When we release a group of endangered animals into the wild, we always hope they will survive. They usually don’t. We find bilby carcasses under bushes, bettongs ripped apart by feral cats, and tufts of rock wallaby fur in fox scats.
Over the last 25 years I’ve seen the devastation caused by introduced foxes and cats firsthand during attempts to conserve our threatened mammals. At one of my research sites, Arid Recovery, we have tried again and again to protect bilbies, bettongs and wallabies outside fences.
Unfortunately, our native animals have not co-evolved with these canny predators and simply don’t have the anti-predator behaviours or physical traits needed to avoid them.
So what to do? After years of discouraging results, we’re trying something new. We want to help our native marsupials evolve to become warier and better at surviving. Not in fenced-off sanctuaries – but in the wild, alongside these extraordinarily clever predators.
Too lethal: A feral cat hunting at night in central Australia. Author provided
Why are our native mammals such easy prey?
If our native marsupials had more time to adapt, we wouldn’t have to do this. But rabbits, foxes and cats operate like an unholy trinity. European settlement brought high rabbit numbers. These animals competed with native marsupials for food and became food for cats and foxes – inflating their numbers in turn. The damage was exacerbated by widespread land clearing and overgrazing.
Our mammal extinctions to date include burrowing or smaller marsupials, including wallabies, bandicoots and rodents mostly within the critical weight range of 35 grams to 5.5 kilograms. Those smaller or larger are safer. Those in the middle? Cat and fox food.
The problem we are faced with in conservation is doubly difficult, because to protect the most vulnerable species – Shark Bay bandicoots, burrowing bettongs, greater stick-nest rats – we have to breed them in islands of safety. They live behind high fences while the predators roam outside.
When you breed animals in captivity, they become even more naive about predators. So what’s the solution? Do we simply keep stocks of these rare marsupials on life support?
Researchers release a burrowing bettong in the Arid Recovery sanctuary in South Australia. Author provided
We spend millions of dollars a year controlling cats and foxes by trapping, shooting and baiting them. Much less effort has gone into improving the responses of prey animals.
If our native mammals are to claw back any part of their previous range, they will eventually need to co-exist with cats and foxes in more places in the wild. And to do that, they need our help.
Can we really speed up adaptation?
To date, most efforts to improve naive prey animals’ responses to predators pair an unpleasant experience with a predator cue. Rubber bands, water pistols, loud noises or physically chasing animals are paired with cues like taxidermied foxes, models, cat odour or vocalisations. Unfortunately, results are generally poor or short lived.
In response to these challenges, we have been testing a more interventionist approach – in situ predator exposure. This is where we expose threatened mammals to low densities of real predators over long time periods to accelerate natural selection and direct learning through real predator encounters.
For the six years we have been running this experiment in South Australia, the approach has yielded some promising results.
We placed bilbies and burrowing bettongs into a fenced paddock and added low numbers of feral cats. Then we waited. Over the next six years, we compared their physical and behavioural traits over time with a control population not exposed to predators.
Greater bilby photographed at the Arid Recovery centre. Alexandra Ross, Author provided
We found cat-exposed bilbies became warier and sought areas of thicker cover within only a couple of years. Not only that, they had higher survival rates than control bilbies when both were reintroduced to an area where cats were present.
Within 18 months, predator-exposed bettongs became significantly harder to approach at night. Remarkably, their hind feet became longer relative to control populations over several years and they had significantly faster reaction times during escapes from predators, though not yet fast enough to show a significant difference in survival between control and cat-exposed populations.
In short, exposing naive prey to predators changed behaviour and in some cases survival after just a few generations. This is positive news.
You might be wondering why this doesn’t just happen naturally in wild populations. In some cases it does. Many native mammals now recognise and respond to dingoes, which have only been in Australia for a few thousand years. The problem is that cat and fox densities are likely too high to enable prey to adapt before local extinction occurs.
Anti-predator behaviour can be lost within only a few generations, studies have shown. It’s heartening to know it can also be regained quickly.
Burrowing bettongs were once extremely common across Australia’s interior. Photo by Andrew Freeman, Author provided
Will these changes endure?
What we need to know is if these changes are due to plasticity or selection. If it’s plasticity, it means the changes and learning experienced by individual bilbies and bettongs may not be passed on to the next generation.
If selection is at work, it means ongoing predator exposure could result in changes to the genetic makeup of the species, with further improvements and adaptations over time.
So which is it? Our initial results suggest selection may be occurring in some traits such as hind foot length. Similar efforts to teach northern quolls to avoid cane toads have found learned behaviour can be inherited.
This kind of assisted evolution is also being trialled in corals to give them the adaptations necessary to survive our warming oceans.
To achieve the dream of successful coexistence between introduced predators and our native mammals, we will need a range of approaches. These include better predator control methods to reduce numbers, improved habitat quality for our mammals, and enhanced prey responses.
We urgently need a better understanding of predator thresholds – the level of predation at which native species can maintain stable or increasing populations while applying enough selective pressure to evolve new behaviours and traits. Under these conditions we could expect some (but not all) native species to eventually adapt to introduced predators.
After spending the last three decades watching our native animals continually decline, we are now at the point where we need to carefully explore new options with an open mind.
Katherine Moseby receives funding from Arid Recovery and The Australian Research Council.
Pacific Island New Zealanders are now 90 percent fully vaccinated against covid-19, and a public health expert is urging them to keep up that momentum in the New Year.
In a daily briefing, the Ministry of Health said 90 percent of eligible Pacific people in New Zealand had now had both vaccines.
Associate Professor Collin Tukuitonga from the University of Auckland said that is a tremendous effort and the threat of omicron is the next challenge.
He hopes the community embraces booster shots to guard against the more infectious variant.
“It looks as if the two doses doesn’t give you enough protection for omicron, and the most important priority now is to get people to get their boosters as soon as that’s possible.”
He hopes as many regions move into lower levels of restrictions in the government’s Framework Protection system people will still stay vigilant, contact trace and get tested.
“There’s a risk that people might have gone back into a lower level of alertness, so I would hope that we maintain that [alertness].
Ramp up once again “In mid-late January I think we’re going to have to ramp up once again in respect of rolling out the vaccine for the young ones.”
Children aged between 5 and 11 become eligible for covid-19 vaccinations in mid-January, and those 12 and older are already eligible.
“Parents are perhaps less certain about the benefits and more concerned about risks. So every effort is going to be needed to get the vaccination rollout in children up to the kind of levels that is needed.”
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
The Pacific year has closed with growing tensions over sovereignty and self-determination issues and growing stress over the ravages of covid-19 pandemic in a region that was largely virus-free in 2020.
Just two days before the year 2021 wrapped up, Bougainville President Ishmael Toroama took the extraordinary statement of denying any involvement by the people or government of the autonomous region of Papua New Guinea being involved in any “secret plot” to overthrow the Manasseh Sogavare government in Solomon Islands.
Insisting that Bougainville is “neutral” in the conflict in neighbouring Solomon Islands where riots last month were fuelled by anti-Chinese hostilities, Toroama blamed one of PNG’s two daily newspapers for stirring the controversy.
“Contrary to the sensationalised report in the Post-Courier (Thursday, December 30, 2021) we do not have a vested interest in the conflict and Bougainville has nothing to gain from overthrowing a democratically elected leader of a foreign nation,” Toroama said.
The frontpage report in the Post-Courier appeared to be a beat-up just at the time Australia was announcing a wind down of the peacekeeping role in the Solomon Islands. A multilateral Pacific force of more than 200 Australian, Fiji, New Zealand and PNG police and military have been deployed since the riots in a bid to ward off further strife.
PNG Police Commissioner David Manning confirmed to the newspaper having receiving reports of Papua New Guineans allegedly training with Solomon Islanders to overthrow the Sogavare government in the New Year.
According to the Post-Courier’s Gorethy Kenneth, reports reaching Manning had claimed that Bougainvilleans with connections to Solomon Islanders had “joined forces with an illegal group in Malaita to train them and supply arms”.
The Bougainvilleans were also accused of “leading this alleged covert operation” in an effort to cause division in Solomon Islands.
However, Foreign Affairs Minister Soroi Eoe told the newspaper there had been no official information or reports of this alleged operation. The Solomon Islands Foreign Ministry was also cool over the reports.
Warning over ‘sensationalism’
How the PNG Post-Courier reported the “secret plot” Bougainville claim on Thursday. Image: Screenshot PNG Post-Courier
Toroama warned news media against sensationalising national security issues with its Pacific neighbours, saying the Bougainville Peace Agreement “explicitly forbids Bougainville to engage in any foreign relations so it is absurd to assume that Bougainville would jeopardise our own political aspirations by acting in defiance” of these provisions.
This is a highly sensitive time for Bougainville’s political aspirations as it negotiates a path in response the 98 percent nonbinding vote in support of independence during the 2019 referendum.
In contrast, another Melanesian territory’s self-determination aspirations received a setback in the third and final referendum on independence in Kanaky New Caledonia on December 12 where a decisive more than 96 percent voted “non”.
Bougainville President Ishmael Toroama … responding to the PNG Post-Courier. Image: Bougainville Today
However, less than half (43.87 percent) of the electorate voted – far less than the “yes” vote last year – in response to the boycott called by a coalition of seven Kanak independence groups out of respect to the disproportionate number of indigenous people among the 280 who had died in the recent covid-19 outbreak.
The result was a dramatic reversal of the two previous referendums in 2018 and 2020 where there was a growing vote for independence and the flawed nature of the final plebiscite has been condemned by critics undoing three decades of progress in decolonisation and race relations.
In 2018, only 57 percent opposed independence and this dropped to 53 percent in 2020 with every indication that the pro-independence “oui” vote would rise further for this third plebiscite in spite of the demographic odds against the indigenous Kanaks who make up just 40 percent of the territory’s population of 280,000.
Kanaky turbulence in 1980s A turbulent period in the 1980s – known locally as “Les événements” – culminated in a farcical referendum on independence in 1987 which returned a 98 percent rejection of independence. This was boycotted by the pro-independence groups when then President François Mitterrand broke a promise that short-term French residents would not be able to vote.
A Kanak international advocate of the Confédération Nationale du Travail (CNT) trade union and USTKE member, Rock Haocas, says from Paris that the latest referendum is “a betrayal” of the past three decades of progress and jeopardises negotiations for a future statute on the future of Kanaky New Caledonia.
The pro-independence parties have refused to negotiate on the future until after the French presidential elections in April this year. A new political arrangement is due in 18 months.
“The people have made concessions,” Haocas told Asia Pacific Report, referencing the many occasions indigenous Kanaks have done so, such as:
• Concessions to the “two colours, one people” agreement with the Union Caledonian party in 1953; • Recognition of the “victims of history” in Nainville-Les-Roches in 1983; • The Matignon and Oudnot Agreement in 1988; • The Nouméa Accord in 1998; and • The opening of the electoral body (to the native).
‘Getting closer to each other’ “The period of the agreements allowed the different communities to get to know each other, to get closer to each other, to be together in schools, to work together in companies and development projects, to travel in France, the Pacific, and in other countries,” says Haocas.
“It’s also the time of the internet. Colonisation is not hidden in Kanaky anymore; it faces the world. People talk about it more easily. The demand for independence has become more explainable, and more exportable. There has been more talk of interdependence, and no longer of a strict break with France.
“But for the last referendum France banked on the fear of one with the other to preserve its own interests.”
Is this a return to the dark days of 1987 when France conducted the “sham referendum”?
“We’re not really in the same context. We are here in the framework of the Nouméa Accord with three consultations — and for which we asked for the postponement of the last one scheduled for December 12,” says Haocas.
“It was for health reasons with its cultural and societal impacts that made the campaign difficult, it was not fundamentally for political reasons.
“The French state does not discuss, does not seek consensus — it imposes, even if it means going back on its word.”
Haocas says it is now time to reflect and analyse the results of the referendum.
“The result of the ballot box speaks for itself. Note the calm in the pro-independence world. Now there are no longer three actors — the indépendantistes, the anti-independence and the state – but two, the indépendantistes and the state.”
Rock Haocas in a 2018 interview before the the three referendums on independence. Video: CNT union
Comparisons between Kanaky and Palestine In a devastating critique of the failings of the referendum and of the sincerity of France’s about-turn in its three-decade decolonisation policy, Professor Joseph Massad, a specialist in modern Arab politics and intellectual history at Columbia University, New York, made comparisons with Israeli occupation and apartheid in Palestine.
“Its expected result was a defeat for the cause of independence. It seems that European settler-colonies remain beholden to the white colonists, not only in the larger white settler-colonies in the Americas and Oceania, but also in the smaller ones, whether in the South Pacific, Southern Africa, Palestine, or Hawai’i,” wrote Dr Massad in Middle East Eye.
“Just as Palestine is the only intact European settler-colony in the Arab world after the end of Italian settler-colonialism in Libya in the 1940s and 1950s, the end of French settler-colonialism in Morocco and Tunisia in the 1950s, and the liberation of Algeria in 1962 (some of Algeria’s French colonists left for New Caledonia), Kanaky remains the only major country subject to French settler-colonialism after the independence of most of its island neighbours.
“As with the colonised Palestinians, who have less rights than those acquired by the Kanaks in the last half century, and who remain subject to the racialised power of their colonisers, the colonised Kanaks remain subject to the racialised power of the white French colonists and their mother country.
“No wonder [President Emmanuel] Macron is as ebullient and proud as Israel’s leaders.”
Professor Joseph Massad … “European settler-colonies remain beholden to the white colonists.” Image: Screenshot Middle East Eye
West Papuan hopes elusive as violence worsens Hopes for a new United Nations-supervised referendum for West Papua have remained elusive for the Melanesian region colonised by Indonesia in the 1960s and annexed after a sham plebiscite known euphemistically as the “Act of Free Choice” in 1969 when 1025 men and women hand-picked by the Indonesian military voted unanimously in favour of Indonesian control of their former Dutch colony.
Two years ago the United Liberation Movement of West Papua (ULMWP) was formed to step up the international diplomatic effort for Papuan self-determination and independence. However, at the same time armed resistance has grown and Indonesia has responded with a massive build up of more than 20,000 troops in the two Melanesian provinces of Papua and West Papua and an exponential increase on human rights violations and draconian measures by the Jakarta authorities.
As 2021 ended, interim West Papuan president-in-exile Benny Wenda distributed a Christmas message thanking the widespread international support – “our solidarity groups, the International Parliamentarians for West Papua, the International Lawyers for West Papua, all those across the world who continue to tirelessly support us.
“Religious leaders, NGOs, politicians, diplomats, individuals, everyone who has helped us in the Pacific, Caribbean, Africa, America, Europe, UK: thank you.”
Wenda sounded an optimistic note in his message: “Our goal is getting closer. Please help us keep up the momentum in 2022 with your prayers, your actions and your solidarity. You are making history through your support, which will help us achieve independence.”
But Wenda was also frank about the grave situation facing West Papua, which was “getting worse and worse”.
“We continue to demand that the Indonesian government release the eight students arrested on December 1 for peacefully calling for their right to self-determination. We also demand that the military operations, which continue in Intan Jaya, Puncak, Nduga and elsewhere, cease,” he said, adding condemnation of Jakarta for using the covid-19 pandemic as an excuse to prevent the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights visiting West Papua.
New covid-19 wave hits Fiji Fiji, which had already suffered earlier in 2021 along with Guam and French Polynesia as one of the worst hit Pacific countries hit by the covid-19 pandemic, is now in the grip of a third wave of infection with 780 active cases.
Fiji’s Health Ministry has reported one death and 309 new cases of covid-19 in the community since Christmas Day — 194 of them confirmed in the 24 hours just prior to New Year’s Eve. This is another blow to the tourism industry just at a time when it was seeking to rebuild.
Health Secretary Dr Dr Fong is yet to confirm whether these cases were of the delta variant or the more highly contagious omicron mutant. It may just be a resurgence of the endemic delta variant, says Dr Fong, “however we are also working on the assumption that the omicron variant is already here, and is being transmitted within the community.
“We expect that genomic sequencing results of covid-19 positive samples sent overseas will confirm this in due course.”
A DevPolicy blog article at Australian National University earlier in 2021 warned against applying Western notions of public health to the Pacific country. Communal living is widespread across squatter settlements, urban villages, and other residential areas in the Lami-Suva-Nausori containment zone.
“Household sizes are generally bigger than in Western countries, and households often include three generations. This means elderly people are more at risk as they cannot easily isolate. At the same time, identifying a ‘household’ and determining who should be in a ‘bubble’ is difficult.
“‘Stay home’ is equally difficult to define, because the concept of ‘home’ has a broader meaning in the Fijian context compared to Western societies.”
While covid pandemic crises are continuing to wreak havoc in some Pacific communities into 2022, the urgency of climate change still remains the critical issue facing the region. After the lacklustre COP26 global climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland, in November, Pacific leaders — who were mostly unable to attend due to the covid lockdowns — have stepped up their global advocacy.
End of ’empty promises’ on climate Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown appealed in a powerful article that it was time for the major nations producing global warming emissions to shelve their “empty promises” and finally deliver on climate financing.
‘As custodians of these islands, we have a moral duty to protect [them] — for today and the unborn generations of our Pacific anau. Sadly, we are unable to do that because of things beyond our control …
“Sea level rise is alarming. Our food security is at risk, and our way of life that we have known for generations is slowly disappearing. What were ‘once in a lifetime’ extreme events like category 5 cyclones, marine heatwaves and the like are becoming more severe.
“Despite our negligible contribution to global emissions, this is the price we pay. We are talking about homes, lands and precious lives; many are being displaced as we speak.”
Marylou Mahé … ““As a young Kanak woman, my voice is often silenced, but I want to remind the world that … we are acting for our future. Image: PCF
“As a young Kanak woman, my voice is often silenced, but I want to remind the world that we are here, we are standing, and we are acting for our future. The state’s spoken word may die tomorrow, but our right to recognition and self-determination never will.”
National Federation Party leader Professor Biman Prasad has asked if the Fiji government inquiry into the Office of the Auditor-General will be held in public.
Professor Prasad was responding to the announcement this week of a Commission of Inquiry into the OAG “to inquire into and report on: the conduct, operations and performance of the Office of the Auditor-General” and other issues concerning the office.
Prasad, an economist before his political career, said commissions of inquiry were usually held in public.
“So we ask the government if this will be a public inquiry?” he said.
“Will the public hear the allegations against the Auditor-General’s office? Will the Auditor-General be allowed to respond in public to the Government’s complaints?”
“The government refuses to talk about Walesi’s accounts. Even though Walesi’s accounts up to 2017 are ready, the government refuses to release them.”
Petty argument while people in poverty The NFP leader said the government would end 2021 as a “laughing stock”.
He said government “only cares about winning a petty argument even when tens of thousands of people are still living in poverty and despair because of the pandemic”.
“We are once again threatened by the omicron variant,” he said.
“Many families are in isolation because they have tested positive in homes, in villages and settlements on Vanua Levu, are struggling and are in need of help.
“What is the government doing to help? We should be preparing for the cyclone season and ensuring our people are safe.”
Luke Nacei is a Fiji Times reporter. Republished with permission.
Unionists and political activists are among seven prominent women who have brought a lawsuit against the Fiji government challenging new electoral laws requiring them to use their birth certificate names to be registered as voters.
The seven are former government minister Bernadette Rounds Ganilau, politicians Priscilla Singh and Seni Nabou, teacher and community worker Adi Davila Toganivalu, unionists Dr Elizabeth Reade Fong and Salote Qalo and Yasmin Nisha Khan.
They have filed a constitutional redress action against the Attorney-General and the Supervisor of Elections, challenging changes passed by Parliament earlier this year to the Electoral (Registration of Voters) Act and the Interpretation Act.
The seven are challenging the requirement that citizens must only use the name on their birth certificates for voting and other official purposes — including for official identification documents.
Under the new laws, people who wished to use their married or adopted names for these purposes must formally change their names on their birth certificates.
In their action, the applicants say they believe the new laws have a disproportionate, adverse impact upon married women compared with other groups. An estimated 100,000 women are believed to be affected by the law.
The matter was called in the High Court in Suva yesterday before Chief Justice Kamal Kumar.
The Chief Justice gave directions for the filing of affidavits and fixed the case for hearing on February 24.
The applicants are represented by Munro Leys partner and former Supervisor of Elections Jon Apted.
Lawyer Devanesh Sharma, of R Patel and Co, represents the Attorney-General and the SOE.
As some North Island regions moved to the orange traffic light setting at 11.59pm last night, New Zealand has now found two omicron cases that were briefly in the community, and close contacts are urgently being chased up.
As a British DJ outed himself as the omicron community case identified yesterday, Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins yesterday expressed his disappointment in the musician’s non-compliance with rules.
Robert Etheridge, also known as DJ Dimension, went out into the community on December 26 and 27 after 10 days of isolation but before he received his final covid-19 test result.
As such, he has faced abuse online over the matter.
“I want to reiterate my apologies to those who I have inadvertently put at risk as a result of my misunderstandings,” he wrote in an Instagram post.
“I realise the gravity of the situation and I am deeply regretful to those who have been impacted; including members of the public, event organisers and close contacts.”
Etheridge had tested negative to the virus three times before while in isolation. It was also revealed today that he completed his three-day self-isolation period (after seven days in MIQ) on Waiheke Island.
“We understand they travelled by private car and ferry to the island. While on the ferry they did not leave their vehicle and travelled straight to their accommodation.”
DJ Dimension – Robert Etheridge – tested positive for the omicron variant while in the community. Image: RNZ/Instagram
Race to get to close contacts The DJ was due to play at Wanaka’s Rhythm and Alps festival but had been forced to pull out, along with another DJ known as Friction and artist Lee Matthews, who were considered close contacts.
Fourteen people who dined with Etheridge at Soul restaurant are also considered close contacts.
Eight of those people remain in Auckland, while six flew to Christchurch where they performed at the Hidden Lakes Festival on December 28. But the Canterbury District Health Board considered the risk to be extremely low.
“All identified close contacts are being urgently contacted by contact tracers,” the Ministry of Health said.
But the exact number of contacts is still being confirmed and identified, according to Hipkins.
He told media today that while Etheridge was on Waiheke Island, he had drinks on the beach with neighbours, who have been told to self-isolate.
Epidemiologist Professor Michael Baker said the fact that three of the case’s four Waiheke Island housemates had tested negative so far may suggest he was not infectious at the time.
“But again we will just have to await more of those results.”
However, the source of Etheridge’s infection remains a mystery because his case has not been able to be genomically linked to the other omicron cases that were in MIQ when he was there.
“It’s just really important that we don’t think that seven days [of isolation] is okay and that people are still cautious … After receiving several negative tests, people could still be incubating the virus and that’s what it shows us.”
Five of the international arrivals came from Australia, two from the United Kingdom, two from Singapore, one from United Arab Emirates, and one from Ethiopia.
Surveillance testing on December 27 of an Air New Zealand crew member has returned a positive result, with genome sequencing finding it is the omicron variant.
Their infection has been genomically linked to three other omicron cases from a December 24 flight that the person worked on between Auckland and Sydney.
New Zealand-based international aircrew are mostly exempt from a 14-day isolation or quarantine period as long as they meet certain conditions.
So far for this case, no locations of interest have been identified, but there are eight close contacts — seven of whom have tested negative so far.
The case was immediately transferred to a MIQ facility.
And with positive cases reaching 33 in Rotorua yesterday, iwi-lead health provider Te Arawa Covid-19 Response Hub is stepping up its testing abilities by training more staff.
Meanwhile, across the Tasman two team players and one staff member of the men’s Wellington Phoenix football have tested positive to the virus. The team is currently based in New South Wales, where cases topped 12,000 today.
‘We need to throw everything we can at it’ In light of the cases, the National Party is calling on the government to allow people to get their booster shot sooner, bring forward the timeline for children’s vaccines, and use more rapid antigen testing.
Covid-19 response spokesperson Chris Bishop said there were people who had passed four months since their second dose and had been turned away when they tried to get their booster injection.
Meanwhile, the National Māori Authority said it was not too late to introduce tougher border restrictions.
Chairman Matthew Tukaki said the government should shut the borders to anyone who was not a resident or citizen.
“We can’t afford any more unnecessary prolonged lockdowns, so anything we can do to limit the exposure of Omicron until we can get ahead of this, then I think we need to throw everything we can at it.”
Tukaki said the government should also consider extending the amount of time people from high-risk countries spend in MIQ.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
A human rights advocate in Fiji says the country should be ashamed of the exile of the now dead celebrated academic professor Brij Lal and his family.
Professor Lal was expelled from Fiji in 2009 after speaking out against coup leader Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama’s FijiFirst government.
Lal died at his home in Brisbane on Christmas Day. Tributes have been pouring in since.
Rights advocate Shamima Ali, coordinator of the Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre, said that while the region mourned Professor Lal’s death, people should not forget the injustice meted out to him and his wife.
Ali said the government disrespected academia and the contributions academics made to Fiji’s development.
In the case of the Lals, Ali said there had been a “miscarriage of justice and a gross violation of their basic human rights — the right to nationality and citizenship and to a fair trial”.
Ali said Lal’s “writings and utterances irked the government” so they banned him from Fiji.
‘Smacks of sexism’ “And Dr Padma Lal, along with her husband, was also banned from Fiji.
“This smacks of sexism and once again disregards Dr Lal’s illustrious career as an ecological economist and her work on the sugar industry and environment.
“I urge the Fiji Human Rights and Anti Discrimination Commission to step up and challenge this draconian decision of arbitrarily banning citizens and taking away their birthright.”
Professor Brij Lal … deported from Fiji in 2009, but tributes have been flowing since his death on Christmas Day. Image: RNZ
Lal’s legacy would live on as an upstanding human being and citizen of our country, Ali said.
“Shame on you, Fiji. Those who violated his and Padma’s rights will surely live in ignominy and infamy.
“There is still time for a change, to amend the wrongs, too late for Brij but not for his family.”
Sad day for Fiji, says Sodelpa Fiji’s main opposition party said the death of Professor Lal in exile was a sad time for Fiji.
The Social Democratic Liberal Party said Lal had hoped that he would one day return to his homeland.
Fiji claimed to have democracy but it still has a very long way to go, said Sodelpa leader Viliame Gavoka.
“The news of Professor Brij Lal’s passing fills me with great pain,” he said.
“We all know about him, a favourite son of Fiji who was refused permission to return home.
“He lived and hoped that he would one day come home and many of us pleaded for his case.”
But Gavoka said now he had died in a foreign land, away from his people and loved ones.
“How can our hearts be so hardened that we denied someone the right to his homeland and all because he expressed views different from those at the helm of leadership.
“Professor Brij Lal was loved by many and his legacy will live on in Fiji.”
Fiji poorer with loss of academic, says NFP Among historians and scholars, Professor Lal stood tall around the world, said the National Federation Party.
From a poor farming family in Tabia, Vanua Levu, NFP leader Professor Biman Prasad said Professor Lal rose to be an emeritus professor of Pacific and Asian history at the Australian National University, one of the world’s highest-ranked places of learning.
“He was an acknowledged expert on the Indian diaspora around the world.
He was recognised as the pre-eminent historian on the history of indenture and Girmitiya.”
In his obituary to Professor Lal, Dr Prasad said Fiji was poorer with the passing of the academic.
“Professor Brij Lal banished from the land of his birth by the Bainimarama government in November 2009 for championing democracy and barred from entering Fiji upon the orders of the prime minister, has died, 12 years after the draconian act of a heartless government,” Dr Prasad said.
“The sudden and shocking death of Professor Brij Lal at the age of 69 should create a moment for all Fiji citizens to pause and reflect, even while we are distracted by our many personal challenges brought on by the pandemic and our other deep national problems.”
Dr Prasad said Lal was “a giant on the international academic stage” who was banned by the Bainimarama and FijiFirst government from returning to the place of his birth.
“But the pettiness of our leaders will not take away Prof Lal’s towering achievements and scholarship, for which he will one day be fully recognised in the place he was born.
“All of us in Fiji are the poorer for his irreplaceable loss.”
Dr Prasad said the NFP had organised a condolence gathering to remember Professor Lal.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
New Zealand’s Ministry of Health has confirmed that a border-related case with the omicron variant was briefly active in the community in the Auckland CBD earlier this week.
The case arrived on a flight from the United Kingdom via Doha on December 16 and is fully vaccinated with a mRNA vaccine.
They completed a full 10 days in isolation – seven days in a managed isolation facility and three days in self-isolation.
“They had previously returned three negative tests for covid-19 while completing 7 days of managed isolation at a facility in Auckland,” the ministry said last night.
However, the person went out into the community before getting the results of their day nine test after the self-isolation period was complete, the ministry said.
The day nine test result came out on December 27, by which time the case had already been out in Auckland’s CBD on December 26 and 27.
Risk of transmission As a result, there is risk of transmission to unknown members of the public, the ministry said.
“They were immediately transferred to an Auckland MIQ facility on the same day [December 27].”
Subsquent whole genome sequencing has revealed they have the Omicron variant.
“No other covid-19 infections have been identified from the individual’s flight. Investigations are underway as to the source of the infection.”
A number of close contacts have been identified and those tested have returned negative test results.
Locations of interest include the Impala nightclub on Shortland Street, the Sunny town restaurant, Partridge jewellers, Ahi Restaurant and Soul Bar.
Some attendees have been identified as close contacts and will be contacted by public health.
Taking situation seriously The Ministry of Health said it was taking the situation seriously and taking a precautionary approach.
“However, we do not believe that the individual was highly infectious at the time of the above exposure events.”
It is encouraging all Aucklanders to check the Locations of Interest website regularly and follow the advice provided.
“We have been doing everything we can to prepare for Omicron and to keep it out of the community since the variant was first identified. This has included undertaking whole genome sequencing on every PCR sample taken from Covid-19 cases detected in international arrivals.”
Any further information on the case and next steps will be made available today.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Chris Wallace, Associate Professor, 50/50 By 2030 Foundation, Faculty of Business Government & Law, University of Canberra
David Foote/National Archives of Australia
2001 was the final year of the Howard government’s second term in office.
It began with the government on the political defensive, doing poorly in opinion polls, but ended with a third successive victory in November.
Two epic political developments – the “Tampa crisis”, in which the government ordered Australian troops to board a foreign vessel carrying rescued asylum seekers to stop them landing on Australian soil, and the September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States – were decisive in the government’s re-election.
Tampa and September 11 remained influential factors in Australian politics for the next 20 years. These events drove a decisive turn towards “securitisation” in political discourse and public policy.
In a political context, securitisation refers to the systematic transformation of regular public policy matters into security issues. This in turn is used to justify unusual measures as necessary to the survival of the state and safety of its citizens.
In 2001, Australia pivoted into this new securitised mindset. It was partly driven by events but also, to a significant extent, by political choice.
This pivot is evident in the 2001 Cabinet papers, released today by the National Archives of Australia. In them, domestic submissions, free from a securitisation mindset, dominate until Tampa and the September 11 attacks occur.
The September 11 2001 terrorist attacks, along with the Tampa crisis, would reshape Australian politics for the next two decades. Richard Drew/AP/AAP
The papers show the government developing possible responses to sharply rising asylum-seeker arrivals by sea during the first half of 2001.
This culminated in the so-called “Pacific Solution” of offshore detention, which unfolded over the last week of August.
Shortly afterwards, the September 11 terrorist attacks occurred. Although unrelated, the two events became fused in popular perception by political design as well as chronological proximity.
Strong support for the Beazley-led Labor opposition eroded under the combined weight of the Tampa and the September 11 attacks.
All of this meant the 2001 “khaki election” was conducted against the backdrop of perceived external threat and military action abroad. The government, in electoral trouble earlier in the year, was returned with effectively the same majority after allowing for a two-seat expansion of the House of Representatives.
Strong support for the Labor opposition led by Kim Beazley quickly eroded under the combined weight of Tampa and the September 11 attacks. National Archives of Australia
Five of the 2001 Cabinet papers directly arise in response to the September 11 attacks.
One of these – “Options for defence enhancement for domestic security”, dated October 2 2001 – is historically significant as a window into a government grappling with a sudden shift in perceived domestic security needs. It also addresses questions about the continuing appropriateness of strategic fundamentals decided on just a year earlier in the 2000 Defence White Paper.
Interestingly, there is no “Pacific Solution” Cabinet submission nor decision in the 2001 release.
While asylum-seeker policy and Islamic terrorism dominate memories of federal politics in 2001, they do not dominate the 2001 Cabinet papers.
Two-thirds of a year elapsed before September 11 marked the beginning of the new securitised era in Australian and world politics.
Most of the 2001 papers are concerned with domestic policy across a wide range of areas, including many of continuing concern – notably climate change.
The climate policy and energy policy papers in this release are significant.
They show the Howard government had a far more nuanced view on climate change and its significance than any Coalition government since. These papers, along with last year’s, provide context for the Coalition’s proposal of a carbon trading scheme in the run-up to the 2007 election.
We can see a coalition Cabinet not yet captured by resource sector interests, expressly constraining its resources minister from the untrammelled promotion of those interests.
The government is seen operating in once familiar co-operative frameworks for national actions with the states.
The 2001 papers reveal a far more nuanced view of climate change than any Coalition government since. National Archives of Australia
In preparation for a COAG meeting in June, for example, Cabinet in May settled agenda items including a national energy policy framework, a national action plan on salinity, and a proposed ban on human cloning.
The Reconciliation framework was also on the COAG agenda. Cabinet noted that “some state and territory governments had been actively campaign(ing) for a national apology to indigenous Australians”. Cabinet opposed such an apology.
Another paper states the government’s ongoing opposition to a treaty with Indigenous Australians.
Against the backdrop of the current COVID-19 pandemic, it is interesting to note the government sought state agreement through COAG on:
continued high priority review and revision of national whole-of-government frameworks for the management of a major emergency animal disease outbreak, such as FMD (foot and mouth disease), to be co-ordinated by COAG Senior Officials.
Population policy is another interesting focus in the papers.
The then immigration and multicultural affairs minister, Philip Ruddock, had for some time favoured a higher profile for government-led population policy discussions in Australia. In pursuit of this he meshed discussion of long-term challenges, including an ageing population and declining fertility, with related issues of skilled migration, the workforce participation rate of women and older Australians, and the environmental impact of overall population levels.
While Ruddock was a population policy enthusiast, ministerial colleagues were concerned about the political sensitivities of such discussions. Cabinet decided at the beginning of 2001
to continue to resist the development of a formal population policy or the setting of long-term population targets.
The Coalition’s relative electoral success federally has its roots in political lessons flowing from this pivotal year in contemporary Australian politics. It has continued deriving enormous political dividends from them, while its opponents struggle to come to grips with and negate the potent impact of wedge politics.
Under the Howard government, security and immigration policy were the main, and interrelated, sites for its use.
From Tony Abbott’s ascension to the Liberal leadership onwards, energy policy and climate policy became key additional, interrelated, sites for wedge politics.
The consequences are ongoing.
Chris Wallace has received funding from the Australian Research Council.
At the beginning of each year, many people make vows to either do or not do something to improve their life in some way. The fresh start of a new year is magically equated with a fresh start to life and often imbued with renewed hope that this year things will be better.
As we enter 2022, after two years of living with COVID-19, this hope may be stronger than usual.
The pandemic’s impacts have ranged from deaths and other adverse effects on physical and mental health, to huge changes in employment, income, travel, leisure and the ability to socialise. The effect on individuals has varied considerably, depending on what their life was like beforehand, how much it has affected them personally, and their own resilience.
Based on discussions with colleagues and patients, we may see resolutions driven by loss, guilt and anger, plus a rush on common types of self-improvement resolutions and a greater drive for overall life changes.
Resilience
How we respond to the shocks of the pandemic depends in part on our resilience: the ability to adapt well in the face of adversity, trauma, tragedy, threats or significant sources of stress. It involves “bouncing back” from difficult experiences, and it can also involve personal growth.
People who have lost loved ones to COVID may respond with New Year’s resolutions, but they may take positive or negative forms.
Positive resolutions might be commitments to honour the deceased in some way, or to live well because your loved one cannot. A pact or vow made with or to a deceased loved one to “live life better” can be a powerful, positive motivator to change bad health habits such as smoking, excessive drinking or gambling, although professional help is advisable to ensure safe and lasting change.
Negative resolutions, often driven by strong feelings of anger and despair, might be vows to seek revenge or punish those who may seem responsible for the death of their relative or friend.
“Revenge resolutions” are not usually helpful adaptations and may spring from a sense of guilt arising from not being able to save their loved one or spend time with them.
Guilt-driven resolutions are driven by powerful emotions. They are likely to be realised in some form throughout the year, when hopefully the driving emotions become less intense by the following year.
Personal improvement
Since the virus has posed a major health risk, it would make sense for more people than ever to choose the New Year to resolve to improve their own health.
Quitting smoking is a very common New Year’s resolution, and it seems even more sensible than usual amid a global pandemic of a virus that mainly attacks the respiratory system. However, as many people have found in the past, giving up cigarettes is very difficult and often requires significant planning and help to succeed.
Quitting smoking or other drugs is a very common New Year’s resolution. But while the pandemic may have increased the desire for change, it won’t necessarily make it any easier to achieve. Shutterstock
While the pandemic may have made the desire for change stronger, it does not magically make resolutions any easier to achieve. This applies similarly to resolutions to change the use of alcohol or other drugs, which would also benefit from planning and professional help.
Weight loss is another favourite New Year’s resolution. The famous “COVID kilos” will no doubt drive more people than usual to resolve to lose weight in 2022.
Crash diets are common, but are often abandoned by February. Careful eating and an exercise plan accompanying the resolution will make it more likely to succeed.
Bigger changes
While COVID is likely to give an extra edge to common resolutions, we are also likely to see a surge in resolutions for overall “lifestyle change”. Many people’s attitudes to work and family have changed dramatically over the past two years, due to travel restrictions, work or study from home, and little socialisation with those outside our immediate families.
This hugely significant alteration in our way of life has caused many people to reconsider their futures.
Many have found great enjoyment in spending time with family and are now rethinking their work–home balance. Discovering that working from home is possible has made many people reconsider their career options moving into 2022.
Some experts anticipate a post-pandemic work exodus, dubbed the “great resignation”, in which millions of people, from frontline workers to senior executives, may resign from their jobs.
As working from home has become more common, attitudes to work and family have shifted. Shutterstock
According to recent research by Microsoft, more than 40% of the global workforce are considering leaving their employers. This trend is expected to be replicated in different industries in the USA, UK and Europe. In Australia, this trend is not evident, but nonetheless, a New Year’s resolution may be to determine a different type of employment for 2022 and beyond.
Two paths for 2022
COVID-19 has left most of us drained and wary of the future. Many people believed the pandemic would end in 2020, but 2021 brought more infection, lockdowns and restrictions.
In times of trauma, when the future is uncertain, there can be a polarisation of behaviours. Some people adopt a “devil may care, live for now” attitude to life, with greater risk taking. Others take the opposite attitude, and exercise extreme caution and narrow their existence further.
Both groups may well make New Year’s resolutions to fit their approach to life.
Professor Kulkarni has received research grants in other areas from NHMRC,pharmaceutical industry, Victorian and Federal Governments. This work is unfunded and not influenced by any grants received by the author
At a recent tasting, I was presenting some sparkling wines from the Limoux region of France, a region that produced sparkling wines at least 100 years before wines from the Champagne region were well known.
Towards the end, I commented that if the bottle is not empty, seal it with a sparkling wine stopper and store it in the refrigerator. The response was: “Why bother to seal it? Just put a spoon in the neck.”
I was somewhat surprised. Although I had heard it suggested previously, I did not think anyone took the idea seriously.
The fact is, it’s a myth to say a spoon in an open bottle of sparkling wine keeps it bubbly. You’re better off buying a proper stopper.
If you need to store a partly-used bottle, go and buy a proper sparkling wine stopper. Shutterstock
From my years researching wine chemistry and wine oxidation, I know minimising contact between wine and oxygen is vital for stopping the onset of oxidative spoilage. Sealing the bottle is essential.
The carbon dioxide in sparkling wine is more soluble in wine at a lower temperature, so storing the wine in the refrigerator is also beneficial. In other words, you’ll retain more bubbles if you stick it in the fridge.
Some even claim the teaspoon must be silver, not stainless steel, although the basis for this seems highly speculative.
If you plan to keep your leftover sparkling wine, store it properly. Shutterstock
Bubble behaviour
It is important to note some of the critical features of sparkling wine bubbles.
Pouring into a tilted glass retains more carbon dioxide than pouring into a vertical glass. Using bubble imaging techniques, Liger-Belair was able to track the flow of the bubbles in a glass.
He separately showed the bubbles are in fact aerosols (a suspension of fine solid particles or liquid droplets in air) containing aroma compounds that affect the taster’s impression. The release of bubbles even depends on the inside surface of the glass.
Bubble behaviour is therefore complex. Any study on them needs to be replicated to ensure one is measuring a real effect and a one-off.
The release of bubbles even depends on the inside surface of the glass. Shutterstock
A key study on ‘the myth of the teaspoon’
One such study on champagne by Michel Valade and colleagues was published in the periodical Le Vigneron Champenois in 1994.
The work, titled Le mythe de la petite cuillère – the myth of the teaspoon – was designed to address the claim that a teaspoon, preferably a silver one, could (according to my translation):
defy all the laws of physics and possess some legendary efficiency to protect the bubbles escaping from an open bottle.
These researchers used three strategies to assess the impact of bubble conservation on the wine: the change in pressure, the loss of weight and sensory analysis.
After opening, the wine was decanted, leaving 500 millilitres in one set and 250 millilitres in a second set.
The wines were then stored at 12℃ with four methods to conserve the bubbles: open bottle, silver teaspoon, stainless steel teaspoon, cork stopper (which uses a hermetic seal) and crown seal (a metal lid with crimped edges, like you often see on a beer bottle). Each approach was performed in triplicate.
The researchers then analysed how pressure inside the bottle changed (measured in a unit called atmospheres; 1 atmosphere is about 101 kilopascals). The initial bottle pressure was 6 atmospheres, dropping after decanting to 4 atmospheres when there was 500 millilitres remaining. When only 250 millilitres remained, the pressure was just 2 atmospheres.
After 48 hours storage, the pressure in open bottles and those with a teaspoon inserted in the neck had dropped by a further 50%, indicating a significant loss of bubbles.
Clearly there was no teaspoon effect. Those sealed with a cork stopper or crown seal had a pressure drop of only 10%, demonstrating the significant advantage of using a proper closure.
The source of bubbles in sparkling wine is the carbon dioxide released during the secondary fermentation. Shutterstock
These researchers also measured the change in the weight of bottles stored three different ways: fully open, tightly sealed or with an inserted teaspoon.
No decrease in weight was observed for the tightly sealed bottles. But for the fully open bottles and those with a teaspoon in the neck, the loss in weight was significant.
To finalise the evidence to dispel the myth of the teaspoon, the wines were subjected to sensory analysis by expert champagne tasters.
All wines showed some characteristics of oxidation, due to oxygen getting in during opening. However, those sealed with a hermetic seal were clearly more effervescent and livelier than those unsealed or with an inserted teaspoon.
Clearly, the teaspoon effect is a myth.
So, if you need to store a partly-used bottle, go and buy a proper sparkling wine stopper.
Summer loving happens so fast. One day, you’re sipping quarantinis in locky d. The next, you’re hosting mates for barbies. When we grab that snag, swag or esky, we’re doing more than celebrating summer. We’re celebrating it in Australian ways, and with Australian words.
We don’t always agree on those words. Queenslanders have their togs and Victorians their bathers. And we don’t always agree with each other. The surfieshate the clubbies, and the bushwalkersbristle at hikers.
But when summer hits, many Aussies share a love of the outdoors. So, slip, slop, slap, and don your akubra, cabbage-tree hat or Cunnamulla Cartwheel (our sunburnt history is replete with evolving hat styles). Let’s celebrate Australian summer slang.
Prince William models the iconic Akubra – also known as a ‘Cunnamulla cartwheel’ – in 2011. AAP/Patrick Hamilton
The great Aussie picnic: sangers, splayds and fly-swatting
Australians deal with the summer in a very Australian way – irony, humour and idiom. Sure, an Australian picnic might be a pleasant affair, with sangers (sandwiches), flybog (jam) or splayds (a combined fork, spoon and knife, a proud Aussie invention). But in Australian English a picnic is also a word for “an awkward or disordered occasion”.
To be fair, a picnic might start off pleasant and then turn awkward. Your host might turn the tall poppy and put on jam (“a pretentious display”). Your guests might act strange, too. Australian English abounds in words and idioms for madness or folly. Lexicographer Bruce Moore reckons we Aussies invented the short of x idiom, and more than a few of these are picnic-related:
a sandwich short of a picnic
a few snags short of a barbie
a couple of tinnies short of a slab
a stubbie short of a six pack.
Flies also loom large in the Australian summer, and not surprisingly buzz into our idiom — no flies on you is one we’ve even exported. Blowflies are still those petty bureaucrats who act the stickybeak about trivial issues. Popular (but certainly false) theories even link the Australian accent to flies — we need to speak with our mouths shut to keep them out.
Summertime life revolves around the beach for many Australians. However, beach-going hasn’t always been easy-living.
We talk about tree-changes and sea-changes these days without much fuss. However, just as the 19th-century bush-goers had to worry about bushrangers, the 19th century beach-goers had to worry about beach-rangers or larrikin pushes (“gangs”). The latter could be recognised by their straw nan nan hats. The police feared the larrikins. The larrikins feared the sun.
In the 20th century, beach-going was a battle between conservative types, and those who sought to challenge them. Australian beaches had their fair share of wowsers in the early 20th century, and those who swam on censored beaches wore neck-to-knees or Spooners (named after a politician who opposed briefer costumes).
Surf clubs emerged to guard those swimmers who sought to avoid wowserland by swimming at unusual times or in unusual places. However, as social mores became more permissive, these clubbies ended up as the more conservative forces on the beaches.
Clubbiesfaced off with the surfie subcultures from the 1960s. Clubbies scoffed at the surfers, whom they viewed as gypsies, drifters and bums. Surfies scoffed at almost everyone, and developed an especially rich vocab for the inexperienced surfer. Grommet or grommie was an Australian take on the US gremlin or gremmie.
It is hard to talk about Aussie beach slang without giving a nod to the 1979 book Puberty Blues. Kathy Lette and Gabrielle Carey drew heavily on – and perhaps introduced many Aussies to – words like moll, spunk and rack off. A recent survey shows variations of spunk (for example, spunky and spunkrat) as still the most common way Aussies say “attractive”.
Lette and Carey’s book also introduces readers to distinctive Australian swimwear. They write at one point, “The ultimate disgrace for a surfie was to be seen in his scungies,”, which is fair enough. Scungies– also known as speedos or budgie smugglers– is likely related to Australian scungy (“disagreeable, sordid”).
In more recent years, some Aussies have opted for more conservative swimwear. The burkini is an Australian innovation designed by Lebanese-born Australian Aheda Zanetti. It offers a modest beach alternative for Australian Muslims, and protection from wicked Aussie sun for anyone. Even celebrity cook Nigella Lawson was spotted in a burkini on a 2011 trip to Australia.
We proudly talk of ‘budgie smugglers’ today, but in the 1970s no self-respecting surfie would have been caught dead in them. AAP/Nikki Short
Aussie outdoor life: Swags, billies and bush
Of course, summertime isn’t just about going to the beach. Many Aussies head to the bush.
The mystique this word holds for Australians is obvious in the whopping 200-plus bush compounds we’ve amassed over the years (not even including animal and plant names). Two of them particularly capture this special relationship: bushwalking and bushwalker (as detailed in Melissa Harper’s delightful book, The Ways of the Bushwalker). Australia’s first walking guidebook With Swag and Billy was published in 1906. This book conjured romantic notions of the bush while giving practical advice to contemporary walkers.
Swag is one of those convict-era survivors, although it has come a long way from its convict past — from “a thief’s booty” to the jolly swagman’s kit, to today’s portable bedding.
We might – armed with our swags and billies – take the word bushwalking and bushwalker as givens in Australia. However, bushwalking and bushwalker only entered the Australian lexicon in the 1920s – and not without some controversy.
The first controversy came in the form of people claiming to have invented the term. A Sydney walker by the name of Myles Dunphy was convinced he must have invented bushwalker. In 1923, Dunphy compiled a list of 83 possible names for his walking club – bush walk was on that list. We say poor Dunphy – bush walk in fact appears as far back as 1846.
The second controversy came in asserting what Australians certainly weren’t doing in the bush: hiking. Walking in the bush became very popular during the interwar period (such as the mystery hikes of the 1930s).
But some rejected the use of the word hike, such as this writer in the West Australian newspaper in 1932:
We deplore the use of bad American slang to describe what is eminently English and good.
It was around this time that Australians started voicing their irrits (“feelings of extreme irritation”) at any apparent American incursion into the lingo (even though many had already snuck in undetected — like bush!).
So [waves away flies], with this, we give you a great Aussie salute and [waves away flies again] wish you a good summer — out of those trackie dacks and pandemic pants and into the boardies and cossies.
Howard Manns receives funding from the ARC Special Research Initiative SR200200350 Metaphors and Identities in the Australian Vernacular.
Kate Burridge receives funding from the ARC Special Research Initiative SR200200350 Metaphors and Identities in the Australian Vernacular.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Maggie Brady, Honorary Associate Professor, Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research, Australian National University
Creative Screen
The vast wine-growing region now known as the South Australian Riverland produces more than a quarter of Australia’s wine grapes and developed a reputation for producing large volumes of cheap cask wine – an image it is now attempting to dislodge.
But in a remarkable quirk of fate, the Riverland began its life in the late nineteenth century as an irrigation colony run on principles of temperance, with no sales of alcohol allowed across the thousands of hectares of land used to grow irrigated crops on either side of the River Murray.
And although some time later the Riverland did indeed begin to grow grapes for wine, it retained the spirit of its temperance origins by giving birth to a unique experiment in alcohol control.
In the process, Renmark – a small rural town in the South Australian hinterland – adopted progressive, even faintly socialist, alcohol-control policies that originated in Sweden and were causing a stir across Scandinavia, Britain and America.
In 1887 the colonial government of South Australia granted land for an irrigation colony on the Murray to the Chaffey brothers, two entrepreneurial Canadian engineers fresh from similar arid-land enterprises in California.
The Chaffeys wanted a reliable, industrious and, above all, sober workforce.
They persuaded the government to create a temperance colony, a kind of prohibition zone where there would be no “promiscuous and enticing vending of intoxicating drinks”.
There would nonetheless be “no interference with personal liberty as regards the private consumption of wines and spirits in any way whatever”.
After a year or so though, barrels of grog were being illegally rolled off the paddle steamers that supplied the river settlements and consumed on the spot.
Unconstrained drunkenness ensued, and some citizens became concerned that the prohibition zone seemed not to be working.
A Swedish alternative to going dry
The editor of the Renmark Pioneer, Chris Ashwell, had heard of an alcohol control scheme underway in Sweden that seemed to offer a way out of the impasse between wild drinking on one hand and prohibition on the other.
In June 1895, in an editorial headlined A Hotel Wanted, he argued it was “impossible to legislate people into teetotallers, and many will obtain drink no matter how they have to get it”.
The Swedish port city of Gothenburg had experimented with a system to control the supply of alcohol by creating a local retail monopoly and eliminating the profit motive.
Semi-private trusts of local citizens would supervise the public houses and allow their managers to take a profit only on sales of food and non-alcoholic beverages.
Instead of going to the pub-keeper, profits from the sale of alcohol would go to the council to improve amenities such as parks, theatres and welfare services.
Versions of the system were adopted across Sweden, Norway and Britain. Renmark’s sister city of Mildura, not far along the river in Victoria, had voted in favour of it (although it ended up not adopting it).
Many readers agreed that a “Gothenburg” pub would “civilise” drinking, although others – supporters of prohibition – argued that any pub, even a community-owned one, would be the thin edge of the wedge.
‘The first community hotel in the British empire’
As I have described in an article for the Journal of Australian Studies, after some lobbying the dry area declaration was amended and local householders voted in favour of a licensed business, if it was conducted for and by the community.
A local landowner put up the funds and in March 1897, Renmark opened the first “trust public house” in Australia.
Five approved landholders (all men) were elected to the hotel committee, with the Anglican vicar as chair. None were permitted to have a financial interest in any business associated with alcohol.
Local histories say the sly grog trade was killed off immediately, with one of the Chaffeys observing cautiously two years later that drunkenness had diminished.
Renmark Hotel, circa 1936. State Library of South Australia
After a slow start in terms of profitability, by the 1930s the Renmark Hotel (known as the “first community hotel in the British empire”) was doing well, with expanded premises and an impressive art deco frontage, still to be seen today.
Maids wore black and white pinafores, bellboys wore livery, there were stylish lounges with leather tub chairs, and hotel-sponsored riverside gardens planted with palm trees, roses and geraniums.
Over the following decades, the other four major towns in South Australia’s Riverland – Waikerie, Barmera, Berri and Loxton – followed suit.
By the 1960s citizens in Ceduna, Streaky Bay, Kimba, and Nuriootpa in the Barossa Valley also bought hotels.
Mainly in South Australia
In 1944, a newly-formed Griffith Community Hotel and Liquor Reform Association in NSW organised a public meeting which agreed to petition the government for a community hotel.
The Berri Hotel, one speaker noted admiringly, “had only been in existence seven years and had maintained a park and provided scholarships of several hundreds of pounds”.
But the idea never spread much outside of South Australia, with only isolated examples elsewhere.
This might be something to do with South Australia’s origin as a colony, established by free-settlers as a cradle of experimentation and communalism, with no one religion dominant and dissenting sects open to radical ideas.
South Australia’s Riverland, responsible for a quarter of Australia’s grape crush. Greg Brave/Shutterstock
Another reason might be that NSW, and to a lesser extent Victoria, established private clubs which ended up functioning as community hotels.
In Sweden today, the vestiges of the Gothenberg system can be seen in the state-owned Systembolaget stores, a network of tightly controlled near-monopoly “alcohol supermarkets”, whose profits support health promotion.
In South Australia, the Gothenberg-inspired hotels face competition. But they are still important to their communities as large venues offering meals prepared with local produce and, in some, the original community-funded gardens.
Maggie Brady received funding from the Australian Research Council.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Matthew S. Champion, Senior Research Fellow in Medieval and Early Modern Studies, Australian Catholic University
Wikimedia Commons
For something that’s meant to lend order to our lives, the modern Western calendar has a messy history. The mess, in part, comes about because of the difficulty of co-ordinating the orbits of celestial bodies with the cycles of day and night, and the passage of the seasons.
The year measured by the earth’s orbit around the sun is roughly an unruly 365.2422 days. The moon is likewise not a fan of whole numbers. In the space of a year, there are around 12.3683 lunar months. Societies have traditionally tried to make sure that the same seasons lined up with the same months.
The moon’s orbit around the earth cannot be properly measured in whole numbers. Shutterstock
Ancient calendars from Mesopotamia, for example, co-ordinated months and seasons by adding extra months every now and then, a process called intercalation. In some lunar systems, though, the months can wander through the seasons – this is the case for the Islamic Hijri calendar.
The solar calendar of ancient Rome gives rise to our modern Western calendar. The Julian calendar, named after Julius Caesar’s reforms of 46/45 BCE, approximated the solar year to 365.25 days and inserted an extra day each four years. That left a rather annoying 11 and a bit minutes unaccounted for. More on those minutes later.
The Julian calendar also left us a legacy of months in strange positions. Our eleventh month, November, derives from the Latin for the number nine, a result of moving the start of the year from March to January.
New months and names were juggled and rejigged to match the mechanisms of power. August, for example, is named for the Emperor Augustus. As the great Australian historian Christopher Clark has put it: “as gravity bends light, so power bends time”.
As the Roman empire shifted into the world we now call the middle ages, the power that bent time most successfully was that of the church. But just as in the present, the church was a multiplicity of intersecting powers with local and regional differences, and with a variety of internal identities and struggles. The start of the year, for example, could vary widely across medieval societies.
A manuscript from the calendar Très Riches Heures, reated between c. 1412 and 1416 for John, Duke of Berry, by the Limbourg brothers. Wikimedia Commons
Sometimes it was March 25, the day commemorating the appearance of the angel Gabriel to Mary. Other times it was December 25, the day agreed as Jesus’ birthday (the perfect 9-month gestation period). Sometimes, it was confusingly the moveable date of Easter, making years of changing length.
It was during this period that the problematic 11 and a bit minutes had their revenge. The seasons began to shift, little by little, and this had important implications for Christian time-keeping.
The date of Easter Sunday (another point of contention) was timed to follow the Northern Spring equinox, a natural symbol of light conquering darkness. But as that equinox began to slip back in time, a distinction started to emerge between a “legal” Easter – that decreed by the calendar – and a “natural” equinox, ie the equinox that could be observed.
Calendar of the dates of Easter, for the years 532–632 A.D. (Marble, in Museum of Ravenna Cathedral, Italy). Wikimedia Commons
As the gap widened, scientists and theologians (often the same people) fought it out over proposals to reform the calendar. Should a number of days be omitted from the year, just once, to realign legal and observable time? If so, how many? And who should be in charge of the change?
The question became particularly intense in the 15th century with a number of calendar reform proposals failing the test of pragmatics or political backing from rulers across Europe. One such proposal was discovered recently hidden inside a printed book at the University Library in Cambridge.
It was written in 1488 by a theologian from the University of Louvain named Peter de Rivo and suggested 10 days be removed from the calendar. Peter thought that a celebration known as the jubilee, where crowds of pilgrims travelled from all over Europe to Rome would be the perfect time for making the reform known to the world. The proposal was not the first or last to sink like a stone.
But eventually those 10 days did disappear, when Pope Gregory reformed the calendar in 1582. This new calendar, the Gregorian calendar, jumped from 4 October 1582 to 15 October 1582. It also made a better approximation of the natural length of the year by manipulating leap years over a 400-year cycle.
The 1582 reform landed in a world rent by religious divisions, some old, some new. Protestant England did not adopt the changes till the 18th century. Many Orthodox Christian communities continued to follow the Julian calendar – with later revisions to that calendar proving contentious and provoking further schisms.
Unreasonable nature
It’s easy to feel lost in time. The calendar helps to give us a map to the shifting revolutions of the seasons, the shape of our lives, and the larger arcs of history. But while we are placed in the matrix of calendar time, we also make it: could we do better than the Gregorian calendar?
That question was asked with particular vehemence in the 18th century by so-called enlightened thinkers, and was brought to a head in the French Revolution. In 1793, the revolutionary government regularised the month to a standard 30 days (each with three weeks of ten days), leaving a messy five to six unallocated days a year, and giving workers only three days off each month. The start of the year was shifted to the autumn equinox, because an égalité (equality) of light and dark was a symbol of the new republic’s ideals.
French Republican Calendar of 1794, drawn by Philibert-Louis Debucourt. Wikimedia Commons
The calendar was a victory of reason, if reason is aligned with simplicity, clarity and the number of our fingers. But, as we have seen, in astronomical terms nature is stubbornly unreasonable. The system was short-lived.
Part of the problem with calendar reform is that calendars have to do with our lived experiences of time, our habits, our rhythms, our memories. To make radical changes requires particular fervour (or megalomania).
But the history of calendars can also make us ask if we might modify our ordering of time in more gentle ways. This may not mean altering the calendar at a global or national level. But what about us here in our different regions of Australia? What if we finally acknowledged that we don’t live with a four-season year, adopting the far more interesting and attentive seasonal calendars developed by Indigenous cultures?
Matthew S. Champion receives funding from the Australian Research Council (DE200101479 ‘The Sounds of Time’ and DP210101623 ‘Albrecht Dürer’s Material Worlds’).
With Lana Wachowski’s The Matrix Resurrections about to hit theatres, we’re going to see a lot of criticism interpreting siblings Lana and Lilly Wachowskis’ body of films through a trans lens. I’m really looking forward to it: it’s a great opportunity for trans critics, and there are so few Hollywood movies – or pop culture in general – with openly trans creators for us to talk about.
Lilly Wachowski, quoted in the excellent Cael M. Keegan text The Wachowskis: Sensing Transgender, once said: “There’s a critical eye being cast back on Lana’s and my work through the lens of our transness, and this is a cool thing, because it’s an excellent reminder that art is never static.”
The Matrix, being the Wachowskis’ most popular film, is ripe for a trans reading. Vulture critic Andrea Long Chu summarises it as: “Neo has dysphoria. The Matrix is the gender binary. The agents are transphobia. You get it.”
I would also caution the risk of the Wachowskis’ art becoming “static” as trans art. Identity politics, celebrity culture and the ritualisation of “coming out” all influence our understanding of the Wachowskis and their work.
It would be easy to interpret the Wachowskis’ canon as innately trans, but in doing so, we might be relying too heavily on auteur theory in film.
The Matrix Resurrections, the long-awaited next chapter in the groundbreaking franchise, continues a sci-fi narrative often read as a trans analogy. Murray Close/ Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc
The director is king
Auteur theory was originally coined by filmmaker-critic François Truffaut in 1954: he championed original films by directors with unique stylistic signatures. The theory has been contentious but popular in the English-speaking world since Andrew Sarris adapted the idea for Hollywood in the 1960s, proposing (if tongue-in-cheek) the idea that “the director is king.”
Auteur theory mythologises the director as the singular visionary behind a film. While recognising filmmakers’ signatures can be rewarding, a solid film shouldn’t be contingent on it.
Auteur theory overemphasises a storyteller’s personal life in their public work. When we talk about authentic representation in pop culture, and the historic under-representation of marginalised storytellers, it’s tempting to conflate them as one issue.
On a surface level, it makes sense trans people should tell trans stories, but this quickly becomes an argument that only trans people can tell only trans stories. This is especially troubling with trans identities. Not every trans person comes out before they start sharing their work.
It’s overwhelmingly likely that in Hollywood’s history, plenty of filmmakers were trans: we just didn’t know it. This logic deeply affected the Wachowskis’ first feature, 1996’s Bound: Keegan notes that the film was overlooked as iconic lesbian cinema at the time. The Wachowskis’ success in Hollywood cannot be extricated from their staying in the closet: Lana came out in 2010, between directing her sixth film (Speed Racer) and the seventh (Cloud Atlas). Lilly came out in 2016, after threats from the Daily Mail to out her regardless.
We have to ask: if the Wachowskis had never come out (especially in Lilly’s case, since she was outed against her will) would these films still feel trans? Would their narratives still resonate with the many fans who’ve come out as trans since seeing The Matrix? I think so: it’s not a coincidence so many trans fans identify with narratives about discovering your true self and fighting to free others from the constrictions of normative life.
Could a wildly ambitious and delightfully girlish box-office bomb like Jupiter Ascending have been made without the unique career trajectory of the Wachowskis? Yes, it’s rewarding to retroactively analyse their work as trans – Keegan identifies revisitation as a part of trans meaning-making – but it would be disappointing to stop at two directors’ finite catalogue of films.
The Wachowski film Jupiter Ascending is considered a box office flop. IMDB
This is an opportunity to look at the limits of auteur theory, and how much we should rely on directors’ personal lives to shape the way we interpret media.
Auteur theory risks omitting interesting narratives about gender from directors – and other filmmakers – who aren’t out of the closet, or who simply tell insightful stories without having the personal experience of being trans. We need not uncover a trans crew member behind Guillermo del Toro’s movies to find his metaphors of love and monstrosity resonate powerfully with our own trans experiences – we might just as well watch Alien or Hackers and say “oh, that’s gender.”
At the endpoint of this argument that “only trans creators can tell trans stories” is a very dangerous myth that trans people are innately deceptive if we stay in the closet for safety, privacy, or simply as a preference. We must be allowed to assume anyone can tell an interesting story about gender, whether they’re cis or trans; a director or the key grip.
Looking beyond gender
If we can embrace the idea trans narratives can be made by anyone, we should also embrace the idea trans creators can make narratives about anything. The obsession with what we know about the Wachowskis’ personal lives can overshadow other analyses.
There are troubling racial and colonial themes at work in films like Cloud Atlas that are overlooked through a (white) trans framework, and a fascinating British/Anglican context to V for Vendetta that vanishes with original writer Alan Moore’s disavowal of all film adaptations of his comics. While trans analysis is interesting, and there’s plenty to say, it can mean overlooking other narratives and problems in the Wachowskis’ work.
V for Vendetta is a 2005 dystopian political superhero action film directed by James McTeigue from a screenplay by the Wachowskis. It is based on the 1988 DC Comics limited series of the same name by Alan Moore and David Lloyd. IMDB
The transness in the Wachowskis’ work isn’t nearly so simple as “the red pill is oestrogen.” If we can look past the fad of films-as-ciphers, there’s bigger ways of thinking about gender that don’t require a PhD in Baudrillard.
The Matrix proposes that your self-image is separate from your physical body; that everyone raised in an oppressive system will violently defend that system unless they’re ready to rip themselves free of it; that we all fall on our first jump, but with love and belief from others we can become ourselves; that our duty is to free others after that and to break the entire system so it cannot be rebuilt.
Yes, gender is one of those systems, but films like Cloud Atlas and Jupiter Ascending are more concerned with the exploitation of proletariat bodies to feed a surface of luxury: these themes have more to say about capitalism than a reading that treats gender subtext like crossword clues.
Encrypted autobiographies
The Wachowskis have always strongly branded their films and supplementary material: this, and their distinctive signature themes, make them a great choice for auteur theory.
In highlighting invisible labour in the text, we’re invited to consider the kind of labour that went into making the text. Over-dependence on auteur theory can obscure the creative teamwork it takes to make a film.
Treating their works as encrypted autobiographies risks ignoring the kind of paradigms they seek to destroy, and the potential for all storytellers to challenge systems they’re not publicly oppressed by.
I am sure there will be many fascinating, nuanced, trans-led analyses of The Matrix Resurrections. What I’m hoping for is analysis of The Matrix Resurrections as more than a Wachowski film, as more than a trans film, and for more trans analysis of all films.
Naja Later 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.
New Zealand Parliament Buildings, Wellington, New Zealand.
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This article is part of a series explaining how readers can learn the skills to take part in activities that academics love doing as part of their work.
Orchid hunting conjures images from the 1800s – explorers in mud-spattered khaki, traipsing through impenetrable jungle, overloaded with equipment: jars, bottles, bags and boxes, a gun (to shoot down tree-top orchids) and a magnifying glass. Things have changed a bit since then. You don’t need to sail halfway around the world – and all you need is a camera or smartphone.
Leading German orchid collector Wilhelm Micholitz (1854-1932), complete with rifle.
Orchid hunting is like a treasure hunt. You can never be sure what you’ll find. And it can be fun for the whole family – my 74-year-old father and three-year-old son (with the aid of jelly beans) are now avid hunters. I love the challenge of identifying our finds: checking sources, looking for clues, eliminating suspects and the satisfaction of a positive ID.
So how do you get started as an orchid hunter? The following five steps will set you on your way.
To give yourself a head start, check what species have already been found in the area using the Explore Your Area function at the Atlas of Living Australia. It’s a great resource, giving you access to more than a million biodiversity records.
Before you get overwhelmed, narrow your search to “monocots” (plants with one seed leaf) and “Orchidaceae” (the orchid family). Many records have photos attached. These will give you an idea of what you’re looking for.
You’re more likely to find orchids on undisturbed ground in natural vegetation. Australian orchids are mainly terrestrial – most of them grow on or in the ground. In much of the rest of the world, most orchids are epiphytes – species that grow on other plants, often high in rainforest canopies.
Many Australian orchids spend only a short time (days to months) each year above ground, before retreating to an underground tuber. Thanks to the rain this year, orchids that haven’t been seen in years are being found. Other orchids are bigger and in greater numbers than usual.
You can find orchids in flower at almost any time of the year.
Peak flowering is in spring, when you can see colourful Caladenia, Diuris and Thelymitra. Species from these same genera can also be found over summer, along with Dipodium,Gastrodia, Paraprasophyllum and Spiranthes species.
Orchids in the genus Dipodium, also known as hyacinth orchids, flower in summer. Photo: Heidi Zimmer
In autumn, many Pterostylis emerge, as well as Acianthus, Corunastylis and Eriochilos species. Then even in winter some Pterostylis and Corybas species can be found in flower.
The work of documenting and protecting Australia’s biodiversity is far from done. New species of orchid are discovered each year, including by non-experts.
When out in the bush, look carefully and sooner or later you’ll finds orchids. Photo: Heidi Zimmer
Step 4. Take a photo – not a plant
More than 28,000 orchid species have been catalogued across the world, including around 1,600 in Australia. Specimens of each species are kept safely in herbaria, a large proportion of them at the Australian National Herbarium. So there’s no need to take a specimen – we probably have one.
On the other hand, photos are non-destructive and can provide a valuable record. They not only show key features of the plant, but also the precise location in the image data if your phone or camera has location services turned on – or else consider taking a GPS.
Try to photograph the flower from a few different angles. For an expert to identify your find, they’ll need to see details of the petals, especially the labellum (the “pollinator landing pad”). Photos of the stem and leaves can be helpful too.
Orchids in the genus Diuris, including those commonly known as donkey orchids, are found almost exclusively in Australia. Photo: Heidi Zimmer
Step 5. Identify it – and tell us about it, if you want to
You can get help with identification in various ways, which also make your record accessible to others (including people who look at orchids for a job – like me). There are apps for citizen scientists to upload photos of their discoveries. Consider uploading yours to iNaturalist or Wild Orchid Watch.
iNaturalist uses machine learning to help with ID. While it might not always be spot on, it can point you in the right direction.
Experts verify sight records in iNaturalist. The records are then uploaded to the Atlas of Living Australia. There they are available for researchers and decision-makers to use.
You can also join a Facebook group such as Australian Native Orchids where members help with identification.
Books can also help with identification. A good and comprehensive example is the recently published Complete Guide to Native Orchids of Australia. There are many regional guides too.
Caladenia is a genus that includes many species commonly known as spider orchids. Photo: Heidi Zimmer
The focus of my current orchid hunting is a collaborative project led by Dr Katharina Nargar at the Australian Tropical Herbarium. The goal is to sequence the DNA of one representative of every Australian orchid species – 1,200 have been sampled already. This research is improving understanding of Australia’s orchid biodiversity and evolution.
Contributions from citizen scientists are incredibly valuable in orchid research because they can cover much more ground than a handful of experts. Take a photo and enjoy the challenge of trying to identify the orchid. Even if it’s not a new species, it might be a new record for your area – which is pretty special too.
Heidi Zimmer works for the Centre for Australian National Biodiversity Research, a joint venture between Parks Australia’s Australian National Botanic Gardens and the National Research Collections Australia at CSIRO.
Researchers often compare the differences between identical and fraternal twins to better understand health and behaviour.
The first major insight is that genes and environments almost always combine to influence our life trajectory. Sometimes the largest factor is genetics (think genetic disorders). Sometimes it’s environment (think infections). Mostly, it’s somewhere in between.
Such studies have accelerated the search for genes and environmental agents that cause or trigger diseases. This has helped us understand, treat and even prevent diseases. As twin research has matured, it has progressed to addressing important questions about when and how diseases originate.
So what has research from twins taught us about specific diseases and the human body?
Most studies linking environment and disease are complicated by genetic factors. To get around this, we can work with twins who differ in environmental factors.
One such Australian study from 1994 compared 20 pairs of female twins in which only one of each pair was a long-term, heavy smoker.
The researchers found smoking one pack of cigarettes a day for 20 years resulted in sufficient loss in bone density to cause osteoporosis. This doubled the risk of having a bone fracture.
This provided compelling evidence that smoking causes osteoporosis and an increased risk of bone fractures.
2. Events around the time of birth are not a major cause of epilepsy
Epilepsy is a group of disorders where brain activity is abnormal and seizures are the presenting feature. Traditionally, diagnosis was not possible until after a person’s first seizure, which can occur at any stage of life, from babies to the elderly.
Twin studies since the 1960s have shown a mix of genes and environment cause epilepsy. However, until the early 1990s, it was assumed that problems during the birthing process were a major cause of epilepsy.
Identical twins share almost all their DNA. Shutterstock
Obstetricians and midwives were often blamed for causing epilepsy. However, a twin study in 1993 did not support a link between minor problems during birth and the later development of epilepsy.
This information has helped doctors and their patients better understand the causes of epilepsy and not necessarily attribute blame to the birthing process.
3. Identical twins are different under the skin from before birth
Genetically identical twins nearly always look identical. Yet, at birth, they have already accumulated differences in the structure and function of their genes.
These differences are caused by a mix of chance events and individual experiences in the womb.
The location a fertilised egg implants in the womb is random, but some locations are more favourable to growth. For the subset of identical twins who split before they reach the womb, different locations could create different environments in which a baby develops.
As a result of this or other chance events, around one in six twins differ more than 20% in weight at birth, which may be associated with an increased risk of illness at birth, especially for the smaller twin.
Such individual experiences could also help explain Brazilian twin pairs in which only one child was born with Zika virus infection.
4. Leukaemia originates before birth
Changes in the genetic sequence of blood cells can predispose people to develop leukaemia (cancer of the blood).
Such changes are unique to each person but when these changes happened to people used to be a mystery. That was until identical twin children were discovered with leukaemias originating from the same cell.
Lymphocytes (white blood cells) of the immune system shuffle their immune genes at random, making each person genetically unique, even identical twins.
The researchers concluded the leukaemia started in one twin in the womb and spread to the other twin through blood vessels in a shared placenta.
But while the first step towards leukaemia happened before birth, the cancer progression differed among the twins, resulting in leukaemia being diagnosed at different ages.
This provided the first evidence that some leukaemias can lay dormant for years and enabled future research that would pinpoint the events along this process.
5. Many twins don’t know if they’re identical or fraternal
Identical twins start as one fertilised egg that splits after a few days. They share almost 100% of their DNA and are almost always the same sex.
Fraternal twins result from two eggs fertilised around the same time. They’re as genetically different as any pair of siblings and can have the same, or different sex.
Fraternal twins are as genetically different as a pair of siblings. Shutterstock
In 2012, my colleagues and I at Twins Research Australia conducted a study at a national twins festival on pairs who had any uncertainty about their genetic identity. We used “genetic fingerprinting” on DNA from cheek swabs provided by same-sex twins of all ages. This test is the definitive way of discovering whether twins are identical or fraternal.
We compared this with perceptions of the twins themselves before they took the test.
We found almost one-third of the twins we tested had been either incorrect or unsure about their genetic identity. Some had even been misinformed by medical professionals.
The universal sentiment was twins and their families felt better knowing the truth. Our data enabled us to develop better educational resources for twins and their advocates to know more about themselves.
Jeffrey Craig is Deputy Director of Twins Research Australia and President of the International Society for Twin Studies. He receives funding from the IMPACT Institute, Deakin University, the National Health and Medical Research Council, Australia, and the Waterloo Foundation, UK. He is affiliated with the Gene(e)quality Network.
Has your home recently been overrun by tiny grey moths, flapping erratically around your kitchen? Spotted some suspicious webs in a cereal box? You might be sharing your dried food with pantry moths (Plodia interpunctella).
Although several species of moth can live and breed in our homes, the pantry moth (also known as the “Indian meal moth”) is one of the most common unwanted moth-guests.
Pantry moths are found on every continent except Antarctica. They feed on rice, grains, flour, pasta, cereals, dried fruits, spices, seeds, nuts and other dried food. Their fondness for dried foods makes them a major pest in food storage facilities.
So how did they get in your house – and what can you do to get rid of them?
Although they can be annoying, adult moths do not feed at all. The trouble arises when female moths lay their eggs in or around our food. The tiny eggs hatch into barely visible cream-coloured caterpillars small enough to crawl into poorly sealed food containers. There, they begin to feed.
As they grow, caterpillars produce large amounts of silk webbing and faeces, both of which can contaminate food.
Once a caterpillar reaches its full size, it leaves the food in search of a safe space to make a cocoon, usually a crack, container lid, crevice or corner. Sometimes they turn up in the hinges of a pantry door.
A few weeks later, an adult moth emerges from the cocoon, ready to start the cycle again.
Have you found suspicious webbing on your dried foods? Shutterstock
How did pantry moths get in my house? And why are they more common lately?
Unfortunately, it’s likely you brought them home yourself. Although pantry moths can enter via doors and windows, most infestations probably start when we inadvertently bring home eggs and caterpillars in our dried foods.
Kitchens full of unsealed containers and spilled food create an irresistible smorgasbord for female moths looking for the ideal place to lay eggs.
At warmer temperatures, females also lay more eggs and caterpillars are more likely to survive to adulthood.
But prolonged exposure to temperatures above 40℃ are lethal to eggs and caterpillars.
While pantry moths can be found at any time of the year, the warm temperatures of late spring and early summer are often perfect for supporting rapid population growth.
Most infestations probably start when we inadvertently bring home eggs and caterpillars in our dried foods. Shutterstock
How do I get rid of pantry moths?
First, eliminate their sources of food. Dry goods should be stored in sealed, airtight containers with tight-fitting lids.
To prevent eggs and caterpillars from hitchhiking in on purchases, place dried foods in the freezer for three to four days; this should kill any eggs and caterpillars that may be present.
If you already have an infestation, carefully inspect all potential food sources including spices, cereals, grains, dry pet foods, pasta, seeds, nuts, tea, dried flowers and dried fruit.
Pantry moth caterpillars are hard to see; look for the silken webbing they produce, which can cause food grains to clump together. These webbed clumps are often more conspicuous than the caterpillars themselves.
Infested foods should either be discarded or placed in the freezer for three to four days to kill eggs and caterpillars.
Clean up and discard any spilled foods on shelves, under toasters or behind storage containers. Even small amounts of food can support thriving caterpillar populations.
Moth cocoons can be removed from your kitchen cupboards by wiping with a damp cloth or with a vacuum cleaner. Shutterstock
Caterpillars can travel considerable distances to find a safe place to make a cocoon, so make sure to check shelves, walls, crevices and ceilings. Moth cocoons can be removed by wiping with a damp cloth or with a vacuum cleaner.
Cleaning and proper food storage are the best ways to end a pantry moth outbreak. Sticky pantry moth traps are commercially available and can be used to monitor and reduce the moth population.
Pantry moth traps – triangular cardboard covered with a thick sticky glue – are baited with a chemical that mimics the smell of a female pantry moth.
Males are attracted to the trap and become hopelessly stuck to the glue. Since sticky traps only target males, traps are unlikely to stop an outbreak on their own; always use them with proper food storage and careful cleaning.
Insecticide sprays are unlikely to be effective as pantry moth caterpillars and eggs are protected within food containers. Pantry moths are also resistant to a range of insecticides, rendering them ineffective. Insecticides should never be applied on or near food.
What if I ate some pantry moth eggs or larvae?
While it can be disconcerting to find tiny caterpillars in the cereal you’ve been enjoying all week, accidentally eating pantry moth caterpillars is unlikely to cause any health problems.
Given how common they are in stored food, you’ve probably already unknowingly consumed many moth eggs and larvae.
Tanya Latty receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the Hermon Slade Foundation. She has previously received funding from AgriFutures Australia and The Branco Weiss Foundation, . She is affiliated with The Australian Entomological Society and The Australasian Society for the Study of Animal Behaviour.
New Zealand has historically been a suburban land. Famously characterised as a “quarter-acre pavlova paradise”, the domestic ideal has long been a single dwelling on a full section. But that is changing fast.
With soaring house prices and homes in short supply, medium-density development is set to fill urban and suburban horizons. Combined with a growing awareness of ecological sustainability, it seems Kiwis may soon be looking up to those green spaces they once looked at through backyard windows.
So, why not a rooftop revolution? Humans have made use of roof spaces since the invention of housing. Legend has it the Hanging Gardens of Babylon that greened the ancient city were created on roofs and terraces by those yearning for nature within their urban landscape.
These days, rooftop gardens and the “green roofs” movement are trending internationally, both as domestic and commercial spaces. Once useful for solar power and collecting rainwater, roofs are now used for food production, growing mini “forests” to mitigate climate change, “wildlife gardening”, leisure and entertainment.
Friedensreich Hundertwasser’s famous roof garden on the restrooms in Kawakawa. Shutterstock
Rooftops of the world
Examples of rooftop regeneration are everywhere. Thailand’s Thammasat University, for instance, boasts urban farming on its rice terrace-influenced green roof, a multipurpose organic food space, public commons, water management system, energy generator and outdoor classroom.
The rooftop of the Paris Exhibition Centre is now a vegetable garden, aimed at cutting the cost of food miles and feeding locals. With its massive, architectural “supertrees”, Singapore’s Gardens by the Bay invents a lush oasis in the densely populated city-state.
Closer to home, the artist and architect Friedensreich Hundertwasser’s famous roof garden on the restrooms in Kawakawa was a precursor to his remarkable Waldspirale building in Darmstadt, Germany.
Typical of his belief in culturally diverse urban forms that co-exist with nature, the apartment complex includes a forest on its spiral roof. Even more ambitious, Whangārei’s brand-new Hundertwasser Art Centre has a forest rooftop that includes more than 4,000 plants.
Singapore’s Gardens by the Bay. Shutterstock
The green roof
Similar ideas inform the the green roof on the University of Auckland’s engineering building. The project involves six plots containing 3,600 native and succulent plants, chosen for their ability to cope with both drought and flood conditions. Pumice, clay and bark are among the soil substitutes on trial, all part of proving a model for both commercial and domestic buildings.
To the west, the Waitākere Civic Centre green roof was designed to manage rainwater runoff, increase energy efficiency and promote biodiversity. The flat 500sqm garden contains ten types of native plant, iris and sand dune coprosma. The roof provides food and habitat for native insects and birds.
Rooftop development also offers the opportunity to decolonise cities, showcasing local culture and ecology and creating Māori spaces. Part of a renaissance in Māori architecture, Auckland International Airport’s green roof was influenced by korowai and made from flax fibre with geometric patterning.
And to the south, with part of its intention being to absorb noise pollution from the airport, Remarkables Primary School in Queenstown has a green roof that blends into the landscape and can be used as a classroom.
The Press Lounge rooftop bar in New York. Shutterstock
Drinking in the view
If there’s a pioneer of the sky-high lifestyle it’s probably the rooftop bar and restaurant. Kensington Roof Gardens in London opened in 1938, and from 1981 to 2018 was the site of Richard Branson’s appropriately named Babylon restaurant.
But the city rooftop bar is now a staple around the world. Auckland and Wellington boast multiple options, and post-earthquake Christchurch defies the loss of so much of the central city with two bars atop restored heritage buildings.
For those old enough to remember, these rooftop playgrounds might make them nostalgic for the real versions from their childhoods.
Taking their lead from the US, magical department store rooftop playgrounds thrilled generations of Kiwi children while their mothers shopped. On the Farmer’s rooftop in Auckland they could drive model cars, happily caught up in a fairground atmosphere that featured a giant toadstool.
On the Hay’s rooftop in Christchurch there were cheap rides on spaceships and fibreglass dinosaurs to slide down. There was even a popular purpose-built crèche on top of the then new Wellington railway station between 1937 and 1941.
Shutterstock
Embracing Babylon
All of this suggests we might be ready for the rooftop revolution. The question is, however, is there a political and civic commitment to greening the mass of new medium-density roof spaces now being built?
It will likely take a shift in mindset, supportive legislation and perhaps subsidies. In bucolic “God’s Own Country”, where our mental maps are of wide open spaces rather than vertical ones, roofscapes are going to take a bit of getting used to.
Might embracing a Kiwi Babylon mitigate our nostalgia for low-density living and let us re-imagine green spaces in exciting new ways? Let’s hope so. History tells us rooftops can combine utility with pleasure and sustainability. We just need to look up.
Katie Pickles 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.
After its worst two years since the second world war, 2022 is looking brighter for the global airline industry. For passengers, though, the chance to travel at low cost again may prove short-lived.
In 2020 international passenger demand was less than 25% that of 2019, according to the International Air Transport Association. 2021 data isn’t yet available, but the hiccups of the Delta and Omicron variants make the association’s forecasts of 50% of 2019 levels look optimistic.
With international and domestic routes reopening, airlines are offering a range of special deals on airfares. These deals are partly to entice back uncertain travellers and partly to compensate passengers for costs required to travel internationally, such as fees for COVID tests.
But don’t expect the cheap fares to last.
They are likely to have a brief lifespan, as the industry come to grips with post-pandemic realities minus the government support that enabled so many, contrary to predictions, to survive.
Now comes a reckoning, as surviving airlines seek to return to viability, repair their debt-laden balance sheets and future-proof their operations, with no guarantee they’ll get the same government support when the next crisis hits.
What this may mean is abandoning the business model of wafer-thin profit margins that delivered ever cheaper airfares from the 1970s until the beginning of 2020.
Regulation and jumbo jets
Up until the 1970s the airline industry was highly regulated.
Domestically, this was often done by governments to protect state-owned airlines. Australia’s “two-airline policy”, for example, restricted competition on major routes to just two airlines – the government-owned Trans Australia Airlines and a private competitor (Ansett Airlines for most that time).
Internationally, airfares were kept high by price cooperation through the International Air Transport Association (IATA), often described as a cartel. There were two ticket pricing levels – first-class and economy.
Until 1970 the biggest commercial jet aircraft was a Boeing 707, which could accommodate 180 passengers at a squeeze. Airfares had to be high to cover the high cost of operations (especially jet fuel). Most airlines accepted the IATA fare levels. Discounting was rare.
Then in 1970 came the Boeing 747 jumbo jet, which more than doubled flights’ passenger capacity, from 180 to 440.
A Boeing 707-138B alongside a Boeing 747 at the Qantas Founders Outback Museum, Longreach, Queensland. Wal Nelowkin, CC BY-SA
This led to many changes in aviation operations and costs. Jumbo jets also enabled greater seat-pricing flexibility, with the introduction of business and premium economy classes.
Airfares plummet
When I began work as a travel consultant in 1981 the regulation of air fares was beginning to unravel.
The official IATA economy return fare from Sydney to London was about A$3,500. But you could find fares on selected airlines for about A$2,500. (This was still several months’ wages for most, with Australian average weekly full-time earnings in 1981 being A$311 for men and A$241 for women.)
In the 1980s and 1990s, travel agents began to set themselves up as “bucket shops” specialising in offering discounted air fares to fill empty seats on less popular airlines.
This was how Flight Centre started. It opened its first shopfront in Sydney in 1982, followed by stores in Melbourne and Brisbane. (It now has more than 650 shops in Australia, and more than 550 in 10 other countries.)
Lower costs and plummeting air fares made the IATA’s fares increasingly irrelevant. With the global rise of low-cost carriers, many of which were not IATA members, the IATA finally abandoned so-called “YY” fare-setting in 2017.
Government regulation was also unwinding. Australia’s two-airline policy ended in October 1990. Deregulation permitted more competitors, and airfares were driven by the market rather than set by regulatory bodies.
By 2019, a return fare between Sydney and London on a reputable airline could be bought for about A$1,250, less than Australia’s average full-time adult average weekly earnings of A$1,658.
A Sydney-Perth return fare that cost about A$1,100 in 1981 could be bought in 2019 for less than A$300.
Why the cheap fare era may end
These price falls depended on airlines embracing a business model based on lower profits per customer but flying a lot more customers, cutting fixed overheads by using larger-capacity aircraft.
This business model contributed to the number of global tourists increasing from about 166 million in 1970 to 1.5 billion in 2019. But it also meant airlines needed planes full of passengers to make a profit. By 2019 the average pre-COVID profit margin per passenger on a long-haul international return flight was about US$10.
It’s difficult to see how running on razor-thin margins can continue to be the industry model.
During 2022 it is likely we will see consolidation within the industry, with the airlines that survive looking to diversify into other businesses, such as catering or insurance.
Low-cost carriers may still be viable, but only by convincing customers to pay for “ancilliaries” beyond the airline seat, such as in-flight snacks, extra luggage capacity or a booking a hire car.
Although most airlines are committed to limiting price increases, there is no escaping the fact they have two years of massive losses to make up and the continuing extra cost of COVID-related regulations to absorb.
Higher margins with lower passenger volumes looks the more probable model.
David Beirman is a senior lecturer in Tourism and Risk Management at the Univeristy of Technology Sydney and an honorary board member of the Australian Travel Careers Council.
The second half of 2021 is proving to be a peak time for movie musical-goers, with the release of critically acclaimed In the Heights, disastrously received Dear Evan Hansen, and Steven Spielberg’s hotly anticipated West Side Story.
These films lead to reflection on one of the stranger sub-genres of film history — the musical stage-to-screen adaptation. To film a stage show (as in the recent professionally shot films of Hamilton and Come from Away), or merely to create bigger stage sets in a studio (there are many examples of this, from Guys and Dolls to The Producers) is not truly to adapt a musical to film.
Instead, adaptors should use the tools unique to film to re-interpret the musical in this different medium.
To help us through the vicissitudes of adaptation, here is an idiosyncratic list of a few DOs and DON’Ts.
DO use real locations creatively
Location shooting is a frequent tool used to enhance the realism of film musicals, but placing the un-realism of song and dance in a real place can backfire and create an uncanny valley. Locations are best used in a super-realistic way.
A successful recent example of this is In the Heights. Director Jon Chu and his production team shot much of the film in Washington Heights in Manhattan, but in a way that the neighbourhood seems a natural place for music-making: very careful lighting, colour-timing, and the occasional unobtrusive effects shot lift the story out of the mundane.
In The Heights (2021) is a love letter to the Washington Heights area of NYC. IMDB
In the number When the Sun Goes Down, lovers Benny and Nina begin singing naturalistically on a fire escape, but then a set on hydraulics, green screen, and “magic hour” lighting come together to enable a gravity-defying dance across the rooftops and walls of the apartment buildings.
See also: Fiddler on the Roof, Jesus Christ Superstar, On the Town
DON’T ghettoise all of the musical numbers to a stark dreamland covered in artistic scaffolding
Counter to the previous guideline about using real locations for musical numbers, some film musicals go too far in the opposite direction.
Two musicals directed by Rob Marshall, Chicago and Nine, puzzlingly use the same solution to try and hedge their bets: the dialogue scenes happen in realistic locations (1920s Chicago and 1960s Rome, respectively) but the musical numbers are relegated to their characters’ internal fantasies, which in both cases means studio-like settings that allow for dancers to be placed in aesthetically pleasing formations.
Chicago (2002), features musical numbers entirely set within the character’s internal fantasies. IMDB
This strategy gets the filmmakers out of having to bridge the gap between speech time and music time, but the narrative innovations of both shows are smoothed out on screen. That makes for a less interesting filmgoing experience.
The exception that proves the rule here is Cabaret, in which director Bob Fosse removed all of the “book” songs and kept only those performed in the titular cabaret.
Through innovative intercutting and montage the cabaret songs pervade the whole texture of the film, however, resulting in one of the most “musical” of all musicals.
DO fix problems with the dramatic unfolding of the source material
Show Boat was the first stage musical to attempt a truly epic form, covering twenty years of story time and locations all along the Mississippi River.
In 1927, stage mechanics had not caught up with librettist Oscar Hammerstein II and composer Jerome Kern’s ambitions, and the musical, brilliant and groundbreaking as it was, suffered from overlength and a dramatically clumsy second act. The production team fixed these issues in the 1936 film version, as the technologies of montage, dissolve, and cross-cutting that were possible on film allowed for a more effective unfolding of time and place.
The 1965 film version of The Sound of Music similarly fixes problems in the stage version; another epic musical, the stage version feels hemmed-in and stifled.
The Sound of Music (1965) uses film techniques and editing to improve on a ‘stifled’ stage musical. IMDB
It is allowed to breathe on film, and the songs are moved around to better reflect what they are actually about (My Favourite Things on stage is sung by the Mother Abbess to cheer up Maria before she leaves the convent!)
See also: Hair, Hairspray, Tick Tick Boom
DON’T adapt a musical to film that didn’t work on stage
Poor Alan Jay Lerner. After the extraordinary success of the film version of My Fair Lady, Lerner attempted film adaptations of three of his other musicals that had been less successful on stage.
Camelot, which had a healthy run on Broadway because of its star actors (Julie Andrews, Richard Burton, and Robert Goulet), its Oliver Smith production designs, and a few excellent songs, rather more than for its unconvincing storyline and structure, was a natural for screen adaptation. But non-singer stars (Richard Harris, Vanessa Redgrave, and Franco Nero), unconvincing plot revisions, and dull direction by Joshua Logan caused it to be an inert behemoth on screen.
Lerner tried again with Paint Your Wagon in 1969, based on a much earlier stage musical that had been only mildly successful with a few hit songs (notably They Call the Wind Maria). But once more, non-singer stars (Lee Marvin, Clint Eastwood, and Jean Seberg), unconvincing plot revisions, and dull direction by (again!) Joshua Logan resulted in yet another inert behemoth.
Paint Your Wagon (1969) is generally acknowledged as a poor example of a film musical, and a stage musical. IMDB
Third time was not a charm, with On a Clear Day You Can See Forever. This time the stars were singers: Barbra Streisand and Yves Montand. Unfortunately, their talents were hidden by another poorly revised screenplay and, unlike the other two films, this one could have used more of everything, especially music.
Writing this has made me realise that successful stage-to-screen adaptations are quite rare. For every Cabaret there are two Annies and a Man of La Mancha. Spielberg’s new West Side Story will be the first musical he has directed in his long career, and musical-lovers everywhere are optimistic that he will do this classic musical justice.
I merely hope that the only scaffolding to be found is on the fire escapes of 1950s Manhattan!
Gregory Camp 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.
New Zealand Parliament Buildings, Wellington, New Zealand.
Editor’s Note: Here below is a list of the main issues currently under discussion in New Zealand and links to media coverage. You can sign up to NZ Politics Daily as well as New Zealand Political Roundup columns for free here.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hugh Breakey, Deputy Director, Institute for Ethics, Governance & Law. President, Australian Association for Professional & Applied Ethics., Griffith University
Over the past two years, our lives have changed in unprecedented ways. In the face of the pandemic, we have been required to obey demanding new rules and accept new risks, making enormous changes to our daily lives.
These disruptions can challenge us to think differently about ethics – about what we owe each other.
As we head into the third year of the pandemic, debates continue to rage over the ethics of vaccine mandates, restrictions on civil liberties, the limits of government power and the inequitable distribution of vaccines globally.
With so much disagreement over questions like these, has the pandemic fundamentally changed the way we think about ethics?
Ethics became more visible
In daily life, ethical decision-making often isn’t front of mind. We can often just coast along.
But the pandemic changed all that. It highlighted our human inter-connectedness and the effects of our actions on others. It made us re-litigate the basic rules of life: whether we could work or study, where we could go, who we could visit.
Because the rules were being rewritten, we had to work out where we stood on all manner of questions:
is it OK – or even obligatory – to “dob” on rule-breakers?
At times, politicians tried to downplay these ethically-loaded questions by insisting they were “just following the science”. But there is no such thing. Even where the science is incontrovertible, political decision-making is unavoidably informed by value judgements about fairness, life, rights, safety and freedom.
Ultimately, the pandemic made ethical thinking and discussion more common than ever — a change that might well outlast the virus itself. This might itself be a benefit, encouraging us to think more critically about our moral assumptions.
Who to trust?
Trust has always been morally important. However, the pandemic moved questions of trust to the very centre of everyday decision-making.
One good thing about trustworthiness is that it’s testable. Over time, evidence may confirm or refute the hypothesis that, say, the government is trustworthy about vaccine health advice but untrustworthy about cyber privacy protections in contract tracing apps.
Perhaps more importantly, one common concern throughout the pandemic was the unprecedented speed with which the vaccines were developed and approved. As the evidence for their safety and effectiveness continues to mount, quickly developed vaccines may be more readily trusted when the next health emergency strikes.
Trust in vaccines has varied considerably around the world. Ondrej Deml/AP
Legitimacy, time and executive power
When we’re thinking about the ethics of a law or rule, there are lots of questions we can ask.
Is it fair? Does it work? Were we consulted about it? Can we understand it? Does it treat us like adults? Is it enforced appropriately?
In the context of a pandemic, it turns out that delivering good answers to these questions requires a crucial resource: time.
The development of inclusive, informed, nuanced and fair rules is hard when swift responses are needed. It’s even more challenging when our understanding of the situation – and the situation itself – changes rapidly.
This doesn’t excuse shoddy political decision-making. But it does mean leaders can be forced to make hard decisions where there are no ethically sound alternatives on offer. When they do, the rest of us must cope with living in a deeply imperfect moral world.
All of this raises important questions for the future. Will we have become so inured to executive rule that governments feel confident in restricting our liberties and resist relinquishing their power?
On a different front, given the enormous costs and disruptions governments have imposed on the public to combat the pandemic, is there now a clearer moral obligation to marshal similar resources to combat slow-motion catastrophes like climate change?
Expectations, in the form of predictions about the future, are rarely at the forefront of our ethical thinking.
Yet as the 18th century philosopher Jeremy Bentham argued, disruption is inherently ethically challenging because people build their lives around their expectations. We make decisions, investments and plans based on our expectations, and adapt our preferences around them.
When those expectations are violated, we can experience not only material losses, but losses to our autonomy and “self efficacy” — or our perceived ability to navigate the world.
This plays out in several ways in the context of vaccine mandates.
For example, it’s not a crime to have strange beliefs and odd values, so long as you still follow the relevant rules. But this creates problems when a new type of regulation is imposed on an occupation.
A person with strong anti-vaccination beliefs (or even just vaccine hesitancy) arguably should never become a nurse or doctor. But they may well expect their views to be a non-issue if they are a footballer or a construction worker.
While there are powerful ethical reasons supporting vaccine mandates, the shattering of people’s life expectations nevertheless carries profound costs. Some people may be removed from careers they built their lives around. Others may have lost the sense their future is able to be predicted, and their lives are in their control.
It’s possible current social shifts will “snap back” once the threat recedes. Emergency situations, like pandemics and war, can have their own logic, driven by high stakes and the sacrifices necessary to confront them.
Equally though, learned lessons and ingrained habits of thought can persist beyond the crucibles that forged them. Only time will tell which changes will endure — and whether those changes make our society better or worse.
Hugh Breakey 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.
I waited for hours in emergency last night with this dreadful headache, but eventually gave up and left. Should I have kept waiting at the hospital?
This is a surprisingly common scenario I encounter as a general practitioner. If you’re wondering how bad your headache needs to be to go to hospital, here’s the advice I give my patients.
Go to hospital now
Let’s start with when you definitely should go to hospital for a bad headache.
Serious and urgent causes of headaches include infection, bleeding, clots and tumours. Don’t hesitate to go straight to hospital (via ambulance, or with a trusted driver) if you notice one or more of the following:
sudden onset of the worst headache you’ve ever had
headache that worsens with exercise or sexual intercourse
neck stiffness (new since the headache started)
high fever that doesn’t lower with over-the-counter pain medication
headache after trauma to your head or neck
personality changes and/or strange behaviour
weakness/numbness on one side of your body.
Three specific situations are also urgent:
pregnant or recently pregnant women who develop a sudden severe headache
people who are immunocompromised (such as someone living with HIV or on strong immune-suppressing medications)
Start by making a long appointment to see a GP to discuss your headache and nothing else. Give it the time and attention it deserves.
It’s helpful to take a record of your headaches for your doctor’s appointment: a “headache diary”.
The most important tool doctors have to diagnose headaches is your history. You may feel they are asking a lot of questions, but that’s because there are so many possible causes. Bear with your GP as they try to get you the most accurate diagnosis.
Here are the kinds of questions a doctor may ask, or be asking themselves while they assess you:
Is the pain caused by something straightforward?
Possible common causes include dehydration, eye/neck strain, teeth grinding, lack of sleep or caffeine withdrawal. Even taking regular painkillers can cause “medication overuse” headaches; the cure can become the cause.
Where in your head is the pain?
Sometimes the location of the pain gives a clue. For example, about 35% of headaches are “tension headaches”, which feel like a tight band around both sides of your head. Another 4% are “cluster headaches”, which start behind one eye (which can go red and watery) and are often associated with a stuffy nose.
Do you have any other symptoms accompanying the headache?
A migraine episode may be preceded by an “aura” (such as flashes of light), and often includes symptoms like nausea or vomiting, extreme sensitivity to noise and light, and blurred vision.
Fevers, an altered sense of smell, fatigue and pressure in your ears are features associated with acute sinusitis.
Is there a pattern to your headaches?
Certain headaches, such as migraine episodes or tension headaches, may have triggers that set them off, including certain foods, sleep deprivation, particular smells, or emotional stress.
Hormonal headaches track with menstrual cycles. Once an association is noticed, you may be able to pre-empt and treat headaches early.
Rarely, very high blood pressure (a hypertensive crisis) can cause a headache. However, raised blood pressure during a headache is usually simply your natural response to pain.
It’s essential to have chronic and recurrent headaches diagnosed properly by a doctor. Your GP may send you to another specialist (such as a neurologist or ear, nose and throat surgeon) depending on how complicated your situation appears.
Even if you’re sent for further testing, a specific cause may not be found. If that’s the case, your doctor’s goal will be to help you manage your headaches and lessen their impact on your life.
Many people self-diagnose “migraines” incorrectly. But a bad headache is not the same thing as a migraine attack, and some migraine attacks do not even include a headache!
If you think you have migraine attacks, get them diagnosed and treated properly.
If you can avoid going to hospital unnecessarily when you have a headache, you’ll benefit yourself and Australia’s health-care system.
Every time you present to an emergency department, it costs you hours of your life, and the community an average of A$561.
Seeing your GP is obviously more time-efficient and instead costs the community between A$38 to A$75.
If headaches interfere with your life, please prioritise your health. See a doctor, get a management plan for them – and save yourself a painfully long wait in emergency.
Part of the magic of Uluru is the way it tricks your senses. Deep orange by day, at sunrise and sunset it appears to change colour, becoming a more vibrant shade of red, and then almost purple.
Its size also seems to change depending on your perspective. Approaching Uluru from afar you are struck by how small it appears. But as you get closer, you realise it is truly a huge mountain, a behemoth in the middle of the comparatively flat Australian desert.
Australian geologists are now revealing yet another dimension to Uluru’s magic: the spectacular forces that led to its formation.
Uluru is a time capsule. Within its sand grains there is an epic 550-million-year saga of continents colliding, mountains rising and falling, and the remarkable strength of our most iconic mountain.
Uluru is sacred
To the Anangu, Uluru is sacred. The Anangu are the owners of the land on which Uluru sits and they have long understood its magic.
Their Dreaming stories tell of the dramatic creation of Uluru and Kata Tjuta on the previously featureless Earth by ancestral creator beings known as the Tjukuritja or Waparitja.
If you get the opportunity to tour Uluru with a Traditional Owner you will hear stories about the significance of some of the dimples, caves and undulations, many of which have a unique and important place in Anangu culture.
The story of Uluru began 550 million years ago, when India smashed into the West Australian coast. Robyn Lawford
Compared to the Traditional Owners, whose knowledge dates back several tens of thousands of years, scientists have only realised the significance of Uluru over the last 30 years or so.
Uluru’s geological history has been revealed by assembling different types of data, like pieces of a giant jigsaw puzzle. That puzzle is taking shape and the scene it reveals is perhaps even more spectacular than the rock itself.
To tell Uluru’s story from the beginning we need to travel back in time 550 million years.
India smashed into the Western Australian coast
Earth’s tectonic plates are constantly in motion, continents collide with each other and then rift apart. Around 550 million years ago, continents collided as part of the assembly of the supercontinent Gondwana, one of several times in Earth’s history where most of the continents were stuck together in one continuous piece of land.
Back then, a map of our globe would have looked very different. At this time, Antarctica was nestled against the Great Australian Bite. If you were around then you could have walked from Australia directly into Antarctica without getting your shoes wet. India was situated to the west of Western Australia when it was pulled toward our continent and smashed into the coastline.
India and Australia’s collision caused massive stresses to reverberate throughout the Australian crust, like waves of energy crashing through the continent. When those waves got to Central Australia, something pretty remarkable happened that geologists can understand by mapping the rocks beneath the surface.
Those maps reveal a complex network of ancient, interwoven fractures and faults, similar to the famous San Andreas fault network. Unlike a fracture in your arm bone, these faults never healed, so they remained broken, forming weak zones susceptible to breaking and moving again.
So, when the waves of energy from WA reached Central Australia, the network of fractures moved, pushing rock packages on top of each other. As the rocks moved past each other, they also moved upwards and were thrust into the air.
Uluru is made of sandstone, a type of rock formed in oceans. Unsplash, CC BY
An enormous mountain range emerged
Each fault rupture moved the rocks so quickly that huge earthquakes shook the ground. Gradually, these faults uplifted an enormous mountain range. It was called the Petermann mountains, and it was unlike anything in Australia today.
The mountains were hundreds of kilometres long and five kilometres high, more akin to the Indian Himalaya than Australia’s Great Dividing Range.
They were mostly made of granite, a rock that crystallises from molten rock (magma) deep underground. This granite was pushed up to the surface in the mountain-building process. Normally, mountains would be covered in vegetation, but 550 million years ago land plants had not yet evolved, meaning these mountains were probably bare.
Boulders cracked off, an ocean formed
Bare mountains weather quickly because they are more exposed to rain and wind. Big cracks formed in the granite, splitting away rocks and boulders, which fell into rivers gushing down deep valleys carved into the mountain.
At sunrise and sunset, Uluru appears to change colour. Christian Bass/Unsplash, CC BY
As the eroded rocks tumbled in the torrential water, they broke apart, until only grains of sand remained, like the sand you see on the bottom of a river bed. These huge braided rivers came off the northern side of the Petermann mountains and snaked across the landscape until the rivers entered a low-lying region, called a sedimentary basin.
When the river reached the basin, the sediment from the mountains dropped out of the water, depositing layer upon layer of sand. The weight of it pushed down on the underlying rock, causing the basin to deepen until it was kilometres thick.
The overlying layers compacted the sand deposited previously, forming a rock called sandstone. Over time the basin continued to deepen and was covered by water, forming an inland ocean lapping at the foot of the huge mountain range.
Ancient faults reawakened, and Uluru rose from the ocean
Sediment continued to deposit into the ocean until about 300 million years ago when the ancient faults began to reawaken during a new mountain-building event called the Alice Springs orogeny.
The thick layers of sand that had cemented into solid sandstone were uplifted above sea level. Squeezed together by huge tectonic forces, the layers buckled and folded into M-shapes. The apex, or hinge of folds, was compressed more than surrounding rocks, and it is from the hinge of a massive fold that Uluru formed.
Uluru resisted the forces of weathering that eroded other rocks. Shutterstock
Folding and deformation made Uluru strong and able to resist the forces of weathering that eroded the surrounding, weaker rocks, including almost all of the once mighty Petermann mountains. If we could dig underneath Uluru, we would see it is only the very tip of a rock sequence that extends kilometres down under the surface, like a rock iceberg.
Uluru is a sacred site to Anangu and our respect for their deep knowledge and ownership of this land means we no longer climb Uluṟu.
But even if we could, why would we want to? Uluru’s magic is most evident when you stand at its base, look up, and picture in your mind the enormous forces that conspired to form it.
Melanie Finch is the President of the Women in Earth and Environmental Sciences Australasia (WOMEESA) Network. She is a 2021-2022 Science and Technology Australia Superstar of STEM.
Andrew Giles 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.
This article is part of a series explaining how readers can learn the skills to take part in activities that academics love doing as part of their work.
Taxonomy was once the domain of white-coated scientists with years of university training. While this expertise is still important, everyday Australians are increasingly helping to identify species through citizen science apps. Rapid advances in smartphone and tablet cameras are helping to popularise this activity.
Biodiversity researchers are calling on citizen scientists to contribute data to fill information gaps, identify species declines and inform management decisions. And young researchers – some as young as infant school children – are stepping up to help.
Stories such as the experience of 14-year-old Luke Downey, of Canberra, inspire others to record and upload images to biodiversity databases. Earlier this year, Luke found a rare beetle, Castiarinatestacea, last seen in the ACT in 1955. His observation was recorded in the Canberra Nature Map, an online repository of rare plants and animals.
I put a macro lens on my smartphone and I was hooked
My own inspiration to become a citizen scientist was an inexpensive macro lens now permanently affixed to my smartphone. This small portable lens photographs small subjects at very close distances. (Some newer smartphones have built-in lenses that can do this.)
I caught the “bug” of taking detailed close-up images such as the one below of stingless native bees, Tetragonula carbonaria, communing with one another and admiring – or minding – their beeswax. Sharing the images I have taken has converted others to this type of citizen science.
By attaching a macro lens to your smartphone (some have close-up cameras built in), you can take photos like this one of the native stingless bee, Tetragonula carbonaria. Photo: Judy Friedlander, Author provided
Anyone can now take close-ups of insects, plants and other species to contribute to citizen science databases. The clarity of these images means experts can often determine the species, adding to understandings of distribution and numbers to assist on-ground conservation.
Activities like these feature in the B&B Highway program, run by PlantingSeeds Projects. The program encourages school students in New South Wales and Victoria to participate in a citizen science project. It’s affiliated with the international iNaturalist biodiversity network and database and CSIRO’s Atlas of Living Australia.
Students are using smartphones and tablets in school playgrounds to capture extraordinary images of insects less than 1cm long, or tiny details of flower parts. There’s an online dashboard where students can see and share observations and knowledge. These images then contribute to our knowledge of species distributions and densities.
The B&B Highway program has developed a biodiversity-based curriculum with the NSW Department of Education. The project includes plantings and constructed habitats at schools to form regenerative corridors. It has a target of over 60 hubs by mid-2022 to help counter the alarming decline in pollinators in Australia and around the world.
The B&B Highway program provides training for teachers and students. While students are often more at ease with smart devices and their camera functions than their teachers, separate instructions are given to school administrators to set up an iNaturalist account and upload observations. Having a school account ensures students’ identities are protected and all observations are listed as the schools’.
Children under the age of 13 cannot create an account or engage directly with many citizen science communities, including iNaturalist. This means an adult needs to upload observations.
An observation is regarded as research grade if at least two site users agree on the identification to the taxonomic species level. Observations on iNaturalist are shared with the Atlas of Living Australia.
The photos you take can help fill the gaps in knowledge about the distribution and abundance of pollinators and the flowers they visit. Photo: Judy Friedlander, Author provided
Taxonomists regularly report concern at the lack of data on the distributions and densities of insect pollinators. This month’s addition of 124 Australian species to the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species means urgent strategies – including citizen science – are needed to help regeneration.
Take identifiable photos. Try to fill the frame with your subject. It may help to use your hand to hold a flower or plant still, but make sure the plant is not dangerous.
Observations of wild species, like this King Parrot, Alisterus scapularis, are of more scientific value. Author provided
Take multiple photos. Many organisms, particularly plants and insects, cannot be identified to species level from a single photo. Take several photos from different angles. For plants, photos of flowers, fruit and leaves are all helpful for ID.
Focus on wild organisms. In general, the iNat community is more interested in wild organisms. Members respond more to pictures of weeds and bugs than cultivated roses and hamsters in cages.
Pay attention to metadata. This is the information associated with a photo that captures when and where (if location services are on) a photo was taken. Screen shots of photos will lose this data, which may result in incorrect data entry. Watch for locations and dates that don’t make sense. If your device’s time and date settings are wrong, the data will be wrong.
Don’t feel pressured to make research grade observations. Many organisms cannot be identified to the species level using only photographic evidence so observations of them may never attain research grade.
Be aware of copyright. Images should not be copied from books or the internet to illustrate what you observed. Post only your own photos.
Check out Seek.Seek is an educational tool built on iNaturalist. It does not actually post observations to iNaturalist but provides tools such as automated species identification (when possible) and nature journalling.
Judy Friedlander is the founder of PlantingSeeds Projects Ltd, a not-for-profit organisation focusing on biodiversity and regeneration. PlantingSeeds’ key initiative is the B&B Highway, which has received government and non-government grants.
With the world facing an ever-growing number of environmental and social challenges, investors are increasingly expecting corporations to “do the right thing” and contribute positively to the community.
This is known as corporate social responsibility or CSR.
Investors play an important role pushing firms towards becoming better corporate citizens.
So, what do investors (including those of us with superannuation invested in companies) need to know about corporate social responsibility? And why does it matter?
US writer and economist Howard Bowen is often described as the “founding father” of CSR. He wrote in 1953 that business have a social responsibility, defined as:
the obligations of businessmen to pursue those policies, to make those decisions, or to follow those lines of action that are desirable in terms of the objectives and values of our society.
The concept was popularised in the US in the 1970s, especially after US think tank the Committee for Economic Development in 1971 noted there is a “social contract” between business and society, saying:
Business is being asked to assume broader responsibilities to society than ever before and to serve a wider range of human values. Business enterprises, in effect, are being asked to contribute more to the quality of American life than just supplying quantities of goods and services.
In other words, there was growing acceptance of the idea it was not enough for companies just to pay taxes. To gain a “social licence to operate”, firms should also actively “do good” in society.
In the mid-1990s, the term “triple bottom line” was brought to prominence by US author and advisor John Elkington, which he describes as
a sustainability framework that examines a company’s social, environment, and economic impact.
CSR and ESG investing
More recently, the term environmental, social and governance (ESG) has grown more common.
Although ESG and similar obligations are not necessarily legally compulsory for most companies, many investors see good policies in this area as a sign the firm is well positioned for the future.
Some common issues many investors care about include:
For many investors, ESG is fundamentally about how a company serves the environment, workers, communities, customers, and shareholders.
Why do some firms pursue some CSR goals while neglecting others?
We recently completed a study pondering the question: why do some firms ignore some stakeholders while courting others?
We categorised companies into six distinct “types”: the CSR vanguard, the opportunist, the generalist, the minimalist, the specialist and the laggard. Vanguards proactively pursue a wide range of CSR goals that address an array of stakeholder concerns, even without much pressure from investors. A generalist has genuine commitment to CSR goals but doesn’t really favour one area over another.
But if the company only pursues CSR goals on some issues while others are all below the industry or country average, this company might be what we termed a CSR “opportunist”.
Big superannuation companies and investment professionals often have specialist research teams dedicated to identifying which companies have a good record on CSR.
So there’s a limit to how much an individual investor can expect to find out on their own about the firms they invest in.
How much do you know about the CSR record of firms you invest in? Shutterstock
How do I research companies and their CSR record?
Expecting individuals to expertly navigate this topic on their own is unrealistic.
But you can try. Look in your investment platform (meaning the website or app through which you manage your investments) for ESG information about various firms.
Search online for more detail. Has media coverage revealed any scandals linked to companies you invest in, around issues such as environmental protection, Indigenous rights, social justice, employees’ rights, human rights or corporate governance?
Who runs the company? Who is on the board? Search their names and see if you’re happy with what you find.
Have a look through the company’s recent annual reports. Look for chapters with titles such as sustainability report, social impact report or corporate social responsibility report. Thanks to many years of pressure from investors, most companies will detail their efforts to some degree.
But beware greenwashing and slick marketing. Some companies can be quite deceptive in the way they talk about corporate social responsibility. For example, they may have improved their environmental record but continue to have a poor record of how they treat workers.
You might consider factors such as the company’s workers’ rights record. Shutterstock
Our research has identified causes and consequences of such inconsistent CSR practices. An inconsistent record on CSR could pose risk to your money in the long run. Think carefully about how a firm’s irresponsible practices in one area can cancel out corporate social responsibility gains in another.
And if you see room for improvement, let the company know. You can do that by posting questions and comments on its social media platform and using their “contact us” option on its website.
Or, in the worst scenario, you can inform your investor community and collectively sell your shares to keep the company in check – share prices can convey your dissatisfaction.
Your voice may be one of many building to a groundswell and exerting pressure on the company to do better.
Dirk Boehe 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. This story is part of a series on financial and economic literacy funded by Ecstra Foundation.
Limin Fu 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.
The podcast Guardians of the River traverses the Okavango River from its source in Angola to its discharge into the Botswana Delta 1500 kilometres laterPhoto: Shutterstock
It has been another huge year for podcasts, with a rise in both fictional and celebrity-hosted podcasts, along with the perennial true crime ones. Themes of diversity, social justice, environmental issues and cancel culture were also prominent this year.
Here, then, are five of the best podcasts of 2021 – and some suggestions for companion listening.
From Serial to Ear Hustle (produced inside San Quentin prison) to Darwin’s Birds Eye View, the podcast medium has allowed us to fully hear prisoners’ stories, without any prior judgement based on their appearance. Suave extends the tradition with a deep dive into the story of a Latino-American man called David Luis “Suave” Gonzalez, sentenced to life imprisonment at Graterford State Correctional Institution, Pennsylvania, aged just 17.
It turns out that like other juveniles in that state, he pleaded guilty rather than be subject to a potential death penalty. Journalist Maria Hinojosa tracks Suave’s story over decades, until a new ruling means he may find freedom, at almost 50. A penetrating exploration of prison psychology, this podcast is anchored in a complex relationship between a journalist and her source.
Companion listening: In the Dark, Series 2, Episode: Curtis Flowers.
Years of investigation by this podcast team helped obtain the release of a Mississippi man, Curtis Flowers, who was wrongfully imprisoned for 23 years partly due to a racist district attorney. This long-awaited interview with a freed Curtis reveals a man who is sad, charming, clear-eyed and remarkably free of bitterness.
Jon Ronson, the Louis Theroux of podcasting, provides a historical take on the culture wars in this carefully crafted BBC podcast (dropping Feb 9 in Australia). In the first five episodes (all I’ve heard), Ronson deploys his trademark ability to scratch a big theme and find the quirky human stories that flip common perceptions.
A televangelist espouses gay rights at the height of AIDS; the censoring of progressive school literature in America in the ‘60s gives way to a woke backlash decades on against a seminal black memoir; a reformed anti-abortion crusader rues his propaganda; and a 1980s proto-Q-anon-style conspiracy that sent an innocent childcare worker to jail for years shows that framing a victim does not need online hysteria. The series provides sobering context for the conflicts that have been so amplified by social media anarchy, delivered with a kind of wry wonder at our inhumanity.
Companion listening: The Eleventh from Pineapple Studios documents horrifying tales of contemporary cancel culture in its first series, The Inbox, while Limited Capacity from CBC is a more playful take on internet predations.
The title derives from then President Donald Trump’s vicious description of Haiti, El Salvador and some African countries in 2018. This spurred young Ghanaian-American Afia Kaakyire to delve into family history and self-discovery, telling “true tales dipped in entrepreneurial dreams, green card anxieties, complicated love”.
A slur from Donald Trump has sparked a wonderful podcast. Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA
Though her name is made-up (for obvious reasons), Afia’s voice is utterly authentic. She chronicles with honesty and irony her ambivalent, evolving relationship with Ghana and her extended family, in a wide-ranging essay-memoir produced to the excellent standards we associate with the Radiotopia network of independent artists. Episode 3, in which she interviews her remarkable mother, Agnes, about her long journey to becoming a property-owner in New York, is a standout. And unlike many narrative podcasts, the ending doesn’t disappoint: the final two episodes positively sizzle.
Companion listening:Crackdown shares themes of being Other and wishing to be truly seen. This activist Canadian podcast is hosted by Garth Mullins, a drug user who is also a professional radio reporter. In collaboration with a community of drug users in Vancouver, the podcast robustly advocates for opioids and other drugs to be made legal, styling itself as “the drug war, covered by drug users as war correspondents”.
This epic podcast traverses the Okavango River from its source in Angola to its discharge into the Botswana Delta 1500 kilometres later, through the eyes of local keepers and scientists dedicated to its conservation. Funded by the National Geographic Society and others, it’s a sound-rich portrait of the river as a vital, living artefact, narrated by two engaging African scientists who are emotionally and environmentally connected to it.
Companion listening: The Repair Season 5 of the always-on-the-Zeitgeist Scene On Radio tackles the climate emergency, starting at the Book of Genesis, which exhorted man to “subdue” nature.
Sometimes the Big Topics get a bit overwhelming and it’s nice to be reminded of what podcasting means to many: a chumcast/chatcast, where a couple of pals shoot the breeze on whatever takes their fancy. Countless chatcasts dabble in sport, pop culture and TV recaps.
With corporate heavies like Spotify, Audible and lately Facebook, muscling in on the medium, it’s refreshing to hear two homegrown Aussies randomly ruminating on a very pertinent theme – surviving the share house and riding out the rental crisis. Hosts Marty Smiley and Nat Demena have lots of fun with Karen bin nazis,(entitled white women who police bins on streets), food-tamperers and housemates that never flush.
Companion listening: Helen Garner reading Monkey Grip, her own tale of toxic share houses, set in Melbourne in the ‘70s. Deliciously observed, this gritty urban anthropology (disguised as a novel) makes you realise not much has changed, despite the internet. Free on ABC Listen app, or on Audible.
Papua New Guinea’s “glassmen” — men who claim to identify and accuse women of sorcery — must be hunted down and charged with their crimes, says Northern Governor Gary Juffa.
He said PNG should not just continue expressing concern and outrage while doing nothing to address sorcery accusation-related violence (SARV).
He made these comments in response to a video showing five women being stripped naked, tied to poles and tortured being released on social media last week. The cruelty portrayed in the video has shocked the nation.
An editorial note on the Post-Courier front page said: “This horrendous crime must not be seen as an isolated incident and such tortures and killings must be reported prominently.”
According to The National, Police Commissioner David Manning described the torture as “vile, inhumane, uncivilised, void of any human decency”.
The torture is believed to have occurred in Kagua, Southern Highlands Province.
Juffa said the perpetrators were visible in the video and it was not hard to identify them.
“They must all be rounded up and they must all be charged,” he said.
‘They are the guiltiest’ “And not only them, but those who claim to be ‘glassmen’, must also be brought in and charged.
“They are the guiltiest and must be apprehended and charged.”
Juffa also said the video was debated and discussed among MPs at great length.
“Member for Porgera has already assured us that he has sent this video to the provincial police commander of Enga.
“The Minister of Police has also advised us that he has already informed the Commissioner of Police and they are investigating.
“But now, something must be done, we must take action.”
Today’s PNG Post-Courier front page report on the police investigation into the shocking alleged sorcery torture video. Image: PC screenshot APR
Deputy Commissioner Police Operations Anton Billie called on the public to come forward with any information they had about the torture.
He also called on churches, youth groups, community leaders and women’s groups to come forward and assist the police with any information they might have on the perpetrators or the status of the five women — and whether they were still alive.
According to Cultural Survival, traditional PNG spiritualists are known in the Tok Pisin language as ol glas man — “glassmen”, or seers — who practise soul travel characteristic of shamanism.
Rebecca Kuku is a a PNG Post-Courier reporter. Republished with permission.
New Zealand’s leading daily newspaper has praised the “gift of inspiration” over global cooperation in launching the James Webb space telescope at the Christmas weekend, but has decried the failure of the international community to seriously tackle the growing covid-19 public health crisis cooperatively.
The New Zealand Herald declared today in an editorial that the timing, cooperation, and development work involved launching the successor to the Hubble telescope “is in marked contrast with the still muddled, individual country-based approach to the pandemic”.
The launch also could not help but “signify the yawning gap between what people are capable of and what they commonly settle for”, the newspaper wrote.
The launch of the James Webb telescope was a collaboration between the space agencies of the United States, Europe and Canada with people from 29 countries having worked on the project, reports AP.
“It blasted away from French Guiana on a European Ariane rocket. As with previous space missions, it involves vision, ambition and precise calculations that have to work perfectly to pull it all off,” the Herald said.
“The telescope has a 1.5 million km journey ahead, far beyond the moon, with a task of eventually gazing on light from the first stars and galaxies.
“It all hinges on the telescope’s mirror and sunshield unfolding on cue over nearly two weeks, having been tucked away to fit into the rocket’s nose cone.
“If that goes right, the telescope will be able to look back in time a mind-boggling 13.5 billion years.”
Fascinating year for science The US$10 billion telescope project had capped a “fascinating year for space science” after the “incredibly precise landing of a rover and a helicopter drone on Mars, which resulted in the first powered flight on another planet”, said the Herald.
Noting Nasa’s science mission chief Thomas Zurbuchen’s comment welcoming the launch — “what an amazing Christmas present” — the newspaper contrasted the collaborative achievement with the “muddled, individual country-based approach” over covid-19.
“While the rocket was launching humanity’s imaginative time machine, hundreds of thousands of people on Earth were getting a ‘gift’ of covid at Christmas. Both Britain and France hit more than 100,000 cases on Saturday,” the Herald said.
“The cost of the space project is tiny compared to the US$725 billion the US spent on defence in the 2020 financial year — more than the next 11 countries combined. Next year’s bill is US$770 billion.
“It is closer to the US$50 billion amount the OECD has estimated it would cost to vaccinate the world’s population against the coronavirus and protect the global economy.
“Far more money than that — US$12 trillion — was spent by countries in financial support between March and November 2020.
Time to hatch global covid plan “Although that support was urgently needed, surely there was also time to hatch a US$50 billion global plan for a coronavirus endgame before the vaccines came on stream in late 2020.
“Now, a year later, each country is dealing with the omicron wave its own way, and progress in distributing vaccines to poorer regions is slow. People feel frustrated the vaccines haven’t guaranteed a return to life as we knew it.
“The vaccines themselves are an amazing scientific achievement: developed quickly and still doing their job of protecting the vast majority of vaccinated people against severe covid disease.
“A study by the World Health Organisation and a European Union agency estimated in November that the vaccines had saved nearly half a million lives in a region of 33 countries.
“But it is hard for people to really absorb achievements that involve prevention: When they work as hoped, at least some people believe it’s proof the threat was overblown.”
Protesters rally against the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games in Los Angeles in December.Damian Dovarganes/AP
The Beijing Winter Olympics are only weeks away and China has been forced on the defensive by a diplomatic boycott called by the US, UK, Australia and other western countries.
There had been pressure for Western governments to announce a boycott for months over the Chinese party-state’s treatment of the Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities in Xinjiang, as well as human rights lawyers and individuals who dare to speak out against the government.
The push gained new momentum after the disappearance of Chinese tennis star Peng Shuai following her allegations of sexual assault against a former top Politburo official. The Women’s Tennis Association suspended all of its tournaments in China – the strongest stance yet against China by a sporting organisation that relies heavily on the Chinese market.
China’s international image was already at its lowest level in years in many western countries following the outbreak of the COVID pandemic and Beijing’s initial handling of the crisis.
So, given the increasingly negative views of the country in the west, how will Beijing respond with the Olympics only weeks away? Will it adopt a charm offensive? Or will it retaliate because it feels it has been treated unfairly?
Recent strategies adopted by the government suggest there are other avenues for Beijing to counter critics of its policies. Take economic pressure, for one.
In a virtual meeting between China’s vice foreign minister, Xie Feng, and US business lobby groups at the end of November, Xie asked US businesses to “speak up and speak out” for China with the US government.
The message was clear – Beijing expects the business community to lobby on its behalf to continue to have access to China’s lucrative market. As Xie said,
If the relations between the two countries deteriorate, the business community cannot ‘make a fortune in silence’.
This has long been the price the business community has been forced to pay to have a foothold in China – compliance with the demands of the party-state.
Remember back in 2019, when former Houston Rockets General Manager Daryl Morey tweeted in support of pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong? The NBA initially issued a statement that was criticised by US politicians on both sides of the aisle for prioritising financial interests over human rights. (The league later clarified it stood for “freedom of expression”.)
Access to the lucrative Chinese market still matters hugely – this is leverage the Chinese government can still use against foreign interests. It says a lot that major Olympic sponsors have remained quiet over China’s human rights situation, while governments have announced diplomatic boycotts.
Then there is the question of whether China still needs the west or cares what the west thinks of it.
China has framed the diplomatic boycott as “a blatant political provocation and a serious affront to the 1.4 billion Chinese people”. But it has also pointed to the 173 UN member nations that signed the UN Olympic truce to ensure conflicts do not disrupt the games.
Yes, Beijing is angry about the snub from Washington and others, but it is emphasising it still has broad international support for the Winter Olympics. Russian President Vladimir Putin has accepted the invitation to attend the opening ceremonies “with joy”. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will also attend, and others will surely follow.
China’s model of development has long attracted admiration from African countries, particularly its form of state-directed capitalism. By hosting its second Olympics in less than 20 years, China is reinforcing this message to developing nations – that its model of development works.
By awarding China the games, the IOC is also showing the world it is unfazed by its close proximity to authoritarian regimes, further legitimising them.
The European Union’s dithering over its response to the boycott has also strengthened Beijing’s position and allowed it to exploit the west’s inconsistent stance on the matter.
The Olympics don’t bring dramatic change
There was great hope the 2008 Beijing summer Olympics would change China for the better – the government would become more accountable and have greater respect for human rights.
However, violent protests broke out in Tibet against the party-state’s repressive policies and then spread around the world in the run-up to the games. About 30 Tibetans were jailed, some for life.
The 2008 Olympics revealed the naivete of the international community: believing that sport can bring political change.
In fact, China stage-managed those games so well, it was deemed a soft power victory, announcing China as a superpower on the global stage. Historian Zheng Wang called the games “a symbol of China’s rejuvenation”.
Through the extravagant opening ceremony, the Chinese government showcased China’s historical glory and new achievements […] unassailable evidence that China had finally ‘made it’.
It would be mistake to think the current diplomatic boycott will lead to any substantial change in China’s domestic situation. Instead, the diplomatic boycott is a strategy of compromise – athletes are still able to compete, but western governments can be seen as taking a stand.
However, the silence of major sponsors shows there is no unified voice when it comes to the China’s human rights situation. This gap between the west’s political and commercial response plays to China’s advantage. It’s yet another way for China to demonstrate the weakness of the west – that professed democratic values and respect for human rights can be compromised when profits are at stake.
As such, China is unlikely to capitulate and make dramatic overtures to repair its international image. It’s more likely to go on the offensive.
Nonetheless, this should be a moment when sports fans, athletes, sponsors, and the broader international civil society question sporting bodies like the IOC in awarding sporting events to authoritarian governments.
The IOC didn’t learn its lesson in 2008. If it wants to be seen as upholding human rights, this starts with how it awards its biggest prizes – the right to play host to the rest of the world.
Jennifer Y.J. Hsu is affiliated with the Lowy Institute.
After all the bad press tech companies have received, would anyone still be surprised to learn the outwardly smiling face of social media conceals a sophisticated data-collection industry?
This year’s headlines delivered news of an array of concerning data and privacy violations from the world’s biggest tech players. But interestingly, it also seemed to be the year governments around the world addressed the problem head on.
Google in trouble with the ACCC
In April, Australia’s consumer watchdog, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, took Google to Federal court, citing Australian Consumer Law relating to consumer privacy.
It was alleged Google did not clearly identify how it collected and used users’ location data collected through Android devices in 2017 and 2018. Google was accused of leading users to mistakenly believe their personal location data was not being collected, when it actually is.
The Court found Google’s conduct was liable to misleading the public. Here’s how.
A tale of two settings
There are two settings on Android devices that govern how data is collected: location history and web and app activity.
Stepping through the setup screens, the user is shown their location history as being switched off by default. But it’s not made clear the web and app activity setting (located elsewhere) is on by default, and could also be used to collect location data – even if location history is switched off.
So the user might believe location tracking is switched off, but in reality tracking may still be performed because of the default web and app activity setting (which they might not know about).
Android 12 (released in October) now has a new privacy dashboard that goes some way towards remedying the permissions transparency issue. It shows the user which apps have accessed location services, and allows them to deny further access.
However, the web and app activity setting is still located elsewhere and not easily found. It is still switched on, by default, and able to track users’ movements.
To switch this setting off, follow the instructions here. But be aware that once you do this Google Maps might not work as well for you, and ads will become less relevant, along with search recommendations.
The legal position on the case against Google in Australia seems to remain unresolved. freestocks-photos/Pixabay
In separate proceedings in July, Google was once again sued by the ACCC for allegedly not disclosing it receives sensitive information about users from third-party websites and apps. Google was accused of using this information commercially without making the process clear to users.
The company was also hit with yet another major antitrust lawsuit, in which its influence over app developers was called into question.
Specifically, the multi-state lawsuit accused Google of abusing its market power to stifle competition and force users and developers to engage with Google’s own high-fee payment processing system.
This was one in a number of US state and federal antitrust cases against the company, with the first one brought forward in October last year.
Meanwhile, Meta Platforms (or Facebook) is still reeling from Francis Haugen’s damning testimony to the US Congress in October.
A former manager at Facebook, Haugen accused Facebook of a catalogue of antisocial behaviour, in which it knowingly allowed the amplification of hate speech, propagation of misinformation and instigation of political unrest on the platform.
Haugen claimed employees had expressed concerns internally, but these were disregarded, or at least were not enough to change the situation. She is due to give a follow-up testimony in December.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg refuted the allegations, saying they are “just not true”. He wrote in a blog post:
The argument that we deliberately push content that makes people angry for profit is deeply illogical. We make money from ads, and advertisers consistently tell us they don’t want their ads next to harmful or angry content.
More recently, the Washington Post reported on another anonymous whistleblower and former Facebook employee, who came out with a sworn affidavit saying Facebook puts profits ahead of stopping hate speech, misinformation and other threats to the public interest.
Earlier this year US lawmakers confronted Facebook regarding its alleged advertising of military weapons to users in the wake of the Capitol riot. Thomas Ulrich/Pixabay
TikTok and children’s data
In April, the former children’s commissioner for England, Anne Longfield, launched a legal action concerning the way video-sharing app TikTok collects and uses the data of children using the app.
The lawsuit alleges TikTok (which is now said to have more than one billion users) collects sensitive personal information including children’s phone numbers, where they live, and unspecified “biometric data” without sufficient transparency, and without asking consent as required by UK law.
TikTok’s policies simply state it will collect information “you share with us from third-party social network providers, and technical and behavioural information about your use of the platform”. But this does not sufficiently explain the nature and extent of the data collection.
The lawsuit also claims there’s no transparency regarding how users’ personal information is used. Longfield described TikTok as “a data collection service that is thinly veiled as a social network”.
TikTok responded by saying user privacy and safety were its top priorities, and it has “robust policies, processes and technologies in place to help protect all users”.
There’s also the larger debate on whether TikTok – owned by Beijing-based company ByteDance – may be using user data for censorship, spreading propaganda among users, or to spy on users by feeding data back to the Chinese government (which is a ByteDance shareholder).
Currently, the fact people could read a terms and conditions document before clicking “agree” apparently amounts to informed consent, in the legal sense. The result is most users consent to their data being collected and used in numerous ways, but are none the wiser of the specifics.
Regulators must oblige platforms to be upfront and transparent about how user data is collected, used, and whom it is forwarded to (and for what purpose).
This could be achieved quite easily by including this information in plain language on the very same terms and conditions page. But as it stands it’s too easy for platforms to hide behind loose definitions of informed consent.
Although if the events of the past year are anything to go by, this may be starting to change.
David Tuffley 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.
Hot weather can be dangerous to our canine friends. Humans can sweat all over our body, but dogs can only sweat on their paw pads, which is not much use when it comes to shedding body heat.
So how hot is too hot to take your dog out? It depends on the dog and their individual risk factors (more on that in a minute). For me, 33℃ is where I start to consider whether or not to take my dogs outside, and try to think of cooler places we could visit.
If they were older or heavier, I might not take them out at all on days over 30℃. Dogs can struggle on very humid days so I factor that in, too.
Here’s what you need to know about how to care for your dog on a hot day.
Dogs with long noses, like Fonzi, have more cooling structures. Lucy Beaumont, CC BY
What are the risk factors?
A dog’s main cooling mechanism is panting, which draws air through the nasal cavity and the mouth and over the capillaries found there.
This allows for evaporative cooling, just as sweat on our skin does, but it happens inside rather than outside. It’s also a much smaller surface area than our skin, so dogs are generally not as good at shedding body heat as humans.
If the dog is overweight, they may have more trouble keeping cool than if they are lean.
A dog with underlying health issues such as heart problems may also be at greater risk.
Very young or old dogs may have more trouble with temperature regulation.
Dogs that have had a chance to get used to warmer temperatures over a month or so are less susceptible to heat distress.
Because some cooling occurs in the nasal cavities, dogs with short faces have fewer of these cooling structures and are more susceptible to heat distress.
Dogs with long noses have more surface area for cooling in their nasal cavities, and are theoretically more resistant to heat distress as a result. But much depends on the individual dog and its history.
Dogs with thick coats, like Stella, may struggle to shed heat on a hot day. Lucy Beaumont, CC BY
Your dog’s coat plays a role but should we shave them?
Larger or heavier-bodied dogs generally shed heat more slowly than smaller dogs, as is the case across the animal kingdom. For example, smaller penguin species tend to visit warmer climates, while larger penguin species stay in colder climates.
Dogs from cooler climes – like Kivi Tarro, a Finnish lapphundtend – to have heavy, insulating coats while those from warmer places tend to have thin hair. Melissa Starling, Author provided
Dogs from cooler climes tend to have heavy, insulating coats while those from warmer places tend to have thin hair, which helps shed heat quickly.
So, would your dog be cooler if you shaved them for summer?
It’s true insulation works both ways; cold or hot air outside the body cannot easily penetrate a thick coat and affect core temperature. But a dog is always producing body heat, especially when they are active or excited, and this internal heat may escape slowly through a thick coat.
Kivi Tarro, a Finnish lapphund, shows off his haircut. Melissa Starling, Author provided
For many thick-coated, otherwise healthy dogs, it helps to keep their coat free of tangles and dead undercoat during warmer months. This reduces the insulating properties of the coat.
Clipping the coat shorter can allow them to stay cool more easily. You could also consider clipping the belly and groin very short. This won’t help much when the dog is active but could help when the dog lies on a cool surface. However, be mindful not to go too short on upper parts of the coat, or the skin can be exposed to sunburn.
How to ‘ask your dog’ how they’re doing
We should always “ask the dog” how they are doing.
Signs a dog is too hot include:
panting a lot during the warmer months, even when not exercising
seeming lethargic and reluctant to exercise
regularly seeking to cool themselves by getting wet, or lying on cool tile or wood floors with as much skin contact as possible.
Always consider the following rules of thumb:
if it’s too hot for you, it’s probably too hot for your dog
make sure water is available for drinking or immersing the body in when exercising on hot days
know your dog’s panting. Dogs usually have a pant cycle where they pant for a short period and then stop for a few breaths or more and then start again. If they start panting constantly, they may be struggling to cool themselves
if they can’t hold a ball or toy anymore, froth at the mouth because they can’t easily swallow, or have trouble drinking due to panting at the same time, get your dog to some shade and let them rest. Monitor for signs of heat stress
signs of extreme heat distress include: vomiting, diarrhoea, lethargy, being unsteady on their feet, or limping. Take your dog to the vet immediately if you see these signs. Heat injury can be lethal!
pick shady, cool places to let your dog have a run if it’s warm. Go early or late in the day when the temperature has come down a bit. Early mornings are typically cooler than the late afternoon
the lack of airflow in cars can turn them into deadly ovens within a few minutes, even if the windows are down. So never leave your dog alone in a car, even for a few minutes.
This article is part of a series explaining how readers can learn the skills to take part in activities that academics love doing as part of their work.
Drawing is a powerful tool of communication. It helps build self-understanding and can boost mental health.
But our current focus on productivity, outcomes and “talent” has us thinking about it the wrong way. Too many believe the myth of “I can’t draw”, when in fact it’s a skill built through practice.
Dedicated practice is hard, however, if you’re constantly asking yourself: “What’s the point of drawing?”
As I argue in a new paper in Closure E-Journal for Comic Studies, we need to reframe our concept of what it means to draw, and why we should do it – especially if you think you can’t.
Devoting a little time to drawing each day may make you happier, more employable and sustainably productive.
Automatic drawing – where one doodles without a specific aim – is a way to tap into flow states and become mindfully absorbed. Darren C. Fisher, Author provided
The many benefits of drawing
I’m a keen doodler who turned a hobby into a PhD and then a career. I’ve taught all ages at universities, in library workshops and online. In that time, I’ve noticed many people do not recognise their own potential as a visual artist; self-imposed limitations are common.
That’s partly because, over time, drawing as a skill set has been devalued. A 2020 poll ranked artist as the top non-essential job.
But new jobs are emerging all the time for visual thinkers who can translate complex information into easily understood visuals.
Big companies hire comic creators to document corporate meetings visually, so participants can track the flow of ideas in real time. Cartoonists are paid to draft innovative, visual contracts for law firms.
Drawing without an intended outcome often ends with surprising results. Darren C. Fisher
Perhaps you were told as a child to stop doodling and get back to work. While drawing is often quiet and introspective, it’s certainly not a “waste of time”. On the contrary, it has significant mental health benefits and should be cultivated in children and adults alike.
How we feel influences how we draw. Likewise, engaging with drawing affects how we feel; it can help us understand and process our inner world.
And it can help you enter a “flow state”, where self-consciousness disappears, focus sharpens, work comes easily to you and mental blockages seem to evaporate.
Making simple repetitive marks is a great way to develop your drawing skills. Darren C. Fisher
Cultivating a drawing habit
Cultivating a drawing habit means letting go of biases against drawing and against copying others to learn technique. Resisting the urge to critically compare your work to others’ is also important.
Most children don’t care about what’s considered “essential” to a functioning society. They draw instinctively and freely.
Part of the reason drawing rates are thought to be higher in Japan is their immersion in Manga (Japanese comics), a broadly popular and culturally important medium.
Another is an emphasis on diligent practice. Children copy and practise the Manga style, providing a critical stepping stone from free scribbling to controlled representation. Copying is not seen as a no-no; it’s integral to building skill.
As researcher and artist Neil Cohn argues, learning to draw is similar to (and as crucial as) learning language, a skill built through exposure and practice:
Yet, unlike language, we consider it normal for people not to learn to draw, and consider those who do to be exceptional […] Without sufficient practice and exposure to an external system, a basic system persists despite arguably impoverished developmental conditions.
Copying art styles adds to your ‘visual library’. From top left: Herge, Tezuka, Brunetti, Miller, Kirby, Woodring. Darren C. Fisher
So choose an art style you love and copy it. Encourage children to while away hours drawing. Don’t worry about how it turns out. Prioritise the conscious experience of drawing over the result.
With regular practice, you may find yourself occasionally melting into states of “flow”, becoming wholly absorbed. A small, regular pocket of time to temporarily escape the busy world and enter a flow state via drawing may help you in other parts of your life.
Drawing doesn’t need to look a certain way. Here, I try different ways of holding the pen, and using my non-dominant hand to draw. Darren C. Fisher
How to get started
Use simple tools that you’re comfortable with, whether it’s a ballpoint pen on post-it notes, pencil on paper, a dirty window, or a foggy mirror.
Times you’d typically be aimlessly scrolling on your phone are prime candidates for a quick sketch. Doodle when you’re on the phone, watching a movie, bored in a waiting room.
Follow along in this ten-minute video as I show you how to begin an automatic drawing.
Together with mindful doodling, drawing from observation and memory form a holy trinity of sustainable proficiency.
Drawing from life strengthens your understanding of space and form. Copying other styles gives you a shortcut to new “visual libraries”. Drawing from memory merges the free play of doodling with the mental libraries developed through observation, bringing imagined worlds to life.
With time and persistence, you may find yourself producing drawings you’re proud of.
At that point, you can ask yourself: what other self-limiting beliefs are holding me back?
Your drawing style is like a thermometer of how you’re feeling. Darren C. Fisher
Darren C. Fisher 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.
In the turbulent world of industrial relations, Geoff Giudice was an oasis of calm.
An employers’ barrister and earlier a union researcher, the 13th president of Australia’s national workplace tribunal, now called the Fair Work Commission, had a knack for putting people at ease.
“He brought to his professional life a mixture of humility, sophisticated intelligence, integrity, personal likeability, a preparedness to work, and a suppleness of thinking that enabled him to adjust to change,” said lawyer Michael Tehan at his funeral in November.
And there was a lot of change. The newly-elected Howard Coalition Government appointed Giudice a judge and president of the Australian Industrial Relations Commission in 1997 within months of introducing its Workplace Relations Act.
The new law severely restricted the commission’s powers to resolve disputes and set wages and conditions and instead sought to encourage employers and employees to settle their differences at the workplace.
Further rounds of change followed – both by the Coalition Government
in its unpopular WorkChoices legislation and the Rudd Labor Government which reconstituted the tribunal as Fair Work Australia.
Calls for more change continue today.
Independent and impartial
In an oral history interview I conducted with him for the Sir Richard Kirby Archives in 2012 Giudice outlined his approach to leading the tribunal through contentious times. It was based on professionalism, integrity and setting an example.
“I didn’t want it ever to be said that while I was president of the commission there was any suggestion of corruption in the way decisions were made and that everybody would get a fair go based on the submissions they made,” he said.
Giudice regarded independence as not only being seen to be impartial by those who appeared before the commission, but also in dealings with government.
He strongly believed there was great danger for tribunal members in expressing views on government policy. To do so could “undermine confidence in the tribunal’s decisions” and lead to a perception of the tribunal pursuing an agenda rather than applying the law.
At the time of his appointment in 1997 some in the union movement were angry and suspicious given his earlier representation of high-profile business clients including Ansett and mining giant Rio Tinto.
When he retired in 2021, however, the Australian Council of Trade Unions praised his achievements, even describing him as a “good boss”.
Sir Richard Kirby Archive Oral History Program, treasures of the archives.
The commission was established as the Commonwealth Court of Conciliation and Arbitration in 1904 shortly after Federation and the great strikes of the 1890s.
Legislation aimed at abolishing it and returning its powers to the states in 1929 led to the defeat of the Bruce-Page Coalition government.
When the Howard government introduced WorkChoices in 2005 (which also contributed to its defeat), Giudice rolled out a series of briefings for unions and employers as well as some media in which, while not straying into discussion of government policy, he made it clear the commission had a continuing role.
Appointed by both sides
When the Rudd Labor government replaced the commission with Fair Work Australia in 2009, Rudd’s industrial relations minister Julia Gillard appointed Giudice inaugural president, saying he would deliver a “fair go”.
Geoffrey Guidice, appointed by both sides.
Born in Bendigo in 1947, Giudice accidentally fell into a career in industrial relations in 1970 by taking up a vacation job with the Hospital Employees’ Federation.
While he went on to represent mostly employers as a barrister, which is usual in labour law, he said the union experience gave him a “good idea of the difficulties faced by people who are on low incomes”.
Following his death on November 18 2021, friends and colleagues described him as intelligent, kind, thoughtful, humble, witty and even chivalrous.
Known for his signature bow tie and love of the Melbourne Football Club, it was revealed that in his final days he got to hold the premiership cup after Melbourne’s long-awaited win.
A staunch Catholic, his post-retirement positions included professorial fellow with The University of Melbourne, chair of Catholic Professional Standards Ltd and chair of the AFL Tribunal and AFL Appeal Tribunal.
He was famously media-shy, refusing nearly all interview requests. But as the commission’s first media adviser – a role he created – I know he supported the work of journalists in communicating the work of the tribunal to the public.
For those who assume a previous professional background will predict the behaviour of an appointee to public office, his life is an invitation to think again.
Judy Hughes worked for the Australian Industrial Relations Commission and Fair Work Australia in media and communications from 1999 to 2012. She was the first media officer to be appointed to the tribunal in its century-long history and her role was created by then president Justice Giudice.
The holiday season is a time of merriment and joy, a time to gather with friends and family, when we’re encouraged to slow down and remember the simple things in life.
Ironically, it’s also when we spend hours in a car, driving to the mall for the sales and to spend those Christmas vouchers.
When it comes to mall irony, though, few people have felt it as profoundly as the “father of the suburban mall”, Victor Gruen, whose idealistic urban vision became the suburban reality we know today.
Gruen fled his native Vienna in 1938 after the rise of Nazism, eventually making his way to the United States. A trained architect, he was soon designing storefronts in New York.
But Gruen had a grander vision. He wanted to re-create in microcosm the walkable, diverse and liveable town centres he so loved in Vienna.
Part of his motivation was seeing how reliance on the automobile was affecting cities. In his classic book, Shopping Towns USA, Gruen rails against the development of drive-by shopping centres focused on catering to passing motorists:
Suburban business real estate has often been evaluated on the basis of passing automobile traffic. This evaluation overlooks the fact that automobiles do not buy merchandise.
Driven to distraction
Gruen was determined to get people out of, and away from, cars. He didn’t mince words in his dislike for automobiles, stating in a 1964 speech to the American Institute of Architects:
One technological event has swamped us. That is the advent of the rubber-wheeled vehicle. The private car, the truck, the trailer as means of mass transportation. And their threat to human life and health is just as great as that of the exposed sewer.
His first big attempt to get people out from behind the wheel and walking was Minnesota’s Southdale Center, hailed as the world’s first indoor shopping mall, part of an ambition to create a pedestrian-centred liveable community.
The original plan was for commerce to be broken up by numerous attractions like aviaries, fountains and works of art. The mall itself would be surrounded by residences, offices, medical facilities, schools and everything that made a community.
The mall was inward-looking, not to keep people focused on spending but to shelter pedestrians from cars and away from their fumes and noise.
Here’s the first painful irony, then. Rather than developing the new mixed-use centre envisioned by Gruen, the only thing built was the mall and car parks. The grand vision was reduced to a monoculture of big shopping brands surrounded by massive car parks, all accessible only by automobile.
What was meant as a refuge from the quickly dominating car culture instead became a shrine to automobilia.
Wanting to get people out of their cars, Gruen unintentionally gave them somewhere to drive to. GettyImages
Triumph of commerce
Irony struck again when many of Gruen’s original plans for interesting features in the mall were whittled away to make room for more stores and merchandise. As the original floor plan became more chaotic and stuffed with goods to buy, shoppers became confused, forgetting their intentions and dropping their spending inhibitions.
Developers and economists found that disorienting shoppers and presenting them with lots of things to buy resulted in much higher revenue. Though Gruen had planned for an efficient mall experience and despised the blatant money grab, the phenomenon was named after him. It’s now known as the Gruen Transfer.
Gruen was disgusted by what suburban malls became and their impact on downtowns. He eventually disavowed malls and became involved in the US urban renewal movement to try to revitalise urban centres.
But he returned to the idea of the mall, creating a pedestrian-oriented redevelopment plan for Fort Worth, Texas, and several pedestrian-only corridors in cities across the US. By this time, Gruen had acquiesced to the idea that cars were likely the future for cities – most residents lived outside the CBD and needed to drive into downtowns.
His idea was to mitigate the impact of cars by planning for ring highways rather than bisecting dense urban developments with massive roads. He planned to use the highways in the way he’d first envisaged the mall, as a buffer between cars and people on foot.
Gruen was inspired by Vienna and ultimately returned there when his dreams were dashed in the US. GettyImages
Return to Vienna
Irony struck again. Gruen’s plans for Fort Worth were set aside. His plans to push cars out of downtowns largely failed. Urban renewal plans instead razed entire blocks of organic development for nondescript big-box stores and massive urban highways.
Worst yet, urban renewal became synonymous with the destruction of whole inner-city neighbourhoods to accommodate the car. Despite Gruen’s hopes and plans for the revitalisation of downtowns, many of the projects he was involved in led to a further decline in urban centres.
In 1964, Gruen lamented what had become of urban renewal, writing many cities:
have misinterpreted the aims of urban renewal legislation by demolishing whole districts and by replacing lively environments, which could have been rehabilitated, with sterile, inhuman and poorly planned projects.
Gruen perhaps saw the writing on the wall. His hopes of recreating Vienna had been dashed, so he returned to his hometown in the final decade of his life. Irony dealt him a final blow. Austria’s first and largest mall – Shopping City Süd – was already under construction just outside the old Vienna town centre.
While Gruen’s story is full of cruel twists, it’s not without the possibility of redemption. As malls across the globe die, many are being reborn as “lifestyle centres”. These reimagined malls bring back the elements lost from Gruen’s original plans, adding people and services to once desolate shopping zones.
Alas, the impacts of recessions and a pandemic have slowed grand plans for mall revitalisation. So it remains to be seen whether, in the end, Gruen’s is a redemption story – or whether irony remains his legacy.
Timothy Welch 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.
Palestine has lost a champion of the struggle against Israeli apartheid with the death of South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, aged 90.
Tutu is known internationally as a leader of the struggle against white minority rule in South Africa and won the Nobel Peace Prize for his work reconciling South Africans after the end of its brutal apartheid regime.
He was the moral conscience of the country and sometimes highly critical of South Africa’s African National Congress (ANC)-led government, saying that some in the ANC leadership had stopped the apartheid gravy train “just long enough to jump on”.
Relationship with New Zealand Archbishop Tutu was a warm friend of New Zealand and many New Zealanders across our political divides will feel a deep sadness at his passing.
In the early 1980s when Tutu faced court action from the South African authorities, a delegation of church leaders from New Zealand, led by former Anglican Archbishop of Aotearoa New Zealand, the late Sir Paul Reeves, went to South Africa in an act of international solidarity.
This was deeply appreciated by Archbishop Tutu.
During the protests against the 1981 Springbok rugby tour, one of the three Auckland protest squads was called Tutu Squad in his honour.
Later he came to New Zealand and at one point gave evidence as an expert witness on apartheid during a trial arising from 1981 tour protests.
Such was his charisma, his mana and the deep respect he commanded everywhere that when he was called to the witness stand by Hone Harawira, the entire courtroom stood.
In this case all the activists on trial were acquitted after the jury deliberated.
Former HART chair John Minto talking to Archbishop Desmond Tutu during 2009. Image: PSNA
Support for Palestinians Tutu was outspoken against injustices all around the world and in particular he condemned the racist policies faced by Palestinians from the Israeli regime. He frequently described Israel’s treatment of Palestinians as “worse” than that suffered by black South Africans.
He said international solidarity with Palestinians such as through BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) was critical to ending injustices like apartheid.
“I have witnessed the racially segregated roads and housing in the Holy Land that reminded me so much of the conditions we experienced in South Africa under apartheid,” said Tutu.
“We could not have achieved our democracy without the help of people around the world, who through… non-violent means, such as boycotts and disinvestment, encouraged their governments and other corporate actors to reverse decades-long support for the apartheid regime.”
In relation to Israeli policies towards Palestinians, Tutu said the world should “call it apartheid and boycott!”
In honouring Tutu’s legacy, freedom-loving people around the world should follow his advice and spurn Israel till everyone living in historic Palestine has equal rights.
Aotearoa New Zealand, the Palestinian struggle and the world have lost a dear friend and a great humanitarian.
John Minto is national chair of Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) and former national chair of HART (Halt all Racist Tours).
Brij Vilash Lal, banished from the land of his birth by the Bainimarama government in November 2009 for championing democracy and barred from entering Fiji upon the orders of the Prime Minister, has died in Brisbane, 12 years after the draconian act of a heartless government.
The sudden and shocking death of Professor Brij Lal at the age of 69 should create a moment for all Fiji citizens to pause and reflect, even while we are distracted by our many personal challenges brought on by the pandemic and our other deep national problems.
Professor Lal was a giant on the international academic stage. But for the last 12 years of his life he was banned by the Bainimarama and FijiFirst governments from returning to the place of his birth.
Some of Fiji’s most outstanding people, with international reputations, are sporting figures, business people or international diplomats. But among historians and scholars, Professor Lal stood tall around the world.
From a poor farming family in Tabia, Vanua Levu, Professor Lal rose to be an emeritus professor of Pacific and Asian history at the Australian National University, one of the world’s highest-ranked places of learning.
He was an acknowledged expert on the Indian diaspora around the world. He was recognised as the pre-eminent historian on the history of indenture and Girmitiya.
Among his many books, he wrote authoritative biographies on A D Patel and Jai Ram Reddy, two of Fiji’s most influential political leaders.
1997 Fiji Constitution architect Professor Lal will be remembered as one of the architects of the 1997 Fiji Constitution. His membership of the three-man Reeves Commission, with former Parliamentary Speaker Tomasi Vakatora, ushered in multiparty government and a national governing law strongly protective of good governance, human rights and multiracialism.
It is this constitution that current Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama, as Army Commander, twice abrogated in May 2000, only for it to be restored by the Fiji Court of Appeal in March 2001, and again in April 2009, bringing in a new legal order.
However, Professor Lal may be best remembered in Fiji as the target of a small-minded two-man government of Voreqe Bainimarama and Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum, which banned him and his wife Dr Padma Lal indefinitely from returning to Fiji.
This was because Professor Lal spoke up for democracy and rule of law at a time the Bainimarama government did not want to be criticised. Professor Lal remained excluded from Fiji to the day of his death because Fiji’s insecure political leaders could never say they were wrong.
And they repeatedly refused to reconsider their reprehensible act despite resumption of parliamentary democracy 7 years ago in October 2014.
Pettiness of Fiji leaders The pettiness of Fiji’s leaders will not take away Professor Lal’s towering achievements and scholarship, for which he will one day be fully recognised in the place he was born. All of us in Fiji are the poorer for his irreplaceable loss.
The opposition National Federation Party will be organising a condolence gathering to remember Professor Lal and details on this will be announced soon.
The party offers its deepest sympathies and heartfelt condolences to Dr Padma Narsey Lal, children Yogi and Niraj and the Lal and Narsey families in Fiji and abroad.
“I do not know whether I will ever be able to understand the mystery that is Fiji, and whether I will ever be allowed to return to again embrace the land of my birth. But I know one unalterable truth whatever happens, the green undulating hills of Tabia will always be a special place for me. Home is where the heart is.”
– Professor Brij Vilash Lal, October 2020
Professor Biman Prasadis leader of the Fiji opposition National Federation Party (NFP) and a former colleague of Professor Brij Lal at the University of the South Pacific.
By Rebecca Kuku and Marjorie Finkeo in Port Moresby
As families prepare to celebrate Christmas with their loved ones, a safe house in Papua New Guinea’s capital Port Moresby has kicked out gender-based violence survivors, leaving them homeless for the festive season.
One of the survivors, 37-year-old Gathy Peter from the Autonomous Region of Bougainville, told the PNG Post-Courier that they were informed by staff from the safe house (named) that the house would be closed for holidays.
“So for those of us who have no family here in Port Moresby, they just left us at the Boroko police station and I have been here as I have nowhere to go,” she said.
“Another woman, who had her two children with her, was also left here but she has since left the station premises.”
Peter is a mother of three, she met her husband (named) when he went to Bougainville for the crisis and they got married, and in 1997 they moved to her husband’s hometown in Southern Highlands province.
“We had three kids, one boy and two girls, but life was not good, my husband was violent, so after four years, in 2012, I took my two daughters and ran away back to Bougainville, leaving behind my son who was just nine years old at that time.”
She said that in 2017, she came to Port Moresby for work but her husband found her and forced her to move in with him again, so she moved in with him at Gereka.
Badly beaten by husband “But the violence continued, he would tell me to remove my clothes before he started beating me, he even brought home his girlfriend to live with us, telling me that she was his niece,” Peter said.
In June this year, Peter was badly beaten by her husband, who cut her with a machete from her head down to her feet.
“He kicked me in the face when I cried out in pain — when I spat the blood out, three of my teeth fell out too.
“A neighbour came in and stopped him, and I took the opportunity to run away, and walked from Gereka to 6-Mile at around 11pm in the night.
“I passed out somewhere near 6-Mile in front of a small tucker shop.
“A woman from there assisted me to the Gordon police station to file an official report with the FSVU (Family and Sexual Violence Unit), and I was put into a safe house (named).”
With no family and friends in Port Moresby, she was left homeless but was assisted by the Boroko Juvenile Unit to win her case against her husband, who has since been sentenced to two years in prison.
In safe house for six months Peter has been living in that safe house for more than six months but was dumped at the Boroko police station car park area.
She is living at the precinct of the Boroko police station. She is far from home and family.
“Christmas is near and I long for my children and the white sandy beaches of my home.”
Attempts made to get comments from the safe house were unsuccessful yesterday.
However, according to the sources — women who were given refuge at the safe house were all sent back to their families as the safehouse was closing for the festive season.
Only Gathy Peter and the mother of two were dropped off at Boroko Police Station as they do not have families in Port Moresby.
However, the mother of two has since been given refuge at another safe house, leaving Peter behind.
Rebecca Kuku and Marjorie Finkeoare PNG Post-Courier reporters. Republished with permission.
