Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brad Clark, Senior research fellow, University of Canberra

The recent death of Australian man Jason Kennison after reaching the summit of Mount Everest highlights how dangerous mountain climbing can be.

Details of what went wrong as Kennison descended from the summit have yet to be confirmed by officials.

However, his death – one of several this year on Mount Everest – is a reminder of the challenges mountain climbers face.

Read more:
From Kilimanjaro to Everest: how fit do you have to be to climb a mountain?

What is it about Mount Everest?

Mount Everest – also known as Chomolungma (its Tibetan name) or Sagarmatha (its Nepali name) – is the highest mountain on Earth with a peak at 8,849 metres above sea-level.

May 29 this year marks 70 years since the first successful summit of Mount Everest by Tenzing Norgay and Sir Edmund Hillary.

This year’s climbing season is shaping to be one of the busiest ever after the Nepali government issued a record 478 climbing permits. This year has also seen Kami Rita Sherpa complete a record 28th summit of Mount Everest.

However, 2023 will end as one of the deadliest on record, with 11 deaths recorded for the season to May 23, and a further two climbers still missing.

Read more:
Triumph, tragedy and climate change: telling the stories of the Sherpas of Everest

Preparing to climb

To prepare for the physical, psychological and technical challenges of a Mount Everest summit attempt, climbers typically undertake extensive preparation that can last months, and even years.

They acclimatise by sleeping in altitude tents (which can simulate high-altitudes at home) and/or training in chambers that simulate low-oxygen environments. They also climb other peaks higher than 6,000m.

Climbers typically stagger their ascent to base camp. Then, they complete further treks to higher altitudes (above 7,000m) around base camp, or on the Mount Everest summit route itself.

However, this extensive preparation does not eliminate the risks, and climbers continue to perish each climbing season.

Read more:
How does altitude affect the body and why does it affect people differently?

What makes Mount Everest so deadly?

According to the Himalayan Database, more than 310 people have lost their lives on Mount Everest since 1922, through to the end of the 2022 climbing season. In that time, more than 16,000 non-Sherpa climbers have attempted to summit Mount Everest and 5,633 have been successful.

These successful attempts were supported by 5,825 summits by Sherpas. However, many more Sherpas have climbed the upper reaches of Mount Everest to support expedition members, without attempting to summit. Some have reached the summit more than once.

From 2006 to 2019, the death rate for first-time, non-Sherpa climbers was 0.5% for women and 1.1% for men.

The dangers faced by climbers pushing for the summit of Mount Everest are vast. These include the risk of avalanche, falling rocks/ice, danger when crossing the Khumbu Icefall, hypothermia from exposure to extreme cold, falls, severe fatigue and exhaustion, and illness associated with extremely low oxygen.

Of all deaths from 1950 to 2019 in non-Sherpa climbers during a summit bid on Mount Everest, about 35% were caused by falls, with other leading causes being exhaustion (22%), altitude illness (18%) and exposure (13%).

In Sherpa deaths over the same time period, 44% were attributable to avalanches. One 2014 avalanche took the lives of 16 Sherpas.

Almost 84% of deaths in non-Sherpa climbers occurred on their descent – after either successfully reaching the top of Mount Everest, or after turning back before reaching the summit.

While some deaths on descent are related to falls, most are linked to extreme fatigue and exhaustion, or sustained exposure to extremely low levels of oxygen.

In Sherpas, most deaths occur on the lower sections of the climb where they spend lots of time preparing the expedition route and are exposed to greater risk of trauma-related death.

Read more:
What Alone Australia tells us about fear, and why we need it

Low oxygen at extreme altitude

At Mount Everest base camp (5,364m), oxygen availability is about 50% of that at sea-level. At the summit, oxygen availability decreases to less than 30%.

In these high-altitude, low-oxygen environments, climbers are at significant risk of:

• acute mountain sickness

• high-altitude pulmonary oedema, and

• high-altitude cerebral oedema.

Acute mountain sickness is the less severe of the three conditions and is associated with symptoms such as headache, nausea, loss of appetite, and in some cases vomiting and fatigue. Generally, it can resolve following further acclimatisation and rest, or descent to lower altitudes. It rarely evolves into a life-threatening condition.

However, with continued exposure to high altitude, more severe conditions can develop.

High-altitude pulmonary oedema is caused by accumulation of fluid in the lungs. This leads to excessive breathlessness and a dry cough that can evolve to one that produces a foamy, pink sputum.

High-altitude cerebral oedema is caused by excess fluid in the brain and leads to severe headache, confusion, dizziness, loss of balance, and ultimately coma or death, if untreated.

Almost all non-Sherpa climbers on Mount Everest summit attempts climb with supplemental oxygen tanks to assist their physical performance and mitigate the risk of developing these conditions.

Ultimately however, for some climbers this is not enough and even if they successfully reach the summit, they succumb to the environment or high-altitude related illness on their descent back to base camp.

Read more:
How does altitude affect the body and why does it affect people differently?

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

– ref. Why is climbing Mount Everest so dangerous? – https://theconversation.com/why-is-climbing-mount-everest-so-dangerous-206099

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

The federal budget gave a much-needed, but very modest, increase to those on JobSeeker and associated payments. However, it didn’t address that other important issue of the unemployed: how to help as many JobSeekers as possible to get into work, whether full- or part-time.

This will be canvassed in the government’s coming white paper on employment. It’s already, however, before a parliamentary inquiry into employment services.

In this podcast, Julian Hill, the Labor member for Bruce, who chairs that inquiry, joins us to discuss the job market and getting people into work. Hill has also been actively working for Julian Assange’s release from London’s maximum-security Belmarsh Prison.

And he boasts a huge following on TikTok, the Chinese-owned social media platform, which is banned on official government devices.

In April, there were 528,000 unemployed people in Australia and 830,000 people on JobSeeker. Hill reiterates that “in simple terms, not all JobSeekers are unemployed and not all unemployed people are JobSeekers.”

“There’s a significant percentage of people receiving JobSeeker who may have their participation requirements paused. For example, there’s around 10% of people on JobSeeker at any point in time who are actually just sick. They’re there because they’re doing chemo, or recovering from a traumatic accident.”

“And there’s a very large percentage of people receiving JobSeeker, about 28% of people, who are engaged in part-time paid employment. So they’re not counted as unemployed, it’s just their income is low enough that they’re receiving a partial payment.”

Hill says the sentiment towards unemployed people and those on JobSeeker needs to change. “For too long this national debate about long-term unemployment has been driven by the stereotype of the ‘dole bludger’. If we’re going to actually try and resolve these questions in a better way and make an impact, we’ve got to drill down into the characteristics of people who are unemployed.”

The parliamentary inquiry “is a first principles review, not a Band-aid and sticky tape patch up. There is a “red hot labour market” with employers crying out for workers, but many people are having trouble getting jobs.

“A lot of that is due to a fundamental mismatch between people who are unemployed and the skilled jobs that employers are looking for. 53% of people who are unemployed have no post-school qualification. Around 40% haven’t even finished year 12. So there’s at least two, probably three, entry level JobSeekers applying for every job that is actually available.”

Read more:
Word from The Hill: On the Voice, the Quad, and Indian PM Modi’s visit

In February, Hill delivered a speech to the chamber co-written by himself and ChatGPT. Hill spoke about both the negative and positive impacts we face with artifical intelligence, and what kind of potential it has.

“I did use the gag back in February to frankly draw attention to a serious policy point […] AI is set to transform developed human societies and impact swathes of developed economies and as well as government service delivery.”

“It’ll be non-traditional jobs [that go], in many cases knowledge jobs, graphic designers, journalists, artists and others, but it’s also an enormously positive thing and we should be expecting governments to deploy the best technology to free up resources for other things, make better decisions, better targeted services.

“It has the potential to unleash a wave of productivity across the economy.”

“There are negatives that we need to focus on. Loss of jobs in some areas, discrimination, bias. We need to be worried about the use of AI for things like hiring and lending and even renting. I’m worried for people trying to apply for a house. They’ll never get their application on the desk of the real estate agent.”

Read more:
The day after the night before – Chalmers and Taylor on the budget

Earlier this week, Assange’s wife, Stella, addressed the National Press Club and called on the prime minister and the government to do more to bring him home. She stated: “This is closest we’ve ever been to securing Julian’s release”. Hill, a part of the Bring Julian Assange Home Parliamentary Group, believes there will be more progress in the near future.

“There are more positive signs, as Stella’s reflected. I’ve been outspoken on this for years, and my view has always been that this was a political decision to bring this prosecution, and it needs a political resolution led by the US government.”

“I organised and facilitated a meeting with US ambassador to Australia, Caroline Kennedy, and I thank her for that meeting. It was a good discussion, an honest, robust discussion and we got a good hearing.”

“There’s a lot of ongoing dialogue at the moment, and it can’t happen soon enough. Whether it’s an end to the prosecution, as I would call for by the US government, or whether it’s a negotiated resolution. There is, I think, a willingness to try and resolve the matter, and that’s incredibly welcome.”

“I’m actually planning to visit London near the end of June, and I’ve spoken to Jen Robinson, his legal counsel, about seeking to visit Julian in Belmarsh.”

“I hope that he’s not there then and then I can’t make and don’t have to make that visit.”

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

– ref. Politics with Michelle Grattan: Labor’s Julian Hill on employment, AI, Julian Assange and TikTok – https://theconversation.com/politics-with-michelle-grattan-labors-julian-hill-on-employment-ai-julian-assange-and-tiktok-206399

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Birt, Associate Professor of Computer Games and Associate Dean Engagement, Bond University

Whether you’re an experienced gamer or simply curious about the allure of open world games, Nintendo’s latest installment in the long-running (35-year) Zelda franchise, Tears of the Kingdom provides a captivating single-player journey through an intricately designed world.

But for many, the open world genre is a mystery. Being a gamer for over 40 years and having played the latest Zelda for more hours than I care to say, I wanted to delve into open world games, what makes open worlds captivating and the process of creating these expansive games.

Think of an open world game as like stepping into a virtual world where you can go anywhere you want, do whatever you like and embark on exciting adventures in a huge and detailed game world with lots of things to discover and missions to complete.

While there is an over-arching plot to adhere to, in an open world game, players can choose to ignore many of those narrative structures and go their own way, and forge their own path.

World building: crafting immersive game worlds

There is no doubt that open world games are popular and the latest instalment of the critically acclaimed Zelda series is no exception. It sold over 10 million copies worldwide in the first three days, becoming the fastest-selling Nintendo Switch game in the United States.

The first open world game is often attributed to the 1976 text-only game Colossal Cave Adventure. Other recent popular open world games include Red Dead Redemption 2, Grand Theft Auto V, Elden Ring and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.

Game designers invest significant effort in creating open world games with intricate and believable environments. They are filled with rich lore and history, allowing players to approach the game and its challenges in their own self-driven order and manner – a hallmark of open-world games. But making these great games is a significant undertaking requiring large development teams with a shared vision.

In Tears of the Kingdom, the game excels in constructing three distinct world levels: the sky, the surface and the depths. There are also over 152 mini levels or shrines. Each level presents a unique atmosphere and challenges, enticing players to explore and uncover their secrets. The attention to detail in the game’s environments and the depth of its lore contribute to a truly immersive experience.

One of the defining characteristics of open world games is the meticulous attention to world building. Compelling world building allows players to feel a sense of immersion and engagement as they become invested in the game world and its inhabitants. It adds depth, richness and believability to the gaming experience, encouraging exploration, storytelling and player agency within the virtual environment.

Player agency: shaping the narrative

Although Tears of the Kingdom is built upon the shoulders of its predecessor Breath of the Wild, the game feels like a vast improvement, building on the success story of the previous game.

Players have choices in terms of quests undertaken, order of solving the quest and the routes they take, adding a layer of personalisation to their gameplay. These choices influence the player’s interaction with characters and the overall progression of the game. But it’s in the new building mechanics that Tears of the Kingdom rises to the top of the pack and amplifies exceptional player agency.

Read more:
Here’s why The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is big news – even among those who don’t see themselves as ‘gamers’

Interactions with non-playable characters, environments and objects play a crucial role in open world games. Engaging with characters through dialogue and completing quests for them enhances the immersion and sense of connection with the game world. Furthermore, the ability to manipulate objects and solve puzzles adds depth to the gameplay experience.

Tears of the Kingdom introduces innovative puzzle mechanics and object building through the new Ultrahand ability, offering players a diverse range of interactions and ways of engaging with the world. From customised weapons to elaborate vehicles in the form of flying battle tanks, the only limit in the game is the player’s imagination and collecting enough materials.

It is this no-holds-barred system that sets the game apart. You can solve puzzles in endless ways. For instance, the game may have wanted you to create a bridge but instead you build a flying platform with a rocket. The thrill is in the discovery and exploration of the mechanics and the application of this in the world.

Challenges and balancing act

There has been significant criticism of open worlds over the years, with critics highlighting how open world games can be vast and empty, simply cloning other games or failing to live up to hype.

While open world games offer immense opportunities for immersive gameplay, they also present unique challenges. Repetition, unclear objectives and technical performance on ageing hardware are some of the issues developers must address to ensure a satisfying player experience.

Tears of the Kingdom demonstrates impressive performance on the ageing switch hardware, but maintaining a balance between a vast world and engaging content is a constant challenge for game designers. Striking the right balance is crucial to avoid overwhelming players and maintaining their interest.

Open worlds will remain

As the world of video games evolves, open world games will undoubtedly play a significant role in shaping the future of interactive entertainment.

By understanding the intricacies of game design in this genre, players, industry professionals and enthusiasts can gain valuable insights into the immersive and ever-expanding landscape of open world gaming.

So, whether you’re an experienced gamer or simply curious about the allure of open world games, Tears of the Kingdom provides a captivating journey through an intricately designed game world. Embrace the adventure, explore the possibilities and discover the wonders that await in the realm of open world gaming.

James Birt 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. Expansive, exciting and free: how Zelda’s Tears of the Kingdom unlocks the potential of open world gaming – https://theconversation.com/expansive-exciting-and-free-how-zeldas-tears-of-the-kingdom-unlocks-the-potential-of-open-world-gaming-206176

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

Elon Musk doesn’t like people working from home. A year ago he declared the end of remote work for employees at car maker Tesla. Now he has called the desire of the “laptop classes” to work from home “immoral”.

“You’re gonna work from home and you’re gonna make everyone else who made your car come work in the factory?” he said in an interview on US news network CNBC:

It’s a productivity issue, but it’s also a moral issue. People should get off their goddamn moral high horse with that work-from-home bullshit. Because they’re asking everyone else to not work from home while they do.

There’s a superficial logic to Musk’s position. But scrutinise it closer and the argument falls apart. While we have a duty to share workload with others, we have no duty to suffer for no reason. And for most of human history, working from home has been normal. It’s the modern factory and office that are the oddities.

Read more:
How many days a week in the office are enough? You shouldn’t need to ask

Working from home and the industrial revolution

Prior to the industrial revolution, which historian date to the mid-1700s to mid-1800s, working from home, or close to home, was commonplace for most of the world’s population. This included skilled manufacturing workers, who typically worked at home or in small workshops nearby.

For the skilled craftsperson, work hours were what we might call “flexible”. British historian E.P. Thompson records the consternation among the upper class about the notorious “irregularity” of labour.

Conditions changed with the rapid growth and concentration of machines in the industrial revolution. These changes began in England, which also saw the most protracted and tense conflicts over the new work hours and discipline factory owners and managers demanded.

Judgements of conditions for workers prior to industrialisation vary. Thompson’s masterpiece study The Making of the English Working Class (published in 1963) recounts bleak tales of families of six or eight woolcombers, huddled working around a charcoal stove, their workshop “also the bedroom”.

But it also mentions the stocking maker with “peas and beans in his snug garden, and a good barrel of humming ale”, and the linen-weaving quarter of Belfast, with “their whitewashed houses, and little flower gardens”.

Either way, working from home is not a novel invention of the “laptop classes”. Only with the industrial revolution were workers required under one roof and for fixed hours.

Read more:
Meet the matchstick women — the hidden victims of the industrial revolution

Misapplying a concept of justice

Musk’s moral argument against working from home says that because not all workers can do it, no workers should expect it.

This has some resemblance to the “categorical imperative” articulated by 18th century philosopher Immanuel Kant: “Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.”

But acting according to the same principle does not mean we all have the same options. We can, for example, want all workers to have the maximum freedom their tasks allow.

The wider error Musk appears to be making is misapplying what ethics researchers call distributive justice.

Simply put, distributive justice concerns how we share benefits and harms. As the philosopher John Rawls explains in his book Justice as Fairness, in distributive justice we view society as a cooperative activity, where we “regulate the division of advantages that arises from social cooperation over time”.

Research on distributive justice at work typically concerns how to pay workers fairly and also share the suffering or “toil” work requires. But there is no compelling moral case to share the needless suffering that work creates.

How to share more fairly

Clearly, professionals benefit from work in many ways we might argue are unjust.
As economist John Kenneth Galbraith observed satirically in The Economics of Innocent Fraud, those who most enjoy their work are generally the best paid. “This is accepted. Low wage scales are for those in repetitive, tedious, painful toil.”

If Musk wanted to share either the pay or toil at Tesla more equally, he has the means to do something about it. He could pay his factory workers more, for example, instead of taking a pay package likely to pay him US$56 billion in 2028. (This depends on Tesla’s market capitalisation being 12 times what it was in 2018; it’s now about 10 times.)

To share the “toil” of work more fairly, he wouldn’t just be sleeping at work. He’d be on the production line, or down a mine in central Africa, dragging out the cobalt electric vehicle batteries need, for a few dollars a day.

Elon, the floor is yours

Instead, Musk’s idea of fairness is about creating unnecessary work, shaming workers who don’t need to be in the office to commute regardless. There is no compelling moral reason for this in the main Western ethics traditions.

The fruits and burdens of work should be distributed fairly, but unnecessary work helps no one. Commuting is the least pleasurable, and most negative, time of a workers’ day, studies show. Insisting everyone has to do it brings no benefit to those who must do it. They’re not better off.

Denying some workers’ freedom to work from home because other workers don’t have the same freedom now is ethically perverse.

Musk’s hostility towards remote work is consistent with a long history of research that documents managers’ resistance to letting workers out of their sight.

Working from home, or “anywhere working”, has been discussed since the 1970s, and technologically viable since at least the late 1990s. Yet it only became an option for most workers when managers were forced to accept it during the pandemic.

While this enforced experiment of the pandemic has led to the “epiphany” that working from home can be as productive, the growth of surveillance systems to track workers at home proves managerial suspicions linger.

Read more:
3 ways ‘bossware’ surveillance technology is turning back the management clock

There are genuine moral issues for Musk to grapple with at Tesla. He could use his fortune and influence to do something about issues such as modern slavery in supply chains, or the inequity of executive pay.

Instead, he’s vexed about working from home. To make work at Tesla genuinely more just, Musk’s moral effort would better be directed towards fairly distributing Tesla’s profit, and mitigating the suffering and toil that industrial production systems already create.

Dale Tweedie receives no funding from any organisation that would benefit from this article.

– ref. Working from home immoral? A lesson in ethics, and history, for Elon Musk – https://theconversation.com/working-from-home-immoral-a-lesson-in-ethics-and-history-for-elon-musk-205992

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Braden Hill, Deputy Vice Chancellor (Students Equity and Indigenous), Edith Cowan University

In recent months in Australia, we have seen vigilante racism in Rockhampton, booing, abuse and vitriol directed at First Nations footy players, and the appalling treatment of First Nations children jailed in adult prisons.

Racism is a major issue in the debate over the proposed First Nations Voice to Parliament – and it will likely only continue to get worse.

Regardless of how First Nations people intend to vote, racist public commentary has a harmful impact on the mental health and wellbeing of people and their communities. Stan Grant’s decision to step away from his role with the ABC is a high profile example of this.

Recognising these likely impacts, the federal Labor government has committed $10.5 million to support mental health services for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the lead-up to the referendum vote later this year.

This is a welcome initiative that will enable Aboriginal community-controlled organisations to provide further support for their respective communities.

We can also learn from the experiences of LGBTQIA+ people during Australia’s marriage equality plebiscite how a national vote like this can affect the mental health of a historically marginalised community.

Read more:
New research shows how Indigenous LGBTIQ+ people don’t feel fully accepted by either community

Mental health impacts of the marriage equality plebiscite

Studies found that increased exposure to the “no” campaign messaging in the lead-up to the marriage equality plebiscite, as well as the harmful public debate, led to greater levels of psychological stress, depression and anxiety among the queer community.

Our research focusing on the wellbeing of Indigenous and LGBTQIA+ communities suggests the Voice to Parliament debate will also disproportionately affect Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

We have found that while people who identified as both Indigenous and LGBTQIA+ experienced frequent sex and gender discrimination, the impact of racism was more profoundly felt. As a result, it’s important to protect Indigenous people against racism in the very public debate over the Voice.

During the marriage equality plebiscite, mental health services catering to LGBTQIA+ clients saw a dramatic increase in demand. This led to longer wait-lists and increased stress on the healthcare system. The mental health of LGBTQIA+ people in electorates recording a high “no” vote was also more affected than people in electorates voting “yes”.

This would suggest that funding support for Indigenous people in communities associated with higher levels of racism is a priority. Pre-polling and post-referendum analysis would help establish which areas require this.

A supportive community also matters. LGBTQIA+ people with a close social circle they perceived as supporting marriage equality suffered less severe negative mental health outcomes from the “no” campaign. For those who didn’t receive support from their friends and family, public messages of support helped.

Unfortunately, not all Indigenous LGBTQA+ peoples have access to social supports.

How could the Voice referendum affect First Nations people?

According to various surveys, a majority of Indigenous people support constitutional recognition. But unlike the 1967 referendum, the Voice to Parliament referendum faces an organised “no” campaign.

There is opposition to the Voice from some media and social media sources that purposefully confuse the case for constitutional recognition. This makes the task ahead more difficult for “yes” campaigners and Indigenous people more broadly.

Racialised stressors that come with the referendum are an additional burden to First Nations communities. One example of this is the opposition’s repeated insistence about “insufficient detail” on the Voice, particularly from the more conservative side of the “no” campaign.
This invalidates and distorts the work, expertise and experience of Indigenous people over decades on all sides of the debate.

This vote will have little adverse impact on the lives of non-Indigenous Australians. However, supporting Indigenous family members, friends and colleagues is important. Like the marriage equality plebiscite, a minority community will face the greatest impact from the vote, not the majority with power.

Being supportive of Indigenous people firstly requires an understanding that we, as First Nations people, are entitled to diverse political views.

We are not here to educate or carry the burden of raising awareness on the referendum. We are also not interested in experiencing increased racial violence under the guise of political debate. This debate is one that non-Indigenous people can walk away from, but will remain felt by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

Sustained mental health support for Indigenous people after the referendum will hopefully lessen the harm from the racism that will probably follow, irrespective of the outcome.

In order to combat racism and misinformation, it is vital for non-Indigenous people to have informed conversations about the referendum – around the kitchen table, at work, and even at your infamously racist uncle’s house.

Within our respective organisations, non-Indigenous colleagues are also educating themselves and others around them. They are taking the opportunity to elevate the voices of their Indigenous peers and proactively considering ways to support Indigenous communities throughout the campaign and afterwards.

Bep Uink receives funding from the NHMRC and Australian Research Council.

Shakara Liddelow-Hunt receives funding from the NHMRC.

Sian Bennett receives funding from Pathways of Care Longitudinal Study (POCLS), NSW Government.

Braden Hill 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. What can we learn from the marriage equality vote about supporting First Nations people during the Voice debate? – https://theconversation.com/what-can-we-learn-from-the-marriage-equality-vote-about-supporting-first-nations-people-during-the-voice-debate-205745

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Kemish, Adjunct Professor, School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry, The University of Queensland

Papua New Guinea has been in the international spotlight over the past week, hosting a remarkable series of visits by foreign leaders and senior representatives.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India received an enthusiastic welcome on Monday when he arrived in Port Moresby for the first visit by an Indian head of government and to meet with 14 visiting leaders of the Pacific Island Forum countries and territories. PNG Prime Minister James Marape stooped to touch Modi’s feet on arrival, welcoming him as the “leader of the Global South”.

United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken also visited Port Moresby at the start of the week. Blinken was standing in for US President Joe Biden, whose much-anticipated stopover in the country was cancelled, along with his planned subsequent visit to Australia, because of the crisis in the US Congress over the federal debt ceiling.

Blinken signed two important agreements with PNG during his visit: a Defence Cooperation Agreement (DCA) and an Agreement Concerning Counter Illicit Transnational Maritime Activity Operations.

While in Port Moresby, Blinken also convened the latest in a series of high-level meetings between the US and Pacific leaders. New Zealand Prime Minister Chris Hipkens and Australian Senator Pat Conroy were also present.

These two visits were only part of a broader, substantial uptick in external engagement in PNG. In April, British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly visited the country, signing a defence framework agreement. It’s understood Indonesian President Joko Widodo will be there in June.

France has also recently signed a status of forces agreement with PNG. Meanwhile, Australia is negotiating a security treaty that is expected to substantially upgrade its longstanding defence cooperation agreement.

This activity all reflects the increasing importance of the Pacific Island countries in the strategic calculations of the democratic powers amid growing Chinese influence and heightened US-China tensions in the region. This is particularly true of PNG. It’s the largest nation in the region by far, located only a few kilometres from Australia, near the intersection point between Asia and the Pacific.

Read more:
China’s push into PNG has been surprisingly slow and ineffective. Why has Beijing found the going so tough?

Amid all the colour and movement in Port Moresby this week, at least two important shifts were detectable in the dynamics of the region.

The Modi visit provided the clearest signal yet of India’s intention to join longstanding regional partners in demonstrating to the Pacific the value of prioritising engagement with the democratic world. With its inspirational development narrative, major power status and cultural links to the region, India could play an important role if it follows up with substantive collaboration with the region on climate change, security and sustainable development.

The updated defence arrangements between PNG and the United States, combined with the now-established pattern of senior US-Pacific political dialogue, recent growth in regional US development support and the upgrading of its regional diplomatic network, provide some corroboration that a long-promised American recommitment to the Pacific is finally under way.

Biden’s planned visit would have sealed this message symbolically – it would have been the first ever to a Pacific Island country. Its cancellation was undoubtedly a setback, but its impact should not be overstated given the practical displays of US commitment.

The text of the DCA will not be officially released until it is formally adopted into US law. However, the signatories have indicated that it updates an old status of forces agreement and aims to strengthen PNG Defence Force capabilities, including in humanitarian assistance and disaster response, and will allow for increased joint military training.

A draft leaked to the PNG media before the Blinken visit suggested the US might have substantial access to PNG facilities.

The maritime arrangement will allow the US Coast Guard to support surveillance in PNG’s exclusive economic zone and help combat illicit transnational activity through joint sea operations.

Students at several PNG universities protested against what they saw as a lack of transparency about the defence agreement. They expressed fears it compromised the country’s independence by bringing it more firmly into the US sphere of control. Some opposition political figures spoke of the risk of angering China and thus inviting potentially harmful repercussions for PNG’s economic security.

But Marape and his government stood their ground. Marape argued the agreement had “nothing to do with China” and PNG’s sovereignty remained intact. He also pointed to his government’s “healthy” relationship with Beijing and China’s status as an important trading partner for PNG. He has firmly rejected accusations that the arrangements for visiting US military personnel would violate PNG law.

Read more:
Biden’s cancelled Australia-PNG trip was a missed opportunity – but a US debt crisis would hurt a lot more

PNG will nonetheless remain committed to its “friends to all, enemies to none” foreign policy approach. It will continue to leverage its growing array of relationships for its economic development.

In recent years, PNG’s leaders have joined others from the Pacific in expressing impatience with the strategic rivalry between their external partners and alarm at signs of greater militarisation in the region. India’s refusal to align itself firmly with one side or another in the geostrategic contest will be seen by many in the region as a model.

While Chinese investment and development support for PNG actually remains very limited compared to that of Australia, it looms large as a trading partner. Chinese state-owned enterprises are now heavily engaged in PNG, particularly its construction sector.

It is also clear that Australia’s partners have come to understand they cannot leave it to Australia alone to carry the democratic standard in the Pacific. While Modi’s decision not to invite Australia and New Zealand to the formal component of the India-Pacific meeting (they were invited to a lunch) raised eyebrows, it may actually have been quite useful.

If the objective is for India to step forward into a substantive and positive regional role, then it probably helps that the symbolism of the India-Pacific meeting was not diluted by “traditional” partners detailing their own familiar cooperative efforts with the region.

If Australia wants others to share the load in the Pacific, it doesn’t follow that it always has to be involved. Australian government strategists likely think this has been a good week in PNG.

Ian Kemish is a former High Commissioner to PNG. He chairs the Kokoda Track Foundation and is the Pacific representative of the Global Partnership for Education, both of which receive funding from The Australian Government. He is affiliated with the ANU National Security College and the Griffith Asia Institute in addition to his adjunct position at the University of Queensland. He advises a range of companies on PNG and the Pacific.

– ref. World leaders are flocking to Papua New Guinea. Here’s why – https://theconversation.com/world-leaders-are-flocking-to-papua-new-guinea-heres-why-206091

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rob Cruickshank, Lecturer – Teaching & Administration, University of Canterbury

Insects are in rapid decline. One study found the global total is falling by 2.5% a year, with insect species going extinct eight times faster than mammals, birds and reptiles.

While scientists don’t yet know when insect populations could drop to the point of no return, we can’t keep losing species without, ultimately, a catastrophic outcome.

Many people are concerned about insect biodiversity and trying do something about it. One way is to give some habitat back to insects. Wildflower meadows, for example, are being sown in parks and other urban green spaces.

Typically, these are mixtures of mostly non-native species chosen to provide nectar, pollen, and other resources for insects, as well as visual floral appeal. They are often deployed for other reasons, like reducing the need for mowing and its associated costs and carbon footprint.

But before we plant wildflower fields or build “bug hotels”, we need to better understand how these measures help – and when they don’t. The lack of robust research means there is still a lot we don’t know. Our team of researchers at the University of Canterbury is trying to fill some of this knowledge gap.

What we don’t know

The long-term potential of wildflowers is unclear. They seem to attract insects, but there are many unanswered questions.

Do these insects come from elsewhere or is there a genuine bolstering of populations? Which insects benefit most? What is the balance between pests and beneficial species? Can exotic plants support an increase in native insects? Do the effects extend beyond planted areas, and if so, how far?

Read more:
Insects: worldwide study reveals widespread decline since 1925

Bug hotels, which generally consist of artificial homes for insects, raise similar questions. As their design, materials, and construction are more variable, it’s even more difficult to assess their efficacy.

This is something we need examine further as some designs may be more effective than others. This will depend on the mix of insects in the vicinity. What works well in one place may be counter-productive in another.

Long-term commitment

Enthusiasm for sowing wildflowers and building bug refuges rarely extends to ongoing upkeep and long-term monitoring. Many studies are short-term, local scale, and rather ad hoc, making it difficult to compare and draw broader conclusions.

The results are often unpublished or difficult to find, hidden in reports about other things. This means, if we are to use these insect ecosystem revival approaches effectively, we need to draw this evidence together and implement more long-term studies across a wide variety of contexts.

Fortunately, studies like this are relatively easy to do. They just require a commitment to keeping them going. We also need to be sharing the results in ways that allow meaningful comparisons.

Read more:
Insects are vanishing worldwide – now it’s making it harder to grow food

The research methods used by scientists to study insect populations don’t require expensive equipment and can easily be replicated by volunteers, community groups and school students of all ages. For example, pitfall traps, which measure insect activity on the ground, can be yoghurt pots sunk into the soil.

The educational possibilities are many, from science fair projects to basic numeracy skills. Similar to birdwatching, volunteers could do five-minute bug counts to see what insects visit flowers and “hotels”.

Other entomological methods such as “beating” (shaking a low-hanging branch over a white sheet to see what falls out) are just as easy. The important point is to choose methods and a sampling frequency that are sustainable, and stick to it.

Understanding bug populations

Baseline studies before establishing a meadow or bug hotel would make research like this even more effective, but this is rarely done. This is why we have been doing baseline studies of areas where wildflower meadows are planned at the University of Canterbury. We want to understand the environment, and insect populations, before the introduction of the wildflowers.

Although all the available evidence suggests these meadows will significantly increase the number and diversity of insects in the area, it’s surprising how many insects we’ve found in our baseline studies, including lots of tiny parasitic wasps, which tell us the insects they live off must also be around, even though we have not seen so many of them.

Read more:
What happens to the natural world if all the insects disappear?

These baseline studies will allow us to see how the composition of the insect community changes after meadows are sown. We may even find some kinds of insects decrease in numbers while others flourish. These details are important for assessing the overall impacts of the meadow.

In the process, we may also counter the trend towards disconnection from nature, particularly among young people. Wildflower meadows, bug hotels and other interventions could be a wonderful way to “rewild” our urban spaces, and bring some nature back into people’s lives.

If we want to know the best way to use such measures, however, we need to monitor their impacts. This can be an interesting, fun way to engage with and learn about nature, and to add value to community gardens and replanting projects.

It can also provide important scientific data to help us more effectively provide the space insects need to thrive alongside us.

Rob Cruickshank 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. Could wildflowers and bug hotels help avert an insect apocalypse? We just don’t know – yet. – https://theconversation.com/could-wildflowers-and-bug-hotels-help-avert-an-insect-apocalypse-we-just-dont-know-yet-206390

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Karen Dwyer, Professor, School of Medicine, Deakin University

Legendary singer Tina Turner, who died this week at the age of 83 after a long illness, has written about her history of high blood pressure and kidney disease, leading to a kidney transplant.

Turner should be applauded for her willingness to share her medical history to publicise the importance of looking after your kidneys, just months before she died.

Turner’s family has not confirmed how she died. But Turner’s openness with her long-standing illness is a reminder for us all to keep an eye on our blood pressure, and to control it, if we are to avoid complications.

Here’s why controlling your blood pressure is so important and what can happen if we don’t.

Why is high blood pressure linked to kidney disease?

There’s a bi-directional relationship between blood pressure and kidney disease.

That means high blood pressure increases the risk for kidney disease and once you have kidney disease, it further promotes high blood pressure. It’s a vicious cycle.

In some cases, it’s hard to determine which one came first.

Uncontrolled blood pressure exerts a lot of pressure on the kidney. That leads to scarring and damage. If we looked inside the kidney, we’d see large areas of scarring. Once you have scarring, that tissue isn’t working properly and can start to leak protein into the urine. That then pushes up the risk of progressive kidney disease, leading to kidney failure, heart disease and premature death.

The kidney itself is integral to maintaining blood pressure. Kidneys obviously maintain fluid balance by passing urine, but they also have important hormonal jobs which are vital to maintaining blood pressure.

So, once you get kidney disease, blood pressure can be really hard to manage. It’s like a hammer and nail, and the nail is the kidney. If you have high blood pressure, the hammer is hitting the nail really, really hard.

Read more:
Health Check: what do my blood pressure numbers mean?

Are there certain symptoms to look out for?

Both high blood pressure and kidney disease are what we call “clinically silent”, so many people don’t realise they have problems until it is very far along.

Often a person with high blood pressure has no symptoms. There are times, in extreme cases, where people may get headaches or a feeling of thumping in the head. But their first sign may be a stroke or heart attack or some other major complication. That’s why checking blood pressure on a regular basis is smart.

For kidney disease, you can lose up 90% of kidney function before symptoms develop. They can be clinically silent right up until kidney failure. When symptoms do arrive, they can be very vague – things like poor concentration or feeling tired.

Often people just put it down to winter, being busy or getting older.

So we recommend screening for kidney disease if you have high blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease, excess abdominal weight, a history of smoking, acute kidney injury or a family history of kidney disease. This should be done on a one- to two-year basis.

Read more:
Kidneys are amazing for all they do, be sure to look after yours

What are the treatments?

In the past five years, there have been a swathe of newer medicines that bring down blood pressure and protect the kidney. For around 20 years, we have had a class of drugs called renin-angiotensin system blockade (usually just shortened to RAS blockade).

But more recently, we have a new group of medicines called SGLT2 inhibitors, which have really changed the landscape of kidney disease. The Therapeutic Goods Administration has just approved another medicine called finerenone, which is a non-steroidal MRA.

These have all been shown to protect the kidney, as opposed to just treating symptoms. They slow the progression of the disease and have shifted the paradigm to kidney preservation.

And it’s really crucial you address the lifestyle factors that increase your risk.

Read more:
Explainer: what is chronic kidney disease and why are one in three at risk of this silent killer?

How can I reduce my risk?

Don’t smoke. Being a smoker significantly increases your risk of high blood pressure and kidney disease.

Eat a nutrient-dense diet, including fresh, whole foods that are in season and avoid ultra-processed food and sugar. This approach will help to control blood pressure and protect the kidney.

Do all the usual things – get good sleep, maintain an active lifestyle and manage your stress. If you have a family history of kidney disease, that may prompt you to get checked.

Do the Kidney Health Australia quiz and if you are deemed to be at risk, go to your GP to get a kidney health check. That involves a blood pressure check, urine test and a blood test.

Read more:
Health Check: what can your doctor tell from your urine?

Kidney disease is becoming more common

The number of people with kidney failure is increasing dramatically. According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, the number of Australians receiving kidney replacement therapy (either on dialysis or living with a transplant) more than doubled between 2000 and 2020, from 11,700 to 27,700. Over half of those receiving kidney replacement therapy were on dialysis.

While a kidney transplant improves quality of life and can extend a person’s life, it’s important to remember that high blood pressure can still persist and often requires ongoing treatment.

Karen Dwyer is Clinical Director of Kidney Health Australia. She has received honorarium from AstraZeneca, Boehringer Ingelheim and Bayer. She is on the clinical advisory committee for GMHBA.

– ref. Tina Turner had a history of high blood pressure and kidney disease. Here’s how one leads to the other – https://theconversation.com/tina-turner-had-a-history-of-high-blood-pressure-and-kidney-disease-heres-how-one-leads-to-the-other-206392

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Marcin Glowacki, Research Associate, Curtin University

Astronomers have been working to better understand the galactic environments of fast radio bursts (FRBs) – intense, momentary bursts of energy occurring in mere milliseconds and with unknown cosmic origins.

Now, a study of the slow-moving, star-forming gas in the same galaxy found to host an FRB has been published in The Astrophysical Journal. This is only the fourth-ever publication on two completely different areas of astronomy describing the same galaxy.

Even more remarkable is the fact that a single telescope made the discovery possible – from the same observation.

Fast radio mysteries

FRBs, first detected in 2007, are incredibly powerful pulses of radio waves. They originate from distant galaxies, and the signal typically only lasts a few milliseconds.

FRBs are immensely useful for studying the cosmos, from investigating the matter that makes up the universe, to even using them to constrain the Hubble constant – the measure of how much the universe is expanding.

Read more:
A brief history: what we know so far about fast radio bursts across the universe

However, the origin of FRBs is an ongoing puzzle for astronomers. Some FRBs are known to repeat, sometimes over a thousand times. Others have only been detected once.

Whether these repeating or non-repeating signals have formed differently is currently being investigated by several research groups. At one point, we had more theories on how fast radio bursts are made than detections of them.

It’s an exciting time to be studying FRBs, as showcased by the recent study associating an FRB with a gravitational wave. If that finding holds true, it means at least some FRBs could be created by two neutron stars merging to form a black hole.

However, it is hard to pinpoint where exactly fast radio bursts come from. They are extremely bright yet so brief, getting an accurate position is hard for many radio telescopes. Without knowing where precisely these bursts originate, we cannot study the galaxies they are found in. And without knowing the environments FRBs are formed in, we cannot fully solve their mysteries.

One telescope in Australia is now helping us figure it out.

The tool for the job

CSIRO’s ASKAP radio telescope (Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder), located in the Western Australian desert, is a remarkable instrument. Made up of an array of 36 dishes separated by up to six kilometres, ASKAP can detect FRBs and pinpoint them to their host galaxies.

ASKAP can in fact perform its FRB search at the same time as observations for other science surveys. One such ASKAP survey will map the star-forming gas in galaxies across the Southern sky, helping us understand how galaxies evolve.

During a recent observation for this survey, ASKAP also detected a new FRB, and we were able to identify the galaxy it comes from – a nearby spiral galaxy much like our own Milky Way.

A gas-filled galaxy

ASKAP was able to find the cold neutral hydrogen gas – the source of star formation – in this spiral galaxy. As far as FRB host galaxies go, this is already a rare detection of this gas; only three other cases have been published so far. These had required follow-up observations, or relied on other older observations, made with different telescopes.

Here, ASKAP gave us both the FRB and the gas surrounding it. It is the first simultaneous detection of these rarely overlapping occurrences.

Disturbed gas which ASKAP can detect can give us an indication that a galaxy merger recently happened, which tells us about the star forming history of the galaxy. In turn this gives us clues as to what may cause FRBs.

The previous studies of the gas surrounding FRBs found fast radio bursts reside in very dynamic systems, suggesting tumultuous galaxy mergers triggered the bursts.

For this particular FRB, however, the host galaxy environment is surprisingly calmer. Further studies will be needed to find out if overall we see disturbed gas environments for FRBs, or if there are distinct scenarios – and potentially multiple creation paths – for FRBs.

More to come

Given the uniqueness of such dual detections, this result showcases the strength and versatility of ASKAP. This is the first simultaneous detection of both an FRB and the gas in its host galaxy.

And this is just the start. ASKAP is set to detect and localise over a hundred FRBs a year. By continuing to work collaboratively with each other, different survey groups will be able to untangle the mysteries behind FRBs, how they form, and their host galaxy environments.

CSIRO acknowledges the Wajarri Yamaji as the Traditional Owners and native title holders of the Inyarrimanha Ilgari Bundara, our Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory site, where ASKAP is located.

Marcin Glowacki 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. Astronomers detected two major targets with a single telescope – a mysterious signal and its source galaxy – https://theconversation.com/astronomers-detected-two-major-targets-with-a-single-telescope-a-mysterious-signal-and-its-source-galaxy-203557

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Moulds, Senior Lecturer of Law, University of South Australia

Across Australia, climate activists are testing the limits of what counts as lawful protest, in addition to the patience of commuters as their actions shut down roads or disrupt businesses. Authorities are responding with new police powers and increasingly harsh new penalties.

The speed at which these new laws are made and their impact on the right to protest are alarming.

Last week in Adelaide, an Extinction Rebellion activist dangled off a city bridge as part of a protest timed to coincide with a meeting of major oil and gas companies. Commuters along busy North Terrace were held up by road blocks set up by emergency services in response to the stunt. The activist was charged with several offences, including obstructing a public place.

The opposition in the state immediately called for tougher penalties for protesters who cause traffic chaos. The next day, the South Australian government introduced amendments to the Summary Offences Act 1953 (SA) that could see protesters hit with fines of $50,000 (up from $750) or three months imprisonment.

Protesters caught by the new laws could also be liable for paying the costs of any police and other emergency services called to the scene. These amendments were passed by the House of Assembly in Adelaide by lunchtime. In a matter of hours, the right to protest in South Australia sustained a grievous blow. And the laws are not limited to protesters – they can apply to any person who directly or indirectly obstructs free passage in a public place.

Read more:
‘Draconian and undemocratic’: why criminalising climate protesters in Australia doesn’t actually work

Both major parties were prepared to pass changes they barely had time to read, let alone scrutinise. There’s no human rights legislation in South Australia to slow down the race to legislate, and not even an requirement to publish explanatory material about the new law.

This type of knee-jerk lawmaking in response to climate protests has occurred in other states too.

In Queensland, laws have been introduced to make sure protesters who clamped themselves to buildings or other bits of the city could be hit with bigger fines and longer jail terms.

In New South Wales, harsher penalties have been introduced to target protesters whose actions disrupted businesses and other economic activity. These laws mean that people can be fined up to $22,000 or jailed for up to two years for protesting illegally on public roads, rail lines, tunnels, bridges and industrial estates.

And in Tasmania, anti-protest laws have been introduced to specifically target activists looking to disrupt logging activities by increasing penalties for anyone who obstructs employees from carrying out their work or causing a risk to worker safety.

These laws are designed to send a “zero tolerance” message to climate activists.

Using the threat of jail and crippling fines, authorities want to stop people from dangling from bridges, clamping themselves to buildings or chaining themselves to trees. They also want to help the commuters stuck in traffic, or the forestry workers locked out of their machines.

No compromise on right to protest, environment conservation

The problem is, when these laws are rushed through parliament, they are often poorly designed and sometimes, unconstitutional. They can also be unpopular.

This is because in the rush to respond to public outrage at the actions of protesters, politicians underestimate how much Australians care about the environment, and the right to peaceful protest.

This is playing out in the backlash to the new anti-protest laws in South Australia and in the judicial and public response to the sentencing of protester Deanna “Violet” CoCo in New South Wales.

These rushed laws also underestimate the reach of the implied freedom of political communication in our Constitution, which has been tested in a range of contexts.

Previous versions of anti-protest laws in Tasmania have been struck down by the High Court for going too far when it comes to imposing penalties on activists seeking to disrupt workplaces, with some judges taking a strong interest in the powers given to police and other authorities under these laws.

For example, in Brown v Tasmania, Chief Justice Kiefel and Justices
Bell and Keane explained that anti-protesting laws that are drafted in vague terms, and are highly dependent on police interpretation on the ground, risk capturing or deterring lawful protests. When this happens, the laws may no longer be considered proportionate, and may be incompatible with our constitutionally protected system of representative democracy.

The concept of representative democracy is fiercely defended by the High Court, which means that although we don’t have a constitutional right to protest, we do have an implied freedom to communicate about political matters that might impact who we vote for.

The laws introduced in NSW in 2022 are also being challenged on the basis that they may breach the implied freedom of political communication protected in the constitution.

The community backlash

The common element in the community backlash to these laws and the constitutional challenges is proportionality.

Proportionality is a human rights concept that means we think about whether the new law is necessary, whether it will work in practice and what impact it will have on other rights and values we care about in our democracy.

Read more:
What do we want? Charting the rise and fall of protest in Australia

People get rightly get frustrated when their drive to work or school takes three hours longer than usual because of protests. But recent surveys suggest there’s a good chance these same people also care about climate change and don’t want their kids to inherit a dead planet. They certainly don’t want their kids to live in a country where speaking out against the government lands you in jail or bankrupts you.

If we are going to stand any chance against the complex challenges that climate change poses to our way of life, we need parliamentarians who take their representative roles seriously, and take the time to listen to the community.

We need parliaments interested in making proportionate laws rather than breaking legislative speed limits.

Sarah Moulds has previously received funding from the Law Foundation of South Australia. She is the current Director of the volunteer-based Rights Resource Network SA and a member of the Law Society of South Australia.

– ref. Laws targeting protesters are being rushed through state parliaments. But they are often poorly designed and sometimes, unconstitutional – https://theconversation.com/laws-targeting-protesters-are-being-rushed-through-state-parliaments-but-they-are-often-poorly-designed-and-sometimes-unconstitutional-206103

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Charmaine Bernie, Senior Research Fellow, Early Years Research Lab, Southern Cross University

Early gross motor (or whole body) movements such as crawling and walking are exciting developments and clear markers for parents watching their child’s development. But what happens when a milestone isn’t reached, or the movement itself isn’t what a parent is expecting?

Babies arrive in the world with inborn movements, including reflexes. Other motor skills – such as sitting up or rolling towards a toy on a playmat – are learned as they grow.

Most babies begin moving towards people or objects much further away from them in the second half of their first year. This marks a change for parents and carers too, because they can no longer walk away for a moment and come back to find baby in the same spot. Time to think about child proofing your living spaces if you haven’t already!

But how can a parent or carer decide when to worry, when to get professional advice, or when to accept things are moving along just fine?

Crawling, cruising, walking

Commonly babies will crawl “on all fours” with bellies above the floor and hands and knees moving forward in a diagonal pattern, where right arm and left leg move together and left arm and right leg move together. This stage can last weeks or months before infants rise up to cruise on their feet while holding on to the furniture. Cruising and walking is usually observed between eight and 18 months of age.

Some children, however, move differently, and some seem to skip the crawling stage altogether. Just as there is no specific day in the first year that all babies move off their play mat to explore, there is no one way of moving across the room.

Some babies bottom-shuffle along while keeping their hands off the floor. Others commando crawl on their tummy, like soldiers staying low. Some babies move hands first with their bent knees to follow like they are playing game of leapfrog. Many use combinations of any or all of the above in addition to crawling before they turn one.

Quality and variety might be significant

Researchers and child development professionals used to think when traditional movement sequences were not observed, there was a definite problem with the way a child’s brain or body was developing.

While there are some schools of thought that suggest crawling is a critical part of child development, newer theories place more emphasis on the quality and variety of movements individual babies use to move. Some research has suggested variable crawling patterns can occur in children with, and without, later developmental delay. Earlier research found while 90% of children achieved motor milestones by age two following a common sequence, 4.3% did not show hands-and-knees crawling at all.

Differences are not always cause for concern, but tuning in to your child’s movement pattern may be important if you are noticing something unexpected at this stage. Unusual, absent or delayed crawling patterns have been associated with cerebral palsy, Down syndrome, autism, developmental coordination disorder and other neurological, learning or developmental disorders.

Children with known neurological or physical issues, or adverse events before or at birth may also experience gross motor difficulties and delays.

For each of these groups, early assessment and intervention are important, as they carry greater potential benefit for children and families, compared with waiting until later to address concerns.

Read more:
Talking to babies may contribute to brain development – here’s how to do it

A few things to watch for and investigate

So, what are the signs that help parents know it is time to seek professional advice?

Not trying to move

By about 9–11 months there should be some regular attempts from babies to move in and out of still positions and explore the room around them. It is common for babies at this stage to use their arms and legs effectively together to direct themselves forward.

Asymmetry

When the left of the body is doing something quite different from the right (or vice versa) it is a sign further assessment may be needed.

Noticeable weakness, stiffness or discomfort

When babies seems to be struggling with movement strength or range, particularly in the neck, arms, hands, or legs, this should be explored further by a health professional. Babies showing regular and ongoing signs of discomfort with their movements (such as grimacing or crying) should also be reviewed.

Read more:
What is ‘early intervention’ for infants with signs of autism? And how valuable could it be?

Get the right advice

If parents or carers notice these things, it is important they raise it with a care provider, such as a maternal child and family health nurse or general practitioner. An appointment with one of these providers is usually the first step parents take when there are concerns or they want extra observation or screening.

Some families may already have access to a paediatric occupational therapist, physiotherapist or paediatrician. Each can complete further assessments and offer advice as needed.

In the vast majority of cases, parents have a good sense of when to worry. If you are concerned, seek out a healthcare professional who can help answer questions and provide advice. Neither you, nor your baby need to move through this stage alone.

Read more:
Toilet training from birth? It is possible

Charmaine is registered as an Occupational Therapist with the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency.

Charmaine Bernie is a trainer in Occupational Performance Coaching, Cognitive Orientation to daily Occupational Performance, and pathways to autism diagnosis.

– ref. Babies crawl, scoot and shuffle when learning to move. Here’s what to watch for if you’re worried – https://theconversation.com/babies-crawl-scoot-and-shuffle-when-learning-to-move-heres-what-to-watch-for-if-youre-worried-204913

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mehdi Seyedmahmoudian, Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering, Swinburne University of Technology

Electric vehicle advocates say the cars ultimately have a smaller carbon footprint than their fossil-fuelled counterparts and could resolve our energy concerns for good. Well, fair enough, but questions arise when we dig into the inner layers of electrical vehicles and see how sustainable their components are. In fact, the batteries that power electric vehicles may also be their Achilles heel.

Batteries are the most expensive component of an electric vehicle. If the battery pack is damaged, defective or simply old, this can lead to the vehicle being written off prematurely. Tesla is even producing “structural” battery packs described as having “zero repairability”.

Increasingly scarce and valuable resources, such as lithium and water, are needed to make these batteries. Despite this, they are often not designed for ease of repair, reuse or recycling. This has significant environmental impacts, ranging from the mining for materials and the water and energy used in making new batteries and vehicles, through to the hazardous waste from discarded batteries.

In other words, the answer to the question of “Are electric vehicles really eco-friendly?” largely depends on how we manage the downsides associated with their batteries. Changes in how we design, produce, use and recycle electric car batteries are urgently needed. These changes can ensure that, in solving the problem of fossil fuel emissions, we also minimise other environmental harms.

Read more:
Electric cars can clean up the mining industry – here’s how

Tackle the problems before they get too big

It’s important to resolve these issues now, while electric vehicles make up a small fraction of the global vehicle fleet. Even in world-leading Norway, only 20% of cars on the road are electric. In Australia, fewer than 100,000 out of 20 million registered vehicles are battery-powered.

Yet already we are wrestling with the emerging concerns about their batteries. The performance of lithium batteries in an electric vehicle can degrade to 70-80% of its full capacity within six to ten years, depending on the owner’s driving routine. At that point, the battery is barely reliable as the main energy source of the vehicle. Repeated fast charging can degrade a battery sooner.

Globally, about 525,000 batteries will reach the end of their useful life for powering a vehicle by 2025. That number soars to over 1 million by 2030.

Read more:
Can electric vehicle batteries be recycled?

There’s life after EVs for batteries

However, the total lifetime of lithium batteries is 20 years. This means the end of a battery’s usefulness in a vehicle doesn’t necessarily mean it has to be discarded. These retired batteries can have plenty of other uses.

So how much capacity does a retired battery still have? As an example, an energy storage made of five repurposed Chevrolet Volt batteries can meet two hours of peak-use energy demand for five houses. The numbers become even more appealing for Tesla Model 3 batteries, which have three times the energy capacity of the Chevrolet Volt’s.

That is a tremendous capacity still available in a retired battery. So why not use that?

And once the battery has reached the end of its useful life, most of the raw materials used to make it can be recovered. It is possible to extract over 95% of the valuable metals like lithium, nickel, cobalt and copper. The European Union already requires electric vehicle batteries to be at least 50% recyclable by weight, increasing to 65% by 2025.

However, the current lack of standardisation of battery packs presents a challenge for battery recycling. There are many different physical configurations, cell types and cell chemistries.

Read more:
Designing batteries for easier recycling could avert a looming e-waste crisis

Reuse has a long value chain

The good news is that battery reuse is not a fictional utopia. Carmaker Nissan is already doing it on Koshikishima, an island in south-western Japan. Batteries are recovered from electric vehicles, have their health assessed and then allocated to suitable second-life applications.

These batteries can be reused in a solar farm, as an emergency household power supply, or for an electric forklift in a warehouse. Research shows this repurposing of batteries can get another 10-15 years’ use out of them. That’s a huge leap towards reducing their environmental impact.

So, who benefits from this scheme? Well, there’s a long list.

In the first row, electric vehicles owners benefit immediately if their used batteries can be sold for a good price.

In the longer run, the list of beneficiaries expands massively. Households can enjoy more reliable and cheaper energy simply by charging up their battery storage during off-peak hours for use at peak times when electricity costs are higher. As an initiative in Portugal showed, using repurposed electric vehicle batteries in this way could cut energy bills by 40%.

Reusing batteries is good news for the environment. Research suggests reducing the demand for new batteries in this way could cut greenhouse gas emissions from making batteries by as much as 56%.

Read more:
Cooperation with the US could drive Australia’s clean energy shift – but we must act fast

The long list of benefits of giving electric vehicle batteries a second life, then recycling their materials, is enticing. Given the scale of the potential economic and environmental gains, along with the countless jobs such work can create, batteries could be more generous in their afterlife than in their first incarnation in electric vehicles.

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. Batteries are the environmental Achilles heel of electric vehicles – unless we repair, reuse and recycle them – https://theconversation.com/batteries-are-the-environmental-achilles-heel-of-electric-vehicles-unless-we-repair-reuse-and-recycle-them-205404

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Giselle Natassia Woodley, Researcher and Phd Candidate, Edith Cowan University

Last week, the Albanese government announced an expert panel to support relationships and sexuality education in Australian schools.

The group is lead by the head of anti-violence organisation Our Watch, Patty Kinnersly, and includes consent advocate Chanel Contos. It will do a “rapid review” into consent and respectful relationships programs to identify “opportunities for improvement”.

This follows a new focus on consent and healthy relationships in Australian schools. The former Coalition government made consent a mandatory part of the curriculum.

We are talking to teenagers about the sex education they receive at schools. This research highlights several areas young people think can be improved. They are particularly concerned sex education most often does not discuss actual sex.

Read more:
Mandatory consent education is a huge win for Australia – but consent is just one small part of navigating relationships

Our research

As part of broader, ongoing research into online sexual content, we interviewed 30 West Australian teens (aged 11-17), between 2021 and 2023, to explore their experiences of sex education and where they source information to answer their questions about sex and relationships.

Eighteen interviewees were followed up with 12 months after we had first spoken, to see if their perspectives had changed.

Interviews began as some schools started teaching consent in 2021, with sexual assault being widely debated in the wake of the women’s March4Justice rallies around the country and a school sexual assault petition spearheaded by Contos. We have continued to gather young people’s perspectives as consent education became mandatory at the start of this school year.

Only the basics

The majority of the young people interviewed told us they were only taught the basics about consent – along the lines of “no means no, and yes means yes”. As interviewee Miles* (17) told us:

It’s always broadly talked about […] but it’s never actually talked about what it means and what it actually is.

Nicola (16) added:

It was more just like if someone says ‘no’, ‘stop’ or things like that and if you don’t like it say ‘no’ and things instead of the depths of it.

Consent is complex, so teaching it without necessary detail or context can have devastating results. Some young people may feel unable to say “no” safely in unwanted sexual experiences, and others are genuinely unaware a sexual act occurring, may not be consensual.

At the same time, teens also felt like the focus was on consent at the expense of other information and topics. As Tiffany (14) said:

The whole thing is consent, ‘cos that’s such a big thing nowadays […] we haven’t been taught about sex.

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

A focus on ‘what could go wrong’

Interviewees also felt current sex education was overwhelmingly fear-based and focused on safety. As 15-year-old Lauren explained, she and her classmates had been taught “what could go wrong and not anything else”.

They talk more about sexual violence and sexual assault than they do about sex itself and the benefits of sex and pleasure […]. It makes it feel like it’s bad to have sex and that there’s no pleasure in it and it’s harmful.

The focus was on risk and biological aspects also left many students confused in terms of how to navigate real-life sexual scenarios safely. As Caris (15) explained:

It’s hard not knowing what to do and where to put yourself and how to move and all of that. It’s hard for teenagers and they don’t feel comfortable going to their parents.

Warren (17) said this meant teenagers were going online to find more information.

The lack of education causes the younger generation to resort to online personal education therefore resulting in more negative or destructive sexual encounters.

This echoes a 2021–22 national survey, which found 95% of young Australians thought sex education was an important part of the curriculum. But only 24.8% said their most recent class was “very” or “extremely” relevant to them.

Teachers don’t seem trained

Young people interviewed also felt like their educators did not have enough training to be teaching about relationships and sexuality, which is taught as part of health and physical education from the first year of school to Year 10. As Nicola said:

It’s strange they have sport teachers teaching it, it’s not a designated teacher for that program. I think it makes a lot more sense if it’s someone who actually is knowledgeable.

Although a number of teens experienced enthusiastic, invigorating teachers, other interviewees wondered why an outside expert could not be brought in to teach about relationships and sexuality.

What needs to change

Consent education is extremely important. But if there is an overwhelming focus on consent and risks, education programs can create fear around sex. This can lead to trauma and shame. A Rebecca (16) told us:

It was called healthy relationships, but I reckon should just be called consent ‘cos that’s pretty much all we did the whole term.

Young people need be part of a culture that cares for and respect one another, rather than simply being taught to gain permission for sex. Young people need real-life strategies and communication techniques so they can talk about sex openly and clearly.

There also needs to be balanced information with discussion about the positive aspects of sex, such as building intimacy, communicating and pleasure.

This means consent education needs to be included as an important ingredient within a more comprehensive relationships and sexuality program.

We also need to ensure teachers are supported and receive appropriate training, working alongside visiting specialists as needed.

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

Learning about sex doesn’t mean young people will have it

There’s a common misconception that discussing sex encourages young people to have sex earlier. However, research suggests the opposite and information can actually delay sexual activity. Recent research also shows Australian parents want schools to tackle sex and relationships in more detail and from an early age.

Ultimately, schools need to be able to listen to the concerns of teens to meet their real needs around sex education in ways that are healthy, safe and relevant.

*names have been changed

If this article has raised issues for you, or if you’re concerned about someone you know, call Kids Helpline on 1800 55 1800 or 1800RESPECT on 1800 737 732. In an emergency call 000.

Giselle Natassia Woodley is part of the Australian Research Council’s Discovery Project funding scheme (project DP190102435). The views expressed here are those of the author and not necessarily the Australian government or the ARC. Giselle is also part of a not-for-profit Relationships and Sexuality education advocacy group, Bloom-Ed, whose views are not expressed here.

– ref. ‘We haven’t been taught about sex’: teens talk about how to fix school sex education – https://theconversation.com/we-havent-been-taught-about-sex-teens-talk-about-how-to-fix-school-sex-education-206001

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonathan W. Marshall, Associate Professor & Postgraduate Research Coordinator, Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts, Edith Cowan University

Recent protests against drag queen story hours are the latest in a series of actions targeting the increased prominence of displays of LGBTIQ+ culture in the public arena.

But drag artists have been strutting their stuff in speakeasys, cabarets and films for a long time now.

The long history of cross-dressing

There is a long global history of cross-gendered performance. In the West, this included “travesty” roles, “breeches parts”, pantomime dames and their cousins in blackface – “wench” – parts, variety halls and Shakespearean performances.

There’s also Japanese kabuki (onnagata), Beijing opera, Samoan fale aitu and fa’afafine performances and more. All share something with drag – cross-dressing and various forms of gender play and/or reversal – but none is quite the same as what we know today.

Read more:
Calling drag queens ‘groomers’ and ‘pedophiles’ is the latest in a long history of weaponising those terms against the LGBTIQA community

Legal restrictions on gendered clothing have existed in places like Europe, China and Japan through to modern times – though the focus was more on class than gender. The wearing of men’s pants by women was technically illegal in France until 2013. Centuries earlier, it contributed to the prosecution of Joan of Arc by church courts.

The emergence of drag

Something like contemporary drag appeared in the West from the late 18th century, blending early burlesque (disrespectful comedy, not necessarily bawdy) with nascent queer culture (clubs, speakeasys and other semi-underground meeting places where same-sex-attracted individuals socialised).

By the time the 20th century rolled around, drag artists, particularly in the US, offered beauty tips, attempted to engage in sponsorships or sold stylishly posed postcards and souvenirs, closely recalling advertisements aimed at female consumers. Since much early drag made fun of women in general, and women of colour in particular, the form has hardly been a consistent force for good.

Drawing on blackface minstrelsy, British panto and college revues, drag from the 1950s increasingly featured female impersonators offering hyperbolic, over-the-top and often disrespectful portraits of feminine characteristics.

So called “glamour drag” was designed, in the words of artist Jimmy James, “to take people totally away from the ugly realities … and transport them to the realm of the magical” though fabulous dresses, hair and sequins. This became the dominant form of drag in the West, particularly in Australia – although there was also a vibrant counter-culture.

Danny La Rue camped it up on the stages of Britain and the US, touring Australia in the late 1970s, while Charles Ludlam made the difficult transition from outrageous drag to main stage theatre and back, losing none of his style.

From the queer underground to the straight mainstream

Key to the crossover of drag from an underground principally LGBTIQ+ phenomena to the cis mainstream was the increasingly flamboyant manifestation of popular music – such as glam, hair metal, disco and new wave.

The exultant 1978 video for disco star Sylvester’s You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real), for example, introduced audiences to the concept of “realness” as she inhabited different costumed personas. Sylvester was a former member of the avant-drag troupe the Cockettes and her clip was shot at London’s gay disco The Embassy.

“Rock camp” performance found its perfect expression in The Rocky Horror Picture Show stage show in 1973, directed by Australian queer theatre legend Jim Sharman. Its comedic celebration of gender fluid performance and sexuality helped make drag and related forms mainstream.

Also crucial was Jennie Livingston’s 1990 film Paris is Burning, documenting the competitive balls (drag races) mounted by working class LGBTIQ+ African-Americans and Latinos in New York, some of whom (but not all) identified as trans. Performers at the balls competed to exhibit “realness” – not only in gender terms, but employment and social position: “executive realness”, “butch queer”, “banjee girl” and “military”.

Madonna famously recruited performers from Paris is Burning (Jose Gutierez and Luis Camacho from House Xtravaganza) to assist in the choreography for her video Vogue and then her Blond Ambition tour, skyrocketing the international renown of these practices.

Drag landmarks

Prior to The Rocky Horror Picture Show gracing the stages of London and Sydney, Kings Cross had seen the foundation of legendary drag revue Les Girls, running from 1963-93. This show was led by Carlotta, who took her girls on tour, and became the inspiration for Priscilla Queen of the Desert.

“Alternative cabaret” also thrived. Notables, including Australia’s truly outrageous Reg Livermore, the bizarre fantasies of Lindsay Kemp or the incredible Moira Finucane. Finucane’s brilliant early “gender fuck” performance as Romeo involved an arrogant, moustachioed and convincingly male performer who undressed to reveal Finucane, who then pleasured herself with a feather boa.

Australians might also remember the wonderful Pauline Pantsdown’s drag satire I Don’t Like It in 1998.

Topping it off was the huge success of RuPaul’s Drag Race reality TV show in 2009. Producers were onto a winner: fabulous clothes, the highs and lows of competition and a scintillating array of would-be stars, presided over RuPaul, looking never less than fabulous.

Lessons from the history of drag

The glamorous, hyper-feminine artist remains the most popular model of drag. Perhaps unsurprisingly it was these paragons of camp femininity who were chosen to read to children in libraries, first in San Francisco in 2015 and then internationally. These glitter, glam and rainbow unicorns seemingly conquered the globe.

But more outré drag queens, drag kings and “genderfuck” performers never ceased toiling away in the underground. Drag is changing.

If we are to look to history for lessons, I’d like to see story time presented by the successors to Divine (one of John Waters’ collaborators, whose 1984 appearance on Countdown marks one of the strangest moments in Australian television) or transgender superstar Candy Darling. Now that would be a story time education to remember.

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

– ref. How drag as an art form sashayed from the underground and strutted into the mainstream – https://theconversation.com/how-drag-as-an-art-form-sashayed-from-the-underground-and-strutted-into-the-mainstream-205650

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brett Carter, Associate Professor, RMIT University

With technology increasingly embedded in our everyday lives, it is becoming more important to understand space weather and its impacts on tech.

When one hears “space weather”, one typically thinks of huge explosions on the Sun – coronal mass ejections hurled towards Earth, creating beautiful displays of aurora.

However, not all space weather starts at the Sun.

The volcanic eruption in Tonga in January 2022 was so large, it created waves in the upper atmosphere that constituted their own form of space weather.

It was one of the largest explosions in modern history and impacted GPS across Australia and Southeast Asia. As we describe in our new study in the journal Space Weather, the eruption caused a super “plasma bubble” over northern Australia that lasted for hours.

Read more:
A year on, we know why the Tongan eruption was so violent. It’s a wake-up call to watch other submarine volcanoes

A truly global positioning system

While most people have a GPS (global positioning system) receiver on their devices (such as a satnavs and smartphones), not many know how GPS actually works.

In essence, our devices listen to radio signals transmitted by satellites orbiting Earth. Using those signals, they calculate their location relative to the satellites, allowing us to orient ourselves and find that nearby pub or coffee shop.

The radio signals received by our devices are affected by Earth’s atmosphere (particularly the layer called the ionosphere), which degrades location accuracy. Common devices are only accurate to within tens of metres.

However, new and improving precise satellite positioning systems, used within the mining, agriculture and construction industries, can be accurate to within ten centimetres. The only catch is these systems need time to lock onto their location, and this can take thirty minutes or more.

This precise satellite positioning works by accurately modelling the errors caused by Earth’s ionosphere. But whenever the ionosphere becomes disturbed, it becomes complicated and difficult to model.

For instance, when a geomagnetic storm (a disturbance in the solar wind that impacts Earth’s magnetic field) takes place, the ionosphere becomes turbulent and radio waves travelling through it get scattered – like visible light that becomes bent and scattered when looking down into a lake in choppy conditions.

Read more:
The Tonga volcanic eruption has revealed the vulnerabilities in our global telecommunication system

A volcanic disruption

Recent studies have shown the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano eruption caused choppy conditions in the ionosphere that lasted a few days. The size of the waves it generated in the ionosphere were similar in size to those created by geomagnetic storms.

While these waves influenced GPS data around the world for days after the eruption, their impact on positioning was rather limited in comparison to another type of disturbance in the ionosphere – a “super plasma bubble” that formed in the wake of the eruption.

The ionosphere is a layer of Earth’s atmosphere at altitudes of approximately 80–800km. It comprises gas with lots of electrically charged particles, which makes it a “plasma”.

In turn, equatorial plasma bubbles are plasma disturbances in the ionosphere that naturally occur at nighttime above low-latitude regions.

Such plasma bubbles occur regularly. They form due to a phenomenon called the “generalised Rayleigh-Taylor instability”. It is similar to what happens when a heavy fluid sits on top of a less heavy fluid, and blobs of this lighter fluid rise up into the heavy fluid in the form of “bubbles” (see video below).

When it comes to disturbances in the ionosphere however, the plasma is also controlled by magnetic and electric fields.

As they rise, plasma bubbles form strangely shaped structures that resemble cacti or inverted tree roots. Due to Earth’s magnetic field, these structures fan out as the bubble grows above the equator.

The result is that higher altitude bubbles reach higher latitudes as well. Typically, plasma bubbles reach a few hundred kilometres above the equator, reaching latitudes between 15 and 20 degrees to the north and south.

A rare bubble above Australia

Scientists detected a super plasma bubble above Southeast Asia shortly after the Tonga eruption. It’s estimated to be similar in size to previously reported rare super bubbles.

Earth’s magnetic field carried this disturbance south, where it lingered for a few hours above Townsville in northeastern Australia.

To date, this is the farthest south any plasma bubble has been observed over Australia. While very rare, such super bubbles are known to have taken place over northern Australia, but they haven’t been directly observed before this event.

A roll-out of GPS stations across northern Australia has only recently made this type of observation possible.

It is understood waves from the volcano eruption disturbed the winds in the upper atmosphere, altering the flow of plasma in the ionosphere and giving rise to the super plasma bubble.

Our study has found the bubble caused significant delays in the use of precise GPS across northern Australia and Southeast Asia. In some cases, getting a lock on the GPS location took over five hours longer due to the plasma bubble.

While we understand a lot about the ionosphere, our ability to predict its disturbances is still limited. Having more GPS stations is not only beneficial for improving positioning and navigation, it also fills gaps in monitoring the ionosphere.

The Tonga eruption was far from a typical “space weather” event caused by the Sun. But its impact on the upper atmosphere and GPS highlights the importance of understanding how the environment impacts the technologies we rely on.

Brett Carter is an Editor of the American Geophysical Union journal Space Weather. He receives funding from the Australian Research Council, SmartSat CRC and FrontierSI. He is also a member of the Australian Institute of Physics and the American Geophysical Union.

Rezy Pradipta receives funding from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and United States Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR). He is affiliated with the American Geophysical Union (AGU).

Suelynn Choy receives funding from the CRC for Spatial Information, FrontierSI, Australian Research Council, SmartSat CRC and industry funding.

– ref. The Tonga volcano eruption caused a ‘super bubble’ in Earth’s ionosphere, disrupting satellite navigation – https://theconversation.com/the-tonga-volcano-eruption-caused-a-super-bubble-in-earths-ionosphere-disrupting-satellite-navigation-204546

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

As well as her interviews with politicians and experts, Politics with Michelle Grattan includes “Word from The Hill”, where she discusses the news with members of The Conversation’s politics team.

In this podcast Michelle and politics + society editor Amanda Dunn discuss whether Labor needs to panic about a polling decline in support for the Voice, the Quad meeting on skates, and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s celebrity welcome.

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: On the Voice, the Quad, and Indian PM Modi’s visit – https://theconversation.com/word-from-the-hill-on-the-voice-the-quad-and-indian-pm-modis-visit-206305

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brendan Coates, Program Director, Economic Policy, Grattan Institute

Major state tax reforms are few and far between in Australia, which is what makes Tuesday‘s Victorian budget very, very significant.

Victoria’s government announced it will abolish stamp duty for commercial and industrial properties and replace it with an annual property tax.

The Victorian model shows how state governments could abolish all property stamp duties once and for all – including stamp duties on homes.

Stamp duty is a bad tax

Originally intended to be abolished as part of the deal to introduce the goods and services tax back in 2000, stamp duty on commercial and industrial properties accounts for about one-fifth of all stamp duty revenues collected in Victoria.

They are one of the most economically harmful taxes Australia has.

Stamp duties on commercial and industrial properties act as a brake on new businesses, stop many businesses from shifting premises as they grow and ultimately mean we don’t use scarce urban land as efficiently as we should.

Read more:
Finding the losers (and surprising winners) from phasing out stamp duty

Economists estimate that stamp duties on commercial property cost the economy between 50 cents and 60 cents for every dollar of revenue they raise – more than any other state tax.

So far, only South Australia has fully phased out stamp duty on commercial properties, although it never replaced it with a land tax.

The Australian Capital Territory is well on the way to abolishing them as part of its broader property tax reforms, which will see stamp duty replaced with a broad-based land tax for all types of property over two decades.

The ACT is just over half-way through that transition.

Victoria’s bold moves

From July 2024, buyers of commercial and industrial properties will have the option of paying stamp duty upfront or the same amount (with interest) stretched out over a decade.

A decade after that purchase, the property will attract an annual land tax of 1% of the property’s unimproved land value.

If the new owners sell again, even within the first decade, no stamp duty will be charged and the same deadline for the introduction of the land tax will apply.

Land tax won’t be charged on properties bought before July 2024 until they are sold. After they have switched to land tax, they can’t switch back.

How quickly things transition will depend on how quickly these properties turn over, and it might take decades.

But once the transition is complete, the budget predicts a long-term payoff to the state economy of as much as $50 billion over some decades.

Abolishing homebuyer stamp duty is the big prize

Abolishing stamp duty on commercial properties is a big step forward. But the main game remains abolishing stamp duties on homes, which raise four times as much for state governments.

Economists hate stamp duties on homes because they discourage homeowners from moving house as their lives change. Doing so would mean having to pay stamp duty a second time.

It’s also unfair because it punishes younger households that move around more, while rewarding older residents who tend to stay put for decades.

Read more:
Victoria bites $117 billion bullet, begins the long march of land tax reform

Stamp duty even acts as a tax on divorce. It’s a big reason why more than half of divorced women who lose their home don’t buy again. Divorced women are already three times more likely to rent in retirement than married women.

Removing stamp duty would lead to better use of the existing housing stock: first homebuyers could buy smaller homes knowing they could more easily upgrade later, and more retirees would downsize. Past NSW Treasury calculations suggest this could result in rents and house prices falling by up to 6% in the long term.

In 2018, the Grattan Institute found a national shift from stamp duties to land tax would add up to $17 billion per year to gross domestic product.

Victoria’s approach could inspire others

Broader stamp duty reform has stalled. Despite the obvious benefits, only one Australian government, the ACT, has made the move from stamp duties to a broad-based property tax.

Adopting the ACT model – by gradually phasing down stamp duty while lifting land tax – would ensure Victoria could transition without losing revenue.

But it would impose land tax on those who haven’t moved homes, which would make the politics harder.

The former NSW Perrottet government tried to give homebuyers a choice between paying stamp duty and land tax as a way around forcing existing home buyers to start paying land tax, but the reform fell flat once the true cost to the state budget became apparent.

Read more:
Axing stamp duty is a great idea, but NSW is doing it wrong

Victoria’s model provides an alternative for weaning homes off stamp duty. No one would be forced to pay land tax until they moved, which would make the politics much easier. But it would take longer to reap the economic benefits than the ACT’s approach.

It would still cost the budget money as the government would collect less in land tax than it would from the stamp duty during the transition. But the budgetary cost would be much less than adopting the failed NSW model, especially if the federal government committed to filling part of the (smaller) revenue hole.

Ditching stamp duty for land tax for all property could be a game-changer across Australia. The ACT showed one path. Victoria has opened up another.

Brendan Coates 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. Victoria shows Australia how to finally abolish stamp duty once and for all – https://theconversation.com/victoria-shows-australia-how-to-finally-abolish-stamp-duty-once-and-for-all-205646

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By KB Heylen, PhD Candidate, Macquarie University

More than 6 million Australians have used the “buy now, pay later” lending services offered by Afterpay, Zip and more than a dozen other companies.

Buy now, pay later offers an easy and convenient alternative to credit card services. You can sign up and have your loan approved almost immediately. One reason for this is that buy now, pay later companies aren’t regulated by the same consumer-protection rules that apply to other credit providers.

But now the Australian government is going to change that – at least partly, in response to concerns the unregulated sector will lead to more people get caught in debt traps.

“BNPL looks like credit, it acts like credit, it carries the risks of credit,” federal Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones said this week.

The government will bring the industry in line with with other credit products by amending the National Consumer Credit Protection Act to include buy now, pay later companies, defining buy now, pay later companies as credit providers.

Here’s what this means, for you and the sector.

What is a buy now, pay later service?

First, let’s recap what exactly makes buy now, pay later companies different to other forms of credit.

The crucial difference is that buy now, pay later companies don’t charge interest, which is how the National Consumer Credit Protection Act defines a credit service. Instead buy now, pay later companies charge retailers a commission on transactions and charge customers late fees if they fail to make repayments on time. Some also charge monthly account keeping fees.

This has enabled buy now, pay later lenders to pitch their products as “interest free”, as well as avoid the regulatory requirements of the federal credit law.

Read more:
What’s the difference between credit and debt? How Afterpay and other ‘BNPL’ providers skirt consumer laws

One of these is the requirement to perform a credit check, which involves assessing a customer’s financial history and capacity before lending money, although some buy now, pay later companies already do so voluntarily. This is why financial regulators such as the Australian Securities and Investments Commission have warned of the risk of buy now, pay later products contributing to financial stress and
hardship.

More credit checking

The changes to the Credit Act will require all buy now, pay later providers to hold an Australian Credit Licence, like other credit providers, and to improve their dispute resolution, hardship, product disclosure and marketing practices.

Most importantly it will impose credit-check requirements.

The comprehensive credit-reporting framework currently requires credit providers such as banks to report on consumers’ loan, repayment, overdue and default histories. This data is used by providers when assessing a person’s affordability and suitability for credit.

Afterpay and others have argued they don’t need this credit-reporting system because they use their own algorithmic checks. The problem is no one knows what data they are using or how they are making decisions.

While the credit reporting system is not perfect, it is better to have all providers working from the same data set than individual companies making up their own rules.

As credit services, buy now, pay later providers will gain full access to this data, covering consumers’ repayment and hardship history for other credit products such as loans and credit cards.

This means that when you apply for a buy now, pay later loan, the process may take longer, with a greater possibility of rejection if you have a history of late or overdue loan or credit card repayments.

However, unlike banks, provider will not necessarily have to report your data into the credit-reporting system. This is because the government doesn’t regard them as risky as the likes of pay-day loans or consumer leases.

So a buy now, pay later provider won’t know your history with other buy now, pay later providers. This means you could theoretically continue to have multiple services, which is a known contributor to debt stress.

Spending limits and fee caps

The new regulations will put cap on fees for late or missed payments.

Currently, Afterpay, Zip, Humm and others having very different approaches to how they charge fees, making it hard for customers to compare and assess. While the lure of “no interest” may seem appealing, these late fees can add to a huge effective rate.

For example, research from Curtin University shows falling behind over ten fortnightly repayments for a small purchase results in an effective annual interest rate of 28.25% for Afterpay, 29.32% for Zip and 177.44% for Humm’s “Big Things” loans. These annualised rates are higher than most credit cards.

The new cap should help bring the fees in line with similar charges on other credit products.

Another changes to the Credit Act will mean your credit limit can no longer be increased unless you explicitly ask for it. Currently services like Zip and Afterpay start first-time users with a low credit limit and automatically increase it based on good repayment history.

This could mean buy now, pay later providers will offer larger credit limits to users up front, just like credit cards. This could be risky for some customers, but it also presents a higher risk for buy now, pay later services.

Read more:
90% of young people had financial troubles in 2022, and 27% used ‘buy now, pay later’ services

What this means for the industry

Greater protection from consumers will likely result reduce revenue for buy now, pay later providers.

Restricting the ability to automatically increase credit limits means buy now, pay later companies must either offer higher starting limits and accept higher default risks or contend with lower transaction totals overall.

The cap on fees and charges will likely bring in less revenue. More rigorous credit checks may result in fewer new customers.

Bringing all providers into the regulated system will allow for greater transparency around how credit decisions are made and create a more level playing field between credit providers.

The government will now work with industry and consumer groups to refine the details. The new laws are expected to be introduced to Parliament later this year.

KB Heylen 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 rules for Afterpay, Zip and other ‘buy now, pay later’ providers are changing. What it means for you, and them – https://theconversation.com/the-rules-for-afterpay-zip-and-other-buy-now-pay-later-providers-are-changing-what-it-means-for-you-and-them-206184

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Isaac Gross, Lecturer in Economics, Monash University

The Andrews government’s ninth budget is its toughest. The bill from Victoria’s COVID experience, as well as the state government’s ambitious infrastructure spending, has finally come due.

The pandemic has added more than $30 billion to the state’s total net debt, bringing the total to a whooping $117 billion. (New South Wales’s state debt, by comparison, is about $80 billion.)

Victoria’s floods in 2022 have added to the debt. But so too has the Andrews goverment’s borrowing for its $90 billion “Big Build”, encompassing projects from removing Melbourne’s level crossings, extending Melbourne’s underground rail network and building a suburban rail loop.

The state’s debt load was manageable when interest rates were low. But with borrowing rates now almost 4% and rising, interest payments are swallowing increasing amounts of the government’s budget. Interest payments on the debt are expected to be $5.5 billion in the 2023-24 financial year, rising to $8 billion by 2026-27.

There are only two ways to fix this: reduce spending or increase taxes. Andrews and his treasurer Tim Pallas have chosen to do a bit of both, with a ten-year plan to pay down the $30 billion COVID debt.

Less infrastructure spending, more taxes

The Victorian government has already announced it will delay several infrastructure projects. The Melbourne Airport rail link and the Geelong rail upgrade have been put on ice due to the federal government’s ongoing review of infrastructure projects. If they are delayed, as seems likely, they will lower the debt burden of the state.

This will be a shame for Melbourne’s frequent flyers, but is probably the right call. Infrastructure Australia says the construction sector is already at capacity on large infrastructure projects. This significantly increases the likelihood of cost and time blowouts. Infrastructure Australia expects the (recently widened) Tullamarine Freeway won’t reach capacity for at least another decade, so delaying the rail link is probably the best course of action.

To help pay down the debt, a suite of tax hikes has been implemented, primarily rises in payroll tax (falling predominantly on large businesses) and land tax (which is largely paid by landlords).

The measures are expected to raise more than $8 billion over the next four years, although they will be put in place for a decade.

Reforming land tax

Beyond the immediate task of paying down debt, the Victorian government has taken on the task of land tax reform, proposing to eliminate stamp duty on all industrial and commercial land in favour of an annual land tax.

No changes affect residential land, at least for now. But this could change if the reform proves popular.

Land taxes are the most efficient, and hardest to dodge, form of taxation.

Taxes on labour, such as income tax, can discourage work. Taxes on company profits can discourage investment and lead businesses to set up shop elsewhere. Land cannot be moved, and taxing it does not discourage its use.

The biggest problem with replacing stamp duty with land tax is that it often takes a lot of time and money for a fair transition to occur. In the Australian Capital Territory, a transition that began in 2012 is taking 20 years. The Victorian government proposes doing it in ten years, with further details to be released later this year.

The next transaction to occur after July 2024 will still attract stamp duty, but transitions after that initial one will be shifted to an annual land tax model.

The Andrews government also has a plan to phase out taxes on business insurance over the next ten years.

This small, but highly inefficient, tax has long been criticised by economists as it has punished businesses that seek to mitigate risk by buying public liability or professional indemnity. Removing it, albeit slowly over the next decade, will help the Victorian economy grow over the coming years.

Budgets are all about choices. The Victorian government has no easy choices.

Faced with a mountain of debt, it has outlined a plan for paying down the debt with a mix of tax hikes and spending cuts. The job remains far from complete, but this budget is a decent first step to get Victoria’s finances back on track.

Isaac Gross 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. Victoria bites $117 billion bullet, begins the long march of land tax reform – https://theconversation.com/victoria-bites-117-billion-bullet-begins-the-long-march-of-land-tax-reform-206066

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gregory Dale, Lecturer, TC Beirne School of Law, The University of Queensland

Australian entertainer and artist Rolf Harris has died at the age of 93.

After a prominent career as an artist, particularly in the UK, in 2014 Harris was convicted of 12 counts of indecent assault.

For his victims, his death might help to close a painful chapter of their lives.

However, what will become of the prodigious output of the disgraced artist?

Jack of all trades, master of none

Harris developed an interest in art from a young age. At the age of 15, one of his portraits was selected for showing in the 1946 Archibald Prize. Three years later, he won the Claude Hotchin prize.

These would be among the few accolades he would collect in the art world. In truth, he was never really recognised by his peers.

The Art Gallery of Western Australia in Perth, from where he hailed, never added any of his artworks to its collection.

Harris rose to prominence primarily as a children’s entertainer and then later as an all-round television presenter. There is a generation of Australians and Britons who grew up transfixed to their TV sets as Harris transformed blank canvases into paintings and cartoons in the space of just 30 minutes.

His creativity also extended to music. He played the didgeridoo and his own musical creation, “the wobble board”. He topped the British charts in 1969 with the single Two Little Boys. However, he is probably more famous for the song Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport.

Perhaps the ultimate recognition came in 2005, when he was invited to paint Queen Elizabeth II. His audience with the queen was filmed for a BBC documentary starring Harris. His portrait of her majesty briefly adorned the walls of Buckingham Palace, before being displayed in prominent British and Australian galleries.

Baca juga:
Dealing with the happy memories of a disgraced Rolf Harris

Criminal conviction and the quick retreat from his art

In 2014, Harris was found guilty of 12 counts of indecent assault against three complainants, aged 15, 16 and 19 years at the times of the crimes. These incidents occurred between 1978 and 1986.

Before sentencing Harris to five years and nine months imprisonment, the sentencing judge commented:

You took advantage of the trust placed in you, because of your celebrity status, to commit the offences […] Your reputation now lies in ruins.

What followed was a public retreat from his artwork.

It is worth asking why this was the public response, when the subject matter of his artwork was innocuous and unremarkable. Among his visual artworks were portraits and landscapes. None of them depicted anything particularly offensive or controversial.

Nevertheless, many of those who owned his works felt the need to dissociate themselves with Harris. His portrait of the queen seemed to vanish into thin air. In the wake of his convictions, no one claimed to know of its whereabouts.

Harris had also painted a number of permanent murals in Australia. Many these were removed or permanently obscured.

Baca juga:
Rolf Harris guilty: but what has Operation Yewtree really taught us about sexual abuse?

The roles of guilt and disgust

Guilt seems to play a prominent role in explaining why owners remove such artworks from display.

Art is inherently subjective and so it necessarily forces the beholder to inquire into the artist’s meanings. When an artist is subsequently convicted of a crime, it is perhaps natural to wonder whether their art bore signs that there was something untoward about them.

Some artists even promote this way of thinking. In fact, Harris authored a book entitled Looking at Pictures with Rolf Harris: A Children’s Introduction to Famous Paintings.

In it, he wrote:

You can find out a lot about the way an artist sees things when you look at his paintings. In fact, he is telling us a lot about himself, whether he wants to or not.

When facing the artwork of a convicted criminal, our subjective feelings of guilt persist because we have, in some tiny way, shared a role in their rise and stay as an artist. This makes it difficult to overcome the feeling that the artwork contains clues to the artist’s criminality. We can also feel guilty deriving pleasure from a piece of art whose maker caused others great pain.

Disgust also plays a central role in our retreat from the criminal’s artwork.

Disgust is a powerful emotion that demands we withdraw from an object whose mere presence threatens to infect or invade our bodily integrity.

Related to disgust is a anthropological theory known as the “magical law of contagion”. An offensive person leaves behind an offensive trace that continues to threaten us. It is not based on reason but instinct.

In essence, the criminal has left their “negative” traces on their artwork.

This explains why Harris’ paintings, although of innocuous images, suddenly became eyesores and their market value dropped. Owners of such artwork might also feel compelled to show their disgust openly, to publicly extricate themselves from the artist.

No one wants to be seen to condone the behaviour of a sexual offender.

Even after his death, Harris’ artwork will continue to stand as reminders of his criminal acts.

If this article has raised issues for you, or if you’re concerned about someone you know, call 1800RESPECT on 1800 737 732. In an emergency call 000.

Gregory Dale tidak bekerja, menjadi konsultan, memiliki saham, atau menerima dana dari perusahaan atau organisasi mana pun yang akan mengambil untung dari artikel ini, dan telah mengungkapkan bahwa ia tidak memiliki afiliasi selain yang telah disebut di atas.

– ref. Even after his death, Rolf Harris’ artwork will stand as reminders of his criminal acts – https://theconversation.com/even-after-his-death-rolf-harris-artwork-will-stand-as-reminders-of-his-criminal-acts-206282

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emma Ryan, Lecturer in Criminology, Deakin University

The use of a Taser to subdue a 95-year-old dementia patient at an aged care home in Cooma, New South Wales, last week is yet another sickening example of what can go wrong when police rely too heavily on force to resolve challenging situations.

Although the senior constable who used the Taser on Clare Nowland has now been suspended from duty, calls are growing for an independent investigation into the incident, as well as police treatment of people with dementia.

It is crucial for any investigations that follow to also include a thorough examination of the use of Tasers by police in Australia. Why do general duties police officers need to carry Tasers? What purpose do they serve and do they improve outcomes in any way? If so, for whom?

Lack of reporting on Taser use

When Tasers were introduced in Australia in the early 2000s, the public was told they would replace firearms and reduce the need for police to resort to using lethal force. In fact, the opposite has occurred – fatal police shootings reached an all-time high in 2019-20.

Given this, it is presently not clear what benefit Tasers offer over other less-lethal weapons, such as OC spray, except to protect police officers themselves from coming into close proximity to people armed with weapons.

The problem is a lack of transparency and accountability around their use. There is no public reporting on Taser use by police in any state or territory (except in the ACT where minimal detail is provided).

Taser use has been formally reported to the public in New South Wales only once, in a report by the state ombudsman in 2012.

This analysis of more than 600 Taser incidents in a six-month period in 2010 found a third of people tasered by police were believed to be suffering from mental health issues. Three-quarters of the people were unarmed.

More recent internal police figures obtained by the media showed NSW police used Tasers almost 3,000 times from 2014-18. More than 1,000 of those incidents involved people with mental health conditions.

In other comparable countries, like the United Kingdom and New Zealand, reporting on Taser use by police is mandated. Statistics show Tasers in these countries are used disproportionately against minority groups and other vulnerable populations.

By comparison, the Australian public does not know how many times Tasers are drawn, fired or misfired by police. We know virtually nothing about their real efficacy and impacts. We only learn about their potential harms from the media or the coroner’s reports that follow tragic outcomes.

In 2018, for example, a 30-year-old Sydney man, Jack Kokaua, died during an altercation with police in which a Taser had been deployed three times. The coroner found multiple factors, including the use of a Taser, positional asphyxia and a heart condition, had caused his death.

After the incident, civil liberties groups called for more transparency around how and when NSW police use Tasers. These calls went unheeded.

Read more:
Why the taser-related death toll is rising

Why transparency matters

In Nowland’s case, there are other fundamental questions beyond Taser use that speak to a broader problem of inappropriate use of force by police, particularly against vulnerable people in distress.

For example, one retired officer has suggested police could have thrown a blanket over Nowland, who weighed just 43 kilograms and was just 160 centimetres tall.

Read more:
When someone living with dementia is distressed or violent, ‘de-escalation’ is vital

Reports of previous settlements in civil cases involving inappropriate use of force in aged care settings show the extent of the problem.

Body-worn cameras are helpful in providing insight into the various situations that police encounter. But in the Kokaua case, the cameras were not turned on. And oftentimes, the footage rarely finds its way into the public domain, as complainants fight for access in the courts.

This means the public is under-informed about the problematic incidents that do occur in police interactions with the public. This is especially the case with Tasers.

For example, there is body-camera footage of the tasering of Nowland, but NSW Police Commissioner Karen Webb has not only said she would not watch the footage, she also won’t release it to the public unless there was “a process at the end of this that would allow it”.

She suggested there was no value in reviewing the footage until she knew “what else happened pre and post that incident”.

Questions must be asked

In the absence of greater transparency and reporting on Taser use by police, it is unlikely much will change.

Asking the right questions about the patterns of Taser use in all jurisdictions is now vital if we are to learn anything from the events that unfolded in Cooma and ensure Tasers are not disproportionately used against vulnerable and marginalised people.

Read more:
Police body cameras may provide the best evidence – but need much better regulation

Emma Ryan is affiliated with the Labor Party having worked in a voluntary capacity during various state and federal elections.

– ref. Why doesn’t Australia have greater transparency around Taser use by police? – https://theconversation.com/why-doesnt-australia-have-greater-transparency-around-taser-use-by-police-206085

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Wesley Morgan, Research Fellow, Griffith Asia Institute, Griffith University

A new pact between Australia and the United States highlights the pivotal role our nation’s mineral wealth will play in the clean energy transition. But it also underscores the massive effort now required from Australia.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and US President Joe Biden inked the landmark deal in Japan over the weekend. It cements cooperation between the two nations on climate action, including sharing resources and coordinating on clean energy policy and investment.

Australia and the US have been allies since the end of the Second World War. The new agreement adds climate action as a “third pillar” of the alliance between the two nations, along with defence and economic cooperation.

The enhanced partnership could accelerate Australia’s transition from major fossil fuel exporter to clean energy powerhouse. But success is far from assured. Australia must act fast to seize the opportunity now before us.

Allies in a warming world

The Australia-US alliance was not established with a warming planet in mind. However, the climate crisis is now recognised as a national security threat in both Australia and the US.

In both countries, defence agencies have been increasingly involved in disaster relief operations following unprecedented extreme weather events supercharged by climate change. They include the Black Summer bushfires in Australia and Hurricane Ian in the US.

Climate change continues to worsen – and Australia and the US must share some blame. The emissions targets and broader climate policies of both nations are not consistent with achieving the Paris Agreement goal of limiting warming to 1.5℃.

Both Australia and the US need to accelerate the shift from fossil fuels to clean energy technologies. This includes ending coal-fired power, moving beyond gas and investing in renewables infrastructure. It also requires re-thinking personal transport and decarbonising heavy industries such as steel and cement.

The new climate pact between the two countries recognises the urgent task at hand. It could enable Australia and the US to develop a shared response that matches the scale of the climate crisis.

The deal aims to drive ambitious action on climate change and clean energy this decade, both domestically and across the world. Australia and the US will now formally work together to expand and diversify clean energy, and develop the supply of critical minerals used in low-emissions technologies.

Biden was effusive when announcing the deal. Taking hold of Albanese’s arm, he said the agreement was testament to the close relationship between the two countries. “And I mean that: close”, he said.

Importantly, Biden will ask the US Congress to designate Australia as a “domestic supplier”, essentially linking the industrial bases of both nations. This would means Australian companies may be eligible for billions of dollars worth of subsidies available under the US Inflation Reduction Act – the biggest climate spend in US history.

Read more:
We want more climate ambition in our foreign policy
– here’s how we can do it

The race for tomorrow’s economy

The Inflation Reduction Act allocates $US369 billion (A$555 billion) in subsidies to drive investment in renewable energy infrastructure and clean energy technologies. The investment is equal to about a quarter of the Australian economy.

Already the act has stimulated more than $A220 billion in private investment in clean energy projects in the US, driving a boom in new solar, battery, and electric vehicle manufacturing facilities. Ultimately, the policy is expected to:

• spur more than 1,000 new clean tech companies
• catalyse more than A$3 trillion in investment
• create nine million new jobs by 2030.

When the world’s largest economy makes such a move, it changes the game for everyone. Already, other major economies – including the European Union, Japan and South Korea – have responded with industry policy and stimulus packages to support their own clean energy industries.

Effectively, the US has turbo-charged the global clean energy transition.

Read more:
6 reasons 2023 could be a very good year for climate action

Australia’s moment

The pact signed between Albanese and Biden at the weekend was scant on detail. However, given the billions the US is throwing at clean energy, Australia can expect to benefit from the pledge to formalise co-operation on policy and investment.

The Inflation Reduction Act is a major opportunity to expand Australia’s critical mineral exports. Consider lithium, a key component in batteries. Australia is already the world’s biggest lithium supplier. US battery manufacturers wanting to access subsidies must use minerals sourced domestically, or from countries with which the US has an existing free trade agreement, such as Australia.

So the US policy will stimulate demand for Australian lithium. As early as 2028, the value of Australia’s lithium exports is set to overtake our thermal coal exports – a sign of the times.

However the Inflation Reduction Act also presents a challenge for Australia. Its sheer scale threatens to draw investment and talent away from Australia’s own emerging clean energy industries to the US instead in areas such as green hydrogen and steel.

The federal government is taking steps to address this. The May budget, for instance, contained A$2 billion to support the development of a renewable hydrogen industry in Australia. Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen described it as a “down payment” on a more fulsome response to Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act.

This response must match the scale of this once-in-a-century opportunity to become a clean energy powerhouse. It should include targeted support to develop new green export industries and help Australia move past a “dig and ship” approach to our resources. By processing minerals here, using Australia’s competitive advantage in renewable energy, we can create more benefits at home.

Clean energy commodities and critical minerals could drive investment and jobs at a scale comparable to the recent mining boom. But the race is on, and we need to act fast. If we don’t, other nations – including our US allies – will eat our lunch.

Wesley Morgan is a senior researcher with the Climate Council

– ref. Cooperation with the US could drive Australia’s clean energy shift – but we must act fast – https://theconversation.com/cooperation-with-the-us-could-drive-australias-clean-energy-shift-but-we-must-act-fast-206199

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Paul Haskell-Dowland, Professor of Cyber Security Practice, Edith Cowan University

Meta, Facebook’s parent company, has just been hit with an eye-watering €1.2 billion fine (about A$1.9 billion) for breaches of the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR).

Unfortunately for Meta and its shareholders, earlier penalties mean it now faces a total fine amount close to A$4 billion.

Meta is often used as an example of how not to do privacy, but this isn’t a simple case of organisational greed or disregard for legislation. As is the case with most events of this nature, there’s a lot more going on.

Why was Meta fined?

The GDPR legislation, introduced in 2018, governs how data relating to citizens of the European Economic Area (which includes EU countries, as well as Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway) can be used, stored and processed. In many cases this means undertaking all data-related activities within the European Economic Area.

Exceptions are allowed, providing the protections for individuals’ privacy are aligned with those under the GDPR. This is referred to as an “adequacy decision”.

This sounds relatively simple; if you’re a German citizen, then your data should not be exported outside the EU. But organisations such as Meta operate on a global scale. Considering users’ nationality and residential status are often changing, managing their data can be challenging.

In 2016, the EU-US Privacy Shield legal framework was introduced, enabling large organisations such as Meta to continue to process data for EU citizens in the US. This framework replaced the previous International Safe Harbor Privacy Principles, which were invalidated in 2015 after a complaint by Austrian privacy campaigner Max Schrems.

Read more:
Privacy Shield replaces Safe Harbour, but only the name has changed

However, in 2020 the EU-US Privacy Shield also became invalidated following a determination by the Court of Justice of the European Union. The court essentially ruled the US did not offer personal data protections that were comparable to those offered under the GDPR.

One significant issue was that US surveillance laws allowed for the potential interception of, or access to, data relating to European Economic Area citizens. In particular, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and Executive Order 12333.

Some concerns related to disclosures made by Edward Snowden in 2013. These leaks identified a secretive US program code-named PRISM, which allowed the US National Security Agency to collect data across a range of popular consumer platforms.

Although the Court of Justice determination was delivered in 2020, it took until 2023 for the outcome to be announced due to legal challenges and conflicting viewpoints on the penalties.

The outcome led the Irish Data Protection Commission, the entity which regulates Meta across the EU, to impose the fine. The commission initially did not intend to impose the penalty, but was overruled by the European Data Protection Board, which acted on objections raised by yet another body – the EU/EEA Concerned Supervisory Authorities.

Apart from the €1.2 billion fine, it was determined Meta should stop transferring any personal European Economic Area citizen data to the US within five months, and ensure EU/EEA user data stored within the US is compliant with the GDPR within six months.

What happens now?

While the reports may seem dramatic, it’s possible nothing will really happen (at least for a while) as Meta has lodged an appeal against the decision. Meta highlighted that even the Irish Data Protection Commission acknowledged the company was acting in good faith.

Once the appeal is under way, Meta and the EU may face court hearings lasting months. By the time a decision is made, a newly proposed EU-US Data Protection Framework could be in place (although a recent vote by members of European Parliament may further delay things).

In a worst-case scenario for Meta, the tech giant could be forced not only to pay the fine, but also address the large volume of European Economic Area user data held on US servers, and establish a fully EU-based infrastructure to deliver Facebook functionality. This is a mammoth task, even for an organisation of Meta’s size.

It might prove impossible to extract years of data from Meta’s global network of servers and distribute it to appropriate regional locations. Imagine a Spanish citizen who currently lives in the US, for whom ten years of data were collected while in Germany, and who also spent time in the UK before and after Brexit!

If Meta does have to move data to different servers around the world, this may impact its ability to use these data to profile users. This could decrease its advertising effectiveness and the relevancy of users’ Facebook feeds.

As for simply pulling Facebook services from the European Economic Area, it’s unlikely Meta will do this as this would entail walking away from the billions of dollars of advertising revenue it receives from European users. As Markus Reinisch, Meta’s Vice President for Public Policy in Europe, has stated, “Meta is not wanting or ‘threatening’ to leave Europe”.

Why does it matter where data are kept?

The reality is most of us have neither awareness, nor interest, in where our personal data are stored for the services we use. Yet, where a company chooses to store our data can end up having a major impact on how the data are accessed and used.

Meta has chosen to store large volumes of data in the US (and elsewhere) for commercial reasons. This choice could be based on cost, convenience, technical requirements, or countless other reasons.

Some organisations deliberately distribute data in regional data centres that are geographically closer to their customers. This can help reduce the time it takes for customers to access their services.

For others, hosting data in a specific country can be a good selling point. For example, offering a guarantee of data sovereignty will appeal to those wanting to keep their data out of sight of foreign governments (or perhaps away from their own).

The EU has taken responsibility for ensuring the safe and secure processing of personal data belonging to citizens of the European Economic Area. In Meta’s case we’re yet to see how, or if, this will ultimately be done. While the company’s focus on privacy has improved in recent years, perhaps its next few steps will reveal how far this commitment goes.

Read more:
Feed me: 4 ways to take control of social media algorithms and get the content you actually want

Paul Haskell-Dowland 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. Meta just copped a A$1.9bn fine for keeping EU data in the US. But why should users care where data are stored? – https://theconversation.com/meta-just-copped-a-a-1-9bn-fine-for-keeping-eu-data-in-the-us-but-why-should-users-care-where-data-are-stored-206186

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ray Tobler, Postdoctoral fellow, Australian National University

Most scientists agree modern humans developed in Africa, more than 200,000 years ago, and that a great human scattering across much of the rest of the world occurred between perhaps 60,000 and 50,000 years ago.

In new research published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, we have uncovered dozens of distinctive historical changes in the human genome to reveal a new chapter in this story.

Our work suggests there may have been a previously unknown phase of humanity’s great migration: an “Arabian standstill” of up to 30,000 years in which humans settled in and around the Arabian Peninsula. These humans slowly adapted to life in the region’s colder climate before venturing to Eurasia and beyond.

The legacy of these adaptations still lingers. Under modern conditions, many genetic changes from this period are linked to diseases including obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disorders.

History in our genomes

Since the first human genome was published in 2000, the amount of human genomic data available has grown exponentially. These rapidly growing datasets contain traces of key events in human history. Researchers have been actively developing new techniques to find those traces.

When ancient humans left Africa and moved around the globe, they likely met new environments and challenges. New pressures would have led to adaptation and genetic changes. These changes would subsequently have been inherited by modern humans.

Previous research on genomic data shows ancient humans most likely left Africa and spread across the planet between 60,000 and 50,000 years ago.

However, we still don’t know much about genetic adaptations during this crucial time period.

Ancient adaptation events

Our team of evolutionary and medical researchers has shed new light on this period. By studying both ancient and modern genomes, we have shown genetic selection was probably an important facilitator of this ancient human diaspora.

Using ancient human genomes makes it possible to recover evidence of past events in which specific genetic variants were strongly favoured over others and swept through a population. These “hard sweep” events are surprisingly rare in modern human genomes, most likely because their traces have been erased or distorted by subsequent mixing between populations.

Read more:
Ancient DNA reveals a hidden history of human adaptation

However, in earlier work we identified 57 regions in the human genome where an initially rare beneficial genetic variant effectively replaced an older variant in ancient Eurasian groups.

In our new study, we reconstructed the historical spread of these genetic variants. We also estimated the temporal and geographical origins of the underlying selection pressures.

Further, we identified the gene in each hard sweep region most likely to have been selected for. Knowing these genes helped us understand the ancient pressures that may have led to their selection.

Coping with cold

Our findings suggest early humans went through a period of extensive adaptation, lasting up to 30,000 years, before the big diaspora between 60,000 and 50,000 years ago. This period of adaptation was followed by rapid dispersal across Eurasia and as far as Australia.

We call this period the “Arabian standstill”. Genetic, archaeological and climatic evidence all suggest these ancient humans were most likely living in and around the Arabian Peninsula.

The genetic adaptations involved parts of the genome related to fat storage, nerve development, skin physiology, and tiny hair-like fibres in our airways called cilia. These adaptations share striking functional similarities with those found in humans and other mammals living in the Arctic today.

We also detected similar functional similarities with previously identified human adaptive genes derived from historical mixing events with Neanderthals and Denisovans. These distant relatives of humans are also thought to have adapted to cold Eurasian climates.

Overall, these changes seem likely to have been driven by adaptation to the cool and dry climates in and around prehistoric Arabia between 80,000 and 50,000 years ago. The changes would also have prepared the ancient humans for the cold Eurasian climates they would eventually encounter.

Old adaptations, modern diseases

Many of these adaptive genes have links to modern diseases, including obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disorders. The adaptations around the human expansion from Africa may have established genetic variations that, under modern conditions, are associated with common diseases.

Read more:
We found traces of humanity’s age-old arms race with coronaviruses written in our DNA

As we have suggested in another study, genes that were adaptive in the past might contribute to modern human susceptibility to various diseases. Identifying the genetic targets of historical adaptation events could help the development of therapeutic approaches and preventive measures for contemporary populations.

Our findings contribute to a new but growing literature highlighting the importance of adaptation in shaping human history. They also show the growing potential of evolutionary genetics for medical research.

Ray Tobler receives funding from Australian Research Council.

Shane T Grey receives funding from NHMRC, ARC, MRFF, JDRF and NIH.

Yassine Souilmi is supported by funding from the ARC and NHMRC.

– ref. Ancient humans may have paused in Arabia for 30,000 years on their way out of Africa – https://theconversation.com/ancient-humans-may-have-paused-in-arabia-for-30-000-years-on-their-way-out-of-africa-206200

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christopher Patterson, Senior Lecturer, School of Nursing, University of Wollongong

Hallucinations are often depicted in the movies as terrifying experiences. Think Jake Gyllenhaal seeing a monstrous rabbit in Donnie Darko, Leonardo DiCaprio experiencing the torture of Shutter Island, Natalie Portman in Black Swan, or Joaquin Phoenix as the Joker.

Each character experiences some form of psychological distress. Scenes connect to, or even explain, a decline into chaos and violence.

Experiencing hallucinations can be distressing for some people and their loved ones. However, focusing solely on such depictions perpetuates myths and misconceptions about hallucinations. They also potentially perpetuate harmful stereotypes of mental distress.

Movies such as Joker use a broad, arguably incorrect, brush to connect hallucinations, mental health issues and violence. This reinforces the misconception that hallucinations always indicate mental health issues, when this is not necessarily true.

Read more:
The Joker’s origin story comes at a perfect moment: clowns define our times

What are hallucinations?

Hallucinations are perceptions that occur without a corresponding external stimulus. They can involve any of the human senses.

Auditory hallucinations involve hearing things that aren’t there, such as voices or sounds. Visual hallucinations involve seeing things that aren’t there, such as lights, objects or people. Tactile hallucinations involve feeling things that aren’t there, such as a sensation of something crawling on your skin. Gustatory hallucinations involve taste and smell.

People often confuse hallucinations and delusions. The two can be related, but they are not the same thing. Delusions are false beliefs, firmly held by a person despite evidence to the contrary. A person might believe someone is following them (a delusion), and see and hear that figure (a hallucination).

Before the 17th century, hallucinations were commonly thought to be of cultural and religious significance.

However, between the mid-1600s and 1700s, hallucinations began to be understood as medical concerns, related to both mental and physical illnesses. This medical lens of hallucination remains. Now we know which parts of the brain are activated when someone has a hallucination.

Read more:
Scientists have found how to make people hallucinate, and how to measure what they see

What causes hallucinations?

Hallucinations can be a sign of serious mental health issues. The presence or experience of hallucinations is, for example, one of the criteria used to diagnose schizophrenia (delusions are another).

Hallucinations may also provide insight into mental health issues such as bipolar disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder and depression.

However, hallucinations can also be linked to other medical conditions.

Hallucinations can be caused by fever, as well as disease or damage impacting the brain or optic nerves. Parkinson’s disease causes visual, auditory and tactile hallucinations in up to 75% of people. Epilepsy and migraine headaches are also linked to hallucinations, and can cause perceptual disturbances, sometimes for days. Substance use, particularly of hallucinogenic drugs such as LSD or ketamine, can also cause hallucinations.

Hallucinations can also occur in people without any underlying medical conditions. For example, some people may experience hallucinations during times of extreme distress or grief.

Environmental factors such as sleep deprivation can cause a range of perceptual disturbances, including visual and auditory hallucinations. Sensory deprivation, such as being placed in a soundproof room, can also cause hallucinations.

But still, the common image that hallucinations are connected only to mental health issues persists.

Read more:
The peculiar history of thornapple, the hallucinogenic weed that ended up in supermarket spinach

Hallucinations can be frightening, but not always

Hallucinations can be frightening for people, and their families. And the stigma and misconceptions surrounding hallucinations can have a significant impact on someone who experiences them.

People who have hallucinations may be afraid or embarrassed of being considered “bizarre” or “unsafe”, and therefore may avoid seeking help.

But hallucinations are not always scary or disturbing. Some hallucinations can be neutral or even pleasant. People have been sharing on social media their positive and empowering experience of hallucinations. In the example below, we see one person’s positive experience of hearing voices. Yet we rarely see such depictions of hallucinations in the movies.

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How to support someone having hallucinations

If you are with someone who is having hallucinations, particularly if these are new or distressing for them, here are several ways you can support them:

• ask the person if they want to talk about what they are experiencing and listen to them without judgment: “I cannot hear what you are hearing, can you tell me about it?”

• listen. Don’t argue or blame. Acknowledge that hallucinations are real to the person, even if they are seemingly unusual and not based in reality: “I cannot see what you see, but I do understand you see it.”

• empathise with how the person feels about their experiences. “I cannot feel or taste it, but I can imagine it would be a difficult experience. I can see how much it is concerning you.”

• support someone to seek care. Persistent or distressing hallucinations should always be evaluated by a qualified health professional. Establishing potential causes is important: “I cannot hear it like you, but let’s talk to a health professional about it. They can help us understand what might be happening.”

• encourage the person to reach out to their peers as well as to hearing voices groups for ongoing support.

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We’d like to acknowledge Tim Heffernan, Deputy Commissioner of the Mental Health Commission of New South Wales, who contributed to this article.

If this article has raised issues for you, or if you’re concerned about someone you know, call Lifeline on 13 11 14. In an emergency dial 000.

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. Hallucinations in the movies tend to be about chaos, violence and mental distress. But they can be positive too – https://theconversation.com/hallucinations-in-the-movies-tend-to-be-about-chaos-violence-and-mental-distress-but-they-can-be-positive-too-204547

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Scarlett Howard, Lecturer, School of Biological Sciences, Monash University

Varroa mites – notorious honey bee parasites – have recently reached Australian shores, detected at the Port of Newcastle in New South Wales last year. If they establish here, there would be significant implications for agricultural food security, as honey bees are heavily relied on for the pollination of many crops.

However, while Australia is the last continent to be invaded by the mite, it has an opportunity to be the first to eradicate it.

Varroa destructor is a small mite that attaches to bees and eats their “fat body”. The fat bodies of honey bees are the insect equivalent of a liver. Varroa weakens bees, reduces their lifespan and increases the spread of deadly viruses.

Scientists need to be ready: this might be Australia’s best chance to collect important data on the spread and evolution of this parasite. Our new paper published today in Biology Letters outlines what questions scientists need to ask and what data they need to collect if Varroa spreads in Australia.

Such data could help us understand how parasites evolve, why Varroa are so damaging for honey bees, and how Varroa mites impact other insects and the environment.

Read more:
Explainer: Varroa mite, the tiny killer threatening Australia’s bees

Will Varroa establish in Australia?

Australia is in close proximity to countries that have the mite, including New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Timor-Leste and Indonesia.

This probably explains why invasive honey bee swarms are frequently intercepted at our ports, many of these carrying Varroa. Australia currently bans importation of honey bee colonies due to the biosecurity risk, so these interceptions are typically due to stowaway swarms taking up residence in shipping containers.

Previous invasions of Varroa have been successfully eradicated before establishing, but this time Varroa circumvented the biosecurity surveillance near Newcastle and spread locally.

The New South Wales Department of Primary Industries has been contact-tracing and culling hives in contaminated areas, and the spread has been slow so far. Australia has large populations of feral honey bees, which could potentially act as a reservoir for Varroa and are much harder to trace and control, so the department is tackling this with a wild honey bee baiting program.

What threats does Varroa pose?

Varroa mites are a threat to food security. Although Australia has an abundance of food and exports it to other nations, the price of food is likely to increase if Varroa escapes confinement.

Currently, pollination of crops in eradication zones such as berries in Coffs Harbour is at risk due to the removal of all honey bees in the region, which may lead to short-term increases in food costs.

However, establishment and spread of Varroa will lead to lower pollination and lower crop production across the country, which will raise the price of most fruit and vegetables that depend on bee pollination.

This could worsen the food affordability crises caused by the current inflation, affecting the ability of low income households to buy nutritious and fresh produce. Almond pollination has already noted a deficit of 80,000 hives in the last season.

Many of the honey bee colonies that pollinate our crops are thought to be feral, living in tree hollows or nest-boxes designed for native animals. These feral bees are not managed by beekeepers and so won’t be saved by the use of Varroa treatments, meaning they will most likely disappear.

Varroa may be a threat to wild pollinators including native bees. Varroa often spreads viruses, which can jump between species and may threaten our wild native pollinators. Of particular concern are viruses that deform insect wings and cause paralysis. Fortunately, these viruses have not been detected in the current Varroa incursion.

How can we secure Australia’s agricultural industry?

Australia’s agricultural industry relies mostly on pollination by European honey bees. This choice has been risky.

In Europe, pollination services are also provided by diverse species like bumble bees, mining bees and mason bees (e.g. Osmia rufa), many of which are un-managed wild species that nest alone.

If Varroa escapes confinement, beekeepers will still be able to maintain colonies of honey bees but at greater costs, due to colony losses and the need for chemicals to treat Varroa mites in the hives. These costs have the potential to sink businesses, and affect the livelihoods of beekeepers.

Australia needs to decrease its reliance on the European honey bee in agriculture and improve pollinator diversity via the use of other native pollinator species such as native stingless bees, blue banded bees, or even flies. For example, native Australian stingless bees aid in the pollination of macadamia and capsicum crops and could be used for the pollination of other crops.

Australia’s unique situation

Australia is different from other Varroa infected regions of the world. Our incursion was smaller, it was identified early and the management zone is small enough to be feasibly eradicated.

Even if Varroa spreads in Australian landscapes, hopes are that the pace of the spread may be slower in Australia than it was in other regions due to the smaller incursion, the colossal eradication effort and large tracts of land that are inhospitable to honey bees. Managed honey bee populations are concentrated around coastal regions, or in Australia’s major rural food bowl regions where pollinator-dependant crops (such as almonds, blueberries and apples) are located.

This gives us a chance to prevent the spread of Varroa across inland Australia, where there are no honey bees.

Luckily for us, most of the world has already spent the last few decades trying to minimise Varroa mite management costs. As a nation, we now have the chance to initiate a fresh and coordinated management response. Australia could organise state-wide integrated pest management approaches and treatment regimes to prevent Varroa’s resistance to chemical treatments from developing rapidly.

In short, there are good reasons to remain positive about the future of Australian beekeeping and horticultural industries, but there is still much work for our research community to do.

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Scarlett Howard has received funding from Australian Government, RMIT University, Fyssen Foundation, L’Oreal-UNESCO, Australian Academy of Sciences, Hermon Slade, Deakin University, and Monash University. She has been affiliated with Pint of Science Australia.

Alexander Mikheyev receives funding from the Australian Research Council and Agrifutures Australia.

Emily Remnant has received funding from The University of Sydney, Horticulture Innovation Australia, Agrifutures Australia, the Australia and Pacific Science Foundation, the Australian Government and the NSW Government. She has volunteered for the NSW Apiarists Association.

Simon Tierney has received funding from Australian Entomological Society, Centre for Biodiversity Analysis, Flinders University, Hort Innovation, National Geographic Society, Royal Entomological Society, Smithsonian Institution, Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, The University of Adelaide, Tokyo Metropolitan University and Western Sydney University.

Théotime Colin receives funding from Macquarie University, the Lord Mayor’s Charitable Foundation, the Eldon & Anne Foote Trust, Hort Innovation Australia, the Innovation Connections program, the The Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment and Agrifutures Australia. He is a member of the New South Wales Apiarists’ Association.

– ref. Australia is in a unique position to eliminate the bee-killing Varroa mite. Here’s what happens if we don’t – https://theconversation.com/australia-is-in-a-unique-position-to-eliminate-the-bee-killing-varroa-mite-heres-what-happens-if-we-dont-205926

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kate Prendergast, Post-Doctoral Fellow in Political Science, University of Canterbury

It isn’t often people get a free ride, but last week’s budget offered just that: free public transport fares for children aged five to 12 and permanent half-price fares for people under 25.

The free public transport, along with other initiatives outlined in New Zealand’s latest budget, are part of a growing effort to join the dots between financial decision making, community wellbeing and climate resiliency. It is a good start – but young people want more.

As part of a global study into the lives of young urban citizens, we had heard from local Christchurch children who “hoped” buses could be free but “never imagined it could happen”. This budget makes that hope a reality.

Christchurch was one of seven cities in the study exploring the lives of young urban citizens aged between 12 and 24. The aim was to identify and share their experiences and ideas for living well within environmental limits.

This is about more than just curiosity. Urban areas cover just 2% of the world’s land area, but they account for up to 72% of global carbon emissions. Given that by 2050, seven out of ten young people will live in an urbanising area, it’s vital we understand and anticipate how that might play out in reality.

Climate positives in Budget 2023

Investment in young people’s use of public transport is a transformative step. But the impact of free public transport for children is less about an immediate increase in bus patronage and more about the far-reaching effect such policies have on family budgets and long-term behaviour change.

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There was more good news for climate in what was a deceptively simple budget. It signals a long-term shift towards thinking that connects wellbeing, equity and climate policy. The budget allocated a sizeable NZ$1.9 billion to the climate, alongside the $1 billion pledged for cyclone recovery.

This funding, as well as the support for warmer homes and for school lunches, contributes to the social infrastructure that young people and their communities badly need when facing ongoing climate risk.

Public transport investment makes a difference

Policy initiatives that support free bus and train travel can make a big difference. Some 72% of the Christchurch youth we surveyed were worried about money. Participants spoke of wanting more affordable, accessible and independent ways to move around their city.

They expressed frustration with an “unaffordable” and “unreliable” bus service that left most “relying on parents” to chauffeur them around the city in private cars. Not only does car dependence “lock in” high carbon travel but many participants also viewed this dependence as “quite isolating”.

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Overseas research shows scrapping youth bus fares increases social connections and independence, helping youth access the people and places that support their wellbeing.

Free fares also enable youth the freedom to shape their own travel, facilitating the development of new skills, increasing confidence and providing friends a way to travel together.

In the longer term, shifting dependence away from car travel helps reduce carbon emissions and improves air quality, leading to improved health and wellbeing. But moving away from cars will also require ongoing central and local government investment in public transport, safe footpaths and protected cycleways.

Decent housing matters

Initiatives that increase access to decent housing matter for our collective wellbeing, and Budget 2023 sets aside funding for improved housing.

But during our focus groups it was disheartening to hear young people talk about the serious housing problems they face. Some told us their homes had been “flooded more than once”, while others said their houses were “still earthquake damaged”.

Read more:
Free public transport is great news for the environment but it’s no silver bullet

Interviewees also described the struggles of their families to heat their homes. Unaffordable heating left some families relying on “blankets and stuff”, wearing “puffer jackets inside”, and using “hot water bottles” to keep warm.

These housing challenges, especially when combined with climate-related events, have the potential to disrupt home life and risk affecting the relationships young people value for their wellbeing.

Youth want greater climate action

Investing in transport and housing is an important step, but critics will argue Budget 2023 fell short of delivering climate-resilient futures. The reality is that the wellbeing of youth now and in the future also depends on bolder, wide-reaching investment in climate mitigation and adaptation.

Research shows young people around the world are increasingly anxious about climate change. For many, failure by governments to respond to the climate crisis increases that distress.

In Christchurch, an earlier survey of youth indicated a third of all respondents had joined School Strike 4 Climate protests calling for more action from the government on climate change.

So, while this year’s budget made steps towards addressing our climate future there are many more steps required before young people are satisfied. What is needed is a long-term plan that really addresses the impact of our agricultural industry and the need for wider reductions in urban-related carbon emissions.

Until then, budgets – and the governments that deliver them – will continue to disappoint.

Kate Prendergast received funding through an Economic and Social Research Council (UK). She also receives funding through a Deep South National Science Challenge grant awarded for the Mana Rangatahi project.

Bronwyn Hayward receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council (UK). She also receives funding from the Deep South National Science Challenge grant, and is involved with the 2023 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Synthesis and the IPCC 2022 Adaptation and Vulnerability Report.

– ref. Free public transport is a great start – but young people won’t give NZ governments a free ride on climate change – https://theconversation.com/free-public-transport-is-a-great-start-but-young-people-wont-give-nz-governments-a-free-ride-on-climate-change-205989

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Finn Cameron Gillies Parker, PhD candidate, University of Sydney

For as long as humans have grown our own food, we have battled pest animals that destroy crops and take food for themselves.

The traditional approach has been to try to kill the pests, typically with poisons. Too often, however, this fails to kill enough pests, harms native animals, and only minimally reduces damage.

We tackled this problem in a different way by asking: how do we stop hungry animals finding our crops in the first place?

In a research paper published today, we show how “chemical camouflage” can prevent house mice finding newly sown wheat seeds. The method reduced mouse damage to wheat crops by more than 60% even during plague conditions, without killing a single mouse.

The rodent menace

Rodents are responsible for an estimated 70 million tonnes of grain lost worldwide each year. Even a 5% reduction in these losses could feed more than 280 million people.

In Australia, the 2021 mouse plague cost farmers in New South Wales alone upwards of $1 billion, according to an industry association estimate. A mouse plague occurs somewhere in Australia at least every four years.

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Currently, the only management option to reduce mouse numbers is broad-scale baiting. However, baiting is often ineffective and has led to calls for more lethal poisons, which carry major risks for native wildlife.

The relationship between baiting effort and crop yield is not well understood, and mouse numbers typically crash in plague years even without intervention. A better approach is to focus on reducing mouse impacts, rather than mouse numbers.

How to fool a mouse

Mouse damage to Australia’s most valuable crop, wheat, occurs mostly in the two-week period between sowing and germination. During this time, mice are attracted to the smell of the wheat germ – the nutritious and fatty part of the seed – beneath the ground, and they learn to dig up seeds with pinpoint accuracy, leading to significant crop losses.

This led to our question: can we hide the seeds so mice can’t find them?

Like many animals, mice primarily use their sense of smell to find food. The world is full of odours, and hungry foragers must prioritise important smells and disregard useless ones.

When a food is too difficult to find, or an odour is not a useful indicator of food, foragers must give up and search for something else to avoid wasting energy.

Because hungry animals can’t afford to waste effort on odours that don’t lead to food, they are vulnerable to olfactory misinformation and chemical camouflage. As with visual camouflage, if the background, in this case smell, appears the same as the item we are trying to hide, the target item cannot be distinguished.

Animals can also learn about the usefulness of information, making them vulnerable to another form of misinformation – odour pre-exposure. By deploying food odours before food is available, foragers initially attracted to the odour repeatedly receive no reward and learn to ignore it.

When the food does become available, foragers don’t follow the odours because they know they’re unrewarding. We recently used this technique to dramatically improve nest survival for threatened shorebirds at risk from by predation by invasive predators in New Zealand.

A test under tough conditions

Until now, these techniques have been tested on relatively widely dispersed food items with fewer foragers over a larger area. Whether olfactory misinformation could protect a crop with more than 300 mice and 1.6 million seeds per hectare was unclear.

We worked on a 27-hectare wheat paddock in southwest NSW, using 60 plots to test our two olfactory misinformation techniques. We used wheat germ oil to provide the odour background, as it is made from the part of wheat seeds that mice seek out and is a relatively cheap byproduct of the wheat-milling process.

Both techniques involved spraying a fine mist of wheat germ oil solution onto the plots. Each application was equivalent to the smell of around 50 times the number of seeds on the plot.

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Our first technique, odour camouflage, began immediately after the crop was planted and was reapplied several times until seedlings appeared. This created a blanket of wheat odour to hide seeds from detection.

Our second technique, odour pre-exposure, had wheat germ oil applied six days before the wheat crop was planted and continued for the week after. We predicted that mice attracted to the odour before seeds were planted would begin to ignore wheat odour after repeatedly finding no seeds.

We also had three control treatments: one sprayed with canola oil to control for an oil effect, one we walked on without spraying to control for seed loss due to trampling, and one that remained totally untouched.

One and two weeks after sowing, we counted mouse damage in the form of diggings where seeds had been extracted by mice. After two weeks, we also estimated the number of seedlings that were lost to mice. The results were staggering.

After two weeks, our camouflage and pre-exposure treatments had reduced mouse damage by 63% and 74% respectively, compared to the control. We also estimated that 53% and 72% fewer seedlings, respectively, were lost to mice on these plots.

The difference in the effect of pre-exposure to wheat odour and the effect of camouflage treatments was not statistically significant, and we concluded the camouflage effect is the most likely reason for the reduction in damage.

Working with the animals

In an increasingly populated world where food security is becoming a priority, we need new ways to tackle pest problems sustainably and safely.

Our methods are simple, safe and highly effective, even during a mouse plague. They carry no risks for native wildlife and involve no killing. Mice don’t go hungry either – they simply eat the foods they ate before the wheat was planted.

We believe simple behavioural interventions like ours, which work with animals’ motivations rather than against them, are the way of the future in wildlife management and conservation.

We believe this new approach has the potential to manage pest impacts without the side effects that come from using lethal pest control.

Finn Cameron Gillies Parker receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

Catherine Price receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

Jenna Bytheway receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

Peter Banks receives funding from the Australian Research Council and The Hermon Slate Foundation. He is an external member of CSIRO’s Rodent Research Advisory Panel

– ref. How to fool a mouse: ‘chemical camouflage’ can hide crops and cut losses by over 60% – https://theconversation.com/how-to-fool-a-mouse-chemical-camouflage-can-hide-crops-and-cut-losses-by-over-60-202042

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kaya Klop-Toker, Conservation Biology Researcher, University of Newcastle

For the past 40 years, a devastating fungal disease has been ravaging frog populations around the world, wiping out 90 species. Unlike the global COVID-19 pandemic, you may not even be aware of this “panzootic” – a pandemic in the animal world. Yet it’s the world’s worst wildlife disease.

Recently published in the journal Transboundary and Emerging Diseases, a multinational study has now developed a method to detect all known strains of this disease, caused by the amphibian chytrid fungus. This breakthrough will advance our ability to detect and research this disease, working towards a widely available cure.

An extreme mortality rate

Chytridiomycosis, or “chytrid” for short, has driven severe declines in over 500 frog species and caused 90 extinctions, including seven in Australia.

The extreme rate of mortality, and the high number of species affected, makes chytrid unequivocally the deadliest animal disease known to date.

Chytrid infects frogs by reproducing in their skin. The single-celled fungus enters a skin cell, multiplies, then breaks back out onto the surface of the animal. This damage to the skin affects the frog’s ability to balance water and salt levels, and eventually leads to death if infection levels are high enough.

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Chytrid originated in Asia. It’s believed that global travel and trade in amphibians led to the disease being unwittingly spread to other continents.

Frogs in regions such as Australia and the Americas did not have the evolutionary history with chytrid that could grant them resistance. So, when they were exposed to this new pathogen, the results were devastating.

Many species’ immune systems were simply not equipped to defend against the disease, and mass mortalities ensued. In the 1980s, amphibian biologists began to notice sharp population declines, and in 1998, the chytrid fungal pathogen was finally recognised as the culprit.

Since then, much research has focused on infection trends and how to protect vulnerable frog species. To track such trends, we need a reliable way to detect chytrid in the first place.

An imperfect swab

To find out if a frog is carrying chytrid, researchers swab the animal and run the same type of test you might recognise from COVID-19 testing – a qPCR. It stands for quantitative polymerase chain reaction, and simply put, is a way to measure the volume of DNA from a species of interest. The test was developed at CSIRO in 2004; unlike a COVID test, however, scientists swab the frog’s skin, not the nose.

Because this test was developed from chytrid in Australia, decades after the pathogen’s arrival in the country, a divergence between the Australian and Asian strains meant this test could not detect chytrid in its region of origin. This has been a major limitation to the past two decades of chytrid research.

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Over the past several years, a team led by researchers at the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research – Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology in India has been working on a new qPCR test that can detect strains of chytrid from Asia. In collaboration with researchers in Australia and Panama, we have now verified the new test also reliably detects chytrid in these countries.

Furthermore, the test can detect another closely related species of chytrid that infects salamanders. The test is also more sensitive, meaning it can detect very low infection levels – thereby broadening the scope of species we can study.

Natural immunity?

The most puzzling thing about chytrid is that some amphibian species – even those that have not evolved with the pathogen – don’t become sick when they carry the fungus. These species have some form of natural immune resistance.

However, frog immunity is extremely complex. Immunity might come from anti-microbial chemicals within the skin, symbiotic bacteria on the skin, white blood cells and antibodies in the blood, or combinations of these mechanisms.

So far, no clear trend has been found between resistance and immune function. To make matters more complicated, there is also evidence chytrid can suppress a host’s immune response.

Because there haven’t been any observed chytrid declines in Asia, and because detecting chytrid in Asia has been difficult, Asia is lagging behind the rest of the world in chytrid research. Yet the new qPCR test detected high levels of chytrid in a range of amphibian species across India.

Having the ability to study chytrid in its region of origin may help us understand how Asian species evolved resistance – research that may hold a key to help researchers develop a cure for those species in Australia, North and South America, and Europe that are now on the brink.

While the new qPCR test was successful at detecting chytrid in samples from India, Australia, and Panama, we will need to validate and promote the method so it becomes the new gold standard for chytrid testing. Future work will involve using the test to analyse samples from Europe, and samples from Brazil where genetic studies show that chytrid has diverged.

In time, this new way to detect chytrid could be the first step in helping to save frogs – the hidden gems of our forests and wetlands.

Kaya Klop-Toker received funding from the Australian Academy of Science.

Karthikeyan Vasudevan receives funding from Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, India.

– ref. The world’s worst animal disease is killing frogs worldwide. A testing breakthrough could help save them – https://theconversation.com/the-worlds-worst-animal-disease-is-killing-frogs-worldwide-a-testing-breakthrough-could-help-save-them-205872

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Thomas Corben, Research Fellow, Foreign Policy and Defence, University of Sydney

The Quad leaders’ meeting was meant to take place in Sydney today, with the Sydney Opera House as the picturesque setting. Instead, US President Joe Biden has rushed back to Washington from the G7 summit in Japan to deal with the looming debt ceiling crisis in Congress.

Biden’s sudden cancellation of his travels to Australia and Papua New Guinea has unsurprisingly ruffled feathers. But for America’s regional partners, the costs of a bad resolution to the debt crisis in the US far outweigh those of a cancelled trip.

Whichever way you look at it, this is a clear reminder of the importance of US domestic politics in setting the terms for US strategy and credibility in the Indo-Pacific region.

The best of bad options

Those complaining about Biden’s absence have good reason. Turning up to regional meetings matters a lot in Asia, and for America’s partners in the Pacific especially.

Indeed, Biden was due to meet with leaders from the Pacific Islands Forum, the region’s premier multilateral forum, in PNG this week. The symbolism of cancelling further engagements with leaders of a region that has become a new focal point of strategic competition with China is hard to ignore.

Still, the president could be forgiven due to the difficulty of the choice he faced. On the one hand, there’s the potential short-term hit to US regional credibility from a cancelled trip. On the other hand, there’s the risk the debt crisis at home could boil over into a full-blown default, with ruinous, long-term consequences for US strategy in the region.

This is also not the first time a US president has missed key meetings in the Indo-Pacific due to domestic politics.

Faced with a government shutdown in 2013, President Barack Obama skipped a host of major Asian summits. In response, Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong noted the region’s preference for

a US president who is able to travel to fulfil his international duties to one who is preoccupied with domestic issues.

More recently, regional powers grew accustomed to President Donald Trump’s absence from meetings, though he tended to forego travel for reasons less pressing than a looming default. Polling of regional elites and and the general public showed Trump’s approach had considerable consequences for people’s trust in the United States.

The Biden administration, by comparison, has been a reliable diplomatic partner. Research from the United States Studies Centre has shown that Biden and his senior appointees have an almost unblemished attendance record at key regional summits and consistently show up for bilateral meetings with allies.

As for the Quad, the Biden administration is hardly throwing in the towel. A condensed version of the Quad meeting was held during the G7 summit. With the leaders’ announcement of a suite of new initiatives, a last-minute venue change had little bearing on the Quad’s progress.

Why the debt crisis matters to the Indo-Pacific

By contrast, the outcome of debt ceiling negotiations between the White House and Congress will have far greater repercussions for US Indo-Pacific strategy.

With cuts to Medicare and Social Security – a third of the US budget – reportedly off the table, the US defence and state departments face likely cutbacks. In short, the Republicans’ existing proposal to cut top-line discretionary government spending to 2022 levels would mean a 9% reduction to defence and non-defence programs.

Many in Congress are loath to reduce defence spending, but the narrow majorities of the Republicans in the House and Democrats in the Senate – as well as the House speaker’s calls for “efficiencies” and an end to “blank cheques” – leaves the Pentagon budget open to scrutiny.

In a worst-case scenario, unsuccessful negotiations could lead to another significant clampdown on government spending on foreign policy priorities.

In 2011, similarly stalled negotiations over the debt ceiling nearly resulted in default, forcing Obama to sign the Budget Control Act. This effectively placed nearly US$1 trillion in restrictions on discretionary government spending for a period of ten years.

Even this failed to resolve the crisis, with automatic spending cuts triggered in 2012 after Congress failed to agree on additional deficit reduction measures.

Though lawmakers found ways to mitigate some impacts of the Budget Control Act in subsequent budgets, the consequences for US defence spending were nonetheless profound. In the words of former US Secretary of Defence James Mattis:

no enemy in the field has done as much to harm the readiness of the US military than the combined impact of the Budget Control Act’s defence spending caps.

United States Studies Centre research from 2019 showed the Budget Control Act had a significant impact on America’s ability to fund its Asia-Pacific strategy, particularly its defence component. It has still not entirely recovered from this position, meaning further cuts could set ambitious US defence plans in the region back even further.

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Compared with the Pentagon, the State Department appears to have comparatively little political support in Congress, meaning it could be especially vulnerable to cuts.

The department is still reeling from cuts to the tune of 30% under the Trump administration. Further reductions would hamstring the Biden administration’s efforts to put forward a robust and consistent diplomatic presence in the Indo-Pacific region.

At a time where Australia is reinvigorating its own diplomatic statecraft in the region, a capable US partner is more valuable than ever.

Shoring up US credibility

Even short of cuts, the risk of default is already damaging US credibility in Asia.

Comments to that effect from the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the defence secretary and the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee have framed these risks primarily in terms of Chinese views of American resolve. The subtext is the same goes for America’s allies and partners in the region.

Ultimately, it is more critical the US ensure its regional strategy is reliably resourced than for Biden to attend a handful of important meetings. Both of his options were bad, but he may have picked the least damaging option in the long run.

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Tom Corben is a Research Fellow in the Foreign Policy and Defence Program at the United States Studies Centre, which receives funding from the Australian Department of Defence, Thales Australia, and Northrop Grumman Australia.

Alice Nason is a Research Associate in the Foreign Policy and Defence Program at the United States Studies Centre, which receives funding from the Australian Department of Defence, Thales Australia and Northrop Grumman.

– ref. Biden’s cancelled Australia-PNG trip was a missed opportunity – but a US debt crisis would hurt a lot more – https://theconversation.com/bidens-cancelled-australia-png-trip-was-a-missed-opportunity-but-a-us-debt-crisis-would-hurt-a-lot-more-206079

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Charles Skinner, Senior Research Fellow, Indigenous Health, Macquarie University

Water plays a significant role in Aboriginal culture. The Fish Traps in Brewarrina, Baiame’s Ngunnhu, for example, were built by eight clan groups and continue to sustainably fish the Barwon River.

Respect for and understanding of water has enabled Aboriginal people to thrive for millennia in very hot and remote places. The impacts of colonisation including introduced species of plants and animals, farming and overuse of rivers and ground water, compounded by global warming, has dramatically reduced water access and quality, and in some places threatened the water supply.

Recent coverage of the quality of drinking water in Walgett in New South Wales again highlights that clean, safe drinking water is not a right in Australia. Walgett residents say the water is unsafe to drink and they’re backed by scientists from the George Institute who report an urgent need to address drinking water quality.

Read more:
Countless reports show water is undrinkable in many Indigenous communities. Why has nothing changed?

Supply is only half the issue

The reasons for poor or limited water supply vary. They include river flows and environmental health issues, infrastructure, and insufficient skilled, credentialed staff available to conduct water quality checks. But understanding the causes is one thing. Taking active steps to address them is another.

When clean, safe water doesn’t flow to communities, they are more likely to drink sugar-sweetened beverages. Our 2020 study visited three remote schools with high proportions of Aboriginal students. Our initial results, gathered in 2014, found 64% of children regularly drank sugary drinks. Some 5% thought drinking water was “unhealthy”. In some places in Australia that’s true at least some of the time.

The availability of safe drinking water impacts tooth decay, obesity and diseases like diabetes. Australia has drinking water quality guidelines but they are not mandatory.

We installed cold, filtered water fountains through a structured, collaborative process and, as a result, found in 2018 that 84% of children at those same schools drank water every day. The percentage who regularly drank sugary drinks shrank to 33% in the intervening four-year period.

Our follow up study found towns of lower socioeconomic status were less likely to have access to community drinking water and more likely to have a high Aboriginal population. So, Aboriginal people are particularly disadvantaged by this issue. It also found that in many towns the cheapest drink is soft drink.

Making a difference through codesign

We have been working with NSW communities to install refrigerated water fountains in rural and remote places. We collaborate with local Aboriginal land councils, traditional owners, and local government using codesign principles. Together we confirm the need, identify a suitable location and then select the right model of water fountain. We also negotiate local responsibility for ongoing maintenance and provide water bottles, education resources and spare filters.

In most cases we work with schools and preschools to embed positive health messages and reinforce water as the best drink. As Kim Cooke, Director Little Yuin Preschool in Wallaga Lake says,

The water fountain is a wonderful asset to the preschool outdoor learning environment. For us, as educators, it is central to the children’s health to be able to hydrate their bodies ready for learning; and having access to fresh water to drink everyday has led to an increase in their independence and learning about the importance of drinking water throughout the day.

Read more:
Travelling around Australia this summer? Here’s how to know if the water is safe to drink

Meeting local need

We recently conducted a survey of towns across Australia with a population of fewer than 5,000 people and Aboriginal population greater than 3%. We estimated that 222 places out of 612 small towns nationally do not have community drinking water.

Providing drinking water to every Australian town requires a place-by-place approach so that communities get a say about how and where fountains are installed and they meet local needs. Schools and preschools can participate in health promotion too. A national approach that overcomes the policy “ping pong” of responsibility for water safety, quality and infrastructure between local, state and the federal governments is also required. A national approach would enable:

• high quality infrastructure to be purchased at reasonable price

• professional and timely installation

• local responsibility for maintenance

• codesign so that each town gets the infrastructure they need, where it’s needed.

We estimate it would cost A$5 million to solve this problem nationally, based on our installation costs in NSW communities to date – a small investment in the prevention of chronic disease.

Water fountains in every town won’t solve all of our water issues. But they could ensure everyone can access free, cold drinks and reduce sugar consumption.

As community member, Brewarrina and Brewarrina Shire Councillor Aunty Trish says:

Having cold water available after you finish your sports or on our hot days will mean a lot for the community, fresh water helps with the health and wellbeing of the community.

Read more:
Drinking water can be a dangerous cocktail for people in flood areas

The authors wish to acknowledge Uncle Boe Rambaldini and Professor Chris Bourke, our project ambassadors. Aboriginal communities and local government authorities that have participated in our research and the implementation of water fountains. Our partners at the Alliance for a Cavity Free Future, Australian Dental Association NSW Branch, NSW Council of Social Service, Public Interest Advocacy Centre and Australian Red Cross.

John Charles Skinner has consulted to Colgate Palmolive Pty Ltd and the Aboriginal Health and Medical Research Council of NSW. He receives funding from Asthma Australia for research. He is affiliated with Charles Sturt University.

Kylie Gwynne receives funding from NHMRC and various charities/foundations for research. She is affiliated with the Resolution Institute.

Tom Calma receives funding from a consultancy on tackling Indigenous smoking from the Department of Health and Aged Care, an academic appointment with the University of Sydney and various other consultancies. He is affiliated with the University of Canberra and University of Sydney.

– ref. Drinking fountains in every town won’t fix all our water issues – but it’s a healthy start – https://theconversation.com/drinking-fountains-in-every-town-wont-fix-all-our-water-issues-but-its-a-healthy-start-204912