Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Cameron Webb, Clinical Associate Professor and Principal Hospital Scientist, University of Sydney

The extreme weather and flooding in recent days is likely to boost mosquito numbers, even as we say goodbye to summer.

Like all insects, mosquitoes thrive in warm conditions. Water is also critical for the mosquito’s life cycle, as they lay eggs in and around water. More water generally means more mosquitoes.

Disease caused by mosquito-borne viruses can be potentially severe. These include:

• Ross River virus, which causes fever, chills, headache, muscle and joint pain and fatigue. It’s not fatal but it can be debilitating, and is the most commonly reported mosquito-borne disease in Australia

• Barmah Forest virus is also common and causes fever, rash and sore joints

• flaviviruses, including West Nile (Kunjin), Murray Valley encephalitis and Japanese encephalitis virus are extremely rare but can cause severe brain infection and death, in a small proportion of cases.

Health authorities will be closely monitoring flood-affected regions for these diseases.

While mosquito populations peak in summer, even without floods, these diseases generally peak in March and April. That’s because it takes time for the viruses to spread by mosquitoes among the local wildlife, such as water birds and native mammals, before spilling over into humans.

It’s too early to say what impact the floods will have on disease case numbers but it’s best to be prepared.

Read more:
La Niña will give us a wet summer. That’s great weather for mozzies

What happened after previous floods?

Major floods have triggered historically significant outbreaks of mosquito-borne disease in Australia.

Most notable was the outbreak of Murray Valley encephalitis virus in the 1970s. While authorities have been mindful of disease risk associated with flooding ever since, we’ve been spared a significant return of this virus.

Not so for Ross River virus.

In 2014-15, above average rainfall is thought to have provided habitat for freshwater mosquito populations that contributed to the major outbreak of Ross River virus in northern NSW and southeastern Queensland.

Flooding across Victoria over the 2016-2017 summer produced exceptional increases in mosquitoes. This resulted in the state’s largest outbreak of Ross River virus, with almost five times as many cases as the long-term average.

Following the exceptional rainfall that broke the East coast bushfire-swept summer of 2019-2020, NSW experienced its biggest outbreak of Ross River virus on record.

But more mosquitoes don’t always mean more disease.

Sometimes after floods, there is just too much water. It washes away any mosquito already present in the wetlands and displaces the animal hosts of viruses.

It may take some time for mosquitoes to move back in and build up their populations in the stagnant water left behind by the floods.

Read more:
Drinking water can be a dangerous cocktail for people in flood areas

What are health authorities on the look-out for?

Extreme weather events, such as the record-breaking floods we’re currently seeing, may cause more frequent and intense outbreaks of Ross River virus.

But it’s the potential to see the resurgence of more serious local mosquito-borne diseases – such as those caused by Murray Valley encephalitis virus – which has authorities most concerned because it causes more severe disease.

Read more:
Is climate change to blame for outbreaks of mosquito-borne disease?

The recent detection of Japanese encephalitis virus for the first time in southeastern Australia has shocked many, even those who have studied mosquito-borne diseases for decades. The discovery has health authorities on alert given the seriousness of the disease this virus causes.

While La Niña has played a role in new disease emergence, that may also quickly change. If a return to El Niño-dominated weather patterns brings back drought, that would see those wildlife and mosquito populations disappear.

‘Mozzie proof’ your property and family as floodwaters recede

Massive clean-ups will be required in coming weeks. That means long hours outside and much work done to make homes safe and secure again.

There isn’t much you can do to stop mozzies flying into your backyard from nearby flooded bushland and wetland areas.

Insecticide spraying may provide some relief but it is a short-term fix. As many commonly used products are not specific to mosquitoes, beneficial insects may also be killed if not used with caution.

Repairing, replacing, or installing insect screens on windows and doors can provide a physical barrier to mosquitoes seeking to fly inside your home.

Mosquito nets can also be a quickly deployed protection measure.

In your backyard, clean up as much debris as is safe to do so. Water-holding containers will quickly become a home to mosquitoes.

Gutters, drains and rainwater tanks can also be home to mosquitoes, so clean out and screen where possible.

Mosquito repellent may be your best friend over coming weeks. There is a range of formulations available from your supermarket, pharmacy or camping store. Choose a product that contains diethyltolumide, picaridin, or oil of lemon eucalyptus as these products will provide the best protection.

To get the most out of your repellent, ensure you have an even coat on all exposed areas of skin.

There are some alternatives to topical insect repellents, such as mosquito coils and other devices, but they can be limited in the protection provided.

Insecticide-treated clothing may also assist in beating the bites.

Read more:
Insect repellents work – but there are other ways to beat mosquitoes without getting sticky

Cameron Webb and the Department of Medical Entomology, NSW Health Pathology, have been engaged by a wide range of insect repellent and insecticide manufacturers to provide testing of products and provide expert advice on mosquito biology. Cameron has also received funding from local, state and federal agencies to undertake research into mosquito-borne disease surveillance and management.

– ref. How to mozzie-proof your property after a flood and cut your risk of mosquito-borne disease – https://theconversation.com/how-to-mozzie-proof-your-property-after-a-flood-and-cut-your-risk-of-mosquito-borne-disease-178299

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Margaret Cook, Lecturer in History, University of the Sunshine Coast

As the floodwaters rose in Southeast Queensland last week, my phone buzzed with texts from friends. We compared this event with the last catastrophic flood of 2011 and tried to calculate whether our homes would be affected this time. I live in Ipswich, not far from the now-flooded Bremer River.

I’m also an expert in the history of natural disasters, including flooding in Brisbane. I watched with interest as social media struggled to keep up with continuous updates on flood levels and photos of rapidly rising water. News reports also made constant references to the 2011 Brisbane floods.

This time, the floodwaters stopped at 3.85 metres at the Brisbane gauge in the central business district – less than the 4.46m peak in 2011. Many homes flooded this year that didn’t flood in 2011 – notably in the northern suburbs of Ashgrove, Windsor and The Gap. Meanwhile, homes in the western suburb of Bellbowrie flooded in 2011 but escaped this time. But why?

As hydrologists will tell you, no two floods are the same. The water may follow familiar paths, but natural and human factors alter flood behaviour each time.

How the rain falls

Rainfall intensity is a key factor in determining the extent of “runoff” – water that flows over the ground rather than soaking in. Heavy rain falling in one hour has a much greater runoff ratio than if the same amount falls over a week.

For example, in January 1974, 872mm of rain fell in Brisbane – including 314mm on one day, January 26. A flood reached 5.45m at the Brisbane gauge.

Last month’s rain was similarly unrelenting, when 611.6mm fell between February 25 and 27. For perspective, Brisbane’s annual rainfall is 1,149mm. That intensity and volume of rain in one weekend meant flooding was inevitable but very hard to predict.

Where the rain falls also matters. In 2011, heavy rain fell upstream of Wivenhoe Dam. But in 2022 vast quantities fell downstream of the dam, including on the Bremer River and Lockyer Creek, where there are few flood-mitigation structures to manage the extra water.

The adequacy of stormwater infrastructure, such as gutters, drains and pipes that carry water away, also influences the extent of flooding.

Across Southeast Queensland, many local stormwater systems could not cope with the heavy rain, causing overland flow that flooded houses. The problem was particularly acute in some suburbs that received about a metre of rain over three days.

Read more:
‘One of the most extreme disasters in colonial Australian history’: climate scientists on the floods and our future risk

What’s happening in the river catchment?

People have compared this year’s Brisbane floods with 2011, but they are in fact more similar to the 1974 floods.

The Brisbane River catchment is a complex network. It comprises three rivers – the Stanley, Brisbane and Bremer – and many creeks, the largest of which is Lockyer Creek. Heavy rain can cause any, or all, of these rivers and creeks to flood.

In 2011, rivers were the biggest cause of the floods. But this year, while Ipswich and Brisbane experienced river flooding, suburban creeks caused the most extreme flooding, just as they did in 1974. This was because rain fell heavily throughout the entire catchment, filling even the smallest watercourses.

For example, Ithaca Creek last month flooded the suburb of Ashgrove for the first time since 1974. Kedron Brook flooded Windsor and The Grange, which were left dry in 2011.

And rain filled the Enoggera Reservoir to more than double its capacity, overfilling the Fish and Ithaca creeks and flooding the suburb of The Gap.

Read more:
After the floods comes the disaster of underinsurance: we need a better plan

Humans affect floods, too

Humans can significantly influence the extent of floods. Every time a tree is felled, wetland drained or land developed, the local flood risk is potentially heightened.

Housing estates are built densely – small subdivisions occupied by large houses. And homes are constructed on slabs, rather than elevated to allow water to pass underneath.

Soil and vegetation can absorb water and slow the rate of flooding. But impermeable surfaces such as roads, footpaths and carparks increase surface runoff.

Bridges, ferry terminals and pontoons intrude on waterways, made worse by debris that becomes entangled. Buildings, railway embankments and roads can block waterways, effectively creating dams.

Read more:
IPCC report: Coastal cities are sentinels for climate change. It’s where our focus should be as we prepare for inevitable impacts

Learning from history

History can help us measure the likelihood of flooding and prompt us to prepare, but it’s not that simple. Past experience can also confuse and reduce the perception of risk.

Increasing public awareness is important in mitigating flood risks, as is individual responsibility. But planning authorities must also make hard decisions.

Developers have been allowed to increase the urban footprint and density throughout southeast Queensland. This has created more hard, impermeable surfaces and replaced absorbent green spaces, increasing the likelihood of flooding.

This comes as climate change is predicted to increase the frequency and intensity of floods, and make flood predictions more difficult.

We can’t directly control the rain, but we can change how we respond to future flood hazards.

Margaret Cook is the author of A River with a City Problem: A History of Brisbane Floods.

Margaret Cook 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. Why water inundates a home during one flood but spares it the next – https://theconversation.com/why-water-inundates-a-home-during-one-flood-but-spares-it-the-next-178163

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Margaret Cook, Lecturer in History, University of the Sunshine Coast

As the floodwaters rose in Southeast Queensland last week, my phone buzzed with texts from friends. We compared this event with the last catastrophic flood of 2011 and tried to calculate whether our homes would be affected this time. I live in Ipswich, not far from the now-flooded Bremer River.

I’m also an expert in the history of natural disasters, including flooding in Brisbane. I watched with interest as social media struggled to keep up with continuous updates on flood levels and photos of rapidly rising water. News reports also made constant references to the 2011 Brisbane floods.

This time, the floodwaters stopped at 3.85 metres at the Brisbane gauge in the central business district – less than the 4.46m peak in 2011. Many homes flooded this year that didn’t flood in 2011 – notably in the northern suburbs of Ashgrove, Windsor and The Gap. Meanwhile, homes in the western suburb of Bellbowrie flooded in 2011 but escaped this time. But why?

As hydrologists will tell you, no two floods are the same. The water may follow familiar paths, but natural and human factors alter flood behaviour each time.

How the rain falls

Rainfall intensity is a key factor in determining the extent of “runoff” – water that flows over the ground rather than soaking in. Heavy rain falling in one hour has a much greater runoff ratio than if the same amount falls over a week.

For example, in January 1974, 872mm of rain fell in Brisbane – including 314mm on one day, January 26. A flood reached 5.45m at the Brisbane gauge.

Last month’s rain was similarly unrelenting, when 611.6mm fell between February 25 and 27. For perspective, Brisbane’s annual rainfall is 1,149mm. That intensity and volume of rain in one weekend meant flooding was inevitable but very hard to predict.

Where the rain falls also matters. In 2011, heavy rain fell upstream of Wivenhoe Dam. But in 2022 vast quantities fell downstream of the dam, including on the Bremer River and Lockyer Creek, where there are few flood-mitigation structures to manage the extra water.

The adequacy of stormwater infrastructure, such as gutters, drains and pipes that carry water away, also influences the extent of flooding.

Across Southeast Queensland, many local stormwater systems could not cope with the heavy rain, causing overland flow that flooded houses. The problem was particularly acute in some suburbs that received about a metre of rain over three days.

Read more:
‘One of the most extreme disasters in colonial Australian history’: climate scientists on the floods and our future risk

What’s happening in the river catchment?

People have compared this year’s Brisbane floods with 2011, but they are in fact more similar to the 1974 floods.

The Brisbane River catchment is a complex network. It comprises three rivers – the Stanley, Brisbane and Bremer – and many creeks, the largest of which is Lockyer Creek. Heavy rain can cause any, or all, of these rivers and creeks to flood.

In 2011, rivers were the biggest cause of the floods. But this year, while Ipswich and Brisbane experienced river flooding, suburban creeks caused the most extreme flooding, just as they did in 1974. This was because rain fell heavily throughout the entire catchment, filling even the smallest watercourses.

For example, Ithaca Creek last month flooded the suburb of Ashgrove for the first time since 1974. Kedron Brook flooded Windsor and The Grange, which were left dry in 2011.

And rain filled the Enoggera Reservoir to more than double its capacity, overfilling the Fish and Ithaca creeks and flooding the suburb of The Gap.

Read more:
After the floods comes the disaster of underinsurance: we need a better plan

Humans affect floods, too

Humans can significantly influence the extent of floods. Every time a tree is felled, wetland drained or land developed, the local flood risk is potentially heightened.

Housing estates are built densely – small subdivisions occupied by large houses. And homes are constructed on slabs, rather than elevated to allow water to pass underneath.

Soil and vegetation can absorb water and slow the rate of flooding. But impermeable surfaces such as roads, footpaths and carparks increase surface runoff.

Bridges, ferry terminals and pontoons intrude on waterways, made worse by debris that becomes entangled. Buildings, railway embankments and roads can block waterways, effectively creating dams.

Read more:
IPCC report: Coastal cities are sentinels for climate change. It’s where our focus should be as we prepare for inevitable impacts

Learning from history

History can help us measure the likelihood of flooding and prompt us to prepare, but it’s not that simple. Past experience can also confuse and reduce the perception of risk.

Increasing public awareness is important in mitigating flood risks, as is individual responsibility. But planning authorities must also make hard decisions.

Developers have been allowed to increase the urban footprint and density throughout southeast Queensland. This has created more hard, impermeable surfaces and replaced absorbent green spaces, increasing the likelihood of flooding.

This comes as climate change is predicted to increase the frequency and intensity of floods, and make flood predictions more difficult.

We can’t directly control the rain, but we can change how we respond to future flood hazards.

Margaret Cook is the author of A River with a City Problem: A History of Brisbane Floods.

Margaret Cook 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. Why water submerges a home during one flood but spares it the next – https://theconversation.com/why-water-submerges-a-home-during-one-flood-but-spares-it-the-next-178163

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Layton, Visiting Fellow Griffith Asia Institute, Griffith University

There’s a problem with Australia’s brand new fighter jet – it’s just not that reliable. As a result, it flies about 25% less than it should. Less flying means fewer well-trained pilots, but it also hints at other problems lurking in the background.

Everybody who buys a house or apartment off the plan knows there may be some surprises along the way. Australia’s fighter jets are the same.

Why Australia bought these jets

Australia committed to its new F-35 fighters off the plan in 2002. At the time, the F-35 was still a twinkle in the eyes of Lockheed Martin’s marketers. The US and several European countries had commissioned the aerospace company to design, build and manufacture the F-35, with the first step being a prototype.

Australia’s plan was to buy four squadrons – about 72 jets in total – at a cost of around A$16 billion. The F-35 was intended to replace the air force’s ageing Hornet fighters and F-111 bombers. And back in 2002, when Middle East wars were raging, a short-range stealth fighter seemed more than adequate.

But by 2010, with China firmly on the rise, it became apparent this was a poor strategy. In retrospect, a key error was looking at the F-35 simply as a replacement aircraft without first assessing the changing strategic environment. But by then, too much money had been sunk into the F-35 program to change course.

Then, the F-35 development ran late, and the first tranches of Australia’s fleet weren’t ready to be deployed on operations until December 2020.

Escalating problems

Building the aircraft proved harder than anticipated and this inexorably fed into higher costs.

Much of the money that should have been spent on building the maintenance support system went into trying to fix the aircraft’s continuing hardware and software problems. Accordingly, there are now fewer depots to fix broken parts and fewer spare parts than there should be.

Little of this is in Australia’s control. America’s global support solution (GSS) is used to keeping Australia’s F-35 fleet flying. The GSS manages spare parts, maintenance, supply chain support, training systems and engineering. But the program is new, creating problems both now and into the next decade.

Read more:
What do we need of a military fighter aircraft?

There was a second compounding problem arising from the drawn-out development process: the F-35 jets were constructed at different times over the past ten years in seven different configurations. Think about the maintenance staff having to repair individual aircraft in a large fleet with no single standard configuration. Every repair is an adventure – and a learning experience.

The configuration complexity, insufficient spare parts and slow spare part repair times mean there are fewer serviceable aircraft on the flight line now than was expected even a couple of years ago.

In 2019, the Department of Defence estimated the F-35 fleet would fly 11,800 hours in the fiscal year 2021-22. The real figure, however, is 3,000 hours below that.

In simple terms, Australia is short the flying hours needed to keep a squadron’s worth of pilots combat ready. This is very worrying, as Australia only has three operational F-35 squadrons in total.

Continuous upgrades at tremendous cost

A perfect solution to this is probably not possible. For example, the two F-35 aircraft Australia bought in 2013 for more than A$280 million are now arguably too old to be upgraded to the current configuration. In terms of flying combat missions, these two aircraft are obsolete.

The US Air Force frets its similarly old F-35s are now just crushingly expensive training aircraft.

Most of Australia’s fleet is planned to be upgraded to be broadly similar to the US fleet, although this will cost even more money. It may seem strange to have to pay extra to upgrade a brand new aircraft on delivery, but that’s not the end of the problems. There is another complication.

Australia’s latest F-35s (as well as the upgraded older ones) use the Block 3F software, a digital operating system designed by Lockheed Martin. It is proving to be just as costly to keep updated as the jets themselves.

Lt. Gen. S. Clinton Hinote, the US Air Force’s deputy chief of staff, has serious concerns about the outdated software, saying last year,

the block that is coming off the line right now is not a block that I feel good about going up against China and Russia.

He noted recent war games focused on the prospect of defending Taiwan from Chinese air attack showed

Every [F-35] that rolls off the line today is a fighter that we wouldn’t even bother putting into these scenarios.

This means Australia’s F-35s appear not to be as good as the potential opposition. It seems Australia is paying to lose the air combat battle.

The only solution: another upgrade

So, what is the solution to these seemingly intractable and eye-wateringly expensive problems?

Lockheed Martin is advocating a major operating system software upgrade: the Block 4. It might not be surprising to hear this is now running years late, with delivery expected in 2027 or later. It is also significantly over budget.

In a small piece of good news, the last nine F-35 aircraft Australia will get off the production line next year, and may be partly Block 4 compatible. Hinote thinks these F-35s might be capable of fighting against first-rate adversaries.

Read more:
With China-US tensions on the rise, does Australia need a new defence strategy?

The bad news is the full Block 4 upgrade now requires a major engine upgrade or even a new engine. So, this means Australia’s current F-35 fleet might not be able to use all the Block 4 software until after 2030 – and at a substantial cost.

Buying another hugely expensive upgrade for a brand new fighter is actually the cheap way out. The US Air Force’s focus is already shifting to the Block 4 upgraded aircraft. Countries like ours with older F-35s will be left to fend for ourselves if we don’t embrace the new technology, as well.

But the costs do keeping going up, and the problems with these F-35 jets haven’t seemed to stop. It’s the price of buying off the plan, which anyone who’s bought a house or apartment would surely know.

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

– ref. Australia spent billions on jet fighters off the plan. Now, we’re having trouble even flying them – https://theconversation.com/australia-spent-billions-on-jet-fighters-off-the-plan-now-were-having-trouble-even-flying-them-177156

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Steven Hamilton, Visiting Fellow, Tax and Transfer Policy Institute, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University

It was only on Sunday that I wrote about the radical escalation in the economic and financial side of the war between Russia and Ukraine.

That was before the financial markets opened on Monday, and before Russia had a chance to respond.

But even by then – early Sunday morning Moscow time – enormous lines had begun to form at Russian automatic teller machines with many running dry, and reports had begun to emerge of Russians swarming luxury retailers to swap their rubles for anything that might retain its value.

These were the beginnings of what is sure to be the most significant financial crisis in Russia since the 1998 Russian financial crisis which brought it to its knees.

So damaged was the Russian economy following that event that the Russian government would eventually ask the International Monetary Fund for food aid.

1998 on steroids

The 1998 crisis triggered massive capital flight, a sharp devaluation of the ruble, default on public debt, hyperinflation, and a huge increase in interest rates.

It was devastating, and left Russia’s global financial reputation in tatters.

The parallels in the last few days have been striking. When foreign markets opened on Monday, the ruble immediately fell more than 30% to record lows after foreigners began desperately selling out of Russia.

Read more:
‘Just short of nuclear’: these latest financial sanctions will cripple the Russian economy

Perhaps the most devastating measure is the freezing of at least half of the Bank of Russia’s foreign exchange reserves held by the central banks of cooperating nations. This is the war chest Russia built up with great discipline over many years precisely to guard against sanctions.

Central banks are typically treated as off-limits for sanctions – sacrosanct, if you will. Russia presumably thought so.

Freezing reserves no longer off-limits

But just as Russia seems to have underestimated the will of the Ukrainians to fight militarily, it also seems to have underestimated the will of the West to fight financially.

Without the ability to use those foreign reserves to support the ruble, Russia was forced to revert to a range of desperate measures.

The Moscow stock exchange was kept closed on Monday and is yet to reopen. After all, you can’t have a market crash if the market never opens.

Russia more than doubled its key central bank interest rate, lifting it from 9.5% to 20%.

This might seem curious amid an economic crisis.

But when your currency is in freefall because people are dumping it, you need to provide a very big financial incentive for people to hold onto it, including by paying higher interest rates on the remaining rubles in savings accounts.

Economy tanking, yet higher rates

The higher rates immediately flowed through to higher mortgage rates for ordinary Russians – the last thing an economy on the brink needs – as well as to loans funding business investment.

This is the diabolical conundrum Russia faces as it’s hit with a financial crisis with at least one hand tied behind its back by the West.

Russia also banned Russians from buying Russian assets from foreigners, to stop foreigners bailing out of Russia. It required every Russian firm to convert 80% of its foreign earnings into rubles – essentially confiscating foreign dollars to use in lieu of its own frozen foreign reserves.

Read more:
How disrupted Russian gas supplies will hit global and Australian prices

And, most recently and most worryingly, it has halted interest payments on three trillion rubles (US$27 billion) in Russian government debt held by foreigners.

Another way to put that is the Russian government is now in default.

That makes one thing certain: there is no going back for Russia now. The damage will be permanent.

Ultimately, each of Russia’s moves is intended to rebuild foreign currency holdings inside Russia. Even with the sanctions, Russia receives billions each day in foreign earnings on the exports still permitted including oil, gas and wheat.

Russia’s goal is to hoard that cash and rebuild its war chest, giving it more room to manoeuvre. Given that US$300 billion of reserves are frozen, this will take time.

How long before collapse?

While the West has made efforts to exempt energy from the sanctions, the interconnectedness of global financial markets and jittery participants fearful of inadvertently falling foul of sanctions have already seen energy deals disrupted.

Contracts for future Russian oil supply are failing to sell, even at sharp discounts.

This raises the key question Western leaders are asking right now: how long can the Russian economy – and thereby its people, and its leadership – survive?

It’s a confounding irony that just as the Russian army encircles Ukrainian cities in a bid to besiege them, Western governments have encircled the Russian economy in a bid to besiege it.

More draconian measures likely

Despite everything Russia has thrown fighting the sanctions so far, the ruble remains 26% below its level last week and 32% below its level a month ago.

It seems likely that to properly stabilise its financial system it will need more draconian measures – such as bans on bank withdrawals and rationing. They will do even more damage to the economy than 20% interest rates and sanctions.

Is this degree of economic damage enough to get Russia to change course in Ukraine? Can the Ukrainians hold on long enough that the economic costs to Russia become unsustainable?

Read more:
US-EU sanctions will pummel the Russian economy – two experts explain why they are likely to stick and sting

If necessary, will the West be willing to double down, and really put some skin in the game by limiting their purchases of Russian oil and gas?

That could well be the nail in Russia’s coffin – but also highly damaging to the European and global economy. Only time will tell.

Steven Hamilton 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. Russian sanctions are biting harder than it could have imagined, and it’ll get worse – https://theconversation.com/russian-sanctions-are-biting-harder-than-it-could-have-imagined-and-itll-get-worse-178322

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hassan Vally, Associate Professor, Epidemiology, Deakin University

Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s COVID diagnosis has barely registered a blip in the media.

Although admittedly there is a lot in the news – with war in Ukraine and major floods on Australia’s eastern seaboard – the lack of newsworthiness of Morrison’s diagnosis says so much about where we are in the pandemic right now.

It highlights a significant shift in both the reality and the perception of what being infected with COVID means in Australia, for the vast majority of us.

Let’s do a time-travel thought experiment.

If we go back in time

To highlight just how far we have come, let’s imagine how this diagnosis would had landed if Morrison had contracted COVID towards the start of the pandemic, in March 2020, rather than March 2022.

Regardless of your political stripes, a March 2020 diagnosis would have provoked genuine concern for his health. We knew so little about COVID with certainty back then, and what we did know was truly frightening.

The most obvious change since 2020 is the availability of safe and effective vaccines. These have completely transformed the risk the virus poses for individuals and the community.

Read more:
How well do COVID vaccines work in the real world?

Vaccination, by priming the immune system, takes away one of the virus’ greatest weapons – the ability to catch the immune system by surprise.

Vaccination allows us to be pre-exposed to viral antigens (its spike protein), allowing the immune system to respond quicker and more effectively when exposed to the virus itself. This reduces the likelihood of symptomatic illness, and perhaps more importantly, severe disease.

More recently, we have also started to see more effective COVID treatments. These are also making a huge difference in preventing COVID deteriorating and causing severe illness.

Read more:
Pfizer’s pill is the latest COVID treatment to show promise. Here are some more

Let’s contrast the circumstances facing Morrison today with the challenges UK’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson and former US President Donald Trump faced when they caught COVID earlier in the pandemic.

This really rams home how much difference advances over the past year or so have made.

Johnson spent time in ICU

In March and April 2020, Johnson’s trajectory followed what we have now seen many times over. What started off as relatively mild symptoms took a drastic turn a week later and he was admitted to intensive care. He spent three days in a critical condition before being moved to a general ward, then released to recover at home.

Remember, at the time, there were no vaccines and very limited treatments.

Despite these barriers, Johnson made a full recovery. But we need to remember that even now, not all patients admitted to ICU survive or come out of the experience unscathed. Johnson was incredibly lucky.

Read more:
We’re two frontline COVID doctors. Here’s what we see as case numbers rise

Trump used experimental therapies

Trump, who had previously played down the threat of COVID, contracted it in October 2020.

Although the full story is still a mystery, he also became very ill, perhaps more so than was officially acknowledged. Being overweight and 74 at the time were legitimate reasons to fear the worst.

Once again, context is important. Trump’s diagnosis was also before vaccines were available.

However, as United States president, he had access to experimental treatments not available to other Americans.

Specifically, Trump was only one of only a handful of people at the time to be given Regeneron, an experimental antibody cocktail, which many believe played an instrumental role in his recovery.

Like Johnson, Trump, after a troubling time, appeared to make a full recovery.

One can only speculate what his fate would have been if he were just an average 74 year-old overweight American and not the president of the United States. Like Johnson, Trump was lucky.

What does this tell us about Morrison’s chances?

If we look at the circumstances Morrison faces, there really is no comparison. Vaccines, along with the other advances we have made, means he is most likely to have mild symptoms while he isolates, will continue working, and make a full recovery.

Of course, this is not to underplay the very real risk any of us have of developing more severe illness, such as if we have a weakened immune system or an underlying health condition.

Read more:
What does it mean to be immunocompromised? And why does this increase your risk of coronavirus?

But the likelihood of serious illness if fully vaccinated, even if we are at greater risk of severe COVID, is much lower thanks to vaccines.

If someone at high risk of severe COVID was infected, we also now have medicines to reduce the risk of developing severe illness.

Read more:
Australia approves two new medicines in the fight against COVID. How can you get them and are they effective against Omicron?

As we wish Morrison a speedy recovery, the lack of noteworthiness of his diagnosis is something we should celebrate as the most remarkable aspect of this situation.

COVID is not to be underestimated and recent history says there will be challenges to come. This includes ensuring vaccines are distributed globally to everyone who needs them.

But the huge advances we have made in the past two years mean the threat COVID causes in March 2022 is very different to the threat it posed in March 2020.

Read more:
Australia is failing marginalised people, and it shows in COVID death rates

Hassan Vally 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. Scott Morrison has COVID. It’s a big deal but not how you think – https://theconversation.com/scott-morrison-has-covid-its-a-big-deal-but-not-how-you-think-178298

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Marianne Hanson, Associate Professor of International Relations, The University of Queensland

Russian forces in Ukraine may have used thermobaric weapons and cluster bombs, according to reports from the Ukraine government and human rights groups.

If true, this represents an escalation in brutality that should alarm us all.

While cluster munitions are banned by international convention, thermobaric munitions – also known as fuel-air explosive devices, or “vacuum bombs” – are not explicitly prohibited for use against military targets.

These devastating devices, which create an oxygen-eating fireball followed by a deadly shockwave, are far more powerful than most other conventional weapons.

What are thermobaric weapons?

Thermobaric weapons are generally deployed as rockets or bombs, and they work by releasing fuel and explosive charges. Different fuels can be used, including toxic powdered metals and organic matter containing oxidant.

The explosive charge disperses a large cloud of fuel which then ignites in contact with the oxygen in the surrounding air. This creates a high-temperature fireball and a massive shockwave that literally sucks the air out of any living being in the vicinity.

Thermobaric bombs are devastating and effective in urban areas or open conditions, and can penetrate bunkers and other underground locations, starving the occupants of oxygen. There is very little that can protect humans and other life forms from their blast and incendiary effects.

A 1990 CIA report, cited by Human Rights Watch, noted the effects of a thermobaric explosion in a confined space:

Those near the ignition point are obliterated. Those at the fringe are likely to suffer many internal, thus invisible injuries, including burst eardrums and crushed inner ear organs, severe concussions, ruptured lungs and internal organs, and possibly blindness.

A history of horror

Crude versions of thermobaric weapons were developed by Germany during World War Two. Western states, as well as the Soviet Union and latterly Russia, have used them since the 1960s.

The Soviet Union is believed to have used a thermobaric weapon against China during the Sino-Soviet conflict of 1969, and in Afghanistan as part of its takeover of that country in 1979. Moscow also used them in Chechnya, and has reportedly provided them to separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine.

The United States has used these weapons in Vietnam and in the mountains of Afghanistan.

Why some weapons are banned, even in war

Although thermobaric weapons are not yet unequivocally banned, there are several points that argue against their development and use.

International humanitarian law stipulates what is and is not permissible during warfare. There has long been an understanding that even wars have their limits: while some weapons are considered legal, others are not, precisely because they violate key principles of humanitarian law.

A new report from Human Rights Watch makes it clear the Russian invasion of Ukraine is illegal. It draws on the Geneva Conventions to define the illegitimacy of Moscow’s actions, including its use or potential use of particular weapons.

Read more:
International law says Putin’s war against Ukraine is illegal. Does that matter?

The use of weapons in indiscriminate attacks – those that cannot distinguish between combatants and civilians – is forbidden by the Geneva Conventions.

A thermobaric weapon might be targeted specifically at military installations and personnel, but its effects cannot be contained to one area. In all likelihood, many civilians would be killed if such bombs were used in any city.

Using explosive weapons in populated areas would result in indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks. Aerial bombs, even if aimed at military objectives, pose a grave threat to civilians because of their wide blast radius.

Unnecessary suffering

Efforts to ban these weapons have not yet produced a clear prohibition. The 1980 Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (commonly called the “Inhumane Weapons Convention”) addresses incendiary weapons, but states have managed to avoid an explicit ban on thermobaric bombs.

In addition to the impacts on civilians, thermobaric bombs would cause superfluous injury and unnecessary suffering. Under international humanitarian law, they should not be used.

There is a point at which – even if a war is deemed legitimate or “just” – violence must not involve weapons that are excessively cruel or inhumane.

If a weapon is likely to prolong the agony of soldiers (or civilians) or result in superfluous and unacceptable injuries, theoretically its use is not permitted. Thermobaric weapons clearly seem to meet this definition.

Cluster bombs and nuclear weapons

It is not only thermobaric weapons that cause us concern in the current war.

Ukraine’s government and human rights groups say Russia has also used cluster munitions. These are bombs or rockets that release a cluster of smaller “bomblets” over a wide area.

Cluster munitions were banned under an international convention in 2008. Russia has not signed (nor has the US, China or India), but until now it has largely respected the convention’s provisions.

Perhaps of greatest concern, however, is Moscow’s nuclear weapons arsenal. President Vladimir Putin has hinted strongly that he would potentially be willing to use them, putting Russian nuclear forces on high alert and warning that countries which interfere in the invasion will face “consequences you have never seen”.

Read more:
As Putin puts nuclear forces on high alert, here are 5 genuine nuclear dangers for us all

Russia has around 6,000 nuclear weapons and an escalation of conflict could result in their use – either deliberately or inadvertently during the fog of war.

Putin is not the only one to have made threats like this. The US holds around 5,500 nuclear weapons of its own, and its nuclear policy promises nuclear devastation to opponents.

Even the British and French resort to nuclear pressure, and former US president Donald Trump, when threatening North Korea, used similar language. But Putin’s statement goes beyond even these threats.

Read more:
The nuclear weapons ban treaty is groundbreaking, even if the nuclear powers haven’t signed

It is these very real dangers that led 122 states at the United Nations to vote in favour of developing the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in 2017.

The war in Ukraine is the latest reminder that we must act to eliminate thermobaric, cluster, and nuclear weapons, under strict international control. The stakes are simply too high to allow these dangers to remain.

Marianne Hanson has previously received funding from the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the University of Queensland to conduct research on weapons and international law. In a voluntary capacity, she is currently Co-Chair of ICAN Australia (the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons).

– ref. What are thermobaric weapons? And why should they be banned? – https://theconversation.com/what-are-thermobaric-weapons-and-why-should-they-be-banned-178289

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rachel Wilson, Associate Professor in Education, University of Sydney

You may think “not another article on school funding”. But this important story has to be told and the book, Waiting For Gonski: how Australia failed its schools, should be read by every parent, economist and Australian committed to “the fair go”.

The title is apt and who would have thought a book on school funding would be a riveting read? Authors Tom Greenwell and Chris Bonnor have all the angles covered.

What went wrong?

The much-lauded Gonski reforms, recommended ten years ago, have not been effectively enacted. The book provides a clear account of how it all went wrong in “the Gonski we got” and “postmortem” analysis chapters.

Rather than levelling the playing field, it is clear the system has become more unfair. More funding has gone to less needy schools. Government funding to non-government schools grew at five times the rate of funding for government schools over the past decade.

The review introduced the concept of the Schooling Resource Standard (SRS). The review panel said this was the funding “needed as the starting point for […] transparent, fair, financially sustainable and educationally effective” resourcing. The SRS uses a base funding amount each student, plus “loadings” for particular school and student needs.

The majority of government schools are yet to be fully funded to the SRS. At the same time, many non-government schools are overfunded, well beyond the standard (and fees sit on top of this government funding).

Shortfalls and excesses in SRS funding by state and territory, 2018-2023

A 2019 federal government review of needs-based funding makes it clear government schools’ needs are not being met and the system lacks transparency. New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria and Tasmania committed to reach 75% of SRS funding for government schools beyond 2023. NSW and Tasmania will reach 75% in 2027, Victoria in 2028 and Queensland in 2032.

A quote from the then Grattan Institute school program director, Peter Goss, is instructive:

“The federal government has locked in a model where every private school will get fully funded by 2023, whereas very few government schools will ever get fully funded. By 2030 we’re going to be having this same argument and it’s all predictable from now.”

Unlevel playing field has a long history

While many schools are still waiting to receive the Gonski needs-based funding, Greenwell and Bonnor make it clear there was also a sense of waiting in the lead-up to the review and 2011 report.

Pre-Gonski history provides important insights, including coverage of mistakes in the original establishment of Australia’s inclusive public education system. The system wasn’t really inclusive and created the first unlevel playing field, with well-resourced free education for most, alongside struggling Catholic schools. This changed after the 1960s, when the private sector successfully lobbied for funding. But, as the authors point out, “one unlevel playing field replaced another”.

The 1973 Karmel report followed, but was criticised because, as Simon Marginson wrote in 1984:

“[The report] did not develop an understanding of the dynamics of the dual system of schooling that operates in Australia […] [and] failed to go to the roots of inequalities in schooling”.

Gonski also failed on this score

Bonnor and Greenwell point out this criticism also applies to the Gonski review. Rather than tackle the complexities of the public-private system, Gonski left untouched the issues of school fees and very different school sector obligations, operations and accountabilities. Inequities in school operations, including enrolment policies, were not addressed.

While recommending adequate funding for schools where students had greater needs, the review did not question or seek to resolve why these students concentrated within disadvantaged schools, most of them government schools. The segregation of schools has since increased. Both the OECD and UNICEF have identified this as a key weakness in Australian schooling.

Greenwell and Bonnor point to the significance of the review’s focus on the impact of peers on student achievement, in a structure where fees sort and segregate students into different schools on the basis of socio-educational advantage. Bonnor says:

“The review panel couldn’t, or chose not to, join the dots between this phenomenon and Australia’s increasingly mediocre levels of student achievement.”

Gonski review panel member Ken Boston now agrees and attributes much of our educational woes to weaknesses in the report and failures of implementation. Noting the model was to be needs-based and sector-blind, he says: “Quite the opposite has occurred”.

Waiting for Gonski is a riveting, but depressing, account of how that happened. Drawing on interviews with key figures, the authors describe the manoeuvrings to get the funding legislation passed, the distorting of Gonski’s recommendations, the intensity of the activities of the lobby groups, and the eventual sabotage of the remnants of Gonski that managed to get over the line.

Students – and Australia – continue to miss out

The story is complete with a coming-of-age personal drama highlighting the impacts of funding on two young students as they move through their schooling.

It is important to remember that many thousands of children have completed all their schooling in the post-Gonski era, without the funding deemed necessary for the system to be “educationally effective”. The pathways of those lives have missed out on the educational enrichment funding to the Schooling Resource Standard would have brought.

Alongside Waiting for Gonski, a Why Money Does Matter conference marked the 10th anniversary with further sobering analysis, available here.

Gonski made “needs-based” equity funding part of our vocabulary but not part of our system. It is clear that action to fully implement true needs-based funding is urgently needed.

Waiting for Gonski ends with a call to action. For our education system to thrive nothing short of substantial structural change will do.

Greenwell and Bonnor also argue public funding brings public obligations, and a public contract is needed, requiring non-government schools to operate with policies comparable to those of government schools. Such an approach would “level the playing field”, which would undoubtedly strengthen Australian education and our economy. Do we have to wait much longer?

“Let us do something, while we have the chance! … Let us make the most of it, before it is too late!” ― Samuel Beckett, Waiting For Godot.

I previously published a report “Structural failure: Why Australia keeps falling short of its educational goals” co-authored by Chris Bonnor, one of the authors of ‘Waiting for Gonski’

I am also on the Board of the Centre for Public Education Research that hosted the conference mentioned in this article.

– ref. Still ‘Waiting for Gonski’ – a great book about the sorry tale of school funding – https://theconversation.com/still-waiting-for-gonski-a-great-book-about-the-sorry-tale-of-school-funding-178016

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Philippa Higgins, PhD candidate, UNSW Sydney

The Northern Territory has some of the most pristine rivers in the world. But amid the big push to develop northern Australia, industries are lining up to take water from these wild waterways.

The agriculture industry – and in particular, large-scale cotton growers – are seeking up to 5.2 billion litres of water a year from the Daly River near Katherine. But our research published today suggests water allocations based on recent gauge data might be too generous.

We found since the 1960s, flows in the Daly have been higher than at any point in the past 600 years. If flows return to lower levels in future, extracting large volumes of water may cause big problems for the river.

Over-allocating water resources can degrade rivers and harm aquatic life that needs wet season flows to thrive. Before granting water rights to big business, authorities must better understand the ancient history of Australia’s river flows.

Going back in time

Every year when the monsoon arrives in Northern Australia, rivers spread over the floodplains and sustain a kaleidoscopic variety of plant and animal life.

To sustainably develop the north while keeping river ecosystems healthy, we must get a full picture of high and low flows over time. But in many rivers, including the Daly, we don’t have enough data to do this.

Streamflow gauges have only been in place for the last 60 years in the Northern Territory. However the climate – and subsequent river flows – can vary across decades and generations.

Luckily, tree rings can tell us how the climate behaved for hundreds of years before streamflow gauges were installed.

The rings indicate how old a tree is and what the weather was like during each year of its life. For example, a ring wider than others indicates greater-than-average growth, and might reflect a year of high rainfall or warm temperatures.

Read more:
Floodplains aren’t separate to a river — they’re an extension of it. It’s time to change how we connect with them

Nature’s weather stations

Tree rings are examined by drilling a narrow hole in a tree to extract a core – a process that does not harm the tree. All up, we used cores from 63 different sites in our study.

We obtained existing cores from Northern Territory trees, then sought to interpret how the tree rings related to past climate changes. Usually, the correlation between tree rings and streamflow can be used to build a model of past streamflow. But the gauge data for the Daly is too short to develop a reliable model.

So we used a new method using much older rainfall data. It meant we could develop a much better and longer reconstruction of the river’s flow.

But we faced another challenge. The oldest Northern Territory tree core we had to work with was 250 years old, but we wanted to look further back.

So we also used cores from older trees in Southeast Asia. These trees also experience monsoon rainfalls and so record similar climate variations.

Rivers of change

Our reconstruction showed over that, with the exception of dry years in 2019 and 2020, flows over the last 57 years were higher than at any point in the past 600 years.

This is because more rainfall is falling during the monsoon season than ever before. Records from ship logs suggest the increase is part of a much longer trend which began in the 1800s.

Theories abound about why monsoon rainfall has increased, and include changes in sea surface temperatures and changes to the timing of the monsoon onset. More research is needed into this phenomenon.

However, the increase suggests flows in the Daly River may return to low levels in future. So allocating water to industry based only on data from the past few decades may mean too much water will be extracted and the river’s health will suffer.

Even during these unusually wet decades, we found the annual monsoon – and therefore streamflow – varies a lot from year to year.

In La Niña years, the Daly’s flow is higher than in other years – but during El Niño there is no difference. So, while low flows lead to higher water demand and risk to rivers, we don’t really understand why they occur.

Read more:
The hydropower industry is talking the talk. But fine words won’t save our last wild rivers

An uncertain future

Global climate models differ on whether northern Australia will experience higher or lower rainfall in future. So we don’t know if the Daly and other Northern Territory rivers will remain high in decades to come.

Climate models do suggest monsoon rain will become more variable. This means managing river resources in the territory will be even more complex in coming years and needs careful planning.

The proposed water allocation from the Daly River comes on the back of record dry years and much lower wet season flows than normal. And it follows other industry proposals to extract huge amounts of water from territory rivers.

Monsoon rivers are the lifeblood of the Top End. They’re unique, precious and need to be protected. We can’t hold back development, but we can make good decisions to ensure ecosystems are managed sustainably.

Let’s listen to the message of the trees – and make sure these rivers are still healthy in another 600 years.

Read more:
Victoria just gave 2 billion litres of water back to Indigenous people. Here’s what that means for the rest of Australia

Fiona Johnson receives funding from the Australian Research Council, NSW and Victorian State Government.

Jonathan Palmer receives funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC).

Martin Sogaard Andersen receives funding from ARC, NSW State and Federal Government.

Philippa Higgins 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. As industry lines up to take water from a wild Top End river, trees tell the story of a much drier past – https://theconversation.com/as-industry-lines-up-to-take-water-from-a-wild-top-end-river-trees-tell-the-story-of-a-much-drier-past-177221

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sean Phelan, Associate Professor of Communication, Massey University

One striking feature of the “freedom convoy” protests in Ottawa, Wellington and elsewhere has been the intense antagonism towards “mainstream media” (MSM).

These antagonisms are expressed not only in now familiar descriptions of MSM journalists as sinister agents of a wider power elite, coupled with pity or scorn for the befuddled “sheeple” who believe everything they hear in the media.

They can also take an uglier, more menacing form. Witness the clip circulating on Twitter of protesters spitting on CTV journalists in Vancouver. Or earlier reports of New Zealand journalists being “punched and belted with umbrellas” or harassed in person and online.

These kinds of encounters are becoming more common. Increased violence against journalists, particularly women journalists, has been a feature of the global rise of far-right politics.

This anti-media rhetoric has a clear “us” versus “them” dynamic. People start to define their own identities in opposition to the “MSM”. The media are framed as enemies (one of a gallery of interchangeable enemies) in ways that destroy the distinctions between journalism and propaganda, journalism and ideology, journalism and politics.

This language is then normalised in far-right media channels, sometimes with considerable success that might leave one wondering about the precise location of the mainstream: a livestream broadcast from one Facebook channel linked to the Wellington protests apparently had more views than the videos broadcast on the New Zealand Herald’s website.

Distrust of corporate media

The abuse and harassment of journalists trying to do their jobs are worrying. Journalists are right to suggest these attacks are an attack on democracy and the best democratic ideals of journalism.

At the same time, the cultural politics driving the antagonism to mainstream media and journalism are not as straightforward as is sometimes assumed.

In an official public sphere preoccupied with online disinformation and misinformation, one could be forgiven for thinking the problems could be fixed if people stopped feeding the social media algorithms and affirmed their trust in corporate news media instead.

It’s also not enough for journalists to insist (in good faith) they do nothing more than present balanced and objective news coverage – as if the vast academic literature documenting the problems with these professional rationalisations didn’t exist.

Defining ‘mainstream media’

The increasingly reactionary connotations of contemporary references to the “MSM” need historical context.

Like the “media” itself, the term “mainstream media” is a relatively recent invention. My research suggests academic scholars only started routinely referring to something called “mainstream media” from the 1980s onwards.

Read more:
The extremism visible at the parliament protest has been growing in NZ for years – is enough being done?

The term is nearly always taken for granted, as if it’s perfectly obvious what the mainstream media is. But only 20 or 30 years ago, the term was associated primarily with left-wing critiques of capitalist media, and proposals for alternative media models.

We still hear those arguments today, and there are good reasons for critiquing mainstream media. The destructive impact of the market on contemporary journalism is more profound than it was in the 1980s and 1990s.

And there is an ironic dimension to the anti-media rhetoric of the convoy protesters, given that they benefit from the commercial appeal of “wall-to-wall mainstream media coverage”.

Read more:
The NZ anti-vax movement’s exploitation of Holocaust imagery is part of a long and sorry history

Into the rabbit hole

However, the meaning of media critique can become confused in a political context where the people who seem most critical of media and journalism are aligned to the far right.

This, in turn, can alter perceptions of the alternative. The online “rabbit hole” becomes a potential site of empowerment and agency – an archive of resources for mocking the conventions of “left-wing”, “woke” media.

Read more:
In ‘freedom convoy’ and other vaccine protests, slogans cross the political aisle

But just because the ideological connotations of “MSM” have shifted, it does not mean the differences between authoritarian and democratic media criticism dissolve.

On the contrary, making such distinctions is more important now than ever. Being able to thoughtfully analyse how various media construct or define the world we live in is vital for our democracy.

Our democracies would be in even more trouble than they already are if anyone voicing suspicion of mainstream media was dismissed as a conspiracy theorist. It would be a world where the far right has successfully monopolised the terms of media criticism.

Ideological confusion

Nonetheless, the politically confused nature of media criticism today is a symptom
of a general ideological confusion that has accelerated during the pandemic and found another expression in the “freedom” convoys.

Talking points that might have once sounded inherently progressive start to float in unpredictable and chaotic ways. (A case in point: listening to one livestream broadcast from inside the Wellington convoy, I heard what sounded like an attempt to link the rhetoric of the sovereign citizen movement to notions of Māori sovereignty and self-determination.)

Read more:
Canada’s legal disinformation pandemic is exposed by the ‘freedom convoy’

Anyone committed to a culture of vibrant democracy needs to be alert to this ideological confusion. We need to minimise the chances of our own political and media critiques compounding the problem and be vigilant for reactionary rhetoric that loves to blur left-right boundaries.

Our defence of journalists against “aspirational fascists” should be unambiguous. But our democratic imaginations will be seriously impoverished if the public conversation is reduced to a Manichean alternative of wild, paranoid denunciations of the “MSM” versus unquestioning support of our present media systems.

Sean Phelan receives funding from the EU’s Horizon Europe scheme through a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship at the University of Antwerp.

– ref. Why legitimate criticism of the ‘mainstream’ media is in danger of being hijacked by anti-vax and ‘freedom’ movements – https://theconversation.com/why-legitimate-criticism-of-the-mainstream-media-is-in-danger-of-being-hijacked-by-anti-vax-and-freedom-movements-178166

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Marianne Hanson, Associate Professor of International Relations, The University of Queensland

Russian forces in Ukraine may have used thermobaric weapons and cluster bombs, according to reports from the Ukraine government and human rights groups.

If true, this represents an escalation in brutality that should alarm us all.

While cluster munitions are banned by international convention, thermobaric munitions – also known as fuel-air explosive devices, or “vacuum bombs” – are not explicitly prohibited for use against military targets.

These devastating devices, which create an oxygen-eating fireball followed by a deadly shockwave, are far more powerful than most other conventional weapons.

What are thermobaric weapons?

Thermobaric weapons are generally deployed as rockets or bombs, and they work by releasing fuel and explosive charges. Different fuels can be used, including toxic powdered metals and organic matter containing oxidant.

The explosive charge disperses a large cloud of fuel which then ignites in contact with the oxygen in the surrounding air. This creates a high-temperature fireball and a massive shockwave that literally sucks the air out of any living being in the vicinity.

Thermobaric bombs are devastating and effective in urban areas or open conditions, and can penetrate bunkers and other underground locations, starving the occupants of oxygen. There is very little that can protect humans and other life forms from their blast and incendiary effects.

A 1990 CIA report, cited by Human Rights Watch, noted the effects of a thermobaric explosion in a confined space:

Those near the ignition point are obliterated. Those at the fringe are likely to suffer many internal, thus invisible injuries, including burst eardrums and crushed inner ear organs, severe concussions, ruptured lungs and internal organs, and possibly blindness.

A history of horror

Crude versions of thermobaric weapons were developed by Germany during World War Two. Western states, as well as the Soviet Union and latterly Russia, have used them since the 1960s.

The Soviet Union is believed to have used a thermobaric weapon against China during the Sino-Soviet conflict of 1969, and in Afghanistan as part of its takeover of that country in 1979. Moscow also used them in Chechnya, and has reportedly provided them to separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine.

The United States has used these weapons in Vietnam and in the mountains of Afghanistan.

Why some weapons are banned, even in war

Although thermobaric weapons are not yet unequivocally banned, there are several points that argue against their development and use.

International humanitarian law stipulates what is and is not permissible during warfare. There has long been an understanding that even wars have their limits: while some weapons are considered legal, others are not, precisely because they violate key principles of humanitarian law.

A new report from Human Rights Watch makes it clear the Russian invasion of Ukraine is illegal. It draws on the Geneva Conventions to define the illegitimacy of Moscow’s actions, including its use or potential use of particular weapons.

Read more:
International law says Putin’s war against Ukraine is illegal. Does that matter?

The use of weapons in indiscriminate attacks – those that cannot distinguish between combatants and civilians – is forbidden by the Geneva Conventions.

A thermobaric weapon might be targeted specifically at military installations and personnel, but its effects cannot be contained to one area. In all likelihood, many civilians would be killed if such bombs were used in any city.

Using explosive weapons in populated areas would result in indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks. Aerial bombs, even if aimed at military objectives, pose a grave threat to civilians because of their wide blast radius.

Unnecessary suffering

Efforts to ban these weapons have not yet produced a clear prohibition. The 1980 Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (commonly called the “Inhumane Weapons Convention”) addresses incendiary weapons, but states have managed to avoid an explicit ban on thermobaric bombs.

In addition to the impacts on civilians, thermobaric bombs would cause superfluous injury and unnecessary suffering. Under international humanitarian law, they should not be used.

There is a point at which – even if a war is deemed legitimate or “just” – violence must not involve weapons that are excessively cruel or inhumane.

If a weapon is likely to prolong the agony of soldiers (or civilians) or result in superfluous and unacceptable injuries, theoretically its use is not permitted. Thermobaric weapons clearly seem to meet this definition.

Cluster bombs and nuclear weapons

It is not only thermobaric weapons that cause us concern in the current war.

Ukraine’s government and human rights groups say Russia has also used cluster munitions. These are bombs or rockets that release a cluster of smaller “bomblets” over a wide area.

Cluster munitions were banned under an international convention in 2008. Russia has not signed (nor has the US, China or India), but until now it has largely respected the convention’s provisions.

Perhaps of greatest concern, however, is Moscow’s nuclear weapons arsenal. President Vladimir Putin has hinted strongly that he would potentially be willing to use them, putting Russian nuclear forces on high alert and warning that countries which interfere in the invasion will face “consequences you have never seen”.

Read more:
As Putin puts nuclear forces on high alert, here are 5 genuine nuclear dangers for us all

Russia has around 6,000 nuclear weapons and an escalation of conflict could result in their use – either deliberately or inadvertently during the fog of war.

Putin is not the only one to have made threats like this. The US holds around 5,500 nuclear weapons of its own, and its nuclear policy promises nuclear devastation to opponents.

Even the British and French resort to nuclear pressure, and former US president Donald Trump, when threatening North Korea, used similar language. But Putin’s statement goes beyond even these threats.

Read more:
The nuclear weapons ban treaty is groundbreaking, even if the nuclear powers haven’t signed

It is these very real dangers that led 122 states at the United Nations to vote in favour of developing the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in 2017.

The war in Ukraine is the latest reminder that we must act to eliminate thermobaric, cluster, and nuclear weapons, under strict international control. The stakes are simply too high to allow these dangers to remain.

Marianne Hanson has previously received funding from the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the University of Queensland to conduct research on weapons and international law. In a voluntary capacity, she is currently Co-Chair of ICAN Australia (the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons).

– ref. What are thermobaric bombs? And why should they be banned? – https://theconversation.com/what-are-thermobaric-bombs-and-why-should-they-be-banned-178289

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephan Rachel, Associate Professor and ARC Future Fellow, The University of Melbourne

You probably know what a crystal is. We’ve all seen one, held one in our hands, and even tasted one on our tongue (for instance sodium chloride crystals, also known as “salt”).

But what on earth is a “time crystal”, if not a sci-fi gadget in the latest Marvel movie? Why do we need a quantum computer to make one? And what is a quantum computer anyway?

Bits and qubits

Let’s start there. Computers are all around us. Some are compact, portable and primarily used to stream Netflix, while others fill entire rooms and simulate complex phenomena like the weather or the evolution of our Universe.

Regardless of the details, on a fundamental level computers all have the same purpose: processing information. The information is stored and processed in “bits”.

Any physical system with two identifiably distinct states (call them “0” and “1”) can serve as a bit. Connect lots of bits together in the right way and you can do arithmetic, logic, or what we generally call “computation”.

Now, it turns out that the physical world on a very fundamental level is governed by the strange rules of quantum physics. You can also make a quantum version of a bit, called a quantum bit or “qubit”.

Qubits can also be described in terms of two states, “0” and “1”, except they can be both “0” and “1” at the same time. This allows for a much richer form of information processing, and hence more powerful computers.

What can we do with quantum computers?

Much of the current research in this area is focused either on building a working quantum computer – a challenging engineering task indeed – or on designing algorithms to do things we can’t manage with our current, classical computers.

Our research, however, is focused on an application first envisioned by the famous US physicist Richard Feynman more than 30 years ago: to use quantum computers to conduct research in fundamental physics.

Read more:
Explainer: quantum computation and communication technology

As theorists, we typically use a combination of pen-and-paper mathematics and computer simulations to study physical systems. Unfortunately, conventional computers are very ill-equipped for simulating quantum physics.

This is where quantum computers come in. They are already quantum in nature and can, in principle, behave like any quantum system we wish to investigate.

Using IBM’s quantum computer we were able to achieve precisely that, turning it into an experimental simulator to create a novel state of matter, just as envisioned by Feynman. This machine is located in America but can be accessed remotely by researchers around the globe.

Being able to access quantum computers from anywhere in the world represents a major shift in this kind of quantum research.

Time crystals

The special type of quantum system we created is called a “time crystal”.

I hope you will not be too disappointed when I say you will probably not get to hold one of these in your hands any time soon. But maybe we can at least understand what a time crystal is!

The crucial idea here is that matter exists in different “phases”, like the three familiar phases of water: ice, water and steam. A material can have very different properties depending on which phase we find it in.

Now a conventional crystal – we might actually call it a “space crystal” – is one such phase of matter. Crystals are characterised by a very regular arrangement of particles in space.

In a time crystal, particles are not only arranged regularly in space, but also in time. The particles move from one position to another and back again, without slowing down or losing energy.

Now this is truly different from what we usually deal with.

Beyond equilibrium

The types of phases we normally encounter all have on thing in common: they are in “thermal equilibrium”. If you leave a hot cup of coffee sitting on your desk it will transfer heat to its surroundings until it reaches the same temperature as your room, and then it stops and no changes happen from then on.

If you carefully add a layer of cream to your – now unfortunately cold – coffee and begin stirring, you will see changes happen in time. Coffee and cream will mix in beautiful swirls until the whole thing turns into a uniform light brown liquid, and nothing really changes after that.

These are examples of “equilibrium”. The common theme is that things in equilibrium do not change over time.

Our time crystal violates this condition. It actually keeps changing indefinitely, for all eternity, without ever reaching equilibrium.

A loophole in the laws of thermodynamics?

A time crystal therefore constitutes an out-of-equilibrium phase – in fact, it is one of the first examples of such a strange state of matter. It is essentially like an ever-ticking clock that neither loses energy, nor requires a supply of energy to keep going.

This seems dangerously close to a perpetual motion machine, which would violate the laws of thermodynamics.

But the first law of thermodynamics – which says energy is not created or destroyed – is not in any danger here, as we can’t extract energy from a time crystal while also keeping it running.

Read more:
Unpacking a mystery of physics: Why processes in nature operate only in one direction

The second law states that things left to themselves can only become more disordered over time. This concept is probably all too familiar to anyone with kids or housemates.

But there is a loophole. The second law forbids things from becoming more ordered with time, but it doesn’t say they can’t maintain their current level of disorderedness forever.

In everyday life, we don’t see this loophole in action. It is the equivalent of stirring away at your coffee and cream and finding that the swirling tendrils of cream never fully mix with the coffee.

This is what time crystals do. We don’t see it in everyday life because it really is a quantum phenomenon.

Beyond time crystals

Quantum computers are still in their infancy. But as they improve they will allow physicists like us to improve our fundamental understanding of nature.

This in turn may translate into technological innovation, just as the physics of the last century enabled the digital revolution that shapes our lives today.

Quantum computers provide a platform for physicists to engineer and investigate novel states of matter that cannot be found in nature. Time crystals just mark the beginning of this exciting endeavour.

Stephan Rachel receives funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC). He is affiliated with the IBM Quantum Hub established at the University of Melbourne.

Philipp Frey 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. ‘An ever-ticking clock’: we made a ‘time crystal’ inside a quantum computer – https://theconversation.com/an-ever-ticking-clock-we-made-a-time-crystal-inside-a-quantum-computer-178164

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Matt Fitzpatrick, Professor in International History, Flinders University

Both sides in this war have plundered history. Vladimir Putin claims to be replaying the second world war by “denazifying” Ukraine, while his forces desecrate the Holocaust site of Babyn Yar.

Putin’s opponents have their own analogies. Putin is variously Hitler, Stalin or Tsar Peter the Great.

On social media, memes mine the medieval period to remind the West that when Kyiv was a flourishing metropolis in the 11th century, Moscow was still a wilderness.

Historians are uninterested in these debates. They know both sides can produce maps and histories to “verify” their claims. These need not shape present realities. As the Kenyan representative to the UN said about the African situation, where colonial era borders continue to chafe:

Rather than form nations that looked ever backwards into history with a dangerous nostalgia, we chose to look forward to a greatness none of our many nations and peoples had ever known.

Instead, historians are looking at the rapidly shifting present. They realise history is being made, not replayed in Ukraine. In the process, it is changing the face of Europe.

Germany changes course

In the space of one week, some of the old certainties about Europe have been thrown out the window. Most spectacularly, Germany, whose Nazi past has seen it avoid becoming a significant military power, has now committed itself to dramatically increasing its military spending. An initial injection of €100billion (A$153billion) will be followed by a guaranteed sum of at least 2% of GDP to be spent in each budget.

In contravention of its standing policy prohibiting the sale of armaments to war zones, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has announced his country will join the rest of Europe in providing weapons to the Ukrainians. German troops are now heading for Lithuania and Slovakia, while air and sea deployments have been made to Romania, the Baltic and the Mediterranean.

On top of this, Germany’s Merkel-era approach to energy security, which had until days ago rested on the promise of plentiful Russian gas, has been scuttled.

Read more:
What can the West do to help Ukraine? It can start by countering Putin’s information strategy

The rush to NATO

Elsewhere, NATO has also rushed eastward, and the Baltic states of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia have become a hastily agreed-upon forward post for NATO troops.

Having been firmly against joining NATO for decades, public opinion in Finland has suddenly shifted, with a citizen petition forcing a parliamentary debate on the issue. Alongside the Finns, non-NATO Sweden has been granted special access to NATO intelligence to help co-ordinate European responses to the war.

Now scotched rumours had even abounded that Poland, Slovakia and Bulgaria were to donate their fighter places to Ukrainian fighter pilots, stretching the line between military aid and active participation.

Even Switzerland, whose neutrality has lasted since the Napoleonic Wars, has suddenly joined the EU’s economic sanctions targeting Russian banks and assets.

Read more:
Germany’s €100-billion army fund: a remarkable change in post-war policy in response to the Ukraine crisis

Europe’s southeast moves too

Other European states are also altering their political course. Bosnia is mulling over a bid to formally join NATO, while Kosovo is making a pitch to secure a permanent US base on its territory.

Both of these moves would have been viewed as unthinkable provocations to Russia a week ago, and would still represent risky options for NATO. But, with NATO declaring Europe stands at the dawn of a “new normal”, such earlier taboos are giving way to a desire for “more support to countries like Georgia, Moldova, and Bosnia and Herzegovina”.

Meanwhile, French troops have been sent into Romania as part of Europe’s “strategic solidarity” with Ukraine’s neighbours.

Events have swept aside the earlier careful discussions about the consequences of NATO enlargement in Eastern Europe.

In the southeast, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has tried to walk a middle road between Russia and NATO, has also succumbed to the pressure of his NATO allies and activated the 1939 Montreux Convention. This effectively closes the Turkish Straits to warships, significantly hampering Russia’s ability to move more ships from the Mediterranean into the Black Sea and on to Crimea and Odessa in southern Ukraine.

Not everything is different

While it appeared Poland and Hungary, along with Bulgaria, Romania and Moldova, had reversed their notoriously anti-refugee policy by opening their eastern borders, it has since emerged these openings are still along racial lines. This means the borders are easily traversed by European Ukrainians, but are still very real barriers to the Arab, Asian and African refugees forced to flee their work and studies in Ukraine.

Some alliances with Moscow have remained firm. The story of Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko is well-known. His fate has been publicly tied to Russia since massive protests broke out after a fraudulent election destabilised his grip on power. He has used the conflict to increase his grip on power through a dubious referendum.

Less well understood outside the Balkans, however, is the position of Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vucic, who has declared his qualified support for Putin, so as to keep Russian support for Serbian objectives in Kosovo and Bosnia. “Serbia respects the norms of international law,” he has declared, “but Serbia also understands its own interests.”

Forgotten histories

Contrary to some reporting, this is not the first major war in Europe since the second world war. The Balkans spent much of the 1990s engulfed in a war that saw the disintegration of Yugoslavia, horrific ethnic cleansing, Serbian genocide, the NATO bombing of Belgrade and the ongoing garrisoning of Kosovo. Indeed, Putin has never forgotten NATO’s actions in the Balkans.

So too, the military conflict between Russian and Ukraine, ongoing since 2014, was preceded by the Russian-Georgian War of 2008.

Elsewhere, Iraqis have pointed out that Russia’s attack on Ukraine echoes the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, an invasion that also brought into question the robustness of international law.

However, historians are aware these past wars in Europe and beyond did not trigger the kind of rapid and united European action being seen now. Nor did they lead to the threat of nuclear conflict that has re-emerged as Europe walks the tightrope between military aid and becoming an active belligerent that could trigger the kind of nuclear consequences threatened by Putin. This nuclear dilemma was not one faced in the times of Hitler, Stalin or the tsars.

Matt Fitzpatrick currently receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

– ref. Remembering the past, looking to the future: how the war in Ukraine is changing Europe – https://theconversation.com/remembering-the-past-looking-to-the-future-how-the-war-in-ukraine-is-changing-europe-178151

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Holly Seale, Associate professor, UNSW Sydney

Claims you can “devaccinate” yourself have been circulating on social media, another example of extreme and dangerous misinformation about COVID vaccines.

Methods said to remove COVID vaccines from the body include using snake venom extractors or a type of traditional therapy known as “wet cupping”.

If you encounter claims like this online, you need to ask yourself four questions, to figure out whether these claims really are too good to be true.

Read more:
People want to use bleach and antiseptic for COVID and are calling us for advice

Cupping

Misinformation circulating on Instagram and other social media includes a video of someone using cupping therapy, suggesting this removes or sucks out the COVID vaccine.

The video shows someone cutting the skin, before applying a cup over the cuts to create suction – a type of therapy known as “wet cupping”.

Cupping has been used for thousands of years, mostly in traditional Chinese medicine. Practitioners believe this eases pain or promotes healing by drawing fluid towards the treated area and improve the flow of energy. However, there are few high-quality studies to support its effectiveness.

Why this doesn’t remove vaccine

Cupping usually affects only the superficial layers of the skin. COVID vaccines are generally deeper, injected into muscle.

After injection, vaccines train the body’s immune system to fight SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID. They do this by either presenting a weakened or inactivated part of the virus (the spike protein antigen) to the immune system, or by delivering the instructions for the body to make these antigens.

It’s important to note, this period of “training” is very short, and once the body has learnt how to respond, the vaccines are cleared from your body in mere days or weeks.

That’s because after the vaccine has primed the immune system, the body breaks down these components naturally, just as it does with other genetic fragments, proteins and fats.

Read more:
No, COVID vaccines don’t stay in your body for years

Snake venom kits

Others have tried to devaccinate using venom extraction kits. These kits include a plunger-type device you place over a snakebite, which is supposed to suck out venom.

Again, venom extractors will not remove the antigen in COVID vaccines, for the same reasons we’ve already described.

They also cannot remove enough venom to prevent serious systemic (widespread) effects of a snakebite. One study found the kit only removed 0.04% of the total load of venom, and ended up just removing body fluid.
Critically, they can destroy tissue around the site of the snakebite.

We all play a part

Information about devaccination continues to circulate on some platforms, such as BitChute and Telegram.

If you come across someone selling a wonder cure or drug online – whether that’s related to COVID or some other illness – here are some tips for thinking about what you see:

1. Is it hard to believe?

When you see something posted that looks sensational, it is even more important to be sceptical.

In a popular TikTok video, an osteopathic physician, who no longer practices, suggests people “detox” by take a bath in baking soda, epsom salt and borax to get rid of “radiation, poisons and nanotechnologies”.

She says people need to detox because COVID vaccines have “RNA-Modifying Transhumanism-Nano-Technology”, and “the people pushing these injections want to change what it is to be human”.

She also claims to have identified a jellyfish-like tiny invertebrate called “Hydra Vulgaris” that can:

multiply and form independent neural networks inside those who have received COVID-19 vaccines and could ultimately influence their thoughts and actions.

Even though sometimes we want to believe that someone has found the cure or answer to a question we are seeking, go with your gut reaction. If it sounds ridiculous, it probably is. If you are unsure whether the information is legitimate, talk to a family member, friend or your GP.

2. Have you checked the facts?

If a resource is provided in another language, how can you be sure what it says?

Using the cupping video as an example, Stephen Dickey, a professor of Slavic languages and literature at the University of Kansas, identified the dialogue in the video as Russian. But he said “there was no mention of the vaccine” and “there is no mention at all of exactly what is being extracted”.

When reviewing the resource, do you know who the author is and does that author specialise in the field the article is concerned with? Check LinkedIn or do a quick Google search to see if the author can speak about the subject with authority and accuracy.

3. Is there a hidden agenda?

Have you considered whether the person or organisation attempting to sell you a new drug or treatment has a hidden agenda? This can be increasing their reach on social media or making money.

For example, American “archbishop” Mark Grenon and his sons are reported to have sold more than US$1 million of their bleach-type “Miracle Mineral Solution”. They said it was a cure for COVID, cancer, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, autism, malaria, hepatitis, Parkinson’s, herpes, HIV/AIDS and other serious medical conditions.

4. What’s the source?

When an article cites sources, it’s good to check them out. The post about the snakebite kit included references to three published papers. These were dated 1979-1992, decades before COVID.

It’s also important to look at the topic of the cited paper. In the case of the 1979 paper, this looked at measures for a particular type of snakebite, which included examining the effects of applying firm crepe bandages on monkeys. There was no mention of the use of snake venom removal kits or COVID.

So, when you come across any videos or social media posts about fantastical new drugs or treatments that promise otherwise impossible cures or outcomes, it is important to always think:

If what you’re reading seems too good to be true, or too weird, or too reactionary, it probably is.

Holly Seale is an investigator on research studies funded by NHMRC and has previously received funding for investigator driven research from NSW Ministry of Health, as well as from Sanofi Pasteur and Seqirus. She is the Deputy Chair of the Collaboration on Social Science and Immunisation.

Margie Danchin receives funding from the Commonwealth and State government, NHMRC, DFAT and WHO. She is chair, Collaboration on Social Science and Immunisation (COSSI).

– ref. No, you cannot ‘devaccinate’ yourself with snake venom kits, bleach or cupping – https://theconversation.com/no-you-cannot-devaccinate-yourself-with-snake-venom-kits-bleach-or-cupping-177439

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Laura de Zwaan, Lecturer, Department of Accounting, Finance and Economics, Griffith University

How we can improve the teaching of financial literacy in high school? And why is it important?

People need a basic understanding of financial concepts to make good financial decisions. Our newly released research found most students generally do not know a lot about personal finance. This includes being able to apply basic numeracy to real-life financial situations, such as making purchasing decisions that are value-for-money and understanding interest on loans and investments.

Our report also makes six recommendations to improve financial literacy education in schools.

Our findings were consistent with previous evidence that 16% of Australian 15-year-olds lack even the basic level of financial literacy they need to participate in society. There is evidence that financial literacy in this age group is declining.

Read more:
Aussie kids’ financial knowledge is on the decline. The proposed national curriculum has downgraded it even further

This trend is concerning. The senior years of high school are a time when students take on more personal responsibility and financial independence. The financial habits they form then may last through adulthood. Low financial literacy is persistently linked to poorer financial outcomes.

The Australian Curriculum acknowledges students need financial literacy to operate in our financial world. However, this curriculum only covers up to year 10. In years 11 and 12, the years that are particularly important in shaping students’ financial capability, financial literacy is taught only in lower-level maths subjects.

What did the study find?

Our research explored the financial literacy of students in years 10, 11 and 12 at two urban and two rural schools. We found what students do know about financial literacy has been learned from home, maths or business studies. Students who were undertaking business studies were far more informed than other students.

Home life has been found to have a huge impact on a child’s financial literacy. There are often calls for parents to teach their children about personal finance. However, that assumes parents are able and willing to do that.

Read more:
How to teach your kids to think more critically about money

The students we spoke to were incredibly diverse. Household structures varied greatly, with many students not living with their parent/s. There was also evidence of parents not being able to provide financial guidance.

Nearly half the surveyed students preferred not to think about their financial situation.

We talked to a lot of the students about maths and found this was not the most effective curriculum area for learning about personal finance. When taught as part of the maths curriculum it tends to result in students fixating on formulas and calculations, without understanding the underlying concepts. As one student said:

“I only really remember the formula because that’s all we got taught.”

Many students also dislike maths. This means they are disengaged from learning at the outset. One student told us:

“If I was in class doing that [a simple question about interest], I would just read it, keep reading it, but not actually process it or try it because I’d just give up.”

There was also often a disconnect between the financial scenarios students were learning about and their experiences in their own lives.

Students who could remember financial concepts would often recall an experience or something from history when talking about it. This suggests stories may be more effective in communicating financial concepts. For example, one student said of inflation:

“Over time, because obviously more money is being printed […] people think printing money creates more money and you’re richer, when in reality you’re just making the currency you have worthless, because there’s so much of it, that it’s not difficult to acquire it at all. I learned most of that from history.”

Interestingly, we found evidence of young women in particular needing more context to make financial decisions. When asked financial questions, they wondered about different aspects of the question rather than quickly answering. Test questions commonly used to assess financial knowledge often offer little context.

About one in three students agreed they found managing their personal finances difficult and confusing.

Finally, we noted many students were not learning financial strategies, such as moderating spending, that have lifelong benefits.

Read more:
Would you pass this financial literacy quiz? Many won’t – and it’s affecting expensive aged care decisions

How can we improve?

Given the importance of financial literacy for student well-being, our report makes these recommendations:

1. financial literacy education should be elevated in high schools, ideally as a standalone program, but also by injecting principles of financial literacy into as many curriculum areas as possible – particularly in the well-being and pastoral care area

2. financial literacy education in maths needs to be improved, using a range of approaches – not limited to calculation activities

3. financial literacy education should be expanded to subjects other than maths and business, in line with shifting the focus from financial calculations to financial concepts

4. learning activities should be aligned with the students’ general level of financial experience

5. students need more exposure to effective financial strategies, in particular how to moderate (or control) spending for saving

6. a range of assessment methods should be offered to enable students to show what they have learnt. Assessment tasks should go beyond calculations and could include written pieces, visual or dramatic presentations, or oral explanations. These could be presented by groups or individuals.

Laura de Zwaan has received funding from Ecstra Foundation and the Financial Basics Foundation. She is an affiliate member of the Financial Planning Association and is a member of the Financial Planning Academic Forum. She has also been a member of the Wealth Academy Advisory Board.

Tracey West has undertaken consultancy work for ECSTRA Foundation and Treasury on financial literacy. She has also received grant funding from ECSTRA Foundation and the Financial Basics Foundation.

– ref. Many students don’t know how to manage their money. Here are 6 ways to improve financial literacy education – https://theconversation.com/many-students-dont-know-how-to-manage-their-money-here-are-6-ways-to-improve-financial-literacy-education-177918

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Antonia Settle, Academic (McKenzie Postdoctoral Research Fellow), The University of Melbourne

The floods affecting Australia’s eastern seaboard are a “1 in 1,000-year event”, according to New South Wales Premier Dominic Perrottet. But that’s not what science, or the insurance industry, suggests.

Throughout Australia in areas prone to fires, cyclones and floods, home owners and businesses are facing escalating insurance costs as the frequency and severity of extreme weather events increase with the warming climate.

Premiums have risen sharply over the past decade as insurers count the cost of insurance claims and factor in future risks. The latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, published this week, predicts global warming of 1.5℃ will lead to a fourfold increase in natural disasters.

Rising insurance premiums are creating a crisis of underinsurance in Australia.

In 2017 the federal government tasked the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission to investigate insurance affordability in northern Australia, where destructive storms and floods are most common. The commission delivered its final report in 2020. It found the average cost of home and contents insurance in northern Australia was almost double the rest of Australia – $2,500 compared with $1,400. The rate of non-insurance was almost double – 20% compared with 11%.

Average premiums for combined home and contents insurance, 2018–19

While the areas now experiencing their worst flooding in recorded history aren’t part of the riskiest areas identified by the insurance inquiry, the dynamics are the same.

Those not insured or underinsured will be financially devastated. Insurance premiums will rise. As a result, more people will underinsure or drop their insurance completely, compounding the social disaster that will come with the next natural disaster.

So, what do about it?

Tackling insurance affordability

There are two main ways to reduce insurance premiums.

One is to reduce global warming. Obviously this is not something Australia can achieve on its own, but it can be part of the solution.

The other is to reduce the damage caused by extreme events, by constructing more disaster-resistant buildings, or not rebuilding in high-risk areas.

The federal government, however, has put most of its eggs in a different basket, with a plan to subsidise to insurance premiums in northern Australia.

This won’t do much for those affected by the current floods. It won’t even do much to solve the insurance crisis in northern Australia.

The reinsurance pool, a blunt tool

In the 2021 budget the federal government committed A$10 billion to a cyclone and flood damage reinsurance pool, “to ensure Australians in cyclone-prone areas have access to affordable insurance”. The legislation to establish this pool is now before parliament.

The ostensible rationale is that the government can drive down insurance costs for consumers by stepping in and acting as wholesaler in the reinsurance market, in which insurers insure themselves against the risk of crippling insurance payouts.

The idea is that discounted reinsurance will lead insurers to lower their premiums.

Read more:
A national insurance crisis looms. The Morrison government’s $10 billion ‘pool’ plan won’t fix it

There is no guarantee, however, that insurers will pass on their cheaper costs to customers. This means the benefits of the pool are unclear.

So are its costs. Effectively, the government is shifting risk from insurers to itself, subsidising insurance premiums for those in some parts the country from the public purse.

The ACCC inquiry gave considerable attention to the idea of a reinsurance pool. While acknowledging there could be some benefits, it concluded the risks outweigh the rewards:

We do not consider that a reinsurance pool is necessary to address availability issues in northern Australia.

Targeting and mitigating

Above and beyond the aforementioned problems, there are two telling failures of the reinsurance pool plan.

First, subsidising insurance companies doesn’t target help to those who need it most: low-income households.

There is a growing body of research showing that natural disasters, and the ways governments respond to them, is contributing to greater inequality.

As the South Australian Council of Social Service makes clear in a report published this week, improving insurance access for people on low incomes at risk from natural disaster requires targeted support, such as promoting non-profit “mutual” insurance schemes.

Read more:
Natural disasters increase inequality. Recovery funding may make things worse

Second, only mitigation can bring the overall cost of natural disasters down. Ways to do this include public works (building levees, upgrading stormwater systems, conducting planned burns) and improving buildings (reinforcing garage doors, shuttering windows, managing vegetation around homes, and so on).

The ACCC’s insurance report identifies a range of ways mitigation strategies can be tied into insurance pricing. Yet none of these has been incorporated into the Morrison government’s response to the insurance crisis.

There is little support for the reinsurance pool outside of the federal government. Neither the ACCC, the insurance industry nor community sector advocacy organisations support reinsurance as a meaningful solution.

A reinsurance pool for the whole of Australia?

For the areas of NSW and Queensland now flooded, as well as the rest of the country outside the ambit of the reinsurance pool, the relentless rise in insurance costs will continue, tipping ever more homes out of the insurance safety net.

We must find better solutions to the insurance crisis than what is being offered to northern Australia. A reinsurance pool cannot be a national solution because it isn’t the solution for northern Australia.

There are no cheap and easy solutions, but the terrain is clearly mapped out across an array of inquiries and reports into insurance and climate vulnerability. More than a blanket subsidy for the insurance industry, the time has come for climate vulnerability to be taken seriously by the federal government.

Antonia Settle 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. After the floods comes the disaster of underinsurance: we need a better plan – https://theconversation.com/after-the-floods-comes-the-disaster-of-underinsurance-we-need-a-better-plan-178143

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lynette Russell, ARC Laureate Fellow, Monash University, and Deputy Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, Monash University

Every year, tens of thousands of New South Wales State Library patrons walk past a stunning mosaic replica of the Tasman Map on the floor of the Mitchell library vestibule. The original Tasman map, recently restored, charts the two voyages of the Dutch explorer Abel Tasman in 1642 and 1644.

The map is perhaps the Mitchell Library’s greatest treasure, though we know little about the time, place, or artist responsible for it.

Yet as we discuss in a new paper, its acquisition by the Mitchell library is a story of subterfuge, intrigue, personal animosities and state-versus-commonwealth rivalries.

The Tasman Map was probably made in the mid- to late-1600s in Batavia (now known as Jakarta), home of the Dutch East India Company, on Japanese paper.

It was most likely compiled by a team of draftsmen from a range of charts from Tasman’s two voyages. One of the artists was almost certainly Isaack Gilsemans, draftsman on the voyage.

Mystery shrouds the map’s whereabouts from the 17th century until 1843, when Amsterdam mapmaker Jacob Swart described and reproduced it.

In 1891 the original 17th century map was listed for sale by Frederick Muller & Co. An interested group headed by historian George Collingridge tried unsuccessfully to persuade the NSW government to purchase it.

Instead, the map was purchased by Prince Roland Bonaparte, great-nephew of Napoleon, and an anthropologist with a great interest in Australia.

Read more:
How early Australian settlers drew maps to erase Indigenous people and push ideas of colonial superiority

The princely promise

In March 1899, Henry Vere Barclay – a failed pastoralist, explorer and raconteur – gave a talk at the Imperial Institute in London where he announced Prince Roland had promised the Tasman map would be bequeathed to the Australian Commonwealth Government.

Within days, headlines declaring Prince Roland’s intended gift of the map to the Commonwealth of Australia had appeared in at least 44 Australian and New Zealand newspapers.

The prince’s intention to bequeath the map was confirmed in 1904 by James Park Thomson, president of the Royal Geographical Society of Queensland.

After viewing the map in Paris, Thomson wrote in his memoir, Round the World, of how the prince believed the map would be “of the greatest interest and use to the Commonwealth.”

Also reported by Thomson was how the prince wanted to hand the map to the Commonwealth government in person – but he was terrified of snakes and disliked rabbits which “seemed to overrun the place”.

Murmurings about the Tasman map fell silent for two decades and only emerged again after the prince’s death in 1924.

Read more:
Putting ‘Australia’ on the map

A clandestine operation

In 1926, anthropologist Daisy Bates read Thomson’s book, noting the reference to Prince Roland’s intended bequest.

Knowing the prince had recently died, she wrote to an acquaintance, William Ifould, asking him to enquire of the prince’s estate and the status of the map.

As chief librarian of the NSW Public Library, Ifould immediately began a clandestine operation to bring the Tasman Map to Australia.

It is clear from his earliest communications, when he warned his agent not to let the map come to the attention of Prime Minister Stanley Bruce, that Ifould was consumed by a singular goal: to acquire the map for NSW before anyone from the Commonwealth government remembered the prince’s promise.

Ifould’s chief personal nemesis was Kenneth Binns, librarian of the Commonwealth National Library, but Ifould also held an abiding antipathy for the Commonwealth itself.

In the earliest days of the scramble for the map, the Commonwealth Library’s collection was yet to have a permanent home, with the national capital of Canberra still in the early planning stages. Binns was based in Melbourne, then the seat of the national parliament, and this played into a rivalry between Sydney and Melbourne.

The Tasman Map was in the possession of Princess Marie Bonaparte, who was aware of her father’s desire to bestow it upon the Australian nation. Her husband Prince George wanted to travel to Australia and present the map himself.

This created concern for Ifould and the Mitchell Library, who were worried they might accidentally present it to the prime minister instead of the Mitchell Library.

Princess Marie clearly considered the map belonged to the Australian Commonwealth.

Ifould and his conspirators – including a succession of British ambassadors and NSW agents-general – ignored this. As one agent-general advised the NSW premier:

it is probable that she does not mean to say the Map will go to the Commonwealth Government, and that the use of the words ‘Government of Australia’ has no particular significance.

In May 1932 came the breakthrough Ifould had been waiting for: Prince George postponed his trip again, and Princess Marie agreed to hand the map to the Paris-based Australian Trade Commissioner.

Ifould’s seven-year clandestine operation, came to fruition when the map, now known as the Bonaparte-Tasman Map, arrived in Australia to great fanfare in September 1933.

A global map; a local rivalry

Absent from any version of the story over the past 90 years is admission of knowledge of Prince Roland’s wish, expressed multiple times, for the map to go to the Commonwealth.

The role of Barclay’s 1899 anecdote, and its publication around the country, was eradicated. This allowed the map falling into the Mitchell’s hands to be characterised as a happy coincidence, and not the result of scheming and subterfuge.

The Tasman Map, as it is commonly viewed today, is a mosaic reproduction by Italian artisans, of a Dutch map, on Japanese paper, depicting Antipodean coastlines, representing east Asian dominance, donated by a French aristocrat, intended for the Australian Commonwealth, but wrested by a state institution obsessed with inter-library rivalry.

This research will be discussed at the NSW State Library’s Mapping the Pacific conference on March 3 2022.

Lynette Russell receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

Leonie Stevens is employed as a Research Fellow on the Australian Research Council-funded Global Encounters Laureate project..

– ref. A tale of subterfuge, rivalry, Napoleon and snakes: how the NSW State Library came to own the map of Abel Tasman’s voyages – https://theconversation.com/a-tale-of-subterfuge-rivalry-napoleon-and-snakes-how-the-nsw-state-library-came-to-own-the-map-of-abel-tasmans-voyages-177069

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Hawkins, Senior Lecturer, Canberra School of Politics, Economics and Society and NATSEM, University of Canberra

Australia’s economy bounced back a welcome 3.4% in the December quarter of 2021, more than reversing the 1.9% lockdown-related decline in the September quarter. It was the sixth-biggest increase in the 60 years the figures have been compiled.

Australian quarterly gross domestic product

The economy grew by 4.2% over the year to December, making it 3.4% bigger than it was two years earlier, before COVID.

This is similar to what happened in the United States, but better than what happened in the European Union and South Korea. The economies of the UK and Japan are still smaller than they were before COVID.

While it is impressive in the circumstances, had there been no pandemic, real GDP was set to climb 6% rather than 3.4% over those years. That’s what the Reserve Bank had been forecasting.

The South East versus the rest

It depended very much on where you lived. NSW, Victoria and the ACT were constrained by lockdowns in the September quarter.

Those states bounced back most strongly in the December quarter.

It is notable, and concerning, that in the other states, the best measure of total spending, state final demand, barely grew at all or went backwards.

State final demand, December quarter

Household spending was the main driver of the stronger GDP.

It bounced back in the December quarter as unemployment fell, vaccination rates rose and consumer confidence climbed ahead of Omicron in the belief COVID was coming under control.

Household final consumption expenditure

Spending on services surged. Personal and other services, the category that includes hairdressing, climbed by a record 15%.

There were also some big increases in spending on non-essential goods. Purchases of clothing and footwear jumped by more than 40%.

Components of household final consumption expenditure

Households have been saving an unusually high proportion of their income during the pandemic.

The saving ratio soared to a record high early in the pandemic, fell during the 2020 recovery, soared again during the 2021 lockdowns, and fell in the December quarter.

But it remains, as the Treasurer said in his press conference, around three times what it would have otherwise been without the pandemic.

Household saving ratio

Much of the saving is the result of caution, but much also reflects government support programs that maintained incomes at times when people were limited in their ability to spend on travel, restaurants, cinemas, gyms and other services.

Some of the frustrated services spending was diverted to goods, exacerbating supply bottlenecks and contributing to inflation.

Inventories climbed $1.5 billion after a fall of $2.9 billion in the September quarter as wholesalers restocked, also contributing to GDP growth.

Read more:
Australia cut unemployment faster than predicted – why stop now?

Export volumes fell as the reduction in coal exports (reflecting heavy rain and labour constraints) outweighed the increase in agricultural exports (reflecting a record grain harvest).

Housing construction also detracted from growth as shortages of workers and materials caused delays in building.

Sharing the cake

How were the proceeds of this higher GDP shared among Australians?

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg was keen to point out the wages bill climbed by more than 5% through the year as more workers found jobs, higher bonuses were paid and workers switched to better jobs and got promotions, a form of wage growth not captured in the official wage price index.

The wages share of national income remained near an all-time low. Wage growth is lagging price growth, meaning workers are getting a smaller share of the pie than they have been used to.

Wages share of total factor income

Looking forward

The December quarter was between the bulk of Delta and the bulk of Omicron.

After the outbreak of Omicron in late December, hours worked slid 9% in January as workers became sick, isolated and caring for friends and family who were sick.

Consumer sentiment deteriorated in both January and February as petrol prices rose and attention turned to interest rate rises.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the subsequent further surge in petrol prices, is likely to depress sentiment further.

Read more:
Inflation hits 3.5%, but it won’t budge the Reserve Bank on interest rates

This means the next GDP release, covering the March quarter, will quite likely go backwards, taking GDP growth down with it.

Fortunately for the government, it isn’t due for release until Wednesday June 1, safely after the election which must be held by Saturday May 21 to avoid a separate half-Senate election.

John Hawkins was formerly an economic analyst and forecaster in the Reserve Bank and Treasury.

– ref. Wednesday’s GDP numbers are impressive, but they are for the December quarter, when we were bouncing back from Delta – https://theconversation.com/wednesdays-gdp-numbers-are-impressive-but-they-are-for-the-december-quarter-when-we-were-bouncing-back-from-delta-177821

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Margaret Cook, Lecturer in History, University of the Sunshine Coast

As a historian, I spend many hours at the State Library of Queensland looking out the large glass panels gazing at the Brisbane River. Its tranquil brown water quietly meanders past, offering an ideal place to watch the CityCat ferries and the occasional passing rower.

But this weekend the water was roaring, racing past the library, full of pontoons, boats and debris. The river broke its banks, reclaiming its floodplain and inundating buildings in its path, until the flood peaked at 3.85 metres at the Brisbane gauge.

Maiwar (Turrbal name for the Brisbane River) has a long history of floods, as does the south end peninsula or Kurilpa, “place of the water rat”. This land, once full of waterholes, creeks and wetlands provided sustenance for Turrbal and Jagara peoples for centuries.

By 1893 when a flood of 8.35 metres occurred in central Brisbane, South Bank was an industrial site occupied by wharves, factories, commercial businesses, and the railway line, with residential estates in nearby West End.

After the flood, commercial businesses moved to the north side and between 1900 to the 1970s the south bank declined, left as largely undeveloped open space.

A new cultural precinct

In 1969, the Queensland Art Gallery Site Committee selected the river’s south bank as the site of a new state art gallery, its river location regarded as enhancing its aesthetic appeal.

By 1974 the state government had acquired more land for a cultural precinct, undeterred by the 1974 floods that reached 5.45m at the Brisbane gauge.

Additions included the Queensland Art Gallery (opened in 1982), Queensland Performing Arts Centre (1985), Queensland Museum (1986) and Queensland State Library (1988, extended 2006). The cultural precinct expanded with the Playhouse Theatre (1998) and the Queensland Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA, 2006).

With its riverside landscape forecourts and restaurants, and iconic Brisbane eye, the designs took advantage of the location, and were intended to make a statement when viewed from the north side of the river.

The adjacent land was developed for World Expo ’88, now South Bank Parklands and home to the Queensland Conservatorium (1996) and ABC studios (2013).

The precinct stretches more than 450 metres along the Brisbane River and is now the cultural hub of Brisbane.

The 2011 floods

But South Bank’s watery history is never far away.

In 2011 Brisbane again flooded, this time to 4.46m at the Brisbane gauge, and the precinct’s vulnerability was exposed. Within hours its riverside location switched from an asset to a liability. The carparks and basement levels were inundated where the electrical, fire and air-conditioning systems were located, rendering the buildings unsafe.

The buildings were all closed as basements pumps went into overdrive.

Water did not enter the Queensland Art Gallery, but the lower level of the Children’s Art Centre, River Café and back-of-house areas were damaged at the Gallery of Modern Art. The first floor was well above river levels and the ground floor’s robust design allowed it to be hosed out.

The State Library was forced to move its collection to higher levels – as staff had been doing in previous wet weeks – and was saved by the 2006 renovation that had already relocated some books to higher levels. The Edge, the children’s space on the ground floor, was damaged.

Almost three metres of floodwater inundated the lower end of the Playhouse at the Queensland Performing Arts Centre. It was a month before performances could be held.

The headquarters of the Queensland Theatre Company, only blocks away in Montague Road, was in waist-deep water.

Thousands of props and costumes were destroyed – years of theatrical history were sent to the dump. The stage flooring and lower-level seating, bar, reception and green rooms were irrevocably damaged.

As the floodwaters receded, humidity (the harbinger of mould) rose, the power loss making humidity monitors and air conditioning impossible. Librarians and museum and art curators monitored anxiously.

But after a few weeks, in the spirit of “the show must go on”, the curtains re-opened at the Queensland Performing Arts Centre and these cultural hubs returned to business as usual.

The 2022 floods

When floodwaters rose again this year my fellow historians and I were texting each other to ask: “what’s happening to the State Library, is it in trouble?”

Sadly, it was. The State Library of Queensland, its access limited for months by COVID-19, is again closed. The community tool library on ground floor of the library is completely under water.

The Queensland Theatre Company is again inundated with water.

Performances at the Queensland Performing Arts Centre are postponed until at least March 7.

The ABC, an essential service in floods, was inundated. Brisbane news was diverted through Melbourne or Perth and local journalists reported in the field.

In a few weeks’ time I hope to return to research at the state library. Once again, I will look out over the river and enjoy the peaceful reverie of seemingly benign water pass by.

But this time I will contemplate the wisdom of placing all our cultural repositories on the banks of a flood-prone subtropical river.

Read more:
Like rivers in the sky: the weather system bringing floods to Queensland will become more likely under climate change

Margaret Cook 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. Brisbane floods: pondering the wisdom of placing our major galleries, libraries and theatres on the banks of a flood-prone river – https://theconversation.com/brisbane-floods-pondering-the-wisdom-of-placing-our-major-galleries-libraries-and-theatres-on-the-banks-of-a-flood-prone-river-178156

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Thas Ampalavanapillai Nirmalathas, Professor of Electrical and Electronic Engineering and Deputy Dean Research at Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology, The University of Melbourne

Tasmanians yesterday suffered a six-hour digital blackout, with phone and internet services down across the state. Some radio and television broadcasts were also affected, as well as banking and electronic payment services.

The impact was so severe that Tasmania’s connectivity to the rest of the world was reportedly reduced by 70%, before services slowly began being restored around 6pm.

The state is connected to the Australian mainland (and the rest of the world) by three fibre-optic cables. Two are deployed by Telstra, and the third is owned by the Tasmanian government and laid along the BassLink electricity cable into Victoria.

By an astounding coincidence, different construction crews cut the two Telstra cables in two separate incidents: one was cut at around 11am in Victoria, near Frankston, and the other was cut at a remote location in Tasmania at around 1pm.

It’s not clear how this happened, given the perennial advice for construction crews to “dial before your dig”. It could be the crews were working with inaccurate information, and didn’t realise they were digging on the cables’ routes.

The breaks in the two cables led to a major disruption to all internet and telecommunication services in Tasmania. Priority services, such as triple zero calls, were kept alive using the third cable.

A complicated setup

Undersea fibre-optic cables are made of bundles of glass fibres, each one about as thick as a strand of human hair. Information is carried along these fibre strands at high speeds in the form of light pulses.

The fibres are carefully arranged inside the cable, with each strand supported by a strengthening sheath. The entire cable is also protected by an outer waterproof sheath, making it suitable for undersea deployment.

Undersea cables leave the shore via special landing sites and loosely sit on the ocean floor. They can suffer damage from anchors of passing ships, or natural disasters – which happened during the recent volcanic eruption in Tonga. But these incidents are very rare.

On the shore, the cables are laid underground and only accessible at key network exchange locations.

Read more:
The Tonga volcanic eruption has revealed the vulnerabilities in our global telecommunication system

Repair logistics

Repairing damage to undersea cables requires specialist ships that draw the cable to the ocean’s surface. One by one, the individual glass fibre strands are separated, cleaved with a diamond blade (to achieve clean polished ends on the strands), and then fused or welded back together to complete the repair.

The repaired link is mechanically strengthened with a protective covering, after which the network engineers run a range of tests before the link can carry network traffic again.

In yesterday’s events, however, the damage to the two fibre-optic cables happened along their land routes, so repair crews could fix them relatively quickly. Had the cables been damaged at undersea locations, repairs could have taken days.

Any delays yesterday would have mainly been a result of getting the right equipment and technical crews to the locations – especially the more remote one on the Tasmanian side.

What’s the fix?

The digital blackout highlighted Tasmania’s over-reliance on the current fibre links. The Tasmanian government has in the past failed to be part of other undersea cable projects that could have provided a more diverse connection between Tasmania and the mainland.

The state could run into more trouble in the future, should it fail to bolster its connective capabilities.

As the distance between Tasmania and the mainland is about 200km, deploying wireless links (such as those used by radio towers) wouldn’t be realistic. This would require very high antenna towers and multiple repeaters in the sea.

And while NBN satellites could be used to provide some connectivity, undersea cables remain the best option.

Ideally, there should be investment not only in establishing a potential fourth cable link, but also in upgrading the existing infrastructure to broaden its capacity. Cables would still be impacted during adverse events, but the entire system would become much more resilient overall.

Diversity in the cable network is also critical, especially in terms of the physical cable routes. In situations where links are damaged, we need to be able to reconfigure the network quickly (and without human intervention). So even if a fault happens, signals can be automatically rerouted to bypass faulty links.

With the world’s increasing dependence on digital connectivity, and the emergence of 5G, operators like Telstra and newcomer HyperOne are planning to build new national fibre networks.

In February Telstra announced plans to expand its current network in Australia, with roughly A$1.6 billion worth of upgrades expected – but specifics about where and how the money will be spent aren’t known.

HyperOne also has plans to build additional undersea cables linking Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne, Launceston, Hobart and Sydney. This could provide more diversified connectivity to Tasmania.

Thas Ampalavanapillai Nirmalathas receives funding from the Australian and Victorian Governments as well as received funding for collaborative projects with organisations such as Telstra, Nokia, AT&T, Transurban, Digital Falcon, Eirene Holdings, InstaWireless, nbn, and Google.

– ref. How Tasmania’s major digital blackout was fixed, and how another could be avoided – an electrical engineer explains – https://theconversation.com/how-tasmanias-major-digital-blackout-was-fixed-and-how-another-could-be-avoided-an-electrical-engineer-explains-178169

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

As the West watches appalled at Russia’s brutal attack on Ukraine, attention is increasingly turning to the question of Vladimir Putin’s longer term ambition, and the potential for this conflagration to turn into a wider war.

Matthew Sussex, associate professor at the Griffith Asia Institute at Griffith University and an expert on Russia, believes Putin won’t want to stop at subjugating Ukraine.

“Putin himself seems absolutely personally invested in recreating the footprint at least of the USSR – certainly not its ideology, but its footprint.”

“He has for a long time said that Ukraine doesn’t deserve to exist as a state. That Ukrainians and Russians are just one people driven apart by the West.

“So he has […] achieved some of his aims already.”

“And the worry is, of course, that if Putin gets what he wants in Ukraine, then he will not stop. He will then turn his eyes to Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia – possibly even Poland will be told in a few years time that it doesn’t have the right to exist as a sovereign state.”

Read more:
Putin is on a personal mission to rewrite Cold War history, making the risks in Ukraine far graver

On whether there’s a possibility of the war in Ukraine leading to a military conflict with the West, Sussex says: “Absolutely. It is potentially the case that Putin, who is a gambler, will try and up the ante by staging some kind of demonstration of strength against NATO, or perhaps even a provocation directly against NATO troops.

“Many, many wars in history have been started by accident, by overconfidence, by miscalculation. And this is why it’s a very, very dangerous time.”

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: Russia specialist Matthew Sussex on Putin’s potential to start wider war – https://theconversation.com/politics-with-michelle-grattan-russia-specialist-matthew-sussex-on-putins-potential-to-start-wider-war-178306

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

As the West watches appalled at Russia’s brutal attack on Ukraine, attention is increasingly turning to the question of Vladimir Putin’s longer term ambition, and the potential for this conflagration to turn into a wider war.

Matthew Sussex, associate professor at the Griffith Asia Institute at Griffith University and an expert on Russia, believes Putin won’t want to stop at subjugating Ukraine.

“Putin himself seems absolutely personally invested in recreating the footprint at least of the USSR – certainly not its ideology, but its footprint.”

“He has for a long time said that Ukraine doesn’t deserve to exist as a state. That Ukrainians and Russians are just one people driven apart by the West.

“So he has […] achieved some of his aims already.”

“And the worry is, of course, that if Putin gets what he wants in Ukraine, then he will not stop. He will then turn his eyes to Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia – possibly even Poland will be told in a few years time that it doesn’t have the right to exist as a sovereign state.”

On whether there’s a possibility of the war in Ukraine leading to a military conflict with the West, Sussex says: “Absolutely. It is potentially the case that Putin, who is a gambler, will try and up the ante by staging some kind of demonstration of strength against NATO, or perhaps even a provocation directly against NATO troops.

“Many, many wars in history have been started by accident, by overconfidence, by miscalculation. And this is why it’s a very, very dangerous time.”

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

– ref. Politics with Michelle Grattan: Russian specialist Matthew Sussex on Putin’s potential to start wider war – https://theconversation.com/politics-with-michelle-grattan-russian-specialist-matthew-sussex-on-putins-potential-to-start-wider-war-178306

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By C Raina MacIntyre, Professor of Global Biosecurity, NHMRC Principal Research Fellow, Head, Biosecurity Program, Kirby Institute, UNSW Sydney

Mask mandates in most indoor settings have been dropped in New South Wales, Victoria and the ACT, with Queensland to follow later this week.

Without a mandate, mask use tends to drop, so we can expect only a minority of people to be masked in public indoor spaces.

With thousands of cases a day and just over half (57%) of Australians having received a third COVID vaccine dose and children still under-vaccinated, we may see a surge in infections.

While masks are a small inconvenience, they remain vital in preventing SARS-CoV-2, because the virus spreads through the air we breathe.

Read more:
The pressure is on for Australia to accept the coronavirus really can spread in the air we breathe

Some people will continue to wear masks to stay safe and achieve a more normal life through the pandemic. Here are five reasons to keep wearing yours.

1. Masks reduce your chance of getting COVID

Many studies have shown masks protect against COVID. While N95 respirators offer the greatest protection, even cloth masks are beneficial. N95s respirators lower the odds of testing positive to COVID by 83%, compared with 66% for surgical masks and 56% for cloth masks.

The protection when everyone wears a mask is much greater, because it reduces the likelihood of well people inhaling the virus and prevents infected people from exhaling the virus into the air. If everyone wears a mask, the viral load in the air is much lower.

When we lose the protection of universal masking, it’s a good idea to wear a high protection N95 or P2 respirator.

Read more:
How to get the most out of your N95 mask or other respirator

2. You might not know you have COVID

Transmission of the virus without symptoms is a major driver of spread, and we cannot know who around us is infected.

Infected people may be asymptomatic or may not know they’re infected. This is especially so for Omicron.

Overall, about one in four infections are asymnptomatic. But even people with symptomatic infection are contagious before the symptoms start.

3. Wearing a mask protects others, including those at risk of severe COVID

Wearing a mask protects others, including those at greatest risk of severe COVID: people with disability, chronic illnesses and suppressed immune systems.

COVID disproportionately affects migrants and people from lower socioeconomic groups who are more likely to work in customer-service roles. If you wear a mask, you’re protecting workers, commuters and others you interact with.

Rates of vaccination also lag among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, leaving them more vulnerable to COVID in the absence of masks.

Read more:
Australia is failing marginalised people, and it shows in COVID death rates

Masks also protect children who are vulnerable to COVID, with only half of five to 11 year olds partially vaccinated and under-fives not yet eligible for vaccination.

Children who wear masks can also protect their peers. In the United States, the risk of outbreaks was nearly four times higher in schools without mask mandates compared to those with mandates.

Omicron is not the flu or a cold, and has accounted for 17% more deaths than Delta in the United States. While Omicron generally causes less severe disease than Delta, it has claimed more lives because of vastly higher case numbers.

There is also growing evidence SARS-COV-2 persists in the body after infection, which may result in long-term heart, lung and brain damage.

4. Masks protect your colleagues

Many workplaces are insisting on people returning to face-to-face work, some without providing safe indoor air – and now without mask mandates.

The risk of COVID transmission is greatest when indoors for prolonged periods without adequate airflow. So sitting in an office for eight hours without a mask is a risk, especially if safe indoor air has not been addressed.

At the same time as dropping many workplace mask mandates, NSW has moved to remove automatic workers’ compensation for people who catch COVID at work.

This is a double disadvantage for workers returning to workplaces with fewer protections and facing greater obstacles to workers’ compensation should they get infected.

5. Others might follow your lead

Being one of the few people wearing a mask when others aren’t, such as in a supermarket, is a daunting prospect for those of us who wish to continue masking. There are reports of masked people being abused and bullied.

However a NSW survey showed the majority of people in that state wanted mask mandates to remain. The more we normalise masks and the more we see them, the better protected the community will be.

As much as we wish it so, the pandemic is not over and new variants will likely emerge.

A layered, multi-pronged strategy which includes vaccines, masks, ventilation, testing and tracing is the best way to protect health, the economy and a resumption of normal activities.

Read more:
How does Omicron compare with Delta? Here’s what we know about infectiousness, symptoms, severity and vaccine protection

C Raina MacIntyre receives funding from NHMRC, MRFF and has consulted for Ascend Performance Materials, Detmold Group and Cleanspace in the last 5 years.

– ref. COVID mask mandates might be largely gone but here are 5 reasons to keep wearing yours – https://theconversation.com/covid-mask-mandates-might-be-largely-gone-but-here-are-5-reasons-to-keep-wearing-yours-177824

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

The deluge dumped on southeast Queensland and northern New South Wales this week has been catastrophic. Floodwaters peaked at around 14.4 metres high in Lismore – two metres higher than the city’s previous record.

So how does this compare to Australia’s previous floods, such as in 2011? And can we expect more frequent floods at this scale under climate change? The answers to questions like these aren’t straightforward.

Climate change doesn’t tell the whole story, as extreme rainfall can occur for a variety of reasons. What’s more, it’s too soon to officially state whether this event is directly linked to climate change, as this would require a formal event attribution study. This can take months or years to produce.

In any case, we do know extreme events like this will occur more frequently in a warmer world. And the rising death toll, ongoing evacuations and destroyed homes make this one of the most extreme natural disasters in colonial Australian history.

How this compares to floods in our past

The east coast is a common place for heavy rainfall and flooding. The Yugara and Yugarabul people have traditional stories about great floods in the Brisbane river region long before European colonisation, and sediments from floodplains indicate floods as severe as those in 2010–2011 have occurred at least seven times in the past 1,000 years.

Instrumental records and documentary accounts show severe floods have inundated southern Queensland’s cities and towns in the 1820s, early 1840s and 1890s, 1931, 1974 and, of course, in 2010–2011.

Each of these events have been devastating, and record-breaking, depending on which records you’re interested in.

The floods in 1841 and 1893 are considered highest in terms of water levels recorded in Brisbane city, reaching over 8m. Australia’s wettest day on record was also recorded in 1893, when Crohamhurst in the Glasshouse Mountains measured 907 millimetres in one day.

Read more:
IPCC report: Coastal cities are sentinels for climate change. It’s where our focus should be as we prepare for inevitable impacts

The 1974 event was associated with extreme rainfall totals in many coastal areas, including 314mm in one day in Brisbane, and more than a metre of rainfall was recorded over three days in places such as Mount Tamborine and the northwest of Surfers Paradise.

The 2010–11 flood, while not as severe in terms of extreme rainfall totals, was notable for its inland extent, and was the final act of Australia’s wettest July to December on record.

The current flood has peaked at 3.85m in Brisbane, below the 2010–2011 levels of 4.46m. But it’s breaking records in other areas such as Lismore in northern NSW. The rainfall statistics associated with this event are also nearing the highest on record for many places, possibly due to the slow-moving nature of the associated weather system.

Four of the top six highest rainfall totals in NSW were recorded on 28 February, and Brisbane has just experienced three days of over 200mm. These aren’t the highest daily totals ever recorded in the city, but the first time three days of such intense falls have been documented, in data that go back to 1841.

Disentangling the role of climate change

When it comes to understanding the role of human-induced climate change in extreme events, there is the temptation to ask the wrong question: “did climate change cause this event?”

Since any extreme event is always a manifestation of climate variability, large weather systems, local-scale weather and climate change, it’s impossible to categorically answer this question with a simple “yes” or “no”.

Instead, the question we should be asking is “did climate change contribute to this event?”

Well, firstly, there has actually been a slight decrease in summer rainfall in southeast Queensland and northeast NSW since the mid-20th century. But, there’s very high variability in rainfall for this region, and La Niña – a natural climate phenonenon associated with wetter weather – often brings flooding to this area, as we saw in 2010/2011 and in the 1970s.

Indeed, the effect of La Niña (and its counterpart El Niño, associated with drier weather) makes identifying a climate change-related trend more difficult. In other words, while a human-induced climate change signal may be present, the naturally high variability makes it hard to spot.

The atmosphere can hold approximately 7% more moisture for every degree Celsius of global warming. However, we also need the right weather systems in place to trigger the release of moisture from the air and cause extreme rainfall. The climate change effect on these systems is uncertain.

Read more:
New IPCC report shows Australia is at real risk from climate change, with impacts worsening, future risks high, and wide-ranging adaptation needed

Climate change and weather systems

The severity of the flooding in southeast Queensland is partly due to a weather system called an “atmospheric river” sitting over the region for days. To make matters worse, the rain fell on an already sodden ground due to both the higher-than-average rainfall from the current La Niña, and the La Niña in the 2020-2021 summer. This made a huge difference to the scale of the floods.

We don’t fully understand how the persistence of these natural systems will change in future, but recent work shows climate change will cause long-lasting atmospheric rivers over Sydney to occur almost twice as often by the end of the 21st century. We don’t know yet if that’s also true further north of Sydney.

To complicate things further, there’s evidence to suggest climate change may be influencing the frequency, intensity and impacts of El Niño and La Niña events.

Climate change projections also suggest we may see small increases in the number of extreme one-day rainfall events which typically lead to flash flooding, in eastern Australia. But there’s a lot of uncertainty.

And worldwide, Monday’s report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change projected that global warming of 2℃ this century will bring twice as much flood damage compared to 1.5℃ warming. This jumps to 3.9 times more flood damage at 3℃ warming.

While the role of climate change is hard to pin down in Australia’s biggest floods, we know flooding often strikes our east coast. Building greater resilience to severe flooding would help lessen their impact.

Taking steps like concentrating new housing and infrastructure projects in areas above flood plains would help make us less vulnerable to these events.

Read more:
Like rivers in the sky: the weather system bringing floods to Queensland will become more likely under climate change

Andrew King receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the National Environmental Science Program.

Linden Ashcroft receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

– ref. ‘One of the most extreme disasters in colonial Australian history’: climate scientists on the floods and our future risk – https://theconversation.com/one-of-the-most-extreme-disasters-in-colonial-australian-history-climate-scientists-on-the-floods-and-our-future-risk-178153

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ben Saul, Professor of International Law, Sydney Centre for International Law, University of Sydney

The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Karim Khan, is opening an investigation into whether war crimes may have been committed in Ukraine. He is urgently seeking to preserve evidence as the fighting rages on.

War crimes are serious violations of international humanitarian law, which seeks to regulate the conduct of war and the treatment of civilians and prisoners during war.

As Russian troops have reached major cities, there have been increasing reports of strikes on civilian objects, such as apartment buildings, schools, kindergartens, hospitals, and oil and electricity facilities.

With the fighting now moving deeper into urban areas – and Russian forces becoming frustrated by Ukrainian resistance – the harm to civilians could become much greater.

Ukraine is not a party to the Rome Statute of the ICC, but it has twice accepted the court’s jurisdiction over any international crimes committed in its territory. This could include offences committed by pro-Russian separatists or Russian or Ukrainian military forces.

It does not matter that Russia is not a member of the court and has not accepted its jurisdiction. But it does mean Russia, like the US, is very unlikely to cooperate with the court.

What is a war crime?

In considering whether war crimes have been committed, the devil is in the legal detail. This is why forensic criminal investigations are so important to uncover the truth and cut through propaganda or the understandable emotion involved in conflicts where civilians are hurt.

International humanitarian law does not absolutely prohibit harm to civilians or their property, and tolerates some collateral damage to civilians.

However, the law is unambiguous when it comes to deliberate attacks on civilians or civilian objects. These are war crimes, unless a civilian object is also being used for military purposes and thus becomes a military target.

Read more:
Is international law powerless against Russian aggression in Ukraine? No, but it’s complicated

Disproportionate attacks are also war crimes. These are attacks that cause excessive civilian casualties relative to the military advantage of attacking a military target. So, for instance, this could include a missile strike on an apartment building that Russian forces knew would cause significant civilian casualties for little military gain.

International law also prohibits indiscriminate attacks. These could include using certain weapons against military targets in dense urban areas, such as artillery, cluster munitions or thermobaric “vacuum” bombs, whose wide effects also risk hitting civilians.

Russian troops have already been accused of using cluster munitions and vacuum bombs in civilian areas in Ukraine. Both were also used by Russian forces in the devastating Chechen wars in the 1990s.

Other war crimes include killing detainees, torture, hostage taking, illegal detention and wanton property destruction.

It is also a war crime to kill or injure anyone when dressed in the military uniform of the other side (such as possible Russian saboteurs wearing Ukrainian uniforms), or when dressed as a civilian without any military insignia (this could potentially include Ukrainian civilians who throw Molotov cocktails).

Crimes likely to have occurred

This is not the first time the ICC has looked into alleged crimes in Ukraine. A preliminary examination by Khan’s predecessor, Fatou Bensouda, in 2020 found “a reasonable basis to believe” war crimes and crimes against humanity had been committed in eastern Ukraine and Crimea since 2014.

Bensouda did not indicate who was responsible, though much of the conduct is likely to have been committed by Russian forces (in Crimea) and pro-Russian separatists (in eastern Ukraine).

The prosecutor’s office had not yet sought permission from judges to open a full-scale investigation. But Khan has now confirmed those findings and wants to launch such a formal investigation, expanded to include the current conflict.

In Crimea, the allegations include everything from wilful killing and torture to the conscription of Ukrainian civilians into the Russian army and forced transfer of civilian prisoners from occupied territory.

In eastern Ukraine, the alleged war crimes include murder, torture, rape and launching attacks causing disproportionate civilian casualties.

Khan is satisfied these alleged crimes are grave enough to justify ICC prosecution, and that Ukraine and Russia are either unable or unwilling to investigate themselves. Ukraine cannot take suspects into custody in areas it does not control, while Russia is uninterested in prosecuting anyone.

However, the ICC does not have jurisdiction over the international crime of aggression – that is, to prosecute Russia’s unlawful attack on Ukraine.

Ukraine has made a claim with the International Court of Justice that Russia is invading on the pretext of stopping genocide by Ukraine, but this is a speculative gambit. And the ICJ does not have jurisdiction to directly hear any claim that Russia is committing aggression.

Challenges make prosecutions unlikely

The ICC investigation sends an important signal to Russia that impunity for international crimes will not be tolerated. It contrasts with the court’s position on Afghanistan, where the investigation into alleged war crimes by the US and other foreign forces was controversially “deprioritised” last year.

But significant hurdles still remain. Once a formal investigation is launched, it will take many years to progress. This is due to the difficulty of obtaining and preserving evidence (both physical and digital) in the middle of live combat and a rife propaganda war. Russia will also be uncooperative.

Even then, realistically, it is unlikely many prosecutions will happen – if any at all. For one, establishing which Russian military or political leaders are responsible for specific crimes will be complex and difficult. Then, arresting them in Russian-occupied territory, or obtaining their extradition from Russia, will be virtually impossible. The ICC has only convicted 10 people in two decades, despite the prevalence of international crimes in many conflicts.

Read more:
‘Judge, jury and executioner’: why holding militaries to account for alleged war crimes is so hard – podcast

At most, anyone ultimately indicted may think twice about travelling outside Russia or occupied Ukraine, as they could be arrested in 123 countries that are members of the court.

There is also the possibility Putin’s regime will eventually fall and a new Russian government may be more open to seeking justice for its past. Collecting and preserving evidence is therefore essential for any future accountability efforts.

Having failed to prevent the conflict, the least the international community can do now is better resource the prosecutor’s office to undertake its important investigations, and share relevant evidence and intelligence.

Ben Saul is affiliated with Chatham House in London and the International Centre for Counter-terrorism in The Hague.

– ref. Civilians are being killed in Ukraine. So, why is investigating war crimes so difficult? – https://theconversation.com/civilians-are-being-killed-in-ukraine-so-why-is-investigating-war-crimes-so-difficult-178155

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rebecca Bentley, Professor of Social Epidemiology, Principal Research Fellow in Social Epidemiology and Director of the Centre for Research Excellence in Healthy Housing in Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, The University of Melbourne

Recent torrential rain along the east coast of Australia has sparked renewed fears of mould in people’s homes, which can cause dangerous health problems. Many flood-affected residents in northern New South Wales and Queensland will also be contending with mould as part of the post-flood cleanup.

Moulds are fungi – microbes like viruses or bacteria. There are some microbes in every building and they’re usually harmless.

In a damp or water-damaged environment, however, toxic mould species grow and release spores that can cause health problems if inhaled.

Here’s what you need to know.

Read more:
Floods herald creeping problem of mould and growing health risks

More than just lungs: mould can affect health in other ways

Many of us know someone whose asthma is triggered by exposure to mould. But even non-asthma sufferers are at risk.

Research shows dampness, mould and related airborne particles are associated with a range of adverse health outcomes, including increased risks of asthma, allergies, and respiratory infections and symptoms.

A parliamentary Inquiry into Biotoxin-related Illnesses in Australia noted the need for further research into mould prevalence, mould measurement and the potential health effects of exposure to damp and mould.

Some research suggests people exposed to mould in their homes report more severe depression and anxiety symptoms. Of course, this association isn’t just about mould, and worsening mental health is likely to do with a range of factors associated with living with damp and mould, including poor housing condition, poverty, and general ill health.

Mould hot spots in Australia

The World Health Organisation advises no level of exposure to mould can be considered safe for health. It says dampness and mould-related problems should be prevented and remediated early to avoid potentially harmful exposure.

Despite this strong advice, mould is a common problem in Australia. Until recently, not much has been known about mould prevalence, with the official WHO guidelines on indoor air quality estimating 10-50% of Australian homes are affected by dampness and mould.

We can also make an estimate using the large-scale Australian Rental Housing Conditions Dataset, which collates robust data collected from over 14,000 rental households in 2020.

Our analysis of this data set shows 27% of renters say their current home has problems with mould and 21% report problems with dampness.

Mould is often found in the south eastern states of Australia due to a combination of lower temperatures and damp weather. It is also a problem in New South Wales and Queensland, where 39% and 26% of regions respectively have a high prevalence of mould in rental homes. Sydney has more mould than Melbourne.

We have mapped the data for Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane here:

You’re also more likely to find mould in poorly maintained, low-income housing. These poor housing conditions are more common among people who already experience health issues.

Children are another group at higher risk of living in housing with mould – 33% of people living with two or more children reported mould in the Australian Rental Housing Conditions Dataset (compared to 27% of childfree households).

Other risk factors for mould included roof and plumbing defects, and the need for urgent repairs.

Building codes and rental policy can help

Mandated building standards are important to ensure design, building and maintenance sufficiently address mould growth.

Our current building codes do not focus on preventing damp conditions. In fact Australia’s National Construction Code previously inadvertently promoted moist indoor environments by solely focusing on well-sealed, energy-efficient buildings.

The National Construction Code is to be updated in late 2022. Hopefully, the new code will directly address the mould-promoting condensation problem caused by measures to increase energy efficiency in buildings.

New builds, of course, don’t house the whole population. Almost a third of Australian households rent, and this includes older homes with a range of structural issues. Policies targeting renters and landlords could have a significant impact on population health.

While tenancy regulations vary across Australia, some states and territories have begun to address the issue of mould in rental housing.

For example, the recent Victorian rental reform mandates premises:

must be free from mould and damp caused by or related to the building structure.

It allows tenants to log an urgent repair request where issues, such as leaking roofs or plumbing, lead to mould.

Since there are no accepted standards for mould measurement or remediation, legislation referring to “mould and damp” may not end up improving housing conditions.

An agreed definition of what level of mould is harmful, and how it can be measured, would allow governments to set cut-offs above which homeowners are compelled to intervene.

What can you do about mould in your home?

Prevention is more efficient than removal. The key is keeping the house dry and free of dust. Make sure you:

• fix leaks, including roofs and walls as well as plumbed appliances such as dishwashers

• increase ventilation and air circulation with windows and fans

• use extractor fans when cooking, bathing or drying laundry

• use a dehumidifier

• clean condensation from inner windows.

If mould has already set in, the best option is to remove it physically with a microfibre cloth.

Mould remediation is complex and often best undertaken with professional advice. Australian state and territory governments provide advice on dealing with dampness and mould in the home.

For example, see advice sheets from the Victorian Department of Health, NSW Health and the Queensland government.

This explainer by the Healthy Housing Centre of Research Excellence on mould and damp also provides information on where you can seek help.

Read more:
Queenslanders at risk from mould as flood clean-up continues

Rebecca Bentley receives funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council and the Australian Research Council.

Ang Li receives funding from the University of Melbourne Early Career Researcher Grant Scheme and funding support from the National Health and Medical Research Council.

– ref. Sudden mould outbreak after all this rain? You’re not alone – but you are at risk – https://theconversation.com/sudden-mould-outbreak-after-all-this-rain-youre-not-alone-but-you-are-at-risk-177820

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anastasiya Byesyedina, PhD Candidate in the Department of Government and International Relations, Sessional Teacher and Student Writing Fellow, University of Sydney

Last Friday afternoon, I received a phone call from my mother in Ukraine. It was 5am Kyiv time and I heard her voice tremble as she told me, “Putin announced an invasion – I can hear bombing!”.

Ukrainians around the world are watching the Russian invasion of their home in horror and distress. As a researcher in Australia, my interests are in the study of Ukrainian revolutions and identity. But before all that, I am Ukrainian.

It is a surreal and gut-wrenching experience to hear the voice of your loved one in crisis when you are oceans apart. Feelings of fear, shock and angst run through every Ukrainian trying to grapple with the reality of war from afar.

So, sleep deprived but hopeful, Ukrainians in Australia are spending their days relentlessly attending rallies and waiting for phone calls from their family.

Ukrainians in Australia

Ukrainians have a long and significant history in Australia. Records show Ukrainians began migrating to Australia as early as 1860, but the largest wave of migration was in 1948 when Ukrainian refugees arrived from displaced persons camps in Europe after the second world war.

Following Ukraine’s independence in 1991, younger Ukrainian professionals came to Australia on skilled visas.

According to the 2016 Census there were 13,366 Ukraine-born people in Australia. Victoria has the largest number at 5,322, followed by New South Wales (4,830), Queensland (1,248) and South Australia (929). More than 46,000 people reported they had Ukrainian ancestry.

Due to the complex history and geography of the region, some Russians in Australia will also have family in Ukraine or identify as Ukrainian.

Rallying and praying

The Ukrainian community in Australia is not just watching the war, they are trying to stop it with rallies.

Whether they are students, couples, families with children, old or young, Ukrainians in Australia have the same goals. They want to raise awareness of Russian atrocities on Ukrainian land and ensure the Australian government provides enough support in the form of military aid, humanitarian relief, migration aid and sanctions.

Read more:
Torn between worlds, Ukrainian Australians are feeling the mental health impacts of war. Here’s how to help

So, regardless of the weather, Ukrainians in Melbourne, Adelaide, and Sydney have marched.

You will have seen them wearing vyshyvankas – a blouse embroidered with patterns that differ depending on the region of Ukraine someone is from. Waving Ukrainian flags and singing the Ukrainian national anthem have also become a daily ritual. A key line is “Ukraine is not yet dead, nor its glory and freedom”, echoing past and present resilience against Russian aggression.

Community groups, such as the Australian Federation of Ukrainian Organisations, have also been working with the Ukrainian community, sending letters to local MPs and talking to Ukrainian families here and abroad.

Some Ukrainians have also been going to church. The Holy Transfiguration of Our Lord Parish in Sydney’s Blacktown is one of the oldest Ukrainian churches recorded in Australia and has been uniting the Ukrainian diaspora over the past week. As priest Vadym Koreniuk told me:

We are in dark times. Feeling that you are not alone is very reassuring. It helps to keep you sane.

It is encouraging to see Prime Minister Scott Morrison has already agreed to provide Ukraine with military and humanitarian aid. This needs to continue.

Read more:
Morrison would favour expelling Russia from G20, as Australia provides $105 million for Ukraine assistance

Australia – and the rest of the world – must maintain the pressure against Russia. Boycotting Russian products may be another way to do this.

Support from other former Soviet states

Since the invasion of Ukraine, we have also been encouraged by the solidarity among other diaspora communities here in Australia. The rallies have seen Australians, Georgians, Poles, Lithuanians and Russians – to name a few – come out to support the Ukrainian people.

This is reminiscent of protests in Ukraine in 2013 and 2014, against Russian-backed former president Victor Yanukovych. These were also supported around the world, most notably by neighbouring citizens.

The significance of ethnic groups who were once part of the Soviet empire joining Ukrainian rallies here cannot be overstated. These groups are more than familiar with the repercussions of Soviet and Russian aggression. During Sydney’s Martin Place rally on Saturday, I heard a Russian man say:

I was born Russian, it was not my choice […] But why I am now standing with this flag, the flag of an aggressor, the flag of a colonial empire?

He then burned his Russian passport.

The diaspora’s vital role

The rallies are set to continue. It is vital for the Ukrainian community in Australia to be continuously heard. As a diaspora group, this is the least we can do for our family, friends and Ukrainian National Army back home.

In the meantime, I try to talk to my mother every day, hoping this nightmare ends and that I can see her face again.

Anastasiya Byesyedina 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 are in dark times’: what is it like for Ukrainians in Australia watching their country at war? – https://theconversation.com/we-are-in-dark-times-what-is-it-like-for-ukrainians-in-australia-watching-their-country-at-war-178029

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sanjaya Senanayake, Associate Professor of Medicine, Infectious Diseases Physician, Australian National University

Since Omicron was detected in South Africa in late November, the SARS-CoV-2 variant has spread to more than 165 countries and is now the dominant strain.

Omicron has more mutations than other strains: 72 in total, the most concerning of which make the virus more transmissible and better able to evade the immune system and vaccines.

So how does Omicron differ to Delta in infectiousness, symptoms, severity and vaccine protection.

Read more:
How new COVID-19 variants emerge: Natural selection and the evolution of SARS-CoV-2

How contagious is it?

The basic reproduction number (R0) is one gauge of the infectiousness of a virus. It tells you how many susceptible people a single infected person will themselves go on to infect.

Danish researchers estimate the effective reproduction number of Omicron is 3.19 times more than that of Delta, which had an average R0 of 5 (ranging from 3.2 to 8).

Similarly, Japanese research concludes Omicron is 4.2 times more transmissible than Delta early on.

So, in a fully susceptible (unvaccinated and uninfected) population, one person with Delta would, on average, infect five other people, while one person with Omicron could transmit the virus to about 20 others.

This makes Omicron one of the most infectious agents known.

Another practical indicator of a virus’s infectiousness is how easily it spreads within households. This is known as the secondary attack rate.

Studies from various countries have consistently shown Omicron has a higher secondary attack rate in households than Delta. In a household with Omicron, householders have a 14-50% chance of getting infected.

Why is Omicron more infectious?

Omicron’s varied mutations allow it to evade the immunity generated by both previous infections and vaccination.

Studies have also shown Omicron infects and multiplies in the upper airways 70 times faster than Delta.

There also seems to be more asymptomatic infections with Omicron. This probably facilitates transmission, as people don’t realise they’re infected and will move around normally.

How long does it take to become sick?

The incubation period of Omicron – the period from being infected to getting symptoms – is around three days, with the person often becoming infectious a day or two before symptoms emerge.

This is shorter than with Delta and earlier variants.

The average duration of illness is shorter with Omicron than Delta: five days compared to six.

With new isolation rules implemented during the Omicron wave, seven days after testing positive to COVID, those who are symptom-free will no longer have to isolate.

What are the symptoms?

The five most common symptoms of Delta and Omicron are:

• runny nose
• headache
• fatigue
• sneezing
• sore throat.

Compared with Delta, Omicron is more likely to cause a sore throat and less likely to be associated with the loss of taste or smell.

In children, Omicron may be more likely to cause croup, which leads to a distinctive barking cough. Croup is associated with other viruses, but Omicron’s ability to infect the upper airways so efficiently may allow it to cause croup more than previous COVID variants.

Read more:
My child has croup. Could it be COVID? What do I need to know?

Is it less severe?

Yes, Omicron causes less severe disease than Delta. Part of this may be due to Omicron being less able to infect lungs as it does the upper airways.

The risk of hospitalisation and ICU admissions from Omicron are 40-80% lower than with Delta.

The risk of death is about 60% less with Omicron than with Delta.

Yet despite the reduced severity, this wave of Omicron has been associated with higher rates of hospitalisations in many countries because of the sheer numbers of those infected.

The only silver lining has been how the Omicron wave peaked within a few weeks in numerous countries, with hospitalisation and daily case numbers quickly coming down.

Can you be reinfected with COVID?

Yes, people who have previously had COVID from earlier variants are at risk of getting infected with Omicron, particularly in regions with low vaccination rates.

Analysis of 116,683 cases early in the UK’s Omicron wave found 9.5% of Omicron cases were reinfections.

It’s too early to know the risk of a person previously infected with Omicron getting Omicron again.

Read more:
Why don’t most people with COVID need to test for another 30 days, even if they’re re-exposed?

How effective are two doses of vaccine?

After 20 weeks, two doses of either mRNA vaccine (Pfizer or Moderna), reduced the risk of infection with Omicron by only around 10%.

By the same point in time, two doses of AstraZeneca essentially provide no protection against infection with Omicron.

However, two doses of vaccine still prevent severe disease, with a vaccine effectiveness against hospitalisation of up to 35% six months later. This is less than half as effective as the protection offered against hospitalisation with Delta.

How effective are three doses of vaccine?

A booster dose of vaccine improves your protection against Omicron. Vaccine effectiveness against hospitalisation is 83% ten or more weeks after the booster.

Protection against symptomatic disease increases too. Vaccine effectiveness is 65-75% two to four weeks after the booster, reducing to 45-50% ten weeks after the booster.

Pfizer and Moderna have also developed an Omicron-specific vaccine which they are about to test in clinical trials and could be available in the second half of 2022.

Read more:
What’s the difference in protection against Omicron between 2 doses and 3 doses of vaccine?

Sanjaya Senanayake 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. How does Omicron compare with Delta? Here’s what we know about infectiousness, symptoms, severity and vaccine protection – https://theconversation.com/how-does-omicron-compare-with-delta-heres-what-we-know-about-infectiousness-symptoms-severity-and-vaccine-protection-172963

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rebecca English, Senior Lecturer in Education, Queensland University of Technology

Schools were thrown into a spin by the COVID-19 pandemic. When children were sent home to learn remotely, teaching methods remained largely the same. Many children, parents and teachers were frustrated by the difficulties they faced when schools tried to transplant face-to-face classroom learning into homes.

Over time, a number of teachers and parents adapted their approach by reducing contact hours and the reliance on lecture-style instruction. Many moved to games and small-group discussion instead. For some students this worked well.

Schools in all states have now reopened and students are required to return to a pre-COVID status quo. But, many cannot or will not, and others feel they are being forced into arrangements they don’t like.

Read more:
Homeschooling boomed last year. But these 4 charts show it was on the rise before COVID

The pandemic has changed some parents’ and children’s expectations and experiences of schooling. For instance, many parents saw benefits for their child working at their own pace and being more active.

Research suggests many parents would keep their children in schools if the system was more flexible – even if it allowed the option of attending school part time while learning remotely the rest of the time.

From changed expectations to different choices

While most children in Australia returned to school, a large and growing proportion of families have opted for some kind of at-home learning.

In December 2021, the ACT held an inquiry into the pandemic’s impact on the community. Many parents sent in submissions requesting the state to continue to allow remote learning for those who elected to do so. One of the recommendations on the pandemic’s impact on schools was for the ACT government to

consider the benefits of remote learning for some children and […] whether to introduce this as an ongoing arrangement for those who are better suited to remote learning.

Across the country, home education numbers have increased dramatically. While the exact figures are yet to be released by all state and territory authorities, in NSW, there’s been a reported 28% increase in registrations (from 7032 to 8981) in just ten months. This has been accompanied by a blow-out in the wait-time to be registered, which has more than doubled for some families.

Vivienne Fox (administrator of an online home school registration support page) told us the NSW registration process:

has blown out to at least 16 weeks from submitting the application to receiving the certificate, which is when they say that you’re recognised as registered […] that’s more than one term.

Additionally, private distance education schools have seen a substantial jump in enrolments.

Dr Terry Harding, the manager of Australian Christian College, one of the country’s largest providers of non-government distance education services, told us:

We have four schools in four states. All are experiencing higher than normal enrolments. One has closed new enrolments for term 1 because of the massive influx of new students.

Rise of illegal pop-up schools

Another, more worrying, change has been the emergence of education services that fall into a legal grey area. Teachers who have been forced out of the school system (often for reasons related to COVID vaccination or the disease itself) are moving into the home education sector.

Facebook groups have been set up to connect families with teachers. Some offer tutoring or classes that parents attend with their children. Others have created pop-up schools where parents can drop children to classes and which provide progress reports.

These pop-up schools are not legally or validly operating and are not a non-government school.

To be classed as a non-government school in Australia, schools must be registered by statutory authorities in their state or territory. In Queensland, for example, it’s NSSAB, the Non-State Schools Accreditation Board.

Read more:
Thinking of switching to homeschooling permanently after lockdown? Here are 5 things to consider

In all states and territories, these authorities are made up of various representatives of the main non-state school authorities (such as the Catholic Education Commission and independent schools associations). They are convened by education departments to register non-state schools and ensure they are validly operating, including that they are not offering a school service to home educators.

However, these pop-up schools are specifically targeting the home education community and offering a service to them. This is illegal. A spokesperson of the NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA) told us:

It is an offence for a person to conduct, knowingly permit or assist in the conduct of an unregistered school, for the education of school aged children […] Where NESA has information raising concerns that an illegal school may be operating, NESA will conduct an investigation.

What does this mean going forward?

Schools are now a tricky position. They are trying to balance the needs of fearful parents with the needs of those who think mandates, especially banning parents from school grounds if they are un-vaccinated, have gone too far. They are also dealing with parents’ concerns about children bringing the virus home to vulnerable family members.

Some factors pushing families to homeschool and distance education are already well recognised. These include a child having a diagnosis such as autism spectrum disorder, bullying and the family feeling schools are not catering to their children’s needs. We have known for a long time homeschooling is not the first choice for all families.

For many it is a last ditch attempt to meet their children’s learning and well-being needs.

Read more:
Don’t want to send the kids back to school? Why not try unschooling at home?

Schools may have to adapt to a changed mode to meet parent and students’ needs. Flexible delivery, including opening up the distance education schools for broader enrolments, would support those who benefit from being home some of the time and help those who are concerned about risks associated with school attendance.

More options for distance education would minimise the problem of pop-up schools. And it would leave home education for those who want it, not for those who feel they have no other option.

Rebecca English is a member of the Home Education Association.

Chris Krogh is affiliated with Home Education Australia – a national, not-for-profit, membership-based association supporting home educators.

Giuliana Liberto is a member of the Home Education Association, Inc.

Karleen Gribble is a member of the Home Education Association.

– ref. Traditional school doesn’t suit everyone. Australia needs more flexible options – https://theconversation.com/traditional-school-doesnt-suit-everyone-australia-needs-more-flexible-options-177608

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Iain Butterworth, Honorary Associate Professor, School of Global, Urban and Social Studies, RMIT University

The John Curtin Hotel in Carlton, another of Melbourne’s cultural landmarks, is set to close. Nearly 150 years old, the pub has long been a haunt of the union movement, Labor leaders, detectives, journalists and the live music scene.

The building will probably be sold to overseas property developers. While the building has some degree of heritage protection, there appears to be nothing to prevent developers from gutting the interior, keeping the façade and then building a further six stories on top of the lobotomised carapace.

There’s no requirement that this site continues to provide a community setting for people to build social ties, both strong and weak.

Once again, Australian planning systems are set to fail the individual and collective identities and biographies of those who live here, and those who came before us.

Once again, residents of a colonial Australian city are experiencing what First Nations, other colonised peoples, asylum seekers and climate refugees have long known: when we are forced to leave a loved place, or when that place changes beyond our control, we experience loss and grief, and our individual and collective identities can be wounded.

Read more:
The John Curtin Hotel is a home for Melbourne’s musicians, activists and unionists. Shutting it down is a loss for our cultural heritage

A feeling of destierra

Social psychologist Irwin Altman said the loss of buildings and places where we have lived our lives and built community can feel like the loss of a personal relationship which we expected to last indefinitely. Our experience of a change in a place is “both a serious environmental issue and a deeply personal one”.

In Returning to Nothing: the meaning of lost places (1996), historian Peter Read challenged us to not “underestimate the effect which the loss of dead and dying places has on our own self-identity, mental well-being and sense of belonging”.

Read pointed out that, unlike the English language, there’s a word in Spanish, destierra, which describes the psychological trauma of being uprooted, displaced or dispossessed from a loved place.

Our colonial planning laws, which are steeped in the tradition of terra nullius, give very limited weight to the personal and collective emotions and identities of those who seek to preserve the links between threatened buildings, places and spaces, and their own biographies, ongoing Indigenous presence and community identity.

Liveable cities

With its focus on healthy, liveable neighbourhoods, the Victorian government’s Plan Melbourne has sought to build on the legacy of Melbourne’s claim to be the world’s most liveable city.

Certainly, the Australian Urban Observatory shows that many parts of Melbourne offer easy physical access to diverse affordable housing, local employment, social infrastructure, fresh affordable food, green space, walkable neighbourhoods and efficient public transport.

But liveable places also welcome us. They make it easy for us to feel like we belong and to experience a sense of community.

The built environment is far more than a backdrop to our lives. Environmental economist and planner Michael Jacobs said “People do not simply look out over a landscape and say, ‘this belongs to me’. They say, ‘I belong to this’”.

Our overtly formal and “rational” planning and heritage laws typically assess the value of buildings and places on their architectural merit alone, rather than how these places and spaces serve as repositories of cultural memory and settings for building community.

Read more:
Cities are made from more than buildings and roads. They are also made by ambiences – how a city makes you feel

The loss of The Greyhound

While the John Curtin Hotel has never been one of my tribal haunts, its significance resonates.

In 1996, I moved to Melbourne to study. I found a flat in Balaclava, and immediately felt at home. The urban form provided a sense of intimacy that I’d never experienced living elsewhere in Australia.

One of my favourite St Kilda haunts was the Greyhound Hotel.

This raffish, Victorian/art-deco pile had served as a community meeting place for local LGBTQ+ residents and other locals for almost 100 years.

The hotel, and nearby St Kilda Town Hall, each on opposite sides of Brighton Road, served as a symbolic gateway to my local neighbourhood. The Greyhound certainly wasn’t a fancy building, but it was quirky. For 160 years, it had been a vital “third place” for building community: a space we gather in away from home and work.

The Greyhound was integral to the character of the local neighbourhood, and to people’s individual and collective stories.

Despite its acknowledged social significance and a community petition, neither local heritage laws nor the State Planning Minister would protect the Greyhound Hotel from destruction in 2017 by the international consortium that had bought it.

Because the original Victorian hotel had been remodelled extensively in the 1930s, the council indicated that it could not include the building on its “historic” register, which apparently only recognises buildings that remain largely unchanged. Think about all the historic buildings in Europe that have evolved continuously over the centuries.

Locals mourned the Greyhound’s destruction and took home bricks as mementos. Several years following the hotel’s demolition, the site remains an empty scar: there’s no history there at all. Even now I try to avoid going near it.

May the John Curtin Hotel – and those who identify with it and love it – experience a different fate.

Iain Butterworth is the founder of Iain Butterworth and Associates, which aims to bring planners, policy makers, researchers and citizens together to build more liveable, healthier cities and communities.

– ref. The psychology of a loss of place: when we demolish socially significant places, we demolish part of who we are – https://theconversation.com/the-psychology-of-a-loss-of-place-when-we-demolish-socially-significant-places-we-demolish-part-of-who-we-are-177612

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Paul Spoonley, Distinguished Professor, College of Humanities and Social Sciences, Massey University

It has been interesting to watch media and public commentators come to the realisation – sometimes slowly – that the siege of parliament was not simply an anti-vaccine mandate “protest” but something with more sinister elements.

While researchers and journalists have noted the toxicity of some of the politics on display, as well the presence of extreme fringe activists and groups, it should have come as little surprise.

These politics have been developing for some time, heavily influenced by the rise of a particular form of conspiratorial populism out of Donald Trump’s America, and by the networking and misinformation possibilities of social media.

Internationally, researchers noted a decisive shift in 2015-16 and the subsequent exponential growth of extremist and vitriolic content online.

This intensified with the arrival of conspiracy movement QAnon in 2017 and the appearance of a number of alt-tech platforms that were designed to spread mis- and disinformation, conspiracy theories (old and new), and ultranationalism and racist views.

While local manifestations developed slowly, there was evidence that some groups and activists were beginning to realise the potential. The Dominion Movement and Action Zealandia embraced these new politics – white nationalism, distrust of perceived corrupt elites and media – along with the relatively sophisticated use of social media to influence and recruit.

COVID and conspiracy theory

These anti-authority, conspiratorial views have been around in New Zealand for some time within the anti-1080, anti-5G and anti-UN movements.

But we began to see the formation of a loose political community around the 2020 general election. It was notable, for instance, that online material from the Advance NZ party had 30,000 followers and their anti-COVID material was viewed 200,000 times.

COVID gave new impetus to these movements, partly because the pandemic fed many of the now well-established tropes of those inclined to believe in conspiracies – the role of China, government “overreach”, the influence of international organisations like the UN or WHO, or the “malign” influence of experts or institutions.

Read more:
What are the rights of children at the parliament protest – and who protects them?

COVID not only encouraged others to be convinced that conspiracies were at work, the lockdowns also meant more were online and more were likely to engage. QAnon proved to be a key influence.

The election saw Advance NZ (and the NZ Public Party), along with the New Conservatives, the Outdoor Party and Vision NZ all peddle versions of COVID scepticism, the distrust of elites or of ethnic and religious “others”.

Combined, they received 2.73% of the party vote and 3.01% of electorate votes. Not large, but related online activity was still troubling.

The alt-right in NZ

By mid-2021, when the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD, a UK-based research organisation) undertook a study for the Department of Internal Affairs of New Zealand’s extreme online activity, things had ramped up yet again.

The ISD looked at 300 local extremist accounts and 600,000 posts. In any given week, 192 extremist accounts were active, with 20,059 posts, 203,807 likes or up-votes and 38,033 reposts/retweets.

Read more:
The NZ anti-vax movement’s exploitation of Holocaust imagery is part of a long and sorry history

When it came to far-right Facebook pages, there were 750 followers per 100,000 internet users in New Zealand, compared to 399 in Australia, 252 in Canada and 233 in the USA.

Those numbers should give us all pause for thought. The volumes, the relatively high density, the extensive use of QAnon and the mobilisation of a not insignificant part of the New Zealand community indicate the alt-right and its fellow travellers were now well and truly established here.

The ‘sovereign citizens’ at parliament

This is reinforced by the Department of Internal Affairs’ digital harm log. Not only are the numbers growing, but the level of hate and threats directed at individuals and institutions remains high.

In this context, it’s not surprising to see these ideologies surface at the occupation of parliament grounds, or the fractious and divided nature of those attending, and that their demands are so diverse and inchoate.

Nor should it come as a surprise that the protesters display a complete unwillingness to trust authorities such as the police or parliament.

For some time, the so-called “sovereign citizens” movement has been apparent in New Zealand, again heavily influenced by similar American politics. Laws and regulations are regarded as irrelevant and illegal, as are the institutions that create or enforce them.

What’s perhaps more surprising is that New Zealanders have generally not known more about these politics and the possibility they would produce the ugly scenes at parliament.

Read more:
The occupation of NZ’s parliament grounds is a tactical challenge for police, but mass arrests are not an option

Information and action needed

While there has been some excellent media coverage, there has been a sense of playing catch-up. The degree of extremism fuelling the protests and the various demands appeared to catch parliament and the police off guard.

Our security and intelligence agencies are devoting more resources to tracking these politics – but they need to be more public about it. The Combined Threat Assessment Group and the SIS provide updates and risk assessments, but these often lack detailed information about local activists and actions. We need to be better informed.

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The police are enhancing existing systems to better record hate crimes and activities (Te Raranga), which should become an important source of information.

And the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet will be announcing some of the details of the new centre of excellence, He Whenua Taurika, that will provide evidence of local developments.

If many New Zealanders have been surprised and saddened about the extremist politics visible at the parliament protest, there is now little excuse for not understanding their background and momentum. The challenge now is to ensure further hate crimes or violence do not follow.

Paul Spoonley is a member of a New Zealand Police independent advisory panel and has been working with the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet on the implementation of the Royal Commission of Inquiry recommendations. He is a member of Te Raranga Advisory Group.

– ref. The extremism visible at the parliament protest has been growing in NZ for years – is enough being done? – https://theconversation.com/the-extremism-visible-at-the-parliament-protest-has-been-growing-in-nz-for-years-is-enough-being-done-177831

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

As well as her interviews with politicians and experts, Politics with Michelle Grattan now includes “Word from The Hill”, where she discusses the news with members of The Conversation politics team.

This week Michelle and politics + society editor Amanda Dunn discuss Australia’s response to the war in Ukraine which now includes more than $100 million for lethal and non-lethal assistance and humanitarian aid.

They also canvass Peter Dutton’s recent controversial GoFundMe campaign for flood victims.

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. Word from The Hill: Assistance for Ukraine and Peter Dutton’s fundraising – https://theconversation.com/word-from-the-hill-assistance-for-ukraine-and-peter-duttons-fundraising-178173

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Vlado Vivoda, Senior Lecturer in Strategic Studies (Australian War College), Deakin University

As economic sanctions on Russia escalate, there has been an attempt to isolate vital energy exports from the mix. This may be wishful thinking.

US President Joe Biden last week said sanctions against Russia, including cutting off Russian banks and individuals from the global SWIFT transaction system, were “specifically designed to allow energy payments to continue”.

Read more:
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But prices on futures contracts for natural gas in Europe soared last week. While they have settled down since, internationally the market is volatile and uncertain.

Russia is both the world’s second-largest exporter of crude oil and refined petrol, and the largest exporter of natural gas, mostly via pipelines to western Europe. The European Union and its allies want to put maximum pressure on Russia, but not set off an energy crisis that hurts their own people and plunges the world economy into recession.

Analysts point out that Russia’s war on Ukraine will likely disrupt its gas exports even without sanctions, with Western countries pulling out of relationships with Russian energy companies and the possibility Moscow could withhold supplies in retaliation for other measures.

Trading, shipping and insurance companies are unlikely to take the risk of dealing with Russian cargoes, fearing either physical attack, payment issues because of financial sanctions, the risk of non-delivery, or public and investor backlash for continuing to do business with Russia.

The extent of the upheaval is demonstrated by BP’s announcement this week to sell its 19.75% stake in Russia’s state-owned oil company Rosneft. Shell followed suit by announcing it will exit its joint ventures with Russian gas giant Gazprom, including its 27.5% stake in the Sakhalin-II liquefied natural gas (LNG) facility in East Asia.

These actions – unprecedented by global energy companies – demonstrate how profound effects may be.

What happens to natural gas supplies prices has consequences for Australia, also a relatively major player in the global gas export market. Unlike with petrol prices, however, Australian gas consumers are largely insulated from international volatility.

Read more:
What Russia’s war means for Australian petrol prices: $2.10 a litre

Russia’s natural gas exports

Natural gas is traded internationally by pipeline or shipped as LNG. Russia’s exports account for 26% of international pipeline trade and 8% of LNG trade.

About 77% of these exports go to European countries and account for about 40% of Europe’s total natural gas consumption. Dependence varies. Nine countries rely on Russia for more than 90% of their gas imports: Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Latvia, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia.

In 2021 slightly less than 10% of Russian gas exports to Europe was transported via Ukraine (through pipelines).

Australia’s gas capabilities

Australia is the world’s fifth biggest natural gas exporter. It exclusively exports natural gas as LNG, and is now the world’s largest LNG exporter, accounting for 22% of international trade.

In 2021, Australian LNG exports were valued at A$49.1 billion, or more than 10% of Australia’s total export revenues.

Historically, more than 99% of Australian LNG has been exported to Asia, mainly China, Japan and South Korea.

Most of these LNG exports are locked into inflexible long-term contracts. About 36% of exports, however, are sold under flexible spot and short-term contracts. To sell this to Europe would mean selling less to existing customers, which would be difficult given contractual and transportation constraints.

In late January the Morrison government offered to provide extra LNG to “friends and allies” in Europe should Russian supplies be cut. Last week foreign minister Marise Payne said she had been talking to European counterparts about this. But most analysts question the feasibility, at least in the near term.

As noted by Graeme Bethune, the head of Adelaide consultancy EnergyQuest, “Australian LNG is produced by private companies, and the government doesn’t decide where it goes”.

According to Credit Suisse analyst Saul Kavonic, there is “precisely zero” capacity for Australia to boost LNG deliveries to Europe in the short term.

Australian LNG could be used in “swaps”. These involve swapping an LNG cargo in one part of the world with one closer to where a buyer wants it delivered. This may allow, for example, American LNG to be diverted to Europe, and Australian LNG replacing it in Asia.

But it is still a zero-sum game for the global economy.

Read more:
How Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will ripple through the global economy and affect Australia

Effects on Australian exporters and customers

Australian LNG exporters will benefit from higher global prices. The good news for Australian consumers is that those higher prices largely won’t flow through to domestic prices.

Australia’s domestic gas prices are about 70% lower than overseas, due to government measures to quarantine Australian customers from international prices and guarantee secure and affordable gas to the country’s east coast market.

Most Australian gas buyers have long-term supplies locked in.

This is why the head of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission does not expert gas prices to rise, unlike petrol prices.

Vlado Vivoda 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. How disrupted Russian gas supplies will hit global and Australian prices – https://theconversation.com/how-disrupted-russian-gas-supplies-will-hit-global-and-australian-prices-178023