Allegations of “hijacking and manipulation” of a Papua New Guinea national government sanctioned validation exercise at the Porgera mine in Enga province have been raised, reports the PNGPost-Courier.
Tieni Wuape clan leader from the Special Mining Lease (SML) Janet Yuwi told the Post-Courier that a landowner group was allegedly misleading the Mining Department team in Porgera on unsanctioned venues for the validation process.
“A public notice published by the Ministry of Mining in the print media recently had sanctioned sites, villages and communities to be visited during the validation exercise but that was not happening,” she said.
Yuwi said she had waited in vain at Yarik Kanaga on the date scheduled which was on Monday, July 26, with other clan members.
She said the landowners were later informed that the voting was hosted by Mamai clan at Panadaka village which was totally unacceptable and not according to the sanctioned sites.
“We saw the Mining Department’s notice on the paper (print media) dated 19 Jul, 2021 and we were at the site at Yarik, Kanaga, and we waited the whole day and later we heard that it was done at Panadaka village,” Yuwi said.
She said the landowners were happy with the state’s decision to allow SML landowners to appoint their new clan agents since the original agents have passed on and some were replaced by their sons.
‘Good initiative’ “It is such a good initiative to appoint new agents for a new Porgera.
“For the last 30 years, clan agents have been hiding and never informed landowners of their share.
“From such experience, we will appoint new agents who will be honest and remain in Porgera and not in Port Moresby,” Yuwi said.
She said the state team should work independently and refrain from favouring one group of landowners.
She said Prime Minister James Marape’s government was anticipating the completion of the validation exercise to enable the appointed agents from the 25 sub-clans to participate in mining development forums and other government sanctioned forums.
The reopening of the mine in early September will see Barrick paying out full benefits of all employees who were retrenched, including those in care and maintenance, and they will be recruited under the new Porgera mine structure.
The co-leader of New Zealand’s minority Māori Party has launched a blistering attack on white privilege and the opposition National Party which it accuses of “igniting racism” in the framing of a debate about radical political change.
In a provocative introduction to her weekly column in The New Zealand Herald today, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer asks: “Hey coloniser, so let me get this right, you want to lead a debate about indigenous rights that you helped to destroy?”
She writes in her media message to Pākehā colonisers: “You dishonour Te Tiriti [1840 Treaty of Waitangi, New Zealand’s founding political partnership document] and promote continuing to do so.
“You stole our land and our language. You denounce our history, preferring to educate on anything but us. And you have done nothing to reverse this, instead preferring to ignore the problems.
“We are in an inherently white system that you designed, yet you feel oppressed that Māori want to stop the pain of inequities. Your systemic racism continues to perpetuate intergenerational trauma, which you refuse to accept.”
While acknowledging that National Party leader Judith Collins claimed that New Zealanders “find racism abhorrent”, she added that “in my opinion she is igniting racism through a carefully deployed campaign — apparently with the help of former leader Don Brash”.
Ngarewa-Packer says New Zealanders are entitled to a conversation about radical change, but they are not “counteracting with alternative solutions”, preferring to focus on what she saw as the “misery of struggling Māori whānau”.
‘White hypocrisy’ Criticising what she describes as “white hypocrisy”, Ngarewa-Packer called instead for a “debate about the coloniser’s entitlements”.
“And rather than start on a timeline plucked out to help lift right-wing leaders’ dying polls, let’s start at the beginning: 181 years ago, and discuss the rights of tangata whenua and the radical change needed in Aotearoa to see those rights fulfilled,” she said.
“And yes, I hear you. Why should you pay for your ancestors’ mistakes? But why should we, either?
“No one can give our language, lives, and land (actually this is possible) back. There is no true price for our tāonga. But we must at least stop the lying and stop making a mockery of tangata whenua with this pathetic dog-whistling.”
Ngarewa-Packer says a debate was needed on how New Zealand economy had been built off the “displacement of tangata whenua”.
“How tangata whenua are the largest benefactors to this nation, having accepted settlements worth 1 per cent loss of whenua stolen, in a process determined by the Crown!”
Disparity in the economy Among examples Ngarewa-Packer gave of the disparity between the Pākehā and Māori share of the economy, were the NZ$1.9m funding for Te Matatini, the “largest kapa haka event on the planet, versus $16.9m for the NZ Symphony Orchestra”.
She also cited the $250m spent on the America’s Cup this year.
Ngarewa-Packer has also called for less hypocrisy about “crackdowns needed to stop crime”
“Let’s turn our gaze to white-collar crime, which has seen an estimated $2 billion to $4 billion loss to Aotearoa, through tax avoidance and evasion.”
She added that Māori sought to “drive our own tino rangatiratanga [self-determination]”.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hannah Dahlen, Professor of Midwifery, Associate Dean Research and HDR, Midwifery Discipline Leader, Western Sydney University
Last week, pregnant women of all ages were added to Australia’s priority phase 1b of the COVID vaccine rollout. Pregnant women are now eligible for Pfizer.
But some are unclear if they should get vaccinated. Our survey (still ongoing) of 519 women who had a baby 12 months ago asked their intention to be vaccinated. We found 62% said they would, 12% wouldn’t and 26% were unsure, mainly due to fears over safety during pregnancy and breastfeeding.
Increasingly, international evidence supports the safety of COVID vaccines for pregnant women and demonstrates it is effective at preventing severe disease. Here’s what it says so far.
The peak medical body for Australian obstetricians and gynaecologists recently updated its advice in a joint statement with the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (ATAGI), the government’s vaccine advisory group.
The two groups recommend:
pregnant women are routinely offered Pfizer mRNA vaccine (Cominarty) at any stage of pregnancy […] because the risk of severe outcomes from COVID-19 is significantly higher for pregnant women and their unborn baby.
There are also other benefits. During pregnancy, antibodies that pass through the umbilical cord may offer protection to the baby. We don’t know how long this protection lasts.
The statement also recommends breastfeeding women should get vaccinated. Evidence suggests antibodies pass to the baby through breastmilk and may protect the baby.
Why the change?
The main reason the advice has changed is new data from recently published studies.
A study from the United States of 827 pregnant women who had mRNA vaccines such as Pfizer, mostly in their third trimester, found no safety concerns.
The rates of miscarriage (12.6%), stillbirth (one baby), preterm birth (9.4%) small babies (3.2%) and abnormalities in the baby (2.2%) were similar to what would be expected in an unvaccinated group of women.
This study is still under way and includes nearly 4,000 pregnant women in total, many of whom were yet to give birth when this paper was published.
In July, a paper from Israel looked at 7,530 pregnant women who were vaccinated and 7,530 unvaccinated pregnant women.
Rates of COVID were higher among unvaccinated pregnant women (202) than vaccinated pregnant women (118).
Of the pregnant women who were vaccinated, 68 reported possible vaccine-related side effects, such as headache, body aches, pain at the injection site, but none were severe or prolonged or different to non-pregnant people. There was no difference in any other pregnancy outcomes.
The research so far hasn’t detected any safety concerns. Shutterstock
What about clinical trials?
The studies above looked at what was happening in real world data, rather than testing the vaccine in trials, where people don’t know if they got the vaccine or a placebo (disguised as a vaccine).
Pregnant women are often excluded from vaccine trials. This is because vaccinating pregnant women has the potential to affect both mother and baby, and testing medications on them rightly makes us nervous.
But while animal studies of COVID vaccines show no fertility or pregnancy effects, we need more than mouse models to test safety and efficacy in humans. Calls are therefore growing for pregnant women to be involved in trials.
One such trial of Pfizer involving pregnant women is currently under way but only started in February this year so data won’t be available yet.
Real world data from the UK and US
In the UK, the professional bodies for midwives, obstetricians and gynaecologists have expressed concern about the effect easing restrictions will have on pregnant women.
One in ten pregnant women admitted to hospital with COVID symptoms in the UK go to intensive care. These women are more likely to have a baby born early (preterm), develop high blood pressure, need a caesarean during labour and become very ill, particularly after 28 weeks.
More than 100 pregnant women have been admitted to hospital in the UK in the past couple of weeks with COVID; none had received both doses of the vaccine and five had one dose.
Unvaccinated pregnant women are more likely to be admitted to hospital than those who have been immunised. Shutterstock
Meanwhile in the US, more than 130,000 pregnant women have received a COVID vaccine to date, and the data so far is reassuring. Side effects such as getting a sore arm or headache or feeling tired are common but don’t appear to affect the pregnancy.
What else do pregnant women need to know?
The Pfizer vaccine is recommended in Australia for pregnant women and doesn’t contain live coronavirus or additional ingredients harmful to pregnant women.
It’s now one of three vaccines offered in pregnancy, along with the whooping cough (pertussis) and influenza vaccines.
have underlying medical issues such as high blood pressure, diabetes, asthma, heart disease, immune problems
are overweight
are over 35 years of age
in their final trimester.
So getting vaccinated before 28 weeks will offer protection for mother and baby in the riskiest time.
If you are pregnant, keep in mind no vaccine is 100% effective, so it’s important to continue social distancing, wearing masks when needed, and keeping up good hand hygiene.
The decision to get vaccinated as a pregnant woman is not an easy one. The decision should be the woman’s and that decision should be informed and free of pressure or misinformation.
Hannah Dahlen 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.
Can we find alien technology? That is the ambitious goal of the Galileo Project, launched this week by Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb with substantial private financial backing.
The project is far from the first attempt to detect signs of civilisations beyond Earth. Loeb has been criticised in the past for his dismissive approach to previous efforts to find extraterrestrial life and his argument that an alien artefact passed through our solar system in 2017.
So why do Loeb and his collaborators think they have a chance of finding something where others have failed? There are three triggers that suggest they might.
Exoplanets, ‘Oumuamua, and UFOs
First, years of painstaking observations have shown that many stars host Earth-like planets. There is a real chance these “exoplanets” might be home to alien civilisations.
Second, five years ago, an interstellar visitor, dubbed ‘Oumuamua, tumbled though our solar system. It was a skinny object about 400 metres long, and we know from its speed and trajectory that it arrived from outside our solar system. It was the first time we had ever seen an interstellar object enter our neighbourhood.
Unfortunately it caught us on the hop, and we didn’t notice it until it was on its way out. So we didn’t get a chance to have a really good look at it.
Scientists were divided on the question of what ‘Oumuamua might be. Many thought it was simply an interstellar shard of rock, even though we had no idea how such a shard might be produced or slung our way.
Others, including Loeb, thought there was a chance it was a spacecraft from another civilisation. Some scientists felt such claims to be far-fetched. Others pointed out that science should be open-minded and, in the absence of a good explanation, we should examine all plausible solutions.
Today, the question is still hanging. We don’t know whether ‘Oumuamua was a spaceship or merely an inert lump of rock.
The third trigger for the Galileo Project came from the US military. In June, the Office of the US Director of National Intelligence announced that some military reports of UFOs, or UAPs (Unidentified Aerial Phenomena) as they are now known, seem real.
Specifically, the report said some UAPs “probably do represent physical objects given that a majority of UAP were registered across multiple sensors” and there was no known explanation for them.
In other words, they aren’t meteorological phenomena, or faulty instruments, or weather balloons, or clandestine military experiments. So what are they?
Again, the question is left hanging. The report seems to rule out known technology, and suggests “advanced technology”, but stops short of suggesting it is the work of aliens.
Science to the rescue
Loeb takes the view that instead of debating whether either ‘Oumuamua or UAPs provide evidence of alien intelligence, we should do what scientists are good at: get some reliable data. And, he argues, scientists are the people to do it, not politicians or military staff. As the US report says, the sensors used by the military “are not generally suited for identifying UAP”.
Few subjects divide scientists as much as the existence of aliens. On one hand, there are serious SETI (Search for Extra-terrestrial Intelligence) projects, such as Project Phoenix and Breakthrough Listen, that use the world’s largest telescopes to search for signals from some extraterrestrial intelligence.
At the other extreme, few scientists are persuaded by the fuzzy photos and dubious eyewitness accounts that seem to characterise many UFO reports.
The Galileo Project is very different from SETI searches or collections of UFO sightings. Instead, it will explicitly search for evidence of alien artefacts, either in space or on Earth.
But is it science?
Is this science? Loeb is convinced that it is. He argues the Galileo Project will bring scientific techniques and expertise to bear on one of the most important questions we can ask: are we alone? And the project will build purpose-designed equipment, optimised for the detection of alien artefacts.
Will it find anything? The odds are poor, as Loeb admits. In essence it’s a fishing expedition. But if there is a prima facie case for the existence of alien technology, then science has a duty to investigate it.
But suppose they do find something? Will we get to hear about it, or will it be locked up in some future Area 51?
The Galileo Project has promised all data will be made public, and all results will be published in peer-reviewed journals. Indeed, one of the reasons it will not use existing military data is because much of it is classified, which would restrict the project’s freedom to make the results public.
Or perhaps the project will find natural explanations for ‘Oumuamua and UAPs. But even that will be a new scientific discovery, perhaps revealing new natural phenomena.
Ray Norris 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.
Selwyn Manning and Paul G. Buchanan discuss cyber-warfare, Pegasus, and the rise of hybrid tactics.
A View from Afar
PODCAST: Buchanan + Manning on Cyber-Attacks and the Evolution of Hybrid Warfare
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A View from Afar: Selwyn Manning and Paul Buchanan present this week’s podcast, A View from Afar with a deep-dive into cyber-attacks and hybrid warfare – Especially how 2021 has witnessed a Cold War II styled stand-off between global powers.
To re-cap, there has been:
Allegations of a global-scale hack by the People’s Republic of China.
There’s the Pegasus spyware scandal, where Israel has exported deep-tracking and targeting spyware to despots and authoritarian governments.
Then there’s been the relatively silent mission-creep of Palantir as a Western-oriented Public Private Partnership-styled signals “facilitator”.
Paul and Selwyn discuss how all of this sets 2021 apart and adds up to an evolution of hybrid warfare capabilities.
You can comment on this debate by clicking on one of these social media channels and interacting in the social media’s comment area. Here are the links:
Threat.Technology placed A View from Afar at 9th in its 20 Best Defence Security Podcasts of 2021 category. You can follow A View from Afar via our affiliate syndicators.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dominic O’Sullivan, Adjunct Professor, Faculty of Health and Environmental Sciences, Auckland University of Technology and Professor of Political Science, Charles Sturt University
GettyImages
The arrest of nine Fijian opposition politicians, including party leaders and two former prime ministers, once again exposes Fijian democracy’s fragility. The intimidation doesn’t bode well for the parliamentary elections due next year (or early 2023).
The political crisis has been overshadowed by Fiji’s COVID-19 crisis, which has seen more than 25,000 infections and over 100 deaths since April. Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama even used a COVID analogy when he called those arrested “super-spreaders of lies”.
While no charges have been laid, the nine are accused of inciting unrest by opposing a government bill to change the management of iTaukei (indigenous) land rights.
The original iTaukei Land Trust Act 1940 allows for long-term land leases to private interests. The idea is to maximise the economic return on land, while protecting it against permanent alienation.
The act aims to protect indigenous interests by prohibiting the sub-lease or raising of mortgages on leased land without the consent of the iTaukei Land Trust Board.
The proposed amendment would remove the requirement to obtain the board’s consent, and prevent land owners going to court to dispute land use.
Arresting the opposition
Bainimarama, who also chairs the board, says the bill’s purpose is to remove bureaucratic obstacles to minor activities such as arranging electricity or water supply. He says the board takes too long to provide consent and this is a constraint on economic development.
But critics of the bill, including some of those arrested, argue it will weaken iTaukei land rights. Opposition MP Lynda Tabuya was accused of a “malicious act” after she posted a “Say no to iTaukei Land Trust Bill” cover picture on Facebook last week.
In a separate post, demonstrating the low threshold for “malice” in modern Fiji, she asked:
What protection is left for landowners? This is absolutely illegal and a breach of human rights of landowners. This is not a race issue, this is a human rights issue and breaches Section 29 of the Fijian Constitution.
Tabuya is not alone. The National Federation Party has said the government has not properly consulted on the bill, and party leader Biman Prasad was among those arrested, along with former prime ministers Mahendra Chaudhry and Sitivini Rabuka.
Media coverage, too, has felt the effects of the arrests. For example, the Fiji Sun’s one story on the issue in its July 28 edition cited only supporters of the bill and offered no insight into why it was controversial.
This isn’t surprising, given Fijian journalism operates under a constitutional provision limiting its rights and freedoms “in the interests of national security, public safety, public order, public morality, public health or the orderly conduct of elections”.
The Fiji Times took a risk last week by publishing an opinion column arguing poor drafting and failure to consult meant the bill goes further than its purported aims of administrative simplicity and efficiency.
Beyond the legal complexities of the land bill, however, the real problem is political. As the article asks, “What’s the issue?”.
A military grip on power: Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama. GettyImages
Military interference
Coups in 1987 and 2006, and a putsch in 2000, happened because democracy failed to provide the perpetrators with the “right” answers to complex political questions at the intersection of class, military power and personal interest.
The rights of indigenous Fijians were always a side issue, as the present conflict shows.
The 2013 constitution established that “it shall be the overall responsibility of the Republic of Fiji Military Forces to ensure at all times the security, defence and well-being of Fiji and all Fijians”.
Military oversight of the workings of government is intentional and explicit. When
Bainimarama (then head of the military forces) led the 2006 coup, he was dismissive of accusations of political interference. If the military didn’t act against the government, he said, “this country is going to go to the dogs”.
He also claimed then-prime minister Laisenia Qarase was trying to weaken the army by attempting to remove him: “If he succeeds there will be no one to monitor them, and imagine how corrupt it is going to be.”
No room to move
Intimidation is political strategy in Fiji. The proposed amendments to the iTaukei Land Trust Act are not what is at stake — a functioning parliamentary process could identify and resolve any substantive disagreements.
The bigger issue is that autocratic leadership, and the national constitution itself, leave little room for Fijian citizens to work out for themselves the kind of society they want.
This also leaves little room for Fijians to demand more effective policy responses to their country’s COVID-19 crisis.
Dominic O’Sullivan 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.
The 2021 Close the Gap report declared the national agreement on Closing the Gap “a game changer” that sets a new standard for how governments work with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander organisations and communities.
The national agreement was signed a year ago and put its signatories on a 12-month timetable for action.
Since then, the Productivity Commission has released a new database for reporting on the government’s progress across 17 key socioeconomic indicators and on priority reforms when the data is available. The first report based on this data has been released today.
We are now at a crucial moment, with the federal, state and territory governments and the Coalition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peaks due to hand down their implementation plans and begin the task of annually reporting on their actions.
So, what will the new report provide and what else do we need to ensure the national agreement lives up to its promise for improved Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health and wellbeing?
Data on expanded socioeconomic targets
The minister for Indigenous Australians, Ken Wyatt, said the dashboard will bring all the data together
so that people can readily see the current situation and trajectories of indicators for each target, providing a level of transparency and access that we haven’t had before.
At this stage, the dashboard includes data on the 17 socioeconomic targets outlined in the national agreement, expanding on the original seven Closing the Gap targets on life expectancy and other health issues.
The expanded targets, which our people had urged for years, include the wider social and cultural determinants of health, such as language, housing, child protection, family violence, social and emotional wellbeing, and land and water access and rights.
These targets provide a focus on critical areas of need that have been long neglected in government policy.
Targets 10, 11 and 12, for instance, seek to address over-representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in the criminal justice and child protection systems. This is crucial given the failures to implement the recommendations of the 1991 Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody.
Target 16 is to ensure Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and languages are “strong, supported and flourishing.”
However, it appears the target only addresses languages, calling for a sustained increase in the number and strength of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages being spoken by 2031. The dashboard reports there are 123 currently spoken, but only 14 languages considered “strong”.
While language is a vital component of culture, it is only one of the cultural determinants of health for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
Therefore, there is an opportunity to further expand the data and reporting for this target to include other components of culture, such as cultural knowledge, expression and continuity, and strong kinship systems.
The reliability of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander data is also an issue. For example, the life expectancy indicator requires both census and mortality data, but the most recent census may undercount Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples by approximately 17%.
In addition, there is evidence that misclassification of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander deaths is increasing over time, potentially inflating life expectancy and artificially closing the gap. Therefore, improving the quality of data will be beneficial to all.
The continuation of cultural knowledge, expression, and strong kinship systems needs to be a priority with Closing the Gap targets. Claudine Van Massenhove/ Shutterstock
Exploring new ways to track progress
The dashboard is a positive step, but just reporting on the 17 targets alone cannot deliver the change we need.
It is imperative we track progress on the four priority reform areas in the national agreement. They are:
sharing decision-making through formal partnership arrangements with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander organisations
building the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community-controlled sector
improving mainstream institutions and government organisations
sharing access to data and increasing the amount of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander-led data.
These reforms provide momentum for a critical shift in the current approach to data reporting and most significantly, the way all governments and mainstream organisations work with us.
According to the dashboard, data to address the indicators for each priority reform is currently under development.
For example, in the third priority reform area is a target to decrease the proportion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who have experiences of racism.
Data will include the numbers of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people “reporting experiences of racism” and those who feel “culturally safe in dealing with government, mainstream institutions and agencies”. However, this data is yet to be collected by governments, let alone reported on.
And significant work remains to be done across government institutions and agencies to ensure they better understand what racism is and implement strategies to prevent racism from occurring.
Why stories and truth-telling also matter
A recommendation from the 2021 Close the Gap report was to invest in local Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander data development and infrastructure to help communities collect better data and control what is done with it.
For the database to fully play the critical role intended, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples need to have access to and control of the data that it draws on, particularly at the local community level.
For us, data are not simply numbers. This data represent our story as peoples, so the numbers need to be humanised and embodied through both story-telling and truth-telling.
We can look to the work of Mabu Liyan by the Yawuru people who stepped away from a Western-centric view of health and, with their communities, defined what wellbeing and a good life mean to them.
This is an excellent example of communities filling gaps in the data and collecting information that is important to them, an approach that needs to become the rule rather than the exception.
The Productivity Commission’s database is a great step forward and we eagerly await further developments, knowing they will have a stronger focus on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander language and narratives to assist in interpreting the data.
However, the database still relies on data from a Western-centric world view, and we are yet to see details from governments about how they plan to meet both the targets and reforms in the national agreement.
A comprehensive way to access data on Closing the Gap progress is helpful, but human commitment and transparency is what will achieve change. This work requires nationally reported planning, a commitment to monitoring and evaluation, and mechanisms for gathering data on actions taken and outcomes achieved.
Better data, including data owned by communities themselves, and better ways of working with us are the missing pieces of the puzzle. They need to be fully embraced and implemented if we are to truly have “a game changer”.
Janine Mohamed 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.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tim Soutphommasane, Professor of Practice (Sociology and Political Theory) Director, Culture Strategy, University of Sydney
DAN HIMBRECHTS/AAP
It’s four more weeks of lockdown for Sydneysiders, with no end yet in sight. NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian is still to outline a roadmap out.
Sydney feels like it is going through COVID Groundhog Day right now. And not just because many are having to cope with being confined to home or struggling to stay on top of homeschooling.
Australia’s public policy approach to COVID also hasn’t significantly shifted from the settings of 2020. Despite the advent of astonishingly powerful vaccines and lessons from across the world, we still seem fixated on getting cases down to zero. We are also reliant on lockdowns.
Even Berejiklian, once so resistant to lockdowns, has now fallen into line.
It is vital, of course, that we vigorously control the current outbreak. We can’t afford to let the virus run rampant. Too many remain vulnerable as most Australians have not yet been offered the opportunity to be fully vaccinated.
But we have to prepare for a new future. Despite frequent promises, we have no focus on the more fundamental question about how we transition to reopening and rebuilding.
How can we learn from the examples of other countries that have adapted their public policies in the face of the Delta variant? What plans can we start putting in place now to safely reopen to the rest of the world when our vaccination rates eventually catch up?
The lessons learned in other countries
COVID-19 will be with the world for at least the foreseeable future. Experts tell us it will become endemic. The challenge then is to learn to live with the virus effectively, protecting public health while restoring freedoms and reconnecting with each other.
Countries around the world have taken different approaches to this challenge.
The UK has placed most of its confidence in vaccinations, with almost all pandemic restrictions now lifted and a plan to allow people who were fully vaccinated in the US and the European Union, and arriving from safer countries, to begin travelling to the UK without quarantining.
While there are many critics of the UK’s overall strategy, the country is also widely deploying rapid antigen home testing, which enables people to ascertain their own risk to others before they step out into crowded streets. Infection numbers have fallen in recent weeks, with some suggesting the country is perhaps reaching endemic equilibrium.
France is taking another route, with a firmer focus on mandating vaccinations. Parliament this week approved a bill that will require a health pass (proof they are fully vaccinated, recently tested negative or recently recovered from the virus) to enter restaurants, bars, trains and planes.
France’s health pass for restaurants and travel will come into force in August. Michel Euler/AP
And in the US, President Joe Biden has unveiled a new door-to-door campaign in which health workers are literally knocking on doors to counter misinformation about vaccines and convince people to get the jabs.
Meanwhile, many countries that have pursued a zero-COVID path have struggled. Taiwan, once a success story in countering the virus, has only just emerged from more than two months of partial lockdown.
Like Australia, it has failed to vaccinate its population quickly enough – just 28% of Taiwanese people have had a single dose and only 1% are fully vaccinated.
Plans we could put in place now
For Australia to plan its next steps, we need to break the psychological hold that “zero Covid” has had on us for many months. We need to shift our attention to a long-term strategy for minimising hospitalisations and death.
Two months ago, a taskforce we convened published a “roadmap to reopening” that called for a staged, controlled and safe re-engagement with the world.
We recommended the creation of travel bubbles prior to the conclusion of the nationwide vaccination program — namely, piloting programs for fully vaccinated foreign nationals with negative COVID tests to enter Australia for education or to work in specific industries, such as horticultural agriculture.
We also called for improving government messaging on vaccinations to challenge the terrible misinformation that has been spread, particularly about the AstraZeneca vaccine. And we argued that fully vaccinated people within Australia should be granted specific exemptions from some of the more onerous restrictions as a way of incentivising vaccinations further.
In addition, Australian states should be working to keep our schools open — even during outbreaks – by vaccinating our teachers, improving ventilation, mandating masks where required and deploying rapid testing. The NSW government’s plan to introduce rapid antigen testing at schools for Year 12 students is a welcome announcement, but more needs to be done.
Lastly, we urge the prime minister to make a more concrete plan to reopen the country. There should be a clear target date set for easing our domestic border restrictions and reopening our international borders. We should also move to home quarantine restrictions for fully vaccinated travellers and those travelling with negative tests from safer countries.
All of these measures should be in our grasp. If we look beyond ourselves, we see other forward-looking, democratic countries have chosen to work towards a staged, controlled and safe reopening with the rest of the world. Once the immediate crisis has passed, it’s time that became our choice, too.
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.
This article is part of a series providing school students with evidence-based advice for choosing subjects in their senior years.
History is for students curious about the world. It involves discovery, evaluation and imagination.
Around 40% of Australian senior students chose to study year 11 and 12 history in 2016. It was more popular than other humanities subjects such as geography and psychology and more girls chose to enrol (23%) than boys (18%).
Here’s what you need to know if you’re considering taking history in the senior years.
Australian history is only available in Victoria. It investigates Aboriginal history and contact with colonialists, through to Federation and 20th century nation building. But the subject is losing popularity. The number of students who completed Australian history almost halved between 2014 and 2019, from 1,245 in 2014 to just 632 in 2019.
Teachers are aiming to make it more interesting and the structure of Australian history will change next year. Instead of learning the entire span of Australian history chronologically, Victorian students will conduct two semester-length investigations of themes including creating a nation, power and resistance, and war and upheaval.
Australian history explores how we got to the present, from Aboriginal history to building the nation of Australia as we know it today. (Map of Australia published in Le Tour du Monde journal, Paris, 1860) Shutterstock
Ancient history and revolutions explores societies such as Ancient Egypt, classical Rome and Greece with a focus on politics, military and social history. Revolutions includes an in-depth study of French, American and Russian revolutions.
Year 12 student Taylah told us she took ancient history because:
I always had a fascination with the ancient Egyptian civilisation. I was especially interested in how civilisations have or haven’t learned from the past.
Modern history is available in New South Wales and Queensland. This generally focuses on prominent topics and events from the French Revolution to the present. It covers major conflicts such as the world wars, the Cold War, the Vietnam war, international race relations and peace initiatives such as the beginnings of the United Nations.
Modern history was the most popular course in NSW in 2020, with similar numbers of boys and girls choosing it.
Uniquely, NSW offers an extension history course, which examines historical theory and the uses of history today. This course features a major research project that places students in the role of a historian, extending learning beyond content to communicate conceptual understandings.
What will I be learning?
History is for students interested in understanding the origins of the present and who like to see beyond simple, right-or-wrong answers.
Samantha who is studying teaching at university told us she chose history in years 11 and 12 because:
It always fascinated me how history made the world we live in. I also thought it was interesting how in Australia we are so tied to the Western world, considering geographically we are quite removed.
History isn’t just about learning facts like names and dates. Senior history opens up knowledge to be questioned and explored in depth. For example, students can compare and contrast the revolutions of France and Russia and investigate whether and how the first world war was a precursor to the second.
Students can compare the Russian the French revolutions. (Funeral of people killed by Czarist police on Feb 26, 1917 St. Petersburg, Russia) Shutterstock
Jack who has a bachelor in business studies told us he:
enjoyed the combination of skills involved in studying history: writing, critical analysis and assessment of a range of different sources such as books, film and interviews.
A major skill students learn is historical inquiry. This means finding out about the past by researching information from different perspectives, locations and times. Students synthesise information to form a historical evidence-based argument.
Let’s take competing perspectives on Aboriginal civilisation before the British arrived in Australia. For years, our history textbooks told us Aboriginal people were hunter gatherers moving from place to place. But more recent evidence claims many Aboriginal people cultivated the land for farming and aquaculture.
There is still debate about this in the media and in the classroom. Students could research the topic for themselves, read up on the different types of evidence and present their own conclusions.
History is best suited to students who enjoy research as well as reading and writing an argument in response to a question. Students need to be prepared for assigned reading and extended writing tasks.
Where history takes you after school?
Many careers are open to those who study history in senior school and later at university. Some careers that come directly from history study include:
historian, genealogist (family history researcher) or archaeologist
school teacher
museum guide, curator, or education officer (someone who develops education materials and experiences in museums and other public history sites)
research officer for a policy institution, a member of parliament or industry think tank
librarian or archivist (including in conservation and preservation).
Senior curator at a rail museum, Jennifer, told us:
History was the only subject I liked. I chose modern and ancient history for senior because I hoped to have a career in history. I loved learning, analysing and evaluating, finding different sources and opinions, and deep discussions in class. Still choosing history today.
But you don’t just have to take history for a career in it. History also helps develop a range of employment-related skills.
Many employers appreciate skills such as being able to write and communicate effectively and persuasively, to think critically, to consider multiple perspectives and to logically consider consequences based on evidence.
These skills are vital for careers such as in journalism, law, human resources, policy, diplomacy, and other jobs that require critical thinking and clear communication skills.
Rebecca, who studied modern and ancient history in school in Brisbane and then at university told us:
Studying social sciences gives a greater understanding and interest of the wider world […] I work in the UK public service now, and history provides you with excellent analytical, investigation and communication skills. Lots of people in my office have history degrees.
You can use the research and analytical skills you learn in history in careers like archiving, being a librarian or a researcher in parliament. Shutterstock
When selecting subjects for senior school, there is one important consideration that is often overlooked or set aside. The senior years are hectic. Students should choose at least some of their school subjects for themselves, because they like them and they think the subject is valuable for them.
For many students, history is one of these subjects. By investigating the past, students discover insights about humans and the world they have inherited. These can help them find the paths they will take beyond school.
Read the other articles in our series on choosing senior subjects, here.
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.
In 2014, a Florida real estate group began advertising its latest in a series of luxury condominiums designed by global “starchitects”.
The ads featured photorealistic computer-generated imagery inhabited by rich and beautiful people lounging by the rooftop pool; staring languidly out towards the endless view of the sea from expansive balconies; working out in the lavishly appointed gym.
Its marketing slogan? “I don’t want realism. I want magic.”
This world of magical hyper-luxury also underpins the appeal of reality television shows like the new Luxe Listings Sydney, Sunset Selling, Million Dollar Listing and the soon to be revived MTV Cribs.
The real estate voyeurism of these shows — and, pre-reality TV, of glossy magazines like Architectural Digest (which now has its own luxury YouTube channel), World of Interiors, Belle or Vogue Living — uses the eye of the camera to place us inside these otherwise hidden and inaccessible worlds.
A similar voyeuristic impulse might drive us to slip into our neighbours’ homes when they are up for sale. Instead of twitching the curtains and pretending we were never looking at all, an open-for-inspection allows us to wander through the most private aspects of another’s domain while imagining: “What if I lived here, instead of them?”
Nary a penny to spend
Despite all the disruptions of the pandemic, property prices in Australian cities have continued their rise and housing affordability has become even more out of reach. But our current pandemic era seems to be witnessing an intensification of the escape into fantasy.
Why do we exhibit an insatiable appetite for property voyeurism and fantasy at a time when young people, especially, are less and less likely to be able to afford housing at all? Why do we love to scroll, watch, swipe and drool over luxury property on television, in magazines and via social media?
In May, New Yorker writer Anna Wiener explored Instagram feeds of “renderporn”: hyperrealistic computer-generated architectural renderings of pure fantasy luxury interiors which will never be built.
They represent the denial of real-world constraints and the promise of not just escapism, but of financial escapism. Puzzling over the strangely soothing effect of such images, she wrote:
nothing is unaffordable in a [computer-generated] dreamscape, and rent is never due.
From Louis’ court to Trump’s penthouse
Showing off via property — even unbuilt property — has a long history.
In the 18th century, the opulence of the “Louis-style” of the French court was captured in engravings and pattern books compiled by artists and architects circulated throughout Europe (and even further afield — Jesuit designers brought Baroque style to the Imperial Court in Beijing).
The mania for wide-scale luxury consumption began on the cusp of the Industrial Revolution through the dissemination of images of luxury in books and prints. It accelerated throughout the 19th century with its diffusion into the upper realms of the emergent bourgeoise.
The château, hôtel particulier, villa, townhouse, country house and, eventually, apartment became the perfect vessels for the display of fashionable luxury. Architects and other designers were called upon to transform these images into built realities (or, in the language of MTV, “pimp my crib”).
All too often, desire outpaced means. Even wealthy individuals plunged themselves into crippling debt in their efforts to, literally, keep up appearances.
Over the period of the Trump presidency, much was made of large portions of the American electorate retreating into the realm of conspiracy theories, magical thinking and belief in wishful narratives baring little relationship to truth or reality.
President Donald J. Trump and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in the President’s private residence at Trump Tower in New York City, 2018. Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead
Some psychologists say this flight into fantasy is the direct result of declining economic prospects and of certain social groups feeling like unnecessary bit-players in the national story.
Whatever the complex underlying reasons, note this: Trump was a figure who had built a global brand on the associations of luxury property, supercharged by reality television.
Trading in fantasies
Small tokens of luxury, or even images of luxury, might provide some satisfaction and solace beyond just signalling one’s aspirations, however unrealistic.
Perhaps especially when such aspirations are wildly unrealistic.
When stable employment, sick pay and annual leave, wages growth, housing security and affordability have been eroded for decades, the economy of images might feel more dependable than the real economy.
A large part of sustaining a market that fundamentally depends on speculation in the financial sense is the encouragement of speculation in a more personalised sense: the speculation of fantasies.
Fantasy and escapism are well documented responses to stress and anxiety. What better way to soothe one’s rising panic at the level of debt required to buy even a basic Australian suburban home, or the prospect of even that being permanently out of reach? Switch on the TV and stream someone else’s home. I don’t want realism. I want magic.
This line was not dreamed up by a Florida marketing team. It comes from the brute theatrical naturalism of Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire.
It is the desperate and wishful plea of Blanche DuBois as she clings to the façade of her supposed Southern gentility, the mask concealing her precipitous downward social spiral.
Maybe we are all a little bit Blanche now. Our cultural preoccupation with luxury property television, magazines and Instagram images would certainly seem to suggest so.
Andrew Toland 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.
Have you been vaccinated yet? And if you have, are you one of a growing number of people who posted a selfie on social media afterwards? At a time when many people distrust government advertising, vaccine selfies — or “vaxxies” — may well be the secret weapon to encourage more people to get the jab.
Suddenly our Facebook, Twitter and Instagram feeds are filling up with selfies of family, friends and even strangers getting their COVID shot.
But vaxxies are more than mere selfies, as they have a unique social function. They are likely helping normalise the vaccine procedure, reducing hesitancy around perceived risks and increasing vaccine trust within social circles.
As of July 21, more than 10.6 million COVID vaccine doses had been administered in Australia. As time passes, more and more people are showing their support by posting about their vaccination experience online.
Normally, we see this type of behaviour demonstrating “civic duty” during elections or with social movements such as Pride or Black Lives Matter. We’re now seeing similar posts involving vaccination, using a variety of hashtags including #vaxxie, #GetVaccinated, #GetVaccinatedNow, #Vaccination and #jab.
In friends we trust
The vaxxie could be a useful tool in encouraging people to get vaccinated. Over the past decade in particular, there has been an erosion of trust in traditional advertising and a huge surge in social media use.
This means word-of-mouth recommendations and reviews from people we know (and even people we don’t) are often considered more “authentic” than standard advertising and government messaging.
Research indicates we look to our friends, family and social groups for guidance during uncertain times. They provide us with subjective norms: the desire to behave as those who are significant to us think we should.
This results in social pressure to engage in certain behaviours. If our family and friends are posting vaxxies, it’s an implicit nudge for us to get vaccinated too. And as reported vaccine shortages continue and demand grows, seeing vaxxies can also increase our fear of missing out (FOMO).
In-groups and out-groups
In the same way one shows support for social movements on social media, sharing a vaxxie communicates your position on vaccinations — you are either pro-vax or anti-vax. Essentially, you are either with us or against us: a hallmark of classic in-group/out-group behaviour.
The psychology of the in-group/out-group is best illustrated using social identity theory. This theory states internal cohesion and loyalty to the in-group exists when the group members maintain a state of almost hostility or assertive opposition toward out-groups — which are often perceived as inferior.
This theory explains spectator behaviour at sporting events. As we see more of our friends sharing their vaxxies, we may desire to be a member of the “in-group”. But to be in this group, we need to get a jab (and show evidence with our own vaxxie).
The in-group pressure may be further increased when we see our political leaders or favourite celebrities get involved. US President Joe Biden, Dolly Parton and Sir Ian McKellen are just some of the icons whose vaccinations made headlines.
Dolly Parton posted her own vaxxie.
Risks of virtue signalling
One of the main risks in posting a vaxxie is it could alienate others through virtue signalling, which is when a person behaves in a way that highlights their own “good” moral values. People on Facebook will often loudly proclaim their support for a certain cause because they want to seem caring or “woke”.
But most of us aren’t impressed by those who overtly express their own moral correctness. There’s a fine line between encouraging others to engage in a certain behaviour and coming across as self-righteous.
There may also be an element of mob mentality at play with vaxxies. Due to excessive pressure from peers, some may find themselves getting vaccinated for emotional (versus rational) reasons. While the pressure to get vaccinated is arguably positive, some individuals may have legitimate concerns which they will suppress in order to conform.
That said, this is not the same as crowd behaviour which is often shrouded in anonymity and involves blindly following others. Vaxxies are personal, identifiable messages and are not anti-social.
Another risk with vaxxies is they may encourage “brand” competition. Vaxxie posters regularly include the hashtag of their vaccine: #pfizer or #astrazeneca.
Given the mixed messaging around AstraZeneca, could a proliferation of Pfizer vaxxies discourage people from seeking out AstraZeneca, at a time when we’re encouraged to take whichever option we can?
Despite the risks, however, it’s clear we will need a variety of tools to encourage people to get vaccinated during this crucial phase of the pandemic. Vaxxies likely have an important role to play on this front.
And as long as they don’t seek to overtly shame or alienate others, they could help engender a strong sense of solidarity as more and more people get the jab.
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.
Everyone knows 2020 was a weird year. But was news coverage atypical too, or did it perform as per usual?
To find out, researchers at the University of Canberra worked with media monitoring company Streem to understand how Australian news media covered COVID-19 over the course of 2020.
Together, we identified and analysed the content of over 2.5 million distinct news items on COVID-19 between January and November 2020, across online, TV, radio and print.
We coded these items into different topic areas – employment, mask wearing or vaccines, for example – identifying 37 different topics. We then sorted results into categories: health, the economy, lockdowns, public transport and so on.
Finally, we sorted these categories into four broad themes relating to the pandemic. There were stories focused on providing information, about the pandemic’s impact, about people’s experiences and, finally, stories that focused on political and social conflict. The results show how media performed in an extraordinary year.
Our major finding may surprise those who assume sensational and irresponsible journalism generally dominates media reporting.
During 2020, by far the most dominant theme related to COVID-19 was information. This included stories about social distancing, tracking the spread of infections, case numbers and employment figures.
By contrast, stories about conflict were the least covered. Only about a quarter of news items addressed this theme.
While this may seem surprising, 2020 was a very different year from 2021. Australia’s initial response to the crisis was marked by political consensus, the formation of national cabinet, and widespread agreement that scientific experts needed to be taken seriously.
In the first phase of the pandemic, news items tended to focus on informing citizens. Media played a “civic” and “loyal facilitator” role in this, encouraging people to be part of a common push to keep Australia safe.
As 2020 wore on, cracks began to appear in the political consensus between federal and state authorities.
While federal authorities sought to gradually relax restrictions, most states refused to budge on issues such as state borders. Instead, they saw greater benefit in adopting an “elimination strategy” for their state.
As politics re-emerged, more critical coverage also appeared. This included stories on Victoria’s hotel quarantine failures, the lockdown of Melbourne’s tower blocks and failures to protect aged care facilities.
The gradual breakdown in political consensus saw a parallel breakdown in media consensus in the later months of the year.
While the pandemic’s early months saw “social distancing” trend as a topic, this fell sharply in the second half of 2020. Then, more conflict-based stories centred on “state borders”. Tellingly, “blame” came to the fore.
Previous research tells us that if political elites are in conflict, media usually reproduce and amplify that conflict. But in the first few months of Australia’s coverage that wasn’t the case. This was in contrast to media in other countries, especially where the politics surrounding COVID-19 was more divisive (most obviously the United States).
The Australian media’s focus on information also pushed medical officers to the fore as key sources in stories. Journalists often simply relayed information and advice from these figures.
Notably, state political leaders at times received much more coverage than their federal counterparts. Their prominence aligns with the Australia Institute’s suggestion that the COVID-19 crisis has engendered a state revival in Australian politics.
The most notable example of this in 2020 was the prominence of Victorian Premier Dan Andrews, who famously ran 120 consecutive daily press conferences during Victoria’s “second wave” lockdown. Coverage of Andrews exceeded that of Prime Minister Scott Morrison between July and October by quite a margin.
Similarly, while then-Commonwealth Chief Medical Officer Brendan Murphy became a familiar media figure in the first wave, his Victorian counterpart, Brett Sutton, ended the year as Australia’s most-quoted health source.
Alongside such statistics, our report looked at how the COVID-19 story developed over the course of the year. We tracked how coverage responded to the initial outbreak before gradually moving towards its own “COVID-normal”.
Overall, our research suggests Australia’s coverage in 2020 contributed to a more tempered and responsible response to the pandemic than we observed in overseas media.
By November 2020, however, two trends were notable. First, we saw a spike in coverage of the vaccine rollout, a topic that has since become a dominant focus of news discussion.
Second, we saw a retreat from the civic-minded, consensual politics of early 2020, and a return to a more fractured and partisan news environment – or what we characterise as “politics as usual”.
David Nolan receives funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC), and has been involved in ARC industry linkage research projects with The Guardian and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
Kerry McCallum receives funding from the Australian Research Council, the Judith Neilson Institute for Journalism and Ideas and the Australian Communication and Media Authority.
Kieran McGuinness has received funding from Google News Initiative and the Australian Communications & Media Authority.
If you are 18 or older, and in an area where there is a COVID-19 outbreak, the best vaccine for you is the one you can get right now. That possibly means you should get the AstraZeneca vaccine, as Pfizer is still in short supply.
This updated advice was given by ATAGI (the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation), the government’s expert vaccine advisory body, on July 24. Why would it change to recommending either AstraZeneca or Pfizer, after months of preferring Pfizer for younger people?
More young people are being hospitalised, in ICU and dying during this current outbreak in Australia, where the Delta strain is dominating.
Whether this is a function of the Delta strain being more dangerous to young people, or because older people are (as a group) more likely to be protected by already being vaccinated, remains a subject of debate.
There is little argument, however, that the Delta strain is more infectious, which is why we want to vaccinate our population as quickly as possible.
So if you are 18 or older and have not been vaccinated yet, you may be asking whether getting an AstraZeneca vaccine right now is the right thing for you to do. To answer this we need to consider the benefits and risks of the AstraZeneca vaccination.
What do vaccines achieve?
When thinking about what any COVID-19 vaccine should achieve, there is an order of priority.
First, it should stop people who catch COVID-19 from dying.
Second, it should reduce risk of severe disease (symptoms bad enough to need ICU treatment).
Third, hospitalisations should go down.
Vaccines need to protect people from death and severe disease. Shutterstock
If a vaccine is doing more than these three things, it is a bonus.
We are very lucky the AstraZeneca and Pfizer vaccines not only achieve all three, they also decrease numbers of people suffering illness of any sort (including mild symptoms), and possibly even reduce transmission (making people who have caught COVID-19 less infective).
Do vaccines work against the Delta variant?
Since Delta became the dominant strain of COVID-19 worldwide, researchers have been working hard to see how well current vaccines perform against it.
So far, the news is good. Let’s look at the evidence.
In the United Kingdom where the Delta strain is the cause of the majority of infections at the moment, there were 229,218 COVID infections between February and July. Of these, 12.5% were in fully vaccinated people. These are known as “breakthrough infections” (because they “broke through” the protection of the vaccine).
Of those breakthrough infections, 3.8%, required a visit to ED. Just 2.9% required hospital admission, and less than 1% died.
This means even though the vaccines didn’t fully protect people against disease, they did achieve their primary purpose: to save lives and keep people out of hospital.
Another study in the UK that narrowed down to look at just hospitalisation with Delta strain concludes AstraZeneca is 92% effective against hospitalisation, after two doses.
Other studies have shown a 60% to 67% reduction in symptomatic disease.
Although AstraZeneca works to reduce infectivity of the Delta strain, vaccinated people can still transmit it to others.
That’s why it’s so important for vaccinated people to still observe all the other evidence-based ways of reducing spread including wearing masks, social distancing, and lockdown restrictions – at least until we have enough people in the community vaccinated.
Of course there are potential risks from the AstraZeneca vaccine: injection site pain, tiredness, headache, muscle pain, fever and chills are the most commonly reported side effects.
Most of these are mild and temporary, going away within one to two days.
Most symptoms are mild and resolve quickly. Shutterstock
There are also rare but severe side effects: anaphylaxis (two to five per million people), and thrombosis with thrombocytopenia (TTS) – known colloquially as “clots”. The only risk factor that has been shown to predict how likely you are to get TTS after an AstraZeneca vaccine is age.
TTS clots are very different from other blood clots you may hear about. In the same way that having a basal cell cancer removed from your skin does not make you more at risk of getting a brain tumour, having a blood clot in your medical history (or family history) does not make you more at risk of TTS.
To keep it in perspective, your risk of getting a blood clot from TTS is still far less than your risk of dying in a car accident in the next year, and most people still don’t think twice about getting into a car.
Obviously, if there is no COVID-19 in the community then the risk from the vaccine will outweigh the risk from the disease – even a tiny risk is bigger than zero.
The reason ATAGI changed its advice to recommend the AstraZeneca vaccine to younger age groups in areas of outbreak is because as soon as COVID-19 starts to spread in the community, the risk of serious disease and death skyrockets. Which makes the vaccine suddenly become a very sensible option in Sydney and other high-risk areas.
How can you get it?
If and when you decide to have the AstraZeneca vaccine and you live in NSW, you can simply book in with any place that is giving it in your area. This may be a GP or state vaccination clinic.
You are not required to see a GP first, but of course you should only book once you’ve had your questions answered and are ready to go ahead with it.
Apart from contacting local providers directly, you can register for vaccination via the eligibility checker here (you fill in your details after completing the checker).
You can register for a vaccination online. Shutterstock
Finally, I have had in my practice many young people express frustration at being unable to get a vaccine before now, because they see it as a vital step forward for our community and the world.
Their lives have often been hugely disrupted by COVID-19 and they believe the risk of any vaccine is better than continuing with the status quo.
As one patient told me: “I’m young, I live a risky life. Getting this vaccine is the safest thing I have done all week.”
Over the past few weeks, we’ve received a flurry of emails from concerned people who’ve seen sick and dead frogs across eastern Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland.
One person wrote:
About a month ago, I noticed the Green Tree Frogs living around our home showing signs of lethargy & ill health. I was devastated to find about 7 of them dead.
Another wrote:
We previously had a very healthy population of green tree frogs and a couple of months ago I noticed a frog that had turned brown. I then noticed more of them and have found numerous dead frogs around our property.
And another said she’d seen so many dead frogs on her daily runs she had to “seriously wonder how many more are there”.
So what’s going on? The short answer is: we don’t really know. How many frogs have died and why is a mystery, and we’re relying on people across Australia to help us solve it.
Why are frogs important?
Frogs are an integral part of healthy Australian ecosystems. While they are usually small and unseen, they’re an important thread in the food web, and a kind of environmental glue that keeps ecosystems functioning. Healthy frog populations are usually a good indication of a healthy environment.
The stony creek frog is one of the species hit by this mysterious outbreak. Jodi Rowley, Author provided
They eat vast amounts of invertebrates, including pest species, and they’re a fundamental food source for a wide variety of other wildlife, including birds, mammals and reptiles. Tadpoles fill our creeks and dams, helping keep algae and mosquito larvae under control while they too become food for fish and other wildlife.
But many of Australia’s frog populations are imperilled from multiple, compounding threats, such as habitat loss and modification, climate change, invasive plants, animals and diseases.
Although we’re fortunate to have at least 242 native frog species in Australia, 35 are considered threatened with extinction. At least four are considered extinct: the southern and northern gastric-brooding frogs (Rheobatrachus silus and Rheobatrachus vitellinus), the sharp-snouted day frog (Taudactylus acutirostris) and the southern day frog (Taudactylus diurnus).
A truly unusual outbreak
In most circumstances, it’s rare to see a dead frog. Most frogs are secretive in nature and, when they die, they decompose rapidly. So the growing reports of dead and dying frogs from across eastern Australia over the last few months are surprising, to say the least.
While the first cold snap of each year can be accompanied by a few localised frog deaths, this outbreak has affected more animals over a greater range than previously encountered.
This is truly an unusual amphibian mass mortality event.
In this outbreak, frogs appear to be either darker or lighter than normal, slow, out in the daytime (they’re usually nocturnal), and are thin. Some frogs have red bellies, red feet, and excessive sloughed skin.
A browned, shrivelled green tree frog (Litoria caerulea) Suzanne Mcgovern, Author provided
The iconic green tree frog (Litoria caeulea) seems hardest hit in this event, with the often apple-green and plump frogs turning brown and shrivelled.
This frog is widespread and generally rather common. In fact, it’s the ninth most commonly recorded frog in the national citizen science project, FrogID. But it has disappeared from parts of its former range.
Other species reported as being among the sick and dying include Peron’s tree frog (Litoria peronii), the Stony Creek frog (Litoria lesueuri), and green stream frog (Litoria phyllochroa). These are all relatively common and widespread species, which is likely why they have been found in and around our gardens.
We simply don’t know the true impacts of this event on Australia’s frog species, particularly those that are rare, cryptic or living in remote places. Well over 100 species of frog live within the geographic range of this outbreak. Dozens of these are considered threatened, including the booroolong Frog (Litoria booroolongensis) and the giant barred frog (Mixophyes iteratus).
The giant barred frog is a threatened species that lives in the geographic range of this outbreak. Jodi Rowley, Author provided
So what might be going on?
Amphibians are susceptible to environmental toxins and a wide range of parasitic, bacterial, viral and fungal pathogens. Frogs globally have been battling it out with a pandemic of their own for decades — a potentially deadly fungus often called amphibian chytrid fungus.
This fungus attacks the skin, which frogs use to breathe, drink, and control electrolytes important for the heart to function. It’s also responsible for causing population declines in more than 500 amphibian species around the world, and 50 extinctions.
For example, in Australia the bright yellow and black southern corroboree frog (Pseudophryne corroboree) is just hanging on in the wild, thanks only to intensive management and captive breeding.
The teeny tiny southern corroborree frogs have been hit hard by the chytrid fungus. Jodi Rowley, Author provided
Curiously, some other frog species appear more tolerant to the amphibian chytrid fungus than others. Many now common frogs seem able to live with the fungus, such as the near-ubiquitous Australian common eastern froglet (Crinia signifera).
But if frogs have had this fungus affecting them for decades, why are we seeing so many dead frogs now?
Well, disease is the outcome of a battle between a pathogen (in this case a fungus), a host (in this case the frog) and the environment. The fungus doesn’t do well in warm, dry conditions. So during summer, frogs are more likely to have the upper hand.
In winter, the tables turn. As the frog’s immune system slows, the fungus may be able to take hold.
Of course, the amphibian chytrid fungus is just one possible culprit. Other less well-known diseases affect frogs.
The near-ubiquitous Austrlaian common eastern froglet is one species that seems able to live with the devastating chytrid fungus. Jodi Rowley, Author provided
To date, the Australian Registry of Wildlife Health has confirmed the presence of the amphibian chytrid fungus in a very small number of sick frogs they’ve examined from the recent outbreak. However, other diseases — such as ranavirus, myxosporean parasites and trypanosome parasites — have also been responsible for native frog mass mortality events in Australia.
It’s also possible a novel or exotic pathogen could be behind this. So the Australian Registry of Wildlife Health is working with the Australian Museum, government biosecurity and environment agencies as part of the investigation.
Here’s how you can help
While we suspect a combination of the amphibian chytrid fungus and the chilly temperatures, we simply don’t know what factors may be contributing to the outbreak.
Why green tree frogs are dying en masse is still a mystery. Sophie Hendry, Author provided
We also aren’t sure how widespread it is, what impact it will have on our frog populations, or how long it will last.
While the temperatures stay low, we suspect our frogs will continue to succumb. If we don’t investigate quickly, we will lose the opportunity to achieve a diagnosis and understand what has transpired.
We need your help to solve this mystery.
Please send any reports of sick or dead frogs (and if possible, photos) to us, via the national citizen science project FrogID, or email calls@frogid.net.au.
Jodi Rowley is the Lead Scientist of the Australian Museum’s citizen science project, FrogID. She has received funding from the NSW Saving Our Species program and other state, federal and philanthopic agencies.
Karrie Rose leads the Australian Registry of Wildlife Health, a collaboration between Taronga Conservation Society Australia and the University of Sydney. The Registry is funded by Taronga Conservation Society Australia, service agreements and project-based funding from state, commonwealth and philanthropic agencies..
Adding to the clamour of argument over whether schools should be open to all during lockdown is confusion in terminology. Using the term “home schooling” to describe schooling during lockdown is disrespectful to both teachers and home schoolers.
Home schooling requires parents to seek registration for their child to not attend school. These parents are then required to develop and implement learning with their children. That is a far cry from the situation for students enrolled at school who have been temporarily learning at home during lockdown in Sydney and, until July 28 when restrictions eased, in Victoria and South Australia.
Nonetheless, home schooling does offer parents lessons in how to support schooling from home. This article includes five essential tips drawn from home schooling.
Schools are offering support
Families have been provided with enormous support during lockdowns. They are encouraged to contact the school with any specific needs they might have. Teachers and schools have enabled schooling during lockdown through online classes, independent learning activities, printed learning materials and other resources to support the learning within a class.
School during lockdown takes many different forms to provide individual and class-based learning opportunities. Schools can provide additional support to meet diverse student (and family) needs.
Support necessarily looks different across schools. Each school works with families to determine and meet their needs. The support from schools ranges from surveys and individual phone calls, online one-on-one learning support sessions, walk-by pick-up of printed materials and resources such as stationery and art supplies, to home delivery of technology and even food.
Schools have learned from the experience of 2020, creating the best way forward for their communities when lockdowns prevent learning in a physical classroom.
To suggest that schooling during lockdown is home schooling disregards the enormous, valuable work every teacher and school staff member is providing.
Yes, parents are required to do more than they usually need to when their children are physically attending school. It still doesn’t make it home schooling.
Home schooling is a big step
Home schooling is a big step outside the schooling system. It’s a step outside the free support and resources from teachers and schools – parents do it all.
To be permitted to home-school, parents must seek registration with the National Education Standards Authority (NESA). They must adhere to all of the curriculum requirements that schools must meet.
Parents must interpret the curriculum documents and assessment requirements to select and design appropriate learning opportunities for their children. They must implement assessment processes. They must maintain accurate records of learning and achievement.
Contrary to a common assumption, home-schooled children are well socialised. They are engaged in a vast array of shared learning within and beyond the home. Excursions, sports carnivals, performances, workshops, social gatherings and more feature constantly within the home-schooling community.
When states lock down, what cannot be moved online is in limbo. The best that can be hoped for is postponement. This means home schoolers feel the pressure of lockdown along with every other parent and child right now.
To sum up, home-schooling parents must do everything that teachers, schools and education systems are doing in enabling schooling during lockdown, as well as what many parents are now facing with their children at home.
Lessons from home schooling
So, what can we learn from home schooling as we juggle working from home with children schooling at home during lockdown?
Children are always learning (and succeeding). So value the immense learning that occurs through play, and build on the incidental learning that arises.
A six-hour school day is made up of many different things and does not equate to a six-hour day of schooling at home. We need to shift our view of what learning looks like, be flexible, value what might seem like a “distraction” and recognise not everything prepared by school will be finished.
Support independence by drawing on interests to build skills for self-organisation. This could involve setting a daily Lego challenge, or building a bridge that spans 15cm, or a vehicle that moves without wheels, or a marble run, or a boat that floats. Remember that supporting their learning means not doing it for them.
Resources are available everywhere. From the home-delivery boxes taking over the living room to the exponential growth in online sources, everything offers an opportunity for learning. For example, why not gather paper and card from the recycling for paper plane challenges using different types and sizes of paper? And when your child needs help with maths go online.
Don’t try to do it all yourself. Collaborate with friends, family and parents in your child’s class to rotate regular online gatherings hosted by a parent. It could be a social gathering, shared reading, maths problem solving, completing a school activity together, music activity, art activity and so on. This will give every other parent time to work.
Nicole (Nikki) Brunker 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.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Neal Hughes, Senior Economist, Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences (ABARES)
PETER LORIMER/AAP
Australian farmers have proven their resilience, rebounding from drought and withstanding a global pandemic to produce record-breaking output in 2020-21.
But while the pain of drought is fading from view for some, the challenge of a changing climate continues to loom large.
Farmers have endured a poor run of conditions over the last 20 years, including a reduction in average rainfall (particularly in southern Australia during the winter cropping season) and general increases in temperature.
While these trends relate to climate change, uncertainty remains over how they will develop, particularly over how much rain or drought farmers will face.
Research published today by the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences (ABARES) examines the effects of past and potential future changes in climate, and sets out how productivity gains to date have been helping farmers adapt to the drier and hotter conditions.
Conditions have been tough
The research examines the effect on farms of climate conditions over the past 20 years, compared to the preceding 50 years.
Holding other factors constant (including commodity prices and technology) ABARES estimates the post-2000 shift in conditions reduced farm profits by an average of 23%, or around A$29,000 per farm per year.
As with past research, these effects have been strongest among cropping farmers in south-eastern and southern-western Australia, with impacts of over 50% observed in some of the most severely affected areas.
Effect of 2001 to 2020 climate conditions on average farm profit
Simulated broadacre farm profit with current (2015–16 to 2018–19) farms and commodity prices and recent (2000–01 to 2019–20) climate conditions. Interpolated farm-level percentage changes relative to 1949–50 to 1999–2000 climate. ABARES farmpredict model (Hughes, Lu et al. 2021)
Farmers have been adapting
While these changes in conditions have been dramatic, farmers’ adaptation has been equally impressive.
After controlling for climate, farm productivity (the output from a given amount of land and other inputs) has climbed around 28% since 1989, with a much larger 68% gain in the cropping sector.
These gains have offset the adverse climate conditions and along with increases in commodity prices have allowed farmers to maintain and even increase average production and profit levels over the last decade.
While productivity growth in agriculture is nothing new, the recent gains have been especially focused on adapting to drier and hotter conditions.
Within the cropping sector, for example, a range of new technologies and practices have emerged to better utilise soil moisture to cope with lower rainfall.
While climate models generally project a hotter and drier future, a wide range of outcomes are possible, particularly for rainfall.
Climate projections suggest that nationally farmers could experience reductions in average winter season rainfall of 3% to 30% by 2050 (compared to 1950-2000).
The study simulates the effect of future climate change scenarios with current farm technology and no further productivity gains.
As such, these scenarios are not a prediction, but an indication of which regions and sectors might be under the greatest pressure to adapt.
For example, under most scenarios cropping farmers in Western Australia will face more pressure than those in eastern Australia.
Livestock farms will also face more pressure under high emissions scenarios as they are especially impacted by higher temperatures.
Generally, inland low-rainfall farming areas are expected to face greater challenges than regions closer to the coast.
Simulated change in farm profits relative to historical (1950 to 2000) climate
Change in simulated average farm profit for broadacre farms, assuming current commodity prices (2015–16 to 2018–19), and current farm technology (no adaptation), relative to historical climate conditions (1949–50 to 1999–2000). Bars show minimum, maximum and average across the GCMs for each scenario. Source: ABARES farmpredict model (Hughes, Lu et al. 2021)
There is more work ahead
Recent experience shows that productivity growth can help offset the impact of a changing climate.
However, there remains uncertainty over how far technology can push farm efficiency beyond current levels.
Further, even if technology can offset climate impacts, other exporting nations could still become more competitive relative to Australia, if they are less affected by climate change or can adapt faster.
Here, investment in research and development remains crucial, including efforts to improve the productivity and reduce the carbon footprint of existing crop and livestock systems, along with research into more transformational responses to help diversify farm incomes.
Farmland can be repurposed. Mick Tsikas
This could include for example, carbon and biodiversity farming, plantation forestry and the use of land to produce renewable energy.
Carbon and biodiversity farming schemes are the subject of ongoing research and policy trials, and already we have seen farmers generate significant revenue from carbon farming.
Uncertainty over the future climate, especially rainfall, remains a key constraint on adaptation. Efforts to refine and better communicate climate information through initiatives such as Climate Services for Agriculture could help farmers and governments make more informed decisions.
While the future is still highly uncertain, the challenge of adapting to climate change is here and now.
Significant resources have been committed in this area, including the Australian government’s Future Drought Fund.
We need to make the most of these investments to prepare for whatever the future holds.
Neal Hughes 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.
In 2014, a Florida real estate group began advertising its latest in a series of luxury condominiums designed by global “starchitects”.
The ads featured photorealistic computer-generated imagery inhabited by rich and beautiful people lounging by the rooftop pool; staring languidly out towards the endless view of the sea from expansive balconies; working out in the lavishly appointed gym.
Its marketing slogan? “I don’t want realism. I want magic.”
This world of magical hyper-luxury also underpins the appeal of reality television shows like the new Luxe Listings Sydney, Sunset Selling, Million Dollar Listing and the soon to be revived MTV Cribs.
The real estate voyeurism of these shows — and, pre-reality TV, of glossy magazines like Architectural Digest (which now has its own luxury YouTube channel), World of Interiors, Belle or Vogue Living — uses the eye of the camera to place us inside these otherwise hidden and inaccessible worlds.
A similar voyeuristic impulse might drive us to slip into our neighbours’ homes when they are up for sale. Instead of twitching the curtains and pretending we were never looking at all, an open-for-inspection allows us to wander through the most private aspects of another’s domain while imagining: “What if I lived here, instead of them?”
Nary a penny to spend
Despite all the disruptions of the pandemic, property prices in Australian cities have continued their rise and housing affordability has become even more out of reach. But our current pandemic era seems to be witnessing an intensification of the escape into fantasy.
Why do we exhibit an insatiable appetite for property voyeurism and fantasy at a time when young people, especially, are less and less likely to be able to afford housing at all? Why do we love to scroll, watch, swipe and drool over luxury property on television, in magazines and via social media?
In May, New Yorker writer Anna Wiener explored Instagram feeds of “renderporn”: hyperrealistic computer-generated architectural renderings of pure fantasy luxury interiors which will never be built.
They represent the denial of real-world constraints and the promise of not just escapism, but of financial escapism. Puzzling over the strangely soothing effect of such images, she wrote:
nothing is unaffordable in a [computer-generated] dreamscape, and rent is never due.
From Louis’ court to Trump’s penthouse
Showing off via property — even unbuilt property — has a long history.
In the 18th century, the opulence of the “Louis-style” of the French court was captured in engravings and pattern books compiled by artists and architects circulated throughout Europe (and even further afield — Jesuit designers brought Baroque style to the Imperial Court in Beijing).
The mania for wide-scale luxury consumption began on the cusp of the Industrial Revolution through the dissemination of images of luxury in books and prints. It accelerated throughout the 19th century with its diffusion into the upper realms of the emergent bourgeoise.
The château, hôtel particulier, villa, townhouse, country house and, eventually, apartment became the perfect vessels for the display of fashionable luxury. Architects and other designers were called upon to transform these images into built realities (or, in the language of MTV, “pimp my crib”).
All too often, desire outpaced means. Even wealthy individuals plunged themselves into crippling debt in their efforts to, literally, keep up appearances.
Over the period of the Trump presidency, much was made of large portions of the American electorate retreating into the realm of conspiracy theories, magical thinking and belief in wishful narratives baring little relationship to truth or reality.
President Donald J. Trump and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in the President’s private residence at Trump Tower in New York City, 2018. Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead
Some psychologists say this flight into fantasy is the direct result of declining economic prospects and of certain social groups feeling like unnecessary bit-players in the national story.
Whatever the complex underlying reasons, note this: Trump was a figure who had built a global brand on the associations of luxury property, supercharged by reality television.
Trading in fantasies
Small tokens of luxury, or even images of luxury, might provide some satisfaction and solace beyond just signalling one’s aspirations, however unrealistic.
Perhaps especially when such aspirations are wildly unrealistic.
When stable employment, sick pay and annual leave, wages growth, housing security and affordability have been eroded for decades, the economy of images might feel more dependable than the real economy.
A large part of sustaining a market that fundamentally depends on speculation in the financial sense is the encouragement of speculation in a more personalised sense: the speculation of fantasies.
Fantasy and escapism are well documented responses to stress and anxiety. What better way to soothe one’s rising panic at the level of debt required to buy even a basic Australian suburban home, or the prospect of even that being permanently out of reach? Switch on the TV and stream someone else’s home. I don’t want realism. I want magic.
This line was not dreamed up by a Florida marketing team. It comes from the brute theatrical naturalism of Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire.
It is the desperate and wishful plea of Blanche DuBois as she clings to the façade of her supposed Southern gentility, the mask concealing her precipitous downward social spiral.
Maybe we are all a little bit Blanche now. Our cultural preoccupation with luxury property television, magazines and Instagram images would certainly seem to suggest so.
Andrew Toland 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.
As NSW on Wednesday extended its lockdown for another month and the federal government shelled out more money, it was as if we were back in 2020 and Victoria’s long incarceration.
Thankfully, one big difference is that the Sydney outbreak, where the latest figure is 177 new locally acquired cases, hasn’t had (at least so far) a high death rate.
Some deaths are occurring, including a woman in her 30s, but the nursing homes now seem substantially protected, although there remains concern immunisation of aged care workers has a long way to go.
In its latest funding, the federal government has resisted calls for the reinstatement of JobKeeper, but there is help for both individuals and businesses.
Scott Morrison announced the maximum COVID disaster payment for workers who lose hours would rise from $600 to a maximum of $750 (the original JobKeeper level). There will also be $200 for people on welfare payments who lose more than eight hours work.
The Prime Minister argued JobKeeper did not have the flexibility now required.
JobKeeper was “not the right solution for the problems we have now,” he told his news conference (held at The Lodge, where he’s isolating, with reporters clutching umbrellas).
“What we are doing now is faster [paying the money direct to workers rather than through the employers], it’s more effective, it’s more targeted, it’s getting help where it is needed
far more quickly.
“We’re not dealing with a pandemic outbreak across
the whole country.
“What we need now is the focused effort on where the need is right now. And so it can be turned on and off to the extent that we have outbreaks.
“JobKeeper was a great scheme. But you don’t play last year’s grand final this year. You deal with this year’s challenges.”
The cost of boosting the disaster payment and the welfare top up will depend on how long the NSW lockdown lasts – and what other (if any) future lockdowns occur there or elsewhere.
Under an expanded package for businesses hit by the NSW restrictions, more businesses will be covered, with the maximum turnover threshold increased from $50 million to $250 million.
Those eligible – including not-for-profits – will be able to receive $1,500 to $100,000 a week (compared to $1500 to $10,000 previously).
The government says up to an extra 1,900 businesses employing about 300,000 people could benefit from the widening of eligibility.
The total cost of the NSW package – funded on a 50-50 split with the state – is $600 million a week, up from $500 million in the previous package.
Morrison said Commonwealth support to NSW amounted to $750 million a week.
There is also a new joint federal-state package (funded on a 50-50 basis) to give Victorian small and medium businesses extra support to recover from the recent lockdown. This will total an extra $400 million.
On the vaccine front the NSW government, having failed to get more Pfizer from other states, has decided to divert some Pfizer doses from regional areas to inoculate Year 12 students in the COVID hot spots.
These students will be able to return to face to face learning on August 16.
We’ve yet to see how the reallocation decision will go down in the regions.
Morrison was upbeat in predicting Australia’s economy would bounce back strongly, as it did after the earlier dive. It’s crystal ball territory. The September quarter is set to be negative. The December quarter result is unforeseeable.
Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said what happens in the December quarter, “will largely depend on how successful NSW is in getting on top of this virus.”
The government is trying to judge what it will take to keep the economy out of a second recession, which would likely kill many businesses that just managed to hold on through the earlier one.
A second recession would inflict a major hit on the government politically, only months before an election that must be held by May.
A poll done by Utting Research in NSW on Monday underlines the message of other polls: COVID currently is taking serious skin off the PM. Only 37% were satisfied with the job he is doing handling the COVID crisis; 51% were dissatisfied.
Morrison said on Wednesday: “I would expect by Christmas we will be seeing a very different Australia to what we’re seeing now”.
He knows if we don’t, he could be in dire straits.
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.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Hawkins, Senior Lecturer, Canberra School of Politics, Economics and Society and NATSEM, University of Canberra
ABS/Shutterstock
Suddenly, Australia’s annual inflation rate is 3.8%, having jumped from 1.1% for the twelve months to March.
The June quarter jump follows a jump in the United States to 5.4% and a jump in New Zealand to 3.3%, sparking a debate between leading pundits such as former US treasury secretary Larry Summers and Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman about whether high inflation is on the way back, after years of playing dead.
The best advice is not to worry. Most of the jump is only temporary, the result of several one-offs.
As the Reserve Bank told us back in May, a main cause is that in the depths of COVID lockdowns last year, the government heavily subsidised child care, pushing the effective price to near zero.
With removal of those subsidies the price has bounced back. This is a one-off — it can’t be repeated.
Reasons to not worry
Petrol prices also collapsed as cities locked down last year, and have since returned to pre-COVID levels. This is another one-off that won’t be repeated.
There were also big jumps in the prices of some fruit and some vegetables due to a shortage of pickers and heavy rainfall. They are also best seen as one-offs.
The “trimmed mean” measure of so-called underlying inflation used by the Reserve Bank to see through transient influences was only 1.6%. It’s a better guide to what is going on.
Reserve Bank Governor Lowe.
This also true in other countries. The Bank for International Settlements concluded this month that a common thread in recent increases in inflation was that they were “likely to be temporary”.
The Reserve Bank is expecting inflation back below 2% by the end of the year. The bank forecasts consumer prices to rise by 1.5% through 2022.
Most economists broadly agree. The average forecast from The Conversation’s panel was an inflation rate of 2.1% in 2022.
What about the traders in financial markets, whose pay depends on trying to guess inflation right?
The traders’ average forecast can be derived from what they will pay for inflation-indexed compared to non-indexed bonds.
Over the next ten years, they expect inflation to average 2%.
But isn’t too much money being printed?
Yes, there have indeed been such claims, often by people trying to talk up the value of cryptocurrencies through internet memes.
It is true that as the Reserve Bank sought to steady the economy last year, there was a period of rapid monetary growth. In times of uncertainty, people tend to want to hoard some money.
But the same thing happened during the global financial crisis in 2008. It didn’t end up leading to high inflation then. It is unlikely to do so now.
Concerns have also been expressed that central banks have been buying too many government bonds — so-called “quantitative easing”. These fears were expressed internationally during the global financial crisis. They proved unfounded.
What else might push up inflation?
There are some longer-run structural changes. After the global financial crisis, the effective supply of workers in the global economy grew due to demographic factors and the re-engagement of China.
Some of the demographic factors may be reversing, but the effect will be gradual.
It is also true that many economies, including Australia’s, rebounded from last year’s COVID lockdowns faster than expected. This has led some commentators to talk about overheating.
But now the emergence of the more contagious Delta strain has seen a new round of lockdowns. The Australian economy is likely to contract in the September quarter, making our recovery look W-shaped rather than V-shaped as it did.
A big rise in inflation is unlikely unless wages grow strongly. There is no sign of this. Australia’s wage price index is climbing by just 1.5%.
But what if the experts are wrong?
Contrary to some claims, the Reserve Bank has not promised to keep interest rates on hold at 0.1% until 2024.
As the bank’s governor has made clear, if inflation accelerates into its target band it will raise interest rates earlier.
Since the Reserve Bank introduced its 2-3% target, inflation has averaged 2.4%. There is no reason to think it won’t continue to act to keep it moderate.
But if I still fear inflation, what should I do?
You should look for a good “inflation hedge”, an asset that will increase in price with inflation.
Rents and dividends also tend to rise with inflation, meaning houses and shares have proved reasonable inflation hedges in the past.
Assets with no returns, such as gold and cryptocurrencies, are less reliable. The price of Bitcoin has more than halved in two of the past seven years, so beware.
John Hawkins has been an economic forecaster in the Reserve Bank, the Australian Treasury and the Bank for International Settlements,
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this article contains names and/or images of deceased people.
Images of mounted police contending with anti-lockdown protesters on the weekend have now gone viral around the world. In fact, mounted police have a long history in Australia.
They have certainly been used as a method of crowd control at countless demonstrations in living memory — from anti-war protests to pro-refugee rallies and everything in between.
But the history of mounted police in Australia goes much deeper.
In early colonial Australia, horses were at a premium. In the 1790s, policing of convicts and bushrangers in the confined region of the Sydney basin was conducted on foot by night watchmen, constables and the colonial military.
By 1801, the then Governor King formed a Body Guard of Light Horse for dispatching his messages to the interior and as a useful personal escort.
By 1816, at the height of the Sydney Wars of Aboriginal resistance, the numbers of horses in the colony had grown.
Their importance as mounted reconnaissance and for use by messengers was critical to Governor Macquarie’s infamous campaign, which ended in the Appin Massacre of April 17, 1816.
Along with firearms and disease, the horse was a key element in occupying Aboriginal land and controlling the largely convict workforce on the frontier. NLA/Trove
The horse as a key element of occupation
Along with firearms and disease, the horse was a key element in occupying Aboriginal land and controlling the largely convict workforce on the frontier.
In the early 1820s, west of the Blue Mountains, the use of horses in the open terrain of the Bathurst Plains was critical in capturing escaped convicts and bushrangers, as well as defending remote outstations against attacks from Wiradjuri people.
Early intrusions into Wiradjuri land were not so much by British colonists, but by the animals they brought with them. In what is now recognised as “co-colonisation”, cattle and sheep did a lot of the hard yards for the British, often well before they arrived in Aboriginal lands.
In 1817, Surveyor General John Oxley thought he was well beyond the limits of settlement when, as he wrote:
to our great surprise we found the distinct marks of cattle tracks [that] must have strayed from Bathurst, from which place we were now distant in a direct line between eighty and ninety miles.
From a colonial cavalry to mounted police
During the first Wiradjuri War of Resistance between 1822 and 1824, calls were made to the colonial authorities for the formation of a civilian “colonial cavalry” to assist the beleaguered and overstretched military forces. My (Stephen Gapps) forthcoming book, developed in consultation with Wiradjuri community members in central west region of NSW, The Bathurst War, looks in deeper detail at this period.
It was hoped colonial farmers would be their own first line of defence against Aboriginal warrior raids on sheep and cattle stations.
Governor Brisbane wrote to London that in 1824 a mounted force was becoming “daily more essential [for the] vital interests of the of the Colony”.
But by August that year, heavily armed and mounted settlers, overseers and their armed convict workers had decimated Wiradjuri resistance before a formal cavalry militia was established.
After possibly hundreds of Wiradjuri people had been massacred by heavily armed and mounted settlers, a “Horse Patrol” was created in 1825, which soon formally became the Mounted Police.
The Mounted Police were critical during a spree of bushranging soon after — a largely unanticipated side-effect of arming of convict stockworkers to defend themselves against Wiradjuri attacks in 1824.
By the 1830s, the force had proved useful as a highly mobile quasi-military unit in combating Aboriginal resistance as well as bushranging.
As the colony continued to expand with an insatiable desire for running cattle and sheep on Aboriginal lands, three regional divisions were based at Bathurst, Goulburn and Maitland.
After conflict between colonists and Gamilaraay warriors on the Liverpool Plains, commander Major Nunn led a Mounted Police detachment on a two-month campaign around the Gwydir and Namoi Rivers, resulting in the Waterloo Creek Massacre on January 26, 1838. Armed colonists soon followed suit, ending in the Myall Creek Massacre in June that year, where colonists killed at least 28 Aboriginal people (possibly more).
The Mounted Police’s military functions came with heavy expenses, which included uniforms, equipment and barracks. During the 1840s, a Border Police force of ex-convicts equipped only with a horse, a gun and rations was created and attached to Commissioners of Crown Lands.
It was funded by a tax on squatters (whose interests they protected) and proved a much cheaper policing option for the frontier.
The Native Mounted Police
By 1850 the “Mounted Police” were disbanded. Another relatively cheap and what proved to be a tragic, if remarkably successful, option had been found — the creation of a “Native Mounted Police” force of Aboriginal men with British officers.
The troopers were provided with uniforms, guns and rations. By the 1860s, particularly in Queensland, the main problem on the frontier was not policing colonists but stopping Aboriginal resistance. So arming Aboriginal fighters was part of a tried and tested British method of exploiting existing hostilities by rewarding those who collaborated and punishing those who resisted.
As Bogaine Spearim, Gamilaraay and Kooma man, activist and creator of the podcast Frontier War Stories has noted, the Queensland Native Mounted Police (NMP) were not only feared by bushrangers such as Ned Kelly, but known for their violence toward the Aboriginal population of Queensland.
The NMP united incredible bush skills with military capability. Their legacy has been the focus of a recent project by Australian researchers Lynley Wallis, Heather Burke and colleagues.
The role of animals in colonisation and policing
From 1850, the colonial police force (and then from 1862, the NSW Police force) incorporated mounted police as mobile units in mostly remote locations.
But they also found them useful in urban areas, especially with growing numbers of strikes, political disturbances, protests and riots in the rapidly industrialising cities in the late 19th century.
The use of horses in crowd control has a long history in policing, which itself has a long history in warfare. Among the other issues this presents, we might also consider horses’ long suffering histories of being placed in the front lines of conflict.
Like the inexorable march of sheep and cattle as part of the invasion of Aboriginal lands, understanding the role of animals in colonisation and policing is crucial to a broader understanding of Australian history.
Stephen Gapps is affiliated with the University of Newcastle and is a Senior Curator at the Australian National Maritime Museum. He is the author of The Sydney Wars (NewSouth Books) and of the forthcoming book, Gudyarra – The First Wiradjuri War of Resistance, the Bathurst War 1822-1824, which was developed in consultation with Wiradjuri community members in the central west region of NSW.
Angus Murray 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.
We all know the burning sensation we get when eating chillies. Some can tolerate the heat, while others may be reaching for the milk carton.
Some people even actively choose to participate in chilli-eating competitions, seeking out the world’s hottest chillies, such as the Carolina Reaper.
The global hot sauce market has grown substantially in the last few years. It sits at around US$2.71 billion (A$3.68 billion), and is expected to grow to $4.38 billion (A$5.95 billion) by 2028.
But can the heat harm our bodies?
Let’s take a look.
The major active compound in chillies, capsaicin, is associated with multiple health benefits. Christian Moro, Author provided
For all their health benefits, eating hot chillies may cause a bit of discomfort.
This includes swelling, nausea, vomiting, eye pain, diarrhoea, abdominal pain, heartburn from acid reflux, and headaches.
But the feelings we get are simply from our body’s response, not anything the chilli is doing to actually burn us. As such, many of the side effects we notice when eating hot chilli, such as sweating and pain, are a result of the body considering the stimulus to be a real burn.
This is why the heat can be “fun”. Our body senses capsaicin, the major active compound in chillies, and immediately responds to it. But there’s no serious physical damage occurring to the cells. Capsaicin is “tricking” the body into thinking it’s experiencing a real burn.
But what could be an advantage of this? Well, this burning sensation is felt by mammals, but not birds. Therefore, a common theory is the capsaicin response was developed by plants to deter mammals from feeding, while still encouraging birds to eat the fruit and carry the seeds far and wide.
However, although a real burn is not taking place, individual cells in the mouth and digestive system might respond to the stimulus by releasing chemicals which induce a small amount of additional irritation. The response is usually relatively short-lived, and tends to subside once the burning sensation quiets down.
Other than that, there’s not much strong evidence to support any major injury or negative effects from a balanced and moderate consumption of hot chilli.
A weak correlation does exist for a high intake of chillies being somehow associated with cognitive decline. In this study, chilli intake of more than 50g/day (3.5 tablespoons) was reported in more people who exhibited memory loss than others. However, this was self-reported data, and the results have not yet been repeated by further research.
No long-term dangers
Chilli is an integral spice used in many cuisines. And there are many benefits to a regular intake of the spice, with its great source of antioxidants. In addition, those who add chilli to meals tend to add less salt, meaning enjoying a bit of heat could become a healthyhabit for some people.
Overall, although eating chilli can cause discomfort, in some cases for many hours after eating, there doesn’t seem to be any long-term dangers from eating hot chilli in moderation.
You may have noticed the more heat you eat, the more heat you can tolerate. This is because the pain nerves start to become less sensitive with increased and prolonged stimulation. Additionally, some people can naturally tolerate much higher heat levels which is, in part, regulated by genetics.
Nonetheless, although others may be eating much hotter chillies than you enjoy, the current recommendation is to stay within your comfort zone.
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.
New Zealand Finance Minister, Grant Robertson. Image courtesy of New Zealand Tertiary Education Union.
Analysis by Bryce Edwards.
Political scientist, Dr Bryce Edwards.
Jacinda Ardern and Grant Robertson like to think of themselves as leftwing politicians. So why aren’t they prioritising and championing the vulnerable at the bottom of society? Since Covid hit they have chosen economic policies that benefit the rich while pushing more into poverty.
Increasing inequality was thrown into stark relief last week with the release of a Statistics New Zealand report showing wealth had grown by $402bn over the last year. This is about four times faster than usual, and can be attributed to fast-rising prices of assets like houses, rentals, and businesses that have skyrocketed in value as a result of a government-induced economic boom.
Tomorrow’s Political Roundup column will focus on how the rich have got significantly richer due to government policies over the last year. But today’s column deals with those on the other side of increasing inequality – the poor. Many reports and articles have shown that poverty is getting worse, and this is directly related to government policies and neglect.
New report on increasing poverty over the last year
According to one news report on this, the anti-poverty group “put much of the increased poverty, inequity, homelessness and food insecurity down to government neglect as it created its policies during the pandemic” – see Eva Corlett’s New Zealand pandemic policies pushed 18,000 children into poverty, study shows. And one of the report’s authors, Leah Bain, argues that although billions of dollars were pumped into business through the Wage Subsidy Scheme, “many people in lower-socioeconomic positions missed out”.
The article reports the response from Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern who says: “As soon as Covid hit, we knew that the impact would be felt heavily by children already experiencing poverty, that’s why put in an extra $25 into weekly benefits, changed requirements for in-work tax credits and, in the last budget, made substantial changes to our welfare system.”
Another article reports Child Poverty Action Group researcher Janet McAllister as believing that when Covid hit, “the government did not give children and their families the prioritisation they needed as it developed policy responses to the pandemic.” She says that recent benefit increases aren’t enough to make up for the worsening position of those at the bottom – see Sarah Robson’sCovid-19 may have pushed thousands more children into poverty.
This article also reports that demand for food banks increased dramatically, and has not returned to pre-Covid levels: “Auckland City Missioner Helen Robinson said, in the year to June, they handed out 48,000 food parcels – double the number in the year before Covid-19 hit.”
The Child Poverty Action Group points out that Māori and Pasifika children have been hit particularly hard by economic policies under Covid. And in this regard, the government-funded Whānau Ora commissioning agency for the South Island says the latest report is in line with what they’ve been seeing: “Over the past year there has been an unquestionable increase in requests for support for the basic things like kai, power and data and accommodation costs” – see: Rachel Sadler’sPoverty burden for children increases in first year of Covid-19 due to Government neglect – Child Poverty Action Group.
There have been a number of other recent signs showing the extent of poverty in New Zealand. Newshub has reported the Salvation Army’s observations that “there has been a massive increase in demand” for their services recently, and their belief that “a third of New Zealand’s children are living in homes that are ‘way too cold'” – see: Salvation Army calling for donations as cold, hard winter causes increase in demand.
Similarly, another charity agency is calling for more radical measure to fix poverty – see Newstalk ZB’s Barnardos: Bold actions need to be taken to reduce child poverty in New Zealand. According to this article, which refers to the Government’s new official child poverty targets, “The government’s significantly lowering its ambitions for child poverty reduction. By next year they wanted to lift 61,000 kids out of poverty. They haven’t come anywhere near that. They’re now giving themselves an extra three years to get to 67,000 kids out of poverty.”
Government policies for the poor
The Government’s increase in benefits is obviously their answer to the plight of the poor. But are the increases enough? Today in the Guardian, inequality researcher Max Rashbrooke explains his research into whether the promised increases are really going to eventuate – see: ‘Can we opt out?’: New Zealand benefit increases leave some worse off.
Rashbrooke finds that “clawbacks” in the welfare system mean the promised $20/week increase that was introduced this month is actually much less for some recipients, including some examples where they are actually worse off than before. He also reports: “A survey by Auckland’s St Vincent de Paul budgeting service showed just 12 of 91 beneficiary clients would get the full amount. Most would get $14-$15.”
Other anti-poverty advocates claim that the recent benefit increase is far too little. Auckland Action Against Poverty co-ordinator Brooke Fiafia was reported earlier this month saying the latest increase “is woefully inadequate amid the rising cost of living, keeping people trapped in poverty” – see 1News’ Recent benefit increases ‘trash more than transformative’ – advocate.
Researcher Max Rashbrooke has been a critic of the Government for not doing enough about poverty. But in a recent presentation on the topic gives the Government marks for heading in the right direction at least. For a report on his views, see Brenda Harwood’sChild poverty remedies slow and incremental. In contrast, Child Poverty Action Group activist Jude Sligo is reported as being much less positive, saying “At the moment, they seem to be patching up the leaks, rather than trying to change the system”.
There are other criticisms at the moment about Labour’s welfare policies. The “Best Start” payments to parents of newborn babies, for example, don’t just go to poor families, and the Herald has pointed to information showing that the wealthy have received the payment too, “including $5.5m to more than 4000 families on incomes over $200,000” – see Claire Trevett’sPrime Minister’s Best Start scheme for babies pays out millions to the well-off (paywalled).
What does the public think about poverty and inequality?
Do New Zealanders still care about poverty and inequality? The signs are that they certainly do, and many want the Government to be doing a lot more.
Last week the polling company Ipsos released their June report on what the current major issues in New Zealand are, and this showed that poverty/inequality is listed by 26 per cent of the public as one of the biggest problems. This was surpassed only by housing (53 per cent), Healthcare (27 per cent) and Cost of living (27 per cent) – see: Ipsos NZ Issues Monitor – June 2021.
This big increase in public consciousness about poverty, with strong support for governments to take action, is also reflected in new data from the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP), which is reported this month by Max Rashbrooke and Peter Skilling – see:Public opinion supports action on inequality. Jacinda Ardern has no more excuses.
This shows that between 2009 and 2020 the proportion of those who think that income differences in New Zealand are “too large” went from 63 per cent to 73 percent; the proportion who think the government has “a responsibility” to deal with those differences increased from 42 per cent to 51 per cent; and the proportion of people who think success in life is related to coming from a wealthy family went up from 9 per cent to 17 per cent, and those who think it’s related to knowing the right people rose from 29 per cent to 41 per cent. Rashbrooke and Skilling conclude that these results are at variance with the current Government ruling out egalitarian policies.
What about benefit levels? Is the public satisfied with the latest increases? A UMR poll result was released earlier this month which shows that 60 per cent of the public think that support levels are still too low – see Dan Satherley and Isabella Durant’sKiwis say latest benefit boost still not enough – poll.
The poll was commission by a number of anti-poverty groups, and Child Poverty Action Group researcher Janet McAllister argued that the result “shows this government has the social license to deliver on much more meaningful and long lasting change than what was announced at Budget 2021”.
Finally, last week the former Reserve Bank Chief Economist and Chairman Arthur Grimes, now at Victoria University of Wellington, accused the Government of engineering the worst wellbeing disaster of the last two decades in the economic policies they chose to implement since Covid hit. Rising cost of living and housing affordability. For his arguments about how the Government has caused a crisis for the poor in terms of cost of living and housing affordability, and why and he accuses Treasury of being “utterly incompetent”, see Jenée Tibshraeny’s Arthur Grimes: RBNZ and the Govt have engineered a ‘wellbeing disaster’.
The acrobatic handsprings, somersaults and twists performed by world-class gymnasts at the Tokyo Olympics are among the most complex skills humans can perform.
But at their heart is an instinctive process that can help teach us mere mortals how to stay safe from falls as we move much less spectacularly around our own environment.
To complete acrobatic manoeuvres, gymnasts need energy. In most cases, this energy comes from the jump performed at the start of the element, often after a run-up to gain momentum.
But the power in the jump has less to do with the power output of the gymnast’s muscles, and more to do with the power generated by the springy floor, or by the springboard in the case of a vault, as well as the elasticity of the gymnast’s own tendons.
To optimise the power of the spring from the floor or springboard, the gymnasts have to perfectly set the stiffness of their own spring — the spring of their legs — to get the most power. You can see this process in slow motion in this video.
When walking or running on a hard surface such as concrete, our joints flex and extend a lot in each jump as our muscles control the joints — compare the video below to the one linked above. But on a springy trampoline we don’t flex our joints much, instead keeping our legs straighter and using less muscle work. That’s why we can jump for much longer without tiring on a trampoline.
When jumping on a hard surface, we flex the joints considerably so our ‘leg spring’ is less stiff than on a sprung surface.
To perfectly “tune” their leg spring to make the most of the springy surface, gymnasts pre-activate their muscles before hitting the floor to begin their jump, using dozens of muscles to adopt a very specific joint configuration that delivers the perfect leg stiffness.
Then, when hitting the ground immediately before takeoff, a variety of reflexes can be triggered that can influence muscle force and alter leg spring stiffness. The gymnast has to compensate for these in advance because the contact time with the ground is too short to make any reactive adjustments during takeoff.
Getting this right takes countless hours of practice, over many years.
What happens when the gymnast then moves to the beam, which is much less springy? They have to adapt their muscle activation to generate a different amount of leg stiffness. They have to be able to tailor their jumping technique with exquisite accuracy to cope with different surfaces.
It sounds technical, but we all do it to a certain extent. We walk, run and jump on surfaces with vastly different stiffnesses, from concrete to carpet, to grass or sand. Failing to adjust our own leg spring stiffness can increase the energy cost of moving, leading to fatigue, and potentially increase our risk of falling. This can be life-threatening – falls leading to hip fractures in older people massively increase the risk of death in following months and years.
Both in early childhood, when we’re first learning to move, and in older age, when walking costs more energy and the risk of falling is greater, it’s hugely valuable to practise walking across a range of different surfaces. You can do it by taking walks along forest tracks (especially if rocks and concrete paths intermingle with dirt or grass) or sandy beaches (walking in shallow moving water is also a nice way to stay cool in summer while honing your balance). Your local park might also have equipment designed to practise balancing.
Hiking on rough terrain is a great way to keep your legs working at their best. Toomas Tartes/Unsplash, CC BY-SA
Do the twist
Gymnasts need to know how to complete a variety of somersaults and twists. For this they need lots of rotational energy, most of which comes from the initial run-up and jump. Once airborne, you can’t grab more energy!
So gymnasts have to launch off the floor, springboard or beam with the perfect amount of rotation to execute their acrobatic manoeuvre. This requires tremendous precision — “sticking” the landing requires completing the planned number of rotations in perfect time for their feet to hit the floor and avoid toppling over.
Amazingly, elite gymnasts can also transition in mid-air between different types of tumbling, perhaps moving from a straight somersault to an angled twist. But how do they do this, if they can’t take on more energy halfway?
They do it by rotating their arms to change their direction of rotation. This can be seen clearly in this slow-motion video.
We all do the same thing, especially if we’re trying not to fall over. Newton’s third law says every action has an equal and opposite reaction. So by rotating our arms in the opposite direction to the way we’re falling, we can attempt to push our body back upright. Notice how a gymnast on a beam uses their arms to make sure they don’t fall off.
Russian gymnast Angelina Melnikova, demonstrating the importance of arms. Ashley Landis/AP
This is another tip we can all learn from elite gymnasts. Using your arms is an important part of maintaining balance, particularly during exercise.
You can practise balancing every day by standing on one leg to do daily tasks, walking along lines in the concrete or on balance beams in the play area at your local park, or even by standing up to put on pants and socks rather than sitting on the bed or a chair.
Children and adults alike can also play sports or exercise in the playground — we’re never too old to play, and play is the best way to learn any physical skill.
Anthony Blazevich 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.
Changes to Australian defamation laws that came into effect this month in several states could provide some respite for political satire as a mode of political communication.
The treatment of YouTube personality Jordan Shanks and his producer Kristo Langker is a case in point. FriendlyJordies, Shanks’ popular YouTube channel, had mockingly depicted NSW Deputy Premier John Barilaro as Mario, the fictional video game character who wins races by cheating. Shanks’ satirical stunts and commentary included content about alleged incompetence and corruption.
In response, Langker was arrested by no less than the Fixated Persons Investigations Unit of the NSW police, which is normally concerned with rooting out extremists and terrorists, and subjecting them to psychological assessment. Furthermore, Shanks is now being sued by Barilaro for defamation.
The reformed defamation laws came into effect on July 1 in New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria and South Australia. They will become nationally uniform by the end of this year.
The reformed laws now include a public interest defence and a serious harm provision, both of which promise room for manoeuvre for political satirists.
The changes mean more protection for satire highlighting matters of interest to the public. The only exception is that representations can’t make accusations without factual basis. And the new serious harm provision means that satirical insult does not automatically equate to reputational damage.
How this will be tested in law remains to be seen, particularly as it relates to the implied right to freedom of political expression. These legal reforms may be welcome relief, reducing some risk to satirists.
But in terms of power relations, the defamation issue may still come down to who has the money to mount a defence. For grassroots and citizen satirists without the funds to access legal advice, this is still problematic.
Limits to the modern court jester
Whether or not one approves of Shanks’ potentially racist depiction of Barilaro, the actions against him and his producer do seem to be disproportionate and a far cry from the past.
For example, back in 2004, in a stunt that resonated with the satirical series The Chaser’s War on Everything, a man named Patrick Coleman distributed pamphlets in Townsville with the words “Get to know your local corrupt type coppers”. He was arrested and convicted under vagrancy laws for use of insulting language in a public place (among other charges).
However, the High Court overturned the charge of insulting police, saying the police should be expected to resist the sting of insults directed at them.
Indeed, tolerance for even more risqué political satire stretches a long way back, from the no-holds-barred comedy of The Big Gig and The Comedy Company, to the rogue and surreal inversion of Australian politics and culture in the series DAAS Kapital.
Joan Kirner singing Joan Jett’s ‘I Love Rock n’ Roll’ on the Late Show.
There have also been notable instances of resistance, too. In the late 1990s, Pauline Hanson mounted legal challenges against the work of satirist Simon Hunt, aka Pauline Pantsdown. ABC’s The Glasshouse was also cancelled in 2006 — some say at the request of John Howard — arguably because the political commentary got too pointed for the prime minister’s office.
Attempts to criminalise impersonations before
In recent years, the concerns of increasingly sensitive politicians seem to have found greater weight in law.
In 2017, Attorney-General George Brandis fired a serious warning shot at those who may dare to satirise government officials.
The government’s proposed legislation would have replicated existing laws that already made proper impersonation illegal and was an extremely broad-brush approach to defining impersonation. In his submission to the parliamentary inquiry reviewing the changes to the law, Melbourne Law School professor Jeremy Gans warned about legislative overreach.
He pointed out the draft legislation could have led to the criminalisation of satirical conduct as political expression,
and to say otherwise is silly, confusing and (perhaps) ambiguous as to which party will bear the evidential burden on this issue.
While those reforms didn’t get up, they may be reflective of a broader desire on the part of government to sanitise public political comment.
Comedian Max Gillies impersonating former Prime Minister Bob Hawke.
And satirists will almost certainly continue to experience heightened pressure to self-censor due to the risk of lawsuits. This undermines a key medium for articulating legitimate political critique and protest.
Comedian, writer and broadcaster Wendy Harmer once observed that what we see on TV and in other media “tells you where your society is at”.
If media artists are too afraid to express what our communities feel through satire for fear of government or legal reprisal, then surely we come to know less about who we are.
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.
A View from Afar: Selwyn Manning and Paul Buchanan will present this week’s podcast, A View from Afar, LIVE at midday Thursday and will do a deep-dive into cyber-attacks and hybrid warfare – Especially how 2021 has witnessed a Cold War II styled stand-off between global powers.
To re-cap, there has been:
Allegations of a global-scale hack by the People’s Republic of China.
There’s the Pegasus spyware scandal, where Israel has exported deep-tracking and targeting spyware to despots and authoritarian governments.
Then there’s been the relatively silent mission-creep of Palantir as a Western-oriented Public Private Partnership-styled signals “facilitator”.
Paul and Selwyn will discuss how all of this sets 2021 apart and adds up to an evolution of hybrid warfare capabilities.
WE INVITE YOU TO PARTICIPATE WHILE WE ARE LIVE WITH COMMENTS AND QUESTIONS IN THE RECORDING OF THIS PODCAST:
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Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Patricia A. O’Brien, Visiting Fellow, School of History, Australian National University, and Adjunct Professor, Asian Studies Program, Georgetown University
After nearly four months of being taken to the brink of dictatorship, Samoa’s constitutional crisis ended on July 26 when the prime minister for the past 23 years, Tuilaepa Sa’ilele Malielegaoi, conceded defeat.
With the April 9 election loss, the 40-year dominance of Samoan politics by Tuilaepa’s Human Rights Protection Party (HRPP) ended too.
Samoa’s new leader, Fiame Naomi Mata’afa, might be the country’s first female prime minister, but she is a veteran politician. As she attempts to bring her nation out of its greatest test in the 59 years since independence, she will need all the deep experience she brings to the role.
A political dynasty
Fiame was born in 1957 into one of Samoa’s leading chiefly and political families. Her parents were both trailblazers, too. Her father, Mataʻafa Faumuina Mulinuʻu II, served as Samoa’s first prime minister over two terms (1959-1970 and 1973-1975).
When he died in office in 1975, Fiame’s mother, La’ulu Fetauimalemau Mata’afa, represented his constituency of Lotofagu. She was just the second woman to be elected to Samoa’s parliament.
After serving in parliament, La’ulu was appointed Samoa’s consul general to New Zealand in 1989 and then served as Samoa’s high commissioner to New Zealand from 1993 to 1997.
Fiame also has strong ties to New Zealand. From age 11, she attended Marsden College in Wellington before studying political science at Victoria University, graduating in 1979.
A veteran and trailblazer
Fiame’s own political career began in 1985 when she won her parents’ former parliamentary seat of Lotofagu. Since then, Fiame’s career has ridden the wave of the HRPP’s popularity.
Under former prime minister Tofilau, she became the country’s first female cabinet minister, holding the education portfolio for 15 years. Fiame has also overseen the Ministry of Women, Community and Social Development, and the Ministry of Justice and Courts Administration, as well as other government appointments.
In 2016, she again broke new ground when she was appointed Tuilaepa’s deputy prime minister. She held this position until her resignation in September 2020 in protest at Tuilaepa’s controversial “three bills” (which gave the Lands and Titles Court additional powers over the bestowal of lands and titles within families and villages and undermined judicial independence and the rule of law).
The bills and their rushed passage into law ignited widespread protests and the formation of the Fa’atuatua i le Atua Samoa ua Tasi (FAST Party), which Fiame joined as leader in March 2021. Ultimately they led to Tuilaepa’s political demise.
The bitter election campaign and its protracted aftermath, when Tuilaepa went to extraordinary lengths to retain power, has tested Fiame’s mettle as a national leader.
Throughout, she has embodied the same faith that justice would prevail that she asked of Samoa’s people as they witnessed the alarming twists and turns of Tuilaepa’s power play.
The challenge of power
Her impressive track record and admirably steady temperament will continue to be called upon as she faces multiple challenges as leader.
Firstly, Fiame will have to contend with something Tuilaepa never had to during his long term — a viable opposition, whose leader just happens to be Tuilaepa. True to form, he has already questioned the legitimacy of Fiame’s FAST government.
How much power Tuilaepa can wield in parliament is yet be to determined. Seven by-elections have been triggered so far due to petitions stemming from the general election. FAST currently holds 26 seats and the HRPP 17, with one independent.
There will also be a by-election for the 52nd parliamentary seat created since the April 9 election — the seat designated for a woman candidate to meet a constitutionally mandated 10% quota of female parliamentarians. It was by creating this seat and “weaponising” gender politics that Tuilaepa hoped to keep Fiame out of power.
Fiame must also contend with Tuilaepa’s residual powers beyond parliament. His son, Leasiosio Oscar Malielegaoi, was appointed CEO of the Ministry of Finance in 2018, as well as various other positions, by his father.
The bureaucracy is staffed by other Tuilaepa loyalists. Reinvigorating national power structures will be a delicate operation for Fiame. But she is aided in her nation-building by the grassroots, village-level support for her government that has seen a succession of leaders calling on Tuilaepa to concede over the past weeks.
This support will be critical, not only for the pending by-elections but also to ward off the threat of COVID-19, now tragically playing out in neighbouring Fiji.
Samoa’s place in the world
While no deaths have been attributed to COVID-19 in Samoa, vaccinations are vital to keep it that way. Currently, only 18.6% of the population are fully vaccinated and vaccine hesitancy persists.
Ameliorating the devastating impact of the pandemic on Samoa’s tourist economy is another major challenge. And Fiame will also need to negotiate China’s considerable economic influence, encouraged by Tuilaepa but which Fiame has signalled she will not emulate.
Regionally, Fiame has an opportunity to be a constructive presence at a time when the pandemic has exacerbated frayed relations between Pacific democracies and China, and within the Pacific Islands Forum, which has recently seen a third of its member nations quit.
None of which detracts from the historical significance of Fiame’s election. She joins an exclusive group of women political leaders and can encourage other women in the region aspiring to political office.
As US Vice President Kamala Harris said of her own election, “I may be the first woman to hold this office. But I won’t be the last.” For Fiame, perhaps, that is the ultimate challenge.
Patricia A. O’Brien received funding from the Australian Research Council and New Zealand’s JD Stout Trust.
This article is part of a series providing school students with evidence-based advice for choosing subjects in their senior years.
English (or an equivalent literacy requirement) is a compulsory subject for all secondary students in Australia. In years 11 and 12 there are several types of English subjects to choose from.
There are different versions of “English” in different states, with various titles and levels of difficulty.
The Australian Curriculum is the base for the development of state and territory senior secondary courses. It breaks English down into four broad categories: English, literature, EALD (English as an Additional Language or Dialect) and essential English.
Literature is known as the most challenging of the four and focuses on literary texts such as poetry, prose and drama. Literature explores the creative use of language through in-depth study of culturally important literary works.
In a literature course, you could be asked to explore representations of race in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. Drümmkopf/Flickr, CC BY
For example, students may explore colonial representations of race in Joseph Conrad’s novella Heart of Darkness, the beauty and unsettling nature of Shakespeare’s sonnets, or Australian cultural identity in Jack Davis’ play No Sugar.
Literature is more like philosophy or history than what we think of as English from NAPLAN (grammar and comprehension).
Literature used to be a popular subject in some states, but its popularity has been falling. Recent figures from Victoria show while literature was the 15th most commonly studied subject in 2015 in the senior years, it tumbled to 19th in 2019. In 2020, it fell off the top 20 list entirely.
In Western Australia, some schools have dropped literature because of low enrolments. A report in 2018 noted the percentage of year 12s studying literature fell from 26% in 1998 to 11% in 2017.
Theories about this fall include the fact literature is seen as an elitist subject, that you have to be someone who reads all the time to take it, and you have to love great 19th and 20th century literature.
These things aren’t true. Anyone interested but willing to challenge themselves should and can take literature. And some examples of recent texts include Breath (Tim Winton), The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood) and The Book Thief (Marcus Zusak). There are many “fun” texts students can study and while literature is challenging it can also be enriching, and can cultivate a love of reading.
Also, my research showed some students found studying literary texts to be an empowering experience. One year 12 student said:
I’m the black sheep in my household. I identified with Rose (a character from Tim Winton’s Cloudstreet) quite a bit as the strong girl who was being resilient and was trying to break out of where she was. I do performing and everyone else does engineering or chemistry.
English develops analytical and creative skills through studying a range of literary and non-literary texts (including oral, multimedia and digital “texts” such as documentaries, graphic novels and feature articles).
If you’re not in love with reading or writing but want to study subjects such as commerce or engineering at university, this may be the course for you.
In English, you can study a range of texts, such as magazine feature articles. Shutterstock
Although it’s seen as easier than literature, not everyone finds it that way. One Victorian student who had taken both literature and English wrote actually found the latter harder. This is because she felt she had more freedom in literature while English “wasn’t really compatible with tangents”. She found it harder to be more concise in her expression.
English as an additional language is designed for students with English is their second language. This is an ATAR subject in some states such as Western Australia and Victoria.
Essential English develops students’ use of language, but it is not an ATAR subject. Essential English and general English are tailored to students who would like to graduate from high school but don’t want to go to university.
How do I decide which to take?
The first question you can ask is: “Do I want to go to university?”. If the answer is “yes”, you are likely to choose an English subject that will go towards your ATAR.
It’s worth noting you can still get into university without an ATAR, or without a very high one, but it does give your more options.
ATAR subjects are traditionally seen as more difficult than non-ATAR ones, although for anyone who has ever studied non-ATAR subjects, this is debatable.
So, let’s take an example student, Mia. She is tossing up between medicine, mechanics or music teaching.
If Mia wants to become a mechanic, she does not need an ATAR to get a school-based apprenticeship. She may be better off studying general English, which focuses on the skills students need to become competent communicators in everyday life, or at work.
If Mia wants to become a mechanic, she doesn’t need to do an English subject that contributes to an ATAR. Shutterstock
But if Mia wants to be a music teacher or doctor, she is better off choosing an English subject that contributes to an ATAR. If she would like to be a teacher, she could choose something like English standard or English advanced and will need an ATAR score over 70 (but more than likely around 85).
If she would like to study medicine, she will need an ATAR closer to 99.
What about scaling?
Some English subjects are scaled higher, while others lower.
Scaling uses an algorithm to make subject scores more or less comparable to each other. This also makes sure if a student takes a difficult subject, they aren’t disadvantaged. It’s easier to get an A in an easier subject than a harder subject, so scaling generally adds more points to students doing harder subjects.
ATAR literature, a traditionally more difficult course, is usually scaled up. In Western Australia in 2020, for instance, English was scaled down about two points and literature was scaled up by nearly seven.
But students shouldn’t just take a subject like literature because it’s scaled up. Because it’s harder, they may get a lower mark and the scaling won’t make much difference. You should do what interests you, and what you think will contribute best to your future while ensuring a good senior school experience.
What could I do with English?
English is compulsory because you need it for everything in life, from social communication to employment.
Studying literature, which isn’t compulsory, can be useful for occupations that require an advanced command of language such as journalism, research, law, public relations, philosophy and politics.
Read the other articles in our series on choosing senior subjects, here.
Kirsten Lambert 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.
First thing in the morning, or come 11 o’clock, countless Australians anxiously wait for the daily COVID-19 case numbers, trying to understand whether their outbreak is under control, and how much longer they will be in lockdown.
As well as daily case numbers, people want to know what proportion of cases were infectious in the community, and whether there were any unlinked or “mystery” cases.
People have also been following the daily Reff, or effective reproduction number, hoping it will get below 1, showing public health measures are working to halt the spread.
However, to have a good understanding of the dynamics of an outbreak, it is also necessary to understand k, which shows how much variability there is in daily case numbers.
COVID-19 superspreaders
Many superspreading events have occurred in the current pandemic. An infectious volunteer dressed as Santa Claus, for example, visited a care home in Antwerp in December 2020, and infected 40 staff members and more than 100 residents.
Even more drastic is a South Korean woman who caused a superspreading event resulting in more than 5,000 cases in the South Korean city of Daegu.
Meanwhile in Australia, we have seen many examples of cases being detected, but not infecting a single other person.
So, how can this disparity be explained?
Remind me, what’s the Reff?
The effective reproduction number Reff, also called Re or R(t), tells us, on average, how many people an infected person will pass it on to. Unlike the basic reproduction number, R0, Reff takes into account that some people will be vaccinated or immune, and social distancing is in place.
So, if a virus has a Reff of 2, each infected person (primary case) will on average infect two others (secondary cases).
However, this average hides a huge amount of variability. Most infected people simply infect no one, whereas others (the superspreaders) infect many people.
We’re unsure why this is the case. It could be some people are naturally social animals, or fail to maintain social distancing, mask-wearing, or hygiene.
Alternatively, it could simply be that some people have a much higher viral load than others or tend to emit virus particles as aerosol clouds more than others.
Daily case numbers can vary substantially
During periods of outbreaks, health authorities report daily case numbers. Here they are for Victoria when the fifth lockdown began:
Average daily count
The average (mean) daily count over these ten days is 10.7 cases per day (you can calculate it yourself by adding up all the cases and dividing by ten).
However, there is a lot of variability, with numbers going up and down like a yo-yo from zero to twenty. Because of this variability, we often use moving averages to try and smooth things out.
7 day moving average
For a seven-day moving average, we add up the cases from July 12 to the 18 and divide by 7, to get 8.4. Then we do the same for July 13 to the 19 to get 10.3.
This way, we end up with a much smoother series of numbers without all the up and down jags, that allows us to see trends much more easily. Importantly, I also use the moving average to calculate the Reff.
Variance
We measure the amount of variability in the daily case numbers by a statistic called the variance. This measures how far apart the daily counts are from their average value of 10.7. For most count data (for example, the number of days each month you exercise), the average and variance are the same. So, if the average count is 10.7, the variance is 10.7.
However, for this epidemic, because of the superspreaders, the variance is much greater – we call this overdispersion.
So what is the k?
An estimate of how much extra variability or overdispersion there is, is measured by a statistic called k. A small k means the variability is higher than the average daily count, whereas a large k means the variability is closer to the average daily count.
So, with a high value of k (say 2), and a Reff of 2, most infected people would typically infect two others, but it could of course be higher or lower than this.
Source: The Conversation/Adam Kleczkowski (CC-BY-ND)
In the above diagram, the number of people a case infects is shown in each circle. The original maroon (primary) case infects two others (red). Each of these secondary cases infects three or four others (pink), and so the outbreak continues. Typically, most infected people, infect at least one other person.
However, with k close to 0 and a Reff of 2, most people would infect no one else, and there would be one or more superspreaders.
Source: The Conversation/Adam Kleczkowski (CC-BY-ND)
In the above diagram, the primary case (maroon) is a superspreader, infecting 16 other people. Although most of these secondary cases do not infect anyone else, one of the tertiary cases is also a superspreader, infecting 11 others.
In both diagrams the Reff was 2. So, you can see that knowing the Reff is only part of the story.
Estimates of COVID-19’s k range from 0.1 to 0.5. These are very small values, and indicate 80% of secondary infections are caused by around 10% of primary cases. This means the majority of infectious people do not infect anyone.
When an infected person is diagnosed, contact tracers immediately try and find their close contacts. These are then tested and put into isolation. This is called forward contact tracing.
However, in the context of superspreaders, it’s equally important to find out who infected the original diagnosed case, as that person could potentially be a superspreader.
Forward contact tracing of that potential superspreader would likely lead to many more cases being detected. In fact, modelling has found looking backwards as well as forwards could prevent two or three times as many infections. This is known as backward contact tracing and is now widely used in Australia.
The k number shows us the importance of backwards as well as forwards contact tracing.
Adrian Esterman 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.
The dream of putting a smile on his mother’s face on his graduation day from university has become one that will never happen for Gabriel Gade, after his mother succumbed to the coronavirus that has killed dozens of people in Fiji.
“My ultimate dream was to make her proud of all her sacrifices, battles in life and the love she gave me over the last 21 years of my life,” he told Asia Pacific Report.
“My mother had to work all the time to pay off the mortgage, and I could tell that she was exhausted most of the time, but I think it was her love for her children that kept her going every day.
His mother, Suliana Bulavakarua, worked as a registered nurse at the Colonial War Memorial Hospital (CWMH), the largest healthcare facility in the country, where his family believes she contracted the virus while pregnant.
After she tested positive for covid-19 on July 16, she was transported to the Covid-care facility in Suva, leaving behind Gade and his sister at home as their father was working outside of the mainland.
Her children also tested positive for the virus but have recovered. Gade was vaccinated with the first dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine while his mother was awaiting the Moderna vaccine that was to be administered to pregnant women.
Her daughter was not eligible for the vaccine as she was under the age of 18.
Her condition worsened Her condition got worse on July 18 and was advised by attending physicians to deliver her baby by caesarean section.
The 44-year-old gave life to a baby girl but the battle with covid-19 was so intense that it soon ended her life.
“It was late at night on Wednesday [July 21] when my phone rang and I did not answer because it was a new number and it was late as well. However, little did I know the hospital was calling me to inform us of our mother’s passing,” says Gade.
Gabriel Gade with his mother, Suliana Bulavakarua, and sister at the time of his 21st birthday last year. Image: Wansolwara
“A team from the hospital knocked on our doors on Thursday morning and relayed the news that broke my sister and I into tears. The world suddenly stopped as I lost the one person I owe everything to.
“My mind ran wild but hours later I had to compose myself for my family, especially my sisters who will now grow up without a mother.
The Lau native said the teachings of his mother was something he would hold dear to his heart and would use in the upbringing of his sisters.
“My mother taught me to be generous, loving and to care for people that needed my help.
“I remember a night where I would do my assignments on my study table in our living room and during her days off she would sit on the couch and then she would try and make small talk.
“My mom and I had this relationship where she would always be pressed to do things like for me to graduate. My mom was always supportive of my endeavours.
“I love you so much mom.”
The “fallen hero” is survived by her husband and three children.
Fiji has recorded 715 cases of Covid-19 and 11 deaths – including an unvaccinated health worker – in the last 24 hours to 8am yesterday. https://t.co/CcvTZsXk1n
Healthcare workers remember fallen hero The loss of Bulavakarua was not only for the family but for healthcare workers around the country as they took to social media to express their feelings.
A nurse posted on Facebook that Bulavakarua was the talk of the operation room at the hospital she worked in as they all reminisced her dedication to saving lives in the country.
Health Secretary Dr James Fong, in a televised address, announced the passing of the healthcare worker and said she was one of the many who risked their lives to save people from the deadly delta variant of the virus.
“This current crisis is demonstrating the essential, tireless, innovative and too-often undervalued role of health workers and our frontline colleagues in ensuring strong, resilient health systems for everyone, everywhere,” he said.
“They work long hours, sacrifice time with their families, and endure the stresses that this pandemic places upon them as individuals, professionals, and upon the entire health system.
“Delivering health services in an environment of constraint resources will often mean providing access to life saving care at the expense of comfort.
Fiji’s covid-19 case count stands at 24,424 since March 2020 with 6191 recoveries.
Josefa Babitu is a final-year student journalist at the University of the South Pacific (USP). He is also the current student editor for Wansolwara, USP Journalism’s student training newspaper and online publication. He is a contributor to Asia Pacific Report.
France and French Polynesia have agreed to jointly spend US$60 million to build 17 cyclone shelters across the Tuamotu archipelago.
This was announced on Manihi atoll, where the visiting French President Emmanuel Macron inaugurated the construction site for a shelter for the atoll’s 600 inhabitants.
The shelters are scheduled to be built by 2027 to extend protection for a further 8000 residents. So far 27 shelters have been erected.
Macron stopped on Manihi on his way back to Tahiti after a visit to Hiva Oa.
The French Polynesian President, Edouard Fritch, who is travelling with Macron, told local media that he asked Paris for another loan to cope with problems at the social welfare agency CPS and Air Tahiti Nui.
Wallis delegation to meet Macron in Tahiti A delegation from Wallis and Futuna is expected to fly to French Polynesia today to meet President Macron.
According to the French Prefect in Wallis, Macron originally had Wallis and Futuna on his itinerary, but called off a visit because of the restrictions linked to the covid-19 pandemic.
Prefect Herve Jonathan told local television Macron had wanted to mark this week’s 60th anniversary of the territory’s current status as a French overseas collectivity.
He said the 14-member delegation would include representatives of the three traditional kingdoms as well as the Catholic archbishop.
In March, Wallis and Futuna had a covid-19 community outbreak, which prompted a strict lockdown.
An immediate immunisation drive inoculated about half the population within two weeks but almost half the population rejected the vaccination offer.
Four hundred people caught the virus and seven died.
Detention for Tahiti man insulting Macron A man in French Polynesia has been taken into custody for questioning for insulting President Macron shortly after he had arrived at Tahiti’s airport.
Tahiti-infos reports the individual joined demonstrators lined up along the route of the presidential convoy to Tahiti’s hospital.
Demonstrations by anti-nuclear groups and the pro-independence opposition are banned for the duration of the president’s four-day visit.
Reports say the groups distanced themselves from the individual, saying he was not one of their members.
He is due in court and expected to be tried for insulting a person in public authority.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Back in 2019, more than 11,000 scientists declared a global climate emergency. They established a comprehensive set of vital signs that impact or reflect the planet’s health, such as forest loss, fossil fuel subsidies, glacier thickness, ocean acidity and surface temperature.
In a new paper published today, we show how these vital signs have changed since the original publication, including through the COVID-19 pandemic. In general, while we’ve seen lots of positive talk and commitments from some governments, our vital signs are mostly not trending in the right direction.
So, let’s look at how things have progressed since 2019, from the growing number of livestock to the meagre influence of the pandemic.
Is it all bad news?
No, thankfully. Fossil fuel divestment and fossil fuel subsidies have improved in record-setting ways, potentially signalling an economic shift to a renewable energy future.
The graph on the left shows an increase in fossil fuel divestment by 1,117 organisations based on data from 350.org, and the graph on the right shows a decrease in subsidies for fossil fuels based on the International Energy Agency subsidies database. The red lines show changes since our original publication in 2019.
However, most of the other vital signs reflect the consequences of the so far unrelenting “business as usual” approach to climate change policy worldwide.
In addition, three main greenhouse gases — carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide — set records for atmospheric concentrations in 2020 and again in 2021. In April this year, carbon dioxide concentration reached 416 parts per million, the highest monthly global average concentration ever recorded.
Time series of three climate-related responses. The red lines show changes since our original publication in 2019.
Ruminant livestock — cattle, buffalo, sheep, and goats — now number more than 4 billion, and their total mass is more than that of all humans and wild mammals combined. This is a problem because these animals are responsible for impacting biodiversity, releasing huge amounts of methane emissions, and land continues to be cleared to make room for them.
There are now more than 4 billion livestock on Earth. Flickr
In better news, recent per capita meat production declined by about 5.7% (2.9 kilograms per person) between 2018 and 2020. But this is likely because of an outbreak of African swine fever in China that reduced the pork supply, and possibly also as one of the impacts of the pandemic.
Tragically, Brazilian Amazon annual forest loss rates increased in both 2019 and 2020. It reached a 12-year high of 1.11 million hectares deforested in 2020.
Ocean acidification is also near an all-time record. Together with heat stress from warming waters, acidification threatens the coral reefs that more than half a billion people depend on for food, tourism dollars and storm surge protection.
Map of land-ocean temperature index anomaly in June, relative to the 1951-1980 baseline. Oregon State/NASA
What about the pandemic?
With its myriad economic interruptions, the COVID-19 pandemic had the side effect of providing some climate relief, but only of the ephemeral variety.
But all of these are expected to significantly rise as the economy reopens. While global gross domestic product dropped by 3.6% in 2020, it is projected to rebound to an all-time high.
So, a major lesson of the pandemic is that even when fossil-fuel consumption and transportation sharply decrease, it’s still insufficient to tackle climate change.
There is growing evidence we’re getting close to or have already gone beyond tipping points associated with important parts of the Earth system, including warm-water coral reefs, the Amazon rainforest and the West Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets.
Warming waters are threatening West Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets. Flickr
OK, so what do we do about it?
In our 2019 paper, we urged six critical and interrelated steps governments — and the rest of humanity — can take to lessen the worst effects of climate change:
prioritise energy efficiency, and replace fossil fuels with low-carbon renewable energy
reduce emissions of short-lived pollutants such as methane and soot
curb land clearing to protect and restore the Earth’s ecosystems
move away from unsustainable ideas of ever-increasing economic and resource consumption
stabilise and, ideally, gradually reduce human populations while improving human well-being especially by educating girls and women globally.
These solutions still apply. But in our updated 2021 paper, we go further, highlighting the potential for a three-pronged approach for near-term policy:
a globally implemented carbon price
a phase-out and eventual ban of fossil fuels
strategic environmental reserves to safeguard and restore natural carbon sinks and biodiversity.
A global price for carbon needs to be high enough to induce decarbonisation across industry.
And our suggestion to create strategic environmental reserves, such as forests and wetlands, reflects the need to stop treating the climate emergency as a stand-alone issue.
By stopping the unsustainable exploitation of natural habitats through, for example, creeping urbanisation, and land degradation for mining, agriculture and forestry, we can reduce animal-borne disease risks, protect carbon stocks and conserve biodiversity — all at the same time.
There has been a worrying number of disasters since 2019, including Australia’s megafires. Shutterstock
Is this actually possible?
Yes, and many opportunities still exist to shift pandemic-related financial support measures into climate friendly activities. Currently, only 17% of such funds had been allocated that way worldwide, as of early March 2021. This percentage could be lifted with serious coordinated, global commitment.
Greening the economy could also address the longer term need for major transformative change to reduce emissions and, more broadly, the over-exploitation of the planet.
Our planetary vital signs make it clear we need urgent action to address climate change. With new commitments getting made by governments all over the world, we hope to see the curves in our graphs changing in the right directions soon.
Thomas Newsome is a member of the Australian Mammal Society and Ecological Society of Australia, is on the Council of the Royal Zoological Society of NSW, and is acting President of the Australasian Wildlife Management Society. No funding beyond support from The University of Sydney (employer) was provided specifically for this work.
Christopher Wolf and William Ripple 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.
After his release from prison in South Africa and he became inaugural president of the majority rule government with the abolition of apartheid, Nelson Mandela declared in a speech in 1997: “We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.”
Founding Halt All Racist Tours (HART) leader John Minto invoked these words again several times in Hamilton on Sunday as veterans and supporters of the 1981 Springbok Rugby Tour anti-apartheid protests gathered to mark the 40th anniversary of the historic events.
Starting at the “1981” tour retrospective exhibition at the Hamilton Museum – Te Whare Taonga o Waikato, the protesters gathered for a luncheon at Anglican Action and then staged a ceremonial march to FMG Stadium – known back then as Rugby Park – where they had famously breached the perimeter fence and invaded the pitch.
The exhibition features photographs by Geoffrey Short, Kees Sprengers and John Mercer of that day on 25 July 1981 when about 2000 protesters halted the second match of the tour.
“The Kirikiriroa protests were the outcome of months of planning, counter-planning and public discontent,” said curator Nadia Gush.
“1981 documents a period of unrest, with New Zealanders of all ages expressing their solidarity with marginalised black South Africans.”
The 1981 anti-apartheid protest march reenactment from Hamilton’s Garden Place to Rugby Park (FMG Stadium Waikato) on 25 July 2021. Image: David Robie/APR
PSNA’s John Minto talks about the ongoing apartheid struggle over Palestine. Video: David Robie/APR
Their courage and determination led to a tense stand-off in the middle of the park with about 500 protesters huddled together with linked arms and defiantly facing both police squads and a 30,000 crowd baying for their blood.
Match called off The match was called off by the authorities – interrupting the first ever live broadcast of a South African rugby match from New Zealand. And this triggered unprecedented violent scenes when rugby enthusiasts attacked protesters.
“Amandla Ngawethu!” – “power to the people!” (the cry of the African National Congress) – chanted John Minto, who has lost none of his powerful protest voice, amplified by a megaphone, as the crowd left Garden Place 40 years on.
“Remember racism… Remember Soweto… Remember Mandela,” came other cries from march marshals.
And a fresh addition this time was “Remember Palestine … Remember Gaza. … Freedom for Palestine” in recognition of the new struggle over Israeli apartheid in the Palestinian Occupied Territories and Gaza under military siege.
“Remember Mandela” … John Minto talking about apartheid at the FMG Stadium Waikato, formerly Hamilton’s Rugby Park. Image: David Robie
Marchers were decidedly much slower than in the original protest four decades ago and a cloudburst dampened the straggling ex-protesters. However, they were revived by the sight of a Tristram Street mural at the stadium devoted to the Springbok tour and the cancellation of the game.
Among the stragglers was Invercargill mayor Sir Tim Shadbolt who described the protests against 1981 Springbok Tour as an important historical event for Aotearoa New Zealand.
‘Victory for better NZ’ “It was a victory in a way and changed New Zealand for the better.”
Protest photographer John Miller with tour images of his, including a photo of President Nelson Mandela when he visited New Zealand in 1995. Image: David Robie/APR
Stuff also quoted Angeline Greensill, who along with her mother, the late Eva Rickard, was among the group of anti-tour protesters who made their way onto the pitch at Rugby Park.
Standing up to the “icon of rugby” took courage, Greensill said.
The group passed around three sides of the stadium in the rain as Minto pointed out the “safe house” across the road – “opened up by a courageous man, Dr Anthony Rogers” – where he, Mike Law, Dick Cuthbert and many others were bashed by rugby supporters. A makeshift ambulance driving injured people to hospital was also attacked.
Twenty three people were treated for injuries in Waikato Hospital and police arrested 73 people.
Then, 1981 … the protester huddle in the middle of Hamilton’s Rugby Park. Image: Screenshot from Merata Mita’s documentary Patu!Then, 1981 … police position themselves for the baton charge order against protesters that never came at Hamilton’s Rugby Park. Image: David Robie of stadium historical display/APR
Minto praised the Waikato Rugby Union for recognising this vital event in New Zealand history.
Then the entourage moved into the stadium’s Bronze Room for speeches and sharing of memories of that fateful day.
Cheered loudly They cheered loudly as they marked 3.10pm – the exact time that the match between the touring Boks and Waikato had been called off.
Speakers, including Minto, spoke about both apartheid and the 1981 Springbok tour and 70 years of apartheid and Israeli oppression in Palestinian.
Now, 2021 … FMG Stadium Waikato … renamed from Rugby Park. Image: David Robie/APR
Speakers, including Minto, spoke about both apartheid and the 1981 Springbok tour and 70 years of apartheid and Israeli oppression in Palestinian.
“Both Nelson Mandela and Bishop Desmond Tutu said, ‘Our freedom in South Africa will not be complete without the freedom of the Palestinians’,” declared Minto.
“It’s unfinished business.”
“This is the new anti-apartheid struggle,” added Minto, who is also national chair of the Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSN). He challenged participants to join him in this ongoing campaign.
A Palestinian child writes on a “Call it apartheid and boycott” petition to Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern asking her to close the Israeli embassy, saying: “Dr Jasenda (sic), save Palestine and ignore Israel. From Khaled, 7 years old.” Image: David Robie/APR
Australian households will begin receiving instructions on how to fill out the 2021 census from early August.
The Census of Population and Housing is held every five years in Australia — and counts every person and household in Australia. But this is the first time the count will be held during a global pandemic amid lockdowns and rising health and economic impacts of COVID-19.
Census data are crucial to what we know about Australia: who lives here, and how and where people live. Data from census informs vital services and infrastructure including, education, healthcare, transport, and welfare.
Census 2021
August 10 is the official census date, but things will be done a little differently in 2021. This year, Australia’s 10 million households will receive census login information or hard copy forms in the mail from next week.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics is encouraging people to complete the census as soon as they receive their instructions, if they know where they’ll be on August 10. In previous years you had to fill in your form on census night.
The 2016 ‘fail’
Australia’s last census was associated with great controversy stemming from the “digital-first” strategy (where the majority of Australians would do the census online for the first time) and bureau plans to keep names and addresses for up to four years, to boost anonymous links with other data.
This was accompanied by federal politicians saying they would refuse to put their names on the census, citing privacy concerns, and a campaign to deface census forms.
The #censusfail in 2016 was a huge embarrassment for the federal government. Joel Carrett/AAP
Then came #censusfail.
Distributed denial of service attacks on census night saw the online questionnaire platform shut down and remain offline for nearly two days.
While data quality was not compromised, it was nevertheless a huge embarrassment for the bureau and the Turnbull government.
What’s changed in terms of set-up?
Lessons have since been learned and these are seen in preparations for Census 2021.
The new window to complete the census, rather than a one-night burst, will help ease online bottlenecks and external threats. It will also reduce pressure on the many Australians in lockdown, juggling paid work and home schooling.
The 2021 Census will collect information about more than 25 million Australians. Peter Rae/AAP
Neighbourhoods won’t be graced by an army of census workers, this time, either. The bureau is expecting the overwhelming majority of people to complete the census online, with reminders sent out by mail.
So the digital-first strategy that caused such a stir in 2016 was an important trial run for the contactless conditions necessary during a pandemic. Some other countries have postponed their national census programs (like Scotland) and even risked COVID-19 exposure by going ahead regardless (like Indonesia). But Australia’s preparations will enable a vital undertaking to continue safely.
What’s changed in terms of the questions?
According to the bureau, this year will include the “first significant changes to the information collected in the census since 2006”. (Funding cuts since the 2001 have previously prohibited questionnaire refreshes.)
2021 will see new questions about long-term health conditions and defence force service. Sex beyond the binary of male/female will be also collected for the first time for all. These new additions to census have been made possible by the removal of the household internet connection question.
Improvements have also been made to better capture language and ancestry of First Nations Australians.
Census questions still have some way to go to better reflect contemporary Australia. But any changes to the census need to be understood by all.
Sexual orientation and gender identity, living in more than one place, and ethnicity are among improvements identified by demographers and social researchers for Census 2026, for example.
What will we get out of Census 2021?
The census has the power to say much about a nation and how populations are changing. While there will be no specific questions on COVID-19, the data will provide valuable insights into the impacts of the coronavirus on Australians. With the 2016 data now five years old, more up-to-date information is needed to make plans for the future.
With so many people in Australia in lockdown, the census will gauge the economic and social impacts of COVID-19 in a way no other data undertaking has been able to achieve yet. Individuals, communities and economic activities affected by COVID-19 will be reflected.
Census 2021 is no ordinary population survey – it will lay the foundation for Australia’s post-pandemic future by informing the nation’s social and economic recovery, including measuring the success of the vaccination rollout through improved population data. It’s more important than ever that we get this census right.
Results from Census 2021 will become available from June next year.
The future of the census
A number of countries, such as The Netherlands, have moved away from traditional census taking. Instead opting for data compilation performed using routine government data collected through administrative interactions. Like Medicare and Centrelink data being compiled by government for your census submission.
The Australian Statistician David Gruen, has foreshadowed such a possibility for Australia. The United Kingdom is also thinking about it. This approach is a concern as it excludes individuals and communities from a vital participatory undertaking, and the data quality suffers as people can no longer self-report information.
In its current form, census data is accessible, and contributed to, by all. Australia’s census data enable everyone from researchers, to policymakers, to ordinary individuals the power to hold government to account.
It belongs to all of us.
Liz Allen worked at the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) between 2006 and 2007. Liz has no ongoing employment or financial links with the ABS. Liz is a user of ABS data for research purposes.
Growing data from clinical trials and real world rollouts suggests the vaccine is safe and very effective. But there are several outstanding questions around the vaccine, such as whether it’s associated with the very rare blood clotting condition seen with AstraZeneca’s vaccine, and how well it performs against variants of the coronavirus.
So what kind of vaccine is Sputnik V, how does it work, and what data are we missing?
Like the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, the basis for the vaccine is a harmless form of adenovirus, one of several viruses that can cause the common cold.
The adenovirus acts as a packaging system for DNA to deliver instructions to our cells. This DNA instructs cells to make the spike protein from SARS-CoV-2. The immune system is then trained to generate an immune response to the spike protein, which provides protection against the real SARS-CoV-2 virus.
Unlike the other adenovirus-based vaccines, Sputnik V uses two different adenoviruses for the first and second dose. This is done as people can develop an immune response against the adenovirus vector used in the first shot of the vaccine, which could possibly reduce the overall effectiveness.
The two doses are separated by three weeks, rather than the 8-12 weeks usually recommended for the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine.
Sputnik V doesn’t require the ultra-cold temperatures like the mRNA-based vaccines, which makes it an attractive candidate for many countries desperate for vaccines. Gamaleya has been open to sharing its manufacturing platform, unlike some other vaccines.
How well does Sputnik V work against COVID-19?
Data from the phase 1 and 2 clinical trial was published in September in the highly reputed medical journal The Lancet. The data showed no major adverse reactions, and side effects that were common to the other COVID-19 vaccines. These were primarily fever, headaches and pain at the injection site.
Most impressively were the results of the larger phase 3 trial published in The Lancet in February this year, which reported 91.6% efficacy against symptomatic infection. This places Sputnik on par with the mRNA vaccines by Pfizer and Moderna, for which the original efficacies were 95% and 94.1% respectively.
The results from the phase 3 trial also suggested a single dose was protective, with an efficacy of 79.4%. This led to the approval of “Sputnik Light” in some countries, a single dose regimen that overcomes some of the issues manufacturing the second dose of Sputnik V. The two different adenoviruses used in the first and second dose of Sputnik V need to be produced using separate cell cultures. Only having to produce a single type of adenovirus streamlines the production.
Outside of these trials, a press release from Gamaleya says real world analysis of the vaccine given to nearly 3.8 million Russians reported an efficacy of 97.6% against infection. This led Gamaleya to claim Sputnik V is “the world’s most effective vaccine”.
Despite the encouraging efficacy results, there are still some concerns. Both the phase 1 and 2 safety trials, and the phase 3 efficacy trials, have been criticised for not sharing their raw data or the full details of their study design, as well as inconsistencies in the published data.
Sputnik V isn’t yet approved by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) or the World Health Organization, meaning it cannot be used by COVAX, the COVID vaccine global access initiative. Gamaleya has yet to provide the EMA with all the necessary manufacturing and clinical data necessary to gain this approval.
What are the unanswered questions about Sputnik V?
There are a number of outstanding issues with the vaccine.
Of particular importance is the question of whether it’s associated with the very rare blood clotting condition that’s been linked to the AstraZeneca and Johnson and Johnson vaccines, which also use adenovirus vectors.
Gamaleya claims there have been no reports of this occurring in individuals given Sputnik V. Analysis following the administration of 2.8 million doses of Sputnik V in Argentina supports this. The results, announced via a press release by the Argentine health ministry, reported no deaths associated with vaccination and showed mostly mild adverse events.
And there was no indication of an association between Sputnik V and this condition in the clinical trials.
However, there hasn’t been enough published real world data to be completely confident researchers would be able to pick up on the condition if it did emerge.
It’s also unclear how well Sputnik performs against the rapidly spreading variants of concern, such as Delta. Some of these variants are partially able to escape from the immune response generated by COVID vaccines.
Research published in July examined antibodies in the blood of people vaccinated with Sputnik V to see how it performed against the Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta variants. It found there was a reduction in the ability of their antibodies to block infection. It’s unclear how this reduction would impact the vaccine’s effectiveness against hospitalisation and death, as we’re still waiting to see published real world data on this.
Wildlife worldwide is facing a housing crisis. When land is cleared for agriculture, mining, and urbanisation, habitats and natural refuges go with it, such as tree hollows, rock piles and large logs.
The ideal solution is to tackle the threats that cause habitat loss. But some refuges take hundreds of years to recover once destroyed, and some may never recover without help. Tree hollows, for example, can take 180 years to develop.
As a result, conservationists have increasingly looked to human-made solutions as a stopgap. That’s where artificial refuges come in.
If the goal of artificial refuges is to replace lost or degraded habitat, then it is important we have a good understanding of how well they perform. Our new research reviewed artificial refuges worldwide — and we found the science underpinning them is often not up to scratch.
What are artificial refuges?
Artificial refuges provide wildlife places to shelter, breed, hibernate, or nest, helping them survive in disturbed environments, whether degraded forests, deserts or urban and agricultural landscapes.
Nest boxes are a commonly used artificial refuge for tree-dwelling animals. Ed Reinsel/Shutterstock
You’re probably already familiar with some. Nest boxes for birds and mammals are one example found in many urban and rural areas. They provide a substitute for tree hollows when land is cleared.
Other examples include artificial stone cavities used in Norway to provide places for newts to hibernate in urban and agricultural environments, and artificial bark used in the USA to allow bats to roost in the absence of trees. And in France, artificial burrows provide refuge for lizards in lieu of their favoured rabbit burrows.
An artificial burrow created for a burrowing owl. AZ Outdoor Photography/Shutterstock
But do we know if they work?
Artificial refuges can be highly effective. In central Europe, for example, nest boxes allowed isolated populations of a colourful bird, the hoopoe, to reconnect — boosting the local genetic diversity.
Still, they are far from a sure thing, having at times fallen short of their promise to provide suitable homes for wildlife.
One study from Catalonia found 42 soprano pipistrelles (a type of bat) had died from dehydration within wooden bat boxes, due to a lack of ventilation and high sun exposure.
Another study from Australia found artificial burrows for the endangered pygmy blue tongue lizard had a design flaw that forced lizards to enter backwards. This increased their risk of predation from snakes and birds.
And the video below from Czech conservation project Birds Online shows a pine marten (a forest-dwelling mammal) and tree sparrow infiltrating next boxes to steal the eggs of Tengmalm’s owls and common starlings.
The effects of predation should be considered when using artificial refuges.
So why is this happening?
Our research investigated the state of the science regarding artificial refuges worldwide.
We looked at more than 220 studies, and we found they often lacked the rigour to justify their widespread use as a conservation tool. Important factors were often overlooked, such as how temperatures inside artifical refuges compare to natural refuges, and the local abundance of food or predators.
Alarmingly, just under 40% of studies compared artificial refuges to a control, making it impossible to determine the impacts artificial refuges have on the target species, positive or negative.
This is a big problem, because artificial refuges are increasingly incorporated into programs that seek to “offset” habitat destruction. Offsetting involves protecting or creating habitat to compensate for ecological harm caused by land clearing from, for instance, mining or urbanisation.
For example, one project in Australia relied heavily on nest boxes to offset the loss of old, hollow-bearing trees.
But a scientific review of the project showed it to be a failure, due to low rates of uptake by target species (such as the superb parrot) and the rapid deterioration of the nest boxes from falling trees.
There is little doubt artificial refuges will continue to play a role in confronting Earth’s biodiversity crisis, but their limitations need to be recognised, and the science underpinning them must improve. Our new review points out areas of improvement that spans design, implementation, and monitoring, so take a look if you’re involved in these sorts of projects.
We also urge for more partnerships between ecologists, engineers, designers and the broader community. This is because interdisciplinary collaboration brings together different ways of thinking and helps to shed new light on complex problems.
Some key steps arising from our research which suggest a way forward for artificial refuge science and implementation. Author provided
It’s clear improving the science around artificial refuges is well worth the investment, as they can give struggling wildlife worldwide a fighting chance against further habitat destruction and climate change.
Darcy Watchorn receives funding from the Hermon Slade Foundation, Parks Victoria, the Conservation and Wildlife Research Trust, the Ecological Society of Australia, the Victorian Environmental Assessment Council, and the Geelong Naturalists Field Club. He is a member of the Ecological Society of Australia and the Society for Conservation Biology Oceania.
Dale Nimmo receives funding from the Australian Research Council, the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning, the Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions, Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment, the World Wildlife Fund, Consolidated Minerals, the Hermon Slade Foundation, and the National Environmental Science Program (Threatened Species Hub)
Mitchell Cowan receives funding from the Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions, and Consolidated Minerals.
Tim Doherty receives funding from the Australian Research Council, Hermon Slade Foundation, NSW Environmental Trust, Australian Academy of Science and WWF Australia. He is Chair of the Policy Committee for the Society for Conservation Biology Oceania and a member of the Ecological Society of Australia.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robyn Eversole, Professor and Director, RegionxLink, Centre for Social Impact, Swinburne University of Technology
University study is out of reach for many people in regional Australia. Most of our universities are based in a handful of capital cities. The result is persistent educational inequity between our capital cities and regions.
The COVID-19 pandemic has forced universities to move their activities online. This shift has created challenges for students, but has also temporarily erased the longstanding disparity in university access between cities and regions. Internet connections permitting, regional students have been able to participate on equal footing with their city colleagues.
As universities look to return to campus, the temptation is for city campuses to abandon the video link and rush back to business as usual. Yet this misses a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to tackle longstanding inequities for regional students. The innovations in online delivery forced on universities by the pandemic now point to ways to permanently improve regional students’ access and experience of tertiary education.
Students face a raft of changes at once: they must leave family and community behind and fend for themselves in unfamiliar environments. Families must find money for housing and other costs. For “mature age” students who already have families and local commitments, moving away to study is often simply impossible.
Regional university campuses play an important role supporting equitable access to education. These campuses can offer great face-to-face study experiences, but many are small and have limited course options.
And across the width and breadth of Australia, we have few regional campuses. Most regional Australians do not live near a campus.
Online study is often mooted as an alternative, but it often has poorer outcomes than on-campus study. Internet connectivity in regional areas can be a problem, too. And online study can be isolating; new students in particular often need interaction and support to succeed.
To reduce these systemic inequities, we need to do regional education differently.
We’ve had a glimpse of the solutions
In response to the pandemic, many universities have moved coursework and community engagement activities fully online. Lectures, tutorials, seminars, workshops and even graduations have gone on-screen. While not the same as face-to-face interaction, these online engagements have had the unexpected benefit of opening access for those who previously couldn’t participate at all.
Universities have learned to use video conferencing and online platforms in new ways to maximise interactivity for students at a distance. In some cases “hybrid” activities mix face-to-face and digital participation all at once: some participants gather in the room and others join from the screen.
When done well, with good technology and good manners, hybrid interactions are fluid and the hierarchy between “here” and “there” disappears. These hybrid activities suggest a new way to approach the challenge of providing university education across distance.
For the first time, regional students and communities have had access to activities and resources previously available only on capital city campuses. So long as internet connections are reliable, it no longer matters if the student is five kilometres from the city centre or 500.
Now, with universities planning to move back to campuses, we find ourselves at a vital crossroad. To bring campuses back to life, students are being urged back into classrooms. Video links disappear. Expectations of a physical presence on city campuses return.
For regional students, this “return to campus” means we risk reverting to inequity as usual. Policymakers and universities must not miss this window of opportunity to reduce longstanding inequities for regional students. We have a chance to retool our approach to make the future of higher education an equitable one.
On a vast lightly populated continent like Australia, there will never be a university campus near every town. Yet university education can be hybrid, multi-sited and inclusive. There can be local places for students to gather and interact, and hybrid classrooms where students can join their preferred course without moving house.
A few towns already host spaces where regional students can enjoy in-person interactions with other students and academics. These also provide free work spaces and fast internet speeds – which students might not have at home. Regional university campuses, country university centres, regional study hubs and even online centres and libraries can provide the infrastructure for a hybrid and multi-sited university presence that includes regional students on equal footing.
Low-speed and unreliable internet connections frustrate many people trying to study online in regional Australia. Shutterstock
However, effective hybrid classrooms require buy-in and participation from all sites – including city campuses. There has to be a commitment to investing resources in excellent, interactive digital learning. Local infrastructure and in-person academic support in regional towns need to be strengthened too.
As universities navigate the current landscape of scarcity and uncertainty, there is a real risk regional students will drop off the radar. Before rushing back to business as usual, let’s consider the alternative: equitable access to education, no matter where you live.
Robyn Eversole 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.
On Friday, Naomi Osaka lit the cauldron at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics opening ceremony. This honour sent an important message to the world: Osaka represents a diversifying Japan.
Yet, some still question whether she really is Japanese.
The question we should be asking instead is: who is Naomi Osaka, really?
Netflix’s new three-part documentary series attempts to answer this question. Director Garrett Bradley followed the tennis player over two years from her first grand slam win in 2018 to her third in 2020.
The documentary touches on her tennis career, her mental health and her call to change the format of post-match press conferences.
But it also gives viewers a closer look at Osaka finding her voice in the world as a young, mixed-race Japanese Haitian woman.
The difference between nationality and race
In the documentary, Osaka speaks about her decision to renounce her American nationality in 2019. Reflecting on the public’s response to her decision, she felt “people really don’t know the difference between nationality and race”.
She is right when she says there is a difference.
Nationality is a form of legal identification specifying our membership to a nation. Race refers to physical appearances, and is often described as a social construct: not determined by scientific fact, but rather by the social meaning collectively attributed to biological traits. To avoid uncomfortable conversations, some choose to use the word “ethnicity” instead of race, a term used to define groups based on invisible factors like language or customs.
The documentary follows Osaka as she plays tennis, but also as she finds her way as a young woman. Netflix
Despite the difference in their meanings, race, nationality and ethnicity are deeply interconnected in the ways we discuss identity.
Osaka was born in Japan in 1997 to her Japanese mother and Haitian father. She moved to the United States when she was three and grew up there as a Japanese-American dual national.
During the two years when the documentary was in production, Osaka celebrated her 22nd birthday. According to Japanese Nationality Law, dual Japanese nationals are required to renounce one of their nationalities before they turn 22.
For many, the decision to forfeit one nationality is tricky, uncomfortable and, where possible, avoided by dual nationals only showing their Japanese passport at Japanese airports.
In my research on mixed-race Japanese youth in Australia, participants told me their dual nationality opens up economic and personal opportunities for them to live or work in Japan without the restrictions of a visa.
But perhaps more importantly, the thought of forfeiting their nationality was a great concern for those who saw it as an intrinsic part of their identity.
In the documentary, Osaka says her decision to become a sole Japanese national was an obvious one. “I’ve been playing under the Japanese flag since I was 14”, she says. “It was never even a secret that I was gonna play for Japan for the Olympics.”
But while it was obvious, it wasn’t easy. Some people saw this renouncing of her American citizenship as a decision to forfeit her Black identity:
I don’t choose America and suddenly people are like, “your Black card is revoked”. And it’s like, African American isn’t the only Black, you know?
Despite choosing to become a sole Japanese national, Osaka is both Japanese and Haitian, and holds deep connections to America, Haiti and Japan. The film follows her as she plays for Japan, wears face masks to the US Open in support of the Black Lives Matter movement, and travels with her family to the Osaka Foundation — a school for Haitian children established by her parents.
Navigating identity and expectations
Osaka isn’t the only person facing interrogation into their identity.
Many people of mixed-race heritage often have a sense of “racial impostor syndrome”: the sense of doubt they feel when others question the authenticity of their mixed-race background.
It is common for young persons of Japanese background living outside of Japan to only be beginner to intermediate speakers of Japanese. Speaking about her self-confessed “broken” Japanese skills, Osaka worries she is “doing something wrong by not representing the half Black, half-Japanese kids well.”
But Osaka’s openness about these difficulties is exactly how the half Black, half Japanese kids need to be represented.
It is important for us to challenge static ideas of race, ethnicity and nationality by sharing the voices of people of mixed backgrounds like Osaka.
Our identities are complex, and they change over time. There is more to being Japanese than fluently speaking the Japanese language, looking Japanese or holding a Japanese passport.
We shouldn’t forget who Naomi Osaka is. A strong tennis player, a passionate activist, and a mixed-race woman who represents contemporary Japan.
Aoife Wilkinson receives PhD scholarship funding through University of Queensland and Department of Education (RTP).
“Explore your inner beast.” That was the slogan used last year to sell the Ford Ranger. At 2.4 tonnes, that’s a lot of “light” truck, but the stakes are rising. This year, the 3.5 tonne Ram 1500 “eats utes for breakfast”.
Super-sized light trucks have landed in Aotearoa New Zealand. Eight out of the ten top-selling passenger vehicles are now utes or SUVs, with two-thirds registered for personal use.
According to the Household Travel Survey, many journeys previously made using much smaller cars (such as shopping trips) are now made in these vehicles.
And despite the recent protests from farmers and tradies about the so-called “ute tax”, the double-cab light truck has become very much an urban vehicle.
When we looked at the marketing videos for these vehicles in New Zealand, utes or pickups enjoyed the most “masculine” marketing strategies. Themes of dominance and violence are strong: vehicles have names like “Raptor” and “Gladiator”, and are referred to as “muscular” and “beasts”.
Much of the advertising involves images of aggressive driving — skidding and jumping, with the vehicle generally shot from below, travelling fast at the camera. SUV marketing is slightly more unisex and emphasises safety, luxury and envy.
Trucks versus cars
But here’s the problem: climate change is also super-sizing, as the recent extreme heat wave in the Pacific Northwest of the US and Canada and severe floods in Europe and elsewhere have reminded us.
Light trucks on city streets are bad for the climate in two ways. Due to their weight and size, they emit more CO₂ than other vehicles: in a year’s typical driving, 100 Ford Rangers would emit 90 tonnes more CO₂ than the same number of Toyota Corollas.
And large vehicles affect the urgent shift to low-carbon modes of transport, by obstructing footpaths because they’ve outgrown car parking, making cycling and walking more difficult and dangerous.
Ironically (but deliberately), nature and the ability to connect with the countryside are an enduring marketing theme for selling large four-wheel-drive vehicles to urban dwellers.
As cultural historian William Rollins has pointed out, SUV marketing has exploited and twisted a “developing environmental consciousness” into demand for high-emission vehicles. In the process, time needed to develop cleaner vehicles was lost.
In New Zealand, the shift to larger SUVs and utes has largely wiped out the fuel efficiency gains made over the past ten years. Globally, the SUV market was the only industry sector last year where CO₂ emissions continued to rise despite the pandemic.
He also provides an extraordinary ethnography of the advertising strategy that formed around these vehicles — some of which now rival the size of a WWII tank.
Marketed at our “reptilian” instincts for safety, dominance and connection to the natural world, it had a strong Hobbesian flavour. Life – particularly city life – is nasty, brutish and short. One must dominate or be dominated, even on that trek to the supermarket in search of cat food.
Bradsher’s interviews with marketing executives revealed a deliberate strategy to market these vehicles to consumers with higher levels of egotism, insecurity and status anxiety. New Zealand research with SUV drivers has also shown they were more likely to agree with the statement that “most people would like a vehicle like mine”.
Auto industry goldmine
New Zealand has been a dream market for urban light trucks. With weak emission standards and vehicle safety ratings that prioritise drivers over other road users, the regulatory frameworks have created an environment ripe for vehicle super-sizing.
This, too, is a familiar story. The American pickup famously came about as a result of a trade war with Europe that locked foreign competitors out of the US market. The all-American pickup truck came to enjoy a range of exemptions from environmental and safety regulations.
Since then they’ve been a gold mine, with profits on SUVs and utes much higher than on cars, and the auto marketing machine swinging in heavily behind these vehicles.
Around 85% of Ford’s ad spend is now devoted to SUVs and utes. The US$35 billion global auto marketing industry is now largely focused on selling them, including into emerging markets in India and Brazil.
Change is coming
Big-budget marketing campaigns for these high-emission vehicles are now becoming a flashpoint over the role of the advertising sector in climate change.
UK organisation Badvertising, which has called for an ad ban on the dirtiest third of these vehicles, argues advertising should be “named and shamed” like other industries that indirectly contribute to climate change (such as banking and investment).
But the advertising industry itself may be part of the solution. Creatives working with governments on ambitious decarbonisation targets are speaking up about the “tide of misinformation” they face from corporate advertising.
Mia Wisniewski, Master of Public Health candidate at the University of Auckland, contributed to the research for this article. Analysis of SUV/ute advertising themes in New Zealand was undertaken as part of her MPH thesis.
Kirsty Wild is a member of Women in Urbanism Aotearoa, and has received funding from Waka Kotahi, Auckland Transport, and MBIE.
Alistair Woodward receives funding from the Health Research Council and the Ministry for the Environment for research on climate change and health. He is affiliated with Bike Auckland.
Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) has been considering whether whipping cream canisters containing nitrous oxide should be placed in Schedule 10 of the Poisons Standard.
Schedule 10 is the most restrictive category within the Poisons Standard, reserved for “substances of such danger to health as to warrant prohibition of sale, supply and use”.
The canisters contain nitrous oxide, which, when mixed with cream in a whipping cream dispenser, creates high-quality whipped cream. This method is used by bakers and chefs worldwide.
There’s no evidence whipping cream canisters pose any risk to people who use them for their intended purpose.
So why has an application been made to the TGA to prohibit whipping cream canisters?
While the applicant hasn’t been named, the proposal is based on increasing concern about people using the canisters to get high.
Nitrous oxide has been used in medicine and dentistry as an analgesic (a drug which relieves pain) and anaesthetic since it was first found to assist with the extraction of a tooth in 1844.
Commonly referred to as “laughing gas”, nitrous oxide continues to be used in clinical environments in Australia as a Schedule 4 Medicine.
However, no drug is risk-free. There are some harms associated with the recreational use of nitrous oxide (sometimes called “nangs”).
In unpublished data submitted to the TGA, 6% of almost 1,900 young Australians who reported nitrous oxide use (surveyed in 2018-2019) reported persistent numbness or tingling, consistent with peripheral neuropathy.
A large global study of people who reported nitrous oxide use found persistent numbness/tingling in the hands or feet was rare (3%) and heavily dependent on dose.
Nitrous oxide is often used in medical settings. Shutterstock
Some numbers
The 2019 National Drug Strategy Household Survey found roughly 1.7% of Australians had used inhalants in the previous 12 months. But this survey doesn’t specify which inhalants are used, so this number is likely to include many different inhalants, not just nitrous oxide.
The National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre has interviewed people who regularly use MDMA and psychostimulants annually for nearly 20 years to understand more about the drug use habits of this group.
Around one-quarter reported nitrous oxide use from 2003 to 2015. But this proportion doubled to 50% by 2018, and has remained at a similar level in 2020 (54%).
It’s important to note people who use nitrous oxide do so infrequently (on average less than once per month).
As use of nitrous oxide has increased among certain groups, we’ve also seen indications of increased rates of harm. For example, in New South Wales, emergency department presentations associated with nitrous nitrous oxide increased from ten cases per year in 2016 to 60 cases in 2018.
If the TGA was to make whipping cream canisters Schedule 10 under the Poisons Standard, these products would become prohibited in Australia.
Australian bakers and chefs could be forced to use carbon dioxide canisters, which are sold for Soda Stream machines. But use of carbon dioxide canisters has been reported to result in whipped cream that tastes acidic. It also creates large bubbles in the cream due to the different properties of the two chemicals.
We believe it’s unlikely the TGA will classify whipping cream canisters as being of such danger to health that their sale, supply and use becomes prohibited.
However, the TGA could make whipping cream canisters a Schedule 7 Dangerous Poison. This would mean culinary aficionados could be required to obtain a license to access whipping cream canisters from a limited number of suppliers licensed to sell them. We believe this would also be a disproportionate response.
There’s some evidence that when a drug becomes harder to access, people will substitute that drug with a more harmful drug. Making whipping cream canisters Schedule 7 or Schedule 10 could lead young people to use volatile substances more harmful than nitrous oxide instead (for example, spray paint, deodorant or petrol) since these are likely to be more accessible.
Nitrous oxide is used to make whipped cream. Shutterstock
We’ve made submissions to the TGA arguing classifying whipping cream canisters as Schedule 10 in the Poisons Standard would be a disproportionate response to the harms associated with their use as a recreational drug.
Given they’re widely used by Australian bakers and chefs, we suggested the most pragmatic solution would be for the TGA to place the products in Schedule 5 or 6 of the Poisons Standard.
If the TGA was to list these products in Schedule 5, they would be required to contain warnings on the labelling. If they were placed in Schedule 6, similar restrictions to spray paint would apply, where retailers are required to limit access to the products to minors.
Next steps
The TGA is set to announce its interim decision on this proposal any day now.
The evidence indicates a minority of people, predominantly those who use nitrous oxide at very high doses, are at risk of developing serious neurological problems.
We should be raising community awareness of this risk as we carefully consider the consequences of tighter restrictions on the availability of a product which is generally safe, if used as directed.
Stephen Bright is a Director of the not-for-profit company Psychedelic Science In Medicine & Research (PRISM) and a Director of the not-for-profit organisation Students for Sensible Drug Policy.
Monica Barratt receives (or has recently received) funding from Australian (National Health and Medical Research Council, the Australian Institute of Criminology, the National Centre for Clinical Research into Emerging Drugs) and international (US National Institutes of Health, NZ Marsden Fund) sources. She has conducted commissioned research for the NSW Coroner’s Office, the WA Mental Health Commission and the Victorian Department of Health. In addition to her role at RMIT, Monica is a visiting fellow at the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre, UNSW Sydney. She is an editor for two peer-reviewed journals, the International Journal of Drug Policy and Drug and Alcohol Review. She also has leadership roles at two not-for-profit harm-reduction organisations: The Loop Australia and Bluelight.org.
So you don’t believe the official inflation figures. Why would you? They show prices climbing at an annual rate of 1.1%
On Wednesday the update for June quarter is likely to show prices climbing at an annual rate three times as high — somewhere between 3% and 4%, which will probably be another reason you won’t believe them.
(As it happens, most of the “jump” will be because of a different starting point. The 1.1% figure reports what happened after the three months to March 2020. The update will report what’s happened since the three months to June 2020, when coronavirus restrictions triggered a plunge in petrol prices and a temporary childcare subsidy cut the price of most care to zero.)
Most of us don’t believe 1.1% or anything like it because it doesn’t accord with our experience. We see petrol prices climbing. We are presented with bills for electricity, gas and rates we find hard to pay.
But here’s the thing. As hard to believe as we find it, electricity, gas and petrol don’t cost us that much over the course of a year.
Petrol prices command attention. michaket/Shutterstock
We notice petrol prices because they are displayed clearly on well-lit signs of a specified size, as is required by law. We notice electricity bills because they are large and usually arrive only four times each year.
And because we don’t like them. We pay less attention to spending we like.
Every few years the Bureau of Statistics surveys 10,000 households to determine what they spent over the course of a fortnight, and for less frequent expenses over the course of a year.
It uses what results to create a “basket” of representative goods and services, weighted according to actual expenditure.
Food accounts for the bulk of the basket — 17.3%. Alcohol accounts for another 5.3%. That’s right, 5.3%.
Compare the 5.3% of the basket we spend on alcohol to the 3.2% of it we spend on petrol, or the 3.8% on electricity and gas taken together.
Alcohol and food big ticket items
We spend almost as much on alcohol as on health, and more than on clothes.
If you reckon that’s not your household, fair enough. The basket represents the average household, as does the consumer price index (CPI) which measures the prices of the goods and services in the basket in the proportions they are in the basket.
And if your reckon you’d never admit to spending that much on alcohol, you’re also right. Alcohol and tobacco are two of the rare instances where the bureau nudges up what people report to take account of what’s actually sold.
Contrary to a widely-believed myth, the cost of housing is in the index, both in the form of rents and in the cost of building houses, rather than the cost of land (that’s regarded as an investment, as is the ownership of shares which are also not included in the index).
Most things included, though not illegal drugs
Some things aren’t the index but should be — superannuation management fees (the bureau is working on it) and recreational drugs and prostitution, which are excluded because it is “very difficult and indeed dangerous to obtain estimates of prices and expenditures, or to measure quality change”.
Shrinkage makes comparisons difficult.
Quality matters. When Cadbury shrank its large blocks of chocolate from 250g to 200g a few years back and then to 180g, it wouldn’t have been right to merely record the price change.
The bureau adjusted up the recorded price to take account of the fact that people were getting less chocolate. But other changes are less straightforward. What do you do when VB reduces the strength of its beers (as it did) or the new model laptop has twice as much memory as the one it replaced?
For computers the bureau adjusts down the recorded prices of new models in line with a US formula.
For cars — which these days have features not previously dreamed of — it consults a panel of experts.
For other changes it lets improvements go through to the keeper, leaving recorded prices unadjusted even though they are clearly getting better.
Beneath the hood, the CPI is changing
The bureau used to record prices using handheld devices in supermarkets and by ringing up suppliers and getting quotes. In the last few years it has moved to getting almost everything electronically — stores hand over data from checkout scanners, petrol stations report when prices have changed and upload sales data, and the bureau “scrapes” advertised prices from the web.
With those changes has come a revolution in what it is able to do. It used to collect prices in only a small number of representative outlets (which is why the index was limited to capital cities) and it used to record only the prices of “representative” items.
The stand-in for bread was a sliced white loaf.
The stand-in for bread was the average price of a sliced white 650-750g loaf.
Better still, for the first time the bureau has information on how much is bought of each product at each price each quarter. This enables it make real-time adjustments to weightings in accordance with actual behaviour.
In 2011 when Cyclone Yasi destroyed banana crops in Queensland, the price of “fruit” recorded in the consumer price index surged to an unprecedented high. But the prices actually paid for fruit didn’t surge. Shoppers bought other fruits or canned fruit instead.
Next time that happens the CPI will scarcely move.
It’s making the index more of a cost of living index and less of a “cost of a fixed basket” index. It is happening for petrol too. The bureau is reporting the prices people actually pay, instead of the prices on offer.
None of this is to say that the CPI is perfect, but it would be wise to take the figure to be released on Wednesday seriously. It probably does a better job of recording changes in our cost of living than we’d do ourselves.
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.
