Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Paul Strangio, Professor of Politics, Monash University

Who have been Australia’s most accomplished prime ministers? Curiously, it’s a question that is seldom asked. We enthusiastically compile lists of the greatest films or sporting champions, but rarely do we apply the same energy to thinking about prime-ministerial virtuosity.

More common is the rush to condemn incumbents. For example, a recent venomous piece of commentary on Scott Morrison demanded to know: “Have we ever been led by a worse prime minister than this smirking vacuum?”

The problem with these hyperbolic attacks is that they lack context. How does Morrison’s leadership compare to his 29 predecessors? And, in any case, is it too early to properly judge his performance given his prime-ministerial project is incomplete?

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What makes a great prime minister?

Evaluating leadership performance is replete with difficulties. This is despite the fact that, in democratic systems like ours, the mark of leadership achievement can appear deceptively simple.

On first consideration, longevity of office appeals as the sine qua non of successful political leadership. After all, winning government is the chief prize for a political leader, and retaining power, which is indicative of holding onto public support, affords the primary means by which to exercise influence.

Yet further reflection suggests survival alone is not a sufficient criterion of leadership success: it must also take account of what is accomplished with power. Indeed, should the legacy of a leader’s time in office be the paramount test of performance?

But then a new problem: how are we to construct meaningful and agreed upon measurements of the scale and quality of that legacy? Surely, for instance, the benchmark has to be more than the legislative productivity of a leader’s government. Yet once we endeavour to devise qualitative measurements that factor in the impact of the changes a leader has wrought, we inevitably run into disagreements about whether those changes were for good or bad.

One way of sidestepping the difficulties of evaluating political leadership is expert rankings. That is, ranking evaluations gained from people with professional knowledge, rather than surveys based on population sampling.

These have a storied history in the United States. Presidential rankings are not only conducted regularly but their results painstakingly analysed and hotly debated.

In parliamentary democracies such as Australia, leadership rankings have taken longer to catch on. But they have gained a foothold in recent decades. Most of them have been ad hoc surveys of a small number of public intellectuals and commentators initiated by broadsheet newspapers.

In 2010 and again in 2020, however, large-scale expert rankings surveys have been run out of Monash University. Sixty-six political scientists and political historians participated in last year’s survey. They were asked to rate the performance of all prime ministers, barring the incumbent (Morrison was not included as Julia Gillard was not included in the 2010 survey), and the three caretakers, Earle Page, Frank Forde and John McEwen, who briefly warmed the prime-ministerial seat following the death of an incumbent.

John Curtin, war-time PM, rated our greatest leader

The results of the 2010 and 2020 Monash surveys suggest there is a reasonable consensus about who have been our best prime ministers.

The top-rated national leader is Australia’s second world war prime minister and co-architect of its post-war reconstruction regime, John Curtin. Next comes Bob Hawke, whose governments modernised and internationalised Australia’s economy in the 1980s through market-based reforms cushioned by an overlay of social democratic values.

Third-ranked is Alfred Deakin, the Liberal Protectionist prime minister and the chief architect of the nation-building edifice laid down in the first Commonwealth decade. It included, among other things, tariff protection, an industrial arbitration system and the beginnings of a welfare state through provision of old age pensions.

Ben Chifley, Curtin’s collaborator in the design of the post-war reconstruction Keynesian welfare state, is also in the top echelon. He is followed by Robert Menzies, the father of the modern Liberal Party and Australia’s longest-serving prime minister.

Others who make the top tier or are close to it are: Gough Whitlam, the reforming titan whose government dramatically modernised Australia in the early 1970s; Andrew Fisher, Australia’s first majority prime minister whose legacies included the establishment of the Commonwealth Bank and maternity allowances; and, in a delicious irony, the two great rivals, Paul Keating and John Howard. Keating is the big improver from the 2010 Monash ratings.

Longevity in office isn’t everything

The 2020 rankings also asked participants to rate prime ministers in nine performance areas. These were: effectively managing cabinet, maintaining support of party/coalition, demonstrating personal integrity, leaving a significant policy legacy, relationship with the electorate, communication effectiveness, nurturing national unity, defending and promoting Australia’s interests abroad, and being able to manage turbulent times.

Looking for correlations between performance in these areas and overall ratings it was evident that there was a close nexus between a high ranking and being scored strongly for policy legacy. The upper echelon prime ministers – Curtin, Hawke, Deakin, Chifley, Menzies, Keating, Whitlam, Fisher and Howard – were all in the top grouping for policy legacy.

Julia Gillard rounded out the policy legacy top ten, which seemed to go a long way to explaining her healthy rating in the upper middle tier of the former prime ministers.

It appears that in the minds of the participants the relationship with the electorate, while also important, ranks behind policy achievement in significance. Whitlam, Fisher and Keating were all outside the top ten for winning favour with the electorate, but are still highly ranked.

This is further reflected in the fact that, while Australia’s three most durable prime ministers – Menzies, Howard and Hawke – all make or are near the top tier, the next four longest-serving prime ministers and multiple election winners, Malcolm Fraser, Billy Hughes, Joseph Lyons and Stanley Bruce, do not.

In short, though longevity is important, what a prime minister does with office counts more to the experts. Strikingly, all of the top-ranked leaders were either the initiators or consolidators of major policy settlements.

A high score for nurturing national unity also strongly correlates with a favourable overall rating. Howard’s below-average result on that measure seems to disqualify him from pushing further up among the top-ranked prime ministers.

Conversely, the connection was weakest between a high ranking and the integrity performance benchmark. This does not mean the experts paid no heed to integrity. Rather, they had a generally favourable view of the collective integrity of our prime ministers, regarding them as a fundamentally upright bunch.

And who were the duds?

What about the prime ministerial dunces? There is not only a consensus about who have been our best prime ministers but also our worst.

William McMahon, who was the nation’s leader in the dying days of the Liberal Party’s post-WWII ascendancy and was defeated by Whitlam at the December 1972 election, wins that dubious honour.

Yet the 2020 rankings suggest he now has a rival for that ignominious status: Tony Abbott. Indeed, despite squeaking ahead of McMahon on the overall performance question, Abbott exceeded him for the number of failure ratings: 44 to 41. Against the nine benchmarks, Abbott is ranked last for policy legacy and nurturing national unity. McMahon is bottom for six of the nine areas, among them integrity (part of his entrenched reputation is that of an inveterate schemer and leaker).

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Notably, three of the four most recent prime ministers – Kevin Rudd, Malcolm Turnbull and Abbott – are situated towards or in the rear of the ratings pack. Together, they occupy the three bottom rungs for management of party/coalition. This suggests respondents hold them, rather than their colleagues, chiefly responsible for their depositions by party-room revolts.

The clear exception among the post-Howard prime ministers is Gillard. Though still only middle-ranked overall, she is by far the highest-rated leader among this ill-starred group.

Where will Morrison end up in the rankings? The short answer is that it is too early to tell since his is an unfinished story. The COVID-19 pandemic has ensured his incumbency will be a significant one, either for good or bad.

Yet the lack of much in the way of tangible policy achievements to this point does not bode well for his rating.

Paul Strangio 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. Who were Australia’s best prime ministers? We asked the experts – https://theconversation.com/who-were-australias-best-prime-ministers-we-asked-the-experts-165302

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rosalie Schultz, Adjunct Senior Lecturer, College of Medicine and Public Health Centre for Remote Health, Flinders University

This article mentions stillbirth deaths in Aboriginal communities.

The Ranger uranium mine, surrounded by Kakadu National Park in the Northern Territory, operated for 40 years until it closed in 2021. During this time, Aboriginal people in the region experienced stillbirth rates double those of Aboriginal people elsewhere in the Top End, and cancer rates almost 50% higher.

But a NT government investigation couldn’t explain why. And as I write today in the Medical Journal of Australia, we’re still no wiser.

We owe it to Aboriginal people living near mines to understand and overcome what’s making them sick. We need to do this in partnership with Aboriginal community-controlled health organisations. This may require research that goes beyond a biomedical focus to consider the web of socio-cultural and political factors contributing to Aboriginal well-being and sickness.

Read more:
Uranium mines harm Indigenous people – so why have we approved a new one?

Investigating the health impacts

Uranium was mined at Ranger from 1981 until 2012. Processing of stockpiled ore continued until 2021. This is despite community opposition when the mine was proposed and during its operation.

Over the life of the mine, there have been more than 200 documented incidents. Diesel and acid spills have contaminated creeks and drinking water.

The Gundjeihmi Aboriginal Corporation represents the Mirarr people of the region. For decades it has expressed grave concerns about continuing incidents and the lack of an effective government response.

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The uranium mine in the heart of Kakadu needs a better clean up plan

When Ranger’s operators proposed expanding the mine in 2014, opponents pointed to suggestions of higher rates of stillbirth and cancer among Aboriginal people living nearby.

The NT health department then set up an investigation. Investigators began by identifying all Aboriginal people who had spent more than half their lives near the mine between 1991 and 2014. These people were compared with all other Aboriginal people in the Top End.

The investigators considered the worst-case scenario would be if Aboriginal people were exposed to radiation from the mine contaminating bush food, water or air, and this exposure increased stillbirth and cancer rates.

Investigators also looked at smoking tobacco, drinking alcohol and poor diet as possible contributing causes.

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Here’s what they found

Investigators found the rate of stillbirth was 2.17 times higher among Aboriginal women near the mine. Radiation can lead to stillbirth by causing congenital malformations, and some other risk factors for stillbirth appeared more common amongst women near the mine. However the investigation found neither radiation nor other risk factors explained the higher rate of stillbirth.

The rate of cancer overall was 1.48 times higher among Aboriginal people near the mine than elsewhere in the Top End. No rates of single cancers were significantly higher.

Cancers of the lip, mouth and throat together were the most common cancers. These cancers covered 42% of the excess cancers among people near the mine. The investigators were confident these cancers were not related to radiation from the mine, based on international evidence. The Ranger mine investigation concluded radiation did not contribute to the higher cancer rates.

However, cancers of the lip, mouth and throat are associated with smoking and drinking alcohol. Health records showed smoking, drinking alcohol and a poor diet were more common among Aboriginal people near the mine. Yet the rates of cancer among people near the mine who smoked, drank alcohol or reported poor diet were no higher than the rates of cancer among other Aboriginal people in the Top End who smoked, drank alcohol or reported a poor diet.

So the investigation concluded neither radiation, smoking, alcohol nor poor diet explained why Aboriginal people near the mine had higher rates of stillbirths and cancer.

The NT government concluded its investigation by recommending initiatives to reduce smoking and drinking alcohol by Aboriginal people near the mine.

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Investigating disease clusters can be hard

When a cluster of people with a particular disease is identified, affected communities seek an explanation. However studies of disease clusters rarely explain exactly why the cluster has occurred. Some diseases, such as cancer, have complex origins that may have been experienced decades before the cancer is diagnosed.

Worldwide, communities exposed to ionising radiation from mining are often also exposed to dust, diesel, noise and trauma. They also have higher rates of smoking and drinking alcohol.

So, it is understandable the investigation into stillbirths and cancers among Aboriginal people near Ranger uranium mine was inconclusive.

Where to next?

While the NT government recommendations appear to show concern for Aboriginal health, they ignore the importance of Aboriginal people’s rights, empowerment and self-determination as contributors to health and well-being.

The development of the Ranger mine brought Aboriginal communities royalty money and alcohol. It also contributed to loss of traditional livelihoods, dependency and despair.

Inequality has also increased among Aboriginal people near the mine, as some can access royalty money and work opportunities, and others cannot. And inequality can contribute to both stillbirths and cancer.

So these excess stillbirths and cancers may be associated with a web of interrelationships between individuals, communities and wider ecological, sociological and political environments. The NT government’s biomedically focused investigation was not designed to explore these and further research is needed to unravel this web.

Governments also need to consider all the risks Aboriginal communities potentially face from any proposed mining operations before they commit to these developments on Aboriginal land. This includes gas drilling proposed in the NT’s Beetaloo Basin.

I’d like to acknowledge Justin O’Brien CEO of Gundjeihmi Aboriginal Corporation, which represents the Mirrar people, who own the land at Ranger, and Michael Fonda, representing the Public Health Association of Australia. Both helped ensure the NT government investigation mentioned in this article was conducted, completed and published.

Rosalie Schultz is affiliated with Public Health Association of Australia (PHAA) and Doctors for the Environment Australia (DEA).

– ref. Aboriginal people near the Ranger uranium mine suffered more stillbirths and cancer. We don’t know why – https://theconversation.com/aboriginal-people-near-the-ranger-uranium-mine-suffered-more-stillbirths-and-cancer-we-dont-know-why-164862

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Anderson. Palawa, Deputy Vice-Chancellor Student and University Experience, Australian National University

Governments and universities are planning for the recovery of our international student market once Australia can start easing border closures that have had huge impacts on universities and the economy. The situation is becoming increasingly urgent: a new ANU-commissioned analysis shows an alarming fall in international student demand for our universities. It’s less than two-thirds of what it was before the pandemic.

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The following chart from the IDP Connect report for ANU shows Australia’s share of this market (the yellow line) has fallen to 11.74% from over 18% two years ago. Our key competitors — the UK, USA and Canada — have increased their share or remained stable.

As Australia moves out of winter and vaccination rates rise, it is hoped current regional outbreaks of COVID-19 will settle. But no-one should assume international student numbers will immediately rebound to pre-pandemic levels once borders open.

Other recent global surveys show students’ perceptions of how countries have handled the pandemic are affecting their decisions on study destinations.

And research released this week shows student sentiment about Australia as a destination continues to decline. The IDP Connect Crossroads research also finds 36% of surveyed students are likely to switch destinations if it means they can gain face-to-face teaching earlier.

Over the rest of this year and early 2022, we all need to focus on our post-COVID recovery. South Australia has been given the all clear to begin a quarantine program for international students. A NSW-based program has been approved by the state government and the Commonwealth government has signalled support for the plan. Other proposals are in the pipeline.

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Helping students feel they belong is vital

The research released this week shows worrying trends in student perceptions of Australia in terms of student welfare and being a welcoming destination. We see continuing declines across all metrics: response to coronavirus, student and citizen safety, and international student policies including post-study work visas.

To recover their international student markets Australian universities will need to develop and communicate a much stronger focus on providing a world-class student experience. They must take action inside and outside the classroom.

One key focus must be on building social cohesion for international students across many university settings. They do not want to feel isolated and excluded from the university community, which undermines their student experience.

Stronger social cohesion would address problems that international students have long identified: racism, loneliness and high levels of stress. It would also provide a way to tackle the recently documented political harassment of some international students.

Not all these issues are new concerns. They are not unique to international students. Domestic students confront these issues, too. Both groups will benefit it we get this right.

Having said that, at ANU our Student Satisfaction Survey data show a gap between the student experience for domestic and international students. This is consistent with other universities. Everyone needs to work harder inside and outside the classroom to close that gap.

Research shows stronger social relationships are key to preventing psychological distress for university students. Building social cohesion involves fostering shared values and connected communities. This, in turn, creates a sense of belonging and shared purpose and reduces loneliness.

Universities can help international students to make connections with local students and the communities in which they live. Educators and on-campus services need a range of strategies to strengthen the social fabric in which international students live and learn. These prevention strategies and well-being services must be accessible and culturally attuned to their needs.

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Protect students from harassment and racism

Stronger social cohesion can help counter racism. Universities can also communicate better about international students’ valuable contributions to our communities.

Local governments, businesses and communities all have important roles to play here. Universities can work with these groups to ensure international students have better access to accommodation and jobs. Being made to feel welcome both on and off campus sends a powerful signal to students that they are safe and included.

Australian Human Rights Watch recently highlighted on-campus harassment of international students who have different political views to the government of their home country. It reported students were self-censoring to avoid threats, harassment and surveillance.

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International students should feel safe from political harassment on campus. They need to be able to express political views in class and know it won’t affect their assessment. Universities should provide appropriate support to students who have suffered political harassment.

Academic freedom is an important principle that underpins university education in Australia. We can help international students understand its value through improving social cohesion. University leaders can also reinforce this message by strengthening the regulation of academic freedom in student codes of conduct.

The National Strategy for International Education only tackles student experience at a high level. However, this strategy is being refreshed. This is a time for policymakers and universities to sharpen their focus on the student experience and social cohesion for international students as we prepare for post-COVID recovery.

As borders re-open, it will be more important than ever for Australian universities to show they are committed to providing international students with a world-class student experience. It’s critical for their post-pandemic recovery.

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

– ref. Australia’s international education market share is shrinking fast. Recovery depends on unis offering students a better deal – https://theconversation.com/australias-international-education-market-share-is-shrinking-fast-recovery-depends-on-unis-offering-students-a-better-deal-162856

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Wayan Jarrah Sastrawan, Research associate, University of Sydney

Forest creatures include some of humanity’s closest biological relatives. Due to human threats, they are also some of the most endangered animals on our planet.

Southeast Asia hosts many unique forest species, and many of our English words for forest creatures have their origins in Southeast Asian languages. What sound to English speakers like exotic loanwords are meaningful in their original languages.

By exploring the Southeast Asian etymologies of these names, we can understand how humans have maintained relationships of respect and affinity with forest creatures over the centuries. And, as these ecosystems are under grave threat, it is important to recognise a different way of relating to our most endangered relatives is possible.

Here, then, are the names of four of my favourite Southeast Asian forest species, and what we know about the origins of their names.

Orangutan

Orangutans belong to the great ape family, our closest biological relatives. This familial link is reflected in the word orangutan itself, which Malay speakers today can still recognise as deriving from the phrase orang hutan, which means “forest person”.

My recent research shows this term goes back over a thousand years, contrary to the conventional belief it was coined by European visitors to Indonesia in the 17th century.

Surprisingly, the oldest surviving texts to use the word orangutan do not come from Sumatra or Borneo, where orangutans live today, but from the neighbouring island of Java. One of the oldest texts to mention orangutans is the 9th-century poem Rāmāyaṇa. Written in the Old Javanese language, the poem describes “the orangutans, all bearded, climbing up”.

The word orangutan came into Old Javanese from another archaic language related to modern Malay. These early appearances show the word was circulating among the archipelago’s languages well over a thousand years ago.

This origin as the phrase “forest person” shows for many centuries Southeast Asians have viewed orangutans as human-like creatures residing in the forest.

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Gibbon

Gibbons are a type of ape ideally suited to swinging through the trees of Southeast Asia’s forests. The word gibbon entered European languages through French in the 18th century.

The French adopted it from the Malay word, kebon. But recent research shows this Malay word originally came from a group of languages called Northern Aslian, spoken by indigenous communities in peninsular Malaysia. In Northern Aslian, it was probably pronounced kebong.

Gibbon is a relatively rare term in Southeast Asia itself. It even fell out of use in Malay after the 18th century. More common in the region’s languages is the word wak-wak. Like orangutan, this word appears in the Old Javanese language as early as the 9th century and seems to derive from the crow-like sound gibbons make.

Through my research, I suggest the word wak-wak may have inspired the Middle Eastern legend of the Wakwak Tree: a fantastical tree from a far eastern land whose fruits produced human heads and bodies which cried out “wak wak”. Folk memories of the gibbon’s piercing cry may have been transmitted across the Indian Ocean many centuries before the animal was identified by European science.

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Binturong

Binturongs, also known in English as bearcats, are long and heavy tree-dwellers with large tails which they use to communicate. The word binturong first appeared in English in the 19th century as a borrowing from Malay.

Binturong also appears in a wide variety of languages from Sumatra and Borneo. This shows the word was coined early in the history of the region: probably several millennia ago, before these languages began to diverge.

The earliest form of this word we know about was maturun, which probably meant “the one who descends”. It was inherited by many languages of Borneo and Sumatra, undergoing a series of regular sound changes. This is how the Malay form benturong evolved, which was later adopted by English.

Unlike many other tree creatures, binturongs do not nimbly leap among the branches. Rather, they tend to descend one tree and walk along the ground to another tree. The aptness of the name maturun shows us these early Southeast Asian communities were close observers of animal behaviour.

Siamang

The endangered siamangs are the largest type of gibbon. They have distinctive black coats and communicate with a complex system of booming calls.

The ultimate origin of the word is probably the word ʔamang (where the ʔ represents a glottal stop), found in several indigenous languages of the Central Aslian group.

When speakers of Malay borrowed the word ʔamang, they added the personal article si. Similar to an honorific like “mister”, si generally applies only to humans, or to animals, spirits or objects that are personified. Malay speakers later interpreted the word amang as “black”, giving rise to a folk etymology of si amang as meaning something like “Mr Sooty”.

The Malay expression was eventually treated as the single word siamang. For the Malays, the charisma exuded by siamangs entitled them to the status of personhood — another recognition of the affinity between humans and our forest ape relatives.

Wayan Jarrah Sastrawan receives funding from the European Research Council Project #809994 DHARMA.

– ref. Orangutans, gibbons and Mr Sooty: what the origins of words in Southeast Asia tell us about our long relationships with animals – https://theconversation.com/orangutans-gibbons-and-mr-sooty-what-the-origins-of-words-in-southeast-asia-tell-us-about-our-long-relationships-with-animals-165175

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

Australia’s top economists have overwhelmingly rejected cuts to either permanent or temporary migration as a means of restoring lost wage growth.

The 56 leading economists polled by the Economic Society and The Conversation include a former head of the Fair Pay Commission and a former expert member of the Fair Work Commission’s minimum wage panel.

Among the experts, selected by their peers, are specialists in economic modelling and the economics of labour markets from both the private and public sectors.

All but five rejected cuts in temporary migration as a means of boosting wage growth. All but three rejected cuts in permanent migration.

The results put the economists at odds with Reserve Bank Governor Philip Lowe, who last month drew a link between temporary migration and weak wage growth saying employers had been using overseas hires to fill gaps that would have been filled by locals, diluting “upward pressure on wages in these hotspots”. He said this might have spilled over to rest of the labour market.

Cutting temporary and cutting permanent migration were the first two of ten options for boosting wage growth presented to the panel of economists. The panel rated them third last and second last. Only “holding back growth in female and older worker participation” was marked down more.

Each economist was asked to pick three of the ten options. The most popular, picked by 78.2%, was measures to boost productivity growth. The next most popular, picked by 50.9%, was measures to boost business investment.

Michael Keane of The University of NSW said the idea that population growth and increased labour supply were constraining wage growth was “so naive as to not really be worthy of comment”.

Consultant Rana Roy said only a “cultivated amnesia” could ignore the near-uninterrupted growth in real wages in US, industrialised Europe and Australia amid record inbound immigration in the decades after the second world war.

Gabriela D’Souza of the Committee for Economic Development of Australia said the idea owed much to a “one dimensional view of the world” that saw only the direct impact of immigrants on particular wages and not the impact of their demand for goods and services on a broader range of wages.

Dozens of studies had identified the overall impact as “near zero”.

Productivity ‘almost everything’

Robert Breunig of the Australian National University said immigrants appeared to add to productivity rather than detract from it, meaning slowing down immigration could slow down rather than add to productivity and growth.

Three quarters of the panel nominated productivity growth as the most important precondition for higher wages growth, endorsing the conclusion of Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman that “productivity isn’t everything, but in the long run it is almost everything.”

Krugman famously added that a country’s ability to improve its standard of living
over time depended “almost entirely on its ability to raise its output
per worker”.

Wages growth is way below the Reserve Bank’s +3% target

Ian Harper, a former head of the Howard government’s Fair Pay Commission and a current member of the Reserve Bank board, said that without productivity growth, any boost in wages growth that was delivered was likely to be nominal — matched by inflation — rather than real, delivering higher living standards.

One of the best tools for lifting production per worker was business investment.

One of the five economists who thought immigration hurt wages growth, Macquarie University’s Geoffrey Kingston, said it seemed to do it by thinning investment per worker. In the 1980s, under Prime Minister Bob Hawke, increased immigration helped push down real wages for five years in a row.

Several of those surveyed said wage growth needed investment in more than machines. Griffith University’s Fabrizio Carmignani said what also mattered was investment in “human capital” via education and research and development.

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Adrian Blundell-Wignall, a former division chief at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, said reforming the education system and getting rid of elitism had to be part of the plan.

“That the best predictor of how well you do at school is how rich your parents are and where they went to school is a national tragedy,” he said. “The entitlement and club economy that comes with this permeates politics, business, and who gets the best jobs after completing school.”

Former Rudd and Gillard government minister Craig Emerson said while measures to boost productivity growth were essential, even if implemented soon, they would take years to flow through into higher wages.

It’s how you divide the pie

Saul Eslake said whether or not higher productivity growth actually delivered higher real wages would depend on the division of the fruits of that growth between wages and profits.

John Quiggin said nearly every reform of Australia’s industrial relations system since 1975 had acted to reduce the bargaining power of unions. All ought to be reviewed with a “presumption in favour of repeal”.

Mala Raghavan of the University of Tasmania said wage growth had become uneven. Wages for a small number of managers had soared while wages for others — especially casual workers — had barely moved.

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The Australian National University’s Emily Lancsar saw a triple benefit from reforming the industrial relations system to boost union bargaining power: it would increase wages directly, it would put money that would have been paid out as profits in the hands of people likely to spend it, and the increases would flow through to workers not on awards and not represented by unions.

Labour market specialist Jeff Borland added that there was a case for strengthening the ability of unions to obtain gender pay equity in female-dominated occupations.

None of those surveyed were optimistic about the prospect of quickly lifting wages growth. The Reserve Bank said in July it wasn’t planning to lift interest rates until aggregate wages growth exceeded 3%.

Detailed responses:

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

– ref. Top economists say cutting immigration is no way to boost wages – https://theconversation.com/top-economists-say-cutting-immigration-is-no-way-to-boost-wages-165394

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Danielle Wood, Chief executive officer, Grattan Institute

At Friday’s National Cabinet meeting, our nation’s leaders put some meat on the bones of their 4-stage plan to reopen Australia.

The plan includes target vaccination thresholds and some details on restrictions that might be lifted at each stage. So far so good.

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Vaccination rate needs to hit 70% to trigger easing of restrictions

But the plan raises two major concerns.

First, the reopening threshold is low. We won’t know until we see the modelling, but it looks like the National Cabinet is taking a gamble that the outcomes of re-opening will be at the more rosy end of plausible scenarios.

Second, many important details are still missing, including the timing of each stage and, crucially, the steps the government is taking to get more jabs in arms.

The vaccine coverage thresholds for re-opening look low

The key stage of the plan is stage C. In stage C, the government commits to no more mass lockdowns, and vaccinated Australians can leave the country and return without quarantine.

The government says we need 80% of Australians over 16 vaccinated before we get to stage C.

The over-16 qualifier matters a lot. The virus doesn’t care who is eligible. Children can still transmit the virus and so transmissibility depends on vaccine rates across the population.

Getting to 80% of Australians over 16 I equates to just under 65% of all Australians – far lower than the 80% threshold Grattan Institute recommends for starting to re-open international borders.

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The Doherty Institute modelling that informed the plan has not been released. The institute likely presented a range of scenarios. The Australian public have a right to understand the health outcomes in each and the way in which National Cabinet weighed the uncertainty in the modelling.

Committing to a vaccine coverage threshold that is too low risks a rapid surge in COVID cases that could overwhelm our hospitals and impose a high death toll. State governments would almost certainly impose lockdowns to contain this type of spread, pushing “real” reopening further back.

Coverage too low to loosen restrictions for the vaccinated

The steps discussed in stage B also contribute to a greater risk of a disorderly re-opening. Stage B envisages loosening some quarantine requirements and public health restrictions for vaccinated residents.

The main concern is that stage B kicks in at 70% of the eligible population (56% of the total population).

Under almost any scenario, the reproduction number for the Delta strain of the virus is still well above 1 at this point. That means each infected person on average infects more than one other person.

Relaxing international arrival and quarantine restrictions for vaccinated adults – who can still transmit the virus (albeit less so than the unvaccinated) – means more Delta will get in. And allowing exemptions from public health measures for vaccinated residents means the measures to contain the spread of the virus will be less effective.

Read more:
Yes, you can still get COVID after being vaccinated, but you’re unlikely to get as sick

With only 56% of the population vaccinated, any uncontrolled spread will translate into high rates of serious illness and hospitalisation.

Our governments will be walking a very fine line indeed.

No details on ramping up the vaccine program

The other major concern is the lack of detail about how the National Cabinet plans to ramp up the vaccine program, and timeframes for doing so.

The most concerning line of the prime minister’s Friday evening press conference was “it is all up to us” – suggesting success is largely out of the government’s hands.

Getting enough jabs into arms as quickly as humanly possible is a job for government. We need a step change in the planning and professionalism of the rollout if we are going to have any hope of making these targets in a reasonable timeframe.

Grattan’s Race to 80 report, released last week, set out the necessary steps.

On logistics, it means delivering vaccines not just through GPs but via state-run mass vaccination hubs, pharmacists, schools, workplaces, and through pop-up clinics at community halls, public transport stations, and sporting events.

On messaging, it means high-quality national campaigns but also more targeted messaging for hesitant and harder-to-reach groups, including women, young people, and those from culturally and linguistically diverse communities.

Read more:
Diverse spokespeople and humour: how the government’s next ad campaign could boost COVID vaccine uptake

It looks like National Cabinet has not yet considered the crucial question of whether we need vaccine passports in high-risk settings such as restaurants and major events, to encourage people to get the vaccine and to reduce the risks of superspreading events.

And there is no plan to vaccinate children, even though Australia’s regulator, the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA), has already approved Pfizer for 12-to-16 year olds.

More to do

Australia can’t afford much more delay. The key planks of the logistics, messaging, and incentive campaigns need to be in place very soon if we are going to substantially increase the pace of the rollout as more Pfizer doses arrive in coming months.

At the same time, governments should release the Doherty modelling to help Australians understand the expected health outcomes under each of the four stages.

Vaccinations are the route back to normal life. This means all Australians have a stake in making sure our governments get this plan right.

Read more:
Vaccine Rollout 2.0: Australia needs to do 3 things differently

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

Stephen Duckett and Tom Crowley do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. National Cabinet’s plan out of COVID aims too low on vaccinations and leaves crucial questions unanswered – https://theconversation.com/national-cabinets-plan-out-of-covid-aims-too-low-on-vaccinations-and-leaves-crucial-questions-unanswered-165447

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Melissa Conley Tyler, Research Associate, Asia Institute, The University of Melbourne

This piece is part of a new series in collaboration with the ABC’s Saturday Extra program. Each week, the show will have a “who am I” quiz for listeners about influential figures who helped shape the 20th century, and we will publish profiles for each one. You can read the other pieces in the series here.

When Australian international relations scholar Coral Bell died in 2012, former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said “no other commentator” had been as perceptive on United States policies.

Three years later, the Australian National University named its school of Asia-Pacific affairs after Bell, with former foreign minister Julie Bishop describing her as

one of the great international relations scholars of Australia and the world […] highly respected by policy makers nationally and internationally.

Clearly she was a superstar in her field. But why, outside specialists, should Bell be remembered and celebrated?

An academic who thought about the real world

Bell has been called an “accidental academic”.

She began her career as as a diplomat in 1945, and was in the room when the ANZUS Treaty was signed. But her time in the Department of External Affairs ended after she refused to join a Soviet spy ring — as ANU colleague Desmond Ball sensationally revealed after her death.

However, this early experience of government and diplomacy set her up well for a life of scholarship. Former head of the ANU Bell School Michael Wesley thinks her diplomatic role had a lasting impact on her work, which

always showed the practitioner’s sensitivity to the often galling realities of policy-making.

She believed the behaviour of leaders and diplomats mattered in foreign affairs, leading her to be variously described as a “classical realist”, “optimistic realist” and “realist optimist”.

She focused on the big issues and the big picture

Bell’s work focused on power politics, the Cold War, diplomacy, defence and foreign policy. The titles of her extensive publications give a sense of the questions she wanted to answer: “politics of power”, “diplomacy of detente”, “conventions of crisis” and “living with giants”.

She acknowledged it was difficult to show direct causal connection between academic analyses and the choices of decision makers — but saw herself as influencing the climate of opinion within which policy-makers operate, and in turn helping shape countries’ behaviour.

Because of her historical knowledge and focus on big trends — demographic, economic, technological and political – she had an uncanny knack of previewing debates and controversies. Her 2007 forecast that Western domination of global politics was drawing to a close has held up well.

She left an intellectual legacy

Bell also had an important influence on the growing discipline of international relations.

Concepts she created in the 1960s are still being used in the context of US-China rivalry. This includes the “shadow condiminium” — or temporary power-sharing arrangements between two dominant powers. Her work Dependent Ally also remains relevant to Australia-US relations, including its discussion of independence within an alliance.

Read more:
Diplomacy and defence remain a boys’ club, but women are making inroads

More broadly, she influenced later scholars with her focus on careful factual research, beginning with the evidence, rather than abstract theories. Griffith University’s Ian Hall describes this as an interpretive approach, which forefronts the beliefs of policy-actors and the thoughts shaping those beliefs.

Based on history, law and political philosophy rather than quantitative methods, this has arguably become a distinctive feature of Australian international affairs scholarship.

She was a woman in a profession dominated by men

Born in 1923, Bell’s gender was always going to be a factor. When she entered the foreign service she was paid less for the same work and faced the marriage bar. As she recalled:

In my day you were told that if you married you were deemed to have resigned from the diplomatic service. So I gave up the idea.

Bell chose the life of the mind and excelled at it, showing gender was not a bar to being a leading authority.

As security studies academic Sheryn Lee explains, Bell’s success made it easier for other women to forge careers in the field of international relations.

she was a woman who was a leading authority […] and who forged a path for others through her practice and scholarship.

An Australian in a field dominated by overseas scholars

Australian scholars with Bell’s international impact have been rare in international relations. Her intellectual contributions enhanced Australia’s standing in policy and academic communities in the US and United Kingdom.

As Minh Bui Jones memorably observedof Bell:

For the rest of the world, she brought an antipodean temperament and perspective to the great questions of our time; she was our George Kennan in thick glasses, blue floral dress, white sneakers and a string of pearls.

A significant portion of her career was spent advancing the study of Australian foreign and defence policy and she spoke up for bringing an Australian approach to questions of international security.

She focused on issues of human survival

Bell described herself as having a “preoccupation with armageddon”, especially how to avoid it. She saw her vocation as the “preservation of human life and human society”.

Coming to adulthood during the second world war, she knew what was at stake when great powers went to war. All her life, she remembered the pattern of the rug she was standing on when she heard an atomic bomb had destroyed Hiroshima.

In our time, the nuclear threat continues, along with existential threats of climate change, uncontrolled artificial intelligence and pandemics. In the face of such challenges, how countries interact becomes a question of survival of the species. That’s something worth dedicating a career to.

Bell lives on in her ideas and in the minds of those she has influenced. If you’d like to hear her voice, you can listen to her in 2008, speaking to Geraldine Doogue.

Melissa Conley Tyler was privileged to know Coral Bell in her later years when she was honoured by the Australian Institute of International Affairs.

– ref. Coral Bell: the ‘accidental academic’ who wanted to stop armageddon – https://theconversation.com/coral-bell-the-accidental-academic-who-wanted-to-stop-armageddon-156302

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

Seven in ten people aged 16 and over will need to be fully vaccinated for COVID restrictions to begin to be eased, under targets agreed in principle by national cabinet on Friday.

Further relaxation and opening beyond that, including a near end to lockdowns, will require 80% of those eligible to have had two doses.

At present the proportion of people 16 and over fully vaccinated is 18.24%, while nearly 40% have had a single dose.

Each targets is dual – it must be met at both the national level and in the particular state or territory. Scott Morrison described it as a “two key process”.

Announcing the targets on Friday night, Morrison said no timeline has been attached to them.

But he believed the 70% target could be reached by the end of the year.

“There will certainly be the supply and the distribution and the opportunity to do that. But whether that is achieved is up to all of us.”

The long-awaited numbers have been attached to the four-phase re-opening plan previously endorsed in principle by the national cabinet.

In the current phase, the objective is to suppress COVID, including by tough lockdowns.

The second “transition” phase, triggered by the 70% vaccination levels, seeks to minimise severe illness, hospitalisation and deaths with low level restrictions.

In this phase, lockdowns would still be possible but less likely.

Restrictions would be eased on vaccinated residents. Morrison said this was “because if you’re vaccinated, you present less of a public health risk.

“You are less likely to get the virus. You are less likely to transmit it.” But the detail of how this would operate is still to be worked out.

The third “consolidation” phase – triggered by the 80% threshold – would have only highly targeted lockdowns, such as for vulnerable communities, and would exempt vaccinated residents from all domestic restrictions.

In the final phase, COVID would be treated like other infectious diseases.

The targets follow modelling from the Doherty Institute and work by Treasury.

They come as the latest tally of cases in Sydney, where the lockdown has been extended by one month, was 170 new community cases.

Amid calls for the NSW government to impose an even tougher lockdown, Morrison said it had been agreed “under this plan, no state or territory is required to increase the restrictions beyond where they are right now.”

Morrison said in the suppression phase, “going
hard early” with lockdowns “ultimately results in less cost on the economy”.

But in phase B “then the calculus does change and lockdowns do cost a lot”.

After the announcement crossbench MP Craig Kelly, who was formerly in the Liberal party, lashed out on Twitter, claiming constitutional freedoms were being violated and declaring “WE MUST FIGHT THIS”.

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. Vaccination rate needs to hit 70% to trigger easing of restrictions – https://theconversation.com/vaccination-rate-needs-to-hit-70-to-trigger-easing-of-restrictions-165407

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rajib Dasgupta, Chairperson, Centre of Social Medicine and Community Health, Jawaharlal Nehru University

Some 6 months after India began what is said to be the largest COVID-19 vaccination drive in the world, equitable distribution has been a challenge.

A recent instance from a remote area in one of India’s hill states is illustrative. According to news reports, over 90% of vaccination slots meant for locals were booked by people from other areas.

Residents lost out because the area had no internet connectivity. To address the digital divide, local authorities had to appeal to the outsiders to cancel their bookings.

This access issue is just one of many ways India’s prioritisation strategy for COVID-19 vaccination has fallen short.

Read more:
Charging Indians for COVID vaccines is bad, letting vaccine producers charge what they like is unconscionable

Who gets the shot first: what did experts agree on?

The World Health Organization (WHO) had foreseen vaccine shortages and consequently, inequitable distribution. In 2020, it advocated a nuanced approach to ensure those who most needed the vaccine got it.

The WHO’s Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization (SAGE) designed a document called the “Values Framework”. This document listed over 20 vulnerable groups such as homeless peoples, those living in informal settlements, and those in urban slums.

They underscored that countries ensure access to priority populations and take action to ensure equal access to everyone who qualifies under a priority group, particularly socially disadvantaged populations.

How did India prioritise vaccines?

The first phase of India’s rollout began in January, covering an estimated 30 million healthcare and front-line workers.

On March 1, the second phase began which incorporated people over 45 with chronic illnesses, and the over-60s. On April 1, this was expanded to everyone over 45.

Read more:
India’s staggering COVID crisis could have been avoided. But the government dropped its guard too soon

From May 1, it was decided all adults over 18 would be included.

Now, despite all adults being eligible, only 10% are fully protected with two doses. Despite the overall pace of vaccination increasing, the target of 135 million doses administered in July may be missed, and things look unlikely to improve in August.

With the threat of a third wave fuelled by variants, relaxing of lockdown restrictions, and the constant uptick in cases in two of the larger Indian states (Kerala and Maharashtra) as well as most of the North Eastern states, there’s an urgent need to increase vaccine coverage.

How should India prioritise vaccines?

India’s prioritisation strategy was limited to age, and to front-line workers specifically linked to COVID management — police and armed forces personnel, disaster management volunteers and municipal workers. It did not address the real-world diverse spectrum of vulnerabilities.

Read more:
Why couldn’t India’s health system cope during the second wave? Years of bad health policies

The Values Framework points to a range of vulnerabilities and priorities and includes people unable to physically distance such as those in geographically remote and clustered populations (detention facilities, dormitories, refugee camps and dense urban neighbourhoods).

Levels of COVID-19 among prison populations and high levels of antibodies (suggesting prior infection) among slum residents shows this is a legitimate concern.

Then there are those who are at high risk of transmitting infection such as youth who are mobile but largely asymptomatic, and school-going children. Vaccinating them early would minimise disruption of their education and socio-emotional development. The union health minister has announced vaccination of children is likely to begin in August.

Workers in non-essential but economically critical sectors, particularly in occupations that do not permit remote work such as construction and food services, should also be vaccinated early.

Read more:
How can the world help India — and where does that help need to go?

While only health workers were included in the category of essential workers, teachers, childcare providers, agriculture and food workers, and transport workers should have been added to this category.

Finally, to ensure equity, the needs of those who, at no fault of their own, are at risk of experiencing greater burdens from the COVID-19 pandemic, must be addressed.

This would include those living in extreme poverty, low-income migrant workers, nomadic populations, refugees or internally displaced persons, populations in conflict settings, those affected by humanitarian emergencies, and hard-to-reach groups.

At least one Indian state — Chhattisgarh — tried to reach out to its poorest, by proposing those under the state’s food scheme be vaccinated first in the 18–44 years category. However, after the intervention of the courts, the state had to reverse the order and allow vaccination for all adults.

What’s the fallout?

Rural-urban and gender inequities in the vaccine rollout have emerged as significant concerns.

By late May, 114 of India’s least developed districts had administered just 23 million doses to its 176 million residents. India’s nine major cities received the same number of doses, despite having half as many people.

During the same period, 17% more men were immunised than women.

Equity groups need to be given priority access to vaccinations to ensure those already more vulnerable to death, disease and destitution, and least likely to be able to seek treatment due to poverty, distance, or other social disadvantages, are protected.

I am currently Co-Investigators of two projects funded by the UKRI-GCRF, United Kingdom and one funded by the Novo Nordisk Foundation, Denmark.

– ref. India’s vaccine rollout is ignoring the many inequities in its society – https://theconversation.com/indias-vaccine-rollout-is-ignoring-the-many-inequities-in-its-society-165080

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Cathy Foley, Australia’s Chief Scientist, Office of the Chief Scientist

All around the world, there is an extreme gender imbalance in physics, in both academia and industry.

Examples are all too easy to find. In Burkina Faso’s largest university, the University of Ouagadougou, 99% of physics students are men. In Germany, women comprise only 24% of physics PhD graduates — creeping up from 21% in 2017. No women graduated in physical sciences at the University of El Salvador between 2017 and 2020.

Australia fares little better. Australian National University Professor Lisa Kewley forecasts that on current settings, it will take 60 years for women to comprise just a third of professional astronomers.

Read more:
Looking at the stars, or falling by the wayside? How astronomy is failing female scientists

And the hits keep coming. A survey by the UK Royal Astronomical Society, published last week, found women and non-binary people in the field are 50% more likely than men to be bullied and harassed, and that 50% of LGBQ astronomers have suffered bullying in the past 12 months.

There are occasional glimmers in the gloom. In India, for instance, women now comprise 43% of those with a degree in science, technology, engineering or mathematics (STEM). But that figure is much lower in physics and in the higher echelons of academia.

Clearly, this gender imbalance urgently needs to be fixed. This is not simply a matter of principle: around the world, many of our best and brightest minds are excluded, to everyone’s detriment.

This month, the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics held its seventh conference focused on the roles and prospects of women in the discipline. Held online, but hubbed in Melbourne, the five-day event was attended by more than 300 scientists from more than 50 countries.

We met many women who showed strength, leadership and commitment to progress physics in their countries, sometimes under very difficult circumstances. As the conference progressed, some distinct targets for action emerged.

Dissolving barriers

One priority is the need to overcome the barriers that prompt many women to leave physics before reaching its most senior levels. This happens for many reasons, including uncertainty in gaining long-term employment and the associated doubts about ever achieving senior positions, but research shows the effect is felt disproportionately by women.

Kewley’s analysis found that in Australian astronomy, 62% of women, compared with 17% of men, leave between postdoc and assistant professor level. A further 48% of women (and 28% of men) leave before the associate professor level.

Similar results are found in the UK, where the Royal Astronomical Society reported that women make up 29% of astronomy lecturers but only 12% of astronomy professors.

Read more:
How to keep more women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM)

Collaborating with industry

Mentoring women to become entrepreneurs and commercial leaders is a key strategy for underpinning independence, well-being and social standing for women physicists.

“Entrepreneurship isn’t common in many developing countries, particularly not among women physicists, where social and economic conditions impede innovation and collaboration with industry,” Associate Professor Rayda Gammag, from Mapúa University in the Philippines, told the conference.

Another participant, Professor Mmantsae Moche Diale, a senior physicist at the University of Pretoria, South Africa, reflected that many people don’t know how to translate their research ideas into business.

“It is important that you get guidance on how to navigate challenging situations to translate your research into a product you can sell,” she said.

Helping women physicists in developing countries

In some countries, social, cultural, economic and religious norms mean there is little support for women physicists. This can be deep-rooted, with discrimination at the earliest levels of education. University-educated women often find themselves blocked from research funding or leadership positions.

IUPAP has an important role to play here, through connecting women physicists in developing countries with their global colleagues, developing codes of conduct to combat discrimination and aggression, and reaching out through our regional chapters.

“Some countries have so few women that they’d benefit from joining a network with others in a similar situation,” Adjunct Professor Igle Gledhill from the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa told the conference.

Showing the way

Despite the deeply ingrained challenges, there are some signs of progress. Two standout nations are Iran and India.

In Iran, women make up 55% of physics PhD candidates and high-school science teachers, Azam Iraji zad of the Physics Society of Iran told the conference. It was also revealed that the proportion of women in STEM education in India is larger than in the UK, the United States or France.

Nevertheless, the conference heard stark evidence that action to remove gender barriers in physics around the world will often be met not just with resistance but sometimes violence.

One of us (Prajval Shastri) led a workshop that delivered powerful and practical recommendations on how to ensure no one is left behind. Physicists have multiple identities beyond gender, such as race, class, caste and abled-ness, creating a complex pattern of disadvantage and privilege.

Ultimately, the physics enterprise should learn from the gender gap but go beyond it and aim to centre itself on the interests of its most vulnerable members. That way, it will emerge as a better and more inclusive profession for everybody.

This needs to happen everywhere from the classroom to the lab, to conferences, industry networking and public science communication. Boys and girls alike deserve to see more role models from all marginalised groups doing physics.

Read more:
Isaac Newton invented calculus in self-isolation during the Great Plague. He didn’t have kids to look after

The conference generated a series of recommendations, which we will now share with the wider physics community. We welcome the debate that will follow.

Excluding, silencing and discouraging so many brilliant minds carries a very heavy cost, not just to the women directly impacted, but to all of humanity.

Prajval Shastri is founder and past chair of the Gender in Physics Working Group of the Indian Physics Association, and in her capacity as chair, she was the PI on a grant from the Department of Science & Technology, Government of India, that funded a national conference on gender equity in physics called Pressing for Progress 2019 (https://progress2019.tifrh.res.in).

Prajval Shastri is a member of the Working Group 5 for Women in Physics of the International Union for Pure and Applied Physics, and perforce on the international Organising Committee of the 7th IUPAP ICWIP conference.

Cathy Foley and Sarah Maddison do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. We must include more women in physics — it would help the whole of humanity – https://theconversation.com/we-must-include-more-women-in-physics-it-would-help-the-whole-of-humanity-165096

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Danielle Marie Muscat, Post-Doctoral Research Fellow, University of Sydney

As Sydney’s COVID-19 outbreak continues to grow, the message has shifted to urgently “get the jab”. And people’s motivation to get vaccinated is increasing.

But with ever-changing advice, many people are confused about which vaccine they’re eligible for and where to get an appointment.

Our recent review, which has been accepted for publication in the Medical Journal of Australia, shows information for the public about COVID vaccines is too complex to read, understand and act upon. It’s even more complex than other COVID public health advice, such as for physical distancing or masks.

Then there’s the results of our recent survey, which has yet to be peer reviewed, of where people from culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) communities get their COVID information from. This finds a huge diversity of sources, beyond official government websites. So we need to tailor communications to these communities via channels people actually use.

Taken together, our research shows we are still missing clear and consistent communication about COVID vaccines all Australians can understand and act on.

No wonder people are confused

We looked at publically available COVID-19 information from government websites from Australia (federal and three states), the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and three international public health agencies (including the World Health Organization).

Most public information was above the recommended reading level for the general population (8th grade).

In Australia, information was commonly written at postgraduate level. This means it is too difficult for people with average reading ability to understand. It’s likely even harder for the 9 million Australians who have lower health literacy.

Vaccination information from the federal government website was the only Australian material to adequately outline the action or steps readers needed to take to get vaccinated. Websites from all three states (New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria) we reviewed did not.

This means there has been little progress nationally or internationally in terms of improving the readability of written COVID-19 information since April 2020.

Read more:
Yes, adult literacy should be improved. But governments can make their messages easier to read right now

Culturally and linguistically diverse Australians

Our review does not begin to capture the additional limitations of COVID-19 communications for CALD communities.

People from CALD backgrounds form a significant and growing share of Australia’s population. For instance, 43% of the population of southwest Sydney (one of the focuses of the current COVID-19 outbreak) was born overseas; up to 71% in certain local government areas speak a language other than English at home.

Yet, translated information and communications about COVID-19 have been sparse, intermittent and not all has been appropriate. The original source materials in English are too complex, official translators are not used, and/or translations are not reviewed to make sure the information makes sense.

There has been some progress

We’ve had some progress this week. Press briefings, crucially important for keeping up-to-date about new rules and regulations, have only in the past few days been made available in any other language than English.

Similarly, the online vaccination eligibility checker has only just been translated into 15 other languages. However, the online vaccine clinic finder, which you reach at end of the vaccine eligibility checker, remains only in English.

More positively, a COVID-19 vaccination glossary (with clear descriptions of complex vaccine terms) is now available in 29 languages.

But more work is needed

However, more work is needed to ensure COVID information is “distributed widely” to CALD communities via the most appropriate channels, as recommended in the Australian government’s own plan.

Our recent survey of over 700 CALD community members in Greater Western Sydney showed just over half (about 54%) of participants used official government sources to find out about COVID-19. However, this varied greatly between language groups, reaching as low as 29% for some.

Social media (52%), family and friends (33%), and community sources (26%) were also common pathways for seeking out information about COVID. Many sought in-language communication from overseas. For some of these groups, official sources appear less accessible or useful.

So work is clearly needed to distribute tailored communications via channels people actually use.

Read more:
Multilingual Australia is missing out on vital COVID-19 information. No wonder local councils and businesses are stepping in

What actually works?

We know how to communicate public health messages clearly for diverse communities. We can:

• use everyday words for all public health communication

• test readability levels of written documents

• check the “actionability” of instructions (whether there are clear instructions of what to do next)

• use pictures, icons or animations.

We know it is possible to successfully implement these strategies. Our review identified 12 “easy-to-read” materials written at a lower reading grade that were easier to understand.

However, these were rare, difficult to find on official websites and often poorly signposted. For instance, some were on pages labelled for “people with disability”.

We need concerted action to ensure materials such as these become the “rule” rather than the exception. Plain language and in-language information simply cannot be an afterthought or “optional extra” if we are to achieve the 80% or higher vaccination rates needed to end lockdowns and return to some semblance of normal.

Read more:
Australia shouldn’t ‘open up’ before we vaccinate at least 80% of the population. Here’s why

Dr Danielle Marie Muscat receives funding from Western Sydney Local Health District through a Westmead Fellowship (Early Career Researcher).

Julie Ayre, Kirsten McCaffery, and Olivia Mac 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. No wonder people are confused. Most official COVID vaccine advice is way too complex – https://theconversation.com/no-wonder-people-are-confused-most-official-covid-vaccine-advice-is-way-too-complex-165307

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Belinda Cannell, Research fellow, Research Associate, The University of Western Australia

Do penguins fly underwater? – Rhys, age 7, Perth.

Indeed they do. They can’t fly through the air but they can fly underwater.

In other words, a penguin uses the muscles in its chest to bring its special wings, called flippers, downwards. But then it uses the muscles between its shoulders to bring its flippers upwards.

Hummingbirds, which fly in the air, are the only other type of bird that use both the muscles in their chest and between their shoulders to move their wings.

Most birds only use the muscles in their chest. (For the adults in the audience, this is what scientists call a “powered downstroke”. Penguins, and hummingbirds, have a powered upstroke also, whereas other birds have a passive upstroke.)

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A penguin has to work harder than other birds to fly. Even though they work hard, penguins move very fast underwater, especially when they are chasing food such as fish.

They keep streamlined, like a torpedo, with their feet close to their body and under their tail. But a penguin uses its feet, head and sometimes its tail when it wants to change direction.

So if a penguin wants to turn right, its right foot drops down and the penguin turns it head slightly to the right. If the penguin wants to turn left, its left foot comes down and it turns its head slightly to the left. The penguin may move its tail up when it wants to turn in either direction. If a penguin wants to stop, both its feet come down, its tail comes up and the penguin stops flapping its flippers.

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Penguins’ bodies are different to birds that fly in the air in other ways. Birds that fly in air have to be light, so some of their bones have special holes in them, a bit like a piece of Swiss cheese. But penguins don’t have to be light to fly underwater, so their bones are all solid.

Also, the wings of birds that fly in the air can bend. But a penguins’ flippers can’t bend, and this means they can fly strongly through the water without breaking their flippers.

Penguins have adapted to feed in the ocean but to also live on land, where they build nests, lay eggs and raise chicks.

They are truly amazing animals.

If you’re a Curious Kid with a question you’d like an expert to answer, ask an adult to send it to curiouskids@theconversation.edu.au

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

– ref. Curious Kids: do penguins fly underwater? – https://theconversation.com/curious-kids-do-penguins-fly-underwater-162994

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Filia Garivaldis, Senior Lecturer, BehaviourWorks Australia, Monash University

One thing the COVID-19 pandemic has not changed is the need for employee training and skills development. Although lockdowns have reduced access to offices and increased job insecurity, they have provided the time and opportunity for building skills. Demand for professional development has grown.

However, since early 2020, the only option for employees to upskill has been through remote learning. Training and development specialists have been working tirelessly to adapt programs and courses for online delivery. For most, this has meant replacing face-to-face workshops with dial-in sessions using teleconferencing software.

Unfortunately, these changes have not always been effective. In other cases, employees have been applying their own personal, informal learning methods to develop professionally.

Read more:
Digital technology and the rise of new informal learning methods

In comparison, the global online education sector has steadily and organically expanded over the past 25 years. It’s set to become mainstream sooner than expected. The characteristics of online learning, which can connect a larger and more diverse student body, make it truly scalable and sustainable.

Thankfully, we can draw on decades of research evidence from online education to deliver professional development effectively online. This research shows three of the most important things to consider are flexibility, accessibility and social connectedness.

Make flexible learning a priority

Online education is growing rapidly because of its flexibility. Students can study from wherever, whenever. This means they can maintain roles such as work, parenting and other commitments alongside their studies.

Flexible online learning is erasing traditional boundaries of time and place.
To provide flexibility in professional development, learning should no longer be restricted to a single day and venue. A combination of scheduled and self-paced learning options provides collaborative and independent learning opportunities as needed.

Flexible learning options work best for learners who can stick to their learning plans and schedules and dedicate their attention to these tasks without distractions. Employers can support flexible learning by respecting these learning plans. This means allowing employees to schedule work around their learning.

Read more:
The 7 elements of a good online course

Ensure accessibility for all

A more diverse student body calls for more inclusive teaching and learning practices. The best examples of online education offer all students the same opportunities to do well.

Both learning material and learning management systems need to be reliable and accessible to all. That includes people who are living in remote parts of the country, those who cannot leave the home due to family commitments, or students with special needs who require learning resources to be created that take account of these needs.

Similarly, the use of online learning technology for professional development should act as a learning enabler, not a learning barrier. Advanced learning technology and software – learning management systems such as Moodle, for example – can bring both accessibility and innovation to professional development. It makes for a smoother and more engaging learning environment.

Organisations may need to invest in accessible learning technology – just as they would invest in creating accessible and inclusive office spaces. Guidelines are readily available to help trainers make online learning content accessible and engaging.

Read more:
Massive online open courses see exponential growth during COVID-19 pandemic

Foster connections between learners

Finally, learning remotely, like working remotely, can be isolating. Creating meaningful opportunities to nurture a sense of belonging and connectedness among students is a challenge for online educators. But the benefits of social connectedness are worth the effort. It’s associated with greater academic performance, self-confidence, engagement, retention and satisfaction.

Students who opt for the flexibility of online education are often time-poor or juggling multiple competing demands. They prioritise their goal of learning over their social needs.

For this reason, relying on these students to initiate interaction through social forums can often be ineffective. Rather, trainers should embed social collaboration in core online learning activities.

Activities that involve collaboration include peer review and simulation tasks. Online meetings and workshops should also be designed to capitalise on the interplay of learning and dialogue.

Activities like these ensure participants can maintain focus on learning goals while reaping the benefits of social interaction.

Online professional development is here to stay

Universities are expanding their educational offerings for professional development. They now offer affordable, accredited and verifiable online study options such as short courses and micro-credentials.

Read more:
New learning economy challenges unis to be part of reshaping lifelong education

These courses bridge the gap between higher education and industry needs – bringing a high standard of learning and innovation directly to employees, without the costs of travel or relocation.

The investments universities and other organisations are making in e-learning capabilities mean online professional development is here to stay.

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

– ref. 3 things we need to get right to ensure online professional development works – https://theconversation.com/3-things-we-need-to-get-right-to-ensure-online-professional-development-works-164785

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

Uber has been great for some people and bad for others.

It has been good for its founders and investors. It has been good for riders who get a convenient and well-priced new way to travel. And it has been good for some drivers who want flexible work.

On the other hand, taxi drivers have clearly lost out. Uber has put a serious dent in the value of taxi “plates” and “medallions”. It has also arguably contributed to lower wages for some drivers.

How do we tally up the total social value of Uber? Or, for that matter, any other business or technological innovation? That’s a question raised by a new economics working paper finding that Uber has helped reduce drunk driving.

Uber’s economic benefit

Anyone who takes rides with Uber knows it is a handy service — so handy that research suggests consumers would be prepared to pay up to 60% more for it.

This was calcluated in 2015 by five US economists in a National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) working paper. All up that equated to US Uber users valuing the service at US$6.8 billion a year more than what they they spent on it.

Such a valuation is known as the consumer surplus — the extra benefit a consumer gets on top of the price they pay for something.

Uber’s market capitalisation (in excess ofUS$80 billion) meanwhile reflects its producer surplus — the benefit the producer gets from selling something. Typically this might be thought of as the profit, with the market capitalisation basically being the current value of all expected future profits.

Factoring in externalities

An introductory economics textbook will tell you the sum of consumer surplus and producer surplus equals the total benefit to society. This can be illustrated using a simplified demand and supply chart (as shown).

However, the field of welfare economics tells us when this simple arithmetic is not necessarily so.

The first fundamental theorum of welfare economics — known at the First Welfare Theorem — sets out the conditions for Adam Smith’s aphorism that competition and the invisible hand of the market lead to the common good.

A theorem is more than a theory. It is a mathematical truth. The First Welfare Theorem — the most celebrated result in all of economics — was first formally proven in 1951 by Kenneth Arrow and Gerard Debreu.

It says the free market can maximise total societal welfare, but only based on a few crucial assumptions. One is that there are no “externalities” — that is, a transaction between a buyer and seller doesn’t affect anyone else.

For example, if I like Diet Coke that probably doesn’t affect you. Why do you care what I drink? I’m only one person so I can’t even affect you by driving up the price of my preferred beverage.

But things aren’t always so simple. What if I have raucous parties and blast loud music into the early hours of the morning? That might be fun for me and my guests, but certainly not for my neighbours.

That’s why “noise pollution” is banned. It’s an externality. It requires regulatory intervention to be corrected. For the same reasons economists advocate a price on carbon emissions, to fix what’s going wrong in the competitive market that allows greenhouse gas pollution.

Read more:
Vital Signs: a 3-point plan to reach net-zero emissions by 2050

All of which is to say we can’t always just look at market outcomes, nor simply add up consumer and producer surplus, to understand the social benefit of an innovation or technology.

Uber’s positive externalities

Which brings us back to Uber.

Enter an interesting new NBER working paper, Uber and Alcohol-related traffic fatalities, by economists Michael Anderson and Lucas Davis of the University of California, Berkeley.

The paper begins with a plausible hypothesis: that some people before the advent of Uber might have chosen to drive their own car, and then drive home drunk after a big night. In many cases Uber is cheaper and more convenient than the taxis that were an option in such circumstances.

If that’s right, then Uber (and other convenient “rideshare” services) will have reduced the incidence of drunk driving, and the accidents and fatalities resulting. This would be an example of a positive externality — a benefit to third parties (or in this case society).

Anderson and Lucas combined data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration Fatality Analysis Reporting System and proprietary rideshare activity data from Uber. They then compared areas or greater and less Uber penetration, to helps factor out common trends in, say, safer motor vehicles or more stringent traffic laws. They conclude:

our results imply that ridesharing has decreased US alcohol-related traffic fatalities by 6.1% and reduced total US traffic fatalities by 4.0%.

They convert this into a dollar value using the conventional measure of the so-called “value of statistical life”. This leads to a benefit of US$2.3 billion to US$5.4 billion a year — a significant value on top of Uber’s estimated consumer surplus.

So the winners from Uber are consumers, producers and society.

Broader lessons

Markets are great. Except when they’re not. One important reason for “not” is negative externalities like pollution. That’s also why a really important role of government is to use policy tools to internalise such externalities.

In the case of ridesharing, governments need to be attentive to those that lose from its advent. Indeed, in 2016 I proposed a compensation scheme to do just that for taxi plate holders.

Read more:
How Uber drivers avoided — and contributed to — the fate of taxi drivers

But sometimes there are positive externalities from technological innovations. The same logic that applies to taxing negative externalities tells us we should subsidise positive externalities.

I’m not sure that’s going to happen with Uber rides. And, of course, without a carbon tax ridesharing still contributes to pollution externalities. So there are pluses and minuses in the “social benefit of Uber” calculus.

But Anderson and Davis compellingly demonstrate that positive externalities can be large and important, all by themselves.

Richard Holden is President-elect of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia. In 2016 he wrote a report on taxi-plate compensation commissioned by Uber.

– ref. Vital Signs: Uber’s impact on traffic accidents is a lesson in calculating social benefit – https://theconversation.com/vital-signs-ubers-impact-on-traffic-accidents-is-a-lesson-in-calculating-social-benefit-165306

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

Michelle Grattan discusses the week in politics with University of Canberra Associate Professor Caroline Fisher.

This week the pair discuss the extension of the Sydney lockdown, and the anti-lockdown protests which took place over the weekend. It has been announced the defence force will assist in enforcing the lockdown restrictions, and the government is providing more financial support for those who have lost income due to the restrictions.

They also discuss the changes in Labor policy in preparation for the next election, and what it will mean to some of their voting base.

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. VIDEO: Michelle Grattan on changes in opposition policy – https://theconversation.com/video-michelle-grattan-on-changes-in-opposition-policy-165384

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ben Newell, Professor of Cognitive Psychology, UNSW

Online wagering is the fastest-growing segment of gambling in Australia. It’s a trend of particular concern because losing money through online brokering and betting apps is associated with higher rates of gambling-related harm than other types of gambling.

These apps provide the ability to win and lose money anywhere, anytime — and their popularity has been exacerbated by COVID-19 lockdowns.

A survey of 2,000 gamblers by the Australian Gambling Research Centre in mid-2020 found the proportion of gamblers doing so four or more times a week increased from 23% to 32%. Among the biggest online gamblers — men aged 18 to 34 — median spending climbed from A$687 to A$1,075 a month.

Whether in life, the stock market or at the horse races, most of us are notoriously bad at assessing the real odds of good or bad things happening.

For example, we fear dying in a plane crash (the odds of which are so small the US National Safety Council doesn’t even provide a calculation) far more than a car crash (a lifetime chance of about 1 in 107).

Read more:
Why our obsession with happy endings can lead to bad decisions

Gamblers underestimate their chance of losing and overestimate the odds of winning. This is despite the odds in games they are playing being precisely calibrated to ensure the house always wins in the long run. As Nassim Nicholas Taleb puts it in his book Fooled by Randomness, it is “not about the odds, but about the belief in the existence of an alternative outcome, cause, or motive”.

How to inject more reality into these beliefs? One simple tool is feedback.

Feedback is crucial for all learning. When it’s timely, clear and targeted, it can alleviate many of the cognitive biases that cloud decision-making.

For gamblers the biggest bias is that they remember their wins more than losses — known as selective recall.

Feedback that clearly shows them their losses can counteract this. This is, no doubt, why many online wagering service providers don’t give feedback to their customers at all. Those that do tend to use “activity statements” that present a long list of transactions that are often hard to navigate and so don’t help gamblers appreciate just how well — or more likely poorly — they are doing.

Making gaming companies provide such feedback in a clear, comprehensible form is something that policy makers should put high on their reform list.

How to improve feedback

To find the best solution to this problem, the federal Department of Social Services commissioned the Australian government’s Behavioural Economics Team (BETA) to trial feedback online gamblers get from their wagering activities. We provided advice on the trial’s design and implementation.

The trial tested ways to let consumers see at a glance how much they had spent, won, lost and their overall net profit or loss from their bets. These numbers were displayed in an “activity statement”, presented in two formats — one as a table, similar to a bank statement, the other using more graphic elements. Below shows the design of the graphic statement.

BETA tested these statements in an experiment involving about 1,500 participants in a virtual horse-race betting game.

Each participant was given “lab dollars” (rather than real money) to bet on a series of races in blocks. Some were randomly chosen to get one or other of the activity statements after each block of races. Others received no statement.

On average, those who did not see a statement bet $368. Those who saw the “table” statement bet $350 (about 5% less). Those who saw the “graphic” statement bet $340 (about 7.5% less).

Read more:
Designed to deceive: How gambling distorts reality and hooks your brain

Real-world trials needed

These reductions may seem relatively minor but they are still promising. The majority of participants said they would use a summary statement like the ones in the experiment if they were available on real apps. Results also suggested participants with poor financial literacy benefited the most from receiving the feedback statements.

Whether the same results would be achieved in real life is hard to say. Though many participants rated the experiment as at least somewhat like real-life gambling, there are certainly differences between experimental trials and actual online wagering apps, where there can be higher stakes and longer gambling times. This might lead to larger or smaller effects. To answer that will require real-world trials on real apps.

But such trials are definitely worth a shot.

With the right kind of feedback to help us learn, our decisions can improve. The simple summary activity statements in the BETA trial make us optimistic that even in the potentially damaging world of online wagering people can learn to make more informed choices.

Ben Newell receives funding from the Australian Research Council. He is a member of the Academic Advisory panel of the Behavioural Economics Team of the Australian Government (BETA) and provided advice on the trial described in this article.

Swee-Hoon Chuah was on secondment to the Behavioural Economics Team of the Australian Government (BETA) when she worked on the design of the trial described in this article.

Robert Slonim 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. Gamblers bet more when in the dark: feedback can curb their online losses – https://theconversation.com/gamblers-bet-more-when-in-the-dark-feedback-can-curb-their-online-losses-161904

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kathomi Gatwiri, Senior lecturer, Southern Cross University

Simone Biles, the US gymnast widely considered “the greatest of all time”, withdrew from the Olympic finals this week, saying:

I have to focus on my mental health […] We have to protect our minds and our bodies and not just go out and do what the world wants us to do.

Biles joins other Black women like Naomi Osaka and Meghan Markle who have chosen to forgo medals, trophies and royalty to prioritise their mental well-being.

In a recent Guardian article about “the rise of the great refusal” author Casey Gerald argued “Biles did not simply quit. She refused”.

There is immense power in refusal. These women have awoken something in those of us who struggle to say “no” or who blindly serve institutions that do not have our best interest at heart. They challenge us to erect boundaries to protect our well-being.

Pressure to take on ever more work and ever more responsibility is familiar to many. But saying “no” can present unique difficulties for people from racially minoritised backgrounds.

Setting professional boundaries can be deeply challenging in the face of pressure, discrimination and adverse mental health impacts.

Pressure to take on ever more work

In academia, this pressure persists. Research by colleagues and I (Kathomi Gatwiri) shows academics from minoritised backgrounds continue to have radically different experiences to their colleagues. We argue that academics from minoritised backgrounds:

are often expected to be grateful, likeable, and […] to provide extensive pastoral care so as to maintain student happiness.

They are also exposed to more severe hostility and punishments through flawed tools of measuring performance such as Student Evaluations of Teaching if they choose not to perform this extra labour.
This causes extended emotional overload for many teachers and can be especially damaging to their mental well-being.

Researchers have written about the pressure of Black tenure-track academics “to engage in service activities that are not expected of their White counterparts” such as doing extra mentoring and joining more committees:

When Black faculty members face enormous requests for service, White colleagues often advise and encourage Black faculty to “just say no”.

However, just saying “no” does not always work to their best interest and can lead to institutional punishment, which can derail career progress.

Another paper which looked at how Black American women contend with the pressure to take on ever more responsibilities, noted “some women talked about the difficulty of saying no […] yet others talked about the empowerment of saying no.” One interviewee said:

I don’t know how to say no […] I feel I have an issue with saying no. I will spread myself like peanut butter out.

In our own research on the pressures faced by Black African professionals in the workplace in Australia, participants reported feeling the workplace was a site of constant surveillance and scrutiny, where they were often assumed to be “out of place”. This increases the burden of having to work “twice as hard” to prove themselves worthy, which can result in an inability to say “no” at work.

Read more:
Battlegrounds: highly skilled Black African professionals on racial microaggressions at work

The power of ‘no’

Simone Biles’ decision to withdrawal from the Olympics might, in retrospect, become one of her greatest achievement of all time. She has since received widespread support from those who view her decision as an incredibly powerful message for all who are burdened with societal pressures and expectations.

Black and Indigenous peoples have engaged in the power and politics of refusal and resistance for centuries — a refusal to lend their bodies, time, expertise and talent to institutions that are violent and abusive.

In ordinary, everyday lives however, people who exercise this kind of resistance might be ostracised. They may lack the necessary support to bolster their decision to “opt out” or just rest.

Biles’ withdrawal came soon after three Black players on the England national football team were subjected to a torrent of extreme racial abuse after the team’s loss at the recent Euro finals with Italy.

Many Black people reflected on social media they already knew that if they lost the game, the outcome would be racial abuse. And so the pressure to win, might be intensified by the fear of the resulting abuse if they lose.

Sport, pressure and abuse

People’s discomfort with athletes expressing vulnerability or anything but toughness and strength can influence the athletes’ complicity in their own harm.

Research by one of us (McPherson and colleagues) investigating the experiences of Australian children in elite sport showed more than 50% also reported negative experiences, including emotional and physical harm and sexual harassment. Emotional and physical abuse was enacted through racial vilification, humiliation, bullying, being shouted or sworn at, have things thrown at them or being told they were worthless or weak.

Read more:
Racial abuse is rife in junior sports – and little is being done to address it

Other research has identified how various minoritised subpopulations of elite athletes, including those with disabilities or from racially minoritised backgrounds, may be more vulnerable to harm in sport.

The liberation of ‘no’

Biles’ refusal to compete citing mental health has resonated widely.

Many struggle to say “no” for a variety of reasons including fear of rejection, a feeling that saying “yes” is the safest option or feeling they will be construed as “rebellious” or “difficult” if they say “no”. Fear of disappointing others or feeling their reason for saying “no” is “not good enough” also play a part.

Biles, Osaka and others may serve as inspiration. Practising the liberation of turning down invites, relationships, extra work and high pressure is part of maintaining good mental health.

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

– ref. The power of no: Simone Biles, Naomi Osaka and Black women’s resistance – https://theconversation.com/the-power-of-no-simone-biles-naomi-osaka-and-black-womens-resistance-165318

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lilly Brown, Lecturer, The University of Melbourne

Content warning: This article contains distressing information on Stolen Generations and residential schools.

When I read that the bodies of 215 children had been found in unmarked graves on the grounds of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School in Saskatchewan, Turtle Island (Canada), my heart ached for these children and the First Nation’s communities they belong to.

Weeks later, the Cowessess First Nation announced they had also found the remains of 751 people, mostly children, at the former Marieval Indian Residential School using ground-penetrating radar.

The residential school system in Canada was a tool of cultural genocide that worked explicitly through the forced removal of children and young people from their families. The impact of policies that enabled this to happen have been felt by generations of Métis, Inuit and First Nations peoples. The last school closed in 1996.

As the tally of bodies found in unmarked graves continues to grow, residential school survivors warn this is just the beginning.

The experiences of Indigenous children and communities in Canada are resonant with those of young First Peoples and children in Australia. These experiences also include the separation of children from their families in an attempt to assimilate and erase us as Aboriginal peoples.

Read more:
Honour those found at residential schools by respecting the human rights of First Nations children today

Residential schools: a tool of cultural genocide

In 1920, Duncan Campbell Scott, Deputy Minister of [Indigenous] Affairs, stated:

I want to get rid of the Indian problem […] our object is to continue until there is not a single Indian in Canada that has not been absorbed.

Kanienkehaka (Mohawk) scholar Dr Beverley Jacobs, in calling for the deaths of these children to be investigated as a crime against humanity, says:

What happened to Indigenous children is genocide, and the legacy of that continues through denial and inaction.

It’s estimated over 150,000 Indigenous children across Canada were forcibly taken from their families and interned in residential schools. These schools were established in an attempt to “civilise” and assimilate Indigenous peoples.

This process saw children taken from their families and often punished for speaking language and practising culture.

As I held my own daughter close, the uncovering of the remains of these precious children on Turtle Island prompted me to reflect on the survival of First Peoples in the face of ongoing legacies of colonial violence back here in Australia.

Indigenous child removal in Australia

The Bringing Them Home report tabled in parliament in 1997 presented a national investigation into these removals and concluded:

between one in three and one in ten Indigenous children were forcibly removed from their families and communities in the period from approximately 1910 until 1970.

Drawing on the testimonies of Stolen Generation survivors, the Report also found:

Subsequent generations continue to suffer the effects of parents and grandparents having been forcibly removed, institutionalised, denied contact with their Aboriginality and in some cases traumatised and abused.

This trauma and abuse occurred at places like the former Moore River Native Settlement north of Perth, Western Australia which became a Methodist Mission in 1951.

Research revealed in 2018 374 people buried in largely unmarked graves at the site, a majority of which were children, had died of treatable respiratory and infectious diseases.

Moore River settlement was the subject of the Australian film Rabbit Proof Fence which depicted the true story of three girls who escaped the deplorable conditions at Moore River, despite the real possibility of tortuous punishment, and walked almost 2,500 kilometres north in search of their family.

While the story of Molly, Daisy and Gracie’s escape and survival in this film is exceptional, their experience of violence and removal under policies of assimilation is not. It is but one example of the way many Indigenous children and young people were, and continue to be, treated.

Read more:
Indigenous children are leaving out-of-home care to uncertain futures. This is the support they need

Seeking truth and justice

The recently inaugurated Victorian Yoo-rrook Justice Commission will shepherd Australia’s first ever formal truth telling process.

Part of Yoo-rrook’s mandate is to:

investigate both historical and ongoing injustices committed against Aboriginal Victorians since colonisation by the State and non-State entities, across all areas of social, political and economic life.

This mandate also extends to establishing “an official public record based on First Peoples’ experiences of Systemic Injustice since the start of Colonisation.”

Given the focus of Yoo-rrook, it’s only a matter of time before, as Melbourne-based Ballardong/Nyoongar artist Dianne Jones’ stated in her 2013 exhibition – what lies buried rises. In making these artworks, Jones asked:

Whose crimes are subject to investigation? Whose grief constructs memorials? Whose deaths matter?

In repeating Jones’ questions here, I do not ask them of First Peoples. Rather, I share Jones’ words as a prompt for non-Indigenous, and particularly white, settler Australians. These people may not yet have an informed understanding of the violent past of this continent and how this violence continues to reverberate in the present.

These reverberations have been endured by First Peoples for centuries now.

As Yoo-rrook begins it’s important work, and First Peoples in other States and Territories continue to demand truth and justice, like in Turtle Island, what’s buried will continue to rise and demand justice.

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

– ref. The discovery of Indigenous children’s bodies in Canada is horrific, but Australia has similar tragedies it’s yet to reckon with – https://theconversation.com/the-discovery-of-indigenous-childrens-bodies-in-canada-is-horrific-but-australia-has-similar-tragedies-its-yet-to-reckon-with-164706

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Deborah Williamson, Professor of Microbiology, The Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity

Since the start of the pandemic, COVID-19 testing in Australia has been performed using highly sensitive PCR (polymerase chain reaction) tests.

But this conventional model of testing, which involves swabbing by a health-care professional and transporting samples to a laboratory for analysis, has important bottlenecks. Recent reports indicate people have been waiting several hours just to have a swab taken.

With the current COVID outbreaks in Australia, there’s been a renewed focus on alternative testing methods to PCR — in particular rapid antigen testing.

New South Wales this week announced it would begin using rapid antigen tests in schools to allow year 12 students to return to the classroom safely, as well as in essential workplaces.

So what are rapid antigen tests, are they effective, and what role should they play in Australia’s response to COVID-19?

What are antigen tests?

Antigen tests detect protein on the surface of SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19) directly from a sample taken with a swab inserted into the nose.

Because antigen tests do not amplify parts of the virus’ genetic code, they are less sensitive than PCR tests.

The main advantages of antigen tests over PCR tests include their lower cost and their speed. Most antigen tests are designed to be used at the point of care, with results available in about 15 minutes. They cost roughly A$5 to A$20 per test.

Read more:
Why do some COVID-19 tests come back with a ‘weak positive’, and why does it matter?

How effective are they?

In countries such as the United Kingdom and United States, antigen tests have been used widely to complement PCR testing during the pandemic.

So far, the strongest published evidence to support the use of antigen tests is in symptomatic people within the first few days of their symptoms starting, when the amount of virus in nasal secretions is highest.

In other words, antigen tests are most accurate when the viral load is highest and when a person is likely to be most infectious. If an antigen test is taken either too early or too late in the course of infection, it may not detect the virus.

There are conflicting data on the performance of antigen tests in people without symptoms. A Cochrane review looking at results across several studies found the sensitivity of antigen tests (the likelihood of a positive result if someone is infected with the virus) was between 40% and 74% in people without symptoms. So a fair proportion of people tested may receive a negative test when they really have the virus.

With this in mind, compared to a “one-off” antigen test, repeated antigen testing (for example, daily) may improve the detection of virus, particularly in people who don’t have symptoms, or when there’s a low level of disease in the community.

Importantly, “real-world” overseas studies looking at antigen testing have varied widely in the types of tests it was compared with, the populations tested, and how much disease was circulating in the community at the time of the study.

This means it’s very hard to extrapolate information from overseas directly to Australia.

We need to trial rapid antigen testing in Australia to get reliable local information

The Therapeutics Goods Administration has so far approved 20 rapid antigen tests for use in Australia.

But antigen tests can only be supplied to accredited laboratories, medical practitioners, health-care professionals working in residential and aged-care facilities, or health departments. The commercial supply of COVID-19 antigen kits for self-testing at home is prohibited.

One way we could properly evaluate the use of antigen tests in Australia is through a series of clinical trials.

These could include trials of returning travellers undertaking daily self-testing in home quarantine, or repeated testing of groups of workers in potentially high-risk workplaces (for example, food distribution centres, construction sites or aged care).

Read more:
The positives and negatives of mass testing for coronavirus

Lessons from HIV

A precedent for community-based self-testing for an infectious disease in Australia is HIV. There were initially concerns the antibody test used for home HIV testing was not sensitive enough, and not as good as the gold standard laboratory test. There were also concerns people wouldn’t know how to deal with a positive test.

But the implementation of HIV self-testing over the past couple of years has been broadly successful. Education campaigns help people understand the limitations of the test, while there are effective processes in place to support people who return a positive result.

Although COVID-19 and HIV are very different diseases, the HIV experience offers useful lessons on how to implement home testing for a high-impact disease in a low-prevalence setting, while ensuring testing is accessible and convenient for all, including marginalised groups.

It’s not perfect, but it could be useful

One fundamental proviso for the use of widespread antigen testing is that we have to be prepared to accept a degree of risk. We know these tests are less sensitive than the current diagnostic “gold standard”, meaning it’s almost certain they will miss some cases of COVID-19.

PCR testing undoubtedly underpins our high-quality laboratory response to COVID-19 in Australia. But our capacity to sustain PCR testing at the level we will eventually need for communities to function normally and for international borders to reopen is uncertain.

We urgently need pragmatic real-world trials of new testing strategies to help us understand how best to return to a “COVID-normal” life.

Read more:
Why are some COVID test results false positives, and how common are they?

Deborah Williamson receives funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council.

Sharon Lewin 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. Rapid antigen testing isn’t perfect. But it could be a useful part of Australia’s COVID response – https://theconversation.com/rapid-antigen-testing-isnt-perfect-but-it-could-be-a-useful-part-of-australias-covid-response-164873

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Vicki Sentas, Senior Lecturer, UNSW Law, UNSW

With rolling lockdowns now part of how Australians live in the pandemic age, important questions arise about corresponding changes in policing. Constantly changing public health orders bring not only confusion but expansive police authority to enforce many new criminal offences.

On one view, using the police to protect public health by stopping the spread of the virus appears a logical step. But, in practice, do public health objectives always take precedence over existing enforcement approaches?

The recent deployment of 100 additional officers and mounted police to south-west Sydney call to mind the same concerns expressed by the Victorian Ombudsman that the policing and lockdown of public housing tower blocks in 2020 were partly informed by “incorrect and potentially stereotypical assumptions” about residents.

Reports of unfair police actions revise age-old questions about the role and function of the police in enforcing social inequalities and its punitive effects.

Read more:
Beyond the police state to COVID-safe: life after lockdown will need a novel approach

How is COVID being policed?

Fines have been a key method of policing COVID restrictions. Yet our exploratory research suggests fines are merely one way in which police are using their powers during the pandemic.

Select data we obtained from New South Wales Police indicate that from March 15 to June 15 2020, the most common police action was to search those stopped. Although the public health relevance of conducting a search is unclear, police searched 45% of all people stopped for a COVID-related incident.

We also know COVID policing has affected some communities more than others. In Victoria, a parliamentary inquiry found people in lower socioeconomic areas were twice as likely to be fined as those in higher socioeconomic areas.

Our research in NSW found Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander peoples comprised 9% of the stop incidents in which Indigenous or non-Indigenous status was recorded. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people were even more disproportionately subject to coercive police powers following a stop, making up 15% of arrests and 10% of people searched.

Whatever the precise level of over-representation, these findings are consistent with the broader, long-standing experience of the over-policing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

Considering Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples comprise around 3% of the population, these data alone show disproportionate use of search and arrest powers. They also support concerns that the pandemic has intensified the policing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

COVID policing appears to rely on longstanding criminalisation strategies at odds with public health. An old-school public order approach of stop and search, and fines, undermines public health because of the social harms of criminal justice contact.

Most obviously, increased police contact through personal searches could increase the risk of transmission. And, as we explain elsewhere, questions remain about their lawful basis.

How could COVID be policed?

The social and economic costs of the pandemic have greater impacts on precarious and low-wage workers and marginalised people. It is even more critical that policing does not amplify those inequalities by prioritising punishment over keeping people safe.

The Australian approach isn’t the only possibility. Heavy reliance on enforcement contrasts, for example, with the United Kingdom, where the policing of COVID-19 measures early in the pandemic was independently assessed by policing experts as “taking place at the margins”. These experts pointed out that people are more likely to comply with rules where they regard them as morally right and reflecting social norms, rather than because they fear fines and other sanctions.

Instead of prosecuting individuals for non-compliance with frequently changing laws, a better approach would be to provide financial assistance and accessible information, particularly for disadvantaged groups.

Read more:
Pandemic policing needs to be done with the public’s trust, not confusion

A community-focused, public health approach would move away from coercive policing and emphasise co-developed community resources on COVID restrictions and their purpose.

A small group of NSW Police officers recently joined forces with a community organisation to hand out free masks and hand sanitiser to residents in hard-hit areas of western Sydney. But this has not been a system-wide approach, and is unlikely to erase the memory of mounted police patrols enforcing the lockdown in the same area.

It is too early to say what the lasting changes in policing may be. Will additional powers granted to police persist beyond the emergency in some other form? Will states continue to revert to border control to protect against future, non-biological risks? Will technology-driven population surveillance become more prominent?

This all remains to be seen. But it is certain that mass vaccination would shrink the need for state policing of COVID altogether.

Leanne Weber receives funding from the Australian Research Council.

Louise Boon-Kuo and Vicki Sentas 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. COVID has changed policing — but now policing needs to change to respond better to COVID – https://theconversation.com/covid-has-changed-policing-but-now-policing-needs-to-change-to-respond-better-to-covid-164959

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adam Simpson, Senior Lecturer, University of South Australia

Myanmar is facing a catastrophic health crisis that could have ramifications not just for the country’s long-suffering people, but across the region as well.

The country is experiencing a major spike in COVID cases — what one Doctors Without Borders official referred to as “uncontrolled community spread” — fuelled by the military junta’s gross mismanagement of the crisis and a collapsing health sector.

The military regime’s official COVID statistics are running at around 6,000 cases and 300 deaths per day, but no one believes these are accurate. This is, after all, the junta that staged a military coup in February and then tried to argue it was constitutionally valid.

With only 2.8% of Myanmar’s 54 million people fully vaccinated, there are now concerns the country could become a “COVID superspreader state”. And this could lead to the emergence of new variants, says the UN’s special rapporteur for human rights in Myanmar.

This is very, very dangerous for all kinds of reasons […] This is a region that is susceptible to even greater suffering as a result of Myanmar becoming a super-spreader state.

Doctors being imprisoned

The UN says a “perfect storm” of factors is fuelling the deepening health crisis.

Medical staff have been on strike as part of the civil disobedience movement against the coup. Oxygen and other medical equipment are increasingly expensive and in short supply. Even getting an oxygen concentrator into Myanmar is not straightforward, though Singapore said this week it will rush 200 machines into the country.

Read more:
COVID coup: how Myanmar’s military used the pandemic to justify and enable its power grab

Most troublingly, at least 157 medics, including the former head of Myanmar’s COVID-19 vaccination program, have been arrested and charged with high treason. In Yangon, military personnel have pretended to be COVID patients in need of emergency treatment, then arrested the doctors who came to help.

Reliable figures on the infection rate are impossible to obtain, but civil society groups that assist with cremations and funeral services in Yangon say they are seeing up to 1,000 uncounted COVID deaths a day in that city alone. The national total may be several thousand per day.

One reason it’s impossible to get an accurate count of COVID cases is the extremely low rate of testing. There are only around 15,000 COVID tests being conducted per day in a country of 54 million people. The tests are, however, returning a positive rate of around 37%, or 370 positives for every 1,000 tests.

It’s also believed nearly 50 prisoners at the crowded, notorious Insein Prison are now infected with COVID but are being denied treatment by the military.

These prisoners include top leaders from Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy, doctors connected with the civil disobedience movement, and foreigners like Australian academic Sean Turnell, an adviser to Suu Kyi who was arrested by the junta after the coup and is being held on bogus charges.

Another adviser and lawyer to Suu Kyi, Nyan Win, died last week after being infected with COVID at Insein.

Myanmar’s poor are disproportionatly suffering

Such a catastrophic health situation is exacerbating Myanmar’s inequalities. Poorer people are less able to socially distance and less likely to get tested and receive meaningful treatment. They suffer invisibly, often in silence.

In a report published this week, the World Bank estimated Myanmar’s economy would contract by 18% this year due to the effects of the pandemic and the coup. The share of people living in poverty is also likely to more than double by the beginning of 2022, compared to 2019.

Read more:
We know how to cut off the financial valve to Myanmar’s military. The world just needs the resolve to act

The ethnic minority regions of the country may well be disproportionately suffering, too. Since the coup, conflicts have intensified across the country between the military and the ethnic armed organisations and pro-democracy advocates that have joined them, causing immense social dislocation.

The UN refugee agency estimates 200,000 people were internally displaced from February to June, bringing the total of displaced people in the country to 680,000. These marginalised groups are even less likely to have access to medical treatment.

These figures are also not taking into account the refugees outside the country, such as the million Rohingya languishing in the cramped refugee camps in Bangladesh. The Bangladesh government has said it will begin vaccinating the Rohingya next month.

International aid desperately needed

When Cyclone Nargis killed 140,000 people in Myanmar in 2008, the country’s previous military regime received wide-ranging offers of assistance from ASEAN, the regional bloc, and the wider international community.

But since the coup, Western aid to Myanmar has been redirected through non-government groups, causing hold-ups. The UN says the junta has also yet to account for US$350 million in COVID aid the International Monetary Fund sent to Myanmar just days before the coup in February.

The country hasn’t received vaccine doses since May, though China pledged to send 6 million doses by August, with the first batch arriving last week. China may end up being the most proactive donor, since it is worried about a COVID outbreak along its shared border with Myanmar.

Optimists say this may be a time for reconciliation and for everyone in Myanmar to unite against the common enemy of COVID. Yet it is hard to imagine that happening right now, when the military’s own mishandling of the pandemic has generated so much outrage from the population.

Read more:
Sanctions against Myanmar’s junta have been tried before. Can they work this time?

What can be done? Perhaps Australia, which we are told is “awash” in AstraZeneca vaccines, could make rapid moves to send desperately needed supplies to Myanmar via its non-government partners. It would be a bold and impressive diplomatic move.

There is then the need for the international community to confront the Myanmar generals for their appalling mishandling of the country since the coup. By seizing control from elected leaders, they have impoverished their own people, sparked new conflicts and exacerbated the damage done by a global pandemic.

The heartbreaking reality is the people of Myanmar have been left without the prospect of significant relief at the worst possible time.

Nicholas Farrelly has previously received funding from the Australian Research Council for Myanmar-focussed work. He is on the board of the Australia-ASEAN Council, which is an Australian government body. These are his personal views.

Adam Simpson 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 a perfect storm of events is turning Myanmar into a ‘super-spreader’ COVID state – https://theconversation.com/how-a-perfect-storm-of-events-is-turning-myanmar-into-a-super-spreader-covid-state-165174

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Blair Williams, Research Fellow, Global Institute for Women’s Leadership (GIWL), Australian National University

Australia has been rocked by serious allegations of sexual assault and harassment that have poured out of parliament house this year.

In February, former Liberal staffer Brittany Higgins revealed a toxic workplace culture for political staffers when she spoke about her own alleged assault. As others have come forward with their stories, we have witnessed a reckoning about sexism and misogyny in our political culture.

In response, the Morrison government initiated a range of reviews. The Foster review into serious incidents at parliament was finished in June. This week, the government accepted all ten recommendations — including an independent complaints process. However, this will not be enough make parliament safe.

Read more:
After Brittany Higgins: will the Foster review prevent another ‘serious incident’ at parliament?

Attention now needs to shift to the work of sex discrimination commissioner Kate Jenkins, who is conducting an independent review into parliament’s workplace culture. Submissions for her landmark review close on Saturday.

Experts and MPs come together to find solutions

Earlier this month, with colleagues from the ANU’s Global Institute for Women’s Leadership, I hosted a summit to develop a model code of conduct to make parliament a safer and more inclusive workplace.

We brought together former and current politicians, political staffers, national and international academic experts, and key stakeholders (such as the Community and Public Sector Union and YWCA) to consider how we can address bullying, intimidation, and harassment within the halls of government.

Academics offered a scholarly perspective on the impact of gendered norms and culture as an obstacle to change, while staffers and politicians shared personal experiences of sexism, racism and bullying in their careers. This included former-Liberal cabinet minister Sharman Stone, ACT Liberal leader Elizabeth Lee, Labor MP Anne Aly, Greens senator Larissa Waters, and Independent MP Helen Haines. The range of MPs present made it clear how this issue crosses party lines.

Three main messages emerged from the discussion.

1. A code of conduct is necessary

The summit participants unanimously agreed a set of principles is necessary if we are to change the current state of workplace relations in parliament.

With this aim in mind, we have submitted a model code of conduct to the Jenkins inquiry. Our proposal goes further than the Foster recommendations and provides clear guidelines on acceptable and unacceptable behaviour, and treatment of others. It also borrows elements from comparable documents in other countries, notably New Zealand and the United Kingdom. It includes seven clear commitments:

1. ensure parliament meets the highest standards of integrity, courtesy and mutual respect

2. make parliament a safe and inclusive workplace where diversity is valued

3. show bullying and harassment, including sexual harassment, are unacceptable

4. speak up about any unacceptable behaviour

5. act professionally towards others

6. participate in training on harassment prevention and office management

7. understand unacceptable behaviour will be dealt with seriously and independently with effective sanctions.

Read more:
Now for some better news: 9 Australians fighting for gender equality and making a difference

For the code to succeed, it must be binding and apply to all, including politicians, staffers, journalists, visitors, volunteers, interns and students. The implementation of the code and handling of complaints must be overseen by an independent body.

The independent complaint-handling authority must be able to investigate both current and historical allegations (the Foster review recommends the latter should remain the responsibility of the Finance Department). The complaints process must be flexible, victim-focused and trauma-informed.

The code must be supported by training in its implementation as well as in harassment prevention, bullying, office management and workplace roles and responsibilities more generally. This training must be mandatory for all workers.

2. We need cultural change

An entrenched culture of sexism persists inside parliament house. In addition to adopting a code of conduct, we desperately need to change the broader cultural norms of Australian political life. As former prime minister Julia Gillard wrote in her 2014 memoir:

[since] politics at senior levels in our nation has almost always been the pursuit of men, the assumptions of politics have been defined around men’s lives not women’s.

Certain stereotypically masculine qualities, such as strength, authority, confrontation, aggression, and determination, are therefore prioritised and accepted in politics, These traits are often on full display during question time. As Stone noted in her speech at the summit:

Question time is one of the worst reinforcers of the masculine, [foregrounding the] aggression, screaming, [and] yelling of men [with] women echoing … that behaviour because [it] is seen as a ‘strong’ performance. And it’ll be written up by the media as a strong performance.

Stone added such behaviour is not only a waste of time, it discourages women who aspire to enter politics.

Question time is also a window into what happens behind closed doors, exposing the kind of behaviour that is accepted within parliament. Combined with the rife power imbalances between politicians and staffers, such behaviour inevitably contributes to a culture of bullying and entitlement.

3. We need diversity

Our political culture also requires a greater recognition and inclusion of diversity.

Parliament is not just a “boys’ club”, it is a white boys’ club. It has been built by and for powerful white men and encourages a sense of entitlement — to spaces, roles and even bodies — protected from any accountability.

During the summit, Lee spoke of experience as the first Korean Australian woman in Australian politics. She reflected on the lack of diversity in this history of “another white man after another white man.” From the Labor side, Aly pointed to the lack of diverse candidates in the 2019 federal election, noting we “specifically [need] more women of colour in politics”.

If we have a parliament that is representative of Australia, this would, in turn, broaden parliamentary culture and break entrenched power relations.

Our model code of conduct will aid in creating a safer workplace for all in parliament, but we also need widespread and permanent change to help transform a misogynistic political culture.

Blair Williams 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. If Australia is serious about fixing the culture at parliament, this is the code of conduct we need – https://theconversation.com/if-australia-is-serious-about-fixing-the-culture-at-parliament-this-is-the-code-of-conduct-we-need-161884

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Duckett, Director, Health Program, Grattan Institute

Earlier this month National Cabinet released a four-phase COVID response plan. It wasn’t so much a plan – it had no dates and no thresholds – but more a back-of-the-napkin thought bubble. It was sensible, but vague.

National Cabinet now faces the hard task of converting vagueness into a real plan. To do this it must answer the question: what proportion of the Australian population needs to be vaccinated before we can open our international borders?

This means allowing stranded Australians to return, letting footloose people travel overseas, and welcoming international tourists and students again.

Read more:
Australia has a new four-phase plan for a return to normality. Here’s what we know so far

Well qualified experts differ on the requisite threshold for vaccination partly because there are so many unknowns, such as how quickly the Delta variant of COVID would spread through Australia if we open up, and how effective the different vaccines will prove to be in preventing transmission.

But new Grattan Institute modelling shows it would be dangerous for Australia to open up before at least 80% of the population is vaccinated.

Here’s what we found, and how we came to the 80% figure. Let’s start with the good news.

Vaccines offer substantial protection

Both vaccines on offer in Australia – Pfizer and AstraZeneca – are effective at preventing infections from the Delta strain. Two doses of Pfizer offers about 88% protection against infection, while two doses of AstraZeneca offers about 67% protection.

Vaccinated people can still catch COVID, but those that do pass it on to about half as many others compared to the unvaccinated.

Read more:
Yes, you can still get COVID after being vaccinated, but you’re unlikely to get as sick

Evidence from the United Kingdom, Canada, and the European Union – areas with higher vaccination levels than Australia – also suggests both vaccines offer substantial protection against hospitalisation and death from COVID. A vaccinated person is about 95% less likely than a vaccinated person to end up in hospital with COVID.

Now for the bad news.

The delta strain is far more infectious

Researchers estimate the Delta variant is 50% to 100% more infectious than the Alpha variant, which itself was more transmissible than the variant that was dominant throughout 2020.

The effective reproduction number, or Reff, tells us how many people one infected person will spread the virus to, taking into account behaviour and public health measures in place designed to reduce transmission, such as masks and physical distancing.

If the Reff of the Delta variant in Australia is around 6 without vaccination, having 50% vaccination coverage will reduce the Reff to 3.

But the national goal must be to bring the Reff down to below 1, which would mean each person who was infected would infect less than one other person – and the virus would eventually peter out.

The higher the vaccination rate, the lower the effective reproduction number. Each person vaccinated offers a chance of breaking a chain of transmission that might lead to an outbreak.

Not only are vaccinated people less likely to become infected, they are also less likely to pass the virus onto others if they are.

The higher the vaccination rate, the lower the effective reproduction number

So why do we need 80% of people vaccinated?

Grattan Institute’s model simulates the spread of COVID within a partially vaccinated population, and helps us peek into the future.

It uses age-based hospitalisation and intensive care unit (ICU) admission rates from more than a year of COVID data from Australian ICU units. It also assumes children under 16 are about one-fifth less likely to get COVID, and children over the age of two are able to be vaccinated.

In most of our simulations, older people have higher rates of vaccination, and no age group has more than 95% vaccine coverage.

Read more:
When will we reach herd immunity? Here are 3 reasons that’s a hard question to answer

We ran thousands of simulations of different vaccination rates, and different estimates of the Reff. The outcomes for 12 distinct scenarios are shown in the table below.

You can see why we recommend Australia not open up until at least 80% of the population is vaccinated – it is the only scenario where the virus is managed, with hospitalisations and deaths kept down to reasonable levels, even if the Reff is high.

Let’s break it down

Our simulations show that opening up at 50% vaccination rate (scenario 1) is a very bad idea, with many, many thousands of deaths.

Scenarios 2 and 3 are the optimist’s and gambler’s scenarios. If you are lucky and the Reff of Delta in Australia is 4 (with 70% vaccination rate) or 5 (with 75% vaccination rate), deaths and hospitalisations would not rise above moderate levels, and lockdowns could end and the borders could reopen.

But if you gambled on the wrong Reff, our hospitals would be overwhelmed and deaths would be unacceptably high. Opening the borders is a one-shot gamble: if you make the wrong call, the virus will quickly spread and all the good work and hard yards of living through lock-downs over the previous two years will have been wasted.

Public health decision-making is often risk averse, for the best of reasons. The difference in virus spread, hospitalisations and deaths between opening at 75% and at 80% are big, but the wait between the two thresholds may only be a month or two.
This is why we recommend an 80% vaccination rate (scenario 4) as the threshold for opening up.

Even if the Reff of Delta is 6, our hospital system will not be overwhelmed, and deaths will not rise above the number of deaths in a moderate flu season, such as 2010, when there were 2,364 flu deaths.

Read more:
80% vaccination won’t get us herd immunity, but it could mean safely opening international borders

Stephen Duckett has had his first AstraZeneca vaccination.

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

Will Mackey 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 shouldn’t ‘open up’ before we vaccinate at least 80% of the population. Here’s why – https://theconversation.com/australia-shouldnt-open-up-before-we-vaccinate-at-least-80-of-the-population-heres-why-165073

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Corey J. A. Bradshaw, Matthew Flinders Professor of Global Ecology and Models Theme Leader for the ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, Flinders University

Shamefully, Australia has one of the highest extinction rates in the world.
And the number one threat to our species is invasive or “alien” plants and animals.

But invasive species don’t just cause extinctions and biodiversity loss – they also create a serious economic burden. Our research, published today, reveals invasive species have cost the Australian economy at least A$390 billion in the last 60 years alone.

Our paper – the most detailed assessment of its type ever published in this country – also reveals feral cats are the worst invasive species in terms of total costs, followed by rabbits and fire ants.

Without urgent action, Australia will continue to lose billions of dollars every year on invasive species.

Huge economic burden

Invasive species are those not native to a particular ecosystem. They are introduced either by accident or on purpose and become pests.

Some costs involve direct damage to agriculture, such as insects or fungi destroying fruit. Other examples include measures to control invasive species like feral cats and cane toads, such as paying field staff and buying fuel, ammunition, traps and poisons.

Our previous research put the global cost of invasive species at A$1.7 trillion. But this is most certainly a gross underestimate because so many data are missing.

Read more:
Attack of the alien invaders: pest plants and animals leave a frightening $1.7 trillion bill

As a wealthy nation, Australia has accumulated more reliable cost data than most other regions. These costs have increased exponentially over time – up to sixfold each decade since the 1970s.

We found invasive species now cost Australia around A$24.5 billion a year, or an average 1.26% of the nation’s gross domestic product. The costs total at least A$390 billion in the past 60 years.

Worst of the worst

Our analysis found feral cats have been the most economically costly species since 1960. Their A$18.7 billion bill is mainly associated with attempts to control their abundance and access, such as fencing, trapping, baiting and shooting.

Feral cats are a main driver of extinctions in Australia, and so perhaps investment to limit their damage is worth the price tag.

As a group, the management and control of invasive plants proved the worst of all, collectively costing about A$200 billion. Of these, annual ryegrass, parthenium and ragwort were the costliest culprits because of the great effort needed to eradicate them from croplands.

Invasive mammals were the next biggest burdens, costing Australia A$63 billion.

Variation across regions

For costs that can be attributed to particular states or territories, New South Wales had the highest costs, followed by Western Australia then Victoria.

Red imported fire ants are the costliest species in Queensland, and ragwort is the economic bane of Tasmania.

The common heliotrope is the costliest species in both South Australia and Victoria, and annual ryegrass tops the list in WA.

In the Northern Territory, the dothideomycete fungus that causes banana freckle disease brings the greatest economic burden, whereas cats and foxes are the costliest species in the ACT and NSW.

Better assessments needed

Our study is one of 19 region-specific analyses released today. Because the message about invasive species must get out to as many people as possible, our article’s abstract was translated into 24 languages.

This includes Pitjantjatjara, a widely spoken Indigenous language.

Read more:
Australia’s threatened species plan has failed on several counts. Without change, more extinctions are assured

Even the massive costs we reported are an underestimate. This is because of we haven’t yet surveyed all the places these species occur, and there is a lack of standardised reporting by management authorities and other agencies.

For example, our database lists several fungal plant pathogens. But no cost data exist for some of the worst offenders, such as the widespread Phytophthora cinnamomi pathogen that causes major crop losses and damage to biodiversity.

Developing better methods to estimate the environmental impacts of invasive species, and the benefit of management actions, will allow us to use limited resources more efficiently.

A constant threat

Many species damaging to agriculture and the environment are yet to make it to our shores.

The recent arrival in Australia of fall armyworm, a major agriculture pest, reminds us how invasive species will continue their spread here and elsewhere.

As well as the economic damage, invasive species also bring intangible costs we have yet to measure adequately. These include the true extent of ecological damage, human health consequences, erosion of ecosystem services and the loss of cultural values.

Without better data, increased investment, a stronger biosecurity system and interventions such as animal culls, invasive species will continue to wreak havoc across Australia.

The authors acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the lands on which they did this research.

Ngadlu tampinthi yalaka ngadlu Kaurna yartangka inparrinthi. Ngadludlu tampinthi, parnaku tuwila yartangka.

Corey J. A. Bradshaw receives funding from Australian Research Council.

Andrew Hoskins receives funding from the Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment.

– ref. Pest plants and animals cost Australia around $25 billion a year – and it will get worse – https://theconversation.com/pest-plants-and-animals-cost-australia-around-25-billion-a-year-and-it-will-get-worse-164969

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katherine Seto, Research Fellow, University of Wollongong

Small Pacific Island states depend on their commercial fisheries for food supplies and economic health. But our new research shows climate change will dramatically alter tuna stocks in the tropical Pacific, with potentially severe consequences for the people who depend on them.

As climate change warms the waters of the Pacific, some tuna will be forced to migrate to the open ocean of the high seas, away from the jurisdiction of any country. The changes will affect three key tuna species: skipjack, yellowfin, and bigeye.

Pacific Island nations such as the Cook Islands and territories such as Tokelau charge foreign fishing operators to access their waters, and heavily depend on this revenue. Our research estimates the movement of tuna stocks will cause a fall in annual government revenue to some of these small island states of up to 17%.

This loss will hurt these developing economies, which need fisheries revenue to maintain essential services such as hospitals, roads and schools. The experience of Pacific Island states also bodes poorly for global climate justice more broadly.

Island states at risk

Catches from the Western and Central Pacific represent over half of all tuna produced globally. Much of this catch is taken from the waters of ten small developing island states, which are disproportionately dependent on tuna stocks for food security and economic development.

These states comprise:

• Cook Islands
• Federated States of Micronesia
• Kiribati
• Marshall Islands
• Nauru
• Palau
• Papua New Guinea
• Solomon Islands
• Tokelau
• Tuvalu

Their governments charge tuna fishing access fees to distant nations of between US$7.1 million (A$9.7 million) and $134 million (A$182 million), providing an average of 37% of total government revenue (ranging from 4-84%).

Tuna stocks are critical for these states’ current and future economic development, and have been sustainably managed by a cooperative agreement for decades. However, our analysis reveals this revenue, and other important benefits fisheries provide, are at risk.

Read more:
Warming oceans are changing Australia’s fishing industry

Climate change and migration

Tuna species are highly migratory – they move over large distances according to ocean conditions. The skipjack, yellowfin and bigeye tuna species are found largely within Pacific Island waters.

Concentrations of these stocks normally shift from year to year between areas further to the west in El Niño years, and those further east in La Niña years. However, under climate change, these stocks are projected to shift eastward – out of sovereign waters and into the high seas.

Under climate change, the tropical waters of the Pacific Ocean will warm further. This warming will result in a large eastward shift in the location of the edge of the Western Pacific Warm Pool (a mass of water in the western Pacific Ocean with consistently high water temperatures) and subsequently the prime fishing grounds for some tropical tuna.

This shift into areas beyond national jurisdiction would result in weaker regulation and monitoring, with parallel implications for the long-term sustainability of stocks.

What our research found

Combining climate science, ecological models and economic data from the region, our research published today in Nature Sustainability shows that under strong projections of climate change, small island economies are poised to lose up to US$140 million annually by 2050, and up to 17% of annual government revenue in the case of some states.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) provides scenarios of various greenhouse gas concentrations, called “representative concentration pathways” (RCP). We used a higher RCP of 8.5 and a more moderate RCP of 4.5 to understand tuna movement in different emissions scenarios.

Read more:
Citizen scientist scuba divers shed light on the impact of warming oceans on marine life

In the RCP 8.5 scenario, by 2050, our model predicted the total biomass of the three species of tuna in the combined jurisdictions of the ten Pacific Island states would decrease by an average of 13%, and up to 20%.

But if emissions were kept to the lower RCP 4.5 scenario, the effects are expected to be far less pronounced, with an average decrease in biomass of just 1%.

While both climate scenarios result in average losses of both tuna catches and revenue, lower emissions scenarios lead to drastically smaller losses, highlighting the importance of climate action.

These projected losses compound the existing climate vulnerability of many Pacific Island people, who will endure some of the earliest and harshest climate realities, while being responsible for only a tiny fraction of global emissions.

What can be done?

Capping greenhouse gas emissions, and reducing them to levels aligning with the Paris Agreement, would reduce multiple climate impacts for these states, including shifting tuna stocks.

In many parts of the world, the consequences of climate change compound upon one another to create complex injustices. Our study identifies new direct and indirect implications of climate change for some of the world’s most vulnerable populations.

Read more:
The 2016 Great Barrier Reef heatwave caused widespread changes to fish populations

Katherine Seto receives funding from the US National Science Foundation (CNH 1826668).

Johann Bell works for Conservation International in the Center for Oceans. His contribution to the research quoted in this article was supported by the Moccasin Lake Foundation. Johann is a Visiting Professorial Fellow at the University of Wollongong.

Quentin Hanich receives funding from the Nippon Foundation’s Ocean Nexus Centre, and consults on Pacific fisheries management and negotiation.

Simon Nicol works for the Pacific Community which is an international development organisation owned and governed by the countries and territories of the Pacific region. It receives development funding and supports development of Pacific Islands Nations. The Pacific Community receives financial support from the governments of New Zealand, Australia, France and the European Union and various International Trust Funds to provide technical advise on the impacts of climate change on Pacific fisheries. Simon is an Adjunct Professor at the University of Canberra.

– ref. Climate change is causing tuna to migrate, which could spell catastrophe for the small islands that depend on them – https://theconversation.com/climate-change-is-causing-tuna-to-migrate-which-could-spell-catastrophe-for-the-small-islands-that-depend-on-them-164000

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Katharine Gelber, Professor of Politics and Public Policy, The University of Queensland

The University of Melbourne will open the Robert Menzies Institute, in honour of Australia’s longest-serving prime minister, in September this year. The presence of board members with close ties to the Liberal Party and the Menzies Research Centre has prompted protests from some students and academics. They question the appropriateness of the university hosting a platform, set up with A$7 million in federal government funding, that lauds Menzies’ achievements but overlooks negative aspects of his legacy.

The institute is a partnership between the university and the Menzies Research Centre, a self-described “think-tank that champions Liberal principles” that “is affiliated with the Liberal Party of Australia”. The institute’s board includes: Sky News commentator Peta Credlin, a former chief of staff to PM Tony Abbott; Geoffrey Hone, chair of the right-wing think-tank, the Institute of Public Affairs; and David Kemp, a former Howard government cabinet minister. A former chair of Qantas and a University of Melbourne pro vice-chancellor and dean also sit on the board.

Debates over the legacy of a former head of government and the governance of the institute are legitimate. However, would these concerns justify the exclusion of the institute from the university?

Read more:
Universities and government need to rethink their relationship with each other before it’s too late

Institutes named after PMs aren’t unusual

Australia has other institutes that honour former prime ministers.

The Whitlam Institute at Western Sydney University was established in 2000 under an agreement between the university and Gough Whitlam himself. Most of its funding has come from the university. The institute provides access to books and materials donated by its namesake, and hosts public lectures and events.

At Curtin University in Western Australia, the John Curtin Institute of Public Policy was established in 2004 for research, teaching and public engagement on public policy issues. It is named after Australia’s 14th prime minister, as is the university.

The University of South Australia hosts the Bob Hawke Prime Ministerial Library. It provides access to research materials and hosts public events and presentations.

In other countries, it’s normal to honour former heads of government in this way. In the United States, presidential libraries preserve historical materials and support research. Others set up their own, such as the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change.

As for the Menzies Institute, there are reasons why it might logically be located at the University of Melbourne. Menzies studied law there. After retiring from parliament he became its chancellor (1967-1972).

Being named after a former prime minister, then, does not appear to be a decisive negative against the institute.

Governance and academic freedom

A key issue in locating an institute at a university is whether or not it preserves academic freedom. When industry and political figures from outside academia enter into partnerships with universities, they must do so in a manner that preserves academic freedom, regardless of political viewpoints.

This was the key point of dispute over proposals to establish programs in Western Civilisation, funded by the Ramsay Centre, in Australian universities. Its board includes former Liberal prime ministers John Howard as chair and Tony Abbott.

The Australian National University rejected such a program on the ground that it infringed academic freedom. The centre later established programs at other Australian universities, under conditions that appeared to preserve academic freedom.

Read more:
ANU stood up for academic freedom in rejecting Western Civilisation degree

Academic freedom is a robust protection for activities of academics and students that are central to the mission of the university – the creation and dissemination of knowledge. These activities include:

• lecturing and choice of course content
• deciding what research to pursue
• publishing research findings
• classroom discussions and academic debates.

In turn, those whose activities are protected have responsibilities that include:

• providing evidence to back up claims
• conducting research with integrity using recognised and robust methods
• not engaging in unlawful or discriminatory conduct.

Read more:
Book review: Open Minds explores how academic freedom and the public university are at risk

What does this mean for the Menzies Institute?

In practice, the principles of academic freedom will mean any Menzies Institute board members should have no structural means of determining the content of curriculums and research priorities – or publication of findings – of any academics or students at the university.

Details of the contract between the centre and the university are not public. But the institute’s website says it will curate papers, books and other artefacts in its collection. This represents no threat to academic freedom. In fact, it’s likely to improve access to these archival records.

The institute wants to create a hub for researchers. The key question here is whether it will do so in a manner that preserves academic freedom. With several academic staff members on the board, it appears the governance arrangements recognise this.

The institute also intends to host school visits and “develop curricula”. If that includes university curriculums, then of course while board members could make suggestions, they must not be given the ability to determine, or develop, the curriculum. Academic freedom demands that the academics responsible for learning and teaching decide all the detail on curriculum content, readings, questions, methods and approaches.

Finally, the institute wishes to organise public lectures and exhibitions, and host visiting professors. Again, these activities must be subject to the protections of academic freedom.

Read more:
Don’t just blame the Libs for treating universities harshly. Labor’s 1980s policies ushered in government interference

Funding can be a source of pressure

Funding is one obvious way in which pressure can be brought to bear on academic freedom. Some funding for the institute is coming from the University of Melbourne and the Menzies Research Centre, but its most generous benefactor is the federal Coalition government, which has provided A$7 million. No other comparable institute has received such a large sum.

In 2012, the Whitlam Institute received $7 million from the then federal Labor government. However, this funding was primarily for a historic building restoration, which included providing a permanent home for the institute 12 years after its founding.

The Morrison government’s generosity seems slightly odd, given its reluctance to help a sector struggling with the loss of international student fee revenue. In 2020 it amended JobKeeper three times to ensure public universities were unable to claim it. The Job-Ready Graduates Package cut total funding for teaching in universities. Research is losing the cross-subsidy from teaching revenue.

Read more:
Big-spending ‘recovery budget’ leaves universities out in the cold

The federal government has often been highly critical of universities. Critics would regard its institute funding as a ploy to influence research and engagement in a way that favours its preferred points of view. This is a reasonable suspicion, and the university needs to be alive to it.

Nevertheless, government funding is not a ground for rejecting the institute as long as it is “hands-off” and doesn’t require the institute or the university to violate academic freedom to receive it.

Finally, there is much room in Australian political discourse for a debate over the legacy of Robert Menzies. His time as prime minister (1939-41, 1949-66) spanned the second World War, the Cold War, the Vietnam war, the failed attempt to ban the Communist Party, and the civil rights movement. While the institute honours Menzies’ achievements, his critics point to his support for the White Australia policy, his agreement to test nuclear weapons with no regard for Indigenous owners or their Country, and his refusal to take a position against apartheid.

Universities are the right place for rigorous debates about this legacy. The key issue is whether the Menzies Institute’s funding and governance, which underpin the public debates it wishes to engage in, respect or infringe academic freedom. Time will tell.

Katharine Gelber has received funding from the Australian Research Council, the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia, and Facebook.

– ref. Should the University of Melbourne host the Menzies Institute? The answer hinges on academic freedom – https://theconversation.com/should-the-university-of-melbourne-host-the-menzies-institute-the-answer-hinges-on-academic-freedom-165072

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Flavio Romero Macau, Associate dean, Edith Cowan University

If a “ring of steel” was actually placed around Sydney, as suggested by Victorian premier Daniel Andrews, the rest of Australia would suffer in ways that aren’t immediately apparent.

Completely sealing a city or a region is not unprecedented. It happened last year in China, India, Italy and France.

In those instances it wasn’t just local facilities that were shut down, but also factories and distribution centres serving the rest of the country and the movement of goods into and out of the regions.

The rest of Australia got a taste of what would happen earlier this month when Amazon temporarily closed down its Moorebank fulfilment centre in Sydney, after two workers tested positive to COVID-19. Suddenly, it was unable to ship tens of thousands of orders.

It’s worthwhile examining what a near-literal ring of steel would do.

Greater Sydney sold A$281 billion of goods and services to the rest of Australia in 2019/20 — $81 billion more than it brought in.

Made in Sydney

Sydney made five times as much from selling goods to the rest of Australia than it did from exports.

While financial services accounts for most of these sales (42.5%), manufacturing comes in a respectable second (12.6%).

Sydney’s Smithfield-Wetherill Park Industrial Estate, home to more than 3,000 manufacturing, wholesale, and transport firms using more than three million square metres of warehouse space, is one the largest industrial areas in the Southern Hemisphere.

About 8% of Australia’s poultry meat and 15% of Australia’s mushrooms come from Sydney. Bacon, ham, and salami would also take a hit without the Primo Foods facility in Chullora.

Without Asahi Beverages in Huntingwood and Coca Cola Amatil’s Eastern Creek distribution centre and Northmead bottling plant, Australia would find it hard to get Pepsi, Coke and Schweppes soft drinks.

Petrol would become harder to come by. While Sydney’s Clyde and Kurnell refineries closed early last decade, Sydney remains a major hub for imports. Sydney’s Clyde and Parramatta terminals store gasoline, diesel and lubricants.

Read more:
‘Panic-buying’ is the new normal: how supply chains have adapted

Much of Australia’s manufacturing takes place in Greater Sydney, including boilers and specialised equipment for the mining industry.

Toilet paper would at least be safe. Australia has four main manufacturers, three in Victoria (Sorbent, Safe, Merino) and one in South East South Australia (Kleenex).

Arnotts has moved much of its output to Brisbane, making Tim Tams safe as well.

Going through Sydney

Greater Sydney is Australia’s largest logistics hub. Sydney’s Kingsford Smith Airport handles 45% of Australia’s air freight.

Of the 2.5 million containers arriving in Port Botany each year, one-fifth are moved to the rest of Australia over roads such as the Hume and Pacific highways, or through trains running between Sydney and Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth.

Australia Post processes more than half a million parcels a day at Chullora.

The Woolworths distribution facilities at Yennora and Minchinbury move nine million cartons a week.

Many of Australia’s distribution chains aren’t set up to operate without Sydney.

Depending on its strength, a ring of steel would impose considerable challenges.

Flavio Romero Macau is affiliated with the Australasian Supply Chain Institute (ASCI)

– ref. A COVID ‘ring of steel’ around Sydney would play havoc with Australia’s supply chains – https://theconversation.com/a-covid-ring-of-steel-around-sydney-would-play-havoc-with-australias-supply-chains-165313

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tim Bonyhady, Emeritus professor, Australian National University

The London launch of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band in May 1967 was a musical and fashion landmark. While the clothes worn by all four Beatles startled the journalists and disc jockeys, John Lennon stole the show. He wore a green, frilly, flowered shirt, maroon corduroy trousers, canary-yellow socks, corduroy shoes with two particularly unusual additions. One was a leather sporran, the other an Afghan sheepskin coat, worn with the fur inside and the skin outside, which was tanned yellow and embroidered with big red flowers down its front and sleeves.

These coats became a craze with extraordinary longevity. “Afghans”, as they were often called, were worn by many celebrities through the late 1960s. Then, for the best part of a decade, they became standard youth clothing — an archetypal hippie garment and emblem of the counterculture.

They had a resurgence inspired by Penny Lane’s character in the 2000 film Almost Famous and remain a favourite among lovers of bohemian fashion on Instagram.

Their embrace internationally transformed where and how the coats were made and what they looked like. Yet the craze for these coats could only happen because Afghanistan’s relationship with the rest of the world was changing.

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The politics of the necktie — ‘colonial noose’, masculine marker or silk status symbol?

Short, medium or very long

Afghan coats traditionally came in three forms — sleeveless or short-sleeved hip-length vests known as pustinchas; knee-length, long-sleeved coats known as pustakis; and ankle-length cloaks called pustins.

In a gendered division of labour, men cured the skins, tanned them yellow with the rinds of pomegranates, cut them into pieces and sewed them together, while women and girls embroidered them with geometric and floral designs, usually in red or yellow. Their skins were occasionally bear, fox or goat, but usually karakul (a long-haired breed of sheep).

Although often written about as if only men wore them, women did too, and they were such ubiquitous winter-wear they were considered Afghan national dress.

The poor could typically afford only the smaller pustinchas or pustakis. If they bought the bigger pustins, these coats were usually plain which made them cheaper.

Senior government officials, successful merchants and wealthy clerics bought lavishly decorated pustins that demonstrated their status. In 1946, Maynard Owen Williams — the National Geographic Society’s first field correspondent — considered the pustin to be “the ultimate in masculine chic”. The archetypal Afghan man, he wrote, was “clad in red-embroidered sheepskin”.

Their prime source was Ghazni, south of Kabul. In 1955 British archaeologist Sylvia Matheson found “one shop after another offering nothing but pustin” there.

While entranced by those with white fur, Matheson rejected them as impracticable for her fieldwork that winter. Instead, she opted for a brown-furred pustincha that was still “enchanting, the yellow skin entirely covered in closely stitched flowers of pillar-box red, with here and there a spot of periwinkle blue”.

Read more:
Friday essay: mom jeans and nostalgia in a time of uncertainty

Hippie commerce

Many more foreigners visited from the early 1960s as Afghanistan embarked on a program of modernisation which saw significant numbers of women in the country’s cities unveil and find new forms of paid work.

A small number of westerners, typically older, arrived by plane, with lots to spend, prompting the Afghan government to build Kabul’s first five-star hotel.

In 1969 it opened, under lease to the Intercontinental Group, with rooftop dining and dancing facilities, a cocktail lounge, brasserie coffee shop, tennis courts and swimming pool. Most western visitors were hippies who, as English poet J. C. E. Bowen put it, travelled overland “in every imaginable kind of clapped-out motor vehicle […] through the bottleneck of Kabul on their way towards the imagined Elysium of Kathmandu”.

Their prime destination was Chicken Street in the Shahr-e Naw, a garden suburb close to the city centre, which was the most westernised part of Kabul. Once a domain of poultry vendors, Chicken Street became a tourist strip lined with antique shops, clothing, embroidery and jewellery stores, and carpet dealers. In Across Asia on the Cheap, the first Lonely Planet guide, published in 1973, Tony Wheeler described Chicken Street as “the freak centre of Kabul”.

Hippie capitalism became commonplace. As some travelled, they looked for local products to sell back home in the West and, if they made a good profit, imported more.

Richard Neville, the Australian of Oz Magazine fame, who bought a pustincha for himself while travelling overland from Sydney to London in 1965, encouraged this commerce.

In Play Power, his 1970 manifesto and manual for hippies, Neville recognised the larger exchange of dress occurring in Afghanistan and other countries on the Hippie Trail. He advised:

Sell your western-styled jeans in Nepal, and your long leather boots in Morocco. Once you could make 500% profit bringing back sheepskin jackets from Kabul, and you can triple your money with antique robes.

Read more:
With energy, ideas and cheek to spare, Richard Neville was the boy of OZ

Rock ‘n’ roll

Craig Sams, a young American who also travelled through Kabul in 1965 before settling in London, became a supplier.

His prime outlet was Granny Takes a Trip — London’s weirdest, most extreme, most exotic, hippest boutique — on the King’s Road in Chelsea, which soon eclipsed Carnaby Street as London’s fashion centre. At first, Granny Takes a Trip sold Victorian clothes, often modified to create a slightly modern feel. By 1967, when it began stocking pustinchas, its range included Charleston dresses of the 1920s, Victorian bustles from the 1880s, Boer War helmets, African fezes, Arab headdresses and Chicago gangster suits from the prohibition era.

The pustinchas were bought by men and women as Granny Takes a Trip was one of the first boutiques not to differentiate male from female dress. But it was men, particularly rock and pop stars, who brought Afghan jackets and coats to public attention.

Jimi Hendrix wore his orange-red, brocaded, sleeveless pustincha over an iridescent purple shirt with huge flared sleeves in one of the first all-star rock events in England, at the Kensington Olympia in London. Syd Barrett of Pink Floyd and Pete Townshend of The Who also wore them on stage. Eric Burdon, of House of the Rising Sun fame, got married in his.

All four Beatles wore pustinchas inside-out in their film of the Magical Mystery Tour and on the album’s cover. When the Beatles tried their hand at retail, their Apple Boutique had shelves of them. From across the Atlantic, it appeared to Life in 1968 that pustinchas had been “launched last season in England by the Beatles and their followers”.

Read more:
Friday essay: why traditional Persian music should be known to the world

Global appeal

Abracadabra, Manhattan’s first psychedelic boutique, soon followed. Its interior was lit by fluorescent tubes set on a flicker-flash sequence, which had particular impact since Abracadabra was filled with mirrors like a penny arcade. Its shop window featured a motorised hanger that made the clothes on it “rock ’n’ roll”.

When one hippie traveller returned from Afghanistan with five pustinchas at the start of 1968, Ira Seret of Abracadabra put them in its window where they were spotted by designer Anne Klein, who had just made leather fashionable for the New York outfitter Mallory’s. When Klein asked Seret to secure more and his original provider failed to deliver, Seret went to Afghanistan himself.

That summer and autumn, pustinchas were in Bloomingdale’s and Macy’s and all the glossies. Vogue reported that Afghan “coats and weskits beautifully embroidered in silk floss colours” were being “shovelled out the door” by Limbo, a boutique in New York’s East Village. Life magazine featured pustinchas sent by Ira Seret to Mallory’s, worn by five female models “over bright silk jump suits and slung about with yards of Mideast jewellery”. Harper’s Bazaar devoted two pages to Mallory’s embroidered and braided vests, again presented as womenswear.

Peak pustinchas

The coats were cheap compared to most fashionable western clothes, even after Afghan makers more than doubled their prices in response to international demand. The one complaint was that they smelled foul when wet, due to a skin curing process more akin to pickling than tanning. This lead to Kabul’s first drycleaners to offer “exclusive no-smell treatments”.

By 1969, many more pustinchas were being worn outside Afghanistan than within it, as they maintained their appeal with the most beautiful people and became part of youth’s uniform.

The enduring audience for the pustincha was, however, downmarket — their iconic status confirmed in 1971 by artist Ronald Searle in a cover drawing for the New Yorker of a long-haired, bearded, barefoot hippie with flared trousers, shoulderbag, headband and pustincha.

Their international embrace fuelled new enthusiasm for Afghan clothing among some of Kabul’s elite who accepted that women should unveil but wanted Afghans to fight against foreign influences and keep Afghan customs alive.

Kabul also replaced Ghazni as the Afghan centre of pustincha production.

In 1968, the biggest sweatshop employed 30 workers. In 1970, when demand surged not only in the United States and Europe but also, for the first time, in Japan, one company employed 160 embroiderers who completed 30 to 40 coats each day. Another company built a hostel for its 250–300 embroiderers, primarily widows and young women from the provinces where there were many skilled needleworkers.

As these coats spread round the world, they fuelled awareness of Afghanistan, even if not quite as much as one Kabuli dealer boasted to the New York Times “Before no one remembered Afghanistan,” he said. “Now everybody remembers.”

This essay is an extract from Two Afternoons in the Kabul Stadium: A History of Afghanistan Through Clothes, Carpets and the Camera, to be published August 3 by Text Publishing.

Tim Bonyhady received funding from the Australian Research Council.

– ref. Friday essay: how ‘Afghan’ coats left Kabul for the fashion world and became a hippie must-have – https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-how-afghan-coats-left-kabul-for-the-fashion-world-and-became-a-hippie-must-have-165007

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

Anthony Albanese this week sent a clear message – he intends to use John Howard’s 1996 model as his strategic guide to the election.

With this in mind, it was predictable the opposition leader would embrace the government’s stage three tax cuts, which benefit middle and higher income earners, despite Labor for years denouncing them on equity grounds.

Anyway, Labor couldn’t have guaranteed it would be able to scrap or cap them. They’re already legislated, which would have left their fate in the Senate’s hands. If the opposition had based spending promises on the money saved from ditching them, that would have made its costings flaky.

It was also unsurprising Labor walked away from its policy, taken to two elections, to curb negative gearing and slash the capital gains tax discount.

Read more:
View from The Hill: Labor wouldn’t disturb tax cuts, negative gearing in ‘small target’ strategy

The Liberals in 1996 eschewed their boldness of 1993, curled into an inoffensive ball, and relied primarily on people swinging against the Keating government.

Such tactics don’t always work, and there’s a strong argument voters looking to change government want an appealing alternative. But given the situation Albanese faces, being as small a target as possible – including limiting his range of election promises – is a sensible course.

This election won’t be a contest where either side has a charismatic leader. Or where there’s any compelling “vision” on offer, much as the protagonists will claim otherwise.

It will be a battle of the pragmatists, of two grey men who are, nevertheless, canny campaigners.

Scott Morrison desperately hopes that by polling day – in May at the latest – we’ll be clearly on our way to some sort of normality, allowing him to say, “I got you through the crisis”.

His opponent is banking on the government’s mistakes remaining sharp enough in people’s minds for them to mark down the Coalition, making Morrison the first Australian leader to become victim of pandemic incumbency.

Even more than usual, the 2022 campaign is unlikely to tell us much about what the winner will be doing by, say, 2024.

Every new term brings its surprises, because circumstances change and leaders don’t reveal all their intentions. Howard promised he’d “never ever” bring in a GST, and produced a policy for one in his first term.

COVID accentuates the uncertainty. In the campaign, focus will still centre on the exit journey. Albanese will need to be convincing on how he’d deal with its challenge.

Whoever wins, voters will likely be buying a pig in a poke for the longer term.

Albanese has upset some on Labor’s left by Monday’s tax decisions, mulled over for months then rushed through a virtual caucus meeting that morning.

His rationale is that whatever policies Labor has, they are useless unless it can win power. As Gough Whitlam famously said when dealing with a recalcitrant state branch of the ALP, “the impotent are pure”.

The caucus meeting saw questions but not opposition to the tax decisions.

There’ll be a degree of concern about how they’ll go down in left wing seats. But even if there’s leakage to the Greens Labor can assume most of those votes would return via preferences. For Albanese, the task is to gather votes in the centre.

Bill Shorten’s strategy of presenting an extensive, expensive and politically risky program gave the Coalition the broadest possible front on which to attack Labor.

Next year, the government will have to scratch around a good deal more in its targeting – although parties are endlessly creative in devising scares.

It may focus on Albanese himself, homing in on his inner city “leftie” profile (except the “leftie” part is now pretty diluted). But the Liberals won’t have the advantage of facing an inherently unpopular opponent, as they did with Shorten. Albanese does not attract the same level of active dislike.

Last election climate policy, which should have been a strong positive for Labor, became a trouble point. Albanese is yet to produce the revamped version, which will come after the Glasgow climate conference. It will require adroit management, given internal party differences and separate imperatives for coal seats and inner city electorates. He’ll need to convince workers in the fossil fuel sector that Labor would provide adequate structural adjustment for them as the economy transitions to clean energy.

Morrison remains mired in difficulties on climate, as he attempts to move to a firm 2050 net zero target while facing resistance from within the Nationals. Whatever the outcome, it will probably be an uneasy one. The climate issue is scratchy for both sides.

One unknown is the part Labor premiers might play in the election run up. Daniel Andrews, Annastacia Pałaszczuk, and Mark McGowan have all been subject to federal government attacks – they may return serve, directly or indirectly. If they judge Albanese has a fair chance, they may also calculate they want to get some brownie points for later.

Crucially important for Morrison and Albanese is how the economy pans out over the next few months. That hinges largely on NSW – Morrison’s home state and where he has hoped to pick up seats.

This week NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian announced another month of lockdown. The latest COVID case numbers in Sydney are bad. Pessimists believe the extension mightn’t be enough to do the job.

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg has flagged Australia’s September quarter growth number is likely to be negative and indicated the December quarter is up in the air. No wonder the federal government is throwing a heap of money at the state.

Read more:
View from The Hill: Morrison shakes money tree again in bid to avoid second recession

Two negative quarters would be a second recession – announced, given the delay in the statistics, just before the election. For a government with economic management at the core of its pitch and a V-shaped recovery to boast about after the recent recession, that would be a body blow. Whether, however, in such a time of uncertainty voters would desert the Coalition or be afraid of change is anyone’s guess.

Another view is that a bad September quarter could mean the December bounce back is strong enough to keep the economy out of recession.

With the future and fortunes in flux, Albanese has every reason to be hard-nosed about lightening his boat, even if some of the faithful are dismayed at seeing prized treasure going overboard.

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: Albanese lightens his boat, ahead of the battle of the ‘grey men’ – https://theconversation.com/grattan-on-friday-albanese-lightens-his-boat-ahead-of-the-battle-of-the-grey-men-165331