Alvin Purple at 50: how ‘boobs and pubes’ led Australian screen’s sexual (and sexist) revolution

December 19, 2023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Arrow, Professor of History, Macquarie University

Fifty years ago this week, the first blockbuster of the Australian new wave hit Australian cinemas. Directed by Tim Burstall and starring Graeme Blundell, Alvin Purple was a bawdy sex comedy about an unprepossessing young man who was irresistible to women.

It was a hit, screening for months after its release. A sequel, Alvin Rides Again, quickly followed in 1974, and a short-lived television series aired in 1976.

However, the jiggling flesh and bed-hopping antics of Alvin Purple were probably not what Australian politicians had in mind when they devised policies to create a local film industry in the late 1960s.

A wave of new nationalism

In the wake of global political and economic shifts, including the United Kingdom’s decision to join the European Common Market in 1973, Australia undertook a reevaluation of its national identity. Intellectuals and politicians believed culture, and film in particular, could foster this process and promote Australia to the world in an era of “new nationalism”.

The Holt and Gorton Liberal governments established the Australian Council for the Arts in 1967 and the Australian Film Development Corporation (AFDC) in 1970.

This embrace of government support for the arts was new. Government funding expanded the national significance and box office reach of Australian cinema. The Australian Film Development Corporation was encouraged to back popular, rather than arthouse films, with the aim of growing a commercially viable film industry.

The impact of this investment was quickly felt: while just 17 feature films were made in Australia in the 1960s, more than 150 were made in the 1970s.

Alvin Purple was the first big hit of this new era in Australian film, a standard-bearer of the new nationalism. As with so many images of Australian identity, such as the Anzac and the bushman, the new nationalism was represented by a white bloke: in this case, the Ocker. The Ocker was keen on colourful language, beer and women, in that order.

The Ocker was crucial to the new film industry, just as he had been the new radical Australian theatre of the late 1960s. Many of those involved in theatre would go on to shape Australian film, including Burstall and Blundell.

Australia’s new cinema classification system – which replaced the older system of strict censorship – was the second key ingredient in Australian cinema’s new wave. The Ocker films were almost all bawdy comedies which took advantage of the new R rating for films introduced in 1971. Alvin Purple’s abundant nudity – what one reviewer described as “boobs and pubes” – was one of the reasons it became a hit.

An Aussie sex comedy

In making Alvin Purple, Tim Burstall wanted to create “a sex comedy with […] purely Australian ingredients”.

Alvin Purple is indeed an Australian sex comedy but the joke is on Alvin: despite his view sex is “overrated”, he is bewilderingly irresistible to women of all ages, from screaming schoolgirls to the wife of his school principal, to the psychologist he sees in a bid to avoid sex.

To a generation of Australians raised on The Benny Hill Show (as I was), Alvin Purple looks like just another 70s sex comedy. It was as unpopular with critics as it was a hit with Australian audiences. But dig a little deeper and we can see how the film not only responded to the rise of the women’s movement, but also how it became a touchstone for feminists who were outraged by Australia’s sexist culture.

The central conceit of Alvin Purple – that he is an average bloke who is utterly irresistible to women – was an appealing male fantasy in an era of sexual liberation. Almost every female character in the film wants to have sex with Alvin. Director Burstall admitted to Cleo magazine in 1975 that Alvin Purple was a fantasy, “and if you want to get heavy, a male chauvinist fantasy”.

In the film’s opening scene, Alvin is riding a tram and, looking around at the alluringly dressed female passengers, complains:

How can you keep your mind off [sex] when it’s being flung at you every moment of the day?

Indeed, the women around him seem to invite his objectifying gaze: one woman wears a t-shirt reading “women should be obscene and not heard”, and Alvin fantasises about ripping another woman’s shirt open to expose her bare breasts. The film conflated the sexual revolution with women’s liberation.

For some Australian feminists, Alvin Purple was a symbol of Australian sexism. In 1974, two feminist protesters picketed the set of Burstall’s next film with placards reading “smash sexist movies” and “Burstall sexist shit”.

Sandra Hall, reviewing the film for The Bulletin described it as

cheerfully sexist […] there is flesh everywhere but the motivations are made of cardboard and the women are universally stupid.

In spite of, or perhaps because of this, Alvin Purple remains one of Australia’s highest-grossing films of all time. It is one of only three films made in the 1970s to make it into Screen Australia’s list of 100 top grossing local films.

Alvin Purple demonstrated Australians were ready to embrace local stories on their cinema screens. But the film’s legacy is complicated by its thin and stereotypical representation of women.

We cannot simply write the film’s sexism off as a product of a different time when women were criticising it for that very reason when it was released. Alvin still placed men at the centre of Australian stories, and that’s something we’re still wrestling with, 50 years on.

Michelle Arrow receives funding from The Australian Research Council.

– ref. Alvin Purple at 50: how ‘boobs and pubes’ led Australian screen’s sexual (and sexist) revolution – https://theconversation.com/alvin-purple-at-50-how-boobs-and-pubes-led-australian-screens-sexual-and-sexist-revolution-218420

Have we been trying to prevent suicides wrongly all this time?

By The Conversation -

December 18, 2023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Kyron, Research Fellow, School of Psychological Science, The University of Western Australia

Traditional approaches to preventing suicide have focused on “who is at risk?” The aim is to identify an individual and to help them get support.

But that approach doesn’t seem to be working. Australia’s suicide rates have remained stubbornly high. There was an increase in the rate of suicides from 2012 to 2022.

We often do not know who is most vulnerable to suicide, and if we do, we struggle to efficiently target resources to them when they need it most. So we need a fresh approach.

Maybe we’ve been asking the wrong question all this time. Rather than asking “who is at risk?” we should also ask “when is a person at risk?”

We know depression increases suicide risk, but on a given day most depressed people will not consider suicide. We need to know when a person’s risk has risen to help them access support immediately.

Our preliminary research conducted in a Perth psychiatric hospital, and published recently, suggests this might be worth pursuing.

What we did

We conducted a “proof of concept” study involving inpatients at the psychiatric hospital Perth Clinic. Patients were invited to complete questionnaires on iPads in each room. Over more than a decade, more than 20,000 patients participated in the study, resulting in about 350,000 completed questionnaires.

We then examined questionnaire data from 110 inpatients who attempted suicide in the hospital over an average 25-day period. These patients were typically female (78%) and had a diagnosis of major depression or an anxiety disorder. They were 14 to 77 years old.

Of note, nurses had rated roughly half as having “no” to “low risk” of suicide, based on interviews with patients.

We then looked for patterns in the data to see if we could see who and when someone was at increased short-term risk of attempting suicide.

What we found

We found that on the day of a suicide attempt, a person’s perception they were a burden to friends and family increased greatly.

The day before a suicide attempt, patients reported an increased loss of hope in their lives. They perceived they could not change things that mattered to them.

We used this data to develop an algorithm to monitor spikes in these and other key risk factors that may signal increased short-term risk of suicide attempts.

This algorithm, now live in the hospital, alerts staff to at-risk patients to facilitate targeted and immediate interventions when the risk of attempted suicide is at its highest.

How can we apply these findings?

Key signals we identified as indicators of short-term risk of suicide – perceptions of burden or hopelessness – are often not matched by reality.

While people may think they are a burden, their friends and family members disagree. Far from being burdened, those friends and family are the ones who struggle to know how and when to give the assistance they desperately want to provide. Likewise, a perception of hopelessness is often transient and doesn’t always reflect reality.

So clinical staff can work with patients to help them re-evaluate these misguided beliefs, and to collaboratively develop coping strategies.

For instance, a core belief of “I am a burden” is replaced by “I wouldn’t think a loved one was a burden if they were suffering.”

Nurse comforting patient, one hand on shoulder, one on hand on knee — Clinical staff work with patients to help them re-evaluate their perceptions.
Monkey Business Images/Shutterstock

Where to now?

The aim now is to trial our approach in a larger number of psychiatric patients, across multiple sites across Australia, to see if this gives staff enough time to intervene and prevent imminent suicides.

We’re also hoping to test our methods in the community. This includes predicting the risk of suicide among school students, and remotely monitoring people at risk of suicide who present to primary care, such as their GP.

For instance, we are working with GPs to extend Perth Clinic’s daily monitoring system to track the symptoms of GP patients between appointments. Through this approach the GPs can monitor the effectiveness of medications or identify periods of heightened risk that can be addressed at future appointments.

Our approach is just one aspect of suicide prevention. We also need to address the complex web of societal, socioeconomic and other factors that contribute to the type of distress we see in people contemplating suicide.

If this article has raised issues for you, or if you’re concerned about someone you know, call Lifeline on 13 11 14. In an emergency, call 000.

Andrew Page is a research consultant to Perth Clinic where the research was conducted. The research has been supported by the Australian Research Council’s Linkage Scheme where Perth Clinic was the industry partner.

Michael Kyron 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. Have we been trying to prevent suicides wrongly all this time? – https://theconversation.com/have-we-been-trying-to-prevent-suicides-wrongly-all-this-time-218022

Have we been trying to prevent suicides wrong all this time?

By The Conversation -

December 18, 2023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Kyron, Research Fellow, School of Psychological Science, The University of Western Australia

Traditional approaches to preventing suicide have focused on “who is at risk?” The aim is to identify an individual and to help them get support.

But that approach doesn’t seem to be working. Australia’s suicide rates have remained stubbornly high. There was an increase in the rate of suicides from 2012 to 2022.

We often do not know who is most vulnerable to suicide, and if we do, we struggle to efficiently target resources to them when they need it most. So we need a fresh approach.

Maybe we’ve been asking the wrong question all this time. Rather than asking “who is at risk?” we should also ask “when is a person at risk?”

Our preliminary research conducted in a Perth psychiatric hospital, and published recently, suggests this might be worth pursuing.

What we did

Of note, nurses had rated roughly half as having “no” to “low risk” of suicide, based on interviews with patients.

We then looked for patterns in the data to see if we could see who and when someone was at increased short-term risk of attempting suicide.

What we found

We found that on the day of a suicide attempt, a person’s perception they were a burden to friends and family increased greatly.

The day before a suicide attempt, patients reported an increased loss of hope in their lives. They perceived they could not change things that mattered to them.

We used this data to develop an algorithm to monitor spikes in these and other key risk factors that may signal increased short-term risk of suicide attempts.

This algorithm, now live in the hospital, alerts staff to at-risk patients to facilitate targeted and immediate interventions when the risk of attempted suicide is at its highest.

How can we apply these findings?

Key signals we identified as indicators of short-term risk of suicide – perceptions of burden or hopelessness – are often not matched by reality.

So clinical staff can work with patients to help them re-evaluate these misguided beliefs, and to collaboratively develop coping strategies.

For instance, a core belief of “I am a burden” is replaced by “I wouldn’t think a loved one was a burden if they were suffering.”

Where to now?

If this article has raised issues for you, or if you’re concerned about someone you know, call Lifeline on 13 11 14. In an emergency, call 000.

– ref. Have we been trying to prevent suicides wrong all this time? – https://theconversation.com/have-we-been-trying-to-prevent-suicides-wrong-all-this-time-218022

Labor regains lead in Newspoll after tie, but Freshwater has a 50–50 tie

By The Conversation -

December 18, 2023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne

A national Newspoll, conducted December 11–15 from a sample of 1,219, gave Labor a 52–48 lead, a two-point gain for Labor since the previous Newspoll three weeks ago that had a 50–50 tie. Primary votes were 36% Coalition (down two), 33% Labor (up two), 13% Greens (steady), 7% One Nation (up one) and 11% for all Others (down one).

Anthony Albanese’s ratings were 50% dissatisfied (down three) and 42% satisfied (up two), for a net approval of -8, up five points. Peter Dutton’s net approval improved four points to -9. Albanese led Dutton as better PM by an unchanged 46–35.

The graph below shows Albanese’s net approval in Newspoll since late 2022. While his net approval in this Newspoll is a recovery, he’s still well below net zero.

In my coverage of the previous Newspoll, I said other polls conducted at about the same time had narrow Labor leads, with Morgan giving the Coalition a 50.5–49.5 lead.

The polling now suggests Labor’s lead is increasing slightly. This may be explained by an improvement in economic sentiment. Morgan’s consumer confidence index was up 4.4 points last week to 80.8, the highest it has been since February.

Freshwater poll tied at 50–50

A national Freshwater poll for The Financial Review, conducted December 15–17 from a sample of 1,109, had a 50–50 tie, a one-point gain for the Coalition since September. Primary votes were 39% Coalition (up two), 31% Labor (down two), 13% Greens (steady) and 16% for all Others (steady).

The Poll Bludger said Freshwater polls have been two or three points worse for Labor than the nearest Newspoll. This poll is better for Labor if Freshwater’s pro-Coalition lean is accounted for.

Albanese’s net approval was down two to -5, while Dutton’s was up eight to -2. Albanese led Dutton by 43–39 as preferred PM (46–37 in September). The Liberals had a net +3 approval, while Labor’s was -3 and the Greens were -16. Jacinta Price’s net approval was +7, Penny Wong’s was +5 and Barnaby Joyce’s was -17.

On issue salience, there was a six-point drop in cost of living to 71% and an eight-point rise in immigration to 13% (but this is only the eighth most important issue). The Coalition led Labor by five points on cost of living, up from one point in September. On immigration, the Coalition led by 13 points, up from five.

YouGov poll: Greens gain at Labor’s expense

A YouGov national poll, conducted December 1–5 from a sample of 1,555, gave Labor a 51–49 lead, unchanged since the previous YouGov poll in mid-November. Primary votes were 37% Coalition (up one), 29% Labor (down two), 15% Greens (up two), 7% One Nation (steady) and 12% for all Others (down one).

The Poll Bludger said this is Labor’s lowest primary vote in any poll since the last election. If repeated at an election, it would be Labor’s lowest since the first federal election in 1901.

Albanese’s net approval slumped nine points to -16, while Dutton’s net approval was down two to -9. Albanese led Dutton by 46–36 as preferred PM, with this ten-point margin down from 14 previously.

Essential poll: Labor’s lead increases

In last week’s federal Essential poll, conducted December 6–10 from a sample of 1,102, Labor led by 49–46 including undecided, out from 48–47 three weeks ago. Primary votes were 34% Coalition (steady), 31% Labor (steady), 13% Greens (steady), 6% One Nation (down one), 2% UAP (up one), 9% for all Others (up one) and 5% undecided (down one).

Voters were asked to rate Albanese and Dutton from zero to ten. Ratings of 0–3 were counted as negative, 4–6 as neutral and 7–10 as positive. Albanese was at 37–32 negative (35–33 in November). Dutton was at 37–28 negative (35–32 previously).

Big businesses and the government were thought to have too much power, while individuals, workers and small business were thought to not have enough. The most important issues voters wanted the government to address were energy prices, housing affordability and grocery prices.

Trust in various institutions has taken a double digit hit across the board since this question was last asked in September 2022.

Asked whether 2023 had been a good or bad year for various entities, the only one voter thought had had a better 2023 than 2022 were large companies and corporations (up ten points on net good to +36). There was a 22-point slump in “your personal financial situation” to -27 and a 14-point slump in the Australian economy to -41.

On what happened in 2023 relative to expectations at the beginning of the year, 49% said it had been worse than expected, 34% as expected and 13% better than expected. For 2024, 32% said it would be worse than 2023, 30% no different and 24% better.

Redbridge poll, Morgan poll and additional Resolve questions

A federal Redbridge poll conducted December 6–11 from a sample of 2,010, gave Labor a 52.8–47.2 lead, a 0.7-point gain for the Coalition since the previous Redbridge poll in early November. Primary votes were 35% Coalition (steady), 33% Labor (down one), 13% Greens (down one) and 19% for all Others (up two).

By 53–33, voters thought Labor was not focused on the right priorities (50–36 in November). By 47–33, they thought the Coalition was not ready for government (50–30 previously).

In last week’s federal Morgan poll, conducted December 4–10 from a sample of 1,719, Labor led by 51–49, unchanged since the previous week. Primary votes were 37% Coalition (down 0.5), 30.5% Labor (down two), 14% Greens (up 1.5), 5% One Nation (steady), 7.5% independents (down one) and 6% others (up two).

I covered a federal Resolve poll two weeks ago that still gave Labor a large lead. Voters were told net migration to Australia was about 160,000 per year before COVID, but fell to negligible levels during the pandemic. To make up for this, it increased to 184,000 last year and was over 400,000 this year.

On this level of immigration, 62% thought it too high, 23% about right and 3% too low. On next year’s expected 260,000 net migration, 55% said too high, 25% about right and 5% too low. By 57–16, voters thought the government was handling immigration in an unplanned and unmanaged way rather than a carefully planned and managed way.

Victorian Resolve poll: Labor far ahead

A Victorian state Resolve poll for The Age, conducted with the federal November and December Resolve polls from a sample of 1,093, gave Labor 37% of the primary vote (down two since October), the Coalition 31% (down one), the Greens 11% (down one), independents 14% (up four) and others 6% (down one).

Resolve doesn’t give a two party estimate until near elections, but analyst Kevin Bonham estimated a Labor lead by 56.5–43.5, a one-point gain for the Coalition since October. Resolve’s federal polls have been far better for Labor than other polls.

New Labor Premier Jacinta Allan’s lead as preferred premier over Liberal leader John Pesutto narrowed to 34–22 from 38–19 in October. By 57–22, voters thought students should attend school and protest outside school time, rather than miss school for rallies.

Annastacia Palaszczuk resigns

On December 10, Queensland Labor Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk announced she would resign as premier at the end of last week, and as Member for Inala by the end of this year. A byelection will be needed in Inala, which Palaszczuk won by 78.2–21.8 against the Liberal Nationals in 2020.

Steven Miles replaced Palaszczuk as Labor leader and premier last Friday after he was elected unopposed by Labor MPs.

Palaszczuk has been premier since leading Labor to a surprise victory at the 2015 state election, but she has become increasingly unpopular. I wrote two weeks ago that Labor is likely to lose the next election due in October 2024.

WA Redbridge poll: Labor has huge lead

The next Western Australian state election is in March 2025. A Redbridge poll was reported by The Poll Bludger on Saturday. It gave Labor a 59.4–40.6 lead, from primary votes of 44% Labor, 29% Liberals, 4% Nationals, 11% Greens, 3% One Nation and 9% for all Others. This would be a 10% swing to the Liberals from the record 2021 Labor landslide, but it’s still a huge lead for Labor.

The federal WA Redbridge poll gave Labor a 55.2–44.8 lead, unchanged from the 2922 federal WA result of 55.0–45.0 to Labor. The sample size was 1,200.

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. Labor regains lead in Newspoll after tie, but Freshwater has a 50–50 tie – https://theconversation.com/labor-regains-lead-in-newspoll-after-tie-but-freshwater-has-a-50-50-tie-219404

Israel-Hamas war: a ceasefire is now in sight. Will Israel’s prime minister agree?

By The Conversation -

December 18, 2023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Parmeter, Research Scholar, Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies, Australian National University

The mistaken killing of three Israeli hostages by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) at the weekend has substantially increased pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to accept a ceasefire in the war against Hamas.

The Biden administration is exerting maximum pressure to convince the Israeli government that the downsides of its prosecution of the war, particularly the shockingly high Palestinian civilian death toll, now outweigh the potential gains.

During a visit to Israel earlier this month, Secretary of State Antony Blinken told Netanyahu and his cabinet they would have to end the offensive by the new year.

National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan visited Israel on the weekend to deliver the same message, emphasising that the US wanted to see results on its demands to Israel to avoid civilian casualties in Gaza.

Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin is currently on a trip to the Middle East, including a stopover in Israel to discuss the “eventual cessation of high-intensity ground operations and air strikes”.

Earlier in the month, Austin warned that Israel’s killing of Palestinian civilians risked driving them into the arms of the enemy – replacing “a tactical victory with a strategic defeat”.

Finally President Joe Biden, who won enormous kudos in Israel for his visit in the immediate aftermath of the Hamas attacks on October 7, has publicly warned that Israel’s “indiscriminate bombing” of Gaza is losing it international support.

The US, if not Israel (which regards the UN as biased against it) will be concerned at the UN General Assembly vote on December 12 demanding a ceasefire. Though the resolution is non-enforceable, the large majority – 153 of the 190 members – was a clear indication of growing international opposition to the war.

The majority in favour of a similar resolution in October was 120. The US stood out as the only UN Security Council member to vote against the December resolution.

Israeli forces credibility reduced

To underline these messages, a leaked US intelligence assessment has claimed 40-45% of the 29,000 air-to-surface ground munitions Israel has used in Gaza have been “dumb” (unguided) bombs. This disclosure effectively undercuts the Israel Defense Force’s claim that its strikes have been only at proven Hamas targets.

Details of the accidental killing of the three hostages, as they have emerged at the weekend, further reduce the credibility of the Israeli forces’ claims to be operating with full regard to international humanitarian law. The three were holding a white cloth, had their hands in the air and were calling to the soldiers in Hebrew.

An Israeli Defense Force official has said the case was “against our rules of engagement” and an investigation was happening at the “highest level”.

The tragedy has given renewed impetus to the campaign by families of the more than 100 remaining hostages and their numerous supporters. They want the government to prioritise negotiations for the release of the captives over the war against Hamas. Demonstrations took place in Tel Aviv after news of the three hostages’ deaths.

So far Netanyahu and his Defense Minister, Yoav Gallant, are holding firm that the operation to destroy Hamas must continue. Gallant has said that only intense military pressure on Hamas will create conditions for release of more hostages.

Netanyahu likely to continue the conflict

Netanyahu has a number of reasons for continuing the war.

In the inevitable postwar inquiry into the security lapses that led to the horrific Hamas attack on October 7, major blame is certain be laid on him. That inquiry won’t be held while the war proceeds.

But Netanyahu will be aware that his only chance of avoiding the sort of withering criticism that would force him from office is to make good on his pledge to totally eliminate Hamas, and to find and recover the remaining hostages. That will take much more time than Biden seems willing to allow him.

Unfortunately for Netanyahu, he cannot yet claim victory on the basis of decapitating the Hamas leadership. The movement’s political ruler in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, and its military leader, Mohammed Deif, are still at large. They’re probably somewhere in the vast tunnel network beneath Gaza. If Israel were to capture or kill these two, Netanyahu would be able to claim substantial vindication.

The Biden administration’s pressure is of less concern to Netanyahu. He is practised at staring down US presidents, particularly Democratic ones. In 2009 he defied President Barack Obama’s call for a freeze on settlement building in the West Bank.

In 2015 he even breached protocol by accepting a Republican invitation to visit Washington to address a joint sitting of Congress without calling on Obama.

Within Israel, Netanyahu is helped by the fact that Israelis have only a partial picture of the human toll their country’s campaign is having on Palestinian civilians.

The ABC Global Affairs Editor, John Lyons, who was based in Jerusalem for many years and understands Hebrew, reported after a recent visit to Israel:

[…] most Israelis do not see pictures (on their televisions) of injured Palestinian women and children or the destruction of Gaza into kilometre after kilometre of rubble […] Israelis are watching a sanitised war […] They are bewildered at why the world is increasingly uncomfortable at the high civilian casualty rate.

Resumption of hostage negotiations

That said, Netanyahu has bowed to the hostages lobby by reversing a decision that the head of Mossad, David Barnea, should cease negotiations in Qatar for more hostage releases. Barnea met Qatar’s prime minister in Europe last week. No details were available at time of writing.

But Hamas continues to make demands that Israel would find hard to accept: no further hostage releases until the war ends; and insistence that a deal would involve release of large numbers of Palestinian prisoners, including high-profile militants.

In the background, a worry for both Israel and the US is that support for Hamas has risen substantially in the West Bank since the war started.

Polling between November 22 and December 2 by the Palestinian Centre for Policy and Survey Research indicated that backing for Hamas had risen from 12% in September to 44% at the beginning of December. This is shown also in the number of green Hamas flags in evidence when Palestinian prisoners were freed during the pauses in fighting in late November.

The polling even showed that support for Hamas in Gaza over the same period had risen from 38% to 42%.

Netanyahu may get lucky if his forces find Sinwar and Deif. In the meantime, a decision on continuation of the war rests with him.

Ian Parmeter 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. Israel-Hamas war: a ceasefire is now in sight. Will Israel’s prime minister agree? – https://theconversation.com/israel-hamas-war-a-ceasefire-is-now-in-sight-will-israels-prime-minister-agree-219958

North Queensland’s record-breaking floods are a frightening portent of what’s to come under climate change

By The Conversation -

December 18, 2023

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

Unprecedented rain brought by Tropical Cyclone Jasper has triggered widespread flooding in far north Queensland, forcing thousands of people to evacuate. Cairns airport is closed, roads are extensively damaged and residents in the city’s northern beaches are cut off by floodwaters.

Some rain gauges in the Barron and Daintree River catchments recorded more than 2m of rain over recent days, and more rain is expected. Water levels in the lower Barron River have smashed the previous record set by devastating floods in March 1977. On Monday morning, the Daintree River was more than 2m higher than the previous 118-year-old flood level, recorded in 2019.

The full impacts of the flood are not yet clear. But there’s likely to be significant damage to properties and public infrastructure, and negative effects for industries such as tourism and agriculture. Recovery is likely to take many months.

So let’s take a closer look at what caused this emergency – and what to expect as climate change worsens.

A ‘sweet spot’ for torrential rain

Tropical Cyclone Jasper crossed the coast north of Cairns on Wednesday last week, tracking over the remote Indigenous community of Wujal Wujal. Damage from wind and storm surge was minimal, but Jasper still produced more than 800mm of rain across the Daintree and Mossman River catchments.

Late Wednesday, the cyclone was downgraded to a tropical low. It crossed southern Cape York Peninsula and headed towards the Gulf of Carpentaria. By Friday, local tourism agencies and operators announced they were back in business, inviting visitors back to the region.

However, by Saturday morning, a significant rainfall and flood emergency was unfolding across a 360 kilometre swathe from Cooktown to Ingham. So what happened?

The ex-cyclone stalled just inland from the southeast Gulf of Carpentaria, creating a sweet spot for torrential rain known as a “stationary convergence zone”. Incredibly moist tropical winds collided over a narrow zone between Port Douglas and Innisfail. This effect converged with northerly winds from the Gulf of Carpentaria and southeast trade winds from the Coral Sea. Local mountain ranges created extra uplift. All this led to non-stop torrential rain for 48 hours.

As a result, an emergency situation rapidly grew across Cairns and the Barron River delta to its immediate north.

Townsville floods: similar but different

This extreme flood event bears some similarity to that which caused significant damage to Townsville in February 2019. Both were associated with a stationary convergence zone caused by a stalled tropical low located to their northwest. In the case of Townsville, the tropical low did not budge for more than ten days. In that time, Townsville received the equivalent of a year’s average rainfall.

Otherwise, the two events are very different.

Firstly, the Townsville floods occurred during a neutral year – that is, in the absence of the climate drivers La Niña and El Niño. But the current flood event has occurred during an El Niño, when tropical cyclones are much less likely to occur in the Australian region, especially in early December.

Secondly, the deep tropical low that caused the 2019 Townsville floods was embedded in an active monsoon trough, which sucked in very moist equatorial air from Indonesia. But unusually, Cyclone Jasper did not form in such conditions. The monsoon trough is still to appear and form over northern Australia.

What’s climate change got to do with it?

As 2023 closes as the warmest year on record, there is growing global concern about the rise of extreme weather events such as floods, droughts and heatwaves.

The atmosphere and oceans are warming due to increasing emissions of greenhouse gases, largely caused by burning fossil fuels. This has led to a greater risk of extreme rainfall and flooding, such as the events we’re seeing now in far north Queensland.

For every 1°C rise in average global temperature, the atmosphere can hold an extra 7% water vapour. When the right atmospheric “triggers” are in place, this extra water vapour is released as intense rainfall.

It’s too soon to attribute the current extreme rain and flooding to climate change. But as the world continues to warm, such events will become more frequent and severe.

Already, extreme flood events globally are becoming more regular and their magnitude is breaking many long-term rainfall and river flood records.

Looking ahead

Once the immediate crisis in North Queensland has subsided, local and state authorities will need to grapple with how to deal with the “new normal” of extreme weather events. The big question is: are they prepared?

Since the big Barron River flood in March 1977, considerable residential and commercial development has been permitted across the river’s floodplain. In many cases, these earlier developments were approved without full consideration of future floods. Many were also approved before local government planning started taking sea level rise into consideration.

The wider Cairns community will recover from this extreme event and will hopefully take on board any problems identified in the emergency responses. In future, emergency planning must take the effects of climate change more seriously. This includes increases in sea level, and more intense tropical cyclones, storm surges, rainfall and flooding.

As of this month, a climate emergency had been declared in 2,351 jurisdictions and local government areas around the world. As a result, many jurisdictions have developed response plans. In Australia, local governments should recognise climate change threats and risks by formally declaring a climate emergency.

Steve Turton has previously received funding from the Australian government.

– ref. North Queensland’s record-breaking floods are a frightening portent of what’s to come under climate change – https://theconversation.com/north-queenslands-record-breaking-floods-are-a-frightening-portent-of-whats-to-come-under-climate-change-220039

A long-dead soprano has taken to the stage with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. Are holograms the future?

By The Conversation -

December 18, 2023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Shelley Brunt, Associate professor, Music Industry, RMIT University

I was recently among a curious Melbourne audience who turned out to see a hologram of the long-dead soprano Maria Callas singing with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra.

The stage was moodily lit, with 30 musicians in shadows. Loud reverberating footsteps foreshadowed Callas’ entrance and indicated potential humanness. When she eventually appeared centre stage, the audience gasped. Ripples of laughter followed when she and conductor Daniel Schlosberg played out a manufactured exchange of acknowledgement.

The Callas hits were performed, from Bellini’s Casta Diva from Norma to Bizet’s L’amour est un oiseau rebelle from Carmen. But there were limitations to the success. While the live orchestral sounds filled Hamer Hall, the vocals were clearly directed from the speakers, rather than the hologram at centre stage.

I felt an uncomfortable silence lingering before and after each song. The Callas hologram delayed the momentum. She bowed, inviting the audience to clap again, and coyly berated the conductor when he started before she was ready. The audience waited, and it all seemed to drag on.

This is one of the limitations of combining live music and a pre-recorded voice: you can’t respond to the temperament of the audience. You can’t speed it up when required.

Those seated around me did not seem to share my concerns. A version of Callas – the woman known as La Divina, “the divine one” – had been digitally resurrected, and that was enough for now.

Hologram performances across the world

The audience was never fooled by the technology. Instead, they were awe-struck. A phrase I heard murmured over and over was: “how do they do it?”.

“They” are BASE Xperiential, an American media company which also created Roy Orbison, Buddy Holly and Whitney Houston holograms.

But the “how” part of the question can be complex. In simple terms, holograms are created when laser lights project a 3D video of a person onto a transparent yet reflective surface, such as a screen. The projected figure lip-syncs to existing vocal recordings, and the live musicians play along.

This is not a unique phenomenon.

Callas in Concert has been performed across the world since 2018. Tupac performed beyond the grave at Coachella in 2012. Elvis Presley duetted posthumously with Celine Dion in front of a studio audience for American Idol in 2007. A hologram of the beloved Taiwanese superstar Teresa Teng recently toured Asia.

Artists who are still living are also creating hologram concerts.
Performance-shy ABBA can now get back on stage via avatars of their 1979 selves for their lucrative show Voyage. Earlier this month, KISS wound up their final live tour and announced they “have been immortalised and reborn as avatars to rock forever” in digital form.

A living legacy

Are hologram concerts a good thing? They are for performers. Possibly.

A hologram can continue to tour long after a singer’s physical body has expired. It keeps them in the public imagination – after all, a star’s image is contingent upon public awareness – and continues to be a lucrative source of income for the copyright holder.

Unlike people, holograms can be in many places at the one time, and aren’t restricted by travel. Artists can perform with their holographic peers such as Coldplay’s 2021 collaboration with BTW holograms for their single My Universe on The Voice finale.

For audiences, the benefits are significant.

As the brother of Teresa Teng noted, hologram performances are also moments of nostalgia for those who want just one more gig.

A hologram performance might be the only way you can see a performer who died before you were born, or see a star who never toured Australia, or see a dream line-up of artists who never performed together.

But audience reactions are mixed.

I conducted a study with a colleague from the Kyoto University of the Arts, asking Japanese audiences their responses to AI Hibari, an AI deep learning hologram of Misora Hibari, who died in 1986.

This hologram replicated her fashion style, musical timing, unique vocal techniques and performance gestures, and performed several songs the real Hibari never did, including Let it Go from Frozen.

While some audience members at the Tokyo performances were visibly moved to tears, others said the hologram was “profaning the dead”, manipulating the memory of the real Hibari, and posing an existential threat to the live music industry.

Where to next?

Audiences have high expectations for digital images. Poor-quality holograms fall into the “uncanny valley” – that point when we feel revulsion because they are not quite human.

We’re sceptical about how the images of the dead are used. They have no say or recourse of action. What if Maria Callas never wanted to be performing as a hologram decades after her death?

We’re cynical about greedy copyright holders and gatekeepers in the music industry. Who is making the money from hologram performances? In death, control and power have shifted away from the singer.

And we’re worried about overreach. The enormous progress of AI and the growing public acceptance of virtual singers means more hologram performances will grace our concert halls. And they will be singing songs that they never performed when they were alive.

Holograms have been around for a long time, and I think they are here to stay in spite of these ethical dilemmas. Even though holograms are inherently gimmicky, inquisitive audiences will still flock to see the latest technological developments in music performance. And judging from the appreciative crowd at the Callas concert, the thrill of seeing La Divina again overrides any human concerns.

Shelley Brunt 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 long-dead soprano has taken to the stage with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. Are holograms the future? – https://theconversation.com/a-long-dead-soprano-has-taken-to-the-stage-with-the-melbourne-symphony-orchestra-are-holograms-the-future-219716

Housing and the Albanese government: a mid-term report card

By The Conversation -

December 18, 2023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hal Pawson, Professor of Housing Research and Policy, and Associate Director, City Futures Research Centre, UNSW Sydney

The Albanese government can justly claim to have reasserted Commonwealth leadership on housing since its election in 2022. Media attention has focused mainly on the legislative stoush with the Greens over the Housing Australia Future Fund. But that’s only one element of a raft of initiatives from Canberra over this time.

Many Australians have recently felt the impact of sharply rising rent and mortgage payments as household numbers and interest rates surged in the post-COVID period. However, several fundamental and enduring housing problems have been escalating for decades. These include:

home ownership becoming less affordable
private rental housing receding beyond the reach of low-income households
increasingly scarce and deteriorating social housing.

To seriously confront these challenges, the government will need to expand its initiatives and tackle reforms of taxes and regulations, which it has avoided to date.

Tackling housing on 4 fronts

The government’s commitments so far can be largely broken down into four policy themes.

1. Direct assistance for low-income groups

The Housing Australia Future Fund is the largest initiative in this area. The goal is to fund 30,000 new social and affordable homes over five years.

Under the National Housing Accord, another 10,000 affordable rental homes are funded over this period.

However, the unmet need for social and affordable housing exceeds 600,000 units, so these targets remain modest.

Also in the direct assistance category is the May budget’s one-off 15% boost to Commonwealth Rent Assistance. While accurately claimed as “the largest increase in more than 30 years”, maximum payments remain far below market rents. As economist Bruce Bradbury argued, the increase should have been 100%.

These initiatives are significant contributions to relieving rental stress when compared to the previous decade of federal inaction. However, that is a low bar.

2. Direct assistance to first-home buyers

This batch of measures includes expansion of the Coalition-established low-deposit mortgage scheme, now branded the First Home Guarantee. Qualifying first-home buyers can secure a home loan with a down-payment of only 5% of property value – rather than the standard 20% deposit.

There’s also the government’s Help to Buy proposal. Under this shared-equity model, government takes a 30-40% interest in a dwelling acquired by a qualifying home buyer. The buyer’s home loan and equity contribution are much smaller as a result.

But the government may battle to secure Senate approval for this scheme. The Coalition opposes it, saying first-home buyers will dislike the idea of “[having Anthony] Albanese at the kitchen table with you, owning part of your home”. The Greens have queried the workability of proposed scheme rules.

3. Boosting housing supply

The main push here has been the National Housing Accord agreed with state governments and others in late 2022. Signatories must do their best to enable construction of at least 1 million homes – and up to 1.2 million – from 2024 to 2029. This would increase current construction rates by about a third, so it’s a challenging target.

The modest federal investment in social and affordable homes supports the accord aspirations.

More importantly, A$3 billion in new federal funding for the New Home Bonus aims to “incentivise states and territories to undertake the reforms necessary to boost housing supply and increase housing affordability”. This approach appears to emulate recent efforts in the UK and Canada.

It remains to be seen if this will work in Australia. There is reason to be sceptical about any strategy to make housing more affordable based on the belief that “inadequate” supply is largely due to planning restrictions. The main consideration for private developers and their financial backers is expected market conditions when newly built homes are to be sold.

If the prime minister is serious about achieving his government’s targets, he may need to consider more direct government involvement in housing production. Much greater social housing investment would be needed in any case to genuinely address the scale of unmet need. He might even contemplate a union-sponsored proposal to use a corporate super-profits tax to fund massively stepped-up social housing construction.

Equally, state and territory governments could look to revive the state-commissioned build-for-sale programs of the 1950s and 1960s. That is, homes built for sale at cost price on land owned by government or acquired for the purpose under compulsory powers.

4. Institutional reform

Fragmented and inadequate policymaking capacity bears much of the blame for Australia’s weak record on housing in recent decades.

In response, the Albanese government has to its credit set up an expert panel, the National Housing Supply and Affordability Council, and a national housing agency, Housing Australia. However, Housing Australia has been designated as purely a delivery agency with no policymaking remit. This seems highly questionable – especially as the housing minister lacks her own department of government.

Even more concerning are indications that the proposed National Housing and Homelessness Plan may fall far short of providing a fit-for-purpose rationale for the government’s post-2022 initiatives and, more importantly, a meaningful framework for the much more ambitious reforms Australia badly needs.

A promising start, but can do better

In the first half of its term, the Albanese government made progress on almost all its election pledges on housing. It also brought forward other notable initiatives. This activity corresponds quite well with key dimensions of Australia’s multi-faceted housing challenge.

At the same time, announced measures are somewhat disparate and many are extremely modest alongside the scale of these problems. To make a real difference, they will need to be expanded and extended over a longer time. They must be complemented by tax and regulatory reforms as yet eschewed.

If the measures to date prove to be a down payment on ambitious and purposeful future action, they may come to be seen as significant. If not, policy analysts of the 2030s will deem them of little importance.

This article draws on a fuller housing policy paper published in a special issue of the Journal of Australian Political Economy along with mid-term assessments of the Albanese government’s performance across a range of other policy areas.

Hal Pawson receives research funding from the Australian Research Council, from the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute, from Queensland Council of Social Service, from the Lord Mayor’s Charitable Fund, City of Melbourne, and from Crisis UK. He is also a non-Exec Director at Community Housing Canberra and a part-time unpaid advisor to ACT Senator David Pocock.

– ref. Housing and the Albanese government: a mid-term report card – https://theconversation.com/housing-and-the-albanese-government-a-mid-term-report-card-219389

Data poisoning: how artists are sabotaging AI to take revenge on image generators

By The Conversation -

December 18, 2023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By T.J. Thomson, Senior Lecturer in Visual Communication & Digital Media, RMIT University

Imagine this. You need an image of a balloon for a work presentation and turn to a text-to-image generator, like Midjourney or DALL-E, to create a suitable image.

You enter the prompt: “red balloon against a blue sky” but the generator returns an image of an egg instead. You try again but this time, the generator shows an image of a watermelon.

What’s going on?

The generator you’re using may have been “poisoned”.

What is ‘data poisoning’?

Text-to-image generators work by being trained on large datasets that include millions or billions of images. Some generators, like those offered by Adobe or Getty, are only trained with images the generator’s maker owns or has a licence to use.

But other generators have been trained by indiscriminately scraping online images, many of which may be under copyright. This has led to a slew of copyright infringement cases where artists have accused big tech companies of stealing and profiting from their work.

This is also where the idea of “poison” comes in. Researchers who want to empower individual artists have recently created a tool named “Nightshade” to fight back against unauthorised image scraping.

The tool works by subtly altering an image’s pixels in a way that wreaks havoc to computer vision but leaves the image unaltered to a human’s eyes.

If an organisation then scrapes one of these images to train a future AI model, its data pool becomes “poisoned”. This can result in the algorithm mistakenly learning to classify an image as something a human would visually know to be untrue. As a result, the generator can start returning unpredictable and unintended results.

Symptoms of poisoning

As in our earlier example, a balloon might become an egg. A request for an image in the style of Monet might instead return an image in the style of Picasso.

Some of the issues with earlier AI models, such as trouble accurately rendering hands, for example, could return. The models could also introduce other odd and illogical features to images – think six-legged dogs or deformed couches.

The higher the number of “poisoned” images in the training data, the greater the disruption. Because of how generative AI works, the damage from “poisoned” images also affects related prompt keywords.

For example, if a “poisoned” image of a Ferrari is used in training data, prompt results for other car brands and for other related terms, such as vehicle and automobile, can also be affected.

Nightshade’s developer hopes the tool will make big tech companies more respectful of copyright, but it’s also possible users could abuse the tool and intentionally upload “poisoned” images to generators to try and disrupt their services.

Is there an antidote?

In response, stakeholders have proposed a range of technological and human solutions. The most obvious is paying greater attention to where input data are coming from and how they can be used. Doing so would result in less indiscriminate data harvesting.

This approach does challenge a common belief among computer scientists: that data found online can be used for any purpose they see fit.

Other technological fixes also include the use of “ensemble modeling” where different models are trained on many different subsets of data and compared to locate specific outliers. This approach can be used not only for training but also to detect and discard suspected “poisoned” images.

Audits are another option. One audit approach involves developing a “test battery” – a small, highly curated, and well-labelled dataset – using “hold-out” data that are never used for training. This dataset can then be used to examine the model’s accuracy.

Strategies against technology

So-called “adversarial approaches” (those that degrade, deny, deceive, or manipulate AI systems), including data poisoning, are nothing new. They have also historically included using make-up and costumes to circumvent facial recognition systems.

Human rights activists, for example, have been concerned for some time about the indiscriminate use of machine vision in wider society. This concern is particularly acute concerning facial recognition.

Systems like Clearview AI, which hosts a massive searchable database of faces scraped from the internet, are used by law enforcement and government agencies worldwide. In 2021, Australia’s government determined Clearview AI breached the privacy of Australians.

In response to facial recognition systems being used to profile specific individuals, including legitimate protesters, artists devised adversarial make-up patterns of jagged lines and asymmetric curves that prevent surveillance systems from accurately identifying them.

There is a clear connection between these cases and the issue of data poisoning, as both relate to larger questions around technological governance.

Many technology vendors will consider data poisoning a pesky issue to be fixed with technological solutions. However, it may be better to see data poisoning as an innovative solution to an intrusion on the fundamental moral rights of artists and users.

T.J. Thomson receives funding from the Australian Research Council through DE230101233 ‘Addressing the Crisis of Local Visual News in Regional and Remote Australia’, DP210100859 ‘Amplifying Voices from the Royal Commission into Aged Care’, and LP220100208 ‘Addressing Misinformation with Media Literacy through Cultural Institutions’. He is an affiliate with the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision Making & Society, CE200100005.

Daniel Angus receives funding from the Australian Research Council through Discovery Projects DP200100519 ‘Using machine vision to explore Instagram’s everyday promotional cultures’, DP200101317 ‘Evaluating the Challenge of ‘Fake News’ and Other Malinformation’, and Linkage Project LP190101051 ‘Young Australians and the Promotion of Alcohol on Social Media’. He is a Chief Investigator with the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision Making & Society, CE200100005.

– ref. Data poisoning: how artists are sabotaging AI to take revenge on image generators – https://theconversation.com/data-poisoning-how-artists-are-sabotaging-ai-to-take-revenge-on-image-generators-219335

What we don’t understand about China’s actions and ambitions in the South China Sea

By The Conversation -

December 18, 2023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Edward Sing Yue Chan, Postdoctoral Fellow in China Studies, Australian National University

In recent weeks, China’s activities in the South China Sea have raised more concerns in the region. Its ships have collided with Filipino vessels, fired water cannon at others and used sonar pulses close to an Australian ship, injuring its divers.

The United States and its allies view this increasingly assertive behaviour as evidence China seeks to challenge the established maritime order, marking it as a “revisionist” power.

The US and its allies have a fairly straightforward view on the South China Sea. They believe these should be open waters accessible to all states and Southeast Asian countries should be able to enjoy their rights to their exclusive economic zones along their shorelines.

But how does China perceive its rights and legitimacy in governing the South China Sea? And how does it view the broader maritime order? Understanding this viewpoint is crucial to deciphering China’s actions in the ongoing disputes in the sea.

An evolving approach to the South China Sea

China’s approach to disputes in the South China Sea and East China Sea has been guided by the same principle since the country began opening up in the 1980s. The policy, established by former leader Deng Xiaoping, said China would “set aside sovereignty disputes and seek joint development” in the seas.

This principle took as a given Chinese sovereignty over the waters. Chinese policy elites expected other countries would recognise this sovereignty when engaging in joint development projects with China, such as offshore gas fields. Moreover, they insisted participating nations agree to set aside disputes in favour of common interests.

But this approach, seen by Chinese scholars and some within the government as a step back from China’s sovereignty claims in exchange for economic gains, did not yield anticipated results.

In the 2000s, Chinese scholars recognised a growing gap in expectations. They noted that engaging in joint development projects did not necessarily build confidence or create closer ties between China and other claimants to the seas.

They argued other nations had taken advantage of China’s step-back policy to assert their own claims, undermining China’s legitimacy to its own sovereignty over the waters.

The surge in great power competition between China and the US in recent years further complicated the situation. This prompted Beijing to address China’s maritime claims more urgently as public opinion turned increasingly assertive, fuelling resentment of the US over the South China Sea.

China turns more assertive

A significant turning point came in 2012 with a stand-off between the Philippines navy and Chinese fishing vessels in the Scarborough Shoal. The shoal lies about 200 kilometres (124 miles) off the Philippines coast and inside its exclusive economic zone. China seized the shoal and the Philippines launched a case with the Permanent Court of Arbitration.

This marked a shift in Chinese rhetoric about its approach to maritime claims and set the stage for the conflicts we’ve seen in the South China Sea since then.

From the Chinese perspective, it has been essential to reassert the country’s sovereignty and jurisdiction in the region.

To achieve this, Beijing has pursued actions to “rule the sea by law”. This has involved extensive land reclamation projects on atolls (which China was reluctant to do under former leader Hu Jintao), the strengthening of China’s coast guard, regular patrols of the sea, and reforms to domestic maritime laws.

Chinese intellectuals justify these actions based on two principles.

First, they argue China has historic rights to govern much of the South China Sea based on the nine-dash line, making the implementation of domestic laws in the area legitimate.

Second, aligning with the Communist Party’s directive of “ruling the country by law”, these measures ensure clear laws and regulations are in place to govern China’s maritime domain. They strengthen China’s jurisdiction over the contested seas, justifying its steps to build military facilities on islands there.

These activities have been very controversial and have faced international legal challenges. Merely imposing domestic laws and regulations does not automatically legitimise China’s maritime claims and interests.

After China rejected the arbitration tribunal ruling against it in the case brought by the Philippines, the perception in much of the world was that Beijing was violating international laws.

Within China, however, this rejection solidified a consensus among policy elites that the current maritime order was “unfair”.

A ‘fair and reasonable’ maritime order

In response, China has sought to garner international support for its claims and, more broadly, its worldview.

To do this, Beijing has promoted the establishment of a “fair and reasonable” maritime order. China’s 14th Five-Year Plan explicitly outlines this goal in 2021, as part of an overarching goal of creating a maritime “Community of Common Destiny”。

This objective aligns primarily with the party’s view, much trumpeted by President Xi Jinping, of the “rise of the East and decline of the West”. The aim is to shift the existing maritime order from one dominated by the West to one based on what Beijing calls “true multilateralism”.

With its “Community of Common Destiny”, China is promoting itself as a global leader in ocean governance and suggesting what it deems a better alternative. This narrative, according to Beijing, has gained support in the Global South.

Bending rules to its advantage

Western strategists often label China a revisionist force challenging the established international order. However, such a characterisation oversimplifies China’s ambitions in ocean governance.

China does not appear intent on preserving or altering the established order. Instead, Beijing has demonstrated a propensity to bend specific rules within the existing framework to align with its interests, using its institutional influence.

Because these international rules lack a uniform understanding around the world, China is adept at navigating the grey areas.

Ultimately, China aims to dominate the existing maritime governance agreements and treaties, allowing it to impose its own agenda and safeguard its maritime rights and interests. Of course, not all countries view China’s ambitions favourably. The Philippines and Vietnam, in particular, oppose China’s unilateral statements on the South China Sea, perceiving them as assertions of regional hegemony.

I’m not seeking to justify China’s actions here, but rather to provide insight into the internal perspectives driving its actions.

China’s influence in ocean governance is clearly on the rise. Western powers and China’s neighbours need to better understand Beijing’s approach in expanding its maritime interests because future relations in the South China Sea depend on it.

Edward Sing Yue Chan is affiliated with Australian Centre on China in the World, Australian National University.

– ref. What we don’t understand about China’s actions and ambitions in the South China Sea – https://theconversation.com/what-we-dont-understand-about-chinas-actions-and-ambitions-in-the-south-china-sea-216068

Is it OK to take antidepressants while pregnant?

By The Conversation -

December 18, 2023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alka Kothari, Associate Professor, Faculty of Medicine, The University of Queensland

Mental health conditions including anxiety and depression are among the most common disorders affecting women during pregnancy and after birth.

Evidence shows mental health conditions in pregnancy increase the risk of complications for the mother and baby.

However, there is some stigma around taking antidepressants while pregnant or breastfeeding. So how should women decide whether or not to take antidepressants during these periods?

Mental health in pregnancy and after birth

Untreated anxiety and depression in pregnancy have been linked to an increased risk of stillbirth, premature birth, low birth weight and low APGAR scores (a test done at birth to check the baby’s health in various domains).

In addition, anxiety or depression during pregnancy may lead to increased maternal weight gain, substance use or smoking. These lifestyle factors can also lead to complications for the baby.

Anxiety and depression during and after pregnancy can affect bonding between mother and baby, and hinder the child’s behavioural and emotional development.

Meanwhile, complications in the pregnancy may worsen mental health symptoms for the mother.

Not coping during pregnancy and especially after giving birth is demoralising and puts women at risk of self-harm. Suicide is a leading cause of maternal death in Australia in the year after giving birth.

Treatment options

Depending on the severity of symptoms, treatment options for women during and after pregnancy range from social and emotional support (for example, support groups) to psychological interventions (such as cognitive behavioural therapy) to medical treatments (for example, antidepressants).

Understandably, many women are reluctant to take medications during pregnancy and while breastfeeding due to concerns the drugs may cross over to the baby and cause complications. Historical instances such as the use of thalidomide for morning sickness, which resulted in severe structural abnormalities in thousands of children, naturally make pregnant women worried.

Robust evidence about medication use in pregnancy is lacking. This may be due to ethical limitations around trialling medications in pregnant women. The limited data available, mainly from observational studies on selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) and serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (SNRIs), the most commonly prescribed antidepressants during pregnancy, has mixed results.

While some studies have reported no noticeable increase in the risk of congenital malformations, evidence has shown a marginal rise in abnormalities such as heart defetcs (an extra two cases per 1,000 babies with SSRIs).

Collaborative decisions

There is a delicate balance to strike between treating the mother and preventing harm to the baby. To make well-informed decisions, an open discussion between the patient and specialised mental health care providers on the benefits and risks of starting or continuing antidepressants is essential.

Given the mother’s poor mental health increases the risk of adverse outcomes for the baby, it may well be that taking antidepressants is the best way to protect the baby.

For women already taking antidepressants, it’s not usually necessary to stop using them during pregnancy. Sudden cessation of antidepressants increases the risk of relapse.

Continuing breastfeeding on antidepressants is likely the best decision because of the low levels of drugs infants are exposed to in breast milk, the advantages of breastfeeding for the baby, and the risks of not taking antidepressants when indicated.

Recently revised guidelines on mental health care in the perinatal period (during pregnancy and after birth) warn health professionals against the dangers of failing to prescribe necessary medication:

Be aware that failure to use medication where indicated for depression and/or anxiety in pregnancy or postnatally may affect mother-infant interaction, parenting, mental health and wellbeing and infant outcomes.

These guidelines also recommend repeated screening for symptoms of depression and anxiety for all women during the perinatal period. This is crucial to providing women with an early referral to perinatal mental health services if needed.

At present, mental health conditions during pregnancy and after birth often go undetected and untreated.

A pregnant woman talks to a therapist. — There are a range of treatment options for perinatal anxiety and depression.
Pormezz/Shutterstock

Supporting perinatal mental health

Mental illness in pregnancy is a significant public health problem. Screening is not always delivered effectively, and currently, there is no national data regarding perinatal mental health screening service use or outcomes.

Mine and my colleagues’ research on pregnant women’s engagement with perinatal mental health services indicated only one-third of eligible women accepted a referral, and less than half attended their appointment. Women may be reluctant to engage due to stigma, time restraints, and lack of childcare or social support.

To address this, we should create strategies and resources in collaboration with pregnant women to identify solutions that work best for them. This might include assistance with childcare, access to telehealth, visits from a perinatal mental health professional, or written information on medications.

Care must be holistic and include partners who may be best placed to support pregnant women in making complex decisions. Health-care providers need to be respectful of individual needs and provide compassionate care to engage vulnerable mothers who may understandably feel uncertain regarding their options.

If this article has raised issues for you, or if you’re concerned about someone you know, call Lifeline on 13 11 14.

Alka Kothari 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. Is it OK to take antidepressants while pregnant? – https://theconversation.com/is-it-ok-to-take-antidepressants-while-pregnant-218045

Private landholders control 60% of the Australian continent – so let’s get them involved in nature protection

By The Conversation -

December 18, 2023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Benjamin J. Richardson, Professor of Environmental Law, University of Tasmania

As the federal government attempts a major overhaul of national environment law, all options must be on the table to prevent the fast deterioration in Australia’s natural places. And more than ever before, the efforts of private landholders should be front and centre.

About 60% of the continent is owned or managed privately – and 70% to 90% of inadequately protected wildlife is found mostly on such land, which includes farms, pastoral leases and mines.

But through what legal mechanism can private landholders be engaged in biodiversity conservation? A key tool, we believe, is a legally binding agreement known as a “conservation covenant”. Under such deals, a private landholder agrees to manage their land for conservation – mostly for altruistic reasons but sometimes in exchange for money or other incentives.

Conservation covenants have been used in Australia for many decades, to a limited extent. But with a few policy changes, they could play a bigger role in helping Australia meet ambitious global goals for conserving and restoring nature.

A once-in-a-generation chance

Many of Australia’s ecosystems are severely degraded. In 2020, the independent Samuel review found national laws were failing to protect our natural assets and the regime needed an overhaul. In response, the federal government released a “nature positive” plan. It’s currently consulting with key stakeholders on a major new law to enact the plan.

This once-in-a-generation law change provides an opportunity for the Commonwealth to stimulate action by private landholders. Not only would this improve the state of Australia’s environment, it would also help ensure we meet our international obligations. In 2022, Australia pledged to place 30% of the continent under conservation protection and start restoring 30% of degraded areas by 2030. But just a few years out from the deadline, we have a lot of work to do.

For example, only 22% of Australia’s landmass is currently protected. By 2030, about 61 million hectares must be added to the conservation estate if Australia is to meet its target.

Strong laws and policies are needed and conservation covenants offer a way forward for private land. A conservation covenant is a legally binding commitment landholders make to restrict how their property is used. Crucially, it binds not only current but future landholders, and operates in perpetuity.

aerial view of swamp and bushland — Walkers Swamp restoration reserve in Victoria is subject to a conservation covenant, managed by Nature Glenelg Trust.
Mark Bachman

The story so far

Covenants have been used occasionally to conserve bushland in Australia since the 1930s. Their use grew from the 1970s as states such as Victoria adapted covenants for conservation use. Some states created independent organisations, such as Victoria’s Trust for Nature, to negotiate covenants with landholders and help them manage their properties.

In Queensland, conservation covenants known as “nature refuges” exist on pastoral leasehold properties. Elsewhere, landowners have also used covenants to achieve wins for both nature and their business, such as Western Australia’s Balijup farm and Tasmania’s Huon Bush Retreats. In these cases, the covenants have helped protect natural values that boost agriculture or eco-tourism.

Despite their potential, covenants are currently reported as safeguarding only about 1% of the continent – and not necessarily those parts in greatest need of help. Change is needed.

How to improve covenant schemes

Much can be done to ensure conservation covenants do more of the heavy-lifting when it comes to environmental protection. In many cases, this should involve the Commonwealth collaborating with the states, which primarily regulate covenants.

The federal government is establishing a nature repair scheme which aims to encourage private spending on biodiversity projects. But the law underpinning the scheme is silent on the potential role of covenants. The law should promote covenants as a way to ensure nature repair efforts meet high legal standards. This would provide confidence to private investors that conservation gains will be made over the long term.

Many existing covenant agreements lack sufficient financial support for landholders, such as council rate rebates and assistance for pest control and fencing. Such support is needed to attract a wider range of landholders and to fund ongoing conservation and restoration work.

Existing covenants are generally used to protect high-value conservation land where ecosystems are healthy. Rarely are they used on degraded land needing restoration, such as overgrazed paddocks or former mining sites. Further refinement of covenants may be needed so they can accommodate restoration.

Map showing how covenanted land (highlighted in green overlay) is concentrated in forested and relatively healthy ecosystems but largely absent from farmed landscapes where restoration is most needed.
Land Information System Tasmania

Many landowners initially opt for a non-binding conservation commitment, such as the “Land for Wildlife” program running in several states. While such state-level programs have merit, in many cases, it’s important to support landowners to transition to a more robust tool, such as a covenant, to ensure the nature improvements have lasting impact.

One solution is for the states to offer a variety of covenants so landholders can choose the one that best fits them and their property. This includes offering covenants to sites undergoing active restoration. Victoria’s BushBank program, which combines payment for biodiversity and carbon values, is a promising step in the right direction. The question of how covenants might apply to Indigenous-owned land also must be considered.

In addition, climate change must be recognised as a key consideration when designing covenants. There’s no guarantee of protection for nature, even with a covenant, if climate change is ignored.

This means responsible bodies and landowners should be required to review and, if necessary, update management plans after bushfires, droughts and other significant climate-related events. And covenants should support lands already restored to become more climate-resilient, such as through planting more suitable vegetation.

The future of nature conservation in Australia must involve a much bigger role for private landholders. This includes the protection and management of high-quality native habitats as well as restoring degraded ecosystems.

Benjamin J. Richardson is a recipient of funding from the Australian Research Council. He is a member of the Tasmanian Independent Science Council and the Tasmanian Greens.

Afshin Akhtar-Khavari receives funding from the Australian Research Council through its Discovery Program.

James Fitzsimons is Senior Advisor, Global Protection Strategies with The Nature Conservancy, is a Councillor of the Biodiversity Council and a member of the Australian Land Conservation Alliance’s policy and government relations committee.

Phillipa McCormack is Vice President of the National Environmental Law Association. She has received funding from the Australian Research Council, and from the National Environmental Science Program for a project on legal arrangements for marine and coastal habitat restoration and nature based solutions.

Sarah Brugler is a recipient of an Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship and funding from the Australian Research Council. She works part-time for the Biodiversity Council and is affiliated with the National Environmental Law Association. She previously worked as the in-house lawyer for Trust for Nature (Victoria).

– ref. Private landholders control 60% of the Australian continent – so let’s get them involved in nature protection – https://theconversation.com/private-landholders-control-60-of-the-australian-continent-so-lets-get-them-involved-in-nature-protection-217450

University isn’t right for everyone. Pushing young people to go can have devastating effects

By The Conversation -

December 18, 2023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kristina Sincock, Researcher and Project Manager, University of Newcastle

Australian school students feel immense pressure to go to university, often at the exclusion of all other pathways, which can lead to devastating mental health effects.

That’s among the headline findings of our decade-long program of research on the aspirations and post-school trajectories of young Australians.

Our research, published today in the journal Educational Review, reveals the unintended consequences of government higher education policies, inadequate school career advice, and a wider public devaluing of the vocational education and training sector.

Our research

Since 2012, we’ve conducted one of the largest studies to date on the aspirations of Australian youth, involving more than 10,000 students in Years 3-12.

Recently, we followed up with 50 of these young people post-school to see where they ended up in terms of their career and educational pathways.

Our findings reveal some significant and, at times, devastating insights into how young Australians – particularly those from underrepresented backgrounds – have experienced the “push” towards higher education.

A crisp winter light falls upon the University of Sydney. — Not everyone needs to go to university.
Shutterstock

Pressure to attend university and the devaluing of TAFE

The young people in our research consistently said university was explicitly pushed as the only post-school pathway worth pursuing during their schooling. Other pathways were often deemed to be “not good enough”. One university graduate told us:

I think there’s quite a lot actually of […] pressure given, not from all teachers, but some teachers, to really go towards higher education […] I’d say I felt pressured as a group, or as like, as a generation […] I just think that was just an overarching expectation.

This pressure frustrated some students. Angus* fulfilled his dream of becoming a chef by training at TAFE and eventually working in a top restaurant in London. In his first interview in 2014 he described restaurants as a place he “fits in”.

However, he also told us he had been repeatedly told by his teachers that “cheffing’s a horrible job”:

Almost every teacher at my school wanted to push me into their career path, [and I was told], ‘You’re very smart […] you should go to uni’ [otherwise I] might not become successful […] They always pushed me towards university. Regardless of what my feelings were, to be honest, I never felt truly supported by my career adviser.

Limited career education in school

Young people also overwhelmingly said the career education provided at school was unhelpful, impersonal, and pushed them towards university.

Career guidance was mainly focused on achieving a high ATAR (university entrance rank), with one student describing how her career adviser spent “more time trying to calculate my ATAR than imparting actual advice”.

Alternative entry pathways into university often weren’t openly discussed or fully understood. Such pathways were often devalued in favour of achieving the best ATAR possible. One young person told us:

I think with the pressure in schools on ATARs and that sort of thing – and they have to put that pressure on because they want you to do well. But it sort of develops a stigma around, well, if I don’t do Year 11 and 12 […], then I can’t get into university, without [young people understanding] there’s actually [alternative] pathways.

Stress and poor mental health

Many young people therefore felt high levels of stress and poor mental health during the final years of high school and the beginning of university, with some “losing the plot” or feeling “burnt out”.

The most extreme mental ill health reported in our interviews was experienced by Dahlia, a young Indigenous woman.

When we first spoke to her in 2016, she was a high achieving Year 11 student with aspirations to become a criminal psychologist.

When we next spoke to her in 2021, she described how the pressure of Year 12 caused her to drop out of school. During this year, Dahlia had severe mental ill health and made an attempt to end her life.

She later completed a traineeship in early childhood and care, before entering university to study a combined degree in primary and early childhood teaching. Dahlia was eager for her experience to be a warning about the pressure and stress of Year 12 exams:

It was just a burn out, like, I was just so overwhelmed. I felt like I was so pressured to do the best and I felt like I wasn’t the best […] then I’d get anxiety about not being as good as everyone thinks I am […] that’s why I really wanted to do this interview, because I wanted to put it out there that high school is not the be all, end all […] getting that high [Year 12] mark isn’t the be all, end all.

A group of high school students look at a laptop. — Many young people feel high levels of stress during the final years of high school.
Shutterstock

Where to from here?

The pressure to attend university compounds stress and poor mental health for some young people. This isn’t surprising given the transition to adulthood is the peak period for the onset of mental disorders.

We must urgently address the limited career education available to students and the narrow version of success linked to Year 12 exams and the ATAR in schools and society.

This would involve:

providing adequate training and resources to schools and career advisers
raising the status of vocational education and careers; and
valuing alternative pathways to university, such as enabling programs.

A woman looks very stressed. — The pressure to attend university can compound stress.
Shutterstock

The Universities Accord (a major federal government-led review that seeks to “reimagine” higher education for the next 30 years) provides an opportunity to change the lives and trajectories of Australian students. Ensuring the higher education sector is fair and equitable is at the heart of this process.

Its interim report claims that “too few Australians are going to university.” This is based on estimates that more than 50% of new jobs in the next five years will require a university degree.

However, the skills gap is even greater in technician and trade careers than professional occupations.

This means the spotlight can’t only be on universities; a focus on vocational education and training pathways (such as TAFE) is crucial too.

To confront the challenges of the coming century, we need a broader public conversation about the place of tertiary education – not just university – and the diverse educational and career pathways available.

*Names have been changed to protect identities.

The Aspirations Longitudinal Study and related studies (2010-2021) were funded by the Australian Research Council, the NSW Department of Education, and the National Centre for Student Equity in Higher Education.

Sally Patfield currently receives funding from the NSW Department of Education, the Commonwealth Department of Education, and the Paul Ramsay Foundation.

– ref. University isn’t right for everyone. Pushing young people to go can have devastating effects – https://theconversation.com/university-isnt-right-for-everyone-pushing-young-people-to-go-can-have-devastating-effects-205652

An austere Christmas is on the cards – but don’t say recession

By The Conversation -

December 18, 2023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Luke Hartigan, Lecturer in Economics, University of Sydney

The rapid increase in interest rates over the past year and a half is causing many consumers to feel less than joyous this festive season.

Spending in the lead up to Christmas is likely to remain subdued, with consumers more budget conscious than in previous years. The muted outlook for consumption has got some economists and media outlets predicting a possible recession in 2024.

So, what is a recession and how likely is it Australia will actually see one next year?

What is a recession, anyway?

The National Bureau of Economic Research (a private research organisation widely seen as the authority for determining recessions in the US) defines recession as “a significant decline in economic activity that is spread across the economy and that lasts more than a few months.”

But it is not all just about weak consumption expenditure (people spending a bit less money than usual). In an open economy like Australia, a decline in consumption could just mean a decline in imports. In other words, weak consumption doesn’t necessarily mean we are producing less goods and services locally.

A couple of sad looking presents are placed around a very small Christmas tree. — We may be in for an austere Christmas.
Shutterstock

The Reserve Bank of Australia says a recession is often defined as “a sustained period of weak or negative growth.”

But what do we mean by “sustained”? The media usually takes this to mean at least two consecutive quarters of negative growth in economic activity, typically measured by Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

However, the National Bureau of Economic Research does not use a two-quarter rule. And it looks at more than just domestic production. It examines a variety of different measures of economic activity – such as conditions in the labour market and industrial production – when making its decision about whether a recession has occurred or not.

Currently, there seems to an obsession with finding some measure that will indicate a recession. The latest candidate, popular among some observers and media outlets, is a “per capita GDP recession”.

This means a fall in GDP per person. That’s an easier set of criteria to meet, so if you go by this definition, a recession is more likely.

Other economists and observers shy away from focusing on economic growth, saying the change in the unemployment rate is a better measure. These people believe a higher unemployment rate provides a better sign a recession has occurred.

The problem is, however, there can be other factors that weaken the link between the labour market and economic activity. Institutional changes to the labour market is one example. The decline in activity in 2008–2009, for instance, showed up as a decline in hours worked rather than an increase in unemployment, something that would not have occurred previously.

Even just using the “technical” definition (the two quarter rule) of a recession has its problems too. This is because of the issue of data revisions to measures of economic activity such as GDP.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics frequently revises historical values of GDP as new data become available. As a result, a negative quarterly growth outcome in one period can be revised away by the bureau in a subsequent period.

Take any recession warnings with a grain of salt

In the past, from about the 1960s to the 1980s, recessions were more frequent in Australia. But they are less likely now. This is partly because the frequency and volatility of shocks has declined since the mid-1980s.

A series of economic reforms that occurred in the 1980s and 1990s, such as floating the dollar and opening the economy up to greater competition, has also helped reduce the risk of recession. These changes have made Australia more robust to shocks.

We should be sceptical of anyone claiming a recession is just around the corner. Economists have a terrible track record when it comes to predicting recessions.

To forecast a recession, we need to be able predict “turning points” – periods when economic activity goes from positive growth to negative growth or vice versa. This requires us to predict future shocks, like the outbreak of COVID, which is hard to do consistently.

There will always be some probability of a recession in Australia when a very large shock hits us. But our ability to successfully predict when one will occur is poor.

Any prediction Australia is on the cusp of recession should be taken with a grain of salt.

Luke Hartigan receives funding from the Australian Research Council. He previously worked as an economist at the Reserve Bank of Australia.

– ref. An austere Christmas is on the cards – but don’t say recession – https://theconversation.com/an-austere-christmas-is-on-the-cards-but-dont-say-recession-218718

Ghosts, grit and genius: the most gripping podcasts of 2023

By The Conversation -

December 18, 2023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Siobhan McHugh, Honorary Associate Professor, Journalism, Consulting Producer, The Greatest Menace, Walkley-winning podcast, University of Wollongong

Despite downturns at the corporate end of town, podcasts again this year proved to be a powerful medium for new voices and previously overlooked stories.

As a judge of the Walkleys and New York Festivals, I listened to a lot of content. I was struck by how open this medium is still to newcomers, and how a passion project can outgun the big names (some of whom were victims this year of their own hubris).

Lovers of imaginative audio will be disappointed by the recent cancellation of the “documentary adventures” show Lights Out, produced by small but stellar UK company Falling Tree. Falling Tree has been an exceptional mentor of new talent such as this luminous reflection on family and loss by Talia Augustidis. Happily, nascent outlets such as Audio Flux and Sound Fields promise fresh artistic delights.

Here, then, are my podcast picks of 2023 for your summer listening pleasure.

1. First Eat with Nakkiah Lui

Even for a versatile playwright/actor/director such as Nakkiah Lui, this podcast has a challenging remit: to investigate how Lui’s food habits and body image as an Indigenous Australian might link to identity and impacts of colonialism.

She and producer Nicola Harvey stitch together a sprawling narrative that digs into Lui’s family history and draws on global academic research to traverse Australia, creating vivid aural landscapes.

The podcast’s excavation of exploitation and cultural erasure evokes shades of Ta-Nehisi Coates’ remarkable opus, The Case for Reparations.

2. Dying Rose

Dying Rose investigates in forensic detail how poorly the justice system treated the deaths of six young First Nations women. Host Douglas Smith from the Adelaide Advertiser puts his Indigeneity explicitly in the frame, telling listeners:

our normals are not the same […] I’ve been to more funerals of relatives than I can count. Sometimes it feels like these deaths in our community get written off.

Smith gains deep and empathetic access to the bereaved families. Being an Indigenous journalist starkly informs his frustrated interactions with police.

3. Nobody Dies Here

Nobody Dies Here takes us inside Melbourne’s medically supervised injecting room, perhaps not the most appealing premise.

What makes this podcast so good is its total absence of judgment or earnestness. The genuine curiosity and empathy of host/producer Michelle Ransom-Hughes humanises both addicts and healthcare workers, making us lean into their stories, rendered even more engaging by assured production.

4. The Lawyer, the Sniper and the NSW Police

Authenticity is a buzzword in podcasting and this indie offering has it in spades.

The hosts are real people, not media professionals, telling gripping stories of the injustice they suffered as police workers: former police lawyer Lina Nguyen was raped by a cop she trusted; Mark Davidson was a sniper at the Sydney Lindt Cafe siege in 2014.

Their powerful testimony is beautifully shaped and sound designed by former ABC operatives Gretchen Miller and Judy Rapley.

5. Rupert, The Last Mogul

Our very own podcast version of Succession, Rupert, The Last Mogul, may not have the snarling Brian Cox and his codependent kids, but host Paddy Manning of Schwartz Media convincingly traces the evolution of Rupert Murdoch from rebel to ruthless autocrat via insightful interviews and chilling archival evidence of his geopolitical manoeuvrings.

6. The Kids of Rutherford County

The Kids of Rutherford County by Serial Productions and the New York Times investigates the shocking incarceration of mostly black children in Tennessee, some kept in solitary confinement for trivial misdemeanours due to the crusading arrogance of a white judge.

The judge is taken on by a likeable, shambolic lawyer, Wes, in a classic underdog battle narrated by Meribah Knight of Nashville Public Radio in what has become Serial Productions’ trademark host-heavy style.

7. The Retrievals

That style is also evident in The Retrievals, a jarring exploration of malpractice at a fertility clinic at Yale, linked to opiate addiction. Host Susan Burton eschews the chatty trope established by Sarah Koenig in the original Serial, opting for a more clinically detached tone that foregrounds patients.

The exposition can be dense, such as an 18-minute monologue in episode four when Burton recounts observations by staffers and others who won’t go on tape. Despite such obstacles, the series builds a shattering picture of how women’s suffering is downplayed, even by educated, privileged women such as those undergoing egg retrievals at this elite institution.

8. The Girlfriends

The Girlfriends begins frivolously with a bunch of women reminiscing about their ill-fated romance with the same rich, charming and seemingly eligible bachelor, Bob.

It shifts gears to unpack a psychopath and his coercive control of first his wife and, after her suspicious death, these women: the eponymous girlfriends. One of them, a psychologist called Carole, narrates with real heft.

The storytelling is elevated by well-crafted production by UK network Novel, which includes a moving choral tribute to victims of domestic violence.

9. You Didn’t See Nothin

From the opening 20 seconds, where we hear Obama embracing victory in 2008 while host Yohance Lacour listens from jail, You Didn’t See Nothin is special. A Chicago playwright who did ten years for selling weed, Lacour revisits the bashing of a black boy in the city’s South Side in 1997 and interrogates racism, power and his own life story with a particular poetry and presence.

10. The best quick listens

For seasonal fun, Ghost Story is narrated with panache by British journalist Tristan Redman, whose wife’s great-grandmother may have been murdered in the house next door to where he grew up.

For an unsettling twist, try Ghost Industrial Complex, a mini-episode of This American Life by Chenjerai Kumanyika, hip-hop artist, academic and host of award-winning podcast Uncivil, a Black rewriting of the US civil war. It sees Georgia ghosts through historically questioning eyes.

Staying with departed souls, in a year where we have lost, far too soon, two sublime poet-musicians, Shane MacGowan and Sinéad O’Connor, marvel at one who is left. McCartney: a Life in Lyrics is an accidental podcast made by the Beatle with Irish poet Paul Muldoon that captures the sheer wonder that still drives this musical genius, now into his 80s.

Siobhan McHugh was a judge with the Walkley Foundation, which awarded the Walkley award for Audio Long Form Journalism to Dying Rose in 2023. She has had academic exchanges with podcast host Chenjerai Kumanyika and worked at the ABC with sound engineer Judy Rapley.

– ref. Ghosts, grit and genius: the most gripping podcasts of 2023 – https://theconversation.com/ghosts-grit-and-genius-the-most-gripping-podcasts-of-2023-218826

Politics with Michelle Grattan: Jim Chalmers says Australians will be better off next year

By The Conversation -

December 16, 2023

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

It’s been a difficult year for the economy, and the year ahead also is looking challenging. Treasurer Jim Chalmers, overseer of the government’s economic policy, joins us on the podcast to talk about the latest budget numbers, interest rates, changes to the Reserve Bank board, Australia’s debt, cost of living measures and more.

On 2024, Chalmers expects Australians to be better off this time next year:

That’s certainly the expectation.[…] If you look at the forecasts in the mid-year budget update, the Treasury expects inflation to moderate further, they expect wages to grow, and we expect annual real wages growth as well.

The budget update, released this week, projects a tiny $1.1 billion deficit for this financial year. This is likely in the May budget to turn into the government’s second surplus in a row. Chalmers explains why he won’t make that call just yet:

I’m careful. I’m cautious. The Treasury takes a deliberately conservative view of revenue, and that’s a good thing. There are good reasons to do that. We are very, very close to a second surplus, but we’re not there yet.

With many families struggling with their grocery bills, the Senate recently set up a committee to investigate potential price gouging by supermarket chains. Chalmers strongly supports the inquiry:

I support it completely because more transparency when it comes to the sorts of prices which have such a deep impact on family budgets, the more transparency the better as far as I’m concerned. And so I think this is a really important inquiry and that’s why we voted for it. The supermarkets obviously shouldn’t be above having their pricing strategies held up to the light.

On stage 3 tax cuts Chalmers, while reiterating no change in policy, says he enjoys the engagement the debate brings:

I don’t shy away from a public conversation about the priorities that people want to see in the budget. I know that those tax cuts are contested. I know that there’s a range of views about them […] My position is that when people are engaged and they’ve got a view about economic policies and budget priorities, that’s generally a good thing.

That’s all from our Politics podcast for 2023. Thank you for listening. We’ll be back with more interviews in 2024. In the meantime, best wishes from Michelle Grattan and producer Ben Roper.

Michelle Grattan 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. Politics with Michelle Grattan: Jim Chalmers says Australians will be better off next year – https://theconversation.com/politics-with-michelle-grattan-jim-chalmers-says-australians-will-be-better-off-next-year-219905

Keith Rankin Chart Analysis – New Zealand’s Coal Trade

By Keith Rankin -

December 15, 2023

Analysis by Keith Rankin.

The chart above shows Aotearoa New Zealand’s exports and imports of coal. First, note that the emphasis is on timing, not absolute amounts; Imports have a different scale to Exports. Essentially, imports have been around 10% of exports.

It’s also important to note that most Aotearoan coal is exported, while coal used to generate electricity at the Huntly power station is mainly imported. These are two different grades of coal. So it is to be not unexpected that coal imports will have been high at the same times that coal exports also have been high.

And it’s important to note that these data are for values of coal, not volumes. Values will be affected by fluctuations in world coal prices and by fluctuations in the $NZ exchange rate. (Increases in coal exports from 2000 to 2002 will have reflected the historically low exchange rate then.)

Coal exports actually increased after the November 2010 Pike River explosion; that coalfield was still in development in 2010.

Generally, from 2005 to 2012 the export expansion reflected the world market; noting dips for the 2008 global financial crisis, with a subsequent export of stockpiled coal in 2009. During that coal boom period, more than half New Zealand’s coal exports were to India. There was a resurgence of coal exports to India at the end of the 2010s’ decade.

The lull in 2020/21 reflected to Covid19 crisis. Again, we see an exporting of stockpiles after the crisis eased. In 2023 coal exports plummeted, probably a mix of falling world demand as well as falling New Zealand supply. This is a good sign for global transitioning away from coal, though China’s domestic production and consumption of coal will be rising as it transitions from petrol and diesel cars to electric cars. China will be happy to be using fewer imported fossil fuels.

On the import side, New Zealand’s demand for coal from 2003 to 2020 seems to have reflected the global trend, and it will have reflected a lack of growth in renewable energy generation during the later years of the Clark-led Labour-led government. It was under National that the big fall in coal imports took place.

Coal consumption in New Zealand stabilised in the mid-2010s, but resurged again in 2018, again under a Labour-led government; although, to be fair, 2018 and 2019 mainly reflect economic growth rather than the new government’s priorities.

Coal consumption at Huntly in recent years also reflects drought, meaning less hydro-generation of electricity. There is likely to be a lull in coal imports over the next few months, given that the hydro lakes are full, and the El Niño weather forecast is for a strong contribution from wind generation.

My sense is that increased use of electric vehicles – and increased charging capacity – will lead to another temporary resurgence in coal imports. The 2023 quasi-recession, engineered by the Reserve Bank, may however lead to some offsetting reductions in energy demand. My guess, though, is that there will be a short-lived consumption boom in Aotearoa in 2024 and 2025, as high interest rates pull in hot-money from overseas, holding up the $NZ exchange rate, and leading to a further ‘blow-out’ in New Zealand’s current account deficit; a 30.6 billion dollar annual deficit (7.6% of GDP), slightly less than the record high of nearly 9% of GDP earlier this year.

I look forward to hearing about the new government’s plans for expanded renewable electricity generation, and hope that these plans will not mean the loss of wild rivers such as the Mokihinui. Time will tell; soon, in 2024. This government needs ‘runs on the board’ – outcomes, not just proposals – if it is to survive beyond 2026.

*******

Keith Rankin (keith at rankin dot nz), trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand.

Thinking about cosmetic surgery? New standards will force providers to tell you the risks and consider if you’re actually suitable

By The Conversation -

December 15, 2023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gemma Sharp, Associate Professor, NHMRC Emerging Leadership Fellow & Senior Clinical Psychologist, Monash University

People considering cosmetic surgery – such as a breast augmentation, liposuction or face lift – should have extra protection following the release this week of new safety and quality standards for providers, from small day-clinics through to larger medical organisations.

The new standards cover issues including how these surgeries are advertised, psychological assessments before surgery, the need for people to be informed of risks associated with the procedure, and the type of care people can expect during and afterwards. The idea is for uniform standards across Australia.

The move is part of sweeping reforms of the cosmetic surgery industry and the regulation of medical practitioners, including who is allowed to call themselves a surgeon.

It is heartening to see these reforms, but some may say they should have come much sooner for what’s considered a highly unregulated area of medicine.

Why do people want cosmetic surgery?

Australians spent an estimated A$473 million on cosmetic surgery procedures in 2023.

The major reason people want cosmetic surgery relates to concerns about their body image. Comments from their partners, friends or family about their appearance is another reason.

The way cosmetic surgery is portrayed on social media is also a factor. It’s often portrayed as an “easy” and “accessible” fix for concerns about someone’s appearance. So such aesthetic procedures have become far more normalised.

The use of “before” and “after” images online is also a powerful influence. Some people may think their appearance is worse than the “before” photo and so they think cosmetic intervention is even more necessary.

Young woman sits cross-legged on chair — Body image is a major concern. But other factors motivate people to choose cosmetic surgery.
alinabuphoto/Shutterstock

People don’t always get the results they expect

Most people are satisfied with their surgical outcomes and feel better about the body part that was previously concerning them.

However, people have often paid a sizeable sum of money for these surgeries and sometimes experienced considerable pain as they recover. So a positive evaluation may be needed to justify these experiences.

People who are likely to be unhappy with their results are those with unrealistic expectations for the outcomes, including the recovery period. This can occur if people are not provided with sufficient information throughout the surgical process, but particularly before making their final decision to proceed.

What’s changing?

According to the new standards, services need to ensure their own advertising is not misleading, does not create unreasonable expectations of benefits, does not use patient testimonials, and doesn’t offer any gifts or inducements.

For some clinics, this will mean very little change as they were not using these approaches anyway, but for others this may mean quite a shift in their advertising strategy.

It will likely be a major challenge for clinics to monitor all of their patient communication to ensure they adhere to the standards.

It is also not quite clear how the advertising standards will be monitored, given the expanse of the internet.

Surgeons operate on a patient — The new standards will govern how cosmetic surgery is advertised and promoted.
Tong Nawarit/Shutterstock

What about the mental health assessment?

The new standards say clinics must have processes to ensure the assessment of a patient’s general health, including psychological health, and that information from a patient’s referring doctor be used “where available”.

According to the guidelines from the Medical Board of Australia, which the standards are said to complement, all patients must have a referral, “preferably from their usual general practitioner or if that is not possible, from another general practitioner or other specialist medical practitioner”.

While this is a step in the right direction, we may be relying on medical professionals who may not specialise in assessing body image concerns and related mental health conditions. They may also have had very little prior contact with the patient to make their clinical impressions.

So these doctors need further training to ensure they can perform assessments efficiently and effectively. People considering surgery may also not be forthcoming with these practitioners, and may view them as “gatekeepers” to surgery they really want to have.

Surgeons discuss a patient's case — Ideally, mental health assessments should be done by health professionals with experience and training in body image concerns.
Roman Fenton/Shutterstock

Ideally, mental health assessments should be performed by health professionals who are extensively trained in the area. They also know what other areas should be explored with the patient, such as the potential impact of trauma on body image concerns.

Of course, there are not enough mental health professionals, particularly psychologists, to conduct these assessments so there is no easy solution.

Ultimately, this area of health would likely benefit from a standard multidisciplinary approach where all health professionals involved (such as the cosmetic surgeon, general practitioner, dermatologist, psychologist) work together with the patient to come up with a plan to best address their bodily concerns.

In this way, patients would likely not view any of the health professionals as “gatekeepers” but rather members of their treating team.

If you’re considering cosmetic surgery

The Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care, which developed the new standards, recommended taking these four steps if you’re considering cosmetic surgery:

have an independent physical and mental health assessment before you commit to cosmetic surgery
make an informed decision knowing the risks
choose your practitioner, knowing their training and qualifications
discuss your care after your operation and where you can go for support.

My ultimate hope is people safely receive the care to help them best overcome their bodily concerns whether it be medical, psychological or a combination.

Gemma Sharp receives funding from NHMRC Investigator Grant (Emerging Leadership 2).

– ref. Thinking about cosmetic surgery? New standards will force providers to tell you the risks and consider if you’re actually suitable – https://theconversation.com/thinking-about-cosmetic-surgery-new-standards-will-force-providers-to-tell-you-the-risks-and-consider-if-youre-actually-suitable-219901

COP28 deal confirms what Australia already knows: coal is out of vogue and out of time

By The Conversation -

December 15, 2023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Quiggin, Professor, School of Economics, The University of Queensland

At the COP28 climate summit in Dubai this week, nations agreed to “transition away” from coal, oil and gas . After 30 years of COP meetings, the world has finally committed to weaning itself from these carbon-based drivers of climate change.

As Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen told the media, the deal “sends a signal to the world’s markets, investors and businesses that this is the direction of travel for countries right around the world.”

This COP statement is the first to name and shame all carbon-based fuels driving the climate crisis – not just coal, which has been mentioned in previous COP agreements, but also oil and gas.

The deal is a collective global aspiration rather than a legally binding agreement. Even so, it should put an end to the idea that burning carbon – both in Australia and elsewhere – can continue on a significant scale beyond 2050.

Renewables on the rise

The statement on carbon-based fuels is significant, but largely symbolic. In Australia, coal as a fuel has long been on the way out. Improved domestic energy efficiency has reduced energy consumption, even as the economy has grown. Most of this has come at the expense of coal – a trend likely to continue as electricity generation moves further towards renewables.

As the below table shows, starting from a base of almost zero, solar and wind energy generation has risen at startling annual rates over the last decade: 30% for solar and 15% for wind. Although shares of total energy consumption are still fairly small, these growth rates imply solar and wind will generate more energy than coal by the end of the decade.

Australia’s consumption of oil, mostly in the form of imported petrol and diesel fuel, has remained largely steady over the past decade. Successive federal governments have dithered on the transition to electric vehicles. But if Australia is to get anywhere near the goal of net-zero emissions by 2050, it must now tackle the transport sector which in 2022 produced 19% of Australia’s emissions – more than half from passenger and light commercial vehicles.

Given the absence of a domestic motor vehicle industry in Australia, the current government’s inaction on electric vehicles is surprising. It appears driven in part by a fear of populist campaigns by the Coalition and others about the effects on motorists. Who could forget claims in 2019 by then-Prime Minister Scott Morrison that electric vehicles would “end the weekend […] It’s not going to tow your trailer. It’s not going to tow your boat. It’s not going to get you out to your favourite camping spot” – claims since proven to be incorrect.

Also in play is the political lobbying power of the retail motor industry, backed by foreign car manufacturers keen to maintain a market for their remaining supply of petrol-driven vehicles.

The myth of carbon capture and storage

The final text also called for the acceleration of “zero and low emission technologies”. Controversially, this includes removal technologies such as carbon capture and storage, which involves trapping, transporting and storing greenhouse gas emissions from facilities such as coal-fired power stations and gas plants.

The inclusion of this technology was criticised by many observers as a loophole which would allow polluting, inefficient industries to continue. But it is better understood as a symbolic sop to the coal, oil and gas industries, which have long pinned their hopes of staying in business on the idea of burying the carbon they emit.

In reality, carbon capture and storage is a proven failure. The Gorgon gas project on the Barrow Island nature reserve, off Western Australia’s Pilbara coast, has stored barely a third of the targeted amount of carbon, forcing the proponents to buy carbon offsets instead (themselves a dubious option). Similarly, the only operating project capturing emissions from a coal-fired power plant, at Boundary Dam in Canada, has under-performed on carbon capture capacity by a huge margin.

So while carbon-capture is theoretically available as an option for new projects, in most cases it will prove either technically impossible or economically infeasible.

Australia faces a choice on energy exports

The COP28 statement’s call for an “urgent and equitable transition to renewable energy” presents opportunities for Australia. As Bowen acknowledged:

Australia wants to be a renewable energy powerhouse, we want to create the energy for ourselves, and for our region and for the world […] The COP decision today gives us a very good ecosystem in which to develop that plan.

But of course, “that plan” is totally inconsistent with the plans of the coal and gas industries, which are announcing new projects intended to operate well into the second half of this century. By backing these projects, the federal government is essentially betting that the aspirations of the COP28 statement will turn out to be just wishful thinking, and that Australia can profit from a world of catastrophic global heating.

Australia must now decide what kind of energy superpower it wants to be: the home of a sustainable future, or the last refuge of coal and gas extraction.

John Quiggin is a former Member of the Climate Change Authority

– ref. COP28 deal confirms what Australia already knows: coal is out of vogue and out of time – https://theconversation.com/cop28-deal-confirms-what-australia-already-knows-coal-is-out-of-vogue-and-out-of-time-219906

The first-ever survey on Australian attitudes towards space is out. So, what do we think?

By The Conversation -

December 15, 2023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tristan Moss, Senior lecturer, UNSW Sydney

NASA rocket launched from the Arnhem Space Centre in NT on June 26 2022. NASA Wallops/Brian Bonsteel

If someone were to ask you how space technologies impact your daily life, or how much Australia should invest in space, would you have an immediate answer or would you wonder why these questions were even being asked?

Understanding what the average Australian thinks about space is essential – voters and taxpayers will only encourage governments to fund space activities if they feel it is important.

Yet until now there was no comprehensive survey of Australian opinions about space in the 66 years since humans launched their first satellite in 1957.

Our new report shows what the Australian public thinks about Australia’s investment and activities in space and the results are eye opening.

Space tech is everywhere

You’ve probably used space technologies many times today without thinking about it. This includes navigation apps on your phone, paying for your coffee, checking the weather, high-speed internet and maybe even remote health services.

Data and services from satellites underpin activities vital to our national economy. Space helps farmers predict when to harvest their crops and GPS ensures ships, planes and trucks reach their destinations.

Information from space also lets us investigate climate change, assists in predicting bushfires and helps emergency services respond to floods. Pictures from space contribute to Indigenous land and water management and protecting cultural heritage.

What do Australians think about space?

To understand what the public thinks about space today, the Australian Centre for Space Governance commissioned a study, co-funded by UNSW Canberra, which polled a nationally representative sample of more than 1,500 members of the Australian public. Our report is the first of its kind.

Our results showed the Australian community is interested in space but is unsure about what Australia does there. One third of Australians agreed space affected their everyday life and 44% were neutral. Around half of those surveyed are interested in Australian space activities but only a quarter said they were knowledgeable of global space events.

Similarly, the number of Australians who follow the activities of the Australian Space Agency, established in 2018, was only around one fifth and an equal number had never heard of it.

Australia has a long history of space activities, usually in cooperation with international partners. Australia has tested rockets at Woomera in South Australia and supported US Moon landings. This included providing broadcast images to the world of the Apollo 11 Moon landing in 1967.

But when asked to choose from a list including tracking stations and Australian-born astronauts, more Australians remembered the 2001 comedy The Dish than any of Australia’s historic space activities.

In addition, only 16% of Australians were aware of the country’s first (and only) locally launched satellite, WRESAT, lofted into orbit on an American rocket from Woomera in 1967.

How much should Australia spend on space?

Space has also been a vital part of the country’s defence forces and a range of government functions that support Australia’s security and resilience. Around 50% of Australians felt the Australian Defence Force should prioritise space alongside other areas of defence interest.

Many people are aware of important applications of Earth observation satellites, like weather forecasting, mapping, disaster response and climate data. However, less than a quarter disagreed with the cancellation of the A$1.2 billion National Space Mission for Earth Observation, a proposed ongoing Earth observation satellite program. Of those surveyed, 45% were neutral and less than a quarter felt the mission should not have been cancelled.

Space missions also allow us to understand the universe. If you’ve ever looked at a picture sent back from a NASA probe, it’s highly likely the image was received at the tracking station just outside of Canberra, managed by CSIRO. Nearly 55% of Australians think it is important to invest in space science, even if there is no immediate social or economic benefit.

Overall, Australians are split about whether the country is spending the right amount on space. While 20% felt too little was spent on space technologies, 31% believed the amount was about right.

But the highest proportion, 36%, did not know. This is important, suggesting there isn’t sufficient information provided to the public.

What do these results mean for Australia’s space future?

Australians appear to be uncertain about the country’s space trajectory. But there were some clues about what direction the public feels Australia should take. Communication satellite technology and Earth observation were identified as the most important of the Australian Space Agency’s seven priorities.

Australians also saw building satellite capability as an important focus. But developing local launch capabilities was rated as the lowest priority, despite this often being the focus of media reporting.

Importantly, respondents saw space as a useful way to encourage study and work in the sciences. They also believed space activities should include a diverse representation of the community.

The clearest insight from this report is Australians are interested in space but are not very aware of what we do in space and why. This reflects longstanding national debates about government spending on space technologies.

There is an opportunity to address this. Clear messaging of how space services contribute to individual lives, national needs and government priorities, will help inform decision making.

It will also ensure those decisions align with what the public wants and values.

Tristan Moss receives funding from the Australian Research Council as part of a Discovery Early Career Researcher Award and from UNSW Canberra. He has previously been funded by the Department of Defence and as a Fulbright Scholar.

Aleksandar Deejay receives funding from Geoscience Australia. He is the Executive Director of the Australian Centre for Space Governance and a research fellow at the School of Regulation and Global Governance (RegNet).

Cassandra Steer receives funding from Geoscience Australia, Home Affairs, Department of Defence, and has previously received funding from DFAT, the Australian Space Agency, and the Canadian and US Departments of Defence. She is Chair of the Australian Centre for Space Governance and is affiliated with the International Institute of Space Law.

Kathryn Robison Hasani is a Senior Research Fellow at the Australian Centre for Space Governance. She is affiliated with Flinders University.

– ref. The first-ever survey on Australian attitudes towards space is out. So, what do we think? – https://theconversation.com/the-first-ever-survey-on-australian-attitudes-towards-space-is-out-so-what-do-we-think-219813

Christmas drinks anyone? Why alcohol before bedtime leaves you awake at 3am, desperate for sleep

By The Conversation -

December 15, 2023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Madeline Sprajcer, Lecturer in Psychology, CQUniversity Australia

You’ve come home after a long day at work, you have dinner, put the kids to bed, and then you have your usual nightcap before drifting off to sleep. Or, perhaps you’re at the pub for the work Christmas party, and you think you’ll just have one more drink before heading home.

That last drink might help you fall asleep easily. But your nightcap can also wreck a good night’s sleep. How could it do both?

Here’s what’s going on in your body when you drink alcohol just before bedtime. And if you want to drink at the Christmas party, we have some tips on how to protect your sleep.

What happens to my body when I drink?

Soon after you drink, alcohol enters your bloodstream and travels to your brain.

There, it affects chemical messengers known as neurotransmitters and slows down communication between nerve cells.

Certain regions of the brain are particularly vulnerable to the effects of alcohol. When alcohol interacts with cells in these regions, the overall effect leads to those characteristic feelings of relaxation, lowered inhibitions, slurred speech, and may induce feelings of drowsiness and lethargy.

Alcohol can also have immediate effects on the heart and circulatory system. Blood vessels widen, resulting in a drop in blood pressure, which can make you feel dizzy or lightheaded.

What happens soon after a nightcap?

Drinking alcohol before sleeping is like flipping a switch. At first, alcohol has a sedative effect and you will probably feel more relaxed and drift off easily.

At this point, you still have a high level of alcohol in your blood. But don’t be fooled. As your body processes the alcohol, and the night goes on, alcohol actually disrupts your sleep.

Man sitting on sofa, wearing pyjamas, holding glass of red wine, sparkling lights on floor — A nightcap might help you drop off, but there’s worse to come.
dabyki.nadya/Shutterstock

And later that night?

As your body processes the alcohol and your blood alcohol level drops, your brain rebounds from the drowsiness you would have felt earlier in the night.

This disturbs your sleep, and can wake you up multiple times, particularly in the second half of the night. You may also have
vivid and stressful dreams.

This sleep disruption is mainly to the deep, “rapid eye movement” or REM sleep.

This type of sleep plays an important role in regulating your emotions and for your cognitive function. So not getting enough explains why you wake up feeling pretty lousy and groggy.

Drinking alcohol before bedtime also tends to mean you sleep less overall, meaning important rest and recharge time is cut short.

There are also long-term impacts of alcohol on sleep. Moderate and heavy drinkers consistently have poor sleep quality and more sleep disturbances over time.

How about the Christmas party then?

If you plan to drink this holiday season, here are some tips to minimise the effect of alcohol on your sleep:

swap every other drink. Try swapping every second drink for a non-alcoholic drink. The more alcohol you drink, the more sleep disruption you can expect. Reducing how much you drink in any one sitting can minimise the effect on your sleep
avoid drinking alcohol close to bedtime. If you give your body a chance to process the alcohol before you go to sleep, your sleep will be less disrupted
eat while you drink. Drinking on an empty stomach is going to worsen the effects of alcohol as the alcohol will be absorbed faster. So try to eat something while you’re drinking
ditch the espresso martinis and other caffeinated drinks. Caffeine can make it hard to get to sleep, and hard to stay asleep
be careful if you have sleep apnoea. People who have sleep apnoea (when their upper airway is repeatedly blocked during sleep) can be even more impacted by drinking alcohol. That’s because alcohol can act as a muscle relaxant, leading to more snoring, and lower oxygen levels in the blood. If you have sleep apnoea, limiting how much alcohol you drink is the best way to avoid these effects
drink plenty of water. Staying hydrated will help you sleep better and will hopefully stave off the worst of tomorrow’s hangover.

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. Christmas drinks anyone? Why alcohol before bedtime leaves you awake at 3am, desperate for sleep – https://theconversation.com/christmas-drinks-anyone-why-alcohol-before-bedtime-leaves-you-awake-at-3am-desperate-for-sleep-216834

Australia has invested heavily in a Pacific peacekeeping hub. So, where are the recruits?

By The Conversation -

December 15, 2023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Shannon Zimmerman, Lecturer in Strategic Studies, Deakin University

Nestled not far from Fiji’s Nadi airport is the Blackrock Peacekeeping, Humanitarian and Disaster Relief Camp. Before reopening in March 2022, this military complex was renovated and expanded in a A$100 million joint collaboration between Australia and Fiji.

The complex is envisioned as a future training and regional response hub for both natural and man-made disasters in the Pacific. It’s also emblematic of Australia and Fiji’s commitment to an international rules-based order. This is made more notable by the fact Australia narrowly outbid China as the funder for the camp’s renovation.

The need for a regional humanitarian logistics hub is clear. Oceania and South-East Asia experience roughly 40% of the world’s natural disasters – often in the form of volcanic eruptions, earthquakes and increasingly destructive cyclones.

The new complex is based on a Pacific-centric and co-operative approach to addressing disasters, guaranteeing a speedy deployment of humanitarian relief workers and supplies when emergencies occur. As such, other Pacific Island countries have endorsed it.

Nearly two years after opening, however, Blackrock’s value as a Pacific peacekeeping hub is not as clear.

A history of Pacific peacekeeping

Fiji has long been a consistent contributor to UN peacekeeping operations. The country sends more than 300 peacekeepers to global hot spots every year. Per capita, Fiji provides more peacekeepers than any other country.

Other countries in the Pacific have been far less engaged. Besides Fiji, only Papua New Guinea and Tonga have traditional militaries from which they can draw soldiers to become peacekeepers.

PNG first fielded personnel on peace operations as part of the Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands in 2000. While national pride and a belief in the importance of “nation building” have motivated PNG deployments, the country only has the capacity to contribute a few peacekeepers at a time.

Tonga has participated in US-led coalition operations in Iraq and Afghanistan in the past, as well as Australia and New Zealand-led operations in Bougainville and Solomon Islands. However, it has never contributed to a UN peace operation.

The remaining Pacific Islands have contributed to peacekeeping in other ways. Samoa, Solomon Islands, Timor-Leste and Vanuatu have all provided police, military advisers or other personnel in small numbers.

Despite historically limited engagement, many Pacific countries want to increase their participation in peacekeeping operations. They are motivated by:

a desire to support countries wracked by conflict
political and cultural links in the region
national pride
the opportunity to gain operational experience
financial incentives.

So far, Blackrock has been able to train roughly 400 Fijian peacekeepers every year. It has also begun to host training and joint exercises with troops and military experts from key partner nations, such as the US, Australia, Britain, New Zealand and France. Most recently, Blackrock hosted 14 Fijian and 10 Australian defence personnel for their first joint peacekeeping pre-deployment training.

Despite these notable achievements, the camp has not attracted peacekeeping candidates from elsewhere in the Pacific.

What Australia can do to help

Pacific countries already have a high level of co-ordination on peace and security initiatives through the Pacific Islands Forum and other regional programs. Therefore, a co-operative approach to peacekeeping seems reasonable.

As Inia Seruiratu, Fiji’s minister for defence, national security and foreign affairs, put it:

For small developing countries like Fiji, partnerships are the way forward. It is the new model of peacekeeping for us.

However, there are formidable challenges to making Blackrock a truly successful training base for a future Pacific peacekeeping force.

First, many Pacific countries cannot afford to lose high-performing police and military personnel to peace operations.

Then there is the cost of operating a peacekeeping training centre year in, year out. This includes the massive cost of moving potential recruits around the region, as well as trainers and other personnel.

This is where the support of partner countries like Australia is vital.

Australia will likely continue to support the day-to-day operating costs of Blackrock as part of its enhanced engagement in the Pacific.

Beyond that, Australia can help meet the challenge of finding recruits by leveraging its old and new defence initiatives in the region.

For example, in recent days, Australia and PNG signed a A$200 million deal to help boost PNG’s security capacities, in part by establishing a new police recruit and investigations training centre. Earlier this year, Australia also signed a memorandum of understanding with Kiribati to help expand its police training, including training for UN peacekeeping operations.

These agreements should include Australian financial and transportation support for police and military personnel who are being upskilled to travel to Blackrock.

Why a regional peacekeeping force matters

Supporting Pacific peacekeeping partnerships is a complex challenge that will require sustained support from Australia, but the benefits are substantial.

For one, Pacific countries’ security forces will continue to develop and professionalise by training in a multinational environment. These links will also improve the interoperability between the Australian Defence Force and its counterparts in the Pacific.

From a geo-strategic standpoint, cultivating regional security networks helps position Australia as the “security provider of choice” for Pacific Island states.

Lastly, the entire region will benefit from the creation of a well-trained force capable of deploying in support of conflicts and disasters. It will take the pressure off outside powers (including Australia, the US and even China) to do so.

Shannon Zimmerman is affiliated with Deakin’s Centre for Future Defence and National Security

– ref. Australia has invested heavily in a Pacific peacekeeping hub. So, where are the recruits? – https://theconversation.com/australia-has-invested-heavily-in-a-pacific-peacekeeping-hub-so-where-are-the-recruits-215533

Myrtle rust is devastating Australian forests. A new high-tech spray holds out hope for native trees

By The Conversation -

December 15, 2023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rebecca Degnan, PhD Candidate in Molecular Biology and Plant Pathology, The University of Queensland

Melaleuca infected with myrtle rust. Louise Shuey

Around a decade ago, an invasive fungal disease called myrtle rust reached Australia and began to spread like a plague through certain plants. The disease affects plants of the Myrtaceae family, which includes eucalypts, paperbarks and lilly pillies, and makes up 10% of Australian plant biodiversity/

In only a few years, myrtle rust has changed ecosystems by destroying trees and their canopies, wiped out whole species in certain areas, and taken an economic toll on industries that grow trees such as lemon-scented myrtle and tea tree.

The disease is a slow-moving ecological wrecking ball: surveys suggest it may drive at least 16 species of rainforest tree to extinction in the wild within a generation, with another 20 species at risk.

We have used RNA technology similar to that in COVID vaccines to create a highly targeted treatment for myrtle rust: a spray that can restore even severely infected trees to health in around six weeks.

At-risk species in remote places

The current approaches to dealing with tree diseases are limited. We can apply fungicides with a scorched-earth policy to kill all fungi, or we can breed plants for resistance to the pathogen.

Neither of these strategies is effective against myrtle rust. There are too many species to defend, located in some of the most remote places imaginable.

For example, one tree species on the brink of extinction from myrtle rust is called Lenwebbia sp. Main Range. It grows only on cliff faces in the Nightcap Range in northern New South Wales.

What’s more, many culturally significant and iconic trees in Australia and Aotearoa (New Zealand) are long-lived and cannot be swapped seasonally for resistant genotypes.

In the absence of a treatment for myrtle rust, the safeguard is to stockpile seeds to preserve genetics for future generations.

RNA interference

Our treatment for myrtle rust makes use of a molecular mechanism possessed by almost all plants, animals and fungi called “RNA interference”.

RNA is an essential molecule of life, similar to DNA, which usually occurs in single strands. When a cell detects double-stranded RNA (which in nature generally represents a virus or other threat), it triggers RNA interference to destroy the interloper.

The RNA interference system learns to recognise the threat, and will then also destroy any single-stranded messenger RNA that happens to match. This naturally occurring mechanism can be used to defend both plants and humans against pathogens, including fungi.

We designed double-stranded RNA that matched essential genes in the fungus that causes myrtle rust, and sprayed it on the leaves of infected plants. This triggered the fungus’s RNA interference mechanism, sabotaging the action of genes it needs to survive.

Treating severe infections

Rust fungi produce microscopic battering-ram structures called appressoria that are used to forcefully penetrate host leaves. Most fungal spores treated with double-stranded RNA could not germinate to produce their battering rams, and those that did were withered and powerless.

Microscope images showing myrtle rust spores on treated and untreated leaves. — Untreated (left) and treated (right) myrtle rust spores on artificial leaves (upper) and *Syzygium jambos*
(rose apple) leaves (lower), 24 hours after infection. Untreated spores have germinated and produced infection structures that are used to penetrate into the leaf. Treated spores either do not germinate at all, or they are unable to produce the infection structures needed to.
penetrate the leaf.
Degnan et al. / Communications Biology, CC BY

Double-stranded RNA can also be sprayed onto plants ahead of time to inhibit spore germination and prevent disease completely.

Next we trialled whether our RNA spray would stop and cure disease in severely infected plants. We saw that it inhibited the progress of the disease, and after six weeks even severely infected plants had recovered to a healthy state.

Photos of an unhealthy plant with withered leaves and the same plant looking much healthier. — Untreated (left) and treated (right) *Syzygium jambos* (rose apple) trees six weeks after infection with myrtle rust. Two weeks after infection, treated plants were sprayed with double-stranded RNA targeting.
myrtle rust. Six weeks after infection, the treatment has successfully inhibited myrtle rust and treated plants have re-grown and recovered to a healthy state.
Degnan et al. / Communications Biology, CC BY

A targeted treatment

We wanted to make sure our treatment wouldn’t accidentally affect anything except the myrtle rust fungus, so we designed it using “barcoding genes” which uniquely identify the species.

Barcoding genes are excellent targets for RNA interference. They are generally identical among all members of a species, differ between closely related species, and usually control an essential cellular function.

The most closely related rust fungus to the pathogen that causes myrtle rust is found on a naturalised street tree in Australia called Albizzia lebbeck, but it is different enough to be unaffected by our treatment. It is extremely unlikely any unrelated organism would have an identical barcoding gene sequence to the myrtle rust pathogen, so we do not expect any off-target effects.

Another advantage of targeting a barcoding gene is our treatment has lasting impact. Unlike some other genes, barcoding genes cannot change by mutation without risking the organism’s survival.

This means the pathogen is less likely to evolve resistance. And if resistance against double-stranded RNA does evolve, the target sequence can be modified to match the rust again in a matter of days.

An integrated approach

There is no silver bullet to manage pathogens in native ecosystems and agriculture. The Australian government’s myrtle rust action plan recommends an integrated approach to control this destructive disease.

In coming years, double-stranded RNA can be incorporated to manage the epidemic of myrtle rust in Australia. We hope it will be especially useful in conservation, industry, and the treatment of individual trees – particularly culturally significant ones.

Rebecca Degnan receives funding from a University of Queensland Graduate School Scholarship, the Australian Plant Biosecurity Science Foundation, multiple philanthropic scholarships (associated with The University of Queensland), including the Joan Allsop Scholarship and the Gibbins Scholarship, and through the Plant Biosecurity Research Initiative as a current Ritman Scholar.

Alistair McTaggart received support from the University of Queensland and funding from the Department of the Environment and Energy under the Australian Biological Resources Study.

– ref. Myrtle rust is devastating Australian forests. A new high-tech spray holds out hope for native trees – https://theconversation.com/myrtle-rust-is-devastating-australian-forests-a-new-high-tech-spray-holds-out-hope-for-native-trees-219411

O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree … what are my rights this season, legally?

By The Conversation -

December 15, 2023

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

If you were, just for example, a slightly portly, older gent in a red and white suit who soon plans to travel around the globe delivering presents, assisted only by reindeer and a touch of magic, what legal issues might you encounter?

While Santa may not need to lawyer up ahead of his big night, his journey does raise several interesting legal issues that have implications beyond the Christmas season – and there’s some lessons for the rest of us, too.

Can Santa fly freely around the world in his sleigh?

The Convention on International Civil Aviation sets out the standards required for global air travel. Santa is not bound by these rules because he’s not a sovereign state, but he faces problems anyway.

For starters, he travels at an estimated 10,703,437 km/h – significantly faster than the average 860 km/h of commercial flights.

This speed is contrary to the convention, which directs “safe and orderly” civil aviation. It also requires Santa to seek permission to fly over the territory of another state, unless it’s an emergency. It is unlikely Santa falls within the emergency exception, however, as his flight is always scheduled for December 24.

Finally, Santa must submit his sleigh and cargo for inspection when landing if requested by the authorities. Alas! Santa does not allow peremptory peeking into his sack of gifts.

Santa has a camera on his sleigh to assist with landings. Does this raise legal problems?

The law says that you own your land and sky only to a depth and height for your reasonable enjoyment.

If Santa, hovering above your house with a camera, is disturbing your right to enjoy your property, the law may give you a remedy in what is known as the tort of nuisance or the tort of breach of confidence.

However, the intrusion has to be persistent and annoying, and if it’s only occurring on Christmas Eve, and if Santa is welcomed, it’s unlikely a magistrate would order him to stop.

If Santa is filming, you cannot, generally speaking, complain about any breach of privacy. True, there are some legislative remedies against such filming found in the NSW Crimes Act, the Qld Criminal Code, and the SA Summary Offences Act, but usually only if he’s filming for what might be considered voyeuristic purposes, and not for simply guiding the sleigh onto your roof.

A Christmas dinner guest has a few drinks and starts to espouse views you find offensive. Can you eject them from your home?

Laws protecting people from offensive, humiliating or vilifying speech generally only apply to public spaces, such as workplaces.

But if you are hosting a party in your own home, you have the right to ask a guest to leave at any time, including if you don’t like their jokes. If they stay without your consent, then they are trespassing, and you can call the police to help you remove them.

Unwanted guests who use offensive language or refuse to obey directions from police can then face criminal penalties. And while calling the police definitely sounds like a party stopper, you should remember that, as a host, you owe a duty of care to the other guests to take reasonable steps to ensure they are not exposed to foreseeable risks of harm.

You are entitled to ask someone to leave your home if you wish.
Shutterstock

As Santa leaves your property, he is injured by a tripwire designed to deter trespassers that you installed. Can he sue?

Occupiers of land owe a duty of care to any person entering their land to ensure they will not be injured by virtue of the state of the premises.

At common law, Santa can sue you and seek compensation. The court hearing the case would consider factors such as the circumstances in which Santa became exposed to the danger, his ability to appreciate the danger, the extent to which you ought to have been aware that Santa was arriving, and whether it was appropriate to eliminate or warn Santa against the danger.

But in some jurisdictions, for example in South Australia, an occupier does not owe a duty of care to a trespasser. There is an exception: a duty is owed if the presence of that trespasser was reasonably foreseeable. Santa is trespassing, yes, but you are expecting him, so his arrival is reasonably foreseeable. That being the case, you are likely to be liable for his injuries.

Wealthy Uncle Harry is choking on his Christmas pudding, and near death. Knowing he has left you a large inheritance, can you refrain from assisting him?

The answer depends on the relationship between you and Uncle Harry. Under the criminal law of Australia, there is no general duty to assist a choking person, unlike in some other countries.

But a duty may arise if you are Harry’s carer, or if you are a medical practitioner. You may also attract a duty of care if you ushered the other guests out of the room, saying you would look after Harry.

If Harry chokes to death and you did have a duty to intervene, you may be found guilty of manslaughter. On conviction, you can wave goodbye to the inheritance. The forfeiture rule states that you cannot inherit from a person whom you have unlawfully killed.

Your beloved dumps you after Christmas. Can you get those expensive gifts back?

No. In law, effective transfer of goods occurs when the giver delivers possession of an item with the intention to give away that item. So handing over a wrapped gift with the words, “this is for you” would be sufficient to transfer ownership.

Once you give those Christmas gifts, it’s highly unlikely you’ll get them back.
Shutterstock

In a marriage or de facto relationship, the news might be slightly better for the giver. The Family Law Act allows a court to divide all property of the parties when a relationship breaks down, and little regard is paid to who actually owns what. Instead, the court will consider the contributions each has made to the relationship, and each party’s future needs. It is possible that, in a “just and equitable” settlement, you’d end up with the gifted items back in your hands. But don’t hold your breath.

Rick Sarre has previously received funding from the Australian Research Council.

Sarah Moulds is currently the Director of the Rights Resource Network SA.

Ben Livings, Juliette McIntyre, Lisa Cooper, and Michelle Fernando 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. O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree … what are my rights this season, legally? – https://theconversation.com/o-christmas-tree-o-christmas-tree-what-are-my-rights-this-season-legally-217440

Eggs from men, sperm from women: how stem cell science may change how we reproduce

By The Conversation -

December 15, 2023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Julian Koplin, Lecturer in Bioethics, Monash University & Honorary fellow, Melbourne Law School, Monash University

It may soon be possible to coax human skin cells into becoming functional eggs and sperm using a technique known as “in vitro gametogenesis”. This involves the creation (genesis) of eggs and sperm (gametes) outside the human body (in vitro).

In theory, a skin cell from a man could be turned into an egg and a skin cell from a woman can become a sperm. Then there’s the possibility of a child having multiple genetically-related parents, or only one.

Some scientists believe human applications of in vitro gametogenesis are a long way off.

However, scientists who work on human stem cells are actively working on overcoming the barriers. New biotechnology start-ups are also seeking to commercialise this technology.

Here’s what we know about the prospect of human in vitro gametogenesis and why we need to start talking about this now.

Is the technology available?

In vitro gametogenesis begins with “pluripotent stem cells”, a kind of cell that can develop into many different cell types. The aim is to persuade these stem cells to become eggs or sperm.

These techniques could use stem cells taken from early embryos. But scientists have also worked out how to revert adult cells to a pluripotent state. This opens up the possibility of creating eggs or sperm that “belong to” an existing human adult.

Animal studies have been promising. In 2012, scientists created live-born baby mice using eggs that began their life as skin cells on a mouse tail.

More recently, the technique has been used to facilitate same-sex reproduction. Earlier this year, scientists created mouse pups with two genetic fathers after transforming skin cells from male mice into eggs. Mouse pups with two genetic mothers have also been created.

How scientists bred mice with two fathers.

Scientists have not yet managed to adapt these techniques to create human gametes. Perhaps because the technology is still in its infancy, Australia’s legal and regulatory systems do not address whether and how the technology should be used.

For example, the National Health and Medical Research Council’s assisted reproduction guidelines, which were updated in 2023, do not include specific guidance for in vitro-derived gametes. These guidelines will need to be updated if in vitro gametogenesis becomes viable in humans.

The potential

There are three distinct clinical applications of this technology.

First, in vitro gametogenesis could streamline IVF. Egg retrieval currently involves repeated hormone injections, a minor surgical procedure, and the risk of overstimulating the ovaries. In vitro gametogenesis could eliminate these problems.

Second, the technology could circumvent some forms of medical infertility. For example, it could be used to generate eggs for women born without functioning ovaries or following early menopause.

Third, the technology could allow same-sex couples to have children who are genetically related to both parents.

Legal, regulatory and ethical issues

If the technology becomes viable, in vitro gametogenesis will alter the dynamics of how we create families in unprecedented ways. How we should respond requires careful consideration.

1. Is it safe?

Careful trials, rigorous monitoring, and follow-up of any children born will be essential – as it has been for other reproductive technologies, including IVF.

2. Is it equitable?

Other issues relate to access. It might seem unjust if the technology is only available to the wealthy. Public funding could help – but whether this is appropriate depends on whether the state ought to support people’s reproductive projects.

3. Should we restrict access?

For instance, pregnancy is rare in older women, largely because egg count and quality decline with age. In vitro gametogenesis would theoretically provide “fresh” eggs for women of any age. But helping older women become parents is controversial, due to physical, psychological and other factors associated with having babies later in life.

4. We’d still need surrogates

If we took skin cells from each male partner and created an embryo, that embryo would still need a surrogate to carry the pregnancy. Unfortunately, Australia has a shortfall of surrogates. International surrogacy provides an alternative, but carries legal, ethical and practical difficulties. Unless access to surrogacy is improved domestically, benefits to male couples will be limited.

5. Who are the legal parents?

In vitro gametogenesis also raises questions about who are the future child’s legal parents. We already see related legal debates surrounding non-traditional families formed through surrogacy, egg donation and sperm donation.

In vitro gametogenesis could theoretically also be used to create children with more than two genetic parents, or with only one. These possibilities likewise require us to update our current understandings of parenthood.

How far is too far?

Of the potential uses already mentioned, same-sex reproduction is the most controversial. The reproductive limitations imposed by being in a same-sex relationship are sometimes seen as a “social” form of infertility the medical profession is not obligated to fix.

The moral stakes, however, are virtually identical regardless of whether in vitro gametogenesis is used by same-sex or opposite-sex couples. Both uses of the technology fulfil exactly the same goal: helping couples fulfil their desire to have a child genetically related to both parents. It would be unjust to deny access to only one of these groups.

Same-sex female couple cooking in kitchen, one feeding the other fruit — Who should have access to this technology? How about same-sex couples?
Rawpixel.com/Shutterstock

But same-sex reproduction is only the tip of the iceberg. In vitro gametogenesis could theoretically facilitate “solo reproduction” by deriving both eggs and sperm from the same individual. Interestingly, a child created this way would not be a clone of its parent, since the process of gamete formation would shuffle the parent’s genetic material and create a genetically distinct individual.

Or people could engage in “multiplex parenting” combining genetic material from more than two individuals. Imagine, for example, that two couples create embryos via IVF. In vitro gametogenesis could then be used to derive eggs and sperm from each of these two separate embryos, which could subsequently be used to conceive a single child that is genetically related to all four adults.

Finally, in vitro gametogenesis could revolutionise prenatal genetic selection. We’d have many more embryos than available during regular IVF to screen for genetic diseases and traits.

So it would be urgent to discuss “designer babies”, eugenics, and whether we have a moral obligation to conceive children with the best chance of a good life.

We need to start talking about this now

Both law and ethics can lag behind new technologies, particularly when their implications are as profound and far-reaching as the implications of in vitro gametogenesis.

We need to discuss how this technology should be regulated before it is rolled out. Given how rapidly the science is developing, we should begin this discussion now.

Laura Smith, a masters student from Monash University, contributed to this article.

Julian Koplin receives research funding from Ferring Pharmaceuticals for an unrelated project.

Neera Bhatia receives funding from UKRI Arts and Humanities Research Council for an unrelated project.

– ref. Eggs from men, sperm from women: how stem cell science may change how we reproduce – https://theconversation.com/eggs-from-men-sperm-from-women-how-stem-cell-science-may-change-how-we-reproduce-219005

Coal will be all but gone by 2034 under Australia’s latest energy roadmap

By The Conversation -

December 15, 2023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dylan McConnell, Senior Research Associate, Renewable Energy & Energy Systems Analyst, UNSW Sydney

Australia’s coal power stations will all close in 2038 – five years earlier than previously expected – and variable renewable energy capacity will need to triple by 2030 and increase sevenfold by 2050.

These are two key findings in the latest roadmap for Australia’s largest grid and electricity market, the National Electricity Market. The draft of a document known as 2024 Integrated System Plan, was released today by the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO). It lays out a comprehensive path for the next 20 years as we wean ourselves off coal and embrace renewables firmed by storage.

What is this plan and why does it matter?

AEMO ensures our energy market runs smoothly, including planning for the transmission needs of the future – and that’s where this blueprint comes in.

Australia’s main grid has historically been based on connecting cheap but polluting coal plants to large cities. As coal plants retire, we need a different grid, drawing renewable power from many different locations, while utilising storage.

Every two years, AEMO releases an updated plan, drawing on detailed modelling and consultation across the energy sector.

Through this process, it arrives at an “optimal development path”. That’s energy-speak for the cheapest and most effective mix of electricity generation, storage and transmission able to meet our reliability and security needs while also supporting government emissions reduction policies in the long-term interests of consumers.

Changes to our national electricity laws to include emissions reductions in it’s objectives came in effect in November. In response, AEMO is now only using scenarios in line with Australian Governments’ emission reduction targets.

The path laid out in this latest plan is intended to ensure the energy transition already underway will be lower cost, resilient and pragmatic. Importantly, the plan points to where we will need to build important new infrastructure – especially transmission lines – to deliver the new electricity system.

map showing renewable projects and transmission lines Australia — This map shows current and future renewable projects, energy storage and transmission lines needed to green Australia’s main grid.
AEMO, CC BY-ND

What does the update say?

The 2024 plan explores three possible scenarios:

Step Change, which meets Australia’s emission cut commitments in a growing economy
Progressive Change, reflecting slower economic growth and energy investment
Green Energy Exports, framed around very strong industrial decarbonisation and surging low-emission energy exports.

The report suggests the step change scenario is the most likely of these three, closely followed by progressive change.

So what would we see under the step change scenario?

Change – and plenty of it. This scenario forecasts the retirement of 90% of Australia’s remaining 21 gigawatts of coal generation by 2034-35, with the entire fleet retired by 2038. This timeframe is five years earlier than envisaged in the 2022 integrated system plan.

AEMO notes the departure of coal from the grid could be faster still, pointing to higher operating costs, reduced fuel security and high maintenance costs as well as more competition from renewable energy in the wholesale market.

shuttered coal plant in Victoria — All of Australia’s coal stations will shut by 2038, under the latest market operator projections.
Dorothy Chiron/Shutterstock

To manage the farewell to coal alongside increased electricity demand from population growth and electrification of transport, we will need to add about 6 GW of grid-scale renewable capacity every year in the coming decade. That sounds like a lot, but we’re currently rolling out almost 4 GW a year. The plan also predicts a major increase in rooftop solar – 18 GW more than in the previous plan.

AEMO’s 2024 plan suggests close to 10,000km of new transmission lines will be needed to deliver this least-cost system by 2050. There is slightly less transmission here compared to the previous plan, due to higher transmission costs, and more power from sources requiring less transmission. Since the last plan, some minor transmission projects have been built, but the timelines for most larger projects have been pushed back.

These delays are partly due to community opposition to new transmission lines. AEMO has now explicitly flagged social license as a key challenge to delivering the new energy system.

Firming and gas

The 2024 plan calls for a quadrupling of the grid’s firming capacity, which smooths out peaks and dips in renewable generation and reduces the chance of energy shortages for consumers.

This will come from grid-scale batteries, pumped hydro, coordinated consumer batteries used as virtual power plants – and, perhaps controversially, gas-powered generation.

Under the plan, there will be 50 GW (and 654GWh) of dispatchable storage, as well as 16 GW of flexible gas.

That’s a significant boost to gas capacity, which was projected to be just over 9GW of gas capacity under the last plan.

Why do we need this capacity? AEMO pictures these gas plants not as day-in, day-out generators, but as a infrequently used backup to ensure the grid stays reliable and secure.

So this increase in gas power capacity doesn’t actually mean a increase in gas generation, or the amount of gas burnt. In fact, AEMO projects a significant decline in gas power over the short to medium term.

But from 2033, as the last coal is burned in our coal plants, AEMO does expect an increase in gas generation. This may be fossil gas, but some may be hydrogen or biomass-derived gas.

Shifting from regular use to infrequent use as a backup will pose challenges for the existing fossil gas network, AEMO points out.

Does this threaten the clean energy transition? No. If we can banish almost all fossil fuel generation from our main grid by 2034, we will be doing well. Even if this were all fossil gas – which it won’t be – the emissions intensity of Australia’s main grid would be miniscule – around 0.01 tonnes per MWh, or 60 times lower than today.

Dylan McConnell’s current position is supported by the ‘Race for 2030’ Cooperative Research Centre.

– ref. Coal will be all but gone by 2034 under Australia’s latest energy roadmap – https://theconversation.com/coal-will-be-all-but-gone-by-2034-under-australias-latest-energy-roadmap-219714

‘Practically perfect’: why the media’s focus on ‘top’ Year 12 students needs to change

By The Conversation -

December 15, 2023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Steven Lewis, Senior Research Fellow, Australian Catholic University

You may be familiar with the popular TikTok trend, #ATARreaction. You see the face of a Year 12 student logging on to their computer, then they wait a few moments before they collapse in tears, relief and celebration.

You have just witnessed them receive their final results.

It is Year 12 results season around Australia. Earlier this week, Victorian and New South Wales students got their marks. Results in Queensland are out today, with Western Australia and South Australia due on Monday.

Accompanying these scores will be countless celebrations and commiserations, as thoughts turn to life after school. There is also a huge community focus – via the media – on students who achieve perfect or near-perfect scores.

The same kinds of stories focus on the very high achievers each year. While this may seem like a joyous ritual, we should pause to consider how we frame the end of Year 12 and “success”, and how we can help students navigate these turbulent times.

An annual media event

There is a distinct pattern to the stories about results each year.

For decades, we have been conditioned to expect the reporting of ecstatic scenarios, with students celebrating high or perfect scores and talking about their feelings and plans.

A selection of headlines this week include, “Practically perfect in every way,” “The top student in every HSC subject revealed”, “Joy at HSC band 5s and 6s” and “Meet the duxes of 2023”.

There are also retrospectives on past students who have excelled and showcases of schools with the most top students.

Social media has only exacerbated these public displays, with ATAR “reaction videos” garnering millions of views on platforms like TikTok.

This reinforces a set narrative to receiving your results: you get them and are immediately overjoyed. While these students should – and have every right to – celebrate their achievements, not all students will feel this way.

A narrow definition of success

Alongside these scores for individual subjects, many students will also receive an ATAR ranking, which tertiary institutions use to help select applicants.

Disproportionately focusing on perfect scores and rankings narrowly defines what success can be. Indeed, because the ATAR is a percentile rank, these perfect scores are only ever possible for a handful of students.

It is also worth remembering that all such scores and rankings are to simplify a very complicated and complex phenomenon – student learning.

Any “one size fits all” approach overlooks how success will be different for different people.

For some, it might be completing Year 12 despite considerable personal hardship or disadvantage. For others, it could be securing entrance to their preferred course and university.

Failing to embrace diverse definitions of success fails to acknowledge the circumstances and contexts of students and communities. It affects not only this year’s cohort but also younger students who are exposed to this media coverage and are conditioned to think this is what success is.

How can we approach it this time?

There are many ways we can overcome this one-dimensional view of schooling success. But it requires an intentional shift to the way schools, politicians, the media and the broader community understand and discuss ATAR rankings.

First, we should openly acknowledge there is more to life than ATAR and being on an honour roll.

We should publicly celebrate not only the “practically perfect” but also the many different kinds of success our students achieve.

Not every student will even receive an ATAR (some opt not to), as this ranking is only used to determine entrance to some courses at some tertiary institutions. Many universities offer places to students without using ATAR rankings, including pathway options (such as upgrading to bachelor courses through diplomas and associate degrees), vocational study and alternative entry schemes.

Put differently, the ATAR only helps determine a student’s entry into a university or course right now. It does not determine which university course they will ultimately enter and complete via these additional possibilities.

Second, we should emphasise learning is a lifelong process.

This year’s Year 12s will encounter many different educational needs and opportunities over their lifetime. This might entail formal education via universities and TAFEs, but also on-the-job professional or vocational training and micro-credentialing.

These offerings will likely have nothing to do with a student’s ATAR.

Third, and perhaps most importantly, we should encourage students to share any anxieties they have with their parents and peers.

By publicly discussing the multiple pathways into university and what the ATAR actually means, schools, universities and families can help students minimise their mental health concerns.

Check in with each other, both in the lead-up to results and in the days and weeks after. Above all else, remind students they are always more than a score.

Steven Lewis receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

– ref. ‘Practically perfect’: why the media’s focus on ‘top’ Year 12 students needs to change – https://theconversation.com/practically-perfect-why-the-medias-focus-on-top-year-12-students-needs-to-change-219710

New Zealanders are learning to live with COVID – but does that mean having to pay for protection ourselves?

By The Conversation -

December 15, 2023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Paula Lorgelly, Professor of Health Economics, University of Auckland

I’m writing this with a dull ache in my left arm, sore from my third COVID booster. My second was in April when I also got a flu vaccination, which was funded by my employer. The arrival of the fifth wave of COVID in Aotearoa New Zealand, as well as the new variant, prompted me to get my booster sorted.

I should also admit I saw news over the weekend that universal access to COVID vaccinations may come to an end next year. Always keen to get something for nothing, I booked my booster.

It seems I was ahead of the curve.

New Zealanders, especially those at high risk of becoming severely ill, are now being encouraged to get their booster before Christmas. Anyone over 30 years old who hasn’t had a vaccination or an infection in the last six months can get this booster. And it may be the last free COVID vaccination they receive.

Nothing for free

I jest about getting something for nothing. As a health economist, I’m aware there is no such thing as a free lunch – there is an opportunity cost to everything.

Funding COVID vaccinations, tests and treatments means we are not able to fund other types of health care. During the peak of the pandemic it made economic sense to have publicly funded vaccinations and tests.

As we learn to live with the virus – treating it as an endemic disease like the flu – there is a need to re-evaluate the public provision of tests, vaccines and treatment.

Manatū Hauora – Ministry of Health had previously funded COVID vaccines. In July that was transferred to Pharmac and Pharmac’s budget was adjusted to accommodate the extra cost.

Pharmac also funds antivirals and most recently widened access to these. Te Whatu Ora funds RAT and PCR tests.

This week new health minister Shane Reti said the funding of vaccines and antivirals beyond June 2024 is under consideration. This comes after news that lower-than-expected booster uptake has resulted in a large number of expired doses. It has also recently been announced that RATs may no longer be free after the February 2024.

All this points to New Zealanders learning to live with the virus, by paying out-of-pocket for preventative measures – assuming you can afford it.

Targeting

Moving away from a universal programme to a targeted approach for those at risk is very different to the targeted rollout of the initial vaccine programme. Prioritisation was required due to the scarcity of the vaccine and the logistics of managing the rollout of a mass vaccination programme. It seems scarcity is now due to financial constraints not delivery constraints.

My colleague, vaccinologist Helen Petousis-Harris, has argued such targeted approaches, where only those at risk are offered free vaccinations, places a substantial obstacle in the way of getting vaccinated. Add cost to the misinformation/disinformation around vaccines and uptake will be further impacted.

What’s available elsewhere?

How are other countries managing COVID nearly four years on? Vaccination is still universally free in Australia, Singapore and Canada.

Since September 2023, vaccination in the United States is covered by private insurance plans and Medicare/Medicaid, but also available locally for free for the uninsured.

The United Kingdom and the Netherlands have a targeted seasonal vaccination programme – thus treat COVID much like the flu.

In terms of accessibility to COVID tests there is also variability. The Netherlands has not had subsidised testing since October 2021, although those on low income, at high risk and who provide care can get free tests until the end of this year.

Singapore stopped providing subsidised tests in February 2023. The US and Canada still have free tests available, and Australia has made tests free for concession card holders, and states may have additional allowances.

In the UK you can get a free COVID test only if you have a health condition or are a health-care worker.

Who should pay?

Universally free influenza vaccination programmes are rare. Most countries – including Aotearoa New Zealand – target those at greatest risk of hospitalisation and death.

This is because protecting these vulnerable populations is considered to be the most cost-effective from a health sector perspective. Employers, including my own, fund flu vaccines for employees as the virus is a costly productivity killer.

A challenge Pharmac and its advisors will face when deciding the scope of a future COVID vaccination programme is that there remains considerable uncertainty surrounding the long-term consequences of COVID infection.

Long COVID appears to be indiscriminate. The 5-10% of individuals who are infected are often healthy and don’t fit the usual vulnerable population classification. While vaccination can lower the risk of long COVID, repeat infections appear to increase the chances of developing it. Antivirals – which Pharmac also needs to make funding decisions on – seem to lower the risk.

Future vaccination strategies should take account of the chronic health conditions and symptoms that encompass long COVID, as the health burden is considerable.

To fund or not to fund COVID vaccinations, tests and treatments – these are difficult questions as we learn to live with COVID.

Paula Lorgelly received funding from the Ministry of Health to establish Mātauranga Raranga, the Long COVID Registry Aotearoa.

– ref. New Zealanders are learning to live with COVID – but does that mean having to pay for protection ourselves? – https://theconversation.com/new-zealanders-are-learning-to-live-with-covid-but-does-that-mean-having-to-pay-for-protection-ourselves-219698

Grattan on Friday: Albanese government comes under more heat as it tries to navigate its position on Gaza conflict

By The Conversation -

December 14, 2023

The Prime Minister sits down with Australian Prime Minister — UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak sits down with the Prime Minister of Australia Anthony Albanese in San Diego. Picture by Simon Walker / No 10 Downing Street.

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

For an issue in which Australia is not a player and has no direct influence, the Israel-Hamas conflict is putting serious strain on the Albanese government, internally and externally.

Its decision this week to vote for the United Nations resolution that “demands an immediate humanitarian ceasefire” may ease the pressure from some of Labor’s internal pro-Palestinian advocates. But it has sharpened the external criticism from the pro-Israel lobby, including prompting some sharp words from the Israeli ambassador.

Among Labor’s rank and file, Palestine has long been a trigger point. Years ago, Anthony Albanese was co-founder of the parliamentary friends of Palestine. Members of Albanese’s own branch in his inner Sydney electorate of Grayndler recently accused Israel of “acts of retribution on an innocent Palestinian population”.

From the start of the current conflict the government, in its condemnation of the Hamas attack and its support for Israel’s right to defend itself, emphasised the need for “restraint”. That brought it some (unreasonable) criticism from the opposition. As it has sought to minimise the community tensions within Australia, it has been careful to warn against Islamophobia when condemning rising antisemitism.

Watching this war in constant real time, the world has been witnessing terrible images from Gaza. The extent of civilian deaths and suffering has eroded some of the initial support Israel had in the international community after Hamas’ appalling October 7 attack.

The Australian government has become increasingly explicit in its concern about the human cost of the conflict, culminating in this week’s UN vote. Only in October Australia abstained on an earlier resolution (which was looser and didn’t make specific reference to the hostages).

But the government this week also muddied its position by suggesting it hasn’t actually changed. It pointed to a statement, issued shortly before the vote, by Albanese and the Canadian and New Zealand prime ministers. This was driven by Australia, and Albanese had been working on it for weeks. The statement was more even-handed than the UN resolution. In particular, it condemned Hamas, which the resolution did not.

The UN vote saw Australia at odds with the US, which opposed the resolution. The divergence is notable but not a huge deal. Australia was among more than 150 countries supporting the resolution. The US was one of only a handful opposing.

The US always stands with Israel, but both behind the scenes and in public it has been delivering warnings and appeals to Israel to limit civilian deaths.

The difference in voting is unlikely to make ripples in the Australia-US relationship. Albanese and Joe Biden, after their extensive contact in multiple meetings, seem well bonded. The government has been readying to celebrate the US passage of enabling legislation for AUKUS.

Albanese and Foreign Minister Penny Wong took the decision on the UN vote. It did not go to the cabinet’s national security committee, let alone the full cabinet, although some senior ministers were consulted. Treasurer Jim Chalmers has confirmed he was one of those.

Australia’s shift in its UN position has been driven by both the developing situation in the conflict and Labor’s internal and electoral politics.

The Albanese ministry has been publicly very disciplined on almost everything but cabinet solidity has fractured to a degree over this conflict. Industry Minister Ed Husic, a Muslim, has been particularly forthright in condemning what’s happening to civilians in Gaza. Tony Burke and Jason Clare have reflected the feelings of their many pro-Palestinian constituents.

Mike Freelander, a Labor backbencher from southwestern Sydney, has found himself caught each way. He’s Jewish and has a big Muslim population in his seat of Macarthur.

Freelander is fully on board with the government shifting its position at the UN, saying Albanese and Wong “had to do something”. He says he believes “strongly in Israel defending itself and the need for the hostages being released – however what is happening in Gaza is horrific”.

His local Muslim community – 10% of his constituents are Muslim – has been urging him to advocate for a ceasefire. “I’ve met with them and we all agree that it’s very important we stop this carnage.”

Josh Burns, member for the Victorian seat of Macnamara, also Jewish, is one of two Labor members on a cross-party delegation that visited Israel this week. He’s very critical of the UN resolution not targeting Hamas (a US amendment that would have rectified that failed to get support).

Burns provides a sharp reality check. The UN resolution “couldn’t be less relevant to the people here on the ground,” he told the ABC.

He added:“The fighting is going to continue. Hamas is not laying down its weapons. Hamas is not returning hostages. Hamas is still in control of the Gaza Strip.

“Israel is still committed to removing Hamas from power, and Israel is still committed to the return of hostages. So the UN can pass resolutions but those two key factors haven’t changed on the ground.”

For the broad Australian population – leaving aside the Jewish and Muslim communities – the conflict is not likely to have significant political cut through. In an Essential poll published mid-November, 62% thought Australia should stay out of it entirely. People did worry about potential local fallout – 63% were concerned the war could trigger hostility between Palestinian and Israeli communities in Australia. The poll also found those believing Israel’s response was proportionate had fallen from 42% in October to 35% in November.

Australia could get somewhat closer to the action if it accepts a US request to provide a warship to take part in monitoring in the Red Sea to protect commercial shipping against Iran-backed Houthi militants in Yemen. The government is presently exploring how seriously the US is making this request, which at this stage has come at officials’ level.

On Thursday Defence Minister Richard Marles appeared to pour a dash of cold water on the idea, telling a news conference, “We’ll consider that request in the normal way. I want to emphasise the focus of our efforts is on our immediate region.”

Next month Wong will go to the Middle East, visiting Israel and as many other countries as can be arranged. It’s a mark of how regionally-centred Australia’s policy is that this will be the peripatetic foreign minister’s first trip to the Middle East since taking office.

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: Albanese government comes under more heat as it tries to navigate its position on Gaza conflict – https://theconversation.com/grattan-on-friday-albanese-government-comes-under-more-heat-as-it-tries-to-navigate-its-position-on-gaza-conflict-219904

Keith Rankin Analysis – Te Pūkenga, Universities, and Unitec

By Keith Rankin -

December 14, 2023

20201212_KeithRankin — Keith Rankin, trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand.

Analysis by Keith Rankin.

Keith Rankin, trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand.

Tertiary education is in crisis in Aotearoa New Zealand. Vocational education, the domain of the Polytechnic ‘Institutes of Technology’; and Science and Humanities’ education, the traditional domain of the Universities.

2023 was an election year, yet tertiary education did not feature in the election campaign, despite these manifest crises. The Labour government was not interested in campaigning on its record, and for the mainstream media who frame election campaigns, the matter was not sexy enough. The media wanted a campaign largely restricted to fiscal holes, identity politics (especially bi-cultural divisions), and coalition-alignments (with a fascination for Winston Peters comparable with the fascination of the American media for Donald Trump).

(Occasionally health, education and climate change got into the election campaign discussion; but for health it was largely about constrained clinical services, in education it was about schools and possible curriculum impositions, and for climate change it was mainly about electric car subsidies. Nothing about the state of the population’s health, meeting New Zealand’s demographic challenges, the extent to which the consumers of education at all levels are disengaging with learning, addressing the lifestyle choices of the entitled minority, or fairly distributing the real cost burdens which we face.)

New Zealand’s underfunded universities are shedding staff in the public disciplines: humanities and public science. Once we were aspirational, or at least we wished to appear to be so, with Bright Future in 1999 and its predecessor, the Knowledge Society.

The Polytechnic Sector

The Te Pūkenga polytechnic saga is a scandal; a scandal attributable to former Prime Minister Chris Hipkins before he became Prime Minister. Yet his record in ministering to tertiary education was largely unremarked upon when he became Prime Minister, unopposed.

It was in the 1990s that the rot set in. Tertiary education became an export industry – not in itself a bad thing – which meant that this important public infrastructure increasingly came to be seen as a business (subject to private-market discipline) that just happened to do some intellectual public good as a side gig. The universities came to emulate polytechnics in that they increasingly emphasised professional vocational education over humanities; and they increasingly emphasised applied science over pure science.

Further, re the polytechnics, the governments either side of the millennium dropped the ball massively by not rebranding the leading polytechnics – as happened in Australia and United Kingdom – as Universities of Technology. For the polytechnics to be at the vanguard of a successful export-education model, they had to be branded as ‘universities’. So, for someone in Sri Lanka or Vietnam today – some young person who wants a good education which will gain them a good job in their home country – which was/is more attractive: University of Central Queensland at Rockhampton, or Manukau Institute of Technology?

New Zealand in 2023 has a tight labour market, though with unacceptably high levels of structural unemployment. The historical role of the New Zealand’s polytechnics has to address labour supply through reducing structural unemployment and structural underemployment; of upskilling the labour force. Yet this purpose of the polytechnic sector has been almost entirely absent from the minimal profile the sector has had in the mainstream media this decade so far; almost all I have heard is about financial losses, indicating the widespread perspective that the polytechnics are principally lame-duck businesses and only incidentally a critical part of the country’s educational infrastructure.

When such infrastructure is underfunded – the direct cause of the poor financial performance – two things happen. The polytechnic sector makes financial losses, the sector overinvests in a cost-management superstructure, and the sector gets restructured by the Ministry of Education. Service delivery – the sector’s raison d’être – becomes squeezed by the underfunding, management bloat, and top-down bureaucracy.

My impression has been that Treasury has been advocating a ‘free-rider’ policy; wishing to import skills from other countries, while seeking to suppressing investment in human capital on the grounds that employable educated Aotearoans can gain higher returns to themselves by emigrating. Such a free-rider policy is to be a net poacher of human capital; a poacher of people with employable skills.

In 2024 we, as a nation – as a mainstream liberal mediocracy – must start asking the right questions about the contributions that tertiary education can make to alleviating critical skills’ shortages. Labour supply is a critical component of a successful macroeconomy; and should not be addressed by austere monetary and fiscal policies which seek to suppress labour demand as a way of restoring balance to the labour market.

At least, in 2024, we have a Minister for Tertiary Education – Penny Simmonds – who understands the Polytechnic sector and its critical importance in addressing New Zealand’s labour supply problem.

The Polytechnic sector only made it through the media wall-of-silence this month because the cancelling of the Te Pūkenga project was just too big a story to ignore entirely. (Nevertheless, if I put ‘Te Pūkenga’ into the search facility of the New Zealand Herald android app, there are just two stories from 2023: one about a successful open day at UCOL’s Whanganui campus, 9 Aug 2023; and one from March about Microsoft facilitating the training of Māori and Pasifika for cybersecurity careers. Yet 2023 was an election year; a year in which the critical economic problem faced by this country was/is labour supply.)

The Universities

The previous government not only mangled the Polytechnic sector, it, also abandoned the University sector. (This abandonment took place despite, so much of the time since 2020, the government was saying “the science says …”.) While it had no functioning Minister of Tertiary Education – the Minister of Education in 2023 only really seemed to understand school education – the Government had a substantially underemployed Minister in Deborah Russell who could have been an excellent advocate for the universities, and their potential contribution to an evolving knowledge society. I trust that Penny Simmonds has a vision for universities – other than cost-cutting – while understanding that most of her ministerial bandwidth will be taken up with the polytechnic(s). The confirmation of Massey University’s retrenchment was discussed on RNZ today, 14 Dec, on Checkpoint: Massey University confirms it’s pressing ahead with its plans.

The new government needs to make an urgent and clear statement that it values the sciences and the humanities as public goods, and that the support of these civilisational cornerstone activities needs to be broader than cross-subsidies of university student fees.

Unitec

Unitec – formally Carrington Polytechnic, and which might have been better understood by non-Aucklanders had it been called West Auckland Institute of Technology – has suffered an appalling fate. Once New Zealand’s biggest Polytechnic – and the only tertiary educator of any note in West Auckland – Unitec became a land company around 2012. It became a campus with a Polytech as its main tenant. The first major problem was the Business School being turfed out of its purpose-built premises; premises which were then gutted by the new star tenant – multinational company IBM. Within about a year IBM abandoned its project, though the building continues to house a commercial tenant.

The polytechnic continued, doing great things despite underfunding and the machinations going on around the land which the government was coveting; and despite a burgeoning management superstructure, and its edict of ‘change management’. Eventually Unitec – a government owned land company cum polytechnic – was (unsurprisingly) practically bankrupt, and most of the land was sold to the government; and has subsequently been on-sold to a property development company.

The former campus is now a sorry site, and the property development scale and logistics will probably be unsurvivable for the tenant polytechnic; like a well-nourished rata tree strangling its host. This RNZ story this week Auckland urban development: complex manoeuvrings in Mt Albert gives a very pollyanna-ish take on the current state of this wonderful former green-space (and piece of Auckland’s history); now a ‘model’ “brownfield” development. (And we should note that, as well as suffocating Unitec – the tertiary educator, not the land bank – the development will surround the Mason Clinic, Aotearoa’s maximum-security psychiatric detention centre.)

My final plea is for the mainstream media to look at this ‘model’ property development with a critical eye, and see if it ‘cuts the mustard’ as a high density mixed-housing development. And to compare the potential of this ‘brownfields’ site with a nearby genuine brownfield site, the former Crown Lynn lands. Even if the former Unitec campus can be made to work as a modern tenement complex, will it have been worth the cost to the environment and to the educational infrastructure of West Auckland and Aotearoa New Zealand?

*******

Keith Rankin (keith at rankin dot nz), trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand.

The AI industry is on the verge of becoming another boys’ club. We’re all going to lose out if it does

By The Conversation -

December 14, 2023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Zena Assaad, Senior Lecturer, School of Engineering, Australian National University

A recent New York Times article released a list of people “behind the dawn of the modern artificial intelligence movement” – and not a single woman was named. It came less than a week after news of a fake auto-generated woman being listed as a speaker on the agenda for a software conference.

Unfortunately, the omission of women from the history of STEM isn’t a new phenomenon. Women have been missing from these narratives for centuries.

In the wake of recent AI developments, we now have a choice: are we going to leave women out of these conversations as well – even as they continue to make massive contributions to the AI industry?

Doing so risks leading us into the same fallacy that established computing itself as a “man’s world”. The reality, of course, is quite different.

A more accurate history

Prior to computers as we know them, “computer” was the title given to people who performed complex mathematical calculations. These people were commonly women.

English mathematician Ada Lovelace (1815–1852) is often referred to as the first computer programmer. She was the first person to realise computers could do much more than just math calculations. Her work on the analytical engine – a proposed automatic and fully programmable mechanical computer – dates back to the mid-1800s.

A blue plaque in St James’s Square in London marks the location Ada Lovelace once lived.
Shutterstock

By the 1870s, a group of about 80 women worked as computers at the Harvard Observatory. They catalogued and analysed copious amounts of astronomic data for astronomer Edward Charles Pickering (who exploited the fact they’d work for less money than men, or even as volunteers).

In 1886, Pickering put Williamina P.S. Fleming in charge of the Harvard computers. Over the course of her career she discovered 10 novae, 52 nebulae and hundreds of stars.
Wikimedia

By the late 19th century, increased access to education meant there was an entire generation of women trained in maths. These woman computers were cheaper labour than men at the time, and so employing them significantly reduced the costs of computation.

During the first world war, women were hired to calculate artillery trajectories. This work continued into the second world war, when they were actively encouraged to take on wartime jobs as computers in the absence of men.

Former NASA mathematician Katherine Johnson was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2015.
NASA/Bill Ingalls

Women continued to work as computers into the early days of the American space program in the 1960s, playing a pivotal role in advancing NASA’s space projects. One of these computers was Katherine Johnson, who was responsible for quality-checking the outputs of early IBM computers for an orbital mission in 1962.

Many women made significant contributions to computing, yet few were recognised for these contributions – let alone financially compensated. According to Virginia Tech professor Janet Abbate, by 1969 a female computer specialist’s median salary was US$7,763, compared to US$11,193 for a male computer specialist.

Woman computers worked behind the scenes, while their male counterparts received recognition, awards and publicity.

Women in AI

Computing and programming are the foundation of AI as we know it today. At a basic level, today’s generative and predictive AI systems work by analysing large amounts of data and finding patterns in it.

The women who pioneered computing from as early as the 1800s laid the foundations for this work. The work they were doing by hand for more than a century has now been replaced by machines capable of analysing much larger quantities of data in much a shorter time.

This transition does not diminish women’s contributions to the field of computing and, more recently, AI. Myriad women are doing pioneering work in the AI industry today, including the 12 women named is this recent Medium article.

From Google’s ex-chief decision scientist Cassie Kozyrkov, to Canadian computer scientist Joy Buolamwini, to OpenAI’s CTO Mira Murati (pictured in this article’s banner image) – these women are helping make AI safer, more accurate, more accessible, more inclusive and more reliable.

Joy Buolamwini is a Rhodes scholar, Fulbright fellow, Stamps scholar, Astronaut scholar and Anita Borg Institute scholar. Her work focuses on reducing bias in AI.
Wikimedia, CC BY-SA

And they’re taking these strides despite working in a heavily male-dominated industry. One 2018 study of 4,000 researchers who had been published in leading AI conferences found women made up just 12% of this group.

The impact of omission

The omission of women isn’t limited to the AI industry, or even to STEM. As historian Bettany Hughes notes, women occupy a meagre 0.5% of recorded history. Clearly, a lack of gender diversity in the workforce is part of a much larger, systemic problem – one that affects many more people than the individuals being excluded.

In 1983, NASA engineers suggested packing 100 tampons on the Challenger space shuttle for astronaut Sally Ride – for a trip that was one week long. Such an incident is seemingly harmless on the surface. But what happens when gender bias and stereotypes bleed into the design and development of AI?

Research published in 2018 by international non-profit Global Witness found Facebook’s job ad platform, which uses algorithms to target users with ads, based its targeting on sexist stereotypes. For example, ads for mechanics were targeted mostly at men, while ads for preschool teachers were targeted mostly at women.

Another 2018 study found computer vision systems reported higher error rates for recognising women, and in particular women with darker skin tones.

A lack of gender diversity in AI has a demonstrated ability to harm and disadvantage women and, by extension, all of us. While many argue that improving AI training datasets could address the gender gap, others rightly point out that women should also be included in data-collection processes

Breaking the glass ceiling

Speaking at the UN Women’s HeForShe summit earlier this year, Hugging Face research scientist Sasha Luccioni made a salient point:

AI bias doesn’t come from thin air – it comes from the patterns we perpetuate in our societies.

The recent New York Times article is an example of how both media and industry play a role in reinforcing a status quo that disproportionately favours men. This form of bias does nothing to help close a persistent and problematic gender gap.

Despite millions of dollars being spent to encourage women to take up careers in STEM, these fields are struggling to retain woman workers.

Women’s contributions to AI are not insignificant. Failing to acknowledge this can make the glass ceiling seem impossible to break through.

Zena Assaad 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. The AI industry is on the verge of becoming another boys’ club. We’re all going to lose out if it does – https://theconversation.com/the-ai-industry-is-on-the-verge-of-becoming-another-boys-club-were-all-going-to-lose-out-if-it-does-219802

We followed 14 ‘long haulers’ for 3 months. Here’s what they told us about living with long COVID

By The Conversation -

December 14, 2023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Bernardo Figueiredo, Associate Professor of Marketing, RMIT University

At least 65 million people around the world are estimated to have long COVID, which describes the continuation or development of symptoms at least three months after an initial COVID infection.

Long COVID is a complex, multi-system disease that can be disabling and may even be fatal in some cases. We still don’t understand the exact causes of long COVID, and there’s no clear treatment for it.

Over three months, we followed 14 people suffering from long COVID – or “long haulers” – to better understand their experiences. In particular, we wanted to see how their ability to manage their health (called agency) and the help they get from others (social support) influence how they fare.

A few key themes

Participants recorded short videos about their daily lives, focusing on their symptoms, how they were coping, and any lifestyle changes they were making.

They experienced a range of symptoms, including fatigue, breathing difficulties and brain fog. Research has shown these are common symptoms among people with long COVID.

Participants faced psychological and social challenges, with some feeling lonely and hopeless, often made worse by social stigma around expressing mental distress. One participant said:

Most of my family haven’t contacted me that much over the last five months. So I’ve really just been on my own 24/7, which does wear anyone down.

Another said she had not

reached out to my friends too much about it because I just feel like such a hypochondriac.

A senior woman sits on a couch looking out the window. — People with long COVID may feel isolated.
Perfect Wave/Shutterstock

Some participants felt health-care professionals didn’t take their experiences and symptoms seriously or didn’t understand. One described “an overall very, very poor understanding of the pathophysiology of the condition which is harming patients like me”.

Agency and social support

Although each person had a unique experience with long COVID, we were able to group these experiences into clusters based on the social support they received and the agency they had in managing their condition.

Agency is a result of multiple factors that accumulate over time including socioeconomic background, education and health literacy. Agency can improve when people feel in control of their situation.

A matrix divided into four quadrants representing the agency/social support clusters. — We grouped participants into four clusters.
Figueiredo et al., Social Science & Medicine, 2023, CC BY

In general, those with high agency and high social support reported a better experience managing long COVID than those in the other clusters.

People with agency sought out information about their condition and potential treatments, followed through with prescribed treatment plans when available, monitored symptoms, sought support, and were involved in advocacy and research.

Social support was similarly important, manifesting in different ways – for example a spouse who helped their partner get dressed, or a manager who supported reducing work days. In some cases friends provided regular support, while family played a crucial role, often becoming long-term informal carers.

Having a wide group of supporters helped long haulers feel like less of a burden to others and avoided the fear of over-relying on an individual carer. One participant’s church group provided a helpful social network, and reinforced her self-belief. Online communities also offered support.

Those who had low agency and low social support generally reported the worst experiences. One participant who we grouped in this category said:

Long COVID has destroyed so many aspects of my life […] it’s impossible to overstate the negative impact that it’s had.

Our findings align with existing evidence

Our study was confined to a small group, and participants were only from Australia, which limits how much the findings can be generalised.

That said, our findings align with broader evidence highlighting the complexity of long COVID as a condition with both physical and psychosocial dimensions.

Our study’s emphasis on patient agency and social support also corresponds with emerging literature emphasising the important role these factors play in chronic disease management.

A woman comforts another woman. — Support from friends and family helps.
Josep Suria/Shutterstock

Supporting people with long COVID

We suggest health-care professionals consider which “cluster” a person with long COVID falls into (low or high agency and low or high social support) and tailor the support they offer accordingly.

For example, long haulers who are more proactive (high agency) could benefit most from educational materials suggesting, for example, different ways to cope, safe exercise routines, diet tips, and strategies to manage mental health concerns.

Meanwhile, people with long COVID who find it hard to manage their health (low agency) but have good support from others (high social support), might benefit from educational materials that show their family and friends how to help them.

Being part of online communities could also help these patients. Although online groups can provide social support and improve a person’s sense of agency, not all information shared in these communities is accurate or reliable.

And what about people with low agency and low social support?

Providing clear, straightforward information about long COVID can enhance their participation in helping manage their health.

Connecting them with support groups, communities or counselling can improve social support. Evidence shows emotional connections help reduce feelings of distress and boost wellbeing among people with long COVID.

Finally, case management services can help long-haulers access and utilise community resources, and simplify their health-care journey.

The project “EAT, MOVE, HEAL for Long-COVID” (Project ID: PRJ00000010) was funded by a 2022 Strategic Capability Deployment Fund, RMIT University, Victoria, Australia.

Catherine Itsiopoulos has received funding from NHMRC for other research. She is a member of professional bodies including Dietitians Australia and The Australasian Society of Lifestyle Medicine. Catherine is a member of RMIT University ‘Eat, Move Heal Network’ researching to develop tools to support patients with long COVID19 at home.

Jacob Sheahan receives funding from the Wellcome Trust, and the ACRC is funded by Legal and General.

Zhen Zheng co-leads the Eat, Move, Heal for Long-COVID Program that aims to provide educational materials to people with long COVID and to health-care professionals.

Magdalena Plebanski 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. We followed 14 ‘long haulers’ for 3 months. Here’s what they told us about living with long COVID – https://theconversation.com/we-followed-14-long-haulers-for-3-months-heres-what-they-told-us-about-living-with-long-covid-219504

Israel is accused of using white phosphorous. Would this be against international law?

By The Conversation -

December 14, 2023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sascha-Dominik (Dov) Bachmann, Professor in Law and Co-Convener National Security Hub (University of Canberra) and Research Fellow (adjunct) – The Security Institute for Governance and Leadership in Africa, Faculty of Military Science, Stellenbosch University- NATO Fellow Asia-Pacific, University of Canberra

Israel’s military is accused of using white phosphorous in an October attack on the Hezbollah militant group in Lebanon, which allegedly injured at least nine civilians.

US National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said this week the Biden administration was “concerned” about the possible use of white phosphorus munitions and that it would be “asking questions to try to learn a bit more.”

Israel has rejected any allegations of the unlawful use of white phosphorus in Lebanon.

But what are the legal uses of this chemical under international humanitarian law? And can its use be considered a war crime?

How white phosphorous has been used before

White phosphorous is a chemical component that ignites on contact with air and burns at around 1,500 degree Fahrenheit (815 Celsius). It can lead to serious injury and or even death if it comes into contact with humans.

Human Rights Watch regards incendiary weapons, such as white phosphorous and napalm, as “among the cruellest weapons used in contemporary armed conflict” due their impact on the human body. Says one Human Rights Watch researcher:

Incendiary weapons are weapons that set fire or burn people.

White phosphorus can be used defensively, though, as a smokescreen to mask troop movements on the ground, to illuminate the battlefield, or as a signalling device. It can also interfere with an enemy’s infrared optics and weapons tracking systems.

But these incendiary weapons can also be used offensively in mortar bombs, rockets and artillery ammunition.

White phosphorous was used by many adversaries in both the first and second world wars, targeting enemy soldiers and civilians alike.

The US also used white phosphorus, alongside napalm, in the Vietnam War and more recently in Iraq during the battle of Fallujah in 2004 and against Islamic state in both Syria and Iraq.

Russia is also accused of using white phosphorus indiscriminately against civilians and combatants in both Ukraine and Syria.

Human Rights Watch criticised Israel’s use of white phosphorous against Hamas targets in Gaza in 2008–09 and said it was evidence of a potential war crime.

Aware of the negative publicity from these reports, the Israeli Defence Forces pledged in 2013 to stop using white phosphorus on the battlefield, saying it would transition to gas-based smoke shells instead.

What international law says about it

Incendiary weapons fall under the 1980 Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons. This treaty aims to protect civilians by limiting the use of certain weapons deemed particularly dangerous. A protocol specifically focused on incendiary weapons defines them as:

any weapon or munition which is primarily designed to set fire to objects or to cause burn injury to persons through the action of flame, heat, or combination thereof, produced by a chemical reaction of a substance delivered on the target.

White phosphorus is not illegal under international law and the law of armed conflict, as long as long it is being used defensively as a smokescreen or as battlefield illumination.

The targeted use of incendiary weapons directly against civilians, however, is illegal and could be considered a war crime. The use of “air-delivered” incendiary weapons (such as white phosphorus dropped from a plane) against a military target that is in a civilian area is also prohibited.

There is an exception, though, if the military target is “clearly separated” from civilians and all “feasible precautions” are taken to limit incidental loss of civilian life or injuries to civilians.

So, this means the targeting of either Hamas or Hezbollah is permissible as long as the white phosphorus is not air delivered and steps are taken to minimise the harm to civilians.

What Israel is accused of doing

Amnesty International has compiled evidence that indicates white phosphorus was likely used in a civilian setting (the Lebanese town of Dheira) in October. Residents also told The Washington Post that Israeli forces had shelled the town with “white phosphorus munitions for hours”.

These reports need thorough investigation to examine what exactly happened and if there was an illegal use of white phosphorous by Israeli forces or whether it was permitted under the guidelines above.

Investigators will need to determine, for instance, if white phosphorous was indeed used and, if it was, whether it was delivered via an airburst or a groundburst.

Investigators would also need to determine if the forces took steps to minimise civilian harm. This a very difficult proposition in the current conflict, as both Hamas and Hezbollah are known to embed their fighters within the civilian population.

Any direct targeting of civilians or indiscriminate use of air-delivered incendiary weapons would potentially qualify as a war crime under the Geneva Conventions of 1949.

In the fog of war, it is more important than ever to have independent verification of the actions of combatants on both sides and a thorough investigation by the International Criminal Court (ICC).

However, prosecution of any alleged war crimes in the current conflict remains extremely difficult. This is due, in part, to the fact Israel is not a member of the ICC and rejects the court’s jurisdiction over its territory and both Hamas and Hezbollah are non-state entities.

Sascha-Dominik (Dov) Bachmann 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. Israel is accused of using white phosphorous. Would this be against international law? – https://theconversation.com/israel-is-accused-of-using-white-phosphorous-would-this-be-against-international-law-219809

What does a building need to call itself ‘accessible’ – and is that enough?

By The Conversation -

December 14, 2023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ilan Wiesel, Associate Professor in Urban Geography, The University of Melbourne

The National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) review and the disability royal commission’s final report both highlighted the crucial role of accessible buildings and homes in ensuring the inclusion of people with disabilities.

But the experiences of people with disability show Australia is a very long way from achieving this. There are the stories from people with disability who can’t enjoy events or venues. And researchers say even accessible bathrooms are not usable for half the people with disability.

What can be called an accessible building or home? And should standards be improved?

What is accessibility?

The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disability includes the right to accessibility. Australia’s 1992 Disability Discrimination Act includes premises standards to ensure people with disability have “dignified, equitable, cost-effective and reasonably achievable access to buildings, facilities and services”.

However, a building is exempt if the owners can demonstrate modifying a building would cause them “unjustifiable hardship”. The burden of making a complaint about an inaccessible building falls on people with disability and the act also does not apply to private homes.

Although experts follow different definitions of accessibility, they generally include some key principles:

easy entry and exit into a building
easy navigation and functionality in and around the building
potential for easy adaptation in response to changing needs of occupants.

An accessible building is one where people of all abilities are able move and carry out activities independently, safely, in comfort and with dignity.

For people with disabilities many buildings are inaccessible. In these buildings, basic everyday activities such as taking a shower or preparing breakfast becomes difficult, tiring, uncomfortable and sometimes dangerous.

Some people have been injured repeatedly in inaccessible homes, for example falling down a staircase. Such injuries may compound their disability. Many people with disabilities worry that if they’re injured at home, they will be forced to move permanently into a nursing home.

Studies have found living in inaccessible homes severely harms the dignity, independence, social inclusion, employment, health and wellbeing of people with disabilities.

People become more reliant on family members for support, putting strain on their relationships. Difficulty getting in and out of the house for social activities worsens social isolation. A sense of fatigue also reduces the motivation and capacity to work.

Access through the front door

Dignity is a crucial aspect of accessibility but it is often forgotten. For example, many buildings’ front entry has stairs that make it inaccessible for wheelchair users. There may be an accessible ramp entry in the back of the building. The building is then considered accessible, since wheelchair users can enter and exit. But such a “backdoor treatment” can be experienced as an indignity and discrimination.

Accessible toilets are sometimes used for storage, locked or out of order. Again, although the design meets accessibility standards, in practice the building is inaccessible because of poor management.

And accessibility is not exclusively about physical disabilities and physical barriers.

People with cognitive disabilities, for example, might struggle to find their way in a building if way-finding signs are difficult to understand. Communication accessibility in building is achieved when the information needed to navigate and use the building is understood by everyone, no matter how they communicate.

Silver, gold and platinum standards

There are different levels of accessibility. In Australia, housing accessibility is most often assessed according to Livable Housing Australia’s (LHA) three standards of silver, gold and platinum. Silver-level homes have minimal accessibility features, but are designed in a way that enables easy home modifications over time.

The silver standard of accessibility requires seven features:

• a step-free path of travel from the street or parking area

• at least one step-free entrance

• internal doors and corridors that allow comfortable movement, including for people using wheelchairs

• a toilet on the entry level with easy access

• a bathroom with a hobless shower recess, so there isn’t a step-over barrier to entry

• reinforced walls around the toilet, shower and bath. These allow installation of grabrails later if needed

• stairways designed to reduce the risk of injury and also enable future adaptation.

Gold-level homes have additional accessibility features. Platinum homes are designed for people with higher mobility needs and to allow ageing at home.

A patchwork of standards and what the NDIS review says

In 2021 Australian housing ministers agreed for the first time to introduce minimum accessibility standards in the National Construction Code. It followed decades of campaigning by activist groups such as the Australian Network for Universal Housing Design, Rights and Inclusion Australia and the Summer Foundation.

The code requires all new homes be built to silver standards. It does not apply to existing homes and exemptions will apply for some newly built homes because of site restrictions.

When the code was introduced, New South Wales and Western Australia announced they would not adopt the new code. Both the NDIS review and the disability royal commission recommended all states and territories immediately adopt the code’s new accessibility standards.

A consistent application of the code’s new standards across Australia is a good start. But the code provides only the minimum standard of accessibility. To make buildings and homes truly accessible, we need to improve education on accessibility for designers, operators and consumers.

An urgent national priority

With Australia’s ageing population, most people will experience disability – or have a household member with disability – at some point.

Accessible homes and buildings can reduce pressure on the health system and improve quality of life. A consistent national construction code is just the first step urgently needed to to improve building accessibility and inclusion so people with disability have autonomy and flourish.

Ilan Wiesel receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

Rebecca Bentley receives funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council.

– ref. What does a building need to call itself ‘accessible’ – and is that enough? – https://theconversation.com/what-does-a-building-need-to-call-itself-accessible-and-is-that-enough-217278

When the heat hits, inland waters look inviting. Here’s how we can help people swim safely at natural swimming spots

By The Conversation -

December 14, 2023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nicky Morrison, Professor of Planning and Director of Urban Transformations Research Centre, Western Sydney University

People love to hang out around water, especially on hot summer days. And, for those who aren’t near the ocean, Australia is blessed with beautiful inland waterways. In New South Wales, the government wants to increase access to these “blue” natural environments, especially for people living far from the coast.

One of these swimming sites is Penrith Beach, which has just opened to the public for the summer. This new site in the heart of Western Sydney is part of the state government’s Places to Swim program. It’s likely to be an important refuge for locals to seek relief from intense summer heat.

Our recently published research informed the government’s new Places to Swim guide. Now out for public consultation, the draft guide aims to help anyone involved in establishing or managing a swim site.

A new public beach has been opened at Penrith in Western Sydney.

People want natural swimming spots, but are they safe?

The Places to Swim program responds to two government surveys, covering Greater Sydney and regional NSW. These showed:

people see access to water as very important – about half enjoy outdoor water recreation activities at least once a week
swimming in natural areas is growing in popularity
demand for access points and storage facilities for activities such as kayaking and paddle-boarding is increasing.

But are natural waterways safe to use? Recreation involving waterways inherently entails risks like exposure to waterborne contaminants and potential for injury and drowning. As new swim sites are opened, the risks need to be identified, monitored and managed.

Time spent in ‘blue’ nature has many benefits

Our report, prepared by the Urban Transformations Research Centre, outlined the benefits of opening swim sites across the state.

Spending time in “blue” nature has many physical and mental benefits. Other social, cultural, economic and ecological spin-offs are equally valuable.

These natural sites are freely available to all (and pleasingly chemical-free). People come together at these places, which strengthens sense of community and belonging.

Economic multipliers arise from the increase in visitors to an area.

An increased public focus on ensuring the water is clean also benefits the wider ecosystems that depend on it.

We also provided a checklist of things to consider when setting up or managing a swim site. These include:

the need to assess upfront, and then continually monitor, water quality
equitable physical access and transport points
risks and hazards in what can be physically tricky sites
environmental considerations, including any critical habitats, in what might otherwise be an undisturbed natural environment
any required planning processes and formal approvals
ongoing governance arrangements, which might involve more than one body.

Learning from the best

Our report also offered six case studies of projects in Australia and New Zealand, Canada and Europe. These provide good examples of how to proceed.

The case study from New Zealand’s Can I swim here? program has an interactive map to help people find the best places to swim across the country. This public advice, provided by the Land, Air, Water Aotearoa partnership, includes weekly water quality test results.

In Canada, Toronto on Lake Ontario showcases innovative water-quality monitoring that directly involves the community. It’s done by volunteer “citizen scientists” co-ordinated by a government-funded charity, Swim Drink Fish.

As confirmed by research on biophilia – our innate affinity with nature – bringing people closer to nature is not just about direct benefits to individuals. It also encourages us to look after the natural ecosystems on which we ultimately depend.

Recognition of the benefits of spending time in “blue” nature will continue to grow. We therefore need to put more effort into designing water-based activities as part of life in our cities and towns. It’s especially important for those without ready access to coastal beaches.

It’s time to get more active in promoting and improving these great water resources. These facilities will also need to be closely monitored and managed. The investment is worth it.

Nicky Morrison received funding from the NSW government.

Ian A. Wright received funding from the NSW government.

– ref. When the heat hits, inland waters look inviting. Here’s how we can help people swim safely at natural swimming spots – https://theconversation.com/when-the-heat-hits-inland-waters-look-inviting-heres-how-we-can-help-people-swim-safely-at-natural-swimming-spots-219333

From sexual liberation to fashionable heels, new research shows how women are changing North Korea

By The Conversation -

December 14, 2023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Bronwen Dalton, Professor, Head of Department of Management, UTS Business School, University of Technology Sydney

Kang* was 20 years old when she left her official job as a potato researcher in North Korea. She wanted to join the women who had taken up illicit market activities, first to survive the “Arduous March” (as the famine years of the mid-1990s were known), then to build better lives for themselves and their families outside the tight controls of the government.

Kang began trading goods like rice, metals and petroleum to generate an income well beyond what she could have expected from state-sanctioned employment. Eventually, before reaching South Korea in 2013, her most lucrative business was a brokerage service for young women who wished to work in factories in China.

Kang was one of the women who took part in the research for our new book, North Korea’s Women-led Grassroots Capitalism. As she told us,

What was most rewarding about the work was the money. I could pay for my younger sister’s university tuition, as well as my stepchildren’s. I could even buy [Workers’] Party membership for my husband, eventually making him a party secretary. I felt myself maturing through businesses.

It was as if we were like party officials providing for their children. I could make all that possible with the money I earned.

The emergence of grassroots capitalism in North Korea, through women like Kang, provides a cautionary tale for patriarchal societies everywhere: underestimate women at your peril.

Ironically, we found in our research that by seeking to exclude women from the public sphere and formal economy, North Korea’s government has actually spurred them to become entrepreneurs, with cascading effects on society.

Little shops have sprung up around Pyongyang, mostly run by women, selling food and other small items.
Lesley Parker

How did this happen? North Korean authorities continue to oppress the public with a terror and surveillance culture aimed at containing the spread of capitalism. But it is men who have been their main focus – not women.

North Korea’s women, underestimated and operating in the shadows, have become increasingly adept at circumventing official monitoring and controls to create the space to drive significant economic and social change.

A woman in a skirt above the knee, high-heeled shoes and carrying a designer-style handbag.
Lesley Parker

Our book explores the complex ways in which North Korean women have exercised their agency through everyday life. Our research was based on 52 interviews with North Korean female defectors, NGOs and several field trips to North Korea and northeast China. Far from stereotypical brainwashed automatons or helpless victims needing protection, we found that North Korea’s women are strong, resilient and creative.

Through acts of covert resistance, they have been driving change in family relationships, women’s sexuality and reproductive issues, and women’s cultural identities.

5 ways women are changing North Korea

1) Women are driving grassroots capitalism

Women have become active players in the emerging informal economy centred on local markets, which pre-COVID accounted for roughly 80% of household income and more than 60% of people’s food and basic needs.

In short, North Koreans depend on women’s labour, both in the household and the marketplace, to survive.

In most North Korean families, women have become the main breadwinners. This has created more opportunities for women – and challenges for those who seek to control them, including the state.

A woman transports goods using a hand-pulled cart in the countryside in the south.
Lesley Parker

2) Gender roles are shifting

Women have been driving changes that are destabilising two fundamental pillars of North Korea: socialism and deep-rooted patriarchy.

Women’s involvement in market activities has given them access to scarce resources, including money, and a level of public visibility and social interaction previously reserved for men.

Economic independence and a greater say in domestic decision-making have strained long-established family dynamics and challenged broader social norms. As Seol* explains:

As the rations waned, women took more initiative and went out and worked outside the home. It was the men who stayed home. We began to expect that men should cook
and do domestic work. I think women and men reversed roles.

A schoolboy stops for an ice-cream from a street vendor in Pyongyang. Changing family dynamics, with women earning more than men, is causing tension in families.
Lesley Parker

3) A sexual revolution is underway

The way women experience and approach sexuality, relationships and marriage has become far more complex. This includes delaying marriage and more divorces. Non-traditional relationships are also flourishing, such as premarital and extramarital couplings (which have led to growing numbers of single mothers) and older women married to younger men. A young woman named Bae* told us:

As I make a lot of money, I have high standards for a husband. While busy with money-making, I don’t have time to think about marriage or get married.

Meanwhile, younger party-affiliated, city dwellers are adopting more liberal attitudes to dating and sex and more romantic views of relationships. As Joo* said:

Many young people are dating in public right now. After watching South Korean dramas, young ladies call their boyfriend ‘oppa’ (or ‘brother’) like South Koreans. The young couples are going around with their arms around each other’s shoulders.

Some women have also been strategically engineering relationships with Chinese men as a means of settlement in China, to ensure their safety.

4) It’s all about the heels

Women in Pyongyang now wear higher heels and more colourful clothes that in previous years.
Lesley Parker

While appearing to conform to patriarchal versions of femininity, women are actually constructing a new version of the ideal, hyper-feminine, North Korean woman. This is typically a means to access material goods and social rewards.

Through fashion choices and conspicuous consumption, these women are playing a key role in how status is now determined in North Korea. For example, high heels are de rigeur. Bae said:

Women are obsessed with high heels. Probably because we girls are short. Whether women live in the countryside or in the mountains, we prefer these shoes, even on unpaved roads.

Like their South Korean counterparts, the younger generation has become more interested in slender bodies and long straight hair. More women have undertaken not only double eyelid surgery, but also dimple surgery or nose surgery. Another woman, Gho, told us:

We young people are just like South Koreans. We watch South Korean TV dramas in secret and wear pants like South Koreans do [laughter], and we dye our hair yellow like South Koreans do.

Through these actions, women are challenging narrowly conceived, domestic ideals of wives and mothers and creating new sets of social expectations and constructions of femininity.

The way Paik* describes her decision to dye her hair and wear earrings is an example of how women are also emulating the country’s fashionable first lady Ri Sol-ju:

Officials used to inspect everybody wearing earrings. But then Ri Sol-ju appeared wearing earrings and now the authorities can’t do much about it. People started becoming rebellious. In North Korea, dyeing hair is not allowed. […] These days, a lot of people dye their hair.

5) New propaganda versions of the ideal woman

The state has responded to this social change by shifting the way it presents the “ideal” woman in its propaganda.

For example, it is now promoting women who embody an attractive and dynamic blend of old and new, of loyalty and modernity – including the leader’s sister, wife and now daughter. For example, Ri regularly appears in Prada, Christian Dior and Chanel, or in looks inspired by these designers.

By doing this, the regime is seeking to co-opt social trends to maintain its legitimacy.

Pyongyang trendsetters love logo-emblazoned goods.
Lesley Parker

(*For security reasons, we use pseudonyms for the North Korean women who took part in this research.)

Bronwen Dalton receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

Kyungja Jung receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the Academy of Korean Studies.

Lesley Parker 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. From sexual liberation to fashionable heels, new research shows how women are changing North Korea – https://theconversation.com/from-sexual-liberation-to-fashionable-heels-new-research-shows-how-women-are-changing-north-korea-218711

AI can already diagnose depression better than a doctor and tell you which treatment is best

By The Conversation -

December 14, 2023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Hellewell, Research Fellow, Faculty of Health Sciences, Curtin University, and The Perron Institute for Neurological and Translational Science, Curtin University

Artificial intelligence (AI) is poised to revolutionise the way we diagnose and treat illness. It could be particularly helpful for depression because it could make more accurate diagnoses and determine which treatments are more likely to work.

Some 20% of us will have depression at least once in our lifetimes. Around the world,
300 million people are currently experiencing depression, with 1.5 million Australians likely to be depressed at any one time. Because of this, depression has been described by the World Health Organization as the single biggest contributor to ill health around the world.

So how exactly could AI help?

Depression can be hard to spot

Despite its frequency, depression is difficult to diagnose. So hard, in fact, that general practitioners accurately detect depression in less than half of cases.

This is because there is no one test for depression: doctors use self-reported symptoms, questionnaires and clinical observations to make a diagnosis. But symptoms of depression are not the same for everyone. Some people may sleep more, others sleep less; some people lack energy and interest in activities, while others may feel sad or irritable.

For those who are accurately diagnosed with depression, there are a range of treatment options including talk therapy, medications and lifestyle change. However, response to treatment is different for each person, and we have no way to know ahead of time which treatments will work and which won’t.

AI trains computers to think like humans, with a particular focus on three human-like behaviours: learning, reasoning and self-correction (to fine-tune and improve performance over time). One branch of AI is machine learning, the goal of which is to train computers to learn, find patterns in data and make data-informed predictions without guidance from humans.

In recent years there has been a surge in research applying AI to illnesses like depression, which can be difficult to diagnose and treat.

man sits with head in hands opposite clinician with clipboard checklist — Doctors usually diagnose depression via questionnaires and self-ratings.
Shutterstock

What they’ve found so far

Scientists have compared ChatGPT diagnoses and medical recommendations to those of real-life doctors with surprising results. When given information on fictional patients of varied depression severity, sex and socioeconomic status, ChatGPT mostly recommended talk therapy. In contrast, doctors recommended antidepressants.

US, British and Australian guidelines recommend talk therapy as the first treatment option ahead of medication.

This suggests ChatGPT may be more likely to follow clinical guidelines, whereas GPs may have a tendency to overprescribe antidepressants.

ChatGPT is also less influenced by sex and socioeconomic biases, while doctors are statistically more likely to prescribe antidepressants to men, especially those in blue-collar jobs.

How depression affects the brain

Depression affects specific parts of the brain. My research has shown that the areas of the brain affected by depression are extremely similar in different people. So much so, we can predict whether someone has depression or not with more than 80% accuracy just by looking at these brain structures on MRI scans.

Other research using advanced AI models has supported this finding, suggesting brain structure may be a helpful direction for AI-based diagnosis.

Studies using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data on brain function at rest can also predict depression correctly more than 80% of the time.

However, combining functional and structural information from MRI gives the best accuracy, correctly predicting depression in over 93% of cases. This suggests using multiple brain imaging techniques for AI to detect depression may be the most viable way forward.

MRI-based AI tools are currently only used for research purposes. But as MRI scans become cheaper, faster and more portable, it’s likely this kind of technology will soon be part of your doctor’s toolkit, helping them to improve diagnosis and enhance patient care.

The diagnostic tools you might have already

While MRI-based AI applications are promising, a simpler and easier method of detecting depression may be at hand, quite literally.

Wearable devices like smart watches are being investigated for their ability to detect and predict depression. Smart watches are especially helpful because they can collect a wide variety of data including heart rate, step counts, metabolic rate, sleep data and social interaction.

A recent review of all studies done so far on using wearables to assess depression found depression was correctly predicted 70–89% of the time. Since they are commonly used and worn around the clock, this research suggests wearable devices could provide unique data that might otherwise be hard to collect.

There are some drawbacks, however, including the substantial cost of smart devices which may be inaccessible to many. Others include the questioned ability of smart devices to detect biological data in people of colour and the lack of diversity in study populations.

Studies have also turned to social media to detect depression. Using AI, scientists have predicted the presence and severity of depression from the language of our posts and community memberships on social media platforms. The specific words that were used predicted depression with up to 90% success rates in both English and Arabic. Depression has also been successfully detected in its early stages from the emojis we use.

man's hands tipping out one capsule with glass of water nearby on table — Doctors are statistically more likely to prescribe antidepressants to men.
Shutterstock

Predicting responses to treatment

Several studies have found antidepressant treatment response could be predicted with more than 70% accuracy from electronic health records alone. This could provide doctors with more accurate evidence when prescribing medication-based treatments.

Combining data from people in trials for antidepressants, scientists have predicted whether taking medications will help specific patients go into remission from depression.

AI shows substantial promise in the diagnosis and management of depression, however recent findings require validation before they can be relied upon as diagnostic tools. Until then, MRI scans, wearables and social media may be helpful to assist doctors diagnose and treat depression.

Sarah Hellewell 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. AI can already diagnose depression better than a doctor and tell you which treatment is best – https://theconversation.com/ai-can-already-diagnose-depression-better-than-a-doctor-and-tell-you-which-treatment-is-best-211420

We reviewed the arguments for and against ‘high-stakes’ exams. The evidence for using them doesn’t stack up

By The Conversation -

December 14, 2023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Raoul Mulder, Professor of Higher Education, Centre for the Study of Higher Education, The University of Melbourne

Across Australia, students are receiving and digesting important exam results. University students began receiving their semester 2 results at the end of November. This week and early next week, Year 12 students are also receiving their final marks.

Love them or loathe them, exams have featured prominently in education for centuries.

For almost as long, debate has raged about whether they are useful for assessing learning. And while there has been a shift towards course work or other forms of assessments in some contexts, exams are still a major part of the way we assess student learning.

To understand why exams remain so heavily favoured, we reviewed the arguments for and against their use in higher education. We found surprisingly little hard evidence to justify their widespread use in university assessment.

Our study

We focussed on “high-stakes” final exams (heavily-weighted, end-of-semester exams that “make-or-break” passing a subject), because they are so widely used.

Traditionally undertaken in large exam halls under strict supervision, they can have immense influence on students’ lives and careers.

We searched the higher education literature for research showing benefits or drawbacks of high-stakes final examinations. We found 122 relevant papers, written in English and published before July 2023.

Across these papers, seven key themes emerged.

1. Knowledge retention

It has long been claimed tests help students consolidate knowledge.

But because exams tend to encourage “cramming” of large amounts of information in a short period, the retention of that “knowledge” is famously short-lived.

Testing can enhance learning when students need to remember a lot of facts. But research shows regular short-answer tests undertaken shortly after learning are far more effective for this than one big exam at the end of the learning process.

A young man reads a sheet of paper while sitting at a desk, with a laptop. — Students who cram for an exam tend to forget their learning in the long term.
Michael Burrows/Pexels, CC BY

2. Motivation and learning

High-stakes exams can certainly motivate students to study and prepare. But evidence suggests exams tend not to help students’ learning because they activate “extrinsic motivation” (the desire to achieve a high grade) rather than “intrinsic motivation” (the desire for deep understanding).

This has a doubly perverse effect on learning: it encourages students to adopt superficial, “surface” learning strategies such as memorisation, while teachers often narrow the content they teach to what can be assessed in the exam.

3. Real-world relevance

Some argue the information-restricted, time-pressured nature of exams mirrors real-life (nobody wants their doctor or pilot to be leafing through the manual in a crisis situation).

But for the vast majority of modern roles and workplaces, closed-book individual examinations are a far cry from the collaborative, information-rich context in which students will work.

They’re particularly ill-suited to assessing skills like listening and communication, which are highly valued by employers. And because there is typically no opportunity to receive or respond to feedback on an exam, it’s hard for students to learn from their mistakes and do better.

4. Validity and reliability

One might assume because high-stakes exams are so important for final grades, they are carefully validated and reliably measure a student’s ability.

Regrettably, neither is true. Validation of the design of high-stakes examinations (a complex process that ensures we can trust the inferences we make from them) is neither required nor routinely undertaken in university courses.

Exam performance is also notoriously unreliable, susceptible to bias and inconsistency from examiners, the psychological or physical health of the student, the design of the exam and even the conditions under which the exam is taken.

5. Contract cheating and assessment security

There’s a widespread belief that because exams occur in tightly controlled environments and require ID, they’re impervious to cheating. This belief is spurring calls for even greater use of traditional exams in the wake of anxiety about generative AI.

But surveys of tens of thousands of university students in Australia and overseas reveal students cheat more often in examinations than they do in any other form of assessment, using strategies such as impersonation.

As the authors of a 2018 Australian report conclude: “examinations provide universities and accrediting bodies with a false sense of security” and

an over reliance on examinations, without a thorough and comprehensive approach to integrity, is likely to lead to more cheating, not less.

6. Anxiety and wellbeing

Research shows students find exams stressful and this can harm their health and wellbeing. But whether stress affects exam performance is less clear.

Some studies have found negative effects of stress on performance, while others found no effect or even suggest stress is helpful for improving performance.

Although the jury is still out, the adverse effects of examinations on student mental and physical health is concerning, as is the negative impact of examination anxiety on student motivation.

7. Fairness and equity

It’s well known exams favour students who perform well under time pressure and are good at memorising. But there is also growing evidence the exams may promote gender inequality (with women performing worse than men in exams but better in non-exam assessments).

Another way in which exams can contribute to inequity is through their content (which often promotes Western values and knowledge) and their (often hand-) written format. This disadvantages minority students, including Indigenous students, those from less privileged socio-economic backgrounds, or those who have a disability.

Common “Band-Aid” accommodations, such as allowing extra time, do little to address this problem and contribute to feelings of inadequacy. We need to draw on what is known about inclusive assessment design to ensure diverse students are given equal opportunity to succeed.

Where to from here?

In the absence of compelling educational reasons for using high-stakes final exams, it seems they are used because they are cheap and efficient to deliver and grade, as well as easily scalable to large numbers of students.

These justifications seem inadequate when we know there are alternative and more authentic forms of assessment that are also cost-effective, with the aid of educational technology. These include inquiry (using investigation and problem-solving), group or peer-based assessments.

Without compelling academic reasons for retaining them, we need to consider new and potentially more meaningful forms of assessment by replacing, re-weighting or redesigning high-stakes exams.

– ref. We reviewed the arguments for and against ‘high-stakes’ exams. The evidence for using them doesn’t stack up – https://theconversation.com/we-reviewed-the-arguments-for-and-against-high-stakes-exams-the-evidence-for-using-them-doesnt-stack-up-219595

An educational psychologist explains how to think about your ATAR and set post-school goals

By The Conversation -

December 14, 2023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew J Martin, Scientia Professor and Professor of Educational Psychology, UNSW Sydney

All this week and into next, Australian Year 12 students are receiving their final results.

As an educational psychologist, I know this is a momentous time for many students, as their schooling and future prospects seem to come down to “one number”. But it is also vital students and their families have perspective on the Australian Tertiary Admission Rank (or ATAR) and their goals going forward in their post-school lives.

What’s really important about the ATAR?

Let’s talk about the ATAR first. Yes, the ATAR matters. But not necessarily in the way students think it does.

Most of the focus and stress about ATARs revolve around what university course it can get students into. (Though some students have unconditional offers, that do not depend on their ATAR).

So, stepping back, the reason the ATAR matters is because it shapes the starting point of the post-school journey. It determines whether students get in the front door of what they want to study now. Or if they need to take a side route or two before they get into what they really want to study.

A detour can be a positive thing

We tend to focus on the “ATAR and then straight to uni” option, but there are many positive post-school educational and vocational pathways available to students.

A 2020 study reviewed 25 years of research using the Longitudinal Surveys of Australian Youth data.

This research has mapped students’ movements post-school. Including to and through further study and training, to work and also taking a gap year. Across the various studies it reviewed, it was clear students pursue diverse pathways after school, including pathways into university, following time in the vocational education and training sector.

Our research has also found university students who have had a gap year are more motivated and engaged than students who did not. This is perhaps because students appreciate the value of education, develop self-regulation and self-direction while on their gap year, and gain further clarity about what they want to do with their lives.

So the ATAR does not determine where students end up as much as it shapes where they start and the way they get there. It is more journey-defining than destination-defining.

A young woman walks along a path in a park. — You don’t just have to go straight from school to more study. Gap years can have big benefits for future learning and motivation.
Janesca/Unsplash, CC BY

Now, think about your goals

As students look ahead to post-school life, they have a terrific opportunity to think about their goals and what is really important for them.

I say this because the emphasis on ATARs can lead students to set and strive for goals that are not always best for them.

In a few ways, the toughest part of the ATAR for Year 12 students is the R or rank. It is this R that makes Year 12 something of a zero-sum game: for one student to rank higher, another student must rank lower.

Assessments that rank students can fuel comparisons with others and competitive goals. Research shows competitive goals are okay while students are “winning” but they can be de-motivating if students don’t win.

With the ATAR done and dusted (especially the R part!), students might find it helpful to shift their goals a bit.

Cropped picture of someone writing at a desk, with a mug and a notebook. — For school leavers, its time to think deeply about their goals.
Unseen Studio/ Unsplash, CC BY

The importance of PB goals

Personal best or PB goals are about competing with ourselves, rather than competing with others.

PB goals are linked to positive academic and social-emotional outcomes.

This is because the focus on self-competition and self-improvement is energising, even when we don’t succeed at first.

Try learning a new ‘alphabet’

As students set and strive for PB goals now and in the years ahead, the “ABCD” of goal-setting can also be helpful to remember. This means they:

(A) set goals that are achievable. Long-term goals are great, but setting a short-term goal that is achievable in the next week or so is the best way to get to these longer-term goals. It also gives you a feeling of accomplishing something along the way
(B) set goes that are believable. Sometimes students set unrealistic goals they don’t really believe they can reach (for example, “I’m going to study for three hours every day and get perfect scores”). When students set realistic goals, they are more likely to believe they can reach them, and are more motivated to work towards them
(C) set goals that are clear. Being as specific as possible with post-school goals means the action taken to reach the goal is more focused and on-target
(D) set goals that are desirable. Striving for goals that students set and want for themselves is motivating.

Whether students are about to take a gap year, reassess their plans or head straight to university, vocational training or work, this is an important time. And there is lots of scope for young people to think positively about their futures without being defined by the R of that ATAR.

Andrew J Martin has received funding from the Australian Research Council and state departments of education. He is a registered psychologist with the Psychology Board of Australia.

– ref. An educational psychologist explains how to think about your ATAR and set post-school goals – https://theconversation.com/an-educational-psychologist-explains-how-to-think-about-your-atar-and-set-post-school-goals-219711

Schindler’s List at 30: a look back at Steven Spielberg’s shattering masterpiece

By The Conversation -

December 14, 2023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ben McCann, Associate Professor of French Studies, University of Adelaide

Schindler’s List, released 30 years ago, remains Steven Spielberg’s most highly acclaimed and emotionally sapping film. Winning seven Academy Awards, including best picture and best director, it was widely praised for its portrayal of the horrors of the Holocaust.

Schindler’s List marked a turning point in Spielberg’s career. The director later said making the film changed his life.

Up to this point, he was known as a thrilling blockbuster director. With Schindler’s List, Spielberg turned his attention to darker, conflicted characters and shifted his focus to bigger themes of good and evil, heroism in adversity and the human cost of war.

His later work is still exciting and still jolts the senses in ways that very few contemporary filmmakers can, as in the musical showmanship of West Side Story (2021) or the fantastical realism of War Horse (2011). But Schindler’s List outshines them all with its detached focus on the sheer brutality and its steadfast refusal to look away.

Retelling the Holocaust

Schindler’s List tells the true story of Oskar Schindler, the German businessman who saved 1,100 Jews from the Holocaust by employing them in his enamelware and ammunition factories.

Prior to Schindler’s List, accounts of the Holocaust on film had been reserved for documentary, such as Alain Resnais’s Night and Fog (1956) and Claude Lanzmann’s monumental Shoah (1985), which lasts nine hours and was composed of interviews with survivors and perpetrators of the Nazi death camps.

Hollywood had always shied away from dramatising the Holocaust, feeling such a devastating subject could not be depicted dramatically in the name of entertainment.

Recounting historical events in film is fraught with tension. Creative liberties are taken, timelines are condensed, characters combined and fictional elements added to enhance the dramatic quality of the narrative.

Spielberg acquired the rights to Thomas Keneally’s Booker Prize-winning novel in 1983, but was initially reluctant to take on the film. Instead, he offered it to the likes of Billy Wilder and Martin Scorsese.

By the early 1990s, dismayed by what he perceived as a rising tide of anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial, Spielberg understood it was finally time to make the film.

Despite containing a few historical inaccuracies, Schindler’s List was instrumental in creating what historian Peter Novick called a “Holocaust consciousness”.

An anti-Spielberg film

Spielberg wanted to avoid casting stars. He picked the then largely unknown Liam Neeson as the charismatic Schindler and Ralph Fiennes as Amon Göth, the vicious SS commandant.

Much of the film details the personal interactions between the two men as Schindler observes the cruelties visited upon Polish Jews and sacrifices his fortune to save as many of them as he can.

At over three hours long, Schindler’s List remains Spielberg’s longest film.

The director’s trademark flourishes are absent. There are no zooms or dolly shots, no smooth Steadicam tracking shots or soaring soundtrack. Apart from a brief opening and coda, the film remains the only black and white film Spielberg has ever shot.

He and his trusted cinematographer, Janusz Kamiński, wanted the film to resemble archival footage. But the choice of black and white did not just suggest “the past”. It also suited the sober approach to the unfolding of devastating historical events.

Famously, the film’s centrepiece – a shattering 15-minute scene in which the Nazis ferociously liquidate the Kraków ghetto – contains the film’s only use of colour. As Schindler looks on in horror, he spots a young girl in a red raincoat. It marks a radical turning point in Schindler’s moral development.

Spielberg’s use of cross-cutting is meticulous. A mass killing scene is interspersed with footage of an SS officer playing Bach on a piano. In another, Schindler celebrates his birthday while Göth beats his maid and a wedding takes place inside a labour camp.

Spielberg shot on location just outside Auschwitz in the winter of 1992 during the day, and at night worked on the post-production for Jurassic Park, which he had shot in Hawaii six months earlier. Spielberg was working on two epoch-defining films simultaneously, yet they were completely different in tone, visual style and cultural impact.

Critical acclaim … and reproach

The film was widely praised on its release. Roger Ebert called it the best Spielberg had ever made. Bill Clinton implored audiences to see it.

But it was also condemned for being didactic, emotionally manipulative and a crass oversimplification of history. Jean-Luc Godard was particularly caustic, while Stanley Kubrick argued the film’s chief failing was its humanising of Oskar Schindler and Spielberg’s relentless need to create a flawed, but human, hero.

In 1994, with the proceeds from the film, Spielberg established the USC Shoah Foundation, an institute dedicated to collecting interviews with survivors and witnesses of the Holocaust.

He also became a vocal champion for the teaching of history in American schools, with the film used to illustrate the importance of bearing witness to historical atrocities and hatred.

Spielberg after Schindler

Schindler’s List paved the way for Spielberg to engage with other important historical events in Saving Private Ryan (1998), Amistad (1997) and Bridge of Spies (2015).

Spielberg has not entirely turned entirely turned his back on his blockbuster entertainment roots. War of the Worlds (2005), The Adventure of Tintin (2011) and Ready Player One (2018) all remind us of “early Spielberg”, but Schindler’s List was the film that finally convinced Hollywood to take Spielberg seriously.

Its message of courage in the face of tyranny seems just as relevant today as it was 30 years ago.

And it would have another role to play for Spielberg. When he returned to college in 2002 to completed a bachelor of arts he had started – but never finished – in 1969, he submitted Schindler’s List for course credit.

Ben McCann 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. Schindler’s List at 30: a look back at Steven Spielberg’s shattering masterpiece – https://theconversation.com/schindlers-list-at-30-a-look-back-at-steven-spielbergs-shattering-masterpiece-203234