Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Catherine Bennett, Chair in Epidemiology, Deakin University

A 47-year-old Sydney man has died in India after contracting COVID-19.

This news comes amid anger after the first repatriation flight from India following the controversial travel ban arrived in Darwin half empty on Saturday. Some 40 passengers tested positive for COVID-19 meaning neither they, nor their close contacts, were allowed to travel.

There’s no suggestion the Sydney man was due to board that flight, or any subsequent repatriation flight. But his case puts a spotlight on the current situation in India, where countless Australians are imploring the government to bring them home from a country in deep COVID crisis.

I would argue we can, and should, bring home at least some COVID-positive Australians — particularly those at highest risk of needing hospital-level care.

Weighing up the risks

Since Saturday’s repatriation flight, there’s also been controversy over the reliability of the tests which deemed so many passengers ineligible to travel. It’s critical the Australian government irons this out to ensure pre-flight testing is as accurate as possible.

Although, even if all passengers do test negative before flying, we still can’t guarantee a flight out of India, or any country, will have no positive cases on board. There’s a blind spot in testing between the time a person is exposed and when testing will reveal the infection. This gap could be up to ten days, but for most would be two to three days.

We know even with pre-flight screening requirements up to 1% of passengers are positive by the time they arrive in Australia.

At least if we know certain passengers are COVID positive at the time of boarding, we can manage the risk of transmission in transit.

Read more: Is Australia’s India travel ban legal? A citizenship law expert explains

Flying COVID-positive Australians home safely

Despite our best efforts, we can’t rule out the risk of transmission if there are COVID-positive travellers on a flight.

However, transmission on planes appears to have been relatively infrequent. Recent reports of high positive rates on arrival and in quarantine may signal high rates of pre-flight exposure and transmission in transit — it’s hard to assess to what degree on-board transmission is a factor.

Although we know being in an enclosed space with someone with COVID-19 for a long time is high risk, the air in the cabin is filtered and turned over very regularly and therefore protects against viral spread. This could be why transmission on flights is not as common as we might expect.

That said, if we do knowingly put COVID-positive people on a flight with other passengers and crew, it would be important to take extra precautions.

All crew on repatriation flights should be vaccinated regardless. To minimise the risk further, all crew dealing directly with COVID-positive passengers should be wearing full personal protective equipment (PPE).

COVID-positive passengers should be seated in a separate section of the plane to those who have tested COVID negative. An analysis of possible on-board transmission during a flight from London to Hanoi demonstrated most infection risk was restricted to the business class section, with attack rates dropping when people were two or more seats apart.

Commissioning large planes with more space to spread passengers out and group them according to risk would help in this regard.

It’s already a requirement that everyone on board must wear a mask unless eating or drinking. Of course, none of this eliminates the risk completely, just as negative tests might still allow someone incubating the virus on board.

It would also be important to consider end-to-end safety including using separate buses from the airport for COVID-positive patients.

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

Another option would be dedicated flights for COVID-positive passengers.

Either way, it’s essential to have medical staff on board to provide care for travellers, if needed, and oversee infection control.

Accommodating COVID-positive returned travellers in quarantine

At present, Howard Springs, the Darwin quarantine facility housing returned Australians from India, is aiming to keep the number of COVID-positive residents at 50 or below.

Over time, COVID cases are increasingly likely to be asymptomatic or have mild disease if more people are vaccinated, and therefore shouldn’t need high levels of medical care. If most can stay in normal quarantine accommodation, maybe this could see the number of positive cases Howard Springs can accommodate increased.

If there’s a sound reason for this cap to remain as is, we should still use this capacity to enable evacuation of known cases at high risk of needing hospital care in India.

Sticking to a cap of 50 would likely mean we couldn’t accommodate every COVID-positive Australian who wanted to return home. But we could prioritise those at greatest risk of serious COVID disease, such as older people and those with underlying illnesses. Medical professionals would be on the ground to decide who qualifies as the highest priority.

We need to shift our mindset

Would we feel we had balanced the risks well if our thorough off-shore screening were to result in only a few positive cases in Howard Springs this month, while some people left in India were to die as a result of the virus and inadequate hospital care?

We pat ourselves on the back for what we achieved in containing the first wave by moving hard and fast, and rightly so. But as we’ve learnt more about the virus, we have become more determined to simply keep it out rather than use our knowledge and increased public health response capacity to control it.

We are now vulnerable and are resorting to inhumane steps to protect ourselves. Given the devastating situation in India, I believe it’s time to step back and weight up the true costs of the “zero tolerance” strategy underpinning our approach to repatriation.

Read more: Why variants are most likely to blame for India’s COVID surge

– ref. It may not be possible to bring all Australians with COVID home from India. But we can do better than we are now – https://theconversation.com/it-may-not-be-possible-to-bring-all-australians-with-covid-home-from-india-but-we-can-do-better-than-we-are-now-161084

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nial Wheate, Associate Professor of the Sydney Pharmacy School, University of Sydney

The world is now 18 months into the COVID-19 pandemic and we’ve yet to find a single drug that can stop the virus. At best, we can treat the effects of the virus through oxygen therapy for those who can’t breathe, and with drugs that reduce the inflammation associated with the infection.

Read more: Dexamethasone: the cheap, old and boring drug that’s a potential coronavirus treatment

But an Australian-United States research team, led by Griffith University’s Menzies Health Institute, have shown promising results in their mouse trials of a new treatment for COVID-19.

The technology is based on “short interfering RNA”, which prevents the virus from replicating inside human cells. They found a 99.9% drop in the number of virus particles in the mice they studied.

The researchers hypothesise the drug could be injected into patients daily for up to five days, for example for sick patients in hospital, or as a once-off if someone has just been exposed to the coronavirus; however, there’s no data on this specifically, so it’s speculative for now.

While the results are very promising, the technology has only been tested in mice. Human clinical trials will take some time to complete before we know whether a drug will be approved by the government.

How viruses work

Viruses are tricky to treat because they are biological molecules made of the same types of materials as the human body. Virus particles are just packets of information on how to make more virus, encoded in a molecule called “ribonucleic acid” or RNA (although some contain DNA instead) within a protein coating.

Read more: Explainer: what is RNA?

Once a virus particle penetrates into a cell, it either hijacks the machinery of the cell to make copies of itself, or in some cases, has its RNA copied into the host cell’s DNA. Either way, the cell becomes a manufacturing facility making hundreds and thousands of copies of the virus.

So the best way to stop a virus is to stop its RNA information being copied and transcribed by the cell.

We already have drugs capable of doing this for specific viruses. A drug called PrEP (pre-exposure prophylaxis) is available as a prophylactic against infection with HIV and the development of AIDS. A prophylactic can prevent a disease before it takes hold in the body.

The PrEP medicine works because the two active ingredients it contains, tenofovir and emtricitabine, block a molecule called reverse transcriptase which the virus needs to embed the RNA information into human DNA. Unfortunately, neither drug works to block COVID-19.

Short interfering RNA

Unlike PrEP, the new technology is particularly clever because it uses a molecule called short/small interfering RNA or “siRNA” to prevent the reading and copying of the virus information. This siRNA was specifically designed to recognise a sequence of the coronavirus’ own RNA that is common across COVID-variants.

This means the siRNA can seek out and lock onto the viral RNA because it perfectly complements it, regardless of the COVID-19 strain. When it locks with the virus RNA, the viral information becomes trapped and can’t be copied, or it causes the RNA to be cut and degraded.

At this point there is no virus production, and our immune system can just mop up the small number of virus particles floating around the body.

Read more: Why are there so many drugs to kill bacteria, but so few to tackle viruses?

To prove their technology, the researchers enclosed their siRNA in lipid nanoparticles, which are essentially tiny fat-like particles. Without this protective coating, the siRNA would be destroyed in the blood stream before it could lock onto the virus. Lipid nanoparticles are also used in the formulation of the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines.

With the protective nanoparticle shell, the siRNA could then be delivered via a water-based injection into veins.

When the researchers administered the siRNA to mice that had been infected with COVID-19, they found the mice didn’t lose as much weight when compared with untreated mice. Weight loss was an indicator of how sick the mice were.

The researchers also found a 99.9% drop in the number of virus particles in the mice.

On occasion, when biological molecules are injected into the blood stream, this can trigger a severe allergic reaction called anaphylaxis. Importantly, the researchers found their siRNA didn’t trigger an immune response in the mice, and therefore will be unlikely to cause anaphylaxis.

So as well as being effective, the technology appears to be relatively safe.

Will this drug be available soon?

As promising as the results are, we shouldn’t get our hopes up that a drug will be available any time soon. Data derived from animal tests doesn’t always translate to success in humans. Often, the way an animal’s body processes a drug can be different from the human body, and it ends up being ineffective.

Also, animal tests are just the first step in a long regulatory process to prove a drug works and is safe. Even with accelerated clinical trials and fast-tracked assessment from governments, an approved drug is still a year or more away.

Read more: Of mice and men: why animal trial results don’t always translate to humans

– ref. Have Australian researchers developed an effective COVID-19 treatment? Potentially, but we need to wait for human trials – https://theconversation.com/have-australian-researchers-developed-an-effective-covid-19-treatment-potentially-but-we-need-to-wait-for-human-trials-161085

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gavin Mudd, Associate Professor of Environmental Engineering, RMIT University

Buried in last week’s budget was money for rehabilitating the Rum Jungle uranium mine near Darwin. The exact sum was not disclosed.

Rum Jungle used to be a household name. It was Australia’s first large-scale uranium mine and supplied the US and British nuclear weapons programs during the Cold War.

Today, the mine is better known for extensively polluting the Finniss River after it closed in 1971. Despite a major rehabilitation project by the Commonwealth in the 1980s, the damage to the local environment is ongoing.

I first visited Rum Jungle in 2004, and it was a colourful mess, to say the least. Over later years, I saw it worsen. Instead of a river bed, there were salt crusts containing heavy metals and radioactive material. Pools of water were rich reds and aqua greens — hallmarks of water pollution. Healthy aquatic species were nowhere to be found, like an ecological desert.

The government’s second rehabilitation attempt is significant, as it recognises mine rehabilitation isn’t always successful, even if it appears so at first.

Rum Jungle serves as a warning: rehabilitation shouldn’t be an afterthought, but carefully planned, invested in and monitored for many, many years. Otherwise, as we’ve seen, it’ll be left up to future taxpayers to fix.

The quick and dirty history

Rum Jungle produced uranium from 1954 to 1971, roughly one-third of which was exported for nuclear weapons. The rest was stockpiled, and then eventually sold in 1994 to the US.

The mine was owned by the federal government, but was operated under contract by a former subsidiary of Rio Tinto. Back then, there were no meaningful environmental regulations in place for mining, especially for a military project.

The waste rock and tailings (processed ore) at Rum Jungle contains significant amounts of iron sulfide, called “pyrite”. When mining exposes the pyrite to water and oxygen, a chemical reaction occurs generating so-called “acidic mine drainage”. This drainage is rich in acid, salts, heavy metals and radioactive material (radionuclides), such as copper, zinc and uranium.

Acid drainage seeping from waste rock, plus acidic liquid waste from the process plant, caused fish and macroinvertebrates (bugs, worms, crustaceans) to die out, and riverbank vegetation to decline. By the time the mine closed in 1971, the region was a well-known ecological wasteland.

When mines close, the modern approach is to rehabilitate them to an acceptable condition, with the aim of minimal ongoing environmental damage. But after working in environmental engineering across Australia for 26 years, I’ve seen few mines completely rehabilitated — let alone successfully.

Many Australian mines have major problems with acid mine drainage. This includes legacy mines from historical, unregulated times (Mount Morgan, Captains Flat, Mount Lyell) and modern mines built under stricter environmental requirements (Mount Todd, Redbank, McArthur River).

This is why Rum Jungle is so important: it was one of the very few mines once thought to have been rehabilitated successfully.

So what went wrong?

From 1983 to 1986, the government spent some A$18.6 million (about $55.5 million in 2020 value) to reduce acid drainage and restore the Finniss River ecology. Specially engineered soil covers were placed over the waste rock to reduce water and oxygen getting into the pyrite.

The engineering project was widely promoted as successful through conferences and academic studies, with water quality monitoring showing that the metals polluting the Finniss had substantially subsided. But this lasted only for a decade.

Read more: Expensive, dirty and dangerous: why we must fight miners’ push to fast-track uranium mines

By the late 1990s, it became clear the engineered soil covers weren’t working effectively anymore.

First, the design was insufficient to reduce infiltration of water during the wet season (thicker covers should have been used). Second, the covers weren’t built to design in parts (they were thinner and with the wrong type of soils).

The first reason is understandable, we’d never done this before. But the second is not acceptable, as the thinner covers and wrong soils made it easier for water and oxygen to get into the waste rock and generate more polluting acid mine drainage.

The stakes are higher

There are literally thousands of recent and still-operating mines around Australia, where acid mine drainage remains a minor or extreme risk. Other, now closed, acid drainage sites have taken decades to bring under control, such as Brukunga in South Australia, Captain’s Flat in NSW, and Agricola in Queensland.

We got it wrong with Rum Jungle, which generated less than 20 million tonnes of mine waste. Modern mines, such as Mount Whaleback in the Pilbara, now involve billions of tonnes — and we have dozens of them. Getting even a small part of modern mine rehabilitation wrong could, at worst, mean billions of tonnes of mine waste polluting for centuries.

So what’s the alternative? Let’s take the former Woodcutters lead-zinc mine, which operated from 1985 to 1999, as an example.

Given its acid drainage risks, the mine’s rehabilitation involved placing reactive waste into the open pit, rather than using soil covers. “Backfilling” such wastes into pits makes good sense, as the pyrite is deeper and not exposed to oxygen, substantially reducing acid drainage risks.

Backfilling isn’t commonly used because it’s widely perceived in the industry as expensive. Clearly, we need to better assess rehabilitation costs and benefits to justify long-term options, steering clear of short-term, lowest-cost approaches.

The Woodcutters experience shows such thinking can be done to improve the chances for successfully restoring the environment.

Getting it right

The federal government funded major environmental studies of the Rum Jungle mine from 2009, including an environmental impact statement in 2020, before the commitment in this year’s federal budget.

Read more: It’s not worth wiping out a species for the Yeelirrie uranium mine

The plan this time includes backfilling waste rock into the open pits, and engineering much more sophisticated soil covers. It will need to be monitored for decades.

And the cost of it? Well, that was kept confidential in the budget due to sensitive commercial negotiations.

But based on my experiences, I reckon they’d be lucky to get any change from half a billion dollars. Let’s hope we get it right this time.

– ref. The story of Rum Jungle: a Cold War-era uranium mine that’s spewed acid into the environment for decades – https://theconversation.com/the-story-of-rum-jungle-a-cold-war-era-uranium-mine-thats-spewed-acid-into-the-environment-for-decades-160871

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ted Snell, Honorary Professor, Edith Cowan University

For any serious artist, funding the production of ambitious works — let alone finding the resources to keep yourself alive during the process — can be daunting.

However, if studio expenses, rent, and the cost of living are taken care of, an artist is free to fulfil their aesthetic aspirations. The old model of patronage exemplified by the great Italian families of the Renaissance, such as the Medicis, was on Western Australian artist Simon Gilby’s mind when he contacted businessmen and art collectors Ron Wise and Lloyd Horn 15 years ago. He was seeking financial support for two years to create a body of new work.

Wise and Horn stepped up. They invited five other collectors – all successful businessmen and women – to join them in providing Gilby with the funds to make what he describes as life-sized, figurative sculptures.

These seven members of the group – dubbed The Syndicate by Gilby – each contributed $14,000. They made regular studio visits to see him at work. It was a learning experience for all.

Gilby produced ten free standing figures fabricated from welded steel. They included men and women frozen in time, some punctured by skeletal fish, others with their heads in cages and the mythical figure Daphne transforming into a laurel tree. It was a remarkable tour-de-force.

At the end, The Syndicate members met and drew lots. The first person chose an available work they would like to own; then the next, and so on. An exhibition followed.

Read more: Where to next for arts philanthropy in Australia?

That first commission was intended to be a one-off, but its success led the group to continue. Since then, it has assisted four WA artists, Peter Dailey, Stuart Elliot and Paul Kaptein.

Each artist has been given the opportunity to create works with the confidence of a guaranteed pre-sale. However, as Horn explains,

I’ve always stressed upon The Syndicate members that the idea of the project is to support the artist and that they should look upon the work they receive at the end of the commission as a bonus.

The Syndicate commits to support an artist for two years to complete a project framed around figurative sculptures.

WA has an established history of figurative sculpture, which can be traced back to Pietro Porcelli. He peppered the state with statues of well known men — explorer and politician John Forrest, engineer C.Y. O’Connor, politician Sir James Lee Steere — at the turn of the last century.

This figurative tradition was revived in the early 1960s by Hans Arkeveld. Focussing on life-size, figurative work also makes it easier to understand what you’re getting at the end of the project, says Horn. “Everyone knows what to expect.”

While the schedule has blown out on occasions, the collectors allowed each artist the time required to complete their project.

The artists are encouraged to seek additional support from local and national funding bodies, but The Syndicate ensures an exhibition and catalogue are included as part of the package. This level of philanthropic beneficence is remarkable. The opportunities it has provided to each of the four artists has enabled the creation of an outstanding body of works — body being the operative word.

Paul Kaptein is the latest sculptor to benefit from The Syndicate’s largesse, pushing his practice into entirely new territory. It has enabled him to tackle the practicalities of making multiple large works in cast concrete.

The final group of ten men who now stand stoically within the atrium space of Old Customs House in Fremantle are a testament to the commitment of both artist and benefactors.

These new cast works have a fragility that marks them out from their carved predecessors. Dismembered and reconfigured, they seem adrift in the world, glowing luminously within the light-drenched interior.

Read more: Robot sculpture, coming to a gallery near you

All These Mountains Will Melt at Dawn depicts a semi-naked torso rising from the ground with another man’s feet standing on his soles. His body is fit, his muscles toned and his arms resolutely at his side, though his skin seems flayed and in tatters.

Although dismembered, the body retains its dignity and strength. Who is this man, and how do we approach him? What support can we offer? What does he need from us?

These existential questions are palpable and unsettling. Thanks to The Syndicate, Kaptein’s work will stand as a record of our disruptive and distressing times.

Generously, the project continues with the announcement that Linde Ivimey will be the fifth artist supported by the group.

The first women to be invited, Ivimey’s figurative works, which use recycled materials, including bone and skin, are unlikely to be life-sized due to her methodology of combining techniques such as sewing, crochet and welding. But they will continue to unsettle and disturb.

Paul Kaptein’s exhibition All These Mountains Will Melt At Dawn at the Old Customs House Gallery in Fremantle runs till the end of May.

– ref. How to survive as a figurative sculptor? WA’s The Syndicate is a novel form of philanthropy in the spirit of the Medicis – https://theconversation.com/how-to-survive-as-a-figurative-sculptor-was-the-syndicate-is-a-novel-form-of-philanthropy-in-the-spirit-of-the-medicis-160603

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ralph Sims, Professor, School of Engineering and Advanced Technology, Massey University

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

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

The government wants us to phase out fossil fuels. Yet natural gas is much cheaper for households to buy per kWh than electricity. Why?

Natural gas is often touted as a transition fuel to use while we move away from coal and oil and as renewable energies continue to mature technologically and economically.

But the key point to note is that we simply cannot continue to produce greenhouse gases and the demand for natural gas, as for coal and oil, will soon have to decline rapidly.

In its draft package of recommendations to the government, New Zealand’s Climate Change Commission has called for a stop to new connections to the natural gas grid for commercial and residential buildings after 2025.

In that context, comparing the retail price of gas with electricity is not useful unless all other costs and likely future trends are considered.

Read more: ‘Renewable’ natural gas may sound green, but it’s not an antidote for climate change

The natural gas grid

Natural gas is extracted from gas fields and processed to “scrub” out other gases and condensates. The resulting gas, mainly methane, is then distributed through pipelines.

In New Zealand, natural gas is reticulated around much of the North Island, but it is not available in the South Island, where bottled liquid petroleum gas (LPG) is the alternative.

LPG is pressurised butane and propane that come from the scrubbed natural gas condensates as well as from oil refineries. A few cars such as taxis still use LPG, as do gas barbecues.

Natural gas is also combusted in gas-fired power stations to generate electricity. In New Zealand, this accounts for around 15% of total generation. Large volumes of gas are purchased relatively cheaply by power-generating companies and the electricity is then distributed through the grid to homes and businesses.

Cost comparison

The retail cost of electricity varies but is typically around 25 cents per kWh (also known as “c/unit”) for domestic users. Some retailers offer cheaper rates during “off-peak” times (to heat water for example).

The retail price for natural gas also varies and can be around 8c/kWh in Auckland or 5c/kWh in Wellington. If used for cooking, it can be cheaper than electricity. But to heat a building, an electric heat pump can be a cheaper option than a gas heater.

A heat pump concentrates the heat taken from the outside air and “pumps” it into the house very efficiently. One kWh of electricity consumed to run a heat pump can produce 3-4kWh of heat energy inside the house. It can also run the process in reverse and cool the air inside during hot summer days.

When comparing the cost of gas with electricity, two other cost factors must be considered. Under New Zealand’s Emissions Trading Scheme, there is a cost on the carbon dioxide produced when the gas is combusted because, like LPG, it is a fossil fuel and produces greenhouse gases.

Read more: Reducing methane is crucial for protecting climate and health, and it can pay for itself – so why aren’t more companies doing it?

The current cost per tonne of carbon dioxide emitted is around NZ$35 (or around 1c per kWh of gas), but it is likely to increase significantly over the next few years. This will be added to domestic gas bills. Electricity bills are less affected by carbon price rises because (more than 80% of electricity) in New Zealand is generated from low-carbon renewable resources.

The other cost to consider is the fixed connection charge for having a gas pipeline coming into the house. This cost also varies, but in Auckland some customers pay $1.15 per day. In Wellington, some pay $1.60 per day.

A house running fully on electricity will avoid this fixed cost. There will be a fixed daily supply charge for the electricity connection but most homes have to pay this anyway in order to have lighting and electrical appliances.

Additional risks

When gas is combusted inside a building to provide heat, the process consumes oxygen and produces water vapour. If ventilation is poor, oxygen levels drop and carbon monoxide is also produced, which can lead to poisonous air.

The water vapour results in condensation, obvious on windows at certain times of the day. That, too, can lead to unhealthy mould in poorly ventilated homes.

And there are further risks with gas. As exemplified by an explosion last year in a Christchurch home, natural gas (methane) is volatile as well as toxic. Of course there are also risks with using electricity, though fairly rare, such as getting an electric shock or vermin eating through plastic cable coverings and shorting the wires, which can start fires.

While gas may appear cheaper, this applies only to certain energy uses (such as cooking). Overall, the cost of gas is likely to rise significantly in the near future.

The Climate Change Commission’s final advice to government is due at the end of May and will provide a time frame for the end of new gas connections — but there is no intention to disconnect existing gas supplies to buildings at this stage.

– ref. Climate explained: is natural gas really cheaper than renewable electricity? – https://theconversation.com/climate-explained-is-natural-gas-really-cheaper-than-renewable-electricity-155199

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gernot Heiser, Scientia Professor and John Lions Chair, UNSW

Australia’s parliament is considering legislation to give new powers to the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission (ACIC) and the Australian Federal Police. These powers will allow them to modify online data, monitor network activity, and take over online accounts in some circumstances.

Last week, in a submission to parliament regarding the proposed powers, ACIC made an inaccurate and concerning claim about privacy and information security. ACIC claimed “there is no legitimate reason for a law-abiding member of the community to own or use an encrypted communication platform”.

Encrypted communication platforms, including WhatsApp, Signal, Facetime and iMessage, are in common use, allowing users to send messages that can only be read by the intended recipients. There are many legitimate reasons law-abiding people may use them. And surveillance systems, no matter how well-intentioned, may have negative effects and be used for different purposes or by different people than those they were designed for.

Read more: When is ‘not a backdoor’ just a backdoor? Australia’s struggle with encryption

How surveillance can go wrong

Surveillance systems often produce unintended effects.

In 1849, the authorities at Tasmania’s Port Arthur penal colony built the Separate Prison, intended as a humane and enlightened method of imprisonment. Based on the ideas of Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon, the design emphasised constant surveillance and psychological control rather than corporal punishment. However, many inmates suffered serious psychological problems resulting from the lack of normal communication with others.

From 2006 onwards, Facebook developed a privacy-invading apparatus intended to facilitate making money through targeted advertising. Facebook’s system has since been abused by Cambridge Analytica and others for political manipulation, with disastrous consequences for some democracies.

In 2018, Australia’s parliament passed the Telecommunications and Other Legislation Amendment (Assistance and Access) Act, with the ostensible purpose of helping police to catch terrorists, paedophiles and other serious criminals. The act gave the Australian Federal Police powers to “add, copy, delete or alter” material on computers. These powers were used the following year to raid the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in connection with a story on alleged war crimes in Afghanistan.

These examples demonstrate two facts about security and surveillance. First, surveillance may be used by people of any moral character. Second, a surveillance mechanism may be used by different people, or may achieve a completely different effect, from its original design.

We therefore need to consider what avoiding, undermining or even outlawing the use of encrypted platforms would mean for law-abiding members of the community.

Encryption limits the power of security agencies

There are already laws that decide who is allowed to listen to communications taking place over a telecommunications network. While such communications are generally protected, law enforcement and national security agencies can be authorised to intercept them.

However, where communications are encrypted, agencies will not automatically be able to retrieve the content of the conversations they intercept. The Telecommunications and Other Legislation Amendment (Assistance and Access) Act 2018 was passed to enable agencies to get assistance to try to maintain their ability to get access to the (unencrypted) content of communications. For example, they can ask that one or more forms of electronic protection be removed.

Read more: Facebook’s push for end-to-end encryption is good news for user privacy, as well as terrorists and paedophiles

There are also federal, state and territory laws that can require people to assist law enforcement and national security agencies in accessing (unencrypted) data. There are also numerous proposals to clarify these laws, extend state powers and even to prevent the use of encryption in certain circumstances.

More surveillance power is not always better

While people may hold different views on particular proposals about state powers and encryption, there are some things on which we should all be able to agree.

First, facts matter. If the ACIC is wrong about lawful uses of encryption, its assertion should be withdrawn or discounted.

Second, people need both security and privacy. In fact, privacy can facilitate security (the more people know about you, the easier it is to trick you, track you and/or harm you).

Read more: You may be sick of worrying about online privacy, but ‘surveillance apathy’ is also a problem

Third, law enforcement and national security agencies need some surveillance powers to do their jobs. Most of the time, this contributes to the social good of public safety.

Fourth, more is not necessarily better when it comes to surveillance powers. We must ask what purpose the powers serve, whether they are reasonably necessary for achieving that purpose, whether they are likely to achieve the purpose, what negative consequences might result, and whether the powers are proportionate.

Lawful use of encrypted communication is common

We can only develop good policy in this area if we have the facts on lawful uses of encryption.

There are many good reasons for law-abiding citizens to use end-to-end encrypted communication platforms. Parents may send photos or videos of their children to trusted friends or relatives, but prefer not to share them with third parties. The explosion of telehealth during the COVID-19 pandemic has led many patients to clarify that they do not want their consultation with their doctor to be shared with an intermediary such as Facebook or Google (or Huawei or WeChat).

Even the New South Wales iVote online voting system — hardly a standout example of excessive security given that it contained a defect that potentially allowed vote manipulation to take place — advertises the use of end-to-end encryption to protect the privacy of votes in transit. The necessity of privacy to protect a citizen’s right to vote without coercion is one of the oldest examples of legal privacy requirements.

Undermining encryption will hurt legitimate users

As law-abiding citizens do have legitimate reasons to rely on end-to-end encryption, we should develop laws and policies around government surveillance accordingly. Any legislation that undermines information security across the board will have an impact on lawful users as well as criminals.

There will likely be significant disagreement in the community about where to go from there. But we have to get the facts right first.

We should not consider legislation to deliberately undermine the communications security of all individuals without acknowledging the potential harm this could cause to law-abiding citizens.

– ref. ACIC thinks there are no legitimate uses of encryption. They’re wrong, and here’s why it matters – https://theconversation.com/acic-thinks-there-are-no-legitimate-uses-of-encryption-theyre-wrong-and-heres-why-it-matters-160975

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mehmet Ulubasoglu, Professor of Economics, Head of the Department of Economics and Director of the Centre for Energy, the Environment and Natural Disasters, Deakin University

The Australian government’s latest budget has committed A$210 million for a new climate information service, $600 million for a new agency to promote natural disaster recovery and resilience, and $10 billion for a reinsurance fund to reduce insurance premiums in northern Australia.

That money split is symptomatic of a general focus on the impact of natural disasters – thinking about their costs in terms of direct damage to the built environment.

Lost homes and infrastructure, of course, do need to be replaced; and insurance claims do provide a neat way to calculate a tangible cost to a fire or flood.

But just because insurance numbers are solid and straightforward, we shouldn’t ignore that disasters have broader flow-on economic impacts that can’t really be insured against.

A farmer might be able to claim for a crop lost directly in flood, for example, but how to insure against the decline in output the next year?

And what insurance policy can protect the lowest paid or women from having their average incomes in disaster-affected being suppressed for up to five years?

Read more: Natural disasters are affecting some of Australia’s most disadvantaged communities

83 disasters, 10 industry sectors

To investigate the impact of natural disasters, I and colleagues from Curtin University, the University of Melbourne’s Centre for Disaster Management and Public Safety, and Ghent University in Belgium analysed data for 47 major floods and 36 major bushfires in Australia from 1978 to 2014.

This research used data by economic sector from the Australian Bureau of Statistics. The bureau divides the economy into 18 industry sectors. We focused on the ten most relevant: agriculture; construction; mining; manufacturing; recreation; retail; real estate and financial services; transport, storage and communications; utilities (electricity, gas, water and waste); and the public sector.

Beginning with state-level data on the total value of goods and services of each sector, we then used statistical techniques to estimate how much, on average, floods and bush fires changed these values in the disaster year and the following year.

Floods do the most damage

Floods had the most far-reaching effects. On average, a typical major flood in our study reduced a state’s output in the following sectors in both the year of the disaster and the subsequent year. The effects over the two years (compared to other states that did not have a disaster) were:

• in mining, down 12.8% in the first year, 12% in the second
• in agricultural, down 5.6% in the first year, 6.2% in the second
• in construction, down 3.2% in the first year, 1.5% in the second
• in property and financial services, down 3.62% in the first year only
• in wholesale/retail trade, down 2.34% in the second year only
• in recreation, down 2.93% in the second year only.

Three sectors related to relief and recovery had higher economic output:

• public and emergency management, up 1.6% in the first year, 4.2% in the second
• utility services, up 4.4% in the first year, 3.1% in the second
• transport, storage and communications, up 1% in the first year, 2.1% in the second.

Little effect was detected for manufacturing.

Bushfires have different impacts

Severe bushfires reduced output in the construction and transport, storage and communications sectors. Our analysis showed little impact on mining, manufacturing, finance and property or agricultural output.

The finding on agriculture, in particular, might seem counter-intuitive. It is likely due to fires mostly affecting forested areas and the fire season being in summer, when most crops have already been harvested.

Somewhat surprisingly, fires had no notable effect on recreation, utilities or public sector and emergency management outputs in the sectoral data.

The only sector showing an increase in output was wholesale/retail trade. This increased an average 7.68%.

Disasters increase inequality

Another way to measure the lingering and less obvious economic effects of disasters is through changes in individual incomes.

In different research using Australian census data from 2006, 2011 and 2016, we have found incomes can be suppressed for many years after a disaster.

Following Victoria’s 2009 Black Saturday bushfires, for example, we found the average annual incomes for agricultural workers in fire-ravaged areas was $8,000 lower over the following two years. For workers in accommodation and food services, the average income was $4,600 lower for two years.

For some groups, lower incomes persisted far longer. The average income for women in areas affected by the Black Saturday fires was $2,500-$3,000 lower until at least 2016 – the limit of our study. (We found no change in average incomes for men).

For the bottom third of income earners – earning an average of about $26,000 a year – incomes were suppressed by about $2,200 a year up to 2016. The average income of the highest third of earners – earning an average of about $51,000 a year – also dropped in the two years following (by about $4,400) but returned to their pre-disaster levels by 2016.

These figures show how natural disasters increase inequality.

Read more: Natural disasters increase inequality. Recovery funding may make things worse

Accounting for all costs

With the frequency and severity of natural disasters predicted to increase, the economic flow-on effects will also increase.

Understanding their full economic impacts and accounting for all their social costs– is crucial to ensure policies help the sectors and groups who need it most. We need mitigation. We need resilience. We also need to do what we can on prevention, through supporting international efforts to limit the drivers of more extreme weather events.

This story is part of a series The Conversation is running on the nexus between disaster, disadvantage and resilience. You can read the rest of the stories here.

– ref. It can’t all be insured: counting the hidden economic impact of floods and bushfires – https://theconversation.com/it-cant-all-be-insured-counting-the-hidden-economic-impact-of-floods-and-bushfires-157882

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gregory Melleuish, Professor, School of Humanities and Social Inquiry, University of Wollongong

Schoolchildren are told democracy, especially Australian parliamentary democracy, is a great and glorious thing. Question Time, in which our elected representatives ask questions of the government of the day, is meant to be emblematic of all that is best in that democracy.

Australian parliamentary democracy is a form of the Westminster system, and one of the key features of that system is that parliament keeps the government of the day accountable by scrutinising its actions.

In a democracy, the people have a right to know just how well the government is performing. Question Time is meant to be central to ensuring government accountability.

That, of course, is the ideal. The reality is somewhat different. Question Time is now often seen as something of an embarrassment, in which government and opposition members manoeuvre for political advantage. The tone and the outcome are often less than edifying.

Governments too often spend their time avoiding answering questions asked by the opposition and using the questions asked by their own supporters (known as “Dorothy Dixers”) to paint a rosy picture of their performance.

It would not be so bad if Question Time was, like so much parliament does, largely outside of public view. Instead, it is the primary means through which parliament displays itself to the public, so it becomes the public face of parliament.

So instead of an advertisement for the virtues of Australian parliamentary democracy, Question Time is instead a running sore that oozes many unsavoury aspects of parliamentary behaviour into the wider public sphere.

In light of this, a parliamentary committee has released a report on ways of improving question time. The aim is to make it, as committee chair Ross Vasta puts it in his foreword,

offer greater opportunities for scrutiny, and show parliamentarians as better role models.

Read more: As question time becomes political theatre, does it still play a vital role in government?

There are two issues here: one is that Question Time does not enable proper scrutiny of the government. The other is enhancing the public profile of parliamentarians.

To this end, the recommendations have much to commend themselves. They seek to:

• restrict the use of Dorothy Dixers by preventing ministers attacking opposition policies as part of their answers

• allow a non-government member to ask a supplementary question, a follow-on question for clarification

• allow at least ten questions from opposition MPs

• increase the number of constituency questions from government members

• reduce the time limit for all questions to 30 seconds and all answers to two minutes.

Regarding the “role model” issue, the report recommends that the Speaker should tell an MP who behaves in an unbecoming matter to leave the chamber for one or three hours.

It also recommends a trial of “very limited use of mobile phones” by MPs during Question Time. From an image perspective, a parliamentarian sitting and fiddling with his or her phone during a televised Question Time is not desirable.

The real issue is whether these reforms will actually create greater scrutiny and a better image of parliament. There is no doubt the authors of this report genuinely want both of these things. However, one wonders whether this goal could be achieved by what is essentially “tinkering” with procedural mechanisms. As with any institution, parliament is much more than the rules and regulations its members follow.

Read more: Is it curtains for Clive? What COVID means for populism in Australia 

It also has an animating culture that influences how people deal with those rules and regulations. As with all Westminster systems, the Australian parliament is adversarial in nature. It relies on a certain amount of conflict between the government of the day and the opposition. For quite some time, the focus of that conflict has been Question Time.

Question Time is where the prime minister establishes his or her credentials as leader, and where the opposition leader seeks to dent the reputation of the prime minister and establish his or her credentials as a better alternative. It is a crucial arena in the ongoing battle of politics.

Question Time is caught between the high-minded civic conception of politics and the reality of the struggle for dominance in our adversarial system of politics.

It is difficult to measure such things, but one could argue that Australian politics has become more adversarial over the past 25 years. Politics, as exemplified by such things as conflict between those seeking to become prime minister, has become quite brutal at times.

Given recent debates about the treatment of women in Parliament House, one wonders if the real issue may be the desirability of an adversarial culture underpinning the conduct of politics in Australia.

Perhaps, rather than seeking to reform such institutions as Question Time, we should be looking more closely at the values that animate our political life. At the moment, it would seem to be the case that winning the political battle and establishing dominance are far more important than developing policies that benefit the public, and which can be scrutinised in a calm and rational fashion.

– ref. Question Time reforms are worthy but won’t solve the problem of a broken political culture – https://theconversation.com/question-time-reforms-are-worthy-but-wont-solve-the-problem-of-a-broken-political-culture-160867

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alison O’Donnell, Research Fellow in Dendroclimatology, The University of Western Australia

Drought over the last two decades has dealt a heavy blow to the wheatbelt of Western Australia, the country’s most productive grain-growing region. Since 2000, winter rainfall has plummeted by almost 20% and shifted grain-growing areas towards the coast.

Our recent research, however, found these dry conditions are nothing out of the ordinary for the region.

In fact, after analysing rings in centuries-old tree trunks, we found the region has seen far worse “megadroughts” over the last 700 years. Australia’s instrumental climate records only cover the last 120 or so years (at best), which means these historic droughts may not have previously been known to science.

Our research also found the 20th century was the wettest of the last seven centuries in the wheatbelt. This is important, because it means scientists have likely been underestimating the actual risk of drought – and this will be exacerbated by climate change.

What we can learn from ancient trees

We estimate the risk of extreme climate events, such as droughts, cyclones and floods, based on what we know from instrumental climate records from weather stations. Extending climate records by hundreds or even thousands of years means scientists would be able to get a much better understanding of climate variability and the risk of extreme events.

Thankfully we can do just that in many parts of the world using proxy records — things like tree rings, corals, stalagmites and ice cores in Antarctica. These record evidence of past climate conditions as they grow.

For example, trees typically create a new layer of growth (“growth ring”) around their trunks, just beneath the bark, each year. The amount of growth generally depends on how much rain falls in the year. The more it rains, the more growth and the wider the ring.

We used growth rings of native cypress trees (Callitris columellaris) near a large salt lake at the eastern edge the wheatbelt region. These trees can live for up to 1,000 years, perhaps even longer.

We can examine the growth rings of living trees without cutting them down by carefully drilling a small hole into the trunk and extracting a column (“core”) of wood about the size of a drinking straw. By measuring the ring widths, we developed a timeline of tree growth and used this to work out how much rain fell in each year of a tree’s life.

This method allowed us to reconstruct the last 668 years of autumn-winter rainfall in the wheatbelt.

A history of megadroughts

One of the most pressing questions for the wheatbelt is whether the decline in autumn-winter rainfall observed in recent decades is unusual or extreme. Our extended record of rainfall lets us answer this question.

Yes, rainfall since 2000 was below the 668-year average — but it was not extremely low.

The last two decades may seem particularly bad because our expectations of rainfall in the wheatbelt are likely based on memories of higher rainfall. But this frequent wet weather has actually been the anomaly. Our tree rings revealed the 20th century was wetter than any other in the last 700 years, with 12% more rain in the autumn-winter seasons on average than the 19th century.

Read more: 500 years of drought and flood: trees and corals reveal Australia’s climate history

Before the 20th century, the wheatbelt saw five droughts that were longer and more severe than any we’ve experienced in living memory, or have recorded in instrumental records. This includes two dry periods in the late 18th and 19th centuries that persisted for more than 30 years, making them “megadroughts”.

While the most recent dry period has persisted for almost two decades so far, rainfall during this period is at least 10% higher than it was in the two historical megadroughts.

This suggests prolonged droughts are a natural and relatively common feature of the wheatbelt’s climate.

So how does human-caused climate change play into this?

It’s likely both natural climate variability and human-caused climate change contributed to the wheatbelt’s recent decline in rainfall. Unfortunately, it’s also likely their combined influence will lead to even less rainfall in the near future.

What happens now?

Our findings have important implications for assessing the risk of drought. It’s now clear we need to look beyond these instrumental records to more accurately estimate the risk of droughts for the wheatbelt.

But currently, proxy climate records like tree rings aren’t generally used in drought risk models, as there aren’t many of them in the regions scientists want to research.

Improving risk estimates leads to better informed decisions around preparing for and managing the effects of droughts and future natural disasters.

Read more: To help drought-affected farmers, we need to support them in good times as well as bad

Our findings are a confronting prospect for the future of farming in the wheatbelt.

Australian farmers have shown tremendous innovation in their ability to adapt in the face of drought, with many shifting from livestock to crops. This resilience will be critical as farmers face a drier, more difficult future.

– ref. We found a secret history of megadroughts written in tree rings. The wheatbelt’s future may be drier than we thought – https://theconversation.com/we-found-a-secret-history-of-megadroughts-written-in-tree-rings-the-wheatbelts-future-may-be-drier-than-we-thought-160526

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amy Maguire, Associate Professor in Human Rights and International Law, University of Newcastle

The latest outbreak of conflict in Gaza and Israel is escalating rapidly. At the time of writing, at least 192 Palestinians are reported dead, including 58 children. Ten Israelis are reported dead, including two children.

Hamas is firing rockets into Israel from Gaza. Some cause casualties, while many are intercepted by Israeli anti-missile systems or fall short of the border. Israel is conducting aerial and artillery bombardment of Palestinian targets. In recent days, it has destroyed a building that housed the Associated Press and Al Jazeera offices in Gaza, and levelled multiple Palestinian homes.

The conflict is the most intense outbreak of violence since the 2014 Israel-Gaza war. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel will do “whatever it takes to restore order and quiet” and this could take some time.

The question of Palestinian statehood and the enduring Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the perennial dilemma of the international legal system. The failure of the international community to bring about a resolution in the decades-long conflict reflects the highly politicised nature of international law.

Even though the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor opened an investigation into alleged war crimes in the conflict two months ago — and is closely watching the current violence for potential crimes — legal accountability will likely remain elusive.

Palestine’s status in the international community

Statehood is the preeminent status of an entity under international law. It grants the fullest range of rights and carries key assumptions, including freedom from interference with territorial integrity.

Israel declared statehood in 1948 and was admitted as a UN member state in 1949. Its statehood — combined with its abiding US alliance — has given it significant protection from external intervention.

Palestine, in contrast, claims a right to statehood but lacks effective statehood. The international legal position is clear — the Palestinian people are entitled to self-determination and statehood but they have been living under Israel’s occupation since 1967.

On this basis, in 2012, Palestine’s UN standing was upgraded to the special status of “non-member observer state”. Although the majority of UN General Assembly members expressed their hope this would lead to actual statehood for Palestine, a two-state solution to the conflict appears less likely as time goes on.

UN Security Council response

The UN Security Council is charged with promoting and preserving international peace and security. It has frequently addressed the conflict involving Israel and Palestine in the past.

The Security Council met in an emergency session on Sunday, with UN Secretary-General António Guterres calling for an immediate ceasefire and warning of “an uncontainable security and humanitarian crisis”. Over 38,000 Palestinians are internally displaced in the Gaza Strip following the recent surge in hostilities.

Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi argued Israeli settlement activities violate international law and stand in the way of peace. Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki accused Israel of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity, and pursuing a policy of apartheid.

Israel’s UN ambassador, Gilad Erdan, meanwhile, accused Hamas of targeting civilians as a power play against the Palestinian Authority.

The council took no action in this special session. The US, one of five permanent members with veto power, has a track record of resisting action in relation to Israel. China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi said it was regrettable the US was blocking the council from making a statement with “one voice”.

US officials are maintaining their position that Israel is exercising its right to self-defence against Hamas terror attacks.

Read more: With diplomacy all but abandoned, Israel and the Palestinians are teetering on another war

Investigating alleged war crimes

This conflict comes in the wake of a significant development in international criminal law. In 2015, Palestine acceded to the Rome Statute that established the International Criminal Court (ICC). Palestine also accepted ICC jurisdiction over alleged crimes committed in its territory since June 2014.

In February, the ICC determined its jurisdiction extended to the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Its office of the prosecutor then initiated an investigation into the “situation in Palestine”. Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said her office would seek justice for crimes committed against Palestinian and Israeli victims.

Read more: What admitting Palestine to the International Criminal Court means

The ICC exists to prosecute the gravest crimes against humanity and war crimes. Israel has been accused of war crimes in Palestine, including wilful unlawful killings and disproportionate military attacks causing unnecessary civilian casualties.

Human Rights Watch alleges Israel is also engaged in crimes against humanity in the form of apartheid and persecution.

The ICC probe will likely encompass the 2014 war, border clashes in 2018, and Israeli settlement activities in the West Bank. It will also examine whether Hamas and other groups in Gaza have committed war crimes by firing rockets at Israel.

Obstacles to accountability

Accountability for international crimes is complicated for non-state actors like Hamas. Indiscriminate attacks on civilian targets undoubtedly violate the laws of war. Yet, Hamas is not acting on behalf of a Palestinian state, nor does the Palestinian Authority have the capacity to halt its actions.

As for Israel, the American alliance has been a constant obstacle to accountability. However, some important trends are emerging within American Jewish communities and the Democratic Party.

Read more: As the Palestinian minority takes to the streets, Israel is having its own Black Lives Matter moment

Many American Jews are showing increasing scepticism about Netanyahu’s unflinching prosecution of Israel’s conflict with Hamas. Liberal Jewish lobbyists are challenging the Biden administration to oppose Israeli efforts to evict Palestinians in East Jerusalem.

Some prominent Democratic politicians now publicly oppose the position that Israel’s right to self-defence must be asserted by the US, regardless of whether its military actions are proportionate. Senator Bernie Sanders wrote this week:

the fact of the matter is that Israel remains the one sovereign authority in the land of Israel and Palestine, and rather than preparing for peace and justice, it has been entrenching its unequal and undemocratic control.

Prominent progressive congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez also asked why the US could not stand up to Israel, which she called an “apartheid state”.

The ICC investigation certainly opens a new and legally intriguing avenue. But previous efforts at truth and peace-building indicate little cause for hope.

President Joe Biden, for one, has a long-established position in favour of Israel’s right to defend itself.

Israel is also not a member of the ICC and rejects the court’s jurisdiction over its territory and nationals.

The long war persists. International law — hamstrung by its own institutions, entrenched power relations and politicisation — offers no clear or quick solution.

– ref. Why is accountability for alleged war crimes so hard to achieve in the Israel-Palestinian conflict? – https://theconversation.com/why-is-accountability-for-alleged-war-crimes-so-hard-to-achieve-in-the-israel-palestinian-conflict-160864

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christopher Blyth, Paediatrician, Infectious Diseases Physician and Clinical Microbiologist, Telethon Kids Institute, The University of Western Australia

Adolescents in North America are beginning to roll up their sleeves for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine after it was approved for 12-15-year-olds this month.

The Canadian drug and therapeutic regulator Health Canada approved Pfizer-BioNTech’s mRNA vaccine for children aged 12-15 on May 5, and the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) expanded its emergency use authorisation to include this age group last week. The European Medicines Agency is reviewing similar applications.

COVID vaccines are currently not registered for use in children younger than 16 in Australia, but this prospect is getting closer.

Research has demonstrated the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine is effective and well-tolerated in adolescents. Research into younger children is ongoing.

Do children need to be vaccinated?

Children rarely develop severe forms of COVID-19, and death from the disease is even rarer.

But children and especially teenagers can spread SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.

There’s increasing evidence the vaccines impede transmission of SARS-CoV-2, so vaccinating children is expected to benefit the wider community, even though children themselves are at lower risk of COVID-19 complications.

The emergence of rapidly spreading variants makes it even more important to have as many people vaccinated and protected as possible.

Read more: Worried about your child getting coronavirus? Here’s what you need to know

Are COVID vaccines effective for kids?

Pfizer-BioNTech reported phase 3 clinical trial data involving 2,260 adolescents aged 12-15 years, in which half received two doses of the Pfizer vaccine and half received a placebo.

There were 18 cases of COVID-19 reported among those who received the placebo, and none reported in the group which received the vaccine. So the efficacy of the vaccine was 100% in this study.

The immune responses one month after the second dose, which the researchers measured by looking at antibody levels, were very good in this age group (and actually higher than those seen in the 16-25 year age group).

Other clinical trials involving adolescents are in the pipeline, including for the Moderna vaccine, the other mRNA vaccine Australia has recently signed up for.

Meanwhile, Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines are now being trialled in children as young as six months. Other pharmaceutical companies have either commenced or are planning paediatric studies too. We expect to start receiving results of these studies in younger children in the second half of this year.

Are vaccines for children different?

The approval of any vaccine for use in children and adolescents involves the same stringent processes as the approval process for adults, if not to a greater extent. The vaccine must successfully pass through all clinical trial phases and meet important safety, efficacy and quality standards prior to regulatory approval.

One aspect of vaccine trials in children is deciding on the right dose and schedule. This is particularly important given differences in body size and immune responses to vaccines between children and adults.

Most of the time, vaccines in children and adults will use the same dose and the same schedule. For most vaccines, administering the same dose is safe, effective and logistically much easier. But sometimes, like in the case of the pertussis (whooping cough) and hepatitis B vaccine, the dose needs to be different for children and adults to produce the best results.

Read more: We asked children around the world what they knew about COVID. This is what they said

In the case of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, the dose and the schedule (three to six weeks between the first and second doses) indicated for adolescents is the same as for adults.

The ongoing trials of COVID vaccines in younger children are trialling different doses to see what will be most suitable.

Are they safe?

Pfizer-BioNTech has reported side effects in adolescents similar to what we see in young adults aged 16-25 years. Injection site pain, headache, fever, chills and fatigue are most common. The side effects should be brief, lasting about 24-48 hours.

The participants in Pfizer’s trial will be followed up for two years to understand long-term protection and safety.

Once the vaccine is rolled out, we continue to assess vaccine safety. Active surveillance for adverse events following immunisation is ongoing in Australia.

The Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) monitors rare or serious side effects, to ensure any additional safety concerns not picked up in clinical trials are identified and investigated.

When will children get vaccinated in Australia?

Authorisation of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for adolescents in North America signals vaccination programs will extend to children. Although there are no licensed COVID-19 vaccines for use in this age group in Australia at this stage, we anticipate applications to the TGA in the coming months.

Children under 16 have been considered in Australia’s COVID-19 vaccination rollout strategy, and will constitute phase 3.

But adult priority populations are currently being targeted given their greater risk of developing severe disease, risk of exposure and critical role in society’s functioning.

It’s unlikely Australian children will be asked to roll up their sleeves for many months to come. But when they are, parents and caregivers can be assured the evidence indicates COVID-19 vaccines in children are safe and work well.

Access to a safe and effective vaccine for children and adolescents will be important in enhancing community immunity and reducing the overall impact of the global pandemic.

Read more: How do we actually investigate rare COVID-19 vaccine side-effects?

– ref. Children, teens and COVID vaccines: where is the evidence at, and when will kids in Australia be eligible? – https://theconversation.com/children-teens-and-covid-vaccines-where-is-the-evidence-at-and-when-will-kids-in-australia-be-eligible-160625

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alison O’Donnell, Research Fellow in Dendroclimatology, The University of Western Australia

Drought over the last two decades has dealt a heavy blow to the wheatbelt of Western Australia, the country’s most productive grain-growing region. Since 2000, winter rainfall has plummeted by almost 20% and shifted grain-growing areas towards the coast.

Our recent research, however, found these dry conditions are nothing out of the ordinary for the region.

In fact, after analysing rings in centuries-old tree trunks, we found the region has seen far worse “megadroughts” over the last 700 years. Australia’s instrumental climate records only cover the last 120 or so years (at best), which means these historic droughts may not have previously been known to science.

Our research also found the 20th century was the wettest of the last seven centuries in the wheatbelt. This is important, because it means scientists have likely been underestimating the actual risk of drought – and this will be exacerbated by climate change.

What we can learn from ancient trees

We estimate the risk of extreme climate events, such as droughts, cyclones and floods, based on what we know from instrumental climate records from weather stations. Extending climate records by hundreds or even thousands of years means scientists would be able to get a much better understanding of climate variability and the risk of extreme events.

Thankfully we can do just that in many parts of the world using proxy records — things like tree rings, corals, stalagmites and ice cores in Antarctica. These record evidence of past climate conditions as they grow.

For example, trees typically create a new layer of growth (“growth ring”) around their trunks, just beneath the bark, each year. The amount of growth generally depends on how much rain falls in the year. The more it rains, the more growth and the wider the ring.

We used growth rings of native cypress trees (Callitris columellaris) near a large salt lake at the eastern edge the wheatbelt region. These trees can live for up to 1,000 years, perhaps even longer.

We can examine the growth rings of living trees without cutting them down by carefully drilling a small hole into the trunk and extracting a column (“core”) of wood about the size of a drinking straw. By measuring the ring widths, we developed a timeline of tree growth and used this to work out how much rain fell in each year of a tree’s life.

This method allowed us to reconstruct the last 668 years of autumn-winter rainfall in the wheatbelt.

A history of megadroughts

One of the most pressing questions for the wheatbelt is whether the decline in autumn-winter rainfall observed in recent decades is unusual or extreme. Our extended record of rainfall lets us answer this question.

Yes, rainfall since 2000 was below the 668-year average — but it was not extremely low.

The last two decades may seem particularly bad because our expectations of rainfall in the wheatbelt are likely based on memories of higher rainfall. But this frequent wet weather has actually been the anomaly. Our tree rings revealed the 20th century was wetter than any other in the last 700 years, with 12% more rain in the autumn-winter seasons on average than the 19th century.

Read more: 500 years of drought and flood: trees and corals reveal Australia’s climate history

Before the 20th century, the wheatbelt saw five droughts that were longer and more severe than any we’ve experienced in living memory, or have recorded in instrumental records. This includes two dry periods in the late 18th and 19th centuries that persisted for more than 30 years, making them “megadroughts”.

While the most recent dry period has persisted for almost two decades so far, rainfall during this period is at least 10% higher than it was in the two historical megadroughts.

This suggests prolonged droughts are a natural and relatively common feature of the wheatbelt’s climate.

So how does human-caused climate change play into this?

It’s likely both natural climate variability and human-caused climate change contributed to the wheatbelt’s recent decline in rainfall. Unfortunately, it’s also likely their combined influence will lead to even less rainfall in the near future.

What happens now?

Our findings have important implications for assessing the risk of drought. It’s now clear we need to look beyond these instrumental records to more accurately estimate the risk of droughts for the wheatbelt.

But currently, proxy climate records like tree rings aren’t generally used in drought risk models, as there aren’t many of them in the regions scientists want to research.

Improving risk estimates leads to better informed decisions around preparing for and managing the effects of droughts and future natural disasters.

Read more: To help drought-affected farmers, we need to support them in good times as well as bad

Our findings are a confronting prospect for the future of farming in the wheatbelt.

Australian farmers have shown tremendous innovation in their ability to adapt in the face of drought, with many shifting from livestock to crops. This resilience will be critical as farmers face a drier, more difficult future.

– ref. We found a secret history of megadroughts written in tree rings. The wheatbelt’s future may be drier than we think – https://theconversation.com/we-found-a-secret-history-of-megadroughts-written-in-tree-rings-the-wheatbelts-future-may-be-drier-than-we-think-160526

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Agata Mrva-Montoya, Honorary Associate, Department of Media and Communication, University of Sydney

Academic book publishing is under threat. Global university rankings and competition for funding and international student enrolments are reshaping the research landscape. Academics are under more pressure to win grant funding and publish journal articles, rather than books, and be more strategic in their publishing.

With universities losing billions in revenue due to the impacts of COVID-19, these pressures are only going to increase.

Traditionally, a monograph published with a prestigious publisher has been a key medium to create and disseminate research in the humanities and social sciences. It has also been important for building scholarly careers and reputations. However, our research shows publishing pressures, incentives and rewards are changing.

A shift from quantity to quality

The Australian government’s approach to funding research has had a strong impact on what types of publications have been encouraged.

Australian universities first began reporting details of academics’ research outputs to the government in the 1990s as part of the formula for distributing research funding. The funds allocated for publication were significant. By 2001, a peer-reviewed journal article was “worth” more than A$3,000 to the university. A book was “worth” $15,000.

These rewards applied regardless of where the research was published. “Publish or perish” had well and truly taken over. Without appropriate measures to account for quality and impact, the system had the unintended consequence of encouraging academics to publish low-quality research with low-quality journals and publishers just to meet performance targets. The use of quantitative measures alone also increases the possibility for gaming and manipulation.

Read more: Publish or perish culture encourages scientists to cut corners

Publication data were eventually removed from the Higher Education Research Data Collection (HERDC) specifications in 2016. Since then, no government funding based on quantity (or quality) of research outputs has been distributed.

Australia’s current national research assessment exercise, Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA), began in 2010. The ERA system is designed to identify and improve quality of research through international benchmarking.

As a result, all universities expect “quality” publications from their staff. This is invariably understood as publishing with international and prestigious publishers and in high-ranking journals.

As universities compete against each other, they have a strong incentive to lift their research profile and to design internal reward schemes based on how ERA defines quality.

Academics are now fundraisers

Our research project looked at the publishing strategies and behaviours of academics in the humanities and social sciences. We found the pressures for quantity appear to have subsided (for some at least). However, there is now a greater push for quality, competitive grant funding and real-world impact.

While universities are still interested in quality publications, the changing funding rules mean universities that receive competitive funding get additional research funds through HERDC. This translates to greater pressure on academics to apply for and secure funding. Academic production appears to have shifted from publication as an outcome in itself to funding as the main measure of performance.

Funding bodies, in turn, are increasingly looking to researchers to show their research has quantifiable, real-world impacts. And ideally they should publish in open access publications.

Read more: 2020 locked in shift to open access publishing, but Australia is lagging

Juggling publication quality and research impact

Academics are caught in the middle between the pressure to publish in quality outlets versus the need to demonstrate impact in the broader society. This creates a conundrum for academics in the humanities and social sciences in particular.

A number of participants in our research described the ways in which their university’s performance evaluations are aligned to publishing practices in science, technology and medicine. Citation metrics are commonly used as a proxy for quality in these fields. Books are generally not available or poorly represented in citation databases.

Many respondents felt their institutions devalued book publishing in favour of journal articles and collaborative authorship.

The emphasis on international publication means some subject areas are rated higher than others. For example, academics in Australian studies told us they felt their institutions undervalued their work.

We also observed an increase in the number of journal ranking lists or recommended publisher lists, created internally by universities. These are intended to make “quality” explicit by identifying where academics are advised to publish.

However, these lists discourage academics from publishing with local, niche, emerging or open-access book publishers and journals. These outlets might actually be a better fit for their target audiences and so lead to greater impact.

Read more: Who cares about university research? The answer depends on its impacts

Distorting the value of academic inquiry

The different expectations of various stakeholders mean academics receive conflicting advice about publishing strategically. Academics are encouraged to engage with the Australian context and communities. At the same time, they are told to produce research that prestigious international journals and publishers will accept.

These pressures lead researchers to publish in ways that reflect how they are being measured. This appears, in turn, to influence their research agendas. The current research landscape seems to be more a reflection of what is being measured, rather than what is needed by society or would advance knowledge.

Academics, especially early career researchers, have no choice but to remain open to changing priorities, be they institutional or governmental. They must balance the contradictions and tensions in academia. In spite of the rhetoric of academic freedom, university performance expectations mean academics are increasingly required to construct their research agendas and publishing strategies to be attractive to grant funders and international publishers.

Apart from affecting individual academics’ careers, these practices have broad social and intellectual costs. For the humanities and social sciences, in particular, these trends could affect the future and relevance of these disciplines in Australia.

– ref. Book publishing sidelined in the game of university measurement and rankings – https://theconversation.com/book-publishing-sidelined-in-the-game-of-university-measurement-and-rankings-157885

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nathalie Collins, Academic Director (National Programs), Edith Cowan University

New Zealand’s prime minister Jacinda Ardern has called for “ethical algorithms” to help stop online radicalisation.

She made her call on the weekend at the second summit of the “Christchurch Call” for action to eliminate terrorist and violent extremist content online.

The first Christchurch Call summit was convened by Ardern and French president Emmanuel Macron in May 2019. It took place two months after New Zealand’s first and worst mass shooting in decades, the Christchurch mosque shootings, in which a 28-year-old Australian gunman killed 51 men, women and children.

The Christchurch Call is a voluntary compact between governments and technology companies. So far 55 nations have signed on – with the most notable new signatory being the United States, which refused to join under Donald Trump.

Google (which owns YouTube), Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft and Amazon have also signed on, as well as Japanese messaging app LINE, French search engine Qwant and video-sharing sites Daily Motion and JeuxVideo.

In light of clear examples of extremist behaviour still being fomented online – the storming of the US Capitol in January being a case in point – one might question how much has been achieved.

Read more: Two years on from the Christchurch terror attack, how much has really changed?

On the weekend Arden, while noting the progress made in areas such as the platforms’ protocols for moderating and removing extremist content, singled out the need for ethical algorithms. Here’s why.

How social media platforms serve content

Imagine a large, vast restaurant. Service here works in an interesting way.

The waiters dash around the restaurant to bring diners as much food as they can eat. They don’t take orders but effectively direct you to what you will eat by putting that food in front of you.

The restaurant owner has designed it this way, to keep you eating as much as possible.

How do the waiters know what you like? They have a record of what you ate last time. They listen in on your table conversation. You mention you feel like French fries? They will bring you buckets of fries over and over.

At first you think: “Isn’t this wonderful, these waiters know just what I like.”

But the waiters don’t care about what you like. They just want you to keep eating. Even if the food is unhealthy and increases your risk of disease or death. No matter. They’ll keep bringing it as long as you keep eating.

If these waiters were ethical, if they cared about your well-being, they might bring you healthy alternatives. They might put a salad before you. If the restaurant owner was ethical, the service would not be designed to encourage overeating. It would seek to interest you in something else.

But then you might stop eating. You might leave the restaurant. That would hurt profits.

Algorithms are designed to decide what we see

Social media algorithms work the same as the service in our metaphorical restaurant. Algorithms are tech companies’ secret recipes to keep users on their platforms.

The easiest way to do that is serve you content you like – perhaps with even more salt, sugar and fat.

On YouTube it’s more of the same type of content you’ve been watching. Like videos of stray dogs being rescued? You’ll get more of those recommended to you. If it’s videos about governments hiding alien technology, you’ll get more of those.

Facebook works a little bit differently. It will recommend groups for you to join based on your interests. If you’ve joined a group about native birds, or ascending to the fifth dimension, more such groups will be recommended to you. Those groups enable you to interact with and make “friends’ with others who share your interests and beliefs.

Read more: Why Facebook created its own ‘supreme court’ for judging content – 6 questions answered

Repetition and normalisation

These strategies reinforce and normalise our interests and views. They are crucial reasons for the viral-like spread of extremism.

An idea, no matter how absurd or extreme, becomes more acceptable if repeated over and over again. Advertisers know this. So do propagandists. The more we view videos and posts pushing the same ideas, and connect with people who share the same views, the more we feel we’re normal and it’s those who disagree with us who are deluded.

This radicalisation is a social phenomenon. It is also a business.

Those pushing or holding radical ideas often think they are opposing Big Tech and other corporate interests. They couldn’t be more wrong. Extremist content is a lucrative market segment. Keeping your eyes on a page, enthralling you and reinforcing your views is a way for content creators, social influencers and the platforms themselves to make bank, boost their ego and spread their message. Which, in turn, legitimises their message.

Remember the fundamental business model: for Big Tech it is about about selling your attention to advertisers, no matter the message.

Read more: Reddit removes millions of pro-Trump posts. But advertisers, not values, rule the day

Can math be made ethical?

Arden’s call is for algorithms designed with intent – the intent to reduce the promotion of content which can harm you, kill you or – given the right conditions – someone else.

An ethical algorithm would encourage a more balanced diet, even if it meant you would stop consuming.

Limiting what the waiters can serve you doesn’t completely avoid the need for important discussions. For example, then who should decide what healthy means? But this would be a less contentious, more productive debate than a stale argument about free expression versus censorship. Especially when the real discussion is the promotion and convenience of “junk” thinking.

Limiting consumption by making things harder to find, not delivered on a platter, is preferable to any outright ban.

– ref. Jacinda Ardern calls for ‘ethical algorithms’ to combat online extremism. What this means – https://theconversation.com/jacinda-ardern-calls-for-ethical-algorithms-to-combat-online-extremism-what-this-means-160986

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dimitria Groutsis, Associate professor, University of Sydney

Have you ever had to fill out a form asking about your cultural background or ethnicity or race, only to be stumped because the question or the answer options don’t reflect how you see yourself?

Our research shows you are not alone. In fact, our findings suggest Australia has a serious problem in the way it collects and reports data on cultural diversity, with many organisations doing neither, and many more doing neither well.

Australia is extraordinarily rich in cultural diversity — nearly half of us were born overseas or had one or both parents born overseas. We speak more than 300 languages in our homes, and identify with more than 300 ancestries.

Yet there’s little understanding of how this looks within workplaces.

Often we are asked only about where we were born, or asked to fit into US and UK-based categories such as “African, Asian, Hispanic, Pacific Islander or White”.

African, Asian, Hispanic, Islander or White?

In Australia, such categories render invisible the lives of second and third generation Australians with strong bonds to other cultures.

To address this oversight we have developed a single standardised approach for defining, measuring, and reporting on workforce diversity.

Collecting more meaningful information is important not only for understanding ourselves, but is also for corporations, which have been found to benefit from diverse boards, leadership and workforces.

Doing it better means acknowledging cultural identity has many dimensions, among them cultural/ethnic background, language(s), national origin, race, colour, faith and global experience.

And recognising that what matters is evolving.

Some want more focus on colour

Many people we spoke with called for Australian organisations to turn away from the sanitised language of “cultural diversity” in preference for race-based language that acknowledges colour.

They valued terms used in the United States, such as BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Colour), BAME (Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic) used in the United Kingdom, or “Visible Minority”, used in Canada, as they make it clear skin colour (“whiteness”) is linked to privilege.

But for others, colour is too limiting

Strikingly, just as many other people thought terms such as “cultural diversity” were better and viewed race-based terms disparagingly. In particular, they noted

• there was no generally accepted definition or understanding of who was and was not a person of colour and/or black in Australia

• who is and is not a minority in Australia depends very much on the context – some people might be minority in one workplace but a majority in another

• terms such as “culturally diverse” and “culturally and linguistically diverse” recognise that race and colour are not the only cultural determinants of workplace exclusion. Other things, such as accent, name, dress and religious practices and length of time in the country, can matter as well.

Read more: How racism and a lack of diversity can harm our workplaces

Practical ways to track Australia’s true diversity

Over the past two years we have drawn on multiple sources, including an international document review, a survey of 300 human resource and diversity and inclusion practitioners, a pilot survey of 1200 employees, focus groups with 90 participants from 34 organisations and regular consultations with an expert panel immersed in the field of cultural diversity.

The result, unveiled today, is an Australian first: a practical guide book for organisations on how to use five evidence-based measures to count culture in their workforce, leadership suite and customer base.

The five measures include three which we recommend as the minimum:

• cultural background

• language

• country of birth

plus two additional measures that can be used to gain a deeper understanding of customers’ and employees backgrounds:

• religion

• global experience

We acknowledge that these five questions won’t suit everyone. But our hope is that by providing a nationally standardised approach, we will see more organisations mapping and benchmarking the breadth and depth of the cultural diversity in their workplace and gaining meaningful evidence.

Such evidence will spark a conversation on how we can build more inclusive practices.

We also hope that the next time you’re asked about your background, you’ll find the questions more meaningful.

Counting Culture: Towards A Standardised Approach To Measuring And Reporting On Workforce Cultural Diversity In Australia is now available.

– ref. Who are you? What the standard questions about birth and background don’t tell us – https://theconversation.com/who-are-you-what-the-standard-questions-about-birth-and-background-dont-tell-us-160088

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dr Jamie Q Roberts, Lecturer in Politics and International Relations, University of Sydney

Most of us are familiar with Shakespeare’s plays. Even if we aren’t Shakespeare geeks, chances are we’ve waded through five or six in school, seen several movie adaptations and been to an “in the park” production.

And then there is the constant background of Shakespearean quotations and references colouring our lives, from recognisable lines like “let slip the dogs of war”, to the oh, I didn’t know Shakespeare wrote that cliches, such as “one fell swoop” or “wear my heart upon my sleeve”.

However, apart from a few hits, Shakespeare’s sonnets are less known.

Fortified with a familiarity with the plays, a virgin journey into the sonnets is as good a literary adventure as anyone could hope for. It is both unsettling and beguiling.

The Shakespeare of the plays is god-like: he is everywhere in his creations as a masterful and unifying presence, and yet he is aloof. If I had to take a punt, I’d say he was wise, wry — the kind of person who knew how to do life right.

Thus it is a shock to meet the Shakespeare of the sonnets. This Shakespeare is frail (sonnets 29 and 145), obsessed (28), judgmental (130), fickle (110) and self-pitying (72). And so we are drawn in. We begin to ponder how much of himself Shakespeare reveals in the sonnets, and, if he is in there, how one of the most remarkable humans could be so like the rest of us.

What is a sonnet?

A sonnet is a short poem, traditionally about love. The “English” or “Shakespearean” sonnet has a standard form. There are 14 lines, each with five “beats”.

Each beat has two syllables, with the second being stressed. This is known as “iambic pentameter”. Try it out with the most famous line from the sonnets: “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” (18)

The sonnet has three “quatrains” — stanzas with four lines — and a final rhyming couplet — two lines that rhyme. The couplet packs a certain punch that turns the sonnet on its head or provides the key to the sonnet or something similar.

Read more: Explainer: poetic metre

A brief overview

When we talk about Shakespeare’s sonnets, we are usually referring to the 154 sonnets published in 1609 when Shakespeare was about 45. The sonnets were likely written and revised throughout Shakespeare’s adult life (though there is debate).

Keeping to the tradition, Shakespeare’s sonnets are about love. But they take us into love’s maelstrom. The sonnets speak, often in the most raw fashion, of jealousy (61), fear (48), infidelity (120) and love triangles (41, 42), but also of the simple happiness that love can bring (25). Because of this, according to poet and essayist Anthony Hecht, young lovers make up the most substantial readership of the sonnets.

The bulk of the sonnets (1-126) are addressed to a young man, often referred to as the “fair youth”.

The last 28 are mostly addressed to or about a woman: “the dark lady”. The real-life identities of both figures are not known. However, the dedication to the sonnets, which some consider to be a code, may contain the youth’s identity (see this article by amateur Shakespeare scholar, John Rollett).

Within these two broad sets there are smaller groupings. Sonnets 1 to 17 are known as the “procreation sonnets”, while 78 to 86, which reveal that another poet is drawing inspiration from the fair youth, are referred to as the “rival poet” sequence.

And throughout, two and sometimes three sonnets are directly linked as if they were a longer poem (for instance 66, 67 and 68 — look out here for the objection to the silly wigs everyone wore).

Read more: Friday essay: 50 shades of Shakespeare – how the Bard sexed things up

The fair youth sequence

There are several recurring themes here.

A number of sonnets address the pain of being apart (such as 44 and 45). And in 49 we see the persona’s anxiety about parting permanently when he imagines the time “when thou [the fair youth] shalt strangely pass, / And scarcely greet me with that sun, thine eye.”

But we also witness the persona drawing on his love for the youth to fortify himself against unhappy memories. The well known 30 begins with:

When to the sessions of sweet silent thought / I summon up remembrance of things past, / I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought, / And with old woes new wail my dear time’s waste.

It finishes with the lines, “But if the while I think on thee, dear friend, / All losses are restor’d, and sorrows end.”

There are also the themes of time’s destruction of beauty and the horror of death. And hand-in-hand with these, we see the persona searching for ways for the youth to achieve immortality.

In 12, one of the “procreation sonnets”, the youth is encouraged to seek immortality by having children. It finishes with: “And nothing ‘gainst Time’s scythe can make defence, / Save breed, to brave him, when he takes thee hence.”

However, even more poignant are the persona’s many explicit attempts to preserve the youth through his poetry — a quixotic enterprise that, remarkably, has worked. This is best exemplified in 18. We read:

Nor shall Death brag thou wander’st in his shade, / When in eternal lines to time thou growest. / So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, / So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

A common discussion is whether the fair youth sequence reveals that Shakespeare was gay or bisexual. Unless the sonnets are a wild fabrication, Shakespeare certainly wasn’t straight.

However, we should, as scholar Dennis Kay reminds us, be cautious of “applying a modern understanding of, and attitudes toward, homosexuality to early modern culture.” Read 20 and see what you think.

Not all the sonnets in the fair youth sequence are addressed to the youth. An exception is another of the evergreen sonnets: 116. This ode to the eternal nature of love begins with:

Let me not to the marriage of true minds / Admit impediments. Love is not love / Which alters when it alteration finds, / Or bends with the remover to remove: / O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark.

Returning to sonnet 66 (my favourite), although the final couplet addresses love, the sonnet stands out because its focus is not love, but the corruptions of the world.

In it, the persona objects to “folly (doctor-like) controlling skill” and “art made tongue-tied by authority.” Here we are reminded of the battles many who are capable and spirited must fight against soulless bureaucracies and the censorious.

The dark lady sequence

The “dark lady” is “dark” because when she is introduced in 127, her complexion and eyes are described as black:

In the old age black was not counted fair, / Or if it were, it bore not beauty’s name; / But now is black beauty’s successive heir, / And beauty slander’d with a bastard shame.

And later in the sonnet we read: “my mistress’ eyes are raven black.”

In the dark lady sequence, the persona suffers familiar torments. But there are also several instances of humor — the fair youth sequence is almost humorless.

In sonnet 135 and 136 the persona puns bawdily and relentlessly on the world “will”: “Wilt thou, whose will is large and spacious, / Not once vouchsafe to hide my will in thine?”

But the stand-out is 130. Here the persona pointedly declines to use tired comparisons to praise the attributes of his mistress.

We read: “My mistresses’ eyes are nothing like the sun”, and, “And in some perfumes is there more delight / Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.”

Then come the glorious lines: “I grant I never saw a goddess go; / My mistress when she walks, treads on the ground.”

Their reception

The sonnets were not much read for nearly 200 years after their publication, but since then they have only grown in popularity. This was, perhaps, assisted by Wordsworth’s own sonnet: “Scorn Not the Sonnet”. (I know, it’s hard not to laugh.)

Today, lines from the sonnets turn up from time to time in popular culture. Naturally, in “Dead Poets Society” sonnet 18 is recited.

So what do the sonnets mean for us today? Many things. Most commonly, they have come to stand for perfect love, but this is likely because few readers make it past two of them: sonnets 18 and 116.

For those who do read further, the sonnets provide a more honest account of love, while exploring other substantial themes such as fear of death and the search for immortality.

The sonnets can also be enlisted to support social and political causes, from freedom to sexuality. And then there is the possible portal they provide into Shakespeare the man.

Ultimately though, we read on because of Shakespeare’s inimitable commingling of beauty and truth — if the two can be separated. And because each reading reveals that we are still only splashing about in the shallows of an immeasurable ocean.

– ref. Guide to the classics: Shakespeare’s sonnets — an honest account of love and a surprising portal to the man himself – https://theconversation.com/guide-to-the-classics-shakespeares-sonnets-an-honest-account-of-love-and-a-surprising-portal-to-the-man-himself-156964

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nicole Lee, Professor at the National Drug Research Institute (Melbourne), Curtin University

Recent media reports suggest drink spiking at pubs and clubs may be on the rise.

“Drink spiking” is when someone puts alcohol or other drugs into another person’s drink without their knowledge.

It can include:

• putting alcohol into a non-alcoholic drink

• adding extra alcohol to an alcoholic drink

• slipping prescription or illegal drugs into an alcoholic or non-alcholic drink.

Alcohol is actually the drug most commonly used in drink spiking.

The use of other drugs, such as benzodiazepines (like Rohypnol), GHB or ketamine is relatively rare.

These drugs are colourless and odourless so they are less easily detected. They cause drowsiness, and can cause “blackouts” and memory loss at high doses.

Perpetrators may spike victims’ drinks to commit sexual assault. But according to the data, the most common type of drink spiking is to “prank” someone or some other non-criminal motive.

So how can you know if your drink has been spiked, and as a society, how can we prevent it?

Read more: Weekly Dose: GHB, a party drug that’s easy to overdose on but was once used in childbirth

How often does it happen?

We don’t have very good data on how often drink spiking occurs. It’s often not reported to police because victims can’t remember what has happened.

If a perpetrator sexually assaults someone after spiking their drink, there are many complex reasons why victims may not want to report to police.

Read more: Almost 90% of sexual assault victims do not go to police — this is how we can achieve justice for survivors

One study, published in 2004, estimated there were about 3,000 to 4,000 suspected drink spiking incidents a year in Australia. It estimated less than 15% of incidents were reported to police.

It found four out of five victims were women. About half were under 24 years old and around one-third aged 25-34. Two-thirds of the suspected incidents occurred in licensed venues like pubs and clubs.

According to an Australian study from 2006, around 3% of adult sexual assault cases occurred after perpetrators intentionally drugged victims outside of their knowledge.

It’s crucial to note that sexual assault is a moral and legal violation, whether or not the victim was intoxicated and whether or not the victim became intoxicated voluntarily.

How can you know if it’s happened to you?

Some of the warning signs your drink might have been spiked include:

• feeling lightheaded, or like you might faint

• feeling quite sick or very tired

• feeling drunk despite only having a very small amount of alcohol

• passing out

• feeling uncomfortable and confused when you wake up, with blanks in your memory about what happened the previous night.

If you think your drink has been spiked, you should ask someone you trust to get you to a safe place, or talk to venue staff or security if you’re at a licensed venue. If you feel very unwell you should seek medical attention.

If you believe your drink has been spiked or you have been sexually assaulted, seeking prompt medical attention can assist in subsequent criminal prosecution. Medical staff can perform a blood test for traces of drugs in your system.

How can drink spiking be prevented?

Most drink spiking occurs at licensed venues like pubs and clubs. Licensees and people who serve alcohol have a responsibility to provide a safe environment for patrons, and have an important role to play in preventing drink spiking.

This includes having clear procedures in place to ensure staff understand the signs of drink spiking, including with alcohol.

Preventing drink spiking is a collective responsibility, not something to be shouldered by potential victims.

Licensees can take responsible steps including:

• removing unattended glasses

• reporting suspicious behaviour

• declining customer requests to add extra alcohol to a person’s drink

• supplying water taps instead of large water jugs

• promoting responsible consumption of alcohol, including discouraging rapid drinking

• being aware of “red flag” drink requests, such as repeated shots, or double or triple shots, or adding vodka to beer or wine.

A few simple precautions everyone can take to reduce the risk of drink spiking include:

• have your drink close to you, keep an eye on it and don’t leave it unattended

• avoid sharing beverages with other people

• purchase or pour your drinks yourself

• if you’re offered a drink by someone you don’t know well, go to the bar with them and watch the bartender pour your drink

• if you think your drink tastes weird, pour it out

• keep an eye on your friends and their beverages too.

What are the consequences for drink spiking in Australia?

It’s a criminal offence to spike someone’s drink with alcohol or other drugs without their consent in all states and territories.

In some jurisdictions, there are specific drink and food spiking laws. For example, in Victoria, the punishment is up to two years imprisonment.

In other jurisdictions, such as Tasmania, drink spiking comes under broader offences such as “administering any poison or other noxious thing with intent to injure or annoy”.

Spiking someone’s drink with an intent to commit a serious criminal offence, such as sexual assault, usually comes with very severe penalties. For example, this carries a penalty of up to 14 years imprisonment in Queensland.

There are some ambiguities in the criminal law. For example, some laws aren’t clear about whether drink spiking with alcohol is an offence.

However, in all states and territories, if someone is substantially intoxicated with alcohol or other drugs it’s good evidence they aren’t able to give consent to sex. Sex with a substantially intoxicated person who’s unable to consent may constitute rape or another sexual assault offence.

Getting help

In an emergency, call triple zero (000) or the nearest police station.

For information about sexual assault, or for counselling or referral, call 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732).

If you’ve been a victim of drink spiking and want to talk to someone, the following confidential services can help:

– Beyond Blue: 1300 22 4636

– Kids Helpline (5-25 year olds): 1800 55 1800

– National Alcohol and other Drug Hotline: 1800 250 015.

– ref. What is drink spiking? How can you know if it’s happened to you, and how can it be prevented? – https://theconversation.com/what-is-drink-spiking-how-can-you-know-if-its-happened-to-you-and-how-can-it-be-prevented-160538

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Hawkins, Senior Lecturer, Canberra School of Politics, Economics and Society and NATSEM, University of Canberra

Over the weekend, Tesla chief executive Elon Musk suggested his company could sell off its Bitcoin holdings, sending the cryptocurrency plummeting.

It followed Musk’s announcement earlier this month that his company would no longer accept Bitcoin in payment for its electric cars, due to the fossil fuels needed to create the digital currency.

Bitcoin is created via high-powered computers solving complex mathematical equations. These computers use a lot of electricity, which is often generated by fossil fuels. Tesla’s about-face is a blow to Bitcoin, the value of which jumped when Tesla got on board.

Tesla’s stance is a big winner for both the climate, and the company’s “green” reputation. The development has also shone the spotlight further onto the carbon footprint of cryptocurrency – an issue that will not go away soon.

‘Great cost to the environment’

In announcing Tesla’s U-turn on Bitcoin, Musk said:

Cryptocurrency is a good idea on many levels and we believe it has a promising future, but this cannot come at great cost to the environment.

Musk should be congratulated for the principled stance – particularly as the decision caused the Bitcoin price to fall, reducing its value on the Tesla balance sheet.

So how, exactly, is Bitcoin – and many other cryptocurrencies – bad for the environment?

It all comes down to the energy used to create it. Before a Bitcoin transaction takes place, the person spending the coin must be verified as the valid owner. And once the transaction is complete it must be digitally recorded in a database known as a “blockchain” ledger.

Read more: Why is Bitcoin’s price at an all-time high? And how is its value determined?

Unlike a traditional bank where transactions are centrally verified and recorded, Bitcoin’s ledger comprises a distributed database of users. They verify transactions by running complex mathematical problems through high-powered computers. The first user to solve the calculation and add it to the blockchain is rewarded with Bitcoin. The process is termed “mining”.

Over time, the Bitcoin system increases the complexity of the problems as more computing power is applied to them. In the early days mining could be done by geeks in their bedrooms using home computers. Now it mostly done using vast rooms full of very expensive specialised equipment, which only companies can afford.

The process uses a lot of energy. The University of Cambridge recently estimated Bitcoin used more electricity each year than the entire economies of Argentina or Sweden.

Some of this electricity comes from renewables. But analyses suggest most Bitcoin mining occurs in China, and the main power source is coal. A recent study in Nature concluded Bitcoin operations in China are on track to produce 130 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions in 2024 – more than the entire economy of the Czech Republic.

Bumps in the Bitcoin road

If Bitcoin became more popular, its carbon footprint would only increase. But even before Musk’s announcement, Bitcoin was struggling to become a widely used online payment system.

This is partly because the scale of cryptocurrencies cannot keep up with global transaction demand and their value fluctuates widely. The new focus on Bitcoin’s environmental costs make it even more likely the currency will remain an outlier.

Tesla’s move puts pressure on other companies to stop (or not start) accepting Bitcoin or risk damage to their brand. Research shows most consumers are less willing to buy from a company that doesn’t take its environmental responsibilities seriously.

A company accepting Bitcoin may also risk being shunned by investors. Questions have been raised about whether Bitcoin exposure is compatible with ethical investment.

Already some central banks and private funds managers are including climate change risks when making investment decisions. And banks are increasingly reluctant to lend to companies not acting on climate change.

The attention on Bitcoin’s carbon footprint will benefit “greener” cryptocurrencies. For example, Chia uses less processing power than Bitcoin and so produces fewer greenhouse gas emissions.

In the longer term, there’s a bigger challenge to Bitcoin’s aspirations. Some central banks such as the People’s Bank of China are developing their own digital currencies. These will offer a cheap and efficient payment system without the volatile price and large carbon footprint of Bitcoin.

Read more: New Chia cryptocurrency promises to be greener than Bitcoin, but may drive up hard drive prices

Cleaning up cryptocurrency

So where to now for energy-intensive digital currencies such as Bitcoin?

Some environmental concerns could potentially be addressed by moving to greener electricity sources for computer processing. According to one suggestion, this could involve creating a registry to track provenance, so climate-aware investors could choose to buy Bitcoin made from, say, Icelandic hydroelectric power rather than coal.

But such a measure would probably have to be voluntary. Regulating Bitcoin would be difficult due to its decentralised nature; there’s no company to “fine” for breaking the rules.

Any attempt to clean up Bitcoin by changing its coding would be problematic. Past attempts to change the code to improve efficiency just resulted in “forks” – the emergence of new cryptocurrenices such as Bitcoin Gold and Bitcoin Cash.

As with climate policy in general, the best way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is for governments to apply a carbon price to companies that mine cryptocurrency. This would financially penalise those that don’t switch to renewable energy.

Read more: Bitcoin isn’t getting greener: four environmental myths about cryptocurrency debunked

– ref. Tesla’s Bitcoin about-face is a warning for cryptocurrencies that ignore climate change – https://theconversation.com/teslas-bitcoin-about-face-is-a-warning-for-cryptocurrencies-that-ignore-climate-change-160928

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Henry-James Meiring, PhD Candidate, The University of Queensland

Modern transhumanism is the belief that, in the future, science and technology will enable us to transcend our bodily confines. Scientific advances will transform humans and, in the process, eliminate ageing, disease, unnecessary suffering, and our earthbound status.

Artistic representations of humans uploading their minds to cybernetic devices or existing independently of their bodies abound.

In Altered Carbon (2018-2020) we are introduced to a future where human consciousness can be downloaded onto devices called “cortical stacks”. This technology reduces physical bodies to temporary vehicles or “sleeves” for these storage devices which are implanted and swapped between various bodies.

The Matrix (1999, 2003) depicts humans living in a digital simulation while their bodies remain inactive in liquid-filled pods. The artist Stelarc explores our transhuman future in “monstrous” creations examining the boundaries between human and machine.

But these speculations are not limited to art and science fiction.

The public intellectual Sam Harris and world-renowned physicist David Deutsch imagine a future where we are able to download conscious states and live in matrix-like virtual simulations. The historian Yuval Noah Harari suggests, in the not too distant future, these technological advancements will transform us into new godlike immortal species.

Some thinkers, like the philosopher Nick Bostrom, believe we might already be living in a computer simulation. Elon Musk is developing brain-machine interfaces to connect humans to computers.

Read more: Curious Kids: could our entire reality be part of a simulation created by some other beings?

These imaginings of our transhumanist future take many divergent forms, but they share the idea science will enable us to free our minds from bodily constraints.

But these ideas aren’t modern. In fact, the desire to transcend our nature is a continuation of the Enlightenment ideal of human perfectibility: today’s ideas of transhumanism can be directly traced back to two 18th century thinkers.

Marquis de Condorcet: life will have ‘no assignable limit’

Marquis de Condorcet (1743-1794) was a French revolutionary who believed science would bring about unprecedented progress.

Condorcet was a mathematician who aimed to apply a scientific model to the social and political dimensions of society. He thought improvement in education would produce more knowledge, which in turn would further improve education — creating an ever upward spiral of progress.

His reception speech to the French Academy in 1782 captured the optimistic spirit of the age. He declared: “the human mind will seem to grow and its limits to recede” with the advancement of science.

In Outlines of an Historical View (1795) he wrote:

Would it even be absurd to suppose […] a period must one day arrive when death will be nothing more than the effect either of extraordinary accidents, or of the flow and gradual decay of the vital powers; and that the duration of the middle space, of the interval between the birth of man and this decay, will itself have no assignable limit?

Condorcet imagined science would lead to humans transcending their bodies and, in the process, attaining immortality.

William Godwin: the extinction of anguish, and passion

Enlightenment thinker William Godwin (1756-1836) was convinced science would lead to human perfectibility.

Godwin was a political radical whose sympathies lay with contemporary French revolutionaries like Condorcet. He believed an expansion in knowledge would lead to improvements in our understanding, and thereby increase our control over matter.

Godwin outlined this vision in his book Enquiry Concerning Political Justice and its Influence on Morals and Happiness (1793).

He wrote that human passions and desires would become extinct along with disease, anguish, melancholy and resentment. This was a future in which people no longer had sex nor reproduced. The Earth instead would be populated by disembodied humans who have achieved immortality.

“There will be no war”, wrote Godwin, “no crimes, no administration of justice as it is called, and no government”. Scientific progress for Godwin not only meant we would be rid of ailments plaguing the physical body, but also those affecting society.

For Godwin, like Condorcet, human perfectibility was unlimited and, more importantly, achievable.

Godwin’s daughter, Mary Shelley, went on to write one of the earliest literary works to depict transhumanism, Frankenstein (1818). Her vision of a scientific future was much less rosy.

Read more: Frankenstein at 200 and why Mary Shelley was far more than the sum of her monster’s parts

Science fact or science fiction?

Godwin and Condorcet imagined humans progressing towards perfect harmony, transcending bodily existence and achieving immortality without desires nor suffering.

Like their modern transhumanist descendants, they believed these radical transitions would occur in their own lifetime. Critics thought their work to be fantastical; more fiction than fact.

As we now know, the critics were right: neither Godwin’s nor Condorcet’s extraordinary visions came to fruition. It has been more than 200 years, and we are still waiting for science to deliver us from our bodies.

Read more: Neuralink’s monkey can play Pong with its mind. Imagine what humans could do with the same technology

This does not seem to deter transhumanist punters. Will we become the immortal human-machine gods, as Yuval Noah Harari predicts? Or will we still be waiting to transcend our fleshy bodies in the 23rd century?

Only time will tell. But, for those of us who prefer to hold on to our bodies for a little while longer, the fate of Godwin and Condorcet’s visions should be good news.

– ref. Downloading our thoughts to the mainframe may be the stuff of science fiction — but humans have been imagining it for centuries – https://theconversation.com/downloading-our-thoughts-to-the-mainframe-may-be-the-stuff-of-science-fiction-but-humans-have-been-imagining-it-for-centuries-154082

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

This week’s Newspoll, conducted May 13-16 from a sample of 1,506, gave Labor a 51-49 lead, unchanged from the last Newspoll published three weeks ago. Primary votes were 41% Coalition (steady), 36% Labor (down two), 12% Greens (up two) and 2% One Nation (down one). Figures are from The Poll Bludger.

58% were satisfied with Scott Morrison’s performance (down one), and 38% were dissatisfied (up one), for a net approval of +20. Anthony Albanese’s net approval was down four points to -7, his worst ever net approval. Morrison led Albanese as better PM by 55-30 (56-30 three weeks ago).

Newspoll has asked three questions after every budget: whether the budget was good for the economy, good for you personally, and whether the opposition would have delivered a better budget. Results for this last question are yet to appear, and it would be disappointing if that question has been cancelled.

44% thought last Tuesday’s budget was good for the economy and 15% bad, for a net rating of +29. On personal finances, 19% thought it would be good and 19% bad, for a net zero rating. Voters have consistently been better disposed to budgets on the economy than the personal.

The Poll Bludger says this budget is the eighth best on personal finance and the sixth best on the economy since Newspoll started asking these questions, which I believe was in 1988. Analyst Kevin Bonham says this budget has the best net score on the economy since 2007’s +48. However, the Coalition under John Howard lost the 2007 election after that budget.

Most budgets have little impact on voting intentions, and this is confirmed by voting intentions remaining unchanged on two party preferred in this Newspoll. Exceptions were the very unpopular 1993 and 2014 budgets. After both those budgets, the government lost much support.

The drop in Labor’s support, and the rise for the Greens, is probably due to left-wing voters who are unhappy with Albanese. Morrison’s consistently big lead over Albanese as better PM likely encourages some voters to perceive Labor would do better if led by someone more left-wing than Albanese. I posted about the flaws in this logic in my last Newspoll report.

In an additional Newspoll question, 73% thought Australia’s borders should remain closed until at least mid-2022, or the pandemic is under control globally. Just 21% thought borders should open as soon as all Australians who want to be are vaccinated.

In last week’s Essential poll, taken before the budget, Morrison’s net approval surged to +26 from +17 in mid-April. With women, his net approval rose 17 points to +21; with men, it was up two points to +31. While there is still a gender gap, many women appear to have forgotten or forgiven the sexual misbehaviour in March.

Liberals win Tasmanian majority as sex-compromised Liberal wins, then resigns

At the May 1 Tasmanian election, the Liberals won 13 of the 25 lower house seats (steady since the 2018 election), Labor nine (down one), the Greens two (steady) and Independent Kristie Johnston won the last seat. Vote shares were 48.7% Liberal (down 1.5%), 28.2% Labor (down 4.5%), 12.4% Greens (up 2.1%) and 6.2% for independents.

In party terms, there were two electorates where the result appeared uncertain in my post-election article: Clark and Bass. With five seats per electorate, a quota is one-sixth of the vote, or 16.7%. In the Hare-Clark system, candidates compete against other candidates in the same party, as well as other parties’ candidates.

In Clark, there was some doubt on election night as to whether the Liberals would win a second seat. But former Labor MP Madeleine Ogilvie, who had sat as an independent in the last parliament, and joined the Liberals at this election, won the second Liberal seat in Clark.

Ogilvie was 342 votes or 0.03 quotas ahead of fellow Liberal Simon Behrakis at the second last count. At Behrakis’ exclusion, final standings were Ogilvie 0.95 quotas, Johnston 0.93 and Independent Sue Hickey 0.82. Ogilvie and Johnston were elected to the final two seats.

In Bass, Labor benefited from leakage of Premier Peter Gutwein’s surplus and preferences from other sources. Labor easily defeated the Greens and Liberals for the final seat for a three Liberal, two Labor result.

The day before the election, Liberal Braddon candidate Adam Brooks was accused of impersonating to enter a sexual relationship using a fake driver’s license. Tasmania still requires early voters to complete a declaration that they cannot vote on election day, so most votes were cast on election day.

Brooks was still elected after a close race with two other Liberals in Braddon. With the final two seats to be filled, Jaensch finished on 0.934 quotas, Brooks 0.931 and Ellis 0.904, with Ellis missing out. Brooks had been 0.046 quotas ahead of Ellis after Liberal exclusions and surpluses, with his lead reduced by sources outside the Liberals.

Read more: Has a backlash against political correctness made sexual misbehaviour more acceptable?

The Braddon result was finalised Thursday. On Friday, Brooks resigned his seat after Queensland police charged him with firearms offences. Brooks’ seat will definitely go to a Libera on a countback (not a byelection), likely Ellis. The Liberals will be relieved at not requiring Brooks’ vote to maintain a majority.

In the upper house, the Liberals gained Windermere from a retiring conservative independent, while Labor held Derwent. In Windermere, the Liberals defeated Labor by 54.1-45.9, from primary votes of 37.8% Liberal, 27.0% Labor and 21.3% for an independent. In Derwent, Labor defeated the Liberals by 55.7-44.3, from primary votes of 49.1% Labor, 40.9% Liberal and 10.0% Animal Justice.

The Tasmanian upper house has 15 single-member electorates with two or three up for election every May for six-year terms. Current standings are five Labor, four Liberals, four left independents and two centre-right independents.

Poll gives Nationals 51-49 lead for Saturday’s Upper Hunter (NSW) byelection

A byelection will occur in the NSW Nationals-held state seat of Upper Hunter this Saturday. This seat has been Nationals-held since 1932, but at the 2019 NSW election, the Nationals had their lowest primary vote of 34.0%. Labor had 28.7%, the Shooters 22.0% and the Greens 4.8%.

Excluding exhausting preferences, the Nationals defeated Labor by 52.6-47.4, with 24.2% of total votes exhausting under NSW’s optional preferential system.

A YouGov poll for The Daily Telegraph gave the Nationals a 51-49 lead over Labor in Upper Hunter based on respondent preferences. Primary votes were 25% Nationals, 23% Labor, 16% Shooters, 11% One Nation, 6% Greens and 10% combined for two independents. The poll was conducted May 11-13 from a sample of just 400.

– ref. Little change in post-budget Newspoll; Liberals win Tasmanian majority – https://theconversation.com/little-change-in-post-budget-newspoll-liberals-win-tasmanian-majority-160618

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

The fragility of democracy in Samoa has been on full display in the past month. On April 9, voters used the national election to deliver a powerful rebuke to the Human Rights Protection Party (HRPP), which has ruled their Pacific nation for four decades as a virtual one-party state.

Initially, the HRPP was locked in a dead heat (25 seats each) with the Fa’atuatua I Le Atua Samoa Ua Tasi (FAST) party, with one independent candidate, Tuala Tevaga Iosefo Ponifasio, deciding the victor.

FAST was formed in protest against the government rushing three bills into law in 2020 that fundamentally altered Samoa’s constitutional, judicial and customary frameworks. The stunning election results registered the depth of anger about this legislation and the desire for change.

But on the eve of Tuala’s announcement he would join FAST and launch a new political era, troubling events began. On April 20, Samoa’s Election Commissioner announced via social media that a new 52nd parliamentary seat had been created and signed into law by the head of state, Afioga Tuimalealiifano Vaaletoa Sualauvi. An HRPP candidate was installed in the seat. This announcement denied FAST (headed by a former deputy prime minister, Fiame Naomi Mata’afa) its one-seat majority and victory.

On May 4, when the Supreme Court of Samoa questioned the 52nd-seat manoeuvre, the head of state (who was appointed by the government) declared the April 9 election results void and that a new snap election would be held on May 21. He also questioned the impartiality of Samoa’s highest court.

Read more: Samoa’s stunning election result: on the verge of a new ruling party for the first time in 40 years

Caretaker Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi, who has held that office since 1998, declared himself “shocked” by the head of state’s announcement, but thought an electoral rerun would make the people’s will more “clear”. He also asserted he was appointed to rule Samoa by the highest authority of all: God.

On May 17, the Supreme Court declared the 52nd seat unconstitutional, giving FAST back its one member majority. The Supreme Court will soon decide on the voided election too – it is unlikely to be in favour.

But the HRPP has sown the seeds for a direct confrontation between the head of state and the judiciary. The HRPP is likely to continue the push for the second election, having denounced the courts, the Samoan diaspora, Facebook, protesters and Samoa’s leading newspaper, which strongly opposes Tuilaepa’s actions.

Scepticism abounds about how orderly a rerun election will be, given the extraordinary events since April 9. Despite a veneer of democracy, Samoa is ominously facing an autocratic future.

Samoa has struggled with autocracy and democracy before. The 1920s were a tempestuous time for the nation, which was reeling from the devastation of the influenza epidemic that killed more than one in five of its people. (Due to closed borders Samoa has been almost free of COVID-19, but the economic, social and political impacts of eligible voters being unable to return home to cast ballots have been considerable.)

The 1918 pandemic aftershocks resulted in a mass civil disobedience campaign known as the Mau (stance) Movement. It laid the blame for the calamity solely at the feet of New Zealand, which took over the German colonial regime in its first action of the first world war. So intense was the public’s anger, the new administrator brought in to quell the situation likened ruling Samoa to sitting on top of a “volcano”.

One of the Mau leaders was Ta’isi O.F. Nelson. He relentlessly fought New Zealand’s autocractic rule, likening the administrator’s powers to that of a “dictator”. He was singled out by New Zealand as the “cause of all the trouble”. Ta’isi was exiled from Samoa for ten years, imprisoned and financially ruined for the peaceful, multifaceted, international campaign he led.

Samoan protests intensified especially when New Zealand attempted to alter the functioning of Samoan customs. With the endorsement of Britain and the League of Nations (Samoa was one of the league’s mandated territories from 1920), New Zealand met the peaceful protests with military force. This led to the infamous 1929 Black Saturday Massacre, which killed nine protesters including Mau leader Tupua Tamasese Lea’lofi. The ongoing Mau campaign succeeded in Samoa becoming the Pacific’s first independent nation in 1962 and its most “stable democracy”.

This history is detailed in my book, Tautai (navigator). In 2021, the history of Samoans’ passionate fight against autocratic rule should be well remembered, as there are many echoes of it in the present crisis.

Widespread anger against the three 2020 laws, attacks on censorious press and even Tuilaepa’s singling out of Ta’isi’s grandson, who was both a former prime minister and head of state, as the “mastermind” behind FAST’s campaign strategy, are some of the most apparent similiarities.

Read more: Devastated by disease in the past, Samoa is on high alert after recent coronavirus scares

The corrosion of democracy in Samoa is part of a global trend. China’s growing influence in Samoa under Tuilaepa shadows current events. But, in the coming days, democracy’s endurance will be tested and, hopefully, saved by Samoa’s people and institutions.

– ref. Despite a veneer of democracy, Samoa is sliding into autocracy – https://theconversation.com/despite-a-veneer-of-democracy-samoa-is-sliding-into-autocracy-160701

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Isaac Gross, Lecturer in Economics, Monash University

On budget night federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg announced Australia is getting its own “patent box”.

What is a patent box?

Despite its odd name, it is a relatively straightforward concept. It means lowering the tax rate on all income derived from patents registered in a nation. About half the members of the European Union, Britain and China are among those to adopt patent boxes in some form.

Australia’s patent box scheme will initially be limited to medical and biotechnology patents, but with scope to expand it down the track.

If a company has a drug patent, for example, the profit from selling that drug will be taxed at a rate of 17%, instead of the usual company tax rate (now 25% for companies with an annual turnover less than A$50 million and 30% for those with more).

In his budget speech Frydenberg cited world-leading Australian innovations such as Wi-Fi, the Cochlear bionic ear and a vaccine for cervical cancer. “We want to see more innovation commercialised in Australia,” he said.

Will the patent box help? The evidence from overseas is not promising.

Another race to the bottom

A 2015 European Commission report examined the effect of patent boxes on 2,000 companies in 12 countries from 2000 to 2011. It found the patent boxes benefited companies financially but had limited effect on increasing local research & development.

To take advantage of the lower tax rate, multinational companies filed more patents in these countries with patent boxes than previously. But they didn’t change the location of their research teams.

The European Commission report noted fears about patent boxes sparing another “race to the bottom” in corporate taxation, with nations competing to be more attractive to foreign companies. If one country had more preferential tax rates, it would attract more patent filings. If other nations followed suit, the only real beneficiaries would be the multinational corporations using the schemes to reduce their tax obligations “without a change in real research activity”

Its results, the report concluded, “confirm these fears”.

Read more: How to get the most out of research when universities and industry team up

Australian warnings

This all should be known to the Australian government.

A 2015 report from Australia’s Office of the Chief Economist came to a similar conclusion to the European Commission study.

Introducing a patent box might lead to more patents being filed in Australia, it said, but they would mostly be ones derived from research and development done overseas. It warned:

The most important cost associated with the implementation of a patent box regime is a fall in tax revenues collected from innovative companies. Since the fall is likely to exceed revenues collected from (re)allocation of IP income to Australia, the overall return of a patent box regime is likely to be negative.

IP Australia, the federal agency administering intellectual property rights, detailed the poor record of patent boxes in its submission to the federal parliament’s Inquiry into Australia’s Future in Research and Innovation in 2016. It said the literature on such schemes found little if any benefit for actual innovation, at great cost to taxpayers.

Read more: Money for telescopes and vaccines is great, but the budget’s lack of basic science funding risks leaving Australia behind

Bad plan, bad design

On top of all this, Frydenberg’s proposed patent box is poorly targeted.

Ideally the subsidy should only apply to new patents – or better yet, new inventions. But the scheme will allow the lower tax rate on all patents, even if they were granted many years ago or are no longer owned by their original inventor.

This means in its first year alone the patent box is set to deliver a $100 million gift to companies sitting on old patents without any actual new innovation.

Even if you want to subsidise innovation, it makes zero sense to subsidise old patents. Other countries have avoided this pitfall by limiting the subsidy to new ones.

In short, a patent box is good in theory but bad in practice; and the design of the Australian government’s patent box is particularly bad. It will likely end up being just another way multinational companies can avoid paying tax.

– ref. The Treasurer says his ‘patent box’ will boost innovation. The evidence says it won’t – https://theconversation.com/the-treasurer-says-his-patent-box-will-boost-innovation-the-evidence-says-it-wont-160861

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kevin Burns, Professor, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington

Social colonies are nothing new in the animal kingdom. We know bees, ants and termites live in large colonies, divide labour and co-operate to take care of offspring produced by a single queen.

This behaviour, known as eusociality, has evolved independently in insects, crustaceans (certain species of shrimp) and even some mammals (naked mole rats), but it has never been observed in plants. This suggested plants were somehow less complex than animals.

Our study, published this week, turns our understanding of the evolution of biological complexity on its head. It documents the life history of a remarkable species of fern that grows in the tops of rainforest trees on Lord Howe Island, a small volcanic island in the north Tasman Sea.

Rather than growing as individual ferns in the treetops, the staghorn fern (Platycerium bifurcatum) lives in colonies, in an adaptation to its harsh habitat high above the water and nutrients stored in the soil below.

Individuals differ markedly in size, shape and texture. But they always grow side-by-side within colonies, fitting together like puzzle pieces to form a bucket-like store of water and nutrients available to all colony members.

Many individuals forgo reproduction and instead focus on capturing or storing water to the benefit of other colony members.

Read more: We found the genes that allowed plants to colonise land 500 million years ago

Life in the tree tops

Staghorn ferns belong to a group of tree-dwelling plants known as epiphytes. Tree canopies are a challenging environment for plants to grow. Without access to soil, epiphytes are regularly exposed to severe water and nutrient stress.

Epiphytes have evolved several ways to mediate the lack of access to water and nutrients. Bromeliads grow cup-shaped leaves, while orchids have specialised root tissues. But staghorn ferns have developed a colony lifestyle to overcome the problem.

Staghorn ferns can be bought at many garden stores and will grow like any other pot plant. But in the wild on Lord Howe Island, we discovered individual plants collaborate, specialising in different tasks in the construction of the communal water and nutrient store, often at the cost of their own reproduction — just like social insects.

This radically changes our understanding of biological complexity. It suggests major evolutionary transitions towards eusociality can occur in both plants and animals. Plants and beehives aren’t as different as they might seem.

For decades, scientists interested in eusociality argued for a strict definition — many felt the term should be reserved for only a select group of highly co-operative insects.

This perspective led to widespread scepticism about its occurrence in the natural world. Perhaps this is why it was overlooked for so long in one of horticulture’s most popular pot plants.

Evolution of biological complexity

Four billion years ago, life began as simple, self-replicating molecules. Today’s diversity arose from these simple origins towards increasingly complex organisms.

Evolutionary biologists think that biological complexity developed in abrupt, major evolutionary transitions, rather than slow and continuous changes. Such transitions occur when independent entities begin to collaborate, forming new, more complex life forms — such as, for example, when single-celled organisms evolved into multi-cellular organisms.

Another example is the transition from unspecialised bacterial (prokaryotic) cells to cells with an enclosed nucleus and specialised organelles that perform particular functions, known as eukaryotic cells.

Co-operation underpins the evolutionary origins of organelles — they likely evolved from free-living ancestors that gave up their independence to live safely within the walls of another cell.

Read more: The social animals that are inspiring new behaviours for robot swarms

There are eight commonly recognised major evolutionary transitions — and eusociality is the most recent. Eusocial animals differ from others in three fundamental ways:

• they live in colonies comprised of different generations of adults
• they subdivide labour into reproductive and non-reproductive groups
• they care for offspring co-operatively.

Our observations over the past two years on Lord Howe Island found staghorn ferns meet these criteria.

In highly eusocial species, caste membership is permanent and unchanging. But in primitively eusocial species, individuals can alter their behaviour to suit many roles required by the colony. Staghorn ferns probably fit under the latter category.

Our ongoing research will determine the staghorn’s position along this continuum of eusociality. But, for now, we know plants and animals share a similar evolutionary pathway towards greater biological complexity.

– ref. Social plants: in the wild, staghorn ferns grow in colonies to improve water storage for all members – https://theconversation.com/social-plants-in-the-wild-staghorn-ferns-grow-in-colonies-to-improve-water-storage-for-all-members-156377

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Paul Haskell-Dowland, Associate Dean (Computing and Security), Edith Cowan University

Apple recently launched the latest version of its operating system, iOS 14.5, which features the much-anticipated app tracking transparency function, bolstering the tech giant’s privacy credentials.

But iOS 14.5 also introduced support for the new Apple AirTag, which risks doing the opposite.

For the uninitiated, an AirTag is a small device (similar to a Tile) that can be attached to personal items such as keys, wallets or luggage. The tag periodically sends messages that can be used to track its location, letting you find any lost or missing items with the help of an app.

While clearly useful, AirTags can also potentially be misused. Concerns have been raised they might facilitate stalking, for example.

And there’s also a more fundamental issue with this technology. Its euphemistic description as a “crowdsourced” way to recover lost items belies the reality of how these items are tracked.

What you won’t find highlighted in the polished marketing statements is the fact that AirTags can only work by tapping into an Apple-operated surveillance network in which millions of us are unwitting participants.

So, how exactly do AirTags work?

AirTags are small, circular metal discs, slightly larger and thicker than an Australian one-dollar coin. Once paired with your Apple ID, the tag’s location will be shown in the “Find My” app, whenever location data are available.

Each tag transmits a unique identifier using Bluetooth. Any compatible Apple device within range (up to 100 metres in ideal conditions) will then relay that identifier to Apple’s servers, along with its own location data. The tag’s owner can then log onto the Find My app and access those location details, and bingo — you now have a pretty good idea of where your lost bag is.

The AirTags themselves have no positional location capability – they do not contain GPS technology. Rather, they merely “ping” the nearest Bluetooth-enabled device and let that device’s location data do the rest.

Besides Bluetooth, AirTags also use a relatively new technology called Ultra Wideband. This new feature is supported only by recent Apple devices such as iPhone 11 and 12, and allows for much more precise location tracking.

This precision extends to directional finding – now, your phone can literally point you towards the missing tag.

While the actual nature of the data transmitted is not too concerning (tag ID and location), what makes it worrying is the sheer scale and number of devices involved. By using an AirTag, you are effectively availing yourself of a global monitoring network containing millions and millions of devices.

Everyone’s iPhone (assuming Bluetooth is enabled) is listening for AirTags. When it “hears” one, it uploads details of that tag’s identifier and the phone’s location to Apple’s servers.

Besides any privacy concerns, this also likely uses small amounts of your data allowance. That’s probably fine most of the time, but if you are travelling internationally you might be hit with unexpected charges if you’ve forgotten to disable data roaming.

Stalking technology?

Apple says it has implemented a range of safeguards to detect and prevent attempts to use AirTags for stalking, including an alert triggered when an AirTag seems to be accompanying someone who’s not its owner. The alert can appear on the victim’s phone (if they use an iPhone) but can also raise an audible alert on the tag itself. But these measures are relatively easy to circumvent.

One experiment showed a tag can be placed on a person and would not trigger any of the safeguards if reconnected to the stalker’s device regularly enough. This could be done by the victim returning home or within range of their stalker within a three-day window.

More concerningly, the alerts can be turned off – which a victim of domestic violence may be coerced into doing by their aggressor. What’s more, as AirTags and similar devices become more common, we will inevitably encounter more warnings of tags appearing around us. Just like other commonly encountered alerts, many users will tire of seeing them, and dismiss the prompts.

It is also presumably only a matter of time until these devices are hacked and put to other nefarious purposes.

Apple isn’t the only technology company drawing unwitting users into large networks. Amazon’s SideWalk creates a network that allows your neighbours’ doorbell to connect through your Echo device (if their WiFi doesn’t extend to the front door), effectively sharing your internet connection!

All of this functionality (and the inherent privacy risks) are covered in the standard terms and conditions. That lengthy, legalese document we never read allows tech companies to hide behind the claim that we have willingly opted into all this.

Read more: How not to agree to clean public toilets when you accept any online terms and conditions

Can we opt out?

A simple option to avoid your device acting as a cog in Apple’s machine is to turn off Bluetooth and location services. With Bluetooth disabled, your device won’t “see” the beacons coming from AirTags, and without location services you can’t report the proximity of the tag.

Of course, turning off this functionality means losing useful capabilities such as hands-free kits, Bluetooth speakers and satellite navigation, and of course makes it harder to find your phone if you lose it.

Ultimately, if we want to benefit from the ability to locate missing keys, wallets and luggage through AirTags, we have to accept that this is only possible through a global network of sensors – even if those sensors are our own phones.

– ref. Remember, Apple AirTags and ‘Find My’ app only work because of a vast, largely covert tracking network – https://theconversation.com/remember-apple-airtags-and-find-my-app-only-work-because-of-a-vast-largely-covert-tracking-network-160781

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tony Walker, Vice-chancellor’s fellow, La Trobe University

What’s next in the latest Middle East convulsion? Will a ceasefire between the Hamas militant group in Gaza and Israel be brokered by Arab mediators in coordination with western powers, or will the situation continue to deteriorate?

Are we witnessing the beginning of an intensifying conflict in which Israelis find themselves enveloped in a bloody confrontation with Palestinians across the occupied territories and, more threateningly, inside Israel itself?

Will Israel become enmeshed in widespread communal unrest on its own territory in Arab towns and villages?

In short, are we witnessing the early stages of a third intifada, in which casualties mount on both sides until the participants exhaust themselves?

We’ve seen all this before – in 1987 and 2000. Then, as now, violence spread from territories occupied in the 1967 war into Israel itself.

There are no simple answers to these questions as the crisis enters its second week, with casualties mounting on both sides.

In part, the next stage depends on the level of violence Israel is prepared to inflict on Hamas. It is also conditional on Hamas’s tolerance of Israeli airstrikes and artillery fire.

Read more: With diplomacy all but abandoned, Israel and the Palestinians are teetering on another war

It will also rely on the extent to which Israel feels its interests continue to be served by courting widespread international opprobrium for its offensive against Hamas, as the militant group’s leadership is embedded in a densely packed civilian population in Gaza.

This is far from a cost-free exercise for Israel, despite the bravado from its leadership, embroiled in a lingering internal crisis over the country’s inability to elect majority government.

Political paralysis is not the least of Israel’s problems.

As always, the issue is not whether Israel has a right to defend itself against rocket attacks on its own territory. The question is whether its response is proportionate, and whether its chronic failure to propagate a genuine peace process is fuelling Palestinian resentment.

The short answer is “yes”, whatever legitimate criticisms might be made of a feckless Palestinian leadership divided between its two wings: the Fatah mainstream in Ramallah and Hamas in Gaza.

Israel’s continued provocative construction of settlements in the West Bank, and the daily humiliations it inflicts on a disenfranchised Palestinian population in Arab East Jerusalem, contribute to enormous frustration and anger among people living under occupation.

If nothing else, the latest upsurge of violence between Israelis and Palestinians should persuade the international community that occupation and subjugation of one population by another is a dead-end street.

Further complicating things for the Israeli leadership are the circumstances that led to the latest conflagration. This has lessened international sympathy for the extreme measures Israel is using, aiming to bomb the Hamas leadership into submission.

Israeli authorities’ attempts to evict Palestinian families in East Jerusalem from homes they had occupied for 70 years, accompanied by highly provocative demonstrations by extremist Jewish settlers chanting “death to Arabs”, has contributed to a sharp deterioration in relations.

Read more: Fifty years on from the Six Day War, the prospects for Middle East peace remain dim

This was followed by a heavy-handed Israeli police response to Palestinian demonstrations in and around Al-Aqsa mosque, Islam’s third-holiest shrine. In turn, this prompted Hamas rocket strikes into Israel itself from Gaza.

The International Crisis Group has identified the issue that should be most concerning to Israel and its supporters:

This occasion is the first since the September 2000 intifada where Palestinians have responded simultaneously and on such a massive scale throughout much of the combined territory of Israel-Palestine to the cumulative impact of military occupation, repression, dispossession and systemic discrimination.

In a global propaganda war over Israel’s continued occupation of five million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the issue of who started this latest convulsion is relevant.

So, too, are questions surrounding Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s attempts to cling to power as a corruption trial wends its way through the Israeli court system.

Collateral damage to Israel’s reputation is an unavoidable consequence of the use of a heavy bombardment against Hamas targets in one of the world’s most densely populated areas.

There are two million Palestinians in Gaza, a narrow strip of land between Israeli territory and the Mediterranean Sea. Many are living in refugee camps their families have occupied since they fled Israel in 1948, in what Palestinians refer to as the nakba, or catastrophe.

The deaths of an extended Palestinian family at the weekend whose three-storey home was demolished by an Israeli airstrike is a grating reminder of fallout from the use of weapons of war in civilian areas.

This is the reality of a population held hostage to an unresolved – and possibly unresolvable – conflict involving Palestinians living under occupation.

So far, international reaction has been muted. The United States and its allies have gone through the motions in condemning the violence.

US President Joe Biden, in a phone call with Netanyahu, seemed to endorse Israel’s heavy hand. Biden’s conciliatory tone has drawn widespread criticism in view of the shocking images emanating from Gaza. These include live footage of a building housing foreign media being destroyed by an Israeli airstrike.

Belatedy, the US has sent an envoy to the region.

In Australia, politicians from both sides have called for a de-escalation.

Regionally, Arab states have expressed their support for the Palestinian cause, but remarks by their leaders have been restrained.

However, circumstances leading to the outbreak of violence, notably Israeli policing of demonstrations in places sacred to Muslims, have left Arab leaderships no choice but to condemn Israel’s actions.

A hitherto limp US response reflects the Biden administration’s hope that the Israel-Palestine issue would not be allowed to intrude on Washington’s wider Middle East foreign policy efforts. Biden is trying to entice Iran back to the negotiating table to re-energise the nuclear peace deal ripped up by former President Donald Trump.

Part of this strategy has been to calm Israel’s concerns about renewed US efforts to re-engage Iran. Those efforts have been complicated by the violence of recent days.

Washington has been reminded, if that was necessary, that the toxic Palestinian issue could not simply be shoved aside, however much the US and its moderate Arab allies would like it to go away. This was always an unrealistic expectation.

Read more: Trump’s Middle East ‘vision’ is a disaster that will only make things worse

Israeli violence against Palestinians in retaliation for rocket attacks on its territory is an embarrassment for Arab states that had established diplomatic relations with Israel under pressure from the Trump administration.

The so-called Abraham Accords, involving an exchange of ambassadors between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, is at risk of being discredited in the eyes of the Arab world by the latest conflagration.

Other Arab states that established diplomatic relations with Israel, brokered by Trump officials, include Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco. Sporadic demonstrations in support of the Palestinians have occurred in the latter two countries.

Finally, this latest conflict between Israelis and Palestinians exposes the failure of various parties to advance a peace agreement based on a two-state solution.

That prospect appears further away than ever, and may even be dead given Israel’s declared intention to annex territory in the West Bank. Such action would end any possibility of compromise based on land swaps to accommodate Israeli settlements in areas contiguous with Israel itself.

These are bleak moments for those who might have believed at the time of the Oslo Declaration in 1993, and subsequent establishment of relations between Israel and the leadership of the Palestinian national movement, that peace might be possible at last.

We are now a very long way indeed from Oslo.

Read more: Twenty-five years after the Oslo Accords, the prospect of peace in the Middle East remains bleak

– ref. Many questions, few answers, as conflict deepens between Israelis and Palestinians – https://theconversation.com/many-questions-few-answers-as-conflict-deepens-between-israelis-and-palestinians-160921

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tim Soutphommasane, Professor of Practice (Sociology and Political Theory) Director, Culture Strategy, University of Sydney

National capability — and you might also say, national character — can be revealed in a crisis. So, what has COVID-19 taught us about Australia?

It has taught us, amid many examples of failed leadership across the world, that Australia possesses a strong capacity for effective action in times of need.

Our leaders and people have been able to act with bipartisan unity. Our expert institutions, including our public health bodies, have proved generally up to the task of protecting our people.

And government has been prepared to take significant measures to avoid a catastrophic economic downturn.

A return to isolation and protectionism

As for the national character, the picture is more mixed.

The pandemic has certainly illustrated the limits of any mythological notion of “Australianness”.

Despite our celebration of larrikinism, the pandemic has demonstrated we are a compliant people when it comes to taking orders from authorities – though this has arguably helped in ensuring high levels of adherence to public health orders.

Nor has the pandemic demonstrated a clear triumph of Australian egalitarianism and the fair go. There were times when we’ve resembled an individualistic rabble, what with the widespread hoarding of supplies in the early stages of the pandemic. A fair go wasn’t necessarily extended to Asian Australians, who have experienced a significant spike in racism during this pandemic.

One historic aspect of the national character, though, has indisputably come to the fore. We’ve seen a return of a “Fortress Australia” mentality. This sees Australia as an island nation forever beset by threats from outside, whether it’s people or pathogens.

For many Australians, there is nothing bad at all with having national borders closed indefinitely. We shouldn’t rush to re-engage with the world, not when there’s a deadly virus in circulation.

National isolation is seen as a fair price to ensure the country stays “safe”. People who journey beyond our shores to be with their loved ones as they die or reunite with their partners and children are castigated for putting us all at risk.

Read more: ‘Fortress Australia’: what are the costs of closing ourselves off to the world?

Moving away from fear towards recovery

That’s one way to look at COVID-19. But, for the past six months, as part of a collaborative taskforce examining how Australia should respond to COVID-19, we have been exploring an alternative to Fortress Australia.

There should be no false choice between remaining closed or open: modern Australia simply can’t exist in parochial isolation. Our economy depends on trade and immigration. Our society and culture are deeply connected to the rest of the world. The majority of Australians were either born overseas or have a parent who was.

However, this version of Australia is now being put at risk by the prospect of an indefinite extension of our closed borders, and by some national politicians who revel in the protectionism it invites.

We believe the urgency Australia showed in initially suppressing and then locally eliminating COVID-19 now needs to be shown towards preparing the country to reopen to the rest of the world.

If Australia isn’t ready to reopen effectively when the world recovers from the worst of the pandemic, we will face enormous social dislocation and prolonged economic pain. We need to move from fear and anxiety to a more confident stance of national recovery. Otherwise, we will be left behind as a hermit nation.

Read more: ‘Garbage’ and ‘cash cows’: temporary migrants describe anguish of exclusion and racism during COVID-19

Indeed, we can’t do as some suggest — only open up when zero COVID transmissions can be guaranteed. The reason is simple, and it’s based on the science. The virus causing COVID-19 (SARS CoV-2) will not disappear from the world. We need to acknowledge and respond to this reality.

Here’s a more realistic and sensible option: we need a plan to re-open Australia to the world in a controlled, risk-weighted and staged manner. This would prevent any large outbreaks associated with an excessive burden on the health care system or loss of life.

In some respects, Australia has already proven it can do this. Since the emergence of COVID-19, some 250,000 people (citizens, permanent residents and short-term visitors) have arrived on our shores. And cases have been kept to a minimum, despite the creakiness of hotel quarantine.

A five-step roadmap for reopening

We provide the following roadmap for Australia to reopen to the world. Australia needs to pursue:

1. a comprehensive and successful vaccination program

2. pilot programs for re-opening prior to the conclusion of the vaccination program to support industries critical to Australia’s economy, including tourism and the creative industries, horticultural farming and international education

3. a certification scheme, across these programs, which permits only those with documented vaccination and/or SARS CoV-2 immunity to enter Australia or travel overseas

4. improved border protection measures involving rapid testing on arrival

5. a new range of new risk-weighted quarantine measures, complementing the maintenance of hotel quarantine for those who come from high-risk countries, refuse testing or test positive on arrival.

Read more: Should we vaccinate all returned travellers in hotel quarantine? It’s no magic fix but it could reduce risks

If Australia were to pursue this, it would be in a strong position to restore its immigration program to its pre-COVID levels by 2022-23, assuming the continuing suppression of the virus.

This challenge is a long way from the comforts of a retreat to Fortress Australia. But it’s necessary – at least if we want to remain a country that is engaged with the world.

One thing, though, is clear. Reopening requires not only building a path towards rapid large-scale vaccination of the Australian population and changes to our quarantine system, it requires the urgent building of a “psychological runway” for reopening. We need Australians to be mentally ready for re-engagement.

Yes, we can take pride in how Australia has been winning the “war” against COVID-19. But it’s time now for us to start thinking about winning the “peace”.

– ref. Australia risks becoming a hermit nation. Here’s a five-step road-map to reopen our borders safely – https://theconversation.com/australia-risks-becoming-a-hermit-nation-heres-a-five-step-road-map-to-reopen-our-borders-safely-160865