Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Hattie, Professor, Melbourne Graduate School of Education, The University of Melbourne

In 2008, I published my book Visible Learning, which aimed to explain what works best to help student learning. At the time, others claimed it was the world’s largest evidence-based study into the factors that improve learning.

The book was based on 800 meta-analyses (a statistical analysis that combines the results of multiple studies) of 50,000 smaller studies. It found that, among six groups of factors influencing successful learning in schools – the student, home, school, teacher, curricula and teaching – teachers seemed to have the strongest in-school effect.

Since 2008, our partners have implemented the “visible learning” approach in more than 10,000 schools, with the aim of making student learning as visible as possible.

This means enabling students to see how their efforts and learning strategies are contributing to their learning, and teachers to see the impact of their teaching through the eyes of their students. It turns the focus from teaching to learning, and from talking about teaching methods to the impact of these methods.

This is crucial to making classrooms and schools safe, fair and inviting places to fail, learn, collaborate, grow and flourish.

My new study

It’s been 15 years since the book was published, and much has changed. There have been more than 1,300 new meta-analyses, COVID has disrupted schools, and we have learned a lot from the more than 100,000 teachers who have been using visible learning.

Visible Learning: The Sequel is published this month. It is informed by more than 2,100 meta-analyses about achievement drawn from more than 130,000 studies and conducted with the participation of more than 400 million students aged three to 25, mainly from developed countries.

It confirms the finding that high-impact is still the most important factor when it comes to student learning. This describes teachers who focus on the impacts of their teaching and who work together with other educators to critique their ideas about impact – about what was taught well, who was taught well, and the size of the improvement.

But many other findings also came out of the analysis.

New findings

My analysis shows a student’s achievement levels are affected negatively by many new factors. These include boredom, teacher-student dependency (where a student is over-reliant on their teacher) and corporal punishment.

I also identified a range of factors that improve students’ performance, including:

• computer tutoring that provides immediate feedback, particularly when using artificial intelligence

• “flipped learning”, whereby students are given the content to learn before coming to class

• teachers outlining and summarising learning materials

• students being taught how to rehearse and memorise content

• “phonological awareness” – teaching students to recognise and manipulate parts of sentences and words when learning to read

• “cognitive task analysis,” which is about teaching students how to think about how to problem solve

• the “Jigsaw method”, which involves both individual and group learning to solve a problem.

How teachers matter

The most important thing for teachers to do is to have high expectations for all students. This means not labelling students (as “bright”, “strugglers”, “ADHD” or “autistic”), as this can lead to lower expectations in both teachers and students but seeing all students as learners who can make leaps of growth in their learning.

Teachers need to be very clear with their students about the content and goals of their learning.

It is important teachers work with other teachers to see different sides of their impact on students and different ways for them to succeed in their teaching. What matters is the power of multiple interpretations about what is happening in classrooms, the results of assessments and examples of student work.

Why we need to be ‘greedy’

So many debates about curriculum and learning outcomes are phrased as either more “knowledge-rich” (teaching content) or more “problem-based discovery learning” (teaching how to discover ideas).

But it is not a question of either/or. We need to be greedy and want both. We need to harness the power of two: two success criteria (one about content, and one about deeper learning), two assessments, two activities – so it is clear we want both the knowledge and the relationships between ideas.

So, I advocate for a model of “intentional alignment”. That is, teachers need to consciously align their teaching methods, activities, assessments, feedback, with either the acquisition of knowledge or discovering of ideas.

The importance of parents

Parents are not “first teachers” but “first learners” – as the parents learn, so do their children. Parental expectation about learning is among the most powerful home influences, and the home needs to promote a “language and love of learning”.

This means parents talk to their children about their learning at school and home. This also means they enjoy the struggle, failures and successes when learning together, and set fair boundaries to take on increased challenges and learning safely.

This might mean being clear about what success looks like for a child cleaning their room. It might mean allowing multiple opportunities to succeed, and talking about errors and failure as opportunities to learn.

Read more:
How to avoid annoying your kids and getting ‘stressed by proxy’ during exam season

What about technology?

We have been told for 50 years the answer to our education problems is technology, but my analysis shows the overall effects remain low.

We have used technology as a substitute: video instead of paper mache, word processing programs instead of using pens, online activities instead of work sheets. So often the powers of technology are rarely exploited.

There are major messages from the huge body of studies about technology. My book highlights some of them, including: the importance of students learning from each other via technology and the value of technology in providing multiple opportunities to learn.

Social media is also an important way for teachers to hear students are thinking. Many students will talk about how they are thinking, where they are struggling, and ask questions about their work using social media that they will not do verbally even when their teacher or peers are standing beside them.

What teachers think is important

One of the key things I have learned in the process of writing this second book is what teachers think is more important than what they they do.

It is not about using a particular teaching method but their skills in evaluating the impact on their students, modifying and adapting, and making the school or class an inviting place to come, learn, master, and enjoy learning.

Every child is a learner, is teachable, can grow, and can be taught to love learning. Students have expectations, and the educator’s role is to help students exceed what they think is their potential. Students need to be taught to take on challenges, with safety nets when they fail.

I remain amazed at the excellence in our schools and fascinated we are not as skilled and focused on scaling up success but instead love to focus on schools failures

Read more:
Our study found new teachers perform just as well in the classroom as their more experienced colleagues

John Hattie 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. Education expert John Hattie’s new book draws on more than 130,000 studies to find out what helps students learn – https://theconversation.com/education-expert-john-hatties-new-book-draws-on-more-than-130-000-studies-to-find-out-what-helps-students-learn-201952

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Naylor, Senior Lecturer in Economics, Massey University

As New Zealand considers how to better prepare for a future affected by climate change, the insurance sector needs to be part the discussion on where and how we build our homes.

This involvement should include input into future building standards. Insurers should also play a key role in deciding which areas of New Zealand are removed from residential use – aka red-zoned – and when this red-zoning should occur.

If insurers are not involved in the discussions on how the country adapts to climate change, we risk whole sections of the country becoming uninsurable.

Frequent disasters make homes uninsurable

It is clear the risk of damage from climate change has increased in recent years. In late January and early February, large swathes of the North Island were hit by damaging weather systems that left 750 homes red stickered – meaning entry to the property was prohibited. Thousands more need significant repair.

Over the past few years, insurers have responded to the increasing risks by raising premiums in general or suggesting that clients at more risk increase their excesses. Insurers have also begun to charge premiums based on individual property risk.

As the threat of natural disaster increases, insurers will have no choice but to raise some clients’ premiums to unaffordable levels or withdrew the offer of insurance all together.

Read more:
Landslides and law: Cyclone Gabrielle raises serious questions about where we’ve been allowed to build

The general rule of thumb is that any event which occurs once every 30 years will make a property uninsurable. Some areas of New Zealand, like the East Coast or Edgecumbe, are well past that in terms of the frequency of natural disasters. Cover in these areas is only provided as a public relations gesture.

But as the risk of a significant event increases, the companies that guarantee retail insurers for the most extreme events – known in the business as reinsurers – could force the withdrawal of all cover in some areas. These reinsurers could decide that some parts of New Zealand are simply too risky.

A threat to home ownership

This decision to pull out of certain areas will have a negative effect on home ownership. Banks routinely require a house to be insurable before considering a mortgage. Banks also consider whether a house will be insured for the entire length of the home loan.

The difficulty here is that areas which are currently low risk could become high risk in the future thanks to climate change. This rising risk is likely to lead to a situation where insurers will be forced to withdraw cover from clients who still have decades left on their mortgages.

Alternatively, if a property is currently insured but is likely to become uninsurable during the lifetime of a mortgage, banks may become very conservative in issuing home loans to areas they consider risky.

An additional problem is that council consents for housing have been based on statistics of past climate events – set at a one-in-a-hundred or one-in-two-hundred year level. As we have recently seen, climate change makes these statistics dubious.

Instead, consents need to be based on multiple scenarios, given the various potential climate futures. New Zealand needs to determine clearly which areas are likely to be affected and plan ahead.

A role for insurers

The best path forward would be to establish a multi-disciplinary expert group that includes members of the insurance industry and reinsurers, to create a set of criteria and scenarios for housing development.

This group could set the guidelines councils use to determine if a rural area should be opened to new housing development, for example, or if an existing housing area should be red-zoned, with houses removed at a definite future date.

By including insurers, new building standards could be set so that homes better withstand climate change, improving the likelihood of them being insured.

Read more:
With seas rising and storms surging, who will pay for New Zealand’s most vulnerable coastal properties?

Insurers could then be required to use the mutually agreed criteria to set risk-based premiums. If all insurers use the same criteria, then competition would be based on price and service, and not hidden risk models.

The risk models which insurers create, based on those criteria and the climate scenarios, could be open to public debate. The pricing attached to the risk factors could be flexible as climate change makes some areas higher risk.

A dynamic understanding of risk

In the end, red-zoning needs to be seen as dynamic rather than static. There needs to be the option to withdraw insurance coverage in the future, based on evolving models of climate change risk. And all potential risks need to be clearly communicated to potential buyers though land information memorandum (LIM) reports.

Read more:
Climate change is already putting the heat on insurance companies – Auckland’s floods could be a turning point

Taking this collaborative and transparent approach would mean insurers could be required to guarantee an offer of insurance renewal for a fixed number of years, allowing buyers to match the length of their insurance to their mortgage term.

The role of EQC or the reinsurers would be to back these fixed-term insurance policies in the case of significant disasters.

Working with the insurance industry would offer a level of certainty as we face an uncertain future – helping New Zealanders protect their homes in the face of changing risks.

Michael Naylor 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. How and where we build needs to change in the face of more extreme weather – the insurance industry can help – https://theconversation.com/how-and-where-we-build-needs-to-change-in-the-face-of-more-extreme-weather-the-insurance-industry-can-help-202326

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Bomikazi Zeka, Assistant Professor in Finance and Financial Planning, University of Canberra

With the cost of living and interest rates rising, a growing number of Australians are struggling to manage their finances. Many are experiencing real financial stress.

But even in the best of times, managing your finances is hard. Every day, you’re making complex financial decisions (some of which carry huge ramifications) and there are more financial products and services available than ever before. Navigating this minefield can be overwhelming and lead to financial anxiety.

Being financially literate helps. But what does “financial literacy” mean in practice?

Here are seven signs you’ve got the basics covered.

Read more:
Kids and money: five ways to start the conversation

1. You track your cashflow

By tracking your cashflow on a regular basis, you’re ensuring your expenses don’t exceed your income. In other words, you make sure you’re earning more than you spend.

A good sign you’ve successfully managed your cashflow is that you have a surplus or a buffer.

These left-over funds can be used to boost savings, pay off debt or meet other financial commitments.

Cashflow management allows you to assess whether there are opportunities to increase your savings and/or reduce spending. Being able to manage your earnings and spending is a key financial skill.

2. You have a budget – and you follow it

Setting and following a budget requires financial discipline, which is a key part of financial literacy.

By following a budget, you’re putting a measure in place to live within your means and reduce the risk of overspending.

With all the competing demands that come with managing money, your budget can be a tool to keep you on track. And developing this habit over time can empower you to make wise financial decisions.

3. You understand the difference between good debt and bad debt

Love it or hate it, debt forms part of our financial portfolios and sustains the financial institutions we interact with. Knowing how to make debt work for you is a skill and a sign of good financial knowledge. It is crucial to understand the difference between good debt and bad debt.

Good debt is debt used to improve your long-term financial position or net worth, such as a home loan.

Bad debt tends to be consumption-driven and doesn’t have lasting value. Examples include payday loans or retail accounts.

4. You have your money in various places

One of the key concepts of financially literacy is understanding the importance of diversification.

By having your money spread across various places (such as a savings account, property, the share market, superannuation and so on), you’ve reduced the concentration of risk.

This helps protect your wealth in tough economic times.

5. You understand how financial assets work, along with their pros and cons

Financial assets refers to things like cash, shares and bonds. It’s important to understand how financial assets work and how they can either help or hurt your financial position.

For instance, savings accounts are a safe financial instrument that earn interest on the amount accumulated within the account. But the fact they’re so safe also means that they won’t outperform inflation.

This type of knowledge is an imperative part of financial literacy.

6. You’re aware of your financial strengths and weaknesses

Financially literate people reflect on their capabilities.

When you can appreciate where your financial strengths and weaknesses lie, you can make better financial decisions and prioritise your needs.

On the other hand, being oblivious to your strengths and weaknesses means you miss opportunities to improve your financial health.

For example, perhaps you buy unnecessary stuff when you feel sad. Or maybe you panic when faced with tough financial choices and make quick decisions just to make the problem go away.

Neglecting to reflect on patterns of behaviour can lead to serious and possibly irreversible financial mistakes.

7. You set financial goals and put measures in place to meet them

Financially literate people plan for their finances. This involves setting goals for either earnings, savings, investments, and debt management or putting measures in place to protect wealth (via, for example, insurance to protect your wealth against loss).

Setting goals is one thing, but it’s also important to have a system and habits in place to achieve them.

Make sure you understand what you’re trying to achieve with your goals, why the goals are important and how you’ll achieve them.

Boosting your financial literacy can feel tough at first. But tackling your finances head on, controlling spending, participating in financial markets, handling debt, being able to understand financial assets and working towards financial goals can help you feel in control of your financial situation.

Everyone’s financial situation is unique, so none of what I’ve said here should be taken as financial advice. You can find free financial counsellors via the government’s MoneySmart site and if you need help with debt, contact the National Debt Helpline on 1800 007 007.

Read more:
Borrowing money isn’t always a bad thing – debt can be a sensible way to build wealth

Bomikazi Zeka 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. Are you financially literate? Here are 7 signs you’re on the right track – https://theconversation.com/are-you-financially-literate-here-are-7-signs-youre-on-the-right-track-202331

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andy Marks, Pro Vice-Chancellor, Strategy, Government and Alliances, Western Sydney University

Sometimes defeat can come with small victories. In his NSW election concession speech, defeated Liberal-National Coalition Premier Dominic Perrottet remarked the campaign had been a “race to the top”. Voters seemed to agree. Perrottet’s opponent, Labor’s Chris Minns, brought the conciliatory tone he maintained as opposition leader into the campaign.

Combative politics, in NSW at least, might be a thing of the past. Minns went further, noting this campaign had set a standard against which Australian federal and state politics could be judged. That will largely depend on his ability to maintain a constructive tenor, as premier, in a parliamentary arena dubbed the “bear pit”.

While calm prevailed between leaders, the flow of votes was volatile. As counting wound up on Saturday evening, Labor looked assured of the 47 Legislative Assembly seats required to form a majority government. Attracting around a 7% statewide swing, Labor’s performance in western Sydney was particularly strong.

There was almost a sense of inevitability about the loss of Parramatta when sitting Liberal Geoff Lee announced his retirement. A protracted preselection battle ensued, with Lee’s successor swept aside by a more than 20% swing to Labor’s well-known candidate, Parramatta Lord Mayor Donna Davis.

Further west, the seat of Riverstone, vacated by retiring Liberal Kevin Connolly, saw swings eclipsing those of the federal election, propelling Labor’s Warren Kirby into the lower house.

High profile retirements led to vulnerabilities for the Coalition in Sydney’s east as well. Wakehurst, which has been held by outgoing health Minister Brad Hazzard for over 30 years, fell to independent Michael Regan. It remains to be seen whether Ryde and Pittwater, the former stomping grounds of cabinet members Victor Dominello and Rob Stokes respectively, suffer the same fate.

One of the shocks of the night was the ousting of former deputy Liberal leader, Stuart Ayres. Mentioned as a potential leadership candidate post-election, party insiders were confident of overcoming the challenge from local Labor councillor, Karen McKeown, whom Ayres defeated in 2019. Enlisting former Premier Gladys Berejiklian on the campaign trail, Ayres was seeking to re-enter cabinet after his ousting in the fallout from the trade appointment inquiry.

Read more:
Australia is now almost entirely held by Labor – but that doesn’t necessarily make life easier for leaders

Ayres’ exit will complicate the party’s efforts to rebuild in western Sydney, given his standing in the region, and his industry and community networks. The retirement of his colleague, David Elliott, the former member for Baulkham Hills and Ayres’ successor as Minister for Western Sydney, further depletes the Liberals’ base in the electorally critical region.

While privatisation fuelled the delivery of a substantial transport infrastructure pipeline for the Coalition over the past two terms, it struggled to balance service provision with population growth.

Lags and gaps in the construction of critical health, education and transport infrastructure proved a pivotal issue for voters in growth areas in Sydney’s outer south-west. Peter Sidgreaves gave up the one-time safe Liberal seat of Camden to Labor’s Sally Quinnell, while her colleague, Nathan Hagarty, secured the newly constituted seat of Leppington.

On the peri-urban edges of the city’s south west, Wollondilly is shaping as a very tight contest between sitting Liberal Nathaniel Smith and former Liberal Party member now independent challenger, Judy Hannan.

Labor’s broadly strong performance in Sydney’s west did not come without some contrasts. Party strategists will be hoping that swings towards the Liberals in Liverpool and Cabramatta are down to the retirement of long serving Labor members, rather than the beginnings of a deeper trend.

In rural and regional parts of the state, voter sentiment was more stable. The Nationals retained the seat of Tweed, with Labor and the Greens failing to attract new support. Labor’s hopes of turning Upper Hunter look thwarted with the Nationals set to retain the seat. However, nearby Terrigal remains in play with Labor edging ahead on the back of a more than 13% swing.

The nominally Shooters, Fishers and Farmers seats of Barwon and Murray now look firmly in the hands of former SFF members, now independents, Roy Butler and Helen Dalton.

Labor’s success overall speaks to the party’s ability to tap into voter concerns at the local level. This is unsurprising in areas like western Sydney, where pandemic lockdowns, followed by rising interest rates, housing unaffordability and wage stagnation focussed minds on “everyday” rather than “grand vision” politics.

To consolidate and build in its victory, Labor will need to translate its success at grassroots campaigning to the wider task of governing. Maintaining its commitment to a “dialogue” on priorities such public sector wages, infrastructure funding and affordable housing will be important.

Read more:
View from The Hill: Dutton saddles up for Aston race amid Victorian Liberal infighting

Labor will be keen to point out that solutions to the challenges the state faces cannot come from government alone. Creating wider channels for community, industry and research-led policy development will mitigate Cabinet inexperience. This inclusive approach will also allow Labor to move on from the command-and-control tendencies the Coalition exhibited in the latter half of its incumbency, when it eschewed its traditional “small government” doctrine to create multiple agencies and statutory bodies to augment portfolio responsibilities.

For the NSW Coalition, the task of rebuilding will begin. With Perrottet relinquishing the leadership, and Liberal moderate, Matt Kean ruling himself out as a contender, the party may revert to a candidate from the right. This would certainly mark a departure from the policy convergence with Labor that characterised the campaign.

It might work. It might also signal an end to peace within the bear pit, and a return to more traditional party politics.

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. After 12 years in opposition, grassroots politics restores Labor to power in New South Wales – https://theconversation.com/after-12-years-in-opposition-grassroots-politics-restores-labor-to-power-in-new-south-wales-202144

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

Byelections for leaders are rather like steeplechases for horses: there is always the risk of serious injury.

Ahead of the 2018 super-Saturday contests, Bill Shorten had an impatient Anthony Albanese shaping up for a tilt in the event of a tumble. Shorten triumphed.

In 2020, Albanese’s position could have become shaky if he had lost the Eden-Monaro byelection. He retained the seat by a whisker, but that was enough.

Peter Dutton on Saturday faces his first real-time electoral test in the Victorian Liberal seat of Aston, with conditions on the track heavy going.

The byelection follows the resignation of former minister Alan Tudge, who, after a scandal over an affair with a staffer, turned an electorate that was safe in 2019 into a marginal one in 2022. It’s now on 2.8%.

Situated in Melbourne’s outer east, Aston should be an opportunity for the Liberals to exploit the mounting cost of living pressures that are weighing people down.

But so far, on the national evidence the Albanese government has been escaping serious blame, with people accepting most of the drivers of rising interest rates and prices are outside its control.

For Dutton, Victoria (like NSW) is difficult territory on which to have to campaign. It’s a progressive state and he is far from a progressive.

The crushing taken by the NSW Liberals on Saturday (who did form a progressive government) is indirectly relevant to Aston.

While the “it’s time” factor, a batch of resignations of well-known Liberals, various scandals and a credible fresh-looking Labor alternative with a pitch that resonated account specifically for the loss, it has reinforced the broader impressing that the tide is out for the Liberal party generally. The NSW defeat has left Tasmania with the only non-Labor government in the country.

Closer to Aston, Victorian Liberal brawling over the move by opposition leader John Pesutto to expel Moira Deeming from the parliamentary party – for her role in an anti-trans rally at which a group of people gave Nazi salutes – has brought a spate of bad publicity.

The argument about whether Pesutto’s reaction went too far raged all last week and will probably continue this week, even in the wake of his expected win in Monday’s vote.

For the electors of Aston, it’s another cameo in the long story of the Liberals in shambles, just as they were at last year’s state election.

While Dutton could keep away from Victoria in the state poll, that’s not an option with Aston. So far, he’s made four visits, the same number as the prime minister.

A top-down preselection by the party’s administrative committee installed a strong candidate, barrister Roshena Campbell. Of Indian heritage, she’s well-qualified and a good media performer, with her main disadvantage being that she’s from distant (in these parochial times) Brunswick. (She’s rented a place in Aston.)

Labor’s Mary Doyle, who works in the superannuation industry, and ran in 2022, lives just outside the electoral but can be promoted as a “real local” on the ground she’s resided in the general area for more than three decades.

The Liberal campaign is based around sending a message to the Albanese government on cost of living, and also focuses on the cuts for local roads projects in the first Chalmers budget.

Labor, playing on Dutton’s unpopularity, is portraying him as someone out of step with the people of Aston. Labor also says its imminent child changes are popular – 5,700 families in Aston will be better off from July.

Unsurprisingly, the Indigenous Voice to parliament, the question for which was announced last week, isn’t getting much attention.

Of particular interest will be the Chinese vote. Aston has, on the 2021 census, about 14% of people of Chinese heritage, Albanese received a very positive reception when he did a Chinese function, even though that was immediately after the AUKUS announcement which sparked a lot of talk about the threat potentially posed by China.

Once, Chinese-Australians looked benignly on the Liberals. Saturday’s NSW result reinforced the message of the federal election – that these voters are now alienated from the Liberals.

How Chinese voters will respond to a candidate of Indian origin is unclear.

Some voters are said to be grouchy at being sent to the polls three times in a year. Quite a few others have not even been aware of the byelection. But with the stakes high and the seat marginal, both sides are fully focused. Liberal federal director Andrew Hirst and Labor’s Josh Lloyd, on leave from Albanese’s staff, have been fixtures in the electorate.

It’s a five-candidate field, but the battle is not troubled by serious alternatives to the two main contenders. There’s no teal running.

The average swing against a government at a federal byelection is 3.7% (since 1949 and where both major parties contested).

Both sides say it’s the Liberals to lose and so does history. It’s more than a century since a government won a federal byelection from an opposition and that was in special circumstances. Nevertheless both are also claiming things are tight.

A Liberal loss would be extraordinary and the fallout unpredictable. Dutton’s leadership would be in tatters but any move against him would struggle to find a credible candidate.

Liberals rail if you say they need more than a knife-edge win. A win is a win is a win, they counter. But a narrow win would be a holding position for Dutton (just as his leadership has been first and foremost about holding the party together).

A solid swing (5% or above) would be a morale booster for the opposition leader. Given the nature and history of the seat, and of byelections, and the national polls, the government would shrug it off although some inside Labor would see it as a warning sign.

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

– ref. View from The Hill: Dutton saddles up for Aston race amid Victorian Liberal infighting – https://theconversation.com/view-from-the-hill-dutton-saddles-up-for-aston-race-amid-victorian-liberal-infighting-202600

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

When Dominic Perrottet gave a gracious concession speech after his defeat in the New South Wales election on Saturday night, it was hard to avoid favourable comparison with the United States. There was no sign of rancour or hyper-partisanship. He praised Labor’s Chris Minns for a clean campaign. He predicted Minns would be a “fine” premier, urging people to “get behind him”.

But in one respect, our politics do look more American: Australia now has “red” and “blue” states, although we reverse their political colour scheme. The maps have already begun to appear on social media. The Australian mainland, with its five states and two territories, is now “red”. Only little Tasmania remains “blue”, looking like an antipodean Taiwan, with the sole surviving Liberal government in the country.

These look like good times for Labor. It is not quite there yet, but the last time – indeed, the only time – it has been in office in all nine of Australia’s jurisdictions was for a few months between late November 2007 and early September 2008, between Kevin Rudd’s federal victory and Alan Carpenter’s loss to Colin Barnett in Western Australia a little over nine months later.

The parties of the right have also only once, since 1910, held office everywhere: for just over a year, in 1969-70, between a win in Tasmania and a loss in South Australia. In those days, the bar was a little lower than today, for neither the Northern Territory nor Australian Capital Territory had gained self-government yet. Australia had six sub-national jurisdictions, not the eight of today.

Read more:
Labor is odds-on for a narrow victory in NSW election, but it is far from a sure bet

An obvious question to ask of these circumstances is whether they matter for the governments involved. Is it, for example, easier for a federal government if the states and territories are ruled by the same party? Is it better for a state or territory government if the government on the federal scene has the same complexion?

Like so many historical questions, the answer isn’t simple.

If government by one party is rare in Australia, a situation where one party has become preponderant nationally is not. The 1980s, for instance, was a Labor decade in ways that extended well beyond the ascendancy of the Hawke government. Labor was also in power in New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia for much of the decade.

In the 1990s, there was something of a reversal. Beginning in New South Wales in 1988, all four of those states became Coalition or Liberal by 1993. To balance things a little, Labor won power in Tasmania (in an Accord with Greens Independents) and Queensland in 1989. But when the John Howard government came to office in March 1996, there was just one Labor government left in Australia, that of Bob Carr in New South Wales, which had returned to office the previous year.

These configurations very likely reverberated in federal electoral politics. In 1990, as Labor’s tide went out in Victoria, it was coming in for the party in Queensland. The early unpopularity of some hardline policies of the Kennett government in Victoria possibly helped Paul Keating in the 1993 election.

There was some irony here, since Keating’s relations with Kennett were healthy in a way they had not been with John Cain, Victorian Labor premier through much of the 1980s. Cain, who tried to steer his government on a Keynesian path in an era of economic rationalism, blamed Hawke government economic policy for many of the difficulties his state had faced during the decade.

Read more:
Politics with Michelle Grattan: Antony Green, Professor Andy Marks and Ashleigh Raper on the NSW election

Here is a reminder there is no guarantee of sweetness and light simply because the same party holds office in a state and in Canberra. The history of strong disagreement between federal and state governments of the same complexion is almost as long as the history of the two-party system itself.

When the Fisher Labor government sought additional powers via a constitutional referendum in 1911, it was stymied by opposition from the New South Wales Labor government, and especially the attorney-general, William Holman, who saw in the proposals a dangerous trend towards centralisation of power.

The most spectacular clashes between federal and state government have arguably occurred when they have represented different sides of politics. Those over censorship and conscription during the first world war in 1917 between T.J. Ryan, the Queensland Labor premier, and Billy Hughes, who had split the Labor Party and formed the Nationalists, were legendary.

Gough Whitlam’s exasperation with Joh Bjelke-Petersen led him to call the Queensland premier a “bible-bashing bastard”. The latter’s actions in filling a casual vacancy with a Senator hostile to the Whitlam government, and a similar action by a Liberal premier of New South Wales, damaged Whitlam. But it should be recalled that there were also strains, over money, between Whitlam’s government and that of his Labor counterpart in South Australia, Don Dunstan.

Conversely, there is little evidence until quite late in the day that the Howard Coalition government was greatly hampered by having to face a wall of Labor governments in the early 2000s.

There was a rather pointed walk-out from a Premiers’ Conference over health policy in 2003; one of the premiers involved was still chuckling about it years later when recounting the stunt to me. And the premiers, especially Victoria’s Steve Bracks, made difficulty over the Murray-Darling basin policy late in the life of Howard’s government.

Nonetheless, state and territory governments, whatever their stripe, have a strong incentive to cooperate, even if few are as simpatico as Labor prime minister Ben Chifley, and South Australian Liberal and Country League premier Tom Playford in the years following World War Two. Meanwhile, Scott Morrison’s relations with both Gladys Berejiklian and Dominic Perrottet disclose how unhappy political families can become.

Anthony Albanese will be taking nothing for granted in his relations with Labor state and territory governments. And the premiers and chief ministers will know better than to expect too many free kicks.

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

– ref. Australia is now almost entirely held by Labor – but that doesn’t necessarily make life easier for leaders – https://theconversation.com/australia-is-now-almost-entirely-held-by-labor-but-that-doesnt-necessarily-make-life-easier-for-leaders-202049

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne

This article was updated March 26.

With 36% of enrolled voters counted in today’s New South Wales state election, the Poll Bludger’s results currently have Labor leading in 53 of the 93 seats, the Coalition in 27, the Greens in three and independents in ten. Called seats are 43 Labor, 20 Coalition, two Greens and six independents.

If all current leads hold, Labor would have a 13-seat majority. They would need to lose seven seats they currently lead in to fall short of a majority.

The ABC’s two party estimate has Labor leading by 55.1-44.9, a 7.1% swing to Labor since the 2019 NSW election. If this holds, Labor would do better than in all pre-election polls. Newspoll’s 54.5-45.5 to Labor margin came closest, but it is likely there was late movement to Labor that the polls missed by not polling in the final days before the election.

Read more:
Final NSW Newspoll gives Labor a thumping lead; federal Labor’s lead widens

Victory in NSW gives Labor control of all the mainland state and territory governments and the federal government. The only Australian jurisdiction remaining in Coalition control is Tasmania. The next state election is the October 2024 Queensland election.

Since Labor won the May 2022 federal election, they have performed impressively at both the Victorian and NSW state elections, defying expectations that the party in power federally should do badly in state elections. Federal Labor has consistently been polling honeymoon support levels since the election.

Perrottet had made a stand on reforming gambling, but voters were tired of the Coalition after three four-year terms of Coalition government. Cost of living was easily voters’ top concern, and Labor led by 35-29 on this issue in the last NSW Resolve poll.

I will have more analysis of the NSW results and the upper house tomorrow morning.

Updates

With 50.2% of enrolled voters counted, the Poll Bludger results continue to show Labor leading in 51 of the 93 seats, the Coalition in 30, the Greens in three and independents in nine. Called seats are 44 for Labor, 25 Coalition, two Greens and seven independents.

Newcastle can be added to called seats for Labor, as Labor is way ahead on primary votes and it doesn’t matter which of the Greens or Liberals is second.

So 14 seats remain in some doubt, and Labor needs two of the doubtful seats to win a majority. They would have to lose five seats they currently are projected to lead in to miss a majority.

The Poll Bludger’s results are using booth matched projections, where overall swings so far are applied to the outstanding votes. Unless there is a systematic bias against Labor in the remaining votes to be counted, Labor will win a majority.

Counting will not resume until Monday. There are many pre-poll votes still outstanding. Until we see these votes, it’s not certain that Labor has won a majority.

The ABC currently estimates a Labor two party margin of 54.3-45.7, a 6.3% swing to Labor since the 2019 election. Primary votes are 37.1% Labor (up 3.8%), 34.8% Coalition (down 6.8%), 10.1% Greens (up 0.6%), 1.8% One Nation (up 0.7%), 1.5% Shooters (down 2.0%) and 14.7% for all Others (up 3.7%). The Others category includes 8.8% for independents (up 4.0%).

Left a good chance to take control of upper house

In the upper house, 21 of the 42 seats were up for election by statewide proportional representation with preferences, and a quota was 1/22 of the vote or 4.5%.

With 33.2% of enrolled counted in the upper house, Labor has 8.15 quotas, the Coalition 6.43, the Greens 2.21, One Nation 1.23, Legalise Cannabis 0.87, the Liberal Democrats 0.73, the Shooters 0.67, Animal Justice 0.47 and Elizabeth Farrelly 0.27.

Current totals do not include below the line (BTL) votes, which will not start to be data entered until next week. The major parties do poorly on BTL votes and the Greens and minor parties well. BTL votes are included in the 5.6% for Other, but some of the Other votes will be informal.

On the current count, Labor would win eight of the 21 seats, the Coalition six, the Greens two, and one each for One Nation, Legalise Cannabis, the Liberal Democrats and the Shooters. The final seat would be a contest between Animal Justice and the Coalition.

While the BTL issue will hurt the Coalition, they will be assisted if the current results are skewed against them. This seat will decide whether left-wing parties (Labor, the Greens, Legalise Cannabis and Animal Justice) win the 21 seats up at this election by 11-10 or 12-9.

I said in my preview article last week that the left needed a 12-9 win to secure an overall upper house majority.

Read more:
NSW election preview: Labor likely to fall short of a majority, which could result in hung parliament

Labor has 39.3% of the vote in the upper house but just 37.1% in the lower house. I would normally expect Labor’s upper house vote to be weaker, but this may be explained by normal Labor voters tactically voting for independents in the lower house.

Federal Aston byelection and Resolve Voice poll

The federal byelection for the Victorian Liberal-held seat of Aston is next Saturday April 1. With Labor’s lead increasing in recent federal polls, they remain some chance to overturn the current 2.8% Liberal margin, but the Liberals are likely to hold.

Read more:
Liberals likely to win Aston byelection; Voice support increases in Essential poll

In additional questions from the federal Resolve poll for Nine newspapers, support for an Indigenous Voice to parliament slid to 57-43 in a forced choice from 58-42 in February. There was no shift in initial preferences, with 46% in favour, 32% opposed and 22% undecided.

Comparing state results for February and March with those for December and January (two months of data mean larger samples), Voice support fell from 56-44 to 52-48 in Queensland, and from 61-39 to 52-48 in Western Australia. To pass a constitutional referendum, four of the six states must vote in favour as well as an overall majority.

This poll was conducted March 12-16, so it was taken before Anthony Albanese announced the question wording on Thursday.

Adrian Beaumont 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. Labor very likely to win majority in NSW election – https://theconversation.com/labor-very-likely-to-win-majority-in-nsw-election-202327

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne

With 36% of enrolled voters counted in today’s New South Wales state election, the Poll Bludger’s results currently have Labor leading in 53 of the 93 seats, the Coalition in 27, the Greens in three and independents in ten. Called seats are 43 Labor, 20 Coalition, two Greens and six independents.

If all current leads hold, Labor would have a 13-seat majority. They would need to lose seven seats they currently lead in to fall short of a majority.

The ABC’s two party estimate has Labor leading by 55.1-44.9, a 7.1% swing to Labor since the 2019 NSW election. If this holds, Labor would do better than in all pre-election polls. Newspoll’s 54.5-45.5 to Labor margin came closest, but it is likely there was late movement to Labor that the polls missed by not polling in the final days before the election.

Read more:
Final NSW Newspoll gives Labor a thumping lead; federal Labor’s lead widens

Victory in NSW gives Labor control of all the mainland state and territory governments and the federal government. The only Australian jurisdiction remaining in Coalition control is Tasmania. The next state election is the October 2024 Queensland election.

Since Labor won the May 2022 federal election, they have performed impressively at both the Victorian and NSW state elections, defying expectations that the party in power federally should do badly in state elections. Federal Labor has consistently been polling honeymoon support levels since the election.

Perrottet had made a stand on reforming gambling, but voters were tired of the Coalition after three four-year terms of Coalition government. Cost of living was easily voters’ top concern, and Labor led by 35-29 on this issue in the last NSW Resolve poll.

I will have more analysis of the NSW results and the upper house tomorrow morning.

Federal Aston byelection and Resolve Voice poll

The federal byelection for the Victorian Liberal-held seat of Aston is next Saturday April 1. With Labor’s lead increasing in recent federal polls, they remain some chance to overturn the current 2.8% Liberal margin, but the Liberals are likely to hold.

Read more:
Liberals likely to win Aston byelection; Voice support increases in Essential poll

In additional questions from the federal Resolve poll for Nine newspapers, support for an Indigenous Voice to parliament slid to 57-43 in a forced choice from 58-42 in February. There was no shift in initial preferences, with 46% in favour, 32% opposed and 22% undecided.

Comparing state results for February and March with those for December and January (two months of data mean larger samples), Voice support fell from 56-44 to 52-48 in Queensland, and from 61-39 to 52-48 in Western Australia. To pass a constitutional referendum, four of the six states must vote in favour as well as an overall majority.

This poll was conducted March 12-16, so it was taken before Anthony Albanese announced the question wording on Thursday.

Adrian Beaumont 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. Labor set to win thumping majority in NSW election – https://theconversation.com/labor-set-to-win-thumping-majority-in-nsw-election-202327

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne

The New South Wales state election is today. Polls close at 6pm AEDT. Votes cast on election day should be counted quickly, but large pre-poll booths are likely to take until late at night or next week.

ABC elections analyst Antony Green said that as of Friday, 28% of enrolled voters had voted early in-person and a further 10% had applied for a postal vote. All election day votes, some postals and some early votes will be counted by the 10:30pm close of counting on Saturday night. Counting will not resume until Monday.

The final NSW Newspoll, conducted March 18-23 from a sample of 1,205, gave Labor a 54.5-45.5 lead, a 2.5-point gain for Labor since the late February NSW Newspoll. Primary votes were 38% Labor (up two), 35% Coalition (down two), 11% Greens (down one) and 16% for all Others (up one).

Liberal Premier Dominic Perrottet’s net approval slumped 12 points to -3, while Labor leader Chris Minns’ net approval improved six points to +14. Minns led Perrottet as better premier by 41-39, reversing a Perrottet lead of 43-33 in February. Newspoll figures are from The Poll Bludger.

In Monday’s Resolve poll and two polls from Freshwater and Morgan (below), Labor had between 52.5% and 53.5% on a two party count – this would probably not be enough for a Labor majority in the lower house. But analyst Kevin Bonham’s model gives Labor just enough for a one-seat majority (47 of the 93 seats) if Newspoll is right.

Read more:
NSW election preview: Labor likely to fall short of a majority, which could result in hung parliament

Cost of living has been rated the most important issue in polls, and The Poll Bludger reported that last Monday’s NSW Resolve poll gave Labor a 35-29 lead over the Coalition on this issue.

Under optional preferential voting that is used in NSW, a single “1” vote is formal. The Liberals are urging people to just vote 1 Liberal. I am sceptical of this strategy, because those who listen to this message are more likely to be voters for other right-wing minor parties than the Greens, and at the 2019 election the exhaust rate among right-wing minors was far higher than for the Greens.

NSW Freshwater poll: Labor retains 53-47 lead

The Poll Bludger reported that a NSW Freshwater poll for The Financial Review, conducted March 19-21 from a sample of 1,100, gave Labor a 53-47 lead, unchanged since late February. Primary votes were 37% Coalition (steady), 37% Labor (down two), 10% Greens (steady) and 16% for all Others (up two). Perrottet’s lead as preferred premier narrowed from 46-34 to 45-40.

NSW Morgan poll: Labor had 53.5-46.5 lead in mid-March

A NSW Morgan SMS poll, conducted March 10-14 from a sample of 1,013, gave Labor a 53.5-46.5 lead, a one-point gain for Labor since late February. Primary votes were 34% Coalition (up 1.5), 34% Labor (up 0.5), 13% Greens (up two), 2% One Nation (down 6.5) and 17% for all Others (up 2.5).

Previous Morgan NSW polls had assumed that One Nation would contest all 93 lower house seats, and so their slump in this poll is explained by them only contesting 17 seats.

In forced choice questions, Minns’ lead over Perrottet as better premier narrowed from 54-46 to 52-48, while Perrottet had a 51-49 disapproval rating, a reversal of a 53-47 approval in late February.

Federal Resolve poll: Labor increases massive lead

A federal Resolve poll for Nine newspapers, conducted March 12-16 from a sample of 1,600, gave Labor 39% of the primary vote (down one since February), the Coalition 30% (down one), the Greens 13% (up three), One Nation 5% (steady), the UAP 1% (steady), independents 9% (steady) and others 2% (steady).

No two party estimate was provided, but applying 2022 election preference flows to this poll gives Labor about a 59-41 lead, a one-point gain for Labor since February. Resolve has been the most pro-Labor pollster since the 2022 election.

By 55-31, voters gave Anthony Albanese a good rating (56-30 in February). Peter Dutton’s ratings were 43-32 poor (44-29 previously). Albanese led Dutton as preferred PM by 51-22 (55-23 previously).

In the wake of the AUKUS deal, Labor gained a 35-32 lead over the Liberals on national security, after the Liberals led by 35-32 in February. But Labor’s lead on economic management slid to 33-32 from 36-32, and their lead on keeping the cost of living low dropped to 29-22 from 33-24.

Asked about uses of super other than for retirement, 68% supported life-saving medical treatment, 67% palliative care and 58% serious financial distress, but only 37% a deposit for a first home. By 45-24, voters agreed with defining super as for retirement, although it could be accessed in extreme circumstances.

Labor also extends lead in federal Essential and Morgan polls

In Essential’s two party measure that includes undecided, Labor led by 52-43 in a poll conducted before March 21 from a sample of 1,124; they led by 49-44 two weeks ago. Primary votes were 34% Labor (up two), 31% Coalition (down one), 14% Greens (up two), 5% One Nation (down two), 2% UAP (steady), 9% for all Others (up one) and 5% undecided (down two).

Support for the Indigenous Voice to parliament dropped to 59-41 from 65-35 in February.

On the AUKUS deal, 40% said it would make Australia more secure (down four since November 2022), 39% no difference (steady) and 21% less secure (up five). When told the purchase cost of the nuclear submarines, 26% said they were worth it, 27% would like the subs but didn’t think they were worth the money, and 28% did not want the subs.

Morgan’s weekly federal poll gave Labor a 58-42 lead (56.5-43.5 last week, 54.5-45.5 two weeks ago). Primary votes were 37.5% Labor, 32% Coalition, 13% Greens and 17.5% for all Others. This poll was conducted March 13-19.

Adrian Beaumont 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. Final NSW Newspoll gives Labor a thumping lead; federal Labor’s lead widens – https://theconversation.com/final-nsw-newspoll-gives-labor-a-thumping-lead-federal-labors-lead-widens-202332

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Charles Feigin, Postdoctoral Fellow in Genomics and Evolution, The University of Melbourne

Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land on the next tree. Many groups of mammals seem to have taken this evolutionary advice to heart. According to our newly published paper in Science Advances, unrelated animals may even have used the same blueprints for building their “wings”.

While birds are the undisputed champions of the sky, having mastered flight during the Jurassic, mammals have actually evolved flight more often than birds. In fact, as many as seven different groups of mammals living today have taken to the air independently of each other.

These evolutionary experiments happened in animals scattered all across the mammalian family tree – including flying squirrels, marsupial possums and the colugo (cousin of the primates). But they all have something in common. It’s a special skin structure between their limbs called a patagium, or flight membrane.

The fact these similar structures have arisen so many times (a process called convergent evolution) hints that the genetic underpinnings of patagia might predate flight. Indeed, they could be shared by all mammals, even those living on the ground.

If this is true, studying patagia can help us to better understand the incredible adaptability of mammals. We might also discover previously unknown aspects of human genetics.

A deceptively simple membrane

Despite being seemingly simple skin structures, patagia contain several tissues, including hair, a rich array of touch-sensitive neurons, connective tissue and even thin sheets of muscle. But in the earliest stages of formation, these membranes are dominated by the two main layers of the skin: the inner dermis and outer epidermis.

At first, they hardly differ from neighbouring skin. But at some point, the skin on the animal’s sides starts to rapidly change, or differentiate. The dermis undergoes a process called condensation, where cells bunch up and the tissue becomes very dense. Meanwhile, the epidermis thickens in a process called hyperplasia.

In some mammals, this differentiation happens when they are still an embryo in the uterus. Incredibly though, in our main model species – the marsupial sugar glider (Petaurus breviceps) – this process begins after birth, while they are in the mother’s pouch. This provides us with an incredible window into patagium formation.

Starting with the sugar glider, we examined the behaviours of thousands of genes active during the early development of the patagium, to try and figure out how this chain of events is kicked off.

Read more:
A rare discovery: we found the sugar glider is actually three species, but one is disappearing fast

From gliders to bats

We discovered that levels of a gene called Wnt5a are strongly correlated with the onset of those early skin changes – condensation and hyperplasia. Through a series of experiments involving cultured skin tissues and genetically engineered laboratory mice, we showed that adding extra Wnt5a was all it took to drive both of these early hallmarks of patagium formation.

Interestingly, when we extended our work to bats, we found extremely similar patterns of Wnt5a activity in their developing lateral patagia to that in sugar gliders. This was surprising, since bats (placental mammals) last shared a common ancestor with the marsupial sugar glider around 160 million years ago.

Perhaps even more remarkably, we found a nearly identical pattern in the outer ear (or pinna) of lab mice. The pinna is a nearly universal trait among mammals, including innumerable species with no flying ancestry.

A molecular toolkit

Together, these results suggest something profound. Wnt5a’s role in ushering in the skin changes needed for a patagium likely evolved long before the first mammal ever took to the air.

Originally, the gene had nothing to do with flight, instead contributing to the development of seemingly unrelated traits. But because of shared ancestry, most living mammals today inherited this Wnt5a-driven program. When species like gliders and bats started on their separate journeys into the air, they did so with a common “molecular toolkit”.

Not only that, but this same toolkit is likely present in humans and working in ways we don’t fully understand yet.

There are definite limits to our recent work. First, we haven’t made a flying mouse. This may sound like a joke, but demonstrates we still don’t fully understand how a region of dense, thick skin becomes a thin and wide flight membrane. Many more genes with unknown roles are bound to be involved.

Second, while we’ve shown a cause-and-effect relationship between Wnt5a and patagium skin differentiation, we don’t know precisely how Wnt5a does it. Moving forward, we hope to fill in these gaps by broadening the horizons of our cross-species comparisons and by conducting more in-depth molecular studies on patagium formation in sugar gliders.

For now though, our study presents an exciting new view of flight in mammals. We may not be the strongest fliers, but trying is in our DNA.

Read more:
Mysterious poles make road crossing easier for high flying mammals

Charles Feigin has received fellowship funding from the National Institutes of Health National Institute of General Medical Sciences

– ref. Marsupials and other mammals separately evolved flight many times, and we are finally learning how – https://theconversation.com/marsupials-and-other-mammals-separately-evolved-flight-many-times-and-we-are-finally-learning-how-202152

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Beryl Exley, Professor, Griffith Institute for Educational Research, Griffith University, Griffith University

Last August, the federal government set up an expert panel to look at the continuous improvement agenda in teacher education in Australia.

The panel, led by Sydney University vice-chancellor Mark Scott (who also chairs The Conversation’s board), has just released a discussion paper that is open for consultation until April 21, ahead of a final report due in June 2023.

Remind me, why does teacher education need another review?

There has been a constant stream of reviews into teacher education in Australia. The most recent was finalised in February 2022. Led by former federal education department secretary Lisa Paul, the review recommended an “ambitious reform agenda” to attract “high quality” students and ensure teacher education was “evidence-based and practical”.

The Paul review recommended “strengthening the link” between performance and funding of teaching degrees.

The expert panel was, in part, borne out of the Paul review as well as national concerns about teacher shortages. A key issue raised at a federal government roundtable on teacher shortages in August 2022 was the need to “ensure graduating teachers are better prepared for the classroom”.

What does the 2023 discussion paper say?

The discussion paper seeks advice on four key areas:

• how to strengthen undergraduate and postgraduate “initial teacher education” programs to deliver “confident, effective, classroom-ready graduates”

• linking the funding of graduate outcomes with the funding for higher education providers

• improving professional experience placements in teaching degrees

• helping more mid-career entrants into postgraduate teaching degrees.

Each section of the discussion paper is relatively comprehensive, with useful case studies and a set of discussion questions.

However, the four areas are considered in isolation from one another and without due regard for how they interrelate. Also missing from the review is an appreciation of how initial teacher education degrees are one part of a teacher’s professional learning journey.

All the elements of reform are placed at risk when the sum of the parts don’t equal a whole.

Read more:
Our study found new teachers perform just as well in the classroom as their more experienced colleagues

We need a reality check

There is significant ongoing concern about teacher shortages and the number of graduates from teaching degrees. As Scott said on Thursday, “teaching is a tough job and it is increasingly demanding”. Education Minister Jason Clare has also highlighted the need to “increase [course] completion rates and deliver more classroom-ready graduates”.

At the same time, the Paul review found graduate teachers felt underprepared to teach reading, support diverse learners, manage challenging behaviour, work in regional settings, and engage with parents/carers. It’s important to remember these are all exceedingly complex aspects of classroom teaching – even for seasoned teachers and accomplished school leaders.

We need to have realistic expectations about what initial study can provide to graduate teachers. It can teach fundamental theories and provide professional experience, but teachers will need to keep adapting their skills and expanding their knowledge once they are in the classroom.

What works in one context with one set of participants may be less effective in another context because of another set of underlying factors.

This is why tailored induction programs and ongoing mentorship every time an early career teacher starts at a new school is crucial.

Unfortunately, workplace induction programs are usually only offered to teachers in full-time permanent jobs, and rarely to the army of graduate teachers who change schools on a regular basis because they are working as temporary or contract staff.

Read more:
If Australian schools want to improve student discipline, they need to address these 5 issues

Entry requirements should not shut out aspiring teachers

The discussion paper focuses on increasing the numbers of First Nations students, as well as those from regional and remote communities, and low socio-economic backgrounds who become teachers – and rightly so. These groups of people are underrepresented in teaching degrees and each hold great potential to make significant contributions to the profession and to the lives of children and the community.

We need to be realistic about the number of prerequisites for education degrees.

The Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership develops accreditation standards for teacher education programs. State-based regulators, such as the Queensland College of Teachers, can also add their own requirements.

Meeting all these components add extra burdens to aspiring teachers, and there is no evidence to suggest additional entry requirements directly impact graduate teaching quality. For example, in Queensland, aspiring teachers must have successfully completed Year 12 English, mathematics and science before they can start a primary teacher education degree.

This is an issue given the primary teacher workforce is predominantly female, yet boys outnumber girls in Year 12 physics and advanced maths. This means many aspiring teachers need to do an extra science course before they start their primary teacher education degree.

What about linking funding to performance?

The discussion paper canvasses linking government funding for teaching degrees to a set of performance measures such as higher education providers’ capacity to attract high quality candidates from a range of backgrounds, retain those students until graduation, student satisfaction and their employment outcomes.

It suggests publicly reporting data about these measures and providing financial incentives.

We need to be very careful about any changes here and any unintended consequences such as disincentivising higher education providers from offering teacher education degrees.

Given there is a worldwide shortage of teachers, now is not the time to suggest a punitive response to matters of quality in initial teacher education, or to provide a multi-tier funding structure. Rather, we need more understanding of the funding and resources required to support preservice teachers to be the best they can be before they enter the classroom.

Beryl Exley works for the School of Education and Professional Studies at Griffith University. She has been the receipent of research grants to study teachers’ work and teacher education. She is a director on a school board.

– ref. A new review into how teachers are educated should acknowledge they learn throughout their careers (not just at the start) – https://theconversation.com/a-new-review-into-how-teachers-are-educated-should-acknowledge-they-learn-throughout-their-careers-not-just-at-the-start-202433

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jon Wardle, Professor of Public Health, Southern Cross University

Earlier this week, Australian retail giant Woolworths announced a move into health-care delivery via development of its subsidiary HealthyLife’s online portal.

Through this portal, Australians can book a same-day 15-minute virtual GP appointment for A$45 and have any resulting prescription filled and delivered to their home. They can access other services such as a 30-minute virtual appointment with a dietitian or nutritionist for $115. They can also access free 15-minute virtual consultations with naturopaths.

Accessibility has long been an issue in Australian primary health care. With wait times for GPs growing, same-day appointments are becoming almost impossible.

But when a business provides both health advice and therapeutic products for sale, it raises ethical and regulatory questions.

Read more:
More businesses are offering online medical certificates and telehealth prescriptions. What are the pros and cons?

Modern life and medical appointments

Lots of people have difficulties with the logistics and time constraints of having to get to a physical location for an appointment. While the rapid move to telehealth appointments has given many Australians a taste for it, health policy and implementation has largely lagged behind.

“One-stop-shops” that offer health services, advice and information can serve as valuable tools to boost self-care. Yet there are some issues when these services are led by or become dominated by corporate players such as Woolworths.

Read more:
GPs are abandoning bulk billing. What does this mean for affordable family medical care?

Both prescriber and dispenser

Through Woolworths’ proposed model, the same company will be both prescriber and provider of pharmaceutical medications, food products and over-the-counter medicines and supplements. Woolworths’ subsidiary HealthyLife extended its partnership with SuperPharmacy late last year and rebranded it.

The direct-to-consumer and vertically integrated nature of this arrangement creates significant potential for commercial conflicts of interest.

It is also interesting to note that, unlike the other appointments available through the Woolworths’ clinical partners, naturopathic appointments will be offered for free. These will be provided by in-house naturopaths employed by Woolworths.

As naturopathic and public health researchers, we recognise why the company may have done this. Naturopaths have been actively included into corporate health promotion initiatives and health systems overseas. These programs and initiatives suggest potential benefits from naturopathic care.

While Australia has one of the world’s highest rates of consultations with a naturopath, health systems here have been slow to embrace their inclusion. Out-of-pocket costs also remain a barrier to access for people on lower incomes.

But Woolworths isn’t launching this initiative out of altruism – it has identified a clear market gap it thinks it can fill and is meeting a growing and unmet public demand for these services.

‘Medical merchants’

Under Woolworths’ plans, GPs, dietitians and nutritionists will be engaged through partner networks rather than as direct employees. But naturopathic appointments will be delivered by in-house practitioners, employed by the same arm of Woolworths that sells natural health products.

These will also be the only appointments available to consumers for free. This may make them the most attractive option for many consumers. But it could also make these the appointments with the fewest safeguards if not handled correctly.

For example, will products accessible via Woolworths be prioritised over products from elsewhere that may be the best for the patient?

We’ve written about “medical merchants” and how in-house selling of therapeutic products presents ethical concerns previously. The proposed model could take this problem from individual clinicians to an institutional issue operating on a much grander scale.

Supplements are not in the five most commonly recommended treatments in Australian naturopathic appointments. Rather, naturopaths have been shown to most commonly (and effectively) prescribe non-pharmacological dietary, lifestyle, exercise and self-care advice to their patients.

But there is a valid concern that the shorter than usual naturopathic appointments to be offered by Woolworths could prioritise supplement recommendation over these options.

Read more:
Follow a natural health philosophy? Vaccination may have more in common with it than you think

Working for Woolworths

It remains unclear as to whether the naturopaths employed by Woolworths will have the necessary autonomy to provide this comprehensive form of care.

Will they be encouraged to “de-prescribe” unnecessary supplements as well as prescribe necessary ones? Will they be supported if they recommend a non-product dietary intervention as a more effective option than specific nutrient supplementation?

Collaborative arrangements between employed practitioners and Woolworths’ clinical partner networks also remain unclear. Will an employed naturopath be able to refer to other practitioners if needed? Will these referrals be limited to Woolworths’ clinical partners? Fragmentation and under-treatment of potentially serious conditions could result if such issues aren’t transparently addressed.

The employment situation itself also raises potential legal and regulatory issues. If an employer sets product sales targets for a practitioner (and it should be noted there is no indication Woolworths is doing this), who is responsible if this results in inappropriate over-servicing or over-prescribing?

And of course, efforts need to be made to ensure any practitioners delivering the naturopathic appointments for Woolworths are appropriately qualified. For a profession such as naturopathic medicine – which remains an unregistered profession despite every government review of the past two decades recommending registration – the onus will be on Woolworths to ensure proper standards of qualification and practice among their practitioners.

Read more:
It’s after-hours and I need to see a doctor. What are my options?

Filling the gaps

The Australian health system has been traditionally slow to innovate and reform to meet the needs and demands of modern consumers. In this context, the private sector will increasingly view these gaps as commercial opportunities.

In some cases the innovation in delivery and improved accessibility could bring health benefits. But we need to ensure the private sectors’ increasing interest in health service delivery is matched by increased accountability and safeguards, including targeted regulation if appropriate.

As corporations increasingly become involved in delivering health care innovation, we need to make sure the private sector views the people using health services as patients, not just pay cheques.

Jon Wardle receives funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council. He is Foundation Director of the National Centre for Naturopathic Medicine, which was established with a gift from the Blackmore Family Foundation. He is also convener of the complementary medicine special interest group of the Public Health Association of Australia, and is immediate past-secretary general of the World Naturopathic Federation.

Amie Steel receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the Naturopaths and Herbalists Association of Australia. She is affiliated with the Public Health Association of Australia, the Australian Register of Naturopaths and Herbalists and the World Naturopathic Federation.

– ref. Woolworths is getting into telehealth – but patients need to be treated as more than customers – https://theconversation.com/woolworths-is-getting-into-telehealth-but-patients-need-to-be-treated-as-more-than-customers-202361

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By William Peterson, Adjunct Associate Professor, Auckland University of Technology

Few Adelaideans remember a time before the Adelaide Festival. Formed in 1960 as a civic enterprise and financed against loss by prominent Adelaide businessmen, the festival today remains arguably the most robust international arts festival in our region.

For me, the Adelaide Festival is where I overcame my Melburnian fear of Adelaide as Australia’s serial murderer capital and the uptight “City of Churches”.

When I became South Australian, I saw how signature international festival productions had left a lasting imprint here. Many remembered freezing in an Adelaide Hills rock quarry to witness the nine-hour epic staging of The Mahabharata by Peter Brook at the 1988 festival.

And when Pina Bausch’s Nelken (Carnations) came to the 2016 festival, the lobby post-show was abuzz with people recalling the 1982 festival performance by her legendary Wuppertal Dance Theatre.

For artists and educators, encountering such works can alter the trajectory of our lives. For audiences, they can open doors of perception and create deeply embodied memories that never leave us. This is no small thing.

Read more:
Polaroids of the everyday and portraits of the rich and famous: you should know the compulsive photography of Andy Warhol

Local creations

The 2023 festival is curated by Neil Armfield and Rachel Healy, who stepped down as co-artistic directors in mid-2022.

Given the scale of the programming and because its core identity remains associated with theatre, dance and opera, I endeavoured to witness everything on that side of the program.

One of Armfield and Healy’s many accomplishments during their tenure was increasing the percentage of local and Australian work. Given the long history of high-quality, innovative and relevant work generated by Adelaide-based theatre for youth companies, it was heartening to see world premieres from Windmill Theatre Company/Sandpit and Slingsby in the program.

Hans and Gret brought together playwright Lally Katz, Windmill’s theatre team and the technology and experience design makers at Sandpit.

Their contemporary, highly interactive adaptation placed Hansel and Gretel in a suburban Australian gated community. Clever and engaging, it was full of unexpected surprises.

This show, and Slingsby’s The River That Ran Uphill, with its hand-made aesthetic and compelling storytelling, are equal to the best of theatre for youth anywhere.

For the Sydney Theatre Company’s production of The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, adapted and directed by Kip Williams, a team of black-clad techies and camera operators projected the comings and goings of the play’s two actors, Matthew Backer and Ewen Leslie, in a seamless combination of live theatre and cinema.

With screens behind and above the onstage action, and long narrative passages delivered breathlessly and without a pause, I found it all quite exhausting.

Read more:
A production to satisfy Sydney’s darkest imaginings: Sydney Theatre Company’s Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

For my money, the outstanding Australian work in this year’s festival was Marrugeku’s production of Jurrungu Ngan-ga [Straight Talk] at the Dunstan Playhouse, conceived by Dalisa Pigram and Rachael Swain with Patrick Dodson.

State-sanctioned Indigenous and refugee incarceration was the focus of this visceral and captivating work. Eight performers, distinctive in individual presentation and styles of movement, invoked the tedium and boredom of incarceration as well as brief moments of hope and dreams of flight.

The work’s brutal honesty, enhanced by staging and lighting that suggested confinement and surveillance, was punctuated by moments of joy, humour and collective solidarity, confidently taking the audience through difficult terrain.

Read more:
‘We are a nation of jailers’: Jurrungu Ngan-ga is a whirlwind of bodily resistance

International offerings

This year’s high-culture, big-ticket international item was Verdi’s Messa de Requiem. The epic music and dance production featured 36 dancers from Ballet Zürich, the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, a choral ensemble of 80 and four soloists.

Choreographed by Christian Spuck with Johannes Fritzsch conducting, classical ballet was paired with Verdi’s stirring and emotional oratorio, a reflection on life, death and eternal judgement.

Although the dynamic onstage chorus contributed greatly to the overall visual spectacle, I was not convinced that the relatively conventional, classical boy/girl dyad of classical ballet was best suited for such a dynamic and dramatic musical score.

Given the political and military conflicts that continue to shake our world, not surprisingly two international works were staged by groups comprised largely of displaced persons and exiles.

Remote Theatre Project presented Grey Rock, written and directed by Palestinian playwright Amir Nizar Zuabi. A bereaved husband and former TV repair man living with his daughter in the occupied West Bank sets out to create a rocket capable of landing on the Moon.

Far from being fantasy, the work offers an unblinkered exploration of the psychological toll confinement inflicts on individuals and communities.

More harrowing in content and manner of presentation was Dogs of Europe, presented by the Belarus Free Theatre, a company of political exiles living in the United Kingdom. In their adaptation of Belarusian exile Alhierd Bacharevič’s 2017 novel, Russia has become an anti-democratic superstate, brutally ruling over eastern Europe behind a new Iron Curtain.

There was wild, anarchic energy in this youthful cast, with much played big and to excess. The show offered chilling insights into what a world without poetry or poets might look like, one in which people “are only interested in pictures” and “have stopped talking to one another”.

The acclaimed Belgian theatre collective FC Bergman staged perhaps the festival’s most perplexing work. The Sheep Song sets out a parable in which a lone sheep separates from his flock and seeks to become human — something he can never fully achieve.

This is a strange, cruel and melancholic world, in which the unexpected becomes continually expected, and where ultimately the surreal and the “normal” coexist.

A Little Life, presented by International Theatre Amsterdam, was the most challenging work presented this year. Directed by Ivo van Hove, known for his Roman Tragedies at the 2014 festival, the play was based on Hanya Yanagihara’s critically acclaimed novel.

The play begins with a group of young men in a New York City loft bantering playfully and with ease. Although the actors speak in Dutch, they convey a comfortable intimacy. From the start, it’s clear one of them has a terrible secret.

Containing every possible trigger warning, the work deals with extreme trauma, including horrendous accounts of sexual and physical abuse and realistically staged acts of self-harm. The play unfolds like Greek tragedy, with recollecting past trauma not leading to healing but instead to more pain.

Yet this is ultimately a play about love, and how love is not always enough to tether the people we love to this life.

Read more:
Review: A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara

On a lighter note, but no less rigorous in presentation, was Revisor, created by Crystal Pite and Jonathon Young for Kidd Pivot, the same core creative team that brought the sensational and searing Betroffenheit to the 2017 festival.

In equal measure thrilling, astonishing and bewitching, this dance theatre piece adapts Nikolai Gogol’s 19th-century play The Government Inspector.

When a low-level functionary shows up at a government department in a provincial town and is mistaken for an undercover operative, local powerbrokers seek his attention and favour. Mayhem ensues as they offer him fistfuls of money while urging him to overlook reports of “mass graves” or “missing dissidents”.

Read more:
Betroffenheit, when the mind and body get stuck

Ingeniously, all character voices are voiced over. This frees up the dancers to totally embody the words as all energy goes into the physical expression of those words, generating a performance style characterised by estrangement that is oddly very Gogol-like.

This is a sensational production, an example of a superbly successful collaboration where the artistic whole exceeds the sum of its parts.

Understanding the world

Looking at festivals in other capital cities, even before COVID hit, The Melbourne International Arts Festival was to be replaced with Rising, a lively and edgy cross between Hobart’s funky Dark Mofo Festival and Paris’ Nuit Blanche White Night.

Sydney’s festival is now a delightful celebration of Sydney in summer. Brisbane’s excellent festival lacks a significant strand of international programming, while Perth Festival, the nation’s oldest, has increasingly focused on film and the visual arts.

In the larger national festival ecosystem, the Adelaide Festival retains an unbroken line back to the original intent of those who set it up more than 60 years ago: to bring audiences a curated program of exciting new works we would otherwise never be able to see.

We see the world differently through such encounters.

Read more:
Björk was the big-ticket name – but Perth Festival’s heart was found in Bikutsi 3000’s afrofuturist musing on African resistance

William Peterson 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. At the 2023 Adelaide Festival, the best works shimmer with a brutal honesty on incarceration, exile – and Nikolai Gogol – https://theconversation.com/at-the-2023-adelaide-festival-the-best-works-shimmer-with-a-brutal-honesty-on-incarceration-exile-and-nikolai-gogol-202502

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Cathy Buntting, Director, Wilf Malcolm Institute of Educational Research, University of Waikato

Less than a fortnight after teachers staged a national strike, education was back in the headlines with the National Party’s release of its curriculum policy – or “rewrite”, as leader Christopher Luxon described it.

In a nutshell, the policy would require primary and intermediate schools to teach at least an hour a day each of reading, writing and maths. Learners in Years 3-8 would also be tested on their progress at least twice a year – not unlike the controversial (and subsequently dropped) national standards system from 2010 to 2018.

Prime Minister Chris Hipkins responded by arguing the school curriculum should ideally be a bipartisan issue rather than a political football: “Parents, kids, teachers deserve to know that we’ve got a stable curriculum regardless of who the government is.”

Clearly, we all want the best learning outcomes for our nation’s children. But there are deep ideological divisions in the debate about how best to teach and test school children. It seems the curriculum will inevitably become a partisan issue as the election year unfolds.

Behind this immediate contest of ideas, however, sits a larger question: does the education system need yet another upheaval when the curriculum is already undergoing a “refresh”?

How the curriculum works

The school curriculum is not set in stone. Since the 1989 Education Act, schools have been self-governing and charged with developing their own curriculum.
These local curriculums are underpinned by the national New Zealand Curriculum and Te Marautanga o Aotearoa.

The national curriculum and school curriculums work in tandem to balance national consistency with localised enrichment. As part of the curriculum refresh now under way, Te Mātaiaho/The Curriculum Framework will replace the New Zealand Curriculum.

The latest version of Te Mātaiaho, which includes responses to school feedback last year, was released on March 17. It’s open for further input until May 12. Part of the process involves updating the eight learning areas – what many will recognise as the traditional school “subjects” – within a new “understand, know, do” model.

Read more:
The New Zealand Chinese experience is unique and important — the new history curriculum can’t ignore it

This model establishes key learning stage “progressions”. While it doesn’t go as far as National’s proposed year-by-year testing system, it does set out five consecutive phases: for years 1-3, 4-6, 7-8, 9-10 and 11-13. This replaces the current system of eight overlapping levels across years 0-13.

The new progressions are scheduled to be released for consultation in phases, with full implementation planned for 2026. The first “refreshed” learning area – te ao tangata/social sciences – was released last year. It includes the new Aotearoa New Zealand’s Histories curriculum, which schools are now required to teach.

The curriculum refresh also includes improvements to literacy and communication, and numeracy, including explicitly describing outcomes as a component of all learning areas. As part of the literacy and maths strategy, a common practice model is already being developed to create greater clarity, coherence and consistency across the school years.

Teachers on the front line

The upshot of all this is that extensive curriculum work is well under way – and teachers and school leaders are already grappling with the implications. But the National Party curriculum policy implies these changes won’t go far enough.

If enacted, the proposed curriculum rewrite will require teachers to get their heads and hearts around even more change. This will include overseeing a new standardised testing regime in reading, writing and maths for years 3-8 – rather than solidifying their understanding of the current refresh.

Read more:
Has a gap in old-school handwriting and spelling tuition contributed to NZ’s declining literacy scores?

More curriculum change is assuredly not what teachers were calling for when they went on strike on March 16. Rather, they were drawing attention to working conditions and pay scales that haven’t kept pace with inflation.

Mainstream reporting and social media posts overflowed with teachers and principals sharing experiences of increasing concerns about the wellbeing of students and staff. They spoke of overwhelming workloads and inadequate funding to support students with complex learning and behavioural needs.

Christopher Luxon addressed this broader educational complexity head-on, speaking directly to teachers: “In addition to teaching, you have become the front-line response to complex social, educational, housing and wellbeing challenges.”

Read more:
NZ’s key teacher unions now reject classroom streaming. So what’s wrong with grouping kids by perceived ability?

Beyond the school gates

Of course, a strong curriculum and clear milestones for progress are important. But we also need to recognise that quality education occurs within a complex milieu of wider social and economic policies.

If Chris Hipkins’ desire for a bipartisan approach to education were to work, it would be good to see the educational policies of different political parties directly address the funding issue for schools.

Beyond that, how does school funding intersect with other policies targeting inequality and inequity outside the school gates? The same day National announced its curriculum policy, child poverty again made the headlines. A new report showed 10% of the nation’s children are living in material hardship.

Having school children arrive at school properly fed, warm, well dressed and ready to learn is surely the priority. Teachers will then be able to focus on implementing the curriculum for everyone’s benefit.

Cathy Buntting is contributing to the writing of the science learning area within the current New Zealand curriculum refresh.

– ref. Teachers need a lot of things right now, but another curriculum ‘rewrite’ isn’t one of them – https://theconversation.com/teachers-need-a-lot-of-things-right-now-but-another-curriculum-rewrite-isnt-one-of-them-202438

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Fan Yang, Research Associate at RMIT and Alfred Deakin Institute, Deakin University

On March 16, Baidu unveiled China’s latest rival to OpenAI’s ChatGPT – ERNIE Bot (short for “Enhanced Representation through kNowledge IntEgration”). The “multi-modal” AI-powered chatbot can generate text, images, audio and video from a text prompt.

However, ERNIE was poorly received by the public. Baidu’s Hong Kong-listed shares fell by 10% during the press conference, and the beta test is only open to a group of organisations approved by the company.

ERNIE Bot will not be a Chinese substitute for ChatGPT, but that might be how the Chinese state wants it. As earlier efforts to make Chinese AI chatbots have shown, the Chinese Communist Party prefers to maintain strict censorship rules and government steering of research – even at the cost of innovation.

Digital sovereignty and ChatGPT

ChatGPT is not directly accessible in China due to the country’s protectionist approach to digital sovereignty. Chinese data are confined within China, and information that conflicts with government propaganda is censored.

Chinese tech companies including Baidu and Tencent prohibit third-party developers from plugging ChatGPT into their services.

However, the prominence of ChatGPT created a booming illicit market. Until a crackdown, ChatGPT logins were sold on the ecommerce platform Taobao, and video tutorials were published on Chinese social media to demonstrate the abilities of the chatbot.

XiaoIce and BabyQ

Baidu isn’t the first or only tech company in China trialling a generative AI chatbot.

In March 2017, Tencent launched two social chatbots, called XiaoIce and BabyQ, on the WeChat and QQ messaging apps respectively.

XiaoIce was developed by Microsoft, while BabyQ was created by a Beijing-based AI company called Turing Robot. Within months, the two chatbots were taken down to be attuned according to China’s censorship rules.

BabyQ never came back, but Microsoft’s XiaoIce returned and has been providing AI companionship services to millions of users on major platforms including WeChat, QQ and Weibo.

Made in China 2025 and the push for AI

China’s government would be on the defensive if China adopted only AI chatbots developed overseas. As chatbots run on human feedback, it would be impossible to prevent transnational flows of data and the political interests of the Chinese Communist Party may be threatened.

Since 2015, during the administration of former premier Li Keqiang, the Made in China 2025 scheme has endeavoured to bolster the country’s technological capacities. AI is a major focus.

Since February 2023, Chinese tech companies across AI, food delivery, e-commerce and gaming have scrambled to catch up with OpenAI and provide their own ChatGPT-like products to the market.

Beijing’s Municipal Bureau of Economy and Information Technology is supporting this ambition, but only for some leading tech companies.

Censorship and culture

We can expect China will witness the short-term proliferation of versions of ChatGPT services, many of which will vanish or be acquired by big tech companies.

Smaller companies, with little support from the government, are unlikely to be able to afford the costs of censorship.

A small startup called YuanYu launched China’s first ChatGPT-style bot in January. Dubbed ChatYuan, the bot ran as a “mini-program” inside WeChat. It was suspended within weeks after users posted screengrabs of its answers to political questions online.

However, Chinese users are still interested in large language models based on the Han Chinese linguistic system.

ERNIE Bot, for example, claims to be more culturally savvy than ChatGPT, with a better understanding of Chinese histories, classical literature, and dialects.

Government steering

Beijing has tightened its governance of the tech industry since a crackdown in 2021.

One upside for industry is a secure flow of funding and talent support. The flip side is that resources are steered towards technologies that serve Beijing’s immediate interests in domestic governance and military defence.

Read more:
China’s big tech problem: even in a state-managed economy, digital companies grow too powerful

China’s ChatGPT imitators are more likely to be designed to benefit enterprises than individuals. For tech giants, the objective is to form a “full AI stack” by integrating generative AI products into every level of their business, from search engines and apps to industrial processes, digital devices, urban infrastructure and cloud computing.

Emotional surveillance and disinformation

AI-driven chatbots can also lead to adverse outcomes. Alongside the universal concerns around job security, copyright and academic integrity, in China there are also extra risks of emotional surveillance and disinformation.

Chatbots can identify users’ emotional status through conversations. This emotion-reading ability extends the power of big data and AI to invade people’s privacy.

Read more:
China’s ‘surveillance creep’: how big data COVID monitoring could be used to control people post-pandemic

In China, such emotional surveillance could further establish “emotional authoritarianism”. Any sentiments that could threaten the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party, even if not directly stated, have the potential to attract punishment for the user.

AI-powered chatbots and search engines are also likely to legitimise Chinese state-organised propaganda and disinformation. Users will come to trust and depend on these services, but their inputs, outputs and internal processes will be heavily censored.

Chinese politics and leadership will not be up for discussion. When it comes to controversial events or histories, only the perspectives of the Chinese Communist Party will be presented.

Fan Yang 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. AI chatbots with Chinese characteristics: why Baidu’s ChatGPT rival may never measure up – https://theconversation.com/ai-chatbots-with-chinese-characteristics-why-baidus-chatgpt-rival-may-never-measure-up-202109

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sasha Grishin, Adjunct Professor of Art History, Australian National University

Review: Melbourne Now, National Gallery of Victoria.

Melbourne Now 2013 is still spoken about with reverence.

It was a memorable exhibition: a shot of Viagra to the exhibiting of contemporary Australian art by a public art gallery. It was immense, occupying both buildings of the National Gallery of Victoria and surrounds, and it brought to the fore much art that had never been seen before, combined with some well-known artists still making interesting work.

Melbourne Now 2023 is a more targeted exhibition, confined to the Federation Square building, with roughly half the number of exhibitors compared with its predecessor a decade earlier.

The show does combine the work of some well-established artists, including Shaun Gladwell, Christian Thompson, Katherine Hattam and Julia Ciccarone, with a splurge of fresh blood, names largely unknown outside a tight circle within the arts community.

Art is treated within a broad spectrum of the cultural landscape to include not only painters, printmakers, sculptors, photographers, filmmakers and installation artists, but also designers, studios, firms, practising architects, ceramicists, video artists and those working in virtual reality, jewellery, performance, product design and publishing.

These are some of the people who now, or in the near future, will design the way our world looks, feels and operates.

In a vast, sprawling and inspiring exhibition that seems to burst out of its architectural framework, it is pointless to debate omissions in the selection of artists when we are surrounded by so much vital and interesting art that challenges us on so many levels.

Read more:
Melbourne Now – the art of the contemporary city

Intense visual excitement

Many of the artists are making their NGV debut. This is not a “stable” of artists that has been fostered by a gallery, an accusation that has been levelled, with some justification, at several state galleries.

Many of these artists are not new to the institutional exhibiting scene and may have been seen in some regional galleries, public art spaces and dedicated municipal art centres, but they are new to the NGV and the broader public.

There is a sustained and intense visual excitement that pervades all levels of The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia.

We move from Rel Pham’s huge shrine-like “temple” in a darkened room, accompanied by a chorus of 640 computer fans with their cyberspace breeze, to Jenna Lee’s illuminated lanterns in forms reminiscent of traditional Gulumerridjin (Larrakia) dilly bags, and Troy Emery’s quirky nearly three-metre-long textile sculpture, Mountain climber, ready to pounce on the viewer.

Although each of these works is spectacular and packs a considerable wow factor, they cannot be dismissed as purely hedonistic eye candy designed as an escapist parachute out of reality.

Pham questions the ecological sustainability in our reliance on technology with the colours of the neon illumination chosen for symbolic considerations in Asian cultures. He creates an environment where the physical and digital worlds blur.

Lee, a Larrakia, Wardaman and Karajarri artist, views her lanterns as illuminating her ancestry and its mystical complexities.

Emery’s work affected me more directly than I anticipated. I was prepared for an encounter with something approaching high kitsch with brightly coloured pom-poms forming the surface of this creature. For all its playfulness, there is something quite sombre in an encounter with this giant feline, shown like a specimen taken out of the wild, now beautified and preserved in a museum.

It’s possibly something to do with animal extinction and an interrogation of the relationship between us and non-human animals.

It will become a new icon for our time.

Art meets design

The distinction between arts and crafts dissolved many decades ago. Melbourne Now continues the process in dissolving the distinction between the visual arts as studio practice and functional design, fashion and applied photography.

The Design Wall that caused major ripples a decade ago has returned as a large-scale installation representing 23 Victorian design studios that over the past decade created new consumer products from guitars, pink cricket balls to electric motorbikes.

Fashion Now brings together about 20 local fashion designers including J’Aton Couture, Ngali and Kara Baker.

Jewellery Now carries out a similar exercise with contemporary jewellers spread over about 60 new or recent pieces that explore a variety of forms. They include incredible pieces by Inari Kiuru, Tessa Blazey, Kirsten Lyttle and Anke Kindle.

As so much in this exhibition, fundamental questions are raised concerning boundaries. What constitutes jewellery practice today and how is jewellery consumed by society?

Civic Architecture investigates five award-winning civic projects by Melbourne architects where different neighbourhoods have been transformed.

No House Style assembles some Melbourne-based furniture designers and architects who have departed from mainstream trends to create their own unique language.

Vessels examines 15 artists who create containers from materials as varied as ceramics, fibre, mixed media and experimental biomaterials.

The art of photography is interrogated through Slippery Images, a glance at the work of 12 photographers. Printmaking is represented with a Print Portfolio by 12 printmakers plus the irrepressible Gracia and Louise and their bat installation.

A memorable exhibition

Conceived as a snapshot of visual culture in Melbourne and Victoria, this exhibition is challenging, visually exciting and memorable.

If you find it a little bewildering, you can turn to Gee, an AI chatbox developed by Georgia Banks, who has been programmed as a target for your affections, or lie down for Shaun Gladwell’s out-of-body experience.

Read more:
What architects do and how they do it, at Melbourne Now

Melbourne Now is at the The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia until August 20.

Sasha Grishin 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. Melbourne Now: a vast, sprawling and inspiring exhibition that seems to burst out of its architectural framework – https://theconversation.com/melbourne-now-a-vast-sprawling-and-inspiring-exhibition-that-seems-to-burst-out-of-its-architectural-framework-199872

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Julie Jakoboski, Oceanographic Data Scientist, Moana Project’s Te Tiro Moana Team Lead, MetService — Te Ratonga Tirorangi

The world’s oceans are buffering us from the worst climate impacts by taking up more than 90% of the excess heat generated by greenhouse gas emissions. This has warmed them by 0.88℃ (on average globally), according to the latest climate report released this week.

The warming of the ocean affects marine ecosystems, drives changes in ocean circulation and heat distribution, and strongly influences atmospheric weather systems. All these processes are critically important to the health of our planet.

Read more:
Ocean heat is at record levels, with major consequences

Scientists measure subsurface ocean temperature around the world, but there is a coastal gap in those measurements. This is where fishing, aquaculture, recreation and ocean managers need good data the most.

MetService’s Moana Project is changing that. We have joined forces with the commercial fishing sector to deploy sensors on vessels nationwide to gain insights into how ocean temperatures are changing near the coast.

Monitoring coastal changes

Ocean temperature measurements are critical for understanding and accurately predicting extreme events, including severe storms and unusually warm coastal waters, which have serious economic and societal impacts.

During the past few years, Aotearoa New Zealand has been plagued by extreme rainfall and persistent marine heatwaves. This has severely affected marine life, fisheries and aquaculture.

Increased ocean temperatures can exacerbate severe weather events like Cyclone Gabrielle, contributing to the conditions for intense rainfall and potential devastation.

Read more:
Floods, cyclones, thunderstorms: is climate change to blame for New Zealand’s summer of extreme weather?

To prepare for a changing climate and provide early alerts for extreme events, we need to monitor temperature changes below the ocean’s surface. These measurements are usually expensive, often requiring oceanographic research vessels to deploy instruments.

Pioneering international programmes like Argo (autonomous floats that move with the world’s ocean currents collecting measurements) provide unprecedented world coverage of deeper waters.

But they are not primarily designed to measure coastal and shelf seas. The lack of coastal observations is recognised in New Zealand and globally, and is a priority for the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science 2021-2030.

Crowd-sourcing ocean observations

As part of the Moana Project, MetService and the commercial fishing industry partnered with Nelson-based company ZebraTech to develop the Mangōpare sensor, a small, lightweight, robust and accurate temperature sensor that attaches to commercial fishing gear.

The sensor was distributed to volunteer inshore and deep-water fishing vessels and citizen scientists. Thanks to more than 200 skippers and crew, there are now 300 sensors on commercial fishing vessels, providing more than one million subsurface observations a month from across Aotearoa New Zealand.

The sensor attaches to any type of fishing gear and automatically collects ocean temperature and depth measurements through the water column. This information is automatically sent to the cloud, quality checked, returned to the fisher collecting it and incorporated into MetService ocean forecasts.

Vital temperature record to improve forecasts

Temperature observations are used to improve ocean forecasting models and verify the depth of marine heatwaves around Aotearoa New Zealand.

Similar to a weather station on land collecting real-time data that improves weather forecasts, sensor data helps improve three-dimensional predictions of ocean temperature, currents and sea level. These forecasts are used to prepare coastal communities for approaching storms, optimise fishing and alert aquaculture to extreme ocean temperatures.

Read more:
Māori hold a third of NZ’s fishing interests, but as the ocean warms and fish migrate, these rights don’t move with them

Scientists use the sensor data to understand how ocean temperature affects our marine ecosystems. Recently, severe marine heatwaves have affected coastal and offshore areas leading to changes in fish distribution and impacts on sensitive species.

The sensor provides measurements exactly where fishing occurs, helping fishers make sense of changes in their catch.

Temperature measurements are an invaluable record of subsurface ocean structure, allowing scientists to determine impacts of marine heatwaves, such as the bleaching of Fjordland sponges. Increased understanding is essential to a climate-resilient future for our oceans and marine species over the coming decades.

Partnering with technology innovators, the commercial fishing sector, citizen scientists and researchers from across New Zealand, this project breaks down traditional barriers.

This approach demonstrates how we can solve critical environmental issues and provide important insight into our changing oceans. The continuation of this system will lead the way toward informing a climate-resilient blue economy and understanding the coastal ocean, providing measurements that will only become more critical in the coming years.

Julie Jakoboski works for the Meteorological Service of New Zealand – Te Ratonga Tirorangi. The Moana Project is funded by New Zealand’s Ministry of Business, Innovation, and Employment – Hīkina Whakatutuki.

João Marcos Azevedo Correia de Souza works for the Meteorological Service of New Zealand – Te Ratonga Tirorangi. The Moana Project is funded by New Zealand’s Ministry of Business, Innovation, and Employment – Hīkina Whakatutuki.

Malene Felsing works for the Meteorological Service of New Zealand – Te Ratonga Tirorangi. The Moana Project is funded by New Zealand’s Ministry of Business, Innovation, and Employment – Hīkina Whakatutuki.

– ref. Fishing for data: commercial fishers help monitor rising temperatures in coastal seas – https://theconversation.com/fishing-for-data-commercial-fishers-help-monitor-rising-temperatures-in-coastal-seas-202115

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Al-Tamini Tapu, Geoscientist, The University of Queensland

Our new study published in Nature Geoscience on an ancient chain of Australian volcanoes is helping to change our understanding of “hotspot” volcanism.

You may be surprised to learn eastern Australia hosts the longest chain of continental hotspot volcanoes on Earth. These volcanoes erupted during the last 35 million years (for 1 to 7 million years each), as the Australian continent moved over an area of heat (a hotspot) inside the planet, also known as a fixed heat anomaly or mantle plume.

But it appears the Australian hotspot waned with time. And we have found the volcanoes’ inner structure and eruptions changed as a result. Our new findings show hotspot strength has key impacts on the evolution of volcanoes’ inner structure, along with their location and lifespan.

Hotspots change Earth’s surface

Hotspot volcanoes can produce very large volumes of lava and have an important role in Earth’s evolution and atmosphere. Today, famously active hotspot volcanoes include the Hawaiian volcanoes in the Pacific Ocean and the Canary Islands in the Atlantic Ocean. These are known as ocean island volcanoes.

The Australian hotspot chain provides a continental perspective and covers the life cycle of a hotspot – a unique opportunity to better understand how hotspot volcanoes work, why they erupt, and how they evolve with time.

We found the strength of the hotspot and magma supply controls the duration, make-up and explosiveness of volcanoes at the surface. Around 35 to 27 million years ago, the early Australian hotspot was strong and generated enormous, long-lasting volcanoes across Queensland where magma (molten rock) took a direct route to the surface.

In contrast, the more recent (20 to 6 million years ago) New South Wales volcanoes are smaller and had shorter lifetimes, suggesting the hotspot lost strength with time. Interestingly, reduced supply made the magma’s journey to the surface more complicated, with many stops (magma chambers) and more explosive eruptions.

The tipping point occurred at the stunning Tweed-Wollumbin (Mount Warning) volcanic landscape, which formed 21–24 million years ago at today’s border between Queensland and New South Wales.

The secret journey of magma

To discover the journey of magma inside the volcano, and the stops it made on its way to eruption, we analysed volcanic crystals. These are the little heroes that make it all the way to the surface. Mainly composed of silicate minerals like olivine, pyroxene and plagioclase, the crystals grow in the guts of the volcano at high temperature, and register what happens before eruptions start.

These crystals are quite simple in northern volcanoes like Buckland in Queensland, which means they travel through few, simple magma chambers. In contrast, the crystals become very complex in southern volcanoes like Nandewar and Warrumbungle in New South Wales, which means they had a complicated journey through lots of busy magma chambers – lots of stops.

Importantly, when magma stops in a chamber, it cools down and becomes more viscous and difficult to erupt – a bit like cold toothpaste, instead of hot coffee. This thick, lazy magma may need new, hotter magma (caffeinated!) to come and push it to erupt.

If that happens, the gases trapped in the colder magma may not be able to escape, since the magma is so thick. This results in a pressure buildup, eventually exploding like a shaken bottle of fizzy drink – an explosive volcanic eruption.

Read more:
Volcano crystals could make it easier to predict eruptions

A special clock

The cold and hardened lava flows we see in the form of volcanic rocks contain a special clock – radioactive chemical elements have slowly broken down into stable daughter products that accumulate and increase in concentration as time passes.

The beauty of this process is that we know how fast it occurs. By measuring the ratio of the radioactive element and its stable daughter product we can calculate the age of a volcanic rock. By measuring the age of each lava flow from the bottom to the top of the volcano, we can measure its lifetime.

Our study shows the relevance of Australian volcanoes, even if mostly extinct, in better understanding eruptions that have shaped the evolution of our planet. We demonstrate the fundamental role of hotspot strength and magma supply on Earth’s landscape, as well as the eruption styles and lifetimes of volcanoes.

This breakthrough makes it possible to visualise the inner structure of hotspot volcanoes, and their evolution, uniquely easily accessible in the ancient, exposed Australian landscape.

Read more:
Scientists just revealed the most detailed geological model of Earth’s past 100 million years

Al-Tamini Tapu received RTP PhD Scholarship from UQ.

Paulo Vasconcelos received ARC Equipment grant to construct the UQ AGES lab.

Teresa Ubide received funding from the ARC, UQ and AuScope-NCRIS

– ref. A new study on Australian volcanoes has changed what we know about explosive ‘hotspot’ volcanism – https://theconversation.com/a-new-study-on-australian-volcanoes-has-changed-what-we-know-about-explosive-hotspot-volcanism-202334

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Matthew Sussex, Fellow, Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University

There’s been a lot of recent shouting about Australia’s national security policy.

It began with the Nine newspapers’ “Red Alert” extravaganza, spread over multiple articles. Featuring a graphic of warplanes approaching ominously from Red China, it predicted Australia could be at war in three years, and speculated about Chinese missiles and cyberattacks pummelling Australian infrastructure. It then cheerily recommended some hackneyed solutions for Australia’s security woes – including bringing back conscription, and hosting US nuclear weapons.

Not to be outdone, former prime minister Paul Keating returned fire, branding the recent decision to acquire nuclear-propelled submarines under the AUKUS agreement as “the worst deal in all history”, that marked Australia’s “return to our former colonial master”.

Few were spared Keating’s rhetorical cudgel. The list included Foreign Minister Penny Wong, whom he described as “running around the Pacific with a lei around your neck”; Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Richard Marles (“seriously unwise”); and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, whom Keating ridiculed for spending “less than 24 hours” deciding whether to support the AUKUS pact.

Keating saved his most stinging critique for Peter Hartcher, the lead journalist on the Red Alert series, whom he branded a “psychopath”.

All this could be treated as superficially entertaining, or ignored as unimportant tantrums.

But in reality, it’s damaging. For external observers – including hostile ones – it suggests Australian commentators cannot escape knee-jerk reactions when confronted with serious choices. This, in turn, implies we can be prodded and provoked into hypermasculine chest-thumping or panicked pacifism.

That should be worrying. So, too, should the fact that Australians remain ambivalent about it all. In a recent poll, 67% of respondents saw China as a complex relationship to manage, rather than a threat to be confronted (20%) or a positive opportunity (13%).

On the question of Australian nuclear-powered submarines, only 26% of respondents saw them as necessary and value-for-money. In contrast, some 27% of respondents thought they were necessary but not worth the $368 billion price tag, while 28% of respondents thought they weren’t necessary at all.

Read more:
AUKUS submarine plan will be the biggest defence scheme in Australian history. So how will it work?

A failure to communicate

How has this come about? A major problem has been that successive governments have shied away from serious discussions about national security. Instead, they’ve preferred to employ vague motherhood statements about values, or word salad about deterrence.

These are no longer sufficient. Not explaining why governments make the choices they do implies they don’t trust the people who elected them to make informed decisions.

Above all, any national security policy entails risk, and each choice is a calculated bet. And while the much-anticipated Defence Strategic Review may address some of these issues, it’s worth considering the basic contours of our security landscape.

Australia’s strategic geography is both a blessing and a vulnerability. Being a maritime trading state means our economic prosperity depends on unhindered access to a region where a huge proportion of global sea-borne trade transits.

Australia is physically too big (and demographically too small) to win a war against a large and determined adversary, or an attempt to deny us access to the sea.

So, if Australia wants security, it needs to be underpinned by a stronger ally (or a network of them) with abiding interests in upholding its sovereignty.

As a result, Australian strategic policy has revolved around being a security provider – sometimes in conflicts where we have had few obvious interests – in case we need to be a security consumer.

Australia can develop its military capabilities and security resilience so challenging its interests isn’t worth the bother (otherwise known as “deterrence by denial”). There are no two ways about this: it will be costly and time-consuming.

Australia’s strategic environment is becoming the locus for competition between our main trading partner and our main security ally. One is an authoritarian state that seeks to supplant the existing order we benefit from. The other is a democracy that seeks to preserve it.

In national security there are no guarantees:

• we cannot guarantee competition between the US and China will remain peaceful

• nor can we guarantee that future shifts in the US political climate or its power will not lead to a reduction in America’s willingness to uphold order in our region

• and we cannot guarantee China won’t seek to establish a trading system based on tribute instead of open markets.

During contests between big powers, smaller countries have the option of picking a side, or hiding. If you pick a side, you might end up on the losing one. If you hide, you’re unlikely to reap any rewards from victor, and equally run the risk of being punished by them.

Where does AUKUS fit?

How does the AUKUS agreement (of which nuclear-powered submarines are just one component) fit into our strategic calculus? As Australian defence expert Peter Layton has noted, we need to recognise there are good arguments across the spectrum of views in the debate.

Above all, there needs to be a clearer explanation about why the decision was taken.

Certainly, Australia’s acquisition of nuclear-powered submarines will result in an enhanced deterrent capacity. They will be best-in-class, able to stay on station for long periods of time, and highly survivable. Full disclosure: I’m cautiously supportive.

But a number of questions still await detailed answers. Here are a few of the more pressing ones:

Type of deterrent effect sought

Is the purpose of Australian nuclear submarines to have the ability to attack mainland targets in China, and/or Chinese naval assets close to its territory, together with US forces?

In other words, does our acquisition of nuclear submarines lock us into a deterrence-by-punishment approach? If so, what is the rationale for doing so?

Political risk

What’s the likelihood of AUKUS parties reneging on the deal, on the grounds of technology transfer rules and the need to retain sovereign capabilities (the US); shipbuilding capacity (the UK); or cost (Australia)?

Read more:
$18 million a job? The AUKUS subs plan will cost Australia way more than that

Crewing

Nuclear submarines require a highly educated and skilled workforce. Will Australia be able to crew and perform basic maintenance on them by the time the first US Virginia class vessel is delivered in the early 2030s?

Timelines

Australia is (optimistically) slated to receive its first AUKUS-class submarine in 2042. By this time, the main questions about strategic competition in the region may already have been resolved. Shouldn’t we be looking to build our capabilities sooner than that?

Treaty compliance and waste disposal

How does Australia navigate its commitments to the Non-Proliferation Treaty if it is to be operating highly enriched weapons-grade uranium in submarine reactors? And how does it propose to deal with the waste once the Virginia class submarines reach end-of-life?

Read more:
Australia hasn’t figured out low-level nuclear waste storage yet – let alone high-level waste from submarines

Economies of scale

By 2042, Australia will be operating small numbers of three different types of submarines: the ageing Collins class; between three and five ex-US Virginia class nuclear-powered submarines; and the new AUKUS class nuclear-powered submarine. Is the cost of doing so sensible?

Time to grow up

An informed debate on national security isn’t only healthy, it’s overdue. At such an important time, Australians deserve better than dubious scare campaigns. More than that, they deserve a mature national security discussion that treats opposing views with respect rather than ridicule. Achieving that is fundamental to democracy, which draws its greatest strength from the open contest of ideas.

Holding that debate might finally mark Australia’s coming-of-age on questions of national security. In the past, Australia’s rich tradition of commentary on how we view ourselves in the world has typically played on tensions between our geography and our identity, producing depictions that mark us as either lucky or lonely, immature or adolescent.

It’s high time we grew up and left that behind.

Matthew Sussex has previously received funding from the Australian Research Council, the Carnegie Foundation, the Lowy Institute, and various Australian government agencies.

– ref. Time to grow up: Australia’s national security dilemma demands a mature debate – https://theconversation.com/time-to-grow-up-australias-national-security-dilemma-demands-a-mature-debate-202040

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rachel Goldlust, Adjunct Research Fellow, School of Archaeology and History, La Trobe University

Earlier this month, regulators flagged electricity price rises in Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia. Like many people, you’re probably wondering how you can minimise the financial pain.

Getting rid of gas and electrifying everything in your home can save you money. Modelling by not-for-profit organisation Renew showed annual bills last year for a seven-star all-electric home with solar power were between 69% (Western Sydney) and 83% (Hobart) cheaper than bills for a three-star home with gas appliances and no solar.

There are other reasons to kick the gas habit, too. As renewables form an ever-growing part of Australia’s energy mix, electrifying the home increasingly helps tackle climate change. What’s more, there are sound health reasons to get rid of gas appliances.

But where do you start? And how do you get the best bang for your buck? Here, I offer a few tips.

A quick guide to home energy use

Australian home energy use can be separated into a few categories:

• space heating and cooling
• water heating
• cooking
• vehicles
• other appliances (many of which are largely already electric).

Of the appliances that typically depend on gas, the largest component (37%) is space heating, followed by hot water (24%) and cooking (6%).

This varies between states. Victoria, for example, is particularly dependent on gas.

But the breakdown above gives some insight into the largest contributors to energy costs in the average Australian home – particularly in the cooler southern regions.

While both gas and electricity costs are rising, as they are now in most states, all-electric homes can expect lower overall increases. Analysis by Renew has shown ditching the old gas heater in favour of a split system/reverse cycle air-conditioner (without solar panels) can lead to average savings of A$546 each year in Canberra, $440 in Adelaide, $409 in Melbourne and $256 in Perth.

Heating a space with a reverse-cycle air conditioner is about four times more efficient than using natural gas. And when the electricity is generated by renewables, it can be done with zero greenhouse gas emissions.

And what about heating water? Using the existing electricity grid, the cost of using an electric heat pump is around half that of using a natural gas water heater.

The costs fall even lower if a household shifts to solar panels subsidised or financed by government, backed by a home battery providing the energy. In this case, heating costs are around a third of using gas.

Read more:
Why are electricity prices going up again, and will it ever end?

So what’s the payback?

Buying new appliances costs money. So it’s important to examine the “payback” period – in other words, the length of time it takes for energy bill savings to equal the cost of the initial investment in a new appliance.

The payback period can vary depending on:

• cost and quality of the appliance
• an appliance’s energy rating
• size of the system
• for space heating, whether a split system is replacing an existing ducted system or being added on externally.

A report last year by the Climate Council calculated the approximate cost differences between higher and lower-end electric appliances. Lower-end hot water heat pumps, reverse-cycle air conditioner and induction stoves were priced around $7,818 all together, while higher-end appliances cost around $14,936 together.

Both scenarios included installation costs and $3,000 for electrical upgrades and other costs.

The payback period for low-priced appliances ranged from five years in Hobart and Canberra to 15 years in Perth and Sydney. Higher-priced appliances were in the order of eight to ten years for most cities and 12, 16 and 19 years for Melbourne, Perth and Sydney respectively.

Read more:
People are shivering in cold and mouldy homes in a country that pioneered housing comfort research – how did that happen?

Rolled out at scale, household electrification is also a feasible way to reduce gas demand. It may be the only practical option available to decarbonise residential energy.

As research recently suggested, so-called “green” hydrogen – made by using low-carbon electricity to split water into hydrogen and oxygen – is unlikely to emerge as a cheap replacement for gas boilers. And why look for a technological solution to a problem we already know how to solve?

Modelling by Environment Victoria has shown installing heat pumps for heating and cooling would reduce statewide gas use by 48 petajoules a year, compared to the relatively minimal 0.5 petajoules saved by installing induction cooktops.

At the same scale – and using a similar technology – replacing gas hot water with heat pump hot water reduces household gas use by 10 petajoules each year. That’s an enormous saving of gas.

The bigger picture for all-electric homes

Existing homes can benefit from a combination of electrification, rooftop solar and batteries. They can also benefit from energy efficiency measures such as installing insulation, stopping draughts, closing off rooms and wearing the right clothing for the season.

We can work together to speed up the transition to renewable energy and reduce the demand for gas.

Rachel Goldlust is developing a “Getting Off Gas Toolkit” for Renew. It aims to provide clear, accessible and practical advice to households on replacing gas with renewables. The public is invited to complete a survey to help design the guide.

Rachel Goldlust works for Renew on their forthcoming Getting Off Gas Toolkit. Renew has received funding from Boundless Earth and the Lord Mayor’s Charitable Foundation for this work.

– ref. Want an easy $400 a year? Ditch the gas heater in your home for an electric split system – https://theconversation.com/want-an-easy-400-a-year-ditch-the-gas-heater-in-your-home-for-an-electric-split-system-201941

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anthony Veal, Adjunct Professor, Business School, University of Technology Sydney

A little more than a century ago, most people in industrialised countries worked 60 hours a week – six ten-hour days. A 40-hour work week of five eight-hour days became the norm, along with increased paid holidays, in the 1950s.

These changes were made possible by massive increases in productivity and hard-fought struggles by workers with bosses for a fair share of the expanding economic pie.

In the 1960s and ‘70s it was expected that this pattern would continue. It was even anticipated that, by the year 2000, there would be a “leisure society”. Instead, the trend towards reduced working hours ground to a halt.

But now there are suggestions we are on the cusp of another great leap forward – a 32-hour, four-day week for the same pay as working five days. This is sometimes referred to as the “100-80-100” model. You will continue to be paid 100% of your wages in return for working 80% of the hours but maintaining 100% production.

In Spain and Scotland, political parties have won elections with the promise of trialling a four-day week, although a similar move in the 2019 UK general election was unsuccessful. In Australia, a Senate committee inquiry has recommended a national trial of the four-day week.

Hopes of the four-day week becoming reality have been buoyed by glowing reports about the success of four-day week trials, in which employers have reported cutting hours but maintaining productivity.

However, impressive as the trial results may appear, it’s still not clear whether the model would work across the economy.

An employer-led movement

Unlike previous campaigns for a shorter work week, the four-day workweek movement is being led by employers in a few, mainly English-speaking, countries. Notable is Andrew Barnes, owner of a New Zealand financial services company, who founded the “4-Day Week Global” organisation.

It has coordinated a program of four-day week trials in six countries (Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States). Almost 100 companies and more than 3,000 employees have been involved. (A highly publicised trial in Iceland was not coordinated by it.)

Read more:
The success of Iceland’s ‘four-day week’ trial has been greatly overstated

These trials are being monitored by an “international collaboration” of research teams at three universities: Boston College, Cambridge University, and University College Dublin. The Boston College team is led by work-time/leisure-time guru Juliet Schor, author of the 1991 bestseller The Overworked American.

A number of reports have been published, including one “global” report covering all six countries, and separate reports for the UK and Ireland]. A report on the Australian trial is promised for April.

Overall, these reports have declared the trials a “resounding success” – both for employers and employees.

Employees, unsurprisingly, were overwhelmingly positive. They reported less stress, burnout, fatigue and work-family conflict, and better physical and mental health.

More significant were the employers’ responses. They have generally reported improved employee morale and no loss of revenue. Nearly all have committed to, or are considering, continuing with the four-day-week model.

Four big questions

The trials do not, however, answer all the questions about the viability of the four-day week. The four main ones are as follows.

First, are the research results reliable?

Employers and employees were surveyed at the start, halfway through and at the end of the six-month trials. But only about half of the employees and two-thirds of employers completed the vital final round. So there’s some uncertainty about their representativeness.

Second, did the participating firms demonstrate the key productivity proposition: an increase of almost 20% in output per employee per hour worked?

The firms involved were not asked to provide “output” data, just revenue. This may be a reasonable substitute. But it may also have been affected by price movements (inflation was on the march in 2022).

Third, for those firms that achieved the claimed productivity increase, how did it come about? And is it sustainable?

Proponents of the four-day week argue that employees are more productive because they work in a more concentrated way, ignoring distractions. A much longer period than six months will be needed to establish whether this more intense work pattern is sustainable.

Fourth, is the four-day model likely to be applicable across the whole economy?

This is the key question, the answer to which will only emerge over time. The organisations involved in the trials were self-selected and unrepresentative of the economy as a whole. They employed mostly office-based workers. Almost four-fifths were in managerial, professional, IT and clerical occupations. Organisations in other sectors, with different occupational profiles, may find increased productivity through more intensive working difficult to emulate.

Take manufacturing: only three firms from this sector were included in the large UK trial. Since manufacturing has been subject to efficiency studies and labour-saving investment for a century or more, an overall 20% “efficiency gain” to be had across the board seems unlikely.

Then there are sectors that provide face-to-face services to the public, often seven days a week. They cannot close for a day, and their work intensity is often governed by health and safety concerns. Reduced hours are unlikely to be covered by individual productivity increases. To maintain operating hours, either staff will have to work overtime or more staff would need to be employed.

As for the public sector, in Australia and other countries “efficiency savings” involving budget cuts of about 2% a year have been common for decades. Any “slack” is likely to have been already squeezed out of the system. Again, reducing standard hours would result in the need to pay overtime rates or recruit extra staff, at extra cost.

Read more:
A life of long weekends is alluring, but the shorter working day may be more practical

So what now?

This does not mean the four-day week could not spread through the economy.

One scenario is that it could spread in those workplaces and sectors where productivity gains are achievable.

Those employers and sectors not offering reduced hours would find it harder to recruit staff. They would need to reduce hours, perhaps by stages, to compete. In the absence of productivity gains, they would be forced to absorb the extra costs or pass them on in increased prices.

The pace at which such change takes place would depend, as it always has, on the level of economic growth, productivity trends and labour market conditions.

But it is unlikely to happen overnight. And, as always, it will be accompanied by many employers and their representatives claiming the sky is about to fall in.

Anthony Veal 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. 4-day work week trials have been labelled a ‘resounding success’. But 4 big questions need answers – https://theconversation.com/4-day-work-week-trials-have-been-labelled-a-resounding-success-but-4-big-questions-need-answers-201476

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Xavier Ho, Lecturer in Interaction Design, Monash University

Mainstream games are embracing openly queer characters – and so are many of their players and fans.

The Last of Us, the prestige HBO adaptation of the critically lauded game, has been celebrated (and review-bombed) for delivering a strong narrative featuring prominent LGBTQIA+ cast and characters.

In Left Behind, the seventh episode, the show transported us to the time the younger protagonist, Ellie, spent with her childhood friend and love interest, Riley. We also saw in the third episode, Long, Long Time, how Bill and his longtime partner Frank navigated their final moments together.

Since The Last of Us aired, it saw more than 22 million US domestic views within 12 days of its opening. The data suggests that there is a very large TV audience with a healthy appetite for authentic and purposeful LGBTQIA+ representation.

The interesting thing is that much of this queer representation in The Last of Us TV adaptation is lifted directly from the plot of the video game, asking whether there is a similar appetite for LGBTQIA+ representation and stories in the gaming world.

This in turn raises the question: is the gaming audience becoming more inclusive?

Read more:
Review bombing is about power, politics and revenge – but it’s not about art

The growing market for queer games

Queer Games Bundle 2022 along with its Pay What You Can Edition raised more than US$216,000 for 431 queer creators. Indeed, there is a steadily growing market for queer games.

Queer games makers are resisting against public malice against the community. In February 2023, the Trans Witches are Witches bundle, which started in opposition to JK Rowling’s horrifying anti-transgender tirade, raised US$215,893 for 56 queer creators.

In 2022, we found that 90% of queer games are free or “pay what you want”.

This analysis was on itch.io, a platform where independent creators can distribute or sell their games. In March 2022, it hosted 2,499 LGBT and LGBTQIA tagged queer games. One year later, that number has risen to more than 3,376, a 35% increase. However, the ratio of free games remains.

Pride at Play

To explore more about queer games – games made by queer makers for queer folks – we curated an exhibition called Pride at Play.

Pride at Play’s selection was through an open submission whereby anyone in the world can submit their queer games. We focused on games made in Oceania and the Asia-Pacific region, reflecting the ongoing cultural and legal challenges LGBTQIA+ folks are facing in these regions.

As part of the curatorial process, we interviewed all exhibiting developers. Our interviews were akin to casual conversations, and we talked to 20 different queer designers from Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Malaysia and more.

We asked each person about their background, motivations, queer experiences, their communities, target audiences, and what it means for them to play with pride.

Queerer than ever

Hayley Gordon and Vee Hendro, who founded the game studio Storybrewers Roleplaying in Gadigal (Sydney) were among the folks we interviewed. We asked who their target audience were, and they were convinced they have connected with them.

“It’s queerer than ever. Our market, indie roleplaying games, just gets queerer every year,” they observed.

Younger people in roleplaying are more open about their queerness as well. Games that are going into the indie space specifically are more open, and I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s reflections in the mainstream too.

“I feel like I’m doing some kind of retroactive rewriting of history,” said Thomas Barrer at the Ōtautahi (Christchurch) studio Fnife Games, who makes Small Town Emo, “by making the kind of game I would have liked to see as a kid and have it work on a Game Boy”.

“Right now I have a vision of the world being more individual,” said Ignacio Bustos, lead developer at the Argentinian studio Team Spicy Bubble that created the multi-awardwinning game Queer and Chill.

In Argentina we have a lot of young people. We’ve put value in the industry as a studio, with all those ideas of diversity and inclusion. And there are things we want to appreciate and make a place for.

“If itch.io didn’t exist, I wouldn’t even be in gamedev at all. itch.io is where I first found small games at a scale that I could make myself,” responded npckc, a Japan-based solo game designer who created Mima and Nina’s Chocolate Workshop.

It’s provided a space for my weird free games. It’s given me the confidence to release paid games after people donated for my free ones. It’s helped me meet other small game devs who’ve become friends who support me and whom I support as we all make our own things.

Queer games have the potential to touch on everyday endearing moments of who we are as humans.

Xavier Ho is the Junior Visiting Chair of Hunt-Simes Institute in Sexuality Studies, which brings together emerging researchers and internationally recognised sexuality studies scholars to reimagine the Queer classroom. He is the lead curator for Pride at Play, jointly funded by Sydney Social Sciences and Humanities Advanced Research Centre (SSSHARC) and Monash Art, Design and Architecture (MADA).

– ref. The gaming audience is ‘queerer than ever’ – so how are game creators responding? – https://theconversation.com/the-gaming-audience-is-queerer-than-ever-so-how-are-game-creators-responding-199598

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robert Attenborough, Honorary Senior Lecturer in Bioanthropology, Australian National University

Many astonishingly creative people have lived lives cut tragically short by illness. Johannes Vermeer, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Jane Austen, Franz Schubert and Emily Brontë are some famous examples.

Ludwig van Beethoven’s life was not quite as short; he was 56 when he died in 1827. Yet it was short enough to tantalise us as to what more he might have achieved, had he had better health.

For much of his adult life, Beethoven was frequently tormented by pain and poor health – not to mention hearing loss. He gave anguished thought to these afflictions, especially his hearing loss, and hoped they would one day be understood and the explanation made public.

At times he despaired and contemplated suicide; at times he stopped composing altogether.

Entire books have been written on Beethoven’s health, based on records from the time. However, my colleagues and I approached the topic from a different perspective. We asked what clues Beethoven’s genome – his DNA – might provide.

We found some answers, and some surprises, as we explain in new research published in Current Biology.

Planting the seed

Our multinational collaboration began with Tristan Begg – a Beethoven enthusiast and student of biological anthropology, then at the University of California Santa Cruz.

While volunteering at the Ira F. Brilliant Center for Beethoven Studies at San José State University, Begg encountered the centre’s director at the time, historical musicologist William Meredith.

The seed of the project was sown then, but it took eight years and the input of several other specialists to develop it to the point of being published. All the complex multidisciplinary collaborations notwithstanding, the only person who has worked full-time on the project is Begg himself, now in his final PhD year at the University of Cambridge.

Where did the DNA come from?

It’s very challenging to extract and analyse DNA from the remains of a dead person (or other animal) – much more so than from living tissues. Nonetheless, huge technical advances have transformed the field of ancient DNA studies.

Generally, the best DNA sources from human remains include teeth and the petrous bone in the skull, but none of Beethoven’s bones or teeth were available to us.

What was available was hair. In Beethoven’s day, it was common to collect locks from famous people or loved ones. Dozens of locks attributed to Beethoven are held in public and private collections.

However, hair without roots is a less tractable source of DNA. This DNA tends to exist in short and sometimes degraded sequences. These have to be painstakingly pieced together, using specialised computer software, to construct as much of a complete genome sequence as possible.

How do we know the locks are Beethoven’s?

Our project used samples from eight independently sourced locks attributed to Beethoven. Of these, five yielded DNA from the same male individual, with degrees of damage consistent with origins in the early 19th century.

Working with the ancestry firm FamilyTreeDNA, we traced the ancestry for this person to western-central Europe. We are confident it is Beethoven, since two of the locks exist alongside uninterrupted provenance records going as far back as the 1820s.

Three more locks, genetically identical with the other two, also had good (although not completely uninterrupted) provenance records.

The combination of excellently documented provenances with perfect genetic agreement between five independently sourced samples made it very difficult to doubt these hair samples came from Beethoven.

That left three locks of hair. Two of these were clearly genetically different from the other five: one is a woman’s. We don’t know how these came to be attributed to Beethoven.

One of the misattributions is significant in itself, because it was the basis of earlier research that concluded Beethoven had been subject to lead poisoning. Our findings show this conclusion no longer stands.

The eighth lock yielded too little DNA to be declared authentic or otherwise.

What we learnt about Beethoven’s health

We didn’t expect to find a genetic basis for Beethoven’s most widely known health problem – his hearing loss – and this was borne out. Beethoven had adult-onset hearing loss, which is only rarely attributable to primarily genetic causes.

He was, however, beset for many years by other health problems – particularly gastrointestinal problems (pain and diarrhoea) and liver disease.

Working with the Bonn University medical genetics team, we didn’t find Beethoven to be especially genetically susceptible to any particular gastrointestinal condition, such as inflammatory bowel disease, irritable bowel syndrome, coeliac disease or lactose intolerance (as some have hypothesised). Our main discoveries related to liver disease.

We already knew through documentation that Beethoven had attacks of jaundice. Begg’s work has now shown Beethoven had two copies of a particular variant of the PNPLA3 gene, which is linked to liver cirrhosis. He also had single copies of two variants of a gene that causes haemochromatosis, a condition that damages the liver.

Quite remarkably, the analyses also revealed Beethoven was infected with the hepatitis B virus in the final months of his life (and perhaps before). Hepatitis B infection may have been common in Europe at the time, but details on this are scant.

What’s more, alcohol consumption may have exacerbated Beethoven’s liver disease risk. There has been controversy regarding the extent and nature of his alcohol consumption, which is referred to – but not quantified – in surviving records.

Begg reviewed the records carefully and concluded Beethoven’s alcohol consumption was likely unexceptional for the time and place, but may have still been at levels now considered harmful.

Revelations from the Beethoven family

There was one more surprise in store for us. As part of our work, we sought to link Beethoven’s genome with those of living members of the Beethoven lineage. To do this we focused on the Y chromosome, which is inherited in the male line only (following a similar pattern to surnames in most European traditions).

Five men with the surname Beethoven contributed their DNA samples. They were not closely related to each other, and were living in present-day Belgium where the surname originates. They all essentially shared the same Y chromosome, which could be put down to descent from a common male ancestor: Aert van Beethoven (1535-1609).

The surprise was that Ludwig van Beethoven’s locks had a different Y chromosome. Having considered other explanations, we inferred that at some point in the seven generations between Aert and Ludwig, someone’s father for social and legal purposes was not their biological father.

But we couldn’t decipher, based on the evidence available, which generation this might have been.

Read more:
Beethoven 250: analysis of the composer’s letters proves that creativity does spring forth from misery

What’s next?

We will be making the genome we sequenced publicly available, as there may be more to discover from further analyses.

Beyond Beethoven, our project is an example of wider possibilities opening up in the field of DNA analysis. It shows meaningful results can be obtained even from such unpromising DNA sources as historical hair locks.

To date, population genetics has seldom taken its analyses down to the level of a single individual. This is hard to do, but we show it’s not impossible.

Who might be next? Perhaps someone else about whom there is a distinct question to answer – or even someone who may themselves have wanted that question answered.

Acknowledgments: In addition to lead author Tristan Begg (University of Cambridge), I would like to acknowledge all other co-authors including Johannes Krause and Arthur Kocher (Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig), Toomas Kivisild and Maarten Larmuseau (KU Leuven), Markus Nöthen and Axel Schmidt (University of Bonn), and all sample donors including philanthropist Kevin Brown.

I have been a student (50 years ago) at the University of Cambridge, and more recently a staff member at the University of Cambridge, a departmental colleague of Toomas Kivisild, and a PhD supervisor of Tristan Begg.

– ref. We used DNA from Beethoven’s hair to shed light on his poor health – and stumbled upon a family secret – https://theconversation.com/we-used-dna-from-beethovens-hair-to-shed-light-on-his-poor-health-and-stumbled-upon-a-family-secret-202440

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

At the end of the emotional news conference in which he unveiled the wording for the Voice referendum, Anthony Albanese touched on a central reason why a “yes” result is vital.

Australia would be seen as a better nation by the rest of the world if the referendum succeeded, the PM said, adding “and our position in the world matters”.

It’s actually not so much a matter of enhancing our international reputation, as of not putting a serious dent in it.

Imagine the impression sent abroad if voters defeated a proposal for an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander body to advise the federal parliament and executive government on matters relating to Indigenous people.

Any nuance about why the referendum (which to succeed must be carried in four states as well as nationally) had failed would be lost. It would just come across as Australians slapping the country’s Indigenous people in the face.

This would be particularly bad for the Albanese government, which has recently announced the appointment of the inaugural ambassador for First Nations People, Justin Mohamed.

Among other things, Mohamed is to be responsible “for leading the government’s efforts to embed Indigenous perspectives, experiences and interests” across the foreign affairs department and developing “a First Nations Foreign Policy Strategy”.

It would be an appalling start to his job if he had to explain the collapse of this high-profile referendum.

Mainly, discussion of the consequences of the referendum failing has centred on what that would mean locally.

Read more:
‘We’re all in’, declares an emotional Albanese as he launches the wording for the Voice referendum

For Albanese, who is investing a great deal of political capital in the issue, defeat would be a major blow. It also potentially could have knock-on effects for the government’s plans for a referendum on a republic in a second Labor term.

And a loss would be a massive setback for reconciliation, sparking disillusionment and anger among Indigenous Australians.

But beyond these domestic implications, the impact on Australia’s international standing should be kept front of mind. This constitutes an argument for a “yes” vote, even by those who might think the Voice will not amount to much, or, alternatively, fear it will unleash a lawyers’ picnic.

We are so far down this referendum road that not to reach the destination would have very wide fallout.

But it will be rough going over the next few months. That was clear on Thursday despite the historic celebratory news conference that saw the prime minister flanked by an array of Indigenous leaders, united in the referendum cause.

Conservative constitutional experts are critical of the wording the government has settled on, which varies only marginally from Albanese’s first draft outlined to last year’s Garma festival.

Objections go to the potential scope it would give the Voice in relation to advising executive government, and especially the public service.

Greg Craven, a member of the constitutional expert group that has been advising on the referendum, told 3AW: “The problem is executive government covers the whole of the decision-making of the Commonwealth government […] Now, if you get into a situation where, for example, the Voice hasn’t yet made a representation on some important view and the Commonwealth has not told the Voice and given it that chance, then legally it is entirely practicable for someone to take a challenge to a court to stop that action until the Voice has made a representation.”

Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus moved to strengthen the guard rail to prevent such a problem but the First Nations referendum working group – the power centre when it comes to negotiating with the government – bristled. Instead, the group came up with its own form of words, which the government accepted.

Peter Dutton has called for the government to release the advice the solicitor-general provided Dreyfus about that extra guard rail.

Other constitutional lawyers, such as Anne Twomey (who is also on the constitutional expert group), don’t see a problem, believing the slight tweak from the original that has been made is sufficient protection.

Read more:
We now know exactly what question the Voice referendum will ask Australians. A constitutional law expert explains

It’s a case of choose your expert. We would only know definitively who’s right if and when the legal processes played out after the Voice was in operation.

This legal issue in relation to executive government is the most serious question about the Voice, but it’s not the only one.

We know the parliament will be the final arbiter of the detail of the Voice, after a successful referendum. “Parliament” in practice means the Albanese government, advised by Indigenous people and possibly limited by what it can get through the Senate.

But the referendum working group has already set out some design principles, endorsed by the government. One says: “To ensure cultural legitimacy, the way that members of the Voice are chosen would suit the wishes of local communities”.

That might seem fine at first glance, but it does not provide any certainty of a democratic and inclusive local process, which might surprise some referendum voters.

While the argument among lawyers gives Dutton added grist for questions, it does not make any easier his fundamental dilemmas with this referendum, on which the Liberals have yet to declare a position.

Dutton has a split party, with the majority favouring a “no” vote but a vocal minority of moderates firmly on the “yes” side and ready to campaign for it.

Beyond that, Albanese is investing the referendum with a lot of emotion and also tying it to achieving results in “closing the gap”.

If Dutton opposes, he’ll find himself cast on the wrong side of history, whatever the referendum result. If the vote is carried, his opposition would be condemned. If the referendum were lost, he’d receive a lot of blame, and be open to the charge he had helped stymie something that might have contributed to “practical reconciliation”, on which the Liberals focus.

Given his base, Dutton can’t win in political terms.

He might do well to listen to Craven, who was asked whether he’d vote for or against the proposal as it now stands. “I would vote for it because if I was forced to take a position as to the sort of advanced morality of doing justice to our indigenous brothers and citizens, I could not vote against it,” he said.

Craven said he would keep fighting for altered wording, but if he failed and the current wording was put to voters, “I will shut up”.

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: A ‘No’ vote in the Voice referendum would put a serious dent in Australia’s image abroad – https://theconversation.com/grattan-on-friday-a-no-vote-in-the-voice-referendum-would-put-a-serious-dent-in-australias-image-abroad-201157

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Elsa Dominish, Research Principal, Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology Sydney

Last month, Victoria banned plastic straws, crockery and polystyrene containers, following similar bans in South Australia, Western Australia, New South Wales and the ACT. All states and territories in Australia have now banned lightweight single-use plastic bags.

You might wonder why we have to ban these products entirely. Couldn’t we just make them out of bioplastics – plastics usually made of plants? Some studies estimate we could swap up to 85% of fossil-fuel based plastics for bioplastics.

Unfortunately, bioplastics aren’t ready for prime time – except for their use in kitchen caddy bins as food waste liners. In Australia, we don’t have widely available pathways to compost or process them at the end of their lives. Nearly always, they end up in landfill.

That’s why many states are including bioplastics in their plastics bans. Avoiding single-use plastics entirely, whether traditional fossil fuel-based plastics or bioplastics, is more sustainable. And as our recycling system struggles, less plastic of any kind is simply better.

Bio-based, biodegradable and compostable are different

Bioplastics is a blanket term covering plastics which are biologically-based or biodegradable (including compostable), or both.

Plastics are materials based on polymers – long-repeating chains of large molecules. These molecules don’t have to be oil-based – biologically-based plastics are made from raw materials such as corn, sugarcane, cellulose and algae.

Biodegradable plastics are those plastics able to be broken down by microorganisms into elements found in nature. Importantly, biodegradable here doesn’t specify how long or under what conditions plastic will break down.

Compostable plastics biodegrade on a known timeframe, when composted. In Australia, they can be certified for commercial or home compostable use.

These differences are important. Many of us would see the word “bioplastic” and assume what we’re buying is plant based and breaks down quickly. That’s often not true. Some biodegradable plastics are even made from fossil fuels.

Are bioplastics broadly more environmentally friendly?

To understand this we need to look at the whole lifecycle of the plastic, how it is made, used and what happens to it at end-of-life. Manufacturing bio-based plastics generally has lower environmental impacts and has less greenhouse gas emissions than fossil fuel plastics.

This isn’t always the case. Producing plastics from plants has an environmental impact from the use of land, water and agricultural chemicals. Increased demand for agricultural land could lead to biodiversity loss and can compete with food production.

Read more:
If plastic comes from oil and gas, which come originally from plants, why isn’t it biodegradable?

Bioplastics often sub in for familiar single use items such as plastic bags, takeaway coffee cups and cutlery. Around 90% of the bioplastics sold in Australia are certified compostable. In most of these applications a reusable alternative would be the most sustainable option.

Some applications have beneficial environmental outcomes: compostable bags for kitchen food waste caddies increase the rate of food waste collected, which means less food waste in landfill and fewer greenhouse gas emissions.

What about the crucial question of plastic waste and pollution? Sadly, if bioplastics end up in the environment, they can damage the environment in the same way as conventional plastics, such as contaminating soil and water. A turtle can choke just as easily on a bioplastic bag as a conventional plastic bag. That’s because biodegradable plastics still take years or even decades to biodegrade in nature.

Ideally, bioplastics should be designed to be either recyclable or compostable. Unfortunately, some bioplastics are neither. These pose problems for our waste management system, as they often end up contaminating recycling or compost bins when the only place for them is the tip.

In recent research for WWF Australia, we found widespread greenwashing in the industry, with terms such as “earth friendly” and “plastic-free” adding to the confusion. Regulating the industry and standardising terms would make it easier for us all to choose.

Compostable plastics almost all end up in landfill

Compostable plastics are designed to be broken down in the compost. Some can be composted at home, but others have to be done commercially.

The problem is these plastics aren’t being composted most of the time. Australian Standard compostable plastics are accepted in food organics and garden organics bins in South Australia and some councils in Hobart. But everywhere else, access to these services is limited. Many councils in other states will accept food and green waste – but specifically exclude compostable plastics (some accept council-supplied food waste caddy liners).

Read more:
Do you toss biodegradable plastic in the compost bin? Here’s why it might not break down

This means most compostable plastics used in Australia end up in landfill, where they emit methane as they break down, where it is not always captured. There’s no benefit using bioplastics if they can’t – or won’t – be recycled or composted, especially if they’re replacing a plastic that’s readily recyclable, such as the PET used in soft drink bottles.

Where does it make sense to use bioplastics in Australia?

When you reach for a bioplastic product, you’re probably doing it to reduce plastic waste. Unfortunately, we’re not there yet. We need viable pathways for recycling and composting.

So should we avoid them altogether? If you use compostable bin caddies and compost them at home or your council accepts them, that’s a useful option. But for most other uses, it’s far better to just not use plastic at all. Your reusable coffee cup and shopping bags are the best option.

Read more:
When biodegradable plastic is not biodegradable

Elsa Dominish receives funding from various government and non-government organisations. In 2022-23 this includes WWF-Australia.

Nick Florin receives funding from various government and non-government organisations. In 2022-23 this includes the Australian Government Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water and the Australian Packaging Covenant Organisation (APCO). He is also affiliated with the Product Stewardship Centre of Excellence.

Rupert Legg receives funding from various government and non-government organisations. In 2022-23 this includes WWF-Australia.

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

– ref. Why bioplastics won’t solve our plastic problems – https://theconversation.com/why-bioplastics-wont-solve-our-plastic-problems-200736

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dominic Dwyer, Director of Public Health Pathology, NSW Health Pathology, Westmead Hospital and University of Sydney, University of Sydney

Once more, we’re talking about the origins of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.

First the US Department of Energy’s review gave more emphasis to the laboratory leak hypothesis than previously, although the confidence for this conclusion was low.

Second, and more importantly, is the release and analysis this week of viral and animal genetic material collected from the Huanan wet market in Wuhan, the place forever associated with the beginning of the pandemic.

It’s a subject close to me. I was the Australian representative on the international World Health Organization (WHO) investigation into the origins of SARS-CoV-2. I went to Wuhan on a fact-finding mission in early 2021. I visited the now-closed market.

Now we have stronger evidence that places raccoon dogs at the market as a possible animal reservoir of SARS-CoV-2, potentially infecting humans.

If we’d had this evidence three years ago, we need to ask ourselves how different recent history would have been. We would have reduced the enormous energy, media frenzy and political argy-bargy about less likely hypotheses of the pandemic’s origins. We might have better focused our research attention.

Read more:
COVID origins debate: what to make of new findings linking the virus to raccoon dogs

The twists, turns and puzzles

Samples were taken from various places in the market, in January 2020, within weeks of the early COVID-19 cases in Wuhan. SARS-CoV-2 RNA and human DNA were identified in these environmental samples, although no animal swabs were positive for the virus.

This was presented to the WHO team investigating the origins of the pandemic in January 2021, of which I was part.

The work was published as a preprint (posted online, before being independently verified) in February 2022.

The underlying “metagenomic” data to support the conclusions in the preprint – that SARS-CoV-2 and human (but not animal) sequences were present – needed to be provided to allow further analyses. This is something that is generally required by journals and regarded as appropriate in the spirit of scientific openness and collaboration.

However, it wasn’t until early March 2023 that the international community had access to the data.

That’s when there was a “drop” of these environmental metagenomic sequences into the GISAID database, the international open access repository of viral sequences.

This allowed an independent team of international experts to analyse them. In a startling revelation, they identified large amounts of raccoon dog and other animal DNA in conjunction with SARS-CoV-2. Raccoon dogs can be readily infected with SARS-CoV-2 and can transmit it. The international team published their observations as a preprint earlier this week.

Of note was the physical co-location of these virus and animal sequences in the corner of what is a very large market, the corner associated with early human cases. It is now known (but initially rejected by Chinese authorities) that wild and farmed animals were sold in this area of the market.

After the sequences were analysed by the international team, the Chinese scientists who had performed the market testing were contacted for comment and discussion – especially around the important observation that mixed in among the SARS-CoV-2 sequences were a large proportion of raccoon dog and other animal DNA.

The sequences were then withdrawn from the GISAID database within a few hours of the study authors being approached. This is perhaps unusual for an open database such as GISAID, and clarity could be sought why this occurred.

Read more:
The COVID lab leak theory is dead. Here’s how we know the virus came from a Wuhan market

Why is this work important?

This latest work does not prove raccoon dogs were definitely the source of SARS-CoV-2. Presumably, they are likely to have been an intermediate host between bats and humans. Bats harbour many coronaviruses, including ones related to SARS-CoV-2.

However, the data fits the narrative of the animal/human connections of SARS-CoV-2.

This, along with other examination of animal links to SARS-CoV-2, should be taken in the context of the lack of robust data to support the other SARS-CoV-2 origins hypotheses, such as a laboratory leak, contaminated frozen food, and acquisition outside China. Bit by bit, the evidence supports animal origins of the outbreak, centred on the Huanan market in Wuhan.

The length of time taken for this early work to surface and the difficulty in accessing the raw data are unfortunate, points made recently by the WHO.

Sympathetically, one might say, the wrong analysis of the original data collected in early 2020 was undertaken and the researchers missed the animal links.

Cynically, (and without evidence) one might say that the significance of the data was recognised, but not made readily available. This is a question for the Chinese researchers at the Chinese Center for Disease Control to answer.

What are the implications of this delay?

If this had been identified in early 2020 then further studies to understand the viral origins in animals could have been undertaken.

Three years on, it is very difficult to do such studies, tracking backwards from the now closed market to the animal sources and the people who handled these animals.

Clearer answers would have taken some of the the heat out of the debate around the possible viral origins. Of course, all hypotheses should remain on the table, but some of these could have been much better explored with earlier data.

Would it have changed the course of the pandemic? Probably not. The virus had already spread worldwide and adapted very well to human-to-human transmission by the time this work was available. However, it would have driven research in better directions and improved future pandemic planning.

Read more:
Disputes over COVID’s origins reveal an intelligence community in disarray. Here are 4 fixes we need before the next pandemic

What now?

Lessons for the future are obvious. Open disclosure of sequence data is the best way to undertake scientific investigation, especially for something of such international significance.

Making data unavailable, or not reaching out for assistance in complicated analyses, only slows the process.

The resulting political to and fro by all countries, particularly the US and China, has meant that suspicion has deepened, and progress slowed even further.

Although WHO has been criticised for errors in how it managed the pandemic, and in collating data to understand the origins and progress future research, it remains the best international agency to foster open sharing of data.

Scientists, for the most part, want to do the right thing and find the answers to important questions. Facilitating this is crucial.

Read more:
I was the Australian doctor on the WHO’s COVID-19 mission to China. Here’s what we found about the origins of the coronavirus

Member of the 2021 WHO Study of the Origins of SARS-CoV-2 group, Wuhan 2021

– ref. China’s only now revealed crucial COVID-19 origins data. Earlier disclosure may have saved us 3 years of political argy-bargy – https://theconversation.com/chinas-only-now-revealed-crucial-covid-19-origins-data-earlier-disclosure-may-have-saved-us-3-years-of-political-argy-bargy-202344

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

The Productivity Commission’s nine-volume report has a tough central message. It says productivity policy has to focus on the areas that have proven the hardest in the past, rather than those where previously progress has been most readily achieved.

One key take from the report is that Australia is performing poorly in growing its productivity.

The commission makes recommendations across the policy spectrum, from education and health through workplace relations and migration to data and technology.

It points to the difficulty of improving productivity in the public sector, and more generally to the complexities, now that we have become predominantly a services economy.

In this podcast, Michelle Grattan discusses the blueprint for reform with commission chair, Michael Brennan.

Brennan says: “In this project we’ve attempted to go back to basics a bit. I think economists have a tendency to talk about productivity growth in slightly mechanical terms […] What we’ve attempted to do is go more to the particulars and say what productivity growth really represents is all of the ways in which living standards improve.

“For example […] we talk a bit about everyday household items like a loaf of bread and ask, how long would it take a worker at the average wage in 1901 to be able to afford a loaf of bread? And the answer is about 20 minutes. Compare that to today, about four minutes.

“Embedded in that is all of the productivity improvements that have happened on the farm, in the manufacturing plant where bread is being made or in the bakery that have translated into that real cost reduction over time.”

The shift to a predominantly service economy brings its own unique challenges.

“Productivity is a highly intuitive concept in some of the traditional goods industries, which of course, if we rewind 70 years or so to the middle part of the 20th century, made up at least half of the economy.

“If you think about agriculture, manufacturing, mining, these are sectors where at the firm level, even for the individual worker, the concept of productivity – how much output are we getting for every unit of input, for every individual – makes a lot of intuitive sense.

“It probably makes a little less sense to an aged care worker, and I can understand why aged care workers and others in the modern services sector might be kind of pondering, well, what does this all really mean for us?”

But the shift to services “is a common trend across all developed economies”.

“The first thing to point out about the shift to services is that [it] is a common trend across all developed economies, even economies we think of as being very sophisticated manufacturing economies such as Japan or Germany.”

Education is a key focus in the report, and it emphasises that in the shift to a service-based economy, nearly nine in ten new jobs require some form of post-school qualification.

“One feature of those sectors like agriculture and manufacturing, was that they provided really high paying jobs to people with limited formal education, people who left school well before year 12 in many cases. The modern services economy is much less forgiving in that respect.

“There are low skilled jobs, but they tend to be low paying jobs. There is a much higher premium on formal qualifications, and in fact, it’s now estimated that nine out of the ten new jobs being created in the economy require some form of post-school qualification. So the premium on education is rising.”

“As an overall economy, we have in the past gained a productivity dividend from the rise in educational attainment in terms of additional years of schooling, people spending longer in school, but that’s largely reached a plateau at very high levels. And so increasingly the dividend is going to have to come from quality”.

The commission believes that migration is one of Australia’s biggest assets, and it is in a better position on this than other developed countries.

“Migration for Australia is a big asset because we do have the capacity to bring skilled workers into the economy and that’s an important area of comparative advantage for Australia that not every developed economy has to the same extent […] Inevitably in the skilled migration program you have to ration on some basis. And at the moment we tend to ration on the basis of lists, priority lists of skilled occupations that are deemed to be in short supply.”

“It is very difficult for those government-determined lists to remain up to date […] and there is a tendency for the system to be influenced by lobbying to get particular occupations on the list.

“So we do favour something that’s a little more cleaner, I guess a little more market-based, like an income threshold for the skilled migration program, both temporary and permanent”.

Despite Jim Chalmers indicating the government won’t implement some of this report’s recommendations, Brennan is optimistic.

“I’m maybe un-fashionably positive on these issues. I acknowledge that often in the productivity debate or in the economic debate in general, it’s easy for a sort of negative trope to creep in and run through it.

“We often hear that, you know, the public sector capability isn’t there or the politicians aren’t interested or not up to it, or the public won’t accept various reforms or various changes and that somehow this is a lot worse than it’s been in the past.

“I am much more optimistic than that. I don’t really feel that any of those things are true. I think that by any objective standard, Australia is a very well-governed polity and, you know, we produce strong public sector policymakers, good politicians and a public that is quite open, in my view, to cogent argument.”

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

– ref. Politics with Michelle Grattan: Michael Brennan on Australia’s parlous productivity growth – https://theconversation.com/politics-with-michelle-grattan-michael-brennan-on-australias-parlous-productivity-growth-202436

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

An emotional Anthony Albanese, flanked by members of the referendum working group, has released the final proposed wording of the question to be put to Australians to incorporate an Indigenous Voice to Parliament in the Constitution.

Despite pressure from conservative lawyers to build in stronger protections against legal challenges under a future Voice, in particular in relation to its interaction with the public service, only tweaking has been undertaken to the original wording released by the prime minister at the Garma festival last year.

The question of potential legal challenge is contested by constitutional experts, with some strongly arguing there is no problem.

In a simply worded question, Australians will be asked to approve altering the Constitution “to recognise the First Peoples of Australia by establishing an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice”.

The change would be inserted into the Constitution’s Chapter IX, a new section reading:

In recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Peoples of Australia:

1. There shall be a body, to be called the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice;

2. The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice may make representations to the Parliament and the Executive Government of the Commonwealth on matters relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples;

3. The Parliament shall, subject to this Constitution, have power to make laws with respect to matters relating to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice, including its composition, functions, powers and procedures.“

Albanese’s original wording was:

There shall be a body, to be called the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice.

The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice may make representations to Parliament and the Executive government on matters relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples.

The Parliament shall, subject to this Constitution, have power to make laws with respect to the composition, functions, powers and procedures of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice.”

Read more:
We now know exactly what question the Voice referendum will ask Australians. A constitutional law expert explains

The new version has made it clear, as was always intended, that the Voice would advise only the Commonwealth parliament, not the states.

More significantly, the government has reworded the section about parliament’s power, although it has not taken up a proposal from Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus, after advice from the Solicitor-General, to add specific wording that parliament could legislate on “the legal effect of its representations”.

This ran into resistance among the referendum working group, which feared the potential to water down the Voice’s power.

Appearing at the Albanese news conference, Dreyfus said: “The process has worked exactly as it should be. I’m proud to be part of it. We have words here that put beyond doubt the power of the Australian parliament to legislate on the broad scope of the functions, powers, of the Voice to parliament.”

Opposition leader Peter Dutton called for the government to release the Solicitor-General’s advice. “In the absence of that advice, and in the absence of detail from the prime minister, how can the Australian public make an informed judgement about a very, very important issue?”

The Liberals have not stated a final position on the Voice. They supported the legislation, passed on Wednesday, for updating the referendum machinery arrangements. The Nationals oppose the Voice.

Conservative constitutional lawyer Greg Craven, a supporter of a Voice, criticised the failure to take up Dreyfus’s suggested change. “That in a sense is a defeat of hopes for some sort of compromise,” he said on Melbourne radio.

“The problem is executive government covers the whole of the decision-making of the Commonwealth government… Now, if you get into a situation where, for example, the Voice hasn’t yet made a representation on some important view and the Commonwealth has not told the Voice and given it that chance, then legally it is entirely practicable for someone to take a challenge to a court to stop that action until the Voice has made representation,” Craven said.

Among those on the platform with Albanese was Ken Wyatt, former minister for Indigenous Australians in the Morrison government.

Like the prime minister, several of the Indigenous leaders present were also emotional during the news conference.

Albanese will introduce legislation for the referendum question next week. It will then go to a parliamentary committee, with the government aiming to have it passed in June.

Read more:
Your questions answered on the Voice to Parliament

The prime minister indicated he was unlikely to be open to changes to the wording, although the Senate could force alterations.

Thursday’s announcement followed a meeting between Albanese and the working group on Wednesday night and federal cabinet’s tick-off of the wording on Thursday morning.

Albanese insisted at the news conference the form of words was “legally sound”. A legal group advised the referendum working group.

The PM stressed the practical value of a Voice in closing the gap of indigenous disadvantage. While this was about recognition, he said, more importantly it was about “making a practical difference, which we have a responsibility to do”.

He urged Australians not to miss the “opportunity to take up the generous
invitation of the Uluru Statement from the Heart”.

Albanese said there were no circumstances in which he would not put the referendum to a vote, because “to not put this to a vote is to concede defeat. You only win when you run on the field and engage. And let me tell you, my government is engaged. We’re all in.”

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. ‘We’re all in’, declares an emotional Albanese as he launches the wording for the Voice referendum – https://theconversation.com/were-all-in-declares-an-emotional-albanese-as-he-launches-the-wording-for-the-voice-referendum-202435

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lisa M. Given, Professor of Information Sciences & Director, Social Change Enabling Impact Platform, RMIT University

AI tools can help us create content, learn about the world and (perhaps) eliminate the more mundane tasks in life – but they aren’t perfect. They’ve been shown to hallucinate information, use other people’s work without consent, and embed social conventions, including apologies, to gain users’ trust.

For example, certain AI chatbots, such as “companion” bots, are often developed with the intent to have empathetic responses. This makes them seem particularly believable. Despite our awe and wonder, we must be critical consumers of these tools – or risk being misled.

Read more:
I tried the Replika AI companion and can see why users are falling hard. The app raises serious ethical questions

Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI (the company that gave us the ChatGPT chatbot), has said he is “worried that these models could be used for large-scale disinformation”. As someone who studies how humans use technology to access information, so am I.

Misinformation will grow with back-pocket AI

Machine-learning tools use algorithms to complete certain tasks. They “learn” as they access more data and refine their responses accordingly. For example, Netflix uses AI to track the shows you like and suggest others for future viewing. The more cooking shows you watch, the more cooking shows Netflix recommends.

While many of us are exploring and having fun with new AI tools, experts emphasise these tools are only as good as their underlying data – which we know to be flawed, biased and sometimes even designed to deceive. Where spelling errors once alerted us to email scams, or extra fingers flagged AI-generated images, system enhancements make it harder to tell fact from fiction.

These concerns are heightened by the growing integration of AI in productivity apps. Microsoft, Google and Adobe have announced AI tools will be introduced to a number of their services including Google Docs, Gmail, Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Photoshop and Illustrator.

Creating fake photos and deep-fake videos no longer requires specialist skills and equipment.

Running tests

I ran an experiment with the Dall-E 2 image generator to test whether it could produce a realistic image of a cat that resembled my own. I started with a prompt for “a fluffy white cat with a poofy tail and orange eyes lounging on a grey sofa”.

The result wasn’t quite right. The fur was matted, the nose wasn’t fully formed, and the eyes were cloudy and askew. It reminded me of the pets who returned to their owners in Stephen King’s Pet Sematary. Yet the design flaws made it easier for me to see the image for what it was: a system-generated output.

I then requested the same cat “sleeping on its back on a hardwood floor”. The new image had few visible markers distinguishing the generated cat from my own. Almost anyone could be misled by such an image.

I then used ChatGPT to turn the lens on myself, asking: “What is Lisa Given best known for?” It started well, but then went on to list a number of publications that aren’t mine. My trust in it ended there.

The chatbot started hallucinating, attributing others’ works to me. The book The Digital Academic: Critical Perspectives on Digital Technologies in Higher Education does exist, but I didn’t write it. I also didn’t write Digital Storytelling in Health and Social Policy. Nor am I the editor of Digital Humanities Quarterly.

When I challenged ChatGPT, its response was deeply apologetic, yet produced more errors. I didn’t write any of the books listed below, nor did I edit the journals. While I wrote one chapter of Information and Emotion, I didn’t co-edit the book and neither did Paul Dourish. My most popular book, Looking for Information, was omitted completely.

Fact-checking is our main defence

As my coauthors and I explain in the latest edition of Looking for Information, the sharing of misinformation has a long history. AI tools represent the latest chapter in how misinformation (unintended inaccuracies) and disinformation (material intended to deceive) are spread. They allow this to happen quicker, on a grander scale and with the technology available in more people’s hands.

Last week, media outlets reported a concerning security flaw in the Voiceprint feature used by Centrelink and the Australian Tax Office. This system, which allows people to use their voice to access sensitive account information, can be fooled by AI-generated voices. Scammers have also used fake voices to target people on WhatsApp by impersonating their loved ones.

Advanced AI tools allow for the democratisation of knowledge access and creation, but they do have a price. We can’t always consult experts, so we have to make informed judgments ourselves. This is where critical thinking and verification skills are vital.

These tips can help you navigate an AI-rich information landscape.

1. Ask questions and verify with independent sources

When using an AI text generator, always check source material mentioned in the output. If the sources do exist, ask yourself whether they are presented fairly and accurately, and whether important details may have been omitted.

2. Be sceptical of content you come across

If you come across an image you suspect might be AI-generated, consider if it seems too “perfect” to be real. Or perhaps a particular detail does not match the rest of the image (this is often a giveaway). Analyse the textures, details, colouring, shadows and, importantly, the context. Running a reverse image search can also be useful to verify sources.

If it is a written text you’re unsure about, check for factual errors and ask yourself whether the writing style and content match what you would expect from the claimed source.

3. Discuss AI openly in your circles

An easy way to prevent sharing (or inadvertently creating) AI-driven misinformation is to ensure you and those around you use these tools responsibly. If you or an organisation you work with will consider adopting AI tools, develop a plan for how potential inaccuracies will be managed, and how you will be transparent about tool use in the materials you produce.

Read more:
AI image generation is advancing at astronomical speeds. Can we still tell if a picture is fake?

Lisa M. Given, FASSA receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. She is the Editor-in-Chief of the Annual Review of Information Science and Technology. Her forthcoming book “Looking for Information: Examining Research on How People Engage with Information” (with coathors Donald O. Case and Rebekah Willson) will be published by Emerald Press in May 2023.

– ref. AI tools are generating convincing misinformation. Engaging with them means being on high alert – https://theconversation.com/ai-tools-are-generating-convincing-misinformation-engaging-with-them-means-being-on-high-alert-202062

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Neil G Sipe, Honorary Professor of Planning, The University of Queensland

According to predictions made nearly a decade ago, we should be riding around in self-driving vehicles today. It’s now clear the autonomous vehicle revolution was overhyped.

Proponents woefully underestimated the technological challenges. It turns out developing a truly driverless vehicle is hard.

The other factor driving the hype was the amount of money being invested in autonomous vehicle startups. By 2021, it was estimated more than US$100 billion in venture capital had gone into developing the technology.

While advances are being made, it is important to understand there are multiple levels of autonomy. Only one is truly driverless. As established by SAE International, the levels are:

• level 0 — the driver has to undertake all driving tasks

• level 1, hands on/shared control — vehicle has basic driver-assist features such as cruise control and lane-keeping

• level 2, hands off – vehicle has advanced driver-assist features such as emergency braking, adaptive cruise control, auto park assist and traffic-jam assist

• level 3, eyes off — vehicle drives itself some of the time

• level 4, mind off — vehicle drives itself most of the time

• level 5, steering wheel option — vehicle drives itself all the time.

Read more:
Billions are pouring into mobility technology – will the transport revolution live up to the hype?

Why the slow progress?

It’s estimated the technology to deliver safe autonomous vehicles is about 80% developed. The last 20% is increasingly difficult. It will take a lot more time to perfect.

Challenges yet to be resolved involve unusual and rare events that can happen along any street or highway. They include weather, wildlife crossing the road, and highway construction.

Another set of problems has emerged since Cruise and Waymo launched their autonomous ride-hailing services in San Francisco. The US National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration opened an investigation in December 2022, only six months after the services were approved. It cited incidents where these vehicles “may have engaged in inappropriately hard braking or became immobilized”.

The San Francisco County Transportation Authority stated:

[I]n the months since the initial approval of autonomous taxi services in June 2022, Cruise AVs have made unplanned and unexpected stops in travel lanes, where they obstruct traffic and transit service and intrude into active emergency response scenes, including fire suppression scenes, creating additional hazardous conditions.

In several cases, Cruise technicians had to be called to move the vehicles.

What’s happening now?

Active autonomous vehicle initiatives can be grouped into two categories: ride-hailing services (Cruise, Waymo and Uber) and sales to the public (Tesla).

Cruise is a subsidiary of General Motors founded in 2013. As of September 2022, it operated 100 robotaxis in San Francisco and had plans to increase its fleet to 5,000. Critics said this would increase city traffic.

Cruise also began to offer services in Chandler (a Phoenix suburb), Arizona, and Austin, Texas, in December 2022.

Waymo, formerly the Google Self-Driving Car Project, was founded in January 2009. The company lost US$4.8 billion in 2020 and US$5.2 billion in 2021.

Waymo One provides autonomous ride-hailing services in Phoenix as well as San Francisco. It plans to expand into Los Angeles this year.

Read more:
Driverless cars: what we’ve learned from experiments in San Francisco and Phoenix

Uber was a major force in autonomous vehicle development as part of its business plan was to replace human drivers. However, it ran into problems, including a crash in March 2018 when a self-driving Uber killed a woman walking her bicycle across a street in Tempe, Arizona. In 2020, Arizona Uber sold its AV research division to Aurora Innovation.

Read more:
When self-driving cars crash, who’s responsible? Courts and insurers need to know what’s inside the ‘black box’

But in October 2022 Uber got back into autonomous vehicles by signing a deal with Motional, a joint venture between Hyundai and Aptiv. Motional will provide autonomous vehicles for Uber’s ride-hailing and delivery services.

Lyft, the second-largest ride-sharing company after Uber, operates in the US and Canada. Like Uber, Lyft had a self-driving unit and in 2016, Lyft co-founder John Zimmer predicted that by 2021 the majority of rides on its network would be in such vehicles (and private car ownership would “all but end” by 2025). It didn’t happen. By 2021, Lyft had also sold its self-driving vehicle unit, to Toyota.

In 2022, Zimmer said the technology would not replace drivers for at least a decade. However, Lyft did partner with Motional in August 2022 to launch robotaxis in Las Vegas and Los Angeles.

Telsa is the world leader in sales of battery electric vehicles. It also purports to sell vehicles with full automation. However, by the end of 2022, no level 3, 4 or 5 vehicles were for sale in the United States.

What Telsa offers is a full self-driving system as a US$15,000 option. Buyers acknowledge they are buying a beta version and assume all risks. If the system malfunctions, Telsa does not accept any responsibility.

In February 2023, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration found:

[Fully self-driving] beta software that allows a vehicle to exceed speed limits or travel through intersections in an unlawful or unpredictable manner increases the risk of a crash.

This led to Tesla recalling 362,000 vehicles to update the software.

Another setback for autonomous vehicle sales to the public was the October 2022 announcement that Ford and VW had decided to stop funding autonomous driving technology company Argo AI, resulting in its closure. Both Ford and VW decided to shift their focus from level 4 automation to levels 2 and 3.

Read more:
‘Self-driving’ cars are still a long way off. Here are three reasons why

So, what can we expect next?

Autonomous vehicle development will continue, but with less hype. It’s being recognised as more an evolutionary process than a revolutionary one. The increasing cost of capital will also make it harder for autonomous vehicle startups to get development funds.

The areas that appear to be making the best progress are autonomous ride-hailing and heavy vehicles. Self-driving car sales to the public are further down the track.

Neil G Sipe receives funding from the Australian Research Council Linkage Program.

– ref. We were told we’d be riding in self-driving cars by now. What happened to the promised revolution? – https://theconversation.com/we-were-told-wed-be-riding-in-self-driving-cars-by-now-what-happened-to-the-promised-revolution-201088