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

The latest New South Wales roadmap to recovery outlines a range of freedoms for fully vaccinated people in the state when 80% of those aged 16 and over are vaccinated.

Unvaccinated people will remain restricted, but will have the same freedoms by December 1, when 90% of adults are expected to be vaccinated.

The relaxing of restrictions will occur in three stages, at the 70%, 80% and 90% vaccination mark, with many restrictions dropped by December 1.

This includes relaxing the 4 square metre density rule to 2 square metres in most indoor venues; and no indoor mask mandates in most venues except public transport, airports and for front-of-house hospitality staff.

The problem is, other countries such as Israel already tried relying mostly on vaccines to relax restrictions – and failed, albeit at lower vaccination levels than NSW is aiming for.

Vaccines alone may not enough to protect against the highly contagious Delta variant.

So who is most vulnerable under the current plan, and how should the NSW reopening plan change to protect these groups and the wider population?

Read more:
NSW risks a second larger COVID peak by Christmas if it eases restrictions too quickly

Vulnerable group 1: children

About 20% of the population is under 16 years. The 80% adult target corresponds to less than 70% of the whole population, leaving plenty of room for Delta to spread.

One in three children aged 12 to 15 have had a single dose of vaccine, but it may be next year before this age group is fully vaccinated.

Another 1.2 million NSW children under 12 will remain unvaccinated. This is the largest unvaccinated group. With no requirements for unvaccinated primary school children to wear masks, and no plan to ventilate classrooms, outbreaks will almost certainly occur.

In the US, counties with school mask mandates had much lower rates of COVID in children that counties that did not mandate masks. One unvaccinated teacher who took off her mask to read to a primary school class resulted in 26 people becoming infected.

While children get mild infection compared to adults, around 2% of children who get Delta are hospitalised. Of these, some will require ICU care and a proportion will die. This becomes more apparent when there is high community transmission, and high case numbers in unvaccinated children.

The Doherty report estimates 276,000 Australian children will be infected in the first six months after reopening in the most likely scenario, with 2,400 hospitalisations, 206 ICU admissions and 57 child deaths in that time.

Vulnerable group 2: Aboriginal people

Aboriginal communities in NSW are especially vulnerable to epidemics, contracting COVID and getting severe disease.

There are relatively more children in the under 12 age category in Aboriginal communities, which leaves a much higher proportion of the community unvaccinated.

We saw in the Wilcannia outbreak that a high proportion of cases were in children.

Read more:
COVID in Wilcannia: a national disgrace we all saw coming

Despite this, vaccination rates for Aboriginal communities continue to lag about 20% behind the rest of NSW.

Allowing unrestrained travel into these communities before vaccination rates are high enough to afford protection may be disastrous.

Vulnerable group 3: regional NSW

Remote and regional communities are also vulnerable, because of fewer health services and difficulties with access to care.

An outbreak would disproportionately affect regional NSW.

Vulnerable group 4: people with disability

People with disability, many of whom have significant health conditions, are also at high risk.

Vaccination rates for NSW participants in Australia’s National Disability Insurance Scheme lag state rates by about 14% despite being prioritised in the national rollout.

In the UK, 58% of COVID deaths in the United Kingdom were among people who had a disability. People with intellectual disability were eight times more likely to die of COVID than the general population.

Vulnerable group 5: people with cancer and other conditions

Adults and children living with cancer and other conditions that suppress the immune system may have a poorer response to COVID vaccines, and may need a third dose.

Read more:
Why is a third COVID-19 vaccine dose important for people who are immunocompromised?

The need for third dose boosters in susceptible people is recognised and programs to deliver these are underway in many countries.

Some are vaccinating specific groups: the United States and United Kingdom are providing boosters to all people 65 and 50 years and over respectively.

Others, such as Israel and many European nations, are starting with older adults and immunosuppressed people, and later including the rest of the population.

Australia is yet to formulate such a plan.

Children under 12 years with cancer (not yet eligible for vaccination), also deserve to be protected, by vaccines and/or other measures to stop the spread of COVID in the community.

The consequences of overwhelmed health systems on timely diagnoses and treatment of cancer and other serious illness is already being seen in NSW.

A layered plan for a safer reopening

Currently available vaccines alone will not be enough to control Delta. We will need layered protection including safe indoor air, testing, tracing and masks to continue our lives freely when lockdowns lift.

Here’s what we propose:

1. Implement vaccine targets for at-risk groups

We need to make sure no disadvantaged group is left behind, and that vaccine targets are met for all these groups.

For Aboriginal people, we recommend 85-90% targets be met.

For other groups such as people with disability, particularly those living in congregate settings, higher vaccine targets should also be considered.

Read more:
Vaccinations need to reach 90% of First Nations adults and teens to protect vulnerable communities

2. Make indoor air safer

NSW needs a plan to address indoor ventilation, because the virus is airborne.

This has already occurred in Victorian schools, and should be an important part of lifting restrictions in NSW.

Read more:
From vaccination to ventilation: 5 ways to keep kids safe from COVID when schools reopen

The plan should ensure homes, businesses, schools and other public venues have safe indoor air, and that the community is as well informed on safe air as it is on handwashing, so that people are empowered to mitigate risk in their own homes.

3. Maintain high rates of testing and tracing

We must maintain high testing capacity, make rapid antigen testing widely available, and improve contact tracing capacity.

Suggestions of stopping QR code scanning and thereby reducing contact tracing capacity are misguided, and will result in a resurgence of infection.

We do contact tracing routinely for all serious infections such as TB, meningitis and measles, and need to continue this for COVID-19.

4. Plan for booster doses

We also need to address waning immunity from vaccines and be pro-active about booster doses, particularly for those with reduced immunity or who are immunocompromised, and for health care workers.

For the rest of the population, there is enough real-world evidence protection starts to wane as early as five to six months after vaccination.

It is urgent we address this for health workers and other priority groups such as aged care residents, who were mostly vaccinated six months ago or longer. This is not only for their own safety but to prevent health system collapse from under-staffing due to illness or burnout.

Let’s avoid future lockdowns

In the post-lock down world, NSW will likely face a Delta resurgence if multiple restrictions are simultaneously relaxed, as we have seen in countries overseas.

Dropping most restrictions is also likely to result in repeated stop-start lockdown cycles, prompted by health system strain when cases surge.

Only layered, combined protections will provide a chance of safer and sustainable re-opening until we await the promise of second generation vaccines, boosters and smarter vaccine strategies.

C Raina MacIntyre receives funding from NHMRC (Principal Research Fellowship and Centre for Research Excellence) and MRFF.

Anne Kavanagh receives funding from the NHMRC, ARC, and the Victorian and Commonwealth governments.

eva.segelov@monash.edu receives funding from Cancer Australia

Lisa Jackson Pulver has received ARC grants and NHMRC grants.

– ref. Relying only on vaccination in NSW from December 1 isn’t enough – here’s what we need for sustained freedom – https://theconversation.com/relying-only-on-vaccination-in-nsw-from-december-1-isnt-enough-heres-what-we-need-for-sustained-freedom-168833

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Liam Burke, Associate Professor and Cinema and Screen Studies Discipline Leader, Swinburne University of Technology

Bluey, the Emmy award-winning animated series about a family of anthropomorphized cattle dogs, has become a ratings phenomenon since it was first broadcast on the ABC in 2018. Bluey follows the eponymous six-year-old Blue Heeler, her younger sister, Bingo, and their playful parents, Bandit and Chilli.

As part of our new research project, Australian Children’s Television Cultures, we are surveying audiences about how they interact with Australian children’s programming.

From over 700 adult responses, Bluey was the TV program parents were most keen to watch with their children. Respondents celebrated its unambiguously Australian setting, irreverent humour, and family orientated themes at a time when other children’s content, such as the dead-eyed nursey rhymes of YouTube channel Cocomelon, seem to only offer generic, computer-generated distractions. Indeed, many adults without children said they watch Bluey.

One respondent described Bluey, which is set in Brisbane, as “representative of an idealised Australian ethos — relaxed, curious, and hard-working”.

Read more:
‘Making up games is more important than you think’: why Bluey is a font of parenting wisdom

Another, an early childhood educator, emphasised that “Australian children need Australian shows”. And as a parent explained,

It’s nice for children to see familiar landmarks and have issues that are current to them, as opposed to Peppa Pig and needing to explain why we don’t have snow at Christmas”.

One aspect of Bluey audiences consider particularly relatable is the family dynamic, including the games Bluey and Bingo play with their resourceful parents. One locked-down Australian mother has even created “50 Days of Bluey”, guidelines for home activities inspired by the show.

Bluey’s games include: “Daddy Robot” in which a “malfunctioning” Bandit teaches Bluey and Bingo the importance of tidying up; “Rug Island”, a kids-only oasis that the Heelers create in their backyard; and “Mount Mumandad”, in which Bluey and Bingo climb their exhausted parents after they have collapsed on the couch.

Then there’s the humour: described by one respondent as full of Australian cultural nuances. As one parent noted,

Bluey ‘gets’ parents perfectly … we enjoy watching it so we steer our kids towards it.

Read on many levels

The show can be read on multiple levels, which is why it can appeal to adults too. For instance, a recent Father’s Day episode saw Bluey’s dad, Bandit, discuss his conflicted feelings about getting a vasectomy with another dad.

As Bandit explained, “I’m keen to get it done, but, Chilli, [his wife] she wants to keep her options open”. This adult moment in what is ostensibly a kids’ cartoon generated much discussion on social media. One fan tweeted

I’m a grown man wondering if a cartoon dog family is going to have a baby. Weird life this is.

From election day barbecues to Queenslander houses and backyards, early audience responses to our study agree Bluey offers a snapshot of Australia. However, many were quick to point out this snapshot doesn’t provide the full picture.

Bluey has been gently criticised for a perceived lack of diversity. The show centres on a hetero-normative nuclear family in a world largely populated by able-bodied characters, with Anglo-Australian names and accents. As one respondent noted

We’re definitely getting better [at reflecting Australian culture] with shows like Bluey, but as a gay man I would love to see more LGBT representation in kids’ shows. It would be nice as a kid to know you’re valid.

Nevertheless, many of this study’s early participants felt that on the whole, kids’ TV was becoming more reflective of wider Australia. Children’s content praised for providing greater diversity of representation included Indigenous Australian-led shows Little J & Big Cuz and Jarjums.

National babysitter Play School was celebrated for its continued commitment to featuring hosts from a variety of backgrounds, and the greater diversity in The Wiggles’ new line-up was applauded.

Taking ‘bush wees’ global

One respondent wondered if the humour and references in Bluey were “lost on audiences outside of Australia”. However, since the Walt Disney Company acquired the show’s international broadcasting rights in 2019, Bluey has been reaching a wide overseas audience.

While some small accommodations have been made for international viewers — “capsicums” became “peppers” in the UK and a gag with a pooping pony was cut for Disney Junior — the show has resisted being watered down. As such, it is taking bilbies and “bush wees” to global audiences.

At a time when the commercial broadcaster quotas that previously protected local kids’ TV have been scrapped and international shows like Paw Patrol and Peppa Pig can be instantly summoned by tapping on a smart-phone, the local enthusiasm for Bluey is heartening.

Read more:
Cheese ‘n’ crackers! Concerns deepen for the future of Australian children’s television

“I have friends in the US whose kids watch Bluey and they say their kids are talking in Aussie accents,” noted one respondent with pride.

Said another: “Bluey will be forever iconic not just to kids but their parents, not just in Australia but all over the world”.

Our research project, Australian Children’s Television Cultures, aims to better understand the role and responsibility of local Kids’ TV. You can participate in this research by clicking on the following link. You can also follow us on Twitter.

Liam Burke receives funding from the Australian Children’s Television Foundation (ACTF).

Djoymi Baker receives funding from the Australian Children’s Television Foundation (ACTF)

Jessica Balanzategui receives funding from the Australian Children’s Television Foundation.

Joanna McIntyre receives funding from the Australian Children’s Television Foundation (ACTF).

– ref. ‘An idealised Australian ethos’: why Bluey is an audience favourite, even for adults without kids – https://theconversation.com/an-idealised-australian-ethos-why-bluey-is-an-audience-favourite-even-for-adults-without-kids-168571

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Perran Ross, Postdoctoral research fellow, The University of Melbourne

The whine of the mosquito is unpleasant and often inescapable outdoors on summer evenings. Mosquitoes track you down from tens of metres away by sensing carbon dioxide in the air you breathe out. Within seconds, they home in on exposed skin and feast on your blood with an array of specialized needles.

Only female mosquitoes drink blood, which is how they spread deadly diseases like dengue fever and malaria. Males mosquitoes are harmless, mostly feeding on nectar, but our new research confirms they are just as annoying as female mosquitoes.

Our study, published in the Journal of Medical Entomology, dispels a common misconception that male mosquitoes avoid people. In fact, male mosquitoes from at least one common species probably like you just as much as females do – but the reason for their fondness and the way they express it are very different.

The backyard and the laboratory

We used a simple experiment to test if male mosquitoes from the species Aedes aegypti, which spreads dengue, seek out people. We released mosquitoes into a large arena, the size of a suburban yard, and had willing subjects sit in a chair as bait. Cameras facing the subjects filmed mosquitoes as they flew nearby. We confirmed that male mosquitoes are indeed attracted to people.

Female mosquitoes are after your blood, but male mosquitoes just want to hang out. In our experiments, male mosquitoes continuously swarmed around people but rarely landed. By contrast, female mosquitoes land, drink their fill and then fly away to rest.

People differ in their attractiveness to female mosquitoes, and this also holds true for male mosquitoes.

À lire aussi :
Feel like you’re a mozzie magnet? It’s true – mosquitoes prefer to bite some people over others

Of the two participants in our study, one person was about three times as attractive as the other. The basis of this variation is not fully understood, but the mix of chemicals you emit from your skin is likely to be important.

We also tested mosquito attraction in small cages in the laboratory. In this environment, males showed no apparent interest in people, while female mosquitoes did. This is likely because male mosquitoes can’t detect some of the close-range signals that female mosquitoes can.

If they’re not after our blood, what do male mosquitoes want?

Why are male mosquitoes interested in people if they can’t feed on your blood? We think it’s all about finding the females. Since female mosquitoes are often around people, male mosquitoes that have the same inclination should have greater reproductive success.

But more work is needed to understand the how and why. Almost all behavioural research so far has focused on female mosquitoes.

À lire aussi :
A genetic approach to mosquitoes can stop them spreading infections

However, there is growing interest in releasing modified male mosquitoes to sterilise female mosquitoes, which gives our research practical applications.

So, not all mosquitoes you see are out for your blood. Some just want you as their wingman, whether you like it or not.

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

– ref. Male mosquitoes don’t want your blood, but they still find you very attractive – https://theconversation.com/male-mosquitoes-dont-want-your-blood-but-they-still-find-you-very-attractive-168751

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Enqi Weng, Research Fellow, Deakin University

A lack of religious literacy by journalists – and a failure of news programs to feature a wider variety of faith leaders – is having an impact on the quality of coverage of major news stories and events in Australia.

Our new peer-reviewed article, Blessed Be the Educated Journalist, sheds light on the media’s limited understanding of the range of religions and faith traditions in Australia.

We focused on a specific case study of producers selecting talent for the ABC’s Q&A program. However, we argue ABC journalists are not the only ones who have failed to improve their limited understanding of religions outside Christianity and Islam.

The country’s religiosity landscape is changing: while Australians are increasingly reporting themselves to be non-religious (from 22% in 2011 to 30% in 2016), more than half (52%) of the general population still claims affiliation with Christianity. And minority religions such as Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism and Sikhism are fast growing.

To responsibly report news in a country of religious “superdiversity”, knowledge of the full range of belief systems should similarly be superdiverse.

Read more:
Yes, religion plays a more prominent role in politics. But ‘secular Australia’ has always been a myth

How reporting on religions has been flawed

Some well-funded projects have made substantial efforts to educate Australian journalists about Islam in the past 20 years, but there has not been equivalent education around other faiths. And very few of these other faith leaders are ever featured in the news.

Change can be difficult for Australian journalists who are, by nature, a sceptical bunch unlikely to align themselves to any particular faith. Journalists generally have a higher level of non-religiosity compared to other people (70% reported having no religion in 2016, compared to 30% of the general population).

Read more:
Explainer: what is Pentecostalism, and how might it influence Scott Morrison’s politics?

And as newsrooms have shrunk, many have lost religion reporters and others with religious expertise who are able to report knowledgeably on different faiths.

As a result, basic factual errors can creep into reporting. For example, the Pentecostal church the prime minister attends is Horizon, not Hillsong – they are different churches. And the religion predominantly practised in the South Sudanese community is Christian, not Muslim.

Other times, the media lack proper balance when it comes to including a variety of faith leaders in their reporting. There’s also often a lack of awareness of the need to include voices from less-prominent faith and spiritual groups, such as Indigenous Spirituality, mysticism, animism, Bon and Wicca.

In recent reporting on the COVID crisis, some reporting has similarly lacked nuance and more detailed understanding of people’s faiths. This has led to generalisations and misconceptions in the broader community.

For example, Muslim, ultra-Orthodox Jewish and Orthodox Christian communities have received negative attention for breaking COVID rules, without adequate explanation of the traditions or beliefs of those in the faiths.

The narrative that religion is the sole cause of many problems can also be misleading, especially if the media play a role in crafting that. The ABC’s Religion and Ethics Report recently reported on research dispelling the assumption that religion is a key driver of conflict.

Catholic perspectives dominated ABC panels

My (Weng) analysis of religions discussions on the Q&A program from 2009–13 found that Catholic perspectives dominated, while others were excluded.

These discussions also took place around Christian dates of significance or with regard to specific Christian topics, while other religious representatives played adjunct roles. Discussions related to Islam also occurred at times without Muslim representation and input.

I also questioned why the prominent atheists Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens were key contributors to discussions on Australian religions on the program. This allowed them to shape, influence and reinforce understandings of religions from their particular British colonial view.

Why does it matter?

The news media continue to be significant sources of information about religions, especially for those who are not part of a religious community themselves or personally know anyone religious.

Yet, the rich diversity of cultures and religions in Australia has not yet translated into increased media representation or more knowledgeable reporting on religions.

Australian journalists need to be exposed to a wider range of faiths through training programs similar to the Reporting Islam Project. Given the success of this initiative, the materials could simply be reproduced to deepen knowledge about other religions.

Read more:
Unis are killing the critical study of religion, and it will only make campuses more religious

Research shows that investing a bit of time in training can have massive returns in the way journalists and journalism students think about and report on religion.

Our universities can do their part by retaining religious studies programs instead of dismantling them in the face of budget cuts.

Religious studies are more critical than ever before, especially in the training of those who shape the way others see the world, such as journalists and politicians.

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. Australia is rich with religious diversity. So why are our newsrooms falling behind? – https://theconversation.com/australia-is-rich-with-religious-diversity-so-why-are-our-newsrooms-falling-behind-165321

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Samantha Lee, Adjunct Research Fellow, Centre for Ophthalmology and Visual Science, The University of Western Australia

How does our DNA relate to our personality and appearance? — Emma, age 9, Sydney

Hi Emma. Thank you for this great question!

Our body is made up of trillions of cells, each of which has a nucleus that holds our DNA.

Our DNA is made up of more than 20,000 genes. You can think of genes as the the instructions which help decide what we look like, how our bodies work and even our personalities.

We get half our genes from our biological mother and the other half from our father. That’s why we don’t look exactly like our parents, but we may look a bit like them — and may also think and act similarly to them.

That said, each of us still has a unique collection of genes overall. That means no two people carry exactly the same genes, not even brothers and sisters. And that’s why each of us has a unique appearance and personality.

What do our genes decide?

Our genes help explain many parts of our appearance, like how tall we are and the colour of our eyes.

They also have a hand in our other skills, such as how fast we can run, how good we are at solving problems, and whether we enjoy talking to new people (rather than if we feel shy).

By studying a person’s genes, scientists can tell whether that person is more likely to have blue or brown eyes, without even seeing them.

They may also be able to tell that person how likely they are to develop certain medical conditions later in life, such as cancer or myopia (when you can’t see far-off objects as clearly).

Read more:
Curious Kids: Why do people get cancer?

Not everything is determined by genes and DNA

Although genes are important, they’re not the only reason for why we look, think, feel and act as we do — or why we’re more likely to have certain diseases. While some traits such as eye colour are mainly determined by our genes, an eye injury can change someone’s eye colour.

Our habits, such as how much we eat and exercise, also have a big impact on who we are and what we look like. If you eat too much junk, you’ll probably get chubby and start running slower, regardless of the genes your parents gave you.

Our environment at home, school and/or work play a key role in shaping us, too. Take myopia. Before the discovery of the more than 400 genes for myopia, scientists noticed children are at least three times more likely to be myopic if either one or both parents are. They realised if someone has trouble seeing far-off objects, there’s a decent chance this is related to genetics.

At the same time, however, there is currently a surge in myopia happening around the world, with more people becoming myopic even though their parents are not!

Researchers discovered our environments and habits play a huge role in myopia development. For instance, they found myopia (and the need to wear glasses) is more likely to happen among people living in cities rather than the country, and those who spend less time outdoors.

The way we perceive colour is also influenced by both our genes and environment. You might remember the social media trend of #thedress that went viral back in 2015.

The world was torn over whether the dress (below) is actually blue and black, or white and gold. Researchers later found the way we see colour in this dress is 34% related to our genes and 66% linked to environmental factors.

Read more:
Curious Kids: why are people colour blind?

Genes and personality

“Personality” describes the relatively stable ways in which people think, feel and act. And again, genes do a pretty good job of explaining why some people are more outgoing and energetic, while others tend to be more moody and anxious.

Our genes also help explain how smart we are. But one surprising finding is our genes have more of an effect on us as we age. Among children, about 40% of the differences in intelligence scores are explained by genes. In young adults, this increases to about 60%, even though it’s the same genes that continue to affect intelligence.

This is most likely because our genes can impact which environments we prefer, and adults often act on their preferences.

For example, most adults do not get told when to go to bed at night! And adults who enjoy learning new things can choose to spend their time in libraries and art museums, or taking classes. In other words, adults can choose the environments and activities that best express their genes.

The future is in your hands

You can think of your genes as a way to understand yourself — but not as a way to make decisions. For example, just because someone’s parents may not have been able to go to university, they themselves can if they study hard.

Or, a person’s parents may be overweight, but that doesn’t mean they have to be. They can still join a sprint team if they’re willing to put in the effort.

Even though your DNA and genes shape a lot of your personality and appearance, remember: they do not determine your life story.

David Mackey receives funding through a National Health and Medical Research Council Practitioner Fellowship.

Samantha Lee and Serena Wee 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. Curious Kids: how does our DNA relate to our personality and appearance? – https://theconversation.com/curious-kids-how-does-our-dna-relate-to-our-personality-and-appearance-168489

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ferran Martinez i Coma, Senior Lecturer in Political Science, Griffith University

Australian women have long been under-represented in parliament. Although our country was the first in the world to give women the right to stand for election, we currently rank 56th in the world for female representation, just behind Uzbekistan, Zimbabwe, Germany and Suriname.

By comparison, New Zealand is sixth.

So why, in 2021, do we have a situation where less than one-third of MPs in the House of Representatives are women?

In our newly published research, we investigated whether the low numbers were due to discrimination of female candidates by voters or political parties. We found that while Australian voters used to preference men over women at the polls, they don’t tend to any more. Parties, on the other hand, do.

There are several ways in which parties can impede women getting elected. One is simply not to put them forward as candidates. Another slightly more subtle way is by preselecting them to stand for unsafe or marginal seats.

With this approach, you get to tick a box and maybe meet a quota, but you’re not making a genuine attempt to create real change.

Read more:
The missing women of Australian politics — research shows the toll of harassment, abuse and stalking

More women candidates, but fewer in safe seats

Australian voters have a history of preferring male candidates over female ones. Studies in the past have shown that women candidates of the major parties in Australia in the 1990s and the early 2000s obtained proportionately fewer votes than men.

We wanted to see if this had changed in the 21st century.

In our study, we looked at all federal House elections since 2001 to see how many candidates were women, whether they were running for safe seats, and if voters tended to support them less than men. We used the same definition of an unsafe or marginal seat as the Australian Electoral Commission.

Our research included data from 2001–19 on all 7,271 House candidates, of whom 2,101 were women.

In terms of the raw numbers, we found that Labor has increased its proportion of women candidates over the past two decades, reaching a high of 45% at the 2019 election. This placed it ahead of all other parties, including, for the first time, the Greens (42.4% in 2019).

The Liberals also fielded their largest percentage of female candidates in 2019 at 33%.

While Labor has done particularly well in terms of how many women it has put forward, it has less to brag about when it comes to the seats these women are contesting.

In fact, Labor has stood women in more unsafe seats than men at each lower House election since 2001. In 2019, 19.1% of women standing for the ALP were in unsafe seats, compared to 10.8% of men.

The Liberals had a smaller percentage of women in unsafe seats than men in two elections (2004, 2010), but a higher percentage in the other four. In 2019, 13.9% of women standing for the Liberals were in unsafe seats, compared to 11% of men.

Voters tend not to discriminate against women

While major parties are continuing to discriminate against women in this way (and others), we find a different story with voters.

Across all House seats, female Labor candidates have actually performed substantially better with voters than male candidates at four elections (2004, 2007, 2010 and 2013) and worse in just two (2001 and 2019).

As for female Liberals candidates, it’s more mixed. They performed better than male candidates in 2001 and 2010, but not in the three subsequent elections.

That’s still a much rosier picture than for female Nationals candidates, who have always done worse than their male counterparts.

When we ran further statistical checks, we discovered that, if everything else that might affect vote numbers is held constant (such as the marginality of the seat, number of other candidates, incumbency, and so on), female Labor candidates receive around 1,400 more votes per seat than male Labor candidates in the 2001-19 period.

In those same conditions, with all else held constant, Liberal voters don’t tend to favour women over men (or vice versa), and the same is true of the Greens.

Read more:
Australia can do more to attract and keep women in parliament – here are some ideas

What can parties do to address this?

So, what do our findings mean for Australia’s parties if they really want to increase the number of women in parliament?

First, quotas work. Only Labor has used enforceable quotas to try to increase the number of women among its candidate base — and it has succeeded.

Similar binding quotas would not only boost the number of female candidates put forward by the Coalition parties and the Greens, but would also likely have an impact on the numbers of women eventually elected to parliament.

Read more:
Julia Banks’ new book is part of a 50-year tradition of female MPs using memoirs to fight for equality

But Labor cannot rest on its laurels. Our results show it needs to build on its quota system by standing more women in winnable seats. If it does not, it leaves itself open to accusations of box-ticking.

Fielding more women in seats they can genuinely win is in the interests not only of political parties, but of democracy in Australia.

For reasons of representation, women should account for more seats than they currently do. Moreover, there are benefits for the country’s political culture: research has shown that women in parliament are often more collegial and more inclined to find bipartisan solutions.

In short, given that Australian voters no longer tend to preference men over women when it comes to candidates, it is surely not in the interests of the major parties to continue to do so, either.

Ferran Martinez i Coma receives funding from Australian Research Council Discovery Project, Grant number DP190101978.

Duncan McDonnell receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

– ref. Why are there so few women MPs? New research shows how parties discriminate against women candidates – https://theconversation.com/why-are-there-so-few-women-mps-new-research-shows-how-parties-discriminate-against-women-candidates-167977

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Medha Majumdar, Fox International Fellow at Yale University; PhD Candidate at the Australian National University, Australian National University

We know Australian politics has a “woman problem” — the figures speak for themselves. Only 38% of all federal MPs are women, and there is a continued dearth of women in leadership positions.

We are also hearing increasing stories of the discrimination, sexism and outright abuse women face when forging a political career. Whether it be a junior political staffer or Australia’s first female prime minister.

Read more:
The missing women of Australian politics — research shows the toll of harassment, abuse and stalking

My research, done with the support of ALP-affiliated women’s organisation EMILY’s List Australia, examines the impact that violence against women in politics has had on the progress of women’s political leadership in Australia.

It investigates why it happens, how widespread it is and what the consequences are.

Speaking to women in politics

I conducted interviews with nine current and former MPs, election candidates, and volunteers and staffers from the ALP in 2021.

I also ran an anonymous survey open to women with experience at all levels of government: local, state and federal. Women across party lines participated in they survey. While the sample size of the survey is small (30), women wrote lengthy statements about their experiences.

My research charts women’s political careers from when they are girls interested in politics, to becoming volunteers and staffers, elections candidates, and finally members of parliament.

I found that at each stage, experiences of abuse and harassment force some women to abandon their aspirations for political leadership and at times, a political career entirely.

Harassment, bullying, assault

Many people start their formal political involvement as party volunteers or staffers. Violence and harassment were widespread among volunteers and employees of political organisations I surveyed.

• 83% of respondents said that they had been harassed, intimidated and verbally abused in the course of their work

• 77% reported being bullied

• 43% had been subjected to inappropriate sexual advances and behaviour

• 30% had been physically assaulted

The abuse mostly occurred within the workplace itself, or at a work-related event. In most cases, the identity of the perpetrator was known to the respondent. Unsurprisingly, 74% reported abuse and harassment had a negative impact on on their interest in continuing a career in politics.

As one respondent explained:

Verbal and physical harassment while working as a campaign volunteer gets very tiresome. After working on ten years of campaigns the negatives start to outweigh the positives. I have withdrawn from political participation as a result of constant online and real-life abuse.

What happens if you try to run for parliament?

If they were nominated as a candidate, some interviewees described facing threatening intimidation tactics from other members of their party to discourage them.

Read more:
‘Expect sexism’: a gender politics expert reads Julia Gillard’s Women and Leadership

This includes bullying behaviour, threats of isolation and back-listing within the party if they do not withdraw from the pre-selection process. Interviewees also described being “backgrounded” against or having rumours spread about them. This was particularly the case when they challenged favoured candidates or the fixed outcome of a pre-selection

As one interviewee explained:

When someone comes up out the blue, it threatens these predetermined outcomes. Because egos are on the line, and it has been done this way for a long time, people just use these intimidation tactics. They feel like they can justify that as politics. But it is very macho style of factional politics.

Candidates who are pre-selected go on to face abuse from members of the public and supporters of opposing candidates.

Expecting abuse in office from the public

If they survived this and were elected to public office, the threatening messages and abuse women MPs face from the public is relentless, particularly on social media.

In part, this abuse is the product of having a public profile. However, while male MPs also receive abuse, women are more often subjected to explicitly sexual and violent threats. In 2016, the Inter-Parliamentary Union (a global body of parliaments around the world) found this abuse is targeted at women MPs to discourage them from being vocal and politically active.

The women MPs interviewed said abuse is so normalised as to be expected in public office. Some reported having stalkers, as well as needing police patrols and close personal protection. More than one MP reported moving house because of the ongoing threat of violence.

You have to ensure that you are taking it seriously, particularly if the threats involve your office and staff. The threats are serious, because one day someone could lose their mind and try to kill you.

Harassed by other MPs

They also experience bullying and harassment from other MPs within parliament house.

For women MPs, harassment takes the form of repeated intimidating behaviour and unwanted sexualised attention. Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young is one federal MP who has spoken about this publicly. Recently, former Liberal MP Julia Banks described an unwanted sexual advance from a cabinet minister. Culturally and linguistically diverse women interviewed reported additional sexualised fetishism and attention.

As one interviewee described:

There were men who wolf-whistled, “Look at you, you look so good today”. I don’t take it just because I am a woman.

The missing women

Survey research already shows many young women think women MPs are treated unfairly by the media and male MPs. And that parliament house does not have a safe culture.

The poor reputation of politics discourages girls from choosing a career in politics in the first place. They are questioned by their friends and family about whether they will be safe working for a parliamentarian or political party.

One interviewee described her recent conversations:

I have actually had young women say to me, “I was so excited when I got offered a job as a staffer. [But] my parents said to me ‘Why would you go and work there? It is not safe.’”

Interview participants also expressed finding it difficult to encourage young women into a career in politics, knowing they could face abuse:

I find it really hard at the moment with what is going on with the Brittany Higgins story to be able to say those things I used to say. Which is, “it is a really honourable role to be a member of parliament. We need more really good female leaders. You should really consider stepping up. I would be happy to mentor you.”

So, the violence against and harassment of women in politics perpetuates itself to undermine the progress of women’s political leadership and representation in Australia.

My research suggest there are untold numbers of women who should have been in positions of political influence and leadership, but were put off.

They are the missing women of Australian politics.

How does this change?

My report makes 27 recommendations to reduce the prevalence of abuse and harassment against women in political organisations and politics more broadly. These include:

• young women and girls must be targeted to become engaged in politics. They need to be shown that they already hold the personal qualities needed to be a political leader (i.e. they don’t need to fit a “macho mould”)

• all political parties should make not engaging in intimidation, bullying and harassment a requirement of receiving party endorsement

• political parties should review its pre-selection rules in order to promote transparency and competitiveness of contests, and reduce the ability of intimidation and bullying tactics to be used

• safety guidelines for candidates in elections should be released by police forces and electoral commissions in Australia

• political parties should provide online self-defence training to MPs and their staff to tackle online abuse.

My interviewees were also adamant there must be robust complaints mechanisms and support structures within political parties and the Australian parliament. It is noted the new 24 hour complaints mechanism that launched last week for MPs and staff has already been criticised by former Liberal staffer Brittany Higgins as inadequate.

Read more:
Politics with Michelle Grattan: Kate Jenkins on the women’s agenda

Ultimately, we must raise our demands and expectations of each other and our political leaders. Public office should be a place for people of the highest character and as citizens we should expect no less.

As a community we can no longer accept that enduring abuse and harassment is the cost of doing politics.

Medha Majumdar conducted this research as part of the Julia Gillard Next Generation Internship 2020-21 with EMILY’s List Australia. She is a member of the Australian Labor Party.
Medha receives funding from the Australian Government and the Westpac Scholars Trust to undertake her PhD research.

– ref. The missing women of Australian politics — research shows the toll of harassment, abuse and stalking – https://theconversation.com/the-missing-women-of-australian-politics-research-shows-the-toll-of-harassment-abuse-and-stalking-168567

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lara Herrero, Research Leader in Virology and Infectious Disease, Griffith University

Delta was recognised as a SARS-CoV-2 variant of concern in May 2021 and has proved extremely difficult to control in unvaccinated populations.

Delta has managed to out-compete other variants, including Alpha. Variants are classified as “of concern” because they’re either more contagious than the original, cause more hospitalisations and deaths, or are better at evading vaccines and therapies. Or all of the above.

So how does Delta fare on these measures? And what have we learnt since Delta was first listed as a variant of concern?

Read more:
Is Delta defeating us? Here’s why the variant makes contact tracing so much harder

How contagious is Delta?

The R0 tells us how many other people, on average, one infected person will pass the virus on to.

Delta has an R0 of 5-8, meaning one infected person passes it onto five to eight others, on average.

This compares with an R0 of 1.5-3 for the original strain.

So Delta is twice to five times as contagious as the virus that circulated in 2020.

What happens when you’re exposed to Delta?

SARS-CoV-2 is the virus that causes COVID-19. SARS-CoV-2 is transmitted through droplets an infected person releases when they breathe, cough or sneeze.

In some circumstances, transmission also occurs when a person touches a contaminated object, then touches their face.

Once SARS-CoV-2 enters your body – usually through your nose or mouth – it starts to replicate.

The period from exposure to the virus being detectable by a PCR test is called the latent period. For Delta, one study suggests this is an average of four days (with a range of three to five days).

That’s two days faster than the original strain, which took roughly six days (with a range of five to eight days).

The virus then continues to replicate. Although often there are no symptoms yet, the person has become infectious.

People with COVID-19 appear to be most infectious two days before to three days after symptoms start, though it’s unclear whether this differs with Delta.

The time from virus exposure to symptoms is called the incubation period. But there is often a gap between when a person becomes infectious to others to when they show symptoms.

As the virus replicates, the viral load increases. For Delta, the viral load is up to roughly 1,200 times higher than the original strain.

With faster replication and higher viral loads it is easy to see why Delta is challenging contact tracers and spreading so rapidly.

What are the possible complications?

Like the original strain, the Delta variant can affect many of the body’s organs including the lungs, heart and kidneys.

Complications include blood clots, which at their most severe can result in strokes or heart attacks.

Around 10-30% of people with COVID-19 will experience prolonged symptoms, known as long COVID, which can last for months and cause significant impairment, including in people who were previously well.

Longer-lasting symptoms can include fatigue, shortness of breath, chest pain, heart palpitations, headaches, brain fog, muscle aches, sleep disturbance, depression and the loss of smell and taste.

Is it more deadly?

Evidence the Delta variant makes people sicker than the original virus is growing.

Preliminary studies from Canada and Singapore found people infected with Delta were more likely to require hospitalisation and were at greater risk of dying than those with the original virus.

In the Canadian study, Delta resulted in a 6.1% chance of hospitalisation and a 1.6% chance of ICU admission. This compared with other variants of concern which landed 5.4% of people in hospital and 1.2% in intensive care.

In the Singapore study, patients with Delta had a 49% chance of developing pneumonia and a 28% chance of needing extra oxygen. This compared with a 38% chance of developing pneumonia and 11% needing oxygen with the original strain.

Similarly, a published study from Scotland found Delta doubled the risk of hospitalisation compared to the Alpha variant.

How do the vaccines stack up against Delta?

So far, the data show a complete course of the Pfizer, AstraZeneca or Moderna vaccine reduces your chance of severe disease (requiring hospitalisation) by more than 85%.

While protection is lower for Delta than the original strain, studies show good coverage for all vaccines after two doses.

Can you still get COVID after being vaccinated?

Yes. Breakthrough infection occurs when a vaccinated person tests positive for SARS-Cov-2, regardless of whether they have symptoms.

Breakthrough infection appears more common with Delta than the original strains.

Most symptoms of breakthrough infection are mild and don’t last as long.

It’s also possible to get COVID twice, though this isn’t common.

How likely are you to die from COVID-19?

In Australia, over the life of the pandemic, 1.4% of people with COVID-19 have died from it, compared with 1.6% in the United States and 1.8% in the United Kingdom.

Data from the United States shows people who were vaccinated were ten times less likely than those who weren’t to die from the virus.

The Delta variant is currently proving to be a challenge to control on a global scale, but with full vaccination and maintaining our social distancing practices, we reduce the spread.

Read more:
Why is Delta such a worry? It’s more infectious, probably causes more severe disease, and challenges our vaccines

Lara Herrero 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 contagious is Delta? How long are you infectious? Is it more deadly? A quick guide to the latest science – https://theconversation.com/how-contagious-is-delta-how-long-are-you-infectious-is-it-more-deadly-a-quick-guide-to-the-latest-science-165538

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Boulet, Research Fellow, BehaviourWorks Australia, Monash University

From the farm to the plate, the modern day food system has a waste problem. Each year, a third of all food produced around the world, or 1.3 billion tonnes, ends up as rubbish. Imagine that for a moment – it’s like buying three bags of groceries at the supermarket then throwing one away as you leave.

Wasting food feeds climate change. Food waste accounts for more than 5% of Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions. And this doesn’t include emissions from activities required to actually produce the food in the first place, such as farming and transport.

One of the largest sites of food waste is the home. In Australia, households throw out about 2.5 million tonnes of food each year. That equates to between A$2,000 and $2,500 worth of food per year per household.

But there’s some good news. Our Australian-first research, released today, identified the six most effective behaviours anyone can do to reduce food waste. Combined, these relatively small changes can make a big difference.

What we did

Food waste by households is a complex problem influenced by many factors. Some, such as food type, package size and safety standards, are out of a consumer’s control. But some are insignificant daily behaviours we can easily change, such as buying too much, forgetting about food at the back of your fridge, not eating leftovers and cooking too much food.

We wanted to better understand the complex nature of household food waste. Together with Australia’s leading food rescue organisation OzHarvest, our research sought to identify and prioritise evidence-based actions to reduce the amount of food Australians throw away.

We reviewed Australian and international literature, and held online workshops with 30 experts, to collate a list of 36 actions to reduce food waste. These actions can be broadly grouped into: planning for shopping, shopping, storing food at home, cooking and eating.

We realised this might be an overwhelming number of behaviours to think about, and many people wouldn’t know where to start. So we then surveyed national and international food waste experts, asking them to rank behaviours based on their impact in reducing food waste.

We also surveyed more than 1,600 Australian households. For each behaviour, participants were asked about:

• the amount of thinking and planning involved (mental effort)

• how much it costs to undertake the behaviour (financial effort)

• household “fit” (effort involved in adopting the behaviour based on different schedules and food preferences in the household).

Consumers identified mental effort as the most common barrier to reducing food waste.

Read more:
What a simulated Mars mission taught me about food waste

What we found

Our research identified the three top behaviours with the highest impact in reducing food waste, which are also relatively easy to implement:

• Prepare a weekly meal at home that combines food needing to be used up

• Designate a shelf in the fridge or pantry for foods that need to be used up

• Before cooking a meal, check who in the household will be eating, to ensure the right amount is cooked.

Despite these actions being relatively easy, we found few Australian consumers had a “use it up” shelf in the fridge or pantry, or checked how many household members will be eating before cooking a meal.

Experts considered a weekly “use-it-up” meal to be the most effective behaviour in reducing food waste. Many consumers reported they already did this at home, but there is plenty of opportunity for others to adopt it.

Some consumers are more advanced players who have already included the above behaviours in their usual routines at home. So for those people, our research identified a further three behaviours requiring slightly more effort:

• Conduct an audit of weekly food waste and set reduction goals

• Make a shopping list and stick to it when shopping

• Make a meal plan for the next three to four days.

Our research showed a number of actions which, while worthwhile for many reasons, experts considered less effective at reducing food waste. They were also less likely to be adopted by consumers. The actions included:

• Preserving perishable foods by pickling, saucing or stewing for later use

• Making a stock of any food remains (bones and peels) and freeze for future use

• Buying food from local specialty stores (such as greengrocers and butchers) rather than large supermarkets.

Read more:
Melbourne wastes 200 kg of food per person a year: it’s time to get serious

Doing our bit

Today is the United Nations’ International Day of Awareness of Food Loss and Waste. It seeks to increase awareness and prompt action in support of a key target in the global Sustainable Development Goals to halve food loss and waste by 2030.

Australia has signed up to this goal, and we hope this research helps fast-track those efforts.

OzHarvest is launching its national Use-It-Up food waste campaign today, aiming to support Australians with information, resources and tips. Based on our findings, we’ve also developed a decision-making tool to help policy makers target appropriate food waste behaviours.

Australia, and the world, can stop throwing away perfectly edible food – but everyone must play their part.

Read more:
What can go in the compost bin? Tips to help your garden and keep away the pests

Mark Boulet receives funding from multiple State and Federal government agencies to conduct behaviour change research. for this project, Mark was funded by OzHarvest through the Australian government’s Environmental Restoration Fund.

– ref. Want to reduce your food waste at home? Here are the 6 best evidence-based ways to do it – https://theconversation.com/want-to-reduce-your-food-waste-at-home-here-are-the-6-best-evidence-based-ways-to-do-it-168561

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Xanthe Mallett, Forensic Criminologist, University of Newcastle

The murder of 22-year-old American Gabby Petito, and disappearance of her fiance, 23-year-old Brian Laundrie, have sparked worldwide interest and speculation.

Podcasts have been made covering the case, news outlets worldwide are giving daily updates — it would seem the public’s incessant consumption of true crime is feeding a market need for new material at an increasingly ravenous pace. As of yesterday a Google search of Petito’s name returned over 41,000,000 hits, and between TikTok and Twitter, there are now well over a billion posts with her name as a hashtag.

In June 2021, the couple embarked on a road trip across the US, sharing their trip on social media with her growing fan base. Although the couple were travelling together, on the first of September, Laundrie arrived at his parents’ home in Florida, alone, in their white van. On the 19th of September, Petito’s remains were found, and police have ruled her death as a homicide. An arrest warrant has since been issued for Laundri, but his whereabouts remain unknown.

In essence, Petito’s life, and death, have been co-opted by the media and public as a form of entertainment. It would seem that the proliferation of true crime — and the constant need to feed that monster, have desensitised many to the human stories behind the deadlines.

But what effect does this have on those intimately caught up in these events, and why do some cases become of such significant public interest, while the families of other victims struggle to raise awareness of their own loved ones’ cases?

Read more:
Glamorising violent offenders with ‘true crime’ shows and podcasts needs to stop

Media narratives

There are a number of factors at play here. The first is that there are all the elements present to allow media outlets to create a strong narrative around Petito’s disappearance and death; the endless images and videos she posted to social media of her road trip, the drama of her previous interaction with the police — captured on body camera and showing a very distressed young woman obviously in crisis — the building of the tension with her disappearance, which also acted as a cliffhanger, before the tragic news of her death.

In essence, all of the elements of a popular true crime narrative, with all the mystery, hooks, and tropes of recent shows and podcasts such as Casefile, Bowraville, and Serial.

But this is not a TV show or a movie. This was a young woman’s life, and death, which has now become media fodder, with her final days being treated as entertainment. Theories as to what happened are running rife, current affairs programs are pumping out hastily produced pieces with experts picking apart what we know, and what they predict may have happened.

The media benefit, as it provides high traffic content for the 24-hour news cycle, and clickbait for online stories.

And some individuals are also capitalising on Petito’s case to gain attention. For example one woman co-opted Petito’s murder as her personal brand, posting 70 videos on TikTok in 6 days, rocketing her following from 170,000 people to over 650,000, with many other TikTok users capitalising on the same trend.

Others have created Instagram and Twitter accounts in Petito’s name, in what could be seen as an opportunistic and narcissistic attempt to gain followers.

‘Missing white woman syndrome’

Since Petito’s case went “viral”, a lot of people have pointed out the media’s complicity in creating another case of “missing white woman syndrome”.

Missing white woman syndrome highlights the notion of “worthy” and “unworthy” victims — those who are considered valuable front-page news, and those who aren’t. This refers to the overabundance of coverage of cases of missing white women, and the lack of coverage of people of colour and men.

The argument is not that white women deserve less attention, just that others deserve the same level of interest. This disparity in media coverage has led to calls from Indigenous people, both in the US and Australia, for change.

Consider the case of 20-year-old Ashley Loring Heavyrunner, an Indigenous woman who disappeared in Montana in 2017, whose story was barely given a fraction of the coverage that Petito received by the media. But her story is sadly reflected across Native American communities where there is an epidemic of missing people.

The lack of reporting around Indigenous people’s disappearances highlights the media’s disinterest in helping to raise awareness of missing persons more generally, and that the purpose of news stories is to create a sensationalised narrative for public consumption.

Criminal case as fair media game

My concern, from a criminologist’s perspective, is what happens if this case goes to court, if someone is tried for her murder? Will this saturation of speculation have an impact on the judicial process?

Perhaps we all need to look at how we respond to victims of violent crimes. We can all make a change to the narrative and don’t have to buy into the media feeding frenzy.

This is an important discussion — these women and their lives are not ours to co-opt, to voyeuristically dissect. They are not a form of entertainment.

Xanthe Mallett 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. The Gabby Petito case has been exploited by the media. We need to stop treating human tragedy as entertainment – https://theconversation.com/the-gabby-petito-case-has-been-exploited-by-the-media-we-need-to-stop-treating-human-tragedy-as-entertainment-168562

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Apisalome Movono, Senior Lecturer in Development Studies, Massey University

Pacific Island countries are betting big on vaccination as a strategy for resuming tourism by Christmas and bringing much needed relief for their struggling economies.

For much of the Pacific, tourism has long been the goose that laid the golden egg. But the pandemic has underlined how fragile and temperamental tourism can be. It relies on stable social and economic conditions at both destination and source — the opposite of what has happened since early 2020.

While border openings dependent on vaccination rates might seem hasty, some Pacific leaders see it as the only viable path forward for economies that have nosedived because of COVID.

As the South Pacific’s second pandemic summer approaches, the question is how to balance the risk of further outbreaks with a return to tourism and some kind of economic normality.

Race to vaccinate

Against a backdrop of hesitancy and misinformation, vaccination rates in some parts of the Pacific are now breaking world records. Niue and the Cook Islands have almost fully vaccinated all eligible citizens this year.

Samoa is also ramping up its vaccination programme in the hope of joining the Cooks and Nuie if and when travel resumes within a contained New Zealand-Pacific bubble.

With vaccination also gaining traction in the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and Fiji, tourism officials are hopeful a fully vaccinated population will allow them to reopen borders while protecting the health and safety of citizens.

Read more:
How Cuban medical training has helped Pacific nations face the pandemic challenge

But some tourism-dependent states that opened earlier are now struggling. Guam had to suspend a “vacation and vax” programme – which allowed international visitors to receive a bonus COVID shot in an effort to jump-start tourism – after a Delta surge caused deaths and mass hospitalisations.

With some 278,000 residents, French Polynesia has recorded more than 40,000 COVID cases and over 600 deaths. With just 54% of the population having received their first vaccine dose, tourism is now largely quarantine-free for fully vaccinated visitors.

In Fiji, despite the virus having spread to tourism spots such as the Yasawa islands, Beqa and Kadavu, tourism stakeholders are optimistic the country (which has begun to ease local restricitions) will re-open its international borders on November 1.

Caution versus desperation

The other side of the coin, of course, is how prepared and willing tourists will be to plan a Pacific holiday — and what conditions are placed on their travel (such as New Zealand’s current quarantine requirement for re-entry).

After opening to quarantine-free travel with New Zealand in May this year, then closing the borders again due to a largely Auckland-based COVID outbreak in August, the Cook Islands has chosen to adopt a cautious approach.

In future, it will allow inbound travel only for fully vaccinated people and only when there has been zero community transmission in New Zealand. Given the stubbornly long tail of Auckland’s current Delta outbreak, this could mean longer delays.

Read more:
Pacific nations grapple with COVID’s terrible toll and the desperate need for vaccines

Similarly, New Zealand has taken a cautious approach with Fiji after declaring it a high-risk country and limiting travel for the foreseeable future. For its part, Fiji is relying on mass vaccination and compliance with COVID guidelines, including stringent enforcement of vaccination for certain workers.

And despite its devastating recent outbreak, Fiji’s government has claimed it is showing regional leadership in managing tourism recovery. The aim is to offer quarantine-free travel to visitors from “green list” countries (Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Canada, Korea, Singapore and parts of the US), with visitors needing to be fully vaccinated and testing negative for COVID before departure.

But the eagerness to re-open isn’t shared by all, including the country’s opposition leader, Bill Gavoka, who has said:

We have got to have our priorities right — health first over the economy. I don’t believe Fiji is ready.

Who wants to travel?

Ultimately, given these many uncertainties, the fate of tourism-dependent Pacific nations will hinge less on government proclamations than on the risk calculations of tourists themselves.

Elsewhere in the world, tourism destinations have tried to reassure travellers while also protecting their own populations. Greece, for example, enacted Operation Blue Freedom with the aim of vaccinating all resident adults on specific islands such as Corfu and Crete by the end of July. Subsequent Delta surges have disrupted re-opening plans, however.

Read more:
Fiji’s other crisis: away from the COVID emergency, political dissent can still get you arrested

Pacific nations could potentially implement similar policies in selected locations. But it remains to be seen how much vaccine “passports”, currently being touted as a prerequisite for international travel, will be the crucial circuit breaker.

The ability to track and trace visitors is also important, with some countries wanting tight oversight of tourist itineraries, while others hope voluntary use of tracer apps will be enough.

However there are limitations on using such technologies in the Pacific because they rely on people owning and carrying a mobile phone, having sufficient data and GPS permanently enabled. Network coverage is very poor in some places, and phones often cannot provide sufficiently detailed location information to determine virus exposure.

Whatever the measures, Pacific governments have a major challenge on their hands, especially given their weak public health systems. Having gambled hard on tourism being a mainstay of their economies, they must now live in hope that the tourism goose can get back to laying its golden eggs.

Regina Scheyvens receives funding from the Royal Society Te Apārangi under a James Cook fellowship.

Apisalome Movono 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. Vax and vacation? Why that Pacific island holiday will still mean ‘traveller beware’ – https://theconversation.com/vax-and-vacation-why-that-pacific-island-holiday-will-still-mean-traveller-beware-168380

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 now includes “Word from The Hill”, where she discusses the news with members of The Conversation politics team.

In this episode, politics + society Senior Deputy Editor Justin Bergman and Michelle canvass the internal brawling that’s happening – which has included Nationals minister Bridget McKenzie attacking treasurer Josh Frydenberg – as Scott Morrison seeks a deal with Barnaby Joyce for the government to endorse a target of net zero emissions by 2050 for the Glasgow climate conference.

They also discuss Morrison’s indication this week that he mightn’t go Glasgow. The aftermath of lockdowns could make it a risky time to be out of the country.

Additional audio

Gaena, Blue Dot Sessions, from Free Music Archive.

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

– ref. Politics with Michelle Grattan: Coalition free-for-all over 2050 target – https://theconversation.com/politics-with-michelle-grattan-coalition-free-for-all-over-2050-target-168855

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Luke Grzeskowiak, Channel 7 Children’s Research Foundation Fellow in Medicines Use and Safety – Flinders University & South Australian Health & Medical Research Institute, Flinders University

Pregnancy comes with aches and pains and heightened anxiety about what we put into the body.

A new article published in Nature Reviews Endocrinology has urged caution around taking paracetamol during pregnancy. The paper is a “consensus statement” that brings together analysis by a panel of experts who looked at evidence from human and animal studies of paracetamol use in pregnancy.

Paracetamol use during pregnancy may alter fetal development, say the authors, with long-lasting effects on child health. The authors call for improved education for health-care professionals and patients, less paracetamol use during pregnancy and further research.

Alert but not alarmed

At first glance, calls to minimise paracetamol use during pregnancy are alarming. For those who have taken paracetamol (commonly marketed in Australia as Panadol, Herron Paracetamol, Panamax, Chemist Own or Dymadon) during pregnancy, this could cause anxiety.

This new consensus statement calls for caution, but not concern. The proposed recommendations are largely consistent with current advice provided to pregnant women in Australia.

With any medication in pregnancy, there needs to be a careful balance between treating a maternal condition and protecting the unborn. A trusted health care provider can help reach an informed decision. Paracetamol is no different.

What are the concerns?

Worldwide, more than 50% of pregnant women use paracetamol to treat pain and/or fever. Paracetamol is the active ingredient in hundreds of prescription and non-prescription products. It has been widely regarded for many years as safe to use during pregnancy.

Some, but not all, observational studies in humans suggest paracetamol use during pregnancy may alter fetal development. The new statement notes that paracetamol has been linked to increased risk of certain neurodevelopmental, reproductive and urogenital disorders.

But these studies have limitations. Researchers have found it hard to distinguish the effects of paracetamol from the effects of underlying illness. And there are potential inaccuracies in recording the amount and timing of paracetamol use across an entire pregnancy as are highlighted in the accompanying editorial.

Possible risks of paracetamol use in pregnancy are supported by a number of animal studies, the authors say. For this reason, caution regarding paracetamol use has been advised until a definitive link can be proven or disproven.

It’s worth noting the available evidence suggests any possible harms of paracetamol are likely to be dose-related. As highlighted by the review article, most increased risks have been linked with use in pregnancy for more than two or four weeks. Current evidence suggests limited risks to unborn babies when paracetamol is taken short term.

Timing is also important. Taking paracetamol during the first trimester has been linked to an increased risk of reproductive and urogenital disorders. Neurodevelopmental disorders have been linked to use in the second or third trimester.

Read more:
Domperidone can boost breast milk supply – here’s what you need know

When the benefits outweigh the risks

The potential benefits of taking medication need to be weighed against any possible risks. Paracetamol is recognised as an important medication for treating pain and fever during pregnancy.

If left untreated, these conditions could harm the fetus or the pregnant person (the Nature editorial and statement say the expert advice is “relevant for all people who wish to become pregnant, including transgender individuals, non-binary people and intersex people”).

The review authors recognise the potential benefits of paracetamol use and note untreated pain has been linked to increased risks of depression or anxiety as well as hypertension during pregnancy. Fever in pregnancy is a risk factor for multiple neonatal and childhood disorders, including certain birth defects and miscarriage. There is evidence to suggest that use of paracetamol may reduce these risks.

Read more:
Using cannabis during pregnancy could be bad news for your baby: new research

What are the alternatives?

The optimal management of pain or fever during pregnancy has not been well studied and treatment options remain limited.

Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory medications (such as ibuprofen) have been linked to miscarriage when used in the first trimester, whereas use after 30 weeks’ gestation can negatively impact kidney and heart/lung function in the fetus. For this reason non-steroidal anti-inflammatory medications are best avoided unless advised by a healthcare professional. The same goes for strong pain medications such as opioids, which should be reserved for the management of severe pain. Paracetamol remains the best choice for the short-term treatment of pain and/or fever during pregnancy.

It is also important to identify the cause of the pain or fever, particularly during pregnancy. Discussions about paracetamol use can lead to further investigation, recommendations for non-medication treatments or the need for different medications.

Read more:
Weight gain during pregnancy: how much is too much?

The bottom line

The new consensus statement does not alter existing recommendations regarding paracetamol use during pregnancy. But it does highlight the importance of thinking carefully before using any medications during pregnancy and raises greater awareness about how challenging making informed decisions about medication use can be.

Better evidence is needed to support decision-making during pregnancy and reduce unnecessary anxiety and concern.

Paracetamol use during pregnancy should be discussed with a health-care professional and used at the lowest effective dose for the shortest possible duration. Non-medication therapies for treating pain or fever should be tried before or in addition to paracetamol. When indicated, short-term use of paracetamol remains the safest medication for the treatment of pain and/or fever during pregnancy.

Luke Grzeskowiak receives funding from the Channel 7 Children’s Research Foundation, The Hospital Research Foundation, and National Health and Medical Research Foundation

Debra Kennedy is affiliated with MotherSafe, the NSW Statewide Medications in Pregnancy and Lactation Advisory Service at the Royal Hospital for Women.

– ref. Take care with paracetamol when pregnant — but don’t let pain or fever go unchecked – https://theconversation.com/take-care-with-paracetamol-when-pregnant-but-dont-let-pain-or-fever-go-unchecked-168747

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 now includes “Word from The Hill”, where she discusses the news with members of The Conversation politics team.

In this episode, politics + society Senior Deputy Editor Justin Bergman and Michelle canvass the internal brawling that’s happening – which has included Nationals minister Bridget McKenzie attacking treasurer Josh Frydenberg – as Scott Morrison seeks a deal with Barnaby Joyce for the government to endorse a target of net zero emissions by 2050 for the Glasgow climate conference.

They also discuss Morrison’s indication this week that he mightn’t go Glasgow. The aftermath of lockdowns could make it a risky time to be out of the country.

Additional audio

Gaena, Blue Dot Sessions, from Free Music Archive.

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

– ref. Word from The Hill: Coalition free-for-all over 2050 target – https://theconversation.com/word-from-the-hill-coalition-free-for-all-over-2050-target-168855

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Matt McDonald, Associate Professor of International Relations, The University of Queensland

Prime Minister Scott Morrison is reportedly developing a plan for Australia to adopt a target of net-zero emissions by 2050. Climate change was a central focus of the Quad talks in Washington which Morrison attended in recent days, and he is under significant international pressure to adopt a net-zero target ahead of climate talks in Glasgow in November.

Morrison is very late to the party on issue of net-zero – and lagging far behind public opinion. A recent Lowy poll showed 78% of Australians support the target.

But standing firmly in Morrison’s way is the Coalition’s junior partner, the Nationals. The words of key Nationals figures including Resources Minister Keith Pitt and pro-coal senator Matt Canavan suggest net-zero is the hill they will die on. And Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce, not exactly a climate warrior, has indicated he’s yet to be convinced on the merits of the target.

Ultimately though, this is just bad strategy from the Nationals. It burns valuable political capital for no good reason, and abrogates responsibility to their own constituents.

Not much of a target at all

First, a net-zero emissions target is a really obvious position of compromise for the Nationals specifically, and for a reluctant Australian government more generally.

Every state and territory in Australia has already adopted this target for 2050, or bettered it. And most of our international peers have a net-zero target including the United Kingdom, Japan, Canada, Germany, France and the United States.

Getting to net-zero by 2050 also doesn’t necessarily require immediate or significant emissions cuts. As critics including Greta Thunberg and former IPCC chair Bob Watson have argued, the targets can create the impression of action without requiring immediate change.

Research shows many jurisdictions with a net-zero target do not have robust measures in place to ensure they’re met, such as interim targets and a reporting mechanism.

And the timeframe for net-zero – whether 2050 like most nations, or 2060 as per China – is way beyond the political longevity of our current government MPs. That means those now in parliament will be spared much of the political pain of implementing policies required to meet the target.

Finally, pursuing net-zero emissions (rather than just zero-emissions in sectors where that is feasible) allows fossil fuel companies to offset their climate damage, by buying carbon credits, rather than stopping their polluting activity. It also potentially allows for fairly speculative efforts to remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere via geoengineering.

For these reasons and more, the net-zero goal is in often criticised as a dangerous trap for doing very little on climate change – which appears to be the goal of many in the Nationals.

Read more:
Betting on speculative geoengineering may risk an escalating ‘climate debt crisis’

Adapting to change

In opposing the net-zero target, the Nationals often point to potential damage to the nation’s mining and farming sectors, primarily a loss of jobs and economic growth. Some Nationals have called for those sectors to be carved out of any net-zero target.

On the question of agriculture, research released by the Grattan Institute this week shows it’s getting increasingly hard to argue the sector should be exempt from the target – its emissions are simply too great.

And there is much that can be done right now to cut agriculture emissions, if the government does more to encourage farmers to adopt the right technologies and practices.

On mining, the Nationals are fighting a losing battle. Soon, the world will no longer want our coal. As others have noted, we must prepare for the change and diversify the economy, rather than lamenting what’s still left in the ground. And Australia can easily replace coal-fired electricity generation with renewable energy, backed by storage.

Read more:
Agitated Nationals grapple with climate debate, as former minister Chester takes ‘a break’ from party room

For whom do the Nationals speak?

By refusing to compromise on a net-zero target, the Nationals are burning all sorts of political capital they could potentially wield with the Liberals on a range of issues. The Nationals would have held particular sway over Liberals concerned about holding on to their inner city seats in a 2022 election.

More importantly, the position of Keith Pitt, Matt Canavan and other intransigents in the Nationals isn’t just an abandonment of future generations. Nor is it only a rejection of our responsibilities to vulnerable people in all parts of Australia and the world, or our duty of care to other living beings.

It’s also a spectacular betrayal of their own constituencies. Rural Australia will be disproportionately affected by climate change, particularly in the form of higher temperatures, changing rainfall patterns and increasing disasters like drought and bushfires. And the long-term economic costs of inaction for rural constituencies will be potentially catastrophic.

It’s for these reasons that organisations like the National Farmers Federation have specifically called for a commitment to net zero emissions.

In the 2019 election, the Nationals received just 4.5% of the vote in the lower house, with the Liberal Nationals of Queensland achieving just 8.7% (as a proportion of the national total). In both cases, it was less still in the Senate.

Yet despite speaking on behalf of a small fraction of the country, the party is holding Australian climate policy to ransom.

Maybe we can’t get the intransigents in the National Party to suddenly recognise their obligations to the planet and its inhabitants. But surely they can be convinced to represent the interests of rural voters? Time – what little we have left – will tell.

Read more:
Net zero by 2050? Even if Scott Morrison gets the Nationals on board, hold the applause

Matt McDonald has received funding from the Australian Research Council and the UK’s Economic and Social Research Council.

– ref. The Nationals signing up to net-zero should be a no-brainer. Instead, they’re holding Australia to ransom – https://theconversation.com/the-nationals-signing-up-to-net-zero-should-be-a-no-brainer-instead-theyre-holding-australia-to-ransom-168845

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Frank Bongiorno, Professor of History, ANU College of Arts and Social Sciences, Australian National University

Review: Quarterly Essay 83 Top Blokes: The Larrikin Myth, Class and Power by Lech Blaine (Black Inc)

The top blokes seem to be everywhere. There have been top blokes protesting lockdowns. Labor preselected a top bloke to run for Hunter at the next election. A well-known top bloke from the 1980s, John Elliott, has left us for “that better place”. Top blokes can be found in board rooms, cabinet rooms and locker rooms across the country. And Lech Blaine, author of the Quarterly Essay 83, Top Blokes: The Larrikin Myth, Class and Power, says we also have a top bloke running the country.

But then it gets complicated. Blaine argues there are some top blokes — particularly politicians — who present themselves as larrikins in the finest Australian tradition but who aren’t the real McCoy.

The original larrikins of the 1870s and 1880s were young urban louts and sometimes serious criminals. By the first world war, the larrikin had become a rather cuddlier national type of the kind Australians use to flatter themselves: an anti-authoritarian with a heart of gold. It would be many years before larrikinism would come to be associated in public discourse with businessmen or politicians, probably as late as the 1980s.

The modern varieties are descendants of this larrikin. The rest of us are invited to admire rather than condemn, to shake our heads in admiration and amusement at their witty piss-taking and daring mischief.

Kerry Packer was a rich top bloke and although he liked gambling, sport and meat pies rather than cordon bleu, he wasn’t, Blaine suggests, a real larrikin. Paul Hogan was another rich top bloke, but Crocodile Dundee was only a pale imitation of the real bushman he was modelled on — who met his end in a shootout with police. So Hogan wasn’t a real larrikin either, especially not when he complained the tax office wasn’t giving him a fair go.

Bob Hawke was a top bloke who might almost have been a real larrikin but with his middle-class upbringing (the son of a clergyman), he had to put some work into being a champion pisspot and rooter. And then Hawke became a reformed larrikin.

You can generally identify a real larrikin, says Blaine, by his favourite football code, although the test only works north of the Barassi Line in the Rugby League-playing states. Real larrikins are are born-and-bred League men. Top blokes who are pretenders go for Rugby Union.

Scott Morrison, whose faux larrikinism is at the heart of Blaine’s essay, is a Rugby man who now pretends to be a League man. He picked up the Cronulla Sharks allegiance rather in the way Liberal National Party Senator from Queensland, Matt Canavan, has acquired a striking resemblance to a coal-miner (belying his university education and career in the public service, consulting and political advising).

Read more:
The larrikin as leader: how Bob Hawke came to be one of the best (and luckiest) prime ministers

His colleague, the latter-day “Dad Rudd” Barnaby Joyce, went to Sydney’s posh Saint Ignatius’ College Riverview before qualifying as an accountant. Blaine believes there is a grand political confidence trick at the heart of this cosplay. Conservative political parties who govern consistently to increase inequality and do over ordinary folk are populated by leaders who pretend to be ordinary folk.

Blaine locates the phenomenon in both a long cultural history — the veneration of the noble bushman explored brilliantly by Russel Ward in his 1958 book The Australian Legend — and in a more recent past. In particular, the aggressive and largely successful bid by conservative parties since John Howard’s victory in 1996 to win over blue-collar male workers has been achieved by the expropriation of a national iconography of white male virtue, vigour and victimhood.

At the same time, Labor became more white-collar, less attractive to what remained of the old working class, and more appealing to university graduates — the very kinds of people who had once voted for the Liberal Party. Some of these people skived off to the Greens, and some of the blue-collar conservatives have headed into the camp of One Nation.

But the key point is that the Liberal and National parties are led by men who have found it necessary to “pass” as ordinary blokes and sometimes even as beer-swilling larrikins when they are really — well — Rugby Union types or churchy puritans of the Morrison kind.

Class

Blaine is a fluent, insightful and often amusing essayist who, like several younger cultural commentators in Australia, is willing to talk seriously about class once again — a habit that is stronger in Britain. His approach is often anecdotal. There is some family memoir — much of it moving and evocative — and we are regularly returned to a working-class foster brother John whose attitudes become a kind of litmus test for many of Blaine’s claims.

This is naturally problematic: how representative is John, a Liberal voting “battler” all his life, of a wider body of thought, feeling and electoral behaviour?

Working-class conservatives always have been, and always will be. Menzies would not have won a single election if he hadn’t attracted the votes of blue-collar unionists. Howard, probably for the first time in Australian political history, gained a majority of blue-collar votes in 1996 but he quickly lost many of them again. (Murray Goot and Ian Watson have suggested that only in 2004, the Mark Latham election, was Howard able to bring most of them back).

Read more:
An obedient nation of larrikins: why Victorians are not revolting

Blaine also has little to say about where their mothers, wives, girlfriends and daughters fit into this psephology. At Scott Morrison’s “miracle” election, as the Australian Election Study pointed out, 48% of men voted Liberal or National, but just 38% of women.

Of course, such a gender gap — it has been opening up since the 1990s — supports the thrust of Blaine’s argument, although cause and effect here are hard to disentangle. Male politicians are performing a style of masculinity calculated to appeal to a group of voters they hope will be attracted to it; the shift of men to the conservative parties motivates such role-play to keep them there and gather more members of the fraternity of mates. But this also highlights the vulnerability of such a strategy: can “Go the Sharkies” cosplay of the Morrison kind make further incursions on the male vote when it is aleady so high?

Blaine gives Anthony Albanese a show at the next election. With his working-class background and long involvement with the South Sydney Rabbitohs, he has better claims to the larrikin tradition, according to Blaine, even while showing few signs of identifying openly with it. That is another of the ironies at the heart of Blaine’s case.

Blaine thinks Labor must do more to appeal to coal-miners. A striking feature of this essay is that in line with much analysis of the 2019 election, coal has come to carry the heavy baggage of standing in for the entire old economy and its working class. It is perhaps an equation too easily made, and one that might be broken more easily than some have imagined.

Top Blokes sometimes skates over historical complexities too easily and occasionally gets things wrong, but it is a serious effort to come to grips with the modern political exploitation of a long-standing Australian male image, that of the larrikin.

Reading it, I recalled an astute early 1960s observation from the late Peter Coleman: academic, author, editor and Liberal politician. Australian “democratic innocence”, said Coleman, kept company with “the snarl of the collectivist bully”, “the open smile” being joined by “the broken bottle”.

Scott Morrison, I’ve often thought, has a nice, friendly and open smile.

Frank Bongiorno 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. The larrikin lives on — as a conservative politician – https://theconversation.com/the-larrikin-lives-on-as-a-conservative-politician-168464

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Petterson, Professor of Geology, Auckland University of Technology

Climate explained is a collaboration between The Conversation, Stuff and the New Zealand Science Media Centre to answer your questions about climate change.

If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, please send it to climate.change@stuff.co.nz

What is an ice age? Do they have to last a certain amount of time to count, how did they vary and how many ice ages has the Earth experienced?

As with many definitions of natural phenomena, a precise definition of an ice age isn’t straightforward.

Ice ages form during protracted periods of a relatively cooler Earth. A definition must include the condition that the Earth is sufficiently cool for permanent ice formation.

A second part of an ice age definition is the end result of protracted cooling. Ice ages lead to the development of continental ice sheets in the northern and southern hemispheres, and the growth of glaciers in mountainous parts of the world, such as the Himalayas, Alps, Southern Alps and Andes.

A third part of the definition involves time. For an ice age to be recorded as significant, it must last for a geologically significant amount of time.

If we bring all these factors together, then an ice age occurs during times of protracted lower temperatures, resulting in significant areas covered in ice for millions to tens or even hundreds of millions of years.

Read more:
Humans inhabited North America in the depths of the last Ice Age, but didn’t thrive until the climate warmed

Variations within an ice age

Ice ages are not uniformly cold. There can be colder and warmer periods during the overall ice-age period. Colder periods lead to more extensive areas of continental ice sheets, valley glaciers and sea ice, while warmer periods lead to reduced areas of ice.

Cold ice-age periods on Earth are called “stadials”, while warmer parts of an ice age are known as “inter-stadials”. An ice age ends when the Earth warms enough for the ice cover to recede, or disappear completely.

The regions on the fringes of extensive ice sheets and glaciers experience a cooling to the point that a consistently cold environment forms.

Usually, the ground is frozen for much of the year, growing seasons are short, and only the hardiest of flora and fauna survive. The Russian tundra is an example of this landscape.

These environments are called “periglacial” and occupy areas between relatively warmer ice-free regions and permanent ice fields.

Ice ages and the Earth’s climate

Ice ages change the Earth’s climatic belts. Temperate and tropical zones become restricted to the lower equatorial latitudes.

A question that follows on from the definition of an ice age is: how cold does Earth have to become to produce one? Earth’s average global temperature today is around 16℃.

Analysis of proxy temperature data (e.g. from the modelling of deep-ocean sediment isotope compositions) over the past 500 million years of Earth’s history indicates that average global temperatures have varied between around -10℃ and +30℃. During the most recent glacial maximum (stadial, 23,000 to 11,000 years ago), the average global temperature was about 8℃, with polar regions experiencing average temperatures of -2℃. Ice-free periods over the past 500 million years correspond with average global temperatures of over 20℃.

There is no official minimum period of time for an ice age. Some colder periods in historical times are termed little ice ages, including between the 13th and 18th centuries. This period was characterised by longer and colder winters, and shorter, cooler summers. Rivers regularly froze over in winter in western Europe. The stunning artwork of the Dutch painter Hendrick Avercamp (1585–1634 CE) documents aspects of this period.

How many ice ages has the Earth experienced?

Geologists agree Earth has gone through six major global ice ages. The oldest ice age occurred some 2,900-2,780 million years ago. The most recent ice age is the one we are currently experiencing, the late Cainozoic-Quaternary Ice Age, which began around 34 million years ago with the glaciation of Antarctica.

Between these two ice-age periods, other ice ages occurred at 2,400-2,100, 715-550, 450-420 and 360-260 million years ago. These six major ice ages lasted between 300 and 30 million years respectively.

Ice ages vary in length of time, extent, and extremes of temperature. The most extensive ice age was the period referred to as “Snowball Earth” when geologists think ice reached all the way to the equator, some 700 million years ago.

Read more:
The last ice age tells us why we need to care about a 2℃ change in temperature

At other times within ice ages (such as today), ice is mainly restricted to polar regions and higher mountain chains. But at its greatest extent, the present glacial period produced ice sheets as far south as the southern Great Lakes in the US and the river Thames in the UK. Mountain glaciers also extended much further and sea levels were some 120 metres lower than today.

There are many factors that cause ice ages. The main ones include variations in Earth’s orbit, known as Milankovitch cycles, reductions in solar energy emissions, lower atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations, variations in ocean currents, tectonic activity, continental configurations, mountain building periods and global volcanism.

Michael Petterson has received funding from a range of sources such as research grants and international aid grants throughout his career.

– ref. Climate explained: what is an ice age and how often do they happen? – https://theconversation.com/climate-explained-what-is-an-ice-age-and-how-often-do-they-happen-166652

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jane Tiller, Ethical, Legal & Social Adviser – Public Health Genomics, Monash University

Genetic testing is increasingly used as part of routine healthcare to determine a patient’s risk for some conditions, including certain cancers.

But insurers can use genetic test results to refuse cover or increase premiums. This is called genetic discrimination — the use of someone’s genetic information to treat them differently.

International research shows some people decline medical genetic testing or participation in genetic research because of fear of genetic discrimination. Clinicians, researchers and patient groups also report this is an ongoing issue in New Zealand.

For people who are at risk of genetic conditions, choosing not to be tested may have serious health impacts. And if people are afraid to be part of genetic research because of insurance fears, this will undermine the potential of genetic medicine to better understand disease and improve diagnosis and treatment.

New Zealand is out of step with the rest of the world in its consumer protection against genetic discrimination. This is particularly significant given obligations under under Te Tiriti o Waitangi and a commitment to protect and improve the health of Indigenous people.

Read more:
Population DNA testing for disease risk is coming. Here are five things to know

Concerns of Indigenous people

Māori and Pasifika people in particular have specific concerns around the use of genetic information. Given historic evidence of race-based discrimination, this adds to the challenge of providing equitable healthcare to all New Zealanders.

Under Te Tiriti o Waitangi, the New Zealand government must protect the rights, interests and taonga of Māori people. Failure to address genetic discrimination may undermine efforts to include Māori and Pasifika groups in medical research. It could also mean research in these populations with the greatest health inequities could lead to greater discrimination.

Many countries have banned or restricted insurance companies from using genetic test results. Canada recently introduced legislation that completely bans the use of genetic test results to discriminate in insurance and employment. Despite insurer resistance, the legislation passed and has withstood a Supreme Court appeal.

The Australian moratorium

In Australia, private health insurance is not subject to risk rating and genetic or other forms of discrimination do not apply. But specific legislation allows life insurers to use genetic test results in risk rating for other products (including death cover, income protection, and disability and trauma/critical illness cover).

The Australian life insurance industry has introduced a self-regulated moratorium for policies up to certain limits (A$500,000 for death cover).

This moratorium has significant limitations, including the financial limits, the lack of government oversight and its temporary nature (it will expire in 2024 unless renewed). But it is a step forward for Australian consumers, who can obtain some level of insurance cover without fear of genetic discrimination.

The situation is more dire in New Zealand. Legally, both health and life insurance companies are allowed to ask for and use genetic test results to discriminate against applicants. However, the industry has previously agreed not to require individuals to undergo genetic testing.

The obligation is on the person applying for insurance to provide the genetic test result, not on a medical professional or health service. But if an applicant doesn’t disclose the result, the insurer can void the policy due to fraud when a claim is later assessed.

Australians can obtain health insurance without any fear of genetic discrimination. But New Zealanders who are being proactive about their health by having genetic testing are at risk of being penalised both financially and medically.

Insurance use of genetic test results remains unclear

The Financial Services Council (FSC) is the industry body for health and life insurance in New Zealand. The FSC’s internal guidelines for using genetic test results used to be publicly accessible on their website. But when the Australian industry introduced its moratorium in 2019, New Zealand didn’t follow suit. The guidelines were removed from the website.

We and colleagues have made several requests for the guidelines since 2020, and our colleagues finally received guidelines applying to life insurers this week. The letter accompanying the guidelines advised that:

There is no standard documentation for how genetic testing information is currently used by the New Zealand life or health insurance industry.

The guidelines did confirm that life insurance companies can use applicants’ genetic test results in underwriting. But they recommend (but do not require) insurers should not:

• ask or incentivise the applicant to have a genetic test

• ask the applicant or the applicant’s doctor for test results if the test was part of medical research and the result will not be disclosed to the applicant

• ask the applicant or the applicant’s doctor for test results if the test is not the applicant’s individual test, but a close relative’s.

FSC also advised there are no guidelines available for how health insurers use genetic test results. Apparently, a health insurance committee working group is considering this question.

Implications for insurance policy

Australia’s ban was prompted by parliamentary inquiry recommendations. A review of insurance contract law recently took place in New Zealand, but there is no discussion of genetic privacy or genetic discrimination in the preliminary review documents.

Self-regulation by insurance companies is inherently conflicted. This is especially so where insurers manage their own access to information that benefits them. The damning findings of the Australian Royal Commission into the banking and financial services industry are a signpost for the New Zealand industry.

Read more:
Banking Royal Commission: no commissions, no exemptions, no fees without permission. Hayne gets the government to do a U-turn

Similar findings in the 2019 Life Insurer Conduct and Culture report in New Zealand demonstrate issues with integrity, transparency and public trust. FSC’s refusal to make its guidelines available to the public for several months illustrates this ongoing lack of transparency.

Taking steps like Australia would be an improvement, but not enough. Canada has shown that a complete ban is possible, despite insurer resistance.

We argue a ban on insurers’ use of genetic test results is necessary to advance genetic medicine and protect Māori, Pasifika and all New Zealanders. The New Zealand government must consider this issue in its insurance contract law review.

Jane Tiller has received funding from the Australian government’s Genomic Health Futures Mission, to monitor the effectiveness of the Australian genetics and life insurance moratorium. She is a founding member of the Australian Genetic Non-Discrimination Working Group

Andrew Shelling has received research funding from various New Zealand government agencies, the University of Auckland and various charities.

Andrew is a board member of Breast Cancer Cure. Andrew was a Trustee for the Nurture Foundation for Reproductive Research.

– ref. Why New Zealanders are vulnerable to genetic discrimination in health and life insurance – https://theconversation.com/why-new-zealanders-are-vulnerable-to-genetic-discrimination-in-health-and-life-insurance-167783

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Trevor H. Worthy, Associate Professor, Vertebrate Palaeontology Group, Flinders University

The parched deserts of the South Australian outback were once a rainforest filled with a rich variety of birds and animals. Now, thanks to a new fossil discovery, we know the apex predator of this lush ecosystem was a newly discovered eagle that lived 25 million years ago.

We discovered the fossil remains of this species, named Archaehierax sylvestris, in prehistoric sediments at Lake Pinpa, 400 kilometres north of Adelaide.

The fossil, unearthed in March 2016, is described in a newly published paper in the journal Historical Biology.

It is one of the most complete raptor fossils from this time period found anywhere in the world. It comprises 63 bones, which is truly exceptional; most fossil birds are named on the basis of just a single bone.

We have named it Archaehierax sylvestris, meaning “ancient hawk belonging to the forest”. It was slightly smaller than a wedge-tailed eagle, with talons spanning 15 centimetres that allowed it to grab prey the size of a koala or possum. And it had short, robust wings adapted to fly within the cluttered confines of a forest, rather than to soar through the skies.

With its relatively short wings and long legs, this eagle was likely an ambush hunter, waiting for unwary prey to approach, rather than a soaring forager. In the forest, it probably preyed on medium-sized marsupials. But from a high perch, it would also have made forays over the lake where it could catch ducks and flamingos.

Read more:
Ancient bilby and bandicoot fossils shed light on the mystery of marsupial evolution

Fossil treasure trove

Since the 1970s, the barren, salt-crusted sediments in South Australia’s arid north have yielded a range of bone fragments, teeth, and other fossils of the animals that lived there — many of which would have been prey for Archaehierax.

These fossils include a host of mammals, ranging from wombat ancestors the size of a small cow, through a range of tree-dwelling herbivores such as possums and koalas, to small terrestrial carnivores no bigger than a mouse.

These animals lived around a large lake where crocodiles and turtles abounded, and freshwater dolphins played.

Waterbirds were abundant, including cormorants, several types of flamingo, four species of duck, and Presbyornis, a bizarre long-legged fowl that went extinct elsewhere in the world 20 million years earlier. Many smaller forest birds such as songbirds, parrots and rails are also known, but most are not yet described.

Global eagle family

Archaehierax was clearly a member of the raptor family, which includes most hawks and eagles. But its bones differed in many ways from all other raptors, including similar-aged ones from elsewhere in the world.

Archaehierax sylvestris was not the only raptor we found at Lake Pinpa. Isolated bones show a smaller eagle also lived in these forests, but the fossils are too fragmentary to give this species a name.

There is another fossil raptor known from deposits at Riversleigh World Heritage Area in northwest Queensland. Pengana robertbolesi is a few million years younger than Archaehierax, and not closely related to the Pinpa bird. It was adapted to capture prey in holes in trees.

Our analysis suggests Archaehierax was probably not closely related to any living raptor. Rather, it represented an ancient lineage that split off near the base of the raptor family tree. This is consistent with previous genetic analysis suggesting most living groups of hawks and eagles evolved only in the past 20 million years — roughly 5 million years after Archaehierax lived and died.

Previously, raptor fossils as ancient as 25 million years old were only known from Europe and North America. Archaehierax sylvestris and its smaller contemporary show that Australia was an important geographic location in the early global evolution of raptors.

Australia is already widely understood to be a cradle of evolution of songbirds, and our island continent doubtless played a similar role in the evolution of other types of birds too.

Read more:
Meet the giant wombat relative that scratched out a living in Australia 25 million years ago

These raptors and the earliest songbirds lived in temperate rainforests. Back then, the area around what is now Lake Pinpa was located more than 1,100km south of where Adelaide is today, at a latitude equivalent to present-day Fiordland at the southwestern tip of New Zealand.

In the 25 million years since, continental drift has carried Australia and the fossils north at 6 centimetres per year (the speed at which your fingernails grow), travelling more than 1,500km.

The rainforest where these birds lived is now the arid outback. And there are almost certainly many fossils awaiting discovery there that will tell us more about how Australia’s unique birds evolved.

Trevor H. Worthy receives funding from The Australian Research Council and the Sir Mark Mitchell Research Foundation

Aaron Camens receives funding from Sir Mark Mitchell Foundation .

Michael Lee receives funding from the Australian Research Council

Ellen K. Mather and Jacob C. Blokland 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. Meet the prehistoric eagle that ruled Australian forests 25 million years ago – https://theconversation.com/meet-the-prehistoric-eagle-that-ruled-australian-forests-25-million-years-ago-168249

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Paul Kinsella, Honorary Clinical Fellow, Department of Infectious Diseases, The University of Melbourne, The Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity

Australian Health Minister Greg Hunt wants COVID-19 rapid antigen tests to be available for home use as soon as they’re approved by the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA). Hunt hopes approval will come by Christmas, if not before.

This would allow Australians to test themselves for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, in their home and receive the results within half an hour.

Rapid antigen tests have been used overseas for many months and are available from many different manufacturers.

As Australia moves to the next phase of managing COVID-19, these tests will become more commonplace. So what can we learn from their use overseas?

How do they work and how effective are they?

Traditional PCR tests amplify parts of the virus’ genetic code. PCR tests are performed on a swab of the nose and throat taken by health professionals. They’re then sent to a laboratory for analysis.

PCR tests are more sensitive than antigen tests: they can detect lower levels of the virus compared to antigen tests. However PCR tests can take hours, or occasionally days, for results.

Antigen tests, on the other hand, detect protein on the surface of SARS-CoV-2 directly from a sample. The sample can be a swab of the nose, but some use saliva samples.

Antigen tests give results more quickly than PCR tests, but because of their lower sensitivity they are only useful in detecting high levels of virus.

In a study from Oxford University, rapid antigen tests detected approximately 80% of infections in people with high levels of the virus when compared to PCR tests.

Read more:
Rapid antigen testing isn’t perfect. But it could be a useful part of Australia’s COVID response

Detecting COVID in people with no symptoms

Antigen tests play an important role in testing people who have no symptoms.

One of the largest studies from the United Kingdom, of almost 750,000 tests on 250,000 people in Liverpool, showed rapid antigen tests may be useful in diagnosing infections in people who have no symptoms.

These authors broadly categorised the reason for testing in three ways:

1. Test to protect: testing of people in vulnerable settings such as aged care facilities

2. Test to release: frequent testing of those who have been exposed to COVID to allow them to be released from quarantine earlier

3. Test to enable: antigen testing to allow safer return to normal activities such as visiting aged care homes or attending large sporting events.

As part of this study, testing was performed in key workplaces, such as with emergency services workers and in schools. Results were promising, showing a 17.5% increase in detection of cases.

This increase in detection may assist in breaking chains of transmission. It’s important to remember that when testing people with no symptoms, rapid antigen tests are more likely than PCR tests to return false positives.

However, despite high rates of uptake, test users only returned a small proportion of these kits (8.3%) to health authorities.

How are other countries using them?

Singapore has recently distributed home testing kits to all households nationally, free of charge.

It’s hoped people will use these tests if they have been in contact with a known case, or if they have symptoms of COVID. This may result in a reduction in transmission of the disease, but results remain to be seen.

Rapid antigen tests have also been used in schoolchildren in the United Kingdom.

Daily testing of children exposed to COVID in school was shown to be an acceptable alternative to self-isolation to prevent transmission, while allowing children to remain in class.

Read more:
Over-the-counter rapid antigen tests can help slow the spread of COVID-19 — here’s how to use them effectively

Overseas, the costs of these tests have largely been covered by governments, occurring in pilot programs or clinical trials.

In parts of Europe, home tests can also be purchased from pharmacies and supermarkets for around €5-20. In the US, tests cost up to US$50.

What do users think about these tests?

Attitudes to antigen testing have generally been positive. Those who participate in antigen testing most commonly cite “civic duty” and a desire to protect family and friends as the reason.

The main barriers to testing were found to be concerns over the accuracy of the test and the personal consequences of a positive result, such as missing work or an important event.

What is Australia’s regulator, the TGA, reviewing?

The TGA has recently invited sponsors of kits to submit information relevant to the use of home testing, including the use of software to capture results data.

Rapid tests are currently in use in some settings, for example, in aged care facilities to test workers before their shifts, but these need to be overseen by a health professional.

The TGA’s requirements aim to protect the safety and privacy of users. They include ensuring:

• clear instructions for the user in the event of a positive result
• reporting of complaints relating to false positives and false negatives
• guarantees relating to data privacy and cybersecurity.

But these regulations don’t extend to verification of patients’ details or transmission of results to public health authorities.

Read more:
Why we need to test COVID-19 tests

How will they be used in Australia?

When and how home testing is introduced in Australia will be closely linked to vaccination rates and movement through the phases of the National Plan.

People without symptoms, for example, could use home testing as an extra reassurance prior to visiting family or attending events.

Home testing could also be used to monitor for the presence of infection after a known exposure, reducing the need for extended quarantine.

In hospitals, they may be used as a complement to PCR testing to screen staff who have no symptoms, or to screen high-risk patients who are very likely to have COVID to allow rapid decision making.

Given the current large differences in COVID-19 cases across the country, it’s highly likely the inevitable introduction of home antigen testing will be both jurisdiction- and context-specific.

Read more:
Zero-COVID is no longer an effective strategy. We need to learn from other countries how to adapt

The introduction of home testing for SARS-CoV-2 may also pave the way for home testing for other infectious diseases, such as sexually transmitted infections and influenza. This would be a paradigm shift in the way we detect and monitor infectious diseases in Australia.

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. Rapid antigen tests have long been used overseas to detect COVID. Here’s what Australia can learn – https://theconversation.com/rapid-antigen-tests-have-long-been-used-overseas-to-detect-covid-heres-what-australia-can-learn-168490

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dougal Sutherland, Clinical Psychologist, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington

If you’re feeling uninspired, stagnant and joyless, you’re not alone. A sense of languishing is one of the dominant emotions of 2021 as we navigate life in an ongoing pandemic and process other terrible world events alongside.

But although many people are struggling and these struggles are not to be ignored, the pandemic has also provided a chance to flourish — functioning well and feeling good, with a sense that life is meaningful and worthwhile, despite challenging circumstances.

Flourishing operates at the top end of the mental health continuum, with languishing at the bottom end.

A separate but related continuum relates to the experience of mental illness symptoms (from zero to severe). Key to this thinking is that mental health (languishing versus flourishing) and mental illness are independent from each other, and it is possible to flourish with mental illness symptoms and vice versa.

Recently published Stats NZ data provide an overview of New Zealanders’ well-being during the pandemic and conclude:

New Zealanders have remained resilient, with most people remaining happy, healthy and satisfied with their lives, despite the challenges [of the pandemic].

For Māori in New Zealand, who generally experience disproportionate rates of poor mental health compared to other groups, recent research highlights that positive outcomes following the 2020 COVID-19 lockdown were nearly as frequent as adverse ones.

So, here are three strategies we can use to acknowledge the languishing but nevertheless move towards more experiences of flourishing.

1. Hold the ‘and’

Holding the “and” is a psychological practice commonly used in several therapies, including dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT). At its simplest, DBT encourages a balance between opposites.

Often, when we are coping with difficult experiences we fall into a habit of “all or nothing” or “black and white” thinking and we find it hard to see the grey. Lockdowns and the Delta variant are good examples of challenges where we might find it hard to see a balance between both extremes, oscillating between thinking “things will never get back to normal” or “everything is fine”.

Read more:
Languishing, burnout and stigma are all among the possible psychological impacts as Delta lingers in the community

Holding the “and” in this scenario might look like acknowledging that our normal is being disrupted right now, and knowing that we have the tools to make it through in one piece. This style will give you permission and encouragement to feel frustrated and grateful, angry with moments of calm, and cautiously optimistic while feeling scared.

2. Practice active acceptance

When we have some ability to influence or control a situation, active coping or problem-solving strategies are generally best. But this approach of taking charge is much less effective when we are managing in circumstances beyond our control, like the current pandemic.

Research shows a style of coping called “acceptance coping” results in significantly less distress during such times.

Importantly, acceptance isn’t a passive process. It’s not giving up. Rather, it’s reminding ourselves “this is how things are right now”. Psychologists call this helpful, active acceptance, as opposed to resigning acceptance.

Key steps to acceptance are to notice and acknowledge thoughts and feelings about a situation and then focus on what is important as we tackle the challenge. For example you may notice feeling sad, allow yourself to experience that emotion (acceptance) and then focus on something that is important for that day, for example dialling into a team meeting to check on colleagues.

3. Connect with others

A third strategy that helps nudge us towards flourishing is connecting with others. In our world of physical distancing, the good news is that with connection, it’s quality over quantity. The benefits of being with others come largely from the emotional connection you make with another person.

Significant research has shown that experiencing frequent positive emotions (hope, joy and achievement) help people stay resilient and thrive even in times of crisis. Recent studies show co-experienced positive emotions – the good feelings you get when you really connect with someone – may be even more important than positive emotions experienced alone.

Read more:
4 ways to fill the need to socialize during the COVID-19 pandemic

In even more compelling evidence, recent research examining more than one hundred risk factors for mental illness found that social connection was the strongest protective factor against depression. Finding ways of feeling connected with people in your bubble, as well as staying connected online with others, is one of the best strategies.

These key strategies of balance, acceptance and connection help us to move from languishing towards flourishing. Focusing on practising these skills may serve as a psychological vaccine in these pandemic times.

Gaynor Parkin and Dr Amanda Wallis, from Umbrella Wellbeing, have both contributed to this article.

Dougal Sutherland works for Victoria University of Wellington and Umbrella Wellbeing

– ref. Emotional vaccine: 3 ways we can move from ‘languishing’ to ‘flourishing’ in these testing times – https://theconversation.com/emotional-vaccine-3-ways-we-can-move-from-languishing-to-flourishing-in-these-testing-times-168733

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rose Barrowcliffe, Doctoral Candidate, University of the Sunshine Coast

On the 19th of September, Butchulla dancers and community representatives came together at Kingfisher Bay Resort to celebrate the renaming of Fraser Island to the K’gari (Fraser Island) World Heritage Area.

The renaming was the result of a decades-long campaign by Butchulla Elders and community members and was endorsed by the Queensland government and adopted by the World Heritage Committee.

This event is the latest in a growing number of Indigenous name repatriations across the nation. As a Butchulla person, and a researcher of the representation of Indigenous peoples in archives and historical narratives, I can appreciate the significance of something as seemingly small as a name change.

How common is it to revert to the Indigenous place name?

The reversion to the name K’gari has happened in stages over a number of years. In 2011, the Bligh government added K’gari as an alternative to the place name Fraser Island in the Queensland Place Names Register.

The Fraser Island portion of the Great Sandy National Park was changed to K’gari (Fraser Island) National Park in 2017. This latest change is specifically in relation to the UNESCO World Heritage area.

K’gari is among a growing number of places around Australia that have returned to their Indigenous names. One of the most famous examples is Uluru.

In Queensland, the National Parks First Nations Naming Project has been assisting in reverting national park names to Indigenous names where possible as a part of the government’s commitment to the truth-telling process. North Stradbroke Island and Moreton Island National Parks have reverted to Minjerribah and Gheebulum Coonungai, respectively.

According to then-minister for environment and the Great Barrier Reef, Leanne Enoch

This project is a positive step in our truth telling around First Nations Peoples’ significant and ancient connection to country.

Not renaming, reclaiming

Changing a place name will not fix racism in one fell swoop. No one is claiming it will. But name repatriation speaks to the importance of language in both culture and sovereignty.

Indigenous place names link Traditional Country to the history, culture and people that have been a part of that land long before colonisation. Overwriting Indigenous names with colonist names is an attempt to deny this deep, pre-existing connection and the sovereignty of Indigenous peoples.

The renaming of Butchulla Country was one of the first things Captain James Cook did as he first sailed the east coast of Australia.

In 1770, as Cook’s ship sailed close to Tacky Waroo, a large basalt headland on the east side of K’gari, it was met by a party of Butchulla warriors standing on the headland. In the lexicon of the day, all dark-skinned people were called “Indians”, so Cook renamed Tacky Waroo “Indian Head”.

In other cases, colonial place names were, and still are, blunt reminders of colonial violence. Places like Murdering Creek, Massacre Bay, Skull Creek and many more litter the Australian landscape and indicate violent acts that occurred in those places.

The name Fraser Island is named after a Scottish woman, Eliza Fraser, who was shipwrecked on the island in 1836. Fraser lied about being mistreated by Butchulla people after being shipwrecked. Even in those days, her account of her time on K’gari was thrown into doubt.

Fraser was known to be a sensationalist who made her story more and more salacious as time went on, in efforts to garner more money from sympathetic supporters. Her accounts of her time on K’gari were syndicated as far as the Americas, and reinforced the narrative that Indigenous peoples were “savages” and “cannibals”. These classifications led to Indigenous peoples being vilified around the globe.

Colonial history is not Indigenous history

Language plays an important part in reinforcing the notion that history in Australia began with the arrival of Cook and his fleet.

Colonial place names are another subtle yet persistent reinforcement of the notion that this land only has a place in history once it intersects with the narratives of colonists.

K’gari was the name chosen by the Butchulla because that is the sky spirit the island was created from. The name goes back to the very creation of the island, and yet the name that stuck was the name of a woman who spent not more than two months on the island.

Re-adoption of Indigenous place names signifies the increased recognition of history and culture that predates colonisation. More importantly, these name repatriations recognise that history and culture continue today.

The history of colonisation is not Indigenous history. Indigenous history and the history of this continent predates, pre-exists and will eventually override colonial history. Indigenous place names are evidence of that.

Read more:
Indigenous treaties are meaningless without addressing the issue of sovereignty

Bringing our past into a shared future

Repatriation of Indigenous place names is a part of the process of reintroducing Indigenous perspectives into the narratives of our modern society.

Repatriation of Indigenous place names reaffirms that First Nations have always existed, and still exist in Australia today. Moreover, they are a source of distinction that sets Australia apart from the rest of the world for the one thing no other country in the world can come close to: being home to the oldest living cultures in the world. That should be a source of pride for all Australians.

Always was, always will be K’gari.

Rose Barrowcliffe is a member of the Butchulla Aboriginal Corporation.

– ref. Celebrating K’gari: why the renaming of Fraser Island is about so much more than a name – https://theconversation.com/celebrating-kgari-why-the-renaming-of-fraser-island-is-about-so-much-more-than-a-name-168378

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jamie Pittock, Professor, Fenner School of Environment & Society, Australian National University

Technologies to harness the power of water are touted as crucial for a low-emissions future. But over many decades, the hydropower industry has caused serious damage to the environment and people’s lives.

More than 500 new hydropower dams are currently planned or under construction in the world’s protected areas. And some 260,000 kilometres of the last wild rivers – including the Amazon, Congo, Irrawaddy and Salween rivers – are threatened by proposed dams.

The global hydropower industry says the technology’s installed capacity must increase by more than 60% by 2050 if the world hopes to limit climate change. And the World Hydropower Congress, held remotely from Costa Rica this month, proposed steps to expand with minimal harm.

But stringent oversight, and a commitment from banks and governments to support only sustainable pumped hydro developments, is urgently needed. Otherwise, the expanding industry could displace millions more people, irreparably damage rivers and drive species to extinction.

Old technology given new life

Hydroelectricity is an old technology which involves passing water from a reservoir through a turbine, to generate electricity. One application, known as pumped storage, can store electricity generated by solar and wind. In the era of climate change, pumped storage has given new life to hydropower technology.

Pumped hydro uses excess renewable energy to pump water from a lower reservoir to a higher one. The water is then released downhill to produce electricity when needed, then pumped back up when electricity returns to surplus.

Technologies such as wind and solar can only produce electricity when the sun is shining or the wind is blowing. Pumped hydro can make such generators more reliable by storing renewable energy when it’s produced then releasing it as needed.

Three pumped hydro storage projects operate in Australia: two in New South Wales and one in Queensland. Two are under construction, including the massive Snowy 2.0, and about a dozen are at the scoping stage.

Pumped hydro storage can be added to existing reservoirs on rivers. It can also be located off rivers, which can often lead to better social and environmental outcomes. One such project in North Queensland, Kidston, involves redeveloping an old gold mine.

Australian National University research this year identified about 616,000 potential sites around the world for pumped hydro, including more than 3,000 in Australia. Developing fewer than 1% of these could support a fully renewable global energy system.

A poor record

Hydropower and associated dams have a long record of environmental and social damage. Aside from flooding ecosystems, farmlands and towns, hydropower projects significantly disrupt river flows. This, among other harms, can deny water to floodplain wetlands, block fish migration and breeding and reduce nutrient flows.

Globally, populations of freshwater species – including mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles and fish – have declined by about 84% since 1970, in large part due to dams. In Tasmania, inundation of the unique Lake Pedder ecosystem in the 1970s led to several species extinctions.

And while hydropower is widely considered a “clean” energy, it can lead to significant amounts of greenhouse gases when flooded plants and trees decompose.

Emissions from most hydropower dams are comparable to the life-cycle emissions from solar and wind generators. But at warmer tropical sites where vegetation is more dense, reservoirs could have a higher emission rate than fossil-based electricity.

As far back as 20 years ago, dams were found to have displaced 40 to 80 million in the half century prior. And dams have damaged the livelihoods of hundreds of millions people downstream over the past century.

But new hydro projects are routinely proposed at sites where they will cause substantial damage. And social and environmental problems caused by hydropower dams continue in places as diverse as Colombia and Southeast Asia’s Mekong region.

The Snowy 2.0 pumped storage project in Kosciusko National Park highlights trade-offs involved in many hydropower developments.

It promises to improve the reliability of solar and wind power, helping mitigate climate change. But it also threatens two endangered fish species, and several thousand hectares of national park are being cleared for infrastructure.

Read more:
NSW has approved Snowy 2.0. Here are six reasons why that’s a bad move

An industry makeover

Clearly, the world hydropower industry has public relations work to do, if its global expansion is to be realised. The International Hydropower Association appears to have cottoned on to this, taking a sophisticated approach to improving the industry’s social licence.

The industry has actively engaged conservationists in preparing sustainability standards. Voluntary assessment tools outline steps to minimise damage to people and the environment, and a new sustainability certification scheme for hydropower was launched at this month’s congress.

The industry has pledged not to build hydropower dams in world heritage sites. It has also offered to “avoid, minimise, mitigate or compensate” for damage in protected areas (albeit falling short on offering full protection).

However, it’s hard to see the new standards being systematically applied unless governments of major dam building nations – especially China, India, Brazil and Turkey – adopt the standards in their planning and approval processes.

And how will rogue operators and irresponsible financiers be prevented from developing unsustainable projects – especially when some governments are fixated on enabling them?

It’s in the interests of the International Hydropower Association, as the progressive element of the hydropower industry, to advocate for governments and financiers to assess proposed hydropower projects against the new standards.

Read more:
When dams cause more problems than they solve, removing them can pay off for people and nature

Causing the least harm

Pumped hydro has an important role to play in the renewable energy transition, but only where projects cause minimal harm to people and nature.

Ensuring a sustainable industry in future could be achieved by stopping damaging conventional hydropower projects on rivers. Instead, pumped storage projects should be developed when:

• an assessment shows they meets the needs of an energy system

• environmental and social conflicts are minimal, such as at off-river sites

• for projects in tropical areas, shallow reservoirs and flooding of vegetation is avoided to minimise greenhouse gas emissions.

Pumped storage offers the hydropower industry a chance to reposition itself from villain to hero. The industry must now translate its words into practice. And financiers and government regulators must support only those hydropower projects which genuinely seek to minimise environmental and social harm.

Jamie Pittock receives funding from the Australian Water Partnership and APEC with respect to pumped storage hydropower in the Asia-Pacific region. He is acting Director of the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists and advises a number of non-government environmental organisations (including The Nature Conservancy and WWF). He contributed advice into the International Forum on Pumped Storage Hydropower.

– ref. The hydropower industry is talking the talk. But fine words won’t save our last wild rivers – https://theconversation.com/the-hydropower-industry-is-talking-the-talk-but-fine-words-wont-save-our-last-wild-rivers-168252

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Luke Zaphir, Researcher for the University of Queensland Critical Thinking Project, The University of Queensland

Melbourne has seen days of anti-lockdown and anti-vaccination protests with hundreds of arrests made. Many protesters hold right-wing and extremist views.

Police say people have been arrested for breaching the chief health officer’s directions, as well as drug-related offences and outstanding warrants. But protesters say the crackdown shows their views are being silenced and the legitimate right to protest — a democratic right that links to freedom of speech — is being squelched.

These protests raise important questions about the nature of freedom of speech. Do the actions of the police represent an attempt to limit what people can say, think or believe?

Such concepts can be difficult enough for adults to deal with. But they can be far more confusing for children.

What do kids need to know about free speech?

The First Amendment to the United States Constitution proclaims freedom of speech as a right for all citizens. The Australian constitution does not have such an explicit statement regarding free speech. But Australia is a party to seven core international human rights treaties and the right to freedom of opinion and expression is contained in articles 19 and 20 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

In Australia, freedom of speech is taught explicitly as a concept as part of the year 8 civics and citizenship curriculum. Depending on the school and state, this amounts to about four lessons exploring democratic freedoms that allow for participation in Australian society.

But in practical terms, if a child gets sick at the wrong time and needs to miss school they’ll never learn about the most fundamental aspects of their own citizenship at school.

Read more:
Freedom of speech: a history from the forbidden fruit to Facebook

Children need to understand that when we talk about freedom of speech we’re actually talking about (at least) two things: freedom of opinion or belief, and freedom of expression.

In Australia, freedom of opinion gives us the right to hold a belief without interference, exception or restriction. We have the right to believe anything we want. We can believe the earth is flat or that alien cabals rule the world.

Freedom of expression is more complicated though. We have the right to say what we want — to give our opinions, advertise, display art and protest — but within limits. Most people are aware of these limits: we aren’t allowed to say fighting words, slander another person’s name, cause a panic, or incite violence, for example.

A useful analogy, understandable by most children, is that we have the right to drive freely on roads provided we observe limits on speed, places we can park, how we negotiate the roads with others and the amount of alcohol we have consumed.

Simplistically, limits on what we say, where we say it and how we act are, therefore, like limits on the road, designed to optimise both our rights and public harmony.

In the case of the protesters, they are claiming and acting as if they have a right to not conform to restrictions put in place for the sake of public health and safety. In other words, they are not acknowledging any limits.

There are consequences to this, just as there are consequences to breaking road rules. Indeed some protesters have already tested positive for COVID, increasing the possibility of infection within the community.

But what about when the free speech is done in a privately owned sphere that is available to the public – such as on a social media platform?

What about free speech in privately owned public spaces?

There have been many instances where a news organisation or person has been banned from social media platforms — the most famous example being that of ex US President Donald Trump.

In this instance, it is not a government intervention that has blocked a person from expressing their opinions but a private entity with its own rules and regulations.

Read more:
No, Twitter is not censoring Donald Trump. Free speech is not guaranteed if it harms others

Let’s go back to our road example. If someone has a private road leading to a nice bluff overlooking the sea, they might allow anyone access to the bluff provided they follow conditions such as not speeding, sticking to the road and not playing loud music. If someone decided not to abide by those conditions, it is justifiable for the owner to ban them.

Private businesses also allow people into their stores so long as they accept certain conditions governing their behaviour. Most people think this is reasonable.

But what conditions are acceptable to place on public access to private property? What if we did not allow people of a certain racial background into our coffee shop? Or certain genders? Almost no one would think that was reasonable.

The conversation with children, therefore, needs to be about whether limitations are fair and reasonable.

Private companies like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are allowed to set conditions for those who use their platforms. In fact, in the case of social media, you have to explicitly agree to abide by those terms to be allowed to use it.

Freedom of speech means allowing others the same rights

A crucial characteristics of participatory democracy is that everyone gets a say on issues of public importance, or at least every view gets a champion.

And if you’re free to express an idea, people are free to respond to you, and perhaps dismiss you, as they wish. Your right to be heard is not a right to be taken seriously.

Kids need to be involved

A final important point is that it’s not enough to tell students there are rules — they need to be active participants in constructing those rules.

A classic philosophical thought experiment is the paradox of tolerance, formulated neatly by the philosopher Karl Popper:

in order to maintain a tolerant society, the society must be intolerant of intolerance.

In democratic societies, we need to be tolerant of other beliefs, lifestyles, opinions and expression, but how do we match this with the idea of limits on free speech?

We can use the following questions to start discussions with our students or children:

• are there any behaviours we should find intolerable or unacceptable (such as violence, racism and homophobia)?

• why are these behaviours intolerable — will they cause harm, or do we simply disagree with them?

• how do we know harm occurs?

These conversations about rights and responsibilities are an essential part of a democratic education.

It is possible to have unlimited freedom of expression — just not in a democracy. If someone can say what they want without any regard or consequence, then they’ve merely reached the top of a dictatorship.

Read more:
With rights come responsibilities: how coronavirus is a pandemic of hypocrisy

Peter Ellerton is a Fellow of the Rationalist Society of Australia.

Luke Zaphir 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. Free speech doesn’t mean you can say whatever you want, wherever. Here’s how to explain this to kids – https://theconversation.com/free-speech-doesnt-mean-you-can-say-whatever-you-want-wherever-heres-how-to-explain-this-to-kids-166334

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Bruce Mountain, Director, Victoria Energy Policy Centre, Victoria University

If you’re like most Australians, the single biggest chunk of your energy bill — about 40% — goes to a network services company, which owns and operates the transmission lines or pipes delivering electricity or gas to your home.

But evidence from takeover bids for Australia’s last two publicly listed electricity network services companies suggests you are paying more than you should.

These prices are set by the Australian Energy Regulator, because network services are monopolies: you can choose your energy retailer, but not the lines or pipes through which the electricity or gas flow.

It’s the regulator’s job to determine a fair price for these services — one that doesn’t shortchange the service provider or gouge consumers.

But the Australian Energy Regulator has not been getting these pricing decisions right, according to calculations that can be made using the bids by overseas investors for AusNet Services Ltd, the biggest energy network provider in Victoria, and Spark Infrastructure Group, whose assets include South Australia’s electricity distribution network.

Being listed on the stock exchange, they must disclose financial information. This information enables analysts to calculate how much investors value them compared to the Australian Energy Regulator.

This calculation — known as Regulated Asset Base (RAB) multiple — suggests the regulator has been allowing energy network companies to charge way more than necessary.

Read more:
Energy prices are high because consumers are paying for useless, profit-boosting infrastructure

Valuing AusNet

AusNet owns and operates almost all of the electricity transmission system in Victoria, and also big gas and electricity distribution networks. It is the subject of a takeover battle between Brookfield Asset Management, a Canadian infrastructure fund, and APA Group, Australia’s largest natural gas infrastructure business.

On September 20, it was revealed that Brookfield offered to acquire AusNet for A$2.50 a share. The day after APA Group offered a mix of cash and equity that it said valued Ausnet at A$2.60 per share.

These bids provide a baseline to calculate the Regulated Asset Base multiple: the the ratio of investors’ valuation to the regulator’s valuation.

How much an investor is prepared to pay for a share indicates their expectation of the future dividend (or profits) those shares will return. How much the regulator’s allows a company to charge is based on what it sees as a fair return to shareholders.

From this information the Regulated Asset Base multiple can be calculated.

A multiple of 1 would mean the investors’ valuation equals the regulator’s valuation. A number lower than 1 would mean the regulator is setting prices too low. A number greater than 1 means it is setting prices too high.

Brookfield’s offer, according to The Australian Financial Review, gives Ausnet a multiple of 1.68. This suggests the Australian Energy Regulator is allowing AusNet to charge prices 68% higher than Brookfield would be happy to accept. APA’s bid suggests a RAB multiple even higher.

Of course, it is not entirely as simple as that. Not all of AusNet’s revenue come from regulated assets. This may slightly affect the valuation of AusNet. Assuming AusNet’s unregulated businesses are as profitable as its larger regulated businesses, we estimate the RAB multiple is 1.54.

Valuing Spark Infrastructure

Spark Infrastructure owns controlling interests in two Victorian electricity distributors (Citipower and Powercor), Transgrid in NSW, and South Australia’s main distribution network, SA Power Networks.

In August, Spark’s board approved a A$5.2 billion takeover offer from US private equity giant Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and the Ontario Teachers’ superannuation fund.

This offer gives Spark a RAB multiple of 1.5. This suggests the monopolies Spark has a share in are charging prices 53% higher than needed to adequately compensate investors

Read more:
You’re paying too much for electricity, but here’s what the states can do about it

Vanishing transparency

The impact on customers will vary, but these calculations suggests network services charges should be about two-thirds current levels. This would make household electricity bills about 15% lower than now.

I am not suggesting the regulator should set prices consistent with a RAB multiple of 1. But prices should not favour monopoly owners as much these takeover valuations suggest they do.

The underlying issue here is not new. Official inquiries over the past decade — the Garnaut Climate Change Review update in 2011, the Senate inquiry into energy bills in 2012 and the Productivity Commission’s review of electricity network regulation in 2013 —
all concluded energy regulation erred excessively in favour of investors at the expense of consumers.

The Australian Energy Regulator and the Australian Energy Markets Commission (which oversees all energy markets) have responded to these inquiries with new rules, guidelines, committees and processes.

Yet the problem remains — and if these takeovers are successful then AusNet and Spark Infrastructure will almost certainly be delisted. We will then lose vital information on RAB multiples that allows objective assessment of the regulator’s decisions.

Bruce Mountain 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. Your household power bills could be 15% cheaper, if Australia’s energy regulator was doing its job – https://theconversation.com/your-household-power-bills-could-be-15-cheaper-if-australias-energy-regulator-was-doing-its-job-168280

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alison Taylor, Senior Teaching Fellow, Bond University

A film about the perpetrator of Australia’s worst mass shooting was always going to be controversial. After 25 years, Tasmania’s Port Arthur massacre — in which 35 people were killed and scores more injured — is still raw for many Australians.

The announcement that the subject was to be dramatised was unsurprisingly met with trepidation. Some fear the film might cause genuine harm to survivors, while others have argued the film should not be made at all. Survivors have argued turning tragedy into entertainment is beyond the pale, raising concerns that it risks sensationalising a killer.

Some would no doubt be bristling at attachment of director Justin Kurzel to the project. Kurzel’s filmmaking pedigree includes unflinching examinations of some of Australia’s darkest criminal history. In 2011, his Snowtown was a compelling look at suburban dynamics and charismatic evil but was also graphic in its depictions of the town’s notorious killings. More recently, True History of the Kelly Gang (based on Peter Carey’s Booker-prize winning novel) treats its bushranger tale with punk-rock abandon and brutal violence.

Read more:
Is it wrong to make a film about the Port Arthur massacre? A trauma expert’s perspective

But Nitram (Martin spelled backwards) is comparatively restrained. Tracing the lead up to the massacre, rather than the event itself, the film depicts a young man unable to assimilate into the society around him. Caleb Landry Jones (whose performance won Best Actor at Cannes this year) embodies a childlike outcast, incapable of regulating his emotions. His mother (Judy Davis) and father (Anthony LaPaglia) have grown accustomed to his aberrant behaviour, though not without being worn down by it over the years.

A chance meeting with the eccentric tax lotto heiress Helen (Essie Davis) offers Nitram his first and only friend: an equally lonely outcast. In an alternate history, the odd pair might have lived out their days peacefully in Helen’s decaying estate, listening to opera and surrounded by her many pets. But as the audience knows, this is not where the film is heading.

Where True History of the Kelly Gang toyed with avant-garde bursts of light and colour, Nitram is nuanced in style. Here it is the crack and whirr of firecrackers held seconds too long, a hand edging its way towards a nest of teeming wasps, a blaring car horn, and off-tune piano that grate on our nerves; Kurzel gradually recruits abrasive physical and sonic elements to signal a world off-kilter.

While fears abounded that the film might glorify a killer, or paint him as sympathetic, Kurzel is aware of what is at stake and careful to hold his subject at a distance.

The real perpetrator’s name is never uttered, instead “Nit-ram” is hurled at the film’s protagonist as a juvenile taunt. The young man is as unknowable to himself as he is to us, at one point remarking to his mother, “Sometimes I watch myself, and I don’t know who it is that I’m looking at.”

This opacity of character is significant. Though several moments provide possible contributing factors for the tragedy that we know is coming, Kurzel resists presenting them as a clear cause and effect trajectory. Rising family tensions, mental health concerns, a nonchalant attitude to gun sales, and a gradual chipping away at the young man’s autonomy — all of these are shown, but Kurzel does not for a moment pretend that they add up to an explanation for his subject’s actions.

When the soon-to-be killer is transfixed by a television news report about Scotland’s Dunblane massacre (a watershed moment in UK gun control reform) we are offered another pseudo-motive for the tragedy we know is imminent. This too, however, seems to point more towards our all too human desire for clarity in the wake of incomprehensible events than it does towards a coherent and containable explanation.

Naturally, many will take ire with the humanisation of someone that we would prefer to dismiss as a monster. But atrocities like the Port Arthur massacre aren’t committed by monsters, they are committed by people, and this is the deeply unsettling reality that Kurzel asks us to sit with for close to two hours.

For Kurzel, Nitram isn’t a pathologically evil villain that would be easier to reconcile with a legible understanding of horrific crimes. Nor is he a pitiable victim of social circumstance and untreated psychological issues. Where the events of his life might, in a less nuanced portrayal, generate sympathy or suggest senseless violence can ultimately be understood, Kurzel resists giving pat explanations for the sake of narrative closure.

Read more:
Forgetting Martin Bryant: what to remember when we talk about Port Arthur

And this complexity is where the moral value of the film lays. There is a crucial difference between humanising a problematic figure and excusing their actions.

Oliver Hirschbiegel’s 2004 film Downfall courted similar controversy for depicting Hitler as vulnerable in the final days of the Third Reich. Of course, it is more comfortable to reduce him to a spectre than to consider that an ailing family man was capable of incomprehensible evil. But representing history’s tyrants and criminals as three dimensional is not the same as vindicating or even explaining them.

Nitram is uneasy but powerful viewing. The film’s very existence will understandably upset many, regardless of how sensitively it treats its subject. Particularly for Tasmanians, the traumatic legacy is very real and still raw.

But it may also come as a relief that Nitram does not exploit the community’s pain for entertainment or shock value and the massacre is not depicted onscreen.

Instead, the film asks complex questions about what volatile mix of personal, historical, and social forces may have led to the events of the massacre. The fact that there is no easy answer does not reduce the value of the asking.

Nitram is in cinemas from September 30th 2021.

Alison Taylor 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. Nitram review: new film about Port Arthur perpetrator is uncomfortable viewing, but not for the reasons you might expect – https://theconversation.com/nitram-review-new-film-about-port-arthur-perpetrator-is-uncomfortable-viewing-but-not-for-the-reasons-you-might-expect-168188

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dennis Altman, Professorial Fellow in Human Security, La Trobe University

Our writers nominate the TV series keeping them entertained during a time of COVID.

Ever since The West Wing premiered in 1999, American television has loved series based on presidential politics. One could now spend months working through programs like Veep or Graves on streaming services. Rather like doctors and lawyers, politicians have become the basis for white collar TV series.

During the daily dramas of last year’s Trump campaign, television needed to do more than offer realism; the earnest liberalism of The West Wing felt oddly outdated amidst the realities of COVID, Black Lives Matter and the 2020 elections. What was needed was a television version of magic realism, able to speak to the events of the day but in ways that went beyond the documentary.

There are few politicians in The Good Fight, but it remains the most interesting American political series of the past few years. A spin off from The Good Wife —which did have a politician as a central figure, it’s a legal drama set in an African-American law firm in Chicago headed by Liz (Audra McDonald) and Diane (Christine Baranski). That Diane is white, and married to a gun-loving Republican, becomes an on-going issue for the firm.

The fifth series of The Good Fight begins with a survey of 2020, in which COVID — “that thing from China” — the murder of George Floyd and the elections take centre stage.

Viewers of earlier episodes will recognise some of the main characters, although each series introduces new players. This one gives a starring role to Mandy Patinkin as the fake Judge Wackner.

Increasingly, the drama plays out in his parallel court, which dispenses the sort of immediate and sensible justice that the corrupt and choked systems of Cook County, including Chicago, fail to do.

Read more:
At least we’re not being exterminated by alien attack-robots: watching War of the Worlds in a pandemic

The idea of an unofficial court is already a television staple — Judge Judy Scheindlin’s move into reality television comes to mind — but here high mindedness develops into disillusion and ultimately disaster: watch the last episode to see how the series blends reality and fiction.

I watched the most recent episodes of The Good Fight during the latest Melbourne lockdowns, curious whether the sense of outrage at Trump that fuelled so many of the previous series would diminish. But the divisions in the United States that became so marked in the past four years have not gone away, and the series reminds us that despite his rhetoric, Biden has failed to bring the country together.

Solidifying faultlines

If anything, the show suggests that the political and cultural faultlines are solidifying. Over the past two years the show has become oddly bizarre, rather as if the writers of The X Files have wandered into the studios of Robert and Michelle King, the writers and producers of both The Good Wife and The Good Fight.

Their scripts take off from the news headlines and wander into fantasy, but fantasy that seems an acute harbinger of actual events.

The Good Fight stands out for sheer inventiveness, a willingness to take chances that rarely exists in American television dramas. Diane seeks advice from the ghost of Ruth Bader Ginsberg; the firm’s investigator, Jay (Nyambi Nyambi) hears the voices of Frederick Douglas, Karl Marx and Christ.

Read more:
Feminist hero Ruth Bader Ginsburg has been stifled by a new patriarchal construct: the cinema

The show espouses unapologetically progressive politics, but it does so without becoming didactic and at times with remarkable humour (you will need to go back to earlier series to see its skewering of Trump).

It is most challenging in the inclusion of sympathetic characters from the right, such as Diane’s husband (Gary Cole), who may or may not have been implicated in the riots at the Capitol, and the black Republican lawyer, Julius Cain (Michael Boatman), who is imprisoned after a false accusation of bribery, and then pardoned by Trump.

The personal is political

That the personal is the political is evident in Diane’s struggles, both with her right-wing husband and with her colleagues who increasingly question how an African-American law firm can have a white woman as one of their named partners.

If I have an unease with the way the series has developed it is that too much of it revolves around Diane, possibly because Baranski along with Marissa Gold (Sarah Steele) is the only major character to have survived the transition from The Good Wife.

I’ve now spent eight years of my life in the US, having first gone there as a callow graduate student when Lyndon Johnson was president. Like so many other Australians, I fell in love with the country, and my career has been largely shaped by it.

Yet the more I’ve visited, the more foreign it becomes. The Good Fight is exhilarating entertainment and a grim warning of what the US could become.

Dennis Altman 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 Good Fight: exhilarating entertainment and a grim warning of what the US could become – https://theconversation.com/the-good-fight-exhilarating-entertainment-and-a-grim-warning-of-what-the-us-could-become-167804

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Matt Fitzpatrick, Professor in International History, Flinders University

On Sunday, Germans went to the polls to decide who will succeed retiring Angela Merkel as chancellor.

Read more:
From ‘Mädchen’ to ‘Mutti’: as Angela Merkel departs, she leaves a great legacy of leadership

With a very close result as counting continues, it could be weeks or even months before a government is formed. This is what we know so far:

1. Progressive parties were the big winners

Both the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) and the Greens added more than 5% to their vote.

It looks like the CDU has ended up with their worst performance of the post-war period, scoring just 24.1% of the popular vote. This means that the SPD, currently on 25.8%, will have the right to try and form a government.

Few would have suggested 12 months ago the SPD under Olaf Scholz would be in a position to build a government. Having endured a long, grinding period as the junior party in a “grand coalition” with Merkel’s centre-Right Christian Democratic Union (CDU), pundits (including myself) had wondered whether the SPD could survive the serious challenge to their base from the German Greens and a more centrist CDU.

This weekend’s election has shown the party’s resilience in a fragmenting electoral landscape.

2. The CDU paid dearly for fumbling their post-Merkel succession plan

Merkel announced her retirement in 2018, so the CDU had plenty of time to think about succession.

In the last few years, the party had experimented with two Merkel-style centrists. The first, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, quit the leadership in 2020 after a state election in Thuringia saw her party court far-right votes.

After another destabilising party ballot, Armin Laschet — the pick of party apparatchiks — was chosen as leader. Many CDU voters would have preferred the Bavarian state premier Markus Söder, who pulled out of the leadership race in April.

Laschet’s avuncular style of politics failed to gain traction during the campaign, while the deadpan gravitas of the SPD’s Scholz and the urgent politics of the Greens seemed to have struck a chord in sombre times.

3. Even the winners didn’t get what they wanted.

Talk of SPD “triumph” and CDU “failure” is all relative. In reality, the two parties are less than 2% apart and between them only hold about 50% of the national vote — scarcely enough for another grand coalition.

In the last televised debate before the election, Scholz made it clear if he had the chance to build a coalition government, he would prefer to do that with the Greens.

But the SPD won’t be able to form government with the Greens alone. They will need a third party.

4. Coalition-forming talks will be tricky

While coalition governments are the norm in Germany, forming a government won’t be straightforward. There are a number of coalition possibilities with names that often stem from the colours associated with the parties.

Read more:
German election explained: why is it always so hard to form a government?

These include another “grand coalition” of the two biggest parties, the SPD and the CDU, “Kenya” (SPD, CDU, and Green) or, perhaps less likely, “Jamaica” (CDU, Green and the free marketeer Free Democratic Party (FDP)). A “traffic light” coalition (SPD, Green, and FDP) is also possible.

Some had tipped that the socialist Left Party (Die Linke) might have been brought into a ruling coalition of left-wing parties for the first time at the federal level, a so-called “Red-Red-Green” coalition. Even with them, however, Scholz still wouldn’t have enough seats to govern.

Coalition talks have already begun behind the scenes. The main parties also began declaring their conditions for joining a ruling coalition during the election coverage on Sunday night.

5. The minor players remain minor

In the last coalition discussions of 2017, the free marketeer FDP infamously chose to preserve their doctrinal purity rather than take up a role as a junior partner in government.

It would be unsurprising to see them do the same again, with their leader already seeming to have ruled out a so-called “traffic light” coalition with the SPD and the Greens because it wouldn’t deliver the tax cuts the FDP want.

Meanwhile the Left Party had a horror night, losing almost half of their votes, and relying on complicated electoral rules to be able to sit in the German parliament with fewer than the normal 5% of votes required.

6. The far-right vote slipped overall

But at 10.5% nationally, it is worryingly high in some areas, particularly the eastern states of Thuringia, Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt. The far-right Alternative for Germany party are the greatest threat to German democracy, and their voters are not, as some imagine, pensioners who remember the certainties of the old Communist regime fondly. Rather, they are young and middle-aged East Germans who have voted against migration, anti-COVID measures and “the system”.

Read more:
German election: continuing popularity of far-right AfD has roots in east-west divide

All other parties have completely ruled out political cooperation with this pariah party, an encouraging sign after the debacle in Thuringia in 2020, which saw the CDU and FDP flirt with making use of Alternative for Germany votes to support them in state government.

7. Green politics is mainstream

At one stage, the Greens had entertained hopes of winning the election. Even thought they fell well short of this with 14.6% of the vote, the election was fought on their territory, with all of the parties forced to explain their plan for taking Germany to net zero emissions and a green economy.

Their success on the weekend means Germany seems set to continue its support of these goals.

Matt Fitzpatrick receives funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC).

– ref. Germans have voted to replace Angela Merkel — here are 7 ways to understand the results so far – https://theconversation.com/germans-have-voted-to-replace-angela-merkel-here-are-7-ways-to-understand-the-results-so-far-168744

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Freeman, Dermatologist, Associate Professor, Bond University

At the height of her fame in the 1990s, supermodel Linda Evangelista was often quoted as saying she wouldn’t get out of bed for less than $10,000 a day. Now she’s revealed a popular cosmetic procedure has sent her to the “lowest depths of self-loathing”, destroyed her livelihood and made her a recluse because of the changes to her body. She is suing for US$50 million.

The process, called cryolipolysis (or fat freezing) shrinks fat over a few months, after an initial period of redness where the treatment has been applied.

When Evangelista underwent cryolipolysis, she reportedly experienced a side-effect where the fat increases over the months following treatment instead of decreasing. This is called paradoxical adipose hyperplasia. This complication occurs more often in men and more often when older versions of the machine used in the treatment are employed. Manufacturers quote an incidence of 1 in 4,000 cycles, but the real incidence may be more frequent because patients might not report the complication due to lack of awareness.

Cryolipolysis — often referred to by the commercial name CoolSculpting — has gained popularity in recent years. But those considering it should be aware of the potential for rare complications.

Less invasive than liposuction

Before cryolipolysis, liposuction was the only effective therapeutic option for the removal of excess fat tissue. Because liposuction is an invasive procedure and carries the inherent risks associated with surgery, cryolipolysis was developed in 2007 to address body contouring as a less-invasive procedure.

The procedure was conceived after the observation of reduced fat in a child’s cheek after sucking on an ice block. Normally the fat cell numbers are reduced after freezing.

Read more:
Thinking of getting a minor cosmetic procedure like botox or fillers? Here’s what to consider first

Unfortunately, the cause of the opposite effect reportedly experienced by Evangelista is not fully understood. Theories vary from some patients’ fat cells being prone to acting in the opposite way than predicted, to unintended activation of stem cells due to nerve or blood supply issues.

Growing in popularity

Body contouring, or body sculpting, procedures are the fastest growing procedures in cosmetic medicine. Some areas of fat on the body are almost impossible to shrink with diet and weight loss. People with diabetes may also seek treatment for areas that are injected with insulin and can accumulate fat under the skin.

Nonsurgical fat reduction methods include cryolipolysis (often marketed as CoolSculpting), ultrasound (Vaser Shape and Liposonix), and radiofrequency (Vanquish).

The number of body sculpting treatment sessions has risen 68% since 2015. Within body sculpting procedures, cryolipolysis accounted for 45.7% of all body contouring treatments.

Similar undesirable effects — paradoxical adipose hyperplasia — have been reported for non-invasive radiofrequency treatment.

Ultrasound fat reduction has not yet been reported to cause the same adverse effects. However, fat cells can recover after this treatment, making it a temporary reduction in those cases.

Read more:
Want to avoid a botched beauty procedure? This is what you need to be wary of

Many patients may not be aware they have experienced paradoxical adipose hyperplasia because it comes on slowly and may be hidden by general weight gain. They might also just assume the treatment did not work.

In more noticeable cases, the area drawn into the freezing device will, after the redness settles, slowly enlarge and protrude more than it did before the start of treatment. The growth is not steady and within a few months it reaches a maximum size that depends on the patient’s body fat content.

Read more:
How 20th-century ‘rejuvenation’ techniques gave rise to the modern anti-ageing industry

What is safe for people who want to change their shape?

The definitive treatment for unwanted body fat that can’t be improved with exercise is liposuction in a skilled operators’ hands.

Liposuction is an invasive procedure with increased risks including irregularity in the skin’s surface and contour.

Ultrasound therapy may be the safest option to adjust body shape as a primary treatment. It may also be considered for cases of paradoxical adipose hyperplasia although it may only be a temporary solution. Testing the treatment in a small area is advisable first.

Any time you change the body’s balance, you risk creating new problems. Particularly when dealing with fat. When patients put weight on after fat removal procedures, the fat will distend in other areas significantly more than the treated areas and this gives an unusual appearance.

When proceeding with any cosmetic procedure it pays to be well informed and prepared for unwanted outcomes, even if they are rare. Yes, the journey will be much longer when complications occur. The trick is not to go for a quick fix or let negative feelings about appearance override caution and have a competent clinician advising you.

Michael Freeman 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. Linda Evangelista says fat freezing made her a recluse. Cryolipolysis can do the opposite to what’s promised – https://theconversation.com/linda-evangelista-says-fat-freezing-made-her-a-recluse-cryolipolysis-can-do-the-opposite-to-whats-promised-168657

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

In the opening panel of the National Summit on Women’s Safety 2021, Professor Marcia Langton called for a separate national plan to address violence against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women.

Other panels spoke about the importance of perpetrator interventions and engaging men and boys in prevention, particularly those that engage with Aboriginal men. Such programs are important but if they are not based in appropriate frameworks they can be dangerous.

In research conducted between 2018-2020, ten principles of good practice to prevent violence against women were identified through case studies of two Northern Territory programs addressing men’s violence. These principles were developed with practitioners in a series of workshops. One of the areas of focus was accountability for men who use violence.

Read more:
We need a national plan to address family violence against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people

Men’s behaviour change programs in the Northern Territory

Men’s behaviour change programs respond to violence by working with men who have used violence. Other programs seek to engage men and boys as allies in violence prevention.

Currently there are only two behaviour change programs in the Northern Territory and very few programs that engage men and boys in violence prevention. More are desperately needed.

However it is not enough to simply have these programs – they must be safe and effective.

Approximately 300 Northern Territorians contributed to the development of principles of good practice to prevent violence against women. These have been communicated in a framework called “Hopeful, Together, Strong”.

These principles of good practice show that to be effective programs must be:

• holistic, community-driven and culturally safe
• sustainable and educational
• be framework- and theory-informed
• involve multi-agency collaboration
• be strengths-based and accessible
• require accountability from men who use violence.

These principles came from practice-based knowledge of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and non-Indigenous practitioners. Panel discussions at the Women’s Safety Summit spoke of the same principles, with discussions of the need for community-driven, holistic, culturally safe approaches.

A study of two programs that work with men

The first program studied is the Marra’ka Mbarintja Men’s Behaviour Change program run by Tangentyere Council Aboriginal Corporation in Mparntwe/Alice Springs. This men’s behaviour change program is for Aboriginal and non-Indigenous men who have used violence.

The study found this men’s behaviour change program was promising and showed evidence of assisting the community to move through the stages of change.

Particular strengths of this program were its culturally safe approach, its use of assertive outreach, its emphasis on women and children’s safety and holding men accountable for their use of violence.

This program has since developed Central Australian Minimum Standards for men’s behaviour change programs. Despite the promising indications of program effectiveness, this program is under-funded, under-staffed, and under-resourced.

The second program studied will not be named to allow them the opportunity to put in place the research recommendations. This prevention program seeks to engage men in violence prevention by delivering training and sessions to Aboriginal and non-Indigenous men in regional and remote Northern Territory communities. In an effort to raise awareness, this program educates men about different types of violence.

Despite being well-funded, well-intended, and having a strong geographical reach, the research found this prevention program to be ineffective and often collusive with men’s violence against women. This was due to program staff having no expertise or training in domestic, family and sexual violence.

This led staff to minimising and/or condoning men’s use of violence in training sessions and using language like “women are just as bad”.

This is an inaccurate claim, considering women are nearly three times more likely to experience intimate partner violence than men; almost ten women a day are hospitalised from assault by a partner; and Indigenous women are hospitalised due to family violence at three times the rate of Indigenous males.

Therefore this program’s training sessions often reinforced harmful and incorrect attitudes and beliefs which could drive further violence against women.

Comparing these two vastly different programs highlights the importance of minimum standards for programs working with men to prevent violence. Appropriate frameworks for these programs need to be built from evidence about what works, particularly in remote communities and alongside First Nations people.

If not conducted correctly, programs working with men can put women and children at continued risk. Funding and support should be directed to programs that can show evidence of being grounded in frameworks of good practice.

Read more:
Men are more likely to commit violent crimes. Why is this so and how do we change it?

The importance of community-driven programs

Prioritising the safety of women and children must be at the forefront of everything any men’s program does. This includes elevating the voices of survivors and the inclusion of women in leadership. In particular, the perspectives of Aboriginal women must inform these programs, and Aboriginal people and communities must have decision-making roles in their governance.

When women’s voices are not included, there is no chance to model gender equality in relationships. In the case of men’s behaviour change programs, without women’s insights, the opportunity for accurately monitoring and assessing risks has been lost. If only the man’s assessment of risk is heard, there is no way to tell if the potential for violence is escalating. This can lead to staff minimising a man’s use of violence.

Staff employed in these programs working with men must be given comprehensive, ongoing training. This is to minimise the risk of collusion and to empower staff to challenge men’s use of or justification of violence. Understanding why some men minimise and justify their behaviour is a skill that specialist facilitators constantly work at. They need to balance holding men accountable within a non-shaming and non-judgemental space so men are able to explore and take ownership of their behaviour.

Programs working with men must also address additional drivers of violence against Aboriginal women, such as the ongoing impacts of colonisation on Indigenous people and communities. Programs must be equipped with an understanding of intergenerational trauma and how colonisation has undermined gender roles and relations in First Nations communities, and respond to the gendered impacts of these compounding traumas.

The ongoing impacts of colonisation on non-Indigenous people and society also drives violence against Indigenous women. Colonisation has created systems and structures which privilege non-Indigenous people and reinforces power imbalances between them and Indigenous people. Programs working with men must therefore take an intersectional approach, and in addition to gendered drivers, address structural and racist violence.

We must also engage men and boys in preventing violence against women.
On day two of the Women’s Safety Summit, Thelma Schwartz expressed the sentiment that men are not always the problem, they can be the solution.

The ANROWS Warawarni-gu guma statement says:

We invite our men, our brothers, uncles and cultural leaders to stand with us, to come together to work on solutions for us all, our young ones, our men and women together.

A good example of this is the partnership between Darwin Indigenous Men’s Service and the Darwin Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Women’s Shelter. This partnership shows how communities can work together to break the cycle of violence.

However, such local strategies are rarely given the opportunity to build their capacity and become effective programs, through a lack of government support.

To create and support community-led violence prevention programs, Indigenous people must be involved in conducting the research and informing what is best practice in their respective communities. Kinship and traditional Aboriginal family structures and ways of maintaining relationships, must be integrated into these practices.

We need place-based models, conceived, designed, and delivered by the community for the community.

Chay Brown receives funding from ANROWS and the Australian National University Gender Institute.

Desmond Campbell is affiliated with Our Watch as a Board Member.

– ref. Not all men’s violence prevention programs are effective: why women’s voices need to be included – https://theconversation.com/not-all-mens-violence-prevention-programs-are-effective-why-womens-voices-need-to-be-included-167639

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tony Walker, Vice-chancellor’s fellow, La Trobe University

An accelerating arms race in the Indo-Pacific is all but guaranteed now that China finds itself a target of new security arrangements — AUKUS and the Quad — aimed at containing its power and influence.

This has the makings of a new great game in the region in which rival powers are no longer in the business of pretending things can continue as they are.

The AUKUS agreement, involving Australia, the US and UK to counter China’s rise means a military power balance in the Indo-Pacific will come more sharply into focus.

The region has been re-arming at rates faster than other parts of the world due largely to China’s push to modernise its defence capabilities.

In their latest surveys, the London-based International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS) and the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) report no let-up in military spending in the Indo-Pacific. This is despite the pandemic.

SIPRI notes a 47% increase in defence spending in the Indo-Pacific in the past decade, led by China and India.

China can be expected to respond to threats posed by the new security arrangements by further expediting its military program.

It will see the formation of AUKUS as yet another attempt to contain its ambitions — and therefore a challenge to its military capabilities.

Read more:
Is it time for a ‘new way of war?’ What China’s army reforms mean for the rest of the world

The Quad makes clear its ambitions

Unambiguously, AUKUS implies a containment policy.

Likewise, the further elevation of the Quad security grouping into a China containment front will play into an atmosphere of heightened security anxiety in the Indo-Pacific.

The four Quad participants – the US, Japan, India and Australia – have their own reasons and agendas for wanting to push back against China.

After their summit last week in Washington, the Quad leaders used words in their joint statement that might be regarded as unexceptional in isolation.

Together with other developments such as AUKUS, however, the language was pointed, to say the least:

Together, we re-commit to promoting the free, open, rules-based order, rooted in international law and undaunted by coercion, to bolster security in the Indo-Pacific and beyond.

The “beyond” part of the statement was not expanded on, but might be read as a commitment to extend the Quad collaboration globally.

Read more:
With vision of a ‘free and open Indo-Pacific’, Quad leaders send a clear signal to China

All this has come together at the dawn of a new US administration whose members include several conspicuous China hawks, and at a moment when China has shown itself to be ever-willing to throw its weight around.

Beijing’s crude campaign against Australian exports in an effort to bend Australia’s policy to its will is a prime example. It is doubtful an AUKUS or an invigorated Quad would have emerged without this development.

The Obama administration talked about pivoting to the Asia-Pacific without putting much meat on the bones.

Under President Joe Biden, this shift will be driven by a hardening in American thinking that now recognises time is running out, and may already have expired, in the US ability to constrain China’s rise.

These are profound geopolitical moments whose trajectory is impossible to predict.

Australia commits fully to China containment

Canberra is now a fully paid-up member of a China containment front, whether it wants to admit it, or not. In the process, it has yielded sovereignty to the US by committing itself to an interlocking web of military procurement decisions that includes the acquisition of a nuclear-propelled submarine fleet.

Read more:
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Whether these submarines are supplied by the US or Britain is a bit immaterial since the technology involved originates in America.

The submarines will not be available for the better part of two decades under the most optimistic forecasts. However, in the meantime, Australia could base US or British submarines in its ports or lease American submarines.

Meanwhile, Australia is committing itself to a range of US-supplied hardware aimed at enhancing the inter-operability of its military with the US.

This is the reality of fateful decisions taken by the Morrison government in recent months. Such a commitment involves a certain level of confidence in America remaining a predictable and steadfast superpower, and not one riven by internal disputes.

Australian defence spending likely to rise

What is absolutely certain in all of this is that an Indo-Pacific security environment will now become more, not less, contentious.

SIPRI notes that in 2020, military spending in Asia totalled $US528 billion (A$725 billion), 62% of which was attributable to China and India.

IISS singled out Japan and Australia, in particular, as countries that were increasing defence spending to take account of China. Tokyo, for example, is budgeting for record spending of $US50 billion (A$68 billion) for 2022-23.

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Australia’s defence spending stands a tick over 2% of GDP in 2021-22 at A$44.6 billion, with plans for further increases in the forward estimates.

However, those projections will now have to be re-worked given the commitments that have been made under AUKUS.

Neglected in the flush of enthusiasm that accompanied the AUKUS announcement is the likely cost of Australia’s new defence spending under a “China containment policy”. It is hard to see these commitments being realised without significant increases in defence allocations to 3-4% of GDP.

This comes at a time when budgets will already be stretched due to relief spending as a consequence of the pandemic.

In addition to existing weapons acquisitions, Canberra has indicated it will ramp up its purchases of longer-range weapons. This includes Tomahawk cruise missiles for its warships and anti-ship missiles for its fighter aircraft.

At the same time, it will work with the US under the AUKUS arrangement to develop hypersonic missiles that would test even the most sophisticated defence systems.

What other Indo-Pacific nations are doing

Many other Indo-Pacific states can now be expected to review their military acquisition programs with the likelihood of a more combative security environment.

Taiwan, for example, is proposing to spend $US8.69 billion (A$11.9 billion) over the next five years on long-range missiles, and increase its inventory of cruise missiles. It is also adding to its arsenal of heavy artillery.

South Korea is actively adding to its missile capabilities. This includes the testing of a submarine-launched ballistic missile.

Seoul has also hinted it might be considering building its own nuclear-propelled submarines (this was among President Moon Jae-in’s election pledges in 2017). Signs that North Korea may have developed a submarine capable of firing ballistic missiles will be concentrating minds in Seoul.

All this indicates how quickly the strategic environment in the Indo-Pacific is shifting.

Australia — perhaps more so than others — is the prime example of a regional player that has put aside a conventional view of a region in flux. It now sees an environment so threatening that a policy of strategic ambiguity between its custodial partner (the US) and most important trade relationship (China) has been abandoned.

The price tag for this in terms of equipment and likely continuing economic fallout for Australian exporters will not come cheap.

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

– ref. New drives to counter China come with a major risk: throwing fuel on the Indo-Pacific arms race – https://theconversation.com/new-drives-to-counter-china-come-with-a-major-risk-throwing-fuel-on-the-indo-pacific-arms-race-168734