Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Arjuna Dibley, Visiting Researcher, Climate and Energy College, The University of Melbourne

The Morrison government today announced it’s building a new gas power plant in the Hunter Valley, committing up to A$600 million for the government-owned corporation Snowy Hydro to construct the project.

Critics argue the plant is inconsistent with the latest climate science. And a new report by the International Energy Agency has warned no new fossil fuel projects should be funded if we’re to avoid catastrophic climate change.

The move is also inconsistent with research showing government-owned companies can help drive clean energy innovation. Such companies are often branded as uncompetitive, stuck in the past and unable to innovate. But in fact, they’re sometimes better suited than private firms to take investment risks and test speculative technologies.

And if the investments are successful, taxpayers, the private sector and consumers share the benefits.

Lead, not limit

Federal energy minister Angus Taylor announced the funding on Wednesday. He said the 660-megawatt open-cycle gas turbine at Kurri Kurri will “create jobs, keep energy prices low, keep the lights on and help reduce emissions”.

Experts insist the plan doesn’t stack up economically and may operate at less than 2% capacity.

But missing from the public debate is the question of how government-owned companies such as Snowy Hydro might be used to accelerate the clean energy transition.

Australian governments (of all persuasions) have not often used the companies they own to lead in clean energy innovation. Many, such as Hydro Tasmania, still rely on decades-old hydroelectric technologies. And others, such as Queensland’s Stanwell Corporation and Western Australia’s Synergy, rely heavily on older coal and gas assets.

Asking Snowy Hydro to build a gas-fired power plant is yet another example – but it needn’t be this way.

Read more: A single mega-project exposes the Morrison government’s gas plan as staggering folly

The burning question

Globally, more than 60% of electricity comes from wholly or partially state-owned companies. In Australia, despite the 20-year trend towards electricity privatisation, government-owned companies remain important power generators.

At the Commonwealth level, Snowy Hydro provides around 20% of capacity to New South Wales and Victoria. And most electricity in Queensland, Tasmania and Western Australia is generated by state government-owned businesses.

But political considerations mean government-owned electricity companies can struggle to navigate the clean energy path.

For example in April this year, the chief executive of Stanwell Corporation, Richard Van Breda, suggested the firm would mothball its coal-powered generators before the end of their technical life, because cheap renewables were driving down power prices.

Queensland’s Labor government was reportedly unhappy with the announcement, fearing voter backlash in coal regions. Breda has since stepped down and Stanwell is reportedly backtracking on its transition plans.

Such examples beg the question: can government-owned companies ever innovate on clean energy? A growing literature in economics, as well as several real-world examples, suggest that under the right conditions, the answer is yes.

Read more: The 1.5℃ global warming limit is not impossible – but without political action it soon will be

Privatised is not always best

Economists have traditionally argued state-owned companies are not good innovators. As the argument goes, the absence of competitive market forces makes them less efficient than their private sector peers.

But recent research by academics and international policy institutions such as the OECD has shown government ownership in the electricity sector can be an asset, not a curse, for achieving technological change.

The reason runs contrary to orthodox economic thinking. While competition can lead to firm efficiency, some economists argue government-owned firms can take greater risks. Without the pressure for market-rate returns to shareholders, government enterprises may be freer to invest in more speculative technologies.

My ongoing research has shown the reality is even more complex. Whether state-owned electric companies can drive clean energy innovation depends a great deal on government interests and corporate governance rules.

For example, consider the New York Power Authority (NYPA) which, like Snowy Hydro, is wholly government owned.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has deliberately sought to use NYPA to decarbonise the state’s electricity grid. The government has managed the company in a way that enables it to take risks on new transmission and generation technologies that investor-owned peers cannot.

For instance, NYPA is investing in advanced sensors and computing systems so it can better manage distributed energy sources such as solar and wind. The technology will also simulate major catastrophic events, including those likely to ensue from climate change.

These investments are likely to contribute to greater grid stability and greater renewables use, benefiting not just NYPA but other electricity generators and ultimately, consumers.

Such innovation is nothing new. Also in the US, the state-owned Sacramento Municipal Utility District built one of the first utility-scale solar projects in the world in 1984.

The way forward

More could be done to ensure Australian government-owned corporations are clean energy catalysts.

Clean energy technologies can struggle to bridge the gap from invention to widespread adoption. Public investment can bring down the price of such technologies or demonstrate their efficacy.

In this regard, government-owned companies could work with private technology firms to invest in technologies in the early stages of development, and which could have significant public benefits. For instance, in 2020, the Western Australian government-owned company Synergy sought to build a 100 megawatt battery with private sector partners.

But many problems facing state-owned companies are the result of ever-changing government policy priorities. The firms should be reformed so they are owned by government, but operated at arm’s length and with other partners. This might better enable clean energy investment without the politics.

Read more: Australia’s states are forging ahead with ambitious emissions reductions. Imagine if they worked together

– ref. Government-owned firms like Snowy Hydro can do better than building $600 million gas plants – https://theconversation.com/government-owned-firms-like-snowy-hydro-can-do-better-than-building-600-million-gas-plants-161180

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Samantha Hepburn, Director of the Centre for Energy and Natural Resources Law, Deakin Law School, Deakin University

Even if every country meets its current climate targets, Earth’s temperature will still rise by a dangerous 2.1℃ this century, according to sobering findings from a new International Energy Agency report.

The IEA found the route to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 was “narrow and extremely challenging”, and electricity grids in developed economies such as Australia must be zero emissions by 2053. The IEA was abundantly clear: no new fossil fuel projects should be approved.

The report couldn’t come at a worse time for the Morrison government. This week, it announced A$600 million for a major new gas-fired power plant at Kurri Kurri in New South Wales, claiming it was needed to shore up electricity supplies.

The IEA’s findings cast serious doubt on this decision, and put even more pressure on Australia ahead of crucial international climate talks in Glasgow in November. So let’s take a look at the report in more detail, and see how Australia measures up.

What the report said

The IEA report sets out a comprehensive roadmap to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. The good news is this is still achievable. But it’ll take a lot money and enormous effort.

There must be what the report describes as a “total transformation of the energy systems that underpin our economies”. Put simply, the world’s energy economy must be grounded in solar and wind — not coal, gas and oil.

The report works from a basic principle: even if the climate pledges countries have made under the Paris agreement are fully achieved, there will still be 22 billion tonnes of global carbon dioxide emissions in 2050.

This is well short of net zero.

So the IEA set out more than 400 milestones to achieve the global energy transformation. And these absolutely must be complied with if we’re to stop catastrophic global warming and limit temperature rise to 1.5℃.

The milestones include:

Massive investment in electricity networks

Enormous amounts of money are needed to shift away from fossil fuels and meet the global electricity demand doubling over the next 30 years. Existing networks took 130 years to build — we need to build the same again in about one-sixth the time. This includes investing in hydrogen and bio-energy (energy made from organic material), which the report calls a “pillar of decarbonisation”.

Read more: The 1.5℃ global warming limit is not impossible – but without political action it soon will be

Transport

Electric vehicles need to rapidly expand to 65% of the global fleet by 2030, and 100% by 2050. This will require an enormous increase in public electric vehicle charging units and hydrogen refuelling units. To facilitate this shift, petrol and diesel will be phased out. Many countries around the world, including the United Kingdom and Japan, have already introduced a ban on new fossil fuel cars by 2030.

Building and industry

We need to urgently retrofit homes and buildings to make them more energy efficient. Steel, cement and chemical industries, primary emitters, must shift to carbon capture and sequestration and hydrogen.

But the biggest take-home message for Australia is there must be no new development in fossil fuel beyond 2021.

No new fossil fuel development

The report states:

Beyond projects already committed as of 2021, there are no new oil and gas fields approved for development in our pathway, and no new coal mines or mine extensions are required.

Global demand for oil peaked in 2019, and has declined since then, largely due to COVID-19 lockdowns. Under the roadmap, this decline will continue and reach 75% by 2050. Any growth in demand during this period will be met by growing emergent markets in renewables, green hydrogen and bio-energy.

And of course, the report states no new coal plants should be financially supported unless equipped with carbon capture and sequestration. Inefficient coal plants must be phased out by 2030.

If the roadmap is followed, renewable energy will overtake coal by 2026, and oil and gas by 2030.

For this to happen, annual additions of 630 gigawatts of solar and 390 gigawatts of wind power will be required by 2030. This means the world needs to install the equivalent of “the world’s largest solar park roughly every day”, according to the report.

Australia, are you listening?

Australia’s gas-fired recovery plans are directly inconsistent with the IEA roadmap. The government has argued expanding fossil fuel supply is critical for energy security.

Not only did the federal government just announce over a half a billion dollars for a new gas-fired power plant in NSW, it’s also spending a further $173 million to develop the Beetaloo basin in the Northern Territory, another gas reserve.

Read more: Paying Australia’s coal-fired power stations to stay open longer is bad for consumers and the planet

Experts, advisers and Energy Security Board chair Kerry Schott have all disagreed with these moves. They argue, in line with the IEA report, that cheaper, cleaner alternatives to gas generation, such as wind and solar, can easily provide the dispatchable power required.

The government’s stubborn fossil fuel funding will make it more difficult than it already is to stop global warming beyond 1.5℃.

Australia must immediately stop investing in new fossil fuel projects. While this may be a difficult transition to accept given the enormous scope of gas reserves in Australia, there’s no point spending vast amounts of money on new infrastructure to extract a resource that will be commercially unviable in a decade.

Australia is ignoring the economic and environmental imperatives of transitioning to a low carbon framework. This is reckless, and unfair to other countries. We have the resource capacity and economic strength to transition our energy sector, unlike many developing countries. But we choose not to.

A national embarrassment

John Kerry, the US special presidential envoy for climate, says the next round of international climate talks in Scotland is the “last best chance the world has” to avoid a climate crisis.

But Australia’s investment in new gas development stands in stark contrast to the increasingly ambitious energy commitments of other developed countries. We shouldn’t come empty-handed, with no new targets, to yet another international climate summit.

Read more: Spot the difference: as world leaders rose to the occasion at the Biden climate summit, Morrison faltered

US President Joe Biden has vowed to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 50-52% compared with 2005 levels. He has banned new oil and gas leases on federal land, removed fossil fuel subsidies and plans to double wind capacity by 2030.

Likewise, the European Commission seeks to stop funding oil and gas projects. Denmark recently implemented a ban on future gas extraction in the North Sea. And Spain has done the same.

Australia is ignoring its global responsibilities. As a result, we’ll be hit hard by the so-called “Carbon Border Adjustment” policies from the US and European Union, which tax imported goods according to their carbon footprint.

Ultimately, our actions will leave us economically and environmentally isolated in a rapidly emerging new energy world order.

Read more: The EU is considering carbon tariffs on Australian exports. Is that legal?

– ref. New International Energy Agency report reprimands any new fossil fuel development. Guess what Australia did next? – https://theconversation.com/new-international-energy-agency-report-reprimands-any-new-fossil-fuel-development-guess-what-australia-did-next-161178

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

In last week’s budget, $17.7 billion was allocated to the aged care sector, in response to the damning findings of the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality & Safety.

The commission’s final report painted a grim picture of a sector in need of sweeping overhaul – with people in residential care requiring a more supportive – and in some cases safer – environment, and people at home desperately short of enough care packages.

The government’s response includes an additional 80,000 homecare packages, funding for better staffing (including a mandate of 200 minutes of care for each resident, each day), and a commitment to a new aged care act.

Richard Colbeck, Minister for Senior Australians and Aged Care Services, as well as Minister for Sport, joins the podcast to discuss aged care policy, and the coming Olympics.

One big question in aged care, which hasn’t been tackled, is whether wealthier people should contribute more to funding their costs. Colbeck says “we’ve had a really close look at that” and “there’s probably more work to do in that space”.

“But I think there’s broad acceptance that where people can afford to make a contribution to support them as they age, they should do so. We’ll continue to consider that.”

The Tokyo Summer Olympics, originally slated for 2020 but now due to commence in July, have attracted considerable criticism given the state of coronavirus in Japan. Only recently the nation’s lockdown was extended, with new cases in the thousands being reported daily, and there are strong calls for the games to be abandoned.

Colbeck concedes “there will be COVID” at the Olympics. But the International Olympic Committee has “made arrangements” for any athlete or official who contracts the virus. He also described the work of the medical team at the Australian Institute of Sport as “world-leading”.

Additional audio

A List of Ways to Die, Lee Rosevere, from Free Music Archive.

– ref. Politics with Michelle Grattan: Richard Colbeck on aged care and the Olympics – https://theconversation.com/politics-with-michelle-grattan-richard-colbeck-on-aged-care-and-the-olympics-161192

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By C Raina MacIntyre, Professor of Global Biosecurity, NHMRC Principal Research Fellow, Head, Biosecurity Program, Kirby Institute, UNSW

The small archipelago nation of Seychelles, northeast of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean, has emerged as the world’s most vaccinated country for COVID-19.

Around 71% of people have had at least one dose of a COVID vaccine, and 62% have been fully vaccinated. Of these, 57% have received the Sinopharm vaccine, and 43% AstraZeneca.

Despite this, there has been a recent surge in cases, with 37% of new active cases and 20% of hospital cases being fully vaccinated. The country has had to reimpose some restrictions.

How can this be happening? There are several possible explanations:

1. the herd immunity threshold has not been reached — 62% vaccination is likely not adequate with the vaccines being used

2. herd immunity is unreachable due to inadequate efficacy of the two vaccines being used

3. variants that escape vaccine protection are dominant in Seychelles

4. the B1617 Indian variant is spreading, which appears to be more infectious than other variants

5. mass failures of the cold-chain logistics needed for transport and storage, which rendered the vaccines ineffective.

What does the country’s experience teach us about variants, vaccine efficacy and herd immunity?

Let’s break this down.

Variants can escape vaccine protection

There are reports of the South African B.1.351 variant circulating in Seychelles. This variant shows the greatest ability to escape vaccine protection of all COVID variants so far.

In South Africa, one study showed AstraZeneca has 0-10% efficacy against this variant, prompting the South African government to stop using that vaccine in February.

The efficacy of the Sinopharm vaccine against this variant is unknown, but lab studies show some reduction in protection, based on blood tests, but probably some protection.

However, no comprehensive surveillance exists in the country to know what proportion of cases are due to the South African variant.

The UK variant B117, which is more contagious than the original strain, became the dominant variant in the United States. But the US still achieved a dramatic reduction in COVID-19 cases through vaccination, with most people receiving the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines.

Israel, where the UK variant was dominant, also has a very high vaccination rate, having vaccinated nearly 60% of its population with Pfizer. It found 92% effectiveness against any infection including asymptomatic infection, and Israel has seen a large drop in new cases.

The United Kingdom has used a combination of Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccines. More than 50% of the population have had a single dose and almost 30% are fully vaccinated. The country has also seen a significant decline in case numbers.

But there’s a current surge of cases in northwest England, with most new cases in the city of Bolton being the Indian variant. This variant is also causing outbreaks in Singapore, which had previously controlled the virus well.

Seychelles needs to conduct urgent genome sequencing and surveillance to see what contribution variants of concern are making, and whether the Indian variant is present.

If the South African variant is dominant, the country needs to use a vaccine that works well against it. Many companies are making boosters targeted to this variant, but for now, Pfizer would be an option. In Qatar, local researchers found Pfizer had 75% effectiveness against the South African variant.

Read more: New COVID variants have changed the game, and vaccines will not be enough. We need global ‘maximum suppression’

We need to use high-efficacy vaccines to achieve herd immunity

The reported efficacy of Sinopharm is 79% and AstraZeneca is 62-70% from phase 3 clinical trials.

Our research at the Kirby Institute showed that, in New South Wales, Australia, using a vaccine with 90% efficacy against all infection means herd immunity could be achieved if 66% of the population was vaccinated.

However, using lower efficacy vaccines means more people need to be vaccinated. If the vaccine is 60% effective, the proportion needing to be vaccinated rises to 100%.

When you get an efficacy of less than 60%, herd immunity is not achievable.

However, these calculations were done for the regular COVID-19 caused by the D614G variant which dominated in 2020. This has a reproductive number (R0) of 2.5, meaning people infected with the virus on average infect 2.5 others.

But the B117 variant is 43-90% more contagious than D614G, so the R0 may be up to 4.75. This will require higher vaccination rates to control spread.

What’s more, the Indian variant B1617 has been estimated to be at least 50% more contagious than B117, which could take the R0 to over 7, and takes us into uncharted territory.

This could explain the catastrophic situation in India, but also raises the stakes for vaccination, as lower efficacy vaccines will not be able to contain such highly transmissible variants effectively.

Herd immunity is still possible, but depends on the efficacy of the vaccine used and the proportion of people vaccinated.

A UK modelling study found using very low efficacy vaccines would result in the economy barely breaking even over ten years because it would fail to control transmission. On the other hand, using very high efficacy vaccines would result in much better economic outcomes.

Vaccinating the world is the only way to end the pandemic

As the pandemic continues to worsen in some parts of the world, the risk increases of more dangerous mutations that are vaccine-resistant or too contagious to control with current vaccines.

Keeping up with mutations is like whack-a-mole while the pandemic is raging.

The take-home message for our pandemic exit strategy is that the sooner we get the whole world vaccinated, the sooner we will control emergence of new variants.

Read more: 3 ways to vaccinate the world and make sure everyone benefits, rich and poor

– ref. COVID is surging in the world’s most vaccinated country. Why? – https://theconversation.com/covid-is-surging-in-the-worlds-most-vaccinated-country-why-160869

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jess Carniel, Senior Lecturer in Humanities, University of Southern Queensland

Last year, the Eurovision Song Contest was cancelled for the first time in its then 64-year history. This year’s Eurovision is a socially distanced affair, with frequent COVID testing of participants.

The Ahoy Arena in Rotterdam, where the contest is being held, has a capacity of 15,000 but the audience has been capped at 3,500 for each show. Interestingly, it does not look as socially distanced as expected. Shots of the crowd in the first semi-final on Tuesday (Wednesday in Australia), showed people seated side by side, with a few gaps between groups.

As a precaution, each participating country shot a “live-on-tape” performance to be used as a backup if their delegation could not travel to Rotterdam. Australia’s act Montaigne (Jess Cerro) filmed a performance of her song Technicolour in Sydney in March. SBS decided not to send a team to the contest due to travel concerns in the pandemic.

It was a slick production with an excellent vocal performance, but unfortunately, Montaigne did not make it through to the grand final. Some suggest the live-on-tape performance hindered Australia’s chances. Montaigne herself seemed to acknowledge this in a tweet where she said, “we were at a severe disadvantage”.

The performance was actually cut seamlessly into the live production; you could hear the crowd cheering while viewing Montaigne on a large screen in the arena. But while her song Techicolour had its fans, its hyperpop styling also divided casual viewers.

Read more: Eurovision shock: is ironic appreciation now unnecessary as slick singing styles reign?

All voting is split 50/50 between the jury and public. The jury voters had watched the first semi-finalists and voted the day before on a private stream. The public voted on the broadcast show. As juries watch the whole production on screen there is little difference in how they experience an in-arena performance and a live-on-tape performance anyway.

But it was always going to be a tough semi-final. Croatia had been tipped to make the qualifying ten but was also voted out.

In essence, a TV show

Thirty-nine countries are participating this year. No one has yet dropped out because of COVID-19, but some – notably Armenia and Belarus – are absent for other reasons, including political ones.

Montaigne and all other delegations filmed their live-on-tape performances in March under the watchful eye of representatives from the host broadcasters, the European Broadcasting Union, and independent voting observers. They were given one hour to film three attempts, with the best of the three to be used if necessary.

So far, Australia is the only participant to have used a taped performance. This is the first time Australia hasn’t qualified since entering the contest in 2015 (when it went straight into the grand final as a special guest). Still, Montaigne’s non-qualification should not be interpreted as an indictment of the live-on-tape model.

Although we are accustomed to seeing a large audience cheering and waving flags, this is actually a recent development at Eurovision. Before 1998, it was staged in smaller venues. An audience was present, but seated rather sedately. In the early 2000s especially, Eurovision became synonymous with larger crowds in arena stadiums, giving more of a live concert feel.

Attending the contest is a pilgrimage for fans. Still, it is in essence a television show — albeit one filmed in front of a live studio audience. The staging of several performances this year – most notably Ireland and Greece – reminded us of this through their heavy use of screen overlays of animated graphics (Ireland) and green screen (Greece).

Lesley Roy’s performance for Ireland involved intricate camera perspectives through small shadow boxes on stage as well as a screen overlay edited into the broadcast.

Greece’s Stefania performed in front of a green screen backdrop alongside backup dancers partially clad in green clothing. For the in-arena audience, the effect was no doubt strange and almost comical. For those at home, Stefania appeared on a purple stage, dancing alongside disembodied pants and shirts.

Such performances are designed with the television audience in mind. Even without these staging choices, each act is carefully choreographed to maximise the broadcast effect. This is most frequently seen in direct-to-camera singing.

The final 2021 production choices also illustrate new ways to understand a live broadcast show in a time of pandemic. The artists’ green room, where they gather during the event, was more prominent this year. While the crowd’s cheers were heard (amplified by a “cheer” function on the Eurovision app for those watching at home), they were at a distance from the performers.

Indeed to the at-home viewer watching the first semi-final, there was very little beyond the physical stage itself to distinguish between the in-arena performances and Montaigne’s live-on-tape submission.

An expensive endeavour

Filming live-on-tape suggests how Eurovision might be held in the future, making it more inclusive and environmentally friendly. Upon logging into the virtual press room, for instance, journalists this year were informed of the carbon emissions they saved by not travelling to the contest.

And the virtual Eurovision Village – usually a physical public space in the host city, offering extra performances and exhibitions – means Eurofans from around the world can be part of the on-site activities online.

Most importantly, participation is an expensive endeavour. It involves the cost not just of the production, but travel and accommodation for delegations, usually stationed in the host city for two to three weeks. Some smaller nations, such as Bulgaria and Montenegro, participate only intermittently for economic reasons.

Maintaining some sort of flexibility between staged and taped performances might enable more countries to participate more regularly in Eurovision. This might even allow the contest to become a more global event.

– ref. Australia is out of Eurovision but don’t write off filmed performances: they could make for a greener, more global contest – https://theconversation.com/australia-is-out-of-eurovision-but-dont-write-off-filmed-performances-they-could-make-for-a-greener-more-global-contest-161005

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Bianka Vidonja Balanzategui, Adjunct Lecturer, James Cook University

In this series, we look at under-acknowledged women through the ages.

The women of the tropical north Queensland frontier were a varied lot and included Melanesian indentured labourers brought to work on sugar cane plantations. Annie Etinside was one of them.

She was brought to Halifax, a small, sleepy town bordering the banks of the Herbert River that was once a thriving port and tramway terminus for the Colonial Sugar Refining Company’s Victoria sugar plantation and mill.

Evidence today of the indentured labourers who once toiled on the plantation is found in small signposts such as one at “The Gardens”, formerly a small Melanesian village on the outskirts of Halifax. Here lived a few families who were not later repatriated to their islands.

Far fewer women than men were recruited as indentured labourers. In 1906, when forced repatriation of these labourers began, only 14 Melanesian women and 500 men remained on the Herbert. Annie, one of those 14, did not live in The Gardens community. Her life took a very different course.

Available records reveal a woman of colour who defied all odds to participate in a predominantly white community. Yet Annie remains an enigma.

Read more: Hidden women of history: Wauba Debar, an Indigenous swimmer from Tasmania who saved her captors

Recruitment

The “frontier” is generally thought of as a masculine space. In part this is because most frontier history has been written by European men, who tended not to notice women beyond their domestic arrangements, if at all. Fleshing out the lives of pioneering frontier women is difficult enough if they are white, let alone for women of colour.

The first Melanesian men were brought to the Herbert River district around 1872; women came about ten years later. Annie appears to have been among them. While some islanders volunteered, others were secured against their own will by deceit and even kidnapping.

They were paid, and at the end of the three-year indenture period could either return to their islands, re-indenture, or work freely in the sugar industry on a set wage. Following the existing record trail leaves many questions unanswered about when Annie arrived and where from.

In the Halifax cemetery, her simple headstone tells us she came from Ureparapara (the third largest island in the Banks group of northern Vanuatu). Yet her death certificate records her as born on “Lambue South Sea Island”. Her marriage certificate records her birth as “Burra Burra South Sea Island”. Neither of these locations can be identified, but the latter may be a corruption of Buka Buka.

A register was kept listing the names of recruited labourers and other details. The only Etinside on this register is a man brought over on November 5, 1888 from Ureparapara. We don’t know if this was Annie, mistakenly recorded as a male.

Details of Annie’s arrival are further muddied by the information provided on her gravestone, marriage and death certificates. According to these, she was born around 1870, so would have arrived in Australia in 1881 as an 11-year-old.

Read more: Hidden women of history: Isabel Flick, the tenacious campaigner who fought segregation in Australia

Marriage

Indentured women were employed both in fields and houses by small farmers, and on plantations. Annie’s obituary, published in the Herbert River Express, says she was first engaged as housemaid to Norwegian sugar cane farmer Johan (John) Ingebright Alm and his wife Antonia, then to an English farmer, Francis Herron and his wife Lucinda.

By 1884, she was housemaid to George Gosling who had migrated from Britain in 1881. George was an overseer of indentured labour gangs, then farmed on leased land and in his own right, turning a piece of land called “Poverty Flat” by locals into a successful farm, Rosedale.

Annie married Gosling in 1898 in a civil ceremony. By this time, she had borne him two children. The children’s birth records are the first bearing the name Etenside (misspelt). At this point, Annie may have begun to feel unsafe. The Aboriginal Protection and Restrictions of the Sale of Opium Act of 1897 had just been passed.

Without an official record to prove she had arrived as an indentured labourer, officials could have identified Annie as Aboriginal. This would have meant restriction of her movements and associations; her children, as mixed race and born out of wedlock, could have been taken from her.

The indentured labour scheme was never meant to permit Melanesian people to settle permanently in Australia. In 1901 the White Australia policy legislated to stop the scheme. From the end of 1906, all Melanesian indentured labourers were to be forcibly deported back to their islands, except for those with exemption tickets.

Marriage offered Annie protection. Rather than social disapproval, it seems to have met with tolerance, even if expressed in a patronising way. One Cairns newspaper described her with tongue in cheek as Gosling’s “little black duck”.

Annie and Gosling had three more children although tragedy struck on January 17, 1905, when Gosling died of malaria at the age of 45. Annie was left with five young children, the youngest only eight days old. On Gosling’s death, Annie was recognised as his lawful widow, inheriting all his estate. The success of his farm can be partly attributed to her. On the Herbert, small farmers depended on wives and children for all field labour, apart from cane harvesting.

Annie had another child in 1907, who she named Robert Gosling. She went on to marry William John Davey on February 17, 1909. But one month after their marriage, she registered the death of little Robert. Davey died on August 30, in the same year. After his death she reverted to using the name Gosling.

Remarkable feats

Despite her “alien” status, Annie integrated herself successfully into the largely white social fabric of Halifax, becoming a respected member of the community at a time of institutionalised racism. She participated in civic life, was registered on the electoral roll and ran a farm.

Her children attended the Halifax State School, her sons farmed and held jobs at the sugar mills (unusual for children of indentured labourers) and her children married Anglo-Australians, Europeans and Asians.

Annie’s were remarkable feats, given the prevailing racial attitudes and prohibitions regarding land ownership, education and constitutional rights. They indicate her determination to be recognised as an accountable, independent and hard-working member of society, regardless of her skin colour.

When Annie died on November 23, 1948 at the recorded age of 78, she was described in the Herbert River Express as a “grand old pioneer”.

– ref. Hidden women of history: Melanesian indentured labourer Annie Etinside, hailed as a Queensland ‘pioneer’ on her death – https://theconversation.com/hidden-women-of-history-melanesian-indentured-labourer-annie-etinside-hailed-as-a-queensland-pioneer-on-her-death-155645

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ben White, Professor of End-of-Life Law and Regulation, Australian Centre for Health Law Research, Queensland University of Technology

Queensland has become the latest Australian state to move forward on the issue of voluntary assisted dying. Draft legislation, developed by the Queensland Law Reform Commission, is expected to be tabled in parliament next week.

This reflects moves across the country over the past few years to permit voluntary assisted dying (also sometimes called voluntary euthanasia).

The Queensland laws, if passed, would be similar to those in other states, but not identical.

A quick recap

Victoria’s law was passed in November 2017 and came into force in June 2019 after an 18-month implementation period.

Next was Western Australia, whose 2019 law will come into effect on July 1, 2021.

Tasmania passed a voluntary assisted dying law in March this year, set to begin in 2022.

And South Australia’s lower house is now considering its own bill, after the upper house approved the proposed law earlier this month.

In New South Wales, independent MP Alex Greenwich is drafting a voluntary assisted dying law. It’s due to be released in July for consultation.

The Australian Capital Territory and the Northern Territory don’t have legislative power to pass laws about voluntary assisted dying. But there are active efforts to repeal the Commonwealth law that prohibits the territories considering it.

Read more: WA’s take on assisted dying has many similarities with the Victorian law – and some important differences

Reflecting on Victoria’s experience

In preparing the draft legislation, the Queensland Law Reform Commission had the opportunity to reflect on the emerging body of evidence about how the Victorian law is operating in practice.

While the safeguards in Victoria’s voluntary assisted dying system are working to ensure only eligible patients can access it, questions have been raised about challenges in accessing the law. For example, some people don’t necessarily know the option exists, while navigating the eligibility assessment process can be demanding.

Background like this from Victoria’s experience led the commission to recommend some departures from laws enacted elsewhere in Australia.

The commission’s approach aimed to design “the best legal framework for a voluntary assisted dying scheme in Queensland” and not to be “constrained by similar laws in other Australian states”.

In other words, the focus was on designing optimal law, rather than simply adopting another state’s law because it happened to be passed first.

How is Queensland’s proposed law different?

Some features are common to all Australian voluntary assisted dying laws. For example, eligibility criteria broadly include requirements that a person has an advanced and progressive condition that will cause death, and they are suffering intolerably from it. The person must also be an adult, have decision-making capacity, be acting voluntarily and satisfy various residency requirements.

The Queensland proposal’s eligibility criteria are different in relation to the person’s life expectancy. A person is eligible for voluntary assisted dying under the Queensland bill if they are expected to die within 12 months. Under other Australian models, the period is six months, except for progressive neurological conditions, in which case it’s 12 months.

Although some commentators (including us) question the need for a designated time period, a 12-month limit is a more coherent approach than the existing six or 12-month approach elsewhere.

First, it’s very hard to justify having different time limits to access voluntary assisted dying depending on the nature of your illness.

Second, a longer eligibility period allows a person who is diagnosed with a medical condition more time to apply for voluntary assisted dying. This may allow patients to start the application process a little earlier, and reduce the likelihood they may die before accessing voluntary assisted dying (given the process can take some time).

Read more: Voluntary assisted dying is not a black-and-white issue for Christians – they can, in good faith, support it

Another novel feature is the Queensland bill limits the ability of institutions to object to voluntary assisted dying. This is an Australian-first as Victorian, Western Australian and Tasmanian laws only deal with permitting individual health professionals to conscientiously object.

This is important because there’s evidence in Victoria that institutions are blocking access to voluntary assisted dying. One media report described a Catholic hospice barring access to pharmacists delivering the voluntary assisted dying medication to a patient.

The commission recommends creating legislative processes so eligible patients’ access to voluntary assisted dying is not unreasonably hindered by institutional objections.

Will the Queensland bill become law?

After the bill is tabled in Queensland parliament next week, it will be referred to the Parliamentary Health Committee (which originally recommended reform). That committee will have a consultation period of 12 weeks.

Parliament is expected to vote on the bill in September, and if the law is passed, it will likely come into effect in January 2023. As in other states, a period of implementation ensures the voluntary assisted dying system is ready before the law takes effect.

As is usually the case in such debates, both major parties have offered their MPs a conscience vote. Although Queensland is the only Australian state never to have considered a voluntary assisted dying bill, its single house of parliament may mean the law is more likely to pass.

Further, given the growing national trend to permit voluntary assisted dying and the careful and measured law reform process, we anticipate Queensland is likely to pass voluntary assisted dying laws this year.

Read more: From Oregon to Belgium to Victoria – the different ways suffering patients are allowed to die

– ref. Voluntary assisted dying could soon be legal in Queensland. Here’s how its bill differs from other states – https://theconversation.com/voluntary-assisted-dying-could-soon-be-legal-in-queensland-heres-how-its-bill-differs-from-other-states-161092

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alex Veen, Lecturer and DECRA Fellow, University of Sydney

The ruling by Australia’s Fair Work Commission that online food delivery platform Deliveroo unfairly dismissed driver Diego Franco marks a major shift in the Australian “gig” economy.

What’s most significant is the commission has ruled Franco was, in fact, an employee of Deliveroo, not an independent contractor – the legal strategy platform companies use to avoid employer obligations and shirk paying employee entitlements such as a minimum wage and leave entitlements.

With Deliveroo’s rival Menulog having committed in April to trial an employment model for its riders working in Sydney’s CBD, the ruling further swings the pendulum towards employment rights for “gig workers”.

Read more: Did somebody say workers’ rights? Three big questions about Menulog’s employment plan

How did we get to this important decision?

Franco took his case to the Fair Work Commission (Australia’s industrial relations tribunal) after Deliveroo terminated his account in April 2020. He had delivered food in Sydney for the platform since April 2017. Deliveroo’s reason for termination was he had delivered food orders too slowly.

With support from the Transport Workers Union, Franco lodged an unfair dismissal claim. Deliveroo’s lawyers sought to thwart the claim on the basis that he was a contractor. Only if he was an employee could the commission rule on whether he had been unfairly dismissed.

So Franco’s case required him first to demonstrate he was not a contractor but an employee. Then he had to show Deliveroo had unfairly dismissed him.

Commissioner Ian Cambridge’s ruling in Franco’s favour on both these points was based on a full analysis of the workplace controls that platforms can exercise over workers. That analysis was more extensive than previous Fair Work Commission decisions – including in December 2017, May 2018, July 2019 and April 2020 – that had ruled delivery drivers and riders need not be treated as employees.

Exercising control

The Fair Work Commission decides whether a worker should be classified as an employee or contractor by looking at multiple factors to form an overall picture (or “smell test”) of the work relationship. A key indicator is “control”.

In this case, Commissioner Cambridge considered both the level of control Deliveroo exercised over Franco and also its “capacity” to exercise control. This went further than previous decisions.

Deliveroo, like other platforms, uses algorithms in managing its workforce. While its lawyers argued its algorithms did not use performance data to allocate work, it did use performance data in deciding to terminate Franco’s account.

Read more: Algorithms workers can’t see are increasingly pulling the management strings

This highlighted how such apps collect data that could be used to control workers.

Previous commission rulings against gig workers being classified as employees have found couriers have considerable control over their work because they can, for instance, decide where and when to make themselves available for deliveries. Francos’ case, however, showed the “economic reality” of the circumstances significantly constrained his autonomy.

On that basis, Commissioner Cambridge ruled Deliveroo had significant actual, or potential, control over how work was performed, when work was done and who received work. This suggested the platform acted like an employer.

Multi-apping not a barrier

Another key aspect of the ruling was rejecting Deliveroo’s argument Franco could not be an employee because he was working for other platforms at the same time. This practice, known as “multi-apping”, is common in the gig economy due to the struggle of earning enough money just working for one platform.

Commissioner Cambridge ruled multi-apping was merely “an example of the phenomenon of change that new technology is bringing to the traditional arrangements for employment”.

The overall picture, he said, was that Franco “was not carrying on a trade or business of his own, or on his own behalf. Instead, he was working in Deliveroo’s business as part of that business.” In short, he was an employee.

Callous conduct

Commissioner Cambridge was also highly critical of Deliveroo terminating Franco’s contract via email, describing this conduct as “callous”.

Whether Franco was a contractor or not, he said, “basic human dignity requires that a matter of such gravity should be conveyed personally”.

He also criticised the company for not informing Franco of the expected performance standards, for not giving Franco adequate warning about the consequence of slow deliveries, and not affording Franco procedural justice such as giving him an opportunity to respond before being terminated.

This meant Franco, an employee, had been unfairly dismissed and was to be reinstated.

What are the wider consequences

This case highlights the need for properly designed and implemented human and algorithmic management processes to ensure a level of job quality even in the context of digitally intermediated “gig” work.

It goes further than that, however.

Ruling that Franco was an employee and not a contractor reflects a broader global trend. More and more gig workers are pushing back against the contractual arrangements of gig-economy platforms – and courts are agreeing.

In recent months there have been several major decisions. In March, the UK Supreme Court ruled two Uber drivers were workers (a different classification to being an employee, but with more rights than an independent contractor).

Read more: A new deal for Uber drivers in UK, but Australia’s ‘gig workers’ must wait

In February, Deliveroo lost an appeal against a Netherlands ruling its couriers are employees.

Although Deliveroo is likely to appeal the Fair Work Commission ruling, this case is another sign the thin ice on which “gig” platforms have been skating for years is cracking.

– ref. An employee, not a contractor: unfair dismissal ruling against Deliveroo is a big deal for Australia’s gig workers – https://theconversation.com/an-employee-not-a-contractor-unfair-dismissal-ruling-against-deliveroo-is-a-big-deal-for-australias-gig-workers-161173

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sam Crawley, Researcher, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington

Straight denial of climate change is now relatively rare. Most people believe it is happening and is a serious problem. But many rank other issues — healthcare and the economy — as more important.

This means people can’t be easily classified as either deniers or believers when it comes to climate change. In my research, I focused on understanding the complexity of climate opinion in light of the slow political response to climate change around the world.

I conducted an online survey in the UK and found 78% of respondents were extremely or fairly certain climate change is happening.

But when asked to rank eight issues (climate change, healthcare, education, crime, immigration, economy, terrorism and poverty) from most to least important to the country, 38% ranked climate change as least important, with a further 15% placing it seventh out of eight.

Recent pledges from a number of large countries to reach net zero in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 have led Climate Action Tracker to project that limiting warming to 2℃ by 2100 may be possible.

Although this progress is heartening, it has taken many years to reach this point and the challenges in actually meeting these emission targets cannot be overstated.

Climate ranking in other countries

I found similar results in other countries. Based on a Eurobarometer survey of 27,901 European Union citizens, a majority of the populations in all EU member countries are concerned about climate change, but only 43% across the EU rank it in the top four most important issues for the world. There are some differences between countries — climate change tends to be ranked higher in Nordic countries and lower in Eastern Europe.

Fewer than 5% of 3,445 respondents in the 2017 New Zealand Election Study said the environment was the most important election issue and an even smaller number specifically mentioned climate change.

Read more: NZ election 2020: survey shows voters are divided on climate policy and urgency of action

Why are some people more engaged with climate change than others? People’s worldview or ideology seem to be particularly important.

In many countries — including, as illustrated in my research, the UK and New Zealand — there are partisan and political divides in climate change with supporters of right-wing parties less likely to support climate change policies or to see it as an important issue.

People who support free-market economics, hold authoritarian attitudes or have exclusionary attitudes towards minorities are also less likely to engage with climate change.

Consequences for climate policy

In democracies, politicians often respond to public opinion; ignoring it risks being voted out at the next election. But the degree to which they do so depends on how important the issue is to the public relative to other issues.

If people are not thinking about an issue when they go to vote, politicians are less likely to give that issue much attention. As my research shows, people in most countries don’t give climate change a high importance ranking, and politicians are therefore not under enough public pressure to take the difficult steps required to combat climate change.

There are other reasons for the slow political response to climate change, besides the low importance of climate change among the public. Vested interests, such as fossil fuel companies, are undoubtedly involved in slowing the adoption of strong climate policies in many countries.

Read more: Climate explained: Why are climate change skeptics often right-wing conservatives?

Although only a minority of the population, climate change deniers may also make some politicians hesitate to act. But, regardless of the influence of vested interests and deniers, it is difficult for politicians to act on climate change when the public believes other issues are more important.

Understanding the relationship between public opinion and climate policy can help focus the efforts of climate campaigners. Perhaps less attention could be paid to the influence of vested interests.

Given the deep ideological reasons climate change deniers have for their disbelief, it’s unlikely they will be convinced otherwise. Fortunately, this may not be required to move climate policy forward.

As my research reveals, the majority of the public want action on climate change but tend to be more concerned about other issues. Campaigners might find it useful to focus their attention on persuading this section of the population about the urgency of climate action.

– ref. Most people consider climate change a serious issue, but rank other problems as more important. That affects climate policy – https://theconversation.com/most-people-consider-climate-change-a-serious-issue-but-rank-other-problems-as-more-important-that-affects-climate-policy-161080

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sara Webb, PhD candidate in Astrophysics, Swinburne University of Technology

China’s Zhurong rover landed safely on Mars on May 15, making China only the third country to successfully land a rover on the red planet.

More impressively still, China is the first Mars-going nation to carry out an orbiting, landing and rovering operation as its first mission.

Planetary scientist Roberto Orosei told Nature China is “doing in a single go what NASA took decades to do”, while astrophysicist Jonathon McDowell described China’s decision to include a rover in its maiden Mars outing as a “very gutsy move”.

Where did it land?

Zhurong, named after the god of fire in Chinese mythology, separated from the Tianwen-1 orbiter and touched down close to the site of previous NASA missions, on a vast plain called Utopia Planitia.

This area of Mars was formed billions of years ago, when a martian meteorite smashed into the planet’s surface. The surrounding area is largely featureless, covered mostly in volcanic material.

Zhurong is not the first rover to explore this region. In 1976, NASA’s Viking 2 lander touched down further north within the Utopia Planitia basin, returning high-resolution images of the martian surface and analysing soil samples.

The Viking 2 lander lacked the ability to investigate any further than its initial landing site. But the Zhurong rover should be well equipped to roam farther afield during its mission.

What will it do?

The mission’s three-month scientific program will begin once the Zhurong rover disembarks from the landing craft and begins its journey across the martian surface. The 240-kilogram, six-wheeled rover is equipped with six individual scientific instruments, and has four large solar panels, giving it the appearance of a “blue butterfly”.

Zhurong’s design, instruments and technology on board Zhurong are comparable to those on board NASA’s twin rovers Spirit and Opportunity, which touched down in January 2004. Although Zhurong is not at the cutting edge of current space exploration technology, the sheer speed of this program’s development since its initiation in 2006 is awe-inspiring.

Like the many Mars rovers before it, Zhurong will probe this alien planet’s environment, and search for signs of water ice on the surface.

The mission is expected to survey four aspects of its local environmnet:

• topography and geological structure

• soil structure and possible presence of water ice

• chemical composition, minerals and rock types

• physical characteristics of the atmosphere and the rocky surface.

Zhurong will thus help build a more complete geological picture of the red planet’s history. And, in a genuine first for Martian exploration, it is equipped with a magnetometer to measure the planet’s magnetic field. This is an important study that will help address why Mars has lost much of its atmosphere, leaving its landscape so barren.

Read more: As new probes reach Mars, here’s what we know so far from trips to the red planet

China’s growing space presence

The Tianwen-1 mission is just one of an impressive list of accomplishments by the China National Space Administration in the past year. Its other feats include launching dozens of Long March rockets, each with multiple payloads, including that of the Chang’e 5 lunar probe, which brought Moon rocks back to Earth for the first time since the end of NASA’s Apollo program in the 1970s.

Last month, China launched the first stage of its Tiangong space station, which next year is set to become the world’s second long-term home for humans in space. The momentous launch didn’t go off without a hitch, however, as debris from the launch vehicle made an uncontrolled re-entry back to Earth, eventually splashing down in the Indian Ocean.

Read more: China’s Tiangong space station: what it is, what it’s for, and how to see it

Thankfully no one was hurt in that incident, but it is a timely reminder that China’s accelerating pace of space missions and rocket launches need to be carefully managed.

This year of activity has solidified China’s powerful presence in space, and we are only seeing the beginning of its ambitious future. By 2045, China hopes to become a leading space power, as outlined in the 2018 Aerospace Science and Technology Corporations route map.

In the coming years we can look forward to seeing China launch crewed missions to the Tiangong space station, and in the coming decades can expect to see China join other space-faring nations in missions back to the Moon and Mars.

– ref. On its first try, China’s Zhurong rover hit a Mars milestone that took NASA decades – https://theconversation.com/on-its-first-try-chinas-zhurong-rover-hit-a-mars-milestone-that-took-nasa-decades-161078

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amrita Malhi, Visiting Fellow, Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs; Senior Adviser Geoeconomics, Save the Children, Australian National University

The latest IMF and World Bank reports show a global economic boom gathering steam. This is thanks to US$16 trillion in fiscal stimulus packages spent mostly across the world’s rich nations since the pandemic began.

After the reversal of 2020, the global economy is now projected to grow by 6% in 2021, powered by strong growth in the US and China, which are forecast to grow by 6% and 8%, respectively.

Australians are not missing out, thanks to A$311 billion in public spending. The federal budget’s GDP growth forecast is 4.25% in 2021. Unemployment is forecast to fall to below 5% by mid-2023.

Before we get ahead of ourselves, however, we should consider the risks the pandemic continues to pose, not only to our recovery but the global boom the world’s rich nations have generated.

New variants could lead to COVID surge

As a rich nation surrounded by developing countries, Australia can see these risks around its region, not only in India, but also Southeast Asia and the Pacific.

The first of these risks is that all our forecasts and projections assume the progress of successful vaccination programs, not only in Australia but around the world. Yet, the virus is potentially adapting more quickly than developing countries are able to vaccinate their populations.

Read more: 3 ways to vaccinate the world and make sure everyone benefits, rich and poor

The B.1.617 virus variant has become the dominant strain in India and spread to some 40 countries, including many in Southeast Asia.

Indonesia is particularly vulnerable. The vaccine rollout here has been sluggish, with just under 14 million people having received their first dose so far. The government has set an ambitious target of vaccinating 181 million people by next March, but it will struggle to reach this target.

Although the government prohibited travel during the recent Eid holiday, data suggests at least 1.5 million left homes before the ban, causing one epidemiologist to warn of a COVID “timebomb” in the country.

The government is already warning the appearance of the B.1.617 variant (and others) could cause the country to miss its growth target of between 4.5% and 5.3% this year, if the poor are unable to work due to new mobility restrictions.

Millions more have fallen into extreme poverty

The second risk to a post-pandemic global recovery is many developing nations are simply not benefiting from the start of the economic rebound.

COVID-19 has reduced per capita GDP by as much as one-fifth in these countries.

Last year, 100 million people — mostly in South Asia — were on the brink of extreme poverty. This could rise to as many as 150 million people this year. As a result, millions of children could drop out of school this year around the world.

The Pacific Island countries have been badly affected, not only by the economic effects of border closures, but in the case of PNG, by the virus itself. With many reliant on tourism, commodities, and remittances, the Pacific Island countries’ economies shrank by 11% in 2020 collectively.

Fiji’s GDP contracted by a massive 19%, while in typhoon-affected Vanuatu, the economy shrank by 10%.

The effects on human development outcomes are immediately obvious. In PNG, 52% of families surveyed by the World Bank in 2020 indicated they were sending fewer children to school because of reduced incomes.

More broadly, across East Asia and the Pacific, students are expected to lose 0.8 Learning-Adjusted Years of Schooling (LAYS) — a measure that combines quantity and quality of schooling — between January 2020 and December 2021. This is almost half their school time over two years.

Australia’s aid spending still not enough

Unlike Australia, many developing countries cannot free up large amounts of public money to invest in stimulating their economies. For them to join in the global recovery, they will need assistance.

Australia’s response is helping to some extent. Australia invested an extra A$479.7 million in international development spending in 2020–21 above its notional baseline allocation of $4 billion per annum.

In 2021–22, it is projecting a total investment of $4.34 billion. This is still extra, but it represents a cut in real terms of 5% on the previous year.

Compared to other wealthy nations, however, Australia is still not giving much. Australia’s investment in Official Development Assistance (ODA) as a proportion of gross national income is 0.21% in 2021–22, much lower than the OECD average of 0.32%.

Given the scale of need and the pace of development in our region, Australia will very likely offer more as the financial year progresses.

Read more: South Asia: how to ensure progress on reducing poverty isn’t reversed by coronavirus

Greater stimulus spending and social protection schemes

But Australia also needs to do much more to mobilise other forms of funding to assist its neighbours’ economic recoveries.

One thing Canberra is doing right is investing some of its ODA in social protection schemes around the region, including an A$18 million Partnerships for Social Protection package for the Pacific that will scale up assistance to vulnerable households.

Australia has also issued a concessional loan to Indonesia, which it stipulates includes money for strengthening Indonesia’s health and social protection systems.

On top of this investment, Australia should use its access to global forums to advocate for more assistance to developing countries, especially in Asia and the Pacific.

Read more: India is facing a terrible crisis. How can Australia respond ethically?

One such forum is the G7+, where Australia says it wants to promote prosperity and security in the Indo-Pacific.

Another is the coming G20 summit in Italy in October, where Australia will have an opportunity to advocate for debt relief and restructuring for developing countries. This will allow them to free up cash for stimulus schemes like JobKeeper and JobSeeker, which protected many of us in Australia over the past year.

Australia is already meeting with the United States’ new aid administrator, Samantha Power, to discuss more cooperation on this front, including through the informal Quad alliance (which also includes Japan and India).

Australia should also continue to advocate to multilateral banks and funding agencies to invest real cash in new and additional stimulus packages and social protection systems around the region.

These systems could fund universal child benefits to keep children schooled and properly fed, protecting the advances our neighbours have made over the past 40 years of economic development.

Key to our own security and prosperity is our neighbours’ resilience to shocks like the COVID-19 pandemic and economic downturn.

Australia will need to allocate more money from its own coffers — and encourage more giving from the rest of the developed world — to stimulate our neighbours’ economies. Only then will we see a global economic recovery where everyone benefits — not just the wealthy.

– ref. While rich countries experience a post-COVID boom, the poor are getting poorer. Here’s how Australia can help – https://theconversation.com/while-rich-countries-experience-a-post-covid-boom-the-poor-are-getting-poorer-heres-how-australia-can-help-160604

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Jacobs, President and Vice-Chancellor, UNSW

My colleages’ and my efforts to develop a screening test for the early detection of ovarian cancer capable of saving lives arrived at a sad moment last week. The final trial results of the research I’ve focused on for 36 years, published in The Lancet, found early ovarian cancer detection doesn’t save lives.

The advances we have seen in science and technology over the past three decades have been nothing short of phenomenal. Each smartphone has more computational power than NASA had at its disposal during the moon landings. In medicine, researchers have sequenced the human genome, created life-saving treatment for HIV and rapidly developed vaccines for COVID-19.

There have been significant improvements in ovarian cancer treatment involving surgery and chemotherapy, but the sad and frustrating truth is of the four women diagnosed with ovarian cancer in Australia each day, three will eventually die from the disease.

Read more: INTERACTIVE: We mapped cancer rates across Australia – search for your postcode here

The diagnosis of ovarian cancer is dependent on women reporting symptoms to their doctor. However, few develop symptoms until they have advanced stage cancer, by which time the outlook is poor. Of all women’s cancers, ovarian cancer has the lowest survival rate, with just 46% of patients in Australia surviving five years. For breast cancer, it’s now 91%.

Back in the 80s

I was motivated to improve the outcome for women with ovarian cancer by my experience as a junior doctor in London in 1985. I was training with a brilliant surgeon who undertook operations for many women with ovarian cancer. In spite of the exhaustive surgery and the chemotherapy that followed, we saw far too many women suffer and die from ovarian cancer.

That experience inspired me to initiate a program of research designed to find a screening test to detect this cancer early. Women with the earliest stage of ovarian cancer had survival rates of 70%, but less than 20% of women with ovarian cancer were diagnosed that early.

My hypothesis was that if we could detect more cancers at an early stage it would save lives.

Based on evidence from other cancers, there was reason to be hopeful and two potential tests were available – a blood test called CA 125 and the use of ultrasound scanning which was then widely used in obstetrics.

Over the next 15 years, working with colleagues in the United Kingdom and United States, I developed and refined the screening tests and had great hope for what we called “multimodal screening”. This involved a “risk of ovarian cancer algorithm” for interpreting the change in blood levels of CA 125 over time to identify women who had a rising pattern, indicating an elevated risk of ovarian cancer. Women with an elevated risk could then have a secondary test involving ultrasound scanning.

During those 15 years, we published convincing evidence in studies involving over 50,000 women that this approach to screening was safe, acceptable to women, could detect over 85% of the cancers early and would probably be cost effective if sufficient lives were saved.

Promising early results

Before advocating screening of the general population, a massive trial would be needed to determine whether the screening would actually save lives.

The trial needed to involve screening and follow up of approximately 200,000 women for around 20 years. This would eventually include 2,000 women with ovarian cancer – enough to determine whether or not screening saved lives.

Work got underway in the United Kingdom in 2000 and optimism grew as initial results confirmed the ability of multimodal screening to detect cancer early in over 85% of cases.

By 2015, the preliminary mortality data were available and were tantalising. The curves hinted at a 20% or more reduction in deaths from ovarian cancer, but the findings did not quite reach statistical significance. So another five years of painstaking follow up was needed.

Disappointing final results

The final results of the UK Collaborative Trial of Ovarian Cancer Screening showed the multimodal screening approach could detect cancers early and increase the number of early-stage ovarian cancers by almost 50%.

But to our surprise and despair, that did not reduce the number of deaths from ovarian cancer. All it seemed to do was to bring forward the time of diagnosis of the cancers in these women, without improving their survival.

This is deeply disappointing. Disappointing of course for those who like myself have dedicated much of their professional lives to this effort, but much more importantly for the women across the world who we had hoped would have access to an effective screening test able to save lives.

The hope had been to deploy ovarian cancer screening for women in the general population alongside breast and cervical cancer screening, but that will not happen – for a while at least.

Why didn’t early detection save lives?

To answer that, we need to further analyse samples and data from the trial. Our suspicion is that the women whose cancers were detected early by screening had more aggressive cancers than those (the 10%) whose cancers were detected early without screening, on the basis of symptoms.

So even with early detection, their cancers progressed relentlessly despite them receiving the best available surgery and chemotherapy.

If that is the case, we are likely to require screening tests which can detect ovarian cancer even earlier than our algorithm, which we estimate picks up ovarian cancer 18 to 24 months early. Saving lives may require a test capable of picking up the cancers five or more years early.

Read more: Why we need to pay more attention to negative clinical trials

Fortunately, there are exciting avenues of research involving advances in protein and DNA technologies which researchers in Australia and around the world are exploring. So there is hope.

But realistically, given the five-plus years needed to develop better screening tests and the ten to 15-plus years needed to have enough cases to conduct another large randomised trial, the solution is likely to be more than 20 years away.

Still, we’ve learnt a lot

This massive commitment of expertise, time, energy and funding has most definitely not been wasted. Much has been achieved along the way in this 36-year journey in developing ways to assess risk, diagnose cancer and prevent ovarian cancer which are now used in clinical practice.

New generations of researchers have been trained. The data and the blood bank collected is available to all researchers seeking new and better screening tests and is a unique resource. And the ability to detect ovarian cancer early may be invaluable in assessing new treatments.

I feel privileged to have led this effort and will always be grateful to the collaborators, researchers, health professionals, funding agencies and above all the 200,000 women who took part in the trial.

I feel a deep sadness that lives will not yet be saved by ovarian cancer screening, but I’m confident the next generation of researchers will build on our work and find approaches to screening and treatment of ovarian cancer which dramatically reduce the loss and suffering caused by this insidious disease.

Read more: COVID has left Australia’s biomedical research sector gasping for air

– ref. ‘Devastated and sad’ after 36 years of research — early detection of ovarian cancer doesn’t save lives – https://theconversation.com/devastated-and-sad-after-36-years-of-research-early-detection-of-ovarian-cancer-doesnt-save-lives-160999

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nedeljka Rosic, Senior Lecturer, Southern Cross University

There’s a weedkiller used in Australia that’s so toxic, one sip could kill you. It’s called paraquat and debate is brewing over whether it should be banned.

Paraquat is already outlawed in many places around the world. The Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority has been reviewing paraquat’s use here for more than two decades, and its final decision is due later this year.

We are medical and environmental scientists, and have researched the harmful effects of paraquat, even when it’s used within the recommended safety range. We strongly believe the highly toxic chemical should be banned in Australia.

The potentially lethal effects on humans are well known. In Australia in 2012, for example, a farmer died after a herbicide containing paraquat accidentally sprayed into his mouth. And our research has found paraquat also causes serious environmental damage.

Paraquat: the story so far

Paraquat, branded as Gramoxone, has been used since the 1950s. It’s mostly deployed to control grass and weeds around crops such as rice, cotton and soybeans.

Paraquat is registered as a schedule 7 poison on the national registration scheme, meaning its use is strictly regulated.

Australia’s biggest supplier of paraquat says it should not be banned, insisting herbicides containing it are “safe for people and the environment when used for their intended purpose and according to the registered label instructions”.

Farmers have also argued against a ban, saying it would force them to use more expensive, less effective alternatives and reduce crop yield.

Paraquat has been banned in more than 50 countries, including the United Kingdom, China, Thailand and European Union nations. However, it’s still widely used by farmers in the developing world, and in Australia and the United States.

Read more: Ban on toxic mercury looms in sugar cane farming, but Australia still has a way to go

A chemical peril

Paraquat is a non-selective herbicide, which means it kills plants indiscriminately. It does so by inhibiting photosynthesis, the process by which plants convert sunlight into chemical energy.

Paraquat stays in the environment for a long time. It’s well known for causing collateral damage to plants and animals. For example, even at very low concentrations, paraquat has been found to harm the growth of honey bee eggs.

Exposure to living organisms can occur by spray drift or when paraquat is sprayed on crops then reaches surface and underground sources of drinking water.

Paraquat can have unintended consequences for biological organisms and the environment, particular in waterways. Our recent paper summarised the evidence of the harmful effects of paraquat at realistic field concentrations.

We found evidence that paraquat can severely inhibit healthy bacterial growth in aquatic environments, which in turn affects nutrient cycling and the decomposition of organic matter.

The research also shows paraquat can distort tropical freshwater plankton communities by negatively impacting metabolic diversity and reducing phytoplankton growth.

In fish, paraquat has been found to lead to a death rate of common carp three times higher than the weed it is used to control.

‘One sip can kill’

In addition to the environmental effects, of course, paraquat is highly toxic to humans. A small accidental sip can be fatal and there is no antidote.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says paraquat is a leading cause of fatal poisoning in parts of Asia, the Pacific Islands, and South and Central Americas.

Paraquat enters the body through the skin, digestive system or lungs. If ingested in sufficient amounts, it causes lung damage, leading to pulmonary fibrosis and death through respiratory failure. The liver and kidney can also fail.

Several recent incidents in Australia demonstrate the risks of paraquat poisoning due to human error, even within the current strict regulations.

According to news reports, the Queensland farmer poisoned by paraquat in 2012 was filling a pressure pump to control weeds on his property. The unit cracked and paraquat sprayed over his body and face, entering his mouth.

In 2017, an adult with autism took a sip from a Coke bottle used to store paraquat. The bottle had been left in a disabled toilet at a sports ground in New South Wales. The man was initially given 12 hours to live, but fortunately recovered after two weeks in hospital.

Read more: Pesticides and suicide prevention – why research needs to be put into practice

Paraquat: not worth the risk

There’s a growing awareness of the threats posed by global chemical use. In fact, a paper released this week suggests the potential risk to humanity is on a scale equivalent to climate change.

Paraquat is no doubt an effective herbicide. However, in our view, the risks it poses to humans and the environment do not outweigh the agricultural benefits.

Current regulation in Australia has not prevented harm from paraquat. It’s time for Australia to join the movement towards a global ban on this toxic chemical.

Read more: The real cost of pesticides in Australia’s food boom

– ref. ‘One sip can kill’: why a highly toxic herbicide should be banned in Australia – https://theconversation.com/one-sip-can-kill-why-a-highly-toxic-herbicide-should-be-banned-in-australia-159333

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lucas Walsh, Professor, Education Policy and Practice, Monash University

By June 2020, the COVID-19 crisis had forced schools to close in 188 countries, disrupting the learning of more than 1.7 billion children. The OECD estimated the impact of these school closures would be at least two months of lost teaching for half of primary and secondary school students.

In Australia, modelling by the Grattan Institute estimated disadvantaged students — including those from low socioeconomic families, Indigenous backgrounds and remote communities — had lost around two months learning during the remote learning period in Victoria.

Some states have invested in tutoring schemes to help students catch up. This includes the Victorian government’s A$250 million Tutor Learning Initiative, South Australia’s Learning+ program and New South Wales’ plan to employ up to 5,500 staff to support students who may have fallen behind.

Evidence suggests some groups of students, such as students in the most disadvantaged schools, have felt the effects of lockdowns more than others. Evidence also suggests small-group tuition can make a difference. But this is only the case if the tutoring itself is evidence-based.

Between March and September 2020, we surveyed 492 teachers and school leaders from 414 schools across New South Wales, South Australia, Victoria and Queensland about their use of evidence — particularly research-based evidence. Our sample included primary, secondary, combined (K-12) and special schools. They included a spread of government, Catholic and independent schools.

While the study was not specifically prompted by the pandemic, our emphasis on the use of research evidence became particularly relevant as schools — like the rest of the world — grappled with the virus.

While most educators said they regularly consulted evidence, only 43% did so for university-based research. Participants cited a lack of time and a lack of access to the evidence they needed.

Less than half regularly consult university research

School leaders and teachers involved in tutoring initiatives — and teaching more broadly — have to make nuanced decisions about how best to address learning.

They must draw on various sources of evidence to understand how different factors have influenced their students’ learning and then decide on the most effective way forward.

A key question, therefore, is how confident and able are our leaders and teachers to use evidence to inform their responses to the effects of COVID-19?

Read more: Victoria and NSW are funding extra tutors to help struggling students. Here’s what parents need to know about the schemes

Our survey aimed to find out:

• what types of research and evidence teachers and school leaders value

• how and why they source different kinds of evidence

• whether and how they use research in their practice

• what they believe “using research well” in practice means.

Over two-thirds of survey participants (70%) said they had recently used evidence in their practice. Most consulted with familiar and readily available evidence types such as “student data” (77%) and “policy and curriculum documents” (72%).

But respondents used research-based sources much less frequently. Only 43% said they regularly consulted “research disseminated from universities” and 36% engaged with “university-based advice or guidance”.

Nearly half (43%) of respondents indicated “teacher observations and experience should be prioritised over research”. These educators were less likely to source research-related evidence types.

Read more: First, do no harm: education research should answer to the same standards as medicine

We also asked educators to reflect on the evidence types they have used in relation to “a specific initiative related to improving student outcomes that [they or their] colleagues have started to use in [their] schools or classrooms in the past 12 months”.

Some answers related to COVID-specific initiatives such as the transition to online learning and the best learning platforms to use. Others spoke about interventions to address poor student behaviour or phonic programs to improve literacy.

Schools need to help

Educators reported three particular challenges in relation to using research: access, organisational culture and confidence.

First, many said they didn’t have sufficient access to research (68%), or adequate time to access and review it (76%). More than three-quarters (76%) also indicated they can’t keep up with new and emerging research, such as studies of the educational impacts of the pandemic.

Second, organisational cultures are important supports for enabling the use of research. Respondents reported they use research-related sources more often when their schools had processes designed to support their research use.

Finally, many respondents reported lacking confidence in their own skills and capacities to use research.

Read more: ‘Exhausted beyond measure’: what teachers are saying about COVID-19 and the disruption to education

Addressing the first two challenges is an important first step to building educators’ skills and capacities to use research.

Laureate education professor Jenny Gore recently wrote:

The success of the tutoring programs being used by schools to help students recover post-COVID-19 will depend heavily on the quality of the tutoring they provide.

Our findings suggest evidence use can play a key role in improving the quality of teaching, both in COVID-19 tutoring programs and classrooms generally. But this can only happen when educators feel they have the appropriate access, support and confidence to make evidence-informed judgments and practices.

– ref. We have the evidence for what works in schools, but that doesn’t mean everyone uses it – https://theconversation.com/we-have-the-evidence-for-what-works-in-schools-but-that-doesnt-mean-everyone-uses-it-160712

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Laura Fruhen, Lecturer, School of Psychological Science, The University of Western Australia

To protect cyclists on the roads, state governments in Australia have introduced laws that set a minimum space drivers must give cyclists when overtaking them. These laws are now in place nationwide, with Victoria the final state to join the ranks last month. But do these passing distance laws actually change drivers’ behaviour towards cyclists?

Our research set out to answer this question by evaluating Western Australia’s passing distance law introduced in 2017. We found that since the law took effect drivers do indeed report giving cyclists more space when overtaking. However, there were possible unintended consequences. Drivers also self-reported more aggressive behaviour directed at cyclists, such as beeping horns or swearing.

Read more: Delivery rider deaths highlight need to make streets safer for everyone

What is in a passing distance law?

Passing distance laws are based on the understanding that close overtaking by cars greatly increases the risk of accidents involving cyclists and motor vehicles. Previously, drivers had to use their own judgement in providing “sufficient” space when overtaking cyclists. Now the laws instead specify a minimum distance.

In Australia, the distance is usually 1 metre on roads with speed limits less than 60km/h and 1.5 metres on roads with higher speed limits.

Some European countries and several states in the US have adopted similar laws.

Lawmakers understand that legislation can also send important social signals: cyclists are legitimate road users, and the road is a safe place to cycle.

Why do we need these laws to protect cyclists?

Cycling is a healthy and environmentally friendly mode of transport. It can play a key role in reducing pollution and congestion in ever more densely populated cities. Yet cycling rates in Australia are low.

Clearly, it would be desirable for more people to take up cycling. Why is this not happening?

Partly, low cycling rates might be due to the risks involved in cycling. Cyclist fatalities and injuries have been on the rise in Australia in recent years. We know this is not related to the roads becoming more dangerous for everybody, because car driver deaths have been decreasing over the same time.

Read more: Rising cyclist death toll is mainly due to drivers, so change the road laws and culture

As well as objective safety, cycling participation is also related to whether people perceive cycling to be safe. Part of this perception comes from how other road users treat cyclists. Unfortunately, cyclists report motorists direct a fair amount of aggressive behaviour at them.

So what difference do these laws make?

Our study in WA confirms what others have found: passing distance laws make overtaking by cars safer for cyclists.

However, we found the law may have the unintended side effect of increased aggressive behaviour towards cyclists.

There are several possible explanations for these unintended changes. We think it is an issue of culture: Australia is a car-centric society. Many car drivers in Australia believe cyclists do not belong on the roads.

Read more: Drivers v cyclists: it’s like an ethnic conflict, which offers clues to managing ‘road wars’

Passing distance laws signal that cyclists are deserving of space and may “force” drivers to give cyclists more space, against their beliefs. Some drivers may give cyclists more space to comply with the law, but counter any discomfort they experience by being more aggressive towards cyclists.

Drivers often experience frustration with having to overtake cyclists and other slow road users. The law may have actually drawn attention to this frustration, which in turn may have contributed to more aggressive behaviour among drivers.

We also found cycling rates have remained stable since the passing distance law was introduced. Unfortunately, this suggests the law did not translate into greater enthusiasm for cycling.

What can be done to improve the situation?

If these laws have these side effects, what else can we do?

It seems passing distance laws are effective in regulating the specific behaviour of overtaking cyclists. This is great news for cyclists’ safety. However, to make cycling safer overall, and to increase cycling rates, further measures to complement these laws are needed.

Changing drivers’ deeply ingrained beliefs and attitudes towards cyclists may be a longer process, but one worth embarking on. Infrastructure and road layouts also matter and can play a role in shifting priorities away from cars.

Read more: We can design better intersections that are safer for all users

Infrastructure that plans space for cyclists would reduce the number of interactions between cyclists and drivers. It also signals that cyclists have a right to this space.

As an added benefit, this type of infrastructure can play a key part in preparing the road network for emerging technology such as e-scooters and other transport modes.

Public policy is an inexact science. Most new laws will have some unintended consequences. Our study confirms the importance of careful evaluation of such laws. It shows the passing distance law is a great first step, but more can be done to protect cyclists on the roads.

– ref. Minimum space for passing cyclists is now law Australia-wide. It increases safety – but possibly road rage too – https://theconversation.com/minimum-space-for-passing-cyclists-is-now-law-australia-wide-it-increases-safety-but-possibly-road-rage-too-159926

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

We got an awful lot right during the COVID crisis — an awful lot that we couldn’t have got right just a few years earlier.

Which is another way of saying we were incredibly lucky.

Had COVID attacked during the 1980s there would have been no way to make a messenger RNA vaccine, not even for animals.

The national broadband network wouldn’t have been thought of. It wasn’t complete until 2020.

Even three years earlier, in 2017, the NBN reached only half of Australia’s 10 million households.

Had COVID struck then, before the broadband network was complete, working from home, telehealth and home schooling might have been impossible for many Australians, with devastating educational and other consequences.

And had it struck just a few years earlier still, we wouldn’t have learnt from the global financial crisis.

War Games

Australia’s handling of the GFC was exemplary, as evidenced by the fact that in much of the rest of the world it isn’t called the GFC, but The Great Recession.

Getting that crisis right owed something to a happy accident, as Ken Henry, head of the treasury at the time, explained on Monday at a seminar organised by the Institute of Public Administration.

A few years before the crisis in 2004 he was sitting in a room with senior officials discussing “some macroeconomic topic” when his deputy Martin Parkinson, sitting on his right, poked him with his left elbow.

“Martin said: you know it’s just occurred to me that you and I are probably the only people in this room who have ever experienced a recession — maybe we should have a workshop on that, what we would do if there was another crisis”.

The early 1990s recession was handled badly

Parkinson and treasury secretary Henry had worked for the Hawke and Keating governments during the early 1990s recession which scarred the Australians who it threw out of work for a decade.

In a series of “war games” held away from the treasury building, they and other officials determined that next time they should advise the government to quickly abandon budget discipline and fight what was coming with overwhelming force.

As Henry put it: “no matter how great the importance of fiscal discipline in establishing policy credibility, it is nothing compared to the loss of credibility associated with a recession”.

If the treasury didn’t tell the government this, the government would catch on anyway and sideline it for advisers who would.

“I came out of those discussions determined that if Australia were to confront a large negative shock during my tenure as secretary, the treasury would seek to put itself front and centre in advising the government,” Henry said.

“We would not be taking seats in the back row by counselling a government to rely on monetary policy, the exchange rate, or automatic stabilisers.”

As for the idea of “proportionate response”, which was still being counselled by some in the early stages of COVID last year, Henry said the word “proportionate” could be applied to a response, but never to preemption.

Preemption is not proportionate

“If you want to preempt something, you don’t talk about being proportionate,” he said. “I remember some commentators saying you should wait until you see the ‘whites of the eyes’ before taking action. “I wouldn’t know what action to take at that stage, presumably it would be to run as fast as you could, I just don’t know.”

The key thing was to get money into Australian’s hands immediately. Spending on infrastructure (spending on almost anything other than households) would take too long.

During the financial crisis Labor got money into households’ hands by handing out cheques. During COVID the Coalition did it by doubling benefits and routing payments through employers and calling them JobKeeper.

Bandwidth matters

Henry, and David Tune who was head of the finance department at the time, told the conference that attempting to do other things as part of getting money out the door got in the way, among them insulating homes and building school halls.

Governments have limited “bandwidth” or “thinking space”, and during the GFC the Rudd government was also considering taking over hospitals, taxing carbon, reforming the tax system and building the NBN.

The Morrison government seems to have learnt that lesson, but it doesn’t seem to have learnt another, which is that the Commonwealth isn’t good at managing projects.

The Commonwealth can’t run projects…

Whether it’s vaccinations or quarantine or insulating homes, projects are best managed by state governments who have actual experience of running things.

Another important lesson, reinforced during COVID is that in practical terms the ability of the Reserve Bank to support the government in keeping a recession at bay might be unlimited.

The Reserve Bank deputy governor at the time Malcolm Edey told the conference that the next step after low interest rates and buying government bonds is direct “money-financed fiscal expansion”, where the bank creates money for the government to spend.

…but its financial power is unlimited

With all of the government’s borrowing now in Australian dollars, and most private overseas borrowing effectively in Australian dollars because it has been hedged against exchange rate movements, and with the debt ceiling gone, there’s no limit to the force and speed with which the government can stave off a recession.

The current treasury secretary Steven Kennedy conceded that in one way fighting the COVID recession had been easier than fighting the GFC.

COVID had a clear start date. The GFC had a rolling series of starts that made it hard to be sure the worst hadn’t passed.

Read more: Frydenberg spends the budget bounty to drive unemployment down to new lows

And perhaps because of that, we discovered what Australians can do.

Treasury Deputy Secretary Meghan Quinn praised the banks for deferring payments on $250 million of loans, Coles and Woolworths for working together to stock each other’s stores and the private and public health systems for working together in a way that wouldn’t have been thought possible before the pandemic.

We read the GFC playbook, then went further.

– ref. The GFC provided the secret sauce we used to ward off the COVID recession – https://theconversation.com/the-gfc-provided-the-secret-sauce-we-used-to-ward-off-the-covid-recession-160989

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rachel M Campbell, Academic, University of Canberra

Dame Nellie Melba, who appears on our $100 note, was born Helen Porter Mitchell in the Melbourne suburb of Richmond on May 19, 1861.

An operatic soprano with a voice described as sparklingly clear, her career would take her across the world, from Russia to America, but she always returned home.

This extraordinary Australian was arguably our first celebrity. While her singing is famed, she was a complex woman who shaped her own career, far more interesting than her culinary namesakes — Melba Toast and Peach Melba — might suggest.

On her 160th birthday, here are five things you may not know about her.

1. She avidly pursued the perfect portrait

Melba was aware of the relationship between image and celebrity, and pursued the “perfect” portrait for years.

The most well known painting of Melba today is by Rupert Bunny, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1902.

But biographer Ann Blainey reports Melba told her friends no one — save Bunny himself — liked the portrait when it was completed.

One of the most striking photographs of Melba was taken by Harold Cazneaux in 1922.

Looking at this image very closely, there appears to be the 19th century equivalent of photoshopping. Melba’s jawline has been subtly reshaped: a little visual nip and tuck.

In what could be characterised as a form of “pre-mythologising”, Melba commissioned a bust by Bertram Mackennal. When the bust was completed in 1899, she promptly gifted it to the National Gallery of Victoria, saying:

may I express the hope that I am not wholly forgotten in our beloved country.

2. She was shrewd with money

A clever business woman, who always controlled her own interests, Melba only engaged managers for short periods of time in foreign markets.

According to one of her biographers, Joseph Wechsberg, Melba had no time for dinner invitations that carried the implication of a little performance. Once at the party, she would announce she would sing, but only if they would “sign a little cheque”.

She once quoted a fee of £500 to an American socialite who asked her to dinner and to sing afterwards — A$71,000 today.

3. Her OBE was not for her singing

Melba lost five relatives at Gallipoli, and in 1915 she single-handedly spearheaded a charitable endeavour in the form of Melba’s Gift Book of Australian Art in support of Belgian war relief efforts.

Filled with colour plate illustrations from significant Australian artists and writers such as Arthur Streeton, Norman Lindsay and Henry Lawson, the front cover is inscribed with the words “the entire profits from the sale of this book will be devoted by Madam Melba to the Belgian Relief Fund”.

Melba spoke passionately about her love for Belgium in the opening pages of the book:

[…] I made my debut there; my first appearance in opera was in Brussels, and I can still hear the cheers of my first audience, the kindly, warm-hearted Belgians whose generous recognition of the unknown artist from distant Australia gave me hope and courage to persevere.

While Melba is known for her astonishing musical talent, she became a Dame in 1918 in recognition of this charitable work.

4. She was a gossip magazine staple

Celebrity needs both fame and commodity, and Melba ensured her renown reached far beyond the concert hall. Even Australians who could have never heard her sing because they lived in regional areas were avid consumers of her as a product.

You could buy cartes-de-visite of her in costume, or eagerly read newspaper and magazine gossip about her poorly concealed affair with the Duc d’Orleans. From 1904, recordings of her singing could be purchased; and in 1926 she published her own vocal method: a hit with singing students, and still used today.

As early as her 1902 tour of Australia, Melba was being described as “Australia’s Gifted Daughter”. In her farewell tour of the late 1920s she was elevated to “Australia’s Greatest Daughter”

The latter term was also used by the press after her death in 1931. This description of Melba speaks to the collective pride and ownership Australians felt about her.

This pride endures today: where there are highways, tunnels, concert halls, suburbs and streets named after her — as well as her face on our $100 note.

5. But she didn’t always love being a celebrity

Melba was fatigued at times by the pressure of singing roles as she aged, and had two extended periods of rest in Switzerland in 1890 and 1897 to recover from vocal nodules.

While she did seek fame, carefully moulding the image she provided to the public, Melba would come to know its darker side. She remarked in her biography, “everybody who has known fame has also known the agonies which fame brought”.

– ref. Happy 160th birthday Dame Nellie Melba: 5 surprising facts about the canny songstress – https://theconversation.com/happy-160th-birthday-dame-nellie-melba-5-surprising-facts-about-the-canny-songstress-160993

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jagadish Thaker, Senior Lecturer, School of Communication, Journalism and Marketing, Massey University

More than two in five New Zealanders (41%) say incidents of racism have increased during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a national survey carried out in February and March this year.

The experience of racism is skewed towards Māori, Pasifika and people of Asian descent, about half of whom say racism has been on the rise, compared with about a third of European New Zealanders.

Of the 1,083 survey participants, more than half (52%) say racism has remained the same and 7% say it has decreased.

Discrimination and racism

The pandemic has led to a global increase in anti-Asian hate. At the same time, ethnic minorities are also disproportionately affected by severe disease and deaths due to COVID-19. Death rates among minority ethnic groups were two or more times greater than for the white population in the United Kingdom. In New Zealand, Māori and Pasifika were about two times more likely to die of COVID-19.

About two in five respondents said they have witnessed other people discriminate against individuals because of how they looked or spoke English. About a quarter reported experiencing discrimination due to their ethnic origin in a variety of contexts, including at government departments, workplaces, when dealing with the commercial sector and when accessing health care.

Māori and Pasifika reported experiencing discrimination most often when dealing with government departments.

Read more: Māori and Pasifika leaders report racism in government health advisory groups

People of Asian descent reported experiencing discrimination most often when applying for work, in their workplace, and when shopping or visiting restaurants.

The survey results align with the New Zealand Human Rights Commission’s recent survey. Four in ten (39%) of the 1,904 respondents have experienced discrimination since the start of the COVID-19 outbreak. Māori and ethnic Chinese reported most instances of discrimination.

Negative online comments or abuse targeting people like them was the most prevalent, followed by instances of staring and increased physical distancing in public places.

Attitudes towards immigration

In our survey, many New Zealanders showed favourable attitudes towards immigrants. More than 80% of survey respondents said the contribution of immigrants from the UK to New Zealand’s economy and culture has been very or somewhat good.

A majority also said immigrants from other countries have contributed positively to New Zealand, including those from South Africa (74%), Fiji (71%), China (66%) and India (64%).

However, there was strong support to reduce or stop immigration following COVID-19. More than three in four somewhat or strongly supported reducing immigration from countries that have managed their response to the coronavirus poorly, such as the United States.

A majority also supported reducing or stopping immigrants and tourists from China, and more than three in five (64%) also supported (somewhat or strongly) reducing or stopping international students from countries such as China.

More than six in ten (61%) supported reducing or stopping immigration from all countries — a result slightly lower than a similar national survey conducted in June and July 2020 (69%).

In the past, New Zealand has consistently ranked among countries most accepting of migrants. It is possible the opposition to immigration may subside as the world recovers from the pandemic.

Racism is no joke

The Human Rights Commission received more than 100 complaints about racism following the first COVID-19 lockdown. In response, it launched the Racism is No Joke campaign to address racism towards Chinese and other Asian communities.

It also launched the Voice of Racism website to provide real examples of racist statements New Zealanders have experienced or witnessed.

Read more: Everyday racism fuels prejudice and hate. But we can challenge it

Discrimination and racism triggered by COVID-19 are likely to compound disproportionate economic and mental health impacts among minorities. They may also affect the uptake of COVID-19 vaccination among at-risk groups due to experiences of racism in healthcare settings.

Racism is an everyday experience for many ethnic minorities. But we can challenge it through dialogue and cooperation, and by establishing relationships with people who are different from ourselves to reduce prejudice.

– ref. A year after New Zealand’s first COVID-19 lockdown, discrimination and racism are on the rise – https://theconversation.com/a-year-after-new-zealands-first-covid-19-lockdown-discrimination-and-racism-are-on-the-rise-160858

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kate C. Prickett, Director of the Roy McKenzie Centre for the Study of Families and Children, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington

Finance Minister Grant Robertson’s promise of a “recovery and well-being budget” is an apt recognition of the current social and economic reality.

Although life feels relatively normal in New Zealand compared with the havoc COVID-19 continues to wreak internationally, the cost of our policy response and the impact of the pandemic recession haven’t been shared equally.

While detail is still scarce, Robertson has made it clear child well-being will be a key focus of this year’s budget. Indeed, it will be a priority for the new Implementation Unit being established to oversee government-wide delivery of key initiatives.

The emphasis on children and their families is well placed: child poverty levels barely budged in the year prior to the pandemic. Moreover, the first Child and Youth Well-being Strategy Annual Report, released last week, highlighted the lack of well-being experienced by a large group of children.

And we know the pandemic hasn’t been kind to families. Research we conducted last year showed families with children – particularly low-income families – were more likely to have lost jobs or income during the nationwide lockdown in March-April 2020 compared with homes without children.

Majority of low-income working families yet to recover

Following our lockdown data collection, we went back to our survey respondents in March this year to see how people were doing a year on from lockdown.

What we found was predictable, but no less striking. Only 45% of those low-income families with children (pre-pandemic household incomes of NZ$50,000 or less per year) with at least one parent working prior to lockdown had those same parents still employed and bringing home the same or greater weekly pay one year later.

Read more: Why NZ’s public sector wage freeze ignores the lessons of history

More than 20% of those families had a parent who was employed pre-pandemic but looking for a job in March 2021, while 8% percent had a working parent drop out of the labour market altogether.

A further 26% were still working but bringing home less pay — either from a wage cut, taking on a lower-paid job, or working fewer hours.

While income loss was still prevalent across the income spectrum, higher-income families were far more likely to report all the working parents in the home had either maintained or increased their income. They were also far less likely to have previously employed parents still looking for work.

Mothers hit hardest

Although New Zealand’s pandemic policy response likely saved working mothers from the more severe impacts on women’s employment seen internationally, the recovery has been slower for Kiwi mothers.

Of those in our sample who were employed prior to the lockdown, only 65% of all mothers, and 60% of single mothers, reported stable or increased weekly take-home pay a year later. This compares to 71% of fathers.

Read more: NZ Budget 2021: we need the arts to live, but artists need to earn a living

Close to 20% of single mothers who were working pre-pandemic reported being unemployed and searching for a job one year on (compared to 7.5% of mothers and 4.3% of fathers generally). And 10% of pre-pandemic employed mothers with partners said they were no longer working or looking for work at all.

The fact no single mothers who were employed pre-pandemic were classified as “not in the labour force” by March 2021 is probably related to our survey’s smaller sample size. But the finding is indicative of the precarious position single mothers hold: not working is not an option.

Economic recovery and well-being

Economic recovery and the population’s well-being go hand in hand: economic and financial precariousness and stress affect our health and well-being.

Parents in our sample who were unemployed a year on from lockdown were two to four times more likely to report feeling depressed throughout the day and much less likely to report positive feelings of enjoyment and happiness.

Unsurprisingly, those parents who were employed in March 2021, and had similar or better incomes, were the least likely to report feeling depressed or worried.

Recovery should recognise those who sacrificed most

Budget 2021 is a chance to recognise and rectify the unequal burden the COVID-19 pandemic has placed on families with children, and low-income families specifically.

Policies and programs that redistribute money to low-income families and increase their bottom line will be essential. This should include indexing Working For Families payments to wage growth and disentangling tax credits from work and benefits. That way, all low-income families will receive the financial support they need.

Also essential will be combating those expenses – notably housing and childcare – that eat away at family incomes and make New Zealand one of the least affordable places to live.

Read more: If New Zealand can radically reform its health system, why not do the same for welfare?

Policies that support working mothers, such as diversifying “shovel ready” state-supported jobs and further shoring up the early childcare sector, are essential for helping women back to work.

And while low-income working families have experienced a slower economic recovery, it’s worse still for those unable to work and relying on welfare. They are unlikely to have a fair shot at joining in the recovery.

Indeed, the delay in enacting the expert recommendations for welfare reform prolongs devastating hardship for many of our children.

When New Zealand went into lockdown the same rules applied to everyone. But we knew the economic shock wouldn’t be distributed equally. Here’s hoping Budget 2021 delivers a recovery that recognises families and whānau who’ve sacrificed the most.

– ref. NZ’s second ‘Well-being Budget’ must deliver for the families that sacrificed most during the pandemic – https://theconversation.com/nzs-second-well-being-budget-must-deliver-for-the-families-that-sacrificed-most-during-the-pandemic-160528

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