instructing students. This is because students mostly pick them up between tasks or at the end of lessons.

Research also tells us traditional (in-person) bullying continues to be more prevalent than cyberbullying around the world. So, removing one device for six hours a day will not stop bullying.

When thinking about phones in schools, there are three bigger issues we need to think about, beyond simply banning them at the school gate.

1. Living in a distracting world

A 2018 Udemy survey found 36% of millennials and Gen Z employees spend more than two hours checking their smartphones for personal activities during the workday. In real terms, the 40 hour week has turned into a 30 hour work week, plus ten hours on your phone.

So, we know students need to learn how to work and be productive when they are in a technology-immersed world.

This is not to say classrooms should become a free-for-all TikTok fest whenever students feel the urge to go online. But we need to support children to learn how to concentrate and function in a digitally-saturated world.

2. New risks and changes to old ones

The digital era has introduced some risks and changed the nature of others and we need to specifically educate students about these.

Privacy risks have also morphed and follow us almost everywhere we go. Recent research by Internet Study Lab suggests 95% of educational apps used in schools collect personal data about students that is then on sold to third parties.

Students also need to be able to identify misinformation, manage algorithmic bias, understand commercial profiling and watch out for social isolation. And bullying of course now occurs online and follows children beyond the school gate.

Locking phones in pouches may be a short-term solution, but young people will still face these complex, technology-related issues, perhaps as soon as on the way home from school.

3. Treating children with respect

Over COVID lockdowns there was enormous reliance on children to use their devices to learn, socialise and stay mentally well. Now we are (mostly) back to normal and suddenly, young people are no longer to be trusted with a screen in the context of their schooling.

Not only is this confusing for young people, it sets up a dynamic where something they need to use everyday is seen now seen as “wrong” or “harmful”.

Read more:
Kids need to learn about cybersecurity, but teachers only have so much time in the day

We need to build trust with young people and empower them with skills and positive habits to use technology well in ways that will enhance their life.

Obviously this adds more pressure and work to already stretched schools, but if phones are going to be banned, they can’t just be ignored in the classroom. There needs to be specific lessons or instruction on the issues around them.

This is no longer a “screentime” conversation. We need new knowledge and new education strategies if children are to thrive online post-COVID and beyond.

Joanne Orlando currently receives funding from Queensland Department of Education.

– ref. Another school has banned mobile phones but research shows bans don’t stop bullying or improve student grades – https://theconversation.com/another-school-has-banned-mobile-phones-but-research-shows-bans-dont-stop-bullying-or-improve-student-grades-188435

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Allen Cheng, Professor in Infectious Diseases Epidemiology, Monash University

A new virus, Langya henipavirus, is suspected to have caused infections in 35 people in China’s Shandong and Henan provinces.

It’s related to Hendra and Nipah viruses, which cause disease in humans. However, there’s much we don’t know about the new virus – known as LayV for short – including whether it spreads from human to human.

Here’s what we know so far.

How sick are people getting?

Researchers in China first detected this new virus as part of routine surveillance in people with a fever who had reported recent contact with animals. Once the virus was identified, the researchers looked for the virus in other people.

Symptoms reported appeared to be mostly mild – fever, fatigue, cough, loss of appetite, muscle aches, nausea and headache – although we don’t know how long the patients were unwell.

A smaller proportion had potentially more serious complications, including pneumonia, and abnormalities in liver and kidney function. However, the severity of these abnormalities, the need for hospitalisation, and whether any cases were fatal were not reported.

Where did this virus come from?

The authors also investigated whether domestic or wild animals may have been the source of the virus. Although they found a small number of goats and dogs that may have been infected with the virus in the past, there was more direct evidence a significant proportion of wild shrews were harbouring the virus.

This suggests humans may have caught the virus from wild shrews.

Does this virus actually cause this disease?

The researchers used a modern technique known as metagenomic analysis to find this new virus. Researchers sequence all genetic material then discard the “known” sequences (for example, human DNA) to look for “unknown” sequences that might represent a new virus.

This raises the question about how scientists can tell whether a particular virus causes the disease.

We have traditionally used “Koch’s postulates” to determine whether a particular micro-organism causes disease:

• it must be found in people with the disease and not in well people

• it must be able to be isolated from people with the disease

• the isolate from people with the disease must cause the disease if given to a healthy person (or animal)

• it must be able to be re-isolated from the healthy person after they become ill.

The authors acknowledge this new virus doesn’t yet meet these criteria, and the relevance of these criteria in the modern era has been questioned.

However, the authors say they didn’t find any other cause of the illness in 26 people, there was evidence 14 people’s immune systems had responded to the virus, and people who were more unwell had more virus.

What can we learn from related viruses?

This new virus appears to be a close cousin of two other viruses that are significant in humans: Nipah virus and Hendra virus. This family of viruses was the inspiration for the fictional MEV-1 virus in the film Contagion.

Hendra virus was first reported in Queensland in 1994, when it caused the deaths of 14 horses and the trainer Vic Rail.

Many outbreaks in horses have been reported in Queensland and northern New South Wales since, and are generally thought to be due to “spillover” infections from flying foxes.

In total, seven human cases of Hendra virus have been reported in Australia (mostly veterinarians working with sick horses), including four deaths.

Read more:
Explainer: Why is Hendra virus so dangerous?

Nipah virus is more significant globally, with outbreaks frequently reported in Bangladesh.

The severity of infection can range from very mild to fatal encephalitis (inflammation of the brain).

The first outbreak in Malaysia and Singapore was reported in people who had close contact with pigs. However, it is thought more recent outbreaks have been due to food contaminated with the urine or saliva of infected bats.

Significantly, Nipah virus appears to be transmitted from person to person, mostly among household contacts.

Read more:
Humans are to blame for the rise in dangerous viral infections

What do we need to find out next?

Little is known about this new virus, and the currently reported cases are likely to be the tip of the iceberg.

At this stage, there is no indication the virus can spread from human to human.

Further work is required to determine how severe the infection can be, how it spreads, and how widespread it might be in China and the region.

Read more:
The next global health pandemic could easily erupt in your backyard

Allen Cheng receives funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council.

– ref. What is this new Langya virus? Do we need to be worried? – https://theconversation.com/what-is-this-new-langya-virus-do-we-need-to-be-worried-188577

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dallas Rogers, Head of Urbanism and Associate Professor of Urban Studies, School of Architecture, Design and Planning, University of Sydney

The redevelopment of the 22-hectare Barangaroo precinct on Sydney Harbour has long been a masterclass in poor urban development governance and lack of due process. It was meant to transform the former docklands into a world-class example of architectural and public space design. Instead, Sydney got a world-leading example of unsolicited urbanism, and a casino.

Unsolicited urbanism is a project of city-shaping initiated by developers, not government. It clearly favours powerful development and financial players. Instead of being subject to proper public planning processes, outcomes are often predetermined.

Read more:
Australian cities pay the price for blocking council input to projects that shape them

In the case of Barangaroo, secretive monopolies over the site have been legitimated. A culture of planning-as-deal-making has been normalised.

A coalition of key state government figures and the real estate and development lobbies have targeted not just this prime harbour-side site for development, but the planning system itself.

The latest furore over the site involves a proposal to modify approved plans for Central Barangaroo. The changes would greatly increase floorspace, including a new 20-storey tower above a metro train station, and shrink a public park. It’s the last tranche of buildings that will sit between the highly developed southern end and Barangaroo Reserve at the northern end.

It’s another example of how planning here operates. The planning minister and not the Independent Planning Commission will make the decision.

Read more:
Crown Sydney casino opens – another beacon for criminals looking to launder dirty money

The latest chapter in a decade-long saga

The story begins with the Hill Thalis-led competition-winning entry for the Barangaroo masterplan. It was effectively discarded in 2009-2010 – revised out of existence.

Since then the public justification for the project has relied on two main arguments:

1. it should restore the harbour headland at the northern end of the site to something like its original form and character

2. its southern portion should be home to “world-class architecture” and “icons”.

The second argument was standard guff reliant on “starchitects” and the rhetoric of global landmarks.

The first was more compelling. Often rehearsed in public by former prime minister Paul Keating, the argument was that the headland was a vital aspect of the city’s most important heritage, the harbour landscape. Reconstructing it was much more important, Keating suggested, than protecting the form and some of the residual industrial heritage of the container port.

Setting aside Philip Thalis’ judgment that it is a “kitsch, historicist fantasy”, where does this leave the current proposal (modification 9) for Central Barangaroo?

It involves notable development impact on the harbour landscape as seen from the harbour itself and from one of Sydney’s most significant public open spaces, Observatory Hill.

The expanded development and new tower would be in an area always envisaged as low-rise. The reason was to protect views and the historic landscape.

Read more:
How Sydney’s Barangaroo tower paved the way for closed-door deals

Part of a wider story of failure

This latest Barangaroo chapter is part of a longer story of urban governance failure.

Under the NSW Liberal government of the past decade, a raft of “reforms” have chipped away at the integrity and credibility of the planning system. Our research has tracked the longer history of how these changes have underwritten unsolicited urbanism, as shown below.

We have seen small development loopholes open up over building heights and floorspace ratios, and the much more significant rise of the unsolicited proposal process at Barangaroo.

NSW is not alone here. In Victoria, the West Gate Tunnel project in Melbourne is another controversial case of unsolicited urbanism.

Read more:
West Gate Tunnel saga shows risk of ‘lock-in’ on mega-projects pitched by business

The rise of planning-as-deal-making involves a geographical sleight of hand. Rather than work to a broad strategic plan for a city or a whole precinct, it reduces public debate to a discrete discussion about a specific planning or development process, or a new section of the site.

The objective of this incremental approach is twofold:

1. to gain access to government land

2. to undermine the planning process that guides how this land should be used for maximum public benefit.

What is lost is accountability for how a project fulfils the broader goals of strategic city planning. A “let it rip” mentality pervades the development sector and sections of the government too.

Any long-term plan, land parcel, public infrastructure or zoning process is seemingly up for grabs, liable to be sold off, changed or up-scaled. The planning system is increasingly fragmented and disjointed. Merit and the public good have made way for developer business cases.

Anyone standing in the way of development approval is charged with self-serving NIMBYism, no matter how valid their concerns.

Will the government heed Sydneysiders’ concerns?

Sydney CBD occupancy rates have flatlined. The Committee for Sydney is advocating reinvigoration based on diversity and inclusivity. The latest Barangaroo plans won’t deliver this.

Instead, real estate interests want more exclusive and higher-density residential high-rise development on land that could be used differently, were social, cultural and environmental considerations given priority.

In 2016 the NSW Audit Office urged greater transparency and public reporting of unsolicited proposals. It warned these “pose a greater risk to value for money than procurements done through open, competitive and transparent processes”.

Read more:
Market-led infrastructure may sound good but not if it short-changes the public

The latest controversy comes amid scandals engulfing the state government, following a federal election won and lost on issues of public integrity and evidence-based policy-making, from climate to pandemic management.

The public have lost trust in politicians to represent citizens’ best interests. They are suspicious of corruption, and detest “deals for mates”. While people may not understand the technicalities of planning proposals, amendments and “state significant” developments, they do sense the cards are stacked against the public interest.

The battle lines have been drawn over this fateful final piece of Barangaroo. The government’s decision will reveal where its loyalties lie, and whether any integrity in planning can be salvaged before voters pass judgment in the 2023 state election.

Dallas Rogers receives funding from the Australian Research Council and Henry Halloran Trust.

Cameron Logan receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the Alastair Swayn Foundation.

Chris Gibson receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

Crystal Legacy receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

– ref. ‘Let it rip’: Barangaroo, a masterclass in planning as deal-making – https://theconversation.com/let-it-rip-barangaroo-a-masterclass-in-planning-as-deal-making-188434

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hannah Dahlen, Professor of Midwifery, Associate Dean Research and HDR, Midwifery Discipline Leader, Western Sydney University

The tragic case of Annie Moylan, who died in Melbourne in 2017 from sepsis, when 18 weeks pregnant, has put a spotlight on this life-threatening condition.

Delay in receiving blood results, admission to a private hospital that did not provide obstetric care, and communication breakdown when Annie transferred to another private hospital all seem to have played a role in what has been described as a “cascade of failures”. A coronial inquest into her death begins on Monday.

Sepsis can also happen after birth, as was seen in the devastating loss of Michaela Perrin who died in 2014, six days having a healthy baby girl via caesarean section.

Women who are currently pregnant may worry about how cases such as these can happen in a country like Australia with an excellent health system.

Sepsis is a serious health condition for anyone, and pregnant women are no exception to this. Thankfully it is still rare for young women to die from the condition.

Read more:
Sepsis still kills 1 in 5 people worldwide – two ICU physicians offer a new approach to stopping it

When the body fights itself

Sepsis is syndrome (or group of symptoms) mostly caused by a bacterial infection. It results when the body is trying to fight an infection and begins to damage its own tissues. This can lead to a serious drop in blood pressure, and organ damage.

In Australia, around 12% of people hospitalised with sepsis will die from it. Very young (less than 12 months) and older people (over 85 years) are most vulnerable. The death rate for pregnant women with sepsis worldwide is estimated to be between 1% and 4.6%.

Treatment relies on early identification, antibiotics, intravenous fluids (fluid through a drip) and skilful medical care. For those who survive, there can be lifelong damage, both physically and psychologically.

What causes sepsis during pregnancy, or after birth?

When sepsis happens during pregnancy, it is sometimes called maternal sepsis. After birth it is called postpartum or puerperal sepsis.

The syndrome can result from an infection anywhere in the body (such as pneumonia or a urinary tract infection) or it can be introduced during medical procedures like a caesarean section.

For this reason, all women who have a caesarean section are given intravenous antibiotics in the operating theatre to prevent sepsis.

For around 30% of cases, no source of infection is found.

When identified, the most common causes of sepsis during and after pregnancy are Escherichia coli (E. coli) and group B Streptococcus. As mixed infections are also possible with sepsis, broad-spectrum antibiotics are given as soon as possible.

Read more:
Vaginal birth after caesarean increases the risk of serious perineal tear by 20%, our large-scale review shows

Sepsis was a major cause of women dying after birth

Puerperal sepsis was once one of the main causes of women dying following childbirth. As knowledge about hygiene practices advanced and then antibiotics were introduced, this declined rapidly. However, sepsis has never been eliminated.

The work of Viennese physician Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis in the mid-1800s led to the discovery that health provider hand-washing could reduce infection rates in women.

Semmelweis observed there was a much lower rate of women dying when cared for by midwives than doctors in two clinics and realised the midwives were not involved in autopsies and hence not carrying bacteria from the autopsy rooms into the maternity ward.

Semmelweis told anyone attending autopsies to scrub their hands with chloride and lime before entering the maternity ward. Soon after this, the rate of maternal deaths in the doctors’ clinics fell.

It took nearly another 30 years for Semmelweis’s ideas to be fully embraced. He suffered a tragic death in an asylum and ironically succumbed to sepsis from a gangrenous wound to his hand.

It has been estimated nearly a half of all maternal deaths in the pre-antibiotic era (before the 1930s) were due to infection.

“Back-alley abortions” were once another major cause of sepsis and death in women before better access to proper medical care for abortions was legislated in many countries.

Today, around one in 12 maternal deaths are from lack of access to safe abortion care and infection remains a big part of this. This is one reason why there are such grave concern over the recent overturning of Roe vs Wade in the United States.

Read more:
Monkeypox can be transmitted to babies during and after pregnancy. We should be watchful but not alarmed

Rates of maternal sepsis today

While sepsis is considered to be a preventable cause of maternal death, it continues to be a major cause of women dying during or after childbirth, even in high resource countries such as Australia.

Sepsis was the second most common cause of maternal death between 2010 and 2019 in Australia (22 deaths).

According to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention sepsis is the second leading cause of pregnancy related deaths in the US, leading to around 14% of pregnancy-related deaths.

Investigations into sepsis cases during pregnancy and following birth in the United Kingdom found 63% of deaths were associated with substandard care, such as delays in recognising or managing sepsis.

Delays in diagnosing sepsis or misdiagnosis of sepsis in childbearing women is made more complicated due to the physical changes in women’s bodies during pregnancy, labour and the postnatal period. Sepsis can also progress more rapidly in pregnant women. https://www.ogmagazine.org.au/21/4-21/managing-the-septic-patient-in-labour/

We should all be alert

If you are unwell during pregnancy or following birth let your health care provider know and persist in seeking care if you are not satisfied.

Most of the time everything will be fine but there are signs of sepsis that can be detected by health providers, such as low blood pressure, temperature or via blood tests.

Health providers have processes for suspected maternal sepsis, guidelines to follow and regular training on this important health emergency.

Health providers need to listen to women and take them seriously when they are unwell, and have the possibility of sepsis in mind.

The brave and persistent actions of Annie Moylan’s parents in seeking answers about their daughter’s death from sepsis will make care safer for other women.

Hannah Dahlen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Sepsis is serious during pregnancy, but thankfully it is still rare – https://theconversation.com/sepsis-is-serious-during-pregnancy-but-thankfully-it-is-still-rare-188361

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

The Chinese reaction to United States Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s Taiwan visit further escalated tensions in our region, as China becomes more bellicose in language and action.

On Wednesday, China’s Ambassador Xiao Qian spoke at the National Press Club. He talked about wanting a positive relationship between Australia and China, while reiterating China’s uncompromising line towards Taiwan, and giving a chilling prediction of what the Taiwanese would be in for post reunification.

“The least thing we are ready to do is use force. That is one of the reasons why China has been so patient for several decades. […] We’re waiting for a peaceful unification. But […] we can never rule out the option to use other means […] when compelled, we are ready to use all necessary means.”

“My personal understanding is that once Taiwan is united, come back to the motherland, there might be process for the people in Taiwan to have a correct understanding of China.”

In this podcast, Michelle Grattan speaks with Nick Bisley, Professor of International Relations at La Trobe University, an expert in Asian foreign relations and Australia’s foreign and defence policy.

Bisley says “what we are probably entering into, at least for the next few months, is a period of much sharply-heightened instability and military kind of friction in and around Taiwan”.

“China has made very clear for decades now that under certain circumstances it would use military force to deal with what it sees as a rogue province. And those circumstances are largely around a unilateral declaration of independence by Taiwan or some other really significant move away from the old status quo.”

“I think what what we see out of this crisis is that China’s risk appetite has gone up and its willingness to put up with what it sees as kind of provocations has gone down.

“So the likelihood of them using military force to coerce Taiwan – it’s not going to happen this year or next year, but its likelihood of occurring in the next four to five years has distinctly increased.”

On whether there is the likelihood of a conflict between China and the US as tensions between the two nations continue to rise, “the constraints that domestic politics puts on each side means that we could end up in a situation where they are backed into a corner and find that there’s few ways out other than some kind of military action, which then escalates.”

But “if there is a proper conflict between the US and China, everyone loses pretty significantly.”

“When we look back in February 2022, thinking about what Putin would do in relation to Ukraine, we all thought he’s not going to do a full-blown invasion. It doesn’t make any sense. It’s not in his interest to do so. I think we’ve always thought that about Taiwan. It’s just not in the US’s interest to do the full-blown military operation. And the lesson has got to be from Ukraine, is that sometimes rationality doesn’t always win.”

On whether the Albanese government is handling the rising tensions with China well, Bisley says: “They’re playing a reasonable hand in what is a pretty difficult set of circumstances.”

Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Politics with Michelle Grattan: How far will China go? La Trobe’s Nick Bisley says its ‘risk appetite’ has gone up – https://theconversation.com/politics-with-michelle-grattan-how-far-will-china-go-la-trobes-nick-bisley-says-its-risk-appetite-has-gone-up-188536

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist), The Conversation

On June 24, the US Supreme Court denied a constitutional right to an abortion, overturning its Roe v. Wade decision in 1973. I covered this and two other late June right-wing decisions by the court in an early July article.

Read more:
How the US Supreme Court has become right-wing, and do recent decisions give Democrats hope at the midterms?

When this article was written, the court was historically unpopular, but so was US President Joe Biden. I thought it unlikely abortion would help the Democrats in the November midterm elections, given Biden’s unpopularity and the high inflation.

But in the last month, Democrats have gained in the national House of Representatives popular vote and in the FiveThirtyEight Senate forecasts. In my July article, Republicans had a 2.0% national lead over Democrats, an 87% chance to win the house and a 55% chance to win the Senate in FiveThirtyEight poll averages and forecasts.

Now FiveThirtyEight gives Democrats a 60% chance to win the Senate, while Republicans still have an 80% chance to win the House. Democrats have a tiny 0.1% national lead over Republicans, their first lead since last November.

Biden is still unpopular with a 55.5% disapproval, 39.8% approval (net -15.7). But Democrats are doing far better than we would expect from Biden’s ratings.

There are still three months to go before the November 8 midterm elections, and Republicans could advance again. But at the moment, abortion appears to be helping Democrats, and recent economic data is likely to also help.

At these elections, all 435 house seats and 35 of the 100 Senate seats are up for election. Democrats won the house in 2020 by a 222-213 margin, and hold the Senate from a 50-50 tie on Vice President Kamala Harris’ casting vote. Twenty-one Republicans and 14 Democrats are up for election in the Senate.

The Democrats’ biggest triumph occurred at an August 2 referendum in Kansas. Republicans attempted to remove a right to an abortion in the Kansas state constitution by a referendum. In this case, a “no” vote preserved the abortion right, while a “yes” would have scrapped this right.

The “no” side won this referendum by a landslide 59.0-41.0 margin. Kansas is a right-wing state that voted for Donald Trump over Biden at the 2020 US presidential election by a 56.2-41.5 margin. The swing from the 2020 election to this referedum was 32.7 points to the left.

Abortion important at midterms due to stripping of rights

I believe abortion has become important as the large majority of voters would have assumed it was settled law, and the Supreme Court would not reverse its 1973 decision.

Gun control is another issue where Republicans appear extreme, particularly to an international audience. But in this case, gun control advocates are trying to strip people of their “right” to bear arms. The side that thinks their rights are in danger of being stripped, whether that’s guns or abortion, is more motivated.

This July 22 Vox article said 13 states now have abortion bans, nine of these without exceptions for rape or incest (Oklahoma is unclear). Nine more states have abortion bans that are currently being held up by state courts, with four including exceptions for rape or incest.

A ten-year-old girl who became pregnant from rape in Ohio was forced to have an abortion in Indiana owing to Ohio’s total abortion ban. Indiana has now banned abortion from September 15, though with exceptions for rape and incest.

For much of his first year as president, Trump had near his worst ratings in the FiveThirtyEight tracker, likely due to his attempts to gut the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). These efforts were supported by Republicans who controlled both chambers of Congress. The repeal of Obamacare failed by just a 51-49 margin in the Senate.

When Obamacare was first enacted in March 2010, it likely hindered Democrats at the November 2010 midterm elections, which Republicans won easily. But the reaction to efforts to gut Obamacare demonstrates the electoral potency of stripping of rights already acquired.

Since 2006, the non-presidential party has won every midterm house election convincingly. Republican George W. Bush was president in 2006, when Democrats won. Democrat Barack Obama was president in both 2010 and 2014, when Republicans won, and Trump was president in 2018, when Democrats won.

By striking down Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court has given Democrats an opportunity to be an opposition party. This could help Democrats retain their Congressional majorities.

Drop in inflation could help Democrats

Inflation has been the Democrats’ biggest economic problem this year. But the July inflation report (released Wednesday) had headline inflation unchanged, down from a 1.3% increase in June. Real wages increased 0.5% in July after falling 0.9% in June, though they are still down 3.6% in weekly terms for the 12 months to July.

In the July jobs report (released August 5), 528,000 jobs were created, and the unemployment rate was just 3.5%. While the unemployment rate has returned to its level in February 2020, prior to the COVID pandemic, the employment population ratio – the percentage of eligible Americans employed – was 60.0% in July, 1.2% below its February 2020 level.

The robust jobs report contradicted the two successive quarters
of negative GDP growth in both the March and June quarters that is often used to define a recession. Note that the US annualises its GDP data. In Australia’s quarterly terms, the contraction would be 0.4% in the March quarter and 0.2% in June.

Senate passes $US 739 billion health and climate bill

The US Senate on Sunday passed a USD739 billion bill that prioritises health care and climate change action. This bill was passed 51-50 on Harris’ casting vote with all Democrats in favour and all Republicans opposed. The House is expected to pass it Friday (Saturday AEST), then Biden will sign it into law.

The Senate usually requires a three-fifths majority (60 votes) to pass legislation, but only a simple majority is required for “budget reconciliation”. Not everything qualifies for reconciliation, and one clause of this bill was stripped out as it failed the reconciliation test.

This is a major legislative triumph for Democrats that had seemed unlikely after their most conservative senator, West Virginia’s Joe Manchin, had twice rejected earlier versions. Democrats will hope this legislation boosts youth turnout at the midterms.

FBI raids Trump’s Mar-a-Lago and byelections

The FBI on Monday raided Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate. While it would be satisfying for the US left if Trump went to prison, I do not think it will be important for the 2024 presidential election. If Trump can’t run, Republicans are almost certain to nominate another very right-wing candidate for president – current Florida governor Ron DeSantis would be the favourite.

Read more:
As the FBI raids Mar-A-Lago, Donald Trump reaches for unconvincing historical parallels

Republicans won Tuesday’s federal byelection for the Republican-held Minnesota first Congressional District by a 51.0-46.9 margin, but that was down from Trump’s 54.0-43.9 margin over Biden in 2020 in this district (see Daily Kos elections). Byelections will occur in three more federal seats in the next two weeks.

Adrian Beaumont does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. US Democrats gain ground before midterm elections as Kansas voters reject attempt to ban abortion – https://theconversation.com/us-democrats-gain-ground-before-midterm-elections-as-kansas-voters-reject-attempt-to-ban-abortion-187994

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Steven W. Salisbury, PhD; Associate Professor, School of Biological Sciences, The University of Queensland

For the first time, we have shown that a soft heel pad was crucial to how sauropod dinosaurs supported their immense weight, according to a new digital reconstruction of their feet.

Sauropods, which weighed up to 50 tonnes and dominated the world’s ecosystems for around 100 million years, appear to have developed soft heel pads early in their evolution, and it was likely a key step that allowed sauropods to become the largest animals to have ever walked the earth. Our work appears this week in the journal Science Advances.

‘Thunder lizards’

One of the most notable things about sauropods is the immense size of some species: the feet of sauropod dinosaurs would have shaken the earth as they walked. Indeed, the name of one of the first described sauropods to gain popular appeal, Brontosaurus, means “thunder lizard”.

Sauropods had long necks and tails, and walked on four long, pillar-like legs, but they didn’t start out gigantic. Around 230 million years ago, the ancestors of these dinosaurs were small, two-legged animals that would have looked very much like their saurischian cousins, the theropods; most probably wouldn’t have weighed more than an ostrich.

But starting around 210 million years ago, sauropod ancestors increased in size, with an estimated body mass approaching one tonne. The largest sauropods such as Argentinosaurus, Patagotitan and Australotitan probably reached adult sizes in excess of 50 tonnes more than ten times the size of the largest living terrestrial animal today, the African elephant.

It goes without saying that animals of that size had immense feet. Some sauropod footprints found in the Kimberley region of Western Australia are more than 1.7 metres long – big enough for most people to bathe in!

But what did sauropod feet really look like, and how did they support the titanic adult body weight of their owners?

Read more:
Necks question … how did the biggest dinosaurs get so big?

On the trail of sauropods

Having spent many years tracking sauropods in the Kimberley, I [Steve Salisbury] have long pondered what their feet might have looked like in life. The front feet appear to have been like those of elephants, with the bones arranged in a near-vertical, semi-circular column, with greatly reduced finger bones except for the thumb. The “hand” prints of most sauropods are typically rounded or “bean-shaped”.

Despite their commonly portrayed columnar look, however, sauropod feet were very different to those of elephants. Sauropods had long, flexible toes, as evidenced by the mobility between the bones. Fossilised tracks show they could spread their toes, adjusting the splay of the foot as they walked across different surfaces – this is not what we find in elephants today.

It has long been assumed that like other dinosaurs, sauropods walked on their toes, with the ankle joint elevated off the ground. Yet many sauropod tracks include the impression of a large “heel”.

This has led many palaeontologists to speculate that sauropods had some kind of “heel pad”. But apart from tracks, definitive evidence of a heel pad in sauropods has remained just that – academic speculation. Our work aims to change that.

Walking in the feet of giants

Armed with knowledge of what the foot skeleton of various sauropods looked like, along with information about their tracks, Andréas Jannel went about trying to figure out how their feet may have worked, as part of his PhD at The University of Queensland. We also teamed up with Olga Panagiotopoulou, an expert in the foot mechanics of modern animals, and elephants in particular.

Andréas generated 3D digital models for the foot skeleton of various sauropods and sauropod precursors. He and Olga then went about testing the strength of these models using a technique known as finite element analysis. They compared how different postures influenced the mechanical behaviour of the foot with and without the addition of a soft-tissue pad.

Regardless of the posture of the foot – toes on the ground, toes partially on the ground, or only the tips of the toes on the ground — none of the models could sustain the magnitude of mechanical forces that sauropods would have encountered in life, unless they also had a soft tissue pad beneath the “heel”.

Our findings indicate that a soft tissue pad would have cushioned the entire foot skeleton, allowing it to absorb mechanical forces during weight bearing. Put simply, without that pad beneath the heel, bones in the feet of sauropods would have crumpled under their immense weight.

Arrival of the giants

Sauropod precursors such as Plateosaurus have traditionally been reconstructed as having walked with their toes slightly raised off the ground and with no heel pad. Our models now indicate their foot skeleton could not have supported their body weight without some form of additional padding.

Some fossil tracks thought to belong to animals such as Plateosaurus do show evidence of pads starting to coalesce behind the toes. This “incipient” heel pad – one just starting to develop – would be consistent with our models.

The presence of an incipient heel pad in sauropod precursors laid the foundations for the evolution of a more substantial structure. By 170 million years ago, the first “true” sauropods were exceeding 10 metric tonnes, and tracks attributed to them show a well-developed heel pad.

The stage had been set, and within 10 million to 15 million years, titans weighing more than 30 tonnes were walking the earth, and the diversification of giant sauropods had begun. They would dominate world ecosystems for the next 100 million years.

Read more:
Curious Kids: how do we know if a dinosaur skeleton is from a child dinosaur or an adult dinosaur?

Steven W. Salisbury has received funding from Australian Research Council and the National Science Foundation

Andréas Jannel receives funding from a University of Queensland International Scholarship.

Dr Olga Panagiotopoulou has received funding from Marie Curie EU, NHMRC,FAPESP, BBSRC.

– ref. A key feature contributed to sauropods getting so enormous, new dino foot study reveals – https://theconversation.com/a-key-feature-contributed-to-sauropods-getting-so-enormous-new-dino-foot-study-reveals-188462

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Apisalome Movono, Senior Lecturer in Development Studies, Massey University

With Samoa fully reopening its borders on August 1, another Pacific country moved tentatively forwards after two years of border closures and little or no international tourism.

But opening up is not as simple as flipping a switch, given the many challenges facing Pacific aviation. Rising fuel costs, mounting debt, management issues and a shortage of pilots have all plagued the industry in the region.

Climate change adds to these problems. Tourism aside, small island nations with very small economies, spread across a vast expanse of ocean, depend on high carbon-emitting air transport for health, trade and family connections.

These days, most Pacific national airlines are being kept afloat by government loans and guarantees – and in Fiji’s case, workers’ pension funds. With Pacific Forum economic ministers meeting in Vanuatu from today, all these issues should be high on the agenda.

Connecting the ‘blue continent’

Unfortunately, difficult conversations about the management of national airlines were largely absent at the earlier Pacific Forum leaders meeting in Fiji in July.

This was despite the
2050 Strategy for the Blue Pacific Continent “to protect and secure our Pacific people, place and prospects” laid out at the meeting. And it would have been disappointing to the ordinary taxpayers who have often supported their loss-making national carriers.

In 2021, for example, the Samoan government clipped the wings of Samoan Airways over concerns about its ongoing viability. The role of maintaining national prestige and pride in the form of an airline is still raised in debates about the nation’s near bankruptcy in the early 1990s.

Read more:
The sun is setting on unsustainable long-haul, short-stay tourism — regional travel bubbles are the future

Now, with international borders reopening, Samoa Airways has announced it will no longer operate long-haul flights to Brisbane, Sydney and Auckland – traditionally its primary sources of passengers and freight.

This may dampen hopes of a rapid resumption of tourism, an industry Samoa depends on for around 25% of its GDP.

With Samoa ending leases on some of its aircraft, its close neighbour Vanuatu is reportedly considering taking one of those planes as part of its own tourism development plans.

Kiribati, too, has invested in its fleet, acquiring two aircraft as part of an apparent international tourism growth strategy. Ironically, however, Kiribati pulled out of the recent Pacific Forum meeting, joining Micronesian countries that have also left the organisation.

Turbulence for Fiji Airways

Meanwhile, the region’s largest carrier, Fiji Airways (formerly Air Pacific), is caught up in controversy over changes in its ownership structure that caught many off guard in mid-July.

In particular, the Fiji National Provident Fund’s acquisition of a major share of the airline has been criticised by opposition MPs and union leaders for exposing the retirement fund’s members to a struggling enterprise.

Read more:
Pacific tourism is desperate for a vaccine and travel freedoms, but the industry must learn from this crisis

In 2020 the airline laid off large numbers of staff as it dealt with the fallout from the pandemic. And there have been calls for greater transparency in its operations. In 2021, Fiji’s former prime minister Mahendra Chaudhry called the airline a “noose around the necks of the taxpayers” after it took a FJD$130 million loan from the Asian Development Bank.

In an unprecedented move, Fiji Airways has now also taken over management of Airports Fiji, a move the Association of South Pacific Airlines (ASPA) described as “very unusual” and a potential conflict of interest.

Read more:
Pacific Islands are back on the map, and climate action is not negotiable for would-be allies

A ‘sense of urgency’

None of these systemic issues are entirely new. While cooperation has historically brought benefits for Pacific nations, tension between regionalism and nationalism has also hampered a coherent aviation strategy.

In July, however, Pacific aviation ministers endorsed a new aviation strategy aimed at ensuring “a safe, secure and sustainable aviation system” for the region. It is to be hoped this initiative works, despite
the region’s many competing priorities, political uncertainties and shifting allegiances.

But the current political divisions over Micronesia’s place within the wider Pacific family suggest these challenges will remain for some time.

Pacific Forum economic ministers meeting in Vanuatu today and tomorrow have already said “the sense of urgency is very real”. Their discussions about “resilient economic recovery and stability” should include the role of regional aviation in achieving those goals.

Any realistic strategy for a “blue Pacific continent” must involve the good governance, cooperation and viability of sustainable airlines so they can connect nations across that vast expanse of ocean for generations to come.

Apisalome Movono receives funding from a Marsden Fast-Start Grant from the Royal Society Te Aparangi

– ref. Pacific aviation is struggling to take off after the pandemic – how can the ‘blue continent’ stay connected? – https://theconversation.com/pacific-aviation-is-struggling-to-take-off-after-the-pandemic-how-can-the-blue-continent-stay-connected-187522

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tim Johnson, Associate Professor, Curtin University

Earth is the only planet we know of with continents, the giant landmasses that provide homes to humankind and most of Earth’s biomass.

However, we still don’t have firm answers to some basic questions about continents: how did they come to be, and why did they form where they did?

One theory is that they were formed by giant meteorites crashing into Earth’s crust long ago. This idea has been proposed several times, but until now there has been little evidence to support it.

In new research published in Nature, we studied ancient minerals from Western Australia and found tantalising clues suggesting the giant impact hypothesis might be right.

How do you make a continent?

The continents form part of the lithosphere, the rigid rocky outer shell of Earth made up of ocean floors and the continents, of which the uppermost layer is the crust.

The crust beneath the oceans is thin and made of dark, dense basaltic rock which contains only a little silica. By contrast, the continental crust is thick and mostly consists of granite, a less dense, pale-coloured, silica-rich rock that makes the continents “float”.

Beneath the lithosphere sits a thick, slowly flowing mass of almost-molten rock, which sits near the top of the mantle, the layer of Earth between the crust and the core.

If part of the lithosphere is removed, the mantle beneath it will melt as the pressure from above is released. And impacts from giant meteorites – rocks from space tens or hundreds of kilometres across – are an extremely efficient way of doing exactly that!

What are the consequences of a giant impact?

Giant impacts blast out huge volumes of material almost instantaneously. Rocks near the surface will melt for hundreds of kilometres or more around the impact site. The impact also releases pressure on the mantle below, causing it to melt and produce a “blob-like” mass of thick basaltic crust.

This mass is called an oceanic plateau, similar to that beneath present-day Hawaii or Iceland. The process is a bit like what happens if you are hit hard on the head by a golf ball or pebble – the resulting bump or “egg” is like the oceanic plateau.

Read more:
How rare minerals form when meteorites slam into Earth

Our research shows these oceanic plateaus could have evolved to form the continents through a process known as crustal differentiation. The thick oceanic plateau formed from the impact can get hot enough at its base that it also melts, producing the kind of granitic rock that forms buoyant continental crust.

Are there other ways to make oceanic plateaus?

There are other ways oceanic plateaus can form. The thick crusts beneath Hawaii and Iceland formed not through giant impacts but “mantle plumes”, streams of hot material rising up from the edge of Earth’s metallic core, a bit like in a lava lamp. As this ascending plume reaches the lithosphere it triggers massive mantle melting to form an oceanic plateau.

So could plumes have created the continents? Based on our studies, and the balance of different oxygen isotopes in tiny grains of the mineral zircon, which is commonly found in tiny quantities in rocks from the continental crust, we don’t think so.

Zircon is the oldest known crustal material, and it can survive intact for billions of years. We can also determine quite precisely when it was formed, based on the decay of the radioactive uranium it contains.

What’s more, we can find out about the environment in which zircon formed by measuring the relative proportion of isotopes of oxygen it contains.

We looked at zircon grains from one of the oldest surviving pieces of continental crust in the world, the Pilbara Craton in Western Australia, which started forming more than 3 billion years ago. Many of the oldest grains of zircon contained more light oxygen isotopes, which indicate shallow melting, but younger grains contain a more mantle-like balance isotopes, indicating much deeper melting.

This “top-down” pattern of oxygen isotopes is what you might expect following a giant meteorite impact. In mantle plumes, by contrast, melting is a “bottom-up” process.

Sounds reasonable, but is there any other evidence?

Yes, there is! The zircons from the Pilbara Craton appear to have been formed in a handful of distinct periods, rather than continuously over time.

Except for the earliest grains, the other grains with isotopically-light zircon have the same age as spherule beds in the Pilbara Craton and elsewhere.

Spherule beds are deposits of droplets of material “splashed out” by meteorite impacts. The fact the zircons have the same age suggests they may have been formed by the same events.

Further, the “top-down” pattern of isotopes can be recognised in other areas of ancient continental crust, such as in Canada and Greenland. However, data from elsewhere have not yet been carefully filtered like the Pilbara data, so it will take more work to confirm this pattern.

The next step of our research is to reanalyse these ancient rocks from elsewhere to confirm what we suspect – that the continents grew at the sites of giant meteorite impacts. Boom.

Tim Johnson receives funding from Curtin University and through an Australian Research Council Discovery project (DP200101104).

– ref. What created the continents? New evidence points to giant asteroids – https://theconversation.com/what-created-the-continents-new-evidence-points-to-giant-asteroids-185606

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Piero Moraro, Lecturer in Criminology, Edith Cowan University

The recent transfer of a “difficult cohort” of teenagers to a maximum-security adult prison in Western Australia raises familiar questions about Australia’s prison system.

The 17 young detainees have “significant offending histories” and had for months been destroying infrastructure, assaulting staff and harming themselves at Perth’s Banksia Hill juvenile centre, according to the head of the WA justice department, Adam Tomison. Tomison didn’t elaborate on what led to these incidents.

According to Gerry Georgatos, coordinator of the National Suicide Prevention and Trauma Recovery Project, the damaged cells were a sign of the strain detainees were under at Banksia Hill.

Premier Mark McGowan and Corrective Services Commissioner Mike Reynolds said the government had been left with no choice. The transfer was a necessary circuit-breaker, they argued, to provide greater security and safety for the management of the detainees.

While no time frame has been specified, the WA government has described the move to Casuarina Prison as “temporary”.

Read more:
Almost every young person in WA detention has a severe brain impairment

Australia’s juvenile detention centres have been under the spotlight since 2016, when ABC Four Corners revealed the treatment of inmates at Darwin’s Don Dale Youth Detention Centre. The children were being stripped naked, tied to restraint chairs, manhandled and even teargassed.

Such was the shock when the episode aired that, within hours, then Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull called for a royal commission into juvenile detention centres in the Northern Territory, though he later refused to extend the inquiry to other states and territories.

The release of the commission’s final report, almost two years later, followed a familiar pattern. It found staff had in many cases not followed required procedures and the system had “failed to comply with the basic binding human rights standards in the treatment of children and young people”.

Nevertheless, none of the officers involved was charged and the commission’s recommendations seem to have been ignored.

Those incidents were not unique to Don Dale. While the government blames them on “difficult” juveniles, it ignores how young detainees are also among the most vulnerable members of society.

Unfortunately, as the Banksia Hill case shows, Australia pays scant attention to the difference between a child and an adult offender. The evidence suggests it’s time to rethink this approach.

Read more:
There’s still a long way to go for the Don Dale royal commission to achieve justice

A national problem

Problems concerning the treatment of inmates at Banksia Hill Youth Detention Centres have been known for years.

A 2017 report noted the increasing use of a special operations group to manage incidents at the facility. This group uses stun grenades, gun-laser sights and pepper spray, which is unprecedented in either adult or youth facilities in the state. The report noted this was a “telling sign of a facility that is failing the basics”.

An unscheduled visit by WA’s custodial inspector last year raised “reasonable suspicion” that young detainees were being subjected to “cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment”, including been held in their own cells for 23 hours of the day.

While Don Dale and Banksia Hill represent the more egregious cases, other youth detention centres around the country have also faced significant scrutiny in recent years. These include Frank Baxter in New South Wales and the Parkville facility in Victoria.

Changing the age of criminal responsibility is key

Article 37 (c) of the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child states juvenile detainees “shall be separated from adults unless it is considered in the child’s best interest not to do so”.

On ratifying the convention, Australia specified it was “unable to comply with” this requirement. Children would be separated from adult prisoners only when “feasible”.

The federal government has so far rejected calls by the UN to raise the age of criminal responsibility from ten to 14. In this regard, Australia’s stance is oblivious to what’s commonly known as “the labelling effect”. Young people who are labelled “criminal” are likely to live up to this label rather than growing out of crime as would normally occur.

Youth justice detention, from this standpoint, is inherently criminogenic – it encourages rather than reduces criminal behaviour.

The risk of labelling grows where young offenders are housed with adult offenders. News reports are already suggesting some of the juveniles sent to Casuarina have been speaking to adult prisoners through the fence.

Read more:
Ten-year-olds do not belong in detention. Why Australia must raise the age of criminal responsibility

Last November, the Productivity Commission noted “Australia’s prison dilemma”: our imprisoned population is at an historic high, yet crime rates are falling.

Governments spend more than $4bn each year keeping people behind bars, and taxpayers should ask what that money is achieving. Australia must also recognise the role mental health plays in the behaviour of “difficult” children. We can’t continue to sweep that problem under the carpet.

Piero Moraro does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Sending teens to maximum security prisons shows Australia needs to raise the age of criminal responsibility – https://theconversation.com/sending-teens-to-maximum-security-prisons-shows-australia-needs-to-raise-the-age-of-criminal-responsibility-187768

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jennifer Power, Associate Professor and Principal Research Fellow at the Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society, La Trobe University

The recent global outbreak of monkeypox largely among men who have sex with men has raised concerns homophobia will undermine effective prevention efforts. There are also fears the disease will fuel homophobic stigma and discrimination.

Even the name monkeypox is stigmatising due to long-held racist appropriation of the term monkey and the false implication the virus is transmitted by monkeys.

The World Health Organization has said the name needs to change, but has not agreed on or announced a new one. Currently, advocates for the LGBTQA+ community are using the term MPX, the term I will use here.

MPX is, of course, not the first infectious disease to affect men who have sex with men. So there are things we must learn and things we must not repeat from the public health response to HIV.

Lessons from HIV

When HIV emerged among communities of gay and bisexual men in the 1980s, fear and uncertainty about the cause and nature of the virus led to vilification of gay and bisexual men.

HIV was initially named “gay-related immune deficiency” or GRID and there was speculation it was caused by men’s excessive sex or drug use (specifically use of amyl nitrate).

As well as sparking calls for a crackdown on the rights and freedoms of LGBTQA+ communities, the view gay and bisexual men were to blame for HIV obstructed effective public health responses.

Famously, in the United States, then President Ronald Reagan made no public mention of HIV or AIDS until more than 12,000 American citizens had died, and HIV had spread widely into many communities.

Although today, globally, HIV affects more women than men, it is still difficult to disentangle HIV-related stigma from homophobia or stigma against other affected populations, including injecting drug users or sex workers.

Stigma creates barriers to HIV prevention as people are reluctant to talk about HIV or seek testing for fear of being associated with stigmatised groups. It also perpetuates a fundamental lack of empathy for people living with HIV.

For these reasons, it’s important we don’t approach MPX in these terms.

Read more:
What’s in a name? Why giving monkeypox a new one is a good idea

A new approach?

There are some reports of MPX being used to justify homophobic sentiment or actions. However, a crucial difference between this disease and HIV is the world has learned from HIV.

There is now better understanding of the insidious ways stigma and discrimination undermine public health. HIV also taught us to be cautious about the potential for public health messaging to contribute to stigma, especially when an illness is associated with marginalised cultural or racial groups.

Health policy makers have been fast to condemn stigmatising media reporting of MPX. Meanwhile the community-based HIV sector has mobilised existing infrastructure and experience to support advocacy and MPX education for men who have sex with men.

Importantly, we now have better knowledge about the effectiveness of sex-positive approaches to preventing HIV and other sexually transmissible infections (STIs). Such approaches affirm the pleasures and benefits of sex, aim to build open dialogue about safe sex and ensure people can seek testing without fear of judgement or backlash.

Read more:
Lessons from the history of HIV/AIDS in Australia – how activism changed the image of an illness

The impact of sexual moralising

We have learned lessons from HIV. However, MPX has exposed the ways sexual moralising is ever-present in public health, undermining sex-positive health promotion.

Observers of early media responses to MPX note efforts to avoid stigmatising gay and bisexual men have led to obtuse and confusing reporting about the ways in which the disease, although not classified as an STI, can be spread through close physical contact and why gay and bisexual men may be at risk of exposure.

Reporting has been deliberately vague because there is very limited cultural space for speaking about group sex, casual sex or sex with multiple partners without these practices, and people involved, being shamed.

Despite increasing acceptance of sexual diversity, people’s right to engage in pleasurable sex outside a married, monogamous relationship is rarely affirmed. Young women, for example, are shamed for having “too many” sexual partners, while calls for comprehensive, pleasure-based sex education are controversial.

Read more:
Sex ed needs to talk about pleasure and fun. Safe sex depends on it and condom use rises

While the world has come a long way toward acceptance of same-sex marriage, homophobia often drives condemnation of gay and bisexual men’s sexual cultures.

This is most visible in relation to public health. For example, when pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) first became available to prevent HIV, public funding for it was critiqued by some on the grounds this amounted to subsidising gay and bisexual men’s promiscuity.

When considered through the lens of public health, casual sex is often equated with irresponsibility. People’s right to seek sex and intimacy can also be devalued or seen as irrelevant.

We know, however, acknowledging the significance of sexual identities and sexual connection in people’s lives is the best way to engage communities in sexual health promotion.

Read more:
Monkeypox isn’t like HIV, but gay and bisexual men are at risk of unfair stigma

A sex-positive approach

As current vaccine supplies for MPX are limited in many jurisdictions, including Australia, priority access is being given to high-risk groups, including men who have sex with men who have multiple sexual partners.

Given men are being asked to disclose their sexual practices to obtain a vaccine, assurance of non-stigmatising health care will be essential for this program to be successful.

A sex-positive approach to MPX prevention will also support more open conversations so people can gain a better handle on risk and prevention, no matter who they are.

Read more:
Australia secures 450,000 new monkeypox vaccines. What are they and who can have them?

Jennifer Power receives research funding from the Australian Research Council and the Australian Department of Health.

– ref. We need to talk about monkeypox without shame and blame – https://theconversation.com/we-need-to-talk-about-monkeypox-without-shame-and-blame-188295

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Reem Abbas, Research Fellow, Auckland University of Technology

New Zealand’s healthcare policies for migrants rate among the top five countries globally. Yet research shows persistent health inequities among women and children with migrant and refugee backgrounds.

The current health system reforms create opportunities to improve publicly funded migrant health policies and to achieve health equity, particularly in maternal and child health services.

Annual migration to New Zealand was estimated at 46,100 in March 2022. This includes the annual refugee and family reunification quotas which have recently increased from 1,300 to 2,100.

By 2038, a quarter of New Zealand’s population is projected to identify with African, Asian, Latin American or Middle Eastern heritage backgrounds. In 2018, almost four in five of these people were born overseas and nearly two-thirds of the women were of childbearing age.

Our recent studies highlight several interlocking factors that affect access and acceptability of maternal and child health services for migrant and refugee women and their children.

They include cultural and language barriers, stereotyping and systemic racism, inequities in access to information and lack of support to navigate services.

The health reforms emphasise attention to voices from marginalised communities for the development of primary care “localities”. However, eliciting migrant and refugee women’s voices requires a bottom-up approach that acknowledges and addresses the profound barriers to community engagement.

Read more:
Coronavirus shows how hard it is for ethnic minority and migrant women to access healthcare

Health system challenges for migrant and refugee women

Migrant mothers face substantial challenges as they raise their children in a new country. These include social isolation, emotional distress, financial constraints and different cultural norms.

Our own lived experiences as migrant women demonstrate the personal impact of these issues. This motivated our studies with the ultimate aim of improving policy and practice.

Sexual and reproductive health services in Aotearoa fail to cater adequately for African women because cultural taboos around “sex talk” and family planning impose a strong barrier to accessing such services. These taboos are based on longstanding African religious and gender norms, accompanied by attitudes and social mores about women’s morality and sexual conduct.

One research participant explains:

So even though the services are there, we are not accessing them. We know it’s there but it’s not for us. Everybody knows everybody. When they see you walk into that clinic you’re going to be talked about.

Stereotyping and discrimination, and lack of support and information during and after birth are problems. An African colleague shared her experience of being refused pain relief medication during birth, despite noting it in her birth plan and asking for it during labour.

The midwives said they had seen African women going to fetch wood and water with the newborn strapped on their back a few hours after delivery.

An opaque healthcare system

Newly migrated, first-time pregnant Indian women found it difficult to understand the process of finding a midwife and other maternal health services. One research participant said:

I had a pretty hard time finding a good midwife because when I was pregnant for the first time, I didn’t know anything. And New Zealand is a new country. And I didn’t have anyone, I didn’t know anyone, and I have no family, no friends.

This resonated with a Canadian Indian researcher among us:

I’ll just say that – like I had a lot of privilege coming here – and the healthcare system was really hard to navigate and especially when I recently had a child.

Communication issues are another common challenge. An African team member said:

I only found out from my birthing partner that the cord was wrapped around the baby’s [neck]. Yet it was omitted as it is considered to be common.

And a Chinese research participant said:

I have a feeling of uncertainty. I am concerned that what if I cannot understand what the doctor says.

Refugee mothers noted insufficient information provided about vaccines and post-vaccination management. They explained that ineffective communication hinders childhood immunisation experiences:

When [nurses] say side effect, we don’t know what’s being affected.

Our Iranian researcher noted:

The only time that I received a document in my language was during the COVID pandemic when an instruction was translated.

Read more:
Building trust with migrant and refugee communities is crucial for public health measures to work

Responsive and inclusive maternity and childhood services that tackle language barriers and include a culturally competent workforce will have profound impacts on achieving health equity for migrants and refugees.

The Pae Ora (Healthy Futures) Act now includes a women’s health strategy that requires health entities to improve outcomes for women. This opportunity to include planning, delivery and evaluation of work which fulfils the potential of migrant and refugee women should not be missed.

Only then will Aotearoa New Zealand achieve social justice strategies that resonate with the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda of “leaving no one behind”.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Why migrant and refugee women and children remain in the shadows of health reforms in New Zealand – https://theconversation.com/why-migrant-and-refugee-women-and-children-remain-in-the-shadows-of-health-reforms-in-new-zealand-186902

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mary Woessner, Lecturer in Clinical Exercise and Research Fellow, Institute for Health and Sport (iHeS), Victoria University, Victoria University

Every week millions of Australian children play community sport. Participating in community sport can improve children’s mental, physical and social wellbeing, but only if the sport environment is physically and emotionally safe.

Our new research shows community sport spaces aren’t safe for everyone. We found 82% of 886 survey respondents said they experienced violence while playing community sport as a child in Australia.

Our study was one of the first in Australia to include the experiences of non-gender-binary individuals. We found gender-diverse people reported particularly high rates of violence while playing sport as children. Some 81% reported experiencing psychological violence from a coach, compared to 55% and 50% for women and men respectively.

Women also had high rates compared to men of psychological (82% vs 74%) and sexual (40% vs 33%) violence.

So how can we change this?

Violence in community sport

In recent years, cases of violence against children in elite sport in Australia have garnered national media attention. Swimming and gymnastics are perhaps the most visible examples of the widespread nature of violence against children in sport, but they aren’t alone.

The media often focus on single sports and the abuse experienced by elite athletes, which can lead to a false sense of security in other sports and in sport at the community level.

Read more:
Whether teams win or lose, sporting events lead to spikes in violence against women and children

The short- and long-term consequences of violence are profound and include anxiety, depression, mistrust, impaired relationship dynamics and more.

Understanding how often children experience violence playing sport is critical to monitoring this violence and keeping children safe.

What we studied

Our team at Victoria University completed the largest study to date in Australia exploring how often children experience violence in community sport.

We surveyed 886 Australian adults who had played organised community sport when they were younger than 18, asking them about their experiences of violence in sport. Specifically, they were asked about unsanctioned violence, that is, violence occurring outside the specified rules of the game. This could have occurred in diverse environments such as on the field, in the locker rooms, or during travel for sport.

It’s important to note that because the study didn’t use a nationally representative sample, the data can’t be extrapolated out to represent the whole of community sport in Australia.

Respondents were mostly women (63%), but came from all states and territories in Australia and had participated in 68 different sports. Around 18% of respondents were between 18 and 25 years old, which highlights how recent some of the reported experiences are.

Psychological, physical, sexual

We found 82% of respondents experienced violence while participating in sport as children in Australia.

Psychological violence was the most frequent form (76% of respondents), but rates of physical violence (66%) and sexual violence (38%) were also high.

The survey also distinguished between different types of perpetrators – peers, coaches and parents. Our respondents reported high rates of psychological violence by peers (68%), and high rates (>50%) of physical and psychological violence perpetrated by a coach.

Read more:
The long history of gender violence in Australia, and why it matters today

We found non-gender-binary people experienced higher rates of several types of violence than both women and men combined. Peer-perpetrated sexual harassment was particularly high for these individuals (59%), as was peer physical violence (53%).

Women experienced more psychological and sexual violence, whereas men experienced more physical violence by their peers when playing sport as a child.

While our sample wasn’t representative of the Australian population, our findings echo international research findings. A Canadian study from 2020, which used the same survey in 14-17 year olds, also found high rates of psychological (79%), physical (40%) and sexual violence (28%).

How we can change things

These data can be quite confronting, especially for those of us (ourselves included) who are so passionate about sport.

The aim of this article and study isn’t to demonise sport. Instead, it’s to acknowledge we need to understand the depth and breadth of violence against children in sport, in order to make sport safer.

In the long-term, a national study with a representative sample is needed to establish how often violence against children in community sport occurs. It’s the only way to measure whether our policies and practices are preventing violence against children in sport. Such studies take time, expertise and funding, but they are achievable with the right support.

National frameworks and policies are essential to ensuring sporting clubs are complying with safeguarding standards.

However, national policies and campaigns take time to have impact at the grassroots level. This is complicated by a context where many community sport clubs are surviving on the capacity of very few, burnt-out volunteers.

Read more:
How sport can tackle violence against women and girls

A top-down approach to behaviour change isn’t our only option. There’s an opportunity to start creating change with and within community sport. This can help identify the most effective strategies for preventing violence against children in community sport.

Community sport can and should be a welcoming, inclusive and safe environment. We can only achieve this through a whole-of-community effort.

Awareness that violence in community sport exists is a first step.

If this article has raised issues for you or if you’re concerned about someone you know, call Lifeline on 13 11 14, Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636, or Kids Helpline on 1800 55 1800.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. More than 80% of people we asked said they’ve experienced violence in junior sport – and women and gender-diverse people cop it most – https://theconversation.com/more-than-80-of-people-we-asked-said-theyve-experienced-violence-in-junior-sport-and-women-and-gender-diverse-people-cop-it-most-188430

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christian Downie, Associate Professor, Australian National University

If politics moves slowly, climate politics often feels like it doesn’t move at all.

Yet at the weekend, US senators worked through the night to accomplish something they have failed to do since NASA scientist James Hansen first warned them about the dangers of climate change almost 35 years ago. They passed a major climate bill.

And not just any bill. The A$530 billion of clean energy initiatives in the larger Inflation Reduction Act represent the largest single investment to slow global heating in US history. It means the world’s second-largest emitter of greenhouse gases will become a global leader on climate change.

Initial modelling suggests the bill could be enough to cut US emissions by around 40% by 2030, relative to a 2005 baseline. That won’t meet President Joe Biden’s goal of halving emissions by 2030, but it gives America a fighting chance.

What does it mean for Australia? After the go-slow years of Coalition government and Trump’s fossil-fuel-friendly presidency, the times finally favour action. There is a clean energy race on, and Australia needs to keep up.

It’s been a hard road

When the bill passed, senators broke down in tears. Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer spoke of “a long, tough and winding road. But at last, at last we have arrived.”

The bill looked dead in the water as recently as July, when controversial Democratic senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia pulled his crucial vote for climate legislation.

That led many to despair, believing the window for climate action had shut again given Republican disinterest in climate action. But then Manchin cut a deal. It was the last chance to act before November’s midterm elections, which Republicans are expected to win – although the Supreme Court’s seismic decision on abortion may change this.

I remember being in Washington DC, studying climate policy, the last time the US got this close. In the summer of 2009, the US House of Representatives passed a bill designed to institute a nationwide carbon price. With chants of “yes we can” still ringing in many ears after President Barack Obama’s arrival in the White House, it seemed climate politics was moving. But the Senate killed that bill, and with it any hope for legislative action on climate change.

Read more:
Government set to legislate its 43% emissions reduction target after Greens announce support

America had to wait more than a decade for the next opportunity. The weekend’s vote was close, with Vice President Kamala Harris casting the decider.

What was lost in the intervening years was more than time. In the past decade, climate impacts have become more frequent and deadly. Just ask the flood victims of Lismore in New South Wales, or the citizens of Mallacoota in Victoria after the bushfires.

Most of Europe is now in drought. Stories of unprecedented heatwaves and flooding come in weekly from China, India, the Middle East and South America. The western US is in megadrought, the worst in at least 1,200 years, with reservoirs at dangerous lows.

What does the bill actually contain?

When climate action is deliberately stalled by political parties, the price is paid by communities, families and the natural world.

That’s why the US bill is momentous. Senate approval of the A$530 billion in spending will directly advance clean energy. This includes billions of dollars in tax credits for solar panels, wind turbines, batteries and geothermal plants, among other technologies.

Read more:
Albanese just laid out a radical new vision for Australia in the region: clean energy exporter and green manufacturer

This comes through around A$13 billion in rebates for Americans to electrify their homes, tax credits of almost A$11,000 to electrify their cars, and billions more to establish a “green bank”, target agricultural emissions and help disadvantaged communities.

Even better, these billions in public money will crowd in private investment, accelerating the speed at which the US economy can decarbonise.

What should Australia take from this?

There are several lessons for Australia.

The first is legislating a target as Labor has done is a start, but only a start. The world is set for a clean energy race, given China is also investing huge amounts in clean energy while European nations are trying to wean themselves off Russian gas.

The Albanese government should follow the US with historic investments in clean energy, using renewable jobs as an incentive. Key features of the US bill aim to turbocharge local clean energy manufacturing, such as requiring battery components be made in the US. As it stands, America’s geopolitical rival China has cornered the market in many areas of clean tech, such as solar panels.

Second, fossil fuel industries will fight tooth and nail against change. Manchin has received more money from the oil and gas industry than any other member of Congress – and has personal interests in coal. His interventions mean the bill has rewards for the oil and gas industries, such as requiring the federal government to auction new offshore oil and gas leases. There is likely more devil in the detail.

For decades, fossil fuel industries have had an outsized influence on climate policy in Australia. It’s folly to think they’ll just give up. This week we found out the car industry has already launched a secret PR campaign to slow electric vehicle uptake.

Against these entrenched interests stand the growing throngs of people involved in climate movements. This is what has kept climate politics moving. Countless Americans, from political activists to schoolkids, mobilised to pressure Congress to act.

The same has happened here. Arid and sparsely populated Australia is already being hit by intensifying natural disasters. As the May election result showed, people have had enough of political delays and inaction.

We must keep moving. Climate science does not stand still, and neither should the politics.

Read more:
The Greens have backed Labor’s 43% target – but don’t think Australia’s climate wars are over 

Christian Downie receives funding from the Australian Research Council

– ref. The US has finally passed a huge climate bill. Australia needs to keep up – https://theconversation.com/the-us-has-finally-passed-a-huge-climate-bill-australia-needs-to-keep-up-188525

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexander Fraser, Senior Researcher in Antarctic Remote Sensing, University of Tasmania

As Antarctica’s slow rivers of ice hit the sea, they float, forming ice shelves. These shelves extend the glaciers into the ocean until they calve into icebergs.

But they also play a crucial role in maintaining the world as we know it, by acting as a brake on how fast the glaciers can flow into the ocean. If they weren’t there, the glaciers would flow faster into the sea and melt, causing sea levels to rise.
Unfortunately, Antarctica’s ice shelves are not what they were. In research published today in Nature, we show these ice shelves have significantly reduced in area over the last 25 years due to more and more icebergs breaking off. Overall, the net loss of ice is about 6,000 billion tonnes since 1997.

Previous estimates of ice shelf loss come from satellite measurements, which captured ice shelves gradually thinning in recent years. We tracked how much extra ice had been lost as icebergs calve away from the retreating edge of the continent. We found Antarctica’s ice shelves have lost twice as much mass as previous studies suggested.

Ice shelves are now weaker than at any time since at least the 1990s. This has led Antarctica’s glaciers to begin adding more water to the oceans, and more quickly. To date, much of the concern about the cryosphere – the world’s frozen parts – has focused on the fast-melting Arctic sea ice. But as climate change intensifies, Antarctica will begin melting in earnest, contributing more to sea level rise.

What we measured

We built numerical models to figure out what ice shelf thinning and loss of area mean for the ability of ice shelves to resist new ice being pushed in from upstream glaciers.

Our work shows the drop in ice shelf area has led to more ice flowing into the sea since 2007, as calving has weakened ice shelves and allowed some of the world’s largest glaciers to accelerate.

We found the Pine Island Glacier and the so-called “Doomsday” Thwaites Glacier – which could destabilise the entire West Antarctic ice sheet if it melts – are highly sensitive to calving, and are already increasing their contribution to sea level rise as their protective ice shelves crumbled.

Iceberg calving is a natural process. In any climate, we expect to see massive flat-top icebergs periodically break off and float away. So while no single calving event should be taken as cause for alarm, the long term trend is concerning. We found a majority of Antarctica’s ice shelves have lost mass since the late 1990s.

Why are Antarctic ice shelves shrinking? There’s no single answer. Some ice shelves such as the Wilkins Ice Shelf have already seen catastrophic disintegration, while others are retreating slowly and some are even advancing. But overall, these ice shelves are shrinking.

We know one cause of ice shelf retreat is the thinning of ice shelves, which is largely caused by relatively warm seawater eroding the base of these shelves.

We also know iceberg calving increases whenever Antarctica’s protective ring of sea ice weakens. This year, Antarctica saw the lowest sea ice extent ever recorded since measurements began in the 1970s. We’ve also seen entire ice shelves collapse when warmer air temperatures create surface meltwater that can cut through hundreds of metres of ice shelf.

Read more:
Warmer summers threaten Antarctica’s giant ice shelves because of the lakes they create

Four giant ice shelves are still in good shape

Antarctica’s four largest ice shelves are the Ross, Ronne, Filchner, and Amery. These vast floating sheets of ice tend to calve off giant icebergs once every few decades.

All four are on track for major calving events in the next 10 to 15 years, and none would normally be cause for alarm. The problem is calving will come on top of steady ice shelf loss. When the major ice shelves do calve off huge icebergs, they will leave the Antarctic Ice Sheet smaller than we’ve ever seen it.

But while we’re not yet seeing any abnormal behaviour in these four major ice shelves, the overlooked losses from all the smaller ice shelves fringing the continent are adding up. Earlier this year, one smaller ice shelf collapsed entirely.

The most troubling changes of the past few decades are less photogenic than sudden ice shelf collapse. Bit-by-bit, West Antarctica’s Thwaites ice shelf has retreated.

Read more:
How a near-perfect rectangular iceberg formed

Each calving event has left the ice shelf weaker and allowed the Thwaites Glacier behind it – the size of the state of Victoria – to flow faster into the ocean. While the Thwaites ice shelf is relatively small, it is vital. Until now, it has acted like a plug. If it keeps retreating, it could potentially destabilise the entire West Antarctic ice sheet and unlock several metres of sea level rise.

Climate change is the big picture

Our warming atmosphere and ocean are the root cause. Given the long lag time between greenhouse gases trapping heat and actual warming, it stands to reason that what we’re seeing in Antarctica right now is at least partly a response to warming gases dumped into the atmosphere decades or even a century ago. That means we’re already locked into more ice shelf retreat, as emissions have continued rising.

Antarctica holds around 30 million cubic kilometres of ice, a truly enormous figure. That represents around 90% of the world’s surface fresh water. If it all melted, seas would rise almost 60 metres. Humanity’s decisions will shape what Antarctica will look like in decades to come, and how much ice will remain.

Read more:
Ice world: Antarctica’s riskiest glacier is under assault from below and losing its grip

Alexander Fraser receives funding from the Australian Antarctic Program Partnership and the Australian Research Council.

Chad Greene receives funding from NASA.

– ref. Ice shelves hold back Antarctica’s glaciers from adding to sea levels – but they’re crumbling – https://theconversation.com/ice-shelves-hold-back-antarcticas-glaciers-from-adding-to-sea-levels-but-theyre-crumbling-185509

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Burton, Lecturer, Theatre, University of Southern Queensland

If you felt the world stop turning for a moment in July, it’s because Beyoncé dropped her new album, Renaissance.

Rolling Stone has described her as the world’s “greatest living entertainer”, with a stardom that intersects fashion, dance, multiple genres of music and visual albums.

Renaissance is her seventh solo studio album, and her first in five years. It is being widely acclaimed as an “immaculate” dance record.

Part of Beyoncé’s continued success involves her sampling from a diverse range of artists across history to layer and create new meaning. She has done this repeatedly as a way of showcasing African artists, and on Renaissance she pays special tribute to house and disco music, and especially it’s queer history.

In fact, the entire album is dedicated to her late gay Uncle Johnny. “He was my godmother and the first person to expose me to a lot of the music and culture that serve as inspiration for this album,” Beyonce wrote.

Thank you to all the pioneers who originate culture, to all of the fallen angels whose contributions have gone unrecognised for far too long.

The first single from the album, Break My Soul, features two key samples and songwriting credits. The first is New Orleans artist Big Freedia, previously featured on Beyoncé’s 2016 Formation. The second is from Show Me Love by Robin S., a song that typifies the house genre that grew from the 80s and became mainstream in the 90s.

The use of house music throughout the album, and her sampling of queer artists such as Big Freedia, points to a queer history of disco and house music that was once controversial enough to cause public riots.

Read more:
It’s Beyoncé’s world. We’re just living in it

The day they killed disco

On a warm night in July 1979, disco was murdered.

Referred to as “Disco Demolition Night”, 50,000 people showed up to a baseball park in Chicago to watch a crate of disco records be blown up. In the aftermath, the crowd rushed onto the field. A riot followed in which over 30 people were arrested and many were injured.

Disco had grown in popularity across the 1970s reaching its apex with the release of Saturday Night Fever in 1977. A concentrated rebellion against the genre grew in popularity among rock music fans, who felt the genre was too fixated on mechanical sounds that lacked authenticity.

Rock fans genuinely feared they would lose out to disco, but it is difficult to separate their fears from racism and homophobia.

John Travolta’s starring role in Saturday Night Fever in 1977 presented a different version of masculinity, concerned with fashion and dancing. Acts such as The Village People did little to ease fears of the death of rock and roll. The gradual rise in gay and queer visibility in New York and San Francisco, particularly in music clubs, were also seen as a threat.

Critics have since identified the anti-disco movement as almost completely populated by white men between 18-37. The leader of the movement was radio DJ Steve Dahl and in the weeks leading up to the explosive protest, Dahl and press agencies covering the movement conflated disco with R&B and funk music, and with gay men.

Disco Demolition Night was the climax of a protest years in the making. To a certain extent, it was successful in its desire to kill disco. In the years that followed, disco disappeared off the charts and glam-rock began to take its place.

The artists and audiences who adored disco were forced underground, particularly the queer community, and such was the birth of house music.

Read more:
Beyoncé is cutting a sample of Milkshake out of her new song – but not because she ‘stole’ it

Don’t stop the beat

As disco declined in popularity, artists were no longer able to afford the lush sounds of a full orchestral backing, forcing a reliance on cheaper, synthetic sounds. Disco clubs moved to literal warehouses, giving house music its name.

House music, like disco, is dance music for clubs. It focuses on mechanical sounds, fixed tempos and repetitive sounds. By the 1990s, thanks to hits like Show Me Love by Robin S., house music became mainstream, and was used by Cher, Madonna, Kylie Minogue and even Aqua’s quintessential 90s pop hit Barbie Girl.

In recent years, disco has seen a steady re-emergence, spearheaded by producers such as Pharrell, who collaborated with Daft Punk for the 2013 hit Lose Yourself to Dance. Dua Lipa’s Future Nostalgia (2020) was a finely crafted, album length tribute to disco music.

Beyoncé’s new album also features a pantheon of other queer artists (Ts Madison, Honey Dijon, Syd, Moi Renee, MikeQ and Kevin Aviance), and is deliberately designed to be played in dance clubs. In contrast to her other albums, each track blends seamlessly into the next, as if the entire album is an elongated DJ set.

Beyoncé has been particularly open about the release of an acapella and instrumental versions of Break My Soul for use by DJs who may remix the work. She has even released a new remix of the single featuring Madonna.

Beyoncé’s Renaissance may secure 2022 as the year disco and house fulfilled their resurrection. Lizzo’s new album, Special, features About Damn Time, a retro-disco dance hit that is currently sitting at the top of America’s Billboard charts.

These female artists follow a trend already set by Cher, Madonna and Kylie Minogue, who publicly ally themselves with the queer community and deliberate create dance albums for their dedicated audience. In doing so, they have become the biggest pop stars of their time.

Read more:
Beyoncé has helped usher in a renaissance for African artists

David Burton does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Disco ain’t dead: how Beyoncé resurrected dance music and its queer history for Renaissance – https://theconversation.com/disco-aint-dead-how-beyonce-resurrected-dance-music-and-its-queer-history-for-renaissance-188431

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Di Winkler, Adjunct Associate Professor, La Trobe University

Eighteen months ago, a Melbourne woman named Leila had a stroke and went to a local hospital. After medical support over a few weeks, Leila was ready to be discharged from the hospital, but required some specialist support due to her disability.

Three weeks ago Leila finally left hospital care. After nearly 18 months in limbo, left lying in a hospital bed, Leila can finally get on with her life.

Unfortunately Leila’s story is not unique. More than 1,430 people with disability are waiting 160 days to be discharged from hospitals around Australia. To those of us who work in this sector it is not surprising.

Once segregated

For decades we housed people with disability in segregated accommodation and institutions. Shut away where they couldn’t be seen or heard, abuse was rife and positive life outcomes for residents were rare. At best it was a case of “out of sight, out of mind”. At worst, it revealed something more sinister about the way we viewed disability.

Thankfully, as a society we have come a long way. The advent of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) brought disability into the spotlight. At the recent federal election, it attracted renewed political focus.

And yet, people with disability remain stuck in hospital for months or years after they are ready to be discharged. There is no practical reason for this and it doesn’t save costs. In fact, it is twice as expensive to accommodate NDIS participants in hospital compared to disability housing.

Read more:
Hospitals only note a person’s intellectual disability 20% of the time – so they don’t adjust their care

Timely discharge is evidence-based

The issue is not that we don’t know what to do. There is clear evidence for ways to support the timely discharge of NDIS participants to age-appropriate housing.

And the issue is not the availability of housing. The NDIS has its world leading Specialist Disability Accommodation (SDA) policy, which provides housing for participants with high needs. Right now, there are more than 3,000 vacancies in SDA around Australia including more than 1,000 new, purpose built homes.

However the SDA market is being held back by the very people responsible for “stewarding” the market. The principles that underpin the SDA policy and the entire NDIS are insurance principles. Improved outcomes and reduced costs require investment in innovation, housing that is fit for purpose and service redesign.

There are 3,000 vacancies in disability housing and 1,430 NDIS participants stuck in hospital because the bureaucratic process of securing adequate NDIA funding for housing and support is complex and takes many months or years.

Instead, the focus of the NDIA appears to be on reducing short-term up-front costs. This means slow and inaccurate decisions that affect NDIS participants.

The NDIS appears to be creating friction as a way of containing scheme costs but there is an urgent need to make faster decisions for NDIS participants stuck in hospital or at risk of admission to aged care.

The Summer Foundation’s recent financial modelling shows well-designed housing is part of the solution to the NDIS’s sustainability issues and the growing cost of support in traditional disability housing.

Read more:
‘It’s shown me how independent I can be’ – housing designed for people with disabilities reduces the help needed

Slowly, way too slowly

The main barrier to discharge is NDIA bureaucracy. The number one reason NDIS participants are stuck in hospitals is that they are waiting for the NDIS to process paperwork.

The NDIA promised both NDIS participants and providers to streamline funding decisions. However, independent data shows the NDIA has become slower in making SDA decisions over the past 18 months.

NDIS participants take months or years to navigate the process of requesting specialist housing and then appealing unfair decisions, the majority of which are overturned. Many NDIS participants give up and lose hope along the way. The resources spent on legal costs are another extraordinary waste of taxpayers money.

Read more:
Mental distress is much worse for people with disabilities, and many health professionals don’t know how to help

A better approach

There are three steps the NDIA could quickly take to address this issue.

One, make faster decisions on housing and support for people stuck in hospitals. Two, make the best use of the thousands of vacant specialist disability dwellings. And three, invest in providing better support for hospitals to enable timely discharge.

The human cost of remaining in hospital for months or years is dire for everyone involved. NDIS participants lose the gains made in rehabilitation as well as condition, skills, confidence and social connections. NDIS participants are also at risk of COVID and other illnesses in hospital.

Promises have been made and there is goodwill evident from Disability Minister Bill Shorten, his colleagues around the country and every hospital we have worked with. But now it’s time the NDIS stepped up and delivered. Those stuck in hospital have already waited long enough.

Read more:
What the NDIS needs to do to rebuild trust, in the words of the people who use it

Di Winkler is the CEO and Founder of the Summer Foundation and a board member of Summer Housing.

– ref. NDIS participants are left waiting for too long in hospital beds due to bureaucratic delays – https://theconversation.com/ndis-participants-are-left-waiting-for-too-long-in-hospital-beds-due-to-bureaucratic-delays-188439

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Flavio Macau, Associate Dean – School of Business and Law, Edith Cowan University

Australia is experiencing a national egg shortage. Prices are rising and supermarket stocks are patchy. Some cafes are reportedly serving breakfast with one egg instead of two. Supermarket giant Coles has reverted to COVID-19 conditions with a two-carton limit.

We became used to grocery shortages throughout the lockdowns of 2020 and 2021. These were due to changes in buying patterns, stockpiling and panic-buying. Eggs were temporarily part of this, along with flour, as people at home got baking.

Read more:
Why flour is still missing from supermarket shelves

But with lockdowns long past, what’s causing this egg shortage now?

News reports have quoted eggs producers blaming, at least in part, pandemic restrictions – because they reduced their laying flocks due to lower demand from restaurants and cafes.

That was the case in countries such as India, where misinformation about poultry being a source of COVID-19 led to a sharp decline in demand. But in Australia, an initial 30% drop from hospitality was compensated by a growth in retail sales.

What changed during that time was the way people got their eggs. Food delivery, food boxes and home cooking exploded for a time.

More fundamentally, this shortage reflects a long-term trend in egg-buying preferences, with a shift to free-range eggs, whose production is more affected by the colder, shorter days of winter.

Shifting to free-range eggs

Australians consume about 17 million eggs every day. In the 2020-21 financial year, egg farmers produced about 6.3 billion eggs. Of those, 52% were free-range. This compares to about 38% a decade ago.

This growth, however, has not been consistent. Between 2012 and 2017, free-range eggs’ share of the market grew about 10 percentage points, to about 48%. Growth in the past five years has been half that.

But with more rapid growth predicted, and the promise of higher profits, many egg farmers invested heavily in increasing free-range production. In New South Wales, for example, total flock size peaked in 2017-18.

Like many agricultural industries where farmers respond to price signals and predictions, this led to overproduction, leading to lower prices and profits. This in turn led to a 10% drop in egg production the next year.

Compliance costs also increased. In 2018 the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission introduced rules to police the marketing of eggs as “free-range”.

These rules mean hens need to have “meaningful and regular access” to an outdoor range during the daylight hours of their laying cycle (with a maximum density of 10,000 hens per hectare).

This experience has likely influenced farmers’ reticence to increase their flocks based on predictions of higher demand.

Winter affects free-range production

Producing free-range eggs is more expensive not just because it requires more land. Free-range hens are less consistent layers.

Hens kept in cages or barns are more regular producers because conditions are optimised to stimulate laying. Temperatures are constant, and hens are exposed to 16 hours of light every day.

Free-range hens are affected by hot or cold temperatures, wind and rain, and length of daylight. In winter months they have less energy and produce (on average) 20% fewer eggs than a chicken confined indoors in controlled conditions.

Read more:
National plan to allow battery cages until 2036 favours cheap eggs over animal welfare

Pressures on farmers

The egg industry is flexible and adaptable – but the confluence of economic and environmental events in 2022 has made things difficult. Farmers will want to meet demand, but face time lags and cost pressures.

Increasing a laying flock takes about four months. An egg takes about three weeks to hatch. Under ideal conditions, chicks need another 17 weeks before they are ready to begin laying.

Any farmer who has begun this process in the past month will be producing more eggs by December. But then it will be summer, when they won’t need 20% more hens to make up for their winter slump.

Feed costs, which typically represent 60-70% of layer production costs, have been increasing along with transport, electricity and interest rates.

So farmers must be cautious if they are to stay in business. It is preferable to undersupply than go bankrupt through oversupply.

Are farmers willing to invest in increasing production in an uncertain economic environment, with interest rates and costs going up and a recession on the horizon? Probably not.

So a short-term fix seems unlikely. Weather forecasts are not favourable. The Bureau of Meterology expects a wetter August to October, with “more than double the normal chance of unusually high rainfall”. That means less daylight and more cold. Blame the negative Indian Ocean dipole, not the chickens.

Come spring, with longer days and milder temperatures, along with an agricultural visa program, things should return to “normal”.

Read more:
Eight cracking facts about eggs

Unless consumers are willing to pay more to ensure a constant supply in winter months, our shift to free-range eggs carries a higher likelihood of winter shortages.

We must do what we have done through every disruption in recent times: endure, adapt and prepare for the next crisis.

Flavio Macau is affiliated with the Australasian Supply Chain Institute (ASCI)

– ref. What’s causing Australia’s egg shortage? A shift to free-range and short winter days – https://theconversation.com/whats-causing-australias-egg-shortage-a-shift-to-free-range-and-short-winter-days-188433

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alex Broom, Professor of Sociology & Director, Sydney Centre for Healthy Societies, The University of Sydney., University of Sydney

Since news of Olivia Newton-John’s death this week, many have paid tribute to her character, humble nature and cultural significance.

She also made a significant contribution to cancer survivorship and the ideal of treating the whole person, not just their disease.

Newton-John was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1992 and underwent a partial mastectomy and chemotherapy and breast reconstruction. Her cancer journey spanned three decades, and as she explained:

The whole experience has given me much understanding and compassion, so much so that I wanted to help others going through the same journey.

Bringing our attention to cancer

Getting the community mobilised around difficult topics like cancer can be tough. Celebrities – and their experience of illness and healing – has become one of the most powerful means for mobilising action.

Olivia Newton-John was one of the first to share her experience of breast cancer with a wide audience and her advocacy opened the door for others such as Kylie Minogue and Angelina Jolie to share theirs.

Stories like theirs have mobilised cancer screening and research, prompting reflection and normalised the experience of living with cancer.

Read more:
Angelina Jolie has had a double mastectomy, so what is BRCA1?

The ‘alternative’ voices of cancer survivorship

The diverse approach Newton-John took to cancer treatment was a distinguishing part of her legacy. As she explained when establishing the Olivia Newton-John Cancer Wellness & Research Centre:

I did herbal formulas, meditation and focused on a vision of complete wellness.

Explaining her “pro cannabis” stance on 60 minutes in 2019, she reflected a growing recognition of community interest in diverse approaches to pain and symptom management, and how such community views often rub up against legal and regulatory constraints. Australia only legalised medicinal cannabis in 2016, and many reservations persist among the Australian medical community.

Being open about her experience, Newton-John gave voice to things which many Australian cancer patients try, and believe in, but many in the medical community continue to push back on. In Australia, more than half of people living with cancer use alternative treatments over the course of their cancer journeys. Yet, alternative practices, including herbal products and medicinal cannabis, remain largely absent from mainstream cancer care. This risks putting mainstream medicine out of step with community beliefs.

As regularly noted, managing patient interest in “alternative” cancer care is a tricky area, but what is clear is that openness and frank discussions serve everyone best. A harm-reduction approach, which discusses and detects any dangerous side-effects or interactions, is safer than silencing what people living with cancer are doing or believe in.

Read more:
Physician heal thyself? After 4 years of treatment for stage 4 cancer I just wanted some encouraging words from my oncologist

Challenges to unhelpful cancer narratives

Cancer has suffered from a wide range misconceptions and misrepresentations. Ranging from ideas about cancer as a “death sentence”, or the idea that you either beat it or succumb to it. People often feel this does them a disservice.

People with cancer are so much more than a “cancer patient”, and they don’t want to be trapped in that frame. They can live well with cancer, without focusing entirely on trying to be cancer-free to the exclusion of all else. Newton-John emphasised this idea regularly.

Likewise, the expectation of “cancer heroics” is an all-consuming and regularly unhelpful cultural ideal. Sometimes “fighting” works and is needed, but in many contexts and particularly for long-term survivors, focusing on quality of life and wellness is critical.

This is likely why various alternative practices have gained traction, despite the slim evidence base for many. The world of “alternative therapies” has tended to present to the community a more person-centred approach, regardless of whether this is actually achieved by many practitioners in practice.

Towards ‘survivorship’

Cancer “survivorship”, in its broadest sense, denotes a broad focus, inclusive of the mind, body and the social life of the person living with cancer, not merely their disease, symptoms or treatment side-effects.

Even two decades ago, with the almost exclusive emphasis placed on curative cancer treatment, treatment discovery, or post curative experiences. This overly disease-centred focus tended to marginalise the many people who will continue to live on with cancer, rather than beyond it.

Person-centred approaches, in their many forms, show considerable benefit, although there continues to be a diverse set of understandings about what it actually means. The broad principle of person-centredness is that we are much more than disease and this matters throughout all aspects of care. Our care needs to be structured around our beliefs, psychological and social needs and life experiences. This may sound simple, but it is often not a central part of the picture.

While we are making progress, as Newton-John was acutely aware, there is so much more to do in this realm. Based on our most recent estimates more than one million Australians alive today are either currently living with cancer or have lived with it. Strategies which help all of us touched by cancer to live well, whether cured or not, should be the priority moving forward.

While we must be careful not to push too far in the other direction – a cruel optimism which threatens to sideline the hard, sad and often difficult experiences of cancer – a balance is needed which we have not quite reached.

Olivia Newton-John’s death will likely be difficult for some living with cancer. Important survivorship stories, when they come to a close, are difficult. So, let’s not pretend. Endings are hard, but a life well lived it also something to celebrate.

Alex Broom receives funding from the ARC.

– ref. Olivia Newton-John gave a voice to those with cancer and shifted the focus to the life of survivors – https://theconversation.com/olivia-newton-john-gave-a-voice-to-those-with-cancer-and-shifted-the-focus-to-the-life-of-survivors-188444

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Quiggin, Professor, School of Economics, The University of Queensland

New analysis this week found strong fuel efficiency standards would have saved Australia A$5.9 billion in fuel costs and emissions equal to a year’s worth of domestic flights if the policy was adopted in 2015.

The finding, by think-tank the Australia Institute, puts further pressure on the new federal government to bring our fuel efficiency standards in line with Europe and other developed nations.

Unlike other comparable countries, Australia does not have fuel efficiency standards for motor vehicles. On the face of it this is puzzling; aside from lower costs for motorists and fewer emissions, the policy would also decrease our reliance on imported oil.

But opposition from vested interests – including oil refineries and the car dealership industry – has held Australia back. The onus is now on the Albanese government to enact this obvious and long overdue policy which is crucial to the electric vehicle transition.

Long road, little progress

So how would a fuel efficiency standard work?

Under a likely model, the government would set a national limit, averaged across all new cars sold, stipulating grams of CO₂ that can be emitted for each kilometre driven. This measure depends on fuel-efficiency: that is, the amount of fuel burnt per kilometre.

The limit would not apply to individual cars. Instead, each supplier of new light vehicles to Australia would have to make sure the mix of vehicles does not exceed the limit. Low-efficiency vehicles could still be sold, but car dealers would have to balance this out by selling enough high-efficiency vehicles.

Because electric vehicles don’t use fuel (or use less, in the case of hybrids), a fuel efficiency standard would give suppliers an incentive to include electric vehicles in the mix of vehicles they supply.

The prospect of fuel efficiency standards on light vehicles has regularly hit the national agenda in recent years.

In 2014, the Climate Change Authority prepared a detailed plan for a standard and estimated the likely economic savings. The plan seemed well timed. Australia has traditionally produced large, fuel-guzzling cars like the Holden Commodore and Ford Falcon. At the time of the plan’s release, however, the last remaining domestic car manufacturers had just announced plans to close, removing the most likely source of political resistance.

But the Coalition government sat on the idea. It ran a string of reviews before ultimately letting the issue drop.

In 2019, then-Opposition Leader Bill Shorten pledged fuel efficiency standards, as well as a target for electric vehicles to comprise half of new car sales by 2030. But he soon ran into Scott Morrison’s jibe that Labor wanted to “end the weekend” and take away people’s utes.

Labor, of course, lost that election and Anthony Albanese dumped the fuel standards idea on becoming party leader.

Read more:
Transport is letting Australia down in the race to cut emissions

But what about the benefits?

A fuel efficiency standard would deliver significant benefits to Australia.

The first is economic. The report released this week is just the latest of many studies showing motorists would have been slugged far less at the bowser if our cars used fuel more efficiently.

The second benefit is tackling climate change. Transport accounts for nearly 20% of Australia’s emissions and this share is increasing.

And while lab tests suggest cars sold in Australia are becoming somewhat more efficient, real world testing shows the opposite. If we are to achieve emissions cuts consistent with the goals of the Paris agreement, cutting emissions from transport is essential.

Third, Australia is almost entirely dependent on foreign fuel. So new efficiency standards would decrease overall liquid fuel consumption, leaving us less reliant on imports.

Read more:
We thought Australian cars were using less fuel. New research shows we were wrong

What’s holding us back

So why hasn’t Australia introduced this clearly beneficial policy? In short, because fuel inefficiency is deeply embedded in Australia’s automotive sector.

The strongest initial resistance to fuel efficiency standards came from the operators of refineries. Fuel-efficient cars require high-quality fuel. But Australia has long had among the dirtiest petrol in the developed world in terms of sulphur content.

Australian refiners resisted fuel efficiency standards because they said the cost of upgrading their plants would put them out of business. But the Morrison government last year funded upgrades at Australia’s last two oil refineries, removing one obstacle.

Further resistance has come from car dealers. From a dealership perspective, it’s easier to sell a car with a low sticker price even if lifetime running costs are higher.

Fuel efficiency standards, and the subsequent large-scale shift to electric vehicles, would fundamentally undermine the business model of the Australian car dealership industry. Much of its profitability comes from after-sales services required to maintain warranty protection, such as oil changes, transmission fluid and tune-ups.

None of these are needed in electric vehicles. The lifetime costs of maintaining an electric vehicle engine are about half those for a comparable internal combustion engine. At some point in their lives, an electric vehicle will require a new battery. But this will occur long after the initial sale.

Given all this, it’s not surprising the car industry is reportedly campaigning to limit any new fuel efficiency standards and delay the shift to electric vehicles.

What now?

The Albanese government has proposed some incentives to encourage a shift towards electric vehicles. But these limited measures won’t drive the dramatic transition that is needed.

Strong fuel efficiency standards would save motorists money, cut emissions and reduce Australia’s dependence on imported fuel. Anyway you look at it, the policy makes sense.

Read more:
Government assumes 90% of Australia’s new car sales will be electric by 2050. But it’s a destination without a route

John Quiggin was a Member of the Climate Change Authority from 2012 to 2017

– ref. Who’s holding back electric cars in Australia? We’ve long known the answer – and it’s time to clear the road – https://theconversation.com/whos-holding-back-electric-cars-in-australia-weve-long-known-the-answer-and-its-time-to-clear-the-road-188443