Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Omer Yezdani, Director, Office of Planning and Strategic Management, Australian Catholic University

The Strategy for International Education released today by the federal government highlights the importance of international education to the Australian economy and community.

But, with the arrival of COVID-19, commencing international student numbers fell dramatically by 22% in 2020. The impacts prompted the government to further rethink its ten-year plan for international education and exposure to risks in foreign markets, not to mention sector-wide budget overhauls, restructures and cost savings.

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

Over the past ten years, international education in Australia had grown by 151% to the highest levels on record. International student numbers reached a peak of more than 956,000 in 2019.

International education has been a major export earner. Its value to the economy had grown to A$40.3 billion a year and supported 250,000 jobs.

Why is a new strategy needed?

Despite being a major source of revenue, international students have been highly concentrated in some universities. And most come from a limited number of source countries.

Before the pandemic, six universities accounted for half of all overseas student revenue: Sydney, Melbourne, Monash, UNSW, RMIT and UQ.

Read more:
Which universities are best placed financially to weather COVID?

Following public consultations under the Council for International Education, the government has released the new strategy. It’s based on four pillars:

• diversification
• meeting Australia’s skills needs
• students at the centre
• growth and global competitiveness.

The pandemic has been a key driver for rethinking the strategy. However, it has served as an amplifier of the need for reform rather than the sole rationale.

In its 2019 report to the prime minister, the Council for International Education had already recommended a new plan. It highlighted concerns about increased competition, the sustainability of the sector and geopolitical rebalancing.

The report portrayed a major success story for Australian international education. It noted double-digit growth in the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, India and Sri Lanka. However, it also noted softening demand in other key markets, particularly China.

The risk of over-concentration in source countries was evident, but seriously underemphasised at the time. And this concern was connected mainly to worries about foreign interference and geopolitical tensions.

A renewed focus on managing risks

The new strategy aims for the sector to reposition itself to increase offshore and transnational education. Typically, one in five international students study in these ways. Transnational education is often delivered through offshore campuses or in partnership with an overseas institution.

The strategy seeks greater diversity of courses, disciplines, source countries and delivery modes. The outcomes are to be measured through a diversification index, greatly increasing transparency for the sector.

Often a source of complex risk, increased transnational education and sustained offshore study may require the higher education regulator, TEQSA, to review its approach. Its guidelines were last updated in October 2017.

In addition, the expansion of Australia-based transnational education may face increased global competition from other offshore providers.

Read more:
Australia’s international education market share is shrinking fast. Recovery depends on unis offering students a better deal

For universities to diversify into new markets they will have to manage a risk associated with limited market knowledge. Market concentration has meant Australian universities have become geo-market experts with a focus on particular countries. This approach is ingrained into university operations, strategic aspirations and global partnerships.

Adopting the jack-of-all-trades approach that “everyone diversity” may require additional government efforts to avoid simply transferring the risk of market concentration to other risks to quality arising from limited market knowledge and a lack of geo-market specialisation.

One assumes the pathway to diversification is not only growth but also better distribution of international student demand across universities. This will require smaller universities to take on a greater share of Chinese and Indian student enrolments, now concentrated in the larger universities.

Read more:
Universities lost 6% of their revenue in 2020 — and the next 2 years are looking worse

Engagement and a sense of belonging matter too

The move to off-campus studies had major impacts on student satisfaction in 2020, as measured by the Quality Indicators of Learning and Teaching (QILT). While universities were quick to adapt, learner engagement and sense of belonging deteriorated. These trends were key drivers of the decline in satisfaction.

A challenging aspect of the strategy is to reconcile its goals of increased transnational and offshore education while at the same time increasing the sense of belonging to Australian communities, and managing risks to quality. Such a result appears to be operationally counter-intuitive.

Read more:
Our unis do need international students and must choose between the high and low roads

A question that requires further detail is how the government plans both to enhance its regulatory framework to allow for greater flexibility and to cultivate greater capabilities across the sector in online, offshore and transnational education.

As the strategy notes, international education is one of Australia’s great success stories. At the heart of that story is the realisation of ambition for millions of students who have lifted themselves from poverty, learned new skills and joined a global community. The real test of whether the strategy holds water is if it satisfies its most central asset – our students.

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

– ref. Australia’s strategy to revive international education is right to aim for more diversity – https://theconversation.com/australias-strategy-to-revive-international-education-is-right-to-aim-for-more-diversity-172620

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

Australian men’s test cricket captain Tim Paine’s sudden resignation due to a sexting scandal meant a rapid search for a suitable new captain. The most obvious choice was Pat Cummins, the current vice-captain and the world’s best fast bowler. Cricket Australia has today confirmed Cummins will step into the role ahead of the Ashes series starting on December 8. Steve Smith will be the deputy.

Described as a “cleanskin” by former test captain Greg Chappell – perhaps unwisely, as that was also Paine’s image when he became captain after the Sandpapergate scandal – Cummins had plenty of support to fulfil the role often described as second only to the prime minister in importance in Australia.

But there was one major reservation – no fast bowler has captained the men’s team since Ray Lindwall stood in for one test match on the 1956-57 tour of India. Why are batters, wicketkeepers or even spin bowlers (such as Richie Benaud) favoured over fast bowlers to lead a cricket team?

Read more:
Howzat? The Ashes are on, but so is the pandemic

Fit for the captaincy role

Unlike a batter-captain fielding in the slips, it is asked whether a revved-up fast bowler can make sophisticated on-field decisions, such as ending a spell of their own bowling at the right time. Could they see the big game management picture through the red mist that descends for many pace bowlers when facing an opposition batter? A spinner uses guile rather than the intimidation of speed to take wickets, so it is assumed they have the necessary tactical acumen.

Even with regard to physical positioning on the cricket field, fast bowlers are viewed as either too close to the action when bowling and too far from it when, as is conventional, fielding on the boundary.

Most importantly, fast bowlers have a reputation for being brawny, unintellectual types, while batters are regarded as more cultured and thoughtful. There is more than a tinge here of what is called “stacking” in sport. This concept involves the racial, ethnic and class stereotyping that assigns leadership positions in team sports (and later in coaching roles) to the already socially privileged. The less privileged generally follow directions, especially where their duties involve brute force.

This replication of the traditional mental-physical labour hierarchy has been found in sports such as American football, soccer, basketball, baseball, rugby union and cricket.

So how did Cummins overcome the reservations that ruled out distinguished pace-bowling predecessors such as Dennis Lillee and Glenn McGrath as captaincy material?

A different class of fast bowler

Ever since his emergence as a cricket prodigy in 2011, Cummins has been routinely regarded as the pride of Penrith in the working-class “heartland” of Greater Western Sydney. Certainly he played around and for Penrith in his formative years, but was brought up in the small, lower Blue Mountains town of Mount Riverview.

With an accountant and manager father and schoolteacher mother, he went to grammar school in nearby Cranebrook, later venturing east to the University of Technology, Sydney. There, as part of its Elite Athlete Program, he completed a Bachelor of Business degree.

Cummins has acquired a reputation as a controlled, almost bookish breed of fast bowler whose commitment to matters environmental, Indigenous and anti-racist might attract the go-to derogatory label “woke”.

His appointment as test captain continues Paine’s cultural approach of distancing Australian men’s cricket from the win-at-all costs mentality and macho posturing that saw the Test team slide down the team affinity rankings among fans.

His good looks and wholesome style give him “brand appeal” in intensely competitive global sport and media markets. Cummins is as-yet untainted by scandal, unlike another candidate, Smith, who was deposed as captain and suspended after the ball-tampering scandal in 2018, only to be appointed Cummins’ vice-captain.

In the light of the tearful exits of captains Smith and Paine, cricket’s caution about ethical standards and “skeletons in the closet” resembles the “fit and proper person test” in the corporate world.

Read more:
How COVID caused chaos for cricket – and may force a rethink of all sport broadcasting deals

Captains in crisis

Being the captain of a team is a tricky remit, requiring a teammate to be “first among equals”, having sensitive conversations with peers, and making important decisions that can affect whole careers. Captains must attend to their own sporting performance with the additional burden of making calls that every armchair critic will scrutinise.

That Cummins has been appointed captain a short time before a home men’s Ashes series, with its huge historical baggage, places his personal conduct in the public eye as never before.

His English opponents must deal with their own pressing reputational crisis following allegations their national game is “institutionally racist” and that captain Joe Root has been oblivious to racist behaviour among his Yorkshire teammates. The cricket authorities in both countries have been criticised for “blundering deeper” into crisis.

Cummins’ time to celebrate the T20 Men’s World Cup victory was brief, curtailed as it was by Paine’s ignominious exit. He must rally a disrupted test team in cricket’s longest-running and most renowned series, and rise to the challenge of becoming a captain who bowls fast thinks even faster on his feet.

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

– ref. Pat Cummins becomes Australian men’s test captain: why is it so rare for a fast bowler to take the reins? – https://theconversation.com/pat-cummins-becomes-australian-mens-test-captain-why-is-it-so-rare-for-a-fast-bowler-to-take-the-reins-172287

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Narelle Yeo, Senior Lecturer in Voice and Stagecraft, Sydney Conservatorium of Music, University of Sydney

Adele writes and sings female rites of passage: 19 was the teen experience; 21 the transition to adulthood; 25 relationships. Now, 30 reveals the pain of letting go.

Adele’s singing is imperfect perfection. As described by Amanda Petrusich in the New Yorker, “her voice is not a crystal stream. It is a gust of wind that’s picked up some grit.”

Adele’s songs can gut-punch, and this new album intends for the audience to feel. Her music is a combination of soul and blues colours, deeply personal lyrics and heartfelt vocalism valuing the text foremost in her raw and expressive voice.

She crafts with relatively simple chordal structures, and her sound has danger in it: in the muscling and widening in her chest voice, the audible pop as she moves between registers of chest and head.

This affect is deeply moving.

A changing voice

Most pop songs are written in the tenor range, making them hard for other voice types to sing. As a mezzo-soprano, Adele’s songs sit in a range that suits most listeners, singing along. Adele can mix her chest voice up quite high (E5, 10 notes above middle C) but she is not taken to the range extremes of early Mariah or Celine.

The middle of Adele’s voice is soulful, rich and powerful, occasionally with an edgy tone colour. She has the ability to create a breathy, fragile head voice, but can also take her chest up high and create a strong and powerful effect. In these high notes, Adele has been known to take on a quality of “vocal fry”, embodying pain.

The pressure applied to the vocal folds in taking the chest voice up high can lead to danger. No doubt two throat surgeries would have given Adele pause. On 30, she uses her floaty head voice sound more than on previous albums. This gives her the possibility of more vocal colours, and can help to protect her from vocal problems in the future.

Because of this, 30 contains a number of tumbling strains (falling phrases, like sighing) that sound more like melodious expressions than cries. She allows the flip into the lighter head voice more often, and then tumbles back down into the chest without added pressure, as in Easy On Me.

It is almost as if the more careful approach to her voice matches the aftermath of the damage of divorce, and of working under pressure since she was 18. Adele’s voice has changed. In close-up on the mic, she is more vulnerable now than she was as a teenager.

A brave album

Voices change as people change, and this iteration of Adele sits lower. She is more powerful and grounded – and yet more fragile.

There are nods to Amy Winehouse, Erroll Garner, Aretha Franklin and Marvin Gaye on this album. Her lyrics are positioned as the “knowing now”, looking back over the lessons she has learnt in the six years since her last album.

To Be Loved is an aching testimonial, posted on youtube almost as a rehearsal on a couch.

In Hold On, Adele is close to the mic, leaning into the imperfections, twists and turns of her instrument, and her life.

As she said to Oprah, “I don’t have to expect someone else to give me stability. I can also be stable for myself and be a solid house that doesn’t blow over in a storm.”

She only lets us in after her house is sorted. In I Drink Wine, she has already changed: “Sometimes the road less travelled is the road best left behind”.

Read more:
Adele 30: the psychology of why sad songs make us feel good

Delivering this album live would require bravery. My Little Love begins with a turn-of-the-millenia rhythm and blues vibe. Every instrument is heavily produced and filtered. Yet the song becomes increasingly painful to listen to as Adele samples voice recordings of her conversations with her son.

These conversations are achingly introspective, and her voicemail message at the end of the song, where she talks about her struggles with anxiety, is peak confessional.

The two guitar-based pop songs are recorded up close, showing bite and dirt in her voice. Women Like Me is up tempo, sitting low in Adele’s range. Can I Get It has a plucked and unplugged feel, with whistling adding a retro touch.

Cry Your Heart Out begins with heavily engineered harmonies, all voiced by Adele. The notes sound bent, as the sound engineer manipulates the pitch in the studio. Likewise, Oh My God heavily manipulates Adele’s voice, this time in a pop dance mix, taking her sound away from soul and the blues.

These two tracks show her stylistic versatility: she values quality music and storytelling above all.

Read more:
Adele has successfully asked Spotify to remove ‘shuffle’ from albums. Here’s why that’s important for musicians

In more retrospection, Love is a Game could be the theme to a Bond film, the strings and expansive colours belong in the 1960s. Strangers by Nature could be a rediscovered jazz standard, with floated head voice and romantic lyrics.

My favourite song of the album, All Night Parking, centres around a light and floaty sampled jazz piano from Erroll Garner, composer of the 1954 jazz standard Misty. Adele’s light touch vocals on the top line here shimmer and flirt and the programmed percussion is subtle. The vinyl feel from the crackling, breathy ambience is a stylish recreation of a past era.

Throughout this album, we not only get a glimpse of Adele’s recent past, but her broad definition of soul music, too. 30 is an intimate studio album exploring the rite of passage of motherhood and love-loss through an authentic, fragile and powerfully emotive voice.

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

– ref. Many define Adele’s voice by its power. But the true artistry comes from her fragile, authentic self – https://theconversation.com/many-define-adeles-voice-by-its-power-but-the-true-artistry-comes-from-her-fragile-authentic-self-172299

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lindy Willmott, Professor of Law, Australian Centre for Health Law Research, Queensland University of Technology, Queensland University of Technology

New South Wales is moving closer to legalising voluntary assisted dying. But there are hurdles ahead.

After days of speeches in the NSW lower house, MPs voted yesterday – 53 in favour and 36 against – to consider the Voluntary Assisted Dying Bill 2021 in detail.

Now MPs will consider multiple amendments, largely around proposed safeguards, before the bill returns to the upper house.

So what does this mean for terminally-ill people in NSW?

Independent MP Alex Greenwich tabled the bill in the lower house last month. The bill largely reflects the voluntary assisted dying legislation passed in other Australian states.

To be eligible for voluntary assisted dying, a person must be:

• an adult with decision-making capacity

• have a condition that is advanced, progressive and will cause death within six months (or 12 months for a neurodegenerative disease)

• be acting voluntarily and not because of pressure or duress

• be experiencing intolerable suffering

• must have lived in NSW for 12 months before their first request for voluntary assisted dying, and

• must be an Australian citizen, permanent resident or a resident of Australia for three years or more.

As with other states, there is a rigorous request and assessment process. A person must make three requests, and be assessed as eligible by two senior doctors who have completed mandatory training.

After the person has been assessed as eligible, the bill requires one of these senior doctors (the “coordinating” doctor) to apply to the Voluntary Assisted Dying Board for authorisation to proceed.

The bill permits registered health practitioners (doctors, nurses and others) to conscientiously object to participation, a feature of other Australian voluntary assisted dying legislation.

The bill also regulates the extent to which individual institutions can hinder access to voluntary assisted dying, for instance, by requiring institutions to allow access to voluntary assisted dying in certain situations. This aspect is also a feature of South Australian and Queensland laws.

Consistent with other states, the Voluntary Assisted Dying Board will monitor how the law operates.

Read more:
Voluntary assisted dying will be debated in NSW parliament this week. Here’s what to expect

What happens next?

The next step is for MPs to consider the bill in detail.

Judging by the experience of other states, we can expect an onslaught of proposed amendments. Indeed, this has already started, with amendments debated until late last night.

Amendments will likely involve adding new safeguards. In Queensland, for example, proposed amendments included making a psychiatric assessment of someone’s capacity mandatory as part of the eligibility assessment, a requirement for one of the doctors to be a specialist in the person’s illness, and a requirement for a consultation with a palliative care specialist. These amendments were ultimately rejected.

Amendments that introduce more safeguards raise significant barriers to patients accessing voluntary assisted dying. Considered together, the above proposed amendments would have added three new specialist health practitioners to the process, each needing to be available in the person’s location and not have a conscientious objection. The law would have been unworkable.

It is also important to consider the amendments in the context of the bill as a whole.

The NSW bill is narrow and conservative (like the other Australian models) with extensive procedural safeguards.

The bill currently requires two independent assessments of a person’s capacity to request voluntary assisted dying, by doctors who will be trained on their additional legal duties under the bill. Doctors are also required to refer to an expert if they are unsure about the person’s capacity. When considered in this context, a mandatory psychiatric assessment is unnecessary.

Caution is needed as this last minute “piling on” of safeguards is risky. Amendments would be “add ons” to an established model and run the risk of introducing unintended consequences. They could also make the law unwieldy, incoherent and even unworkable.

Read more:
One year of voluntary assisted dying in Victoria: 400 have registered, despite obstacles

NSW can learn from other jurisdictions

As NSW is the last state in Australia to be passing such legislation, its MPs have the benefit of multiple parliamentary committees, expert panels and extended parliamentary debates in the other states.

The issues likely to be raised in amendments will not be new. Every other state has already considered, debated and resolved how best to deal with them; this is reflected in the current bill.

MPs in NSW also have the benefit of research on Victoria’s regime, which has been in operation for more than two years. This reveals participating doctors do not have concerns about safety. Reports from Victoria’s Voluntary Assisted Dying Review Board also show only eligible people are receiving assistance to die.

There is therefore a heavy onus on MPs proposing amendments to justify why they are needed.

Read more:
Victoria’s voluntary assisted dying scheme is challenging and complicated. Some people die while they wait

What should the amendments look like?

We challenge MPs proposing amendments to answer two questions.

First, what is the new problem the amendments are trying to solve that is not already addressed well? Second, because this law is about terminally-ill patients, what impact would any amendments have on their ability to access voluntary assisted dying?

If the evidence from Victoria is these laws are already safe, how would additional amendments making patient access even harder improve this bill?

Read more:
In places where it’s legal, how many people are ending their lives using euthanasia?

Lindy Willmott receives or has received funding from the Australian Research Council, the National Health and Medical Research Council and Commonwealth and State Governments for research and training about the law, policy and practice relating to end-of-life care. In relation to voluntary assisted dying, she (with colleagues) has been engaged by the Victorian and Western Australian Governments to design and provide the legislatively-mandated training for doctors involved in voluntary assisted dying in those States. She (with Ben White) has also developed a model Bill for voluntary assisted dying for parliaments to consider.

Ben White receives funding from the Australian Research Council, the National Health and Medical Research Council and Commonwealth and State Governments for research and training about the law, policy and practice relating to end-of-life care. In relation to voluntary assisted dying, he (with colleagues) has been engaged by the Victorian and Western Australian Governments to design and provide the legislatively-mandated training for doctors involved in voluntary assisted dying in those States. He (with Lindy Willmott) has also developed a model Bill for voluntary assisted dying for parliaments to consider. Ben White is a recipient of an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship (project number FT190100410: Enhancing End-of-Life Decision-Making: Optimal Regulation of Voluntary Assisted Dying) funded by the Australian Government.

– ref. Voluntary assisted dying is one step closer in NSW. Now the negotiation starts – https://theconversation.com/voluntary-assisted-dying-is-one-step-closer-in-nsw-now-the-negotiation-starts-172600

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jacynta Krakouer, Research Fellow, Monash University

Child protection processes in Australia have a history of injustice that disproportionately targets and harms First Nations children, families and communities.

As a result, contemporary child protection systems and associated professions have sought to distance themselves from explicitly racist past policies and practices by apologising for their past involvement in the Stolen Generations and committing to change.

Yet child protection systems continue to operate on assumptions about race and class that increase inequalities and injustices against First Nations families.

In a Queensland study published in 2018 that used data from 2010-2011, Indigeneity was found to be a greater predictor of “subsequent child protection reports and investigations than a rating of ‘high risk’ on child protection’s risk assessment tool”.

Another study in Western Australia found, when controlled for all other factors, Aboriginality was associated with almost double the risk of infant removal.

Understandings of risk, child abuse and neglect are often biased in favour of white middle-class parenting practices. This can lead to over-surveillance of First Nations families, and a flawed notification system.

Read more:
The government’s Stolen Generations redress scheme is piecemeal and unrealistic

First Nations styles of parenting are disregarded or considered unsafe

According to University of Utah academic Audrey Thompson, “Whiteness Theory treats whiteness not as a biological category but as a social construction.” White social constructions are often informing major decision-making in child protection practice and policies. This is because legislators and those making decisions about child protection are often white. However, families disproportionately affected by these decisions are often Indigenous.

As a result, white constructs also inform the baseline for good parenting practices in Australian child protection services. Essentially, Australian child protection systems were built around white, middle class standards of parenting. This means they often ignore cultural differences in how children are raised.

For example, many First Nations families raise their children collectively, with resources – such as food and housing – shared among family, kinship and community members.

The recent documentary The Department told the story of First Nations woman Stacey and her struggles trying to get her children returned to her care.

The size of Stacey’s house was viewed by child protection services as a barrier. Stacey complied with the department’s guidelines, including moving into a larger house with four bedrooms. Despite having two of her children in her care, the film ends with three of Stacey’s children remaining in out-of-home care.

Another case was a First Nations woman who had her baby taken from her by child protection. According to The Guardian, the chief executive officer of the First Peoples’ Health and Wellbeing Clinic said the initial assessment of this mother had been culturally inappropriate.

This ignorance of Indigenous ways of parenting could be contributing to the 20,077 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in out-of-home care as of 30 June 2019. According to the Family Matters Report, this represents one in every 16.6 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children living in Australia.

First Nations children had far higher rates of substantiations for neglect (31.8%) compared to non-Indigenous children (18.2%) in 2019-20, and lower rates of substantiations for sexual abuse.

Understandings of neglect and emotional abuse are subject to interpretation by child protection practitioners. These interpretations can be based on societal and cultural values often incompatible with collective child rearing, and do not account for the impacts of material poverty when raising children.

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

Families facing punishment instead of support

Currently, child protection services often punish and blame individuals for their “dysfunction” or risk. Genuine support, with a focus on addressing the drivers of child protection involvement, remains lacking.

For First Nations families, these drivers include poverty, housing issues, racism, trauma, mental health concerns, domestic and family violence, and alcohol and other drugs abuse.

Rather than offering support to First Nations families who are in dire circumstances – such as financial support – the response of child protection systems remains coercive, controlling, and punitive.

For example, reasons for emotional abuse substantiations can include children witnessing domestic and family violence. Rather than providing ways for victim-survivors of domestic and family violence (often women and children) to stay together, child removal often occurs.

There is no focus on the structures driving these problems. Instead, blame is placed on the affected individual.

As argued by Derecka Purnell, lawyer and author of Becoming Abolitionists, child protection systems in the United States are predicated on the failure of individuals to “protect” and supply their children with certain provisions. However there is limited support from these services to supply resources needed for parents to feed, clothe and house their children.

Australia’s child protection systems have the same flaws.

A flawed notification system

Increased involvement of child protection agencies with First Nations families contributes to a harmful perception among those who report issues to child protection (teachers, health professionals, police and the general public) that First Nations families ought to be surveilled more than others.

This becomes a vicious circle, increasing the number of reports, contributing to the overrepresentation of First Nations children in child protection and out-of-home care.

Anyone in the community can make a notification of alleged child abuse or neglect to child protection authorities. The concerned neighbour, the midwife at the maternity hospital, the teacher in the classroom, or the police officer responding to a family violence call-out.

They do not need to supply substantive proof or evidence of the alleged harm. They need only have “reasonable belief” of harm or potential harm. Their judgement as to what constitutes child abuse or neglect is at their discretion. The notifier can also remain anonymous to the family who are the target of the allegation.

Once a notification of alleged child abuse or neglect has been made to child protection authorities, the likelihood of future allegations increases. This is because an allegation in and of itself serves as another “risk factor”.

Child protection authorities hold the power to investigate any allegation of child abuse or neglect made to their jurisdiction. But affected families are left with no choice but to comply with child protection’s directives. These families often feel voiceless, powerless and in fear of a system that continues to remove First Nations children at disproportionate rates (despite making commitments to change).

Social workers have acknowledged the harms of past practices. However they remain complicit in child protection systems that continue to inflict harm against First Nations families and communities. These practices have resonance with the Stolen Generations.

Changing child protection systems requires more than apologies and acknowledgements of past harms. On-paper reforms, such as the commissioning of independent reviews into child protection systems without fully implementing the recommendations, ring hollow. As a result, child protection systems continue to cause harm to another generation of First Nations children and families.

It needs to be accepted that understandings of “risk” in Australian child protection systems have been built on racial discrimination and biased understandings of “good parenting”.

Transformation of these systems requires investment in prevention and early intervention, confronting whiteness in these practices, and improving cultural awareness about different styles of parenting.

These are a vital steps in addressing the structural drivers of involvement with child protection systems.

Better support for First Nations families to stay together is needed to avoid more generations of stolen children.

Jacynta Krakouer is affiliated with the Family Matters campaign run by SNAICC – National Voice for Our Children, the peak body for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children. She has previously received funding via a Research Training Scholarship from the Australian Government for her doctoral studies.

Alex Bhathal is a current National Director of the AASW. She previously worked as the National Manager of the Family Matters campaign with SNAICC – National Voice for Our Children.

Catherine Chamberlain receives funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council (Career Development Fellowship and project funds).

Paul Gray is co-chair of the Family Matters campaign, the national campaign run by SNAICC – National Voice for Our Children, the peak body for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children. He receives funding from the Australian Research Council investigating effective restoration practice and consults on child protection systems and practice.

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

– ref. First Nations children are still being removed at disproportionate rates. Cultural assumptions about parenting need to change – https://theconversation.com/first-nations-children-are-still-being-removed-at-disproportionate-rates-cultural-assumptions-about-parenting-need-to-change-169090

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Karinna Saxby, Research Fellow & PhD Candidate, Monash University

The Morisson government’s religious discrimination bill was introduced to parliament on Thursday. The bill, now on its third draft, has been a contentious piece of legislation for years.

One of the key reasons for this are concerns about what it will mean for LGBTIQ+ Australians.

While protecting people against discrimination on the grounds of religious belief (or non-belief), is an important objective, this bill goes a step further, overriding federal, state and territory anti-discrimination laws to make “statements of belief” immune from legal consequences.

Read more:
Third time lucky? What has changed in the latest draft of the religious discrimination bill?

This is not just about words. Research tells us, this has the potential to harm the health and well-being of sexual and gender diverse Australians.

What would the bill allow?

The bill would allow people, and organisations of faith, to make “statements of belief,” without legal consequences. This could conceivably include statements like “your identity is not valid under God” or “you deserve AIDS for sinning in God’s eyes”.

Such statements could definitively harm the mental health of gender and sexual minorities.

“Statements of belief” in a healthcare setting can obviously hinder access to necessary care. Instances of this has already been documented by the NSW Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby.

One includes a lesbian who was seeking pregnancy advice from her GP:

The doctor who diagnosed my pregnancy expressed disgust when she asked about my situation and I told her I was a lesbian. She tried to refer me for a termination.

Another example comes from a trans man who was seeking access to hormone therapy:

The doctor commented on my need for testosterone – was it for a beard? [They were] not going to give me a new script initially.

Why this is a problem

LGBTIQ+ Australians already have significantly poorer health outcomes when compared to their cis/heterosexual counterparts.

Members of the LGBTIQ+ community are more likely to have suicidal thoughts, engage in self-harm, and have higher rates of suicide.

When sexual and gender diverse populations experience discrimination and stigma, these health inequalities get even worse. Previous research has shown that experiencing stigma and discrimination affects stress hormone levels and, more broadly, that chronic exposure to these stressors can damage the body by activating our physiological systems (think “flight or flight” responses).

Read more:
The debate about religious discrimination is back, so why do we keep hearing about religious ‘freedom’?

In turn, these imbalances can lead to increased levels of psychological distress, anxiety and depression, high blood pressure and cholesterol, and various indicators of disease at the cellular level. Chronic exposure to stressors can also lead to poorer physical health indirectly if individuals engage in risky health behaviours (such as, alcohol or smoking) to try and cope with their distress.

Specifically, sexual and gender diverse populations can also delay seeking healthcare, due to fear of experiencing discrimination. Those that don’t feel comfortable disclosing their sexuality or gender identity to healthcare providers may also be less likely to receive the specific care they need.

Our research

In our 2020 and 2021 studies, colleagues and I used the results of 2017 same-sex marriage survey to develop a measure for social stigma around sexual minorities. Specifically, we looked at the percentage of responses against legalising same-sex marriage (“no votes”) in different regions.

We found LGBTIQ+ people who live in areas where there was higher share of “no votes” were in poorer health but less likely to access primary healthcare services, including seeing the doctor and undergoing sexual health checks.

Further, gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men living in regions with more “no votes” were less likely to be aware of their HIV status or receive HIV-related care, including HIV prevention strategies and antiretroviral therapy.

This suggests stigma is exacerbating health inequalities by reducing timely and appropriate primary healthcare use among our LGBTIQ+ community.

It’s not just about healthcare

If enshrined in law, this bill will effectively prioritise the personal religious views of health professionals over the needs of some of their most vulnerable patients – sexual and gender diverse people who already face significant barriers in accessing appropriate and timely care.

But there are also broader impacts to think about.

Previous research has shown that public debates about the rights of minority groups detrimentally impacts their mental health. For example, during the highly publicised lead up to the marriage equality vote in late 2017, increased exposure to the “no campaign” was associated with poorer mental health among LGBTIQ+ Australians.

This drawn-out debate around the religious discrimination bill is no different. High-profile debates about whether religious schools should be able to expel LGBTIQ+ students or whether individuals should be allowed to express damaging and discriminatory views is undoubtedly already harmful.

Read more:
Schools can still expel LGBTQ+ kids. The Religious Discrimination Bill only makes it worse

Passing discriminatory laws can also embolden individuals to be more vocal about their prejudiced views if they now perceive these views to be more aligned with social norms. It’s not surprising therefore that sexual and gender minorities living in regions with more discriminatory laws and policies experience more abuse and bullying.

To address health disparities, we need to push for inclusive policies and ensure that all Australians – irrespective of sexuality, gender identity or religion – are free from discrimination and have equitable access to the care they need.

The last thing we need is legislation that will make this worse.

Karinna Saxby receives funding from the Government Research Training Program

– ref. The religious discrimination bill is not just words – it will make LGBTIQ+ Australians sick – https://theconversation.com/the-religious-discrimination-bill-is-not-just-words-it-will-make-lgbtiq-australians-sick-163649

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gabriella Edelstein, Lecturer in English, University of Newcastle

Review: The Boomkak Panto, directed by Richard Carroll and Virginia Gay, Belvoir

The great Victorian playwright George Bernard Shaw was not an admirer of pantomimes. He wrote in 1897 that this dramatic genre is “a glittering, noisy void”, which worries “the physical senses without any recreative appeal to the emotions and through them to the intellect”.

What value, then, can there be to a pantomime? As Virginia Gay and Richard Carroll’s exuberant The Boomkak Panto shows, pantomime as a genre may be utterly bonkers and fundamentally nonsensical, but it offers audiences the possibility of irreverence, joy and, most importantly, community.

The Boomkak Panto centres on the inhabitants of the fictional “Little Aussie Town™” of Boomkak, who are fighting to save their home from the evil Big Developer’s scheme of building a freeway, high-density housing or a casino.

In classic meta-theatrical tradition à la The Muppets, the townspeople plan to put on a panto to raise money and save their town.

No pretence to realism

For the uninitiated, pantomime – or panto, as it is more affectionately called – is a type of British theatrical entertainment mainly for children played around Christmas. They are comedic retellings of fairy tales and nursery rhymes, from Mother Goose to Cinderella.

There’s song and dance, slapstick, extravagant sets and outrageous costumes, enormous casts, audience participation, clowning, cross-dressing, puns galore, satirical topical references – and no pretence to realism.

Pantomime, as the anti-panto Alison (Virginia Gay, who also wrote and co-directed the production) tell us, is void of structure, tone, logic, emotion and time, where “things seem to happen without cause or effect”. Especially when the villain is somehow trounced, the lovers marry and order is magically restored at the happy ending.

Although pantomime is now a distinctly British art form, it has its origins in the Italian commedia dell’arte, a masked, clowning style of acting, which was nativized in England as the Regency harlequinade.

During the Victorian period – the heyday of panto – the entertainment was transformed into an extravagant spectacular. While the genre is still popular throughout Britain, you would be hard pressed to find a panto in Australia today.

Read more:
A brief history of the pantomime – and why it’s about so much more than ‘blokes in dresses’

How, then, do you refresh pantomime for a modern Australian audience? You make it a queer love story set in the Outback, of course.

Gender play

The true heart of the show is the love story between Zoe (Zoe Terakes) and Yazmin (Mary Soudi). Zoe is a young queer person who has found their identity. Yazmin is the daughter of an Iranian refugee who feels the pressure of living up to her mother’s high expectations.

There has always been something subversive about panto, particularly when it comes to its carnivalesque play with gender.

Traditionally, the panto’s protagonist is the prince, known as the Principal Boy – although the audience is perfectly aware this strapping lad is actually a woman in men’s clothing.

(This type of casting is known as a breeches role, which emerged in the 1660s with the introduction of the English actress, but it was mostly an excuse to show women’s legs in tights.)

There is also the Panto Dame, a middle-aged man in campy drag, playing a matronly woman always on the hunt for a new husband.

The reversals of gender in pantomime highlight and parody rituals of masculinity and femininity, and the extent to which gendered identity is performed. But it also relies on sexist reproductions of gender, presenting women’s bodies as either highly sexualised or grotesque.

One of The Boomkak Panto’s subversive innovations is its treatment of gender. Rather than having the Principal Boy as a sexualised woman who just happens to be in boy’s clothing, the play’s hero is the non-binary Zoe. Their gender identity isn’t performed to the audience for laughs, but with heart and empathy.

Happy endings

When all seems lost, the Big Developer (hilariously played by Rob Johnson) strikes a bargain with the townspeople: if they can perform something “true and beautiful” in their panto, he will leave the town. As may come as no surprise, all’s well that ends well.

The highlight of the show is the panto-within-a-panto: Aladdin with a twist. Like the play’s treatment of gender, Gay and Carroll take this most problematic of stock pantomimes and make it ironic, simultaneously showing their love for the art form while refreshing it with Australian humour, sex jokes and plenty of swear words.

The panto in this play is meant to bring the community together and, for us, The Boomkak Panto does exactly that: the audience was overjoyed to be back in the theatres after lockdown, cheering and booing along with the play’s rollicking plot.

But pantomime is also based on fairy tales. The idealised Boomkak doesn’t exist, and theatre cannot save the day from the developments that are destroying small towns and big cities alike. While The Boomkak Panto may indulge a little too much in a happy ending that does not offer the same satirical bite as the rest of the play, the production shows there is still much to love about pantomime.

The Boomkak Panto plays at Belvoir, Sydney, until December 23.

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

– ref. Belvoir’s The Boomkak Panto is a joyous, subversive and Australian twist on the classic Christmas tradition – https://theconversation.com/belvoirs-the-boomkak-panto-is-a-joyous-subversive-and-australian-twist-on-the-classic-christmas-tradition-171728

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Deb Batterham, Post doctoral research fellow, Launch Housing and Centre for Urban Transitions, Swinburne University of Technology

Homelessness is traumatic. It affects not just housing arrangements but whether or not someone can get enough food, feel safe and maintain relationships with friends and family. The physical and mental health effects often persist long after people are rehoused, and the community and government costs are high.

Much of the current response to homelessness is focused on supporting people after they become homeless or just before they do so.

However, to really reduce homelessness we need to prevent those at risk from ever becoming homeless in the first place. It’s akin to turning off a tap at the source to prevent a flood downstream.

Our recent research, published by the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute, gives critical insights into how we can do that.

Read more:
400,000 women over 45 are at risk of homelessness in Australia

Who is at risk of homelessness?

In our study, people were considered at risk of homelessness if they lived in rental housing and were experiencing at least two of the following:

• low income

• vulnerability to discrimination in the housing or job markets

• low social resources and supports

• needing support to access or maintain a living situation due to significant ill health, disability, mental health issues or problematic alcohol and/or drug use

• rental stress (when lower-income households put more than 30% of income towards housing costs).

From here, it often doesn’t take much to tip those at risk into actual homelessness.

To estimate the number, profile and geography of the Australian population at risk of homelessness we combined data from two sources: the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey and the 2016 Census. We estimated the size of the population at risk at the national and also small area (SA2/suburb) level.

We found between 8.5% and 11.7% of the total population aged 15 years and over were at risk of homelessness. This equates to between 1.5 and 2 million people.

These numbers are large but shouldn’t be surprising. In the nine years between July 2011 and July 2020, some 1.3 million people received assistance from specialist homelessness ervices (agencies that provide support to people experiencing homelessness).

Who’s at risk of homelessness?

Compared to the national population, those at risk of homelessness are more likely to be:

• female

• Indigenous

• living in a lone-person or lone-parent household

• low income

• unemployed or outside the labour force

• in receipt of income support payments.

They are more likely to identify as lesbian, gay or bisexual, and report fair or poor health.

Those at risk have lower levels of education and are more likely to report difficulty paying bills and rent on time.

They are also more likely to experience rental stress and forms of material deprivation such as skipping meals and being unable to heat their home.

A third have children in their care.

Where are they?

The highest rates (per head of population) of homelessness risk are typically found in remote areas and small pockets of capital cities.

However, the greatest numbers of people at risk of homelessness are located in capital cities on the eastern coast of Australia. These high numbers extend well beyond inner city areas and into the suburbs.

In several states (Queensland, New South Wales, Western Australia and South Australia), high rates of homelessness risk are spread across greater capital cities and regional areas.

In Victoria, however, risk is concentrated in Greater Melbourne.

And in the Northern Territory, risk is highly concentrated in remote areas.

Preventing homelessness in Australia

Our findings suggest Australia urgently needs more rental housing specifically targeted to those on low incomes and at risk of homelessness.

Our fine-grain data on homelessness risk can help state and territory governments, as well as local governments, decide where this housing will be most effective to reduce homelessness risk.

Australia also needs more private rental access programs, which provide ongoing subsidies and financial help with rent arrears to people at risk of homelessness. They also provide advocacy help in negotiations with landlords.

Given Indigenous Australians are over represented in the at-risk and homeless populations, especially in remote areas, we need targeted support developed in consultation with Indigenous communities.

Those living with a disability or reporting fair or poor health are particularly vulnerable. There is a clear role for state and territory governments in ensuring access to health and disability supports, especially for those on low incomes.

Key priorities for the federal government and agencies include:

• increasing the levels of income support payments and Commonwealth Rent Assistance

• increasing the wages for the lowest paid workers;

• increasing funding for the construction of social and affordable housing, and;

• playing a coordinating role in primary prevention policy through a national housing and homelessness strategy.

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted homelessness can be closer than many think – especially after sudden loss of employment or a health crisis.

Now we know who is at risk of homelessness and where they are, it’s time for governments to act.

Read more:
Coronavirus puts casual workers at risk of homelessness unless they get more support

Deb Batterham works part-time for Launch Housing – a Specialist Homelessness Service in Melbourne and receives or has received funding from the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute (AHURI)

Christian A. Nygaard receives or has received funding from the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute, the Community Housing Industry Association, other housing peak bodies, and a number of not-for-profit community housing organisations and homelessness service providers.

Jackie De Vries receives funding from the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute (AHURI) and has recently begun working for the Tasmanian government in the Department of Communities.

Margaret Reynolds receives funding from the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute (AHURI).

– ref. We identified who’s most at risk of homelessness and where they are. Now we must act, before it’s too late – https://theconversation.com/we-identified-whos-most-at-risk-of-homelessness-and-where-they-are-now-we-must-act-before-its-too-late-172501

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Wayland, Senior Lecturer Social Work, University of New England

The public has been privy to live footage of police operations. New South Wales police, dressed in overalls, scoured dense bushland to retrieve a small piece of fabric. Reports suggested the yet-to-be-analysed fabric may be linked to the case of missing boy William Tyrrell.

William’s case – along with the location of Cleo Smith in Western Australia and recent developments in the case of missing campers Russell Hill and Carol Clay in Victoria – have been prominent news stories.

Media interest can invite the public into the investigative process. But rolling media coverage can have an immediate and long-lasting effect on the families left behind. That’s not only the families of that particular case, but the families of other missing people, whose case isn’t in the news.

Non-stop coverage can invade their privacy, raise and dash their hopes, and prolong their trauma.

More people go missing than ever make ‘news’

In 2020, Australia’s National Missing Persons Coordination Centre had more than 51,000 reports about the safety and well-being of a missing person. Many of those cases are resolved within one month.

Yet more than 2,600 cases are long term – when a person is missing for longer than three months.

It’s rare for the families of people who are missing to have had any contact with the media before. So it’s difficult for families to navigate and manage media interest.

Bruce Morcombe’s son Daniel was 13 when he was abducted from the Sunshine Coast in December 2003. His remains were found in 2011.

Bruce told the ABC how he managed the media interest. He said the disappearance, homicide and the criminal investigation created a groundswell of empathy.

However, he said when the momentum slowed and it was looking like the case would become “cold”, the family and their supporters created media opportunities – to offer a new hook, a new angle – to continue community engagement.

Families of missing people believe “someone, somewhere must know something”. Media offers the greatest capacity to reach that “someone”.

However, media attention is not guaranteed and is not an even playing field. Attention only falls, and priority given, to cases assessed as vulnerable. Cases the media deems newsworthy or those that reach high engagement (through liking, commenting and sharing on social media) also get attention.

À lire aussi :
First Nations kids make up about 20% of missing children, but get a fraction of the media coverage

How does this rolling media coverage affect families?

When the media provides rolling coverage of every tiny development in a missing persons case, it can raise hope for some families watching on. But for others, it can have the opposite effect.

A 2015 study of Australian families I conducted as part of my PhD found increased hope also creates a “hope hangover”. Families told me this is where anticipation peaks but they need recovery time to manage the emotional assault of a possible resolution.

Families of missing people also told me they have to remain resilient as other cases are solved, and the uncertainty of how long the investigation of their own loved one will take. In other words, media reporting of outcomes of one case can compound the trauma experienced by families of other missing people, whose case has not yet been resolved.

À lire aussi :
When missing children return: how can we avoid adding to Cleo Smith’s trauma?

Then there’s the invasion of privacy

Privacy for these families is also an issue.

Loren O’Keeffe, founder and chief executive officer of Missing Persons Advocacy Network, was buoyed by community interest to help the search over the five years her brother Dan was missing.

When he was found, in traumatic circumstances, despite asking for privacy, she noticed the community felt a sense of ownership over Dan and the family’s story. Earlier this week, when Loren reflected about the location of her brother, she told me:

[…] journalists incessantly ringing the doorbell, flooding inboxes demanding interviews, seeing awful commentary over social media – completely overwhelmed us when we needed space and silence to process our reality. It’s an unconscionable notion; desperate families that get media and public support for “search” are then obliged to share such raw grief and delicate detail at the debilitating time of “found”.

À lire aussi :
Missing and found: understanding the privacy needs of missing people

Specific media quidelines would help

The reasons people go missing can be diverse and complex. These can be due to a crime, complex mental illness, suicide or misadventure. This means a number of different media guidelines or codes of practice could potentially come into play to shape media coverage.

There are no Australian media guidelines specifically about reporting missing persons cases. They are needed.

We may be able to learn from the success of Mindframe, a national program that provides evidence-based recommendations for media reporting and public communication about suicide and mental illness, among other issues.

The program has been developed and refined over two decades, providing a strong platform for collaboration between the media and people involved in mental health and suicide prevention, including those with lived experience of these issues.

The guidelines do not restrict media reporting of the issues, but provide an opportunity for media and those working with the media to reflect on a number of issues. These include the types of content and messaging that may reduce risk of harm and distress, reduce stigma, and increase people’s willingness to seek help and offer help to others.

À lire aussi :
Cleo Smith has been gone almost a week. Why missing children cases grip the nation

Jaelea Skehan, director of Everymind (the organisation behind the Mindframe guidelines) told me that with media guidelines specific to missing persons, newsworthy coverage would still take place, but would also consider the potential impacts on those directly involved or impacted by similar experiences.

Remember, the stories of the investigations of missing persons cases are not the full story of the life of the person who is lost or the families left behind.

As the brother of a young woman missing for more than 30 years told me as part of my research:

Hope can get buried deep below, we [the families of missing people] are like icebergs. We don’t have rose coloured spectacles on, it’s like they have been ripped off. We see the world as it is. There is a lot that others don’t see.

The community, when watching on, needs to remember that.

Sarah Wayland received funding from the Australian Postgraduate Awards (APA) founded by the Australian Federal Government to complete a study exploring families of missing people 2013-2015

– ref. Rolling media coverage of missing persons cases can add to the trauma for all families left behind – https://theconversation.com/rolling-media-coverage-of-missing-persons-cases-can-add-to-the-trauma-for-all-families-left-behind-172487

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew King, ARC DECRA fellow, The University of Melbourne

There’s a big question mark over whether the world will keep global warming below the limits set out in the Paris Agreement. But even if we do, the climate will keep evolving – and society needs to prepare for this.

At the moment, climate models don’t tell us much about a future world in which temperatures have stabilised. As our research published today argues, new model experiments are needed to close this knowledge gap and better understand the challenges ahead.

For example, in southern Australia, climate change has already caused a trend towards less rain and more frequent and prolonged drought. If the global climate stabilises, we expect this drying trend to reverse, which could ease future strains on water supply in this region. This would in turn affect urban planning, agriculture and water policy.

The new models we’re proposing would enable more useful climate projections aligned with the Paris Agreement targets – and better prepare society for a warmer, but more stable, global temperature.

Targeting a stable climate

Under the landmark Paris Agreement, the world is aiming to keep global warming well below 2℃ compared with pre-industrial times, and preferably below 1.5℃.

The world is warming at a rate of around 0.25℃ per decade and is already about 1.2℃ warmer than in pre-industrial times.

This warming won’t stop until net greenhouse gas emissions are near zero. If we don’t greatly reduce emissions in the next decade, we will warm the planet beyond 1.5℃.

To date, climate simulations used to examine the implications of the Paris Agreement either assume warming continues beyond 1.5℃ and 2℃, or only examine a short period after warming has stopped. This is because most of these simulations were not specifically designed to analyse global warming levels linked to the Paris Agreement, and mostly focus only on what will happen this century.

If we manage to stabilise global temperatures, other aspects of Earth’s climate would continue to change. Studies based on long model experiments suggest ocean and land temperatures continue to evolve for centuries after global warming slows. That’s because the ocean warms at a slower rate than the land, and warming water can take hundreds, and even thousands, of years to mix into the deep ocean.

Even after the global temperature stabilises at the levels set out in the Paris Agreement, many ocean areas would likely warm by at least a further 0.5℃. Meanwhile some land areas would cool by at least 0.5℃.

The ocean takes time to catch up – and as it does, land temperatures have to fall to maintain the same global average temperature.

In addition, if global temperature remained near-constant, rainfall patterns would likely change. In some subtropical regions, such as southern Australia, this might mean a reversal of the drying trends we’ve seen over the past few decades.

Read more:
Yes, a few climate models give unexpected predictions – but the technology remains a powerful tool

New models are needed

Clearly, we need new experiments to model Earth’s climate if warming is stabilised at 1.5℃. Our new paper proposes a framework for designing these experiments.

Our framework differs from the approach taken by various climate modelling groups around the world in recent decades.

These groups have all used the same projection of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere, and how they change through time. This approach allows for comparison of climate projections between models for the same greenhouse gas scenarios.

But because each group fed this projection into their own climate model – each with their own characteristics – each produced different predictions for how much global warming would occur. Also, these model simulations are mostly run only to 2100, and so represent a world that’s continuing to warm and hasn’t had time to stabilise.

Instead, our framework involves reaching the same level of global warming across a range of climate models. This would be achieved by “turning off” the carbon emissions used in various climate models at different times.

So, a climate model that warms more strongly in response to greenhouse gas emissions would have its carbon emissions “turned off” earlier, relative to a slower warming model. This would provide a group of climate model simulations at around the same level of global warming.

Stopping carbon emissions will cause global warming to slow and, eventually, stop. Running these simulations for up to 1,000 years after carbon emissions stop will allow us to investigate and understand the effects of climate stabilisation in line with the Paris Agreement.

A few global modelling centres have started running simulations following similar frameworks, including Australia’s CSIRO. We invite other climate modelling centres to join us in our experiments, and help policymakers and societies better prepare for a warmer world.

Read more:
The seas are coming for us in Kiribati. Will Australia rehome us?

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

Andrea Dittus receives funding from the Natural Environment Research Council.

Ed Hawkins receives funding from the UK Natural Environment Research Council (NERC).

Josephine Brown receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the National Environmental Science Program.

Kale Sniderman receives funding from the Australian Research Council

Tilo Ziehn receives funding from the Australian Government under the National Environmental Science Program.

– ref. Even if we halt global warming, local climates will change – and we need new experiments to understand how – https://theconversation.com/even-if-we-halt-global-warming-local-climates-will-change-and-we-need-new-experiments-to-understand-how-172482

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Seabrook, Microbial Ecologist, National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research

The German linguist Heinrich Zimmer once described the ocean as “limitless and immortal … the beginning and end of all things on Earth”.

Standing on the shores of any ocean, one can easily sense this. Yet, the more we reveal about the myriad processes within the world’s oceans, the more we begin to question just how limitless and immortal the ocean truly is.

The ocean is one of the Earth’s greatest climate regulators. It absorbs almost a third of emitted carbon dioxide and more than 90% of excess heat. But the latest scientific report from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) revealed the ocean may be nearing a tipping point.

Historic levels of ocean acidification, warming and deoxygenation (oxygen loss) are irreversibly affecting marine biodiversity and critical ecosystem functions.

Despite a critical need to incorporate the ocean into climate policies, a connection between climate, ocean and biodiversity regimes has been slow to form.

Baca juga:
The ocean is essential to tackling climate change. So why has it been neglected in global climate talks?

The Glasgow Climate Pact, decided during COP26 earlier this month, may herald a new age. For the first time, the ocean was formally included in UN climate negotiation processes.

A request was also made for the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to hold an annual Ocean and Climate Change Dialogue to strengthen ocean-based action.

Oceans and climate change

This annual meeting will build on the first Ocean and Climate Change Dialogue, which was requested by COP25 in Madrid in 2019 and held virtually as part of UNFCCC discussions in 2020. Prior to this meeting, submissions were sought on priorities and perspectives for ocean-related climate mitigation and adaptation.

In our paper, we share in-depth analysis of these submissions and the first Ocean and Climate Change Dialogue, providing a baseline for continued progress. This analysis also informs the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development and the UN Decade of Ecosystem Restoration, as well as ongoing negotiations on managing the high seas, or areas of the ocean beyond national jurisdiction.

In total, there were 47 submissions, from governments and non-governmental organisations (NGOs). Governmental submissions represented 120 of the 197 nations within the UNFCCC, from largely coastal or island nations with a strong history of ocean management and policy. However, several major coastal nations were absent (including the US, China, India, Brazil and the Russian Federation).

Baca juga:
COP26 failed to address ocean acidification, but the law of the seas means states must protect the world’s oceans

The COP26 summit highlighted the lack of inclusion for all groups in the negotiations, particularly limited access for developing countries, observers and NGOs. The very format of the Ocean and Climate Change Dialogue allowed for a more inclusive process. It revealed different perspectives between governmental and NGO submissions on several key issues.

For example, NGOs more frequently considered ocean ecosystem impacts (such as changes to species distribution and ocean circulation), the deep sea and vulnerabilities to saltwater intrusion into drinking water reserves. The differences in focus highlighted by the Ocean and Climate Change Dialogue underscore the need to ensure all global concerns are heard fully during future COP summits.

Linking climate and biodiversity crises

All submissions reflected the intrinsic ties between society and the services the ocean provides, from fisheries to carbon sequestration. They also highlighted the many intersections between climate adaptation and mitigation and respective policies.

As seen in the Glasgow Climate Pact, many submissions joined ocean, climate and biodiversity issues. This reflects the growing emphasis on actions and policies that consider the climate crisis holistically, instead of focusing just on atmospheric or terrestrial components.

Most submissions highlighted the need for policies that promote ecosystem resilience and include biodiversity management to support crucial ecosystem functions, such as trapping carbon.

This included nature-based solutions, such as restoring mangrove forests to enhance shoreline protection from storms and promote healthy fisheries, and “blue carbon”, capable of trapping more carbon per unit area than forests.

Finance and human rights

A focus was seen in the Ocean and Climate Change Dialogue on ensuring adequate funding to achieve climate goals. More than half of all submissions referred to finance, but it was more strongly considered by NGOs than by governments.

Finance was a pivotal issue at COP26, reported as one of the most challenging plans to agree on. This includes issues such as how much finance goes to adaptation over mitigation, and the degree to which rich nations support developing countries bearing the brunt of the climate crisis, despite being the least responsible.

Human rights issues and the importance of transparent, inclusive, fair governance (good governance) were mentioned frequently in the submissions in relation to ocean management, mitigation and adaptation measures.

The continued evolution towards integrated climate action through the Ocean and Climate Change Dialogue and the Glasgow Climate Pact is a major victory. However, high ambition was elusive at COP26 and it will require more work to prevent severe climate impacts on sensitive marine ecosystems and the people who rely on them.

The Dialogue highlighted several next steps, including featuring the ocean in the UNFCCC global stocktake, addressing gaps in ocean finance and increasing ocean science in (and produced by) developing countries.

The ocean has been buffering the impacts of climate change since the industrial revolution, but we are now reaching the limits of this capacity. Integrated ocean-climate policy is a crucial part of our fight against the code red for humanity. The next year of negotiations will show if we can achieve this.

We would like to acknowledge the contribution of Bobbi-Jo Dobush, an independent ocean conservation and policy consultant based in the US.

Sarah Seabrook receives funding from the New Zealand Ministry for Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) and the United States National Science Foundation, and is a member of the Deep Ocean Stewardship Initiative

elisabeth.holland@usp.ac.fj and PaCE-SD receives funding from New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs, European Union Global Climate Change Alliance +, and the Belmont Forum

llevin@ucsd.edu is affiliated with the Deep Ocean Stewardship Initiative and the Deep Ocean Observing Strategy

natalya.gallo@uib.no receives funding from the University of Bergen and the Research Council of Norway. She is affiliated with the University of Bergen, the Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research, and the SDG Bergen Initiative. She is also a member of the Deep Ocean Stewardship Initiative and is a member of the Early Career Ocean Professionals working group under the UN Ocean Decade.

– ref. The ocean is our greatest climate regulator. It must be a stronger part of climate policy and action – https://theconversation.com/the-ocean-is-our-greatest-climate-regulator-it-must-be-a-stronger-part-of-climate-policy-and-action-171813

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ilana Finefter-Rosenbluh, Lecturer, Faculty of Education, Monash University

Education departments have been investing in feedback-based tools to assess school performance. These include student perception surveys, where students provide feedback on the quality of their learning and their experiences in the classroom or at school.

The hope is such feedback will provide teachers and other school staff with information to help foster a positive learning environment. But our recent study shows teachers don’t know how to act on the data from the surveys, and that students question the value of them.

It’s one thing to invest in and gather feedback, but without the ability to act on it, the feedback is useless. Educational systems and policy-makers should support teachers to respond to feedback-based assessment data. This is particularly important in times of ongoing disruptions to school routines, which put both teachers and students under extensive pressure.

How popular are student perception surveys?

Australian states have been using school-level surveys like the School Opinion Survey in Queensland, the Student Survey in NSW and the School Survey in the Northern Territory for years.

Similarly, there is the Attitudes to School Survey in Victoria, which asks students to rate statements such as “my teacher makes learning fun” and “my teacher uses more than one way to check we understand”.

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Education departments in nations such as the United Kingdom and the United States have also development student perception surveys to assess teaching practice. The rise of such surveys reflects a spike in survey companies advertising their services to help improve teaching and learning with data-informed insights.

SOME Australian classroomS work with companies, such as Pivot, which markets itself as “the feedback platform for schools”, noting it helps

[…] schools improve teaching practice, student well-being and leadership with actionable, data-informed insights.

‘You can’t have these surveys without some kind of support’

We wanted to explore the influence of such student perception surveys on teachers’ practice, as perceived by both students and teachers.

Our study took place in Victorian secondary schools before the pandemic. It was based on nearly 1,000 students’ surveys providing their perspectives on their experience in the classroom.

To measure change, we administered the surveys twice: around the beginning of the year and towards the end of the year. The study also included 14 teacher interviews, and focus groups involving 33 students.

Interestingly, findings showed teachers did not change their practice over time in response to student feedback.

In the focus groups, some students expressed scepticism over the power of their voice to change teachers’ practices and their ability or willingness to translate the feedback into tangible actions.

One student told us:

there are certain students who deal with certain things and teachers know that, but they don’t really do much to prevent it from happening again because they don’t know how […] they will maybe help that one student if he asks for it specifically, but they need to […] prevent it from happening again and to other students […]

Another student said:

I think [teachers] care about [student feedback] but like, they have too much on their mind to actually realise what they’re doing, or to realise what they need to do to change the way that they teach […]

Similarly, teachers lamented their struggles to respond to their students’ needs. Expressing their hope for support from the education system, they asked for more guidance to sustain their students’ growth. As one of them explained:

Honestly, I didn’t understand what I can actually do with some of the questions […] like classroom belonging […] I went back to the kids and used that as one of those conversations where I said, ‘okay you guys have all reported that you don’t think anyone cares about you, and you don’t care about each other. What’s going on? because I watch you work together and you’re amazing […] what’s the difference between what you think and what you’re actually doing in the classroom?’ but this strategy clearly wasn’t enough […] you can’t just have these surveys without some kind of support […]

Likewise, another teacher noted:

How do you use this feedback and then turn that into something in the classroom? […] [I] wasn’t really too sure of how to act or to respond to it.

Some teachers opposed the surveys, seeing them as external measures that undermined their professionalism. One of them suggested:

Teachers get really pissed when they feel like their effort or approach is being attacked or negatively commented on, and it’s almost like there’s a complete shutdown, and it’s like no, you don’t need to make me feel crap about my life, I’m not going to take anything on board.

Support is key, especially during disruption

Teachers and students face multiple challenges which the pandemic has exacerbated, nationally and internationally. These include family financial hardship and resource-limited study environments, ethical issues with remote learning anchored around student well-being, and access to technology and essential online resources.

Read more:
Is learning more important than well-being? Teachers told us how COVID highlighted ethical dilemmas at school

The ongoing disruption to schools in Australia and globally has left many teachers and students in more need for emotional and instructional support.

As school districts weigh and debate the use of feedback-based assessment tools, they must also examine how teachers can be supported in responding to such data.

Equally, policy-makers and school leaders must rethink how education systems can help shape teacher education programs and provide professional learning opportunities that guide the use of assessment data to sustain teacher growth and improve student experience.

Ilana Finefter-Rosenbluh receives external funding, including from the Trawalla Foundation, the Besen Family Foundation, the Loti and Victor Smorgon Family Foundation and a Victorian government school.

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

– ref. Schools are surveying students to improve teaching. But many teachers find the feedback too difficult to act on – https://theconversation.com/schools-are-surveying-students-to-improve-teaching-but-many-teachers-find-the-feedback-too-difficult-to-act-on-170873

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Richard Holden, Professor of Economics, UNSW

Other than a Supreme Court justice, perhaps the most important appointment a US President makes is the chair of the Federal Reserve. And unlike federal judges, the chair of the Fed is appointed (or reappointed) every four years.

Joe Biden has faced the same conundrum as a parade of predecessors – whether to reappoint a chair initially appointed by the other side of politics.

This week his choice came down to reappointing Jerome Powell, appointed chair by Republican Donald Trump, and appointed to the Fed by Barack Obama, or giving the job to another Fed governor Lael Brainard, a former top official in the Clinton and Obama administrations.

The term of the Trump-appointed vice chair Richard Clarida was also set to expire, and he was caught up in an insider-trading scandal of sorts.

On Monday Biden decided to both reappoint Powell as chair, and make Brainard vice chair.

If confirmed by the Senate, Brainard would become the third woman to hold the post, after Alice Rivlin and Janet Yellen.

Brainard has impeccable credentials. She holds a PhD from the Harvard economics department and quit a very promising career in academia to serve both President Clinton and President Obama.

As vice chair, she will have significant influence. The chair of the Fed is more like the ringmaster than a chief executive, making his or her vice chair a key player.

So where does she stand on the big issues?

Dovish on rates, concerned about climate

On interest rates Brainard is pretty dovish, just like Powell. This is another way of saying she seems to be in the “this recent inflation is transitory” camp, and so is unlikely to want to risk raising interest rates early.

On banking regulation she is tougher than Powell. One of the key reasons President Trump appointed Powell to replace the Obama-appointed Janet Yellen was Powell’s more relaxed approach to regulating Wall Street.

Powell hasn’t been completely soft on regulation, but he has pushed things in that direction. Brainard has a tougher stance. In her seven years at the Fed, she has dissented on more than 20 board votes that relaxed Wall Street regulations.

Read more:
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But the big point of departure is climate change. Brainard is a leading advocate of the Fed taking a bigger role factoring in climate change into its thinking, along the lines of the Bank of England and, to a lesser extent, Australia’s Reserve Bank.

Her advocacy has sparked a furious response, with Republican senators telling Powell the Fed lacked authority to consider exposure to climate change in its regulation and analysis of banks.

No less a figure than Nobel Prize winner Jean Tirole backed them this month, saying central banks were ill-equipped to consider climate change.

Powell appears to be less keen on taking climate change into account, but if Brainard is confirmed by the Senate she will become a force to be reckoned with.

Meanwhile, across the Tasman on Wednesday the Reserve Bank of New Zealand hiked interest rates for the second consecutive month, pushing its cash rate up to 0.75%, well above Australia’s 0.10% and the US Federal Fund’s rate of 0.25% amid concerns about rising inflation.

Rates up in NZ, not yet in Australia or the United States

Brainard is likely to show more caution, siding with Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman who said this week that if the Fed raised rates and pushed the US into a recession, it might be hard to cut rates enough to get it out again.

It’s something Australia’s governor Philip Lowe is likely to ponder after seeing Australia’s September quarter national accounts due out next Wednesday.

They will show how much the economy went backwards during the depths of the mid-year lockdowns, and provide clues as to the strength of the bounce-back likely now that Australia’s two biggest states are returning to work.

Richard Holden is President of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia.

– ref. Vital Signs: Cautious on rates, strong on climate action – meet Lael Brainard, Biden’s new pick at the US Federal Reserve – https://theconversation.com/vital-signs-cautious-on-rates-strong-on-climate-action-meet-lael-brainard-bidens-new-pick-at-the-us-federal-reserve-172407

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christine Feldman-Barrett, Senior Lecturer in Cultural Sociology, Griffith University

When the official trailer for The Beatles: Get Back was released in October, commentary across social media often referenced how harmonious and collegial the band looked in the footage. Undoubtedly, much of the anticipation surrounding Peter Jackson’s docu-series was its suggestion that the Beatles’ final years were much less acrimonious than previously believed.

In tandem with this, another set of comments focused on Yoko Ono’s inclusion in the jovial preview. After all, the 1970 Beatles documentary Let It Be, directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg – which was created from the same 60-plus hours of footage – has not only served as supposed evidence of the group’s disintegration, but as “proof” that artist Ono, John Lennon’s then girlfriend and soon-to-be wife, played a major role in the world’s greatest rock band splintering apart.

Given that docuseries director Peter Jackson is also a lifelong Beatles fan, he was likely familiar with how the “Yoko-broke-up-the-Beatles” narrative was often mapped onto Let It Be, and has continued as popular discourse today.

Little wonder that The Beatles: Get Back trailer included Paul McCartney quipping, “It’s going to be such a comical thing like in 50 years’ time: ‘They broke up because Yoko sat on an amp.’”

Shots of Yoko smiling, dancing with John, and sitting with Ringo’s wife, Maureen Starkey, depict her as a welcome, observant guest rather than an intrusive figure in the Beatles’ workspace.

Similarly, this can be said for the other major female figure present at the filmed Get Back sessions, Paul McCartney’s future wife, American photographer Linda Eastman. While she did not face the extreme criticism that Ono initially received for partnering with a Beatle, by the early 1970s she would be the punchline for cruel jokes about McCartney’s post-Beatles group Wings, of which she was a founding member.

In this way, Jackson’s trailer suggested the potential to reframe Ono and Eastman in the Beatles story and its continuing cultural legacy.

Read more:
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The Beatles: Get Back

The Beatles: Get Back, the three-part Disney+ series, follows John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr throughout January 1969 as they practice and record songs that would appear on their final two albums, with the majority of them making up their 1970 swansong, Let It Be.

Since the Beatles stopped touring in 1966, filming the group was in conjunction with a proposed TV special. The Beatles also wanted to record an album featuring live performances, which reflected their early history of electrifying club gigs. While the TV program was cancelled, the footage became the documentary Let It Be.

The story that emerges from Jackson’s retelling is how the Beatles worked together during what was a transitional time. Both Lennon and McCartney – to varying degrees – are shown as regularly inviting girlfriends Ono and Eastman to the recording sessions. Though Ono’s presence is the more documented of the two, both couples would marry by March 1969.

In the series, Ono’s attendance at the Get Back sessions is not introduced. She is simply there, often sitting close to Lennon while the band works out new songs or runs through old favourites. Sometimes she is raptly attentive to the music, smiling and rocking along to the beat, while in other moments she is involved in her own activities – often reading and writing.

Mostly, hers is a quiet but constant presence on film, though interspersed with a few avant-garde jam sessions with both Lennon and McCartney. In those moments, her singular voice comes through loud and clear.

Though McCartney has said that Yoko’s initial presence at the recording studio felt uncomfortable, such sentiment is not on display here. McCartney seems an enthusiastic participant in these sonic forays – not looking at all annoyed that his musical partner’s girlfriend is getting in the mix, if even just for fun.

Eastman, meanwhile, is introduced to viewers by way of McCartney’s own introduction of her to members of the film crew. Most of the interspersed close-ups of Linda are of her photographing her future husband and his band mates, which references the fact that Eastman was already a rock photographer when she first met McCartney in 1967.

Other shots of Linda depict her quietly regarding Paul as he focuses on his work. Elsewhere, she is depicted as a young mother, when she brings daughter Heather to the studio, and as a true Beatles enthusiast, when she jokingly argues with director Lindsay-Hogg over who is the bigger fan of the band.

For contemporary viewers encountering such scenes, it might be difficult to understand how Ono’s or Eastman’s presence could have been perceived as a disturbance or distraction by some fans and cultural observers when the Let It Be film debuted in 1970.

Cultural changes since Let It Be

But there have been many changes in music and culture since Let It Be premiered over 50 years ago. Shifting perceptions of both Yoko Ono and Linda McCartney since 1970 will likely foster different interpretations of the footage – any directorial or editorial decisions aside.

For instance, from the advent of punk and new wave onward – with many women performers adopting those genres – Yoko Ono became a musical icon in her own right. Meanwhile, Linda McCartney may have received flak for her involvement in Wings, but her work for animal rights, promoting vegetarianism, and a clear dedication to family life won over some original and latter-day fans prior to her death in 1998, a trend that continues today.

Posthumously, her photography continues to be exhibited around the world and praised by many.

In terms of wider cultural change, the seemingly fixed nature of women’s roles both professionally and personally was greatly challenged through second-wave feminism soon after Let It Be’s release. Arguably, both women’s reputations within Beatles history likely benefited from a cultural movement that advocated for female individuality and agency.

Though second-wave feminism did not take off until the early 1970s, the 1960s was still a transformative decade for women. This is demonstrated by both Ono’s and Eastman’s careers and their status as divorcees. However, even before these two women entered the Beatles’ sphere, the way the band interacted with women and addressed them in their songs often proved forward-thinking.

Female photographers, journalists, fellow musicians, and fans were included in the Beatles’ world early on and treated respectfully. While the postwar era still favoured men as the dominant participants of society, each band member and the Beatles’ music itself nonetheless created an exciting, new space for girls and young women to boldly engage with cultural life. No wonder their initial presence elicited screams.

Women and the Beatles: on-set and behind the scenes

If the footage that comprises The Beatles: Get Back can allow us to review and reconsider Yoko Ono and Linda McCartney within the Beatles’ later history, it can also serve as a jumping-off point for re-examining how women (both real and fictional) are situated within the Beatles’ first feature film, A Hard Day’s Night.

Since the Beatles’ films can help audiences better understand the band’s cultural impact, looking at their 1964 debut as a bookend to Jackson’s docuseries can provide insights into how women fit into an epic story that continues to fascinate contemporary audiences.

A Hard Day’s Night was directed by Richard Lester and premiered soon after the Beatles achieved international fame. The film aims to replicate the band’s experiences during the height of Beatlemania. Performing as fictionalised versions of themselves, John, Paul, George, and Ringo are introduced onscreen running from screaming, mostly female fans as they catch a train to London.

Though girls and young women were often considered their core audience at this time, the band’s subsequent encounters with them in the film are relatively brief: serenading teenage schoolgirls on the train, responding to journalists at a press event, chatting and dancing with young women at a nightclub, or walking past dancers backstage at the TV studio. And, of course, there are screaming girls at the bands’s actual performance.

While the film helped capture girls’ excitement about the Beatles in early 1964, the stories off-camera tell of different relationships.

The then 19-year-old Pattie Boyd, who would marry George Harrison in 1966, was cast as one of the schoolgirls in the film. In other words, she met her future husband through her career as a model and actress. And, while some female reporters are depicted interviewing the Beatles early in the film, behind the scenes it was London Evening Standard journalist Maureen Cleave who was one of the band’s very first champions in the mainstream press. Indeed, young women were at the forefront of nascent rock journalism in the mid-sixties, often interviewing the Beatles.

While no women are shown in the film taking pictures of the Beatles as they arrive in London, their first (unofficial) band photographer and friend Astrid Kirchherr, whom they had met four years earlier while performing in Hamburg, was on set taking photos for German magazine Stern.

Kirchherr’s significance in the Beatles story also extends to the different sartorial styles and music genres she introduced into their world. In these respects, though the “screaming fan” became the main female image connected to the Beatles at this time, it is a limited view of girls’ and women’s engagement with the band both before and during Beatlemania.

Women were always important to the Beatles, not just as a fan base, but as people whose opinions and ideas mattered to them. By the time the Get Back footage was filmed, this aspect of the band remained unchanged.

What we can learn from The Beatles: Get Back

Returning to The Beatles: Get Back, it is not only the depiction of Ono and Eastman that demonstrates women’s inclusion within Beatles history. Though they are the two most dominant female figures in the docu-series, George Harrison’s wife Pattie Boyd makes a brief appearance while Ringo Starr’s wife Maureen Starkey – an early Beatles fan in Liverpool – continues to show her enthusiasm for the group’s music in a few key scenes.

Some female employees of the Beatles’ Apple enterprise, as well as two dedicated fans – part of the Apple Scruffs fan collective who would wait outside the band’s Savile Row headquarters – make brief, if noteworthy, appearances in the film. With the Apple Scruffs in particular, the adolescent, screaming fans of 1964 are now quietly observant teenagers hoping for a brief audience with their favourite Beatle.

Interest in the Beatles remains evergreen with many newly published books and myriad podcasts available to today’s fans. Peter Jackson’s docu-series will undoubtedly inspire new cohorts of enthusiasts. For those with a longer history observing the Beatles, this intimate view of the band at the end of their career may prompt a revaluation of what they have believed about the band’s final years and breakup.

The Beatles: Get Back both provides a new window into the dynamic relationships within the band itself while posing a challenge to those who, for whatever reason, still insist that Yoko Ono’s role in the band’s history was a negative one.

It also reminds viewers that one of the greatest stories of the 20th century is not only predicated on the friendship and talent of four British musicians, but on the people who have loved them.

Paying closer attention to how women have been part of this phenomenal story helps us to better understand the Beatles in their time and the band’s continuing appeal.

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

– ref. Friday essay: Yoko, Linda, Get Back and shifting perceptions of the women of the Beatles – https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-yoko-linda-get-back-and-shifting-perceptions-of-the-women-of-the-beatles-171822

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

The overwhelming impression the Morrison government has projected this week has been one of chaos, with revolts coming from the right and the left.

And that’s accurate. But, within the shambles, there has actually been one encouraging sign. We’re seeing a new generation of Liberal moderates belatedly raise their voices.

When several moderates spoke out in the Coalition party room, airing their reservations about the Religious Discrimination Bill, or aspects of it, it was the most significant indication so far they aren’t willing to be quiescent any longer.

They may be partly driven by the looming election, but whatever the motive, it was an important moment.

It’s true the moderates had played a part in the government’s embrace of the net-zero by 2050 target, including putting their views in a meeting with Scott Morrison. Further back, under the Turnbull government, some had been drivers for same-sex marriage.

In the party room this year Warren Entsch, member for the north Queensland seat of Leichhardt, adopted the tactic of deliberately getting up to counter contributions from right-wingers such as fellow Queenslanders Gerard Rennick and the Nationals’ Matt Canavan, so that the official briefing for journalists after the meeting didn’t just include one side of an argument.

But this week the presence of the moderates, a number of whom arrived in the class of 2019, was suddenly more obvious.

While it’s one thing to get up on your hind legs in the party room, or even to make public statements, it is a big step to call out your government in parliament.

It would have taken a lot for Bridget Archer, a moderate who holds the highly marginal Tasmanian seat of Bass, to make herself the story.

Archer said outright what a number of her moderate colleagues were thinking, when she criticised the government for not bringing forward its legislation for an integrity commission.

“I am a bit offended, in a way, that we are prioritising – in a rush I might add – the Religious Discrimination Bill over an integrity commission,” she said, in very frank remarks to The Guardian on Wednesday.

Then on Thursday she seconded a move in the House of Representatives by crossbencher Helen Haines to try to bring on for debate Haines’s private member’s bill for an integrity commission. Archer wasn’t arguing that bill was perfect, but declared the issue needed to be talked about.

All crossbenchers and Archer voted in favour, and had the numbers. But the move failed because it did not have an absolute majority.

Archer was later ushered into a meeting with the PM, Josh Frydenberg and Marise Payne. She was offered a “pair” for next week, but declined it.

Read more:
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A fellow moderate said of Archer’s action, “It’s been asymmetrical warfare for too long” – people on the right of the Coalition having had licence to speak out on their issues.

Ironically, it was a moderate, Communications Minister Paul Fletcher, who’d had the task of slapping down the Haines-Archer move. Fletcher told parliament the government stood ready to introduce legislation, which begged the question why it hadn’t done so.

The government’s suppression of the integrity debate (which it also did earlier this week in the Senate) was a pyrrhic victory.

It was a bad look: not only hadn’t it brought in promised legislation, but it had also refused to allow a debate on an issue very many Australians rate highly.

Forced onto the back foot over the matter, Morrison later took the unexpected tack of declaring the legislation was actually out there.

He was referring to the original model the then attorney-general, Christian Porter, released a year ago. That draft, widely criticised, has been the subject of consultations, with the aim of producing a revised bill.

But whether the bill will be reworked is now in doubt. Morrison’s spokesman said there was “no final decision” about making any revisions. Government sources said it was looking “increasingly likely” the legislation released last year would be that presented to parliament. This would make a nonsense of the consultations.

Morrison also launched a fresh sweeping attack on the NSW ICAC, saying, “what was done to Gladys Berejiklian, the people of NSW know, was an absolute disgrace”. Given the evidence against Berejiklian, and regardless of her continued popularity, reflected in new polling, this was a very dubious path to go down.

Earlier this week, Morrison lectured the Coalition party room on the danger of division. His exhortation had little effect. Apart from the Archer revolt, negotiations by Morrison and Frydenberg with senators Rennick and Alex Antic – who were withholding their votes because they are agitated over state vaccine mandates – had only limited success. And there were other breakouts.

Read more:
With a federal election looming, is there new hope for leadership on integrity and transparency?

Once, the political wisdom might have been that if Morrison were returned for another term he’d be rewarded with unbridled authority – having achieved a second “miracle”. Equally or more likely, however, if his margin were again razor thin, he could be more constrained by a backbench starting to look at leadership succession, in the realisation the Coalition’s good run couldn’t last forever.

If he found himself in minority government, his arm would be twisted on issues (such as an integrity commission) where his negotiating position would be weak.

Morrison has only another week this year to endure his disorderly party room, but the issues backbenchers are concerned about will hang around.

The Religious Discrimination Bill will be a source of contention over the summer. On the integrity commission, the government is in a no-win position. If it doesn’t introduce legislation, it will come under sustained criticism. If it does, the model will be an orphan.

Meanwhile, the agitators on the right will continue their rage over state vaccine mandates, a big issue with the base in Queensland.

Looking towards 2022 and the election, Morrison could hardly be facing a more uncertain environment.

He is seeking to surf on Australians’ post-lockdown new freedoms. But given what’s happening in Europe, there is no guarantee Australia, especially as the international borders open, might not face a fourth wave of COVID next year, despite very high vaccination levels. If that happened, some restrictions could be reimposed, which would undermine the freedom pitch.

While the election time isn’t locked in, Morrison’s plan, it seems, is for parliament to return in February, including to try to bed down the religious discrimination legislation. Before a May election there would be a budget, to focus attention on the economy, the government’s strongest ground.

That strategy has a lot of logic. But such uncertain times mean it is also dangerous to delay, which will be the argument of those who would advocate having the poll in March.

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

– ref. Grattan on Friday: Assertive Liberal moderates give Scott Morrison curry – https://theconversation.com/grattan-on-friday-assertive-liberal-moderates-give-scott-morrison-curry-172617

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David McCooey, Professor of Writing and Literature, Deakin University

The Beatles’ Get Back project, undertaken in January 1969, has finally been completed. Again.

For most of the last 50 years it has been known as Let it Be, a film and LP record released in 1970. The project, conceived by Paul McCartney, was originally intended to be a television special documenting the band’s preparation for a live concert (their first in two and a half years). Because of the performance element, the Beatles decided to get back to their roots and only develop material that could be played without adding overdubs.

As it happened, the concert didn’t go ahead, the Beatles famously deciding instead to play a short unannounced gig on the roof of their headquarters. The TV special became a feature film, and the audio was handed over to the “wall of sound” producer, Phil Spector (leading to controversial results).

Meanwhile, in the early 1980s, the Beatles withdrew the film version (a fly-on-the-wall documentary directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg) from circulation.

Lindsay-Hogg’s Let it Be is remembered as a portrait of a band in the process of breaking up. And indeed, George Harrison did briefly quit the band early into the four-week project, though Lindsay-Hogg’s documentary does not cover this episode.

Let it Be was seen as a downer in part because the Beatles, especially Lennon, were keen to trash it in the light of the band’s breakup (which occurred just weeks before the release of Let it Be, both film and album). As Lennon said in December 1970, the shoot was “hell”, and Spector was “given the shittiest load of badly recorded shit”.

Read more:
Paul McCartney’s The Lyrics: an extraordinary life in song

A different tenor

While the newly released The Beatles: Get Back, directed by Peter Jackson, covers Harrison’s departure and return, Jackson’s film is tonally different from Lindsay-Hogg’s. According to Jackson, the dour account of Let it Be is inaccurate, since there is much “joy” and friendship evident in the 60 hours of film and 150 hours of audio tape that has been sitting in a vault for half a century.

Much of this audio has long been available as bootlegs, informing written accounts of this period of the Beatles’ history. The audio without the video, however, doesn’t always tell the whole story.

While Jackson and his team haven’t shied away from the moments of friction, ennui, and aimlessness experienced by the band, the tenor of Get Back is more upbeat than Lindsay-Hogg’s version (though there is perhaps more levity in that film than Jackson or its reputation allows).

But Get Back is not just a recut of Let it Be; it is a documentary in its own right, a film about the making of a film. Lindsay-Hogg is now a character in the drama of trying to work out what the project is about, and how it will end.

Unlike the cinema verité style of Let it Be, Get Back gives much-needed context in the form of titles naming the protagonists and songs, as well as explaining what is happening. The use of a day-by-day countdown to the live performance gives the otherwise shapeless events a sense of narrative and even tension.

Get Back was to be a feature film with a theatrical release, but COVID-19 led to a rescheduling and reconceptualising of the work, so that it became a documentary for Disney+. Recent reports were that the series would be a three-part series with a six-hour running time.

The climactic rooftop concert

As it turns out, that running time is closer to eight hours. (Let it Be is a mere 80 minutes long.) Almost all of these eight hours show the Beatles at work on a sound stage (at Twickenham Film Studios) or in an ad hoc recording studio (put together in the Beatles’ Apple headquarters, when – after Harrison’s walkout – it was decided that Twickenham wasn’t conducive to creativity).

The Apple studio is clearly more pleasant, and the tone is further lightened when the Beatles are joined by an outsider, their old friend Billy Preston, on keyboards (a crucial moment for the project).

There is nevertheless something of a hermetic feel to most of Get Back, so that when the Beatles and Preston head up to the rooftop to play in public – the cinematic “payoff” that the band and Lindsay-Hogg had been looking for throughout the project – there is a palpable sense of release.

And the famous rooftop concert, presented with creative use of split screen, is stunningly good (and is also, for the first time, presented in its 42-minute entirety).

After the countless run throughs and takes of the same songs over the preceding weeks (as well as numerous covers and early Beatles tunes), the sense of energy and the quality of playing gives the film the climactic moment that it needs, complete with police officers demanding, albeit politely, that the Beatles stop breaching the peace of London’s West End.

Cigarettes, cups of tea, and white bread

Get Back is very different from Let it Be in part due to Jackson’s editing, especially his use of montage, which produces a dynamic, sometimes frenetic, energy. Beyond these stylistic elements, Get Back is notable as a technical feat.

It looks and sounds astonishingly good, not something that was ever said about Let it Be. Jackson and his technical team have employed the kind of film restoration techniques used in his war documentary They Shall Not Grow Old (2018).

The vision in Get Back is beautifully saturated, sharp, and less grainy than Lindsay-Hogg’s film. Harrison and Starr, in their sartorial splendour, often resemble their cartoon equivalents from Yellow Submarine (1968).

If there is anything unvarnished about Jackson’s film it is the sight of people apparently living off cigarettes, cups of tea, and white bread. Also notably “historical” is the homosocial nature of the project; almost all of the active participants are men. Even Yoko Ono, who sits beside Lennon throughout, is almost entirely silent (save for her vocal participation in a couple of impromptu jams).

While the film has been painstakingly restored, the soundtrack has been almost remade. Much of the audio was recorded on mono quarter-inch tape. Jackson’s technical team used machine learning to effectively “remix” these mono tapes, allowing Jackson to hone in on individual voices masked by other sound sources (voices or musical instruments).

Read more:
Revolution 50: The Beatles’ White Album remixed

This is an extraordinary technological breakthrough, allowing key conversations to be heard properly for the first time, and for the remixing of the play throughs and rehearsals of songs, which weren’t being recorded as “takes” on the eight-track system.

Get Back is a treat for any Beatles fan. It’s a reminder, too, if one is needed, that some classic songs were recorded for the project. (Given that McCartney supplied at least three of these classics – Let it Be, The Long and Winding Road, and Get Back – it’s unsurprising that he has long been unsatisfied with the way they were originally showcased.)

But Jackson’s film isn’t all sweetness and light. Lennon, for instance, is dismissive of Harrison’s I, Me, Mine, and he makes a throwaway joke about Bob Wooler, a Liverpool disc jockey whom Lennon assaulted in 1963. Also notable is the relative absence of George Martin, who largely hands production duties to his sound engineer, Glyn Johns, surely a sign that Martin found something amiss with the project.

And indeed numerous sequences show a band lacking focus and discipline.
Get Back, then, is unquestionably a mixed bag: thrilling, compelling, and funny, but also sometimes just a little boring.

In this, Jackson has been true to the original project. His extraordinary TV series is essential viewing for anyone interested in popular music.

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

– ref. The Beatles: Get Back review – Peter Jackson’s TV series is a thrilling, funny (and long) treat for fans – https://theconversation.com/the-beatles-get-back-review-peter-jacksons-tv-series-is-a-thrilling-funny-and-long-treat-for-fans-172404

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Paul Gifford, Adjunct Senior Lecturer, UNSW

If you or your child is short-sighted (struggles to see things further away) you might have heard about orthokeratology.

Also known as OK or ortho-k, orthokeratology has been around since the 1960s. However, it has gained interest recently for its ability to slow the progression of myopia (short-sightedness).

Orthokeratology involves wearing a specially-designed rigid contact lens overnight. Like a mold, the lens temporarily reshapes the eye while you sleep by gently changing the profile of the cornea (the eye’s clear, protective outer layer that acts like a powerful lens).

This creates a temporary change; when you wake up, you take the lens off and voilà! You can see.

It takes about a week of going through the cycle for the full effect to be reached but after that – assuming you wear them every night and take them off every morning – you should be able to get through your days without glasses or contact lenses.

And most importantly, there’s good evidence it can help slow the progression of myopia.

Like all treatments, however, orthokeratology has its pros and cons – and its risks need to be well understood before use.

Read more:
Hidden in plain sight: How the COVID-19 pandemic is damaging children’s vision

The pros

Orthokeratology may be an appealing option:

• for people who want an alternative to glasses but find contact lenses either uncomfortable or not suitable (because, for example, they suffer from dry eye, work in dusty environments or enjoy water sports)

• as an alternative to refractive surgery, also known as laser eye surgery or LASIK. Refractive surgery is permanent but orthokeratology is temporary; if you stop using the lenses, things go back to normal within a week

• for parents of a child who might otherwise be wearing contact lenses at school; ortho-k allows a child to go to school without glasses or contact lenses, which can be lost or come loose during the day.

The cons

The potential downsides include:

• the up-front costs are higher than daily wear contact lenses where the similar overall cost is spread over time

• the effect wears off if you don’t use them every night

• all contact lens use comes with a higher risk of eye infection than if you had no contact lenses at all.

Some people might think orthokeratology has a higher infection risk than standard soft contact lenses. However, this is not supported by the research evidence.

A study in Japan compared outcomes after 10 years of wear in children of either orthokeratology or soft contact lenses. It found there were no severe adverse events and the frequency of mild and adverse events were about equal between the groups.

If you get an infection from either a standard contact lens or orthokeratology lenses, it usually clears up with a course of antibiotics. However, it’s possible to get a rare infection called microbial keratitis, which has the potential to damage sight.

It’s not common. According to one study, if you were to wear an orthokeratology lens every night for 1,000 years you are only likely to get one serious infection.

If you use sterile contact lens solutions and avoid tap water, orthokeratology lens-wearers will dramatically reduce their risk of eye infection. Tap water exposure to lenses or lens accessories greatly increases the risk of infection.

Reducing risk of devasting eye disease later in life

It’s now projected half the world’s population will by myopic by 2050, and the World Health Organization has sounded the alarm, saying in one bulletin:

High myopia greatly increases the risk of macular atrophy, glaucoma and
other causes of severe vision loss, the incidence of which is not reduced by
wearing standard glasses.

Slowing the progression of myopia reduces risk of sight-threatening eye disease. It also means less frequent changes in vision, which can save money in the long run from needing fewer changes to glasses.

Myopia progresses faster in younger years, so a myopia control prevention should be prescribed as early as possible. We don’t know exactly how orthokeratology slows myopia progression, but compelling research shows it does.

If you’re considering orthokeratology for your child, you and your eye specialist need to strike a balance. The child must be old enough to be handle it – but wait too long and the the myopia control benefits it offers diminish.

Every child is different. Some are more able than others to contend with orthokeratology, or willing to wear it overnight. It can be uncomfortable at first, and some might find the idea of a contact lens too confronting. It cannot be forced.

Review all the options

Orthokeratology isn’t the only solution; there are also special lenses you can get for glasses and soft daily wear contact lenses that help slow progression of myopia. Seek advice from eye specialists to to review all the options.

I also recommend children do no more than two hours per day of leisure “close work” (meaning non-school work: close up screen time or book-reading) outside school hours. Parents can also teach kids the “20-20 rule” (for every 20 minutes of close work, take a 20 second break to look into the distance). Outside time (two or more hours per day) is also crucial to healthy eye development in children.

What’s clear, however, is that all short-sighted children should be doing something to control their myopia. It’s not enough just to give a child standard single vision glasses to help them see, without doing more to help slow the march of myopia.

If right for your child, orthokeratology has one of the strongest research pedigrees for slowing progression of myopia.

Read more:
How to keep your contact lenses clean (and what can go wrong if you don’t)

Paul Gifford is an Adjunct Senior Lecturer at the University of New South Wales and Adjunct Associate Professor at the University of Waterloo, Canada. He is co-founder of Myopia Profile, which educates optometrists and companies on research relating to vision, and MyKidsVision.org which provides parent focused research backed information on managing childhood myopia.

– ref. What is orthokeratology? And will it help slow the deterioration of my child’s eyesight? – https://theconversation.com/what-is-orthokeratology-and-will-it-help-slow-the-deterioration-of-my-childs-eyesight-171826

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kiara L’Herpiniere, PhD Candidate, Wildlife Biologist, Macquarie University

I would please like to know how birds make their nests? How do they know how to weave the twigs together and what makes the twigs stick together? – Miguel, age 10, Brisbane

Hi Miguel, thanks for this great question!

The first thing to know is not all birds make nests. For example, emperor penguin fathers carry their precious egg on their feet (to keep it off the frozen ground).

Some birds, such as cuckoos, will lay their eggs in someone else’s nests. Others lay them on the ground among leaves or pebbles, or on cliffs with very little protection.

For the birds that do build nests, there is one main goal: to keep their eggs and chicks safe.

Many places to build a nest

Many birds also make their nests in tree hollows, including parrots. That’s just one reason it’s important to not cut trees down!

Meanwhile, kookaburras use their powerful beaks to burrow into termite nests and make a cosy nest inside. And the cute spotted pardelote will dig little burrows in the side of earth banks – with a safe and cosy spot for its eggs at the end of the tunnel.

Some birds, such as brush turkeys, spend months building huge mounds on the ground which can heat up from the inside. The male turkey makes sure the ground is exactly the right temperature inside the mound, and then lets the female lay the eggs inside. He’ll take big mouthfuls of dirt surrounding the eggs to check it’s not too hot or cold.

What materials do they use?

Birds construct many different types of nests. There are floating nests, cups, domes, pendulums and basket-shaped nests. They can be made out of sticks, twigs, leaves, grasses, mosses or even mud.

Magpie-larks (also called “peewees”), apostlebirds and choughs make mud bowl nests that look like terracotta plant pots. To do this, they gather mud and grasses in their beaks and shake it around to mix it with their saliva. They can then attach it to a branch and build upwards until the nest is complete.

In fact, bird saliva is a really strong and sticky material to build nests with. Birds will often mix saliva and mud to make a type of glue. And some swiftlets make their nests entirely out of solidified saliva. People will even eat these nests in bird’s nest soup!

Willie wagtails use another type of glue – sticky spiderwebs. They “sew” grasses together using spider webs and the webs help keep the nests strong against wind and water, too. They have to perfect the technique of gathering the spiderweb though, otherwise it can get tangled in their feathers.

Magpies and crows, both common visitors to our gardens, are also clever nest builders. Not only can they expertly layer their sticks into a bowl, but they also use many human-made materials in their nests. You might find them using fabric, string or a wire to hold a nest together.

Some birds such as red kites have even been seen “decorating” their nests with human rubbish. And Australian babblers line the inside of their nests with a thick wall of kangaroo poo, followed by soft fluff, to keep their chicks warm.

Read more:
Headphones, saw blades, coat hangers: how human trash in Australian bird nests changed over 195 years

The building process

To actually weave the nests, birds will usually create a base by layering sticks or twigs in the place they want it. Then they use their beaks and feet to weave a chosen materials through, to hold the sticks in place.

They can pull strips of material with their beaks over and under, just like weaving a rug. They can even tie knots! Nests can take a really long time to make, so they’re often reused year after year. Weaver birds are so good at weaving, they can build complex nests that cover entire trees and have several chambers.

To summarise, birds are really intelligent animals. They use their intelligence, along with their beaks and feet, to find the most clever ways to make nests with whatever materials are available. And they get better at this by learning from others, such as their parents or peers.

Read more:
Why are birds’ eggs colourful? New research shows it’s linked to the shape of their nests

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

– ref. Curious Kids: how do birds make their nests? – https://theconversation.com/curious-kids-how-do-birds-make-their-nests-172391

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

When Shane Reti replaced Judith Collins at the helm of New Zealand’s National Party today, he became the fifth National leader Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has faced. When Reti, who is in the top spot on a caretaker basis, steps aside next week, that number will tick over to six. In four years.

For New Zealand’s most electorally successful party in the post-war era this is an unprecedented period of turmoil.

Collins’ departure comes as a surprise to roughly no one. Discontent with her leadership has been bubbling away within the National Party family for some time. When it came to a head over lasts night’s demotion of Simon Bridges there was a sense the end was near.

The former leader’s continuing association with right-wing blogger Cameron Slater, her criticism of prominent microbiologist Siouxsie Wiles, her role in forcing the resignations of former party leader Todd Muller and veteran MP Nick Smith – these and other tactical choices had long since undermined her authority in sections of the caucus and wider party organisation.

When the family squabble broke out into the public domain some weeks ago things were ratcheted up several notches. The moment party insiders such as former attorney general Chris Finlayson and Collins’ own former press secretary began questioning her fitness for office, you got the sense the tide was running out on Collins.

Leadership cuts all ways

In the end, however, it was the polls that did it. Bill English led National to 44.4% of the vote in 2017. Three years and a couple of leaders later, Collins took the party to 25.6%, its worst electoral performance since 2002.

Things have never really picked up, the pressure mounting as one anaemic poll followed another. The steady growth in support for the ACT Party has compounded matters. In National’s world, David Seymour’s party is supposed to be the support act, but ACT is now putting pressure on National for top billing.

Read more:
New Zealand’s new parliament turns red: final 2020 election results at a glance

And so Collins went. But there is more to this than her own performance. In an age of hyper-personalised politics, the obsession with parties’ leaders obscures other critical aspects of a successful political party. There is much more to politics than having a skilled leader – lieutenants matter, as do foot soldiers. Policy matters, the unfashionable “cake stall” parts of political parties matter.

In other words, the boss of the parliamentary wing of the party is not the only one who has to show up. Leadership must also come from those who control the wider party organisation, and the public criticism from party insiders suggests the issues within National go well beyond leadership of the caucus.

For instance, the National Party’s board plays the critical role in candidate selection, and it hasn’t covered itself in glory lately. There has been a string of poor (generally young, male and Pākehā) candidates, and following the 2020 election the party somehow managed to wind up with a caucus that looked more like the New Zealand of the 1950s than the 2020s.

A party divided

Collins’ departure won’t address those systemic flaws. Neither will it tackle the single most pressing issue facing National – deciding what kind of political party it wants to be.

Historically, National has been a broad political church, accommodating a heterodox mix of economic liberals and social conservatives, urban dwellers and denizens of the rural heartland. And it has been very good at gaining and holding onto power, governing in 47 of the 76 years since the end of WWII.

Read more:
Labour makes it easier to change leaders, but Jacinda Ardern has no reason to go – yet

But the party looks distracted at the moment, the split between its socially liberal and religiously conservative wings obvious to all. The party (at least under Collins) has been seemingly more interested in culture war skirmishes than in addressing material issues, particularly the growing rental and housing crises.

Beyond that, if National is to retake power in 2023 it needs to bring back into the fold those voters who decamped to Jacinda Ardern’s Labour Party in 2020. The shine has begun to come off both Ardern and her government as the pandemic drags on and people start to flag, offering National any number of lines of attack which would appeal to those looking for a reason to return. But Collins’ focus was too often elsewhere.

The democratic deficit

In a sense, Judith Collins lost her job because she was not John Key. National has been on a mission to find The Next John Key since the original resigned as leader in 2016 (although, and this is unlikely to be entirely coincidental, he has recently started popping up here and there like some sort of political legacy act).

Five leadership changes later (and with another looming next week), the search continues. But installing the fifth new leader (six if you count Nikki Kaye’s hours-long stint at the helm following Todd Muller’s departure) since Key’s time won’t be the panacea to the party’s problems. National’s problems run far deeper than that.

Meanwhile, whoever becomes the next leader can look forward to leading a caucus that is riven, around the margins of which prowl three former leaders – one who is clearly biding his time and another who, one suspects, will not be taking this (or anything else) lying down.

Read more:
Why Jacinda Ardern’s ‘clumsy’ leadership response to Delta could still be the right approach

ACT is circling on the right, while on the left Ardern has led the country to high vaccination rates and is about to open the country up. To say National’s next leader has their work cut out would be an extreme political understatement.

For New Zealand’s most electorally successful party in the post-war era, the chaotic events of the last 24 hours are just the latest episode in an unprecedented period of turmoil. So there’s that. But beyond the implications of the current bloodletting for individuals and parties there is another, more important dimension to the ongoing shambles within National.

Representative democracies require functional governments but they also need strong oppositions. At the moment, New Zealand has one of these things but not the other. This can’t go on – and yet it does.

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

– ref. Judith Collins may be gone but New Zealand’s search for a credible and viable opposition is far from over – https://theconversation.com/judith-collins-may-be-gone-but-new-zealands-search-for-a-credible-and-viable-opposition-is-far-from-over-172590

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Shireen Morris, Senior lecturer, Macquarie University

In recent months the government has proposed cracking down on online anonymity. The idea is that attaching online posts to a person’s real name will reduce abuse and increase accountability.

Online bullying and misinformation are growing problems, and government action to address them is overdue.

However, limiting anonymity alone won’t make social media less toxic. It will only work combined with broader reforms to platform design and business models, which drive polarisation, negativity, abuse and misinformation.

Reforms must also protect free speech and account for power imbalances between citizens and the state. The mooted changes come alongside suggestions of public funding for defamation actions by parliamentarians. Cynics might view these two suggestions together as an effort to silence reproach.

Potential anonymity reforms

In April this year, a parliamentary committee recommended requiring users to provide ID documents before opening social media accounts.

This was not implemented, but in June the Online Safety Act was changed to empower the e-Safety Commissioner to require platforms to disclose personal information of alleged online bullies.

In September, the High Court held that media outlets can be liable for defamatory third-party comments on their social media posts.

Government comments indicate intent to further regulate online anonymity. Prime Minister Scott Morrison recently described social media as a “coward’s palace”, pressuring platforms to expose the identities of anonymous trolls.

Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce also criticised platforms professing to be “vessels of free speech” while enabling users to conceal their identities.

Risks

There are risks with the proposed policy direction. First, anonymity regulation alone may be ineffective in stopping abuse and misinformation.

Second, reforms must be scrutinised to ensure they serve public rather than political interests. While the state stifling dissent may seem less of a concern in a democracy like Australia than in authoritarian regimes, it is important to ensure new measures won’t unreasonably compromise free speech and privacy.

Read more:
Online abuse: banning anonymous social media accounts is not the answer

This concern is underscored by politicians issuing legal threats to citizens for voicing online critiques.

In combination with Australia’s defamation laws, removing online anonymity may further expose users and chill democratic debate.

Complex drivers of toxicity

Anonymity is only one factor contributing to online toxicity.

Most current platforms are designed to maximise user engagement. Platform algorithms, in combination with human behaviour, mean negative and angry content outcompetes positive content. This promotes negativity, polarisation and extremism.

Engagement-driven business models also incentivise fake news. Mistruths attract more engagement, so falsity is 70% more likely to be retweeted than fact.

Research further shows sharing of political misinformation is driven by partisanship more than ignorance. Online polarisation therefore propels misinformation in aid of the culture wars.

For example, the COVID-19 hashtag “#Danliedpeopledied” was driven by hyper-partisan and fake accounts. An anti-vax “infodemic” now spreads online, propelled by tribal influencers and anti-vaxxer communities.

Read more:
The story of #DanLiedPeopleDied: how a hashtag reveals Australia’s ‘information disorder’ problem

Online toxicity is exacerbated by social media’s addictiveness. Each “like” and comment gives users “a little dopamine hit”. Outrage and negativity equal more engagement, which means more dopamine rewarding the behaviour.

Connection

While we turn to social media for company and validation, heavy use can make us feel alone. Isolation may leave us more susceptible to tribes that foster belonging.

Tribalism can encourage group attacks, reinforcing tribal connection. Social media “pile-ons” can be devastating for the target. Such bullying would probably not occur in person. But online, we have fewer physical and visual cues to encourage empathy.

While some (especially anonymous trolls) find courage on social media, others are frightened off. Negative online encounters can create a “spiral of silence”, discouraging moderate users from participating. This creates more room for fringe voices emboldened by the echo chamber.

What reforms are needed?

Anonymity regulation will only help with bullying and misinformation if part of broader reforms tackling other drivers of toxicity, like engagement-driven polarisation. This means addressing platform business models and design – a complex task.

Reforms must also be fair.

First, anonymity regulation must apply equally to parliamentarians. Some politicians have used fake accounts to confect support, which undermines healthy debate.

A parliamentary code of conduct could define standards for politicians’ behaviour, both online and offline. Regulating truth in political advertising may curtail dishonesty.

Second, if anonymity is regulated, it is even more crucial to ensure citizens are not gratuitously sued or threatened by politicians for voicing opinions online.

Protection of reputation and accuracy are important, but we must safeguard fair debate. Politicians enjoy free speech bolstered by parliamentary privilege and media platforms.

Social media has disrupted politicians’ domination of political discourse, which helps explain the recent explosion of defamation threats and actions by politicians.

Any anonymity regulation must be balanced by free speech protections, including more robust defamation defences accounting for power imbalances between citizens and the state.

Given their positions of power, politicians should accept a higher threshold of criticism.

This article was co-authored with Andrew Ball, who is an Associate Director at IT consultancy firm Accenture.

Read more:
Why defamation suits in Australia are so ubiquitous — and difficult to defend for media organisations

Shireen Morris is affiliated with the Australian Labor Party. She is a Research Fellow with Per Capita Think Tank and a Managing Committee member with the John Curtin Research Centre.

– ref. Ending online anonymity won’t make social media less toxic – https://theconversation.com/ending-online-anonymity-wont-make-social-media-less-toxic-172228

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Marian Baird, Professor of Employment Relations, University of Sydney

Balancing the competing demands of work and care, or “production” and “reproduction”, is traditionally a burden carried by women.

As many women could tell you, this often comes at a personal cost. It is not uncommon for women involved in our research to report they forego promotions to accommodate their child caring or elder care responsibilities, or work part-time, and earn less, because full-time jobs are too inflexible.

But beyond the personal cost, there is an impact on the economy, workplaces and gender equality.

In Australia, this is reflected by declining fertility rates and the withdrawal of women from the labour market in the wake of COVID-19.

Read more:
In 2020 our workforce and our caring system broke. They are the same thing

Future fertility rates are predicted to drop to a record low of around 1.6 babies per woman, one of the lowest rates on record. This is below “replacement level”, putting additional pressure on an already strained workforce.

After decades of growth, women’s participation in employment is also falling, likely driven by the ongoing strain of lockdowns and a recalibration of work and care responsibilities .

These trends paint a grim picture of the state of production and reproduction in Australia. But we can make policy changes to better help young people navigate work and care. One of these is reproductive leave.

What is reproductive leave?

In Australia, as well as countries such as the United Kingdom, India and New Zealand, “reproductive leave” has emerged as an innovative response to the tensions between work and human reproduction. These policies aim to assist workers in balancing their paid work obligations with their reproductive needs, sexual health and overall well-being.

These policies may offer support to workers who are trying to start a family, or to anyone who is managing some of the complex needs of the human body, which requires different levels of attention and maintenance over the life course. For example, there is evidence Australian women struggle to balance the demands of IVF treatment with paid work obligations. There is also data to suggest painful periods may contribute to absenteeism.

Unions, private companies lead the way

We are starting to see a wide range of workplace policies in this area.

In 2020, the Health and Community Services Union in Victoria began a push for reproductive health and well-being leave as part of their enterprise bargaining process. This claim includes paid leave and flexible working arrangements for menstruation, menopause, miscarriage and stillbirth, fertility treatments, vasectomies, hysterectomies and gender affirmation therapies (negotiations are ongoing).

Read more:
How English-speaking countries upended the trade-off between babies and jobs, without even trying

Earlier this year, ethical superannuation company Future Super announced paid leave for menstruation and menopause, as did the Australian-owned period underwear brand Modibodi.

Global music streaming platformSpotify also made headlines recently for its generous “family formation” benefits that provide employees with a lifetime allowance for IVF treatments, donor services and fertility assessments.

Part of a global movement

Reproductive leave is not a new concept. In Australia, these policies trace back to the early 2000s, when the Students’ Representative Council at Sydney University and the Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union were involved in two separate industrial disputes over the provision of menstrual leave.

But there is a renewed energy surrounding reproductive leave, demonstrating an increasing acceptance of the complex entanglement of work and personal life.

There is a drive to bring the body into the modern workplace and to pay attention to biological and social reproduction as a means of assisting in economic production. To put it bluntly, we will not have a future generation of workers and taxpayers if we fail to accommodate the reproductive needs and activities of today’s workers and taxpayers.

These policies are also part of a global movement to normalise and accommodate the body at all stages of life and for all people across the sex and gender spectrums, including cisgender, transgender, gender diverse and non-binary people.

Some people have objections

But how well accepted will these policies be?

In some cases, reproductive leave has caused surprise or alarm. Given the link between reproductive capacity and gender discrimination at work, some feminists are understandably wary of policies that draw attention to biological differences between workers.

Read more:
Supporting menstrual health in Australia means more than just throwing pads at the problem

There are also privacy concerns over the disclosure of highly personal issues such as infertility or menstrual pain, as well as concerns these policies could increase the cost of labour or reinforce negative stereotypes (we don’t need more jokes about “that time of the month”).

Acknowledging the potential drawbacks of reproductive leave must be part of the policy conversation. These policies must be approached cautiously and designed in a way that minimises the risk of gender stereotyping.

The future of reproductive leave in Australia

Despite significant developments within trade unions and private companies, there are limited provisions for reproductive leave in national legislation. For many workers their only option is to claim personal leave: that is, “sick” leave.

Recent announcements by the federal and NSW governments that parents who have suffered a miscarriage or stillbirth are now eligible for paid bereavement leave is a start – but they need to go further.

For example, we could explore a “model clause” for reproductive leave in modern awards or a legislative amendment to the National Employment Standards to include a gender-inclusive reproductive leave provision. This provision would conceivably provide days of unpaid or paid job protected leave, in a similar manner to the origins of parental leave and more recently domestic and family violence leave.

We must take the opportunity of COVID-19 to reconfigure our gender contract. It is clear that without policies that enable people to work, care and reproduce, Australia will be a poorer and smaller nation.

Professor Marian Baird also spoke about reproductive leave at “The Social Future” the 50th Anniversary Symposium of The Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia this week.

Marian Baird receives funding from the Australian Research Council for the Centre of Excellence on population Ageing Research.
I am a research board member of the Australasian Centre for Corporate Responsibility.

Elizabeth Hill receives funding from The Australian Research Council.

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

– ref. Balancing work and fertility demands is not easy – but reproductive leave can help – https://theconversation.com/balancing-work-and-fertility-demands-is-not-easy-but-reproductive-leave-can-help-171497

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Liam Elphick, Associate Lecturer, Faculty of Law, Monash University

The Religious Discrimination Bill is back, this time in its third iteration. The Coalition party room unanimously endorsed the bill on Tuesday, but a number of Liberal MPs voiced concerns about what it could mean for LGBTQ+ students and teachers at faith-based schools and universities.

Attorney General Michaelia Cash has said no child should be “suspended or expelled from school on the basis of their sexuality or gender identity”, and that discrimination against students is “unacceptable”.

However, the bill does nothing to protect LGBTQ+ students and teachers. It allows more, not less, discrimination by religious schools.

The prime minister’s long lost ‘promise’

In October 2018, the Prime Minister promised to ban religious schools from expelling students on the basis of their sexuality.

This requires removing the exemptions in the federal Sex Discrimination Act which permit religious schools to expel LGBTQ+ students and sack LGBTQ+ teachers. The reason can be as simple as “they’re bisexual”, or “they’re transgender” – as long as this fits within the school’s religious beliefs.

More than three years later, these exemptions still remain. Religious schools can, today, expel kids just for being gay. While many might not choose to do this and are supportive of the LGBTQ+ community, there have still been cases of non-supportive religious schools who have sacked teachers for being gay.

Read more:
Third time lucky? What has changed in the latest draft of the religious discrimination bill?

Despite this, the federal government has continually kicked the can down the road on this reform.

Michaelia Cash last week asked the Australian Law Reform Commission to provide detailed advice on the Sex Discrimination Act exemptions. This comes some 30 months after the Commission was first asked to conduct an inquiry into this issue.

But here’s the kicker – they can only report back 12 months after the Religious Discrimination Bill becomes law.

At best, this is likely to be early 2023, since the Religious Discrimination Bill seems destined to head to a Senate inquiry. An entirely new law will then need to be drafted and passed through parliament to change the Sex Discrimination Act exemptions.

The best-case scenario is that religious schools lose the right to sack LGBTQ+ staff and expel LGBTQ+ students in, wait for it… 2024. A student who was in year 7 when this change was promised will have graduated from high school by the time it is implemented.

And even then, if only suspension and expulsion were banned – the attorney general only promised to address these two outcomes – this wouldn’t stop religious schools mistreating LGBTQ+ students in other ways. Schools could still ban same-sex relationships, or refuse to use a transgender student’s pronouns.

So what does the Religious Discrimination Bill have to say about it?

If the Sex Discrimination Act exemptions are eventually removed, that still isn’t the end of the story.

Federal Labor has expressed concern at how the Religious Discrimination Bill may adversely affect LGBTQ+ students and teachers at religious schools. Their concern is well founded.

The bill’s main purpose is to prohibit discrimination on the basis of religious belief or activity. This means, for example, that an employer would not be able to sack someone on the basis they are Jewish, or Muslim.

However the bill also contains very wide exemptions. These are situations in which discrimination is allowed.

Religious schools are permitted to discriminate on the basis of a person’s religion. They only need to prove that an individual of the same religion as the school “could reasonably consider” the school’s actions to accord with their religious beliefs.

It is a test not seen in any other Australian discrimination laws. It is such a low bar that religious schools can likely rely on it for almost everything they do.

This means that even if the Sex Discrimination Act exemptions are removed, the Religious Discrimination Bill could provide an alternative route for religious schools to discriminate against LGBTQ+ teachers and students.

For instance, a non-supportive religious school may teach that gay couples should not be allowed to marry or have children. They could then discriminate against any staff and students who do not adhere to this belief – such as a teacher who marries their same-sex partner.

Read more:
9 in 10 LGBTQ+ students say they hear homophobic language at school, and 1 in 3 hear it almost every day

To partly address this, the government added a clarification in the second draft of the bill that it “does not” permit conduct that is unlawful under the Sex Discrimination Act.

However, the third draft of the Bill has watered this down. It now simply says that conduct covered by the bill “may” still be discriminatory under the Sex Discrimination Act. The subtle change from “does not” to “may” makes a big difference, and puts LGBTQ+ teachers and students at risk.

And because of the controversial “statement of belief” provisions in the bill, religious schools are largely free to tell trans students that their gender identity is against the laws of God, or to tell lesbian parents they are evil for depriving their child of a father. Even if other discrimination laws ban such statements being made, this bill overrides them.

No matter how you cut it, the Religious Discrimination Bill permits far too much harm in the name of religion.

Oh, and one more thing…

As if this wasn’t enough, the latest version of the bill adds a second override provision.

This allows religious schools to hire and fire on the basis of any religious views, even where such views are irrelevant to the position in question. The school only needs to share publicly their policy on this.

Although some state and territory laws provide stronger protection for staff at religious schools, the bill overrides these laws.

Read more:
New religious discrimination bill will cause damage to Australian society that will be difficult to heal

Victoria, for instance, is considering a new law which would bar religious schools from employment discrimination except for key faith-based roles, such as religious education teachers. It would mean religion cannot be used to discriminate against maths teachers, or gardeners.

This new provision in the Religious Discrimination Bill would reverse that protection, and open up Victorian teachers and staff to discrimination.

In the last 40 years of discrimination laws in Australia, there is hardly a single example of a federal law overriding discrimination protections granted under state and territory laws. In this Bill, there are two: both with severe consequences for the LGBTQ+ community.

Unless the Morrison government takes swift action to correct this course, being an LGBTQ+ student or staff member at a non-supportive religious school is going to become even harder than it already is.

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

– ref. Schools can still expel LGBTQ+ kids. The Religious Discrimination Bill only makes it worse – https://theconversation.com/schools-can-still-expel-lgbtq-kids-the-religious-discrimination-bill-only-makes-it-worse-172494

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gordon de Brouwer, Professor of Economics (Crawford School of Public Policy and the College of Business and Economics) and National President IPAA, Australian National University

Bullying and harassment can happen in any workplace, and the law is clear about the obligations on both managers and workers to avoid it.

The Fair Work Act defines workplace bullying as repeated and unreasonable behaviour directed towards a worker that creates a risk to health and safety. It does not include performance management carried out in a reasonable manner.

Bullying doesn’t only damage the mental and physical health of employees. There is also strong evidence that it weakens institutions, undermines productivity and innovation, and poisons workplace culture. When bullying happens in a public sector workplace, it undermines the ability of public services to deliver for government.

In a paper published on the Institute for Public Administration Australia I explore bullying and harassment in public sector workplaces across Australia link text .

States and territories provide a lot of information about their jurisdictions and their strategies to address bullying. In recent years, the Commonwealth has started doing the same. In a positive step for transparency, the Australian Public Service Commission has uploaded the 2020 staff census results for 70 Australian Public Service departments and agencies to its website.

Bullying is rife, but public servants are reluctant to report it

The vast majority of public servants behave respectfully and civilly to their colleagues. But the surveys show bullying is significantly more widespread than codes of conduct or workers’ compensation claims suggest.

In the Australian Public Service, for example, at most only one public servant in every 1,500 has a code of conduct finding against them for bullying or harassment. But almost one public servant in five says they have been (or may have been) bullied or harassed in the past year.

Staff identify three types of bad behaviour. By far the most common is verbal abuse, such as offensive language, derogatory remarks, being ignored, and shouting.

This is followed by interference in work tasks, such as withholding needed information, undermining or sabotage.

The third most common form is the unfair application of work policies or rules, such as performance management and access to leave or training.

Many public servants have a story about the yelling or bullying colleague or boss.

The pattern is similar across states and territories. There is variation, depending on the jurisdiction and agency. Staff who identify as having a disability, Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander or as LGBTIQ+ and those working in front-line jobs or in regional locations are overrepresented.

The state results show staff experience bullying from their peers, immediate manager and senior leaders. However, most do not report it. That’s because they think it won’t change things, or will upset the workplace, or hurt their careers.

Read more:
Cyberbullying widespread amongst public servants

What needs to happen?

These rates of bullying are unacceptable and public service commissions are actively working to reduce it, with some success. Yet there is scope to do more, especially in a public sector workforce that is exhausted from COVID-19 and needs to recruit and retain talent to meet government and community expectations.

The place to start is to acknowledge the problem and put respect in the workplace in a major campaign. By committing to at least halve rates of bullying within five years, public service commissions would signal they are serious about improving behaviour and attracting new talent. They could also ensure accessible and confidential support for those who experience bullying, regardless of whether they make a formal complaint.

The next step is to identify and celebrate respect and civility. Some jurisdictions are underdone in terms of engaging about what sort of behaviour and interaction is right in the workplace, and how to manage staff and teams. The codes being developed by Safe Work Australia, formal management training, and events and awards celebrating good behaviour are all opportunities to change this.

Read more:
After Brittany Higgins: will the Foster review prevent another ‘serious incident’ at parliament?

The third step is to make organisational changes that strengthen incentives for respect. These include full 360-degree performance assessment of all managers, with explicit separate ratings in every public servant’s performance assessment of the outcomes they achieved and how those outcomes were achieved. People who perform poorly in how they achieve outcomes should be denied promotion.

Public service commissions need to inquire into agencies with consistently or materially above-average rates of bullying, and use an independent person or body to take informal and formal complaints about bullying outside the normal institutional hierarchy. Unless the system applies to everyone, it won’t be effective.

The fourth step is to follow through with rewards and sanctions. When public servants sees people who systematically behave badly not being promoted, getting demoted or losing their job, behaviour will change.

Finally, all this needs transparency and collaboration. Being clear about which institutions are behind and how they can change, and providing public analysis, will have impact.

These suggestions would lift respectful behaviour within the public service. It is also worth extending to public servants the counselling, reporting and resolution processes adopted by the Commonwealth Parliament in relation to serious incidents of harassment in the parliamentary workplace.

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

– ref. Bullying and harassment are rife in the public service: here’s what to do about it – https://theconversation.com/bullying-and-harassment-are-rife-in-the-public-service-heres-what-to-do-about-it-172057

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tracy Burrows, Professor Nutrition and Dietetics, University of Newcastle

For many of us, eating particular foods can be comforting: a pick-me-up during a hard task; a reward after a long day at work; a satiating end to a lovely dinner.

But some people have a compulsive and uncontrolled urge to eat particular foods, especially hyper-palatable “junk” foods. This can impact on their day-to-day functioning, and their ability to fulfil social, work or family roles.

People who struggle with addictive eating may have intense cravings, which don’t relate to hunger, as well as increased levels of tolerance for large quantities of food, and feelings of withdrawal.

Rather than hunger, these cravings may be prompted by low mood, mental illness (depression and anxiety), high levels of stress, or heightened emotions.

Read more:
Explainer: can you be addicted to food?

“Food addiction” or “addictive eating” is not yet a disorder that can be diagnosed in a clinical setting. Yet patients often ask health professionals about how to manage their addictive eating.

These health providers generally acknowledge their patients’ addictive eating behaviours but may be unsure of suitable treatments.

Food addiction is commonly assessed using the Yale Food Addiction Scale.

The science of addictive eating is still emerging, but researchers are increasingly noting addiction and reward pathways in the brain triggered by stress, heightened emotions and mental illness are associated with the urge to overeat.

How common is it?

Many factors contribute to overeating. The abundance of fast food, junk food advertising, and the highly palatable ingredients of many processed foods can prompt us to eat whether we are hungry or not.

However, some people report a lack of control over their eating, beyond liking and wanting, and are seeking help for this.

Around one in six people (15-20%) report addictive patterns of eating or addictive behaviours around food.

While food addiction is higher among people with obesity and mental health conditions, it only affects a subset of these groups.

How can you tell if you have a problem?

Typically, food addiction occurs with foods that are highly palatable, processed, and high in combinations of energy, fat, salt and/or sugar while being low in nutritional value. This might include chocolates, confectionery, takeaway foods, and baked products.

These foods may be associated with high levels of reward and may therefore preoccupy your thoughts. They might elevate your mood or provide a distraction from anxious or traumatic thoughts, and over time, you may need to eat more to get the same feelings of reward.

However, for others, it could be an addiction to feelings of fullness or a sense of reward or satisfaction.

There is ongoing debate about whether it is components of food that are addictive or the behaviour of eating itself that is addictive, or a combination of the two.

Given people consume foods for a wide range of reasons, and people can form habits around particular foods, it could be different for different people.

Read more:
Foods high in added fats and refined carbs are like cigarettes – addictive and unhealthy

It often starts in childhood

Through our research exploring the experiences of adults, we found many people with addictive eating attribute their behaviours to experiences that occurred in childhood.

These events are highly varied. They range from traumatic events, to the use of dieting or restrictive eating practices, or are related to poor body image or body dissatisfaction.

Our latest research found addictive eating in teenage years is associated with poorer quality of life and lower self-esteem, and it appears to increase in severity over time.

Children and adolescents tend to have fewer addictive eating behaviours, or symptoms, than adults. Of the 11 symptoms of the Yale Food Addiction Scale, children and adolescents generally have only two or three, while adults often have six or more, which is classified as severe food addiction.

Read more:
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The associations we observed in adolescents are also seen in adults: increased weight and poorer mental health is associated with a greater number of symptoms and prevalence of food addiction.

This highlights that some adolescents will need mental health, eating disorder and obesity services, in a combined treatment approach.

We also need to identify early risk factors to enable targeted, preventative interventions in younger age groups.

How is it treated?

The underlying causes of addictive eating are diverse so treatments can’t be one-size-fits-all.

A large range of treatments are being trialled. These include:

• passive approaches such as self-help support groups

• trials of medications such as naltrexone and bupropion, which targets hormones involved in hunger and appetite and works to reduce energy intake

• bariatric surgery to assist with weight loss. The most common procedure in Australia is gastric banding, where an adjustable band is placed around the top part of the stomach to apply pressure and reduce appetite.

However, few of the available self-help support groups include involvement or input from qualified health professionals. While providing peer support, these may not be based on the best available evidence, with few evaluated for effectiveness.

Medications and bariatric surgery do involve health professional input and have been shown to be effective in achieving weight loss and reducing symptoms of food addiction in some people.

However, these may not be suitable for some people, such as those in the healthy weight range or with complex underlying health conditions. It’s also critical people receiving medications and surgery are counselled to make diet and other lifestyle changes.

Read more:
Your brain on sugar: What the science actually says

Other holistic, personalised lifestyle approaches that include diet, physical activity, as well as mindfulness, show promising results, especially when co-designed with consumers and health professionals.

Our emerging treatment program

We’re also creating new holistic approaches to manage addictive eating. We recently trialled an online intervention tailored to individuals’ personalities.

Delivered by dietitians and based on behaviour change research, participants in the trial received personalised feedback about their symptoms of addictive eating, diet, physical activity and sleep, and formulated goals, distraction lists, and plans for mindfulness, contributing to an overall action plan.

After three months, participants reported the program as acceptable and feasible. The next step in our research is to trial the treatment for effectiveness. We’re conducting a research trial to determine the effectiveness of the treatment on decreasing symptoms of food addiction and improving mental health.

This is the first study of its kind and if found to be effective will be translated to clinical practice.

If you feel you experience addictive eating, talk to your GP or contact an accredited practising dietitian for assessment and support.

Tracy Burrows is affiliated with the Priority Research Centre for Physical Activity and Nutrition, the University of Newcastle, and Hunter Medical Research Institute, NSW. She has received research grants from NHMRC, ARC, Hunter Medical Research Institute, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, nib foundation, The National Heart Foundation. She has also consulted to the Sax Institute.

Megan Whatnall is affiliated with the Priority Research Centre for Physical Activity and Nutrition, the University of Newcastle, NSW. She has received research grants from Hunter Medical Research Institute, The National Heart Foundation of Australia, and nib foundation.

– ref. Concerned about overeating? Here’s what you need to know about food addiction – https://theconversation.com/concerned-about-overeating-heres-what-you-need-to-know-about-food-addiction-169352

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rachel Morgain, Senior research fellow, School of Ecosystem and Forest Sciences, The University of Melbourne

Australia’s plan to reach net zero emissions by 2050 relies heavily on unproven technologies to sequester carbon from the atmosphere, among other things.

But we already have solutions based in restoring nature and Country. In fact, nature-based solutions can deliver one third of promised global cuts in emissions.

Our new report, which brings together expertise from across Australia, reveals how we can make this happen using proven approaches including:

• Indigenous-led work on Country

• keeping our existing forests and woodlands safe from land clearing

• restoring ailing ecosystems

• simplifying access to carbon markets and

• mapping ways of working with nature rather than technology to store emissions.

Here are five big ideas to store emissions while benefiting communities, our economy and our natural and cultural heritage.

1. Seek Indigenous leadership to heal damaged Country

The catastrophic bushfires of the 2019-2020 summer have driven repeated calls to return to Indigenous leadership in managing Country to prevent similar disasters.

Indigenous-led cool burning practices and land management can make Country safer and keep carbon-storing forests and ecosystems intact. Indigenous management of Country could be integrated in national and state employment, industry and health policy.

Read more:
The world’s best fire management system is in northern Australia, and it’s led by Indigenous land managers

This shift will mean a deeper respect for Indigenous leadership and a willingness to learn from Indigenous relationships with Country.

Indigenous ranger programs have been highly successful, helping both Country and its people. Expanding these programs into new places – including cities – would build on their success.

This will require re-framing our relationship and attitudes to Country, removing policy barriers, enabling access to Country, restoring water rights and increasing investment. If we can get this right, it would change the nature of our relationship with Country and provide tangible benefits toward national carbon, social and biodiversity goals.

For instance, the Yumbangku Aboriginal Cultural Heritage and Tourism Development Aboriginal Corporation uses Indigenous management to restore Turraburra, a large drought-affected degraded grazing property in Queensland.

Iningai custodians are reintroducing cultural burning and restoring artesian waterways and sacred rock waterholes as part of measured emissions-reduction projects on Turraburra.

In response, their Country is thriving, and life is returning to the land. These custodians have told us having Country back means healing for the whole community as well as for Country.

2. Look after what we have

The easiest and cheapest way to both reduce and store emissions is by keeping the vegetation we still have. Australia’s plants – from deserts to forests to ocean – play a vital role.

Australia has committed to end deforestation within nine years, but this seems highly optimistic given Australia’s depressing record of land clearing.

Restoration helps pollinator-dependent farming industries and boosts the economy more than cutting down forest.

Read more:
Want to beat climate change? Protect our natural forests

In our heating climate, trees keep local areas significantly cooler and wetter. Forested watersheds reduce the cost of providing clean water. And intact vegetation boosts resilience to floods and storms, and stops soil eroding into rivers.

To stop clearing, tighter environmental laws are key. The scathing 2021 independent review of Australia’s key environment protection law shows it fails to stop habitat loss and proposes a more strategic approach to sustainable development.

We could also extend stewardship and landcare programs, so they involve more landholders and regional communities. For instance, the Murray Wetland Carbon Storage Project has brought together scientists, landowners, natural resource managers, communities and government to restore wetlands across 41 sites, with replanting, fencing, environmental water, weed and pest control.

3. Map pathways to use nature and culture to get to net zero

We need a clear collective vision for net zero which embeds Country, culture, community and nature as vital methods of cutting and storing emissions. This vision would support action where it’s most needed, and bring policy coherence.

Under this vision, we could work to restore habitat connections across catchments and landscapes. We could embed culture and nature-based emissions reduction in community development, urban infrastructure, adaptation and catchment management strategies.

What does this look like? Consider Sydney’s coastline, where researchers and community members plan to bring a vital seaweed species back to its original range.

This species, crayweed, supports abalone and rock lobster, two of Australia’s most valuable fisheries. The team is working to restore crayweed forests destroyed by urbanisation and sewage.

4. Measure the things we value to demonstrate success

We urgently need better accountability to ensure emissions reduction projects and programs deliver the benefits they claim. Robust monitoring also helps create premium carbon products.

Accountability must be culturally appropriate and measure the most important benefits for each project. Indigenous-led work demonstrates that cultural, social and biodiversity benefits must be central.

Requiring non-Indigenous projects to report robustly on cultural, social and biodiversity benefits would ensure projects deliver for Indigenous people, the wider community, and the ecosystems on which we all depend.

Savanna burning in Northern Australia has been a strong success story for renewing culture and Country. Indigenous-led approaches to assessing benefits have successfully attracted funding to sequester carbon through both government and voluntary markets.

Indigenous groups are now leading conversations on extending this success to other places and ecosystems, such as through an Indigenous-led southern forest fire credits scheme under development.

5. Simplify access to carbon markets and incentive schemes

At present, the methods we use to produce high-quality carbon credits through government emissions reduction schemes are often costly, complex and time-consuming. In short, they require specialist expertise to navigate.

These challenges act as a barrier, particularly for small organisations, and are inequitable for less resourced communities.

If we reduce the administrative burden, more small projects could embark on emission reduction. That means offering accessible methods of assessing projects, streamlining permits, and investing in Indigenous and community-based agencies to provide support.

New incentive schemes to reduce emissions in cities could also be a game-changer, like green roof retrofitting or the City of Melbourne’s Urban Forest Fund which enables property owners to partner with the city to deliver vertical greening, convert carparks into gardens, and build food-producing rooftop parks.

If we draw together methods of producing carbon credits across catchments, land and seascapes, we could provide pathways into a market likely to boom. In Victoria, a team of researchers, government, industry, landholders and Traditional Owners at #VicWetlandRehab are restoring degraded coastal wetlands by fencing and weeding.

To date, this program has restored 130 hectares of saltmarsh in Western Port Bay and Gippsland, home to some of Victoria’s most endangered birds, frogs and plants. The team is now planning to work with landholders and Traditional Owners to map priority areas for restoration along the entire Victorian coastline.

This project was supported by the Australian Conservation Foundation through the Conservation Futures project, which is a joint initiative with Bush Heritage Australia supported by the Ian Potter Foundation, the Hermon Slade Foundation, NRM Regions Australia, The Nature Conservancy and the Victorian Government. Rachel also holds positions at the Australian National University and NRM Regions Australia, and receives funding from the Australian Government’s Bushfire recovery package for wildlife and their habitat and the National Environmental Science Program’s Threatened Species Recovery Hub.

Brendan Wintle receives funding from The Australian Research Council, the Victorian State Government, the NSW State Government, the Queensland State Government, the Commonwealth National Environmental Science Program, the Ian Potter Foundation, the Hermon Slade Foundation, and the Australian Conservation Foundation.

Judy Bush receives research funding from the Australian Research Council (Discovery Grant DP200101378), and the University of Melbourne: Faculty of Architecture Building and Planning Research Development Grant.

Michael-Shawn Fletcher receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

Thami Croeser receives funding from the European Commission and has in past recieved funding from the Australian Research Council. Thami has in past worked for the City of Melbourne.

– ref. 5 big ideas: how Australia can tackle climate change while restoring nature, culture and communities – https://theconversation.com/5-big-ideas-how-australia-can-tackle-climate-change-while-restoring-nature-culture-and-communities-172156

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brad Gobby, Senior Lecturer in Curriculum, Curtin University

There is a pressing need to prepare for the impact of the climate crisis on schools and school education in Australia. A Western Australian parliamentary inquiry into the response of the state’s schools to climate change reflects this need. It is investigating current and potential mitigation and adaptation strategies undertaken in schools.

The inquiry seeks to prepare for the impacts of a heating planet on the infrastructure and provision of school education. It is investigating the actions, benefits and barriers to climate change responses in schools. But, oddly, its terms of reference exclude curriculum.

Curriculum is the bread and butter of schooling. And research shows it’s an effective means to reduce and adapt to climate change impacts.

When it comes to climate change, however, curriculum is a battleground. It may not be as visible as the student climate protests, but it is a crucial sphere in which the future of the world is understood, imagined and created. For educators, what they do, what they teach and the possibilities they imagine often start and end with the curriculum.

Yet, in Australia, there is no substantive national climate change education or curriculum.

Read more:
Ever wondered what our curriculum teaches kids about climate change? The answer is ‘not much’

Why does the curriculum neglect climate change?

The 2008 Melbourne Declaration on Educational Goals for Young Australians, made by all the nation’s education ministers, referred to climate change and the embedding of sustainability across the curriculum. But under the stewardship of the federal education minister, these references were removed when the declaration was updated and agreed to by the ministers in 2019. We have also seen the withdrawal of federal funding and support for school sustainability initiatives and national action plans over the past decade.

The piecemeal curriculum approach to climate change has left schools and teachers to “fend for themselves” if they want to teach climate change.

Read more:
Children deserve answers to their questions about climate change. Here’s how universities can help

The lack of national vision and strategy reflects the federal government’s failure to lead responses that match the scale of the climate crisis. It bodes poorly for achieving a national approach to climate change education.

While the states have constitutional responsibility for school education, reforms over the past two decades have only strengthened the federal government’s influence over education. This includes influence over the national curriculum, which it has not hesitated to exercise.

Schools can make a difference

With the federal government at odds with states that wish to pursue ambitious climate change agendas, or simply to make climate change an educational priority, those states must go it alone. The Victorian government, for instance, is consulting on its Education and Training Climate Change Adaptation Plan 2022-2026. It seeks to embed a climate-change lens in decision-making across the many facets of its education sector, including curriculum.

The education policy architecture created over the past two decades is meant to serve the national interest. When it comes to climate change education, the absence of the federal government in this sphere is glaring.

There is still cause for modest hope that schools are getting it right when it comes to climate change. However, the response of Australia’s school system to the climate crisis is like that of other systems around the world: diffuse and fragmented. Thus, schools are largely “unexploited as a strategic resource to mitigate and adapt to climate change”.

Read more:
Involving kids in making schools sustainable spreads the message beyond the classroom

Onus is on the states to act

Perhaps, then, the states need to better assert their constitutional rights over schooling. They could use the national policymaking architecture to create and administer an ambitious national response to climate change that includes curriculum.

Australian schools and young people need to be prepared for their climate futures. This means every teacher must be a climate change educator and every school an incubator of informed and empowered citizens.

Read more:
The world needs a new generation of citizen lobbyists

With a federal government missing in action, state-led responses to climate change, such as the schools inquiry in WA, must be unapologetically ambitious. To do less is to abdicate their constitutional role.

When it comes to climate change education, to repurpose the words of then Labor MP Gordon Bryant in a 1958 parliamentary debate over the role of the states, the dead hand of the federal government should not be allowed to strangle the education systems of this country.

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

– ref. Curriculum is a climate change battleground and states must step in to prepare students – https://theconversation.com/curriculum-is-a-climate-change-battleground-and-states-must-step-in-to-prepare-students-172392

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jeff Borland, Professor of Economics, The University of Melbourne

Job vacancies in Australia are at a record level. The Australian Bureau of Statistics’ job vacancy rate, measuring the proportion of available jobs currently unfilled, is now more than 2.5% – the highest level since the series started in the late 1970s.

This statistic gives weight to all the anecdotal talk about labour shortages in Australia. When employers have difficulty finding workers to hire, job vacancies stay unfilled longer and the vacancy rate increases.

In normal times a high vacancy rate would indicate economic trouble. It would be evidence of a major underlying problem in the Australian labour market, such as workers not having the right skills for new jobs being created.

But these are not normal times. This record job vacancy rate seems largely explained by the impact of COVID-19, rather than signalling a problem with how the labour market is operating.

The pandemic has made a roller-coaster of employment numbers. Shutdowns have brought rapid job losses, which have then been regained almost as quickly. Employment in Australia has never grown as quickly in any 12-month period as it did in the year to May 2021, as the economy recovered from the initial shutdown in 2020.

The high job vacancy rate primarily reflects this fast pace, and the difficulty of hiring new workers in a short time. Hiring always lags new vacancies being created. With the bounceback from shutdowns, the lag has become pronounced.

Migration effects

Pandemic-related limits on international migration – especially temporary migrants, such as international students and working holiday makers – have also contributed to the labour shortages.

At the last census (in 2016), the jobs most reliant on temporary migrants in were hospitality (18.3%); food trades and preparation (20.4%); and cleaning and laundry (19.3%).

By May 2021 (after a year of recovery and prior to the latest shutdowns in NSW and Victoria), the vacancy rates for these occupations were more than double their averages for 2019.

As the effects of COVID-19 on the labour market dissipates, Australia’s vacancy rate should fall.

Read more:
Local training is the best long-term solution to Australia’s skills shortages – not increased migration

Effect on wages

In the meantime, there is natural interest in whether labour shortages will kick-start wage growth.

There some evidence that recent wage growth (over the year to the September quarter 2021) has been strongest in industries with the largest rises in job vacancy rates. Notable examples are professional, scientific and technical services (3.5%), construction (2.6%) and accommodation and food services (2.6%).

However, it is unlikely the COVID-related labour shortages are enough to make a permanent difference to wages.

Even now, while shortages exist, much of the recovery in employment seems to be happening without big wage increases. In June 2021, when the rate of unemployment rate fell below 5% for the first time since in more than a decade, wage growth was still just a modest 0.44% for the quarter.

Read more:
Vital Signs: Chill, this week’s news on wages points to anything but hyperinflation

One reason for the lack of significant wages growth is revealed in the latest labour force statistics from by Australian Bureau of Statistics. The majority of the COVID-19-related changes in employment involve workers being laid off during shutdowns and then returning to their old job.

During the national shutdown from March to May 2020, for example, more than 60% of workers on Job Seeker payments retained an attachment to their job. These workers accounted for the entire increase in employment from May to September 2020.

For employers, rehiring former workers has removed the need to offer higher wages to attract new staff.

For higher wages growth over longer term we will have to rely on policy makers, with the government and the Reserve Bank working together to get the unemployment rate down to 4% or lower.

Jeff Borland receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

– ref. Australia has record job vacancies, but don’t expect it to lead to higher wages – https://theconversation.com/australia-has-record-job-vacancies-but-dont-expect-it-to-lead-to-higher-wages-172146

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jane Kelsey, Professor of Law, University of Auckland

Hard on the heels of the political deal-making by major powers and corporate lobbyists at the COP26 climate conference, similar manoeuvres are shaping the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) 12th Ministerial Conference (MC12), scheduled to begin on November 30 in Geneva.

The decision to hold an in-person negotiating conference of ministers from 164 countries in the midst of a pandemic, and as Europe undergoes another surge, is controversial.

Aside from concerns about safety, there are serious questions about the legitimacy of decisions that will be made under these conditions, including the expected absence of a number of trade ministers, mainly from developing countries.

Ministers with no commercial flights operating from their countries may be unable to travel. Those who can attend face onerous and expensive transit and quarantine arrangements. The size of delegations has been severely limited to facilitate social distancing and reduce processing queues.

At present, only certain vaccines, mainly those used in richer countries, will secure a pass for automatic entry into meeting venues. Ministers and officials who used non-EU-approved vaccines will be subject to periodic testing.

There is also a clampdown on dissent. Swiss authorities have refused authorisation – sought by one of their own parliamentarians – for five protesters to hold placards calling for action on COVID-19 in front of the WTO building. Non-government organisations, an important resource for many developing country delegations, have been denied space at the main venue.

WTO in crisis

All this is bad enough for a “member-driven organisation” that makes decisions by consensus. But this conference is shaping up as the most important in the WTO’s 26 years. It is widely agreed the organisation faces an existential crisis. Every one of its core functions – negotiations, dispute settlement, notifications – has broken down.

The Doha “development” round of negotiations, launched in 2001, promised poorer countries a rebalancing of global trade rules that were designed by and for powerful countries and their corporations. But the Doha round has been moribund for over a decade.

Read more:
Old wine in new bottles – why the NZ-UK free trade agreement fails to confront the challenges of a post-COVID world

At the last ministerial conference four years ago, self-selected groups of members, led by rich countries including New Zealand and Australia, announced they were launching alternative “plurilateral” processes to bypass the WTO’s consensus-based multilateral process – without any mandate to do so. They plan to legitimise those processes at the MC12.

Furthermore, the WTO’s dispute settlement system, considered the jewel in its crown, is paralysed. The US refuses to approve new appointments to the WTO’s Appellate Body until other members agree to its demands for reform. The last judge’s appointment expired in November 2020.

The more powerful WTO members have a raft of other demands. These include severely reducing the number of “developing” countries entitled to special and differential treatment, changes to the mechanism to monitor compliance, and other institutional arrangements.

The pandemic factor

These fractures have become fissures in recent years and COVID-19 has brought matters to a head.

Sixty-four developing countries have proposed a temporary waiver of rules in the WTO’s Agreement on Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) that guarantee Big Pharma’s rights over COVID-related vaccines and technologies. The waiver is essential to supply affordable generic versions to the 98% of people in low-income countries who are not yet fully vaccinated.

A recent Oxfam report estimated Pfizer and Moderna are expected to take in a combined US$93 billion next year on sales of the vaccines they developed with significant public subsidies.

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The EU, UK and Switzerland are leading the opposition, supported by their pharmaceutical industries. New Zealand supports a limited version of the waiver, but its ambassador to the WTO, David Walker, is leading a parallel initiative that undermines it.

Walker was tasked by the director-general, not the WTO members, with facilitating a COVID-19 recovery plan. The “Walker process” has been heavily criticised for marginalising the priorities of the least-developed and developing countries. There is a real potential for this to negatively affect New Zealand’s reputation with those nations at the WTO.

The proposed Declaration and Action Plan, prepared on Walker’s “own responsibility”, have not been developed through the WTO’s normal process of negotiations. Extraordinarily, the text was not tabled in the General Council meeting on November 22. This meant members could not discuss (or reject) it, although it has since been leaked.

Hope for a better regime

Critics object that Walker’s proposal is heavily skewed towards the interests of richer countries and that it uses COVID-19 as a back door to promote more liberalisation, reflecting the agenda for WTO reform being advanced by the “Ottawa Group” of countries, including New Zealand and Australia. Walker has ruled out including the waiver or other changes to WTO intellectual property rules.

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As the MC12 heads for a showdown on all these and other issues, the strategies being pursued by the New Zealand and Australian governments to keep the WTO on life support are counterproductive.

Even if those attending the conference manage to reach agreement on some final declaration – which eluded them at the last ministerial conference in 2017 – the refusal of its more powerful members to address the organisation’s systemic failings ensures it will continue its spiralling decline.

Longtime critics of the WTO hope this may finally open the door to re-envisioning a new, more equitable international trading regime that can address the challenges of the 21st century highlighted by the pandemic.

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

– ref. Divided and paralysed, can the WTO negotiate a pandemic recovery plan that is fair for all? – https://theconversation.com/divided-and-paralysed-can-the-wto-negotiate-a-pandemic-recovery-plan-that-is-fair-for-all-172484