Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Blackwell, Research Fellow (Indigenous Diplomacy), Australian National University

How does one tell the story of a life lived well in public service, and in service of your community?

That is the broad ambition of Mission, the latest book from Noel Pearson, First Nations lawyer, activist and founder of the Cape York Institute.

Mission, a series of Pearson’s essays, speeches and eulogies, is not as disjointed or disconnected as such collections sometimes are.

Instead, the collection presents a unified and coherent story of his life in public, his advocacy and the consistent views he has held over this time.

Mission portrays Pearson as only he himself could – a towering figure within the First Nations community, and one whose work has shaped decades of policy and debate on the issues most important to us and our communities: rights, land and justice.

It’s well worth your time to read to get an understanding of the man himself, and of the last several decades of First Nations affairs in this country.

Pearson the man, Pearson the politics

I should be upfront at the outset of this review. I do not share much of Pearson’s politics, especially his idea of the “radical centre”, and his views on some topics I strongly disagree with. I very much find myself to the left of politics, and see that as a legitimate way forward for First Nations communities.

This, however, is not a reason to discount what I have to say in this review. I would argue it is much better to be reviewed by people with whom you do not always see eye-to-eye, rather than devoted fans. Indeed, throughout this collection, Pearson outlines his positions in such clear and commonsense ways, even I found myself coming around on some of them.

It opens with the titular namesake essay, a 75-page reflection on his upbringing, early life and devotion to his community. The book then delves into many of the key parts of Pearson’s life and politics, including sections entitled After Mabo, The Radical Centre, Labor and Social Democracy, Profiles in Power and A Rightful Place.

All of these contain many essays on key issues of their time, and of today, all of which maintain their relevance to a contemporary audience.

His eulogy of former Prime Minister Gough Whitlam, praised at the time it was given as one of the best speeches ever in Australian politics, channels Pearson’s usual intellectual rigour alongside his wit, and his clear values in advancing his own community. Apart from all the successes of the Whitlam government, he asked, what did that “Roman ever do for us?”

An excerpt from Pearson’s speech:

Only those who have known discrimination truly know its evil. Only those who have never experienced prejudice can discount the importance of the Racial Discrimination Act. This old man was one of those rare people who never suffered discrimination but understood the importance of protection from its malice.

Read more:
A closer look at Noel Pearson’s eulogy for Gough Whitlam

A call for constitutional recognition

A number of Pearson’s pieces in Mission are much less known and also much more recent. The newest and final essays present some of the clearest and best language on the recognition of First Nations people in the Constitution.

Pearson is a strong advocate for constitutional recognition and a Voice to Parliament, and alongside Professor Megan Davis and Aunty Pat Anderson, will receive the 2021 Sydney Peace Prize this March on behalf of the Uluru Statement from the Heart.

Pearson writes strongly on why a Voice to Parliament is not only desired by First Nations people, but necessary for our full inclusion in this country, and to move forward on advancing issues of change for Blackfullas nationwide.

Pearson states:

Why recognition? The answer is straightforward: because the Indigenous peoples of Australia have never been recognised.

This is not a dumbing down of complex issues to be palatable for an audience, it is presenting true and undoubtable facts about this nation and First Nations peoples’ place within it.

As Pearson writes in one of the essays entitled A Rightful Place,

history is never resolved, and we should not make a shared future contingent on a shared path.

Read more:
Most Australians support First Nations Voice to parliament: survey

This series of essays on Uluru, recognition and the true place of First Nations people are the most powerful. They speak to a disenfranchisement, detachment and degradation of our people throughout history, and why a Voice to Parliament as a form of recognition is so necessary.

Constitutional recognition of Indigenous Australians is not a project of woke identity politics, it is Australia’s longest-standing and unresolved project for justice and inclusion.

These words should be burned into the retinas of every politician, journalist and academic across the country. This project on First Nations constitutional recognition is not merely one in which we are engaged because we feel it is good politics. It is a project to fundamentally reshape the nation for the better, and to achieve justice and equity for our people after many centuries of dispossession and disregard.

The power of his voice

The only thing really lost in this collection is something which is not the fault of anyone but the format. In reading these essays, rather than listening to Pearson speak them, you lose the power of his presence and his articulation, and the way he captures an audience the way very few can. But what you don’t lose is his voice, which is as clear and consistent in his convictions, as if he were standing right before you.

Pearson is a strong advocate for his views and values, and presents them in a way that would be compelling even to his critics.

I’m not saying I walked away a changed man, but I definitely got a much better sense of who Pearson is from this book. On some things, I have come around more to his point of view, while on others, I feel even more sure of my own positions that counter Pearson’s.

Mission is a book worth reading whether you know of Pearson strongly or not, and whether you agree with him or not. You’ll find much to engage with here.

James Blackwell is affiliated with the Uluru Statement From the Heart Campaign, and is a member of the Australian Greens.

– ref. Compelling even to his critics: Mission by Noel Pearson explores rights, land and justice – https://theconversation.com/compelling-even-to-his-critics-mission-by-noel-pearson-explores-rights-land-and-justice-172384

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jon C. Day, PSM, Adjunct Senior Research Fellow, ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, James Cook University

Today, the federal government is due to report back to UNESCO on its efforts to protect the Great Barrier Reef. The government’s announcement last week of A$1 billion of additional funding is welcome, but it will do little to allay UNESCO’s concerns.

Climate change is the number one threat to the Great Barrier Reef. While the new funding is meant to address other threats to the natural wonder and may improve its resilience, failing to address the climate threat is both disappointing and nonsensical.

As the below graph shows, ocean temperatures on the reef in December last year were the warmest on record. With this comes the risk of a fourth mass bleaching event this decade.

The Great Barrier Reef came close last year to being put on a list of World Heritage “in danger” sites. The funding announcement seems primarily about appeasing UNESCO, with one eye also on the upcoming federal election. But saving the Great Barrier Reef is not about throwing money at it – what matters is how the dollars are spent.

By the numbers

The $1 billion package proposed by the government comprises:

• 58% to address the land-based causes of water quality issues impacting the World Heritage Area

• 26% to reduce crown-of-thorns starfish and prevent illegal fishing

• 9% for new scientific technologies

• 7% allocated to local communities – including Traditional Owners – for habitat restoration, citizen science and reducing marine debris.

The measures to be funded are all important. But they’re nowhere near as important as addressing the root cause of climate change: greenhouse gas emissions. Most of the $1 billion should have been used to help Australia phase out fossil fuels.

What’s more, the federal and Queensland governments continue to approve new coal and gas projects. Doing all this, while knowing the grave threat climate change poses to the Great Barrier Reef, demonstrates the incoherence of government policies.

Devil in the detail

When we drill further into the detail, it becomes even more clear the funding package is not as impressive as it may first appear.

The $1 billion funding has been allocated over nine years. This is far beyond the time frame to which any government can sensibly commit, given four-year election cycles. A major funding increase is needed urgently, and certainly within a single term of government.

Also, federal Labor’s funding proposal for the Great Barrier Reef must be increased.

Another concern is the funding allocation for new scientific technologies such as coral seeding, developing heat-resistant corals and cloud brightening. Some of these technologies may have produced positive results at a small scale. But none has yet proved feasible at the wide scale necessary to make a real difference for the Great Barrier Reef.

Efforts to address water quality are important. After climate change, poor water quality is the most pressing problem facing the reef. It’s largely caused by nutrients, pesticides and sediment runoff from agriculture and coastal development.

Read more:
Not declaring the Great Barrier Reef as ‘in danger’ only postpones the inevitable

But governments have already spent hundreds of millions trying to improve water quality, with only limited success. Reducing water pollution requires more effective spending, not just more funds.

This is just one example of how money alone cannot fix all the Great Barrier Reef’s problems. Improving water quality requires the right balance between voluntary industry-led approaches and enforcing the rules.

The Queensland government must greatly increase its compliance and enforcement on matters such as fertiliser runoff entering creeks that flow to the reef. While many farmers are doing the right thing, others clearly are not.

And to improve water quality, governments must be prepared to limit clearing and agriculture expansion in reef catchment areas.

Learning from our mistakes

For years, the federal government has known the pressures facing the Great Barrier Reef. But it continues to maintain a “business as usual” attitude in the face of the worsening climate crisis. Governments worldwide must dramatically increase their climate ambitions – and for the Great Barrier Reef, this action should start at home.

As the Murray-Darling Basin experience shows, throwing funding at an environmental catastrophe does not fix the problem, especially if the core issue remains unaddressed.

The government must also better allocate funds to achieve effective and timely “adaptive management”. This involves decision-making that can be adjusted as outcomes become better understood.

Such management should include considering both the good and bad outcomes of reef interventions to date – both those controlled by government agencies and those managed by external groups such as the Great Barrier Reef Foundation.

Read more:
Is Australia really doing enough for the Great Barrier Reef? Why criticisms of UNESCO’s ‘in danger’ recommendation don’t stack up

This latest government funding boost is welcome, but suspiciously timed. Environmental policy and budget allocations should not be about a government’s reputation and firming up its electoral prospects – especially when so much is at stake.

UNESCO is likely to welcome the additional efforts to address water quality. But it has specifically urged Australia to take “accelerated action at all possible levels” to address the climate threat. It remains to be seen whether UNESCO will continue to pressure the federal government on that front.

Amid all this, a key question remains. As the the Great Barrier Reef continues to decline, will Australians re-elect a federal government that supports industries harming the environment?

One thing is certain: Australians, and their Great Barrier Reef, deserve so much more.

Read more:
5 major heatwaves in 30 years have turned the Great Barrier Reef into a bleached checkerboard

Jon Day previously worked for the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority between 1986 and 2014, and was one of the Directors at GBRMPA between 1998 and 2014. He represented Australia as one of the formal delegates to the World Heritage Committee between 2007-2011.

Scott Heron receives funding from the Australian Research Council and NASA ROSES Ecological Forecasting.

– ref. The $1 billion Great Barrier Reef funding is nonsensical. Australians, and their natural wonder, deserve so much better – https://theconversation.com/the-1-billion-great-barrier-reef-funding-is-nonsensical-australians-and-their-natural-wonder-deserve-so-much-better-175924

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Dyason, Senior Lecturer in Property Studies, Lincoln University, New Zealand

The Omicron wave about to wash across New Zealand will exacerbate an already tightening labour market. High employment and ongoing border restrictions mean regional labour forces are nearing peak capacity – and the country is running out of time to find solutions.

With border restrictions in place for much of the past two years, the domestic labour market has been the main source of human capital – and will likely continue to be for some time.

Combined with an ageing workforce, this is causing labour market tightening in most industries. Some form of intervention will be required to find skilled workers to fill the gaps emerging in specialised jobs – especially as the economy grows and older workers retire.

By looking at the Canterbury region as an example of how successive disasters influence the labour force, we can see how immigration policies can affect short- to medium-term labour requirements. Since the earthquakes of 2010 and 2011, Canterbury has been able to rely on skilled workers from outside the region to support economic activity.

According to a recent study of the region’s ability to navigate the pandemic, this pre-pandemic labour influx, coupled with slower economic activity in 2019-20, meant there was still a sufficient labour supply – even after the rebuild when employment opportunities decreased.

But this buffer is quickly reducing. It is estimated the region’s labour market is likely to peak as soon as 2023 due to more workers retiring and border restrictions limiting new labour supply.

The ageing workforce

What is taking place in Canterbury is reflected on a national level as well. Labour force projections to 2033 reveal an increasing proportion of people above the age of 65 in the workforce.

This reflects lifestyle changes and could offset some of the current labour tightening – especially at a time when there has been a net outward migration of people from New Zealand, even with border restrictions in place.

Read more:
Pandemic disruption to PhD research is bad for society and the economy – but there are solutions

But job vacancies are higher than pre-COVID levels, and population projections show the international labour market remains key to future population growth in New Zealand.

These projections show natural population change – numbers of births minus numbers of deaths – is expected to tip into negative growth in the long run. Hence, net inward migration is expected to be the main driver of population and labour force growth.

The ageing workforce also needs addressing, especially at an industry level. As the labour market peaks and unemployment remains low, pressure on industry-specific labour supply is emerging, as the graphs below show.

Some industries will be harder hit

The growing proportion of workers over 60 is visible in some industries, but not all. Manufacturing, hospitality and construction have a noticeably lower share of people in the 60-plus age group.

On the other hand, four industries stand out as having a high and growing share of over-60s:

• health care and social assistance

• education and training

• rental and hire services and real estate services

• transport and storage (with possible supply chain disruption stretching beyond an Omicron wave).

In the short term, this trend is not surprising and aligns with the ageing population and baby boom generation moving through. But it is still worrisome in the context of a peaking labour force.

The likely impact of the Omicron variant, ongoing border closures and an ageing labour force are generating substantial shocks that are likely to cause further transformation in the economy.

While the ageing of the labour force is to be expected, restrictions on the movement of labour during the pandemic have created a labour market peak earlier than anticipated.

Aside from replacing retiring workers, immigration (including expats returning to New Zealand) further benefits the economy through the new skills and improved systems and production techniques that skilled migrants bring, which all enhance productivity.

Read more:
COVID will dominate, but New Zealand will also have to face the ‘triple planetary crisis’ this year

Urgent action needed

How will the gaps be addressed? We could see industries replace labour with other means of capital or technology. But this will take time and is expensive. It’s possible some businesses might relocate, while others might even have to close.

Without significant changes in productivity, regions and countries that have historically relied on immigration to support their economies are likely to continue to rely on labour supplies from beyond their borders.

But New Zealand’s window to act is closing. While less stringent border restrictions would provide short-term relief, identifying likely shortages and implementing practical solutions should be the longer-term goal.

This should include encouraging vocational training in key industries, and providing the incentives and support to retain and train skilled workers in key industries – thus reducing potential outward migration when borders do reopen.

David Dyason 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. Omicron will only add to looming workforce shortages already faced by key New Zealand industries – https://theconversation.com/omicron-will-only-add-to-looming-workforce-shortages-already-faced-by-key-new-zealand-industries-175612

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Catherine Renshaw, Professor, School of Law, Western Sydney University

Myanmar is on the brink of collapse. One year after the coup, half the population does not have enough food. The local currency has lost 50% of its value. Foreign companies are pulling out of Myanmar. The military is shooting civilians in the streets and opponents of the military are carrying out bombings and assassinations.

With every week that passes, the suffering becomes greater, grievances mount and distrust between the military and its opponents increases. A full-scale civil war appears inevitable.

A failed state in the heart of the Indo-Pacific would be a blow to the security and economic interests of Myanmar’s neighbours (China, India, Thailand and Bangladesh). This would also be profoundly damaging to the credibility of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), of which Myanmar is a member.

For the United States, Myanmar’s collapse would undermine the effort to forge an Indo-Pacific strategy capable of balancing China’s deep interests in the region.

For the United Nations, civil war would lead to further questions about its effectiveness at a time when it is already under scrutiny over its handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and the failure to avert crises in Yemen, Sudan and Afghanistan.

If Myanmar is the epicentre of stability in Southeast Asia – a region critical to the security and interests of so many nations – why has such little progress been made in resolving the conflict? Why has the world failed to act?

ASEAN’s stalled roadmap to resolution

Most commentators lay blame at the feet of ASEAN. Last April, the organisation negotiated a “five point consensus” with the Myanmar military to lead the country away from destruction. This agreement included an immediate ceasefire, the appointment of an ASEAN special envoy to Myanmar, and the start of talks between the two sides.

But days after agreeing to the consensus, the military walked back on its commitment to a ceasefire, saying it could not follow through until the country’s security situation was under control.

Then it took almost four months for the special envoy to even be named. His first visit to Myanmar was subsequently cancelled because the military refused to allow him to meet with leaders of the ousted National League for Democracy, including Aung San Suu Kyi.

Read more:
A year after Myanmar’s coup, the military still lacks control and the country is sliding into an intractable civil war

In October, ASEAN won plaudits for excluding military chief Min Aung Hlaing from its biannual leader’s summit.

The summit is a prelude to the larger, annual East Asia Summit, which includes China, the US, Australia, India, Japan and Russia. The presence of the coup leader at the ASEAN summit would have been an embarrassment to the regional bloc – and possibly imperilled US involvement in the East Asia Summit to follow.

China’s leverage over the generals

Historically, ASEAN has had limited success in influencing the behaviour of Myanmar’s generals. China, on the other hand, has been vital to Myanmar’s economic survival.

During the long decades of Myanmar’s previous military dictatorship, which ended in 2011, China’s support ameliorated the punishing raft of sanctions imposed by Western powers. From China’s perspective, Myanmar provides abundant natural resources and access to oil and gas shipments through pipelines from the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea, which are vital for Beijing’s energy security.

Read more:
Myanmar coup: how China could help resolve the crisis

Myanmar is also a key plank of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, and the military has enjoyed Chinese (and Russian) support on the UN Security Council.

China’s interests would be served by political stability in Myanmar. Beijing also has links to both the military and the ousted National League for Democracy (and ethnic armed groups in the border region). But among ordinary people in Myanmar, anti-Chinese sentiment runs high. After the coup, there was a wave of arson attacks on Chinese businesses.

Although China’s credibility as a formal peace broker is limited, there is much it could do behind the scenes to get the generals to the negotiating table.

Japan has credibility on both sides

As potential negotiators, the US and European Union are constrained by the sanctions they have imposed on the junta leaders and their business interests.

However, Japan is in a different position. It has a historical obligation to Myanmar stemming from the second world war, when it occupied the country – and a strategic interest in limiting China’s influence in the region.

For decades, Japan has made considerable efforts to support the people of Myanmar by walking a middle path between Western sanctions – which had little effect – and China’s exploitation of Myanmar’s resources and geostrategic advantages.

Although some Japanese companies exited Myanmar following last year’s coup, Japanese aid has continued to flow into Myanmar. Unlike China and the US, Japan has a degree of diplomatic credibility with both sides to the current conflict.

All eyes remain on ASEAN

For all its shortcomings, ASEAN will remain pivotal in efforts to end the crisis.

Cambodia has assumed the chairmanship of the organisation this year, and its hardline leader, Hun Sen, has already opened a line of communication with the junta leaders, inviting them to the next ASEAN summit if progress is made on last year’s peace plan.

However, this likely won’t make him palatable to the military’s opponents as a potential peace broker.

In this context, the UN and the major powers with the most influence in the region – China, the US and perhaps Japan – must act concertedly to end the crisis in Myanmar. They must work through ASEAN, and leverage the bloc’s efforts, to bring the generals to the negotiating table.

In the year since the coup, the ASEAN strategy to resolve the crisis has paid few dividends. Nonetheless, it remains the primary hope for a political resolution.

The bloc must at least ensure humanitarian aid reaches Myanmar’s long-suffering people. That at least might be a flicker of hope in the country’s increasingly desperate conflict.

The author will be speaking on a panel about Myanmar’s future organised by the Sydney Southeast Asia Centre and ANU’s College of Asia and the Pacific on Wednesday, Feb. 2, at 12pm.

Catherine Renshaw has received funding from the Community of Democracies, the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the Konrad Adenauer Foundation and Rotary International. She is a member of the Australia Myanmar Constitutional Democracy Project, a consortium of academics from the University of Sydney, the University of New South Wales, the Australian National University and Western Sydney University. She is a member of the Australian Labor Party and is Labor’s candidate for the federal seat of North Sydney.

– ref. Can the world stop Myanmar from becoming a failed state? – https://theconversation.com/can-the-world-stop-myanmar-from-becoming-a-failed-state-174868

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Henry Cutler, Director, Centre for the Health Economy, Macquarie University

Paying for residential aged care accommodation in Australia is complex. Residents can pay a lump sum payment known as a refundable accommodation deposit (RAD), a rental style payment known as a daily combination payment (DAP), or a combination of both.

Deciding between the two is an important, complex financial decision and influenced by a host of factors unique to each person. And the stakes are high; it’s common to sell the family home to pay for aged care accommodation. Making the wrong accommodation payment decision could lead to reduced income and wealth, paying more for care, and having less to leave in bequests when you pass away.

Many residents get help from loved ones to navigate their way into residential aged care because they are experiencing age-related cognitive decline. So how do people make this decision and what role does financial literacy play?

To find out, colleagues and I measured financial literacy among 589 informal carers that substantially helped a resident decide.

Our study found less than half of all respondents were financially literate. Many were underconfident in
their financial literacy. Others were overconfident, potentially leading to accommodation payment decision mistakes.

Read more:
We’ve had 20 aged care reviews in 20 years – will the royal commission be any different?

The role of financial literacy

Our study explored whether financial literacy influenced the decision to consult a financial adviser and whether financial literacy impacted decision confidence, stress, and perceived decision complexity.

We used a validated financial literacy measure known as the “Big Three” questions. You can do the quiz below; we defined someone as financially literate if they got three questions correct.

This measured literacy on inflation, interest rate, and risk diversification. We also asked respondents to rate their financial literacy.

We found:

• nearly one third of respondents were not certain the accommodation payment decision was the best for the resident financially

• around 60% of respondents found deciding on how to pay for accommodation complex, and over half found deciding how to pay for accommodation stressful

• less than half of all respondents were financially literate. Many were overconfident in their financial literacy, which could lead to worse financial outcomes for the resident.

Many respondents may have ignored complex information or used a mental shortcut (what researchers call “simplifying heuristics”) when making an accommodation payment decision. For example, they might sell their home and choose a RAD without considering the capital gain they could have received if they had kept the home.

Getting advice

Just over one third of respondents used a financial advisor. More financial literacy was unlikely to have increased the use of a financial adviser. Highly financially literate individuals were more likely to use a financial adviser if they perceived their financial literacy as low.

Residential aged care providers also played a role. A respondent was more likely to use a financial adviser if the aged care provider suggested using a financial adviser, or informed them the resident had 28 days to make a payment decision once they entered care. While this condition should be in the final accommodation agreement, it may not be explicitly stated by the provider when discussing accommodation payment options.

We found higher financial literacy may help respondents understand the difference between a RAD and DAP, but was unlikely to increase decision confidence or reduce decision stress.

High financial literacy was associated with greater confidence only if respondents thought they had been enough time to make the decision. This suggests some people could make better decisions if aged care providers gave people more time to make a decision.

Respondents with high financial literacy were also more likely to be confident in their decision if the aged care provider didn’t say whether it preferred the resident to pay a RAD or a DAP.

So what would help?

It’s not possible to say whether RAD, DAP, or some combination of both is better; the answer depends on your circumstances. Selling the home when entering care may not be the best option financially.

The Financial Information Service run by Services Australia can help people better understand their financial affairs and how to use financial planning advice, but does not advise on which accommodation payment type is best.

Financial literacy education may help some people, but our study suggests benefits will be limited.

Each resident has unique financial and personal circumstances. To make an informed accommodation payment decision, you need to factor in and predict the future value of financial assets.

The Australian government is still exploring whether it should remove RADs, as suggested by the Royal Commission on Aged Care Quality and Safety. This would simplify the accommodation payment choice but likely take years to implement.

When discussing accommodation payment options, all residential aged care providers should ensure residents know they have 28 days to make a decision once they enter care.

That will help reduce decision complexity and stress and increase decision confidence.

Providers should also not express their preference for receiving a RAD or DAP, as our results show, this can make the decision more complex for people and give them less confidence in their decision.

The Australian government should also explore subsidising access to financial advice or establishing its own financial adviser service.

This would align with other Australian government programs to improve health and wealth outcomes for older Australians, such as prostate and breast cancer screening and Life Checks.

When moving into residential aged care, good financial outcomes are as important.

Read more:
Older Australians are already bamboozled by a complex home-care system. So why give them more of the same?

This research was funded using an unconditional grant from the Ecstra Foundation. MUCHE has received government funding for aged care related work. This story is part of a series on financial and economic literacy funded by Ecstra Foundation.

– ref. Would you pass this financial literacy quiz? Many won’t – and it’s affecting expensive aged care decisions – https://theconversation.com/would-you-pass-this-financial-literacy-quiz-many-wont-and-its-affecting-expensive-aged-care-decisions-175063

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kelsie Nabben, Researcher / PhD Candidate, RMIT Blockchain Innovation Hub / Centre for Automated Decision Making & Society / Digital Ethnography Research Centre, RMIT University

One month into 2022 and the debate on cryptocurrency is already heating up, with calls for regulation causing a rift between jurisdictions that are “crypto friendly” and those that aren’t. Which will determine the future of the market?

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Chernyshenko has reportedly signed a roadmap to regulate crypto operations in Russia. The news comes after Russia’s central bank published a consultation paper that proposed a blanket ban on crypto-related activity in the country.

The paper, titled Cryptocurrencies: Trends, Risks, and Regulation, states “a wider adoption of cryptocurrencies creates significant risks for the Russian financial market”. It says non-state-based currencies pose a threat to citizens’ well-being, through loss of investments as a result of market volatility, scams and cyber attacks.

Jurisdictions have grappled with the idea decentralised digital currencies provide an alternative to sovereign currency – and thus pose a threat to central banks’ power over monetary policy.

Although Russia has stopped short of completely stifling operations inside its borders, the latest events follow a broader trend of nations struggling to embrace cryptocurrency. Future bans or regulations will determine the future of the industry.

Crypto ban or crypto friendly?

China has banned cryptocurrency trading multiple times. An outright ban on crypto mining last year was a massive loss to the industry, as most crypto mining happened in China.

Mining involves running software on computer servers to solve cryptographic algorithms. This process validates transactions and maintains a shared record of transactions across the blockchain network. People who participate, the “miners” are automatically rewarded in cryptocurrency.

Mining is an international industry, and large capital outlay goes towards the land, power and infrastructure needed to set up mining warehouses.

Read more:
Why is Bitcoin’s price at an all-time high? And how is its value determined?

The mining ban in China drove miners to sell or ship their equipment overseas and invest capital in friendlier jurisdictions, particularly the United States. One consequence was the strengthening of the network, as mining operations were diversified. As such, future bans may have less of an effect on the market.

Currently, most Bitcoin mining occurs in the US, Kazakhstan, Russia, Canada, Malaysia and Iran. Some networks face great challenges. In Kazakhstan, for instance, power has reportedly been rationed away from miners to conserve energy during electricity shortages, forcing miners to leave the country.

Reports estimate this will cost Kazakhstan’s economy US$1.5 billion (or A$2.14 billion) over the next five years, including US$300 million in tax revenue.

Crypto isn’t entirely ‘anonymous’

Crypto has come a long way since Bitcoin’s anonymous launch in 2009. There are now thousands of cryptocurrencies, with an estimated total market cap of US$1.66 trillion (about A$2.36 trillion).

It’s often stated, including in the recent report from Russia’s central bank, that the anonymity of cryptocurrencies enables illegal activity such as money laundering, terrorism financing and drug trade.

This isn’t entirely true. In fact transaction history on public blockchains, such as Bitcoin and Ethereum (the largest by market capitalisation), is public.

Many governments (including those of Australia and the US) collaborate with large private blockchain analytics firms to monitor citizens’ crypto wallet addresses and transactions. They do this to mitigate risks of money laundering and tax evasion.

Read more:
Around the world, regulators are realising Bitcoin is money

Contrary to popular belief, most cryptocurrencies aren’t anonymous; they are pseudonymous. If a person’s identity is linked to their wallet address via a central touch point, such as a cryptocurrency exchange or an email, that wallet is traceable to the individual.

Research (commissioned by Zcash but carried out by the Rand corporation) found there isn’t widespread illicit use of “privacy coins” preserving users’ anonymity.

Policy will determine future directions

Cryptocurrency continues to become increasingly mainstream as an investment asset class, technological infrastructure and a social experiment in non-state-based infrastructure.

With this, crypto communities hold growing influence in public policy debates. For example, crypto advocates were able to slow down a major federal government infrastructure bill in the US last year.

Yet jurisdictions are choosing different pathways regarding policy and regulation. Some such as China and Russia view it as a fiscal and ideological challenge to sovereign monies. Others view it as an opportunity for innovation, investment and economic growth.

As different approaches emerge, 2022 may be a defining year for both the crypto industry and those competing to either ban or welcome it.

Past examples suggest countries that welcome crypto networks reap economic benefits through innovation, investment, jobs and taxes. Business benefits of adopting crypto as a digital asset include access to new demographics and technological efficiencies in treasury management.

At the same time, the effects of policy and regulation on the industry demonstrates cryptocurrency isn’t a completely decentralised thing that exists only on the blockchain.

Australia’s position

In the competition to limit but benefit from cryptocurrency, Australia has emerged as a potential destination of “crypto friendliness”. A report published in October by the Senate Select Committee on Australia as a Technology and Financial Centre looks favourably on cryptocurrencies.

It proposes market licensing for crypto exchanges, streamlined taxation arrangements and a regulatory structure for “decentralised autonomous organisations”, or DAOs. These function using the same philosophy of self-governance as decentralised cryptocurrency networks, using blockchain technology and cryptocurrency tokens to manage participation and enforce rules.

Australia’s choice is to capture the enormous economic potential of decentralised digital assets. How this will impact the national economy remains to be seen. But if history is a lesson to be learned from, we can expect policy to shape outcomes.

Kelsie Nabben works for the RMIT University Blockchain Innovation Hub.

– ref. Cryptocurrency has an impact on economies. That’s why some are afraid of it – and some welcome it – https://theconversation.com/cryptocurrency-has-an-impact-on-economies-thats-why-some-are-afraid-of-it-and-some-welcome-it-175911

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nicholas Farrelly, Professor and Head of Social Sciences, University of Tasmania

In the year since Myanmar’s coup on February 1 2021, the country’s prospects have deteriorated sharply, with untold misery for millions: deaths, arrests, detention, sickness, displacement, poverty and trauma.

The military’s misjudgement of the popular mood means the coup leader, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, and his lieutenants still have only a loose grip on power.

The regime’s heavy-handed and often callous response to the initially peaceful defiance also means protest groups have been forced underground, where they have linked up with the exiled National Unity Government.

The ongoing detention of the eternally popular State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi, President Win Myint, and scores of other senior figures in the National League for Democracy government, including Australian economics advisor Professor Sean Turnell, has required a new generation of activists and leaders to step up the resistance both on the ground and online.

Read more:
Aung San Suu Kyi: Myanmar’s democracy figurehead could face life imprisonment in ‘politically motivated’ prosecution

While many of these activists have successfully evaded arrest, and some have found sanctuary with sympathetic ethnic armed groups in the borderlands, others have been detained and paraded as “terrorists”.

They then disappear deep into the regime’s prisons and torture centres. To confront the military regime takes untold courage. This includes the countless supporters who are not on the front line, but quietly use their networks, resources and skills to undermine the confidence of the dictatorship.

A new and torrid civil war

With the regime’s brutality on daily display, peaceful protests have been largely abandoned as a tactic.

There are now relentless counterattacks by ethnic armies and the new People’s Defence Force, which mean it is a dangerous time to be wearing a Myanmar army or police uniform, or even to be serving in the government in a civilian role. Assassinations and other reprisals are now a part of the unpredictable security landscape.

The military needs to keep up its fighting strength, although it has reportedly struggled to recruit fresh cadets for its top training school.

However, it has been securing new weapons from Russia and China. Attack planes and helicopters are regularly used against civilian populations. The military has even been accused of destroying unarmed humanitarian convoys.

Military commanders at every level must now fear the prospect of being held to account for this violence, whether by their own people or a future international tribunal.

Read more:
Sanctions against Myanmar’s junta have been tried before. Can they work this time?

Historically, Myanmar military units have acted with impunity in remote ethnic minority regions far from the gaze of journalists and civil society. Much of the fighting in the past year, however, has been well-documented, with special attention to actions that could be deemed war crimes.

In Chin State and Sagaing Region, both sites of alleged atrocities against civilians, tens of thousands of people have been newly displaced and now hunker down under the protection of the People’s Defence Forces.

They join the Rohingya and others who have suffered similar fates too often over the years.

Deteriorating conditions and weak responses

While the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has discussed a diplomatic response to the deteriorating situation, there are no indications the military leadership is listening to advice or considering surrendering its power. Instead, the generals talk vaguely of scheduling an election in 2023.

With an ailing economy, a public health care system in disarray and a shattered international reputation, Myanmar faces a difficult path back from this crisis. Even if the generals eventually succeed in consolidating their rule – a big “if” – they will remain pariahs for their unflinching attacks on their own people.

There is now also momentum behind the resistance forces and, for the first time in many decades, it is plausible the army could be defeated.

However, it is more likely Myanmar’s humanitarian, political and security situation continues to deteriorate in the months ahead, with large-scale battles, tit-for-tat ambushes, and continued military campaigns against civilians.

Under these trying and tragic circumstances, the regional and global diplomatic response is vital.

So far, ASEAN has frustratingly vacillated between important expressions of disapproval and its more traditional stance of non-interference in members’ internal affairs.

Russia, meanwhile, has provided the coup leaders with direct support, such as arms and firm diplomatic endorsement.

China appears to have taken a more watchful posture, but also recently transferred a second-hand submarine to the junta.

Beijing is no doubt concerned about how an ongoing civil war could imperil its interests, including the gas and oil pipelines running from Myanmar’s coast to China’s Yunnan province. It has the extra challenge of dealing with the often unruly borderland populated by some of Myanmar’s most powerful armed groups.

Where does it end?

For the western democracies, and for the more progressive ASEAN countries, the best medium-term outcome is the military regime being forced from power in a negotiated settlement. This could limit the bloodshed, but many people in Myanmar are now fully committed to defeating the junta on the battlefield.

This would require western countries to recognise the National Unity government and offer the People’s Defence Force more humanitarian, and perhaps military, support. Without that type of backing, the NUG is likely to remain isolated and under-resourced against the relative might of the Myanmar military machine.

Read more:
Myanmar’s coup might discourage international aid, but donors should adapt, not leave

Getting the right balance will be difficult for western governments sympathetic to the anti-coup forces, but mindful that ill-timed moves against the military will only generate more retribution against civilians. And this could spiral into a great power proxy war.

On the other hand, this risk could give China and other players reason to proceed more cautiously. China can hardly afford a global flashpoint on its backdoor.

It is an immense pity the people of Myanmar now carry such a heavy burden in fighting for the future of their country. International observers can provide material support for the opposition movement or push their governments to act more strongly in response to the crimes against humanity being committed in Myanmar.

But the hard reality, at this moment in geopolitics, is Myanmar’s people will be the ultimate authors of their own destiny.

Nicholas Farrelly has previously received funding from the Australian Research Council for Myanmar-focussed work. He is on the board of the Australia-ASEAN Council, which is an Australian government body. These are his personal views.

Adam Simpson 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 year after Myanmar’s coup, the military still lacks control and the country is sliding into an intractable civil war – https://theconversation.com/a-year-after-myanmars-coup-the-military-still-lacks-control-and-the-country-is-sliding-into-an-intractable-civil-war-174766

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

We have experienced many bumps in the road since 2020 and one would have to be extremely brave to predict what the pandemic may throw at us next.

But in terms of the endgame, many experts believe COVID will eventually become an endemic disease.

However, what this actually means is a source of considerable confusion. One of the main reasons for this is a misunderstanding of endemicity itself, and what COVID being an endemic disease would actually look like in the real world.

Let’s break it down.

What does ‘epidemic’ actually mean?

A disease is either epidemic or endemic.

The most straightforward explanation of an epidemic disease is that it’s one in which the number of cases in the community is unusually large or unexpected. When this occurs, it signals a need for public health action to bring disease transmission under control.

In the case of a pandemic – a worldwide epidemic – this occurs on a much larger scale. Depending on the infectiousness and severity of the disease, it can represent a global public health emergency, as we’ve seen with COVID.

When you have the emergence of a completely new virus like SARS-CoV-2 that has the potential to cause severe illness while also being highly transmissible, the lack of any immunity among the population results in the drivers for disease spread being incredibly strong.

A disease being epidemic indicates there’s an imbalance between these drivers of disease spread and the factors limiting spread in the community. In short, it means the drivers for disease spread overpower the factors limiting spread.

As such, the disease spreads like a raging bushfire. It’s explosive and hard to bring under control once it has seeded.

From epidemic to endemic

However, over time, the underlying forces driving an epidemic alter.

As immunity begins to increase across the population – ideally in a controlled way by vaccination, but also by natural infection – the pathogen starts to run out of fuel and its ability to transmit falls.

Pathogens can include a variety of microorganisms, such as viruses, bacteria and parasites. In this case, let’s assume we’re talking about a virus.

On top of immunity, we can also reduce a virus’ ability to spread by behaviour changes, such as limiting contact with others, mask wearing and improved hand hygiene.

In addition to lowering the virus’ ability to transmit, immunity also reduces its ability to cause disease, meaning fewer people become really sick or die.

And finally, if we are lucky, over longer periods of time, the virus may also evolve to become intrinsically less severe.

The net result of this is we move from an imbalance in terms of the forces driving disease to a more steady state of equilibrium.

Instead of explosive and unpredictable disease spread, we reach a point where the presence of circulating disease represents a lower threat to the community than it did at the beginning of an epidemic.

Transmission becomes more predictable, but not necessarily constant – we may still see some waves, especially seasonally. But these are expected and manageable.

In short, we start to live alongside the virus.

This is what we mean by an endemic disease. Examples of endemic diseases include the common cold, influenza and HIV/AIDS.

Read more:
COVID will likely shift from pandemic to endemic — but what does that mean?

Endemic doesn’t mean we drop our guard

The discussion around COVID becoming endemic becomes even more complicated by very different views about what this actually translates to in practice.

It’s important to emphasise it doesn’t mean we drop our guard, surrender to the virus or downgrade the threat the virus poses to individuals and the community.

We remain vigilant and respond to surges in cases when they occur, doing what’s needed to keep transmission as low as possible.

Importantly, a disease being considered endemic doesn’t mean we consider it mild. It just means it remains a part of our lives, and therefore we still protect the vulnerable from severe illness, as we do with other diseases.

It’s crucial we understand living with the virus isn’t the same thing as ignoring the virus. Instead, it represents an adjustment in the way in which we respond to the disease.

It’ll be a bumpy ride

It’s also important to highlight this transition may not necessarily be smooth and there will no doubt be challenges along the way.

One of the main obstacles we’re going to face is the possible emergence of new variants and how these will impact the infectiousness and severity of the disease.

In order to reduce the likelihood of new variants emerging, it’s vital we really step up our rollout of vaccines globally to reduce virus transmission.

Read more:
Will an Omicron-specific vaccine help control COVID? There’s one key problem

To aid us in our transition to this next stage of the pandemic, we will, thankfully, be able to draw on many new weapons which are in the pipeline. This includes next-generation vaccines which will be more effective against the latest variants, or universal vaccines that cover all variants. We expect new vaccines will also be better at controlling transmission.

We’ll also have ever-improving treatments, and better infection prevention and control engineered for specific environments.

The big question, of course is when will this transition to endemicity happen? Many experts believe huge strides will be made along this path in 2022.

Catherine Bennett receives funds from the NHMRC and MRFF, is a COVID-19 Scientific Advisory Board member for ResApp Health, and was on the Australian independent covid-19 vaccine advisory committee for AstraZeneca.

Hassan Vally 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. COVID will soon be endemic. This doesn’t mean it’s harmless or we give up, just that it’s part of life – https://theconversation.com/covid-will-soon-be-endemic-this-doesnt-mean-its-harmless-or-we-give-up-just-that-its-part-of-life-175622

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gregory Moore, Doctor of Botany, The University of Melbourne

Environmental scientists see flora, fauna and phenomena the rest of us rarely do. In this series, we’ve invited them to share their unique photos from the field.

You may be familiar with the red toadstool with white spots, which are often the homes of fairies in children’s stories. These toadstools are also a small part of grander magical story: they are striking examples of mycorrhizas.

Mycorrhizas (pronounced my-cor-rye-zas) is the name for fungi associated with the root systems of many plants including trees, shrubs, groundcovers and grasses. These relationships are mutually symbiotic, which means both members benefit.

Fungi have a deeply ancient evolutionary origin, and colonised land with the first plants around 500 million years ago to form these partnerships. We humans often underestimate their importance to the ecosystems that have shaped life on earth.

So let’s take a closer look at how this relationship works and why it’s so important for Australian ecosystems.

An intimate relationship

Fungi come in a beautiful diversity of shapes, sizes and colours. The following photos by my co-author Mark Brundrett are just a few examples of those growing in southwest Australia.

Mycorrhizas are not to be confused with fungi that decompose dead plant matter (saprophytes) or those that cause disease (pathogens).

Read more:
The glowing ghost mushroom looks like it comes from a fungal netherworld

Saprophytes are fungi that recycle nutrients, and these can also be large and impressive. They can create tree hollows, which provide shelter for nesting birds and other animals such as possums.

The ethereal ghost fungus, for example, is a saprophyte. It famously glows green in the dark, and recycles nutrients in ecosystems by breaking down dead wood.

The primary role of mycorrhizas, on the other hand, is to provide resources such as phosphorus and nitrogen to flowering plants. They also effectively increase the absorptive surface area of the plant’s root system, allowing plants to take up much-needed water and nutrients so they grow better and more quickly.

In return, the plants provide carbohydrates, a product of photosynthesis, which mycorrhizas require to grow.

There are five different types of mycorrhizas, and two of these are particularly important in Australian ecosystems. One type is called “ectomycorrhiza”, where fungi wrap their hyphae (long, very fine hair-like structures that contact the soil) around the plant roots underground but don’t penetrate the root cells.

The other, called “endomycorrhiza”, is where fungi grow into the plant root, penetrating and branching within the root cells to form what look like little, microscopic trees. This is about as intimate a relationship between different types of organisms as you can get!

Mushrooms as big as dinner plates

We often become aware of the presence of mycorrhizas only when conditions for reproduction are right, and a mushroom or toadstool emerges from the ground. Such conditions may only occur every five to ten years. For some species, there may be centuries between reproductive events.

For many of us, our experience with mycorrhizal fungi begins in very early childhood when we first catch sight of those spotty red and white toadstools, called the fly agaric or Amanita muscaria.

These fungi are often depicted in children’s book illustrations, such as Little Red Riding Hood, Jack and the Beanstalk, and a number of Enid Blyton’s tales. I recall conifers, such as pine trees, often growing nearby in the background of these pictures. This was no coincidence, Amanita muscaria forms mycorrhizal associations with many conifers, as well as oaks.

The mycorrhizal fungi associated with eucalypts can be less showy, with many being 75-100 millimetres across and a creamy, light tan in colour. They quite often pop up in home gardens, frequently in lawns, where they’re very obvious and usually within 4 to 5 metres of a tree trunk.

Others are spectacular, including the bright purple, orange or green Cortinarius species shown in the photos below. In fact, the beauty and diversity of our fungi now supports a new ecotourism industry in Australia, particularly in Tasmania.

Some fungi are most impressive in the spring following bushfires, such as the abundant orange cup fungus shown below that stabilises ash beds.

Read more:
How fungi’s knack for networking boosts ecological recovery after bushfires

Indeed, most plants form mycorrhizal associations. Those that don’t include plants from the common vegetable families brassicaceae (think broccoli, cauliflower, kale) and chenopodiaceae (spinach, beetroot, and quinoa). Neither do members of the proteaceae family, such as native banksias and grevilleas. These plants invest in very complex roots rather than fungal associations.

Who’s really in control?

Because we are so familiar with many of the plants in our environment, we are inclined to think it’s them that control their relationship with mycorrhizal fungi.

But it is possible mycorrhizal fungi exercise much more control. Or perhaps, the relationship is a perfect mutualistic symbiosis where partners share everything, including control, equally. We just don’t know yet.

Read more:
5 ways fungi could change the world, from cleaning water to breaking down plastics

Members of the fungus kingdom work in synchrony with the plant kingdom to support all terrestrial life, including animals such as ourselves. We may not think about fungi very often, but we cannot survive without them.

One of the surprise elements of Douglas Adam’s Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, was that the Earth and its inhabitants existed as part of an experiment designed and controlled by white laboratory mice.

I sometimes wonder if the fate of the Earth’s terrestrial ecosystems rests on mycorrhizal fungi. If so, perhaps we need to show them greater respect.

He is affiliated with the University of Western Australia.

Gregory Moore 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 ancient, intimate relationship between trees and fungi, from fairy toadstools to technicolour mushrooms – https://theconversation.com/the-ancient-intimate-relationship-between-trees-and-fungi-from-fairy-toadstools-to-technicolour-mushrooms-165974

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nancy Arthur, Dean of Research, UniSA Business, University of South Australia

The saying “you don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone” reminds us not to take things for granted. It is often when we no longer have something or someone that we recognise the value of what we’ve lost. This is true of international students in Australia whose numbers halved during the pandemic.

Can hindsight help us understand what we had and help to guide our future? That question lingers as tens of thousands of new and returning international students arrive back in Australia now that borders have reopened.

Read more:
Border opening spurs rebound in demand from international students

Students pursue international education for a variety of reasons. The main one is to improve their employment prospects.

International students are looking for high-quality, relevant curriculum and credentials that will best serve their career plans. While studying, they also seek social connections that help them to navigate local education and employment systems.

The pandemic created chaos and uncertainty about enrolments, border closures, flight availability and quarantine requirements. Over the past two years, many international students had to put their plans on hold. They hung on to the possibility of studying and working in Australia.

Let’s not forget, they can choose other countries that will be seeking highly educated and skilled graduates. Some have already moved on to countries where borders were open, such as Canada. These countries offered access to high-quality international education with fewer complications and greater certainty about transitioning to work visas.

Read more:
International student numbers hit record highs in Canada, UK and US as falls continue in Australia and NZ

Their absence hit us hard

Consider what Australia lost when so many international students were gone. In 2019, they contributed an estimated $40.3 billion to the economy. International education supported about 250,000 jobs in Australia.

Border closures reduced enrolments by up to 70% in some parts of the higher education sector.

Read more:
Australia’s multilingual identity is an asset for selling our English-language teaching to the world

The financial impacts on Australian universities have been smaller than originally predicted, but the loss of billions in revenue should not be discounted. Universities were exposed to the risks of depending on a never-ending flow of new international students and their tuition fees. The pandemic’s impacts on university finances led to the loss of as many as 35,000 academic and professional jobs.

Local communities and businesses also missed the consumer power of international students and visiting family members who purchased goods and services. Employers have struggled to find enough local workers for job vacancies that these students would fill.

Australia must extend the welcome mat

The Australian government recently announced incentives for international students to return soon to help overcome labour shortages and stimulate market growth. Visa fee rebates and relaxed restrictions on allowable working hours are aimed at recovery in the international student market, while filling gaps in the workforce. What remains to be seen is how well entry-level and part-time jobs in service and hospitality will translate into future employment opportunities that match these students’ qualifications.

The fall in international student numbers also meant losing key resources for intercultural learning. Although many of us are longing to travel abroad for a dose of intercultural exposure, learning at home between local and international students is a relatively untapped resource. Increasing the numbers of international and local students studying together is part of the solution identified by the Australian Strategy for International Education.

Read more:
Australia’s strategy to revive international education is right to aim for more diversity

Many international students will need extra support to develop social capital – the friendships, community contacts, mentors and networks that help to build a sense of belonging now and in the future.

International students have been treated like commodities for higher education and the labour market. But they are people, whose choice of international education is connected to their hopes and plans after graduating.

The global pursuit of talent will increase graduates’ opportunities to decide which country they choose for education, for employment and for permanent migration. Not every international graduate will choose to stay in Australia. Fluctuating immigration policy makes it difficult to predict who will be allowed to stay and who will not.

Read more:
As international students return, let’s not return to the status quo of isolation and exploitation

This is not a short-term issue

Many countries, including Australia, need to attract talented graduates to make up for low birth rates, low immigration due to the pandemic and skilled worker shortages. International students are preferred immigrants because they combine experience from their home countries with experience studying and living locally.

As international students return to Australia, the welcome mat needs to stay out longer. It matters how we support them, not only upon arrival, but throughout their academic programs and as they prepare for their future employment.

International students invest in their education and the country where they study. We in turn need to recognise their many contributions and invest in their potential.

The longer-term view requires strategy for supporting them as students, employees and future associates, within and beyond Australia’s borders. Let’s think carefully about what can be improved as international students return to Australia.

Read more:
Why the international education crisis will linger long after students return to Australia

Nancy Arthur received funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for research on the education to employment transitions of international students.

– ref. COVID halved international student numbers in Australia. The risk now is we lose future skilled workers and citizens – https://theconversation.com/covid-halved-international-student-numbers-in-australia-the-risk-now-is-we-lose-future-skilled-workers-and-citizens-175510

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ariadne Vromen, Professor, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University

At the national Australia Day ceremony in 2021, Prime Minister Scott Morrison spoke of the contribution by frontline workers during the pandemic. He mentioned health workers, the defence forces, the police and farmers, as well as “the truck drivers, the wholesale and the retail workers keeping our supermarket shelves stocked”.

In his 2022 Australia Day speech only defence personnel and health workers got a mention – possibly due to the disappearing government support for retail and logistics workers during the Omicron wave.

With Omicron crippling supply chains and businesses being forced to shut due to lack of staff, eligibility rules for the last remaining COVID-related support payment (the Pandemic Leave Disaster Payment) have been tightened, and the payments available cut.

The definition “close contact” has been weakened and tens of thousands of workers have been made exempt from isolation protocols by now being classified as “essential”.

Many frontline workers – namely those on casual contracts – are facing the toughest circumstances since the the pandemic began.

With no right to guaranteed minimum hours, sick leave or the other entitlements, those employed as casual workers or as subcontractors are likely to lose income – either due to having to take time off to get tested or self-isolate, or because their workplace hasn’t got enough staff to stay open. There is also a much higher proportion of casual workers in the retail sector, than in the Australian workforce as a whole.

Our research on the effects of the pandemic on income and conditions for workers between March 2020 and September 2021 shows 55% of those working in retail, fast-food and distribution were forced to take time off work for COVID-related reasons – with a significant percentage losing income as a result.

During this time just 1% of retail workers were diagnosed with COVID-19, and the the financial support available included the lockdown-specific Covid-19 Disaster Payment.

Now, with infection rates running significantly higher – a quarter of Coles warehouse staff, for example, have been reported absent due to COVID-19 – there’s less support.

Casual retail workers thus face losing hours, being put at greater risk of contracting COVID-19, and dealing with abusive customers over mask, QR code and other requirements.

Read more:
Content from confrontation: how the attention economy helps stoke aggression towards retail workers

What our survey showed

The purpose of our survey of nearly 1,160 retail, fast-food and distribution workers was to gauge how the pandemic had affected employment and income.

Polling company Ipsos conducted the survey in September 2021, during the peak of Sydney’s Delta wave (which sparked suburb-based lockdowns in mid-July 2021) and the start of Melbourne’s Delta wave (with the Andrews government declaring a lockdown on August 5, 2021).

The survey was nationally representative. About 61% of respondents were women, 44% were younger than 30, and 19% were from a non-English-speaking background. About 39% were permanent full-time, 21% permanent part-time and 38% casuals (45% of women were casual, compared with 22% of men).  

Because it was nationally representative, about 40% respondents were not in an lockdown area (NSW, Victoria and the Australian Capital Territory) at the time of the survey. This make the results even more stark compared with now.

From March 2020 to September 2021, 55% of retail, fast food and distribution workers had to take time off for a COVID-19 related reason:

• 1% did so due to having COVID-19. Of these, about a third said they took unpaid leave.
• 7% did so due to being a close contact of someone with COVID-19. Of these, 51% of permanent workers and 78% of casuals took unpaid leave.
• 11% took time off because they had COVID-19 symptoms. Of these, 45% of permanent workers and 91% of casuals took unpaid leave.
• 10% were absent due to working at an exposure location. Of these, 27% of permanent workers and 60% of casuals took unpaid leave.
• 30% took time off because they had to take a COVID-19 test and isolate while waiting for a result. Of these, 42% of permanent workers and 89% of casuals took unpaid leave.

Clearly while very few workers were actually sick with COVID-19, it had a significant affect on livelihoods. This a key point to reflect on now more workers have COVID-19 and an even larger number are (or should be) isolating.

Read more:
Where’s the meat? Employers and governments should have seen this supply crisis coming, and done something

Short shift for precarious work

At the time of our survey the risks of catching COVID-19 were relatively small, even for essential frontline workers.

Omicron has substantially increased that risk – along with the risk of losing work hours.

Registering a positive result is the only way ill, casually employed workers can access extra support when they aren’t able to work. But getting a test – and results has been difficult, with workers in NSW and Victoria only been able to officially register positive RAT results since January 10.

The Pandemic Leave Disaster Payment is still available to those who don’t qualify for employer-paid leave. But to qualify you must be directed to isolate and stay at home due to having tested positive or been in close contact with someone with COVID-19.

Read more:
What a disaster: federal government slashes COVID payment when people need it most

You also only qualify for the full $750 a week (for two weeks) if you lose 20 hours or more of paid work a week. If you lose 8-19 hours, you get $450 a week. If you lose less than eight hours, you get nothing.

This highlights the precarious and unsustainable position of Australians employed on casual contracts, especially those in the retail, fast food and distribution sector. Many unwell or at-risk precarious workers are likely to have gone without income while they struggle to get access to tests or lose paid work for other reasons.

Ariadne Vromen currently receives funding from the Australian Research Council for research into gender equality and the future of work.

Meraiah Foley is a Chief Investigator on two grants funded by the Australian Research Council. She has also received research funding from the Australia New Zealand School of Government.

Rae Cooper currently receives funding from the Australian Research Council for research into gender equality and the future of work and as an ARC Future Fellow.

Briony Lipton and Serrin Rutledge-Prior 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. Things look worse for casual workers than at any time during the pandemic – https://theconversation.com/things-look-worse-for-casual-workers-than-at-any-time-during-the-pandemic-175065

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

Scott Morrison will continue to tip out large dollops of money when he addresses the National Press Club on Tuesday, with his theme “building national resilience”.

He will announce the government will fund a $2.2 billion Research Commercialisation Action Plan, which includes about $2 billion in new money

The centrepiece is a 10-year $1.6 billion competitive program – called Australia’s Economic Accelerator – directed at the so-called “valley of death”. That is where research is not advanced towards commercialisation because of risk.
The package also includes

• $150 million to expand CSIRO’s Main Sequence Ventures program. This assists start-ups and promotes commercial opportunities for research

• $296 million for 1800 industry-focused PhDs and 800 fellowships, funded over 10 years

• the previously announced $247 million Trailblazer Universities programme for selected institutions to work with industry on national manufacturing priorities.

Last week Morrison opened the purse strings to announce $1 billion over nine years for the Great Barrier Reef, as the government seeks both to fend off international attempts to declare the reef formally “in danger” and to shore up its vote in north Queensland.

With Newspoll this week showing the government trailing Labor 44-56% and his personal approval plummeting, the Prime Minister is facing a massive test of his own resilience as he pursues re-election.

Targeted spending, provided for in the December budget update’s multi-billions for unannounced decisions, will be a major part of the government’s strategy.

Morrison will stress that his latest commitment “is not an election promise – these are funded programmes already in the budget, incorporated into the mid year budget update”.

It’s a tradition that both leaders appear at the start of the year at the NPC and Anthony Albanese delivered his address last week.

In his speech Morrison will canvass the storms, floods and Omicron wave that disrupted people’s summer, pointing to lessons that build into the government’s plans for the economy and the health system.

He will say the government is taking its manufacturing strategy to the next level, “by fusing it with greater investment in our world-class university research capabilities”.

The strategy is directed to areas “where Australia has significant comparative advantage and capacity to harness new opportunities,” Morrison says in an excerpt of the speech released ahead of delivery.

These include medical products, food and beverage, recycling and clean energy, resources technology and critical minerals processing, defence and space.

Morrison says 85% of Australian research is rated at or above world standard. “Yet we continue to underperform in achieving commercialisation outcomes.”

Better linkages are needed between Australian industry and university researchers, he says.

Importantly, “we need to find and develop a new breed of researcher entrepreneurs in Australia”.

“The government’s University Research Commercialisation Plan will align research priorities with our Modern Manufacturing Strategy. It will focus research effort on the same six National Manufacturing Priorities.”

Morrison announced the first element of this plan, the Trailblazer Universities program late last year, to promote commercialisation between selected universities and industry partners. This initiative is underway, with eight university proposals shortlisted.

Morrison says that in driving commercialisation, “the key policy challenge concerns the so-called ‘valley of death’ – where early-stage research is frequently not progressed to later stages of development because of the risk and uncertainty about commercial returns.

“We know this is not insurmountable. Other countries have made a better fist of solving this problem.”

He says Australia’s Economic Accelerator is “designed to attract projects at proof-of-concept or proof-of-scale level of commercial readiness”. They will need to have high potential.

“The fund will allow Australian innovators to access funding opportunities for each stage of their project – provided they can continue to prove project viability and commercial potential.

“Industry involvement and engagement is required at every stage.”

In the first two stages projects will compete against a diminishing number of other projects.

“Stage 1 allows us to capture a large number of ideas from innovators and industry partners.  Stage 2 requires more skin in the game from industry.”

The third stage will operate through CSIRO’s Main Sequence Ventures, “for high-value opportunities to be taken to market”.

The government is also trying to change the “culture” in research.
 
Presently, only 40% of Australia’s researchers work in private industry, Morrison says – well below the OECD average.

“This together with low mobility between industry and the university sectors leads to culture and capability gaps that reduce the ability of Australian businesses to innovate.

“To tackle this issue, the government will invest in a new suite of industry PhD and research fellowships schemes to create Australia’s new generation of research entrepreneur,” Morrison says.

“This $296 million investment aims to fundamentally reshape the workforce of Australia’s universities and career options, encouraging mobility and collaboration between university researchers and industry.”

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 pursues commercialisation of Australian research with $2 billion new money – https://theconversation.com/scott-morrison-pursues-commercialisation-of-australian-research-with-2-billion-new-money-176033

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

With COVID deaths in aged care mounting and reports of neglect of residents due to acute workforce shortages, Scott Morrison on Monday announced bonus payments totalling up to $800 for staff.

Two payments of up to $400 each will be made on a pro rata basis, according to hours worked. The first payment will be provided this month, with a second by early May. The cost will be $209 million.

A main aim of the payment is to try to encourage qualified workers to stay in the system.

Both workers, who are low paid, and facilities have again been hit hard in recent weeks, as Omicron has raged. Aged care residents were early casualties of the pandemic, with many hundreds of deaths in Victoria in 2020. Now they are again in the frontline of casualties. In January some 447 people in residential aged care have died with COVID.

Staff shortages have been acute in the sector during Omicron with many workers having COVID or furloughed because of being close contacts. There have been reports of residents missing showers and meals being delayed, and many families are not able to visit when facilities have outbreaks.

On Monday NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet expressed concern about the significant number of aged care deaths. NSW Chief Health Officer Kerry Chant stressed the need for residents to receive their boosters and Perrottet offered state support to get the jabs finalised.

Aged care is a federal government responsibility.

Announcing the bonus, Morrison said none of Australia’s health outcomes “would be possible without the hard work, long hours and dedicated care offered by our frontline health and aged care workforce.

“Their resilience over the past two years has been inspiring.”

Morrison said the latest commitment built on the $393 million provided over three payments to 234,000 aged care workers earlier in the pandemic.

The payment will be for workers in government-subsidised home care and to aged care workers providing direct care, food or cleaning services in government-subsidised residential care.

Health Minister Greg Hunt said on Monday that about 99% of aged care facilities were expected to have had their boosters available by the end of the day, with the rest in “coming days”.

Hunt said 60% of the aged care deaths were people who were receiving palliative care.

He said there was a 99% vaccination rate among aged care staff (this means two shots).

Anthony Albanese said at the weekend the government should be supporting an increase in wages for age care workers in the case currently before the Fair Work Commission.

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

– ref. Morrison announces bonus of up to $800 to encourage workers to stay in highly stretched aged care system – https://theconversation.com/morrison-announces-bonus-of-up-to-800-to-encourage-workers-to-stay-in-highly-stretched-aged-care-system-176029

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

Summer can be hot and sticky. And insect repellent creams, lotions, and sprays can make it stickier.

Stopping mosquito bites is key to avoiding itchy bumps and mosquito-borne disease. Thankfully, there are several methods can you try – and some things to avoid – for a mozzie bite-free summer.

Topical insect repellents are safe and effective

Insect repellents are a safe, effective, and affordable way to prevent mosquito bites.

They are promoted by health authorities in Australia as the best way to avoid mosquito bites.

Products sold in Australia must be approved for sale by the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority (APVMA) which checks products for safety and effectiveness. If applied as recommended – a thin and even coat over all exposed areas of skin – insect repellents can prevent mosquito bites. How long bite protection lasts varies with the strength of the formulation but research has shown it can last for many hours.

But insect repellents aren’t always the perfect solution. Despite being recommended by health authorities and experts around the world and many studies demonstrating registered repellents cause minimal adverse reactions, there remains a perception they can pose a health risk, contaminate the natural environment or they’re unpleasant to use.

In Australia, not much has changed with regard to the active ingredients used in repellent formulations but the cosmetic constituents have greatly improved, making them more pleasant to use.

For those who find insect repellents a challenge, there are alternatives to creams, lotions and sprays.

Insecticide sprays ✅

Insecticides can help knock down or repel buzzing and biting mosquitoes. But, be warned, these products aren’t specific to mosquitoes so using them too frequently will reduce the beneficial insects around your home.

Mosquito coils and other devices ✅

Mosquito coils have been a mainstay of the Australian summer. They will certainly assist in reducing bites in sheltered areas and those with insecticides will work best.

But never burn them inside, especially not beside the bed at night. The smoke you inhale can be bad for your health.

A range of alternative devices work like “smoke free” mosquito coils. These devices are either battery or plug in powered and rely on heating an insecticide treated pad or reservoir of oil to release product that knocks out or repels mosquitoes. These can be a useful option indoors and can even be paired with a timer to work for only a few hours during the evening.

Portable devices are that can be clipped to your belt when out and about. It’s important to remember that as soon as you’re outside, especially in windy conditions or close to wetland or bushland areas, these products become less effective.

Read more:
Curious Kids: When we get bitten by a mosquito, why does it itch so much?

Dress for success ✅

Probably the best alternative to putting repellents on your skin is to cover up. This is always tricky when it is hot and humid but the physical barrier clothing provides may be the best option in areas where mosquito activity is high.

Long sleeved shirts, long pants, and covered shoes are key to this approach.

Protection against mosquito bites can be improved by applying an insecticide to clothing. For extra protection, clothing can be treated with the insecticide permethrin – the same insecticide used to treat bed nets in countries prone to malaria. Always use as directed and do not apply directly to the skin.

Wrist bands and sound emitting devices ❌

For those wanting to avoid topical repellents, the coloured wrist bands sold in many pharmacies and supermarkets may seem an desirable option. Unfortunately, there is no scientific evidence these devices, irrespective of the active ingredients they contain, can provide whole body protection against mosquitoes.

Mosquitoes don’t seem put off by sound either. For decades small sound-emitting devices have been sold, and repeatedly shown to be ineffective. “Mosquito repellent” smart phone apps don’t work either.

Changing your diet ❌

It would be wonderful if there was a pill we could take to prevent us being bitten by mosquitoes. It would overcome the challenges of getting you to apply sticky and unusual smelling solutions throughout summer. Problem is, such a thing doesn’t exist. There is no scientific evidence anything you can eat or drink will prevent mosquitoes biting you.

You can still enjoy your gin and tonic, bananas, or vegemite on toast – just don’t expect the mosquitoes to stop biting!

Read more:
Bzzz, slap! How to treat insect bites (home remedies included)

The final word (give repellents a chance)

It is important to remember mosquitoes are more than just a nuisance. Viruses spread by mosquitoes in Australia can cause debilitating disease. There are few treatments available for these illnesses, so prevention is vital.

You may not like applying insect repellent, but it is probably the best strategy we’ve got. Just as we’ve developed the habit of using sunscreen on a regular basis, we need to get into the swing of smearing or spraying on some insect repellent during the warmer months too.

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

– ref. Insect repellents work – but there are other ways to beat mosquitoes without getting sticky – https://theconversation.com/insect-repellents-work-but-there-are-other-ways-to-beat-mosquitoes-without-getting-sticky-171805

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kate Maguire-Rosier, Honorary Associate, Department of Theatre and Performance Studies, School of Literature, Art, and Media, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Sydney

Review: Jurrungu Ngan-ga, directed by Dalisa Pigram and Rachael Swain for Marrugeku

Jurrungu Ngan-ga, a Yawuru kinship concept meaning “straight talk”, is a throbbing protest about the violence experienced by Indigenous, racial, trans and queer Australia.

At its heart, a group of misfits share painful experiences in a way that reasserts their being-in-the-world, in this powerful performance from Broome-based dance company Marrugeku.

Directed by Dalisa Pigram and Rachael Swain, with Behrouz Bouchani and Omid Tofighian (author and translator, respectively, of No Friends but the Mountains) as cultural advisors, Jurrungu Ngan-ga weaves themes of violence traversing verbal, sexual, physical and psychological abuse, depicting scenes with slurs, humiliation, shame, and murder. In passing, rape culture, self-harm and suicide are also referenced.

The result is a whirlwind ride of bodies perpetually resisting.

Guards’ voices and murmurs from cells punctuate the space. The inmate (Chandler Connell) stays still and quiet. His sudden yell raises goosebumps. He repeats this yell, and it becomes the start of a dance, a corroboree-like stomping sequence, accessorised with a shimmy of the shoulders.

Now he screams “get out!” and whispers “I can’t breathe”. Invisible hands tie his own hands behind his back. A prison alarm interrupts and yellow, rectangular back lights shine bright.

Read more:
‘I can’t breathe!’ Australia must look in the mirror to see our own deaths in custody

Movement soars through the space. Convulsions akin to orgasmic and spastic trembling; zombie-like expression where bodies collapse in on themselves. A classical pas de deux rigorously executed by Miranda Wheen and Luke Currie-Richardson, but satirical so gestures are stunted and lines are clunky. Sinewy traditional Filipino dance reminiscent of Singkil. A low and fierce Torres Strait Islander warrior-like dance led by Czack (Ses) Bero. Joyful Middle-Eastern dabke folk dance. Awkward drunken Australian pub breaks.

An explosive rendition of Childish Gambino’s This is America substitutes America for Australia: hypersexualised fetishising of the group’s oppression. A costume morphs into a camp Captain Cook or a fabulous Arthur Phillip. Like Donald Glover’s nightmare, the music, dance and lighting are all perversely enjoyable.

Krump – a fierce energy simulating a body in battle – explodes through the bodies of these now-aggressive human beings, forcing onlookers to confront and resist the racist stereotype of angry black and brown people.

The whole cast passionately convey their resilience, but it is Benji Ra’s presence that resonates.

In one scene, she gasps her own soundscape. She travels across stage like a doll, and through words that sexually and racially exoticise her. Her body and her words deteriorate into a dog growling, barking. Then back to a robotic voice, she playfully stutters “some of my best friends are delicious MILFs”. She smiles, allowing the audience to giggle at this with her – but her self-objectification is laid bare, ripe for exploitation.

Elsewhere, she recounts the death of a friend, Yolanda Jourdan, “the woman with lemon-blonde hair”.

This story elicits a long list of names with similar stories.

A person shot in Northern Territory.

…driven 350km in extreme heat in the Kimberley.

…found dead in his cell with four broken ribs.

…chased by NSW police officers before being impaled on a fence right here in Redfern.

…who set himself on fire in Nauru prison.

Read more:
Self-immolation incidents on Nauru are acts of ‘hopeful despair’

How do we embody fear?

It would be easy to witness the suffering bravely portrayed by the cast as yet another display of Black trauma porn, relying on shock value rather than a coherent concept.

In turn, it would be easy for me as a white spectator to report experiencing feelings I can readily dismiss.

But the audience in Jurrungu Ngan-ga are never just spectators. The audience vocalises our response by snapping our fingers, stomping the floor and yelling words of encouragement more common at a hiphop cipher or a vogue ball.

What transpires, then, is a radically provocative piece of dance theatre where audiences learn in emotive detail about systems of power and control.

We learn of the disproportionate incarceration of Aboriginal people – including children – and their deaths in custody. Of the continued imprisonment of refugees seeking asylum in Australia pushing many to self-harm or suicide. We learn of media misrepresentation and lies, harmful tropes and oppressive policies that sustain white supremacy in this country.

Read more:
Not criminals or passive victims: media need to reframe their representation of Aboriginal deaths in custody

At times, the audience is cast as complicit. At other times, we are allies. No-one remains a victim. Every person on stage speaks back to violence. Spectators leave after being literally encouraged to act.

The most arresting resource of Swain and Pigram’s dance theatre work is speech. Towards the end, Connell speaks with rawness that is unmistakably real, even if his words are someone else’s.

“Jugun” he explains, “is when you lay between two fires… I’m Koori. What do you see?”

He instructs us to close our eyes and speaks in Language. He returns to English: “the most important thing [is] to live in this moment and breathe.”

Jurrungu Ngan-ga asks “how do we embody fear?”.

“We are a nation of jailers,” Patrick Dodson says. “We lock up that which we fear”. As Lilla Watson puts it, “your liberation is bound up with mine”.

There is more jurrungu ngan-ga – straight talk – to be done about our nation of jailers, but this piece propels an urgent call.

Jurrungu Ngan-ga played at Carriageworks, Sydney. Season closed.

Kate Maguire-Rosier is affiliated with Treehouse Theatre, a performance group with young refugees based in South-West and Western Sydney.

– ref. ‘We are a nation of jailers’: Jurrungu Ngan-ga is a whirlwind of bodily resistance – https://theconversation.com/we-are-a-nation-of-jailers-jurrungu-ngan-ga-is-a-whirlwind-of-bodily-resistance-173987

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Niamh Kinchin, Senior Lecturer, School of Law, University of Wollongong

Australia’s electronic surveillance laws are being reformed with a goal of making them “clearer, more coherent and better adapted to the modern world”.

However, there is one significant set of powers beyond the scope of the reforms: the Australian Border Force’s (ABF) broad powers to search personal digital devices and copy electronic information without a warrant.

One man who had his phone searched by the ABF on entering the country recently told The Guardian he had “no idea what officials looked at, whether a copy of any of the data was made, where it would be stored and who would have access to it”.

The surveillance reform aims to deliver better protection of individuals’ information and ensure law enforcement agencies have the powers to investigate serious crimes and threats to security. So why has the privacy of travellers and migrants who cross Australia’s border been left so exposed?

A notable omission

The reform aims to replace the “current patchwork of laws” governing electronic surveillance, including the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979 and the Surveillance Devices Act 2004, with a single piece of streamlined, technology-neutral legislation.

However, the reform’s scope is limited to accessing information and data covertly. Activities that fall under this definition include “intercepting phone calls, remotely accessing a person’s computer or using a listening or tracking device”.

Read more:
National security review recommends complete overhaul of electronic surveillance – but will it work?

The Deparment of Home Affairs gives as an example of an activity not covered by the reform an agency accessing a computer when executing a search warrant. This scenario may not involve covert surveillance, but some protection is provided by the need to apply for a warrant.

In contrast, the ABF’s powers to access electronic information and data do not require a warrant. The Customs Act 1901 allows ABF officers to examine any goods subject to customs control, including digital devices such as mobile phones and laptops.

ABF officers can also make copies of documents that may be relevant to prohibited goods, the commission of an offence, or “security”. A “document” includes mobile and other phones, sim cards, personal electronic recording devices, computers, written material and photographs.

Under the Migration Act 1958, ABF officers can search a person and their property if the officer suspects there are reasonable grounds for considering cancelling the person’s visa. The person must either be detained or has not been cleared by immigration. “Property” includes digital devices.

Intrusive powers

A guiding principle of the reform is to develop a law that “contains appropriate thresholds and robust, effective and consistent controls, limits, safeguards and oversight” of “intrusive” powers.

Electronic surveillance powers are described as “intrusive” because they can reveal sensitive information about an individual or organisation. The ABF’s powers are arguably equally as intrusive, but have less protection and lack transparency.

ABF officers do not require your permission to search your devices. If you refuse, you may be referred “for further law enforcement action”.

The ABF also has no obligation to inform you what information was examined or copied.

The ABF can pass information gathered from searches of digital devices to other federal and state departments, agencies, police forces or a coroner if it falls within a broad category of “permitted purposes”. Permitted purposes include the rather far-reaching “information relating to immigration, quarantine or border control between Australia and a foreign country”.

Notably, it is more difficult for police within Australia to search your mobile phone. Although police have general search powers, if they want to unlock your mobile phone or electronic device they must apply for a warrant first.

According to a Freedom of Information application made by the transparency activist organisation Right to Know, between July 1 2009 and June 30 2019 there were 436 incidents where electronic devices were examined. In the same period, the contents of electronic devices were copied 109 times.

An opportunity missed

By limiting the reform to covert electronic surveillance powers, the government has missed an opportunity to strengthen accountability of equally intrusive surveillance powers at Australia’s border.

Why the omission? Officially, because the ABF’s powers aren’t covert. This is despite individuals not knowing what information is accessed, copied or stored.

Unofficially, because the government is unlikely to dilute its migration and border control powers. According to the ABF, it “exercises its functions and powers at the border in order to protect the Australian community and deliver its mission to enable legitimate travel and trade”.

As the recent Novak Djokovic deportation case shows, “strong borders” are popular with the public.

What should you do if the ABF wants to search your mobile phone or laptop? Considering you may face a criminal sanction if you refuse, be smart about your data protection. You may wish to use two-factor authentication and store sensitive information in the cloud on a secure European server while you are travelling.

Read more:
Travelling overseas? What to do if a border agent demands access to your digital device

Public submissions on the reform of Australia’s electronic surveillance framework are due by February 11 2022. Unfortunately, there is no space for a conversation about the ABF’s extraordinary surveillance powers.

Niamh Kinchin 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. Electronic surveillance law review won’t stop Border Force’s warrantless phone snooping – https://theconversation.com/electronic-surveillance-law-review-wont-stop-border-forces-warrantless-phone-snooping-175833

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Murray Goot, Emeritus Professor of Politics and International Relations, Macquarie University

Would Australians vote for an Indigenous Voice in the Constitution? Would they approve the parliament simply legislating a Voice? Australians may support one, both, or neither.

The answers matter because after the next election we may be looking at a referendum to amend the Constitution by adding a Voice to parliament, or moving towards the new parliament legislating a Voice.

Labor has promised a referendum, while the Coalition seems more inclined to legislate – possibly with Labor’s support, since this would not preclude a referendum.

Much may depend on what the polls show.

What polls can tell us:

• polls showing opposition to a constitutional amendment but support for a legislated Voice would discourage a government from holding a referendum

• polls showing support for a constitutional amendment but opposition to a legislated Voice would encourage a government to hold a referendum

• polls showing opposition to both would make change less likely

• polls showing support for both would boost a campaign for the Voice that has faded in the last two years.

To change the Constitution, a vote in favour of a Voice would need the support of the majority of voters in the majority of states.

What the polling suggests

In the latest attempt to establish not whether voters want to hear a Voice but what sort of Voice they might want to hear, the Sydney Morning Herald and the Age commissioned a national poll of people enrolled to vote from Resolve, a political communications company.

In this poll, conducted in mid-January, respondents were told:

Some people have suggested that the Indigenous Voice should be permanently enshrined in the Constitution with a national vote so that it cannot be easily removed, and only then made law once it has that public endorsement. However, others would prefer that it is made law in the first instance so that it can be road-tested before a permanent place in the Constitution is voted on, and to avoid the chance of a “no” vote without that road-testing.

When respondents were asked to indicate their “own preference”, about a quarter (28%) said they preferred the first option (hold a vote to enshrine the Voice in the Constitution), about a quarter (24%) said they preferred the second option (legislate the Voice in the first instance), and about half (48%) were categorised as “not sure/no preference”.

These numbers suggest majority support for neither a referendum nor legislation. But questions to which half the respondents can’t give an answer are usually questions that should never have been asked.

In cases where huge numbers fail to make a choice, respondents either don’t understand the question or are indifferent between the choices offered. The proportion answering “not sure/no preference” in the Resolve poll very likely underestimates this.

Asking a question that requires respondents to factor in sequences of events – constitutional change before legislative change or legislative change before constitutional change – when they have little interest in or knowledge of politics is too complicated.

The wording of the question doesn’t help. The phrase “permanently enshrined” is likely to reduce support for change, I suspect. In addition, the idea of legislation as a form of “road-testing” is challenged by critics who insist if the Voice did pass such a “test”, the push for constitutional “enshrinement” would lose momentum.

A balanced question (or set of questions) in the poll would have recognised these contested understandings.

Above all, the question about a Voice to Parliament ignores the possibility that respondents may have been prepared to support a referendum followed by legislation. The fact that someone prefers X to Y does not begin to show they would be happy with X, but unhappy with Y.

Finding a poll showing majority support for constitutional change is not hard, though finding a poll that doesn’t offer respondents a politics tutorial along the way is harder.

In June 2020, in an unpublished poll conducted pro bono for a group lobbying for constitutional change, the research firm C|T Group asked respondents how they would vote:

if a referendum were held today […] to change the Constitution to set up a new body comprising Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people that gives advice to federal parliament on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander issues.

More than half (56%) said they would “definitely” or “probably” vote yes, 17% said they would “definitely” or “probably” vote no, and 28% were “undecided”.

Polls that ask about legislating a Voice without necessarily changing the Constitution are scarce. But in February 2018, Newspoll told respondents then-Opposition leader Bill Shorten “has pledged to create an indigenous (sic) advisory body to give indigenous people a voice to parliament”.

Newspoll asked whether “on balance”, respondents were “in favour or opposed to Bill Shorten’s plan to give indigenous people a voice to parliament.” More than half (57%) favoured the plan (despite it being tagged as a Labor proposal), 32% opposed it, and 18% said they didn’t know.

If the choice respondents were given in Resolve’s poll is not one they want to make, it is also not one they may need to make – provided they support both ways forward. Whether they do, the Resolve poll isn’t well enough designed to say.

Murray Goot receives funding from no organisation but has received funding from the Australian Research Council and various government bodies and formal inquiries in the past.

– ref. Confused polling distorts the debate on an Indigenous Voice to Parliament – https://theconversation.com/confused-polling-distorts-the-debate-on-an-indigenous-voice-to-parliament-175525

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

In the first Newspoll of 2022, Labor led by 56-44, a three-point gain since the previous Newspoll in early December. Primary votes were 41% Labor (up three), 34% Coalition (down two), 11% Greens (up one), 3% One Nation (steady) and 11% for all Others (down two).

This is Labor’s biggest lead in Newspoll since the aftermath of the August 2018 ousting of Malcolm Turnbull in favour of Scott Morrison as prime minister. But the Coalition recovered to win the May 2019 election, with the final polls inaccurate. So the Coalition is not out of contention for the upcoming election yet.

39% were satisfied with Morrison’s performance (down five), and 58% were dissatisfied (up six), for a net approval of -19, down 11 points. Analyst Kevin Bonham said this was Morrison’s worst net approval since the 2019-20 bushfires (-22 then).

Anthony Albanese had a net zero rating, up six points. Morrison led Albanese as better PM by 43-41 (45-36 in December). This poll was conducted January 25-28 from a sample of 1,526. Figures are from The Poll Bludger.

Read more:
Grattan on Friday: A royal commission into COVID’s handling would serve us well for the future

The Coalition’s crash in Newspoll is very likely caused by the current COVID wave in Australia. While cases have dropped from over 100,000 a day to about 50,000 in the last ten days, deaths are still trending up, with a recent peak of 134 deaths on January 28.

Other than in Victoria during the late 2020 wave, Australia had avoided high COVID death rates. If we had previously had much higher death rates, we would be more likely to forgive the government for current deaths.

The Omicron wave in the UK has pushed average daily deaths past 260, but this is far from the peak of over 1,200 average daily deaths in January 2021, before vaccines were widely available.

Victoria’s bad experience in late 2020 may explain why it was the only state to gain in Essential’s COVID response polling last week (see below), while all other mainland states suffered double digit declines in their “good” rating.

Can the Coalition recover before the election, expected in May? Daily deaths are likely to fall back eventually, and the jobs situation is good for the government, though inflation is likely to be a negative.

Liberals may be in danger in Wentworth and North Sydney

uComms polls of the federal NSW seats of Wentworth and North Sydney for the left-wing Australia Institute, conducted January 24 from samples of about 850 per seat, gave the main independent challenger a 56-44 lead over the Liberal incumbent in Wentworth and a 59-41 lead in North Sydney.

Seat polls have been unreliable in the past, and a uComms poll close to the 2021 Tasmanian election was biased against the Liberals. But if education polarisation continues, voters in highly-educated traditional safe Liberal inner city seats could deliver big shocks on election night.

Read more:
Non-university educated white people are deserting left-leaning parties. How can they get them back?

Essential poll: Everywhere except Victoria falls on response to COVID

In last week’s Essential poll, 38% gave the federal government a poor rating for its response to COVID (up six since December), and 35% a good rating (down six). It is the first negative rating for the federal government on COVID response in Essential’s history, with the previous worst result a net +3 rating last August.

All state governments polled except Victoria also suffered falls, with WA down 12 to 66% good, Queensland down 11 to 46% good, SA down 14 to 43% good and NSW down 17 to 37% good. Victoria was up four to 47% good.

41% thought those who have chosen not to get vaccinated against COVID to be ill-informed, 22% that they are being deliberately selfish, while 37% believed their personal choices should be respected.

46% approved of Morrison’s performance (steady since December) and 46% disapproved (up two), for a net zero rating; this is Morrison’s worst in Essential since the bushfires. Albanese’s net approval was down four to zero. Morrison’s lead as better PM was cut to 42-34 from 42-31 in December.

Morgan poll: 56-44 to Labor

A Morgan poll, conducted January 4-16 from a sample of almost 2,800, gave Labor a 56-44 lead, a 0.5 point gain for Labor from an unpublished poll taken in mid-December. Primary votes were 37% Labor (steady), 34.5% Coalition (steady), 12% Greens (up 0.5), 3% One Nation (down one), 0.5% UAP (steady), 8.5% independents (up one) and 4.5% others (down 0.5).

An 8.5% vote share for independents suggests climate-focused independents are doing well, and Labor would benefit from their preferences.

Jobs situation very good for government, but not inflation

In the December jobs report, which the ABS released January 20, unemployment dropped 0.5% from November to 4.2% and underemployment dropped 0.8% to 6.6%. The employment population ratio – the share of eligible people employed – was up 0.3% to 63.3% after a jump from 61.3% to 63.0% in November.

This is Australia’s lowest unemployment rate since August 2008, just before the global financial crisis began. The unemployment rate has not been below 4% since the 1970s.

The January jobs report is likely to be worse owing to COVID disruption. But given past experience here and overseas, the jobs situation will improve rapidly once COVID eases. This will be good for the government going into an election.

The ABS reported on January 25 that headline inflation rose 1.3% in the December quarter for a 3.5% annual rate. Annual core inflation increased to 2.6%, the highest since 2014. While Australian inflation is relatively high, it is only half the US annual inflation rate
of 7.0%.

Labor way ahead in Victorian state Resolve poll

In a Victorian state Resolve poll for The Age, Labor had 41% of the primary vote (up three since October), the Coalition 31% (down three), the Greens 11% (up one) and independents 10% (down one). As usual, Resolve did not give a two party estimate, but Bonham’s estimate was 59-41 to Labor.

Incumbent Daniel Andrews led the Liberals’ Matthew Guy as preferred premier by 47-30, out from 45-32 in October. This poll was conducted with the federal Resolve polls in November and January from a sample of 1,039.

46% said Andrews had managed the COVID pandemic well, down from 57% in August 2021. That compares to a 35% national good rating for Morrison, 31% in NSW for Liberal Premier Dominic Perrottet and 45% in Queensland for Labor Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk.

Four NSW byelections on February 12, and a WA poll

Four state byelections will occur in NSW on February 12 in the seats of Bega (Lib, 6.9% margin), Monaro (Nat, 11.6%), Strathfield (Labor, 5.0%) and Willoughby (Lib, 21.0%). Labor and the Coalition have declared candidates in all seats except Willoughby, which Labor is unlikely to contest.

A Painted Dog Research poll for The West Australian had WA voters supporting Premier Mark McGowan’s decision to keep the borders closed by a 71-29 margin. The sample was 637, as reported by The Poll Bludger.

Boris Johnson’s lockdown party problems

I wrote for The Poll Bludger on January 23 about whether UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson would be ousted by his Conservative MPs over outrage at lockdown-busting parties at Downing Street. Also covered: US redistricting and Joe Biden’s poor ratings.

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

– ref. Newspoll has Labor’s biggest lead since Turnbull’s ousting as Coalition damaged by COVID – https://theconversation.com/newspoll-has-labors-biggest-lead-since-turnbulls-ousting-as-coalition-damaged-by-covid-175835

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tama Leaver, Professor of Internet Studies, Curtin University

Earlier this month, Meta announced it is working on a set of ethical guidelines for “virtual influencers” – animated, typically computer-generated, characters designed to attract attention on social media.

When Facebook renamed itself Meta late last year, it heralded a pivot towards the “metaverse” – where virtual influencers will presumably one day roam in their thousands.

Even Meta admits the metaverse doesn’t really exist yet. The building blocks of a persistent, immersive virtual reality for everything from business to play are yet to be fully assembled. But virtual influencers are already online, and are surprisingly convincing.

But given its recent history, is Meta (née Facebook) really the right company to be setting the ethical standards for virtual influencers and the metaverse more broadly?

Who (or what) are virtual influencers?

Meta’s announcement notes the “rising phenomenon” of synthetic media – an umbrella term for images, video, voice or text generated by computerised technology, typically using artificial intelligence (AI) or automation.

Many virtual influencers incorporate elements of synthetic media in their design, ranging from completely digitally rendered bodies, to human models that are digitally masked with characters’ facial features.

At both ends of the scale, this process still relies heavily on human labour and input, from art direction for photo shoots to writing captions for social media. Like Meta’s vision of the metaverse, influencers that are entirely generated and powered by AI are a largely futuristic fantasy.

But even in their current form, virtual influencers are of serious value to Meta, both as attractions for their existing platforms and as avatars of the metaverse.

Interest in virtual influencers has rapidly expanded over the past five years, attracting huge audiences on social media and partnerships with major brands, including Audi, Bose, Calvin Klein, Samsung, and Chinese e-commerce platform TMall.

A competitive industry specialising in the production, management and promotion of virtual influencers has already sprung up, although it remains largely unregulated.

So far, India is the only country to address virtual influencers in national advertising standards, requiring brands “disclose to consumers that they are not interacting with a real human being” when posting sponsored content.

Ethical guidelines

There is an urgent need for ethical guidelines, both to help producers and their brand partners navigate this new terrain, and more importantly to help users understand the content they’re engaging with.

Meta has warned that “synthetic media has the potential for both good and harm”, listing “representation and cultural appropriation” as specific issues of concern.

Indeed, despite their short lifespan, virtual influencers already have a history of overt racialisation and misrepresentation, raising ethical questions for producers who create digital characters with different demographic characteristics from their own.

But it’s far from clear whether Meta’s proposed guidelines will adequately address these questions.

Read more:
What is the metaverse? A high-tech plan to Facebookify the world

Becky Owen, head of creator innovation and solutions at Meta Creative Shop, said the planned ethical framework “will help our brand partners and VI creators explore what’s possible, likely and desirable, and what’s not”.

This seeming emphasis on technological possibilities and brand partners’ desires leads to an inevitable impression that Meta is once again conflating commercial potential with ethical practice.

By its own count, Meta’s platforms already host more than 200 virtual influencers. But virtual influencers exist elsewhere too: they do viral dance challenges on TikTok, upload vlogs to YouTube, and post life updates on Sina Weibo. They appear “offline” at malls in Beijing and Singapore, on 3D billboards in Tokyo, and star in television commercials.

Gamekeeper, or poacher?

This brings us back to the question of whether Meta is the right company to set the ground rules for this emerging space.

The company’s history is tarred by unethical behaviour, from Facebook’s questionable beginnings in Mark Zuckerberg’s Harvard dorm room (as depicted in The Social Network) to large-scale privacy failings demonstrated in the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

In February 2021 Facebook showed how far it was willing to go to defend its interests, when it briefly banned all news content on Facebook in Australia to force the federal government to water down the Australian News Media Bargaining Code.

Read more:
Facebook has pulled the trigger on news content — and possibly shot itself in the foot

Last year also saw former Facebook executive Frances Haugen very publicly turn whistleblower, sharing a trove of internal documents with journalists and politicians.

These so-called “Facebook Papers” raised numerous concerns about the company’s conduct and ethics, including the revelation that Facebook’s own internal research showed Instagram can harm young people’s mental health, even leading to suicide.

Today, Meta is fighting US antitrust litigation that aims to restrain the company’s monopoly by potentially compelling it to sell key acquisitions including Instagram and WhatsApp.

Meanwhile, Meta is scrambling to integrate its messaging service across all three apps, effectively making them different interfaces for a shared back end that Meta will doubtless argue cannot feasibly be separated, no matter the outcomes of the current litigation.

Given this back story, Meta seems far from the ideal choice as ethical guardian of the metaverse.

The already extensive distribution of virtual influencers across platforms and markets highlights the need for ethical guidelines that go beyond the interests of one company – especially a company that stands to gain so much from the impending spectacle.

Tama Leaver receives funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC) as a chief investigator in the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child.

Rachel Berryman’s PhD research is funded by an Australian Government Research Training Program (RTP) Scholarship.

– ref. ‘Virtual influencers’ are here, but should Meta really be setting the ethical ground rules? – https://theconversation.com/virtual-influencers-are-here-but-should-meta-really-be-setting-the-ethical-ground-rules-175524

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Paul Kenny, Professor of Political Science, Australian Catholic University

It’s widely believed that this is the age of misinformation, of alternative facts, and of conspiracy theories gone mainstream, from QAnon to anti-vaccine and anti-lockdown movements.

In this telling, claims spread by internet crackpots are amplified by partisan news networks and social media to the point that wild myths can now influence or even change governments.

But is this really the case, or are we inflating the problem of misinformation? Ironically, many of our common beliefs about the issue are, well, myths.

Conspiratorial beliefs are held by a small minority

How many people actually believe misinformation-fed conspiracy theories? It turns out, not many. Wild conspiracy theories like QAnon draw headlines, especially given their believers were amongst the rioters who stormed the US Capitol a year ago. But these beliefs are still rare.

Read more:
Misinformation, disinformation and hoaxes: What’s the difference?

While surveys estimate the number of QAnon believers in the US to be as high as 15%, this is likely due to “acquiescence bias”. This is the tendency for people to agree with whatever they’re asked in a survey, even statements like “the government, media, and financial worlds in the US are controlled by a group of Satan-worshipping pedophiles who run a global child sex trafficking operation.” As political scientists Seth Hill and Molly Roberts have demonstrated, phrasing survey questions differently can slash the numbers who agree by half.

Of course, even if only a small percentage of us believe false or deliberately misleading information, there may be real consequences. In America, around 15% of adults refuse to get a COVID vaccine. That, in turn, is leading to what’s been dubbed the pandemic of the unvaccinated.

Why do people fall for false information, even when it’s against their own direct interest, such as keeping themselves and their families alive?

Are we really too gullible?

A common answer is that people are easily duped. The ability of populists like Donald Trump to ride to power on the back of a series of false or misleading claims would seem to be compelling evidence of such widespread credulity. Trump drove the “Birther myth” that Barack Obama was not born in the United States and pedalled wildly inaccurate statistics on crime rates, unemployment throughout his campaign.

But the idea that only a few of us can resist the deluge of falsehoods is another myth. If people were so easily gulled, we’d all be the willing slaves of a manipulative elite! Rather, as French social and cognitive psychologist Hugo Mercier has argued, people have “open vigilance” cognitive mechanisms that prevent this from happening. While we are open to letting in new information, our standard response is to treat that information sceptically.

Are we just irrational?

So how does misinformation slip through? First, our ability to critically evaluate information is far from perfect. While it was once common belief humans would always rationally act in our own best interests, research by Nobel Prize-winning economist Daniel Kahneman and many others has shown we all have systematic cognitive errors such as the “availability heuristic” and the “omission bias”.

Both errors are involved in vaccine hesitancy. If rare vaccine side effects draw media attention, many people will fixate on this risk, despite how low it is. That’s the availability heuristic at work.

At the same time, people discount the risks associated with not taking an action (being unvaccinated), while overestimating the risks of taking an action (getting vaccinated). That’s the omission bias.

There is a link between susceptibility to misinformation and lower levels of cognitive reasoning. But irrationality is not the whole story. When it comes to explaining support for conspiracy theories like QAnon, we need to look beyond people’s numeracy skills.

We’re team players

As Mercier has pointed out, we’re more likely to believe a lie if it comes from a source we already trust. Ours is a deeply social species. We evolved to use culture – shared beliefs and practices – as a kind of societal glue. In practice, this means we sometimes suspend our disbelief just to to get along.

Take, for example, the well-studied effect of political partisanship on American acceptance of the Birther myth: by 2016, while 80% of Democrats believed that Barack Obama was born in the United States, only 25% of Republicans did. People accept misinformation like Birtherism and QAnon to fit in with their group.

How can we help people taken in by misinformation?

For some of us, the pandemic has brought with it an unwelcome challenge: trying to change the mind of a loved one swayed by misinformation about vaccination.

According to an influential theory known as the “backfire effect”, not only do people resist information running contrary to their prior beliefs, but confronting them with this information only increases their commitment to their prior belief.

If this theory was true, there would be no point in arguing. Luckily, the backfire or backlash effect is yet another popular myth. “Out of the hundreds of opportunities to document backlash in my own experimental work on persuasion, I’ve never seen it.” That’s Yale persuasion expert Alexander Coppock, who I corresponded with by email.

Read more:
Radicalization pipelines: How targeted advertising on social media drives people to extremes

Why does the myth persist? Coppock believes it’s because disagreement is unpleasant on a personal level. “When we try to persuade others, they don’t like it and they like us less for having tried,” Coppock said. What happens next? After we seemingly fail in our efforts at persuasion, we reassure ourselves the person holding the belief is simply wrong, if not stupid.

Our failed efforts at persuasion shouldn’t stop us trying. The experimental evidence clearly shows us that everyone, even strongly partisan people, can update their views when given accurate information. While some of us have further to go before we are fully convinced, clear, accurate information usually moves us in the right direction.

The key is to avoid making it a partisan right/wrong issue. The more you can make someone else feel included and on the same team, the more empathy and trust you generate.

The more the other person feels understood, the better your chances are of bringing them back in from the wilds of misinformation.

Paul Kenny 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. Here’s why misinformation is a smaller problem than you think – https://theconversation.com/heres-why-misinformation-is-a-smaller-problem-than-you-think-172968

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian McAllister, Distinguished Professor of Political Science, Australian National University

Do political rorts deliver extra votes at elections?

Politicians seem to think so, judging by the number and frequency of pork-barrelling scandals involving the misuse of public spending. Indeed, according to the former NSW premier, Gladys Berejiklian, such activity is normal. As she said last year, “all governments and all oppositions make commitments to the community in order to curry favour”.

Read more:
After a bombshell day at ICAC, questions must be asked about integrity in Australian politics

But do the electoral benefits outweigh the controversy and the risk to political careers? Nationals senator Bridget Mackenzie (temporarily) lost her ministerial position over events surrounding the 2018-19 sports rorts scandal. The Labor minister Ros Kelly suffered a similar fate in the “whiteboard” sports grants controversy in 1994.

Given the effort politicians and their advisers commit to directing public funds to marginal electorates, an observer would think the electoral returns would be substantial.

New research by myself and federal Labor MP Andrew Leigh, published in the journal Political Studies, casts doubt on this assumption.

Why do politicians pork-barrel?

The international research on pork-barrel politics suggests politicians are attracted to it for two reasons. One is to win over swinging voters, who might be impressed by a candidate’s ability to garner resources for his or her electorate. The other is to reward supporters and to “deliver” for the party’s voter base.

Read more:
From donkey votes to dog whistles, our election language has a long and political history

Australia’s political institutions are ideally suited to pork-barrelling. Party politics are highly disciplined, and elections almost always produce a clear winner.

The three-year federal electoral cycle provides multiple opportunities for pork barrelling, while compulsory voting means all voters are potentially open to influence. And while there is independent oversight over government expenditure, there are few formal constraints on governments that decide to allocate funding based on partisan considerations.

The sports grants scandal

In 2018, the Coalition government set aside A$100 million to upgrade sporting facilities around Australia, with the allocation of grants overseen by the Australian Sports Commission (Sport Australia).

However, as the Australian National Audit Office’s 2020 report made clear, a parallel evaluation of the grants was also conducted by the sports minister’s office. This evaluation identified “marginal electorates held by the Coalition as well as those electorates not held by the Coalition that were to be targeted in the 2019 election”.

Our interest in examining the impact of the 2018-19 sports grants on voters stemmed from the fact that we know which electorates received grants and – thanks to a spreadsheet leaked to the ABC – which grants were awarded on merit and which were likely to have been awarded on political considerations. We estimate that of the almost 700 grants that were funded, just over half were awarded based on politics rather than need.

By matching the grants to each electorate, and taking into account such factors as incumbency and the socioeconomic status of the electorate, we could make two estimates. First, we wanted to know the extent to which grants were directed to marginal electorates. And second, we wanted to know if the impact of grants – both merit-based and politics-based – had any influence on the vote in the 2019 election.

What we found

On the first question, the extent of bias, we found grants were significantly more likely to be directed to seats held by the Coalition, with National-held seats being particular beneficiaries. This supports both the audit office’s report and is also in line with other research on previous scandals, both Coalition and Labor. It confirms that an incentive was to attract swinging voters as well as to deliver for the party’s core voters.

Read more:
The ‘car park rorts’ story is scandalous. But it will keep happening unless we close grant loopholes

On the second question, and contrary in our expectations, the allocation of grants had no significant effect on the Coalition’s vote. This held both for the number of grants that were allocated to each electorate, as well as to the dollar amount of those grants.

Why does pork barrelling fail to deliver votes?

This unexpected finding then led us to consider why voters fail to be swayed by the lavish allocation of government funds. We have two – necessarily speculative – explanations.

The first is the low standing of politicians. The Australian Election Study survey shows trust in politicians is at an all-time low. In the 2019 study, three quarters of the respondents thought “people in government look after themselves”. This is the highest figure ever recorded. Voters may therefore simply regard pork-barrelling as normal.

The second explanation is politicians over-estimate the effect of pork-barrelling. To test this we conducted a straw poll of 14 House of Representative members who were asked what the impact of the vote would be if half a million dollars was spent on their electorate. Only two thought it would have no effect. Of the remainder, about half thought it would bring an additional 1% of the vote or more.

In short, pork-barrelling, at least in the case of the sports grants, does not work. Politicians clearly believe otherwise.

But what pork-barrelling almost certainly does do is to further erode the public’s confidence and trust in elected politicians. With trust and integrity likely to be major issues for voters at the 2022 election, how the parties approach these issues will have a major impact on the outcome.

Ian McAllister receives funding from the Australian Research Council.
This article is based on a journal article co-authored by federal Labor MP and former ANU professor of economics, Andrew Leigh.

– ref. Does pork-barrelling actually work? New research suggests it’s not a big vote winner – https://theconversation.com/does-pork-barrelling-actually-work-new-research-suggests-its-not-a-big-vote-winner-173329

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Martin Loosemore, Professor of Construction Management, University of Technology Sydney

With hospitals under strain from COVID-19, we need to safeguard them against another threat set to increase as the world warms.

That threat? Flooding. Many Australian hospitals were built on cheap land near rivers. But as climate change loads the dice in favour of larger floods, areas previously safe may no longer be so. We must plan ahead to ensure patients and healthcare workers are not trapped by floodwaters.

Our new research shows future floods in low-lying areas of Western Sydney are likely to disrupt road networks, preventing safe evacuation of patients. Only last year, this region suffered its worst floods in decades, and more are expected as we enter a flooding cycle. This fast-growing region is rated one of Australia’s highest flooding risks, and hosts a number of healthcare facilities built in flood-prone areas.

The solution? We believe new approaches to mathematical modelling can help decision makers optimise plans for safe evacuation in different flooding scenarios. By cutting evacuation time, we hope these approaches can save lives.

Hospitals were not built to cope with larger floods

Around 80% of Australians live within 50 kilometres of the coast. As a result, many hospitals were built on low-lying land adjacent to seas or rivers. Most were designed without climate change risks in mind.

The major floods brought by La Nina last year, and the catastrophic 2010-2011 Queensland floods, have shown us how exposed many of our cities are to floods. Already in 2022, we have seen large floods up and down the east coast.

Climate change is predicted to bring Australia less rain overall, except for the tropical north. The rain that does fall will be more likely to fall in intense bursts. River flash floods from intense rain events or cyclones will pose an increasing threat to health facilities.

Read more:
Floods are going to get worse: we need to start preparing for them now

Some urban areas are on highly flood-prone areas. For example, the NSW Hawkesbury Nepean flood plan anticipates a flood similar to the infamous 1867 flood would result in around 90,000 people being evacuated.

That’s to say nothing of flooding from the sea. Around Australia, 75 hospitals and health service facilities are within 200 metres of the sea. That puts them at real risk from coastal inundation and erosion by the end of the century, if the seas rise by one metre as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicts.

This is not a hypothetical scenario. Hospitals have already been left without power for days due to flooding, while others have been forced to evacuate patients. Only last year, floods up and down the east coast cut roads and forced authorities to find alternatives to hospitals for people unable to get through.

Clearly, this matters. Hospitals play a vital role in creating a disaster-resilient society, and it is critical they can keep operating in disaster situations.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has called for a better understanding of the threat posed by flooding.

What can we do to prepare?

In our region, very little is known about how we might best evacuate hospitals in the event of a major flood. We simply haven’t done enough research.

What we found in our work is that the issue is extremely complex. Where would patients be evacuated to, for instance? How do you do it safely? Which routes would be safe in a major flood? How would medical staff get to other hospitals?

Evidence from recent floods suggests many hospitals in flooded areas will face major challenges transferring patients and resources to other healthcare facilities.

Read more:
Sydney’s disastrous flood wasn’t unprecedented: we’re about to enter a 50-year period of frequent, major floods

So what can hospitals do better?

At present, hospital administrators rely heavily on evacuation drills to test and improve emergency evacuation planning. These drills are expensive and disruptive and their effectiveness is difficult to assess.

We have found new approaches to mathematical modelling could greatly assist hospital managers plan for a flood to prevent them becoming disasters.

For example, analysis of Western Sydney’s Hawkesbury-Nepean Valley can visually show how different size flood events would impact on hospitals, healthcare and aged care facilities, as well as roads, bridges and electricity lines.

Imagine the Hawksbury-Nepean Valley area floods again like last year. In a scenario where a hospital floods and patients need evacuation, hospital administrators will face a conundrum. Which roads do they send the patients down?

Sophisticated modelling our team is undertaking will let us predict which routes are best, based on the roads most likely to flood, ambulance and staff availability, health needs of patients and the availability of suitable beds and staff in other hospitals. The models allow us to optimise routes for the most urgent patients.

For hospital administrators, the benefit of these models is the ability to glimpse the likeliest scenarios and plan ahead, before the floods happen.

Climate change can supercharge floods, as we are seeing more and more. Decision makers must plan ahead accordingly. Running flood and evacuation simulations now could help save lives in the future.

Martin Loosemore receives funding from The Australian Research Council

Maziar Yazdani and Mohammad Mojtahedi 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. Our hospitals are at greater risk of flooding as the climate changes. We need better evacuation plans. – https://theconversation.com/our-hospitals-are-at-greater-risk-of-flooding-as-the-climate-changes-we-need-better-evacuation-plans-174467

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

Labor has opened a 56-44% two-party lead and Scott Morrison’s net satisfaction rating has plunged 11 points in Newspoll, after a disastrous summer in which Omicron has ripped through most of the country and deaths have spiked.

The poll, published in The Australian and the first Newspoll of the year, found the government dropping behind Labor for the first time as better at leading Australia’s recovery out of the pandemic.

The Coalition primary vote fell 2 points to 34%, compared with the final Newspoll of 2021, while the ALP’s vote rose 3 points to 41%.

The large Labor two-party lead compares with its pre-Christmas lead of 53-47%, and if replicated at an election would bring a landslide loss for the Morrison government. The current 56-44% Labor lead is the biggest for the opposition since September 2018.

The total deaths of people with COVID so far this year is approaching 1500. Shortages of rapid Antigen tests and serious supply chain problems resulting in shortages on supermarket shelves have led to high levels of community frustration.

With parliament resuming next week for what is expected to be a difficult fortnight sitting for the government, the poll numbers will unsettle already worried Coalition backbenchers.

Anthony Albanese has almost closed the gap on Morrison as better prime minister in the poll – Morrison leads by 43% to 41%. This compares to Morrison’s 45-36% lead in December.

Net satisfaction with Morrison, down 11 points, is now minus 19, his lowest ranking since early 2020 after the bushfires.

His satisfaction is down 5 points to 39%; his dissatisfaction rating is up 6 points to 58%.

Read more:
Grattan on Friday: A royal commission into COVID’s handling would serve us well for the future

Albanese’s net satisfaction rating is zero. His approval increased 4 points to 43%; his disapproval fell 2 points.

One third (33%) thought Albanese the best to lead the country’s recovery out of the pandemic, compared to 32% who opted for Morrison.

On the best to lead Australia on climate change, Albanese was on 39% and Morrison 21%.

On jobs and growth, Morrison led Albanese 33-31%, and on dealing with China Morrison was ahead of Albanese 31-26%.

Asked which of several issues was the most important when deciding how they would vote, 38% chose coming out of the pandemic. It came in above creating jobs and growing the economy (26%), leading Australia’s response to climate change (21%), and dealing with the threat of China in the Asia-Pacific (10%).

Concerns with COVID were greatest in Queensland, which had been relatively protected before it saw infections and deaths rise sharply after opening its border: 38% of voters there said it was the most important issue when deciding who to vote for. This compared to 35% in NSW and 32% in Victoria.

The government, which will stress its economic credentials in the run up to the election, has a poor rating in the poll as the better economic manager, leading Labor 33% to 31% on who would be better placed to create jobs and growth.

In NSW and Queensland the Coalition had a 38% primary vote, with Labor on 29%. In Victoria the Coalition was on 26% and Labor 33%.

The Greens were on 11% (up a point), Pauline Hanson’s One Nation was unchanged on 3%; independents and minor parties were down 2 point to 11%.

The national poll was conducted during January 25-28 with 1526 people.

Meanwhile the NSW government on Sunday sharply criticised the federal government for not financially contributing to a state support package for small and medium sized businesses that are being hit by the Omicron wave.

Unveiling the $1 billion package NSW Treasurer Matt Kean said “I was hoping to make this announcement standing beside Prime Minister today and the Treasurer. But they’re not to be found.”

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

– ref. Labor leads Coalition 56-44% and Morrison slumps dramatically in first 2022 Newspoll – https://theconversation.com/labor-leads-coalition-56-44-and-morrison-slumps-dramatically-in-first-2022-newspoll-175994

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Julie Sonnemann, Deputy Program Director, School Education, Grattan Institute

Almost all teachers (92%) in our study out today said they don’t have enough time to prepare effectively for classroom teaching – the core of their job.

The Grattan Institute surveyed 5,442 Australian teachers and school leaders across all states and territories, primary and secondary schools, and government and non-government schools. The survey was about teachers’ use of time.

Teachers told us they are too stretched to do everything we ask of them. When teachers aren’t supported to do their jobs well, teaching quality suffers and students lose out.

Beyond preparation for effective teaching, 86% of teachers reported they didn’t have time for high-quality lesson planning.

Teachers say they don’t have time to prepare well for lessons

Our findings consistently show many teachers feel overwhelmed by everything they are expected to achieve. One teacher told us:

[There is] not enough planning time to allow for how responsive we need to be to students’ needs.

Many teachers, especially at disadvantaged schools, said they get too little support to help struggling students.

And many teachers point to heavy requirements relating to writing reports, communicating with parents and supporting student welfare. One teacher said:

Administration time takes up most of planning time – such as communication to parents, newsletters, displays, notes, permission slips, phone calls and talking to students about well-being issues.

Teachers’ struggle with workload is not caused by a lack of effort – Australian teachers work hard. Census data show teachers in Australia work about 44 hours a week on average – much more than the 40 hours of general professionals.

Australian teachers’ working hours are high by international standards, too. OECD data show Australian secondary teachers work an average of 45 hours a week, compared to the international average of 40 hours.

Read more:
‘Exhausted beyond measure’: what teachers are saying about COVID-19 and the disruption to education

Our survey also found school leaders are aware of the pressure on teachers’ time, but feel powerless to do much about it.

We cannot expect each of the 9,500 schools around Australia to solve these challenges on their own. Governments must step up. Our report, Making time for great teaching, recommends governments adopt three reform directions.

1. Find ways other school staff can take on non-teaching work

Governments need to better match teachers’ work to their expertise. To do this, they should find better ways to use the wider schools workforce, including support and specialist staff, to help teachers focus on effective teaching.

Significant numbers of support and specialist staff have been added to schools over the past few decades. But governments have not tracked the best way to deploy and use them well.

In our survey about 68% of teachers agreed support staff could cover their extra-curricular activities. We estimate this would free up an additional two hours a week for teachers.

2. Help teachers reduce unnecessary tasks

Teachers consistently say they feel overburdened by administration. Streamlining administration where possible is important. But there are also significant opportunities to improve how teacher time is spent on core teaching-related work.

According to the OECD’s Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS), Australian teachers spend about one-third of their time each week on core teaching activities such as correcting student work, preparing for lessons, teamwork and professional development.

This is four times as much as the time spent on general administration (8%), so any improvements in core teaching work could potentially free up large amounts of time.

Teachers don’t spend enough time actually teaching

Lesson preparation is one of the key activities teachers do weekly. Yet more than half of teachers say this involves a lot of searching for and creating their own curriculum unit and lesson plans, assessments and classroom resources. This work eats up a lot of time and is a significant barrier to teachers feeling prepared for the classroom.

Almost 90% of teachers agreed that having high-quality common resources for curriculum and lesson planning would help reduce their planning burden. This would free up an extra three hours a week.

3. Rethink how teachers’ work is organised

Policy decisions and industrial agreements shape the fundamental ways teachers’ work is organised in schools. For example, they set the number of face-to-face teaching hours required each week, the number of students in each class and expectations about the work teachers do during term breaks.

Governments should ensure school leaders have the flexibility to rethink teachers’ work in ways that open up more preparation time. For example, school leaders should have the flexibility to make small increases in class sizes (say by two to three students). Most teachers said they were in favour of slight increases in class sizes in exchange for two hours of extra preparation time each week.

Read more:
Making better use of Australia’s top teachers will improve student outcomes: here’s how to do it

School leaders should also have flexibility to schedule more structured preparation and planning activities in non-term time. In our survey 58% of teachers agreed working together for two or three extra days before each term could reduce their workloads during term.

Teachers agreed with several reforms

What next

Our report calls on Australian governments to commit to a $60 million program to investigate and pilot the concrete options, including those tested in our report, that create more time for great teaching. That investment would be a tiny fraction (less than 0.1%) of the $65 billion Australia’s governments spend each year on school. This is a small price to pay to improve the way our schools operate and ease the workload burden on teachers.

Making sure teachers have enough time for great teaching should be a national imperative.

We thank the Origin Energy Foundation for their generous support for this project.

Julie Sonnemann is also a Board Director of The Song Room, a not-for-profit organisation

Rebecca Joiner 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. Teachers don’t have enough time to prepare well for class. We have a solution – https://theconversation.com/teachers-dont-have-enough-time-to-prepare-well-for-class-we-have-a-solution-175633

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Rowe, Emeritus Professor of Cultural Research, Institute for Culture and Society, Western Sydney University

The lead-up to the 2022 Australian Open was dominated by the unvaccinated top-ranked male tennis player Novak Djokovic’s ignominious deportation from Australia.

Djokovic’s absence prompted claims this would be an inferior Grand Slam. Enter the contrasting Australian tennis characters of Ash Barty and her supporting cast of Nick Kyrgios and Thanasi Kokkinakis to fill the vacuum.

Their respective wins in the women’s singles and men’s doubles suddenly turned the tournament into a very Australian story, swamping the nation’s media with celebratory headlines like “I’m so proud to be Aussie”: emotional Barty savours win for the ages.

Was this just the last big party of the Australian summer, or did it offer more enduring lessons for the country and sport?

What these wins mean for Australia

Sport is without question hugely important in Australian society, although its advocates are prone to exaggerate its nationwide appeal. Most Australians don’t engage in organised sport and only about half go to venues as paying spectators.

The majority watch some sport on television, although often only when a much-publicised event happens, like a woman’s singles final involving a compatriot like Barty.

Research has shown that heavy users of sports media exhibit variously higher levels of Australian patriotism, nationalism and “smugness”, while also tending to be less internationalist in outlook. So, after local success at the Australian Open, some Australians really will feel they live in the world’s greatest country.

Spikes in sport participation around major events are usually short-lived. Of more pressing concern is the capacity of sporting success (like that of Barty and the so-called “Special Ks”) to attract people from historically marginalised communities as sport participants.

Read more:
The numbers game: how Ash Barty became the world’s best female tennis player

This is especially important in individual sports like tennis where there are significant socio-economic barriers related to the cost of training, travel and equipment.

Barty’s middle-Australia background, growing up in the Queensland city of Ipswich, offers encouragement to budding tennis players who don’t go to expensive private schools. She is a key member of the current generation of champion Australian sportswomen, alongside footballer Sam Kerr and cricketer Meg Lanning, who are making major inroads into the male-dominated institution of sport.

That she is Indigenous and was photographed after her win with renowned Aboriginal sportswomen Evonne Goolagong Cawley and Cathy Freeman, projects a powerful message that sport is – or should be – for all.

Kokkinakis (who has Greek heritage) and Kyrgios (who is half-Greek, half-Malay)
had materially comfortable upbringings, but their unexpected success is a global projection of Australian multiculturalism.

The wildcard entrants geeing up a raucous crowd also symbolises a wider societal drift away from “stuffed shirt” institutions – including sport – in favour of freer, less regulated avenues of self-expression.

A message for sport

Comparing the divergent public personae of Barty and Kyrgios, their successes perhaps suggest that professional sport as an industry should reconsider the way athletes choose to project themselves. Largely because of commercial sponsorship and endorsement considerations, they have been encouraged to be cautious, scripted and bland.

Many athletes prefer to use their own social media accounts to communicate directly with fans, avoiding journalistic scrutiny where possible in favour of self-advertisement.

In their different ways, both Barty and Kyrgios have bucked the trend. Barty has charted her own course through tennis, including dropping out for a while to play cricket. A determinedly unaffected “everywoman” who sips beer while watching the Australian Football League (AFL), she rarely uses the personal pronoun “I” or talks about herself in the third person. Barty prefers the collective “we” and constantly praises the large team, including family and friends, around her.

Read more:
‘The stars aligned’: Ash Barty’s Wimbledon win is an historic moment for Indigenous people and women in sport

Kyrgios has taken on the “bad boy” image pioneered by the likes of basketballer Dennis Rodman. Supremely talented but lacking the discipline of multiple Grand Slam winners such as Barty or Djokovic, he has carved out a niche as a volatile character whom crowds will come to watch.

He puts on a show involving skilled tennis play, on-court rants and off-court rows. The message here for the media-sports cultural complex is there is room for both types of sport personality in today’s crowded “attention economy”.

In being true to themselves, both Barty and Kyrgios have put their mental health ahead of their sports careers at times.

As fellow tennis player Naomi Osaka has demonstrated, the sport-media machine can swallow and spit out those who do not protect something of themselves from the constant demand to reveal all in public.

Soon the 2022 Australian Open will be in the rear-view mirror, but its lessons for sport and society will remain perpetually in play.

Read more:
Nick Kyrgios on probation: can controversial athletes sell a sport or are they bad for the business?

David Rowe has received funding from the Australian Research Council for the Discovery Projects ‘A Nation of “Good Sports”? Cultural Citizenship and Sport in Contemporary Australia’ (DP130104502) and ‘Australian Cultural Fields: National and Transnational Dynamics’ (DP140101970).

– ref. What the Ash Barty and ‘Special K’ tennis triumphs say about Australia and the buttoned-up sport industry – https://theconversation.com/what-the-ash-barty-and-special-k-tennis-triumphs-say-about-australia-and-the-buttoned-up-sport-industry-175993

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

Australia’s leading forecasters expect the Reserve Bank to resist pressure to lift interest rates all year, despite rising interest rates overseas, much higher inflation, plunging unemployment, and financial market traders pricing in two hikes in the next six months.

The 24-person forecasting panel assembled by The Conversation also predicts:

• weaker economic growth
• much lower housing price growth
• next to no growth in the Australian share market
• little or no further inroads into unemployment
• and wage growth so weak that real wages go backwards.

Two-thirds of the forecasting panel expect the Reserve Bank to leave rates ultra low until at least the first quarter of 2023, when it will have a better read on price pressure, wages and the jobs market.

Investors are banking on a different outcome.

Ahead of the Reserve Bank board’s first meeting for the year on Tuesday, securities exchange trading is pricing in an increase in the Reserve Bank’s cash rate from its historic low of 0.10% to 0.25% by June, followed by an increase to 0.5% by August, and two further increases to 1.0% by Christmas.

Read more:
Top economists see no prolonged high inflation, no rate hike in 2022

If that happened, it would leave mortgage rates higher than they were before COVID and before two years of ultra-low interest rates pushed up home prices 25%.

The Bank of England increased its cash rate from 0.1% to 0.25% in December and the Reserve Bank of New Zealand lifted its cash rate in October and November to 0.75%. A 40-year high in inflation is expected to force the US Federal Reserve to lift rates in March.

But China has moved in the other direction, cutting rates and imploring the rest of the world not to “slam on the brakes”.

On balance, no rate hike all year

Now in its fourth year, the Conversation survey taps the expertise of leading forecasters in 18 universities and financial institutions, among them economic modellers, former Treasury, OECD and Reserve Bank officials, and a former member of the Reserve Bank board. The panel was surveyed on January 20.

Eight of the panellists predict the Reserve Bank will begin lifting its cash rate this year. One, former OECD official Adrian Blundell-Wignall, expects the bank to begin lifting in March, ahead of the federal election.

But the bulk of those surveyed point to the bank’s target of achieving average inflation “sustainably within” its target band of 2-3% over time, noting that inflation has been well below that band for most of the past five years.

Governor Philip Lowe will outline his thinking after the first Reserve Bank board meeting of the year in an address to the National Press Club on Wednesday.
The panel expects him to suggest he will need to see more than a short-lived burst of higher inflation before he lifts rates.

The panel’s median (middle) forecast is for rate hikes to begin in April 2023. Three panellists, including Peter Tulip, a former research manager at the bank, expect no increase before February 2024.

Inflation not yet a problem

Although inflation has jumped to a four-decade high of 7% in the United States, and although Australia’s headline inflation rate has hit 3.5%, the so-called “underlying inflation rate” targeted by the Reserve Bank hasn’t yet reached the top of the bank’s 2-3% target band.

The panel’s average forecast is that it won’t reach it in 2022 or 2023, and that it will decline in 2023.

Real wages shrinking

But inflation is expected to be high enough to send real wages backwards, perhaps for two consecutive years – a first in the 25-year history of the wage price index.

In 2022 the panel’s average forecast is for wages growth of just 2.7% in the face of underlying inflation of 2.9%, pushing down real wages (buying power) 0.2%.

The panel expects wages growth to remain no higher than prices growth in the year that follows, despite historically low unemployment and labour shortages.

In 2023 it expects wages growth to do no better than underlying inflation at 2.8%.

GDP growth sinking

Economic growth is expected to sink. The panel expects the December 2021 bounce out of state lockdowns to be reported on March 2 to be followed by a March quarter impacted by something akin to “voluntary lockdowns”, as Australians restrict movements in response to Omicron.

Read more:
Why you might feel anxious after lockdown — and how to cope

Even as immigration and freedom of movement return, the panel expects economic growth to sink back towards 2.5%, which is roughly where it was before COVID and well below the 3-4% common in the 1990s and early 2000s.

Panellists pointed to “increasing social and political discord” and weaker demand from China, along with the “absence of any policies designed to lift productivity growth above dismal pre-COVID rates” as drags on growth, and identified government spending as one of the few supports.

The panel expects China’s economic growth to sink below US economic growth for the first time since the 1970s.

Mei Dong of the University of Melbourne said Chinese growth would suffer from a shrinking working-age population growth, declining employment participation, markedly slower productivity growth and a decision by Chinese authorities to de-emphasise GDP growth as an objective.

Spending held back

The broadest measure of overall living standards, real net national disposable income per capita, is expected to climb more strongly than real wages in 2022, reflecting growth in other sources of income including company profits.

Consumer spending is expected to grow by a healthy 3.7% in real terms, although by nowhere near as much as it would if the boost in saving during the COVID pandemic was fully unwound.

Household saving soared to an unprecedented 23.6% of income in mid-2020 amid concern about COVID, plunged down to a still-elevated 11.8% in mid 2021 after restrictions eased, and then soared again to 19.8% as Delta took hold.

The ratio is expected to remain at an elevated 12% throughout 2022, well above the few per cent common in the decades leading up to COVID, as households hang onto rather than spend income, uncertain about the future.

In December, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg spoke about the unusually high saving rate as a source of future spending, saying it was “a lot of damn money that’s been accumulated”. The panel’s forecasts suggest that accumulation will continue.

The panel expects non-mining business investment to grow strongly throughout 2022, although in response to budget measures rather than what economist Stephen Anthony describes as structural drivers moving in the other direction.

Panellist Mark Crosby says investment should slow towards the end of 2022 as the prospect of higher interest rates dents the construction industry.

Unemployment with a ‘4’, but not a ‘3’

Few of the panellists expect Australia’s unemployment rate to fall much below its present 4.2% in the two years ahead, despite what former ANZ economist Warren Hogan describes as the strongest labour demand Australia has ever seen.

He says the problem is the skills employers are looking for don’t match those of job-seekers and the workers likely to become available in the years ahead.

Janine Dixon says businesses are putting more people on their payrolls to cover sick leave and isolation leave, making it likely there has been an increase in underemployment.

In releasing the December budget update, Treasurer Frydenberg forecast “the addition of around one million jobs” between October 2021 and mid-2025.

It’s a projection broadly endorsed by the panel, although mainly because they believe that’s what population growth is likely to deliver.

Mark Crosby described it as a “pretty ordinary outcome given the rate of jobs growth seen prior to the pandemic”. Much would depend on migration. The more migrants, the more extra jobs.

Weaker home price growth

After a year in which national housing prices soared 22%, the panel is expecting more sedate growth of 6.5% in Sydney and 6.1% in Melbourne.

Katrina Ell of Moody’s Analytics believes the market has already peaked. She says mortgage rates will creep higher this year regardless of whether the Reserve Bank lifts official rates, and measures put in place by the Prudential Regulation Authority are starting to cramp investor interest.

Warren Hogan disagrees, seeing investors driving the next phase of the housing market. He says cashed-up upper middle to high income households will try to protect their wealth against rising inflation by buying real estate.

Subdued markets

In aggregate, the panel expects the exchange rate to stay broadly where it is at 71 to 72 US cents in 2022, and expects the ASX200 share price index to end the year about where it began, after climbing 13% in 2021 and sinking 9% in January.

They expect the iron ore price to fall from US$137 per tonne to US$98.

The panel:

This Conversation survey is the first not to include the views of Griffith University professor and former IMF and Treasury official Tony Makin who passed away suddenly in November, aged 66. His contributions were greatly valued.

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. Top economists expect RBA to hold interest rates low in 2022, as real wages fall – https://theconversation.com/top-economists-expect-rba-to-hold-interest-rates-low-in-2022-as-real-wages-fall-175054

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By BJ Newton, Senior Research Fellow in Social Policy and Social Work, UNSW

We are edging closer to another anniversary of Kevin Rudd’s National Apology to the Stolen Generations on February 13.

At the time of the National Apology in 2008, there were 9,070 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in out-of-home care in Australia. Today, that number has increased to approximately 18,900, with First Nations children representing more than 40% of all children in out-of-home care.

The Family Matters Report led by SNAICC estimated that by 2030, the number of First Nations children in out-of-home care will more than double again without “profound and wholesale change to legislation, policy and practice”.

Australian governments are responding to this crisis at both the national and state levels. One of the Closing the Gap targets is to reduce the number of First Nations children in out-of-home care by 45% by 2031.

Most recently, the national framework for supporting Australia’s children prioritises addressing the overrepresentation of First Nations children in out-of-home care.

Likewise, all states and territories in Australia are also focusing on “permanency” outcomes to reduce the number of children living in out-of-home care.

Read more:
First Nations families need support to stay together, before we create another Stolen Generation

Permanency policies

Permanency refers to recent changes in child protection legislation, policies and casework practice aimed at providing all children in care with a permanent, safe and stable home throughout their childhoods.

Permanency policies appear to be motivated by the best interests of children, but moving Aboriginal children to permanent care orders has a range of benefits for the state. Not only does it appear progress is being made towards reducing overrepresentation in out-of-home care, it also absolves child protection departments of any further financial, practical or moral responsibility to these children or their families.

Of significant concern is these permanency policies do not necessarily mean these children will return to their families. Rather, it means many will move out of the care system through guardianship or adoption.

Under permanency policies, parents must prove within two years of their child’s removal they can address the child protection department’s safety concerns for their child, otherwise these other options will be pursued.

Aboriginal community-controlled organisations and advocates strongly oppose permanent care orders that result in the adoption of First Nations children or their guardianship by non-Aboriginal carers. They also argue this two-year timeframe is unrealistic for parents struggling to navigate a range of interpersonal, social and bureaucratic systems to meet the department’s requirements to have their children returned.

Child reunification (also called restoration) is the process of returning children to their parent or caregiver from out-of-home care following a statutory removal. Across all states and territories in Australia, reunification is the preferred policy pathway for children exiting out-of-home care.

However, this is not reflected in child protection statistics, which show the number of exits to guardianship orders increasing from 18,919 children in 2017 to 21,523 in 2020.

In addition, of the 10,612 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children for whom restoration was a possibility in 2019-20, only 14.8% were returned home.

Read more:
Thirteen years after ‘Sorry’, too many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are still being removed from their homes

First Nations families are set up to fail

Current approaches to child reunification come from a perspective where parents are blamed for the problems leading to a child’s removal and preventing their return home. Their perceived failings are considered instead of the external factors that prevent children from returning to their families (and indeed contributed to their removal in the first place).

For example, research for the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute examined the intersections between housing and domestic and family violence experienced by First Nations women. This research found homelessness and insecure housing played a significant role in preventing reunification for children who had been removed from their mothers.

Government departments also need to be held accountable when bureaucratic processes and poor decision-making prevent or delay children’s return home.

The 2019 Family is Culture Review found a restoration rate of 17.5% of the 1,318 Aboriginal children taken into care in NSW in 2015-16. The review noted this rate could have been much higher if the NSW Department of Communities and Justice explored the possibility of more families being reunited in these cases and worked towards that goal.

Instead, children remained in out-of-home care or were moved to other permanency orders.

The review cited unclear reunification processes for these families. Parents were often dismissed and discriminated against by child protection services, and there was also as a pattern of mothers being too scared to report domestic violence for fear of having their children taken away.

The review also found impossible goals are set by child protection services for parents living with disability and disadvantage.

Inaccessible and inappropriate services are also barriers to parents achieving their reunification goals in the timeframes. These include securing housing or undergoing a mental health or rehabilitation treatment program, for which waitlists can be very long.

The National Apology was delivered to the many thousands of First Nations peoples impacted by the genocidal protection and assimilation policies that dominated the 20th century in Australia. We like to think these harmful policies are behind us, but they have merely shifted to the guise of promoting a “permanent home for life” for Aboriginal children.

Read more:
Stolen Generation redress scheme won’t reach everyone affected by the policies that separated families

If governments are truly committed to reducing the number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in out-of-home care in a way that meets the needs of families and communities, then a whole-of-system approach is needed.

Parents cannot be expected to manage complex social and structural factors beyond their control. These external challenges should not keep children separated from their parents.

The focus on reducing the overrepresentation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in out-of-home care needs to shift. We need not be preoccupied with the number of children who leave care, but rather the ultimate goal of increasing the number of children returning home.

BJ Newton receives funding from the Australian Research Council to lead the research project ‘Bring them home, keep them home: charting the experiences, successful pathways and outcomes of Aboriginal families whose children have been restored from Out-of-Home Care’. Aboriginal community-controlled organisations and AbSec partner on this research.

– ref. Reunifying First Nations families: the only way to reduce the overrepresentation of children in out-of-home care – https://theconversation.com/reunifying-first-nations-families-the-only-way-to-reduce-the-overrepresentation-of-children-in-out-of-home-care-175513

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Margie Danchin, Paediatrician at the Royal Childrens Hospital and Associate Professor and Clinician Scientist, University of Melbourne and MCRI, Murdoch Children’s Research Institute

Many parents across Australia will be COVID testing their kids at home using rapid antigen tests (RATs), as school returns across many states next week.

The Victorian and New South Wales governments strongly recommend twice-weekly testing of school students and staff.

This may be challenging for many parents, especially if their child has developmental or behavioural difficulties.

So, how can you safely perform a RAT on your child at home and help them to engage in the process?

Preparing for the test

As with vaccination, the key to performing the test successfully is preparing the child well and explaining what will happen, to give them some control over the situation and to minimise anxiety.

Sit down and talk with your child and explain:

• they will need to do a RAT in the morning twice a week (if in Victoria or NSW). It wont be forever, but will be needed for the first four weeks of school, at least

• they can go to school if the test is negative

• and that all their friends will be doing it as well.

It doesn’t need to be scary or painful. With the right technique, you’ll be able to perform this test quickly and safely at home, or allow your child to do it themselves if they can.

In general, give yourself about 20 minutes, and remember not to rush the process the first few times you do it with your child.

It would help to show your child a video, like the one below, on how it’s done as you familiarise yourself with the instructions.

There’s no need to downplay the experience by saying “it won’t hurt”. Acknowledge it may be a little uncomfortable. Explain you’ll do it together and they can show you how they would like it done for them. You may like to practice with a small cotton bud prior to using the actual RAT kit, either with them or another adult.

How to perform the test

First, lay the kit out on a table with the swab packet ready to be opened, the liquid solution tube and caps, and the test device.

For a nasal swab test, begin by blowing their nose and washing your hands. Then rest their head on a chair with a headrest, or on a pillow on the sofa where they can rest comfortably. In younger kids, you can have them sitting on your lap with their head resting on the fold of your elbow.

The swabbing hand holds the swab like a pencil, with the rest of your hand or little finger on their cheek, upper lip or chin, as if you’re about to draw a moustache on their face. This will help stabilise the swab in case the child suddenly moves or sneezes.

They key is to aim the swab low (flat against the bottom of the nasal passage) in the nose and go in slow.

Many people have a crooked nasal septum, which is the wall dividing the left and right of the nose, meaning there may be more room on one side of the nose than the other. There’s also much more room lower down the nose, and going too high and too fast will cause discomfort.

Read more:
How to talk to your child about a COVID diagnosis … and share the news with others

Think low and slow and aim down and back, rather than up high. This will reduce pain and allow more time for the swab stick to capture as much material as possible, thereby increasing the likelihood of a more accurate test.

Insert the swab about 1–2 cm into the nose and rotate it for 15 seconds, or about 4–5 times. Repeat on the other side. Never push against a hard resistance which may cause pain.

Then, dip the swab tip into the liquid solution, giving the tube a good squeeze and mix for about 15 seconds before closing the lid and then dropping the solution into the well on the test tray. Discard the swab stick carefully. Wash your hands and wait. Most test kits require 15 minutes, but please follow the instructions for your particular brand.

Congratulate your child on doing a great job! We want this to be a positive experience for them as it’ll be part of our routine for a while.

After having this done a couple of times, some kids may prefer to do this themselves. Giving them autonomy and the knowledge that it’s not painful or scary will be empowering. Believe it or not, they may even start to think of it as quite fun if it doesn’t hurt.

What about saliva tests?

Saliva liquid tests are different altogether.

They’re not a throat swab. They may require a short period of fasting, depending on the kit, up to 30 minutes of no food or drink prior to the test.

The child will have to learn to do a few deep coughs into a closed mouth and then either express their saliva into a container or to have a lollipop device which they suck on.

The timing on reading the result is also dependent on the brand.

RATs aren’t the only way to minimise transmission

No matter how well you do it, some children will find this harder than others. We understand that. But honest education and practice runs will help the vast majority of kids.

The key is planning, discussion, watching videos and attempting to make it a bit fun to try and take away some of their anxieties. Demonstrating the test on an adult may also help.

Of course, RAT testing isn’t the only way to try and minimise COVID cases at school. There will be a range of other strategies that kids will be asked to do.

This includes vaccination, wearing masks inside and potentially some outdoor learning.

Changes are being made to improve ventilation in schools by installing air-purifiers, especially in high-risk areas in schools such as sick-bays and canteens, and trying to install shade sails for outside learning.

There’s a huge push to get as many kids as possible to receive one dose of vaccine before schools starts. Over 30% of primary kids in Victoria have had one dose, with the aim to reach over 80% by mid-February. There will also be pop-up clinics at some schools in the next few weeks.

The dose interval for children at higher risk of COVID (including those with some underlying medical conditions) has been shortened from eight to three weeks in the context of ongoing community transmission to ensure vulnerable kids are prioritised.

Booster doses for teachers are also critical.

There’s much to do to support teachers, families and children, especially medically vulnerable kids, to make schools as safe as they can be. It’s important to prioritise face-to-face learning to maximise the education, well-being, and mental health of our kids.

Eric Levi, Consultant ENT Surgeon at St. Vincent’s Hospital and The Royal Children’s Hospital Melbourne, co-authored this article.

Margie Danchin receives funding from the Victorian and Commonwealth Departments of Health, NHMRC, DFAT and WHO. She is chair, Collaboration on Social Science and Immunisation (COSSI). This article is co-authored with thanks to Dr Eric Levi, FRACS, MBBS, B.Sc, PGDipSurgAnat, MPH&TM, Specialist Otolaryngologist Head & Neck Surgeon, RCH, Melbourne.

– ref. Go low, go slow: how to rapid antigen test your kid for COVID as school returns – https://theconversation.com/go-low-go-slow-how-to-rapid-antigen-test-your-kid-for-covid-as-school-returns-175615

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Aleasha McCallion, Strategic Projects Manager, Monash Sustainable Development Institute, Monash University

At the beginning of the pandemic, many of us opted to buy reusable fabric masks to help fight the spread of COVID – they’re better for the environment than disposables, can be locally made, and come in a range of creative designs.

But since the highly infectious Omicron variant emerged, we’ve been urged to wear well-fitted respirator mask as a first choice (N95, KN95, or P mask). These, however, have a short shelf-life, and it may be jarring to switch back to a more wasteful product for many environmentally-minded Aussies.

While it’s too soon to say exactly how many disposable masks go to landfill in Australia, we do know textile waste is already a massive issue. Every year, each Australian throws away around 23 kilograms of clothes on average, with more than 780,000 tonnes of leather, rubber and other textile waste generated Australia-wide.

As waste generation is likely to increase as we protect ourselves against Omicron, are there ways we can minimise our waste without compromising our health?

Making the most out of masks

Australians have been advised since mid-2020 that N95 masks offer the best protection against coronavirus. They typically offer a tighter fit to the face and a higher level of filtration than fabric masks, protecting the wearer from aerosols and droplets.

But supply chain issues, concerns of shortages, and lower transmission rates of earlier variants meant the comparatively less effective fabric and surgical masks were fit-for-purpose in lower-risk settings. This is no longer the case under the Omicron variant.

An easy way to minimise waste if you own N95 masks is to safely extend their life. In hospital settings, it’s advised to avoid use beyond one day and to dispose if they become soiled or moist.

This, however, is not realistic for the general public, such as when supply is low. There are a range of methods to reuse N95 masks safely, which are supported by the mask’s inventor. There are also re-usable options such as elastometric respirators.

Read more:
Time to upgrade from cloth and surgical masks to respirators? Your questions answered

For disposable respirators, the most straightforward reuse method in non-medical settings is to rotate your mask every three or four days, storing it in a clean paper bag when not in use. Wash your hands thoroughly before and after you touch your mask, and keep your mask dry – if your mask gets wet, stop using it. Consider numbering your masks so you don’t mix them up.

The US Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends using N95s up to five times before throwing it away (if they’ve been kept clean and aren’t damaged). But it’s important to note the long-term effects of cleaning and reuse are still unknown.

There’s no need to throw away fabric masks. Having your favourite fabric masks on hand as backup in your car, bag or pockets is important because any mask is better than no mask in low-risk and fleeting contact settings, such as outside.

Double masking – placing your fabric mask over a disposable surgical mask – offers increased protection compared to a single fabric or surgical mask. And fabric masks will also offer protection against other droplet-based diseases, like the flu.

Sustainability in healthcare

The surge in disposable mask waste points to a broader issue that’s getting increasingly recognised: hospital waste.

Take single use plastic hospital gowns, for example. An estimated 1 million gowns have been used each year of the pandemic at just one (of six) acute public hospitals in Victoria, according to an ongoing investigation undertaken by co-author Forbes McGain.

This number is a conservative estimate, and only captures public hospitals when we know disposal gowns are used in many other settings. This includes in private hospitals, aged care, residential and home care, allied health services and testing and vaccination centres.

Environmentally sustainable healthcare is an emerging field aimed at finding alternative solutions to the waste generated in healthcare, its impacts on the environment, and how we educate health professionals on sustainable practices.

For example, research shows there’s potential to expand the “tiered approach”, which offers further choice of protection depending on low or high risk settings. For example, integrating reusable gowns when appropriate could help keep people safe, put less strain on supply systems, and help reduce waste.

Read more:
Health care has a huge environmental footprint, which then harms health. This is a matter of ethics

Spearheading this effort is textile scientist Meriel Chamberlin, who is collaborating with clinicians to develop compliant, safe and reusable textile gowns that offer protection and comfort with a lower environmental impact than disposables.

When it comes to masks, more sustainable options are also being developed. This includes masks and filters made from biodegradable agricultural crop waste.

Research is also underway to identify processes for re-purposing discarded single-use face masks into road pavements materials.

Six ways to offset our daily waste

Even during a pandemic, people don’t want to be wasteful. Tellingly, “Plastic Free July” saw a huge global increase in participation from 250 million participants in 2019, to 326 million in 2020.

There are many ways to reduce waste without compromising your health. The key is to focus on behaviours within your control, such as minimising single-use plastics. To help offset your daily waste from disposable masks, consider:

1. making the switch to refillable cleaning products to cut down on single-use packaging (there are even delivery options)

2. if you’ve shifted to online grocery delivery, choose paper over plastic bags and either reuse them at home or compost them after use

3. when dining at home, repurpose your leftovers, prioritise older food, and avoid over-buying to cut down on food waste

4. if you’re shopping online more, find second-hand retailers and peer-to-peer platforms to give pre-loved items a new life (there are delivery options for this too)

5. before throwing away household items (clothing, furniture), try selling or giving them away online – you’d be surprised what other people find useful

6. if your household items are damaged, get them repaired, or use them for a different purpose, such as using well-worn clothes as cleaning rags.

Just because we’re in a period of significant social change, doesn’t mean we have to lose momentum on sustainability.

Read more:
Avoiding single-use plastic was becoming normal, until coronavirus. Here’s how we can return to good habits

Forbes McGain is currently undertaking collaborative research via two UniMelb/Western Health grants on: how to extend the use of barrier/infection control gowns, and developing a reusable face mask. He has also received grants from NHMRC, MRFF, ANZCA (college of anaesthetists), CICM (college of intensive care medicine), and is actively involved with Doctors for the Environment Australia.

Aleasha McCallion and Kim Borg 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. Have you stopped wearing reusable fabric masks? Here’s how to cut down waste without compromising your health – https://theconversation.com/have-you-stopped-wearing-reusable-fabric-masks-heres-how-to-cut-down-waste-without-compromising-your-health-175243

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

As election year opens, Michelle Grattan speaks with Tanya Plibersek, Labor’s spokeswoman on education and women, about the opposition’s agenda in these two critical areas.

Violence against women is one of our society’s most pressing and intractable issues, and front and centre for Plibersek, who says there is a way to do better.

“We do know so much about what we can do to reduce risks of violence in interpersonal relationships. And of course, it starts with our youngest Australians,” she says. We “need to rely much more on parents to model healthy relationships in the home.”

“It disturbs me that the rates … of domestic violence don’t seem to be coming down and in fact, one of the few areas of crime where statistics continue to go up are areas like sexual assault. So we need to do better at prevention. We need to do better at policing and in our justice system.”

Despite these negatives, Plibersek sees last year’s March4Justice and increased public and media awareness as signs “things are changing, that our society is changing in a way that is, I hope, unstoppable.”

On education, Plibersek talks through the detail of Anthony Albanese’s announcement of $440 million for schools for improvements such as better ventilation and also for mental health and wellbeing initiatives for kids, so hard hit during the pandemic.

As university fees are set to rise for many students this year, Plibersek has said that under a Labor government Australians can expect “a commitment to a fundamental overhaul of our university sector”.

She says she wants to “make sure that every young Australian who is prepared to work hard and study hard can get a place at university and that no one’s discouraged because of the fees”. But although highly critical of the government’s controversial new fees structure Plibersek cannot give a commitment a Labor government would change it quickly. That would need to be worked through with the universities, she says.

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

– ref. Politics with Michelle Grattan: Tanya Plibersek on parents’ role in reducing violence against women – https://theconversation.com/politics-with-michelle-grattan-tanya-plibersek-on-parents-role-in-reducing-violence-against-women-175907