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

Labor has announced that in government it would appoint a family domestic and sexual violence commissioner and also fund 500 new community sector workers to help women at risk or in crisis.

Labor spokeswoman Jenny McAllister says more staff are desperately needed. “I visited a service last week in western Sydney that said that over the last year they’d helped around 1200 women who were seeking their assistance to escape violence. But they turned away 1100 because they didn’t have the workers to support them.”

Asked why, despite increased attention and funding for combatting domestic violence, we don’t seem to be getting on top of the problem, McAllister says she doesn’t “underestimate how complex and challenging it will be to produce sustained reduction in rates of violence.”

But, she argues, a change of government is needed “to restore that momentum and energy that was there at the beginning of this planned process”.

Earlier this year there were nationwide marches on women’s justice issues. Has the momentum faded? McAllister says: “There is still an enormous trust deficit between the prime minister and Australian women […] Australian women had had enough.”

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

– ref. Politics with Michelle Grattan: Jenny McAllister on domestic violence – https://theconversation.com/politics-with-michelle-grattan-jenny-mcallister-on-domestic-violence-172512

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Grose, Climate projections scientist, CSIRO

As the climate changes, southern Australia is likely to keep getting drier on average, particularly in the southwest.

However, this year has been wet. And yesterday the Bureau of Meteorology announced we are now in another La Niña event. This common large-scale climate pattern lasts for months, and will increase the odds of further wet weather across the country.

So despite the long-term trend towards drier conditions, we find ourselves in a wetter-than-usual period. What gives?

Read more:
Explainer: El Niño and La Niña

Current climate change assessments

Rainfall has been declining in much of southern Australia in recent decades (see below). The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Sixth Assessment report – which draws on the latest climate research – found the recent drying trend in southern Australia is likely to continue, particularly during the cool season.

Cool-season rainfall in southwest Western Australia has already decreased, and ongoing drying in this area is assessed to be very likely. There’s strong evidence this trend contains a “signal” of climate change, otherwise known as a climate change “fingerprint”.

We understand the drying has been driven by changes in dominant weather patterns. And future projections of drying in the southwest are among the strongest in the world.

The situation in the southeast of Australia is not as clear, but there’s strong evidence for an ongoing decrease in rainfall here, too.

Yet, we find it has been wet in many southwest and southeast regions this year – including in the cool season. In fact, some areas received “very much above average” rainfall in the ten months to the end of October, seemingly defying the drying trend.

Variability is king in Australia

Australia has always been the land of droughts and flooding rains. It’s normal to be beset by a multi-year drought, before experiencing major floods. Year-to-year variability here is large compared with most of the world’s other land regions.

In 2021, we’ve seen a wet swing of the climate needle due to several global climate drivers. Alongside the Pacific now being in the La Niña phase, the Indian Ocean Dipole is in a negative phase.

Read more:
A wet winter, a soggy spring: what is the negative Indian Ocean Dipole, and why is it so important?

When we see these drivers line up, we know the deck is stacked for a wetter season. This is what we’ve always found, and we can count on Australia’s climate variability to remain, through this century and beyond.

So does a wet year cast doubt on our assessment of climate change? No.

In the 2020 State of the Climate report, released by the CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology, we noted recent rainfall trends are tracking within projections.

In fact, we showed rainfall trends since the baseline of 1986-2005 to 2020 are tracking in the dry end of projections for the southwest and Victoria. This suggests that if anything, the projections are likely conservative.

Of course there are wet years, such as this year and also Victoria in 2010. But the longer-term trend has been downward. This is consistent with what we expect from climate change, after drawing on multiple lines of evidence and climate modelling.

2021 is not extraordinary in the long-term context. Even if the whole of 2021 ends up being very wet, it won’t shift the long-term trend by much. Only a persistent wet trend over decades or longer would raise questions about our assessment of climate change and current projections.

What does a ‘drier’ climate look like?

As the global climate warms, global average rainfall is increasing – and we expect most regions of the world will actually become wetter.

But there are some regions which will get drier, including southern Australia, the Mediterranean and southern Africa. So what will this look like?

A trend towards a drier climate will come with a lot of ups and downs. For example, between 1900 and 2020 southwest Western Australia’s annual rainfall varied between about 393mm and 1035mm (-40% and +55% from the average). This is a huge range.

Climate projections suggest a persistent rainfall reduction of up to 15% in the southwest of Australia is plausible over the first part of this century. Change later in the century will depend on whether we limit further climate warming.

If we do limit it, we can expect the rainfall to decrease by up to 20%. If we don’t, it will decrease by up to 35% – with larger reductions very plausible in the cool season. In either case, these projected average changes are still smaller than the year-to-year variability recorded in Australia over many decades.

But this doesn’t mean the trends and projections aren’t important. A persistent and ongoing shifting towards drier conditions, with drier (and hotter) dry spells is a huge challenge for Australia’s water managers and primary producers. And with a lower rainfall average, the chances of unprecedented dry periods are higher.

Wet extremes expected

But not every year will be a drought. There will still be wet days, months and years.

In fact, wet extremes are likely to increase despite the drying trend. Even in regions where the average rainfall is expected to decrease, there is a projected increase in intense rainfall bursts and rainfall extremes.

This includes intense hourly rainfalls that can lead to flash floods, as well as major rainfalls from “atmospheric rivers”, which are strong channels of concentrated moisture that stream through the atmosphere above us, delivering water for extreme rainfalls.

So for parts of southern Australia, a likely outcome is lower rainfall on average, but an increase in extreme rainfall events. With lower water availability overall, punctuated by intense flood risk, we can anticipate significant challenges ahead.

Michael Grose receives funding from the Climate Systems Hub, funded by the Australian Government under the National Environmental Science Program.

– ref. Climate change is likely driving a drier southern Australia – so why are we having such a wet year? – https://theconversation.com/climate-change-is-likely-driving-a-drier-southern-australia-so-why-are-we-having-such-a-wet-year-172409

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Thea van de Mortel, Professor, Nursing and Deputy Head (Learning & Teaching), School of Nursing and Midwifery, Griffith University

Summer is on its way and you might be wondering how you’re going to wear a mask as the weather gets warmer.

Which mask is best? Is there anything you can do to prevent “macne”? How can you stop the ear loops from chafing? How do you prevent your sunglasses fogging up?

Here are some practical tips to keep you comfortable while helping you stay safe.

Read more:
Which mask works best? We filmed people coughing and sneezing to find out

Which mask is best in the heat?

Disposable surgical masks are more effective at filtering out viruses than cloth masks but to remain effective they should only be used once. Cloth masks are not quite as effective but can be washed and reused.

According to the World Health Organization, cloth masks should have three layers. The inner layer should be soft cotton as this is more comfortable on the face. This is also more absorbent, and less irritating, than synthetic materials. Cloth masks with synthetic material in the inner layer will also increase sweating, so avoid these.

All masks become less effective when damp – from the damp air you exhale and from your sweat. The best mask to wear in the heat is the one you are most likely to wear.

Sweating, wearing masks and macne

Wearing a mask can affect your skin in a number of ways. It increases skin temperature and sweating, which can worsen acne or other skin conditions. That’s where the term “macne” or “mascne” comes from.

Mask wearing also increases production of sebum (skin oil), which can clog pores.

Masks can cause friction if they don’t fit well. They can also cause sensitivity reactions if the innermost layer is made from synthetic fibres, and depending on how you wash them.

While it might seem odd, your skin also gets drier under a mask. That’s possibly because the humidity under the mask disrupts the normal skin barrier.

What to do

If you want to wear a cloth mask, a soft cotton-lined one is recommended to reduce the risk of skin irritation. Dermatologists also recommend avoiding makeup, such as some foundation and face powder, when wearing a mask, to avoid clogging the pores.

Dermatologists also recommend washing your mask regularly, preferably after each use. If you are prone to skin conditions use a laundry detergent for sensitive skin to wash your mask, as normal laundry detergents contain perfumes and chemicals that can cause skin reactions. Avoid using fabric softeners for the same reason.

Dermatologists also suggest washing your face morning and night with lukewarm water and a mild cleanser and avoiding irritating solutions such as retinoids or aftershave. A moisturiser before and after mask wearing can help rehydrate the skin; ensuring your mask fits snugly will reduce friction.

Read more:
13 insider tips on how to wear a mask without your glasses fogging up, getting short of breath or your ears hurting

Avoid sore ears

When you wear a mask for extended periods, the elastic loops can cause painful pressure on the backs of your ears.

To prevent this, use paper clips to join the loops together at the back of your head, taking the pressure off your ears.

Another nifty solution is to use a headband with buttons or paper clips attached. You attach the ear loops to the buttons/paper clips rather than putting the loops over your ears.

How do you stop your sunnies fogging up?

People who wear prescription glasses will be used to avoiding fogging while wearing a mask. The same advice applies to people wearing sunglasses.

Sunnies fog up when you wear a mask because the warm water vapour in your breath comes out the top of your mask and condenses on your lenses.

Prevent the moist air from reaching your sunnies by:

• resting them on the mask rather than above the mask. The pressure of the sunnies reduces the chance of vapour exiting the top of the mask

• pinching the top of the surgical mask to improve the fit around the top of your nose. If using a cloth mask, insert a pipe cleaner in the top to shape the mask over the nose

• using soft tape suitable for skin to tape down the top of the mask. If you do this, test the tape somewhere else on your body first to make sure you don’t have a reaction to it.

Other anti-fogging strategies include:

• using anti-fogging wipes or spray on the lenses, which you can buy over the counter from your local pharmacy or at an optometrist

• making your own anti-fogging effect by rubbing a thin layer of liquid soap or shaving cream across the inside of each lens.

Use anti-fogging solutions with care, though, as some may damage any anti-glare or anti-UV films on the lens. Check with your optometrist if unsure.

Read more:
Can’t get your kid to wear a mask? Here are 5 things you can try

In a nutshell

Whether you choose to wear a cloth or surgical mask this summer, these simple tips will help this become more comfortable as the temperatures rise, you sweat more and your skin may become more irritated.

But make sure you wear your mask correctly. Wearing it under your nose makes it completely ineffective.

Read more:
It’s easy to judge. But some people really can’t wear a mask

Thea van de Mortel teaches into the Griffith University postgraduate Infection Prevention and Control program.

– ref. How to wear a mask in the heat – https://theconversation.com/how-to-wear-a-mask-in-the-heat-169941

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nareen Young, Industry Professor, Jumbunna Institute of Education and Research, University of Technology Sydney

In its review of the Workplace Gender Equality Act 2012, the federal government asked Australians for feedback on how the nation can improve workplace gender equality.

Our view, as workplace equality and diversity researchers, is two key changes are needed to how this Act operates – and they both relate to data collection.

Read more:
If bullying can happen to Christine Holgate at the highest level, then what happens to other women at work?

How does it work now?

Under the current Act, it’s mandatory for all non-public sector employers with 100 or more employees to submit an annual report on gender equality to the federal Workplace Gender Equality Agency.

They must detail statistics on issues such as how many women they employ, their pay and their level of seniority. The idea is that by collecting and reporting on such data, Australia can understand the challenges facing women at work – and respond to these barriers.

But, as we argue in our submission, that’s not enough. This approach fails to account for how challenges and barriers at work affect different groups of women in different ways.

For example, the Gari Yala report on experiences of Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander Australians at work (co-authored by one of us, Nareen Young) revealed many Indigenous women face daily workplace challenges and structural barriers non-Indigenous women do not have to contend with.

And research led by one of us (Dimitria Groutsis), in association with Diversity Council Australia, highlights the marginalisation of culturally diverse women at work.

In other words, an intersectional approach is required.

Two key changes are needed

The two changes we recommend are:

• the Act be amended to require employers to report data by taking an intersectional lens to include women, people with disability, people of non-English speaking background, Indigenous people, people who are LGBTQ+

• the Act be amended to require employers to report rates of pay, taking an intersectional lens.

The Victorian government has a useful definition of intersectionality, describing it as:

the ways in which different aspects of a person’s identity can expose them to overlapping forms of discrimination and marginalisation.

You can’t properly contend with issues like gender and equal pay, workplace equality and discrimination at work unless you also factor in ethnicity, age, Indigeneity, disability, LGBTQ+, migrant and refugee status.

By properly understanding how all these factors conspire to hold certain groups of women, men and non-binary people back, we can better develop meaningful and appropriate policies to address labour market segmentation, barriers to senior leadership, the pay gap and pay inequity.

For that, we need good quality data, so we can update our policies and systems in line with best practice approaches exemplified by the UK and New Zealand.

What gets measured gets done.

Overlapping challenges at work

A growing body of research evidence shows people’s experiences in Australian workplaces are not shaped only by their gender. For example:

• Indigenous women experience more pronounced barriers in the labour market, are in more precarious employment, and face a greater pay gap compared to Indigenous men and non-Indigenous women

• only a fraction of culturally diverse women feel their leadership traits are recognised and their opinions respected at work

• one in four culturally diverse women reported cultural barriers in the workplace had caused them to scale back at work

• people with disability face challenges gaining and keeping employment, due to discrimination or a lack of flexible work arrangements.

Of course, none of us are simply “one thing”. If you are an Indigenous woman with a disability, who is also LGBTQ+, for example, your challenges can be compounded by overlapping forms of discrimination and structural barriers.

The Workplace Gender Equality Agency needs better data

The power of good data cannot be underestimated, and has been been key to the Workplace Gender Equality Agency’s leadership and influence in driving real policy change.

Yet, much is missing in the questions asked, the information gathered and surrounding our understanding of the lived experience of all women workers.

It’s time we changed the Workplace Gender Equality Act 2012 to ensure Australia gets the data it needs to create real change.

Read more:
10 ways employers can include Indigenous Australians

Nareen Young receives funding from National Australia Bank and Coles for Gari Yala. She is a member of the ALP and the NTEU.

Josh Gilbert receives funding from the Food Agility CRC. He is affiliated with KU Children’s Services, the NSW Aboriginal Housing Office, Reconciliation NSW, and Bridging the Gap Foundation. Josh formally worked at PwC’s Indigenous Consulting.

Dimitria Groutsis 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. A law on workplace gender equality is under review. Here’s what needs to change – https://theconversation.com/a-law-on-workplace-gender-equality-is-under-review-heres-what-needs-to-change-172406

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Leigh Carriage, Senior Lecturer in Music, Southern Cross University

Freddie Mercury (born Farrokh Bulsara in 1946) died on this day 30 years ago. A prolific songwriter, arranger and music producer, a consummate theatrical entertainer and one of the 20th century’s best-known lead singers, Mercury fronted Queen from 1970 until his death in 1991.

Artistically, he challenged many of the prevailing pop and rock parameters, willing to take musical risks and happy not to be part of the mainstream. He fearlessly pushed artistic boundaries, believing in the spontaneity of live performance: every show was different.

The composer

As a composer, Mercury drew on an eclectic range of genres. He wrote songs with poetic and heartfelt lyrics, witty metaphors and memorable melodies, with Queen drawing influences from The Everly Brothers, the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, Pink Floyd and the Beach Boys.

Mercury’s 1979 composition Crazy Little Thing Called Love pays homage to Elvis Presley. In the song, Mercury subtly models aspects of Presley’s vocal tone and rockabilly styling in the catchy chorus.

He gives us just a hint of his vocal range in the bridge, on the lyrics “she gives me hot and cold fever” where Mercury effortlessly uses an octave yodel.

In 1975’s Bohemian Rhapsody, perhaps Queen’s most famous song, Mercury took genre crossing to a new level. This six-minute epic is unrivalled in complexity of form, lavish production, vocal layering and the sheer number of choral overdubs.

The song, which topped the British charts for almost nine weeks, was described by Mercury as a “mock opera” .

The singer

Technically masterful, Mercury possessed a voice that was powerful, agile, and highly expressive. A lyric rock tenor with over three octaves in range, Mercury could belt into his upper register with his signature fast vibrato, or use a controlled pure falsetto with smooth legato phrasing.

Strong musicianship, excellent pitch and vocal control enabled Mercury to draw on a broad array of note choices, dynamics, tone colours and vocal effects. His vocal timbre could depict a delicate vulnerability, especially with his falsetto, or use dynamic extremes to accentuate lyrics with screams and growls.

Mercury demonstrated his versatility, genre crossing and creative exploration on the 1985 song Living On My Own.

Here, he employs scat singing and the opening syncopated repetition of a single note hints at Ella Fitzgerald’s influence. It is a driving, high spirited and fearless vocal solo. Mercury solos again at the end of the song with a loose vocal reference to Duke Ellington’s It Don’t Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing).

The performer

Queen’s appearance at the historic Live Aid Concert at London’s Wembley Stadium in July 1985 remains one of the greatest rock performances of all time.

Mercury and band were in stellar form, having just completed a world tour for their album The Works, recorded in 1984. When the entire crowd of 72,000 joins Mercury in beating out the rhythm to We Will Rock You, it is electrifying.

Further evidence of Mercury’s masterful stagecraft can be found in a bootleg video of Queen performing in Sydney in 1985.

Twelve minutes into the footage, Mercury slowly struts to the piano and improvises a segue into Somebody to Love in a gospel style with a call and response with the audience.

His years of touring experience provided him with an arsenal of stagecraft prowess: strutting, holding poses, dressed in his glam rock style, with white spandex.

Audiences adored his showmanship and flamboyance.

The influencer

30 years on from his death, Mercury’s incredible compositions are still part of the soundtrack of our lives.

Somebody To Love was used in the films Happy Feet (2006) and Ella Enchanted (2004). Lady GaGa coopted her name from Queen’s Radio GaGa.

Ceelo Green attributes his falsetto usage to his collection of Queen albums.

Kurt Cobain listened to Queen’s News of the World on 8-track.

Katy Perry has acknowledged Mercury as a major influence, performing Queen’s Don’t Stop Me Now during her Hello Katy tour in 2009. P!nk included the iconic stadium songs We Are the Champions in her tour in 2019.

Many filmmakers have told his story: Bryan Singer’s film Bohemian Rapsody (2018) is joined by a suite of documentaries. Next month, the BBC are releasing a new documentary, this time looking at his tragic death from AIDS at just 45.

30 years on, Mercury is remembered as a powerful songwriter, filled with on-stage magnetism, creativity and intelligence, a hard work ethic and a passion for perfection.

Leigh Carriage 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. It’s 30 years since Freddie Mercury died. His music is still the soundtrack of our lives – https://theconversation.com/its-30-years-since-freddie-mercury-died-his-music-is-still-the-soundtrack-of-our-lives-172389

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Elenie Poulos, Honorary Postdoctoral Associate, Macquarie University

Australia is not a particularly religious country. Australians have a reputation for being largely ambivalent about the place of religion in their lives and in society.

But while increasing numbers of people claim “no religion” in the census, Australia is one of the most religiously diverse countries in the world. Despite this, the legal protections for religious freedom are weak.

If we had a human rights charter, religious freedom would be protected alongside other rights we have committed to uphold. In the absence of a charter, the protection of people’s rights becomes more complex than it should be.

However, a bill to protect people from discrimination on the basis of religion should be a law that most Australians would welcome, just as we welcomed, for example, the Sex Discrimination Act and the Disability Discrimination Act.

Our religious diversity is part of what makes Australia a robust and vibrant country. So this law should be a statement of how much we value this diversity and our commitment to creating a society where everyone feels safe and valued. What we have had, however, is a toxic debate that has unnecessarily divided the community.

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

The Morrison government has released its long-awaited third and final draft of the Religious Discrimination Bill.

It has been stripped of some of the more controversial clauses, including those that allowed doctors to claim a conscientious objection in the provision of healthcare services, and the so-called “Folau clause” that restricted the capacity of large organisations to address issues related to employees expressing religious beliefs at odds with their values.

However, the bill has maintained the extreme privileging of “statements of belief” which, if they meet certain conditions (and the bar is set low), can override all relevant state laws and other Commonwealth anti-discrimination laws.

This is deeply concerning for anyone who might find themselves accused of “sinfulness” in the name of deeply held beliefs.

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

This bill began its life as a concession to both conservative Christian leaders and lobby groups, and right-wing culture warriors, in the heated debate about marriage equality.

Born out of a politically constructed dichotomy between religious freedom and equality rights, and drafted at least partly in response to a handful of high-profile cases (Israel Folau and Julian Porteous), the first two versions pitted religious believers against equality rights advocates.

Lost in the middle were Indigenous peoples and people from minority religious groups, who have historically been the ones to actually suffer the effects of prejudice, harassment, discrimination, abuse and even religiously discriminatory legislation.

The Religious Freedom Review Panel, chaired by Philip Ruddock, was already aware of and concerned by this shift. It noted “the limited focus given to religious freedom in more general discussions about diversity, understanding and tolerance” and recommended the government conduct more research into “the community experience of religious freedom”.

Also lost in this no-win battle has been a fulsome understanding of religion itself. Religion has been cast narrowly as that which divides people (the saved, the sinful and the rest). At the same time, religious “belief” is widely understood as little more than personal assent to a series of propositions about so-called morality issues, such as sexuality, euthanasia, abortion, gender identity, marriage and divorce.

Another disappearance in the debate over this bill has been the theological diversity within religious traditions, especially Christianity. The Australian Christian Lobby and its allies present as speaking for all Christians. But the ACL speaks only for a minority of Christians.

ACL media statements and appearances are usually met with an avalanche of responses in my social media feeds from committed church people, lay and ordained, eager to declare the ACL does not speak for them.

This bill effectively protects religiously framed speech and religiously defined practices that discriminate and potentially cause harm.

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

It serves those who seek to maintain control over people’s bodies.

The churches, just like governments and other public institutions, must be open to challenges to their power. The most recent iteration of the discourse of religious freedom (and my research has found three different religious freedom discourses over the past 35 years) has churches and Christians being framed as a threatened minority. In this narrative, they are besieged by an increasingly belligerent, even aggressive secularism.

However, the churches maintain significant political influence, as the history of this bill has demonstrated. They also exercise power and social influence as large employers and providers of government-funded community and education services.

As the Ruddock Report found, there is little evidence Christians are being persecuted in Australia. A small number of high-profile individuals being challenged to consider the potentially damaging influence of their speech, and a few high-profile cases in overseas jurisdictions very different to ours, did not justify the over-reach of the second draft of the bill.

The final version of the bill does offer protections for people from minority religious groups. It has withdrawn the more idiosyncratic and demeaning parts of the second exposure draft.

But it still allows for discrimination by religious groups against LGBTIQ+ people, women and people on the basis of their religion. If passed, it will entrench in law the idea that LGBTIQ+ people are still not quite like everyone else – for this is the effect of state-sanctioned discrimination.

The bill will also legitimise the fallacy that the rights of LGBTIQ+ people are incompatible with religious freedom. It has already successfully wedged the ALP.

In setting free the expression of religious beliefs from the responsibility to take account of how even “well-meaning” statements of judgment and condemnation can harm people, the divisions this debate has created within Australia’s social fabric will be difficult to heal.

Elenie Poulos has received funding from the Australian Research Council to investigate Religious Freedom, LGBT+ Employees, and the Right to Discriminate (DP200100395). She is an ordained minister of the Uniting Church in Australia and a member of the Board of Uniting NSW.ACT.

– ref. New religious discrimination bill will cause damage to Australian society that will be difficult to heal – https://theconversation.com/new-religious-discrimination-bill-will-cause-damage-to-australian-society-that-will-be-difficult-to-heal-172303

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Bianca Fileborn, Senior Lecturer in Criminology, The University of Melbourne

New South Wales and Victoria are set to introduce a suite of reforms to sexual offences legislation which set a new standard for sexual consent. Both states will implement an affirmative model of consent.

Affirmative consent is based on the idea that someone who is consenting to sex will actively express this through their words and actions – it’s the presence of an “enthusiastic yes”, rather than the absence of a “no”.

So what’s changing, and what does that mean for how we negotiate sex?

By law, you will need to actively seek consent

The Victorian and NSW reforms place a higher onus on the accused.

Current legislation stipulates that while any steps taken by the accused to ascertain consent should be taken into account in determining whether their belief in consent was “reasonable”, they are not required to have actively sought consent. This means an accused person could argue they had “belief” in consent, without actually taking any action to confirm this belief.

Under the new model, if an accused did not take steps to ascertain consent, their belief in consent is considered to be unreasonable. Silence or a lack of resistance cannot indicate consent.

If an accused wanted to mount a defence that they held a “reasonable belief” in the other person’s consent, they would have to demonstrate what steps or actions they took to make sure the other person was consenting.

À lire aussi :
NSW adopts affirmative consent in sexual assault laws. What does this mean?

It is hoped this will lead to an emphasis on the actions of the accused, rather than scrutinising the complainant’s behaviour. These are important improvements in the way the legal system responds to sexual assault.

No, it doesn’t mean signing a consent form

Affirmative consent means all partners should consciously and voluntarily agree to participate in sexual activity.

Responsibility for consent should be mutual, meaning all parties involved need to ensure they have obtained consent.

Affirmative consent can also be withdrawn at any time – it’s an ongoing process, not a one off “yes” at the start of an encounter.

Some people suggest affirmative consent makes sex “awkward” or “formulaic”. We’re often asked if this means we need to have our partners sign a consent form at the beginning of an encounter.

Others say having to constantly “check in” with a partner can spoil the mood or remove the spontaneity of sex.

Not only does an affirmative model help to ensure your partner is actively consenting to sex, it can also help enhance pleasure and fun.

So how do you actually get consent?

Here are some ways you might approach consent under an affirmative model:

Ask your partner how they like to be touched, or what they would like to do. Questions like “how does that feel” or “would you like it if I did XXX” can help ascertain consent but also ensure sex is pleasurable!

Some companies have produced cards to help facilitate this conversation with a partner. Kink communities, such as BDSM groups, often have well-established protocols for talking about consent, and there’s arguably much we could learn from them.

Pay attention to all of the cues and forms of communication a partner is using. This includes what they say, but also their body language, gestures, noises, and emotional expression.

If a partner is passive, silent, crying, or looking upset, these are all red flags that they are not consenting. If there’s any doubt about whether your partner/s are into what’s happening, stop and check in with them again.

If you’re still unsure, it’s best to end the encounter.

Is the other person intoxicated or drug affected? If so, they might not legally be able to consent to sex. While some people do use alcohol or other drugs to enhance sexual pleasure (for example, in Chemsex), this is something that needs to be carefully negotiated.

Again, if in any doubt, it’s always best to stop.

Consider the context, and the nature of the relationship between yourself and your partner/s. For example, are you in a position of power over the other person/people? This could be on account of your age, gender, employment status and so on.

If the answer is “yes”, exercise caution. Is it possible the other person could feel pressured or unable to say no to you?

While research suggests non-verbal communication is the most common way people communicate consent, people can misinterpret non-verbal cues. So it’s best not to rely on reading non-verbal cues alone.

Try using verbal consent as well (or the use of sign language or written communication for people who are non-verbal). This doesn’t have to be awkward, or contractual, and consent can be communicated through dirty talk.

Asking a partner what they like also allows you to learn about their body and what feels good, rather than just guessing what they might find pleasurable.

Beyond affirmative consent

While affirmative consent certainly provides a better framework for sexual communication than just waiting for someone to say “no” (or simply assuming the other person consents), it also has limitations.

People may still affirmatively consent to sex they do not want for various reasons. Consenting to sex may be the safer option in an abusive relationship, for example. People also often engage in sex due to peer pressure or because they feel it is their duty as a partner.

À lire aussi :
Not as simple as ‘no means no’: what young people need to know about consent

Our sexual scripts and dominant gender norms can also make it difficult to enact affirmative consent in practice.

Young women, for example, are often socialised to be polite, compliant, and pleasing to others. Sexual double standards presenting women as “sluts” or “whores” for actively engaging in and enjoying sex persist. As a result, it can be difficult for some women to openly express their sexual wants and desires.

Affirmative consent is less able to take into account the broader structural and social factors that make saying “yes” or “no” difficult, or that mean we sometimes “consent” to unwanted sex.

While affirmative consent is vital, you might also want to think about how you can ensure your partners feel comfortable and safe to express their needs, desires, and what feels good.

You also want to make sure they feel comfortable to say “no” at any time without any ramifications.

À lire aussi :
Teaching young people about sex is too important to get wrong. Here are 5 videos that actually hit the mark

Bianca Fileborn receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

Sophie Hindes ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d’une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n’a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.

– ref. How to get consent for sex (and no, it doesn’t have to spoil the mood) – https://theconversation.com/how-to-get-consent-for-sex-and-no-it-doesnt-have-to-spoil-the-mood-172139

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jumana Abu-Khalaf, Research Fellow in Computing and Security, Edith Cowan University

Artificial intelligence (AI) is already making decisions in the fields of business, health care and manufacturing. But AI algorithms generally still get help from people applying checks and making the final call.

What would happen if AI systems had to make independent decisions, and ones that could mean life or death for humans?

Pop culture has long portrayed our general distrust of AI. In the 2004 sci-fi movie I, Robot, detective Del Spooner (played by Will Smith) is suspicious of robots after being rescued by one from a car crash, while a 12-year-old girl was left to drown. He says:

I was the logical choice. It calculated that I had a 45% chance of survival. Sarah only had an 11% chance. That was somebody’s baby – 11% is more than enough. A human being would’ve known that.

Unlike humans, robots lack a moral conscience and follow the “ethics” programmed into them. At the same time, human morality is highly variable. The “right” thing to do in any situation will depend on who you ask.

For machines to help us to their full potential, we need to make sure they behave ethically. So the question becomes: how do the ethics of AI developers and engineers influence the decisions made by AI?

Read more:
After 75 years, Isaac Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics need updating

The self-driving future

Imagine a future with self-driving cars that are fully autonomous. If everything works as intended, the morning commute will be an opportunity to prepare for the day’s meetings, catch up on news, or sit back and relax.

But what if things go wrong? The car approaches a traffic light, but suddenly the brakes fail and the computer has to make a split-second decision. It can swerve into a nearby pole and kill the passenger, or keep going and kill the pedestrian ahead.

The computer controlling the car will only have access to limited information collected through car sensors, and will have to make a decision based on this. As dramatic as this may seem, we’re only a few years away from potentially facing such dilemmas.

Autonomous cars will generally provide safer driving, but accidents will be inevitable – especially in the foreseeable future, when these cars will be sharing the roads with human drivers and other road users.

Tesla does not yet produce fully autonomous cars, although it plans to. In collision situations, Tesla cars don’t automatically operate or deactivate the Automatic Emergency Braking (AEB) system if a human driver is in control.

In other words, the driver’s actions are not disrupted – even if they themselves are causing the collision. Instead, if the car detects a potential collision, it sends alerts to the driver to take action.

In “autopilot” mode, however, the car should automatically brake for pedestrians. Some argue if the car can prevent a collision, then there is a moral obligation for it to override the driver’s actions in every scenario. But would we want an autonomous car to make this decision?

What’s a life worth?

What if a car’s computer could evaluate the relative “value” of the passenger in its car and of the pedestrian? If its decision considered this value, technically it would just be making a cost-benefit analysis.

This may sound alarming, but there are already technologies being developed that could allow for this to happen. For instance, the recently re-branded Meta (formerly Facebook) has highly evolved facial recognition that can easily identify individuals in a scene.

Read more:
Facebook will drop its facial recognition system – but here’s why we should be sceptical

If these data were incorporated into an autonomous vehicle’s AI system, the algorithm could place a dollar value on each life. This possibility is depicted in an extensive 2018 study conducted by experts at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and colleagues.

Through the Moral Machine experiment, researchers posed various self-driving car scenarios that compelled participants to decide whether to kill a homeless pedestrian or an executive pedestrian.

Results revealed participants’ choices depended on the level of economic inequality in their country, wherein more economic inequality meant they were more likely to sacrifice the homeless man.

While not quite as evolved, such data aggregation is already in use with China’s social credit system, which decides what social entitlements people have.

The health-care industry is another area where we will see AI making decisions that could save or harm humans. Experts are increasingly developing AI to spot anomalies in medical imaging, and to help physicians in prioritising medical care.

For now, doctors have the final say, but as these technologies become increasingly advanced, what will happen when a doctor and AI algorithm don’t make the same diagnosis?

Another example is an automated medicine reminder system. How should the system react if a patient refuses to take their medication? And how does that affect the patient’s autonomy, and the overall accountability of the system?

AI-powered drones and weaponry are also ethically concerning, as they can make the decision to kill. There are conflicting views on whether such technologies should be completely banned or regulated. For example, the use of autonomous drones can be limited to surveillance.

Some have called for military robots to be programmed with ethics. But this raises issues about the programmer’s accountability in the case where a drone kills civilians by mistake.

Read more:
Gun-toting robo-dogs look like a dystopian nightmare. That’s why they offer a powerful moral lesson

Philosophical dilemmas

There have been many philosophical debates regarding the ethical decisions AI will have to make. The classic example of this is the trolley problem.

People often struggle to make decisions that could have a life-changing outcome. When evaluating how we react to such situations, one study reported choices can vary depending on a range of factors including the respondant’s age, gender and culture.

When it comes to AI systems, the algorithms training processes are critical to how they will work in the real world. A system developed in one country can be influenced by the views, politics, ethics and morals of that country, making it unsuitable for use in another place and time.

If the system was controlling aircraft, or guiding a missile, you’d want a high level of confidence it was trained with data that’s representative of the environment it’s being used in.

Examples of failures and bias in technology implementation have included racist soap dispenser and inappropriate automatic image labelling.

AI is not “good” or “evil”. The effects it has on people will depend on the ethics of its developers. So to make the most of it, we’ll need to reach a consensus on what we consider “ethical”.

While private companies, public organisations and research institutions have their own guidelines for ethical AI, the United Nations has recommended developing what they call “a comprehensive global standard-setting instrument” to provide a global ethical AI framework – and ensure human rights are protected.

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. The self-driving trolley problem: how will future AI systems make the most ethical choices for all of us? – https://theconversation.com/the-self-driving-trolley-problem-how-will-future-ai-systems-make-the-most-ethical-choices-for-all-of-us-170961

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Bianca Fileborn, Senior Lecturer in Criminology, The University of Melbourne

New South Wales and Victoria are set to introduce a suite of reforms to sexual offences legislation which set a new standard for sexual consent. Both states will implement an affirmative model of consent.

Affirmative consent is based on the idea that someone who is consenting to sex will actively express this through their words and actions – it’s the presence of an “enthusiastic yes”, rather than the absence of a “no”.

So what’s changing, and what does that mean for how we negotiate sex?

By law, you will need to actively seek consent

The Victorian and NSW reforms place a higher onus on the accused.

Current legislation stipulates that while any steps taken by the accused to ascertain consent should be taken into account in determining whether their belief in consent was “reasonable”, they are not required to have actively sought consent. This means an accused person could argue they had “belief” in consent, without actually taking any action to confirm this belief.

Under the new model, if an accused did not take steps to ascertain consent, their belief in consent is considered to be unreasonable. Silence or a lack of resistance cannot indicate consent.

If an accused wanted to mount a defence that they held a “reasonable belief” in the other person’s consent, they would have to demonstrate what steps or actions they took to make sure the other person was consenting.

Read more:
NSW adopts affirmative consent in sexual assault laws. What does this mean?

It is hoped this will lead to an emphasis on the actions of the accused, rather than scrutinising the complainant’s behaviour. These are important improvements in the way the legal system responds to sexual assault.

No, it doesn’t mean signing a consent form

Affirmative consent means all partners should consciously and voluntarily agree to participate in sexual activity.

Responsibility for consent should be mutual, meaning all parties involved need to ensure they have obtained consent.

Affirmative consent can also be withdrawn at any time – it’s an ongoing process, not a one off “yes” at the start of an encounter.

Some people suggest affirmative consent makes sex “awkward” or “formulaic”. We’re often asked if this means we need to have our partners sign a consent form at the beginning of an encounter.

Others say having to constantly “check in” with a partner can spoil the mood or remove the spontaneity of sex.

Not only does an affirmative model help to ensure your partner is actively consenting to sex, it can also help enhance pleasure and fun.

So how do you actually get consent?

Here are some ways you might approach consent under an affirmative model:

Ask your partner how they like to be touched, or what they would like to do. Questions like “how does that feel” or “would you like it if I did XXX” can help ascertain consent but also ensure sex is pleasurable!

Some companies have produced cards to help facilitate this conversation with a partner. Kink communities, such as BDSM groups, often have well-established protocols for talking about consent, and there’s arguably much we could learn from them.

Pay attention to all of the cues and forms of communication a partner is using. This includes what they say, but also their body language, gestures, noises, and emotional expression.

If a partner is passive, silent, crying, or looking upset, these are all red flags that they are not consenting. If there’s any doubt about whether your partner/s are into what’s happening, stop and check in with them again.

If you’re still unsure, it’s best to end the encounter.

Is the other person intoxicated or drug affected? If so, they might not legally be able to consent to sex. While some people do use alcohol or other drugs to enhance sexual pleasure (for example, in Chemsex), this is something that needs to be carefully negotiated.

Again, if in any doubt, it’s always best to stop.

Consider the context, and the nature of the relationship between yourself and your partner/s. For example, are you in a position of power over the other person/people? This could be on account of your age, gender, employment status and so on.

If the answer is “yes”, exercise caution. Is it possible the other person could feel pressured or unable to say no to you?

While research suggests non-verbal communication is the most common way people communicate consent, people can misinterpret non-verbal cues. So it’s best not to rely on reading non-verbal cues alone.

Try using verbal consent as well (or the use of sign language or written communication for people who are non-verbal). This doesn’t have to be awkward, or contractual, and consent can be communicated through dirty talk.

Asking a partner what they like also allows you to learn about their body and what feels good, rather than just guessing what they might find pleasurable.

Beyond affirmative consent

While affirmative consent certainly provides a better framework for sexual communication than just waiting for someone to say “no” (or simply assuming the other person consents), it also has limitations.

People may still affirmatively consent to sex they do not want for various reasons. Consenting to sex may be the safer option in an abusive relationship, for example. People also often engage in sex due to peer pressure or because they feel it is their duty as a partner.

Read more:
Not as simple as ‘no means no’: what young people need to know about consent

Our sexual scripts and dominant gender norms can also make it difficult to enact affirmative consent in practice.

Young women, for example, are often socialised to be polite, compliant, and pleasing to others. Sexual double standards presenting women as “sluts” or “whores” for actively engaging in and enjoying sex persist. As a result, it can be difficult for some women to openly express their sexual wants and desires.

Affirmative consent is less able to take into account the broader structural and social factors that make saying “yes” or “no” difficult, or that mean we sometimes “consent” to unwanted sex.

While affirmative consent is vital, you might also want to think about how you can ensure your partners feel comfortable and safe to express their needs, desires, and what feels good.

You also want to make sure they feel comfortable to say “no” at any time without any ramifications.

Read more:
Teaching young people about sex is too important to get wrong. Here are 5 videos that actually hit the mark

Bianca Fileborn receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

Sophie Hindes 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. Laws have changed the way partners need to seek consent. Here’s how to do it (and no, it won’t spoil the mood) – https://theconversation.com/laws-have-changed-the-way-partners-need-to-seek-consent-heres-how-to-do-it-and-no-it-wont-spoil-the-mood-172139

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Martina Tassone, Early Childhood and Primary Course Coordinator and Language and Literacy Lecturer, The University of Melbourne

Children’s early years from birth to the age of eight are crucial for their social, emotional and intellectual development. However, early years education in Australia is fragmented. It operates across two spaces, the pre-compulsory period, often called early childhood education, and the first three years of compulsory schooling.

In recent times the focus in these three years has been on assessment that produces numerical data. Teachers need to demonstrate children are meeting standards.

In contrast, in the pre-compulsory years the focus is on observing and interacting with the child. Practices are based on the belief that all children have agency and are capable learners.

A chasm has opened up between these separate education systems. Children go from playing to being tested in the blink of an eye. This abrupt change in young children’s education is problematic.

What does research tell us about the early years?

A 2015 review of research on best practices in the early years identified key factors in successful teaching and learning. The review noted the importance of:

• a smooth transition between pre-school education and compulsory school education

• play-based learning

• seeing children as capable and having agency in their learning

• dialogic interactions involving rich discussions between children and between
  children and teachers.

Australia has introduced a mandated curriculum and a national assessment program in primary schools. The review noted this meant many early years teachers have adopted a more formalised and narrow approach to learning in schools. It isn’t appropriate for young children.

We can see the resulting divide between non-compulsory and compulsory early years education in Victoria. On the one hand, teachers need to acknowledge the needs of children from birth to eight years. On the other hand, for those between the ages of five and 12, the Victorian Curriculum requires teachers to assess and report against curriculum standards.

The focus on formal assessment and numerical data in the early years of schooling means children as young as six can be labelled as failing. In countries like Finland and Singapore, which have been identified as high-performing, children do not even begin formal schooling before the age of six or seven.

One study has described the early years in countries like the United Kingdom, America and Australia as being at the mercy of top-down policy development, leading to “a highly prescriptive and assessment-driven early years climate”. UK researchers have identified the “datafication” of early years education and its impacts on children and teachers. And Australian researchers used the term “adultification” to describe the unrealistic expectations placed on young children.

So what happens in our schools?

My doctoral research found “datafication” and “adultification” defined the early years of schooling in Victoria. I engaged with more than 100 early-years teachers to explore their literacy teaching and assessment practices. The recurring theme was these teachers were expected to frequently assess young children in formal ways that provided numerical data.

Teachers voiced frustration. One described the early years as “death by assessment”. Another lamented that community expectations were unreasonable, saying “people are hung up on data, numbers”.

There was an overwhelming sense that the teachers knew their children best and should be given the agency to assess and plan for literacy teaching rather than being required to use a suite of commercially produced assessment tools.

The Victorian Early Years Learning and Development Framework (VEYLDF) is designed to support early years teachers working with children and families. Its premise is that children have the greatest opportunities to develop neural pathways for learning and are also most vulnerable to negative experiences from birth to eight years.

The framework is based on research into best practice for children in these years. Rather than formal assessment based on numbers, the VEYLDF advocates for assessment that is authentic and responsive to how all children can best demonstrate their learning and development.

The Victorian Education Department encourages teachers in schools to use the framework. However, little is known about how many actually use the framework to inform teaching and learning.

Making it mandatory to report against curriculum standards from the time children begin compulsory schooling sets the boundaries for how many teachers operate. It is hard to have a foot in both camps when reporting against these standards is mandatory and you feel compelled to prepare children for what comes next – which includes NAPLAN, the national assessment program.

Schools can still let children be children

However, some schools are turning their backs on the relentless measuring of young children’s attainments. St John’s, a multicultural primary school in Melbourne’s inner west, is one example. You only need to look at the school website to see its philosophy differs from many others.

“St John’s Horizon [a school community-developed vision] clearly states ‘KIDS AT THE HEART’ which encapsulates our focus and belief in the image of the child – the child who is capable, curious, full of wonder, rich in knowledge, able to construct and co-construct his or her own learning. We believe in JOY – Joy in learning.”

A conversation with the then principal, Gemma Goodyear, gave me an insight into these beliefs, which are inspired by teaching and learning in schools in Reggio Emilia, Italy. Goodyear said children do not come to school to be “fixed”, and the teachers engage them by providing meaningful, contextualised learning experiences. And, yes, through their focus on rich learning they still get great results without relentless testing.

It is time to revisit the early years of schooling and ensure teachers have the skills and understandings they need to support learners in this phase. These years should be a time when children become engaged and excited about learning, a time of great joy, and a time when children are allowed to be children.

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

– ref. A failure at 6? Data-driven assessment isn’t helping young children’s learning – https://theconversation.com/a-failure-at-6-data-driven-assessment-isnt-helping-young-childrens-learning-169463

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

For a leader with something of a fetish about having things under control, Scott Morrison is in a painful place. Just now, it seems, very little is controllable.

He’s beset from the right and the left of his party, which was quiescent for so long. The Senate is in gridlock, as far as contested government legislation is concerned.

And all that is apart from the assault on his own character and credibility, which Labor prosecutes daily.

Used to getting his own way, and wanting to clear the decks ahead of election year, Morrison this week has been up against a couple of virtually unknown Liberal senators, Gerard Rennick, from Queensland, and Alex Antic, from South Australia, who have proved hard to move.

They have been withholding their vote on government legislation in a quest to extract action from Morrison to override state vaccine mandates, something he doesn’t want to do, and probably couldn’t anyway.

Pauline Hanson and her One Nation colleague Malcolm Roberts, more often than not the government’s allies in Senate votes, are also kicking up over this issue, using their votes as weapons.

Morrison had a session with Rennick and Antic on Monday night, and Treasurer Josh Frydenberg has been heavily involved.

Rennick indicates he will go back into the fold on procedural votes in return for concessions, particularly in relation to the threshold for compensation after adverse vaccination events. But so far he isn’t shifting on his refusal to vote on legislation.

Nationals MP George Christensen added his two bobs’ worth late Monday with a statement declaring, “Until federal action is taken against vaccine discrimination, I will be voting according to my conscience (or abstaining from votes) on bills and substantive motions rather than just voting with the government as MPs usually do”.

That could be anything or nothing. Christensen doesn’t necessarily follow through on threats. But it’s unsettling for a government on a knife edge in the lower house. Furthermore, the government now has a new and inexperienced speaker, Andrew Wallace, who, while more pliable than the formidable Tony Smith, would be tested if the opposition managed to engineer some chaos there.

Read more:
Andrew Wallace becomes the new speaker – a role that’s never been more important in Australian politics

In the Senate, it is perpetual chaos. Apart from Antic and Rennick, other rebel Coalition senators flexed their muscle on Monday, crossing the floor over Hanson’s (unsuccessful) bill aimed at quashing vaccine mandates.

Coming from a different direction, the opposition and crossbenchers had the numbers on Tuesday for the senate to suspend the plan by Liberal senator Andrew Bragg to run a committee inquiry into the ABC’s complaints procedure.

Bragg was deeply frustrated at the stymying of his move, which had angered ABC chair Ita Buttrose. “Motions considered by the Senate to silence Australians are very troubling,” he grumbled in a statement after the vote. The government is now set to try to recommit this for another vote on Wednesday.

Amid the government’s troubles, although separate from them, there has been fury within the crossbench between Jacqui Lambie and One Nation over vaccine mandates, and especially the release of Lambie’s mobile phone number. The latter is an extremely touchy issue given parliamentarians are increasingly worried about threats they are receiving and their safety.

On Tuesday the government’s legislation on religious discrimination finally reached the Coalition party room. A number of the Liberal moderates, including Trent Zimmerman, Warren Entsch, Andrew Bragg, Dave Sharma and Bridget Archer, expressed various concerns.

As the election approaches, the moderates have been willing to be more assertive. They exerted some pressure on climate change before the Glasgow conference. With high profile independent candidates emerging, there is an extra incentive for them to speak up.

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

Morrison will introduce the religious discrimination legislation this week; it will go off to a senate inquiry, where the contentious issues will get another airing. Its fate next year is uncertain, partly dependent on the election’s timing. So much for education minister Alan Tudge saying recently the aim was to get the bill through this year.

There is no sign of the integrity commission legislation, and backbenchers don’t expect it before parliament adjourns next week for the year. The bill for voter ID, still in the lower house, is likely to go to an inquiry even though the government wanted it through by Christmas.

At the regular Coalition parties meeting, Morrison often emphasises the need for unity. On Tuesday he had an especially pointed message about the current fortnight.

“How are you going to leave the scene over the next two weeks?” he asked his troops. “That’s up to you and the choices you make over the next two weeks.

“Look at each other – are we going to leave here at the end of these two weeks stronger and in a stronger position? Supporting those who put us here to ensure that we can stay here and be doing what we pledged for them to do.

“Or we going to leave here having given our political opponents in the Labor Party great courage? Will you put a smile on Labor’s face or a smile on those who want to see us reelected?”

It was the appeal of a leader under pressure, deeply anxious to get back a sense of control.

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. View from The Hill: Scott Morrison warns disorderly troops against putting ‘a smile on Labor’s face’ – https://theconversation.com/view-from-the-hill-scott-morrison-warns-disorderly-troops-against-putting-a-smile-on-labors-face-172423

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

A Labor government would appoint a domestic violence commissioner and provide funds for 500 new community sector workers to help women in crisis.

In an initiative to be announced by Labor leader Anthony Albanese on Wednesday, Labor will undertake that half these extra workers would be in rural and regional areas.

Meanwhile in a late night statement on Tuesday, the government announced it would spend $22.4 million over five years to set up a domestic, family and sexual violence commission to oversee the implementation of the next national plan to end violence against women.

Dealing with domestic violence has proved one of the most intractable policy challenges for federal and state governments, despite the increasing attention that has been given to it in recent years.

On average, one woman is killed each week by a current or former partner, and violence is the leading preventable cause of death, illness and disability for women aged between 15-44.

According to data released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics in June, the number of police-recorded victims of family and domestic violence related sexual assault increased by 13% in 2020.

Thursday is the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.

The extra workers funded by Labor would enable shelters to employ an extra case manager, community organisation to hire a financial counsellor to advise women, and women’s services to take on a support worker to counsel children. The initiative for the workers would cost $153 million over the forward estimates.

The commissioner would “act as a strong voice for victim-survivors”, Labor says.

Read more:
We analysed almost 500,000 police reports of domestic violence. Mental health was an issue

The person would work with federal agencies as well as the states and community organisations to ensure adequate data was available. They would also help with co-ordination of policies and provide accountability and transparency.

Labor’s proposed commissioner follows the National Women’s Safety Summit in September where Prime Minister Scott Morrison acknowledged too many Australian women were not safe.

“It is not a new problem and it is not a simple problem. But Australia does have a problem,” he said.

*If you or someone you know is impacted by family and domestic violence or sexual assault, call 1800RESPECT on 1800 737 732 or visit 1800RESPECT.org.au. In an emergency, call 000.
*

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. Albanese promises commissioner and more workers to deal with domestic violence – https://theconversation.com/albanese-promises-commissioner-and-more-workers-to-deal-with-domestic-violence-172429

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

As well as Michelle Grattan’s usual interviews with experts and politicians about the news of the day, Politics with Michelle Grattan now includes “Word from The Hill”, where all things political will be discussed with members of The Conversation’s politics team.

As parliament is in its final sitting weeks for the year, the religious discrimination bill was put to the coalition party room. Concerns with the bill, to be introduced by Scott Morrison on Tuesday were raised by Liberal moderates. It will be sent to a senate committee and its fate remains up in the air.

Queensland MP Andrew Wallace is the new speaker, and the Opposition was quick to test him out in Tuesday’s question time.

The government will be pushing its legislation for Voter ID during this sitting. But it’s not clear where the numbers lie, with Labor strongly opposing a move that it says will make it harder for the disadvantaged to vote.

The prime minister’s integrity has been again in the spotlight, over a text message he sent to Anthony Albanese when he was on route to Hawaii in 2019 during the bushfires.

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

– ref. Word from The Hill: Christmas can’t come too soon for Morrison – https://theconversation.com/word-from-the-hill-christmas-cant-come-too-soon-for-morrison-172413

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Luke Beck, Associate Professor of Constitutional Law, Monash University

The Morrison government has finally provided details of the third draft of its religious discrimination bill. This prompted heated discussion in a meeting of Coalition MPs on Tuesday, but Prime Minister Scott Morrison still wants to see the bill introduced in this final sitting fortnight of 2021.

What is the bill trying to do? What has changed since the last time we saw it? And will it be enough to satisfy the critics?

Why do we have this bill?

When same-sex marriage was legalised in late 2017, conservative religious groups were promised a “religious freedom” review as a consolation prize. That review, led by former Liberal MP Phillip Ruddock, found Australia does not have a religious freedom problem, but did recommend new legislative protections against religious discrimination. In response, in December 2018, the Morrison government promised a Religious Discrimination Act.

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

Former Attorney-General Christian Porter released a draft religious discrimination bill in late 2019 and a second draft in early 2020.

Both were were roundly criticised. Human rights groups complained the bill weakened other human rights protections and created a licence to discriminate. Conservative groups complained it did not give adequate protections to people of faith.

What’s in the third draft?

Current Attorney-General Michaelia Cash’s third draft is effectively in two parts.

The first part is a legal “shield” protecting people from being discriminated against on the basis of their religion or lack of religion. This isn’t really controversial, as it simply adds religious discrimination to the existing suite of federal race, sex (also covering LGBTQIA+ status), disability and age discrimination laws. All states and territories, other than NSW and South Australia, already have laws prohibiting religious discrimination.

The second part of the bill is a more of a legal “sword” and is more controversial.

Some of the controversial features of earlier drafts, such as the ability of healthcare providers to refuse to provide treatment, are gone. But the current draft still includes a range of provisions overriding federal, state and territory anti-discrimination laws to allow people to be discriminated against.

The right to be a bigot

Perhaps the most controversial aspect of the bill is the “statements of belief” provision. This provision overrides overrides every federal, state and territory anti-discrimination law to make “statements of belief” immune from legal consequences under those laws.

Statements of beliefs are things like comments from a boss to a female employee that “women should not hold leadership positions” or comments from a doctor to a patient that “disability is a punishment for sin”.

In order to gain immunity, the statement has to be a religious belief that the person genuinely considers to be in accordance with the doctrines, tenets, beliefs or teachings of that religion. For non-religious people, the statement has to be of a belief that the person genuinely considers to relate to the fact of not holding a religious belief.

Read more:
Grattan on Friday: Morrison gives religious discrimination bill priority over national integrity commission

There are three limitations. A statement of belief will not be protected if it is malicious, if a reasonable person would consider the statement would threaten, intimidate, harass or vilify a person or group, or if the statement would promote or encourage the commission of an offence punishable by at least two years’ imprisonment.

This is an extraordinary departure from standard practice in federal anti-discrimination law. Standard practice is to ensure state and territory laws are not overridden.

This provision is bad for everyone. It will protect those who are nasty to Christians, as well as those who are nasty to LGBTQIA+ people, women or people with disabilities.

One key change from previous drafts is statements that intimidate will not be protected. Earlier drafts only excluded “serious intimidation”.

A mini Folau clause

Earlier drafts of the bill also included the so-called “Folau clause”, named after the incident in which Israel Folau parted ways with Rugby Australia as a result of comments he posted on social media about gay people. That clause would have made it unlawful for employers to have codes of conduct that limit a person’s ability to make statements of belief. This provision is gone in the current draft.

But there is still a mini Folau clause. Qualifying bodies (like a medical board) that licence professions and occupations are banned from setting professional conduct rules that prohibit making statements of belief, unless compliance with the rule is an essential requirement of the profession, trade or occupation.

So while an employer can discipline an employee for making a statement of belief, a professional association cannot.

‘Preferencing’ with hiring

The bill would mean it is not religious discrimination for bodies such as religious schools, hospitals or aged care facilities to seek to preserve a “religious ethos” among staff by making faith-based decisions in relation to employment.

For example, a Catholic hospital would be able to have a Catholics-only hiring policy. The bill simply requires religious bodies to have publicly available policies if they want to take advantage of this rule.

The bill specifically overrides state and territory anti-discrimination laws to ensure that such “preferencing” in employment is allowed in religious schools, even in those states where this is unlawful.

Constitutional concerns

There are some complex constitutional issues with the bill. Here are three of them:

First, federal parliament might not have constitutional power to enact all parts of the bill. The government says it is relying on the “external affairs power”, which allows federal parliament to pass laws implementing treaty obligations, like article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights about the right to freedom of thought, conscience and belief.

But international human rights law is clear that religious freedom cannot be used to interfere with other rights, which is exactly what some parts of the bill do.

Second, overriding state laws throws the state tribunal systems into an unholy mess. State anti-discrimination cases are usually heard by state tribunals, which are quicker and cheaper than courts. But for constitutional reasons, state tribunals cannot consider federal laws.

If the bill passes, many state anti-discrimination cases will now also involve the federal “statement of belief” exemption, which means these cases will need to be heard by a court. Because court cases are very expensive, it is likely many of these cases simply won’t happen and people who have been discriminated against will be left without a remedy.

Third, the “statement of belief” provision overriding state and territory laws appears to change definitions in those laws rather than simply overriding the operation of those laws. While federal parliament has the power to override the operation of state laws, it does not have power to amend or change the content of those laws.

Where to from here?

Recent indications are the bill will be referred to a Senate inquiry – as per the normal process for an important piece of legislation.

If that happens, there’s almost no chance of a vote on the bill this year and the heated debate will continue.

But given the ongoing complexities and far-reaching consequences of the bill a proper Senate investigation is essential.

Luke Beck is a member of the Australian Labor Party and is on the board of the Rationalist Society of Australia Inc. This article reflects only his personal views.

– ref. Third time lucky? What has changed in the latest draft of the religious discrimination bill? – https://theconversation.com/third-time-lucky-what-has-changed-in-the-latest-draft-of-the-religious-discrimination-bill-172386

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Victoria Stead, Senior Research Fellow, Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation, Deakin University

The Australian government has announced a major change to its arrangements for migrant workers from Pacific Island nations (and Timor-Leste), replacing two existing temporary visa schemes with a single scheme, to be known as the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility (PALM) scheme.

The consolidated scheme will come into effect in April 2022. It will replace the Seasonal Worker Programme, which has provided visas of six to nine months’ duration to meet employer needs for “unskilled” labour, mostly in farm harvesting work, and the Pacific Labour Scheme, which has provided visas of one to three years for “low-skilled” and “semi-skilled” workers in rural and regional areas.

The consolidation, announced today, comes at time when farmers are crying out for more workers while industry and government are under pressure to address structural issues in the existing schemes that have enabled worker mistreatment and wage theft.

The PALM scheme seems partly designed to respond to these criticisms. The press release issued by foreign minister Marise Payne and minister for the Pacific Zed Seselja contains vaguely framed assurances of “enhanced worker protections”, including a “compliance and assurance program” (details unknown).

But much clearer is how the scheme will address long-running employer concerns about the existing schemes, by cutting down the paper work and requirements to show they have been unable to fill positions with local workers before applying to recruit migrant workers.

“Flexibility” is the buzzword here – though more for employers than workers.

What ‘labour mobility’ means

Back in 2017, pre-pandemic, I sat in a forum hosted by a labour hire agency in the middle of a picking season in north-central Victoria. Speaking to room full of farmers, the agency’s representative talked about how backpackers would leave farms if they weren’t getting paid enough. “This is a challenge”, the representative said. The farmers nodded in agreement.

Farmers I’ve interviewed then and since describe their frustrations with spending days getting a group of workers up to speed, only to have them leave.

This is one reason employers like the Seasonal Worker Programme, which ties the visa holder to the sponsoring employer (typically a labour hire agency). As a packing-shed manager put it:

We can get a group of staff and know that they can’t actually go and work anywhere else.

For workers though, this tying of visas to a particular employer has been one of the key problems with the existing Pacific worker visa schemes. It limits workers’ ability to complain about exploitative treatment or to leave and find more favourable work.

While the details of the new scheme are sparse, it seems the PALM scheme won’t substantially change this control mechanism.

The “labour mobility” being delivered is not the worker’s choice, but movement between employers “in response to workforce demand”.

That is, where employers struggle to provide the minimum average of 30 hours of work a week required, they (or more likely, the labour hire agencies managing their workforce) will be able to move workers between employers.

Read more:
Australia needs better working conditions, not shaming, for Pacific Islander farm workers

Flexibility for employers

This kind of increased flexibility has already been instituted under pandemic revisions to the Seasonal Worker Programme rules. Worker “consent” will be required for these moves, but this is hardly the same as allowing workers the capacity to instigate changes of employers themselves.

Thus, while the changes will likely yield some improvements for workers – through reducing situations in which they remain stuck with farmers who have run out of enough work for them – they won’t address the fundamental power disparity embedded in these schemes.

Another change with PALM will be the capacity for seasonal workers to apply for longer-term visas – up to four years. This too sounds promising. But the framing of the changes again suggests the balance of power will remain firmly with employers.

Workers will be able to apply for these longer-term visas only once they are Australia, and only if recommended by their employers. This will replicate the vulnerability in the existing schemes, by which workers’ chances of staying in the country or qualifying for a future visa are often contingent on the whims of their employer. It’s a powerful disincentive against complaint.

Read more:
If Australia cares about Pacific nations, we should also invest in their care givers

Still a recipe for precarious work

Strengthening worker protections would involve giving workers increased control over the conditions of their labour, and rights not contingent on their employer’s approval.

So what are the strengthened protections for workers under the new scheme? There is little detail beyond generalised references to “welfare and cultural expertise”, “community connections” and “maintaining the paramount importance of worker wellbeing”.

The most concrete change described is establishing a “24/7 helpline” for migrant workers. Exactly what help this will provide remains unclear. A helpline might assist workers facing illegal exploitation. It won’t help much with the unfairness produced by the system working exactly as intended.

With so little detail, the full implications of the new scheme are impossible to gauge. At this point, notwithstanding some nods to worker protection, it looks to be largely a continuation of established patterns, with intensified “flexibility” for industry – a recipe for precarious employment.

Victoria Stead receives funding from the Australian Research Council (grant ID DE180101224)

– ref. New Pacific Australia Labour Mobility scheme offers more flexibility … for employers – https://theconversation.com/new-pacific-australia-labour-mobility-scheme-offers-more-flexibility-for-employers-172385

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Janet McCalman AC, Emeritus Redmond Barry Distinguished Professor, The University of Melbourne

Stuart Macintyre has gone. To those whose lives touched his, an Australian history community without him seems hugely empty.

For almost half a century he was there in the lives and work of his students, his colleagues, his comrades and his friends. He was one of those commanding people against whom others measure their ideas, their work and their politics. He has gone far too early, but he has left an extraordinary legacy.

He was assiduous. He always answered letters and later, emails, immediately. He was a close and constructive critic of his students’ work and a dedicated supervisor. While he taught general Australian history, many will remember his classes on the working class in history and literature with deep pleasure. As an academic leader he was assured. As a historian in the public realm, he was an unrelenting defender of good scholarship and academic freedom.

He was the prime target of the conservatives in the history wars and condemned as a partisan scholar by other frankly partisan scholars , but I remember well his generous reconciliation with Geoffrey Blainey some years later. He was a history warrior for the discipline of history.

Read more:
The past is not sacred: the ‘history wars’ over Anzac

He had deep feelings: for his family and friends, his heritage, his institutions, his comrades, and for a fairer world. He took a not uncommon path from Scotch College to the Communist Party. On leaving the Party, he remained its best historian and his final work, the second volume of that history, is just about to be released : he lived just long enough to complete it despite withering chemotherapy.

Prodigious productivity

But his public legacy will be the books. His productivity was prodigious, and many have been not a little envious. But again, that productivity came from his assiduousness: sitting down every night he was home to write for two hours. He had, like many great historians, a highly retentive memory and an epic collection of books that he had actually read. For everyone it was “ask Stuart” and Stuart would know.

That command of detail, and the years in the archives, made him our greatest historian of politics and society from the late 19th century to the present day.

He was fascinated by political actors, largely male because of the times, and he probed character, ideas and actions forensically. They were not all “great men”, but they were powerful and influential figures from all sides of politics.

He opened his volume for the Oxford History of Australia — The Succeeding Age, 1901-1942 — with portraits of five Australians: one of them the tycoon father of a distinguished politician who became a baron; another Australia’s finest lyric poet labouring in heartbreak land, forever longing for the lovely woman he was too poor and sick to marry; a working man who became a man of substance; a poor woman beset by loss and poverty and an Aboriginal stockman forced to straddle his traditional world and working for rations for whites.

That was Stuart’s Australia – winners and losers (the title of an early book), the strugglers against an unforgiving land, tossed about in the great seas of history: booms and busts, natural disasters and the persistent structures of inequality that mocked Australia’s myth of egalitarianism.

Stuart was one of the few who could write national history, who commanded the detail and nuances that made an uneasy federation of colonies into a nation, who recognised the distinctive as well as the common in the Australian experience. And he understood as no other scholar, the institutions that bound the Commonwealth or defined the various states and territories.

His books began with the study of British Marxism A Proletarian Science (1980), the subject of his Cambridge doctorate and the grounding of his mastery of Marxist thought. He wrote on colonial liberalism, the Labor Party, the Council for Civil Liberties and collaborated on a wide range of works with both scholars and journalists, catalysing debate on history, politics and institutions in the public domain.

He was dedicated to the mission of teaching civics in Australian schools. And he wrote on the history and place of the social sciences in Australia.

His greatest work is arguably his penultimate monograph: Australia’s Boldest Experiment: war and reconstruction in the 1940s (published in 2015). It promises to be his most influential because for our own time of existential crisis, he shows how Labor prime ministers, John Curtin and Ben Chifley, advised by the brilliant public servant Dr H.C. Coombs, began building modern Australia amidst the stringencies of war: to win the peace as well as the war.

It is a book about political vision and moral courage, and it is now the bible of the Albanese Labor Party. Macintyre’s greatest legacy may yet be written in a better Australia, and it’s the one that would please him most.

Janet McCalman AC 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. Vale Stuart Macintyre: a history warrior who worked for a better Australia – https://theconversation.com/vale-stuart-macintyre-a-history-warrior-who-worked-for-a-better-australia-172394

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By D. Bondy Valdovinos Kaye, Assistant researcher, Queensland University of Technology

Adele’s long awaited, newly released fourth studio album, 30 was guaranteed to make waves in the international music scene as Adele’s first full-length record in over six years. This week it made the news for a different reason.

In response to Adele’s request, Spotify has hidden the shuffle button from all albums accessed via the streaming music platform. In a viral tweet immediately following the release of “30”, Adele commented “We don’t create albums with so much care and thought into our track listing for no reason… our art tells a story and our stories should be listened to as we intended. Thank you Spotify for listening.”

To which Spotify’s official Twitter account responded, “Anything for you.”

The move is likely to be well-received by Adele’s popstar peers, such as Lady Gaga who implored the public listen to her album Chromatica start to finish when it released in 2020.

Shuffle away

Spotify’s shuffle button randomises songs. It is neither new nor unique. In the early 1980s, shuffle was available on CD players and MP3 players. It served as a staple for Spotify’s largest competitor Apple, via iTunes and long-forgotten devices such as the iPod and iPod shuffle.

Shuffle is essentially a random number generator that picks the next songs based on chance. The problem is true randomness means the same song might sometimes play repeatedly. In 2014, Spotify tweaked their algorithm to make shuffle seem more random.

Read more:
Mood, music and money: what our Spotify playlists reveal about the emotional nature of financial markets

Shuffle is still available on Spotify for playlists, but users must now access it via a menu when listening to albums as opposed to having the option right next to the play button. A statement from Spotify hailed their “new premium feature […] to make play the default button on all albums”. This change applies to all albums, not just Adele’s 30, and features on both mobile and desktop versions of Spotify.

Spotify has faced dissatisfaction and criticism from musicians who decry the appalling low streaming payout rates to artists, and academics who raise concerns over the platform’s lack of transparency around data.

But Spotify has rarely changed course in response to critique – yet Spotify willingly removed the feature from album pages upon Adele’s request to preserve the continuity of her album – a sign of the artist’s immense clout.

The album is not dead

Spotify’s decision to hide the shuffle button contrasts accusations that Spotify is responsible for “killing” the musical album as we once knew it.

As the largest music streaming service by paid subscription, Spotify is a powerful force in the global music industry. Artists, labels and production companies have taken note from Spotify as to what works and doesn’t work on a music streaming platform.

Though revenues from streaming are far lower than purchases or individual downloads, superstar artists like Drake have taken advantage of streaming services to garner billions of streams that pay out millions of dollars in revenue.

Even so, the numbers are underwhelming for mid-tier and independent artists. According to Digital Music News a niche EDM artist who managed the impressive feat of having listeners stream their music one million times over four months only generated about US$5,000 (A$6,924) in 2013.

One important issue is curated playlists. Much like radio stations, Spotify features playlists of the top charting songs in various regions, but unlike radio stations Spotify has a vast library of playlists to match every genre, mood, and moment handpicked by curators or created and shared by other users.

Producing “playlistable” songs that are more likely to be placed on a popular genre or mood playlist is now a crucial strategy to build a following, attract labels and earn a living in music – but doing so comes at a cost. Orphan songs separated on a playlist from their album will not be experienced as part of a story in the context as artists like Adele intended.

The imperative to create popular singles is not new, the music industry is and has been centred around the hits, but the shifting logic of digital music streaming puts pressure on artists to examine carefully the cost and benefits of creating longer form art.

Read more:
The music industry is booming and can afford to give artists a fairer deal

Beginning in 2014, Billboard started calculating album equivalent units, or the number of streams that would count as one album sale when determining an album’s position on Billboard Charts. Having more songs on an album means more streams, which could translate to a higher chart position. It also means more money.

Artists have released longer albums, such as Kanye West’s recent album Donda (Deluxe) with a track listing topping 30 songs. This strategy could be seen to lead to more padding and fewer hits, ultimately diluting powerful records with bland or forgettable tunes, “as if artists are curating playlists rather than crafting cohesive projects”, according to this VICE article.

Adele’s insistence on the importance of streaming the twelve tracks on 30 in their proper order, and Spotify’s capitulation to her request, will resonate with artists who have been urged by labels, publishers, or the industry writ large to create “playlistable” singles or lengthier albums.

Long live the album

The death of the album has been forecast for over a decade and streaming services like Spotify have been one of the many potential culprits blamed. Yet artists are still releasing full, artistically realised albums in 2021.

In 2015, I released an album with my band on streaming services including Spotify and Apple. My band-mates and I experienced firsthand the time and expenses needed to produce a full-length original album. We agonised over the track listing and waited until the full album was finished before we released any of our songs.

Six years later, I fully agree with Adele. I prefer to listen to my album in its intended order and I hope others will too. Like me, the average artist lacks Adele’s persuasive influence to change the design of a major music streaming platform in order to tell a more cohesive musical story.

But that’s exactly what Adele and Spotify have done. Now you are encouraged to stream 30 by Adele in the order the artist intended.

D. Bondy Valdovinos Kaye is the drummer and co-songwriter for Parallel Path.

– ref. Adele has successfully asked Spotify to remove ‘shuffle’ from albums. Here’s why that’s important for musicians – https://theconversation.com/adele-has-successfully-asked-spotify-to-remove-shuffle-from-albums-heres-why-thats-important-for-musicians-172301

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

The good news is supposed to be that when the government gets out of the way “can-do capitalism” will have us roaring back to where we were before.

That’s the prime minister’s newest slogan, and we had better hope for more.

The unpleasant truth is that before the pandemic Australia’s economy was disturbingly and unusually weak. Can-do capitalism wasn’t doing what it should.

Reserve Bank chief economist Luci Ellis put it this way a few days after Morrison talked about freeing the engines of the economy to do their work.

In the decade or so leading up to the pandemic, there was a nagging sense that these engines of prosperity were running out of steam – investment was low, productivity growth was lagging, and many of the behaviours we associate with business dynamism were on the decline.

Outside of mining, business investment had been shrinking as a share of the economy for more than a decade.

Private non-mining business investment, share of nominal GDP

Outside of the ride-share industry, fewer businesses were being created and fewer businesses destroyed.

“For all the talk of disruption, the overall sense one gets from the data is of a bit less dynamism or inclination to shake things up,” Ellis said.

And we were in the middle of a “great resignation” of a different kind to the departures from jobs being seen in the United States.

Australians were increasingly resigned to staying in the jobs they had. Job switching had sunk to all-time lows.

Proportion of employed Australians who switched jobs during the year

In short, despite technological revolutions, despite a government saying it was getting out of the way, and despite record low interest rates that made it cheap to invest and expand, in the lead-up to COVID-19 businesses weren’t doing that. By the time the pandemic arrived, annual economic growth had slid to 2.1%.

Government hasn’t been holding business back

One thing Ellis says can’t explain the pre-pandemic reluctance of businesses to invest is government regulation pushing up costs. She says if costs had been rising, inflation wouldn’t have fallen to near record lows.

And if labour costs had been rising, wage growth wouldn’t have fallen to unprecedented lows, and firms would have been investing more in machines to replace workers.

Businesses themselves have been unusually cautious

There’s evidence to suggest that in the decade since the global financial crisis Australian (and other) firms have become more risk-averse.

Instead of falling with the falling cost of borrowing, the “hurdle” rates of return that businesses tell the Reserve Bank they require in order to justify investments have remained stubbornly high.

It’s a “won’t do” rather than a “can do” mindset, and Ellis says it might be because Australian managers don’t want to be associated with projects that fail, or because their firms have only limited management capacities and don’t want to commit to projects in case better ones come along.

Except for some firms

Her most intriguing suggestion is that some firms are market leaders at installing new technologies (especially those driven by artificial intelligence) – so much so that their competitors can’t catch up.

Tip Top Bakeries produces more than one million loaves of bread a day and delivers to more than 18,000 locations Australia-wide.

It used to send out its trucks in hub-and-spoke patterns using schedules drawn up by humans.

Since it began using artificial intelligence and machine learning to route trucks in configurations no human would have thought of, it has cut its distribution costs 14% and lifted its gross profit after distribution 7%.

Ellis makes the point that, unlike earlier technological innovations such as laptops and spreadsheets, artificial intelligence and machine learning are actually harder to use and require a rarer set of skills than the technologies they are replacing.

It is not just an issue of having enough people with PhD-level skills to design the algorithms, Ellis says. Even rarer is the wisdom and judgment to know when the algorithms are going wrong.

Read more:
If you’re preparing students for 21st century jobs, you’re behind the times

The few “superstar” firms that adopt the new technologies (such as Woolworths with its fully automated distribution centre) are becoming able to do things their smaller competitors cannot, locking those lesser firms into a “low-wage, low-investment groove”.

Ellis cites evidence that the spread of technological knowledge has slowed, leading to a “winner-takes-all world” of increasing industry concentration.

It might still be possible to convince a lender you’ll be Australia’s next big thing in an industry with a market leader, but it’s getting harder.

‘Can-do capitalism’ needs help

The third possible explanation advanced by Ellis for the growth of the “think carefully before attempting” mindset over the past decade is in sharp contrast to Morrison’s distinction between “can-do capitalism” and “don’t-do governments”.

It’s to do with long-term cycles.

When conditions are weak, Ellis says, firms focus on defending what they’ve got instead of pursuing new opportunities.

We’ve been in that cycle for a decade, possibly made worse by governments withdrawing support in order to get nearer to balancing their budgets.

Now that governments are spending big and abandoning caution to fight the pandemic there’s a chance the cycle will turn.

It would be great if she turns out to be right.

If she is, it won’t be because the prime minister was right. It’ll be because business needed a leg-up.

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

– ref. ‘Can-do capitalism’ is delivering less than it used to. Here are 3 reasons why – https://theconversation.com/can-do-capitalism-is-delivering-less-than-it-used-to-here-are-3-reasons-why-172376

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christopher Ziguras, Professor of Global Studies, RMIT University

Fully vaccinated international students from around the world will be allowed into Australia from next week, without needing to apply for a travel exemption. Prime Minister Scott Morrison made the announcement yesterday.

Although university bodies such as Universities Australia and the Group of Eight welcomed the announcement, sources in the higher education sector have said they were blindsided by it and are now scrambling to update their plans.

States in confusion

Prior to the prime minister’s announcement, only small numbers of students had been able to apply for a travel exemption to enter the country. They included research students with Australian government funding, medical, dental, nursing or allied health students who would undertake work placements, and secondary school students in years 11 and 12.

This announcement is a major change from less than a month ago when it was still unclear how and when the over 145,000 international student visa holders would be be able to enter Australia.

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

On October 15, New South Wales Premier Dominic Perrottet announced quarantine restrictions would be scrapped from November 1 for all fully vaccinated international arrivals to the state. But the prime minister slammed the brakes on the NSW plan to open up to the world, saying:

The federal government is not opening it up to anyone other than Australian residents and citizens and their immediate families.

Such confusion put states in a difficult position. Before Morrison’s announcement yesterday, NSW and Victoria – the states hosting the most international students – both developed pilot programs to return international students. The NSW plan was to allow up to 250 international students studying with state education providers to return each fortnight from early December 2021. That figure would increase to 500 students per fortnight by the end of the year.

Victoria’s proposal would at first allow 120 currently enrolled students nominated by universities to enter the state each week. Numbers would be expanded to more students and other providers over time.

Universities in both states had been working frantically to organise details such as prioritising students selected for the programs and chartered flights. The Commonwealth’s dropping of restrictions on international travel now seems to have superseded these pilot plans.

Read more:
The government keeps shelving plans to bring international students back to Australia. It owes them an explanation

This will probably mean the caps of 250 per fortnight in NSW and 120 per week for Victoria will no longer be in place.

The only aspects of the pilot programs in NSW and Victoria likely to remain could be the already organised chartered flights. These will slightly ease the burden on commercial airlines, which may need more time to ensure capacity.

The University of Sydney has updated its information, saying:

The […] pilot program will continue as planned, with the University providing a supported return program for current students who are eligible and choose to participate. The first charter flight of international students is due to arrive on 6 December 2021. Eligible students will be contacted directly as more flights are announced.

However, most of the states’ universities have not yet updated their plans.

Different rules for different states

Both NSW and Victoria had already scrapped their quarantine requirements for fully vaccinated arrivals. But international students entering other states may still face a range of restrictions. In the case of Queensland this includes having to pay for a mandatory two-week stay in an isolated quarantine facility.

Entering Western Australia may be impossible altogether, given the state’s plan to ease border controls only once a 90% two-dose vaccination target is achieved.

It’s also important to note international student pilot programs were restricted to universities, where only around half of all international students`are enrolled. The latest announcement now means students in other kinds of international education, such as the vocational education and training sector and English language courses, can start arriving.

It’s unclear, however, what the announcement means for international school students, as those under 18 are less likely to be vaccinated.

Under the new arrangements to begin from December 1, travellers must:

• depart from their home country
• be fully vaccinated with a completed dosage of a vaccine approved or recognised by the TGA
• hold a valid Australian visa
• provide proof of their vaccination status
• present a negative COVID-19 PCR test taken within three days of departure.

Eligible visa holders include skilled and student cohorts, as well as humanitarian, working holidaymaker and provisional family visa holders.

Read more:
As hopes of international students’ return fade, closed borders could cost $20bn a year in 2022 – half the sector’s value

School students are more likely to be interested in coming early in the next year anyway. But international tertiary students could be interested in arriving soon to work here over the summer, given Australia’s skill shortages in industries that commonly employ them – such as hospitality.

The big question now is how long it will take airlines to ramp up to full capacity. In pre-COVID times, this would have been a walk in the park. There were 21.3 million international arrivals in Australia in 2019, or around 1.8 million inbound passengers per month.

In October, the International Air Transport Association estimated international air travel is at only 40% of pre-COVID levels in 2021. It may take a long time to reach pre-COVID levels again, but at least we’re on our way.

Read more:
As international students start trickling back, the new year will be crunch time

Christopher Ziguras is past President of the International Education Association of Australia and has had a role as the Association’s Research Director.

– ref. Morrison’s opening of the door to international students leaves many in the sector blindsided and scrambling to catch up – https://theconversation.com/morrisons-opening-of-the-door-to-international-students-leaves-many-in-the-sector-blindsided-and-scrambling-to-catch-up-172382

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christopher Ziguras, Professor of Global Studies, RMIT University

Fully vaccinated international students from around the world will be allowed into Australia from next week, without needing to apply for a travel exemption. Prime Minister Scott Morrison made the announcement yesterday.

Although university bodies such as Universities Australia and the Group of Eight welcomed the announcement, sources in the higher education sector have said they were blindsided by it and are now scrambling to update their plans.

States in confusion

Prior to the prime minister’s announcement, only small numbers of students had been able to apply for a travel exemption to enter the country. They included research students with Australian government funding, medical, dental, nursing or allied health students who would undertake work placements, and secondary school students in years 11 and 12.

This announcement is a major change from less than a month ago when it was still unclear how and when the over 145,000 international student visa holders would be be able to enter Australia.

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

On October 15, New South Wales Premier Dominic Perrottet announced quarantine restrictions would be scrapped from November 1 for all fully vaccinated international arrivals to the state. But the prime minister slammed the brakes on the NSW plan to open up to the world, saying:

The federal government is not opening it up to anyone other than Australian residents and citizens and their immediate families.

Such confusion put states in a difficult position. Before Morrison’s announcement yesterday, NSW and Victoria – the states hosting the most international students – both developed pilot programs to return international students. The NSW plan was to allow up to 250 international students studying with state education providers to return each fortnight from early December 2021. That figure would increase to 500 students per fortnight by the end of the year.

Victoria’s proposal would at first allow 120 currently enrolled students nominated by universities to enter the state each week. Numbers would be expanded to more students and other providers over time.

Universities in both states had been working frantically to organise details such as prioritising students selected for the programs and chartered flights. The Commonwealth’s dropping of restrictions on international travel now seems to have superseded these pilot plans.

Read more:
The government keeps shelving plans to bring international students back to Australia. It owes them an explanation

This will probably mean the caps of 250 per fortnight in NSW and 120 per week for Victoria will no longer be in place.

The only aspects of the pilot programs in NSW and Victoria likely to remain could be the already organised chartered flights. These will slightly ease the burden on commercial airlines, which may need more time to ensure capacity.

The University of Sydney has updated its information, saying:

The […] pilot program will continue as planned, with the University providing a supported return program for current students who are eligible and choose to participate. The first charter flight of international students is due to arrive on 6 December 2021. Eligible students will be contacted directly as more flights are announced.

However, most of the states’ universities have not yet updated their plans.

Different rules for different states

Both NSW and Victoria had already scrapped their quarantine requirements for fully vaccinated arrivals. But international students entering other states may still face a range of restrictions. In the case of Queensland this includes having to pay for a mandatory two-week stay in an isolated quarantine facility.

Entering Western Australia may be impossible altogether, given the state’s plan to ease border controls only once a 90% two-dose vaccination target is achieved.

It’s also important to note international student pilot programs were restricted to universities, where only around half of all international students`are enrolled. The latest announcement now means students in other kinds of international education, such as the vocational education and training sector and English language courses, can start arriving.

It’s unclear, however, what the announcement means for international school students, as those under 18 are less likely to be vaccinated.

Under the new arrangements to begin from December 1, travellers must:

• depart from their home country
• be fully vaccinated with a completed dosage of a vaccine approved or recognised by the TGA
• hold a valid Australian visa
• provide proof of their vaccination status
• present a negative COVID-19 PCR test taken within three days of departure.

Eligible visa holders include skilled and student cohorts, as well as humanitarian, working holidaymaker and provisional family visa holders.

Read more:
As hopes of international students’ return fade, closed borders could cost $20bn a year in 2022 – half the sector’s value

School students are more likely to be interested in coming early in the next year anyway. But international tertiary students could be interested in arriving soon to work here over the summer, given Australia’s skill shortages in industries that commonly employ them – such as hospitality.

The big question now is how long it will take airlines to ramp up to full capacity. In pre-COVID times, this would have been a walk in the park. There were 21.3 million international arrivals in Australia in 2019, or around 1.8 million inbound passengers per month.

In October, the International Air Transport Association estimated international air travel is at only 40% of pre-COVID levels in 2021. It may take a long time to reach pre-COVID levels again, but at least we’re on our way.

Read more:
As international students start trickling back, the new year will be crunch time

Christopher Ziguras is past President of the International Education Association of Australia and has had a role as the Association’s Research Director.

– ref. Morrison’s opening of the door to international students left many in the sector blindsided and scrambling to catch up – https://theconversation.com/morrisons-opening-of-the-door-to-international-students-left-many-in-the-sector-blindsided-and-scrambling-to-catch-up-172382

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Bruce Thompson, Professor and Dean of the School of Health Sciences, Swinburne University of Technology

There were fears at the beginning of the COVID pandemic that people with asthma would fare much worse than those without it. Intuitively, a disease that attacks the lungs should put asthma sufferers at much greater risk.

But this hasn’t been borne out.

Firstly, it’s turned out people with asthma are at slightly lower risk of acquiring COVID, being hospitalised with it or indeed dying from it compared to people without asthma. Though, someone with asthma who is hospitalised with COVID is slightly more likely to require ICU admission.

In addition, asthma attack rates have substantially reduced in many parts of the world.

What explains this?

Asthma sufferers aren’t getting sicker from COVID

Asthma is an umbrella term for a range of diseases of the airways, which have similar outcomes – constriction of the airways causing difficulty breathing. In some forms of asthma the constriction is a result of inflammation, or rash, within the lung.

Many people with asthma take asthma preventers, which are a type of steroid drug we lung experts call “inhaled corticosteroids”. These drugs reduce the amount of inflammation in the lungs.

Interestingly, another steroid, dexamethasone, is being used as a treatment for COVID for this same reason.

Read more:
Dexamethasone: the cheap, old and boring drug that’s a potential coronavirus treatment

Asthmatics might be inadvertently reducing the risk of severe COVID if they contract it by regularly using their preventers, because they are “pre-treated” if you like.

Indeed some preventers are thought to be “anti SARS-CoV-2”, that is, they have some ability to kill the virus that causes COVID.

What’s more, some good evidence from Australia demonstrates that patients with asthma have decreased “ACE2 gene expression”. ACE2 is the point of entry for the SARS-CoV-2 virus to get into our cells.

If you have less ACE2 then there are fewer gateways for the virus to enter our cells, and there’s less opportunity for the infection to take hold.

Read more:
What is the ACE2 receptor, how is it connected to coronavirus and why might it be key to treating COVID-19? The experts explain

Why have asthma attacks declined?

There a number of possible reasons why asthma attacks have declined.

Asthma is a chronic condition which can flare up when sufferers are exposed to their “triggers”. Common ones are pollens, chemicals, dust mites, pets, mould, smoke, or viruses.

Social distancing and locking down millions of people around the world has been a real time case study in what staying at home would do to asthma rates.

Because people in lockdown go outside a lot less, it could reduce their exposure to pollen and other allergens and irritants outdoors such as smoke, thereby reducing asthma attacks.

What’s more, social distancing and lockdowns also significantly reduce the number of interactions between people, thereby reducing the spread of infectious diseases. We’ve been able to reduce COVID cases this way, and flu cases too.

In 2019, there were 302,084 flu cases notified to health departments in Australia. And that was with a significant proportion of the population vaccinated.

In 2021, up to November 7, there have been just 598 flu cases.

Along with this, we can presume there have been far fewer common colds and other types of infectious diseases.

Viruses can cause asthma flare ups, which is known by lung experts as “viral exacerbation of asthma”. So fewer people with colds and the flu could also contribute to lower asthma attack rates.

There have also been reports of fewer people seeking medical care for fear of contracting COVID in health-care settings, which may be another reason for fewer people seeking care for asthma.

What will happen to asthma post-COVID?

We’re used to tolerating a certain level of many infectious diseases in the community, particularly things like common colds, strep throat, even glandular fever and the flu.

For many of us, this is no big deal and the only effects are feeling not great for a few days or weeks of the year.

But for many others, these sorts of common infectious illnesses can be deadly. Think about someone with cystic fibrosis, which severely damages the lungs and digestive system. If they get a cold or the flu, it can seriously knock them around, or even kill them. Same with someone who takes medications to depress their immune system, for example people with rheumatoid arthritis.

These infections result in many hospitalisations, which puts pressure on the whole hospital system.

From COVID, we know there are simple measures we can take to substantially reduce the transmission of these seemingly “benign” diseases, including wearing masks, not going to work or socialising when you’re sick, and washing/sanitising your hands regularly.

We’ve reached the milestone of having more than 80% of Australians over 16 fully vaccinated against COVID, and international travel is resuming. Returning travellers are likely to bring with them new flu strains that we’re totally unprepared for.

Usually flu vaccines for Australia are designed to tackle strains from the Northern Hemisphere winter so we’re prepared for when the new strain arrives in our winter.

But there has been such little flu overseas, and with the understandable focus on COVID, our vaccines for flu and other existing conditions may need to be revisited.

Not revisiting existing vaccines for flu and other previously common conditions may lead to a wave of flu and many other diseases, given we’ll have limited immunity to them.

So we may soon see asthma attacks take off again, exacerbated by viruses.

Bruce Thompson receives research funding from the NHMRC, is immediate past president of the Thoracic Society of Australia and New Zealand and has received speaker fees from GSK, Mundipharma, Chiesi and Astra Zeneca.

– ref. We expected people with asthma to fare worse during COVID. Turns out they’ve had a break – https://theconversation.com/we-expected-people-with-asthma-to-fare-worse-during-covid-turns-out-theyve-had-a-break-165730

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nathan Cooper, Associate Professor of Law, University of Waikato

Like other countries, New Zealand has both international and domestic targets to reduce emissions, but they run on different timelines and are based on different assumptions.

This week, public submissions close on New Zealand’s first emissions reduction plan which proposes policies for staying within the emissions budget for 2022-25 and keeping on track for future budgets.

New Zealand also pledged to cut emissions by half by 2030 when it announced its upgraded nationally determined contribution (NDC) during the recent COP26 climate summit. This is part of the global effort, under the Paris Agreement, to limit warming to 1.5℃ above pre-industrial levels.

The co-existence of international commitments, domestic laws and carbon budgets shows how complex climate change regulation is. This complexity can be confusing. It highlights the “messiness” of New Zealand’s current regulatory regime and the need for a legislative “tidy-up”.

Under domestic legislation, the Climate Change Response Act 2002 (CCRA) requires the government to set emissions budgets for five-year periods up to 2050 and to publish an emissions reduction plan for each period. Following the current consultation period, the government will release its first emissions reduction plan in May.

New Zealand’s new international pledge has a timeline to 2030 and equates to an emissions budget of 571 Megatons of CO₂-equivalent (MtCO₂e) to “spend” between now and then. Under the domestic climate change law, the proposed combined budgets for 2022-30 add up to 28MtCO₂e more than this (599MtCO₂e).

It’s not yet clear whether the budgets in the law will be revised down in light of the new NDC, or whether the gap will be filled by financing emissions reductions overseas.

Read more:
COP26: New Zealand’s new climate pledge is a step up, but not a ‘fair share’

Different timelines add to the confusion. Our international commitment works towards 2030, while domestically, provisional budgets are already available until 2035. And the Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Act 2019 requires that greenhouse gas emissions (other than biogenic methane) reach net zero by 2050.

Better alignment, clearer message

Once released, the consequences of the emissions reduction plan will be wide ranging. Stakeholders in all sectors will look to incorporate its emissions reduction policies.

Unless everyone clearly understands its goals and purpose, the plan risks an unnecessarily negative reception. There is widespread public support for more action on climate change mitigation in New Zealand. But the roles everyone can play must be made clear.

Read more:
Lawyers challenge New Zealand’s proposed emissions budgets as inconsistent with the 1.5℃ goal

The emissions reduction plan provides an opportunity to rethink how the law could better align national and international targets, timelines and milestones to improve the clarity of messaging on what must be achieved, when and by who.

Aotearoa’s emissions reduction plan must be clear, innovative and inclusive, directing public concern for the “climate emergency” and showing us where real change is possible.

Clear, innovative and inclusive

There’s no need for fresh legislation if the emissions reduction plan begins with a vision statement, weaving together all relevant obligations, to create a clear and measurable set of goals. The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals provide a good example of how complex goals can be articulated simply, and how targets and indicators can be used to add detail and help track progress.

The emissions reduction plan should be launched as a “living document” which not only sets out a plan of action but also acts as a place to track progress, and to get involved. It should make full use of interactive tools and apps so it becomes something people can easily navigate and interact with.

For example, in the transport sector, one of the draft targets is to reduce vehicle kilometres travelled by cars and light vehicles by 20% by 2035 through providing better travel options. Such a target could link directly to individually tailored options for car sharing and public transport timetables and could include opportunities for users to set their own goals and challenges, too.

Reducing emissions significantly, and transitioning towards a net-zero carbon economy, offers a host of opportunities. But the scale of change required also carries risk. Consultation begins next year on a national adaptation plan, with the goal of limiting the risks to people.

Lessons from other examples

The government has already committed to delivering a “fair, equitable and inclusive transition”. For this to happen, all sectors must be involved and it will require a mix of emissions pricing, well-targeted regulation, tailored sectoral policies, direct investment and incentives for businesses.

Getting the balance right, in particular between incentives and regulation, will be crucial. Private sector leadership should be encouraged and supported so that low-emissions business models become normalised. But we’ll also need regulation to prohibit certain behaviour.

The recently announced ban on most single-use plastics, including plastic bags and straws, is a good example of regulatory intervention to change harmful consumer behaviour. The emissions reduction plan should not shy away from similar policies to address the ecologically destructive behaviour of industry and consumers.

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

– ref. New Zealand’s climate change regulation is messy and complex — here’s how to improve it – https://theconversation.com/new-zealands-climate-change-regulation-is-messy-and-complex-heres-how-to-improve-it-172231

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Ha, Associate, Grattan Institute

The international climate summit in Glasgow aimed to “consign coal power to history”. But while some major coal-consuming countries have agreed to phase out the fossil fuel in the 2030s, Australia is not one of them.

Under its recently released plan to reach net-zero emissions by 2050, the federal government modelled a scenario where the electricity sector still burns coal in 2050 – but only a very small amount.

Despite the federal government’s insistence on keeping coal alive, the states are making progress phasing it out. But a messy, state-by-state approach is almost certainly a higher-cost outcome for consumers than if Australia had a credible, enduring climate and energy policy at the national level.

As recent Grattan Institute analysis finds, if the phase out of coal is managed well, we can keep the lights on and slash emissions at low cost.

Coal economics don’t suit today’s grid

Australia exports far more coal than we consume. But we still have 25 gigawatts of coal-fired power stations, 23 of which produce power for the National Electricity Market (the NEM). These coal-fired power stations are ageing – two-thirds of this capacity is scheduled to close by 2040.

Market conditions are making it hard for these plants to stay profitable, as renewable energy has flooded into the NEM in recent years. Rooftop solar has dramatically cut demand for grid-electricity in the middle of the day, effectively eating coal’s lunch.

Read more:
COP26: the Glasgow climate summit demonstrates an appetite for change Australia simply can’t ignore

On days with abundant wind and sunshine, wholesale electricity prices routinely drop so low they become negative, financially penalising any generators making power at those times.

What’s more, coal-fired power stations are less flexible than batteries, hydroelectric dams, and responsive gas-fired generators. This makes it hard for coal plants to ramp up output when electricity prices are high, or ramp down when prices are low or negative.

The economics of coal-fired generators are simply not well-suited to a system with lots of solar and wind-powered electricity.

Coal stations shutting earlier than expected

Poor economics – combined with higher maintenance costs and increased risk of technical failure – make it difficult to justify keeping ageing coal plants open.

So far this year, three coal-fired power stations have had their closure dates brought forwards: Yallourn in Victoria, and Eraring and Mt Piper in NSW.

Faster closure means less coal generation capacity in future years. For example, the early closures of Yallourn and Eraring will reduce the expected coal generation capacity in 2030 by 1.5 gigawatts.

But the current closure schedule would still leave at least six coal-fired power stations operating in Australia after 2040.

As noted by the CSIRO in July, this is incompatible with Australia pursuing the Paris Agreement goal to limit global warming to 1.5℃ this century.

So what are the states doing?

South Australia closed its last coal-fired power station in 2016, and NSW is set to be next with the Mt Piper station due to close in 2040. That leaves Victoria and Queensland.

Victoria’s Loy Yang A and B power stations use brown coal, making them some of the cheapest but most polluting plants to operate. Victoria has also legislated its commitment to net-zero emissions by 2050 and, by 2030, Victoria plans to use 50% renewable energy.

Pushing even more renewable energy into the state boosts the odds of the remaining coal-fired power stations leaving. In fact, the owners of each of the Loy Yang plants have hinted that their closure dates will come forward.

Read more:
The death of coal-fired power is inevitable — yet the government still has no plan to help its workforce

Queensland is more complicated, as it has Australia’s youngest fleet of coal-fired power stations. Five of them are due to close after 2040.

But of those five, four are partly or fully owned by the Queensland government. That means the timing of their closures is as much a political as an economic question.

Queensland also boasts some of the best renewable resources in the country, including vast tracts of land suitable for renewable energy projects. Combined with its 50% renewable energy target by 2030, the state government has the levers it needs to pull coal-fired generation out of the system by 2040 or earlier.

We need strong, national policy

Grattan Institute analysis finds that a mostly renewable system with no coal – and only a limited role for gas – can maintain a reliable electricity supply while slashing emissions cheaply.

This is because the cost of wind and solar have plummeted, and energy storage such as batteries can help to smooth out daily fluctuations in demand and supply. For rare, sustained periods of high demand, low solar and low wind (which occur every few winters), gas is the lowest-cost backstop solution, at least until the economics of hydrogen become much better.

Read more:
More coal-fired power or 100% renewables? For the next few decades, both paths are wrong

Achieving this outcome by 2040 or earlier will require significant, timely investment in the transmission network within and between states, allowing states to share their supplies and reducing the overall cost to consumers. Keeping a lid on the costs of transmission projects is also crucial – the risk of cost overruns is higher the more complex the project.

There will, of course, be challenges to ensure an orderly coal exit. For example, unexpected closures or breakdowns of coal plants can lead to shortages in electricity supply because investors in the electricity market don’t have enough time to build new capacity.

A national policy to coordinate coal exit would reduce uncertainty for the electricity system.

Grattan has previously recommended coal plant operators nominate a window of time within which their plant will close, combined with a payment of at least $100 million into an escrow fund. The operators’ money would be released only if the plant closes within its nominated window – if it exits unexpectedly, the money would be kept by the market operator to deal with any reliability problems.

Governments could also require that nominated closure windows occur before 2040, not after, if they want to achieve a coal-free NEM by that date. Alternatively – and more efficiently – they could establish an emissions standard for the NEM with tradeable certificates, allowing market participants to meet the emissions standard in the lowest cost way.

Read more:
Economists back carbon price, say benefits of net-zero outweigh costs

Unfortunately, current political reality indicates neither side of politics wants to be seen to support any policy resembling a carbon price, even though carbon pricing has the overwhelming support of Australian economists and the business community.

So, the renewable energy targets of the states are most likely to determine how quickly the NEM becomes coal-free. But if governments can muster the courage, our work shows that it’s possible to achieve a vastly lower-emissions electricity system in less than two decades.

James Ha is a former associate of Grattan Institute and is now a senior associate at Aurora Energy Research. This article does not necessarily reflect the views of either the company or its board.

Grattan Institute began with contributions to its endowment of $15 million from each of the Federal and Victorian Governments, $4 million from BHP Billiton, and $1 million from NAB. In order to safeguard its independence, Grattan Institute’s board controls this endowment. The funds are invested and contribute to funding Grattan Institute’s activities. Grattan Institute also receives funding from corporates, foundations, and individuals to support its general activities as disclosed on its website.

Alison Reeve is a former public servant.
Grattan Institute began with contributions to its endowment of $15 million from each of the Federal and Victorian Governments, $4 million from BHP Billiton, and $1 million from NAB. In order to safeguard its independence, Grattan Institute’s board controls this endowment. The funds are invested and contribute to funding Grattan Institute’s activities. Grattan Institute also receives funding from corporates, foundations, and individuals to support its general activities as disclosed on its website.

– ref. Coal plants are closing faster than expected. Governments can keep the exit orderly – https://theconversation.com/coal-plants-are-closing-faster-than-expected-governments-can-keep-the-exit-orderly-172150

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By D. Rex Mitchell, Postdoctoral Fellow, Flinders University

Each year, thousands of wild animals across the world are rescued. They can include young animals saved from abandonment, injury, disease or the death of their parents. Animal carers around the world work tirelessly to help these little animals heal and grow until they are ready to be released back into the wild.

But there can be differences between what captive animals are fed and what wild animals eat. Captive diets can include processed or pre-portioned foods, such as minced meat, peeled, diced or pureed fruit, or feed pellets.

While these kinds of foods generally meet the nutritional demands of growing animals, they are much easier to eat than a typical meal in the wild, and this can have drawbacks for young animals that are trying to grow fit and strong.

In my new research, published today in the journal Integrative Organismal Biology, my colleagues and I show how a diet of exclusively soft foods can hamper skull development in growing animals.

Over the past few decades there have been many documented examples of captive animals – including lions, monkeys and marsupial gliders – that have differently shaped skulls to their wild counterparts. These differences are most often found around the bones and locations of muscles used for feeding, prompting some researchers to suggest they are due to differences in diet.

Our research therefore asked whether growing up on a diet that doesn’t need much biting can impact the ability of an adult skull to bite effectively.

Fortunately, we had access to a large, ready-made data set that could help answer this question. Back in 2012, as part of a different research project, 40 rats were fed contrasting diets, from weaning all the way to adulthood. Some ate hard pellets that needed plenty of biting and then chewing; others ate the same food but after it was first ground into powdered meal. When they reached adulthood, CT scans were taken of their skulls.

Using these scans, I created three-dimensional digital models of each rat’s skull, and carried out bite simulations to compare the amount of stress each skull model experienced when subject to the same biting forces. Greater stress would indicate thinner bone.

Biting off more than they can chew

Bones are often thought of as simple, hard objects. But bone is actually a complex living tissue that constantly adapts to its job. Every time a bone is used to perform an action, it bends a tiny bit. The more often a bone bends over time, the thicker it can grow – especially when lifting or moving heavier things.

Sure enough, my simulations showed that the skulls of rats fed powdered meal experienced the most stress during biting. This supports the idea that the rats that ate softer foods while growing up had less bone deposited in their skull, leaving the skull weaker as a result.

What does this mean for rehabilitation and release of our furry friends during conservation programs? Well, it’s similar to exercise. When someone goes running to prepare for a race, they aren’t just training their bones and muscles to run faster, they’re also reducing their risk of injury by conditioning their body to perform a demanding task.

Read more:
Tasmanian devils reared in captivity show they can thrive in the wild

If rescued baby animals are raised on diets full of soft, processed, peeled, chopped, blended or portioned foods, much of the biting and chewing has already been done for them. This means the bones and muscles of their skulls won’t be as conditioned for the tougher foods they may need to eat in the wild. This might leave them more vulnerable to being injured or going hungry when ultimately released.

Naturally, these factors would vary between species. So, these findings simply serve as an additional consideration for all those fantastic animal carers who give their time and effort to conserving our native animals.

Read more:
Like a jackal in wolf’s clothing: the Tasmanian tiger was no wolfish predator — it hunted small prey

Current employer: Flinders University
Previous employer: University of North Texas Health Science Center (UNTHSC)

– ref. Harder foods make for stronger skulls, giving hand-reared animals the best chance of survival in the wild – https://theconversation.com/harder-foods-make-for-stronger-skulls-giving-hand-reared-animals-the-best-chance-of-survival-in-the-wild-172144

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Toni Moate, Chair, National Marine Science Committee and Director, CSIRO National Collections and Marine Infrastructure, CSIRO

Australia is a marine nation. First Nations people have deep and unbroken connections to sea, 85% of us live within 50km of the coast, and our ocean territory is twice that of our land mass.

A large part of our economy – the “blue economy” – depends on the sea: tourism, ports, energy, transport, fisheries and aquaculture, and emerging industries like renewable energy, offshore aquaculture, and biotechnology.

Together, these industries are worth more than A$80 billion a year. By 2025, this figure may be $100 billion.

To manage our oceans and coasts to support a growing blue economy means we need to understand them, and that means we need science. At the National Marine Science Committee (NMSC), we have surveyed how well Australia is delivering this science. As we show in a new report, the story is mixed.

The plan

The NMSC is Australia’s peak body for marine research. Its members are almost 40 universities, research institutions and state and federal agencies.

In 2015, the Committee created a blueprint for growing Australia’s blue economy: the National Marine Science Plan: 2015-25.

This plan identified seven grand challenges facing our marine estate:

• marine sovereignty and security

• energy security

• food security

• biodiversity conservation

• sustainable urban coastal development

• climate change adaptation

• equitable, balanced resource allocation.

The plan also made eight recommendations involving initiatives, investment, and priorities to address the challenges.

We are now halfway through the plan’s ten-year scope. While many of the recommendations are on track, others need some work.

The report card

Our oceans face unique challenges, from climate change to managing increasing resource use. Despite pandemic disruptions, scientific progress has continued.

Highlights from the past five years include increasing Australia’s marine research capacity with a new icebreaker for working in the Antarctic and operation of the research ship RV Investigator for 300 days at sea. Coastal research vessels have also continued operations, and the Integrated Marine Observing System has expanded.

Read more:
Explainer: the RV Investigator’s role in marine science

The new report shows science has already helped deliver better outcomes for the blue economy, through things like strategies for fishery harvesting to balance consumer demands with economic and ecological sustainability.

The report also identifies further steps needed to ensure all recommendations are fulfilled. It offers three new recommendations, too.

First, integrate the knowledge, rights, capabilities, and aspirations of Traditional Owners into conventional marine science.

Second, establish national policy guidelines for open access to government-funded or regulatory data. This would include access to historical datasets and expand the Australian Ocean Data Network.

And third, develop an approach to increase the resilience of our coasts.

An unprecedented opportunity

After the economic shock of the pandemic, there is enormous interest in Australia’s blue economy and our ocean health. This can be realised via national and international initiatives and funding focused on sustainable growth.

The Australian government has joined 13 other nations in the High Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy committing to sustainably manage 100% of their marine estates by 2025.

This year also kicks off the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development. The world’s eyes will be on the oceans for the next ten years.

Since 2015, Australia has been building its national marine science capability. Recent initiatives include the Reef Trust Partnership, Blue Economy Cooperative Research Centre (CRC), Marine Bioproducts CRC, investments in marine and coastal science under the National Environmental Science Program, and the [Australian Ocean Leadership Package].

The foundations are there, and the task now is to strengthen and embed our marine science sovereign capability.

A call to action

The report calls on actions from broad sectors of society to ensure Australia’s blue economy continues to grow. It asks:

• the research community to build on and amplify existing resources to establish truly national research programs that incorporate all stakeholder needs

• industry to work with marine scientists and governments to ensure science underpins operational decision-making, risk assessments and future planning, and to create efficient, sustainable businesses

• government to focus on and invest in the blue economy as an important plank in post-COVID economic recovery and a way to create long-term social, cultural and environmental benefits

• the community to recognise the responsibility we all share as a marine nation, and to play an active role in ensuring the long-term health of our oceans and coasts for all Australians.

With a strong blue economy, we can chart a course through the uncertainties of the future and create long-term prosperity for all Australians.

Read more:
In a first discovery of its kind, researchers have uncovered an ancient Aboriginal archaeological site preserved on the seabed

This article was written in conjunction with Dr David Smith, Chair of the National Research Providers Network for Fisheries and Aquaculture.

Toni Moate is Director of CSIRO’s National Collections and Marine Infrastructure.

Anthony Boxshall consults to Federal and State Government departments which could benefit from an expanded blue economy. He also owns a tiny number of shares in BHP. He has a paid appointment by the Victorian Government as the Chair of the Victorian Marine & Coastal Council under the provisions of the Marine & Coastal Act 2018. Rates are public and listed under the rules defining Victorian Government Board appointments. In this role, he advises Ministers on marine and coastal planning and management issues in Victoria.

Michelle Heupel receives funding from the Commonwealth National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy, Qld state government, WA state government.

David Souter 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 marine industries deliver $80b a year. But without more scientists, the ‘blue economy’ is at risk – https://theconversation.com/australias-marine-industries-deliver-80b-a-year-but-without-more-scientists-the-blue-economy-is-at-risk-170113

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katherine Wynn, Lead Economist, CSIRO Futures, CSIRO

Each dollar invested in research and development (R&D) would earn an average of A$3.50 in economy-wide benefits for Australia, according to evidence compiled in a new report from CSIRO.

Many Australians know research and development drives economic growth and improves our well-being and prosperity. However, few could describe the size of the relationship between Australia’s research and development spending and economic growth, or compare this to performance on other typical investment returns.

Examples of future industries that could be unlocked by research and development in Australia include the quantum technology and hydrogen industries. Examples of emerging technologies that could change the way Australians work and live include artificial intelligence and robotics.

This is significant, given recent figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics show business spending on research and development as a proportion of GDP is just half the OECD average, and the lowest it has been since 2003.

We hope our analysis will raise awareness of the value of this kind of spending, and its importance for Australia’s economic recovery and long-term resilience. Investing in innovation now is crucial for the future.

In consultation with government and academic stakeholders, our team at CSIRO Futures, the strategic and economic advisory arm of Australia’s national science agency, used a new yet simple economic approach to quantify the return on investment in overall research and development spending for Australia.

By adapting a method originally developed in the US, we calculated return on investment by defining the relationship between domestic gross spending on research and development, and the growth in per capita gross domestic product (GDP) that follows as a result. This method encompasses both successful and unsuccessful research and development investments, and quantifies only monetary benefits (excluding non-monetary social and environmental benefits).

Our approach also accounts for delays between research and development investments and payoffs, and for the capital costs of integrating research and development into the economy. For example, an innovation of new computer software must be built into existing computer systems, and might therefore take a decade before its use becomes widespread.

Overall, we calculate that $1 of research and development investment creates an average of $3.50 in economy-wide benefits in today’s dollars, and a 10% average annual return for Australia.

By removing the considerations of delays and capital costs, we can also calculate an upper boundary on our estimate – that is, the maximum theoretical return on investment barring any hurdles along the way.

This unadjusted result, which does not account for the additional time and costs associated with integrating research and development into the economy, is estimated as creating $20.80 in economy-wide benefits, and a 104% average annual return for every dollar spent on research and development in Australia.

Even with our conservative estimate of $3.50 return on the dollar, the expected benefits of investing in innovation are high compared with many other types of investments. For example, Australia’s ten-year government bond returns have historically averaged around 7% per year. Private investments in the ASX200 stock index have typically yielded around 10% annually.

Perhaps even more significantly, even our conservative estimate of $3.50 return on investment suggests research and development has a cost/benefit ratio well in excess of $1 to $1. This means there is a strong economic case for this kind of spending.

But research and development investment is risky, right? This may be much less of a problem at a national level. While cost or time overruns are never favourable for any investment, building this uncertainty into our findings shows research and development investment remains economically viable even if this happens.

Results from sensitivity analysis demonstrate that if the costs of research and development spending or delays of payoffs increase by 20%, the most conservative (combined adjustment) results only fall to $3.30 return on investment, with annual yields of 9.5% (at lowest). These are still strong returns.

Read more:
New study confirms what scientists already know: basic research is under-valued

Our findings imply that so far, Australian innovation investments – whether they be in new products and services or in creating new industries – have been well worthwhile, and that increasing future investment could capture substantial economy-wide returns.

As our estimates only capture the economic benefits of innovation, actual returns are likely to be much higher when also considering the broader social and environmental benefits of Australian research and development.

Read more:
Three ways to reform research that won’t break the budget

Katherine Wynn works for the CSIRO, which receives funding from the Australian Government.

Jasmine Cohen works for the CSIRO, which receives funding from the Australian Government.

Mingji Liu works for the CSIRO, which receives funding from the Australian Government.

– ref. Every dollar invested in research and development creates $3.50 in benefits for Australia, says new CSIRO analysis – https://theconversation.com/every-dollar-invested-in-research-and-development-creates-3-50-in-benefits-for-australia-says-new-csiro-analysis-172300

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Paul Taucher, PhD Candidate in History, Murdoch University

The Australian government established the Office of the Special Investigator last year to investigate allegations made in the Brereton Report that Australian soldiers had committed war crimes in Afghanistan.

Recently, the director-general of the office, Chris Moraitis, told a Senate Estimates Committee it could take anywhere between one to five years before evidence can be presented to the Director of Public Prosecutions, the first step in beginning a trial.

The allegations made against Australian Defence Force members attracted significant public interest when they were announced. So it may seem surprising the team of 50 investigators expect the initial phase of the investigation to take so long. But investigating war crimes is a difficult business for practical reasons, and the uncomfortable legal questions that can arise during the process.

The allegations in this investigation, for starters, go back to 2006. Witnesses may be dead, unavailable, or even unwilling to talk to investigators. Witnesses from the military may prefer to move on from the issue. Incriminating documents may have been destroyed or lost. Crime scenes have likely been irreparably tarnished.

Investigating will be extremely difficult

According to Moraitis, investigators are not currently focused on groundwork in Afghanistan. This could become an important dimension of the probe in the future, though there are obvious logistical problems that would need to be overcome.

First, the Australian government has closed its embassy in Kabul, which limits the amount of support investigators would have and denies them a potential base of operations.

Second, the security situation in Afghanistan remains uncertain, months after the Taliban takeover. Though the Taliban has claimed control of the country, this is limited in many regions. Both the Taliban’s desire and capacity to support Australian investigators is also unclear.

As Moraitis told the committee,

In this space you need to cooperate with the state. At this stage, I don’t know that we can do that. […] Then, when it gets to the operational investigation space, having investigators travel to a place like Afghanistan at the moment is extremely difficult, if not impossible, I dare say.

Moraitis also flagged legal considerations over the kinds of evidence investigators were collecting.

He noted the Brereton report was compiled under statutory powers that allowed investigators to compel witnesses to give evidence. This included self-incriminating evidence, which is inadmissible in Australian criminal courts.

This means any statements provided by witnesses as part of the Brereton report could not be used against them in a future criminal trial in current Australian courts. However, media reports suggest some military personnel are discussing immunity from prosecution if they give evidence against their fellow soldiers.

Read more:
Allegations of murder and ‘blooding’ in Brereton report now face many obstacles to prosecution

How Australia has prosecuted war crimes before

Australian authorities have dealt with difficult war crimes investigations before, such as when prosecuting Japanese war criminals after the second world war.

Back then, the answer to the challenges flagged by Moraitis was a determined investigation effort on the ground where the crimes were alleged to have occurred, and a more relaxed set of rules for evidence in specialised courts. These courts were designed according to purpose-built legislation, the War Crimes Act 1945.

Investigators were sent all over the Asia-Pacific region. Many of the sites were remote, and some were the scene of fighting between returning colonial powers, bandits, and competing political parties. Time pressures were often acute.

On Ambon Island in Indonesia, the location of one of the worst Japanese-run POW camps of the war, understaffed investigators had only three months to build a case before the Dutch colonial rulers insisted the Australians leave.

Due to these obstacles in the investigation stage and the challenges prosecutors foresaw proving war crimes allegations in court, Australia (and allied countries) changed the rules for what kinds of evidence could be submitted. Cases could be run entirely on unsworn affidavits, a form of hearsay evidence.

Hearsay evidence is when a witness or document gives a statement from another person who is not a witness before the court. It is usually prohibited because there is no way to cross-examine the author of the original statement.

Hearsay evidence was allowed in the post-war trials because it was feared war criminals would escape justice due to lack of evidence. As these courts did not feature a jury, but rather a panel of judges with more experience and understanding of different kinds of evidence, it was considered fair for the accused.

Read more:
Why Australian commanders need to be held responsible for alleged war crimes in Afghanistan

Could the International Criminal Court step in?

The practical and legal questions over the Afghanistan investigations will be difficult to resolve without resorting to similar measures used in the past.

The now-updated War Crimes Act has tightened the rules of evidence in Australian war crimes prosecutions to bring them in line with domestic courts. This means hearsay evidence is no longer admissible. With these changes, it seems unlikely the Australian government could create specialised courts for this purpose, like it did with the Japanese defendants.

It is not only the Australian public who will be anxious to see the investigations completed satisfactorily – international onlookers are concerned, too.

The International Criminal Court has already begun its own investigations into alleged war crimes in Afghanistan. The ICC, which Australia is a party to, could take the lead if it determines Australian courts are unwilling or unable to investigate and prosecute a case.

As a specialised court for these kind of cases, the ICC does permit hearsay evidence along the lines of Australia’s post-second world war trials.

The stakes for Australian investigators are high. A failure to build a case that can be taken forward under current Australian law may push the ICC to consider itself better placed to handle the allegations.

This would be a setback for a country that has endeavoured to be seen as a champion of international law, standards, and peacekeeping since the end of the second world war.

Dean Aszkielowicz receives funding from the Army Research Scheme.

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

– ref. Why investigating potential war crimes in Afghanistan just became much harder – and could take years – https://theconversation.com/why-investigating-potential-war-crimes-in-afghanistan-just-became-much-harder-and-could-take-years-171412

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

Europe is facing a fourth wave of COVID. As we watch on, it is reasonable to ask whether Australia will be confronted with the same fate.

Several factors will determine this: vaccination rates, high uptake of third dose boosters, vaccination of children and whether a comprehensive strategy of ventilation with vaccine-plus measures including masks, testing and tracing are used.

New OzSAGE modelling for NSW shows possible increasing cases from mid-December with a predicted peak in February 2022, despite high vaccination rates. OzSAGE warns if contact tracing is not maintained and children 5–11 remain unvaccinated, hospitals may be overwhelmed again. But if we vaccinate young kids and maintain high testing and tracing, the outlook is good.

If not for Delta …

If the ancestral strains of the virus that dominated infections in 2020 were still in pole position, we would now have COVID well controlled in countries that achieved higher than 70% of the whole population vaccinated.

Unfortunately, just as the vaccines became available, new variants of concern began emerging. The currently dominant Delta variant raises the stakes because it is far more contagious and has some potential to escape the protection offered by vaccines. This means we need very high rates of vaccination across whole populations – probably over 90% of everyone vaccinated including younger children – to control the virus.

In addition, we need to start thinking about “fully vaccinated” being triple, not double, vaccinated.

Read more:
No, vaccinated people are not ‘just as infectious’ as unvaccinated people if they get COVID

Boosters are key

Patchy third dose booster policies in Europe may partially be to blame for the COVID surges we are seeing in countries there now.

Germany, for example, in October recommended boosters for people 70 years and over and certain risk groups. On November 18, it belatedly changed the recommendation to people aged 18 years and over in response to the large resurgence of COVID.

France, too, has been slow and restrictive in making boosters available for adults, with people over 50 eligible from this December. Likewise, Ireland only approved boosters for people 60 years and over at the end of October.

The evidence is clear that boosters are needed. So, on the background of inadequate vaccination rates ranging from 64% in Austria to 76% in Denmark, a slow and restrictive approach to boosters, together with abandoning other measures such as masks, has left many European countries vulnerable.

Read more:
Australians will soon receive COVID booster vaccines. Why do we need them, and how effective are they?

Austria, with one of the lowest vaccination rates, has one of the highest rates of COVID, prompting it to be the first European country to mandate vaccines.

Much of the fourth wave is also being driven by transmission in children. The EU has been slow to approve vaccines for younger children, prompting Austria to commence vaccinating children without EU approval.

Too much reliance on vaccines?

The fourth wave follows the relaxation of COVID restrictions like masks, density limits, testing and tracing; and failure to address safe indoor air.

The Delta virus is a tenacious beast, and the vaccine alone is not enough to tame it. Country after country has shown this, including Denmark, which ceased all restrictions, including masks in September and is now facing a large surge in cases despite relatively high vaccination rates.

The prospect of a fourth wave also depends on the epidemiology of SARS-CoV-2. There is a high probability new variants will emerge that will challenge us further, either because they are even more contagious or more vaccine-resistant.

That said, we have seen spectacular advances in science, with vaccines produced in less than a year. There are many more second generation vaccines and matched boosters in the pipeline, and promising new antivirals for early treatment. So our ability to fight this virus will keep improving.

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

What about Australia then?

So will Australia also face a fourth wave? Yes, it’s likely because SARS-CoV-2 is an epidemic infection. It will continue to cause the waxing and waning cycles of true epidemic infections just like smallpox did for thousands of years, and like measles still does. However, it’s possible we can achieve elimination of COVID just as we have with measles, and only see small outbreaks.

If we’re successful, outbreaks may still occur – but they will not become sustained or uncontrollable. Here’s what Australia can learn from Europe and other countries:

• firstly, we need to aim for at least 90% of the whole population vaccinated – this should be done equitably for all states and territories, for remote and regional areas and for all subgroups including children

• we need to be agile and responsive to evidence, including the need for subsequent boosters. If a new vaccine or Delta-matched booster comes along that improves protection, we need to add that to the tool box rapidly

• childcare and schools are fast becoming the new frontier of COVID. We must ensure safe indoor air, masks and vaccination for younger children by the time students return from summer holidays in 2022

• vaccines alone are not enough, so let’s not be like Denmark and embark on magical thinking. We need to address safe indoor air and have a vaccine-plus strategy. That means masks in indoor settings, maintaining high testing and tracing levels, protecting younger kids until they are eligible for vaccination and ensuring high uptake of boosters.

If we acknowledge the airborne transmission of COVID and adopt effective ways of preventing this virus, we can defeat it.

But that requires a layered, comprehensive strategy of ventilation, vaccine-plus measures and the ability to move quickly with evidence as it becomes available.

New vaccines and new ways of employing them are hopefully on their way. Until they eventuate, we’ll need to be ambitious in our COVID strategy and keep using ventilation, masks and other measures to avoid a severe fourth wave.

Raina MacIntyre is a member of the WHO COVID-19 Vaccine Composition Technical Advisory group, a member of OzSAGE, and has consulted for or been on advisory boards for Janssen, AstraZeneca and Seqirus on COVID-19 vaccines. She has been on advisory boards for Sanofi and Seqirus for influenza vaccines in the past 5 years. She is currently working on a clinical trial of a non-COVID vaccine for Moderna. She currently receives funding from NHMRC (Principal Research Fellowship, Centre for Research Excellence) and the Medical Research Futures Fund, and has done COVID 19 modelling for the Tasmanian Government.

– ref. Will Australia follow Europe into a fourth COVID wave? Boosters, vaccinating kids, ventilation and masks may help us avoid it – https://theconversation.com/will-australia-follow-europe-into-a-fourth-covid-wave-boosters-vaccinating-kids-ventilation-and-masks-may-help-us-avoid-it-172296

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Akka Rimon, PhD Student, Australian National University

Our atoll nation is barely two metres above sea level, and the waters are coming for us.

Despite the progress and momentum of the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow, we are still not moving fast enough to avoid the worst of climate change.

It is heartening that more than 190 countries and organisations agreed to rapidly phase out coal power and end support for new coal power stations. More than 100 countries signed a pledge to cut methane emissions 30% by the end of the decade, and about the same number agreed to stop deforestation on an industrial scale in the same timeframe.

But even with these agreements, we in Kiribati face the death of our homeland. Co-author Anote Tong led our country as president for 15 years, alongside lead author Akka Rimon, who was foreign secretary between 2014 and 2016.

The problem is speed. Our land is disappearing faster than global action can stem climate change. Delays and a lack of global leadership mean the existence of small island states like Kiribati is now in the balance.

That means we must urgently find ways to rehome our people. It is very difficult to leave our homes, but there is no choice. Time is not on our side. We must prepare for a difficult future.

What we need is a model where displaced people can migrate to host nations when their homes become uninhabitable. Countries like Australia need workers – and we will soon need homes.

This is, increasingly, a question of justice. Australia’s actions, in particular, raise questions over how sincere it is in honouring its recent commitments at COP26.

As the world’s largest exporter of fossil gas and the second largest exporter of coal, Australia’s reluctance to change is putting its neighbours in the Pacific at risk of literally disappearing. It is the only developed nation not committed to cut emissions at least in half by 2030.

In Glasgow, Fiji urged Australia to take real action by halving emissions by 2030. Did it work? No. Australia also refused to sign the agreements on ending coal’s reign, with prominent politicians undermining the COP26 agreement as soon as the conference was over.

We desperately hope the commitments Australia did make at COP26 are not just words on paper. But if they are, that makes our need for certainty even more urgent.

Let us speak plainly: If Australia really does plan to sell as much of its fossil fuel reserves as possible and drag its feet on climate action, the least it can do is help us survive the rising seas caused by the burning of its coal and gas.

Read more:
Pacific people have been ‘pummelled and demeaned’ for too long – now they’re fighting back

To migrate with dignity

Eighteen years ago, the Kiribati government – then headed by Anote Tong – introduced a “migration with dignity” policy as a way for I-Kiribati people to adapt to climate change.

We gave our I-Kiribati workers international qualifications tailored for jobs in demand overseas. After this, Kiribati, Tuvalu, Fiji, Tonga and New Zealand set up a scheme to allow workers to migrate to New Zealand if they had an offer of a job. Each year prior to COVID, 75 people from Kiribati were able to migrate through the scheme.

New Zealand is the first and only country currently offering a permanent labour migration program from Kiribati. While welcome, we will need more places for I-Kiribati as climate change intensifies.

Like New Zealand, Australia has expanded its seasonal worker schemes for Pacific workers, and is now moving towards a longer stay, multi-visa arrangement under its Pacific Labour Scheme. We expect this scheme will evolve into a permanent migration scheme similar to New Zealand.

While we wait in hope for a true safe haven for our people, our diaspora is growing. I-Kiribati are moving now to Pacific countries higher above the water level such as Fiji, the Cook Islands, Niue, Samoa and Tonga.

Are we scared? Of course. We are on the front line of this crisis, despite having done amongst the least to cause it. It is difficult to leave the only home we have known. But science does not lie. And we can see the water coming.

Labour migration will not solve climate change, but it offers hope to those of us who will be displaced first.

This is a vital question of climate justice. This upheaval is caused by high-emitting economic powerhouses like the US, China, and the European Union. But the vulnerable are paying the full cost. That is not fair.

Read more:
Climate crisis: migration cannot be the only option for people living on ‘drowning’ islands

As climate change worsens, other global leaders must consider how best to support adaptation through labour mobility. Far better to plan for this now than to let climate change rage unchecked and trigger ever-larger waves of refugees.

The question of climate justice

Consider this: in 2018, each person in Kiribati was responsible for 0.95 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent. By contrast, each person in the United States was responsible for 17.7 tonnes. Despite this imbalance, the US has taken little responsibility for what is happening to Kiribati and other low-lying nations.

We are hopeful this may change, given US President Joe Biden recently pledged to make his nation a leader in climate finance by supporting nations worst hit by climate change and with the least resources to cope. It’s also encouraging that new laws have been proposed to allow people displaced by climate change to live in America.

We must work to slash emissions and devise solutions for the problems caused by the warming.

International law must recognise climate displaced populations and create ways we can be rehoused.

While other solutions such as climate-proofing infrastructure or even floating islands have been proposed for Kiribati, these cannot happen overnight and are very expensive. By contrast, labour mobility is fast and advantageous to the host country.

Kiribati’s current government is working to increase skills and employability in our workforce. We are doing our part to get ready for the great dislocation.

When I-Kiribati have to migrate, we want them to be able to do so as first class citizens with access to secure futures rather than as climate refugees.

We are doing all we can to stay afloat in the years of ever angrier climate change. But it will take the global village to save our small village and keep alive our culture, language, heritage, spirits, land, waters and above all, our people.

Akka Rimon is currently employed by the World Bank. The views expressed in this piece are hers and in no way represent the views of the bank.

Anote Tong 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 seas are coming for us in Kiribati. Will Australia rehome us? – https://theconversation.com/the-seas-are-coming-for-us-in-kiribati-will-australia-rehome-us-172137

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sebastian Leuzinger, Professor, Auckland University of Technology

The loss of biodiversity is one of the most catastrophic developments of our time. The impacts will possibly outpace those of global warming.

Growing evidence that humans have triggered a sixth global mass extinction means the protection of remaining species is a priority beyond dispute to secure ecological services such carbon cycling, clean water and air, and healthy oceans.

The key drivers of species loss are climate change, habitat degradation, pollution, and exotic species that become invasive. This has led conservation ecologists to follow the simple rule of “protect natives, fight exotics”.

If we had an unlimited budget, I would hardly challenge this view. But in a world where natural ecosystems face many other global changes apart from species loss, I argue we should reconsider the ecological role exotic species play.

Ecosystem function over species mix

One could argue ecosystems are inherently so complex that we can never appreciate the exact contribution of an individual species, and therefore native species need to be protected at all cost.

But this argument can be turned around. In many cases, exotic species are not detrimental to the resident species communities. It is not until an exotic species becomes invasive that substantial harm happens.

Read more:
Eco-fusion is the new normal, as native and non-native species mix together

The deliberate spread of species has been an integral part of human evolution for thousands of years. Many economically important plant species are exotics in most places, but they make it possible to feed our growing population.

In a physically highly connected world, unintentional relocation of both terrestrial and marine species has now also become unavoidable.

In some cases, introduced species can even complement native ecosystems. New world succulents are now very much part of the Mediterranean landscape, without harming the local flora.

Sometimes, introduced species perform ecological functions similar to those that are (or were) performed by natives. For instance, European gorse stabilises coastal slopes in New Zealand, providing a nursery for local plants.

In one particularly spectacular case, extinct tortoises were intentionally replaced with an exotic species through “assisted colonisation”. It seems to have worked.

However, earlier and much less scientifically informed attempts of assisted colonisation, such as the deliberate introduction of cane toads in Australia’s tropical north-east, went terribly wrong.

The bias of human perception

There are many ecosystem services humanity depends on: clean water, carbon cycling, removal of pollutants and excessive nutrient loads, mitigation of global warming through land-based and marine carbon sequestration, erosion prevention, just to name a few.

The preservation of native species is one way of ensuring those services for future generations. An approach focused on ecological function weighs the cost of protecting natives and combating exotics against the role of new species assemblages shaped by human interference.

At approximately equal cost, should the addition of a breeding pair of a rare bird be prioritised over the reforestation of several hectares of land? Such decisions are often difficult and must be based on the available science.

Read more:
Birds: we studied 4,000 ‘alien introductions’ to find out why some were successful

Clearly, there may be other reasons — cultural or aesthetic values for example — to protect native species, beyond the provisioning of ecosystem services. But people seem biased by what they are used to.

For example, Switzerland provides generous subsidies to farmers for maintaining picturesque alpine meadows, even though the native vegetation before human intervention was a much less biologically diverse alpine forest.

In Central Europe, the recently introduced Tree of Heaven (Ailanthus altissima) triggered substantial efforts to eradicate it, while the European chestnut (Castanea sativa), introduced by the Greeks and Romans some 2000 years ago, is highly valued and enjoys protection and even reforestation programmes.

The above examples illustrate why we may need a more sober approach centred on ecological function to effectively protect our remaining natural treasures and the ecosystem services they provide.

The milestones in the evolution of life did not depend on individual species or species assemblages, but on the emergence of new functional traits such as photosynthesis, predation or flight. Similarly, humankind ultimately relies on functioning ecosystems, regardless of which species provide them.

Sebastian Leuzinger receives funding from The Royal Society.

– ref. Why it’s time to reconsider the ecological contribution of introduced species — even in New Zealand – https://theconversation.com/why-its-time-to-reconsider-the-ecological-contribution-of-introduced-species-even-in-new-zealand-171195