Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rowan Nicholson, Lecturer in Law, Flinders University

Before Russia began its invasion of Ukraine, it “recognised” two parts of eastern Ukraine as sovereign states: the so-called people’s republics of Donetsk and Luhansk. That recognition is now central to what both Russia and the West are saying about the invasion.

Why does this kind of state recognition matter so much, and how does it challenge international law?

The international law on statehood

International law has rules about what qualifies as a state – and thus what entities get the many rights that follow from statehood. The rules are a compromise between two approaches.

One approach is hard-headed realism. This says we should acknowledge whoever has control on the ground, even if they are lawbreakers or dictators rather than democrats.

The general rule about statehood is that states must meet requirements of effectiveness. The Montevideo Convention of 1933 lists these: population, territory, government and a “capacity to enter into relations with the other states”.

The last requirement can also be described as independence.

The Donetsk and Luhansk republics have probably never had enough independence to qualify as states. For one thing, Ukraine did not give up disputing the territory. For another thing, they have always depended on Russia rather than being truly independent.

Read more:
Why Ukrainians are ready to fight for their democracy

But that is not the only problem with them.

The other approach that shapes the law of statehood is the idealism enshrined in the United Nations Charter. One of the rules in the charter, which became binding international law in 1945, is states must not use military force against other states (except defensively or if the UN Security Council authorises it).

This underpins an exception to the general rule. A territory cannot qualify as a state if it was created by illegal military force. And it appears the creation of these two republics in eastern Ukraine in 2014 – and their continued survival – was made possible by illegal Russian military support.

Illegal recognition

Since the Donetsk and Luhansk republics are not states in international law, the territory remains under Ukraine’s sovereignty. By recognising them, Russia denied this sovereignty in a fundamental way. The international lawyer and judge Hersch Lauterpacht called recognition in this situation “an international delinquency”.

In other words, it is illegal. Many states have pointed this out, including the United States and Australia.

This situation used to happen more often. In 1903, the US recognised part of Colombia as the new state of Panama so that Americans could build a canal there. In 1932, Japan recognised part of northeast China as the new state of Manchukuo, which was a Japanese puppet.

What has changed, since 1945, is the rule in the UN Charter against the use of military force by one state against another. That raises the stakes because illegal state recognition can be used to justify an illegal invasion.

The recognition opens up new arguments for Russia

That is exactly what has happened here. As soon as Russia recognised the Donetsk and Luhansk republics, they invited Russian troops onto “their” territory as “peacekeepers”. But it was still Ukraine’s territory, not theirs. And that made the troops invaders, not peacekeepers.

The value of the recognition to Russia is that the invasion looked a little less brazen.

If the two republics genuinely were sovereign states, it would be within their rights to invite the Russian troops, just as other states are free to host US troops. On that premise, Russia can tell its own people and anyone else who will listen that it acted legally.

Some further arguments are now also open to Russia, again based on the incorrect premise that the two republics are states. The Donetsk and Luhansk republics both claim additional Ukrainian territory that they do not control. Russia can now use these claims as a pretext for invading deeper into Ukraine.

Read more:
Ukraine: what’s really behind Putin’s deployment of ‘peacekeeping’ troops? Experts explain

We can get insights into what Russia might do from what it has done in the past.

In 2008, Russia recognised two breakaway parts of Georgia as states – Abkhazia and South Ossetia. It still militarily occupies them.

In 2014, Russia recognised a different part of Ukraine – Crimea – as a new state. In this case, Russia went further than military occupation. The so-called republic of Crimea was uncannily short-lived. Within two days, it held a disputed referendum and signed a “treaty” to become part of Russia.

Russia’s challenge to international law

Russia is not the only state to illegally invade another in recent decades. It is not even the only great power. The US invasion of Iraq in 2003 was widely condemned as illegal, too.

One difference may be that Russia is challenging the law in a more sustained, systematic way that makes democratic states fearful. But it is not quite accurate to say Russia wants to return the world to how it was before 1945. It has not repudiated the UN Charter.

On the contrary, at least for the time being, it is cloaking some of its illegal behaviour in language from international law. That was what recognising the two republics was about.

But it wants a world in which, for Russia, the flimsiest cloak of legal language is enough.

Rowan Nicholson 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. How Russia’s recognition of breakaway parts of Ukraine breached international law – and set the stage for invasion – https://theconversation.com/how-russias-recognition-of-breakaway-parts-of-ukraine-breached-international-law-and-set-the-stage-for-invasion-177623

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Kendall, PhD Candidate in Law, The University of Queensland

ASIO chief Mike Burgess recently revealed the security agency had detected and disrupted a foreign interference plot in the lead-up to an Australian election. He warned Australia was seeing foreign interference attempts “at all levels of government, in all states and territories”.

These types of threats have long been anticipated. In fact, in 2018, the federal government took the unprecedented step of passing nine new laws to counter foreign interference in politics. These serious national security crimes carry penalties ranging from ten to 20 years in jail. Similar crimes are not found in many other countries.

But are tough national security laws what we need? Will these do enough – or anything at all – to deter the threat of electoral interference in Australia?

What is foreign electoral interference?

First, it helps to define exactly what electoral interference is.

[ASIO] defines this as a covert or threatening action on behalf of a foreign power which aims to affect political processes or is detrimental to Australia’s interests.

So, when foreign individuals or powers covertly seek to influence our politics and this has a detrimental impact on our interests (or benefits the interests of the foreign power), this is foreign interference.

Read more:
Stronger laws on ‘foreign’ election influence were rushed through this week – limiting speech but ignoring our billionaire problem

This kind of conduct could take many forms. For example, it could mean a person who has connections with a foreign government (let’s say China) identifies Australian candidates who might support the interests of China or be vulnerable to inducements.

This person then seeks to advance the candidates’ political prospects without disclosing his or her links to the Chinese government.

This could occur through generous monetary support, placing favourable stories in foreign language media platforms, or providing other forms of assistance (such as hiring political consultants and advertising agencies).

The aim of political interference is to get candidates into positions of power and generate a sense of obligation and indebtedness that could subsequently be exploited by the foreign government.

Going back to our example, this could mean a person with links to the Chinese government encouraging candidates to hire certain people as political staffers, vote in a certain way, or pass on information about a party’s position on defence policy, human rights or foreign investment.

This kind of conduct can seriously damage our sovereignty and undermine our democracy. Burgess warns the threat is emanating from various countries – it should be noted, he didn’t specify China – and both sides of politics are being targeted.

Crimes of foreign interference

Australia’s new laws make it a crime to engage in covert, deceptive or threatening conduct on behalf of a foreign government or entity with the intention of:

• influencing an Australian political or democratic process

• supporting a foreign intelligence agency

• prejudicing Australia’s national security.

These offences capture all kinds of foreign interference in our electoral process (as well as any preparations for this kind of conduct). This gives law enforcement and intelligence agencies the power to intervene before any interference actually occurs, and to prosecute those people responsible.

While these crimes are similar to laws passed in the US and UK following the September 11 terrorist attacks, they are more far-reaching. And because Australia does not have a federal bill of rights, the laws have limited checks and balances.

Read more:
Government needs to slow down on changes to spying and foreign interference laws

Prosecuting (and deterring) perpetrators

But how easy would it be to actually prosecute offenders?

The foreign interference crimes apply to conduct that occurs in Australia. So, if the perpetrator was in Australia at the time they engaged in interference, then prosecuting them would be relatively straightforward, provided there was sufficient evidence.

This occurred with former Liberal candidate Duong Di Sanh, who was the first person charged with a foreign interference offence in Australia. He is still awaiting trial and the nature of his alleged interference has not been disclosed.

But a person does not have to be physically in Australia to hire a political consultant for a potential candidate, for example. If an offender is outside Australia at the time of the interference, they could still be charged with a crime. However, prosecuting them would be challenging.

The person would first have to be extradited back to Australia. Some countries do not have an extradition treaty with Australia (or it is not yet in force), such as China. And even if the country is an ally, extradition may be difficult. The attempted extradition of Julian Assange from the UK to the US for espionage crimes is one example of this.

Another problem is the anonymity of the internet and covert nature of foreign interference, which mean it might not even be possible to identify who was responsible for the interference – and therefore who to prosecute.

So, how can we counter the threat?

These examples show why our criminal laws are inadequate to counter the threat of foreign interference.

Not everyone who engages in interference will be prosecuted and punished. And the failure to punish offenders might undermine the deterrence effect of the laws, as others may continue to attempt interference without fear of being caught.

So, what can we do to protect ourselves and our nation?

Reforming the laws will not be very helpful because the problems of extradition and identification of perpetrators will arise no matter how the offences are worded. These problems will also arise even if our allies (and other countries) enact similar foreign interference crimes.

According to Burgess, awareness is the most effective defence against foreign interference. Interference attempts are much less likely to succeed if we understand the tactics being used to undermine our sovereignty and democracy.

We must all be aware of what foreign interference looks like. But politicians have a special role to play – they must be aware who they are dealing with, and why.

They must understand the risks of foreign interference, ask the right questions of supporters (including querying what their motives are), be transparent about what type of support they have received, and stay alert to favours being asked of them that conflict with Australia’s interests.

Because of how wide-reaching the threat of foreign interference is, security can no longer be the sole responsibility of agencies like ASIO. It is something we are now all responsible for.

Sarah Kendall 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 Australia’s tough national security laws cannot stop foreign interference in our elections – https://theconversation.com/why-australias-tough-national-security-laws-cannot-stop-foreign-interference-in-our-elections-177451

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

A new survey of Australian adults has found your relationship status can impact how well you sleep.

We know based on previous research that sleeping next to someone can help you sleep better – but this is the first study to look at how the type of relationship you’re in might impact your sleep.

We found that people who live with a regular partner tend to fall asleep faster than people who have occasional or casual partners, or who are single. It’s not all bad news for people who aren’t in an ongoing relationship though – the amount of sleep people got overnight wasn’t related to relationship status.

Read more:
How the brain tunes in to unfamiliar voices while you’re sleeping – and why it matters

Perchance to dream and stay healthy

It’s generally recommended you should get seven to nine hours of sleep a night. However, about 40% of Australians report inadequate sleep.

Not getting enough sleep, or having poor quality sleep, can lead to a range of health problems – such as poor heart health, stomach problems, poor mental health, and a greater risk of accident or injury.

Lots of things can affect how well you sleep – like work worries, family responsibilities and health. Existing research also tells us sleeping next to someone can impact our sleep. Due to a range of psychological and evolutionary factors, such as the need for strong social bonds to feel safe, it seems sleeping next to someone results in better sleep, and how well you sleep is linked with your relationship quality. Getting along well with your partner might lead to a better night of sleep – and vice versa!

However, no previous research investigated how relationship status might affect your sleep. We asked nearly 800 Australian adults about their relationship status and to rate their sleep using a shorter version of the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, which has been verified as a valid sleep measure.

Casual partners keep us up at night

Our study, to be published in the March edition of the Sleep Science journal, finds it takes people who have casual or occasional partners just over ten minutes longer to fall asleep than people who live with a regular partner.

Ten minutes might not sound like a long time – but studies show just four to eight minutes can be the difference between people with insomnia (seen as hyperarousal with physiological measures like increased metabolic rate, higher body temperature, altered heart rate and activity in the brain) and healthy sleepers.

When we break this down by gender in our study, we see women are much more likely to be affected by relationship status than men. Men fall asleep just as quickly when they have a casual partner compared with a regular, live-in partner.

These differences are only seen when we look at what is called “sleep latency” – the amount of time it takes from turning off the light to when you fall asleep. The other main measure – the total amount of sleep overnight – does not change depending on relationship status. People in our study in relationships (regardless of living situation) also report higher post-sex emotional satisfaction, and more frequent orgasms.

So, while you might feel like your sleep is worse because it takes a little longer to get to sleep, we don’t expect this to play out as major changes to daytime fatigue or sleepiness for people who are single or in casual relationships.

Read more:
Why do we wake around 3am and dwell on our fears and shortcomings?

Why is it so?

A few things could explain why relationship status impacts sleep.

People who are in casual (or new) relationships might have greater physiological arousal (racing hearts, breathing faster), which can make it harder to fall asleep. People in new relationships that are still at the casual stage might experience more excitement or anxiety when sleeping next to their new partner – or they might be worrying about the status of their relationship.

On the other hand, being in an ongoing relationship may be associated with feelings of physical and emotional security, which can reduce physiological arousal – and improve sleep. It’s possible we find it easier to sleep next to someone we trust because it is an evolutionary adaptation. That is, we feel safer from predators when sleeping in an environment we perceive to be “secure”.

Read more:
Is this love … or an arrhythmia? Your heart really can skip a beat when you’re in love

Now to bed … or beds

If you were to go to the doctor and tell then you’re having trouble sleeping, chances are they would recommend strategies like improving your sleep habits or cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia. But these strategies don’t consider your relationship status.

Our findings suggest doctors could consider your relationship status as they work out how to help you get a better night’s sleep.

The next step for this research area is to understand how sleep changes when people are in the same bed as their partner or not. People in casual relationships may find falling asleep easier when they sleep alone, whereas people who live with their partners may not – we just don’t know yet. We also need objective data – from wearables or overnight brain activity monitoring – rather than surveys.

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

– ref. New survey shows your relationship status tallies with how well you sleep – https://theconversation.com/new-survey-shows-your-relationship-status-tallies-with-how-well-you-sleep-176977

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Joseph Crawford, Lecturer in Learning and Teaching, Academic Division, University of Tasmania

Imagine some of the key evidence for promotions at work being anonymous responses from coworkers who just received a bad performance evaluation from you. Something similar happens in higher education, with teachers rated by students grateful for good grades or disgruntled by low grades. That’s a bitter pill to swallow for some academics.

Evidence tells us students take their feedback personally. Jurors’ decision-making is similarly affected by their emotional state. People make worse decisions when they are uncertain or stressed, which are two common states for students.

So how unreliable are student evaluations? And what can we do about it? Our work indicates there is still much to be done in this space, but we can set some rules to make it easier.

Read more:
‘Lose some weight’, ‘stupid old hag’: universities should no longer ask students for anonymous feedback on their teachers

All surveys are not equal

Australia’s national Student Experience Survey is considered “the pulse” on student satisfaction rather than a device to enable teacher growth, with the data being easily skewable by circumstances at the time. Unsurprisingly, during 2020, universities that already had an online presence saw the smallest decline in student experience scores.

So the question becomes: did the quality of learning crash in Group of Eight universities, which had the greatest declines in student experience? Unlikely. Instead, students’ ratings reflected their difficulties engaging with new forms of teaching and learning, plus the inertia of COVID-19 lockdowns.

Maybe they should have given students chocolate?

The reality is these surveys do not tell us how students learn, but instead how students perceive their learning. Yet students aren’t experts at what learning is. And when students don’t receive effective training in evaluation, it’s hardly a surprise that teacher gender, race and attractiveness change scores.

“Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” – Albert Einstein.

Instead, let’s ask students to share the most enjoyable content, the most rewarding educational technologies, and where improvement was needed. Include ethics and feedback training for bonus credit.

Read more:
Our uni teachers were already among the world’s most stressed. COVID and student feedback have just made things worse

Making survey tools that work

Psychometrics is the study of measurements. Interestingly, many academics have specialist knowledge in developing surveys that are designed to be valid and reliable. But it’s unclear if universities use them as a resource to develop their surveys, with some academics wondering if they should. The 2021 Employer Satisfaction Survey Methodological Report, for example, does not refer explicitly to the words validity or reliability once across its 140 pages.

Valid surveys exist when the questions align to what we think they are measuring. Using a stopwatch to measure time is easy. When we try to decide how we feel about intangible concepts, it’s harder.

The national Student Experience Survey asks students whether they have developed a sense of belonging to their institution. Yet the evidence on belonging indicates it is typically developed through interpersonal relationships, not institutions, and not through universities.

Reliable surveys exist when the questions generate consistent results over time and over different participants. It’s analogous to when we bake a cake and we assume the scales will always accurately measure 40 grams of butter.

Speaking of sweets, scores in student surveys are easy to game. Inflating student grades does the trick.

In contrast, as an example, the Australian Student Experience Survey asks whether students have developed their critical thinking skills during their course. How accurately can a person with low critical thinking skills answer this question?

5 rules for surveys to help teachers improve

There are ways that surveys can be used for good. To actually help teachers be better educators and improve student learning. But it requires a reset.

Here are five rules institutions could consider when developing their surveys.

1. Find psychometric specialists to create quality tools

We go to dentists to have our teeth fixed. The same rule applies here. Find individuals who can take the theory of scale development (producing reliable and valid measures to assess an attribute of interest) into the practices of learning and teaching.

2. Change when the survey is done

Lots of evaluations are done before, during and after a program. In higher education, they are completed only after the class has ended.

A change to evaluations at multiple points will help identify if the learner makes progress during the class. This would also help control for cohort problems (one year, for example, students are smarter).

For student experience, contrasting how the same student rates different classes each semester may serve as a stable measure to see which classes need review.

3. Use more than just numbers

The numbers explain how we are tracking, and this is not inherently bad. The qualitative comments (mostly) help us explore what those mean. Mixed methods approaches can help.

4. Control for bias

It’s not always possible to eliminate bias and emotion. We can seek to understand them and use the measures as a case-by-case conversation about improving teaching. Developing reliable and valid tools will help, but if the aim is for these to help teachers improve, then we need to focus on that, not cross-institutional comparisons.

Better yet, let’s actively recognise teachers’ professional growth, call decline into question, and report on averages.

We can also train students to be better evaluators.

5. Create a growth community

Teaching quality surveys do not necessarily increase teaching quality, but they can.

The surveys offer an opportunity to raise awareness of differences. If students rate seven items at 90% but one is 84%, this should prompt research into the reasons. It could be a great opportunity to create more meaningful content; it could also just be an outlier.

Use these findings as publishing opportunities to share what was learned.

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

– ref. Yes, uni students say some awful things in teaching surveys, so how can we use them to improve? – https://theconversation.com/yes-uni-students-say-some-awful-things-in-teaching-surveys-so-how-can-we-use-them-to-improve-177155

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Richard Shaw, Professor of Politics, Massey University

Whether or not recent (if limited) polling accurately reflects sympathy for the protest, the current spectacle in parliament’s grounds will be worrying Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and her government – not least for its suggestion the “team of five million” may be breaking up.

Opposition Leader Christopher Luxon certainly believes so, calling the occupation “emblematic of a deep-seated sense of frustration in New Zealand around where we are going with COVID”.

In truth, it’s difficult to assess just how far the frustration extends. It’s even harder to determine how much the protest has fuelled extremist narratives and damaged social cohesion.

To some extent, claims of social division can be attributed to media (social and traditional) breathlessness. Moreover, government ministers consistently point to high rates of vaccination as evidence the malcontents are just a small minority.

But no government wants its front lawn turned into an illegal campground, or see human excrement hurled at police while the media look on. The “optics” are just too hard to predict. Some will see the occupation as a PR win for Ardern. Others will interpret it as a loss of control.

Centre-left still ahead

For now, though, Ardern and her ministers continue to hang tough. They are roughly halfway through their second term in office, and voters can now confidently say the election is next year. New Zealand’s three-year parliamentary cycle means it feels a lot closer than it did just six weeks ago.

The prime minister’s poll ratings remain solid (if well down on the stratospheric heights of the pandemic’s early days). Her Labour government continues to outpace the National opposition. While the gap has closed, the centre-left bloc would still retain the government benches were an election held today.

Read more:
The Wellington protest is testing police independence and public tolerance – are there lessons from Canada’s crackdown?

What explains these continued levels of support? Some of it, I suspect, reflects admiration for the relentless workload shouldered by ministers, and the prime minister’s composure in the face of the vitriol she is now having to contend with.

The plaudits, too, are for levels of government competence not always obvious in countries New Zealand likes to compare itself with, specifically its public health response and the country’s better-than-expected economic performance.

Inflation and housing

But things are about to become more challenging still. With Omicron infection rates beginning to lift off, there are concerns about the (already stretched) public health system’s capacity.

Inflation, too, is building up steam. A generation of mortgage holders (and renters) who have only ever known cheap credit are about to find out what rising interest rates really mean.

Read more:
The pandemic exposes NZ’s supply chain vulnerability – be ready for more inflation in the year ahead

Ardern’s administrations are not wholly culpable for New Zealand’s housing crisis, which reaches much further back than 2017. But the government will inevitably cop the political blowback if the housing market falters and house prices fall appreciably.

If there is much for opposition parties to play for, however, they face a few challenges of their own. The principal question facing the National Party is whether a new leader is enough.

Winning back the National vote

Christopher Luxon is only three months into the job and has improved the party’s polling, but he lags behind Ardern in the preferred prime minister stakes (to be expected given an incumbent’s bully pulpit).

While New Zealanders don’t directly elect their political chief executive, the numbers suggest Ardern remains a powerful political asset two years into the pandemic – vaccine mandates, passes and disputed traffic light systems notwithstanding.

Read more:
Inflation is raising prices and reducing real wages – what should be done to support NZ’s low-income households?

The phrase “National’s new leader” has run its course. The party now needs to produce more compelling reasons for voters to support it.

Luxon also has to find some friends in the House. His one current ally, the Act Party, has been shedding some of the support it had peeled off towards the end of Judith Collins’ National Party leadership.

So, insofar as National’s improved polling reflects a recycling of support on the political right, to win the Treasury benches in 2023 it will also have to woo back some of the support Ardern attracted from National in 2020. Some of those people have come home, but not enough of them yet.

Will the centre hold?

Behind all of this churn lurks a bigger question: where is the centre of political gravity in Aotearoa New Zealand these days?

The pandemic has been a period of significantly greater government intervention in the economy – much (although certainly not all) of it to good effect. Core neoliberal shibboleths – big government is bad, free markets will solve distributional issues, individuals are responsible for their own circumstances – have been tested and arguably found wanting.

It seems unlikely the political centre is where National left it the last time the party was in office. Even assuming he can locate that centre, Luxon will need to tack towards it. Some of the old navigational tools may no longer work as well as they did.

Read more:
The most challenging phase of the Omicron outbreak is yet to come, but New Zealand may be better prepared than other countries

National will try to reclaim the mantle of having the safest economic hands. But the party’s past internal ructions, as well as Labour’s relative success in guiding the economy through the pandemic, make that a tougher proposition now.

If by the time next year’s election arrives, vaccine passes, mandates and traffic light systems are things of the past, people will be looking to put the COVID years behind them. Labour will be the continuity party and National the party of change.

Chances are the outcome will swing on voters’ responses to an old question: am I better off with the devil I know or the one I don’t?

Richard Shaw 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. Mid-term pressures test Jacinda Ardern’s Labour government, but National must still find the new political centre – https://theconversation.com/mid-term-pressures-test-jacinda-arderns-labour-government-but-national-must-still-find-the-new-political-centre-177057

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Welch, Senior Lecturer, University of Auckland

Genomic sequencing has been a key tool throughout Aotearoa’s COVID-19 pandemic, with data generated here now part of the 8.5 million genomes shared globally.

It has helped us understand how cases arrived here and the extent of community outbreaks. It has also given us detailed insight into how the virus is transmitted from person to person, on a plane or quarantine facility.

As Omicron spreads rapidly across the country, it is important to consider how we best deploy genomics to achieve our public health goals. Which cases should we sequence and why? What is the role of wastewater when we know cases are already in our cities and regions?

Even as our testing and genomics capacity gets overwhelmed by the sheer number of cases, sequencing will continue to play an important role.

Firstly, we need to keep an eye open for new viral variants and keep track of those already circulating in the community. This is a core role of genomic surveillance and part of a global effort, with scientists around the world sequencing variants in their backyard.

Read more:
How COVID-19 transformed genomics and changed the handling of disease outbreaks forever

One thing we are looking for is changes (mutations) in the virus that may affect its ability to transmit, evade our vaccines or immune defences, or cause even more serious disease. Particular scrutiny is given to mutations in the viral spike protein, on the outside of the virus, which allows it to latch onto cells and infect them.

The Pfizer vaccine we have used in Aotearoa essentially presents the body with a copy of the spike protein to train the immune system to create antibodies and other defences against it. Major changes in the spike might allow the virus to evade at least the first line of our immune defences — as we have seen with the Omicron variant, which contains more than 30 different mutations in the spike protein.

The viral arms race

With relatively few cases overall in New Zealand, and only the Delta variant that has persisted in the community for more than a few months, we have so far not seen any concerning new mutations or variants arise here. But small mutations or deletions in the virus’s genetic code remain helpful for linking clusters and detecting new introductions into the community.

The majority of New Zealanders are now vaccinated, which means there is increasing pressure on the virus to escape our immunity. This is an arms race we have been playing with viruses for millennia. The game has changed somewhat as genomics allows us to watch viral evolution in real time.

By sequencing the virus from individual cases, we can tell exactly which variant the person has and, over time, we can detect patterns of variants rising in frequency or resulting in a more severe infection.

Currently, genomic surveillance tells us there is a mix of Omicron (including major variants BA.1, and BA.2) and a stubborn tail of Delta.

The BA.1 lineage was given an early boost at a wedding-related super-spreading event and now makes up 74% of Omicron cases. The remaining 26% of Omicron cases are BA.2 which was spread early on at the SoundSplash festival. In the last week, about 7% of cases sequenced were Delta. Without sequencing, we would be blind to this.

To maintain high-quality surveillance in the face of very high case numbers, we need to be selective in which samples we sequence and balance competing priorities.
The top priority is the prevention of severe disease and there will be a focus on the genomes of cases in hospital. Overseas, many of the serious, hospitalised cases are Delta, not Omicron.

New variants of concern

Some patients may have the misfortune of chronic COVID-19 infections. In such cases, multiple samples may be sequenced to see if the virus is changing within a single patient.

A leading hypothesis of how variants of concern such as Omicron and Delta have emerged is via chronically infected patients who act as an incubator for the virus. We need to continue monitoring patients with long-haul COVID.

We will also need to continue to monitor and sequence new cases that arrive at the border, either in MIQ or in recently returned travellers who test positive. Nearly all the genetic variation of SARS-CoV-2 we have seen in Aotearoa has been imported (as opposed to developed here), and this is a common pattern we see with other diseases such as influenza. By sequencing border cases, we get an early view of what we may need to prepare for.

Read more:
Genomic sequencing: Here’s how researchers identify omicron and other COVID-19 variants

Finally, to get a high-level view of cases and mutations, we sequence a random sample of cases across the country. Genomic sequences taken across time and space build a picture of which parts of the country are host to which variants and lineages. It is very much a case of “know thy enemy”.

Currently we are monitoring the areas where Delta is persisting. We can also monitor how the vaccine status of an individual affects the variant that is detected. Such data helps to build a picture of vaccine efficacy and population-level protection against a fast-changing virus.

Wastewater testing

The last piece of the genomic sequencing puzzle is wastewater testing for SARS-CoV-2. While sequencing from wastewater samples has been used for specific public health investigations in the past, low case numbers and quantities in most wastewater samples has made it difficult. Instead, wastewater testing has focused on using a sensitive method to allow for the early detection of the virus.

With the Omicron surge, we are now seeing an increase in both the number of positive wastewater samples and the amount of virus in those samples. This means we can use wastewater to indicate increasing or decreasing trends in cases at community level, and also to monitor known and new variants through sequencing and other tools.

In the weeks to come, there will be enough viral matter to make trends in wastewater data evident. In some cities, where regular sampling occurs, we will see viral wastewater loads trending up and down with case numbers. This information, along with regular case reporting, will inform the public about the relative risk of various regions. Such data may help people to understand the risks of travelling to a certain region or city.

Genomics remains a key tool in our pandemic management. There will be changes in how we use it, but it remains a core part of our surveillance toolkit. Prior to the genomics era, changes in the viral genetic blueprint were invisible to us. While many will dread another story about a new variant, we would be in a far worse position without this information.

If we step outside of our COVID-19 bubble for a second, the use of fast and affordable genomic technology in this pandemic also provides a glimpse of what genomic medicine may look like in the future — but that is a discussion for another day.

David Welch a previously received funding from MBIE and Ministry of Health.

James Hadfield has received funding from the Ministry of Health.

Jemma Geoghegan works for the University of Otago and ESR. She receives funding from Royal Society Te Apārangi and the Marsden Fund. She has previously received funding from MBIE.

Joep de Ligt works for ESR. The covid genomics is funded through the Ministry of Health and he previously received research funding from the Ministry of Business and Innovation.

Michael Bunce works for ESR. He was previously employed at the Ministry of Health in the COVID-19 directorate.

– ref. As New Zealand’s Omicron infections rise rapidly, genome surveillance is shifting gears – https://theconversation.com/as-new-zealands-omicron-infections-rise-rapidly-genome-surveillance-is-shifting-gears-177441

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexis Vassiley, Research Associate, Centre for Work and Wellbeing, Edith Cowan University

About 3 million Australian workers lack job security. An estimated 2.4 million – 20% to 25% of the total workforce – are casual workers, with no paid leave entitlements. A further 500,000 are on fixed-term contracts.

Whether you are labourer engaged by a labour hire company, a checkout operator, a ride-share driver or a university lecturer on a casual contract, job insecurity can harm both your physical and mental health.

In an Australian first, Western Australia has formally recognised this in its new Code of Practice on Psychosocial Hazards in the Workplace, which provides practical guidance on how WA workplaces can comply with their duties under the state’s Occupational Safety and Health Act 1984

A psychosocial hazard refers to any social and organisational factor with the potential to cause psychological or physical harm. In terms of work, it’s anything in the design or management of work that can cause stress.

Better recognition of such hazards was recommended in 2018 by the Boland Review into the “model” laws, regulations and codes that underpin uniformity between Australia’s state and territory work health and safety regimes.

Australia’s federal, state and territory ministers agreed to this recommendation in May 2021. Since then, most states and territories have updated their regulations or compliance codes.

Western Australia is the only one so far to include insecure work. It’s a step in the right direction. For real progress, though, all states and territories need to follow suit – and then follow up with laws to safeguard more secure work.

What are psychosocial hazards at work?

The World Health Organization lists ten psychosocial hazards at work. These cover issues including high uncertainty in job content, lack of control, lack of support and job uncertainty.

Exposure to such hazards over a prolonged time increases the risk of acute and severe mental or physical injury.

As noted in our centre’s submission to the WA government – in which we recommended including insecure work in the new code – most of the ten hazards listed above go hand in hand with insecure work.

For example, hazard number three – work schedule, including unpredictable hours – applies to the majority of Australia’s casual workers, with 53% having work hours (and thus income) that fluctuate from one pay cycle to the next.

Job insecurity exacerbates the hazards that also affect those in permanent employment, such as work load (hazard 1), lack of control over work (hazard 4) and lack of career opportunities (hazard 10).

Worse health and safety outcomes

A growing body of research shows insecure work is a health hazard.

Two of Australia’s leading experts in this field, Michael Quinlan at UNSW Sydney and Elsa Underhill at Deakin University, have told the current Senate inquiry into job security there are three major negative outcomes:

• higher incidence/frequency of injuries, including fatalities

• poorer physical and mental health (such as from bullying)

• poorer knowledge of, and access to, employment rights and less willingness to raise concerns.

Fear of losing work is a powerful disincentive against complaining or using rights available to them. For example, a 2021 survey of 1,540 workers by the Australian Council of Trade Unions found:

• 40% of all insecure workers said they had worked while unwell because they didn’t
  have access to paid leave

• 67% of those who worked through an ailment, rather than taking time off, said they feared taking leave would affect their job (compared with 55% of permanent workers)

• 50% of those who were sexually harassed took no action because they feared negative consequences (compared with 32% of permanent workers)

Read more:
The truth about much ‘casual’ work: it’s really about permanent insecurity

Are codes of practice legally enforceable?

Codes of practice are part of the three-tier framework regulating employers’ obligations to maintain a safe workplace.

At the top is legislation, which broadly defines responsibilities, then regulations, then codes of practice. These codes are practical guides for industries and businesses on how to achieve the standards required under the laws and regulations.

Codes do not have the same legal force as a regulation, but can still be used by courts to assess if an organisation has taken the “reasonable steps” required by law to ensure a safe workplace.

Some codes relate to specific types of work or hazards, such as handling dangerous chemicals. The new WA code on psychosocial hazards applies to all workplaces.

From recognition to change

Including insecure work in WA’s code is unlikely to change much in the short term.

In theory it should mean organisations employing casual or contract workers undertake a risk-assessment process, then implement controls to manage those risks.

There is a hierarchy of risk controls in work health and safety protocols.

At the top is eliminating the risk. This would see employers convert as many employees to permanent status.

Lower down the hierarchy is reducing the risk. This could be done by giving casual workers as much notice of shifts as possible, ensuring more predictability with their schedule and more stability with their income, or higher pay rates to partly make up for some of these hazards.

Will these things happen? Probably not. In practice, codes of practice alone don’t bring change. Provisions providing a pathway for casual or fixed-term employees to permanent status, for example, already exist in many enterprise agreements, but employers often find ways to avoid honouring them.

Real change will require legislative reform or an increase in union strength.

Some countries in Europe, for example, now have laws limiting the numbers of temporary agency workers and those on fixed term contracts. Such laws also need to be backed up by enforcement mechanisms – notably vastly increased resources for regulators.

Read more:
Uber might not take over the world, but it is still normalising job insecurity

The WA government’s new code of practice represents an important first step within Australia’s industrial relations landscape. Formal recognition of insecure work as a health hazard should act as spur to further reform.

Insecure work is widespread. We know what’s wrong with it. It’s time to do more about it.

Alexis Vassiley 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 insecure work is finally being recognised as a health hazard for some Australians – https://theconversation.com/why-insecure-work-is-finally-being-recognised-as-a-health-hazard-for-some-australians-177153

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 speaks with politics + society editor Amanda Dunn about the escalating crisis in Ukraine as Russia sends in troops to rebel regions and Australia and other countries are set to announce sanctions.

They also discuss Australia’s relationship with China and what role that will play in the election, after a Chinese warship last week targeted a RAAF plane with a laser. An Essential poll, out this week, gives Labor a clear edge (37-28%) when people were asked, “which party would you trust to build a relationship with China in Australia’s best interests?”

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: Australian politics in an uncertain world – https://theconversation.com/word-from-the-hill-australian-politics-in-an-uncertain-world-177622

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Martin, Visiting Fellow, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University

We are about to find out whether we’ll lose a tax break worth up to $1,080 a year.

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg says he hadn’t “made any final decision” on the A$7.8 billion per year low and middle income tax offset ahead of next month’s budget.

He also says it was never intended to be “a permanent feature of the tax system”, which is true enough.

He could have added that it is incredibly poorly designed, introduced for a purpose that no longer exists, extended for a purpose that didn’t make sense, and now can’t be abolished without giving people a “pay cut”.

The low and middle income tax offset LMITO was introduced by Scott Morrison in his final budget as treasurer before becoming prime minister in 2018.

Its peculiar design owes much to the government’s experience with Robodebt, its ill-fated attempt to collect what it believed were overpaid Centrelink benefits.

A flawed tax break, designed in Robodebt’s shadow

Morrison was by then acutely aware of the anguish caused by Robodebt, officially called the online compliance intervention program – which many people forget he introduced in 2016 to ensure “welfare recipients accurately disclose assets and investments”.

Robodebt sent what looked like demands for repayment to Australians who often owed nothing, and ended up costing the government A$1.8 billion in settlements.

LMITO was born of a desire to flatten Australia’s income tax scale and avoid the mistakes of Robodebt.

Read more:
The Low and Middle Income Tax Offset has been extended yet again. It delivers help neither when nor where it’s needed

Australia has five tax rates counting the initial tax rate of zero, which applies to dollars earned up to $18,200. Anything earned above $18,200 up to a threshold gets taxed at 19%, anything beyond the next threshold gets taxed at 32.5%, anything beyond the next at 37%, and anything beyond $180,000 at 45%.

Morrison wanted to remove one of the thresholds, the one that introduced the 37% tax rate, leaving the scale with just three rates above zero: 19%, 32.5% and 45%.

The cost would be enormous, climbing to $24.6 billion per year. By then 44% of the benefit would go to the highest earning Australians on more than $180,000.

Part one of a three-part plan

So Morrison did it in stages. The first would provide “tax relief for middle and low income earners now”. It would be limited to taxpayers earning up to $125,333.

The second, in 2022-23, would push out two of the thresholds: 32.5% would come in at $41,000 instead of $37,000, and 37% would come in at $120,000 instead of $90,000. And the LMITO tax break would go. It wouldn’t be needed, because everyone getting it would get at least as much from stage two.

The third and final stage, in 2024-25, would flatten the tax scale.

But the problem with directing a benefit to what Morrison called “low and middle earners” was ensuring it went only to them.

What if one of them thought they would earn $100,000, and actually earned $150,000?

They’d have to be sent letters asking them to pay the money back, as with Robodebt.

So Morrison and the treasury decided recipients wouldn’t get the money until they had put in their tax returns, documenting what they made.

The offset would begin in July 2018, but the money wouldn’t hit the recipients’ bank accounts for more than a year, until the second half of 2019 – after their tax had been sorted.

Despite being called the low and middle income tax offset, very low earners would get nothing.

Those on less than $18,200 had no tax to refund. The rest would get up to $530 (later lifted to $1,080) – but only after they had done their tax. And the messy arrangement was only to last for a few years, until the second stage came in.

‘Not permanent’, but hard to stop

In 2020, as part of the government’s COVID response, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg brought forward stage two. At that point, the offset was no longer needed.

But, perhaps in order to claim “the greatest benefits will flow to those on lower incomes”, Frydenberg extended the offset for another year.

In 2021 he extended it for yet another year, this time as a “stimulus measure”, albeit an ineffective one. A stimulus measure that doesn’t hit bank accounts for more than a year is anything but immediate.

Read more:
What just happened to our tax? Here’s an explanation you’ll understand

Frydenberg’s problem is that now he has given us both the offset and the stage two together, and done it for two years, actually ending the offset will quite rightly be seen as a tax increase or a “pay cut”, directed at low and middle earners. The timing is particularly tricky, with a federal election due weeks after this year’s budget.

Costing the best part of $8 billion per year, delivered when it is not needed, and destined to continue until someone can find a way to stop it, the offset is an awfully constructed annual bonus for all but the highest-earning Australians.

Like the instant asset write off for business, which keeps getting extended because otherwise businesses would complain, there’s a chance the LMITO will stay with us forever.

As ill-fitting as it is, there is an unexpected benefit. The Tax Office says we’ve been getting our returns in early.

Peter Martin 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. This pointless $1,080 tax break should have ended years ago – but has become hard to stop – https://theconversation.com/this-pointless-1-080-tax-break-should-have-ended-years-ago-but-has-become-hard-to-stop-177546

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Martin, Visiting Fellow, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University

We are about to find out whether we’ll lose a tax break worth up to $1,080 a year.

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg says he hadn’t “made any final decision” on the A$7.8 billion per year low and middle income tax offset ahead of next month’s budget.

He also says it was never intended to be “a permanent feature of the tax system”, which is true enough.

He could have added that it is incredibly poorly designed, introduced for a purpose that no longer exists, extended for a purpose that didn’t make sense, and now can’t be abolished without giving people a “pay cut”.

The low and middle income tax offset LMITO was introduced by Scott Morrison in his final budget as treasurer before becoming prime minister in 2018.

Its peculiar design owes much to the government’s experience with Robodebt, its ill-fated attempt to collect what it believed were overpaid Centrelink benefits.

A flawed tax break, designed in Robodebt’s shadow

Morrison was by then acutely aware of the anguish caused by Robodebt, officially called the online compliance intervention program – which many people forget he introduced in 2016 to ensure “welfare recipients accurately disclose assets and investments”.

Robodebt sent what looked like demands for repayment to Australians who often owed nothing, and ended up costing the government A$1.8 billion in settlements.

LMITO was born of a desire to flatten Australia’s income tax scale and avoid the mistakes of Robodebt.

Read more:
The Low and Middle Income Tax Offset has been extended yet again. It delivers help neither when nor where it’s needed

Australia has five tax rates counting the initial tax rate of zero, which applies to dollars earned up to $18,200. Anything earned above $18,200 up to a threshold gets taxed at 19%, anything beyond the next threshold gets taxed at 32.5%, anything beyond the next at 37%, and anything beyond $180,000 at 45%.

Morrison wanted to remove one of the thresholds, the one that introduced the 37% tax rate, leaving the scale with just three rates above zero: 19%, 32.5% and 45%.

The cost would be enormous, climbing to $24.6 billion per year. By then 44% of the benefit would go to the highest earning Australians on more than $180,000.

Part one of a three-part plan

So Morrison did it in stages. The first would provide “tax relief for middle and low income earners now”. It would be limited to taxpayers earning up to $125,333.

The second, in 2022-23, would push out two of the thresholds: 32.5% would come in at $41,000 instead of $37,000, and 37% would come in at $120,000 instead of $90,000. And the LMITO tax break would go. It wouldn’t be needed, because everyone getting it would get at least as much from stage two.

The third and final stage, in 2024-25, would flatten the tax scale.

But the problem with directing a benefit to what Morrison called “low and middle earners” was ensuring it went only to them.

What if one of them thought they would earn $100,000, and actually earned $150,000?

They’d have to be sent letters asking them to pay the money back, as with Robodebt.

So Morrison and the treasury decided recipients wouldn’t get the money until they had put in their tax returns, documenting what they made.

The offset would begin in July 2018, but the money wouldn’t hit the recipients’ bank accounts for more than a year, until the second half of 2019 – after their tax had been sorted.

Despite being called the low and middle income tax offset, very low earners would get nothing.

Those on less than $18,200 had no tax to refund. The rest would get up to $530 (later lifted to $1,080) – but only after they had done their tax. And the messy arrangement was only to last for a few years, until the second stage came in.

‘Not permanent’, but hard to stop

In 2020, as part of the government’s COVID response, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg brought forward stage two. At that point, the offset was no longer needed.

But, perhaps in order to claim “the greatest benefits will flow to those on lower incomes”, Frydenberg extended the offset for another year.

In 2021 he extended it for yet another year, this time as a “stimulus measure”, albeit an ineffective one. A stimulus measure that doesn’t hit bank accounts for more than a year is anything but immediate.

Read more:
What just happened to our tax? Here’s an explanation you’ll understand

Frydenberg’s problem is that now he has given us both the offset and the stage two together, and done it for two years, actually ending the offset will quite rightly be seen as a tax increase or a “pay cut”, directed at low and middle earners. The timing is particularly tricky, with a federal election due weeks after this year’s budget.

Costing the best part of $8 billion per year, delivered when it is not needed, and destined to continue until someone can find a way to stop it, the offset is an awfully constructed annual bonus for all but the highest-earning Australians.

Like the instant asset write off for business, which keeps getting extended because otherwise businesses would complain, there’s a chance the LMITO will stay with us forever.

As ill-fitting as it is, there is an unexpected benefit. The Tax Office says we’ve been getting our returns in early.

Peter Martin 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. Meet the pointless $1,080 tax break that should have ended years ago – but has become hard to stop – https://theconversation.com/meet-the-pointless-1-080-tax-break-that-should-have-ended-years-ago-but-has-become-hard-to-stop-177546

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dave Parsons, Lecturer, Curtin University

We are back to pounding keyboards and swiping phones for another year. But with so much of today’s learning, working and socialising happening via devices, hand and wrist injuries are both common and hard to recover from.

Cumulative trauma to the upper limb from prolonged computer use is a significant problem. Technological advances – online meetings anyone? – and the reduced need to leave our desks for inefficient tasks such as photocopying, sending and receiving mail, and chatting with work colleagues (if now working from home) are causing people to remain in static postures for longer periods.

Musculoskeletal disorders of the upper limb are a common phenomenon and are the single largest category of work-related illness, with some studies reporting they make up to 20–60% of cases. Musculoskeletal disorders are responsible for more work-related absenteeism than any other type of disease.

Further, evidence suggests high levels of smartphone use without regular breaks can result in pain and discomfort in the upper limb. High levels of device use can result in neck, shoulder, wrist and hand problems.

But anyone who has suffered from hand or wrist pain will tell you how hard it is to rest and treat injuries when so much of everyday life – from domestic chores to technology use – is done manually. So what to do?

What causes it

The risk of these injuries from technology use is due to the repetitive motions of the thumb in often awkward, static (or still) postures of the wrist and hand. The main other factor in developing symptoms includes remaining in awkward static postures for extended periods of time.

Common upper limb disorders resulting from high levels of keyboard, tablet and smartphone use are nerve compression disorders (carpal tunnel syndrome) and tendon inflammation (tenosynovitis, lateral epicondylalgia or “tennis elbow”). Symptoms from these conditions include numbness and tingling in your hand and forearm, weakness in gripping objects in your hand, or local tenderness at the elbow, wrist and/or hand.

When structures of the hand are repetitively stressed for extended periods, the body doesn’t have a chance to rest and heal. What starts out as a minor irritation can soon exacerbate into a significant problem for everyday living.

Read more:
What younger people can learn from older people about using technology

How to prevent it

The single best piece of advice I can provide is to ensure you have adequate breaks away from your smartphone, tablet or computer. Listen to your body, and ensure you change postures or stop the task if you begin to feel some pain or discomfort.

Microbreaks – as short as 30–60 seconds – can be effective, especially in jobs that require an extended period of sitting in front of a computer hammering away at a keyboard. Remember, it is the repetitive movements in static postures that you are trying to avoid. These microbreaks are especially important for prolonged smartphone or tablet use.

These breaks should occur every 20 minutes and involve changing the posture through some dynamic movements. This could include standing (if you were sitting), moving your joints through their full range of motion, or even better, getting away from your workstation and moving around.

Build these breaks into your work routine through calendar invites or other software programs that ping you an alert at the desired break time.

Alternatively, schedule tasks close together that requires different postures. For example, you could schedule important phone calls or face meetings between more extended periods of keyboard work.

Good postures and workstation ergonomics can make a real difference in reducing and managing these aches and pains. Ensure your computer is well set up on a desk set at the appropriate height.

Your wrists should be slightly extended backwards (towards the ceiling) when resting on the keyboard. All other equipment on your desk that you commonly use should be within easy reach.

You should have a relaxed posture through your shoulders, neck and arms when sitting for extended periods. Specialised ergonomic equipment such as keyboards and mice may be beneficial, as may voice-to-text software.

Read more:
How texting turns you into a walking disaster

When the damage is done

If the pain or discomfort continues to worsen or impacts your engagement in your daily activities, it is important to seek professional health advice before the condition significantly progresses.

An accredited hand therapist is an excellent place to start. These health professionals are registered occupational therapists or physiotherapists who have extensive experience and knowledge of the complex anatomy of the hand and wrist.

They will be able to provide individual advice and treatment to help you manage your condition. Treatments could include tailored ergonomic advice, the prescription of specific exercises, hot or ice packs, and custom orthotic devices (splints). In more serious cases, you may be referred to a hand surgeon, who may provide medication, cortisone injections or surgery to address the underlying causes of symptoms.

Given the rapid changes we’ve seen in our how humans interact with their world, research is helping us better understand how to manage the adverse effects of our exploding technology use. While we know a little, there is still much work to be done.

Dave Parsons is an Accredited Hand Therapist and a Board Member of the Australian Hand Therapy Association. He receives some funding from the Australian Hand Therapy Associated for his research.

– ref. How to care for your sore hands and wrists when your life is online – https://theconversation.com/how-to-care-for-your-sore-hands-and-wrists-when-your-life-is-online-176450

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

Ahead of the election, Scott Morrison is trying to wedge Labor on national security generally and China in particular.

Opposition defence spokesman Brendan O’Connor tells this podcast: “National security is the the greatest priority of any federal government in order to protect the interests of the country and citizens. But we should not be politicising national security for base political purposes and that’s been on display now for certainly the last couple of weeks.”

“It is a critical issue and will always be a critical issue, but it shouldn’t be debased in the manner in which Scott Morrison has chosen to do so recently.”

On China, O’Connor indicates the difference under a Labor government would be one of tone rather than substance.

“We need to use temperate language in order to maintain peace and stability in the region. That’s not for a moment to suggest we do not call out acts of aggression or coercion.”

(The Essential poll, published on Tuesday, asked which party respondents would trust to build a relationship with China in Australia’s best interests. It found 37% favoured Labor, 28% nominated the Coalition and 34% were unsure.)

O’Connor describes Russian’s President Putin’s move on Ukraine – recognising two breakaway regions and deploying forces for “peacekeeping” – as “a blatant fundamental breach of international law”.

“Our position therefore has to be that we engage with our friends, particularly the NATO states and the United States, as to what best we can do to reduce the likelihood of any invasion by Russia of the Ukraine.”

O’Connor says Labor has concerns about a possible Australian defence capability gap between the current Collins class submarines and the delivery of the first submarine under AUKUS. But how a Labor administration would deal with that gap would depend on being comprehensively briefed in government on options.

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: Labor defence spokesman Brendan O’Connor on China and Ukraine – https://theconversation.com/politics-with-michelle-grattan-labor-defence-spokesman-brendan-oconnor-on-china-and-ukraine-177613

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Tuffley, Senior Lecturer in Applied Ethics & CyberSecurity, Griffith University

Few people in recent times have created as much controversy as Donald Trump. A year after his utterances got him banned from Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, his new enterprise, Truth Social, has made its debut on Apple’s App Store.

The platform, which is available as both an app and website, was made available to download on the US Apple App Store yesterday, and has so far topped the download charts. It will also be “coming soon” to the Google Play Store and other countries.

The timing of Truth Social’s debut on the symbolic US Presidents’ Day is certainly no coincidence. Is it, at the end of the day, another tool in Trump’s political arsenal?

Let’s just say Trump is likely keeping his options open.

Already hacked?

The Truth Social website has reportedly already been the target of hackers. It seems some users who managed to get early access also secured user handles including “donaldtrump” and “mikepence”.

The site is offline at the time of writing this article, presumably while its cyber-security capabilities are upgraded. It may be the site came under sustained attack, or developers realised the need to thoroughly debug it before it goes live.

Data privacy

Truth Social’s developer, the Trump Media and Technology Group (or T Media Tech LLC), said the app will routinely collect data about users’ browsing history, contact information (including phone number) and any pictures or videos posted. Importantly, this information will be linked to the user’s identity.

The platform will also gather “non-identifiable” data on how the user interacts with the application – supposedly to analyse usage patterns and personalise the user’s experience.

However, while these data are described as not being linked to a user’s identity, they nonetheless include the user’s email address and ID. This suggests the data are, in fact, personally identifiable.

Potential implications of data collection

Having such richly textured information puts Truth Social in a position not only to learn about users’ opinions and behaviours, but also to target them with personalised political messaging.

The legalities of this practice would have been carefully vetted to be on the right side of the law (morally questionable as it may be). And the technology for it already exists. It was used in the now infamous Cambridge Analytica scandal which, as evidence suggests, could have aided Trump’s victory in the 2016 US presidential elections.

Big data analytics is advancing fast, made possible by ever-smarter algorithms, larger datasets and more powerful computers. It’s a game-changer in the high-stakes world of politics.

It’s also no accident Truth Social’s user interface closely resembles that of Twitter: the platform used to greatest effect by Trump. In a 2019 interview Twitter cofounder Evan Williams described Trump as a “master of the platform”.

It could be argued his 57,000 Tweets helped in no small way to make him the 45th President of the United States.

Read more:
Despite being permanently banned, Trump’s prolific Twitter record lives on

Will it be a far-right platform?

In the case of Truth Social, most of the opinions and ideas expressed will likely fall within the right of the political spectrum – everything from hardcore alt-right ideologies, to those slightly right of centre.

However, as the platform is reliant on Apple and Google distributing it on their app stores, it’s unlikely the Truth Social platform can afford to become a mouthpiece for the far-right, as Gab has become.

If it is to survive, it must avoid the fate of Parler. This hard-right Twitter clone was delisted by Apple and Google for hosting comments that incited violence during the pro-Trump riots at the US Capitol in January 2021.

Read more:
Parler: what you need to know about the ‘free speech’ Twitter alternative

It remains to be seen whether Devin Nunes, who heads up T Media Tech LLC, can avoid the platform becoming stridently right-wing and being delisted.

Success will depend on Truth Social attracting a spectrum of political views from a substantial number of users. This is something previous Twitter alternatives Parler, Gab and Gettr all failed to do.

Only time will tell whether Truth Social can avoid the mistakes made by other similar platforms. But it does appear to be trying to distance itself from being perceived as hard right. It has adopted a so-called “big tent” approach. To quote from the app store listing:

Think of a giant outdoor event tent at your best friend’s wedding. Who’s there? The combination of multiple families from all over the United States, and the world. Uncle Jim from Atlanta is a proud libertarian. Aunt Kellie from Texas is a staunch conservative. Your cousin John from California is a die-hard liberal … Although we don’t always agree with each other, we welcome these varied opinions and the robust conversation they bring.

How Trump controlled the narrative

Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labour in the Clinton administration, outlines seven ways unscrupulous politicians exercise control over the media.

These include berating and blacklisting dissenting media and raising a lynch-mob mentality. Opponents are demonised, sometimes with the added threat of legal action.

Also in the playbook is the exclusion of critics from interviews and comments. And last but not least is the exclusion of news outlets altogether, by using platforms such as Twitter to communicate directly with the public.

Before he was banned, Trump used Twitter to divert attention away from issues that could harm him. And research suggests diversionary tweets can be used to suppress coverage of certain issues, allowing the tweeter in question to exercise control of the narrative.

For example, heightened media coverage of the Mueller investigation was countered by multiple tweets from Trump about unrelated issues. It was observed this was followed by reduced coverage of the Mueller investigation.

All of this adds up to the distinct possibility that Trump has already begun campaigning for election in 2024. Instead of settling into comfortable retirement following his defeat in 2020, he has stayed in the limelight – behaving more like a candidate-in-waiting.

David Tuffley 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. Twitter for the right: a look at Truth Social, Trump’s ethically dubious social media platform – https://theconversation.com/twitter-for-the-right-a-look-at-truth-social-trumps-ethically-dubious-social-media-platform-177549

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sal Lampkin, PhD, Sustainability Transformation Manager, Massey University

As New Zealand starts lifting travel restrictions at the end of this month, academics may feel the need to catch up on missed opportunities to attend conferences.

But flights account for about a third of the tertiary sector’s emissions and universities will need to reassess academic travel, given most across Australia and New Zealand, and indeed the world, are increasingly prioritising sustainability.

The push to reduce greenhouse gas emissions comes from all directions. There are national climate targets and sectoral initiatives like the carbon neutral government programme. Universities have sustainability strategies and there’s “bottom-up” activism like the international Flying Less movement.

Academics are also examining their own frequent-flyer habits and how they reproduce persistent inequities born of colonialism.

COVID-19 has brought a slow-down in travel or, for most Australasian academics, a complete stop. This provides some breathing space to consider the future of academic mobility. For Australia and New Zealand, the question is particularly acute, as the “slow travel” options some suggest would be very, very slow indeed.

Read more:
Universities have alerted us to the scale of the climate crisis – now they must lead in showing society how to solve it

Flying less for the climate

The climate-related dilemma for academics is well documented. Staff may be acutely aware of the impacts of their flying but some remain embedded in practices that require flying. Others are unwilling to fly less because international conferences are seen as a standard route to sharing results and professional advancement.

However, recent studies found limited evidence of a direct correlation between travelling and professional success, and questionable value added to publications from attending conferences.

These studies suggest improvements in diversity, early-career development and emissions can all be achieved by holding meetings and conferences online.

A look at one university’s aviation practice

Massey University Te Kunenga ki Pūrehuroa has three campuses across New Zealand, a staff of 3,300 and a student population of 30,495 (in 2020). The university’s greenhouse gas emissions come from farms, vehicles, energy use and an aviation school.

Despite this, its 2019 air travel of 11,833 tonnes of CO₂-equivalent emissions comprises 29% of total emissions, equivalent to 67,180kms for each academic or staff member who flew.

The university’s plan to reach net zero emissions by 2030 includes a commitment to reduce air travel by 30%. Current work identified five purposes of pre-COVID air travel, underpinning its research and teaching:

• to strengthen networks and collaborations

• to access resources and undertake fieldwork not available in New Zealand

• to respond to external drivers such as the performance-based research fund, invitations and funder conditions

• to build capacity and enhance staff skills

• and to promote the university and recruit staff and students.

Massey’s 2019 air travel data show 29% of staff flew internationally, and 61% of these trips were to attend conferences. Of all trips, 8% were short-haul to Australia and the south Pacific, totalling 6% of air-related carbon emissions. Long-haul trips made up 19% of all travel, but accounted for 80% of emissions.

Mirroring the highly skewed distribution of air travel globally, 71% of staff took no overseas trips in 2019, 18% took one to two trips, 6% took three to four trips, and 5% took five or more trips.

Read more:
Travel the world without destroying it – Imagine newsletter #5

One of the ongoing discussions is how to measure the value of such travel. It is relatively easy to state on a travel application that the outputs will be a publication or a collaboration. But assessing the reality of those proposed outputs and their relative value for the individual or institution is difficult.

What staff think

The findings of a 2020 Massey University staff survey found most respondents agreed that international travel is crucial to the university’s success. An even bigger majority thought it was crucial to their personal role. But a narrow majority also agreed such travel should be reduced.

The proportion of travel that respondents thought could be eliminated varied widely but averaged 50%. Further work identified information sharing, administration and meetings of established committees and research groups as activities that could be achieved without travel in the future.

The impact of less flying on early-career researchers, still in the process of developing their networks and academic careers, was a common theme. But it may be that air miles are dominated by a small number of hyper-mobile senior academics.

Possible actions for 2022 include further support for online events, developing contemporary travel metrics for the value of travel and reforming the university’s leave policy to encourage longer but less frequent multi-purpose trips and to take emissions into account.

The New Zealand Universities Air Travel Consortium has been formed to share information and develop a coordinated nationwide pathway. Meanwhile, academic air travel has come almost to a stop. Conferences, seminars and committee meetings have gone online. It would not be a surprise if COVID-19 comes to be seen as a turning point in academic travel practices.

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

– ref. Why universities are starting to re-evaluate their academics’ travel – https://theconversation.com/why-universities-are-starting-to-re-evaluate-their-academics-travel-177129

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

A Resolve poll for Nine newspapers, conducted February 15-20 from a sample of 1,604, gave Labor 35% of the primary vote (steady since January), the Coalition 33% (down one), the Greens 10% (down one), One Nation 3% (steady), independents 10% (down one) and others 9% (up three).

As usual, Resolve did not give a two party estimate, but this would be about 54-46 to Labor, unchanged from January.

56% said Scott Morrison was doing a poor job in recent weeks (up six since January) and 38% a good job (down three), for a net approval of -17, down seven points (rounding explains -17 instead of -18). Morrison’s net approval was positive in Resolve polls until last October.

Anthony Albanese’s net approval increased one point to -6. Morrison continued to lead Albanese as preferred PM by 39-30 (38-31 in January).

The Liberals and Morrison continued to lead Labor and Albanese by 37-25 on economic management (39-26 in January). On COVID, the Liberals led by 33-26 (32-28 previously). While the Liberals’ position on COVID has improved, before January they had double digit leads.

Essential’s two-party lead for Labor increased to four points from what now looks like an outlier one point last fortnight. But it is still the worst of the four regular polls for Labor (the 49-45 Labor lead would be 52-48 excluding undecided).

Essential’s overall vote share for independents and others is also low compared to other polls, at just 4%, compared with 11.5% in Morgan, 14% in last week’s Newspoll and 19% in Resolve, although neither Resolve nor Newspoll have a breakout for Clive Palmer’s UAP.

Read more:
A bad Newspoll for the Greens; Willoughby NSW byelection could be close

Some of the Coalition’s fall in both Essential and Resolve appears to be going to other right-wing parties, which may be boosted by vaccine scepticism. Votes lost by the Coalition to the right are likely to return as preferences.

In this respect, it’s striking that Morrison’s net approval in Resolve was down seven points to -17, yet his preferred PM lead over Albanese increased from seven to nine points. More right-wing disapproval of Morrison is a plausible explanation.

Last week’s Newspoll had a three-point drop for the Greens to 8%, but that’s not validated by this week’s polls, with the Greens down one in Resolve to 10% and steady in Essential and Morgan on 9% and 11.5% respectively.

Labor remains well ahead, but there are still about three months to go before an expected May election. The good jobs figures will encourage the Coalition.

Essential: Labor’s lead increases to four points

This week’s Essential poll, conducted February 16-20 from a sample of 1,089, gave Labor a 49-45 lead over the Coalition on its “2PP+” measure that includes undecided, up from 47-46 last fortnight.

Primary votes were 38% Labor (up three), 35% Coalition (down two), 9% Greens (steady), 5% One Nation (up one), 3% UAP (up one), 4% all Others (down one) and 6% undecided (down two). Gains for One Nation and UAP restricted Labor’s gains after preferences.

Morrison’s net approval was down five points since January to -5, while Albanese was up three points to +3. Morrison led Albanese as better PM by 40-35 (42-34 in January).

Unlike Morgan last week, where Josh Frydenberg was the preferred Liberal leader, Morrison was easily preferred in Essential, with 30% for Morrison, 13% Frydenberg and 9% Peter Dutton. Among Coalition voters, Morrison had 58%, Frydenberg 12% and Dutton 11%.

Recent attacks from the Coalition have focused on Labor being purportedly soft on China. But Essential has Labor leading the Coalition by 37-28 on who people trust most to build a relationship with China in Australia’s best interests. 61% thought Australia’s relationship with China complex, 26% that China is a threat and 13% that China is a positive opportunity.

Read more:
Elections are rarely decided by security and defence issues, but China could make 2022 different

Morgan poll: 57-43 to Labor

A Morgan poll, conducted January 31 to February 13 from a sample of almost 2,800, gave Labor a 57-43 lead, a 0.5-point gain for Labor since late January. Primary votes were 38.5% Labor (up one), 33% Coalition (steady), 11.5% Greens (steady), 4% One Nation (up 0.5), 1.5% UAP (down 0.5), 8% independents (steady) and 3.5% others (down one).

NSW byelection updates: Liberals set to hold Willoughby

After the count of about 10,000 postals in Willoughby on Saturday, the Liberals increased their two candidate share against independent Larissa Penn from 51.7% to 53.0%. In last Thursday’s article, I said that while postals almost always skew right in Australia, the COVID situation in NSW made it possible they could skew left. But postals counted so far have assisted the Liberals.

ABC election analyst Antony Green says there are still about 15,000 postals to be counted in Willoughby. To win Willoughby, Penn would need to win these extra postals by a 55-45 margin (more as some will exhaust or be informal).

But so far, postals have been 55.5-44.5 to the Liberals, and it’s unrealistic to expect the remainder to differ markedly from what’s been counted so far. The Liberal lead is likely to increase.

In the other byelections, Labor’s lead in Bega was down from last Thursday’s 55.6% to 54.8% two party, still an 11.7% swing to Labor. In Strathfield, Labor’s lead was unchanged at 55.7% two party, a 0.7% swing to Labor. In Monaro, the Nationals were up from 54.9% to 55.7% two party, a 5.9% swing to Labor.

About 10,000 postal votes were counted in all byelections on Saturday, but there are still at least 10,000 votes to go in each seat. A second large postal count in each seat will occur Thursday, with the remainder to be counted next Monday, after Friday’s deadline for receipt of postals.

Adrian Beaumont 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. Morrison’s ratings slump in Resolve and Essential polls; Liberals set to retain Willoughby – https://theconversation.com/morrisons-ratings-slump-in-resolve-and-essential-polls-liberals-set-to-retain-willoughby-177606

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christopher Blyth, Paediatrician, Infectious Diseases Physician and Clinical Microbiologist, Telethon Kids Institute, The University of Western Australia

The Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (ATAGI) recommends Australians aged 16 years and older have a COVID booster vaccine three months after receiving their second dose.

You now need a third dose to be considered “up to date” with COVID vaccination, previously known as “fully vaccinated”.

Despite this, only about half of the eligible population has received a booster dose.

Many people are wondering how booster side effects compare to the first two doses, when they can get a booster dose after COVID infection, and whether we’ll need more than three doses in the future.

Here we answer some of your COVID booster vaccine questions.

Why have a booster?

There’s still widespread community transmission of the Omicron variant across Australia and the world.

The protection provided by two doses of a COVID vaccine is reduced and more rapidly wanes against Omicron.

Despite this, many eligible Australians aren’t coming forward for their booster, perhaps reassured by reports that Omicron is milder, so therefore not something to be worried about.

Omicron infections continue to cause significant impact in all Australian states and territories, with more than 2,400 Australians currently hospitalised.

There’s now clear evidence getting your booster shot is the best way to restore protection against infection and severe disease.

Having a booster three months following the primary course can provide similar levels of protection against Omicron as the two primary doses did for Delta.

Which booster can I have?

Australians over 16 can now have Pfizer or Moderna as a booster, regardless of which vaccines you had for the first two.

Pfizer’s is a full dose just like the first two, while Moderna’s booster dose is half the dose of the primary vaccine.

AstraZeneca has been approved as a booster dose, but Pfizer and Moderna remain preferred, except in a small number people who have had a significant adverse reaction to mRNA vaccines.

Novavax, the new protein-based COVID vaccine, is currently only approved for use in the first two doses. Despite encouraging evidence from clinical trials, it’s not currently approved as a booster.

Boosters aren’t yet recommended in younger adolescents (less than 16 years old) and children.

Leer más:
Haven’t yet been vaccinated for COVID? Novavax might change your mind

What side effects should I expect?

AusVaxSafety, Australia’s national active vaccine safety surveillance system, found Australians who’ve already had their booster vaccine reported similar side effects as they did after their second dose, for both Pfizer and Moderna boosters.

The most common side effect following booster vaccines was a local reaction (including pain, redness, swelling and itching over the injection site), followed by fatigue, headache and muscle or joint pain.

Less than 1% of people reported needing to see a doctor as a result of their side effects.

Fewer people also reported needing to miss work, study or their routine duties as a result of booster vaccine side effects compared to their second dose, suggesting they were manageable.

It’s not uncommon to experience swollen lymph nodes,
often in the armpit on the same side as the vaccination shot. This normally occurs within a few days of vaccination and resolves within a week or so without treatment.

Swollen lymph nodes are more common following booster vaccines, with up to 5% of people reporting this following a Pfizer booster, compared to less than 1% of people following dose one or dose two. Swollen lymph nodes were experienced in up to 10% of people following Moderna boosters.

We don’t know why some people experience side effects such as swollen lymph nodes, and others don’t.

Leer más:
COVID vaccine may lead to a harmless lump in your armpit, so women advised to delay mammograms for 6 weeks

What about more serious adverse events?

There’s a small increased risk of heart inflammation (pericarditis and/or myocarditis) in people who have received an mRNA COVID vaccine (including Pfizer and Moderna), compared to unvaccinated people.

However, COVID infection is associated with a substantially higher risk of myocarditis, and other cardiac complications, compared to a COVID vaccination.

As of February 13, approximately 10 million third doses have been administered in Australia. Only six reports of likely myocarditis and 25 reports of likely pericarditis have been reported to the TGA for Pfizer, and four reports of likely myocarditis and eight reports of likely pericarditis for Moderna.

Data from Israel and US are also reassuring, finding lower rates of myocarditis and pericarditis following a third dose compared to a second dose of mRNA vaccines.

What if you’ve recently had COVID infection?

As with vaccination, immunity following COVID infection wanes over time.

That’s why, even if you get COVID, we still recommend you get your next dose to ensure you get the best protection.

You can get vaccinated as soon as you’ve recovered from your COVID infection.

Having COVID will provide some immunity against reinfection, so you can defer vaccination for up to four months after the start of your infection.

If you’ve received antibody medication or convalescent plasma as part of your treatment for COVID, you should defer future vaccine doses for at least three months after infection.

Will we need more doses in the future?

A report published by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in February found protection was starting to wane from four months after the third dose.

But it’s too early to tell if further booster vaccines are required in the future.

Whether having a single booster is enough to protect ourselves against future infections is still uncertain at this stage, but scientists, health professionals and policy makers are watching these data very closely.

Ahead of these data, it’s more important than ever to get that booster dose as soon as you’re eligible!

Leer más:
Israel is rolling out fourth doses of COVID vaccines. Should Australia do the same?

Chris Blyth receives funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council. He is a member of government advisory committees including the COVID-19 Vaccines and Treatment for Australia – Science and Industry Technical Advisory Group.

Nicholas Wood has received funding from the NHMRC for a Career Development Fellowship. He holds a Churchill Fellowship awarded in 2019

Lucy Deng no recibe salario, ni ejerce labores de consultoría, ni posee acciones, ni recibe financiación de ninguna compañía u organización que pueda obtener beneficio de este artículo, y ha declarado carecer de vínculos relevantes más allá del cargo académico citado.

– ref. Do COVID boosters cause more or fewer side effects? How quickly does protection wane? Your questions answered – https://theconversation.com/do-covid-boosters-cause-more-or-fewer-side-effects-how-quickly-does-protection-wane-your-questions-answered-176695

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kim Munro, Lecturer, University of South Australia

Review: Invisibility, MOD museum, Adelaide

Disinformation, algorithms, big data, care work, climate change, cultural knowledge: they can all be invisible.

In her New York Times bestseller, Weapons of Math Destruction (2016), subtitled “how big data increases inequality and threatens democracy”, mathematician and data scientist Cathy O’Neil unpacks the elusive algorithms of our everyday lives and how accurate, fair or biased they might be.

Algorithms hide behind the assumed objectivity of maths, but they very much contain the biases, subjective decisions and cultural frameworks of those who design them. With scant detail on how these algorithms are created, O’Neil describes them as “inscrutable black boxes”.

Opaqueness is intentional.

In one of the upstairs galleries at the spacious MOD, we are greeted in large text as we enter: “what do algorithms think about you?”

Can an algorithm think?, we ask. And, if so, what informs the decisions it makes about us?

Biometric Mirror was created by science fiction artist Lucy McRae and computer scientists Niels Wouters and Frank Vetere. They created an algorithm to judge our personalities by asking 33,000 people to look at photographs of faces and come up with possible personality traits.

We don’t see who the photos are of or who is doing the evaluating – and therefore we don’t know what biases might be reproduced.

You are invited to gaze into a mirror which scans your face. From this scan, the algorithm creates a profile of your age, gender and personality, which appears as statistical data overlaid on your reflection.

When I look into the mirror, I am told I am neither trustworthy nor emotionally stable. The algorithm underneath guesses my age by a few years, and I score highly for intelligence and uncertainty – an unhelpful combination.

Despite my doubts about the algorithm, I notice myself focusing on the more favourable data.

In this context, the data is benign. But facial recognition technology has been used to survey and monitor activists and has been responsible for thousands of inaccurate identifications by police in the UK.

Read more:
Algorithms can decide your marks, your work prospects and your financial security. How do you know they’re fair?

Using data to illuminate cultural knowledge

In one of the more impressive works in the exhibition, contemporary data visualisation is used to illustrate Aboriginal forms of knowing and the intrinsic relationship between spatial awareness, Country and kinship.

Ngapulara Ngarngarnyi Wirra (Our Family Tree) is a collaboration between Angie Abdilla from design agency Old Ways, New, Adnyamathanha and Narungga footballer Adam Goodes and contemporary artist Baden Pailthorpe.

In every AFL game Goodes played, his on-field movements was recorded via satellites, which connected with a tracking device in the back of his jumper. 20 million data points were then fused with data scans of a Red River Gum, or Wirra, to form an impressive data visualisation projected onto two large screens in a darkened gallery.

Here, Goodes’s data is returned to Country to form part of the roots of the tree as well as the swirling North and South Winds of his ancestors. The data is also translated into sound and amplified, inviting us to listen to what would otherwise be inaudible.

In a small room between the screens – or within the tree – drone footage of the Adnyamathanha Country (Flinders Ranges) plays against the retelling of the creation story in Adnyamathanha language.

What results is the synthesis of traditional Aboriginal knowledge with cutting edge technology, revealing different ways of sensing space and time.

Read more:
The land we play on: equality doesn’t mean justice

The power of the invisible

While it’s easy to focus on how technology is used and exposed in the works in Invisibility, down the corridors and hanging from the ceiling in MOD are a few other exhibits that flesh out the concept of invisibility.

Women’s Work celebrates the leadership of South Australian Aboriginal Women with striking black and white photographs. Tucked away down the hall on the second level is Fostering Ties, a series of images drawing attention to children in foster care.

This exhibition foregrounds invisibility as a way to contend with our own blind-spots, knowledge systems, biases and cultural frameworks.

What is invisible to us may not be to those from demographics, cultural or language groups that differ from ours.

Drawing attention to the invisible encourages us to shift our perspective. If we don’t have the answer to solve a problem, maybe another cultural perspective – or life form – does.

Invisiblity is at MOD until November 2022.

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

– ref. A new exhibition explores invisible data, from facial algorithms to satellite tracking as a return to Country – https://theconversation.com/a-new-exhibition-explores-invisible-data-from-facial-algorithms-to-satellite-tracking-as-a-return-to-country-176567

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alex Maritz, Professor of Entrepreneurship, La Trobe Business School, La Trobe University

Research has found Indigenous start-up businesses could improve the welfare and well-being of First Nations individuals and communities. This has the potential to reduce many economic and social setbacks experienced by Indigenous people.

Australia has outperformed other developed economies in the quality and economic impact of business start-ups. This includes both mainstream entrepreneurs and Indigenous startups.

The number of Indigenous startups in Australia grew by 30% in the last decade. Women Indigenous entrepreneurs and participation in successful Indigenous startups are also becoming more common.

The top 500 Indigenous corporations in Australia alone contribute $1.6 billion to the Australian economy.

Yet Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in Australia still face incredible challenges when it comes to unemployment, self-employment, and entrepreneurship. Compared to the US and Canada, Australia has a significantly smaller amount of Indigenous people engaged in small businesses.

Our research shows Indigenous businesses can be essential for First Nations communities in Australia. These businesses can create jobs for these communities and increase workforce participation. This brings great benefits for health and quality of life in Indigenous populations as well as a positive impact on the Australian economy.

Read more:
The Aboriginal flag is now ‘freely available for public use’. What does this mean from a legal standpoint?

Indigenous entrepreneurship is a driver of social innovation

Entrepreneurship is an enabler of social, economic, and technological progress, and can be an avenue to support cultural foundations of Indigenous communities.

Indigenous entrepreneurs and their businesses are drivers of social innovation because they are often embedded in family, social values and networks. This can assist with employment opportunities and business promotion.

In our research we have found much potential for Indigenous businesses to embed their respective cultures and creativity into their work and further grow the Indigenous start-up sector. Which could be of great benefit to Indigenous communities.

For example, Keira Birrani expanded a grassroots painting start-up and now has nine Aboriginal painters sharing their creativity and culture in the local Aboriginal community in Wodonga. With the help of elders and the local community, Jedda Monaro launched a startup in glass-blowing. Jedda now exports his sculptures internationally, and redistributes his gains to the local community.

Read more:
Australia’s agriculture sector sorely needs more insights from First Nations people. Here’s how we get there

Indigenous entrepreneurs

Some Indigenous entrepreneurs prioritise serving their local communities as opposed to purely financial motives. However there are still significant obstacles and challenges to overcome.

The growth in Indigenous entrepreneurship is still lagging compared to non-Indigenous entrepreneurship. Our research finds this may be due to barriers such as lack of business experience, education or training, racial discrimination and lack of access to resources.

However there are factors that can influence successful Indigenous entrepreneurship. This includes access to business mentorship and partners, tertiary education and training in entrepreneurship. These have proven to be drivers for success.

Examples of successful Indigenous businesses embracing community engagement and making real change in communities include:

• The Gumatji Corporation who provide sustainable economic development for the community through integrating Yolgnu clan’s social laws

• MoneyMob Talkabout provide Indigenous communities with better ways to manage money, resulting in financial literature and basic financial skills in local communities

• MPower helps Indigenous families meet their basic needs, by integrating with Indigenous coaches and mentors

• Maali Minjarra started a regional tourism venture three years ago and today employs 20 full-time Aboriginal staff who assist as tour guides.

How to better support Indigenous businesses:

There have been recent government approaches to support new Indigenous businesses, including dedicated Indigenous startup education and training. This has been intermittently applied in Australia, with marginal success to date. However, further courses of actions are required.

Our research proposes three main types of intervention:

1) better ways to encourage Indigenous communities to be involved in business. This would involve improving entrepreneurial and startup culture to be more inclusive for Indigenous people

2) direct support for Indigenous people such as education, training, and mentoring by organisations dedicated to Indigenous businesses. A good example is the YARPA and iAccelerate initiative in NSW

3) developing entrepreneurial ecosystems to embrace cultural, economic and institutional needs of Indigenous businesses. See, for example, a map of a proposed entrepreneurship ecosystem for Indigenous businesses.

To facilitate Indigenous entrepreneurship, we need interventions on improved education in business and self-employment. However existing government policies and collaboration with Indigenous networks and communities need to better facilitate this.

Community participation is essential for Indigenous businesses to flourish. Indigenous entrepreneurship has the potential to be a way for communities, governments and non-for-profits to address social issues, such as poverty, unemployment and social injustice.

Government business initiatives working with Indigenous communities would better facilitate and promote Indigenous voices in business.

Through this, Indigenous peoples would have a direct say on national business laws, policies and programs effecting them.

This will bring great benefit to all Australian entrepreneurs, by providing inclusive networks and entrepreneurial ecosystems.

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

– ref. Indigenous entrepreneurship may well be the driver of social innovation – https://theconversation.com/indigenous-entrepreneurship-may-well-be-the-driver-of-social-innovation-176671

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Simon Coghlan, Senior Lecturer in Digital Ethics, Centre for AI and Digital Ethics, School of Computing and Information Systems, The University of Melbourne

Wild horses roaming the Snowy Mountains have long been the subject of fierce debate. Some say they’re feral pests destroying Kosciuszko National Park’s fragile native ecosystem. Others argue they’re national icons and an important part of Australia’s colonial heritage.

This issue was the subject of last night’s ABC Four Corners episode. But the current debate misses one crucial perspective: that of the wild horses, whose fate is being decided.

This is a perfect example of why the new movement of compassionate conservation raises the question of the animals’ interests in debates about conservation.

Compassionate conservationists ask whether it’s ethical to harm and kill animals to preserve others. They believe ecosystems, species, and individual animals all have significant intrinsic value.

Traditional conservationists have reacted strongly to the criticism, and generally argue the movement is dangerous because it ignores certain bad consequences animals can cause. Some of the most outspoken critics even say it isn’t real conservation or science.

Our research in Conservation Biology probes this debate. We identified 52 criticisms from 11 papers directly arguing against compassionate conservation. We found most frequent criticisms are problematic, while some others have more substance.

Is the debate worth having? We believe it is. Conservation is an application of ethics to the world. When we set out to conserve, we must confront ethical questions. Should we intervene in nature at all? If so, should we prioritise some species? Can we kill and be kind?

What is compassionate conservation?

Many people experienced shock at the environmental devastation caused by Australia’s Black Summer, including the loss of old forests and an estimated three billion birds, reptiles, frogs, and mammals in the path of the fires.

Many observers felt compassion for individual suffering animals, captured in videos such as the distressing one below of a woman running through smoke and heat to rescue a badly burnt koala.

What do we focus on? The environment, expressed broadly? Or individual animals in front of us? Or both? That’s the issue at the heart of this passionate debate.

Compassionate conservation recognises strong duties towards all sentient animals who can experience pain, distress, happiness or joy.

Read more:
‘Compassionate conservation’: just because we love invasive animals, doesn’t mean we should protect them

In Australia, that means both native and non-native animals – including predators such as foxes and cats – warrant our compassion. Through a compassionate conservationist lens, mainstream conservation often shows insufficient ethical regard for individual animals.

Compassionate conservationists say we can be too quick to harm sentient animals affecting ecosystems with methods such as poisoning and shooting. In compassionate conservation, individuals matter, even when they threaten biodiversity on a macro level, and even if their native range is overseas and they were brought here by humans.

How should we apply human values to nature?

Think of a rabbit in a hutch. Now think of a rabbit feeding on grass in the wild in Australia. Chances are, you mentally framed the same animal differently. The first, you will have thought of as “pet” and hence harmless. The second, you may well have thought of as “pest” or even “invader”.

Arguably, these terms lump species into value-laden categories that create barriers for considering the animal’s perspective.

Compassionate conservationists avoid demonising animals as “pests”, “ferals” and “invaders” because it frames animals only in relation to human interests and ignores the interests and agency of individual animals, potentially leading to cruelty or callousness. For example, New Zealand’s “war on possums” is associated with hatred of non-native species.

Read more:
Non-native species should count in conservation – even in Australia

By contrast, compassionate conservationists advocate a broad “do no harm” approach and a creative search for peaceful alternatives to vital conservation. They say that approaches to non-native species like culling can often lack evidence of long-term effectiveness and can cause unintended consequences. For example, lethal control of dingoes can increase fox abundance and decrease small mammal numbers.

Moreover, compassionate conservationists stress the importance of recognising animals’ value, interests and agency. Particularly when making decisions that will impact them.

Is compassion a more ethical framework for conservation?

Critics against the movement argue against the role of compassion. Feelings, they say, can blind us to our responsibilities. But are these criticisms valid? Should we silence compassion to make decisions aimed at preserving ecosystems on a larger scale?

These critiques have important weaknesses. In human affairs, using compassion as a guide has arguably helped produce more just attitudes and policies towards marginalised and oppressed peoples.

Critics can fail to see that “compassion” is a complex response. While compassion and empathy can sometimes morally blind us, they can also be thoughtful and disciplined responses to issues. Compassion is frequently guided by a sense of justice toward both humans and nonhumans.

In our review, we noted critics often avoid questions about the value of animal lives and our responsibilities to them as sentient individuals, such as whether it’s unjust to cause them agonising deaths from poison.

Criticism of compassionate conservation

Yet some criticisms of compassionate conservation have more substance.

Animals, like people, can harm other animals, ecosystems, and even humans. Compassionate conservationists strive to protect and respect all three. But one hard question is precisely how to weigh our general responsibility to do no harm against the survival of species and ecosystems. Is it always wrong to harm animals, even when great ecological havoc may otherwise result?

Some compassionate conservationists argue for the return of predators on a large scale, as a way to manage ecosystems without human intervention.
But predators can cause great suffering to other animals, whether introduced or not. Is suffering acceptable as long as we don’t cause it or we cause it indirectly? Should compassion require us to intervene in nature to reduce suffering?

In parts of Southeast Asia, elephants and farmers often come into conflict. The elephants enter into the fields, seeking food. This can be because their original habitats have shrunk drastically. But from the farmer’s point of view, the elephants are stealing from them. How do we balance these competing interests?

A debate worth having

Understanding our ethical duties to animals can be difficult. For example, do we have stronger responsibilities to more sentient animals, like kangaroos and crows, than to animals with possibly less complex inner lives, like frogs and crayfish? What about insects?

While some mainstream conservationists regard compassionate conservation as irrelevant, we believe its provocations have value. Wrestling with the tough questions posed by compassionate conservation could improve how we understand our responsibilities to people, ecosystems and animals.

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

– ref. Introduced species are animals too: why the debate over compassionate conservation is worth having – https://theconversation.com/introduced-species-are-animals-too-why-the-debate-over-compassionate-conservation-is-worth-having-163987

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Cowling, Associate Professor – Information & Communication Technology (ICT), CQUniversity Australia

Last week, the ABC announced it will begin to track the viewing habits of all users of its iview streaming platform from March 15. This will be done by making users create an account and log in to watch shows and “benefit from the next stage of personalised services” such as “program recommendations [and] watchlists”.

The change was initially planned for the middle of last year, but was delayed after heavy criticism from privacy experts and others over the proposed arrangements for sharing and recording data. One point of contention was the ABC’s plans to share viewer data with Facebook and Google.

The ABC says “significant work has been undertaken in providing effective privacy controls” during this delay. But nevertheless, critics maintain the new provisions still involve sharing using data without full consent.

So how concerned should we be about our privacy here?

All your data are belong to us

For years we’ve known organisations such as Google and Facebook are collecting data on every search and social media post we make, and every website we visit.

Often the argument for collecting these data is similar to that used by the ABC: that collecting it provides for more personalised recommendations and a better user experience. However, tech companies also make billions using these data to sell personalised ads (and sometimes by selling the actual data).

Read more:
The ugly truth: tech companies are tracking and misusing our data, and there’s little we can do

They’re not the only ones keeping tabs on us. Loyalty cards such as Woolworths Everyday Rewards or Coles Flybuys do the same thing: tracking your purchases, adding them to a database, and mining them for information about your life.

If you buy 10 cans of cat food a fortnight, you probably have two cats. If you suddenly start buying 15, you’ve probably acquired a third.

Nappies, baby formula and baby food reveal how many kids you have, how old they are, and how they’re growing up. The ratio of Tim Tams to bread and milk can give clues as to your level of disposable income.

Despite this, millions of Australians scan these cards every day. It’s hard to know if they’ve fully weighed the pros and cons, or just never really thought about them.

A healthy fear of your shadow (profile)

So how much should we care about this? And how much do we?

When I put these questions to my students in an undergraduate class on Information Technology & Society, they mostly respond that if they’re doing nothing wrong then they have no reason to care if major corporations know what they eat for breakfast.

Older “mature age” students tend to feel differently, often raising concerns about what the data are used for, both now and potentially in the future. Older students may have had negative experiences with data, such as having a home loan disallowed over a credit report, while younger people may not look so far ahead.

Indeed, organisations like Electronic Frontiers Australia have argued this type of data collection can be a slippery slope to profiling and bias, with organisations using this to choose who should receive particular services or assistance.

The ever-growing collection of data comes at the same time as government moves to centralise their databases under the banner of myGov, tying all government services to Medicare or tax file numbers.

Read more:
Is China’s social credit system coming to Australia?

We are still a long way from a dystopian situation like China’s social credit system, where all our behaviour feeds into a rating system that determines our access to services and housing, but these moves could make one easier to implement in future.

How enjoying Q+A might raise tricky questions

Which brings us back to the ABC and its plan to require every user to create a profile and log into its service. The main question here is the same one to ask when using a Flybuys card or creating a new social media account.

Does the convenience of sharing these data (with the ABC in this case), in terms of personal recommendations and watch lists, and indeed, the ability to access the service at all, balance what we think our data will ultimately be used for?

And when we ask this question, it helps to think in very broad terms. While in this case we’re just talking about viewing history and watch time, it’s not too dissimilar to cat food and nappies when you think about it.

Read more:
The privacy paradox: we claim we care about our data, so why don’t our actions match?

Significant amounts of information could be inferred from our viewing habits: everything from our political leanings to our attention span. What that can then be used for is anyone’s guess.

That’s not to say you shouldn’t create an account, but rather that you need to go in with your eyes wide open. Think about what iview means to you, what data might be shared, and how it might be used. And then decide if you really love Bluey all that much after all.

Michael Cowling 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. Mandatory logins for ABC iview could open an intimate window onto your life – https://theconversation.com/mandatory-logins-for-abc-iview-could-open-an-intimate-window-onto-your-life-177540

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexey D Muraviev, Associate Professor of National Security and Strategic Studies, Curtin University

The Beijing Winter Olympics will be remembered not just for China’s efforts to impress the world amid criticisms of its human rights record. The games were also held against the backdrop of the most dramatic escalation of strategic tensions between Russia and the West since the end of the Cold War.

In fact, the great power standoff over Ukraine and the never-ending speculation over whether Russia will invade have often overshadowed the international celebration of sport and unity.

The end of the games coincided with an escalation of fighting in eastern Ukraine. If the threat of Russia’s use of force against Ukraine was more speculative and often debatable just several weeks ago, the risk of real conflict is now much higher.

Russian President Vladimir Putin shows more confidence in resolving the crisis in his country’s favour than ever before. His confidence is likely to be based on the following draw cards: the faltering Ukrainian economy, Russia’s military prowess and a new trump card, China.

Economic uncertainty

Russia can be thankful to the United States and Europe for the perfect media storm they have created. The four months of anxious anticipation of what Russia might do next and the decisions by western embassies to move from the capital Kyiv to the western city of Lviv have had a damaging effect on Ukraine’s economy.

In fact, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has even criticised the Biden administration for stoking panic over a war, saying it is hurting the country’s economy.

Adding to that, Russia is tightening its economic pressure on Ukraine by reducing the country’s value as a transit state for its gas exports. Analysts say Russian gas flows through Ukraine fell to historic lows in January, meaning less revenue in transit taxes for Ukraine.

The threat of conflict has also caused Ukraine’s currency to fall to a four-year low against the dollar and led to higher insurance for Ukrainian exports from Black Sea ports, as well as for Ukrainian airlines.

One Ukrainian economist says the crisis has already cost the economy several billion dollars just in the past few weeks.

Read more:
Why Ukrainians are ready to fight for their democracy

Military muscle

And despite Putin agreeing to more diplomatic talks, it’s clear Russia is far from backing down.

Russia is prepared to continue using its reformed military power and the threat of conflict in its bargaining game with the West, despite the dangers of an actual war breaking out and how devastating it could be for Russia’s own economy.

Read more:
Russia not so much a (re)rising superpower as a skilled strategic spoiler

In recent days, Russia carried out its annual strategic nuclear forces exercises, called Grom (or “Thunder”). The decision to bring them forward from the second half of 2022 seems to be deliberate act. The aim: to remind Western leaders of Russia’s status as a nuclear superpower, and the risks associated with confronting it militarily.

Simultaneously, it was announced Russia and Belarus would continue their joint exercise activities beyond this past weekend. NATO estimates about 30,000 Russian troops are currently in Belarus.

The Kremlin is confident ten years of reforms and massive injections of money have transformed the Russian army from an ageing, ill-equipped force into one of the world’s most powerful militaries. Adding to that, the Russians believe neither the US nor NATO would risk an open conflict over Ukraine.

So, by continuing to flex its military muscle in this way, Putin is expecting Western leaders to eventually pressure officials in Kyiv to submit to a political resolution of the crisis in eastern Ukraine on Russia’s terms.

The China card

Perhaps the most powerful draw card in Putin’s back pocket is China. While Russia and China have been growing closer in recent years, a summit between Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping at the start of the Olympics sent alarm bells ringing in Western countries. Some US and European officials even said it could “amount to a realignment of the world order”.

First, the two leaders signed a long-term agreement to ship Russian oil and gas to China worth US$117 billion. This agreement allows Moscow to mitigate the possible fallout from US threats to halt the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia to Europe if an invasion occurs.

Second, the joint statement formalised China’s political support for Russian strategies against the West. Importantly, for the first time, China voiced support for Russia’s opposition to NATO expansion:

The sides oppose further enlargement of NATO and call on the North Atlantic Alliance to abandon its ideologised cold war approaches, to respect the sovereignty, security and interests of other countries.

During his speech at the Munich Security Conference over the weekend, China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, reinforced this message and backed the Russia-favoured Minsk Agreement on the political settlement of the breakaway, pro-Russian regions of eastern Ukraine.

Although Russia does not need Chinese military assistance in any potential invasion of Ukraine, Beijing’s political and economic backing is encouraging for Putin. In return, Beijing will gain serious dividends from Moscow.

First, by agreeing to back Russia against NATO, Beijing gained Moscow’s reaffirmed support on Taiwan, which China claims as its own territory. In fact, China may borrow Russia’s approach towards Ukraine as a model to pressure Taiwan into unifying, or an outright invasion of the island.

Read more:
Australia’s strategic blind spot: China’s newfound intimacy with once-rival Russia

Second, China can now rely on Russia in its balancing game against the new AUKUS security pact between the US, UK and Australia.

Third, Xi may use his cordial relationship with Putin in his power moves at home. Later this year, the Chinese Communist Party will hold its 20th party congress – a watershed moment for Xi’s leadership. Putin is revered in China as a strong leader, so shoring up his support may be important for Xi as he attempts to secure another term in power.

For now, time is on Putin’s side – it’s a sizeable strategic factor the West does not have. And the deeper the animosity becomes between Russia, China and the West, the closer Beijing and Moscow are likely to grow.

Alexey D Muraviev 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 Vladimir Putin is so confident in his Ukraine strategy – he has a trump card in China – https://theconversation.com/why-vladimir-putin-is-so-confident-in-his-ukraine-strategy-he-has-a-trump-card-in-china-177534

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rosemary Kennedy, Adjunct Professor of Architecture and Urban Design, Queensland University of Technology

The stark difference between an aged care “home” and a real home has been laid bare by the COVID pandemic.

Residential aged care buildings are often institutionally designed, even if they have the appearance of a hotel. Think long corridors, vast dining rooms, nursing stations and bland corporate furnishings.

These design choices support a model of care underpinned by cost efficiencies rather than real people’s rhythms of daily life.

So, how can we make aged care facilities feel more like home, while keeping them pandemic-safe?

Read more:
Australia’s residential aged care facilities are getting bigger and less home-like

More like a ‘container’ than a home

Residential aged care facilities are deeply restrictive environments; some have compared them to prisons.

During the pandemic, things were made worse as residents were denied the right to leave their rooms or have visitors. For many residents, it must feel like prevention is worse than the disease, as physical and psychological health declines markedly in imposed isolation.

Hotel-like residential aged care rooms are no place for long periods without the company of others. Some residential aged care centres may look like luxury resorts, but residents are still incarcerated.

Often residential aged care centres are more like a “container” than a home; a container that dispenses shelter, food and medical care.

So, what might we do differently in the post-pandemic era?

To try to answer this question, we held a collaborative design workshop involving architects and stakeholders, including managers from the residential aged care sector. We sought to visualise design ideas using three existing not-for-profit residential aged care sites as testing grounds.

We asked the group to ponder: what makes a home “home-like”? And how does that differ from the environment at an aged care centre?

Three key ideas emerged, all of which could help a facility feel more like a home while also reducing the impact of future pandemics.

1. Make aged care facilities indistinguishable from their surrounding neighbourhoods

Residential aged care facilities are often walled and gated enclaves set apart from the surrounding community. Residents are secluded in wards and aren’t part of the natural ebb and flow of the community.

A home, on the other hand, is usually directly connected to the outside world.

Embedding indistinguishable residential aged care households in the heart of an active community would add to the broader social and physical fabric and build support networks.

In practice, this could mean opting for smaller buildings that look similar to surrounding buildings, rather than large and imposing structures.

It could mean offering a wide range of housing choices, from houses to apartments, and softening wall and gate barriers so residents easily connect with everyday community life.

2. Ageless communities and support networks without moving house

Our group took inspiration from the urban design concept known as the “five-minute community”, where everything is a short walk away.

We imagined designs that allow for self-sufficient small households of up to eight residents, with different generations also located in the same street. “Ageless” communities like this allow for different generations to interact (either incidentally or deliberately).

Residents could easily adjust the level of support needed (up and down) over time, while staying at home. Intensive rehabilitation could be delivered in the home or nearby. For example, people who have had a fall could access rehabilitation and restorative services in the local area.

We also looked for ways to take advantage of existing spaces in the community rather than constructing new aged care facilities that are set apart.

3. Designed-in respiratory infection prevention measures

Big isn’t always better.

Small home models deliver an antidote to isolation and the spread of airborne respiratory infection.

Smaller stand-alone buildings are less reliant on centralised air-circulation systems and can deliver strategies to reduce infection transmission by ensuring all rooms have access to fresh air and natural ventilation.

Smaller households can quarantine without the need to lock down a large facility.

Community participation and engagement built into the design

Entrenched approaches to residential aged care design assumes residents can do little independently. An unquestioning focus on inabilities further disempowers: “care” is done “to” or “for” a resident in a “facility”.

For example, residential aged care meals are generally pre-prepared and eaten in a large-scale room with many others (including strangers).

At home, by contrast, people decide what, when and where to eat. The small home approach in five-minute communities would allow, for instance, people of different generations to cook together or for a younger person to cook for an older person while also learning new skills.

Designs that acknowledge older people have knowledge and skills to contribute allow for such interactions to occur.

When workshop participants challenged their own expectations, they envisioned design concepts emphasising living, not just existing, until end of life.

The residential aged care crisis is escalating, and structural and cultural change is desperately needed.

It’s time to rethink these physical environments with peoples’ fundamental human needs at the heart of design.

Read more:
How our residential aged-care system doesn’t care about older people’s emotional needs

Rosemary Kennedy received funding from DMA Engineers to devise and facilitate the design workshop ‘Feels like home’ at The University of Queensland. She is a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Architects.

Laurie Buys receives funding from the Australian Research Council and a variety of industry partners.

– ref. How good design can make aged care facilities feel more like home – https://theconversation.com/how-good-design-can-make-aged-care-facilities-feel-more-like-home-176465

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Davina Porock, Professor of Nursing, Director of Centre for Research in Aged Care, Edith Cowan University

Bill? Why isn’t he home from work? I have to go and look for him. He’s never late – something’s happened. My chest is getting tight and tears start on my cheeks.

A friendly face comes into view, smiling warmly, facing me directly. A gentle hand reaches to me. I go with them and sit in the kitchen. Something smells good.

The man at the table with the children looks like Bill – I pat him on the shoulder. He smiles. He’s home from work; that’s good. Come in the kitchen, the friendly face says. Would you like to help with dinner? There’s potato to mash or perhaps you could lay the table?

The children are doing some drawing and one has a tiny TV in her hand and she’s pointing on the screen. “Look Nana,” she says and shows me colourful things jumping onscreen. I am home.

This is what many of us might hope for if we need residential care as we age. We want to feel safe, loved, to take part in the ordinariness of home life.

With an aged care system under extreme pressure, the federal government is seeking thousands of volunteers to help with daily care tasks including talking with residents, brushing their hair and helping them exercise. This follows the announcement 1,700 Australian Defence Force personnel would help at aged care homes, though fewer than 200 have been deployed so far.

Dementia Australia chief Maree McCabe last week called for federal budgeting to “ensure everyone receives the standard of care we would all expect for ourselves”. Indeed, the reality of aged care today is a different story.

Read more:
Nursing home residents are paying $800 a week for services they are barely getting

A feeling of loss and failure

Having a sense of security, belonging, continuity, purpose, significance, and achievement through relationships is what creates a feeling of well-being. When an older person is moved into an aged care facility, it is usually because their health needs are too complex for family or partners to manage at home, not because they aren’t loved.

The latest available figures show around 350,000 Australians using residential aged care.

Older age, multiple chronic conditions, complex medication and treatment needs exist in addition to the “activities of daily living”: getting dressed, going to the toilet, eating, and moving.

This move can bring a sense of loss and even failure for residents and families. Well-being can suffer.

The reality for care workers

Quality care is built on relationships and is person-centred with time to know the person, to understand their life and preferences. Time is a luxury not permitted in the current system.

Care work is reduced to tasks in line with a factory assembly-line approach. Residents are rarely permitted or invited to do things for themselves or help with food preparation – so skills and purpose are lost.

With a long list of jobs to do, staff are not encouraged to sit with residents – that isn’t seen as work or vital to their caring role. One aged care worker we contacted as part of our research told us:

We run out of time every time. We have so much to do within too short a time. We are not able to help or meet the needs of all our residents.

Despite this, aged care workers often build strong attachments to the elders in their care. As one care worker said:

When I don’t go to work for few days, I miss my residents, and feel like going back to work soon. It is a very sad feeling seeing a resident in palliative care and dying. Even worse to see is, family members grieving over the loss of their loved ones.

This sense of connection, pathos and responsibility keeps many aged care workers committed to their work, despite poor rates of pay and intensifying workloads.

Read more:
When aged care workers earn just $22 an hour, a one-off payment won’t fix the wage problem

Models we could learn from

The World Health Organization advocates for a care model that gives residents a sense of autonomy within a homelike environment. The Household model is based on a person-centred care approach where the residents plan and decide for their health, well-being, and care as much as they are able. Households are small scale homes with eight to ten residents with an environment they find meaningful and engaging.

Small household models have been established in the US and the Netherlands, and researchers are showing their positive impact. A few residential aged care facilities in Australia have moved to introduce these models and allow aged care workers to focus more on quality person-centred care rather than just tasks and time. But of course, funding is needed to make this viable.

Despite everyone having an opinion about the quality of care, few people are prepared to work in the sector. Care for the vulnerable in our society – whether the very young in childcare, people living with disability, or the old and frail – is woefully undervalued and underpaid.

If we valued this work, we would expect the people doing it to have appropriate training, to have the support and guidance of registered nurses and nurse practitioners. We would not be asking volunteers or soldiers to do it. There would be better staff-to-resident ratios to allow time to care, not just do tasks related to keeping a body clean, dry, fed and watered.

The staff in aged care are currently set up to fail. But the real failure of the system is the lack of funding that prevents making the changes already shown to work better.

Jennifer Grieve recently retired from her role as General Manager Health and Aged Care Services at Hall and Prior Health and Aged Care Group.

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

– ref. Today’s aged care falls well short of how we’d like to be treated – but there is another way – https://theconversation.com/todays-aged-care-falls-well-short-of-how-wed-like-to-be-treated-but-there-is-another-way-177067

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dominique Potvin, Senior Lecturer in Animal Ecology, University of the Sunshine Coast

When we attached tiny, backpack-like tracking devices to five Australian magpies for a pilot study, we didn’t expect to discover an entirely new social behaviour rarely seen in birds.

Our goal was to learn more about the movement and social dynamics of these highly intelligent birds, and to test these new, durable and reusable devices. Instead, the birds outsmarted us.

As our new research paper explains, the magpies began showing evidence of cooperative “rescue” behaviour to help each other remove the tracker.

While we’re familiar with magpies being intelligent and social creatures, this was the first instance we knew of that showed this type of seemingly altruistic behaviour: helping another member of the group without getting an immediate, tangible reward.

Testing exciting new devices

As academic scientists, we’re accustomed to experiments going awry in one way or another. Expired substances, failing equipment, contaminated samples, an unplanned power outage – these can all set back months (or even years) of carefully planned research.

For those of us who study animals, and especially behaviour, unpredictability is part of the job description. This is the reason we often require pilot studies.

Our pilot study was one of the first of its kind – most trackers are too big to fit on medium to small birds, and those that do tend to have very limited capacity for data storage or battery life. They also tend to be single-use only.

A novel aspect of our research was the design of the harness that held the tracker. We devised a method that didn’t require birds to be caught again to download precious data or reuse the small devices.

We trained a group of local magpies to come to an outdoor, ground feeding “station” that could either wirelessly charge the battery of the tracker, download data, or release the tracker and harness by using a magnet.

The harness was tough, with only one weak point where the magnet could function. To remove the harness, one needed that magnet, or some really good scissors. We were excited by the design, as it opened up many possibilities for efficiency and enabled a lot of data to be collected.

Read more:
Magpies can form friendships with people – here’s how

We wanted to see if the new design would work as planned, and discover what kind of data we could gather. How far did magpies go? Did they have patterns or schedules throughout the day in terms of movement, and socialising? How did age, sex or dominance rank affect their activities?

All this could be uncovered using the tiny trackers – weighing less than one gram – we successfully fitted five of the magpies with. All we had to do was wait, and watch, and then lure the birds back to the station to gather the valuable data.

It was not to be

Many animals that live in societies cooperate with one another to ensure the health, safety and survival of the group. In fact, cognitive ability and social cooperation has been found to correlate. Animals living in larger groups tend to have an increased capacity for problem solving, such as hyenas, spotted wrasse, and house sparrows.

Australian magpies are no exception. As a generalist species that excels in problem solving, it has adapted well to the extreme changes to their habitat from humans.

Australian magpies generally live in social groups of between two and 12 individuals, cooperatively occupying and defending their territory through song choruses and aggressive behaviours (such as swooping). These birds also breed cooperatively, with older siblings helping to raise young.

During our pilot study, we found out how quickly magpies team up to solve a group problem. Within ten minutes of fitting the final tracker, we witnessed an adult female without a tracker working with her bill to try and remove the harness off of a younger bird.

Within hours, most of the other trackers had been removed. By day 3, even the dominant male of the group had its tracker successfully dismantled.

Read more:
Cable ties probably won’t stop magpie attacks – here are a few things to try instead

We don’t know if it was the same individual helping each other or if they shared duties, but we had never read about any other bird cooperating in this way to remove tracking devices.

The birds needed to problem solve, possibly testing at pulling and snipping at different sections of the harness with their bill. They also needed to willingly help other individuals, and accept help.

The only other similar example of this type of behaviour we could find in the literature was that of Seychelles warblers helping release others in their social group from sticky Pisonia seed clusters. This is a very rare behaviour termed “rescuing”.

Saving magpies

So far, most bird species that have been tracked haven’t necessarily been very social or considered to be cognitive problem solvers, such as waterfowl and raptors. We never considered the magpies may perceive the tracker as some kind of parasite that requires removal.

Tracking magpies is crucial for conservation efforts, as these birds are vulnerable to the increasing frequency and intensity of heatwaves under climate change.

In a study published this week, Perth researchers showed the survival rate of magpie chicks in heatwaves can be as low as 10%.

Importantly, they also found that higher temperatures resulted in lower cognitive performance for tasks such as foraging. This might mean cooperative behaviours become even more important in a continuously warming climate.

Just like magpies, we scientists are always learning to problem solve. Now we need to go back to the drawing board to find ways of collecting more vital behavioural data to help magpies survive in a changing world.

Read more:
Clever cockatoos in southern Sydney have learned to open kerb-side bins — and it has global significance

Dominique Potvin 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. Altruism in birds? Magpies have outwitted scientists by helping each other remove tracking devices – https://theconversation.com/altruism-in-birds-magpies-have-outwitted-scientists-by-helping-each-other-remove-tracking-devices-175246

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Deanna Grant-Smith, Associate Professor, Queensland University of Technology

Multi-level marketing (MLM) is a business model that relies on direct selling and consultants recruiting friends and relatives to also become consultants, salespeople or distributors.

MLM salespeople sell products – such as beauty products, kitchenwares, essential oils or health supplements – directly to end-user retail consumers. These sales are made through relationship referrals, word-of-mouth marketing, and increasingly through social media.

Billed as entrepreneurial self-employment, many people (mostly women) join MLMs to supplement their income or make some money while caring for kids.

However, while MLMs promise financial independence, flexibility and work-life balance, it’s been widely reported by media and researchers that very few MLM sellers make any profit.

To find out more, we surveyed 287 current and former MLM consultants in Australia.

Many said they made less than A$5,000 a year from their MLM business. But even this figure is likely an overestimate for many; around half of those we surveyed said they didn’t include all costs in their profit calculations.

Around 40% of former MLM consultants told us they left for financial reasons.

Read more:
Multi-level marketing has been likened to a legal pyramid scheme – the backlash against it is growing

How do MLMs work?

Under Australian Consumer Law, legal MLM enterprises are not classed as pyramid schemes because consultants’ income is predominantly derived from selling products or services rather than recruiting others into the scheme.

However, consultants are incentivised to recruit others because recruits become their “downline”. Most MLMs offer commissions based on downlines’ sales in addition to their own sales.

For example: Mary recruits Jane as a consultant and now Jane is in Mary’s downline. So now Mary gets to keep a portion of the money Jane makes from her sales. Jane goes on to recruit Angela to her downline; now both Mary and Jane get to keep a portion of the money Angela makes from her sales.

There are close to half a million independent MLM sellers in Australia selling products ranging from health and beauty products to craft supplies, home wares and fashion.

Critics say the MLM business model depends on exploiting women’s social circles as well as aspirations or obligations to generate income while managing caring responsibilities.

Is it really a side hustle if you end up losing money?

The most common reason for joining an MLM is to earn extra money. But a US survey of more than 1,000 MLM sellers found the majority made less than US 70c per hour in sales – before deducting expenses.

Fewer than half made US$500 over five years. Nearly a third acquired credit card debt to finance their MLM involvement.

A 2020 study by AARP (formerly known as the American Association of Retired Persons) found 1 in 13 US adults had tried MLM at some point, and nearly half had lost money.

In our study, we were interested in the financial literacy of MLM consultants in Australia. You can test your financial literacy using the questions we asked consultants.

We compared the actual and perceived financial literacy of MLM consultants, and found many were unable to answer questions assessing basic financial literacy.

We also asked MLM-specific financial literacy questions and found a sample of the general population (meaning people not involved in MLMs) were more likely to answer these questions correctly than most of the MLM sample.

We also found some respondents are particularly vulnerable to MLM recruitment as they have high levels of optimism and materialism and are overconfident of their financial knowledge.

Read more:
Should I pay off the mortgage ASAP or top up my superannuation? 4 questions to ask yourself

Questions to ask yourself before joining an MLM

If you are considering joining an MLM, our research suggests you need to consider the following questions first.

1. Can I afford to join an MLM?

You may need to purchase a starter kit or demonstration products, or pay a joining fee. Two-thirds of consultants told us they spent more than $1,000 starting their MLM business.

But the majority told us it took more than a year to make any profit. So if you are going to take out a loan, consider the repayment terms, including interest.

Some MLM companies have annual membership fees. Others have monthly or quarterly sales targets and you may feel pressured to meet these by purchasing additional products yourself to meet your quota. In fact, 40% of consultants told us they did not make any profit in their MLM business.

2. Do I really have the financial knowledge and skills to run my own MLM business?

Most MLM recruits have little or no experience running a home-based business; only 20% seek ongoing advice from a financial professional.

This is concerning, as MLMs typically have complex commission and remuneration structures.

We also found many sellers overestimate their financial knowledge compared to their actual financial literacy.

3. Do I have all the information I need to make an informed decision to join?

It is important to collect as much information as possible before making this decision.

MLM consultants and the person trying to recruit you have a vested interest in highlighting success stories and downplaying how statistically improbable it is you’ll achieve them.

Do your homework, compare alternatives and ask current and former consultants about their experiences to get both sides of the story.

Deanna Grant-Smith received funding from Ecstra Foundation to undertake this research. She is a board member of the TJ Ryan Foundation, a progressive public policy think tank. This story is part of a series on financial and economic literacy funded by Ecstra Foundation.

Laura de Zwaan receives funding from Ecstra Foundation and the Financial Basics Foundation. She is affiliated with the Financial Planning Academic Forum and is an Academic Member of the Financial Planning Association.

– ref. Thinking of joining a multi-level marketing scheme or MLM as your side hustle? Read this first – https://theconversation.com/thinking-of-joining-a-multi-level-marketing-scheme-or-mlm-as-your-side-hustle-read-this-first-175052

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clifford Lewis, Senior lecturer, Charles Sturt University

In 1985, calls for the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Parade to be cancelled in response to concerns about HIV/AIDS were successfully countered by the organisers. The parade is now recognised as an important way of creating awareness of safe-sex practices, reducing the social stigma of HIV/AIDS and being a living memorial to those who died from it.

In 2020, like many other major events, the Mardi Gras parade became a victim of another virus: COVID-19. In consultation with public health experts, the parade moved to the Sydney Cricket Ground in 2021 and will again take place there in 2022.

This radical decision is a testament to the resilience and spirit of Mardi Gras that, despite calls for its cancellation at various points within its 43-year history, the show continues.

But at what cost? Taking it away from its homeland on Oxford street, and containing it within the boundaries of the SCG challenges its status as a protest, reducing its ability to disrupt.

A pilgrimage

Since 1978, the parade has followed roughly the same route on Oxford Street in the heart of Sydney’s “Gaybourhood”. That first parade ended in a brutal riot instigated by police. By following the route of that first night, the parade pays homage to the brave people who created that first parade, now known as the 78ers.

For some, the parade acts as a form of pilgrimage and a place to express and affirm one’s sexual and/or gender orientation. It is a moment in time when a minority is publicly celebrated and when differences are embraced, albeit temporarily.

For others who may not be out, the parade provides a visual representation of what being LGBTIQ+ is. It helps break down barriers that prevent LGBTIQ+ people from living their authentic lives, displaying a community that will embrace them.

The success of the parade has inspired similar ones in other regional communities around Australia .

These public displays challenge mainstream expectations of sexuality and gender, drawing attention to the diversity of LGBTIQ+ communities. Oxford Street provides the parade and its exuberant participants with a connection to what is arguably Australia’s LGBTIQ+ imagined homeland – and the struggles and celebrations of past generations.

The shift to the Cricket Ground

It is not surprising the shift to the Sydney Cricket Ground in 2021 was not accepted by all LGBTIQ+ people. Several hundred people marched down Oxford Street following an exemption granted by the NSW Minister for Health.

Apart from honouring the 78ers, people marched to protest contemporary issues like the religious freedom discrimination bill and Black deaths in custody. They felt protest could not be effective within the walls of the SCG.

The importance of Oxford Street relates then not only to the origin of the parade but to the fact that it disrupts public space and, by doing so, garners public attention for important issues.

Indeed, a protest is only a protest if it disrupts the everyday routines of public life. The blocked roads and traffic diversions expose the public to the parade, regardless of whether they intend to participate. These disruptions help remind the public of the LGBTQIQ+ communities and their place in Australian society.

The shift to the SCG changes the nature of the parade and its relationship with onlookers. It becomes a ticketed event, and those attending can no longer maintain the anonymity afforded on a crowded street. Ticketing limits access to the event to Mardi Gras members (who each receive two free tickets); those who can afford tickets; and those lucky to get one of a limited number of spots.

Read more:
Friday essay: on the Sydney Mardi Gras march of 1978

Lastly, the SCG, with its fencing and security, is spatially contained within boundaries that prevent the public gaze on the street, potentially consigning the politics of Pride away from the public sphere to within a private space.

The fact that the Mardi Gras Parade has been able to take place each year across its 43-year history, in the face of protests from some religious groups, ill-founded concerns about HIV transmission, horrible weather and now, COVID-19, is a show of defiance and strength.

However, shifting the parade from the street where it emerged, with such strong historical connections to the development of LGBTQI+ Pride does come with some costs.

It remains to be seen what happens in the future with World Pride 2023 set to be hosted in Sydney.

Will the parade come out of the stadium as planned? Will it still call people out of the bars and onto the streets? Or will it morph into an entertainment spectacle, sanitised and contained within the boundaries of the SCG?

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

– ref. Homage, pilgrimage and protest: why Sydney’s Mardi Gras parade should go back to the streets – https://theconversation.com/homage-pilgrimage-and-protest-why-sydneys-mardi-gras-parade-should-go-back-to-the-streets-171820

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

Scott Morrison on Tuesday will announce $804.4 million over a decade to strengthen Australia’s strategic and scientific capabilities in the Antarctic.

The funding, including for drones, helicopters and vehicles, will enable Australia’s to penetrate inland areas of its claimed territory of East Antartica previously unreachable.

In strategic terms, Australia has had a watchful eye on China’s increasing involvement in recent years in the Antarctic and in Antarctic politics.

The money includes $136.6 million for inland travel capability, mapping, mobile stations, environmental protection, and other core activities.

Another $109 million will fund drone fleets and vehicles to map “inaccessible and fragile areas of East Antartica”, establishing an “Antarctic Eye” with integrated censors and cameras feeding real-time information back.

It will also purchase four new medium-lift helicopters with a range of 550 kilometres when launched from the RSV Nuyina that will give access to areas which have been beyond reach. Helicopters provide more landing flexibility than fixed-wing aircraft.

The Nuyina was launched late last year, when it was described by the government as “the most advanced polar research vessel in the world”.

Other funds in the package will go into shipping support, marine science (including a new krill aquarium in Hobart), environment management including cleaning up “legacy waste”, research on Antarctic ice sheet science to improve understanding of climate change, and international engagement.

Morrison said the Antarctic investment would support jobs in Australia – with Australian businesses, contractors, medical suppliers and other providers benefiting.

Foreign Minister Marise Payne said the government’s proposed investments “are a clear marker of our enduring commitment to the Antarctic Treaty system, its scientific foundations, and Australia’s leadership within it”.

Environment Minister Sussan Ley said: “When I sit down with world leaders to discuss the Antarctic and the Southern Ocean in the face of increasing pressures, the strategic importance of our scientific leadership is clear.

“We need to ensure that the Antarctic remains a place of science and conservation, one that is free from conflict and which is protected from exploitation.”

Australia was a founding member of the Antarctic Treaty, signed by the Menzies government in 1959.

Seven countries have made territorial claims in Antarctica. Apart from Australia, the others are Argentina, Chile, France, New Zealand, Norway, and the United Kingdom.

Other countries including China, India, Italy, Pakistan, Russia, Ukraine, and the United States have stations there.

Australia’s claimed territory  covers 42% of the continent and includes the vast majority of East Antarctica.

Under the Hawke government Australia together with France led the successful push to have an international agreement reached to prevent mining in the Antarctic.

Ley has been pushing for the expansion of marine protected areas but getting consensus is hard, with China and Russia being difficult.

Last year the government abandoned a proposal to build a 2700 metre concrete runway at Australia’s Davis research station, following a detailed environmental and economic assessment.

Ley said then that “higher projected costs, potential environmental impacts, and the complexity of a 20-year construction process in an extreme and sensitive environment, are such that we will now
focus on alternative options for expanding our wider Antarctic Program capability”.

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. Scott Morrison commits $804 million over a decade for the Antarctic – https://theconversation.com/scott-morrison-commits-804-million-over-a-decade-for-the-antarctic-177548

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Bruce Mountain, Director, Victoria Energy Policy Centre, Victoria University

Two events in the past week mark a watershed for Australia’s electricity industry.

The first, on Thursday, was Origin Energy’s surprise announcement that it intends to close the mammoth Eraring power station in the NSW Hunter region in 2025, seven years earlier than previously advised.

Eraring is Australia’s largest coal-fired generator and supplies between a fifth and quarter of the electricity consumed in NSW.

The second, on Saturday, was a bid by a consortium led by Australian tech billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes for AGL Energy.

AGL’s board has predictably knocked back the initial non-binding offer. But the transaction has some way to play out, and the share price has risen in expectation of a more attractive offer.

Serious negotiations will now begin. It would be surprising if they were drawn out.

After having pushed on the door for so long, those striving for rapid decarbonisation have suddenly found the door flung wide open.

What Cannon-Brookes would do

Cannon-Brookes has form when it comes to transforming power generation. In 2017 he challenged Tesla founder Elon Musk to build the world’s biggest battery in South Australia within 100 days and said he had “never been more happy to lose a bet” when it was built.

After spending as much as A$8 billion, his consortium would de-list AGL from the stock exchange and bring forward the planned closure of its coal-fired plants.

In partnership with the giant Canadian asset manager, Brookfield, Cannon-Brookes would spend as much as $20 billion on renewable power generation and storage.

Read more:
Australia’s largest coal plant will close 7 years early – but there’s still no national plan for coal’s inevitable demise

AGL is Australia’s biggest greenhouse gas polluter, accounting for as much as 8% of Australia’s emissions. Cannon-Brookes says he would halve those emissions by 2030 and cut them to zero by 2035.

AGL is also a cultural icon. Originally called The Australian Gas Light Company and set up in 1837 by a NSW Act of Parliament before the advent of distributed electricity, it was the second company to list on what is now the Australian Securities Exchange.

One in every three Australian energy customers – about 4.5 million Australians – buy gas or electricity from AGL. It is by far Australia’s biggest energy supplier.

Those customers increasingly form its shareholder base. Australian superannuation funds are walking away on environmental concerns, while international institutional shareholders are edging away.

The bidders have indicated they will seek a way for existing shareholders to retain a share in what will become a privately owned company, if they wish to stay in.

AGL’s staff and unions will surely welcome new owners that promise a great deal of new investment to revitalise the company.

AGL bet big on coal, did well – then lost

For much of the past decade, AGL has pursued a strategy of becoming Australia’s dominant fossil-fuel generator despite its early recognition – by Australian standards – of the reality of global warming.

It bought Victoria’s largest coal-fired generator in 2012, just as the Australian government introduced a price on carbon emissions. Two years later, it bought the Bayswater and Liddell coal generation plants from the NSW government, just as the Commonwealth government disbanded the carbon price.

At first, this coal strategy worked well for shareholders. The AGL share price more than doubled to reach an all-time peak shortly after the competing Hazelwood coal-fired power station closed in April 2017.

Read more:
Wondering if your energy company takes climate change seriously? A new report reveals the answer

Since then, it has been all downhill. By the end of 2021 the AGL share price was less than one-fifth of its 2017 peak.

AGL’s coal generators, once so highly prized, have become an albatross.

Mid last year, it announced plans to split itself in two: a wholesale company that owned coal plants, which would transition to renewables, and a consumer-facing company that owned only renewables, storage and gas-fired peaking plants.

Earlier this month it brought forward the planned closure of its NSW Bayswater black coal-fired power plant, from 2035 to 2033, and brought forward the closure of its Victorian brown coal-fired Loy Yang A plant from 2048 to 2045.

With a share register of older Australians desperate for a stable dividend, AGL lacks the capital or ambition needed to complete the transition more quickly.

Taken together with Origin Energy’s intention to close its Eraring power station as soon as possible, Cannon-Brookes’ and Brookfield’s bid to buy AGL brings clarity, at last, to the closure of coal generation in Australia.

Although another four coal generators would remain in NSW and Victoria after the Eraring and AGL closures, they are smaller and have less strategic significance.

That would leave a substantial portfolio of coal generation in Queensland, owned by the Queensland government, which will come under political pressure to develop an exit strategy.

NSW and Victoria will have to work hard to keep the lights on

The AGL and Origin developments put the ball squarely in the court of the NSW and Victorian governments. It will be up to them to facilitate the rapid development of enough wind and solar generation and storage to ensure the lights stay on and electricity remains affordable.

This is a completely different dynamic to one that has dominated the landscape for the last decade. The big coal generators have folded, are heading for the exit and want help getting their customers safely to shore as soon as possible.

The changes also provide an opportunity to breathe fresh air into Australia’s alphabet soup of energy regulators. Caught between the need to prepare for decarbonisation and governments hostile to it, they have succeeded only in delivering thick layers of red tape, muddled thinking and half-measures.

Read more:
20 years on, the national electricity market is on the way out, and it’s OK

In the face of this entrenched failure, the states with largely privatised electricity industries – NSW, Victoria and South Australia – have been steadily peeling away, going their own way, and getting on with the job.

There are enormous but surmountable technical challenges to be reckoned with.

Tens of billions of dollars of eager private capital will have to be corralled quickly into the development of wind and solar farms and storage, with new and strengthened transmission lines to connect them to where electricity is used.

Behind-the-meter household (and business) energy production and storage will have to expand quickly too.

Read more:
What is the electricity transmission system, and why does it need fixing?

The Commonwealth government was always an interloper in electricity. It never had a right to play on the main stage. If it can not bring itself to support the states in the challenges they face, it should direct its attention elsewhere.

At a moment of such enormous significance, it is difficult to not reach for cliches. This time, it looks as if there really is a new dawn breaking.

Bruce Mountain 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. The battle for AGL heralds a new dawn for Australian electricity – https://theconversation.com/the-battle-for-agl-heralds-a-new-dawn-for-australian-electricity-177530