Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Crystal Abidin, Associate Professor & ARC DECRA Fellow, Internet Studies, Curtin University

The phrase “OK Boomer” has become popular over the past two years as an all-purpose retort with which young people dismiss their elders for being “old-fashioned”.

“OK Boomer” began as a meme in TikTok videos, but our research shows the catchphrase has become much more. The simple two-word phrase is used to express personal politics and at the same time consolidate an awareness of intergenerational politics, in which Gen Z are coming to see themselves as a cohort with shared interests.

What does ‘OK Boomer’ mean?

The viral growth of the “OK Boomer” meme on social media can be traced to Gen Z musician @peterkuli’s remix OK Boomer, which he uploaded to TikTok in October 2019. The song was widely adopted in meme creations by his Gen Z peers, who call themselves “Zoomers” (the Gen Z cohort born in 1997-2012).

In the two-minute sound clip @peterkuli distilled an already-popular sentiment into a two-word phrase, accusing “Boomers” (those born during the 1946–64 postwar baby boom) of being condescending, being racist and supporting Donald Trump, who was then US president.

Read more:
How TikTok got political

In essence, the “OK Boomer” meme emerged as a shorthand for Gen Z to push back against accusations of being a “fragile” generation unable to deal with hardship. But it has evolved into an all-purpose retort to older generations – but especially Boomers – when they dispense viewpoints perceived as presumptive, condescending or politically incorrect.

The meme arose in a wider context of “Boomer blaming”. In this view, the older generation has bequeathed Gen Z a host of societal issues, from Brexit and Trump to intergenerational economic inequality and climate change.

From ‘big P’ politics to ‘everyday politics’ and ‘intergenerational politics’

In our recent study on forms of online activism and advocacy on TikTok, we looked at 1,755 “OK Boomer” posts from 2019 and 2020 and found young people used the meme to engage in “everyday politics”.

Unlike “big P” politics – the work of governments, parliaments and politicians – “everyday politics” are political interests, pursuits and discussions framed through personal experiences.

On TikTok, young people construct and communicate their “everyday politics” by displaying their personal identities in highly personable ways, to demonstrate solidarity with or challenge beliefs and principles in society.

Read more:
Baby boomers, Gen X, Millennials and Gen Z labels: Necessary or nonsense?

The “OK Boomer” meme and others like it allow young people to partake in a form of “intergenerational politics”. This is the tendency for people from a particular age cohort to form a shared political consciousness and behaviours, usually in opposition to the political attitudes of other groups. This is also reminiscent of when Boomers themselves encountered their own intergenerational politics in the countercultures of the 1960s and 1970s.

Doing ‘politics’ on TikTok

On TikTok, political expression can take the form of viral dances and audio memes. Young people use youthful parlance and lingo, pop cultural references and emojis to shape their collective political culture. In our study, we found three meme forms were especially popular:

• “Lip-sync activism” involved using lip-syncing to overlay one’s facial expressions and gestures over a soundtrack, either in agreement with or to challenge the lyrics and moral tone of a song.

• “Reacts via duets” made use of TikTok’s “duet” function for users to record their own original video clip alongside an original. This a compare-and-contrast style allows for juxtaposition (to oppose the original statement) or collaboration (to add to the original statement).

• “Craft activism” featured users displaying the creative processes and production of “OK Boomer”-themed objects and art, such as drawings, embroidery, and 3D printing.

Conveying hardship and tensions through TikTok memes

Memes have been used as collective symbols for community identification around specific political causes such as human rights advocacy, the #MeToo movement, and anti-racism campaigns during the pandemic.

Similarly, the “OK Boomer” meme has been deployed to discuss various controversial and contentious issues. This is often done in a reflexive way, using self-deprecating memes and ironic self-criticism to parody the excessively judgemental behaviour of others.

Around 40% of the posts we examined focused on young people’s lifestyles and well-being. These posts detailed how Gen Z are often criticised by Boomers for their lifestyle and appearance choices, such as unconventional career pathways and wearing ripped jeans.

Gen Z TikTokers also expressed frustration towards the dismissive attitude that Boomers adopted towards their mental health. These posts suggest Boomers blame depression or anxiety on stereotypical causes such as “spending too much time on the phone” or “not drinking enough water”.

About 10% of our sample demonstrated issues around gender and sexuality norms. In these cases, Gen Z felt their identity explorations and expressions were criticised by Boomers. Non-binary young people and those who did not follow gender norms for dress describe being “dress-coded” by Boomers, and queer and transgender young people report receiving rebukes for being open about their sexuality.

Why do ‘OK Boomer’ memes matter?

Some scholars and commentators have criticised the “OK Boomer” meme as divisive and discriminatory against older people. However, as scholars of young people’s digital cultures we have found it more productive to understand the trend from the standpoint of Gen Z.

From this viewpoint, “OK Boomer” is a consequence of existing intergenerational discord, not its cause. Gen Z face growing threats such as climate change, political unrest, and generational economic hardship. Memes like “OK Boomer” are ways to express intergenerational everyday politics to consolidate a shared awareness of the perceived failure of the Boomers.

Read more:
Generational war: a monster of our own making

Further, most of the personal stories told through “OK Boomer” TikToks were deployed by Gen Z when they felt under attack for their lifestyle choices, dress code, expressions of sexuality, or mental health struggles. Like many Boomers did in their own youths, members of Gen Z value freedom of expression and identity exploration.

The retort of “OK Boomer” offers a counter-reaction and expresses indignation. But at the same time it carries a sense of desperation for agency and personal space, as well as some attention and care.

Crystal Abidin receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

Meg Jing Zeng 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. ‘OK Boomer’: how a TikTok meme traces the rise of Gen Z political consciousness – https://theconversation.com/ok-boomer-how-a-tiktok-meme-traces-the-rise-of-gen-z-political-consciousness-165811

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Theodore E. (Ted) Zorn, Professor of Organisational Communication, Massey University

Most people use email frequently in their work, even more during lockdowns and with increased working from home. And all of us have heard tips for “netiquette” — those helpful hints for avoiding offence or miscommunication in the messages we send.

But here’s the thing. Offence is taken as well as given. Neither good intentions nor perfect email etiquette will necessarily avoid problems.

This is because email readers are often subject to what’s called “negative intensification bias”. They often read into messages negativity the sender didn’t intend, or they exaggerate even a hint of negativity.

Office workers spend about 2.5 hours a day reading, writing and responding to email. The vast majority report at least occasionally receiving emails they’d describe as offensive or disrespectful — in one study, 91% reported receiving such emails from their boss.

Given the volume of workplace emails, an occasional negative exchange is probably inevitable. However, certain features of email may make matters worse, increasing the likelihood of miscommunication and conflict escalation.

For example, compared to face-to-face communication, email entails delayed feedback. In face-to-face communication we’re better able to monitor and repair misunderstandings in real time.

Emails also involve reduced “social presence” — the perception the other person is real and “there” in the interaction. Delayed feedback increases the chances of misunderstanding, and low social presence can lower inhibitions and encourage angry replies or “flaming”.

The risk of unintended meanings

Everyone who sends and receives email at work knows the problems that can arise. A Google search will find hundreds of articles about how to avoid them. And there’s good reason for all that attention.

Workplace emails that people consider rude, insulting or impolite create stress, detract from productivity and affect wellbeing — even outside the workplace.

Read more:
Ten rules of email that will reduce your stress levels

Email etiquette advice includes minimising “reply all” responses, being cautious with humour, assuming the message is not confidential and asking a colleague to read a difficult message before sending.

All sensible, but it gives the mistaken impression that constructing tactful messages is all that’s needed. It ignores the fact that people receiving email messages are active processors of information who bring their own sensitivities and background knowledge to their interpretation of a message.

Perceiving negativity

In our research, we asked 276 adults in New Zealand and Australia who used email regularly at work to provide an example of an email they had received that either conveyed or prompted negative emotion.

We asked them questions about the email and then asked objective observers to read the same messages. We found people who had received the emails directly rated the messages far more negatively than did the observers.

The difference was even greater when the participant’s organisation had a climate in which negative communication was common and when the email sender was in a higher position of power.

This shows a negative intensification bias — that is, an inclination to “read in” more negativity than is apparent in the objective features of the message. It shows context and relationships can influence just how much negativity we perceive.

Read more:
Not dead yet: how email has survived and continues to thrive

Power dynamics matter

Some of the examples would be seen as negative by nearly everyone: “F*** you and your performance assessments!”

But many were outwardly civil and even polite: “We acknowledge that our request has a very short timeline and certainly appreciate that you are very busy.” Or, “Just wondering why no update has been received. No news is good news hopefully!”

In fact, a lack of overtly negative features in a message was a poor predictor of people’s negative perceptions.

Hyper-negative interpretations were most likely to come into play with ambiguous messages that could be interpreted in multiple ways.

Read more:
Ten ways to get on top of your overloaded email inbox that actually work

This was especially true when the messages were short and impersonal and when the messages were from higher-ups in the organisation making requests or issuing directives, or when there was already tension in the relationship.

Interestingly, people’s awareness of the need for email etiquette seems to raise their expectation of what is acceptable. The participants’ explanations for why an email was seen as negative often cited rules for appropriate email behaviour.

Making email safe again

Because as a society we have developed views of what’s acceptable, a hastily written or abbreviated message can be read as an intentional slight.

If organisations want to reduce the likelihood of conflict over email communication, training in writing effective emails needs to be matched with similar attention to receiving email messages and the likelihood of negative intensification bias.

Read more:
Tackling burnout: How to deal with stress and safety in the workplace

It is impossible for even the most sensitive writer to anticipate all potential causes of offence. Communication training should aim to heighten awareness of the many opportunities for misinterpretation in email and the tendency of receivers to read unintended negativity.

Acknowledging the role of power dynamics and the general climate in an organisation will also help. Demonstrating how internal tensions can be perceived in something as seemingly “innocent” as a brief email can also help improve workplace relationships in general.

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

– ref. It’s all too easy to be offended by an innocent work email — but there are ways to avoid it – https://theconversation.com/its-all-too-easy-to-be-offended-by-an-innocent-work-email-but-there-are-ways-to-avoid-it-165961

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Graeme Gillespie, Honorary Research Fellow, The University of Melbourne

Australia is home to more than 240 frog species, most of which occur nowhere else. Unfortunately, some frogs are beyond help, with four Australian species officially listed as extinct.

This includes two remarkable species of gastric-brooding frog. To reproduce, gastric-brooding frogs swallowed their fertilised eggs, and later regurgitated tiny baby frogs. Their reproduction was unique in the animal kingdom, and now they are gone.

Our new study published today, identified the 26 Australian frogs at greatest risk, the likelihood of their extinctions by 2040 and the steps needed to save them.

Tragically, we have identified an additional three frog species that are very likely to be extinct. Another four species on our list are still surviving, but not likely to make it to 2040 without help.

The 26 most imperilled frogs

The striking yellow-spotted tree frog (in southeast Australia), the northern tinker frog and the mountain mist frog (both in Far North Queensland) are not yet officially listed as extinct – but are very likely to be so. We estimated there is a greater than 90% chance they are already extinct.

The next four most imperilled species are hanging on in the wild by their little frog fingers: the southern corroboree frog and Baw Baw frog in the Australian Alps, and the Kroombit tinker frog and armoured mist frog in Queensland’s rainforests.

The southern corroboree frog, for example, was formerly found throughout Kosciuszko National Park in the Snowy Mountains. But today, there’s only one small wild population known to exist, due largely to an introduced disease.

Without action it is more likely than not (66% chance) the southern corroboree frog will become extinct by 2040.

What are we up against?

Species are suffering from a range of threats. But for our most recent extinctions and those now at greatest risk, the biggest cause of declines is the amphibian chytrid fungus disease.

This introduced fungus is thought to have arrived in Australia in the 1970s and has taken a heavy toll on susceptible species ever since. Cool wet environments, such as rainforest-topped mountains in Queensland where frog diversity is particularly high, favour the pathogen.

The fungus feeds on the keratin in frogs’ skin — a major organ that plays a vital role in regulating moisture, exchanging respiratory gases, immunity, and producing sunscreen-like substances and chemicals to deter predators.

Another major emerging threat is climate change, which heats and dries out moist habitats. It’s affecting 19 of the imperilled species we identified, such as the white-bellied frog in Western Australia, which develops tadpoles in little depressions in waterlogged soil.

Climate change is also increasing the frequency, extent and intensity of fires, which have impacted half (13) of the identified species in recent years. The Black Summer fires ravaged swathes of habitat where fires should rarely occur, such as mossy alpine wetlands inhabited by the northern corroboree frog.

Invasive species impact ten frog species. For the spotted tree frog in southern Australia, introduced fish such as brown and rainbow trout are the main problem, as they’re aggressive predators of tadpoles. In northern Australia, feral pigs often wreak havoc on delicate habitats.

So what can we do about it?

We identified the key actions that can feasibly be implemented in time to save these species. This includes finding potential refuge sites from chytrid and from climate change, reducing bushfire risks and reducing impacts of introduced species.

But for many species, these actions alone aren’t enough. Given the perilous state of some species in the wild, captive conservation breeding programs are also needed. But they cannot be the end goal.

Captive breeding programs can not only establish insurance populations, they can also help a species persist in the wild by supplying frogs to establish populations at new suitable sites.

Boosting numbers in existing wild populations with captive bred frogs improves their chance of survival. Not only are there more frogs, but also greater genetic diversity. This means the frogs have a better chance of adapting to new conditions, including climate change and emerging diseases.

Our knowledge of how to breed frogs in captivity has improved dramatically in recent decades, but we need to invest in doing this for more frog species.

Finding and creating wild refuges

Another vital way to help threatened frogs persist in the wild is by protecting, creating and expanding natural refuge areas. Refuges are places where major threats are eliminated or reduced enough to allow a population to survive long term.

For the spotted-tree frog, work is underway to prevent the destruction of frog breeding habitat by deer, and to prevent tadpoles being eaten by introduced predatory fish species. These actions will also help many other frog species as well.

The chytrid fungus can’t be controlled, but fortunately it does not thrive in all environments. For example, in the warmer parts of species’ range, pathogen virulence may be lower and frog resilience may be higher.

Chytrid fungus completely wiped out the armoured mist frog from its cool, wet heartland in the uplands of the Daintree Rainforest. But, a small population was found surviving at a warmer, more open site where the chytrid fungus is less virulent. Conservation for this species now focuses on these warmer sites.

This strategy is now being used to identify potential refuges from chytrid for other frog species, such as the northern corroboree frog.

No time to lose

We missed the window to save the gastric-brooding frogs, but we should heed their cautionary tale. We are on the cusp of losing many more unique species.

Decline can happen so rapidly that, for many species, there is no time to lose. Apart from the unknown ecological consequences of their extinctions, the intrinsic value of these frogs means their losses will diminish our natural legacy.

In raising awareness of these species we hope we will spark new action to save them. Unfortunately, despite persisting and evolving independently for millions of years, some species can now no longer survive without our help.

Graeme Gillespie is employed by the NT Government, and is the President of the Australian Society Herpetologists.

This research has been funded at various points by: Queensland Government Community Sustainability Action Grant, National Environmental Research Program (NERP) Grant, Mohamed bin Zayed Species Conservation Fund

Hayley Geyle receives funding from the National Environmental Science Program through the Threatened Species Recovery Hub.

Jaana Dielenberg works for the Threatened Species Recovery Hub which receives funding from the Australian Government’s National Environmental Science Program.

Nicola Mitchell receives funding from the National Environmental Science Program through the Threatened Species Recovery Hub, and is a member of the Commonwealth Threatened Species Scientific Committee.

Stephen Garnett receives funding from the National Environment Science Program Threatened Species Recovery hub

– ref. We name the 26 Australian frogs at greatest risk of extinction by 2040 — and how to save them – https://theconversation.com/we-name-the-26-australian-frogs-at-greatest-risk-of-extinction-by-2040-and-how-to-save-them-166339

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Aidan Ricketts, Lecturer, School of Law and Justice, Southern Cross University

Prime Minister Scott Morrison recently gave reporters in Canberra a “lesson” in what kinds of protest he thinks work best.

Last week, he condemned Extinction Rebellion protesters who sprayed graffiti on Parliament House and the Lodge, set fire to a pram and superglued themselves to the ground, demanding more action on climate change. Morrison described this as “foolishness” and not the “Australian way”.

That is not the way we go forward.

In the same breath, he praised the efforts of a woman — Frances — who holds a “strong climate target = strong economy” placard outside parliament (incidentally, she is also an Extinction Rebellion member).

She’s there almost every morning and she makes this point every day, and she gives me a wave and she gives me a smile. I’ll tell you what, I’m listening to her.

Without diminishing Frances’ efforts, evidence around what form of protest is most effective in promoting social and political change suggests disruptive protests tend to be the game changers once avenues for polite protest prove ineffective.

Disruptive protests

Disruptive protests are broadly defined as actions aimed at stopping or delaying a controversial activity. Violent protest is rare in Australia, especially in relation to environmental protests, so here we are really talking about non-violent disruptive protest, often called “non-violent direct action”.

The most familiar forms of disruptive protest are physically disruptive protests such as blockades, sit-ins, lock-ons, and graffiti. More recently, less physical and more sophisticated forms of disruptive protest can include corporate campaigns targeting consumers, investors and businesses, or campaigns that involve strategic litigation.

If we think back on the big successful social movement campaigns — the suffragettes, civil rights movement in the United States, 1966 Wave Hill station walk off led by Vincent Lingiari and Freedom riders in Australia, Vietnam war opposition, Franklin River protests and the Bentley blockade that stopped fracking in the Northern Rivers of NSW in 2014 — they all involved disruptive protests.

The power of disruption

Social movements aim to alert, educate and inspire the population while putting pressure on power-holders to give in to their demands for change. Disruptive protests can be the spark that gains attention, stops destructive work and ignites political pressure.

In the first instance, disruptive campaigns are designed so that the action has an impact in its own right. For example, a blockade might stop environmental destruction.

Read more:
‘Lock-on devices’ are a symbol of non-violent protest, but they might soon be banned in Queensland

The process of disruption then becomes newsworthy and stimulates further debate and political pressure. In the case of corporate targets, disruptive protest may focus unwanted attention on the company’s practices. In the case of a government target, it will focus attention on policies or behaviours that protestors believe need to change.

More passive forms of protest (writing letters, signing petitions, talking to politicians, building community support) can work with or without disruptive tactics. But they often require many years of campaigning to produce the groundswell necessary to achieve change. Australia’s marriage equality campaign is a good example of a successful long campaign of this kind.

Why you need more than graffiti

It would be a mistake, however, to think disruptive protests by themselves bring about social change — the process is more complex than that.

Non-violent direct action is most powerful when it is integrated within an intelligent social movement campaign that is reaching out to the public with accurate information, coherent framing of the issue and ready to apply political pressure when the opportunity arises.

The rolling protests as part of the campaign against the Adani mine are a good example of direct action.

The hazards of being too disruptive

Politicians don’t like to admit that disruptive protest can lead to political change. Our leaders obviously have an interest in maintaining their authority, and not giving the impression that protesters have power and influence.

There is a need to be cautious, though. Disruptive protest works best when it disrupts the target activity itself, and less well when it disrupts the lives of ordinary citizens.

For example, in Australia, blocking roads and intersections by some environmental or animal rights groups has not resulted in winning hearts and minds.

It’s also worth noting that anti-lockdown protests during COVID are not gaining widespread support. This is because they are about hyper-individualist demands, rather than society-wide needs.

The ‘scream test’

We can also find out what works by looking at the “scream test” — or how much governments and corporations react to protesters. In recent years, those screams have manifested as a slew of anti-protest laws. This follows sustained activism against the mining industry in particular.

While Morrison may laud protesters that he can wave to from the safety of his Comcar window, his government has been very active in opposing effective forms of protest.

Read more:
Is protesting during the pandemic an ‘essential’ right that should be protected?

In recent years, federal legislation has restricted non-government organisations that rely on tax deductible donations from engaging in political advocacy. These are pointedly intended to restrict anti-mining groups like Lock the Gate, but also inhibit the advocacy work of charities such as St Vincent de Paul. In 2019, a new law was introduced, preventing protesters from using social media to organise gatherings that disrupt certain kinds of businesses.

In 2018, parliament passed legislation to restrict satirical parodies of government policy such as Juice Media’s popular honest government ads.

Legislation has also been suggested to prevent environmental groups from campaigning to stop financial institutions from investing in fossil fuel and limiting environmental groups from taking mining and forestry companies to court.

Legal backlash

At the state level, following the Bentley blockade, the NSW government introduced legislation to increase fines for protests that disrupt business and the possibility of jail terms for mining and fracking protests.

Lock-on devices have also been a target of anti-protest laws, with specific legislation introduced in Queensland and NSW. Tasmania introduced some of the most severe anti-protest laws in 2014. These were struck down by the High Court in 2017, because it found) they breached the constitutionally implied freedom of political communication.

If we want to know what kinds of protests work, we need to follow the backlash, rather than the kinds of protest the the prime minister would prefer.

Aidan Ricketts is a participatory action researcher who has worked with many protest organisations in the past including North East Forest Alliance and Lock the Gate and Gasfield Free Northern Rivers

Aidan is also an ordinary member of the Greens NSW.

– ref. Can a polite sign lead to political change? What kinds of protest work? – https://theconversation.com/can-a-polite-sign-lead-to-political-change-what-kinds-of-protest-work-166023

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hassan Vally, Associate Professor, La Trobe University

We’re currently in the midst of one of the most challenging times during the pandemic in Australia, and we’re all struggling.

Frustration with the situation is at an all-time high and questions are being raised about all aspects of our response.

One of the areas that has received a great deal of attention is the “COVID-zero” approach which has defined Australia’s response to the pandemic. In particular, questions have been raised about the sustainability of this strategy.

Some of this commentary has been a bit hard to make sense of, and has conflated where we’ve been, where we are now, and where we are heading.

Some people think we can live more freely with the virus without losing control of transmission and causing escalating numbers of infections, ICU admissions and deaths. But this is not a choice we have until enough of us are vaccinated.

Read more:
Why I no longer think we can eliminate COVID – public health expert

Don’t forget COVID-zero has been an overwhelming success

In terms of where we’ve been, it’s clear the COVID-zero approach has been an overwhelming success.

In adopting this strategy, we’ve been able to avoid the disease burden and deaths that other parts of the world have endured. Many parts of the country have been able to enjoy long periods living relatively normally, a luxury not many places have had.

Even our economy is in far better shape than most could have hoped for and certainly it’s doing better than many others around the world.

All of this was achieved because we squashed transmission so effectively.

If an alternative strategy had been pursued, the results aren’t something you’d need to imagine — you only have to look to the United Kingdom and the United States to see the stark and tragic reality of what would have happened.

Although it clearly has been a tough time for all of us, it could have been much worse.

A number of those questioning the COVID-zero approach seem to think there’s a choice of living more freely and not having the virus spread uncontrollably and causing widespread illness and deaths.

But this isn’t true based on our understanding of how COVID spreads, particularly with the Delta variant. This virus is just too infectious to be able to keep in check in the community.

Scientists think it’s around 50% more contagious than the Alpha variant, originating in the UK, which was more infectious than the original strain. This makes contact tracing so much harder.

There’s no better evidence of how difficult it is to control the transmission of the virus than what we’re seeing happening in NSW right now.

Read more:
Modelling suggests going early and going hard will save lives and help the economy

We’re still in an unstable situation

The number of fully vaccinated people isn’t even close to the levels required to attenuate transmission. Only 28% of people over 16 have been fully vaccinated.

The recent Doherty Institute modelling suggests lockdowns become much less likely once upwards of 70-80% of the eligible population is fully vaccinated.

Read more:
Vaccination rate needs to hit 70% to trigger easing of restrictions

Right now, we still have a very infectious virus circulating in a mostly non-immune population.

Metaphorically, we’re in a tinder dry bush on a hot summer’s day where one spark can lead to a raging bushfire.

While this unstable dynamic exists, living with the virus isn’t an option.

The only option is to respond aggressively and eliminate the virus in order to enjoy some freedoms while we wait for the effect of vaccines to kick in. The alternative is to risk what we’re seeing in NSW, which is incredibly concerning even with significant restrictions.

We keep seeing the benefits of going early and hard, and with the emergence of the Delta variant this seems to be more true than ever.

We’ll get through this, if we stay the course

Getting high vaccination coverage will be the game changer.

When vaccination levels increase, the unstable situation we are currently in moves more towards an equilibrium. Then, the drivers for infection are more counterbalanced by immunity in the population.

When we get vaccine coverage to high levels and the majority of the vulnerable population are immunised, we can start to have more confidence any community transmission can be contained and we can contemplate living with the virus. Then, you can start to safely increase your tolerance for cases circulating in the community.

Most importantly, this is the time when we all have to make the significant mental shift from treating COVID like a pandemic disease, to treating it just like another endemic infection such as influenza.

There may still be some spot fires to put out as we open up and take on more risk of exposure to COVID. But at this point, more targeted public health responses will be able to address outbreaks and the need for the brutal sledgehammer of lockdowns will be largely behind us.

So, while talk of relaxing restrictions and living with the virus are premature, we should be reassured the time for this isn’t too far away.

Getting vaccines into people is the priority and the faster we do this, the faster we move to the final phase of the pandemic in this country.

The pandemic has been a marathon, and we have collectively hit the wall. But if we push through and get vaccination coverage up past 70%, the end is in sight.

Hassan Vally 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. Should we give up on COVID-zero? Until most of us are vaccinated, we can’t live with the virus – https://theconversation.com/should-we-give-up-on-covid-zero-until-most-of-us-are-vaccinated-we-cant-live-with-the-virus-166269

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adam Smith, Adjunct Associate Professor, James Cook University

Snorkellers on the Great Barrier Reef have discovered a huge coral more than 400 years old which is thought to have survived 80 major cyclones, numerous coral bleaching events and centuries of exposure to other threats. We describe the discovery in research published today.

Our team surveyed the hemispherical structure, which comprises small marine animals and calcium carbonate, and found it’s the Great Barrier Reef’s widest coral, and one of the oldest.

It was discovered off the coast of Goolboodi (Orpheus Island), part of Queensland’s Palm Island Group. Traditional custodians of the region, the Manbarra people, have called the structure Muga dhambi, meaning “big coral”.

For now, Muga dhambi is in relatively good health. But climate change, declining water quality and other threats are taking a toll on the Great Barrier Reef. Scientists, Traditional Owners and others must keep a close eye on this remarkable, resilient structure to ensure it is preserved for future generations.

Far older than European settlement

Muga dhambi is located in a relatively remote, rarely visited and highly protected marine area. It was found during citizen science research in March this year, on a reef slope not far from shore.

We conducted a literature review and consulted other scientists to compare the size, age and health of the structure with others in the Great Barrier Reef and internationally.

We measured the structure at 5.3 metres tall and 10.4 metres wide. This makes it 2.4 metres wider than the widest Great Barrier Reef coral previously measured by scientists.

Muga dhambi is of the coral genus Porites and is one of a large group of corals known as “massive Porites”. It’s brown to cream in colour and made of small, stony polyps.

These polyps secrete layers of calcium carbonate beneath their bodies as they grow, forming the foundations upon which reefs are built.

Muga dhambi’s height suggests it is aged between 421 and 438 years old – far pre-dating European exploration and settlement of Australia. We made this calculation based on rock coral growth rates and annual sea surface temperatures.

The Australian Institute of Marine Science has investigated more than 328 colonies of massive Porites corals along the Great Barrier Reef and has aged the oldest at 436 years. The institute has not investigated the age of Muga dhambi, however the structure is probably one of the oldest on the Great Barrier Reef.

Other comparatively large massive Porites have previously been found throughout the Pacific. One exceptionally large colony in American Samoa measured 17m × 12m. Large Porites have also been found near Taiwan and Japan.

Resilient, but under threat

We reviewed environmental events over the past 450 years and found Muga dhambi is unusually resilient. It has survived up to 80 major cyclones, numerous coral bleaching events and centuries of exposure to invasive species, low tides and human activity.

About 70% of Muga dhambi consisted of live coral, but the remaining 30% was dead. This section, at the top of the structure, was covered with green boring sponge, turf algae and green algae.

Coral tissue can die from exposure to sun at low tides or warm water. Dead coral can be quickly colonised by opportunistic, fast growing organisms, as is the case with Muga dhambi.

Green boring sponge invades and excavates corals. The sponge’s advances will likely continue to compromise the structure’s size and health.

We found marine debris at the base of Muga dhambi, comprising rope and three concrete blocks. Such debris is a threat to the marine environment and species such as corals.

We found no evidence of disease or coral bleaching.

Read more:
The Great Barrier Reef is in trouble. There are a whopping 45 reasons why

‘Old man’ of the sea

A Traditional Owner from outside the region took part in our citizen science training which included surveys of corals, invertebrates and fish. We also consulted the Manbarra Traditional Owners about and an appropriate cultural name for the structure.

Before recommending Muga dhambi, the names the Traditional Owners considered included:

• Muga (big)
• Wanga (home)
• Muugar (coral reef)
• Dhambi (coral)
• Anki/Gurgu (old)
• Gulula (old man)
• Gurgurbu (old person).

Indigenous languages are an integral part of Indigenous culture, spirituality, and connection to country. Traditional Owners suggested calling the structure Muga dhambi would communicate traditional knowledge, language and culture to other Indigenous people, tourists, scientists and students.

Read more:
How Traditional Owners and officials came together to protect a stunning stretch of WA coast

A wonder for all generations

No database exists for significant corals in Australia or globally. Cataloguing the location of massive and long-lived corals can be benefits.

For example from a scientific perspective, it can allow analyses which can help understand century-scale changes in ocean events and can be used to verify climate models. Social and economic benefits can include diving tourism and citizen science, as well as engaging with Indigenous culture and stewardship.

However, cataloguing the location of massive corals could lead to them being damaged by anchoring, research and pollution from visiting boats.

Looking to the future, there is real concern for all corals in the Great Barrier Reef due to threats such as climate change, declining water quality, overfishing and coastal development. We recommend monitoring of Muga dhambi in case restoration is needed in future.

We hope our research will mean current and future generations care for this wonder of nature, and respect the connections of Manbarra Traditional Owners to their Sea Country.

Read more:
Not declaring the Great Barrier Reef as ‘in danger’ only postpones the inevitable

Adam Smith received funding from the Australian Government’s Reef Trust and the Great Barrier Reef Foundation to conduct this research. Adam is Deputy Chair of the Museum of Underwater Art.

Nathan Cook received funding the partnership between the Australian Government’s Reef Trust and the Great Barrier Reef Foundation to conduct this research. Research was conducted in partnership with Reef Check Australia as part of their reef monitoring program.

Vicki Saylor 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. Snorkellers discover rare, giant 400-year-old coral – one of the oldest on the Great Barrier Reef – https://theconversation.com/snorkellers-discover-rare-giant-400-year-old-coral-one-of-the-oldest-on-the-great-barrier-reef-166278

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kathryn Shine, Journalism Discipline Lead, Curtin University

For many teachers, news coverage of education seems to be unrelentingly negative. They say this is particularly noticeable in reporting of results of standardised tests such as NAPLAN and the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), which seems to place most of the blame for perceived problems on them.

Australian students have reportedly been falling behind many other countries in literacy and numeracy in the PISA tests, for years. The results are nuanced, but the reporting often isn’t. For instance, Australia’s score in science in PISA 2015 was 510, significantly above the OECD average of 493. But the reports tend to focus on areas where we have fallen behind than other countries, rather than where Australia may have done well.

Read more:
PISA results don’t look good, but before we panic let’s look at what we can learn from the latest test

There is constant anxiety our education system is going downhill and needs urgent improvement.

In my interviews with Australian schoolteachers, most of the participants accepted standardised testing was necessary. But they opposed the results of NAPLAN testing being released due to the inevitable comparisons of student progress and schools in the related news coverage.

A growing body of research from Australia and overseas suggests teachers’ perceptions about education news are justified. Education news focuses on student discipline, teacher quality, comparisons of testing results and standards. All these subjects tend to be framed negatively.

While individual success stories of students, teachers or schools are celebrated, they are usually portrayed as the exception.

What teachers say

In my 2017 study, I interviewed 25 teachers from around Australia about their perceptions of news reporting of education — 88% of participants considered it to be predominantly negative.

A teacher from a Queensland public school acknowledged that from “time to time” good news stories about schools did appear but said most the coverage was

shock, horror, look at all these dreadful things that are happening in the school system.

The mostly negative portrayal presented in major metropolitan news outlets was unfair and inaccurate, according to the teachers, and the positive elements tended to be overlooked.

One used the reporting of testing results as an example:

When the NAPLAN data was published our federal minister had quite a lot of material published about how we were slipping down the league tables, but when our 15 year-olds were rated the fifth top all rounders [in the PISA tests] […] that barely got a squeak.

Several participants referred to the prevalence of news coverage that portrayed teachers as low achievers.

We continually hear about low entrance scores to get into teaching. We continually hear about teacher under-performance.

Some of those interviewed believed teachers were treated differently to other professionals in news coverage, and were subjected to greater scrutiny and pressure. “What I do each day is questioned at every level,” one teacher said.

A particular frustration related to news coverage that did not capture the true nature of contemporary teaching. A principal argued there was “an absolute failure” on the part of the news media to recognise the complexity of teachers’ work. She said:

Teachers are not going to school, they are going to work and it’s highly complex and highly technological.

Other Australian research has found some teachers have named misleading and negative reporting of education as a factor in their decision to quit teaching.

Parents feel the same way

Our new research has found some Australian parents share teachers’ views. Of the survey group of 268 teachers and 206 parents, 85% of teachers and 74% of parents considered news coverage of the Australian education system to be generally negative.

Half of the parents surveyed reported feeling demoralised by such reporting. For teachers, that figure increased to 81%.

Read more:
PISA doesn’t define education quality, and knee-jerk policy proposals won’t fix whatever is broken

Significantly, we also found positive news can be inspiring. Around 64% of both teachers and parents reported they feel inspired “quite a bit” or “a lot” when they encounter a positive news story about teachers, schools or the education system.

All of this points to a need for more balanced, contextualised and fair news coverage of schools and teachers.

While it is not the role of reporters to appease teachers, the evidence about the predominantly negative nature of education news and teachers’ concerns about superficial and inaccurate coverage should be taken into account. And it can just be a matter of shifting the angle.

Readers turned off by negative news

There are also sound commercial reasons for rethinking the approach to reporting education. In covering education, news editors are aiming to appeal to the high numbers of parents among their audiences.

Our research suggests parents are interested in education news. But they may be less likely to engage the more negative it is. We know from other research that the most common reason people avoid news is because it has a negative impact on mood.

So, if editors want to attract readers with education news, coverage that includes more positive elements could achieve more success.

Kathryn Shine 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. 8 out of 10 teachers think education news is negative and demoralising. Some have even left because of it – https://theconversation.com/8-out-of-10-teachers-think-education-news-is-negative-and-demoralising-some-have-even-left-because-of-it-162610

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Patrick D. Nunn, Professor of Geography, School of Social Sciences, University of the Sunshine Coast

The small boat sliced its way through the waveless ocean. The Fiji air was warm and still, the silhouettes of distant islands like sentinels watching our progress. It seemed a perfect day to visit the Solo Lighthouse and the “drowned land” reputed to surround it.

As we entered the gap through the coral reef bordering the Solo Lagoon, we all removed our headgear and bowed, clapping gently with cupped hands to show our respect to the people locals say live on the land beneath the sea.

The Solo Lagoon lies at the northern extremity of the Kadavu island group in the south of Fiji. In the local dialect, solo means rock, which is all that is left of a more extensive land that once existed here. Ancient tales recall this land was abruptly submerged during an earthquake and tsunami, perhaps hundreds or even thousands of years ago.

Our boat raced on, towards the lighthouse built on remnant rock in 1888. The people with me, from Dravuni and Buliya islands, told how on a still night when they come here to fish, they sometimes hear from beneath the lagoon the sounds of mosquitoes buzzing, roosters crowing and people talking.

Every local resident learns strict protocols upon entering the realm above this underwater world … and the perils of ignoring them. It is believed if you fail to slow and bow as you enter the Solo Lagoon, your boat will never leave it. If you take more fish from the lagoon than you need, you will never take your catch home.

It is deceptively easy to ridicule such beliefs in underwater worlds but they likely represent memories of places that really were once submerged. Several groups of people living throughout Fiji today trace their lineage back to Lomanikoro, the name of the drowned land in the Solo Lagoon. Though there is no written record of the event, its believed submergence reconfigured the power structures of Fijian society in ways that people still remember. Similar traditions are found elsewhere.

In northern Australia, many Aboriginal groups trace their lineage to lands now underwater. A story told decades ago by Mangurug, a Gunwinggu elder from Djamalingi or Cape Don in the Northern Territory, explained how his people came from an island named Aragaládi in the middle of the sea that was later submerged. “Trees and ground, creatures, kangaroos, they all drowned when the sea covered them,” he stated.

Other groups living around the Gulf of Carpentaria claim their ancestors fled the drowning land of Baralku, possibly an ancient memory of the submergence of the land bridge connecting Australia and New Guinea during the last ice age.

In northwest Europe, meanwhile, there are countless stories of underwater lands off the coast where bells are said to toll eerily in drowned church steeples. Such stories abound in Cardigan Bay, Wales, where several “sunken cities” are said to lie. In medieval Brittany, in France, fisher-folk in the Baie de Douarnenez used to see the “streets and monuments” of the sunken city named Ys beneath the water surface, stories of which abound in local traditions.

Indeed in many cultures across the world there are stories about underwater worlds inhabited by people strikingly similar to ourselves, cities where benevolent bearded monarchs and multi-tentacled sea witches organise the lives of younger merfolk, many of whom aspire to become part of human society. Fantasy? Undoubtedly. Arbitrary inventions? Perhaps not.

Such ideas may derive from ancient memories about submerged lands and the peoples who once inhabited them.

Read more:
Mermaids aren’t real – but they’ve fascinated people around the world for ages

And if we allow that some of these stories may actually be founded on millennia-old memories of coastal submergence, then they may also have some practical application to human futures. For coastal lands are being submerged today; birthplaces in living memory now underwater.

Context

In the 200,000 years or so that we — modern humans — have roamed the earth, the level of the ocean, which currently occupies over 70% of the earth’s surface, has gone up and down by tens of metres. At the end of the last great ice age, around 18,000 years ago, the average ocean level was 120 metres or more lower than it is today.

As land ice melted in the aftermath of the ice age, sea level rose. Coastal peoples in every part of the world had no choice except to adapt. Most moved inland, some offshore. Being unable to read or write, they encoded their experiences into their oral traditions.

We know that observations of memorable events can endure in oral cultures for thousands of years, plausibly more than seven millennia in the case of Indigenous Australian stories of volcanic eruptions and coastal submergence. So how might people’s memories of once populated lands have evolved in oral traditions to reach us today?

Read more:
Ancient Aboriginal stories preserve history of a rise in sea level

Initially they would have recalled the precise places where drowned lands existed and histories of the people who had occupied them. Perhaps, as time went on, as these oral tales became less convincing, so links were made with the present. Listen carefully. You can hear the dogs barking below the water, the bells tolling, the people talking. You might even, as with Solo, embed these stories within cultural protocols to ensure history did not disappear.

Traditions involving people of the land interacting with their submarine counterparts are quite old; the Greek story of a merman named Triton is mentioned in Hesiod’s Theogony, written almost 3,000 years ago. In Ireland, there are stories hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years old that tell of high ranking men wedding mermaids, begetting notable families, and even giving rise to taboos about killing seals, whom these mermaids regarded as kin.

Stories of people occupying undersea lands also abound in Indigenous Australia. They include those about the yawkyawk (or “young spirit woman” in the Kundjeyhmi language of western Arnhem Land), who has come to be represented in similar ways to a mermaid.

Like mermaids in Europe, Australian yawkyawk have long hair, which sometimes floats on the ocean surface as seaweed, and fish tails.

In the central Pacific islands of Kiribati, meanwhile, it was once widely believed worlds existed parallel to the tangible one we inhabit. Entire islands moved between these, wandering through time and space, disappearing one day only to reappear some time later in a different place. Humans also moved between these worlds — and I suspect this was once a widespread belief of people occupying islands and archipelagos.

Sometimes the inhabitants of these worlds were believed to be equipped with fish tails, replaced with legs when they moved onshore. An ancient ballad from the Orkney Islands (Scotland), where such merfolk are often called silkies, goes:

I am a man upon the land
I am a silkie in the sea.

At one time, the people of the Aran Islands (Galway, Ireland) would believe they had spotted the island of Hy-Brasail far to the west; scrambling to reach it in their boats. No-one ever did. On the other side of the world, the fabulous island named Burotukula that “wanders” through Fiji waters is periodically claimed to be sighted off the coast of Matuku Island.

Anxiety and solutions

In oral societies, such as those that existed almost everywhere a thousand years ago, knowledge was amassed and communicated systematically by older people to younger ones because it was considered essential to their survival. Much of this knowledge was communicated as narrative, some through poetry and song, dance, performance and art

In harsh environments, where water and food were often scarce, it was vital to communicate knowledge fully and accurately. Australia provides excellent examples, where Indigenous law was cross-checked for completeness and accuracy when transmitted from father to son.

Part of the law considered essential to survival was people’s experiences of life-altering events. This included bursts of volcanic activity and the multi-generational land loss that affected the entire Australian fringe in the wake of the last ice age, reducing land mass by around 23%.

Recent research has shown some ancient Indigenous Australian “submergence stories” contain more than simply descriptions of rising sea level and associated land loss. They also include expressions of people’s anxiety.

For instance, a story told in 1941 by Sugar Billy Rindjana, Jimmy Moore and Win-gari (Andingari people) and by Tommy Nedabi (Wiranggu-Kokatato) recalled how, millennia earlier, their forebears living along the Fowlers Bay coast in South Australia “feared the sea flood would spread over the whole country”.

These stories also talk about people’s practical responses to try to stop the rising waters. The Wati Nyiinyii peoples from the Nullarbor Plain in Western Australia once “bundled thousands of [wooden] spears to stop the ocean’s encroachment” on the lands that once existed below the Bunda Cliffs.

In a story told by the Gungganyji people of the Cairns district in northeast Australia, they heated boulders in a mountain-top fire, then rolled these into the face of the encroaching ocean to stop its rise.

Today the ocean surface along most of the world’s coasts is rising faster than it has for several thousand years. It is placing growing stress on coastal societies and the landscapes and infrastructures on which they have come to depend. Anxiety is building, especially in the face of scientific projections involving sea-level rise of at least 70 cm by the end of this century.

We are responding with practical solutions, building hard structures such as walls and wooden palisades along coastlines. We look to science to curb climate change but many people still feel anxious and powerless.

Read more:
Ignoring young people’s climate change fears is a recipe for anxiety

Our ancient ancestors, confronted with a seemingly unceasing rise in the ocean surface — and associated loss of coastal lands — also felt anxiety and built structures. And, as some people do today, many almost certainly sought spiritual remedies too. Of course we know little about the latter, but there are clues.

In many places along the coasts of Australia and northwest Europe, there are stone arrangements, ranging from simple stone circles to the extraordinary parallel “stone lines” at Carnac in France, kilometres long.

These stone lines, built more than 6,000 years ago have been interpreted by French archaeologists as a “cognitive barrier” intended to stop the gods interfering with human affairs, specifically to stop the rapid and enduring rise of the sea level along this part of the Brittany coast. Ritual burials of people and valuables along the shore in northwest Europe may once have served a similar purpose.

We can take hope from our ancestors’ experiences with rising sea level. Most people survived it, so shall we. But the experience was so profound, so physically and psychologically challenging, that the survivors kept their memories of it alive as stories passed on from one generation to the next. Their stories became enduring oral traditions — intended to inform and empower future generations. And to show us that the past is not without meaning; it is not irrelevant to our future.

Patrick Nunn’s new book Worlds in Shadow: Submerged Lands in Science, Memory and Myth is published by Bloomsbury Sigma.

Patrick D. Nunn receives funding from the Government of Australia (Department of the Environment and Energy), the British Academy (UK), the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Natural Environment Research Council (UK), and the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (France).

– ref. Friday essay: how ancient beliefs in underwater worlds can shed light in a time of rising sea levels – https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-how-ancient-beliefs-in-underwater-worlds-can-shed-light-in-a-time-of-rising-sea-levels-164154

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexander Gillespie, Professor of Law, University of Waikato

With a Defence Force Hercules now en route to Afghanistan to assist with rescue and evacuation, New Zealand joins a 60-country response to the unfolding calamity. Yet doubt still surrounds just who is eligible for the mercy mission.

We know the thin lifeline via Kabul airport extends first to those with foreign nationality — 53 people in New Zealand’s case. All states have obligations to protect their own citizens, so this is entirely right.

The second eligible group are those Afghan citizens who were associated with the foreign militaries that fought the Taliban and are now at risk. So far, this includes 37 Afghans who worked for the New Zealand Defence Force or other agencies and up to 200 members of their immediate families.

This is an ethical rather than legal obligation, but it is New Zealand’s responsibility to help those who once helped this country’s efforts during the war and occupation.

But there is a third group about which the New Zealand government has been silent — refugees. Afghanistan is yet again about to see a surge in people fleeing persecution, adding to the 2.6 million already displaced before the Taliban returned.

This dire situation has existed for over 40 years and is now likely to get much worse. At least 400,000 people have been displaced since the beginning of the year, and retribution by the Taliban has not even begun.

Other countries are stepping up

What should New Zealand do, then? While these people aren’t eligible for a New Zealand passport and didn’t work for our military, they are at risk largely because of their support for the Western presence in Afghanistan that New Zealand was part of.

The list of who could be considered traitors or face persecution by the Taliban is long. They include religious and ethnic minorities, dissidents, women, journalists, human rights workers and those previously in positions of power.

Read more:
Owning up: Australia must admit its involvement in Afghanistan has been an abject failure

At this stage, Britain is planning to take 20,000 refugees over several years, prioritising women, girls and religious and other minorities. Canada also intends to resettle 20,000, focusing on women leaders, human rights workers and reporters.

The United States has not yet set a figure, but a number of individual states have opened their arms. Australia, too, has pledged to take an initial 3,000, with this number expected to grow.

New Zealand can’t stay silent

So far, New Zealand has said nothing. And despite the annual refugee quota recently increasing from 1,000 to 1,500, New Zealand still has one of the lowest per-capita refugee intakes in the world.

But there are precedents when it comes to emergencies such as the one in Afghanistan. The annual refugee quota might have been introduced in 1987 by the fourth Labour government of David Lange, but it had been his National Party predecessor, Robert Muldoon, who advanced refugee policy after the war in Vietnam.

Read more:
The Taliban wants the world’s trust. To achieve this, it will need to make some difficult choices

Then, too, New Zealand had been involved in a military conflict that ended in defeat and created a refugee crisis. New Zealand ramped up its effort in 1977 as the “boat people” fled the new Vietnamese regime.

New Zealand initially accepted 412 Vietnamese refugees, with the intake rising between 1979 and 1980 when about 1,500 arrived.

The same should happen again. New Zealand should work with its allies, focus on the priority groups that most need sanctuary, move them to safety temporarily and bring them to the country when the time is right.

The opening target should be a one-off intake of 1,500 additional refugees on top of the existing quota.

Save as many as possible

The war in Afghanistan is lost. Despite 20 years’ effort, over US$2 trillion spent and at least 170,000 deaths, the Taliban have won.

It cost ten New Zealand lives and the country spent at least NZ$300 million on its contribution to the occupation.

Read more:
Afghan refugees can no longer wait — Australia must offer permanent protection now

The last time the Taliban took control in the mid 1990s there was a human rights disaster. This time may be worse. Having achieved outright victory, they are not planning anything resembling democratic government. Their statements about respecting human rights have been vague and unconvincing.

Not everyone can be saved from what is a foreseeable disaster. But, having been a part of a failed mission in Afghanistan, New Zealand now has an obligation to do what it can to save as many as is reasonably possible.

Alexander Gillespie 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. As the Taliban’s grip on Afghanistan tightens, New Zealand must commit to taking more refugees – https://theconversation.com/as-the-talibans-grip-on-afghanistan-tightens-new-zealand-must-commit-to-taking-more-refugees-166411

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

Prime Minister Scott Morrison this week pointed to the government’s closure of Australia’s embassy in Afghanistan in May as a good decision for which he had been criticised.

More credibly, it was a bad decision, on principle but also very likely for practical reasons.

The scramble by Western countries to evacuate their nationals and Afghans who had assisted them was always destined to be chaotic.

But it is possible, if we had retained a small contingent of embassy staff in place to the end, we might have been able to process the Afghans more efficiently, thus smoothing — even slightly — the exit.

When shutting the embassy, the government emphasised the security danger. That could have been minimised, as some other countries did. Anyway, diplomats should be the last to turn off the lights, not the first.

Read more:
Owning up: Australia must admit its involvement in Afghanistan has been an abject failure

The Morrison government’s slowness in processing the Afghans helpers has left it open to the criticism of “too little too late” (inevitably it was likened to the vaccine rollout).

Viewed broadly, its reaction to the Taliban takeover has found the government scoring relatively low on the compassion meter, and relatively high on that measuring risk avoidance. And keeping an eye on the politics.

The crisis has put three cohorts of Afghans in the spotlight – the former interpreters and others who assisted the Australians; people offshore (in Afghanistan or elsewhere) who will seek entry as refugees; and those in Australia on temporary protection visas (TPVs) who arrived by boat.

The government says 430 former local staff and their family members have been brought out since April (before the current evacuation). But there are more former helpers to come.

Defence Minister Peter Dutton is particularly concerned with risk minimisation in the assessment process.

Dutton told the ABC’s Patricia Karvelas, “You and many other journalists would be screaming down the line at me if one person was brought in that committed an atrocity in our country”.

Dutton is highly attuned to security issues; he also probably has in mind the Coalition base.

Nobody denies there must be stringent vetting. In some cases, people who assisted Australia later changed allegiance – that’s the nature of Afghanistan. Obviously they don’t get through.

But while all reasonable care has to be taken, it is impossible – realistically – to avoid a small element of risk (on a strict no-risk principle, many people would never be let out of our gaols).

A number of Australian veterans who served in Afghanistan have been vocal about doing the right thing by the interpreters. Given how solicitous it is of the veterans community, criticism from them — which is also mixed with their wider critiques of the war and the withdrawal – is uncomfortable for the government.

Separate to the evacuation of Afghans, the government announced Australia will take 3,000 refugees this financial year, while anticipating the number would be higher.

The modest figure was immediately (to Morrison’s annoyance) set against the ambition of countries such as Canada, which has pledged to accept 20,000. Then there were comparisons with the performance of former prime ministers (Fraser, 55,000 Vietnamese refugees; Hawke 42,000 Chinese students after the Tiananmen Square massacre; Abbott, 12,000 Syrians after the civil war).

Read more:
The Taliban wants the world’s trust. To achieve this, it will need to make some difficult choices

Moreover, the government said Afghans would be accommodated within Australia’s 13,750 annual humanitarian program (which, incidentally, has a lot of spare capacity due to COVID). So the bottom line was substitution – more Afghan refugees and fewer refugees from some other places.

It was quickly clear demand for places would be strong. Andrew Hastie, assistant minister for defence who fought with the SAS in Afghanistan, said his office had been “deluged over the last four or five days with requests. I know other MPs and senators across the country are having the same experience.”

After a meeting with Afghan community leaders on Thursday Morrison, who’s under pressure to do more, said: “We see that as a floor, not a ceiling, so we think we can achieve more than three. If the overall program has to be expanded[…] it will be.

“Our humanitarian program runs every single year, and I foresee […] the Afghan cohort in our humanitarian program having a very strong presence in years to come.”

Both the refugees and evacuees will have permanent residency, which brings a secure future as well as the opportunity to sponsor the arrival of family members.

Access to family reunion is a right the Afghans living here on TPVs don’t have (although their family members will be able to apply for the dedicated refugee intake).

All but a handful of the more than 4,500 Afghans on TPVs came here by boat, many years ago. The current crisis has prompted calls for them to be given permanent settlement.

Labor leader Anthony Albanese said: “We need to give them the certainty of Australian citizenship on a permanent basis, rather than some pretence that somehow their circumstances are temporary. They are not. And they need to be given that security.”

But Morrison is adamant. They did not come “the right way”, and affording them permanent status would breach the government’s border control policy.

“I want to be very clear about that. I want to send a very clear message to people smugglers in the region that nothing’s changed,” he said on Wednesday. “I will not give you a product to sell and take advantage of people’s misery. My government won’t do it. We never have and we never will.”

It’s a trade-off of risk and politics on one hand versus compassion on the other. There is no possibility these people will ever be repatriated to Afghanistan. Would giving them permanency really set off the people smugglers? Even if there was any attempt to test the border, we know the navy has capability to deal with that.

The political element is obvious. Labor has always been vulnerable on the border protection issue, and Albanese has given possible ammunition to the government. The Coalition would have to be careful using it, however, when there is a lot of public sympathy for the Afghans.

On the government’s policy, these Afghans who have become members of the Australian community, many of them working in occupations where labour is in demand, are forever to be denied the assurance about their futures that permanent residency brings. They deserve better.

In this Afghanistan moment – which is one of reflection and regret for the failure of the allies’ aspirations for that nation – we show the world what sort of country we are. We should display a more generous character.

Read more:
Afghan refugees can no longer wait — Australia must offer permanent protection now

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

– ref. Grattan on Friday: The compassion quotient in Morrison’s Afghan response needs a boost – https://theconversation.com/grattan-on-friday-the-compassion-quotient-in-morrisons-afghan-response-needs-a-boost-166435

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nancy Baxter, Professor and Head of Melbourne School of Population & Global Health, The University of Melbourne

At least 60 people have now died in the current New South Wales COVID outbreak.

We’ve been keeping track of how old these people were, and have observed 85% of the COVID deaths up to August 18 (51 out of 60) were among people aged over 60.

We’ve also been taking note of reports on their vaccination status. It appears 96% of those over 60 who have died (49 of 51) were not vaccinated, or had only received one dose.

These deaths are tragic and, in all likelihood, were preventable. So if you’re over 60 and are yet to be vaccinated, now is not the time to hesitate.

Older age increases your risk from COVID-19

Age is a major risk factor for serious illness and death from COVID-19.

A person aged 65-74 is at six times greater risk of hospitalisation and 95 times greater risk of dying compared to an adult under 30.

People over 85 are 15 times more likely to be hospitalised and 600 times more likely to die than 18 to 29-year-olds.

This is why Australia’s vaccination program has prioritised older adults.

So why do people in this age group remain unvaccinated?

Most older Australians are vaccinated

It’s important to acknowledge that of the 5,632,555 Australians aged 60+, more than 4.4 million (79%) have had a first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine.

This ranges from 71% for 60 to 64-year-olds, to 86% for 75 to 79-year-olds.

So despite the criticism of Australia’s vaccination program, more than three-quarters of Australians aged 60+ have at least partial protection from COVID-19.

Still, that leaves 1.2 million Australians aged 60+ yet to receive a first dose of any COVID vaccine, despite having been eligible for vaccination for several months.

Read more:
A history of blood clots is not usually any reason to avoid the AstraZeneca vaccine

What are they waiting for?

For a variety of reasons, no vaccine ever achieves 100% take-up. But most Australians over 60 want to be vaccinated. Surveys have shown over 65s are the least hesitant age group. As of August 7, only 6.75% of adults over 65 were unwilling to be vaccinated.

Some people have experienced difficulty accessing the vaccine. In particular, we need to improve access in areas which are more vulnerable to COVID outbreaks.

But according to data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics published last month, around 25% of unvaccinated people over 70 are waiting for a different vaccine option.

We can read this to mean they’re waiting for what they perceive to be a “better” vaccine — an mRNA vaccine from Pfizer or Moderna.

Sadly, with the NSW outbreak escalating, and the increasing frequency and likelihood of COVID outbreaks across Australia, some of these folks may die waiting.

AstraZeneca is a highly effective vaccine

The vaccine for which all people aged 60+ in Australia are currently eligible is AstraZeneca.

While adequate supply of the Pfizer vaccine has been an ongoing issue and shipments of the Moderna vaccine are yet to commence, AstraZeneca is being produced in Australia and is widely available.

But not everyone is keen on it.

Read more:
Australians under 60 will no longer receive the AstraZeneca vaccine. So what’s changed?

Some of the lack of enthusiasm surrounding the AstraZeneca vaccine relates to the perception it is less effective than Pfizer.

The most important outcome, however, is prevention of serious illness from COVID-19, and both vaccines perform similarly well on this metric after two doses. Recent modelling from the Doherty Institute assumed an 86% reduction in hospitalisation with the Delta variant after two doses of AstraZeneca, compared to 87% after two doses of Pfizer.

For deaths from Delta, the difference is also very small. The AstraZeneca vaccine is believed to achieve a 90% reduction after two doses, compared to 92% with Pfizer.

Although milder COVID-19 infections occur more commonly in people who have been fully-vaccinated with AstraZeneca, “breakthrough” infections also occur with Pfizer.

So, the benefits of AstraZeneca are clear and the differences between AstraZeneca and Pfizer in terms of effectiveness against the most worrisome outcomes of COVID-19 are very small.

But what about the risks?

Both vaccines have common side effects including pain at the injection site, fatigue and headache. While these side effects are more common with AstraZeneca, they don’t last long with either vaccine.

So that brings us to blood clots. In March, just weeks into the launch of Australia’s vaccination program, reports emerged of a rare clotting syndrome following use of the AstraZeneca vaccine.

Named thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome (TTS) to describe the unusual combination of serious blood clots with a low platelet count, the discovery of this significant complication saw changes to COVID-19 vaccination guidelines in many countries, including Australia.

Deaths from TTS have received extensive coverage in the media, and concern about this condition is undoubtedly a key reason for reluctance towards AstraZeneca.

But importantly, the risk of TTS is small, and becomes lower as you get older (the opposite of the risk from COVID-19). The Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation has estimated below age 60, the incidence of TTS is 2.7 per 100,000 doses. Over age 60 the incidence is thought to be 1.8 in every 100,000 doses.

Of 112 cases of confirmed or probable TTS that have occurred in Australia to date, a total of six people have died. One was over 60 (a 72-year-old woman).

Based on these statistics, if the 1.2 million Australians over 60 not yet vaccinated all received AstraZeneca, we would expect about 22 to develop TTS and one or two of them to die.

While these are serious albeit rare complications, remember that in NSW, in an outbreak with close to 10,000 cases of COVID-19 diagnosed to date, more than 50 people over 60 have already died and more will unfortunately follow.

Read more:
Over 18 and considering AstraZeneca? This may help you decide

Balancing the risks and the benefits

Balancing risks and benefits is key to informed decision-making before taking any medication; none are risk-free.

For those 1.2 million Australians over 60 yet to be vaccinated, the benefits of taking the vaccine available now — AstraZeneca — are high, and for most people will outweigh the small risks.

The threat of COVID-19 is no longer theoretical, especially for those living in Sydney and other major metropolitan cities.

And this year’s jabs will not be the last over 60s receive. While it’s very likely mRNA boosters (Pfizer and Moderna) will be offered in 2022, you’ll need to be alive to get one.

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. If you’re over 60, there’s no sense in ‘waiting for Pfizer’. Here’s why you should get AstraZeneca today – https://theconversation.com/if-youre-over-60-theres-no-sense-in-waiting-for-pfizer-heres-why-you-should-get-astrazeneca-today-165400

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

This week provided a first tiny glimpse into the labour-market fallout from Australia’s recent lockdowns.

Australian Bureau of Statistics published the wage price index for the June quarter yesterday, showing sluggish wages growth, below forecasts. The labour force figures for July, out today, is an impressive 4.6%, but tempered by the number of people who have stopped looking for work and a higher underemployment rate.

These numbers tell us how the labour market is recovering from last year’s massive pandemic hit. It’s also a sneak peak into how it might be affected by the current lockdowns.

The Greater Sydney lockdown officially began on June 26 – right at the end of the June quarter (the virus had been circulating in Sydney since mid June). So the June quarter figures give us a baseline for the labour market before the big hit from what looks like several months of lockdowns in Sydney, NSW and maybe beyond. We also have a glimpse of the first two weeks of the “self-lockdown” in Sydney, where people pull back on economic activity due to the virus circulating.

Annual wages growth of 1.7%

The wage price index — measuring wages growth — increased by 0.4% in the June quarter. This was below consensus forecasts of 0.6%, and put the annual rate at 1.7%. This just above the 2020 low of 1.4%.

Wage price index, annual growth

All that anecdotal chatter about how it has been impossible to get workers in this industry or that certainly didn’t make its way into the aggregate data.

There were sectoral differences in wage pressures. Three sectors recorded annual increases in wages above 2% — construction (2.2%), professional services (2.5%) and other services (2.6%). The smallest increases were in rental, hiring and real estate services (1.1%), administrative and support services (1.0%) and arts and recreation services (0.9%).

Unemployment rate hits 4.6%

Thursday’s labour force figures came on the back of a stunningly good June rate of 4.9%. July’s rate is stunning again. Kind of.

The monthly unemployment rate dropping to 4.6% represented 39,900 fewer unemployed persons and a slight increase in employed persons, by 2,200 to 13,156,400.

Unemployment rate, seasonally adjusted

Less positive was that the 4.6% rate also reflected a drop in labour force participation, from 66.2% to 66.0%, and that the official underemployment rate jumped from 7.9% to 8.3%.

The fuzzy demarcation between what makes one unemployed versus underemployed as well as the effect of people leaving the labour market is why I always focus in all jobs figures on the “total hours worked”.

This remained effectively steady in July, at 1.778 billion hours.

Overall, therefore, these figures represent very good news. Perhaps the most important implication is that all the naysayers who suggested we could never get unemployment down to or below 4% look — at least so far — wrong.

Read more:
Vital Signs: The RBA wants to cut unemployment, and nothing — not even soaring home prices — will stand in its way

The immigration illusion

Speaking of folks being wrong, the jobs data also bear on Reserve Bank of Australia governors Philip Lowe’s recent statements about the effect of immigration and wages.

In a speech in early July Lowe suggested high levels of immigration in recent years was an important reason for low wages growth.

Others, including myself, think this view is not supported by the data. Low wages growth since 2013 has a lot more to do with global shifts in technology, the phenomenon of “secular stagnation”, and the fact the Reserve Bank kept interest rates too high, for too long, until finally giving into pressure to cut them in 2019.

Read more:
Vital Signs: the RBA is not a law unto itself — an external review would be good for it

The latest data — if looking at the data is your thing — show that, with effectively zero immigration wages, growth remains low. It’s barely moving even in the sectors where immigration is meant to play the biggest role, such as services and construction.

Moreover, even with unemployment falling to 4.6%, there’s relatively little upward pressure. This suggests getting unemployment down to or below 4% not only might be achievable but necessary to get inflation back into the RBA’s target band of 2–3%.

Lockdown impacts still to come

That said, this might be the last good news for a while.

The next quarter’s figures will capture the effect of lockdown for perhaps the entire three months in Greater Sydney, as well as a signifcant amount of time elsewhere. Fiscal support measures such as JobSaver and the Disaster Payment definitely help but they will only stem a flow of bad labour-market numbers.

In the longer term, though, we can and should expect our policy makers — fiscal and monetary — to show us an unemployment number with a 3 in front of it in 2022 or 2023.

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

– ref. Vital Signs: 4.6% unemployment rate hints at what’s possible, but it’s not the real thing – https://theconversation.com/vital-signs-4-6-unemployment-rate-hints-at-whats-possible-but-its-not-the-real-thing-166162

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Bronwyn Carlson, Professor, Indigenous Studies, Macquarie University

In a new series, writers nominate the TV series keeping them entertained during a time of COVID.

As the lockdown continues, I find myself looking for Indigenous content to watch on TV to feel a sense of nourishment and joy I miss from seeing my extended family, my friends and my fabulous work colleagues.

While Zoom has almost become an everyday activity, chilling out watching a series or movie has filled my evenings. I have exhausted the full range of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander content on iView. I thoroughly enjoyed the second watch of one of my favourite actors, Aaron Pedersen, in Mystery Road, and catching up on episodes of Black Comedy.

But I have also been indulging in Indigenous films and series on streaming services, particularly from North America. One I have enjoyed recently is Rutherford Falls (2021), currently streaming on Stan.

Set in a fictional town in New York State, neighbouring the fictional Minishonka Nation, Rutherford Falls is ostensibly about Indigenous-settler relationships, through the story of the friendship between Nathan Rutherford (Ed Helms) and Reagan Wells (Mniconjou and Sicangu Lakota woman Jana Schmieding).

At the centre of the titular town is a colonial statue of Lawrence Rutherford, said to be the founding father of Rutherford Falls.

The statue is fondly referred to as “Big Larry” by his descendant Nathan — but is derided by the many drivers who crash into it each day.

The story reveals how settler politics continue to uphold the unequal distribution of power that plays out in themes such as how we remember or commemorate the past. And it does so while being full of insider jokes, good humour and joy.

Who’s history do we celebrate?

Monuments such as Big Larry serve as a permanent marker. They are a link between present and past generations, committing particular figures to memory and assigning them with importance and meaning — regardless of whose lands they stand on and the often brutal histories they represent.

The series makes fun of the ludicrous nature of some of these monuments. Big Larry is situated in a hazardous position in the middle of the main road but, regardless of car crashes, Nathan continues to fight to ensure the statue remains in this position of prominence.

It is, he argues, about history.

Reagan and Nathan are best friends. Nathan has had a relatively privileged life, as a member of the founding family of the town.

Reagan, as an Indigenous person, is not subject to the same privileges as her friend. While Nathan’s relative stands tall in the middle of town, Reagan has to work incredibly hard to raise funds to create a museum commemorating her ancestors.

In an episode that stands out for me, Nathan’s friend gets drunk and vandalises a local historical site.

Nathan, while taking his friend home, asks Reagan to leave a note for the state parks official to “give him a call” in the morning about the defacing of the historical site.

“Vandalise public property and leave a note?” Reagan mutters to herself in disbelief.

“Oh, to lead that white dude life!”

Read more:
Friday essay: taking a wrecking ball to monuments – contemporary art can ask what really needs tearing down

Humour and joy

This series is particularly interesting to me because it involves a number of Indigenous writers and a large cast of Indigenous actors.

Four of the first season’s 10 episodes were directed by Sydney Freeland, a Diné (Navajo) person. Indigenous actors are cast in leading roles, including Schmeiding as Wells, and Plains Cree actor Michael Greyeyes as Terry Thomas, CEO of the Minishonka’s casino.

While Terry may be an avowed capitalist his intentions are always grounded in the collective benefit of the Indigenous community in what he describes as “Tribal capitalism”.

Rutherford Falls features Indigenous lives in all of our complexities. It shows strained relationships between Indigenous people and settlers, but also friendships. It tells stories of young Indigenous people: how they are engaged in maintaining and sharing cultural practices, and the happiness they experience in doing so.

The long history of oppressive policies targeting Indigenous people globally has meant that Indigenous fun, joy and humour are invariably political.

Read more:
What’s so funny about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander humour?

As Torres Strait Islander scholar Martin Nakata has written, Indigenous humour

reveals the ignorance of outsiders of how we operate in and understand our world and many a merry laugh we have all had at whitefellas’ expense.

Indigenous comedy is where we make fun of each other and, most importantly, make fun of colonisation. Rutherford Falls, like Black Comedy, does this by having Indigenous writers, actors and storytellers telling the realities of our lives and histories.

Fun and joy are a big part of our lives. As actor Jana Schmeiding told Vanity Fair: “our joy is as vast and sacred as the land we’ve inhabited for thousands of years”.

Bronwyn Carlson 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. Rutherford Falls: a laugh-out-loud funny TV show about colonisation – https://theconversation.com/rutherford-falls-a-laugh-out-loud-funny-tv-show-about-colonisation-165975

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Eryn Newman, Senior Lecturer, Research School of Psychology, Australian National University

Over the past year, we’ve seen how dramatically misinformation can impact the lives of people, communities and entire countries.

Read more:
Public protest or selfish ratbaggery? Why free speech doesn’t give you the right to endanger other people’s health

In a bid to better understand how misinformation spreads online, Twitter has started an experimental trial in Australia, the United States and South Korea, allowing users to flag content they deem misleading.

Users in these countries can now flag tweets as misinformation through the same process by which other harmful content is reported. When reporting a post there is an option to choose “it’s misleading” — which can then be further categorised as related to “politics”, “health” or “something else”.

According to Twitter, the platform won’t necessarily follow up on all flagged tweets, but will use the information to learn about misinformation trends.

Past research has suggested such “crowdsourced” approaches to reducing misinformation may be promising in highlighting untrustworthy sources online. That said, the usefulness of Twitter’s experiment will depend on the accuracy of users’ reports.

Twitter’s general policy describes a somewhat nuanced approach to moderating dubious posts, distinguishing between “unverified information”, “disputed claims” and “misleading claims”. A post’s “propensity for harm” determines whether it is flagged with a label or a warning, or is removed entirely.

But the platform has not explicitly defined “misinformation” for users who will engage in the trial. So how will they know whether something is indeed “misinformation”? And what will stop users from flagging content they simply disagree with?

Familiar information feels right

As individuals, what we consider to be “true” and “reliable” can be driven by subtle cognitive biases. The more you hear certain information repeated, the more familiar it will feel. In turn, this feeling of familiarity tends to be taken as a sign of truth.

Even “deep thinkers” aren’t immune to this cognitive bias. As such, repeated exposure to certain ideas may get in the way of our ability to detect misleading content. Even if an idea is misleading, if it’s familiar enough it may still pass the test.

In direct contrast, content that is unfamiliar or difficult to process — but highly valid — may be incorrectly flagged as misinformation.

The social dilemma

Another challenge is a social one. Repeated exposure to information can also convey a social consensus, wherein our own attitudes and behaviours are shaped by what others think.

Group identity influences what information we think is factual. We think something is more “true” when it’s associated with our own group and comes from an in-group member (as opposed to an out-group member).

Research has also shown we are inclined to look for evidence that supports our existing beliefs. This raises questions about the efficacy of Twitter’s user-led experiment. Will users who participate really be capturing false information, or simply reporting content that goes against their beliefs?

More strategically, there are social and political actors who deliberately try to downplay certain views of the world. Twitter’s misinformation experiment could be abused by well-resourced and motivated identity entrepreneurs.

How to take a more balanced approach

So how can users increase their chances of effectively detecting misinformation? One way is to take a consumer-minded approach. When we make purchases as consumers, we often compare products. We should do this with information, too.

“Searching laterally”, or comparing different sources of information, helps us better discern what is true or false. This is the kind of approach a fact-checker would take, and it’s often more effective than sticking with a single source of information.

At the supermarket we often look beyond the packaging and read a product’s ingredients to make sure we buy what’s best for us. Similarly, there are many new and interesting ways to learn about disinformation tactics intended to mislead us online.

One example is Bad News, a free online game and media literacy tool which researchers found could “confer psychological resistance against common online misinformation strategies”.

There is also evidence that people who think of themselves as concerned citizens with civic duties are more likely to weigh evidence in a balanced way. In an online setting, this kind of mindset may leave people better placed to identify and flag misinformation.

Read more:
Vaccine selfies may seem trivial, but they show people doing their civic duty — and probably encourage others too

Leaving the hard work to others

We know from research that thinking about accuracy or the possible presence of misinformation in a space can reduce some of our cognitive biases. So actively thinking about accuracy when engaging online is a good thing. But what happens when I know someone else is onto it?

The behavioural sciences and game theory tell us people may be less inclined to make an effort themselves if they feel like they can free-ride on the effort of others. Even armchair activism may be reduced if there is a view misinformation is being solved.

Worse still, this belief may lead people to trust information more easily. In Twitter’s case, the misinformation-flagging initiative may lead some users to think any content they come across is likely true.

Much to learn from these data

As countries engage in vaccine rollouts, misinformation poses a significant threat to public health. Beyond the pandemic, misinformation about climate change and political issues continues to present concerns for the health of our environment and our democracies.

Despite the many factors that influence how individuals identify misleading information, there is still much to be learned from how large groups come to identify what seems misleading.

Such data, if made available in some capacity, has great potential to benefit the science of misinformation. And combined with moderation and objective fact-checking approaches, it might even help the platform mitigate the spread of misinformation.

Kate Reynolds has received funding from the Australian Research Council related to the impact of social identity on well-being attitudes and behaviour.

Eryn Newman 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. Is it actually false, or do you just disagree? Why Twitter’s user-driven experiment to tackle misinformation is complicated – https://theconversation.com/is-it-actually-false-or-do-you-just-disagree-why-twitters-user-driven-experiment-to-tackle-misinformation-is-complicated-166335

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Susan Coulson, Senior Lecturer, University of Sydney

NSW MP Victor Dominello has said he has Bell’s palsy, after appearing at a press conference this week with what he described as a “droopy eye”. Google searches for the term “Bell’s palsy” sky-rocketed overnight.

I have worked in the area of rehabilitation following facial nerve disorders for 30 years and have co-authored several studies involving people with Bell’s palsy.

If the term is new to you, here’s a quick explainer on what you need to know.

What is Bell’s palsy?

Bell’s palsy involves a sudden onset of a facial nerve paralysis.

The technical term is “idiopathic lower motor neurone facial nerve paralysis”. Idiopathic means of unknown origin; we can’t say for sure what causes it, however it is likely to be associated with a viral, inflammatory cause.

Bell’s palsy is very rare.

What are the symptoms?

People experience drooping and loss of movement on one or both sides of their face, usually just one. It is very rare to have it affect both sides.

Symptoms can include:

• difficulty smiling and expressing emotions on your face

• incomplete closure of the affected eye

• a change in taste

• things sounding a bit louder in one ear

• difficulty with some speech sounds or with keeping food or drink in the mouth.

You might find people are misinterpreting your expression. For example, a smile night be interpreted as a sneer and it can be embarrassing.

Bell’s palsy is not generally painful, although some people report pain behind the ear or a change in taste prior to onset.

It can be misinterpreted, in the early stages, as someone having a stroke but it’s important to know Bell’s palsy is not caused by stroke. Stroke affects many parts of the body but Bell’s palsy affects only the face.

What causes it?

We don’t yet know for sure.

Researchers believe it may be associated with viral infection and related inflammation.

Is it associated with a COVID vaccine?

A recent study published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases journal found the risk of Bell’s palsy is slightly higher after the Sinovac COVID-19 vaccine known as CoronaVac, but that the overall benefit outweighs the risk.

CoronaVac is not available in Australia. It is a type of mRNA vaccine, as is the Pfizer vaccine.

The study said:

Our findings suggest an overall increased risk of Bell’s palsy after CoronaVac vaccination. However, the beneficial and protective effects of the inactivated COVID-19 vaccine far outweigh the risk of this generally self-limiting adverse event.

What are the treatments?

People with Bell’s palsy are usually treated by healthcare professionals from a range of different disciplines.

Corticosteroids are usually given in the first 72 hours of diagnosis to manage inflammation. Sometimes, antiviral drugs are prescribed.

If the person with Bell’s palsy is having trouble closing an eye, eye drops or gels may be used to protect the eye while the eyelid is not working properly.

Physiotherapy is also very effective to maximise recovery and address long term problems. That involves specific, targeted facial exercises tailored to the individual.

There is no evidence to support the myth that electrical stimulation of the face helps with recovery.

Can it be cured?

About 80 to 85% of people have a spontaneous, complete recovery usually over a period of a few weeks to a few months.

However, about 15-20% of people who have Bell’s palsy have long term problems associated with their face, such as asymmetry and spasm.

If your face is starting to improve in the first three weeks, then your recovery usually goes well.

If you don’t start getting any movement on your face for a period about two to four months, you are more likely to experience longer term problems.

The risk factors for Bell’s palsy are diabetes, high blood pressure and if you are in the third trimester of pregnancy, you have a slightly greater chance of getting Bell’s palsy. However, as it is still quite a rare condition, your overall risk remains low.

What are the myths?

The main myth is that electrical stimulus to the face helps; there is no evidence to support this idea. In fact, it can cause problems for your face.

Bell’s palsy is not caused by being generally unwell or “run down”.

And if you get Bell’s palsy, it’s important to understand it’s not your fault.

Where can people go to read more?

The Sydney Facial Nerve Clinic has some well evidenced information on Bell’s palsy. Or, you can go to a GP or an ear, nose and throat surgeon or physiotherapist.

Susan Coulson also works in private practice as a physiotherapy consultant. She has received funding from the Garnett Passe and Rodney Williams Memorial Foundation. She is a member of the Sydney Facial Nerve Clinic and of the NSW Physiotherapy Council.

– ref. What is Bell’s palsy? A facial nerve disorder expert explains – https://theconversation.com/what-is-bells-palsy-a-facial-nerve-disorder-expert-explains-166403

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jeremy Moses, Associate Professor in International Relations, University of Canterbury

“New Zealand versus the killer robots” might sound like a science fiction B-movie, but that was essentially the focus of an event at parliament earlier this month.

Hosted by Minister of Disarmament and Arms Control Phil Twyford, the “Dialogue on Autonomous Weapons Systems and Human Control” looked at how New Zealand might take more of an international lead in regulating these highly contentious new technologies.

Twyford warned of the danger of warfare “delegated to machines”. He referred to a recent survey showing widespread public opposition to the deployment of autonomous weapons in war and strong support for government action to ban or limit their development and use.

The prospect of New Zealand’s leadership has been warmly received by activists and campaigners involved in the “killer robots” debate.

Human Rights Watch’s Mary Wareham has argued New Zealand leadership could act as “a total catalyst for action”, while the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots listed Twyford’s commitment as one of the “key actions and achievements” of its campaign to date.

Yet New Zealand has not joined the 30 states that have formally called for a ban on autonomous weapons, and Twyford’s statements have tended to waver between bullish and reserved. During the event at parliament he acknowledged the clear ethical problems with autonomous weapons, but also the complexity of making policy.

Sensitivity to military allies

If the mood of the people and government of New Zealand is strongly behind regulation, what makes the issue so difficult?

The short answer is politics and economics. A major obstacle for Twyford is allowing the New Zealand Defence Force to work with allies and partners.

Read more:
Lethal autonomous weapons and World War III: it’s not too late to stop the rise of ‘killer robots’

Both the US and Australia are heavily invested in pursuing cutting-edge military technologies, including robotics, artificial intelligence and autonomy. A key pillar of their strategy is building systems that allow more coordination on the battlefield.

Leading a movement to have these systems regulated or banned could see New Zealand’s military shut out of joint exercises where such technologies are being trialled or used.

Given the political pressure to take a stronger stand against China, it seems unlikely New Zealand’s Foreign Affairs and Trade or Defence ministries will want to risk further discord with key defence partners.

Protecting high-tech industry

The second hurdle lies in the economic promise of technologies developed in New Zealand that could potentially be used in autonomous weapons programmes elsewhere.

Many leading engineers and technologists have advocated for the regulation or banning of autonomous weapons, but others are attracted by the potential rewards of military-related projects.

Read more:
Killer robots, free will and the illusion of control

These tensions have already surfaced in the debate about US military payloads being launched from New Zealand by US-owned aerospace company Rocket Lab.

Autonomous weapons could well see similar questions raised about other technologies developed by New Zealand companies or researchers — most obviously in the fields of computer vision, robotics and swarm intelligence — that could be used in military systems.

Regulating autonomous weapons without also inhibiting potentially lucrative AI and robotics research and development remains a challenge.

Public opinion not enough

The hope that regulation of autonomous weapons could represent another “anti-nuclear moment” in New Zealand’s disarmament and foreign policy history therefore seems premature.

While it’s clear there is support for some form of regulation, there’s little evidence at this stage to suggest public opinion will sway the government’s current conservative and watchful position.

Read more:
AI has already been weaponised – and it shows why we should ban ‘killer robots’

So, what should be done? In the absence of international agreement, New Zealand could press ahead with its own domestic legislation to regulate these technologies, as proposed in a petition from local Campaign to Stop Killer Robots coordinator Edwina Hughes.

This has the potential to expose a lack of serious commitment to principle in the government’s position, but it would still come up against the political and economic interests opposed to action on autonomous weapons.

Acknowledging those political and economic obstacles is a critical first step for meaningful public debate.

Read more:
Never mind killer robots – even the good ones are scarily unpredictable

Engagement and transparency the key

In the near term, a stocktaking exercise should be undertaken to understand what research and development is being carried out in New Zealand universities and companies.

Efforts should also be made to understand which autonomous technologies are likely to be developed and possibly deployed in the coming years by New Zealand’s major defence partners, particularly Australia and the US.

Serious, sustained dialogue with commercial interests and defence partners is a necessary precondition for the advancement of Twyford’s agenda. While there is some evidence this work is underway, it needs greater transparency to ensure public understanding of what’s at stake.

Without that, New Zealand will probably struggle to take an international leadership role on this critical issue.

Jeremy Moses receives funding from The Royal Society of New Zealand Marsden Fund.

Geoffrey Ford receives funding from the Royal Society of New Zealand Marsden Fund.

Sian Troath receives funding from The Royal Society of New Zealand Marsden Fund.

– ref. New Zealand could take a global lead in controlling the development of ‘killer robots’ — so why isn’t it? – https://theconversation.com/new-zealand-could-take-a-global-lead-in-controlling-the-development-of-killer-robots-so-why-isnt-it-166168

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gabriela Tavella, Research Officer, UNSW School of Psychiatry, UNSW

With more than half the country in lockdown and many of the social support systems we rely on having been put on hold, it’s no wonder people are feeling overwhelmed and exhausted. For some, such feelings may ultimately culminate in burnout.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, burnout was, for the most part, considered a work-related issue. But in our research, we have identified burnout in people outside of the workplace, including those who are dealing with other life stressors, such as caring for loved ones full-time.

Now, because of the pandemic, rates of burnout appear to be rising, especially since working from home means workers are often required to “do more with less” and be online and available 24/7, as well as home-school children.

Read more:
It’s OK if you have a little cry in lockdown. You’re grieving

We have been researching burnout to determine how to best identify and manage it. This research is outlined in a recently published book – Burnout: A guide to identifying burnout and pathways to recovery – and summarised here.

What is burnout?

The most widely used burnout measure, the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI), defines it by three criteria:

• exhaustion
• loss of empathy towards service recipients or cynicism directed towards one’s job
• reduced professional accomplishment.

But the MBI has been widely critiqued. One concern is it overlooks key symptoms that are prominent in burnout and may be especially debilitating, such as cognitive dysfunction (which might include forgetting things or not being able to concentrate).

Another concern is it was derived solely from researching burnout in those who work directly with patients or clients, such as health-care workers and those in other caring professions. Nuances of burnout that occur in other contexts may have been overlooked.

Our alternative – the Sydney Burnout Measure

In our studies, we asked more than 1,000 participants who said they’d experienced burnout to report their main symptoms. They worked across a range of contexts, from paid employment positions to more “informal” work positions such as caring for elderly parents and/or children.

We found the syndrome comprised of not just exhaustion, but also cognitive dysfunction, withdrawal and disconnection from the world and those around you, and reduced work performance (whether that be in paid work or in tasks you are responsible for at home), commonly accompanied by depression, anxiety and insomnia.

We collated the burnout symptoms we identified into our own measure. The Sydney Burnout Measure, or SBM, is a checklist of 34 burnout symptoms, with a high score on our measure indicative that you might have burnout.

But it’s also possible to get a high score because of some other underlying condition that shares several of burnout’s symptoms, such as depression. To assess for this possibility, approaching a GP or mental health professional may be necessary.

These professionals will use their clinical experience to assess whether the symptoms you have are likely the consequence of burnout, or whether they could be due to some other mental health condition. Such clarification is important as different psychological conditions often require disorder-specific treatment strategies.

Read more:
Compassion fatigue: the cost some workers pay for caring

Addressing the external stressor

Once you know you have burnout, what can be done about it?

As a first step, the causes of your burnout need to be identified, so you can work to reduce their impact.

External causes of burnout can come from your workplace (such as being overloaded, being overlooked for a promotion, working overtime) or from the home (including caring for multiple children and/or elderly parents, being primarily responsible for domestic duties).

A combination of both factors could be at play, especially during our current state of lockdown, where many are juggling working-from-home demands, financial difficulties and home-schooling children.

Seeking resolution from your boss or manager may be useful in overcoming some work stressors. Can they extend your deadlines, or arrange flexible working hours around your child-rearing responsibilities?

For factors in the home, asking family members to assist in juggling tasks, or researching whether some tasks can be outsourced (for example, can you hire a cleaner or a babysitter once a week?) may be of use.

Applying de-stressing strategies

When escaping these stressors isn’t possible, you may have to bring on some de-stressing strategies to help curb your burnout symptoms. Things like exercise, meditation and practising mindfulness are consistently nominated by our study participants as most helpful.

Such practices not only help you to distract and relax, but also have proven biological benefits, such as reducing levels of stress hormones throughout the body.

Read more:
Spending time in nature has always been important, but now it’s an essential part of coping with the pandemic

Consulting a mental health professional can also be useful here, as they will have several specific cognitive strategies to help reduce anxiety and stress.

Addressing a predisposing factor: perfectionism

While stressors experienced at work or at home may set the wheels of burnout in motion, our analyses indicated burnout may also develop as a result of predisposing personality traits, especially perfectionism.

People with perfectionistic traits are usually excellent workers, as they’re extremely reliable and conscientious. However, they’re also prone to burnout as they set unrealistic and unrelenting standards for their own performance, which are ultimately impossible to live up to.

We therefore suggest managing burnout requires not only addressing precipitating work stressors and employing de-stressing strategies, but also tweaking any predisposing personality style.

Several strategies can assist in modifying perfectionistic thoughts and behaviours. For example, learning to focus more on the “big picture” rather than the finer details can help prevent procrastination, which is a common consequence of perfectionism.

So, when starting a task, you want to approach it with the goal of getting it done (no matter how poor the quality) rather than ensuring it’s perfect from the get-go. You can go back and fix it later.

Learning to avoid black and white thinking (“If this goes wrong, I will definitely lose my job”) is another important strategy for addressing perfectionism. Consider instead the shades of grey (“If this goes wrong, I can try to approach it from another angle”).

A mental health professional may also be of assistance here, as they can offer therapeutic techniques, often taken from cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT), that help people notice and modify unhelpful thinking patterns that are common in perfectionism and make them prone to stress and anxiety.

Overall, the key to managing burnout is identifying whether the presenting problem actually is burnout and not another condition. If it’s burnout, the key drivers (including any personality contribution) need to be determined. Only then can management strategies targeting each causal factor be applied.

Gabriela and Gordon’s book, Burnout: A guide to identifying burnout and pathways to recovery is published by Allen & Unwin.

Gordon Parker receives funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council (grant number GNT1176689).

Gabriela Tavella 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. We’re all exhausted but are you experiencing burnout? Here’s what to look out for – https://theconversation.com/were-all-exhausted-but-are-you-experiencing-burnout-heres-what-to-look-out-for-164393

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jeremy Moss, Professor of Political Philosophy, UNSW

When BHP announced it would sell its stake in its oil and gas business to Woodside Petroleum to form a merged oil and gas business, it appeared welcome news. A big miner finally takes climate change seriously.

But decisions to sell fossil fuel assets are not good news at all. BHP did not do the right thing by selling its oil and gas operations for the simple reason that the climate is still no better off. BHP’s new oil and gas assets will continue to produce oil and gas — just with new shareholders.

Decisions to sell mines or set up “dirty” parallel companies are coming thick and fast as the big polluters scramble to cut their losses. One of Australia’s biggest polluters, AGL, announced in March it will create a separate company for its emissions intensive assets.

What BHP and other companies are doing is banking profits from their failing assets, while washing their hands of the responsibility to do something about their past and ongoing contribution to climate change. Instead of selling these assets, companies should retire the assets and wear the costs.

Passing the buck

BHP is one of Australia’s biggest-emitting companies. In 2019, the emissions produced by BHP’s products globally were 567 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent — more than Australia’s total domestic emissions in 2019.

Even chief executive of mining company Glencore, Ivan Glasenberg, said in June this year:

Disposing of fossil fuel assets and making them someone else’s issue is not the solution and it won’t reduce absolute emissions.

So what should fossil fuel producers do if they are truly serious about their climate responsibilities? If they really want to depart from fossil fuels to help the climate, four things need to happen:

1. Ensure assets can no longer produce emissions

Fossil fuel producers should retire their mines or wells instead of selling them. This will inevitably involve foregoing any remaining value in their assets (if it has not already returned to them via past profits).

A report commissioned by the oil industry peak body, the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association (APPEA), found the cost of decommissioning Australia’s 65 offshore oil platforms could reach A$60 billion over the next 30 years. This doesn’t include onshore gas, Australia’s huge coal mines and export terminals.

2. Fund any remediation costs out of general revenue

Fossil fuel companies should pay for the cost of restoring mined land, such as back filling voids, replacing vegetation, repairing water sources or ensuring mines do not leak gas.

In the case of BHP, this would mean its super profits from iron ore could be diverted to meet their climate and environmental debts. BHP made a profit of over US$11 billion in the last year. Most of that is not going towards fixing climate harms such as bushfire and flood damage.

3. Establish a national inventory of liabilities

State and federal authorities should establish a central register of environmental damage and climate harms caused by fossil fuel companies. This would mean damage to waterways or soil contamination, as well as damage caused by climate change itself, could be accurately calculated.

Such an inventory is crucial to establishing which costs ought to be born by fossil fuel companies, and will help establish the costs involved in retiring mines.

Read more:
When it comes to climate change, Australia’s mining giants are an accessory to the crime

4. Establish an independent body to monitor safety of former mine and well sites

Mine remediation is too important to be left to the companies themselves, who may sell up or go broke, leaving taxpayers to fix the problem. In cases where remediation is complex and dangerous, governments could consider taking over mines or wells to ensure remediation was done properly.

For example, in 2019 the federal government took ownership of the Northern Endeavour production vessel, which is an oil production ship moored off the coast of Darwin. The vessel was used by gas company Woodside, who then sold it to Northern Oil and Gas Australia, who then went out of business. In this case, the government imposed a levy on the industry to pay for the costs.

Read more:
The story of Rum Jungle: a Cold War-era uranium mine that’s spewed acid into the environment for decades

Risking financial disruption

Environmental concerns aside, there are economic reasons for governments to take tighter control of fossil fuel assets.

The Bank for International Settlements released a report last year arguing that central banks like the Reserve Bank of Australia ought to be prepared to buy the stranded assets of fossil fuel companies.

Failure to do so will, the report notes, pose a real risk of triggering severe financial disruption. It warns of “extremely financially disruptive events that could be behind the next systemic financial crisis”.

The Bank for International Settlements draws on the analogy of the Global Financial Crisis. Just as a failure in mortgage lending led to a generalised financial crisis with impacts across the whole economy, the collapse in asset prices of fossil fuel industries could trigger a similar effect.

Companies forced to sell their assets to governments for a cheap price will no doubt complain they have other duties, such as getting a good return for shareholders. They will likely argue that not selling to another company for a premium price will reduce dividends paid to investors.

Read more:
Be worried when fossil fuel lobbyists support current environmental laws

Yes, companies might have a duty to make a profit. But duties to shareholders don’t automatically trump duties to the rest of society not to severely damage the climate.

Just as we don’t condone companies selling unsafe medicines or faulty appliances to benefit shareholders, nor should we allow them to harm the climate on those grounds.

Until governments step in to regulate the phase out of Australia’s fossil fuel assets, the environment and economy will be at risk.

BHP did not respond to The Conversation’s request for comment.

Jeremy Moss receives funding from the Australian Research Council. His book ‘Carbon Justice’ will be published in November with UNSW Press.

– ref. BHP is selling its dirty oil and gas assets, but hold the applause – https://theconversation.com/bhp-is-selling-its-dirty-oil-and-gas-assets-but-hold-the-applause-166333

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Peters, Senior Lecturer in Drama, Flinders University

Review: Hibernation by Finegan Kruckemeyer, State Theatre Company South Australia

What lengths would you go to in order to save the planet from climate crisis?
Stop eating meat and start composting? Recycle and “make do”, instead of buying new?

How about lock yourself securely in your home, climb into bed, and hibernate for a full year, giving the planet a chance to recharge and reset?

This is the provocative premise behind playwright Finegan Kruckemeyer’s bold new play Hibernation.

Performed in three acts, Hibernation introduces a global cast of characters in the year 2030: close enough to the present so as to feel timely and familiar; yet distant enough it is not impossible to imagine the realisation of this dystopian narrative.

Eighteen months ago, the thought of stay-at-home orders and “snap lockdowns” were otherworldly and extreme. Now, they are simply part and parcel of our collective efforts to keep our community safe.

Who knows what else could change between now and 2030?

The polished, crisp scenes of press conferences, the emotionally inflected media statements and a growing sense of turmoil are eerily familiar. Thousands of people are dying; or seeking refuge in other nations. Towns are flooding. Resources are scarce. Something has to change, urgently.

Enter the plan: to send the world into a forced, year-long slumber for the greater good.

Under Mitchell Butel’s dynamic and rhythmic direction, Hibernation explores the relational and emotional response to this bold plan for healing the planet.

Read more:
Can art put us in touch with our feelings about climate change?

What is the cost of action, inaction and apathy?

In the Canberra of this speculative future, chauvinism is alive and well. We meet the politicians claiming ownership of this daring plan and the policy maker who actually conceived it. They call for trust in the science, and promise no harm will come to the human population from the hibernation-inducing drug 54E–501E.

A young family in Africa pack for the “most not-going-anywhere-year” of their lives.

Ernesto and his husband in South America share a zoom call with his mother Cassandra, who foreshadows how the impact of this singular universal act will not be experienced in a universal way.

How different is the sacrifice of a year in the life of someone in their 70s compared to a year in the life of someone in their 20s?

We witness the strength of conviction of American news hosts as they refuse to follow the auto-cue and, instead, attempt to communicate with care and consideration for the listeners on the other side of the screen.

Serving as a stark juxtaposition, act two focuses our attention in a vividly local way. Two Adelaideans, immune to 54E–501E, have free reign over the city. They share rich verbal illustrations of birds overtaking shopfronts and forests germinating from cricket pitches: businesses and ovals have become green houses and bio domes.

This scenario: the only two souls awake in a city where lions and hyenas — set free from the zoo on the eve of hibernation — roam the streets, is not as joyously poetic as it might first seem.

In act three, we return to our global characters and witness the impact and fall out of this experiment in planetary survival. As Cassandra laments, “we are what we are.” The human response to change and loss is messy and hopeful; loving and flawed.

Theatre in a time of crisis

Jonathon Oxlade’s set design is elegantly symbolic and sleek, with the lighting (Gavin Norris), sound (Andrew Howard) and video (Matt Byrne) cohesively supporting our immersive connection to each location. These integrated design elements direct our gaze across the stage, inviting the audiences’ imagination to fill the spaces between the pops of colour, light and rhythm.

It is an utter joy and privilege to be treated to this cast of 10 who deliver nuanced, heartfelt and compelling performances.

Hibernation makes the most of this large cast, with the full ensemble filling the stage for striking movement sequences, stylised depictions of parliamentary question time and a collage-like arrangement of characters preparing for their 365-day rest and reset. At a time when so many across the nation are distancing and isolated, the choreography and presence of a large cast on stage is a delight.

Hibernation balances a tripartite tightrope: telling a story on an ambitiously global scale; representing heartfelt human connection in the local and personal; and offering challenging food for thought, which will continue to linger in the back of your mind long after the lights go down.

Stories wrestling with what it means to exist, to navigate relationships, and to make good choices in a contemporary context are just one of the glorious gifts theatre can offer its community.

Hibernation plays at the Dunstan Playhouse until August 28.

Read more:
Loss for words: Art, language and the challenges of living on a changing planet

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

– ref. Could sending humans to sleep for a year help solve the climate crisis? A new play, Hibernation, asks this question – https://theconversation.com/could-sending-humans-to-sleep-for-a-year-help-solve-the-climate-crisis-a-new-play-hibernation-asks-this-question-165736

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mai Sato, Associate Professor, Director of Eleos Justice, Faculty of Law, Monash University

On July 30 2021, the Supreme Court of Papua New Guinea (PNG) quashed the National Court’s temporary stay of executions for all people sentenced to death.

The judgment has cleared a major obstacle to carrying out death sentences for the first time in nearly 70 years. It makes execution a real possibility for 15 individuals who are on death row.

From the PNG government’s perspective, there remain rather brutal administrative considerations: regulations authorising officers to carry out executions, and nominating the “most possible” of the approved methods of execution under law.

The then Australian administration abolished the death penalty in PNG in 1970. The PNG government reintroduced it in 1991.

Despite its reintroduction in law, PNG has not carried out any executions since 1954. Even so, the death penalty, or at least the threat of its implementation, has been used as a form of social control and has remained part of PNG’s criminal justice system. As of August 2021, there are 15 prisoners on death row.

In the past ten years, the death penalty has been part of the domestic political debate in PNG. In 2013, the parliament expanded the scope of the death penalty. Sorcery-related murder, aggravated rape, and robbery all became punishable by death under the Criminal Code (Amendment) Act 2013.

In 2015, the PNG cabinet endorsed guidelines for execution by approving three modes of execution: hanging, lethal injection and firing squad. It also determined the location for the execution.

Three years later, the judiciary applied the revised criminal code by sentencing eight men to death for sorcery-related murder.

By 2020 it had become such a part of political discussion that the government promised a nationwide consultation to examine the level of public support for the death penalty.

Read more:
If Papua New Guinea really is part of Australia’s ‘family’, we’d do well to remember our shared history

On the international stage, PNG has so far resisted the trend towards abolition of the death penalty. At its most recent UN Universal Periodic Review(2016), PNG did not accept recommendations to move away from the death penalty.

Since 2007, PNG has voted against, or abstained from voting on, the UN General Assembly resolution calling for a moratorium on the death penalty.

Indeed, in 2020, PNG actively opposed the resolution, appearing to commit itself to a position in direct tension with the abolitionist majority of the international community.

PNG’s justification for retaining the death penalty has centred on it being an effective deterrent to heinous crimes. In 2013, the then prime minister, Peter O’Neill, proposed the expanded use of the death penalty to tackle violent crimes. He claimed the “majority of our people are demanding it”. The then opposition leader, Belden Namah, also supported these measures, viewing it as an effective deterrent.

Resorting to increasing the severity of punishment to tackle serious crime has achieved little across different jurisdictions. These include the US, the UK and, more recently, Australia. In this sense, there is nothing new in PNG attempting to solve problems of violence through the use of harsher criminal punishments. But a consequence of PNG’s punitive turn could be dire.

There is no doubt PNG experiences a severe range of violent crime, including tribal fighting and sorcery-related deaths. In violence related to sorcery accusations, many of the victims are women who have been gang-raped and sometimes beaten or burnt to death. But victims are reluctant to report these crimes to police for fear of being targeted again or of their family being attacked. Unless beliefs about sorcery change, it is unlikely any criminal punishment will serve to curtail violent incidents, especially if the community does not trust the police to intervene and offer protection to the victims.

Furthermore, there is no scientific evidence that proves the death penalty is an effective deterrent compared to other sentences such as life imprisonment.

Two-thirds of countries have abolished the death penalty or have not executed anyone for ten years or more. While Asia lags behind this global trend, the Pacific Island countries are at the forefront of the abolitionist movement.

Every Pacific Island state apart from PNG and Tonga has abolished the death penalty for ordinary crimes. If PNG was to resume executions, it would entrench itself as an outlier among Pacific Island states.

PNG is not bound to proceed with executions. In the Supreme Court’s judgment, Justice Manuhu’s dissent is particularly instructive. He endorsed the National Court’s finding that

[…] it is now too late to execute any of these prisoners, as their right of protection against inhuman punishment has been infringed.

Indeed, of the 15 on death row in PNG, 13 have been in prison for more than five years. Some have been there for more than 17 years.

PNG is next scheduled to participate in the UN’s Universal Periodic Review in October 2021. It will be an opportunity for a direct and meaningful diplomatic exchange with abolitionist states.

Read more:
‘A dam has been breached’: a COVID crisis on our doorstep shows how little we pay attention to PNG

Taking steps towards the abolition of the death penalty at law would not constitute a substantial change for the PNG community, given its moratorium for nearly 70 years.

Mai Sato receives funding from Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. She is Deputy Director of CrimeInfo, an NGO based in Japan (https://www.crimeinfo.jp).

Matthew Goldberg has received funding from Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. He is a board member of the Capital Punishment Justice Project.

– ref. After nearly 70 years, the death penalty again becomes a real prospect in Papua New Guinea – https://theconversation.com/after-nearly-70-years-the-death-penalty-again-becomes-a-real-prospect-in-papua-new-guinea-166096

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Welch, Senior Lecturer, University of Auckland

We knew the Delta variant would eventually arrive in Aotearoa, but real-time sequencing, which produces full genomes from positive cases in less than 12 hours, will ensure the lockdown is as short and effective as possible.

There are now ten cases and we can expect more to be reported over the coming days. Genome sequencing of the first case, identified on Tuesday, did not show any direct matches to cases found in managed isolation facilities, but it is linked with the current Delta outbreak in New South Wales. This means the source was very likely someone arriving from NSW.

We may well find matches as samples from cases in MIQ are fast-tracked for sequencing. But since all NSW cases come from the same source, their genomes are all very similar and a match of an MIQ case to a community case will not be enough to prove they are the source.

The genomes and cases we have found so far cannot tell us how many cases there are, but modelling by Te Pūnaha Matatini, which takes into account the number of people with COVID-like symptoms getting tested, suggests the outbreak was already between 30 and 75 active cases by the time we discovered it. Whatever the number is, it is almost certainly still growing.

Because of its higher transmissibility, Delta has become the dominant strain in many parts of the world, including in Aotearoa. All cases found at our border over the past three months have been the Delta variant 170 full genomes found so far.

Read more:
‘Genomic fingerprinting’ helps us trace coronavirus outbreaks. What is it and how does it work?

While this is the first community transmission of the Delta variant we’ve seen in Aotearoa, that is mainly because our border detection and management has been successful in keeping it at the border until now.

Lockdown measures along with tracking, tracing and isolation will dramatically reduce the opportunity for the virus to spread and hopefully bring the R number below 1 so that the number of new cases will eventually start dropping.

As we find more cases that are not directly linked to each other, their genomes will give us some information about how large the outbreak might be. Essentially, the greater the diversity in the genomes we see, the older and larger the outbreak is likely to be.

If all the cases have identical genomes, it would mean the outbreak has not been around long enough to pick up mutations. But if there are several mutations that separate cases, it would mean there is probably a longer chain of transmission between the cases and a potentially large number of as yet undiscovered cases.

What makes Delta different

The Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19) was first seen in India in late 2020 and is the most recent “variant of concern” to have been identified. Variants of concern are lineages that are either more transmissible, cause more serious disease or show greater ability to evade vaccines.

Delta is a variant of concern first and foremost because it transmits at a much higher rate than previous variants. Its basic reproduction number, R0, is estimated to be around 5 or 6. In an unvaccinated population with no other prevention measures, this means an infected person would likely infect five or six others, compared to about two or three for the variants that were dominant in 2020.

Read more:
SARS-CoV-2 mutations: why the virus might still have some tricks to pull

Like other variants of concern, Delta has a large number of mutations that distinguish it from other SARS-CoV-2 lineages. It is characterised by over 20 mutations, including nine on the spike protein which enables the virus to stick to and infect cells. Essentially, these changes make the virus more sticky and more successful at infecting cells and replicating.

This results in much higher “viral loads” (the overall number of viral copies an infected person has) and people becoming infectious and symptomatic more quickly. Combined, this results in faster transmission and larger outbreaks.

Superspreading events

We know that SARS-CoV-2 transmission depends on superspreading events — when a small number of cases (perhaps 10-20%) are responsible for most (80%) of the transmission.

We saw this in Aotearoa’s first wave in 2020, which was dominated by a few large clusters. It was also evident in various lucky breaks we have had since then, when cases in the community have not transmitted the virus to household contacts.

Delta is different in that fewer Delta cases have no onward transmission but it seems likely this is just a function of the overall higher transmissibility, rather than a change in super-spreading behaviour.

Breakthrough infections

The other reason Delta is of concern is because it is more able to infect vaccinated people. Such breakthrough infections remain rare, and vaccines are still very effective at preventing serious disease.

But people with breakthrough infections can pass the virus on to others, albeit at a lower rate.

Vaccines therefore give us multiple lines of protection. They make us less likely to get infected, and even if we do, much less likely to get seriously sick and less likely to transmit the virus.

The speed at which the Delta variant spreads means we cannot vaccinate fast enough to change the course of the current outbreak. But if we eliminate this outbreak and rapidly roll out the vaccine in the next few months, future outbreaks will be easier to control.

David Welch is affiliated with the University of Auckland and receives funding from the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE)

Jemma Geoghegan receives funding from the Marsden Fund and is a Rutherford Discovery Fellow.

Nigel French receives funding from the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment (MBIE). He is affiliated with Massey University and is a member of the Ministry of Health COVID-19 Technical Advisory Group.

– ref. Why rapid genome sequencing is key to finding out how long Delta has been in NZ, and how large this outbreak might be – https://theconversation.com/why-rapid-genome-sequencing-is-key-to-finding-out-how-long-delta-has-been-in-nz-and-how-large-this-outbreak-might-be-166340

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kevin Foster, Associate Professor, Media Studies, Monash University

Twenty years ago, Australian forces followed the US into Afghanistan in the wake of the September 11 attacks with a simple mission: to hunt down Osama bin Laden and the al-Qaeda leadership and remove the Taliban government that had sheltered them. That mission has ended in abject failure.

Its costs have been significant: 41 combat-related deaths, 260 wounded, more than 500 veteran suicides, thousands afflicted by post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and around A$10 billion expended with precious little to show for it.

Uruzgan Province, the centre of Australian operations from July 2006 until the main Australian Defence Force troops withdrew in December 2013, fell to the Taliban in early August with scarcely a shot fired. All those years spent equipping, training and mentoring the Afghan National Army to stand up and fight for the gains made since 2001 had clearly achieved nothing.

But the failures don’t end there.

Over the past weeks, there has been a great deal of hand-wringing about the potential loss of the gains made in Afghanistan in the 20 years between the Taliban rule. Those gains were many: a generation has profited from improved access to educational opportunities, key health indicators have markedly improved, a massive influx of foreign aid has stimulated the economy, the private sector has flourished, and a free media has reported on and critiqued the emerging society’s advances and shortcomings. Women especially benefited from new freedoms and took up prominent roles in politics, the public sector and the media.

All these gains are now in peril as the newly re-installed Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan looks set to return women to obscurity and chatteldom.

While this is true of life in Afghanistan’s capital and larger cities, improvements in Uruzgan were less marked and never so far-reaching. Despite the Australian government’s “perennial airbrushed optimism” about the benefits brought by the ADF and its security and reconstruction efforts, the lot of Uruzganis beyond the provincial capital, Tarin Kot, changed little.

Read more:
As the Taliban returns, 20 years of progress for women looks set to disappear overnight

In late 2012, little more than a year before the ADF’s withdrawal, Australian journalist Jeremy Kelly was struck by the disparity between the ADF’s “mission accomplished” rhetoric and what he saw when he travelled through the province. He wrote:

Australian military officials are quick to list achievements by its development arm: three times as many healthcare facilities since 2006 and a rise in the number of schools from 34 in 2006 to 205 now. They are impressive numbers, but they don’t tell the whole story. In Chora, only one of the 32 schools open actually has students attending […] The rest are “just for teachers taking a salary” […]

Meanwhile, in the western district of Deh Rawood, government and foreign officials were shocked last year when they found land surrounding three vacant schools, all built with foreign money, was being used to grow opium and cannabis.

In November 2020, an independent Afghan NGO, The Liaison Office, assessed the state of Uruzgan province ten years after the withdrawal of the ADF’s erstwhile security partners, the Dutch. Despite the doubling of health facilities and workers ensuring greater availability of antenatal and postpartum care for Afghan women, access to these facilities remains fraught.

Read more:
As Afghanistan falls, what does it mean for the Middle East?

Taliban control of all major roads in the province and ongoing clashes with security forces restricted access to healthcare and education and stunted economic activity. Insecurity and internal displacement compounded by drought and disease severely affected agriculture with a marked increase in fallow land. Fewer schools were open in 2020 than a decade earlier. Though the Taliban had permitted the re-opening of some, they enforced a strict prohibition on girls’ education.

If Uruzganis profited little from the Australian presence, the ADF has emerged from the campaign damaged and diminished. Australian forces were bit players in the Afghan venture. Faithful followers of their US masters, they brought limited resources, exercised no control over strategy and so cannot be held responsible for the failure of the larger mission.

In this regard, the nation’s political leaders and the ADF itself have persistently measured the military’s performance by its adherence to the mythical yardstick of ANZAC virtue. From this perspective, the success or failure of the ADF mission rested less on what they did than who they showed themselves to be.

There is no doubt many thousands of servicemen and women served honourably and did what they could to improve the lives of the Afghans they encountered. Sadly, their efforts have left few permanent marks and will be largely forgotten. Instead, Afghanistan will be remembered for the alleged atrocities detailed in the Brereton Report.

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

Afghanistan’s reputation as the graveyard of empires rests less on the prowess of its forces than the country’s capacity to expose the failings inherent in the armies that come to campaign there. This includes the dysfunctional leadership and supply of the Soviet military, and the hubris of the US’s faith in the force of arms.

Lazy platitudes about Australian moral and military exceptionalism were put to the test in Afghanistan, and found wanting. To retrieve something positive from this 20-year debacle it is vital the ADF owns up to its failures in Afghanistan. Only then can it hope to recover its ethical balance and rebuild its moral authority.

Kevin Foster’s book, Anti-Social Media: Conventional Militaries in the Digital Battlespace, will be released by Melbourne University Press on August 31.

Kevin Foster has received funding from the Australian Army Research Scheme.

– ref. Owning up: Australia must admit its involvement in Afghanistan has been an abject failure – https://theconversation.com/owning-up-australia-must-admit-its-involvement-in-afghanistan-has-been-an-abject-failure-166213

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Donna Green, Associate Professor, Investigator for Digital Grid Futures Institute, UNSW; Affiliated Investigator NHMRC Centre for Air Pollution, Energy and Health Research, Associate Investigator the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes, UNSW

The smell of hazard reduction burn smoke in Sydney this week is an unwelcome reminder the bushfire season is almost upon us, and with it, the torment of having to breathe toxic air.

Even before the last of the 2019–20 Black Summer smoke dissipated, another deadly reminder of the importance of access to safe air arrived. COVID forced many of us to take a crash course in how to avoid respiratory viruses.

One of the most effective ways to reduce indoor COVID transmission is to open windows. Maximising outdoor air coming inside, known as the air exchange rate, is a good way to reduce transmission risk.

Read more:
Australia must get serious about airborne infection transmission. Here’s what we need to do

But opening windows during the bushfire season can let toxic smoke in, changing the risk calculation.

Keeping windows closed and re-circulating air through standard aircon systems can cool the air, but doesn’t remove smoke or viruses.

So how can schools reduce exposure to COVID and bushfire smoke simultaneously?

This dilemma has a solution we can implement immediately. We’ve calculated about A$50 million would provide all NSW primary and secondary school classrooms, and other shared spaces within schools, with High-Efficiency Particulate Air (HEPA) grade air purifiers.

This initial outlay pales compared to the roughly A$220 million-a-day cost of Sydney’s lockdown.

The added benefit of installing air purifiers with HEPA filters is they can help reduce the risk of asthma attacks too.

Air purifiers with HEPA filters can remove over 99% of tiny particles

Most people catch COVID by inhaling it from shared air, and COVID particles often linger in the air in indoor spaces. Simple and relatively cheap air purifiers with HEPA filters have been shown to clear potentially infectious aerosols quickly and effectively.

HEPA air purifiers work by mechanical filtration — they force air through a fine mesh which traps particles. Off-the-shelf air purifers with HEPA filters can remove more than 99.97% of all particle sizes down to 0.30-1.0 microns (one millionth of a metre).

This means they can help filter airborne viruses, bacteria, and tiny particles known as “particulate matter” from bushfire or hazard reduction burn smoke. They can’t completely eliminate COVID transmission, but they can help reduce the risk especially when used with other best practices like wearing masks and other public health measures.

This approach isn’t radical. It has already been mandated in New York schools prior to their reopening.

Our calculations

These calculations assume each NSW primary and secondary school student, of which there are approximately 706,000 and 534,000, respectively, are grouped in classes of 25 and 20 pupils, respectively.

Each of these classrooms would require an air purifier designed to work in a standard classroom of approximately 60 square metres. We’ve allowed for each of the 3,100 schools in NSW to have six extra units to include shared spaces such as the library or resource room, staff room and administration area.

Approximately 73,500 units would be needed in NSW. We’ve applied a bulk buy discount of 30% on a currently available, high-quality HEPA air purifier retailing for A$1,000 to arrive at our estimate.

Of course, this doesn’t only affect NSW — schools across the nation would likely benefit from this approach.

Read more:
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Because these units are already available for purchase online and can ship via existing delivery services, the logistics are neither complicated nor expensive.

Installation of the units can be carried out in minutes, and one of the only concerns is the need to ensure proper PPE when changing the filter.

Unfortunately, upgrading existing aircon systems in schools by incorporating higher-grade HEPA filters is slow, expensive and not always technically possible.

In combination with other risk-reduction strategies, air purifiers could be an affordable way to reduce the risk of unmitigated COVID spread between unvaccinated students and staff, and the inevitable spread between, and within, these children’s households.

This approach would buy time until vaccines are approved and rolled out for Australian children. This is unlikely to occur before mid-2022 at the earliest.

There are multiple other benefits too

An added benefit is that for future years, these air purifiers might be able to reduce asthma attacks triggered by smoke from the inevitable, and increasingly intense, bushfire season. That’s because for many people, asthma can be triggered by the small particles in smoke which, once inhaled, can go into the lungs causing inflammation.

Their tiny size means some of them can enter the blood stream and affect our lungs, heart and immune systems.

Read more:
How does bushfire smoke affect our health? 6 things you need to know

One in ten Australian children suffer from asthma, so keeping hazard reduction burn and bushfire smoke out of schools is a top priority.

Using HEPA filters will likely result in health savings associated with reduced asthma attacks from avoided smoke inhalation, and a lower burden from COVID cases stemming from school-based transmission. This will place less pressure on NSW’s overwhelmed health system.

It’s hard to comprehend why we haven’t raced to take such an effective no-regrets strategy.

It’s one strategy of many

Installing air purifiers with HEPA filters throughout the entire school system might be one of the most important, and cost effective, ways to improve the health and safety for millions of families in NSW, and around Australia.

We also need to deploy a range of strategies to reduce the risk to school children and staff of exposure to airborne viruses, as well as smoke and other air pollutants.

We know we need to:

• promote outdoor sports over indoors

• stagger outside playground access times

• move non-essential person-to-person interactions online (for example parent-teacher meetings)

• perform rigorous daily checks for symptomatic children

• constantly encourage people with even the most minor symptoms to stay home and get tested

• mandate masks in schools and on public transport

• stagger drop off and pick up times where possible.

Donna Green has received funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council and the NSW Chief Scientist and Engineer. She currently receives funding from the Digital Grid Futures Institute, UNSW.

She works on Clean Air Schools www.cleanairschools.com.au which measures indoor and outdoor air pollution in schools.

Ben Harris-Roxas receives research funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council and NSW Health. In the past he has received funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council, the Australian Research Council, the World Health Organization, the Australian Government Department of Health, the Public Health Agency of Canada, the Heart Foundation NSW, NPS MedicineWise, the Sax Institute and the City of Gold Coast.

– ref. We should install air purifiers with HEPA filters in every classroom. It could help with COVID, bushfire smoke and asthma – https://theconversation.com/we-should-install-air-purifiers-with-hepa-filters-in-every-classroom-it-could-help-with-covid-bushfire-smoke-and-asthma-166332

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dale Nimmo, Associate Professor in Ecology, Charles Sturt University

The new report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change paints a sobering picture of the warming climate in coming decades. Among the projections is an increase in fire weather, which will expose Earth’s landscapes to more large and intense megafires.

In our paper, published today in Global Change Biology, we considered what this fiery future might mean for the planet’s wildlife. We argue a lot can be learned by looking at how wildlife responds to a very different threat: predators.

Australia has seen the brutal consequences that occur when native wildlife is exposed to introduced predators. Australian animals have not evolved alongside introduced predators, such as cats and foxes, and some are what scientists call “predator naive” — they simply aren’t equipped with the evolutionary instincts to detect and respond to introduced predators before it’s too late.

Now, let’s take that idea and apply it to fires. Some animals have evolved excellent tricks to detect when a bushfire is nearby. But some areas where infernos were once rare are growing increasingly bushfire-prone, thanks to climate change. The wildlife in these spots may not have the evolutionary know-how to detect a fire before it’s too late.

Just as being “predator naive” has decimated Australian wildlife, will being “fire naive” wreak havoc on our native species?

Behaviour forged in fire

A growing list of studies show the tricks animals from fire-prone areas use to survive the flames.

Sleepy lizards have been shown to panic at the smell of burnt pastry, reed frogs leap away from the crackling sounds of fire, and bats and marsupials wake from torpor after smelling smoke.

And one study found that, when exposed to smoke, Mediterranean lizards from fire-prone areas reacted more strongly than Mediterranean lizards from areas where fire was rare.

These studies show some animals can recognise the threat of fire, and behave in a way that increases their chance of survival. Those that can are more likely to live through fire and pass on those abilities to their offspring.

That’s where the parallels between fire and predation become striking — and potentially worrying.

Reading the cues

It’s well known predators and prey are in an ongoing evolutionary race to outmanoeuvre one another.

One tool prey draw upon to avoid becoming predator food is to recognise cues — such as smells, sights and sounds — that indicate a predator is lurking nearby. Once they do, prey can change their behaviour to minimise the risk of becoming dinner.

Decades of research has shown that when prey evolve alongside a predator, they can become highly adept at recognising their predator’s cues, such as a scent markings or territorial calls.

But what about animals that haven’t evolved alongside these lethal threats?

When a new predator enters an ecosystem, prey that have not evolved with it can be naive to its cues. They might fail to recognise the threat implied by the new predator’s scents, signs, or sounds, placing them at substantial risk.

This “predator naivety” helps explain why introduced predators are global drivers of extinction. Naive prey just don’t hear, smell, or see them coming.

Read more:
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Which species are ‘fire naive’?

Research on how animals respond to fire cues has focused on animals from fire-prone regions, probably because that’s where you’d expect to find the strongest responses. But more research is needed about animals from regions that rarely burn.

Do these animals also recognise the cues of fire as an approaching lethal threat?

Do they have finely tuned behaviours that help them survive fire?

Are they “fire naive”?

We don’t know. And that’s a worry because recent changes in global fire activity, triggered by a warming and drying climate, are seeing fires enter ecosystems long regarded as “fire-free”.

If they are naive to fire, species in these ecosystems might be more at risk than previously thought.

The search for fire naivety

We urge researchers around the world to assess fire naivety of animals, particularly in areas experiencing a change in their fire regimes, such as from rare to frequent fire or increased fire severity.

Evidence suggests recognition of predator cues is at least partly genetic. It will be important to determine whether the capacity to recognise and respond to fire also has a genetic basis.

If those behaviours can be passed on from one generation to the next, then perhaps we could take fire-savvy individuals from fire-prone areas and place them into fire naive populations, in the hope their favourable behaviours will spread rapidly via genes passed onto their offspring. Scientists call this “targeted gene flow”.

As the world continues to warm and megafires rage across the globe, we will need all the knowledge and tools at our disposal to help avoid an acceleration of Earth’s biodiversity crisis.

Read more:
Artificial refuges are a popular stopgap for habitat destruction, but the science isn’t up to scratch

Dale Nimmo receives funding from the Australian Research Council, the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning, the Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions, Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment, the World Wildlife Fund, Consolidated Minerals, the Hermon Slade Foundation, and the National Environmental Science Program (Threatened Species Hub)

Alex Carthey receives funding from Macquarie University, the Australian Research Council, The Hermon Slade Foundation, The World Wildlife Fund, Aussie Ark, and Greater Sydney Local Land Service.

Chris J Jolly receives funding from National Environmental Science Program (Threatened Species Hub).

Daniel T. Blumstein receives funding from the National Science Foundation and the Australian Research Council.

– ref. Some animals have excellent tricks to evade bushfire. But flames might be reaching more animals naive to the dangers – https://theconversation.com/some-animals-have-excellent-tricks-to-evade-bushfire-but-flames-might-be-reaching-more-animals-naive-to-the-dangers-164894

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ritesh Chugh, Senior Lecturer – Information Systems and Analysis, CQUniversity Australia

Giving good feedback is an art. It can be challenging for supervisors and managers, whether in an educational setting or any other workplace. Our newly published review of the past decade’s research on this issue confirms the key elements of improving feedback are to make it meaningful, constructive, timely and regular.

Feedback is centred on giving information about actual performance against set requirements. Good feedback enables people to learn from both successes and weaknesses in performance.

Focusing only on people’s shortcomings does not help learning, but hinders it. Bad feedback can be destructive.

Read more:
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An earlier review found one feedback intervention out of every three actually decreased performance. Postgraduate students’ experiences of feedback from research supervisors mirrors employees’ experiences of feedback from managers. Our analysis of the past decade of academic literature on feedback to postgraduate research students confirms the problem is widespread.

And large numbers of people are affected. Australia has more than 66,500 higher degree research students. In the US, 55,703 doctorates were awarded in 2019.

Poor feedback to such students leads to a negative experience. But there is not one feedback strategy that works positively for all situations.

Read more:
Universities are failing their students through poor feedback practices

What are the common problems?

Our study found the problems in giving and receiving feedback related to content, process, people and expectations.

Low-quality feedback with inadequate information or vague content from managers does not lead to better work performance. Equally, managers and supervisors need to find a good balance between overwhelming their supervisees with too much feedback and not providing enough or infrequent and delayed feedback.

Feedback does not stand alone – it is part of the broader relationship between supervisor and supervisee. A lack of trust is harmful for the giving and receiving of feedback.

Feedback is a two-way process between the giver and receiver – both parties contribute to the experience. Some individuals actively seek feedback. Others try to avoid it at all costs.

Not all feedback receivers are willing to take feedback on board. On the other hand, many feedback givers lack appropriate feedback skills or awareness of their own style of feedback, including its timing and tone. Often, feedback is less than effective because of a mismatch of expectations between givers and receivers.

Read more:
How our obsession with performance is changing our sense of self

The need for a ‘critical friend’

Providing effective feedback is essential to improve learning and performance. Managers and research supervisors continually give and receive feedback. But, before giving feedback, supervisors should manage expectations and negotiate supervision arrangements. These include how often and when to give feedback, as well as the length and depth of feedback content.

In all organisations, supervisors should aim for a positive supervisory relationship. Such relationships are based on trust, respect, open communication and shared meaning.

Supervisors’ style of feedback often parallels their own experiences, whether it was helpful or not. As feedback can often be misunderstood, supervisors should critically reflect on their feedback style so it becomes a satisfying two-way process.

Constructive regular feedback should highlight both strengths and weaknesses. It should also suggest improvements. Fifty-seven percent of employees prefer to hear corrective feedback that provides suggestions for improvement and points out things that weren’t done optimally.

So, supervisors can assume the role of a “critical friend” who is encouraging and supportive but provides candid feedback on performance.

Using technologies such as videoconferencing, messaging, social media and email can help in providing timely feedback.

Our review sums up the research findings on the characteristics of effective feedback as:

“suggestive and constructive, brief, frequent and regular, actionable, specific and tailored, explicit, honest but empathetic and tactful, formal, supportive and encouraging, advising, appreciative and respectful but critical”.

Read more:
Informal feedback: we crave it more than ever, and don’t care who it’s from

A 3-way process of improving feedback

Improving the feedback environment can lead to benefits that include higher work satisfaction. For example, in higher education, the triad of institutions, supervisors and students/supervisees can all help improve feedback processes. The same is true of the triad of the organisation, supervisors/managers and employees in other workplaces. Each has a role to play in making feedback effective.

Institutions and organisations can provide administrative, technical and financial support to supervisors. Training, mentoring and personal development opportunities can help both supervisors and supervisees succeed.

Supervisors need to engage in professional development, regularly communicate with their supervisees, be culturally sensitive and use a blend of the previously outlined feedback strategies.

Supervisees should develop reflective skills and engage critically with feedback as integral to their learning and improvement.

No ‘one size fits all’, but key principles apply

Every supervisory relationship is different. However, developing a constructive feedback culture is critical. In the supervisor-supervisee relationship, lessons need to be learnt from problems in the process, and a mix of positive feedback strategies can be adopted.

As our study shows, there is no “one size fits all” approach to providing feedback. Ultimately, supervisors and managers should ensure feedback is supervisee-centred, focuses on improvements and is actionable.

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. Feedback from supervisors can be a good or bad experience. Here’s how to get it right – https://theconversation.com/feedback-from-supervisors-can-be-a-good-or-bad-experience-heres-how-to-get-it-right-165757

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kevin Davis, Emeritus Professor of Finance, The University of Melbourne

On May 29, the government announced by way of media release the extension of an emergency COVID measure.

The temporary halving of minimum drawdown rates for retirement superannuation accounts — introduced in March 2020 while the Australian stock market was in freefall — would continue for another year.

The explanation was terse and does not stand up to scrutiny.

The biggest beneficiaries of the extension are the wealthy retirees, who use super to escape tax on funds they are building up to hand on to their children.

It provides no benefits to less well-off retirees who need to use money in super to live on in retirement.

Before the temporary halving of drawdown requirements in March 2020, a retiree aged between 65-74 would be required to withdraw at least 5% of their account balance each year.

The minimum withdrawal rate increased with age.

The merit in the requirement (even if the numbers used have an unavoidable element of arbitrariness) was that it limited the ability of wealthy retirees to use super as a pure tax dodge.

Super is meant to be for retirement

Funds in super retirement accounts have a zero tax rate on earnings and are untaxed when withdrawn.

The original decision in March 2020 to halve minimum withdrawals possibly made some sense. Following a peak on February 20 2020, stock markets plunged and super funds suffered negative returns (minus 10.3% in the March quarter, according to the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority).

Read more:
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Withdrawing funds, possibly not currently needed, from a tax-preferred portfolio at a time when its value was (hopefully temporarily) depressed was not an optimal wealth management strategy.

Those sufficiently well-off and able to draw on assets outside super, could now draw down less in order to maximise super tax benefits.

The less well-off (without significant financial assets outside of super) got no such benefit. They still needed to draw down at a similar rate for living expenses, or cut back consumption.

There are possibly some (probably not many), between these two groups, for whom the policy change meant improved whole-of-retirement living standards given the subsequent recovery in super fund returns. And the announcement may have had some beneficial psychological effects!

So, it was possible to give the original decision a tick of approval.

The S&P/ASX 200 has more than recovered from last year’s crisis

But what about the decision to extend the halving of minimum withdrawal rates for another entire financial year?

The explanation in the media release is little more than unsubstantiated waffle.

Today’s announcement extends that reduction to the 2021-22 income year and continues to make life easier for our retirees by giving them more flexibility and choice in their retirement.

For many retirees, the significant losses in financial markets as a result of the COVID-19 crisis are still having a negative effect on the account balance of their superannuation pension.

The second sentence certainly warrants scrutiny.

APRA statistics show that in the year to March 2021 the rate of return for institutional super funds was 18.2%

This is well in excess of what was required to reverse the temporary loss in the March quarter of 2020 that prompted the original decision.

These APRA statistics for March 2021 were published on May 25.

The information underlying them was presumably available to the government well before its announcement on May 29.

Superannuation performance (excluding self-managed funds)

The APRA figures are aggregates. There might be some individual funds that have not recovered from the losses of a year earlier, but each of the categories of institutional funds in the APRA statistics appear to have done so.

The APRA statistics do not include self-managed funds, and some of them might not have fully recovered (we don’t know). But even if so, that would reflect decisions about asset allocations in the control of the fund members.

This means the second sentence of the explanation reproduced above is at best unproven, and likely wrong.

The first sentence is, of course, tautologically true. The extension will indeed give retirees more flexibility in their retirement.

Super as a tax dodge

But the rationale for the drawdown requirement was to limit the use of super as a wealth maximisation strategy for the benefit of heirs.

The purpose of super is meant to be to provide income security and a reasonable standard of living in retirement.

Read more:
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That’s what the 200-page report of the retirement income review commissioned by Treasurer Josh Frydenberg told him in November.

The key beneficiaries of the extension will be the well-off who already get the most benefit from Australia’s super system.

Retirees who need super to live on won’t benefit in the least.

Kevin Davis is a Board Member of Super Consumers Australia, but this is a personal perspective, and nothing in the article should be inferred to represent views or policies of that organisation.

– ref. No longer a temporary COVID measure, the government’s super changes will most help wealthy tax dodgers – https://theconversation.com/no-longer-a-temporary-covid-measure-the-governments-super-changes-will-most-help-wealthy-tax-dodgers-166037

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jodi McAlister, Lecturer in Writing, Literature and Culture, Deakin University

In a new series, our writers nominate the TV series keeping them entertained during a time of COVID.

In The Bold and The Beautiful last week, Steffy Forrester (Jacqueline MacInnes Wood) married Dr John “Finn” Finnegan (Tanner Novlan). It was an unusual wedding for a soap opera. Not because Finn’s villainous, absent birth mother was about to leap from the shadows and reveal herself (that’s par for the course).

Rather, because for almost the entire trajectory of their characters’ romance, Wood and Novlan were not permitted to touch.

When the pandemic hit in March 2020, American television production shut down. In June that year, The Bold and The Beautiful was the first US network TV drama to resume shooting. Strict COVID guidelines included regular testing and mandatory masks and face shields off camera. Scenes featuring only one or two actors, rather than ensembles, became commonplace. On camera, actors were unmasked but maintained strict social distancing.

This presented problems, because soaps revolve around romance. How do you make a soap opera without kissing?

The show came up with innovative solutions such as body doubles. When the script called for Steffy and Finn to kiss, for instance, Novlan’s actual wife, actor Kayla Ewell stepped into Steffy’s shoes, with the scenes shot from behind.

In other instances, actors kissed mannequins. One kiss between Carter Walton (Lawrence Saint-Victor) and Zoe Buckingham (Kiara Barnes), where Zoe was strangely rigid, went viral.

The mannequins became a cult hit, ending up with a plotline of their own featuring troubled fashion designer Thomas Forrester (Matthew Atkinson), who began to hallucinate that a mannequin designed to look like the woman he was in love with actually became her.

This plotline kicked off a narrative trajectory (involving mistaken identity, an unplanned pregnancy, an altered paternity test and a wrongful arrest) that ultimately ended with Steffy and Finn’s wedding.

It kept me company during the long, long days of last year’s second lockdown in Melbourne: one reliable bright spot in a time that was anything but.

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A 20-year obsession

I have been a soap viewer since I was 12. I used to watch Days of Our Lives, The Young and the Restless and Passions during school holidays or when home sick. The Bold and The Beautiful, though, has always been “my” show. I’ve watched it steadily now for over 20 years. A lot in my life has changed in that period, but Bold has always been there, consistent in its melodrama. (Found at 4:30pm on Channel Ten, every day of the week).

The Bold and The Beautiful, for those who have never caught five minutes of it before the news, is an American soap opera set in the world of high fashion in Los Angeles.

It centres on three key families — the Forresters, the Logans, and the Spencers — who have been falling in love with each other, trying to murder each other, and stealing fashion designs from each other since 1987.

For many years, the central focus was designer Ridge Forrester (Ronn Moss) and his love triangle with Brooke Logan and Taylor Hayes. Ridge and co are still around (although Ridge is now played by Thorsten Kaye), but the central action now focuses on their children — including our most recent newlywed, (for the fifth time,) Steffy.

In Melbourne, we’re now in our sixth lockdown. It’s not fun, but knowing I can sit down every afternoon at 4:30 for half an hour of high fashion hijinks helps get me through.

For half an hour, I don’t need to think deeply: all I need to wonder is how Steffy is going to feel about her new evil mother-in-law, and what will happen if Thomas ever encounters that mannequin again.

I also exchange text messages with my own mother about the more disastrous fashion choices.

Slow drip TV

Free to air is not, generally speaking, how we watch TV now. We’re accustomed to bingeing entire seasons. Currently, 10play has episodes of Bold going back to 2020 (so you could watch the mannequin arc), and a good collection of classic episodes. But this barely scratches the surface. There are over 8,000 Bold episodes and counting.

The show is designed for slow-drip, routine watching. Soaps are for returning to day after day, not bingeing. They’re also made with a distracted viewer in mind, so key plot points are always reiterated several times. And during lockdown, this has been exactly what I needed.

Read more:
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No matter what the case numbers look like, The Bold and The Beautiful will be there for me, as it has been since I was 12. The plot will always be bananas (although a few weeks ago, with the advent of COVID vaccinations, the actors returned to kissing each other instead of mannequins). If I somehow manage to miss an episode (unlikely, during lockdown), they’ll always explain things again the next day.

Everything in the world might be unstable and disquieting, but I can always rely on one thing: the Forresters, Logans and Spencers will never stop fighting and falling in love at 4:30pm.

Jodi McAlister 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. Kissing mannequins: watching The Bold and The Beautiful during a pandemic – https://theconversation.com/kissing-mannequins-watching-the-bold-and-the-beautiful-during-a-pandemic-165954

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

Scott Morrison has said Afghans in Australia on temporary protection visas who came by boat will not be given permanent residence.

These people had not come “the right way”, Morrison told a news conference on Wednesday.

“I want to be very clear about that. I want to send a very clear message to people smugglers in the region that nothing’s changed.

“I will not give you a product to sell and take advantage of people’s misery. My government won’t do it. We never have and we never will.”

Government sources say there are more than 4500 Afghans in Australia on temporary protection visas, almost all of whom arrived by boat.

Although Morrison is adamant they will not get permanent residency, the government is making it clear there will be no attempt to return them to Afghanistan as things stand.

Opposition leader Anthony Albanese is among those who have called for them to be granted permanent residence.

The government announced on Wednesday an initial 3,000 humanitarian places would be allocated to Afghan nationals within Australia’s 13,750 annual program which runs over a financial year.

Immigration Minister Alex Hawke said the government would give Afghan nationals “first priority” within the offshore humanitarian program. The priorities would be family members of Australians, and those facing persecution including women and girls, the Hazara, and other vulnerable groups.

Some 8,500 Afghans have been resettled in Australia since 2013 under the humanitarian program.

Hawke said the government anticipated the initial allocation would increase further over the course of the year.

Morrison stressed: “We will only be resettling people through our official humanitarian program going through official channels.

“We will not be allowing people to enter Australia illegally, even at this time.

“Our policy has not changed. We will be supporting Afghans who have legitimate claims through our official and legitimate processes. We will not be providing that pathway to those who would seek to come any other way. That is a very important message. The government’s policy has not changed, will not change.”

As the government scrambles to evacuate people who assisted Australian forces in Afghanistan, Australia’s first evacuation flight from Kabul took only 26 people. Morrison said they included Australian citizens, Afghan nationals with visas, and one foreign official who had been working with an international agency.

The Afghans being brought to Australia in the evacuation are not included in the 3000.

Morrison emphasised the difficulty of assessing those Afghans seeking to come to Australia on the grounds of having helped Australian forces.

“They may have worked for us four years ago or five years ago. And we knew where they were then.

“And we may not have heard from them for a very long time. And we don’t know what they’ve been doing in that intervening period in what has been a very unstable situation.

“So it isn’t just a matter of people coming along and presenting, you know, a payslip from the Australian government saying, ‘I used to work for you’. I wish it were that simple.”

The Refugee Council of Australia said in a statement: “Permanent protection is needed for the 4300 Afghans on temporary protection visas, recognising that members of this group are unlikely to be able to return in safety for many years to come and need the assurance that they can continue to live in Australia without the constant fear of forced return.”

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

– ref. No permanent settlement for Afghans who did not come ‘the right way’: Morrison – https://theconversation.com/no-permanent-settlement-for-afghans-who-did-not-come-the-right-way-morrison-166354